Business people are being kept abreast with production and verification norms in Douala at the on-going National Quality Week April 21-23 2016.

Standards and Quality Agency, ANOR, has secured contracts with two international companies to inspect, verify, test and certify products locally made. 237online.com The arrangement with Societe Generale des Surveillance, SGS, and Intertek seeks to enable local companies to continuously improve, transforming their services and value chain by increasing performance, managing risks, better meeting stakeholder requirements and managing sustainability. The terms of the arrangement, which was signed recently, were presented during the opening of the third edition of the National Quality Week at the Bonanjo CPDM Party House April 21. During the ceremony presided at by the Minister of Mines, Industry and Technological Development, Gbwaboubou Ernest, who represented the Prime Minister, the General Manager of ANOR, Charles Booto a Ngon, said SGS and Intertek are represented in all countries where goods in Cameroon are imported from and all countries where Cameroonian goods are exported to. This makes it easier for the goods to be checked, tested, verified and certified if they conform with Cameroons standard and quality specifications before importation. Also, locally made products will be checked and certified before they leave the country to other parts of the world. We will verify the quality and norm and then issue our result to both the person who needs the certification and to ANOR, which issues the original certificate, explains Bessiom Moise Yakam, Governments and Institutions Services, SGS Ivory Coast. Verification follows three routes: Route A is a process carried out on products that are to be shipped to Cameroon for the first time or a high risk or sensitive product. Documentary checks, physical inspections, sampling and testing in laboratories are carried out before the decision to issue or not certificate is taken. Route B is carried out on the exporters who exports frequently to Cameroon, who has their products already registered in Cameroon. As concerns Route C, which is for licensed products, it is mainly for producers. We go to their factory and audit the manufacturing process. From time to time we get back to the factory to again check the manufacturing process to ensure that production regularly conforms to standard and quality specifications.
Dutch journalist Ebru Umar speaks on the phone as she leaves Kusadasi's police building on April 24, 2016 in Izmir after she was briefly detained earlier in the day by Turkish police (AFP Photo/IHLAS NEWS AGENCY) (IHLAS News Agency/AFP/File)

Ankara (AFP) - A Dutch journalist said Sunday she was detained for several hours overnight by Turkish police after for sending tweets deemed critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Ebru Umar, a well-known atheist and feminist journalist of Turkish origin, said she was hauled out of her bed late Saturday at her home in Kusadasi, a resort town in western Turkey.

"Two men were banging on the door, and said I had to go with them because of two Tweets," she told Dutch broadcaster NOS.

She said they spent the night at the police station "talking about politics and the situation in Turkey" before she was brought before a judge on Sunday.

Umar, 45, was later released, but said she is not allowed to leave the country and must report to police in a few days.

The columnist had recently written a piece critical of Erdogan for the Dutch daily Metro, extracts of which she then tweeted.

She had been due to fly back to the Netherlands on Sunday, and says she wants to return but is forbidden for the time being.

The hashtag #freeebru was trending in the Netherlands Sunday, with Dutch politicians and commentators calling for her release.

Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said in a statement later Sunday he was "relieved" Umar had been released.

But he slammed her arrest, saying he had contacted his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu to voice his "regret" and concerns about the case.

"I made it clear that press freedom and freedom of expression is a good thing," Koenders said in a statement.

"A country that is a candidate to join the EU should continue to push for press freedom and freedom of expression," he stressed.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte also telephoned his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu to voice his concerns.

Umar, who reportedly became a journalist under the influence of Theo van Gogh -- a Dutch filmmaker later murdered for making a controversial film about Islamic culture -- had written about a diplomatic spat between Turkey and the Netherlands.

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- Email row -

A political storm erupted this week over reports an email sent by the Turkish consulate to Turkish organisations in the Netherlands had asked people to forward any emails and social media posts which insulted Erdogan or Turkey.

Rutte said he would ask Ankara to clarify the call. The Turkish consulate said the note was sent by a consular official who used an "unfortunate choice of words" that was misinterpreted.

The case followed outrage in Germany after the government there gave a green light for authorities to begin criminal proceedings against popular comic Jan Boehmermann for performing a satirical poem about Erdogan.

Trials in Turkey for insulting Erdogan have multiplied since his election to the presidency in August 2014, with nearly 2,000 such cases currently open.

In September 2015 freelance Dutch journalist Frederike Geerdink was deported from Turkey after being detained during clashes between Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels and Turkish security forces.

It was the second time she had been taken into custody: in April Geerdink was put on trial on charges of spreading "terrorist propaganda" for the PKK but was then acquitted.
The famous euro sign landmark is pictured outside the former headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt, Germany, July 17, 2015. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

By Jan Strupczewski

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - European Union finance ministers agreed on Saturday to discuss whether they can regain some control over a morass of EU budget rules by focusing mainly on an annual spending cap as the best measure of compliance.

Years of changes and additions to EU rules, called the Stability and Growth Pact, have made meeting targets extremely complex, prompting an attempt to simplify them, European Commissioner Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis told a news conference after the meeting of EU finance ministers.

"We did not discuss how to change the Pact, just how to choose the indicators to assess the compliance with the Pact," Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem said.

The Dutch, who currently preside over the EU, proposed that the ministers consider using a single indicator with which to judge budgetary compliance, called the expenditure rule.

It already exists in EU law as one indicator to be used to judge the fiscal performance of an EU country, but has so far been more in the background.

The focus until now was on the development of the structural budget balance, a measure that strips off changes to budget revenue and expenditure stemming from the phase of the business cycle as well as all one-offs.

Because the structural deficit is a complex and volatile indicator, the Dutch instead proposed putting more emphasis on the expenditure rule, which says a government cannot increase annual spending more than its medium-term potential growth rate.

"It is directly in the hands of finance ministers. It gives us more guidance in the process of designing the budget. It says in advance what you have to do, and you have the control in your hands," Dijsselbloem said.

He said that while the structural deficit, which is the key indicator mentioned in EU economic legislation, was a valuable theoretical concept, it could not be directly controlled by finance ministers.

"There was general agreement that we need an indicator that takes out all the cyclical elements and one-offs but preferably it should be more stable and not change all the time, and we could put more emphasis on indicators that we can actually directly influence as finance ministers," he said.

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Dijsselbloem said EU deputy finance ministers would further work on what measurement to use to better assess compliance and the ministers would return to the discussion in the third quarter of 2016.

The aim of the EU budget rules, created in 1997, is to keep nominal budget deficits below 3 percent of gross domestic product and public debt below 60 percent.

But as the rules were revised in 2005, 2011 and 2013 to take account of economic and political realities and to incorporate intergovernmental treaties, they became more and more complex.

"The sheer number of indicators in the current framework poses a massive challenge for the national implementation of the fiscal framework," the Dutch presidency said in a paper prepared for the ministers' meeting.

"It contains targets, upper limits and benchmarks for the nominal balance, structural balance, expenditure growth and debt development," the paper said.

The structural budget balance is important because EU laws oblige governments to strive towards a budget close to balance or in surplus in structural terms.

But it is complicated because it has to strip out commodity price shocks, housing, stock and other asset price cycles, output composition and absorption effects and one-off factors.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development pointed out that changes in revenues as a result of oil price changes, or interest payments as a result of debt growth, are neither cyclical nor discretionary and yet they are part of the structural balance.

The ministers were also in favour of shifting the focus of budget plans more to the medium term from a year-by-year assessment.

(Reporting By Jan Strupczewski; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
VIENNA (Reuters) - Proxy adviser Glass Lewis has recommended shareholders in Credit Suisse (CSGN.S) reject the amount of remuneration set for the bank's management and board members, Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag reported.

The advisory firm criticized a lack of transparency at the world's fourth biggest private bank in connection with the termination package of former Chief Executive Brady Dougan, the paper said, citing a Glass Lewis analysis.

Five top managers who left Credit Suisse last year - Dougan among them - received severance payments worth 21 million Swiss francs ($21.47 million), the bank's annual report showed. The bank did not say who got how much.

Shareholders will be asked to approve the pay of the bank's executives at their annual general meeting on April 29.

The 2015 compensation report, which is part of the bank's annual report, will be presented to investors for a consultative vote.

(Reporting by Kirsti Knolle; editing by Jason Neely)
By Piya Sinha-Roy and Jill Serjeant (Reuters) - Police found no signs of suicide or obvious trauma in the death of U.S. music superstar Prince, but it could take weeks before autopsy results reveal how the groundbreaking performer died, authorities said on Friday. The intensely private musician, whose hits included "Purple Rain" and "When Doves Cry," was found dead in an elevator at his home in suburban Minneapolis on Thursday at the age of 57, shocking millions of fans around the world and prompting glowing tributes by fellow musicians. Carver County Sheriff Jim Olson, whose office is investigating the circumstances of his death, said Prince was last seen alive by an acquaintance who dropped him off at his home at about 8 p.m. on Wednesday night. "There were no obvious signs of trauma on the body," Olson told a news conference. "We have no reason to believe at this point that this was a suicide. The rest is under investigation." The influential star, born Prince Rogers Nelson, was found unresponsive in an elevator at the Paisley Park Studios complex where he lived in the suburb of Chanhassen, authorities said. Olson declined to say whether any items were recovered from the home by police, citing the ongoing investigation. He did say that no one else was found at the property. The local medical examiner's office conducted a post-mortem examination on Friday morning for four hours but its results could be some time coming. Prince's body was released to his family on Friday afternoon, the Midwest Medical Examiner's Office added in a statement. "As part of a complete exam, relevant information regarding Mr. Nelson's medical and social history will be gathered. Anything which could be relevant to the investigation will be taken into consideration," the statement said. No information will be released until all results have been obtained, it added. "Gathering the results will take several days and the results of a full toxicology scan could likely take weeks," the medical examiner's office said. Prince's music blended styles including rock, jazz, funk, disco and R&B, and it won him seven Grammy Awards as well as an Oscar. He had been on a U.S. tour as recently as last week. But he was briefly hospitalized a week ago after his plane made an emergency landing in Moline, Illinois, suffering from what his representative told celebrity news website TMZ was flu. Nevertheless, the star hosted a party at Paisley Park last Saturday night at which one attendee said Prince played two tunes on a piano and then introduced fans to his doctor. 'REMARKABLE LOSS' Prince first found fame in the late 1970s before becoming one of the most inventive forces in American pop music. On a trip to London, U.S. President Barack Obama said he listened to "Purple Rain" and "Delirious" on Friday morning at the U.S. ambassador's residence to get "warmed up" for his meetings. "I loved Prince ... It's a remarkable loss," Obama told a news conference. As well as singing and songwriting, Prince played multiple instruments including guitar, keyboards and drums. A Jehovah's Witness and a strict vegan, he sold more than 100 million records and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. Record producer L.A. Reid told NBC's "Today" show on Friday that he was perplexed by the death of his friend. "The Prince I know was super-healthy, vegan, wasn't an abuser of drugs, wasn't an abuser of alcohol," Reid said. "He was clean and he looked young and he looked really healthy and vibrant, so the whole thing is really mysterious to me." During his life, Prince was known as fiercely determined to protect his intellectual property. How others might profit from his legacy hinges on how astute he was about arranging for control of his music after death. Twice divorced with no surviving children, he apparently lacked any immediately identifiable heirs. Ex-wife Manuela Testolini said that as well as being a husband and friend, Prince had been a "fierce philanthropist" who encouraged her to set up her own charity. She had contacted him only a few days ago, she added, to tell him she was building a school in his honor. "I am heartbroken beyond words," Testolini said in a statement on Friday.
Prince Philip drove former US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle around Windsor Castle in 2016 (AFP Photo/GEOFF PUGH) (POOL/AFP/File)

Windsor (United Kingdom) (AFP) - Normally the US Secret Service is pretty strict about President Barack Obama getting in non-armoured cars with non-expert drivers, but on Friday they made an exception.

On Obama's arrival at Windsor Castle, the president and First Lady Michelle Obama -- code names "Renegade" and "Renaissance" -- were picked up from their Marine One helicopter by Queen Elizabeth II and her 94-year-old husband Prince Philip, who was in the driver's seat.

Obama and the prince, formally known as the Duke of Edinburgh, got in the front of the Range Rover while the queen and First Lady sat in the back.

"I have to say, I have never been driven by a Duke before," Obama later joked. "I can report that it was very smooth riding."

This is Obama's fifth trip to Britain as president, and he hinted at how much he has enjoyed meeting the country's longest-serving monarch who has greeted US presidents since Harry Truman.

"The queen has been a source of inspiration for me," Obama said. "She's truly one of my favourite people."

The two couples had lunch together at Windsor, the queen's weekend residence located west of London, to mark her 90th birthday, which was on Thursday.

But the trip also marks what is likely to be Obama's last presidential visit to Britain and meeting with the queen.

As a gift, the White House said the Obamas presented the queen "with a custom photo album chronicling her visits with US presidents and first ladies".

"The collection of historical photos in the album highlights the enduring close friendship between the United States and the United Kingdom," the White House said.

The queen's first visit to the United States was in 1951, before the start of her long reign.

The only president since Truman that she has not met was Lyndon B. Johnson.
US President Barack Obama speaks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel during a 2015 conference on climate change on the outskirts of Paris (AFP Photo/Alain Jocard) (AFP)

Berlin (AFP) - US President Barack Obama has hailed German Chancellor Angela Merkel's "courageous" leadership in opening doors to migrants fleeing the Syrian conflict.

"I believe that Chancellor Merkel's approach to the refugee crisis -- and that of many Germans -- has been courageous. She's demonstrated real political and moral leadership," Obama said in an interview published Saturday with German daily Bild.

"Angela has spoken of our moral obligation to people, including families and children, fleeing horrific conditions, including the barbarity of the Assad regime in Syria and ISIL (Islamic State)," Obama said.

"We simply cannot shut our doors to our fellow human beings when they are in such desperate need."

Merkel, who was going to Turkey on Saturday to discuss a deal on migration, has come under fire after Germany took in more than a million asylum seekers in 2015.

Opponents, including from within her conservative camp, have argued vocally that Europe's top economy is ill-equipped to integrate the waves of newcomers.

Obama spoke out in strong support of Merkel ahead of her high-stakes Turkish visit.

He told Bild the migration burden needed to be properly shared out -- the US is committed to taking in at least 10,000 Syrians this year -- and that "the recent agreement between the EU and Turkey is a step toward a more equitable way of sharing this responsibility."

Germany and its EU allies are seeking to boost a six-billion-euro ($6.7 billion) deal with Ankara to return migrants arriving on Greek shores to Turkey. But the deal remains beset by myriad moral and legal concerns.

Merkel will arrive in Turkey amid a row over Germany's prosecution of a German comedian for a crude poem about President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Her decision to authorise criminal proceedings has sparked a freedom of speech storm at home.

Jan Boehmermann could be convicted under a rarely-enforced piece of criminal code on insulting representatives of foreign states after his televised recital of a work accusing Erdogan of bestiality and paedophilia.

Obama was due in Germany on Sunday to attend the Hanover industrial technology fair ahead of informal talks Monday with Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and British and Italian prime ministers David Cameron and Matteo Renzi.

Dubbing Merkel "one of my closest partners and also a friend," Obama additionally praised her for leadership "essential to maintaining European unity against Russia's aggression against Ukraine."
By Howard Schneider

BETHLEHEM, Pa., April 24 (Reuters) - With a rusting steel mill in its center, this Pennsylvania city would seem fertile ground for Donald Trump's campaign and its vision of a declining America that only he can fix.

Yet Trump, who will be seeking voters' backing as the Republican nominee for the White House in the state's primary on Tuesday, may face a stiffer challenge than the demise of the local steel industry might suggest.

In the two decades since the blast furnaces of Bethlehem Steel went silent, the local economy did not follow the once-mighty company into decline. It bounced back.

The old mill's 1,600 acre (6.5 square km) site has been adapted as the backdrop of a novel urban park that includes an arts center, a Public Broadcasting Service studio, and a Sands casino resort with 2,400 employees. Bethlehem and the Lehigh Valley region around it have filled new industrial parks with e-commerce companies, white collar businesses fleeing New York's high costs, and global giants such as Japanese imaging firm Olympus.

Trump has stormed ahead of the Republican field successfully tapping the frustration and anger of millions of Americans who feel bruised and left behind by a fast-changing and increasingly globalized economy. The Pennsylvania ballot will test how that message resonates in areas that can serve as an example of successful transformation.

It might also give a taste of which narrative might prevail in the campaign for the November presidential election - one built around evidence of steady economic recovery and an improving labor market, or one of pessimism fueled by stagnant incomes for many and widening wealth disparities.

"If you were to design the perfect Trump location, the Lehigh Valley was that 25 years ago," said Chris Borick, a political science professor at Muhlenberg College in Allentown.

"It is a different place now. Some of the blue collar appeal that Trump may be having in other areas of the country or the state may have less of a target here."

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The New York real estate mogul and reality TV celebrity is heading into the Pennsylvania contest with a solid lead, according to most polls. The most recent, published on Thursday by the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College, gave Trump a 14 percentage point lead over Ohio Governor John Kasich and a 16 point advantage over Sen. Ted Cruz.

Nationally, Trump leads in the tally of delegates to the Republican convention with 845 followed by Ted Cruz with 559 and Kasich with 148, according to Associated Press, and is looking for another big night on April 26. Primaries in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware and Maryland will allocate roughly a quarter of the remaining delegates to the July convention - the largest bloc at stake until California votes in June.

Kasich and Cruz supporters hope they can slow Trump's march to the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination by snagging delegates chosen at the Congressional district level. The Franklin and Marshall poll showed substantial differences among the candidates across this geographically and culturally diverse state, with Kasich leading around Pittsburgh, near where he was born, and Cruz in a statistical tie with Trump in the central counties that are considered more conservative.

PRAGMATIC STREAK

The Lehigh Valley is part of a Congressional district that has returned moderate Republican Charlie Dent to Washington for a decade, and Dent said he expected Kasich, whom he has endorsed, to do well there.

"The area is not as rigid ideologically as other parts of the country," Dent told Reuters. "Maybe it is the old Pennsylvania-German ethic. They expect roads to get built and paved."

That pragmatic streak was apparent last week among Kasich supporters who attended a town hall in Media, a middle class suburb south of Philadelphia.

"Trump has made his millions, but that is not like managing the federal budget," said Mary Emily Pagano, a former social worker for the local county.

A strong result for Trump in areas such as the Lehigh Valley, however, would be a bad omen for his rivals - a sign that his "make America great again" message has appeal beyond voters who are at the margins economically.

Lehigh and Northampton counties have a larger share of households than the state as a whole that earn more than $75,000, about 36 percent, a group where Kasich is even with Trump in some polls. Unemployment has also been below the national rate of 5 percent in a metropolitan area that includes Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton.

Despite the steel industry's decline, the area's manufacturing workforce is slightly larger than the national average, with a growing food processing hub, 1,000 remaining steel foundry jobs and around 75 new positions headed here from China. The Zhejiang-based Fuling company, which makes plastic cutlery and other products for fast food restaurants, decided to move its less labor intensive straw making operation to Allentown instead of paying to ship straws - and the air inside them - from China.

Olympus and other companies have put hundreds of sales, marketing and customer support positions at an office park near Bethlehem, fueling the shift from blue collar jobs. Olympus chief executive for the Americas, Barcelona native Nacho Abia, said the region was a perfect fit, with open space, proximity to the New York-Washington corridor, and a network of local colleges supplying the educated workforce he needs.

Don Cunningham, who was mayor of Bethlehem when steel production stopped and now heads the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation, does not miss the old days.

"We are better off economically, and we are better off socially," he said. "The economic base is diverse. The air is cleaner. The river is cleaner."

Yet Trump has struck a chord, said Jerry Green, president of United Steelworkers Local 2599, the union that in its World War II heyday represented more than 30,000 Bethlehem Steel employees. Membership is now down to around 1,200, based at foundry and casting operations, such as privately held Victaulic, a global manufacturer of high-end fittings used to join pipes.

Green said there was no shortage of jobs, but many of them failed to provide an adequate living or career, such as the warehouse clerk positions being created by a boom in e-commerce distribution that offer starting wages of around $11.

"Yes there are jobs, but not good paying ones," Green said. Trump's comments on trade are what most people want to hear, he said.

"He talks a good game. Can he produce? If people were sure he could, they would probably support him." (Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
Gunman Jakob Wagner opened fired on students at 11 pm as they were leaving the prom at their high school and wounded two teenagers (AFP Photo/Joe Raedle) (Getty/AFP/File)

Washington (AFP) - A teenage gunman armed with a rifle shot and wounded two students as they left a high school prom in Wisconsin, before he was fatally wounded by police, officials said on Sunday.

Eighteen-year-old Jakob Wagner died in the hospital after shooting outside a school in the city of Antigo -- about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Milwaukee.

Wagner opened fire on the students at 11 pm as they were leaving the prom at their high school, Antigo police chief Eric Roller said in a statement.

A female victim suffered minor injuries while a male victim was undergoing surgery Sunday morning for wounds police said were not life-threatening.

Police patrolling the school parking lot at the time of the incident intervened immediately, opening fire on the gunman after they heard shots, Roller said.

The lone shooter, a former student at the school who graduated last year, appeared to be firing at random, local media reported.

He died early Sunday morning.

Police did not give a possible motive for the shooting.
PEDERNALES/PORTOVIEJO, April 22 (Reuters) - The death toll from Ecuador's devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake rose to 602 people on Friday, as dozens of aftershocks shook cities and towns around the country, spooking residents but causing no further damage.

Saturday's quake, the worst in nearly seven decades, injured 12,492 people and left 130 missing, emergency management authorities said in a bulletin.

Survivors were shaken again late on Thursday night when a powerful 6.0 magnitude quake struck off Ecuador's coast about 100 km (62 miles) north-northwest of Portoviejo and at a depth of 10 km (six miles).

"When it started to shake last night we started to pray," said Alex Bachon, 43, a construction worker repairing damage from Saturday's quake at a hotel in Guayaquil. "I have never seen anything like this, it's been so bad."

There were more than 70 aftershocks throughout Thursday night and Friday, the country's geology institute reported. There have been a total of 700 aftershocks since Saturday's quake.

The tremors will continue for several weeks, emergency management official Ricardo Penaherrera warned on Friday, and he called on Ecuadoreans to stay calm.

Survivors in the quake zone were receiving food, water and medicine from the government and scores of foreign aid workers, though President Rafael Correa has acknowledged that bad roads had delayed aid to some communities.

With close to 7,000 buildings destroyed, more than 26,000 people were living in shelters. Some 14,000 security personnel were keeping order in quake-hit area, with only sporadic looting reported.

THE COST OF REBUILDING

Correa's leftist government, facing a mammoth rebuilding task at a time of greatly reduced oil revenues in the OPEC country, has said it would temporarily increase some taxes, offer assets for sale and possibly issue bonds abroad to fund reconstruction.

Correa has estimated damage at $2 billion to $3 billion.

A raft of temporary tax increases should raise between $650 million and $1 billion, the government said, stressing those in quake areas would be exempt.

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The 487 megawatt hydroelectric dam Sopladora, which is still in an experimental phase, could be one of the assets put on sale.

Lower oil revenue has already left the country of 16 million people facing near-zero growth and lower investment.

The government appealed for travelers to continue to fuel the $1.7 billion tourism industry, but visitors may be put off by warnings from health experts about the threat of mosquito-borne viruses in the quake area.

(Reporting by Guillermo Granja in Pedernales, Henry Romero in Portoviejo, Ana Isabel Martinez in Guayaquil and Julia Symmes Cobb and Diego Ore in Quito; Editing by Alexandra Ulmer, Toni Reinhold)
charles koch

One of the most influential GOP donors took a big swing at Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump in an interview that aired Sunday.

In the ABC interview, Koch Industries CEO Charles Koch was highly critical of Trump's proposals on the campaign trail toward Muslims.

The GOP frontrunner last year unveiled a proposal to bar most Muslim immigrants and tourists from entering the US. He also seemed open to creating a database to track Muslims in the US, though he later appeared to back away from the idea.

"Obviously that's antithetical to our approach," Koch said when asked about the proposed Muslim ban.

He then went on to lambaste the suggestion of a database.

"But what was worse," Koch said, "was this: 'We'll have them all register.' That's reminiscent of Nazi Germany. I mean, that's monstrous."

Throughout the interview, Koch  who, along with his brother David is a key financial source for various conservative causes  did not express much apparent enthusiasm about the current crop of Republican presidential candidates.

The billionaire donor said he and his brother decided not to publicly support a candidate in the Republican race partially because they believed that the candidates did not focus enough on concrete policy issues.

"We said, 'Here are the issues.' You've got to be like Ronald Reagan and compete on making the country better rather than tearing down your opponents. Right off the bat, they didn't do it," Koch said. "More of these personal attacks and pitting one person against the other, that's the message you're sending the country. That's the way you should  you're role models, and you're terrible role models."

Despite being frequently pilloried on the left, Koch even left open the door to tepidly backing former Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton in a general election. He said it was "possible" that Clinton could be a better option than a Republican candidate.

The CEO's comments come after the political network headed by him and his brother announced plans last year to spend about $900 million to boost right-leaning candidates and think tanks in the lead-up to the 2016 election.

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NOW WATCH: ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Trumps abortion comments are a sign hes not operating on all cylinders





More From Business Insider


* Prime minister on track to win 50 percent of vote

* Serbian PM wanted mandate for EU entry talks

* Pro-Russian ultra-nationalists come third (Adds quotes)

By Ivana Sekularac and Aleksandar Vasovic

BELGRADE, April 24 (Reuters) - Serbia's pro-western Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic won a resounding endorsement in Sunday's general election for his policy of pursuing European Union membership, securing four more years in power with a parliamentary majority.

But he will have to contend with a resurgent ultra-nationalist opposition which rejects integration with the EU and demands closer ties with Russia.

Vucic went to the polls two years early, saying he wanted a clear mandate from Serbia's 6.7 million voters for reforms to keep EU membership talks launched in December on track for completion by 2019.

Even though Vucic presided over a period of austerity, partly forced on him by the terms of a 1.2 billion euro ($1.35 billion) loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund, voters again strongly backed the 46-year-old, himself a former hardline nationalist.

His conservative Progressive Party was set to win just under 50 percent of the vote, up from 48 percent two years ago, a projection by pollsters Cesid, the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy, said.

"This is an historic result, getting more votes in absolute numbers and in percentages than two years ago when we started difficult reforms," Vucic said.

"Today's result strongly supports our democracy, diplomatic efforts and European integration," he said.

Vucic must now decide whether he will rule alone or seek to broaden his support further by continuing to govern in coalition with the Socialists, who came second with around 11.6 percent of the vote, or another party.

The election marked a resurgence by the ultra-nationalist Radical Party of Vojislav Seselj, acquitted by the U.N. tribunal in The Hague last month of war crimes during the 1990s breakup of Yugoslavia.

The Radicals were set to win around 7.8 percent of the vote, turning them into the third-biggest party in parliament after a four-year absence from the assembly.

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They could turn into a thorn in Vucic's side, resisting his pro-EU policies and calling instead for an alliance with Russia.

Seselj voiced disappointment with the result but said "in future debates we will show we are superior to our opponents."

The pro-EU Democratic Party, which won around 6 percent of the vote, complained of scattered irregularities that favoured the Progressive Party, saying some voters had been given ballots that were already filled in.

Exactly how many seats in the 250-member parliament the Progressives end up with depends on how many other parties exceed the five percent threshold needed to get into the assembly.

Three parties are hovering around the five percent threshold, according to Cesid. If they all get into parliament, it would reduce the Progressives' majority.

But analysts said the Progressives were still likely to get an absolute majority of between 137 and 156 seats, compared with 158 in the old parliament.

The EU Commissioner in charge of relations with would-be member states, Johannes Hahn, said on Twitter he was confident Vucic "will use citizens' strong support in a responsible way and that it (the election) will strengthen Serbia's EU perspective."

Milan Jovanovic, a political science lecturer at Belgrade University, said the Radicals would not be able to significantly influence the government's behaviour. "Quite to the contrary, they could make the government even more determined," he told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Adrian Croft; Editing by Mary Milliken)
Thomas Middleditch Jamie McCarthy Getty

For three seasons now, Thomas Middleditch has played Richard Hendricks, the anxiety-filled leader of the Pied Piper startup in the HBO comedy hit Silicon Valley.

Middleditch plays the part so well that he doesnt fault people who meet him and think he's just like Richard in real life.

I have people come up to me and I like it when they get surprised: Youre not like Richard at all. I take that as a compliment, the actor told Business Insider over the phone recently.

It doesn't take long to realize Middleditch is in fact not like Richard. In conversation, he's full of energy and engaged. A far cry from his alter ego, who often stumbles over every joke or point he tries to make.

That anxiety only builds for Richard in season three as Pied Pier has moved up in the world. It's now found an investor, but Richard has been ousted as CEO.

One thing Middleditch is very happy with this season is Richard's ramped-up comedy, so the character isnt solely portrayed as the shows straight man.

I like that they gave me some physical bits, he said. One of the things that you saw in the teaser, me slamming my face in the desk, I like that kind of stuff.

A lot of comedies, I think, make the wrong choice of having the straight man being this bland emotional conduit for the audience, Middleditch continued. Everyone else has the wacky lines and he just sort of sits there. I want to make sure he has fun stuff to do.

Middleditch loves the comfort of being on a TV series that has a strong fan base and isn't looking to end any time soon. But looking forward, he hopes to show other types of characters he can play in roles hes taking during the time between seasons.

He stars in indie dramedies The Bronze (in theaters) and Joshy (out later this year), and an outlandish comedy he shot with his Silicon Valley cast mate T.J. Miller, Search Party, opens next month.

At the end of the day I want to play characters that interest me, he said. That said, I'm not in the market for any computer hacker characters in a film  I wouldn't mind venturing into more dramatic stuff  but I also kind of want to remind people that comedy is what I love doing, comedy is what I've been doing for years and years and I'll never stop doing comedy.

Story continues

And he wants more people to realize hes not Richard Hendricks.

I would like to think that goes away a few minutes after meeting me, he said.

NOW WATCH: 'Hamilton' just won a Pulitzer Prize  watch Obama's private performance from the show 6 years before it hit Broadway





More From Business Insider


The stock market is generally riskier than keeping your money in the bank or putting it into something like a government bond, and it's possible to find quite high-risk investments on the stock market and in other avenues for investing in shares in companies. While investments with high returns often do carry high risk, it's important to remember not to invest more than you can stand to lose and make sure you understand where you're putting your money.

The Stock Market and Risk

When you invest money in the stock market, there's always a chance that your investment could dwindle to zero or next to nothing. If a company you invest in goes bankrupt, it's possible that shareholders  the company's effective owners  will get nothing once company creditors such as lenders and employees are paid what they're owed.

It's often possible to spot a company headed toward failure, but in some cases, especially when financial fraud is involved, a bankruptcy can come as a surprise, as with the famous Enron case. Sudden economic shifts can also cause companies that seemed to be doing well, albeit often with high debts, to falter, costing investors what they've put in.

Typically, though, thanks to the principle of limited shareholder liability, you can't lose more than you put into the stocks you bought. Even if a company you've invested in through the traditional markets fails, nobody can send you a bill for the company's debts after it fails.

Risky Stocks and Safer Stocks

Of course, not all stocks are equally risky. Blue chip companies with long-lasting, stable businesses, such as utility companies, big banks and big industrial firms, are unlikely to fail overnight. Many of them woo investors by paying out hefty dividends and experiencing relatively small fluctuations in their stock prices over time.

Some industries are inherently more risky. Some classic examples include software companies that have yet to make a profit, hoping they'll be able to turn a new invention into something financially successful, and biotechnology companies, which rely heavily on unproven new medications turning out to be safe and effective when tested in humans. Companies offering real estate in new areas, that may or may not be successful, or searching for natural resources such as gold or petroleum can also be inherently risky, since their efforts simply might not pay off. Other companies, from retail chains to industrial companies, are risky investments because they have a heavy amount of debt, meaning they have little margin to play with if a product doesn't sell as well as anticipated or the market as a whole experiences a downturn.

Look through a company's investor relations material and its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission to understand the risks involved in its business and make sure you want to invest. Risky stocks can often come seemingly cheap, but there's little point to investing if your chances of getting a return are quite slim.

High-Risk Stocks and Scams

Some of the riskiest stock investments available are so-called penny stocks, which are actually sold for $5 or less due to today's inflation. These stocks are usually either new startups or older concerns that have fallen on hard times. Their shares can be snatched up cheap to reward investors later on if they start doing well, but they also have a risk of failure.

Another issue with penny stocks is that they are often subject to limited trading volume, which attracts fraudsters looking to operate what are known as "pump and dump" scams. These scammers purchase a penny stock and then tout it online through investor message boards, fake news websites or social media posts, hoping to get other investors to get excited about the stock and purchase their shares at an inflated price. Then, once they've sold or dumped their shares, they stop pumping the price up, letting it fall to its previous level.

Beware of stock tips from unusual or anonymous sources, since it's possible that they have a vested and undisclosed interest in what it is they're promoting. Do your own research as thoroughly as you can before making any investment.

Selling Stocks Short

Generally, if you own a stock and believe the price is destined to fall, you can sell your stock and try to grab what profit you've already made or avoid a steeper loss. If you don't own a stock, though, you can still profit from its predicted decline through a system called short selling.

Short selling enables you to borrow the stock from someone else, sell it immediately and then buy it back at a later date to return to the lender. This will let you make a profit if the stock declines. The risk, though, is that you can be on the hook for an arbitrary amount if the stock actually rises in price, since you still need to return the stock to the original lender, even if you have to pay more for it than you sold it for.

You can generally arrange short selling through your brokerage. Make sure you understand the rules and fees involved before you get started.

Buying and Selling Options

Rather than buying and selling stock directly, you can also buy or sell the option to buy or sell a certain stock at a certain price at a certain time. Options to buy are known as call options and options to sell are known as put options.

If you guess wrong about where the price is headed, you can lose money buying or selling options. If you buy an option to buy stock for more than it's worth or sell it for less than the going price, the option won't do you any good. If you sell someone the option to buy it for less than it's worth or sell it for more, you'll essentially lose the difference.

You can sell someone the option to buy a stock that you own, which is called a covered option, or you can sell the option to buy a stock you don't have, called a naked option. Your potential losses are higher selling a naked call option since, similar to shorting a stock, you may need to buy the stock or pay the difference in price.

Trading on Margin

Trading on margin refers to using borrowed money from your broker to buy stocks. If stocks go up, it can be lucrative, but if they go down, it can prove risky, since you're on the hook for the loan.

There are generally rules at different brokers about who can open a margin account and how much they must put down themselves on stock purchases. Some of these are set by individual brokers and some are set by industry regulators.

Capital Gains and Losses

If you make high-risk stock investments and they pay off, keep in mind you will likely owe tax when you sell the stock. On the other hand, if the investments don't pan out, you may be able to take a capital loss on your taxes when you sell.

If you make money on your stock market investments, you will likely have to pay tax when you sell your shares. If you have held on to stocks for more than a year, you can pay at the federal long-term capital gains rate, which is generally 15 percent. Some investors will pay zero percent or 20 percent based on their total income.

If you lose money on stock transactions, you can take a capital loss on your taxes. A capital loss can offset capital gains in the same year or up to $3,000 in ordinary income, such as from work. You can roll capital losses into future years to offset gains or income if you need to do so.
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Locusts already has this up.





People need to buy this ****. These companies don't stay in business if they don't sell solar panels. Hey Floss you buy some solar panels for your house yet?



All these environmentalist want to save the world but none of them are buying any of this **** for their houses.



The problem with the greens is they want to save the earth by sitting on their *** doing nothing.



They don't even buy the **** themselves.
8 relatives shot dead execution-style in Ohio: AuthoritiesJon Herskovitz, REUTERSFirst posted: Friday, April 22, 2016 01:37 PM EDT | Updated: Friday, April 22, 2016 10:55 PM EDTEight members of the same family were shot to death execution-style in four homes in Pike County, Ohio, and more than 30 people have been questioned in the search for the killer or killers, officials said on Friday.The victims included seven adults and one juvenile, all shot in the head, Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader and Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said. Reader identified them as members of the Rohden family.Asked about possible suspects, DeWine told a news conference: "We don't know whether we're talking about one individual, or two, or three, or more."An infant less than a week old, a 6-month-old and a 3-year-old survived the shootings in Pike County, in south-central Ohio.Some of the victims appeared to have been murdered in bed, including the mother of the infant who survived, DeWine said.He played down media reports that a "person of interest" had been detained in Chillicothe, in nearby Ross County."I would not use the term person of interest. I will confirm that a number of people are being interviewed and there are several of those who are in Chillicothe," he said.DeWine said his office had interviewed more than 30 people, with more set to be questioned.Reader said anyone involved in the shootings should be considered armed and extremely dangerous.DeWine said that none of the deaths had resulted from suicide. He said processing the four crime scenes likely would continue through Friday night into Saturday morning.Police search for answers after 8 Ohio relatives shot in the headKantele Franko, THE ASSOCIATED PRESSFirst posted: Saturday, April 23, 2016 03:26 PM EDT | Updated: Saturday, April 23, 2016 10:31 PM EDTPIKETON, Ohio -- An out-of-breath caller who found two of the eight slain members of an Ohio family told a 911 dispatcher in a quavering voice that "there's blood all over the house.""I think my brother-in-law's dead," she said, her voice rising as she adds later that it looks like someone has "beat the crap out of them.""I think they're both dead," she said before breaking down into sobs, according to one of two 911 call recordings released Saturday by the state attorney general's office.The calls were released a day after eight family members were found dead with gunshots to the head at four properties in rural southern Ohio.Authorities continued the scramble to determine who targeted that clan and why. Investigators said they interviewed more than 30 people in hopes of finding leads in the deaths of the seven adults and the teenage boy whose bodies were found Friday at homes southwest of Piketon. They completed work at the crime scenes Saturday."It's a very active and ongoing investigation," said Lisa Hackley, a spokeswoman for Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine. "We're looking for the person or persons who did this."The victims, all members of the Rhoden family, were identified Saturday as 40-year-old Christopher Rhoden Sr.; his 16-year-old son, Christopher Rhoden Jr.; 44-year-old Kenneth Rhoden; 38-year-old Gary Rhoden; 37-year-old Dana Rhoden; 20-year-old Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden; 20-year-old Hannah Gilley; and 19-year-old Hanna Rhoden.It appeared some of the family members were killed as they slept, including Hanna Rhoden, who was in bed with her newborn baby nearby, authorities said. The infant was 4- or 5-days old, authorities said. The baby and two other small children were not hurt.Authorities said none of the injuries appeared self-inflicted; they believed there was at least one assailant. A search for the perpetrator or perpetrators continued Saturday as surviving members of the Rhoden family were urged to take precautions. Authorities offered them help, and recommended that area residents also be wary.Phil Fulton, the pastor of Union Hill Church up the road from where some of the victims were found, described the family as close-knit and hardworking. He said they were previously part of his congregation, though not recently."We're just doing everything we can to reach out to the family to show them love and comfort," Fulton said.Reading a statement from the family, Kimberly Newman of the Ohio Crisis Response Team, told reporters gathered alongside the barricaded road that leads to some of the crime scenes that they appreciated "the outpouring of prayers and support.""They ask that you continue to keep them in your prayers," Newman said.The exact timing of the shootings remained unclear. Authorities got the first 911 call shortly before 8 a.m. Friday; the second call came several hours later from another location, where the caller said he found his cousin."I just went in hollering at him ... And I looked up at him and he had a gunshot wound," he said.Two of the crime scenes are within walking distance of each other along a sparsely populated, winding road that leads into wooded hills from a rural highway. The third residence is more than a mile away, and the fourth home is on a different road, at least a 10-minute drive away, said the investigation's leader, Benjamin Suver, a special agent in charge with Bureau of Criminal Investigations.Investigators blocked off wide areas around the crime scenes, but aerial photos showed law enforcement vehicles parked outside the properties. One scene appeared to have a trailer home and several others buildings a short walk apart, with a school bus and numerous other vehicles parked in the grass around the property.Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader and DeWine said in a joint statement Saturday that investigators worked through the night processing evidence at the scene. Officials said a Cincinnati-area businessman put up a $25,000 reward for information leading to the capture and conviction of the killer or killers.Authorities refused to discuss details about the crime scenes, the type or number of weapons used, the evidence found, and the search operations.The owner of at least two of the properties is listed as Christopher Rhoden, according to Pike County auditor's records.Kendra Jordan, 20, said she often worked nights at a nursing home with Hanna Rhoden and described her as outgoing, funny and always smiling."If you were having a bad day, she'd be the first one to come up to you to question you about what was going on," Jordan said. "She was amazing."Jordan said the town would have difficulty recovering from the loss of such a well-known family in the tight-knit community."Everyone knows that family, you can't not know that family," she said. "They're involved in everything, and they're at every event that's going on in town. Just about see them anywhere you went."Rural Ohio community rattled by killings of 8 family membersKantele Franko, THE ASSOCIATED PRESSFirst posted: Sunday, April 24, 2016 09:07 AM EDT | Updated: Sunday, April 24, 2016 09:23 AM EDTPIKETON, Ohio -- Residents of the rural southern Ohio community of Piketon are rattled by a rare major crime that took the lives of eight members of a tight-knit family known in the area as hard workers.Authorities were still trying Sunday to find out who targeted the seven adults and teenage boy and why. Their bodies were found Friday at four different homes near Piketon, about 60 miles south of Columbus.Kayla Hay said she got to know one of the victims, 37-year-old Dana Rhoden, when they both worked as nurse's aides at a nursing home. Hay said she was shocked and saddened when she heard Rhoden was among those killed."I've never heard her say anything about being frightened or concerned about anything bad happening," said Hay, who described Rhoden as outgoing and friendly."She was always in a good mood and was very bright, both in her personality and her intelligence," Hay said.All of the victims were members of the Rhoden family. The others were identified as 40-year-old Christopher Rhoden Sr.; his 16-year-old son, Christopher Rhoden Jr.; 44-year-old Kenneth Rhoden; 38-year-old Gary Rhoden; 20-year-old Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden; 20-year-old Hannah Gilley; and 19-year-old Hanna Rhoden.It appeared some of the family members were killed as they slept, including Hanna Rhoden, who was in bed with her newborn baby nearby, authorities said. The baby was 4- or 5-days old, authorities said. The newborn, Hannah Gilley's 6-month-old baby, and one other small child were not hurt.Authorities said none of the injuries appeared self-inflicted. A search for the killer or killers continued Sunday, and investigators said they had interviewed more than 30 people.Robin Waddell, who owns the Big Bear Lake Family Resort just south of Piketon, said Christopher Rhoden often did work for him as a carpenter and helped out with his excavation business. He said Rhoden was a nice guy whose kids sometimes visited him while he was working."It's a large family," Waddell said. "There's a lot of them and they've been in this community for generations. So this is affecting a lot of people."Kendra Jordan, 20, said she often worked nights at a nursing home with Hanna Rhoden and described her as outgoing, funny and always smiling."If you were having a bad day, she'd be the first one to come up to you to question you about what was going on," Jordan said. "She was amazing."Todd Beekman, who owns an outdoors shop a few miles from the crime scenes, said at least one customer came in to stock up on ammunition after hearing about the shootings. But Beekman and others hanging out there midday Saturday said they weren't concerned for their own safety because it's an area where residents know and look out for each other."The word spread pretty fast, as it does in any rural area," Beekman said. "Everybody's kind of their own brother's keeper down here."Phil Fulton, the pastor of Union Hill Church up the road from where some of the victims were found, described the Rhoden family as close-knit and hardworking. He said they were previously part of his congregation, though not recently. He said a crisis resource team was at the church to work with the family."They're not doing well with this situation at all," Fulton said. "A tragic situation like this ..."The exact timing of the shootings remains unclear. Authorities got the first 911 call shortly before 8 a.m. Friday; the second came several hours later from another location.Two of the crime scenes are within walking distance of each other along a sparsely populated, winding road that leads into wooded hills from a rural highway. The third residence is more than a mile away, and the fourth home is on a different road, at least a 10-minute drive away, said the investigation's leader, Benjamin Suver of the state Bureau of Criminal Investigations.Authorities refused to discuss many details of the crime, including the search operations.Officials said a Cincinnati-area businessman put up a $25,000 reward for information leading to the capture and conviction of the killer or killers.Daughter of man in Georgia shootings said he was a 'ticking time bomb'Jonathan Landrum, Jr., THE ASSOCIATED PRESSFirst posted: Saturday, April 23, 2016 12:39 AM EDT | Updated: Sunday, April 24, 2016 12:23 AM EDTATLANTA -- The daughter of a northeast Georgia man suspected of shooting five people to death before killing himself says her father was a "ticking time bomb."Lauren Hawes told The Associated Press on Saturday that she, her mother Angela Dent and her 1-year-old daughter hid in a neighbour's house -- barely escaping with their lives -- while her father, Wayne Anthony Hawes, 50, went on a bloody rampage and killed five people, including her grandmother and cousin."He made threats before, but we never thought it would be at this capacity," Lauren Hawes said. "He's been kind of a ticking time bomb if you want to put in a few words."Capt. Andy Shedd of the Columbia County Sheriff's Office said in a statement that the Friday night shootings stemmed from a domestic dispute that left three men and two women dead at two separate locations within about a mile of each other. The body of shooting suspect Hawes was recovered Saturday by authorities in his home in Appling.Lauren Hawes, 26, confirmed that the bloodshed was connected to a domestic dispute between her parents: her mother had walked out on her father just a week ago. Angela Dent had left before -- but this time, she took her possessions with her to prevent Hawes from destroying them as he had done in the past.After Dent's departure, Wayne Hawes bottomed out emotionally."He's done things that were questionable in the past, but never to this extent. This is very surprising. We thought he could possibly hurt himself, but not others," said Lauren Hawes.The rampage began Friday evening, when sheriff deputies responded to a home at about 8 p.m. and found three victims. Authorities then were called to a second home nearby, where two other victims were found."We believe the two shootings were related based on witness accounts," Shedd said. When authorities reached Hawes' house and entered, they found him dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. They also found evidence that he attempted to set the house on fire.The victims were identified as Roosevelt Burns, 75; Rheba Mae Dent, 85; Trequila Clark, 31; Lizzy Williams, 59; and her husband Shelly Williams, 62. One of the female victims died on the way to the hospital, Shedd said. The others were dead at the scene."We believe some of the victims were related to the suspect's wife," Shedd said.Lauren Hawes said her parents had known each since they were teenagers, and had a common law marriage.Lauren Hawes said Rheba Mae Dent was her grandmother, and her cousin was Trequila Clark. She said her grandmother was retired and her cousin was a registered nurse, who graduated from Augusta State University in 2012. She said Roosevelt Burns was her grandmother's brother. She also said family knew the Williams family from church and while her dad wasn't much of a church-goer, he was neighbourhood friends with Shelly Williams.Ola Murry of Appling in northeast Georgia said the neighbourhood is still devastated by the events. Murray said she thought Hawes was a nice guy, but he made a "stupid" decision.She would see him around the neighbourhood and he would often say hello while passing by."I always thought he was a nice guy," Murray said. "I know he did what he did, but that doesn't make him a bad guy. You know, the devil gets into you sometimes and you do stupid stuff. You got to think. You always have to put the Lord in front of you, let him lead you and you won't go wrong."An investigation is ongoing.
MASON CITY, Iowa  MillerCoors President Gavin Hattersley recently awarded local beer distributor Vince and Anthony Lumetta with the MillerCoors Presidents Award.

The presentation was made at the annual Miller/Coors Distributor Convention held March 22-23 in New Orleans and attended by some 2,000 distributors from across the country.

The Presidents Award recognizes sales excellence by rewarding the top performing distributors from across the five MillerCoors sales regions, with a special trip for two to Vienna, Austria.

These distributors should be extremely proud of this well-deserved recognition, as they represent the absolute best in our business, said Hattersley. These teams not only understand, but have successfully executed the agenda and goals we have laid forth.

United Beverage, LLC. Of Mason City, managed by Craig Frana, was the top performing distributor of all distributors representing the 11-state Great Lakes Region for 2015.

We couldnt be happier, and this award is a true testament to the great staff in Mason City, said Vince Lumetta.

United Beverage Mason City was purchased in 2011 by the Lumettas, owners of United Beverage, Inc., in Waterloo, which they purchased in 1977.

The company employs over 100 people out of Waterloo, Mason City and Calmar, and distributes just under 2 million cases of its products annually throughout 23 counties in northeast Iowa.

Pictured:

Front left to right: Paul Hanson (MillerCoors Regional VP), Missy Voigts (United Mason City), Vince Lumetta, Anthony Lumetta, Jeff Kruger (United Calmar), Gaven Hattersley (MillerCoors President), Craig Frana (United LLC General Manager).

Back left to right: Jay Thompson (United Calmar), Jim King (United Mason City), Kevin Doyle (MillerCoors Senior VP Sales), Paul Kitelinger, (United Waterloo Sales Manager).
MASON CITY | Nearly 40 people gathered in the community room at Adas Israel Friday night for a Passover Seder to remember the Jewish people's journey from slavery to freedom.

"I'm full of joy that you are here," said Alan Steckman, president of the synagogue, at the beginning of the Seder.

Michael Libbie, spiritual leader of Adas Israel, explained the significance of the different aspects of the Seder ritual.

He said the four cups of wine  or grape juice for those who prefer it  that everyone drinks during the Seder symbolize the four blessings God promised the Jews in the book of Exodus.

Everyone was asked to pick up a sprig of parsley from their plate and dip it in salt water, which symbolizes tears.

Libbie said some people believe that matzah, or unleavened bread, is part of the Seder meal because the Jewish people had to leave Egypt in a hurry and didn't have time to wait for bread to rise.

However, he said the true significance of matzah is that the Egyptians fed it to the Jewish slaves because it is more filling than regular bread, meaning they didn't have to feed them as often.

"This is the bread of affliction," Libbie said.

Although it is not part of the original Haggadah, the book containing the Seder ritual, a cup of water is now sometimes placed on the table in honor of Miriam, Moses' sister.

Adas Israel follows this new ritual during the Seder. Libbie said Miriam's Cup also honors all the other women who "kept the Jewish people going" during their years of slavery in Egypt.

Zach Avila, one of those at the Seder, said Passover is about "the road to redemption."

He said it is "a time to look into the past" and "respect and honor those who came before us."

This is the first time in several years a Seder has been held at Adas Israel.

Libbie said the congregation had decided to discontinue the community Seder because it is a costly thing to to.

However, this year Libbie urged them to bring it back.

Jewish families have their own Seder meals in their homes during Passover, but a community Seder is special, according to Libbie.

He was pleased that a number of children were at the Seder.

"It's so important that kids experience it," he said.

People of all faiths were invited to Friday night's Seder at Adas Israel.

Traditionally the family Seder takes place on the first night of Passover while the community Seder is on the second night. However, the community Seder at Adas Israel was held on the first night of Passover.

"The people who come to this congregation really are family," Libbie said.

Passover this year began Friday evening, April 22, and will end Saturday evening, April 30.
KANAWHA  Tired of seeing the trash that had accumulated in a picnic area, in the ditches and other areas around East and West Lakes near Kanawha, Ryan Walk asked for help.

His request was made on Saturday night, April 9. By 11 a.m. Sunday, April 10, 26 people responded to clean up around the lakes.

It turned out to be pretty good for a pretty short notice and it being a random idea on a Saturday, Walk said.

Walk figures the group cleaned about seven to eight miles around the lakes. They filled a 16-foot-long, 8-foot-wide trailer thats a few feet deep with trash, Walk said.

It was a lot of junk, Mike Brooks said.

The volunteers picked up car tires, mufflers, dressers, mattresses and other garbage.

Brooks, Walk and their friends and acquaintances are avid users of the lakes.

I hunt and fish out there, Walk said.

On West Lake, a lot of us go out on Sunday mornings for breakfast, Brooks said. We fish, have a good time and chill.

Lots of locals also drive around the lake area to relax. Others fish in spots around the lakes including at a spillway.

Theres a picnic area on East Lake that is used frequently, Brooks and Walk said.

Theyve always seen some trash discarded in the area but this year it seems really bad, Walk said. I think spot had already been picked up this year.

Every time I drove around the lakes there was more and more garbage, Walk said. I got tired of looking at it.

Apparently a lot of people got tired of looking at the junk, Brooks said. It was heartwarming to see all our friends pull together, that we actually did it.

The group picked up items that were discarded many years ago but also some very recently dumped trash.

Its a shame, Walk said.

People can fall on hard times but there are better ways to save money than dumping garbage in a lake area or ditch, Brooks said, adding they can ask for some help.

Users of the lakes need to be responsible, Walk said. They can clean up after themselves and take away their garbage after fishing, hunting or a picnic, he added.

To dump it in the trees, shoreline, road or ditch, Its terrible. I dont understand it, Walk said.

He said the clean-up event could become an annual event. He has heard from people who couldnt make it on April 10 whod like to help in the future.

That shows how much people appreciate and use the lakes, he said.
MASON CITY  Theres been a Jewish congregation in Mason City for more than a century, reaching its peak in the mid- to late 1960s with dozens of families.

During high holidays at the local synagogue, Adas Israel, they would pack the place, said Michael Libbie, spiritual leader of Mason Citys Jewish congregation for the past 28 years.

Then a lot of those families moved away.

Theres practically no one left, said Alan Steckman, president of the congregation.

The same thing has happened in other places in Iowa. In 1979 there were 18 or 19 synagogues in the state. Now there are only a dozen left, mostly in larger cities.

Then theres Adas Israel.

Only 12 to 15 families from Mason City, Clear Lake, Charles City, Dows and other North Iowa communities currently attend services there.

Libbie, who lives in the Des Moines area, travels to Mason City once a month for services at Adas Israel.

He said three years ago the congregation considered closing the doors, but he argued that as long as theres one Jewish family left in Mason City, Adas Israel needs to remain open.

Adas Israel celebrates Passover with Seder MASON CITY | Nearly 40 people gathered in the community room at Adas Israel Friday night for

Its important for the congregation to exist so there is a Jewish presence in Mason City, Libbie said.

If there is no Jewish presence, there is a richness to the environment that is lost, he said.

Having a synagogue in Mason City also is important because if people know Jews, they are less likely to hate them, Libbie said.

If people dont have first-hand knowledge and experience, stereotyping can occur, whether it is of Jews, Muslims or Christians, he said.

The first Adas Israel synagogue in Mason City was built in 1912 at 621 S. Adams Ave. The current synagogue at 620 N. Adams Ave. was built in the early 1940s.

Despite the small size of the congregation now, Libbie sees signs of hope.

There are new people who come all the time, he said.

Bar mitzvahs have been held there in recent years. A baby-naming took place last month.

Theres a Sabbath eve service the third Friday of each month followed by a Midrash, or study session, the following morning.

Attendance at Midrash ranges from 10 to 25 people, both Jews and Christians.

Libbie said the Midrash brings together people from the entire range of the political spectrum  from right-wing evangelical Christians to left-wing Unitarians  to study the Torah, the first five books of the Bible.

All these people realize during the Midrash that they have more in common than they thought, according to Libbie.

He said the Torah, which he described as a guidebook to life, is based on something they all agree on: the moral treatment of each other.

Libbie said he would love to have people from the Muslim community in Mason City come to the Midrash.

He said he doesnt see any reason why Adas Israel cant keep going.

Some members of the congregation have put together a fund. Others have remembered Adas Israel in their wills.

Steckman said he would like to see Adas Israel also become a museum  somewhere people who are studying the Jewish faith, such as those taking college religion classes, can come to learn.

Steckman said it would have to be done in a way that allows the building to still be used as a synagogue.

Shawn Soifer of Charles City said it is important to keep the synagogue open for the next generation.

I can only tell my children so much, he said.

Soifer also said so much of what it means to be Jewish is felt rather than spoken, and the synagogue ties everything together.
MASON CITY  This years Leadership North Iowa class is raising money to help parents who have lost a child to miscarriage with the grieving process.

The goal is to build Lullaby Lane at Elmwood Cemetery in Mason City, a prayer pathway leading through Lullaby Land, the area of the cemetery where children are buried.

Parents who lost children to miscarriage under 20 weeks will have the option of having their childs name and date of loss engraved on a paver to be installed in the pathway.

It will allow them to have a place to come and remember their loss, said Dr. Jonna Quinn of the Mercy Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinic in Mason City.

Quinn is a member of the 2016 Leadership North Iowa class as well as the Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa Fetal and Infant Loss Bereavement Committee.

The leadership class, which is part of the Mason City Chamber of Commerce, provides leadership training for up-and-coming business people in North Iowa.

Each years class completes a community impact project.

When members of this years class were brainstorming ideas for a project, Quinn suggested Lullaby Lane.

Fetal loss and miscarriage is a tragedy that affects many people, according to Quinn.

Once a year cremains of children lost to miscarriage are buried in land owned by Mercy in Lullaby Land, with a single group marker with the year and a phrase such as Our Littlest Angels or Our Smallest Miracles.

However, these small markers dont have individual names on them.

Quinn said anyone who lost a child to miscarriage under 20 weeks will be allowed to have a paver engraved on Lullaby Lane, whether the childs cremains are buried in Lullaby Land or not.

Lullaby Lane will lead up to the headstone engraved with an angel and the words We Remember located in the middle of Lullaby Land.

Allyson Krull, marketing and leadership development director at the Mason City Chamber of Commerce, said the project was just announced but the organization has already received three calls from parents who lost a child to miscarriage and would like a paver engraved for the child.

She said this is great and sad all at the same time.

Organizers hope to have the money raised and Lullaby Lane built by October, which is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. A dedication ceremony will be held at that time.

I think its great, said Traci Koehn, a member of this years LNI class.

She said the project will be very impactful for the community.

Those who wish to donate to the Lullaby Lane project are encouraged to contact the Mercy Foundation at 641-428-7740.
MASON CITY | Prestage Farms considered Fort Dodge and Webster City as potential locations for building its $250-million hog plant, in addition to Mason City, officials say.

The Mason City Council will vote May 3 on a development agreement with the North Carolina-based pork company, which wants to build its first-ever pork slaughterhouse in southern Mason City.

The company was apparently looking at all three communities at about the same time in late 2015 or early 2016.

Prestage and North Iowa economic development officials said the company first contacted Mason City officials on Dec. 18, 2015.

Fort Dodge was approached by Prestage officials in January about the prospect of building a plant near that city, said Fort Dodge councilman Terry Moehnke.

Moehnke said Fort Dodge was interested in working with the company, but the two sides couldn't agree on the cost of building new infrastructure.

Running new water and sewer lines to the plant would have cost about $15 million.

In Mason City, usage fees will be used to cover payments on the $43.57 million the city will borrow to make upgrades to its water, wastewater and street infrastructure. Prestage will not be required to reimburse the city for the upgrades beyond the charges it pays for water and wastewater service.

The development agreement requires the company to pay at least $975,000 for water service each of the first two years, which would be during the first phase of the Prestage project.

Mason City Administrator Brent Trout says Prestage's water payments during Phase 1 exceed the cost of repaying the bond debt, which will be an estimated $791,000 annually those first two years.

When the plant moves into Phase 2 its annual water payment will double to $1.95 million, but it will also require additional, more expensive city infrastructure improvements.

At that point there will be about a $280,000 shortfall between city bond payments and revenues paid by Prestage. That difference will be paid with tax increment financing (TIF) revenues, Trout said.

When all the upgrades are complete, Mason City will have enough excess water system capacity  some 1.5 million gallons more than Prestage currently thinks it will use  for Prestage to expand or for another large corporation to locate in the city, Trout said.

In addition to the guaranteed water payments, Prestage will agree to pay the Mason City School District $1.4 million in charitable contributions over a 10-year period.

Prestage officials pledged the company will not build or operate any hog confinements within 2 miles of Mason City, the city of Clear Lake or Clear lake itself. The company also says it will not buy any hogs from facilities that operate within that buffer zone.

In Fort Dodge, officials did have concerns about housing and whether its schools, some of which are at capacity already, could handle the influx of people, but it was Prestage that decided the deal didn't work, said Moehnke, the Fort Dodge councilman.

"They made the decision that economically it wasn't going to be feasible for them to build here because of the cost," he said. "It wasn't that we closed the door on them."

A Prestage spokeswoman said it was the company's policy not to comment on cities it considered as possible sites for the plant.

However, she said Mason City stood out because of its easy access to transportation, its high quality of life and because most of the major utilities were in place. The area also has an independent hog supply big enough that it won't require building new confinements beyond historic growth rates.

Although Prestage wouldn't confirm, officials say it also explored the possibility of locating in Webster City.

Webster City Mayor John Hawkins said the company approached the city of approximately 8,000 residents earlier this year.

"Apparently, we were in the running," he said.
MASON CITY  Retired Major Gen. Gary Wattnem of Mason City says it still bothers him when he hears people say the U.S. lost the war in Vietnam.

Wattnem, who spent 35 years in the military, much of it helping to train young soldiers, served in Vietnam for about a year in 1970 and 1971.

They Served With Honor: North Iowa's Vietnam Veterans The Globe Gazette will publish 50 stories  starting on Veterans Day  about North Iowas Vietnam Veterans. The stories will appear on Sundays

I dont believe we lost the war. We never lost a battle. But politics didnt see it that way, he said, shaking his head. War is just politics by another means.

Wattnem grew up on a farm in eastern South Dakota and figured he would someday be a farmer himself.

He went to South Dakota State University where he received a bachelors degree in economics, but he also got involved in ROTC and received a commission as a second lieutenant in 1969.

That started him on a career that took him a long way from the farm fields of South Dakota.

In Vietnam, he served with the 71st Transportation Batallion at Long Binh.

When he and other soldiers were headed home from war in 1971, they received a directive in which they realized they would not receive a heros welcome.

In the 1960s and early 1970s the country was torn apart at the seams by the war. When we came home, we were told to change into civilian clothes before we left the San Francisco airport, he said.

Wattnem entered the active reserve in November 1971. He was a company commander in Waterloo, a signal officer in Ames and then was assigned to the 103rd Corps Support Command where he served as communications-electronics officer; executive officer, special troops battalion; plans officer; and movement control officer.

In 1987, he was named commander of the special troops battalion of the 103rd. In September 1993, he was selected chief of staff for the 19th Theater Army Area Command in Des Moines.

In June 1999, he was assigned to the Pentagon as the assistant deputy chief of staff for logistics. He retired in November 2003.

When he looks back on his days in Vietnam, he says, It was not enjoyable when I was there. But when I look back, I know it sort of shaped me.

I was watching leaders lead. I saw what it was like to have someone take you under his wing. I saw the value in it. We used to call it raising pups. And one day it was my turn, he said.

Wattnem has lived in Mason City for more than 40 years and says he couldnt have had the military career without the support of his wife and family, which includes two grown daughters and five grandchildren.

He also credits the support of his employer, Reichert Technologies, for whom he worked for 34 years before his retirement.

If there is a message he could impart from his days in Vietnam and later leading soldiers, he said it is this:

Never underestimate the ingenuity of the American GI. If there is a way of getting it done, well do it.
Several years ago Polymer Mining proposed creating an open-pit operation in northern Minnesota. From its initial concept the issue was made public. Supporters and objectors were immediately brought into the process and had ample time to consider the elements. There was no secrecy. They wanted the public to be a part of the whole process.

Our EDC first claimed they have been working on Prestage for two years. Then the city said they had first contact on Dec. 15th. That is even more incredible. That means if you extract all the holiday activities and other duties, they completed their evaluation in about two months. A friend of mine who works for a Fortune 100 company on acquisitions said it is inconceivable a community could vet an operation like Prestage that quickly.

And now under pressure, we see a bunch of carrots being dropped in front of the council. Suddenly, we have a promise of a buffer zone for confinements. Suddenly, we have a pledge of $1.4 million dollars to help the school system cope with the future challenges. And with what now looks like a series of bribes being offered, one can only wonder what else are they ready to offer to placate citizens to get them to back off.

If this is a reflection of their ethics and devotion to do what is right, why are they only offering these promises now? If this doesnt add enough doubt about Prestage, I dont believe the council will listen to anything.

As I heard one woman say, May God forgive them for the know not what they do, I just wondered if she was talking about Prestage or the City Council.

David Okerlund, Clear Lake
Sen. Chuck Grassley and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would have us believe that election-year Supreme Court confirmation votes have no modern precedent.

They refuse to confirm Presidents Obama's nominee for Supreme Court Justice because the president is in his final year of office and because their Republican Party "spoke" in the last midterm election when they gained control of the House and Senate.

By comparison, Justice Anthony Kennedy was confirmed in Ronald Reagan's final year in office even though Democrats had gained control of the Senate and maintained their majority in the House in the previous midterm election. Where was Grassley's and McConnell's outrage then? Not sure, but for sure they both voted for Kennedy's confirmation.

Voters have every right to question the wisdom of those votes, as Kennedy authored the majority ruling in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission allowing unlimited campaign election spending by individuals and corporations. We all know how that's turned out.

Call Sen. Grassley and ask him to end his obstructionism; his responsibility is to us, the voters, not to his political party.

Jane Close, New Hartford
PLEASANT HILL, Calif., April 24, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As summer weather kicks into gear, Pleasant Hill optometrist Looking Glass Optometry would like to remind clients that the sun can be particularly harsh and damaging to the eyes in summer. While California tends to be sunny year-round, summer conditions bring more intense sunlight and UV rays.

Prolonged exposure to bright sunlight can cause a number of vision risks and conditions. Looking Glass Optometry would like to inform residents about a range of solutions to help protect eyes from sunny California conditions. In addition to Pleasant Hill, Looking Glass Optometry serves clients in Walnut Creek, Lafayette and adjacent areas of the East Bay.

The sun provides us with vitamin D, which is required to support health and well-being. However, too much UV exposure from sunlight increases the risk of many types of eye disease. Cataracts, eye growths, and even eye cancer are all possibilities. Sunlight reflecting intensely off glass or metal surfaces can cause severe damage to eyes.

Eye growths, also called pterygium, are often found in the eyes of surfers, fishermen, farmers, or anyone who spends long hours in the sun without adequate protection from UV rays. While eye conditions like pterygium, cataracts and cancer can take some time to manifest, each time sun exposure is experienced without protection, more damage is done. The effects of the sun can have a cumulative effect over time and increase the risk of major eye and vision disorders.

One of the best ways to protect eyes from the damaging effects of the sun includes wearing sunglasses that offer UV protection. Other precautions might include wearing a hat with a brim while out in intense sunlight. However, one should never look directly into the sun even while wearing eye protection. Doing so can lead to solar retinopathy, or damage to the retina as a result of exposure to solar radiation.

California residents should also be aware that just because it is cloudy, that doesnt mean there is automatic protection. Sunlight can easily pass through thin to medium clouds and cause damage.

Dr. Eileen Cheng explains, The best defense against harsh summer UV rays is eyewear that offers UV protection. At Looking Glass Optometry, we offer a range of options to ensure our clients vision stays protected, even as they are making the most of summer.

Dr. Dong adds, Children and senior citizens should also be reminded about the risks of sun exposure, and be given assistance to ensure theyre protecting themselves accordingly.

Looking Glass Optometry is located in Suite #110 at 401 Gregory Lane in Pleasant Hill, California. Those who would like to learn more about the clinic and services offered may do so by visiting their website at http://lookingglassoptometry.com/. Those who wish to book an appointment may do so by calling (925) 687-7638.


CUMMING, Ga., April 24, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Watts Chiropractic Clinic of Cumming, GA, recently launched a campaign to raise awareness about the common connection between chronic shoulder pain and issues with the brachial plexus, which is a network of nerves that originates near the shoulder and neck. The practice's chiropractor, Dr. Forrest Watts, provides many chiropractic techniques that are useful in treating this kind of pain.



Orthospinology, in particular, is frequently used by the doctor and his team to correct spinal misalignments that commonly trigger these problems. "All too often, people walk around putting up with chronic shoulder pain and thinking that it's just a part of aging," said Dr. Watts. "That's especially true if the pain wasn't initially triggered by a car accident or other traumatic event. We encourage anyone who is suffering from chronic shoulder pain to stop by for an examination, because relief is available," he added.

Upper cervical misalignments are incredibly common, and they can trigger a variety of painful conditions. The C1-C2 vertebrae, which are located in the upper cervical spine, and C5-C6 vertebrae, which are located in middle of the neck and start the brachial plexus, are the most prone to misalignment. When misalignment occurs, weight distribution becomes uneven and support for the skull becomes off-balanced. In turn, the brachial plexus, which is made up of clusters of nerves in the cervical spine, may become pinched or subluxated. This phenomenon often refers pain to the shoulders.

"Patients are often confused when they suffer from shoulder pain for this very reason," said Dr. Watts. "When pain occurs in the shoulders, it's normal to assume that something happened to the shoulders. In reality, this type of pain is frequently caused by misalignments that affect the brachial plexus," he added. Watts Chiropractic Clinic specializes in many techniques that help to alleviate this condition, including auricular therapy, light force manual prone adjusting technique, and intersegmental traction. Perhaps the most commonly used technique is orthospinology, which tends to yield very favorable results.

Orthospinology involves carefully evaluating and examining a patient's posture through table exams, which may detect that one leg is longer than the other, for example. The upper cervical spine is also closely evaluated through X-rays to determine the precise degree of misalignment. Precise measurements are taken, and this allows the chiropractor to perform corrections with an incredible degree of precision. It also allows the doctor to use the least amount of force necessary, which makes this a very safe and effective option for anyone who is experiencing chronic shoulder pain or other issues. "We highly recommend orthospinology to those who suffer from this type of pain and encourage sufferers to schedule appointments," said the doctor.

Watts Chiropractic Clinic is located in Cumming, GA, and serves residents of Chestatee, Silver City, Buford, Dawsonville, Coal Mountain and surrounding areas. Appointments may be made by calling the practice at (770) 886-7070; more information can be found by visiting http://www.drforrestwatts.com/.
The Work-Life Balance of Mothers Who Attend Business SchoolBeing a mother is a job in itself and having to do your MBA as a mother is also a task in itself. If you are reading this, you may be a mother curious to know what it is like to go to business school whilst you are taking care of your children. Very few women can say they can afford children without having to worry about a day of work.The issue of mothers in business school is a critical one if business schools are going to reach their goal of increasing the number of women earning MBAs. According to a report by Forte Foundation, Female enrollment at business school hovers around 30% and a good number of schools are working to increase the number of women pursuing MBAs. About 35% of full-time graduate business programs and 22% of part-time programs have special outreach efforts to attract female applicants, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC). So what can you expect when you are mother and also a student?You will not have a lot of time and therefore ought to properly allocate your time. Sarri Kaganoff is an MBA Student at Chicago Booth and the co-chair of the Mothers at Booth student group. She was a portfolio manager for a trading firm in Israel and has plans to move into a consulting role. Moreover, she has two children. She devotes her mornings to classes, afternoons to her daughters, and evenings and Sundays to school work. When Ms. Kaganoff is asked about her experience, she says, Most of the men I know, my husband included, don't have as much of the need, or the guilt, that we have. It's important for me to be with my kids during the week. She also added that this allows her to focus on her children when she is with them.A babysitter is also quite necessary. Some women feel guilty when they hire a babysitter as they feel they are neglecting their child. Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau, an MBA graduate at London Business School this summer, wrote of the au pair she hired: Although you will feel sad and even jealous watching your children cuddle her when you head out the door for an early-morning class, your children will learn that more people than their parents find them lovable and fascinating and maddening. They will learn to be flexible and accommodate differences.However, John Beeson, blogging for Harvard Business Review said that a work-life balance is a myth. It is quite hard to imagine the ambitious mothers, currently devoting significant time and energy to their children and also their careers to be fully satisfied.You may also have a chance to bring your child to school as some business schools have taken measures to aid mothers and soon-to-be mothers. Whether it's a lactation room on campus for breast pumping or a club where mothers can meet to hash out parenting concerns, there is a growing demand for these types of offerings on business campuses such as Colombia University._________________
Harsh2111s wrote:

Quote: 2. The passage suggests that perceptual fit congruence would be most useful in determining which of the following?

A. whether a company ought to make its policies and goals more transparent

B. whether a company ought to provide sensitivity training for its management

C. whether a company ought to create more opportunities for interaction among workers

D. whether a company ought to address employee grievances more directly

E. whether a company ought to implement a more elaborate orientation program for new employees

carcass MentorTutoring SajjadAhmad lnm87



Option E says "whether a company ought to implement a more elaborate orientation program for new employees"

Now if there is more elaborate orientation for new employee, there will be a strong correspondence between the values that an employee perceives his company to have and the values that his co-workers perceive the company to have.



Option E looks better than A.



Kindly help. Option E says "whether a company ought to implement a more elaborate orientation program for new employees"Now if there is more elaborate orientation for new employee, there will be a strong correspondence between the values that an employee perceives his company to have and the values that his co-workers perceive the company to have.Option E looks better than A.Kindly help.

Harsh2111s

1. According to the passage, which of the following was a motivation in the creation of the system of value congruence?

minimize the liability

a desire to help companies to improve their internal harmony

increase

earning potential

a desire to foster awareness of factors influencing managerial success

eliminate discrepancies

2. The passage suggests that perceptual fit congruence would be most useful in determining which of the following?

whether a company ought to make its policies and goals more transparent

sensitivity training

whether a company ought to create more opportunities for interaction among workers

grievances

more directly

new employees

3. The primary focus of the passage is on which of the following?

Comparing

discredited theory

predicting

Illustrating a new approach to measuring employee satisfaction through a detailed analysis of a particular case .

Challenging

employee commitment

new paradigm

Promoting a new method of measuring the likelihood of corporate success by explaining its benefits

Defending

corporate analysis

examples

It's my pleasure that asked, although this is my first passage that too a 700+ level. Also, since Mentortutoring has answered, i don't know if my response is going to be any good.I'm glad that you asked me about the option E here which was i was able to eliminate so it's easy for me. But I will try to give my thoughts on all questions.Seeing that 700+ tag from made me get on my toes and i hate to see the tags because they affect my approach and my thought process.I was torn between two options in every questions. Each I have highlighted and red texts show red flags i.e. they are questionable parts of the option which must be answered clearly.A) a desire toof upper management for employee dissatisfaction - first 'liability' jumps out of the option - needs to be checked. Also, to say 'to minimize' is extreme.B)- first paragraph helps in this.C) a desire to allow employees totheir- This's one easiest to remove.D)- 'awareness' and 'influencing' are out of scope.E) a desire tobetween a companys goals and the values of its employees - its extreme to say 'eliminate' and 'discrepancies' is out of scope.I faulted in this one for the question is an inference and i opted a choice that was more specific in detail that i realised post attempt. Also, to answer this question we need to understand what is P-F, which we can find in the 2nd and 3rd para - more specifically the last line of the 2nd para is helpful.A.- Though 'transparent' initially looked out of scope but this option covers the scope of passage broadly.B. whether a company ought to providefor its management - 'sensitivity' is a different aspect more so that it is too specific in nature when we are just looking for broader company policies and employee perception in general.C.- well i can only say that 'creating more opportunities' is certainly one of the aspects that would help company bridge the gap between employees' perception and company's policies. It's a good option but better is available in the form of A.D. whether a company ought to address employee- 'grievances' and 'more directly' are questionable. First, 'grievances' is out of scope. Second, again, it's too specific.E. whether a company ought to implement a more elaborate orientation program forFirst, we don't know about who 'new employees' are - one year old, six months old or a week old.Second, do they have perception yet.Third, does their perception matter for the company yet.Fourth, this may be an outside knowledge but it helps, are new employees significant enough to weigh-in their perception.Again made a silly mistake.A.a new theory of corporate performance to aandthe usefulness of the new theory. - Nowhere the passage suggests to compare theories. What is that 'discredited theory'? 'Predicting' still is okay somewhat.B.- 'Illustrating' is fine. But since it's a primary purpose type question, 'particular case', although not discussed, can only cover a small part of the passage.C.an old view ofand suggesting that ais necessary. - What are these three.??D.- I was 90% sure that this was the answer but thought 'promoting' was done only in the last line of the 3rd para. So, rejected due to a miscalculation. But, overall, all that details in 2nd para and foundation laying in 1st para are for getting to know how Value Congruence could help companies.E.a proposed system ofthroughof its success. - Where are the examples?? There's nothing defensive in the passage and what is that 'analysis'.Good passage. I was able to understand it but got stuck in subtle things of the options.I still hope that this is helpful._________________
terp26 wrote:

anyone have any luck with this yet?

I'm currently trying to do this myself, as my volunteer service ends in May and 3 months seems a bit long to just chill out. I've also done a ton of traveling the past couple years which kind of rules that out though it is my backup plan. Company websites by themselves are basically useless. It's kind of a catch-22 because I think the main reason you could sell a company on yourself for a pre-MBA internship is if you were highly interested in a mid-MBA internship/post-MBA fulltime work there as well.....but most of the 'choice' companies (M/B/B for consultants etc) that youd want to do that for have already filled their slots.I remember my undergrad summers of 01 and 02 when internships had gone down, it was very much a 'just in time' market, where a lot of places wouldn't know how much funding they had for internships until April and therefore couldn't hire anyone until then. Persistence will pay off.
Discofreak wrote:

You might be in a pretty sticky situation if you pull out of an Early Action decision. I have a few years experience in undergraduate admission and generally the rule is that one must withdraw all other applications once accepted via EA. Schools generally hold the right to take action against you if you choose to go to a different school despite having been accepted EA. Schools tend to take EA decisions very seriously and depending on the program, they may view your more recent acceptance as a violation of their conduct/ethics code and revoke your acceptance. In such a case, you would no longer be welcome at either school. Tread lightly. If you signed an agreement with your first school you might be in a tough situation. An example of one early action statement is below. Notice the bold text.



From the Duke MBA website: *The Duke MBA Early Action option is ideal for applicants who have completed their MBA research and have decided that The Duke MBA is the best program for them. Applicants admitted in the Early Action round must submit the non-refundable $3,000 tuition deposit along with official transcript(s) by December 20, 2011. In addition, any applications submitted to other schools must be withdrawn upon an offer of admission from The Duke MBA.



From Columbia: Candidates have decided that Columbia is their first choice and must sign the following statement of commitment within their applications: I am committed to attending Columbia Business School and will withdraw all applications and decline all offers from other schools upon admission to Columbia Business School.

The Brain Dump - From Low GPA to Top MBA (Updated September 1, 2013) - A Few of My Favorite Things--> http://cheetarah1980.blogspot.com Signature Read More

Honestly, even with these statements there is little a school can do if a person decides to not attend. I personally know of someone who applied EA/ED, was accepted and chose to go to another school. Besides the lost deposit there haven't been any additional repercussions. While I wouldn't personally apply to a school EA if I wasn't going to abide by the conditions, I can understand how these situations arise._________________
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Yesterday was Earth Day, and while some New Yorkers chose to celebrate by going car-free, others took a more spiritual approach: as the New York Times details, a group of Franciscan friars, nuns, and local residents gathered at the Carroll Street Bridge to pray for a miracle, pouring holy water into the Gowanus Canal as part of the annual Blessing of the Gowanus.

It would take a whole lot more than a few bottles of blessed water to even begin to combat the filth that pervades the fetid, sewage-filled canal, which was designated a federal superfund site in 2010. But the insurmountable putridness of the Gowanus didn't deter those gathered.

"Maybe Jesus is the only one who can clean up this canal," lifelong Gowanus resident Margaret Vollaro told the Times. "Nobody else is doing it. None of the politicians are doing it."

It's true that the long-promised, $500 million cleanup is now looking like it might not begin for several more years. A key component of the cleanup is the construction of two large sewage-retention tanks, and the city recently announced that it will be abandoning an earlier plan to install the tanks under Thomas Greene Park, despite the fact that it already owns that land and could thus begin work sooner rather than later. Instead, the city will look to acquire privately owned property along the canal through eminent domain, a strategy that the owners of the land have warned could delay the process for at least four years.

"They say they're cleaning it up now, but not in our lifetimeI'm never going to see it," 80-year-old Rose Castellvetre told the Times.

Yesterday, City Council members Brad Lander and Stephen Levin, along with Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, and State Assembly Member Jo Anne Simon, issued a joint statement in support of this new plan, which will locate the tanks between Butler and Degraw Streets along the canal.

"This location avoids the permanent loss of parkland at nearby Thomas Greene Parkan important community hub for children and families, which was considered as a location for the larger tankand will actually allow us to increase open space in our community," they said. "The agreement provides strong protections, if problems arise in the acquisition of the proposed site. If the City should not meet specified timeframes for locating the retention tank on Nevins Street, the EPA can require the City to design a retention tank for construction at Thomas Greene Park."

There will be a public meeting on this latest update on Monday at 6:30 p.m., at PS 32 (317 Hoyt St at Union St). You can submit your comments (and prayers, if that's your thing) to Walter Mugdan at mugdan.walter@epa.gov.
A 24-year-old man survived after being shot 12 times in a flurry of gunfire in Crown Heights early Saturday morning.

Jonathan Adams and a friend were standing outside an apartment building near the intersection of Franklin and Union Streets when gunmen fired over 50 bullets at them around 2:15 a.m. yesterday. Adams was struck a dozen times in the lower abdomen and groin, but survived the attack and is recovering at Kings County Hospital the Daily News reports.

"Fifty-two bullets rang out. Thats a lot of shell casings and a lot of bullets, community activist Tony Herbert told the News. These kids are going after each other like theyre in Iraq. Herbert told the tabloid that the intersection where Adams was shot has seen heightened violence in recent months, with groups from Ebbets Field clashing with residents of Franklin Avenue.

Adams was rushed to Kings County Hospital in critical condition. His companion, a 33-year-old man, suffered a gunshot wound to the foot. Police said that no arrests have been made, and officers are searching for surveillance video captured on the block that may offer clues to the attackers' identities.

There is constant gang activity and drug activity on that street," a nearby resident neighbor told the News. "Every year this happens when the weather gets warmer, at night. The NYPD will put two cops there for a week or two, then pull them, and the violence will happen all over again. Last month, two teenagers were both non-fatally shot near the intersection of Franklin Avenue and President Street, one block from the scene of Adams's shooting.




BUTTE -- Mike Pollard has never lost his love for paintball and Airsoft games -- even in 2005, when 11 of his fellow Airsoft players were lying face down on the concrete, surrounded by police officers with their weapons drawn.

They called the SWAT team on us, Pollard said.

Pollard owned a paintball supply store at the time.

On the day in question, the young men had gathered at his store on Broadway Street to play Airsoft: a sport similar to paintball in which participants play militaristic games like Capture the Flag and Protect the VIP using plastic pellets.

That day they played Trouble in Terrorist Town.

For these players, however, their fantasies of hunting terrorists quickly took a turn for the worse.

The problem, Pollard said, was that residents mistook the players Airsoft rifles for real guns.

Concerned that a robbery was taking place at the jewelry store next door, residents called police, who subsequently sent a group of armed officers to take the would-be jewel thieves down.

"I hit the ground as fast as I could," Airsoft player DJ Clark told the Montana Standard at the time. "It was pretty scary. I was shaking for six hours after that."

No one was hurt, but Pollard and his friends learned a valuable lesson about the realistic nature of the guns with which they were playing.

Pollard eventually sold his paintball supply store due to a lack of customers. But now, the Butte native said, hes going in for a second round.

In March, Pollard opened the Copper City Airsoft arena.

In case youre not privy to the world of Airsoft, it just might be the most popular underground sport going on these days.

When a reporter visited Pollards arena last Saturday, about a dozen players were participating.

But according to Copper City Airsoft customer Jenson Manning, 22, there are thousands of players worldwide.

Manning said the sport has become increasingly popular in countries like Russia and China, where hundreds of players gather in large open spaces to play war simulators.

Last year, Manning added, he participated in a large-scale Airsoft event in Guernsey, Wyoming, which involved about 250 players.

And it appears there is a good market for this kind of activity in Montana, too.

Pollard said most of his customers are locals, but players have visited from places like Great Falls, Billings and Bozeman. He added that players often come decked out in their own gear and bring their own Airsoft guns, which can cost as much as $400.

Despite the marketability of the sport, one still has to wonder: why would Pollard want to open an Airsoft arena after the 2005 incident with local police?

Pollard said he got the harebrained idea last year after reflecting on what he sees as a lack of activities for youth in Butte.

Theres nothing to do for kids, said Pollard. Im tired of seeing them hanging out at the mall and getting into trouble.

But this harebrained idea also has been a long time coming for Pollard.

Hes been playing the sport since he was a teenager, and even managed to get his wife, Jennifer Pollard, to join in.

Mike and Jennifer were high school sweethearts, the couple said.

Like something out of American teenage fantasy, the two met at the mall where Mike -- who was working at The Land of Oz magic store at the time -- squirted disappearing ink on Jennifers shirt.

I was pissed, said Jennifer.

But Mikes tactic seemed to pay off. Eventually the couple started dating and got married in their 20s. Along the way Jennifer took up Airsoft and paintball.

Today, Copper City Airsoft offers a variety of games, including Disarm the Bomb and Capture the Flag. The arena has theme nights too, such as Ladies Night and Team Death Match, among others.

Participants must be at least 11 years old to play, but on Wednesdays kids under 11 can visit Copper City for Nerf-gun night.

At Copper City Airsoft, players are welcome to bring their own gear (aside from pellets, which cost $5 for 1,000 and $15 for 5,000) but can also rent guns and protective clothing for $15 to $40, depending on the duration. In addition, it costs $15 for two hours of play and $30 for an all-day pass.

When asked about what safety measures hes put in place, Pollard explained that he has a set of rules that every player must follow. They must cover their ears, mouth and eyes, Pollard said, and children 11 to 16 are required to wear a chest protector.

Other house rules include no verbal or physical fighting.

But the most important rule of all, Pollard said, is that guns must be kept inside the arena and players who bring their own must do so in a gun case. He said he implemented this rule to avoid another situation like the one that occurred in 2005.

The Pollards said so far their business is going well, but for them Copper City Airsoft is more than just an enterprise. The couple sees their arena as a way to get kids off the couch and teach them lessons about gun safety and cooperation.

Basically its a team environment, said Pollard. You learn team skills, team building and its on the honor system. Were not hounding you down if you dont call your hits.

Jennifer added that her favorite part of running the business is seeing kids who normally spend hours on the sofa get a bit of exercise and excitement.

I just like seeing their smiles, said Jennifer. I like to see that theyre having fun.

As for parents who have safety concerns about Airsoft, Pollard said every sport comes with a risk.

No sport or game is risk-free, Pollard said. But safety (in the arena) is our number one thing.
Martha Anne Walker (Marty), beloved wife, mother and best friend, following an extended illness, passed away at home on April 22, 2016 surrounded by her husband and children. She was born June 6, 1930 in Harlem (NYC) to Joseph Earl and Marguerite Massey, raised in Rye, N.Y. where she graduated from high school and subsequently attended the College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio. At Wooster she acquired her BA in Sociology and during her sophomore year met her husband to be, Giles, in a religion class. They graduated the morning of June 9, 1952 and were married in the college chapel that afternoon. Following a short honeymoon in Cooks National Forest, PA., they embarked for Peru where Giles had been hired as a geologist by the Cerro de Pasco Copper Corporation (later Cerro Corp.), an American firm headquartered in New York city with mines in the Peruvian Andes.

During their first contract, 1952 to 1955, they were initially assigned to the company's coal mine at Goyallarisquisga (13,700 ft. elev.) before being transferred to the San Cristobal mine living at Mahr Tunnel. They returned to the States in 1955 so that Giles (on leave of absence) could pursue his MS degree at the Univ. of Arizona (Tucson). Military service intervened, however, before they could return to Peru as Giles entered the USMCR officer program and they lived subsequently in Fredericksburg, V A and then Camp Pendleton, CA. Returning to Peru in January 1960, they initially lived in Morococha, Peru (14,500 ft) and finally La Oroya, Peru (12,200 ft).

The Peruvian years were marked by wonderful, enduring friendships developed with people from around the world who worked for Cerro. Many of these were survivors of WWII, both Allied and Axis sides, whose stories were spell bounding. These were also years in which Peru was being challenged politically by a strong communist ideological thrust as well as the desire to move from a dictatorship to an elected government. There were quiet times but also difficult periods in which Marty and her family were threatened by labor unrest. During one particularly bad period La Oroya and other Andean communities were cut off from the coast by communist activity requiring eventual relief and evacuation by the Peruvian Army.

She returned with her family to the States in 1967 when it became apparent that Cerro was to be nationalized. Marty returned to the University of Arizona and acquired her elementary teaching certificate. Giles accepted a job with AMAX Exploration, Inc. and they moved to Denver where Marty taught both sixth and first grades. They moved to Helena in June 1969 and Marty subsequently taught third and fifth grades at Rossiter School.

Marty, as a person, was always driven to better herself - she was always studying something. She became proficient in graphoanalysis, developed herself as a painter (major interest), attended Carroll College as a senior auditor and volunteered at her church, Plymouth Congregational. Upon being afflicted with Parkinsons disease, she was instrumental in reorganizing a Parkinsons Support Group which had foundered. Aside from everything else - she was a loving wife and mother who cherished her family and will be sorely missed by all of us.

She is survived by her husband and children Karen Hendricks (grandchildren Justin and Blair), Renee Laffey (Tom and grandsons Seamus and Connor) and Eric Walker (Vicki and granddaughter Meagan). She was preceded in death by her parents and daughter Deborah Jean who was born and died in La Oroya, Peru (January 20, 1954).

Memorial services will be held at Plymouth Congregational Church on April 29, 2016 at 11:00 a.m. with a reception to follow the service at the church. Interment will be in Forestvale Cemetery with family members only. Memorials should be directed to Frontier Home Health and Hospice, Plymouth Congregational Church or the American Parkinsons Disease Assoc. Please visit www.retzfuneralhome.com to offer a condolence to the family or to share a memory of Marty.
One of the basic tenets of journalism says those in our profession must support the open and civil exchange of views, even views they find repugnant."

That's according to the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics, and it means we at the Independent Record have an obligation to give an equal amount of attention to all viewpoints regardless of whether we agree with them or not. And that goes for news stories as well as the commentary that appears on our opinion page.

As part of an effort to broaden the range of opinions presented in our newspaper, we set out last year to find a pair of local political columnists who represent both the conservative and progressive points of view. Though we talked with several people in the community about this, we found that some of the most passionate local writers who were actually willing to commit to this labor of love were already working in our offices.

The two IR staffers who have been writing these weekly columns -- Leah Gilman and Landon Hemsley -- are not directly involved in the production of news stories. Nor are they members of the IR editorial board, which is responsible for the opinions that appear in the newspapers official editorials.

However, it seems that some confusion remains about the role of these two columnists; so allow us to set the record straight.

Though they happen to be employed by the newspaper, we do not treat Gilman and Hemsley any differently than any other columnist who contributes to the IR. While all of our columns are edited for things like spelling, accuracy and libel, columnists are typically allowed to freely express their opinions without interference from the newspapers editors or management, with some rare exceptions.

These columns often include verifiable facts, but theres a reason we label them as opinion. Unlike our news writers who are required to present all sides of the issues at hand, columnists typically include only the facts that support their point of view and omit those that dont, in an effort to sell their ideas to the reader.

Some of the columns in our paper -- most recently Hemsley's piece on NorthWestern Energy's new building in Butte -- are mistakenly believed to convey the opinion of the IR. In this case and all others, we assure you the opinions expressed by our columnists are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of this newspaper.

The opinions of our two political columnists often contradict with each other. Sometimes they even contradict our own editorials, which are clearly labeled "An IR View" and are the only place you will find the official stance of this newspaper.

But we aren't going to silence anyone just because we disagree. That's because an open exchange of views fosters a higher level of understanding in the end, and thats exactly what were here to do.
On April 21, I spoke to a group of Montana economic development professionals titled what happens when the media calls. It was within hours of reading the Independent Records highly critical and factually incorrect opinion piece about the use of a well-known economic development tool to reduce the overall cost of our new general office. A tool which allowed the building to remain in Uptown Butte, paying taxes and fees to support further local development, while lowering the cost to our customers.

The irony of the timing between this piece and my presentation was the fact that the author, digital project specialist Landon Hemsley, didnt contact anyone involved in this process before jumping to some unfortunate and incorrect assumptions.

First, we didnt decide to build a new building because we were outgrowing the old one. The complex at 40 E. Broadway (actually five buildings stitched together with a modular unit on top) was in need of substantial work to enhance mobility, access and structure concerns. And ultimately a new building was the preferred least cost/least risk option, and was the option supported by the community. The new building is smaller than the old one and much more energy efficient.

Thanks to an open and collaborative process with local and state officials we applied for, and were approved to receive, New Market Tax Credits that offset about $5 million in construction costs so that we could stay uptown.

Honestly, to call that very public process as dirty as the water in the Berkeley Pit is simply offensive to our employees and the local officials who made this possible. There was an amazing amount of communicating -- especially listening -- going on. The whole project felt like a community barn raising. Buttes Uptown is a treasure for all Montana. I know, because unlike Mr. Hemsley, I live and work there. Sadly, no matter what he thinks, it is blighted by vacant and dilapidated structures that dont generate enough tax revenues to support the area.

Heres another irony. Mr. Hemsley asserts the building isnt open to the public. Guess where that Montana economic development meeting I mentioned was being held? In the public space of that very building. A key requirement of the NMTC is the inclusion of public space. The building is busy, with our employees from around our service territory, and with a full calendar of community events (although, admittedly, not sporting events).

Both the Queen City and the Mining City have historic downtowns that have benefited from public-private partnerships, and both are concerned to keep anchor businesses in those downtowns. If youd like to see our new general office, were hosting another day of tours on Saturday, May, 21, with the farmers market right outside.

And there was the out-of-left field connection to solar panels, and although his description wasnt accurate, Ill leave that response for another day (weve talked about that a lot anyway) except to say that in both cases we have a responsibility to manage costs and provide good value for our customers.

Mr. Hemsley probably doesnt realize were the largest taxpayer in the state of Montana. On average about 13 percent of your total electric bill and 15 percent of your total gas bill goes to pay Montana property taxes. Any reduction to our overall tax bill benefits all customers. We wouldve been deservingly vilified had we not taken advantage of an available resource to keep costs as low as possible.

All these and other errors aside, my real frustration with this piece is because its my most recent example of what I perceive to be the self-inflicted destruction of the traditional media in general. Getting back to the substance of my aforementioned presentation, stories -- both news and opinion -- are increasingly being written by people that are not calling to gather information before hitting the publish button. I fear that its no longer a requirement of their job. The result is hours spent trying to set everything straight while knowing the damage is done. To read off-base opinions in once trusted news outlets that read like a Facebook rant is disheartening at best. Its not how I was trained as a journalist and it does not bode well for anyone.
In Montana, just about everybody has to play by some of the strictest campaign donation rules in the country.

Everyone, that is, except political parties, which can freely donate unlimited, potentially special interest-funded "personal services" to campaigns without triggering contribution limits -- a practice the Montana GOP and other conservative critics say amounts to little more than the legalized laundering of corporate donations that could otherwise land a candidate in court.

They fear the "loophole" that allows the practice is big enough to divert a flood of undisclosed cash into Montana political contests, and may have already left a mark on the governor's race.

That race has seen Republican newcomer Greg Gianforte swear off PAC funds of all stripes, including those that could be bundled by an outside group and legally passed along via the state GOP.

Meanwhile, campaign records suggest the Montana Democratic Party has spent thousands of PAC- and union-donated dollars on salaries for campaign staffers working on Gov. Steve Bullock's re-election campaign.

Those records show the party has, since January 2015, spent nearly twice as much on payroll expenses than it managed to raise from individual contributors.

That would seem to leave most of the party's salary payments, including those owed to Bullock's staffers, to be paid out of contributions from PACs and unions -- by far the party's biggest donors.

It would be illegal for Bullock or any other candidate to directly receive corporate and union donations. The fact the same cash can be legally accepted in unlimited quantities when passed by a PAC through a political party's bank account has not gone unnoticed by conservative political advocates.

Nor did it go unremarked upon during public comment on administrative rules that accompanied last year's passage of sweeping dark money legislation known as the Disclose Act.

Those rules -- drafted with help from two Bullock staffers and controversially finalized by a panel headed by a Bullock-appointed political regulator -- clamped down on contribution and reporting requirements applied to nonprofits and other membership groups, but left open the provision that has allowed the Democratic governor to benefit from uncapped donations provided by his political party.

Some state GOP officials and lawmakers suspect that wasn't a coincidence.

They predict there will be efforts to get to the bottom of the matter when the state Legislature meets early next year.

"You can bet during 2017 theres going to be a lot of bills to set some of this right, said state Sen. Dee Brown, R-Hungry Horse. "No matter what (the governors office) says on the second floor.

Party spending differs

Staff time disclosures filed by the Montana Democratic Party in March and April, the first ever filings submitted by a state political committee, do not disclose the original source of funds used to pay party-provided campaign staff.

They do show the party dispatched more than a dozen staffers to split up work on just about every state legislative or constitutional office up for grabs in Montana -- including 16 seats that will be handed to a Democrat who does not face an election opponent.

A roster of party-provided staffers deployed to undertake those efforts features Adam Schafer, who already appears on the Bullocks payroll as a senior adviser and director of public engagement. It also lists no fewer than three party staffers who worked for a pair of candidates that were dropped from the ballot for failing to file required campaign documents.

Bullock does not appear to have forgotten any paperwork. Five staffers who worked solely on his re-election bid -- Schafer, Nicolas Hart, James Young, Tina Olechowski and campaign manager Eric Hyers -- billed the party for more than $57,000 in salary and other benefits since January. That's roughly three-quarters of all party staff expenses disclosed over the same time period. It's also more than twice the cumulative total political committees are allowed to donate to gubernatorial candidates in cash.

Montana GOP spokesman Shane Scanlon blasted Bullock for engaging in deceptive practices to get his corporate and dark money into Montana." He said the state GOP uses a field team of staffers to conduct get-out-the-vote efforts, but has not dispatched employees to work for a specific candidate during this election cycle or in 2014.

Democratic party spokesman Jason Pitt suggested Gianforte also benefits from potentially PAC-backed services provided by the Montana GOP, which campaigns for the Bozeman millionaire.

That could help explain why Gianforte, who sold a tech firm he founded -- RightNow Technologies -- for $1.8 billion in 2012, has donated $14,000 to the states Republican committee since January 2015.

Gianforte campaign spokesman Aaron Flint didnt deny the party had stumped for his candidate, nor that Gianforte's donations to the state GOP could go to support his own and dozens of other Republican campaigns.

But he said he wouldn't put those donations on par with Bullocks decision to accept services from potentially PAC-funded campaign staffers.

As each campaign finance report has shown, Greg Gianforte is someone who won't be bought and paid for by special interests," Flint said.

State campaign filings show the Montana Democratic Party's top donor is the Democratic Governors Association, a political advocacy group that was headed by Bullock until late last year.

Records from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit that tracks political spending, show roughly 84 cents of every dollar bundled by that group in 2015 was collected from a small handful of the country's largest health care, pharmaceutical and energy companies. The rest was collected from union and trade organizations.

Individual contributions represented less than one-third of total funds donated to the state's Democratic committee over the same time period.

The Montana GOP also took in less than half of last years fundraising total from individuals.

Disclosure questions remain

Nancy Keenan, executive director of the Montana Democratic Party, said through a spokesman the party follows the law to elect Democrats up and down the ticket, no differently than the Republican Party works to elect Republicans."

That spokesman said the party does not accept corporate contributions, but did not directly answer a question about whether Bullock campaign staffers were paid with corporate or union funds relayed by a PAC.

He deferred questions about the law that permits that practice to Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl, the state's chief political regulator. Motl said the parties' right to donate unlimited services to a campaign without fear of contribution limits was protected by a "constitutional nuance" that had been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Motl, who personally agreed with that ruling, said the state had already closed all loopholes surrounding party-provided campaign services by forcing parties to report and disclose those services under the Disclose Act.

University of Montana law professor Anthony Johnstone, an expert in election law, also stopped short of calling the exception to the limit a loophole, but said state law doesn't answer every question raised about the full reporting of funds passed along to Montana campaigns.

Johnstone said many national political groups only report lump-sum payments to their affiliated state PACs, not the contributors behind those payments, something he said can obscure the original source of the funds.

Bullock campaign manager Hyers didn't directly comment on whether his salary, which is partially reimbursed by the governor, was underwritten by corporate funds.

A controversial 'tradition'

Controversy surrounding party-provided campaign services is not new in Montana.

Outcry over the "constitutional nuance" permitting such efforts dates back to at least 2008, when Bullock, then running for attorney general, was accused of failing to adequately report the value of work performed by a pair of former Democratic party staffers.

Four years later, then-Deputy Commissioner of Political Practices Jay Dufrechou issued a decision in the matter thats still under scrutiny today, writing that salary payments for party-provided services did not meet the state laws definition of an in-kind political contribution.

Former Commissioner of Political Practices Jim Murry, who recused himself from the case, later told the Independent Record he was concerned the ruling could open the door for unlimited spending on campaigns, routed through parties. However, he said state law gave his office no choice but to rule as it did.

The 2012 decision was cemented in a May 2014 advisory opinion from first-term commissioner and Bullock appointee Motl, who found cause to continue the tradition of allowing uncapped donations in the form of party-paid staff services, so long as those services are reported and disclosed.

A matter of value

Records filed since January show Bullock's campaign committee has reimbursed state Democrats for less than one-fourth of party-provided campaign services he's received since the start of the year.

It's hard to say how much of a dent those reimbursements have made in the total salary owed to Hyers, who said hes the only beneficiary of reimbursements Bullock has sent to the party.

A September 2015 agreement with the party signed by Bullocks camp and OKd by Motl puts the governor on the hook for 20 percent of Hyers undisclosed salary.

Pitt said the campaign managers compensation was determined by Keenan, who he said sets the partys salaries like executive directors at any other organization.

But it's not clear how she settled on the value of Hyers campaign services.

It took a Helena jury around four hours early this month to decide a similar question in a civil case brought by Motl against a Bozeman lawmaker accused of illegally underpaying for campaign services during his 2010 state Senate campaign.

That jury found Republican state Rep. Art Wittich liable for nearly $19,600 in unreported printing, consulting and other services provided by a network of conservative anti-union groups.

Wittich could face steep fines and removal from office at a sentencing hearing in June.

He wonders if the governor might one day find himself in a similar spot.

The Democrats love the current system, which they can skirt, while complaining about dark money, the three-term Republican said.

Maybe Steve (Bullock) and his campaign treasurer and manager ought to start saving up for six years, for when a jury determines the imputed value of Bullocks current activity, after the then (Commissioner of Political Practices) opines it was improper?

Brent Mead, executive director of the conservative Montana Policy Institute, struck a similar chord.

"This is the reality of the Disclose Act and other speech regulations, Mead said. Incumbent politicians and those in power are protected; however, private citizens and private nonprofit groups are subject to targeting and harassment."
SULLIVAN  Therese Kincaid has been a theater director for more than 30 years.

Kincaid, who has worked at Sullivan's Little Theatre-on the Square since 2011, says directing actors of various ages and productions is a challenge; a feat she describes as "a puzzle."

Everything Kincaid has learned over the years was tested this spring in preparing for the summer production of Shear Madness, a comedy murder mystery with an interactive element. It's not audience participation, Kincaid said. That freaks some people out.

Because of the show's unusual style, the director had to learn a different way of interacting with the actors, the audience and even the script. Kincaid would have to be trained again.

The play is set in a salon using more props and details than most plays, any of which can be used to solve the murder.

The cast will ask the audience questions in order to solve the murder. Because different answers will be given, the show will end differently with every performance.

The show is not a typical Little Theatre production, and the original producers want it that way. The play has been in production for more than 30 years. All details and mistakes have been done and perfected. Instead of making those mistakes on her own, Kincaid went to an experienced director to learn about the play. Bob Lohrmann is the Associate Director for the Kennedy Center's production of Shear Madness and has performed all four male parts in the show. For over 10 years, he has traveled throughout the world training directors for the play. When Kincaid had the opportunity to travel to Washington D.C. for training, she jumped at the chance.

The training is extremely complicated, she said. And the script is much larger than most productions.

In order to produce the play, the theater was given a long and detailed list of demands. Kincaid doesn't usually receive as much information to produce a play. Directors are only given a script and sheet music. Sometimes they will find the director's or author's intentions and suggestions.

During her training session for Shear Madness, Kincaid was given pages of prop suggestions often found in hair salons, such as beauty shop chairs, a working hair dryer and a Barbicide jar. That's (what is) fascinating about this training, when someone sends a list of exactly what you need, she said. I usually have to come up with that.

Kincaid is allowed to create a play slightly different than the original, but she learned to follow directions from the experts for an easier show. Experience taught us that unless people came and worked with me, big mistakes would be made, Lohrmann said. Those directors need to come and work with us directly.

Certain requirements are required to help the show run smoothly, including a working sink with running water, a salon stocked closet and a door with big hinges.

Kincaid was given many complicated details that have been tested throughout the years. For example, a certain brand of shaving cream works best for a scene, but must be handled carefully. Be sure you get red top Gillett foamy, because that's the best and cheapest, Kincaid said. And you put it in warm water. That detail helps us understand why it works better.

We have gone through every possible brand of shaving cream, Lohrmann said.

The training is designed to help the directors create a play that will work night after night. Because of the uncertainty of the audience responses, the cast must be prepared for all answers. The large script covers every possible scenario. You get to see what works and what doesn't, Lohrmann said. We know how to handle the differences.

The show is a partial improvisation performance. The actors follow a script, but it will change every day, depending on what's in the news. That's where the improvisation comes into play, Kincaid said. You have to think on your feet.

During her three days of training, Kincaid watched four performances and all rehearsals. Although her training was in a metropolitan city, she returned to Sullivan knowing the show will be a success in her theater. I know my audience better than he does, she said. We use references depending on who's there or what's in the news.

Kincaid also learned to count on a select group of actors. They know how complicated the show is, she said.

If Kincaid had began working on the play without training, she believes it would have worked out. But the attention to detail will make this a much better show, she said. Besides, why invent the wheel.
CARLTON, Wis.  The abrupt shutdown of the Kewaunee nuclear power plant in 2012 stunned local residents and created financial aftershocks that could cripple the community in northeastern Wisconsin for decades to come.

The decision by Virginia-based Dominion Resources Inc., the plant's owner, to close the plant because of poor energy market conditions came with little warning, said Ron Heuer, chairman of the Kewaunee County board of supervisors until he lost his re-election bid earlier this month.

"It came as a shock because Dominion had just finished costly renovations of the plant," Heuer said of one of the first U.S. reactors to permanently shut down since the late 1990s.

The loss of 650 jobs and the property tax dollars that helped cover local government and school expenses was a huge blow for the region, Heuer said.

"It wasn't just our county that got nailed by the closure," he said.

Dominion has agreed to restore the lost revenue to the city of Carlton and Kewaunee County in the short term while a court battle over the value of the shuttered plant plays out.

That's little comfort, Heuer said.

A win in court by Dominion could mean a much lower property value for the plant and a refund of the money from local taxpayers.

"It's a real mess going forward," said Heuer, adding he understands Dominion's position.

"From a business perspective, I'd be doing the same thing," he said.

Still, Heuer worries about how the electricity and jobs lost by the business decision will be replaced.

"Even with the introduction of wind, you still need a reliable base load. And I don't know any way of replacing the jobs. They were some of the highest-paying jobs in the county," Heuer said.

Richard Zuercher, manager of Dominion's nuclear fleet, said the changes in the energy landscape between the time the plant was purchased in 2007 and its closure seven years later was not something the company could have predicted.

The process of decommissioning the plant began in 2013, the same year Dominion received an extension of its operating license.

"We really regretted it and hated to make that decision. That was a very dependable power station, said Zuercher, adding that Dominion tried to assist workers with severance pay and jobs at other plants.

The majority of workers did not want to leave Wisconsin, he said.

Wisconsin utility laws left Dominion without the legislative options available to Exelon in Illinois, Zuercher noted.
Weve read and heard a lot about the exodus of people from Illinois to other locales.

Apparently, a lot of them are going to Naples, Fla.

After my column last week about the decline in median incomes in Macon and other counties, former Decatur Mayor Eric Brechnitz send me an electronic clipping last week of a column by Brent Batten, of the Naples Daily Sun.

Heres how Batten begins his column:

Chicago's loss is Collier County's gain.

For that matter, Illinois' loss is Florida's gain.

To save you the geography, Naples is located in Collier County, Fla. Batten goes on to explain how Collier County has benefited from the importation of people with a lot of disposable income, primarily from Illinois and New York. According to figures cited by Batten, the net income migration for the state of Florida between 2013 and 2014, the last year numbers are available, was a 2.42 percent increase. That leads the nation and only Nevada and South Carolina had increases of more than 1 percent.

In Collier County, he stated, taxpayer moving out of the county took about $669 million in income with them. Taxpayers moving in brought more than $2 billion in income. The net gain for the county was $1.382 billion and the average income of the new resident was $175,500. The analysis comes from analyzing tax returns of people who have moved.

Think about that for a minute. In one year, Collier County added more than $1 billion to its economy. And that boost came simply from people moving into the area.

While the increased income has a lot of advantages, Batten said, it also creates problems such as increasing the cost of housing and driving moderate income folks out of the market. From Illinois, those look like good problems to have.

In fact, the areas losing the most income to Collier County include Cook County. Illinois was second to Alaska among the states that lost the most income. Included in the top five were New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.

Those four states also have the highest combined burden of sales and income taxes, according to the Tax Foundation, a research group based in Washington, D.C., Batten says.

While Florida also has a weather advantage, it also features relatively low taxes. The state has no income tax and its sales tax rate is well below that of many states. The lure of low taxes is strong and folks are voting by moving van.

A political consultant that Batten quotes, Jim Petit, says part of the reason has to be taxes. The reasoning is pretty simple. People with the money to live where they choose will often select an area with lower taxes.

Heres how Batten ends his column:

Challenges come with high-end growth, like protecting the environment, keeping up with infrastructure and making sure there is adequate housing for workers.

But, Pettit believes, it beats the option facing states losing taxpayers to Florida. "It's a much better fiscal situation than so many other jurisdictions across the country which are struggling to maintain critical services on a shrinking tax base."

I dont know if Batten or Pettit have ever been to Illinois, or to Decatur. But they certainly have summed up our situation well.

Our local officials, especially, are in a difficult spot. Much of the tax problems in the state are the result of decisions by state government. Local governments, like Decatur, are confronted with crumbling infrastructure and resident expectations that services be maintained. If those problems are to be addressed, that requires either greater government efficiency or more tax revenues.

Many governments have selected additional tax revenues. But if that leads to more people taking their money and moving, it may not be a winning strategy.
To most Republicans, the three scariest words in the English language, after "Ruth Bader Ginsburg," are "Iran nuclear deal." The GOP presidential candidates are so intent on putting distance between them and it that you'd think the document was printed on radioactive paper.

"My No. 1 priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran," Donald Trump says. Ted Cruz promises, "On my first day in office, I will rip this catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal to shreds." Even John Kasich vows to "suspend" the agreement and bring back the sanctions that were dropped.

When the deal was reached, Republicans opposed it with a unanimity rarely seen outside the North Korean Politburo. It's safe to say that in all their presidential debates since the campaign began, not a single candidate has had anything good to say about it.

The GOP doesn't trust Barack Obama and doesn't trust the Iranians. So the idea that the two could jointly produce something valuable was beyond belief.

There was, in all fairness, a case to be made against the agreement. It didn't force Iran to scrap all its centrifuges; it relied on the hope that violations would be dealt with firmly; and most of the limits on Iran disappear after 15 years.

None of these objections, in my view, was convincing. But at this point, they're obsolete. The question is no longer whether the deal should have been done. It's whether it should be undone. Whether to enlist in the Army is a different question from whether to go AWOL during boot camp.

What would we lose from renouncing the deal? Just every concession Iran had to make and implement. So far, it has submitted to an outside inspection regime, scrapped some 12,000 centrifuges, shipped 98 percent of its nuclear fuel to Russia and wrecked a nuclear reactor. Without the deal, Iran would be free to evict the international monitors and resume the activities it was compelled to stop.

In exchange for those curbs, the Obama administration agreed to lift some economic sanctions and release some $100 billion in Iranian funds that had been frozen. The latter is what Trump had in mind when he charged, "We give them $150 billion, we get nothing." That's what Cruz was talking about last summer when he claimed the deal would make Obama "the world's leading financier of radical Islamic terrorism."

But we didn't give Iranians that money; it was theirs all along. Regaining access to it was one of the chief incentives for them to negotiate. In any case, they got their money. And it does not seem to have dawned on Trump or Cruz that they are not about to give it back.

For us to abandon the agreement would mean the Iranians would keep those funds but be released from their obligations. They'd get to keep the new car without making the payments.

The Republicans talk as though we control everything. But the deal was not just between Iran and the U.S.; it included China, Russia, France, Germany, Britain and the entire European Union. The other signatories might not be content to behave like potted plants. If we abandoned the accord, they'd blame us.

The U.S. could restore the old sanctions, which wouldn't have much force because we'd be alone. Even our European allies probably wouldn't follow suit -- to say nothing of the Chinese and Russians. More likely, they'd all rush to grab the business opportunities created by our absence. Good for Airbus and Lenovo; bad for Boeing and Apple.

The next president will retain the option of last resort in dealing with Iran: a pre-emptive attack on its nuclear sites. But that's not an inviting course of action. In the first place, it wouldn't stop the Iranians from undertaking a new and more determined effort -- this time in facilities less vulnerable to our missiles.

In the second place, we could expect retaliation, in the form of terrorist attacks on American targets at home and abroad and military attacks on U.S. naval vessels in the Persian Gulf, among other possibilities. We could expect, in short, another war in the Middle East whose duration and outcome we can't know.

At this point, reneging on the deal would be the worst of both worlds. Someone who has decided to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel may have made the wrong choice. But once you're in the water, climbing out of the barrel is no solution.
The Artsakh Ministry of Defense refutes a statement circulated today by the Azerbaijani defsne ministry claiming that early this morning that Armenian tanks approached the frontline and opened fire, followed by a ground offensive.

The Artsakh ministry says that this statement is merely a propaganda device by Azerbaijan to conceal its next military offensive.

The Artsakh ministry says that no Armenia tanks was destroyed and its crew killed, as claimed by Baku.
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Supporters of a $15 minimum wage in Wisconsin hold signs in Madison in November 2015 during a protest outside a McDonalds restaurant on Park Street.
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP)  Republican Gov. Susana Martinez is joining a civic group for a weeklong trip to the East Coast to promote New Mexico.

The governor's office said Martinez is traveling with the New Mexico Amigos to New York City and Charleston, South Carolina. She will return next Friday.

The New Mexico Amigos is made up of business, community and state leaders who travel to promote economic development, tourism and other opportunities in New Mexico.

The nonprofit group will pay for the governor's expenses while she's with the group.
Neil Fauerbachs family goes back six generations in Madison. His great-great-grandfather started the Fauerbach Brewery on the shores of Lake Monona in 1848.

He went to Edgewood High School, like his parents and their siblings.

I worked at my aunt and uncles grocery store, Fauerbach Foods, like many, many Madison business leaders, said Fauerbach, who is now director of business development and marketing for Smith & Gesteland, a large accounting firm in Madison. We developed a strong work ethic and an understanding of customer service. We learned the need to give back to the extent we can.

That giving back is a big part of his involvement in the Downtown Madison Rotary Club, the Wisconsin Center for Performance Excellence and the UW-Madison Family Business Center.

In addition, Fauerbach said, his parents were natural entertainers who had a talent for hospitality. All that shaped who he is: a professional recently inducted into the Association for Accounting Marketing Hall of Fame, named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the Accounting Industry by Accounting Today Magazine and recipient of one of Edgewood Colleges first Distinguished MBA Alumni Awards.

Q. Whats your best quality?

A. Curiosity. I love learning new things. I love technology. My friends call me Gadget Man. I taught myself video editing and have applied it for work and fun. (My wife) Marianne bought me a GoPro, but she wont let me buy a drone.

Q. Your professional success has been with accounting firms, but you arent an accountant. What have you been able to bring to those crazy accountants thats made you so successful?

A. Believe me, accountants can be creative, but what I think I have brought to my roles is a different way of looking at challenges. My background has been about finding ways to present a message about our capabilities, while also providing value to the audience. I have done many in-depth research studies that have been used to educate as well as market. One example is a study we did looking at what successful family businesses are doing to ensure transition from one generation to the next. A few years ago we did a study on why Wisconsin has not developed a strong venture capital culture.

Q. Tell me about the UW-Madison Family Business Center.

A. Smith & Gesteland was instrumental in starting the center. The partners approached the University of Wisconsin and asked that they start a center where family businesses can gather and learn. Now in its 20th year, the center provides world-class lectures for family business members and opportunities to network. I am on the advisory board for the center and have been active in helping recruit and retain members. It is a wonderful organization.

Q. What kinds of things have you done in marketing for Smith & Gesteland?

A. To help enhance our very strong family business practice, I started the Wisconsin Family Business of the Year Award program. This award recognizes the great things that family firms do throughout the state. The program is in its 13th year and has recognized some wonderful business leaders. I am very proud of this program. We are also known for our creative seminars. When Bad Things Happen to Good People, I Am From the Government and I Am Here to Help and Meltdown or Opportunity were some of the most popular seminars we have run.

And, these things have not gone unnoticed. Smith & Gesteland was named the No. 1 CPA firm in Madison the past 11 years in a row by the Executive Register members of In Business magazine.

Q. Accountants have a reputation for being kind of stodgy. How do you counteract that image?

A. In the role we play with clients, you cannot be stodgy. Our position as valued advisors to some pretty significant businesses in the state requires our partners to think big, be wise, and sometimes brave. I mean, you tell the client things they dont want to hear, but experience tells us they need to pay attention. I have a great deal of respect for my partners.

Q. What do you do for fun?

A. I love producing videos, relaxing at our familys lake home up north, kayaking, fly fishing, and watching the success of our children. Our oldest daughter, Colleen, was an ad executive on the East Coast and has turned her love of fashion and design into a career in hair and makeup in Washington, D.C. Our younger daughter, Erin, is a lawyer, also living in Washington, D.C., working on Capitol Hill for a U.S. senator. My wife, Marianne, is a retired Madison schoolteacher and is working with Edgewood College in the School of Education supervising student teachers.

Q. Accounting Today magazine named you one of the 100 Most Influential People in the Accounting Industry. Why?

A. I am a member of my professional association, the Association for Accounting Marketing. I was one of the early members of the organization and served on the board of directors, including a year as the president. We have raised the visibility of marketers in the industry. Accounting Today has recognized AAM as an important part of the accounting industry, and has recognized the president of the association as influential in the industry.

Q. Whats the best business decision youve ever made?

A. Definitely going back to get my MBA from Edgewood College. I started a student association and made some wonderful connections that continue to reap benefits today. After graduation, I was asked to serve on the board of trustees of the college. I chair the Finance, Audit and Investment committee, and I lead a capital campaign that raised funds to build a new residence hall on campus that will open this fall.
There couldnt have been a better opening weekend for the newest retail addition at the Hilldale Shopping Center.

With temperatures in the upper 70s, a sunny sky and lots of shoppers, the double doors of Pier South, located between Kate Spade New York and Home Market, were propped open to show off the colorful dresses, pastel mens shorts and collared shirts that seemed to be custom-ordered for the spectacular spring conditions.

The 1,600-square-foot, nautically themed clothing store includes a replica of the stern of a wooden Chris-Craft boat that doubles as the sales counter, a spacious dressing room and exclusive rights to sell clothing brands including Vineyard Vines, Southern Tide, Lauren Jones and Pete Millar in the Madison market.

But this being Wisconsin, the weather will undoubtedly change and at some point drop the temperature to below zero, freeze the lakes, cover the ground with snow and send some flocking to The North Face store nearby. Ben Scharpf, a Green Bay native and one of the co-owners of Pier South, is well aware of the states climate but is confident the store will be relevant to shoppers year round.

I think it will work because the coastal brands have moved in from the East Coast and from south to the north, Scharpf said. If you go the Vineyard Vine store in Chicago its a madhouse. The fun nature of the brands have caught on. I think theres great retailers that have been here a long time, but it feels different when you come in here.

The store, with seven employees and located on the shopping centers Main Street, is not a chain. Instead it is locally owned and was conceived by Scharpf, 52, and his wife, Barbara, 51, and their daughter Mary Scharpf, 24, and her fiance, Nick Atkin, 25.

Well definitely have a little bit of resort (wear) come winter. Its hard to find a dress in Madison if youre going on a winter vacation, Mary Scharpf said. The brands adapt very, very well.

The shop describes itself as selling upscale casual fashion for men, women, and children. Dresses range from $100 to $280 with some lines offering matching dresses for children. For men, polo shirts start at $80, button-down shirts range from $98 to $120 while shorts sell for between $70 and $85.

Ben Scharpf owned and operated a nursing uniform store on South Park Street from 1985 to 1993 and in 2001 bought Gressco Ltd., a library supply and furniture company in Waunakee. In 2011, he purchased Automation Arts, a Middleton-based audio-visual company. Scharpf is also on the board of directors and a major shareholder of Musicnotes, a Madison-based company founded in 1998 that has grown to become the worlds largest e-commerce retailer of sheet music.

Mary Scharpf, a Middleton High School graduate who studied makeup design in Manhattan, has retail experience at White House Black Market when it was Greenway Station and Sephora at West Towne.

My grandparents had a condo down in Florida and we grew up going there and I just fell in love with the clothes, Mary Scharpf said. Bright colors have always kind of been my thing, and its always been hard for me to find anything that has any color and life to it in Madison.

The store adds to the mix of more than 50 national and local retail outlets at the 675,000 square-foot shopping center that has undergone a transformation over the last decade. Just over a year ago, an open-air corridor running east to west was unveiled after nine months and $15 million worth of renovation. And there are plans to someday add a similar corridor to the south end of the shopping center.

Pier South is located in part of the latest renovated section of the shopping center and includes mahogany display tables, lighting that was created to look like it came off a submarine and a two-stall dressing room with thick carpeting that covers 250 square feet. The $500,000 build-out, which includes the partial boat built at The Boat House of Madison, began in February. Construction workers completed the finishing touches on the store 30 minutes before opening on April 15.

I think our investment could have been less, but it would have showed, Ben Scharpf said. We wanted it to be something we felt proud about.

Wine walk in Middleton: In an effort to promote downtown businesses and raise money for Domestic Abuse Intervention Services, the Downtown Middleton Business Association will host a spring wine walk from 5-8 p.m. on May 5.

Guests will begin at BMO Harris Bank, 7447 University Ave., where they will be given a wine glass and wristband. There is no set route, but those taking part can visit one of 14 downtown businesses. Wine from around the world as well as Wisconsin will be poured in one-ounce samples. Tickets are $25 each. For more information contact the DMBA at 608-836-5559.

Wisconsin Main Streets recognized: The Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. has recognized the best downtown revitalization projects of 2015.

Those receiving recognition in southern Wisconsin include:

Honorable mention for Marilyns clothing store in Darlington for a front display.

Beloit International Film Festival for best special event.

A business decal and token program in Viroqua, with an honorable mention for best cooperative marketing campaign.

A program promoting Princeton won best downtown development success story in a community with less than 5,500 in population.

The 2015 Walk Down Main in Platteville won honorable mention for best creative fundraising effort.

Wisconsin has 34 communities that participate in the Main Street program that was founded in 1987 as a way to revitalize and promote historic downtowns. Since its inception the program has been used in more than 60 communities around the state.
Wisconsin has a business startup problem. Despite the buzz in Madison and a few other communities, there are far too many places in the state where entrepreneurship is still just a fancy word versus economic action.

The reasons are somewhat easily explained: manufacturing and agriculture are capital-intensive and therefore not always startup-friendly; the labor force is slightly older and less educated than the U.S. average; rural Wisconsin is barely recovered from the Great Recession; and a low immigration rate works against Wisconsin because newcomers are more likely to start a business than native-born Americans.

While Wisconsin has a much higher business survival rate than the national average, and it has recorded steady progress in the subset of tech-based startups, the overall startup count remains low.

How low? The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation reported in 2015 that Wisconsin was dead last among the 50 states in its startup rate per capita. Yes, thats behind Mississippi, West Virginia, South Dakota and a few other places that many people would see as less vibrant overall than Wisconsin.

One might quibble over the methodology of such reports, but few experts would dispute Wisconsin is in the bottom third of the 50 states in startups no matter how the numbers are sliced.

We need to own that fact while continuing to chip away at both the perception and the reality.

With a growing number of resources for emerging companies in place, both at the state, academic and private level, Wisconsin is poised to do better. Increasingly, in communities such as Madison, the Milwaukee area, the Fox Valley and parts of western Wisconsin, there are events, networks and support systems in place.

There are also more investment dollars available, as recent reports by the Wisconsin Technology Council and others have charted.

In the first quarter of 2016 alone, there were nearly 30 angel and venture capital deals reported, with a total value of about $50 million.

Thats much less than the nations leading venture capital states, which include Michigan, Minnesota and Illinois, but well ahead of about two-dozen states where the venture economy is almost nonexistent.

Wisconsin can become a better business startup state. Most of the hard work must be done within the states borders by leveraging public, private and academic resources. But theres also much to be learned by asking experts with a national perspective.

That will happen in the coming months with a pair of forums involving the Kauffman Foundation, which is often cited as the nations leading source of information, best practices and more on the entrepreneurial economy.

It will begin at the Wisconsin Entrepreneurs Conference, June 7-8 in Madison, when Kauffman experts will describe what theyre seeing nationally to a crowd of entrepreneurs, investors and others. Its important to note the Badger State is not alone in confronting the problem: Research indicates the number of new firms each year has been declining nationally for decades, and the drop accelerated during the recession that began in 2008.

Still, the Kauffman Foundation believes, there may be a turnaround in the works. Despite this gloomy picture, there is reason to believe that we are about to enter a future with robust economic growth led by entrepreneurs, wrote Wendy Guillies, Kauffmans president and CEO in an April column.

She cited five factors that could increase chances for success: Adapt existing regulations to the new economy, reduce the opportunity cost for entrepreneurial experimentation, increase the labor market supply and velocity, decrease incumbent bias to support entrepreneurial entry and competition, and more data and research on entrepreneurship.

The discussion will continue June 9 at a summit on entrepreneurship spurred by Madison Mayor Paul Soglin, the Madison Region Economic Partnership, the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce and the Tech Council.

A mixed audience including Wisconsin municipal leaders will be invited for a closer look at what works.

By looking closer at ourselves and inviting others to do the same, Wisconsin can create the conditions that will make its startup and scale-up economy more vibrant.

Lets not just lament 50th but act on it.
Q Is it illegal to text when stopped at a red light in the state of Wisconsin? Can a driver be cited even though they arent technically driving?

AEach state has its own set of rules regarding texting while operating a vehicle versus texting while the vehicle is at rest. The State of Wisconsin is one of the states in which it is legal for a driver to text while stopped.

Capt. Richard Bach, who heads the Madison Police Departments traffic unit, says that state statute says drivers can text while at a red light.

Bach also said, however, that the police department does not embrace the practice.

An outgoing text is likely to prompt a response, Bach said. Which could lead to the driver wanting to look at the phone again while the vehicle is now moving.

So while texting at a red light isnt illegal in Wisconsin, its not encouraged by law enforcement.

Wisconsin banned texting and driving in 2010 and was the 25th state to do so.

Send questions to: justaskus@madison.com; Just Ask Us, P.O. Box 8058, Madison, WI 53708.
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And I thought UW-Madison only bent over backwards to protect tenured faculty from the indignities of the unemployment line.

Apparently though, you dont have to be a professor, tenured or under contract to commit some truly skeezy work-related behavior and still have a job.

Tori Richardson continues to work with students in the College of Letters and Science three years after he reached out to help a student whose mother had just been killed by a drunken driver.

This might be considered one of those random acts of kindness if Richardson hadnt recently struck up a friendship with the driver, former Lutheran bishop Bruce Burnside, or been texting with him shortly before the crash. Letting the student, Megan Mengelt, know of his relationship with Burnside might have been a good idea, too.

Richardson says in a deposition in a civil case the Mengelts filed against Burnside and others that his intent was to see how Mengelt was coping. But its hard not to suspect his intentions also included gathering information about what role police believed his texts played in the crash and assuaging his own guilt over that role.

Richardson appears to have worked for the university since at least 2008 and has whats called a limited appointment. He was suspended without pay for 30 days last year after the university found out about some of his behavior with Mengelt, which is detailed in a lawsuit she filed against him on April 5.

Somewhat amazingly, UW-Madison spokesman John Lucas told this newspaper that Richardsons actions were within his job duties and that the suspension was for not meeting the universitys professional standards.

Richardson appears to have gotten permission from his supervisor, Christopher Lee, to contact Mengelt  albeit without also letting Lee know hed been texting Burnside before the crash. It remains unclear to me why a counselor who specializes in academic, as opposed to emotional, counseling would have asked to make contact in the first place, and why his supervisor would agree.

Lee declined to comment and Lucas wouldnt describe the standards Richardson violated or explain whether its common for academic counselors to reach out to students experiencing emotional turmoil.

As a result of the lawsuit that has been filed against Mr. Richardson, it is appropriate that additional facts come out through that process, and so we are not able to comment further at this time, Lucas said.

Students who are suffering the sudden loss of a loved one have access to counseling through University Health Services, although even its counselors dont go as far as Richardson did.

In a statement, UHS director of counseling and consultation services Danielle Oakley said: It is not UHS policy to reach out to students when they experience a death in the family. Many students have their own services available, and counseling may not be viewed as culturally appropriate, as a student may find that intrusive.

Richardsons case was another piece of bad news last week for the university. There was also a protest march and other fallout from the campus police arrest of student Denzel McDonald, who is accused of spray-painting messages such as Racizm in the air. Dont breathe and The devil is a white man on campus buildings.

Presumably, the graffiti was in response to a handful of racist incidents on campus and the feeling among some students that the campus is not otherwise welcoming to minorities.

All Richardsons and McDonalds cases have in common is that both are appearing in the current local news cycle.

Thats unfortunate for UW-Madison.

It doesnt look good for the states foremost institution of learning to be cracking down on one student while continuing to employ a staffer who deceived another.
After years of disheartening failures, Democrats insist 2016 is the year the tide turns in the state Capitol.

Democrats have been relegated to the statehouse sidelines since the 2010 elections, when Gov. Scott Walker was first elected.

Republicans also captured both houses of the Legislature in that election  and havent looked back since. Republicans now hold a 19-14 edge in the state Senate, and their biggest Assembly majority, 63-36, since the Eisenhower administration.

The legislative majorities were what enabled the enactment of Walkers sweeping agenda: to curtail collective bargaining, partially repeal the prevailing wage, freeze property taxes and college tuition, slash college and university funding, and send more money to private voucher schools.

As lawmakers turn toward campaigning, Democrats see a chance to roll back those legislative majorities this fall. They envision two statewide, top-of-ticket races  the presidential and U.S. Senate contests  playing out in their favor. They also expect to benefit from what they describe as voter unrest with the states economy and the unpopularity of Walkers agenda.

I think its a combination of another favorable political environment for Democrats and the cumulative effect of the overreach weve seen from Republicans in the last six years, said Democratic strategist Joe Zepecki. (Voters) are seeing a Republican caucus focus on things that dont affect their lives  whether its voter ID, whether its (about) John Doe investigations, whether its open records. All of these things are kind of what happens when you have one-party control for a long time.

But Republicans rightly say theyve heard this story before. Democrats vowed to roll back GOP legislative influence in the 2011 recalls and the 2012 and 2014 general elections, yet Republicans now wield more statehouse clout than they have in decades. They also adopted legislative district boundaries in 2011 that have greatly aided their quest to retain control of the Legislature.

Assembly Republicans faced a similar headwind in the 2012 election, when Democratic President Barack Obama carried the state and Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin won statewide. Yet the GOP retained the same Assembly majority they had going into the election, 60 seats.

Assembly Republicans have had a track record of winning in tough  and better  environments, because we have candidates who know that its all about local connections, said Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester.

A key unanswered question in this election is who the Republican presidential nominee will be.

If its front-runner Donald Trump, GOP leaders admit it could hurt other Republicans on the ticket.

The big challenge for this cycle is, you just dont know what effect the top of the ticket will have on down, said Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau.

Senate will be battleground

Democratic leaders in the Senate and Assembly, optimistic as they are, wont predict their party will regain control of either chamber this fall.

The Senate, where Republicans have a 19-14 majority, is where Democrats have the better shot at regaining control.

Democratic Leader Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, highlighted three seats as pickup opportunities for her party: Senate District 18, an open seat; Senate District 12, now represented by Tom Tiffany, R-Hazelhurst, and Senate District 10, represented by Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls.

Democrats would need to win all three to wrest control of the Senate  something Shilling isnt willing to pledge.

I always like to under-promise and over-deliver, Shilling said. This is a several-election-term plan that we want to implement.

Republican strategist Brian Fraley said if Trump is atop the ticket, Senate Democrats could see that as an opportunity to secure a majority.

But a wrench in that plan could be Shillings own re-election, he said. Former GOP Sen. Dan Kapanke of La Crosse is challenging Shilling.

Hes by far the best candidate that the Republicans could have recruited, said Fraley of Kapanke, a businessman who represented most of the area until he was defeated in a 2011 recall by Shilling. At the very least, its going to force Jennifer Shilling to spend more time worrying about her own re-election and less time focusing on helping the members of her caucus.

Part of the Democrats strategy includes getting Winnebago County Executive Mark Harris elected to the 18th District seat being vacated by outgoing Sen. Rick Gudex, R-Fond du Lac. The GOP candidates are activist Daniel Feyen and pastor and small business owner Mark Elliott, who will square off in the August primary.

The specter of Harris candidacy prompted Fitzgerald to push a bill that prohibits county executives from also serving in the state Legislature  which would force Harris to resign from his county post should he prevail in November.

A number of lawmakers  including some Republicans  characterized the bill as being driven by politics.

I think it was a good candidate recruitment on their level, and I think the bill that seemed to specifically target him was an unforced error on the part of Republicans. But the Republicans have a competitive primary there as well, Fraley said.

Trump factor

could play role

Assembly Democratic Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, acknowledges its unlikely Democrats could gain control of the Assembly in the 2016 election. But Barca said hes confident Democrats will make significant inroads.

Fraley agreed, saying it would not be shocking to see them cut a few seats down.

Barcas targeted districts are mostly clustered in western Wisconsin, west of Madison or near Eau Claire.

The 8th U.S. Congressional District race could have an impact on some of the races down ticket, Fraley said. The incumbent, Reid Ribble, isnt seeking re-election and the district can be competitive, though it leans slightly Republican.

GOP candidates for the seat include state Sen. Frank Lasee, R-De Pere, former U.S. Marine Corps Captain Mike Gallagher and Terry McNulty of Forestville. Among Democrats, Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson has announced his candidacy.

Whether its coattails or overshadowing the candidates ability to get messages out, you might see a Republican lose with Trump at the top of the ticket and a very competitive 8th Congressional race soaking up the resources, said Fraley.

Then theres the possibility of a Trump factor. The GOP front-runner is deeply unpopular in Wisconsin, with 70 percent viewing him unfavorably in the most recent Marquette Law School Poll.

Asked if Trump as the GOP nominee could hurt the partys chances down-ballot, Vos said it definitely could in statewide races.

But Vos  who endorsed U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz for president last month, after initially backing U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio  said the Trump drag may not translate to legislative races because so many Democratic voters are packed into urban districts in Madison, Milwaukee, Racine and Green Bay.

Western Wisconsin was among Trumps few strongholds in the states April 5 GOP primary. That region also is home to many of the legislative districts that could be in play this fall, Vos noted.

There are significant chunks of Wisconsin where Donald Trump and his message of being an outsider resonates pretty well, Vos said.
District Magistrate Chandrashekhar Singh said the fire blazed in Khaparpura, Kolhanda, Patori and Ramtol villages under Hanuman Nagar block, and the houses, mostly thatched structures, were totally destroyed.

One of the houses gutted in the fire. Photo: ANI

By India Today Web Desk: A fire in Bihar's Darbhanga district today left over 700 houses gutted, two elderly persons dead and several others injured.

District Magistrate Chandrashekhar Singh said the fire blazed in Khaparpura, Kolhanda, Patori and Ramtol villages under Hanuman Nagar block, and the houses, mostly thatched structures, were totally destroyed.

Two elderly persons, Suresh Chaudhary and Parvati Devi succumbed to heart attack apparently unable to bear loss of their property in the fire, he said adding, seven others sustained injuries.

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About half a dozen cattle were also charred to death, Singh said adding, he along with relief and rescue teams were camping at the affected villages.

Food packets were being distributed among the affected people, while damage to properties was assessed for distribution of ex-gratia among them, the DM said.

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The violence was so widespread that it took the police nearly two hours to defuse the situation at different spots of the campus.

By Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu: Nearly 28000 student records may have been gutted in fire as a result of violence which erupted in the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) campus late Saturday night following a clash between two regional student groups, killing two former students. Police is scanning through the CCTV records to identify 100 students who participated in arson and firing.

AMU campus today was swarmed by the Uttar Pradesh police, Rapid Action Force, among others, following the incident.

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What is worse is that the proctor's office building was gutted, resulting in damage of student records. Close to 28000 records were housed in the office. However, sources say, AMU will begin to retrieve some of the files from their computer back up.

The violence was so widespread that it took the police nearly two hours to defuse the situation at different spots of the campus. The rampaging students also set a jeep and over half-a-dozen bikes on fire.

"Yes we are cooperating with police. The students were former students," said AMU spokesperson Rahat Abrar.

Meanwhile, B.Tech and B.Arch admissions were conducted at 39 examination centres for which more than 17000 candidates appeared amid tight security.

"I have come from Ghaziabad and I have no idea what happened.. but I want admission for my son here. AMU has a reputation and has been helpful so far," said an applicants father Raj Kumar.

AMU Vice Chancellor took stock of the situation by holding meetings with deans, wardens and university officials in the backdrop of student violence on campus.

For the vasrsity, it's not just the documents, their reputation too is at stake.

ALSO READ

2 killed in clashes at Aligarh Muslim University, proctor's office set ablaze



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A couple separated for 16 years, patched up all because of the Bihar CM Nitish Kumar's decision to ban alcohol in the state.

In this wedding season, it's a marriage rather a re-mariage but 'zara hatke'.

A couple separated for 16 years, patched up all because of the Bihar CM Nitish Kumar. Vijanti Devi, 50, parted ways from her husband Govind Singh in 2003 after she found it got intolerable for her to stay with him due to his drinking habit. Vijanti was subjected to repeated beatings and other forms of domestic violence due to Singh's drinking habits.

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"I was subjected to domestic violence daily because of my husband's drinking habits, when it was impossible to take any more, I separated from him," said Vijanti.

A resident of Bihar's Rohtas district Govind Singh, 58, got a chance to reunite with his wife after the recent prohibition imposed in the state by the Bihar CM. Vijanti Devi, who did not speak to Singh over the past 16 years however, decided to give Singh a second chance after prohibition helped him stay away from booze.

The couple decided to re-marry after their daughter Guddi convinced her mother. Guddi was only an year old when her mother separated from Singh. The re-marriage of Vijanti and Govind took place on April 18 in Rohtas's Mohhaddiganj. The couple also got printed a proper wedding invite to call near and dear ones for the re-union.

Vijayanti said " I was fed up with my husband's drinking habits. I separated from him because of his drinking. After prohibition there is hope once again that he won't drink. I thank Nitish Kumar for this".

The couple's elated daughter Guddi said, "Usually it's the parents who distribute wedding invite of their children but its vice versa for me."

Viyanti and Govind's re-union is perhaps one of the few success story of Nitish Kumar's recently imposed prohibition in the state. Data also indicate that post the imposition of prohibition in the state, crime graph has declined.

Perhaps, without booze, there is still something to raise a toast to and say cheers !!!

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BJP has reorganised the party structure from the bottom up, it has also relaxed the membership norms for Dalit, backward classes and women in Uttar Pradesh.

Senior BJP leaders have asked party activists to reach out to the villages in UP under the 'Gram Uday Se Bharat Uday' programme.

By Siddhartha Rai, Rajat Rai: In line with its recent push to attract the Dalit and backward classes by trying to appropriate icons such as Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is going the extra mile to woo these sections of voters in Uttar Pradesh.

While the BJP has reorganised the party structure from the bottom up, it has also relaxed the membership norms for them, especially for women.

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The 2017 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, considered by many as the semifinals for the BJP before the 2019 general elections, have assumed significance for the party as its performance in the last few polls have been dismal and a loss in the state would come in the aftermath of the drubbing in the Bihar polls.

Dalits and backward castes have not been the traditional stronghold of the BJP in UP. Dalits have cast their lot with Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati while the backward castes had left the BJP fold after the downfall of Kalyan Singh.

The BJP had gained a lot of momentum in the 2014 general elections and thus parties such as the Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party (SP), which have a regional footprint, had to face defeats. We wish to maintain it further and capitalise on it in the upcoming Assembly elections," said UP BJP spokesperson Vijay Bahadur Pathak.

According to Pathak, the party has relaxed the membership norms for women, Dalits and backward castes.

"We have planned a comprehensive outreach programme for reaching out to the under privileged sections of the society, including women and as part of this effort we have made concessions for them so far as membership norms are concerned. For being an active member of the party, a person needs to have brought to the fold of the party 100 members, but for these sections we have reduced this number to just 50. Also, we have also reduced the membership fee for them," Pathak told Mail Today.

Meanwhile, party activists have been told to reach out to the villages in UP under the recently launched "Gram Uday Se Bharat Uday" programme. "We are taking the achievements of the Centre and the new initiatives that have been started for the backward sections by the Narendra Modi government to them," he said.

Meanwhile, the party has also started a youth-centric programme by the name of "Yes I am 18" at the booth level.

The party has run a successful demo-run of the campaign in places as Agra and Aligarh, which pertains mostly to the registration of first-time voters who have turned 18 and would be eligible to vote in the coming elections.

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The campaign has involved both online as well offline registration of young voters.

Party sources told Mail Today that the campaign had been launched using the grass-roots level activists of the party, but had on the face of it been kept informal and apolitical.

"We have not used the banner of the party nor its symbol in the campaign. We have kept it apolitical in so far as we have not taken the help of party leadership, not even the leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM)," said a highly placed BJP functionary.

Also Read: BJP's Dalit Mahagarjana March ends in a flop in Agra



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Two students were killed in an altercation between two groups of students of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) on Saturday night, which left the proctor office and two vehicles in flames.

By India Today Web Desk: Another student, who was injured during a clash that broke out between two groups of students at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) on Saturday night, has died, raising the death toll to two. The student groups vandalised property and the proctor office was also set on fire.



According to university officials, there was an altercation between two groups of students outside the Maulana Azad Library canteen over some old dispute that triggered the recent clashes.

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The police in a bid to stop the violence, rushed to the university and fired few rounds in air but despite the attempts violence did not die down till 2 am. Two students, Mehtab and Mohammad Waqif, got injured in the firing. According to sources, students from Sambhal, Azamgarh and Ghazipur were also present during the clashes.



Security has been tightened at the university after last night clashes.

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Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati said a total ban should be enforced on cow slaughter and a law be soon enacted in this regard.

By India Today Web Desk: The Shankaracharya of the Dwarka-Shardapeeth Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati today claimed that cow slaughter and export of beef have increased since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power at the Centre.

"Slaughtering of cows is on the increase since BJP came to power. The export of beef has also increased under the BJP government," Swaroopanand said.

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Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati said a total ban should be enforced on cow slaughter and a law be soon enacted in this regard.

He also appealed to political parties not to politicise the Ram Mandir issue.

"Ram Mandir in Ayodhya is a responsibly of saints and political parties should not politicize it," PTI quoted Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati as saying.

Asked about the issue relating to women organisations seeking entry into core areas of certain temples, he said, "Pune-based women's group Bhumata Brigade is befooling people... If they are so concerned about women empowerment, they should launch campaign against low female literacy rate."

Earlier this month, Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati had said that allowing women in the inner sanctum of the Shani Shingnapur temple in Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district would increase rapes.

"Women entered Shani temple's inner sanctum. The women are worshipping Shani in the temple. By doing so, Shani's eyes would fall on women and this would result in increase of rape incidents," the 94-year-old seer had said.



ALSO READ

Rapes will increase if women enter Shani temple, says Shankaracharya Swaroopanand



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Retired IPS officer DG Vanzara indicated he may fight next year's assembly polls and the 2019 general election but refused to reveal the name of the party he will join.

By Gopi Maniar Ghanghar : Retired IPS officer DG Vanzara - one of the top Gujarat police officers accused of killing Mumbai teen Ishrat Jahan and three others purportedly linked to the LeT in a 2004 staged shootout - is preparing to take the political plunge.

The controversial former encounter specialist, who returned to the state this month after a CBI court relaxed his bail conditions, indicated he may fight next year's assembly polls and the 2019 general election but refused to reveal the name of the party he will join.

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"The question will arise at the time of the election. Today, there is no question of choosing a party. Today, I am a citizen of this country," Vanzara told Aaj Tak. "I am just a common man."

Vanzara, also an accused in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsi Prajapati alleged fake encounter cases, was in prison since 2007.

He walked out of jail in February after being granted bail on the condition that he would not enter Gujarat.

Vanzara and the other police officers claim they were killing terrorists who wanted to assassinate Narendra Modi, the state's chief minister at the time.

The Ishrat Jahan case came under the spotlight again this year when Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative David Coleman Headley told a Maharashtra court that the 19-year-old was a member of the militant group's female wing.

The BJP has since then accused the Congress, which was in power at the Centre for a decade until 2014, of conspiring to kill Modi and trying to hush up Ishrat's terror links.

"Those who had investigated had said that it was a fake encounter," Vanzara said. "I still say that all our encounters were genuine. There was a political conspiracy and Gujarat Police DG Vanzara ready for poll encounter became a victim of it. I also am a victim."

The former top cop, who three years ago in a letter lashed out at BJP chief Amit Shah- Gujarat's home minister when Modi was chief minister - said he is prepared to work with him after joining politics.

"There was a system and I was working under that system. He (Shah) has his own working style and I had my own working style," he said, adding that he stands by whatever he said in the outburst.

"Politics is such a subject where there is no permanent enmity or friendship. There is no untouchability in politics," Vanzara said.

Vanzara was present at a recent programme in Ahmedabad where RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat was the main speaker. However, he played down the incident.

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"It was a function. I was present there. But, I did not meet Bhagwat ji," he said.

The retired officer praised the Narendra Modi government, terming it "nationalist".

His comment came against the backdrop of a raging debate on nationalism and free speech in India, with the Opposition accusing the BJPled Centre of attempting to muzzle dissent by calling nonconformists "traitors".

Vanzara expressed faith in the judicial system, saying he will come out clean after facing trial. "There is a legal process, which goes on in courts. The government has nothing to do with this," he said. "Now, I am out on bail. There is a rule of law."

Ishrat Jahan Raza and three men - Javed Ghulam Sheikh (born Pranesh Pillai), Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in the alleged encounter on June 15, 2004.

Also Read: Vanzara seeks return to Gujarat, files plea before CBI court





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As doctors posted in rural areas of Jammu and Kashmir are leaving their rural posting through deputations for government medical colleges based in J&K cities, health secretary of State said that rural health centres have reached a bleeding point.

By Naseer Ganai: As doctors posted in rural areas of Jammu and Kashmir are leaving their rural posting through deputations for government medical colleges, based in Srinagar and Jammu cities, the health secretary of the state on Saturday said the situation in rural health centres and district hospitals has reached a "bleeding point".

While briefing CM Mehbooba Mufti on the shortage of doctors in the rural areas, the health secretary said against a maximum upper limit of 293 doctors, 879 are presently on deputation to the Medical Education Department which includes two government medical colleges and other departments.

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The CM at a meeting of secretaries issued directions to plug holes so that deputation quota doesn't exceed 10 per cent, which is fixed under the norms.

Officials said in the health department, 10 per cent deputation is allowed to serve as registers, PGs and assistant surgeons in Medical Colleges based in Srinagar and Jammu. However, officials say there is a long list of doctors of the health department who are in government medical colleges, leaving the district hospitals and primary health centres in rural areas with out doctors. Against sanctioned strength of 1,521 doctors for the health department, 626 are on deputation. In the Government Medical College Srinagar alone, 158 doctors of rural areas are on deputation for years together while 160 doctors of the health department are under training.

Incidentally, those among the doctors, who have gone for deputation for higher education, have not returned to the health department even after completing their PGs. "After getting selected as assistant surgeon in the health department to serve in rural areas, doctors usually apply for PG courses and move to the medical colleges. It is their right. But when they pursue courses like MCh, DM, etc, they should either declare their post in rural areas vacant or they should give in writing they will serve in rural areas once they complete the degree. They don't do anything, leaving rural areas without doctors for long and also blocking the post in the rural areas," said an official.

In 2014 alone, around 100 doctors from the health department were selected as PGs and registers in the government medical colleges based in Srinagar and Jammu cities and not a single doctor, who had gone for deputation, returned to the rural posting.

"The problem is if 100 doctors have gone from health department to medical education in 2014, at least 50 should return to health department, who had gone for deputation some three years ago. None among them returns," said a senior health department official. He said according to the rules a person can go for deputation for two years. "We have instances where people are on deputation for past 25 years," the official said. "There are at least 100 assistant surgeons, who belong to the health department and should have been in rural areas, are in Government Medical College Srinagar doing almost nothing and making the whole system suffer," the official said.

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Dr. Baljeet Pathania, Director Health, Jammu, told MAIL TODAY 360 doctors have been on deputation. "This is a problem for me. We as employers don't inhibit academic upgradation. But it is now going beyond the limit and creating a strain on rural health services. The government is taking a comprehensive decision about it," he said.



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Last Saturday's quake, the worst in nearly seven decades, injured around 16,600 people and left 58 missing along the country's ravaged Pacific coast. One hundred and thirteen people were rescued from damaged buildings.

A man recovers cables to recycle, amid the debris of a destroyed building one week after the devastating earthquake in Pedernales, Ecuador, Saturday, April 23, 2016.(Photo: AP)

By AP: The death toll from Ecuador's devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake last week has risen to 654 people, the country's emergency management authority said on Saturday.

Last Saturday's quake, the worst in nearly seven decades, injured around 16,600 people and left 58 missing along the country's ravaged Pacific coast. One hundred and thirteen people were rescued from damaged buildings.

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"These have been sad days for the homeland," President Rafael Correa said during his weekly television broadcast earlier on Saturday. "The country is in crisis."

Several strong tremors and more than 700 aftershocks have continued to shake the country since the major quake, sparking momentary panic but little additional damage. Tremors are expected to continue for several weeks.

With close to 7,000 buildings destroyed, more than 25,000 people were living in shelters. Some 14,000 security personnel were keeping order in quake-hit areas, with only sporadic looting reported.

Survivors in the quake zone were receiving food, water and medicine from the government and scores of foreign aid workers, although Correa has acknowledged that bad roads delayed aid reaching some communities.

Correa's leftist government, facing mammoth rebuilding at a time of greatly reduced oil revenues for the OPEC country, has said it would temporarily increase some taxes, offer assets for sale and possibly issue bonds abroad to fund reconstruction. Congress will begin debate on the tax proposal on Tuesday.

Correa has estimated damage at $2 billion to $3 billion. Lower oil revenue has already left the country of 16 million people facing near-zero growth and lower investment.

The country's private banking association said on Saturday its member banks would defer payments on credit cards, loans and mortgages for clients in the quake zone for three months, to help reconstruction efforts.

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Modi also appealed to the women representatives to supervise the mid-day meal scheme so that children do not remain malnourished. He askd them to create awareness regarding delivery in hospitals so that pregnant woman don't die.

Modi said his government has taken steps to shift launches or celebrations of government schemes outside Delhi. "My government has tried to break the myth. Delhi is not the country, the country is big."

By India Today Web Desk: Emphasising on BJP's agenda Swachh Bharat mission, Prime Minister Narendra Modi while addressing a Panchayati Raj sammelan in Jamshedpur on Sunday appealed to women representatives of panchayats in the country to make sincere efforts to construct toilets in every house so that not a single female goes to open fields for defecation.

"There are 30,00,000 lakh panchayat representatives in the country and 40 percent are women. I appeal to women panchayat representatives to take initiatives to end open defecation and ensure that not a single woman of their village goes to open fields for defecation," Modi said at an event for the 'Gramoday Se Bharat Uday' campaign and Panchayati Raj Diwas in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, on Sunday.

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"I appeal to them to pledge to construct toilet in every house," he said.

Modi also appealed to the women representatives to supervise the mid-day meal scheme so that children do not remain malnourished. He askd them to create awareness regarding delivery in hospitals so that pregnant woman don't die.

Modi said his government has taken steps to shift launches or celebrations of government schemes outside Delhi. "My government has tried to break the myth. Delhi is not the country, the country is big."

"The Panchayati Raj Diwas used to be celebrated in Delhi and this year we decided to organise it in Jamshedpur."

"We launched the 'Gramoday Se Bharat Uday' programme on the 125th anniversary of Babasaheb Ambedkar in Madhya Pradesh on April 14. We launched the 'Beti bachao, Beti Padhao' scheme in Haryana where the sex ratio is poor."

"My government aims to reduce the gap between rural and urban by ensuring roads, electricity and other facilities in rural areas. The budget of the government indicates it's a rural budget," he said.

The prime minister stressed that the panchayats and gram sabhas should be strengthened, and expressed concern over poor presence in gram Sabha meetings.

He appealed to the panchayat representatives to take initiatives to bring about changes in the lives of people in villages.

He also appealed to them to select one scheme in a year and work on it.

"There is no dearth of fund or schemes for development of rural India and the panchayat representatives should take initiatives to ensure that the schemes are being implemented properly," said Modi.

He said the focus of the panchayat representatives should not be road construction and budget, but development of villages.

In the next three years, Modi promised, five crore families will be given cooking gas cylinder connection so that women do not inhale smoke from burning wood while cooking food.

"If villages prosper, then only the country will prosper," he said.

Also read:

Mood of the Nation poll: Has the Modi magic faded?



#MannKiBaat: PM Modi thanks people of India for giving up LPG subsidies to help needy

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By PTI: Kathmandu, Apr 24 (PTI) Five Indian police personnel, including an inspector, were arrested in Nepal today after they entered the country in the pretext of searching a criminal, a media report said.

The five were arrested by Nepal police from Sanagaun.

The plain-clothed policemen were carrying arms, according to the National News Agency of Nepal.

They were arrested while they were heading towards Achham in search of a person accused of murdering a doctor in Punjab, the report said.

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An AK-47 rifle and its 25 round of ammunition, a pistol and its 12 rounds of ammunition were seized from them, it said. PTI SBP NSA

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Authorities in Gurugram are ramping up efforts to make safer the Delhi suburb's gleaming office towers, high-rise apartment buildings and luxury shops from hazards like fire and earthquakes, a move that reflects the larger problem of designing cities without people in mind.

Fire department in Gurugram has recommended initiating an awareness programme in the region.

By Ajay Kumar: Authorities in Gurugram are ramping up efforts to make safer the Delhi suburb's gleaming office towers, high-rise apartment buildings and luxury shops from hazards like fire and earthquakes, a move that reflects the larger problem of designing cities without people in mind.

The area's town and country planning (TCP) and fire departments will soon start auditing multistorey buildings for safety following recommendations of Haryana's Centre for Disaster Management (CDM), which found a slew of vulnerabilities in a recent survey.

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It has recommended to these two departments to fix the problems and suggested that they equip themselves with modern tackle like helicopters especially to combat emergency situations.

Skyscrapers have sprouted like concrete weeds in Gurugram, but experts say its functioning is far from ideal with a glaring lack of public services and safety.

As per building bylaws in India, any multi-storey building higher than 60 metres must construct a helipad on top.

This basic norm was not followed by a majority of the high-rise buildings in Gurugram. The city only has two buildings, named "Horizon" in DLF phase 4, with world-class helipads.

"We have recommended structural and fire audit of high rise buildings to TCP and fire departments respectively. An audit on these two issues is badly needed, considering that Gurugram falls under seismic four (quake-prone) zone," said SP Gupta, director of Haryana Institute of Public Administration (HIPA) and head of CDM.

We need to know that builders have followed all necessary procedures on account of building map, raw material strength, soil testing and fire extinguishers and that they have are intact.



The fire department has recommended initiating an awareness programme in the districts on how, for instance, people can save themselves from suffocating by covering their nose and mouth with a wet cloth.

Associate professor of CDM, Abhay Kumar Srivastava, told Mail Today that Gurugram has over 1,200 multistorey buildings.

"In case a massive fire takes place in such a building due to multiple cylinder blasts, the rescuers would have very little time to evacuate people as there is a huge chance of the structure collapsing, like in 9/11," he said.

Also Read:



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By PTI: From Youssra El-Sharkawy

Cairo, April 24 (PTI) India has honoured 12 Egyptian women who have contributed in bringing about social and economic change to Egypt.

The women were honoured during the India by the Nile festival, a cultural programme held here at the India House.

"India by the Nile 2016 celebrates the engines of our social and economic change by recognising the tremendous role of women," Indias Ambassador to Egypt Sanjay Bhattacharyya said in the event titled "Women of Substance".

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Lauding these womens endurable spirit, Ambassadors spouse Ranu Bhattacharyya, described them as "Intelligent, fashionable and successful".

"Each one of them has overcome personal, social, political and financial obstacles on their path to success," Ranu said, adding their success that will inspire future generations.

Dressed in Indian saree, twelve women accepted their honour from Bhattacharyya.

The honoured women included Egyptian MP Dalia Fouad Yousef, world swimming champion with Down syndrome Lobna Mustafa Mahmoud, cinema director Marianne Khoury, human rights activist Mona Zulfikar, fashion designer and philanthropist Shahira Mehrez and Amal Fikri, the vice-president of Al Nour Wal Amal association, which is the first-of-its-kind in the Middle East to provide care, education, vocational training and social integration opportunities for blind girls and women.

In the opening of India by the Nile included a music show, percussion ensemble Taal Vadya Kacheri, a teaser from "Bollywood - A Love Story" choreographed by Gilles Chuyen. PTI YES RSD UZM

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By India Today Web Desk: It seems that 2016 is going to be a busy year for Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. After opportunities in Baywatch, Central Intelligence and Fast and Furious 8, Dwayne has been roped in for a sequel of Jumanji.

ALSO READ: After Priyanka Chopra's Time feat, Dwayne Johnson can't stop gushing about his Baywatch girl

ALSO READ: Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart to star in Jumanji reboot



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It was Dwayne himself who broke the news on social media. The 43-year-old actor shared this news with his fans on Instagram. Johnson posted a photo along side his adorable furry friend and wrote, "It's OFFICIAL: Love this script! Big movie news that me and my canine gal Shang are excited to share;) To produce, create and deliver original properties to fans like HBO's #ballers to this summer's #CentralIntelligence is one of the best parts of my job. But to take great properties that are beloved worldwide like #BAYWATCH and #RAMPAGE and have the opportunity to reimagine their stories in dope new ways to a whole new generation is truly an honor."

He continued, "It's official. We'll produce and deliver to a whole new generation a title that I love and is one of my all time favs: There's games you play for fun... then there's games that change your life. JUMANJI Working on edging up an already very good script with my @sevenbucksprod team. Up next is meeting with our producer Matt Tolmach and director Jake Kasdan. Shooting starts this fall. Promise to deliver something cool and special.. and not screw the whole damn thing up;). As always I'll keep you posted. Casting this should be fun! #JUMANJI #JungleLife #JustPressStart#SONYPictures (sic)."

Sex Tape fame filmmaker Jake Kasdan will be directing the remake. The Jumanji reboot is based on Chris Van Allsburg's famous book that goes by the same name. The film's script is written by Scott Rosenberg and Jeff Pinkner.

Matt Tolmach and Bill Teitler are producing the Jumanji reboot along with Ted Field, Mike Weber and Van Allsburg acting as executive producers.

The news regarding Jumanji reboot first circulated in August 2015 when Sony Pictures announced titles and release dates for its forthcoming films. According to the 2015 press release, the film was set to release on Christmas this year. As the project begins this fall, the film's release date has been shifted to July 28, 2017.

Dwayne Johnson-starrer Jumanji will be a remake of 1995 original film which starred the late Robin Williams. Dwayne Johnson will next appear in Central Intelligence along with Kevin Hart. The 36-year-old comedian is rumoured to be part of Jumanji remake.

As they say, make the most while the sun shines! Dwayne is lined up with numerous projects this year including the 90s hit series adaptation Baywatch, Fast 8, Shazam and now Jumanji.

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By PTI: Hyderabad, Apr 23 (PTI) YSR Congress President Y S Jaganmohan Reddy today told Governor E S L Narasimhan the ruling TDP in Andhra Pradesh was indulging in misuse of power and "luring" his party MLAs into the ruling TDP.

The Leader of Opposition also sought action against Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu for the latters alleged involvement in various "scams".

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"We have urged the Governor to intervene and see that action is initiated against the Chief Minister, who is facing serious corruption charges and is involved in various scams. He has been using the ill-gotten wealth to lure MLAs from other parties in an undemocratic method," Reddy told reporters here after submitting a memorandum to the Governor.

"I challenge Chandrababu Naidu to disqualify the MLAs (of YSRC who have joined TDP) and go to the people seeking a fresh mandate which will stand as a referendum on his governance and undemocratic methods being employed ever since the party came to power," he said.

The YSR Congress Presidents attack on the TDP came in the wake of 13 Congress MLAs switching over to the ruling party.

The YSRC observed Save Democracy Day today by holding candle light protests at district headquarters.

The party leaders would go to New Delhi on April 25 "to apprise the President, Prime Minister and leaders of all political parties about the rampant corruption and blatant violation of democratic norms by Chandrababu Naidu and his government," he said.

The YSRC leader demanded that the MLAs who switched loyalties should be disqualified and by-elections held immediately in their constituencies.

Reddy said the party has complained to the Legislative Assembly Speaker about the legislators who have switched side but no action had been taken against them.

"The party would seek legal recourse if the same continued," he added. PTI SJR RSY SRY RDS

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By India Today Web Desk: Kabali is almost at its tail end. The crew of Pa Ranjith's film has completed filming for the action drama, and now the superstar has finished dubbing for the upcoming film.

ALSO READ: Kabali - This is when Rajinikanth's film will hit the screens

ALSO READ: Kabali - I feel honoured to have shared screen space with Rajinikanth, says Kalaiyarasan

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The dubbing took place at the preview theater the Le Magic Lantern in Chennai. Many pictures from the studio are making the rounds on social media.

Producer Kalaipuli S Dhanu was at the studio along with director Pa Ranjith.

Reportedly, the teaser of Kabali will be released in the first week of May.

Kabali, based on the real life don Kabaleeswaran, also stars Bollywood actor Radhika Apte, Kalaiyarasan, Dhanshikaa and Attakathi Dinesh in pivotal roles.

Rajinikanth will now fly back to Delhi to resume the shooting for Shankar's mega budget film, 2.0. After the Delhi schedule, the crew will fly to Bolivia to shoot for a song.

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Somnath Bharthi's domestic violence experienced deadlock as questions were raised on who would represent the state as Lieutenant Governor's appointed counsel and the Delhi government's counsel clashed over representing the state in the matter.

By Sneha Agrawal: Deadlock was experienced during a court hearing on Saturday in Somnath Bharti's domestic violence case. Questions were raised on the court premises as to who would represent the state in this case as the Lieutenant Governor's appointed counsel and the Delhi government's counsel locked horns over representing the state in the matter.

Shailender Babbar, the standing counsel for the Centre told court that he has been appointed by the L-G as a special prosecutor in the case and therefore he would represent the case. Speaking to Mail Today he said, "I objected that the prosecutor appointed by Delhi government would try to help its own party. I have been appointed to represent the state in this matter. L-G has the power to decide as to who will be appointed as the special prosecutor in a case."

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On the other hand, Kamana Vohra, additional standing counsel for Delhi government told the court that she had been appointed as the special prosecutor by the state that has been duly notified. "I have put the notification from the Delhi government on record with a copy marked to the Lieutenant Governor. The prosecution wing comes under the Delhi government," she told Mail Today.

The Delhi court after hearing both the sides in Bharti's case said that it would not interfere into the matter and listed the case for a hearing on May 28.

Delhi Police has charge sheeted AAP's Somnath Bharti for "extreme cruelty" to his wife, Lipika Mitra. Police said that evidence shows Bharti had lured and pressured Mitra into marrying him-this was borne out by the fact that their first child "was born within five months of marriage". But later, Bharti "committed extreme cruelty" on her and even tried to kill her, police said.

Bharti has been chargesheeted under various Sections of the IPC such as 307 (attempt to murder), 315 (act done with intent to prevent child being born alive or to cause it to die after birth), 324 (causing hurt by dangerous weapons), 498 A (cruelty towards partner in marriage), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 506 (criminal intimidation) and under 417 and 420 (cheating).

A similar instance of the major fallout between the AAP government and Delhi Police had taken place when the lawyers of the two agencies locked horns in the courtroom over representing the cops in the sedition case against JNU student Kanhaiya Kumar, that eventually weakened prosecution's case.

Also Read: Supreme Court denies bail to Somnath Bharti after wife refuses any mediation



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By PTI: London, Apr 24 (PTI) Oscar-winning actor Leonardo Dicaprio has applauded United Nations leaders for signing a historic climate change agreement.

The 41-year-old "The Revenant" star, who is a United Nations Messenger of Peace, spoke at a landmark gathering held in New York City on Earth Day, and saluted the representatives from 175 countries, who came to the meeting to sign the Paris Agreement on climate change into international law, reported Daily Telegraph.

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DiCaprio admitted his recent research into the issue left him "absolutely terrified" about what will happen to the planet if greenhouse gas emissions are not addressed.

"Our planet cannot be saved unless we leave fossil fuels in the ground where they belong.

"After 21 years of debates and conferences, it is time to declare: no more talk, no more excuses, no more 10-year studies, no more allowing the fossil fuel companies to manipulate and dictate the science and policies that affect our future," he said.

The longtime environmental advocate also suggested the issue of climate change was similar to that of American slavery, citing historical US leader President Abraham Lincoln, who served during the abolition of slavery and the Civil War.

"(Lincoln) was speaking before the US Congress to confront the defining issue of his time: slavery," he said.

"Remarkably, his words ring as true today when applied to the defining crisis of our time: climate change."

The Paris Agreement is a non-binding treaty existing within the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The document was created in an attempt to slow down the effects of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, on the earths temperature, which is rising rapidly. PTI NDS NDS

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Karan Singh Grover and Bipasha Basu have been dating each other for quite some now. And the two are about to get married on April 30 this year.

By India Today Web Desk: Karan Singh Grover and Bipasha Basu have been dating each other for quite some now. And the two are about to get married on April 30 this year.

According to a report in Times Of India, Bipasha and Karan will not host a wedding reception and instead have an intimate party for their close friends. The source added, "They will instead be having a low-key party on the night of the wedding. It will be an intimate get-together with the couple's closest friends coming down to make their big day special."

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The report also stated that Bipasha has been taking care of every minute detail related to her special day."She wants everything in the wedding to be a surprise, even for Karan. Bipasha is personally taking care of every minute detail of the main function. Her parents (who flew down from Kolkata just a few days ago) are helping her with the arrangements," a source told TOI.

It's also said that the couple's mehendi ceremony will be taking place at a lounge in Juhu on April 29, followed by the wedding at a 5-star hotel.

Just a day before yesterday, Karan had confessed his feelings to his wife-to-be through a pre-wedding poem and posted it on his Instagram account. He wrote, "You take away all the darkness, you take away all my pain... You walk me through the storm, through sunshine and even the rain... You give me peace, you shower me with love and fill every moment of my life with glee... With your faith and your trust you show me not who I am but who I can be... You pat me on my back when I'm right and kick my ass when I'm wrong... You show me how beautiful this life is even if our path sometimes seems weary and long... You are my partner, my lover, my soulmate, my own, my friend and much more than any word can portray... I promise to be with you as you are with me forever and a day... ( 8 more days to go...)."

Karan and Bipasha's dating rumours have been doing the rounds ever since they acted in the 2015 film Alone.

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By India Today Web Desk: Meet Maria Munir, 20-year-old student who did 'something terrifying' while addressing US President Barack Obama at a town hall meeting in London.

Maria, a student of University of York in northern England, said she was about to "do something terrifying, which is I'm coming out to you as a non-binary person."

Teary-eyed Maria explained that non-binary people do not see themselves as exclusively masculine or feminine. She urged the British and American governments to "take us seriously as transgender people" and spoke about a North Carolina law that requires transgender people to use public bathrooms conforming to the sex on their birth certificates and restricts protections for LGBT people.

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The 'brave' student was applauded by Obama, who was "incredibly proud" of her and encouraged her to "keep pushing" for rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

However, Obama said that he cannot do much about the law because it was a state law and he cannot overturn state laws. But he said his administration is doing what it can and social attitudes are changing quickly. He said from his own perspective "a lot of serious steps" are being taken to address these issues.

Maria had after the event said that the experience had given her the confidence to "change the world".
On the Panchayati Raj Diwas, he said the country's progress depends hugely on the development of villages and emphasised the need for bridging the gulf between cities and rural areas by ensuring that all modern day facilities reach even the far off places.

By India Today Web Desk: While addressing a Panchayati Raj sammelan in Jamshedpur on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a strong pitch for strengthening democracy at the grassroots level. He asked the gram panchayats to play active role in developmental activities, taking advantage of the immense resources and schemes of BJP government.

On the Panchayati Raj Diwas, he said the country's progress depends hugely on the development of villages and emphasised the need for bridging the gulf between cities and rural areas by ensuring that all modern day facilities reach even the far off places.

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While laying thrust on progress of rural areas, with particular focus on farmers, women-folk and child care, Modi said he wants to leave a legacy after his five-year tenure which would be talked about in terms of exceptional achievement in the years to come.

"We need to strengthen panchayats. The gram sabhas are as important as Parliament," he said addressing a programme on the culmination of 10-day 'Gram Uday Se Bharat Uday' campaign here in the tribal-dominated east Indian state of Jharkhand.

"We have to work shoulder-to-shoulder to fulfill the dreams," Modi said, underlining the need for cooperation between gram panchayats and the central government.

Pitching for progress of villages, he asked the village heads to take a lead in undertaking developmental activities, including infrastructure development, construction of toilets to ensure end to open defecation, ensuring proper healthcare to prevent child birth mortality and provision of better education to ensure there is no school dropouts.

"Earlier there was shortage of funds. Now there are lot of finances available...There is no dearth of funds. There is no dearth of schemes. But there is a need for dedication by those who work at the grassroots level," Modi said.

"Be aware, remain alert. Lead from the front. Then officers will also do their work," he told the village heads.

In this context, he particularly emphasised the role of women panchayat representatives, who constitute 40 per cent of the 30 lakh representatives.

"Ensure that open defecation of our mothers and sisters is brought to an end. Ensure construction of toilets. Take a pledge in this regard. There is nothing more shameful than our mothers and sisters defecating in the open," Modi told the women representatives of panchayats.

Asking the women representatives to take a lead in bringing about changes in social lives, he said they should see to it that there is proper utilisation of funds.

The women representatives also look into the aspects like child nutrition and pregnancy-related issues, he said.

He suggested that each village should take up one task each year like ensuring all farmers get crop insurance, ensuring preservation of water, ensuring digitalisation, and ensuring adequate attention to children.

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Also read: Ensure toilets in every home: Modi to women panchayat leaders

--- ENDS ---
By Shreya Goswami: One might think there's very little left to achieve once you've baked a birthday cake for the Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Nadiya Hussain, the Great British Bake Off 2015 winner, however, is just getting started.

Nadiya Hussain watches as the Queen cuts her birthday cake. Photo courtesy: Instagram/emmabm1

As the world watched her shake hands with the Queen and converse with Prince Phillip on the afternoon of April 21, the much-awaited orange drizzle cake was revealed. Of course, the cake had turned slightly controversial (and tilted) by then.

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Also read: Nadiya Hussain is baking an orange drizzle cake for the Queen's 90th birthday

This post by Nadiya Hussain sparked an eggy debate on Twitter. Photo courtesy: Twitter/Nadiya Jamir Hussain

Hussain had posted a photo of the leftovers from the #Queenat90 cake on Twitter, which immediately sparked a flurry of reactions ranging from concern to disgust. It appeared that the eggs Hussain had used resembled caged hen eggs, which most British are now rejecting in favour of the more humanely bred free-range hens' eggs.

The reactions to Nadiya's leftovers post. Photo courtesy: Twitter/Nadiya Jamir Hussain

The other issue was that Nadiya Hussain had faced a major kitchen fail because the cake she had baked for the Queen was slightly, but visibly, tilting to one side.

Also read: Hate Fruits? This simple recipe for upside down cakes will make you eat them instantly



Hussain joins Penguin's illustrious food writers' group with her upcoming release. Photo courtesy: Twitter/The Happy Foodie Hussain joins Penguin's illustrious food writers' group with her upcoming release. Photo courtesy: Twitter/The Happy Foodie

Hussain herself has moved on from the events of Thursday, and now has June 16 to look forward to. Her book, Nadiya's Kitchen, will be released on that date. The cookbook, which includes some of her winning baking recipes, as well as the #Queenat90 cake recipe, is being published by Penguin Random House. Hussain will be joining the influential Penguin food writers' group, which already boasts of members like Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver, Delia Smith and Rick Stein.

A closer look at Nadiya Hussain's special #Queenat90 cake. Photo courtesy: Instagram/waterstones

This is clearly going to mark the beginning of a new chapter in Nadiya Hussain's life, and gourmands from all over the world will be keenly watching out for her next ventures.



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North Korea fired one missile from a submarine off its east coast on Saturday, South Korea's military said.

By Reuters: North Korea said on Sunday it had conducted a submarine-launched ballistic missile test supervised by leader Kim Jong Un and it was a "great success" that gave the country "one more means for powerful nuclear attack."

North Korea fired one missile from a submarine off its east coast on Saturday, South Korea's military said, amid concerns that the isolated state might conduct a nuclear test or a missile launch ahead of a rare ruling party meeting in May.

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The missile flew for about 30 km (18 miles), a South Korean Defence Ministry official said late on Saturday, adding its military was trying to determine whether the launch may have been a failure for unspecified reasons.

But the North's official news agency KCNA said an underwater test-fire of a ballistic missile was "another great success," without disclosing the date and place of the event which was guided by leader Kim.

"It fully confirmed and reinforced the reliability of the Korean-style underwater launching system and perfectly met all technical requirements for carrying out ... underwater attack operation," KCNA said.

"The successful test-fire would help remarkably bolster the underwater operational capability of the KPA navy, he said, adding that it is now capable of hitting the heads of the South Korean puppet forces and the U.S. imperialists anytime as it pleases," it said, quoting Kim. KPA refers to the North's military.

The U.S. Strategic Command said on Saturday it had detected and tracked a North Korean submarine missile launch but it did not pose a threat to North America.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said launches using ballistic missile technology were "a clear violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions."

France on Saturday called on the European Union to unilaterally adopt additional sanctions on North Korea if the missile launch was confirmed.

North Korea first attempted a launch of the submarine-based missile last year and was seen to be in the early stages of developing such a weapons system, which could pose a new threat to its neighbours and the United States if it is perfected.

However, a series of test launches were believed to have been failures, and its state media carried footage that appeared to have been edited to fake success, according to experts who have seen the visuals.

North Korea is banned from nuclear tests and activities that use ballistic missile technology under U.N. sanctions dating to 2006 and most recently adopted in March but it has pushed ahead with work to miniaturise a nuclear warhead and develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

North Korea will hold a congress of its ruling Workers' Party in early May for the first time in 36 years, at which leader Kim is expected to formally declare the country is a strong military power and a nuclear state.

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North Korea's Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong told the Associated Press in New York on Saturday that his country is ready to halt nuclear tests if the United States suspends its annual military exercises with South Korea. North Korea made a similar demand in January after its fourth nuclear test.

Asked if the United States would consider a halt, Katina Adams, a spokeswoman for the State Department's East Asia bureau, said the exercises demonstrate the U.S. commitment to the alliance with South Korea and enhance "combat readiness."

Satellite images show North Korea may have resumed tunnel excavation at its main nuclear test site, similar to activity seen before the January test, a U.S. North Korea monitoring website reported on Wednesday.

South Korea and the United States, as well as experts, believe the North is working to develop a submarine-launched ballistic missile system and an ICBM putting the mainland United States within range. It is seen to be several years from acquiring the technology, according to arms experts.

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Owaisi's application to hold meetings in the district was turned down by the Azamgarh District Magistrate Suhash LY due to tension in Mubarakpur area.

AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi lashes out Samajwadi Party for not allowing him to hold public meetings in Azamgarh.

By India Today Web Desk: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi today lambasted Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav a day after district authorities denied him permission to hold public meetings in Azamgarh.

"Samajwadi party is stopping from holding public meetings, enter Azamgarh remember @yadavakhilesh power is not ETERNAL I will be coming more," tweeted Owaisi.

Owaisi's application to hold meetings in the district was turned down by the Azamgarh District Magistrate Suhash LY due to tension in Mubarakpur area.

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The Hindu Yuva Vahini group had earlier announced that they would protest against Owaisi's refusal to chant 'Bharat Mata ki jai'.

Earlier that day, as many as 100 activists were arrested in Siddharthnagar for holding a protest at Bhadariya crossing against the visit of Owaisi.

Local BJP MP Jagdambika Pal had also demanded a ban on his visit to the district and alleged that SP government was assisting him in vitiating the atmosphere.

Addressing his partymen at a meeting, Owaisi exhorted them to prepare for the 2017 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. "Start preparations for the elections so that our people could have representation in the Vidhan Sabha," he told party workers in Siddarthnagar.

"We are neither against any religion nor against any person," Owaisi added.

ALSO READ:



I am a loyal Indian, do not need certificate from anyone: Owaisi





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By PTI: Azamgarh (UP), Apr 23 (PTI) AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi was today denied permission by authorities to hold public meetings in the district in the wake of tension in Mubarakpur area.

Application to hold public meeting was received from Owaisis party but he was denied permission, Azamgarh District Magistrate Suhash L Y said.

Owaisi is on a two-day visit to Uttar Pradesh.

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Earlier in the day, about 100 activists of Hindu Yuva Vahini were taken into custody in neighbouring Siddarthnagar when they were staging a protest at Bhadariya crossing against the visit of Owaisi.

The Yuva Vahini had announced that they would protest against Owaisis refusal to chant Bharat Mata ki jai.

Local BJP MP Jagdambika Pal had also demanded a ban on his visit to the district and alleged that SP government was assisting him in vitiating the atmosphere.

Addressing his partymen at a meeting, Owaisi exhorted them to prepare for the 2017 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

"Start preparations for the elections so that our people could have representation in the Vidhan Sabha," he todl party workers in Siddarthnagar.

"We are neither against any religion nor against any person," Owaisi added. PTI COR SAB SMJ ZMN SMJ

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CPI(M) leader Prakash Karat today filed a complaint against TMC MP Derek O'Brien for allegedly using a morphed picture of his being offered sweets by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

By India Today Web Desk: Prakash Karat on Sunday filed a police complaint against Trinamool Congress leader Derek O'Brien for morphing the former CPI-M general secretary's photograph that showed Home Minister Rajnath Singh offering him a sweet.

"I have lodged a complaint with Delhi Police as morphing a photograph like the manner it was done by a political party is an offence under cyber laws. Therefore, I have requested police to register an FIR in this connection," Karat told reporters after lodging a formal complaint with Mandir Marg police station in central Delhi.

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Targeting the Mamata Banerjee-led party over the photo episode, Karat said TMC is getting "increasingly desperate" as the poll campaign in West Bengal goes on.

It shows the level to which TMC can "stoop to", he said.

Karat, the former CPI(M) general secretary, has lodged the complaint at Mandir Marg police station in the national capital.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh can be seen feeding a ladoo to PM Modi in the real photo (L), while PM Modi's face can be seen morphed with that of Prakash Karat in the fake photo (R).

"He (O'Brien) has used morphed picture in his press conference and it has also been put on website of Trinamool Congress and this is being widely shown on the (news) channels also.

"So, it is politically defamatory and got the party (CPI-M) and myself into disrepute among people. So, action should be taken," Karat said in his complaint.

He said displaying the "fabricated" photograph on TMC's website falls under cyber crime and that it was O'Brien who should be held responsible for "using" the image.

Karat said CPI(M) will also take up the issue before people of the state to "expose" the ruling party "politically".

The Trinamool Congress, following a press conference by its national spokesperson O'Brien, had yesterday posted two videos and six pictures on its website. The party, however, removed the morphed picture from its website after controversy.

O'Brien had yesterday told PTI that the image was removed from the TMC website on realising that the photograph was a morphed one.

Watch full press conference here

Also Read:

West Bengal elections: TMC in soup after sharing morphed photo to show BJP-Left alliance

(With agency inputs)



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Forensic reports suggest that actress Pratyusha Banerjee had alcohol in her body when she committed suicide.

By India Today Web Desk: TV actress Pratyusha Banerjee's suicide case takes a new twist as a report by Hindustan Times has revealed that she was under the influence of alcohol while committing suicide. This new development came into the picture after the Bangur Nagar police station on Friday received the forensic chemical analysis by the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), Kalina.

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"The ethyl alcohol content is 140 mg," a forensic expert who is a part of the investigation, told Hindustan Times.

According to the news report, Pratyusha was in debt and used to often remain under the influence of alcohol. In the due course of investigation, the police is said to have even found three cans of beer and other liquor bottles at her residence.

Also read: Pratyusha Banerjee underwent an abortion days before her death



Further revelations made by the police suggested that Pratyusha and her boyfriend Rahul Raj Singh had organised a party a day before the suicide, and it was attended by some of their friends. Rahul is said to have yelled at Pratyusha for consuming alcohol on the same day the actress committed suicide.

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By PTI: From Anisur Rahman

Dhaka, Apr 24 (PTI) A student activist of an Islamist group was detained today in connection with the brutal killing of a secular Bangladeshi university professor, a day after ISIS claimed responsibility for the latest such attack on intellectuals and bloggers in the Muslim-majority country.

Hafizur Rahman, 21, was detained in connection with the murder of 58-year-old Rajshahi University Professor AFM Rezaul Karim Siddiquee in Rajshahi in northwestern Bangladesh.

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"We detained for interrogation a student of the university suspecting his links to Professor Karims murder. He is a second year student of the Public Administration department of the university," said officer in charge of Rajshahis Boalia police station Shahadat Hossain.

Rajshahis police commissioner Mohammad Shamsuddin later said the detainee was an activist of fundamentalist Jamaat-e- Islams student wing Islamic Chhatra Shibir and "we have started interrogating him".

Meanwhile, the police rejected reports of ISIS involvement in the horrific crime. The US-based SITE Intelligence Group has yesterday reported that the dreaded terror group hacked the professor to death over his "calls to atheism".

Calling such reports "unauthenticated", a police spokesperson said ISIS did not have any organisational existence in Bangladesh.

Earlier today, the murder case was handed over to the Detective Branch of Police after protests mounted over the murder with students of the university suspending classes and exams, demanding police action to track down the killers.

The Professor of English literature was brutally murdered in the citys Shalbagan area yesterday in an attack that police say bears the hallmark of the previous blogger killings.

Two years ago, another Rajshahi University teacher AKM Shafiul Islam was similarly murdered. Though his murder was initially claimed by radical group Ansaral Islam, police later ruled out that possibility, saying he was murdered due to personal rivalry.

Some years ago, two more professors of the state-run varsity had been killed.

There have been systematic assaults in Bangladesh in recent months specially targeting minorities, secular bloggers, intellectuals and foreigners.

Last year, four prominent secular bloggers were killed with machetes, one inside his own home. PTI AR SUA AKJ SUA

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Addressing the inaugural session of Joint Conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of High Courts, Cheif Justice of India TS Thakur said that since 1987, when the Law Commission had recommended increase in the number of judges from then 10 judges per 10 lakh people to 50, "nothing has moved".

By India Today Web Desk: A teary-eyed Chief Justice of India TS Thakur today lamented "inaction" by the Executive to increase the number of judges from the present 21,000 to 40,000 to handle the "avalanche" of litigations even as country's Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured him of his government's resolve in finding a solution jointly with the judiciary.

"And therefore, it is not only in the name of a litigant or people languishing in jails but also in the name of development of the country, its progress that I beseech you to rise to the occasion and realise that it is not enough to criticise. You cannot shift the entire burden on the judiciary," the Chief Justice of India said in a choking voice, PTI reported.



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Addressing the inaugural session of Joint Conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of High Courts, Justice Thakur said that since 1987, when the Law Commission had recommended increase in the number of judges from then 10 judges per 10 lakh people to 50, "nothing has moved".

"Then comes inaction by the government as the increase (in the strength of judges) does not take place," he said.

He said following the Law Commission's recommendation, the Supreme Court in 2002 had also supported increasing the strength of the judiciary. A Parliamentary Department Related Standing Committee on Law then headed by Pranab Mukherjee had also recommended taking the judge to people ratio to 50 from 10.

As of Sunday, the judge to people ratio stands at 15 judges to 10 lakh people which is way less than as compared to the US, Australia, the UK and Canada.

"In 1987, the requirement was 40,000 judges. From 1987 till now, we have added 25 crore in terms of population. We have grown into one of the fastest growing economies of the world, we are inviting foreign direct investment into the country, we want people to come and make in India, we want people to come and invest in India.

"Those whom we are inviting are also concerned about the ability of the judicial system in the country to deal with cases and disputes that arise out of such investments.

Efficacy of the judicial system is so vitally connected with the development," he said, referring to Modi government's 'Make in India' and 'Ease of doing business' campaigns.

Modi, who was not slated to speak as per the schedule of the programme circulated by the Law Ministry, said if constitutional barriers do not create any problems, then top ministers and senior Supreme Court judges can sit together in a closed room to find a solution to the issue.

The Prime Minister also said that it is the responsibility of all to ensure that the common man continues to have faith in the judiciary and his government will fulfil the responsibility and will not falter in helping to make the common man's life easier.

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"Jab jaago tab savera" (better late than never)," Modi said, referring to the issues flagged by Justice Thakur.

"I can understand his pain as a lot of time has lapsed since 1987. Whatever has been the compulsions, but its better to be late than never. We will do better in the future. Let us see how to move forward by reducing the burden of the past," he said.

Justice Thakur said from a munsif to a Supreme Court judge, the average disposal in India is 2,600 cases per annum as compared to 81 cases per annum in the United States.

He also asked the state Chief Ministers present at the event to increase the cadre strength of the lower judiciary.

While lauding the new law to create commercial divisions in the high courts and the commercial courts at the lower level, the CJI said the new courts need separate infrastructure and new judges.

He said without proper infrastructure and environment, such courts will not serve the purpose as dealing with cases that require a different handling.

"Old wine in a new bottle will not serve the purpose," he said, adding that an "emotional appeal" made by him "may work" in getting the government take note of the problems being faced by the judiciary.

Referring to the pendency of cases, Justice Thakur said the high courts have over 38 lakh cases to dispose of and the number is increasing.

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He said while the central government has maintained that it is committed to helping the judiciary, it is the duty of the state governments to improve the infrastructure and increase the manpower.

The states, the CJI said, want the Centre to provide funds for the purpose. "While the tug-of-war goes on, the strength of judges remains where it is...five crore cases were processed and two crore were disposed. But there is a limit to the capacity of the performance of judges," he said.

On the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act which sought to scrap the collegium system under which judges appoint judges, he said as the "controversy" was in the Supreme Court, the vacancies kept on increasing. The law was struck down by the apex court following which the collegium system made a comeback.

Justice Thakur said the collegium has now cleared all proposals sent to it in six weeks. While 145 judges were either elevated as permanent judges in the high courts or were appointed as additional judges, 169 proposals were still pending with the government, he said.

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"How much time does it require when there is an avalanche of cases," he said.

The CJI said 50 per cent of the recommendations made by the high courts were rejected by the collegium as "we have raised the bar".

He also supported the idea of implementing provisions in Article 224 of the Constitution of using the services of retired judicial officers in running courts, saying it would be "criminal" to let their experience go waste after their retirement.

He referred to a letter written by then CJI Altamas Kabir to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in February 2013 where the issues of manpower and infrastructure were flagged.

Singh had acknowledged the problem and had committed his government to resolving the issue.

Giving out statistics, Justice Thakur said when the apex court came into being in 1950, it had a strength of 8 judges, including the CJI with 1215 cases pending.

Then, he said, the pendency was 100 cases per judge.

In 1960, the strength of the SC rose to 14 judges and the cases also increased to 3247. In 1977, the strength was 18 and the cases were 14501. By 2009, as is the case today, the strength of SC judges rose to 31 and the pending cases spiralled by 77181.

"In 2014, the number of cases was 81582 which was reduced to 60260. On December 2 when I took over as CJI and now, 17482 cases were filed out of which 16474 cases were disposed of," he said.

According to latest Law Ministry figures, the approved strength of the subordinate judiciary is 20214 with 4580 vacancies. The approved strength of the 24 high courts is 1056 and the vacancy was pegged at 458 as on March one.

In the apex court, there are six vacancies against the sanctioned strength of 31 judges, including the CJI.

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Thackeray, who did not name the BJP or Narendra Modi government directly, said that instead of giving the youths proper guidance and directions, the government is "misleading" them.

By India Today Web Desk: Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray today accused the BJP of misleading the youth of the country, saying it has given birth to the likes of Rohith Vemula, Hardik Patel and Kanhaiya Kumar, the youth figures who have been in news in the last few months.

Thackeray, who did not name the BJP or Narendra Modi government directly, said that instead of giving the youths proper guidance and directions, the government is "misleading" them.

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"When Patel became popular, he was charged with sedition, and now Kumar is fighting against the government. Who gave birth to these youths?" Uddhav said.

"The youths of the country require proper guidance and direction," he stated.

Speaking at a gathering of office-bearers, people's representatives and workers of the Sena from Nashik division in west-central Indian state of Maharashtra, Uddhav also said that Shiv Sena's alliance with BJP has been forged on the issue of "Hindutva" and not for sharing power.

"Shiv Sena has made alliance with them (BJP) on the Hindutva issue and not for power," he said.

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Varun Dhawan, who made his debut in the year 2012 with Karan Johar's Student of the Year, is celebrating his 29th birthday today (April 24). Bollywood celebs like Karan Johar and Jacqueline Fernandez have also poured birthday wishes for Varun on Twitter.

By India Today Web Desk: Varun Dhawan, who made his debut in the year 2012 with Karan Johar's Student of the Year, is celebrating his 29th birthday today (April 24). It's been only four years in the film industry, but the Dilwale actor has already won millions of heart within a short span of time.

ALSO SEE: These 7 Instagram pictures of the Dishoom actor are jaw-droppingly hot

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Varun Dhawan also gave a birthday bash, which was attended by Bollywood's who's who like Ranbir Kapoor and Shraddha Kapoor. Interestingly, Varun's birthday cake was inspired by his recent project Captain America.

Not just the B-Towners wished him personally at night, Bollywood celebs like Karan Johar and Jacqueline Fernandez have also poured birthday wishes for Varun on Twitter. Here's what they tweeted:

Happy birthday Varun!!!!!! @Varun_dvn ....all my love ....thoughts and energies for you! Now and forever.... pic.twitter.com/UKMekyDKIx Karan Johar (@karanjohar) April 23, 2016

Happy bday to the talented hit machine @Varun_dvn. Have a good one bud! ???? Ayushmann Khurrana (@ayushmannk) April 24, 2016

Happy b'day my dearest @Varun_dvn ?? Sorry I missed last nite but u know why..Have the most badass, awesome yr ever!! pic.twitter.com/grPk7ZvSnr SOPHIE CHOUDRY (@Sophie_Choudry) April 24, 2016

A wonderful party hosted by David sir, Lali aunty @Varun_dvn To celebrate his birthday! A family that's Always full of warmth and love! Milap (@zmilap) April 24, 2016

Happy Birthday to @Varun_dvn ! You deserve it all, and more! Keep making David-Sir and @karanjohar, and all of us proud! VISHAL DADLANI (@VishalDadlani) April 24, 2016

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The 60-year-old, who strongly rejects any suggestion of wrongdoing and denies that he has deliberately absconded from India, has been living at a three-storey mansion called Ladywalk in the village of Tewin in Hertfordshire.

By Press Trust of India: Indian liquor baron Vijay Mallya, whose Kingfisher Airlines has been accused of having defaulted on loans of over Rs 9,400 crore and faces legal proceedings, appears on the electoral rolls in the UK with his country home in Britain as his recorded address, a media report said on Saturday.

The 60-year-old, who strongly rejects any suggestion of wrongdoing and denies that he has deliberately absconded from India, has been living at a three-storey mansion called Ladywalk in the village of Tewin in Hertfordshire, just over a one-hour drive north of London.

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According to 'The Sunday Times', Mallya confirmed that "my official address in the UK is at Ladywalk", adding that he had supplied this information to the Indian authorities.

The 11.5-million-pound mansion was bought from the father of British Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton by a company with offshore links. "The ownership structure of Ladywalk is perfectly legal," the newspaper quoted Mallya as saying.

The use of companies with offshore links to buy properties in Britain has come under increasing scrutiny as the practice can allow the real owner or beneficiary to remain hidden - sometimes for tax purposes.

Such companies collectively hold up to 170 billion pounds of UK property, much of it in London and the home counties.

British Prime Minister David Cameron is set to use an anti-corruption summit next month to demand more transparency on such future purchases.

Mallya, however, told the newspaper there was no "concealment or tax avoidance involved" and said that he has been a "British resident" since 1992.

The report notes that official documents list the owner of Ladywalk as a limited liability partnership called Ladywalk LLP. It has two members, including a company called Continental Administration Services, which is registered in St. Kitts and Nevis, a Commonwealth country in the Caribbean regarded as a tax haven.

A loan to finance the property purchase in July 2015 was made by the Edmond de Rothschild private bank in Switzerland. Official papers name the borrower as Ladywalk Investments, a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, another tax haven.

Mallya had left India on March 2. He has refused to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on three occasions when summoned between March 10 and April 2.

ED has said it will also seek an Interpol arrest warrant against Mallya based on a non-bailable warrant issued last week by a Mumbai court in a money laundering case.

Also read:

Pressure mounts on Vijay Mallya, passport revoked, arrest warrant issued



Vijay Mallya will be brought back to face justice, says government





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AMU Vice Chancellor Lt Gen (Retd) Zameer Uddin Shah took stock of the situation by holding meetings with deans, wardens and university officials in the backdrop of student violence on campus.

By India Today Web Desk: Two people were killed during violent clashes between two rival groups on Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) campus, forcing authorities to deploy Rapid Action Force (RAF) and order a "major clean-up" operation in hostels.

The gun battle left an expelled student dead on Saturday night while another youth, who was injured in the clash, succumbed to injuries in hospital today, AMU spokesperson Rahat Abrar said.

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DIG Aligarh Range Govind Agarwal, who led the police operation said trouble started when a resident of Mumtaz hostel was assaulted and his room set afire. The victim rushed to the Proctor's office to file a complaint. As soon as news of the incident spread, students belonging to two rival factions gathered and a clash broke out.

Police said Mahtab was shot dead near the Proctor's office, where the warring groups exchanged fire, set ablaze a jeep and over half-a-dozen bikes, besides indulging in arson and torching the Proctor's office building.

What is worse is that the Proctor's office building was gutted resulting in damage of student records. Close to 28000 records were housed in the office. However, sources say, AMU will soon begin to retrieve some of the files from their computer back up.

Another student, Mohd Waqif, who was critically wounded in the firing, was rushed to Delhi where he succumbed to injuries.

According to AMU officials, Waqif was not a student but was seeking admission to the university and staying near the campus, preparing for the engineering entrance test.

An AMU official said tension between the rival groups, belonging to Azamgarh and Sambhal regions of Uttar Pradesh, has been simmering for quite some time now.

Police said an FIR has been registered against eight persons including Mohsin Iqbal, a student of MA (Political Science) and seven others, most of whom are outsiders and former students, in connection with the violence.

RAF was deployed at all sensitive spots, especially in view of the entrance test for the engineering college scheduled for today with over 13,000 candidates appearing from AMU campus centre alone.

AMU Vice Chancellor Lt Gen (Retd) Zameer Uddin Shah took stock of the situation by holding meetings with deans, wardens and university officials in the backdrop of student violence on campus.

ALSO READ

AMU campus violence could put future of 30000 students at risk



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By PTI: the government on this year, the government has also planned to remind them that even Janata Party and United Front governments had clamped central rule in a number of states.

"While it was done 12 times during the Prime Ministership of Morarji Desai of Janta Party in a short span of two years and 126 days, V P Singhs 340-day government of National Front did it twice.

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"The 170-day rule of Chaudhary Charan Singh, which had the support of Congress, and the 223-day rule of Chandra Shekhar of Samajwadi Janata Party, again backed by Congress, also saw imposition of Presidents Rule four times each. H D Devegowdas 324-day government propped by Congress also imposed Presidents rule twice," they said.

In contrast, the government is likely to argue that while Presidents rule was clamped only four times during the 6 odd years Atal Bihari Vajpayee the Prime Minister, Article 356 was used only twice (in Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand) under Narendra Modi in the last two years.

Upping the ante on the Uttarakhand political crisis, Congress leaders have given notices for suspension of the question hour and adoption of a resolution condemning the imposition of Presidents Rule there when the Budget session resumes tomorrow. PTI AMR SK DIP

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CHARLESTON -- Tim David was happy to return to his alma mater Saturday, recalling the inaugural year of a university ROTC program and relishing the chance to try to help break a world record, too.

The Chicago resident and 1982 graduate of Eastern Illinois University joined university ROTC cadets and others for a run and walk that took place near the university's campus pond.

ROTC and JROTC units across the country took part in runs Saturday to try to break a world record for the number of people taking part in a running event.

"I love what they're doing here," said David, who was a cadet in the EIU Panther Battalion ROTC when it first started the year in 1981. He later entered the Army and retired as a lieutenant colonel.

David said it was the news of the world record attempt that really drew him to the event.

More than 70 people took part in the EIU run, mostly university ROTC cadets, but also seven members of the Mattoon High School JROTC and a few others.

The unit had been planning the event since last summer, and it was also to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the ROTC program and the 35th anniversary of the EIU battalion, said Jasmine Winters, its public relations officer.

She said she was pleased that the commemorative run ended up also being a chance for ROTC units to pull together in a unified effort.

"That's what the Army is," Winters said. "I don't have to know you to help you out."

She said she wasn't sure when it would be known if the record was broken. The mark was set in 2012 in the Philippines with 209,000 runners taking part.

The cadets and some of the other runners took part in a 5k run with the route including some of the campus streets in addition to the Panther Trail at the pond. There was an option for a shorter walk.

EIU student Janelle Chouinard, a Charleston native, said she took part in the run because she has a friend in the ROTC program. She said she enjoyed that it included a world record-breaking attempt.

"Anything to encourage the program," she said. "It definitely adds another element to it."

Marissa Clampett of Rantoul, who graduated from EIU last year, also has a friend in ROTC and said she wanted to support the program and the record try.

"I thought I'd help out," she said. "It's really important."

Participants who weren't in ROTC paid a $24 entry fee to take part and the money went to an ROTC club that helps support the program's activities.
Big finish.

The celebratory exchange of standing applause between young immigrants and senators who successfully overrode the governor's veto of legislation clearing a pathway for them to pursue their professions in Nebraska was a rare, if not unprecedented, moment on the last day of the 2016 legislative session.

Normally, outbursts of applause or other noise from the gallery are swiftly gaveled into silence and senators do not respond. This moment was allowed to unfold.

And it was a memorable moment.

Curtain call.

These were the so-called DACA youth, brought to the United States illegally by their parents when they were children, granted lawful presence to remain here by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive action taken by President Obama.

The bill would allow them to acquire professional and commercial licenses to work in Nebraska, where most of them have grown up and gone to school. This is the place that most of them know as home.

So, it was quite a moment for them and for the senators who voted to support them.

During a presidential election year in which anti-immigrant rhetoric has turned ugly, and at time hateful, 31 of the 49 senators stood with the bill.

And 18 of them were senators who are Republicans. They joined the dozen senators who are Democrats and Ernie Chambers, the only independent.

All 13 votes to sustain the veto were cast by senators who are Republicans; five senators who are Republicans declined to vote. So the split among Republicans was 18-18.

Four times in recent years, the nonpartisan Legislature has overriden gubernatorial vetoes impacting undocumented immigrants, two cast by Gov. Pete Ricketts and two by Gov. Dave Heineman.

They impacted bills to grant the young immigrants in-state university and college tuition rates, allow them to acquire driver's licenses and now work in Nebraska in the professions they have chosen.

Also overriden was Heineman's veto of legislation providing prenatal care for illegal immigrant women and their babies in Nebraska.

***

Only 10 of 49 legislative districts count more registered Democrats than Republicans.

And they're all located in Lincoln and Omaha.

Those figures demonstrate what a daunting task it is for Democrats to win statewide elections in Nebraska.

It also tells you why Democratic candidates fare well in Lincoln and Omaha election contests.

The nonpartisan aspect of the Legislature opens some opportunities for Democrats outside the cities.

Most overwhelming voter registration dominance: Omaha's 11th District (Sen. Ernie Chambers): Democrats, 14,057; Republicans, 1,940; independents, 3,556.

Most competitive battleground: Lincoln's 26th District (Sen. Matt Hansen): Democrats, 9,443; Republicans, 9,359; independents, 5,295.

Not far behind: Lincoln's 27th District (Sen. Colby Coash): Democrats, 8,229; Republicans, 7,807; independents, 4,845 independents.

Those two narrow divides in Lincoln districts -- and there are other competitive legislative districts in the state -- demonstrate the significance of redistricting decisions that will be made in 2021 and why the vetoed redistricting reform legislation stirred political passions on both sides.

Those districts -- and others -- can be shaped to benefit either Republicans or Democrats.

Sponsors of the redistricting reform bill wanted to place a bipartisan citizens commission in charge of devising the map-making proposals that would be submitted to the Legislature for its approval or disapproval.

Opponents wanted to keep the whole process in the hands of state senators.

In reality, the reformers argue, there are other hands on that process before senators make the final decision. Instead of a citizens commission, those hands belong to governors, congressmen and party officials, the reformers contend.

***

Chuck Hagel and Bob Kerrey co-authored an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal last week making the case for global trade and diplomacy in the midst of nationalistic and anti-trade rhetoric during this year's presidential campaign.

"Beware the simple applause line or bumper-sticker slogan or tweet from political candidates," they wrote.

"Beware those who seem to think that diplomacy and compromise are not essential ingredients of a lasting peace.

"The statesmen who built the new economic and political order following World War II, and who sustained the nation's long and expensive containment of the Soviet Union, insisted that global trade and multilateral institutions were critical parts of securing global peace and prosperity."

***

The May 10 Nebraska primary election could be Ted Cruz's last stand if he loses Indiana on May 3 following what is likely to be a tough day for him in the Northeast on Tuesday.

Look for him to show up here.

Will Donald Trump swoop in for an appearance or two? Who knows?

Although Bernie Sanders already has won the Democratic presidential caucus that allocated Nebraska's delegates to the national convention, Democratic voters will choose between Sanders and Hillary Clinton in the primary, determining the winner of the popular vote.

***

Finishing up:

* Deb Fischer was mentioned in The Washington Post as a potential vice presidential running mate for Ted Cruz, if he wins the Republican presidential nomination and looks for a woman to complete the ticket. Also mentioned: Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa.

* Pete Ricketts was in campaign form last week, celebrating property tax reduction, expressway funding and Omaha-Sarpy County Learning Community adjustments with big media events in Lincoln and Omaha.

* Although nothing is settled until the secret-ballot votes are counted next January, John Stinner of Gering appears likely to be the Legislature's next Appropriations Committee chairman. Banker, conservative, collaborative, former Husker running back and linebacker -- two positions that would serve him well as chairman.

* What to like: Recent Husker recruiting and Yankee bullpen.

* What not to like: Nothing, it's spring.
Heath Mello was elected to the Legislature when he was 28.

At age 33, he was chairman of the Appropriations Committee, building state government's biennial budgets.

At the end of this year, Mello will be term-limited out of the nonpartisan Legislature at the age of 37, still a young man, still harboring a passion for public service.

So, what next?

"I look forward to spending more time with my family," Mello said during an interview in his first-floor Capitol office early one morning as the 2016 legislative session wound down to a close.

Mello and his wife, Catherine, have a 2-year-old daughter, Angelina, and a son, John, born six months ago.

"We will decompress after a tough legislative session," he said.

But, yes, there remains a desire to be engaged in public service, "somewhere and sometime in my future," whether it be statewide or local.

And, yes, Mello acknowledged, "a number of people are encouraging me" to do that. Perhaps very soon.

A year from now, Omaha will elect a mayor and fill City Council slots.

Mello won't go there during this interview, but there's plenty of evidence traveling under the radar that he's being urged to consider a bid for mayor in 2017.

Mayor Jean Stothert is expected to seek-re-election next spring.

It's a nonpartisan race. Stothert is a Republican; Mello is a Democrat; Omaha is a competitive -- and expensive -- battleground.

But so much for speculation about what might lie down the road; let's center on the eight-year legislative ride.

***

Consequential state senator; natural hands-on (literally) politician, connecting with a pat on the back, a hand on the shoulder, occasionally a mini-shoulder rub.

"I learned a lot and I grew a lot here," Mello said.

Mello represents a predominantly South Omaha district (which includes northern portions of Bellevue), a diverse community whose energy centers in its neighborhoods.

"Everything matters when you represent everyday working people who want government to work for them," he said. "We tried to do everything we could to connect with them and favorably impact their lives."

That priority was on vivid display during the final day of the 2016 session when Mello led a successful effort to override Gov. Pete Ricketts' veto of a bill allowing young undocumented immigrants who have been granted lawful presence in the United States to acquire professional and occupational licenses to work in the state.

Many of those kids grew up in South Omaha.

The appropriations chairmanship arrived in 2013 by the margin of a single vote.

First Omaha senator to chair the budget-building committee; first Democrat in 65 years; second youngest appropriations chairman ever.

"I hope senators will look back and be able to acknowledge that I kept my promises to be fair, balanced and steer the state toward a responsible fiscal course," Mello said.

As committee chairman, he said, he has tried to focus on taking the long view, building relationships, striving toward consensus, moving the state forward.

"You really rolled the dice," he told senators during his farewell speech to the Legislature on Wednesday.

Mello describes himself as "a pragmatic centrist (and) a lifelong student of wanting to learn."

"I try to build consensus," he said. "I want to be able to bring people together to solve problems.

"Somewhere in the middle lies a solution if you bring people together.

"Most issues are neither black nor white; it's about shades of gray."

The simplest description is be a doer.

"It's better to build consensus even if the policy is not exactly what you wanted," Mello said. "That's progress, rather having something blow up in your face.

"A pragmatic approach to governing yields tremendous results," he said.

And that belief would be "the driving factor in whatever I may do in the future," Mello said.

As appropriations chairman, Mello has worked with two Republican governors and the relationships have been different.

"Gov. (Dave) Heineman and I had a significant number of disagreements," he said. "I tried to focus on policy; he focused on politics."

But, he said, the relationship was not personally adversarial.

"I think Gov. Ricketts and I have a positive working relationship and I have a positive relationship with his staff," Mello said.

There have been disagreements on a couple of issues, he said, "but also very healthy policy discussions that have been refreshing."

"Governing is much more difficult than campaigning," Mello said.

Mello came to his final legislative session with a full plate of bills: workforce development, early childhood education, Innovation Campus, consumer protection, immigration policy, prison reform, cooperative efforts on school funding, property taxes, redistricting reform.

The pace of prison reform remains a concern for Mello as the clock ticks down on his final eight months in office.

"There have been steps toward progress," he said, "but I want to see corrections reform move faster through the planning phase and into implementation."

Prison overcrowding, staffing and programming are urgent issues that need to be addressed, he said.

Looking back, Mello said one of the bonuses of serving in the Legislature is the opportunity to "take a much broader view of the state and consider the impact in Scottsbluff as much as the impact in South Omaha."

And be able to do something about it.

His final legislative day was "a bittersweet moment," Mello said.

The only thing he won't miss is the hourlong commute.
Bobby Gene Tripp, 81, legendary Dobro man, husband, father, business owner, and all-around charmer, has been recalled for that eternal jam, and we must not be greedy. It turns out there are many friends and family members who have been waiting a long time to hear some of his fine, fine pickin'. He passed away April 15, 2016.

Born on July 29, 1934, in Malden, Mo., the world almost lost the opportunity to know this great man, when as a boy, he and his friends became lost in an Arkansas cave, a story which was written about in the local paper. Another friend stayed behind, alerting authorities and making their rescue possible.

Not long after, he bought his first Dobro and began playing in a western swing band that ignited his life-long passion for collaborating with like-minded musicians and entertaining audiences at folk and bluegrass festivals across the Midwest.

Bob worked hard all his life; maintaining airplane engines in his younger years, then driving a Bobcat, and finally, founding and running TrippNT, a world-class cart-manufacturing business with his beloved wife of 40 years, Susan.

But he will be best remembered for the way he related to others, the many who knew and loved him, with gentle friendship and an easy-going nature, and always communicating through that universal language: music. He loved listening to and telling jokes and stories. Holding court and shooting the breeze with acquaintances, friends, and family was one of his great joys in life, along with having a drink and a smoke and his dogs by his side.

With the exception of a scant few days near the end, this was how he lived, giving many who loved and adored him the opportunity to tell him so. We will always be grateful we had him for so many wonderful years.

Bob was preceded in death by his father, Rev. Charley Tripp, his mother, Audie Sharpton Tripp, brother Charles Lee "Sandy" Tripp, and sister Goldie Lee Tripp.

He is survived by wife, Susan Irene McLeod Tripp; two children from his first marriage, Steve Tripp and Tracy Tripp; two step-children, Sebastian McLeod and Rachael Seravalli McLeod; six biological grandchildren: Cory Tripp, Robin Tripp Charles, Josh Tripp, Kassy Tripp, Kyle Tripp, and Casey Tripp; five step-grandchildren: Claudia Seravalli, Carla Seravalli, Leo Seravalli, Taylor McLeod, and Cameron McLeod; one great-grandchild, Evan Tripp; and three brothers: Garland D. Tripp, Carl Ray Tripp, and Jerry Wayne Tripp.

A celebration of life will be held from 5 to 10 pm on Friday, April 29, at Bob's business, TrippNT, 8830 NE 108th Street, Kansas City, MO 64152. Please bring your stories about Bob, photos, memorabilia, and your instrument. Stage and open mic provided.
Marge Viehl, 84, Lincoln. died April 21, 2016. She was born on January 1, 1932.

Marge said about her life, "I was here for my family; to be a nurse educator, and to travel."

Marge was one of the first women trained to teach Bethel Bible series. She was a vacation Bible school teacher. She held a deep appreciation for the spiritual and educational philosophies of different denominations, teaching at Marquette University, Concordia University Wisconsin, and Hope-Calvin College.

While working, Marge received her BSN and MSN during her 17 years of teaching at Marquette. She considered one of her greater accomplishments to have served as founding dean of the nursing program at Concordia University-Wisconsin. During her time at Concordia, she earned her doctorate in educational policy from the University of Wisconsin. She retired as director of nursing at Hope-Calvin School of Nursing, Michigan.

Marge traveled often, visiting Europe, Northern Africa, South America, Asia, Australia and the Arctic circle. She served on People to People Health Care Ambassadors trips to Lithuania and Czechoslovakia.

Marge was a mother to two boys, Warren and the late Brian Viehl. In reminiscing about her boys, she especially talked of a time when Brian was in 6th grade: "He became emotional to the point of tears when the Green Bay Packers had clinched the division but lost their final game of the regular season." Of Warren she said, "He had a heart for being alongside me helping me in the kitchen and talking to me when he sensed I was upset."

Both boys have families: Brian (Terry) and their children, Nathan, Luke, and Emily; Warren (Marilyn) and their children, Sean, Colleen (Scott) Schreiner, Corey (Molly), and Maura (Mark Canter). Marge's great-grandchildren are Ava, Maddox, Langston, and Raines Schreiner, George, Maisy, August, and Charlie Viehl. Her sister, Dorothy Dippel and brother, Richard (Helen) Petzing, also survive her.

Visitation will be held from 4-8 p.m. Thursday, April 28, at Lincoln Memorial Funeral Home. Family committal will be Friday, April 29, at 9:30 a.m. Funeral Worship service will be held at 11:30 a.m. Friday, at Christ Lutheran Church, 4325 Sumner, Lincoln. Marge has requested no flowers. Memorials may be sent to Christ Lutheran Church 4325 Sumner St. Lincoln, NE 68506 to be used for prison ministries or Tabitha Hospice, 4720 Randolph, Lincoln, NE 68510.
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Authorities say a 2-year-old was taken to the hospital after suffering an animal bite at the Lincoln Children's Zoo Sunday afternoon.

Lincoln Fire and Rescue crews responded to the call around 3:30 p.m. Lincoln Police Capt. Bob Farber said the youngster's injuries were not life threatening.

Ryan Gross, the zoo's director of creativity strategy, said the child was bitten by a fossa -- a catlike species of Madagascar related to the mongoose family, according to the zoo's website.

The zoo is still investigating the incident, Gross said, but he could confirm that the bite did not occur during a show or animal demonstration. He also said the child was not inside the fossa's habitat, and that the fossa did not escape.

Zoo operations ran as normal after the incident, Gross said.

"We secured the animal inside and are investigating if any further safety precautions are necessary," Gross said. "The safety of our guests, staff and animals is our highest priority. If and when more information is available we will release it."
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Theres an old legal adage that good facts make good law, and bad facts make bad law. In the case of campus sexual assault, it may be that absurd facts will  eventually  make good law too.

About five years ago, the Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights issued a letter that would change the face of campus sexual misconduct proceedings at colleges across the country.

The letter directed university administrators to judge allegations according to the lowest burden of proof available: the preponderance of the evidence, a mere 50.01 percent certainty that whatever the accuser claimed actually happened. It also highly discouraged cross-examinations, suggesting they might violate federal anti-discrimination law.

To avoid the governments ire  and bad press  colleges set up hard-line, zero tolerance policies. They began suspending or even expelling students on the basis of allegations that, even if true, fell short of what most people understand as assault. In recent months, however, some disputes have migrated from campuses to the real-world court system, and real-world judges are pushing back on absurd situations with common sense.

One case involves two Brandeis students who dated for almost two years. Six months after the breakup, the young man whod ended the relationship filed a two-sentence complaint against his former boyfriend, alleging numerous inappropriate, non-consensual sexual interactions.

No details, no specific incidents  just that two-sentence complaint about bad things that happened during a lengthy relationship.

Brandeis immediately launched an investigation and charged the accused with 12 separate violations of school policy. He was ultimately found responsible for four of them  three counts of sexual misconduct and one count of invasion of privacy. As a result, he was fired from his internship and forced to explain what happened to every potential graduate school or employer.

His crimes? Looking at his boyfriend naked when they were in a communal bathroom during their relationship; waking his boyfriend up by kissing him; trying to perform oral sex on his boyfriend when they were staying at the boyfriends fathers house; and, at the start of their relationship, putting his hand on his boyfriends crotch.

Thats right  someone was punished for waking up another person in a long-term relationship with a kiss.

In the logic of campus proceedings, this outcome makes a certain kind of sense. A kiss  or any other sexual contact  is non-consensual if the other person is asleep. And the Department of Education has told colleges that they mustnt treat non-consensual contact lightly. Yet campus rules overlook the realities of relationships and how people function in them.

Failed by university administrators, the accused student sued Brandeis in federal court, alleging that the school had, among other things, violated its promise to conduct his disciplinary proceeding with basic fairness. In a forceful decision, a U.S. District Court judge lambasted Brandeis for how it treated the student, noting that there are few things in life as complex as a long-term relationship and permitted the case to move forward.

In another case, a student sued the University of Southern California for suspending him for a year  not for sexually assaulting his accuser, but for failing to intervene quickly enough when someone else slapped her on the bottom. The school did this despite a complete lack of evidence that the student knew the slap was coming or could have done anything to prevent it.

The court threw out USCs decision entirely and ordered the student back to school. In the span of two pages, it used the words no evidence four separate times.

Sexual assault does occur on college campuses, and schools are right to take it seriously. But that doesnt mean common sense has to go out the window. It is no less ridiculous to brand a college student a rapist for making an unwanted pass at his boyfriend than it is to brand a 7-year-old a threat for eating a Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun. Yet in the mindless world of zero tolerance, such distinctions are lost.

Sex, especially between college students, is messy and confusing. The notion currently in vogue that students must give explicit consent at every step of the way may be great in theory, but thats just not how people behave. People in romantic relationships sometimes wake each other with a kiss. Maybe the other person doesnt want the kiss  or doesnt want to be woken up  but does such behavior warrant even a formal response from a university, much less punishment?

Slowly but surely, courts may be starting to realize that they have a role to play in making sure that schools treat everyone fairly, both the accusers and the accused. As any economist (or any parent) will tell you, people respond to incentives. If colleges fail to bring common sense back into their disciplinary processes, then courts may force them to do that  and absurd facts will make good law.
The announcement by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew that Harriet Tubman will take the place of Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill has caused some grumbling. Senator Lamar Alexander, who like Jackson is from Tennessee, expressed grave misgivings about the swap. Donald Trump said the change was "pure political correctness."

But there's one major political figure who would be thrilled by the news: Jackson himself.

Jackson's presence on the notes of the Federal Reserve has always been a slap in the face to the seventh president, who unequivocally hated the idea of a central bank that issued paper currency. Jackson will be finally released from a kind of monetary purgatory.

Jackson's fear of paper money was legendary. He came of age in an era when most of the nation's money supply consisted of notes issued by state-chartered banks. These private currencies could, in theory, be redeemed for "hard money" -- gold or silver coin -- at the counters of the banks that issued them. But in times of panic, banks often reneged on these promises. Jackson, who had an especially traumatic experience during the panic of 1819, emerged from that crisis with a profound distrust of paper instruments of all kinds.

His view was simple and straightforward. As he would later write:

"The only currency known to the constitution of the United States is gold and silver. This is consequently the only currency which that instrument delegates to Congress the power to regulate. A general paper currency, being unknown to the constitution, does not come within the scope of any of its provisions, and cannot be regulated under its authority."

This view would put him on a collision course with the Bank of the United States. The institution, the brainchild of Alexander Hamilton (the guy on the $10 bill), had been chartered by Congress and went through two separate iterations. Modeled on the Bank of England, it drew on both public and private resources and was the era's closest cousin to a modern central bank. Its notes enjoyed a national circulation, much the way Federal Reserve notes work today.

When Jackson won the presidency in 1828, he and the president of the Bank of the United States, the aristocratic Nicholas Biddle, immediately clashed. In time, their mutual animus would spawn the so-called Bank War, a titanic clash over the fate of this institution. Jackson famously told Biddle at the outset of this struggle that "I do not dislike your bank any more than all banks." But this was disingenuous: Jackson's hatred for the Bank of the United States grew to immense proportions.

In private, he labeled it a "hydra-headed monster" that he swore he would slay. In public, he did his best to make good on that promise, vetoing a bill to renew its charter in the summer of 1832. The tone of that veto, which Biddle likened to the "fury of a chained panther biting the bars of his cage," unleashed a broadside on the very idea of a national bank, which Jackson's veto described as unconstitutional, "subversive of the rights of the States, and dangerous to the liberties of the people."

Jackson's fiery attack emboldened his supporters, and he swept to re-election that fall. Not satisfied with this victory and the inevitable death of the Bank when its charter expired in 1836, Jackson administered the coup de grace, withdrawing federal funds from its coffers, leaving it an empty shell.

But even this wasn't enough: There still was the question of what to do about all the paper "trash" issued by state-chartered banks. He and his allies sought to crush these, too, but their powers were more limited. Jackson eventually issued the "Specie Circular," which required purchasers of federal lands to pay with gold and silver coin, not paper bank notes.

Jackson never wavered in his convictions after he left the presidency. "Congress has the express power to borrow, but not to issue bills of credit, or make a paper currency," he wrote in 1841. "Ours was intended to be a hard money government."

And yet, not so long after his death, Jackson ended up on some of the first irredeemable paper money issued by the federal government: the greenbacks, printed during and after the Civil War. First he adorned the $5 note, then the $10 and $20 notes issued by the Federal Reserve. This paper initially could be exchanged for "hard money," but after Franklin D. Roosevelt took the country off the gold standard, Jackson was left stranded on a piece of fiat currency worth $20.

And there he remained, spinning in his grave, until now.
Alan Gueberts recent column (The ethanol trap, LJS, April 10) asks, Where would the nation, its farmers, livestock growers, and rural America be today had ethanol not been givena role in U.S. farm and energy policy during the last 25 years? This is indeed an important question to consider, as farmers enter the planting season facing gloomy projections for farm income and decade-low commodity prices. Unfortunately, however, Mr. Guebert gets the answer all wrong.

He bemoans that federal policies have encouraged farmers to produce first, then figure out what to do with the market-splattering surplus. But this is exactly the hopeless market dynamic that ethanol and programs like the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) have reversed over the past decade.

Between 1990 and 2006, producing corn was a losing proposition. In all but one of those 17 years, the average farmers cost of producing a bushel of corn was higher than the returns earned from selling that bushel. As a result, U.S. farmers became increasingly reliant on government payments as a source of incomeand as a means of survival. Fortunately, the emergence of the ethanol industry over the past decade helped transform the corn market from a state of demand stagnancy, giant surpluses, and growing reliance on the taxpayer to a state of healthy demand expansion, higher value, and plunging government payments.

And that rising tide has lifted all boats. The value of U.S. crop and livestock production in 1990 was $83 billion and $90 billion, respectively, and net farm income totaled $46 billion. By 2013, values for U.S. crops, livestock, and net farm income hit record levels of $233 billion, $182 billion, and $123 billion, respectively.

Mr. Guebert also laments that, as the ethanol industry expanded, farmers redirected American acres toward cornand away from other crops like cotton, wheat, and oats. Apparently, he believes acreage for these other crops would have increased or remained at pre-1990 levels had it not been for the emergence of corn ethanol.

Of course, this argument ignores the multitude of other factors that influence commodity markets and annual planting decisions. Chief among them is the inexorable march of technology and productivity, changing consumer preferences, and basic supply-demand fundamentals. Since 1990, the average yields per acre of wheat, barley, oats, sorghum, and cotton have increased 20-25%. Productivity increases for these crops have generally outpaced demand, which in many cases has slowed in response to evolving consumer preferences .Thus, considerably fewer planted acres of these crops are needed to satisfy demand. Meanwhile, the average corn yield per acre has grown 42% since 1990.

Given these productivity gains, farmers were faced with two choices: significantly reduce planted acres, or build new markets for the additional production. Fortunately, they chose the latter route and invested in the build-out of the ethanol industry, which not only added value to their corn but also brought stable, high-paying jobs to rural communities across the country. It is not an exaggeration to say that because of ethanol, there is a considerable amount of productive farm ground engaged in crop production today that might have otherwise been sold off long ago to residential and commercial real estate developers. And that means a generation of farmers has been able to stay on the land.

So, where would agriculture be without ethanol and the RFS? Probably in the same place it was before ethanols major emergence a decade agostagnant demand, huge commodity surpluses, crop prices below the cost of production, rising reliance on taxpayer-funded farm payments, a faltering farm economy, and a continued exodus of young people from rural America.

Yes, the 2016 outlook for row crop agriculture is not pretty as planters start rolling across the Corn Belt. Increasing surpluses and lower commodity prices are reason to be concerned. But just imagine how much worse things would be if Americas farmers hadnt had the vision and fortitude 25 years ago to build the ethanol industry from the ground up. Now is not the time to reverse course on what has been an extraordinary success story for U.S. agriculture and rural America.
Today the Journal Star makes the first of its endorsements for the May 10 primary election.

As always, we do so with the primary intention of contributing to community dialogue, hoping to heighten interest and have a positive influence on this crucial democratic exercise.

The editorial board places a high value on pragmatism in governance. We believe that compromise is the lubricant that allows a democracy to function. History shows that we endorse both Democrats and Republicans. Theres no secret to our agenda; we lay out our priorities every year in a January editorial.

Because this is a primary, we are offering our view on the two candidates best suited to move on to the general election. We are opining only in races in which a candidate will be eliminated. Another round of endorsements will come in the fall.

Legislative District 25

Attorney Jim Gordon and nephrologist Dr. Les Spry get the nod in the crowded field of five candidates vying to replace term-limited Kathy Campbell in a district that includes east Lincoln and parts of rural Lancaster County including Waverly and Walton.

Jim Gordon, 69, is the son of Sally Gordon, the Legislatures longtime assistant sergeant-at arms who retired at 102. He served as a combat infantryman in Vietnam and spent 17 months in the hospital recovering from wounds sustained in combat.

Gordon said that his top priorities include eliminating the state tax on Social Security retirement benefits and providing more property tax relief.

If elected, Gordon said he would support efforts to use federal Medicaid dollars available under the Affordable Care Act to extend coverage to the working poor.

and others.

Spry, 64, currently is the Medical Director of the Dialysis Center of Lincoln. Previously he served as chief of staff at St. Elizabeth Regional Medical Center. Spry said that he thinks his experience and background in the medical field would be valuable in the Legislature. We agree.

Spry said that his top legislative priorities would include finding new sources of revenue for schools, reducing their dependence on property taxes. He suggested these sources of revenue could include legislation declaring products like soda pop, candy and Red Bull as not food, making them subject to sales tax.

Like Gordon, Spry favors legislation that would access federal Medicaid funds so working poor in Nebraska could have coverage.

Spry said if voters reinstate the death penalty he will help devise a method of execution that is humane and swift.

Other candidates in the field are Suzanne Geist, Dr. Dale Michels and David Tagart.

District 21

Voters have three well-qualified candidates for the district now represented by Ken Haar of Malcolm. The district covers the northwest corner of Lancaster County, including a slice of Lincoln and the villages of Malcom, Davey and Raymond.

Our endorsements go to attorney and mediator Larry Scherer and Rick Vest, who served in both union and management positions during a 40-year career with BNSF.

Scherer, 64, already has first-hand knowledge of how the Legislature works. He served as counsel for the Education Committee and helped write the formula for state aid to schools.

Now director of research for the Nebraska Education Association (the state teachers union) , Scherer said his priorities include fixing the school funding system so reliance on property taxes can be reduced. "We are 49th in the nation in state support for our schools -- and we have shifted way too much of the burden onto property taxpayers, Scherer told the Journal Star.

Scherer said he would support efforts to use federal Medicaid dollars available under the Affordable Care Act to extend coverage to Nebraskas working poor.

He also listed promoting further development of renewal energy as a top priority, which would continue the legacy established by Haar.

Vest, 61, says his background in labor negotiations and as a certified mediator would serve him well in solving problems and building coalitions as a state senator.

In response to the Journal Stars Voter Guide questionnaire Vest said his top priorities would be criminal justice reform with programs for mental health and rehabilitation, early childhood education and expansion of Medicaid to working Nebraskans.

Vest noted that last year taxpayers in Lancaster County paid $2 million to cover costs of indigent care. Expansion of Medicaid would help reduce that amount, and reduce the local property tax burden.

Nebraskas tax system is out of balance, Vest said, and is too reliant on property taxes. He said he would work to restore balance.

Attorney Mike Hilgers is the third candidate in the race.
OMAHA  First National Bank of Omaha is offering to send six customers to Bulgaria along with an employee team to help build a Habitat for Humanity house in the fall.

Anyone interested in making the trip will have to enter the essay contest by May 6.

The bank plans to cover all necessary expenses for six customers who want to help Habitat for Humanity. Six bank employees will also make the trip from September 22 to October 3.

Stephen Eulie with the bank says First National wants to provide an unforgettable experience for the winners and boost interest in Habitat for Humanity.

Entries are being accepted online at http://woobox.com/fm6a5g .
While virtually all of Nebraskas county seats originated in or were subsequently moved to the center of their constituencies, why does it not make sense to put the state capital and, while we're at it, the U. S. capital in Kearney?

Moving Nebraskas capital was accomplished once and discussed several times subsequently.

What is seldom remembered, however, is that there was considerable effort expended in the 1860s and 1870s to relocate the District of Columbia to Buffalo County.

Moses Henry Sydenham was born in London in 1835. At the age of 9, he began working as a suspenders-maker for 4 cents a week, moving up to producing curtain fringe for 37.5 cents per week. He then worked for four years in a bindery, and when his father died, he became responsible for his entire family and began working for a printer. By 18, he was publishing a weekly newspaper.

Becoming a seaman in 1853, Sydenham traveled first to New York City, and on a subsequent trip landed at Savannah, Georgia, in 1856. Deciding that a life at sea was not for him, he began working his way up the Mississippi River, and, while working at the Kansas City Enterprise, caught what he described as bilious fever.

An agent of Russell, Majors & Waddell convinced him that he could do well working for them as a teamster and that outdoor work would cure the fever. His first trip west took him through Fort Kearny to Fort Laramie. On the return trip in February 1857, a blizzard stopped the party at Fort Kearny. It immediately was followed by a second snowstorm so dense that the sutlers clerk lost his way going from the store to his quarters and was not found till spring by several Pawnee.

John Heth, the sutler, hired Sydenham to replace the clerk and the following year made him the fort postmaster as well.

With the organization of Kearney County the following year, Kearney City, located just west of the fort, was designated as the county seat, with Sydenham appointed as a county commissioner.

In 1862, Sydenham began publishing the Kearney Herald at the fort as the first newspaper in the county. About the same time the notion was born that Kearney City should be the capital of both Nebraska and the United States. In 1866, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman felt that the railroads arrival and subsequent settlement of the area made Fort Kearny redundant, but Sydenham convinced him that one company should be left to protect the area from the Sioux.

Sydenham, meanwhile, established a new paper, the Central Star, dedicated to moving the U.S. capital to the center of the country. He served as a delegate to the national capital removal convention in 1870 in Louisville, Kentucky. Sydenhams proposal spoke of how much more secure from enemy attack a central capital would be, citing the War of 1812 as an example. There was plenty of empty land, 10 square miles on the Fort Kearny reservation alone, and all railroads would soon see the advantage to transportation and freight connections.

Rail transport would be supplemented by a system of canals with water furnished by the Platte River. He further suggested that he, as agent, could sell 64,000 sections of the reservation for enough money to build the new capitol and city with all amenities including vast park lands. He also projected that the entire program would redeem the national debt within 10 years.

Although it sounded foolproof, he reported that there were too many representatives from too many places for any individual proposal. The entire convention failed.

Sydenham was not idle. He ran for the state legislature in 1868, but claimed that he lost because of a flood of illegal votes by cowboys from the west end of the state (and) political wire-working. He contested the vote, but it stood.

Fort Kearny closed in 1871 and Sydenham moved his store to Kearney City, which he renamed Centoria. The St. Joseph & Denver City Railroad failed to reach the area, terminating at Hastings.

By 1878, the Union Pacific hired Sydenham as a mail clerk for the route between Omaha and Ogden, Utah. During his last years Sydenham lived in the new Kearney, to the north of the old fort and Centoria, and there established the Central Star of Empire, a paper promoting Christian ideals.

He explained how the new city of Kearney inherited the extra "e" at the end of its name, while the fort, named for Col. Stephen Watts Kearny, remained without, by saying either the War or Post Office Department had injected the letter even before the county was originated, probably over the confusion with Kearney City.
Dear Dr. K: I'm a woman in my 50s, and every so often it is painful for several days when I urinate. The doctor tests me, says I don't have a urinary tract infection, and that there's nothing to do. It's true that it goes away, but I'd like some relief when it hurts. Is there anything I can do?

Dear Reader: Urinary tract infections are a common cause of painful urination, but there are other causes as well. And those other causes can be treated. Here's what you need to know before you talk again to your doctor.

There are three different types of common urinary tract infections, involving three different parts of the urinary tract.

* Urethritis is an inflammation of the urethra. The urethra is the short tube that goes from the bladder to the outside world. Urethritis can be caused by the bacteria that produce the other two types of urinary tract infections. It also can be the result of organisms that cause several sexually transmitted diseases, or by irritating chemicals (such as bubble bath or spermicides). Be sure your doctor tested for the sexually transmitted diseases.

* A bladder infection (cystitis) often is caused by bacteria that live around the opening of the urethra, then travel through the urethra to the bladder. The bladder stores urine that has been made by the kidneys, then eliminates it during urination. Sometimes, bacteria travel up into the bladder without any clear cause. More often, this happens following sex, because sex tends to push the bacteria back up into the bladder.

There is a widely held belief that women and girls who wipe with toilet tissue from back to front following a bowel movement can also push bacteria up into the bladder. However, I once did a study that did not confirm this belief.

* Kidney infection. Sometimes bacteria travel all the way up the urinary tract, into the kidneys, through long tubes called ureters. The symptoms of a kidney infection, in contrast to a bladder infection, include fever, pain in the side of the back, nausea, shaking chills and sometimes low blood pressure. Kidney infections always need urgent medical attention.

A urine culture test is commonly used to diagnose these three types of urinary tract infections. Many doctors were taught that a bacterial infection is not present if fewer than 100,000 bacteria are found in each milliliter of urine. However, newer research finds that an infection is likely if as few as 100 bacteria are found in each milliliter. You might check with your doctor on the results of your urine culture.

Another type of condition also can cause pain on urination: vaginitis, an inflammation of the vagina. Often it is caused by bacterial, yeast or trichomonas infections. Usually vaginitis produces discharge from the vagina, but sometimes it just causes pain with urination. It also can be the result of irritating chemicals (spermicide, douche, bath soap), irritation from tampons, or low levels of estrogen after menopause.

So if your doctor did not do a pelvic examination to look for vaginitis as a cause of your painful urination, you might suggest that.

(This column is an update of one that ran originally in March 2013.)
RACINE  Young Professionals of Racine is in a bit of a rebuilding mode, and this week it will symbolically join hands with other such groups all around the state.

For the first time, this year YPR is participating in YPWeek, along with similar organizations from 14 other communities. YPR is holding three events, one of them here along with Newaukee, Milwaukees young professionals group.

YPR is a program of Racine Area Manufacturers and Commerce. It was started years ago to try to give young business people more reasons to stay in the area and become the local executives and business owners of this areas future.

But it hasnt always been a raving success. After some initial enthusiasm and the compilation of a large email list, attendance at many events waned. Although the goal is to field members who are no older than 40 to 45, no one is refused membership based on age.

Today, paid membership is at about 80, said RAMAC Operations Supervisor Anna Clementi, YPRs direct overseer.

Just like RAMAC, we have kind of been in a rebuilding phase, she said. I can see progress just in the two years Ive been here.

This is Newaukees fifth annual YPWeek, an event that went statewide last year, and this is YPRs first year of participation. Other participating communities include Fox Cities, Green Bay, Kenosha, La Crosse and Madison.

YPR states this weeklong platform is focused on discovery, adventure and meaningful conversations about the issues that matter most among young professionals in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. financially supported the spread of YPWeek around the state.

Millennials make up the largest share of the population and labor force, this is true for both Wisconsin and the nation, stated Bob Pope, WEDC research analyst and an event planner for YPWeek Madison. We are competing to acquire this demographic, and Wisconsins success in attracting and retaining talent will give a competitive edge for key emerging economic driver industries.

Three local events

YPR is holding three events for YPWeek, the first of which was held Saturday evening when a small group planned to meet for a reception at Vero International Cuisine followed by a play at the 6th Street Theatre.

Wednesday evening, YPR will be joined by about 50 Newaukee members at the Racine Art Museum, 441 Main St., and we will easily match that, Clementi said. She said Newaukee members are taking the Amtrak into the area while listening to a speaker. Then they will take a bus to Downtown for a reception with YPR, featuring appetizers, drinks and a DJ.

And on Friday, YPR will hold its annual dodgeball tournament, which this year was moved to YPWeek. The event at Razor Sharp Fitness, 7300 Washington Ave., Mount Pleasant, raises funds for the annual YP Scholarship that is given to a graduating senior from a Racine high school. As of Friday, nine teams were signed up.

Clementi said YPR events held at area companies can help make them more aware that they can use YPR to connect younger employees with others like them in the community.

Thats one of the goals, Clementi said. Its not just about finding the young professionals walking around. I think it should be part of their (company) culture.

To participate in the RAM or dodgeball event, one need not be a YPR member. For more information, contact Clementi at RAMAC, 262-634-1931, or visit racinechamber.com for registration details.
BURLINGTON  In one of her first acts as Burlingtons new mayor, Jeannie Hefty announced Friday that the city would participate in Denim Day on Wednesday, April 27.

Denim Day is a national campaign that encourages community members to make a social statement against sexual assault and the misconceptions surrounding it, according to a news release sent out by the city. Next Wednesday, Burlington city employees will be encouraged to wear jeans to work.

Hefty made an official declaration announcing Burlingtons participation in the campaign.

I urge all citizens to celebrate Denim Day and to support survivors of sexual violation and raise awareness of prevention and educational efforts throughout the nation, she wrote in the declaration.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, an average of 240,000 people are raped or sexually assaulted each year.

This staggering statistic prompted Mayor Hefty to take a proactive approach to prevent sexual assault and support victims, the release stated.

April marks Sexual Assault Awareness month and Denim Day started in April 1999. The day of awareness began in Italy as a way to protest an sexual assault conviction that saw its ruling overturned. The initial ruling was changed because the assaulted womans jeans were deemed tight and difficult to remove, which to the Italian Supreme Court implied consent, according to the release.
SOMERS  What started as a topic of discussion among volunteers at the Wisconsin Special Olympics State Games has blossomed into a full-fledged annual community event.

Saturday marked the second annual Run with the Cops on the campus of University of Wisconsin-Parkside. The event, which raised money for Special Olympics Wisconsin athletes, included a kids fun run, a 5K run/walk and a costume contest.

The approximately 170 community members and Special Olympics athletes in attendance, accessorized in glowing apparel, interacted with law enforcement by exploring their vehicles and taking pictures in a jail cell.

Its great having people come out here, said Racine County Sheriffs Lt. Brian Zimmermann, the events law enforcement coordinator. They see some of the equipment we have and they also see that were actually people who do stuff for the community.

Zimmermann was one of many law enforcement officers in attendance. More than a dozen Racine and Kenosha county departments sent representatives to the event, including the Caledonia, Sturtevant, Mount Pleasant and Waterford police departments.

Caledonia Police Chief Daniel Warren attended the event with his son Joel. Joel, 17, a student at Horlick High School, is a Special Olympian.

It just shows were willing to participate and help out, and the kids have a good time, Warren said.

Two of those kids, Meadow Clouse, 6, and her sister, Willow, 3, from Kenosha, took pictures in police vehicles and in the jail cell.

They both love the police dogs, their mother, Christine Clouse said. Meadow wants to be a police officer.

The event, which took place when school was not in session at Parkside, was moved this year to take place with school in session. UW-Parkside Police Officer Jim Spino said they hoped to engage the campus community with the event as well.

I think it worked, because the registration nearly tripled, so it had to come from somewhere, he said.

Beyond engaging students, interacting with the kids and Special Olympian makes the event worthwhile for Spino.

Their faces light up (around) law enforcement and theyre very gracious for everything we do with them, he said. It hits home when you see the kids that really enjoy what were doing for them.

This story has been corrected to reflect the correct spelling of Brian Zimmermann's name and the location of UW-Parkside.
RACINE  Longtime Racine Unified physical education teacher and Racine Education Association leader Betsy Kippers has announced she will retire from her position as president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, and from her job in the district this summer.

The first person from Racine to lead the statewide teachers union, Kippers began work with the district in 1977 and became active with the REA in the 1980s, chairing committees and eventually serving as treasurer, vice president and president.

She stepped down as REA president in 2007 after she was elected secretary/treasurer for WEAC, then later vice president, and finally president in 2013. She assumed leadership of WEAC in the aftermath of the controversial Act 10, a 2011 state law that sharply curtailed collective bargaining rights for most public employee unions, required unions to recertify annually and allowed public employees to opt out of paying union dues.

The Journal Times asked Kippers a series of questions on her career, the state of education and teachers unions in Wisconsin and the future:

Why did you want to become a teacher and how did you end up teaching in Racine?

I was called to teach as a student in Brookfield Public Schools (now Elmbrook). I interned in Racine and fell in love with the rich diversity of students. I am privileged to have dedicated my career to Racine students and families.

With your many years involved with the Racine Education Association, how has the relationship between the teachers union and district administration changed over the years?

(Kippers said she could not comment on periods outside her leadership terms in the REA, and responded to the issue statewide.) Wisconsin school districts have faced a great number of changes in the educational landscape  and not only due to the happenings of the past five years. Sweeping changes in student testing, teacher evaluations and federal law were well on their way before politicians sought to remove teacher voices from school decisions. Across the state, were seeing a wide range of approaches between local education associations and school administrators  from collaboration to top-down decisions that dont include teacher input. In districts where teacher input is sought and valued, were hearing there is better morale and less teacher turnover. That benefits students. Because of that, we believe teachers  who are closest to students  should be an equal partner in school decision-making.

How does the current friction between the union and administration compare with previous periods and what do you see as the way forward for both sides?

(Kippers maintained that she could not comment on the current situation, but responded answered more generally about the state overall.) Generations of Wisconsin students and families benefited from the stable, strong public schools on which our state and nations democracy was founded. In this difficult time of transition, its essential that educator voice is once again included in all school decision-making. Teachers are the experts when it comes to their students, and their input should be respected.

What drove you to take a position with the Wisconsin Education Association Council?

I saw the positive impact for students when educators unite in union. Because of educator advocacy, Wisconsin built one of the most respected public school systems in the nation. Stepping up to lead the union as our public schools are being defunded and educators are being disrespected wasnt easy  but I am so passionate about the role of public education in protecting our democracy that I just had to step up to lead.

As a leader of WEAC in the immediate wake of Act 10, how have you seen public education in Wisconsin and Racine change since that law went into effect?

Morale has plummeted as the demands on educators increase, while at the same time they have less voice in whats happening with their students and in their schools. Fewer young people are going into the education professions. In the past five years, Wisconsin public schools and RUSD have seen a huge increase in the amount of public school funding being diverted to subsidize private school tuition. This results in fewer opportunities and staff cuts in public schools, making it more difficult for students to succeed. Our union is still strong, in Wisconsin and in Racine, and these are the problems we will continue to offer solutions to long after my term as WEAC President is up.

What are your proudest accomplishments over your whole career as an educator and labor leader? Any regrets?

I am most proud of my work with students who were able to accomplish more than they ever thought they could because of the opportunities afforded to them through public schools. I never forget that public schools provide every student with that opportunity  no matter their special needs, their income or their family situations. Inspiring students is what drove me to be active in the labor movement, and it is what drives every WEAC member.

Why are you retiring and what are your plans for retirement?

Ive spent decades serving students through teaching and union. Its time for me to focus on my family.
RACINE COUNTY  Jerry Cain has owned 9Round Fitness in Mount Pleasant for more than a year. His facility has a unisex restroom, and hes never encountered any gender-related issues.

We would just treat everybody the same, he said. I dont ask what gender you are when you come in. Im just trying to get you to your workout goals.

Cains experience and viewpoint runs counter to the sentiment of HB2, a bill passed by the North Carolina Legislature on March 23. The bill stipulates that transgender people who have not taken surgical or legal steps to change their gender must use public restrooms that align with their birth gender.

While the law does not directly affect Wisconsin, several local schools, school boards and gyms have taken steps to create policies to govern such situations.

In February, Racine Unified passed a policy that allows students uncomfortable with the bathroom or locker room of their birth gender to request use of a private, single-occupant facility. Administrators said at the time that such a policy was already the de facto practice in schools.

The Rev. Gari Green, the vice president of the board of LGBT Center of SE Wisconsin, has made presentations to both the Racine and Kenosha public school districts in the past year on the subject. She feels Racine Unifieds policy shows progress, although not as much as she would have hoped.

Its half a loaf, but its better than none, Green said. Weve got a good perception. It does take time.

Green, a trans woman from Kenosha, prefers the national policy of Planet Fitness, which plans to open a location in Regency Mall later this year. Planet Fitness spokesperson McCall Gosselin provided the companys official policy on bathroom use in an email.

Planet Fitness is committed to creating a non-intimidating, welcoming environment for our members, the policy states. Our gender identity non-discrimination policy states that members and guests may use all gym facilities based on their sincere self-reported gender identity.

I think that sounds pretty ideal, Green said. Id say Planet Fitness has got it down.

Policies that target a persons physical gender miss the point for Green, since they dont account for different stages of transformation.

Theres a wide variation among trans people with what, if any, physical modifications they have had, she said. You would need with that kind of policy to depend on the discretion of the individual.

Representatives at Razor Sharp Fitness, which has a large facility in Mount Pleasant and satellite facilities in Racine, declined to comment for this report.

At the YMCA

Jeff Collen, CEO of the Racine Family YMCA, said the Y operates similarly to Racine Unified, although the YMCA board has not officially approved a written policy. Both YMCA facilities in the county have private, family changing rooms that any person can use regardless of gender identity if they dont feel comfortable using the locker room of their birth gender.

We can encourage someone to use that space to provide the kind of privacy they might be looking for, Collen said.

While Collen said he doesnt know of any specific incidents involving gender and bathrooms at either Racine Family YMCA facility, he stressed the importance of keeping the many children who use the facilities safe in general.

We have so many kids around, he said. We have to protect the kids under our care.

The YMCA made an effort to address all gender-related bathroom issues in 2012, when it added 11 family changing rooms to its then-brand new Sealed Air location in Mount Pleasant. Those rooms, along with the one family changing room at the older Downtown Racine facility, could undergo a name change to promote inclusiveness.

Part of what were looking at doing is changing from family locker room to something like unisex locker room, Collen said. It serves families well that way.

School policies

The YMCA isnt alone in not having an official board policy.

Raechel Bartel, a spokeswoman for St. Catherines High School, said the Archdiocese of Milwaukee is discussing a policy and that the school would follow whatever guidelines it puts in place. Archdiocese Communication Director Amy Grau provided an update on the discussions.

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee is in the process of developing guidance for our schools and parishes on issues related to transgendered students that aligns to the teachings of the Catholic Church and the law, she wrote in an email. Our Catholic parishes and schools have non-discrimination policies that uphold the respect and dignity of every human person.

Both Waterfords and Burlingtons public high schools lack an official policy. Burlington Area School District Superintendent Peter Smet said his district has a private policy that counselors abide by when the situation arises, while Waterford High School District Superintendent Keith Brandstetter said no students have voiced concerns to counselors.

That said, Brandstetter said his district is working on establishing a policy, which is a good thing, according to Green.

The reason for that is in the event that the question comes up, she said. Its probably wise to have some kind of a stated policy.

But Green maintains that the policies, while well-intentioned, address a perceived threat thats overblown and a controversy thats unfounded.

All the controversy of late about the bathroom is, frankly, a non-issue, she said. People that are passing laws like (North Carolinas) are solving problems that dont exist.
2 sisters recount 4-hour ordeal under the debris

Sangita Shrestha, 16, and her sister Lila of Namdu, Dolakha, were trapped in the rubble for four hours after the devastating earthquake of April 25, 2015.
A year after: Lessons not learned

The call to improve engineering practice is often dismissed with comments such as Nepal is too poor to apply modern technology. Government apathy is inexcusable
Application registered at CIAA seeking Karki's property details

Anti-corruption movement Nepal's activist Suman Shrestha, who registered an application at the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) on April 4 seeking information regarding property details of the anti-graft body's Chief Lokman Singh Karki three weeks ago, has re-registered his application at the CIAA on Sunday.
Building back better?

Lack proper risk assessments of settlements in many of the worst affected areas are adding to vulnerability of the population, not lessening it.
Building better

We should improve rehabilitation services and build accessible infrastructures
Capacity constraints in executing bodies

Prithvi Man Shrestha spoke to Asian Development Bank (ADB) Country Director Kenichi Yokoyama on his views on reconstruction, delays so far and additional funding ADB can provide.
Caravan actor Thinle passes away

Popular Nepali actor Thinle Lhondup has passed away in Dolpa district, his home residence, on Sunday. He was a popular film actor and a social activist.
CIAA seeks 30-day custody of Dixit

The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) has sought a 30-day remand of Journalist Kanak Mani Dixit for further investigation during a Special Court hearing on Sunday, informed court registrar Bhadra Kali Pokharel.
Dahal calls for national unity

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Detained Dixit admitted to Bir hospital

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Prithvi Man Shrestha is a political reporter for The Kathmandu Post, covering the governance-related issues including corruption and irregularities in the government machinery. Before joining The Kathmandu Post in 2009, he worked at nepalnews.com and Rising Nepal primarily covering the issues of political and economic affairs for three years.
Five Indian police arrested from Doti

Five Indian police personnel including a police inspector were arrested from Doti on Sunday.
Good samaritans recall their experience

The role played by youths in the aftermath of the Gorkha Earthquake last year has been widely recognised. When help was needed urgently, thousands of youths spontaneously responded.
Government announces vacancy for IBNs CEO

After forming a committee to appoint new chief executive at the Investment Board Nepal (IBN), the government has published a notice seeking application from aspirants.
Govt presents report on foreign support

The government on Sunday made public a report on the physical and financial support received from international community for country's financial and social upgradation.
Hrithik Roshan goes cryptic online

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Image Channel Facebook hacker held

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Improving the lives of children

The year to come will be critical as UNICEF wants to build back better and reduce disaster risks for children
Less than one in a thousand have received housing grants so far

Only 700 of 770,000 families have got first installment of Rs 200,000
Dipesh Khatiwada is Deputy Coordinator at National Desk. Before joining the Post in 2015, he spent four years at News 24 Television as a news reporter, primarily covering the security and crime.
Light of hope

TUTHs disaster preparedness shows that the government should initiate similar plans in all public health facilities in the country
Long hot spell leaves farmers high and dry

The prevailing hot and dry conditions have left farmers worried in western Tarai districts, as underground water sources started to dry up.
Naya Shakti member arrested for lottery scam

Police on Sunday arrested Ashok Kumar Thapa, interim council member of Naya Shakti, on charge of sending fake SMS alerts informing people that they have won 500,000 pounds.
Nepal is on track

Takuya Kamata, World Banks country manager for Nepal, in an email interview with Prithvi Man Shrestha spoke about reconstruction delays, immediate priorities for reconstruction and overall economic outlook
Nepse ends week 32.24 pts higher

Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) last week jumped 32.24 points to close at yet another record high of 1,441.67 points. The transaction volume too surged 92.97 points.
Ohio shootings: Manhunt intensifies after eight members of family killed

A huge manhunt has intensified in the US state of Ohio where police are investigating the deaths of eight members of the same family.
Prez Bhandari lays foundation stone for quake memorial park in Barpak

President Bidya Devi Bhandari laid the foundation stone for the construction of quake memorial park at Barpak in Gorkha district.
Damaged historic monuments: Rebuilding slow but on course

The devastating earthquake last year flattened scores of heritage monuments, mostly in Kathmandu Valley.
Return to the once breathtaking valley

The scale of devastation at Langtang Valley, a popular tourist destination, was so complete it was hard to work it out when flying over itBBC
Safer schools

Children are still inside buildings not knowing when the roof would collapse
Syria conflict: Obama rules out ground troops for Syria

President Barack Obama has ruled out deploying US ground troops in Syria and says military efforts alone cannot solve the country's problems.
Thank god for the phones

Telecom service providers bravely kept Nepalis connected during and after the devastating earthquake
The great divide

Why were discussions about relief and rebuilding being conducted in a language that was so removed from the lived experience of the most affected people? What kinds of solutions will emerge from a discussion that excludes its main subject right from the starting point?
The year that was

What momentous happening would it take for Nepal to change?
The youth who could

How the youth are helping Sindhuli, one among the 14 most-affected districts, get back on its feet again after suffering such a voluminous disaster
UN Nepal marks Nepal earthquake anniversary

UN Nepal country team issued a press release on Sunday stating their solidarity with the lives lost and the people affected by last years April earthquake.
Water shortage adds to hardship of quake survivors

We survived the devastating earthquake last year but we fear we may now die due to the lack of water, said Keshav Nepal of Chandenimandan VDC-5 in Kavre. He feels that there is no alternative to leaving the settlement if the water crisis continues.
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South Korea's government is pushing to directly compensate firms that were forced out of the inter-Korean Gaesong Industrial Complex following the spike in cross-border tensions, an official source said Sunday.



The government is considering direct compensation for finished goods and materials left behind by South Korean companies, instead of providing loans, the official said, declining to be identified.



On Feb. 10, the Seoul government ordered the shutdown of the industrial park just north of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separates the two Koreas. The South took the step after Pyongyang tested its fourth nuclear device on Jan. 6 and fired a long-range rocket on Feb. 7.



The North countered the South's move by declaring it will kick out the South Korean companies and confiscate all assets left behind by these businesses. It said the complex will be turned into a military zone.



Launched in late 2004, the complex merged South Korean capital with cheap North Korean labor. Gaesong lies some 10 kilometers north of the DMZ in North Korea but is connected by a road to the South.



An emergency committee of the 120 companies ordered out of Gaesong had called for government compensation for fixed assets and manufacturing equipment left behind by using the inter-Korea economic cooperation insurance scheme. They have also asked for some sort of settlement for finished products and manufacturing materials they were not able to bring out.



These businesses claimed that the value of finished goods and materials left behind stood at 246.4 billion won ($210.6 million).



After receiving damage reports from the companies, the government is now at the stage of verifying the actual losses, the official said.



"Based on the findings, we will support those who experienced 'direct and unavoidable damages' based on reasonable standards and principles that can be accepted by our people, within the boundary of our budgets," the official said.



The government is planning to announce the measures regarding the companies next month with an aim to normalize those companies within this year.



Seoul has so far provided some 150 billion won in insurance coverage to Gaesong companies that had paid premiums in the past, with each firm getting a maximum of 7 billion won.



Though those who left finished products and raw materials in Gaesong were not covered by insurance, as none of the companies had insurance contracts signed, they will be partly compensated based on the government's policy to support those who had "direct and unavoidable damages." (Yonhap)




David L. Silbaugh, 82, of La Crosse died peacefully April 20, 2016, in his home.

He was born Sept. 30, 1933, in the town of Clinton, Wis., to Cleitus and Alice (Clark) Silbaugh.

David grew up on a farm near Dell, Wis. As a young man he worked in Southern Wisconsin and Texas, and served in the U.S. Army in 1956, before marrying Rose Spaeth Aug. 31, 1957, at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Cashton. David worked for the La Crosse Cooler Company for 23 years, for Apex Trucking for 14 years, and he also operated his own landscaping business. Throughout his life David enjoyed the outdoors and loved hunting with his family and friends. David always dreamed of building a log home and accomplished that dream in 1997, near Springbrook, Wis. Building his cabin was a labor of love and became the place where he and his extended family and friends shared an abundance of good times that will be treasured.

David was a dedicated friend to many and a hardworking, loyal family man. David and Rose had three daughters, four granddaughters and one great-granddaughter who all gathered around him during his final days. Davids family wishes to thank Hospice for their exceptional care and compassion during this difficult time.

He is survived by his wife, Rose; three children, Susan Micheli, Joan (Chuck) Ernst, Ann (Michael) Dukes; four grandchildren, Lila Moku, Shelby Dukes, Anna and Abbie Ernst; one great-grandchild, Lai Micheli-Moku; a sister, Kathryn (Walt) Verdon; many brother and sisters-in-law; and nieces and nephews.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Cleitus and Alice (Clark) Silbaugh; two brothers, Donald and Lyall Silbaugh.

David was a man of faith who was grateful to our Lord for the many blessings in his life.

A funeral Mass will be held at 10:30 a.m. Monday, April 25, 2016, at Holy Trinity Catholic Church, 1333 So. 13th St., La Crosse, Wis. The Rev. Rick Roberts will officiate, with entombment to be held in St. Joseph Mausoleum in the Catholic Cemetery, La Crosse. Family and friends may visit with the family from 9:30 a.m. until the time of Mass Monday, in Holy Trinity Catholic Church.

In lieu of flowers, memorials are preferred to the Holy Trinity Catholic Church Leo Hall Fund or to the charity of your choice.

Blaschke & Schneider Funeral Homes assisted the family with arrangements. Online condolences may be made at www.blaschkeschneider.com.
BLACK RIVER FALLS  The owner of a Black River Falls-based construction company says a decision to expand in Minnesota because of Wisconsins right-to-work law is paying off.

Jim Hoffman, president of Hoffman Construction Co., opted to ramp up his business presence in the neighboring state last year because of the implications Wisconsins right-to-work law, and it has acquired $85 million in Minnesota state highway contracts because of it.

It wasnt a political decision  it was a business decision, Hoffman said. It was basically following our market. I saw indications that Wisconsin was headed in the wrong direction.

As businessman, I had to listen to my market instead of fight it. I had to follow where Id have the best luck for success, which so far has come true.

Hoffman was a vocal opponent of the right-to-work law that was signed by Gov. Scott Walker in early 2015 because the nearly 100-year-old BRF company is a union contractor that use workers from International Union of Operating Engineers Local 139 in Wisconsin and 49 in Minnesota. Right-to-work legislation allows members to opt out of joining a union and paying related dues, a measure that Hoffman believes will slowly erode the unions ability to provide the skilled workers needed over time.

One of the reasons I am so successful as a businessman is because of my workers, he said. Our company is our people  thats our company motto.

Hoffman also noted Wisconsin passed some changes to its prevailing wage laws and the state currently bonds a significant portion of its highway program  another two factors for growing business in Minnesota, he said.

Its erosion of some of the reasons why weve been successful in the past, Hoffman said. I see changes going forward. Were trying to move the political process with real-world construction business.

Hoffman Construction keeps its main office in Black River Falls but added additional staff to an office in Lakeville, Minn., in light of the expansion. The company acquired five Minnesota state highway contracts during the past six months and also is working on two Interstate 90 and 94 projects in Wisconsin near Tomah and La Crosse at a total value of $38.4 million.

We are going to have to do a lot of hiring here in Minnesota, John Klein, Hoffman Constructions Minnesota area manager, said in a statement. Im looking forward to the opportunities out there. Currently the Minnesota legislature is deciding on a 2016 transportation budget. Ive been in contact with my Minnesota representatives asking them to responsibly fund the Minnesota transportation program.

The company on average has completed more than 80 percent of its work with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation in the past but the figure now has dropped to 50 percent.

Thats a function of the type of work the (Wisconsin) DOT is bidding, the lack of work and also just increased competition, Hoffman said. Theres some carry-over jobs, but we just havent been able to add any new jobs. We keep bidding on them.

Hoffmans recent announcement about the effects of the companys Minnesota expansion came on the same day a Dane County judge struck down Wisconsins right-to-work law. The judge the next week finalized the decision that bars the state from enforcing the law.

Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel said the state plans to appeal.

We wholeheartedly disagree with Judge Fousts decision and final order, Schimel said in a statement. I am confident the law ultimately will be upheld and Wisconsin will remain a right-to-work state.

It wasnt a political decision  it was a business decision. It was basically following our market. I saw indications that Wisconsin was headed in the wrong direction. Jim Hoffman, president of

Hoffman Construction Co.
To earn his masters degree in film and video production, Steven Holloway returned to his roots.

Holloway came back to his hometown for nine days earlier this month to direct Tomah, Wisconsin. Its a story about a small-town police chief who loses his son in a drunk driving accident in the 1970s and tries to find forgiveness amid the tragedy.

Holloway, who has years of experience shooting documentaries both in the United States and abroad, is a student at American University in Washington, D.C., and will use his masters degree in fine arts to teach film and video production at the collegiate level.

But the 18-minute film is much more than about earning an advanced degree, Holloway said.

Its more than a thesis, he said. Its a personal project.

Most the film takes place in a bar and focuses on how the characters interact with each other. Holloways top priority was obtaining access to a tavern, and thats where Tim Callahan, owner of Callahans Bar, came in. Callahan closed his business for large blocks of time so Holloway could shoot scenes uninterrupted.

I met with Tim, and he was very open to the idea of us filming there, Holloway said.

Finding a bar was just the first challenge. Holloway and his crew were meticulous about utilizing props from the 1970s  everything from cigarette machines to jukeboxes to 1970s automobiles. They used a fog machine to simulate cigarette smoke that was common in taverns until the statewide indoor smoking ban. The crew even found a vacant house in Tomah that still had a 70s-era kitchen.

Gathering the 70s memorabilia was a critical task, said Jeff Holloway, Stevens brother and production assistant.

It tells what was going on in the 70s  the turmoil, the war, the hippies and all that stuff, Jeff Holloway said. Weve been working on it for a couple of years getting it all together.

While the props help set the period, Jeff Holloway said the film is ultimately about people and relationships.

Its not so much about alcoholism as about what it does to family and friendships, Jeff Holloway said.

Steven Holloway said the plot is 98 percent fictional but is loosely based on characters and events he recalls as a teenager in Tomah during the 1970s.

He considered shooting Tomah, Wisconsin in the Washington, D.C. area but balked at the logistics of filming in a crowded metropolitan area. Hes glad he moved production to Tomah, even though it required several of members of his D.C.-area crew to make the 1,000-mile trip.

Tomah overall was very accommodating, he said. People opened their doors to us. It was an easy place to do production. The hospitality was tremendous  it was so easy to shoot here.

Finding actors proved a bit more difficult. He originally wanted to use local actors but couldnt find enough candidates from the Tomah and La Crosse area. Eventually, he went through a talent agency in Milwaukee. The final cast did include two Tomah actors  Tanner Costello and Paul Amberson.

Other area people in the production include Mel Carroll, assistant director; Karen Dorn, production manager; Sharon Holloway (Stevens wife), associate producer; Brian Emerson, grip; and Caleb Holloway, camera assistant.

Steven Holloway said he wants to premier the film in Tomah sometime this fall.

Its more than a thesis. Its a personal project. Steven Holloway, producer of

Tomah, Wisconsin
TOMAH -- To earn his masters degree in film and video production, Steven Holloway returned to his roots.

Holloway came back to his hometown for nine days earlier this month to direct Tomah, Wisconsin. Its a story about a small-town police chief who loses his son in a drunken driving accident in the 1970s and tries to find forgiveness amid the tragedy.

Holloway, who has years of experience shooting documentaries both in the United States and abroad, is a student at American University in Washington, D.C., and will use his masters degree in fine arts to teach film and video production at the college level.

But the 18-minute film is much more than about earning an advanced degree, Holloway said.

Its more than a thesis, he said. Its a personal project.

Most the film takes place in a bar and focuses on how the characters interact with each other. Holloways top priority was obtaining access to a tavern, and thats where Tim Callahan, owner of Callahans Bar, came in. Callahan closed his business for large blocks of time so Holloway could shoot scenes uninterrupted.

I met with Tim, and he was very open to the idea of us filming there, Holloway said.

Finding a bar was just the first challenge. Holloway and his crew were meticulous about using props from the 1970s  everything from cigarette machines and jukeboxes to 1970s cars. They used a fog machine to simulate cigarette smoke that was common in taverns until the statewide indoor smoking ban. The crew even found a vacant house in Tomah that still had a 70s-era kitchen.

Gathering the 1970s memorabilia was a critical task, said Jeff Holloway, Stevens brother and production assistant.

It tells what was going on in the '70s -- the turmoil, the war, the hippies and all that stuff, Jeff Holloway said. Weve been working on it for a couple of years getting it all together.

While the props help set the period, Jeff Holloway said the film is ultimately about people and relationships.

Its not so much about alcoholism as about what it does to family and friendships, Jeff Holloway said.

Steven Holloway said the plot is 98 percent fictional but is loosely based on characters and events he recalls as a teenager in Tomah during the 1970s.

He considered shooting Tomah, Wisconsin in the Washington, D.C., area but balked at the logistics of filming in a crowded metropolitan area. Hes glad he moved production to Tomah, even though it required several of members of his D.C.-area crew to make the 1,000-mile trip.

Tomah overall was very accommodating, he said. People opened their doors to us. It was an easy place to do production. The hospitality was tremendous -- it was so easy to shoot here.

Finding actors proved a bit more difficult. He originally wanted to use local actors but couldnt find enough candidates from the Tomah and La Crosse area. Eventually, he went through a talent agency in Milwaukee. The final cast included two Tomah actors  Tanner Costello and Paul Amberson.

Other area people in the production are Mel Carroll, assistant director; Karen Dorn, production manager; Sharon Holloway (Stevens wife), associate producer; Brian Emerson, grip; and Caleb Holloway, camera assistant.

Steven Holloway said he wants to premiere the film in Tomah sometime this fall.
ONALASKA  Area residents can become a Kansas City Barbeque Society certified judge, and they dont even need to travel to Kansas City to learn how to rate barbeque chicken, ribs, beef brisket and pork shoulder. They can get certified by taking a class in Onalaska.

The Holmen and Valley View Rotary clubs are sponsoring KCBS judging and table captain classes May 21 at the Onalaska American Legion. Sign-in begins at 9 a.m., and the classes will run from 10 a.m. until about 2 p.m. The table captains class will start at 3 p.m. and end about 5 p.m.

Along with certified judges, KCBS competitions need table captains. The table captains round up and assist judges at contests, and in the event there is a shortage of judges could be asked to step in to judge.

The Rotary clubs are planning their second Rock-n-Ribs competition this year in conjunction with Celebrate Onalaska and are working to get the June 25 event KCBS sanctioned. To become sanctioned, the competition needs certified judges to taste-test the meats and give scores on the presentation as well as flavor.

We want to promote barbeque and we are seeking folks throughout the tri-state area to become KCBS judges to judge all the local events that are popping up, said Laurie Tweten, event organizer and a KCBS judge herself. There are only six active judges listed on the KCBS site who live within La Crosse County.

Through the judging classes, the clubs hope more local people will get certified to judge at their barbeque competition. The annual barbequing event is a fundraiser for the two Rotary clubs.

Twenty-one teams entered last years inaugural Rock-n-Ribs event with teams coming from Minnesota cities of Lake Elmo, Le Sueur, Minneapolis, Owatonna and Stewartville as well as Mondovi and Elk Mound in Wisconsin and local teams from Sparta and West Salem. This years event will again be held at the Onalaska OmniCenter.

Anyone who takes these classes will be certified that day and then has a chance to judge any KCBS event, including ours, Tweten said. Its also a good way for cooking teams to learn what judges are looking for with their BBQ.

Pat Sake of La Crosse, a KCBS certified judge, travels throughout the country attending and judging BBQ events.

If you think you can cook barbeque and want to have fun, consider becoming a judge, Sake said. Its the best food youve ever had. Everybody there is a barbeque enthusiast, and youll taste the best barbeque of your life. You better come to the class hungry.

Started in 1985, KCBS is considered the leading name in barbeque competition. It sets the standard for judging contests, sanctioning over 450 competitions worldwide. A nonprofit with more than 20,000 members worldwide, the organization serves as the governing body for sanctioned barbeque events as well as a clearinghouse for information about all things barbeque.

The cost for the Onalaska class $70 for KCBS members, $105 for nonmembers with one-year KCBS membership included. Registration forms for the judge and table captain classes can be found online at www.rotaryrocknribs.com. The form can be printed off, filled out and then mailed with payment to JRM CPA, Attn: Rotary Rock n Ribs, P.O. Box 277, Onalaska, WI 54650. Make checks payable to Rock n Ribs.
MADISON  After years of disheartening failures, Democrats insist 2016 is the year the tide turns in the state Capitol.

Democrats have been relegated to the statehouse sidelines since the 2010 elections, when Gov. Scott Walker was first elected.

Republicans also captured both houses of the Legislature in that election  and havent looked back since. Republicans now hold a 19-14 edge in the state Senate, and their biggest Assembly majority, 63-36, since the Eisenhower administration.

The legislative majorities were what enabled the enactment of Walkers sweeping agenda: to curtail collective bargaining, partially repeal the prevailing wage, freeze property taxes and college tuition, slash college and university funding, and send more money to private voucher schools.

As lawmakers turn toward campaigning, Democrats see a chance to roll back those legislative majorities this fall. They envision two statewide, top-of-ticket races  the presidential and U.S. Senate contests  playing out in their favor. They also expect to benefit from what they describe as voter unrest with the states economy and the unpopularity of Walkers agenda.

I think its a combination of another favorable political environment for Democrats and the cumulative effect of the overreach weve seen from Republicans in the last six years, said Democratic strategist Joe Zepecki. (Voters) are seeing a Republican caucus focus on things that dont affect their lives  whether its voter ID, whether its (about) John Doe investigations, whether its open records. All of these things are kind of what happens when you have one-party control for a long time.

But Republicans rightly say theyve heard this story before. Democrats vowed to roll back GOP legislative influence in the 2011 recalls and the 2012 and 2014 general elections, yet Republicans now wield more statehouse clout than they have in decades. They also adopted legislative district boundaries in 2011 that have greatly aided their quest to retain control of the Legislature.

Assembly Republicans faced a similar headwind in the 2012 election, when Democratic President Barack Obama carried the state and Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin won statewide. Yet the GOP retained the same Assembly majority they had going into the election, 60 seats.

Assembly Republicans have had a track record of winning in tough  and better  environments, because we have candidates who know that its all about local connections, said Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester.

A key unanswered question in this election is who the Republican presidential nominee will be.

If its front-runner Donald Trump, GOP leaders admit it could hurt other Republicans on the ticket.

The big challenge for this cycle is, you just dont know what effect the top of the ticket will have on down, said Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau.

Senate will be battleground

Democratic leaders in the Senate and Assembly, optimistic as they are, wont predict their party will regain control of either chamber this fall.

The Senate, where Republicans have a 19-14 majority, is where Democrats have the better shot at regaining control.

Democratic Leader Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, highlighted three seats as pickup opportunities for her party: Senate District 18, an open seat; Senate District 12, now represented by Tom Tiffany, R-Hazelhurst, and Senate District 10, represented by Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls.

Democrats would need to win all three to wrest control of the Senate  something Shilling isnt willing to pledge.

I always like to under-promise and over-deliver, Shilling said. This is a several-election-term plan that we want to implement.

Republican strategist Brian Fraley said if Trump is atop the ticket, Senate Democrats could see that as an opportunity to secure a majority.

But a wrench in that plan could be Shillings own re-election, he said. Former GOP Sen. Dan Kapanke of La Crosse is challenging Shilling.

Hes by far the best candidate that the Republicans could have recruited, said Fraley of Kapanke, a businessman who represented most of the area until he was defeated in a 2011 recall by Shilling. At the very least, its going to force Jennifer Shilling to spend more time worrying about her own re-election and less time focusing on helping the members of her caucus.

Part of the Democrats strategy includes getting Winnebago County Executive Mark Harris elected to the 18th District seat being vacated by outgoing Sen. Rick Gudex, R-Fond du Lac. The GOP candidates are activist Daniel Feyen and pastor and small business owner Mark Elliott, who will square off in the August primary.

The specter of Harris candidacy prompted Fitzgerald to push a bill that prohibits county executives from also serving in the state Legislature  which would force Harris to resign from his county post should he prevail in November.

A number of lawmakers  including some Republicans  characterized the bill as being driven by politics.

I think it was a good candidate recruitment on their level, and I think the bill that seemed to specifically target him was an unforced error on the part of Republicans. But the Republicans have a competitive primary there as well, Fraley said.

Trump could be a factor

Assembly Democratic Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, acknowledges its unlikely Democrats could gain control of the Assembly in the 2016 election. But Barca said hes confident Democrats will make significant inroads.

Fraley agreed, saying it would not be shocking to see them cut a few seats down.

Barcas targeted districts are mostly clustered in western Wisconsin, west of Madison or near Eau Claire.

The 8th U.S. Congressional District race could have an impact on some of the races down ticket, Fraley said. The incumbent, Reid Ribble, isnt seeking re-election and the district can be competitive, though it leans slightly Republican.

GOP candidates for the seat include state Sen. Frank Lasee, R-De Pere, former U.S. Marine Corps Captain Mike Gallagher and Terry McNulty of Forestville. Among Democrats, Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson has announced his candidacy.

Whether its coattails or overshadowing the candidates ability to get messages out, you might see a Republican lose with Trump at the top of the ticket and a very competitive 8th Congressional race soaking up the resources, said Fraley.

Then theres the possibility of a Trump factor. The GOP front-runner is deeply unpopular in Wisconsin, with 70 percent viewing him unfavorably in the most recent Marquette Law School Poll.

Asked if Trump as the GOP nominee could hurt the partys chances down-ballot, Vos said it definitely could in statewide races.

But Vos  who endorsed U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz for president last month, after initially backing U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio  said the Trump drag may not translate to legislative races because so many Democratic voters are packed into urban districts in Madison, Milwaukee, Racine and Green Bay.

Western Wisconsin was among Trumps few strongholds in the states April 5 GOP primary. That region also is home to many of the legislative districts that could be in play this fall, Vos noted.

There are significant chunks of Wisconsin where Donald Trump and his message of being an outsider resonates pretty well, Vos said.

At the very least, (former Sen. Dan Kapankes challenge is) going to force Jennifer Shilling to spend more time worrying about her own re-election and less time focusing on helping the members of her caucus. Brian Fraley, Republican strategist I always like to under-promise and over-deliver. This is a several-election-term plan that we want to implement. Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse
MILWAUKEE  The Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. is reviewing its job-related tax credit programs because of possible discrepancies between the number of jobs created and the amount claimed in tax credits  nearly $66 million since 2007.

WEDC officials said Thursday they are still trying to understand the scope and magnitude of the problem.

But officials acknowledged they have identified inaccuracies in how the agency counts the number of jobs a company creates that qualify for reductions in taxes.

WEDC chief executive officer Mark Hogan made the disclosure at an agency board meeting Thursday. But there were few details discussed in public before the board moved into closed session to talk further about the issue, citing an exemption in the states open meetings law to discuss potential litigation.

Its unclear if the discrepancies will prompt the agency to seek to recoup money from companies excessively awarded tax credits.

Under the program, the state reduces the taxes of companies that create and retain a certain number of jobs. The tax credits are based on a formula that takes into account the number of jobs created or retained and how much they pay. Companies can claim the credits after WEDC verifies they have fulfilled the job requirements.

WEDC records show that since July 2007 the agency has made 305 job-related tax credit awards totaling $170.6 million.

Of that amount, companies have so far qualified for $65.8 million in credits for meeting job-creation goals, according to agency records, while the remaining nearly $105 million has not yet been earned.

But Hogan told the WEDC board that the tax credits issued have been based on faulty calculations.

The agency gave out almost $90 million more in awards, but the total number of related jobs fell by nearly 6,000.

WEDC figures show that the credits are based on the creation of 13,797 jobs and the retention of another 44,114. Its unclear how inaccurate those numbers are.

We expect to see adjustments, Hogan said.

He added the agency will provide a more detailed report at an open meeting next month.

Hogan declined to comment further after the meeting.

The tax credit program began in 2007 under the old Commerce Department.

WEDC discovered problem

Agency spokesman Steven Michels said the discrepancies were discovered as part of a compliance review process that the agency put in place in 2013, in the wake of Legislative Audit Bureau reports that found several agency shortcomings. The basis for the review is not related to any fraud, he said, but he would not elaborate on what specific finding triggered the review.

Finding errors and checking our work is a part of WEDCs mission to continuously improve as stewards of taxpayer dollars, Michels said. Our goal will be to identify any errors and areas where process can improve moving forward.

Its unclear how many of the agencys tax credits will be reviewed or how many include errors.

The Legislature ended the states jobs tax credit and economic development tax credit programs in December, but many of the awards remain open with job-creation and retention milestones set over the next several years.

WEDC has been under close scrutiny after a series of scathing reports by the Legislative Audit Bureau and news reports about failed loans and tax credits that didnt result in promised jobs.

The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau raised the issue in August, but DOJ and DOA lawyers disagree theres a problem.

An internal review last year prompted by a Wisconsin State Journal report on a failed $500,000 loan given in 2011 without proper underwriting found there were 28 awards totaling $126 million for which the agency couldnt locate a staff underwriting report.

Hogan, the agencys third CEO since 2011, also told the board on Thursday that he and chief financial officer Brian Nowicki will continue to take on the responsibilities previously handled by the vice president of credit and risk. The agency had been seeking a replacement for Jake Kuester, who left for a private-sector job in Minnesota last fall. That search will be postponed indefinitely, Hogan said.

The board also approved an amendment to its budget doubling the amount of reserves for writing off loans from $3.5 million to $7 million. The reserves cover both forgivable loans and defaulted loans that wont be recovered.Earlier this week a judge issued an arrest warrant for a De Pere businessman whose company Green Box NA Green Bay owes WEDC more than $2.1 million in unpaid loans.

The Green Box loan was one of several bad loans from WEDCs early days when the agency was under pressure to help Gov. Scott Walker create more than 250,000 jobs. The agencys default rate has declined, but several of the defaulted loans, including Green Box, are still on the books as money the agency hopes to recoup.

Walker and the Legislature ended the agencys loan programs in the latest state budget.
As the child of Southern Baptist missionaries, Samuel Brinton from Perry, Iowa, grew up in a conservative mission community. One day, a forbidden Playboy magazine made the rounds among the boys, but Sam proudly told his dad later that it didnt affect him the way it did others. He got excited instead, he said, being around a certain male friend.

It did not go over well, as Sam said in a videotaped interview played for the Iowa Board of Medicine at a meeting earlier this month. His father would continue to react with rage to the idea of Sam being gay.

When his mother finally saw that nothing Sams father did or said was making a difference, she suggested therapy. So began a series of out-of-state treatments that, whatever their motivation and model, when described by Sam sound like physical and psychological torture: Fear-mongering, behavior modification, pain from heat, cold, and electrical shocks. None of it changed Sams sexual orientation because, as opponents of such therapies testified to the medical board, being gay or straight is not something you choose; its who you are.

The Obama administration last year called for a ban on gay-conversion therapy on minors after a transgender youth from Ohio committed suicide, writing in a note that shed been called selfish and wrong in sessions. Sixteen-year-old T.J. Foley, executive chairman of the Iowa Youth Advisory Council, testified at the medical board meeting that though it is scientifically unsound and psychologically damaging, gay-conversion therapy remains prevalent in Iowa. He and others had wanted the Iowa Legislature to ban it preventively. But after that didnt happen, they asked the medical board to pass an administrative rule against its use.

Methods have changed, testified Nate Monson, executive director of Iowa Safe Schools, which organizes an annual conference for LGBT youth. But from electric shock therapy and castration to hypnosis, all approaches stem from the scientifically discredited belief that being gay is a mental disorder.

Only one speaker voiced support for such therapies: Chuck Hurley, the vice president of the religious and conservative Iowa Family Leader foundation, which is connected to the national Family Research Council. His comments focused on transgender youth who get gender-changing hormones or surgery. Citing the American College of Pediatricians as his source, Hurley urged the board to reject as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex, as he ticked off a list of potentially deadly consequences. He argued endorsing gender discordance and what he called surgical mutilation are forms of child abuse and also claimed the majority of gender-confused people eventually accept the sex assigned to them from birth.

The Family Leader is the organization that led the campaign against retention of Iowa Supreme Court justices who ruled in support of same-sex marriage in 2009. Now it has gone from claiming a legal basis to citing a medical basis for its anti-gay campaign.

But Hurleys comments didnt escape the scrutiny of medical board member Kyle Ulveling. What, he asked Hurley, is the American College of Pediatricians?

Hurley fumbled. The organization turns out to be a group of socially conservative pediatricians and health care professionals with an ideological agenda rather than an objective scientific basis. It has been discredited by the Southern Poverty Law Center for attacking gays and lesbians in the name of protecting children.

The 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics, as Ulveling pointed out, is the actual scientific authority on pediatric care. And it calls reparative or conversion therapy ineffective and potentially harmful, citing guidelines from the American Psychological Association.

The disclosure about Hurleys medically biased source underscores how easily ideology can masquerade as scientific fact, and how dangerous that can be if sources are not checked. Its clear from looking at the American College of Pediatricians website that almost all the pediatric issues it concerns itself with involve sexuality. It warns against so-called gender ideology, comprehensive sex education, pornography, and the sexually transmitted HPV virus, and declares that a married mother-father parental unit is necessary to healthy child-rearing.

Under constant pressure, Samuel Brinton said he had been about to commit suicide when his mother intervened. He resolved to change. It wasnt until college that he found affirmation and was able to come out. Brinton eventually graduated from MIT and went to work for a Washington, D.C., think tank, where he focuses on nuclear waste management. He says he has begun to mend fences with his parents and has forgiven them.

The Iowa Board of Medicine declined to pass the rule being sought but agreed to form a subcommittee to look into conversion therapy. It will include other professionals, since such therapies may also be practiced by psychologists, mental health counselors, social workers or other practitioners, according to the groups testifying.

There is no way to know how widely conversion therapies are practiced. But if any parent is considering sending a child for such therapy, please stop and do the research first. We should be affirming all our children for who they really are rather than forcing some into self-loathing with futile attempts to remake them into someone they are not.
Tim Cullen has had a ringside seat for Wisconsin politics for more than 50 years.

The longtime state senator from Janesville is one of the good guys  a politician who plays well with others, including members of the opposing political party. He knows how to work toward compromise and solution.

Those should be useful skills.

Instead, being a moderate, a compromiser are dirty words in Madison these day, Cullen said.

While being in the middle is popular around the state, he said, its lonely in the Capitol.

Cullen visited La Crosse last week to talk about and sign copies of his book, Ringside Seat: Wisconsin Politics, the 1970s to Scott Walker.

Its his new book, its his first book and  as Cullen said with a smile  it will be his only book.

Make no mistake: Cullen is a Democrat. But there was a day when a Democrat could serve in the Cabinet of a Republican governor.

The Janesville native and University of Wisconsin-Whitewater graduate was elected to the state Senate in 1974 at 30. Cullen rose in his caucus and became Senate majority leader. In 1987, he was appointed secretary of Wisconsins Department and Health and Social Services under Gov. Tommy Thompson.

Me, a Democrat, going into Tommy Thompsons cabinet, was not an unusual thing in that era, Cullen said.

Thompson even wrote a back-of-the-book note: Tim Cullen has enjoyed great success over the past half a century trying to creatively solve public policy challenges and is fearless in confronting those in politics that embrace the status quo. Hes a skilled problem-solver and someone I consider a friend.

In 1988, Cullen became an executive with Blue Cross, where he worked for the next 20 years.

In 2010, he ran for and was elected to his old seat in the Senate. He left after one term  a term that included unprecedented protests on the Capitol in Madison and turmoil throughout the state. It included a trip to Illinois, too, which makes an interesting read.

During the past 60 years, Cullen says, our state has had a dozen governors  six Republican, six Democrat. For the most part, he says, theyve succeeded by governing toward the middle and away from the extremes.

But Cullen said that is much less the case with Gov. Scott Walker  and his partys hold on both the Senate and Assembly, plus its ability to change political boundaries to aid the party in elections, have been big factors.

The concept is known as gerrymandering  the party in power drawing the electoral map to favor the party in power.

It got its name by combining the last name of Elbridge Gerry  who signed the Declaration of Independence and was Massachusetts governor from 1810-1812  with a salamander, which described the shape of one of the contorted districts on his election map.

Weve criticized partisan political map-drawing in Wisconsin by both parties over the years, and we continue to favor our quaint notion that voters should pick their elected representatives rather than allowing the politicians to picking the voters.

Cullen talks at length about the problem  and hes quick to point out that both parties are at fault. Democrats have gerrymandered such states as Rhode Island and even Gerrys native state.

Eventually, he believes a test case  possibly from Wisconsin  may go to the U.S. Supreme Court to help settle the one man, one vote concept when it comes to redistricting.

Cullen and UW-L political science guru Joe Heim have talked passionately about how gerrymandering results in safe districts  where the majority has little fear of losing an election.

Those safe districts provide little incentive for a politician to worked toward the middle, toward compromise.

When youre in a safe district, Cullen said, the November general election doesnt matter nearly as much as the August primary in your own party, where youre vulnerable from an extreme wing of your party if you havent toed the party line 100 percent in your voting.

Cullen will donate proceeds of his book  which is available at Pearl Street Books in downtown La Crosse  to the Janesville Multicultural Teachers Opportunity Fund that he launched in 2008 to raise money for college scholarships for students of color in Janeville.

There arent enough Tim Cullens on either side of the aisle these days  either in Madison or in Washington.
A Dane County developer has agreed to take the unusual step of measuring the pollution created by a planned housing development in addition to the standard practice of providing computer projections predicting that state water quality standards will be met.

Fitchburg Lands LLC agreed to set up four water monitoring stations in response to public concerns that sensitive wetlands around Lake Waubesa could be harmed by storm water and pollutants running off streets and hundreds of homes that are to be built just south of the Beltline.

In a lawsuit settlement signed last week by state and local officials, the developer agreed to monitor storm water and the state Department of Natural Resources increased the development zone to 511 acres.

Measuring flows and testing water samples will be costly, but an attorney for the developer said doing such actual measurements is something more developers and municipalities should consider to protect lakes, streams and wetlands.

Carl Sinderbrand, a Madison attorney who represented the developer and who also works with conservation groups, and others who work with storm water regulation said the agreement appears to break new ground.

If it was up to me, this is something that would be done much more often, Sinderbrand said.

Actual testing of industrial waste water is required to make sure factories and sewage plants meet standards. But regulations are different for storm water. Computer modeling is used to predict if a housing or commercial development will meet storm water standards.

Developers use the models to decide on size and placement of features such as retention ponds that slow down runoff and prevent erosion and protect water quality.

Modeling is also used by the state as it develops plans for cleaning up a growing list of lakes and streams whose uses have been impaired by phosphorus, mercury and other pollutants.

Computer programs have become increasingly precise, but there is always a margin of error, in part because they are built with data from past rainfall, said Robert Montgomery, an environmental engineer based in Cottage Grove who has worked extensively on the Fitchburg Lands proposal and many others since the 1980s.

The pattern of rain events and the total amounts that fall annually can vary widely from year to year.

Is it ultimately accurate? No, Montgomery said. Is it the best we have? Yes, without spending millions of dollars.

A single water monitoring station could cost in the range of $25,000 to $30,000 annually, said Bill Selbig, a research hydrologist for the U.S. Geological Surveys Wisconsin Water Science Center in Middleton.

Actual storm water flow data is used to create computer models and to update them, but monitoring is seldom if ever used to ensure standards related to runoff are met, Selbig said.

Its expensive and it adds to the cost of the overall project and nobody wants to do it, Selbig said.

Private companies and government agencies have created many water models for use in a variety of settings, Selbig said.

The Water Science Center has been working on updating data for average annual rainfall in a model frequently used to evaluate pollution potential of municipal storm water, he said.

When the modeling program was written several years ago, researchers selected rainfall data from 1981 as the average the program used, but recent significant changes in rainfall associated with climate change have made it necessary to make updates, Selbig said.

In 2014, the city of Fitchburg proposed to expand its urban service area  land approved by the state for sewer lines that make it possible to erect new neighborhoods and commercial developments  by more than 900 acres.

After the Capital Area Regional Planning Commission rejected the proposal, the city appealed to the DNR, which last year approved 375 acres. Fitchburg Lands, which controls most of the acreage, sued. The town of Dunn, which borders Lake Waubesa, intervened in the suit after being briefed by state officials on their plans for responding.

The DNR started to basically cave in to the developers demands, said Ed Minihan, who is a member of the regional planning commission board and Dunn town chair.

DNR water quality bureau director Susan Sylvester said the agency granted a larger development zone because the developer brought in new information.

Sinderbrand and Minihan said the monitoring requirement was included in the settlement agreement because of concern about potential harm to water quality.

Fitchburg Lands agreed to conduct 12 months of water monitoring at the outlets to four sub-watershed basins in the development area before the first phase of construction begins, according to documents provided by the DNR. After most of the first phase is completed, another 12 months of monitoring will take place.

If storm water is consistent with standards, the second phase of development is to proceed.

The neighborhood was initially projected for about 1,570 homes. Sinderbrand said it wasnt clear how many would be built on the 511 acres, which includes areas reserved for green spaces, but he didnt believe the number would be greatly reduced.
After years of disheartening failures, Democrats insist 2016 is the year the tide turns in the state Capitol.

Democrats have been relegated to the statehouse sidelines since the 2010 elections, when Gov. Scott Walker was first elected.

Republicans also captured both houses of the Legislature in that election  and havent looked back since. Republicans now hold a 19-14 edge in the state Senate, and their biggest Assembly majority, 63-36, since the Eisenhower administration.

The legislative majorities were what enabled the enactment of Walkers sweeping agenda: to curtail collective bargaining, partially repeal the prevailing wage, freeze property taxes and college tuition, slash college and university funding, and send more money to private voucher schools.

As lawmakers turn toward campaigning, Democrats see a chance to roll back those legislative majorities this fall. They envision two statewide, top-of-ticket races  the presidential and U.S. Senate contests  playing out in their favor. They also expect to benefit from what they describe as voter unrest with the states economy and the unpopularity of Walkers agenda.

I think its a combination of another favorable political environment for Democrats and the cumulative effect of the overreach weve seen from Republicans in the last six years, said Democratic strategist Joe Zepecki. (Voters) are seeing a Republican caucus focus on things that dont affect their lives  whether its voter ID, whether its (about) John Doe investigations, whether its open records. All of these things are kind of what happens when you have one-party control for a long time.

But Republicans rightly say theyve heard this story before. Democrats vowed to roll back GOP legislative influence in the 2011 recalls and the 2012 and 2014 general elections, yet Republicans now wield more statehouse clout than they have in decades. They also adopted legislative district boundaries in 2011 that have greatly aided their quest to retain control of the Legislature.

Assembly Republicans faced a similar headwind in the 2012 election, when Democratic President Barack Obama carried the state and Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin won statewide. Yet the GOP retained the same Assembly majority they had going into the election, 60 seats.

Assembly Republicans have had a track record of winning in tough  and better  environments, because we have candidates who know that its all about local connections, said Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester.

A key unanswered question in this election is who the Republican presidential nominee will be.

If its front-runner Donald Trump, GOP leaders admit it could hurt other Republicans on the ticket.

The big challenge for this cycle is, you just dont know what effect the top of the ticket will have on down, said Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau.

Senate will be battleground

Democratic leaders in the Senate and Assembly, optimistic as they are, wont predict their party will regain control of either chamber this fall.

The Senate, where Republicans have a 19-14 majority, is where Democrats have the better shot at regaining control.

Democratic Leader Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, highlighted three seats as pickup opportunities for her party: Senate District 18, an open seat; Senate District 12, now represented by Tom Tiffany, R-Hazelhurst, and Senate District 10, represented by Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls.

Democrats would need to win all three to wrest control of the Senate  something Shilling isnt willing to pledge.

I always like to under-promise and over-deliver, Shilling said. This is a several-election-term plan that we want to implement.

Republican strategist Brian Fraley said if Trump is atop the ticket, Senate Democrats could see that as an opportunity to secure a majority.

But a wrench in that plan could be Shillings own re-election, he said. Former GOP Sen. Dan Kapanke of La Crosse is challenging Shilling.

Hes by far the best candidate that the Republicans could have recruited, said Fraley of Kapanke, a businessman who represented most of the area until he was defeated in a 2011 recall by Shilling. At the very least, its going to force Jennifer Shilling to spend more time worrying about her own re-election and less time focusing on helping the members of her caucus.

Part of the Democrats strategy includes getting Winnebago County Executive Mark Harris elected to the 18th District seat being vacated by outgoing Sen. Rick Gudex, R-Fond du Lac. The GOP candidates are activist Daniel Feyen and pastor and small business owner Mark Elliott, who will square off in the August primary.

The specter of Harris candidacy prompted Fitzgerald to push a bill that prohibits county executives from also serving in the state Legislature  which would force Harris to resign from his county post should he prevail in November.

A number of lawmakers  including some Republicans  characterized the bill as being driven by politics.

I think it was a good candidate recruitment on their level, and I think the bill that seemed to specifically target him was an unforced error on the part of Republicans. But the Republicans have a competitive primary there as well, Fraley said.

Trump factor

could play role

Assembly Democratic Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, acknowledges its unlikely Democrats could gain control of the Assembly in the 2016 election. But Barca said hes confident Democrats will make significant inroads.

Fraley agreed, saying it would not be shocking to see them cut a few seats down.

Barcas targeted districts are mostly clustered in western Wisconsin, west of Madison or near Eau Claire.

The 8th U.S. Congressional District race could have an impact on some of the races down ticket, Fraley said. The incumbent, Reid Ribble, isnt seeking re-election and the district can be competitive, though it leans slightly Republican.

GOP candidates for the seat include state Sen. Frank Lasee, R-De Pere, former U.S. Marine Corps Captain Mike Gallagher and Terry McNulty of Forestville. Among Democrats, Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson has announced his candidacy.

Whether its coattails or overshadowing the candidates ability to get messages out, you might see a Republican lose with Trump at the top of the ticket and a very competitive 8th Congressional race soaking up the resources, said Fraley.

Then theres the possibility of a Trump factor. The GOP front-runner is deeply unpopular in Wisconsin, with 70 percent viewing him unfavorably in the most recent Marquette Law School Poll.

Asked if Trump as the GOP nominee could hurt the partys chances down-ballot, Vos said it definitely could in statewide races.

But Vos  who endorsed U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz for president last month, after initially backing U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio  said the Trump drag may not translate to legislative races because so many Democratic voters are packed into urban districts in Madison, Milwaukee, Racine and Green Bay.

Western Wisconsin was among Trumps few strongholds in the states April 5 GOP primary. That region also is home to many of the legislative districts that could be in play this fall, Vos noted.

There are significant chunks of Wisconsin where Donald Trump and his message of being an outsider resonates pretty well, Vos said.

Contact reporter Mark Sommerhauser at msommerhauser@madison.com or 608-252-6122. Contact reporter Molly Beck at mbeck@madison.com or 608-252-6135.
31 killed as violence spikes in Syria  BEIRUT  Syrian government strikes hit opposition-held areas near the capital and in the countrys largest city, Aleppo, while rebels fired mortars in escalating violence that left at least 31 people killed and shattered a relative quiet in Damascus that has held since the teetering cease-fire took effect in late February. Western officials, have warned that a cease-fire have warned that a cease-fire was in danger of total collapse due to escalating violence and the walk-out by the Saudi-backed opposition group from the talks Monday.

Turkey hails effective migrant deal  GAZIANTEP, Turkey  Turkeys prime minister said Saturday the number of migrants crossing into Greece illegally has dropped considerably, as proof that a much criticized migration deal between Turkey and the European Union is working. Ahmet Davutolgu was speaking at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and top European Union officials who traveled near Turkeys border with Syria in a bid to promote the troubled deal with Turkey as they face increasing pressure to reassess the agreement.

Student comes out as non-binary  LONDON  A student who came out as non-binary in an emotional address to Barack Obama about transgender issues is being praised by the president for bravery. Maria Munir, a 20-year-old student at the University of York in northern England, then went on to urge the British and American governments to take us seriously as transgender people. Non-binary is a term used by people who dont identify exclusively as either male or female. Obama said he was incredibly proud of Munir.

German official rejects raising retirement age  BERLIN  Germanys labor minister is rejecting suggestions by conservatives, including the finance minister, that the retirement age should be raised to as late as 70. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble recently suggested that working time should be coupled to rising life expectancy. The youth wing of his Christian Democrats separately said the retirement age should gradually rise from 67 to 70 starting in 2030. Germany decided a decade ago to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67.

Police stop diplomats from visiting dissident  BEIJING  A Chinese lawyer said police stopped five Western diplomats who were trying to visit her in Beijing on Saturday after she had been prevented from travelling to the United States to accept an award for her rights work. Ni Yulan said that diplomats representing the European Union, Germany, Canada, France and Switzerland tried to visit her rented house in Beijing on Saturday afternoon, but were stopped outside the home by six plainclothes agents, including one who used dirty words to insult the diplomats.

Pilot hopes to link to Silicon Valleys spirit  OVER THE PACIFIC OCEAN  The pilot of a solar-powered airplane on an around-the-world journey said Saturday that stopping in Californias Silicon Valley will help link the daring project to the pioneering spirit of the area. Pilot Bertrand Piccard, who left Hawaii three days ago, said he hoped to fly over San Franciscos Golden Gate Bridge before landing in Mountain View on Saturday night. Can you imagine crossing the Golden Gate Bridge on a solar-powered plane just like ships did in past centuries? But the plane doesnt make noise and doesnt pollute, Piccard said a live video feed on the website documenting the journey.
SAN DIEGO  First came home offices where new ideas turned into a small business. Then Starbucks became the place to work on a laptop and network with neighbors and clients.

Now a new concept  co-working or shared workplaces  is taking hold: Rent a desk for $500 per month in a warehouse or commercial building and work alongside other individual entrepreneurial soloprenenurs.

The sharing economy has produced this growing type of office around the country to the point where an estimated 40 percent of companies are thinking about adopting it in some form themselves.

This is perfect  exactly what we were looking for, said Ryan Johnson, 24.

Hes one of five venture-capitalists at Israel-based OurCrowd, who work at DeskHub, a 15,000-square-foot co-working space in San Diego.

He previously operated out of his apartment and now is able to invite dozens of angel investors to monthly meetings. Once in a while he picks up tips from other DeskHub companies for possible investment opportunities.

We love the ability to network with other entrepreneurs and startups, Johnson said. There are days when the main room at lunch is just crazy  people having conversations, people touring around. Its a cool environment. Youre always talking to somebody new. I hear people making connections and introductions Im sure they would not have found if they werent at DeskHub.

Jay Chernikoff, 36, started DeskHub in Scottsdale, Ariz., almost two years ago, when he was shifting from tech to real estate and needed a flexible workspace.

The idea is as companies grow and become bigger or smaller, they want to retain flexibility, Chernikoff said. Its the same as the rental economy, Uber, all those things. You have offices shifting in that way, too.

The CBRE brokerage began publishing special reports in January on the shared-workplace movement. It found the commercial real estate world is taking notice, partly in reaction to rising real estate costs in urban centers, the very places where many millennials, the industrys future tenants and customers, want to live and work.

The employees these companies want to attract and retain regard blending work and life as integral to their happiness and success, CBRE said.

The brokerage also said office-based companies see co-working as a way to gain more efficiency by using less space per person.

In San Diego CBRE broker Evan Knudson identified 11 co-work spaces in 18 locations that add up to 109,047 square feet. While a typical office plans for 250 square feet per person, a co-work setup can reduce that figure to as little as 66 square feet.

Thats because there are no file cabinets, closed-door executive offices and duplicate bathrooms, break rooms and conference spaces.

You can be extremely dense and its crazy to walk through there  and you dont feel elbow to elbow, Knudson said.

Individual desks typically rent for $400 to $500 per month with discounts for unassigned floater desk locations and social memberships that allow limited access for working but full access to seminars and special events.

Parking is not necessarily as readily available onsite as in standard office buildings, but proponents of co-working say users find places to park or walk, bike or take public transit instead.

Co-working spaces can attract some interesting and imaginative businesses.

Wag! is a dog-walking service. 6 Degrees is a meeting organizer. GreekRush develops software to help fraternities and sororities on about 25 campuses organize and manage their rush periods, events and routine business.

Cody Cross, 24, got the idea while at Lamda Alpha Chi at the University of San Diego and two other buddies joined him as one of the first DeskHub tenants last year after working out of their apartments.

I wanted to have an impact and be close to my team and build relationships within the team, he said. Its hard to do that when youre working remotely.

He said a real office definitely legitimizes pitches to investors and the low-overhead costs reduces the burn rate of investors money.

Curtis Clave, 31, started his own co-working space, called Bloc, to make room for his Web developer agency. He is reconfiguring a second location and planning to open a third. He hopes to have seven locations throughout California over the next five years, all close to the beach.

Thats a huge plus for a variety of our members for surfing, walking, being close to restaurants and lots of events, he said.

Co-working arrangements can help companies experiment with new ideas without requiring a long-term lease commitment.

Patrick Dillon, 36, said he moved his Lightpost Digital spinoff marketing company to DeskHub from the office of his other company, Deal Current, a private-label coupon producer for newspapers and other companies.

For us it was a perfect opportunity to separate the teams and see if Lightpost could become something big outside Deal Current, Dillon said.

Once the Web design and marketing concept proved successful, he sent the designers back to the quieter Deal Current offices and he and one other salesman stayed to oversee business expansion.

Like weekly rotary club lunches, co-working breeds cross-fertilization among disparate businesses.

Dillon said a neighboring business that focuses on Web design and management for nonprofits offered some suggestions on how to set up a sales force.

The conversation lasted 20 minutes and was worth six months of mistakes, he said.

The idea is as companies grow and become bigger or smaller, they want to retain flexibility. Its the same as the rental economy, Uber, all those things. You have offices shifting in that way, too. Jay Chernikoff, 36, founder of DeskHub in Scottsdale, Ariz.
MINNEAPOLIS  Target Corp. made it clear that transgender people in its stores are welcome to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity.

The statement last week by the Minneapolis-based retailer comes amid debates in many state legislatures over restricting public restroom use to the sex listed on a persons birth certificate.

While many of those conversations have centered around restrooms in public schools and government buildings, Target appears to be one of the first big-box retailers to take a proactive stance in declaring its position on the matter when it comes to its own restrooms.

While they may not be technically public, restrooms in stores are often the most easily accessible and widely available options outside of peoples homes and workplaces.

Targets position also extends to its fitting rooms.

Inclusivity is a core belief at Target, the company said in a statement on its corporate website. Its something we celebrate. We stand for equality and equity, and strive to make our guests and team members feel accepted, respected and welcomed in our stores and workplaces every day.

Molly Snyder, a Target spokeswoman, said it is not a new policy, but the retailer wanted to clarify its position given the questions it has received from both customers and employees amid the national debate. Executives sent e-mail to store leaders earlier this week to convey the message.

Its a restatement of a policy, she said. Its just us being very overt in stating it.

A number of other companies, including some retailers, have been vocal in opposing North Carolinas recently-enacted law that restricts transgender people from using the restroom that aligns with their gender identity in public buildings. Other states are considering similar bills. A Minnesota House committee held a hearing last week on a similar proposal but it faces long odds and, if the measure passed, a likely veto by Gov. Mark Dayton.

While Targets public declaration may not be popular with everyone, it will be more accepted by its core shopper base, which tends to be younger and more urban, said Amy Koo, an analyst with Kantar Retail.

Theyre going to do whats in the interest of the business, she said. It doesnt hurt them as much as it helps them.

This isnt the first time Target has treaded into more controversial issues. Last fall, Target received both praise and criticism when it took down the gender-based signs in its toys and kids bedding aisles.

A couple of years ago, it found itself in the midst of a gun debate when protesters tried to force it and other retailers to ban customers from openly carrying guns in their stores. Target ended up pacifying protesters by asking customers to not bring guns into its stores.

And in 2010, Target found itself on the defensive when gay rights activists assailed it over campaign contributions to an Republican Minnesota gubernatorial candidate who opposed gay marriage. But the retailer has worked its way back into the good graces of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community since then.

In 2014, the company, which has long offered benefits to same-sex partners, came out publicly in support of gay marriage.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The Senates leading Republican voices on national security are assembling an indictment of Donald Trumps worldview by soliciting rebuttals from U.S. military leaders that challenge the accuracy and legality of the GOP presidential front-runners most provocative foreign policy positions.

Over the past few months, Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, two of Trumps sharpest GOP critics, have used their posts on Senate the Armed Services Committee to fact-check Trumps claims.

Without mentioning the bombastic billionaires name, theyve asked senior officers who testify before the committee about waterboarding extremists, the consequences of targeting terrorists families, and whether NATO and Americas other key alliances have become obsolete.

Connecting the threads over weeks of hearings would produce a record of remarks that could be strung together and used by opponents of the presidential candidate.

To demonstrate his fitness to be commander in chief, Trump is planning to tone down his brash personality and deliver a foreign affairs address on Wednesday  the first in a series of policy speeches. He also is planning a separate speech on the military, telling The Associated Press in a recent interview that people may be surprised by how well Ill handle matters relative to the military.

Omitting Trumps name from the conversation allows the generals and admirals questioned by the senators to stay apolitical and out of the 2016 presidential campaign. But its obvious that McCain, the committees chairman, and Graham, who waged an unsuccessful bid for his partys White House nomination, are asking about positions Trump has staked out that have rattled the Republican Party and unnerved U.S. allies.

Graham also wrote the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford. Without citing Trumps name, he inquired about the billionaires pledge, if elected, to bring back the use of waterboarding  which causes the sensation of drowning  and worse against captured militants. Congress has outlawed waterboarding along with other so-called enhanced interrogation techniques.

Trump also said he would order the military to kill family members of militants who threaten the U.S., a position he has since retreated from after being heavily criticized.
Ray Bock of Viroqua has been a woodworker for well over 20 years, but this is his first time heading to Washington, D.C., to exhibit at the Smithsonian Craft Show.

I dont have a bucket list, but now Ive got to create one and put this on it, said Bock, 63. Its probably the best show in the country. Ive managed to get into all the other ones, but this is the last one.

Most of the shows have a couple of hundred exhibitors, and they pull from a pool of a thousand-plus applicants, said Bock, who said being selected by the Smithsonian jury was humbling.

The Smithsonian show has only 120 exhibitors, so that narrows it down even further.

Bock specializes in elliptical-shaped bowls and architecture-inspired tabletop boxes.

Each jewelry-type box is made with fine woods and unusual shapes, such as his pyramid Wedding Cake Box. Bocks bowls are cut by router and band saw, rather than on a lathe, and are wrapped in a veneer that contrasts with the solid wood.

Although I traditionally use a lot of solid woods, Im moving more and more to veneer, he said. Some of it is tropical wood, and veneers are a very efficient way to use that wood. Veneers are very, very thin, and so much can be gotten out of a log. And theyre just so beautiful.

Bock, who grew up in the Chicago area, attended design school in the architectural college at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He majored in photography, and worked in that field until 1992.

In college I also did a lot of time in the shop, he said. They had a fully equipped architectural design model shop, and I just loved being there.

In 1992, he and his wife moved to Viroqua and Bock made the switch to woodworking.

We just stumbled on it, Bock said of his hobby farm in southwestern Wisconsin. We loved the area, and the piece of property we picked happened to be in Viroqua. In retrospect, it was dumb luck. We were very fortunate to wind up here, because its a really nice little community.

Bock has his shop in an old barn hes refurbished. He favors pieces he can turn around and sell at shows and in galleries, at prices from $95 to $950, rather than the custom furniture he used to make.

I used to spend a couple of months building a piece of furniture. It didnt leave me a lot of options to experiment and do different things, he said.

The small pieces allow me to experiment with other ideas.
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The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) filed a lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles on Thursday, seeking to halt the construction of the proposed Palladium Residences development in Hollywood. As the Daily News reports, the Palladium Residences would add a pair of 350-foot tall, 28-story high-rises to Hollywoods burgeoning skyline.

If built, the two towers would add a total of 731 units and just about 2,000 parking spaces to Hollywoods increasingly dense urban core, according to the L.A. Times.

Like past lawsuits against development in Hollywood, AHFs case against Palladium Residences argues that the city of Los Angeles failed to conduct proper environmental review before approving the project. AHF asserts that both traffic and pollution in Hollywood will get worse if the towers are built, and that L.A. did not consider these factors when they approved the Palladium Residences for construction.

AHF also argues that the proposed development does not fit within the guidelines established by Los Angeles planning documents.

Aside from litigating against this development, AHF is jointly sponsoring the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative (NII) with the Coalition to Preserve L.A. The NII proposes a two-year moratorium on all development in Los Angeles while the city hypothetically retools its zoning and planning code.

Court documents reflect that Robert Silverstein, the long time attorney of various NIMBY groups around Hollywood, will be the litigator in AHF's case against L.A. Silverstein has a very successful record of convincing judges to issue court orders against development, and is responsible for putting the brakes on the Millennium Hollywood development project, the Sunset-Gordon tower, and, of course, Target Husk.

On the flip side, the Los Angeles could stop the lawsuits in their tracts by modifying their parking minimums, and stop requiring dense residential housing to include gobs of parking. After all, a pair of 28-story buildings with 0 parking spaces cant contribute to traffic and pollution, can they?


If you listen to the comments that some American presidential candidates have been making, you might believe that the United States is becoming less welcoming to people from different countries who speak different languages.

But one neighborhood just outside of Washington, D.C., is celebrating its diversity.

Arlington, Virginia, is home to more than 130 ethnic groups. One small community is called the world in a zip code. They call it that because there are so many ethnic groups, languages and customs all in just one postal code.

The area is commonly known by the main road that passes through it. The road is Columbia Pike, or The Pike for short. The road was built in the early 1800s as the way into Washington from Virginia. Today, the Pike appeals to immigrants from all around the world.

During the last 10 years, local photographers have been documenting the lives of people living in the area. Lloyd Wolf is one of those photographers. He lives near The Pike.

Columbia Pike has become more and more interesting. There are hundreds and hundreds of ethnicities, people from different countries along The Pike and living in relative harmony. This is something we thought was worth recording.

Wolf and four other photographers began taking photos of the neighborhood and its people. The other photographers are Duy Tran, Paula Endo, Xang Mimi Ho and Aleksandra Lagkueva. Together, they have created a book titled, Living Diversity  The Columbia Pike Documentary Project.

Claudia Camacho owns a Bolivian restaurant on the Pike. She has lived in the area for 23 years.

I like it a lot. It is really hard to move out from this area. There is a lot of people from different places of the world. And you get to know different cultures, and its really good.

Mohammed Mohammed moved to the area 25 years ago. He runs a business selling imported goods from Ethiopia.

He says "White, African-Americans, Hispanic people, Asians, Arabs, Africans combined in diversity. So we know each other, we share elements of culture and language. We are happy. So I am happy.

Wolf says he believes one reason for the communitys success is that people from different backgrounds live in the same buildings and on the same streets.

There's no one area that's all Vietnamese or all Arab or all Somalian, et cetera, he says. Everyone is sort of living and working amongst each other in a blend. And it's a nice blend. It works.

Wolf says people are also able to experience each others cultures during the many festivals each year. He says he and the other photographers made the book to share an idea of how the world should be.

I use a phrase a lot  This is what peace looks like. People get along. This is how we should be.

Im Dan Friedell.

June Soh wrote this story for VOANews.com. Dan Friedell adapted it for Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.

Would you want to live in a neighborhood like The Pike? We want to know. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

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Words in This Story

blend  n. something produced by mixing or combining different things

diversity  n. the state of having people who are different races or who have different cultures in a group or organization

draw  v. to cause (someone or something) to come : to attract (someone or something)

zip code  n. a group of numbers that is used in the U.S. as part of an address to identify a mail delivery area (such as a town or a part of a city)


The number of people from other countries -- especially China -- who want to invest in the United States in exchange for a permanent resident visa reached its highest level in 2015.

The program is known as EB-5 or Employment-Based Fifth Initiative. It was created in 1990 during the presidency of George W. Bush and supported by both major political parties.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services says the program gives permanent resident status to those who invest at least $1,000,000 in a new project that will create or preserve at least ten full-time jobs in the United States within about two years. The agency says a foreign citizen needs to invest just $500,000 if the (project) is in a targeted employment area, which includes some rural areas and areas with high joblessness. Critics of the program say much of the investment takes place in wealthy cities like Dallas, New York and Washington.

The USCIS reported there were 17,691 requests for EB-5 visas in 2015. In 2013 there were 6,554 requests.

Experts say the reason for the sharp increase last year is rich people were worried that the program would be cancelled. But in December, it was extended for 10 months.

The USCIS told Congress that an estimated $8.7 billion has been invested into the U.S. economy through the EB-5 program since October 1, 2012. It estimates 35,140 jobs have been created for U.S. workers through foreign investment via the EB-5 program.

The Wall Street Journal newspaper recently reported that more than 80 percent of the EB-5 visas are given to Chinese investors. The newspaper reports many investors are given two or three visas and use them to give family members permanent resident status.

Without the program, many of them would have to wait many years before they could legally enter and live in the U.S. The U.S. State Department reports some Chinese citizens who have asked for visas without taking part in the program have been waiting since 2001.

Questions raised on the visa program

In 2014, The Washington City Paper reported that Chinese take part in the program not to make money but to be able to educate their children in the United States. Another reason, the paper reported, is the ability to own private property, which can be difficult in China.

The Government Accountability Office reported last year that some people who have asked for or been given an EB-5 visa might have lied about where they earned their money. The GAO report said some of the money that is invested in job-creating businesses may come from the drug trade, human trafficking or other criminal activities.

The report said the USCIS should increase its efforts to prevent and find fraud in the program and should ask people who are applying for an EB-5 visa to give more information. It also said USCIS should study the program to see how many new jobs are created. USCIS said it agreed with the GAO recommendations.

Republican Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa is a frequent critic of the program. He recently told The New York Times its no secret that the program has long been riddled with corruption and national security vulnerabilities. Last week, he led a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that investigated the reported abuse of the targeted employment area part of the program.

Senator Dianne Feinstein is a Democrat from California. She has said I dont believe that America should be selling visas and eventually citizenship. And she said The right to immigrate should not be for sale.

Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, has supported the EB-5 program since it began. But he recently called for major changes.

In a statement, he said fraud and abuse cannot be tolerated, no matter where it occurs. Even when there is no indication of fraud, the incentives that Congress created to direct EB-5 investment to underserved areas are regularly abused. Given the significant problems plaguing this program, I will continue to push for meaningful reform. Without reform, I believe the time has come for the program to end.

Carolyn Lee is an attorney and managing partner at the EB-5 group at the Miller Mayer law firm in Ithaca, New York. The firm says it has helped raise more than $3 billion in EB-5 funding for projects in at least eleven American states. It has helped investors gain more than 5,000 visas. It has been involved with the program for 20 years.

She told VOA theres no question that the program can be improved. She says Congress needs to watch the program more closely, and she said background investigations should be more thorough.

But she disagrees with Senator Feinstein that the program sells visas and citizenship to rich people.

I dont think it is quite fair to characterize it in that way. We confer immigration benefits based on a number of factors. The policy goal that is furthered with this program is U.S. economic growth, she said.

She says visas and citizenship are an asset, an ideal, almost sacred. What do you want to give for this national asset?

Im Christopher Jones-Cruise.

Christopher Jones-Cruise reported this story with information from The Wall Street Journal, The Washington City Paper and The New York Times newspapers, Fortune magazine and USCIS.gov. Hai Do was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, or visit our Facebook page.

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Words in This Story

status  n. the official position of a person or thing according to the law

via  preposition by means of (a person, machine, etc.); by using (something or someone)

riddle  v. to fill (something) with something that is bad or unpleasant -- usually used as riddled with

incentive  n. something that encourages a person to do something or to work harder

plague  v. to cause constant or repeated trouble, illness, etc., for (someone or something)

background  n. the experiences, knowledge, education, etc., in a persons past

characterize  v. to describe the character or special qualities of (someone or something)

confer  v. to give (something, such as a degree, award, title, right, etc.) to someone or something -- usually + on or upon


Americas top education official says many schools are spending too much time teaching the basics  reading, math and writing.

That might seem opposite to what educators have been saying in America. But U.S. Education Secretary John King says children really need a well-rounded education that includes music and the arts.

The simple fact is every child in this country needs and deserves access to the subjects that go into being a well-rounded, well-educated person, King says.

He says that should include music, art, world languages, science and geography.

Laura Bay is president of the National Parent Teacher Association, which represents parents and teachers. She agrees with King that a well-rounded education helps children learn.

Bay says students are more likely to reach their full potential  meaning do their best -- if they have time during the school day for the arts, physical education and other subjects.

King spoke about his own education when explaining why schools need to teach more than math, reading and writing.

King grew up in Brooklyn, New York. His mother died when he was eight. His father died four years later.

In his house, he said, things were often crazy and frightening.

It was his teacher in grades four, five and six -- Mr. Osterweil -- who helped him escape his difficult life at home, King says.

Each day in Mr. Osterweils class, students would read a newspaper. The teacher took him and his classmates to the theater, to the zoo, the ballet and famous Museum of Natural History.

Those were powerful, life-changing experiences, King says.

King went on to graduate from Harvard University. He received his law degree from Yale University. He took charge of New York State public schools from 2011-2015.

The U.S. Senate approved him as Education secretary last month. He was chosen for the job by President Barack Obama.

Im alive today, Im doing the work that I do today because I had Mr. Osterweil during that critical period of my life, King says.

Many schools spend almost all funding on math, reading and writing because they lack money for other subjects, King says. Or they want students to do better on tests used to compare student performance. Those tests are mostly in math, reading and writing.

Students need to connect their studies and things that matter to them personally, such as music, if they are to become sophisticated thinkers, King says.

A 2013 report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, says todays world needs people able to solve new and unusual problems. It says arts can help students find those answers.

In the report, UNESCO said teaching the arts in China, South Korea and Japan is different than in many Western countries.

The emphasis in those three countries is on joyful experiences and childrens interests, the report says. In the West, educators are more likely to connect the arts to reading, writing and math.

Comparing countries is hard because they have different ways of defining success.

A 2014 report by the Program for International Student Assessment tried to compare how well countries teach children how to solve problems. It found Singapore, South Korea, Japan, China, Canada, Australia and Finland with the highest scores for 15-year-olds.

Singapore led the way with a score of 562 out of a possible 1,000. The average score was 500. The United States had a score of 508, one point behind Germany and the same score as Belgium.

I'm Bruce Alpert.

Bruce Alpert reported on this story for VOA Learning English. Kathleen Struck was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or share your views on our Facebook Page. Tell us who your favorite teacher was and what he or she did for you.

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Words in This Story

basics  n. just the regular, nothing special or different

deserve  v. used to say that someone should have or be given something

access  n. a way of being able to use or get something

potential  n. ability that someone has that can be developed to help that person become successful

crazy  adj. wild and uncontrolled

sophisticated  adj. having or showing a lot of experience and knowledge about the world and about culture, art and literature

joyful  adj. full of happiness

score  n. the number of points that someone gets for correct answers on a test
A big thank you

Morton and BryanAcademy students, Site Coordinators and staff would like to express their thanks to all parents and students who came to recent open houses. Special thanks to Al Copper, and Brandon Malleck from Black Hills Energy, (formerly Sourcegas); Riley Gruntorad from Lexington YMCA, and Brenda Schwarz from the Lexington Public Library, Randy Schwarz & Puppet Team from Calvary Assembly of God, Pastor Kenny Schwarz also from Calvary Assembly of God for coming and sharing their knowledge and skills, playing games, making our events great learning experiences, and a whole lot of fun! We appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedules.

Site Coordinators would also like to thank our wonderful staffs, who provide expanded learning opportunities, homework assistance, enrichment programs on a daily basis. Our staff members are priceless, as are our wonderful High School students who are volunteering in our programs. Nathan Chester, and Ernesto Valencia, thanks for your presence during our open house at Bryan!

Our programs LexingtonAcademy * Multiple Choices are a free after school program open to all our students. Presently we serve over seven hundred students on a daily basis at five separate locations. Anyone interested in assisting may contact any of our Site Coordinators or Project Directors. The SPF of our needs, are Supplies, Projects, and of course Funds. Some supplies that would be utilized are books, games, puzzles. We would love to have individuals to come in and read, play math games, electricians, plumbers, mechanics, come show us what you do. You could be the one that sparks an interest in your trade. We are the future. Thank you to all who helped with our recent open houses, and to those who took time to come take a closer look, we appreciate you!

Your friends at Morton and Bryan Elementary,

Tiffany Tingelhoff

MortonSiteCoordinator-LexingtonAcademy

Melissa Dunn

BryanSiteCoordinator-LexingtonAcademy

Cindy Hendricks

PershingSiteCoordinator-LexingtonAcademy

Stacy Harris

SandozSiteCoordinator-LexingtonAcademy

Patricia Sanchez Stewart

Project Director

Multiple Choices -LexingtonMiddle School

Mr. Drew Welch

Principal- Morton Elementary

Project Director -LexingtonAcademy

Cynthia Boyd

Community Liaison

LexingtonAcademy * Multiple Choices

(Editors note: Letters regarding the hospital board race are presented in the order in which they were received. - Ben Schwartz)

Measures of Success

Quiet successes are not very exciting and usually don't result in headlines.

Cooperative successes may not only not be heralded, but, actually go unnoticed.Perhaps such quiet endeavors hold less public interest because the conflict is absent.

For the past 20 years there has been a team of LRHC health care professionals working together in harmony and with a single minded dedication to do their very best for each patient within their charge.

That truly patient centered dedication was coupled with the teams willingness to embrace hopeful innovations and to challenge themselves to succeed even in the face of active resistance from those reluctant to alter how things have always been done.

In the course of the past 20 years this team has built a body of work that is every bit as substantial as the bricks and mortar that have now risen within easy view at LexingtonRegionalHealthCenter.

The analysis of that group effort has been the basis for several scientific papers that have been presented at national and international surgical conferences and published in peer reviewed medical journals. The fact that this was accomplished at a small rural hospital and not a major medical center is unusual. It was the analysis of the body of work accomplished by a team, teamwork that is ongoing, representing a tangible measure of success.

Another measure of success in the medical field is when experts recognize the importance of innovations and the positive outcomes rising from them. This can be in the form of citing a scientific paper as a valued reference or in adopting the recommendations made based upon the body of work as guidelines for others in the medical field or as a standard of care.

In the USA there exists a national surgical organization dealing with gastrointestinal issues called SAGES (Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons). This is a highly respected organization that publishes texts and manuals that list standard of care guidelines for the surgical management of a variety of medical conditions. The published papers based upon the body of work at LRHC were referenced in the SAGES manual and our recommendations were incorporated into its guidelines. A measure of Success.

This LRHC body of work was also cited and incorporated into a national surgical reference textbook publication, The Obstetric and Gynecology Clinics of North America. A Measure of Success.

The same body of work has been recognized, referenced and incorporated into the published OB-GYN surgical guidelines and recommendations for an entire country France. A Measure of Success.

The work done at LRHC has been cited and referenced in at least 27 separate scientific surgical publications and textbooks around the world and on 4 different continents North and South America, Europe and Asia. The work done the past 20 years,here in rural Nebraska, is viewed as valid and important from Slovenia to Chile, from China to France and across the USA. A Measure of Success.

Based upon the teams work done at LRHC over the past 20 years and the related published papers, Dr. Buser, as the teams representative, has been invited to and participated in several international surgical conferences as a lecturer and as the chief moderator on surgery panel sessions. He has lead discussions surrounding other new paper presentations, while fielding questions from the surgeons attending the conferences, concerning the work done in Lexington at LRHC. A Measure of Success.

The surgery team at LRHC was the first hospital outside of the University of Nebraska Medical Center to incorporate the Wound Vac into the management of chronic open wounds, leading the way with what is now a widely accepted innovation that has helped speed healing for countless patients. A Measure of Success.

The surgery team at LRHC developed and began practicing a Time Out pre-op check list to ensure patient safety, several years before it became a national guideline requirement. A Measure of Success.

In April of 2015 LRHC obtained the FUSE endoscopy system, one of three west of the Mississippi, and still the only one in Nebraska. This is a system that allows enhanced, 330 degree views within the intestine, nearly double the view of the old system. Disease is being found and dealt with every week here at LRHC that would have been previously missed. A Measure of Success.

LRHC opened an Urgent Care Clinic, which has won national awards for patient satisfaction. A Measure of Success.

LRHC has recruited the first new physicians to the community in years and expanded the medical and surgical subspecialty access for its patients to include Urology, Orthopedic and Spinal surgery and opened a large, state of the art outpatient treatment facility. A Measure of Success.

The current administration at LRHC has fostered a respectful, team approach to the management of the hospital, and there is new optimism that permeates the medical staff and every department. Morale is very high. At a time when government regulations are presenting numerous difficult challenges this is an important accomplishment. A Measure of Success.

LRHC has a dedicated and expanding team of physicians, nurse practitioners, PAs, respiratory therapists, Pharmacists, Radiology technicians, Nurses, and other ancillary staff members who are highly skilled and actually enjoy providing excellent, state of the art care for their patients. This may take the form of inpatient, outpatient, ER, Urgent Care all at LRHC or via satellite clinics in Elwood or at area businesses. These teams believe in true patient centered care, but do not believe that they own the patient. They partner with the patients in the decision making processes and they support the patients right to choose where that care is given. A Measure of Success.

Its the outcome. Results are evaluated. Patient satisfaction is very high while complications are well below national averages. Even so every department is dedicated to continual improvement. A Measure of Success.

The future is bright for Lexington and its hospital, LRHC. There are many measures of success beyond financial. LRHCs administration is very knowledgeable and has taken measures that should put the facility on a stable financial basis for years to come.

Disagreements may make headlines, but there have been many unheralded successes that should be weighed and measured in the public forum as well. The administration and the LRHC Hospital Board are to be congratulated and these quiet successes should be celebrated.

Kerrey Buser, MD, FACS

Chief of Surgery - LRHC

Lexington

Support for hospital administration

I do not live in Lexington, so I do not really know the community per say.

Here is what I do know. I know that being a nurse at LexingtonRegionalHealthCenter is something that I am very proud of!!!

I take care of many people that are in this community and I have experienced great things with this community. I have also shared in the heartache with many from this community. I have not only experienced the hospital as my place of work (which is by the way my second family) but as a patient and so I have seen both sides of the hospital bed. This hospital is honestly a very loving, high quality place. I have been here since I was a nursing student and I met Leslie at that time and she was the Director of Nursing at what was then known as Tri-CountyHospital and the first time I met her she inspired me in a way that I can not even describe to anyone.

I was hooked! She is such an inspiring person and wants health care in Lexington to be just as great and inspiring as she is!!! I hope that in my career I am at least half or one third as great as she is! So many parts of my life has included this hospital including the birth of my two beautiful and amazing boys.

Dr Miller delivered both of my boys and did a lot for me when I was in labor. I do not dispute that he or any of the providers at PCMG can be great doctors. But part of being a part in that hospital means you see the good and the bad. So that means every human is possible of both, good and bad. It's the people that show the good far more than the bad that make anything great and worthwhile.

Great things have come to this hospital because of Leslie Marsh and I am honored to say that I have been witness to them! I am honored to say I am a Nurse and even more honored to say I am a Nurse at LexingtonRegionalHealthCenter. But most of all I am honored to say that I know Leslie Marsh!

While all this has been going on Leslie has asked all hospital employees to not retaliate in all the negative effects and slander that has been thrown at every single person who works at LRHC. Instead she asked us to do what it is we do best, be there and support our patients. Be the bigger person!! That to me says something about a persons real character!

If she did not care about LRHC, the staff, the community, and the patients, she would not hold back she would let everyone run their mouth amuck. Trust me there are a lot of things we would like to say, but out of the LOVE that we all have for our leader we did exactly what she asked, we stayed strong and cared for our patients and community!!

We let our names and motives go through the sludge that was thrown at us because we knew that our purpose was much more than taking the integrity of others down, we went on to lift people up!!

Because that's what we do and what we are all about! Wouldn't this world be so much better if we worked together to build a future for our kids and grandkids and theirs instead of fight to bring all around us down?

I love Leslie Marsh and the future she is building for me and the people that mean the most to me! These eyes of mine have seen so much about humanity, nurses truly are the windows of this world! We see people at their worst and their best.

So I urge you to listen to this open hearted nurse! I will always, now and forever stand by Leslie Marsh and follow in her steps of greatness to make this community a worthwhile community with great healthcare!!

Lacey Anderson RN, BSN

Rural DawsonCounty

Candidate appraisal

April 19th I attended a Town Hall meeting in Elwood, at the SeniorCenter sponsored by a committee called a committee for a better board. I noticed a flyer posted in the Elwood Market for a Town Hall forum to meet 4 candidates running for 3 positions on the Lexington Regional Health Center (LRHC) Board. This committee is headed up by Jean Ford, the wife of Dr. John Ford, of Plum Creek Medical Group (PCMG). Dr. Ford does not have privileges at the hospital because he voluntarily resigned his right to admit patients.

Let it also be noted that we wanted a debate scheduled in Elwood with all 8 candidates, but when I asked Jean Ford prior to the Town Hall about a debate with all the candidates present on May 3rd in Elwood, she commented, I dont think my candidates will want to be there.

The four candidates present at this Town Hall included Theresa Stuart of Lexington, Wayne Weston of Lexington, Paul Homan of Lexington, and Dave Irwin of Sumner.

In opening comments all 4 candidates expressed they needed to repair the relationship between PCMG and LRHC. Let it be noted that November 21, 2014, PCMG doctors delivered a letter to the hospital resigning their privileges to admit patients to the hospital, and commented they were moving on. We as the hospital, moved on, but when you have Jean Ford and others coming to the board meetings, slandering our administration, current board members and hospital staff, it is hard to believe they have moved on. I was present at a hospital board meeting, when Dr. Jones (current board member) commented that you havent seen anything yet, World War III is coming. As an elected board member, who does have a conflict of interest because he owns a clinic and the hospital has a clinic, he is not an effective board member. Dr. Jones should be in support of the hospital, and that would mean using the hospital services for the betterment of his patients. He does not do this. Patients are told LRHC does not have those specialists, does not have certain services, or cannot do that test, and is sending those patients to Cozad or Kearney.

There were about 80 hospital employees, some of us who live in Elwood and JohnsonLake, and approximately 8 residents of Elwood not employed by the hospital. Several stood and expressed emotional encounters with PCMG physicians when they were on active staff at the hospital. Comments of fear, harassment, demeaning comments, sometimes made in front of patients was a common theme. Through tears it was evident there was a lot of emotion and passion. Passion for the hospital and why they work at LRHC, respect for the current administration and leadership, and their commitment to high quality care with the desire to continue moving LRHC in a higher direction.

We need board members that can visualize health care in the future. Progressive and futuristic by implementing up to date equipment and technological advancements. Health care has changed, and the old school medical model needs to be retired. Health care is all about bringing services/specialists to the patient locally, and state of the art surgical equipment to decrease in hospital days, which allows the patient to go home earlier. It is analyzing the needs of the community and then working together to meet those needs. In the strategic plan for LRHC, this is our reality. The new addition includes specialty clinics, same day surgery suites, operating rooms, and the new sterilization center, are impressive and state of the art. The addition with remodeled in-patient rooms, are evidence of sustaining the future of health care in our community. Come see the new addition and judge for yourself.

My view of the candidates and how I would vote:

All three incumbent candidates, Rob Anderson, Tara Naprstek, and Kerry Teetor, are true supporters and visionaries of the hospital. A YES for my vote.

Tucker Case: was not present at the Town Hall because he was told it was cancelled. This speaks volumes. Jean Ford did not want him there, because of his definite support of the hospital. A YES for my vote.

Theresa Stuart: In her own words, she described the actions of the PCMG physicians terroristic towards LRHC staff, and stated if she was on the board this environment would not be tolerated. She committed to developing relationships with LRHC staff and being an advocate. A Maybe for my vote.

Wayne Weston: Yes he is a doctor, but the current doctor on our board is not an advocate for the hospital. Wayne is definitely old school medicine and wanting the hospital to function as it did in the past. A NO for my vote.

Paul Homan: He did not know the facts of the hospital, only information given to him by Jean Ford. He did not know how a board functions, and when a board member has a conflict with an issue, they are expected to excuse themselves from the discussion. He called the action illegal, but in reality, that is how boards function. He is ignorant on current healthcare issues. A NO for my vote.

Dave Irwin: He did not know the facts on several issues regarding the function of the hospital. He commented he recently had a procedure done, but did not have that done at LRHC. What was very evident was his aggressive behavior. When a hospital employee asked a tough question, he would come from around the table the candidates were sitting at, stand in front of that person, and with a raised voice would interrupt the person talking. This is a common behavior of a person wanting to intimidate another person. A NO for my vote.

I ask that you research the candidates you choose to vote for, including Googling their names and reading about them. Most importantly, vote. Remember you can vote for 3 of the 8 candidates.

Respectfully submitted,

Barbara Foss, Nurse Practitioner

Elwood Clinic

Urgent Care at LRHC

Elwood

How did employees know about meeting?

Reading the story in the Wednesday April 20 paper, I have questions about the Sumner event.

Was it publically announced?

Why were so many of the LRHC employees in attendance?

How did they know about the meeting?

Were they told by LRHC board members to attend?

The voters would also appreciate Dr. Wayne Westons question answered.

Lets get everything out in the open.

I would like to add, the hospital employees are very professional and helpful in their jobs. But I hate going to other hospitals just to see my doctor.

Nola Reed

Lexington

Chronic misinformation

The information that is circulating and being perpetuated by some of the people running for the Hospital Board position is astounding. It seems that the loudest are those who have talked to one side and one side only. Smart people look at both sides before making public statements. What many people do not know is that the doctors at PCMG CHOSE to relinquish their privileges at LRHC. That is the sole reason that those who want to see their providers at the hospital cannot. All providers who care for patients at ANY hospital must have privileges at that hospital. PCMG providers chose to make their patients drive out of town for medical care. One provider notably has made an astounding exception. She sends the enemas til clear patients to LRHC and sends all other to other facilities.

Since the PCMG providers relinquished their privileges, the mood at the hospital has been amazing. Previously, the nurses stated that they constantly had to walk on eggshells because some of the PCMG providers were so disrespectful to them. On the other hand, some of the complaints I heard from the PCMG providers before they left was that they felt nurses were watching their every move. Quite the contrary, we all work as a team at LRHC. I for one am very glad to have the nurses with me whenever I visit with patients. They actually know more about what is happening with the patient and their families , since they spent the day caring for the patient. Developing a trusting rapport between members of the team, which includes the provider, creates a greater opportunity for quality care. The goal of the LRHC team is to make the patient feel that he/she can participate in the quality care that we strive to give. Gone are the days of the paternalistic doctor. The evolving atmosphere of patient care takes into account the desires of the patient by keeping that patient well-informed and giving CHOICES.

One candidate claims that hospitals employ physicians for financial benefit implying that LRHC is doing the same. Wrong again. At LRHC, all providers have the freedom to use any lab, specialist or test center they deem appropriate. Yes, they are more likely to use LRHC but are not in any way shape or form required to use local facilities.

Among the candidates is one person who has information that is not only wrong and caustic but extremely biased. There are times when a board member must be excluded from some discussion because of the mere fact that there is extreme conflict of interest. History has provided many examples of the need for this type of exclusion. To this candidate, I say, Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.

In spite of the fact that the PCMG doctors printed a lie about me by stating I left because they would not sell. (Several of us, when I was still there, were talking about future plans with that as an option.) We all have to answer to our maker, so I will not speak badly of them nor will I lie to look better.. What I do know is that I made the right choice to leave PCMG. My focus is on providing care as I would hope someone would provide for my family. And for the critics about PAs and NPs, I can tell you that we have very knowledgeable and caring providers, and some of us are even physicians, who consult each other and call specialists when we need advice.

Persons who have enjoyed speaking badly about our CEO, have no idea how dedicated and committed to providing excellent care for the community she is. And, in contrast to the previous CEO, she listens to the Board and communicates openly with them. The Hospital Board now does something that it could not do previously. They actually can interact and ask spontaneous questions during an open meeting. That did not happen before. Healing is occurring slowly. In order to continue this stream, we really need to re-elect the incumbents. They care about your community.

Fran Acosta-Carlson, M.D., M.A., M.S.

Lexington

Freedom of Speech

This is a very important right of all Americans, and is one that has been hard won throughout our nations history. Nowhere is it written that ALL candidates for a public office must be invited to appear together in a public forum. If only one candidate wishes to speak publically about his political standards, he may do that. Donald Trump is a perfect example. No one requires The Donald to invite all of the other presidential candidates just so that he may offer his opinions for the TV cameras.

The current hospital board members have an opportunity at each monthly board meeting to show the public how they stand on issues before the board. The challenging candidates should be able to gather in public to listen to the concerns of the citizens of the hospital district. The site of such a gathering has no relevance or relationship to the political views of the challengers, and is actually violating the right to assemble by denying the group the use of the facility. But, that is not the issue here, freedom of speech is the issue.

Jean Ford

Lexington
LEXINGTON,Neb.  Two years ago the thought of doing a Dawson County Hero Flight was just an idea.

On Wednesday, April 27, the idea-turned-reality will culminate with the send-off reception for all 25 veterans going on the Dawson County Hero Flight. The Heartland Museum of Military Vehicles will host a noon meal, a short program and the send-off, said Steve Zerr, a member of the Hero Flights organizing committee.

The lunch is provided by meal sponsor 1K Plus, LLC, which owns a firing range south of Lexington, Zerr said.

One big ticket expense with the final leg of the Hero Flight was transportation to and from Omahas Eppley Airport, Zerr said.

This is why Zerr said the organizing committee was very grateful that an agreement was reached with the Lexington School Board, which agreed to provide a bus and bus driver to transport the veterans to the airport.

The whole process of the Hero Flight is a county-wide project. The funds came from across the entire county. I want everyone to enjoy this, he said.

From the Auxiliary of Eddyville, which gave one of the first donations, a sizeable amount, to students at Lexington Middle School, to teachers at Cozad, we had a wide variety of fundraisers and groups give. We want to thank all the donors that helped us, We cant thank them enough, Zerr said.

Some confirmed groups that will be present to ride with and send off the veterans next Wednesday are the Patriot Guard motorcycle riders, Dawson County Sheriff and members of the Lexington Volunteer Fire Department.

The wide-spread support from groups in the county allowed organizers to plan and set things in place for the second Dawson County Hero Flight, which is scheduled for Sept. 28 through Oct. 1, Zerr said.

Zerr said applications are being accepted from veterans interested in applying for the second Hero Flight. Applications are available by visiting http://www.dcheroflight.org/.

He said veterans living outside of Dawson County in Central Nebraska are encouraged to apply for the second Hero Flight.

The public is invited to attend the Dawson County Hero Flight Send-Off. Anyone or group interested in hosting a fundraiser or support the Hero Flight is encouraged to contact Steve Zerr by calling 308-325-2741.
What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course." It was a pivotal moment in television history when American real estate heir Robert Durst uttered these words at the end of HBOs 2015 documentary miniseries The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst. Unlike fictional crime dramas, at the end of which the culprit confesses, the episode wraps up and everyone goes home, The Jinx resulted in the very real-life arrest of Robert Durst on first-degree murder charges.

Filmmaker Andrew Jareckis sit-down-interview-turned-expose of Robert Durst was one in an exciting lineup of true crime shows that become sleeper hits in the past couple of years. For the casual viewer, it might seem like it all began with Serial in 2014, a podcast co-created by Sarah Koenig and Julie Snyder, and hosted by Koenig. Using investigative journalism, Serial narrated a non fictitious murder every week in its first season. With a surge in popularity of the true crime genre, the subsequent rise in similar shows was unsurprising, from The Jinx to Netflixs Making a Murderer to the recently-concluded The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.

But was Serial really the start? Koenig herself doesnt believe that. In an October 2014 interview, she agreed that this is not an original idea. Maybe in podcast form it is, and trying to do it as a documentary story is really, really hard. But trying to do it as a serial, this is as old as Dickens. Not primarily known as a crime writer, Dickens nevertheless did model many of his fictional characters on real-life law enforcement figures. While the debate on whether Edgar Allen Poe or Truman Capote was the pioneer of the true crime genre is the stuff of many lit-class arguments, there has been plenty of great literature inspired by true crime and the question why were so obsessed by murder? has been addressed before. Even in India, the movie Talvar, which released in 2015 and is based on the Arushi Talwar murder case from 2008, is proof of our fascination with the macabre (a podcast on the same is also on the cards).

Clearly, our obsession with stories of true crime and police procedurals has been around for centuries. Even the Bible is full of them. Whats changed over the last few years, is our perception of true crime as a popular genre. No longer is true crime considered sensational (like it was in the 20th century) and theres no longer a need to apply a respectable science like forensics to a dirty crime. Some writers argue that our interest derives from the perverse knowledge that we can empathise not only with the victims but also, at some darker depth, the culprits. Could that be why Serial set hundreds of online sleuths on to the case of Hae Min Lees murder 17 years ago and brought out a potential alibi witness? Could this empathy with the culprit be the reason for a change.org petition to free Steven Avery, the convicted murderer who was the focus of Making a Murderer? Under widespread attention, Averys case has been reopened, years after he was convicted. In the case of Robert Durst, the filmmakers, who found a crucial piece of misspelled evidence to implicate him, felt sufficiently bad about turning on their star, someone theyd started to like and bond with.

All of these shows are extremely popular and critically acclaimed. Fan following for true crime shows often reaches almost fetishistic levels not usually associated with fictionalised crime shows  even popular ones like NCIS, Criminal Minds, Law & Order, Castle, How to Get Away with Murder etc. An interesting difference is the role social media plays in this. The reddit threads discussing Serial range from observant to downright creepily obsessive. In Steven Averys case, all the documents, transcripts, and exhibits from the trial are available online, for even the casual peruser. After The Jinx ended, even celebrities took to Twitter like crazed fans, aka all of us.

With easily accessible and pervasive information that could be the difference between life and death, does it sound scarily like we  the viewers and listeners  are the judge and jury? Yes. Human sympathy aside, are we in any position to objectively evaluate the evidence weve been handed in such a throwaway manner? No. And yet, human nature will always triumph, and inherently, were inquisitive and judgmental more often than precautionary.

As viewers, its difficult to be objective. True crime shows consist of entire seasons following one story arc (as opposed to most fictional crime shows which deal with a new case every week) and the option to binge watch most shows makes it impossible to not relate (positively or negatively) to the protagonists. Weve watched them for 10-12 hours, equivalent to a few years/decades' worth of their lives. We know them. Intimately enough to form unshakable opinions about them. Now, armed with our knowledge and the confidence in our opinions, we discuss these fascinating people and the acts of violence they may have committed, with others who are also equally invested. Instead of the office water cooler the day after, we take to social media immediately: we tweet, we devour all the reddit posts, we obsess over them. In the meantime, some website is ready with a list of 10 true crime shows to watch next. Game on!
Aligarh (UP): Two persons were killed in a gun battle between rival groups on the campus of Aligarh Muslim university, forcing authorities to deploy Rapid Action Force and order a "major clean-up" operation in AMU hostels.

The violence left an expelled student dead last midnight while another youth, who was injured in the clash, succumbed to injuries in hospital today, AMU spokesman Rahat Abrar said.

Violence erupted at the AMU campus around midnight on Saturday night following a clash between two regional student groups in which a former student was killed, prompting authorities to step up security and deploy Rapid Action Force.

Trouble started when a resident of Mumtaz hostel was assaulted and his room set afire, DIG Aligarh Range Govind Agarwal, who led the police operations, told PTI on Sunday.

The victim rushed to the proctor's office to file his complaint. As soon as news of the incident spread students belonging to the two rival factions gathered and a clash broke out.

Police said that Mehtaab was shot dead late last night near the Proctor's office where the warring groups exchanged fire with each other. The rampaging students set afire a jeep and over half-a-dozen bikes. The mob also indulged in arson and set afire the proctor's office building.

The violence was so widespread that it took the police nearly two hours to defuse the situation at different spots of the campus.

An official of AMU said that trouble between rival groups belonging to Azamgarh and Sambhal regions has been simmering since quite some time now.

Rapid Action Force has been deployed at all sensitive spots especially in view of the entrance test for the engineering college is scheduled today and more than 13,000 candidates are expected to appear from the Aligarh campus centre alone.
Nearly a month after a Dalit woman was dragged, abducted and allegedly raped in Muktsar district of Punjab, the second person accused for the crime was arrested on Sunday.

According to DNA, Sandeep Sipa, the second accused, is the driver of the main accused in the case.

Gurinder, the main accused, had surrendered before a court in Muktsar on Saturday. He was caught abducting the woman on a CCTV camera installed in a nearby shop in Malout in Muktsar.

Muktsar's SSP Gurpreet Singh Gill had said on Saturday that the accused youth surrendered before a court in Muktsar and has been remanded to police custody for three days.

The woman, a Dalit, was dragged by the youth from a computer centre in Malout in Muktsar. The CCTV footage showed the accused forcibly dragging the woman, said to be in her early 20s, out of her office in broad daylight on 25 March.

The woman was seen struggling to break free from her alleged abductor, identified as Gurinder, aged around 25.

After abducting her, Gurinder took her to Tapa Khera village in Muktsar district and allegedly raped her.

The SSP said that about five days after the incident, the woman had got an FIR registered in the case after which the police were on a lookout for the accused.

A case had been registered against the accused under various provisions of the law including for abduction and rape against the accused, he said.

Both the accused, who is into farming, and the victim, hail from same village in Muktsar district.

"He surrendered before a court at Muktsar yesterday and subsequently we took him on remand," Gill had told PTI over phone on Saturday.

With inputs from PTI
Srinagar: The flow of suspected hawala funds from Gulf countries is adding to the woes of security agencies in Kashmir Valley as the illegal money is reported to be mainly used for creating infrastructure for radicalisation of youths in a bid to wean them away from centuries old Sufi tradition.

As new religious institutions dot several parts of the Kashmir Valley, they have been attracting youths more where, according to the security assessments, the young men are indoctrinated with the type of religion being followed by likes of banned Islamic State and al-Qaeda terror groups.

The new trend has left many religious heads, who refused to come on record, worrying as they believe that the new generation of youth is being weaned away from Sufi tradition that has been followed in the Valley for centuries.

A senior security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said while older generation families offer prayers at their traditional mosques, the youth prefer to pray at the new religious places which have been built in the last couple of years.

As questions crop up over the funding for new mosques, the Army, Police and central security agencies believe that large amount of illegal funds are been pumped into the Valley from Gulf countries and they apparently go unchecked.

"The funds come in small amounts to avoid detection. Besides we believe that certain business houses having their establishment in these countries, overinvoice their products and pass on the surplus funds," a senior police official said.

During various stone-pelting incidents in the Valley, the security agencies have seen "ISIS-JK" flags coming soon being waved by miscreants. "While we hope this is a publicity stunt but at the same time, we are closely watching it," a senior police official said.

The recent spurt in growth of large number of local militants can be attributed to this new trend and change in mindset of sections of the younger generation who have become more hostile, is also a general observation across the board among all wings of security agencies.

This large inflow of hawala funds from Gulf countries and more Kashmiri youths getting sucked into militancy are dangerously stoking terrorism in the Valley in a fresh test for security forces in their anti-militancy operations.

An axis from Tral, Batapora, Panjgaon and Yaripora in South Kashmir is witnessing a dominance of terror group Hizbul Mujahideen, while in the other axis from Palhalan to Sopore this group and few militants of Jaish-e-Mohammed are calling the shots, according to officials.

Since January this year, nearly seven boys have reportedly vanished from the Valley with Kulgam and Anantnag in South Kashmir accounting for them. Last year, according to a reply in the Parliament, 82 boys had been sucked into militancy.

While terming it as a dangerous trend, security officials said the difference between todays militancy and that during early 1990s is the ideological conviction of the present lot is far more superior than that of the terror groups during the previous years. Kashmir is witnessing a trend of Pan-Islamisation where the young boys are opting for the path of terrorism knowing fully well that they are at the risk of being killed, the official said.

On the funding part, the security agencies feel that organisations like Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax need to focus more on flow of funds into Kashmir. The previous regime of National Conference and Congress had pushed the Enforcement Directorate to open their offices in the Valley but in last three years, only a few attachments have taken place.
In his monthly radio programme 'Mann ki Baat', Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said that 1 crore families have given up their gas subsidies, asserting these 1 crore families have forced politicians to change their thinking and start believing in people.

"In the past, parties providing gas cylinders was an important subject, committees were set up to discuss this. But I took a third way, I believed in my people. I urged them to give up their gas subsidy. I am very proud to say that today about 1 crore families have given up their gas subsidy," he said.

He also thanked people for giving up their subsidies, saying, "I want to congratulate those 1 crore families who gave up their subsidies and want to thank them. It is not a small thing."

Another pressing issue that PM Modi addressed was the intense drought gripping most parts of the country. He said that the heatwave condition spread across the nation is a great concern and also recognised non-governmental and civilian efforts at trying to bring relief to people reeling under the water crisis.

Further, he talked about farmers in Ahmednagar where people have changed the cropping pattern of the village in the summers and abandoned water-intensive crops like sugarcane to save water. Acknowledging their efforts to tackle water shortage, he said, "They have done really good work with conserving water."

"To fight the drought and water scarcity, the governments will do their work. But I have seen people also make their own efforts. In several villages, an awareness has been seen with regard to the value of water and in such places, there is sensitivity and a will to do something to conserve," he said.

He added that Clean drinking water is a crucial component for a growing GDP.

When the water table rises, the quality of water also improves. Clean drinking water means better health & stronger growth of economy: PM  PMO India (@PMOIndia) April 24, 2016

Talking about the good predictions for monsoon this year, Modi said he believed that it is both an opportunity and challenge. "The good news about above average rainfall is an opportunity and challenge for us to save water. Can we run a movement from

village to village to preserve water? To whatever extent possible, we must save water." he said.

Modi said he has been told that in Devas district of Madhya Pradesh, the Panchayat has been making efforts to build farm ponds, 27 of which have been constructed, resulting in rise in groundwater level. Such methods also lead to improvement in the quality of water and Pure water becomes a reason for GDP growth as well, he said.

He hailed the railways for the quickness it displayed in ferrying water to the water-starved areas but said the villagers deserve more praise for adopting various innovative methods to fight drought. "The government's good work sometimes comes to the fore but if we look around, we will see what kind of new methods people use to address the crisis," Modi said.

He also mentioned the Ganga and how it makes for a large resource for drinking water. He said the campaign to clean Ganga has been going on for 30 years and urged people to take initiative to keep the river clean.

We will all have to be change agents for the cleaning of the Ganga. The Government is making numerous efforts: PM @narendramodi  PMO India (@PMOIndia) April 24, 2016

To clean the large quantity of filth draining into Ganga every day, 'trash skimmers' have been put into service at places like Varanasi, Allahabad, Kanpur, Patna, the Prime Minister said.

The 'trash skimmers', which clean the filth while floating, have been provided to all local bodies and they have been urged to keep using these machines.

"In coming days, trash skimmers are planned to be put into service at more places and its benefits will be felt immediately by the people living on the banks of Ganga and Yamuna," Modi said.

Modi also addressed another pressing problem, that of industrial waste polluting water bodies and declared the need for an action plan to tackle industrial pollution.

He said officials have told him that there has been success in ensuring 'zero liquid discharge' from distillery in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and that discharge from pulp and paper industry or 'black liquor' has been almost stopped.

The Prime Minister said there is public faith that Ganga will be cleaned which will definitely bring success. "For Ganga cleaning, people are even giving donations. This process is being done in a good way," he said.

Acknowledging 24 April as 'Panchayati raj diwas', he said that the government had successfully launched 'Gram Uday se Bharat Uday Abhiyan', a campaign aimed at ''increasing social harmony across villages, strengthening Panchayati Raj, promoting rural development, and fostering farmers progress''.

Modi expressed the contentment he felt after visiting Baba Saheb Ambedkar's village, Mhow, on his birth anniversary, the same day that the 'Gram Uday se Bharat Uday Abhiyan' programme was launched.

     14                ,     : PM  PMO India (@PMOIndia) April 24, 2016

Urging parents to have regular conversations with their children about day-to-say activities at school, Modi made a distinct point by declaring that for the quality of education to improve, the focus needs to shift from "schooling" to"learning". He also recognised the role of technology for better quality of education.

"Our country's countless governments have focused on the education sector, and each government has tried to do it in their own way," the PM said. "We have to now focus on providing quality education. We have shift focus from only 'schooling' to 'learning'."

"Skill is equally important as education. Similarly,mtechnology also has a big role to play. Long distance education, technology will make our education easy and in the near future, the results will show. I am confident," he said.

Stressing on how the media had a habit of focussing on negative news, Modi said that a letter which he received urged his government to put out one positive story every day. Elaborating on that, Modi said, "Dr APJ Abdul Kalam always used to say that only positive news should be published on front pages of newspapers."

He said that the government's website 'Transforming India' will be one such platform for positive news.

Lastly, Modi vocalised his interest in the 'Kumbh Mela' and expressed his wish for the Centre and state governments to initiate a photo competition of 'Kumbh Mela' and said that it is important that people know about the mass pilgrimage which he believes is "our speciality'' as Indians.

He also said that the Kumbh Mela, apart from being a great opportunity to promote tourism, can "also be a social platform for cleanliness and saving water."

MP CM @ChouhanShivraj was also telling me about how they are focussing on cleanliness during this year's Simhasth Kumbh: PM #MannKiBaat  PMO India (@PMOIndia) April 24, 2016

With inputs from PTI
Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar on Sunday alleged that a man tried to strangulate him inside a Jet Airways aircraft.

He further alleged that the Jet Airways staff refused to take action against the man who assaulted him. Reports said that both, Kumar and the man who allegedly assaulted him, were deplaned after the clash.

Yet again, this time inside the aircraft, a man tries to strangulate me.  Kanhaiya Kumar (@kanhaiyajnusu) April 24, 2016

After the incident @jetairways staff completely refuses to take any action against the man who assaulted me.  Kanhaiya Kumar (@kanhaiyajnusu) April 24, 2016

Basically @jetairways sees no difference between someone who assaults nd d person who is assaulted. They will deplane you, if you complain.  Kanhaiya Kumar (@kanhaiyajnusu) April 24, 2016

Manas Deka, works in TCS, a strong BJP supporter assaulted me inside the aircraft. Is assault the only tool you have, to fight dissent?  Kanhaiya Kumar (@kanhaiyajnusu) April 24, 2016

The student leader, who was on way to Pune this morning to address an event in Mumbai, claimed his assailant was a BJP supporter called Manas Deka, who works with the TCS.

According to a report in Hindustan Times, Jet Airways issued a statement but did not respond to Kanhaiya's charges against them. "Some guests on board this mornings flight Jet Airways fight 9W 618 Mumbai to Pune have been off loaded at Mumbai airport in the interest of operational safety." Police carried out an initial probe and revealed that it was not a case of assault but the two pushed each other over a petty argument.

Kanhaiya's allegation comes just a day after he had lashed out at the Narendra Modi dispensation, terming it a "government of selfies and jumlas" as he pushed for enactment of a law to prevent caste-based prejudice in educational institutions.

The JNUSU President, who hit headlines after being arrested on charges of sedition in the aftermath of an event at the JNU campus where alleged anti-India slogans were raised, had gone hammer and tongs against the NDA-led Centre and its pet projects.

"The Modi government is coining only jumlas (idiomatic expressions) such as Make in India, which should actually be Fake in India; Stand Up India, Start Up India, Selfie with Daughter etc. It has become a government of selfies and 'jumlas'.

"The reality is these are only tall promises by which the government is fooling the public as nothing positive was coming off the ground," he had said.

The 29-year-old was speaking on the topic 'Student-Youth Assembly Against Discrimination' at an event in suburban Tilak Nagar.

Kumar had said that at a time when entire Marathwada region in Maharashtra was reeling under drought, "RSS-led government" was busy holding IPL matches in the state.

"I heard a wax statue of Modiji has been carved out. I also heard a 12-year old girl in Marathwada died as she ventured out to fetch water in scorching heat. Let that wax statue of Modiji be put in Marathwada," he had said.

Kumar, who had earlier ruled out campaigning in the West Bengal and Kerala Assembly polls, has now decided to support a fellow JNU comrade who is in the fray for the 16 May elections in Kerala, according to PTI.

Ever since he walked out of Tihar jail, Kumar had been maintaining he was a student and not a "politician" and that he had no plans of campaigning in the Assembly polls.

However, he said that he decided to join the campaign after Muhammed Muhassin, CPI candidate for Pattambi seat in Palakkad, mooted the idea. "He has stood by me, so I decided to hit the campaign trail," Kanhaiya said.

With inputs from PTI
New Delhi: An emotional Chief Justice of India (CJI) TS Thakur on Sunday lamented "inaction" by the Executive to increase the number of judges from the present 21,000 to 40,000 to handle the "avalanche" of litigations even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured him of his government's resolve in finding a solution jointly with the judiciary.

"...And therefore, it is not only in the name of a litigant or people languishing in jails but also in the name of development of the country, its progress that I beseech you to rise to the occasion and realise that it is not enough to criticise. You cannot shift the entire burden on the judiciary," the Chief Justice of India said in a choking voice.

WATCH: Chief Justice of India TS Thakur breaks down during his speech at Jt conference of CMs and CJ of HCs in Delhihttps://t.co/xD1tro8rmX  ANI (@ANI_news) April 24, 2016

Addressing the inaugural session of Joint Conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of High Courts, Justice Thakur said that since 1987, when the Law Commission had recommended increase in the number of judges from then 10 judges per 10 lakh people to 50, "nothing has moved".

"Then comes inaction by the government as the increase (in the strength of judges) does not take place," he said.

He said following the Law Commission's recommendation, the Supreme Court in 2002 had also supported increasing the strength of the judiciary. A Parliamentary Department Related Standing Committee on Law then headed by Pranab Mukherjee had also recommended taking the judge to people ratio to 50 from 10.

As of today, the judge to people ratio stands at 15 judges to 10 lakh people which is way less than as compared to the US, Australia, the UK and Canada.

"In 1987, the requirement was 40,000 judges. From 1987 till now, we have added 25 crore in terms of population. We have grown into one of the fastest growing economies of the world, we are inviting foreign direct investment into the country, we want people to come and make in India, we want people to come and invest in India.

"Those whom we are inviting are also concerned about the ability of the judicial system in the country to deal with cases and disputes that arise out of such investments. Efficacy of the judicial system is so vitally connected with the development," he said, referring to Modi government's 'Make in India' and 'Ease of doing business' campaigns.

Modi, who was not slated to speak as per the schedule of the programme circulated by the Law Ministry, said if constitutional barriers do not create any problems, then top ministers and senior Supreme Court judges can sit together in a closed room to find a solution to the issue.

The Prime Minister also said that it is the responsibility of all to ensure that the common man continues to have faith in the judiciary and his government will fulfil the responsibility and will not falter in helping to make the common man's life easier.

"Jab jaago tab savera" (better late than never)," Modi said, referring to the issues flagged by Justice Thakur.

"I can understand his pain as a lot of time has lapsed since 1987. Whatever has been the compulsions, but its better to be late than never. We will do better in the future. Let us see how to move forward by reducing the burden of the past," he said.

He recalled that in one of such conferences he had attended as the Gujarat Chief Minister, he had flagged the issue of reducing vacation in courts and holding morning and evening courts but during lunch break during that event he was in for trouble as some judges had questioned the idea.

Justice Thakur said from a munsif to a Supreme Court judge, the average disposal in India is 2,600 cases per annum as compared to 81 cases per annum in the United States.

He also asked the state Chief Ministers present at the event to increase the cadre strength of the lower judiciary.

While lauding the new law to create commercial divisions in the high courts and the commercial courts at the lower level, the CJI said the new courts need separate infrastructure and new judges.

He said without proper infrastructure and environment, such courts will not serve the purpose as dealing with cases that require a different handling.

"Old wine in a new bottle will not serve the purpose," he said, adding that an "emotional appeal" made by him "may work" in getting the government take note of the problems being faced by the judiciary.
Pune: One youth sustained injuries when two groups of students clashed at a college in Pune following a dispute over changing subject line on WhatsApp group, police said on Saturday.

The incident happened on the premise of Garware College on Friday, and the injured was identified as Akshay Dinkar. Four others sustained minor injuries in the incident.

A complaint in this regard was registered by a BBA student Sanket Salunke (22) on Saturday.

According to police, on Thursday, some members were giving birthday wishes to the complainant on Whatsapp and had changed the subject line to his name. One of the accused students, however, changed the subject line, which irked the complainant's friend Dinkar and he objected to it that led to a dispute between them," a police inspector attached to Deccan Gymkhana police station said.

"When they confronted each other the next day in college, the accused student along with his other friends attacked the complainant and his other four friends in which Dinkar sustained grave injuries as he was attacked with a wooden object and weapons," he said.

He added that Dinkar is recuperating at a private hospital.

"We have registered a case against 22 youths and arrested five under relevant sections of IPC," the inspector said.

Further investigation is on.
Kochi: Amid debate on the issue of entry of women in the age group of 10 to 50 in the Lord Ayyappa Temple at Sabarimala, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Sunday made it clear that his government would not interfere in the customs and traditions of the hill shrine.

"Government doesn't interfere beyond a point on matters with regard to (religious) customs and faith," Chandy said when asked about the stand of his government on the issue.

The Chief Minister, who is in the midst of the assembly election campaign, said his government has already made its stand clear on the issue of Sabarimala where entry of women in the age group of 10 to 50 is banned.

"There are persons who have the right to deal with matters related to faith and customs...Let them take decisions on such issues," Chandy told PTI, reacting to a query.

When it was pointed out that some Hindu organisations and even the RSS have supported women's entry at temples, Chandy said, "We don't want to get into that controversy."

"This is a matter related to customs and faith. There are people who have the right to take decisions on such issues," he said. Last week, two religious bodies moved the Supreme Court supporting a PIL seeking entry of women in the Sabarimala Temple, saying no ritual or customs can be used as grounds to discriminate against women in the matter of worship.

Kerala-based bodies  Hind Navotthana Pratishtan, through President Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha and Narayanashrama Tapovanam, through its Managing Trustee Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha, have filed the plea seeking to intervene in the PIL, being heard by a bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra.

"No temple ritual, ceremony or custom can be made any ground for discriminating against women in the matter of worshipping in any temple, including Sabarimala, as it is a clear violation of the constitutional equality and freedom guaranteed for men and women alike," the plea, filed through lawyer Ravi P Mehrotra, has said.

Earlier, the court had said gender equality was a "constitutional message" and ban on entry of women of a particular age group in Sabarimala shrine cannot be claimed as a right to manage religious affairs by its management.

On 11 January, the apex court had questioned the ban on the entry of women of menstrual age group at the Lord Ayyappa temple, while hearing the PIL.
Jamshedpur: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday made a strong pitch for strengthening democracy at the grassroots level as he asked the gram panchayats to play active role in developmental activities, taking advantage of the immense resources and schemes of his government.

On the 'Panchayat Day', he said the country's progress depends hugely on the development of villages and emphasised the need for bridging the gulf between cities and rural areas by ensuring that all modern day facilities reach even the far off places.

While laying thrust on progress of rural areas, with particular focus on farmers, women-folk and child care, Modi said he wants to leave a legacy after his five-year tenure which would be talked about in terms of exceptional achievement in the years to come.

"We need to strengthen panchayats. The gram sabhas are as important as Parliament," he said addressing a programme on the culmination of 10-day 'Gram Uday Se Bharat Uday' campaign in the tribal-dominated state of Jharkhand.

"We have to work shoulder-to-shoulder to fulfill the dreams," Modi said, underlining the need for cooperation between gram panchayats and the central government.

Pitching for progress of villages, he asked the village heads to take a lead in undertaking developmental activities, including infrastructure development, construction of toilets to ensure end to open defecation, ensuring proper healthcare to prevent child birth mortality and provision of better education to ensure there is no school dropouts.

"Earlier there was shortage of funds. Now there are lot of finances available...There is no dearth of funds. There is no dearth of schemes. But there is a need for dedication by those who work at the grassroots level," Modi said.

"Be aware, remain alert. Lead from the front. Then officers will also do their work," he told the village heads.

In this context, he particularly emphasised the role of women panchayat representatives, who constitute 40 per cent of

the 30 lakh representatives.

"Ensure that open defecation of our mothers and sisters is brought to an end. Ensure construction of toilets. Take a pledge in this regard. There is nothing more shameful than our mothers and sisters defecating in the open," Modi told the women representatives of panchayats.

Asking the women representatives to take a lead in bringing about changes in social lives, he said they should see to it that there is proper utilisation of funds.

The women representatives also look into the aspects like child nutrition and pregnancy-related issues, he said.

He suggested that each village should take up one task each year like ensuring all farmers get crop insurance, ensuring preservation of water, ensuring digitalisation, and ensuring adequate attention to children.

Noting a huge mismatch in facilities available in cities and villages, Modi said, "We have to bridge this gulf... If electricity is available in cities, should it not be available in villages? If cities have good roads, should the villages also not have good roads?... After so many years of Independence, the gap between cities and villages is only increasing."

He said his government has provided adequate funds in this year's budget for development of villages.

"The country has reposed faith in me for five years. I want to leave a legacy.. People should talk later that I did this for the villages. I will do something which will in reality be a foundation (for progress)," the Prime Minister said.

Talking about the programmes launched by his government for development of rural areas, he mentioned the scheme for electrification of all the remaining 18000 villages in 1000 days from August 15 last year when he announced it.

Regarding this, he asked the gram panchayats to be alert to see whether work on this project is being done properly.

"Sometimes it is said that electricity has reached a particular village. But then media reports that only the pole has reached the village. I want to tell the villagers to be alert so that no wrong information is given to me. If you stay alert, it will reduce my concerns," he told the village heads and asked "Won't you share my concerns?"

He then referred to the practice of cooking using wood, saying by this method a woman consumes fumes equal to 400 cigarettes in a day.

"Imagine what would be happening to the health of that mother who cooks. This is happening in the 21st century. Will we let our mothers die like this while cooking food for us? We have to rid her of this," Modi said.

He said the government plans to give LPG connections to five crore households in three years and asked village heads to see whether the benefits reach the intended people.

Describing his government as one which "lives and dies for the farmers", he noted that recently a programme had been launched under which agriculturists can directly sell their produce through an E-portal to get the best price.

He asked the village heads to see if there are any "shortcomings" in it since it is in the initial stages.

He also asked the village bodies to show awareness towards digitalisation of rural areas, a task undertaken by his government.

Modi said he had decided to hold the Panchayat Day function in Jamshedpur rather than Delhi because he believes that "the country is big and Delhi is not the country".

Earlier, he noted that such functions used to be held in Delhi "but we decided to take the government out of Delhi, in the midst of the people."

In this context, he invoked Mahatma Gandhi, saying he used to say that "India lives in the villages".

"I urge you, neither you have to stop, nor be tired," the Prime Minister told the gram panchayats, particularly their heads.

The Union Budget has been hailed as it was the first time that it focused on villages and farmers, Modi said.

"If the representatives of the villages take pledge that with people's confidence in them, they could develop villages in five years, people will remember them for years," he said.

Observing that around 40 per cent of the 30 lakh representatives of Panchayats are women, the Prime Minister asked them to lead the change in villages.

"The voters did their duty. Now it is the turn of Panchayat representatives," Modi said.

He said Budget was there for midday meals and let the representatives ensure that children get good food and do not suffer from malnourishment.

Pointing out at BPL women suffer problems during child delivery, Modi asked panchayat representatives to launch an awareness campaign so that deliveries are done in hospitals and both the mother and the child are safe.

He asked the representatives to ensure that every child goes to school and is given the pulse polio drops.

Contending that nothing had happened during 60 years after Independence, he said now lakhs of rupees are sent to villages for development works.

The representatives should also help farmers through "Per Drop More Crop" scheme and make them aware of using lift irrigation, sprinklers, modern technology, bee keeping, fisheries and other things.

"Active panchayats could attract officials coming to them as the officials too have to achieve their targets," Modi said and greeted officials and leaders, who went to villages and created an atmosphere of work despite the heat wave.
Award-winning Tamil writer Perumal Murugans Pyre, recently translated by Aniruddhan Vasudevan, tells a haunting tale of love threatened by societal prejudice.

Saroja and Kumaresan are in love. After a hasty wedding, they arrive in Kumaresans village, harbouring the dangerous secret that theirs is an inter-caste marriage. Kumaresan is confident that all will be well. But the villagers strongly suspect that Saroja must belong to a different caste. It is only a matter of time before their suspicions harden into certainty and, outraged, they set about exacting their revenge.

Murugan conjures a terrifying vision of intolerance in this tale of innocent young love pitted against chilling savagery. Read an extract from Pyre...

***

He had already explained to her that once they reached the village, he would do most of the talking, and that no matter what his mother or the others in the village asked her, she need speak only a word or two in response. He had repeated this to her several times  both when they left Tholur together on the bus, with her head resting on his shoulder, and when they resumed their journey after they got married  to make sure she understood clearly.

Whatever I say, amma will listen, he reassured her many times in many different ways. She will worry about what others might say, but it will be all right soon. Dont be afraid.

Saroja nodded like an obedient child, hanging on to his every word. Although it was uncharacteristic of her garrulous nature not to talk, she realised how important it was to act according to his wishes while in the village. Later, when things had settled and she learned everything about the situation and the people, she could probably chatter as much as she wanted to. But until then she had best follow his instructions.

He even told her that he had hinted at these possibilities to his mother already. Apparently, the last time he was in the village, she had said to him, What do you say? Shall I start looking for a girl for you?

No rush, he had replied. We can talk about this at leisure some other time.

You live in a different town. Please dont come back here dragging along a girl from a different caste, she had said, fixing her gaze on him.

Laughing, he had responded, So what? If I dont find a girl for myself, you think you will? I am the one who has to live with her.

His mother had not said anything more on the subject.

He believed he had given her enough to think about. When he took his leave, she had merely grunted a non-committal Hmm. He had had such conversations with her a few times already. Now he assured Saroja that his mother wouldnt be entirely shocked.

Can anyone who looks at your face not like you, my dear? he asked her. They will just be won over to your side. They might even forget me. Look at the good fortune of this foul-mouthed fellow! the fellows will jealously say.

Every time he called her my dear, she shivered in delight. Even though she couldnt tell if he actually meant it or was saying it in jest, it still made her secretly happy in her heart. The expression in his eyes was always very earnest, without any hint of exaggeration in them. If she said, You are fooling me, he would surprise her with his response: Are you the kind of girl that gets fooled? His very words embraced her and carried her along.

Kumaresan turned on to the mud path that forked away from the road. This is the royal highway that leads to our village, he said and looked at her.

What do you mean? she asked. He often scared her with such grandiose language. Sometimes she simply could not understand what he said. When he spoke very fast, it sounded like a whole new language to her and she would wonder if he was just being mischievous.

A royal highway, he explained, is what they lay out with soft flowers for a king and his queen to walk on. Now you and I are the king and queen. He laughed. In the heat of the day, it looked to her like the path ahead of her was strewn with long, slithering white snakes whose heads or tails she could not discern. Was this really a royal path? She felt a rush of affection for him and for the way he could joke and laugh even at such a time of anxiety.

The dust on the path stuck to their feet, searing their soles. She pulled the loose end of her sari over her head.

Dont cover your head like that; remove it, he said. In these parts, covering the head is a mark of mourning. Here, use this. He spread a small towel over her head. Once they decided to get married, he had started saying things like Dont do it that way. It will be misunderstood there, and This is how they do it there. It continued even now, but she still did not know what to do and how exactly it would be perceived. She was fearful about how the villagers would interpret her actions. Every time she wondered if she would have to change herself completely, the heaviness in her gut grew. If she had to learn everything afresh, she might as well become a child again. But who would raise her then? Was Kumaresan ready for such a prospect? She kept touching her head to make sure the towel didnt slip off.

After a while Kumaresan decided to stop under a large neem tree by the wayside. Its branches had spread over the entire width of the path, all the way to the other side, making the tree look like a giant umbrella. She looked up at it, but was unable to tell how tall the tree was; she had never seen a neem tree this huge. As soon as they halted below it, all her pent-up anxieties seemed to vanish, as though the tree had sucked the summer heat into itself. It was pleasant there in the shade. Glancing around the canopy, she remarked, What a massive tree! She felt comforted by it, as though it had gathered her and seated her in its lap. She trusted that Kumaresan would similarly offer her refuge in his lap.

Right then, in a teasing tone, he said, This is my villages  no, no  our villages kaanakkaadu, and pointed behind her. Confused, she looked at him. He explained, This is the cremation ground.

The lap that had given her refuge only a moment ago now pushed her away and shrank back into itself. Fearfully, she looked at the cremation ground. It lay beyond the neem tree, a vast outgrowth of bushes and huge trees that rose to the sky. There was no sign of anyone being buried or cremated there. The place hid all sorts of secrets within itself while displaying a modest appearance to the world. Saroja turned away, but something from behind her kept its gaze on her. She wanted to leave the place soon.

***

She was trying hard to resist looking at the bushes with their closely guarded secrets when she heard a voice: What is it, Mapillai? Why are you standing here?

She whipped around to see a man on a bicycle, standing with one foot on the ground. He had called out to Kumaresan with a friendly term of address commonly used between men.

The man was wearing a loincloth and had a towel tied around his head. He looked middle-aged, with a swollen belly and thick hair covering his entire body. Had he not been wearing the loincloth and the towel, he would have looked exactly like a dark pig. Saroja felt both ashamed and amused at the sight of the man, but she noticed that he was sizing her up carefully. As his bee-like eyes bore into her, she lowered her gaze to protect herself from his unsettling scrutiny.

Kumaresan replied calmly, This is my wife, Maama. We got married just this morning.

Look at that! You went away to work, but you managed to find yourself a cow! Does your mother know? he said, and scrutinised Saroja again from head to foot.

Saroja wondered if he would come closer and inspect her teeth. Although she was not wearing silk, she looked very much like a new bride in her new sari and blouse and the yellow thread of the taali around her neck. Her face, strained by the exhaustion of the journey, looked like a painting shrouded in smoke. She tried to shrink her frame and hide behind Kumaresan, but the mans gaze hounded her wherever she moved.

Amma will know only once we get home, Kumaresan said.

You have done something unexpected, bringing a girl from elsewhere. What caste? the man said.

Our caste only, Kumaresan replied.

Since he wanted the man to leave, he kept his answers short. But it didnt look like the man had any intention of leaving. He got off his bicycle and leaned around Kumaresan to get a good look at Saroja. Seeing her struggle to hide herself, he frowned, hummed, and furrowed his eyebrows in suspicion.

Cant I tell by the face? he prodded relentlessly. This is not a face from our caste, Mapillai. Does a face that wander over fields and rocks look like this? This is the face of someone who hasnt toiled, a body that hasnt suffered summers heat. All right, tell me the truth  whatever it is... Is she from our caste?

Yes, Maama, Kumaresan replied patiently.

Once the man realized he wouldnt be able to drag out any more information from Kumaresan, he intoned, All right, all right, this heat is punishing. Go home. There must be some leftover rice gruel for you to drink. Your mother might even become overjoyed at the sight of her new daughter-in-law and decide to kill a chicken, and make some kozhambu and some sambar rice with cumin and everything. This is the first time such a daughter-in-law has come to our village, isnt it? Such a rare piece of sweet jaggery! Saying this, he pedalled away, his bicycle moving slowly as its tyres pressed into the mud on the path.

Saroja and Kumaresan could see the loose end of the mans loincloth dangle in the air when he hoisted himself up from the seat and pedalled with force to move faster. He turned back many times to look at them. Saroja watched with fear as the man pierced through the days heat, leaving a trail of dust suspended in the air.

***

Extracted from Perumal Murugan's Pyre, translated by Aniruddhan Vasudevan, with permission from Penguin India
Lucknow: A day after he was denied permission to hold public meetings in Azamgarh, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi said on Sunday that the ruling Samajwadi party was "insecure" of him.

"Yesterday did a roadshow in 4 districts UP very good public response esp from youth for 12 hours peaceful but stopped Azamgarh SP is insecur (sic)," he wrote on micro-blogging site Twitter this morning.

"Samajwadi party is stopping from holding public meetings, enter Azamgarh remember @yadavakhilesh power is not ETERNAL I will be coming more (sic)," he tweeted.

On Saturday, AIMIM chief was denied permission by authorities to hold public meetings in Azamgarh in the wake of tension in Mubarakpur area there.

Application to hold public meeting was received from Owaisi's party but he was denied permission, Azamgarh District Magistrate Suhash L Y had said.

Addressing his partymen at a meeting, Owaisi had exhorted them to prepare for the 2017 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

"Start preparations for the elections so that our people could have representation in the Vidhan Sabha," he had told party workers in Siddarthnagar.

"We are neither against any religion nor against any person," Owaisi, who was on a UP tour, said.
It might sound weird, but the Telugu Desam Party and the YSR Congress have come together in favour of the Congress in Khammam district of Telangana. The quaint camaraderie was born out of compulsion for a common cause on record, and for cross-purposes off the record.

The TDP and YSR Congress will support Congress nominee R Sucharita Reddy (wife of the deceased MLA R Venkat Reddy) in the by-election to Palair Assembly constituency in Khammam district of Telangana. They will be fighting Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao, who is contesting as the ruling TRS nominee.

The election is slated for 16 May and is necessitated following the death of incumbent Congress MLA Ramreddy Venkat Reddy who succumbed to cancer recently.

There is an interesting political background to the newer, but highly volatile, equation that brought the arch rivals, the TDP and the YSRC, together.

There is a tradition of electing the family members of any deceased MLA in undivided AP. This came into practice when naxalites of Peoples War Group had shot dead D Ragya Naik, Congress MLA from Devarakonda Assembly constituency in Nalgonda district, in early 2002. Ever since, whenever an MLA dies, the spouse of the legislator or anybody from the immediate family of the deceased MLA gets elected to the Assembly unopposed. The clause of unnatural death was eventually given a quiet go-by and the rule became a convention in the case of any death.

In fact, YS Vijayalakshmi, wife of YS Rajasekhara Reddy, was also elected unanimously as part of the same tradition for the first time soon after the death of Dr Reddy in a helicopter crash in 2009.

Allagadda MLA candidate of YSR Congress Bhuma Shobha Nagi Reddy died in a road accident during electioneering in 2014. However, her name was retained in the ballot paper and election was conducted, as it was too late to countermand the polls. She was elected posthumously with a huge margin. However, in the by-election after that, the TDP did not field any candidate paving the way for the late Shobhas daughter Akhila Priyas unanimous election. That Akhila Priya, along with her father and Nandyala MLA Nagi Reddy crossed over from the YSR Congress to the TDP after almost a year and a half of her election is a different story.

When TDP MLA of Nandigama (SC) reserved constituency in Krishna district Tangirala Prabhakar Rao died even before being sworn in the MLA, his daughter Sowmya was fielded by the TDP. While the YSR Congress did not contest the polls as part of observing the tradition, the Congress fielded its candidate who had forfeited his deposit.

TDP MLA from Tirupati M Venkata Ramana died in 2015 and the Opposition YSR Congress facilitated the election of his wife Suguna. However, the Congress fielded a candidate who lost deposits.

When it comes to Telangana, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has given up the practice of letting the kin of the deceased elected in casual vacancies. The TRS fielded a candidate in a casual vacancy caused due to the death of a Congress MLA in Narayankhed in Medak district this year. Even the TDP pitted its nominee against the Congress candidate. The TRS wrested the seat from the Congress.

Now, the TRS has decided to field MLC Tummala Nageswara Rao, Roads and Buildings Minister in the KCR Cabinet, as its nominee against Congress nominee.

Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, working president of the Telangana Congress committee and Congress MLA from the same district, has called on YSR Congress president YS Jaganmohan Reddy and the Telangana TDP president L Ramana and urged them to cooperate with the Congress to have its candidate elected, in consonance with the convention. Both parties agreed to the proposal of the Congress, strangely endorsing the same candidate.

However, the TDP is facing the criticism that its decision to withdraw from the race is because it wants to extend surreptitious support to Tummala Nageswara Rao, who still has very strong connections with the TDP, owing to obvious reasons.

Bhatti Vikramarka told Firstpost that the CPI had almost agreed to support the Congress, while the national leadership of the CPI-M would take a call on the contest. We could not handle the Narayankhed issue properly. But, now the TRS Government is not ready to follow the traditions, he pointed out.

Meanwhile, KCR appointed his son and IT Minister K T Rama Rao as in-charge of the Palair. Much to the discomfiture of KTR, the contestant Nageswara Rao blurted out that he would not support KTR as Chief Ministerial candidate, as he was opposed to dynastic politics. He hastened to cover up that if KTR, on his own, grew to becoming the Chief Minister, he would approve of it.

Paradoxically, the TDP and the YSR Congress have their dagger drawn in Andhra Pradesh. Chandrababu Naidu continues to entice YSR Congress MLAs. The count of migratory MLAs into the TDP as on Saturday is 13, while another three are in the pipeline immediately.

YS Jaganmohan Reddy called on the Governor and cried hoarse about the horse-trading of MLAs, especially in the wake of the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections.

He demanded action against Naidu for poaching his party MLAs. Jagan challenged the TDP if it could get all the turncoats resign and seek re-election from the respective constituencies. The YSR Congress organised a candle light protest on Saturday night protesting the crossovers.
The Centre may have got a breather with the stay of the 21 April Uttarakhand High Court decision quashing imposition of Presidents Rule in the Congress-ruled state but it will not be easy to pass judicial scrutiny when the matter is taken up for consideration on merits.

Though the reasoning recorded in the judgment (copy of which is yet to be released) by the high court will decide the actual course of the case, the focus might shift to malafide exercise of power and scrutiny of material relied upon by the Centre if the high court is found to have stuck to the 1994 SR Bommai ruling  which allows interference if the exercise of power by the Centre is malafide or based on extraneous material but bars courts from going into adequacy of material or the wisdom of the decision to invoke Article 356 in the given circumstances.

While the Supreme Court on Friday adjourned the matter to 27 April to ensure availability of copies of the impugned judgment before it considers the case on merits, the Centre had already filed a 64-page petition in which it argued at length as to how  by reviewing the satisfaction of the cabinet, looking into sufficiency/authenticity of material relied upon by the Centre etc  the high court had exceeded the limited right of judicial review in violation of Bommai and other judgments.

The petition has further pointed to the alleged decision of the Speaker not to call for division of votes during the passage of the Appropriation Bill  despite doubts being raised over the Harish Rawat government commanding majority in the Assembly  and material pointing towards horse-trading as the grounds for imposition of the Presidents Rule.

Uttarakhand President Rule

While several questions might crop up during the hearing on the material which have already been rejected by the high court, the Centre may also have to deal with allegations of malafide which in itself could be a ground to set aside a proclamation.

The haste, circumstances and the manner in which the Presidents Rule was imposed after the Governor had already called for a floor test would be crucial factors backing allegations of the action being taken with malafide intentions. On Friday, the Supreme Court, while staying the order, recorded an undertaking that the Centre would not revoke the proclamation before the next date of hearing. It would be significant to note that if the proclamation is revoked, the Governor can call upon BJP (with 28 MLAs) to form the government. But for the proclamation, Rawat, as the Chief Minister, would have first got a chance to prove majority in view of doubts.

With horse-trading being cited as a ground justifying invocation of Presidents Rule, mere statement might not do. The court will inquire into the material on the basis of which such a conclusion was drawn. Though the Centre has relied on a sting operation and also on the statement of an MLA featuring in the video, it might have to justify the haste as it did not wait for the result of the CFSL report on authenticity of the video.

Though this case may be viewed differently in view of evidence in the form of a sting operation, similar grounds were cited by the Governor in the case of Karnataka and Nagaland (Bommai case) and later in the case of Bihar (2006 Rameshwar Prasad case) but the Supreme Court quashed the proclamation in all the cases.

Even assuming that it was so, the correct and the proper course for him to adopt was to await the test on the floor of the House which test the Chief Minister had willingly undertaken to go through on any day that the Governor chose, the Supreme Court observed, while dealing with the issue of horse-trading in the case of Karnataka.

Going by the number of paragraphs dealing with the subject in the petition by the Centre, there is heavy reliance on alleged decision of the Speaker not to call for division of votes during the passage of the Appropriation Bill in violation of rules.

Though the Centre is stressing that passage of the Bill in violation of rules amounted to breakdown of constitutional machinery, it would not be easy to convince the court on this being a ground for invocation of Article 356. With the decision of the Speaker deemed to be final with regard to proceedings of the assembly, acceptance of the argument would amount to allowing the the Governor or the President to sit in appeal to decide whether the decision was right or wrong. The validity of such action or law can always be challenged in court.

If the conduct of the Speaker raised doubts on Rawat commanding majority, the proper course as per Bommai judgment would have been to call for a floor test.

The case throws up a challenge for the Supreme Court as well. With the term of the state assembly ending early next year, the court needs to dispose of the matter expeditiously as delay would render the hearing a mere academic exercise as in cases in the past.

Though the judicial worth of the high court order would depend on the finding of the Supreme Court, the high court may have already set a precedent of sorts by giving an expeditious hearing to the parties to ensure that judicial review did not remain a mere academic exercise which only encourages invocation of Article 356 to achieve political ends.
New Delhi: Hitting back, Congress on Sunday brought Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah in the line of fire on the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter issue alleging that the "tsunami of misinformation" was being spread to "save their skin" in the case.

"Simple truth is that this web of deceit and deception is being woven by government and certain sections of media to save the skin of Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi and BJP President, Shri Amit Shah", senior party leaders including Mallikarjun Kharge and Anand Sharma told reporters.

Addressing a joint press conference along with them, party leaders Kapil Sibal, Abhishek Singhvi and Shaktisinh Gohil released copy of a four-page statement of a Gujarat police officer D H Goswami before a Magistrate which speaks about "kali dadhi" (black beard) and "safed dadhi" (white beard).

Sibal claimed Goswami had quoted the then senior Gujarat IPS officer D G Vanzara as saying ahead of the encounter that he had already got the "green signal from Black Beard and White Beard". While Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat that time, Shah was the Minister of state for Home.

They claimed that the "harsh reality" in the backdrop of Goswami's statement is that the "fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan and three other accomplices was ordered by the then Chief Minister and present Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with the then MoS, Gujarat Amit Shah"

"In case, Ishrat Jahan trial was to proceed, it is inevitable that PM and BJP President would be summoned as an accused", they said in a joint statement.

"Black hearted conspiracy behind lies, half truth and smoke screen being put up by BJP government to divert attention of Nation in Ishrat Jahan case stands unearthed", they alleged on the eve of the Parliament session.

Sibal said that this is why the last 3 months has seen a "tsunami of misinformation" and people were asking if Ishrat Jahan was a terrorist or not. He was apparently referring to the BJP's concerted attacks on former Home Minister P Chidambaram.

The Congress leaders also warned BJP against attacking Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in the matter, saying it would even force an apology.

While Kharge said that the Congress would work together with like minded parties, Sharma said that the government would be seen in the "dock" on a host of issues.

They also dismissed BJP's assertion that the Uttarkhand issue should not be raised as it was sub-judice. Kharge indicated that the Congress could be bringing in an adjournment motion in the Lok Sabha tomorrow on the Uttarakhand issue.

Insisting that three investigations, Magisterial, SIT and CBI, have called this a 'Fake Encounter', Sibal said "We demand that in the the next 6 months the trial is completed. The accused put in the dock and appropriate punishments given".

"We want to ask why is this case not proceeding?", Sibal said adding that the the charge sheet was filled in 2013, for an encounter in 2004. "We are in 2016 and the case hasn't moved forward at all".

In the joint statement, the Congress leaders said the "plain and simple intrigue is to ensure that the most important persons of BJP/government are not brought to trial".

Besides, they claimed that this is a "sinister attempt" to set at naught the judicial enquiry by Metropolitan Court, Ahmedabad; Gujarat High Court-monitored SIT and its judgment dated 12.08.2010 and Court-monitored CBI enquiry resulting

into filing of charge sheet as recorded in High Court judgment.

The Congress leaders claimed that "shocking and toxic conspiracy of influencing filing of affidavit by Government of India and allurement being given to counsel for Union of India is also borne out from a tape recorded conversation between P.P. Pandey (now acting DGP, Gujarat) and another police official G.L. Singhal."

"To achieve its nefarious design and with a view to derail the trial, present government is taking help of two IPS officers of Gujarat cadre A.K. Sharma and Rakesh Asthana and have posted them as Joint Directors of CBI", the party alleged.

Sharma dismissed as "preposterous" the BJP charge against the Gandhis in the case. He warned that the Congress would force an apology if such attacks continued.

The BJP attack is to "deflect and derail" the investigation, he said claiming that "their two top leaders should be in the dock".

Singhvi alleged that BJP's entire campaign of "misinformation" is based on the statement of terrorist David Headley who has become "paragon of virtue" as far as the ruling party is concerned.

Sibal said that a democracy is strengthened when the justice system is fair and the law treats everyone equally.

He said that what was worrying is that the officers who were "caught on tape trying to save the accused are now a part of the CBI."

Besides, he said what is happening is that all the accused are out on bail while Pandey, who is one of the accused and out on bail, is now acting DG of Police:

He said that it is the duty of the Judiciary to decide if Ishrat was a terrorist or not.
BAGHDAD Iraq's military called for civilians displaced from Ramadi to stop returning home after dozens of them were killed by Islamic State mines planted in the western city's streets and buildings, officials said on Sunday.

Tens of thousands of residents have moved back to the Anbar provincial capital in the past two months, mostly from camps east of the city where they took refuge prior to the army's advance late last year.

A shortage of experts trained in dismantling explosives has slowed efforts to restore security in Ramadi, but that has not stopped people from responding to calls from local religious and government leaders to go back home.

A spokesman for the Anbar governor's office, which is overseeing much of the effort to restore Ramadi, confirmed the military had issued the directive because "they felt the need to stop the return to ensure that the areas are safe".

He said it was not clear when people would again be allowed to return to Ramadi and declined to comment on what would happen to the residents who had already moved back.

Ramadi's mayor said he expected the freeze to last for only one or two days while the authorities investigated whether the city was being properly cleared of explosives.

The military's joint operations command, which issued the order, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Official statistics indicate that 49 people have been killed and 79 others wounded in Ramadi since the beginning of February, but the United Nations has said those figures are "almost certainly an underestimation".

De-mining is seen as a critical first step in returning civilians to Ramadi, which a U.N. team said last month suffers from destruction worse than anywhere else in Iraq after months of fighting that saw Islamic State bomb attacks and devastating U.S.-led coalition air strikes.

More than 3.4 million Iraqis across the country have been displaced by violence according to U.N. statistics, most of them from the minority Sunni Arab community.

(Reporting by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Alison Williams)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
BENGHAZI, Libya Islamic State militants clashed with a Libyan force guarding oil ports near Brega terminal on Saturday, killing one guard and wounding four including Ibrahim Jathran, leader of the Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG), a spokesman and medical sources said.

Islamic State has a base in the Libyan city of Sirte and has launched frequent attacks against oil facilities and ports, including major export terminals that are closed but controlled by Jathran's PFG brigades.

The PFG is one semi-official armed group that is backing a new unity government in Libya, where two rival administrations and their loose alliances of former rebels have been battling for control after the 2011 fall of Muammar Gaddafi.

Fighting between PFG and a convoy of Islamic State militants broke out 52 km south of the Brega oil terminal early on Saturday, PFG spokesman Ali al-Hassi and a medical source said.

Hassi said those wounded included Jathran, though he did not give details of how Jathran was injured.

He said the clashes had begun early on Saturday when guards spotted a convoy of about 100 vehicles, which they engaged in fighting for several hours. A number of Islamic State fighters had been killed and six vehicles seized.

The convoy had come from the eastern city of Derna, Hassi said. Islamic State fighters retreated from long-held positions around Derna this week.

Eastern military forces have entered al-Fatayeh, an area south of Derna from which Islamic State withdrew, but troops and civilians have suffered heavy casualties from mines and booby traps. More than 30 people have been killed and 11 wounded in such incidents over the past four days, military spokesman Abulkarim Sabra said on Saturday.

The new U.N.-backed unity government is trying to establish its authority over Libya, where a self-declared Tripoli government and a rival in the east and various armed factions have been vying for power and a share of the country's oil wealth for two years.

Islamic State's rise in Libya worries Western governments who are offering military and financial aid to the new unity government. But the new administration is still establishing itself in Tripoli and faces resistance from hardliners who reject its authority.

(Reporting by Ayman al-Warfalli; writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Susan Fenton and David Evans)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
ISTANBUL One person was killed and 10 more wounded when another rocket hit the Turkish town of Kilis near the Syrian border on Sunday, Hurriyet Daily News said on is website.

Earlier on Sunday two rockets hit houses not far from the town centre, wounding 16 people. Kilis, across the border from an Islamic State-controlled area of Syria, has been repeatedly hit by rocket fire in recent weeks.





(Reporting by David Dolan; Editing by Alison Williams)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
A Cincinnati-area businessman on Saturday offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to a suspect or suspects in the execution-style killings of eight members of the same family who were shot dead in four homes on Friday.

Ohio investigators worked through the night without making an arrest, officials said on Saturday.

The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and local law enforcement interviewed witnesses and executed search warrants overnight, according to a joint statement by the Ohio attorney general and the Pike County sheriff.

"The investigation is still in its early stages, and no arrests have been made," the statement said.

Jeff Ruby, the owner of high-end steakhouses, has offered $25,000 for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible, the state and county officials said in a later news release.

Ruby also posted the offer on Twitter.

Investigators have yet to disclose a suspected motive in the massacre of the Rhoden family in Pike County, in the Appalachian region of south-central Ohio.

The victims included seven adults and one juvenile, all shot in the head, including the mother of a days-old infant.

The baby, a 6-month-old and a 3-year-old all survived the shootings.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said on Friday he was unsure if there was one perpetrator or more. None of the victims committed suicide, officials said.

Investigators interviewed dozens of people and warned that anyone involved in the shootings should be considered armed and extremely dangerous.

The shootings "are tragic beyond comprehension," Ohio governor and Republican presidential hopeful John Kasich said on Twitter. "We'll continue to monitor this closely and the state will work with local law enforcement however we can."

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Diane Craft)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
ANKARA Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Saturday all necessary measures will be taken to prevent missile fire in Kilis, a Turkish town bordering a region controlled by Islamic State militants in Syria.

Kilis has repeatedly come under rocket fire in recent weeks. On Friday, two people died and four were injured in such an incident.

(Reporting by Ercan Gurses, writing by Dasha Afanasieva; Editing by Alison Williams)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Look, no one asked me, but for what it's worth here is my analysis of the coming election, based on the obvious premise that what truly counts is who gets the progressive swing voters in the middle  the ones Malcolm Turnbull rose to the Prime Ministership on.

My reckoning is that there are four standout issues that can sway that group right now: serious action on climate change, gay marriage, Indigenous recognition, and the republic. I include the last not just because I am chairman of the Australian Republican Movement, but because Turnbull first came to wide fame on the basis of his passion for that most progressive of causes.

On three of those four issues, the progressive middle lost all faith in Tony Abbott as a possible agent of change, and within the Coalition government Turnbull was the obvious solution: the One Mostly Likely. Hence his poll numbers rose, and he got the job.

At that point, Bill Shorten was no chance of winning this next election. But since? The ALP leader has moved stronger and harder on three out of four of those issues  Turnbull does appear to be ready to move on recognition  and more and more of the progressives now look to the ALP. Shorten's numbers have risen accordingly. The key challenge for Turnbull in the weeks that remain  notwithstanding whatever commitments he has made to the right wing of his party  is to convince the progressives he actually can deliver on those four. Many have given up hope. For what it's worth, I have not.
A travel agent has vanished after he was prosecuted for ripping off elderly clients and leaving them stranded at Sydney Airport. Taha Baghdadi has been ordered to pay almost $30,000 in fines, costs and compensation to three victims whose holidays were ruined before they had even begun. Agent's conduct was "unconscionable": Fair Trading Commissioner Rod Stowe. But many others are also believed to have been left high and dry after Baghdadi's Bankstown-based agency, Pack N Go Travel, suddenly shut in 2014 and he vanished underground with their money. He failed to appear before Paramatta Local Court when he was convicted last month and has not been seen since. Fair Trading Commissioner Rod Stowe branded Baghdadi's actions as a "clear case" of a travel agent engaging in misleading, deceptive and "unconscionable" conduct.

Nikoleta Romanas, 81, and her sister Elly Zeikat, 75, paid $2200 each for flights between Sydney, Greece and Dubai. They received receipts and itineraries for their holiday. But when they arrived at the Emirates check-in desk in December 2014, they discovered the seats had initially been booked but the ticket was later cancelled as it had never been paid for. They were not alone. In 2014, Samir Zoobi paid Baghdadi almost $10,000 so that he and his family could travel to Lebanon and visit his ageing parents. But when he called Malaysia Airlines he was told a booking existed in his family's name but no payment had ever been received. "I heard from people in the community that he had disappeared," Mr Zoobi said. "So I tried to call him one day, two days, but no answer. When I visited his shop, there were a lot of people outside. I asked them, 'where is he?'. But nobody knew." Mr Zoobi said he later met Bagdadi's father who told him "just be patient, we will look after you". "That was 18 months ago," he told Fairfax, adding: "I have a son and two daughters. My wife is a teacher. We are genuine, honest people. I trusted this man was the same. But he lied to me."
Seoul: After firing a submarine-launched ballistic missile off its east coast on Saturday, North Korea's foreign minister said his country is ready to halt its nuclear tests if the United States suspends its annual military exercises with South Korea.

And for those waiting for the North's regime to collapse, he had this to say: Don't hold your breath.

Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong, in his first interview with a Western news organisation, held firm to Pyongyang's longstanding position that the US drove his country to develop nuclear weapons as an act of self-defence.
Protesters who mounted rare anti-government demonstrations on April 15 to express their anger with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissis decision to gift two uninhabited Red Sea islands once considered Egyptian to Saudi Arabia have vowed to stage mass sit-ins Monday to mark a patriotic public holiday, Sinai Liberation Day.

Egypt authorities have arrested dozens of activists ahead of Mondays planned anti-government protests, according to a group of lawyers, which published a list of 59 detainees. The arrests since Thursday have involved raids on cafes and homes in the Egyptian capital.

In a televised address Sunday el -Sissi urged Egyptians to protect the state and its institutions from the forces of evil. We must protect these institutions because these mean the state. I am reiterating to the Egyptian people this is the responsibility of all of us, for us to protect this security and stability, he said.

His remarks raise the prospect of large-scale counter-protests being mounted  it also raises the stakes on a much sharper confrontation taking place between the government and its opponents.



Analysts: el-Sissi's popularity may be slipping

While no observers are suggesting Egypt is about to be plunged into the kind of chaos that shook the country in the lead-up to the 2011 Arab spring ouster of Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak, the very fact that protesters are ready to defy the government in large numbers despite the ban on demonstrations underscores growing public discontent with el-Sissi, say analysts.

The protests also suggest that el-Sissi opponents  liberal and Islamist  are starting to shake off their fear of the military-backed regime. That is the view of Egyptian actor and television host Khaled Abol Naga.Egyptians conquered today fear of being beaten by another tyrant tune to our inner power, he tweeted on April 15.

Large-scale street demonstrations virtually vanished from Egyptian streets after security forces in August 2013 killed nearly 1,000 mainly Islamist protesters. They were protesting the militarys ouster of the Muslim Brotherhoods Mohamed Morsi, the countrys first-freely elected civilian President a month earlier.

The fear factor diminished on April 15 when sit-ins and protests were mounted in 17 of the countrys 27 governorates. Most were small affairs but in Cairo and Alexandria thousands took to the streets chanting Leave  the same word was shouted at anti-Mubarak rallies. Other 2011-era chants were heard, including bread, freedom and social justice and "the people want the regime to fall. Protesting without a police permit has been illegal since 2013.

Transfer of islands increased public anger

The sovereignty transfer of the islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia, a staunch el-Sissi ally, has given the protest movement new life, allowing liberals and Islamists to unite around a flashpoint issue.

The government appears to have been caught by surprise by the intensity of public anger. The islands reportedly were given to Egypt by Saudi Arabia in 1950  the Saudis feared Israel might seize them. For the protesters it appears el-Sissi gave up the islands for cash, announcing the transfer when Saudi King Salaman was in Cairo and himself announcing billions of dollars in investments, all of which will help to prop up the el-Sissi government,

The revival in street protest coincides also with the regimes renewed pursuit of human rights groups in the country, especially those who have received any foreign funding. Several rights and civil society organizations are being investigated for alleged crimes against the state, including seeking to destabilize it.

Concern by Britain and US

A court case against half-a-dozen prominent Egyptian campaigners was postponed last Wednesday during the visit to Cairo of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. The American diplomat downplayed media commentary of a widening rift between Washington and Cairo over human rights, saying Egypt is "critical to the peace and security" of the region.

But he did make an oblique reference to the deteriorating human rights situation, one that the White House has increasingly become more public in condemning in recent weeks. We talked about ways in which we can hopefully resolve some of the differences and questions that have arisen about the internal politics and choices for the people of Egypt, Kerry said in the Egyptian capital.

On Thursday, Britains foreign ministry highlighted its concern about Egypt for the first time in a key rights report. Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office noted that the rights situation in Egypt remained poor and continued to deteriorate. And it cited several instances of abuse including the sentencing at a mass trial in February of 230 activists to life imprisonment, the death sentence passed on former president Morsi in May, and dozens of cases of torture, police brutality and forced disappearances.

The torture and death of an Italian doctoral student, Giulio Regini, who disappeared in Cairo in January has added to Western alarm. Italian officials and his mother say they suspect Egypt's security forces were behind the killing.

El-Sissi answers critics

El-Sissi rejects Western criticism, saying at a joint press conference recently with French President Francois Hollande, 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. Even so, the Egyptian security services appeared more restrained than usual on April 15 in dealing with the protesters, who complained also about economic mismanagement and security abuses.

More than 250 protesters were arrested nationwide during the April 15 protests, according to Democracy Index, a local NGO. The rights network IFEX, said it had documented 370 arrests. But at one of the biggest protests outside the Journalists Syndicate in the city center demonstrators were granted a safe passage by security forces when they decided to exit the area There were some skirmishes between the police, who fired tear-gas, and the protesters who remained.

All protests across the country were dispersed but activists reported only minor injuries.

Likewise, el-Sissi and most top officials remained relatively silent about the April 15 protests, opting to ignore them publicly. The newspaper Al-Shorouk reported last week that the President criticized his security chiefs for allowing the protests to get out of hand.

Al-Shorouk claimed el-Sissi warned his security officials that he would not accept any repetition on Sinai Liberation Day. El-Sissis office denied the report as false news. But the arrests since Thursday suggest the authorities are determined to avoid a repeat of April 15.
Exit polls show the candidate of Austria's anti-immigration far-right Freedom Party winning the first round of presidential elections, gathering more than 35 percent of the vote and leaving five rivals far behind, including nominees of the ruling governing coalition.

With more than 50 percent of the vote tallied Sunday, both candidates from the ruling coalition, center-left Social Democrat Rudolph Hundstorfer and centrist People's Party nominee Andreas Khol, were shown with about 11 percent of the vote.

The projected win by Norbert Hofer is his party's best showing since its founding in 1945 and is widely seen as reflecting rising voter alarm over Europe's migrant influx and dissatisfaction with the European Union's role in the crisis.

If the projections hold, a second round runoff will be held May 23.

Hofer would face either of the independent candidates, Green Party nominee Alexander van der Bellen or Independent Irmgard Griss, a former Supreme Court judge hoping to become Austria's first female president.

Incumbent President Heinz Fischer, a 77-year-old Social Democrat, was barred by law from seeking a third six-year term.
U.S. President Barack Obama said the United States and the European Union must move forward on a landmark free-trade agreement, despite strong opposition to the accord.

"It is indisputable" the United States has benefited from free trade, as have other countries that engage in it, Obama said during a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Hannover, Germany.

The United States and Germany are among each others largest trade partners and hope to build support for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

Pros, cons

Germany's government has pushed the T-TIP deal, saying it would boost the global economy and give small and mid-sized companies a better chance at competing on the world market, while reducing bureaucracy.

Opponents have been critical of what they perceive as opaque negotiations carried out away from public scrutiny, and they fear the pact will hand too much power to big multinationals at the expense of consumers and workers.

Officials have estimated the U.S.-Europe deal would add $100 billion annually to the economies on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

Obama argued some oppose the deal because they are unsettled by globalization, but most people recognize on balance that it is a good idea. He predicted a deal would be reached before he leaves office in January, although it will take longer to ratify.



The United States will make every effort to reach an agreement this year, he said later at the spectacular opening of the Hannover Messe, a massive trade fair for industrial technology.

The European Union and United States have been negotiating since 2013, and supporters hope T-TIP deal will gain momentum now that the United States, Japan and other Pacific Rim nations have reached an agreement on a separate deal.

Obama began his two-day visit by holding talks with Merkel on a broad range of pressing global issues, including terrorism, the migration crisis in Europe and transatlantic security.

Terrorism

On terrorism, Obama said the United States and Germany are committed to using all "the tools at their disposal to prevent terrorists from plotting attacks."

Germany is a member of the U.S.-coalition against Islamic State.

Obama said the two discussed additional steps NATO can take to support the campaign and economic assistance the G-7 can pledge during a summit in Japan next month.

Merkel said while she supports a classic "safe zone" in Syria, she hopes the peace talks going on in Geneva could pave the way for a humanitarian area for refugees.

Obama said a safe zone in Syria would be difficult without a large military commitment. He added the issue is not a matter of an ideological objection, but rather a very practical issue about how you do it.

Both expressed concern a cease-fire in Syria had not held in recent days.

"We continue to believe that the only durable solution is a political solution that leads Syria to an inclusive government that represents all Syrians, Obama said.

Ukraine

In Ukraine, unfortunately we dont have a stable cease-fire, said Merkel, and she urged Ukraine and Russia to fully implement the Minsk agreement as quickly as possible.

They also discussed the importance of backing a fragile unity government in Libya.

On Monday, Merkel and Obama will hold talks with their counterparts from Britain, France and Italy.

The leaders will discuss the full range of challenges we face together, Obama told reporters.

White House officials say that will include talks on the NATO summit in Warsaw in July.

Obama said given the increased pressure Europe is facing from the south and aggressive and enormous spending by Russia it is important for NATO members to meet alliance obligations.

Obama will cap his visit with a speech Monday outlining his vision for future U.S.-European relations.
The United Nations Security Council has condemned North Korea for its submarine launched ballistic missile test Saturday, calling it "another serious violation" of existing U.N. resolutions.

In a statement issued Sunday, the Council said these missile activities "contribute to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's development of nuclear weapons delivery systems," while increasing global tensions.

The statement also warned that the Security Council will "take further significant measures" against the North, just weeks after imposing tough new sanctions to pressure Pyongyang to comply with existing U.N. mandates.

Pyongyang's state-run KCNA news agency said the latest test, which was personally monitored by leader Kim Jong Un, proved the reliability of its submerged launching system. However, South Korea called the test a failure, noting that the missile traveled only 30 kilometers before falling into the sea.

The flight was well short of the minimum 300 kilometer range for the type of missile tested, and one Seoul government source said the missiles engine malfunctioned shortly after it was launched.

Obama dismisses N. Korean offer

Earlier, U.S. President Barack Obama said it is "clear that North Korea is actively engaged in provocative behavior." During a visit to Germany, Obama also dismissed a North Korean offer to impose a moratorium on nuclear tests if the U.S. suspends annual military drills with South Korea.

"We don't take seriously a promise to simply halt until the next time they decide to do a test," Obama said.

Obama's comments came shortly after North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong told the Associated Press his government is prepared to halt its nuclear related testing in exchange for an end to U.S. participation in the annual military training.

North Korea is considered to be in the early stages of developing a submarine based missile launch capability. It has attempted three SLBM tests in the last year. All were believed to have been failures, even though KCNA claimed otherwise, and - according to analysts - videos of past launches were edited to make them appear successful.

SLBM development



Analysts say with each test, Pyongyang is correcting past mistakes and coming closer to developing a dangerous new capability to strike its enemies in the region and even target the U.S. mainland.

Melissa Hanham at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California said that still photographs of Saturday's test seem to indicate the submarine based missile has now been upgraded to use solid fuel.



"A solid fuel SLBM would mean they could launch more easily and quickly with potentially less risk to their sub," Hanham told VOA via Twitter.

Analysts from the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies posted a video analysis of Pyongyangs last submarine missile test in January to prove it was an explosive dud and not the great success claimed by North Korea.



Future threat



North Korea maintains one of the world's largest submarine forces, with approximately 70 underwater vessels. Most of these submarines, however, are old, built with 1950s technology and powered by diesel electric, which means they can only stay submerged and hidden from radar for a few days at a time.



Since Kim Jong Un came to power in 2011, the North Korean military has accelerated efforts to modernize its submarine fleet, according to Janes Intelligence Review, a global security journal.



Pyongyang likely overstated the results of its SLBM capability to enhance Kims image within the country as it prepares for a rare and major ruling Workers Party congress in early May. The country's last major party congress was held in 1980.



And there has been speculation the North Koran military was under pressure to quickly conduct a successful test after a midrange land based missile launch ended in catastrophic failure earlier this month.

Analysts say North Koreas primary strategic goals for developing missile launch capabilities from submarines are defense related. Having an underwater nuclear arsenal would give Pyongyang a second strike capability if the U.S. or South Korean forces attempted a preemptive attack against its land based missiles, according to analysts.



Developing an SLBM capability that is fitted with a nuclear warhead also would give North Korea the ability to strike the U.S. mainland.



The U.S. Strategic Command says Pyongyang's submarine missile launch "did not pose a threat to North America.'' In a statement, it said that U.S. military forces" remain vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations and are fully committed to working closely with our Republic of Korea and Japanese allies to maintain security.''

WATCH: Related video of North Korea missile launch
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania was once home to the second-largest steel corporation in the United States before it shut its doors for good at the turn of the century. Ex-workers who remember Bethlehem in its manufacturing heyday say they worry about the future of workers rights and outsourcing of jobs; issues that could swing their vote, even across party lines.
A Dutch journalist was arrested by Turkish police early Sunday morning at her home in Turkey after she insulted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Twitter.

Ebru Umar, a well-known columnist for the Dutch Metro newspaper, tweeted that police were at the front door of her home late Saturday night and they were taking her to a police station for questioning.

"Police at the door. No joke," she tweeted. She followed up with another tweet saying, "I'm not free, we're going to the hospital," as she left her home in Kusadasi, a resort town in western Turkey.

Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesman Herman van Gelderen, confirmed that Umar had been detained but gave no details.

We are aware of it. We are in contact and were following the case very closely, he said.

Political firestorm

Umar published a column last week that caused a political firestorm after the Turkish consulate reportedly sent an email to Turkish organizations in the Netherlands asking them to report anyone who insults Erdogan on social media.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said he would question Turkish authorities about the email, and said he was unsure what the Turkish government hoped to achieve.

The Turkish consulate downplayed the email and said it was sent by a consular official who used an unfortunate choice of words that were misinterpreted.

Umars arrest comes at a time of increased hostility towards journalists in Turkey. Two Turkish journalists are currently on trial and could face life in prison for publishing a story with images alleging the Turkish government smuggled weapons to Syria.

'Terrorist propaganda'

In another case, also related to increasingly restricted free speech in the country under Erdogan, four Turkish academics accused of spreading terrorist propaganda went on trial in the same courthouse in Istanbul Friday for signing a declaration condemning Turkeys military action against Kurdish rebels.

The four academics on trial and more than 1,000 of their colleagues signed the petition urging Turkey to halt its deliberate massacres and deportation of Kurdish and other peoples in the region."

The petition infuriated Erdogan and led to the legal proceedings against them.

If convicted, the academics could be sentenced to up to seven-and-a-half years in prison.

Since becoming president in 2014, Erdogan has prosecuted nearly 2,000 people for insulting him.
RUPERT  Basque migration to Idaho was at its peak from the early 1900s through the 1930s, as people left the Old World for the Gem State for a myriad of political or economic reasons.

For two teenagers, that journey began at Le Havre, France, in the 1920s.

Victor Bollar left Murelaga in the Spanish Basque Country in 1922. His brother Leon already had been working and living in Idaho for 15 years. They wrote letters to each other, and with Bollar wanting to escape rising political friction in Spain, he decided to join his brother.

He was 17, said Rick Bollar of Rupert, Victors son. Its very young especially when you consider the methods of communication.

Leon sent Victor money to get to the U.S. Victor first boarded a ship called Le Havre and left from the French port with the same name. He arrived with more than 2,000 passengers to New Yorks Ellis Island near the end of June 1922.

The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 made his arrival difficult  it let into the country only 3 percent of a nationality established in America based on the 1910 census. Victor had to prove he was working and had a clear destination.

His destination was Ogden, Utah, where Leon picked him up to begin work on a sheep outfit traveling from Soda Springs to Nevada. They eventually bought ranches in Soda Springs, where Victor worked with sheep through his 40s. By 1942, he had already made the switch to working with cattle and settled into Rupert, where he married.

There was no room for sentiment when looking back at the turmoil in Spain and embracing the peace found in Idahos ranges. Victor never looked back.

He always called it the Old Country because thats how he saw it, Rick said. He never had any particular affinity for it. He hated (Francisco) Franco. He had contempt for him.

In 1929, seven years after Victor moved to Idaho, 16-year-old Jean Pierre Etcheverry left Bidarray in the French Basque Country for the U.S.

Jean Pierre, who had never been on a ship, boarded one from La Havre to New York with three of his friends. The journey was about a week long, and many of the passengers were sick.

The seas were really rough, said his son, Henry Etcheverry. And everybody had seasickness but him. He just wasnt inclined to get sick.

From New York, Jean Pierre took a train west, stopping through Chicago, Denver and Salt Lake City before getting to Wendover, Nev. The journey took about five days.

While working in Nevada, Jean Pierre, who spoke only French and Basque, picked up Spanish and English from magazines and papers and whatever the sheep boss would bring him. Spanish was especially easy for him with all of the French languages similarities. He didnt just know a few phrases to get by; he could read and write in all four languages.

He was curious and intelligent, Henry said. He wasnt just happy to be there. He wanted to learn.

Jean Pierre also wanted to become a citizen. He studied U.S. history and the Constitution, then took examinations in Salt Lake City. He was naturalized in 1945, setting up the path for the new American to start his own operation, Etcheverry Sheep Co., in 1948. Today Henry operates it  one of the last Basque sheepmen in Idaho.

A lot were entrepreneurs, Henry said. They werent just satisfied to be employed.
MISSOULA  University of Montana students Ashley Alexander and Benjamin Mason recently won awards in the STEM category for their poster presentations at the 2016 Western Regional Honors Council Conference held in Riverside, California.

Alexander and Mason competed against dozens of other students in the largest annual meeting of honors programs and colleges in the western United States.

Mason is a senior who aims to graduate in May with a major in microbiology and a minor in Spanish. His poster, Molecular Basis of Serum Resistance in Bartonella Species, won first place in the STEM category. Mason conducted his research under the direction of UM biology Professor Michael Minnick. He is the son of Scott and Patti Mason of Kalispell, where he graduated from Flathead High School.

Alexander is a sophomore majoring in biology with a concentration in genetics and evolution. Her poster, Better than Before and Better Together: Fitness as a Function of Diversity in a Simple Microbial Community, won third place in the STEM category.

Alexanders project was carried out in collaboration with UM postdoctoral scholar Don-Dong Yang. Their work was supported by a NASA exobiology grant to UM department of biological sciences professor Frank Rosenzweig. Stanford genetics professor Gavin Sherlock is a co-principal investigator on the project.

Alexander is the daughter of Mark and Larisa Alexander of Twin Falls, Idaho, where she graduated from Twin Falls High School.

Both projects are ongoing with important support from co-authors, said Davidson Honors College Dean Brock Tessman. They represent the outstanding achievements of undergraduate students at the University of Montana in STEM-related disciplines.

The Western Regional Honors Council is a professional organization of faculty, administrators and students dedicated to the promotion and advancement of undergraduate honors education. By sharing information about honors programs and the best honors practices regionwide, the WRHC hopes to create an intellectual, programmatic and administrative network of resources aimed at helping the regions honors programs grow and thrive.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified the roles Don-Dong Yang and Frank Rosenzweig. Yang's first name was also misspelled.
Twin Falls County

Felony Sentencings

Ricardo Tobias Jr, 21, Buhl; Robbery, $245.50 costs, five years determinate penitentiary.

Kathrynn Ann Kincheloe, AKA Kathrynn Ann Admire, AKA Ann Kathrynn Bryant, AKA Kathy Bryant, 46, Twin Falls; possession of a controlled substance, $245.50 costs, $500 public defender, $100 DNA, $658.27 restitution, credit for time served, sentence suspended.

Timothy George Hine, AKA Tim Hine, 34, Twin Falls; DUI under the influence second offense within 15 years, $290.50 costs, ten years penitentiary, two determinate, eight indeterminate, credit for time served, two days drivers license suspension, interlock device for three years to follow.

Paul Sanders Middleton, 23, Twin Falls; possession of a controlled substance, $285.50 costs, $500 public defender, $100 DNA, five years penitentiary, two determinate, three indeterminate, credit for time served, 365 days retained jurisdiction.

Stephanie A. Bosch, 29, Twin Falls; possession of a controlled substance, $285.50 costs, $500 public defender, $100 DNA, $558.81 restitution, four years penitentiary, two determinate, two indeterminate, credit for time served, 365 days retained jurisdiction.

Mariah Merdith Tews, 26, Buhl; possession of a controlled substance, $285.50 costs, $500 public defender, $100 DNA, $60 workmans comp program fee, $500 fine, $231.03 restitution, three years penitentiary, one determinate, two indeterminate, credit for time served.

Jeffrey Andrew Bloss, AKA Jeff Blass, 45, Twin Falls; possession of a controlled substance, $285.50 costs, $100 DNA, $812.73 restitution, five and a half years penitentiary, six months to be served determinate, five years indeterminate, sentence to be served consecutively to 2012 case.

Driving Under the Influence Sentencings

Lindsay Cole Petersen, 33, Kimberly; DUI, $400 fine, $202.50 costs, $75 public defender, 180 days jail, 114 suspended, 66 days credited, 180 days drivers license suspension, 12 months supervised probation.

Lisa Michelle Stegora, 37, Twin Falls, DUI, $200 fine, $202.50 costs, $75 public defender, 180 days jail, credit for time served, sentence to be served consecutively to 2016 case, 180 days drivers license suspension, 24 months supervised probation. Leaving the scene of an accident or failing to stop for damage, $200 fine, 180 days jail, credit for time served.

Lisa M. Stegora, 38, Twin Falls; DUI, $200 fine, $202.50 costs, $75 public defender, 180 days jail, credit for time served, 180 days drivers license suspension, 24 months supervised probation, prosecutor can turn in restitution request within 30 days.

Lisa Michele Stegora, 38, Twin Falls; $200 fine, 180 days jail, credit for time served, 180 days jail, 24 months supervised probation, prosecutor can turn in restitution within 30 days.

Divorce Civil Proceedings

Thomas Mertens v. Christian Mertens

Kristie Ruhter v. Christopher Sterner

Katelin Stanersen v. Christopher Stanerson

Victor Angulo v. Olivia Angulo

Mario Santiago v. Veronique Santiago

Kassie Palomo v. Adrian Palomo
TWIN FALLS  Family trees branch off in interesting ways and are quite revealing. With the Internet and a little free time, turning into a family history sleuth is pretty easy.

But that starts with ground work put in by folks like those at the Twin Falls Family History Center, where volunteers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint have digitized all kinds of local records  births, obituaries, marriages, divorces  and added them to familysearch.org" href="http://www.familysearch.org" target="_blank">familysearch.org

On this website, you can create or find existing profiles of your family members and make your own family tree. With each entry, you can add those documents and upload photos to design the stories of your kinfolk.

The website itself is a service provided by the Mormon Church. Volunteers from its churches and missionaries all over help index records for people. Why the Mormon interest in genealogy? Visit the churchs website (http://bit.ly/1WI13EI) and youll find this interest comes from a desire to baptize relatives who have died.

...we are driven by our doctrine that teaches that marriage and families can continue beyond this life, the website says. But this can only happen when families are sealed together in one of the Lords holy temples around the world and united for all eternity.

On Saturday, I met with Annette Tucker, a consultant at the Family History Center. Im not religious, nor am I interested in baptizing my late Quitugua and Hernandez brothers and sisters. Im simply curious and was hoping to dig a little dirt. Tucker was kind of enough to show me how to search for the records I was looking for.

If you can find an obit, a lot of times you can put together a tree, she said.

Thats because records like obituaries list other family members. From there, you can piece together your blood line. My searches, however, were on the living.

In separate searches, I entered my parents names and where they were living when they were married, Fort Worth, Texas. Immediately their marriage information popped up, showing their age, where they married and when.

He was 21 and she was 19. It was April 4, 1983, the day the doomed Challenger Space Shuttle launched its first of ten missions. Another search revealed their divorce, March 23, 1992 in Okaloosa County, Fla., where I was born in 1988.

I also found information on my dads marriage to my first stepmom, who was 26 at the time. They married in Bexar County, Texas, on April 22, 1995, one year after Richard Nixon died. Less than two years later, my sister was born.

My quick Saturday foray into genealogy was interesting in that it showed just how free I am. Im 27 but by this age my parents had me. When my first stepmother was in her late 20s, she had my kid sister. Its a typical age group to start families, but Im not looking to add to the family tree anytime soon and familysearch.org helped me remember that.
BURLEY  Dan Blauer lives just a few blocks from Cassia Regional Medical Center, but he can no longer receive care there or choose the doctor he prefers.

Regence Blue Shield of Idaho, an insurance company, has failed to negotiate a cost-reimbursement contract with Cassia Regional, meaning that companys clients will have to go to a different hospital if they need medical care other than emergencies. Regence referred people to Minidoka Memorial Hospital and St. Lukes Medical Center in Twin Falls, a change that could affect more than 4,300 people in Mini-Cassia, forcing some to drive long distances for routine medical care from new doctors unfamiliar with their health histories.

The insurance company is used by some of the largest employers in Cassia County and Minidoka County to provide health care insurance for employees, including both Mini-Cassia school districts. The failure to settle on a new cost contract has enraged physicians and left patients like Blauer caught in the middle.

Its crazy, Blauer said. I live four or five blocks from the hospital, but I have to go to another hospital.

Regence dropped Cassia Regional out of its Idaho network April 1 after negotiations crumbled. Regence said in a letter to its customers that the change will not affect peoples emergency care choices, but if they want to go to Cassia Regional for ongoing care or want to go to a physician employed by the hospital, they will have to pay significantly higher cost-sharing at out-of-network rates.

Its wrong that patients are being forced to go elsewhere, said Rod Barton, Cassia Regionals administrator. Its really been a difficult situation for us.

The hospital says Regence wanted to cut reimbursements to Cassia Regional by 20 percent, a position Barton said was anything but reasonable and fair. The insurance company says it wants the hospital to move toward a new fee structure increasingly being adopted at hospitals across the country.

Either way, the failure to reach a deal has left Cassia Regional dismayed that we couldnt continue our relationship, Barton said, a partnership thats lasted for 20 years. And it could have major implications for health care systems across the Magic Valley, as Mini-Cassia patients search for new doctors and physicians apply for privileges at hospitals that accept Regence Blue Shield patients.

Details of the Deal

Regence Blue Shield says the company and Cassia Regional may not be as far apart.

We dont feel at all like it is at an irreconcilable place, said Lou Riepl, a Regence spokesman. We are still having conversations with them.

Cassia Regional is the only hospital out of 44 in the state that is out of network with Regence, Riepl said.

The sticking point in the talks was over how the insurance company would reimburse the hospital for its clients care. Traditionally, insurance companies have paid a percentage of the total bill. But the insurance industry is increasingly moving toward a new model that emphasizes fixed costs for procedures and medical care, a model insurance companies say brings more predictability.

In the past century, health care providers have been paid for the volume of services or procedures they perform. Value-based reimbursement takes into consideration how good the services are and if it takes care of the problem, instead of volume.

Barton, the hospital CEO, said the new proposal was complicated and the hospital was unsure what the bottom line would look like.

Riepl said while using the percentage-of-costs-billed payment method, Cassia Regional had the distinction of being most expensive hospital in the state for Regence members.

We werent saying even the rates out, he said, just make progress on the rate of parity in the state.

But Idaho and Utah, where Cassia Regionals parent company is based, are recognized for having some of the lowest cost health care in the nation, Barton said. In the big picture we were already running really lean, he said. Its part of our big focus.

Hospital contracts with Regence vary across the state, but the company says its had good responses from hospitals moving toward fixed-cost systems. Its trying to move all hospitals toward multi-year agreements and value-based reimbursement.

Michelle Bartlome, a spokeswoman for St. Lukes in Twin Falls, said St. Lukes renegotiated its contract with Regence in the past year. Under the deal, Regence reimburses the hospital on set fees, meaning the hospital gets paid a certain amount for every diagnosis, regardless of how much it costs the hospital to treat.

The hospital declined to provide further information on its contract. We dont discuss contract details, Bartlome said.

Whats Next?

Losing the Blue Shield patients will be a huge setback for Cassia Regional, the hospital said, but not enough to make it insolvent. Patients who have out-of-state Regence Blue Shield or Blue Cross are not affected by the change, and the hospital has been in contact with officials at both school districts and is encouraging them to look for other payers. Some exceptions apply for school district retirees.

Still, community members are holding out hope the hospital and insurance company will reach a deal that could keep local people at their community hospital.

As board members we are frustrated by it, said Clay Handy, chairman of Cassia Regionals board. We are still hoping that they will sit down and come to an agreement. Ive seen this happen before where they came to a stand-off but never to the point of sending out letters.

Regence says its already sent letters to 4,300 clients to say Cassia Regional is no longer in its network.

That includes Blauer, who lives close to Cassia Regional but now has to find a new doctor. He has Regence Blue Shield of Idaho insurance through his wifes employer, Gossner Foods.

Now, I cant go see Dr. (Wayne) Bauer because hes employed by Cassia Regional  unless I pay more, Blauer said. People said they would figure it out, but I guess they didnt.
Determining an exact number of Basque immigrants to Idaho during peak migration from Spain and France has been difficult  in part because it was common for people to come to Idaho to herd sheep on three-year contracts, then move back to Europe.

Another roadblock is changing surnames. As people married and lost their unique Basque last names, it became harder to know just how many Old Country immigrants and their descendants lived in Idaho.

Patty Miller, executive director of The Basque Museum and Cultural Center in Boise, is working with volunteer John Urresti on a project exploring the history of Idahos Basque families.

One part of the project gives a glimpse of how many Basques were living in Idaho at a particular time: World War I draft registration cards.

Basques were required to register for the war despite being considered aliens, but many didnt actually serve, Miller said. Urresti took count of the cards and found that between 1917 and 1918 there were 80 in Gem County. Three of those people worked in mills; the other 77 worked with sheep or other livestock.

The study began in Emmett and will move on, county by county, into Jordan Valley and Bend in Oregon and the Treasure and Magic valleys before taking on other western states.

Research from Urresti and the museum tells which region of the Basque Country many of the immigrants came from: the province of Bizkaia, also known as Vizcaya.

The entire Basque region constitutes some 110 miles of coastline along the Atlantic Ocean in the northwest and the Bay of Biscay to the north.

Vizcaya, on the Spanish side of the Basque Country, takes up roughly 50 miles of coastline in an area about the size of the span between Mountain Home and Twin Falls.

Why did most of the immigrants come from there? Word of mouth.

As immigrants from Vizcaya found work and a new life in Idaho, they wrote letters back home, urging family to make the move to America. Employers in Idaho took note, too, and sought out sheepherders from Vizcaya, in addition to the other Basque Country provinces.

Why are there so many Polish people in Chicago? Miller said. Why are there so many Irish people in Boston? Its chain migration.

The research doesnt accurately put a number to Idahos Basque diaspora at the height of immigration, but it does give an idea of a minimum number living in places like Emmett, and eventually the Magic Valley.
This appeared in Saturdays Washington Post.

The Justice Department calls it a tool to crack down on terrorists, kleptocrats and fugitives. So why did it result in the seizure of money and other assets from law-abiding people? Welcome to the weird world of civil asset forfeiture, in which the government can take property without charging its owner with a crime. There are some legitimate reasons for the practice, such as cracking down on sophisticated organized-crime rings, that manage to separate criminals from tainted assets. But even after years of criticism and reports of abuse, the federal government still has not reformed its piece of the system enough to keep its application narrow and fair.

The use of civil forfeiture has boomed over the past decade, in part because of the Justice Departments equitable sharing policy, which gives local law enforcement a cut of the proceeds from seizures they turn over to the federal government. Federal seizure rules are sometimes looser than state rules. If local police can put seized assets into the federal system and still get a slice of the pot, the federal government is giving local police departments a financial interest in using the federal system to maximize seizures.

The result has been stories such as that of Mandrel Stuart, a barbecue restaurant owner from whom Fairfax County (Va.) police took $17,550 in 2012. Police pulled Stuart over for having tinted windows and a video playing in his line of sightand ultimately released him without charge. But they kept the money, which Stuart said was for buying restaurant supplies, and had a Drug Enforcement Administration officer process it. Stuart got his money backbut it took a year, and he lost his business in the meantime.

Responding to reports such as these, the Justice Department has over the past two years placed stronger limits on equitable sharing, requiring that seizures be processed under the program only if the feds were involved before police took the assets and requiring that federal prosecutors quickly vet them. These new rules are helpful but not enough.

The point of equitable sharing should be to fight major crimes, not pad police budgets. Any link between the volume of seizures and the windfall to police departments must be broken. Otherwise police departments will be tempted to push the rules as far as they can. For a time, the Justice Department seemed poised to end equitable sharing, suspending the scheme. But the department recently announced that it is restarting the program. It should reconsider, cordoning off seized assets for other purposes and finding other ways to encourage local police to assist in federal investigations.

Even if the feds reform fully, they cannot touch state civil seizure rules, which in many localescontinue to encourage abuse. These, too, should be reformed so that innocent people cannot be deprived unfairly of their hard-earned cash.
For the members of Harvards super-elite final clubs, perhaps nothing produces a more immediate shiver of Not Our Kind of Thing than comparison to fraternities of the Greek system, with their herds of suburban business majors and their abundance of chapters popping up at every benighted State U and third-rate Catholic college. In a sense, fraternities are the very opposite of what a final club represents, which is, first and foremost, a sui generis association with the single greatest university in the history of the world.

Yet most of Harvards all-male final clubs began as Greek letter societies, adopting their unique characteristics only after the university banned fraternities in the 1850s. These clubs emerged as a response to the aspects of higher education that young men found feminizing: the enforced chastity, study, prayer and self-discipline. And theyve been fulfilling their mission to vex college administrators and delight male students ever since.

Just as frat row presents a constant, low-grade headache  and an occasional five-alarm migraine  to presidents of lesser universities, so have the final clubs been a source of increasing irritation to the Harvard administration. A recent, radioactive report by the universitys Task Force on the Prevention of Sexual Assault revealed a familiar constellation of problems: The clubs dominate the social scene and are locations of binge drinking; their members throw parties with sexually offensive themes and compete with one another for sexual conquests. Most gravely, they were identified as sites of sexual assault.

The task force strongly urged that the clubs be required to admit members of all genders as a curative measure. The dean of Harvard College, Rakesh Khurana  who has been trying to crack the clubs all year  began cajoling, threatening and all but begging them to admit women. An all-male club, he has said, is out of step with the aspirations of the 21st century. In private meetings, he has threatened sanctions for the members of uncooperative clubs, including making them ineligible for campus leadership roles (such as team captain) and fellowships.

In the long tradition of the fraternity system from which they sprang, the clubs said: No.

Independence is not a trivial or accidental feature of these clubs. By design, they are private societies, located off campus on privately held land. Unlike fraternity chapters of the Greek system  which usually have an affiliation with their host institutions  they have no official connection with Harvard, and they are under no compunction to change their membership policies to fulfill the universitys beau ideal of itself. If Harvard does enforce sanctions on the members, it will constitute one more step toward the erosion of college students constitutional rights (in this case, to the freedom of association), which is turning out to be another aspiration of the 21st century.

So what to do about the dire problem of sexual assaults in the clubs? The first thing is to acknowledge that the task force report burns with moral indignation that its evidence does not warrant. Consider a single statistic: 47 percent of female seniors who reported participating in final club events also reported having nonconsensual sexual contact during their years in college. But that act, we discover  if we track down the appendices and fall down a rabbit hole of illogic  could have happened at the hands of a nonmember, in a location unrelated to a final club and before the victim even participated in a club event. In fact, the club whose event she attended could have been an all-womens final club. It would be almost impossible to concoct a more meaningless statistic. Moreover, the report casually mentions that the vast majority  87 percent  of all sexual assaults against women occur in dorms. These are spaces over which the university has complete jurisdiction, so its failure to reduce assaults constitutes a far graver institutional error than its inability to police the final clubs.

All of this reflects a gathering national malaise regarding a phrase that once blazed with urgency: college sexual assault. If Harvard believed that a huge number of its students were being beaten up in their dorm rooms, for example, the official response would be swift and merciless. The police would be called, charges would be filed, culprits punished. But, in response to new federal guidelines, sexual assault has become a matter of climate surveys, training sessions, an adjudication process that everyone  victims and accused assailants  finds problematic, and moments of flashing but impotent invective about fraternities and other all-male campus clubs, which have emerged as low-hanging fruit that refuses to be picked.

The final clubs are playing hardball right now, and they are winning. They are not relying on the guidebook of a private university but rather on the law itself. What if young women did the same? If assault victims could be persuaded  with the right institutional and emotional support  to report assaults to the real-world system of law and order, instead of the Keystone Cop system of college professors and task forces, the tables would turn. Khuranas blandishments about the 21st century may not get the attention of the club members, but  I guarantee you  the sight of a police car rolling up, and uniformed officers asking to interview a rape suspect, would sober them up, and quickly.
The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on the UN members to help his people end Israeli occupation which he said deteriorates the environment in the West Bank.

The Israeli occupation is destroying the climate in Palestine, and the Israeli settlements are destroying the environment in Palestine, Abbas told the 193-nation assembly Friday at the signing ceremony of the Paris climate accord.

Please help us in putting an end to the occupation and to settlements.

President Abbas ratified the Paris deal on behalf of Palestinians who have won non-member observer status since 2012 at the UN giving them the chance to take part in treaty signing ceremonies.

Israels UN envoy, Danny Danon hit back accusing the Palestinian leader of using the UN platform to criticize his country.

Instead of spreading hatred here at the UN, President Abbas should act to stop Palestinian terror, he said after signing the treaty.

This climate summit is supposed to be a demonstration of global unity for the sake of the future of our planet, he added. Unfortunately, President Abbas chose to exploit this international stage to mislead the international community.

This latest showdown is the second this week between Palestinians and Israelis. Early this week, Danon and his Palestinian counterpart Riyad Mansour traded barbs at a meeting of the UN Security Council (UNSC) on the situation in Middle East. The two envoys yelled shame on you at each other. Danon accused Palestinians of praising terrorists killing Israelis while Mansour chided Tel Aviv for occupying Palestinian territories.

The Palestinians are backing Frances proposal to host an international conference to iron out differences and pave the way to the two-state solution said to bring peace to the region.

Latest efforts by the Obama administration to revive the talks stalled since 2014 have remained moribund after the two camps stuck to their respective conditions.
File Photo of the three Red Cross workers who went missing in northern Mali last week, have been freed and are in good condition, the president of the Geneva-based organization said on Friday.

The best news we could get: our three colleagues in Mali are free, safe and sound, Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), tweeted on Friday.

According to Valery Mbaoh Nana, the ICRCs spokesman in Malis capital Bamako, the workers were detained by a community in northern Mali before being released on Friday.

Earlier reports said that the ICRC members were abducted by Tuareg jihadist group Ansar Dine, while returning from a field mission in Abeibara in the north of Kidal.

But Valery Nana Nana said the ICRC did not believe the four workers detention had been linked to the group which is suspected to have ties with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)

We have not received claims or specific requests. They have been released without conditions, he said.

Several armed groups have been active in northern Mali since the area fell to al-Qaeda affiliated groups in 2012.

The French-led operation Barkhane has since its establishment in 2014 been on the offensive against terrorist groups operating in the Sahel region.
Lawmakers in Kenya are considering a proposal to raise the amount of bank deposits guaranteed in case of a collapse by 20 times to $19,800 per customer, the parliament of the East Africas largest economy said on Friday.

The move comes at a time when Dubai Bank, Imperial Bank and Chase Bank have been put under receivership in the past two years, raising concerns over integrity in Kenyas banking sector.

The amendment seeks to increase the protection limit to better protect limit to which depositors are entitled.

The central bank has been ensuring depositors get access to more than 100,000 shillings. This week, it said customers of closed Chase Bank would have immediate access to deposits worth up to 1 million shillings immediately, when branches open for some business next week.

Fund management function in the Kenya Deposit Insurance Corporation (KDIC) is to grow KDIC funds with the overall objective of creating a pool of funds sufficient enough to cover exposure arising from member institution failure.

It also aims to balance the functions of growing the funds while ensuring that KDIC is liquid enough at any given point to meet their obligations.

There are 42 banks, nine micro-finance institutions and one non-financial institution  Housing Finance who are members of KDIC.

All member institutions pay flat-rate contributions based on the level of deposits taken by the institution in the previous twelve months
@PatriciaMazzei

Marco Rubio intends to watch what remains of the Republican presidential primary from the sidelines.

In an interview aired Sunday, Rubio told Univision's new Al Punto Florida show that he has no imminent endorsement or campaigning plans.

"For now, I don't plan on getting involved in the contest that's still going," he said. "I ran my own race, it didn't end in victory, and I'm going let voters decide what's going to happen. But I will support the Republican nominee."

In his final days as a candidate, Rubio had wavered on backing front-runner Donald Trump, but the Florida senator has no longer sounded reluctant in recent interviews. He told Al Punto Florida co-host Ambrosio Hernandez -- who made Rubio the brand-new show's maiden guest -- that Trump had a "pretty overwhelming" victory in last week's New York primary.

"If he keeps winning delegates like he did the other night in New York, I think he's going to reach that number," Rubio said of the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination. "But let's see. There are still other states to go."
BUTTE  Mike Pollard has never lost his love for paintball and Airsoft games  even in 2005, when 11 of his fellow Airsoft players were lying face down on the concrete, surrounded by police officers with their weapons drawn.

They called the SWAT team on us, Pollard said.

Pollard owned a paintball supply store at the time.

On the day in question, the young men had gathered at his store on Broadway Street to play Airsoft: a sport similar to paintball in which participants play militaristic games like Capture the Flag and Protect the VIP using plastic pellets.

That day they played Trouble in Terrorist Town.

For these players, however, their fantasies of hunting terrorists quickly took a turn for the worse.

The problem, Pollard said, was that residents mistook the players Airsoft rifles for real guns.

Concerned that a robbery was taking place at the jewelry store next door, residents called police, who subsequently sent a group of armed officers to take the would-be jewel thieves down.

"I hit the ground as fast as I could," Airsoft player DJ Clark told the Montana Standard at the time. "It was pretty scary. I was shaking for six hours after that."

No one was hurt, but Pollard and his friends learned a valuable lesson about the realistic nature of the guns with which they were playing.

Pollard eventually sold his paintball supply store due to a lack of customers. But now, the Butte native said, hes going in for a second round.

In March, Pollard opened the Copper City Airsoft arena.

In case youre not privy to the world of Airsoft, it just might be the most popular underground sport going on these days.

When a reporter visited Pollards arena last Saturday, about a dozen players were participating.

But according to Copper City Airsoft customer Jenson Manning, 22, there are thousands of players worldwide.

Manning said the sport has become increasingly popular in countries like Russia and China, where hundreds of players gather in large open spaces to play war simulators.

Last year, Manning added, he participated in a large-scale Airsoft event in Guernsey, Wyoming, which involved about 250 players.

And it appears there is a good market for this kind of activity in Montana, too.

Pollard said most of his customers are locals, but players have visited from places like Great Falls, Billings and Bozeman. He added that players often come decked out in their own gear and bring their own Airsoft guns, which can cost as much as $400.

Despite the marketability of the sport, one still has to wonder: why would Pollard want to open an Airsoft arena after the 2005 incident with local police?

Pollard said he got the harebrained idea last year after reflecting on what he sees as a lack of activities for youth in Butte.

Theres nothing to do for kids, said Pollard. Im tired of seeing them hanging out at the mall and getting into trouble.

But this harebrained idea also has been a long time coming for Pollard.

Hes been playing the sport since he was a teenager, and even managed to get his wife Jennifer Pollard to join in.

Mike and Jennifer were high school sweethearts, the couple said.

Like something out of American teenage fantasy, the two met at the mall where Mike  who was working at The Land of Oz magic store at the time  squirted disappearing ink on Jennifers shirt.

I was pissed, said Jennifer.

But Mikes tactic seemed to pay off. Eventually the couple started dating and got married in their 20s. Along the way Jennifer took up Airsoft and paintball.

Today, Copper City Airsoft offers a variety of games, including Disarm the Bomb and Capture the Flag. The arena has theme nights too, such as Ladies Night and Team Death Match, among others.

Participants must be at least 11 years old to play, but on Wednesdays kids under 11 can visit Copper City for Nerf-gun night.

At Copper City Airsoft players are welcome to bring their own gear (aside from pellets, which cost $5 for 1,000 and $15 for 5,000) but can also rent guns and protective clothing for $15 to $40, depending on the duration. In addition, it costs $15 for two hours of play and $30 for an all-day pass.

When asked about what safety measures hes put in place, Pollard explained that he has a set of rules that every player must follow. They must cover their ears, mouth and eyes, Pollard said, and children 11 to 16 are required to wear a chest protector.

Other house rules include no verbal or physical fighting.

But the most important rule of all, Pollard said, is that guns must be kept inside the arena and players who bring their own must do so in a gun case. He said he implemented this rule to avoid another situation like the one that occurred in 2005.

The Pollards said so far their business is going well, but for them Copper City Airsoft is more than just an enterprise. The couple sees their arena as a way to get kids off the couch and teach them lessons about gun safety and cooperation.

Basically its a team environment, said Pollard. You learn team skills, team building and its on the honor system. Were not hounding you down if you dont call your hits.

Jennifer added that her favorite part of running the business is seeing kids who normally spend hours on the sofa get a bit of exercise and excitement.

I just like seeing their smiles, said Jennifer. I like to see that theyre having fun.

As for parents who have safety concerns about Airsoft, Pollard said every sport comes with a risk.

No sport or game is risk-free, Pollard said. But safety (in the arena) is our number one thing.
BUTTE  Airsoft guns have been involved in tragic incidents, including the 2014 shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice.

A Cleveland police officer shot Rice when he mistakenly believed the Airsoft gun the pre-teen was playing with was a real firearm.

Butte-Silver Bow Sheriff Ed Lester says people playing with Airsoft guns should use common sense, adding that Airsoft players should avoid visible public places where people might mistake their guns for real firearms and call police.

The main issue with Airsoft is its almost impossible to tell them apart, said Lester, noting that the toy guns often look like real weapons.

He added that people playing with Airsoft guns at home should keep neighbors informed so that residents dont become alarmed.

Lester also said transporting Airsoft guns in a gun case is a good way to avoid a dangerous situation or an encounter with police.

When asked about whether hes concerned about the presence of the Airsoft arena in Butte, Lester said he doesnt believe there will be an issue so long as players stay inside in a controlled environment and use their gun cases to transport their toys.
I can't help wishing that dogs lived as long as we do. I have buried a number of them, and it doesn't get any easier. In fact, it gets harder. Here's Mark Vinz, a Minnesota poet, from his book Permanent Record and Other Poems, from Red Dragonfly Press.

The Way We Said Goodbye

So many years later, the old dog

still circles, head lowered, crippled by

arthritis, nearly blind, incontinent.

We repeat the litany, as if we need

convincing that the end is right.

***

I'll get her an ice cream cone if you'll

drive her to the vet, my wife says.

So there we sit on the front steps

with our friend, and in the car, as always,

when she senses the doctor's office

drawing near, she moans and tries to

burrow underneath the seats.

***

What remains, the memory of how

she taught us all the way we need

to learn to live with wasting.

There we sit, together, one last time

as all that sweetness slowly disappears.

***

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright  2015 by Mark Vinz, The Way We Said Goodbye, from Permanent Record & Other Poems, (Red Dragonfly Press, 2015). Poem reprinted by permission of Mark Vinz and the publisher. Introduction copyright  2015 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.
The Sympathizer: A Novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen; Grove (403 pages, $16).

As the Vietnam War winds down, a group of South Vietnamese people are given passage to Los Angeles in 1975. Included in that list is a half-French, half-Vietnamese undercover operative tasked with monitoring the group and reporting back to the communist government. When life  and love  get in the way, he is forced to contemplate violent acts in order to avoid suspicion. On Monday, The Sympathizer  Nguyen's debut novel  was honored with the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The Pulitzer committee lauded The Sympathizer as a layered immigrant tale told in the wry, confessional voice of a man of two minds  and two countries, Vietnam and the United States.

One of Us by Asne Seierstad, translated by Sarah Death; Farrar, Straus and Giroux (532 pages, $17).

Seierstad examines the 2011 Norwegian terrorist attacks committed by Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in Oslo and Utya, including 69 at a youth camp. Seierstad looks at the lives of his victims, Breiviks path of destruction and subsequent trial, and how Norway responded in the aftermath of the attacks.

Independence Lost by Kathleen DuVal; Random House (437 pages, $18).

DuVal explores the history of the American Revolution as experienced by women, slaves, natives and Loyalists. DuVal details the likes of slave Petit Jean, who organized militias to fight the British at sea, and Creek leader Alexander McGillivray, who sought to protect indigenous interests.

We Believe You by Annie E. Clark and Andrea L. Pino; Holt (352 pages, $17).

Clark and Pino, co-founders of End Rape on Campus, collect the stories of women and men from colleges and universities across the United States who have been the victims of sexual assaults. We Believe You also includes a resource guide and how to seek help after suffering a sexual assault.

Infamy by Richard Reeves; Picador (342 pages, $18).

Reeves offers an account of Japanese-American internment during World War II, looking at how some Japanese-Americans joined the military of the country that imprisoned their relatives, how some took their fight to the Supreme Court, and how the likes of FDR, Earl Warren and Edward R. Murrow played roles in internment policies.
Few hikers ever reach Glacier National Parks Grace Lake. Fish have an even harder time getting there.

That makes it a perfect spot to try some ambitious research aimed at helping the parks native fish endure a future of climate change and invasive species. A plan outlining the long-range goals for that research is up now for public review.

Were trying to lay out a vision for where were going in the next 10 to 20 years, said Chris Downs, Glaciers head fisheries biologist. We want as much as we can to restore things to their natural state. Its going to be a substantial level of activity for the park.

In the case of Grace Lake, a substantial waterfall blocks natural fish migration between it and the much-larger Logging Lake on the parks west side. Grace would have been fish-less, except that the National Park Service decided to artificially stock it with Yellowstone cutthroat trout in the 1920s.

The waterfall has kept native westslope cutthroat and bull trout out of Grace. It also has blocked access to lake trout, an invasive species that has nearly wiped out the natives since it colonized most of Glacier's western lakes from Flathead Lake.

Were looking at what we can do to help native fish in a changing climate, Downs said. Invasive fish occupy habitat, which reduces natives ability to adapt to climate changes. Thats made us think we may have to do things differently, like maybe expand populations to new areas of the park. Like moving bull trout upstream of the waterfall to Grace Lake.

***

Park biologists already have done extensive work on the Grace Lake project, and even moved some bull trout there. That may have been just in time. In 2014, they were able to capture 111 juvenile bull trout in the stream above Logging Lake. Last year, they found just a single bull.

The research plan up for consideration would direct management of all Glaciers fish habitat. The million-acre park has 725 lakes and ponds, more than 174 perennial marshes and wetlands, and about 1,500 miles of perennial streams within its boundaries. Those water bodies host 17 native fish species and a wide array of amphibians and aquatic insects.

Glacier National Parks native aquatic ecosystems are essential in maintaining regional biodiversity, Glacier Superintendent Jeff Mow said. However, the parks lakes and streams are increasingly threatened by non-native invasive fish and other organisms, and by the impacts of climate change. This plan will evaluate a variety of methods for addressing these threats in a comprehensive way.

Tactics considered include moving native fish to new homes; removing non-native fish by netting, trapping, electrofishing and poisoning; and allowing some lakes to either naturally repopulate or remain fishless. Work crews may build fish passage barriers in some places to prevent invasive species from reaching pristine habitats. The plan considers changes to Glaciers angling rules, including whether to impose fees or permits on the currently unregulated activity.

***

The proposed plan has several alternatives, including using only mechanical means like netting and trapping to remove nonnative fish or chemical means like rotenone. Alternatives proposed by the public also may be considered.

Because of Glaciers geological history, it has a lot of self-contained laboratories where we can preserve functioning native ecosystems at a smaller scale, said Wade Fredenberg, a fisheries biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who coordinates with Downs and the Glacier research. But theres a lot we dont know. When you see a lake trout in the upper North Fork of the Flathead River above Polebridge, we dont know with certainty where those fish came from. They could have come from Kintla Lake as easily as Flathead.

The North Fork and Middle Fork of the Flathead River form extensive parts of Glaciers boundaries. The park shares biological management with other federal agencies and Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks for those waters. Ole, Park and Nyaak creeks serve as important bull trout spawning streams that reinforce those species numbers in Flathead Lake.

Public comments are due by Wednesday, May 11. The scoping brochure is available through the parks planning website: parkplanning.nps.gov/FishAquaticsPlanEIS. Comments can be made directly through this website. Written comments can also be submitted to: Superintendent, Glacier National Park, Attn: Fish and Aquatics Plan/EIS, PO Box 128 West Glacier, Montana 59936.

Public scoping meetings will be held on Wednesday, May 4, in Great Falls at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., and on Thursday, May 5, in Kalispell, at the Flathead National Forest Supervisors Office from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Stephanie Land has written about eating lots of peanut butter and hard-boiled eggs while putting herself through college as a single mother. And about making sacrifices made so she wouldn't be homeless: "I had to give my daughters dog away and used the $100 Id put down as a pet deposit when we moved in towards that months rent."

These stories were published on the Guardian, New York Times and Vox websites and the Washington Post opinion page, to name only a few.

She's working on a longer version, too, one she'll propose to publishers soon.

It's a story about a single mother of two girls with a college degree trying to survive.

"It's talking about the stress of losing work: It could mean losing everything," she said. "I've lived in that. I'm still in that place: Not having anything to fall back on but yourself, and I think that's the story of a lot of people in America that aren't able to write about it."

Since graduating with a B.A. in English with an emphasis in creative writing in 2014, Land has worked as a freelance writer, finding an audience for first-person and reported pieces about subjects like single-motherhood, abuse and poverty.

"It's writing about something in an honest way, very plainly, that is not the narrative that people are used to," she said. It goes against the cliche of the welfare queen and the idea that people on food stamps don't work hard, she said.

***

Land is from the Skagit Valley in northwestern Washington and spent most of her formative years in Anchorage, Alaska. Her family was dysfunctional, her mother an alcoholic. She hasn't spoken to either of her parents in two years.

She drifted through most of her 20s in Fairbanks, Alaska, before returning to Washington. At age 28, she became pregnant and decided to have the child, regardless of the abusive relationship she was in at the time. She fought for sole custody and won.

She was broke, and on her own. She wrote about the experience in a New York Times article published on its parenting blog.

As first lines go, it's an attention grabber: "My daughter learned to walk in a homeless shelter."

She looks up to Hemingway's "tip of the iceberg" writing style, and it shows in the way she states things clearly and without any self-pity:

"Id wanted to be a writer, and I figured I would try to live a free life worth writing about. Id been traveling from Alaska to Montana, following a dream to live in the land that Steinbeck had fallen in love with. Then I got pregnant. As an adult, I was still a child."

Because she writes frequently about being a single mother, she said nearly every article receives comments criticizing her decision to have children.

"A friend of mine said people forget in fighting for the right to choose that women have a right to choose to," she wrote. "I chose to have a baby on my own in the midst of a personhood movement and one to reduce Medicaid and food stamps. It was like the same groups were fighting for my tiny zygote to be a person who was sacred and had rights, knowing that as soon as she was born she'd be seen as a leech, or a needless life, born into poverty, and maybe one I'd planned to keep me on welfare."

She has a standard-issue response: "This was my choice. I knew it'd be hard, and it is hard. It's really, really hard. But I've never regretted it. Not for a second. And we're making it. So there," she said.

***

The birth of Emilia in 2007 delayed a planned move to Missoula, a place she called "the closest to Alaska I could get" in the Lower 48.

She took online courses and changed majors several times, settling on writing, a passion she'd maintained since a fourth-grade teacher assigned his students to keep a journal.

"That was when I started keeping a diary, and I kept journals and wrote in them daily for 20 years," she said. She only stopped writing in them after she developed arm cramps and switched to blogging.

After considering the depths of the recession and weighing potential careers in paralegal work, sociology and perhaps law school, she chose the English program.

"I thought I could reach more people with writing than I could with advocacy," she said.

To get through school, she took out the maximum amount of loans and used them to pay living expenses. She was on food stamps for most of Mia's life, only getting off them last month. She wrote lengthy articles for the Missoula Independent and the Guardian about trying to make ends meet. The Guardian article was headlined, "I lived on $6 a day."

Without any family in the area, she relied on a network of friends and housemates who helped watch Mia.

"They would take Mia to the park. They were always around, so at least one of them was available if I really needed them. I still run into them every once in a while, they take her to the park on bike rides," she said.

She credits a network of friends for keeping her sane, both now and then. Asked how she finished schoolwork while parenting on her own, she said, "I don't know."

"I got really good at doing homework while Mia was watching 'SpongeBob' really loud," she said.

To get by, she worked as a part-time house cleaner, an experience she wrote about in a Vox article headlined, "I spent 2 years cleaning houses. What I saw makes me never want to be rich."

She describes both the wealth and the unhappiness she witnessed cleaning homes: luxury paid with long work schedules. Expensive throw blankets and expensive prescription drugs in contrast to the simpler pleasures she had with her daughter.

That article, published in July, went viral, and will form the basis for her book proposal.

She graduated while pregnant with her second child, Coraline, who will be 2 years old in June. Coraline's father moved here in January, and his parents are here as well.

"They're really involved. We see them weekly. That's been a really new development that I'm still getting used to," she said.

After finishing school, Land chased whatever writing gigs she could, including editing gigs and work for an academic paper mill.

"I was doing homework assignments for people at like $10 a page," she said.

It honed her deadline skills, since she might have only a day to turn a paper around.

"I learned how to write quickly on subjects I knew very little about," she said.

She also wrote for MamaLode magazine, and credits editor Elke Govertsen for "saving" her from law school. An early published blurb while she was house-cleaning gave her a taste of seeing her work in print.

Last year, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit called the Center for Community Change hired her as a writing fellow. She works from home, communicating with editors across the country, trading assignments and pitches for articles on social and economic justice and race.

Now Coraline is in day-care full-time, giving Land more time to work, although she said she doesn't feel like there's more time.

Freelancing means juggling assignments and multiple articles a day, she's been branching out into different subject matter, too, but being a single parent still dominates.

Asked what she'd want people to know about being a single mother, she replied:

"I'm able to put my story in front of a lot of readers, but parenting is hard. We all go through the same struggles whether we're living next to nothing on our own or are supported in a fancy house," she said.

"It all comes down to temper-tantrums and food-pickiness and screaming across movie theaters."
Nathan Mullins began tearing down an alley house on Missoulas Northside last week and came face-to-face with the best kind of history  one that raises more questions than it answers.

Someone long ago had lined the walls with dozens and dozens of an odd type of insulation  thin, flexible rubber plates, each nearly two feet tall and 18 inches wide that bore the imprints of what looked like typeset hieroglyphics.

I didnt think much of it until we started pulling them off and I looked at them, said Mullins, whos demolishing a dilapidated studio apartment behind 713 N. 4th St. West to build a larger one.

It was like, I wonder if theres a date on here, he said. Hey, wait a minute. This is a newspaper.

It is indeed.

Each plate represents a page from early editions of the Missoula Sentinel, the newspaper that was founded in 1911 and in 1912 became a Democratic rival to the Missoulian and its Republican owner/publisher, Sen. Joseph Dixon.

Then I started reading the articles and Im like, whoa, man, maybe we should take it easy and try not to tear these things up, Mullins said.

It slowed progress on the project that Mullins, along with his brother-in-law and contractor, Echo Pulliam, are working on. They plan to build a two-room studio apartment on a better foundation than the old one sat on. Neither seem to mind the delay.

Its not uncommon to find interesting stuff, including old yellowing newspapers, tucked away in the innards of old buildings. From the rafters of the alley house on North 4th Street came an unspent bullet and a deliciously intact steel Highlander beer can.

Thats the fun thing about remodeling, said Mullins. You never know what youre going to find when you open up a wall.

He called the Missoulian to find out what the plates were. We didnt have a clue.

But James Bailey, an art professor at the University of Montana, did. He said the plates appear to be from a form of flexography, a technology developed in the 1890s that used such flexible relief plates.

The rubber plates would have been wrapped around a drum on the machine, similar to an offset printing machine used these days for most commercial printing, Bailey said.

In offset printing, an inked image is transferred from a photopolymer (plastic) plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface. The press itself never touches the paper (hence "offset)," which keeps the ink from bleeding.

The first flexographic press was patented by paper-sack maker Bibby, Baron and Sons in Liverpool, England, in 1890. According to an online historian, because the ink that was initially used smeared easily, it became known as Bibbys Folly, but advanced forms of flexography are in use today.

The photopolymer plate for the newspaper page you're reading now will be recycled. Its not known what the Missoula Sentinel did with its flexible relief plates, but someone in town put some to use in home construction.

And the Mullins building wasnt the only one.

Brian Gregory, who with his wife runs a day care next door to the Mullins project, recognized the Missoula Sentinel plates immediately. He said the same kind, from roughly the same era of Missoula Sentinel newspapers, line the attic of his home on Toole Avenue.

Thats a new one on me, said Steve Adler, a Missoula architect and historic preservation specialist. It may have been more for tightness rather than R-value (insulation).

***

The alley house off North Fourth Street and the main house in front of it are non-contributing properties to the Northside Missoula Railroad Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. It says they were built circa 1912 as residential properties. While the earliest relief plates are from 1912, the latest are from 1918, so the most recent construction or reconstruction came after that.

Its not known who lived at 713 N. 4th St. during World War I. Bob Oaks, executive director of the North Missoula Community Development Corp., said the first time homes appeared on the block on a Sanborn Insurance map was in 1921. Two smaller outbuildings were behind the street-front house then, and the same configuration was sketched on the 1951 Sanborn.

Polk city directories for Missoula show that Earl Goslin, a fireman for the Northern Pacific Railway, resided there in 1929 and remained there with wife Virginia until the mid-1950s. The address of 713 N. 4th Street first pops up in the late 1950s. In 1959, Edmund Denny, an auto mechanic, lived there with his wife Donna.

Some of the plates Mullins and Pulliam pulled down last week were unreadable due to water damage. But most arent, and one of the best-preserved is a front page plate that stamped EXTRA! EXTRA! EXTRA! across the top.

Its from the evening of Tuesday, Nov. 5, 1912, trumpeting Democrat Woodrow Wilsons apparent victory in the presidential election  and the defeat of Theodore Roosevelt, who was running on the Bull Moose ticket.

Dixon was not only Roosevelts campaign manager but an incumbent running for a second six-year term in the U.S. Senate. He lost too, as Democrats swept Montana.

Dixon had used the bully pulpit of the Missoulian editorial pages to ridicule the Sentinel, which was managed by Richard Kilroy, former incendiary editor of the Reveille in Butte. According to John Toole in Red Ribbons: A Story of Missoula and Its Newspapers, Kilroy responded with editorials that called Dixon an impostor, a fakir, a corporation messenger boy,  coward, crying hound, and polecat.

The Sentinel was exuberant over the 1912 election results, as reflected by the well-preserved press plate in Mullins alley house and one from the following day. It included the headline: Joe Dixon Is Repudiated; He Must Take a Back Seat Now.

Dixon, a fierce opponent of the omnipresent and powerful Anaconda Company, bought out the Sentinel a few months later, but not for political reasons.

Dennis Swibold, a journalism professor at UM, wrote in Copper Chorus: Mining, Politics, and the Montana Press, 1889-1959, that Dixon didnt believe there were enough advertising dollars in Missoula to support two dailies. Still, he kept the Sentinel running. It became a Monday-through-Saturday evening paper and published until 1967.

For Dixon, the two papers were losing propositions. He finally sold them in 1917 to what Toole said were wards of the hated Anaconda Co. Dixon, Toole said, didnt know it at the time. Three years later he made a successful run for governor of Montana.

***

Beyond the political intrigue, Mullins is captivated by the advertisements on the inkless plates. A half-page ad placed by F.M. Shoemaker, a local automobile agent on West Pine Street, trumpets seven models of Buicks from $550 to $1,800.

Mullins wonders if the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula might want some plates. There are too many to keep them all, but he has already carted a stack home and stashed them in a closet for safekeeping.

I think Im going to try to save as many as I can and just look at them, he said. I'll probably sit around and have a beer and read them in the evenings.
The door still isnt open to the future Milltown State Park riverfront, but the key is in hand.

The commissioners gave us the official go-ahead to pursue acquisition of that International Paper parcel, Milltown park manager Mike Kustudia said. Its not done yet, but we have their blessing to get it.

That parcel holds the best road leading to the confluence of the Blackfoot and Clark Fork rivers, where the state has planned for 10 years to put a park after Milltown Dam was removed. The dam came down in 2008 and the polluted former reservoir was declared clean in 2012, but the road access question lingered.

International Paper owns the 16 acres between Tamarack Road and the parks western edge. The company had offered to donate the land to the state. But part of its property was an industrial dumpsite, and state officials were wary about accepting liability for what might be in it.

The solution was to chop the property in two, with the state accepting 10 acres with the road and river frontage while International Paper kept six acres. On Thursday, the State Parks Commission members formally accepted the idea.

Kustudia said while the legal details get wrangled in Helena, he will put final touches on bid packages for the park development. Those could be released later this spring or early summer.

***

The master plan for Milltown State Park calls for picnic areas, an interpretative display of the old dam and Native American legacy, a walk-in boat ramp and parking lot. About $6 million in state and federal funds is available to build and maintain it. Most of the money came from a settlement between the state and federal governments and mining companies responsible for about 3 million tons of toxic sediment that subsided behind the old dam.

Construction might start late this summer or fall, Kustudia said. He also oversees work on a walking trail passing under five bridges between the Black Bridge picnic area and the confluence, and just finished putting together 1.5 miles of trail from the damsite overlook to the Clark Fork River floodplain on the south side of the confluence.

This year, river users can determine their own risk tolerance when floating the river junction. For the previous four years, the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks had temporarily closed the mouth of the Blackfoot River to floaters because high spring runoff flows made getting around two Interstate 90 bridge piers dangerous. Kustudia said after several years of public education about the hazard, the department decided to let people decide for themselves when to attempt the passage.

Walking access to the Clark Fork River shoreline above the confluence is also unregulated this year. FWP had closed the upper riverbanks for several years to allow new vegetation plantings to get established in the re-engineered floodplain.
I am dismayed with plans by the Forest Service to approve the Montanore Mine under the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness. The wilderness, one of the first created by Congress, protects the headwaters of important rivers classed as "outstanding resource waters." It is one of the last refuges of threatened bull trout and a small population of grizzly bears.

Tunneling almost 3 1/2 miles beneath this area will produce huge amounts of rubble laced with heavy metals. These metals will inevitably end up in the areas streams and rivers. Mining may well crack small reservoirs of water held in pores in the rock, releasing clean water into the mine. Several streams will dry up: the East Fork of Rock Creek, the East Fork of Bull River and Ramsey, Libby and Poorman creeks. This will mean devastating changes for bull trout and grizzly bears as well as all creatures that depend on cold, clean water to live.

My two daughters conducted their first scientific research in the Cabinet Wilderness helping a PhD student from the University of Montana. They were studying Colombian spotted frogs, which were numerous in the small creeks and streams. The tiny metamorphs (in their first summer of life) accomplished amazing feats of dispersal. Some climbed up over mountains several thousand feet high while others traveled miles along the course of their native streams to eventually breed with other frogs. If the mine goes ahead, these frogs and many other aquatic species may well disappear.

I hope its not too late to stop this dreadful project. Scientific studies of groundwater done by the mining companys own consultants show that the mine violates Montanas non-degradation standard. We could lose one more piece of our disappearing natural heritage.

Anne Greene,

Missoula
On April 11, I was one of 430 protesters arrested at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., as part of a weeks-long demonstration called Democracy Spring/Democracy Awakening, which began on April 1 with a 10-day, 140-mile march from Philadelphia to Washington.

These coordinated events were organized to protest big-money domination in American politics as well as voter suppression and other issues facing our democracy.

Since then I have watched the demonstrations unfold with great interest As of April 18, the last day of the Democracy Awakening gathering, more than 1,000 have been arrested and thousands have rallied in Washington. Media coverage was somewhat sparse, so I am writing this letter to raise awareness in Montana of this historic action.

The events' organizers emphasized from the beginning that these were nonpartisan demonstrations, as the issue of corporate and billionaire control of our government is something that affects all votersconservatives, independents and progressives alike.

Currently there are

There are four bills in Congress related to this issue, (SJ Res 5) Joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution (presumably the "Democracy for All Amendment"); (HR 20) Government by the People Act of 2015; (S 1569) Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2015; and (HR 12) Voter Empowerment Act of 2015.

We participants are now asking you, our fellow citizens, to write your representatives regarding these bills, share information on Facebook and tweet your support for campaign-finance reform. There are also a number of online petitions to sign.

The situation is urgent. There is no way these reforms will happen on their own. We the people must speak out and let our representatives know that we are watching them, we know what they are up to, and we demand they put a stop to the shenanigans and give us back our democracy.

Gwen McKenna,

Missoula
Sorry to hear of the passing of Montanas great friend to the grizzly bear, Chuck Jonkel; instructors like him are the reason I moved to Montana to attend the University of Montana. His quest to understand the species Ursus arctos horribilis inspired me to consider the complicated arguments ongoing over the delisting of the grizzly bear.

In reading the tributes to him I learned Chuck Jonkel liked to say that it was not just scientists who need to care about the bears, its all of us. In that spirit I would like to add my name to the list of those opposed to the delisting of the grizzly bear. Now is not the time.
JACKSON, Wyo. (AP)  One of the oldest bald eagles captured in Wyoming has been euthanized.

Officials at the Teton Raptor Center say the eagle was not healing after being treated for injuries believed suffered when the bird hit a power line.

Wildlife officials say a band showed the bald eagle was about 34 years old.

Rehabilitation coordinator Meghan Warren said the eagle's wounds were having trouble healing after she had been captured flightless in March across the highway from the National Elk Refuge.

"The wounds might not have healed," Warren said, "and if they did heal, it would probably have taken months and months of painful rehabilitation to get to that point."

Warren also said the bird was having difficulty eating and was losing strength.

A portion of the eagle's right wing had to be removed because it wasn't getting enough blood.

"We decided the most humane option for her would be to give her a dignified and humane death," Warren said.

"She was so stoic and resilient throughout her entire rehab that for the majority of the time we were really hopeful that this was going to be successful," Warren said.

Bald-eagle populations have grown in recent years, wildlife officials say. The species is now considered recovered after being protected for a long time under the Endangered Species Act.

The bird's body was shipped to the National Eagle Repository near Denver, where her feathers and other body parts will be distributed to federally recognized Native American tribes.
A COUPLE of years ago, I trespassed across America. Id set out to hike the proposed route of the Keystone XL pipeline, which had been planned to stretch over a thousand miles over the Great Plains, from Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf Coast. To walk the pipes route, roads wouldnt do. Id have to cross fields, hop barbed-wire fences and camp in cow pastures  much of it on private property.

Id figured that walking across the heartland would probably be unlawful, unprecedented and a little bit crazy. We Americans, after all, are forbidden from entering most of our private lands. But in some European countries, walking almost wherever you want is not only ordinary but perfectly acceptable.

In Sweden, they call it allemansratt. In Finland, its jokamiehenoikeus. In Scotland, its the right to roam. Germany allows walking through privately owned forests, unused meadows and fallow fields. In 2000, England and Wales passed the Countryside and Rights of Way Act, which gave people access to mountain, moor, heath or down.

Nordic and Scottish laws are even more generous. The 2003 Scottish Land Reform Act opened up the whole country for a number of pastimes, including mountain biking, horseback riding, canoeing, swimming, sledding, camping and most any activity that does not involve a motorized vehicle, so long as its carried out responsibly. In Sweden, landowners may be prohibited from putting up fences for the sole purpose of keeping people out. Walkers in many of these places do not have to pay money, ask for permission or obtain permits.
Spanning six days  from April 24 through April 29  the Easter Rising of 1916 was a pivotal point in Irish history, and Butte history as well.

World War I was raging in Europe with England in the thick of it. For members of the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army, it was prime time for a rebellion.

The attempt by Irish republicans to squash British rule was a failure from a military standpoint. Although the men and women who participated in the Easter Rising were fervently passionate about Irish freedom, the majority of its leaders were not seasoned fighters  instead, they were poets, artists, statesmen and schoolteachers. By day four, the insurgents were severely outnumbered, and on the sixth day they surrendered.

In the aftermath, the British government executed 16 revolt leaders and arrested nearly 3,500 men and women. Politically, that would prove to be a grave mistake. The executions, in fact, galvanized the country, and although Irish independence was granted in 1922, it would be decades before peace would reign.

According to Ellen Crain of the Butte Archives, the Easter Rising had a huge effect on Butte, too. Leaders of the cause came to the Mining City before and after the rebellion to make their pleas to the Irish population. Money and arms were needed, and Buttes Irish were happy to oblige.

Many left their homeland in the weeks and months after the Rising. Rather than go to prison, they left Ireland, Crain explained, and many came here to Butte.

Buttes support came in a variety of ways. Some Irishmen came, not only for arms, but to properly learn how to shoot. Crain said that these men were taught how to handle a gun at a shooting range near Silver Bow. Once class was dismissed, they headed back to their homeland.

The call to arms included hiding guns in coffins and shipping them back to Ireland, added Crain.

Among the 16 men executed in the days following the surrender were James Connolly and James MacBride. Both men spent time in Butte. According to a 1916 account in the Anaconda Standard, Connolly addressed a Butte crowd in 1910 about labor conditions in Ireland and the hope of Irish freedom.

Connolly, who was badly wounded in the fighting, was brought out on a stretcher for his execution. He was then tied to a chair and shot dead. MacBride, a veteran of the Boer War, faced a firing squad just two days shy of his 48th birthday. Refusing to wear a blindfold, he was quoted as telling his executioners  "I have looked down the muzzles of too many guns in the South African war to fear death and now please carry out your sentence."

Eamon de Valera, who was born in New York, was a leader in the 1916 Easter Rising. His birthplace would prove to be his salvation. Because of his American citizenship, instead of death by firing squad, de Valera was imprisoned. It was not the first time; it would not be the last.

Three times de Valera visited Butte. Each time, the future president of Ireland was met with exuberance.

In a July 25, 1919 address, he told a crowd of 10,000 people, Irishmen want their country. It is rightfully and lawfully theirs. It is their home. The English power in that home is an intrusion and usurpation which Irishmen want to get rid of. England has no claim, no right whatever to Ireland. Irishmen want their country and they want freedom.

As popular as de Valera was, Buttes favorite Irish son was the parish priest at St. Marys Church, Father Michael Hannan, a native of County Limerick. The Irish priest was largely responsible for bringing many of the Irish patriots to Butte, and they stayed with him at the St. Marys rectory. More often than not, he would be the first to greet them at the train station, holding a sign that read Welcome to Butte and St. Marys Parish.

No question, the man loved his church and his parish. However, the love he had for his homeland may have superseded all else. Following the Easter Rising, Father Hannan wrote a book titled Irish Leaders of 1916  Who Were They? to honor the men who were executed. He also headed up committees and fund drives, all for the Irish cause.

The longtime St. Marys priest died in 1928 and asked that his remains be returned to his homeland. J.B. Mulcahy, editor and publisher of Buttes Irish newspaper, The Butte Independent, described Father Hannan as a man whose very soul was immersed in the ideals, the legends and the mystic story of the Gael, he loved Ireland with a devotion and an intensity that amounted almost to a self-consuming flame.

Countess Constance Markievicz

Another well-known Easter Rising participant was Countess Constance Markievicz. The woman was many things in her lifetime  suffragette, revolutionary, politician, just to name a few. She was sentenced to death for her actions during the insurrection. A member of Sinn Fein, Cumann na mBan (a womens paramilitary organization), the political group, Fianna Fail, and the Irish Volunteer Army, her sentence was quickly commuted to life in prison. By 1917, however, all Easter Rising prisoners would be released. The continued fight for freedom came at a price and in April 1922, the countess was in Butte to raise money for the cause. She spoke to a standing-room only crowd in the Butte High auditorium. She told her audience, I stood beside Pearse and Connolly, and with them pledged my life to the cause of the Irish Republic. She concluded her address with a plea for financial aid. We can give our lives and our money and are willing to do this if necessary, but we need your help she said to the crowd. Buttes Irish were generous to the countess. She left the Mining City with more than $5,000, which is the equivalent of $71,000 in todays world.

Hanna Sheehy Skeffington

Hanna Sheehy Skeffingtons husband, Frank, was killed at the Easter Rising. She and her husband were both teachers and both vocal about the need for Irish freedom. They were also pioneers in the rights of Irish women. In fact, in 1908, the two worked to obtain womens voting rights and helped to found the Irish Womens Franchise League. Twice she traveled to Butte to talk about the political upheaval in her homeland. During a 1917 lecture, she told the audience  I am here at this time to plead the cause of democracy, of small nations. Great, big America, champion of the oppressed of the world, will surely listen to my plea. I come with hate to none, but love for all, and more especially a burning love for my dear isle of green.

Liam Mellows

Liam Mellows luckily escaped a British firing squad in 1916, and by 1919, was an envoy for Eamon de Valera. On Nov. 4, 1919, Mellows told Buttes Irish residents  the people of Ireland alone have the right to the ownership of Ireland. And to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, and that the nations sovereignty extends to not only all men and women of Ireland, but to all is material possessions, the soil and all its resources. Mellows luck eventually ran out. He, along with three other IRA members, took over the Dublin Four Courts. After a two-day standoff, the four men surrendered. On Dec. 8, 1922, the IRA members were shot by a firing squad.

Linda Mary Kearns

During the insurrection, Linda Mary Kearns, a 28-year-old nurse from Sligo, set up a makeshift hospital in an abandoned building to treat the wounded. When the British forced her to close the facility, Kearns took to the streets to give medical care. Seven years later, in a speech given at the Empress Theater in Butte, she noted The Republic of Ireland is in existence since 1916, declared and signed in the blood of the leaders of Easter Week.

Kathleen Boland

Kathleen Bolands contribution to the 1916 cause was to bring food and ammunition to various garrisons throughout Dublin. Boland had more than her fair share of concern, as all three brothers, Harry, Gerry and Ned, were involved in the rebellion. She came to Butte in February 1923, to plead Irelands cause, along with Linda Kearns and Hanna Sheehy Skeffington.

Margaret Pearse

Two of Margaret Pearses sons, Patrick and William, were executed by the British for their participation in the rebellion. Following their deaths, the grieving matriarch picked up the gauntlet and fought for Irish independence until her death in 1932. While on an extended visit to Butte in July 1924, she was honored at numerous functions. During an Irish Republic Societies of Butte banquet held in her honor, Mrs. Pearse called herself the proudest mother in Ireland.
Few hikers ever reach Glacier National Parks Grace Lake. Fish have an even harder time getting there.

That makes it a perfect spot to try some ambitious research aimed at helping the parks native fish endure a future of climate change and invasive species. A plan outlining the long-range goals for that research is up now for public review.

Were trying to lay out a vision for where were going in the next 10 to 20 years, said Chris Downs, Glaciers head fisheries biologist. We want as much as we can to restore things to their natural state. Its going to be a substantial level of activity for the park.

In the case of Grace Lake, a substantial waterfall blocks natural fish migration between it and the much-larger Logging Lake on the parks west side. Grace would have been fish-less, except that the National Park Service decided to artificially stock it with Yellowstone cutthroat trout in the 1920s.

The waterfall has kept native westslope cutthroat and bull trout out of Grace. It also has blocked access to lake trout, an invasive species that has nearly wiped out the natives since it colonized most of Glacier's western lakes from Flathead Lake.

Were looking at what we can do to help native fish in a changing climate, Downs said. Invasive fish occupy habitat, which reduces natives ability to adapt to climate changes. Thats made us think we may have to do things differently, like maybe expand populations to new areas of the park. Like moving bull trout upstream of the waterfall to Grace Lake.

Park biologists already have done extensive work on the Grace Lake project, and even moved some bull trout there. That may have been just in time. In 2014, they were able to capture 111 juvenile bull trout in the stream above Logging Lake. Last year, they found just a single bull.

The research plan up for consideration would direct management of all Glaciers fish habitat. The million-acre park has 725 lakes and ponds, more than 174 perennial marshes and wetlands, and about 1,500 miles of perennial streams within its boundaries. Those water bodies host 17 native fish species and a wide array of amphibians and aquatic insects.

Glacier National Parks native aquatic ecosystems are essential in maintaining regional biodiversity, Glacier Superintendent Jeff Mow said. However, the parks lakes and streams are increasingly threatened by non-native invasive fish and other organisms, and by the impacts of climate change. This plan will evaluate a variety of methods for addressing these threats in a comprehensive way.

Tactics considered include moving native fish to new homes; removing non-native fish by netting, trapping, electrofishing and poisoning; and allowing some lakes to either naturally repopulate or remain fishless. Work crews may build fish passage barriers in some places to prevent invasive species from reaching pristine habitats. The plan considers changes to Glaciers angling rules, including whether to impose fees or permits on the currently unregulated activity.

The proposed plan has several alternatives, including using only mechanical means like netting and trapping to remove nonnative fish or chemical means like rotenone. Alternatives proposed by the public also may be considered.

Because of Glaciers geological history, it has a lot of self-contained laboratories where we can preserve functioning native ecosystems at a smaller scale, said Wade Fredenberg, a fisheries biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who coordinates with Downs and the Glacier research. But theres a lot we dont know. When you see a lake trout in the upper North Fork of the Flathead River above Polebridge, we dont know with certainty where those fish came from. They could have come from Kintla Lake as easily as Flathead.

The North Fork and Middle Fork of the Flathead River form extensive parts of Glaciers boundaries. The park shares biological management with other federal agencies and Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks for those waters. Ole, Park and Nyaak creeks serve as important bull trout spawning streams that reinforce those species numbers in Flathead Lake.

Public comments are due by Wednesday, May 11. The scoping brochure is available through the parks planning website: parkplanning.nps.gov/FishAquaticsPlanEIS. Comments can be made directly through this website. Written comments can also be submitted to: Superintendent, Glacier National Park, Attn: Fish and Aquatics Plan/EIS, PO Box 128 West Glacier, Montana 59936.

Public scoping meetings will be held on Wednesday, May 4, in Great Falls at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., and on Thursday, May 5, in Kalispell, at the Flathead National Forest Supervisors Office from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
"I now bid farewell to the country of my birth  of my passions  of my death; a country whose misfortunes have invoked my sympathies  whose factions I sought to quell  whose intelligence I prompted to a lofty aim  whose freedom has been my fatal dream."  Thomas Francis Meagher

For those who know their Montana or Irish history, Thomas Francis Meagher is a familiar face. The Irish patriot, born in 1823, was Montanas territorial governor and is immortalized with a bronzed statue on the lawn of the state capitol in Helena. The Waterford native is also credited with popularizing the present-day Irish tricolour flag.

An Irish nationalist, Meagher joined the Young Ireland movement idealistically hoping to help free Ireland from British rule. He was with a group that visited France to study the countrys recent revolutionary events, hoping for inspiration as an Irish rebellion was in the works. While there, a group of French women gifted him with a tricolour flag, which he brought back to Ireland. The flag would be flown during the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848.

The flags colors of green and orange represented Irish nationalism and the Protestant minority. The white in the middle symbolized lasting peace.

For his participation in the failed rebellion, Meagher was given a death sentence, but the sentence was commuted to a life of hard labor in an Australian penal camp. By 1852, Meagher had made his escape and soon found his way to America, where he became a successful lawyer and newspaperman.

When the Civil War broke out in the United States, Meagher joined the Union army, leading the Fighting 69 Irish brigade. By wars end, he was a brigadier general.

Not long after wars end, Meagher was named Montanas governor. On July 1, 1867, the 43-year-old was in Fort Benton and allegedly fell from a steamboat and drowned. His body was never found.

The flag Meagher first introduced in 1848 went into obscurity. The primary flag of Ireland was green with a harp, the national symbol of Ireland, in the middle. That all changed on April 24, 1916. The tricolour flag flew once again, atop Dublins General Post Office, as a symbol that the Easter Rising had commenced.

Just a few years later, during the Irish War of Independence, the flag was again raised by the Irish Republican Army and quickly thereafter became a symbol for the Irish Free State. By 1937, it was decided. The Irish tricolour was Irelands official flag.
Sunday, April 24

EASTER RISING

The Clark Chateau will host an open house from noon to 4 p.m. commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Easter Riding. At 1 p.m., Chateau curator Callison Stratton will give a talk on Sen. James E. Murray and his role in the movement for Irish freedom, unveiling the Chateau's new exhibit on Murray's life and career. At 2 p.m., Tom Gammons, Chateau youth intern, will present "Aunt Ruby's Mandolin," an original composition inspired by his research on the Easter Rising and the experience of the Irish in America. Admission is free, but reservations are requested.
For nearly a century and a half, Butte has been a haven for immigrants, a center for naturalization, and a place of welcome. Butte offered work, albeit hard and dangerous  a chance to earn both a living and the respect of new neighbors.

U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Kirscher acknowledged this when he told 25 new citizens last week, I cannot think of a better city or courtroom in our district to conduct a naturalization ceremony. As you know, Butte historically is Americas greatest mosaic. Very few cities in the United States can claim more diverse ethnicity than Butte, America.

Of course, Butte and America offered immigrants much more  the precious gifts of religious freedom and democracy.

In todays edition, The Montana Standards historian and researcher without parallel, Tracy Thornton, shows the direct impact Butte had on Irelands struggle for democracy and self-determination.

A hundred years ago this week, the Easter Rising, even in its failure, lit the spark that would bring democracy to full flame in Ireland. And, as Thorntons stories show, Butte held the match.

Buttes surprisingly significant role in the Rising and its aftermath exemplifies a benefit of immigration that is less frequently cited than others, but very real: Democracy is contagious. Once immigrants experience it, they will do everything they can  often with the benefits of their newfound prosperity  to nurture the same thing in the countries of their birth. That is as true today as it was a hundred years ago.

Donald Trump and his supporters, who so loudly advocate for the exclusion of immigrants and ignore the history of tolerance, inclusion and multiculturalism that has set America apart, would do well to realize that. The very immigrants they wish to fence out can be at the vanguard of improving economic and political conditions in the countries they came from, and where many members of their families remain.

Now is not a time, in Butte or elsewhere in our nation of immigrants, to short-circuit that process.

Our culture, society, art, food, music, humor, language, literature and indeed our daily lives are made immensely more interesting because of immigrants, Judge Kirscher said. Each of you will enrich this nation beyond any expectation.

In todays political climate its all too easy to get caught up in the rhetoric of hate, fear and exclusion. Thats why Judge Kirschers words resonated so strongly.

We welcome our new neighbors, and thank Judge Kirscher for his timely reminder of what makes our country great.
Many in Montana might mistakenly think that the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT)-Montana Compact is now written into law and because the state has moved on, so should its citizens. The state tends to forget that the constitutionality of the compact vote in 2015 is under legal challenge and a decision on that challenge is expected soon. Regardless of that outcome, the battle to defeat the compact is just getting started.

For more than four years, Concerned Citizens of Western Montana has tried to bring factual material about the compact to light including practical, real life examples of what this compact, if ratified, will mean to peoples lives and livelihoods.

What follows is a chilling example of an issue remark on a significant groundwater claim on a longstanding ranch in western Montana. If this doesnt send a chill down peoples spines, we dont know what will.

We recently received a copy of a REVIEW ABSTRACT OF A WATER RIGHT CLAIM issued by the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation for agricultural property situated within the exterior boundaries of the former Flathead Reservation.

The family forwarding the document recently purchased their property based upon an anticipated groundwater right that would support the agricultural business historically associated with the ranch.

AFTER the property closing, the title company sent the new owners a letter explaining that they would not transfer the water right because of concerns about the CSKT water compact.

This information was not made known to the purchasers at closing; it became known later. To add insult to injury, the title insurance excluded all things Indian related, so the title company is protected from liability.

And now this: The state has added the following issue remark on the water claim for this property:

"IT IS NOT CLEAR WHETHER THIS CLAIM IS A STATE-BASED WATER RIGHT OR PART OF THE TRIBAL WATER RIGHT AS DEFINED IN THE CONFEDERATED SALISH AND KOOTENAIMONTANA COMPACT."

How is it the water right might be part of the tribal water right when the well is located on private property?

What does this mean to the family that purchased this land with a hope for a future agricultural enterprise? What implications will it have on the value of their property or their ability to earn any living from it?

We cannot help but wonder if the Montana Stockgrowers and Farm Bureau would still support the compact in light an example such as this. Is this what compact proponents touted as the certainty and finality that we would all enjoy with the passage of the CSKT water compact?

To the Compact Commission and legislators who voted to ratify the water compact we ask:

You proposed to cede state jurisdiction over reservation water in exchange for a promise to PROTECT EXISTING USES OF WATER. Isnt this familys situation exactly what the state spent decades negotiating to avoid?

A recent report by the DNRC for the Kootenai and Clark Fork River basins, covering all of western Montana, says consumptive uses of water in western Montana are less than 2 percent of the total water supply.

If this report is accurate, why would this family or any other have to worry about losing their historic agricultural use of water or the diminishment of their property values?

Unfortunately, these concerns are valid because the state ceded most of the water in western Montana to the U.S. / CSKT. Then, instead of completing unbiased, comprehensive studies of the compacts adverse impacts, the state proposed in the compact to confer financial immunity upon itself for any adverse impacts related to their policy decision.

The mask is coming off the water compact monster sooner than intended. One thing is clear: Montana willingly ceded a significant portion of its water resources and jurisdiction over it to the federal government / CSKT in the form of a water compact, leaving a very large number of its citizens with a very short end of the stick.

 Terry Backs, of St. Ignatius, is a founder of Concerned Citizens of Western Montana, formed to educate and inform people about the CSKT Water Compact.
Students plunged into their studies for HiSET with bungee jumping dolls, knotted ropes and complicated shapes made with toothpicks and marshmallows.

From April 11-15, Muscatine Community College hosted the first of two HiSET Academies to help students get their high school equivalency diploma from HiSET. Thanks, in part, to a decategorization grant from the Department of Human Services, students were able to explore math, write essays, and learn test-taking skills in five all-day sessions.

Jason Walker, the lead teacher for Adult Basic Education, believes that all students need to have hands-on experiences with math.

Lectures, rote memorization and math drills are unproductive methods for learning. I take an inquiry-based approach whenever possible to get students to self-discover not just how to do a problem, but why it works," Walker said.

One participant, Dru Foster, thought the bungee activity with dolls, was really entertaining. He continued, I think it kept us more active with the math. When you visually get to see it, you understand it much better.

In order to get their High School Equivalency Diploma, students have to pass standardized exams in math, writing, science, social studies and reading. This academy helps students who have been attending classes to get that final push to completion. By the end most students only have their final tests left to take.

The next academy will be May 9-13. Students must already be enrolled in the program, have an intermediate to advanced score on their pre or post-tests in Math and Reading, and be willing to commit to the full week from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. each day.
LETTS, Iowa  Letts Bible Church is hosting a Mother-Daughter salad supper at 6 p.m. Friday, April 29, at the church, at Orange and Chestnut streets. The theme will be "Bouquet of Blessings." The speaker will be Sara Hentzel, she and her husband, Randy, are missionaries to Jamaica with "Teams for Medical Missions."
Have you ever been SLAPP'd?

SLAPP stands for "Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation," and it's a technique as old as lawsuits to stifle competition brought by the rapacious moguls of the early Industrial Age, and as modern as lawsuits against online critics.

A section of the Communications Decency Act shields online sites from defamation suits and other kinds of civil actions over content posted by third parties  but not the people who post the material. Nearly one-half of states provide some protection against SLAPP lawsuits  some limited only to communication with the government  but a new U.S. House proposal, HR 2304, would add to those defenses, proponents say.

Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, introduced the "Speak Free Act" last June, co-sponsored by Rep. Anna G. Eshoo , D-Calif. In an interview Tuesday, Farenthold said the legislation is needed to protect people "who don't have $50,000" to spend on legal fees to, for example, defend against a lawsuit over a negative review posted on social media.

The "Speak Free" proposal tentatively is set for a hearing in the House Judiciary subcommittee in late May.

In response to a threat of legal action, many people simply take down the negative review or comment  which Farenthold sees as counter to the point of free speech. A broadcaster who also has worked in the computer field, Farenthold said he supports the First Amendment concept that "a review is, by definition, an opinion and there's no defamation in opinion."

Farenthold and others see increased concern over SLAPP actions  which, while expanding in recent years, still represent a small number within the total number of lawsuits annually  as reflective of the rise of "peer-to-peer" sites where people looking for specific services can find reviews and comments.

The proposed law would allow defendants to transfer lawsuits from state to federal courts, particularly valuable in 22 states that do not have an anti-SLAPP law or in those with weak protection. Farenthold said the law also will provide a means in federal court to quickly resolve a SLAPP lawsuit "before the legal fees run up."

The combination of breadth and speed has appeal on both Democratic and Republican sides of the aisle, and to conservatives seeking "tort reform" to reduce lawsuits and liberals aiming to protect civic activists. Farenthold said he has not seen significant push-back from companies, which might have been expected to oppose the act. "Overall, I think more people in business have the view that you don't need to worry ... if you are providing good service."

Bipartisan support encourages Evan Mascagni, policy director for the Public Participation Project, a nonprofit group supporting such legislation  who noted two earlier Congressional attempts failed to gain such backing. In an interview, Mascagni said, "The First Amendment is not a partisan issue. Americans understand the importance of free speech and petition activity in our society."

Another possible factor in increased attention to the bill is the attention paid this year to lawsuits and counterlitigation actions by GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump, who also has called for weakening protections in existing defamation law that limit retaliatory lawsuits by public figures.

Anti-SLAPP supporters also note that the range of SLAPP actions is wide: From a lawsuit brought by a California nursing home lawsuit against two women involving an email sent to a legal aid lawyer, to actions against consumers complaining about a tax advice service, to news outlets for reporting unflattering personal details about a public figure. And some warn that even the potential for a lawsuit, despite speedy resolution, will deter some private citizens from even contacting government officials about a complaint.

Retaliatory lawsuits that seek mainly to punish are a misuse of legal remedies intended to repair the reputations of those wrongly damaged, produce truthful information or spur government response  not to be a tactic to punish public participation.

A longstanding thesis about the First Amendment is that "the antidote to speech you don't like is more speech, not less." Nary a mention of legal threats, expensive fees and drawn-out court battles in the 45 words that define our core freedoms.

Gene Policinski is chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute and senior vice president of the Institutes First Amendment Center. He can be reached at gpolicinski@newseum.org.
Les emplois a Rennes sont abondants et varies. Il y a quelque chose pour tout le monde. Que vous soyez a la recherche dun emploi []
Les blattes ou cafards (Blatta orientalis) sont des insectes qui appartiennent a la famille des Blattoptera. Ils se caracterisent par leur forme allongee, leurs ailes []
It is often said that the electronics manufacturing industry can play a bigger part in South Africas industrial development and grow the countrys exports  thereby creating more real jobs.

We have the technological expertise and skills but it seems that the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is hardly walking the talk.

A key element of the electronics manufacturing is the component suppliers. South Africa does not manufacture electronic components except for some transformers and of course printed circuit boards.

I met with Hannes Taute, the MD of Avnet South Africa to talk about the future of our countrys component supply industry and its effect on the electronic contract manufacturing industry.

I believe that we are holding our own in a very tough economy. The biggest disappointment is the lack of government support for local companies and projects, he said.

A good example of this is the whole digital terrestrial television (DTT) rollout. If managed correctly this could have given the local industry a massive boost with lots of jobs being created.

The initial specification was for a locally designed and manufactured set top box (STB)  this has unfortunately changed. If this project eventually goes ahead only a small portion of the electronics manufacturing industry will benefit by assembling imported knock-down kits.

Taute said that growth in the electronics manufacturing business mainly comes from innovative entrepreneurs who are developing their own products in the areas of safety and security systems, renewable energy control equipment and the lighting industry.

There is no doubt that the economy is taking strain. We see it on all fronts and yet there are still companies coming up with innovative products that provide moderate growth for the electronic components supply industry.

I know there are views within the DTI that each sector should have its own member organisation to interact with them. I disagree with that. Some years back a lot of effort was put into reviving the South African Electronics Industry Federation (SAEIF). Unfortunately it failed.

The Association of Distributors and Manufacturers of Electronic Components (ADEC) decided to unite the industry and was renamed AREI (Association of Representatives for the Electronics Industry).

The idea was to bring together all industry players related to electronics manufacturing in some way. Coming from a strong base of distributors and suppliers, AREI is making progress and has signed up some of the largest electronic product manufacturers.

South Africa is rich with technical expertise and we should be exporting more of our local electronic production. Yes the component costs have gone up as we pay higher prices because of the weaker rand, but if you think about it, the other input costs are pretty stable so local electronic manufacturers should benefit from the weaker rand by making their products more competitive on the world market.

We have world class manufacturing facilities that we can really be proud of, manufacturing high tech products that are being shipped all around the world.

Taute makes an interesting point. Given that South Africa produces electronic products of a very high quality, it is the volumes that need to increase.

As many of the processes today are automated, higher volumes will not materially increase labour cost. I asked him what he believes the local component industry can do to help contract manufacturers grow their business.

Our offering enables companies to grow. The component supply industry needs to keep customers up to date with the latest technology to enable them to develop and introduce interesting products all the time.

Electronics is so fast-moving that if you look at a supplier base there are new products launched almost daily. From a semiconductor point of view there is a lot of consolidation and repositioning going on and it is important for us as a supply industry to keep our customers informed of these developments as it ultimately can affect their future production.

At one time most component distributors had exclusive product lines. That has changed over the years as virtually all component distributors today have access to most manufacturers.

Taute says that the focus has changed from taking an order and supplying to quite complicated logistics.

When a new product enters from the development and testing phase into production, the component supplier has to ensure that components are delivered just in time.

Today nobody wants to keep massive stock. It is a fine line to manage between the component manufacturers, the shipping agents, customs clearance and delivering what your customers require to keep production lines running efficiently without stoppages because a component is late.

Avnet has the necessary systems and logistic support to offer customers this type of service. It is also important to ensure that high quality products are supplied coming from legitimate component manufacturers.

Should something go wrong customers want to have the peace of mind that they have recourse to the manufacturer. Unfortunately our industry is still plagued by a lot of grey imports.

The South African industry still suffers unfair competition fuelled by import duties on many items such as switches and other electro-mechanical components.

Taute said that it is ironic that a local manufacturer of a remote control unit has to pay duty on the switches used in the remote while the completed product from China can enter South Africa duty free.

It is this kind of issue that needs to be addressed to grow our electronics industry by making local manufacturers more competitive. I know that AREI is continually working on this problem; government needs to understand the urgency for this to be resolved.

Taute is positive about the future of the industry.

I believe that South Africa has a lot to offer to the global electronics industry  top design engineers, and world class electronics manufacturing companies supported by leading electronic component suppliers.

By working together, support from the export council and AREI and with a more proactive DTI, I believe we can become an export industry of note. In this way we can create more real jobs. From the industry side they should support industry associations, take part in electronics shows and really showcase our local ability to the global market.

Together we can grow and develop our industry.

Source: EE Publishers

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Cell C CEO Jose Dos Santos has said that the companys biggest competitor is not Vodacom or MTN, but rather South Africas government and regulatory bodies.

Dos Santos made the remark during an interview on CliffCentrals Leadership Platform.

He said a big challenge for Cell C was getting the regulator  ICASA  to set a level playing field.

The regulatory environment is my competitor here. We have to create policy makers to create framework so that people can compete freely, he said.

Dos Santos referenced mobile call termination rates and the impact they have on Cell Cs Wi-Fi calling price, and how the regulator has been a hindrance to their mission of reducing call prices.

Call termination rates are the fees operators pay one another to connect a call from their network to another carriers network.

Cell C withdrew its application to review the Call Termination Regulations of 2014 in March, with the operator stating that the length of time it took to get to court rendered its application redundant.

More on Cell C

Widest network fight: Vodacom vs Cell C

Good news about Cell C C-Fibre
The Public Investment Corporation is likely to sell a portion of its Vodacom shares to black investors to bolster the mobile operators BEE rating.

This move, the Sunday Times reported, is needed to satisfy telecoms regulator ICASAs requirement to bid for spectrum.

On Friday the Mail & Guardian reported a BEE consortium, involving former Vodacom executive Romeo Kumalo, plans to buy a portion of the PICs Vodacom shares.

PIC CEO Dan Matjila said the corporation, which has a 15% stake in Vodacom, was concerned about Vodacoms BEE numbers, and that the deal would allow the network operator to fix their house.

When questioned about the potential transaction, Vodacom said it supports the governments transformation objectives. It would not comment on the potential PIC deal, though.

Spectrum auction

ICASAs plan for handing out valuable spectrum in the 800MHz and 2600MHz (or 2.6GHz) bands involve various requirements, including an HDI component of 30% black ownership in the company.

The company bidding for spectrum must also be an ECNS licence holder, and be financially credible with audited financial statements.

ICASA has said it would not encourage the use of a special purpose vehicle to make up the necessary 30% HDI component.

Vodacom previously planned to acquire Neotel, partly to gain access to its valuable spectrum, but the deal fell through.

More on Vodacom

Vodacom-Neotel deal collapses

Vodacom cannot take Neotels licences: High Court

Vodacom drops plans to take Neotels spectrum
North Korea said Sunday that it successfully test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine and warned of its growing ability to cut down its enemies with a "dagger of destruction." South Korea couldn't immediately confirm the claim of success in what marks Pyongyang's latest effort to expand its military might in face of pressure by its neighbors and Washington.

Hours before the announcement, South Korean military officials said the North fired what appeared to be a ballistic missile from a submarine off its eastern coast. The South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the projectile traveled about 30 kilometers (19 miles) Saturday evening. That's a much shorter than the typical distance of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, which can fly at least 300 kilometers (186 miles).

A successful test from a submarine would be a worrying development because mastering the ability to fire missiles from submerged vessels would make it harder for outsiders to detect what North Korea is doing before it launches, giving it the potential to surprise its enemies.

While South Korean experts say it's unlikely that North Korea currently possesses an operational submarine that can fire multiple missiles, they acknowledge that the North is making progress on such technology.

In a typical example of overblown rhetoric, the North's Korean Central News Agency said leader Kim Jong Un observed from a test facility as the ballistic missile surged from a submarine and spewed out a "massive stream of flames" as it soared into the sky. It said the missile met all technical thresholds.

The KCNA report said that after the test Kim declared that the North now has another strong nuclear strike method and also the ability to stick a "dagger of destruction" into the heads of its enemies, South Korea and the United States, at any time.

The KCNA report didn't say when or where the recent test-firing took place. South Korean officials said the launch on Saturday took place near the North Korean coastal town of Sinpo, where analysts have previously detected efforts by the North to develop submarine-launched ballistic missile systems.

The North last test-launched a submarine-launched ballistic missile on Dec. 25, but that test was seen as failure, the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. The North first claimed of a successful submarine-launched missile test in May last year.

U.S. Strategic Command, headquartered at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, said its "systems detected and tracked what we assess was a North Korean submarine missile launch from the Sea of Japan." A statement from Strategic Command added that the missile launch "did not pose a threat to North America."

U.S. military forces "remain vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations and are fully committed to working closely with our Republic of Korea and Japanese allies to maintain security," it said.

The U.S. State Department said that in response to Saturday's launch, it was limiting the travel of North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong and his delegation to U.N. functions in New York, where they are attending a U.N. meeting on sustainable development. The U.S. noted "launches using ballistic missile technology are a clear violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions."

"We call on North Korea to refrain from actions that further destabilize the region and focus instead on taking concrete steps toward fulfilling its commitments and international obligations," said State Department spokesman John Kirby.

North Korea has recently sent a barrage of missiles and artillery shells into the sea amid ongoing annual military drills between the United States and South Korea. Pyongyang says the drills are a preparation for an invasion of the North. The firings also come as the North expresses anger about toughened international sanctions over its recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch.

North Korea's belligerence may also be linked to a major ruling party congress next month meant to further cement leader Kim Jong Un's grip on power. Promoting military accomplishments could be an attempt to overshadow a lack of economic achievements ahead of the Workers' Party congress, the first since 1980.
Dolores Sara Barbarick of Napa celebrated her 100th birthday on April 16, gathering with family and friends at the Napa Valley Care Center.

Barbarick was born April 16, 1916. She worked at a young age for the war effort, then met her Navy husband-to-be, Lewis Victor Barbarick, and became a full-time homemaker, raising three sons. After the family moved to Napa, she worked at the Ridgeview Middle School cafeteria for a brief period.

She has always enjoyed family camping and traveling to Mexico and Hawaii, and particularly enjoyed going on cruises.

Her three sons are Victor, Robert and William. She has four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
As I have made the stroll from my wifes hospital room to the NICU these past few days, it has been hard to fathom the way that our family has been put together.

This past Sunday, my gorgeous wife  a white evangelical, like megave birth to our beautiful black triplet daughters whom we adopted as embryos. These sweet girls will hopefully soon be coming home to meet their 3-year-old African-American brother and 2-year-old biracial sister, both of whom we adopted as infants. The normalcy of this paragraph is something I have come to take for granted. Yet what seems to us to be the logical outcome of being anti-abortion is still something that to others often needs much explaining.

I grew up as a child of evangelical missionaries in Honduras, very aware of racial diversity because I was the blue-eyed, cotton-topped white kid who stuck out like a sore thumb. But all the while felt deeply connected to the people there, even though we looked very different. My wife, on the other hand, grew up in the delta of Mississippi and it wasnt until she took a few trips to Haiti that the veil of racial prejudice was lifted from her eyes. One of the central themes of Christianity is, after all, that God, through His Son, is calling people from every tongue, tribe and nation. Grasping diversity will make the world stronger as we marvel at Gods creative genius on display through His peoples varying pigments, personalities and proficiencies. Our differences are cause for celebration, not scorn.

When we were still dating, a common bond that drew us together was the fact that Rachel and I both wanted to adopt. While we were fertile, we were both deeply convicted that one of the ways to be pro-life is to involve ourselves in adoption. Several years into our marriage, even as we were pursuing the idea of returning to Honduras as missionaries with the Presbyterian Church in America, we visited an adoption agency in Mississippi, where we were living at the time. We were also trying at the time to conceive naturally. Knowing that it is often more challenging to find adoptive homes in the United States for non-Caucasian children, we informed the agency that we were willing to accept any child except a fully Caucasian child. We did this with the deeply held conviction that if the Lord wanted us to have a fully Caucasian child, my wife would conceive naturally.

We see protection of children not as charity, nor as part of a political agenda, but as something near to the heart of God. Because every human life bears his image, all life -no matter how young or old, no matter the stages of developmenthas inherent dignity and value. The Scriptures testify that God has always pleaded for the protection of his most helpless and needy image-bearers. Another prevalent theme of the Bible is that God adopts believers into his own family. When we adopt, we are echoing his own compassionate work, giving the world a glimpse of the truth and beauty of the gospel.

When we began the adoption process, we knew race could play a major role in our family dynamics, which led us to ponder deeply what a racially diverse family would look like. We believe when you look into any humans eyes, you look into the face of an image-bearer of Godinto the eyes of a person whose soul is eternal. While that is the common thread of all humanity, it doesnt mean our racial differences are insignificant. We see the human familys varying physical characteristics as awesome reminders of Gods creative brilliance. Its not that we think race doesnt exist, or that we dont see it. In fact, its the oppositewe see it, and we embrace it.

There is something beautiful and enriching being the only white face sitting and chatting with some of my black friends as my son gets his hair cut on a Saturday morning. There is also something wonderful in the relationship that is built as my wife asks a black friend on Facebook how to care for our little biracial daughters hair. The beauty of a multi-ethnic family is found there, in the fact that the differences are the very thing that make ours richer and fuller. It forces you to think in a new way about the way you think, speak, act and live.

But, we knew, especially in the South, that a white couple with non-white children would draw a myriad different reactions. There will always be the older white woman in Walmart who stared at us with sheer disgust, or the black mother who looked at us and just shook her head. However, there was also the young black girl who wept when we told her this little boy with her skin color was our son, and the older white doctor who lovingly prayed over him and held him so tenderly. These latter experiences were rays of hope reminding us how far our country had come, while the former experiences reminded us how far we still need to go.

It was our commitment to the protection of the unborn and to the idea of continuing to add to our family that led us, last year, to the National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC), a Christian embryo bank. With our adopted children keeping us busy, we hadnt been exactly looking for anything to add to our already-full plate. However, we had recently run into a couple who highly encouraged us to look into embryo adoption. We were deeply moved by the idea of adding more children to our family by rescuing these tiny lives created from in-vitro fertilization, and intrigued by the thought of Rachel getting to experience pregnancy.

We live in a world with hundreds of thousands of embryos frozen in the United States alone. Most who arent selected by their biological parents are donated to science or destroyed or kept frozen. If Christiansor othersreally believe life begins at conception, it follows that we should respond by being willing to support embryo adoption and even take part in it ourselves.

When we met with the NEDC, we were again faced with the question of what ethnicity we would choose for our adopted embryos. We wanted additional siblings to feel connected to our first two children racially, and asked the team at the NEDC if we could be matched with African-American embryos. They agreed with our thoughts about our kids matching each other racially and were supportive of the decision to select African American embryos.

In September of last year, we had two embryos implanted and began the long wait to see whether the transfer was successful. The day to visit the doctor could not come fast enough. Six weeks after the transfer we made a very nervous trip to the local hospital in Honduras, where we were serving as full-time missionaries. We began to describe everything to our doctor in Spanish (broken Spanish, that is). He asked us a few times if we were sure that we had transferred two embryos. Yes, of course we were sure, we said. However, one of those embryos had split in two inside Rachels womb. She was indeed pregnantnot only with twins, but triplets!

Its been heartening to see virtually all of our friends and family express overwhelming support for our family and the unusual ways weve built it. In our minds, we are just living out our dream. A dream that may not look like the average family, but one that we are thankful could come true in light of our countrys history. Its especially encouraging to see so many of our fellow millennial evangelicals now placing a high priority on life, adoption and multi-ethnic families.

I felt sheer delight during this pregnancy watching my son and daughter, with his dark brown skin and her with the ringlet hair and slightly tan skin, kiss my white wifes growing belly. Each evening, they said good night to those three growing little girls in her belly, and now they get to finally say sweet dreams to their baby sistersface-to-adorable-face.

This is not the way we planned it 12 years ago when we were dating and talking about adoption, but oh, how thankful we are for God blessing us with these sweet little ones He has placed in our care. I can remember a friend going through the adoption process telling me he had always wanted his family to look like a little United Nations. As I look at my growing family, I prefer to take it a step further, daring to hope that our family picture is a little hint of Heaven.
A motorist was arrested on multiple drug and other allegations after a traffic stop in American Canyon, according to police.

Shortly after midnight Saturday, officers stopped a vehicle at Flosden Road and Corcoran Avenue, Sgt. Dave Ackman reported.

A check of the vehicle by the search dog Chase revealed 2 ounces of suspected heroin, 1 ounce each of suspected methamphetamine and cocaine, and 4 ounces of suspected marijuana, according to Napa County sheriff's Sgt. Doug Pace.

Also discovered in the vehicle were stolen mail, a shaved key and a credit card reader, as well as an embosser for forging credit cards, according to Ackman.

The occupant, 32-year-old Patrick Wayne Grady of Antelope in Sacramento County, was arrested and booked into the Napa County jail on suspicion of drug possession with intent to sell, criminal impersonation and possessing burglary tools.
Three sets of parents will share their stories as part of a trans panel to be held at the monthly PFLAG meeting on Tuesday in Napa.

PFLAG, which stands for Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, holds a support meeting every month and sometimes features an educational component, said Rosemarie Vertullo, PFLAG president. However, this will be the first time theyve ever had a panel that is specifically aimed at helping families and friends of individuals who identify as transgender or are questioning their gender.

Its something the community needs, Vertullo said. There are more and more people coming out as trans and they really do need advocates, especially in their families.

Vertullo said that, although there is still more work to be done when it comes to the rights of individuals who identify as gay or lesbian, there is even more work to be done when it comes to those identifying as transgender.

The panelists, made up of parents of transgender or questioning children ranging from elementary-school age to adulthood, will share their personal stories as well as discuss transgender issues on the state and national levels, Vertullo said. One issue that might come up is what is going on in North Carolina, she said, where state law mandates that individuals use public restrooms that correspond to the biological sex listed on someones birth certificate.

Panelists will explore these unique challenges in addition to providing insight into the coming out process and dealing with trans issues in families, schools and access to services.

The panel is open to the public, but Vertullos priority is for PFLAG to become a resource for parents and allies who have questions and need support.

My gut feeling is that this is going to be a really good panel and a really good meeting, she said.

The meeting will be from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Wolfe Center, 2310 First St., in Napa. If it is a success, a similar panel will be held during one of PFLAGs satellite meetings at St Luke's Episcopal Church, 1504 Myrtle St., in Calistoga, which is held every second Thursday of the month.

Additional information and resources will be available at the meeting. Refreshments will be served.

For more information, visit facebook.com/PFLAGNapa or call 707-681-1477.
Harvey and Dorothy Rose lived a simple life.

Neither had a high-paying job  Harvey was a carpenter and Dorothy, who worked at Napa State Hospital before marriage, was a homemaker who also worked part-time for 30 years in a doctors office. For more than 50 years, they lived in a modest Alta Heights home on East Avenue.

Youd never have guessed the couple would become millionaire philanthropists, but thats exactly what they became.

This is what happens when people are thrifty and they invest wisely, said longtime family friend Sudie Pollock.

Harvey and Dorothy were peace-filled people, comfortable with what they had and grateful for their blessings, said Pollock. Harvey died in 2011 at age 93 and Dorothy in 2014 at age 85.

Unbeknownst to those around them, the couple had made arrangements to donate almost $1 million to four charities with local ties.

Pollocks parents lived next door to the Roses for many years. Harvey and Dorothy didnt have any children or family close by, so the two families grew close.

She was sweet, said Pollock of Dorothy Rose. And so was Harvey. They were very gentle people, living unassuming, frugal lives, she said.

A number of years before their deaths, the Roses asked Pollock to be their trustee and executor.

I said, Thats such an honor.

At first, she didnt have any idea of the extent of their estate, Pollock said. I knew they had the house, but I no idea what their investments were.

After Dorothy passed, the couples intentions became known. According to Dorothys instructions, approximately $235,000 each was given to the Queen of the Valley Foundation, Collabria Care (formerly Napa Valley Hospice & Adult Day Service), the Salvation Army and the California Eastern Star Foundations cancer research branch.

The estate was recently finalized and Pollock sent the checks to the four nonprofits in March.

Joanne Sutro, director development and communications at Collabria Care in Napa, said that the gift from the Roses was a surprise. To say that we were ecstatic is not an understatement, she said.

In the past 10 years, the nonprofit has received fewer than six estate gifts of such magnitude.

We get a lot of modest donations, but a major gift like this, an estate gift of these proportions, is pretty special.

The gift also comes with some sadness because I didnt get to thank them, Sutro said.

Sutro never met the Roses, but if she had, I would ask what prompted their generosity to us. Theres always a story, and I would love to hear what their story is.

The money will be used to support unfunded or charity patient care and services at Collabria, including caregiver support groups, training, grief counseling and family consultations.

Sometimes people think that they cant support causes in a significant way. But a planned gift such as this makes it possible to have a huge impact on charities, said Sutro.

Damon Tinnon, director of gift planning at Queen of the Valley Medical Center Foundation, said he talked with Dorothy a number of times on the phone, but she passed away before they could meet in person.

Tinnon said he knew the donation was planned but didnt know the amount.

She felt she had been blessed in her life and wanted to do something, said Tinnon.

Donors like Dorothy and Harvey werent the kind of couple that attended galas to bid hundreds of thousands in auctions, he said.

People like the Roses are more under the radar but have this idea about giving. She just saw the Queen as valuable and wanted to do something very significant.

Receiving such a major gift never gets old, said Tinnon. Holding a check in the six figures, youre just floored.

For their donation, Dorothy and Harveys names will be listed on the Hall of Honor at the hospital entrance with others who have donated between $200,000 and $500,000.

Its amazing, said Tinnon.

The Rose donation likely to be used for new programs and services, including projects like the new cardiac catheter lab, cancer center and advanced training, officials said.

Tinnon said the Roses came from a generation of people whose legacy was important.

These are people who werent just living for today. It matters to them how the Rose family name is known while they were gone. Thats certainly something we want to see more of, he said.

Dorna Bashor knew the Roses from Dorothys membership in the Masons Eastern Star organization. Dorothy belonged for more than 60 years, Bashor estimated. She helped raise funds for many causes, including eye and cancer research.

The two women met in the 1960s. Dorothy was a very elegant lady who stood about 6 feet tall, recalled Bashor. She was so nice. She never said a bad word about anybody.

They had a beautiful home, but they didnt waste money, said Bashor. I think she made about all of her clothes. It was something she was raised to do.

She was surprised to hear that the couple left such significant gifts. I knew they were comfortable. I had no idea they had that kind of money.

She hopes word of their generosity will spread, Bashor said.

It might make other people get in there and give a little. Im sure there are many people around this county that could give a little bit more to help others out.

The $235,000 gift to the Salvation Army went to the organizations national headquarters, Pollock said. It could not be determined Friday how the Salvation Army, which runs a variety of programs to help people in need, would use the money.

Pollock said shes glad the Roses had the foresight to think about doing this for the community.

I want more people to realize if they think about it, they, too, can leave a legacy like this, rather than have a new car every five years or the biggest house on the block, she said.

If they saved, they could make a gift like this to help many people.
Officers were called to a home in the 700 block of Lincoln Avenue at 6:35 p.m. after reports of an altercation involving a married couple, according to Sgt. Heath Morrison. An argument ended with the husband receiving visible injuries after being punched and kicked, Morrison said.
The loss of music legend Prince has been felt through out every genre of music, leading to some beautifully stirring tributes. At a tour stop in Horsens, Denmark, the Dixie Chicks paid tribute to the late artist with a stirring take on Nothing Compares 2 U, a song written by the artist.

With a stage decked out in purple bearing Princes symbol, the trio delivered a passionate take on the song made famous by Sinead OConnor.

Watch the Dixie Chicks cover Nothing Compares 2 U.

https://youtu.be/AB_QlH5j4_I
Over the course of his visit to Ukraine (20-22 April), the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, General Petr Pavel met with the Ukrainian Minister of Defence General Stepan Poltorak, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Oleksander Turchynov, and Chief of Defence, General Viktor Muzhenko. He also provided the closing address to the 16th International NATO Week Conference, in Kiev.

During his meetings with Ukrainian Minister of Defence, General Stepan Poltorak and Chief of Defence, General Viktor Muzhenko, the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, General Petr Pavel discussed the current security situation in and around Ukraine as well as the reform of the Ukrainian defence sector in general and of the Armed Forces in particular. General Pavel acknowledged the significant progress made in areas such as command and control, logistics capabilities and training, adding that the scope of reforms is truly impressive considering the backdrop of real-life operations. He also stressed NATOs continued commitment to NATOs partnership with Ukraine and its reform efforts, as demonstrated through a variety of means, be it the depth and broad spectrum of activities that NATO and Ukraine are doing together or the fact that as a long-standing partner, Ukraine has been invited to attend the NATO Summit in Warsaw in July where a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission will take place.

On the backdrop of the first NATO-Russia Council meeting since June 2014, General Petr Pavel took the opportunity to reassure the Ukrainian military leadership: At times like these, political dialogue is useful and necessary if we are to reduce the risk of military incidents and to clarify and resolve serious disagreements. But this does not mean a return to business as usual. This will not happen until Russia again respects international law.

The Chairman concluded his visit to Ukraine by providing the closing address to the 16th International Kiev Week, organised by the NATO Defence College with the collaboration of the NATO School in Oberammergau, in support of the Ukrainian National Defence University. In his speech, General Pavel focused on the current threat landscape and NATOs adaptation to address these threats, highlighting that NATO is a cohesive and proactive security institution in todays strategic environment. It is the most reliable and ready military alliance the world has ever known. But we are stronger together, 28 for 28, in conjunction with our partners, in the face of any challenge. We will continue to deter state actors with capable and responsive force, while having the ability to project stability to thwart non-state actors.
Syunik governor in Frances Vienne, sister city of Armenias Goris, discusses implemented projects, future cooperation

Climate protesters throw mashed potatoes at Monet painting in Germany museum

There is chance for peace in Ukraine, Macron says

US, Russia defense chiefs discuss Ukraine situation for 2nd time in last few days

Turkey plans to set up 2 more military bases in northern Syria

Germany wants to use Israel UAVs to protect its key infrastructures

UK defense secretary holds phone talk with Russia counterpart

US to attempt set Russia oil price cap above $60 per barrel?

Russia, Turkey defense ministers confer about Ukraine situation

Armenia official: Terms for buying, building houses for those displaced from Artsakh have improved

Saudi Arabia forum set to draw American business leaders despite existing tensions

Iran plans to increase natural gas exports to Turkey

Iran army ground forces holding exercise in West Azarbaijan Province

Sovereignty renunciation to be punished in Armenia with 12-15 years of imprisonment, as per justice ministry draft

2 pilots killed in Russia fighter jet crash

Russia, France defense ministers discuss Ukraine

Fighter jet crashes into house in Russias Irkutsk

150 residents of 3 Karabakh settlements handed over to Azerbaijan get compensation certificates

Rishi Sunak confirms UK premier bid

Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson hold talks

Biden slammed for 'scary' long pause during interview

Elite US troops conducting exercises on Ukraine border

Iran MP: Military exercises on Azerbaijan border are decisive response to Israel

Xi Jinping elected Communist Party of China Central Committee general secretary

Armenia envoy presents credentials to Bosnia and Herzegovina Presidency chair

Hungary to approve by years end Sweden, Finland petitions to join NATO

US researchers debunk main theory for origin of life

Iranian MP: Iran will conduct military exercises wherever it deems necessary

Finnish delegation to visit Ankara to discuss NATO membership

Social media giants are likely to oppose Turkey's new law

Pastor steals $900,000 to buy stocks and car in U.S.

Lithuanian President Nauseda is named most popular politician in country

Charles III will embark on longest tour of world in history of royal family

Deputy Director of Institute of Oriental Studies of RAS: Baku's goal is that Karabakh has no Armenian population

Hurricane Roslyn in Pacific Ocean intensifies to third category

Italy's new prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, begins forming government

U.S. Treasury Department records budget deficit of over $429 billion in September

Why does Baku need aggravation on border with Armenia? Skakov assesses likelihood of new aggression

Iranian Foreign Minister: I had important meeting with Pashinyan in Armenia

Johnson spotted in economy class on flight from Dominican Republic to Britain

Armenian PM and European Parliament Resident Rapporteur for Armenia discuss Karabakh situation

Authorities in Kherson urge residents to immediately leave city

Russian expert: Baku's attempts to open corridor by force will cause negative response not only from IRI or Russian

Telegraph: Britain to send about 60 old tanks to NATO base in Germany for exercises

Artak Beglaryan: You will see me in new position

Netanyahu: Iran nuclear deal could bring Russia 'hundreds of billions'

Russia and Turkey begin to develop gas hub project

PM Pashinyan discusses agenda of bilateral relations with Iranian FM

Anna Hakobyan meets Armenians in Paris

Sargsyan: Recognition of Artsakh people's right for self-determination must be reflected in legal documents

Italy's first female prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, sworn in

Private jet goes missing off coast of Costa Rica

Times of India: India tests nuclear-capable Agni Prime missile

Spiegel: German Foreign Minister and Defense Minister ask to allocate 2.2 billion for military aid to Kiev

Deputy PM of Armenia and Head of Sharjah Heritage Institute discuss strengthening of Armenian-Emirati relations

Biden allows participation in U.S. presidential election in 2024

Secretary of Security Council of Armenia and representatives of AIISA discuss security issues

Kakhovka reservoir increases water discharges in case of possible destruction of HPP

Pashinian's spouse: Yesterday at Elysee Palace I was received by dear Brigitte Macron

At least 15 people killed in bus-truck collision in India

Explosion at Uzbek Defense Ministry depot injures 16 people

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President Harutyunyan receives group of members of Union of Artsakh Reserve Officers NGO

Newspaper: Armenia restores diplomatic ties with Hungary?

China hit by 5.5 magnitude earthquake

Armenian Defense Ministry denies Azerbaijani report on shelling, calling it disinformation

Blinken: Moscow is not interested in stopping aggression against Ukraine

Japan and U.S. will hold joint military exercises

France withdraws from Energy Charter Treaty

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Baku outraged by Iran's statements and frightened by IRGC military exercises

Who are main beneficiaries of 'Zangezur' corridor?: Another anonymous article by 'Haykakan Zhamanak' newspaper

Ankara decides to stand up for Riyadh amid deteriorating relations between Saudi Arabia and U.S.

French Foreign Minister considers it vital to keep lines of communication with Russia open

Pentagon refuses to give details of conversation between Austin and Shoigu

Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin: Head of Caucasus Muslims Department again made slanderous and false statements

Erdogan denies using chemical weapons against Kurds and threatens those who dare to talk about it

Saudi Arabia and China will strengthen their ties in energy sector

Governor of Gegharkunik province receives representatives of OSCE fact-finding mission

Penny Mordaunt runs for Prime Minister of Great Britain

Sweden expects ratification of NATO membership application by Hungary and Turkey to be completed soon

European Union will allocate 1.5 billion euros per month to Kiev in 2023

An Israeli-built flight school opened in Greece

Russian Railways is negotiating with Azerbaijan and Iran to launch the Rasht-Astara route

Overchuk: Construction of road through Meghri, whose sovereignty is not in question, depends on Armenia's position

Armenian Defense Minister's working visit to India is over

Hungary will not agree to limit prices for imported gas

Iranian Foreign Minister: Iran considers Armenia one of most important transit countries

Naribekyan participates in meeting of secretaries general of PACE parliaments

Delegation from United Arab Emirates visits Armenia at invitation of head of MONKS: Two agreements signed

Dollar, euro drop in Armenia

Iran consul general in Armenias Kapan: We do not accept any change of borders

Baza: Mobile military registration and enlistment offices will be removed on Russian-Georgian border

Iranian Consul: Countries of region do not need presence of foreign armed forces

Armenia FM: Iran consulate general in Kapan will be important for regional security

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The Pope's visit to the South Caucasus heralds a bright future that will overcome the severe present, stated Leonardo Sandri, Cardinal, the prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Eastern Churches, in an interview with the Vatican Radio.

Note that Cardinal Sandri will deliver a memorial mass on April 24 at the Pontifical Armenian Lyceum.

In his interview he said : "I believe that it is necessary to remember the past with its traumatic events. However, we need to be reborn to new possibilities and hopes. Of course, there are wounds left. We are all deeply affected by the death of people in Nagorno-Karabakh, and we hope that with international assistance it will be possible to find a fair and long lasting resolution of the conflict that can bring serious consequences for two peoples, including Armenians , who are very dear to the Catholic Church . Armenia is the first Christian state in the world. Let's hope that the conflict will not grow into a war of religions. So, I think, it is necessary to have the support of those who can and should help to prevent the clashes that multiply the sufferings of the Armenian people, for them not to add to the wars of religions and peoples that poison the existence of human beings.

The Popes visit to the Caucasus will take place in two stages . First he will visit Armenia , then Georgia and Azerbaijan. As the Holy See has already said the Pope will meet with people . He will be able to implement what he had done during all his journeys  meet and be close to people, especially those who suffer . At the same time, his visit also will herald the future, which will defeat the severe present .

Similarly, the Pope visited Lesbos and Lampedusa to bring the message that what was happening there, should not continue . One can not sacrifice people in favor of others interests and projects. The Pop opens his arms and heart for all the believers. At the same time he heralds that we must do everything in our power in order to see the future of Armenia as open and carrying all its valuables to the international community.

I think this visit will be good both for Armenia and other two countries, Georgia and Azerbaijan . The Caucasus should serve as a bridge that connects the East and the West and not as a place of separation walls and wars. "
April 24 is not simply a day or history; its an every day alarm and struggle, Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, noted in his April 24 message Sunday.

Each day on the calendar of every Armenian should become April 24.

[] Today the same genocide perpetrator continues its genocide against the Armenian people. Stay awake, Armenian people, the aforementioned message reads.

Aram I pointed to numerous expression of the continuing genocide by Turkey, noting the denial of the 1915 events by the Turkish authorities, that countrys anti-Armenian propaganda, seizure of numerous Western Armenian and Cilician churches, estates and institutions, Turkish terrorists invasion to Kessab and their barbaric actions there, Baku and Sumgait pogroms, as well as the war against Karabakh unleashed by Azerbaijan with the support of Turkey.

We shouldnt allow the genocide perpetrator to try to enter the lands liberated at the cost of our blood.

For this purpose, it is necessary to carry out the following steps:

a) The strengthening of the Armenian army is an urgent imperative.

b) The diplomatic relations of Armenia must become more influential and efficient. Here the Diaspora can contribute to the foreign relations of Armenia thanks to its rich experience, especially in the work related to the Armenian Genocide.

c) In the present globalized world, the propaganda war has great influence alongside the economic, political and military impulses. Our propaganda activities must also become more organized and active.

According to the Catholicos, the defense of Karabakh and strengthening of its independence are of fatal importance to Armenia. This should become our pan-Armenian policy. This is the path to the self-defense and strengthening of Armenia. This is the path to reparation of the rights of the Armenian people,the message says.
The Election Commission has banned publication of political advertisements on 24 and 25 April in West Bengal print media unless they are pre-certified by the Commission's Media Certification and Monitoring Committee at State or district level. The Commission sent a directive to this effect to the state CEO yesterday that publication of such advertisement, without pre-certification by the relevant EC Committee, by political parties, candidates or any organisation etc one day prior to the polls and on the day of voting of the fourth phase on Monday will not be permitted. The Commission has asked the CEO to issue similar directive to all the newspapers in the state in this regard. (ANI)
Clearing the decks for his deportation from UK, External Affairs Minister today revoked the passport of liquor baron Vijay Mallya to ensure his presence before the law enforcing authorities. The Ministry had issued a show cause notice to Mallya on the request of the Enforcement Directorate. The ED had also urged the MEA to initiate deportation proceedings to bring Mallya back to face the cases of willfully defaulting the huge amount of loans of several banks. "Having considered the replies furnished by the business man to the show cause notice, facts brought by the Enforcement Directorate and Non Bailable Warrant under the PMLA Act, 2002, issued by Special Judge, Mumbai, the MEA revoked the passport of Shri Vijay Mallya under Section 10(3) (c) and 10(3) (h) of the Passport Act, 1967", MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said. More UNI MK SS -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0090-698352.Xml
India is gearing up to implement model regulations for forecasting and scheduling of generation of energy from wind and solar plants to ensure smooth integration of renewable power into the grid. The Forum of Regulator, a body of electricity sector watchdogs, has sought help of a private consultant in implementing these regulations at the state level. The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission has already notified framework regulations in this regard. Availability-based Tariff (ABT) has been the cornerstone of opening the entire Indian market to generators. The CERC has been encouraging states to adopt ABT for commercial settlement. However, the problem stem from the fact that not all states have implemented ABT. The FoR will take help of the consultant in identifying challenges to implementing the regulations at the state level. The NDA Government has increased national solar mission target by five times to one lakh ME while envisaging 60,000 MW electricity generation from wind by 2022. But being intermittent in nature, renewable power poses risks to the grid stability. As of now, bulk of India's renewable power is consumed within states where generation happens. But in coming years, renewable plants will also supply electricity to other states, which would pose challenge to regional load dispatch centres.UNI NM PS RAI0929 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0426-697830.Xml
"Microsoft has agreed to withdraw its regulatory complaints against Google, reflecting our changing legal priorities. We will continue to focus on competing vigorously for business and for customers," the Reuters quoted a Microsoft spokesperson as saying in an e-mail.

Search engine Google on the other hand said the companies would want to compete vigorously based on the merits of their products and not in legal proceedings.

"Following our patent agreement, we have now agreed to withdraw regulatory complaints against one another," Google said in a statement.

Both companies had earlier in September last agreed to bury all patent infringement litigations against each other, settling 18 cases in the United States and Germany. (ANI)
With a view to curb use of black money and likely inducement of voters in the Tamil Nadu assembly election, comprehensive instructions have been issued by the Election Commission, which include formation of flying squads, static surveillance teams, and video surveillance teams.These will be assisted by the Police and other agencies such as Investigation Directorates of Income Tax Department, and Customs. State Excise Departments and Police authorities have been asked to monitor production, distribution, sale and storage of liquor and other intoxicants during the election process.As many as 702 flying squads have been deployed in the state from the date of announcement of the elections that is March 4. Up to 712 static surveillance teams have also been deployed in all constituencies. Complaints relating to transportation of illegal cash, liquor, narcotics are being monitored round the clock.The notification for Elections to Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly was issued on April 22 , and to prevent abuse of money power, the Election Commission has taken several proactive steps and has involved different enforcement agencies, including the Investigation Wing of the Income tax Department, which have made elaborate arrangements across the state for taking prompt action including conduct of search and seizure operations.As per report received from the Chief Electoral Officer, Tamil Nadu, on April 22, the Income Tax Investigation Wing in Tamil Nadu carried out search and seizure operations in and around Chennai. The search based on intelligence developed by the Investigation Wing has resulted in seizure of Rs. 5.2 crore in cash. The money seized was not related to normal business activity of the group and major part of it was suspected to be linked with hawala operations and was likely to be used in the upcoming election of Tamil Nadu.On the same day, based on a tip-off, the Investigation Wing also conducted a search at Karur District in Tamil Nadu and recovered Rs. 4.77 crore in cash. Goods worth over one crore rupees in the form of dhotis and sarees etc, suspected to be used for inducement of voters, were found in the premise and the same has been placed under restraint.MORE UNI PRA ADG 1220 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0384-698433.Xml
According to a release yesterday from CM's office stated that the award was organised by the leaders international, a business magazine and co-organised by American leadership development association (ALDA), a US based NGO.

Chief Minister Zeliang was selected by a panel of renowned professionals from all parts of the world and the awardees were selected in various categories based on their leadership qualities and contributions to their fields in the last three years or so, the release said.

Meanwhile, it further informed at the sideline of the event, Zeliang also met Sultan Sulaiman, prince of Selangor and discussed possibilities of trade and commerce. "Both agreed that detailed discussions should be held again for mutual benefit of the regions they represent," it added.

Mr Zeliang also met Dr Mazlan, the ceo of the Institute of Darul Ridzwan, economic and political research, state of Perak (Malaysia) and the economic advisor to the King of Abu Dhabi, Princess Badaria.

During these exchanges, Zeliang expressed his "fervent desire" that the north eastern states should become the hub of commercial activities in the light of the central government's act east policy and not a mere corridor through which trade and commerce occurs, the CMO release further maintained.UNI AS AKM PS RAI1220

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Eight people were killed and a teenage girl was critically injured when a car returning from a marriage party collided with the mini-truck in Akbarpur police station area of Kanpur Dehat district on National Highway-2 today. Superintendent of Police (SP) Pushpanjali Devi said here that the accident occurred near Shahzadpur village when the people travelling in the car were returning from a marriage function in Etawah. She said that an 18 year old girl, who was critically injured in the accident had to face amputate of one of her hand. Victim had been referred to Lucknow. All the deceased were of the car and they were residents of Kanpur and its adjoining places.UNI MB PS RAI1330 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0196-698470.Xml
Samastipur district Magistrate Pranav Kumar said that Dr Anupam Kumar, who was the presiding officer of a polling booth at Rupali in Patori block, complained of chest pain and was rushed to sub-divisional hospital. Doctors declared him brought dead, he said adding that the deceased was a resident of Tajpur in Samastipur district.

Meanwhile, polling was on amid tight security arrangements in 60 blocks spread over 38 districts of the state.

Reports of stray incidents of clashes have come in from Ara, Nawada, Gaya and Munger districts. Despite a severe heat wave, voters had turned up at booths in a large number. UNI IS AKM PS RK1338

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Advocating strongly for the place of women folk in society, Union Minister of Minority Affairs Najma Heptulla today said that unless and until the gender equality has been established, an all round development would be a distant dream."When Prime Minister Narendra Modi talks about 'sab ka saath, sab ka vikash', he does not say about the backward classes alone but womenfolk are also included in it," Dr Heptulla said. "When a woman becomes President, Prime Minister or Lok Sabha Speaker, her power is attached to her post alone but the real women empowerment is possible when the common women's view would be accepted in each every household and society," Dr Heptulla said during inaugural session of a workshop at women writers' convention here.Mentioning about deities such as Sarswati, Laxmi and Durga, the Minister said "We offer obeisance to Sarswarti, consider to be the goddess of education but we do not educate our girls. When a girl child is born, we say Laxmi Goddess of wealth has come but we deprive her from property. Similarly, We adore women as Maa Durga but do not provide power to them.""This is not a question of fight between men and women but their rights. When a woman comes to power, she thinks about the welfare of women," she pointed out.Taking a dig at those who term women as 'Abla' (Weaker one), the Rajya Sabha Member from Madhya Pradesh said " I strongly object such concept, being a woman I never suffered from inferiority complex. On the contrary, I always feel myself strong. Women begets the next generation but a man can not do so."Among other dignitaries, state Women and Child Development Minister Maya Singh, writer Mehrunnisa Parvez and Madhya Pradesh State Women's Commission President Lata Wankhede were also present.UNI SN-BDG ADG BD1535 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0044-698691.Xml
The Opposition parties in Tamil Nadu likethe BJP, DMK and the Communist Party of India (CPI) today urged the Election Commission (EC) to disclose the exact quantum of amount seized from a godown in Karur a couple of days back, even as the EC today said that the seizures by flying squads across the State has touched Rs 42 crores. Talking to reporters here, BJP State President Ms Tamizhisai Soundararajan said huge amount of cash, allegedly meant for distribution to the voters by the ruling AIADMK, was seized in Karur. She wanted the EC to disclose the exact amount of money seized by the officials in Karur. She said she had also received reports that the ruling party was distributing money to the voters by issuing tokens in TASMAC liquor shops. Meanwhile, DMK Treasurer M K Stalin alleged that the EC was acting in favour of the ruling party and trying to hide the real facts in the seizure of money at Karur. CPI State Secretary R Mutharasan also wantd the EC to disclose the quantum of amount seized in Karur. He also alleged that the EC was acting in a biased manner. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral officer Rajesh Lakhoni told reporters that Rs 4.77 crore was seized in Karur and the EC has ordered a probe into it. ''A detailed probe is on into the seizure of money in Karur'', he added. He said so far Rs 42 crores have been seized by flying squads and surveillance teams across the state. The seized cash would be returned immediately once they provide necessary documents, he added. UNI GV 1635 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0414-698898.Xml
The three-tier panchayat poll turned violent today as three people were killed in bomb explosion and shootout in Naxalite-dominated Jamui and Nawada districts. Earlier in the day, a presiding officer Dr Anupam Kumar died of cardiac arrest in Samastipur immediately after the 10th phase panchayat poll got underway this morning. While two people engaged in manufacturing of crude bombs for use in the ongoing poll in Jamui were killed, one person was killed in a shootout between rival groups in Nawada district. Police said two people lost their lives when the crude bombs exploded during manufacturing at Sanghara village under Chakai police station area in Jamui district. In Nawada, supporters of rival candidates fought a gunbattle at Daultapur village under Narhat police station in which one was killed and five others received bullet injuries. The shootout took place outside booth No 10 and 11 in the village.MORE UNI IS KKS AD AE BL1639 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0108-698823.Xml
Former CPI-M General Secretary Prakash Karat today lodged a complaint at Mandir Marg police station in central Delhi, seeking the registration of an FIR against Trinamool Congress leader Derek O'Brien for depicting the Communist leader in a photograph in a manner that showed that he was being offered sweets by BJP leader and Home Minister Rajnath Singh.The CPM leader took the step following a press conference on Saturday, addressed by the Trinamool leader in Kolkata, when he played two videos showing four pictures, including one of Mr Karat, being offered sweets by Mr Rajnath Singh. The videos also had speeches by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi.Addressing mediapersons here, Mr Karat said, "I have lodged a complaint at Mandir Marg police station (central Delhi) because morphing a photograph by a political party in the manner it has been done is a crime under the cyber laws. I have sought the registration of an FIR against the Trinamool Congress leader."According to sources, the CPM leader has never met Mr Rajnath Singh in the manner it has been shown in the morphed picture. This was the reason why he felt offended and saw political motives behind the development. UNI SM RSA AE 1755 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0271-698978.Xml
Expressing disappointment over the Centre's stand on the political turmoil in Uttarakhand, leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad has on the eve of the Budget Session said that the Congress Party may bring a resolution condemning the move of the ruling dispensation. In an exclusive interview to ETV head Jagdish Chandra, Azad said the Congress Party is tough on this issue. The state's 'ousted' chief minister Harish Rawat had earlier said he is still expecting a call from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying 'let's forget what has happened in the past and start from the beginning'. Earlier on Friday, the Supreme Court admitted the Centre's challenge to the Uttarakhand High Court's decision and restored President's rule for the simple and technical reason that the April 21 High Court ruling issued by Uttarakhand Chief Justice K.M. Joseph had not been "made available in the public domain". The apex court ruled that the High Court's judgement would "remain in abeyance" till the next date of hearing on April 27. The apex court also issued directions to the High Court to release the signed judgement by April 26 to all parties involved in the case, who will subsequently file copies before the apex court on April 27. The Supreme Court also received an oral undertaking from Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi that the Centre would not revoke the President's rule in Uttarakhand till April 27 and try to impose a BJP regime in the state. Meanwhile, Azad also that the Congress Party wants the Mehbooba Mufti-led Jammu and Kashir Government to complete its full term. He, however, said that the government should not have interfered on the NIT students' issue. During the second half of the Budget Session, the BJP-led NDA Government hopes to garner the support of opposition parties in passage of key legislations, including the GST Bill. Besides, the Bill to replace Enemy Property Ordinance, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and Companies Amendment Bill will also be taken up. Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan earlier in the day held an all-party meet to discuss ways for smooth functioning of the Parliament. During the meeting, Mahajan sought cooperation from floor leaders of different parties to ensure smooth transaction of business in the House. (ANI)
Congress today slammed the ruling BJP and its government at the Centre for defaming its supremo Sonia Gandhi for 'interference' in the case of Ishrat Jahan and hit back at the saffron formation for "weaving web of deceit and deception to save skin of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling party president Amit Shah" in this case. "It is clear, a black-hearted conspiracy behind the lies, half truth and smoke screen being put up by the BJP government to divert attention of nation and save the two leaders in Ishrat Jahan case", the principal Opposition party held. ''Simple truth is that this web of deceit and deception is being woven by the government and certain sections of the media to save the skins of Prime Minister and BJP President,'' senior party leaders Kapil Sibal, Anand Sharma, M Mallikarjun Kharge, Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Shaktisinh Gohil said at a joint media conference at the AICC headquarters here this afternoon. Demanding conclusion of the trial by the court in the case within six months, the party also urged the ruling formation either to substantiate the allegations against its Chief Ms Gandhi or tender public apology. While the Opposition leaders were being defamed, those accused involved in the fake encounter and related events who were out on bail, were being rewarded and promoted, the leaders said. Elaborating on the case history, Mr Sibal said, "Ishrat and three other were killed in an encounter..,..there was a magisterial inquiry, which found that this encounter was 'fake'..,..the AK 56 and 9-mm pistols, which were found were brought by the Gujarat Police". "All four were killed by the Gujarat Police, they were killed at close range..,..when the matter reached the state High Court, an SIT was constituted, the state government led by Mr Modi also nominated a member in the SIT as well. SIT also held that this was a 'fake encounter','' he said. "The matter was later transferred to the CBI, which then filed a charge sheet in 2013. Even they called it a 'fake encounter','' Mr Sibal added. "The charge sheet was filed in 2013, for an encounter in 2004, we are in 2016 and the case hasn't moved forward at all,'' he said tauntingly raising a pointing finger at the government. "We want to ask why is this case not proceeding..,there is statement by Dy SP Goswami. It statesthat time Rajendra Kumar told DG Vanzara 'talk to CM about it', Mr Vanzara told he would talk to white beard and black beard (PP Pandey was also present). According to Mr Sibal white and black beardwere code worded expression for Mr Modi and Mr Shah,'' he said. Quoting Goswami Mr Sibal read further from a document, "On 14th June 2014, I along with G Singhal went to chamber of DG Vanzara. GL Singhal was disagreed regarding the draft complaint...as there was something to do about a girl..Ishrat..but..,Vanzara was adamant...Vanzara also told them(officers) that he (got) approval from CM(Modi)". "I went to Vanzara asking him to agree with what Singhal wanted, but he refused saying everything was decided...He had already got the green signal from Black Beard and White Beard", Mr Sibal said reading out from Mr Goswami's statement made before the magistrate under Section 164 of CrPC. Mr Sibal added, "If this goes to trial, then the people mentioned are liable to be questioned".More UNI SS RSA SB 1909 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0089-699087.Xml
The next session of Parliament commencing from tomorrow is likely to bestormy with opposition parties bracing themselves for bringing to dock the government over a numberof controversial issues, including Presidential rule in Uttarakhand, controversy over Ishrat Jahan's caseand Pakistan's reported U-turn over the issue of visit of NIA team to the neighbouring country to probeinto the Pathankot terror attack. The session set to have a stormy opening as some Opposition members have already given adjournment notices for suspension of Question Hour on day-one for taking up immediately the issue of Uttarakhand even as Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan hinted at rejection of the notices since the matter is sub judice. The government that has a heavy agenda for the legislative business for clearance in the session isdeliberating on strategy for countering effectively the Opposition onslaught and also due discharge ofbusiness. Besides, the passage of the General budget and Rail budget, the list of agenda also included passage of 13 bills in the Lok Sabha and 11 in the Rajya Sabha during the session that is scheduled to last tillMay 13. In a bid to evolve consensus among all parties over smooth functioning in the House, the Speaker today chaired a meeting of leaders of all parties. Speaking to media after the meeting, Ms Mahajan ruled out possibility of her permission to membersfor raising the issue of Uttarakhand. She said, "The issue of President's rule in Uttarakhand is sub judice. I don't think that can be discussed before the decision by the court." The demand for discussion on the subject was raised by the Congress, Janata Dal(United) and Rashtriya Janata Dal(RJD). However, the Congress refused to relent saying it would raise the issue. "This is not simply a sub judice issue, this is clear case of abuse to Article 356 and Parliament is the most appropriate forum for raising it", Congress senior leader Anand Sharma said. His party colleague Kapil Sibal also toed the same line saying Ayodhya Babri Masjid has also been a sub judice issue for decades but the BJP had raised it in Parliament for several times.Eds : pick up suitably from related series.UNI SS RSA SB 2005 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0089-699284.Xml
The issue of industrialist giant Vijay Mallya being wilful defaulter though came to the fore recently , All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) was fighting against the defaulters for the past many years. AIBEA president Rajan Nagar, who was here in connection with the 19th biannual conference of Bank of Maharashtra Employees Association (BMEA) , said here today that the increasing numbers of bank defaulters have resulted into financial loss to the banks and affected Indian economy. While talking to media persons on the sidelines of the conference, Mr Nagar said "AIBEA is contemplating to fight for protecting the interests of bank employees as no government was inclined towards taking decisions in their interest." The AIBEA has put forth mainly three demands to teach a lesson to corporate houses. These demands include publication of borrowers' list that includes credit sought by them to the tune of Rs 500 crore or more from the banks. In view of the RBI rules for not disclosing such names, Mr Nagar demanded from the government to amend the laws to allow publication of such a list. Depositors had a right to know how their hard earned money is being put to use by bankers, he added. Other demands included lodging a criminal case against these wilful defaulters. While raising the third demand, Mr Nagar said, though government is creating an investment-friendly ambience, the hard fact is that it is doling out easy finance to big corporate houses even as it isbringing down rate of interest on bank deposits. Earlier, rate of interest on bank deposits was around 9.5 per cent, which has come down to 7 per cent and the AIBEA has demanded increase in bank deposit rates, he said. Criticising the government for creating a facade that easy loans to corporate houses would generate employment he said the situation in reality is absolutely contrary. Quoting some figure of the RBI, he said in March 2008 the arrears of dues by borrowers stood at a whopping Rs 450 crore. Upto December 31, 2015, this figure touched Rs 3,61,000crore. This situation should set alarm bells ringing but the government while restructuring loans again gave credit to the same borrowers. Following this, the arrears of dues by the defaulters has gone up to a staggering Rs 8 lakh crore, he opined. In the last five years, PSBs have waived loans of big industry magnates to the tune of Rs 1,35,000crore which clearly indicate the misuse of depositors' money by the banks, he charged. MORE UNI PK RS NP AE BL1921 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-699009.Xml
Jawaharlal Nehru University student Union leader Kanhaiya Kumar alleged that a co-passenger attempted to strangle him on a Mumbai-Pune flight today.The co-passenger was identified as Manasn Jyoti Deka and another man. Both were detained by the city police, the CISF sources said here.Kanhaiya tweeted saying ''Deka, works in TCS, a strong BJP supporter assaulted me inside the aircraft. Is assault the only tool you have, to fight dissent? he asked.The student leader was on his way to Pune to attend a programme there. Meanwhile, Jet Airways issued a statement but did not respond to Kanhaiya's charges against them it said. ''Some guests on board this morning's flight Jet Airways fight 9W 618 Mumbai to Pune have been off loaded at Mumbai airport in the interest of operational safety, it said.''A senior police officer said here that a person has been detained for allegedly attacking Kanhaiya onboard a Pune-bound flight. The matter is being probed further, he added.Maharashtra minister of state for Home Ram Shinde said that there was no attack on Kanhaiya. The preliminary investigation by police revealed that the fight between two passengers led to a scuffle. Kanhaiya's allegations (are) baseless, Shinde said. In view of the development, Pune Police have further tightened security for Kanhaiya Kumar for his events in the city.UNI ST NP SB GC1833 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-699022.Xml
At least 10 people, including four children, were burnt alive and 15 others sustained burn injuries as hundreds of thatched cottages were gutted in separate incidents of fire across Bihar today. In Lakhisari, tragedy struck the house of one Girish Thakur when four minors, including three girls, in the age group of seven to 10 years were burnt alive in a major fire which broke during cooking for guests at village Pokharma under Kajra police station this afternoon. A large number of relatives had gathered at the house of Mr Thkaur for a marriage function. Aided by strong westerly wind, fire soon engulfed the entire house in which the four children got trapped and were burnt alive. Three others with serious burn injuries have been admitted to emergency ward of local government hospital in Lakhisarai.In Saran, four people were killed and six others received burn injuries in two incidents of fire in the district. While two people were burnt alive at village Jhauwa under Avtarnagar police station, as many people were killed and six others wounded at Garka under the same police station area in the district. Police said both the incidents were caused by strong westerly wind sweeping the state for the past fortnight. Two people, including a child, were killed in separate incidents of fire in Vaishali and Samastipur districts.UNI XC IS AD RSA SB BD1959 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0214-699144.Xml
The Army has been pressed into rescue operations as close to 45,000 people have been affected in floods in northern and eastern parts of Assam, while passenger train services have been suspended in hill section of the state as a precautionary measure.Official sources said here today that nearly 45,000 people have been affected in four districts of Sivsagar, Jorhat, Charaideo and Lakhimpur so far. Army, NDRF and SDRF have been pressed into rescue operations in the affected areas of worst hit Charaideo district.The Desang and Buridehing rivers are flowing above danger levels in Sivsagar district.A team of Water Resources department has already reached river island Majuli to assess the situation.Meanwhile, passenger trains have been suspended today as a precautionary measure in Lumding-Silchar hill section of Northeast Frontier Railway as incessant rains damaged tracks at multiple points."Due to continuous inclement weather, passenger trains will remain suspended today as a measure of abundant precaution. Movement of goods trains will however resume today afternoon," NFR chief spokesperson PJ Sharma informed here.He added that the passenger services will be resumed from tomorrow provided there is no further damage to track due to continuous inclement weather condition in the hill section.Landslide was triggered by very heavy rainfall at four locations during the night/early morning today.Of these, three locations have been attended by railway authorities and have become fit for movement of trains.Work is still in progress at one location which is likely to take some more time.As a result, five trains have been cancelled or short terminated.The general manager of NFR, who along with his team of officers had left from here yesterday night itself, is at New Haflong and is personally monitoring the restoration work and extension of help to passengers.Meanwhile, the state chief secretary today reviewed the situation at a meeting in dispur and instructed all concerned agencies, including district administrations and Assam Disaster Management Authority, to keep a close watch on the situation.He directed that all necessary steps should be taken for relief and rescue of affected people as required.The chief secretary instructed the concerned departments to arrange for repair of portion of NH53 in Panchgram in Hailakandi district in southern Assam which was damaged by floods.UNI SG BM SB BD2120 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0141-699382.Xml
"We have decided to run six special buses to ferry MPs to parliament as they are not exempted under the odd-even scheme," Delhi Transport Minister Gopal Rai told IANS on Sunday.

The MPs are not exempted in the Delhi government's car restriction scheme. The second phase of the odd-even scheme started on April 15 and will continue till April 30.

Rai said: "I appeal to all parliamentarians to follow the odd-even rule and also do car-pooling with other MPs."

Three special buses for MPs will leave from North Avenue and South Avenue via Akbar Road and Ashoka Road, respectively, the minister said, adding that the city government will run more buses, if required.

The minister also spoke to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and sought her co-operation to make the scheme a success.

--IANS aks/tsb/dg

( 174 Words)

2016-04-24-21:56:12 (IANS)
The United States has expressed concern after North Korea fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile off the east coast of the Korean peninsula. According to CNN, North Korean state news agency KCNA claimed the launch was successful, and said that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had "guided on the spot the underwater test-fire of strategic submarine ballistic missile." "At the observation post he was briefed on the plan for the test-fire and gave an order for it. As soon as the order was issued, the submarine submerged as low as the biggest depth of waters for launching and fired the ballistic missile. The test-fire was aimed to confirm the stability of the underwater ballistic launching system in the maximum depth of waters." KCNA reported. Responding to the launch, a US official said that it was "provocative but not a threat to the U.S. and the missile was fired away from South Korea and Japan." But the U.S. State Department asserted that the launch was in violation with the United Nation Security Council resolutions. "We have seen the reports that North Korea launched what appeared to be a ballistic missile from a submarine in the Sea of Japan. Launches using ballistic missile technology are a clear violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions," State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement. "We call on North Korea to refrain from actions that further destabilize the region and focus instead on taking concrete steps toward fulfilling its commitments and international obligations. "The United States remains steadfast in its commitments to the defense of its allies. We will continue to coordinate closely with the ROK, Japan, and other allies and partners," Kirby added. (ANI)
Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic is asking Serbian voters today for four more years in power to pursue European Union membership, but he may have to contend with a resurgent ultra-nationalist opposition demanding closer ties with Russia.Vucic called early parliamentary elections just two years after his conservative Progressive Party won a landslide election victory, propelling him into office.The 46-year-old former hardline nationalist who converted to EU-friendly policies in 2008 says he needs a clear mandate from Serbia's seven million people for reforms to complete EU membership talks launched in December.Both EU rules and a 1.2 billion euro ( 1.35 billion dollars) loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund oblige Vucic to privatise or downsize big loss-making state-run companies, potentially throwing thousands out of work."We want to complete the process of privatisation, speed up (private) investments and above all to spur the entrepreneurial spirit of the people," Vucic told Reuters in an interview this week.Opinion polls suggest Vucic's party is on track to win 48 per cent -- about the same share of the vote it won two years ago -- giving him another absolute majority in parliament.Analysts think Vucic will continue a coalition with the second-biggest party, the Socialists, even though he does not need to, to broaden his base.Whereas until now there has been a broad consensus in parliament in favour of EU membership, Sunday's election looks likely to bring a return to parliament of ultra-nationalists who oppose EU membership and favour closer ties with Russia.Vojislav Seselj, a nationalist firebrand who was acquitted by the UN tribunal in The Hague last month of war crimes during the 1990s breakup of Yugoslavia, could emerge as the effective leader of the opposition.His Radicals are tipped to become the third largest party, returning to parliament for the first time since 2012.THORN IN VUCIC'S SIDEThe ultra-nationalists may complicate Serbia's EU membership talks by resisting concessions, such as ending Serbia's constitutional claim to sovereignty over Kosovo.Critics of Vucic, who was information minister during the final years of late President Slobodan Milosevic's rule, say his government is increasingly autocratic and has stifled media freedom.Belgrade street vendor Nadica Ciric, 39, said she would vote for Vucic, despite some calling him a dictator, because "he created jobs and saved the country from bankruptcy."Even while integrating with the EU, Vucic's government strives to stay on good terms with traditional ally Russia, an important gas supplier. Vucic has no plans for Serbia to join NATO.On economics, Vucic has little choice but to continue with austerity policies demanded by the IMF.Cuts in public spending and subsidies, and tax rises helped Serbia trim its budget deficit by nearly half last year. But the economy is recovering only slowly from recession and unemployment remains around 18 percent.Polls open at 7 a.m. (1030 IST) and close at 8 p.m. (2330 IST) with first estimates of the outcome by private pollsters expected about an hour later.(1 dollar=0.8909 euros)REUTERS JW PM0607 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0098-698284.Xml
The park is being constructed in memory of the persons killed in the devastating earthquake last year.

The park will be constructed at an area covering Barpak ward no. 4 and 5.

Barpak is the epicentre of the last year's quake that caused heavy casualties and damage of physical property.

Bhandari also laid the foundation stone for the construction of a house of quake survivor Gopal BK.

She later released the name list and details of the quake survivors receiving grants from the government's side.

The President also attended a programme held in the premises of the Himalayan Higher Secondary School. She later left for Laprak village.

According to reports, the Non Residential Nepalese (NRN) will be supporting in the reconstruction projects in Laprak. (ANI)
Dad shot dead week after sons birth

Roger Modeste, 38, of St James Street, Battoo Avenue, Marabella was shot twice in the lower abdomen and succumbed to the wounds at San Fernando General Hospital .

According to police reports, at about 10.45 pm, Modeste and his friend, Selvon Noel, of Williamsville, were standing outside Modestes home when two men armed with guns approached them .

Announcing a hold-up, the gunmen ordered Modeste, a contractor, and Noel to hand over cash, jewellery and other valuables .

Modeste was robbed of $7,000 and a gold chain while Noel was robbed of two gold rings. Investigators said before fleeing, one of the gunmen opened fire and Modeste was shot .

The gunmen escaped in a waiting vehicle parked a short distance from Modestes house .

Modestes father, Michael Modeste, 66, told Sunday Newsday yesterday that at the time of the robbery, he and his common-law wife, Brenda, were upstairs in the house .

My wife heard the gunshots and told me and I ran downstairs to see my son lying on the ground bleeding, Michael recalled, adding all he could think of was getting his son to the hospital .

I placed him in my van and I rushed him to the hospital, but there at the hospital his heart stopped beating and he was gone, lamented the emotional father .

Holding back his tears, Michael said, He had given them all the money he had and they still shot him. He give them everything he had in his possession, his gold chain, his wallet and the money and they still killed him. Michael said earlier that day, Modeste had withdrawn money from a credit union to repay his brother. He had that amount of money on him because he was going to give back his brother $5,000 .

Imagine even after they robbed him and took everything from him, they asked him what else he had, Modeste said. He described the crime situation in the country as bad. My son was very hard working and worked really hard to provide for his family. He was a welding contractor and he worked hard to reach where he was today .

He just brought home his newborn baby one week ago, Michael said, explaining family members were in the process of helping to choose a name for his newborn grandson .

Modeste has an older son, fouryear- old Jaihiem .

Modeste was the third of six children. An autopsy on his body is expected to be performed at the Forensic Science Centre, St James tomorrow. No arrests have been made and police officers of the Southern Division are continuing investigations .
Coast Guard must deter crime

Speaking yesterday at the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard 52nd recruit Intake Passing Out Parade at the Heliport in Chaguaramas, Dillon stated that murder was the barometer by which the country was measured today. He said the choice of weapon for murder was illegal guns, which was why the Coast Guard played an important role in protecting our boarders.

The Government of TT stands prepared to provide the TT Defence Force in general, and the TT Coast Guard in particular, with what is required to conduct your activities in a effective and efficient manner for security has no price, he said.

One of Governments most recent moves was to re-establish collaborations and joint exercises with Venezuela, known as VenTri.

They will be carried out within the framework of security and co-operations, and will focus on search and rescue operations, aero- medical evacuations, maritime traffic control improvements, and narco-trafficking interceptions and of course, the illegal trafficking of people within our jurisdictions, he said.

Our boarders require stringent protection which is why the Coast Guard and maritime presence must be a dominant force acting as a deterrent to any illegal and criminal entry of persons or items to our maritime space, he continued.

Captain Hayden Pritchard, Commanding Officer of the TT Coast Guard, in his remarks, cautioned the recruits about forms of corruption, including taking bribes.

Instead, he urged them to learn to manage their finances, exercising foresight, discipline and patients in their financial matters.

Beware and do not fall prey to inducements to betray yourself, your family, your batch, your formation, your force and your country, he said.

Pritchard added the Coast Guard had made drug busts almost every two weeks since the beginning of the year at an estimated $20 million and attributed it to the organisations recent transformations - the changing of their culture, retooling through acquisition of new assets, and recruitment and training of personnel.
BRING IN SOLDIERS

There was also a fatal shooting with a Belmont man being killed on Dawn Street, Laventille on Friday night. His identity could not be confirmed up to press time.

However, it is the burnt body discovery that has sent chills through the community.

According to reports, at about 3.30 am yesterday, residents of Mango Alley, Laventille reported hearing a loud commotion and upon investigation found the burnt body of a man on the side of the road. Residents contacted the police and investigations are continuing.

The cause of death of the as yet unidentified victim is not known.

The dead man is the second burnt body to be found last week. On Monday, the burnt body of a man was found on Parker Street, east Port-of-Spain. the man was reportedly shot before being set on fire.

Sunday Newsday spoke with residents near Mango Alley yesterday on the incident. Resident Joel Jules said the burning of the victim was crucial and real disrespectful and pointed out that it could have been one of his children.

People afraid to come out (of their homes), he added. He suggested there be more patrols and called for soldiers specifically.

Instead of police bring soldiers.

(They are) serious men, he added.

He reported there have been gunshots around the St Barbs Government Primary School while teachers and students were there, and shells could be found on the compound. He said one can never tell when western town will start.

He lamented that youths could not move around in peace and efforts to have sporting events were stymied by fears of violence. He said many of the killings were over gyal thing, weed thing or men getting angry when another man complimented their girlfriend. He described the killings as petty.

I really wish this (situation) could really switch up, he said.

He pointed out that people were willing to come out and work but the wild shooting was preventing projects from happening in the area.

Another male resident, who asked not to be named, said hearing gunshots in the area is a normal thing but the burning of a man, however, was shocking to him. (But) caught and killing, that not nothing (sic) new here, he said.

He explained that if you are caught straying from another rival community they will kill (you).

He reported that Trou Macaque and Mango Alley have been warring with each other and it is a turf gangster thing. He also reported that rival Muslim and Rasta City gangs were also warring and they find someone who is not from the area and they make you out then they will shoot up the place.

Is stupid killing. No revenge.

(For) nothing, he lamented.

He called for more police foot patrols and to have a mobile patrol set up in the area similar to what was done with the army base at Soogrim Trace.

We need more police presence but we more comfortable with soldiers.

Police not able to deal with the heavy artillery (from gangsters), he said.

He also said the criminals appeared to have more respect for the soldiers and would not take chances with them while they buss shot to frighten police. He described the soldiers as more disciplined than the police as well. Joint police and army patrols have been in force since the 1990s with previous calls under former adminstrations for soldiers to be given arrest powers.

Hinds to criminals: Give us a break Laventille West MP Fitzgerald Hinds, under whose constituency Mango Alley falls, said he supports the views of residents that the police should improve their presence and that the National Security Ministry and the protective services should improve their presence to keep warring factions apart.

If people behave more civilly and understand you can have a disagreement without violence and focus on building family and community and personal lives rather than destroying and maiming and killing then you would not need police and soldiers, he advised.

Hinds said he was at the point where he understands that while the presence of police is important the presence of a conscious man in the community is more important.

He added that this man is about building, recognising the condition in Laventille.

We want more of him rather than police and soldier, he said.

On efforts as MP to benefit the community Hinds described himself as a Johnny come lately regarding the provision of outreach and service to Laventille and many have gone before him like former MPs Morris Marshall and Cuthbert Joseph, former Senator Overand Padmore and others.

They have done as much and perhaps more than I have done, he stressed.

For 12 years, Hinds served as MP for the sister constituency Laventille East/Morvant from 1995 to 2007. Hinds said all the services Government makes available to the people of this country are available to the people of Laventille including medical care, secondary school, job opportunities and cultural expressions.

He pointed out that two weeks ago three successful Panorama bands out of Laventille were celebrated. So Government continues to do what it has to do, he said. At the celebration of the bands Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley pledged resources to Laventille.

Hinds yesterday said they have a special focus on Laventille this round and (are) executing it.

He stressed that some of the responsibility for a safe and wholesome community falls on those who live and work there and it does not sensibly include taking up a gun and burning someone for them to be found in Mango Alley.

On the resources for Laventille, Hinds reported that it was recently announced that Government intends to move the Beetham Dump and convert it to an industrial estate creating opportunities for jobs like ship-building and repairs. He also recalled that the University of Trinidad and Tobago was invited to speak with people (back in October) on education opportunities and many are in the process of matriculating to places in the university as we speak.

Hinds said wherever jobs are available in this country, the children of Laventille are able to get them and many of them are doing extremely well.

Better than you and I in academics, in business, in culture, in sport, but it is the occasional bad behaviour that leads to murder and gets the front pages. I am calling on those responsible for the nasty imaging of Laventille to cease and settle and take it down and give us a break, he said.

He stressed that the large majority are fighting to make a life and progress but the persistent minority with dirty guns behave the way they do.

On people who believe that governments and the Peoples National Movement in particular have neglected Laventille, Hinds said losers think that way and those who undervalue themselves.

They feel that somebody has to make life a success for them. They think that way wrongly, he added.

He said it was a stupid excuse and success is personal thing and not a political thing.

I try to show them that you can make excuses but that will not get you success, he added.
Jobless link to domestic violence

He was speaking with Sunday Newsday during a break at a domestic violence conference held yesterday at the Courtyard by Marriott Hotel, Mucurapo.

Stosny reported he has been informed that the domestic violence rate in this country is high and observed that all over the world it gets higher as unemployment goes up.

He pointed out that in the US when there is a quarter point tick up in the unemployment rate, there is a quarter point tick up in domestic violence and it is almost directly correlated.

It is mostly because males when they cant protect their families start feeling bad about themselves and thats when they are more likely to be abusive. So unemployment and underemployment in the males when they get jobs below their skill level or where they dont make very much money theres a higher risk of domestic violence, he explained.

In the past few months hundreds of workers have been sent home from companies such as steel companies ArcelorMittal, and Centrin, construction company OAS Construtora and oil company Respol and Labour Minister Jennifer Baptiste-Primus has described the trend as a period of mass retrenchment.

Stosny said because of the oil collapse this countrys economy is worse and in Canada there is a similar problem because of the oil sands.

He added that while that culture is very different from Trinidad and Tobago they are experiencing the same up tick in domestic violence because of the economic crisis.

In his presentation, he spoke of the need to focus on the abuser as well as the victim.

Victims do need support but you are not going to change the problem of domestic violence unless you change the abuser because they are the ones doing it. So youve got to do both, he said.

He said a lot of the bravado that is seen in the Trinidad and Tobago population is people defending themselves from thinking their life sucks.

He explained that one reason why the literature on domestic violence had not progressed was because the crime is defined by the victim and not the abuser.

He said that in any case of abuse, whether between heterosexuals, between homosexuals, child abuse or elder abuse, the motivation is the same  power and control. He stressed that this was the symptom and abusers believe they are unlovable and inadequate and have to be manipulative, deceitful and possessive to earn affection.

He pointed out that if someone tells an abuser that they love them they would not believe it but believe they want their money or something else.

He explained that these attachment abusers try to change the reflection of themselves as powerless, inadequate and unlovable by manipulating the mirror of the attachment and their partners.

To devalue something you have to be in a devalued state yourself, he said.

He explained abusers lack skills and pro-social empowerment and use the fragile substitution of values for power.

He said the anger makes them feel powerful but when this wears off they crash and become depressed and end up on a roller coaster of anger and depression.

A lot of abusive people are anger junkies, he added.

Stosny advised that abusers be taught pro-social empowerment to make them feel valued, instil in them the conviction that they can make their lives better and to get them in touch with their deeper values.

He said they need to change their brains through focus and repetition of healthy behaviours.

During his presentation, he spoke of the abuse he suffered from his father including a hole in his head he received when his father hit him with a shingle at age three.

He noted, however, that the most vivid memories were when his parents would spend days without speaking each other. His mother eventually left his father and remarried.
Presbyterian leader: More police wont stop crime

I have always said that the crime situation in Trinidad cannot be solved by more policing, by extending the size of the jail, the crime problem in Trinidad is a social problem, Lalla-Ramkelawan told reporters during a book launch on the history of the Presbyterian Church yesterday.

The Government needs to partner with the churches who are the foot-soldiers as to what goes on in society, particularly in the homes of people and we (should) begin to work together and deal with that social problem, she said.

Lalla- Ramkelawan continued, Because right now, what we are doing, we are dealing with crime with measures, I would consider it oppressive measures, that people would rebel against but the society has become the way it is because the fabric of our society has been disrupted and shaken so they need to find out the social reason why people are turning to crime. The book, The Presbyterian Church in the Post-Colonial period written by Reverend Winston B Gopaul, was launched at the St Andrews Theological College, Paradise Hill, San Fernando.

And commenting on chapter 14 of the book,which deals with a variety of topics, including the role of the church in the education sector, Lalla-Ramkelawan described the work as an excellent book for young Presbyterians as it dealt with a period in our history when the missionaries left Trinidad and the indigenous clergy took on the reins of taking the church forward into a new era. The author, Gopaul, said his intention was to trace the development of the church during the post-colonial period and show how the church dealt with the many challenges and crisis of faith during the period. Crises and challenges will always come about but by the grace of God, we will always surmount them and overcome them and continue our journey of faith, Gopaul said.

And regarding the churchs role in the education sector, he said while there was a segment who wanted the church to withdraw from overseeing the schools, the vast majority wanted to keep their schools from falling into government hands.

The people of the Presbyterian Church will not allow its schools to get into the hands of government because the schools contribute to the church and to the society and the church has kept the Presbyterian flag flying high and we continue to excel in the field of education, Gopaul said.

Asked why Presbyterian-managed schools seemed to excel over government schools, Gopaul said, it is the whole ethos of Presbyterian life, a disciplined life, we emphasise that.

The other is hard work, work for what you want, and teachers are called to teach as a vocation meaning it is a calling, it is more than just a job. He said the challenges facing the church are finances as well as the shortage of young persons entering the pastoral ministry.

The challenges we face have to do more with financial wherewithal to carry on the work of mission, for many years we depended on funds from Canada, and the other is in terms of personnel, we have always been short of ministers in the church, he said.

Lalla- Ramkelawan, asked about the shortage of young people being attracted to the ministry, said the ministry was not seen as a vocation and not being financially lucrative.

Young people are not being attracted to the ministry because they do not see it as a financially lucrative profession, we consider it a calling, so I think they will be attracted if they really come to have a deeper sense of their faith and when the church moves forward into becoming a little more into the 21st century, she said.

However, she noted, there was an upsurge of young persons entering the church and becoming involved in the youth ministry but were not taking the extra step into pursuing the pastoral ministry.
Gate falls, crushes man to death

Darren Mangalsingh was pronounced dead on arrival at San Fernando General Hospital shortly after the freak accident at 10 am. He was about to leave his home on Third Street for work when the gate, somehow unhinged and fell, crushing him.

However, no one heard any noise and it was only when two construction workers arrived to collect several items from the house they saw the gate had fallen.

Two workers came to the house to pick up some things when they noticed the gate was not where it was not supposed to be, Mungalsinghs brother Dinelle, 39, told Sunday Newsday.

As they got closer they found Mungalsingh pinned under the gate.

They did checks for a pulse, but they said he was motionless.

The workers called the EHS and also alerted my sister-in-law who was in the kitchen at the time, Dinelle said.

He said there was heavy downpour at that time so no one was alerted by any noise at the front of the family home. He said before EHS personnel arrived, a relative who is a nurse was able to assist with administering CPR to Mangalsingh. They tried to do CPR on him at home and also when he was rushed to the hospital the doctors and nurses tried to resuscitate him, but he was gone, Dinelle said.

Mungalsingh was pronounced dead at about 12.29 am. Dinelle said his brother had a bright future.

He was very enthusiastic.

He was currently working on a project with another brother which involved specialiing in a range of GPS car tracking. He was really excited about this project, he said. Dinelle said his brother was such a wonderful person that it was a disadvantage to those who never knew him.

He was loved by all. My brother was 25 years and even at his wake yesterday (Friday) his friends from his primary and secondary school came to our home, he said.

An autopsy performed at the San Fernando Mortuary revealed Mangalsingh died as a result of chest asphyxiation.

Funeral arrangements are being finalised.
Mora: We failed to pay attention

She defined conduct disorders as a repetitive and persistent pattern of conduct, in which either the basic rights of others or major age-appropriate societal norms or rules are violated. Mora said the conduct is usually more serious than the ordinary pranks of children and adolescents.

Conduct disorders, she said, may include children who have experienced parental rejection as well as those with neurological disorders and mental retardation.

The psychologist said the frequent shifting of parental figures (foster parents, relatives, step parents) and the state of being labelled an outside child, also may cause some children to develop conduct disorders.

Mora said the children who were teenagers in the early 90s were now between the ages of 37 and 46 but have children who predictably will have the predisposition to also develop conduct disorders and be prone to extreme violence because of their inability to make wise choices.

The culture into which they were born did not help them to develop the ability to discern, make wise choices that will assist them in their role of creating an orderly, successful, peaceful and productive family and society.

And so, the heinous crimes of today are the petty crimes of yesterday left unattended, she told Sunday Newsday.

Mora said the problem was compounded by the effects of the Jamaat Al Muslimeen-led 1990 attempted coup where individual narratives about guns being unleashed into the country were again left untreated. Mora recalled that she had made a presentation to the then Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) in 1989, following which the Ministry of Education convened a consultation on indiscipline in schools.

She also recalled that when the consultation was convened in 1989, many teenagers were heads of households because their parents opted to seek work in the United States to provide material things for their children.

Family life was in shambles because of downsizing and retrenchment, Mora said.

Noting there were recommendations made by various professionals at the consultation, Mora said they would have impacted positively on the future of those who were children at the time.

But they were considered too expensive, too idealistic and were dismissed with a fling of the hand, she told Sunday Newsday.

Mora said young people who are not assessed and given the psychological help they need grow into adults with what she called anti-social personality disorder.

It should also be noted that neurological disorders predispose children and adolescents to conduct disorder and violence, she said.

Mora said there also was research which showed the impact on the foetal brain development of children who are conceived under the heavy influence of alcohol and marijuana.

Children who are conceived in these circumstances could appear normal at birth, but as they grow there will be problems with the neurons which send messages to the brain.

That part of the brain which helps us to understand instructions, our literacy, numeracy, ability to socialise and develop a basic understanding and respect for the other is compromised, she said.

Mora said taking money away from social services and ignoring non-governmental organisations that were working against all odds has left such groups at a breaking point both financially and in terms off human resource.

And if these NGOs are struggling, this country will be no longer a paradise, she said.

To combat the problem at an early age, Mora called for the implementation of therapeutic rehabilitation services.

Conduct disorder and violent children must have neurological and psychological assessments so that we can find out if there is a neurological basis for their behaviour, she said.

If none is found then psychological and therapeutic interventions will be the next step. We cannot continue to have one Child Guidance Clinic with a six-month waiting period before a child is seen. Mora said there also must be multi-disciplinary teams comprising professionally- trained staff working in schools.

She said the social worker, educational psychologist, counselling psychologist, special education professionals, deans, must work as a team to make an impact on conduct disorders.
Dad accused of assault on daughter, 8

He was speaking with Sunday Newsday during a media conference at the Brian Lara Promenade, Port-of-Spain. His comments were in response to the case of a man who had been arrested on Friday after an allegation that he had sexually assaulted his eight-year-old daughter.

Feeles reported said that after their press conference on Thursday the father, who had complained that his family had no access to the child or word on her welfare for 100 days, was held by police. He recalled that the day before he was held the father called and said the officers were coming to update him on his daughter but he was instead arrested and charged.

Feeles said the Childrens Authority needs to be involved more on the ground and utilise the help of community groups, NGOs and councillors.

You need sometimes to unite and collaborate before you make decisions like this, he stressed.

Feeles said there are cases where people have not been provided with access to children and for relatives to ensure they are in good care. He reported in one case a summons was sent to both mother and father and then the child was placed with the mothers mother and she retained access to her.

Is not that we against the Childrens Authority. I continue to say that they are essential and they are a necessity. The Childrens Authority and the Child Protection Unit. But they must step up their game. They must be able to respond quickly, they must be equitable, they must be fair and they must also treat with the family where the child is from, he said.

Councillor for Ben Lomond/ Hardbargain/Williamsville, social worker and community activist Vashti Sookhoo said the father approached her a month ago concerned for his daughters safety because he had not seen her for 70 days.

All attempts for relatives to see the child...proved futile. They werent allowing any of them to see the child, she added.

She said she approached the officers of the Child Protection Unit in Oropouche to see the child to ensure she was alive and well and in the country. She reported the officers promised they would accommodate this request but that never came through.

She said she called on many occasions but they never answered and she returned to the agency but there was no one present. She reported that nothing happened until Friday when the father was held. She said her concern was that counselling had not been provided for the family.

The Childrens Authority needs to consider and needs to provide counselling for the immediate family, she stressed.

Sookhoo explained that one morning the three children were going to school but when they returned their sister was no longer with them.

That is traumatising enough as it is. Then 100 and something days after the father going to work, drop the two boys (aged 10 and 11) to school and then somebody picking them up not knowing where their father is.

That is even more traumatising, she said. Sookhoo said the situation is compounded by one of the children writing SE A and having dropped from A to B grade student.

I could only imagine what those children went through (Friday) night (when their father was held), she said.

She stressed that no counselling was offered to the children and she even offered an organisation that does counselling within proximity of where they were living and provided the telephone numbers and name of the counsellor to the officers of the Children Protection Unit.

Absolutely nothing was done, she said
Khan: Keep abortion on front-burner

So said San Juan/ Barataria MP and former health minister Dr Fuad Khan yesterday in the wake of Deyalsinghs chastisement of journalists over the controversial issue at a news conference on Friday.

They (Deyalsingh and others) should offer to mind these children full-time for however long the children live, Khan said yesterday in a telephone interview.

Khan maintained that women should have the right to choose whether to keep a baby if it is likely to been born with microcephaly.

Everybody who is saying that the women should not abort must take the babies and mind them for the rest of their lives. I want them to commit to that, he said.

Khan urged Government to begin discussions on what he considered to be front-burner issue.

Just as they had discussions for local government reform and education, we should have consultations on the rights of women.

We have not been consulting on that, he said.

Khan said Deyalsingh was wrong to attack the media when asked about the issue.

Deyalsingh has insisted there was no for room discussion about abortion as it was illegal.

However, the minister said it was up to the womans physician to determine whether her health and well-being were being threatened by her pregnancy.

Gender affairs scholar Dr Gabrielle Hosein, meanwhile, said the media is correct to continue to raise the question of womens right to choose to terminate a pregnancy, whether in relation to the dangers of Zika or in relation to other complications, whether these are health complications or those relating to the economic and familial situation of womens lives.

The fact that the media continues to raise this issue is the result of at least four decades of advocacy by doctors, womens groups and reproductive rights advocates, she told Sunday Newsday.

It is not up to the minister to decide to shut down public discussion of this issue.

Far from it. The Zika virus brings another moment that signals yet again why this issue should be discussed.

Finally, the issue is not how many women may be requesting safe and legal terminations.

It is that those women who do request it have the right to such safe and public medical care. That is not currently possible under the law. This needs to change, Hosein added.
Garcia: Help for special students

Education Minister Anthony Garcia assured the Student Support Services Unit (SSSU) has requisite trained professionals to assist ADD/ADHD students, but Rambachan challenged that claim on the basis of his queries to schools in his constituency.

Garcia said the SSSU has sufficient trained professionals who are trained to detect and treat ADD/ADHD. He said the ministry also has 125 teachers trained in special needs education who will be deployed next September to schools facing such challenges. He cautioned that it is not easy to diagnose ADD/ADHD in a student, but that is best done by trained professionals.

He said many parents are reluctant to notify schools of their childrens abnormal patterns of behaviour, but that in fact Government has given these schools enough professionals to help treat ADD/ADHD.

Rambachan interjected to query that claim, but Garcia repeated his assertion of a wellstaffed SSSU, and vowed to support all special needs students.

We have employed a number of students aides to sit side by side in the classroom to assist them, Garcia revealed.

On a topical note, the minister said ADD/ADHD must not be any excuse for violence and misconduct by students.

In an update on the Chaguanas North and El Dorado East Secondary Schools, he said the referral of errant students to a Learning Enrichment Centre had yield very encouraging results. Some students from the former school had now returned to school while others had gone to specialised treatment.

In his wind-up, Rambachan vowed to move more motions to address issues that affect real people, and so create a more effective House.

He implored Government to help the ADD Foundation get charitable status noting a four-year wait, even as a similar, unnamed NGO has waited nine years. This is a very serious issue affecting as high as 12 percent of the population. Challenging Garcia to name the ADD/ADHD specialists attached to his ministry and state how many tests they had done, Rambachan recalled a ministry psychologist in 1995 having never heard of the condition.

Noting the role of the Houses Committee of Assurances, he hoped Garcia would return in eight weeks to spell out an actionable plan to treat ADD/ ADHD in schools. He urged the media and the University of the West Indies to do more to respectively highlight and research such relevant topics as ADD/ADHD
Women MPs share woes of ADHD children

Opposition MP for Cumuto/Manzanilla Christine Newallo- Hosein and Tobago East MP, Ayanna Webster- Roy, a non-Cabinet Minister responsible for Gender and Child Affairs, cited their own experiences to support Tabaquite MP Dr Suruj Rambachans private motion for the Ministry of Education to screen pupils for ADD/ ADHD.

Newallo-Hosein once fostered a child for three months whose ADD/ADHDlinked conduct had actually threatened the state of her marriage, she told the House.

My whole life turned upside down, she recalled.

She said her charge was polite and very intelligent, but was affected by ADD/ ADHD.

And so the young man is in my home and one week later I am pulling my hair out as to what is happening.

He never lost his politeness, but it was just that difference in behaviour - impulsiveness and disruptions.

One day my husband said to me listen to me, You have to make a choice  either you remove this child from the house or I will have to leave the home. She said she meant no harm by the revelation but wanted to show that there are parents out there going through this who just dont know what to do.

At a loss, she had prayed to try to understand that child at which time she had found a news story on ADD/ADHD, seemingly by divine revelation.

Newallo-Hosein related that while the boys mother had simply dropped off a pill for him to take, she realised shed have to reveal to him the fact of his condition. At that explanation he had cried relentlessly, but not for anger nor for sorrow.

He says, Aunty, for so long I have been isolated and I never knew why. Aunty, for so long I felt rejected and I never knew why.

For so long I have been lonely and alone, and I never knew why. Now I know. Can you help me change my behaviour? I said, Son, whatever we can do together, we will do. Newallo-Hosein recalled a poor reception from the boys teacher at a top school, who said, ADD? I dont have time with that! Get him out of school! She bemoaned the turmoil of parents who try to use discipline to handle ADD/ ADHD children, but without true knowledge of the condition.

It is turmoil because you dont know.

They attempt to discipline a disorder, but you cant discipline a disorder. You have to seek guidance, help and assistance from medical professionals. Newallo-Hosein said her experiences had led her to mull the situation in the whole country and to ask if untreated ADD/ ADHD is a cause of the countrys high crime-rate and low academic success rate among many boys.

She hoped one day a government would properly research ADD/ADHD and its effects.

Webster-Roy then revealed her son may have ADD/ADHD.

I was particularly interested in contributing to this debate after hearing the Honourable Member for Tabaquite share his experiences, and after my pre-schooler, my son is a pre-schooler...

after being told by a teacher that maybe he has that problem. He tends to be very hyper, very spontaneous, wouldnt keep attention. Her voicing slightly quaking with emotion, she continued, But Madam Speaker, I refuse for them to label my child so early without having the necessary assessment and monitoring over a period of time. So this motion is really important to me. Webster-Roy went on to lament the high cost of medically assessing a child for ADD/ADHD. Sadly, sadly sadly, professional assessment for ADHD is a challenge and we recognise that. While the public sector offers assessment at Child Guidance Centres at Portof- Spain and Marabella, appointments take time because of the heavy demand. The Minister said the cost of a private assessment is outside the reach of an ordinary citizen.

I remember a mother coming to see me in my office and she indicated she had a child with a special need and in order to carry out the assessment it was costing her between $4,000 and $9,000. She said an ADHD strategy would be drafted with the Governments National Child Policy, even as she also anticipated a new child protection system and a new juvenile justice system.
Samsung Galaxy Note 6 to come with Curved display and 4000 mAh battery: rumours

New Delhi, Sun, 24 Apr 2016 NI Wire

According to the rumors, next mobile phone Samsung Galaxy Note 6 to come with new features including a Curved display and powerful 4000 mAh battery. According to the rumours Samsung is testing new phone Samsung Galaxy Note 6 which will be with bigger screen size and more batter power.

Samsung is expected to launch Samsung Galaxy Note 6 at the IFA show in Berlin, and ahead of this there are leaks which suggest some feature of the phone. Phone might come with a curved display like 'Edge' series and a powerful batter having 4000 mAh capacity.

One of the report of GSM HelpDesk claims that there will be no successor to the S6 Edge+ series and a new version of Note 6 is being testing by mobile giant Samsung.

Reports also claims that the Samsung will introduce 5.8-inch 2K display for the Note 5 and the currently device is being tested with flat and curved edge screens. According to the reports it is yet not decided about the screen to be fitted in the Note 6. Once launched Note 6 will be available around the world in the stores and online shopping websites.

Leaked specification of Samsung Note 6:

12 MP camera

6GB RAM

Powerful 4000 mAh battery

It is noted that the Samsung reduced the size of batter to 3000 mAh in its Galaxy Note 4 from 3220 mAh and this was a subject of criticism by consumers. Now Samsung might be planning to fix this by providing more battery power in its future Note 6 device.

Samsung Galaxy Note 6 is expected to release in September 2016.
North MCD to raise revenue of approximately Rs. 8000 crore in 2016-17

New Delhi, Sun, 24 Apr 2016 NI Wire

Standing Committee Chairman of North Delhi Municipal Corporation Mr. Mohan Bhardwaj today said that the total revenue of the civic body for the financial year 2016-17 would be Rs. 8000 crore rather than Rs. 6000 crore as estimated due to steps taken by the Corporation.

He said that for commercial utilization of various municipal properties complexes, shopping complexes, car parking, multi-storey buildings would be developed at Model Town, Azadpur, Dhaka, Minto Road, etc. He said these properties would be leased out for additional revenue.

Mr. Bhardwaj said that as per the recommendations of 3rd and 4th Finance Commissions, the Corporation is due to receive total funds of more than Rs. 1000 crore upto financial year 2016-17.

He said that it is expected that Rs. 1000 crore can be raised by concluding the process of making the municipal properties freehold in this financial year.

He said that reform in property tax collection is also likely to improve financial condition of the Corporation. Mr. Bhardwaj said that North DMC would set an example by becoming financial independent municipal body.
To Complete Financial Business, Parliament Session set to start from April 25

New Delhi, Sun, 24 Apr 2016 NI Wire

Parliament session will begin from April 25,2016 to address the financial business related to the General and Railway Budgets for the financial year 2016-17 and is scheduled to last till May 13,2016 subject to the exigencies of the Governments Business.

The ensuing session of the Lower House will be the 8th Session of the 16th and that of the Upper House the 239th Session of Rajya Sabha since the previous sessions of the Parliament were prorogued in March this year, after both the Houses were adjourned on March 16 for meetings of Department Related Standing Committtees.

Financial business including discussion on demands for grants of various ministries in Lok Sabha and working of some ministries in Rajya Sabha, consideration and passing of the Railways Appropriation Bill,2016 and Finance Bill,2016 constitutes the main agenda of this session of Parliament.

Lok Sabha will take up discussion on Demands for Grants of the Ministry of Railways and the related Appropriation Bill for 2016-17 on April 26. This will be followed by discussion on Demands for Grants of the Ministries of Development of North-Eastern Region, Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Social Justice and Empowerment and Civil Aviation.

Rajya Sabha will discuss working of the Ministries of Health & Family Welfare, Human Resource Development, Finance, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and External Affairs. Thereafter, Finance Bill,2016 and application of Guillotine will be taken up.
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette's office says Prysby and Busch knowingly misled the Environmental Protection Agency, telling agency officials that the city was using corrosion control when both were aware that it was not.

They both were charged with a misdemeanor violation of the Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act for allegedly ceasing the utilization of optimal corrosion control treatment at the Flint Water Treatment Plant after the plant switched to the Flint River as a water source and refused to mandate optimized corrosion control treatment at the Flint Water Treatment Plant in a timely manner after the lead action level was exceeded.

The charges against Busch and Prysby carrythe maximum penalty of five years in prison. A federal state of emergency has been declared in Flint related to the city's water becoming contaminated.

"So many things went so terribly wrong and tragically wrong in Flint", Schuette said in announcing felony and misdemeanor charges against state regulators Stephen Busch and Michael Prysby and Flint utilities administrator Michael Glasgow.

The charges include more than a dozen separate counts against two officials at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, as well as a Flint water quality supervisor.

Thousands turn out for parade at Shakespeare's birthplace

Shakespeare, who wrote nearly 40 plays and more than 150 sonnets, died on April 23, 1616, thought to have been his 52nd birthday. US President Barack Obama (L) watches a performance as he tours the Shakespeare's Globe theatre in London on April 23, 2016.

"People should go to jail for what's happened in Flint - but that doesn't change the fact that we need our pipes fixed today. But nobody is off limits, either".

Schuette, Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton, special counsel Todd Flood and other investigators scheduled a news conference for Wednesday afternoon in Flint to make a "significant" announcement, according to an advisory distributed to the media.

"It's a victory", Chatman said. The person familiar with the matter said that some officials who worked on and submitted these reports included information they knew to be incorrect.

Share with Us - We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article, and smart, constructive criticism.

The Attorney General said that the investigation is still ongoing in order to uncover others involved in the crime against the nearly 100,000 predominantly black residents of Flint. When asked how testers could be sure they were getting samples from homes with lead lines, he essentially said there was no way to be sure. But action didn't come until October 2015, when Gov. Rick Snyder (R) switched the city's water back to Detroit and declared a state of emergency.

Police detain protesters at Stone Mountain White supremacist rally

Dates vary from state to state, but the observance honors those who died in the Confederate army during the Civil War. The state still intends to celebrate the holidays by closing the Capitol and state agency offices, Gov.

According to the Guardian, who also spoke with sources familiar with the case, investigators said the potential charges could range from misconduct in office to involuntary manslaughter.

The Republican governor told a news conference in the capital, Lansing, later on Wednesday that he did not believe he had done anything criminally wrong in relation to the water crisis. "I don't believe so".

Flint became a cause celebre for the two Democratic presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Sen. It was piped from Lake Huron, with anti-corrosion chemicals added along the way. After General Motors opted out of the Flint system, claiming the water was corroding its manufacturing equipment; after residents complained of discoloration; after testing suggested even more dire consequences of the switch - the DEQ, with Busch, Prysby and others as key players, downplayed the complaints. The EPA is also looking into updating the lead and copper rule, which hasn't been updated since 2007 and so riddled with problems that it often fails to protect water from contamination.

Criminal charges against three men in MI on Wednesday marked a milestone in a crisis that's been years in the making, potentially harmed tens of thousands of people and cast a harsh spotlight on infrastructure issues across the country. It detailed a widespread lack of responsibility and leadership behind the catastrophe, which exposed more than 95,000 residents in the beleaguered city - including about 9,000 children younger than 6 - to water tainted with lead.

In a statement released by his spokesman, Snyder said he has supported the probe and promised the state would pursue evidence of wrongdoing and hold those responsible accountable.

Prince Autopsy Results Likely to Take Weeks

The Carver County Sheriff's Office held a press conference to confirm the details surrounding Prince's sudden death on Thursday. Prince was found fully clothed on the first floor of the estate, Olson said. "I can't dispel them all", Olson said.

Mike Glasgow works for the city. The crisis has prompted lawsuits by parents who say their children are showing dangerously high blood levels of lead.
The suspect is Wayne Hawes, 51, of Appling, Georgia, who reportedly shot five people on Friday night, before killing himself with the same weapon.

Police believe some of the victims were related to the suspects wife.

Hawes, 50, was dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Supreme Court right to stay Uttarakhand HC orders: Majeed Memon

In a big blow to the Centre, the Uttarakhand high court has struck down President's rule in the state. He said how can in the interim the CM, who has been restored by the High Court, not function.

Lauren recounted that Wayne threatened to kill her mother after she announced her desire to seek divorce. Curious to see what had happened, they looked outside to see a man leaving the victim's residence in a vehicle. She had left Hawes before, but this time she took her belongings with her because on past occasions he would destroy her property when she would leave.

The shootings occurred about 40 minutes apart, police said.

Hawes killed five people at two addresses before he killed himself inside his home, Columbia County Sheriff Captain Andy Shedd said.

Celebrities React to Prince's Death

Can you talk about his legacy there? His 1994 album " Purple Rain " is often described as one of the greatest of all time. On WTOP's Facebook page, Valerie Wilmore Burton says she will cherish Prince's songs and the memories they elicit.

The victims include 75-year-old Roosevelt Burns, 85-year-old Rheba Mae Dent, 31-year-old Kelia Clark, 59-year-old Lizzy Williams and 62-year-old Shelly Williams.

"Also inside was evidence that the suspect attempted to set fire to the house, unsuccessfully", Shedd said.

Investigators believe the shooting deaths of five people in eastern Georgia are connected. Four victims were pronounced dead at the scene and the fifth died on the way to the hospital. Many of them appear to be related to the former wife of Hawes. He later confirmed a fifth person was killed at Augusta University.

German carmakers to recall 630000 diesel vehicles over emissions

The San Francisco lawsuit had accused Volkswagen of major damages to the environment and to the owners of the tainted diesel cars. There also could be some complicity on the part of European governments.

Ola Murry, of Appling, in north-east Georgia said the neighbourhood was devastated by the events. "I always thought he was a nice guy", Murray said. You know, the devil gets into you sometimes and you do stupid stuff.
France on Saturday called on the European Union to unilaterally adopt additional sanctions against North Korea if the missile launch was confirmed.

Seoul's foreign ministry said South Korea strongly condemned North Korea's test-firing of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) on Saturday in eastern waters off the coastal town of Sinpo, Xinhua news agency reported.

"We closely monitor North Korean activities and the situation on the Korean peninsula, especially North Korean military activities", US State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.

In response to Ri's remarks, a U.S. State Department official defended the military exercises as demonstrating the U.S. commitment to its alliance with the South and said they enhance the combat readiness, flexibility and capabilities of the alliance.

Some experts, however, think the North has fired missiles from submerged platforms, rather than from submarines.

Dept. of Public Health confirms second case of Zika in CT

Tomas Aragon, San Francisco's Health Officer, said in a statement that the Zika virus poses no threat to residents. The mosquito that carries the virus is found along the southern rim of the USA and up the northeast corridor.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff says the projectile, presumed to a submarine-launched ballistic missile, was sacked from near Shinpo, Hamgyeongnam-do province, on Saturday evening at 6:30 p.m, South Korea time. But another US official noted that after previous launch attempts by Pyongyang that didn't appear to be successful, this one seems to have gone much better.

South Korea has warned of tougher sanctions on the DPRK if the country tests another nuclear device.

Korea's foreign minister asserted that it was the U.S. that had pushed the North to develop nuclear weapons as a self-defense strategy, adding that the only thing that could dissuade the country from carrying out its tests, would be for the USA to halt its military exercises with Seoul. He also said the North won't be intimidated by worldwide sanctions.

"We are keeping close tabs on the North Korean military and maintaining a full defence posture", he said.

North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January, followed by a rocket launch a month later that was widely seen as a disguised ballistic missile test.

Boko Haram: U.S team visits Northeast Friday

Onyeama commended the U.S government for the strong support and solidarity in the efforts to defeat the Boko Haram sect. The army took the area back from Boko Haram a year ago , but has struggled to hold it.

A U.S. defense official said April 14 that U.S. Strategic Command systems detected and tracked an attempted North Korean missile launch, but there was "no evidence the missile reached flight", a U.S. official told Starr.

Citing South Korea's military authorities, local broadcaster SBS reported that most of vehicles and equipment had been withdrawn from the DPRK's main nuclear test site at Punggye-ri in the country's northeastern region where Pyongyang conducted all of its four nuclear tests.

North Korea has recently sent a barrage of missiles and artillery shells into the sea amid ongoing annual military drills between the United States and South Korea.

Darusman has been very outspoken about human rights abuses in the North and suggested regime change might be the only solution - a position that has made him persona non grata in Pyongyang. The 7th party congress would be the first such event since 1980.

Share with Us - We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article, and smart, constructive criticism.
(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster). President Barack Obama meets with Saudi Arabia's King Salman at Erga Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Wednesday, April 20, 2016.

"More broadly, the president and King discussed the challenges posed by Iran's provocative activities in the region, agreeing on the importance of an inclusive approach to de-escalating regional conflicts", the White House said.

"The American people send their greetings and we are very grateful for your hospitality, not just for this meeting but for hosting the GCC-U.S. summit that's taking place tomorrow", Obama said, referring to the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council summit.

With ISIS suffering a series of recent setbacks in areas under its control in Syria and Iraq, Washington is also seeking more help from the oil-rich Gulf monarchies to keep up the pressure.

He also urged Gulf countries to work together despite their differences, whether it was dealing with Iran or maintaining a stable, unified government within a country, such as in Iraq.

Friends and family hold private memorial after Prince cremated

Family and friends were pictured arriving on Saturday at Paisley Park, where it is believed a private memorial was held. A Prince portrait and flowers left by fans outside the Paisley Park compound in Minneapolis , Minnesota.

The mood of the trip to Riyadh was less strained and the attendance greater than a similar gathering previous year at Camp David when King Salman of Saudi Arabia and other gulf leaders skipped the talks.

However, no major announcements came out of the summit as Obama is already a lame-duck president, said Saeed al-Lawindi, political researcher and expert of worldwide relations at Cairo-based Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

Stepping off of Air Force One earlier at King Khalid International Airport, Obama was greeted not by King Salman but by a lower-ranking royal, Prince Faisal bin Bandar Al Saud, the governor of Riyadh.

Closing out a brief trip to Saudi Arabia, Obama also warned that a fragile cease-fire in Syria is on the verge of collapse, but he offered few hints about any alternative US strategy if it does.

Obama has said he opposes the bill because it could expose the United States to lawsuits from citizens of other countries.

60 minutes crew leave Lebanon

Al-Amin has hinted at the possibility of a future reconciliation with Faulkner, but said he would raise the children in Lebanon. The television crew was arrested the following day and Faulkner was later found with the two children at a home in Beirut .

Obama praised Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi as a "good partner" for the US but and said he was concerned about his grip on power.

The U.S. president said the deal has "cut off every single one of Iran's pathways to a nuclear weapon", but the United States continues to have "serious concerns" about Iran's behavior in the region.

Obama's hopes of winding down USA military engagement in the Mideast have repeatedly been confounded by conflicts that have flared up in a number of countries struggling to contain extremists.

Obama says the U.S.is in contact with various factions inside Iraq and is encouraging them to finalize the makeup of a governing cabinet.

"They've got a lot on their plate", Obama said. A Saudi-led coalition has been involved with fighting against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen since 2015.

Redskins agree to deal with All-Pro cornerback Josh Norman

However, with the Panthers GM wishing the best for Norman , it is nearly certain that he will not return to Carolina. After the deal was agreed Norman sent out a tweet to Redskins nation .

"Oil is the basis for the whole issue, as oil is so essential for the United States", Hani Khallaf, political expert and Egypt's former assistant foreign minister for Arab affairs told Xinhua.
Virginia is one of four U.S. states that requires former felons to apply for reacquisition of voting rights, the administration said, the harshest class of voting restriction for former felons in the US.

That's according to the office of Virginia Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who signed a bill on Friday that would allow convicted felons who had completed their sentences to vote.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that the unprecedented move will also allow felons living in Virginia to sit on a jury, serve in elected office, or become a notary. Under McAuliffe's new order, felons convicted of both violent and non-violent crimes will be able to vote so long as they have carried out their sentences. In the USA nearly 6 million Americans can't vote because of felony convictions The New York Times reports citing The Sentencing Project, which it describes as a "Washington research organization". And that group is disproportionately African American - by the same data, more than three times the share of blacks (7.7 percent, or around 1 in 13) couldn't vote. The state GOP accused the governor of "political opportunism".

I want to run against Hillary

What is meaningful, however, is whom primary voters will select to send to Cleveland as the 54 uncommitted delegates. So we'd have splits with 16 people, and then 14 people and 12 people and eight people and nine people.

Thirty-eight states automatically restore voting rights to most ex-felons.

"I am stunned yet not at all surprised by the governor's action", said House Speaker William J. Howell.

The governor called the instant restoration of rights to these Virginians the natural next step to his incremental streamlining of a process that has already given 18,000 nonviolent felons their rights back. But Republicans are suggesting McAuliffe, a long-time Clinton supporter, went too far by including violent criminals and that his move is a "transparent effort to win votes". "While we celebrate today in Virginia, we know the work continues in states like Florida, where people remain denied the restoration of their fundamental right to vote".

Barcelona Open: Rafa Nadal sees off troublesome Fognini to enter semis

Nishikori got back in the match after Nadal misjudged a ball that he thought was going wide when he could have smashed it. Nishikori dominated Paire, finishing the match with a total of five of nine break chances converted.

Before Governor McAuliffe prepared this order, he consulted with legal experts, and according to them, he had enough authority to restore voting rights in Virginia.

Thereafter, the governor will act month by month to restore the rights of felons who complete all these requirements.

Undoubtedly alarmed by that prospect, Virginia's Republican Party immediately resorted to scaremongering on social media. In June 2015, he reformed the state's process for regaining voting rights, eliminating a provision that required them to pay outstanding court costs and feed before they could register. Before Obama's victories, Republicans carried Virginia in every presidential election since 1952 except one.
He's granting 200,000 convicted felons - who have served their sentences and completed probation - the right to vote.

An expert who cheered McAuliffe's order admitted to the New York Times that it covers convicted murderers and rapists. He said McAuliffe was wrong to issue a blanket restoration of rights, even to those who "committed heinous acts of violence". In only two states, ME and Vermont, all felons - whether in prison or not - can vote.

Tesla reveals first styling update to Model S in three-plus years

Replacing it is a front-end design that's more along the lines and similar to the Model X SUV and even the new Model 3 sedan. Also on the options list is a HEPA air filter, which can filter out 99.97 percent of all pollution, allergens and bacteria.

"With this action, what scant civility remains between the General Assembly and this governor has been stretched to the breaking point", Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment said. Whether the ex-felons choose to exercise that right to vote or not is their choice, but to the extent it symbolizes the fact that the completion of their sentence should be seen as a second chance at a clean life, a step like this could just be what it takes to help many of these people avoid falling through the cracks again.

FAIRFAX, VA - JUNE 26: Democratic U.S. presidential hopeful and former U.S. Secretary of the State Hillary Clinton comes on the stage with Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe during the Democratic Party of Virginia Jefferson-Jackson dinner June 26, 2015 at George Mason University's Patriot Center in Fairfax, Virginia. In 38 states and the District, most felons automatically gain the right to vote when they complete their sentence, according to the National Conference of State Legislators. The state GOP accused the governor of "political opportunism". His decision doesn't speak of mercy. Virginia has also been one of those states that revoked the right to vote. "But there are limits." party Chairman John Whitbeck said. Local faith leaders speaking at the order's signing emphasized that felon disenfranchisement laws like Virginia's were created with the explicit intent of preventing African Americans from gaining political power. As of 2010, the latest year for which data is available, 7.3 percent of Virginians could not vote because of felony convictions, according to the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit that advocates for sentencing reforms. After the 2000 presidential election, for example, some argued that the state's laws barring felons from voting were what allowed George W. Bush to win the state and, therefore, the election.

FA Cup: United Beat West Ham, Advance To Semis

At the end it was, of course, not so nice but we are the winners, so it's fantastic. "You can't play at this level for 90 minutes only on energy".

Constitutional scholar A.E. Dick Howard, who presided over the most recent rewrite of the Virginia Constitution 45 years ago, said McAuliffe has broad discretion in restoring civil rights, and has now ended one of the last remaining legacies of an earlier constitutional convention that was "committed to white supremacy".
US President Barack Obama Friday dismissed claims that the international community was planning to send ground troops to Libya to shore up the unity government and help fight IS.

Speaking at a joint press conference with David Cameron in London, Obama said sending ground troops will be a wrong signal to the unity government.

Theres no plan for ground troops in Libya. I dont think thats necessary. I dont think it would be welcomed by this new government. It would send the wrong signal, he said.

What we can do is provide them with expertise, what we can do is provide them with training.

He also indicated that Washington is working with its European allies to make sure that IS group is defeated and therefore stops posing a direct threat to Europe.

IS received a major blow this week after the national army led by Gen. Khalifa Hafter announced it overcame militants in the town of Derna, near Sirte where the terrorist group has established its nerve center.

UK along with the EU have pledged their full support to Faiez Serraj, the nominal Prime Minister of the unity government.

Also on Friday, EU ambassadors to Libya rejected in a joint statement the threats received by Tobruk-based parliament lawmakers who support unity government.

The Libyan internationally recognized parliament this week failed to endorse the unity government as agreed in December in the UN-backed Libyan Political Agreement. A small group of anti-unity government on Monday prevented fellow colleagues supporting the Government of National Accord (GNA) to register for the vote.

On Thursday around 102 out of the 198 MPs issued a statement recognizing the Serraj-led GNA and proposed to meet in another location out of Tobruk to conduct the vote.

The EU envoys welcomed the decision.

The UN has been pushing rival sides to stand by the GNA deemed by its rivals as a stooge of western powers.
Egyptian security forces have launched multiple assaults on activists who have called for anti-government protest on Monday to chide regime for surrendering the two Egyptian Red Sea Islands to Saudi Arabia.

Dozens of activists including members of 6 April movement, the youth movement that led the anti-Mubarak protest, have been arrested at their homes, in coffee shops across Cairo.

Up to 59 people have been arrested since Thursday, a group of lawyers says. The arrests are still ongoing, the group adds.

Activists, politicians and Islamists have called for anti-government protest on April 25 to reject President al-Sisis handover of the two Red Sea Islands to Saudi Arabia in a deal signed during King Salmans visit to Cairo, earlier this month.

Al-Sisis decision sparked public outrage with millions of Egyptians accusing the President for selling off the Islands for Saudi aid.

Thousands of Egyptians across the country took to the streets last Friday despite warnings. The protestors also expressed pent-up frustrations against the regime as they chanted anti-Sisi slogans calling for his ouster.

It was the first such strong protest since al-Sisi won the 2014 elections.

The regime has since banned any form of protest and outspoken activists and journalists have been subject to crackdown and forced disappearance.

Supported by millions of Egyptians in his military coup against Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in 2013, al-Sisis popularity has waned down. The regimes heavy-handedness and increasing violation of human rights have worn out his supporters who feel now betrayed.

Lambasted for poor human right record, Sisi said last week at a joint press conference with Frances Holland the country is tattered by insecurity due to terrorist acts and it was urgent for the regime to protect the 90 millions of Egyptians. He argued that evil forces were conspiring to bring down the government.
The next handshake Cruz gives Trump may be his last as a presidential contender. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Ted Cruz, professional Republican delegate collector, has had another great weekend building up his support for a possible second round of voting at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Politico reports that of the 94 GOP delegates up for grabs across states on Saturday, Cruz secured at least 64. In Maine, Cruz-supporting delegate candidates won 19 of 20 slots, plus a whopping 36 of 37 in Trump-hating Utah, all 9 Minnesota delegates on the ballot across three congressional districts, and 1 more delegate in a congressional district in South Carolina. All of these delegates, some of whom are already pledged to Trump on the first ballot in Cleveland, would be poised to support Cruzs nomination should Trump be unable to secure the win in the first round, though that outcome seems more and more unlikely at this point.

As FiveThiryEights Nate Silver points out:

Put another way, by Voxs Andrew Prokop, unless something big changes, unless these polls are very wrong, or unless theres some sort of convention rules coup, this points toward a first ballot victory for Donald Trump.

Silver goes on to note that Trumps anti-establishment rigged system argument seems to have traction among Republican voters, and that opinion polls indicate that the GOP rank and file want to avoid a contested convention, even if they dont want Trump to be their nominee  a sentiment that may influence voting in the 15 remaining contests where, at this stage, a vote for anyone but Trump is essentially a vote for a contested convention:

Last weeks NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 62 percent of Republicans thought the candidate with the most votes in the primaries should become the nominee in the event that no candidate wins a majority of delegates, compared with 33 percent who said Republicans should choose the candidate who the delegates think would be the best nominee. Only 40 percent of Republicans had Trump as their first choice in the same poll, which implies that theres a group of Republicans who personally dont prefer Trump but wouldnt want to deny him the nomination if he finished with the plurality of delegates and votes, as he is almost certain to do. We might call this group the #TolerateTrump faction of the GOP, as opposed to pro-Trump and #NeverTrump blocs.

In addition, as the Associated Press highlights:

It may seem counterproductive, but Trumps foot-stomping has served as a rallying cry to boost turnout and reinforce his appeal to voters who feel disenfranchised. The rigged system argument is a convenient scapegoat, shifting the blame for any future potential losses and lost delegates away from a campaign that has been outmaneuvered.

Speaking of rallying cries, despite Trumps new convention manager telling GOP insiders last week that the image-projecting Trump was evolving and will dial back the crazy and be super-presidential for the general election fight, the candidate himself maintained a different  or, rather, familiar  tone in front of Connecticut supporters on Saturday. Via the New York Times:

[My aide Paul Manafort] was down in Florida and he said, You know, Donald might be changing a little bit over a period of time and he  maybe hell tone it down, maybe he wont, but who knows what happens?  Mr. Trump told a crowd in Waterbury, before rejecting this notion. I sort of dont like toning it down, he said. Isnt it nice that Im not one of these teleprompter guys?

Per the AP, Trump also told supporters at another Connecticut rally on Saturday that being presidential is easy, or at least much easier than what I have to do  up here I have to rant and rave and keep you people going, or else youre going to fall asleep on me.

Trumps campaign was offering a fresh rejection of Cruzs delegate-hunting efforts on Sunday as well, with convention manager Paul Manafort arguing on Fox News Sunday that Cruz, by gaming out his second-ballot strategy, is in fact trying to say the process doesnt matter:

Hes trying to say voting doesnt matter. Hes trying to say that all that matters is to destroy the party and see who can pick up the pieces on a second, third or fourth ballot.  Good news for him, or for the party were not going to let that happen. Were going to win it on the first ballot, and it will be clear on June 7.

Writing for Hot Air, Jazz Shaw also warns Cruz to be careful what he wishes for, because once the beast is unleashed you never know what might happen next or what groups might jump up with plans which you completely oppose:
Making The Most of the Night, which should have been the damn first single!

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YES EXACTLY

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I love that song so much!

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From your keyboard to God's eyes. I need this.

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I Didn't Just Come Here to Dance would be an amazing summer song tho

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pic.twitter.com/5bgYwudDY1  Craigslist Personals (@craigslistlove) 2016329



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whyyyyyyyyyyyyy

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Is this the real one or the other one with the shirtless guy on the beach? Hahaha

I think it was posted for the NYC show.

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Yes! I want to dance at the club to this, please!

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if it's going to have the $3 budget boy problems did she can keep it

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Agreed...that video did not do Boy Problems justice.

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I'm glad her label is still putting money into this campaign. It better be I Didn't Just Come Here To Dance! Her singles run has been flawless since I Really Like You.

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queen

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Warm Blood

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it needs to be for the title track EMOTION which was literally my favorite song of 2015. please carly rae!!

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that song is so slept on!!!

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yes! idk how that song gets overlooked.

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my favorite as well!

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I love Emotion sfm, it sounds like if haim and tswift did a song together

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WARM BLOOD or i'm fightin'

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my faves are emotion & warm blood, but for a single i'd want making the most of the night or i didn't just come here to dance

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LA Hallucinations, it's such a good song.

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i drunkenly bought by friends and i three tickets to see her on may 6th... probably the best idea drunk me has ever had! even if i am $200 poorer lol

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I listened to Emotion today. It's a great album.



should have had 1989's success

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this album was so criminally slept on. sigh.

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I'm still mad about the promo schedule for this album. The singles should have been Run Away With Me, Making the Most of the Night, All That, I Didn't Just Come Here to Dance, and Emotion. And she should have released the album a lot sooner than she did. This was in my top 3 favorite albums of last year.

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I want to be Maya Rudolph

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Me too

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same. but without all those kids

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I do not- she seems to be pregnant 24/7

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dearly inebriated





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lol

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lol, I love that too!

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lol mte

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that looks like so much fun. i wonder who recorded this video

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Forever sad I never saw him live

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Yeah, me too.

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They didn't deserve him. Jimmy is a fucking mess.

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His hair at the beginning was so distracting flopping all over the damn place

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jimmy got worse thru the night apparently

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wow :')



it looks like it was so much fun

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Prince always seemed like so much fun.



/would have been better without annoying Fallon

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this

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Remember when Maya was in a band before she joined SNL





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NO but I remember this song and this video b/c I am old

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May Rudolph is everything hahaha

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mte lemonade is happening! album is coming!!

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what she do this time?

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lol @ not even waiting for a second page before going ot



make the post yourself

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lol i love maya sfm

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this looks like so much fun! so jealous of the people there. i love maya and prince 2gether



Meanwhile, Jimmy Fallon seems like the world's most obnoxious drunk.



Edited at 2016-04-24 01:15 am (UTC)

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theres another video out there of him falling on his ass during miley, debbie harry and ariana singing together





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Agreed. He's so innocent. And hilarious.

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the wrestling community has made me so fucking angry in the past few days



rip chyna

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because the internet wrestling community likes triple h now because he's behind nxt, and chyna said a lot of bad shit about him and accused him of some pretty heavy things.



the "unreliable narrator" card has already been flaunted around to discredit her experiences and i'm not here for it.

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I don't wanna know what they're saying about her :(

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smh, how can anyone drag her like wtf

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thats because men are garbage.

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It's pretty disgusting what people are saying about her online.

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Fuck that shit. So glad my circle of wrestling friends recognizes her for what she was (a FUCKING LEGEND)

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I don't know what to say to that.

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chyna; she was a hero to a young girl (me) & to see such a strong woman be a prominent role, a powerhouse, in a "man's" corporation was an inspiring event. god bless her ): I hope that her family is doing well and have each other's support through this. my thoughts go to them. #rip chyna; she was a hero to a young girl (me) & to see such a strong woman be a prominent role, a powerhouse, in a "man's" corporation was an inspiring event. god bless her

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philanthropic queen





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and like, is it something she asked for even?



i know it says she spoke to the doctor years ago but i still wonder



Edited at 2016-04-24 03:02 pm (UTC)

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It never crossed my mind that domestic violence could cause CTE.

Just one more reason why both need to be taken more seriously.



Hopefully Chyna's wishes are respected. <3

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yup. they've found cases in abuse victims, professional athletes, and even a circus performer who's job was to get fired out of a cannon into a target (he was a little person). They also found it in a young man who had autism and one of his symptoms was repeatedly hitting his head against a wall. Its fucked up.



(I work in dementia research)

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My brother has Tourette's and one of his tics is shaking his head really fast and CTE is something he's starting to worry about since none of the meds he's tried have helped this particular tic that much.

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/late reply



I had an immediate gut reaction to this, because I have Asperger's and during middle school I hit my head on things for attention. Not really comparable, but that scared me for a split second.



Also, this isn't really the phrase I'm looking for but regardless, good luck on job type things!

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I want my body to be donated to science, medical research, etc. whatever can help people.



RIP :(

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Oh are they using volunteers instead of dead Chinese political prisoners

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lulz I imagine it's like Locks of Love where they end up having to turn down like 80% of the people who attempt to donate their bodies 'cause they can't use it properly.

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same. the last thing i want is to be buried in the ground. the thought freaks me out.

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same. i'm a nurse, and though i highly doubt anyone is going to want my organs after i die, i'm still signed up to be an organ and tissue donor just in case someone can use them for transplants. and if not, i want my body to go to science so it can be used for other future advancements/to train the next generation of doctors and researchers.

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I read that her documentary was still shooting when she died... Like her manager literally had a film crew behind him when he walked in on her room to check on her and found her dead 

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:( that's so sad

I can't even imagine

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Oh wow. That's like when Lisa Lopes was doing a documentary too and they were literally filming her right when she got into the car accident.

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I'm still not over this death.

She was my wrestling icon! :(





I really hope they do something for her on Raw otherwise WWE is officially on my shit list forever.



Just tell us now she's instantly in the HOF for next year~

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Whoever they have headlining the hof class won't be as big as she was, guaranteed.

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Not even close. Like I can't even think who they will induct for next year.



Fans will kick shit online if its not done



Edited at 2016-04-24 06:09 am (UTC)

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Same! I wasn't a big prince fan so his death didn't affect me very much, but omg i was such a huge wwe fan growing up she is like a part of my childhood. Chyna and Lita were my faves :( :(

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Last I read they didn't know. I don't think any medication they found indicated they had been abused and there was no reason to assume suicide.

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This is cool. I know a lot of wrestlers have pledged this as well in a past few weeks. Kevin Nash, Cena, Jeff Hardy & Mick Foley(especially).



I don't think people really or fully understand the torture these wrestlers put themselves through for their craft.



They were taking unprotected headshots with REAL METAL FOLDING CHAIRS for decades.



It's the same shit people are outraged about when it comes to football players except wrestlers were doing this for multiple times a week for years. No one cared because 'wrestling is fake'.



Thank god that shit was banned. It makes me cringe nowadays.



Edited at 2016-04-24 06:34 am (UTC)

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I always think about Chris Benoit and all the damage he did to his head for our entertainment. They do some really crazy stuff. And wwe not even acknowledging him... Like I know what he did was super fucked up but damn.

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I turned wrestling off forever after the Chris Benoit thing. I can't stomach it at all anymore.

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well only wwe has banned headshots, indies company still do it which is a shame

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Have they stopped headshots with folding chairs?

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They still do this shit at indie shows. I love my husband's fellow wrestling friends like family but they piss me off with the risks they take. My hb is just a manager to avoid the physical stress and he STILL wound up with a huge gash behind his ear during a show that needed stitches among many other injuries. I love the sport but it stresses me out. He tried to get me to perform and I was like, nah.

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I dont even get why they never used like fake movie set chairs or some shit in Wrestling. But one thing Crazy Ass Cornette even said was it actually makes more sense and is more authentic to put your hands up if a chair is thrown at you in real life so they should protect themselves.



That ECW shit of just taking the fucking shot never made sense to me. So fucking white boy 90s lol

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my dad was a huge wwe fan when i was growing up and i never realized what a fixture of my childhood she was until i heard she was gone. hearing about the way she was (is) treated makes my blood boil. rip.

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I told my brother to donate my organs, and my body to science when I die and he said "not if it costs money" and I'm like, "do you not understand what the word 'donate' means?" O_o

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LOL

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Lol I actually heard that some clinics in germany don't except donations anymore because a lot of poorer people did it to save burial costs :s

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they see right through us lmao

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yeah, i was like, doing a funeral or cremation or whatever costs money. that's some bull, tho, cuz they can always use it afaik lol

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At first, ha but then I remembered an organization here charging people like $50 to volunteer for a charity event in order to pay for a volunteer TShirt and water throughout the day. So. Honestly? Wouldn't surprise me

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There's a lot of misinformation out there about organ/tissue donation costing the dead's family money, so I wouldn't necessarily hate on your brother too much.

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Either the day before or after my dad passed one of his old friends killed himself (he played for the Bears). Apparently he purposely shot himself in the heart so they could study his brain and I guess they talked about him in the movie but I haven't seen it.

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I forget the guy's name but they do talk about it in the movie!

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For the latest indication of how bad the recession in the U.S. oilfield services sector is, we took a look at last night's Schlumberger results which were modestly better than expected, beating expectations of $0.37 by one cent, however, the non-GAAP adjusted bottom line did not tell the full story. The company's net income plunged nearly 50 percent, to $501 million, or 40 cents a share, from $975 million, or 76 cents, a year earlier.

Profit fell in the first quarter as the company, which helps explorers find pockets of oil underground and drill for it, adjusts to shrinking margins in North America as customers scale back work. Customers are slashing spending by as much as 50 percent in the U.S. and Canada. Related: Sanctions Lifted, Now Iran Wants To Get Paid

"Its a weak beat mainly because they guided estimates down," Rob Desai, an analyst at Edward Jones in St. Louis, who rates the shares a buy and owns none, said in a phone interview. "North America came in weaker than we expected."

The world's No.1 oilfield services provider said its costs to do business in North America exceeded the revenue it earned there in the quarter, the first time it had negative margins in the region since oil prices started falling in mid-2014.

"North America was the biggest surprise to the downside, with negative margins, which did not occur during 2008-2009 oil drop," Edward Jones analyst Rob Desai said. Related: Eni Hopes To Develop Supergiant Gas Field By 2017

The company was pressured from the collapse in crude prices seen in North America, the worlds largest hydraulic fracturing market, where Schlumberger reported a loss of $10 million, before taxes. Elsewhere, the company announced earlier this month its plans to cut back activity in Venezuela, holder of the biggest oil reserves of any country, due to unpaid bills.

The real indicator of what is to come is that SLB has cut its 2016 capital spending budget to $2 billion from $2.4 billion and has hinted that more cuts are still to come. The company also cut another 2,000 jobs in the first quarter, proving that the worlds largest provider of oilfield services sees the industry in an unprecedented downturn. This reduced the global headcount to 93,000 at the end of the first quarter according to Joao Felix, a spokesman for the company. More than a quarter of Schlumbergers workforce, or roughly 36,000, have now been cleaved off since the worst crude-market crash in a generation began in late 2014. Related: Oil Majors Lose Faith In The North Sea  100 Shut Downs Looming

If anything these cuts suggest that the true picture for the U.S. shale space is getting worse not better.

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Paal Kibsgaard had the final word, saying: "The decline in global activity and the rate of activity disruption reached unprecedented levels as the industry displayed clear signs of operating in a full-scale cash crisis. This environment is expected to continue deteriorating over the coming quarter given the magnitude and erratic nature of the disruptions in activity."

We are confident this lack of downstream demand from the company that has the best visibility in the U.S. shale sector is why oil is up another 2 percent even as virtually all oil producers are now ramping up production to even higher levels in a furious attempt to beggar their mostly OPEC neighbors.

By Zerohedge

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Reprinted from Reader Supported News

While Bernie Sanders still has a statistical chance to win the Democratic nomination, the time has come to face the big question. How will those of us who support Bernie respond to the likely contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump?

The answer depends. What will Bernie choose to do in the coming weeks and months? And how badly do millions of ordinary Americans -- black, Latino, Asian, white, and mixed -- want the political revolution that a grumpy old Socialist Jew proclaimed?

Bernie's choices are limited. When he decided to run in the Democratic primaries, many purists like Chris Hedges condemned him for embracing the dark side. Had Bernie run as an independent, would he have enjoyed anywhere near the same impact? Absolutely not. But he did pay a price, going easy on Obama and all the money the president had taken from Wall Street in his first campaign. Hillary used Obama's ties to the street of Capitalist dreams as an easy way to justify her own funding and speaking fees.

Now Bernie may have to pay an even bigger price. He has promised to run to the end, hoping to win as many delegates as possible, which will help him shape the party rules and platform. But the party elders and their spear-carriers in the media will put him under enormous pressure to play nice, toning down any criticism that might further weaken Hillary before her likely race against Trump.

Normally, party platforms are about as important as a cup of warm spit. But Bernie has done an amazing job of pushing Hillary to the left. Writing into the platform the promises he forced out of her will make it that much more difficult for her to backtrack on her current opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other job-killing trade deals, on her Krugman-approved regulation of Wall Street, on tax equity, and on ending the wholesale incarceration of young black men that she and Bill pushed through for their own purely political purposes during the first Clinton dynasty.

Once in the Oval Office, Hillary will likely find carefully nuanced arguments for going back to her earlier pro-corporate policies, but if she does, our job will be to hold her feet to the fire and make her look as bad as possible. A strongly-worded platform will help us in that effort.

Changing the party rules could also help reduce the control of the bureaucratic bosses, making it easier for independents to vote in the primaries and giving new insurgencies a greater chance of success.

These are all worth fighting for, and my guess is that Bernie will try to play the party game, securing his role at the convention in July and in the Senate for as long as he wants. But whatever he chooses to do, those of us who support him need to pursue a course of our own. Many of us have been fighting these battles long before Bernie entered the race, though nowhere near as effectively, and we will continue fighting long after he grows old.

One difference will immediately become clear. Whether we got our start opposing John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson's Democratic war in Southeast Asia or George W. Bush's Republican war in Iraq, we generally oppose the foreign policy and empire-building of both major political parties, and do so more strongly than do Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, or most of their colleagues. As I have argued against historically shortsighted pundits, Hillary is no neo-con but far more dangerous -- a liberal imperialist with roots in the first Cold War and Woodrow Wilson's interventions in Mexico and the new-born Soviet Union.

Will refusing to hold our tongues now hurt Hillary and help Trump? It could, but I'm not terribly worried. He's so outrageous, so much of a racist bigot, and so closely tied to truly fascistic elements in American society that we can easily build opposition to him without ever having to hide Hillary's failings. He has blurted out so many inconsistent positions that it's hard to know what he stands for or what he might do if he ever became president, which he will not. But, just to keep perspective, he has been far more critical of George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, the allied intervention in Libya, and NATO's Cold War mentality than Hillary ever has.

In all probability, most of us living in those states where it might make a difference will probably put clothespins on our noses and vote for Hillary against Trump. We prefer her likely picks for the Supreme Court to his. We look forward to making her remember Bernie and her promises every day of her time in the White House. We will have no trouble building a massive anti-war movement against her efforts to have America and its allies rule the world. And we will spend most of our time and energy building democratically controlled grass-roots movements wherever we happen to be, winning support for the kind of changes Bernie has promoted.

That is how change is made in America. Whether for civil rights, ending wars, organizing labor unions, winning free speech, or getting $15 an hour, activists on the ground provide the push and politicians ratify the change. So, let's keep on pushing.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
While tributes pour in to the Great Bard, Shakespeare, on his April 23rd birth date, it may be worth mentioning that our US national icon and friend in the struggle, Mark Twain, believed the historical Shakespeare to be a ridiculous fraud and forgery. In a chapter in his Autobiography called "Is Shakespeare Dead?", Twain genuinely argues that the Stratford actor couldn't possibly have written the works ascribed to him, and while he is extremely funny as always, Twain is not pretending to argue; he really means it, presenting his case with force in this underappreciated essay.



To be clear, Mark Twain genuinely believed "Shakespeare" to be a complete and utter fraud, so perhaps this reading will provide you with a sense of this pet position of Twain's, and perhaps you will feel impelled to read the entire text of "Is Shakespeare Dead?"



At the end I'll tell you who Twain thought was a prime candidate as author of the "Shakespeare Plays", but this issue is secondary to his conviction that the Shakespeare we know did not write and could not have written the works attributed to him.

From Twain's Autobiography: Is Shakespeare Dead? Chapter lll

"How curious and interesting is the parallel--as far as poverty of biographical details is concerned--between Satan and Shakespeare. It is wonderful, it is unique, it stands quite alone, there is nothing resembling it in history, nothing resembling it in romance, nothing approaching it even in tradition. How sublime is their position, and how overtopping, how sky-reaching, how supreme--the two Great Unknowns, the two Illustrious Conjecturabilities! They are the best-known unknown persons that have ever drawn breath on the planet.

For the instruction of the ignorant I will make a list, now, of those details of Shakespeare's history which are facts--verified facts, established facts, undisputed facts.

Facts

He was born on the 23d of April, 1564.

Of good farmer-class parents who could not read, could not write, could not sign their names.

At Stratford, a small back settlement which in that day was shabby and unclean, and densely illiterate. Of the nineteen important men charged with the government of the town, thirteen had to "make their mark" in attesting important documents, because they could not write their names.

Of the first eighteen years of his life nothing is known. They are a blank.

On the 27th of November (1582) William Shakespeare took out a license to marry Anne Whateley.

Next day William Shakespeare took out a license to marry Anne Hathaway. She was eight years his senior. William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. In a hurry. By grace of a reluctantly-granted dispensation there was but one publication of the banns.

Within six months the first child was born.

About two (blank) years followed, during which period nothing at all happened to Shakespeare, so far as anybody knows.

Then came twins--1585. February.

Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
In a remarkable spectacle of money-grubbing over arms deals, this month saw a parade of Western leaders jettisoning any pretense of upholding vaunted "liberal values" to court despotic Mideast regimes.

Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister who sent liberal hearts aflutter when he was elected in November, with his espousal of feminism among other progressive causes, is the latest Western leader to show where real priorities lie. Trudeau signed off on a $11 billion deal with Saudi Arabia to export armored vehicles to the blood-soaked repressive regime.

With astounding cynicism, the 44-year-old Canadian premier said he was duty-bound to fulfill the arms contract drawn up by the previous administration as "a matter of principle" in order to demonstrate that his country's "word means something in the international community."

This week also saw US President Barack Obama in Saudi Arabia where he glad-handed King Salman and other Gulf monarchs, lauding them as partners in maintaining regional stability and fighting against terrorism. Conspicuously, Obama made little or no mention of human rights violations in the oil-rich kingdom where mass beheadings are a common method of capital punishment.

Western media talked about "strained relations" between Obama and his Saudi hosts. But underlying the superficial optics it was business as usual. Big business. US military affairs publication Defense One reported that high on Obama's agenda was securing a $13 billion contract for warships and submarine-hunting helicopters with the House of Saud.

Before Obama touched down in Riyadh, his administration had angered American families by announcing that it would veto a bill going through Congress that could enable relatives of the 9/11 terror attacks to sue the Saudi rulers for their alleged involvement in sponsoring that atrocity. The topic didn't even arise for discussion during Obama's visit, indicating the president's real concerns in meeting the Saudi and other Gulf rulers.

France has also nabbed market share from Western rivals in the Persian Gulf where over the past year Paris has sold billions of dollars' worth of its Rafale fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Similar prevarication over human rights is brazenly shown by the British government of David Cameron in its arms dealing with Saudi Arabia and the wider region. The Saudi-led war in Yemen has been a boon for British sales of bombs and missiles, even though as many as 9,000 Yemenis have been killed over the past year, many of them civilians from aerial bombing by Saudi warplanes.

Britain's foreign minister, Philip Hammond, has dismissed condemnations by human rights groups in regard to Yemen, claiming that British weapons exports meet tough standards of international law. Britain, like Canada and other Western governments, makes the cynical claim that its military exports are not used for "internal repression" and that if it is proven that weapons are being used to kill civilians in Yemen then trade licenses will be canceled.

So what is Saudi Arabia dropping on Yemen? Cuddly British-made toys?

Duplicity of Western governments doing business with despotic regimes is nothing new. The Middle East's absolute monarchs have long been a staple of American and other Western so-called "defense industries." In 2010, the Obama administration signed a $60 billion weapons deal with Saudi Arabia -- the biggest in US history.

During the 1980s, Britain under Margaret Thatcher won a comparable mammoth contract with Saudi Arabia known as the Yamamah deal.

Massive arms sales to tyrannical regimes give the real meaning to hackneyed euphemisms spouted by the likes of Obama, Cameron, Hollande and Trudeau, when they cite "regional partners for stability." What they mean by stability is uninterrupted orders for weapons.

What is new, though, is the lack of discretion in how the West now pursues arms deals in the Mideast.

Western governments are apparently falling over themselves to bid for business. Yet this unseemly rush for arms selling is sharply at odds with not only intensifying repression within Middle Eastern "partner" regimes; it has also become abundantly clear that some of these same regimes are directly responsible for sponsoring terrorism in the region. The case of Saudi Arabia and its sponsorship of Wahhabi terror proxies in Syria, Libya and Iraq is perhaps the most glaring.

Part of the burgeoning Western race for arms business is related to the historical demise of their capitalist economies and the emergence of military industries as key components in whatever remains of gutted manufacturing sectors.
Bernie Sanders offers an inspiring message and bold vision for America without the excessive baggage of Clinton, which is why Sanders is our choice for president in the Democratic primary.

Clinton has on many occasions exercised bad judgment on critical issues including her avid support for her husband's draconian 1994 crime bill which led to a major increase in mass incarceration of African Americans. She may not be responsible for signing the crime bill but she strongly supported it. She has since apologized for her support including her use of the race-coded term "super predator" to describe Black males involved in crime. But her previous stance raises serious questions.

She also exercised bad judgment in giving highly paid speeches to Wall Street, whose reckless speculation help lead the country to the worst recession since the Great Depression. In foreign affairs, she supported the invasion of Iraq and has publicly advocated a far more aggressive approach toward Syria than President Barack Obama. Obama and Sanders opposed the war in Iraq. Sanders is also a strong advocate of Palestinian statehood, which requires considerable courage. The New York Times describes Clinton as more hawkish on military matters than Obama and most Democrats in Congress.

Since his days as a student at the University of Chicago protesting against segregation in public schools in Chicago and throughout his political career, Sanders has supported policies and programs that would be in the best interest of all Americans and African Americans, specifically. He has been a consistent fighter for a more just and equitable society.

The killing of unnamed Black men by police officers in Ferguson, New York, Baltimore and elsewhere have finally brought the important issue of police brutality and mass incarceration to the national dialogue.

Sanders takes a strong stance against police abuse and misconduct without demonizing good police officers. He has called for demilitarizing local police departments and holding police officers accountable for misconduct and abuse.

His support for free tuition at public colleges and universities would disproportionally help African Americans and would have a major positive affect of alleviating poverty.

His critics say Sanders proposals are too ambitious, costly and would never get through Congress. They are right that most of his proposals would not pass the current Republican-controlled Congress. His proposals will not happen overnight. But Social Security was also once seen as impossible.

But most of Sanders' proposals including free tuition at public colleges and universal health care are not new and are already well established government programs in European countries with far less wealth than the United States.
Reprinted from Counterpunch

"Hugo Chavez defied the most powerful interests, and he refused to bow down...I believe there is a very strong possibility that President Chavez was assassinated." -- Eva Golinger

MW -- Do you think that Hugo Chavez was murdered and, if so, who do you think might have been involved?

Eva Golinger -- I believe there is a very strong possibility that President Chavez was assassinated. There were notorious and documented assassination attempts against him throughout his presidency. Most notable was the April 11, 2002 coup d'etat, during which he was kidnapped and set to be assassinated had it not been for the unprecedented uprising of the Venezuelan people and loyal military forces that rescued him and returned him to power within 48 hours. I was able to find irrefutable evidence using the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), that the CIA and other US agencies were behind that coup and supported, financially, militarily and politically, those involved. Later on, there were other attempts against Chavez and his government, such as in 2004 when dozens of Colombian paramilitary forces were captured on a farm outside of Caracas that was owned by an anti-Chavez activist, Robert Alonso, just days before they were going to attack the presidential palace and kill Chavez.

There was another, lesser-known plot against Chavez discovered in New York City during his visit to the United Nations General Assembly in September 2006. According to information provided by his security services, during standard security reconnaissance of an event where Chavez would address the US public at a local, renowned university, high levels of radiation were detected in the chair where he would have sat. The radiation was discovered by a Geiger detector, which is a handheld radiation detection device the presidential security used to ensure the President wasn't in danger of exposure to harmful rays. In this case, the chair was removed and subsequent tests showed it was emanating unusual amounts of radiation that could have resulted in significant harm to Chavez had it gone undiscovered. According to accounts by the presidential security at the event, an individual from the US who had been involved in the logistical support for the event and had provided the chair was shown to be acting with US intelligent agents.

There were numerous other attempts on his life that were thwarted by the Venezuelan intelligence agencies and particularly the counterintelligence unit of the Presidential Guard that was charged with discovering and impeding such threats. One other well known attempt was in July 2010 when Francisco Chavez Abarca (no relation), a criminal working with Cuban-born terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, responsible for bombing a Cuban airliner in 1976 and killing all 73 passengers on board, was detained entering Venezuela and later confessed he had been sent to assassinate Chavez. Just five months earlier, in February 2010, when President Chavez was at an event near the Colombian border, his security forces discovered a sniper set up just over a quarter of a mile away from his location, who was subsequently neutralized.

While these accounts may sound like fiction, they are amply documented and very real. Hugo Chavez defied the most powerful interests, and he refused to bow down. As head of state of the nation without the largest oil reserves on the planet, and as someone who openly and directly challenged US and Western domination, Chavez was considered an enemy of Washington and its allies.

So, who could have been involved in Chavez's assassination, if he was assassinated? Certainly it's no far stretch to imagine the US government involved in a political assassination of an enemy it clearly -- and openly -- wanted out of the picture. In 2006, the US government formed a special Mission Manager for Venezuela and Cuba under the Directorate of National Intelligence. This elite intelligence unit was charged with expanding covert operations against Chavez and led clandestine missions out of an intelligence fusion center (CIA-DEA-DIA) in Colombia. Some of the pieces that have been coming together include the discovery of several close aides to Chavez who had private, unobstructed access to him over prolonged periods, who fled the country after his death and are collaborating with the US government. If he were assassinated by some kind of exposure to high levels of radiation, or otherwise inoculated or infected by a cancer-causing virus, it would have been done by someone with close access to him, whom he trusted.

MW -- Who is Leamsy Salazar and how is he connected to the US Intelligence Agencies?

Eva Golinger -- Leamsy Salazar was one of Chavez's closest aides for nearly seven years. He was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Venezuelan Navy and became known to Chavez after he waved the Venezuelan flag from the roof of the presidential guard's barracks at the presidential palace during the 2002 coup, as the rescue of Chavez was underway. He became a symbol of the loyal armed forces that helped defeat the coup and Chavez rewarded him by bringing him on as one of his assistants. Salazar was both a bodyguard and an aide to Chavez, who would bring him coffee and meals, stand by his side, travel with him around the world and protect him during public events. I knew him and interacted with him many times. He was one of the familiar faces protecting Chavez for many years. He was a key member of Chavez's elite inner security circle, with private access to Chavez and privileged and highly confidential knowledge of Chavez's comings and goings, daily routine, schedule and dealings.

After Chavez passed away in March 2013, because of his extended service and loyalty, Leamsy was transferred to the security detail of Diosdado Cabello, who was then president of Venezuela's National Assembly and considered one of the most powerful political and military figures in the country. Cabello was one of Chavez's closest allies. It should be noted that Leamsy remained with Chavez throughout most of his illness up to his death and had privileged access to him that few had, even from his security team.

Shockingly, in December 2014, news reports revealed that Leamsy had secretly been flown to the US from Spain, where he was allegedly on vacation with his family. The plane that flew him was said to be from the DEA. He was placed in witness protection and news reports have stated he is providing information to the US government about Venezuelan officials involved in a high level ring of drug trafficking. Opposition-owned media in Venezuela claim he gave details accusing Diosdado Cabello of being a drug-kingpin, but none of that information has been independently verified, nor have any court records or allegations been released, if they exist.

Another explanation for his going into the witness protection program in the US could include his involvement in the assassination of Chavez, possibly done as part of a CIA black op, or maybe even done under the auspices of CIA but carried out by corrupt elements within the Venezuelan government. Before the Panama Papers were released, I had accidentally discovered and was investigating a dangerous corrupt, high level individual within the government, who Chavez had previously dismissed, but who returned after his death and was placed in an even more influential, powerful position. This individual also appears to be collaborating with the US government. People like that, who let greed obscure their conscience, and who are involved in lucrative criminal activity, could have also played a role in his death.

For example, the Panama Papers exposed another former Chavez aide, Army Captain Adrian Velasquez, who was in charge of security for Chavez's son Hugo. Captain Velasquez's wife, a former Navy Officer, Claudia Patricia Diaz Guillen, was Chavez's nurse for several years and had private, unsupervised access to him. Furthermore, Claudia administered medicines, shots and other health and food-related materials to Chavez over a period of years. Just one month before his deadly illness was discovered in 2011, Chavez named Claudia as Treasurer of Venezuela, placing her in charge of the country's money. It's still unclear as to why she was named to this important position, considering she had previously been his nurse and had no similar experience. She was dismissed from the position right after Chavez passed away. Both Captain Velasquez and Claudia appeared in the Panama Papers as owning a shell company with millions of dollars. They also own property in an elite area in the Dominican Republic, Punta Cana, where properties cost in the millions, and they have resided there since at least June 2015. The documents show that right after Chavez passed away and Nicolas Maduro was elected president in April 2013, Captain Velasquez opened an off-shore company on April 18, 2013 through the Panamanian firm Mossack Fonesca, called Bleckner Associates Limited. A Swiss financial investment firm, V3 Capital Partners LLC, affirmed they manage the funds of Captain Velasquez, which number in the millions. It's impossible for an Army Captain to have earned that amount of money through legitimate means. Neither him nor his wife, Claudia, have returned to Venezuela since 2015.

Captain Velasquez was especially close with Leamsy Salazar.

MW -- Can you explain the suspicious circumstances under which Salazar was flown out of Spain to the safety of the United States on a plane belonging to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)? Doesn't that strike you as a bit strange? At the very least, this suggests that Salazar was acting as an agent for a country that is openly hostile towards Venezuela? That makes him either a collaborator or a traitor. Do you agree?
Both Bernie Sanders and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman Should ask for a new New York Primary: In New York, Article 78 replaces the Writs of Mandamus Used in Other States

I have been doing some legal research to determine if the NY Attorney General, the Comptroller, and/or the Sanders Campaign Lawyer, Brad Deutsch, could ask under Section 78 for a judge, either at the Federal or State Level, or perhaps the New York Supreme Court itself, to order the New York State Board of Elections to do the Primary over again.

Why not? Remember how long that Supreme Court decision took over the hanging chad question in Florida, and the Bush I appointees in the Supreme Court then awarded the White House to Bush II? Why not take action now pre-emptively? In most states, this would be a petition for a Writ of Mandamus, but New York did away with this and so this kind of relief falls under Section 78.

I believe Election Fraud should be addressed whenever and wherever it occurs, and in most states, that would fall under a Petition for a Writ of Mandamus. If that means 20 states with questioned primary results, so be it, starting with Arizona, Nevada, New York, and probably after this Tuesday, Rhode Island.

[see Emily Atkins' excellent article:

Rhode Island Voters 'Caught Off Guard' By Poll Closures and Voter ID Law

thinkprogress.org/ "/3"/rhode-island-primary-election/ (We told you about this a few days ago, after a Facebook Providence RI friend told me that "Rhode Island is going to make Arizona look like a fly on the wall!"

From Emily's article: "Sixty-six percent of Rhode Island's normal polling places will be closed on the state's fast-approaching presidential primary, leaving at least one advocate worried that voters will experience confusion and frustration while trying to cast ballots. John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island, told ThinkProgress that voters have been "caught off guard" by the fact that only 144 of the state's 419 polling places will be open on Tuesday (ostensibly to "keep costs down"!)

Back to New York:

This could be some fertile ground for cutting edge questions for you to ask the NY Attorney General, the NY Comptroller, and other authorities of your choosing on Monday. Perhaps the NY Governor could order a new primary election as well? Not much chance of that; the best remedies will be entirely judicial.

Why, indeed, are so few reporters writing about this or asking questions about this?

Are they buying the watered down mainstream drivel that New Yorkers love to believe, that with their New York-o-centric world, its all over for Bernie, never mind the hundreds of thousands who were disenfranchised? WHAT BALDERDASH! It would be funny, if there weren't so much at stake for America, when you stop to think about how all of the pundits even at the New York Times like Charles M. Blow writing a few days ago about "Bernie's Endgame"! They all seem to be oblivious to the evolving blindsiding about potential indictments and other legal "baggage" for his opponent.

I am not a fan of Fox news nor do I have any connection with them, only my last name, but you should take a minute and watch this commentary by Judge Napolitano: "Judge Nap: FBI Has 'Overwhelming' Evidence to Indict and Convict Hillary"

This is going to go all the way down to California and those last primaries, like New Jersey's and New Mexico's, then the convention and a big battle there.

If Bernie goes back to the Senate, he will be by far the most powerful member, far more powerful than some chump consolation prize like being his opponent's Vice President, an offer I am sure he would turn down, mark my word.

Here is a link to Section 78, and how precisely it could be used in this case will be determined by those lawyers.

[this just in, a response from the Sanders Campaign in Burlington:

Official Response from Sanders Campaign: [I still ask Bernie and NY Attorney General Eric Scheiderman to ask a NY or Federal Court to order a new New York Primary!!!! Members, if you agree, please also write to Mr. Schneiderman in Albany in general about the massive disenfranchisement in Brooklyn and in other boroughs, or with specific occurrences, and to Mr. Deutsch, Bernie's Lawyer in Washington. This chance to redo the NY Primary is not going to be around forever. It could be requested and even so ordered by the end of the coming week!] Stephen, Thanks for your note and your continued support - it is very much appreciated. The rules in each state are different, and rules can differ between caucuses and primaries too. Also, registration rules vary by state; and the place to which irregularities should be reported differs from state to state. The point it"there is no single place to report every real or perceived infraction. We set up hotlines a few days before each election and usually leave them open until a few days after. That window is when we experience the most activity in any particular state. These hotlines are typically staffed by attorneys with experience in voter protection issues in that specific state. We work to separate real issues from perceived issues, or issues reported from 3rd parties - like someone reporting something another person posted on his or her facebook page which, in turn, just references a story he or she heard from a family member. Such third party reports are much harder to confirm. We do act on confirmed reports of irregularities, voter suppression, voter fraud, and other infractions. You may recall a lawsuit we filed in Ohio centered around the Secretary of State preventing voting of 17 year olds who would be 18 by election day - just one example of how our team can and will act quickly to make sure citizens of every state who are eligible to vote can do so. Remember, while our hotlines do get shut down after that state's election day, you can ALWAYS report issues right here at help|AT|berniesanders.comEmail address and we will make sure it goes directly to our voter protection team. Thank you again for your support. Rusty] >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I very much look forward to the incisive responses, from you, the reader.

Stephen Fox,

Bernie Sanders: Advice and Strategies to Help Him Win!
Reprinted from Smirking Chimp

Thomas Frank made a splash a decade ago with a bestseller called "What's the Matter With Kansas?" In his book Frank attempted to answer the question: why do so many Americans -- working-class Americans -- vote against their economic and social interests -- i.e., Republican?

I've been thinking about Frank a lot lately. Beginning with the Southern states on Super Tuesday and continuing through Tuesday's important New York primary, the crucial support of black voters has created a "firewall" for Hillary Clinton against the insurgent candidacy of Bernie Sanders in the Democratic race for president. Yet Sanders is far more liberal than Clinton, and has a far better record on black issues than she does.

What's going on? Why are so many black Americans voting against their own interests -- i.e., for a Democrat in Name Only?

Sanders, the liberal radical, in the race, carries white states. Clinton, the conservative incrementalist, carries those that are more ethnically diverse. In New York this week, the pattern continued (though there's strong evidence the primary was stolen by Clintonista-Cuomoite henchmen, but that's another story). According to exit polls, Hillary carried 75% of African-Americans in New York, compared to 49% of whites. Because it's uncomfortable for liberals to talk about, no one much does. But the data is clear.

There is a glaring racial divide within the Democratic Party.

This appears to be new. On November 7, 1984, posters went up in my old neighborhood, the Manhattan Valley section of upper Manhattan. They were printed by the city Democratic Party, thanking residents for voting for Walter Mondale over Ronald Reagan at the highest rate in the United States. Then as now, the area was diverse: predominantly Latino, with many blacks and, due to nascent gentrification, a growing white presence. We were all -- young white people like me, young people of color, middle-aged people of color, old people of color -- on the same page politically: as far left as allowed by law. If there'd been a Bernie Sanders on the ballot in 1984, he would have gotten 99% of Manhattan Valley.

Things have changed over the last 32 years. It's hard to tell when or how or why. Howard Dean and John Edwards (both insurgent liberals who had trouble attracting black votes) included, Democratic Party politics hasn't seen any major candidate as left or progressive as Bernie Sanders during that period (really, since George McGovern in 1972). Until now, it's been hard to clearly perceive the race gap.

Privately, many of Sanders' supporters are paraphrasing Thomas Frank: what, they wonder, is going on with black people? If the Democratic primary campaign were based on the issues and the candidates' personal histories, we'd expect blacks to be a key voting bloc for Bernie, not Hillary.

On racial justice issues, Bernie is a zillion times better than Hillary.

During the Civil Rights movement in 1963, Bernie Sanders got arrested to protest housing segregation and traveled to the March on Washington to hear Dr. Martin Luther King speak. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton was an "active young Republican and, later, a Goldwater girl." Barry Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights Act.

Sanders has consistently championed racial equality and fought poverty and income disparity, two economic scourges that hurt blacks worse than anyone else. As First Lady, Clinton pushed her husband's 1994 crime bill, which accelerated mass incarceration of blacks. (Though she and Bill now admit it went too far, neither have proposed actually doing something to fix it, like letting those sentenced under the law out of prison.) She also backed "welfare reform," which drastically increased extreme poverty, especially among blacks. And while running for president in 2008, she was the only candidate who said she wouldn't end the crack and powder cocaine sentencing disparity. Hillary is essentially a Republican.

Since when do blacks vote Republican?

One possible answer is name recognition. Hillary Clinton has been a boldface name in politics since 1993. As recently as September, 38% of all Americans had never heard of Bernie Sanders. But that doesn't explain the race gap. Sanders was an obscure figure to whites and blacks alike.

Another is class. Influenced by Marx, Old Left Democrats like Sanders see racism, sexism and other forms of oppression as subsets of class warfare by ruling elites against the rest of us. Today's Democrats have abandoned class analysis in favor of identity politics.

So even though she's wealthy, devotees of identity politics see Hillary Clinton as a victim of oppression because she's a woman. Even though he's Jewish and middle-class, identitarians consider Bernie Sanders a privileged white male. Perhaps this is why some black voters relate to her more than the old guy.
By Jason Williams

Taxpayer Association of Oregon

OregonWatchdog

 Why its good, how they bungled it, banning $100 bills? Candidates complaints, more

Deciding to place Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill is a solid choice for a worthy heroic woman of history. So worthy that she deserved better than the bungling that led to the decision.

Deciding in advance that the replacement was only reserved for a woman only makes it seem like she didnt win on merits alone  that would have been a better accomplishment for Tubman who deserves to win on merits alone! Furthermore, why does the Treasure Secretary get to be the only person who gets to decide? Hes already lined up scores of changes to our currency with little public input. If you want America to be involved why not invite our elected lawmakers as opposed to press announcements that most of America had no idea was occurring.

Obamas previous Treasury Secretary is currently advocating at taking out of circulation our $100 and $50 bills as better way to fight terrorism and black market groups. It seems like our currency is becoming the new political battleground and I hope that Obama moves away from his acting alone strategy and embraces more America in his decisions.

Back to Tubman. I deeply appreciate Harriet Tubman because I went to Harriet Tubman Middle School in Portland. As a Caucasian in the school I was in the minority, but very blessed to be able to live in a new inner-city world most people never see and I didnt know existed. Tubman was our schools hero. Her life had real power and meaning and application to our lives. Unfortunately, after I graduated, I rarely ever heard of Tubman mentioned ever again. So I know that promoting Harriet Tubman on our currency will help have a meaningful difference for many Americans that we may not readily see. This is why I cringe when I hear politicians complain (Ben Carson who says she should be on the $2 bill). I believe this is a solid choice.

Postscript: When it comes to historical women I admire, I really like to remind people of Clara Barton. The same Clara Barton whom Governor Scott Walker said should be on the bill during the Presidential debates. Clara was more than the founder of the Red Cross American chapter. She helped victims of both the North and South during the Civil War and represents someone who helps brings divided people together  which America needs right now! Barton helped prisoners of war, helped proper burials and body identifications of the dead for their families, was an abolitionist, an early woman suffragist, helped communities with disaster relief, and even gained international attention for helping the wounded in the Franco-Prussian war. This year I was honored to leave a gift for her at her memorial in Antitiem Maryland.
Burkina Faso, Africa's top cotton producer and the sole West African nation to venture into biotech farming, is dropping genetically-modified (GM) cotton on quality grounds.

The world's 10th largest cotton producer, with four of its 19 million people dependent on the "white gold", Burkina Faso earlier this month said it was giving up Monsanto's GM Bt cotton because it had proved uneconomical.

Burkina took up GM cotton in the 2000s in the hopes of bumping up returns on what was then its top export product, surpassed in 2009 by gold.

But the country's association of cotton producers now say GM cotton, though producing higher yields, has caused a drop in crop quality.

"The cotton fibre we are producing today is short," Burkina Faso's new President Roch Marc Christian Kabore told AFP this month.

Fibre length is key in textiles with longer ones tending to produce stronger yarns because they allow fibres to twist around each other more times, also enabling higher spinning speeds.

But the shorter fibres now being produced from Burkina's GM cotton "means that in market terms it's an activity which is no longer very attractive for us," the president said.

The government, he added, has taken steps "to underpin the sector ... and help producers."

'A battle won'

Those measures include tens of thousands of dollars worth of seed and fertiliser subsidies as well as price controls for producers to offset market falls.

Burkina's Inter-professional Cotton Association (AICB), grouping the country's main producers and the national cotton farmers' union, is now targeting "100 percent conventional" production, Wilfried Yameogo, director of Sofitex, Burkina Faso's main cotton company, said earlier this month.

"It's a battle won," added Christian Legay of the national council of organic food processors, an umbrella organisation of consumer groups and farm workers which wants a five-to-10 year moratorium on transgenic cotton in Burkina Faso.

But qualms over GM products and "frankenfoods" played no role in the about-face.

With Burkinabe cotton once prized for its purity and length of fibre, it was the fall in quality that weighed in favour of a return to conventional cotton.

Producers say this resulted in the sector incurring losses between 2011 and 2016 of some 48.3 billion CFA francs ($82.4 million). They insist these must come back to them in the form of compensation.

High hopes

In the 2000s, the emergence of GM had fueled hopes of greater production and also reduced the need for fertiliser.

This was a key issue in a region prone to drought and where cotton pests had grown resistant to eradication by pesticides.

Insecticide-resistant caterpillarsthe 'Helicoverpa armigera known as the cotton bollworm or Old World (African) bollwormwreaked havoc on crops and producers' livelihoods in 1991, 1996 and 2000.

GM crops were supposed to be a win-win solutionreducing the number of pesticide treatments as well as boosting yields by as much as 90 percent, boosting per hectare profits.

Celestin Dala, a producer in Nayala in the west of the country, said that "with GM cotton two treatments are requiredsix with conventional."

In 2003, Burkina authorised experimental planting by US seed giant Monsanto and Swiss multinational Syngenta. Then in 2007, Burkina launched large scale production of transgenic cotton.

Two years later, the authorities ordered farmers to seed up to 80 percent of their crop with the GM variant, leading to a reduction in labour time and facilitating the backbreaking work involved.

'Tactical withdrawal'

Researchers, political and community leaders were critical of the move to launch GM crops from the outset.

"The principal of precaution was not respected," says Jean-Didier Zongo, a genetician from the University of Ouagadougou, who accuses Monsanto of "criminal" acts. He alleges the firm provided insufficiently tested seed varieties.

"These allegations are false," fired back Monsanto spokesman Billy Brennan.

He said Monsanto seeds have brought about "better yields, lower pesticide dosage and greater export volumes" to produce a "positive impact on 350,000 producer farms."

President Kabore told AFP that Burkina Faso's authorities are "pursuing talks with Monsanto".

Though the country's producers are demanding redress for the loss of income they say they can think again in the future.

"If in three, four or five years they (Monsanto) find a solution, there is no reason why we would not go back to towards GM", said Yameogo of Sofitex. "What we have here is a tactical withdrawalnot a total rejection of GM."

But organic activist Legay says Burkina Faso's decision to step back from transgenic cotton is "a timely warning for other African countries".

Explore further Growth of GM crops slows for first time in 20 years

 2016 AFP
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YEREVAN, 24 APRIL, ARMENPRESS. In 1915, the crime perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians was the first genocide of 20th century. The Armenians worldwide commemorate 101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Representatives of different states and international organizations have arrived in Armenia to participate in the events of the 101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. On April 24, Armenians and the high level delegations will visit the Genocide Memorial Tsitsernakaberd to pay tribute to the memory of the Armenian Genocide victims.

In the framework of the events of the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide, a the second Global Forum entitled "Against the Crime of Genocide" was held in Yerevan, which was attended by participants from around the world, as well as parliamentarians, lawyers, genocide experts and scholars.

What is the Armenian Genocide?

The extermination of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and the surrounding regions during the First World War is called the Armenian Genocide.

Those massacres were masterminded and perpetrated by the government of Young Turks in different regions of the Ottoman Empire.

The first international response to the violence resulted in a joint statement by France, Russia and the Great Britain on May 24, 1915, where the Turkish atrocities against the Armenians were defined as a crime against humanity and civilization. According to them, Turkish government was responsible for the implementation of the crime.

Why was the Armenian Genocide perpetrated?

When WWI erupted, the government of the Young Turks adopted the policy of Pan-Turkism, hoping to save the remains of the weakened Ottoman Empire. The plan was to create an enormous Ottoman Empire that would spread to China, include all the Turkish speaking nations of the Caucasus and Middle Asia, intending also to turkify all the ethnic minorities of the empire. The Armenian population became the main obstacle standing in the way of the realization of this policy.

The Young Turks used WWI as a suitable opportunity for the implementation of the Armenian genocide, although it was planned in 1911-1912.

How many people died in the Armenian Genocide?

There were an estimated two million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire before the First World War. Approximately one and a half million Armenians were killed from 1915-1923. The remaining part was either islamized or exiled.

The mechanism of implementation of the Genocide

A genocide is the organized extermination of a nation aiming to put an end to their collective existence. Thus, the implementation of the genocide requires oriented programming and an internal mechanism, which makes genocide a state crime, as only a state possesses all the resources that can be used to carry out this policy.

The first phase of the extermination of the Armenian population started on April 24, 1915 with the arrest of several hundred Armenian intellectuals and representatives of national elite (mainly in the capital of the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople) and their subsequent elimination. Hereinafter, Armenians worldwide started to commemorate the Armenian genocide on April 24.

The second phase of the Armenian Genocide was the conscription of about 60,000 Armenian men into the Ottoman army, their disarmament and murder by their Turkish fellow soldiers.

The third phase of the genocide is characterized with the exile of the massacres of women, children, and elderly people to the desert of Syria. Hundreds of thousands of people were murdered by Turkish soldiers, police officers, Kurdish bandits during the deportation. The others died of epidemic diseases. Thousands of women and children were subjected to violence. Tens of thousands were forcibly islamized.

The last phase is the universal and absolute denial of the Turkish government of the mass deportations and genocide carried out against Armenians in their homeland. Despite the ongoing process of international condemnation of the Armenian Genocide, Turkey fights against recognition by all means, including distortion of history, means of propaganda, lobbying activities and other measures.

The term genocide was firstly used by the Polish lawyer of Jewish origin Raphael Lemkin. His family became the victims of the Holocaust, and he was trying to use this term to describe and define Nazist systematic policy of killings and violence, as well as the hostilities committed against the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire in 1915.

The United Nations adopted Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide on December 9, 1948 which defines Genocide as an international crime and the countries which signed the document are obliged to prevent and punish the perpetrators of the genocide.

International recognition

The Armenian Genocide committed by the Ottoman government has been substantiated, recognized and confirmed by eyewitness reports, laws, resolutions and by the decisions of numerous states and international organizations. Numerous organizations such the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, several UN commissions, World Union of Churches, MERCOSUR Parliament admitted the Armenian Genocide. Many countries have recognized the Armenian Genocide, Uruguay was the first country that officially recognized the Armenian Genocide in 1965. The Armenian massacres were officially criticized and recognized as Genocide based on international law by the following countries: France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Greece, Slovakia, Cyprus, Lebanon, Uruguay, Argentine (2 laws, 5 resolutions), Venezuela, Chile, Canada, Vatican, Australia, Austria, Luxembourg, and 44 states of the US.
YEREVAN, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS. The Press Service of the Nagorno Karabakh Defense Army informed Armenpress about Azerbaijani ceasefire violations in the direction of Martakert and Talish overnight April 24.

The NKR Defense Army statement reads: Azerbaijan fired artillery strikes from noon of April 23 till the night of April 24 in the Nagorno Karabakh-Azerbaijan line of contact. In the abovementioned period Azerbaijani forces opened intensive fire at Armenian positions in Martakert and Talish by using different caliber weapons and 60mm (16 shells), 82mm (99shells), 122mm D-30 Howitzer (19 shells) and TR-107 rocket launcher (25 rockets).

It is noteworthy that Azerbaijan targeted not only military positions, but also the Mataghis civilian settlement. One Azerbaijani shell hit the village area. Fortunately there are no casualties.

The Defense Army Forces conducted suppressive actions against Azerbaijan. The NKR Defense Ministry informs that the abovementioned Azerbaijani aggression is once again an obvious display that Azerbaijan openly continues violating the April 5 ceasefire agreement and purposefully escalates the situation.
YEREVAN, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS. President Serzh Sargsyan addressed a message on the occasion of the 101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. As Armenpress was informed by the Department of Public Relations and Mass Media of the Presidential Administration, the message reads:

Dear Compatriots,

Today, we commemorate the sacred memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide. Over one hundred years passed since the Mets Eghern. What has changed? Firstly, we have changed. We were reborn as a nation and as a state. We proved to ourselves and to the world that the genocidal plans of the Turks had failed. Our struggle for justice still goes on. What has not changed? The policy of denial of the official Turkey has not changed, as has not changed its hostile stance toward everything that is Armenian. This is nothing short of a direct continuation of the crime in our times. The Turkish society has partly changed. Today it knows about its own history a little more than it knew yesterday. Tomorrow, it will learn more than it knows today unless the free word and media is not strangled, unless members of the parliament, public figures and editors are not shot. The truth, though slowly, but opens the eyes of the people.

Dear Fellow Citizens,

Nowadays, emotions and worries, discussions and analyses related to the war actions of April 2-5 have not subsided yet. Azerbaijan unleashed another war against Artsakh. And once again after suffering great losses, was thrown back. The true objective, or rather the true dream of Azerbaijan is the occupation of Artsakh and its cleansing of Armenians which means its population will be partly purged, partly deported. Today, on April 24, 2016, I declare for the entire world to hear: there will be no purging or deportation of the Armenians of Artsakh. We will not allow another Armenian Genocide. We - means the Armenian nation, all its segments, we - means our Armenian consolidation.

Dear Compatriots,

Today, as we bow to the memory of our innocent victims, we witness the unprecedented consolidation and resolve of our nation to build a free, peaceful, and modern state, a powerful Fatherland of all Armenians where the generations of the victims of the Armenian Genocide and of those who survived miraculously are returning.
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EASTON  One of the first rule of barnyard photography is watch your step.

Karin Kennedy, whose family farm hosted the Agricultural Stewardship Associations kids photography workshop Saturday as part of the 24th annual Washington County Fiber Tour, explained to children and adults that Ensign Brook Farm has sheep and chickens crisscrossing the property, and messes happen. But that was a small caution for the 20 or so children who showed up with cellphones, tablets, and full-fledged cameras to learn from Greenwich photographer Clifford Oliver.

Given that kids came with a variety of equipment, Oliver focused on the principles of composition rather than technicalities. Were making a photograph, not taking a photograph, Oliver said. Some people say you should photograph what you know. Instead, photograph what you want to know as a way of getting into something.

As he led the group around the farm, chatting and joking with the children, Oliver introduced the elements of a good photograph. Be aware of your background, Oliver said, pointing out the fields and weathered buildings. Think in layers  whats in the foreground, the middle, and the background.

Instead of shooting down at a subject, come down to its level, Oliver said, prompting the children to lie flat in a field to photograph old wheels and axles. Another caution: watch out for ticks.

At the top of a field, Oliver brought up the quality of the mornings light. Because of an overcast, the light today is flat. Its a soft light, very even. Soft light is good for soft things. Harsh light is good for subjects with texture, he said.

The group headed down the hill to the barn where shearer Joe Hamilton was preparing to shear a pen full of Romney sheep. Oliver encouraged the children to think about what wouldnt look good in their photos of the shearing, such as open doors or stray equipment behind their subjects. Some things we leave out, Oliver said. Look at your background and shoot low.

Olivers final advice to the young photographers: Always carry your camera.

Gina LeClaire of Moreau brought her grandson, Ethan, to the workshop. Ethan had left his camera on the kitchen table, but Grandma let him use her cellphone to take pictures.

The workshop was wonderful, LeClaire said. Ethan already had some experience taking photos. He said he wanted to put his pictures in a scrapbook, in order from first to last.

Katie Jilek, communications and outreach director for the Agricultural Stewardship Association, said this was the first time her organization did a kids photography workshop as part of the Fiber Farm Tour, although not the first time Ensign Brook has hosted ASA events. She encouraged workshop participants to send their three or four favorite shots to ASA for a photo exhibit at the Washington County and Schaghticoke fairs later in the summer.

The photography workshop was made possible by a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts Decentralization Program, administered by the Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Council.
KINGSBURY  Even though the town has arranged for Washington County to handle some of its building code issues, Supervisor Dana Hogan says Code Enforcement Officer Ross Cortese will continue to do some work for the town.

Ross will remain in his current role of a shared capacity with the village, still addressing local zoning rules and nuisance matters, Hogan said last week. Kingsbury is in the process of developing a formal nuisance law, which will likely increase his role in this capacity.

Cortese had been splitting his time between the town and the village of Hudson Falls, but village officials were concerned the arrangement was not giving Cortese enough time for village building code and enforcement issues.

At one point Kingsbury officials discussed hiring him full-time, but they later chose to ask the county to step in, as it does for many other towns.

Hogan said the annual commercial fire inspections and legwork of building permits will be provided by the county.

But as I understand it, initial review of building permit applications must be approved by the local code enforcement officer to ensure conformity with local zoning, he said.

Hudson Falls has been focusing on nuisance buildings in an attempt to clean up the village. Cortese has been working closely with Mike Fiorillo and the village DPW in doing that cleanup work.

Kingsbury joins a number of other towns having their building code enforcement done by Dave Armando and his county staff.

The county does the work for Argyle, Dresden, Fort Ann, Granville, Greenwich, Hampton, Hartford, Hebron, Jackson, Salem, White Creek and Whitehall. Its staff also covers all the countys villages except Hudson Falls.

Some towns have a local code enforcement officer as well.
YEREVAN, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS. St. James Monastery in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem held a ceremony commemorating 101 years to the beginning of the Armenian Genocide on April 23, Armenpress reports citing The Jerusalem Post.

The ceremony was held after a mass that was led by Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem Nourhan Manougian, and was attended by the leaders of Armenian community in Jerusalem.

Harut Baghamian, one of the organizers of the ceremony, a descendant of Armenian Genocide refugees, told The Jerusalem Post that the Armenian community is disappointed from the way Israel deals with the memory of the genocide. Its not that they are denying like some countries, they are just not talking about it. There were some Israeli politicians that have expressed their feelings about the genocide in the past, and we appreciate that. But we expect from the government to honor their values before politics. We understand that this is a political issue, he said.

Baghamian stated that they receive a broad support from the Israeli public, however, they expect from the Jewish state to be the first to acknowledge and to speak out about the issue.

On April 24, members of the Armenian community and social activists will protest in front of the Turkish Consulate in Jerusalem and the Turkish Embassy in Tel Aviv.
For many residents of Warren County, how they are represented at the county level is an afterthought.

To a group of citizens questioning the way Warren County supervisors represents them, its an issue of constitutionality. They claim the countys Board of Supervisors makeup is a hybrid that violates the constitutional provision of one person, one vote.

In particular, decisions made in committee are not made by weighted vote, although all committee decisions are later considered by the full Board of Supervisors in a weighted vote.

Also, the city of Glens Falls does not have its mayor on the board, which the group sees as a problem.

County leaders have been discussing the merits of a switch from a board of supervisors to a legislature for several months, and only a handful of residents have attended meetings to have their say.

That is unfortunate, because a switch from one system to the other could have a major impact on how local people are represented, by whom they are represented and how the county conducts its daily business.

Supervisors seemed to shut the door on a switch last week when they voted not to establish a citizens committee to look at the issue. But residents in the group dedicated to the issue say they are contemplating a lawsuit that could force the county to change to a system in which legislators represent population-based districts.

Similar lawsuits have forced changes in two counties in New York over the years.

Queensbury resident Travis Whitehead, a government watchdog who is part of the group calling for creation of a legislature, said Wednesday litigation is possible and will likely be pursued if supervisors wont make the changes themselves. The group first brought the issue to a head late last year, when then-Queensbury at-Large Supervisor Mark Westcott presented a petition for redress of grievances.

Whitehead said he has discussed the issue with county Attorney Brian Reichenbach, and plans to share information with him to try to avoid a lawsuit.

We would like to work together, he said.

Counties vary

More than two-thirds of counties in New York with county governments have legislatures, with 40 legislatures on the books compared to 16 boards of supervisors and one board of representatives. (New York City was not included because its counties are also boroughs.)

Boards of supervisors tend to remain in place in the more rural counties. Regionally, Warren, Washington, Saratoga, Essex, Hamilton and Fulton counties have town supervisors who are chief executives of their towns and also represent those towns on county boards. In some cases, representatives of villages or cities serve as supervisors as well.

Rensselaer, Albany, Schenectady, Montgomery, Clinton, Greene and Franklin counties use legislatures.

The biggest difference between the two is that legislators represent districts evenly divided by population, so that each representative has equal voting power. Boards of supervisors weight voting based on the population of the municipality the supervisor represents. In Warren County, that means weighted voting power ranges from 11 to 85 votes per supervisor.

Legislatures typically use an elected county executive as chief operating officer, compared to an appointed county administrator who works with boards of supervisors.

A number of counties have made the switch to a legislature in recent decades. Supporters say it saves money and is more efficient and also more fairly represents residents on the county level. Westcott estimated Warren County would save $170,000 a year with a legislature.

Stephen Acquario, executive director of the New York Association of Counties, gave Warren County supervisors a presentation in March, breaking down how counties around the state are governed. He said there is no indication that Warren Countys setup is unconstitutional, but he pointed out that the countys supervisor system is not in the majority statewide.

I dont see anything wrong with your government at all, he told supervisors.

Montgomery County

Montgomery was the most recent upstate county to make the switch, moving to a legislature in 2014 after putting the issue up to a referendum in which the public had its say. That vote occurred after a charter was approved to establish a new form of government.

The changes happened after decades of discussion about the issue, dating back as far as the 1980s. Concerns had been raised about the fairness of the countys weighted vote system, in particular over whether a bloc of supervisors was unfairly controlling votes.

Terry Bieniek, chairman of the Montgomery County Legislature, worked as the countys building and grounds superintendent under the Board of Supervisors and now serves as a legislator who represents parts of three towns and part of the city of Amsterdam. He said the change has helped make the county government run more smoothly and efficiently.

In addition to creating a nine-district legislature that oversaw policy and finances, an elected executive position was added to oversee day-to-day operations of county government.

Bieniek said after initial hiccups in figuring out what the duties of the legislature would be versus those of the executive, the system has run well and has been an improvement over a board of supervisors. Legislators have responsibilities solely with the county, and arent pulled toward allegiances to towns as supervisors can be.

I think county operations have been better. Theres more discipline and direction, he said. Overall, I think it was a success.

Bieniek said weighted voting concerns with town supervisors led to the push for change in Montgomery County.

You had a certain group of supervisors who, when they voted together, controlled everything, he said. You cant have 10 to 15 supervisors running the county. You have to have one person in charge.

Montgomery County Executive Matthew Ossenfort said the board of supervisors and a part-time administrator contributed to dysfunction and parochial fighting along town lines that stalled capital projects and hurt progress. While adding a full-time executive increased government costs, Ossenfort said he was able to find other efficiencies, such as insurance plan changes and staffing adjustments that brought savings.

We think regionally now. Were working with Fulton County to promote the region. Were putting a more positive image out about Montgomery County, he said.

Members of the board of supervisors did not think that voters would approve the referendum to create a charter-based form of government that would include a legislature, Ossenfort added.

Opposition

Fifteen of 20 Warren County supervisors voted April 15 against establishing a committee of citizens to review the issue.

While backers of the switch claim opponents are fighting the proposal to preserve their fiefdoms, Warrensburg Supervisor Kevin Geraghty  chairman of the county board, who voted against establishing the committee  said that is not the issue.

The main problems are that the towns and county share so many services with their public works departments, planning and snow removal services, Geraghty said.

They feel there would be a disconnect between the counties and the towns, he said. The way it is now, the towns get good representation at the county level.

Geraghty and Horicon Supervisor Matthew Simpson, another opponent of a switch, said they do not believe the public would support a change, based on conversations they have had with constituents.

It would create another layer of government, Simpson said. The people I have talked to like the idea of a town supervisor being able to have an impact on decisions at the county that affect the town.

Litigation

Two counties, Nassau and Rockland, made the switch from boards of supervisors to legislatures decades ago after lawsuits were filed against the counties by residents who argued their supervisor systems were inequitable.

The lawsuits in those counties didnt end with judges telling counties how to restructure their governments, although the federal judge who heard the Nassau County case did indicate he would create legislative districts if the county didnt.

Theyre not going to tell you what to do, but they are going to tell you what you cant do, Whitehead said.

Whitehead said breaking the county population of about 66,000 down into even districts would likely require 10 or so districts, with each legislator representing 10 percent of the county population. Westcott had proposed a nine-member board.

In that scenario, four of the legislators would likely come from Queensbury, the town with the most population in the county; with Glens Falls likely getting two and some of the smaller upcounty towns being lumped together into districts.

Whitehead said how the changes are made is up for debate.

They first have to get past the mindset and see that what they have doesnt work, he said. I think if they actually look at it, its not that tough. But they have to be willing to look at it.

Westcott has said he believes supervisors are motivated to keep the status quo more by personal reasons than professional ones.

When you get down to it most supervisors on the board dont want to even look at the issue in fear of losing power, salary and benefits, he wrote in an email last week after the county vote. This has nothing to do with doing what is right.
SALEM  Phyllis L. Alberici begins work Monday as director of Bancroft Public Library.

Alberici, who is from Johnsonville, has been library director at Dailey Memorial Library in Derby, Vermont, and Woodbury College in Montpelier, Vermont. She was a founding member and past president of Friends of the William K. Sanford Library in Colonie.

She received unanimous approval from the librarys board of trustees at its April 7 meeting, said Sandra McClellan, board president.

There was a lot of interest in this position  we had resumes coming in from four states. Many were well qualified, but the board felt that Phyllis had the winning combination of people skills, tech proficiency, vision and organizational ability, McClellan said.

Im very pleased to be invited to work with the board and the excellent staff at the Bancroft, Alberici said in a news reslease. I was raised in a rural town where the library was the heart of our community. The Bancroft is a special part of the community fabric of Salem and has been for well over a century. It really is Salems heart. Im looking forward to meeting our patrons and getting out to meet members of the community.

Bancroft Public Librarys outgoing director, Susan Getty, worked at the library for nine years, the last three as its director.

The library has been like a second home to me for many years, and I will miss working with the staff there very much, Getty said in a news release. I also will miss seeing so many of the patrons on a regular basis. It is time, though, for me to move on to some other adventures. I will still be a part of this community, and I expect I will be in the library routinely.

Albericis education includes training at McGill University School of Library and Information Science, Point Park University in Pittsburgh, Hudson Valley Community College and Marlboro College Graduate School in Brattleboro, Vermont.

The new director is not the only change for the Salem library. With the dissolution of the village, the Bancroft has been rechartered as a town library.
Sheldon Silver is 72 years old.

His reputation is ruined.

His wife wrote a letter to the court asking for leniency, because he has prostate cancer.

More than 100 other people have also written letters to the court, acknowledging the good deeds he has done over the years.

It is not clear if the two women he had extramarital affairs with, one of whom got a state job because of Silver and the other who benefited as a lobbyist, were among the letter-writers.

Is that too harsh?

Consider that Sheldon Silver earned $120,000 as speaker in the New York Assembly. He earned another $120,000 from his law firm. And he was one of the most powerful men in state government. Yet, that was not enough. He wanted more.

He was convicted earlier this year of honest services fraud, extortion and money laundering for accepting $4 million in illegal payments in return for favors that benefited a cancer doctor at Columbia University and two real estate developers in New York City.

Federal prosecutors asked that the sentence reflect the unprecedented magnitude, duration and scope of his abuse of power.

Silvers lawyers argue that extensive community service with little or no jail time would be fair.

The state probation office suggests 10 years.

What is just?

What is humane?

Federal sentencing guidelines allow a sentence between 22 and 27 years, but prosecutors would be satisfied with jail time greater than any previous member of the Legislature. William F. Boyland Jr., a former assemblyman, holds that distinction after being sentenced to 14 years on a bribery charge last year.

Prosecutors also believe Silver should forfeit more than $5 million in proceeds from his crimes and be fined at least $1 million.

In a letter to the judge published by the New York Times this week, Silver asked the judge to consider the good things he had tried to do as a public servant.

For the first time, Silver sounded contrite.

I failed the people of New York. There is no question about it. Other than my family, serving my constituents was the most important thing to me, Silver wrote. I worked hard to make sure that the Assembly remained the Peoples House. I wanted the Assembly and all of its members to be accessible and available to the people.

But knowing what we know now, that is simply not true.

The three-men-in-a-room culture that Silver helped perpetuate made the Assembly anything but the peoples house. It was only accessible if you had the money and lobbying power. The people were rarely considered, and that continues today.

Because of my actions, New Yorks ethics rules were and continue to be analyzed, evaluated, and criticized everywhere, Silver continued in the letter. I worked hard for many years to make sure the Assembly and its members were respected as a vital legislative body. Because of me, the government has been ridiculed.

Silvers words illustrate how out of touch he was and continues to be with the public perception of the Legislature and Albany politics. It was not Silvers crimes, or even those of Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, that brought shame on the Legislature, it is the accumulation of years and years of corruption during Silvers three decades in office.

It appears he was oblivious to it.

It appears that the degree of corruption was such a way of life for him, he didnt even realize what he was doing was wrong.

Judge Valerie Caproni will decide what is just for Sheldon Silver on May 3.

Silver pleads with her to consider what Id like to think is a lifetime of hard work and many good deeds.

It appears Silver is asking for quid, pro quo from the judge, arguing that the good balances the bad as he tries to make one final deal.

The seven charges that Silver was convicted of are only what we know about.

We have no way of knowing the damage that Silver did over three decades in office.

There is no way of knowing how many times the deal was more about benefiting himself, his friends and his business partners, than the people of New York.

And it is impossible to know the extent to which it has affected how the people view, not only the former speaker, but every state representative past and present.

The judge should consider the collateral damage as well on May 3.

Ken Tingley is the editor of The Post-Star and may be reached via email at tingley@poststar.com. You can read his blog The Front Page daily at www.poststar.com or his updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/kentingley.
YEREVAN, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS. 18 incidents of ceasefire violations occurred overnight April 23-24 in the northeastern part of the Armenia-Azerbaijan state border.

The Information and Public Relations Department of the Defense Ministry informed Armenpress that Azerbaijan opened irregular fire from various caliber weapons and sniper rifles at Armenian positions.

The Armenian Armed Forces displayed restraint and took countermeasures only in case of strict necessity. Armenian forces are confidently monitoring the border situation.

According to data received from the NKR Defense Army, Azerbaijan fired artillery strikes from noon of April 23 till the night of April 24 in the Nagorno Karabakh-Azerbaijan line of contact. In the abovementioned period Azerbaijani forces opened intensive fire at Armenian positions in Martakert and Talish by using different caliber weapons and 60mm (16 shells), 82mm (99shells), 122mm D-30 Howitzer (19 shells) and TR-107 rocket launcher (25 rockets).

It is noteworthy that Azerbaijan targeted not only military positions, but also the Mataghis civilian settlement. One Azerbaijani shell hit the village area. Fortunately there are no casualties.

The Defense Army Forces conducted suppressive actions against Azerbaijan. The NKR Defense Ministry informs that the abovementioned Azerbaijani aggression is once again an obvious display that Azerbaijan openly continues violating the April 5 ceasefire agreement and purposefully escalates the situation.
YEREVAN, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijan failed the negotiation, thats why it tried to find military solutions, however it failed the military way also. Now Azerbaijan will have to return to negotiations, because there is no alternative to it. Armenian Foreign Minister Nalbandian spoke about this on April 24 with reporters in the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex. The Minister assured that during the meeting with Russian FM Lavrov no negotiation package was discussed, including territorial concessions. There are proposals in the five announcements of the Minsk Group Co-chairs, based upon which Armenia numerously announced that it can continue negotiations towards settlement, but Azerbaijan is ignoring this. This is the reality and this is the reason. Thats why the international community must to every possible thing to bring Azerbaijan to constructive arena. Azerbaijan would not take these actions, would not go to a dead-end if the proposals were favorable for them, Armenpress reports, Nalbandian saying.

He stressed that the Azerbaijani attacks greatly harmed the negotiation process, and joint efforts must be done with the Co-chairs in order for that damage to be restored. There are casualties, and this is irrecoverable, and the international community is trying to sober up Azerbaijan, to bring Azerbaijan to a constructive arena, in order to continue the negotiations, because there is no alternative to this, Nalbandian said, urging not to make assumptions based on rumors. After the meeting Lavrov also announced that our efforts must be directed towards establishing the investigative mechanism, finding other measures, in order to bring stability, guarantee security in the region, in order to have the possibility to continue negotiations in more convenient and favorable conditions, the Minister concluded.
Footage from the show in Ivory Coast showed him slumped on stage. His dancers, unaware of what was happening, continued to perform before rushing to his aid.

In a career spanning almost half a century, Wemba became known as the "the king of Congolese rumba".

He was also a style icon, popularising the cult movement known as the Sapeurs.

The young men who make up the Sapeurs take great pride in their appearance, spending huge amounts of money on designer clothes.

Wemba told CNN he in turn was inspired by his parents getting dressed up on Sundays. They were "always well put together, always looking very smart", he said.

Colourful past

He died before he could be brought to hospital, a spokesman for the Ivosep morgue in Abidjan told Reuters news agency.

Born in 1949, Wemba, whose real name was Shungu Wembadio Pene Kikumba, began his singing career in religious choirs.

He helped modernise Congolese rumba music, making it one of the most popular sounds in Africa.

Together with his bands Zaiko Langa Langa, Isifi and Viva La Musica, he racked up hit after hit, including L'Esclave and Le Voyageur, and worked with international stars like Peter Gabriel.

He appeared in two feature films, Life Is Beautiful (1987) and Wild Games (1997).

In 2004, he was convicted of people-smuggling in France and spent three months in prison.

The conviction related to a racket whereby illegal immigrants were taken to Europe posing as members of his band.

A Belgian court convicted him of the same crime in 2012, handing down a fine of 22,000 (17,143; $24,690) and suspended prison sentence of 15 months.

He was also once jailed in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) for allegedly having an affair with a general's daughter.

Tributes to 'icon'

Congolese President Joseph Kabila has expressed his condolences, and there are likely to be large events paying homage in the coming days.

Congolese Culture Minister Baudouin Banza Mukalay called his death a "great loss for the country and all of Africa", Associated Press reported.

Kinshasa rapper Youssoupha mourned the band leader in a tweet (in French), saying, "Like my community, I am devastated by the death of Papa Wemba.

"He was the icon of our culture, of our lifestyle. This is a huge loss."
The campaign dubbed: Zero cholera incidents, is to engage the public in regular clean-up exercise while other stakeholders in the health and local government sectors embark on public education.

It is aimed at achieving zero cholera this year and subsequent years to come.

Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Alhaji Collins Dauda, launching the campaign revealed that the Ministry has directed Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies to intensify their clean-up exercises and sanitation campaigns to prevent the outbreak.

The ministry is also collaborating with the Environmental Service Providers Association to clear heap refuses within and around the city of Accra," he said.

Other measures to prevent the disease outbreak include washing of hands with soap before and after cooking or after visiting the wash rooms and also proper washing of vegetables before usage.

Communication Development Specialist at UNICEF, Surangani Abeyesekera, presented some prevention communication materials to the food vendors at the Former President Rawlings Canteen around the Ministries where the campaign was launched.

The materials included, aprons, table cloths and posters which has the prevent cholera inscriptions on them.

The food vendors thanked the Ministry and UNICEF for their efforts and contribution towards the prevention of cholera, lives and property.

Ghana in 2014 recorded 28,975 cholera cases with 243 deaths while in 2015 690 cases were recorded with 15 deaths.

The introduction of the National Sanitation Day campaign with other public education measures drastically reduced the number in 2015.
The greatest contributor to economic growth is not physical infrastructure, but brainpower, or gray matter infrastructure, he said.

Malnourished children do not feed their brains or bodies, and stunted children today leads to stunted economies tomorrow, he said in Washington during a global nutrition dialogue organised by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

According to UNICEF, 58 million children in Africa under the age of five are too short for their age; and 14 million weigh too little for their height with an estimated annual cost of under-nutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa at US $25 billion.

Dr Adesina said the Bank has stepped up nutrition matters higher and would soon launch a new strategy to Feed Africa, and turn a net food-importing continent into a self-sufficient food exporter within 10 years.

The Bank is again launching the Affirmative Finance Action for Women to leverage a $ 3 billion specifically for women in Africa.

It would also use its 2016 Annual Meetings in Lusaka, Zambia in May, as a platform for the group of African Leaders for Nutrition to call for innovative and effective financing approaches to end malnutrition.

Note that I say end malnutrition, not reduce it, he said.

Now more than ever is the time invest in nutrition, said Keith Hansen of the World Bank.

If the world is to meet the six targets set out by the World Health Organisation in 2012, the World Bank calculates that it need to spend $7 billion a year for 10 years.

That is a fraction of what it currently spends on things like subsidies for farmers. Our current spending on nutrition amounts to just half of one penny in every dollar.

The AfDB President expanded on the idea of financing the fight against malnutrition, floating the idea of issuing nutrition social bonds.

He expressed the importance of Health Ministers having the support of their Finance Ministers, recalling his time as Minister of Agriculture for Nigeria.

I am not asking you [the Finance Minister] for more money for agriculture. I am in fact promising you more money from agriculture, if we turn it into agribusiness, he said.

He underscored the importance of using mobile technology to get food and information about food to women, and expressed the need for Africa to scale up its use of bio-fortified foods.

Ninety-five per cent of these are currently imported, while the raw materials to create them, not least sorghum, are plentiful.

Again, Africa will manage its own development, Dr Adesina said.
The free maternal health care policy, which begun in Ghana in 2008, is being implemented through the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) aimed at facilitating access to free and quality maternal health care services such as antenatal, delivery and postnatal care at health facilities.

The research findings, which were disseminated at a forum held in Bolgatanga, attracted stakeholders including staff of the Regional Co-ordinating Council, district assemblies, the regional and district hospitals, the National Health Insurance Scheme, regional and district directors of the Ghana Health Service, some civil society organisations and management and staff of the Presbyterian Health Service-North.

The research, funded by the Presbyterian Health Service-North, was done because of public outcry that pregnant women in many health facilities were charged for health services during antenatal, delivery and postnatal care.

It was carried out in the Bolgatanga Municipal, Bawku Municipal and Kassena-Nankana East District in the Upper East Region.

It revealed that pregnant women who attended some of the health facilities were compelled to buy medicine including antibiotics, blood tonic and pay for laboratory and scan tests either in the health facilities or outside the facilities as well as buy disinfectants, bed spread, mackintosh, sanitary pads and soap in preparation for delivery.

The research indicated that such hidden cost of seeking maternal care did not only discourage many pregnant women from going to health facilities to deliver but also led to maternal and infant deaths.

It attributed the problem mainly to the non-availability or shortage of medicines, laboratory reagents and ultrasound machines at the health facilities.

The Health Economist and Senior Research Officer of the NHRC, Dr Maxwell Dalaba, who presented the findings, said women incurred substantial costs in accessing maternal health services despite the implementation of the free maternal health care policy.

He said non-medical costs such as transportation, even though were not covered by the free maternal health policy, were also quite substantial and posed a great challenge to the women in accessing maternal health care.

The research also identified unreliable phone lines, inadequate and high cost of ambulance services, lack of spare parts and inadequate fuel for ambulance services as some of the challenges.

Among some of the recommendations made were that health facilities should be adequately equipped with essential medicines, laboratory equipment and ultrasound machines required for the delivery of maternal services.

Dr Dalaba said a regulatory framework should be put in place to ensure that heads of health facilities endeavour to repair broken down equipment such as ultrasound machines used to provide maternal services, include essential non-medical items such as disinfectants, bed sheets, mackintosh, sanitary pads and resource the national ambulance system to ensure accessibility.

The General Manager of the Presbyterian Health Service-North, Mr Fred Effah-Yeboah, said what informed his outfit to commission the research was to scientifically find out whether there were some hidden costs incurred by pregnant women.

He said since the research had confirmed the truth scientifically, his outfit would engage stakeholders including the Ministry of Health, Ghana Health Service, the Christian Health Association of Ghana and engage policy makers and the Government to address the bottlenecks in the free maternal health policy.

Mr Dordaa Felix, the Project Officer of the Presbyterian Health Service-North, said there was an urgent need to help address the problem in order not to defeat the Governments agenda to reduce maternal and infant mortality.
YEREVAN, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS. Commemorative event for the Genocide victims took place in Sisli district of Istanbul on the occasion of the 101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. The event was held near the Istanbul station which is considered the starting point of the Armenian Genocide.

As Armenpress reports citing Turkish DemokratHaber news website, the participants of the demonstration, which was organized, by the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Sisli department having 80 MPs in Turkish Parliament, kept in their hands the photos of killed Armenian intellectuals, writers, artists, thinkers.

They raised slogans against the Turkish authorities with Without confrontation, genocides will not end content.

Together with Armenians in Istanbul, a large number of Turks, Kurds, Assyrians and the representatives of other nationalities also took part in the demonstration demanding from Turkey to confront the Armenian Genocide.

Co-chair of Peoples Democratic Party Sisli department Mahmut Cavl stated in his speech with the name of the party that the public circles are against the Ankara policy of the denial of the Armenian Genocide and the elimination of the people who are against the authorities.

He stated that Turkish state condemned Armenians to death under the name of deportation.

Genocide is not over. It continued with the means of plundering their property. It continues today, the evidence of which are the crimes committed against non-Muslim people, Hrant Dink, Sevag Balkc and Maritsa Kucuk, said the politician.
Faustina Nartey a grandmother of the victim was found guilty on the charge of causing harm at the end of the trial.

The court presided over by Mrs Abena Oppong Adjin Doku ordered that the victim should continue to stay in the custody of the Children Relief Centre.

The Court further ordered the Director of Social Welfare to appoint a social welfare officer to visit the centre regularly and submit a report to the court to ascertain whether or not the victim should continue to stay at the centre.

Detective Inspector Grace Bandoh said the complainant in the case was an informant who wanted to remain anonymous.

According to the prosecutor, the complaint on March 8, this year, brought the victim to the Police from Kotobabi No 2, on the Spintex Road, with burns on her right arm and two legs saying the victim was being maltreated by Faustina whom the victim was staying with.

Inspector Bandoh said the victim narrated that she was sent by Faustina to go and buy waakye and the victim went on this journey with her the complainants daughter.

On their return, Faustina got angry that the victim went with the complainants daughter and asked her the complainant's to turn on her gas stove and heat a kitchen knife for her.

Faustina then used the heated kitchen knife to burn the victim severally.

The police subsequently sent the victim to the Police hospital for treatment.

Faustina however went into hiding on hearing that the matter had been reported to the Police.

On April 5, this year, Faustina was arrested and during interrogation and in her caution statement, admitted burning the victim with the heated kitchen knife.
Photos circulating on social media show a smiling Mrs. Obetsebi Lamptey with President John Mahama but in a another photo, she wept when the NPP flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo made attempts to console her.

Persons circulating these photos alluded to the fact that Nana Akufo-Addo may have had problems with the late former NPP chairman which is what may have informed the reaction from Mrs. Obetsebi Lamptey.

In an interview on Radio Gold however, Dr. Omane Boamah said such images and unsubstantiated claims should not be encouraged.

He said Ghanaians should not be blinded by politics by making such insensitive comparisons when the family members of the late NPP stalwart are mourning.

It is insensitive. the woman is grieving. Whatever challenges that might have led to her not demonstrating that level of excitement when she saw Nana Addo does not matter," he said.

"People should stop circulating them," he cautioned.

The final funeral rites of the late Jake Obetsebi Lamptey took place on Friday at the forecourt of the state house.
READ MORE:Forces investigates alleged assault of teen by two soldiers

He added that the boy has been discharged from the Nsawam Government Hospital where he was receiving treatement.

According to him, medical forms endorsed by Dr. Amankwa Daniel, shows he is normal.

"According to the Medical Forms Endorsed by Dr. Amankwa Daniel, the doctor attending to him, the Head CT scan and other tests shows he is normal and we are thankful to God," he wrote.

The boy, he added, has been referred to the Clinical Psychology Clinic at the Kole Bu Teaching Hospital for post traumatic stress disorder.

Legal action

Lawyer Susu also wrote that lawyers at F-X Law and Associates are set to file a complaint with CHRAJ on Monday so they can launch a full scale investigation into "this Barbaric, Cruel and Dehumanizing treatment which clearly violates Article 15 of the 1992 Constitution and the UN Convention Against Torture, Cruel and other Dehumanizing treatment."

He expressed hope that "the Chief of Defense Staff, the Minister for Defence, Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection and the Attorney General would all cooperate and ensure that this wrong is punished never to occur again."

Meanwhile the Northern Regional Command of the Airbone Force has handed over three of the five soldiers who brutally assaulted Bama.

The three Corporal Sampson Atuahene (owner of the mobile phone), Collins Agyei Boamah (his accomplice) and another (name withheld) are currently languishing in the Millitary Guard Room, after they were granted bail, the Ghanaian Chronicle reported.

The Commanding Officer (CO) of the Tamale Airborne Force, Lt. Col. Joseph Malik Punamane said his outfit was more than willing to help with investigations into the assault case
Speaking on Citi Fm's current analysis programme, 'The Big Issues' on Saturday, Casely-Hayford acknowledged the need for the president to account to the people, arguing that the money the president is using to undertake projects is the tax payers'.

According to him, accounting to the people in it true sense is also about disclosing to the people where the money is coming from, "how long it is going to take to pay back so they know exactly how much burden you have put on their purse going forward."

"You cannot do this shallow accounting and just tell people we have done roads for you, he said.

President Mahama has also come under fire from the Progressive Party and the New Patriotic Party. They have accused the president of "abuse of incumbency."

But general secretary of National Democratic Congress, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, defended the president, arguing that the president can not hire taxi for his tour as long as he remains the president.
ACP Twumasi-Sarpong said the Police, as a state security institution, had to ensure that political leaders and their supporters were given equal opportunity to conduct their campaigns without intimidation from any quarters.

The Director-General was addressing the officers and men of the Agona Swedru Divisional Police Command at the West Africa Security Services Association (WASSA) get-together, at Swedru.

The Director-General said the November 7 polls must be peaceful to enable Ghana to sustain its democratic governance and economic development.

She asked the police personnel to, therefore, exhibit a level of professionalism in their engagement with the people to erase the erroneous and negative perceptions the pubic might hold against them.

The Police must cooperate with public, she emphasised, because the two sides had to work together to fight social vices and criminal activities in every community.

She explained that a healthy flow of information from the public would make their work more successful and impactful.

They should thus handle information discreetly and employ professionalism in the arrest of suspects.

Police Chief Superintendent Ahmed Issah Yakubu, the Agona Swedru Divisional Commander, appealed to corporate bodies, and well-to-do citizens of Agona Swedru and the adjoining districts, to help complete the abandoned Police buildings, started in 1972, under the Acheampong regime.

He asked the Agona West, Agona East and Gomoa East District Assemblies to also contribute their quota towards to the completion of the project, which comprise offices and flats for officers.

Mr Samuel Oppong, the MCE for Agona West, Mr Francis Duodu Addo, and Mr Moses Jehu-Appiah District Chief Executives for Agona East and Gomoa East, respectively, each pledged 100 bags of cement to support the completion of the buildings.
You must try not to say it as it is especially when it points to a very important person, he said on Accra-based Joy FM.

Mr. Baako has admitted to calling chiefs who endorse presidential candidates as unwise.

He however, insisted that his comments only sought to clarify that chiefs who have in recent times been promising presidential candidates certain percentage of votes from their area lacked wisdom; I didnt say they were not wise, I didnt say they were foolish, I didnt insult them.

I said they are not wise; I wont lie because what they are doing lacks wisdom, he said, adding that he is willing to apologise if it is the language that is wrong.

According Dr. Mr. Baako must exercise circumspection because of the high reverence we give our chiefs and because of the society in which we are where when people speak or icons like himself can be imitated by young people.

He indicated that if your father is speaking to you and his mouth is smelling, you dont tell your father his mouth his smelling.
According to a report by Punch Newspaper, the apex bank has imposed a total fine of N3.2bn on the banks for the offences, which were reportedly committed during the 2015 financial year.

With UBA getting the highest fine of N2.969bn for committing eight different offences, which include failing to meet the Treasury Single Account reporting and remittance deadline, failure to update customers records and conducting continuous due diligence on some accounts, and failing to review credit policy at least every three years in line with section 3.1 of the prudential guidelines 2010, N4m.

Zenith Bank follows closely with a fine of N60.1m for committing nine offences that include infractions arising from risk assets examination as of December 31, 2014, late rendition of fraud and forgeries returns, fraudulent instant pay from an account in the Enterprise Bank to the Valluci Properties Limited, and late rendition of returns in respect of CDL.

GTBank was axed with the sum of N60.05m for committing three offences in the 2015 financial year that include delay in transmitting the list of the TSA names to the CBN, late rendition of returns, and contravention of the CBN circular on prior clearance of prospective employees of banks.
Ajimobi made the call at the 2nd General Assembly of Muslim Um'aah of South West Nigeria held at the International Conference Centre, University of Ibadan.

Ajimobi, who was represented by Alhaji Ishmael Alli, the Secretary to the State Government, said that there was no reason for anyone to engage in begging.

He said that lots of those involved in the act had been committing several crimes.

"We have heard now that Islam forbids begging, likewise the government. We urge the media, law enforcement agencies and religious bodies to join government in discouraging it.

"The reason why government embarked on many programmes including the agricultural initiatives is to get all doing something for a living."

Ajimobi urged religious bodies and other stakeholders to always support government policies as they are for the benefit of all.

Alhaji Femi Abbas, in his lecture "Zakaah and Poverty Alleviation", identified zakaah was a solution to poverty eradication in the society.

Abbas blamed the increasing rate of insecurity, corruption and other vices on poverty.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Zakaah is one of the five pillars of the Islamic faith, which stipulates that 2.5 per cent a Muslims net income should be given to the poor.

He decried the alarming rate at which Muslims neglect Zakaah among the five pillars of Islam, saying:"Zakaah is a necessity. It allows the imprisoned to be out of jail and the sick to be on their feet. "

"If the rich can give to the poor, both the rich and the poor in every society will co-exist peacefully without.
STEPANAKERT, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS. NKR Defense Ministry announced that the attack attempt with tanks by the Armenian side on the night of April 24 is disinformation, Armenpress was informed by the Press Service of NKR Defense Ministry. Today the Azerbaijani propaganda, based on the source by its Defense Ministry, announced that the Armenian tanks approached to the positions and fired, then attempted and attacked by using manpower on the night of April 24.

NKR Defense Ministry refutes the information which is the product of the imagination of Azerbaijani aggression and considers it as a propaganda trick to conceal its own first attack operations.

The Defense Army, unlike the adversary, respects the ceasefire agreement reached between the two parties on April 5, refrained from any attack operations that will destabilize the situation and from the movement of armed vehicles and the troops in the frontline.

Concerning the Azerbaijani disinformation on the destruction of one Armenian tank and the death of its staff, it can be perceived as another measure of adversary's propaganda.




Dogara made the call when he led members of the House to Damare Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp in Girei Local Government Area of Adamawa on Saturday.

At our own level, we will do everything legally and politically possible to ensure that the IDPs get back to their respective homes very soon.

And to that extend, we will encourage our Army and other relevant security agencies to quickly clear those areas they re-claimed from Boko Haram so that our brothers and sisters will go back home, Dogara said.

He said that they were at the camp not only to bring food to the IDPs but to identify with them and give them hope.

He thanked President Muhammadu Buhari and the Nigerian Armed Forces for their sacrifice in defeating the insurgent in the North East region.

In his remarks, Alhaji Sani Sidi, the Director General, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), said that the Damare camp was one of the 11 camps established by the agency in collaboration with the state government.

Sidi said that presently, there are 2, 295 IDPs in the camp out of which 60 per cent were children below 13 years.

In this particular camp, we have about 54 unaccompanied children, 51 pregnant women and 179 nursing mothers, Sidi said.

He said that because of the security improvement, the seven camps were reduced to four.

``Most of the IDPs, especially those from Adamawa had returned to their respective homes and villages, while the agency reached them in their various localities and assisted them with relief materials.

``Our worry is that presently, there are 8,000 unaccompanied children and about 2,000 pregnant women in various camps across the North East region, Sidi said.
The youth condemned the Governor's letter to the Chinese government urging it not to issue loan to the Nigerian government led by President Muhammadu Buhari.

A statement by group's Director of Media and Publicity, Comrade Tope Idowu, read, The decision of the governor to attempting frustrating the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in his effort to redeeming the political image and also resuscitating, restructuring and repositioning the battered economy of the nation is not only unfortunate, but also insane.

Continuing, the group said, Though we are not unaware of his political hatred for President Mohammadu Buhari even before he became the president of Nigeria, but the display of such hatred should not be to the detriment of the progress of Nigeria. Initially we thought Fayose was playing a progressive opposition, aiming at putting the President on his feet and making him deliver on his electioneering promises, but his recent decision to write the Chinese government not to support Nigeria government at this very sensitive and critical period is totally insane and worrisome.

Ordinarily, we expected the governor to know better that such act is criminal, unfair, insane and breach of oath of office under the Schedule Seven of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which he sworn to protect and uphold. For Gods sake, Mr. Fayose is not the only Governor in the opposition parties in Nigeria, and sad enough, he is the least of the opposition Governors, morally and education wise."

'We, Ekiti Youths are seriously getting worried as our governor is becoming a monumental tragedy, exposing us to social ridicule and destroying our pride as a people, that probably God has deliberately given us Governor Fayose as a punishment. But we pray that this time should pass away as quick as possible. To set the record straight, it is imperative to again reiterate our utmost displeasure over the unnecessary and frequent display of lack of intelligent by our state Governor,' the group said further.

The group also called on the Chinese government to disregard the letter while demanding for an immediate refund of the expenses incurred by the state on the governor's trip.

'We of the Ekiti Kete Youth Forum wish to urge the Chinese government to disregard his letter and throw it into the dustbin of irrelevance as Governor Fayose is a man of questionable character, with no academic and moral credential. We also wish to intimate the Chinese government with the facts it should put into check before considering taken Mr. Fayose serious.

'We demand the immediate refund of the state money which Mr. Fayose spent on the fruitless and shameful trip he made to china just to take selfie at a train station. That the Anthony General of the Federation (AGF) institute a case of treason against Mr. Fayose over his breach of Schedule Seven (7) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic which he sworn to upon at all time,' the group said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the family made the demand at a news conference in Lagos on Sunday.

Robert, the Managing Director of One Plus Holdings Ltd., was arrested by the EFCC on March 23 over the $40 million pipelines protection contract awarded to his firm by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA).

Speaking on behalf of the family, Dr Faith Robert condemned the continued detention of his elder brother by the EFCC after an Abuja High Court had granted him bail on April 7.

He said the remand order by an Abuja Magistrates' Court which EFCC relied upon to detain Robert had expired on April 19.

According to him, it is therefore, improper for the EFCC to approach another Magistrates Court in Lagos for another remand order when the Abuja High Court has granted bail to Robert.

"The same High Court served a production warrant on EFCC on April 12 after meeting its bail conditions.
In a report by ThisDay Newspaper, Sulaiman urged the President to cleat the dreaded Sambisa forest for the proposed 'Grazing Reserve Project.'

Sulaiman, the Executive Chairman, Centre for Human Rights and Social Justice (CHRSJ) said that the bill would increase avoidable crises in the land through the violent resistance across the region of the country, saying that the Fulani herdsmen have become dangerous species across the States of the Federation.
Obiajulu issued the warning in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday in Uyo.

The statement, signed by the states NSCDC Public Relations Officer, Mr Owoidighe Thomas, quoted Obiajulu as saying that vandals would be decisively dealt with during her stay in the state.

Obiajulu said that her mission in the state was to fight crime and reduce it to the barest minimum in accordance with mandate of the Corps.

Vandalism of oil pipelines, illegal dealings on petroleum products, adulterated and adulterating of petroleum products, vandalism of government property.
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The Spokesman of the Command, Mr Iliyasu Samaila, disclosed this in Jalingo in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday.

``The State Commandant, Alhaji Kamilu Isah, detailed men of the Command to remain at the MRS filling station, Barde Way, until every litre was sold to motorist at N86.50 per litre, Samaila said.

The NSCDC had on Monday arrested Alhaji Ishaku Kashere, the states Chairman of the National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) and four others in connection with the fuel diversion.
Kachikwu, who is also the Group Managing Director of NNPC, disclosed this while speaking with newsmen during the re-inauguration of the Port Harcourt/Bonny Crude Supply Line at the Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC), Eleme, Rivers.

He said that due to the fact that the nation did not have such amount, advertisements had been signed for investors to come in.

''So, the best thing to do is to find a very creative way to bring in investors, who will come in, work with our team here;

'Investors, who have the skills to reactivate and upgrade facilities in this place and help us provide technical support and we will pay through the flow-out of the refined products over time,'' he said.

Kachikwu emphasised that there should be no confusion about what the investors would be coming to do, since they would not come to run the refinery.

''They are coming to provide funds to take our performance on these refineries to 90 percent and to provide us with technical skills.

''So, the areas of intervention will be funding and technical support,'' he said.

Kachikwu said that at present, Nigerians were consuming about 45 million litres of PMS daily, while the refineries were producing 12 million litres daily as they were working at 60 per cent capacity.

He said that the nation will need to upgrade these refineries and let them develop to the point where they can perform up to 90 per cent.

He said that by the time the refineries were upgraded and they start producing at 90 per cent, about 20 million litres would be produced daily.

The minister said that with such production, it would only meet up with about half of the country's consumption.

Kachikwu, however, apologised to Nigerians for their suffering due to the fuel scarcity and also thanked Nigerians for their patience.

He explained that the government had been able to recover the two critical crude supply pipelines; which were Escravos/Warri and Bonny/Port Harcourt crude supply pipelines.

Kachikwu said that the pipelines were down for six to seven years but had been repaired and were working and supplying crude to the refineries.

''For the first time, the refineries will get their crude, pay for it, they will sell their products and they will earn the income from that product.

''And then, they can develop and continue to maintain the refineries even after this intervention is over.

''Port Harcourt is back in production, Warri is back in production; Kaduna today is receiving and will soon be back in production. It is something of joy,'' he said.

Kachikwu said, ''Lagos is easing off now from fuel scarcity and Abuja is doing the same thing; once Kaduna begins to produce, the North will see a lot of improvement.

''Over and above that, we are putting long term policies in place to ensure that while smaller marketers go out and do their stuff, we can then be the key suppliers for the rest of the country.''

He commended the workers and the contractors for a job well done; adding that he has signed the promotion letters of the PHRC staff as they deserved to be rewarded.

Kachikwu, however, said there is a lot still to be done, ''I told you I will never give up.

'We owe Nigerians the duty to ensure that the refineries are working. We owe Nigerians that, we cant give up,'' he said.
Punch Newspaper reports that following her arrest on Thursday, April 21, 2016 by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the senator has been cooperating with the agency.

Usman, was further reported to have told EFCC investigators that all she did was based on the instructions of Jonathan, adding that she did not know that the funds belonged to taxpayers.

She allegedly said all donations were made to Jonathans campaign through Joint Trust Dimensions Nigeria Limited and it was through the said account that the Director of Publicity, Femi Fani-Kayode, was paid N840m, Chief Olu Falae, and Rashidi Ladoja, allegedly received N100m each, Prof. Rufai Alkali, who was the Coordinator of the Goodluck Support Group, allegedly collected N320m on behalf of the group while several governorship candidates of the PDP equally received money from the account.
YEREVAN, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS. Any notion of a debate regarding the murder of 1.5 million Armenians is simply a political smokescreen. The genocide happened, it happened to the Armenians, and the man who invented the word acknowledged this fact, Armenpress reports, Columnist of the Huffington Post newspaper H. A. Goodman write about this in his article entitled The United States must officially recognize the Armenian Genocide.

The genocide of the Armenian people that began on April 24, 1915 fits the exact definition of genocide. I remember as a university student, studying in Washington D.C. and interning at the U.S. Department of State, visiting the D.C. Holocaust Museum. On the wall near the entrance of the museum were the words of Adolf Hitler remarking that since nobody speaks of the slaughter of the Armenians, future slaughter of Jews would be erased by history the author writes.

He states that while geopolitics has prevented the United States from using the word, theres no doubt that the Armenian Genocide is a historical fact.

The world is still waiting for the U.S. to use the word genocide when describing the Armenian Genocide. Sadly, the most powerful nation on the planet doesnt yet have the moral fortitude to acknowledge fully what the Armenians experienced. Most importantly, President Obama promised to use the word during his presidential campaign, Goodman emphasized.

He hopes that the next president of the United States will honor the victims of a genocide that 20 nations including France, Sweden, Russia, the Vatican, and Canada have already officially recognized. "The time for politics, and specifically the kowtowing to pressures exhibited by the Turkish government, should be over. Yes, America must label ISIS atrocities as genocide, but to ignore using the word with the Armenian genocide is an affront to history. We owe future generations, and the victims of past atrocities, the courage to act today, regardless of political pressure. The United States must official recognize the Armenian Genocide. Our next president must utilize the word that Raphael Lemkin created, after studying and researching the plight of the Armenian people during the Ottoman Empire, the author of the Huffington Post concluded his article.
Akinlade said this during the final burial of the late queen and the grand-mother of the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi (Ojaja 11), at St Paul's Anglican Church, Ayegbaju, Ile-Ife, Osun on Saturday.

He said that the deceased was very loving, prayerful, hardworking and fear the Lord whom she served faithfully when alive.

Akinlade called on Nigerians, irrespective of their religious creeds, tribes and political inclinations, to strive to live an exemplary life on earth.

He said, "It is imperative for us all to live a life worthy of emulation so that we can leave a good legacy for the generations coming after us.

"We have to ensure that we live a righteous life, though, it may be difficult, we have to strive and ensure we lead a good life".

He recalled that the matriarch was very industrious during her lifetime.

Akinlade advised parents to teach their children to be hardworking, despite facing challenges in life.

``Mama struggled to live a fulfilled life".

He added, "When you make up your mind to serve God, be prepared for any form of challenges or tribulation.

"Whenever we lose our dear relation or family member, we are usually hurt and depressed.

"But we should take solace in the legacy such person left behind, we should have personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

"We should be mindful of the fact that we would leave this mortal body and transit to immortality one day.

`` Some of us live our lives as if death is the permanent end.

"After death, there is judgment and our activities on earth will determine the kind of judgment we get from God", Akinlade said.

Eminent Nigerians also converged on Ile-Ife for the burial of Ogunwusi.

The dignitaries include: the Vice-Chancellor of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Prof. Bamitale Omole, and the Registrar of OAU, Mr Dotun Awoyemi.

Others include: the Asiwaju of Ife, Chief Alex Duduyemi, representative of the Olubadan of Ibadanland, Sen. Rasheed Ladoja and an in-law to the Ooni of Ife, Dr Williams Obanor.

Also in attendance were Chief Amidu Ajibade and the mother of Ekiti State governor, Mrs Olufunke Fayose.
Here are some facts about the late politician, who is scheduled to be buried in few hours.

Rafiu Bakare Jafojo served as deputy to Alhaji Lateef Jakande on the return of the country to civil rule in 1979 to 1983.

He celebrated his last birthday in his Lagos home in December 2015, when he turned 80.

He died after a brief illness in his Lagos home.

Jafojo is known to be a staunch supporter and advocate for agriculture as means of employment.

He was the first Deputy Governor in the state Secretariat in alausa.
Hayes had only been on the show to vilify herself of the accusations of infidelity levelled against her by her Fiance, Freddy Green, 25. All was resolved in typical Maury fashion when she passed a lie detector test and DNA results showed her 3-month-old son was Greens.

After the appearance, several websites picked up the resemblance, and have printed side-by-side photos showing Hayes next to Cruz to emphasize the alarming similarity.

In the wave of the newly-gained popularity, XHamster.com, a popular porn website, has offered Hayes and her fiance $10,000 to shoot a 6-minute sex tape.

XHamster spokesman Mike Kulich told The Huffington Post, We wanted Searcy because overnight she became a viral meme. I think a lot of XHamster viewers really wanted to see her in action.

Hayes and Green have agreed to make the film.

Im fine with it because everything is going to support my family, said the woman. I want to get my son whatever he wants.

Hayes earns money cleaning houses while Green collects SSI because of a disability. He said accepting the porn offer was a no-brainer when they saw the amount they would get.

We want to buy a truck, pay off our house and we might get married, he says. I never had anyone say, Heres $10,000! Go make a sex tape.

Green admits hes excited by his girlfriend's newfound fame.

Its kind of exciting and shocking to know shes famous  shes more famous than Madonna! he said. Im with a star.
The Yobe federal constituency seat became vacant following the appointment of Khadija Bukar as a minister in the federal cabinet.

Prof. Sunday Alao, the Returning Officer of the election, on Saturday in Damaturu declared APC candidate, Abdullahi Kukuwa as the winner.

Kukuwa scored 23,745 votes, while his closest rival Nasiru Hassan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) polled 6,990 votes.

Adamu Dina of the Advance Congress for Democracy (ACD) scored 163 votes, while Jibrin Ladan of the National Conscience Party (NCP) scored 139 votes.

Mr Zannah Ibrahim, Yobe Commissioner of Police said there was no violence recorded in any of the four local government areas where the election took place.
For a few of Wells Fargo Bank's most tenured employees, the Davenport bank's move to the former Parker Building is a homecoming of sorts.

Rose Lane joined the former Davenport Bank & Trust in 1987 and worked two years in the bank's operations center, which was housed in the Parker Building. "I wanted to go to work for someone who valued the community," she said. "It continues to be a great ride."

The DeWitt, Iowa, woman's first job was as a proof operator, meaning she encoded customer's checks  adding the check's dollar amount to the coding to allow a machine reader to debit or credit the proper account. Today, she is the bank's regional services manager for Iowa and Illinois and provides support to all the branches.

Surrounded Friday by packed boxes in her old office, Lane said she "has worked all around downtown with the majority of my time in this tower." Asked about the move to City Square, she said "Davenport Bank had its long-standing legacy. I really believe Wells Fargo is taking it to the next level, and right-sizing the facility."

In 1990, Chad Maternach began his career with Davenport Bank in the mailroom, located on the 12th floor of the office tower. He was tasked with delivering inter-office mail throughout the bank's different locations and his route included the Parker Building where, he recalls, the first floor was unoccupied.

Now he and nearly 50 Wells Fargo employees are relocating to that space, which has been renovated into modern office space in City Square. "Who isn't thrilled to have a new space. I'm moving from a cube with no windows to an office looking onto 2nd Street," Maternach, of Davenport, said.

His old mailroom job disappeared with technology. "Now everything's done by email," said Maternach, now is senior relationship manager for business banking. "Then everything went through inter-office envelopes. Everything had to go through the mailroom."

Nancy Goldsmith, who has logged the most years at the Davenport bank, said, "It is odd after 43 years to find yourself in a new spot."

Goldsmith, of Davenport, has spent her whole career in the trust department. Her first job was as a file clerk; her present title is vice president and fiduciary specialist. "I came in 1973, six months after they built this addition," she said of the annex, which includes offices atop the parking ramp.

"I'm not attached to this building," she said on moving day. "It's the people here, the relationships and the people I've met. That is what is fun and cool."
Francisca Guilford, national president of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States Auxiliary will be guest of honor at a dinner Monday at the Veterans for Foreign Wars Post Home at 101 S. Linwood, Davenport.

The dinner is at 6 p.m. and is being hosted by the F.W. Galbraith Post 828 Auxiliary.

Cost to attend the dinner is $15. Reservations can be made by calling Alice Lynch at 563-324-6747.

Iowa VFW State Commander Travis Holden of Des Moines and Penny Hurt of Bettendorf, who is state president of the Ladies Auxiliary of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, will attend the dinner.

Guilfords theme is, Our Veterans, Now and Forever. Guilford will be meeting with veterans and auxiliary members throughout the day Monday.

At 10 a.m., Guilford will be at Scott County Freedom Rock Memorial in LeClaire. The memorial is located along the Mississippi River.
Rachel Kilburg, a sophomore at Loras College from Bellevue, Iowa, has earned a Newman Civic Fellow Award from Campus Compact.

She is one of 218 students nationwide to receive the award that recognizes student leaders who inspire their peers, campus and the community where they live.

Kilburg, a politics and Spanish major, has campaigned for more than 13 political candidates, ranging from a local county supervisor to the president of the United States.

As president of the Loras College Democrats, she has played a crucial role in opening political dialogue and fostering bipartisanship on the Loras College campus.

Kilburg also takes her political prowess into the surrounding community through her work with the Dubuque Economic Development Department.
I walked home scared Wednesday night. It was after dark and I was alone, but thats nothing new. In the winter, the sun disappears by 4:30 p.m., which means walking home alone in the dark every day.

It wasnt the darkness. It was the message.

Earlier that night, a friend and I were talking about a news story out of Seattle that spread world-wide about a woman who was murdered and dismembered by someone she met on an online dating site. The story trailed behind it the usual strings of clanking tin cans -- people commenting online about how she should have known better, horror stories of other women who had been attacked, raped or killed, and dozens of outlets doing the requisite 10 ways to stay safe pieces.

The coverage made me think a lot about my male privilege, my friend said, which he described as that general freedom men have to move about in the world without the carried fear of being attacked, raped or murdered.

The truth is, to much lesser extent, I walked home scared on Monday night, too. As I left a restaurant, someone said, Be careful. You shouldnt walk home alone. But it was warm and quiet and it felt great after a long day in the office to stretch my legs and be outside. It wasnt until I reached my door  safe  that I felt the exhale and realized I hadnt enjoyed the walk at all. Id been guarded and ready and frightened with be careful ringing in my ears.

It wasnt the darkness. It was the message.

Im not naive. Ive been awash in crime stories for almost two decades as a journalist. As a life habit, I walk scanning corners and shadows and mapping out exit strategies.

But this week, Ive been thinking about that extra weight we put on women, and by we I mean people like me -- the media. I mean all the outlets that shared the story of that woman in Seattle who was hacked to pieces by her date. Theres a reason people shared that story. Theres a reason why reporters who had no connection to Seattle or the situation wrote every gruesome detail. Theres a message, to women everywhere. Its our worst fear. Its the thing everyone has been warning us about since we were little girls.

Ive traveled all over the world by myself, and each time before I boarded the plane to Africa, Asia, Europe, I sat through horror stories people always feel compelled to share.

Heres the problem with horror stories. They make the world smaller for the people who hear them. It doesnt make anyone safer or braver. Its a way of controlling womens movement  our own kind of cultural burka -- shared as an act of kindness.

During those trips alone, a couple bad things happened. A drunken man grabbed my arm on an icy sidewalk in Mongolia and wouldnt let go. And someone pinned me against a rock once at a deserted beach on the Mediterranean, and as he did, I thought, They told me this would happen. All I felt was shame, long after he let me go with only a couple scrapes, and I didnt tell a soul for years because I didnt want to hear the inevitable response: I should have known better. I should have stayed home or waited until someone was willing to go with me.

The problem is that if Id stayed home, my life wouldnt be nearly as interesting and beautiful as it has been.

This week, after walking home scared and after realizing how many times I have walked home scared in my life, I thought about the kind of information we choose to share  as journalists or just as individuals posting the latest piece of shock value on Facebook. And Ive thought about how we, especially women, internalize all of it.

I believe its important to know about crime, so that we can protect ourselves. Its scary out there.

But its also wonderful. Its a warm night after months of cold ones and we all deserve to enjoy it.
Our country has more than two million people in state and federal prisons and jails. We have 5 percent of the worlds population and 25 percent of the worlds prisoners. We have the highest percentage of people in prison in the world although our people are certainly just as law-abiding as others. And our prisons have disproportionate populations of people of color. We initiated this spike in imprisonment in the 1980s, and we -- liberal, moderate and conservative -- are beginning to understand the social and economic consequences of 35 years of reliance on incarceration.

The Illinois Department of Corrections has about 50,000 people in prison, plus nearly 30,000 out on supervision. Each year, approximately 30,000 are newly incarcerated and 30,000 are released. Almost all prisoners will be released at some point, sooner or later; many are re-arrested within six months, and about half return to prison within three years.

Our criminal justice system involves a lot of people. If we care about people in our community, we ought to care about our use of imprisonment  and about people who are released.

How? I have two suggestions and one prediction.

First, I suggest increased use of alternatives to prison: If we strengthen our state drug courts, our federal Pretrial Alternatives to Detention Initiative (PADI), and similar programs, we can intercept non-violent people with lower-level offenses, if they are addicted; we can give them a carefully-conditioned chance to turn their lives around; and they can avoid time in prison--if they prove that they can succeed. In PADI, almost 90 percent of the addicted defendants turn their lives around, and this saves about $1 million per year in cost of incarceration. For these people, the alternative to prison works better than prison itself.

Second, I suggest realistic assistance with re-entry, when people are released: If we assist re-entry efforts already under way in our communities, we may be able to improve the results.

For example, Peoria has an ELITE program that trains, prepares and places ex-offenders with worthwhile employment; a five-year study of federal prisoners found that 93 percent stayed out of prison, if they had employment. I am not suggesting either extremeno employment for former prisoners, or priority for employmentbut I am suggesting practical access to job-training and employment, if a person can learn the skills that employers need. If a former prisoner succeeds, it helps that individual, that family, that neighborhood, that community.

Finally, I offer my experience and my prediction: Ive been talking to more re-entry groups and doing more re-entry activities. When I first met the Warden at FCI Pekin, we spent all our time talking about re-entry; federal prosecutors and prison wardens share real concern for the lives and futures of people who go through the prison system.

As individuals and as a community, we are learning to look more closely at our entire criminal justice system; we are struggling to become wiser about what helps individuals and what helps communities. My prediction is that we will learn to careand act---more thoughtfully, and this will be to our benefit.
Rock Island Arsenal Museum brass are doing all they can to save the installation's much-loved arms exhibit. And residents equally concerned about the collection's future should stop shooting the messengers and join their lobbying campaign.

Rumors have swept through the Quad-Cities since Arsenal leadership announced 25 percent of the collection was headed to U.S. Army storage in Anniston, Alabama, by June 1. It's a step toward the 111-year-old facility's closure, claimed more than a few local officials. It's just another blow to the region's embattled cultural history, tourism professionals said. Clear out the museum and bring its 13,000-gun collection to the Figge in Davenport, city officials demanded.

It's "hysteria," as Garrison Commander, Col. Elmer Speights said. And the frenzy is more than misdirected. It's fundamentally counterproductive.

A uniform, regional message it's what's needed to save the Arsenal museum. Mixed messages, bad assumptions and hyperbole will doom the collections.

We were shocked when Speights said that almost no one from the community has reached out to him and asked questions. Instead, Speights and his bosses have been inundated with angry emails and misinformed allegations.

Speights was incredibly candid throughout Friday's 40-minute meeting with the editorial board. The Department of Defense faces budget cuts. Ongoing meetings at the Pentagon are expected to result in the consolidation of the U.S. Army's 57 museums under the Center of Military History (CMH). A planned national Army Museum in Virginia will pull from collections throughout the branch's museum network.

Pentagon officials initially wanted 50 percent of the museum's collections shipped out, he said. Speights and his staff negotiated the 25 percent reduction, knowing full well that anything more could doom the facility.

By October, CMH will decide the future of each Army museum. Some will be rendered inaccessible to the public, and others will be closed. A preliminary review tagged Rock Island museum as a potential "heritage center," which would essentially gut the grand old manufacturing facility and fill it with replicas.

This is the reality Speights and the generals at Rock Island Arsenal face.

But a museum designation, under the consolidated model, would fully staff the facility. It's a potential turnaround for an institution that's down to just one employee and closes on weekends. And this designation -- not a new off-base collection in Davenport -- is what the entire community should demand. Anything less than a unified voice only weakens the argument to keep what's left of the museum collection in the Quad-Cities.

Weaponry, for better or worse, might be the purest representation of human history. From sharpened rocks to ballistic missiles, no endeavor has consumed more of the species' collective genius. And for two centuries, Rock Island Arsenal has pumped out weapons that defeated tyrants and expanded U.S. influence.

Rock Island Arsenal Museum tells our story, of a region, a nation and a species. It should continue to do so for generations to come.

Pentagon officials, charged with deciding the museum's future, will attend Wednesday's informational meeting on base. Show up at 5:30 p.m. and tell them why the museum should survive. A packed house would send the massage loud and clear.

But don't tell them that the guns should be displayed in the Figge. Don't conflate a federal budgetary issue with the struggles of local museums. Don't introduce unnecessary confusion.

Col. Speights stays on message. Everyone else should join him.
YEREVAN, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS. On the occasion of the 101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, co-chairman of the German political party Alliance '90/The Greens Cem Ozdemir posted a statement via Facebook. As Armenpress reports, Ozdemir posted his last year photo in the Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex and expressed hope that Bundestag will finally adopt the Armenian Genocide resolution in June.

April 24 is the commemoration day of genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, Arameans, Chaldeans and other Christian minorities that happened 101 years ago in the Ottoman Empire.

Finally there are signs that Bundestag will adopt a joint resolution on the recognition of the Genocide and the responsibility of Germany on June 2, Ozdemir wrote by hash-tagging #Aghet.

On April 24, 2015 discussions on the resolution on the recognition of the Armenian Genocide began in the Bundestag. Bundestag President Norbert Lammert called the 1915 historic events Genocide. However, voting on the resolution was postponed.
LOS ANGELES | Giant chipmaker Intel Corp. will slash 12,000 jobs, or about 11 percent of its workforce, to help offset declining PC sales and reposition itself as a firm focused on cloud computing and smart devices, the company announced last week.

"We are evolving from a PC company to one that powers the cloud and billions of smart, connected computing devices," Intel Chief Executive Brian Krzanich said in a statement.

The job cuts will last through the middle of 2017 and will involve consolidating offices worldwide and "a combination of voluntary and involuntary departures, and a re-evaluation of programs," the company said.

Intel expects the cuts will save the company $750 million this year and $1.4 billion by mid-2017.

The company declined to say where those cuts would take place. Intel, which is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., has manufacturing facilities in Oregon and Arizona as well as China, Mexico, Israel and Ireland, said Betsy Van Hees, an analyst with Wedbush Securities.

"Unfortunately, a reduction in the workforce was long overdue," Van Hees said. "It's a pivotal time for the company, and it's critical that they align the organization to support the new business model."

The news was announced as Intel posted first-quarter earnings that came in below Wall Street estimates.

The company reported earnings of 42 cents per share and $13.7 billion in revenue, below the 48 cents per share and $13.8 billion in revenue estimated by analysts, according to Thomson Reuters.

Intel is under pressure to restructure its business, which still relies on PCs for about two-thirds of its revenues. PC sales have experienced steady declines, with shipments falling 10 percent in the first quarter of 2016 compared with a year ago, according to Gartner.

Intel has been growing its cloud-computing business  remote servers that customers can access from anywhere  which commands higher profit margins than PC chips, said Angelo Zino, an analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

"They've done an excellent job over the last several years moving the needle away from PCs," Zino said. "We expect that to continue. In the immediate term, look for more aggressive moves on the cost-cutting side of things."

As part of its push to bolster its cloud-computing services, Intel purchased chipmaker Altera last year for $16.7 billion.

Zino said Intel dominates the market for microprocessors, which are used to power servers. However, the company could face growing competition from companies such as Qualcomm, which makes cheaper and less-powerful chips for cloud computing.

Intel is rumored to be in the running to supply Apple Inc. with chips for the iPhone 7, a potential major victory for a company that has been criticized for not being aggressive enough in the smartphone market.

News of the job cuts come weeks after Intel announced the departure of two veteran executives: Kirk Skaugen, senior vice president of the Client Computing Group, and Doug Davis, general manager of the company's Internet of Things unit.

Andy Grove, who served as Intel's president, chief executive and chairman of the board, died March 21. He famously led the company through another major transition, persuading Intel to build microprocessors instead of memory chips, setting the stage for Intel's success for decades.
BELLE FOURCHE | Don and Delores West came to Belle Fourche from Newell in 1965 to set up their tire sales and repair business, a place where most farmers and ranchers in a 150-mile-wide radius have stopped. That includes folks from Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota as well as South Dakota.

Don, who will soon turn the ripe old age of 82 works pretty much every day at the shop on Butte Street in north Belle Fourche. And Delores, who shyly admits to being just a couple years older than her husband is also often there. The business is family. That includes daughter Kris O'Dea and daughter-in-law Sheila West as well as others in the family.

"I come in at six and leave at six, most days," said West of his work schedule.

"We've supported rodeo for years," said Delores. "Our banner (advertising the business) has been at every rodeo from Hulett to the Black Hills college and of course 4-H at the state and at youth events."

Delores also has a claim to rodeo fame as she taught both Mark and Marvin Garrett in her third and fourth grade Sunday School class at First Congregational church years ago.

"They have been established business owners here for many years," said Black Hills Parade Director Mark Leverington when the couple was honored as the Grand Marshals last year. "A lot of people have gone to them for help. It is a family-owned business and they are kind people. Our town appreciates them."

Son Don and his wife Sheila, as well as daughters Kris and Roger O'Dea and Karen Steen all live in the Belle Fourche area.
WASHINGTON | Defense Secretary Ash Carter discussed the two Is  ISIL and Iran  with U.S. Airmen at Al-Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates April 16.

Defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is the highest priority for American forces in the region, the secretary told the Airmen.

But the region is complicated, he said, and countering Irans malign influence is a concern not only in the region, but also around the world.

The main mission for the UAE-based Airmen is destroying ISIL in Syria and Iraq. If you think about cancer, that's where the parent tumor is, Carter said.

No caliphate

ISIL leaders continue to call the area they have captured in Iraq and Syria the new caliphate, but Carter said the 66-nation coalition opposing the terror group will not let that happen.

There isn't going to be a state based on this ideology, he said. Thats what you are up to here, and we also secondly need to go after every place (where ISIL has) spread around the world. We're doing that, too.

But the U.S. wants to accelerate the destruction of ISIL, the secretary told the Airmen, and he asked them to think of ways that can happen. We're limited only by our own ingenuity and our ideas, he said.

The strategy, he said, is to enable capable, motivated local forces on the ground in Iraq and Syria to take on ISIL. Special operations personnel are working with Iraqi and Syrian forces against the terror group. U.S. and coalition partners are training these local fighters and working with them.

But they cant do this without U.S. and coalition support from the air, Carter said.

Counter-ISIL progress

There has been progress. Iraqi forces have retaken the key cities of Ramadi and Beiji, and they are fighting ISIL around Hit. Syrian forces took Shaddadi and severed the lines of communication between ISILs alleged capital of Raqqa in Syria and the largest city the group holds: Mosul, Iraq.

But were looking to do more, Carter said. Were looking for opportunities, in essence, to get this over with faster. So if you see something, say something to your commanders.

Even with the defeat of ISIL, there are still problems in the region, the secretary said. The U.S. has a nuclear deal with Iran, he said, calling it a good deal, in the sense that it took the nuclear weapons out of the picture.

But that does not mean Iran wont try to disturb the peace in other ways, the secretary said, adding that Iran is capable of outright aggression or the kind of malign activity that has worried many nations of the area.

He noted that President Barack Obama will be visiting Saudi Arabia later this week for the Gulf Cooperation Council meeting. Carter told the airmen he is in the region to pave the way for the president as the region discusses ISIL and Iran.
PIERRE | Almost every day in office, a governor makes a major decision. That was never truer for Gov. Dennis Daugaard heading into and during the 2016 legislative session that wrapped up last month.

Now that the dust has settled some, Daugaard sat down with a reporter recently to discuss three of the biggest moves he made during the session.

Among them: His proposal for the sales tax increase to fund teacher pay that won approval; his veto of the transgender bathroom restrictions for public schools; and, with Lt. Gov. Matt Michels, their creation of the state Board of Internal Control. Here is a look at each decision and how it was made.

Sales tax increase

Daugaard, a Republican, surprised many people in South Dakota when he asked the Legislature to increase the state sales tax to a rate of 4.5 percent. It has been 4 percent since 1969.

The increased tax revenue is dedicated to provide money for raising teacher salaries in K-12 public schools and technical institutes, and to provide additional property tax relief to all classes of property rather than only owner-occupied homes and agricultural land.

Daugaard said in the interview that he received the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Education report on teacher salaries and school finances on Nov. 11.

The panels two co-chairwomen, Rep. Jacqueline Sly, R-Rapid City, and Sen. Deb Soholt, R-Sioux Falls, handed the report to him and they took him through its findings and recommendations.

And they identified the sales tax as the most likely source of revenue, he said.

Daugaard described himself as not the most enthused about raising taxes if it can be avoided.

He conferred with his chief of staff, Tony Venhuizen, and other members of his executive committee, whose members meet with him weekly. He said they studied the numbers and concluded that enough additional money could be raised, over a period of years, to reach his goal of getting South Dakota out of last place nationally on average teacher salaries.

But, he said, that assumed that other states who compete with South Dakota for teacher talent wouldnt increase their salaries too.

The conclusion was, its just going to take an increase in taxes, Daugaard recalled.

He looked at other states that have sales taxes but dont have income taxes. South Dakota, even at 4.5 percent, would be below all of them except Wyoming, which is at 4 percent.

He also looked at how much states spent on running state governments. He said South Dakota was second lowest in the nation, slightly above New Hampshire. I felt there is room, he said.

Daugaard also paid for a public opinion survey.

I knew the voters wanted it, he said. They did clearly support it, strongly, across the spectrum.

From there, he began conversations with key legislators, including many who served on the Blue Ribbon panel.

At a meeting of his executive committee, he made the final decision. I cant tell you what day it was, but it was in December, he said.

The sales tax lost in the state House by a single vote on its first airing, but was brought back for consideration and passed.

The transgender veto

Daugaard acknowledged in the interview that he went through a change of opinion on the transgender bathroom restrictions, which would have prohibited students using public-school bathrooms designated for the opposite sex, even if they are transgender.

He started by talking about the bill with its sponsor, Rep. Fred Deutsch, R-Florence.

Fred Deutsch is an honorable, decent man. I didnt think in any way he is mean-spirited, the governor said.

Daugaard understood the stated purpose of House Bill 1008 was to protect the privacy of all students. That was bill was dealing with a subject matter I was pretty ignorant of. I didnt see it coming, he said.

Daugaard explained that during legislative session he focuses his attention most on measures that are likely to reach his desk for his decision whether to sign them into law or veto them.

The red flag came for him with an amendment to the bill. It caused the Associated School Boards of South Dakota to switch sides and oppose the amended version.

That gave me pause, Daugaard said.

Once he knew the legislation was headed down to his desk, he visited the American Psychiatric Association website to learn more about the topic of transgender students. He also listened to all of the digitally archived testimony from the legislative proceedings and then met with Rep. Deutsch.

I never refuse meeting with a legislator, he said.

Daugaard, a lawyer by professional training, received various legal materials from the legislator. Daugaard then met with three transgender students and the mother of one of the students. He then received more materials from an organization supporting the restrictions.

The Senate gave final approval to the legislation on Feb. 16. The bill didnt reach his desk until Feb. 23. His veto letter was sent March 1, 2016, just minutes after the Senate gave final approval to the sales-tax increase.

That weekend before I issued the veto was when I decided to veto it, Daugaard said.

When I first looked at it (the original legislation), I thought this seemed OK, he continued. But after the meetings with the students and parent, he asked himself, Why create that invitation to a conflict with a state law?

The struggle over the sales tax played a part in the timing of his announcement of the veto after he made the decision. Then I deliberately waited until after the education bill had passed, Daugaard said.

Deutsch asked the House to refrain from overriding the veto because he knew there werent enough supporters in the Senate to get a two-thirds majority there to reverse the governor's veto.

The Board of Internal Control

The financial irregularities found by state Auditor General Marty Guindons staff in the state Department of Educations relationship with Mid Central Education Cooperative at Platte in 2014 were publicly revealed in March 2015.

It made everyone suspicious, and rightly so, Daugaard said.

Then came the shotgun killings of the six members of the Westerhuis family and the fire that destroyed their home south of Platte in the early hours of Sept. 17, 2015. Scott Westerhuis was the business manager for Mid Central. His wife, Nicole Westerhuis, was an assistant business manager for the cooperative. Police say Scott Westerhuis killed his family, set the house ablaze, and then took his own life.

The Westerhuises also worked for two non-profit organizations affiliated with Mid Central in delivery of the GEAR UP programs services to lower-income students in high schools and middle schools in Native American reservations.

About $3 million of federal grant money flowed annually from the U.S. Department of Education to the state Department of Education, which in turn reimbursed Mid Central for GEAR UP services. Money flowed between Mid Central and the two non-profits for GEAR UP as well.

None of this was widely known before the auditor general began the review in 2014 of the federal grants handling by the state Department of Education.

He (Westerhuis) had a clear conflict of interest and it really bothered me. No one was watching that store, Daugaard said.

Mid Central has a board of directors representing the school districts that comprise the cooperatives service area. Daugaard said he didnt blame the board.

He said some directors had financial expertise and some didnt, but none was in a position to tightly monitor the co-ops daily activities or had a reason to do that. You need to have some kind of methodology or approach requiring people to be on the lookout for that, Daugaard said.

The governor said he talked with his executive committee in December about the topic.

I said, we need to have some sort of way to prevent this from occurring, he said. So you need to have some means of prevention, if you can.

Daugaard said that led him to harken back to his first year on the board for the Childrens Home Society in Sioux Falls, roughly in 1986.

He said the new executive director at the time, David Loving, told a member of the board that the member had a conflict. The member held the insurance contract for the charity.

He resigned, because he wanted the contract, Daugaard said.

The board received a list of prohibited activities that represented conflicts. Each year the board members signed the list. The board also discussed the list. That kind of education process is important, Daugaard said.

The new law establishing the Board of Internal Control is patterned after what is now standard practice in the non-profit sector.

Each recipient of a grant awarded through state government now must adhere to such a code of conduct. They also must be transparent by making publicly available their annual 990 tax forms if they are a non-profit.

All of that information, plus any audit correspondence, will be listed on a new state website showing all of the grant activity engaged in by state government.

The currency will be very good, Daugaard said.

The new board also will review all of the audit correspondence. That was the gap that allowed the Mid Central situation to get out of control.

He assigned Lt. Gov. Michels to lead the project. Michels is a lawyer with extensive experience in the non-profit sector, including legal work for Avera Health.

Michels teamed with the financial experts in the office of the auditor general, the budget experts in the state Bureau of Finance and Management and others in state government with technical knowledge.

No one testified on the legislation other than Michels. The measure rolled through to passage.

The more likely you get it out in the light, the more likely you can prevent it, Daugaard said. Or find it.
LEAD | An experiment now in its infancy nearly a mile underground has the potential to put this former gold mining camp on the map as the home for groundbreaking science that could help unravel the mysteries of the universe.

Plans for the groundbreaking project solidified some now that Congress is considering mark-ups in President Obamas fiscal 2017 budget, which begins Oct. 1, that include $45 million for start-up of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment at Leads Sanford Underground Research Facility.

The project received another dose of Congressional support last week when U.S. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., added a provision to a sweeping energy bill that would create a new Congressional subcommittee within the National Science and Technology Council specifically focused on high energy physics projects like those underway in Lead.

And the project could alter the look of downtown Lead, where a proposal has been made to build an elevated conveyor system across Main Street to carry an estimated 800,000 tons of waste rock from the lab site into the open cut at Homestake Gold Mine.

While the two acronyms  DUNE and SURF  seem like attractions of a beachfront holiday, they in fact represent mans most serious attempts to date to understand the origins of our planet. The proposed DUNE project alone involves a collaboration of more than 800 scientists from roughly 150 institutions in 28 countries and with a price-tag estimated at $1 billion to $1.4 billion, about half of which would be spent in the Black Hills.

That would make it the largest, most expensive project in South Dakota history.

I dont think you could state the importance of the project too strongly, said Mike Headley, executive director of the South Dakota Science and Technology Authority. This is an international science mega-project. If you look at the current suite of experiments around the world and those planned in the future, this would be the largest in scale.

To draw a parallel, it would include international involvement on the scale of the Large Hadron Collider in Cern, Switzerland, where the Higgs Boson was discovered, Headley added.

The Sanford Lab, occupying the massive 8,000-foot deep former Homestake Gold Mine which operated for 125 years in Lead, and the SDSTA have spent years planning for the DUNE, to be placed at the Long Baseline Neutrino Facility construction site at the 4,850-foot level. In fact, private, state and federal funds are being used to refurbish the Ross Shaft, a $30 million project begun in August 2012, now 70 percent complete, thats on track for completion in September 2017, Headley explained.

Reconstruction of the Ross Shaft is critical to making room for the DUNE, which would require contractors to excavate 800 million tons of rock  nearly twice that removed from Mount Rushmore in the 1927-1941 carving of the four presidential portraits.

All of that rock has to go someplace, so SURF has already reached an easement agreement with Barrick, the Canadian-based owners of the former Homestake Mine and its massive Open Cut, to deposit the excavated rock in the open pit. But, for some, getting it there has become an issue.

SURF recently requested an easement from the city of Lead allowing it to build an elevated, covered conveyor spanning Main Street near Gold Run Park to transport the rock to its final resting place in the open cut. Representatives of SURF, including Headley, have appeared at the last two Lead City Commission meetings to provide project overviews and answer questions and concerns.

I do have a few concerns regarding the decision to construct a conveyor belt across a major highway that is a main thoroughfare for our community, said Commissioner Denise Parker. Many of those concerns, including potential dust, debris and noise, have been brought to her attention by local residents, she said.

While I know that the lab officials are taking every precaution they can think of, there are no guarantees as to the outcomes and as of today, I have seen no memorandum of understanding stating the parameters of liabilities, Parker noted. I am deeply concerned that there is no definitive tear-down schedule after the digging and rock moving evolution is completed and there is no longer a need for the conveyor belt.

Headley said excavation and onsite construction during the peak of activity in the early 2020s, could bring 180 new workers to the SURF on a daily basis, including construction contractors, scientists and other partners. Those workers would not necessarily be added to the 130 employees the Science Authority currently employs at the SURF, he said.

Parker said she would welcome new jobs in a town depressed since the closure of the Homestake in 2002, and the potential for the DUNE to put her community on the map of ground-breaking science.

When I think that our small community may very well be on the cutting edge of the science of tomorrow, it is almost incomprehensible, she said. When one hears of Los Alamos, they think of atomic and hydrogen bombs. I can only wonder what future generations potentially could think of when they hear of the city of Lead, South Dakota; hopefully, something synonymous with peace.

Mayor-Elect Ron Everett, contacted last week, said he believed SURFs plan for a conveyor was preferable to another option SURF explored to remove the tons of rock that could lead to 40,000-60,000 round-trip truck loads to move the rock to another site.

There have been some concerns expressed about dust and what (the overhead conveyor) will look like, but I am all in favor of granting the easement, said Everett, who assumes the mayors post May 2. Its the safest and most efficient way to move that rock out of the mine.

Everett, who recently retired as an executive with mining company Wharf Resources, said he views it as his mission to have Lead capitalize on all of the employment, housing and economic development potential of what the DUNE can bring to the Northern Hills.

I think people ought to be very excited about the DUNE project, he said. It will be an exciting time for Lead over the next 10 years and we want to capitalize on all the economic benefits that will come with this. We want good paying jobs in Lead.

Headley said city officials and others naturally gravitate to the economic development, employment and financial aspects of the DUNE. But, he said local residents shouldnt discount the educational opportunities that students at schools and universities throughout the South Dakota and the U.S. would experience from the collaboration of scientists and advanced experiments coming to the Black Hills.

Folks may not think what could potentially happen here in the next few years in terms of educational opportunities, and the advancement of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education for grades K-12, Headley said.

The education of our kids is an area that will be profoundly and positively impacted as this project moves forward. After all, we have the brightest minds on the planet coming here to do their lifes work.
PIERRE | A new era for public ethics in South Dakota starts July 1. The Mickelson rule kicks in.

Members on 22 state boards, commissions and authorities must disclose any financial conflicts they have within their state responsibilities.

The same requirement applies at the local level in education for any board member, fiscal agent, officer or executive. This covers school districts, education cooperatives and service agencies that receive funding from or through state government.

The new law prohibits all of these people from financial gain through a conflict, unless they received clearance after reviews of their declared conflicts. They still would be banned from acting on official matters involving their conflict areas.

The legislation came from Rep. G. Mark Mickelson, R-Sioux Falls. He sponsored a similar law a year ago that generally bans self-dealing by state government employees.

The ban for employees allows exceptions that must be reviewed and, if allowed by a supervisor, must be publicly disclosed. The goal is to better protect the taxpaying public. There is much uncertainty at the state level and the local level about the definition of a conflict.

Don Kirkegaard went through the uncertainty.

He is superintendent of the Meade school district at Sturgis. He is president for the state Board of Education. And he moonlighted a few times finding candidates for superintendent searches in other districts.

His photograph was one of four on the Internet site for Dakota Education Consulting LLC. Recently, Kirkegaard had it removed. He stopped working for them.

Tom Oster of Volga and Rick Melmer of Sioux Falls organized Dakota Education Consulting on March 13, 2013. They used Avon lawyer Scott Swier, who also advises Mid Central Education Cooperative at Platte.

Melmer and Oster were South Dakotas two previous state secretaries of education under former governor, and now U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds.

Kirkegaard cleared his consulting work with state Education Secretary Melody Schopp and the state Department of Educations lawyer.

Schopp worked in positions of increasing responsibility for Melmer and Oster in the department. Gov. Dennis Daugaard appointed her to replace Oster in 2011.

Schopp selected Melmer to help oversee Mid Centrals management of the GEAR UP program for the department. He also routed various other contracts, including one with the state Board of Regents, for himself through Mid Central.

The state board will discuss the conflict disclosure rule May 16 in Aberdeen.

GEAR UP receives about $3 million annually from the federal government to help students from low-income households consider college or technical school. The money runs through the state department.

No success measures were reported, because they werent required to be reported. Mid Central is under financial and criminal investigation.

Stacy Phelps of Rapid City, who ran GEAR UP, resigned from the state board last year. He is one of three facing criminal charges. Another board member, Kelly Duncan, now a dean at Northern State University, held contracts through Mid Central.

These werent considered conflicts, because the state board doesnt oversee the state departments finances or contracts.

Instead, a web of people quietly made arrangements, through a place outside most of South Dakotas view, for themselves and one another.
Well, we don't have visual proof, so we'll just have to take the participants' word for it. It was only a brief chat, but one that rescued Bernie Sanders from the embarrassment of having left the New York campaign trail to attend an obscure Vatican "rich people are bad" meeting when he could ill afford to be away.

Pope Francis was feeling particularly charitable, so as he was heading out the door, he gave Sanders the gift he so desperately needed, bragging rights to say he actually did meet with the pope. Their encounter amounted to a pity gesture by the pontiff, although he put it a bit more tactfully: "When I came down, I greeted them, shook their hands and nothing more. This is good manners. It's called good manners and not getting mixed up in politics. If anyone thinks that greeting someone means getting involved in politics, they should see a psychiatrist."

After his brief furlough, Sanders is back in the U.S. campaign asylum, where suddenly he and Hillary Clinton are trying to match the craziness of the Republicans. Once again, Hillary and her too many advisers have managed to grossly mismanage another controversy.

This one involves a transcript of a speech she gave to a Goldman Sachs audience in October 2013, one of three for which she was paid $225,000 each. Now, you don't make $675,000 to insult your benefactors. By various accounts, she was generous with her praise of the bankers, even though she now claims she gave them the what-for. Given that her coziness with the very people she's currently saying she'll rein in is a burning issue, the transcript could be embarrassing. But it would blow over.

By digging in her heels and refusing to simply release the text, she has turned this little paper cut into a serious wound. This is typical inept Clinton stonewalling. I've covered all the scandals that shouldn't have been, like Whitewater and so many others. With few exceptions, the standard operating procedure has been to refuse to divulge anything, or to play word games.

Sooner or later, the thinking goes, we'll get tired of pursuing the controversy, and our small brains will be overwhelmed by their superior intellects. So we pests will go away. When it doesn't happen that way, those of us who are pursuing answers become part of a right-wing conspiracy.

At some point, Hillary will grudgingly release the transcript, probably late on a Friday night. That's based on the foolish premise that nobody pays attention to the news on a weekend. In fact what really happens is that it becomes the hot subject to pontificate about on all the Sunday talk shows.

It will happen this time, too. Actually, it probably won't be long. My theory is that the Republican opposition research people have gotten their hands on the thousands of emails Hillary and her lawyers deleted from the private server she used when she was secretary of state  the ones they unilaterally decided were personal. If the emails include embarrassing material or worse, then wouldn't that make a splendid GOP "October surprise"?

If it does unfold the way I've described, remember that you heard it here first. If I'm wrong, just forget all about it. What you can't forget is that this campaign is certifiably insane.
RAPID CITY | Stewart Conrad Christensen, 85, died Friday, April 15, 2016, at the Rapid City Hospice House.

Stewart was born March 25, 1931, in Oklahoma City, OK, to Paul and Ruth (Stewart) Christensen. His passion for music was passed down from his father and grandfather, who were accomplished musicians and directors themselves. Stewart's early years were spent living in famous hotels where his father was director of the house orchestras.

With the start of World War II, the family returned to Huron. Hans Christensen, his grandfather, an accomplished violin player, organized the Huron Municipal Band in 1935. His father, Paul, took over the baton in 1949. Following Paul's death in 1962, Stewart continued the family tradition until 1968.

Following graduation from Huron High School in 1949, Stewart attended SDSU in Brookings, for two years, majoring in music education. He was a charter member of the Phi Beta Mu. In 1952, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. He served three years with the 336 Army Band in Augusta, GA. He attended the Navy School of Music in Washington, DC. Following his honorable discharge, Stewart returned to Huron. On June 12, 1955, he married his high school sweetheart, Mary Sande. He attended Huron College for two years, completing his Bachelor of Music degree. He accepted a position in the Huron Public School System, teaching elementary and junior high music with his father, Paul, the high school band director. Following his father's death, Stewart was appointed high school band director until 1968. He returned to the University of South Dakota, earning his Master's degree in Music. In 1969, Stewart and his family moved to Rapid City, where he continued his teaching profession with the Rapid City School District, retiring in 1989.

With the exception of the three years he was in the service, he has played in municipal bands in Huron and Rapid City for over 60 years. Stewart was well-known for his rendition of Louis Armstrong's "Hello, Dolly" and "When The Saints Come Marching In."

Additionally, Stewart left his mark on the music scene in Rapid City. He taught elementary instrumental music and was the assistant band director at Stevens High School. Over the years, he gave private music lessons to many students. In addition to his teaching career, he played trumpet with numerous bands throughout South Dakota, such as the Tommy Mathews Orchestra, the Collegiates of SDSU, and the El Riad Band of Sioux Falls for 35 years. For many years Stewart also played with the Belle Fourche Cowboy Band and the New Horizons Band. In addition to dance bands, he also played with the Huron Symphony and the Black Hills Symphony Orchestra.

Stewart was a kind, gentle, and loving man who believed that "Love is reflected in Love." He will be greatly missed by his family and all who knew him. He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Mary Helen (Sande) Christensen; two daughters, Paula Kay Noriega, Merced, CA, and Laura Jean Christensen, Rapid City; and three granddaughters, Christy Marie Noriega (and her children Charlotte and Alexander), Nicole Andrea Noriega (and her daughter Layla), and Sara Elizabeth Noriega (and her children Madison and Michael), all of Rapid City.

Memorial services will be at 3 p.m. Thursday, April 28, at Serenity Springs Funeral Chapel, with Karen and Jim Olson, Lowell Arwood, and Pastor Bruce Thalacker officiating.

In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be given in Stewart's honor to the Humane Society of the Black Hills, 1820 E. St. Patrick St., Rapid City, SD 57703, or the Shriner's Hospital, 2025 E. River Pkwy, Minneapolis, MN 55414.

Condolences may be sent to the family online through Serenity Springs Funeral Chapel.
YEREVAN, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS. Accompanied by Government officials, Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan visited the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex to honor the victims of the Armenian Genocide. He laid flowers at the Eternal Flame and laid a wreath at the Memorial.

As Armenpress was informed by the department of Information and Public Relations of the Government, the PM said during a briefing that Armenia will continue to struggle for the restoration of justice and truth in the Armenian Genocide issue.

The sooner the Turkish leadership thinks about accepting the truth, the better. The world also has work to do regarding this issue. The international community must condemn the first genocide of the 20th century, in order to prevent future genocides. By commemorating the memory of the victims, we must look towards the future, build our motherland, and strengthen the second Armenian Republic of Artsakh, Hovik Abrahamyan said.
Ron Ehli

Incumbent House District 86

Age: 59

Party: Republican

Hometown: Hamilton

Experience: Community Experience: Small business owner 34 years, Hamilton Firefighter 23 years, Hamilton Fire Chief six years, Ravalli County Fire Warden, Chairman HDBID, Board of Director Citizens State Bank.

Legislative Experience: Serving 3rd Legislative Term, served on coveted Appropriations committee all 3 terms, Chairman of Appropriations subcommittee HHS, and chairman of interim committee for Children, Family Health and Human Services.

***

Why are you running?

My reason for running for the legislature continues to be a desire to serve the people that have given so much to me. Being born and raised in Montana, educated in Montana, and making a living my whole life in Montana, has given me a sense of obligation to give back to those who have given so much to me and my family. With this obligation, while serving in Helena, I have effectively challenged the status-quo of larger state government, and insisted on our tax dollars being spent in the communities from where they come. More than rhetoric, my accomplishments have proven my allegiance to small communities like Hamilton and Ravalli County. I will continue that allegiance by working for bipartisan legislation that positively affects us all; making sure the economic benefits come home, and not stay in Helena.

***

Why are you the best candidate?

Personally, having been fortunate enough to be self-employed for 34 years, I bring those years of economic experience to Helena. Running a small business in Hamilton, and the experienced garnered from that, is invaluable when having to make decisions for all businesses and for all of Montana. Additionally, the experience garnered while in the community of Hamilton, serving as the Hamilton Fire Chief and Ravalli County Fire Warden has given me a pulse of the community and the issues we face that only comes by serving the public in these capacities. Also having served in these capacities, and others, has given me a better sense of how families struggle on a day to day basis in Ravalli County, when trying to make ends meet. Legislatively, with term limits in Montana, rarely will you come across what can be classified as a career politician. However, there is such a thing as an experienced legislator. I have a proven track record of leadership in Helena, being selected as Chairman of coveted appropriation committees for the last two sessions. I expect to continue in a leadership role in the next session, challenging the legislature to send our tax dollars back home to our communities, and not keep growing state government in Helena.

***

What are the issues youd like to focus on?

I have been a large part of the discussion to finding the balance in the continuum of care between institutional and community-based care for those with mental illness. My drive is to bring more of these jobs back to communities; not only for the communitys sake but also because it is in the communities where you find the most effective and efficient care for those who are less fortunate than the rest of us. Adding to the discussion, those who are developmentally disabled, and the aging population with dementia, and you now have major cost drivers to an already stressed health and human services budget. It will be critical in the upcoming election to elect a voice familiar with the issues, and continuing the efforts to finding effective care solutions for those less fortunate Montanans.

***

Tell us something about yourself.

I was raised in a family of 10 children in a small community in Eastern Montana and then graduated from Corvallis High School. I know what it is like to struggle every day to just stay ahead. However, that small community and large family mentality instilled in me from birth, is what keeps me grounded. I believe there is nothing more important than community and family. I have been married to Laura for 36 years and have two adult sons, Jesse and Adam. During the last legislative session, my daughter-in-law Tess, blessed us with our first grandchild. These life and family experiences are the driving force in how I make decisions in the legislature. I will continue to fight for what I think is best for Hamilton, our communities in the Bitter Root Valley, and all our families across Montana. I believe it is the values that we know as Montanans that make Montana the best state in the nation.
Marcus Daly Memorial Hospital has decided to open a rural health clinic with comprehensive physician care in Darby.

Bitterroot Physicians Clinic South should open in August. The hospital has recruited a primary care provider and begun renovating a building.

Marcus Daly Memorial Hospital CEO John Bartos said the hospital is excited to open a clinic in Darby.

It will provide primary care and were happy to offer that to the south part of the valley, Bartos said.

The conversation about opening a clinic began six years ago when the hospital conducted a community health needs assessment.

Residents in the south part of the valley were asking for us to establish a clinic in the south part of the valley, he said. This past year we conducted another community health needs assessment survey and it was even more obvious. There was even more demand requesting us to place a clinic.

The hospital board had strategic planning sessions in January and February and made the decision to provide a rural health clinic in Darby. Then the hospital searched for a building that met the requirements.

First of all a building has to be accredited and we have guidelines that we need to follow for a rural health clinic, Bartos said. Those guidelines mandate handicap accessibility, handicap parking, the width of the hallways and the width of the doors for wheel chair patients.

Bartos said they searched the entire Darby area and found only two suitable buildings. The one on the south end of the town required more remodeling that could take nine months to a year. The building they selected should be ready in August.

Its a very attractive building, Bartos said. It gives us adequate parking for our patients and paved parking in the front of the building.

Bartos said that when the hospital made the decision they were not aware that the property was outside the city limits.

It doesnt matter, Bartos said. Were still providing a clinic for Darby and the south part of the valley.

The hospital will lease Doug Banks construction building north of the cemetery on the east side of Highway 93. The hospital will place an ambulance in one of the bays in the back. The 911 crew will be in the clinic and will help with rooming patients, answering phones and assisting the primary care provider. The clinic will have a reception waiting room, offices for the physician and nurse, two exam rooms, a procedural room, a lab drawing area and, in the near future, a digital x-ray unit.

We are working with the Board of Pharmacy to find a way to have some type of dispensing pharmacy for the residents in the south part of the valley, Bartos said. Were working with them. Nothing has been finalized. Were trying to see how we can provide that service.

Marcus Daly Memorial Hospital is planning a town hall meeting for residents of the south valley with information about the rural health clinic.

Were going to share with them what we are going to be doing. The date of that meeting is to be determined, he said. Well explain our offerings, when we will be open, what services will be provided and how we made the decision to start a clinic in Darby.

At the town hall meeting, south valley residents will meet the health care provider coming from Georgia.

Were looking forward to creating a partnership with the residents in the south part of the valley, the town council and mayor in Darby, Bartos said.

Darby Mayor JC McDowell said that having medical services for the Darby community will be a great benefit.

Having Marcus Daly in the community is wonderful, McDowell said. We are getting a clinic just outside the town limits and are trying to figure out how to come up with a new vision for Main Street to invigorate our community economically. We are updating our growth policy every five years and I am encouraging the council to look at a master plan and create a vision for the future of Darby.

McDowell said Darby needs to look at helping the community beyond the town limits.

We need to really consider the greater community of approximately 4,000 people, he said. This is what allows Marcus Daly to invest in a medical clinic because its not just the 720 people in that one square mile of Darby, its the needs of the greater community to the south that make it financially worthwhile to invest in.

McDowell said he does have some concerns if Marcus Daly will be able to serve all the low-income families in the area.

They recently expanded the Medicaid for low-income and it may cover them, he said. Our anti-government community may not sign up for this government program.

McDowell also said Darby needs to use Marcus Dalys contribution to draw other businesses to invest in the local community.

As Darby moves forward we cant just look at one thing at a time, McDowell said. We have to work on many different fronts such as improving infrastructure, development and beautification.
A Hamilton mans past apparently caught with him Friday when he was charged with felony counts of bail jumping and DUI.

Alan William Massey, 41, appeared Friday before Ravalli County Justice Jim Bailey on the two felony counts and several misdemeanors.

Court records said Massey failed to appear for a pre-trial conference on April 7 on charges stemming from a Dec. 2015 arrest for felony possession of dangerous drugs and misdemeanor counts of intoxicated pedestrian and disorderly conduct.

He was arrested last week on a $25,000 warrant for bail jumping.

In a separate case, Massey was charged Friday for felony DUI charge that allegedly occurred on Dec. 16, 2015.

In that case, court records said a Hamilton police officer was dispatched to the intersection of 1st Street and Bitterroot Plaza Drive for a report of a one-vehicle crash.

The officer found Masseys vehicle facing westbound in the ditch beside a street sign. The vehicle was high-centered.

During the investigation, officers found that Massey had a valid Colorado drivers license, but his Montana license was suspended.

The license plates on the vehicle also didnt match the vehicle Massey was driving.

When the officer spoke with Massey, he admitted to being the driver. Massey said he had lost control of his truck and it had slid into the ditch. At the time, there was a good amount of snow on the ground and it was snowing.

The officer noted that Masseys speech was slurred and deliberate, although the man denied consuming alcohol.

Massey initially refused to take a field sobriety test, but eventually agreed to perform the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus test. The affidavit said he exhibited six of the six of the clues of being impaired.

Massey refused to complete a breath sample. A blood sample resulted in a .16 blood alcohol content.

In Montana, a driver is considered impaired with a .08 BAC.

Massey has prior DUI convictions in Montana in 2003 and two in 2005.

Massey was also charged with misdemeanor counts of careless driving, driving while license is suspended and displaying license plates assigned to another vehicle.

Bailey set bail at $25,000 with a requirement that Massey be monitored for alcohol if released.
On April 20th the University of Montana hosted a symposium entitled, Missoula Access to Justice Forum. The listening panel included, Hon. Mike McGrath, Chief Justice, Montana Supreme Court, Hon. Leslie Halligan, district Court Judge, 4th Judicial district (Missoula County), Hon. Winona Tanner, Chief Judge, Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes, Hon. Karen Orzech, Justice of the Peace, Missoula County, Representative Kimberly Kudik, House District 94, Representative Ron Ehli, House District 86 and Dean Paul Kirgis from the Alex Blewett III School of Law.

The speakers included Kat Werner from the YWCA, Charlotte Beatty representing the Court Help Program, Sindy Filler, Certified Interpreter, Maylinn Smith representing the Blewett School of Law, Ann Sherwood from the Tribal Defenders Office, Erin Fowler from the Poverello Center, Meri Althauser from the Western Montana Bar Association and Ed Higgins from Montana Legal Services Association.

Two speakers told of a need for more Pro Bono or legal help for the poor or disadvantaged residents of Montana. Yet neither the panel nor the speakers discussed solutions to these needs or the responsibility of our government to provide legal aid to those who cannot afford an attorney.

The Montana Legal Services Association reports that in 2015 they had over 6,000 requests for help but could only handle 2,761 of the cases. They also reported, Despite the civil & legal aid provided in Missoula County by MLSA and others, small staff size and lack of resources mean that the need for civil legal aid remains high.

The Western Montana Bar Association Pro Bono Program reports that they provide limited scope advice appointments and that they assisted 181 clients in 2015. However, they did not report how many people they had to turn away and could not find affordable legal representation.

Also, the Montana Supreme Court  Court Help Program, Self Help Law Center reported they have helped self-represented litigants gain information about their rights and responsibilities through their free service. However, they did not report on the effectiveness of the program, the quality of information they provided or the satisfaction rating of the programs participants.

The fact is that thousands of Montanans are in need of legal services but cannot afford the high cost of legal representation. These Montanans include retired individuals living on Social Security, Veterans, low wage earners, abused women, the elderly, the disabled and mentally ill to name a few.

After the presentation the public was invited to comment or make suggestions. The first to comment was Mark Snider who is a candidate for House District 87. He quoted the Constitutions contention that we must establish justice and promote the general welfare of all of our citizens, not just the rich.

He read from his comment card stating, Justice, whether it is civil or criminal, costs an individual between $175 and $250 an hour. Most Montanans do not make that in a whole day. Has everyone here recited the Pledge of Allegiance? We end that pledge with these words, with liberty and justice for all. Please note that it did not say justice for only the rich. Unfortunately, the most important aspect of our justice system is referred to as billable hours. If one does not have the money, the system judges you as undeserving of justice.

Mark also agreed with the second speaker, Jim Olsen, who said we have a good model in Ravalli County for dealing with domestic and child abuse and mental illness crises and that the key is agency cooperation. Jim also said the court system itself was way too expensive and the rules need to change to make it work, not for the lawyers, but for the people.

After the conference Jim said that lawyers should be required to perform pro bono work as part of their job description.

A third speaker who had difficulty with his microphone told the panel that he experienced a situation where judges did not follow the law in regards to their duties as judges and even gave case numbers as examples.

Hopefully, the Missoula Access to Justice Forum will continue to listen the publics demands for more fair and affordable legal services for those in Montana who cannot afford the high cost of justice. Changes must be made so every Montanan has access to legal representation as the Pledge of Allegiance and our Constitution imply.
Sagarmatha Network Pvt. Ltd. is the organization dedicated in the field of printing, publishing service since 2001. As part of media, we've been publishing Review Nepal, an English medium weekly registered at District Administration Office (DAO) Kathmandu with registration number 130-162-163 and reviewnepal.com as an online digital newspaper, with registration number 849-075-076 at Department of Informational and Broadcasting (DIB) from Kathmandu, Nepal since 2003.
Dhaka Tribune - April 25, 2016

It doesnat matter what they say

Tribune Editorial

The government is failing to fulfill its duty to protect its citizens.

This is the main lesson that can be drawn from Saturdayas brutal murder of Professor Rezaul Karim Siddique in Rajshahi.

Fanatics are pursuing a single minded campaign to target secular writers and intellectuals for cold blooded murder in Bangladesh. And the government is failing to stop them.

It didnat matter to Professor Siddiqueas killers that his colleagues say he was not active in politics and was alert not to hurt religious sentiments. Or that his cousin says Professor Siddique donated to many mosques and madrassas.

What matters is that religious extremists claimed he was involved in acalling to atheisma and say that this gives justification for killers to act as judge, jury, and executioner.

Not only has the government failed to stop such killings or bring the perpetrators to justice, it has appeased their supporters by pointing fingers at victims and feeding the mind-set that people need to watch what they say and write, or suffer the consequences.

It doesnat matter what the victimas beliefs were. It does not matter what anyone says or writes. It is never acceptable to kill someone for his or her words.

It doesnat matter what the victimas killers claim as reasons to justify their actions.

What matters is that such fanatics are targeting individuals in Bangladesh to be slaughtered in public in cold blood. And they are acting with impunity.

They are murderers who need to be brought to justice.

It doesnat matter whether they are from transnational terrorist groups like IS as they have claimed, or part of locally based militant networks, as the government argues.

Their aim is to create fear and hatred. They need to be stopped.

Appeasement will not stop such murders. The government must catch the killers and fulfill its duty to protect all citizens.

o o o

The Independent (Bangladesh), 25 April, 2016

Editorial

Deplorable killing of RU professor

The recent killings have sparked outrage at home and abroad, with national and international rights groups demanding that the ruling government to protect freedom of speech in Bangladesh

Deplorable killing of RU professor

The killing of Professor Rezaul Karim Siddique of Rajshahi University bore the hallmarks of previous serial killings of bloggers by Islamist militants. In a span of 12 years he is the fourth victim from the same university. We are horrified and condemn his murder. His killing is inexcusable and those responsible must be held into account.

Given the gruesome killings of our university professors over the past years they should have been provided with additional safety and security measures. That didnat happen and also it hasnat been confirmed whether the Islamic State (IS) is actively operating within our borders. Worth mentioning, the IS previously had also claimed responsibility for the killings of two foreigners, and attacks on mosques and Christian priests in Bangladesh happened since last September. But our law enforcement agencies have denied ISas involvement and stated that local militant group, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, was behind those attacks. If that unverified claim is true, who are the perpetrators claiming responsibilities under the banner of IS? And also how is Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen operating?

The gruesome killing on Saturday triggered grief and anger over governmentas repeated failures to stop the killings of our academicians. Not only are our teachers architects of future generations but valuable national assets. Failing to protect teachersa clearly indicates that the authorities have become powerless in the face of extremist onslaughts happening domestically.

The pattern of the slain professoras killing may have been similar to that of many recent murders of bloggers and other secular activists, but we fail to comprehend why is the police is failing to stop such killings? Moreover, the rate of police failures to protect the citizens has reached an all time high and this is no longer tolerable.

Based on recent killings, there now is a growing concern among free thinkers as to whether its possible to express their beliefs any longer with the same freedom that they once had. Moreover, the recent killings have sparked outrage at home and abroad, with national and international rights groups demanding that the government should protect freedom of speech in Bangladesh. The countryas international image continues to be tarnished with growing radicalism which must be stopped without delay.

We expect the concerned authorities to launch an all-out effort to eliminate fanatics and killings in the name of distorted religious teachings. Let the last killing mark the end of all militant killings in Bangladesh.

o o o

New Age (Bangladesh) - April 25, 2016

Editorial

Time for govt to head off train of murders

THE murder of yet another teacher of the University of Rajshahi a with this being the fourth in 12 years a is gravely shocking. The teacher, AFM Rezaul Karim Siddiquee, of the universityas English department was hacked to death, on Saturday morning, soon after he had left home for work; and he was hacked in the neck from behind, as has been reported to be typical of the murder of bloggers, writers and publishers that have taken place in a series in recent times. While the latest murder of the teacher, along with the murder of three other teachers of the university in 2014, 2006 and 2004, are enough to create panic and fear among other teachers at the university a many now living in a fearful situation especially after 40 of them received death threats in about a year and a half of them filed general diaries in connection with the threats a this sufficiently points to the governmentas failure in ensuring security for the citizens. This is more so in view of the growing number of people either being killed or coming to be wounded, grievously, at the hands of, as is reported, religious extremists.

Although the law enforcement agencies are yet to establish the motive behind the murder in question, the local police primarily suspect this to be an act carried out by religious extremists. The US-based SITE Intelligence, which claims to be monitoring terrorism, reported, in a tweet, the Middle East-based militant group Islamic State to be claiming the responsibility for the murder of the teacher for acalling to atheism.a The government, but for mere rhetoric, appears to be lacking in approach that it needs to take a properly substantiated with well-meaning social awareness efforts against extremism of any kind and for tolerance and harmony a to head off such menace of religious extremism. Coupled with this, what seems to be instilling a sense of impunity in the killers is the absence of effective justice dispensation. While two of the cases of previous murders, which took place in 2006 and 2004, led to conviction through trial, even if, in imprisonment for life after the commutation of the death sentence in retrial, the investigation of the other case has only reached the submission of charge sheet by the law enforcers. Yet, a large number of cases of similar attacks, along with other cases with diverse nature and motive of the murder, not being properly investigated and not running to trial and conviction have only bolstered the impunity of the killers.

Under the circumstances, the government, without making further delay, must get down to stemming an all-out lawlessness that society has almost fallen into. The government, without sounding rhetoric, must step up efforts to try the cases at hand and others many of which are even pending investigation to break the culture of impunity that the killers have come to enjoy. The government, along with citizens, must also wage a social movement against extremism and intolerance of any kind, which have so far been the reason for many of the murders, before it becomes too late in ensuring safety and security of citizens.
YEREVAN, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS. In the current situation Minister of Defense Seyran Ohanyan excludes the possibility of conceding even an inch of land. Seyran Ohanyan noted that in the current situation we have to do everything to create an atmosphere of trust.

There is no question about yielding any area. For solving the Karabakh issue first and foremost it is necessary to create relevant conditions, atmosphere of trust. And in this reality, there is no question about yielding even an inch of land, Armenpress reports Ohanyan saying.

Dialogue is needed among the conflicting sides. According to him, when dialogue is absent, conflict settlement is out of question.

Seyran Ohanyan said that the Armenian political potential is working in the direction of Nagorno Karabakh becoming a negotiating side in the conflict.

My personal view has always been that Nagorno Karabakh as a conflicting side should be part of negotiations. Otherwise in the final phase of the issue settlement we will have to start from zero with the NKR leadership, he added.

The Minister also said that the atrocities committed by Azerbaijan in the begging of April in Nagorno Karabakh: the beheadings, mutilations and torture, are all corresponding to the elements of genocide.
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Bob MusselGoo Goo Dolls is giving us yet another taste of their new music. The band released their song The Pin, from their forthcoming album Boxes.

On the track, frontman John Rzeznik sings about an emotional rollercoaster of a relationship: Were going up and down/Hold on/Were crashing to the ground/And every time youre near/I open up again/You reach inside of me/And then you pull the pin.

The song, along with Over and Over and lead single So Alive, is available as an instant grat track when you pre-order the album. Boxes comes out May 6.

The band -- consisting of John and bassist Robby Takac -- kicks off its North American tour on July 8 in Portland, Oregon.

Copyright  2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
YEREVAN, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS. The ceremony for the 101th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in Argentina was held during the afternoon of Saturday April 23, with a letter of President Mauricio Macri and the presence of the President of the Senate, Federico Pinedo, and Jorge Macri, mayor of Vicente Lopez, Buenos Aires, Armenpress reports citing Prensa Armenia.

President Macri sent a letter regretting not being able to attend and send a message of "permanent memory of the victims, convinced that only respect for the highest values and principles will lead them down the road of peace and encounter."

Federico Pinedo said in his speech that it was "essential to remember the Armenian Genocide and repudiate the facts and attitudes of persecuting others for belonging to other ethnic groups."

"The Armenian Genocide was the prelude to the Holocaust and it was tried to hide for long. In Argentina we took an important step when several years ago, along with leaders of other parties, we encouraged a law that declared April 24 as the Day for Tolerance and Respect between Peoples," said Senator Pinedo in an interview with Prensa Armenia.

Speaking on military attacks by Azerbaijan against Karabakh, Pinedo, who was part of the parliamentary friendship group with Azerbaijan, reiterated that his position was "the position of Argentina: to try to cooperate so that the countries find the solution in the framework of peaceful negotiation." "We are obviously against any use of violence and attempts to unbalance the situation in Karabakh by force," said Pinedo. The event made a strong emphasis on the military aggression of Azerbaijan against the civilian population of Nagorno-Karabakh. For his part, Jorge Macri thanked the Armenian community for "building Argentina". "You can count on me to demand peace and justice in Karabakh," he added.

The Armenian ambassador, Alexan Harutyunyan, announced that Armenia will give the City of Buenos Aires a statue of St. Gregory of Narek to be placed in the Armenia Square of Palermo neighborhood, as a symbol of friendship and gratitude to Pope Francis for having recognized the Armenian Genocide on April 12, 2015. "On the eve of April 24, 101 years of the Armenian Genocide, Armenian blood is spilled in a sacred part of our country, the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. Encouraged by Turkey, Aliyev, the bloody and corrupt dictator of Azerbaijan, bombards Armenian school where children die and are wounded, he launches missiles against civilians, murders elderly, cut ears, tears eyes, hands of the Islamic State beheads Armenian soldiers from 18 to 20 years old and they are proud of it," Harutyunyan said. "We should also mention that the Armenian community of Argentina is committed to support and rebuild the Talish village destroyed by the Azeris," added Harutyunyan.

In a speech on behalf of the Armenian community of Argentina, it was announced a request to the country's authorities "to require the implementation of measures designed to support the peace process and to avoiding truce fighting and loss of life of civilians and military" in Nagorno-Karabakh. "We demand the international community to pressure Turkey to recognize the responsibilities of the Ottoman government in the planning and execution of the Armenian genocide, and to oversee the maintenance of the ceasefire between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh, to ensure the solution of the conflict by peaceful means, with respect to self-determination and the norms of international law."
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 Hey Prez Candidate Kasich: why can't you figure out the formula to make capital punishment work (as it does in Georgia and Texas)? | Main | SCOTUS grants cert on two new criminal cases 

April 24, 2016

American Enterprise Institute leader explains why we need to reform "the status quo in criminal justice"

Arthur C. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), has this notable new commentary explaining the role his organization is playing in National Reentry Week and in broader criminal justice reform efforts. (For those who do not know, AEI is a public-policy group "committed to expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity and strengthening free enterprisehe status quo in criminal justice," with GOP politicians like Dick Cheney and Peter Coors and many corporate titans on its Board of Trustees.) The piece is titled "Reforming the status quo in criminal justice," and here are excertps (with links and emphasis from the original):

On Monday morning, AEI is co-hosting a discussion on Americas criminal justice system with the White House and the Brennan Center for Justice. The event will kick off at 10:00 am EDT on Monday April 25 in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next door to the White House. You can livestream my introductory remarks and the entire event on the White Houses website, and our team will be sharing parts of it in real time on Twitter. At first blush, this kind of event might seem a little unusual. A Democratic administration, a major universitys criminal justice center, and a free-enterprise-focused think-tank coming together to discuss mass incarceration? That kind of diverse collaboration is not exactly commonplace in Washington, D.C. But we believe that collaboration and open discussion are possible across the political spectrum. We jump at opportunities to bring our principles into good-faith dialogue and debate with colleagues of all views on critical subjects. (For more on this subject, check out a recent interview I gave to the TED Radio Hour podcast.) White House policymakers, AEI scholars, and the Brennan Centers experts hold a wide range of views on the substance of criminal justice reform. What we share in common is a passionate desire to build a system that more effectively serves both the human dignity and human potential of vulnerable people. And lets be honest  there are few subjects in American life that are so clearly misaligned with these twin moral goals as the status quo in criminal justice. Data show that only about one-third of incarcerated Americans get to participate in any education, vocational, or pre-release programs while behind bars. One professor who studies our prison population estimates that roughly half of all people in prison are functionally illiterate. And partially as a result of these factors, roughly two-thirds of all parolees wind up back in prison within three years of their release. To be sure, excessive spending and economic inefficiency are serious consequences of this inefficient system. But the heaviest costs that America bears for this human capital tragedy are not material. They are moral. When we talk about a person who comes out of prison barely able to read and utterly unprepared for citizenship, we are talking about a person stripped of his basic dignity. When we see a person who is asked to re-enter productive society but has no plausible job prospects, we are looking at someone whose human potential has been badly stunted.... Through action and inaction alike, our society has effectively decided that there are millions of our brothers and sisters, the incarcerated and the formerly incarcerated, whom we simply do not need. At worst, we view them as human liabilities we must coexist with and manage at minimal cost; at best, as people we can tolerate and try to help. But as dormant assets to be enlivened and empowered? Hardly ever. If we committed ourselves and our society to the moral principle that we need to need everyone, how would criminal justice policy change? Thats a question we at AEI are dedicated to exploring. My colleagues fascinating work on this topic already speaks for itself, and the year ahead will see us continue expanding our work on inmate education and re-entry.

A few recent related posts:

April 24, 2016 at 03:21 PM | Permalink

Comments

Brooks states:

"What we share in common is a passionate desire to build a system that more effectively serves both the human dignity and human potential of vulnerable people."

Of course, by "vulnerable people" Brooks is speaking of the criminals, not their victims.

My expectation is that 99% of the meeting will be along those lines.

If you look at what has occurred in Ca, recently, the swinging of the pendulum back to the offenders, has already wrought much additional cost and many more innocent victims.

I am all for prison reform and making the system more responsible, inclusive of doing a better job at reducing recidivism, which is closer to 80%, within five years of release.

Let's not forget that we are, now, at 40-60 year lows in most crime categories and that we do not want them to rise, and, possibly, always to recognize the "vulnerable people" as the actual crime victims.

Posted by: Dudley Sharp | Apr 25, 2016 7:46:18 AM

It's all very hopeful.

Posted by: beth | Apr 25, 2016 2:29:20 PM

Post a comment


In a second high-profile philanthropic effort in a month, multimillionaire motivational speaker Tony Robbins has offered to pay for a long-term home for an 85-year-old woman who was being evicted from her home of 32 years in Burlingame. That woman is Georgia Rothrock, and she was the longtime roommate of 97-year-old Marie Hatch, whose story made headlines after she was threatened with eviction despite having a lifetime lease and having lived in her home for 66 years. Rothrock's fate was in limbo following Hatch's sudden death last month, in the midst of an unresolved legal fight, but as the Chronicle reports, she'll now be relocating to a senior housing complex in Belmont with Robbins' help.

Way to put our own local tech billionaires to shame again, Robbins.

The noted "CEO whisperer" recently stepped in to purchase a new soup kitchen location for an order of French nuns, the Fraternite Notre Dame Mary of Nazareth, who have been feeding the homeless in the Tenderloin daily for nearly a decade. After they were given a rent hike they could not afford, their story went out to the local media and Robbins decided, with the help of some billionaire friends, to purchase a new building in the Mission for them for $750,000 in cash. He also, reports the Chron, recently bought the nuns a new house to live in as well, though details about that were not given.

Rothrock, meanwhile, says that Robbins has agreed to cover the difference between her Social Security benefits and the rent at the complex, in monthly payments spread out of 10 years and totaling about $50,000.

Robbins has a home in Florida as well as one in Palm Springs, and he recently helped a 100-year-old woman there in a similar situation, donating $24,000 spread over the next to years to cover her rent.

He tells the paper, "This is my goal. I havent forgotten what it was like to be poor. I just want to help. ... Georgia is a very sweet woman."

Previously: Tony Robbins Buys Homeless-Serving Nuns A New Soup Kitchen In The Mission
Nebraska Indian Community College (NICC) gives students the chance to learn about the cultures of their community right at home.

With three convenient campus locations in Macy, Neb., Santee, Neb., and South Sioux City at 2605 1/2 Dakota Ave., NICC provides quality higher education and lifelong educational opportunities for the Omaha and Santee Dakota tribes, and other learners, and is focused on preserving and revitalizing the cultures of the Omaha and Santee people.

Accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, NICC offers the following two-year programs of study: Associate of Applied Science - Carpentry; Associate of Arts - Business Administration; Associate of Arts - Early Childhood Education; Associate of Arts - General Liberal Arts; Associate of Arts - Human Services; Associate of Arts - Native American Studies; and Associate of Science - General Science Studies. A certificate program in carpentry is also available for students seeking entry-level employment in a specialized area, occupational advancement, upgraded job skills or personal development.

Students are encouraged to participate in academic and non-academic extracurricular activities that promote growth and development. All enrolled NICC students are eligible to participate in social and cultural activities sponsored by various NICC organizations and departments. The NICC Student Senate is a student organization that consists of student members from each campus. It is designed to encourage and promote social and other extracurricular activities related to Native and non-Native students alike.

NICC is a member of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC). Students attend an annual spring AIHEC conference and participate in non-academic and academic competitions with other Tribal College students. Students wishing to participate in AIHEC activities must maintain a 2.0 GPA, and meet the individual guidelines.

An education at NICC is very affordable. All credit hours are charged at a flat rate of $170 per credit hour, and fees are kept to a minimum. Students just pay a fee for admission and graduation. Financial aid and scholarships are available and distributed among active students each semester. All high school graduates receive a $500 scholarship if enrolled to a Federally recognized Tribe or a Nebraska resident.

A new vocational counselor at NICC helps students prepare for the workforce by offering soft skills training to teach students basic job interviewing, how to write a resume, and more. This training benefits NICC and other companies seeking to recruit students.

If you want to expand your educational horizons and learn in a rich cultural environment, make plans to attend Nebraska Indian Community College.

For more information or to sign up for classes, call recruiter Nicole Parker at 402-241-5972 or the NICC general campus at 844-440-6422.
Best Master's Degrees rankings are based on quality and affordability.

Wayne State College has been ranked among the top 10 most affordable online master's in business administration degree programs by Best Master's Degrees. The ranking was published on the organization's website in October 2015.

Wayne State College was ranked fourth.

A master list of schools offering online MBA programs was compiled based on quality (using rankings from various websites including Forbes magazine and Kiplinger's) as well as price. The top 10 schools were then ranked based on graduate tuition and fees supplied by the National Center for Education Statistics' College Navigator database.

The accredited online MBA degree from Wayne State College is a non-thesis program offered entirely online, with no required campus visits. The program is designed for working students busy with life obligations. WSC offers highly affordable graduate tuition; tuition is a flat rate per credit hour regardless of residency.

BestMastersDegrees.com is an online resource helping prospective graduate students make informed decisions about pursuing a master's degree. The Best Master's Degrees provides rankings and profiles on a wide variety of master's degree programs and answers the most frequently asked questions about master's degrees.

Learn more about WSC's MBA program at wsc.edu/mba.
YEREVAN, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS. Based on the loan agreement the works of buying weapons from Russia are underway, in an interview with journalists, the Armenian Defense Minister said this in Tsitsernakaberd. The works are in progress at at accelerated pace, Armenpress reports, Seyran Ohanyan mentions.

Minister ensured that the Armenian army leadership immediately started respective investigations after the Azerbaijani aggression unleashed in Artsakh. He stated that these investigations were conducted during the military operations.

I can say that positive sides prevail the negative ones. The positive thing is that our soldiers managed not to let the adversary conduct its goals during the military operations, whereas we immediately started to work towards the elimination of negative consequences, Minister concluded.
BUSAN, South Korea | Three decades ago, a policeman tortured Choi Seung-woo over a piece of bread he found in the boy's schoolbag.

After being stripped and having a cigarette lighter repeatedly sparked near his genitals, the 14-year-old falsely confessed to stealing the bread. Two men with clubs came and dragged him off to the Brothers Home, a mountainside institution where some of the worst human rights atrocities in modern South Korean history took place.

Even now, Choi weeps as he speaks of what happened there.

A guard in Choi's dormitory raped him that night in 1982, and the next, and the next. So began five hellish years of slave labor and near-daily assaults, years in which Choi saw men and women beaten to death, their bodies carted away like garbage.

Choi was one of thousands  the homeless, the drunk, the unlucky, but mostly children and the disabled  who were forced into facilities for so-called vagrants in the 1970s and '80s. The roundup came as the ruling dictators prepared to bid for and host the 1988 Seoul Olympics, which they saw as international validation of South Korea's arrival as a modern country. So they ordered police and local officials to "purify" the streets.

Today, nobody has been held accountable for the hundreds of deaths, rapes and beatings on the grounds of Brothers, the largest of dozens of facilities for those considered undesirable, according to an Associated Press investigation.

The AP found that abuse at Brothers, previously almost unknown, was much more vicious and widespread than had been realized, based on hundreds of exclusive documents and dozens of interviews with officials and former inmates, most of whom had not spoken before publicly.

Secrecy around Brothers persists because of a cover-up at the highest levels, the AP found. Two early attempts to investigate were suppressed by senior officials who went on to thrive in high-profile jobs; one remains a senior adviser to the current ruling party.

Products made using slave labor at Brothers were sent to Europe, Japan and possibly beyond, and the family that owned Brothers continued to run welfare facilities and schools until just two years ago.

The few former inmates speaking out want a new investigation. The government is blocking an opposition lawmaker's push to revisit the case, contending that the evidence is too old.

Ahn Jeong-tae, an official from Seoul's Ministry of the Interior, said Brothers' victims should have submitted their case years ago to a temporary truth-finding commission. "We can't make separate laws for every incident," Ahn said.

The official silence means that even as South Korea prepares for its second Olympics, in 2018, thousands of traumatized former inmates have still received no compensation, let alone public recognition or an apology.

"The government has consistently tried to bury what happened. How do you fight that?" Choi asked. "Look at me now. I am wailing, desperate to tell our story. Please listen to us."

Police officers, assisted by shop owners, rounded up children, panhandlers, small-time street merchants, the disabled and dissidents. They ended up as prisoners at 36 nationwide facilities, and numbered 16,000 by 1986, according to government documents obtained by AP.

Nearly 4,000 were at Brothers. Once an orphanage, Brothers Home at its peak had more than 20 factories behind its well-guarded walls in the southern port city of Busan, churning out goods made by mostly unpaid inmates.

Some 90 percent of those shouldn't have been there because they didn't meet the government's definition of "vagrant," former prosecutor Kim Yong Won told the AP, based on Brothers' records and interviews compiled in 1987 before government officials ended his investigation.

A former inmate, Lee Chae-sik, said he watched the man he worked for, chief enforcer Kim Kwang-seok, lead near-daily, often fatal beatings at a "corrections room." Lee said he also saw records that sometimes listed as many as five daily deaths. The AP tried repeatedly to track Kim down but could not.

Amid the violence was a massive money-making operation partly based on slave labor. Eleven of the factories, ostensibly meant to train inmates for future jobs, saw a profit by the end of 1986, according to Busan city government documents obtained exclusively by the AP.

The documents show that Brothers should have paid the current equivalent of $1.7 million to more than 1,000 inmates for their dawn-to-dusk work over an unspecified period. However, facility records and interviews with inmates at the time suggest that most people at Brothers were subjected to forced labor without pay, according to prosecutor Kim.

In his autobiography and elsewhere, Brothers' owner, Park In-keun, has denied wrongdoing, saying he simply followed government orders. Repeated attempts to contact him through family, friends and activists were unsuccessful.

The former second-highest management official at Brothers, Lim Young-soon, attributed the facility's high death toll to the many inmates he said arrived there in poor health.

"These were people who would have died in the streets anyway," Lim told AP in a phone interview.

While Park grew rich, inmates struggled to survive.

On his second day at Brothers, Choi said he watched a guard drag a woman by her hair and beat her with a club until blood flowed.

Death tallies compiled by the facility claimed 513 people died between 1975 and 1986; the real toll was almost certainly higher. Most of the new arrivals at Brothers were in relatively good health, government documents show. Yet at least 15 inmates were dead within just a month of arrival in 1985, and 22 in 1986.

Brothers' downfall began by accident.

While pheasant hunting, Kim, then a newly appointed prosecutor in the city of Ulsan, stumbled upon bedraggled prisoners working on a mountainside. Their guards said they were building a ranch for the owner of the Brothers Home in nearby Busan.

Kim and 10 policemen raided Brothers in January 1987. But at every turn in his investigation, Kim said, high-ranking officials blocked him, in part out of fear of embarrassing pre-Olympics news. Internal prosecution records reveal intense pressure from the president's office for Kim to curb his probe and push for lighter punishment for the owner.

Kim's boss, Park Hee-tae, then Busan's head prosecutor and later the nation's justice minister, pushed to reduce the scope of the investigation, Kim said, including forcing him to stop efforts to interview every Brothers inmate. Park, a senior adviser to the current ruling party, denied AP interview requests. His personal secretary said Park can't remember details about the investigation.

Kim, now 61 and a managing partner at a Seoul law firm, said his bosses also prevented him from charging the owner for suspected widespread abuse at the main compound, limiting him to pursuing much narrower abuse linked to the construction site he'd found.

Despite interference, Kim eventually collected bank records and financial transactions indicating that, in 1985 and 1986 alone, the owner embezzled millions from government subsidies. The Supreme Court in 1989 gave Park 2 years in prison for embezzlement and violations of construction, grassland management and foreign currency laws.

Brothers finally closed its gates in 1988.

While most former inmates are silent, a few are demanding an apology and an admission that officials encouraged police to kidnap and lock away people who shouldn't have been confined.

"How can we ever forget the pain from the beatings, the dead bodies, the backbreaking labor, the fear ... all the bad memories," said Lee, who now manages a lakeside motel. "It will haunt us until we die."
SIOUX CITY | Hospice of Siouxland recently added two positions of "clinical nurse liaison" to be assigned to the two Sioux City hospitals, and a position of "hospice health care consultant" who will work with local and regional nursing homes, assisted living facilities and medical clinics.

Susan Morgensen will be clinical nurse liaison at Mercy Medical Center -- Sioux City, and Nancy Burkhart will be clinical nurse liaison at UnityPoint Health -- St. Lukes. They will work with physicians and hospital personnel and serve as case manager to hospice inpatient care.

Ann Myers is the hospice health care consultant, coordinating palliative and hospice services with physicians and local nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

Morgensen and her husband, Paul, live in South Sioux City and have five children and two grandchildren. She has worked at Hospice of Siouxland since 2013, with previous experience at Cedar Valley Hospice in Waterloo, Iowa (eight years), the surgery department at Covenant Medical Center in Waterloo (three years), and ICU at Mercy Medical Center -- Sioux City (22 years).

Burkhart and her husband, Dan, enjoy life on the farm and have three grown children. For the past 22 years she has worked in several different roles at Hospice of Siouxland, with previous experience as an RN on the urology/postsurgical floor at St. Lukes.

Myers and her husband, Dan, are lifelong residents of Sioux City and have five grown children. They were co-owners/operators of long-term care facilities in northwest Iowa and southeast Nebraska for the past 15 years. Prior to that she was an RN with Mercy Homecare.
SIOUX CITY | Dan Van Eldik has been promoted to chief executive officer of Prince Manufacturing Corp.

Eldik succeeds George Sully, who retired as CEO on April 1.

Sully graduated from Iowa State University with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. He had worked for Prince since 1980, when he was hired to develop the R&D laboratory for the corporation.

Van Eldik, a graduate of Western Iowa Tech Community College and Wayne State College, holds degrees in applied science-mechanical engineering and industrial management.

He joined Prince in 1987, and most recently was employed as executive vice president since 2011.

Prince also announced the retirement of its director of human resources and general manager and successors for both positions.

Roberta Piper, human resources director, retired on Jan. 22.

Piper graduated from Walthill Public School in Walthill, Neb. She began working at Prince on Jan. 22, 1969, at Omahaline Hydraulics Company, a division of Prince.

She became director of human resources on Nov. 1, 2005.

Cheri Teut has been promoted as the new director of human resources.

Teut graduated from Morningside College with a bachelors in accounting, and from Western Iowa Tech Community College with an associate degree in applied scienceaccounting specialist.

A certified professional in human resources since 2002, Teut joined Prince 19 years ago.

Gerald Kempema retired as general manager of Prince Hydraulics Company on Nov. 22.

A former U.S. Marine, Kempema devoted 41 years of service to Prince.

Denise Kneifl has been promoted to general manager. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin at River Falls with a bachelors in agricultural engineering technology, Kneifl joined Prince in 2000 as a drafter.
Medicare wants more doctors and patients to talk about the tough care decisions that must be made if a person becomes seriously ill or incapacitated.

The federal entity, which covers health care for people over age 65, has started reimbursing doctors for having face-to-face, advance care planning discussions about a patient's treatment preferences should they become unable to speak for themselves.

Only 17 percent of adults say they have had these discussions with a health care provider, according to the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. Here's what you need to know.

WILL EVERYONE HAVE COVERAGE NOW?

That can still depend on the insurer. If you don't have Medicare, check before scheduling an appointment specifically for one of these discussions.

If there is no coverage, doctors may cut you a discount to have the talk. A half an hour of a doctor's time could cost you $125 or more, depending on where you live. But don't think a lack of coverage means you can't talk to your doctor.

Doctors have been reimbursed for years for discussing treatment options with patients during the course of care or an office visit. Some have done it without reimbursement.

By offering reimbursement specifically for this discussion, the government aims to encourage more of these conversations to take place. This might make it easier for more people to have the conversation with their doctors if they are not facing a terminal illness.

WHO SHOULD HAVE THIS TALK?

The range of patients isn't limited to the elderly or people with a serious condition. These voluntary discussions can be crucial if someone later winds up critically injured from a car accident and unable to communicate.

Even healthy younger adults should think about an advance care plan, according to said Dr. Peter Hollmann, chief medical officer of University Medicine in Rhode Island.

"The odds of you needing it tomorrow are very, very small, but they're not zero," he said.

These discussions can last a half an hour or more and may require another visit.

WHAT WILL THESE DISCUSSIONS INVOLVE?

There's no set format for how they unfold. Hollmann says they should largely be directed by the patient.

The conversation may involve how you would want to be treated if you have a terminal illness. That could include exploring whether you would want a ventilator or CPR performed in certain situations. It also could include talking about nutrition and whether you want treatment that's focused on comfort or prolonging your life.

Your doctor will probably want to discuss who you have chosen to act as your health care representative in case you become incapacitated and need someone to make decisions based on your wishes. Think carefully about the spouse, family member or close friend you select for this role and make sure they know your wishes.

ARE THESE THE DISCUSSIONS THAT STIRRED CONCERN THAT THEY WOULD LEAD TO FEDERAL 'DEATH PANELS'?

Yes.

More than six years ago, a provision for Medicare to cover this sort of counseling, which includes discussing end-of-life care, touched off an uproar that threatened President Obama's still-developing health care overhaul.

Former Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin's accusation that voluntary counseling could lead to government-sponsored "death panels" dictating the fate of frail elders was widely discredited. But the counseling still stirs concern among some right-to-life advocates that it could be used to nudge patients into forgoing life-saving treatment and cannot be adequately monitored for bias.

WHAT SHOULD I DO AFTER TALKING TO MY PHYSICIAN?

Write an advance directive.

This documents in your own words instructions about future medical care. That means you won't have to depend on your doctor being present in an emergency and having notes from your discussion.

Advance directives don't expire, so patients don't have to worry about writing one too soon. But people should periodically review them to make sure they still reflect their wishes, said John Mastrojohn III, executive vice president with the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

"They basically remain in effect until you change it," he said.

These are legal documents, and their form can vary by state. You won't need a lawyer to complete one, but you may need a witness or notary to sign it.

Mastrojohn's organization offers a website with links to copies of each state's advance directive form: http://bit.ly/1cgFdvW.
Amy Schumer isnt just a star. Shes a blindingly bright nova streaking through every pop-culture subset out there  TV, movies, publishing, social media and now, a return to stand-up touring. This time around, shes playing not basement comedy clubs, but arenas.

Schumers book The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo, for which she was reportedly paid at least $8 million, comes out in August. The fourth season of her Emmy- and Peabody-winning Comedy Central show, Inside Amy Schumer, premiered this week. She wrote and starred in the summer 2015 hit movie Trainwreck with director Judd Apatow and just finished co-writing a script with Jennifer Lawrence.

This kind of meteoric rise has seldom been experienced by any stand-up comic, let alone a woman in a male-dominated field. Why does Schumer reign supreme?

Shes not afraid to go there. No matter how vulgar, taboo or previously untrod the territory, Schumer sallies forth with descriptions of her sexual encounters, less-than-pristine underwear and a fearlessly scatological music video about the obsession with womens rear ends.

Shes so darn likable. Women in their 20s and 30s recognize themselves in her funny/tragic hookup stories. (Nothing good ever happens in a blackout. Ive never woken up and been like, What is this Pilates mat doing out?) Women of all ages want to be her for a night. And guys like her, too.

Shes real, shes hilarious, shes unafraid to be herself, said fan Emily Johnson, who was headed to a show with her boyfriend. We love having a comedian in common to laugh at.

Minneapolis comedy club tastemaker Louis Lee admires her authenticity.

Shes so comfortable in her own skin and not afraid to express it, said Lee, owner of Acme Comedy Club, where Schumer last appeared in 2013 doing a podcast with Doug Benson. When you see her, you relate to her, men and women of all ages.

She ingeniously skewers cultural norms. Schumer is at her best when poking holes in popular medias lopsided expectations of women. From her HBO special: In L.A., my arms register as legs. And my legs register as firewood. In one brilliant sketch from her show, Tina Fey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Patricia Arquette explain how actresses have sell-by dates in Hollywood. In another, a star-studded spoof of the classic film 12 Angry Men, an all-male jury debates whether shes hot enough to be on TV. I dont think shes protagonist hot, says Kevin Kane. But Kevin James is? shoots back John Hawkes.

A-listers love her. Scheduled for guest spots among dozens of others on her show this season are Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, Jennifer Hudson, Anthony Bourdain and even Hamilton star Lin-Manuel Miranda, for whom Amy, in a promo, demos her own Broadway musical based on Betsy Ross.

Shes got the look. If you dont look like Amy, youve got a good friend who does. Shes the all-American girl in a short, tight skirt, with a bod that doesnt scream emaciation, someone at home at a small-town fair or a big-city bar, strutting her stuff or doing the walk of shame. But above all, its her personal mantra on attractiveness: I say if Im beautiful. I say if Im strong. You will not determine my story  I will. She recently called out Glamour magazine for calling her plus-size, tweeting we are done with these unnecessary labels that seem to be reserved for women.

Shes coated in troll-proof Teflon. Schumer gets eviscerated by online trolls, whom she blithely ignores or steamrolls over with her own social-media troops. Shes also survived accusations of joke stealing and casual racism in her humor with barely a scratch.

Her market-saturating streak cant last forever, but is she in danger of burning out?

You never know in this business, said Acmes Lee. Its what youre going to do tomorrow, the next movie, the next show. But right now shes the hottest female comic there is.

Or maybe the hottest comic, period.
Its not difficult to see why Son of Saul won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Taking a raw, almost brutal look at the concentration camps in World War II, the Hungarian film forces its audience to confront the horror and feel its effects.

Shot in plenty of extreme closeups, it plays its story on the face of a Jewish inmate named Saul (Geza Rohrig). Hes a member of Auschwitzs special unit charged with disposing bodies.

While on duty, he spots a corpse he says is his son. Determined to give the boy a proper burial, he uses all the power he has to reach the right people, find a rabbi and make this end different from the others.

Whether the boy is his son isnt clear. But the passion that fuels the mission is obvious.

Directed by Laszlo Nemes, Son of Saul goes where most World War II films havent. Its shot in an old format, too, and given the immediacy of a documentary. There isnt much dialogue, but Rohrigs face is an open book, conveying all of the heartache, fear and pain a situation like this might conjure. Hes a fascinating performer, making his film debut in this role.

Because he has such sense of purpose, we do, too. Nemes pushes him through crowds, pulls him through emotions and prods him to action.

The stacks of bodies, the specter of death are unrelenting. But Son of Saul conveys that horror better than most films chronicling similar situations. It doesnt have the whimsy of Life is Beautiful or the force of Schindlers List. It has its own purpose and its powerful.

On the DVD  out next week  Nemes and Rohrig provide commentary. Theres a Q&A session, too, with the creators and one deleted scene.

Still, the film is quite enough by itself.

It tells the story in a way that resonates and sticks.
YEREVAN, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS. Armenian people are not alone in the struggle for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, Armenpress reports, Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia Shavarsh Kocharyan said this in an interview with journalists.

The Recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide is a problem of all humanity. It is natural that Armenians, as people who faced the most brutal genocide, should be in the front. Here we are not alone, and the evidence of this is yesterdays Global forum, said Shavarsh Kocharyan. He stressed that there is a necessity of international community to recognize and condemn Genocide in order to prevent such kind of crimes against humanity in the future.

Shavarsh Kocharyan stated that Armenian people are united, the four-day war on April once more proved this. The unity is not by words, but by actions, and this recent event showed what bright society we have and how united we are, Shavarsh Kocharyan added.
PHILADELPHIA | Fourteen-year-old Yanerie, a girl of incandescent energy and intelligence, bursts through the gates of the Philadelphia Zoo in search of something more elusive than a rare animal  a family she can call her own.

Yanerie says shes unsure of her future. Her siblings are scattered  three living with her mother, one with her father, two in foster care

On her sweatshirt is a sparkly, embroidered princess crown, on her face a hopeful smile.

Two years ago, her parents inability to care for her thrust her into the child-welfare system. Now Yanerie lives in a group home. She hopes that at the zoo, at a gathering of 26 adoptable children and 29 prospective parents, she may find a match.

Is she nervous?

Kind of, Yanerie says.

Why is having a family important to her?

Theyll be able to tell me they love me, she says, and Ill have my own home.

In adoption circles, these get-togethers are called match events, held at bowling alleys, roller-skating rinks and churches in Philadelphia and across the country.

Its a benign name for an endeavor fraught with potential heartache for children who already have suffered plenty. And one that offers older kids  those at the zoo are 12 to 19  what may be a last chance and hope for a stable, loving home.

The hard reality, adoption specialists say, is teenagers are among the toughest to place. In America, married couples dream of having a baby. They dont dream of having a 17-year-old. But once teens age out of the system, they face higher likelihood of homelessness, unemployment, mental-health issues, substance abuse, early pregnancy and jail.

The zoo event  run by the Philadelphia-based National Adoption Center and SWAN, the Statewide Adoption and Permanency Network  runs on the idea that every child deserves a family.

Match events achieve that, at least for some kids. Adults who might reject a child on paper can feel different after meeting face to face in a friendly setting.

Potential parents come to the zoo searching for a spark, a connection, a sign  which can be difficult to discern in the midst of two dozen children, all in need and all deserving.

How do you make such a decision? asks Andy Burgess, who traveled from Uniontown, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Valerie. What is right?

When the day ends, almost all the children will draw interest from one or more families. And almost all of those initial expressions will come to nothing.

A year from now, if three or four of the kids have been adopted, thats considered success.

They do it because it works, said Adam Pertman, president of the National Center on Adoption and Permanency. You fall in love with people you meet.

Two western lowland gorillas look on from behind the glass walls of their Primate Reserve enclosure, as Kathleen Holt Whyte calls the children together. The head of Success Strategies in Yardley tells them how the day will proceed:

They come from towns across Pennsylvania, accompanied by social workers. Its the childrens choice to attend. A couple of kids have mild developmental delays. Some have been harmed by people who were supposed to care for them. Others struggle with the constant uncertainty.

Ive been in the system for seven or eight years. Its rough, said Jabriel, 14.

As Holt Whyte talks, she reminds the children not to expect to be packing a suitcase tonight. The process takes time.

And, she promises, no one will be called to a microphone to promote themselves  which she later says occurred at a different event, as if it were a talent show.

Today, Holt Whyte tells the youths, I work for you.
EARLY, Iowa | One person was killed in a two-vehicle accident Saturday morning on U.S. Highway 20 in Sac County.

Capt. Paul Neeson with Region 5 HAZMAT in Fort Dodge, Iowa, said a HAZMAT crew responded around 6:04 a.m. to a call of a semi and car in the ditch on Highway 20 near the U.S. Highway 71 junction. Region 5 HAZMAT covers nine Iowa counties, including Sac County.

Neeson said the two vehicles were found in the ditch, where the car and semi had caught fire and were severely burned.

Sac County Sheriff, Iowa State Patrol, Early Fire Department, Sac City Fire Department and other local agencies also responded to the scene.

Neeson said the driver of the car was pronounced dead following the accident.

Neeson said the semi, registered to the Iowa-based trucking company Panama Transfer, was carrying a mixed load that included corn herbicide. The Region 5 HAZMAT team worked to empty diesel fuel from one of the semis ruptured saddle tanks and examined the semi for hazardous materials.

The condition of the semi driver was unknown. No names have been released, and the accident remains under investigation.
WHITING, Iowa | An Omaha man is facing multiple charges after leaving the scene of a hit-and-run accident on Interstate 29 that sent two people to Mercy Medical Center -- Sioux City Saturday evening.

According to a crash report from the Iowa State Patrol, 35-year-old Sarrell Manley, of Omaha, was driving a 2006 Ford 500 north on I-29, near the Whiting exit, and tried to pass between a 2015 Harley Davidson motorcycle in the right lane and another vehicle in the left lane.

Manley's vehicle struck the motorcycle, throwing the driver, 52-year-old David Yeadon, of Sioux Falls, and his passenger, 49-year-old Patricia Yeadon, also of Sioux Falls, to the pavement. Both were transported to Mercy by Burgess Rescue.

Following the crash, Manley left the scene. He was later stopped near Salix by the Woodbury County Sheriff's Office. Manley was charged with driving with no license, leaving the scene of a personal injury accident and reckless driving.

A Mercy representative said Sunday that Patricia Yeadon was treated and released. David Yeadon's condition is unknown.

The Monona County Sheriff and Burgess Rescue assisted with the accident and investigation.
SIOUX CITY | Sam Clovis describes himself as a utility infielder on Donald Trumps political team.

As national co-chairman and chief policy adviser for Trump, the surprise front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, Clovis performs a wide range of duties. He appears on TV as a Trump surrogate, writes talking points for speeches and helps find key people who can inform Trump's developing policies on economics, immigration and foreign affairs.

"My job is to facilitate all that, gather the data, gather the inputs and put the products together and make sure that they get to Mr. Trump," Clovis told the Journal in a wide-ranging interview Thursday. "It is really exciting, because no day is ever the same. I get an opportunity to touch everything in the campaign from a policy perspective."

Clovis, a former radio talk show host who is on leave from his job as an economics professor at Morningside College, periodically joins Trump on the campaign trail.

"I spend most of my time in D.C., the last couple months, and New York. I'd say I go to New York every other trip, every third trip," Clovis said. The Trump campaigns national headquarters are on the fifth floor of Trump Tower at 56th Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City, so he's often in the heart of Manhattan.

The time Clovis spends rubbing shoulders with Trump varies.

"Since March, I have had more electronic contact. That is because it has been the evolution of my tasking and the pace of the campaign. Before, I had a great deal more personal interaction, as the debate season was in the flow of the campaign," he said.

Clovis spoke with the Journal during a two-week visit to his home in Hinton, Iowa, as well as other stops in Siouxland and Iowa. Its his most extended visit back home since he joined the Trump campaign in August, months before Iowas first-in-the-nation caucuses on Feb. 1.

Trump, an outspoken billionaire businessman and reality TV star, finished second in Iowa behind Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, but subsequently reeled off a series of wins in other early voting states.

On Tuesday, Trump won more than 60 percent of the vote in his home state of New York, raising his commanding delegate lead over his two remaining GOP opponents -- Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Clovis attributed Trumps electoral success to Americans feeling shut out of power corridors, and, under Democratic President Barack Obama, seeing the U.S. stepping back from a world leadership role.

"That's not the America they understand," Clovis said.

Clovis also assessed the much-aired speculation that Trump might fall just short of the 1,237 delegates needed to cinch the nomination, setting up the potential for a contested national convention in Cleveland in July.

The rules of the Republican National Committee, Clovis said, should bind delegates to the state primaries and caucus results and not allow them to jump ship to other candidates like Cruz, whose campaign has been recruiting delegates to support him after the first ballot.

Clovis said Kasich and Cruz should drop out of the race to reduce the confusion. Trump himself tweeted on that topic Thursday, writing, "Both Ted Cruz and John Kasich have no path to victory. They should both drop out of the race so that the Republican Party can unify!"

If another candidate wins the nomination over Trump, Clovis recently vowed to leave the Republican Party, in which he has served as a party activist and, most recently, the GOP nominee for state treasurer in 2014.

Clovis doubled down on that threat during his interview with the Journal.

"If they pull rules and they manipulate circumstances that would deny Donald Trump the nomination, when he should legitimately have it, I think that that will be it, he said. "That, to me, would be the final straw. I said that and I meant it."

RETURN HOME

As a tenured professor at Morningside, Clovis has been on unpaid leave since August. He said his open-ended options for coming back depend on whether Trump becomes the nominee and beats presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the November general election. If Trump wins the White House, Clovis perhaps could work in his administration.

"We have the options to take unpaid leave to fulfill these once-in-a-lifetime opportunities," Clovis said.

Clovis visited the Morningside campus Wednesday to talk with a college official on his nonspecific plans to return.

When the 2016 presidential campaign kicked off early last year, Clovis signed on as an adviser to former Texas Gov. Rick Perrys campaign. After a summer in which the tough-talking Trump surged to the top of polls and Perry faded, Clovis switched to the Trump team.

Since joining the Trump campaign in August, Clovis has been paid nearly $80,000 for his work, according to Federal Election Commission finance reports through March 31.

Clovis said he embraced Trump for his eviscerating talk against the "undue" heft that special interests have in national politics.

"(Trump) swore that he would not take money from special interests ... I could not trust anybody else running to hold to that, and frankly most of the rest of them refused to disavow special interests. My choice was simple," he said.

Clovis said he's not been troubled by any of Trump's campaign statements that some find disconcerting on immigration and other topics. Trump has supported a ban on Muslims entering the U.S. in response to a 2015 shooting spree in San Bernardino by two Muslims and mocked a disabled newspaper reporter.

"I really have had nothing that has given me pause, because I know where he is coming from," Clovis said.

He said some Republicans may be troubled by Trump's stance on abortion, since he supports exceptions for women to take that step if they became pregnant by rape of incest. Clovis said he personally doesn't like any exceptions that would allow access to abortions, but said he fits philosophically well with Trump's stances.

Plymouth County Repulbican Party Chairman Don Kass, of Remsen, said Clovis has longstanding strong conservative stances, so he "provides gravitas" to the Trump team.

"His TV appearances, (Clovis) does a great job of promoting Mr. Trump. Sam has always been well-spoken," Kass said.

Iowa Democratic Party spokesman Sam Lau said Iowans will reject Trump's agenda if he moves ahead to the November presidential ballot.

"Sam Clovis is certainly well suited to work for Donald Trump, since they both share the same bigoted, fear-mongering and hateful policies that aim to divide the country," Lau said.
VERMILLION, S.D. | From Madeline Van Voorsts home in Hull, Iowa, the University of South Dakota campus in Vermillion is just a 70-mile drive.

USD offers the programs the Boyden-Hull High School junior desires to pursue a career in the medical field.

Though convenient and practical, one large factor made USD unequal to Van Voorst enrolling in one of Iowas three public universities -- the cost.

Until recently, Van Voorst and other Iowa students had to pay higher out-of-state tuition to attend USD and South Dakotas other public universities.

In March, however, the South Dakota Board of Regents approved a measure that allows new freshmen and transfer students from Iowa to be eligible for in-state tuition at USD and three other schools -- South Dakota State University, Northern State University and Dakota State University.

The change takes effect at the start of the 2016-2017 school year. Iowa students who enroll in USD will be eligible for the in-state tuition and fees of $8,038, about $3,000 less than the out-of-state tuition. That amounts to a savings of about $12,000 over a four-year career.

USDs in-state rate is comparable to the expected tuition and fees Iowa students will pay in 2016-17 to attend Iowa State University ($7,969); University of Northern Iowa ($8,049) or the University of Iowa ($8,550.)

With its proximity, USD has long attracted Northwest Iowa students. But over the last few years, the number of Iowans enrolling in USD has dropped by 5 percent, as Iowa officials stepped up their focus on keeping more students in the state.

The South Dakota

Board of Regents cited the decline at USD and the three other schools as a reason to extend in-state tuition to Iowans. The change is one way. South Dakotans still must pay out-of-state tuition at Iowas public universities.

South Dakota has a two-way reciprocity agreement with the state of Minnesota.

Scott Pohlson, USDs vice president of enrollment, marketing and university relations, said school officials dont have an estimate how many Iowa students will take advantage of the lower rate, but said the announcement immediately generated positive feedback on social media and many inquiries over the phone

USD has already started promoting the change, including splashing the news on billboards along Interstate 29 that are visible to motorists as they leave Sioux City and enter South Dakota.

Our hope is that ... they look at us from a point of what youre looking to accomplish on academics, not just the price, Pohlson said. Those that dont want to travel far can get a public school education at affordable cost in their backyard even though its not in Iowa.

From Van Voorsts home, the drive to Ames, Cedar Falls and Iowa City is at least twice as far as the distance to Vermillion.

Im the oldest of five kids and Im a proud big sister, so its important to me to be close to my family, Van Voorst said after she toured the USD campus on April 15.

Van Voorst, who said she is considering graduating from high school as a junior, said she may consider some Iowa schools. However, she was not quite ready to make a decision. She said money was not the key deciding factor for her final choice, but its an incentive nonetheless.

Hearing that this wouldnt put extra financial stress on my family was really encouraging, she said.

Krista Weiland, counselor at Akron-Westfield High School, said she didnt expect the new rate to bring an immediate influx of A-W students attending one of the four South Dakota schools. But with Akron just a half hour from Vermillion, Weiland said future seniors will be informed and may strongly consider attending one of the universities across the Big Sioux River.

Officials with Western Iowa Tech Community College in Sioux City and Northwest Iowa Community College in Sheldon say they dont expect to lose students to South Dakota because their tuition is still less expensive than the South Dakota state schools. But both Northwest Iowa community colleges expect to see more students transfer to one of the South Dakota schools after they complete their associate degrees.

I think, net, its a positive thing for our students because they have more options that could potentially be more affordable, said Terry Murrell, president of Western Iowa Tech. It could be a big draw for transfer students.

Alethea Stubbe, president of NICC, said the new tuition policy will increase the partnership the Sheldon-based college has with the South Dakotas universities.

We have a good relationship with South Dakotas colleges and universities, and our students transfer to those institutions on a regular basis, she said. We look forward to continuing that relationship into the future and enhancing students success through seamless transfer no matter where their path may lead them.

Murrell added that aside from making college more accessible and affordable to students, area communities may benefit by keeping young, skilled workers in Siouxland.

Allison Vander Berg, who will attend USD in the fall, said she wanted a school with a dental hygiene program. She said that even though she made her decision before the in-state tuition change was adopted, she was pleased to be able to save money and stay close to home.

Western Iowa and eastern South Dakota are almost one little area, she said. This feels more like Iowa than some of the Iowa schools.
YEREVAN, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS. President of Argentina Mauricio Macri issued a statement on 101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. I am convinced that only high values and respect for principles must guide people throughout their lives which will lead to peace and recognition of the past, Armenpress reports, citing prensaarmenia.com.ar, Macri mentioned.

The statement of the Argentine President was delivered during an event in Buenos Aires dedicated to the anniversary of the Genocide. In his statement, Mauricio Macri thanked the local Armenian for the initiation to participate in the event. Several other officials, MPs, and Ambassadors were also present at the event.

It is necessary to remember the Armenian Genocide, as we will allow the same crimes to be carried out against other nations and peoples if we deny the facts. The Armenian Genocide was the overture of the Holocaust and was denied for many years. We took an important step in Argentina by declaring April 24 the day of tolerance and respect between peoples, Provisional President of the Argentine Senate Federico Pinedo said.
Marsha Blackburn isn't one to worry about appearances.

The Tennessee Republican didn't make any pretense last week of being impartial with the committee she chairs, the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives, commonly known as the Planned Parenthood committee.

On the eve of her panel's Wednesday hearing, Blackburn went over to Georgetown University to participate in a protest against Planned Parenthood, the very entity she is supposed to be investigating. According to the Right to Life organization, she gave a speech at a gathering called "Life-Affirming Alternatives to Planned Parenthood," part of a series of events in opposition to Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards's speech at Georgetown on Wednesday.

Then Blackburn showed up at her committee hearing the next morning and proclaimed, "My hope is that both parties can work together."

That was probably never going to happen -- and it certainly isn't now that the secret videos that justified the panel's creation have been discredited as doctored.

House GOP leaders created the panel last year in response to the Planned Parenthood videos that suggested the organization was illegally selling tissue from aborted fetuses to researchers for a profit. But investigations in a dozen states looking into the allegations came up empty. In Houston, a grand jury convened by the county attorney, a Republican, not only cleared Planned Parenthood but indicted the video makers on charges of tampering with a government record.

GOP leaders, in naming Blackburn to lead the Planned Parenthood panel, had hopes of defusing the Democrats' complaint that the probe was another offensive in the Republicans' "war on women." That charge has been easier to make with Donald Trump leading the Republican presidential race -- and with several House Republicans on Monday making the extraordinary gesture of voting against a ceremonial bill honoring the first woman to be elected to Congress.

But whatever legitimacy the select panel had left after the videos were discredited has been undermined by Blackburn.

She scheduled the committee's first hearing for the very day the Supreme Court was holding arguments on the most important abortion case in 24 years. At that hearing, one of Blackburn's witnesses likened fetal tissue research -- a legal practice in the United States -- to the experiments of Nazi scientist Josef Mengele, saying the two are "maybe" equivalent. Blackburn, in her opening statement, drew the same comparison and invoked the Nuremberg Code.

Then came Wednesday's hearing, the panel's second. Blackburn gave an opening statement mentioning the buying and selling of "baby body parts" no fewer than seven times.

And the evidence that abortion clinics profit from the sale of these body parts? That would be in "Exhibit G," handed out by Blackburn's staff. "The AC [abortion clinic] has no costs so the payments from the PB [procurement business] to the AC are pure profit," it said.

But this incendiary "exhibit" -- asserting that any abortion clinic that receives any payment for fetal tissue is breaking the law -- turned out to be not evidence but an undocumented claim by the Republican staff.

"I think that these exhibits were created from whole cloth," said Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) a member of the panel. She objected to the use of the exhibits, claiming they violated House rules. Republicans moved to table her objection and prevailed on a party-line vote.

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) tried again. He raised a parliamentary inquiry about how the "pure profit" conclusion was reached -- particularly because it was contradicted by three other exhibits that appeared to document activities performed by abortion clinics in the tissue sales that have associated costs.

Blackburn declared that there was "no discrepancy" and that the documents "come from the investigative work" of staffers.

The doubts about the videos and the unsupported "exhibit" did not stop the majority on the panel and their witnesses from relying on both. "Gruesome revelations came from a series of videos," declared Michael Norton, one of the witnesses. "It was clear from the videos that Planned Parenthood had been actively engaged in harvesting and trafficking, for profit, body parts of babies whose lives Planned Parenthood had ended."

Another majority witness, Catherine Glenn Foster, cited the "undercover videos" and the "evidence presented by this panel."

Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) spoke about how the "select panel investigation reveals" that "abortion clinics are incurring no costs" -- and therefore reaping profits from fetal tissue.

And Kenneth Sukhia, yet another witness for the majority, said the discredited videos provide "corroborative evidence" that Planned Parenthood broke the law, saying "it doesn't matter" that statements in the video were selectively edited.

It doesn't matter?

After doctored videos, unsubstantiated "exhibits" and political moonlighting by Blackburn, those assessing the panel's relevance will conclude just that.
Recently, the Vatican released the apostolic exhortation The Joy of Love. As a lifelong Catholic and a gay man, the proclamation is deeply troubling because it dodges any discussion of gay marriage based in evidence.

When Pope Francis writes that there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar remotely analogous to Gods plan for marriage and family," it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what constitutes a marriage and/or family.

The Church claims that "every child deserves a father and a mother." There is no evidence that kids with straight parents have better outcomes than those with gay parents. You don't get to make a claim that has no evidence to support it - that's what we call a lie. It will not stand.

Pope Francis and the Catholic Church are wrong on this one. Nobody gets to hide behind their idea of "God's plan for marriage and family" as an excuse for hurtful rhetoric and discrimination - it's dishonest. This kind of teaching discredits the moral authority of the Church and anyone (clergy or layperson) who stands in line with it.

Unless it comes around, the Church (and its people) will continue to be an agent in the discrimination it claims to seek to prevent. - Rob Humble, Estherville, Iowa
YEREVAN, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS. 4 doctors of Moscow-based have conducted surgery operations in Armenia and Artsakh on 6 patients injured on Karabakh-Azerbaijan conflict zone as a result of Azerbaijani aggression. Member of the Association, orthopedic surgeon at Moscow Central Research Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics after Prirov Grigor Karapetyan told the journalists that 4 doctors representing the association have arrived here, and later one of them will remain in Stepanakert and will inform the others on the situation.

Another member of the Association Artak Matsakyan informed that their association was set for rendering charity aid to the Armenian people.

After the latest events we decided to help our army. We visited hospitals in Artsakh and conducted a number of operations. By now 6 operations have been carried out in Stepanakert and Yerevan in collaboration with the Defense Ministry of the Republic of Armenia, he stated, adding that in mid-May two more doctors will arrive in Armenia and then to Artsakh.

Head of the Traumatology Department at the Central Military Clinical Hospital of the Defense Ministry of Armenia Levon Zhamagortsyan told that one of the operations was conducted in their medical centre.

If we encounter complicated cases in the future that will be beyond our capabilities we will sent the patients to Moscow or the doctors will arrive here, after which we will supervise the situation, he said, adding that in the near future the cooperation with the Association of Armenian Traumatologists and Orthopedists will expand.
So youre going to Vegas! Not your first choice, you say. Youre tagging along. Well, theres the exciting casinos to visit, and  whats that? You dont gamble? Hmm. Well, how about a show? Theres probably a Cirque du Soleil in your hotel.

You dont like shows? Or poolside lounging? Dont worry. Its not all gambling, gaping and groping in Vegas. Here are four of the citys most unusual points of interest.

THE PINBALL HALL OF FAME

In a nondescript building on a road by the airport, theres a world of binging, bonging, clacking examples of coin-operated joy. Four hundred pinball machines from every era are here, most in working condition. Stubby-flipper old tables from the 60s with groovy designs, snappy machines of the 70s complete with Elton John in platform shoes, and the manic and often incomprehensible tables of today. Looking for your college pinball machine? They probably have it, next to the one you played at the small-town ice cream parlor in the town your family visited each summer.

Note: You dont have to play to appreciate the place. Its not quite right to call this a museum, since you can play the exhibits. But it is a museum, devoted to a medium that doesnt get the appreciation it deserves: stylized pop-art paintings that range from traditional to psychedelic. Its like looking at panels of comic books from a parallel dimension  everything is a bit off, a bit peculiar, the postures wrong, the faces frozen in eternal unnerving glee.

Cost: Admission is free.

THE FREMONT EXPERIENCE

In old downtown Vegas, the bulbous man is not entirely naked. His groinal parts are contained in a piece of fabric the size of a toddlers sock. Hes here for your Outrageous Tourist Selfies. Drop a buck in the pot, pose with the naked dude. Whoo! Vegas!

Overhead: A vast canopy shields the street from the sun. In a few hours it will explode with light, and all the neon signs that line the street will come alive. For now, in the afternoon, the lights are off  a strange, weird rebuke to the always-on Strip.

Fremont doesnt particularly care about the glitz and the ballyhoo. Its an experience no matter when you show up. Just look down there: an enormous slot machine three stories high. Every few minutes people fly out of it on ziplines, amateur angels screaming fear and delight as they soar over Mostly Naked Dude and the rest of the impromptu crowd.

The casinos are open, of course; Binions, where you can be photographed with a million dollars. The Four Queens, the Golden Nugget  classic names over smoky dark caves where the penny-slot crowd hunches around burbling machines.

At the end of the block, the Heart Attack Grill: a scale to weigh yourself, in case you want to claim the free lethal meat given to anyone who tops 350 pounds. The Neontropolis, an utterly, completely failed retail complex with a few classic signs and three floors of boarded-up stores.

Old Vegas history: one of the first movie houses, now selling Indian souvenirs. The website made it sound like so much fun, and perhaps it is, if its midnight, and youre young, and the classic signage makes you think youve connected with some elemental Classic Vegas spirit, and your idea of a rockin good time is drinking on the street and smoking indoors.

Theres a burlesque museum, devoted to the clothes whose prime purpose was their removal, and the Mob Museum, where you can kill a few hours and not worry about burying them in the desert.

Cost: Admission is free.

Location: A five-block stretch of historic downtown Las Vegas on Fremont Street.

THE NEON MUSEUM

Lets say you went back to the Fremont experience to watch the lights pop on. They were impressive, and they whetted your appetite for more, so you headed up Las Vegas Boulevard, drawn by some signs in the distance.

A classic motel sign: ELVIS SLEPT HERE. But there is no motel. A block down, a fine neon sign for Quality Cleaners. But there is no such store. Under the highway, past the hotels where rooms rent for a day or a month; a neon sign for the Bow and Arrow motel. There is no motel. In the distance, raised on a pole: a shoe, covered in light bulbs. The sign of the old Silver Slipper. But there is no casino here.

Theres something else, our final stop.

The old signs on the Boulevard are silent hints that something unusual resides up the street: a repository of rescued signage from bygone Vegas. The Boneyard of the Neon Museum is where the gaudy and the gorgeous went after their time was done, after their style was gone. Vegas chews up its history with little regard; its all about the churn, the turnover, the new, the exciting.

But some signs were saved, and the Boneyard  the open-air display case of the nonprofit Neon Museum  has incredible hunks of history. You come not to bury Caesars Palace, but to praise it. No, you cant wander around and look and touch  the glass is fragile, the metal has rusted. Your guide will explain where the signs were, what they meant (the Moulin Rouge: First integrated casino. That simple chicken-steaks-cocktail sign? Longest-running eatery in town) and why they matter. The signs were the architecture of Vegas  glorious, kinetic, manic signs, wrapped around the storefronts, leaping up into the sky.

Its not a big lot, but the tour takes an hour. Afterward you can buy something in the La Concha motel lobby, an exuberant example of Googie architecture rescued from the wrecking ball and reinstalled as the museums HQ. On the way back to the hotel you might notice that neon is less important than it used to be. The new signs are LED canvases, blank slates, infinitely programmable. The old signs did one thing, and did it with panache.

When they turn off the new lights, theyre empty. The old signs still say something, even if they cut the juice. By the Flamingo second-floor walkway theres the classic neon display, red and yellow. Its decades of history in an image known the world round. Itll stand forever.

Until it doesnt. You might notice things have changed the next time you come to town  and yes, youll be back. Everyones relieved to leave  and everyone usually says Why not? when they have the chance to return.

Cost: General admission day tours start at $18 for adults.

NATIONAL ATOMIC TESTING MUSEUM

What better way to spend a broiling afternoon than studying the history of thermonuclear detonation?

This Smithsonian offshoot collects the lore and mementos of the days when mushroom clouds were visible from the casino rooftops, and the days when underground testing rattled the ice in a gamblers drink. They blew up an ungodly number of bombs in Nevada, and the lore and leftovers of this thunderous era is all here, meticulously explained.

Pose by an enormous H-bomb! Back away with newfound worries from the clicking Geiger counters! See the elements of bomb-test culture you never imagined existed  the patches, the jokey certificates of achievement, the varying styles of dosimeter that told you if, and when, your goose was nuked.

The highlight: Ground Zero Theater. Its one thing to look at inscrutable scientific artifacts and pictures of guys standing around the desert pointing at things. Its another to feel the power of an atomic detonation. The theater is a raw concrete bunker with three rows of benches. The countdown begins; theres a blinding flash on the screen, and then gen-u-wine Sensurround rumbles your buttocks while blasts of air buffet your face.

The rest of the film interviews the scientists who worked on testing  a short and respectful account of a culture outsiders never saw. If that doesnt slake your thirst for small documentaries made up of faded film of guys in 1970s hairstyles, the Grain Silo Theater has two short films on aspects of the nuclear program few people know about  the successful Nuclear Mars Rocket Engine, among others.

Its not all Instruments of Destruction  you get a sense of the impressive technical accomplishments the nuclear program required. You also get the sense that the end of testing meant the end of the weapons, and this is like a Moon shot museum. If only.
Ever since BlackBerry joined forces with Google on the companys latest phone  Priv by BlackBerry  life has become considerably easier. Thats especially true for small business owners who use BlackBerrys apps available on the Play Store to manage their businesses.

Business owners no longer have to worry about staying on top of their employees activities, accounts or sales as there are numerous BlackBerry apps on the Play Store to help them with that now.

Asana

Asana is a powerful collaboration tool that is quite popular with PC users. The app allows users to plan, organize and even track the progress and the status of projects that the team is working on. The app allows users to create and organize projects, add due dates, files and details and comment or discuss a task from anywhere using the Priv BlackBerry. It also allows business owners to send quick messages from within the app and also stay up to date on important communications.

Adobe Fill & Sign DC

Another powerful app now available for Priv Blackberry users, the Adobe Fill & Sign DC allows users to turn a paper document or digital file into forms. Fill out the forms using Priv, sign and send without breaking a sweat. The app allows users to create their signature using stylus or finger. It also saves many businesses time that would have been spent on scanning, printing and faxing of documents.

QuickBooks Online

Next on the list, the QuickBooks app offers users with the cloud computing version of the well-known accounting software the ability to track their financial status from anywhere. Create, view and send invoices, create and manage balance sheets, capture receipts and organize daily expenses from within the app. It also allows business owners to schedule meetings, attach photos and manage customers.

Expensify

An app for expense reporting, Expensify is user-friendly and saves the user a lot of time. In a few simple clicks, this app can capture receipts and convert them to expenses. The expense reports can also be quickly converted to PDF. Small business owners who are always on the move can use the app in offline mode, too.

Having these apps on Priv by BlackBerry can help a business owner to keep a close eye on their business from anywhere even while out of town on business.

Priv BlackBerry is the very first BlackBerry phone to use Android software, after years of clinging to the hope that BlackBerryOS would make a comeback. But the introduction of such popular business apps on the first BlackBerry device to use the more popular Android operating system might just lure some business people back to the BlackBerry brand.
There are many fitness goals out there that we desire. Some of us want to be leaner and others wish to put on muscle mass. The thing is, for you to achieve your fitness goals, you need to
"This collection puts PNG and Australia relations together and takes it to another step back to the World War I, as well as Kokoda of course, Kokoda Track for the World War II," he said.

Charles Lepani, who attended the book's recent launch at the Melbourne Museum, told Pacific Beat the collection reflected Australia and PNG's close historical ties.

A new book, War Trophies or Curios?, describes the untold story behind the collection of more than 600 objects including carved figures, masks, shields, instruments and weapons.

A COLLECTION of artefacts collected during the Australian military occupation of Papua New Guinea between 1914 and 1921 represents a significant link between the neighbours, says Charles Lepani, PNG's high commissioner to Australia.

"It brings together these two major world events that affected Papua New Guinean villages, then with very little contact with the rest of the world, that brought PNG suddenly in a traumatic way to the modern world."

Australia first assumed control of the British colony of Papua in the southern half of Papua New Guinea in 1906.

During World War I, Australian forces claimed control of the northern part of German New Guinea, which had been German territory.

Mr Lepani said artefacts, collected by Australian troops when they took Rabaul from Germany, gave Papua New Guineans an identity as a nation.

"They are ancestral expressions of who we are today and also for future generations. They can give meaning to our lives for the future," he said.

Dr Christine Winter, co-author and assistant professor from Flinders University in Adelaide, said it was important to keep the PNG artefacts in Australia.

"They are not sitting in a vacuum, they are sitting in a collaboration between museums, between peoples," she said.

"We have a large diaspora from Papua New Guinea in Australia and we have a long history with our neighbour as part of Australia. So it is highly relevant that this collection is situated here."

Mr Lepani agreed the Melbourne Museum was the best place for the collection of PNG artefacts.

"Our museum has gone through some very challenging times. I have campaigned here since I've been in Australia to allow these pieces to remain in Australian museums, with good facilities for them to be looked after properly, until such time we can take them back," he said.
Over the next eight months until the Allies retreated, 33,000 Allied (Diggers, Kiwis, Tommies, French) troops were killed  as were 86,000 Turks.

At about this time on 25 April 1915, 60,000 Australians and 18,000 New Zealanders traversed these waters to be landed on Gallipolis precipitous and lethal shore.

In the half-light we see silhouetted on the rocky clifftop that marks the straits entrance four soaring columns of a massive monument and an oversized Turkish flag.

WE arise before dawn and we see the dark shape of land - the Aegean Sea is funnelling into the Dardanelles, just a narrow strait but with a name that triggers an emotional response in Australians.

In the outcome, this invasion was a failure of literally Churchillean proportions for the Allies. But, despite the defeat and the ultimate midnight escape of December 1915, the way these young men fought in this inhospitable place forged their reputation, galvanised the peoples of Australia and New Zealand and gave birth to the legend of Anzac.

And, from the conversations I had in their land, Turks of my generation (ageing) know this story every bit as well as we know it.

From the sea, the battlefield presents as a long series of undulating hills and ridges fringed by the steep cliffs I recall from graphic and heroic paintings hanging in the cold brick corridors of my primary school in Nowra 60 years ago. The vegetation is of a khaki-olive not unfamiliar to Australians.

As Nautica comes abeam of the great monument, the sun rises, bursting through a low sea mist. With 200 passengers gathered on deck, a bugler (just call me Piotr, Im from Poland) plays the Last Post and Reveille, and over the ships PA system cruise director Willie Aames offers the words inscribed on that giant monument 

mothers wipe your tears  your sons lie at peace  they now lie in the soil of a friendly country  they become our sons as well

It is a moment charged with high emotion for the assembled Aussies and Kiwis. I shed a tear.

This was a fine gesture by the US-owned Oceania Line: Nautica had been scheduled to transit the Dardanelles at 2am but the skipper loitered for four hours to enable this rare opportunity for his Australian and New Zealand passengers to pay respects to our shared and considerable national tradition.

As Taps is played, followed by a five-minutes silence (yes five minutes, no messing about by the Americans), the giant red Turkish flag alongside the monument is borne aloft like a spinnaker on the brisk, cool southerly wind that has emerged with the dawn. And Nautica motors on through the Dardanelles.

Some 30 minutes into the strait, at its narrowest point, I observe a large swathe of cleared hillside. White stones pick out the figure of a gun-bearing soldier and, in white and red, a stone eternal flame has been confected to flare from a stone crucible (top photo).

Etched in Turkish, again in white stones, is this injunction -

Traveller, halt. The soil you tread once witnessed the end of an era. Listen. In this quiet mound there beats the heart of a nation.

The Dardanelles campaign ended in defeat for the Anzacs and our Allies and it was a great military triumph for the Turks under their great leader Kemal Ataturk.

Gallipoli helped build the Turkish nation through victory just as surely as it helped build our own through defeat.

Nauticas transit of the Dardanelles takes about two hours, and then we are in the Sea of Marmara, final resting place of one of Australias first submarines, AE2 (AE1 lies on the seabed somewhere off the Duke of Yorks in Papua New Guinea).

Later in the morning, we enter the Bosphorus (a narrow strait no wider than an average river, separating Asia and Europe, and where currents flow in each direction, one atop the other).

On both sides sit Istanbul, a misty, mystical, mosquiccal, minarettal city. Nautica moves on carrying us into the Black Sea.
Col. Hugh McNeil rallied the Pennsylvania Reserves at Antietam with "Forward, Bucktails, forward!" And then, almost instantly, he was cut down with a bullet through the heart.

McNeil's September 1862 death would go down as the highest ranking Civil War casualty among the Bucktails, a name adopted by several Pennsylvania units in recognition of their marksmanship abilities. To punctuate it, they clipped deer tails to their caps.

Michael Gleason, of Penn Yan, and about 15 to 20 other Civil War re-enactors model their work after the military careers of the Bucktails. Sunday, May 1, they'll honor McNeil at his final resting place: Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn.

The event will be more than a rededication ceremony, Gleason said.

The Bucktail re-enactors will travel along five Fort Hill graves  those of Harriet Tubman, William H. Seward, brevet Brig. Gen. Andrew Alexander, Capt. Myles Keogh and McNeil  and tell the stories of the deceased at each stop before laying a wreath or flag there. Taps and battle hymns will also be supplied by the re-enactors, some of whom are traveling from as far as Gettysburg.

A 21-gun salute will conclude the event, which Gleason has contacted Auburn officials and area historical societies about attending. At least one descendent of McNeil's, from Binghamton, will also be there, Gleason said.

Details of McNeil's life are scant, Gleason said, but it's believed he was a bank cashier who moved from the Auburn area to northwestern Pennsylvania because its climate was more agreeable to a lung condition he had. He went unmarried and had no children, but his lineage lives on through his sisters, Gleason said.

One Civil War tale about McNeil lives on, too: At the Battle of South Mountain in Maryland, less than a week before Antietam, it is said that McNeil killed two men with one bullet. A shot passed through his first target, ricocheted off a rock and claimed a second, Gleason said.

Bucktails, indeed.
A man suffered serious injuries after his truck ran into a farm tractor on Route 20 in Marcellus.

The Onondaga County Sheriffs Office said in a news release that a 29-year-old Skaneateles resident, whom police have not yet identified, was traveling eastbound just after 2:30 p.m. Saturday when his Toyota Tacoma pickup truck ran into the back of a John Deere commercial farm tractor.

Police said the pickup was damaged extensively and that the driver was unconscious when rescuers first arrived on scene. He was taken to Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, where he was later listed in serious but stable condition. Police said that the man suffered internal injuries.

The crash occurred between Slate Hill Road and South East Townline Road and police said that portion of Route 20 was closed for several hours while members of the Onondaga County Sheriffs Office Accident Investigation Team processed the scene.

Police said the farm tractor was operated by a 63-year-old man from Mount Morris N.Y. who complained of neck pain and was also transported to Upstate University Hospital.

No tickets had been issued as of Saturday night, but police said the crash remained under investigation.
Deangelo Hemsley, 39, of Waldorf, Md. (Booking photo)

LA PLATA, Md.

List of charges against Deangelo Hemsley, 39, of Waldorf, Md.

(April 24, 2016)Police in Charles County report that a La Plata man was stabbed to death in his home Saturday night. The suspect, who is in police custody, is the victim's son-in-law. The victim has been identified as John Edward Yates, age 71. The suspect has been identified as Deangelo Hemsley, 39, of Waldorf.Police were called to a single family home in the 12800 block of Yates Place in La Plata for the report of a stabbing at 8:17 p.m. Upon arrival, officers located Mr. Yates inside his house with multiple stab wounds; he was pronounced dead on the scene.The preliminary investigation revealed the suspect has been separated from his wife for the past six months. She was living with her father, the victim. The suspect arrived at the house, unannounced, looking for his 12-year-old daughter. During that time, the suspect confronted the victim and stabbed him several times. The suspect then forced his daughterat knife pointinto his car. The suspect's daughter was able to get out of the vehicle and escape on foot.Officers observed the suspect attempting to flee, but they were able to apprehend him.Hemsley was arrested and transported to the Charles County Detention Center where he was charged with nine crimes in total, which include first-degree murder, first-degree assault, second-degree assault, and kidnapping.Hemsley was last in criminal trouble in Maryland in 1997 when he had charges of 2nd Degree Assault (guilty) and Malicious Destruction of Property (dropped). In 1998 he faced charges for Disorderly in a Public Place (guilty) and 2nd Degree Assault (dropped).Detective John Elliott is investigating.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  North Korea admitted on Sunday that it conducted an underwater missile test launch a day before, saying it was a "remarkable success," the state-run North Korean news agency KCNA said.

The South Korean military said Saturday it had detected a North Korean submarine fire a ballistic missile off the eastern shore, prompting France to call for additional EU sanctions on Pyongyang.

The Korean agency said the ballistic missile launch "fully confirmed the reliability of the underwater launch system and satisfied all the technical requirements for carrying out an offensive operation."
It is believed that the construction of the underground city transit system was started after 24-year-old Kim Jong-il, the son of then North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, visited Beijing in 1966 and was inspired by the construction of the new metro there.

Kim Il-sung wanted to demonstrate the superiority of North Korea over the South and prompted the network's construction in 1968, three years before the start of the Seoul Subway network (1971).
After state legislators wrap up another session in a few weeks and return to their home districts to prepare for the fall campaign season, you can be sure to hear some common talking points from the incumbents seeking to go back for two more years.

They'll point to things like income tax relief, on-time state budgets, the state property tax cap, restoration of funding for public schools.

In a vacuum, these are real accomplishments. But a big item that influences the real impact of these and so many more legislative accomplishments will be missing from the campaign accomplishment lists: unfunded mandate relief for local governments.

Despite near-unanimous support for state help with costs of laws and regulations that require municipalities and school districts to spend taxpayer money (go ahead and try to find a state lawmaker who will say he or she is against mandate relief), nothing is getting done. There have been tasks forces. There have been bills proposed. Year after year, though, there have been no meaningful results. And it sure looks like 2016 will be a continuation of that pattern.

In fact, 2016 appears to be making the problem worse. Cayuga County legislators gave their state representatives a much-deserved earful at a committee meeting last week when the pointed to new state mandates driving up local costs for public legal defense, district attorney pay and food assistance programs.

And don't forget the much-hyped minimum wage increase, which will certainly drive up labor costs for many governments.

At the same time, the property tax cap that lawmakers have and will continue to tout is getting more restrictive because of a flawed formula that fails to take into account the true economic picture facing many local governments.

It adds up to a mess on the local level because Albany is cutting off revenues while driving up expenses  all while state officials praise themselves for a job well done.

It's important that county lawmakers, city and town officials, school district leaders and any other stakeholder make as much noise about the unfunded mandate problem as possible. And they should make it clear to their incumbent representatives that they expect real results, not just blame-shifting to the other party or the governor or the other chamber in the Legislature.

If these state legislators want to keep their jobs, it's time for them to deliver on this one.
BEIJING (Sputnik)  Chinese investors have expressed readiness to consider the purchase of the shares in the Russian agroindustrial companies, Russias trade envoy to China said.

"Some [Chinese] companies, commenting on Russia's proposals, have said that they are ready to consider their engagement in successful projects," Alexei Gruzdev told reporters, following a roundtable discussion on the Moscow-Beijing cooperation in agriculture and wood-processing industry.
For the first time scientists have studied a text by noted tenth century polymath Ibn Sina (known as Avicenna in Latin), in which the scholar described observations of a supernova in the year 397 of the Islamic Hijri calendar, calculated as 1,006 AD.

Ibn Sina (980-1037 AD) was a Persian physician and philosopher who is regarded as the most famous and influential of the medieval Islamic world's philosopher-scientists.

The scientists who studied Ibn Sina's account believe it was written when he was in present-day Iran, Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan, most probably the latter. They translate his description of the supernova's form, direction and appearance.
The cloud cover of Venus appears to be featureless except when viewed in ultraviolet light, which reveals structure and patterns to the clouds, including global-scale V-shaped bands that open toward the west.

These dark areas have been observed since 1929, and in 2008 scientists published a study which found them to be comprised of solid particles or liquid droplets that get transported from deep in the atmosphere up to the planet's cloud tops.

However, the composition of the particles making up the dark areas has remained a mystery to astronomers, and recent research from Russian astronomer Vladimir Krasnopolsky has shown that one of the most popular theories is wide of the mark.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Saturday to establish security zones in Syria where displaced people could be guaranteed safety.

Speaking at a press conference in Turkey, Merkel said that in such zones "the ceasefire should be especially enforced to guarantee a high level of security."

The German chancellor and several senior EU officials paid a visit to the Nizip camp in the Turkish city of Gaziantep near Syria's border on Saturday to assess the living conditions of some 5,000 Syrian refugees.
CHISINAU (Sputnik)  Moldova's Interior Ministry has mobilized all units of the countrys law enforcement agencies due to the planned anti-government protests, the General Inspectorate of Police said Sunday.

"The number of law enforcement agencys employees during the protest action will be enough to ensure public order and safety," the General Police Inspectorate told RIA Novosti.
CHISINAU (Sputnik)  The rally staged by the center-right opposition Civic Platform Dignity and Truth (DA) also calling for the countrys leadership to hold early parliamentary elections simultaneously with the presidential ones on October 30

Local police do not have exact information on the number of participants, but the DA previously estimated that tens of thousands Moldovans would take part in the protest.

No incidents or scuffles with law enforcement have been reported yet.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)Scuffles have broken out between the members of the Pegida anti-Islamization movement and the local police in Belgiums northern city of Antwerp during the group's rally there, local media reported.

"With this march we want to close borders [for refugees] and we demand the end of the subsidies for Islam," one of the protesters told the Nieuwsblad newspaper.

Many activists were carrying the Flemish Community and Flemish Regions flag during an initially peaceful rally that kicked off at the Hendrik Conscience Square on Saturday evening.
"It was the first genocide of the 20th century, and needs to be condemned by the whole world. This is the only way for the struggle of preventing genocides. We, by condemning this crime and commemorating the memory of the victims, must build our motherland in the future, as well as Nagorno-Karabakh, the second Armenian Republic."

"The process will be considered done when the Turkish leadership and Turkish people accept the genocide committed by their ancestors," Abrahamyan said.

President Serzh Sargsyan paid tribute to memory of Armenian Genocide victims https://t.co/cyZFYkfUkS pic.twitter.com/2TfIo1GLDP  Anna Hakobyan (@anna__hakobyan) 24  2016 .

The Armenian Genocide has been recognized by over two dozen countries, including Russia. A century ago, together with France and Britain, Russia plainly called the events "a crime against humanity and civilization."

Numerous ceremonies are being held in Moscow and in other Russian cities to commemorate the sad occasion, with many of Russia's large Armenian community of three million participating.

Last year, speaking on behalf of the 100th anniversary of the genocide, Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized that the event was "one of the greatest tragedies in human history," and that "the events of 1915 shook the entire world."

"Russia," Putin said, "felt these events as its own grief," and played a key role in securing international condemnation for the violence inflicted against the Armenian people. "Russia remains resolute in what has always been its consistent view that there is not and cannot be any justification for mass murder of any people."

Today, Putin emphasized, "the international community must do everything possible to ensure that these tragic events never happen again, so that all peoples can live in peace and harmony and do not have to know the horrors that arise from religious enmity, aggressive nationalism, and xenophobia."
SKOPJE (Sputnik)  Several groups of migrants have tried to cross the Greek border to get into Macedonia, but were detained by police and returned to the country, a witness told RIA Novosti on Sunday.

"There was a heavy rain at night, several groups of refugees having grown tired of their fate took advantage of this and crossed from the territory of Greece in Macedonia at night," the witness said.
In an interview with Sputnik, Yair Cohen, of the London-based law firm Cohen Davis Solicitors, slammed the UK intelligence agencies' bulk personal datasets (BPD) as a reminder of dark days and dark regimes.

The interview came after the human rights watchdog Privacy International managed to obtain a cache of documents which shed light on the UK spy agencies' controversial BPDs. This is the collection of personal data of people, most of whom present no particular interest to the intelligence services.

"It appears that the vast majority of data was supplied on a volunteer basis. I suspect that some of the information was being supplied by email providers or organizations that handled emails as well," Cohen said.
The New York State Conservative Party apparently got together and decided not to endorse any candidate at all for president in 2016. After a straw poll, they realized that Donald Trump would win a vote, so they decided not to have a vote. Wow. First chance I get, my family and I are dumping the Conservative Party for another third party. Bye bye, you crooks.

I got out of the Republican Party years ago because of their abandonment of traditional values and their level of corruption, which you have already had a taste of in Colorado and Wyoming. Now add to that list the New York Conservative Party, which has pulled a quickie on its members. We never even got a letter so we could switch parties. I had to search the internet for this information as the Board of Elections in Cayuga County had no explanation.

When the system is tinkered with after polls to disenfranchise primary voters, this is unconstitutional, period. In America, whoever gets the most support from the voting public in primaries should be considered at the top. Fairness is an important part of American culture, no matter who the candidates are. Time for reform.

Lisa Backus

Auburn
The Norwegian Air Force's F-16 fighter jet accidentally fired at a control tower as three military personnel stood near the facility during drills earlier this year; no one was hurt in the incident, the Associated Press reported.

The news agency quoted Norwegian Air Force spokesman Major Stian Roen as saying that the incident took place on April 13 on the island of Tarva, off the country's western coast.

According to him, the F-16 was due to fire at a simulated target on the airfield about 500 meters away when "something went wrong."
Earlier in the day, over 10,000 people gathered in the central square of the Moldovan capital demanding the government's resignation and early parliamentary and presidential elections. The protest organizers accused police of blocking a column of demonstrators, who were moving in the direction of the city center.

"The Interior Ministry denies the information and conveys to citizens that in the past few days it has taken enough measures to ensure the smooth conduct of the protest, including preventive measures, as well as measures to identify illegal actions," Diana Fetko told RIA Novosti.


HISINAU (Sputnik)Earlier in the day, thousands of people gathered in the central square of the Moldovan capital demanding the government's resignation and early parliamentary and presidential elections. The rally was organized by the center-right opposition Civic Platform Dignity and Truth (DA).

Hundreds of police officers have lined up in several rows between the protesters and the building of the Cabinet of Ministers, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported.

"This is a symbolic surrounding of the government building. By this, the protesters are expressing their discontent with the illegitimate government," DA Platform activist Vasile Nastase told RIA Novosti.
Pal Nygaard, head of the ground forces' union, said that the reforms will have "dramatic consequences" for defense.

"We will be completely paralyzed if the current government goes ahead with such a project. Our ground forces have one brigade; if the second and supporting departments are disbanded, we lose the brigade as a system," he told NRK.

Norway's Officer's Association told NRK that the greatest cuts concern ground forces based in the north of the country. In the region of Troms, 900 members of the armed forces are thought to have been deemed surplus to requirements.

"They are our busiest units. I don't understand the logic, I don't understand how such a decision can be taken," Colonel Bjorn Tore Woll, spokesman for Norway's Officer's Union, told NRK.

"It seems that we are supposed to have a defense in which there are no people, just technology. It's very bad."

"I really want to call for a national protest. I think that the people just don't understand how this can affect the army's ability to carry out its functions. Things are getting so bad, that we won't have any kind of army," he said.
PRAGUE (Sputnik)  The Czech Republic will send to Greece 30 police officers, who are due to assist in the work of the EU border agency Frontex, helping its personnel to stem the migrant flow and send the refugees to Turkey, Czech Police President Tomas Tuhy said Sunday.

"Escorting the refugees from Greece to Turkey will be the task of the Czech police," Tuhy stated, as quoted by the Czech TV stations.

Police officers from Slovakia, Austria and Germany have already been taking part in this activity. Earlier, 11 Czech police have already arrived in the Hellenic state and now participating in the control and registration of undocumented migrants.
CHISINAU (Sputnik)  Earlier in the day, DA staged an anti-government rally calling for the resignation of the Cabinet of Pavel Filip from the Democratic Party in Chisinau.

The rallys activists adopted a resolution of the protest, stating that Moldova is "a captured state, which must be returned to the people," and that the country's state structures have to become independent.

The raging crowd has broken through the police cordon near Plahotniucs house, chanting slogans. The police officers do not allow the demonstrators to move further. At present, additional police forces have been deployed in the area.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  Necessary steps by NATO to assist Baghdad have been touched upon in conversation with Merkel, Obama said at a joint press conference in the German city of Hannover, broadcast by the TRT World news channel.

Pres Obama says he and Merkel discussed maintaining strong security cooperation as counterterrorism partners. pic.twitter.com/b92EXPC609  Mark Knoller (@markknoller) 24 April 2016

NATO is not formally engaged in the military campaign against the Islamic State, but individual members, including the United States, France, and Turkey, are contributing to military efforts against the terror group in both Syria and Iraq.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Barack Obama have begun bilateral talks in the German city of Hannover.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The Turkish authorities freed a Dutch columnist of Turkish descent, detained late on Saturday over critical tweets about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Dutch Foreign Ministry announced.

Turkish police arrived to journalist Ebru Umars home in Kusadasi, a resort town on Turkey's Aegean coast, and brought her to a police department. The journalist has recently written a very critical review of Erdogans activity and policy for the Dutch Metro daily and tweeted some of the articles excerpts.

"Freedom of expression is of the essence. Relieved that @umarebru is no longer in custody. @DutchMFA continues to assist," the ministry cited Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders as saying.
Earlier in the day, several members of the center-right opposition Civic Platform Dignity and Truth (DA) clashed with police near the office and house of First Deputy Chairman of the Democratic Party of Moldova Vladimir Plahotniuc.

At least four police officers were hospitalized after clashes with anti-government protesters, according to police spokeswoman Tamara Procopii.
BELGRADE (Sputnik)  The victory of Serbias ruling Progressive party in Sundays snap parliamentary elections will put the Balkan country on the fast track toward EU integration, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said.

Exit poll data show that Vucics conservative party is set to win over 50 percent of votes. Vucic claimed victory late Sunday.

"Serbia will continue along the European path and we will try to speed it up," Vucic told his supporters at the party headquarters.
Some officials in Washington genuinely believe Russia has armored ground forces in Syria, claiming Russia moved its own artillery towards Aleppo  unproven information based on anonymous sources in Pentagon, published by Wall Street Journal. These persons believe that if the US fails to react with force, this will be viewed by Moscow as a sign of American timidity, which will further encourage Russia to perform risky and aggressive actions.

These people also believe Washington's inaction will further damage US relations with Gulf states and Turkey (despite Turkey recently hopped on the train of drubbing Daesh in Northern Syria).

On the other hand, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, together with other some other officials, have vetoed any significant escalation of US involvement in Syria. This position is backed by President Barack Obama who continuously refused to be "drawn into a proxy war' with Moscow."
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has not ruled out sending troops to fight Islamic State (Daesh) militants in Libya, in a Saturday interview with a UK newspaper.

"It wouldnt make sense to rule anything out because you never know how things are going to evolve," Hammond told The Telegraph. "If naval or air support was requested for such an action, we would obviously look at it."

Several EU nations have been on a standby to send soldiers to the North African country as Daesh mounted attacks on Libyan oil ports in an attempt to spread over the northern coast, which is considered to be a springboard to Europe.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)US President Barack Obama has ruled out deploying the ground troops of a US-led coalition to Syria to topple the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

"It would be a mistake for the United States, or Great Britain to send in ground troops and overthrow the Assad regime," Obama told the BBC in an interview published Sunday.

The US leader also urged the international community to use its influence on parties to the five-year conflict "to sit down at the table and try to broker a transition" of power, as a solely military solution would not settle the long-term issues of Syria.
The Syrian Army and the country's National Defense Forces (NDF) in Homs province in central Syria, prompting jihadists to retreat, the Iranian news agency FARS reported.

FARS quoted military sources as saying that the Syrian troops attacked Daesh forces in the territories between the recently-liberated cities of Quaryatayn and Palmyra and along the strategically important Palmyra-Raqqa highway, in an assault that lefty dozens of terrorists dead and many more wounded.

"A number of hilltops have been recaptured in the Bardeh Mountains and the government forces have started to fortify their positions in the newly-captured lands," the sources said.
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Before Russias intervention, the Kurds had no champion and no substantial claim to be part of the peace talks, the newspaper says.

Russias weapons deliveries to Iraqi Kurds to step up its fight against Daesh and help in the eventual battle for Mosul also put Washington ill at ease.

Mark Katz, a professor at George Mason University who focuses on Russian foreign policy affairs, told the newspaper that Moscows move might goad the Americans into stepping up arms supplies to prevent Russia from gaining the upper hand.

Daily online magazine The Globalist provides its own reasons for the USs unease.

Russias cooperation with the Kurds, it says, gives Moscow three tools in one fell swoop  a permanent lever in Syrian domestic politics, another potential foothold in the Middle East, and a lever against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Two shells exploded on Sunday in the southern Turkish town of Kilis, located near the border with Syria, killing at least one person, local media reported.

According to the Hurriyet newspaper, the shells hit a mosque, located just some 100 meters (30 feet) away from the office of the citys governor. Ten people were reportedly injured in the attack.
"With outside backers on all sides injecting money and arms as needed to prevent a stable consolidation of power by rivals, the result can be a long, grinding stalemate wherein no one can establish durable control over a stabilized countryInstead, it's often mutual exhaustion that finally ends such wars," since it "burns capital and destroys wealth."

This, the analysts argue, is when "bargaining space for negotiated settlements opens up, and peace talks can finally end the fighting."

"Real exhaustion of this kind could take a long time in Syria and Iraq, and leave a lot of profound damage in its wake. To date, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and of course the United States, among others, have all supported proxies in Syria and Iraq. This list includes countries with some very deep pockets. Iran and Saudi Arabia, in particular, each see the war in Syria and Iraq as essential to prevent the other from seizing a geopolitical advantage in a regional conflict for survival."

"Russia has been willing to deploy its own troops to prevent its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, from falling. Local allies of all these parties have suffered reversals, but have often been bailed out, given the stakes their backers see in the war; for any major combatant to be defeated will thus require a degree of war-weariness not yet apparent from any of the major outside benefactors."

Daesh, Biddle and Shapiro suggest, "is more self-reliant than many contestants in this conflict, funding its war effort mainly by taxing economic activity in areas it controls."

"The Islamic State," the authors say, "lacks the kind of outside benefactors that fuel Assad's or Jabhat al-Nusra's or the Iraqi government's war efforts" (apparently, they do not want to call out the US-allied Gulf states, plus Turkey, whose financial and logistical support was vital to the terror group's rise).
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The Jaysh al-Islam militant group shelled several cities in Syrias Damascus province on Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

"Armed formations of Jaysh al-Islam opposition grouping, which had claimed to belong to the opposition, carried out shelling with mortars against Jaubar, al-Sakhiayh, Harasta, Duma and Kabun in the Damascus province," the Russian center for reconciliation said in a bulletin.

Russia has been mediating a ceasefire in parts of Syria since February. More than 50 armed groups have signed up to the truce with the government, although the al-Nusra Front and Islamic State (Daesh) terror groups are not part of the deal.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The number of Syrian settlements that signed up to the US-Russia-brokered ceasefire has reached 71, the Russian Defense Ministry said Sunday.

"The total number of settlements, the leaders of which had signed reconciliation agreements, has reached 71," the Russian center for reconciliation said in a bulletin.

A US-Russia-brokered ceasefire came into force across Syria on February 27. It was supported by Damascus, as well as by dozens of opposition groups on the ground. The Islamic State (Daesh) and the al-Nusra Front terror groups, both outlawed in Russia, are not part of the deal.
In the lives of many, there comes a time when one must learn their place in the world. For creatives, that may mean challenging their own artistic skills to share the worlds most important stories.

Before Roger Grunwald established a career through a plethora of voiceover work, community outreach and acting  most recently in Martin Scorseses HBO series Vinyl  he listened to the experiences of his family.

Both his late mother and aunt, now 102, survived the Auschwitz extermination camp and Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, respectively. Grunwald recognized the need to access his talents to remind people of not only WWII horrors and the Holocaust, but to connect us all in peace and understanding surrounding our shared human condition

When his aunt gave him Hitlers Jewish Soldiers by historian Bryan Mark Rigg, he couldnt put it down, and it inspired the actor to write and collaborate with Broadway veteran Annie McGreevey on a drama that became The Mitzvah Project.

The three-part event is presented by the Martin-Springer Institute and Theatrikos Theatre Company. The one-man, single-act play  The Mitzvah  joins a lecture and talkback with the actor.

Two hour-and-a-half performances at the Doris Harper-White Community Playhouse, 11 W. Cherry Ave., take place Sunday, April 24 at 2:30 p.m. and Monday, April 25 at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $7-$14. Call 774-1662 or visit theatrikos.com or themitzvahproject.org to learn more.

Grunwald has been presenting The Mitzvah Project across the country since 2014. Next months performance at the University of Leeds in England will mark his 50th production. But had Grunwald not acknowledged the generation of survivors like his mother and aunt are fading out, and created his own mitzvah, or good deed, The Mitzvah Project would not exist to contribute to contemporary storytelling.

No matter how many times I read her story I dont think Ill ever get close to comprehending what she went through, Grunwald said of his mothers memoirs in a recent interview with the Daily Sun. I, too, had an obligation to participate in a fight for justice, against prejudice.

Grunwald exhibits an almost encyclopedic knowledge of WWII. Eloquent and direct, he shared the history of the German Jews who participated in the Nazi army. These mischlings  a derogatory term for half-Jews Hitler spared to draft into Nazi forces  are one third of the plays focus.

The Mitzvah has three central characters, all interpreted by Grunwald. Schmuel is a Jew from Bialystok, Poland, who lost his entire family and hometown to the Nazis while Christoph, a mischling Nazi officer in Hitlers army, offers insight into the legacy of German Jews.

The Chorus is based on Groucho Marx. Witty and humorous, this character pulls double duty to inject a dose of comic relief, and provides social commentary. Grunwald noted he probes the boundary between the absurd and the horrific, delivering a strong commentary and anti-war message.

Grunwald explained a bit of baton passing goes on between his characters. They transition from one to another. The acting job is to establish as clearly as you can the reality of each characterEach of the characters has to be really grounded in their own reality. The way in which this play has been successful has been a measure of the work weve put into it.

Grunwalds work has crossed boundaries and media. Through he recently retired from grassroots community organization around his New York City home to pursue acting full time, he has established The Mitzvah as his own good deed.

He explained even the term itself, while it means good deed, it also denotes an obligation or commandment. And for Grunwald, that includes honoring the experiences of millions during WWII. It also demands questions stir both internally and externally within viewers long after the curtain closes.

Over the millennia, the DNA of every human being has become so mixed there is no longer any pure anyone. Were all an amalgam. Were all mischlings, Grunwald said. What is identity? Why do we insist on labeling each other? Whose interests are served by separating the us and them?

And for people to start providing their own answers, he added, it will take a revolution: A revolution doesnt mean a group overthrowing a government, but these are acts we can all do that can be revolutionary in trying to change ourselves and the world around us in a more humane way.
According to the poll results, 26 percent of Israelis believe that there will be no change, while 15% said they do not know. Only 8 percent believe that the next US president will be worse for Israel than Barack Obama.

Obama's support in Israel has been low throughout his presidency. Only 4 percent believe his administration was more pro-Israel than pro-Palestine, according to a 2009 poll. Apparently, Palestinians do not share the same sentiment, since, according to WIN/Gallup international poll, Israel displayed fifth lowest support for Obama among 64 countries, with Russia, the Palestinian Authority, Pakistan and Armenia leading the chart.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  A group of Russian motorized infantry troops on Sunday destroyed simulated enemy targets during military exercises in the countrys Far Eastern Amur region, the Defense Ministry said.

"A massive strike with Grad multiple rocket launchers was directed using coordinates that were given [to us] by intelligence and targeted armored vehicles of the simulated enemy," Eastern Military Districts spokesman Alexander Gordeev said.

The war games included some 3,000 service members and over 400 pieces of military hardware. During the simulation, the enemy attempted to outflank Russian troops and strike from behind before it was wiped out by artillery.
"The Dnepropetrovsk-based Yuzhnoye Design Office was formerly part of a network involved in the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles. The office developed the Soviet strategic missile system R-36M (NATO classification SS-18 Satan), as well as a number of other medium-range missiles. The Yuzhnoye Design Office has no experience in the creation of short-range missiles."

"Furthermore, it's not enough to simply design a missile. It must also be produced. Meanwhile, Yuzhmash, the leading Ukrainian enterprise charged with the production of rocket and space technology, has factually been left to die. Ukraine severed its military-technical cooperation with Russia long ago. This led to a situation where we stopped ordering rocket boosters from Ukraine, and other countries too have since abandoned the use of Ukrainian rocket technology. As a result, Yuzhmash is on the verge of bankruptcy, and its equipment has either been mothballed or sold off."

Producing a short-range missile, Murakhovsky emphasized, requires vast resources, including the existence of a production chain. "Since Soviet times, Ukraine has had a substantial portion of this production, but many components, aggregates and assemblies were received from Russia. Now, understandably, these channels have been blocked," and alone it will be very difficult for Ukraine to create anything qualitatively new.

Finally, regarding the missile's much-touted ability to carry a nuclear round, Murakhovsky noted that of course, in principle, it is possible. "But in this case Kiev would break the provisions of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, to which it is a party. Moreover, the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine dated July 16, 1990 clearly states that Ukraine must 'not take, produce or transfer nuclear weapons'. If Ukraine violates these agreements, they would immediately become a pariah state in the international community, and face the same fate as North Korea."
Talking on the topic of criticism, he recalled his own imprisonment in the 1980s for opposing Poland's communist government. Tusk noted that Erdogan too, had been imprisoned in 1999 for criticizing Turkey's then rulers. However, now that he is in power, Erdogan has become remarkably sensitive to criticism against his own actions and policies, going as far as demanding foreign states prosecute their own people  a demand which Europe seems to bow.

Erdogan's sharp reaction to criticism has become a significant obstacle in the EU-Turkey migrant deal  a diplomatic attempt to solve the migrant crisis problem. Turkey aims to achieve travelling visa privileges, but the European Parliament is reluctant to approve its side of the bargain, considering the state of freedom of speech and freedom of press in Turkey.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  US President Barack Obama warned Britain on Saturday that it could take years for London to negotiate trade agreements with Washington if it dropped out of the European Union, in an interview with BBC.

"It could be five years from now, 10 years from now before we were able to actually get something done," Obama told the UK public broadcaster.

Obama, who is in Britain for a state visit, said earlier that a British exit from the 28-nation bloc would put the United Kingdom at the back of the line in trade talks with the United States.
"I dont think that anybody on the part of Russia, Europe or the US thinks that there will be any developments or even negotiations on Crimea," Lauren Goodrich said in an interview with the Ukrainian website Apostrophe.

"It appears that Crimea will stay in Russias hands for a long time. Russia wont even negotiate this topic. For Moscow, it is not just an instrument to exert influence on Ukraine, it is almost a national issue for Russia," she added.

The analyst noted that any negotiations on the issue will discredit Russias national security and Moscow will not go down this path. The Russian people will not understand it, so the negotiations "can never even begin."
"At the time, the Yugoslav delegation stated its willingness to concede many points, with the exception of independence for Kosovo (which was nonnegotiable for the Albanians). But the Yugoslavs did not see the final draft of the accord until the last day of the talks, and as it turned out, two-thirds of that document was entirely new to them (and they were presented with it literally only a few hours before the signing deadline)."

The new draft, Belous recalled, included provisions to see the deployment of NATO troops not only in Kosovo, but throughout the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. According to the agreement, the troops were to be given unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the country, and, moreover, would "be immune from the Parties' jurisdiction in respect of any civil, administrative, criminal or disciplinary offenses."

"Belgrade, feeling like they were being asked to accept terms of occupation and surrender, refused to sign the agreementNATO then treated this rebuff as a casus belli: after the Serbian government definitively rejected the ultimatum thrust before them in the document, the alliance began missile and bomb strikes in Yugoslavia on March 24, 1999."

NATO's 78-day air war, the journalist recalled, killed almost 2,000 civilians, with another 10,000 seriously injured, and inflicted tens of billions of dollars in damage, destroying dozens of factories, 48 hospitals, 70 schools, 18 kindergartens, 9 university buildings, 82 bridges, 35 churches, and 29 monasteries. The bombing, which wasn't approved by the UN Security Council, employed cluster bombs and shells plated with depleted uranium, causing a spike in cancer rates throughout the region.

"On February 12, 2016, the Serbian parliament ratified a new agreement with NATO that included terms very similar to those demanded in Rambouillet 17 years ago. In other words, the bar that Belgrade considered to be 'set to high' at the end of the 20th century, and which they could not accept even at the cost of war, has now been accepted little by little, unobtrusively, and without complaint  over the past decade by Serbia's new leaders."
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Eurasia's largest volcano Klyuchevskaya Sopka, in Russias Far East erupted on Sunday, shooting hot ash miles into the air, the local geophysical service said.

"The eruption was detected by seismic sensors, and satellite images show that the eruption column rose 6 kilometers [3.7 miles] above sea level," a representative of the Russian agency told RIA Novosti.
Russia's state-of-the-art Koalitsiya-SV 2S35 self-propelled howitzer will be equipped with high-precision projectiles that will be navigated via the GLONASS satellite system, the Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta quoted Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Mikhail Osyko as saying.

According to him, the projectile was developed as part of another to equip the Koalitsiya-SV with a new munitions array which will significantly increase the howitzer's effective range and accuracy.

The 2S35 Koalitsiya-SV is expected to replace the 2S19 Msta soon.

Having high level of automation,it needs less crew pic.twitter.com/V7jPIueW7w  Mikhail D. (@Eire_QC) 30  2016 .

"When will all the necessary tests come to a close, this projectile will rightly be considered a high-precision weapons," Osyko pointed out.
The Republic of Serbia is currently holding snap parliamentary elections to gauge support for its pro-European Union government after Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic signed a decree to dissolve the parliament on March 4.

"We have not found violations in terms of compliance and implementation of the Serbian electoral law. We have noted cases of photographing with a mobile phone in Novi Sad, it is prohibited by law, but it could not be called the so-called sin," Likhachev, who heads the Russian delegation monitoring the process of elections from April 22 to April 25, told RIA Novosti.
100 YEARS AGO

About 15 gallons of whiskey packed in trunks and shipped by Express was captured by Undersheriff Frank Dickenson on Wednesday. It was in the possession of Frank Kuhn who claims it is for personal use. It is now being held, as is Mr. Kuhn, for evidence of whether it was really for his use or for sale or for barter until the case is proven.

A carload of U. S. soldiers on their way from The Border to California was run out onto an oil track spur here on Tuesday until the Board of Health was able to ascertain that it was not a case of smallpox but simply measles aboard. The car was put onto #1 Wednesday morning and they went on their way rejoicing. There was particular worry since a load of Mexican workers from the same area were found the have smallpox and are being held in quarantine at Williams.

Sheriff W. G. Dickenson has purchased a couple of thoroughbred bloodhounds to be used in the tracking of criminals. They are about 8 months old and he will be training them for their work.

75 YEARS AGO

The City Park Pavilion is now much improved with 2,800 seats in the Grand Stand. A roof is to be added over the Box Seats. A protective wall to contain the rodeo stock is nearly complete. There is also a much-needed second gate for entrance receipts under construction.

On Monday this week Loring Campbell, Magician, Ventriloquist and Entertainer, will appear at Federated Church at 7:30 pm.

Special this week. A new model Kenmore 1941, 4 Star, 8 sheet size Electric Washer with an Automatic Drain Pump, and a Balloon Rubber Roller Wringer. $62 95. - $5 down - $6 a month - usual carrying charge. Come to Sears, 105, N. Leroux St. Ph. 97.

H. 55 Wed. L. 18 Sat. Rainy all week. 0.05

50 YEARS AGO

Rabies Warning. A second rabid animal has been found in Oak Creek. If a wild animal acts funny or is too easy to approach, stay back. The vaccination rate for dogs is very low in the Oak Creek area.

The City Council has unanimously decided to provide temporary paving on all major unpaved streets on the basis of traffic load with City Hall footing the bill. It also unanimously spurned the proposed re-zone for the Rock Crusher aggregate plant.

Babbitts will open their new $400,000 building on Butler Avenue adjacent to the Ponderosa Paper Plant on Saturday. Open house 8 am to 5 pm. Refreshments for all. Orchids for the ladies. It is located on 3 acres within the city limits and has its own railroad siding.

New signs are everywhere as ASC becomes NAU. Official opening Sunday at 2:30.

The State will save $437,934 this year by going to a single license plate.

The overnight parking ban has been lifted until next fall.

H. 68 Mon. L. 25 Thurs. Rain Wed. Thurs. 0.07

25 YEARS AGO

Carson & Barnes Circus came to town on Thursday with 20 elephants along with clowns, high-wire acts and animal trainers. They also feature lions and tigers in their traveling zoo. They are the last of the great tent circuses and travel with 44 transport vehicles & semis plus 30 private trucks and trailers.

After a lengthy battle the City council has unanimously approved a new zoning code that will require developers to spare the tallest trees and steepest slopes. Greenbelts are to be developed throughout the city on belts of undeveloped lands. Buildings are to be no more than 60 feet in height. 20 to 50 percent of all trees 6 inches in diameter or more must be left standing as a step toward protecting our city from ruinous development. These measures are fiercely opposed by developers.

The Flagstaff Economic Development Commission unanimously recommends that the City Council negotiate with the Arizona State Department of Transportation to improve the Fort Valley path into downtown. The State will build a road to the Grand Canyon elsewhere, possibly through Williams that will intersect where 180 meets with 64 at Valle if not allowed to improve Fort Valley.

H. 64 Wed. L. 25 Mon. & Sat. No rain
Aging farmers in developed countries retiring without leaving a successor as the global food demand keeps increasing became one of the key discussion points at the G7 agriculture ministers meeting that took place in Japanese prefecture of Niigata this weekend.

"Aging farmers are threatening the sustainability of agricultural communities in Japan as the population globally is expanding and raising the need to boost food production to meet demand," Japans Minister of Agriculture Hiroshi Moriyama said, according to Bloomberg.

But while other countries are considering their options, Japan may have found a solution for its own agricultural woes  robots!
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  A US businessman has offered cash reward of $25,000 for leads on an eight person massacre of the Rhoden family in the Pike County, the states attorney general said in a statement on Saturday.

The murderer remains at large after shooting Rhoden family members, including a 16-year-old, in an execution style on Friday.

"Attorney General DeWine has spoken with Cincinnati-area businessman Jeff Ruby, who has offered $25,000 for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of any person(s) responsible for the murders," the statement read.
Police found a vehicle with damage from a bullet in the trunk area and at least five victims of the shooting when they arrived on the scene, the Michigan Live news portal said Saturday.

According to the media outlet, one of the wounded has been critically injured.


BEIJING (Sputnik)Moscow and Beijing intend to secure a bilateral agreement on the protection of technology in the coming months, Russia's Federal Space Agency Roscosmos head Igor Komarov said Sunday.

"In the coming months we are preparing an agreement on the protection of technologies We hope [to sign it] in the summer. Currently, the document is in a high degree of readiness," Komarov, who is on a visit in China on the occasion of China's first Cosmonautics Day celebrations, told reporters.

He added that the deal was crucial for securing contracts in many areas of cooperation, including key space technologies, and would be a basic step for further deliveries of rocket engines.
The Lazard Emerging Markets Equity Portfolio has bought more than 3.5 million shares in Lukoil on the US financial market, Russian newspaper Izvestiya reported on Friday, citing information from the US-based mutual fund research publisher Morningstar.

The shares have an average rate of return of 14.72 percent, and currently comprise 1.7 percent of the fund's portfolio.

"The Lazard fund has become the largest portfolio investor in Lukoil in America and Europe. They are looking for greater marginal investment possibilities whose value rises faster than global oil prices, so if the oil price rises by ten percent, these shares rise by 15-20 percent. These include oil companies in emerging markets, so this explains Lazard's recent activity," market strategist Maksim Shein of the Russian brokerage BKS told Izvestiya.
BEIJING (Sputnik)  China is paying attention to Russias progress in the space industry and will watch the upcoming first space launch of its new Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russia's Federal Space Agency Roscosmos head Igor Komarov said Sunday.

"Of course, they are [Chinese partners] interested in the development of our space industry and especially of the Vostochny Cosmodrome," Komarov told reporters asked if the Vostochnys maiden start was discussed with Chinese counterparts during his visit to China and if they would watch it.
YEREVAN (Sputnik)  Armenia's border was fired at 18 times overnight by Azerbaijani forces despite a negotiated ceasefire, the Armenian Defense Ministry said Sunday.

"On the night of April 24, the Azerbaijani armed forces have again violated the ceasefire regime on the border with Armenia. The Azerbaijani side opened indiscriminate fire of firearms of different caliber 18 times in the direction of Armenian positions in the northeast," the ministrys statement reads.
The Mediterranean Sea is not only the shortest route for migrants to reach the continent, but also one of the deadliest, testified to by the thousands who have drowned while attempting to make the crossing.

Europe has been beset by a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants fleeing their crisis-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa, trying to escape violence and poverty. The majority of them cross the Mediterranean Sea and arrive in the European Union using southern EU nations as transit points.
BERLIN (Sputnik)  Later on Sunday, Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are expected to open the world's leading trade fair for industrial technology, Hannover Messe 2016, the N-24 TV channel said.

The US leaders visit to Germany is a part of his global tour.

#Obama in Germany to promote #TTIP, Saturday saw 1000s protest the deal  our report from #Hanover  https://t.co/KhrCXQRNx3  Anastasia Churkina (@NastiaChurkina) 24 April 2016

Obama is the first sitting US president to take part in the Hannover Messe trade show. The United States is the partner country of this years Hannover fair that kicks off on Monday and will last until Friday.
BEIJING (Sputnik)  The BRICS countries are working to implement an initiative of sharing information on the Earths remote sensing, which will allow to swiftly respond to emergency situations and disasters, Russia's Federal Space Agency Roscosmos head Igor Komarov said Sunday.

"The practical initiative that we are currently working on together with the BRICS countries is the exchange of data on remote sensing of the Earth, which will allow to respond faster to emergencies, disasters, pollution and other aspects. I think that it can find a pretty quick and very necessary practical use for the BRICS countries," Komarov told reporters during his visit in China on the occasion of the countrys first Cosmonautics Day celebrations.
PHOENIX -- Gov. Doug Ducey said he's not concerned about a recent report that shows jobs in Arizona for those without even a high school education are growing faster than any other segment of the economy.

In fact, he said, that actually may be a good sign.

The figures from the Department of Administration predict that the number of people working in jobs where there are no formal educational requirements will grow by more than 6.6 percent in the next two years, followed by a nearly 5.8 percent growth in jobs where only a high school diploma is needed.

Jobs where workers need a bachelor's or master's degree will rise less than 5.2 percent. And the state predicts just a 4.2 percent growth in jobs requiring a doctoral or professional degree.

Ducey said that's not necessarily a bad thing, citing a conversation with a college chum who now is an attorney in Prescott.

"He called me up and said, 'Doug, we don't need any more lawyers. We need a plumber in Prescott. It's hard to find one,' '' the governor said.

He said there are jobs that do require some training beyond school can be good jobs, with "six-figure incomes and with a lot of flexibility.'' And he said there will always be a need for such workers.

Many of those workers, the governor said, come through career and technical education programs.

Ducey acknowledged the problems created when, in a budget-saving maneuver, he signed a budget last year that would have cut $30 million from Joint Technical Education Districts for the coming year. And he essentially conceded a misstep this year when he proposed restoring only $10 million of that, and only for three years.

The final version restores all but $1 million of that $30 million cut.

"We got that message loud and clear,'' the governor said. But Ducey said he's not particular sure that having JTED programs separate from academic classes is a good idea.

He said while going to college is a worthwhile goal for some, it's not the only path forward.

"I think it's important that we communicate that, both at the later grade school level as well as at the high school level as children are making a (career) decision,'' Ducey said.

"Oftentimes, that's the way to keep someone who is thinking of dropping out of high school engaged because they find a job that they want to do,'' the governor explained. "And math makes sense to them, or whatever subject they need to know, to do that.''

Ducey said his idea is hardly unusual -- or even new.

"When you and I were growing up, it was called shop,'' he said.

"Today, in many high schools, that doesn't exist,'' Ducey said, with those programs now separated into JTEDs and career and technical education.

The bottom line, the governor said, is recognizing and reversing the mistakes of the past.

"I do think we've made the misstep there from the standpoint of thinking that every child is going to go to college and that's the only path forward,'' he said. "They've got to have options and they've got to have choice.''

The governor said these jobs that don't require college are all worthy.

"And they're well-paying professions,'' he said. "And there's a scarcity of it in our economy.''
BERLIN (Sputnik)  Berlin strongly condemns possible North Koreas recent test of submarine-launched ballistic missile, the German Foreign Ministrys spokeswoman said Sunday.

The South Korean military said Saturday it had detected a North Korean submarine fire a ballistic missile off the eastern shore.

"If the reports about the new launch of missile by North Korea are confirmed, it means this open disregard of the international community on the part of the North Korean regime has acquired new quality. We condemn Pyongyang government's provocation in a most serious way," the spokeswoman said in a statement.
The United States is the partner country for this year's Hannover Messe fair, which expects to welcome around 200,000 visitors to showcase the latest technology from more over 6,000 different exhibitors.

Obama is the first sitting US president to take part in the Hannover Messe trade show.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Trade relations between the United States and the European Union are one of the most robust in the world, US President Barack Obama said Sunday.

"Europe and the United States is already one of the most robust trading relationships in the world," Obama said at a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the German city of Hannover, broadcast by the TRT World news channel.

According to Obama, the EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal, which is pending ratification by the sides, would only strengthen the bilateral relations.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The political process in Syria must remain on track in continuation of the international efforts, in order for peace to be settled in the war-torn country, US President Barack Obama said Sunday.

"Creating the situation in which we can actually protect all the people inside of Syriathe best bet for doing it is to get this political process on track," Obama said at a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the German city of Hannover, broadcast by the TRT World news channel.

Some journalists are ready exhausted  and Obama's 30-hour visit has only just started #OBAMAinHANNOVER pic.twitter.com/ju6HNQsM4V  Thomas Sparrow (@Thomas_Sparrow) 24 April 2016

Obama added that he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week to reassure that political process in Syria "does not unwind."
The South Korean military said on Saturday it detected a North Korean submarine fire a ballistic missile off the eastern shore.

"What is clear is that North Korea continues to engage in continuous provocative behavior, that they have been actively pursuing a nuclear program, an ability to launch nuclear weapons. And although more often than not they fail in many of these tests, they gain knowledge each time they engage in these tests," Obama said at a Sunday press conference in the German city of Hannover, broadcast by the US TV channels.
Sydney Weavers unnamed Pet Rock filly was the centre of attention yesterday as Sydney 'Pinky' Seelsters little girl was blessed in a special stall ceremony. Chaplain Ken Carter of the Standardbred Racetrack Chaplaincy of Canada came out to the farm and officially blessed 'Baby Joe.'

Today was a very special day for me, said Sydney Weaver. It truly meant a lot. Thank you Ken Carter and also to Kim, Nicholas and Garnet Barnsdale for being part of our special day.

Sydney refers to Pinkys filly as 'Baby Joe' after Pet Rocks owner, Joe Bellino, who donated the breeding for Pinky.

Every day Baby Joe and I are bonding more and more, Sydney said. This is such a wonderful experience. She now comes up to me in the stall and loves it when I brush her.

The beautiful filly still needs a name and everyone is encouraged to enter the 'Name Pinkys Foal Contest' before it closes next Sunday, May 1 at midnight. There is no purchase necessary to enter the contest. You must be age 18 or older and a legal resident of the country you live in. All entries must be submitted in English. To fill out all the required information, click here.

The winning name selected will receive a free breeding to the multiple world champion pacing stallion Hes Watching, who stands at both Tara Hills Farm in Port Perry, Ontario and at Alabar Bloodstock in New Zealand. His stud fee for the 2016 season is at $5,000.

The breeding was generously donated by Muscara Racing Trust, Menary Racing, Inc., Brad Gray and Michael Guerriero. There is also second place prizes of $500 in wagers on WatchandWager.com. That prize winner must be a USA citizen residing in a state that does not have a conflict with watchandwager.com. Flamboro Downs' management is offering dinner for two packages to Canadian winners.

Within one week after the deadline date, Sydney Weaver will select six approved names for the foal. Management at Flamboro Downs, where Pinky raced for most of her career, has graciously agreed to hold a Name Pinkys Foal Contest Night at the track on Sunday, May 8 (Mothers Day), when the final name will be announced in a unique presentation.
When the 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal on April 25, 2015, it took days for Flagstaff resident Chheten Tamang to find out what had happened to her family, friends and community members in her home village of Langtang. Perched high in the Himalayan mountains about 50 miles north of Kathmandu, the village was wiped out by an avalanche that was triggered by the earthquake.

When she finally managed to get in touch with her brother, Tamang learned that her mother and one of her sisters were among the hundreds in the Langtang Valley who had died as a result of the earthquake.

In addition to doing all she can to support family and community members devastated by the earthquake, Tamang has dedicated herself to finding a way to adopt her deceased sisters children and bring them to America. It took one visit to Nepal last fall and months of work to complete birth certificate and passport paperwork for the two girls and one boy who are 8, 11 and 13. Now Tamang is working on official adoption papers, which requires her to visit the country again in June.

Tamang remembers on one of her last nights in Nepal she sat with the children telling them how much she loved them.

They cried and held my arms until they fell asleep, she said.

Tamang is now working separately from the Flagstaff International Relief Effort to raise money to fund the adoption of her nieces and nephew.

Those interested in making donations to Tamang directly can call or email her at chhetentamang@yahoo.com or 928-266-0180. She also has a page set up on the online fundraising site YouCaring.com at
United Way of Cowlitz and Wahkiakum Counties will distribute a combined $248,000 in grants to 20 local agencies this year, which Executive Dave Green said is a big improvement from last year.

Coming from nothing, $248,000 is a godsend, Green said, alluding to the bookkeeping and fiscal troubles that prevented the agency from making any distributions last year.

Among the social service agencies that will receive grants are the Emergency Support Shelter, Progress Center, St. James Family Center, Community House on Broadway and Lower Columbia Head Start. ESS, Progress Center and St. James Family Center each will receive $24,900. Community House and Lower Columbia Head Start will receive $19,900 and $17,400, respectively.

See the sidebar for a full list of distributions.
The Cowlitz Indians say their $510 million casino resort will employ 1,000 people to start with.

Cowlitz County residents could use some of those jobs, but a big question remains: Who will get them, and will they attract a lot more Native Americans, from other tribes as well as the Cowlitz, when the casino opens in north Clark County in fall 2017?

Everybody thinks that thats going to happen, but I dont really know what thats going to look like, Cowlitz County Sheriff Mark Nelson said. Its not an anticipated problem. Its just an anticipated change.

Tracie Driver, a board member of Kelso-based Ethnic Support Council and part of the Cherokee and Oneida tribes of Oklahoma, said she has friends from as far as North Carolina planning to apply for work at the Cowlitz casino. She expects a rise in Native Americans living in Cowlitz County, where housing costs are much lower than they are in Vancouver and Clark County.

With Cowlitz County unemployment levels stuck in the 7.5 to 8.5 percent range, area residents are in need of job opportunities. And project founder Dave Barnett said he hopes almost all of the jobs will go to locals.

Our goal is to hire within our tribe and within the community, Barnett said.

The La Center-area casino will give preference to Cowlitz tribal members who are qualified, but Cowlitz Chairman Bill Iyall said he expects most employees will come from the surrounding area.

Its an ideal location to employ Cowlitz County citizens, Iyall said, saying tribal members may not be positioned to move here for employment. Thats because the tribe underwent a diaspora after white settlement of Southwest Washington in the 19th century.

Weve been scattered, so our families have been established in other towns.  To relocate for a job at the casino, if youre equally employed elsewhere, that would be an issue, Iyall said.

For Cowlitz members who may be interested in the positions, Barnett said most of them already live within a few hours from the reservation.

Iyall said hes letting tribal members know about the opportunities. The national unemployment rate for American Indians has consistently been higher than 10 percent, double the national average, and federal law allows tribal enterprises to give preference to hiring Indians without violating equal opportunity employment laws. This is partly because reservations  like the 152-acre area the federal government created for the Cowlitz in 2015  are sovereign nations.

Robert Anderson, Oneida Indian Nation visiting professor at Harvard, said jobs at the casinos can be a big draw for American Indians, especially if theres a chance to work toward management.

Experience shows that theres a wide variety of jobs, that people can come in with menial jobs and through training efforts they have in place, they can sort of work their way up the ladder, he said.

Its unclear how much the casino jobs will pay, but Iyall said the service industry jobs will pay living wages and include full benefits.

Its hard to look elsewhere to predict how casino employment will shape up because each case is different.

The Mohegan Tribe, which is managing and helping finance the Cowlitz casino, offers a case in point. About 2.9 percent of the workers at its huge Connecticut casino are Native American; only 0.2 percent of the work force is American Indian at the tribes casino in more rural eastern Pennsylvania. Nationally, Native Americans make up about 1.2 percent of the U.S. population.

Kathryn Rand, co-director of the Institute for the Study of Tribal Gaming and Policy in North Dakota, said tribal casinos are normally built on established and much larger reservations that already have sizable Native American populations. Typically theres also housing available on the tribal land, so its difficult to predict how Cowlitz casino may change the surrounding area.

This is a unique type of situation in many ways, Rand said.

Washington has 28 tribal casinos owned by 22 tribes, according to the Washington State Gambling Commission. Tribes must get federal recognition to operate their own casinos, and Cowlitz tribe received its recognition in 2002 after years of struggle.

Today the tribe has about 3,900 members, largely centered around the Puget Sound area, which is well outside the tribes ancestral area in Cowlitz, Lewis and north Clark counties.

The tribe hasnt had a central location for centuries. The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs in a report said the Cowlitz had a dispersed residential pattern before the end of the 19th century.

Watered down traditions

Driver, of the Ethnic Support Council, said shes concerned there would be inadequate support for American Indians who want to move to the area.

Were not prepared by any means to handle that, she said. She said Native Americans will need support navigating cultural differences, misunderstandings with law enforcement, finding work and getting help with disabilities.

Numerous tribes in the state dont have federal recognition and might seek to move closer to a tribe with federal recognition that can provide an American Indian community.

Other natives, like Driver, live thousands of miles from where their tribe is based.

Driver focuses on supporting the Cowlitz tribe and making it strong again. But she said urban areas often create a larger Indian tribe from a combination of many smaller tribes. Tribal communities are fractured, she said, and theres a loss of identity through assimilation.

The Cowlitz tribe can be a magnet to bring members of many tribes together, but its a double-edged sword  Driver said smaller tribes lose their nuanced tribal traditions when they seek opportunities and community through a larger tribe.

On a personal level, I really get concerned with people losing their tribal connections. Its so easy to get absorbed, she said. Their traditions kind of get watered down or assimilated with other tribes.

A growing reservation

A 2002 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that, in general, surrounding counties experience job growth and lower mortality rates within four years of the opening of tribal casinos.

Nelson said the sheriffs office isnt anticipating problems or departmental changes. He said hes more concerned about preconceptions about law enforcement, and whether any potential Native Americans moving into the county have had negative interactions with officers in the past.

Everyone is treated with respect, Nelson said. Everyone is given the degree of honor they deserve, and thats how I want to see this place run.

Twenty years after the Spirit Mountain Casino opened in Grand Ronde, Ore., Polk County Commissioner Craig Pope said hes seen the economic growth not only in his community but in the tribe. Grand Ronde is a rural area near the city of Salem and the surrounding Portland area, similar to La Center.

If it werent for the casino operations, the tribal community would not be what it is today, Pope said. That has made a monster impact on their quality of life as a community.

According to the U.S. Census, the Native American population in Polk County grew more than 400  or 63 percent  between 1990 and 2000, though Indians were still only 1.9 percent of the total population then. Census data from 2014 show that 2.5 percent of Polk County residents identify as Native American alone  more than double the national average.

The Spirit Mountain Casino has much more space to provide a hub for population growth. The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde have more than 11,000 acres to provide housing, for example.

The Cowlitz tribes La Center-area casino is minuscule by comparison. The Cowlitz project will take up most of the reservation, covering 368,000 square feet, including 100,000 square feet of gaming space.

Iyall said he hopes the reservation buys more land when the tribe can afford it. Three years from now, the tribes next step is to open a 250-room hotel on the reservation.

It is a very bright future for the tribe that was landless, Iyall said.
Its been 28 years since Mike Banigan first started working at the Longview Solvay Chemicals as an engineering and maintenance manager, back before construction of the hydrogen peroxide plant was complete. Hes overseen many expansions, and now hes going to retire when the latest one is complete.

Its kind of a closing of the loop. I came to Solvay when we were just designing the plant in 1988. Ive been here since initial construction and on all of their expansions, and now Ill finally close my career out with this one, said Banigan, 64, of Battle Ground, who recently stepped down as plant manager to focus on the expansion before his retirement.

JH Kelley and DeWitt Construction began underground work at the end of March. Solvay has not yet awarded a contract for above-ground construction. The goal of the two-phase Titan Project is to boost hydrogen peroxide production by 10 percent. The first phase is costing $22 million; the second phase will be more expensive and begin when market conditions are right, Banigan said.

The Belgium-based company is responding to rising demand for hydrogen peroxide from segments of the pulp and paper industry.

We wanted to make an investment in the future of the business, Banigan said. We have been tracking the (pulp) industry  and the Northwest has really taken off.

Solvay makes hydrogen peroxide used for bleaching pulp and paper, as well as a host of other applications in the clothing, food processing, environmental, chemical and metal industries. NORPAC (located across the street) is a key customer for Solvay, but it also ships products to California, British Columbia, Oregon, Montana, Idaho and Washington.

The plant has been unable to meet all its orders for peroxide for more than a decade, so Solvay has had to fill orders with its plant in Deer Park, Texas. That takes away from products the Deer Park plant can provide to the booming electronics industry, Banigan said.

And even though Americans seem to be reading fewer printed newspapers and books, their need for disposable diapers certainly isnt slowing.

The growth in diapers is incredible, both in the world because the population is growing (and there are more) babies, but also for adults, Banigan said. Peroxide is used in manufacturing fluff for diapers.

And NORPAC is projecting growth as well, he said. Weyerhaeuser Co., which has a joint ownership of NORPAC, wouldnt confirm this Friday. The forestry products company announced last fall that it is considering selling or spinning off its cellulose fiber division, including the NORPAC Longview plant.

In the Titan projects first phase, Solvay will add a second steam methane reformer, which is used to make hydrogen from natural gas. It will also add process vessels, pumps, compressors, piping and instrumentation to extract more peroxide from an organic working solution.

What we decided to do in this Titan Project, is were going to push the chemistry harder, Banigan said. The second phase will be more intensive capital upgrades, such as adding bigger pumps.

The first phase will generate an estimated 40 jobs at peak construction, according to Solvay. There have been two permanent employees hired as a result of the expansion, with another operator slated to be hired. The highly-automated plant currently employees 40 staffers, plus 10 resident contractors, according to the company.

Construction is slated to end in October, and the upgraded plant will fire up in December.
In early September, Chheten Tamang arrived at the airport in her home country of Nepal, just as she had many times before. Her relatives were there to greet her, but this time the usual hugging and kissing, the warm greetings and excited updates, were strained and sparse.

I was like what am I going to say? Tamang said. Its like my heart was totally frozen. No words came out. Hardly no tears came out.

What loomed in their memories was the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck the country the previous April. It was the first time Tamang had visited since the April 25, 2015 quake that toppled buildings, killed 8,000 people and injured nearly 18,000.

In the Langtang Valley where Tamang grew up, the earthquake triggered an avalanche that swept through with the force of half of an atomic bomb. The village of Langtang itself, located at 12,500 feet about 50 miles north of Kathmandu, was completely wiped out by the wave of snow, ice and rock.

Tamang, who now lives in Flagstaff, lost her mother, sister and brother-in-law, a total of 30 family members and nearly 200 community members.

For months, she followed the lives of the villages survivors, including her brother, sister and father, through Facebook and phone calls and worked locally to raise money to help the community recover.

September was the first chance she had to make the trip to help in person. The trip was full of tears but also tender moments of love and gratitude among those who did survive, Tamang said.

Over the past year, the Flagstaff residents story has helped catalyze major assistance efforts locally  hours of volunteer work, multiple fundraisers and thousands of dollars in donations.

So far, about $25,000 from the Flagstaff area has been sent to the people of Tamangs village to provide temporary food and shelter and then help them rebuild what had been their real life Shangri-La.

FLAGSTAFF TO NEPAL

Leading the charge to organize fundraising efforts, collect donations and direct support to Langtangs residents is Meredith Potts, executive director of the Flagstaff International Relief Effort.

For years, the nonprofit has focused its work on public health and poverty alleviation across Mongolia, but Tamangs personal connection to a community so deeply impacted by the earthquake propelled FIRE to broaden its mission to assist recovery efforts in Nepal, Potts said. The valley was unique in the totality of the destruction it experienced and Potts said she saw a chance to affect significant change there. Thanks to Tamangs relationships, the organization knew it would be able to place aid directly in the hands of the people who need it, Potts said.

Within a month of the earthquake the nonprofit organized three events in town and raised $20,000, with three quarters of that coming from Flagstaff, Potts said. All of the money goes to support the people in the Langtang Valley.

Right away, FIRE used some of the money to help four families, including Tamangs relatives, with immediate needs of clothing, blankets, food and medical treatment.

Then, they held off for a few months when the villages 400 survivors were transported to a temporary camp at a monastery in Kathmandu where they were given food and shelter for about five months.

It was when they had to leave and live on their own that the villagers need swelled dramatically and FIRE again stepped in to help, Potts said. Crowded into apartments throughout Kathmandu, the Langtangpas lacked bedding, clothing, cooking supplies and food, all of which FIRE bought and provided to them. The nonprofit also helped cover rent for some people and the cost of some minor surgeries.

Tamang was there at the time and it was her job to find the families in the most dire straits. She went door to door to every apartment, gathered lists of what was needed then went to local stores to buy cooking supplies, propane tanks, blankets, clothes and other supplies.

Though the summer and fall, FIRE provided aid to a total of 47 families and also hired two Langtang residents as its country director and program assistant to help coordinate the distribution of resources.

REBUILDING

The task of rebuilding the village of Langtang began in the fall when the trail to the valley was repaired. Potts traveled to Nepal in November and December to survey the situation and talk to village members.

To see the optimism and resilience as well as the single mindedness and sense of community and cooperation, all those factors really solidified our long term commitment for sustainable programming, Potts said.

The 116 families who lost homes in the village of Langtang have formed a cooperative, elected a group of leaders and agreed to split all donations among themselves so everyone has equal resources to rebuild. So far, they have raised about one third of the $3 million they estimate they will need in total.

For some reason though, a group of elders has been left out of those rebuilding plans, Potts said. That is the group where FIRE is putting its next efforts.

The group of nine to 10 elders have no family, no money and no way to contribute to the rebuilding effort, she said. They couldnt afford to move to Kathmandu during the winter following the earthquake, so they stayed up at 13,000 feet in the Langtang Valley area, living in makeshift homes made out of rocks piled together, tarps or some other tent structure, Potts said.

In March FIRE delivered 1,100 pounds of food, vitamins, blankets and mattresses to the elders, but going forward the organizations goal is to raise money to build them permanent homes.

That process is where FIREs most recent fundraising work comes in.

5,000 POUND OF CLOTHES

This spring, FIRE received 5,000 pounds of outdoor clothing collected by citizens in the Sun Valley, Idaho area. Realizing the complicated logistics and cost of getting those clothes to needy recipients in Nepal, the group asked if FIRE could sell the clothes in Flagstaff, then use the money to support its efforts in Langtang.

Potts agreed and decided the best way to sell the clothes would be to open FIREs own temporary store. In early March, Fireworks opened its doors at 113 East Birch. The store boasts colorful handmade prayer flags made by students from Sun Valley, photos of Nepal and racks stuffed with vests, jackets, sweaters and more.

Potts estimated there are 3,000 items total and said she expects to net $20,000 to $30,000 if all of them get sold.

The funds will be used to build homes for the neediest elders with the benefit of infusing money into the local economy, Potts said.

In addition to funds, FIRE would like to start facilitating opportunities for volunteers from the Flagstaff area to help the Langtangpas rebuild, Potts said. Right now, a major obstacle is a shortage of labor, she said.

In the longer term, FIRE hopes to work on economic development as well as cultural preservation projects in Langtang. Potts has already started to document the villages rebuilding process.

The theme, she said, is Langtang rising.
The Mt. St. Helens eruption in 1980 left acres of Harry Gardner Park, along the Toutle River, looking like a moonscape  barren, with few fish and wildlife.

The 80-acre site was essentially destroyed by volcanic ash. Tons of sediment resided in the empty space by the river created from the volcanos mud flows. But on Saturday, about 40 volunteers arrived at the park to plant 750 willow trees on 20 acres of land as part of their restoration efforts. Another 250 trees will be planted Monday.

We never thought it would be the same, said Brenda Fiest-Roggenback, whose home by the river was buried in the eruption.

For the volunteers, restoring the park was personal. Many of them lived near the park and had lost their homes from the volcanos sediment. Others came from generations of Toutle residents.

This is their backyard, said Sandy Baltazar, who has been trying to restore the park since 2004. This is their home.

The restoration became a group effort from community members and the Lower Columbia Fish Enhancement Group, which focuses on recovering the salmon and wildlife habitat in the area. And the project got a big help from a $457,000 state grant, most of which came from the Salmon Recovery Funding Board.

The group received the money for the parks restoration in 2014, and it needed approval from the Parks and Recreation board members and Cowlitz County commissioners. Bryce Crayne, project manager from the Lower Columbia Fish Enhancement Group, said he hopes to restore the habitat from the South Fork to the North Fork of the Toutle River.

Theyve put a lot of years in this park trying to make it what it is today, said Dan Bean, Cowlitz County Parks board member. Its amazing to see it come to a full circle.

But there were challenges. Sediment continued to erode the banks. At a rate of 10 feet a year, the park continued to lose land. More flooding in December also set the project back as the water overwhelmed the structures the Fish Enhancement Group began building to prevent the rush of sediment.

Crayne said engineers continued to try to adjust based on how the river responded.

Every rivers got its own personality, Crayne said.

They are finally seeing progress. Toutle high school students raised the willows with a state-funded greenhouse. And a year later, the citizens are planting the trees.

Crayne said the willows will jumpstart the ecosystem by providing beaver habitats and biodiversity through four of five different species. And no matter how much flooding the banks will see, Willows always grow back.

The project to restore the Toutle River habitat is in the first of three phases, which would span areas from the South Fork to North Fork of the river. Crayne said the group is committed to planting at least 50,000 trees in phase two, but the start time depends on the budget. He will know by October whether the project can get more funding through the state.

Regardless, he said theres still a lot the group can do without funding. The willow trees were harvested and raised by students. And planting the trees became volunteer-run.

When Fiest-Roggenback lost her house, she moved to Castle Rock. But she couldnt stay away. Six months later she moved into the area.

Today she lives three miles away from the home she had lost in the volcano sediment.

I had to come back and live here, Fiest-Roggenback said. I couldnt live anywhere else.
A recent study on the mortality rate in the 19th Legislative District was a turning point in Teresa Purcells decision to run for a House seat.

The state Office of Financial Management study found that people who live in the 19th Legislative District, which includes all of Pacific and Wahkiakum counties, western Cowlitz County and pieces of Lewis and Grays Harbor counties, have the lowest life expectancy of any of the 49 legislative districts in the state.

Purcell said working to improve such statistics helped her decide to declare her candidacy.

Purcell, a Democrat, will run in the primary against incumbent JD Rossetti, who was appointed to the position earlier this year.

I can be so much more effective as an elected official than Rossetti, Purcell said. I dont see him as having the kind of spark and the ability to bring people together to solve problems.

Purcell said shes not aware of any other Democrats who are running for the seat. Two Republicans, Jim Walsh of Aberdeen and Val Tinney of Castle Rock, have also announced their candidacy. The top two primary election votegetters will face off the general election, even if they are from the same party.

Purcell, 52, grew up in Longview and graduated from Mark Morris High School. She has degrees in political science and speech communications from the University of Washington. Nine years ago, Purcell moved back to Longview and lives in the the house on Columbia Heights where she was raised. She purchased it from her parents, Wayne and Joyce Purcell.

Teresa Purcell works as a one-person public relations company that has social justice and non-profit groups as clients. Shes on several local boards, which she said has helped her forge relationships that could serve her as a legislator.

To be effective in politics, you have to bring relationships, she said.

Purcell said the last legislative session didnt accomplish much, particularly in funding schools. She said the Legislature could find more money for schools by closing tax loopholes, such as those given to Boeing.

Purcell said shed be open to a state income tax if it were part of a larger overhaul of the tax system. We have the most regressive tax system in the country, she said.

Shes against proposals to require a two-thirds vote in the Legislature to pass taxes. Its undemocratic, she said, because it allows a minority of legislators to block action.

Purcell said she needed to study the often-proposed end of the sales tax exemption in Cowlitz County for out-of-state residents before taking sides.

Though Purcell is on the advisory board for the cleanup effort at the former Reynolds Metals Co. aluminum plant site, she doesnt support Millennium Bulk Terminals proposed coal export facility there.

That would become the brand of our community, she said, with Longview becoming best known as the site of the largest coal export dock in the western United States. Such a label would deter other kinds of businesses and people from wanting to come here, and the site could support employers that would hire more people, she said.

As a community, we have to stop looking backwards at fossil fuels and their dying markets, she said.

Purcell does support Northwest Innovations proposed methanol plant in Kalama.

Purcell has already received endorsements from U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, whose first campaign she managed, and the family of the late state Sen. Sid Snyder. Tiffany Turner, who ran against Rossetti for his appointment, has also endorsed Purcell, who doesnt expect Sen. Dean Takko or Rep. Brian Blake to do so. Purcell said shell be making the rounds of labor unions and county Democratic boards to seek their endorsements.

Purcell said people are upset how Rossetti was appointed to his seat in what seemed like a decision made behind closed doors. The 19th District has a long history of officeholders getting their seats initially through appointment rather than election.

I think voters are tired of that process, she said, which gives her a great shot at beating him.
tech2 News Staff

The long wait is finally over and the first set of lucky non-Nexus users who will now be able to play around with the Developer Preview will now inlcude Sony Xperia Z3 owners. Yes, Google has begun rolling it Developer Preview for non-Nexus devices so that developers will soon no longer need to own a Nexus device to begin testing and developing apps for upcoming Android releases.

This is indeed a first for Google. And owners of the year old Sony Xperia Z3 will also be happy now that get early access to a Nexus-like UI that free from manufacturer customisations.

All a Sony Xperia Z3 owner needs to do is install Sony's 'Xperia Companion' app on a Windows or Mac computer and then click to download the Developer Preview.

It is a bit odd as to why Google chose Sony's flagship from 2014 instead of the more recent Xperia Z5, but a bigger user base could be a reason for the same.

(Also Read: Android N Developer Preview released: Should you install it?)

Xperia Z3 owners will now be treated to a plethora of new features that come with the Android N update including split-screen, a cleaner notifications area and much more. For now it is just the Xperia Z3 that is reported to be getting the update, but Google is expected to roll out the same to handsets from other manufacturers as well.
tech2 News Staff

Apple has denied reports which state that there is a hike in iPhone prices in India by 29 percent to 'make up' for SE's poor response. The company said original prices for the iPhones are available on the official website.

A recent report by Times of India stated that Apple had recently held a meeting with top executives and key distributors in India, especially in view of the launch of SE. "The stock of SE was in any case kept at a low level," a source said. "A strategy is being worked out to pitch the device more effectively."

It was believed that post price hike, the iPhone 6 would cost Rs 40,000 and iPhone 6S would be priced at Rs 48,000. In addition, the iPhone 5S was reportedly made costlier by 22 percent which would bring the price to nearly Rs 22,000 against Rs 18,000 at present.

A previous report stated that Apple is reportedly not planning to produce a large volume of the iPhone SE that it released to offset the slump of its flagship series. Slow sales of the flagship iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus have forced Apple to lower production for the January-March quarter by about 30 percent from the year-earlier period.
To the editor:

As participants in the Flagstaff STEM City movement, we support the outstanding teachers who work daily to open doors and create challenging opportunities for our students. This week Flagstaff bids farewell to one of those outstanding teachers  Kaci Heins of Northland Preparatory Academy, who is departing to take an educational leadership position with NASAs Space Center Houston.

For the last 9 years, Kacis students from the Peak School, Mt. Elden Middle School, and NPA have flown high indeed. They have launched rockets; learned robotics and 3D printing; sent an experiment to the International Space Station; and launched high altitude balloons and analyzed the results. Kacis expertise, enthusiasm, and commitment to her students brought her recognition as our local STEM Teacher of the Year, Arizona Middle School Science Teacher of the Year, Air Force Association National Aerospace Teacher of the Year, and this years Viola Award for Science Education.

STEM City recognizes that we must all work hard to support outstanding teachers who can engage and mentor our students. Kaci Heins is taking her talent to an incredible platform, developing programs to inspire students across the country the way she has inspired and challenged her Flagstaff students. Kaci always challenged her students and all of us to Dare Mighty Things, and she continues to lead by example. Please join us in thanking her for all that she has done for Flagstaffs next generation. Well be eagerly watching, in cyberspace and elsewhere, for her next adventures in outer space!

LAURA HUENNEKE, DAVID ENGELTHALER and MINDY BELL

Flagstaff STEM City
tech2 News Staff

Seems like Apple has indeed found a way out of the mandatory domestic sourcing norm (at 30 percent) that kept the company from opening up its own branded Apple Stores in the county. According to the Times of India, the policy change that took place last year and Apple's recent presentation to the industrial policy and promotion secretary Ramesh Abhishek seems to have had a positive outcome.

The policy changed in November 2015, allowing companies like Apple to seek an official government exempt for the complete waiver of sourcing norms. These would include 'state-of-the-art' and 'cutting-edge technology' as well.

On Tuesday, TOI points out that Apple gave a presentation to the committee where the Cupertino tech giant pressed for the special provision. The same indicates that Apple really fits the case, because there was very little that the company could source from the country that is limited to some chargers that are currently being exported to markets like China. The results of the same will be announced in a few days.

Turns out even Xiaomi and LeEco have also submitted proposals, but the same are on hold at the moment. Until the Apple Stores arrive, the company will continue to sell via its distributors in India. As for the the company's plans to sell refurbished smartphones, in the country, it said that it has no intentions of starting the same anytime soon.
hidden

Bangladesh's central bank was vulnerable to hackers because it did not have a firewall and used second-hand, $10 switches to network computers connected to the SWIFT global payment network, an investigator into one of the world's biggest cyber heists said.

The shortcomings made it easier for hackers to break into the Bangladesh Bank system earlier this year and attempt to siphon off nearly $1 billion using the bank's SWIFT credentials, said Mohammad Shah Alam, head of the Forensic Training Institute of the Bangladesh police's criminal investigation department.

"It could be difficult to hack if there was a firewall," Alam said in an interview. The lack of sophisticated switches, which can cost several hundred dollars or more, also means it is difficult for investigators to figure out what the hackers did and where they might have been based, he added.

Experts in bank security said that the findings described by Alam were disturbing. "You are talking about an organization that has access to billions of dollars and they are not taking even the most basic security precautions," said Jeff Wichman, a consultant with cyber firm Optiv.

Tom Kellermann, a former member of the World Bank security team, said that the security shortcomings described by Alam were "egregious," and that he believed there were "a handful" of central banks in developing countries that were equally insecure.

Kellermann, now chief executive of investment firm Strategic Cyber Ventures LLC, said that some banks fail to adequately protect their networks because they focus security budgets on physically defending their facilities.

POLICE BLAME BANK, SWIFT

Cyber criminals broke into Bangladesh Bank's system and in early February tried to make fraudulent transfers totaling $951 million from its account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Most of the payments were blocked, but $81 million was routed to accounts in the Philippines and diverted to casinos there. Most of those funds remain missing.

The police believe that both the bank and SWIFT should take the blame for the oversight, Alam said in an interview.

"It was their responsibility to point it out but we haven't found any evidence that they advised before the heist," he said, referring to SWIFT.

A spokeswoman for Brussels-based SWIFT declined comment. SWIFT has previously said the attack was related to an internal operational issue at Bangladesh Bank and that SWIFT's core messaging services were not compromised.

A spokesman for Bangladesh Bank said SWIFT officials advised the bank to upgrade the switches only when their system engineers from Malaysia visited after the heist.

"There might have been a deficiency in the system in the SWIFT room," said the spokesman, Subhankar Saha, confirming that the switch was old and needed to be upgraded.

"Two (SWIFT) engineers came and visited the bank after the heist and suggested to upgrade the system," Saha said.

GLOBAL WHODUNIT

The heist's masterminds have yet to be identified. Bangladesh police said earlier this week they had identified 20 foreigners involved in the heist but they appear to be people who received some of the payments, rather than those who initially stole the money.

Bangladesh Bank has about 5,000 computers used by officials in different departments, Alam said.

The SWIFT room is roughly 12 feet by 8 feet, a window-less office located on the eight floor of the bank's annex building in Dhaka. There are four servers and four monitors in the room.

All transactions from the previous day are automatically printed on a printer in the room.

The SWIFT facility should have been walled off from the rest of the network. That could have been done if the bank had used the more expensive, "managed" switches, which allow engineers to create separate networks, said Alam, whose institute includes a cyber-crime division.

Moreover, considering the importance of the room, the bank should have deployed staff to monitor activity round the clock, including weekends and holidays, he said.

Reuters
tech2 News Staff

Google celebrates Earth Day with five doodles by doodler Sophia Diao. The Doodles showcase five biomes from around the world. You have to look sideways and squint to spot the Google logos.

The tundra has a lonely polar bear on an ice sheet below auroras. There is a skewed Google logo that is formed in the melting ice.

One of them shows a fox running through the trees in a temperate broad leaf forest. Here the logo is formed in patches in the patterns on the trees in the foreground.

There is the grass savanna at sunset with an elephant. Trees, sticks, flowers and the setting sun seem to be in the same places as the letters in the logo.

Refresh and you will also see a doodle of a semi arid desert with an tortoise (shaped in the letter 'O') reaching out to eat from a 'G' shaped shrub.

Finally, there are the underwater coral reefs with an octopus. The flowing tentacles of the octopus seem to form a little too many 'G's and 'O's if you look closely.

Every April 22, Earth Day celebrates the end of winter and the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere. The day is dedicated to environmental concerns, and peace. On Earth Day 2016, The Paris Agreement is expected to be signed by over 120 countries, a worldwide effort to tackle the problems of greenhouse gas emissions.
Teachers` class boycott begins for Prof Rezaul`s killing

Teachers of Rajshahi University is observing a two-day class boycott programme protesting the killing of Professor Rezaul Karim Siddique of the English department of university. The decision was taken at an emergency meeting of Rajshahi University Teacher Association (RUTA) at Juberi Bhaban of the university on Saturday, said RUTA general secretary MD Shah Alam Shantunu. The teachers also brought out a protest procession and formed a human chain in front of Senate Bhaban of the university from 10:30am to 11:30am. They will also hold a rally in Saheb Bazar Zero Point area of the city around 5pm, added the general secretary. Well also form a human chain on Monday morning and send a memorandum to the vice chancellor and prime minister for taking immediate actions against the killers, he added. Professor Rezaul Karim Siddique was killed by miscreants in the city's Shalbagan area on Saturday morning while he was waiting for a university bus. Earlier on November 15, 2014, Prof Shafiul Islam, a teacher of the Sociology department of the university, was killed by unknown assailants at Chouddapai near the campus. -- Rajshahi, Apr 24 (UNB)
Syria conflict: Obama rules out ground troops for Syria

Obama says military strikes will continue to degrade the IS group, but such actions alone cannot solve Syria\'s long-term problems

BBC Online: President Barack Obama has ruled out deploying US ground troops in Syria and says military efforts alone cannot solve the country's problems. "It would be a mistake for the United States, or Great Britain... to send in ground troops and overthrow the [Bashar al-] Assad regime," he told the BBC. He also said he did not think so-called Islamic State would be defeated in his last nine months of office. But he said: "We can slowly shrink the environment in which they operate." Mr Obama, who has been in the UK for a three-day visit, said Syria was a "heart-breaking situation of enormous complexity". "I don't think there are any simple solutions," he said. "In order for us to solve the long-term problems in Syria, a military solution alone - and certainly us deploying ground troops - is not going to bring that about." Mr Obama said the US-led coalition would continue "to strike ISIL (Islamic State) targets in places like Raqqa, and to try to isolate those portions of the country, and lock down those portions of the country that are sending foreign fighters into Europe". But he said the international community would have to continue to apply pressure to all parties, including Russia, Iran and moderate opposition groups "to sit down at the table and try to broker a transition". But he added: "That's difficult." Mr Obama criticised those countries whose parliaments had not approved actions in Syria but still "want the United States to do something about it". "You can't have it both ways," he said. Mr Obama said Syria was one of many issues that are "transnational in nature... and require a transnational response". He said: "It would be, I think, tempting, for a lot of people, to believe that we can pull up the drawbridge and that we can carve a moat around ourselves and not have to deal with problems around the world." But without co-operation and alliances "we are far weaker and we won't solve these problems", he said. On so-called Islamic State he said: "Prosecuting the campaign is critical, and although I don't anticipate that in the next nine months it will be finished, because, unfortunately, even a small pocket of extremists, if they're prepared to die themselves, can still wreak havoc on many of our cities. "But I do think that we can slowly shrink the environment in which they operate and take on strongholds like Mosul and Raqqa that are the beating heart of their movement." At least 250,000 people have died in five years of conflict in Syria and millions have fled the fighting. Mr Obama and the UN fear a fragile truce between the government forces and non-jihadist rebels, in place since February, is in danger of collapse amid renewed clashes. Current talks in Geneva between the Syrian government and opposition delegations will continue into next week, but there have been bitter exchanges. The Syrian opposition delegation, known as the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), and rebel forces inside Syria have accused the government of repeatedly violating the terms of the truce brokered by the US and Russia. The HNC said the Syrian government was "not a serious partner" while the government hit back by accusing the HNC of "sulking". Any peace process would require a transitional government, but the role of Mr Assad is a key sticking point.
As the spring semester at Northern Arizona University winds to a close, a new cache of students within the School of Art are displaying the final projects of their undergraduate careers.

Multiple pieces from 10 students spread across two- and three-dimensional media including video at the Bachelor of Fine Arts Show: Spring 2016. The exhibition runs through Friday, May 13. A community reception takes place Friday, April 29 from 5-7 p.m. at the Beasley Gallery inside NAUs Performing Arts building. To learn more, call 523-4612 or visit nau.edu/cal/art/galleries/basley-gallery.

Augmenting the participants creative strength, the Spring 2016 show is the first time the students themselves entirely curated the exhibition.

I really love this because not only does it give us a chance to learn more about curating, but it gives us a chance to make a show that flows together, said graduating ceramics major Tolley Rippon.

The self-curated flow guides visitors through the two adjacent segments of the Beasley Gallery from Michael Davis two bronzed human forms, Allegory of Conformity, to Kyrsten Pilgers ceramic hollow people, which represent the artists battle with depression.

Pilgers coil-, hand-built figures are scattered throughout the gallery. Employing barrel- or pit-fired technique, Pilger is able to achieve contrasting black with subtle hints of pink and green by burning Miracle-Gro and banana peels.

Ive realized a lot of people dont talk about depression a lot, Pilger said of her subjects. I decided I needed to do a show that helped me deal with my own depression and help maybe others deal with theirs.

One of Rippons entries The Passage and the Passenger, a coil-built, gas-fired sculpture, depicts a boat-like monument with an archway underneath.

For me, it talks about that point in life when you make a certain decision, and by making that decision you go one way or another and once you make it, you cant go back, he added. Its about crossing that barrier; that point of transition.

Coleman Anderson is also a ceramics major. His hand-painted clocks, he said, contrast humans need for more time with the natural growth of the hand-painted wood grain and carved balsa wood.

Davis served in the military for six years before pursuing his degree. You start to feel like you lose yourself, he said of his experience. A lot of my projects in art deal with this concept of being deconstructed or reconstructed by social or psychological elements.

The ragged figure in a sexualized pose, he said, represents the emotional facet. The second, reaching for its arm held together with twine-style wire, represents the physical side of putting yourself together after life events.

As far as technique, Davis worked 15-hour days for 11 weeks to form a mold of his model before transferring it wax and, lastly, casting the pieces in bronze. Touches of burlap imprints add texture between the pieces held together with twine-style wire.

Is she becoming a person, or is she falling apart? he posited.

In the gallerys back corner, Earl Petznicks massive figure draws visitors into the Vessel and Void. The hand-sheared wool interior envelops the viewer in a sound-deadening cocoon fashioned of strips of burnt ponderosa pine scraps.

Petznick noted he has been repeating the human shape in different media for years. At 12 minutes, the video Petznick compiled over two years and projected onto the woolen tufts is purposefully too long.

For the most part, people will just see bits and pieces, and I think that will reflect memory, Petznick added. His own memories in the video center in the woods with the sculpture, interrupted long shots, Seattle rainforests and a controlled burn in northern Arizona  all dizzying and ephemeral.

The students represent three-dimensional art with strength and conviction in their unique ideas and conceptual visions, producing work that is both provocative and unexpected.

Rippons formerly utilitarian pieces have shifted after a teaching experience last summer in California.

You can take a utilitarian object and make it 30 times larger, he said as Petznicks video score swelled. Then it talks about something completely different  I feel like the larger scale talks about the peaceful qualities and also monumental qualities of the inspirations Im actually drawing from.

This constant exploration represents each artists hope to further their craft until setting off on new directions.

Thats the best part about art, Davis added. We have chapters.
Discussion on "Exporting to China: Opportunities and Challenges" held at DIU

Daffodil International University (DIU) and Bangladesh China Chamber of Commerce & Industry (BCCCI) jointly organizes the round table discussion on \"Exporting to China: Opportunities and Challenges\" at the University campus premises. Md. Sabur Khan, C

Economic Reporter :

Daffodil International University (DIU) and Bangladesh China Chamber of Commerce & Industry (BCCCI) jointly organized a Round Table Discussion on "Exporting to China: Opportunities and Challenges" on Saturday at the University Auditorium to promote and develop trade and to improve export in China,

The purpose of this project is to support the increase of exports of Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) from 6 Asian least developed countries (LDCs) including Bangladesh to China.

The Round Table Discussion focused on the project for "Enhancing Export Capacities of Asian LDCs for Intra-regional Trade" of International Trade Centre (ITC) which aims to contribute to increase exports of Bangladeshi small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to China and to take advantage of Asia's largest and most dynamic import market, as a stimulus to boost intraregional trade.

Md. Sabur Khan, Chairman, Board of Trustees, DIU, Professor Dr. Yousuf Mahbubul Islam, Chancellor, DIU, M. Hamid, Director and Al Mamun Mridha, Joint Secretary, Bangladesh China Chamber of Commerce & Industry (BCCCI) were present at the Round Table Discussion.


Resignation of journo housing society chairman demanded

Bureau Chief of BSS, Chittagong Samir Kanti Barua addressing the protest meeting of the deprived journalists of CUJ Housing Society at Chittagong Press Club on Saturday.

Chittagong Bureau :

A number of deprieved members of the Chittagong Journalists Cooperative Housing society demanded immediate resignation of its sitting chairman and about 50 members demanded fresh election of the society immediately.

The called upon the members of the society to stoppayment of any sorts of subscription except monthly subscriptions.

The members of the society allege of commiting corruptions and irregularities within the society .

This was disclosed at a rally of the deprived journalists of CUJ as arranged under the banner of Chittagong Journalists Accommodations Implementation Forum held at press club on Saturday afternoon. Senior vice President of Chittagong Press club Kazi Abul Mansur conducted the rally duly presided by BSS Bureau chief Samir Kanti Barua. Former President of CUJ Moshtaque Ahmed, former general secretary of CUJ Hasan Ferdous, Joint secretary of Press club Chowdhury Farid, senior journalist Roksarul Islam, Pradip Dewanji, Kabi Swapan Dutta, Anowar Hossain, Kutubuddin, Md. Faruk and Hasan Shahriar expressed allegiance to the demands of the deprieved journalists.

The speakers in the rally said members of the society those involved with the Kalpalokh Prakolpa provided money to society amid financial miseries but these funds are being used in their personal benefits .

They said a member of the society is also Directror of the developing company which is not at all acceptable. The speakers accused some leaders of the socity for their involvement in housing trade with the properties of the society.

They also demanded expulsion of these members from the society after proper scrutiny of their active misappropriation of society fund, sources added. The rally also alleged that a vested quarters is trying to grab the land of Shershah Housing .

Despite the approval of CDA for construction flat blocks in shershah housing, but the vested quarters is trying to foil the planning for ever. The members so present in the meet demanded immediate resignation of Housing chairman and to hold election of the society immediately.


BNP Standing Committee Member Nazrul Islam Khan addressing a memorial meeting organised by Industrial Bangladesh Council for victims of Rana Plaza in front of Jatiya Press Club yesterday.
Justice to Rana Plaza victims

THE nation observes three years of the Rana Plaza tragedy Sunday when most victims are yet to get their compensation while the trial of the accused persons still hangs in the balance. In the incident, the largest industrial disaster in our time, over 1,135 garment workers were killed 2,500 injured mainly for neglect of the factory owners because of faulty factory buildings where safety measures were almost absent. News reports in national dailies blamed government's reluctance to press the cases ahead as most of the accuseds in the case are related to ruling party, in addition to government employees. The fear of not getting justice has become stronger with the trial procedure delayed while this delay reflects the prevailing culture of impunity and how difficult it is to bring wealthy and politically influential people to justice.There is no doubt that the garment industry and the nation as a whole were in utter shock with the scale of the accident where the government rescue preparedness was almost zero. It was unwise that the government had declined offer of some friendly countries of sending rescue teams, but at the end it had to rely on untrained local amateur rescuers who deployed traditional tolls to look for victims bloc by bloc and brick by brick. It continued for more than two weeks when causalities increased both in terms of dead and injured. Many lost limbs and many victims remained missing till today. When the workers remained largely in abeyance the Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD) has suggested five issues as very important at this stage. These include punishment of the responsible persons, re-employment of victims, free treatment and compensation for disabled and finding out the missing workers. Meanwhile, we believe that trial of the accused must start without delay. It remained largely blocked by powerful garment industry lobby and Labour Ministry's refusal to give permission for inclusion of three of its employees in the charge sheet. The CID has however accused 42 individuals, including the building owner in the charge-sheets. In our view justice must be meted out to the victims without delay - no matter how powerful the garment industry lobby is. They can't be above law. Workers compensation and rehabilitation also can't be delayed. There is no doubt, the garment industry has achieved significant transition after the tragedy with improvement in working conditions in factories including safety against fire at workplace. Major buyers signed 'sustainability compact agreement' with the government and Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters' Association (BGMEA) to improve compliance standard at factories. International Labour Organization (ILO) is lending support in the process when several multilateral agencies are funding the renovation of factories. These are good steps but we can't ignore justice to the workers any more.
Solar Impulse lands in California after Pacific crossing

The solar-powered aeroplane Solar Impulse has landed in Silicon Valley, California, after a three-day flight over the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii.

High winds delayed the landing at Moffett Airfield, Mountain View, as pilot Bertrand Piccard flew in a holding pattern off the coast.

"The Pacific is done," he declared just before landing. The latest leg of the round-the-world flight was the riskiest yet because of the lack of emergency landing sites. Fellow pilot Andre Borschberg hugged Mr Piccard when he stepped from the cockpit. Google boss Sergey Brin was also at the airfield to greet him. "It was a beautiful landing, we were right there watching," he said in a clip tweeted by the plane's media team.

"You know there was a moment in the night, I was watching the reflection of the moon on the ocean and I was thinking, 'I'm completely alone in this tiny cockpit and I feel completely confident'," Mr Piccard told reporters afterwards.

"And I was really thankful to life for bringing me this experience; it's maybe one of the most fantastic experiences of life I've had." He predicted that, 50 years from now, electric aeroplanes would be "transporting up to 50 people". With 17,000 photovoltaic cells on its top surfaces, the plane gets all its energy from the sun. These power the craft's propellers during the day but also charge batteries that the vehicle's motors can then call on during the night. Solar Impulse started its journey in March of last year in Abu Dhabi, with the two pilots taking turns in the cockpit.

It crossed Oman, India, Myanmar and China before flying to Japan, from which it undertook the 8,924km (5,545-mile) passage to Hawaii. That five-day, five-night crossing set a record for the longest ever non-stop solo aeroplane journey. However, the vehicle's batteries overheated, forcing the project to stop on the Pacific archipelago for eight months while repairs were conducted. A further 20m euros (16m; $23m) had to be raised from supporters during the winter to keep the project going for another year.

New York next

It was Mr Borschberg who flew into Kalaeloa last July and he will take the controls on the next leg across the US mainland.

The two Swiss pilots' intention is to reach New York by the start of June, to begin preparations for an Atlantic crossing.

Assuming this is completed successfully, it should then be a relatively straightforward run back to the "finish line" in Abu Dhabi.
Survivors, rights gr demand justice

Deprived Rana Plaza survivors and families of the victims break down in tears when they attended to remember them at the Savar tragic point marking the 3rd Rana plaza anniversary on Sunday.

Kazi Zahidul Hasan :Hundreds of garment workers, survivors and rights activists have demanded justice on the occasion of the tragic third anniversary of Rana Plaza disaster that claimed over 1100 lives and injuring nearly 2000. Survivors of the disaster, many of whom lost limbs when the nine-storey building collapsed with a loud bang three years ago, placed wreaths at the site and wept for the dead.Relatives of those who were killed and whose bodies were never found recited the holy Quran and prayed for the departed souls from early morning at Savar and Jurain graveyards in the capital.Moreover, workers and labour rights groups brought out processions and rallies from in front of the National Press Club demanding justice and compensation to the victim's families and injured workers.They also demanded punishment of the culprits who had been responsible for the disaster."Three years have passed but the justice yet to be done. Even, no one has been held to account for the disaster," Nazma Akhter, a labour union leader, told The New Nation on Sunday. She said, police have arrested and charged the owner of the building with murder, along with 40 others. But no one has yet been convicted over the man-made disaster."The building owner Sohel Rana forced the workers to enter the building to start their shifts despite cracks appearing in its pillars one day before of the disaster. He must be hanged to ensure justice," she added. Nazma Akhter also demanded speedy trials for those charged in the case. She also called for improved workplace safety at garment factories with participation of global brands and buyers and proper compensation to the victim families."Buyers must come out to this task as part of their commitment of "ethical buying practices. Their active participation can help transform the local factories into safe workplaces and avert further disaster like Rana Plaza," she noted.Regarding the tripartite initiatives taken after the Rana Plaza collapse to improve safety standards in Bangladesh's RMG sector, Nazma Akhtar said, three years after the disaster a small number of factories have fully completed the remediation process as per the international standard which is an unfortunate development."The process is going through a slow momentum due to lack of necessary initiative from the concerned department, buyers and the industry body further risking the lives of the workers," she commented. Refuting the claim, BGMEA Vice-President Mahmud Hassan Khan Babu said, "Remarkable progress has already been made in safety standards as per the tripartite initiatives.""The government and the industry owners are serious about taking reform initiatives to make the RMG sector safe and sustainable. But it will take time because of capacity and financial constrains of the government agencies and garment owners," he added.Quoting the latest information, Babu said, a total of 3,768 RMG units have been inspected by the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety and National Initiative."The factories have taken corrective measures relating to fire, electrical and structural safety taking cognizance from initial inspections findings," he added.The BGMEA leader further said that they are committed to complete the remediation at inspected factories. The remediation would be done as part of our efforts to make the sector fully compliant.
EU, France condemn Prof Karim`s murder

European Union Ambassador to Bangladesh Pierre Mayaudon has strongly condemned the brutal killing of Prof AFM Rezaul Karim Siddiquee and hoped that a thorough investigation will bring the instigators and perpetrators of this crime to justice."Killings of academicians and intellectuals are irreparable losses to any society as a whole," he said in a statement on Sunday.Mayaudon said the initial findings indicate that the crime was conducted by fanatics. "Should it be confirmed, this would be yet another terror attack in Bangladesh in a short period of time."He said it is comforting that students quickly expressed their rejection of this sickening aggression.Ambassador Mayaudon conveyed his condolences to the family of Rezaul Karim, a professor of English Department at Rajshahi University who was murdered on Saturday.In separate statement, France Ambassador in Dhaka Sophie Aubert has strongly condemned the heinous murder of Prof Rezaul Karim in Rajshahi.In a statement on Sunday, the Ambassador called for quick investigation into the murder and punishment of the culprits. "This murder is a direct attack on intelligence, culture and spirit of generosity, which were what Professor Karim was representing," the statement added.The French Embassy conveyed its condolences to Prof Rezaul Karim's family.
RU teachers seek security

Staff Reporter :In an apparent continuation of the gruesome murders to eliminate the progressive writers and intellectuals of the country, the militants had killed at least four renowned teachers of Rajshahi University (RU) in film style on the campus and its adjacent areas in the last 12 years.As a result, a deep sense of panic is prevailing among the university family, especially the teachers, following the series of murder incidents in broad-day light. The RU teachers alleged that the culture of delaying the justice may be the key-point of the untoward incidents. They also expressed deep concern over their security on the campus. In the latest incident, the unidentified miscreants hacked to death the teacher of RU English Department Prof Dr AFM Rezaul Karim Siddique on Saturday morning.The grisly killing took place at Bottala intersection in Shalbagan area of the city, adjacent to his residence, when he was going to the university at 7:30am. Meanwhile, the Islamic State (IS) has claimed the responsibility of the murder. Police suspected that he was the victim of the latest attack on a progressive personality by the militants. They could not, howover, arrest the killers.The murder of Prof Rezaul took place 17 months after a Sociology Department Professor of RU AKM Shafiul Islam was stabbed to death by unknown assailants at Bihas Residential Area, near the university, on November 15, 2014. On February 1, 2006, another RU teacher Prof S Taher of Geology and Mining Department was kidnapped from his residence at teachers' quarters of the university. After two days his body was recovered from the manhole beside his home. On the other hand, Mohammad Yunus Ali, Professor of Economics Department of RU, was stabbed to death by miscreants at Binodpur area, near the university campus, while he was doing morning walk on December 24, 2004. Following the brutal murder, RU Vice Chancellor Prof Muhammad Mizanuddin, expressed deep concern over the killing and demanded justice for all murdered teachers.RUTA Secretary Prof Shah Azam Shantanu alleged that such brutal murders are committing due to culture of impunity. RU Proctor Mujibul Haq Azad also expressed deep concern over getting justice of these brutal killings. "Whoever did kill my colleague, I just want justice after proper investigation," the proctor said.
9 killed including 3 AL men in separate incidents

Staff Reporter :Nine persons, including three Awami League leaders, were killed in different incidents in five districts on Sunday.In Khagrachhari, two motorcyclists were killed when a truck rammed their vehicle at Bailyachhari in Matiranga upazila on Sunday morning. The deceased were identified as Joyonto Tripura,22, and Sukhendra Tripura,45. Police said that a rod-laden truck hit the motorbike from the opposite direction in the area around 10:30am, leaving Joyonto and Sukhendra dead on the spot. Police recovered the bodies and sent those to Khagrachhari Adhunik Hospital morgue for autopsies. In Pabna, a regional banned party leader was hacked to death by unknown assailants in Bhinnogram area of Santhia upazila on Sunday morning. The deceased was identified as Al Amin Hossain, 35, son of Fazlal Miah, an inhabitant of the area and a regional leader of Purba Banglar Communist Party (ML- Lal Pataka).Abdur Razzak, officer-in-charge of Ataikula police station, said that the attackers hacked Al Amin early in the morning near the Ichhamati river.Shortly farmers found his body lying in the area and informed police, who recovered the body and sent it to Pabna General Hospital. Al Amin was accused in several cases, including murder, with Santhia and Ataikula police stations, said the OC. Police suspected the outlawed leader was killed by his party rivals over establishing supremacy.In Comilla, two young men were killed and two others injured in a collision between a bus and a private car on the Dhaka-Comilla highway at Paduyar Bazar in Sadar Dakshin upazila on Sunday morning.The deceased were identified as Saiful Islam, 26, son of Abdul Latif from Nalchar village, and Moazzem Hossain, 28, son of Mohammad Ali from Gazipara village of the upazila. Ali Ashraf, Sub-Inspector of Maynamati highway police, said the collision took place between a Chittagong-bound 'Mamun Express' bus and a Dhaka-bound private car on the highway around 7am, leaving two passengers of the car dead on the spot and two others injured. The injured were admitted to Chittagong Medical College Hospital.Police seized the bus.In Faridpur, An Awami League activist was hacked to death in a clash between supporters of the AL and BNP-backed chairman candidates at Bagat union of Madhukhali upazila on Saturday night over the union parishad election. The deceased was identified as Atiar Rahman, 45, an AL activist and brother of AL candidate Matiar Rahman. Ruhul Amin, Officer-in-Charge of Madhukhali police station, said that the supporters of the AL candidate locked into an altercation with the supporters of the BNP candidate when they were returning from an election campaign in front of the AL aspirant's election camp in Roy Jadapur area of the union around 9:30pm. Then BNP men attacked an AL office in Bagat union around 10.30pm, triggering a fierce clash which left seven persons, including Atiar, injured, who were moved to the upazila health complex where doctors declared Atiar dead. Outraged by the incident, the AL candidate's supporters laid siege to the Dhaka-Khulna highway at 11pm for one and half an hour and staged a demonstration. Police removed them from the highway to restore discipline.In Rajshahi, former director of Rajshahi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI) Ziaul Haque Tuku was killed when a bullet reportedly fired accidentally from his own pistol pierced through his chest here on Sunday.Quoting witnesses, Assistance Commissioner (Boalia Model Police Station) of Rajshahi Metropolitan Police (RMP) Golam Saqlain said that the bullet inadvertently went out of his licensed pistol around 3:45pm when Ziaul was cleaning it in his office near the Nagar Bhaban. The bullet entered his chest, he said. Ziaul, also Treasurer of Rajshahi district unit Awami League, was taken to Rajshahi Medical College Hospital (RMCH) where doctors declared him dead around 4pm. Boalia Thana OC Shahdat Hossain said that Tuku was first found with bullet injuries in his office at Gourahanga around 4:30pm on Sunday. He said that Tuku was shot on the right side of his chest. A gun and blood-soaked towel were also recovered from the spot.
Right to life must be protected politically

Teachers and students of RU blocked the Dhaka-Rajshahi Highway on Sunday demanding exemplary punishment to killers of Prof Rezaul Karim Siddiquee.

The killing of Rajshahi University (RU) teacher Prof AFM Rezaul Karim Siddiquee on Saturday just two hundred yards away from his home on way to the campus showed once again that people's life has no safety and security in the country at all levels. Killers are not fearful of government's ability to stop them. He is the fourth such victim of the RU teachers in twelve years. Three others were Prof Safiul Islam, killed on November 2015, Prof S Taher killed on February 1, 2006 and Prof Muhammad Yunus killed on 24 December 2004 in terrorist attacks. It shows that killers are not bothered whom they are targeting - be it the University teacher or a blogger or an Islamist. Five bloggers were killed alone in 2015 for their hate campaign. Even students fall victims frequently to killers' knife or bullets in varsity campuses. Younger people are losing life all over the country as victims of violence of one kind or the other. Protecting life is the most basic political and constitutional responsibility of any government. It is not a matter to be shifted on police alone. A government accountable to the people gives priority to public safety above all. But life is being lost every now and then in the country at home and outdoors while the government seems to consider that blaming others for killing is the complete answer from them. And it is the police to find out who have committed the killings and punish if they can. The fact is that in an undisturbed way and in open places the killers are killing men, women and children shows that something is seriously wrong for the government to establish authority for fighting the loss of lives and ensure people's safety. Let them not ignore that saving life is a political responsibility. Many observers who feel terribly disturbed for the situation where the government appear helpless to protect lives of peace loving individuals; want to make the distinction between responsibility of the government to protect life and the duty of police to find out killers to punish them. The nature of two responsibilities are distinct and different. Saving life cannot be the task of police alone. The safety of life and maintaining the law and order situation are to be achieved by politics by able political leadership. Confrontational politics cannot be helpful for peace and safety. The police have very little to contribute in creating sober and sensible political atmosphere in the country. To anybody of right thinking mind every life is very precious and must be protected. We are not interested in the debate whether IS outfits have carried out the murder or in the claim that IS has no presence in the country as the DMP Deputy Commissioner said. We want that whoever be the killers be put on trial. They must be brought to justice. But in the nature of politics of the country based on struggle to stay in power at any cost, the healthy political atmosphere is unthinkable. But we would like to emphasize that punishing the killers is the responsibility of police. But protecting the right to life is political and must be politically answered. Whether the government can move politically to meet the political responsibility of protecting life is a big question. The people are anxious to see change in politics to be tolerant and accountable.
The signals could not have been stronger. Days after Saudi Arabias King Salman flew into Cairo and addressed the Egyptian parliament, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, followed up with a friendly visit to Egypts president Abdel Fattah El Sisi. The message was unmistakable: the Gulf is firmly behind Egypt.

Egypt remains the pivotal Arab state. When it comes to some of the most difficult problems that the Arab world faces, particularly on economic challenges and what is sometimes called regional security threats  meaning the rise of Iran  Egypt is both indispensable and essential.

Indispensable because making sure Iran hears the message that the Arab world is united against its interfering hand can only be done if Egypt, the regions most populous country, is involved. The country has the necessary military and political heft to be an important ally to the GCC countries as they seek to end Irans meddling in this region.

But essential too, because Egypts challenges will be the challenges of the wider region. The underlying problems of providing jobs for hundreds of millions of young Arabs, of building the necessary infrastructure for the 21st century and of making sure countries are able to meet the intellectual and security challenges of extremist groups such as ISIL, are all being confronted in Egypt today  as they will be confronted across the Arab world.

A strong, stable and prosperous Egypt will be a genuine beacon across the whole of North Africa and the wider African and Arab region. It will provide an example from Libya to Yemen of what can be achieved through partnership and sound policies. Because of that, the billions that the Gulf is putting into Egypt  the UAE pledged $4bn (Dh14.7bn) last week, just the latest in largesse  represents an important investment in the North African region and the Arab world. That it comes so soon after Barack Obama visited Riyadh is also no coincidence. The GCCs disagreements with the US president are well known, and until the next president can put relations on a firmer footing, the Gulf wants to ensure it has given sufficient attention to its other allies in the Middle East.

Aid to Egypt is smart politics. It shows in hard currency how important the Arab worlds biggest country is to the Arab worlds most prosperous members.
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Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe
In Brief Investigators from the Forensic Training Institute of the Bangladesh investigated the $80 Million bank heist and discovered that the hackers managed to gain access to the network because the Bank was using second-hand $10 network switches without a Firewall to run its network.

"It could be difficult to hack if there was a firewall," forensic investigator Mohammad Shah Alam told Reuters.

The investigator blamed both the bank as well as SWIFT, saying "It was their responsibility to point it out, but we have not found any evidence that they advised before the heist."

When it was reported last month that an unknown hacking group attempted to steal $1 Billion from Bangladesh's Federal Reserve bank account with the help of a malware and, in fact, successfully stole over $80 Million , the investigators would not say how the hackers managed to bypass the security solutions on its network.But in reality, there was no security solution installed to help protect against increasingly sophisticated attacks.This lack of security practices made it incredibly easier for the hackers to break into the system and steal $81 Million, though a simple typo (spell error) by hackers halted the further transfers of the $850 Million funds.The network computers that were linked through the second-hand routers were connected to the SWIFT global payment network, allowing hackers to gain access to the credentials required to make high-value transfers straight into their own accounts.Firewall are meant to help keep out malicious hackers and malware from doing nasty things.Moreover, the use of cheap routers made it difficult for investigators to pinpoint the hackers behind the largest bank heist and figure out the hackers tactics, Alam added.Hackers broke into the bank's systems and tried to steal $1 Billion from its account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in early February and then transferred large sums to fraudulent accounts based in the Philippines and Sri Lanka.Bangladesh police have identified 20 foreigners involved in the heist but the police said the people appear to be those who received some of the payments rather than the hackers who initially stole the money.Though the investigators are still scratching their heads to identify the hackers with no clue, the incident is a good reminder for financial institutions across the global to tighten up the security of their systems.
Paris, TX (75460)

Today

Rain showers in the morning with thunderstorms developing in the afternoon. Potential for severe thunderstorms. High 74F. Winds S at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near an inch..

Tonight

Thunderstorms during the evening followed by occasional showers overnight. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 51F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
The sextoy market is growing quite rapidly in India right now.

Although it is not a big trend, it is a hot topic on the internet as it is secretly expanding its market.

In this article, we will focus on sextoy and introduce recommended sextoy for Indian beginners of sextoy by gender.

India, the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, is very strict about sex.

Also, premarital sex is basically not allowed. Therefore, there are many people who are sexually restricted.

But what happens when you continue to be sexually restricted?

Frustration may build up and you may end up taking your sexual stress out on your partner.

If you are able to adopt sextoy in a timely manner, you can get rid of those problems.

I want to have more exciting sex than Im having now.

I want more variation in masturbation

I want to get even stronger pleasure than I do on my own.

If you have any of these problems, please stay with me until the end.

What is sex toys for Indian?

Sextoy, as the name implies, is a toy used during sex and masturbation.

It is a generic term for vibrators, Egg-vibrators, Electric massagers, dildo, handcuffs and condoms.

They are used to make regular sex more exciting or to make masturbation more pleasurable.

Because sextoy is very stimulating, it can help you to get rid of the problems and frustrations of being in a rut of sex with your partner for a long time, or if you are unhappy with the lack of pleasure in sex with your partner.

The ability to satisfy your desires with movement, texture, and size, which cannot be done by a normal human being, can help you to be satisfied with sex and, as a result, improve your relationship with your partner.

It is also said to help improve sexual dysfunction (inability to get an erection or ejaculate) and difficulty in feeling during sex (insensitivity), which is attracting more attention than in the past.

In recent years, the demand for sextoy has increased due to the spread of smartphones and the Internet and the increasing number of people using online shopping.

Even those who are concerned about the appearance of sextoy (and find it difficult to purchase) can now easily obtain it by using mail order.

In the case of online shopping, most of the stores have taken steps to ensure that the contents of the products delivered to you are not revealed, so you can purchase them without your family members knowing.

Until a while ago, you had to go to the store where the adult goods were sold to buy them, so it was quite a hurdle to overcome.

Also, many people may have an image that sextoy is somehow embarrassing to own.

But nowadays, some of them are so stylish and cute that you cant believe they are sextoy at a glance.

More and more people are using them for travel and outdoor use because they are not too bulky and are suitable for carrying around.

Sextoy situation in India

Before introducing the recommended sextoy for Indians, lets talk about one of the sextoy situations in India in recent years.

In India, due to the high concentration of population, the following six cities have particularly high sales of sextoy in India.

Mumbai

Kolkata

Bangalore

Delhi

Chennai

Hyderabad

These cities account for roughly 70 percent of sextoy sales in India.

In the future, the percentage of sextoy use will gradually increase in other cities in India as well.

If you never talk about sextoy publicly, that girl in your neighborhood might be a sextoy user too.

If you are interested in sextoy, you dont have to suppress your desire for it.

What are Sextoys for beginner?

Among all sextoys, sextoy for beginners are vibrators, dildo, masturbators, Sex Lubricants, and condoms.

Sex Lubricants and condoms, which are familiar to people who have had sex, are also a great beginners sextoy.

I will explain the details of each toy later, but there are many sextoy products that are painful to use and can only be used after some anal expansion.

I assume that the Indian readers of this article are people who have not had much experience with sextoy.

If such people use professional sextoy suddenly, they are at risk of injury or trauma.

Therefore, to introduce sextoy, you need to start with a beginners version and gradually become familiar with it.

Advantages of using sextoy for Indians

There are three advantages of using sextoy for Indians

You can masturbate in a wide variety of ways.

Can have stimulating sex

Can develop new sexual zones

If you try to masturbate with your own fingers or hands, it tends to be a pattern.

However, with sextoy, you can easily masturbate in a variety of ways.

You will definitely be fascinated by the attraction of new stimulation.

Also, your daily sex life will be more exciting than ever.

There are many things in sextoy that are visually stimulating and give you a strong and intense feeling of pleasure.

This allows you to see your partners promiscuity in a way that you wouldnt normally see it.

When you are in a relationship, sex with your partner may become a pattern, but it can also eliminate these problems.

It can also lead to the development of new sexual zones (which is the training of sexual stimulation to allow you to feel orgasms).

For more information on the development of new sexual zones, see the following articles

[Women's Erogenous Zone]How to find and develop, 7 hidden sexual zones !![In India] In this issue, we will dissect the female erogenous zone! ..." Many of you may be like that. Men, in particular, shou...

Thus, the use of sextoy can only be a good thing for the men and women of India.

Sextoy for beginner men in India

So, lets continue with the recommended goods for Indian sextoy beginners.

For ease of understanding, we will introduce them by gender. Lets start with the men!

The following five goods are recommended for novice Indian sextoy men

Masturbator

Cock rings

Love Doll

Sex Lubricants

Toys for the prostate

Lets check each one in detail.

Masturbator

The masturbator is a sextoy for men that elaborately reproduces a womans vagina, mouth, and anus, and is one of the most popular sextoy products.

It is used by men to masturbate, and it is popular because it provides stronger stimulation and pleasure more easily than using hands.

Most are made of good quality silicone, and their softness is something that cannot be achieved with ones own hands.

They can provide stronger pleasure than a real womans vagina, so be careful not to overuse them. (You wont be able to have an orgasm in a womans vagina anymore.)

Again Male masturbators are a wonderful toy. I do not need any favourite timing, bothersome bargaining. You do not have to worry too much.

Revolutionize your masturbation time! ! !

Made in Japan is a wonderful kinky toy.#sextoysindia #SexToyIndia #Japanhttps://t.co/4k70QGzoTP pic.twitter.com/tRVdxTKPpa   SEXToys India PR  (@SextoysIndia) November 12, 2018

Some of them are disposable, while others can be washed and used over and over again, so its fun to buy a few to use depending on your mood.

If you want to know more about masturbator, please click here

Really pleasant male masturbation and how to do it Are you in a rut with your daily masturbation routine? I'm going to show you five ways men masturbate that you might ...

[For Beginners] How to choose and use a male masturbator without fail Gentlemen.Have you ever used a masturbator? The person who sees this article is probably the one who has not experien...

Cock Ring

A cock ring is literally a ring-shaped sextoy that is worn on a mans penis.

It maintains an erection by binding the penis with a ring of rubber and blocking blood flow.

It is sometimes used as an accessory to be worn on the penis, and may be made of metal or plastic as well as rubber.

In some cases, cock rings have parts or vibrators attached to them that stimulate the vagina, so they kill two birds with one stone, giving a woman pleasure while maintaining an erection.

Cock rings are also sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction.

It can help with erectile dysfunction, where the penis doesnt get hard when you get an erection or doesnt last long when you try to insert it.

Men who are prone to breakage or who are unsure of the hardness and size of their erections can use a cock ring to increase the size of their penis and maintain an erection for a longer period of time.

Cock rings vary in price from around RS700 to over RS2000 with a vibrator function.

Some of them do not fit your penis, so you should check the size of the cock ring before you buy.

You should know the size of your partners or your own penis when it is erect.

[Penis enlargement] What is a cock ring? Types and usage Cock rings can make your penis bigger and harder. It also makes sex with women more fulfilling and increases your sat...

Love Doll

Love dolls, also known as Dutchwives, are dolls with the appearance of a woman who can experience simulated sex.

There are dolls that look like a woman, but they have no face and only have their breasts and lower torso cut off, and some dolls are so realistic that they can actually be mistaken for real women.

Some expensive dolls can cost more than 1 million yen, and the quality of the doll is easily influenced by the price.

The higher the price, the higher the quality of the doll will be, the closer it will be to the real woman, and the cheaper the doll will be, the less elaborate it will be, making it look like a real doll! Something is wrong! That is also true.

You cant go wrong if you choose a balance between price and taste.

There are stores that allow you to make custom-made love dolls, so you can create a girl of your choice.

You can make a girl of your choice. You can start with inexpensive love dolls at first, and once you get used to it, you can try custom-made love dolls.

If you want to know more about Love doll, please click here

Thorough explanation of the charm of sex dolls! Have you ever heard of sex dolls that are used primarily for pseudo-sex purposes? It is a doll that is quite close to...

Sex lubricants

Sex lubricants are used as a substitute for lubricating fluid during sex or as a lubricant for men to use masturbator rules.

It is not uncommon for women to have difficulty getting wet, depending on their physical condition, or to have difficulty getting wet due to their constitution.

Forcing the penis into the vagina at such times can cause painful intercourse.

There are various types of Sex Lubricants, some with a warming effect, some with a cooling effect, and some with a scent.

Changing the Sex Lubricant used during play is recommended as a good sex accent.

If you want to learn more about Sex Lubricants, click here.

What is sex lubricant?Explain the difference and usage of each ingredient The word "sex toy" may seem like a hurdle to overcome, but lotion is actually one of the most familiar sex toys. Many...

Toys for the Prostate

Another sextoy for men is prostate toys.

The most famous prostate toys include Enemagra, which was originally a prostate massager developed by an American urologist to treat an enlarged prostate line.

Modern prostate toys are imitations of Enemagra that have spread as sextoy for men.

Many people think of prostate toys as being used by gay men, but in fact they are often used by straight men.

What is the prostate?

The prostate is an organ found only in men. It is a walnut-sized organ located deep in the pelvis, just below the bladder, and its primary role is to protect and nourish sperm.

You cannot touch the prostate gland from outside the body, but you can touch it by inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus.

By inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus and touching the prostate and developing it, you can feel intense orgasms.

Orgasms felt in the prostate are mainly dry orgasms, which are orgasms that do not involve ejaculation. (You can also feel orgasms with ejaculation through prostate stimulation.)

The prostate is called the male G-spot, and dry orgasms can be much more intense than ejaculation.

Therefore, men who are able to develop a prostate can become addicted to the pleasure.

sextoy for beinner women in India

The following are the recommended goods for Indian women who are new to sextoy.

The following three are recommended for use by women who are new to sextoy.

Vibrator.

Dildo

Electric Masserger

Lets check out what each one is in detail.

If you want to check out womens toys, click here.

[BEST25]Sex Toys for Women in IndiaThat Can Help You Have an Orgasm There are many women who pretend to feel orgasm during sex. But don't worry, you don't have to pretend to feel orgasm...

Vibrators

A vibrator is a sextoy that vibrates with an Egg-Vibrator to provide stimulation and is often referred to simply as a vibrator.

Some vibrate as well as rotate, and there are many variations of sextoy.

It is quite a popular sextoy, and is well recognized by people who do not know much about sextoy.

Its usage is similar to that of a massager, but it is more compact and easier to carry than a massager, and many of them look as cute as a lipstick or a macaroon, so they are popular among women.

For a while, a famous influencer on twitter said, This is good! You may have heard of the topic of this article by introducing the recommended vibrators.

Vibrators are great for women to use on their own, but they are also recommended for men who have difficulty satisfying women with sex.

Since it is powered by electricity, it is far less tiring than moving your hands by yourself.

This makes it easier to satisfy a woman with sex because you can caress her for longer than usual.

Vibrators are mainly used on the female side, but they can also be used on men.

When used on men, they are used to attack the nipples and glans, and in both cases it is recommended to wear a condom for hygiene reasons.

Introducing how to use the vibrator, its purpose, and how to choose it! Vibrator uses the vibrations caused by the rotation of the motor to provide stimulation. It is one or two of the most...

Dildo

A dildo is a model sextoy made to mimic a male penis.

It can be made of silicone, elastomer (think of it as a material similar to PVC), metal or glass.

A dildo can be used by a man for his female partner during sex, or by a woman for masturbation to get pleasure from it.

They are mainly inserted into women, but some can be used in the male anus as well.

It is sometimes used synonymously with vibrators, but the vibrator is not the same thing as a vibrating device.

A model of a penis that does not vibrate is a dildo.

Some of them have suction cups that can be attached to the floor or wall so that you can enjoy realistic masturbation without using your hands.

For fun, there is a dildo made in the shape of your partners penis.

This one is also popular as a gift, and if youve been together for a long time and are having trouble finding a gift for your partner, you might want to pick one.

To learn more about dildo, please click here.

What is Dildo: Orgasms with Dildos for Men and Women A dildo is a model of a male organ that is used by women for masturbation and by men to stimulate the prostate gland. Th...

Electric Masserger

A Electric Masserger is a hand-held electric massager, also known as a handheld massager, and can usually be purchased at electronics stores.

It was originally designed to relieve stiff shoulders and back pain, so the hurdle of buying one in a physical store is quite low.

Many people may have seen or used it in some form or another, as it is often installed in leisure hotels.

Such a massager is highly recommended for beginners because it is easy for women to get pleasure from it when they use it during masturbation.

It is larger than Egg-Vibrator and vibrations are stronger than those of Egg-Vibrators and vibrators, so even just hitting the clitoris can give you a great deal of pleasure.

For those women who have never had an orgasm during sex with their man, the massager may be a good way to get a feel for what it feels like to have an orgasm.

It looks and feels like an electric massager, so you wont have to feel awkward if your roommate finds out.

If you are in a rut of having sex with your partner, if you want to feel an orgasm through masturbation, or if you are thinking of using a sextoy, why dont you try it from a simple massager?

To learn more about Electric Masserger, click here.

What is a massager? Introducing types, selection methods, and usage Originally, the Magic-wand vibrator and the massage machine were sold as a home massage machine used for the back and th...

How to choose a sextoy for Indian

Now that weve covered the different types of sextoy, heres how to choose one.

Especially if you are trying sextoy for the first time, pay attention to the following three points:  Does the size fit you (the partner)?

Does the size fit you (your partner)?

Is the environment able to produce sound without problems?

Price range

First of all, the choice of size is quite important.

Most sextoy are used against or inserted into the genitals, but the genitals are very delicate organs for both men and women.

For this reason, using an inappropriate size may cause damage.

Secondly, the environment should be able to produce sound without problems.

Some sextoys not only wear, but also rotate and vibrate. Its easier to get pleasure from something that moves than something that doesnt, but the fact that it moves means that the internal rotors make some noise.

If you live in a house with thin walls or if you have roommates, you may not be able to concentrate because of the noise, so it is best to choose one that is silent or has a low noise level.

Especially in India, where many people live with their families, it is very important that you dont have to worry about sound when you use it.

Finally, there is the price range.

The price range of sextoy ranges widely, from around RS500 at the cheapest to RS10,000 or more at the highest.

Its good to consider how much money you can afford and how much you want to buy.

Do you want your family to not find out about sextoy?

I live with my family and want to use sextoy without them finding out! If you are a man, you should buy a camouflage sextoy that does not look like a sextoy at first glance.

For men, there are many masturbators that do not look like a sextoy, and for women, there are vibrators that only look like cosmetics.

If you choose such a type, youll be safe in case your family members find out.

How to buy sextoys in India

The best way to purchase sextoy is through online shopping.

For more information on how to purchase sextoy, please see the article below.

Sextoy is one of them.

Therefore, you can easily get sextoy in India by using online shopping.

SexToysINDIA is a long established and stable sextoy store and you can have sextoy delivered to any place in India.

They also offer cash on delivery, so those who are worried about shopping with a credit card do not have to worry.

Of course, the latest security is in place, so your information will not be taken out when you use your credit card.

To begin with, many people may be concerned about whether they are legally allowed to purchase sextoy.

ikmAs it turns out, its not illegal.

Right now, it is not open to the public because the Indian adult market is still in the development stage, but it will gradually spread from now on.

Take advantage of sextoy and open the door to new pleasures and culture.

Cautions for Indians using sextoy

When using sextoy, keep the following three things in mind

Keep sex toys clean

Watch out for electrical leakage

Beware of the heat generated by the body while using a sex toy

As I mentioned earlier, many sextoy products are used for the delicate zone.

Therefore, it is most important to keep the sextoy itself clean. It is very important to keep the sextoy itself clean, because if a slight scratch is created by friction, bacteria can enter and breed there.

It is safe to wear a condom when using the masturbator, just in case.

In addition, many sextoy devices are powered by a power source, so if they are not waterproof, there is a possibility of electric shock or malfunction due to wetness.

Some may even develop heat during continuous use. If the fever becomes too much, you may get burned, so be careful.

If you get a fever during use, stop driving the sextoy immediately and refrain from using it.

You will enjoy sex more if you keep it safe and use it correctly.

Summary

What did you think?

In this article, we have introduced the recommended sextoy for the beginners of sextoy in India.

The sextoy market is growing rapidly in India and it will continue to grow steadily in the future.

As India is a rather closed-minded country, it can be difficult to be open about ones sexual habits and values.

However, being faithful to ones desires by properly dissolving ones sexual desire is very effective for ones physical and mental health.

If this is your first time to learn about sextoy, or if you are interested in using sextoy, why not give it a try?

Indian Sextoys for ur best! will introduce you to sextoy and other trivia about sextoy, sexuality, and sexuality for men and women.

I want to read more! If you think its a great idea, please bookmark it.
CARBONDALE  Watching a movie with a beer, glass of wine or a spirit won't just be an at-home experience any longer in Carbondale after Tuesdays City Council meeting.

The Carbondale City Council approved a Class K liquor license for American Multi-Cinema, or AMC Theatres, on Tuesday. The license would allow customers of the theater  age 21 and up  to purchase alcohol before or during movies at a lobby bar in the theaters lobby. The license allows customers to consume drinks at the bar, the lobby or in the theater during movies.

The bar is called MacGruffins.

AMC wants to sell alcohol at Carbondale theater CARBONDALE  Movie goers may be able to enjoy an alcoholic beverage soon in the theater in C

Renovations at University Place 8 on East Main Street for the new bar, along with the addition of hundreds luxury, red-leather recliners in each theater, have begun. Half of the renovation is already finished and four theaters are open with the new seats. AMC Spokesperson Ryan Noonan said the other half is expected to be done at the end of the month.

Although the renovations are nearly finished and the theater has obtained a liquor license, liquor will not be served until the city can complete an inspection of the bar.

Alcohol service and comfortable seats arent the only changes happening at the theater. An expanded food menu serving chicken strips, mozzarella sticks and pizza has been added. Also, new soda fountain machines with several drink combinations for movie goers.

AMCs Director of Alcohol, Food and Beverage Frank Lewis said the decision to make the renovations now come from an expiring lease with the landlord.

When Lewis presented this change to the City Council in December, he said it was to recapture the adult audience.

Seventy percent of the people seeing movies today is 21 or older, he said. The group of teens hanging out in front of the theater is gone.

He cited his stats to the Motion Picture Association of America.

Lewis said the alcohol served will be in different cups from traditional theater cups as a way to identify what substance is being consumed. Also, he said the entire staff will be trained to spot intoxicated individuals and underage attempts to consume liquor.

He said there havent been many problems at the more than 100 other theaters in the country that serve alcohol, and the prices and theater experience really arent conducive to drinking several drinks while watching a movie.

The addition of the luxury seats will lead to overall reduction in seating in each theater, but Rob Anderson, legal representation with AMC, said it will not cause a reduction in attendance.

Weve found  attendance actually goes up by 150 to 200 percent, he said. Because the amenities are nicer, more people come out rather than staying home and seeing what is on Netflix.

Carbondale creates new liquor license to sell alcohol at movie theaters CARBONDALE  There wasnt much to say Tuesday night for the City Council as it approved an o

He said statistics have shown that it improves revenue for the town by more people being out and going to a restaurant or other stores nearby.

As for the concern that minors could attempt to drink alcohol, Anderson said prior research has shown that the movie theater is not a place where they go for alcohol, mainly because it is expensive.

You are going to be paying $10 to get into the theater, and you will be paying movie theater prices for a beer or a glass of wine, he said. We price ourselves intentionally to make it unattractive for minors to come and try purchase alcohol.

Anderson said only customers who bought tickets would be allowed to purchase alcohol, and it is served at a one drink for a guest, per visit to the bar.

As for the price of a movie ticket? Anderson said he doesnt have any information that company plans to change the price as it is, as of Thursday.

AMC is serving alcohol in 115 venues throughout the United States, including 11 in Illinois, according to AMC officials.

Councilman Adam Loos said the risk of underage people getting alcohol is no less than at a restaurant or a bar with an entry age of 19.

You cant deny it on that basis, he said. If you are from Herrin or Marion, why not come to Carbondale and have a different experience.

Carbondale Mayor Mike Henry said he supported the change in December. He said he has visited theaters with the alcohol service and the city manager has checked in with such theaters without any glaring issues reported.
Students 13 to 17 years old beginning by May 23, will have the opportunity to give their time by volunteering at Pinckneyville Community Hospital, while gaining valuable experience and opportunities as part of the hospital's Junior Volunteer program.

The summer student volunteer session lasts from May 23 to July 29, with a pizza party scheduled for Aug. 3.

To become a Junior Volunteer, students along with a parent or guardian must attend one of two group orientations offered: New volunteers meet at 6 p.m. May 3 in the hospital classroom, while returning volunteers meet at 6 p.m. May 10 in the classroom.

Junior Volunteers will be required to complete a volunteer application and complete applicable health screenings.

To register for orientation, contact Michelle Headley at 618-357-5947.

 The Southern
MURPHYSBORO  As a little girl, Jane Martin Peters would take her father's handwritten note down the street to his job at the M&O train depot on Walnut at 17th Street, where she'd be given his paycheck to bring home.

She said the train depot was where her father, James Martin, made a living, supporting the eight children he and his wife, Lucille, had. Not only does she consider the two-story brick building a historic city landmark, but one of the lasting connections to her father, who died from cancer when she was nine years old.

She has joined the ranks of voices from Murphysboro, who are calling for city officials to reverse their decision to try and tear down the train depot, built in the 1880s, because they consider it an eyesore and say its owner is allowing it to fall into disrepair.

Murphysboro City Council votes to take path toward demolishing train depot MURPHYSBORO  The train depot was once of the most striking buildings on Murphysboro's main 

After hearing the city council's decision, her fiance, Mitch Segler, created a "Save the Depot" Facebook page in an attempt to drum up volunteers to help the owner do what needs to be done to bring the building into compliance. He's offering to volunteer his own construction skills and solicit help from others to help owner Martin Schaldemose work to get the building prepared for its opening as another restaurant.

Segler said he left a telephone message for the building's owner, but has not heard back from him.

Segler points to the building's fortitude during the March 18, 1925, tornado, that knocked out much of the city, including the railroad yard and roundhouse across the street, where the Dairy Queen is now located.

For more than 120 years, it's stood along what is now Walnut Street at 17th Street, charming its way into the hearts of many in the community.

"It withstood the 25 tornado, which says a lot about its construction," Mitch Segler said. "The train depot stood there and laughed at the tornado. Id hate to see it go.

Fellow train aficionados showing support

He's joined by another train aficionado, Justin Sobeck, who grew up in Christopher and now lives in Pacific, Missouri. Since learning of the plans for the depot, Sobeck started a petition asking the city to reconsider its plans to tear the building down. As of late last week, Sobeck had collected 570 signatures on the petition.

"I didn't want to wake up one morning to hear the train depot was demolished the day before and say 'why didn't I do something to save it'?" Sobeck said.

"Train stations and depots are an interesting cross-point between public domain and private ownership, because they do mean a lot to the community," Sobeck said. "I was concerned until I talked to Mayor Stephens. I was concerned about government overreach or imminent domain abuse  It's tough to justify the demolition of a building on the National Registry of Historic Places."

In response to Sobeck's petition, Mayor Will Stephens explained that this was an effort to get the attention of the property owner, who has been promising for years to complete the project. Stephens said the property had been cited several times for various reasons, all citations that Schaldemose, who identified himself as the owner, had apparently ignored.

Most recently, he was fined $450 for "open attractive nuisance" because the building had open windows, Stephens said. On Friday, about 21 second-floor windows have no glass panes and the two-level scaffolding that the city wants removed was still up outside the building.

This past week, Schaldemose said he has panes for the windows, but that those panes are in a warehouse, while he finishes cleaning the bricks.

Schaldemose had also said his time was split completing two other renovation projects. He has plans to turn the building into another restaurant and has already poured lots of money into fixing it up.

On Friday, he said had not been contacted in the past week by the mayor or anyone on the city council. He said the outcry from the public showed that others felt the way he did about the building.

He said the building was structurally sound and said he did not want to board up the windows, as that would make the building look unattractive. He also said the city had no authority to demolish the building.

"I need to find the time to do it," Schaldemose said of the remaining work.

Alderman Gary McComb countered, saying the city does have the authority to authorize the building's demolition. McComb voted against the city pursuing means to demolish the depot.

"Yes, the city does have the authority to do that," McComb said. "He doesn't want to push the city to do that."

For instance, McComb said the city could go to ask and petition a judge for a demolition permit, which it has done in the past to tear down abandoned homes in the city.

McComb suggested that the owner put a new roof on the building, board up or put in new windows and take town the scaffolding before it falls over on someone, to come in compliance. Then, McComb said, Schaldemose is free to work on the building's interior at his leisure.

"I just hope that he gets that part done what we want pretty quick ," McComb said.

A reversal of the depot's fortune?

Stephens said he was encouraged by the comments and queries he's received from people and that city officials want to hear more from people.

Community members can share their concerns about the train depot during the public comments portion of Monday night's Standing Committees meeting. That meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. Monday at City Hall, Council Chambers, 202 N. 11th St. in Murphysboro. Council members plan to discuss the matter again at their next regularly scheduled board meeting in May.

"Essentially, weve heard from the public loud and clear that demolition is not something that anybody wants," Stephens said. "And so Monday night, we will welcome  always welcome  comments on that issue, and were going to explore all of our options.

At its April 19 meeting, city council members voted 6-1 to allow city administrators to look into how they might acquire the building to tear it down; three other aldermen were not present at the meeting.

The building was built in 1888 as part of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad line; it was later part of the Gulf Mobile and Ohio Railroad before the company left the line in 1977. The building was eventually bought by a group of Murphysboro businesspeople, who turned it into the first of about three restaurants, according to Jackson County historian Mike Jones.

In 1984, the train depot was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
ST. LOUIS  Warren Goetsch likely voiced what many feel when discussing Illinois state government.

This is kind of a downer, isnt it? the assistant director of agriculture said in the middle of a recent presentation to the St. Louis AgriBusiness Club.

To be sure, there is little good news coming out of Springfield nowadays. The state has been without a budget for nearly a year, and the rift between Gov. Bruce Rauner and the General Assembly shows no signs of narrowing.

Among a number of entities struggling with little or no funding from the state are the 97 soil and water conservation districts in Illinois. They have received no funding since the end of 2015.

That remains unchanged, Goetsch said. They are enduring some significant financial hardships.

He pointed out that about a third of the districts have scaled back employee hours, 22 employees have resigned and some districts may be forced to close their doors due to insufficient funds.

Theres no FY16 budget, and theres no telling what the future holds, Goetsch said. Maintaining the status quo, however, puts a great risk on our districts. Weve been working very closely with them in developing plans going forward, looking at the various options of how we might fund districts in the future.

We all want to make sure were not losing sight of whats important, and that is the protection of the states resources. We need to adapt to the harsh realities of todays fiscal climate, but we also need to rebuild for the sake of the environment.

Ag education is another casualty in the continuing budget battle. The $1.8 million line item has been moved to the budget of the Illinois State Board of Education, combined with the general state fund. That concerns some ag education advocates who fear the money will be used for other things.

Goetsch put a positive spin on the issue, pointing to a proposed bill that would localize decisions.

The governor wants to fully fund general state aid to schools, he said. He also wants to give those choices to the local school districts rather than mandates. This bill will give schools more flexibility to fund programs like ag education.

There have been some accomplishments. One is the release of a statewide nutrient loss reduction strategy, a joint effort between the department, the EPA and other partners.

The Illinois strategy provides a framework for reducing both point and non-point source nutrient losses, Goetsch said.

Its a combination of voluntary and regulatory approaches to meet the goals of both the state and nationwide initiatives. This identifies best management practices to improve water quality on their individual farms.

The concern is that we need to be able to demonstrate that we are making a positive impact. Producers in Illinois are actively engaged and are willing to do the kinds of things that need to be done.

The medical cannabis program launched last year has been successful, Goetsch said. The department has authorized 18 cultivation centers and oversaw the production of more than 1,000 pounds of marijuana since last October. Wholesale revenues topped $1 million, he added.

He also touted a law passed by the General Assembly authorizing research into industrial hemp production.
CAIRO  U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk has sent a letter to the Department of Housing and Urban Developments Inspector General calling for an investigation into the nearly $20 million in federal tax dollars provided to the Alexander County Housing Authority over a seven-year period.

Kirks letter, sent this past week to Inspector General David Montoya, demanded answers as to why the ACHA continued to receive taxpayer dollars given that HUD officials had apparent knowledge of misuse of funds by ACHA staff dating back to at least 2010.

Kirk cited HUD documents from 2010 and 2013 that detailed problematic spending. The 2010 review, HUD wrote, was to address improper payments and other high-risk elements, and the 2013 review noted significant misuse of funds and alleged the ACHA was noncompliant with multiple federal and state housing laws, as well as labor laws.

Various HUD documents from 2014, 2015 and early 2016 detailed mounting concerns over mismanagement and neglect of core duties by ACHA staff while they inappropriately spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on themselves.

Among issues cited in a September 2014 review, for example, were excess travel for unnecessary training conferences in destination cities, inappropriate payments to the former executive director of more than $40,000 after his retirement, and almost $300,000 inappropriately paid out to employees in early retirement buyouts, unused vacation and sick time, and post-retirement contracts and benefits.

A review of the agencys compliance with the Civil Rights Act alleged discriminatory practices in employment and housing in a city with a long history of racial tension. In 1974, the agency settled separate lawsuits filed by the Department of Justice and a private civil rights lawyers group with promises to integrate public housing complexes and to correct discriminatory practices.

Forty years after those settlements, the 2014 review by HUDs Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity alleged the ACHA spent more money on and paid more attention to its complexes that primarily house white residents and are more racially integrated while neglecting the Elwood Place and McBride Place complexes that almost entirely house African-American families.

For instance, it stated the agency beefed up security at its senior housing development on the Ohio River, where the ACHA offices are located, while doing little to improve the safety of families living at Elmwood and McBride, where people have reported concerns with drug rings, gun violence, robberies and rape.

Hoping for a better future in Cairo CAIRO  Its about 3:30 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon when the bus rolls up to McBride Apartm

In 2016, two years later, a letter to former ACHA board Chairman Andy Clarke, conveying the results of an on-site inspection on Feb. 2 and 3, listed continued serious health and safety concerns for residents of those complexes, which house dozens of children who account for about 60 percent of the Cairo public schools population. Issues cited included roaches; unlockable windows; tenant reports of bedbugs, mice and rats; plumbing and electrical deficiencies; paint peeling from ceilings that needs to be tested for lead; units lacking working smoke and carbon monoxide testers; and ongoing concerns about crime.

A similar report from inspections the month prior stated that a former employee had sold a master key to the units, leading to a large number of burglaries and tenant shootings at McBride Place.

Living large on the public dime CAIRO  Hundreds of people here rely on public housing for shelter, with the average income 

The money kept flowing

Kirks office obtained the HUD review documents in late February, some of which the newspaper had previously had access to, and some it had not. They were provided in response to a letter that Kirk co-wrote in October with Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to HUD Secretary Julian Castro in response to The Southern Illinoisans ongoing Chaos in Cairo investigative series. In the letter, Kirk and Grassley demanded HUD take immediate corrective action to the address allegations described in the articles, and included the request for public records for an independent review by their offices.

Given HUDs apparent years-long knowledge of serious management deficiencies in Cairo, Kirk said he is disturbed by HUDs continued flow of taxpayer dollars to the ACHA despite yearly documented financial mismanagement. He asked the HUD Inspector General to investigate and make public how these funds were used. HUD provided 120 transactions to the ACHA between 2008 and 2015, totaling $19,755,352, according to Kirks office.

On Feb. 22, federal officials took over the ACHA, dismissing the board and shortly thereafter, Jason Ashmore, the executive director who served about six weeks under questionable terms. Ashmore is the mayor of Sesser, and he was hired by the former ACHA board against HUDs orders and over concerns he lacked proper experience. He has not received payment for the time he reported to work, and its unclear if HUD plans to compensate him.

Top leadership at the agency has been unstable for nearly two years. A January HUD review stated two interim executive directors hired by the board did not spend sufficient time in Cairo to correct problems. Jefferson County Housing Authority Executive Director Tom Upchurch and Pulaski County Executive Director Joann Pink were tapped by the ACHA board to serve interim tenures with the agency while also maintaining their other full-time posts. Both were paid under contract for their work.

HUD declines comment

HUDs Chicago office declined comment regarding the questions raised in Kirks letter. We are in the process of responding to the congressional inquiry. Until then, well reserve comment, HUD spokeswoman Gina Rodriguez said via email.

Rodriguez also declined to respond to the newspapers request for HUD to document its oversight policies for housing authorities, to include what information they must self-report, and timelines for on-site HUD inspections and reviews. In their letter, Kirk and Grassley also requested that HUD document the steps it had taken to ensure federal dollars were being spent appropriately in Alexander County as they continued to issue funds to the local agency while knowledgeable about problems.

In response, HUDs assistant secretary for congressional and intergovernmental relations, Erika Moritsugu, wrote that in 2013, the agency initiated a Public Housing Authority Recovery and Sustainability process that included remote and on-site assessments and follow-up recovery planning and technical assistance.

The ACHA was requested to develop a recovery plan, to include a plan for staff training, but did not, Moritsugu told the senators. Between 2013 and 2016, HUD has provided technical assistance regarding capital fund expenditures, and has been manually reviewing drawdowns since 2014, Moritsugu wrote. She also stated the agency, in August 2015, sent the interim executive director a link to an online financial management and governance curriculum for staff and board members, but only one board member completed the training.

The situation that played out in Cairo comes on the heels of other similar cases around the country where local housing authority management has been accused of misusing taxpayer dollars while residents living conditions deteriorated. There are more than 3,000 local housing authorities across the country of various sizes, though the vast majority are relatively small, overseeing 500 or fewer units. The ACHA has 494 units in its inventory.

The public housing system has been roundly criticized by policy experts. Billions of dollars flow through a system, comprising federal, state and local agencies, with weak oversight controls, they contend, leaving too much room for abuse and error in a massive social service program that provides housing to several million people, many of them vulnerable children, older adults and people with disabilities.

In many places throughout Illinois, including in Alexander County, respective county board chairmen appoint the housing authority board members, which hire the executive director. But the county boards, generally speaking, are not further involved in the financial or managerial oversight of the housing authorities. Short of drastic actions such as a takeover, HUDs ability to affect change where necessary is relatively limited by the separation of governmental powers.

HUD: Ashmore no longer executive director of Alexander County Housing Authority CAIRO  Jason Ashmore is no longer executive director of the Alexander County Housing Authority.

HUD, What took so long?

In response to inquires, Rodriguez also declined to answer a question the newspaper has posed before: Why did it take federal officials so long to show up in Cairo, given the deplorable living conditions of residents, and documented misuse of funds and mismanagement dating back years?

In announcing the Feb. 22 takeover, HUDs news release stated it followed a years-long pattern of financial and operational mismanagement, poor housing conditions, and alleged civil rights violations against the households the housing authority was responsible for assisting. In an interview the day of the takeover, HUD spokesman Brian Sullivan said the agency loathes takeovers, and only exercises that option in the most extreme cases and only when its required to protect the health and safety of residents.

The ACHA was the 19th housing authority HUD has taken over in 30 years, and one of only five presently under administrative receivership.

Though HUD had documented serious misspending and mismanagement in reviews in 2010, 2013 and 2014, and taken some steps to address those issues, officials seemingly did not take a heavy-handed approach to fixing those issues until late 2015 and early 2016, as the newspaper began to expose the alleged misdeeds and the poor living conditions of public housing residents in Cairo.

In September, the newspaper detailed further troubling allegations of misspending  including excessive travel to destination cities and fine dining that appeared to be on the taxpayers dime  according to a review of hundreds of records provided in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

A few weeks later, three agents from HUDs Office of Inspector General and an FBI agent delivered a subpoena to the ACHA administrative offices in Cairo and spent about four hours carting out boxes of paperwork and electronics. But again, review of HUD documents show the agency was aware of the vast majority of issues noted in the newspaper articles dating back to at least 2014.

In the Feb. 29 response from HUDs Moritsugu to Kirk and Grassley, she informed the senators that the HUD review documents they requested were attached, but that a number of other documents they sought to review were not available. That will remain the case while the ACHA is under investigation by HUDs Office of Inspector General, she wrote. That office will neither confirm nor deny that there is or was ever an ongoing investigation, though the October subpoena stated that there was.

The documents HUD denied the senators, citing the ongoing investigation, included those showing salary, benefits and other compensation paid to former, longtime Executive Director James Wilson, ACHA credit card statements, agreements for legal fees and consulting work, vehicle policies, and all travel records.

To date, no one has been charged with a crime related to an investigation into the ACHA. Wilson, the former longtime executive director, in an interview with the newspaper in August, acknowledged, in hindsight, he could have done some things differently, but he denied any illegal activity and defended his tenure, which spanned from 1989 to 2013.

I tell everybody were just like the state of Illinois. We lived it up too good, Wilson said in August, in a recorded interview with a reporter at Longbranch Cafe in Carbondale. And we didnt see this coming and we thought it would last forever and when the (federal) cuts came, we werent in a position to handle it. Thats exactly right.

Wilson also served as mayor of Cairo for 12 years during the time he was ACHA director, resigning from that post in 2003 following a re-election loss. Wilson has since declined to speak with the newspaper, telling a reporter some months ago not to call him again. The newspaper also has been unsuccessful in reaching Martha Franklin, the executive director who followed Wilson, and who previously served as his finance director.

Kirk pushes oversight law

On Thursday, when the Senate Appropriations Committee favorably reported the fiscal year 2017 HUD appropriation bill, it included new language pushed by Kirk intended to crack down on excess spending by housing authorities on central office functions. The provision calls for HUD to initiate rulemaking for a policy that provides for better tracking of and less flexibility for how these funds are used. In Cairo, administrators paid for staff benefits from funds that were intended to be used for capital improvements at complexes.

In an April 1 letter, HUD had already announced its intention to begin the rulemaking process. The language Kirk cited, if passed, would make that intention a congressional mandate.

The re-federalizing of administrative fees was first suggested by HUDs Inspector General in a June 2014 audit that was conducted due to our concerns over potential misspending by public housing authorities. In a statement, Kirk said he pushed the legislation because people throughout Alexander County have been taken advantage of and forgotten by those who were responsible for providing them with safe, clean housing free from infestation and decay and he hopes this helps put a stop to abuses.

Jan. 19 Alexander County housing board vote to hire Sesser Mayor invalidated CAIRO  The vote by the previous members of the Alexander County Housing Authority board to 

In his April 18 letter to Inspector General Montoya, Kirk said he was particularly concerned by the alleged asset management fees paid to the ACHA board, and requested a forensic audit on the use of the funds.

Representatives from Kirks office and that of U.S. Rep. Mike Bost held office hours in Cairo this past Wednesday, and spoke with several residents about their concerns regarding the ACHA. They also attended the monthly tenants meeting that the new federal ACHA administrators host monthly to provide updates and answer questions.

HUD reports on progress

At the tenants meeting Wednesday evening, Towanda Macon, a co-administrator of the HUD Recovery Team assigned to Cairo, and team member Janet Harris, informed residents they are close to securing a new contract for infestation control, and will begin the process next week of changing out the inner-core of locks to address the issue with the unaccounted for master key(s).

They also have implemented a new policy under which cash rent payments will no longer be accepted in the ACHAs office. Residents can pay with a cashiers check or money order, or they can pay cash at one of two banks in Cairo.

Macon also noted that the agency has posted an ad soliciting for applications for the executive director position. A resident asked if that meant Macon and other HUD officials would be leaving town soon, and Macon responded that it does not mean that. A transition plan back to local control has not been established at this point, she said. The job posting, which closes May 20, seeks an innovative problem solver and dynamic leader with a minimum of five years experience as a senior administrator in a medium or large organization that administers public housing programs, among other requirements.

Macon, who has been leading the team in Cairo for about two months, said many Basic 101 management items were in disarray when federal officials arrived. Just to name a few, she said the agency had multiple phone carriers, including an outdated long-distance carrier, two elevator contractors, though it was unclear that either was performing work, and antennas on the roof they couldnt figure out for what purpose.

Procurement policies also were nonexistent, she said, and it has therefore taken time to implement new policies that would allow them to issue a contract for a qualified extermination company. Pest control concerns have been handled on a unit-by-unit basis awaiting this contract, Harris said.

Were building this place from ground zero, Macon said. Literally, thats what were doing.

Some of the policy changes that are affecting residents take time for them to adjust to, she said, such as the office no longer taking cash for rent in the office. Standing around talking after the meeting, Rob Winchester, Kirks senior adviser, said he couldnt believe that cash was being accepted, and he questioned whether it was all accounted for.

Macon said she couldnt speak to past practices, and noted all the records had been removed by investigators. But said the cash policy was unusual for a housing authority.

The risk is too huge, Macon said. But change is slow. And that was going on for many years. That was the first thing we were like, Really? We could not believe that.

Though Kirks office has been critical of HUDs slow response as an agency over the years to problems cited in Cairo, Winchester told Macon he was just really pleased to hear from residents at both meetings that expressed they felt that Macon and the other HUD team members on the ground were making progress, and had their doors open to residents and community leaders.

Its nice to see some solidarity and your proactive approach, Winchester told Macon.

Looking long-term

While pest control, security and establishing strong policies and procedures have been items at the top of the to-do list, Macon said there have also been conversations ongoing about what to do long-term with the two complexes in the worst condition: McBride Place and Elmwood Place. A recent physical needs assessment revealed $7 million in immediate needs just to make the units meet basic health and safety requirements, and millions more to address future needed repairs. Aside from being old, the units have also been neglected for years, she said. That means theres no easy solutions.

Were trying to figure out the best way, because theres no housing in Cairo, she said. So what do you do? Part of the solution may be asking residents if theyd like to relocate to public housing in other communities, but there are people who want to remain in Cairo, she said. Another barrier to community housing is the high cost of utilities charged by Cairo Public Utilities, a nonprofit that operates a municipal electric, natural gas, internet, hardware store and sewage treatment utility.

The utilities are egregious here, Macon said. Thats the other thing were investigating.

Shameka Nelson, who rents a six-bedroom apartment at McBride Place, said shes attended all the residents meetings since HUDs arrival, and she remains hopeful conditions will improve for her family. She lives in a unit with seven of her children, ages 12, 9, 8, 7, 6, 2 and 1. Nelson said shes worried theyve been exposed to health risks because of the neglect of the complex.

Four of the children have asthma, and one has severe asthma, she said. They had asthma before moving in, but its gotten much worse since they have lived there, she said. She expressed concerns at the meeting about mold that returns despite cleaning it regularly.
I was in Springfield on Thursday. It's a perfectly fine town, easy to get around in and has a nice central downtown area with some eclectic shops and really good local restaurants. So why is it that when I told people I was in Springfield that they looked at me like I would catch some disease, or that I had really traveled perilously close to hell, or worse yet, Washington D.C.? Government  of both the federal and state variety  is held in such high regard these days. More on this later.

The primary purpose of my visit was to attend my board meeting of the Illinois Press Association Foundation. The purpose of the IPA Foundation is "promoting and protecting free expression through educational activities that foster the practice and respect of First Amendment principles and values," so it's a very nice break from the business of running a newspaper: growing revenues, cutting costs and all of that fun stuff.

The secondary purpose was to attend Thursday evenings IPA-sponsored annual legislative reception with invited guests that included the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, comptroller, treasurer, secretary of state and all 177 members of the General Assembly. It seemed to be a nice opportunity to visit with our local legislators and state officers when they may have a drink in their hand and might be willing to have a less formal, more off-the-cuff conversation.

No such luck. No such conversations took place. In fact, no conversations took place at all. No legislators showed up. No state elected officers showed up. Invited guests were a combined ZERO for 183.

As I stood around eating (and drinking) with fellow board members and newspaper executives I considered possible reasons why no one had accepted our invitation. Remember  media folks are a cynical bunch, and I work fairly hard to maintain that reputation.

Possible Reason No. 1: It was raining with occasional thunderstorms. Its a strenuous two-block walk from the state Capitol to the Sangamon Club, and, what, with lightning and an uphill walk into the wind, well, you cant be too safe.

Possible Reason No. 2: Next weeks Passover break started early. Yes, the break wasnt supposed to start until Friday afternoon, but after having sessions for three consecutive weeks, we thought they may get an early start on things.

So imagine my surprise when word trickled over from two blocks away that there was actual legislating going on. I know, after months and months of fruitless meetings and habitual breaks, who would have thought that they would actually get down to business on the very day in which the state newspaper group invited them to a party?

But wait  it gets better. As I was driving out of town Friday afternoon, I heard the news that both legislative houses had passed a stopgap appropriations bill to help tide over higher education. Its nowhere near a budget and nowhere near enough, but its $600 million more than the day before we invited them to our party.

So, to put it simply, the members of the Illinois Press Association  by virtue of our simple invitation to break bread with our elected leaders  caused a spirit of cooperation to permeate Springfield and for compromise to reign supreme. We did it.

Youre welcome.
The nearly unanimous passage of a $600 million higher education stopgap last Friday is being lauded as an example of bipartisanship and compromise. Yes, Democrats and Republicans compromised, but the future of higher education in Illinois was actually further compromised in the process. Fridays vote was a marriage of convenience between a governor whose commitment to higher education was in question and legislators who want to campaign for re-election this summer without this particular cloud hanging over their head.

The desperation of the states university leaders is now so intense that they spent most of Friday afternoon lining up to say thank you for cutting their funding by 69 percent.

Fuzzy math

Gov. Rauner pushed for this bills passage because he claims the $600 million comes from the dedicated education assistance fund, a dedicated portion of state income taxes. Interesting. Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno claimed that every bit of spending in this bill is paid for. Really? Then why did Illinois Comptroller Leslie Munger say there is only $354 million in that Education Assistance Fund?

Please note that Fridays appropriation bill did NOT increase revenues by a single dollar. State revenues are expected to be $31.2 billion for fiscal year 2016. Appropriations  before Fridays $600 million addition  were at $34 billion. Rauner and legislative Republicans were not wrong when they criticized every earlier higher education spending bill by saying we dont have the money.

The real losers

Although receiving 31 percent of prior year funding could certainly not be categorized as a win, the real losers in Fridays vote may be those that administer social service programs. Throughout the budget impasse, Democrats have tried to tie social service funding to that of higher education. Last weeks vote separated the two, temporarily leaving social services as the sole non-appropriated budget item. This should certainly not be a surprise, as these agencies service individuals with the lowest incomes who possess the voices least likely to be heard.

Well-educated and poorly educated

I love the poorly educated, said Donald Trump after winning the Nevada caucus back in February. We remember the quote mostly because his remaining opponents keep reminding us of it; the quote was played back to us over and over in the week leading up to the Illinois primary.

The quote was widely mocked  especially by the well educated  and the idea that a core value such as education would be ridiculed upset Americans that cling to the belief that education should be valued. Last Fridays vote is proof that this value has and continues to wane.

Perhaps lost in the hubbub surrounding last weeks stopgap funding bill is a statement made by Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis. Last Wednesday Lewis called Gov. Rauner a new ISIS recruit. She continued, Has Homeland Security checked this man out yet? Because the things hes doing look like acts of terror on poor and working class people. As a reminder, this well-spoken public servant is a graduate of Dartmouth College, a proud member of the Ivy League.

When the well-educated demonstrate incivility, the Chicago children taught by the 30,000 members of the CTU receive a poorer education.

When our well-educated governor (undergraduate degree in economics from Dartmouth and MBA from Harvard) employs fuzzy math, appearing heroic while slashing higher education funding by 69 percent, state students receive a poorer education.

And when our well-educated legislative leaders Michael Madigan (Notre Dame and Loyola Chicago Law School) and John Cullerton (Loyola University Chicago) play along with the governor in placing social services funding dead last, they insure that the poorest Illinois residents continue to receive the poorest access to education.

Last Fridays vote a win for the state of Illinois? We dont think so.
Longtime Bamberg County Councilwoman Alzena Robinson died late Friday night. She was 64.

Robinson died at Agape Hospice House in Columbia after battling an illness, Bamberg County Coroner Billy Duncan said Saturday.

County Administrator Joey Preston said her death came as a shock. He said he knew shed been facing health issues but didnt realize the severity of them.

The state and Bamberg County have lost a great public servant, Preston said. She truly cared about the community.

A Bamberg County native, Robinson graduated from the former Richard Carroll High School.

From there, she earned a bachelors degree in social science from Claflin University. She then received a masters degree in social work from the University of South Carolina.

Last year, Robinson was inducted into the Claflin University Hall of Fame.

She served on Bamberg County Council for two decades, including holidng the position of chairwoman.

She was the first African-American female president of the South Carolina Association of Counties.

Robinson was also recipient of a Claflin College Presidential Citation from the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education.

Funeral plans will be announced by Carroll Mortuary of Bamberg. Friends may call at her residence.
COLUMBIA The South Carolina State Museum is proud to host the fourth annual Cinco de Mayo celebration to showcase Hispanic heritage and pride from 12  5 p.m. on Sunday, May 1. This event provides an opportunity for the community to come together to celebrate and recognize the Hispanic culture in South Carolina.

Guests will enjoy family fun featuring a variety of Latin American activities, including The Unbreakable Pinata, crafts, prizes and games like Juega de Lotena (Mexican Bingo). The event will also feature traditional Mexican dance performances by Compania de Danza Herencia Latina from Charlotte, N.C., and live music provided by Pachanga, a Latin American dance band from Hilton Head Island, S.C.

The Hispanic community is an important part of South Carolina and we look forward to recognizing and celebrating their traditions and contributions to our diverse society, said public programs manager Celeste Wszola. We are excited to bring South Carolinians a full day of family fun and cultural activities that celebrate Hispanic culture.

Authentic Mexican cuisine prepared by Cecilias Mexican Restaurant in Irmo, S.C., as well as beverages, will be available for purchase.

A fact that many people may find surprising is that Americans celebrate this Mexican holiday more widely than people do in Mexico. Cinco de Mayo means fifth of May in Spanish, and the holiday commemorates the events of May 5, 1862. It is not Mexican Independence Day, as many believe. Rather, on that day, the Mexican army, under the command of Gen. Ignacio Zaragoza Seguin, won a victory over the French at Puebla, despite overwhelming odds. This victory led to the expulsion of the French from Mexico five years later. Cinco de Mayo took off as an American holiday in the 1960s, when the holiday was promoted as a day to celebrate Americas own Latino community.

The Cinco de Mayo celebration at the museum falls on First Citizens First Sunday, which means general admission is only $1 thanks to First Citizens Bank. Cinco de Mayo activities are included with general admission or museum membership. There is an additional fee for food and beverages. Visit scmuseum.org or call 803-898-4999 to learn more.
A Realtors association representing The T&D Region has merged with a Columbia-based association.

The Southern Midlands Association of Realtors merged with the Central Carolina Realtors Association on March 31 in an effort to enlarge the scope and availability of the real estate services and product availability for buyers and sellers locally.

The region will now be named the Central Carolina Realtors Association. The merger was celebrated during an April 13 reception at the Orangeburg Country Club.

SMAR, which previously included Orangeburg, Bamberg, Calhoun and Clarendon counties, under the merger will also include Richland, Lexington, Newberry and Kershaw.

Vice President and Broker-in-Charge at Century 21 The Moore Group Jeannine Kees said the associations have discussed merging for several years before seriously considering doing so in November 2015.

County lines are obsolete in many ways, so it is better to work together, Kees said.

Former SMAR President Herb Bradley said the merger will give the Orangeburg area more exposure.

We are finding close to 90 percent of buyers are going to the internet first, Bradley said. I have been showing and selling homes in Columbia. With Columbia growing and the interstate expanding, I really see Orangeburg as becoming a bedroom community of Columbia.

Bradley, who will serve on the CCRA Board of Directors, said mergers are becoming more and more commonplace.

We are seeing this happen all across the country, Bradley said.

CCRA Chief Executive Officer Sharon Young said the increasing complexities of the real estate business have prompted mergers.

CCRA has staff that monitor legislative action and are in constant contact with elected officials regarding any proposed changes in financing, zoning, taxation, or other items that affect the ownership or transfer of real property, Young said. Members are made aware of proposed changes (good or bad) before the changes are in place.

The process has gotten much more complex because of legal issues, health issues and environmental issues, among others. Think mold, flood planes, encroachments and title problems, among others, Young said, adding that a larger association enables Realtors to keep abreast of changing trends and laws within the real estate business.

Kees said the SMAR board decided to merge due to increasing NAR standards, increasing costs to run an association, technological changes, increasing geographic boundaries for Realtors selling and buying property, and increasing options for buyers and sellers.

The merger will enable Realtors to have more services, education and information so they can better serve the public.

Kees said buyers will have access to more properties and agents to serve them and agents will be better educated and more professional.

Sellers in turn will have more exposure to their properties, more buyers and more agents to serve them, Kees said

The merger means SMAR will cease to exist. SMAR members will serve on CCRA committees.

The CCRA has a six-member executive board and a nine-member board of directors. The association has a four-member staff.

SMAR will maintain a presence on the CCRA website.

Prior to the merger, SMAR had 64 members and seven affiliates. With CCRA, this number is close to 1,500 members.

SMAR also brings a Multiple Listing Service to CCRA. CCRA had no MLS as the Consolidated MLS headquarted in Columbia is not affiliated with CCRA. Consolidated MLS is a separate business.

The merger enables local Realtors to have access to additional staff, including a governmental affairs director, expanded new membership orientation and a real estate school with more education and training.

The Orangeburg area will also host activities as part of the association.

Prior to the merger, SMAR was one of 15 Realtor associations in the state and this year observed its 54th year as a chartered local Realtors association.

The CCRA was founded as the Greater Columbia Association of Realtors on April 15, 1913, with 35 initial members.

Originally known as the Columbia Real Estate Exchange, it was accepted as a National Association of Realtors member board by NARs Board of Directors at its meeting in Winnipeg, Canada, on July 28, 1913.

At the same Winnipeg conference, Columbia was one of several association locations that offered to host the 1914 NAR annual meeting, along with New York City, St. Louis, Billings, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Tampa, Buffalo and Cincinnati.

In 1936 the board applied for NAR membership, changing the name to the Columbia Real Estate Board. Its membership application was approved by the board of directors on Nov. 16, 1936.

The board changed its name to the Columbia Board of Realtors in 1964, and to the Greater Columbia Board of Realtors in 1990. The association became the CCRA in 2008.
The dispute between Attorney General Alan Wilson and Special Prosecutor David Pascoe is a disagreement over the meaning of the phrase Attorney General in the state grand jury statute S.C. Code  14-7-1630 and 1650.

Pascoe reads the phrase to mean the constitutional and institutional powers of the Office of Attorney General, which Wilson designated Pascoe to exercise to investigate and prosecute cases spun off from the criminal probe and conviction of former Speaker Bobby Harrell.

Wilson thinks Attorney General means Wilson personally. He thinks he can designate certain powers of the Office of the Attorney General to Pascoe except the power under S.C. Code  14-7-1630(B) to sign off on a document to impanel a state grand jury.

The power of God is imminent but the power of a public official in a constitutional democracy is designated by constitutional and statutory laws and limited by laws. The power of Attorney General Wilson is restricted by the state grand jury statute and by the rules of professional conduct prohibiting attorneys to handle legal matters in which they have conflicts of interest.

Wilson did not explicitly tell Pascoe in Wilsons July 2015 letter designating Pascoe to take over the probe that Pascoe could not sign off on the state grand jury document. However, when Pascoe did sign off on the document, Wilson suddenly said that only Wilson personally could sign off. But Wilson did say publicly in both 2014 and 2015 that he had conflicts of interest in the Harrell and related matters and Wilson twice recused himself due to conflicts.

Wilsons interpretation of the state grand jury law to mean that only Wilson personally can sign off on the document to impanel the state grand jury seems arbitrary and without basis in the law. Why did Wilson think that he could delegate the authority and powers of the Office of the Attorney General to Pascoe to take over the probe and prosecutions except the power to sign off on the impaneling of the state grand jury?

The definitions portion of the state grand jury statute S.C. Code  14-7-1615(A) says the phrase Attorney General or his designee also includes: (1) the Attorney General or his designees; and (2) the Attorney General and his designee or designees  This definition would seem to mean that Pascoe has the same authority and powers as Wilson would have had to sign off on the state grand jury document.

The problem with the South Carolina Constitution Art. V,  24 and with  14-7-1630(B) is that the term Attorney General conflates the Office of the Attorney General, which is the source of all authority and powers, with the human being elected to administer the Office of the Attorney General. The phrase Attorney General has two different denotations, one for the office and the other for the officeholder.

The authority of the Office of the Attorney General is delegated to the human being called the attorney general, who by S.C.  14-7-1640(C) can recuse himself from a state grand jury investigation and prosecution and designate a prosecutor to assume his functions and duties pursuant to this article.

One such function and duty of officeholder Alan Wilson is provided by  14-7-1630(B), which says the Attorney General may notify in writing the chief administrative judge for the general sessions in the judicial circuit in which he seeks to impanel a state grand jury that a state grand jury investigation is being initiated.

Pascoe as the designee of Wilson did provide such notice, along with the chief of SLED, to the judge, Clifton Newman, who accepted the notice as compliant with 1630(B) and accepted Pascoe as exercising the powers of the Office of the Attorney General as the designee of the officeholder Alan Wilson.

Wilson had three reasonable choices under the statute:

1. Wilson could have allowed Pascoe to impanel the state grand jury as Wilsons designee.

2. Wilson could have added his signature to those of Pascoe, the chief of SLED and the judge.

3. Wilson could have moved a court under  14-7-1640(D) to disqualify Pascoe as the attorney general designee.

Instead, Wilson announced he was terminating Pascoe, although the State Grand Jury Statute does not authorize such termination. Pascoe has now asked the S.C. Supreme Court to decide whether he is still exercising the powers of the Office of Attorney General and whether the state grand jury should be authorized.

The most reasonable and practical solution would be for the Supreme Court to allow Pascoe to continue as special prosecutor and impanel the state grand jury. To turn the probe back to the admittedly conflicted Wilson would taint any indictments Wilson might obtain on grounds of prosecutorial misconduct and open Wilson to disqualification.

But if no indictments were produced, the people of South Carolina would suspect the fix was in. Even if Wilson tried to take over the probe and then tried to appoint a new special prosecutor, what solicitor would be foolish enough to accept the suicide mission given the way in which Wilson mistreated Pascoe?

The intent of the State Grand Jury Statute is to allow for the attorney general to recuse himself if he has conflict of interest. Laws should be interpreted to carry out the intent of the General Assembly and it would violate the law for Wilson to admit his conflicts and then go ahead and take over the same case in which he is conflicted.
Its an important Sunday inside the pages of The Times and Democrat. Today we celebrate industry with two special sections, one on The T&D Region as a whole and the other a special report from the Orangeburg County Development Commission.

The focus on industry comes as South Carolina observes Industry Appreciation Week, when the S.C. Department of Commerce highlights the importance of manufacturing to the states economy and recognizes leading contributors in each county. The ambassadors will be named later this week.

Writing in todays Industry Appreciation special section, S.C. Secretary of Commerce Bobby Hitt cites the states success in recruiting industry since 2011, a period that has been called a manufacturing renaissance. He says Gov. Nikki Haleys time in office has produced 550 economic development projects resulting in capital investments of $18 billion and creation of approximately 75,000 new jobs.

Thanks to ongoing efforts from the many invaluable members of our states economic development team  Team South Carolina  weve cultivated a positive business environment across the Palmetto State, ensuring that both our new and existing industries are in the best possible position to succeed, Hitt says.

Major successes include Boeing, Daimler and Volvo locating in the Charleston area. With the state becoming a hub for the aerospace and automotive industries, The T&D Region, particularly Orangeburg and Calhoun counties with easily accessible interstate industrial parks, is looking to join in the development bonanza.

Also writing in todays special section, Orangeburg County Development Commission Executive Director Gregg Robinson states:

Orangeburg County, for the first time in history, will have two major international auto manufacturers and an international U.S.-based aerospace giant less than an hours drive away. Proximity to Volvo, Daimler and Boeing makes Orangeburg an ideal location for supplier companies.

Recognizing this prime opportunity, the Orangeburg County Development Commission is working hard to attract automotive and aerospace suppliers. In partnership with the South Carolina Department of Commerce and Central SC Alliance, we recently have met with more than 10 new companies and well be meeting with many more in the days ahead. Were going after industry with high-quality jobs and its an exciting time.

There is reason to believe the county is setting the table for major success. It has prime industrial sites available in the Global Logistics Triangle, the area bordered by major thoroughfares Interstate 95, Interstates 26 and U.S. 301.

Robinson states: We also have eight strong industrial parks and a new 75,000-square-foot spec building under construction in the John W. Matthews Jr. Industrial Park. This spec building will give Orangeburg County an edge in attracting companies that need to get up and running quickly.

Detailed in todays special section are recent development successes for Orangeburg, Calhoun and Bamberg, including the location of aerospace suppliers Sigmatex, which has invested $12 million and created 50 jobs, and GKN Aerospace, which has invested more than $50 million and created 350 jobs.

Not to be forgotten is the impact that existing industries have locally. About 20 percent of Orangeburg Countys employed workforce is in manufacturing, the largest sector of the workforce. And local industries are not on idle.

The past year saw $97.7 million in capital investment announced and 164 net new manufacturing jobs in Orangeburg County, partly from existing industry growth.

Okonite and Bimbo Bakeries USA, as well as GKN Aerospace, announced major expansions. Additionally, Brazil-based Inbra Chemical Co. chose Orangeburg County for its first international expansion and entry into the North American market.

As Robinson states: These companies have not only brought jobs, but also great corporate leaders and fresh energy.

Industry Appreciation Week is a time to celebrate and time to offer appreciation for those who contribute much to the economic well being and quality of life in our locale. Our special sections are just one way of saying thank you as we look to have more progress to celebrate in the days, months and years ahead.
ZALYSHANY, Ukraine  Viktoria Vetrova knows the risk her four children take in drinking milk from the family's two cows and eating dried mushrooms and berries from the forest.

But the cash-strapped Ukrainian government canceled the local school lunch program for 350,000 children last year  the only source of clean food in this village near Chernobyl. So rural families are resorting to milk and produce from land still contaminated by fallout from the world's worst nuclear accident three decades ago. Vetrova's 8-year-old son Bogdan suffers from an enlarged thyroid, a condition which studies have linked to radioactivity.

"We are aware of the dangers, but what can we do?" said Vetrova, standing in her kitchen after pouring a glass of milk. "There is no other way to survive."

Vetrova's family and thousands of others are caught between the consequences of two disasters: the residue from Chernobyl and the recent plunge of Ukraine's economy.

After the April 26, 1986, explosion and fire, the most heavily affected areas in Ukraine were classified into four zones. Residents from three of them were evacuated or allowed to volunteer for resettlement. But the village of Zalyshany, 53 kilometers (32 miles) southwest of the destroyed reactor, is in the fourth zone  not contaminated enough for resettlement but eligible for subsidies to help with health issues.

Ukraine's Institute of Agricultural Radiology says the most recent testing in the zone showed radiation levels in wild-grown food such as nuts, berries and mushrooms were two to five times higher than what is considered safe.

However, Ukraine's economy has since been weakened by separatist war in its eastern industrial heartland, endemic corruption and the loss of Crimea, which was annexed by Russia. Last year, the Ukrainian government, which is propped up by billions of dollars in loans from the United States, the European Union and the World Bank, cut off paying for school lunches in Zone 4. There are no official cost figures, but a typical price of about 20 hryvnia (80 U.S. cents) would put the program's funding at about $50 million a year.

"Hot meals in the schools were the only clean food, which was tested for radiation, for the children," teacher Natalya Stepanchuk said. "Now the children have gone over to the local food, over which there is absolutely no control."

In 2012, the government halted the monitoring of radioactive contamination of food and soil in Zone 4, which was called the "zone of strict radio-ecological control." The state has also cancelled a program for buying Ferocin, known as Prussian Blue, a substance farmers could give their cattle to hasten the elimination of the cesium-137 isotope. Without financial help, farmers in the area are unwilling to buy it on their own.

"The government spends huge funds for the treatment of the local population, but cannot put out a little money on prevention," said Valery Kashparov, head of the Ukrainian Institute of Agricultural Radiology. "I am ashamed to look people in the eye."

In the view of Vitaly Petruk, head of the agency that administers the "exclusion zones" closest to the Chernobyl plant, the decision on the school lunches came down to how best to use limited funds.

"What is better: to give all the money to people who have radiation sickness and save them, or split the money ... and give each of them four hryvnia (15 cents)?" he asked. "The idea was to focus on certain things, rather than dissipate energy and waste money."

This calculation means that many in the village of about 350 people go without food. And beyond Zalyshany, there are some 1,300 settlements in the zone where the lunches were cancelled. Even when the lunches were available, children were likely eating contaminated food when out of school.

Nine-year-old Olesya Petrova's mother is sick with cancer and can no longer work. Olesya hungrily awaits the coming of warm weather, when she can scour the woodlands for berries and other goodies.

In the meantime, she can hope that one of her classmates will slip her a sandwich. But in economically depressed Zalyshany, such largesse is fitful.

The lunch cancellations did not affect kindergartens, such as the one that's in the same building as the local school. The kindergarten's cook, Lyubov Shevchuk, sometimes slips the older children a little something.

"Children faint and fall. I try to at least give them some hot tea, or take from one child to give to another," she said.

With no government agency taking responsibility for feeding the schoolchildren, it's left to warmhearted efforts like Shevchuk's or to charities. An Italian group, Mondo in Cammino, took notice of the Zone 4 lunch cancellations and raised money to supply the 130 pupils in one village, Radynka, with a year's lunches at a cost of 15,000 euros ($17,000).

"We know that Ukraine is near default. They decided that these families were no longer children of Chernobyl," said the organization's director, Massimo Bonfatti.

The overall effects of radioactive fallout remain intensely debated. A United Nations report concluded that the additional radioactivity over a 20-year period was approximately equivalent to that of a CAT scan, because of higher levels of the long-lived cesium-137. Ausrele Kesminiene, a doctor with the World Health Organization, said there is little evidence associating radioactivity-contaminated food with cancers other than in the thyroid.

But a review compiled by the Greenpeace environmentalist group and published in March found scientific studies indicating children in areas contaminated like Zalyshany show much-reduced respiratory capacity. A European Union-funded study tracking 4,000 children for three years in contaminated areas also found cardiovascular insufficiencies in 81 percent of the children.

Yuri Bandazhevsky, a pediatrician who has studied the effect of small doses of radiation on the human body, said there are "very serious pathological processes" which can lead to defects of the cardiovascular system and cancer. Bandazhevsky, whose work is widely cited abroad, was imprisoned in his native Belarus for four years. Supporters allege it was due to his work on studying Chernobyl's consequences; he now works in Ukraine.

"With regret I have to state that nobody cares about this, and those hungry children are another proof of how authorities treat a population which suffers on these territories," he said.

Nadezhda Ivanchenko, whose grandson was monitored in the European Union study, agreed that the government seems callous. She brought the 10-year-old boy for examination at the hospital in the district center of Ivankiv. He shows advanced sinus arrhythmia of the heart.

"People get sick a lot, but neither children nor anyone here are needed. We were thrown away and forgotten," she said.

Olesya, the 9-year-old who now often has to go without lunch, wants to eventually become a doctor, so she can "treat everybody for radiation." But for right now, her desire is to fill her stomach with treats foraged from the woods.

"In the forest, you don't need money," she said. "There's all kinds of food that can feed everyone."

___

Associated Press writers Jim Heintz in Moscow and Colleen Barry in Milan, Italy, contributed to this story.
Candidates for Orangeburg County sheriff and S.C. House District 95 sought support Saturday at the annual Democratic Breakfast held at historic Trinity United Methodist Church.

Sheriff Leroy Ravenell said he is not a politician but an elected official.

People really dont have to let you serve. For the past five years, you let me serve and Im very appreciative for that. I dont take it for granted, Ravenell said.

For me, being your sheriff, you have representation all over this country, he said.

Ravenell said he is one of 17 sheriffs from among 3,085 in the nation to serve on the domestic violence committee for the National Sheriffs Association. He was recently selected to speak on the issue at a press conference by S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley.

For the past five years, weve been working for you. A lot of things that weve done here in Orangeburg County have been firsts. Im proud of that  not because of Leroy Ravenell, but because of the people that Leroy Ravenell has employed, he said.

Ravenell said he and Orangeburg County Council have a good relationship.

We butt heads. We fight, but when we come from behind closed doors, we leave that inside because we know that were fighting for the people of Orangeburg County, he said.

My job is to serve everybody in the county, and I try to do that to the best of my ability, Ravenell said.

Sheriff candidate Kenneth Mac McCaster said the June primary is about change, services and the people of Orangeburg County.

Its a choice. If you choose Sheriff Ravenell, so be it. If you choose Mr. Johnson, so be it. Its not a war, folks, McCaster said.

We dont have to be nasty. We dont have to be mean, and we dont have to be personal, he said.

The reason I decided to run is because of the rural people out in places like Eutawville, Springfield, Woodford and Limestone  places youve never heard of, McCaster said.

Decentralizing the sheriffs office is one of McCasters goals.

I want to live to see a day when the county building moves out of Orangeburg where we can get the services to the people, he said. Theres elderly people that cant get these services.

McCaster said his opponents, Ravenell and Darnell Bubba Johnson, are good people.

You are so lucky to have three good candidates, but some of you think its a war, but its not a war, he said.

McCaster addressed what he said are rumors that he would give County Council a hard time if hes elected sheriff.

I cant force County Council to do nothing. These are good people, but they will know where I stand. I will beg, plead and write letters, he said.

McCaster said no matter what decision voters make among the three candidates, hell be all right.

I aint going nowhere. I aint going no place. I want your prayers, wishes and I will continue to be involved in the Democratic Party, he said.

McCaster said even if he doesnt get votes, he would still like support.

The election process is just what it is  a process. There is no hate here at all, whatsoever. Its just a choice, he said.

McCaster stressed the importance of voting.

I would rather you vote for my opponent than not to vote. Its very important that we remain strong as a Democratic Party and vote and vote in numbers, he said.

Sheriff candidate Darnell Bubba Johnson was in attendance but had to leave early for a prior engagement.

Rep. Jerry Govan and Kevin Ray are vying for the House 95 seat.

Govan said Orangeburg County has nurtured and grown some of the strongest advocates, not just for Democrats, but for working-class people.

I stand here on my record as a true Democrat. Ive been a Democrat all my life. I worked for Democratic candidates a long time before I ever thought about running for political office, Govan said.

The work weve done should speak for us, he said.

What youve done should represent what youre going to do, Govan said.

Govan said he is proud of his track record, which includes placing sewer service all over Orangeburg and serving as coordinator of the Peoples Assault on Drugs.

John Rickenbacker (now field representative for Congressman Jim Clyburn) and I walked these streets in terms of trying to eradicate drugs and crime from the neighborhood. I didnt have the title representative. I just had the desire and a servants heart to do the right thing and serve the community where I grew up, he said.

Govan highlighted creating a special tax district for street lighting.

I dont care what you hear. Im one of the most successful Democrats  black or white  to have legislation pass before the General Assembly, he said.

Govan cited success in creating the state agency to combat abuse of alcohol and drugs, passing legislation to provide pediatric care in trauma centers and introducing the financial literacy law.

In terms of effectiveness, you dont get elected as chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus unless youre effective, he said.

Govan noted he has 12 years of service on the House Judiciary Committee and is a member of the House Education Committee. He was appointed by the speaker of the House to the task force to study education reform in the wake of a lawsuit by rural districts against the state.

You dont get recognized by every educational entity in the state  SCASA, school boards, NEA and SEA  as Legislator of the Year unless you know what youre talking about and effective, he said.

Govan said he loves Gods people, children and community.

Lets get the job done because we need to be focusing on November and not get Trumped, he said.

Kevin Ray, an Orangeburg podiatrist seeking the House seat, said competition is vitally important for a community.

Theres so much potential here in Orangeburg, and with the right leadership and mentorship, Orangeburg can be really, really great, Ray said. Were already great, but I believe we can be greater.

Competition mandates that I step my game up, he said. We need to keep energy and enthusiasm in all of our elected officials.

Ray said he decided to run for the House District 95 seat because he was constantly hearing that some of the lawmakers in Columbia take Orangeburg County for granted.

They didnt give us the kind of respect that I feel we deserve, he said.

Ray said he researched each of Orangeburg Countys elected officials records.

When I did that research, I said to myself, Kevin, the way that you work is that if you want change, youve got to be the start of that change,he said.

I respect the shoulders of the men and women that we stand on here in the Democratic Party, Ray said.

He argued that the struggle is exactly the same, but the fight is different.

Were running our campaign on creating relationships so that we can get our fair share here in Orangeburg, Ray said.

He urged everyone to think about what theyve seen in House District 95.

Ray said he believes Govan was on fire when he was the chair of the Legislative Black Caucus and forming several committees, but somewhere along the line, Govans fire just stopped burning.

On June 15, when this has concluded and the votes are in, whether its myself or Rep. Govan, that fires going to be hot, Ray said.

Were not arguing. Were not fighting. This is about District 95. Its not about Jerry Govan. Its not about Kevin Ray. Its about the voters and the constituency of District 95, he said.

The podiatrist said everyone wants the same things, but the only way to get them is if everyone works together.

Were going to light a fire under somebodys butt to do what needs to be done, Ray said.

Orangeburg County Democratic Chairwoman Betty Henderson said Orangeburg Countys Democratic Party continues to be the model for South Carolina.

Its very important that we get everybody registered. Everyone needs to have a registration card, Henderson said.

The S.C. Democratic Convention will be held April 30 at 9 a.m. at the Columbia Convention Center.
DENMARK -- Residents at a July 2015 meeting cited a new state-of-the art hospital, industrial growth and enhancement of workforce-training programs as priorities as the community pursues federal dollars.

"This is not a pot of money out there waiting for us to go pick up," Andy Brack, president of the non-partisan Center for a Better South told 50 to 75 individuals gathered at the Massachusetts Hall on the Voorhees College campus to hear about the region's newly acquired federal Promise Zone designation and how to reap the benefits from the designation. "It is a potential pot of money waiting for us to go and pick up but we got to work to get it."

Promise Zones are high-poverty communities where the federal government partners with local leaders to increase economic activity, improve educational opportunities, leverage private investment, reduce violent crime, enhance public health and address other priorities identified by the community.

The area, including Bamberg County, will be eligible to apply for and receive federal grant monies over the next decade. The amount of money available for the region and the extent of the local match depend on the agency and the type of program, Brack said.

Counties designated as a Promise Zone and eligible for federal dollars include Bamberg, Allendale, Barnwell, Hampton and Jasper counties.

Brack said the Promise Zone counties have a poverty rate of 28.2 percent and with the Promise Zone designation will receive "extra credit" when applying for federal grants.

Currently there are 12 federal agencies from housing to rural initiatives, transportation and justice, and 37 different programs, for which application can be made for grants, Brack said.

The implementation of the grant process is federally led by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and locally by the non-profit economic development group SouthernCarolina Alliance.

Attendees were also asked where they would like to see Bamberg County in the next 20 years. Desires expressed included more industries and amenities for all ages, commuter rail service from Denmark to Charleston, high-speed Internet for all, improved housing availability and revitalization of downtown areas.

Bamberg County Economic Development Commission board member Robert Chatman said one of the key reasons for lack of progress is a prevailing mindset.
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Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon made a phone call to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev on April 23.

The UN Secretary-General expressed regret that he could not attend the 7th Global Forum of the UN Alliance of Civilizations to be held in Baku due to some global problems, wished success to the Forum, and said he was looking forward to addressing the event through video conference.

President Ilham Aliyev thanked for the phone call, and expressed the country`s satisfaction over successive cooperation with the UN.

During the phone call, the issues over current situation in the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict were discussed.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Syrian refugees on Saturday in Turkey's southeastern province of Gaziantep's Nizip district, Anadolu reported.

EU Council President Donald Tusk and First Vice-President of EU Commission Frans Timmermans were also present.

Merkel said on Wednesday that her visit to Turkey was aimed at gaining new insights into the living conditions of Syrian refugees and identifying their needs.

She added: "I will travel to Gaziantep together with European Council President Donald Tusk and EU Commission Vice-President Mr. Timmermans to see the situation on the ground.

Referring to the EU-funded humanitarian projects for refugees who escaped from civil war in neighboring Syria, she said: "There, we are having first projects for the refugees and we would like to listen to them about their needs."

"We would like to gain insights into the practical conditions, we would like to figure out which steps should be taken to speed up the implementation."

The EU and Turkey agreed on an action plan late last year, to improve conditions of Syrian refugees in Turkey and to strengthen the fight against human smugglers operating in the Aegean Sea.

The leaders visited a preschool at Nizip Temporary Shelter Center where more than 4,800 Syrian refugees currently stay.

Students greeted Merkel in Turkish saying, "Welcome, how are you?" Merkel received information from camp officials about the students and life in camp. During the visit, Davutoglu informed Merkel in English.

While the leaders were living the camp, several Syrian children chanted "Syria-Turkey is together" in Arabic. The leaders then visited containers where refugees stay. One of the refugees said: "May Allah give strength to President Erdogan".

Turkey hosts the largest number of Syrian refugees in the world, with over 2.5 million Syrians inside the country.

Davutoglu's wife Sare Davutoglu, Deputy PM Mehmet Simsek, EU Minister and top negotiator Volkan Bozkir, Deputy PM Yalcin Akdogan, Minister of Interior Affairs Efkan Ala and Gaziantep Mayor Fatma Sahin were also present during the visit.
Iran and China are expected to sign a document on cooperation for redesigning Arak heavy water reactor within the next couple of months, Iranian atomic spokesperson said.

Atomic Energy Organization of Iran's Spokesman Behrooz Kamalvandi has said that Tehran selected China for cooperation in Arak due to political reasons, Fars news agency reported.

Elaborating on the reasons for selecting China, Kamalvandi said that Beijing is more independent and it is unlikely to be impacted by the Westerners.

Explaining about technical procedure for the reconfiguration of Arak heavy water reactor, he said that Iran will redesign the facility and China will confirm the plan.

Director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Aliakbar Salehi in February said that Iranian experts, with the contribution of foreign companies, will redesign controversial Arak nuclear facility.

Earlier in January, Iran removed the core of the Arak heavy-water nuclear reactor and filled it with cement as agreed under a nuclear deal between Tehran and the world's major powers.

Under the terms of the deal, Iran agreed that the heavy-water reactor would be reconfigured so it will be incapable of yielding material for a nuclear weapon.

According to the landmark nuclear deal clinched in July 2015, removing the core of the heavy water reactor to produce less plutonium was a crucial step before Iran's relief from economic sanctions agreed under the deal.

After a number of nuclear talks between Tehran and the P5+1 group of countries, the EU High Representative Federica Mogherini and Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif announced Jan. 16 about the implementation of the JCPOA, aka nuclear deal, and the removal of economic sanctions on Iran.
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.
UAE-based Danube Properties said it has awarded the main contract for its Dh350-million ($95.2 million) Glitz 3 residential development in Dubai, UAE, to Naresco Contracting.



Located in Dubai Studio City, the project will offer a unique luxury lifestyle that today's young urban family expects in a green landscaped environment, said a statement from the developer.



Glitz Residence 3 has been designed keeping in mind the lifestyle comforts and contemporary convenience and is expected to be completed by end of 2017, it stated.



Rizwan Sajan, the founder and group chairman, said: "The completion of a construction project in a timely manner is often a critical factor and measure of its success. When delays occur on construction projects, they can have serious consequences."



"Hence, we emphasise on a thorough understanding of project objectives and maintain a continuous flow of informational updates to all levels of the project team and other stakeholders so that everybody aligns themselves towards those objectives," he added.



On the new contract, Sajan said: "Naresco has a proven track record and we are proud of their third win, as the last two projects which were awarded to the company are way ahead of their schedule."



Abdul Karim Al Arif, the general manager, Naresco Contracting, said: "This is a huge win for Naresco as it reinforces our commitment towards delivering quality and value in a fixed timeframe."



"Danube has put in a stringent evaluation and selection process; in the end to satisfy them on all levels just makes this win even sweeter and is in line with our projected growth," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
More than 150 experts from the district cooling sector called for establishment of a sustainable and renewable cooling infrastructure at a key industry summit in Dubai, UAE.



The fourth annual district cooling (DC) stakeholders summit was held at the Sheraton Dubai Creek Hotel and Towers, Dubai.



The annual gathering of elite panellists and solution providers from across multiple sectors kicked off with an opening address from Dr Matar Hamed Al Neyadi, the undersecretary at the UAE Ministry of Energy.



The summit, which was hosted by top events organisation Fleming, was witness to several interactive discussions and reviews involving C-level officials and solution providers from across regions.



On the opening day, George Berbari, the chief executive of DC Pro Engineering, UAE, held a keynote presentation on 'The transition from traditional electric cooling to renewable district cooling in UAE' followed by Fatima Al Foora Al Shamsi, the assistant undersecretary (Electricity  Clean Energy and Desalinated Water Affairs) at the UAE Ministry of Energy, who spoke on 'Regulatory Perspectives: The Way Ahead' besides a presentation by Ali Alsuwaidi, Mefma  board member, executive director, Ejadah  Dubai Properties.



The day concluded with, the speakers and officials engaging themselves for a 'DC Round Table Discussion', which discussed about 'The Renewable Energy Aspects', 'The Regulatory Aspects', 'The need for effective energy efficiency'.



The summit also witnessed presentations from the UAE Ministry of Energy, Dubai Municipality, DC Pro Engineering, Emirates Green Building Council, Supreme Council of Energy, Ejadah - Dubai Properties, and the Public Work Authority - Qatar.



Day Two witnessed a wide range of expert discussions on key topcis such as 'Renewable Energy for a smart choice', 'Technology for the next level' and 'DC with Trigeneration  The Future?'.



These beneficial discussions summed up the summit, and paved a clear way to ensure that the district cooling market in the UAE will be clear of obstacles that hinder its growth, said the organisers.



The summit helped create better - and possibly the best - opportunities for the market to bloom in its current form, it added.



Leading players in the region including Emirates GBC, Johnson Controls, RSS, Ramboll, Lakos, AuCom, IGEL Electric, Greenergy, SWEP, Watco Group, Kelvion, +GF+, Hepworth, Hamon Cooling Tower Company, Frost & Sullivan, Rohr Rein Chemie, Alfa Laval, Aggreko, Ion Exchange and Tasleem Metering and Payment Collection took part.-TradeArabia News Service




GEMS Education has launched the Arab Innovation Centre for Education (AICE) Accelerator programme, an initiative supporting school students in the UAE in their efforts to create their own start-ups.



The programme, which is the first of its kind in the region, will provide select start-ups with mentorship, training, grant fund and opportunity for pitching and networking with business leaders and investors.



Dino Varkey, group executive director and board member of GEMS Education said: The launch of the first programme under the Arab Innovation Centre for Education has marked a great milestone in support of the UAE Leaderships ambitious vision to contribute to the development and nurturing of entrepreneurial spirit in the region. As GEMS, we are proud to support this vision by helping to grow generations of problem-solvers, thinkers and doers, creating positive value in society.



There are 10 teams participating in the first round of this initiative. The teams have been diligently assessed and shortlisted from over 700 applicants based on innovation and commercial feasibility of their ideas, among other criteria. Each team has been paired with a mentor, who are accomplished individuals from various industries and the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem.



Besides mentor sessions, all teams were a part of an intensive day long training bootcamp that took place last week, where they received training and participated in workshops covering 21st century skills, business modelling and planning, design thinking, user experience and how to pitch to investors.



Their training will culminate in a Demo Day, where each team will get 10 minutes to pitch to and interact with leaders and investors in the region, including Leaders from GEMS Education, the Prime Ministers Office, various incubators and venture capital firms and various industries. The Demo Day will be on April 26 at GEMS Wellington Academy in Silicon Oasis.



The programme will end with the GEMS Innovation Awards Ceremony on May 3, 2016 at GEMS Wellington International School, Sheikh Zayed Road; where awards and merits will be distributed to the winning teams from the GEMS Maker Day and Ibdaa Week of Innovation. The winner of the Accelerator Programme will receive the Sunny Varkey Entrepreneur of the Year award, which includes financial support and business mentoring to accelerate their ideas into realisation.



The young entrepreneurs hail from different schools, including Cambridge International School Dubai, GEMS International School Al Khail, GEMS Modern Academy, GEMS World Academy, Our Own English High School Al Ain, Our Own English High School Fujairah, The Millennium School and The Winchester School Jebel Ali.



GEMS Education conceived and launched the AICE to provide a platform and build an ecosystem to promote, foster and practise research, innovation and entrepreneurship. It provides and supports open innovation, collaboration and access to national and regional talent to create solutions, nurture entrepreneurs and build a robust think-tank community.



With AICE, we truly hope to support the innovation and creativity that can be found in our young people. We believe that these are important talents that need to be nurtured so that they are able to be even more successful in their future lives, Varkey concluded.  TradeArabia News Service
Bahrain joined 174 countries in signing the historic Paris Agreement, the first global deal on climate change, at the UN headquarters in New York on Friday.

The Paris Agreement will remain open for signatures for one year, until April 21, 2017. It will enter into force only after 55 countries representing 55 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions ratify the agreement.



UN climate negotiators will meet next month in Bonn, Germany to start laying the groundwork for operationalising the agreement.



The Paris Agreement includes a commitment to keep global warming to 1.5 Celsius. It is vital that countries remain focused on this goal and immediately increase their national efforts to achieve it, along with working to get the deal to enter into force, said experts.



"We heard yesterday that governments will move swiftly to get the Paris Agreement in place, and thats good," stated Samantha Smith, leader of WWFs Global Climate and Energy Initiative.



"However, far more still needs to be done. Countries need to take immediate, scaled-up and collaborative action at home on renewable energy, forests and finance to avoid the very worst impacts of climate change,"

she added.



While the signing of the Paris Agreement makes history as an important step in global climate efforts, planetary temperatures and climate impacts are making history as well, said the experts.



Last month recorded the warmest March ever, following 11 straight months of record temperatures. One of the worst droughts ever has hit eastern and southern Africa, 93 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef has been impacted by coral bleaching, and Greenlands ice sheet is undergoing dramatic, early season melting.



Our political leaders agreed in Paris to try to keep global warming under 1.5 Celsius above pre-industrial times. This is not just a number  its the difference between safety and crisis for many, particularly the most vulnerable, remarked Smith.



We must continue to see evidence of stronger national ambition and action if the Paris Agreement is to be more than words and signatures on paper, noted Smith.



According to her, the world leaders speaking in New York were united in their acknowledgement of the urgency to act on climate change, calling for scaled up actions and saying political will was never stronger.

Leaders also committed to speedy national processes to ratify or approve the agreement.



"We would be pleased to see the Paris Agreement entering into force early, however this is only one part of the picture. It is even more important for countries, including the UAE, to do more nationally to increase ambition, scale up their targets before 2020 and beyond and continue to use more renewable energy," said Tanzeed Alam, the climate and energy director at Emirates Wildlife Society in association with WWF.



"New research shows that without this, we will blow past the upper limit of 1.5 C warming, and probably also 2 C," added Alam.-TradeArabia News Service
Abu Dhabi Ship Building (ADSB), a provider of construction, repair and refit services for naval, military and commercial boats, posted a consolidated revenue of Dh791 million ($215.3 million) for 2015.



Its net profit rose to Dh87 million ($23.69 million) for the year, said a statement from ADSB.



The announcement was made during the companys Annual General Meeting held in Abu Dhabi, UAE, last week, it stated.



In addition, members of the general assembly approved the distribution of the cash dividends amounting to Dh21.1 million ($5.7 million) for the financial year ended December 31, 2015, it said.



In 2015 ADSB continued to bring more focus towards growing its service offering for clients. In line with this effort, the company is now focused on setting up a Floating Dock facility in Mina Zayed, introducing Through Life Capability Management (TLCM) service contracts with UAE Naval Forces, CICPA and other GCC Navies and expanding long-term service contracts with local and international commercial customers, it added.



To complement its core service offering, the company will continue to diversify through investment in two wholly owned subsidiaries frontiers, which specialises in the management and integration of combat systems, and Safwa Marine which specialises in sales, servicing, refits, charter, brokerage and management of luxury and super yachts, said the statement.



The company also has a commitment to develop the next generation of Emirati leaders and offers talented UAE nationals access to a work environment with top of the line training programmes and consistently challenging yet rewarding projects to help them become the business leaders of tomorrow.



In line with the companys agenda of Emiratisation, ADSB appointed four UAE nationals to director positions to lead the Baynunah Corvettes Development Program, the Naval Support Services (NSS) division, the Arialah Project and Kuwait LandingCraft project, added the statement.



Dr Khaled Al Mazrouei, CEO, ADSB, said: The success we had in 2015 is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our team as we continue to work towards delivering on our vision of becoming the premier shipbuilder and service provider in the region.



Through major contract wins and completion of key build and refit projects, we are committed to supporting our regional partners and will continue delivering contracts while focusing on expanding our capabilities and offering in 2016, he added.  TradeArabia News Service
US President Barack Obama is set to visit Hanover, Germany on Sunday to hold talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, one of his closest allies in dealing with a shaky global economy and security crises in the Middle East and Ukraine.



It will be the last stop on a six-day foreign journey where Obama has sought to shore up US alliances he views as key to grow trade, defeat Islamic State militants, and offset Russian aggression in Ukraine and Syria.



Obama, who is in the last nine months of his presidential term, spent three days in London where he urged Britons to remain part of the European Union in a June referendum, a vote that could send shockwaves through the economy.



Earlier in the week, he met with Gulf leaders in Riyadh to try to allay fears that Washington had become less committed to their security.



In Hanover, he will tour and speak at a massive industrial trade fair with Merkel. The leaders want to breathe life into a US-European free trade agreement which supporters say could boost each economy by some $100 billion.



Their push comes at a time when many Europeans and Americans alike are deeply suspicious the deal could cost jobs and affect standards.



"But time is not on anyone's side at the moment," said Heather Conley, a former State Department official in the George W. Bush administration, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington.



Leaders are trying to wrap up complex talks on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) before Obama, a Democrat, leaves office on Jan. 20.



Getting a sign-off from the Republican-controlled US Congress in the heat of an election campaign will be a tall order. Obama has yet to secure approval for the sweeping Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, which is at a much more advanced stage.



"Getting trade deals done is tough, because each country has its own parochial interests and factions. And in order to get a trade deal done, each country has to give something up," Obama said at a London event on Saturday.



In Hanover, thousands of protesters holding placards with slogans like "Stop TTIP" marched on Saturday to express their opposition to the deal.



Before Obama returns to Washington late Monday, he and Merkel will get together with Cameron, French President Francois Hollande, and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to talk about beefing up intelligence sharing after recent attacks in France and Belgium.



The leaders are set to talk about how best to find a political settlement in Syria. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled the war-torn region for Europe, where countries have grappled with the flood of refugees.  Reuters
Yemeni and Emirati troops on Sunday plunged into the southern port city of Mukalla, residents said, entering a stronghold of the Yemeni wing of al Qaeda for the first time in over a year of war.



"Coalition armoured vehicles and the army entered Mukalla and al Qaeda fighters are departing," said one resident, who declined to be named for security reasons.-Reuters
At least 13 people were killed in a blast at a major petrochemical plant of Mexican oil company Pemex, its chief executive said on Thursday, in the latest deadly accident to hit the oil producer.



The explosion, which sent a huge, dark plume of smoke billowing upwards just after 3 pm (2000 GMT) on Wednesday at the facility's chlorinate 3 plant in the Gulf state of Veracruz, injured 136 people.



Gonzalez, who traveled to the site of the blast, near the port of Coatzacoalcos, one of Pemex's top oil export hubs, told local television that the death toll could rise. He said it was unclear what caused the leak that prompted the blast.



The explosion was the latest in a string of safety disasters that have plagued the state oil giant, which has vowed cost cuts to cope with the rout in oil prices.



In 2013, at least 37 people were killed by a blast at its Mexico City headquarters, and 26 people died in a fire at a Pemex natural gas facility in northern Mexico in September 2012.



A 2015 fire at its Abkatun Permanente platform in the oil-rich Bay of Campeche affected oil output and cost the company up to $780 million. - Reuters
Reliance Industries, India's biggest oil refiner, said it is looking to buy more crude from Iran as the company seeks to rebuild ties to benefit from shorter shipping distances.



The company had made small purchases from Iran in the current quarter and was currently engaged in talks for bigger supplies, indicating that it could also get into a long-term supply contract, said V Srikanth, Reliance's joint chief financial officer.



"We have had engagements with Iran before the sanctions and they have grades of crude that are attractive to us from where we are," Srikanth said at a news conference on Friday.



India is set to import at least 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian oil in the year from April 1, with refiners looking to ramp up purchases after the sanctions targeting Tehran ended in January, sources had told Reuters.



Iran was India's second biggest oil supplier before economic sanctions aimed at Iran's nuclear programme hampered its trade relations. Now, Indian buyers are being drawn back to Iran in part by freight discounts that increase as more barrels are purchased.



The comments came as Reliance posted its biggest quarterly profit in over eight years on better margins in the company's core refining and petrochemical business.



Reliance, controlled by India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, reported an estimate-topping net profit of 73.98 billion rupees ($1.11 billion) for the Jan-March period -- its highest quarterly profit since December 2007.



The gross refining margin on each barrel of crude processed was $10.80 a barrel, up from $10.1 per barrel a year ago, Reliance said.



Srikanth said the company will be able to sustain margins at above $10 -- one of the highest among global refiners -- in the current financial year.



NEW VENTURES



Reliance, which still gets 95 per cent of its profit from oil and petrochemicals, has been aggressively spending in recent years, making forays into retail and telecom and last month launched an e-commerce company.



Reliance's Jio telecom business is expected to roll out the country's largest 4G mobile network when it launches later this year.



The company said it has already spent 1.2 trillion rupees towards setting up a pan-India telecom network and will be spending another 300 billion rupees.



Anshuman Thakur, head of strategy at Reliance Jio said the company will expand its internal customer base for Jio's telecom service to 2 million people from the current half a million people and will launch full service by the end of the year.



The company launched its telecom service for employees and business partners in December but has so far shied away from disclosing a date of a commercial launch which has been delayed for over a year.  Reuters
Visitors to the new Ramada City Center Bahrain will see unique artwoks displayed at the hotel which have been designed by Artasa.



Artasa, the French Art design company, has created impressive paintings for the new Ramada City Center Hotel at Manama.



Riadh Sifaoui, art director at Artasa, said: "Because we nurture the ambition of creating genuine Signature Interiors, we have designed our Islamic Art collections to offer suppleness and richness to our customers. Thanks to this, the interior designer of the project Sue Henson has had the opportunity to customise all the artworks of the Ramada City Center Bahrain hotel.



Sue Henson, design director at Summit Interior Design, said: I was introduced to Artasa artwork at the Dubai Hotel Show in 2014, and was determined to involve them for the new Ramada City Centre Hotel in Bahrain. We specified three different styles of artwork for the project: handmade paintings showing old mosques in a contemporary way, art pieces showing traditional geometric patterns highlighted with colors and contemporary finishes, and 3D ceramics painted and delicately gilded by hand. I particularly liked the contemporary colored Islamic geometric patterns which we used through the corridors to the hotel guest rooms. Since we had designed three different colour pallets for the corridors to define the smoking, non smoking and executive floors, I thought it would be complexe to communicate and develop the range of colours required within each artwork to match the various schemes. However working with Artasa was very easy, they developed the colour pallets for the islamic patterns perfectly and the communication was quick and very professional. We will definitely be specifying Artasa products in our future projects. - TradeArabia News Service


The original German Restaurant Brauhaus at Beach Rotana Abu Dhabi, has announced the arrival of Pedro Kimmig as its new specialty outlet chef.

Kimmig, originally from Nuremberg, Germany has worked in many restaurants throughout the country before exploring the world, including a one-star Michelin restaurant in Cologne. In 2008 he moved to Seoul to work for an Austrian and a German restaurant in the South Korean capital, before relocating to Abu Dhabi as sous chef in 2013.



With experience in high class cuisines and knowing the environment of working in German restaurants in foreign countries, Kimmig brings with him great knowledge.



Kimmig said: I am excited to have joined such a great team at Brauhaus. I have always liked the restaurant for its great atmosphere and service. I see a lot of potential in this busy and popular place and I am looking forward to bringing my favorite dishes from home to it. My goal is to make Brauhaus, the best German restaurant in the UAE. - TradeArabia News Service
Etihad Airways will reveal an exclusive trailer of its virtual reality film starring Academy Award winning actress Nicole Kidman at the Arabian Travel Market (ATM), which will be held in Dubai from April 25 to 28.



The innovative fully-immersive film, which marks the first time a Hollywood actor has starred in a virtual reality film, is a major accomplishment for the airline, and will allow viewers to experience its revolutionary Airbus A380, which includes The Residence - the airlines ultra-luxurious and private three-room suite.



Visitors to Etihad Airways impressive stand at ATM will be able to enjoy the trailer using Google Cardboard technology and Samsung Gear headsets.



Peter Baumgartner, Etihad Airways chief commercial officer, said: This years Arabian Travel Market will be yet another great opportunity for Etihad Airways to showcase to a global audience how we continue to redefine travel. The VR film is the latest example of Etihad Airways on-going commitment to adopting cutting-edge digital technologies to reimagine the way we engage with our guests and how we communicate our innovations.



Our talented commercial team managers and representatives are looking forward to welcoming visitors from around the world to Etihads interactive ATM stand to share with them our latest developments.



Etihad Airways has also recently launched a new mobile app which empowers guests by providing them with greater control over their booking and travel experience, including how they prefer to interact with the airline. Guests can use the app to organise and manage their journey with even greater ease, including booking flights, check-in, viewing the status of their flight and even navigating their way around Abu Dhabi International Airport, using indoor maps - a first in the Middle East.



A live stream will be broadcast for the duration of the entire ATM event to ensure that guests receive breaking flight and holiday offers and instant access to extended interviews with the airlines senior executives. Guests and viewers alike will also be able to watch Etihad Airways acclaimed Inflight Chefs in action as they prepare world-class cuisine in live cooking demonstrations.



Etihad Airways Partners will also take part in the event, demonstrating how the group of like-minded airlines offer air travellers more choice through improved networks and schedules and enhanced frequent flyer benefits.



Etihad Airways will be represented at the UAE section of ATM, at stand number ME2310 in the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Center. - TradeArabia News Service
Sabre Corporation, a leading global technology provider to the travel and tourism industry, is all geared up for its return to Arabian Travel Market (ATM) this year with a focus on online travel in the Middle East.



Executive speakers from the technology company will discuss industry challenges and latest technology trends in travel and hospitality  including the great growth of online travel in the region, and the evolution of loyalty schemes.



Sabre will be participating for the second consecutive year at ATM, the region's leading global event for the inbound and outbound travel which will take place in Dubai from April 25 to 28.



Sabre has also lined up other exclusive insights on the travel industry at the Showcase Theatre including:



Go Online, or Go Home: Antonella Vecchio, vice president, Online and Land & Sea, Sabre Travel Network, EMEA - April 26, 15:45  16:15: Vecchio will address the growth and potential Sabre sees in the Middle East online travel market, and will clearly state how travel companies should embrace online and mobile strategy now in order to compete in fast evolving market place. With nine out of 10 of the top global online travel agencies (OTAs) choosing to partner with Sabre, Antonella will explain how Sabre can help the travel agencies in Middle East catch-up with this trend.

We have the right equation to guide our customers to embrace technology and enter the digital world, Vecchio said. Travel companies and OTAs need to differentiate their businesses and create new revenue opportunities. Recent Expedia research found that the average person visits 38 websites before booking travel, proving that OTAs really need to drive greater traveller loyalty and keep consumers on their site for longer periods. Technology is the key to differentiating OTAs services and providing a competitive edge. Considering mobile and providing travellers an easy and more individual shopping experience will transform the travel experience and drive greater loyalty and business results to online players.

Tomorrowland: Joakim Everstin, head of innovation and tech evangelist, Sabre Travel Network  EMEA - April 25, 14:15  14:45: From virtual reality to hotels run by robots, Everstin will give a sneak peek in the travel experience nine years into the future through his session, Tomorrowland. Sabre will also be showcasing some of the hottest innovations in travel today, including mobile apps and demonstrating latest technology gadgets that Sabre is testing for the future, such as new personalisation capabilities, wearable devices and apps. Everstin will host a daily session titled Touch the Technology from 12:00-12:30 at the Sabre stand.

Loyalty and the Modern Hospitality Brand: Sarah Kennedy Ellis, vice president, Global Marketing, Sabre Hospitality Solutions - April 26, 13:30  14:00: Ellis will be talking about how technology can help hoteliers deliver distinct and reliable guest experiences that will ensure their customers keep coming back.

Hotel Retailing Trends: Olaf Slater, chief product officer, Trust International Hotel Reservation Services - April 27, 13:30  14:00: Emerging consumer technologies and the latest mobile functionalities are facilitating improved customer engagement. Paired with the new distribution capabilities available to suppliers, consumer retailing in travel is about to be transformed.

Sabre will be exhibiting at stand # TT1550- at hall 3 by the entrance to Shaikh Saeed in the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre. - TradeArabia News Service
The developer of a proposed coal mine in Sheridan County says the planned project is being held ransom by a mining firm and ranch that control surface rights in the area.

Those remarks, delivered by Ramaco LLC CEO Randy Atkins in an interview Friday, are part of an escalating dispute between the Kentucky-based firm, Lighthouse Resources Inc., and the Padlock Ranch over Ramacos plans to open a mine between Sheridan and Ranchester. The debate stands in stark contrast to the fortunes of many of Wyomings coal companies which have slashed production in recent months.

Much of the disagreement centers over who has the right to operate on the property, which is made up of state and private lands. Ramaco contends a 1954 deed gives it the mineral rights to the land. Lighthouse, which operated under the name Ambre Energy until last year, says it was given the right to use the propertys surface when a subsidiary halted mining at the site in 1983. Padlock claims it should be compensated for damages to its property.

The kerfuffle is subject to a pending court case and is also set for a hearing before state regulators in August.

A surface-use agreement is unnecessary for Ramaco to open the so-called Brook Mine, Atkins said. The deed gives Ramaco the right to use the surface for mining operations, he argued. But the company nonetheless attempted to reach an agreement with Lighthouse, a Salt Lake City-based coal miner, and Padlock, as part of an effort to be a good neighbor.

Those attempts have been meet with unreasonable financial demands, Atkins said. Lighthouse sought $29 million and the assumption of its pension obligations at the Decker Mine in exchange for the surface rights, he said. Lighthouse operates the Decker Mine, which sits just over the state boundary in Montana. Padlock sought lease payments 20 times greater than what Ramaco had agreed to pay other area landowners, he said.

We were rebuffed by ransom demands, Atkins said. Its just disappointing when you see someone trying to hold up a project for financial gain that would otherwise be a good project for our community and the state.

Lighthouse officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment. An attorney for Padlock could not be reached for comment.

In filings with state regulators, both surface owners argued Ramaco failed to provide them with detailed mining and reclamation plans. They contend the mine would harm their respective businesses. And they argue Ramaco cannot proceed without surface owner consent, a requirement of the state Environmental Quality Act.

Padlock is reluctant to enter into agreements with a company that has been unwilling to show good faith in working with the landowner to reduce the impacts on their livestock operation and compensate fair value for disruption of operations, attorneys for the ranch wrote in an April 15 letter to the state Environmental Quality Council.

Ramaco unveiled plans for the Brook Mine to much fanfare in 2014. The mine would be the first to open in Sheridan County in more than 50 years. Gov. Matt Mead and local officials said the project could be an economic boon to northeastern Wyoming. A Ramaco-financed study estimated the mine would create as many as 600 new jobs and generate $464 million in wages over its lifetime.

The proposal emerged against the backdrop of a contracting coal market. Major Powder River Basin miners Alpha Natural Resources, Arch Coal and Peabody Energy have filed for bankruptcy in recent months, with lukewarm demand, weak prices and substantial debts combining to sink the companies.

Ramacos plans are considerably smaller. The Brook Mine is projected to mine 8 million tons of coal annually, compared to the roughly 100 million tons produced at Peabodys North Antelope Rochelle Mine each year. But Ramaco officials have touted their plans for high-wall mining as an effective strategy for navigating the down market. High wall mining, where coal is removed from the earth with an auger, is a less expensive mining technique, they contend.

And where other mining firms are struggling to secure financing, Ramaco has a committed financial backer, Atkins said. Yorktown Partners, which the Ramaco CEO described as a multibillion dollar private equity firm based in New York, is financing Ramacos construction of a metallurgical mine in West Virginia.

I anticipate that we would have the same general framework of financing in Wyoming, Atkins said. Were the only company in the U.S. right now that has no debt.

But the project has been held up by disputes over surface access almost since its proposal. Wyoming environmental authorities initially deemed Ramacos application complete in 2014 before reconsidering the permits status last year. The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality informed Ramaco in April the company would need to reach a surface use agreement with Lighthouse and the nearby Padlock Ranch for its application to be complete.

Each coal company filed a lawsuit; Ramaco seeking the right to mine, Lighthouse to block its competitor from the property. Initial motions to reject the others claim were both dismissed. A trial date has yet to be set.

Ramaco, in an effort to push the project forward, has requested the state Environmental Quality Council to issue the mine a permit. The company argued in a filing to the state it should be granted a permit because it has the legal right to mine the property and has submitted mining and reclamation plans to both Lighthouse and the Padlock needed to secure their consent.

Both surface owners reject that argument, saying the plans submitted for review lack key details. They argue Ramaco has not posted the reclamation bond needed to secure a permit from the council. And the harm to their respective businesses would be substantial.

Padlock argued the mine would harm water supplies vital for its livestock operation. A Lighthouse subsidiary, argues Ramacos plan overlap with land it controls. The company rents a building on its property, is negotiating the lease of its rail spur to Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway and has its own plans to mine 40 million tons of coal from state leases in the area. Ramacos plans would interfere with Lighthouses designs to transport coal from its leases.

BHCs future plans to mine the state coal are as reasonably expected to occur as are the Brook mines plan, the coal company wrote in a filing to the state.

Atkins, the Ramaco CEO, dismissed those claims. Wyoming regulators deemed the mine and reclamation plans complete, with the exception of surface owner consent, he said. And Lighthouses coal reserves are of questionable economic value on their own, he said.

Looking forward, Atkins expressed optimism over the projects future. If Ramaco gets regulatory approval, he said, it could begin mining later this year.
CHEYENNE  The future of federal rules aimed at protecting land, water and wildlife from energy-production practices including hydraulic fracturing now rests with a judge in Wyoming.

U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl last year blocked implementation of rules drafted by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. He acted in response to a legal challenge from the states of Colorado, North Dakota and Utah and Wyoming.

The states claim the BLM lacks authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing. Commonly called fracking, the procedure involves injecting substances including water, sand and chemicals underground to increase production from oil and gas wells.

The federal rule would require petroleum developers to disclose to regulators the ingredients in the chemical products they use to improve the results of fracking.

The BLM and a coalition of environmental groups are arguing in Skavdahls court that the rules are necessary to protect the environment.

The BLM and other rule supporters also have appealed Skavdahls decision to block implementation of the rules to a federal appeals court in Denver. Its unclear whether the appeals court will act before Skavdahl reaches a decision.

The Sierra Club is among the environmental groups suing to support the rule. An attempt to reach a group spokesman in Washington, D.C., wasnt immediately successful Wednesday.

Last year, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune issued a statement after Skavdahl blocked implementation of the rules.

Our public lands belong to all Americans, and they should be managed under strong national standards that protect our water, land, and wildlife, Brune said. Not just to benefit oil and gas companies.

The states and other rule opponents, including groups representing the energy industry and the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray, based in Utah, this week filed their final briefs with Skavdahl. Its now up to the judge either to rule on the case or possibly hold more hearings.

Wyoming, Utah and Colorado are working together on the case while North Dakota filed its own brief.

The fracking rule interferes with the state petitioners lawful exercise of their own sovereign power without congressional authorization for that interference, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado stated in their brief filed on Monday.

The Ute Tribe stated in its brief that it agrees with the states that the BLM lacks rulemaking authority and also has additional arguments that the BLM lacks authority to regulate fracking on land that the United States holds in trust for the Indian tribes and tribal members.

John Robitaille, vice president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, said Wednesday his group tried to file a friend of the court brief in the case to support the states position but wasnt allowed to do so.

Robitaille said his organization takes the position that Wyoming already has fracking regulations in place. He said enacting competing and contradictory federal regulations would make it difficult for energy companies to operate.

Weve said all along, that the states are in much better position, not only through expertise and staffing levels, but also theyre more familiar with whats on the ground, Robitaille said. Its a state control issue, and we believe it should be left to the state.
Fools at Stage III

Fools, a Neil Simon comic fable, will be presented at Stage III April 29-30 and May 5-7 at 7:30 p.m., and May 1 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $12 adults, $10 seniors over 65 and students. Purchase tickets online at stageiiitheatre.org or at Cadillac Cowgirl, 147 S. Center. Season-ticket holders may call 234-0946 to make reservations.

Murder at Cafe Noir May 19

An encore performance of the murder mystery dinner theatre, Murder at Cafe Noir, will be held May 19 at the Black Gold Grille, 1650 English Ave. The cost for the combined dinner and show is $35. To reserve a seat, call 472-4653 or stop by 1650 English Ave.

Guest organist

performs

The WY Chapter of the American Guild of Organists will present Natascha Reich for the Bachs Lunch recital at the First United Methodist Church at 12:15 on Wednesday, April 27, in recital at 7:30 pm on Friday, April 29. A free will offering will be accepted at the evening program.

Reich is from Austria and has toured widely in Europe. She has held organ and choral positions in the Netherlands.

Currently, she is doing research at the University of Oregon and also studying organs in Peru.

Call Carolyn at 265-1564 for information.

Monthly vets

ceremony Friday

The Natrona County United Veterans Council, the staff of the Oregon Trail Wyoming State Veterans Cemetery, and the Wyoming Army National Guard Honor Guard conduct a monthly memorial service for those known Wyoming veterans who have died since our last memorial service which was held on March 31, when we honored 80 Wyoming veterans, this months service will be held at noon Friday in the Tom Walsh Chapel at The Oregon Trail Veterans Cemetery. All are weldon to attend.

This memorial service is provided on behalf of a grateful state and nation as an expression of appreciation for the honorable and faithful service rendered by each of these veterans.

The veterans name, Wyoming community, and branch of service is read at roll call. There is a rifle salute, taps, and the folding of a flag.

Spring Fling Ladies Night & Day Out

Grab your girl friends and join us, and 18 of our local home-based business friends for a fun night and day of shopping, fun, and friends from 5:30 to 8 p.m., on Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m, on Saturday at Glitzy Chicks, 1980 E. 1st St. Door prizes, wine, and fun! Goodie bags loaded with coupons, samples, treats and fun things from local Casper businesses. You dont want to miss this fun event! Wine and shop Friday night; Soda and cookies on Saturday. For more information, call Jen at (307) 702-2866.

Constitution Party meets

Constitution Party/ Natrona County meeting in the Agricultural Resource & Learning Center, next to the Fairgrounds in the Midwest Room at 7 p.m., on Friday. See us at wyocp.com

Veteran Cigar Night

Every Wednesday from 5:30 to 7 p.m., all veterans are invited to Veteran Cigar Night at the Casper Cigar Company, 4717 W. Yellowstone Highway, sponsored by Casper Cigar Company. There is no cost to attend.

This is a time and place for our communitys combat veterans to relax and share their stories with other combat veterans while enjoying a good cigar. Veterans receive 20 percent off cigars. For more information, call Josh Cruse at (307) 337-4400 or josh@caspercigar.com

Mothers Day Tea

at Bishop Home

Tea time returns for Mothers Day Celebrations! Historic Bishop Homes Spring Tea is 2 p.m., May 7, 2016. Invite your mother, your daughter, a special friend, or treat yourself! Be sure to make a reservation today!

Be one of the first to see our renovations while enjoying a pot or two of tea, tasty tea sandwiches, warm scones, and tantalizing desserts. Cost is $27.50 per person ($10 is a tax-deductible donation to the Cadoma Foundation).

Reservation deadline is May 5, 2016. Reservations are confirmed upon payment.

Please note that our parking lot behind the house off Lincoln Street is now available! For information and reservations, call 235-5277, email info@cadomafoundation.org or write Cadoma Foundation, 220 East Midwest Ave. Suite B, Casper, Wyoming 82601.

Chicken collectibles on display

Its time for chicks to be hatched! Come see the display of chicken collectibles at the Casper Senior Center, 1831 E. 4th St., in Casper.

Senior enrichment

Free to men and women 60 or older. Join the tap dancing group of Joyces Senior Stompers. It is moderate, easy, balanced clogging keeping us seniors young. It is great exercise for developing flexibility, helps coordination, increases endurance and strength and helps stimulate our brain in learning different dance routines. Exercise is important to increase lung capacity, burn calories, relieve stress, and it is fun. We meet on Monday mornings at 10:50 a.m. Call Joyce Sisk, 237-4908, for more information.

Advanced Facebook for business

The Center for Training and Development at Casper College is offering a short class for owners and operators of a business Facebook page on Thursday, April 28 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Facebook for Your Business: Advanced (CEU 1077) will be taught by Dana Volney. Those attending the class will learn how to use Facebook to build successful and engaging campaigns for their business, she said. In addition to campaigns, students will learn Facebook marketing fundamentals including how to grow the fan base and drive topical and useful engagement with the business.

The class is designed for those who have a current Facebook page that they have used before. The cost per person is $45 and those successfully completing the class will earn .2 continuing education units. All students are asked to bring a tablet or laptop to class.

To register or for more information, contact Ann Dalton, workforce training specialist, at 268-2085 or adalton@caspercollege.edu.

Chorale Spring Gala May 3

Casper Civic Chorale presents The Great American Songbook featuring the music of George Gershwin on Tuesday, May 3, 2016 at 6 p.m., at the Parkway Plaza. The evening will begin with dinner and dancing to live music followed by the concert at 7:30 p.m. Highlights of the program include Rhapsody in Blue played on piano by Susan Stubson, selections from Porgy and Bess and other Gershwin standards. Tickets are $35 each or $250 for a table of eight. Tickets must be purchased in advance at Donells, Hill Music or WY Music at Sunrise Mall by April 30. Be sure to purchase your tickets early to get preferential seating. Tickets have sold out each of the previous years to the CCC Spring Gala. Act now to ensure that you dont miss out on this unforgettable musical event. For questions, contact Jack at 235-9002.
DENVER  Storms brought deep snow to the mountains that feed the vital Colorado River this winter and spring, but the dried-out landscape will soak up some of the runoff before it can reach the river and the 40 million people depending on it for water.

The snowpack in the vast Upper Colorado River Basin  encompassing almost 110,000 square miles of mountains, valleys and tributaries from Wyoming to New Mexico  hit its seasonal peak this month, federal data show. It reached about 94 percent of the long-term average.

But the melted snow that makes it into the river and eventually to Lake Powell in Utah, the second-largest reservoir in the nation, is expected to reach only 74 percent of average, forecasters say.

The Colorado River serves people and about 6,300 square miles of farmland in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. Mexico also is entitled to a share.

Water users and managers watch the Upper Basin closely, especially in April, when the snow usually reaches its deepest levels and begins to melt into the Colorado River or its tributaries.

A dry fall and early winter reduced soil moisture in the basin, said Malcolm Wilson of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which manages Lake Powell and hundreds of other reservoirs.

When you have dry soil, the first place the water goes is to recharge that soil, he said.

Lake Powell, behind the 580-foot-high Glen Canyon Dam, helps the Bureau of Reclamation regulate the river and distribute its water. The reservoir serves as a kind of savings account for the Upper Basin states  Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming  storing up water during wet years to ensure they have enough to send to the Lower Basin states, even in dry years.

Powell is about 45 percent full amid a long-term drought, but that should provide a big enough cushion that Lower Basin states  Arizona, California and Nevada  can get their share for the foreseeable future without requiring the Upper Basin to cut back, Wilson said.

Were in a pretty reasonable spot, he said.

The lake was expected to rise 16 feet from this springs snowmelt, Wilson said. Comparing years can be difficult because the canyon that forms the lake is V-shaped, so the higher the water level, the more water it takes to raise it another foot.

Although the snowpack is near average across the Upper Colorado River Basin, it varies widely within the region, from 110 percent in parts of Colorado to 61 percent in south-central Utah.
A Donald Trump supporter is calling on Republicans across the country to find the identities and pictures of Wyoming GOP delegates and their families and to deploy biker gangs to prevent them from voting at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this summer.

At least 24 of Wyomings 29 delegates are committed to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz for president in a process one blogger says isnt fair. The blogger, who identifies himself as Gary Forbes, posts content to the online Trump Magazine.

Wyoming GOP delegates say theyre aware of the intimidation and state party officials have notified security for the Republican National Convention.

Delegates dont plan to change how they vote. They are, however, beginning to discuss simplifying the partys nominating process.

Its very concerning when you have individuals making life threats, particularly in the political context, said GOP delegate Dicky Shanor, of Cheyenne.

The process for the Wyoming Republicans to select a presidential nominee began at caucuses and not with a statewide primary election. Forbes called that system, which is the same in Colorado, complete, blatant corruption and against the will of the people.

Step #1. Create a database of all the delegates in both states including name, address, tel #, and photo. To stop them, we need to know who they are, Forbes posted in an online message.

Step #2. Build a team of aggressive pro-Trump groups including bikers, truckers, unions, support groups, etc. and DO NOT LET THESE PEOPLE MAKE IT TO CLEVELAND IN JULY. Be creative. Find any legal means to see to it that they dont even make it to the airport. Block streets with traffic jams. Find out their flights and hotels and figure out ways to cancel their tickets and reservations.

The Casper Star-Tribune tried to track down Forbes. The newspaper left two messages, including one to his companys Twitter account. They were not returned.

A separate message penned by Forbes is headlined, Gary Forbes to GOP Delegates: Switch Your Vote? Then Risk Having Your Life Ruined! Forbes wrote that his company, The Forbes Group, is creating a database of all GOP delegates, with their places of employment and photos of their family members.

If delegates vote against the will of the people, our 4.9 million strong group, shall aggressively expose this betray- al  and more! the message said.

n n n

Despite the threats, Wyomings GOP delegates wont be deterred.

Shanor said he still intends to travel to Cleveland and vote for Cruz, but added: Its not something to be taken lightly.

Wyoming GOP Chairman Matt Micheli said he spoke to the people in charge of security for the Republican National Convention.

They have ensured were not going to be intimidated and were going to represent our state at the national convention in Cleveland, he said.

Micheli said hes received some emails and Tweets from people angry about the Wyoming Republican Partys nominating process.

We followed our rules, he said. The state rules comply with the (Republican National Committee) rules. Weve followed those rules exactly.

State Sen. Ogden Driskill of Devils Tower, who will be an uncommitted delegate in Cleveland, said hes read some intimidation on Facebook.

Weve done the same thing for 14 years, he said. Im not defending the system or saying its the worlds best, but its something weve done for 14 years. If theres something that needs changed, Im happy to figure out a better process. But for this years selection process, it falls within what the party has done within the last 14 years.

Thats part of the process. Theres always winners and losers.

***

A discussion has begun among some 20 Republicans throughout the state, who are chatting by email, to possibly change the presidential nominating rules. Ideas include a closed primary reserved for registered Republicans or an Iowa-style caucus, in which all of the delegates are selected in one night, said Lander resident John Brown, who serves in leadership roles in the state and Fremont County parties.

A primary would be run by the state, and would require a change to state law. Any changes to the caucus system would be adopted by the state GOP in 2018.

Personally, I would like to see an Iowa-style caucus, where the delegates would be bound as of that night, after we finished the caucuses, Brown said. And people actually get to express their presidential nominee preferences and all the votes are counted up and X number of delegates are awarded that night.

The Wyoming GOPs presidential nominating process is complicated.

The caucuses were in late February and early March, during which Republicans selected delegates to their county conventions by precinct, or neighborhood areas. On March 12 at county conventions, 12 delegates were selected across the state to attend the national convention in Cleveland. On April 16, another 14 delegates were selected at the state GOP convention in Casper. Three delegates are automatic, comprised of Republican leadership.

Democrats who support presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders have also been unhappy with the minority partys presidential nominating process. The U.S. senator from Vermont received 56 percent of the vote at the Wyoming caucuses, to former Secretary of State Hillary Clintons 44 percent. But Clinton walked away with 11 of the states 18 delegates, due to superdelegates and how the party apportions delegates.

Members of both political parties have complained to state lawmakers about their parties presidential nominating processes. Legislative leadership asked the Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions to look into the possibility of a statewide presidential primary, said Rep. Dan Zwonitzer, R-Cheyenne, a committee chairman.

Representatives from the parties and members of the public will testify on the issue during a September committee meeting in Saratoga, he said.

If the state switched to a primary, the state would have to organize and pay for it. Caucuses are party events. The state had presidential primaries until 1974 and was able to save money by turning the functions over to the parties, Zwonitzer said.

Were generally hands-off with the (nominating) contests, Zwonitzer said. They are primarily a political party function. We dont think its the states job to dictate how they should hold their nominating contests. That being said, we represent constituents. Almost all legislators have heard from people. Much of it is due to the controversy of this election in general.
When I read Steve Degenfelders opinion piece, Those who want renewables should pay, I felt like I stepped into an alternate universe.

Wind farms receiving a pass from regulatory agencies? Federal agencies processing wind farms at record speeds? Groups mysteriously silent regarding sage grouse, raptors, view shed and historic trails? The production tax on wind should replicate declines from oil, gas and coal revenues? Wind developers should consider constructing their projects in other states?

Heres a view from the universe Ive been living in. Ive worked on permitting the Chokecherry and Sierra Madre Wind Energy Project since 2006. We are in year 9 of the federal permitting process. So far, the CCSM Project has been analyzed by the BLM in one Environmental Impact Statement and two Environmental Assessments. Another Draft EIS on the CCSM Project was just issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. And, well have at least two more Environmental Assessments and possibly an EIS for the second 500 turbines. So, at the moment, Degenfelders example of the one EIS for oil and gas wells that took six years is sounding pretty good.

As for sage grouse, raptors, view shed and historic trails: Wheres the reference to the thousands of pages of environmental analysis, millions of dollars of mitigation requirements, comment letters from numerous groups, mitigation plans for historic trails and sage grouse, our commitment to put a conservation easement on 27,500 acres of private lands to benefit eagles and sage grouse, or the 64 public meetings? There is no mysterious silence  only selective hearing.

What about raising taxes on wind energy again and denying permits? Since Wyoming passed the only law in the nation taxing electricity generated by wind, wind development in Wyoming stalled. Raising taxes again may be sacrificing long-term revenues for the mirage of short-term gains.

As for long-term tax revenues for Wyoming  the CCSM Project, if built, will pay approximately $800 million in property tax, sales/use tax and the generation tax on wind, over its economic life of 20 years. Thats an average of $40 million a year. This wind farm cannot replace declining revenues from oil, gas and coal, nor should it be expected to. But it will contribute to Wyomings economy on a much larger scale than the $3.7 million referenced by Degenfelder. Certainly, he is entitled to his opinion. But, I hope readers will consider that there may be some facts that were lost in translation from his alternate universe.

We have a long history of investing in Wyoming in oil and gas, farming, ranching and now the CCSM Project. We are developing the wind farm on a ranch weve owned for almost 20 years. We are committed to Wyoming and dont want to construct our project in another state. Weve persevered through years of federal permitting, the sunset of the sales/use tax exemption, the imposition of a generation tax on electricity generated by wind, have invested millions of dollars, and accepted the risk of the current lack of any customers signed up to buy our wind energy. We are betting that we can bring the CCSM Project to the finish line and significantly contribute to Wyomings economy, and so are our friends in Carbon County.
Editor:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in.  Abraham Lincoln

I am a Bernie Sanders caucus co-captain of Lincoln County and I stand in support of the Hillary Clinton delegation.

I stand in support of their right, nay duty, to fairly represent the caucus voters of Wyoming, of their right to exercise their political voice within the rules of our party, and most especially of their right do so in an environment free from intimidation, vandalism, or violence.

I take this stand because my guiding principle is the golden rule. I take this stand because I am appalled by the incidents reported by executive director Aimee Van Cleave in last Fridays article Dems frustrated over caucuses. I take this stand because such acts diminish all of us.

The state convention is approaching. There will likely be strong disagreements and very heated debates. This is exactly the sort of political crucible our founders envisioned and its a good thing. Far more often than not, I will be at odds with the Clinton camp and we will work together, respectfully and civilly, to find the common ground, the best solutions.

This process cannot happen without trust  trust that you both are dealing in good faith, that you both are working in the interest of the people, and that you both are secure in your persons and effects.

This is why I, an ardent Sanders supporter, stand with the Hillary Clinton delegation  not because we necessarily agree on the issues, but because that critical trust has been damaged and must be restored if the Democratic Party Convention is to succeed in Cheyenne over Memorial Day weekend.

I stand with the Clinton delegation because the Democratic Party needs us and because we need each other.
Strict adherence to the U.S. Constitution, massive reductions in federal spending and debt. Eliminating the overwhelming corruption in the U.S. House, Senate and White House.

-- Pogo

I would like to see our men and women in the current political conflicts come home, Congress is the funding for such operations. As far as Wyoming, see more support for the interstates, in federal maintenance, by getting more plowing and safety equipment for these major arteries. Now as to Wyoming, I would have to say, greater public access to public ground, by passing a law that allows corner crossing with a ten foot neutral circle at each marker, however restrict these crossing to the human feet access. As far as politics its a given, that money elects that person, so I would like a representative to is elected under $30,000 and really listens to noise of the people and creates the dreams of striving to be greater within our shores.

-- jackel

Most importantly I want a candidate that recognizes that bipartisanship and compromise are important tools and they must be willing to work with other House members as well as the President in order to avoid the gridlock weve experienced over the last few years.

I would like to see a plan to overhaul the tax code creating fair tax rates for both businesses and individuals. This could allow to businesses to become more competitive and add more jobs. For individuals it could increase their take home pay.

The numerous attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act have accomplished nothing and have been a huge waste of time and money. Roughly 13 million people are currently enrolled in the ACA, and if Medicaid expansion is included, that number rises by another few million. The plan does contain a number of flaws, but Im tired of politicians bashing the plan without having some ideas for a better plan. We simply cant pull the rug out from under 16 million Americans until we have a better program to transition into.

Im tired of hearing canned goals like reduce the size of government, restore the constitution or reduce the debt. Certainly, we all want these kinds of things but can a junior congressman from Wyoming really be expected to make a difference on day one or even during year one? A more realistic commitment to Wyomingites would be to focus on Wyoming issues, and a promise to build relationships and gain the respect of other House members.

-- Morning Joe
Editor:

As a lifelong Republican I was disappointed in the joint column by Sens. Barrasso and Enzi, and I respectfully disagree with their views on the Senate's responsibility to consider the President's nomination of a candidate for justice of the Supreme Court. As I read the U.S. Constitution, Article II Section 2 Clause 2, it states:

"He (the President) shall have Power, ....and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint ....Judges of the supreme Court....."

Nowhere do I see any provision that the Senate can consider a nomination when it feels like it. While the Advice and Consent clause gives the Senate the right to vote against "Consent" to a nomination, it does not, in my opinion, give the right to withhold consideration and "Advice."

The Senate's refusal to hold hearings to consider the current nomination is, again in my opinion, an abdication of its constitutional responsibility. As stated in your column "The Constitution gives the Senate the right to make decisions on a Supreme Court nominee. That includes exercising the constitutional ability to withhold consent on a nominee submitted by this president." But nowhere does the Constitution give the Senate the right to withhold advice, which I believe requires the holding of hearings in the Senate. It is not the duty of the public nor of the current presidential candidates to choose a nominee to the Supreme Court, it is the Senate's.
Editor:

On Aug. 25, 1886, the construction firm Adam Feick and Brothers was awarded the contract to build the Wyoming Capital building. The firm had submitted the lowest bid of $131,275.13.

The present lawsuit against the governor and the Legislature leadership contends that some of the companies involved in the current Capital reconstruction project were selected, not by bid, but by a negotiation of fees and "qualification" practice.

The lawsuit claims that the Capital reconstruction contracts did not set maximum prices and costs have escalated. Additionally the office of state treasurer and audit have committed $1 million of state financial trust's as a pledge to the project. The project is presently $59 million over estimated budget. The lawsuit is asking the court to rule on the contracts. Did the contracts violate Article III Section 31 of the Wyoming Constitution?

Section 31 states... "And the repairing and furnishing of the halls and rooms used for the meeting of the legislature and it's committees shall be performed under contract, to be given to the lowest responsible bidder below such maximum price and under such regulation as may be prescribed by law."

The Wyoming constitution was ratified Nov. 5, 1889; at the time of its ratification the new capital building was in use by the legislature, having been constituted by the use of the bid process.
MEXICO CITY  There is strong evidence that Mexican police tortured some of the key suspects arrested in the disappearance of 43 students, according to a report released Sunday by an outside group of experts.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights expert group says a study of 17 of the approximately 123 suspects arrested in the case showed signs of beatings, including, in some cases, dozens of bruises, cuts and scrapes.

One suspect said he was nearly asphyxiated with a plastic bag, and medical studies showed another had been slapped on the ears so hard his eardrums broke and his ears bled.

The Mexican government recently released documents suggesting investigations had been opened against police and military personnel, but authorities have not answered requests about whether anyone has been arrested or charged.

The 43 students at the radical teachers college of Ayotzinapa have not been heard from since they were taken by local police in September 2014 in the city of Iguala, Guerrero. Family members and supporters of the missing students chanted They took them away alive, we want them back alive! at the news conference where the report was presented.

No high-ranking officials attended the presentation of the report, which called the governments investigation flawed and incomplete.

But President Enrique Pena Nieto wrote on his Twitter account that the federal attorney generals office will analyze the whole report, to aid in its investigations.

Mexicos deputy attorney general for human rights, Eber Betanzos, said authorities were investigating complaints filed by 31 people who said they had been tortured. He said six criminal cases had been opened, and said three involved employees of the attorney generals office.

Betanzos called the case the most exhaustive investigation in the history of Mexican law enforcement.

But the allegations of torture could endanger any chance of convictions in one of the highest-profile human rights cases in Mexican history, especially because the governments version of events  that corrupt police handed the students over to drug gang members who killed them and burned their bodies at a trash dump  hangs in large part on the testimony of some drug gunmen who now say they were tortured into confessing.

It is a lie the way they said they caught us, Patricio Reyes Landa said in testimony made public by the experts report. They went into the house, beating and kicking. They hauled me aboard a vehicle, they blindfolded me, tied my feet and hands, they began beating me again and gave me electric shocks, they put a rag over my nose and poured water on it. They gave me shocks on the inside of my mouth and my testicles. They put a bag over my face so I couldnt breathe. It went on for hours.

Mexican judges are instructed to throw out confessions based on torture; Betanzos said the governments case was not solely based on confessions.

The report also found that one student sent a message to his parents from his cellphone hours after he had supposedly been killed.
PHOENIX  Republican leaders of the Arizona House and Senate spent long hours in the past week behind closed doors with Gov. Doug Duceys representatives hashing out details of a budget deal that could be revealed as early as Monday.

House Speaker David Gowan and Senate President Andy Biggs and their appropriations chairs met every day last week as they sought to iron out differences between the chambers and the governor.

Many House and Senate Republicans are hoping an acceptable deal can get the needed 31 and 16 votes to make its way to Ducey by the end of the week.

But theres a considerable number of majority Republicans in the House who say they will resist a rushed deal after feeling burned by last years quick budget passage.

One of those is Chandler Rep. Jeff Weninger. He said late last week hes holding out until he reads and understands the entire package and sees that it meets the needs of residents he represents.

Theres some key issues that I think need addressed that my constituents are concerned about, Weninger said. And those will have to be addressed. And Im going to hold out until I am fully briefed and fully read everything in the budget.

Weningers position is shared by a broad group of House Republicans  minority Democrats are essentially left out of budget negotiations  because they went along with their leaders last year and signed off on a tight budget package that cut spending on universities, kept K-12 funding essentially flat and included tax cuts. But a month after the March 2015 passage of that package and the Legislatures adjournment, news emerged that the states revenues had surged.

Ducey this year is also proposing a relatively tight budget package.

The $9.5 billion spending plan in January mainly leaves in place much of a nearly $500 million budget surplus.

House Republicans want to add to Duceys spending proposals on universities, K-12 education and local roadbuilding efforts, and many also want to restore a health-care program for low-income children known as KidsCare. Whether all those items make it into the agreed-upon budget is yet to be seen.

Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said if a deal can be worked out by Monday its quite possible to have the budget done by the end of the week.

But, he noted, there are concerns that the House may have added on things for their members that might not fly in the Senate.
When the Port of Tucson chose mining as the focus of its annual industry expo, it didnt know the downturn in the sector would put the proposed Rosemont Mine on hold or close the Sierrita Mine in Green Valley.

But the challenges the industry is facing make the three-day convention, spotlighting the port and Southern Arizona, even more timely, said Stefan Baumann, director of business development for the port.

We did not anticipate the commodity rates would drop down as badly as they did, he said. But because of the state of the mining industry right now, there is extra value for everyone involved.

Along with an address by Gov. Doug Ducey and keynotes by representatives from Grupo Mexico and Fresnillo plc, the Inter-/multimodal Development Expo Arizona-Sonora will feature panels and breakout sessions covering new technologies, sustainable mining, doing business globally and multimodal transport.

Transportation and technology are areas that can improve efficiency and help the industry weather its current troubles, Baumann said, and the region has a lot to offer.

Everything that the mines are doing, whether its inbound or outbound, is heavy, so on the transportation side of things, if they are exposed to an additional mode of transportation, namely rail, then they are exposed to additional efficiency, he said.

Currently, copper cathode  the raw material used to cast copper rod, tube, brass and other extruded copper product  is stored at a COMEX warehouse at the port, which is licensed to store product for the industry.

The port also handles sulfuric acid coming in from Canada through rail tank cars, which is then transloaded to be delivered over the road to area mines.

Growth potential for the Port of Tucson includes loading copper concentrate through a new system of specialized containers that offer dust-free, pit to ship transport, officials said.

They load at the mines, they come over the roads, we put them on a train, and then they can go via rail to the Port of Oakland, for example, and load into a bulk vessel, Baumann said.

As for technology, Tucson is already the technology hub for mining worldwide, said Mary Poulton, director of the Institute for Mineral Resources at the University of Arizona.

Companies such as Modular Mining Systems, Split Engineering and Call & Nicholas are well-known in the mining industry.

We talk about biotech and optics all the time, but these are well-established, proven high-tech companies that do business worldwide, she said.

The expo will feature a session about SmartMine, a project the university is working on with Tucson-based nMode Solutions, which applies cutting-edge sensor technology to the mining industry, Poulton said.

This years event will also spotlight Sahuarita and the Caterpillar Global Mining proving grounds, where the companys Demonstration and Learning Center allows buyers and equipment operators for Caterpillar to better understand the companys equipment and technology.

The proving grounds are in unincorporated Pima County, but they are still considered part of the Sahuarita community, said Victor Gonzalez, the towns economic development manager.

Many of the employees for Caterpillar and other mining companies like Freeport and Asarco are residents of Sahuarita, he said. As much as a third of the total labor force in the mining sector in Southern Arizona live in and around the town.

Although the effects of the slowdown in the mining industry have yet to be fully felt in the region and long-term growth is expected, officials said, the expo offers companies an opportunity to look beyond the state for business opportunities.
Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild and Sun Corridor Inc. Chairman Dennis Minano share their insights into economic development and jobs growth:

What are your thoughts on the local economys health?

Rothschild: Im a member of a very exclusive club, Western mayors without oceans. We know ports bring prosperity. Im also mayor of a city without rivers and the mayor of a second city which is not a state capital.

We are what weve always been, a prime location for a logistics hub, and thats become more apparent as Mexico has begun to thrive.

Which jobs will grow in 2016?

Minano: Since the beginning of our fiscal year last July, Sun Corridor Inc. has worked with over 200 companies considering relocation or expansion. Our short-listed projects include a wide range of industries including aerospace and defense, biotech and health and manufacturing. Economic development is a team sport, and we work in partnership with the Arizona Commerce Authority, Pima County and municipalities throughout Southern Arizona.

Logistics, aerospace and biotech have been targeted by economic development efforts. How is the city helping?

Rothschild: One of the things that encourages me is that for the first time in many years the community has come together behind a common development issue. Our primary jobs incentive for employers who bring 25-plus jobs to the city at 125 percent of the median income and make a capital investment of at least $3 million have a number of development and impact fees waived so they can put it into their projects infrastructure or job training.

We used annexation to create a fund for Raytheon so they can purchase additional land near its location and annexed the airport and surrounding lands to use for new and existing business in that industry.

There is much talk about the need to have shovel-ready sites to help recruit companies. How are we doing on that front?

Minano: Pima County and Sun Corridor Inc. are working to upgrade sites with various utility services to make those parcels more attractive to local and new business. The Port of Tucson is shovel-ready and there are other smaller sites which are at various stages of development.

The good news is, most if not all of our local governments have speeded their development services processes, and we now see our clients receiving approvals in hours or days, not weeks or months as before.

Rothschild: Shovel-ready sites include those who want land and to build themselves, and those who want turnkey property. Regarding land wants, the city and county are working together on initiatives to prepare state land and land near the freeways and airport. The county is prepared to bring in wastewater and the city to bring in water and partner with the utilities so we can be ready at a moments notice.

As for turnkey, our industrial inventory is the lowest since 2006, which is good news but also bad. When these companies come to town, we dont have enough inventory ready. We are working with site selectors to market to builders and get them to invest in some spec construction because there is much interest in our community.

Is there a particular challenge here in recruiting firms?

Minano: The top site selection criteria is always talent and related individual skills  do we have enough talent at the necessary skill level to fill a companys needs and growth plans? Education is always fundamental  if employees are relocating, will they find schools that maximize a positive future for their children? Will the K-12/higher education system provide a quality, long-term pool of employees for the company?

In addition, companies continue to prefer communities that offer them the ability to do business in the most efficient ways, so direct air service is always a factor.

Finally, positive perceptions of our region as a place to live and work  are critical. Online information is always at a potential employees fingertips and we, as a community, have to continually highlight and emphasize the positive about our schools, downtown, infrastructure improvements, etc., to attract and retain our regions talent.

Is there a next big thing on the horizon for Tucson?

Rothschild: We are always working on prospects, constantly talking to new capital about coming to Tucson. Its something that as a community we didnt do for a long time.

Where we really have seen the most growth is in young entrepreneurs. Weve seen incredible increase in small startup companies that have the potential to develop into wealth-producing corporations. In the past few years, Tech Launch has filed 200 patents, 88 licenses and created 12 startups.

Any news you would like to share?
Entrepreneurs looking to start a business in a small Arizona community might want to look at San Luis.

A new study by the online financial advice firm WalletHub ranks the tiny Yuma County community as the best small place for startups.

Why? No other small city or town anywhere in the country has greater worker availability, the study says. Thats one possible upside to the chronically high unemployment in rural Yuma County.

WalletHub also finds the areas low household median annual income  $31,064  is 54th lowest among the 1,268 small communities it studied. That means there is probably a ready pool of workers willing to take jobs at startups  and at the salaries such companies are likely to offer, the study concludes.

The city of Yuma was one notch behind at No. 2 for employee availability.

WalletHub also found some positive reasons for startup businesses to check out some other small Arizona communities.

Sierra Vistas strongest factor was the low cost of office space. Only Bullhead City had cheaper rents among Arizona communities.

Casa Grande is bolstered by a cost of living that is the 88th-lowest among small communities nationwide, the study says. It also had the highest average revenue per business of any of the Arizona cities, at more than $5 million a year.

At the other extreme is Oro Valley, which has a high median income that WalletHub takes as a sign of a high cost of labor. Office space in the community is also relatively expensive.
Arizona, California and Nevada negotiators are moving toward a major agreement triggering cuts in Colorado River water deliveries to Southern and Central Arizona to avert much more severe cuts in the future.

As state water officials now envision the agreement, it would also ultimately require California to cut its use of river water. Thats despite a 48-year-old law that says the Central Arizona Project must relinquish all its supply during shortages before California loses any.

Terms of an agreement are still being negotiated, but water officials say these cuts are made necessary by a continued drop in the level of Lake Mead over 16 years. Lake Mead stores the river water that serves cities and farms in the three states, including drinking water for the Tucson and Phoenix areas.

Key details of a potential agreement and its effects:

The $3.5 billion Central Arizona Project would lose nearly 15 percent of its water supply as early as next year. Thats even though conditions on the river and Lake Mead today arent yet serious enough to mandate cuts, according to the 2007 guidelines under which the river is now managed. Assuming Lake Mead continues declining over the next decade, CAPs deliveries could gradually be cut up to 40 percent.

California would face smaller cuts in Colorado River deliveries once Lake Mead dropped a little more than 30 feet below where it is today. California would ultimately lose barely 8 percent of its river supply. But to many observers its remarkable that the state would take any cuts, since the 1968 law that authorized CAPs construction gives California first priority to river water during shortages.

For the first time, Arizona water officials are talking of trying to spread CAP cuts to all sectors of the states economy that currently rely on project water for drinking and irrigation  cities, farms, industries, Indian tribes and others. Historically, the states plan has always been to cut CAP deliveries only to Central Arizona farmers in the early years of shortages and to cut off cities and tribes possibly much later.

But CAP and Arizona Department of Water Resources officials now want to divvy the cuts among all parties. Thats both to spread the pain more evenly and to get wider political support for the water curtailment plan. The proportions of how cuts would be shared isnt known. State officials will try to persuade users to agree to shoulder cuts voluntarily, reaching what Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke calls a grand bargain.

Nevada would take a much smaller share of cuts, because it has the right to only 300,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water, compared to 2.8 million for Arizona and 4.4 million for California.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates Mead, would cut another 100,000 acre-feet annually by finding efficiencies such as lining irrigation canals to limit seepage or possibly by opening the long-shuttered Yuma Desalination Plant.

Fears of huge cuts in river water supplies have grown in recent years, since Lake Mead started to decline as much as 12 feet a year in the early 2000s. The decline is due partly to ongoing drought aggravated by climate change, and partly to overuse of water on the long-over-allocated river. Its estimated the river has a structural deficit of up to 1.2 million acre-feet a year.

Officials of the three Lower Colorado River Basin states have been negotiating to try to stabilize lake levels since last summer. But by December, progress toward a settlement was slow enough that Deputy Interior Secretary Michael Connor warned state water officials that if they couldnt reach agreement soon, the feds would impose a solution.

By last week, the three states were making enough progress that Arizona water officials were meeting privately with water users around the state to lay out potential terms of an agreement. Tucson Water officials have briefed City Council members on the negotiations. In midweek, a state water official presented a slide show discussing the possible agreement to the Southern Arizona Water Users Association, a group representing most area municipal water utilities and private water users.

On Friday, negotiators for Arizona and California said they havent reached formal agreement, but both sides are open to the terms of the agreement being discussed. Arizonas Legislature  but not Californias Legislature  must approve an agreement, meaning that state water officials have a big selling job ahead of them.

I think theres a lot of equity in this process, said Arizona water chief Buschatzke. They have tough things theyre talking about. We have tough things that were talking about.

He said he believes California will come to terms with Arizona because if Lake Meads decline is not slowed, potentially everyone will suffer, including California.

During that states prolonged drought, Southern California cities were able to take out river water they had stored in Mead in previous years because the lake still had enough water to supply it, Buschatzke said. That lake water was a critical component of the states ability to deal with the drought, he said.

Tanya Trujillo, director of Californias Colorado River Water Board, said all parties are working in good faith to try to pull together an agreement beneficial to her state and the entire Lower Basin.

We have very difficult negotiations to work through amongst our own agencies, Trujillo said. We have a huge drought that we are living through as well. There are some difficult discussions that still need to take place.

California hopes to get benefits from an agreement such as being allowed to continue to leave some water in Lake Mead during years of surplus that it could use later during droughts, she said.

A graph prepared by the Arizona water agency shows how much more severe the cuts could be if nothing is done, Buschatzke said.

The graph predicted what would happen if the river basin had the same dry, warm weather that occurred from 2002 through 2011. If the states do nothing, Mead could drop by 2022 to barely 1,000 feet, the graph shows. In 2023 and 2024, the lake could approach 995 feet. At such levels, Arizona could lose three-fourths of its CAP water.

But under the plan now being discussed, Mead would drop no lower than 1,015 feet by 2023, and rebound to 1,050 feet by 2025. Arizona would lose no more than 40 percent of CAP.

It would involve additional sacrifice by everybody, but the fact that were talking and seriously considering this thing is a recognition if this continues, the entire system could crash if were not prepared to do something, said Estevan Lopez, the federal reclamation agencys commissioner. I want to emphasize at this point, that these are concepts. Its not a done deal. Its at a sensitive place, but people remain engaged.
A suspect in a shooting Friday across the street from Park Place mall turned himself in to police Saturday afternoon, a Tucson police spokesman said.

Robert Steven Balderrama, 19, was booked into the Pima County jail on suspicion of one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and one count of aggravated assault with serious physical injury, said Sgt. Pete Dugan in a news release.

Police had released a photo earlier Saturday, from surveillance video taken near the scene. Balderrama turned himself in after learning that his photograph had been posted throughout social media and on the news, Dugan said.

The man who was shot is hospitalized with injuries listed as nonlife-threatening, Dugan said.

The shooting occurred about 4 p.m. in the 5900 block of East Broadway, across the street from the mall near a jewelry store. The mall is on the south side of Broadway, west of South Wilmot Road.

Detectives were able to interview the wounded man at a hospital, where he was driven by a woman he was with before police arrived at the scene.

The victim and the suspect were involved in a verbal dispute near the mall and eventually walked across the street, Dugan said Saturday. As the altercation continued, one of the men brandished a handgun and shot the other man multiple times.
Tucson police are asking for the public's help in identifying a man thought to be involved in the Friday shooting near Park Place Mall.

A man was shot multiple times around 4 p.m. behind a jewelry store on the 5900 block of East Broadway across the street from the mall. The encounter began with an argument on Broadway between the victim, who was driving a car stopped a traffic signal, and a man who was standing near a crosswalk. The victim was taken to a local hospital.

Police posted a tweet Saturday morning with a photo of a man they think was involved in the incident. Police ask anyone with information about the man in the photo to call 88-CRIME.
Arizonas 58 delegates to the Republican National Convention must vote for Donald Trump  at least in the first round of balloting.

But what they will do if there is a second round is an intriguing mystery and why next weekends state Republican convention is important.

The 1,251 delegates to the state convention will pick 55 national convention-goers from a list of nearly 750 candidates. Three more Arizonans are guaranteed seats because of their positions with the state GOP.

Each of the names will appear without further identifying information. Is a delegate a Trump voter through and through? Or someone willing to jump to Ted Cruz, John Kasich or someone else if the nomination process lasts more than one round?

The Cruz and Trump campaigns are calling and emailing the roughly 750 Arizona candidates to determine their loyalties. The campaigns want to be able to show up at the state convention in Mesa with preferred lists of national delegates.

Mariano Rodriguez, a local Trump supporter, has been interviewed by CNN and news outlets from across the globe. Even though he has been public about his choice, Rodriguez said he has gotten two calls from people asking him to support Trump.

To add to the confusion, some delegates, including former Pima County Republican Chair Carolyn Cox, are refusing to say who they will vote for in a potential second round of voting.

The winner-take-all rules from last months presidential preference election require Arizona delegates to back Trump, but only for the first round.

Constantin Querard, state director of the Cruz for President campaign, said he expects competing slates will be offered to the state-convention delegates.

He also expects some delegates to vote for friends first and then portions of the recommended slates second.

Trump supporters are comparing Cruzs strategy to cattle rustling, stealing delegates who rightfully belong to the man who won 47 percent of the popular vote in Arizona. Cruz received 25 percent and Kasich 10.

Jeff DeWit, the chair of the Trump campaign for Arizona, says the Cruz strategy is defying the will of Arizona voters.

He said the Trump campaign has energized the Republican base and it would be suicidal for the party in November if the GOP insiders manipulate the convention process to support any other nominee.

DeWit said if there is a second round of voting at the national convention, the margins could be so tight that the size of the Arizona delegation  58  could be enough to decide who will be the presidential nominee.

The roughly 750 people who want to represent Arizona in Cleveland compares with about 200 who sought spots four years ago, said Pima County Republican Party Chair Bill Beard. The rules for choosing are unchanged, he added.

Voting will occur in two phases. (See our infographic The road to Cleveland" for a breakdown on how it works.) The Maricopa County Elections Department will use its machines and staff to tabulate results.

In the event of ties, the winner will be chosen by flipping a coin or drawing cards.

The three people guaranteed seats in Cleveland are Phoenician Robert Graham, chair of the state party; Tucsonan Bruce Ash, who is running unopposed as the states national committeeman; and the states national committeewoman. Rae Chornenky, Lori Klein Corbin and Lynn Londen are vying to replace Sharon Giese for that job.
A key document was turned over to the U.S. Forest Service on Friday, pushing the decade-old, $1.5 billion Rosemont Mine project one step closer to a final decision.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sent its final biological opinion on the proposed mine to the Forest Service, ending a formal review of the mines impacts on imperiled species thats lasted nearly two years.

The review was triggered by the discovery of an endangered ocelot near the mine site in spring 2014, along with the prospect that two more imperiled species  the northern Mexican garter snake and the Western yellow-billed cuckoo  would soon receive federal protection. That raised the number of endangered and threatened species reviewed by the wildlife service to 11 in the mine area.

The new biological opinion will not be publicly released for 10 business days, to give Forest Service officials time to review it, said Coronado National Forest Supervisor Kerwin Dewberry. Dewberry will make the final decision on the mine with help from superiors in the Forest Services Albuquerque regional office and its Washington, D.C., office. That timetable means it would be released approximately by May 6. The opinion has also been turned over to Hudbay Minerals Inc., which would build the mine, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which must make a separate decision on the project.

Here are some questions and answers on the biological opinion and the Forest Services future course of action:

Q. Why is the Forest Service keeping this document from the public 10 days, when it was written by a public agency?

A. Dewberry said in an interview at his downtown Tucson office Friday that he needs time to review it to ensure that we are in a position to be able to fully answer any type of inquiries that will come to us. He said the release of the document will be a coordinated effort among federal agencies that produced it.

Q. What will the opinion say?

A. Wildlife service officials have declined to answer in advance. Opponents of the mine expect the service will not take a position that could legally stop the mine from being built. Endangered-species issues can stop a proposed project only if the wildlife service concludes the project would jeopardize the existence of a species or destroy or adversely modify its federally determined critical habitat. Such findings very rarely occur in biological opinions. When they do, the service usually finds mitigation plans to allow the project to go forward. In late 2013, the wildlife service wrote an earlier version of the Rosemont opinion that concluded there would be no jeopardy or major adverse habitat impacts, but was forced to revisit it.

Q. So why does this report matter?

A. The Forest Service has said that under the 1872 Mining Law and related federal laws and regulations, it cant turn down a mining proposal on federal land unless its shown the mine would violate federal law. The mine would be built on private land in the Santa Rita Mountains southeast of Tucson; its tailings and waste rock would be disposed of on public land. A favorable biological opinion would show to the Forest Service that the mine meets the federal Endangered Species Act, and the Forest Service has already concluded that the mine would meet all other applicable laws and regulations. Environmental groups and other mine opponents, however, are certain to challenge such findings in court if the mine is approved.

Q. When will the Forest Service make its final decision?

A. Recently, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials, who have been generally critical of Rosemont, predicted the Forest Service would decide on the mine by mid-May. The Army Corps, which cant make its decision until the Forest Service decides, is also likely to decide by mid-May, EPA Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld said recently in a telephone interview from his San Francisco office.

The Forest Services Dewberry, however, said the agency still has no timeline for a decision and cant even say for sure that it will issue a decision this year. It will be using the final biological report to begin finalizing that decision, but that will take a lot of coordination, he said.

Q. What other information will the Forest Service need and what other steps might it take before reaching a decision?

A. I cant answer that for you, Dewberry said Friday. Im not sure at this time. Until I review the biological opinion, I wont know what is the information I will have or need to help lead me to the next steps. We will be in the mode of coordinating with other action agencies.

Q. On Thursday, the Forest Service, the White House Council of Environmental Quality and four other federal agencies conducted a site visit to Rosemont. The Army Corps, EPA, Fish and Wildlife Service and BLM also went. But unlike a January 2014 visit that the same agencies conducted, the press wasnt invited and no outside groups were allowed. Why was that, particularly given President Obamas public commitment on taking office in January 2009 to set a new standard of openness?

A. This field trip was an internal site visit for the federal families that are involved in this process, for federal officials only, Dewberry said.

The trips purpose was to help Ted Boling, a top U.S. Council on Environmental Quality official who was in Tucson last week for other purposes, Dewberry said. We wanted to make sure he was familiar with the site himself on the ground while he was in the local area.

Q. Whats Rosemonts view going into this last-stage review?

A. Rosemont will be a modern mine built on sound science and we were glad to be able to welcome the professionals and officials from the federal agencies at the project site as part of the permitting process, said Patrick Merrin, vice president of Hudbays Arizona Business Unit, in a written statement.

Q. What are opponents saying?

A. Gayle Hartmann, president of the opposition group Save the Scenic Santa Ritas, predicted that the Forest Service will impose more mitigation plans on the mine but that the agency will ultimately decide in the mines favor. Then, she said she believes the Army Corps could turn down the mines permit application, given the general water supply and water quality issues involving the mine, including potential impacts on Cienega Creek and Davidson Canyon and the lowering of the water table west of the Santa Ritas for the mining company to pump groundwater to serve the project.

The sooner the Corps decision happens, the more likely the decision (will be against the mine), she said. The closer we get into election season, all bets are off.

Q. Assuming the mine is approved, will more mitigation efforts be required?

A. I would expect there will be new conservation measures and/or terms and conditions that would be incorporated into the record of decision, Dewberry said.
OPINION: "As a parent and teacher, I know the best way to address discord is to listen first and establish trust. As a neighborhood leader, I know how to work through differences by treating people with dignity and respect. As a mathematics teacher, I always taught my students that there is more than one way to solve problems," writes Theresa Riel, a candidate for the District 2 seat on the Pima Community College Governing Board.
Little improvement is expected this year in the dismal state of Southern Arizonas copper industry due to the continued slump in global copper prices.

Phoenix-based, multinational Freeport McMoRan Inc. and Asarco, the Tucson-based subsidiary of multinational mining giant Grupo Mexico, have fewer employees in Southern Arizona now than a year ago. Its the first time since 2010 that Freeport reported year-over-year job reductions in this region and the first time since 2013 for Asarco.

In addition, Freeport, which plans to halt production at its Sierrita Mine near Green Valley this year, says it plans to reduce its current Southern Arizona workforce of 5,530 employees by the end of 2016. It shut down its Miami mine last year.

Asarco, after announcing a shutdown of its Hayden concentrator last year, plans no changes this year in its Southern Arizona headcount of 2,200, it told the Star 200 survey.

On the positive side, both companies still have more Southern Arizona employees today than they did six years ago. That year, Freeport had a workforce of 3,997 people here. Asarco had 2,125 Southern Arizona employees.

Since then, copper prices have skyrocketed, then swooned, due to a meteoric rise and then a sharp slowdown in economic growth in China. China consumes 40 percent of the worlds copper supply.

Most of this year, copper prices have been stuck in the $2- $2.25-per-pound level, barely half or less than half of what they were in late 2010 and early 2011.

Only a quarter of 16 traders, analysts and producers surveyed at an industry gathering in Santiago, Chile in the week of April 4-8 said copper has reached a bottom, Bloomberg News reported. The median forecast among the other 12 respondents was for prices to fall below $2 in the next year.

But Bloomberg recently reported as well that many copper companies around the world are reluctant to sell off their metal resource because they believe copper is one of the few metals expected to be in a shortage by the end of the decade.

Their reasoning is that low prices are cooling off investment in new mines, meaning that not enough mines are being built. At the same time, few experts are predicting that copper prices will return to even the $3 per pound level until late in this decade.

Freeport reflected this longer-term optimism in a news release in early 2016. It said the company remains confident about the longer term outlook for copper prices based on the global demand and supply fundamentals.
Help India!

By Asghar Ali Engineer

It will be no exaggeration if I say secularism is the very life breath of Indian politics. One can hardly conceive of Indian polity sans secularism. However, it also faces several problems in Indian context. We will throw light and discuss the problematic of secularism in India. Before we do so we must explain meaning and context of Indian secularism.

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Secularism in India did not emerge, unlike in Europe, as a result of struggle against authority of church. In Europe since it emerged as a result of struggle against Church, it carried within itself an atheistic trend. It certainly implied a sort of indifference towards religion, if not antagonism to it. Recently this has been further intensified due to increasing consumerism and materialism.

In India religion has always been at the centre stage. Thus secularism here was never conceived as indifference, much less antagonism, to religion. Secularism was conceived as a philosophy giving equal respect to all religions including regional faith traditions. When Indian National Congress was founded, its founders feared it may be dubbed as a Hindu party by non-Hindu minorities. Thus it was sought to be made an all inclusive party and three of its presidents came from minority communities in its early days: 1) Badruddin Tyebji- Muslim from Bombay; 2) W.C.Banerjee A Christian from Bengal and Dadabhai Nawroji from Parsi Community.

Thus the Congress got support from all these communities from the day one. Even the Ulema, who were struggling against British rule readily supported it and urged their fellow-Muslims to join the Congress en mass. Maulana Qasim Ahmed Nanotwi, the founder of Darul Ulum Deoband, issued a fatwa to this effect himself and collected several more such fatwas from other ulema of repute and published them under the title of Nusrat-ul-Ahrar (Help for the Freedom fighters). The Ulema were convinced of the all inclusive character of the Congress Party and enthusiastically cooperated with it for throwing out British imperialist from India.

Thus our secularism is more in multi-religious context than any struggle against church or any religious authority for that matter. The Congress adopted secularism as an all-inclusive philosophy. Our country has a very rich experience of religious pluralism and multi-culturalism for centuries. We were never mono-religious or mono-cultural in any period of our history. The West has known religious pluralism and multi-culturalism only after World War II.

Some intellectuals immediately after independence thought secularism in India also should mean indifference to religion, if not being anti-religious and criticized state for associating with any religious events. Even our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was more or less of this view. But soon he had realized that it may not be workable in India and defined Indian secularism as equal protection to all religions by state. Thus real criteria for state remaining secular is whether it provides equal support to all religions or inclines more towards one or the other religion.

Having thrown light on the nature of Indian secularism we come to the problems Indian secularism faces. In fact we can divide state into two categories: 1) notional and 2) functional. As far as notional aspect is concerned it is defined by its Constitution. The Indian state adopted the Constitution which defines nature and functions of state, rights citizens enjoy and role of executive and judiciary.

As far as notional aspect is concerned i.e. constitutional provisions, I do not think there is much of a problem. When we faced some problems the Constitution was amended and our Constitution has been amended more than 100 times. Thus as far as notional aspect is concerned there is no problem. But its functional aspect is expressed through the government and its way of functioning.

The problematic of secularism starts with functional aspect, not with its notional aspect. The government is formed by a political party. For more or less 40 years after independence the Congress continued to rule and under Nehru Congress remained firmly committed to secularism but even under Nehru, it faced severe problems as other congress leaders were not so categorically committed and had quite ambiguous and some of them even communally inclined attitude.

Thus in 1948 itself Chief Minister of U.P. Govind Ballabh Pant, defied Nehrus instructions and did not remove idols of Ram and Sita which were installed in Babri masjid at midnight. Even Sardar Patel had written to C.M. of U.P. to remove the idols. If Pant had taken the step India would not have faced such huge problem in late eighties and early nineties.

Indian state, functionally, always remained soft as so clearly demonstrated by Jan Myrdal, a Swedish Economist, who wrote his famous work Asian Drama in sixties. The successive Governments kept on yielding to pressures and took decisions which did not conformed to secular values which our Constitution upholds. Even Nehru felt isolated on the question of curbing communal violence in Jabalpur which shook him.

On several crucial questions Central Government yielded to pressures and took unprincipled decisions violating secular values. There are several instances but two most crucial questions on which Government yielded which severely affected Indian secular polity, were Shah Bano judgment and the Babri masjid issue. Rajiv Gandhi bowed to the pressure by some Muslim leaders and enacted a law reversing the Supreme Court judgment in the Shah Bano case and Narsimha Rao did nothing to save Babri masjid and let it be demolished by the BJP hooligans.

This reversal of Supreme Court judgment in one case and total and deliberate non-action to save Babri Masjid seriously compromised Indian secularism and it proved that Indian Government does not act firmly on secular principles but yields to all sorts of pressures and takes opportunist stand. It never wishes to send strong and principled message by taking firm stand on crucial matters and does not mind at all displaying its weakness and opportunism for the sake of power.

Another crucial issue is communal violence. India was repeatedly rocked by communal violence in post-independence period. The Congress leadership, it is said, ultimately agreed to partition to save country from civil war and curb widespread communal violence and hoped that independent India would not witness communal violence. That is why Nehru was greatly shaken by Jabalpur riots which he never expected in independent India.

But this was just the beginning. Had he been alive he would have witnessed much worse riots in 1969 in Ahmedabad (in which more than 1000 people were done to death brutally) and 1970 Bhivandi-Jalgaon riots (in which about 400 persons including women and children) were done to death. Then followed several major riots in eighties which were worse in severity. Some of these riots were Moradabad (1980), Biharsharif (1981), Baroda and Meerut (19820, Neili, Assam (1983) in which more than 4000 people were massacred, Bombay Bhivandi riots and anti-Sikh riots (1984 May and November), Meerut (1987), it was in Hashimpura, Meerut that 42 persons were pulled out of their houses and shot by PAC and their bodies thrown into canal, 1989 Bhagalpur riots in which more than 800 persons perished and then 1992-93 riots in Mumbai, Surat, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Kanpur and several other places in India.

Now all these riots took place under Congress regimes, both at the Centre and states. These were, to say the least, horrible riots and Congress regime never tried to curb communal violence seriously. Not because the Congress party swerved from secular ideology but because most of the individual Congressmen were of either communal bent of mind or truly secular individuals in the party felt helpless and isolated.

For all politicians be they of the Congress or any other secular parties, power was ultimate aim, not constitutional principles or secularism. If power is prioritized over principles, country would witness such calamities repeatedly. State machinery was always grossly misused in all major communal riots. The politicians used police to promote their own interests and seriously compromised integrity and professionalism of the police.

Police, with some honourable exceptions, always displayed its communal character in almost all the riots. In Bombay riots 1992-93 and Gujarat riots 2002 it played leading role and brought shame to itself. This is mostly because police was instrumental in promoting interests of politicians and so even honest policemen got isolated, transferred or demoted. Lower ranks of the police has been highly communalized and even brutalized.

The governments are quite unwilling to take steps to organize refresher courses for the police to instill in them secular values as they want to use them time and again to organize communal violence as and when it suits them. All election strategies are also based on caste and communal arithmetic and hence it is nearly impossible to be firm on secular values and principles. Our electoral method is exclusive, rather than inclusive. Parties aim at this or that caste and community votes. Thus elections are won by excluding some and including some.

As long as our electoral method is exclusivistic, secularism would continued to be weakened. We have to abandon first past the post method which tends to work by excluding one community or the other and opt for inclusive method by adopting 51 per cent votes compulsory for winning and then no politician would target one community excluding other community or caste. This will help greatly in promoting secularism which is about including all in political processes.
Help India!

Kolkata : Ridiculing Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumars call for a Sangh-mukt Bharat, the BJP on Saturday said it was nothing but a daydream.

What right does he have to say such things? After being BJP Yukt for a number of years, how can he talk of Sangh-mukt Bharat? And even if he does say so, does that have credibility? asked BJP national spokesman Shahnawaz Hussain.

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He said the real motive behind Nitish Kumars remarks was to stay in the limelight.

Nitish Kumars Janata Dal-United is a regional party which never earlier contested all the seats in Bihar.

His dream of playing a key role in national politics will never come true, he added.
Dear Doctor K: I'm a woman in my 50s, and every so often it is painful for several days when I urinate. The doctor tests me, says I don't have a urinary tract infection, and that there's nothing to do. It's true that it goes away, but I'd like some relief when it hurts. Is there anything I can do?

Dear Reader: Urinary tract infections are a common cause of painful urination, but there are other causes as well. And those other causes can be treated. Here's what you need to know before you talk again to your doctor.

There are three different types of common urinary tract infections, involving three different parts of the urinary tract.

-- URETHRITIS is an inflammation of the urethra. The urethra is the short tube that goes from the bladder to the outside world. Urethritis can be caused by the bacteria that produce the other two types of urinary tract infections. It also can be the result of organisms that cause several sexually transmitted diseases, or by irritating chemicals (such as bubble bath or spermicides). Be sure your doctor tested for the sexually transmitted diseases.

-- A BLADDER INFECTION (cystitis) often is caused by bacteria that live around the opening of the urethra, then travel through the urethra to the bladder. The bladder stores urine that has been made by the kidneys, then eliminates it during urination. Sometimes, bacteria travel up into the bladder without any clear cause. More often, this happens following sex, because sex tends to push the bacteria back up into the bladder.

There is a widely held belief that women and girls who wipe with toilet tissue from back to front following a bowel movement can also push bacteria up into the bladder. However, I once did a study that did not confirm this belief.

-- KIDNEY INFECTION. Sometimes bacteria travel all the way up the urinary tract, into the kidneys, through long tubes called ureters. The symptoms of a kidney infection, in contrast to a bladder infection, include fever, pain in the side of the back, nausea, shaking chills and sometimes low blood pressure. Kidney infections always need urgent medical attention.

A urine culture test is commonly used to diagnose these three types of urinary tract infections. Many doctors were taught that a bacterial infection is not present if fewer than 100,000 bacteria are found in each milliliter of urine. However, newer research finds that an infection is likely if as few as 100 bacteria are found in each milliliter. You might check with your doctor on the results of your urine culture.

Another type of condition also can cause pain on urination: vaginitis, an inflammation of the vagina. Often it is caused by bacterial, yeast or trichomonas infections. Usually vaginitis produces discharge from the vagina, but sometimes it just causes pain with urination. It also can be the result of irritating chemicals (spermicide, douche, bath soap), irritation from tampons, or low levels of estrogen after menopause.

So if your doctor did not do a pelvic examination to look for vaginitis as a cause of your painful urination, you might suggest that.

(This column is an update of one that ran originally in March 2013.)
State Grid wins contract for Brazil transmission lines Updated: 2016-04-25 04:49 By JI YE in Rio de Janeiro(China Daily USA)

China's State Grid Brazil Holding has won the bidding to build two power transmission lines in Brazil, said the Brazilian Electricity Regulatory (Agencia Nacional de Energia Electrica).

The company won the rights on two lots located near the Paranatinga town in Mato Grosso, west of Brazil, for 334.5 million reais ($95.6 million) and 61.4 million reais ($17.5 million), respectively.

On April 13, more than 10 companies got 14 transmission lines stretching across 3,402 kilometers, with bids totaling 6.87 billion reais ($1.96 billion), said the agency, also known as ANEEL.

The companies that won the contracts will earn up to 2.5 billion reais ($715 million) annually over 30 years of the concession.

They also will be able to benefit from the substations, which start operation in 2017, according to tender contracts.

Jose Jurhosa, director of ANEEL, said that the investments are of significant value for a country coping with a recession.

"Given the situation of the Brazilian economy, receiving such an amount of investment in infrastructure is really very positive," said Jurhosa.

The regulatory agency hadput out to bid 24 transmission lines over6,500 km, which it estimated would bring in 12.2 billion reais ($3.49 billions) and create 27,640 direct jobs.

According to a study conducted by ANEEL last October, nearly 63 percent of all work to build new transmission lines in the country has been on hold, which has caused massive delays in connecting new wind farms and small hydroplants to the grid.

Thatis where State Grid Brazil, an experienced provider of transmission grids, can help, according to Ricardo Correa, an analyst for Ativa Corretora, a Brazilian financial services company.

"The participation of new actors in energy generation is difficult in Brazil, as the sector is crowded. However, in transmission, the Brazilian market is open and only requires volume, which State Grid has handled in China," he said.

"The project will yield a win-win result," said Zhang Jianping, an expert at the Academy of Macroeconomic Research of Chinas National Development and Reform Commission.

In addition, the project will create a huge demand for electricity equipment and steel and push Brazil to update its power infrastructure.

To China, the transmission lines are a breakthrough in overseas development. Given the weak export growth, the project will serve as a window for the world to see Chinas advanced technology and production capability. Those can be new growth points in foreign trade for China, Zhang said.

Brazil hopes to attract Chinese investment in highways, railways, ports, airports and other infrastructure projects, while the Chinese government regards infrastructure building as key to bilateral cooperation.

"The Brazilian government can count on infrastructure investment as a way to overcome the current economic recession and promote economic and social development,"said Xie Wenze, a visiting scholar from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

A 1percent increase in infrastructure investment can raise Brazils GDP by about 0.6 percent, he said.

Bilateral energy cooperation has yielded great results in recent years. Chinas State Grid has expanded its business in Brazil as a result.

The experience of equity mergers and acquisitions on the part of Chinas State Grid could be promoted to other projects in railways, highways, ports and other areas, said Ivanildo Marcos Beltrao, a Brazilian company official.
China, US, France: team effort on climate Updated: 2016-04-25 02:23 By HEZI JIANG at the United Nations(China Daily USA)

Chinese Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli (right) shake hands with French President Francois Hollande at the United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan, New York, U.S., April 22, 2016.

China will work with France and the United States to promote implementation the Paris Agreement as talks between high-level officials were held on the sidelines of the signing ceremony at the United Nations on April 22.

In a meeting with French President Francois Hollande, Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli praised efforts by the French side in hosting the successful Paris Conference, during which the historic deal was finally adopted with no objection on Dec 12.

"China hopes to work together with France to further promote the follow-up negotiations and effective implementation of the deal," said Zhang, also highlighting the close cooperation between the two countries throughout the process.

"The joint statement on climate change issued by President Xi Jinping and Hollande in November in Beijing contributed to the final adoption of the agreement," he said.

Hollande acknowledged China's role in promoting the adoption of the Paris Agreement and said that France is ready to work together with China to take advantage of the G20 Summit, which will be held in Septemberin Hangzhou, capital city of East China's Zhejiang province.

"France is full of confidence in China's economic development and wishes to strengthen cooperation in renewable resources, nuclear power, urban construction and third-party marketing," Hollande said.

Zhang also expressed the hope to deepen cooperation in nuclear power, aviation and sustainable development, and that the two countries could maintain high-level exchanges to discuss China's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), Belt and Road initiative, and France's Industry of the Future plan.
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A Tim Burton-themed bar and by-reservation-only dining room has opened up in New York City with Burtonesque decor and foodstuffs. One more reason for me to avoid New York.

Some kid got arrested for threatening to bomb a Trump rally on Twitter. And I thought Trump supporters were crazy.

A new ABQ cafe called Gatos y Galletas gives customers a chance to hang out with their furry friends. It also gave me the chance to troll KOB's Caleb James (aka the Duke City Dreamboat).

Here's Tavis Smiley's full interview with Prince. Strap in for talk about angelic healing and chem trails. We'll miss you, you crazy bastard.

Two sophomores at the University of Washington have invented gloves that can convert sign language into speech or written words. I can't wait to hear the ones Russell Peters was talking about.

Although the largest insect brain is smaller than a grain of rice, researches have learned that bugs are able to make choices, meaning they might have consciousness.

A man finds a six-foot snake in his toilet, begging the question, "How much did you drink last night?"

Good luck on getting that tax return any time soon. 59,000 state returns are under scrutiny for fraud, so you have to wait on getting that new solar-powered airplane.
DO YOU WANT TO CONVERT TO THE CLOUD

My quicken checkbook program often ask me the question.

Turbo-Tax repeats the question ever year.

Apple ITunes does as does my IPad and IPhone.

Microsoft is in on the conspiracy as well.

Fidelity Investments is constantly asking me to change.

Google has about a zillion programs that they say are better if I convert to the cloud.

I have not kept a list but I know that there are many more CLOUD OPTIONS that I have not mentioned.

BT'S CLOUD

I recently upgraded my mobile phone to the new iPhone 6S+. It's not that I needed a new phone but I grew bored with my other phone and the new iPhone has a much better camera for my endless selfies. I have always tried to keep up with the new technology because I did not want to be the old guy that everybody laughs at. I must admit that it never really bothered me when people laugh with me or at me, but keeping up with technology has been a lifelong pursuit. I have always been curious about how things work.This fascination with all working things came naturally, since I spent many hours in the basement shop watching my dad building things. His craftsmanship ranged from welding, using a lathe, woodwork, fabrication, and just about anything he set his mind to. He was the 'goto' man in our neighborhood. When any kid had a broken bike, wagon, tricycle or flexi-sled they would show up at our house and ask Captain Red to fix it. I don't think it was because their dad could not fix the broken toys but because it was common knowledge that my dad had a soft spot for kids (sometimes including my brother and I). He was always building something in our back yard from scooters, go-karts, horse trailers, and once restored a horse surrey which we rode all over Atlanta.Since I inherited the tinkerer gene from him, I took up where he left off. I have probably owned almost every generation of computers from the Timex Sinclair, Tandy 100, Osborne1 and who knows how desktop computers and laptops. At one time, I was the field evaluator for various laptops for our company when they decided to issue each field sales engineer a laptop.Computer companies would give the company laptops for evaluation and I must have tested over fifty different models for ease of use or durability.Since I retired, I have tried to keep up with the changing technology in both my industry as well as the computer field. It is nice to know that I do not have to be an expert to enjoy the changing environment of technology. I used to think that my Dad lived in one of the most interesting times. His life (1906-2005) spanned horse and buggy, airplanes, autos, TV, space exploration, and many other innovations created by the human mind. Of course, he also lived during five or six wars, one depression, multiple recessions, a couple of "booms" as he called the good times. I have since changed my mind though. I may have lived through more changes than the old man did. I think it is because of the computer age and Moore's Law which "states that processor speeds, or overall processing power for computers will double every two years".That has been true since the 1970's.Lately, I think I am beginning to lose my fight to keep current. I will continue to valiantly try to keep current in the ever changing field of computers, but there are some things that I just can't get my hands around.My laptop now continues to ask me questions that I don't understand. I can be peacefully typing along or using some of my software and suddenly Up-Pops (or is it Pop-Ups) the question.I had just gotten used to the backup to external hard drive alternative. I used to use 5 1/4 disks, then 3 1/2 disks, serial ports, CDs, DVD, USB thumbs, smart cards.I cannot believe that I still have most of those backups in my safe. I do not even have a disk drive that can read the floppy disk which are protected by a my fire safe. I also keep hard copy printouts of the year end finance sheets and tax returns. Remember, Just because I am paranoid does not mean that they are not out to get me.Fortunately, I still use my all time fall back favorite for backup. I still carry the standard 3x5 card in my front pocket to write notes and reminders. If I am wearing my... well you get the point.I even went outside to see if my cloud is floating by overhead.Unless it is clearly marked as, how would I know if it was my cloud or someone else's cloud? What happens when my cloud gets overloaded? Does that mean that all my information rains down on everyone? What about my privacy? Is this a government scheme to gain access to my cloud information without having to go to court and sue Apple to create a back door to my cloud? As usual, I always try to reduce the complicated things down to a few simple elements. Usually I have found that music, poems, signs, and stamps can express an idea simply and directly in a few words. I have not mastered the few words technique yet.Well for now I think I have found the answer to my dilemma. I am staying local. I had to go back to my youth but I found the answer in this 1967 song by Judy Collins.
HA NOI  The Vietnam Writers Association and family members of late poet Ngan Giang recently celebrated the anniversary of her 100th birthday.

Attending the event, many renowned Vietnamese writers and poets agreed that poet Ngan Giang was a unique phenomenon in Viet Nams poetry scene. She started writing poems at a young age and had her first work published in a newspaper at the age of nine. Her first collection of poems, Giot Le Xuan (Spring Teardrop), was released when she was 16.

According to literary scholar Nguyen Thi Bich Hong, Giang was both a beautiful and talented Hanoian woman, but her life had many ups and downs. She also added that her poem collection Tieng Vong Song Ngan (The Echo of the Galaxy) was a remarkable milestone in her career, making her one of the most popular contemporary poets.

Giang led a special and wonderful life, always preserving the national spirit through any condition and difficulty, said writer Phung Van Khai. Her writing and revolutionary career set an example for writers and poets when the country was at risk of invasion. The heart of the poet was indescribable in words. However, it could be partially comprehended through her works.

Ngan Giang was born as o Thi Que on March 20, 1916, into a Confucian family on Hang Trong Street, Ha Noi. She was honoured as the Queen of Viet Nams Tang poetry in the 20th century. In her 80-year writing career, she composed 4,000 poems, in addition to nine collections of poems, which have significantly contributed to the countrys poetry. She was honoured with a poem by late President Ho Chi Minh in 1946.

Poet Ngan Giang died in 2002 at the age of 86. -- VNS
Scandals related to contaminated and unsafe food in recent years have become an issue of major public concern as consumers fear the health consequences. Bo Xuan Hiep reports.

Shopping at a supermarket last weekend, Nguyen Thi Yen Nga of HCM City faced a wide array of food items, having no idea what was safe to eat.

Even though she had checked the labels about the origin of the products, she doubted that all of her purchases were clean or safe.

Ive heard the news on TV and newspapers as well as on Facebook about cattle fed with chemicals and greens sprayed with chemicals being sold at markets, she said.

She and other residents across Viet Nam have become increasingly fearful about unsafe food sold at both traditional markets and supermarkets.

Recent reports indicate that unsafe food is believed to be one of the causes behind the higher cancer rate in recent years.

Experts have warned that unhealthy lifestyles, non-certified foods and overuse of banned substances in agriculture, as well as pollution, have contributed to the rise in the number of cancer cases.

Hoang Thi Thuy Van, 43, a resident of HCM Citys Binh Thanh District, said: Unsafe food seems to exist everywhere, and everything we eat can be toxic. Its really scary.

Van said she kept lists of possibly unsafe food, including fruits and vegetables that contain high levels of pesticide residue, E.coli bacteria-infected drinks and chilli sauce with cancer-causing Rhodamine B.

No one can guarantee that all food is safe because the long-term consequences of unsafe food may not be immediately apparent, she said.

She said that consumers must take precautions, such as finding reliable food sellers, dining out less, or even growing vegetables at home.

Many residents are willing to pay more for products that are truly safe, but they can be hard to find.

One farmer recently interviewed, who wished to remain anonymous, said that many famers were over-using chemicals and pesticides in order to shorten the time for harvest.

He said the practice continued because everyone else is doing it, and we want to be competitive. However, many of the farmers refuse to eat their own produce, he added.

o Ngoc Chinh, chief of the southern office of the Association for Standardisation and Consumer Production, said that a major problem was the use of antibiotics and lean-creating substances in livestock.

The lack of strict sanctions and fines has also made it tough for local authorities to tighten control over food safety violations, worsening the situation.

Homegrown produce

While waiting for stricter laws, people have been finding their own ways to survive.

Families in large cities like HCM City and Ha Noi are turning to safe food grown by their relatives or friends in rural provinces.

Van, of Binh Thanh District, for example, said she often bought vegetables and seafood transported from someone she knows in Hoc Mon District.

My family switched to self-sourcing our daily food in the last two or three years, she said.

She only buys seafood from fishing boats as soon as they come ashore, and meat from her brothers slaughterhouse. When the supply of clean vegetables is insufficient, she will sometimes buy food from supermarkets.

Safe vegetables, fruits and other goods, including organic goods, are sometimes less visually appealing than those raised with pesticides.

Van said that safe or organic vegetables and fruit were not consistent in size and shape, which drives some buyers away.

Some families in Ha Noi buy food from mountainous areas at much higher prices than the market price, travelling hundreds of kilometres to buy safe food directly from local farms.

A number of families have begun growing vegetables at their homes.

Vu Ngoc Phat, 60, of HCM Citys Binh Thanh District, said he planned to grow vegetables in boxes at his new house in Go Vap District.

Nguyen Van am, 65, and his family in the citys District 4 have just built a 350-square-metre wooden house in Cu Chi where he grows vegetables and fruits.

Another District 4 resident, Nguyen Anh at, 33, and his colleagues have set up Facebook groups to exchange information about homegrown foods.

Organic agriculture

Responding to the growing concern about safe food among consumers, VinEco, a food supply company under the real estate investor Vingroup, began selling safe vegetables last October, six months after Vingroup announced it would invest in the agricultural sector on a large scale.

VinEco is expected to supply 30 tonnes of 14 different types of vegetables per day, grown under GlobalGAP and VietGAP standards at its farms in Vinh Phuc Province, HCM City and ong Nai Province, all of which use Japanese technology.

Last August, VinEco built a 24.5-ha greenhouse in Vinh Phuc Province at a cost of $44.2 million.

The greenhouse, the countrys largest of its kind, is equipped with Israeli technology.

The facility can supply 3,500 tonnes of organic vegetables that meet VietGAP and other global standards. This is VinEcos second greenhouse, after the first in Cu Chi.

Besides VinEco, many other large business groups in Viet Nam have also invested in producing safe agricultural products.

The Saigon Securities Trading Company is involved in rice and seafood production, while a subsidiary of the Hoa Phat Steel Group has invested in an animal feed factory.

In addition, the Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group has invested in cow breeding and rubber plantations.

Mobile World, an electronics retailer in Viet Nam, is also planning to enter the fresh food and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) market.

Mobile Worlds CEO, Nguyen uc Tai, said that demand was high for fresh food and clean agricultural products, but supply was still too low.

However, organic foods are often more expensive than food grown under traditional methods.

Nguyen Thuy Duong, head of Export Import Trading of Khang Cuong Agriculture Company, told Viet Nam News that organic food supply was limited compared to demand.

She said production costs for organic foods were higher due to greater labour input per unit of output.

Post-harvest handling of relatively small quantities of organic foods results in higher costs because of the mandatory segregation of organic and conventional produce, especially for processing and transportation, Duong said.

Government effort

Along with efforts made by consumers and farmers, local authorities are also outlining plans to promote clean produce.

HCM City recently approved a five-year plan for cultivation of organic and safe vegetables.

Under the programme, organic and safe vegetable farming areas in the city are expected to reach more than 16,000 hectares by 2020.

The city aims to have 90 per cent of farmers and others growing fruit and vegetables to meet VietGAP standards.

The city now has 91 communes cultivating vegetables in Cu Chi, Hoc Mon and Binh Chanh districts.

As of the end of last year, vegetable areas had reached 15,800 hectares, with average productivity of 375,000 tonnes a year, an increase of 19 per cent and 33.7 per cent, respectively, in comparison with 2011.

At least 721 organisations and individuals have gained VietGAP certification on a total of more than 2,000 hectares. The area has nearly doubled compared with the 2006-2010 period.

High demand has forced farmers to use better methods to produce quality products and a higher yield under VietGAP standards.

The city also plans to increase quality and productivity, and create close connections among partners in a safe food supply chain.

During the 2016-20 period, co-operatives taking part in the organic and safe vegetable development programme would receive VietGAP certification for production. Ninety per cent of their products are expected to be sold through order contracts.

In addition to this programme, two cultivation areas in a pilot project will use the latest technology before being applied to a wider area.

To reach the target, local authorities will also promote science and technology research, practical transfer and application, and improve state management of food hygiene.

In addition, ready-to-eat, washed tomatoes and lettuce grown without soil are expected to become a future farming model for other vegetables.

An IT-based agricultural project this year will grow high value-added vegetables, including medium-sized tomatoes and low-potassium leaf lettuce that will be the source of clean, ready-to-eat food.

The potassium content in this kind of lettuce is one-fifth of that contained in lettuce grown in ordinary ways, making it suitable for diabetics and others.

Role of media

Most people still lack knowledge about food safety, but the media has played an important role in raising awareness about the issue.

Early this month, the VTV24 News Centre of Viet Nam Television, for example, launched the TV programme Say No to Unsafe Food.

The programme will not only disclose the identity of unsafe food products and the names of producers who have committed violations, but will also have a hotline and social network page for consumers.

The TV show will also discuss the results of tests of popular foods and others suggested by viewers, and give clear and specific guidance on how to distinguish between safe and unsafe food.

In addition, the new Criminal Code approved by the National Assembly that will take effect on July 1 stipulates that the use of banned substances by individuals, organisations and enterprises in food production will be considered a crime.

Violators will either be fined up to VN200 million ($8,958) or put in jail for up to 20 years. This is a major change from the previous Criminal Code, which did not set high standards, making it harder to prove violations.

Tran Tuan Anh, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, said that preventing unsafe food was the chief mission of not only the media but also the entire society.

Viet Nam has about 200,000 new cases of cancers every year, with 75,000 deaths, one of the highest rates in the world, according to figures released at a seminar held recently in HCM City.

Dr Nguyen Ba uc, deputy chairman of the Viet Nam Cancer Association, said that unsafe food was a leading carcinogenic factor, accounting for some 35 per cent of cases in Viet Nam, while genetic factors accounted for only between 5 and 10 per cent.

Nga, 56, the shopper at the supermarket in HCM Citys Binh Thanh District, said it was essential to have a trustworthy agency to test food before it is sold at markets.

But we dont know who or which agency to trust, she said. We have no choice. We must eat to survive. VNS
by Phuong Vu

The normal working day starts at 8am, but for teacher Hoang Thi Huong in Rao Tre Village in the central province of Ha Tinh, the day begins three hours earlier. Not only does she reach school early to prepare her lessons, but she also visits the childrens homes to get them ready for school.

Born into a poor family in Huong Lien Commune in Ha Tinh, the teacher thoroughly empathises with the disadvantages of children in remote areas.

During her school days, Huong nurtured a dream of helping the youth in her hometown, which was later realised when she was assigned to work at the kindergarten in Rao Tre at the age of 20.

The village is home to 37 families comprising 134 people, all of the Chut ethnic minority. Due to the villages remote location and marriages among cousins, locals here suffer from a lack of awareness and poor living conditions, leaving them with a poor education, especially for children.

There were no children on the first day I arrived at the kindergarten, Huong recalled. Later on, I learnt the teachers here have to go to the childrens houses and take them to school. But it is not easy. The parents might stop us because we are strangers. If they do allow us, the children themselves may not want to go.

Huong decided to ask village patriarch Ho Puc to help her take the children to school and bring them home after the lesson.

But it took nearly two years for parents to familiarise themselves with the teacher and for Huong to be able to take the children to school.

Now, in the morning, she enters the childrens bedrooms to wake them up and get them ready for school.

Many people feel sorry for me when they learn I attend to the ethnic childrens personal hygiene, because the Chut people have limited awareness on this issue. The first days were the toughest, because many children had not bathed for a long time; some of them even suffered from scabies. But, instead of being afraid, I only felt great pity for them. I have to be close to them, so if I do not take care of their personal hygiene, who will? Huong said.

A newly built bridge has connected the remote village to the outside world, but earlier, before the bridge was built, access to the village was a huge challenge for the teachers.

For nearly 10 years, as a young teacher, Huong would swim across the swift-flowing Ngan Sau River to the village, using only one hand; in the other, she held her clothes.

Summer was less severe. The most difficult time of the year for me was winter when the water level was high. One day, I slipped and fell into the gushing water but fortunately saved myself by holding onto a bush by the river, Huong said.

Ever since her first day at the Rao Tre kindergarten, she has been using part of her meagre salary to purchase more educational tools and textbooks for the children.

Some children had still not gotten used to school, so she also bought candy to "attract" them, and rice to supplement their meals, she said.

Children aged 3-5 years receive monthly support of VN120,000 (US$6) each from the state budget, but some two-year-olds do not get any support because they are not covered under the compulsory education system. However, in order to familiarise them with school, we teachers pick them up early. That is why we have to spend our own money to support them but only partially, she said.

Huong travels back and forth between the school and the childrens homes four times a day. At noon, she voluntarily cooks meals for them and then takes them home. In the early afternoon, after a quick lunch and tidying up her home, she returns to the childrens houses and takes them back to school.

In order to communicate with the local people more easily, Huong uses her spare time to learn the Chut language and can now converse with the Chut people fluently.

Despite all these difficulties, she has never complained, nor mentioned any intention of working in any other place.

The managers of the kindergarten have suggested several times that she could change her job location, but she is determined to stay because of her attachment to the local lifestyle. In addition, new teachers have come, but no one else has been as successful in getting the students to school, Nguyen Thi Hoa, headmistresses of the kindergarten, said.

When asked about her current aspiration, Huong said she had no wishes for herself.

The children have been studying at the village clubhouse, instead of a proper classroom, for such a long time. I hope there will be more investment in building new classes for better local education. Besides this, it is a bit inconvenient for me to work both as a teacher and as a cook for the children, so I also hope there will be more teachers arriving to support me.

Huongs immense dedication to local education was honoured last year with a certificate of merit from the Minister of Education and Training, to further encourage her efforts to help educate disadvantaged children.  VNS
Nguyen Lam Thao Tam, a 10th grade student from HCM City was chosen from more than 7,000 Vietnamese students to join the Education Firsts Youth Leadership Forum in Brazil in August. She speaks to Ha Nguyen.

Inner Sanctum: Can you introduce yourself to the readers?

I am a female student of Class 10D1, inh Thien Ly high school in HCM City and I am very happy to win the first and only prize to join Education Firsts Youth Leadership Forum to be held in Brazil in August this year. I thank Education First (EF) for organising the contest for us to join in and have an opportunity to attend the forum.

Inner Sanctum: I was very impressed with the presentation of your essay in the final round of the EF Challenge, a public speech competition themed, Do you believe nothing is impossible? for high school students held in Ha Noi last month. So could you tell us stories on how your mother helped you to change your mind-set, raised your self-esteem, and guided you into the correct learning path?

To put in simple terms, I did not have a very pleasant time in middle school. I started out as a very energetic child and had a fire-cracker personality. But after going through transferring, and being picked on, the firecracker inside me sort of fizzled out. Before I knew it I was a grumpy angst-filled teenager who just did not want to try new things. My grades decreased sharply, along with my willpower. I did not do well in classes, so there went my self-esteem too. As a result I did not do as well as I had hoped in the high school entrance exams. But my mother was always present. She pulled me out of the gutter, reminded me of how important it is to pick myself up, sent me to Dale Carnegie classes, and launched me back into orbit. She is my power and way. I owe everything that I have and all that I am to her.

Inner Sanctum: What did you do to regain confidence particularly after being bullied? Can you relate a story that helped you regain your confidence after these incidents?

It is not an exaggeration to say that every ounce of confidence I own is thanks to the Dale Carnegie classes. The DC school, or more specifically the GenNext programme is built to teach young ones such as myself how to sort out our feelings as well as to prepare for the future. I have made so many friends here who have always been supportive even up to this day, and I have learnt and matured so much. Besides DC, I also have close friends and family who care for me even more than I do, particularly my best friend of eight years, Chau Tran, and my mother. I am forever grateful to all of them.

Inner Sanctum: I was told that you had set up the so-called "three-door" to unlock your fullest abilities? Tell us about this?

The three doors was a concept my mom and I built after our research on the human brain and how ability is unlocked. Through our readings and searches, we have summed up that there are three main factors which contribute to turning potential into ability, particularly in the teenage years. These are mind-set, confidence, and path. The concept of three doors was based on these factors.

Inner Sanctum: You have defined three styles of learning: visual, audio, and kinesthetic that is the suitable path for yourself. Tell us how you learnt in a most active environment and experience engaged active learning at your inh Thien Ly high school?

At inh Thien Ly, I am more freely allowed to voice my queries, thoughts and opinions on all subjects. I am not afraid of negative criticism at school, because there are none. The teachers are also very adept in their subjects and incorporate digital methods into teaching, so classes seem much more interesting. They are also very considerate towards students, and they understand that everyone is different mentally and physically. Therefore, I feel much at home at school.

Inner Sanctum: Do you know something about the EFs Youth Leadership Forum in Brazil?

I have not been sent the details, but going by last years forum, it is a community for EF Challenge representatives to discuss ideas, as well as learn on a global scale. It is going to be so fascinating that I can barely wait.

Inner Sanctum: What do you think about the opportunity that you have won?

I was quite surprised at first because my fellow participants have all done exceedingly well, and I was honoured to be deemed the winner. I am very glad, but also slightly worried. I hope I can do my best to represent our country, as well as be worthy of the title I have earned.

Inner Sanctum: What are the subjects that you will discuss at the forum and why?

I would like to discuss global education. As we all know, education is the primary basis for civilised and modern lives, yet not everyone has access to education. In my opinion this is unfair, because education can be made accessible if its importance is recognised and taken as a heavier issue than it is perceived today. This is one of the biggest global issues, and I would like to listen to different opinions in this regard.

Inner Sanctum: What is your future plan after returning to VN from Brazil and after graduation from high school?

I would like to study abroad, not only for educational purposes, but also for myself. I want to study hard, graduate, and contribute. Life is way too short not to see the world, and I plan on achieving a sustainable career so that I could fund my own adventures. VNS
Pham Hong Bao, owner of a handicraft factory in Tuy Hoa City, has succeeded in developing an environmentally-friendly product, winning artistic acclaim for his work. -- Photo enternews.vn

by Thu Anh

A graduate from the HCM City University of Fine Arts is using coconut shells for ornamental tiles to develop his small business in his home province of Phu Yen.

Pham Hong Bao, owner of a handicraft factory in Tuy Hoa City, has succeeded in developing an environmentally-friendly product, winning artistic acclaim for his work.

Coconut shells have long been a popular material in the country for making eating utensils such as bowls and trays. In 2005, Bao took advantage of the coconut shells hardness and natural beauty to make ornamental tiles.

"I crushed the coconut shells and fixed them with special glue, and then put them under pressure to create the tiles, he said.

This helps products have very beautiful designs created by natural patterns on coconut shells put together at random," said Bao, who has experience in the fine arts.

Bao said the production cost of coconut shells is cheap, around VN20,000 (US$1) for one kilo.

I buy three tonnes of coconut shells from local farmers per month. My factorys products are exported to the US, Japan and Germany, earning more than VN2 billion ($90,000) in income per year, said the 36-year-old businessman.

His factory now has more than 100 labourers, mostly youth who are poor or disabled, who earn at least VN3 million ($140) per month.

"Baos business has contributed to the provinces handicrafts and created more ways for local young people to earn a stable job, Tran Quang Nhut, deputy chairman of Phu Yens Peoples Committee, said.

Viet Nam now has more than 200,000 hectares of coconut trees, which produce millions of coconuts each year.

The coconut is a versatile fruit that can be used in food and drinks, cosmetics, furniture and handicrafts.

However, many farmers still do not know how to make the most use of the coconuts they grow. Many remain poor because they grow low-yield varieties and use outdated farming and processing techniques. -- VNS
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Singapore authorities have charged a former private banker with money laundering, following their probe into an embattled Malaysian state investment fund, according to people familiar with the case. Yeo Jiawei, a former wealth planner at the Singapore arm of Swiss private bank BSI SA, was charged on April 16, said the people. While the charge made no mention of 1Malaysia Development Bhd, they stemmed from investigations into the fund's money flows, the people said. Singapore's Attorney-General's Chambers on Friday confirmed Yeo's identity and the charge. The charges raise ...
Study abroad experiences increase global understanding

ECU sophomore Katie Chandler celebrates during Italy's Carnevale festival. (Contributed photo)

During a tour of Vitosha Mountain in Sofia, Bulgaria, ECU student Hunter Marshall takes in an amazing view of the Dragalevtsi Monastery in the background. (Contributed photo)

Participation totals



ECU student Kristen Edmonds snapped this photo at the Bridge of Sighs in Venice, Italy for ECU Education Abroad's 2015 Study Abroad Photo Contest. (Contributed photo)



ECU student Courtney Phipps shows her Pirate pride at a scenic mountain overlook in Argentina. (Contributed photo)

From visiting Buddhist holy places to examining Peruvian culture in the Andean highlands, students at East Carolina University have a world of places and programs to explore through study abroad.Hundreds will travel this summer, the most popular time for ECU students, said Whitney Morris, education abroad advisor in ECU's International House.More than 35 faculty-led summer programs are offered including one by associate professor of religious studies Derek Maher, who will take 15 students to India and Nepal to map the Buddhist Holy Land and follow the Buddha's life. This is the 11th year that Maher has led a trip to South Asia.Maher said.As part of the program, Maher required students to enroll in his course this spring to learn research methodology in the digital humanities, collaborative research and more about the area they will travel. Once abroad, the students will form six research groups, each focusing on a sacred place using the skills they learned this semester. Each group will guide the other students in the field experience at their site. All the work will be included in a website developed by Maher. The research is expected to continue at least five years, providing more opportunities for students to contribute, he said.One of the students going to India is Katie Chandler, an ECU sophomore majoring in philosophy and history. She studied last year in Italy and South Africa, and serves as an ECU Global Ambassador who can help answer questions from students interested in going overseas.Chandler said.Later this summer, she will travel independently to Scandinavia (Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark) with a friend who went on the same study abroad program in Italy last year. Chandler said the two planned the trip without outside help, something she would have been too timid to do before her time abroad.Chandler said.Since studying abroad, Chandler's grades have improved and she's planning to attend graduate school,she said.A recent ECU graduate, Kaileigh Hubbard ('13), said her study abroad experience led to her career working with students from around the world as an international admissions advisor at the University of Buffalo, The State University of New York.Hubbard double majored in English and English education at ECU and planned to teach high school students. She studied in London in 2012 during the Olympics.she said.She tapped into her study abroad experience previously as a graduate assistant working in international student programs and admissions at Canisius College, where she received a master's degree in college student personnel administration last year.When she met her international students arriving in the United States for the first time,she said.Another ECU graduate, Vincent Meadows ('13) said his career also has been influenced by studying abroad. A graphic designer, he works for an international media company providing news in nine languages in Asia.Meadows studied in Indonesia the second semester of his junior year through an exchange program, which helped save money while providing academic credit hours.he said.He said he made lifelong friends and learned about graphic design on an international level. He credited ECU's International House with helping him sort through options to make study abroad possible. He also believes his travel experiences have made him a well-rounded, more marketable employee.Meadows said.Like Meadows, some students don't see themselves as being able to study abroad due to costs or concerns about being away from family and friends, Morris said.Scholarships are available, and if students opt for an exchange program, it costs the same as tuition at ECU, Morris said.Faculty-led summer study abroad programs vary in price depending on the location and length of the trip.ECU has seen about a 7 percent increase each year in the number of students who study abroad, but they'd like to see more. ECU has joined an Institute for International Education initiative aimed at doubling the number of students who go abroad by 2020, Morris said.she said.The Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences' strategic plan calls for doubling the number of students who study abroad, said Maher, who also serves as associate dean for undergraduate studies in the college. Under Dean William Downs' leadership, the college has significantly increased the number of scholarships available for study abroad, Maher said.Maher said.Chandler encourages anyone contemplating study abroad to just do it.Chandler said.For more information, go to http://piratesabroad.ecu.edu
Sydney soaked by wettest October ever recorded A Sky News Australia meteorologist has predicted how much rain Sydneysiders can expect for the rest of 2022 as two weather systems lash almost every inch of New South Wales.

Jurors in rape trial make request amid ongoing deliberations The 12-member jury of the Bruce Lehrmann rape trial have requested extra time to come to a unanimous decision on whether the former Liberal staffer sexually assaulted Brittany Higgins.

Lambie prays for Netball Australia after sponsorship mess Senator Jacqui Lambie has thrown her support behind Gina Rinehart as she slammed Netball Australia for losing a major sponsor while local sports clubs struggle to stay alive.

Labor move to derecognise West Jerusalem a slap in the face to a loyal ally Just as the two countries gear up for close cooperation in high-tech areas of food security and missile defence, Canberra has put a major dent in its relations with Israel.
CEDAR FALLS  City officials in Cedar Falls and Cedar Falls Utilities will honor five organizations and two individuals at the Business & Industry Appreciation and Representative Citizen Awards from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday at the Park Place Event Centre.

This years recipients are:

Red Cedar Cohort will receive the Entrepreneur Award. Red Cedar Cohort is a group of volunteers who work together to improve the innovation community through education events, networking opportunities, mentoring and community outreach. The groups Millrace Co-Working Space, property of Western Home Communities, at 10 Main St., is home to eight companies in various stages of development.

American Color Imaging will receive the Long Time Investor Award. Founded in 1967 in Waterloo, ACI, moved to 713 E. 18th St. in Cedar Falls 10 years later. The company expanded and remodeled the building in recent years. In 2014, ACI expanded into the former Valley Park Lanes building, which connected its Cedar Falls property to a 10,000-square-foot expansion which it had completed in 2008.

The Merchant Mansion Restoration will receive the Redevelopment Investor Award. In December 1912, Frank Ivan Merchant, a classical languages professor at what is now the Unviersity of Northern Iowa, completed construction of a Georgian mansion at 1927 College St. The house became a local landmark; however, over the years, it had fallen into disrepair. Brian Sires and his family have restored the house.

Westminster Storage LLC will get the Partnership Award for rebuilding and restoring a badly deteriorated vacant industrial building in the Cedar Falls Industrial Park. The renovation involved replacing nearly the entire structure, except the steel framework and roof. Siding, overhead doors, main doors, electrical service, heating and air-conditioning, plumbing and offices were replaced.

Standard Distribution Co. will receive the Energy Innovation Award for the companys newest building, completed in 2015, at 1225 Rail Way in the northern Cedar Falls Industrial Park. The company worked with Pete Olson of Cedar Falls Utilities, general contractor Fred Rose and electrical contractor Tom Stickfort to update energy technology, including LED lighting, sunlight harvesting and lighting and environmental control systems. The company also is working on applying similar updates to its original Cedar Falls buildings, at 317 Savannah Park Road; 1109 Viking Road; and 6206 Nordic Drive.

Bob and Becky Hardman will get the Representative Citizen Award. Natives of Maryland, the Hardmans were married in 1959 and moved to Cedar Falls, where Bob Hardman became a professor and director of the Center for Educational Technology at the University of Northern Iowa and Becky Hardman worked as a nurse in the mental health field at Allen Hospital.

Becky Hardman went into volunteering after her retirement, becoming coordinator of the Methodist Church Community meal. She also served 12 years on the board at Western Home Communities.

Bob Hardman produced films and served on the board for the Cedar Falls Historical Society, chaired the Wyth House Council and served as president of numerous clubs and boards, including the Cedar Falls Civic Foundation. He served 14 years as a commissioner of the Iowa Communication Center.
WATERLOO  The Northeast Iowa Food Bank is the recipient of current and recent donations from automobile dealers in the area.

During November and December 2015, Subaru and C&S Car Co. donated to national and local organizations for the Subaru Share the Love Event. C&S chose the Northeast Iowa Food Bank as its charitable organization. Customers who purchased a new Subaru during this period had the option to donate all or some of the proceeds to the organizations of their choice. During this time period enough Subarus were purchased to raise $12,625 for the food bank.

During April, Bill Colwell Ford in Hudson is hosting Fill a 50 and is collecting items for the food bank. The dealer is asking the Cedar Valley community to bring in non-perishable items and help them fill the bed of an F-150, or Fill a 50. For each item donated, donors will be entered into a drawing for a chance to win a free auto detail and The Works vehicle checkup package at Bill Colwell Ford. The winner will be announced May 2. The goal is to collect 300 items.

The list of needed items includes canned meats, canned fruits, peanut butter, bar soap, toilet paper, canned vegetables, canned soups, crackers, pasta or noodles and toothpaste. Due to the length of this event, they cannot accept homemade or home-canned products, frozen items, perishables and produce.

Bill Colwell Ford has a Facebook page, on which visitors can monitor the progress of the drive.
DES MOINES  Hydrite Chemical Co., which has a plant in Waterloo, and Elkader-based Mobile Track Solutions LLC were among nine companies awarded awarded financial assistance and tax benefits by the the Iowa Economic Development Authority on Friday.

The awards will help create 349 jobs and more than $89 million in capital investment for the state, IEDA said. The board also approved innovation funding for seven startups, including Performance Livestock Analytics (PLA), founded in 2015 in St. Ansgar.

Brookfield, Wis.-based Hydrite Chemical, a chemical product manufacturer, is set to invest $15.9 million in its Waterloo plant at 2815 WCF & N Drive. The company provides expertise in chemical distribution, food and dairy sanitation, food ingredients, organic processing, liquid sulfur salts, water treatment, foam control and compliance management.

Hydrite Chemicals proposed project would increase manufacturing capabilities in Waterloo by expanding its product lines in the food, agriculture and sulfur industries.

IEDA awarded the company tax benefits through the High Quality Jobs Program. The project is expected to create 11 jobs at a qualifying wage of $16.79 per hour.

The project includes land acquisition, site preparation, the construction of a 20,000 square-foot building and installation of machinery and equipment.

Mobile Track Solutions, which manufactures heavy earth-moving equipment for contractors of all sizes, proposes construction of a 44,000-square-foot building in the Johnson Industrial Park in Elkader to rebuild components and remanufacture Caterpillar 740 haul trucks.

The project has a capital investment of $5.1 million and would create 30 jobs at a qualifying wage of $14.70 per hour. The board awarded Mobile Track Solutions $180,000 in direct financial assistance and tax benefits via HQJP.

Among the startups to receive awards, Performance Livestock Analytics, which creates software for livestock producers, received a $25,000 grant for validation of market potential, corporate formation activities and sales/marketing, IEDA said.

Awards also went to companies in Altoona, Ankeny, Coralville, Davenport, Des Moines, Dubuque, Iowa City, Johnston, Knoxville, Mount Pleasant and New Sharon.
It has been far too many years since the Woke theology interlaced its canons within the fabric of the Indoctrination Realm, so it is nigh time to ask: Does this Representative Republic continue, as a functioning society of a self-governed people, by contending with the unusual, self absorbed dictates of the Woke, and their vast array of Victimhood scenarios?

Yes, the Religion of Woke must continue; there are so many groups of underprivileged, underserved, a direct result of unrelenting Inequity; they deserve everything.

No; the Woke fools must be toppled from their self-anointed pedestal; a functioning society of a good Constitutional people cannot withstand this level of "existential" favoritism as it exists now.
HOLLAND -- Edward and Lillian Marks will be celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary with a family gathering.

Lillian DeVries and Edward Marks were married May 5, 1956, at Bethany Presbyterian Church, Grundy Center.

Lillian is retired from Price Lab School, UNI, in Cedar Falls, and Edward is retired from the Farmers Cooperative in Dike.

They have two sons, Jim and Paula of New Hartford and John and Karen of Dike, along with five grandchildren, their spouses and three great-granddaughters.

Greetings may be sent to 15802 N. Ave., Holland 50642.
WATERLOO  Lets say you had one too many drinks at a downtown Cedar Falls establishment. You and your friends dont want to drive. Instead of calling a taxi, you pull up an app on your smartphone, tap a few times and get a ride home.

You might think since Ubers not officially allowed in the Cedar Valley yet that you cant do this.

Judd Mercurio wants you to know youre wrong on that point.

The Waterloo man has been driving family and friends around in Cedar Falls  informally, since hes not yet licensed  for a company called Arcade City for a month.

Arcade City is a decentralized ridesharing service that operates a lot like Uber, except for all the ways it doesnt.

Mercurio said he heard about Arcade City on a radio show and said it appealed to his sense of deregulated, small government.

I see how the governments been getting their hands in regulations of apps, he said. Arcade City ... just seemed like it was less regulated, but not in an unsafe way. Youre basically responsible for marketing yourself, building up your customer base.

So Mercurio, as the one-man marketing machine for Arcade City Cedar Valley, drives his family and friends around Waterloo and Cedar Falls in the evenings and on weekends.

I like Arcade City because Im an entrepreneur at heart. I like to go out and talk to people, building business, he said.

Mercurio is the only Arcade City driver in Iowa so far as Arcade City founder Christopher David knows.

David, a former Uber driver, started his company in New Hampshire after he grew frustrated with Ubers policies. He believed the problem was in the way Uber set rates, both for riders  adding surcharges during busy times  and for drivers, when it announced rate cuts.

Drivers especially were critical of distant corporate headquarters, and more feedback was being ignored, David said. I saw there was an opportunity to start up something.

Arcade City is similar to Uber in that riders and drivers use a central app to find each other for rides, but thats where the similarities end. Whereas Uber sets rates and only allows credit card payments, David said Arcade Citys drivers can take any payment they wish, including cash, Paypal or even digital currency like bitcoin.

Arcade City takes 10 percent of credit card sales through the app, but drivers can override this by using their own card readers, said David.

Drivers also set their own fares, which Mercurio likes. He said he uses a pay what you think is fair method and gives first timers a free ride just to get the word out.

If I give them a 2-mile ride and they wanna give me $5, thats awesome, he said.

Arcade Citys app is offline for a few weeks for an update, according to David, and wont be able to be downloaded until its back online. Mercurio said by the time the app gets back up and running, he hopes to be licensed to drive more than just his friends and family.

Mercurio is not anti-Uber. Quite the contrary: He started and administers both Uber Waterloo-Cedar Falls and Arcade City  Cedar Valley pages on Facebook and hopes, if Uber is approved in this area, that hell be able to drive for both.

It appeals to his entrepreneurial sense to have more competition, not less.

Whatever app theyre using, Im there to pick them up, he said. And if they get in my car, Im gonna tell them about Arcade City.
WATERLOO  The Waterloo High Twelve Club No. 46 will be honoring widows of past club members on May 6.

The event begins with a gathering at 11:15 a.m. at the Gatsbys Dining Room on the fifth floor of the Elks Lodge, corner of West Park Avenue and Mulberry Street. The meal will be served at 11:30 a.m., with the program beginning at 12:15 p.m.
WATERLOO  On Sunday about 3:30 a.m., Waterloo Police received a report of shots fired in the 600 block of of Logan Avenue.

While responding to that call, there also was a report received there was a shooting victim who had arrived at the Kwik Star at 707 Broadway St. Officers arriving at the Logan Avenue site learned the incident had occurred in the parking lot at 726 Logan Ave., and the victim had then traveled to the Kwik Star.
CEDAR FALLS  The Board of Education Monday is expected to make a decision on where future meetings should be held.

The board meets at 7 p.m. at the James L. Robinson Administrative Center, 1002 W. First St.

Location is being discussed as part of an effort to make meetings more audience friendly for those in attendance as well as those viewing them through internet streaming or online recording. Board members have been divided between keeping the meetings at the administrative center and moving them to Cedar Falls City Hall during work sessions in February and earlier this month.

Following the February work session, the board table was reconfigured into a V shape facing the audience so no ones back is to people. Concerns about the quality of meeting recordings and the fact that they are not broadcast on cable access channel 15 could be addressed with the move to City Hall. Currently, the meeting is streamed online through Cedar Falls Community Schools YouTube channel. Officials have also talked about buying a higher quality video camera that could enable cable broadcasting from the administrative center.

Superintendent Andy Pattee suggested at the last work session that he would bring a recommendation to the board that the meeting alternate between the two locations.

In other business, the board is expected to approve various activity sharing agreements for next school year with the following area districts or high schools: Denver, Dike-New Hartford, Dunkerton, Hudson, Independence, Janesville, Oelwein, Sumner-Fredricksburg, Valley Lutheran and Waverly-Shell Rock.
WATERLOO  The Waterloo Community School District has set a districtwide date for the 2016 kindergarten roundup.

Parents and guardians will learn about their schools kindergarten program, take a tour of the building, complete registration materials and receive a Begin bag full of materials to help their child prepare for kindergarten.

Registration will be held for all Waterloo School elementary buildings except Cunningham on May 6 at 9:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Cunningham will have a roundup on May 6 at 8:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. There will be no pre-K or kindergarten on that day.

Parents are asked to attend roundup in their attendance area with their child. They need to bring proof of their childs age, verification of address and a copy of their childs immunization records.

The following items will be accepted as proof of age: life insurance papers, baptismal record, passport, DHS statement, a certified letter signed by a doctor, birth certificate or adoption record. Verification of address may be a purchase agreement from new home purchase, rental agreement, current utility bill, cable bill or water bill with the parents name, DHS/Title 19 documents with parents name and current address.
WATERLOO  Five Black Hawk County officials attended a national summit last week to address crisis levels of mentally ill people in U.S. jails.

The Black Hawk County team was among 50 jurisdictions from across the country  and the only county in Iowa  chosen to participate in the Stepping Up Summit in Washington, D.C., April 18-19.

The Stepping Up initiative is a movement, not a moment, said Tom Eachus, executive director of UnityPoint/Black Hawk-Grundy Mental Health Center. The fact that there were people from all over the United States means that we are not alone in tackling the problem here in Black Hawk County.

Eachus was joined at the summit by Black Hawk County Jail Administrator Mark Herbst, Waterloo Director of Safety Services Dan Trelka, Black Hawk County Supervisor John Miller and Sara Carter, community services coordinator for the Department of Correctional Services.

Miller said Black Hawk County officials were able to share and receive information from other counties across the country and to attend a variety of forums related to the problem.

Black Hawk County is doing really well in some areas but there are some other areas we really need to work on, Miller said.

The fad across the country has been to close mental health institutions, but when you do that some of those folks are so mentally ill that theres no place for them except the jail.

We need to put some pressure on the Legislature to provide funding, he added. Iowa ranks very low for mental health funding out of all the states.

Stepping Up is a national initiative launched in May 2015 to stop jails from serving as de facto psychiatric facilities. Black Hawk County has a local Stepping Up organization working to that end.

The number of people with mental illnesses in jails is three to six times higher than among the general public, a situation that strains local budgets and increases costs to taxpayers.

This national epidemic involving the convergence of the mentally ill and law enforcement is acutely real for us in Black Hawk County, Herbst said.

Law enforcement along with many others in the community are committed to  reducing the number of people with mental illness in our jail.
WATERLOO  City Councilman Tom Lind is asking his colleagues to reconsider a grease trap inspection fee approved last month.

Council members are scheduled Monday to take up Linds request to waive a $50 inspection fee, which was adopted on a 4-2 vote March 28, if the food service establishment is found to be in compliance with city codes.

The current fee structure was expected to raise $15,000 toward the citys annual $100,000 cost of running a fats, oils and greases, or FOG, program adopted in November 2014 to help prevent clogged sewer mains and comply with a federal court order.

Restaurants and commercial kitchens with malfunctioning grease traps and interceptors are a primary cause of plugged sewer lines which can cause untreated sewage backups and spills.

Estimates were not available on how much the city would raise from the program if it waived fees for compliant restaurants. But city officials last month said such a move would put more of the program costs onto the fees paid by all city sewer users.

Councilmen David Jones, Pat Morrissey, Ron Welper and Jerome Amos Jr. voted in favor of the current inspection fee in March while Councilmen Steve Schmitt and Bruce Jacobs voted against it. Lind missed that meeting.

In a related matter, council members are expected to consider the final reading of an ordinance that better defines which businesses are subject to the FOG inspections.

That ordinance defines a food service establishment as any business required to have a state food service license, which includes schools, convenience stores and hospitals.

While the definition would exempt small operations, including most kitchens in local churches or small day-care centers, the ordinance would allow the city to require FOG inspections if such operations were found to be clogging sewers with their discharges.

Other scheduled council business includes:

A resolution supporting Grand Investments application for housing tax credits and state sales tax refunds through the Iowa Economic Development Authority for a three-story, mixed-use building at Jefferson Street and West Mullan Avenue.

The building would have five commercial storefronts on the ground floor and 24 housing units on the upper floors. Grand Investments, headed by Brent Dahlstrom, is already building the adjacent 67-unit Grand Crossing Condominiums.

A public hearing and bid opening on the extension of Galactic and Fitzway drives as part of the VGM Group expansion project. The city agreed to connect the streets through a development agreement and received state grant to cover half the cost.

The meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Monday in the council chambers on the second floor of City Hall.
OELWEIN  Iowa The Iowa Department of Natural Resources reports an Oelwein man was fatally shot while turkey hunting Saturday. Officials say the incident happened about 3 p.m. in Fayette County north of Maynard.

The DNR reported Michael Adams, 63, was injured when another person in his hunting party fired a 12-gauge shotgun and struck Adams in the face and chest area. Authorities pronounced Adams dead at the scene.

The incident is under investigation.
In George Washingtons farewell address, perhaps the most visionary document ever written by a president, he warned of the continual mischiefs of the spirit of party making it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

In other words, he alerted us to the dangers of political parties.

Washington cautioned Americans against the vengeful practices of political parties putting their interests above those of the country.

Look at the divisiveness of the political system. Many state and federal legislators are puppets, voting the party line and for their special interest supporters. Bipartisanship is a foreign concept. Maybe its time for a sensible third party.

A lifeboat is being sought by the 74 percent of Republicans who vote a straight ticket. A similar lifeline is needed for 78 percent of the straight-ticket voting Democrats.

According to a recent Gallup Poll, about half of registered Republicans and Democrats say a third political party. Logically, 71 percent of the Independents, the largest block of voters, wants a third party.

Seventy percent of the public feels the two political party system is headed in the wrong direction. Furthermore, 97 percent of Americans want our representatives to work more than the current two days per week, be bipartisan and become problem solvers, not obstructionists.

Id name the new group the Common Sense Party.

Its common sense to be fiscally responsible, pro-business, environmentally responsible and tolerant of women, men, LGBT, impaired, disabled, handicapped and different religions.

Most Americans want government to protect individual rights, conduct strong foreign affairs, allow sensible gun ownership and background checks, defend against terrorism and enforce civil rights.

Im confident mature citizens would agree the multitude of entitlement programs and layers of government regulation need tweaking.

Its logical to embrace public campaign financing while extending, not restricting, voting privileges to all eligible voters.

For our long-term survival, its pragmatic to properly fund the National Institutes of Health, improve our public education system, embark on criminal justice reform, improve our health care system, embrace a strong military, create jobs, have sensible immigration reform and eliminate our $19 trillion federal debt.

Every city has an infrastructure need. The 1935 Works Progress Administration, which employed millions to carry out desperately needed public works projects, was a godsend. An updated 2016 WPA Act could do the same while helping out unemployed and underemployed Americans.

Common sense says tax reform, water quality protection, energy independence and continued Social Security and Medicare funding is required.

What a breath of fresh air it would be to have presidential and congressional candidates who embraced the issues of paramount importance.

Independents are already primed for a third political party. And with 47 to 48 percent of Republican and Democrat neighbors wanting a third choice, lets get this party started.
I keep a $1 bill from the Bahamas in my wallet. On the front of the bill is a photo illustration of Sir Lynden O Pindling. He is regarded as the Father of the Nation of the Bahamas. He is black.

Up until now, the idea of having a black person on any U.S. currency, especially paper money, seemed a bit far-fetched. That changed when I read the latest headline, Anti-slavery activist Harriet Tubman is to replace Jackson on the $20 bill.

I could not measure the excitement that came over me.

I know she isnt the first woman featured on U.S. money. But she will be the first black woman.

As a retired, seasoned poet, sharing historical facts via spoken word is familiar. While mentoring a former Logan Middle School student  whose stage name is Seriously Black  I noticed she referenced Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth in one of her poems. At first, I was impressed the history lessons were retained. Until I listened further. Harriet Tubman aka Sojourner Truth.  I rewound the poem and I had heard it correctly. As if Harriet Tubman had a nickname, another name, maybe even a stage name. I laughed.

As she was seeking constructive criticism, I was happy to help. I responded, Nice, very nice poetry piece. One thing  Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth were two different people. Using aka will not work. I was shaking my head in confusion. I waited, then she responded with Wait!!?? History taught me differently. She didnt change her name to Sojourner Truth after she got free? I decided to ignore the question.

Clearly, some guidance was necessary. I know first hand how spoken word can change the life of a novice writer. If Seriously Black is going to be seriously black, she needed to learn the details of her story. My work is definitely cut out for me.

As I revisited history, I learned about Susan B. Anthony on the old dollar coin, replaced by Sacagawea. Helen Keller is on the back of the Alabama coin in the 50 States Quarter Series. And Virginia Dare, the first white Christian child born in the British Colonies in the New World, is also on a coin.

I am ecstatic the depth of the truth of Harriet Tubman  the African-American abolitionist, humanitarian and Union spy during the American Civil War  is being celebrated.

However, my excitement began to fizzle when I discovered this may not actually happen for another decade. I just hope I am still alive to witness it and keep a bill in my wallet.

President Andrew Jackson will be placed on the back of the $20 bill. His face will be incorporated into the existing image of the White House.

I will be sure to notify Seriously Black to keep a look out for the back of the $10 bill. It will tell the story of the womens suffrage movement, specifically the 19th amendment that permitted women to vote in 1920. Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Alice Paul will be featured. This may inspire a new poem.

The $1 bill I keep in my wallet from the Bahamas, the one with the photo illustration of Sir Lynden O Pindling, reminds me people who look like me all over the world are being recognized for doing great things. Having Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth and other notable black faces on U.S. currency instills hope the bitter truth of U.S. black history will be revealed  even if it is hundreds of years later.
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If youre looking to try out an online casino, there are several things that will help you make a decision. Heres what you should look for when choosing an online casino

 Are they regulated? A lot of the larger ones have licenses issued by the authorities in their respective regions, so its worth checking this first.

 Do they offer games from different software providers? Some casinos just use one software provider and limit your selection. This is fine if you like playing those types of games but you may want to check other casinos as well.

 What does their payout percentage look like? The payout rate refers to how much money you can expect to win after every bet. A high payout rate means youll be able to play more often without having to worry about losing all your money. Its also important to know the minimum and maximum bets allowed on each game. If youre going to play roulette, for example, then you probably dont want a casino with a minimum bet of less than $2.50 or even lower than that.

The players used to play the game slot online in the land based casinos in the past time. But now with time after the invention of the online casinos players play the game slot online. Online platform provide the players with the convenience in playing and even better winning. Even after keeping a good percentage of the profits, they distribute good funds to players.

 How many games do they offer? There are lots of different types of games to choose from. Roulette, blackjack and poker are some of the most popular options, but you might find slots, video pokers, video bingo and others as well. You can usually filter these games down to only show the ones that interest you best, so make sure that your list isnt too long!

 Is there a bonus offer? Many online casinos offer free bonuses as part of their welcome package  which includes new players being awarded 100% up to $10 instantly, for example. These offers are great but not everyone has access to them all the time (and some require you to deposit real money). If youd prefer to avoid paying a fee, some casinos offer no-deposit bonuses where you can get a certain amount of funds before you need to put any actual money into the account. These are usually offered alongside welcome bonuses, so make sure you read both parts of the terms and conditions carefully before signing up.

 Does it offer live dealer games? Live dealers are much preferred by many over regular virtual versions, so it pays to check this option out too. Most online casinos now offer live dealer games in addition to their regular offerings, allowing you to experience the thrill of the real thing without needing to leave home.

Now that youve got an idea of what to look for when choosing an online casino, heres some tips for making the right choice

It really comes down to personal preference. No two people are exactly alike, so everyone has an opinion on what they like and dislike about each casino. That said, here are some things to consider in order to narrow down your choices

 Popularity. Check out reviews, forums and Facebook pages to see what other people think of the casino. Also, ask around at work or friends houses who they would recommend to you. You could always take a look at the casinos website too, to see what kind of information they provide about themselves.

 Reputation. Find out what the general public thinks about the casino. Check out any customer reviews on sites like Trustpilot, Amazon and Google Play to find out more. As far as gaming goes, you can also check out the Better Business Bureau to see whether there have been any complaints against the casino.

 Security. Make sure the casino uses SSL encryption to secure its transactions, meaning that your private data stays safe during transactions. Other than that, look for security seals on the site itself and verify that theyre legitimate. You can also check out the casinos privacy policy to see how they handle confidential information.

 Payment methods. Its good to have multiple payment options available, especially if you plan to play frequently. Its also nice to find a casino that accepts cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. If youre worried about safety, you can always opt for a credit card or PayPal instead.

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Northern football player donates hair to Wigs for Kids

Zach Bohnenkamp has been growing his hair out since he arrived at Northern. Thursday he had 12 inches of hair cut and donated to Wigs for Kids.
Friends stumble back home after high school when word goes out on Facebook that the most popular among them has died. Director Mathew McDuffie is present for a discussion afterward.

Dir. Matthew McDuffie - 2016 - 94m - No Matinees

DIRECTOR AND UNM SCREENWRITING PROFESSOR MATTHEW MCDUFFIE IN PERSON FOR DISCUSSION POST-SCREENING Q&A !!

Kaley Cuoco ("The Big Bang Theory"), Sasha Pieterse ("Pretty Little Liars", Inherent Vice), Cody Horn (Magic Mike, End of Watch), Academy Award nominee Virginia Madsen (Sideways, A Prairie Home Companion), Landon Liboiron ("Degrassi: The Next Generation", "Hemlock Grove", "Terra Nova") and Andy Buckley ("The Office", Jurassic World)

Lifelong friends stumble back home after high school when word goes out on Facebook that the most popular among them has died. Old girlfriends, boyfriends, new lovers, parents The reunion stirs up feelings of love, longing and regret, intertwined with the novelty of forgiveness, mortality and gratitude. A Big Chill for a new generation.

"HONEST AND EMOTIONALLY RESONANT. KALEY CUOCO DELIVERS A CAREER BEST PERFORMANCE"- MATT CONWAY, THE YOUNG FOLKS

"VARIATION ON 'THE BIG CHILL' GIVING THAT BELOVED REUNION CLASSIC A RUN FOR ITS MONEY." - KAM WILLIAMS, BARET NEWS SYNDICATE
Havmor, a renowned food brand headquartered in Ahmedabad, has delighted many with its delicious offerings since 1944, now spread across states like Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Rajasthan, Punjab, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh & Telangana.



This fast growing company has just launched a new brand campaign with the tag-line Goodness the world deserves. The brand is going national and the release of its first ever television commercials, RJ and 12th man is one of the first steps that reflect their ambitious 360 degree plans that also include revamping the brand identity, packaging, retail identity and overall corporate structure amongst others. The campaign has been rolled out across various integrated platforms which include television, print, OOH and social media. Havmor believes that no matter what the state of life may be, people always deserve goodness, and a quality made ice cream is just the thing to usher that in. Publicis Ambience is the agency that has worked on the campaign.



At Havmor, we have been making ice-creams since 1944 and one thing that hasnt changed across three generations is our approach towards the product. We believe in using real milk and high quality ingredients to create our ice cream, which also makes it the perfect food to lift our mood. So when the agency presented the idea to us, we felt that it was true to our product and a fresh and relatable take on the category. Said Ankit Chona, Managing Director, Havmor



We are living in cut-throat world that is full tensions and pitfalls. And generally speaking, a lot of things can get you down. From a distressing incident in personal life, to the current social scenario, there is enough and more happening that can make us feel low. In this context we recognized that a traditionally 'fun and celebratory' product, can don a powerful new role. With their milky, sweet and vibrant goodness, ice cream is the perfect candidate for lifting the human spirit and keep it moving on, whenever we suffer a blow, and it is from this starting point that we approached the campaign. Said Paritosh Srivastava, COO, Publicis Ambience.

Jigar Fernandes, ECD, Publicis Ambience said When youre down, all it takes is an understanding hand on your shoulder  a simple gesture enough to make things a little better. The RJ film talks to everyone who has to wear a mask at work, no matter what theyre going through inside. The 12th mans story talks to fringe team members who doubt if their contribution to the team is good enough.



With the help of their digital agency Prodigitz Media, various digital mediums like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram were used to reach out to ice cream lovers asking them to express what Goodness stands for. Twitter users were asked to post their experience of goodness by using #SpreadTheGoodness, while #CaptureTheGoodness was activated on Instagram. Likewise various other digital platforms were employed by Havmor to spread goodness across the nation. The campaign has received over 17,15,578 likes on Facebook, 2,21,465 likes on Instagram and 924950 views on You Tube. It has also been retweeted multiple times on Twitter.



We leveraged various digital platforms to initiate dialogues amongst our audience to create real stories by influencing others to participate in this initiative. We are extremely pleased to see how well the campaign has been received by our audiences and we are hoping to see a similar response to the next phase of the Goodness the World Deserves campaign, added Ankit Chona, MD, Havmor.



The ad campaign has been directed by Kamlesh Soni from Conversation Films.



The TV ads can be found at 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX4fnmAfgrc


An emotional Chief Justice of India (CJI) TS Thakur on Sunday broke down in front of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and lamented inaction by the Executive in increasing the number of judges from the present 21,000 to 40,000 to handle the avalanche of litigations.

It is not enough to criticise, you cannot shift the entire burden to the judiciary. If you compare performances of our judges to the other countries, we are head and shoulder above them, he said.

The Prime minister, who was initially not expected to speak at that point, broke his silence to assure the judiciary that his government was serious about addressing the issues. If a closed door and close team norms allow, I will definitely try to find a way out, he said.

Speeches have been made in past, people have spoken in conference, theres been debate in Parliament. But, I think nothing really appears to be moving, he added.

Talking about differences in Centre and State governments, he said Centre says, yes, we commit ourselves but its state governments responsibility, state government says let Centre provide funds. While this tug of war goes on, judge strength remains where it is, 38 lakh cases remain where they are.

A Parliamentary Department Related Standing Committee on Law then headed by Pranab Mukherjee had also recommended taking the judge to people ratio to 50 per 10 lakh from 10.

As of today, the judge to people ratio stands at 15 judges per 10 lakh people which is way less than as compared to the US, Australia, the UK and Canada.

In 1987, the requirement was 40,000 judges. From 1987 till now, we have added 25 crore in terms of population. We have grown into one of the fastest growing economies of the world, we are inviting foreign direct investment into the country, we want people to come and make in India, we want people to come and invest in India, said the CJI.
US presidential frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump seek to deliver knockout blows against their rivals in Tuesdays five high-stakes primaries, with pressure mounting to wrap up the nomination races and pivot toward the general election battle.

Dont expect the challengers to buckle just yet.

The extraordinary 2016 race has tested American political tradition, with the Democratic and Republican parties taking their nomination battles deep into primary season.

Clinton, aiming to become the nations first female commander in chief, faces a resilient liberal Senator Bernie Sanders, whose grassroots campaign to highlight income inequality has mobilised millions of young voters.

But the ex-secretary of state is poised to extend her delegate lead Tuesday when Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island host their primaries.

Pressed Saturday on reports that she has begun her search for a runningmate, Clinton shook her head and replied: Im just working hard to win on Tuesday.

Clinton leads in polling in the northeastern states, and if she sweeps all five Sanders will be hard pressed to exit the race.

In Pennsylvania, Clinton turned to the general election, knocking Trump and Republican candidate Ted Cruz and tailoring her message to working-class voters eager to see a return of manufacturing jobs.

These are not jobs that can be exported, they have to be done right here in Pennsylvania, Clinton told supporters this week in Philadelphia.

Politics professor Terry Madonna of Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania said Sanders is obstinate about staying in the race, perhaps to earn a speaking spot at the Democratic convention in July.

Clinton is the inevitable nominee now and the only question is at what point does she wrap up the magic number of necessary delegates, Madonna said.

A canopy of drama hangs over the Republican race, where the math points to a contested convention.

That means Trump will have to defy the odds with particularly strong showings through the remainder of the statewide contests if he is to win the nomination outright before the party`s delegates gather in Cleveland in July to pick their nominee.

Snatching most of the Republican delegates at stake April 26 would propel him that much closer to reaching the 1,237 delegates needed to nail down the nomination.

His campaign is increasingly on notice, however, that the provocative celebrity billionaire would need to surpass that number and not merely outperform rivals Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich.

We aren`t going to hand the nomination to anyone with a plurality, no matter how close they are to 1,237, Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus told an influential gathering in Florida of more than 100 Republican delegates on Friday.

You need a majority. Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, he added in an apparent shot at Trump, who has derided the delegate system as rigged against him.With the delegates huddling over whether to fight against a Trump nomination or ultimately embrace him, Priebus took aim at conservatives who have said they will not back Trump should he become the flagbearer.
Maharashtra Governor C Vidyasagar Rao called for setting up an institute for promotion of Sindhi language and culture in Mumbai.

Preserving Sindhiyat, the language, culture and traditions of Sindhis, has become a challenge as members of the community are scattered all over the world. Thus, an institute, on the lines of Institute of Sindhology, is required in Mumbai to promote Sindhi language and culture, he said.

Rao was speaking at the inauguration of the Cheti Chand Mela, the annual cultural programme of the community to welcome their new year, in suburban Mumbai.

He also hailed the contribution of Sindhi community to the progress and development of India and Maharashtra.

Despite suffering the trauma and pain of the partition, the Sindhis transformed themselves into one of the most successful communities on the strength of industry, hard work and determination, he said.

Describing Sindhis as pioneers of start-up revolution, the Governor called upon members of the Sindhi community to encourage others to become entrepreneurs.

He also asked the members of the Sindhi community to create a website to connect those settled across the world.

He also praised the Sindhis in Mumbai and Ulhasnagar for starting top class educational institutions offering higher education to students.

The Governor also felicitated meritorious students from the community on the occasion.
After the assassination of Nader Shah in 1747 and the collapse of his empire, the Koh-i-noor stone came into the hands of one of his generals, Ahmad Shah Durrani, who later became the Emir of Afghanistan. One of Ahmeds descendants, Shuja Shah Durrani, wore a bracelet containing the Koh-i-Noor on the occasion of Mountstuart Elphinstones visit to Peshawar in 1808.

A year later, Shuja formed an alliance with the United Kingdom to help defend against a possible invasion of Afghanistan by Russia. He was quickly overthrown by his predecessor, Mahmud Shah, but managed to flee with the diamond. He went to Lahore, where the founder of the Sikh Empire, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, in return for his hospitality, insisted upon the gem being given to him, and he took possession of it in 1813.

Its new owner, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, willed the diamond to the Hindu temple of Jagannath in Puri, in modern-day Odisha, India. However, after his death in 1839, the East India Company did not execute his will. On 29 March 1849, following the conclusion of the Second Anglo-Sikh War, the Kingdom of Punjab was formally annexed to British India, and the Last Treaty of Lahore was signed, officially ceding the Koh-i-Noor to Queen Victoria and the Maharajas other assets to the company. The gem called the Koh-i-Noor, which was taken from Shah Sooja-ool-moolk by Maharajah Ranjit Singh, shall be surrendered by the Maharaja of Lahore to the Queen of England.

The Governor-General in charge of the ratification of this treaty was the Marquess of Dalhousie. The manner of his aiding in the transfer of the diamond was criticized even by some of his contemporaries in Britain. Although, some thought it should have been presented as a gift to Queen Victoria by the East India Company, it is clear that Dalhousie strongly believed the stone was a spoil of war, and treated it accordingly, ensuring that it was presented to her by Maharaja Duleep Singh, the youngest son of Ranjit Singh.

The government of India, believing the gem was rightfully theirs, first demanded the return of the Koh-i-Noor as soon as independence was granted in 1947. A second request followed in 1953, the year of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Each time, the British government refuted the claims, saying that ownership was non-negotiable.

In 1976, Pakistan asserted its ownership of the diamond, saying its return would be, a convincing demonstration of the spirit that moved Britain voluntarily to shed its imperial encumbrances and lead the process of decolonisation. In a letter to the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, James Callaghan, wrote, I need not remind you of the various hands through which the stone has passed over the past two centuries, nor that explicit provision for its transfer to the British crown was made in the peace treaty with the Maharaja of Lahore in 1849. I could not advise Her Majesty that it should be surrendered.

In 2000, several members of the Indian Parliament signed a letter calling for the diamond to be given back to India, claiming it was taken illegally. British officials said that a variety of claims meant it was impossible to establish the gems original owner. Later that year, the Talibans foreign affairs spokesman, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, said the Koh-i-Noor was the legitimate property of Afghanistan, and demanded for it to be handed over to the regime as soon as possible. The history of the diamond shows it was taken from us (Afghanistan) to India, and from there to Britain. We have a much better claim than the Indians, he said.

In July 2010, while visiting India, David Cameron, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, said about returning the diamond, If you say yes to one you suddenly find the British Museum would be empty. I am afraid to say, it is going to have to stay put. On a subsequent visit in February 2013, he said, Theyre not having that back. In 2016 the Supreme Court of India heard a case brought by the All India Human Rights & Social Justice Front seeking the return of the diamond. Giving evidence to the court, the Solicitor General of India, Ranjit Kumar, gave the official position of the Indian government as It was given voluntarily by Ranjit Singh to the British as compensation for help in the Sikh wars. The Koh-i-Noor is not a stolen object. Under the provisions of the Antiquities and Art Treasure Act, 1972, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) takes up the issue of retrieval of only such antiquities as have been illegally exported out of the country. So by stalling all the debates, we Indian have to believe that India will never get its Koh-i-Noor diamond back.

(Inputs from various agencies)

(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@afternoonvoice.com)
Kanhaiya Kumar says that police is lying and he was not involved in a tiff with the person over seating arrangement.

Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar who had claimed that a man had attempted to strangulate him in Jet airways clarified that he was not involved in a tiff with the person over seating arrangement. According to him argument over seats doesnt occur in planes and it happens in general compartments of trains. He added that quarrel over seats is a daily occurrence in Mumbais suburban trains. As per preliminary investigations conducted by the police it was unveiled that the co passenger had a window seat and while taking the seat he bumped into Kanhaiya.

Kanhaiya Kumar said, Such type of fights often occurs in the general compartment of trains and I have not filed a police complaint in this regard. If we have lost Rohith Vemula then we will fight for seeking justice for him. We have to change old traditions. We are supporting those people who are fighting a battle for providing equal opportunity to Dalits. Sometimes false sedition charges are filed against activists.

Criticising the BJP government, Kanhaiya said, Why are you afraid when we talk about our ideology. Why are you afraid of such people? You are trying to give a communal colour to every issue. If you think that you can kill one Rohith then more Rohiths will be born. We are not bothered about the caste background of a person. We have to eliminate caste system prevalent in this society. We have agenda and you talk about jumla.

Kanhaiya questioned the governments intention to address the issue of drought through technology. He said, Technology must be used for the improvement of peoples lives in Marathwada. The government must save the lives of farmers dying in that region. Why is better amenities offered to a section of people in train over the other. Pune is known as the oxford of the east. After acquiring MBA degree people are selling detergents. The government has cut 17 per cent budget allocation for education.

Earlier Kanhaiya tweeted and accused Jet airways for offloading him along with his alleged attacker.

Deka, works in TCS, a strong BJP supporter assaulted me inside the aircraft. Is assault the only tool you have, to fight dissent?, tweeted Kanhaiya.

He added that Jet Airways saw no difference between him and his attacker. Jet Airways takes an interesting stand. They ask us to deplane for security reasons with the man who assaulted me, read another tweet.

Jet Airways issued a statement but did not respond to Kanhaiyas charges against them. Some guests on board this mornings flight Jet Airways fight 9W 618 Mumbai to Pune have been off loaded at Mumbai airport in the interest of operational safety.

According to the CISF, the co-flier accused of strangulating Kanhaiya was identified as Manas Jyoti Deka. He was detained by the Mumbai Police after the incident.
Naomi Campbell says she never uses the word racism as she finds the term cliche.

The supermodel was asked by Alan Carr on tonights episode of Chatty Man if she experienced much racism when starting out her career in the late 1980s.

I never use that word racism, I find it a cliche word and I dont want to use it as an excuse, she said.

For me it was, I call it territorialism where there are people that have that certain territory and they stand their ground and they are not going to change their mind and that is their opinion.

In her upcoming book, Campbell discusses the extra effort she felt she had to put in to her modelling because of her skin colour.

When I started out, I wasnt being booked for certain shows because of the colour of my skin. I didnt let it rattle me,. From attending auditions and performing at an early age, I understood what it meant to be black, she wrote. You had to put in the extra effort. You had to be twice as good.

After being scouted at the age of 15, the 45-year-old became the first black model to appear on the cover of French Vogue in 1987 and Time magazine.

She revealed to Carr she initially wasnt chosen to grace the cover of French Vogue but fought for it with the help of iconic designer Yves Saint Laurent.

I asked him to fix the situation and he did. Thats how I got it, she explained. There is always a way. I like to rise to all of these challenges.

As one of the original supers, Campbell said she continues to fight for models of colour today: Right now, today, as I sit here, I fight for the younger models of colour, and when I say colour I mean of all colours, its all shades and origins that have a hard time. Again, its not saying, Youre racist. That isnt what it is about. Maybe we should remind you when casting to use all colours and models of colour.
April 24, 2016

In an on-air call last month with Amr Adeeb on the Al Qahera Al Youm channel, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi declared his plan to complete the building of an integrated urban community in the Sinai Peninsula within the next year and a half.

I have allocated 10 billion Egyptian pounds [$1.1 billion] to develop Sinai. There is no room for trifling, neither with ourselves nor with the Egyptian people. Eighteen months from now, you and the Egyptian people will see a fully developed area in Sinai, starting with a creation of a 1,500-kilometer [930-mile] network of roads and bridges, the development of main axes and the building of Bedouin compounds, each comprising 150 houses and 500 agricultural acres. We aim to create an integrated urban community for our children, whether in the north or the south, Sisi told Adeeb March 7.

He added, You do not have enough information on what is happening in Sinai. We are making concerted efforts and I am not providing empty rhetoric  and people are well aware of that. Heed my words, Egyptians, what I am telling you is the truth. In a year and a half [the project] will be implemented without one day of delay. I am capable of doing so, God willing.

Sisis announcement of the series of mega projects, which the country is currently implementing in Sinai, came following the scathing comments against the states institutions for what some have called obvious neglect vis-a-vis the Sinai issue, compounding the lack of actual development in the area in recent decades. This was particularly true under the rule of President Hosni Mubarak, despite officials countless statements about development plans, demolishing of tunnels with Gaza, elimination of corruption and ways to take advantage of the treasures and wealth of Sinai.

On Oct. 13, 1994, the government approved a comprehensive plan to implement a project dubbed the National Project for the Development of Sinai, at a cost of 110.6 billion Egyptian pounds (roughly $33 billion at the official exchange rate then), of which 64 billion pounds were to be allocated to the north and 46.6 billion pounds to the south.

It was considered one of the mega national projects to be implemented by the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, with the aim of strengthening and consolidating Egypts agricultural policy by increasing the area of cultivated lands and agricultural production, conducting a redistribution of population and resettlement of citizens in the desert of Egypt, connecting Sinai to the East Delta area, transforming it into a natural extension of the Nile Valley so as to introduce a new agricultural map for Egypt in the 21st century. However, this project has yet to see the light of day.

In 2012, then-Prime Minister Kamal Ganzouri issued a decree regarding the formation of the national mechanism for the development of the Sinai Peninsula with an estimated budget of 3.4 billion Egyptian pounds (roughly $563 million at the exchange rate at the time) on a yearly basis to replace the old national project for the development of Sinai, to bring about real development on the ground. These endeavors, however, were not welcomed by Sinai citizens and observers and thus nothing was achieved on the ground.

On April 13, Maj. Gen. Shawki Rashwan, head of the national mechanism for the development of Sinai, held a news conference where he announced the establishment of a new company called the National Company for the Development of Sinai; this is an independent investment company that is quite different from the national mechanism as it seeks profit and development together.

For his part, Salah al-Balagh, a board member of the national mechanism for the development of the Sinai Peninsula, told Al-Monitor that the establishment of the national company is the first step in the right direction to build an integrated urban community in Sinai. The company will rely on direct investment, according to him, unlike the previous bodies and councils that failed to achieve anything in terms of development in Sinai and squandered public money.

There has been a political will to develop Sinai since the 1990s. Projects had been well planned but execution on the ground was a failure every time. This is because we lack expertise and efficiency in administration, whether at the level of the government or the parties in charge of implementing these projects. The government unfortunately decided to establish the national mechanism with certain financial allocations but had stripped it of all powers. The head of the mechanism is a deputy minister, and thus the minister has bigger powers, which would hinder any decision-making and any real development measures on the ground, he said.

He added, The mechanism ought to be directly affiliated with the president instead of the minister or the council of ministers, if we truly seek reform. As for the parties in charge of the projects, there were no clear procedures as to the selection of effective members or entities capable of achieving development.

Balagh strongly criticized the fact that 10 billion pounds only were allocated to the implementation of the national projects in Sinai to fix what had been destroyed by previous regimes.

Ten billion pounds is a paltry sum for development. In 1994, the government had allocated 110 billion pounds, so how could it, after more than two decades, allocate a much smaller amount? he asked.

Balagh suggested that two plans ought to be set forth, a short-term one and a long-term one.

According to the first plan, urgent projects for the Sinai citizens would be implemented, such as addressing the provision of drinking water and sewage networks and other pressing issues. The second plan would involve bigger projects, provided that the implementation period does not exceed one or two years at the most, he said.

We should not let projects drag for years and decades as happened with the national project for the development of Sinai, which kicked off in 1994 and was planned to end by 2017. The greater the delay in the completion of projects, the greater the likelihood of implementation failure, he said.

Concerning the presidential decree to establish a university in the south of Sinai bearing Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Sauds name, in parallel with the establishment of El-Arish University in northern Sinai, Balagh said, Founding these two universities greatly reflects the interest of the Egyptian political regime to bring about real development in Sinai and integrate it in the community. The two universities would include all major subjects that could benefit Sinai. We hope that these dreams come true and that both universities see the light of day.

In an attempt to demonstrate the governments efforts to develop the Sinai Peninsula, the governor of north Sinai, Abdel Fattah Harour, told Al Ahram April 15, There are hundreds of development projects underway. The name of Sinai in the mind of all Egyptians in different provinces is associated with terrorism depicted by the media. However, people are not aware of the fact that development projects have strongly kicked off following the end of the first stage to eliminate terrorism," and were named in honor of those killed.
April 20, 2016

The Israeli siege imposed on the Gaza Strip has variously affected the territory's economic, business and financial sectors. Now, it is the gold market's turn. Nazmi Muhanna, general director of the Palestinian Crossing and Borders Authority, announced March 29 that Israeli officials had informed him that they were halting the movement of gold, in all forms, into and out of Gaza.

In February, Israel agreed to allowing 12 gold dealers and manufacturers to import and export gold to and from the Gaza Strip. Muhanna estimated the trade volume at 48 kilograms (106 pounds) per week between mid-February and late March. There are 40 gold factories in Gaza, a fairly large number for an area of only 365 square kilometers (141 square miles). Locally manufactured gold is estimated to account for about 70% of gold purchases, given that its price is fairly stable and it can often be sold without incurring major losses compared to other types of imported gold.

There has been no official explanation for the ban, but Hatem Oweida, undersecretary of the Ministry of National Economy, told Al-Monitor that Israel issued the decision with the goal of tightening the noose on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Oweida said, This is despite the fact that the gold trade does not entail any security risk for Israel, which is capable of controlling the goods entering and leaving Gaza, and knowing that the gold market in Gaza is already ailing. Figures show that the first quarter of 2016 witnessed instability and decline as far as gold is concerned. In January, 169 kilograms of gold were stamped, 176 kilograms in February and only 143 kilograms in March, which points to weak purchasing power in the Gaza Strip as a result of the poor economic situation.

Al-Monitor toured the gold market in central Gaza April 16 to speak with traders about the Israeli decision. One trader, Jihad Rafeh, said, The seriousness of Israel's decision is in its timing, as its issuance coincided with the summer season, which is usually full of social events that require Palestinian women to buy gold accessories. Consequently, the gold market will suffer from further recession, knowing that it has already been spiraling downward since the start of the Israeli siege of Gaza in 2006. The first result of the decision was a drop in the price of gold from 25 to 23 Jordanian dinars [$35 to $32] per gram.

The negative impact of the Israeli decision is expected to be felt with the start of the wedding season, which runs from April through September. Weddings are on the rise in the Gaza Strip, with more than 20,000 held in 2015, compared to 16,128 in 2014 and 17,359 in 2013. Palestinian brides typically buy $3,000 dollars worth of gold for adornment.

Another trader, Olian Obeid, told Al-Monitor, The gold trade during the three weeks that Israel allowed trade between Gaza markets and the West Bank in late February amounted to $900,000 per week, which revived the gold market in Gaza. However, the ban will lead to a setback for the market, as it limits supply and increases price. Moreover, it will pave the way for the black market's return. While local factories in Gaza produce between 1 and 1.5 metric tons of gold [items] per year, between 100 and 150 kilograms were imported [prior to the Israeli decision].

Another problem for the gold trade in Gaza is the dearth of professional manufacturing skills, with only modest capabilities available. This has made locally produced gold less appealing to consumers compared to imported gold objects. Although local factories in Gaza manufacture all kinds of rings, earrings, necklaces and bracelets, the manufacturing techniques used remain underdeveloped because Israel prohibits the entry of sophisticated machines and mechanisms that could improve quality and allow competition with higher-end, imported gold.

The gold industry in Gaza City lags behind that of other Palestinian cities. Hebron manufactures 65% of Palestinian gold, while Gaza ranks 14th among the 15 Palestinian administrative districts, with no precise figures available on Gazas gold stocks. According to July 2015 rough estimates by the Precious Metals Directorate at the Ministry of Economy, gold stocks in the West Bank and Gaza Strip totaled 80 tons, namely, 10 tons in gold shops, 5 tons in stored gold and 65 tons in gold jewelry for Palestinian women.

Mahmoud Atweh, chairman of the Gold Traders Union in Gaza, told Al-Monitor, Israel's decision to ban the import and export of gold is a mere extension of the Israeli policy adopted since the Palestinian split in 2007 that [hampered] trade between the West Bank and Gaza. [The 40] gold factories in Gaza, employing more than 100 workers, are affected by Israel's decision. Add to this dozens of small manufacturing workshops and more than 300 gold traders. We are therefore establishing contact with the Jewelry Stamp Department in the West Bank to put pressure on Israel and have it back down on its decision.

The Israeli decision could boost gold-smuggling operations to Gaza. The transfer of stamped smuggled gold into Gaza costs $3 per gram before it reaches the market. Smuggling would lead to major losses for certain traders who are caught, because the Gaza government confiscates unstamped gold. In other cases, their gold could of course be stolen while being smuggled from Dubai, Turkey, Jordan and Egypt into Gaza through the remaining tunnels between the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula.

Mohammed Miqdad, dean of the faculty of commerce at the Islamic University in Gaza, told Al-Monitor, Israel's decision to prevent gold import and export has two aspects: a political one, aimed at tightening the siege on Gaza and extending the geographical separation between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and an economic one, as gold is a traded currency among Palestinians, and Israel seeks to maintain the economic and monetary blockade on Gaza. Consequently, this decision will negatively impact business in Gaza and will create a state of confusion as far as gold prices between Gaza and the West Bank are concerned.

The Israeli decision will deepen the economic suffering of the Palestinians, as its impact will likely not be limited to gold traders alone. It may lead to gold factories laying off hundreds of workers and forcing some enterprises to close.
April 21, 2016

Much reflection is taking place these days at the US State Department and the UN Security Council on a concrete policy move by the Obama administration regarding the Israeli-Palestinian two-state solution. The aim of the administration is not only to inject hope into the current situation of despair, but also to leave a policy platform to the next administration on future Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

The administration is now challenged by the Palestinian move at the United Nations to advance a statehood resolution. Such a resolution, probably submitted to the Security Council by France and Egypt, will condemn Israeli West Bank settlements as illegal and propose a two-state solution based on the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative with a border along the 1967 lines and a one-year timeline leading to Palestinian statehood.

According to a US diplomat in Tel Aviv, President Barack Obama would be reluctant to cast a veto at the Security Council. The one time so far that Obama vetoed a Security Council resolution was on a decision regarding Israeli settlements in February 2011. The US position, according to this diplomat, will depend on the wording of the proposed resolution. The United States insists on a rejection and halt to violence, terror and incitement to hatred, and opposes any mentioning of a timeline. The Palestinians agree to the rejection of violence and incitement together with a mentioning of the settler violence, but insist on a timeline for the conclusion of negotiations. For that reason, at this point, a US veto is more likely than not. There are formidable pressures on the president by members of Congress and, most probably, the Hillary Clinton campaign people, to continue traditional US policy by casting a veto.

French policymakers who are involved in the talks on the Palestinian move are eager to advance such a resolution in 2016, yet at the same time, they hope to create the conditions that would prevent a US veto. A senior Quai dOrsay (French Foreign Ministry) official in the know of current talks between Washington, Cairo, Ramallah and Paris told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that the French have cautioned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas not to move too hastily on the resolution: We are not interested in a rhetorical Security Council resolution, but in an operative and strategic one. For this, the United States has to be onboard and Israel less rejectionist. 2016 must see the policy basis for a two-state solution.

The Palestinians have reportedly already presented  unofficially  a draft paper for a rather similar resolution to some UN members.

In this vein, according to the French official, the Foreign Ministry policy-planning experts have raised a proposal that may defuse US hesitancy and Israeli rejection. The idea is to notify Israel that in exchange for being ready to take a security risk in the framework of a realistic two-state solution based on the 1967 lines, the international community would, for now, take the Golan Heights off the regional negotiation table. Israels government, according to this proposal, would be informed that the territories-for-peace formula pertains now to the West Bank. The dire situation in Syria would make such a move possible.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will probably not be receptive to the idea of giving up the West Bank, but is likely to hail any hints at pushing the Golan Heights issue off the international agenda. On April 18, Netanyahu convened a special government meeting there, announcing that the Golan Heights will forever stay part of Israel.

Be that as it may, propositions such as the French one are important. Clearly, out-of-the-box initiatives are needed to revive a viable peace process in the region. The advantage of this proposition is that it reflects a regional reality. An Israeli-Syrian peace process in any foreseeable future is out of the question. On the other hand, Palestinian statehood is a regional necessity. The Israeli occupation of a vast Arab population is a chronic irritant to Arab governments and public opinion; it constitutes an obstacle to the regions stability and to possible anti-fundamentalist terror coalitions involving Israel. Different security arrangements for a two-state solution were already proposed by the US administration, which is Israels main security partner. The proposition of placing the Golan Heights out of the territories-for-peace equation would render Israeli public support for a two-state solution more plausible. Furthermore, there is little love lost in the Arab world for the pro-Iranian Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria.

Many obstacles might yet emerge on the way to realizing such a proposal, with objections raised especially by the Arab League. Yet given the danger that Palestinian statehood will soon seem unrealistic (as a result of the continuous Israeli settlement expansion policy), such unconventional thinking is warranted, at least as long as the Israeli government of the day fails to comprehend that putting an end to the occupation is not only a strategic Israeli interest, but also a moral must.
April 23, 2016

One of the most dramatic judicial processes that had significant bearing on politics and the fate of Turkey is finally over. It took nine years and 275 people imprisoned, among them a former chief of staff, top brass of the once powerful military of Turkey and renowned public servants. They have all been acquitted.

The guilty verdicts that were announced three years ago were hailed at the time as the final defeat of the Turkish military. The verdicts transformed the military into an organization that became subservient to democratic civilian rule.

It is ironic now looking at the current headlines of the staunchly pro-government media outlets and comparing them with the headlines three years ago. It truly reflects the shifting sands of Turkish politics.

The mouthpieces of the Justice and Development Party government and pro-Erdogan media once saluted the guilty verdicts and high penalties  mostly against military personnel in uniform or retired high-ranking officers  as the triumph of popular will over the military tutelage that had taken the country captive.

Now the same dailies on their front pages enthusiastically salute the ruling of the High Court of Appeals that annulled the verdict of the court they had saluted three years ago with similar enthusiasm.

This discrepancy reflects not only the miserable and pitiful state of affairs of Turkish media (particularly the Erdogan-controlled media), but the changing fortunes of the military and primarily of the political stand of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In the mid-2000s, when the controversial Ergenekon trial was underway and had polarized the Turkish society and political elite, Erdogan, as the prime minister, had come forward to declare that he was the prosecutor of the case.

That was a strong reminder that the judiciary had a strong backing from a muscled prime minister for a go-ahead in punishing the military establishment, which until then was treated as if it was sacred or untouchable.

The military was traumatized in such a way that it led to a widely shared belief that it was ultimately back in their barracks and would stay there.

The evolution of the Kurdish issue that intertwined with the developments in the Syrian political landscape and military battlefield and the acute power struggle that pitted the Islamist factions of the Erdogan-led ruling party and the Gulenists within the state apparatus incrementally but surely brought the military back to be a politically influential player.

There are clues to lead one to think that Erdogan, who was pitted against well-embedded Gulenists occupying key positions in the security and intelligence bureaucracy and the judiciary, desperately tried to reach a Faustian deal with the military, which looked battered because of the Ergenekon trial at the hands of the Gulenists.

The perceived common foe seemingly united the two sides. Undoing the Ergenekon case, opening up the prison gates for the convicted military personnel and overhauling the judiciary so that retrials would ultimately end with acquittals have sealed the deal.

The additional invoice Erdogan needed to pay to seal the Faustian deal was the reversal of the policy pursued on the Kurdish question since the first quarter of 2013.

The state consolidated its ranks against the parallel state  as the Gulenist faction used to be called by Erdogan  with continuous purges and ferocious campaigns.

The ruling of the High Court of Appeals is the last and a highly important symbolic link in the chain of developments that pointed to an Erdogan-military alliance.

Notwithstanding the cooperation against the parallel state, the validity and the durability of the alleged Erdogan-military alliance is still in question, though.

Hasan Cemal, one of the most outspoken critics of Erdogan, was among the leading commentators in expressing doubts about the resilience of Erdogans alliance with the military. What makes Cemals comments interesting is that he is not only an outspoken critic of the president, but he is also known to be an unswerving opponent of the militarys interference in political affairs, although he himself was actively involved in military coup attempts during the early 1970s. About Erdogans speech at the War Academy in Istanbul at the end of March where he in his capacity as the commander in chief praised his heroic and faithful colleagues, meaning the military commanders, Cemal asked the questions:

Can the military like Erdogan? Can it find him sincere, can it believe in him, can it trust an Erdogan who had once declared himself as the prosecutor of the Ergenekon case? To what extent can the military accept Erdogan as its commander-in-chief and its president? Can it sympathize with an Erdogan who systemically turns his back to the West and turns his face to the East and the Islamic world? May the military be thinking that Erdogan betrayed the secular republic and Ataturk?

Cemal asked the mind-boggling, provocative questions on the perceived structural differences between the president and the military establishment.

Thus, it was not surprising that he took an exceptional  and perhaps lonely  critical stand to the ruling of the High Court of Appeals. He said the courts ruling could not whitewash and absolve the military of its putschist tendencies the Ergenekon case took despite all the flaws and mishaps of the process.

Referring to a 1971 putschist faction that was known for its failed coup, he wrote, They got out of the prisons as the heroes of democracy. But the reality was different. Today, more or less the same situation is revisited. Political conjuncture changed, especially since December 2013  the day of the corruption allegations involving Erdogan, when a legal process had started but later stopped, and those who started it were dubbed Gulenists for attempting to overthrow the legitimate, elected government of Erdogan. Erdogan, to close the files on corruption and embezzlement, committed a juridical coup. Calling it the coup attempt of the parallel state, he began to march with Ergenekon hand in hand. The military, institutionally on its part, never offered self-criticism or gave an account of its putschist traditions. And now, with the rulings on the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer cases, that putschist tradition is covered with a shawl. The one that covers Erdogan.

With the 9-year-old controversial Ergenekon case over, metaphorically and symbolically absolving the military that was victimized by the Islamist power, the Faustian deal produced one of its most important dividends.

The military, once Turkey's most prestigious institution and unequalled in this respect, has regained its stature on the public stage.

Now, the fundamental question looms on the horizon: Will this further enhance Erdogans power or signify the beginning of the same cycle that governed civilian and military relations during recent decades.
A local investor paid $435,000 for 61 acres at Michigan Avenue and Hickory Street in Foley, and plans to build a subdivision on 51 of the acres, according to M.J. Baxter & Associates, who represented the buyer. The 10 acres at the southwest corner of the property will be developed for commercial use, she said. Robert Cook of Vallas Realty worked for the sellers.

Haint Blue Brewing Company has leased an 8,660-square-foot office warehouse building at 806 Monroe St., in downtown Mobile, and plans to convert the building into a brewery, according to Lewis H. Golden of Hamilton & Company. The building is the former Crystal Ice facility in the Church Street East area of Mobile. Haint Blue is based in Dothan.

Sweet Peas Posh Pets has leased a 1,452-square-foot building at 1210 Gulf Shores Parkway in Gulf Shores, according to David Swiger of Swiger & Company Realtors.

The pet boutique is located near the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo.

Kay Jewelers has leased 1,889 square feet of space in Jubilee Square off U.S. 90 in Daphne, according to Buff Teague of JLL, who represented the landlord. Jonathan Lindsey of The Shopping Center Group worked for the jewelry store.

Miraca Life Sciences has leased 11,900 square feet of space at 101 Villa Drive in Daphne and will locate its medical billing services office there, according to Jeff Barnes of Stirling Properties, who represented the tenant. Sharon Wright of White-Spunner Realty worked for the landlord.

Louisiana developers plan to invest $17 million to build an apartment complex off Shelton Beach Road near Kalifield subdivision in Saraland, according to court records. The property is north of the University of Mobile and sold for about $70,000. Surety Land Title handled the transaction.

The law firm of Boteler, Finley & Wolfe PC, have leased 2,400 square feet of office space at 65 Dauphin Medical and Financial Center at 3290 Dauphin St., in Mobile, according to Janet Keene of Bender Real Estate Group.

BE-CI, Building Engineering Consultants, Inc., have leased 900 square feet of space at 600 Bel Air Blvd., in Mobile, according to Janet Keene of Bender Real Estate Group. This is a new office for Alabama, as they have offices in Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas.

Watch for The Melting Pot restaurant to reopen under new management in Mobile Festival Centre on Montlimar Drive in Mobile. JLL handled the lease.
BBC America announced on Saturday that season 10 of "Doctor Who" will feature a new traveling campaign for the universe-saving Time Lord.

Pearl Mackie will play Bill alongside Peter Capaldi's Doctor Who. Capaldi has played the doctor since season eight.

"I'm incredibly excited to be joining the Doctor Who family. It's such an extraordinary British institution, I couldn't be prouder to call the Tardis my home!" Mackie said in a statement Saturday. "Peter Capaldi is such a brilliant actor, and his Doctor is such a wacky and wonderful character, I can't wait to see what adventures are in store for him and Bill throughout time and space. Reading the script at the audition I thought Bill was wicked. Fantastically written, cool, strong, sharp, a little bit vulnerable with a bit of geekiness thrown in -- I can't wait to bring her to life, and to see how she develops through the series."

Mackie replaces Jenna Coleman, who exited the series at the end of last season.

"Doctor Who" will return later this year with a Christmas Special. The new series will start on BBC America in 2017.
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It was about halfway through the closing show at the New Orleans Jazz Fest Gentilly Stage on Saturday (April 23). Master musician and songwriter Van Morrison asked his guitarist to "give me a G." He modulated his voice to match the chord then launched into a jaunty version of "Jambalaya." Who knows, the Hank Williams tune may be a regular part of Morrison's repertoire, but the Bayou State crowd accepted it as a tailor-made gift, cheering and bobbing to the first few bars.

The ability of Morrison and his impeccable five-piece ensemble to incorporate a loping, country classic seamlessly into the jazzy, R&B flow of their set is a tribute to the team's flexibility. Flexibility is key, because, stylistically speaking, there are several Van Morrison's to accommodate. There's the pop radio Van Morrison of "Brown Eyed Girl," the Christian mystic Van Morrison, the romantic balladeer, the Ray Charles devotee, and the sultry jazz instrumentalist. All of whom shared the stage Saturday.

It would be hard to praise the 70-year-old's vocal skills enough. When Morrison sings, and particularly when he scats, his voice is as saxophone-like as his saxophone. Instead of tiring as the concert progressed, he always seemed to be able to reach down for yet more power and emotional depth in his delivery. He handled "Baby Please Don't Go," "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child," "Wild Night," and "Days Like This," with muscular, mature authority. There was no mistaking that this show was crafted for adults.

Van Morrison performs on the Gentilly during the second day of the New Orleans Jazz Fest at the Fair Grounds Saturday, April 23, 2016. (Photo by David Grunfeld, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)

Even "Gloria," Morrison's 1964 love anthem that has become the bouncy go-to crowd-pleaser of every bar band in the land, had a more serious, serrated tone in Saturday's performance that breathed life back into the old warhorse.

It was unfortunate that when the band deliberately dropped the volume on the jam that followed "Moondance," to achieve a sort of musical whispering, sound bleed from another stage -- or stages -- ruined the effect.

Despite the gorgeous weather, the notoriously deadpan Morrison appeared, as is his custom, dressed for summer in San Francisco, with a suit jacket, felt fedora, and ascot. He never frowned, nor did he crack a smile. Except, perhaps, once. As the perfectionistic Northern Irish knight began singing the comically bawdy lyrics to "Don't You Feel My Leg," he may have, just may have, guffawed with laughter.

As the last notes of the closing jam faded away, an audience member quietly opined: "Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous."

Agreed, agreed, agreed.
dam 046.JPG

The scene at Big Wills Creek near where Dakota Crandall drowned in 2015.

(William Thornton / wthornton@al.com)

Signs warn people of hazardous water at the low head dam on Big Wills Creek in Gadsden.

Dakota Crandall traveled a great distance emotionally during his 25 years of life. A year after his death, his family hopes his memory and the project that consumed his last days goes even further.

"We want to keep this going for him," said his uncle, Rick Estes. "It was something he cared about, because he cared about people."

Crandall's family haven't spoken publicly about his death over the past year. On Saturday, April 25, 2015, Crandall and his cousin David Hill went kayaking in Big Wills Creek in Gadsden. Only six days earlier, they had gone the same route with no problems, but the water had been higher. They had not noticed a low-head dam that was once used to pump water into the old Gulf States Steel mill.

On this day, the water level was lower. Going over the dam, Crandall was thrown from his kayak and carried under the water, where he drowned.

Dakota Crandall

The day's tragedy wasn't over. Members of the Gadsden Fire Department and the Etowah County Rescue Squad began a recovery effort that afternoon. Rescue Squad workers put two boats into the water. One of the boats veered two close to the dam and was swept over the side. The second one followed. Nine Rescue Squad workers were cast into the creek. One worker, Vicky Ryan, 46, died.

Estes, who was waiting along the creek bank with other family members, said Ryan made a point of seeking them out at the scene before getting into the boat, encouraging them that he would be found.

"Of all the rescue workers, she was the kindest," he said.

Crandall's body was recovered the next morning. But that wasn't the end of his story, family members say.

Crandall had always been a spiritual seeker, Estes said. During his elementary school years, he was "big into church," sometimes recounting sermon points he had heard to his neighborhood friends. But a controversy in his family's church made him drift away from the faith. As he grew, his comments and questions took on a teasing, skeptical edge.

"He would come over and ask some very tough questions to try and prove that Christianity was another false religion," Estes said. "Always when we answered one of his questions in a satisfactory way, he would come up with another zinger. It was like he was saying, 'Ha ha, I told you it is not real.' But really he was just looking for truth."

Six days before he died, Crandall was baptized. The change in his life, family members say, was real. But he also had a new project to occupy him. Crandall conceived "The Traveling Bible." It was a natural outgrowth of who Crandall was, Estes said.

"Even when he was a kid, he would take things apart just to see how they worked," Estes said. "That's sort of what he did with the Bible. He liked to hear people tell what Bible verses spoke to them, and explain why. That's how 'The Traveling Bible' got started."

Crandall got Bibles from thrift stores and decorated them. He covered one in bright orange electrical tape. He then made pockets on the cover for pens and paper. The idea was to leave the Bibles in places where people could highlight their favorite verses. He also created a website to allow people to share their stories and testimonies.

"He was just getting in full swing when the tragedy happened," Estes said.

A year later, there are more than 100 traveling Bibles around the country. Estes said a businessman the family knows leaves the Bibles out in places where they will be seen, and a woman in Ragland makes covers for them.

Crandall's death has also made the family draw closer together, Estes said, which is another kind of miracle.

"We miss him so, so much," he said. "And we may never know the reasons God allowed him to be taken on that day. But we have a deep peace and comfort knowing where he is. The family has come together like never before. And part of that is the family trying to continue his vision of the Traveling Bible.

"Dakota started us all in the right direction."
A mother who was found dead in her Irondale apartment was shot in the head, and her boyfriend is now formally charged in her slaying.

Though authorities and family initially thought 42-year-old Melinda Searight was beaten, possibly with an object she usually carried for personal protection, authorities said today she was shot with a small handgun. A man she had dated years ago, and recently had begun dating again, was booked into the Jefferson County Jail at 2:57 p.m. today.

Anthony Lanier Kelly, 36, is charged with murder. He is being held on $50,000 bond. Irondale police Det. Sgt. Michael Mangina said Kelly has refused to talk to investigators, so they don't yet know why he killed Searight.

Irondale police were dispatched to Searight's apartment on Meadows Lane just after 6 a.m. Friday. Searight's mother, Doris Doss, told AL.com, that she received a phone call from her 15-year-old granddaughter about 6:30 a.m. The 15-year-old daughter and her twin 13-year-old sisters were all home at the time.

"I was at work and she called me screaming,'' Doss said. "She said 'Grandma, she's bleeding from the head.''

The daughters called 911 and then were taken by neighbors to another apartment. "My oldest granddaughter heard them arguing while she was getting ready for school,'' Doss said. "After that, that's when he came in the room and said, "I guess I'm going to spend the rest of my life in jail."

Searight was found unresponsive on her bedroom floor, and pronounced dead on the scene.

Kelly fled the apartment after the shooting, but turned himself in at the Jefferson County Jail about 6 p.m. Friday. He was turned over to Irondale police for questioning and brought back to the county jail this afternoon after warrants were obtained.

Both police and family said there didn't appear to be any known prior domestic problems between the two. Searight's death is Irondale's first homicide this year.

"I'm glad this violent murderer is off the streets and hopefully he will be punished for taking these kids' mother from them,'' Mangina said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with this family."
Two Hartselle teens died in a two-vehicle crash last night.

Brianna Lashay Lewis and Breanna Caitlin Jackson, both 15, died when the motorized go-kart they were riding in collided with a 2005 Acura RSX around 10:54 p.m., Senior Trooper Johnathan Appling said.

The Acura's driver, Matthew Ryan Hood, of Huntsville, was not injured.

Lewis was driving the go-kart and was pronounced dead on the scene of the accident. Jackson, who was a passenger in the kart, was flown to Huntsville Hospital and died after midnight.

The wreck happened on Alabama 36 at mile marker 10, one mile west of Danville, Appling said.

Alabama State Troopers are investigating the crash.
Modern day slavery in the Arab world is not based on skin complexion, but rather on legal subordination.

The Islamic call to prayer emanated loudly from the nearby mosques. As Saudis filed toward the Manfuhah Mosque on November 4, government buses rolled in to carry 23,000 foreign workers to deportation centres, and then out of the kingdom.

Manfuhah, a working class section of Riyadh, was the scene of violent clashes between foreign workers and vigilante citizens for several days leading up to November 4. The unemployment rate is particularly high in Manfuhah, making it the eye of the national storm against foreign workers, who are increasingly perceived as taking Saudi jobs.

The riots followed a controversial reform in Saudi labour laws covering foreign workers, brought about by rising Saudi unemployment, which has reached 12 percent. Saudi legislators calculated that by deporting foreign workers, job opportunities would open up for unemployed Saudis  particularly in the foreign-worker dominated spheres of service, clerical, and manual labour.

The once lax laws that facilitated the expansion of Saudi Arabias foreign worker population to 9 million  the largest in the Arab world  and enabled their economic exploitation and dehumanisation, now mandate Saudi citizen sponsorship, or kafala, for legal stay.

Deploying Arab and black as monolithic indicators of modern-day master and slave misses the point, and overlooks the millions of non-African foreign workers that endure slave-like conditions within the Kingdom.

Yet, for the 4 million workers that could not procure sponsorship, the law mandated repatriation back to their homelands. Juxtaposed to the call for prayer, the Saudi legal call is fomenting xenophobic violence and compelling many foreign workers  who are perceived as and generally treated like slaves  to leave the kingdom.

Xenophobic rage

In the days leading up to November 4, Saudi Arabia became the site of an unholy violence toward foreign workers, and particularly in Manfuhah, a distinct where persecution was unleashed on unwanted slaves by public and private actors. The majority of the rioting workers were Ethiopians and other East Africans, but framing modern slavery in Saudi Arabia as Arabs subjugating blacks, misrepresents the contours and colour of the inhumanity taking place within the kingdom.

The scene of the beaten and bloodied foreign workers in Riyadh, the vast majority of them Africans, recalls the graphic public beating of Alem Dechessa on the streets of Beirut in March 2012. Dechessa committed suicide shortly after, and her death brought to life  for the first time  mainstream attention to the enslavement of Ethiopian domestic workers not just in Lebanon, but throughout the Arab world.

The violence towards foreign workers in Saudi Arabia, however, is far broader in scale and more comprehensive in scope.

The number of foreign workers in Saudi Arabia is greater than half of its labour force, and is also bigger than the populations of Lebanon, Kuwait and Qatar combined, where foreign workers also face slave-like conditions. In Manfuhah alone, three workers were killed, hundreds were injured, and thousands were detained.

Beyond Arab vs black binary

Saudi-centrism  fuelled by a nefarious cocktail of rigid sectarianism, classism, clannism, and state-sponsored xenophobia  distinguishes Saudi slavery from its regional analogs. Racism is undeniably salient, but its shape is drastically different in Saudi Arabia. Deploying Arab and black as monolithic indicators of modern-day master and slave misses the point and overlooks the millions of non-African foreign workers that endure slave-like conditions within the kingdom.

Black in Saudi Arabia stands not simply for an African identity, but for a marginalised legal status. It is not a universally uniform identity, but a legal status that shifts according to national context. In Saudi Arabia, black includes the diverse population of foreign workers that hold no legal rights and that are vulnerable to the unchecked authority of their Saudi overseers.

For the Saudi onlooker, skin complexion, ethnicity and nationality are proxies for foreign-worker status. Indeed, the intersection of black or brown skin, non-Sunni faith, gender, and other variables exacerbates the subjugation endured by a foreign worker, creating great stratification, but the formal designation of foreign worker is the definitive marker of slave status.

Among the foreign-worker population are Filipinos, Indians, Indonesians, Nepalese, Pakistanis, and Yemenis, who endure an existence similar to that of the Ethiopian workers. Almost a million foreign workers from these nations left Saudi Arabia during the course of the last three months. The majority fled anticipating the nativist backlash that climaxed with the Riyadh riots.

If we accept the Arab versus black slave binary, how do we reconcile the subjugation and enslavement of Yemeni Arabs? Yemenis, who are Arabs, occupy a subordinate status within the kingdom. In fact, since November 1, over 30,000 Yemeni workers migrated back to their homeland amid the rising violence toward foreign workers.

Regardless of whether domestic workers are Yemenis, Ethiopian, Sudanese, Indian or Pakistani, they are black in Saudi Arabia  occupying a slave-like existence where their Saudi handlers bond them by debt, seize their legal documents, imprison them within the kingdom, and as enshrined by the new law, expel them immediately when they see fit.

Slavery and its incidents are far more complex than Arab versus black. Rather, slavery in the kingdom pits Saudi citizen against a spectrum of foreign workers branded job thieves by state legislators. These foreign workers range in nationality, phenotype, and religion, but share a common legal status that makes them collectively black in Saudi Arabia. Subscribing to simplistic racial binaries impairs the ability to see the milieu of victims, and indeed, the precise character of the villains.

The new labour law passed in the land of Mecca, Medina, and thousands upon thousands of mosques, cannot mask the slavery it has practised for years, and the calls for its abolition outside the kingdom are becoming as resounding as the calls for prayer within it.

Khaled A Beydoun is the Critical Race Studies Teaching Fellow at the UCLA School of Law.
The Republican and Democratic parties are functioning like two identical but competing Orwellian Ministries of Truth.

In the United States presidential elections, there are two towering political parties  the Democratic and the Republican  that during the course of their primary elections get to choose who will be their respective candidates in the course of a national election.

Although any US citizen can join these two parties  or any other political party  millions of eligible voters have not, and consider themselves independent.

These independent voters get to vote in the general elections like anyone else, but by the time we get to that general election in November, the two dominant political parties have already elected their nominee, and, therefore, US citizens at large have to vote for one of these preselected nominees if they want their vote to have a role in who their next president will be.





This entirely undemocratic, arcane, draconian, and ipso facto rigged aspect of the US electoral system came to a crucial dead-end during the New York primaries of the Democratic and Republican parties on April 19, when Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump won their respective primaries.

Decisive setback

In many significant ways, the presidential primaries in New York were a turning point in the unfolding saga of Bernie Sanders bid for the US presidency.

His crushing defeat by the former state secretary marks a decisive setback that may, in fact, end his candidacy and usher his massively popular campaign into a new phase, with or without the prospect of US presidency.

ALSO READ: Muslims for Bernie Sanders

So crucial was this victory for Clinton that soon after this primary, the New York Times  which now openly, unabashedly, and against any norm of journalistic decency or professionalism acts as the official organ of Clintons campaign  was so confident of her victory that it began to speculate about who her running mate might be.

These primaries were not like any other; New York is the financial, commercial, cultural, and intellectual capital of the US. What happens in New York (and a few other major cosmopolitan epicenters like Chicago and San Francisco) is, in many ways, the barometer of the nation at large.

Some 20 million people live in the state of New York, of which about 8.4 million live just in New York City. This population figure places New York City above many European democracies, such as Austria, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Now, consider the fact that according to reports, only 19.7 percent of eligible New Yorkers cast a ballot, the second-lowest voter turnout among primary states after Louisiana, according to elections expert Michael McDonald.

This is not to mention the fact that even those who were registered Democrats and could not vote: The Kings County Board of Elections purged 126,000 registered Democrats from the voting rolls in Brooklyn, prompting an outcry from Mayor Bill de Blasio and an audit from Comptroller Scott Stringer.

Since when can a political party ... violate the inalienable right of citizenship in a republic? by

Whatever the cause of this purge (fraud or mishap), this is not the main calamity of the electoral process in the US.

The issue is the fact that less than 20 percent of eligible voters in a statewide election get to choose who the next presidential candidates in the US national elections would be.

This low number is not any indication of an apathetic low voter turnout, but, in fact, is the evidence of massive voter suppression that, in the racist parlance of the white supremacists, is kept exclusive for what they call Third World Banana Republics.

Now, the question is very simple: What is the difference between the way the Democratic Party functions in New York and many other states and the Communist Party of North Korea, the bete noire of the liberation theologians singing Hallelujah for American democracy?

Since when can a political party (with an obvious political agenda to promote for its own endurance) violate the inalienable right of citizenship in a republic?

Some more equal than others

The principle reason for this voter suppression is what they call in the US closed primaries. What is a closed primary?

ALSO READ: US elections: Hillary Clintons millennial dilemma

New York is among many other states that conduct what is called closed primaries; namely, they only allow voters who are registered members of a particular political party to vote in that partys primary.

It is not, therefore, accidental that much to the chagrin of Sanders and his massive supporters among independents, Clinton has won every state so far thats held a closed primary.

If, as a citizen, you followed the debates closely and came to the conclusion that Sanders is the candidate of your choice and not Clinton, you would not be allowed to vote for him unless months ago (long before you were familiar with Sanders or his ideas), you had applied to the Democratic Party and become a member.

It must be a rudimentary fact of any claim to democracy that if you are a citizen of a republic, you must be able to vote in any phase of any presidential (or any other) election simply by virtue of being a citizen.

The Democratic Party, therefore, rules over this false claim to democracy the same way the Guardian Council of octogenarian Super Mullahs rules over the Islamic Republic. by

But in this crucial phase of the US presidential primaries, these citizens are not allowed to vote unless and until they are card-carrying members of the political party conducting that primary.

All animals are equal, indeed, as we learned from George Orwells Animal Farm, but some animals are more equal than others.

As a result of this blatantly undemocratic practice, if you are an independent-minded person, follow the news and watch the debates before you decide which candidate you prefer and want to vote for in the Democratic primaries in New York, you might as well be a woman trying to drive in Saudi Arabia: You could not.

False claim to democracy

The Democratic Party, therefore, rules over this false claim to democracy the same way the Guardian Council of octogenarian Super Mullahs rules over the Islamic Republic.

In other words, the free and fair formation of political parties that is supposed to be the finest fruit of a democracy has paradoxically degenerated into the most powerful impediment to democracy.

The question is: What is the result of these undemocratic closed primaries?

These closed primaries are the bottlenecks of a closed political culture, preventing the possibility of any liberating breakthrough into a foreclosed political system.

At the heart of this imperial republic that effectively rules the world with its military might (not with any moral courage or political legitimacy), we have an electoral process that systematically bars any critical judgment of its own citizens to disrupt its mindless militarism. American citizens are as much trapped inside this corrupt system as people around the globe are at the mercy of its fighter jets and drone attacks.

These two parties, Republican and Democratic, are today functioning like two identical but competing Orwellian Ministries of Truth  systematically, consistently, unabashedly disallowing any critical thinking or nonviolent democratic action to enter and disrupt the always-already rigged election.

Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
With the demand for recognition of the Golan Heights annexation, Netanyahu is one of many circling war-torn Syria.

As the beginning of the endgame on Syria commences, Israel is signaling its intention to join in the feasting on Syrias decaying sovereignty  demanding international recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights captured from Syria in the June 1967 war.

The occasion for this demand was an extraordinary cabinet session in on the Golan plateau  the first ever  where, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus reckoning, 50,000 Israeli settlers reside.

I chose to hold this festive cabinet meeting on the Golan Heights in order to deliver a clear message, Netanyahu declared at the outset of the meeting. The Golan Heights will forever remain in Israels hands. Israel will never come down from the Golan Heights.





This Israeli message bears repeating, particularly now when the parties to the war in Syria are jockeying for advantage in the first stages of the diplomatic battle to end the war and to design Syrias future.

Netanyahu, no less than the multitude of players circling around the decimated Syrian state, is determined to place its maximal demands on the diplomatic agenda now being fashioned in Washington and Moscow.

The Golan Heights annexation

It is significant that Netanyahu set out this demand for international recognition of the Golan Heights annexation without addressing the larger question of a peace treaty with Damascus, which has always been part of the broader diplomatic context in which negotiations over the Golan Heights have been held.

ALSO READ: The Moscow-Jerusalem axis over Syria

Syria, of course, is hardly able to consider engaging in negotiations over the Golan Heights future. Nor is there much evidence that any Syrian party to the war is prepared to recognise Israeli sovereignty. Both opposition leader Riad Hijab and Syrias Bashar al-Jaafari found themselves in unusual agreement on their adamant rejection of Netanyahus provocative declaration.

In any case, Netanyahu is hardly concerned about Syrias views on the matter. He is aiming at different  and in his view, more decisive  audience altogether. Not Syrian or even Arab, but American and especially Russian.

On the day before the cabinet meeting on the Golan Heights, Netanyahu put forward the broad menu of Israels demands on Syria in a conversation with US Secretary of State John Kerry.

I told the Secretary of State that we will not oppose a diplomatic settlement in Syria on condition that it not come at the expense of the security of the State of Israel; ie, that at the end of the day, the forces of Iran, Hezbollah and [ISIL] will be removed from Syrian soil.

The time has come, he continued, for the international community to recognise reality, especially two basic facts. One, whatever is beyond the border, the boundary itself will not change. Two, after 50 years, the time has come for the international community to finally recognise that the Golan Heights will remain under Israels sovereignty permanently.

The cold shoulder presented by Washington could not have surprised Netanyahu ... by

Wide range of demands

Washington, at least publicly, did not address the wide range of demands Netanyahu outlined, preferring to reiterate Washingtons long-standing view that the Golan Heights is not part of Israel.

The cold shoulder presented by Washington could not have surprised Netanyahu, where frustration with the Israeli leader runs deep. Indeed, it is Moscow, where Netanyahu went on April 21, rather than Washington, that looms largest in the Israeli premiers considerations about protecting and advancing Israels interests in Syria.

This has most notably been the case since the decisive Russian intervention on behalf of the Assad regime last year, and it will feature prominently in Netanyahus current round of discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The critical nature of the Israel-Russian entente on Syria was addressed by the Minister of Transportation Yisrael Katz who explained that: Coordination of steps between us and Russia allows Israel to defend these interests without fear of Russian intervention, and it is extremely important not only in near, but in the long run  We need to remember that we have interests relating to the Golan Heights, and it is good that, in the case of a settlement in Syria, we have the ability to effectively communicate with Russia.

ALSO READ: The Six-Day War, 48 years on

In contrast to this delicate and effective dialogue, relations with Washington remain hostage to the clash resulting from Washingtons acknowledged failure to do anything in the last eight years to slow the advance of Israels settlement and occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Today, Washington contents itself with heartfelt lamentations, most recently articulated by Vice President Joe Biden, about the course Israel has chosen and a policy agenda that focuses on the slim reed of what used to be called economic peace.

Kerry recently explained this policy:

 I do think it is possible to get something started, get something moving in which you could lay out a vision for where youre going and perhaps get the parties together and have some understanding, some confidence-building measures. You could have some efforts, for instance, in the West Bank on Area C, which is the area controlled by Israel in its entirety  and begin to build up Palestinian capacity.

I think you could do more on security  more on economic development. You could build a horizon where there are some expectations for what has to be achieved that begin to quiet things down and give people some confidence or hope that there is, within that framework, the kernels of possible negotiations. I dont think you can just plunk down and start to negotiate tomorrow, but I do think there are definitive steps that could be taken. And we have  what?  nine, 10 more months, and I think President Obama will always welcome something thats real.

This shortcoming is all the greater because of the spectacular failure of the Obama administrations initial demand for a complete settlement freeze.

The patent first established during the Obama administrations diplomatic offensive on Palestine  grandiose American statements lacking any real strategic sense or commitment to their implementation  is now playing out in Syria, as well.

Geoffrey Aronson writes about Middle Eastern affairs. He consults with a variety of public and private institutions dealing with regional political, security, and development issues.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
An Obama visit to Hiroshima would signal to the world the US commitment to non-proliferation and disarmament.

Next month, US President Barack Obama will touch down in Japan to attend the G7 summit being held in Ise-Shima. A number of topics will be on the agenda including mounting tensions in the East and South China Seas, recent provocations by North Korea and the ongoing conflict in Syria.

On the sidelines of the summit, there has also been discussion about a potential visit by Obama to Hiroshima. Last week, the White House appeared to hint that such a visit might be in the works by tying it to Obamas commitment to disarmament and non-proliferation, noting: Symbolically, theres no more powerful illustration of that commitment [to disarmament] than the city that contained the victims of the first use of that weapon.

Indeed, Obama should visit Hiroshima and signal to the world the United States commitment to his stated principles on non-proliferation and disarmament. This almost certainly would not be framed as a visit to express remorse or apology for US actions in 1945, which would not be popular stateside.





Rather, the trip would reveal a common message about the abhorrent nature and consequences attached to the use of nuclear weapons.

Historic visit

Moreover, the visit would be historic and represent the first time that a sitting US president toured the city that has been infamous due to the fact that it was the first place to experience a nuclear weapon attack.

An Obama visit to Hiroshima would also continue the progress already made by his administration as evidenced by sequential visits by Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy last year and Secretary of State John Kerry earlier this month.

ALSO READ: Inside Americas atomic state

There are a number of other important reasons why such a visit would be important, beyond mere symbolism. First, the visit would be a natural follow-on to Obamas recent capstone Nuclear Security Summit held last month in Washington DC.

A visit to Hiroshima would serve as a metaphorical bookend to the Prague speech and help dovetail and emphasize the importance of work done on nuclear security during Obamas tenure. by

The summit process, which was initiated with an inaugural meeting in 2010, has been aimed at ensuring the security of vulnerable nuclear materials around the world through international cooperation and accountability.

The security of nuclear materials was a key element of Obamas speech at Prague in 2009 where he stressed that the US had a moral responsibility to act towards the elimination of nuclear weapons.

A visit to Hiroshima would serve as a metaphorical bookend to the Prague speech and help dovetail and emphasize the importance of work done on nuclear security during Obamas tenure.

More importantly, however, this visit would give Obama a perfect venue to articulate the efforts that still need work, such as a fissile material cut-off treaty.

The visit would also be highly appreciated by Japan, one of Washingtons long-standing and critical allies in the Asia-Pacific.

The US-Japan alliance has blossomed in recent years with a host of security and defence reforms by Japanese Prime Minster Shinzo Abe aimed at both bolstering Tokyos own capabilities as well as its security partnership with Washington.

Tokyo has been cautious about openly pressuring Obama to include Hiroshima on his itinerary, but there is no question that such a gesture would be appreciated in Japan.

Powerful message

A final key benefit would be the powerful  albeit subtle  message of reconciliation the visit would demonstrate.

Of course, Japan and the United States have been largely reconciled since their conflict seven decades ago and have developed a mutually beneficial strategic partnership and alliance based on shared interests and common goals.

The ghosts of history however continue to constrain relations in Northeast Asia  especially between Japan and its neighbours (China, South Korea and North Korea). The image of Obama in Hiroshima  even without an apology  would give Washington more leverage and authenticity when it encourages its allies in the region to reconcile their historical differences.

Of course, there are constraints to such a visit as it would touch upon delicate sensibilities in the US, many of which view the use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima  and Nagasaki three days later  as a necessary step to end a protracted and violent war.

ALSO READ: The moment Truman announced the bombing of Hiroshima

According to polling done last year by Pew Research, the majority of Americans still believe that the atomic bombings were both appropriate and justified.

There are also political constraints and sensitivities during this election cycle in the United States. Nearly three quarters of Republican voters polled indicated support for the bombings, while only half of Democrats were supportive.

But, while these statistics are important, it is also critical to note that the trend of sentiments favouring the bombings has been shifting over the years.

For example, while 85 percent of Americans believed the bombings were appropriate in 1945, only 57 percent continued to believe that six decades later in 2005.

Similarly, the percentage of Americans believing that the bombings were justified, while still a majority, has also declined in recent years. A visit to Hiroshima would not come without criticism but it is the right call.

J Berkshire Miller is the director of the Council on International Policy and is a fellow on East Asia for the EastWest Institute.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Any vision of true transformation must emphasise generational change in the Saudi workforce and society.

Faisal Abualhassan is a researcher at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies.

On April 25, the Saudi government will unveil its Vision for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a sweeping package of economic reforms that includes the widely-reported National Transformation Programme as well as the privatisation of oil giant Saudi Aramco and Riyadhs new Public Investment Fund.

While the media narrative surrounding the plan for a post-oil Saudi Arabia largely focuses on the Kingdoms potential for financial growth and investment, the social context surrounding these reforms demands a closer look.

To date, news of this privatisation and diversification drive has drawn understandable scepticism from many quarters. How can Riyadh, the worlds largest oil producer, wean itself off the petrodollar in the midst of a crash in oil prices?





In a region ravaged by economic, political and social strife, the G20 member and World Bank key player enjoys both the financial and human capital to make reforms other countries in the Arab world might not be able to undertake.

Reliance on petrodollars

If the Kingdom achieves its stated goals, the Saudi push to reduce reliance on petrodollars will be nothing less than a momentous transformation of a country most closely associated with oil fields.

However, the success or failure of this effort will come down to whether it can foresee and inhibit potentially adverse consequences that could follow policy changes of this scale.

ALSO READ: US-GCC Summit  Whats next?

By building necessary infrastructure while divesting certain publicly administered services, the Kingdom can indeed kick-start non-oil growth while alleviating its financial burden.

This potential, however, requires more than a mere economic transformation. It also requires acknowledgement and encouragement  by the state and foreign investors alike  of Saudi Arabias profound and ongoing generational shifts.

Nevertheless, diversification, privatisation, and the opening of the Saudi market to outside investors (especially with recent reforms that facilitate foreign investment) could well make the Kingdom a global investment and trade destination, to the benefit of international markets and Saudi citizens alike.

In privatising public ventures (like airports), the Kingdom is seeking broad institutional changes it hopes will be spearheaded by public-private partnerships.

Sources of non-oil income

The idea of creating airport free zones in Riyadh and Jeddah would provide for additional sources of non-oil income but also create laboratories for local, regional and foreign companies and industries alike. The impact of such changes, however, will not be limited to Saudi finances. They have the potential to impact Saudi society as well. In fact, they already are.

With oil prices likely to stay low for the foreseeable future, the Kingdom is cognisant of its need for outside investment to make up for reduced revenues. by

Since joining the SkyTeam airline alliance in May 2012, for example, Saudi airports have begun hosting transit passengers from across the world. This has prompted the hitherto unimaginable breakdown of social and cultural barriers between Saudis and the outside world.

While middle and upper-class Saudis have for decades travelled abroad, airport employees and domestic travellers in the Kingdoms international airports are coming into regular contact with transit passengers from abroad for the first time.

These fellow travellers represent previously impossible contact with the outside world at a time when Saudis face above-average scrutiny for visas to most Western nations.

With oil prices likely to stay low for the foreseeable future, the Kingdom is cognisant of its need for outside investment to make up for reduced revenues.

Just this week, Saudi Arabia took out a $10bn five-year loan from a consortium of global banks  its first sovereign loan since 1991. This effort to raise the Saudi borrowing profile will be an important part of the necessary shift from Aramco to the Public Investment Fund as the primary financial organ of the Kingdom.

Aside from opening Aramco, the new economic programme aims to attract foreign investment in an increasingly service-oriented local consumer culture by expanding Saudis retail and healthcare sectors with foreign investment.

ALSO READ: A big rethink  Security in the GCC

Saudi officials indicate their plans for closer business ties with the United States, focusing on cooperation and investment from the US technology, healthcare, tourism and transport sectors.

This echoes Riyadhs previous (and continuing) pursuit of British investment in rail, healthcare and construction projects.

While these openings promise more jobs for Saudis, they also require a Saudi labour market capable of moving beyond the managerial, engineering and medical sectors to also handling technical jobs (an area Saudis still avoid).

Most press coverage of the National Transformation Programme has revolved around floating Aramco to foreign investors and the sovereign wealth fund, with job creation largely relegated to an afterthought.

Any vision of true transformation, however, must place an equal emphasis on encouraging generational change in the Saudi workforce and society. This means taking into account the changing social aspirations, habits and needs of Saudi youth.

Failings of the welfare state

Affluent young Saudis, frustrated with the failings of the welfare state, have thus far embraced the Thatcheresque models underpinning the National Transformation Programme. One cannot forget, however, the downside of Thatcherite economics: ignoring unemployment.

Thus far, Saudi higher education has (despite its best intentions) created an academic environment that prioritises producing employees over scholars, blurring the boundaries of academia. Liberating Saudi academics from this scholastic-industrial complex by creating and expanding technical colleges would give greater focus to both areas and produce Saudi workers better qualified to reduce reliance on foreign labour.

Winding down generous scholarship programmes to universities abroad and focusing on quality over quantity in domestic education should do much to improve this long-standing labour issue. The new economic platform must include even broader restructuring of education expenditures to earn better returns on those investments.

Comparing the support enjoyed by the soon-to-be-announced National Transformation Programme to past labour reforms, the failure of the oil-based welfare states Saudisation policies helps explain the warm reception of the economic policies now being revealed.

This time around, the economic programme can and should emphasise a population capable and encouraged to explore all fields of work  including technical work. Otherwise, the issues that now plague the oil-based economy will remain.

Faisal Abualhassan is a researcher at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Official says temporary measure aims to ensure Anbars provincial capital is cleared of explosives left behind by ISIL.

Iraqs military has warned civilians against returning to Ramadi after dozens were killed by mines apparently planted by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group in the citys streets and buildings.

Iraqi forces reclaimed Ramadi from ISIL fighters in December and tens of thousands of residents have moved back to Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar, in the past two months.

Most of them have returned from camps east of the city where they took refuge prior to the armys advance late last year.





A spokesman for the Anbar governors office, which is overseeing much of the effort to restore Ramadi, confirmed that the military had issued the directive because it felt the need to stop the return to ensure that the areas are safe.

He said that it was not clear when people would be allowed to return to Ramadi and declined to comment on what would happen to the residents who had already moved back.

However, Ramadis mayor said he expected the freeze to last for a day or two while authorities investigated whether the city was properly cleared of explosives.

Official statistics indicate that 49 people have been killed and 79 others wounded in Ramadi since the start of February, but the UN has said that those figures are almost certainly an underestimation.

Mine clearance is seen as a critical first step in returning civilians to Ramadi, which a United Nation team said last month suffers from destruction worse than anywhere else in Iraq after months of fighting that saw ISIL bomb attacks and devastating US-led coalition air strikes.

Millions displaced

More than 3.4 million Iraqis across the country have been displaced by violence, according to UN statistics, most of them from the minority Sunni Arab community.

In Sundays other developments, clashes between Kurdish peshmerga forces and Turkmen Shia paramilitaries killed nine people in a northern town and cut a strategic road between Baghdad and Kirkuk, security and medical sources said.

READ MORE: Iraqs humanitarian workers brace for Mosul influx

The clashes between the peshmerga and the Turkmen, who belong to an armed fighters umbrella organisation known as the Hashd al-Shaabi, began at around midnight and continued into Sunday, officials said.

Both the peshmerga and the Turkmen fighters are battling ISIL, which overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014.

But Kurdish forces and the Hashed al-Shaabi are vying for influence in some areas, a contest that has led to violence in Tuz Khurmatu.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo expected to win Equatorial Guineas poll, boycotted by much of the opposition.

Citizens of Equatorial Guinea are heading to the polls in a vote expected to hand Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the incumbent president and Africas longest serving leader, another seven-year term in office.

The countrys opposition leaders and international civil society groups have already dismissed Sundays vote as not credible.

Obiang, 73, faces six mostly unknown opponents, with most of the opposition boycotting the poll.

Election results will start to come in after the polls close at 9pm local time and final results are expected on Monday.

Obiang, who has ruled Equatorial Guinea for nearly 37 years after overthrowing his uncle in a coup, is accused of presiding over one of the worlds most corrupt and repressive governments.

Income inequality

Critics accuse Obiang of failing to distribute the countrys oil wealth to the population of about 700,000.

According to the poor living in the slums, the money seems to be going to only a few people.

They allege it is going to Obiangs family, the inner circle of the government.

They say there is not enough distribution of wealth.

Al Jazeeras Haru Mutasa, in Bata How do people feel about Obiang running again? His supporters say yes, hes been in power for nearly 37 years but, especially in the capital, there are good things happening. There is government-subsidised housing, there are developments. But according to the poor living in the slums, the money seems to be going to only a few people. They allege it is going to the presidents family, the inner circle of the government. They say there is not enough distribution of wealth. Some opposition parties are boycotting the election, some are participating. They are saying it was really difficult for them to campaign. They are saying this process wont be credible. But some key countries have been very quiet about this election. The main thing we want to see right now is how many people come out to vote. The people expect the president to win, but the key thing is the numbers, will the turn out be high?

Some opposition parties are boycotting the election, but others are participating, although they say campaigning was difficult and have questioned the credibility of the electoral process.

Some key countries have chose to remain quiet about the vote.

According to the United Nations 2014 Human Development Report, the country has the highest per capita gross domestic product of Any African country  about $37,000.

But it ranks 144 out of 187 countries in the Human Development Index that measures social and economic development.

As a result, Equatorial Guinea has by far the worlds largest gap of all countries between its per capita wealth and its human development score.

Al Jazeeras Haru Mutasa, reporting from the port city of Bata, said many people living in the country are still poor, frustrated and unemployed.

Opposition leaders say much of the nations oil wealth goes to the president and his family, she said.

They also accuse some in the international community of ignoring alleged human-rights abuses because of oil interests.

Equatorial Guinea is the third-largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa.

In the last election in 2009, Obiang won 97 percent of the vote.

His Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea regularly wins parliamentary votes with a similar majority, always falling barely short of 100 percent.

The ability of African leaders like Obiang to stay in power for a long time is rooted in the lack of mature opposition in their countries, says Marie-Roger Biloa, editor of the Paris-based Africa International magazine.

The opposition in Equatorial Guinea is practically nonexistent, she told Al Jazeera.

Those who are [in opposition] are not resistant. So it is very easy for the incumbent president to stay, because he is not really challenged.

Biloa said Obiangs government is using Equatorial Guineas rich oil reserves to silence its critics.

Equatorial Guinea was a nobody until oil was discovered there roughly 20 years ago, she said.

There is a very tiny population. One family is ruling over the country. Oil is a very good shield.





Opposition parties say campaigning had been difficult in the run-up to Sundays vote.

We are not free here. There is no freedom of speech, Bonifacio Nguema, UCD party leader, told Al Jazeera.

Some opposition members have been beaten up and arrested. We live in a police state.

Arbitrary detention

Amnesty International, the rights-monitoring group, says torture and arbitrary detention of government critics have been routine practices in Equatorial Guinea under Obiangs rule.

The government denies the allegations of rights abuses and corruption made by the opposition and international rights groups.

Obiangs supporters say he has strengthened Equatorial Guineas economy and brought peace and security to the country.

Gabriel Mbaga Obiang Lima, the energy minister, says political stability is essential for the country and Obiang is the person to provide it for the next seven years.

We must continue to develop and transform the country, he said.

We need to modernise, grow democratically in a climate of humility so we have peace and economic stability.
Family welcomes the release of D al-Wawi, who was arrested in February on charges of attempted manslaughter.

Halhul, occupied West Bank  At the Jbara checkpoint near Tulkarem, the al-Wawi family and human rights groups representatives waited patiently. The 12-year-old finally emerged, after having spent 2.5 months in a prison, making her the youngest Palestinian female detainee. As her relatives embraced her, the girl, clad in a pink shirt, fought back tears and said nothing.

D* was arrested on February 9 near the illegal settlement of Karmei Tzur, just north of her hometown of Halhul. Now, out on early parole, D served more than half of her sentence of 4.5 months in an Israeli prison for attempted voluntary manslaughter and illegal possession of a knife.

The family had appealed her detention, citing international legal norms, and Israeli law, which prohibits the imprisonment of children younger than 14 for the countrys citizens.

READ MORE: Youngest prisoner in Israeli jail is a 12-year-old girl

D is the first child in her family, which includes six girls and three boys, to see the insides of a prison cell. Her father, 54-year-old Ismael al-Wawi, had been working in Israel for more than 25 years before Israeli authorities revoked his permit on the day she was arrested.

According to Israeli military court documents, D approached the settlement with a knife hidden under her school uniform. The documents cited footage that showed the girl lying on the ground after she was told to give up the knife.

This was not the child her family knew. A lively girl, D spent a lot of her time playing outside with her cousins  something that left their relatives wondering how she would cope in a prison cell.

Even inside the courtroom, she was playing, said Sabha al-Wawi, Ds mother. Shed move her shackled feet or her hands around to play with the handcuffs. Even the judge told her to stop.

Her mother recalled an incident that left her questioning the Israeli authorities version of events.

One day, I overheard the girls talking about the spate of knife attacks. D and her eldest sister both said to each other, If anyone tells you Ive done something like this, please dont believe them. I would never attack anyone,' Sabha said.

The day D was arrested, her mother feared she was either injured or killed  the fate of many Palestinians who have either carried out attacks or were accused of being assailants in a spate of unrest that began in October 2015. Since then, 207 Palestinians and 33 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed.

On March 28, more than a month after the incident, D was finally allowed to see her mother, but they were banned from any physical contact. Before she was detained, D had been asking about the fate of the children of Palestinian journalist Mohammad al-Qeeq, who at the time was on a months-long hunger strike, if he were to die.

She kept wondering  who will take care of his children? Sabha recalled. Who will take them out on excursions, who will buy them gifts on Eid, who will feed them?

Even as the family welcomed Ds release, they were still reeling from the loss of Ismaels job, their only source of income. Ds parents also have to pay a $2,000 court-ordered fine.

Im unemployed now and taking out loans to cultivate a plot of land that we have, Ismael said. It will be a while before the land yields any produce. So in the meantime, I have reached out to several institutions to help financially.

There are 7,000 Palestinians currently in Israeli prisons, according to the Palestine Liberation Organizations Prisoners Affairs Commission. The figures include 70 women, 750 in administrative detention, 700 sick detainees, and 30 who have been imprisoned for more than 20 years.

The figures also include 440 Palestinian children, who are held in Israeli detention for security offences, according to Defence for Children International  Palestine (DCI), a Ramallah-based rights group. This is the highest tally since the Israel Prison Service started providing figures in 2008, the group said. More than 100 of these children are between 12 and 15, while 12 are girls and seven are in administrative detention.

A majority of children endure physical violence in the Israeli military detention system, according to a recent report by DCI called No Way to Treat a Child. The widespread and systematic ill-treatment of Palestinian children includes detaining them in the middle of the night, often without notifying the parents of the reasons for the arrest.

International law is clear: Children should only be detained as a last resort, for the shortest appropriate period of time, and under absolutely no circumstances should they be subjected to torture or ill-treatment, said Khaled Quzmar, the groups general director. Why then, year after year, do we see Palestinian children experiencing widespread, systematic, and institutionalised ill-treatment at the hands of Israeli forces?

Israeli authorities said D confessed to planning a stabbing attack, but DCI found that many children maintain their innocence, but plead guilty as it is the fastest way to get out of the system. Most receive plea deals of less than 12 months. Trials, on the other hand, can last a year, possibly longer. Bail is rarely granted and most children remain behind bars as they await trial.

The group also said that interrogators often use position abuse, threats and isolation to coerce confessions, documenting 66 cases in which children were held in solitary confinement.

Sabha says the family believes D has suffered a grave injustice.

Shes too young to hurt anybody. Shes not even physically capable of attacking anyone. She did not pose a threat, Sabha said. She is paying a heavy price for something that did not happen.

*Al Jazeera has refrained from revealing the girls name due to her age.
Locals frustrated as armed groups reporting to rival administrations continue to be in charge of security checkpoints.

Security across Libya is provided by a complex mix of rival militias, alongside security forces reporting either to the administration in Tripoli or the rival one in Tobruk.

In Misrata, different checkpoints are manned by different groups.

Locals are getting increasingly frustrated, not knowing who is in charge. But the security forces say this is in place for their defence.

The threats we face are from ISIL who want to carry out attacks on us, Mohammed Abu Dabouz, a soldier at this checkpoint, told Al Jazeera.

ISIL have organised their own patrols not far from here so weve organised our own defences to stop them from coming here.

Residents hope for a secure and stronger state but the security situation mirrors the political one in Libya.

Al Jazeeras Imran Khan, reporting from Misrata, said a lot of people there and in Libya were very frustrated by such checkpoints.

They want them replaced by ordinary police officers and they hope that day will come soon, he said.
German chancellor on a visit to Turkey says refugees will have more opportunities near their home.

The German chancellor has sought the creation of safe zones to shelter refugees inside Syria, a proposal criticised by the UN and rights groups.

Speaking at a university in the city of Gaziantep, Angela Merkel called for zones where the ceasefire is particularly enforced and where a significant level of security can be guaranteed.

Keeping people displaced from their homes on the Syrian side of the border would help the 28-nation bloc and Turkey, which hosts 2.7 million Syrian refugees, stem the flow of refugees to European shores.

Merkel, who visited Nizip refugee camp near the Syria border along with senior EU leaders on Saturday, heaped praise on Turkey for its efforts at the camp.

Our goal is not only to stop illegal migration, but for refugees to have more opportunities near their home, Merkel said.

The UN has warned against the safe-zone plan unless there is a way to guarantee the refugees safety in the war-torn state. Aid workers have also opposed it.

On Sunday, US President Barack Obama said during a news conference with Merkel that he was not supporting the idea.

Sadly, it is very difficult to see how it would operate short of us essentially being willing to militarily take over a big chunk of that country, he said.

IN PICTURES: Syrian refugees mass at Turkish border

A ceasefire between the Syrian government and rebel groups in place since February end has faltered, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee the fighting.

But they are not allowed to cross into Turkey, and instead are camped near the Azaz border crossing, where local agencies offer humanitarian support.

Turkey only allows critically injured Syrians to enter the country where more than 2.7 million refugees are registered.

EU-Turkey deal

EU leaders have faced criticism for striking a deal last month with Turkey under which Ankara would get a package of incentives  from billions in refugee aid to progress on visa-free access to the bloc for Turkish citizens  in exchange for help in returning refugees.

The deal to send back thousands of refugees and migrants from the Greek islands to Turkey has been dubbed as immoral and a violation of international humanitarian law. Rights groups say Turkey is not a country where returnees can be guaranteed proper protection.

OPINION: The dark side of the EU-Turkey refugee deal

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the deal had already had a significant impact and that the number of people illegally crossing the Aegean Sea each day had dropped from 6,000 in November to 130.

One side of the bargain, used to sell the refugee deal to the Turkish public, was Turks winning quicker visa-free travel to Europe, a pledge that now could go unfulfilled, at least by the June deadline that Prime Minister Davutoglu had wanted.

On Saturday Davutoglu said there would be no more re-admissions if visa liberalisation was not enacted, but that he believed the EU would take the necessary steps.

Davutoglu, Merkel, EU Council President Donald Tusk and Vice President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans visited the Nizip camp on Saturday and inaugurated a child protection centre in Gaziantep.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrian children in Turkey still have no access to education.

Davutoglu said Turkey had met all its responsibilities, including giving refugees the right to work. But a work permit scheme for refugees designed to protect them from exploitation has been slow to gain traction.

Yet Tusk on Saturday praised Turkey as a refugee host.

Today Turkey is the best example in the entire world of how to treat refugees. I am proud that we are partners. There is no other way, he said.

Amnesty International has said Syrians are being shot at trying to enter Turkey while others are being deported to Syria against their will, a claim Davutoglu refuted on Saturday.
After talks with Chancellor Merkel, US president says he wants transatlantic trade deal finalised before his term ends.

US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have given a fresh push to a potentially huge US-European trade pact despite mounting opposition.

Obama said after talks with Merkel in Hanover on Sunday that the deal could be reached by the end of the year.

Angela and I agree that the United States and the European Union need to keep moving forward with the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations, he said.





I dont anticipate that we will be able to have completed ratification of a deal by the end of the year, but I do anticipate that we can have completed the agreement.

If a deal is signed, it would form the worlds biggest trading bloc.

WATCH: Is this the mother of all trade deals?

Those in favour of the pact say it could create millions of new jobs and increase trade by billions of dollars  a much-needed stimulus for the global economy. But opponents believe it is undemocratic and would give big companies too much power.

Free-trade advocates say the TTIP will form a market of 800 million people, create millions of jobs and serve as a counterbalance to growing Asian economic clout.

Anti-TTIP activists, campaigning under the banner Stop TTIP, say an accord would undermine European food and environmental laws and give too much power to US corporations.

Unsettled by globalisation

As you see other markets like China beginning to develop and Asia beginning to develop and Africa growing fast, we have to make sure our businesses can compete, Obama said.

Merkel echoed that sentiment, saying the deal would be extremely helpful for growth in Europe.

It is good for the German economy, it is good for the European economy, she said.

But Obama acknowledged there was popular opposition, saying that many opponents of the deal were unsettled by globalisation.

People visibly see a plant moving and jobs lost and the narrative develops that this is weakening rather than strengthening the position of ordinary people and ordinary workers, he said. The benefits often times are diffused.

About 200 protesters gathered in Hanover on Sunday to protest against the deal, with organisers saying they had expected considerably more people to turn out

OPINION: Why Berliners mobilized against a US-EU trade deal

The demonstration started in the centre of the city and moved to the Congress Centre where Obama opened the Hanover industrial trade fair with Merkel on Sunday evening.

The day before, though, police said as many as 35,000 people in Hanover had taken to the streets.

Obama will wrap up his visit on Monday with a speech designed to frame his vision of transatlantic relations and a meeting with Merkel and the leaders of Britain, France and Italy.

Despite the diplomatic niceties, the relationship between Obama and Merkel has had its rocky moments, hitting a low in 2013 when the US government was found to have been tapping Merkels phone.

But officials point to the Ukraine conflict as a turning point that allowed both leaders to work more closely together.
Between 500 and 700 Palestinian children are prosecuted in Israels military courts each year, says rights group.

Jerusalem  A jabbing pain in his shoulder and thigh roused Obada from his sleep at 3am. In the half-light, the 15-year-old could make out eight masked men surrounding his bed, their rifles pointed at him.

I felt terrified, he said of the experience of being arrested in February from his home in the village of al-Araqa, near Jenin in the northern West Bank.

Obada is one of more than 100 Palestinian children who, in recent months, have found themselves dragged from bed at gunpoint in the middle of the night by Israeli soldiers, according to childrens right groups.

Testimonies like Obadas feature in a new report, No Way to Treat a Child, compiled by Defence for Children International  Palestine (DCIP), a group monitoring Israeli violations of Palestinian childrens rights.

The 440 children currently in military detention are the highest total since the Israeli army started issuing figures in 2008  and more than double the number detained this time last year.

The rights group says that, despite promises two years ago from the Israeli army to phase out night raids following international condemnation, in practice, they are used as routinely as ever.

READ MORE: Oz  Israels prison for Palestinian children

During his arrest, Obada said he was hit with a rifle butt, blindfolded and his hands tied with a plastic cord that cut into his flesh. The soldiers dragged me out of the house without allowing me to say goodbye to my family and without telling me why and where they were taking me, he said.

The goal is to terrify the population so that they will submit and not resist the occupation. by Ivan Karakashian, DCIP

Over the next fortnight, according to Obada, he was repeatedly beaten. Indignities included being locked overnight in a small toilet cubicle and assaulted with a taser when he protested.

For 12 days, his only break from solitary confinement was to be taken from his cell to an interrogation room where he was tied tightly to a chair, slapped and threatened.

He was repeatedly questioned about his ties to two school friends, Nihad and Fuad Waked, who had been killed a few days earlier during an attack on soldiers.

Obadas account of his arrest and detention accord with a pattern of abuse similar to other childrens testimonies, said Ivan Karakashian of DCIP.

Three-quarters of children reported being physically assaulted during their detention. In nearly 90 percent of cases, parents had no idea where their child had been taken, and in 97 percent of interrogations, no parent or lawyer was allowed to be present.

Some 60 percent of children were then transferred to prisons in Israel, in violation of international law, where, typically, they waited three months for their first family visit, as relatives struggled to get entry permits to Israel. Such abuses contrast strongly with the rights guaranteed to children both in Israel and in the Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.

Karakashian told Al Jazeera that the goal [of the detentions] is to terrify the population so that they will submit and not resist the occupation.

DCIP said it was alarmed not only by the rapid rise in the number of arrests since last October, but by the growing number of young children being locked up. More than 100 of those currently in prison are aged between 12 and 15.

This month, a military court sentenced a 13-year-old girl from Beit Fajjar, near Hebron, to four and a half months detention after she allegedly approached a military checkpoint holding a knife.

Following strenuous criticism, Israeli authorities released the youngest prisoner in an Israeli jail, 12-year-old D* al-Wawi, on Sunday, two months before her four and a half month sentence finished.

The dramatic increase in arrests has coincided with a surge of attacks and protests by Palestinians in the occupied territories since last October. Most Palestinian children in detention are convicted of throwing stones. In addition to a jail sentence, each is given a suspended sentence, usually of several years, that is activated if they are rearrested. About 90 percent also receive a fine.

Karakashian said that in recent months military courts had been increasing all three components of the childrens sentences. Many families cannot afford to pay the fine, so the children have to serve a longer sentence in lieu, he told Al Jazeera.

And the suspended sentence is like a sword hanging over their heads. Many are afraid to leave the house or go to school for fear that they will be arrested at a checkpoint and sent back to detention.

They can end up under a self-imposed house arrest for years after their release.

The new report is likely to embarrass Israel after it only narrowly avoided inclusion last year in a United Nations shame list of serious violators of childrens rights. UN agencies had been especially disturbed by the 500 children killed and thousands wounded in Israels 2014 attack on Gaza, Operation Protective Edge.

This years report is due to be issued in the coming weeks by the office of the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon. Israel ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991. But a 2013 report by UNICEF, the UN childrens agency, concluded that abuses of Palestinian minors in military detention were widespread, systematic and institutionalised.

A year earlier, Israel was harshly criticised in a report by a British government-backed delegation of lawyers. Catherine Weibel, a spokeswoman for UNICEF in Jerusalem, told Al Jazeera the agency was in a continuing dialogue with the Israeli army in an effort to improve the military detention procedure for children.

Israel is the only country in the world, according to DCIP, that systematically prosecutes between 500 and 700 children in military courts each year.

The Israeli army had been unnerved by the mounting bad publicity, said Gerard Horton, of Military Court Watch, which monitors abuses of children in detention.

An army debriefing paper, released in 2014 under a Freedom of Information request, noted that evidence of abuses to children may inflict real harm on the legitimacy of Israel and its actions in the area.

That year the army promised to end both night raids and the blindfolding of minors, and to inform parents where their child was being held and record interrogations.

Karakashian said changes since had been little more than cosmetic.

During the arrest process, 86 percent of children reported being blindfolded; 70 percent said they were strip-searched, in some cases many times; and 84 percent were not informed of their rights.

During interrogation, 29 percent of children said they were subjected to verbal abuse and intimidation, including threats of physical or sexual assault or arrest of family members.

Some 28 percent reported position abuse  usually being bound to a low chair to cause great discomfort. A similar number said they had been physically abused, usually slapped, kicked or pushed. A smaller number reported being choked, punched or having their head hit against a wall.

Promises to record interrogations were effectively voided, said Horton, because they did not apply in security cases  including stone-throwing, the charge faced by the vast majority of Palestinian children.

He said: The reforms are all smoke and mirrors to get the Europeans and UN off the Israeli armys back.

DCIP found that 40 percent of arrests still occurred between midnight and 5am. Even when a summons is issued for a child to report to a police station the next morning, it is usually delivered in a raid in the early hours of the morning, said Karakashian. That is still a traumatic experience for the family.

The aim is to frighten and intimidate Palestinian communities, especially those organising regular protests or that are located near settlements.

The Israeli army was not available for comment.

Horton said that in recent months, the Israeli army appeared to have abandoned the public relations battle.I think the army realised its a losing battle, unless they really change their approach  and they cant do that.

Horton said the aim of the terrorising the children was to ensure quiet for the settlements. Child detention is a settlement issue, he explains, adding that youngsters at friction points near settlements have to be regularly intimidated in order to protect 400,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank.
A solar-powered plane has landed in California, completing a risky three-day flight across the Pacific Ocean as part of its journey around the world.

Pilot Bertrand Piccard landed the Solar Impulse 2 in Mountain View, in the Silicon Valley south of San Francisco, on Sunday, following a 62-hour, non-stop solo flight without fuel.

The plane taxied into a huge tent erected on Moffett Federal Airfield where Piccard was greeted by the projects team.





The landing came several hours after Piccard performed a flyby over the Golden Gate Bridge as spectators watched the narrow aircraft with extra-wide wings from below.

I crossed the bridge. I am officially in America, he declared as he took in spectacular views of San Francisco Bay.

Piccard and fellow Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg have been taking turns flying the plane on an around-the-world trip since taking off from Abu Dhabi, in the UAE, in March 2015.

It made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China, Japan and Hawaii.

The trans-Pacific leg was the riskiest part of the planes global travels because of the lack of emergency landing sites.

The idea here is not so much that solar planes can immediately replace jet planes powered by fossil fuel, said Al Jazeeras Rob Reynolds, reporting from Mountain View.

It is rather to give the pioneers of the technology inspiration for other uses of solar power.

Wider wings

The planes ideal flight speed is about 28mph, though that can double during the day when the suns rays are strongest. The carbon-fibre aircraft weighs more than 2,268kg, or about as much as a mid-size truck.

The planes wings, which stretch wider than those of a Boeing 747, are equipped with 17,000 solar cells that power propellers and charge batteries. The plane runs on stored energy at night.

Solar Impulse 2 will make three more stops in the US before crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Europe or Northern Africa, according to the website documenting the journey.

The project, which began in 2002 and is estimated to cost more than $100m, is meant to highlight the importance of renewable energy and the spirit of innovation. Solar-powered air travel is not yet commercially practical, however, given the slow travel time, weather and weight constraints of the aircraft.
Student not charged but held for interrogation, police say, after Rezaul Siddique was hacked to death in Rajshahi.

Police have detained a student in connection with the murder of a university teacher in Bangladesh, a killing that was claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.

Tamijuddin Sarker, a senior police officer, said the student was arrested on Saturday night, hours after Rezaul Karim Siddique, a 58-year-old English professor, was hacked to death in the northern city of Rajshahi.

The student was not formally charged with the murder but was detained for interrogation, the officer said, adding that a six-member panel of investigators had begun working to resolve the murder.





Siddique was attacked from behind with machetes as he walked to the bus station from his home.

Two or three assailants rode up on a motorcycle and attacked Siddique, slitting his throat and hacking him to death.

On Sunday, Rajshahi University teachers went on strike to demand punishment of the killers, while students staged a demonstration on campus.

They called on the government to arrest the criminals and ensure safety of the teachers, writers and free thinkers.

Al Jazeeras Maher Sattar, reporting from Dhaka, said it was unclear why Siddique was targeted.

The police say that the manner of his murder was very similar to the others and they believe that it is a religiously motivated attack, he said.

His colleagues say Siddique had never been publicly critical of Islam, unlike the seven others who have been murdered in the same way.

He had been a cultural activist, not someone who had been critical of religion, and his cultural activities were seen as unreligious.

He launched a music school in a very conservative village, so the criteria for targeting people appear to have been broadened.

ISIL claimed that its fighters killed Siddique because he promoted atheism, according to the Amaq news agency, which is affiliated with the group.

The attack was similar to those perpetrated by ISIL, who have claimed killings of secularist bloggers in the country.

The assailants have used sharp weapons and struck from behind, a method used by suspected fighters to kill Bangladeshi bloggers and publishers in 2014 and 2015, according to police.

Five secularist bloggers and one publisher have been killed by suspected armed fighters in Bangladesh since last year.
UN envoy suspends session as representatives of rival Houthi and government delegations fail to make progress.

The United Nations-brokered Yemen peace talks are continuing on the fourth day in Kuwait, but with government and Houthi rebel delegations far from reaching an agreement to end the conflict.

The delegations resumed the negotiations on Sunday, but an hour into the talks, it was obvious for the UN special envoy [Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed] that the talks were going nowhere, said Al Jazeeras Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Kuwait City.

There has been no progress here because of huge differences. The envoy had to suspend the session.





The Houthis later said they are in consultation with their leaders in Yemen about whether to return to the talks or pack up and leave.

The Houthis and the forces loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi have observed a fragile ceasefire since April 11.

However, the two sides differ on how to move forwards.

The Houthis say they are willing to negotiate a settlement but they are the ones who have the upper hand therefore they have to have a bigger say in the government, our correspondent said.

The government says the Houthis used force to seize power so they are the ones who should be held responsible.

They have to hand over their weapons and pull out from the main cities. Then the talks can start.

The Houthis are demanding an immediate halt to air strikes that the Arab coalition has been carrying out since March last year in support of Hadi.

READ MORE: Life on hold in war-shattered Sanaa

The government delegation said a ceasefire should include opening safe passages to all besieged areas and releasing political prisoners, as well as those abducted, as part of confidence-building measures.

The negotiations in Kuwait, termed constructive by Ould Cheikh Ahmed, opened late on Thursday after the delayed arrival of representatives of the Houthi rebels and their allies  forces loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh, the deposed Yemeni president.

Ground offensive

Against this backdrop of stalled peace negotiations, fighter jets have targeted the al-Qaeda-held port city of Mukalla and killed 30 fighters, residents said.

The Saudi-led coalition has stepped up an offensive to reclaim parts of the south from the control of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Sundays air strikes were carried out in coordination with a ground offensive in territory further west, a Yemeni military official said.

The liberation of Mukalla from the hands of the al-Qaeda terrorist organisation has begun, Ahmed Saeed Bin Breik, the governor, said in a statement.

Local officials said dozens of armoured vehicles and hundreds of troops had assembled in Ramah, about 70km north of Mukalla, in preparation for a ground push.

Nearly 6,200 people have died in the war, which has focused mostly around the Houthi-controlled centre and north, while a security vacuum has spread in the south.
Any vision of true transformation must emphasise generational change in the Saudi workforce and society.
A Pakistani cotton farmer travels to Dubai to make his fortune but soon discovers he wants more from life than money.

Editors note: Since this film first aired in April 2016, $9,621 has been raised for Hakimwala through an online crowdfund campaign. The money has been used to buy a new van for the village.

In the remote Pakistan village of Hakimwala, farmers battle a deadly pest that is ruining their cotton crops. Many find it difficult to afford the pesticide and face mounting debts.

The elders of the village encourage the young men to travel abroad to earn better pay and help lift the village out of poverty.

Twenty-nine-year-old Sharif has lived in Hakimwala all his life. He is an only son and drives the only car in the village. He is responsible for driving the sick to the city hospital three hours away.

But with the infestation of his cotton crops and rising debts, Sharif decides it is time to seek his fortune elsewhere.

Sharif decides to go to Dubai despite warnings from his friends. The villagers sell the car and his family sells their hard-earned lands to cover his expenses.

For the first time in his life, Sharif leaves his village, flies in an airplane and experiences a foreign land. In spite of mounting debts, Sharif is about to learn that there is more to life than money. Or is there?

Read the filmmakers blog From Dubai to Pakistan: Behind a migrant workers dream.
What a sad coincidence that on the very week that the story of Passover, the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery and evil, is celebrated, particularly disturbing events occurred in a meeting of leaders of student bodies in Britain.

The British National Union of Students (NUS) has a membership of 7 million  2.5 million in higher education and 4.5 million in further education. The NUS Conference, the chief policymaking body of the NUS, held its meeting in Brighton, England on April 20, 2016. Brighton is a charming seaside resort, but the sun did not shine on the Conference, where events that can only been seen as eruptions of anti-Semitism occurred.

One event concerned a proposed motion that the NUS commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day, at which a number of students applauded arguments that this should not be done.

The feeble excuse for this outburst was that a motion to commemorate the Holocaust was not inclusive enough, since it did not mention other genocides, such as those in Tibet and Rwanda. The fact that none of these protesters against the memory of the Holocaust had ever introduced or thought of introducing any motion other than one hostile to Jews was left unstated.

The more important event at the conference was the election as president of the NUS of Malia Bouattia, the first black Muslim woman to be elected to the position. She won with 50.9 percent of the vote, 372 to 328. Ms. Bouattia, employed as a salaried officer in the NUS National Black Students group since 2014, is no stranger to controversy. Her battle cry is that she will put "liberation at the heart of our work."

Bouattia, like all Muslim critics of the State of Israel, wrote that she is "extremely uncomfortable with insinuations of antisemitism." Like so many others, she asserted that taking issue with Zionist politics is not taking issue with being Jewish. Like so many others, she made a distinction without meaning. With or without those "insinuations," she appeared aware of a diabolical "Jewish conspiracy" of which others were ignorant.

In 2011, Bouattia wrote a blog for a Friends of Palestine campaign group. It asserted that the University of Birmingham, where she had studied, was "something of a Zionist [sic] outpost in British higher education." She claims that Birmingham has the largest Jewish (sic) student society in the country. That "Zionist " university now houses about 35,000 students and has a history of alumni that includes some who apparently suffered from former Jewish control such as two British prime ministers, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain, and eight Nobel laureates.

Evidently she is no admirer of Nobel Prize winners, nor is she a keen fan of Birmingham  why, she asked, is "my University curriculum white?"

Her political views are well known. Bouattia advocated that Muslims should support Palestinian "resistance" but had been prevented because of "internalized Islamophobia." She believed that actions against Israel such as BDS, fundraising, and non-violent protest were "problematic." These are insufficient and have been misunderstood, as if they were the alternative to resistance by the Palestinian people.

In October 2014 she rejected the motion in her own organization to condemn terrorist acts committed by ISIS. A month earlier, she had rejected the idea of peace talks between Israel and Palestinians because they would only strengthen "the colonial project." Instead, she appeared to endorse armed struggle as she attacked the "mainstream Zionist-led media outlets."

The British government for some years has had a "Prevent Program." It is intended to counter the ideological challenge of terrorism and the threat from those who promote it. In contrast, Bouattia argues that this anti-terrorist policy is an indication of the descent of the U.K. into a "police state."

It is true that individuals, no matter the nature of their point of view, cannot be held responsible for the statements or actions by others who support them. Nevertheless, those who support Bouattia give cause for alarm. And she has done nothing to disown them.

It is worth mentioning just a few of the people and groups that endorsed Bouattia for president. One such is a man named Raza Nadim, spokesperson of MPAC, British Public Affairs, an extreme lobbying group. The group had been banned from student unions by the NUS itself because of its racism and anti-Semitism. Nadim himself has addressed his enemies: "You're Zionists, the most vile animal to walk the earth."

Another supporter is an organization called CAGE, a body whose stated aim is to "empower communities impacted by the war on terror." Its director is Moazzam Begg, a British citizen from Birmingham and a former inmate at Guantanamo Bay who was released in 2005 by President Bush over the objections of the Pentagon and CIA, who considered him a terrorist.

Bouattia has had many contacts with CAGE and shared platforms in British universities with it, although it is a group that denied the existence of Islamist terrorism. According to the rival candidate, Megan Dunn, in the NUS election, CAGE has been sympathetic to violence against women.

CAGE is in essence a network of extremists, active in mosques, universities, and community groups. It has some links with Taliban people and supporters of al-Qaeda.

What is remarkable, and indeed incomprehensible, in this is that CAGE got funding from two respectable sources and has worked with Amnesty International, the human rights group generally considered unfriendly to Israel.

The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust gave CAGE 305,000, and the Anita Roddick Foundation, whose ambition is to change the world, gave it 120,000. In 2015, both organizations finally saw the light when it found that CAGE was in regular contact with Mohammed Emwazi, the infamous ISIS executioner known as "Jihadi John," the terrorist who beheaded at least seven people, including two U.S. journalists. The research director of CAGE, Asim Qureshi, described Emwazi as "a beautiful young man." CAGE has also defended a number of convicted terrorists, including Aafia Siddiqui, the MIT-trained Pakistani scientist who is jailed for 86 years for her attempt to kill U.S. officials in Afghanistan.

The link of CAGE with mainstream leftist groups is more disturbing. In October 2015, Amnesty International and a number of other human rights groups joined with CAGE to protest against British army detainees. It was Salman Rushdie who, on February 21, 2010, wrote, "Amnesty has done its reputation incalculable damage by allying itself with Begg and his CAGE group, and holding them up as human rights advocates."

It is shameful that British students have elected a person with the extreme views and associations that she has. Like other British bodies, the National Union of Students is not doing enough to counter and overcome anti-Jewish manifestations. The sensible among them should remember that the NUS has been honored in its 94-year history by presidents such as public servants like Jack Straw and Trevor Phillips. It is time for all decent students, and indeed members of the British community, to recognize that the new incumbent brings no such honor and should act accordingly.
The big surprise in New York on Tuesday wasnt Trumps victory. It was the magnitude. The Donald beat expectations. He won 90 delegates (at this writing), giving him a shot at a first ballot nomination. Shot, that is, because Trump securing 1,237 delegates is still a tall order. A first ballot victory means Trump catching a lot of breaks in the remaining contests. An undecided convention is more a probability. Unless Trump can make a deal before the Republican convention starts at Cleveland on July 18.

For Trump, a deal should start with Ted Cruz. Right. Cruz aint buying. Hes trying to cut deals with the establishment to end-run Trump. Thats today, but tomorrow thats a different animal. In politics, the world can change dramatically in a matter of weeks. A Trump-Cruz ticket makes eminent good sense.

Whats riveting the media now is the prospect of an open convention. The preconvention period isnt sexy. But the June 8 to July 18 window is critical. (June 7 is the last of the primaries, including California.) Deals made or not during that time could boost the GOPs chances in November or doom them.

Of Trumps route to the nomination, Jim Ellis, an elections analyst, writes:

Now Trump will need 57 percent of the outstanding delegates in the 15 Republican states yet to vote to score a first ballot win without needing any unbound delegates. He must earn another major victory in the eastern regional primary next Tuesday (Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island) to offset what should be strong Cruz performances in Indiana (May 3), Nebraska (May 10), and South Dakota (June 7). Both Nebraska and South Dakota are Winner-Take-All, while Indiana is Winner-Take-All by congressional district.

Coming out of the June 7 contests, Trump should be close to the magic number, 1,237. The vital question is: What does Trump need to do to secure the nomination before the gavel falls in Cleveland?

A Trump-Cruz ticket not only unifies about three-quarters of party voters, it provides a powerful  perhaps winning  contrast to Hillary and her running mate, whos likely to be a younger leftist with ample appeal to Berns burgeoning socialist faction. Hillary needs to pacify her left flank.

What about Trump making a run at the GOP establishment, a la Ted? Thats on the order of stupid politics. Cruz is throwing up a Hail Mary. Trump doesnt need to. Maybe the establishment would bite, maybe not (hey, self-interest overrides a lot).

Trumps staked his appeal to being an outsider  the new Jackson whos battling corrupt, entrenched interests. He has profound policies differences with the establishment, most notably on trade, the border, and immigration. More than befuddling his voters, a Trump-establishment union would send them packing. Hows Trump going to Make America Great Again with the same crowd that helped botch it up?

A pitched battle is still underway for the nomination. Teds fighting the good fight. He wants a presidential, not vice presidential, nod. No loves lost between the two principals, either. But battles end. And loves got nothing to do with politics. If it did, Jack Kennedy and LBJ would never have teamed up in 1960.

Cruz is whip-smart and very ambitious. Hes making and revising his calculations as he goes. Teds public posturing notwithstanding, its doubtful hes irrevocably committed to fight for the nomination at Cleveland. In other words, hes keeping his powder dry. Thats what smart pols do.

Consider it this way. If Trump is within a whisker or two of the nomination, what avails Cruz to damn the torpedoes? So he scuttles Trump (if he can), much to the delight of the #NeverTrump crowd. Ted secures the nomination, unless rascally establishment Republicans slip one of their own into the fight (backstabbings uncommon in politics?). He fails to unify the party (a looming possibility). He loses handily in the autumn to Hillary. Hillary extends Obamas handiwork, really wrecking the nation over 48 grueling months. Teds not fingered as a culprit? Hindsight doesnt put him in a black hat?

Or Ted could stand down, permitting Trump the nomination, while saying nothing or merely paying lip service to party unity. That posture is better than trying to waylay Trump, but given that Ted has the second largest faction in the party, sitting out the General Election -- or just going through the motions -- might prove problematic and could be seen as a backhanded way of detonating Trump.

If Cruz joined Trump, and a Trump-Cruz ticket lost in November, it would be noted as Ted having taken one for the team. He manned-up when manning up was critical. He played the statesman when nary a statesman was found. Thats the stuff of an heir-apparent and astute positioning for 2020.

If Trump wins, then there are laurels enough to go around.

Lest Cruz bear too much weight in this matter, Trump needs to be wise enough to recognize the value of bringing along Ted  and not as window-dressing. Cruz on the ticket makes for a compelling compliment. Trumps populist-tinged nationalism and Cruzs reformist conservatism neednt be mismatches. In fact, on Trumps signature issues, Ted is pretty much in step with The Donald. Merging both could create a powerful platform that has strong appeal to voters  voters who have long wearied of both parties stale approaches.

Most of both mens backers have no Election Day death wish. The #NeverTrump crowd wants no unholy alliance with Donald and his brown shirts. Theyd rather have some Alamo-Masada moment of glorious defeat. Likewise, the hardcore Trumpsters cant imagine sharing a bed with Lyin Ted. Both groups represent boisterous extremes, however. If Ted and Donald achieve a rapprochement and forge an alliance, most of their followers will follow.

What will keep Trump and Cruz divided or bring them together has less to do with issues or philosophies or followings than egos and ambitions. On what makes men, men, the GOPs 2016 prospects hinge.
My son has given me a copy of the Iliad as an early birthday present. He'd like me to read three hundred pages before we discuss it. Its been a very long time since I read even excerpts from Homers work, and quite a while since Ive read Greek mythology.

I notice Homer didn't care much for political correctness. Even for Nestor the diplomat is not particularly careful about whom he offends. As it turns out, Achilles has anger issues. No pajama boy, he rails at his rival: "Drunkard, with the face of a dog and the heart of a fawn, you never dare to go out with the army to fight. You shun fighting as you do death.

Nestor gives a speech, ending with pragmatic advice to Achilles: Well, yes, your mom is a goddess, but Agammenon has a bigger army. You probably should take that into account.

But in spite of his goddess mothers and Nestors advice to quell his anger, Achilles nurses it and pines for battle. Peace did not ensue and the Trojan war came to be. Otherwise, the saga would not have been written.

Its fascinating stuff. Human and divine natures are on display.

The Greeks conceived themselves as being in constant intimacy with the gods, consulting with them over everything. The gods, only slightly more elevated but more powerful than the humans with whom they consorted and slept, take pleasure in the songs of mankind; they enjoy the feasts at the temples; they accept the drink offerings. Jove is even portrayed as staying awake while he ponders how to do honor to Achilles. Mere men and their daily affairs were always on the minds of the gods--discussed endlessly and in detail. Everything mattered to the gods.

The belief that there was more to the struggle over Troy than mere men discerned; that there were superior spirits involved in the heat of battle and in its outcome; that the raw impulses of ones heart must be tempered and mitigated by consultation with the gods; that Olympus and earth were connected in titanic struggles involving forces both good and bad meant the Greeks truly discerned the admixture of the tragic and the glorious inherent in the human condition.

There is something to be learned in the relationships of gods and men as portrayed in Homers Iliad and in the mythology that gave meaning to Greek culture; particularly in a day and age which has sought to excise the supernatural from every aspect of life: It is better to at least believe in gods than to believe we are mere beasts with no particular purpose but to eventually die to no end. It is better to believe in a superior being than to believe there is no God at all.

Or to believe you yourself are a god.

And that is where too many are today: Mere humans pretending to be gods who permit themselves everything. For without reference to anything or anyone other than self, any action can be and will be permitted.

Taking the burden of being gods upon ourselves is too great a burden for mere human beings. The consequence of our trying to make ourselves gods is that the gods go crazy. The gods believe anything and everything is not only possible and permitted, but that every other human being must recognize and worship the ever expanding pantheon of gods and goddesses among us. Crazy gods demand we worship them and allow them every expression of self will without quibbling.

Gods demand innocent life should be sacrificed. They demand they are sovereign over humans territories, even down to the use of privies. They disregard what mere humans regard as the sacred writings and sacred places. Nothing is sacred except themselves.

This is very dangerous stuff. In and of ourselves, in and by self will, we are not and cannot be gods. Denial of the limits of human beings always leads to oppression. Failure to recognize and to believe the human being is at once capable of being divine or demonic; that a human being is a creature who either answers to better angels of being or to the darkest forces of the universe leads to delusion and inevitably to oppression of those the gods consider mere mortals.

But as C.S. Lewis points out, the Christian view of mankind promises a redemption that augers a greater destiny than the flawed and fallible gods or goddesses some would make themselves out to be. He writes:

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizationthese are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploitimmortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

Immortality is a very different thing than making ones self a god by an act of will. Immortality is a given. But it winds up in two differing places: Immortally pure evil or immortally pure good. We are destined for one or the other, and the path we take in this life is an indicator of our ultimate destiny.

Therein lies the difference in the Greeks concepts of gods and goddesses, which were an admixture of good and bad, little different than mere humans and often far more arbitrary. Therein lies the difference in the modern day concept that human beings can with infallible perception discern within themselves a deity, a god or goddess who does not have to bow to any other or to any law, a divine being whose dictates must be obeyed without question.

There are only human beings on this planet--no gods and no goddesses. As mere mortals with an immortal future, it behooves us all to see in each human being a creature of immense worth, a being we are either helping or hindering in the walk to eternity.

The measure, then, of our humanity and our destiny is how we love God and how we love our fellow human being. "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

That commandment is the best antidote for any god complex.

Fay Voshell holds a M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, which awarded her its prize for excellence in systematic theology. She is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. Her thoughts have appeared in many online magazines, including National Review, CNS, Fox News, Russia Insider and RealClearReligion. She may be reached at fvoshell@yahoo.com
Remember playing cops and robbers, reading about Nancy Drew and the thieves she was trying to catch, hearing stories about St. George and the Dragon? Good vs. evil  always the same theme. Now our heroes are dysfunctional and confused, with angst and self- flagellation the norm; we have preferences now, not morals.

No culture can long stand on such a floppy foundation. We know, deep in our hearts that some things are eternally wrong, forever evil to the core, but flinch not when nail children to crosses. Dont bat an eye when they claim the right to beat their wives. Turn the other cheek -- in a misreading of Matthew -- when your neighbors are blown up on their way to work. If your sense of good and evil is still functioning, you spend a lot of time cringing, both at the atrocities that are being perpetrated, and at the lack of concern most display at the news of them. Oh well.

Lets look at this a little closer -- rummage in the basement a bit. Maybe well discover some answers deep in the dusty bottom of an old chest

Allahs devotees just blew up the Gate of the Gods in the ancient city of Nineveh. Nineveh -- where Jonah was supposed to be going before he dug in his heels and the whale swallowed him -- Nineveh, the biggest city of the ancient world, the capital of Assyria, whose armies didnt lose a single battle for 200 years, but whose leader Sennecharib, in 701 B.C. tried, with 185,000 soldiers, to take Jerusalem, and instead met the Angel of Death (Isaiah 33). Nineveh, whose history goes back at least to 1,800 B.C. and yet a bunch of renegade, inbred barbarians just had the audacity to attempt to erase its memory. How dare they? History is hard to come by, and always precarious, so destroying any part of it, distorting any shard, is anathema. The future is iffy enough, lets at least keep a hold on antiquity. But no. Not only are these terrorists driven to kill the present; they must kill the past. Not only do they want to murder love and justice, but truth as well.

ISIS, with the help of uncounted other militant Islamic groups, has destroyed not only artifacts and ancient ruins, but living societies as well. Like a swarm of ants the refugees from this destruction are surging throughout Europe -- but I use the words refugee loosely for these people are mostly young men -- men who feel entitled to rape European women and young girls, feel inclined to defecate on the streets, and demand to be fed and provided for in whatever manner they desire. Then, of course, they blow things up, as in Paris and Brussels.

When Muslim radicals (Radical only because they take seriously their holy book.) arent busy screwing up Europe, they are terrorizing the people of their own countries. Christians who are lucky are allowed to leave, but over 500 Christians were recently murdered in Palmyra -- crucified, beheaded, burned alive, or drowned in cages. Women and girls were sold as sex slaves. ISIS has even crucified Christian children.

Okay. We know all this. So whats my point? For several decades now weve been able to indulge the idea that evil is behind us, that the destruction of Hitler, the collapse of the Berlin wall, the demise of moral strictness have leveled awfulness forever. Weve been so indoctrinated with evolutionary thinking that we just assume that the history of man will continue on an ever-upward trajectory -- we are now tolerant (As if it were merely intolerance that killed six million Jews.), we no longer think in terms of good vs. evil, so there will be no more war, no more judging, no more hurt feelings. The Age of Aquarius is at hand.

And then the Twin Towers came tumbling down and we didnt know how to react. Let me make a suggestion, one that has grown rusty with neglect, but one that needs a good oiling. We need to look squarely at evil and quit trying to pretty it up. Its bad enough that we wont call terrorism Islamic. Its even worse that we wont admit what Islam is.

When was the last time you took the idea of Satan seriously? The devil has become nothing more than a man in red tights and those are a dime a dozen these days. Big deal. Well, he is a big deal. He is the ruler of this world and his other name may well be Allah.

Oh, it may be that Allah is just a general in Satans demon armies, but if so, hes an important one; hes no Screwtape, no Wormwood. Hes heading up a key strategic plan to foil Gods plan.

Dont roll your multicultural eyes at me. I know things demonic when I see them. Satan is the father of all lies and it is Allah who urges his followers to deceive in order to spread Islam by stealth. It is the devil who introduced death to this world -- read Genesis 3 -- and Allah demands death -- the death of anyone who doesnt see him as god. See Isaiah 14: Satan sees himself as a viable competitor of God Almighty and he has no patience with those who merely see him as an errant angel. The arrogance of Satan is legendary; the arrogance of Allah as well. Allah wants humans to see him as the creator, but youll notice that he didnt show up until the middle of the seventh century A.D. -- 4,700 years into documented human history. Jesus Christ, as the Messiah, as the second person of the Godhead, was here from before the beginning.

I suspect that Satan thought he might be winning until he began to see the amazing changes Christianity was making in the world. It was evident that he was losing control. So, Islam to the rescue! Within a hundred years the followers of Mohammed, prophet of Allah, had slaughtered their way through most of what had once been the Roman Empire. If it hadnt been for Charles Martel (732 A.D.) and the Battle of Tours, Europe would have been totally Islamic -- and therefore backward and hopelessly poor -- for the last fourteen hundred years. Satan almost had his way.

Most human beings at most places in most time periods have seen murder as wrong, torture and cruelty as horrible and evil, lying and deception as anti-God. These things are written on our hearts. Cain knew right away that his murder of Abel would get him in trouble. We recognize injustice from a very early age -- picture a two-year-old pouting her way through a thats-not-fair temper tantrum. No one has to teach her about fairness -- she knows in her heart what that is.

And yet we have close to two billion people on this planet who have been taught the opposite:

That its good to beat the victim instead of the perpetrator. That killing people -- as torturously as possible -- for preferring God over Allah is a noble thing to do. That raping little girls -- forcing marriage with these babies is just fine. That teaching your young men to blow themselves up, to promise them sex for so doing -- that this is heroic behavior. That lying is a good thing. That brutality and disrespect is desirable demeanor.

Islam is the reverse of Judeo-Christian beliefs. And, whereas Satan is only an errant creature and not the opposite of God, his methodology is the opposite of Gods, and, coincidentally identical to Allahs. Lets dust off that old idea of a fallen angel rebelling against the God who made him, and lets compare him head-to-head with the god of the Muslim religion and when were all done with that, tell me that Islam is a good religion. Tell me, and the ghosts of the 270,000,000 people Allah has killed. Tell the nine-year-old girl whos being raped by her fifty-year-old husband that Islam is all about peace. Tell her. I dare you.

Deana Chadwell blogs at www.ASingleWindow.com and is a writing and speech professor at Pacific Bible College in Southern Oregon.
In Greek mythology, the songs of the Sirens were of such potent appeal that mortals who failed to resist listening to them were inevitably lured to a path of languishing doom. True of many myths, the story is an allegorical lesson: this one teaching that some things that have great appeal or sound wonderful have bad endings.

That message, though timeless, has always been lost on those who are inattentive, indifferent or opt to swoon along with the enticing songs without bothering to discern the consequences. Such can be said of most of those who comprise the base of the progressive and democratic socialist movements of today, movements which, in combination with the statist ideology, are instruments of an elite government structure determined to swell governments power and socially, economically and philosophically control the masses.

To many, the ideological siren songs of free stuff, utopian outcomes, and redistribution of wealth are no less appealing than that of the mythical Sirens, with no less perilous consequence at stake. Greek sailors who succumbed to the sweet Sirens songs paid with utter cognitive lethargy and eventual death. The price to those who succumb to the progressive and democratic socialist songs is an equivalent death of the mind and soul. For where a persons self reliance and liberty are replaced with perpetual dependency, there the individual acquiesces with the payment of his mind and soul to the will of the all-powerful state. There the individual is nothing, a compliant blob to be used to the benefit of the state at the will of the state -- where the individual mind and soul withers into a diminutive cog in the machinery of the collective.

Ancient Greece produced the Siren lesson. Modern Greece is a nation that failed to heed the lesson of its own creation and willingly listened to collectivisms Siren songs. The consequence is a lost societal soul in the midst of withering away. Greece became a bloated welfare state, a model of the democratic socialist/progressive vision, and akin to Puerto Rico, Spain, Venezuela, Cuba, and dozens of other countries around the world that are also in the midst of degradation. The people of these countries maintained little resistance to the lure of free stuff and wealth redistribution -- at the cost of a severe decline in economic incentive, self reliance and individual initiative.

Those skeptical among us pronounce that those examples cant happen in the United States. They need merely take note of the world around them. The proud people of Venezuela fifteen years ago didnt think theyd have to fight their neighbors for toilet paper today either. And the common people of Cuba before the revolution didnt think that their children and grandchildren would live in a perpetual state of squalor either. To continue to believe that the decline will not or cannot happen to the U.S. is itself a delusionary premise of the collectivist mindset. No nation-state is immune to decline. And decline is the inevitable, albeit stealthy, result under the progressive and democratic socialist flags.

Are the U.S. citizens today heeding the anti-Siren song lesson? No; just the opposite. More and more are succumbing to the tantalizing promises of the progressive and democratic socialist left: free college, free pre-kindergarten, heavily subsidized or free healthcare, free housing, free food stamps, free cell phones, clean energy, climate stability, and more. Give to me and take from those who we decide have more than they need and punish those who disagree with us! Gimme, gimme, gimme; punish, punish, punish. Such a mantra is a prelude to certain downfall.

The lefts propaganda apparatus has been at work for decades though, imbuing the minds in our society with garbage about our unexceptional individualism and the goodness of big government welfare. It has been especially effective on our young. Educationally, our children and grandchildren are being taught the unfairness of Americas founding and of the principles on which it was established. Instead, the greatness of a powerful and big government that can correct the ills of that founding as well as all of todays societal ills is what fills the textbooks and college courses. Our children are taught little and sometimes nothing of the truth of pure capitalism, self-reliance, and liberty. Their brains are instead being filled with lies about the preeminence of the state, the splendor of the village, the sanctity of inclusion -- and the evils of capitalism and the baseness of the true rights of the individual.

By being taken in by the Siren songs of the progressive and democratic socialist movements, our future course is being set and in a large way reinforced through our younger generations: a course not towards further greatness and security, but for an expanded catatonic welfare state. The ultimate result is the death of individualism and perpetual societal decline.

Gary Hancock is a retired corporate director of contracts for the defense industry and is now an author. His first book is Sustaining Liberty: And Reclaiming Limited Government in America.
GOP mega-donor Charles Koch said in an interview to be aired Sunday on ABC News' This Week that "it's possible" that electing another Clinton to the White House would be preferable to a Republican alternative.

It's a nightmare scenario for Republicans, but conservative billionaire Charles Koch says "it's possible" Hillary Clinton could make a better president than the remaining candidates in the GOP primary.

Koch, one of the most influential and controversial forces in Republican politics, said in an exclusive interview with ABC News to air Sunday on "This Week" that he believed Bill Clintonwas a better president "in some ways" than George W. Bush.

"In other ways, I mean [Clinton] wasn't an exemplar. But as far as the growth of government, the increase in spending," Koch said. "It was 2.5 times [more] under Bush than it was under Clinton."

Democrats have long vilified brothers Charles and David Koch and their multi-million dollar political network, but both maintain they haven't yet spent a dollar for or against any candidates in the 2016 presidential primary.

In his interview, Koch said that is a result of his disgust with the rhetoric in the Republican primary, and he even suggested Clinton could be a better choice for the country than the remaining crop of GOP candidates.

"It's possible," Koch said, but didn't say whether he could see himself supporting Clinton in the 2016 cycle.

"We would have to believe her actions would be quite different than her rhetoric. Let me put it that way," he said.
Having Hollywood stars as campaign fixtures brings, along with glamor, certain risks. Some of Bernie Sanderss Hollywood supporters, like Rosario Dawson, are smart, if deluded on the subject of political economy. But then are those dedicated leftists who conceive of themselves as brilliant because of their adherence to what they believe is correct doctrine stemming from Marx, and they are hopeless. When they lecture us, they pretend to know matters far out of their depth.

Yesterday. The Sanders campaign held what was supposed to be a mass rally in Baltimore, touting it as A Future to Believe in Rally, and adverisiting:

Join Bernie Sanders for a rally in Baltimore, Maryland featuring special guests Danny Glover and Ben Jealous.

Those who attended had better not believe in what Danny Glover told them, even though he presented himself to the crowd this way:

"We are here because we are all truth tellers."--Danny Glover @BernieSanders rally, Baltimore.  Laura Fisher Kaiser (@laurafkaiser) April 23, 2016

He went on to tell the assembled throng that Maryland seceded from the Union, which would have been very awkward, considering that Washington, DC is surrounded by Maryland and Virginia (which actually did secede from the Union and in fact contained the capital of the Confederacy in Richmond). Having your capital in the middle of enemy territory is not a winning strategy, though who knows if Glover realizes the Union won the war.

Okay, so civil rights crusader Glover has never paid much attention to the Civil War, but hey, details are for scriptwriters. However, Glover got really obnoxious when he pretended to know something about philosophy:

Pretty sure Danny Glover just called Dante "a great French philosopher"  Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) April 23, 2016

I am told that on a personal level, Glover is a nice man, something that seems to radiate from his screen persona as well. But he is a truly hard line leftist, who ws so enamored of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela that he went there in 2006, and bonded with the dictator who has impoverished his resource rich country to the extent that electricity is periodic, toilet paper often unavailable, and food and pharmaceuticals in short supply. According to media reports at the time, Glover accepted $18 million from a Venezuelan government-controlled media company to produce and direct a film about Toussaint Louverture, the slave who led a revolt against French colonial masters. As far as IMDB knows, the film remains uncompleted.
Senator John McCain wants to charge EPA officials with a crime for their actions that led to the disastrous release of toxic wastewater from the Gold King Mine last year.

The spill polluted 3 rivers and severely effected the lives and livelihood of several indian tribes.

Washington Examiner:

The senator made the declaration Friday during an Indian Affairs Committee field hearing in Phoenix, Ariz. The hearing was titled: "Examining the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Unacceptable Response to Indian Tribes." "I've come to the conclusion that a Department of Justice criminal investigation is merited and must now occur," McCain said. He cited EPA employees' failure to conduct appropriate water pressure tests at the mine and adequately consult partnering federal agencies before excavating around the mine's containment plug, though they knew about the potential for a "catastrophic blowout. The spill "has devastated lands and livelihoods across Navajo Nation" McCain said in a statement. He said he is concerned about the EPA's "disregard for environmental issues in Indian Country." The waste water spill at the abandoned Gold King Mine in August of 2015 dumped 3 million gallons of toxic sludge into the Animas River in Colorado, tainting waterways of three states. A report by the Interior Department in October of 2015 concluded that had the EPA properly conducted water pressure tests at the mine, the crisis could have been averted. A House Natural Resources Committee report in February said the EPA tried to conceal negligence that lead to the spill. McCain and Indian Affairs Chairman John Barrasso subpoenaed EPA officials to testify at the hearing. Mathy Stanislaus, EPA assistant administrator for the Office of Land and Emergency Management, appeared along with Arizona Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick and Navajo and Hopi tribal leaders.

This is an "anti-accountability" administration so don't expect any action. But imagine if you will a corporation being responsible for such a disaster. The EPA would jump down their throat, throw executives in jail, force them to clean up the mess, and fine them severely.

By contrast, no one at the EPA has been fired or even demoted for this preventable tragedy.

Until we hold government to the same standard to which we hold the private sector, there can be no justice.
That pesky Bernie Sanders and his supporters just wont go away, as they are supposed to do. They havent yet gotten the message that this time it really is Hillarys turn. The problem for Hillary is that they are true believers, however mistaken they may be in their understanding of how the economy works.

Yesterday, a Hollywood surrogate for Bernie, with no scriptwriter, went to the place the Clintons desperately wish to avoid. CNN reports:

Outspoken Bernie Sanders surrogate Rosario Dawson said Saturday she stands with Monica Lewinsky's fight against bullying, and suggested that the Clinton campaign is engaging in such behavior. "We are literally under attack for not just supporting the other candidate. Now I'm with Monica Lewinsky with this: bullying is bad. She's actually dedicated her life now to talking about that," Dawson said, before introducing the Vermont senator on-stage at a rally here. She continued, "And now as a campaign strategy, we are being bullied and somehow that is okay and not being talked about with the richness that it needs to (be)."

Of course, the Clintons are quintessential bullies, and Monica Lewinsky, sexually exploited, tossed aside, and demeaned by the bimbo eruptions team that Hillary coldly set in action (as she had for Bills entire political career) is an excellent example. To her credit, Monica Lewinsky has emerged as a spokeswoman against cyber-bullying. Lucky for her that Linda Tripp told her to hang onto that blue dress, or else she would have been destroyed as a nuts and sluts fabulist, instead of a star-struck post adolescent sexually used by a southern-fried charmer.

Dawsons bullying comment was actually referring to a well-funded effort by a group called Correct the Record, a spinoff of the David Brock propaganda empire that includes Media Matters and American Bridge, heavily funded by billionaire George Soros and his buddies. Ben Collins writes on the Daily Beast:

Correct the Records Barrier Breakers project boasts in a press release that it has already addressed more than 5,000 people that have personally attacked Hillary Clinton on Twitter. The PAC released this on Thursday. (snip) Some Bernie Sanders-supporting users on Reddit already started to notice the changes on Thursday afternoon. This explains why my inbox turned to cancer on Tuesday, wrote user OKarizee. Been a member of reddit for almost 4 years and never experienced anything like it. In fact, in all my years on the internet Ive never experienced anything like it. Correct the Record, which has received $5 million this campaign season and has spent almost $4.5 million of it, according to OpenSecrets.org, outlined its strategy against swarms of anonymous attackers in a press release. While Hillary Clinton fights to break down barriers and bring America together, the Barrier Breakers 2016 digital task force will serve as a resource for supporters looking for positive content and push-back to share with their online progressive communities, as well as thanking prominent supporters and committed superdelegates on social media, the statement read. Due to FEC loopholes, the Sunlight Foundations Libby Watson found this year that Correct the Record can openly coordinate with Clintons campaign, despite rules that typically disallow political campaigns from working directly with PACs. SuperPACs arent supposed to coordinate with candidates. The whole reasoning behind (Supreme Court decision) Citizens United rests on (PACs) being independent, but Correct the Record claims it can coordinate, Watson told The Daily Beast. Its not totally clear what their reasoning is, but it seems to be that material posted on the Internet for freelike, blogsdoesnt count as an independent expenditure. Watson previously worked at Brocks Media Matters for America, where their whole mission is to debunk conservative misinformation [and] a lot of that ends up being defending Hillary Clinton, but says shes never seen anything like this initiative.

All along, the big problems for the Clinton machine is that it is impossible to demonize the Sanders campaign as part of a vast right-wing conspiracy. Principled opposition from the left attacks an undefended flank of her campaign. She needs the support of the left, so cannot demonize them.

With the choice of Monica Lewinsky as poster girl for the Clintons bullying style, Dawson has scored a bulls-eye.
Hillary Clinton has been eagerly exploiting the only progressive issue on which she can position herself to the left of Bernie Sanders. Coming from a largely rural state, Sanders had the sense to respect his constituents need for protection and preference for hunting. Hillary made clear in campaigning for the New York primary, where she dealt what could be the deathblow to the Sanders insurgency, that her aim on campaigning on guns was Sanders:

"Here's what I want you to know," Clinton told the audience, according to CBS News. "Most of the guns that are used in crimes and violence and killings in New York come from out of state. And the state that has the highest per capita number of those guns that end up committing crimes in New York come from Vermont.

Leaving aside the dubious truth of her claim (which garnered three Pinnochios from the Washington Posts fact-checker), at least it was targeted at Sanders, and focused on crime and violence more than gun ownership per se. In other words, Hillary was leaving the door open for a strategic retreat from an assault on the Second Amendment in the general election, once Sanders had been vanquished. This is because Democrats have learned the hard way that making gun ownership an issue in national elections drives up GOP turnout, and turns gun owners who might otherwise vote Democrat into Republican voters.

But daughter Chelsea has no such political smarts, and on Thursday let the cat out of the bag. As John Sexton noted:

It matters to me that my mom also recognizes the role the Supreme Court has when it comes to gun control, Chelsea said at an appearance in Maryland Thursday. With Justice Scalia on the bench one of the few areas where the Court actually had an inconsistent record relates to gun control, she added. Sometimes the court upheld local and state gun control measures as being compliant with the second amendment and sometimes the court struck them down. So if you listen to Moms Demand Action and the Brady Campaign and major efforts pushing for smart, sensible and enforceable gun control across our countrywhich in disclosure have endorsed my momthey say they believe the next time the court rules on gun control it will make a definitive ruling. So it matters to me that my mom is the only person running for president who not only constantly makes that connection but also has a strong record on gun control and standing up to the NRA, Chelsea added. She also said that her personal concern about gun control has increased since having a child, saying of the families of victims of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, I cant even imagine that living horror and tragedy. Video of the statement was published by the Free Beacon:

The unmistakable signal Chelsea sent was that her mother will capitalize on the death of Scalia (interesting, isnt it, that Chelsea presumes Obamas effort to appoint a successor will come to naught) and appoint a justice who will finally gut the Second Amendment in a definitive ruling.

Currently running in Pennsylvania, a state with enough gun owners to swing an election, Hillary was forced into an awkward pander:

I want to be really clear about this, because I learned how to shoot a gun behind our cottage in Lake Winola, Mrs. Clinton said. And I know how important gun ownership and particularly hunting is here in northeastern Pennsylvania.

I want you to know that we cant ignore the Second Amendment, and we cant ignore that 33,000 people a year die from gun violence, she said. I think we are smart enough to figure out how to do that.

Twitter exploded in reaction, with many people pointing out that the Second Amendment is not about hunting.

But Chelseas comment, on video, is a bell that cant be un-rung. No matter how quickly Hillary moves to quiet concern over her anti-gun ownership predilections, Chelsea has made it clear that a Hillary presidency will lead to a Supreme Court that will hold there is no individual right to own guns.

Update: Despite (or because of?) her educational pedigree from Stanford and Oxford, Chelsea can be a real dope when she opines on subjects with the self-assurance borne of privilege. The great John Hinderaker of Powerline eviscerates her analysis of SCOTUS decisions on the Second Amendment:
When Trump's unorthodox style of campaigning for president first took the political world by storm, I thought his ability to connect with the public is a real-life version of the movie A Face in the Crowd.

In the 1957 film, Andy Griffith played "Lonesome" Rhodes, a drifter discovered by a producer of a small-market radio program. Rhodes's confident down-to-earth, everyman style of speaking ultimately won him great fame and influence on national television, beloved by millions.

I'll be honest with you, folks. When Trump broke the mold with his bold, straight-talk, politically incorrect campaigning, I loved it. The arrogance of the mainstream media has frosted me for years. So Trump getting into the MSM's face had me cheering him on. I was also hopeful that, as president, Trump would fulfill all the broken promises of the deceitful, traitorous GOP establishment.

As we move into the final months of the GOP nominating process, art is imitating real life. Trump's behavior is similar to "Lonesome" Rhodes in the movie. Rhodes was not the person his millions of loyal fans thought him to be. At the end of a broadcast, the same producer who discovered Rhodes turned Rhodes's microphone back on, unknown to him. Rhodes made shocking, hurtful comments about his audience, heard by and devastating millions.

Recent liberal positions on issues have exposed that Trump is not who he has presented himself to be. It has been reported that in a private meeting with GOP establishment leaders, Trump's "chief lieutenants" said Trump has been "projecting an image." They said that "the part that he's been playing is evolving" to make him more palatable to general election voters.

Trump talking about raising taxes on the rich and saying it is okay for men to use girls' restrooms confirm the leftward "evolving" his campaign spoke of.

Speaking of taxes, Trump's tax returns reveal that he donated funds to homosexual activists, including a group whose motto is "championing LGBT issues in K-12 education."

My Conservative Campaign Committee team and I attended a rip-roaring Ted Cruz rally in Pittsburgh yesterday. Our efforts for Cruz have included attending rallies in ten states thus far. I detected a new level of desperation and hope. Clearly, steel town (Pittsburgh) voters are ready for real change, confident that Cruz will not betray them in the White House.

Cruz received numerous enthusiastic standing ovations for his rock-solid conservative position on several issues: defending religious liberty, abolishing the IRS, repealing Obamacare, and no amnesty.

Americans are fed up. Cruz is the only candidate who truly understands and shares the urgency we feel. Cruz promises to do everything in his power to fight the Washington, D.C. cartel, restoring our lost jobs, freedom, and national security.

Folks, this man is for real. He ain't another face in the crowd. This is why we at Conservative Campaign Committee travel the country to ensure that Ted Cruz is our next president of the United States.
This is the most ridiculous argument in favor of criminal justice reform you are likely to hear. White House economists are saying that we have too many people locked up for too long and we have to change that because it's damaging the economy.

Reuters:

Economists are "of one mind" that packed prisons, excessively long sentences, and insufficient reentry programs "are counter-productive to our economy as a whole in addition to hurting the people involved," Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told reporters in a call on Friday. On Monday, administration officials, economists, business leaders, and scholars will discuss the Council's findings at an event hosted by the White House, the American Enterprise Institute think tank, and New York University's Brennan Center for Justice. The United States can reap greater economic benefit through investments in police, prisoner education, and job opportunities for ex-prisoners than it can from putting additional funding toward prisons, the Council's report said. The Council's report was based on a review of existing economics research, and does not estimate the indirect costs borne by the U.S. economy as a result of its current criminal justice policies. Later this year, the Brennan Center will unveil a study quantifying how much the U.S. criminal justice system costs Americans in terms of employment, wages, and gross domestic product, said the center's director of justice programs, Inimai Chettiar. Previous administrations have not brought the same focus to how criminal justice policies affect the U.S. workforce, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who led the Congressional Budget Office from 2003-05 and is now president of the American Action Forum think tank. Since the recession of the late 2000s, "every aspect of the workforce has been scrutinized more closely, and this sort of popped out," he told Reuters.

Allow me to inject some common sense into this argument.

First, there's a reason these people are in jail. They didn't magically transport into prison because they were peaceful, law abiding citizens. Most inmates committed crimes against people and property and no "reentry" program is going to alter their behavior. They are, by definition, anti-social. And while certain non-violent criminals may not be a direct threat to citizens, most inmates deserve to be housed as far away from society as we can get them.

As far as hurting the economy, as a group, criminals are the least productive members of society. Most inmates will be a burden to the economy once they're free. And how long before they end up back in jail? Recidivism rates are astronomical. This study found that in only 30 states, there was a 75% chance of rearrest for a criminal after he's released.

How can a released inmate be productive when he's behind bars?

Despite the magical thinking by White House economists and others. the best solution to our prison problem is to build more prisons. Many of us may be forgetting the horrific crime wave of the 1990's. Congress reformed sentencing to keep repeat offenders in prison for longer periods of time. To no one's surprise, the crime rate crashed and the quality of life for Americans - especially in big cities, improved.

Certainly we have better things to spend money on than building prisons. But until another solution presents itself, we have to protect ourselves from the depradations of career criminals.
Huawei Unveils Y3 II and Y5 II Android Handsets

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Huawei Y3 II and Y5 II are the companys newest entry-level smartphones. Both of them comes with Android 5.1 Lollipop out of the box, on top of which youll find Huaweis Emotion UI (EMUI) 3.1 user interface. Both phones will be available in both 3G and 4G variants, and interestingly enough will sport difference chips. The Huawei Y3 II 3G model will ship with MT6582M, while the 4G variant will come with the MT6735M. The Huawei Y5 II 3G, on the other hand, will be fueled by the MT6582, while the 4G model will come with the MT6735P. Both devices sport 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage.

Gionee Pioneer P5 Mini Gets Announced In India

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The Pioneer P5 Mini is Gionees new entry-level smartphone. This device features a 4.5-inch WVGA (854 x 480) display, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of expandable internal storage. The device is fueled by MediaTeks MT6580M quad-core SoC, and Android 5.1 Lollipop comes out of the box here with Gionees Amigo 3.1 UI on top of it. The 5-megapixel camera is located on its back, and a 2-megapixel snapper can be found up front. The phone is already available in India and costs Rs. 5,349 ($80).

Samsung Pay Will Be Available In Singapore Soon

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Samsung has decided to partner up with MasterCard, Visa and a number of banks in the region in order to release Samsung Pay in Singapore. The service will roll out sometime this quarter, and will follow the likes of South Korea, the US and China. Samsung has also added that Singaporeans will be able to take advantage of Samsung Pay in supermarkets, convenience and departmental stores, healthcare and beauty outlets, as well as food, lifestyle, electronics and furnishing stores. The service will be available on the Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S6 Edge+, Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge.

LeEco Announced Two Smart TVs, The Super 4 X50 And X50 Pro

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LeEco has introduced a number of products the other day, including three new smartphones, a VR headset, a prototype electric car, and two smart TVs. The company has announced the Super 4 X50 and X50 Pro smart TVs. Both TVs pack in 3GB of RAM, sleek design, and are quite affordable. The Super 4 X50 is priced at 2,499 Yuan ($385), while the X50 Pro costs 2,699 Yuan ($416) in China.

Samsung Rolls Out Minor Update For Indian Galaxy S7 & S7 Edge Models

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The Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are Samsungs current flagship smartphones. These two devices have been available for quite some time now, and have now received a rather minor update in India. The update comes around at just 1MB, and includes a number of bug fixes and stability improvements according to Samsung. The April security patch has been rolled out last week, so this is a separate update, just in case you were wondering.
Xiaomi has released a couple of devices since January. The most notable release by this China-based company is their Mi 5 flagship which was introduced back in February during the Mobile World Congress. Following the Mi 5, Xiaomi has rolled out the Redmi 3 Pro mid-ranger, and it seems like yet another phone will arrive soon. The Xiaomi Max rumors have been popping up all over the place, and even Xiaomi confirmed that the device is coming after they asked consumers to vote on the name of this phablet.

The devices front panel and render have already leaked, along with an image of the phone in a jeans pocket. Now the front panel suggested that the device wont sport a physical home button, but the render clearly showed us that button, similar to the one that can be found on the Mi 5. That being said, a new rumor surfaced on Weibo (Chinas social network) suggesting that the Xiaomi Max will be fueled by Xiaomis very own SoC named Rifle. This processor is, allegedly, developed by both Xiaomi and Datang Corporation with whom Xiaomi partnered up with. In addition to this, the Weibo post also says that Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow will come pre-installed on the Xiaomi Max, and on top of it, youll be able to find the companys MIUI 8 OS.

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Now, as far as the devices specs go, various different info leaked. At first, rumors said this will be a flagship phablet, and that it will sport Qualcomms Snapdragon 820 SoC, a 6.4-inch QHD (2560 x 1440) display, and maybe even 6GB of RAM. The new rumor says it will ship with an in-house Rifle chip, and a GFXBench listing which surfaced recently claims that this will be a mid-range handset which will be fueled by the Snapdragon 650 64-bit octa-core processor. So, as you can see, its a bit hard to know which rumor to believe at this point. In addition to all this, the GFXBench listing suggested that the phone will be called Xiaomi Mi Max, not the Xiaomi Max, so who knows. Either way, the device is expected to land really soon, so stay tuned for any additional rumors / leaks which might arrive in the coming days.


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In his homily for the Jubilee of Teens, Pope Francis asked questions and gave answers to the 70,000 present. Stressing the great ideal of love as giving oneself without being possessive, he noted that freedom is being able to choose the good. He warned young people who dare not dream, telling them that If you do not dream at your age, you are already ready for retirement. He also received funds raised for the Ukraine, and appealed for the release of bishops and the priests held in Syria.

Vatican City (AsiaNews)  Pope Francis led a Jubilee Mass for Teens in St Peter's Square on Sunday. In his homily before some 70,000 youths gathered St Peter's square for the Jubilee of Teens, which began yesterday, the pontiff focused on genuine love and tenderness as the key elements of a Christian identity card, the only valid document to be recognised as disciples of Jesus.

More than a homily, Francis address was a dialogue with the crowd. Dressed colourfully, some in uniform or sporting fashionable eyewear, the boys and girls held up banners indicating their place of origin.

In his quasi interactive homily, questions abounded. Do you wish to say yes to Jesus invitation to be his disciples? Do you wish to be his faithful friends? [. . .] Do you want to experience his love? [. . .] Do you thank the Lord every day? he asked, sparking a round of applause.

In addition to questions, the address was full of answers as well. The true friends of Jesus stand out essentially by the genuine love that shines forth in their way of life. Speaking without his text, the pontiff added that when love is not genuine, it is only a soap opera".

The pope explained the various aspects of genuine love. For him, love is beautiful, it is the path to happiness. But it is not an easy path. It is demanding and it requires effort. [. . .] To love means to give, not only something material, but also something of ones self: ones own time, ones friendship, ones own abilities. We can learn about love by looking at the Lord.

He offers us his faithful friendship, which he will never take back. Even if you disappoint him and walk away from him, Jesus continues to want the best for you and to remain close to you; he believes in you even more than you believe in yourself. This is very important! Because the biggest threat to growing up well comes from thinking that no one cares about us, from feeling that we are all alone. The Lord, on the other hand, is always with you and he is happy to be with you.

Without being too explicit, Francis also spoke about affection and love, as well as virginity.

The Lord, if you let him teach you, will show you how to make tenderness and affection even more beautiful. He will guide your hearts to love without being possessive, to love others without trying to own them but letting them be free.

There is always a temptation to let our affections be tainted by an instinctive desire to have to have what we find pleasing. Our consumerist culture reinforces this tendency. Yet when we hold on too tightly to something, it fades, it dies, and then we feel confused, empty inside. The Lord, if you listen to his voice, will reveal to you the secret of love. It is caring for others, respecting them, protecting them and waiting for them.

Speaking about freedom, the pontiff took on the notion of personal autonomy, which is typical of todays consumer society.

Many people will say to you that freedom means doing whatever you want. But here you have to be able to say no. Freedom is not the ability simply to do what I want. This makes us self-centred and aloof, and it prevents us from being open and sincere friends. Instead, freedom is the gift of being able to choose the good. The free person is the one who chooses what is good, what is pleasing to God, even if it requires effort.

Only by courageous and firm decisions do we realize our greatest dreams, the dreams which it is worth spending our entire lives to pursue. Dont be content with mediocrity, with simply going with the flow, with being comfortable and laid back. Dont believe those who would distract you from the real treasure, which you are, by telling you that life is beautiful only if you have many possessions.

Be sceptical about people who want to make you believe that you are only important if you act tough like the heroes in films or if you wear the latest fashions. Your happiness has no price. It cannot be bought: it is not an app that you can download on your phones nor will the latest update bring you freedom and grandeur in love.

Finally, he noted that love is a gift, a noble responsibility which is life-long, [. . .] a daily task for those who can achieve great dreams!

Putting aside his written text, the Holy Father warned young people about not following their dreams. Woe to youth who dare not dream, he said. "If you do not dream at your age, you are already ready for retirement. [. . .] When love seems a burden, when it is hard to say no to what is wrong, look to the cross of Jesus, embrace it and do not let go of his hand, which takes you up and lifts you up when you fall."

In a reference go Jesus command to the sick, Rise! he said, God created us to stand. There is an Alpini* song that says that the problem in ones journey is not failing, but getting up. Jesus told us, Rise! God wants us standing up!"

The pope ended with a sport analogy. I know that you are capable of acts of great friendship and goodness, he said. With these you are called to build the future, together with others and for others, but never against anyone! You will do amazing things if you prepare well, starting now, by living your youth and all its gifts to the fullest and without fear of hard work.

Be like sporting champions, who attain high goals by quiet daily effort and practice. Let your daily programme be the works of mercy. Enthusiastically practice them, so as to be champions in life! In this way you will be recognized as disciples of Jesus. And your joy will be complete.

In his concluding greetings, Francis once more told teenagers that a Christian identity card means standing up, dreaming, and engaging in genuine love. This took on a concrete form when the pontiff received the offerings collected for the Ukraine, which Francis had announced at the start of the month.

Before the end of the Regina Caeli, Francis turned his thoughts to fate of Catholic and Orthodox bishops and priests kidnapped in Syria.

"I remain, he said, as ever concerned for the fate of our brother bishops, priests and religious, Catholic and Orthodox, who have been held for a long time in Syria.

May the Merciful God touch the hearts of the kidnappers and grant our brothers speedy release and return to their communities. For this reason, I call upon you to pray [for them] without forgetting other people who have been abducted in the world ".

* The Alpini are elite mountain troops in the Italian Army.
Hello,



My partner (USA) and I (Aus) have been together almost 5 years.



She applied for a 309/100 from offshore in Feb 2014 and it was granted in October. She's been living with me here since January 2015.



We applied for PR while she was living here (Feb 2016). Very recently she has been offered a job back in the USA which she wants to take... it begins in a few weeks.



Is she able to move back to the US and take this job without risking her application for PR on the Australian side? We are still together, and I plan to join her as soon as I can.



I have read conflicting information - she was offshore when she applied for the first stage (309), but onshore when she submitted the application for permanent residency (100).
N.A.R.T. stands for North American Racing Team and, believe it or not, the Prancing Horse of Maranello made only ten examples of the breed. The one were talking about today is the last of its kind, colloquially referred to by collectors as chassis number 11057 . Care to guess how much the estimate is on this beautiful car?RM Sothebys believes that 23 million fits the bill. Converted at current exchange rates, this 1968 Ferrari 275 GTS/4 N.A.R.T. Spider is worth $25.8 million. Im not surprised by that, to be honest. After all, it is a fully numbers-matching car with a comprehensive history and a Colombo V12 engine under its sexy hood.Another little detail that makes chassis #11057 so desirable is that it is the only example sold new in Europe and the only example to be painted in Grigio Scuro. The dark red metallic the car is wearing now was applied from 2000 to 2001. It still looks like a million bucks, though. Or $25.8 million, for that matter.Sold new in Madrid to a Spanish Foreign Legion colonel, chassis #11057 spent its first fourteen years in Spain. Then the 1980s came along and a Swiss collector bought the car, after which the N.A.R.T. Spider was shipped to the United Kingdom. The most recent known owner of the N.A.R.T. Spider is Lord Laidlaw, a wealthy Briton, who also owned a 250 GTO.Speaking of 250 GTOs, RM Sothebys notes that this N.A.R.T. Spider "has been owned by no less than five 250 GTO owners, a testament to its sheer desirability and importance." Couldnt have said it better myself.
Not to say that everyone who flips the bird at other drivers in traffic is mentally challenged, but a recent study conducted in the United States has reached a mildly disturbing conclusion: behaviors typically associated with road rage are the result of intermittent explosive disorder (IED), which, like it or not, is a mental condition.Described by some psychologists as a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde behavior, road rage cannot be judged by an official external observation. In most cases, the police cannot charge a person with road rage, although laws against aggressive driving have been passed in numerous countries.In the United States, though, California is the only state to issue a penalty specifically for this type of offense, making it a legal term in the Penal Code:In addition to the penalties set forth in subdivision (a) of Section 245 of the Penal Code, the court may order the suspension of the driving privilege of any operator of a motor vehicle who commits an assault as described in subdivision (a) of Section 245 of the Penal Code on an operator or passenger of another motor vehicle, an operator of a bicycle, or a pedestrian and the offense occurs on a highway. The suspension period authorized under this section for an assault commonly known as road rage, shall be six months for a first offense and one year for a second or subsequent offense to commence, at the discretion of the court, either on the date of the person's conviction, or upon the person's release from confinement or imprisonment. The court may, in lieu of or in addition to the suspension of the driving privilege, order a person convicted under this section to complete a court-approved anger management or road rage course, subsequent to the date of the current violation.According to numerous scientists, the most recognized reasons for road rage can be traced to the basics of the human condition. Simple conflicting factors or emotional challenges related to driving can become occasions for expressing anger and aggression behind the wheel.For example, almost anywhere in the world, drivers are restricted to certain speed limits even though their vehicles are able to go much faster; virtually any road has lanes, stoplights, and signs that need to be respected; all this while the stress of not being able to move inside the vehicle accumulates over time. The not-being-able-to-move part becomes a stress factor even though the vehicle itself is a means of locomotion, because while driving, the driver's body remains immobile and still.Besides imposed restrictions, the behavior of other traffic participants, although not directly linked to others, does influence aggression at the wheel. Some of the primary behavior manifestations known to spawn an episode of road rage are tailgating, cutting lanes, sounding the horn or flashing the lights in an excessive manner, shouting verbal abuse and making rude gestures.Of course, people who suffer from a king of the road attitude will not tolerate this type of manifestations and instantly become vigilantes, ready to hunt down and punish the culprits with senseless personal attacks.Even though most incidents that lead to road rage are very frequent, they are still abnormal events, and the unpredictability creates irrational sequences of thought in most drivers. Some of them instantaneously turn into vigilantes, who need to punish other road users for their stupidity behind the wheel.As most of you know, one of the best ways of relieving stress and frustration is by venting, either by verbalizing your emotions or by repeatedly punching and kicking a punching bag. When you're behind the wheel, on the other hand, venting can quickly turn into road rage and then all hell can break loose.It is true that all kinds of factors can contribute to road rage, but most of the time it happens because at least one of the parties involved has decided to act out its anger in an inappropriate manner.Road rage has lots of common bits with other types of anger, so if these incidents always find a way of recurring, maybe you should start thinking that it's your fault, not the others'.When you're driving, and something or someone makes you mad with their actions, first try to pause your line of thinking. Keep in mind that everyone makes mistakes, including you, and when that happens, it's not up to you to punish other road users for their stupid driving - unless you're a police officer, and it's part of your job, of course.Your own and your passenger's safety should be your primary concern no matter how badly you need to vent your anger at the other road participants for their mistakes.Try and practice compassion and kindness more often, even if it will probably prove to be harder than usual in some situations.One sure way to control your anger is to focus on your breathing. Stress breathing, for example, is a good example of things to do to bring down your heart rate and effectively calm you if done correctly. Take full and long breaths of air, try and keep them in your lungs for a few seconds, and then exhale slowly, repeating the cycle as many times as you can.In the end, articles like these are probably doing very little to change perceptions and the ways of thinking in the minds of people who usually resort to road rage. That doesn't mean that they're useless, though, because most changes can only happen in steps anyway.The main ground rule to follow is probably being more courteous to your fellow road participants no matter how hard they make it for you to do that. Only good things will come if everyone starts being more respectful to one another, no matter the context. As Gandhi and other used to say, An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
On the Alameda Air Field in Northern California, 332 Toyota Prius owners made a parade lap to celebrate Earth Day. The meeting went straight to the record books, as Guinness World Records representatives were there for the homologation process of the attempt, which proved successful.Toyota Motor Corporation prides itself on the fact that its Lexus and Toyota brands have double the number of- hybrids on roads than any other automaker.This parade lap only strengthened Prius's position in the USA, and California in particular. According to Toyota, the state of California accounts for 40% of the country's Prius vehicles.Considering the sheer number of Prius cars sold worldwide and in the USA, having 40% of a country's Prius population in a particular area means a lot. Toyota states that Northern California is particularly well-known for its Prius density.The Bay Area of the Golden State is home to hundreds of thousands of Toyota Prius owners, so choosing an ample space in Northern California was a natural choice for the Japanese brand. The entire event was organized by Toyota's North American branch, and it appears that they have done a good job, as they broke a world record.Taking into account that 332 hybrid cars were enough to break a record, we expect others to attempt to break this Guinness World Records title shortly.All you have to do to achieve a better result is to convince enough hybrid vehicle owners to gather in a predetermined space at the same time. This should not be too hard if you ask us, especially if the organizer lives in a country where this type of vehicle is popular.All that's left for those interested is to find a suitable space to organize the event and to provide an incentive strong enough to gather a significant number of hybrid owners. If you ask us, free gas coupons will not cover it, so you must think of something better.
A woman who saved thousands of children in Burundi from extermination received on Sunday a new international humanitarian award created in memory of the 1915 Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey.

Hollywood star George Clooney awarded the first Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity to Marguerite Barankitse, a humanitarian worker from the African state, at a ceremony held in Yerevan.

The award was established last year by three prominent Diaspora Armenians: philanthropists Ruben Vardanyan and Noubar Afeyan and Vartan Gregorian, the president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. It is designed to honor individuals around the world who risk their lives to help others.

The prize is named after Aurora Mardiganian, an Armenian genocide survivor who witnessed the massacre of relatives and told her story in a book and film.

Barankitse, the founder of an orphanage in Burundi, was one of four finalists picked last month by an international selection committee co-chaired by Clooney and Elie Wiesel, a prominent Holocaust survivor. The committee also includes three other Nobel laureates: Iranian human rights campaigner Shirin Ebadi, Costa Ricas former President Oscar Arias and Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee.

Barankitse, who had to flee Burundi last year, has saved some 30,000 children who became orphans as a result of bloody ethnic conflicts that plagued her country as well as neighboring Rwanda over two decades ago. Her Maison Shalom charity has sheltered and educated them.

This is a victory of love over hatred, Barankitse said at the award ceremony timed to coincide with official commemorations of the 101st anniversary of the Armenian genocide.

Marguerite Barankitse serves as a reminder of the impact that one person can have even when encountering seemingly insurmountable persecution, Clooney said for his part.

The American actor and director emphasized the importance of the award. Tonights award celebrates heroism and bravery far beyond what most of us can do in a lifetime, he said.

We also honor the 1.5 million lives that were lost 101 years ago, and we honor those lives by calling their tragedy by its true name: genocide, the Armenian genocide, added Clooney. Hitler once famously said, Who remembers Armenia? The answer is the whole world.

Australias former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, another member of the Aurora selection committee, made a similar point. The driving impulse of the prize was to ensure that we never forget, as some people want us to do, the Armenian genocide, and that we do continue to understand the incredible risks there are in so many places around the world of going back to the edge of that particular volcano, Evans said at the ceremony.

The prize carries a $100,000 personal grant to Barankitse. She was also awarded $1 million to donate to organizations that inspired her work. Barankitse chose three charities from Luxembourg as its recipients.

The committee co-headed by Clooney also awarded $25,000 to each of the three other finalists: Tom Catena, an American doctor running the sole hospital in Sudans Nuba Mountains, Syeda Ghulam Fatima, a Pakistani advocate of destitute workers, and Rev. Bernard Kinvi, a Catholic priest who has saved the lives of over 1,000 Muslims in the Central African Republic.

Unlike the other finalists, Catena, who is based in a rebel-held region in southern Sudan, was unable to travel to Armenia for the ceremony. Addressing it by Skype, he appealed for urgent international humanitarian aid to the region.

We are sort of a small Syria in a lot of ways, he said, accusing Sudans ruling regime of perpetrating a quiet genocide there for the past two decades.

100 LIVES, a pan-Armenian group which launched the Aurora Prize, also teamed up with the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) to give its first Integrity in Journalism Award to Rukmini Callimachi, an investigative reporter with The New York Times. Callimachi has written extensively on the ordeals of thousands of Yazidi women in Iraq captured and used as sex slaves by the Islamic State extremist group.

In bearing witness to the suffering of these women, I hope that one day that suffering may end, Callimachi said as she received the award at the Yerevan ceremony.
24 April 2016 10:35 (UTC+04:00)

Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon made a phone call to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev on April 23.

The UN Secretary-General expressed regret that he could not attend the 7th Global Forum of the UN Alliance of Civilizations to be held in Baku due to some global problems, wished success to the Forum, and said he was looking forward to addressing the event through video conference.

President Ilham Aliyev thanked for the phone call, and expressed the country`s satisfaction over successive cooperation with the UN.

During the phone call, the issues over current situation in the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict were discussed.

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24 April 2016 12:12 (UTC+04:00)

The Baku-based Museum of Modern Art has hosted an exhibition of Portuguese artists called "I Wanna Be Adored". The opening ceremony was attended by Minister of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan Abulfas Garayev.

Charge d'Affaires of Portugal in Azerbaijan Maria Joao Lopes Cardoso, addressing the opening ceremony, said that this exhibition is the first cultural initiative of Portugal in Azerbaijan.

"This cultural event is one of the series of events to be organized in Azerbaijan as Portugal is interested in developing and strengthening of friendly relations with Azerbaijan. The two peoples have much in common, and the best bridge between our peoples is culture," said the diplomat.

The exhibition features artworks of three Portuguese artists - Andre Almeida de Souza, Paulo Brigenti Ferreira and Thomas Kuhn. The exhibition is aimed at young people.

"I Wanna Be Adored" is a song by the British rock band The Stone Roses.

The exhibition, which is held under the patronage of the Museum of Modern Art and the Portuguese diplomatic mission in Azerbaijan, will be open for three weeks.

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24 April 2016 14:38 (UTC+04:00)

The talks were held with the Dutch delegation, headed by Jan-Paul Dirkse, ambassador-at-large of the foreign ministry of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in Ashgabat, the Turkmen foreign ministry said April 23.

The delegation stressed the Dutch leading companies' interest in the Turkmen market.

The prospects of bilateral cooperation were discussed at a meeting in the foreign ministry.

The views on issues of mutual interest were expressed.

The sides discussed the expansion of mutually beneficial cooperation in political, trade-economic and humanitarian spheres. The role of intensifying the contacts between the foreign ministries of the two countries was stressed.

Moreover, special attention was paid to the further development of cooperation as part of international organizations, in particular the UN, OSCE. The prospects for cooperation between Turkmenistan and the EU were also discussed.

The sides expressed their commitment to further progressive development of mutually beneficial cooperation between Turkmenistan and the Netherlands, based on the principles of mutual respect.

Turkmenistan ranks fourth in the world in terms of the gas reserve volume.

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Harbor Foundation held its 7th Annual Butterfly Release Saturday in Tyrrell Park. Hundreds gathered for the event, releasing monarch butterflies skyward in memory of loved ones.
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An East Texas-based Sabine River Authority board member has apologized for sending an admittedly inappropriate email last month that referred to record flooding as an "economic development initiative" while Interstate 10 and Deweyville were under water.

"Naturally, I'd like to take credit for the economic development initiative, but we all know I haven't been here long enough to know where the keys to the floodwaters are located," wrote board member Kimberly Fish, who lives in Longview, about increased traffic in northeast Texas attributable to the interstate closure.

David Montagne, general manager of the Sabine River Authority of Texas, said his response to Fish's email, in which he thanked her for relaying "one positive outcome from flooding," was a "stupid" remark made in poor taste.

"Obviously, this was a tragic event and, absolutely, I apologize that we had any conversation like that," Montagne said last week. "It wasn't meant to do any harm whatsoever."The exchange highlights a chasm between people who live north of the dam - including some who have a degree of power over its operation - and those who lost their homes when it unleashed a record amount of water last month.

Differing perspectives are at the heart of a long-running dispute between downstream residents and those living lakeside who want the water level maintained at a high enough level to buoy recreational offerings.

That dispute is expected to surface again amid post-event studies and renewed scrutiny of the Toledo Bend dam's operating guidelines.

The emails were among 5,300 pages of SRA officials' correspondence obtained through Texas' open records laws that cover the time before, during and after the flood prompted a days-long shutdown of I-10 at the Texas-Louisiana border and crippled the Newton County town of Deweyville.

Flood called 'Eco Development tool'

Fish, appointed to a six-year term to the board of directors last December by Gov. Greg Abbott, lives in Longview, about 64 miles north of the reservoir, 100 miles north of the dam and nearly 200 miles from Deweyville, the town hardest hit by the flooding.

The subject heading "Eco Development tool for ETX" topped Fish's March 15 email, which read in full:

"Just wanted to share the phone call I had today thanking me for my service to the SRA and for causing the Sabine River to flood so significantly that it totally shut down I10 in Houston, thereby redirecting commuters, truckers, tourists deeper into ETexas to discover what a beautiful part of the country exists just a little farther north of the 5th largest city in the US.

"Naturally, I'd like to take credit for the economic development initiative, but we all know I haven't been here long enough to know where the keys to the floodwaters are located. But, who knows, maybe this will work out for us in the best way. At least everyone knows the river can provide water.

"Good luck with the work you have ahead, and hoping the Toledo Bend behaves itself.

"Kimberly"

Fish, reached by email last week, declined to be interviewed.

"My only comment is that I apologize for the email, and my remarks were not appropriate," she wrote.

Fish is a freelance writer who specializes in marketing, according to her SRA biography. She is a Republican precinct chair and sits on the board of trustees of a private, Christian university and other local groups.

Fish ran unsuccessfully for Gregg County commissioner in 2014, the Longview News-Journal reported in January.

Abbott's office didn't respond to a request for comment.

Of the nine directors appointed by the governor to the board that oversees the Sabine River Authority of Texas, six live north of the dam.

The board, which makes agency appointments and oversees the authority's business dealings, does not decide when to open or close spillway gates.

Nine hours after Fish's email, Montagne responded:

"We are getting blamed for flooding, many down stream residents want to convert Toledo Bend into a flood control structure. Thanks for one positive outcome from flooding!"

Montagne, who is appointed by the SRA board of directors, said he read Fish's email as a joke and responded in kind.

"I probably shouldn't even have responded to it," Montagne said. "I should have said, 'This isn't a time to be talking about all of this. It's not germane, important to be commenting.'"

Guiseppe Barranco/Photo Editor

Lawsuit looms

March 15 was the day Texas and Louisiana officials closed Interstate 10 at the state line because of the flood.

Half an hour north, the mostly evacuated and swamped town of Deweyville was off-limits to residents, who fretted for days before returning home to waterlogged homes.

Deweyville resident Annette Smart, who has lived in her stained-glass workshop next door to her home while repairing her property and her neighboring families members', said the emails "show there is absolutely no concern for us down here."

"(Fish) can crawl her little ass down here, and she can do a little work," Smart said. "We might not be a big town, but we're a good little community. This has not been funny.... Our lives have ceased to be fun."

The SRA, along with its Louisiana counterpart, manages the Toledo Bend dam based on operating guidelines backed by a federally issued license.

Administrators say the water releases complied with a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission license allowing them to generate hydroelectricity.

The dam, not tasked with flood control, released water at more than twice the average rate of Niagara Falls after up to 20 inches of rain fell on the reservoir in early March.

Downstream residents have blamed the SRA for not doing more to marginalize the flood and have called for changes to the policies. Attorneys for about 250 downstream residents said they have submitted paperwork for a lawsuit against the authority.

Other SRA records document pointed emails from downstream residents and inter-office guidance on how to talk to people who voiced their grievances by phone.

"Can you please respond to this for me," an SRA engineer wrote when forwarding an email from a resident upset that a cemetery was under water. "I need help managing the public."

EBesson@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/EricBesson_news
Immigration is harder to control due to the EU's free movement of labour rules, Home Secretary Theresa May has admitted.

However, in her first major intervention in the Brexit battle, Ms May insisted the task was not impossible as she tried to distance herself from an official Treasury study showing that immigration would soar by three million by 2030.

The move came as US president Barack Obama again waded into the Brexit battle, warning the UK would have to wait up to a decade for a trade deal with America if it quits the EU.

Unbowed by a furious backlash from the Leave camp against "interference" in British affairs, Mr Obama moved to explain his stark statement that the UK would be at "the back of the queue" for a beneficial economic arrangement if it breaks away from Brussels.

Insisting he had not sought to "scare" Britons into rejecting Brexit, Mr Obama told the BBC: "My simple point is that it's hard to negotiate trade deals. It takes a long time.

"We wouldn't abandon our efforts to negotiate a trade deal with our largest trading partner, the European market, but rather it could be five years from now, 10 years from now, before we were able to actually get something done."

The Home Secretary's remarks on immigration were seized on by the Leave camp as proof Britain had an "open door" policy.

Ms May told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show: "Yes, free movement makes it harder to control immigration, but it does not make it impossible to control immigration."

The Cabinet heavyweight. who has kept a low profile in the referendum debate since backing Prime Minister David Cameron's Remain stance, would not be drawn on a Government document saying immigration would jump by three million.

"That was an independent figure, that was an independent estimate," the Home Secretary said of the Office for National Statistics' prediction of a steep rise in immigration, which was put out by the Treasury as part of the Government's claim that Brexit would cost each household 4,300 a year.

The Home Secretary acknowledged migrants would look at the rises in the national living wage when making a decision on whether to come to Britain.

"I think, yes, obviously, the national living wage is going up and people look when they are going to move at what they are going to earn ," Ms May said.

The Home Secretary insisted Britain had won a landmark concession from Brussels on immigration in that the EU will overturn judgments of the European Court of Justice that make it is easier for people to abuse the free movement rules.

In an explosive escalation of the highly personalised attacks launched against Mr Obama by the Leave campaign, Ukip leader Nigel Farage said the president's priority in attacking Brexit was to "guarantee his financial future".

"There is a bigger motivation and that is, with this trip, and with what he has said, he has guaranteed his financial future. He has done the bidding of the giant American corporates who want Britain to stay in the EU ," Mr Farage told Sky's Murnaghan.

Prominent Labour MP Chuka Umunna accused London mayor Boris Johnson of being "unfit" to be prime minister after his remarks drawing attention to Mr Obama's Kenyan heritage.

Brexit would make households 40 a week better off, one of Margaret Thatcher's economic gurus, Professor Patrick Minford, told The Sun on Sunday.

Mr Farage dismissed the assertion a trade deal would take a decade to complete as he noted the US finalised one with Australia in two years.

Justice Minister and Leave campaigner Dominic Raab said the president had softened his stance in recent days, and he expected a deal could be done relatively quickly.
Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton has raced onto the Sunday Times Rich List for the first time, while the family behind Europe's biggest steelmaker have fallen out of the top 10, losing more than 2 billion in the past year.

Hamilton, who is Britain's wealthiest sportsman, is worth 106 million, according to the guide to Britain and Ireland's richest people.

Entrants had to have at least 103 million to make it onto the 2016 list, up from 100 million last year.

Steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal and his family, who own ArcelorMittal, have taken a 2.08 billion hit in the past year, dropping to 11th on the list.

The Mittals, who eight years ago were number one with a vast wealth of 27.7 billion - the biggest fortune achieved by anyone on the list before or since - now have a much-dwindled fortune of 7.12 billion.

Earlier this month it was reported that ArcelorMittal board member Wilbur Ross could be among investors expected to be contacted about buying some of Tata's business interests in the UK.

At the top of the 2016 money pile are property tycoons the Reuben brothers, whose ownership of London's Millbank Tower and the John Lewis headquarters in the capital have helped them build up 13.1bn.

Mumbai-born David and Simon Reuben, who also own London Oxford Airport and London Heliport, have increased their fortune by 3.4 billion in the past year.

Brothers Sri and Gopi Hinduja, who run the Hinduja Group, remain in second place a year on with an unchanged fortune of 13 billion. Completing the top three is Warner Music owner Len Blavatnik, who despite a drop two places after a reduction in wealth by 1.58 billion, has 11.59 billion.

The 2016 Sunday Times Rich List will be published on Sunday.
The front windscreen was smashed in the incident on the Glen Road

Police and ATO carrying out searches on the Glen Road in west Belfast following reports of an explosive device being launched at police. Photo by Kevin Scott

Police and ATO carrying out searches on the Glen Road in west Belfast following reports of an explosive device being launched at police. Photo by Kevin Scott

Police and ATO carrying out searches on the Glen Road in west Belfast following reports of an explosive device being launched at police. Photo by Kevin Scott

Police and ATO carrying out searches on the Glen Road in west Belfast following reports of an explosive device being launched at police. Photo by Kevin Scott

Police and ATO carrying out searches on the Glen Road in west Belfast following reports of an explosive device being launched at police. Photo by Kevin Scott

Police and ATO carrying out searches on the Glen Road in west Belfast following reports of an explosive device being launched at police. Photo by Kevin Scott

Searches have been ordered along a busy road in west Belfast after an armoured police vehicle was attacked.

The front windscreen was smashed in the incident on the Glen Road shortly before 1am.

It is understood no explosion was reported at the scene and initial searches in the early hours of the morning did not uncover anything definitive to suggest that an explosive device had been aimed.

Follow-up searches have taken place with a number of roads closed and the area around the incident sealed off.

Detective Sergeant Keith Wilson said there had only been slight damage to a window.

"Police stopped and conducted a search for the object, but were unable to locate anything untoward," he said.

"As a precaution, police are currently conducting a follow-up search in the area and have closed the Glen Road in both directions."

Later, police said nothing was found in searches of the area.

Mr Wilson appealed for witnesses.

"Police inquiries into exactly what kind of object hit the land rover this morning will continue," he said.
US president Barack Obama has launched a fresh intervention into the Brexit battle, warning the UK would have to wait up to a decade for a trade deal with America if it quits the EU.

Unbowed by a furious backlash from the Leave camp against his "interference" in British affairs during his visit to London, Mr Obama reinforced his stark statement that the UK would be at "the back of the queue" for a beneficial economic arrangement if it breaks away from Brussels.

"My simple point is that it's hard to negotiate trade deals. It takes a long time, and the point is that the UK would not be able to negotiate something with the United States faster than the EU.

"We wouldn't abandon our efforts to negotiate a trade deal with our largest trading partner, the European market, but rather it could be five years from now, ten years from now, before we were able to actually get something done," Mr Obama told the BBC.

Denying that he was a "lame duck" president as prominent Leave figures have alleged, Mr Obama delivered a direct slap-down to the Brexit camp who had claimed the UK could cut a speedy deal with the US.

"The point I was simply making was that for those who suggested that, you know, if we could just not be entangled with the Europeans, our special relationship is going to mean that we can just cut the line and just get a quick deal with the United States, and it will be a lot more efficient, and that's not how we think about it.

"I don't think that's how the next administration will think about it, because our preference would be to work with this large bloc of countries," Mr Obama said.

The president made it clear he believed it would be damaging for the British economy to quit the EU.

"If I am a business person or a worker in Britain, and I'm looking at the fact that I already have access seamlessly with a massive market, one of the wealthiest markets in the world, that accounts for 44% of my exports, the idea that I'm going to be in a better position to export and trade by being outside of that market and not being in the room setting the rules and standards by which trade takes place, I think is erroneous," Mr Obama said.

The president also warned that the security of the West could be weakened by a British withdrawal which took it out of communications between Brussels and Washington.

"I think we will together be less effective if we're not in those forums, than we are currently, where we've got this great ally who engages in unmatched co-operation, with us in the room negotiating.

"You know, things as simple as making sure that passenger lists are shared, it took a lot of years for us to be able to negotiate that with the European Parliament and EU, and our strongest advocate for getting that done was the UK, and it was extremely helpful.

"What we do believe is that the United Kingdom will have less influence in Europe and as a consequence, less influence globally, and since we rely heavily on the UK as a partner globally on a whole range of issues, we'd like you to have more influence. We'd like you to be at the table, helping to influence other countries who may not oftentimes see things as clearly from our perspective as our British partners do," Mr Obama said.

Mr Obama rowed back from criticism that Prime Minister David Cameron became "distracted" after the military action in Libya as the country slipped into turmoil.

"Well, I think that we were all distracted. You know, that portion of my comments, I'm sure got attention here. What maybe got less attention was my statement that one of my regrets is not fully anticipating the degree of concentration of focus that would be required after the campaign to make sure that Gaddafi wasn't killing his own people in Libya," Mr Obama said.

The president heaped praise on his wife Michelle, saying: "I cannot separate anything that I've achieved from the partnership that I've had with that remarkable woman. So I could not be prouder of her, and I think it's fair to say that anything good that I've done, she gets a shared billing."
Joshua Molloy (24), from Ballylinan, Co Laois was arrested by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)

An Irish man held in a Kurdish jail for crossing the border illegally from Syria after fighting against the Islamic State has been freed.

Joshua Molloy from Ballylynan, Co Laois, a former Royal Irish Regiment soldier, was incarcerated along with two British citizens who fought alongside forces trying to defeat the terror organisation.

British diplomats based in Iraq spent the last week trying to secure his freedom along with Jac Holmes, a former IT worker from Bournemouth and Joe Ackerman, a former British soldier from Halifax.

Ireland's Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan confirmed the release.

"I welcome Joshua's release and I am pleased that he is now on his way home to join his family in Ireland," he said.

"Would like to thank all those who helped to make this early release happen. My department will continue to provide consular assistance in this case."

The three were held together in a prison in Erbil after being detained as they tried to cross in Kurdistan on their way home from fighting ISIS in Syria.

Declan Molloy, Joshua's father, said emotions in the family were running wild.

"We are all delighted here. We are jumping with joy to know that he is out," he said.

"You know that Christmas morning feeling, it's a bit like that, when you find your most sought-after present under the tree, the dream present. That's how we feel."

Mr Molloy said Mr Flanagan broke the news to him in a phone call late last night.

He spoke to his son this morning via Facebook and reported that he was "fine" but felt that he would need some time alone after his ordeal.

It is not clear when the 24-year-old former Royal Irish soldier will be home.

Mr Molloy has repeatedly insisted that his son is not a mercenary or a freedom fighter, but that he had travelled to Syria last year for humanitarian reasons.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London were not immediately able to confirm if the two British citizens had been freed.

British diplomats had been working on the ground on behalf of all three men, saying that they do consular work for Irish citizens in difficulty in some countries where Ireland does not have representation.

The soldiers are understood to have fought with the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), a force reported to have in the region of 25,000-50,000 fighters trying to quell the Islamic State in northern Syria.

They had been imprisoned by authorities from the Kurdish Regional Government.
British ground combat troops could go to Libya in the future, the Foreign Secretary has said.

Philip Hammond told The Sunday Telegraph he cannot "rule anything out" as he does not know how the situation in the north African country will evolve.

But he insisted that the question of British ground, sea or air power taking action in Libya would be put to MPs.

Mr Hammond said the southern Mediterranean was an important security interest as terrorists established there would be a threat to all of Europe, including the UK.

"It wouldn't make sense to rule anything out," he said, discussing the possibility of ground combat troops going to the country.

"But if there were ever any question of a British combat role in any form - ground, sea or air - that would go to the House of Commons."

He also highlighted the closeness of Libya to the outer borders of Europe - he said it was 100 miles from Libya to the Italian island of Lampedusa which is the first stop for many migrants when they arrive to the continent.

"If Daesh (another name for Islamic State) became established in Libya and sought to use that established base to infiltrate terrorists into Europe, that would be a threat to all of us," he said.

He said he knew that the new Libyan government would be cautious about requesting Western military support but if it did, the Government would consider it.

Tory chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Crispin Blunt warned that transparency about British deployments should be more important than the Government's "curious" conditions for needing a parliamentary approval.

He said: "The British Government needs to take Parliament with it.

"I think Parliament will be quite sympathetic to the challenges the Government faces but if we're not told anything and we're given a concept of operations which looks pretty dangerous, and just around the ground element, then I think the Government could find itself getting into unnecessary trouble."

He added: "I think the more transparent the Government can be about the challenge it faces in trying to take Parliament and the public with it in getting a sensible strategy here, acknowledging that they've got to work with the international community, I think that would be better rather than these rather curious and difficult nostrums about when and when not parliamentary authority is required."
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An Irishman held in a Kurdish jail for crossing the border illegally from Syria after fighting against the Islamic State has been freed.

Joshua Molloy from Ballylynan, Co Laois, a former Royal Irish Regiment soldier, was incarcerated along with two British citizens who fought alongside forces trying to defeat the terror organisation.

Acting Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan confirmed the release.

"I welcome Joshua's release and I am pleased that he is now on his way home to join his family in Ireland," he said.

"I would like to thank all those who helped to make this early release happen. My department will continue to provide consular assistance in this case."

The three were held together in a prison in Erbil after being detained as they tried to cross in Kurdistan on their way home from fighting ISIS in Syria.

Declan Molloy, Joshua's father, said emotions in the family were running wild.

"We are all delighted here. We are jumping with joy to know that he is out," he said.

"You know that Christmas morning feeling, it's a bit like that, when you find your most sought-after present under the tree, the dream present. That's how we feel."

Mr Molloy said Mr Flanagan broke the news to him in a phone call late last night.

He spoke to his son this morning via Facebook and reported that he was "fine" but felt that he would need some time alone after his ordeal.

It is not clear when the 24-year-old former Royal Irish soldier will be home.

Mr Molloy has repeatedly insisted that his son is not a mercenary or a freedom fighter, but that he had travelled to Syria last year for humanitarian reasons.
Police in the North have said they are increasingly concerned after a mother went missing with her six-year-old daughter.

Rosemary Gregg, 48, from Limavady, Co Derry and her daughter Orlaith, have not been seen since they left their home on Friday.
The Obama administration will likely soon release at least part of a 28-page secret chapter from a congressional inquiry into 9/11 that may shed light on possible Saudi connections to the attackers.

The documents, kept in a secure room in the basement of the Capitol, contain information from the joint congressional inquiry into "specific sources of foreign support for some of the September 11 hijackers while they were in the United States".

Bob Graham, who was co-chairman of that bipartisan panel, and others say the documents point suspicion at the Saudis.

The former Democratic senator from Florida says an administration official told him that intelligence officials will decide in the next several weeks whether to release at least parts of the documents.

The disclosure would come at a time of strained US relations with Saudi Arabia, a long-time American ally.

"I hope that decision is to honour the American people and make it available," Mr Graham told NBCs' Meet the Press on Sunday.

"The most important unanswered question of 9/11 is, did these 19 people conduct this very sophisticated plot alone, or were they supported?"

Tim Roemer, who was a member of both the joint congressional inquiry as well as the 9/11 Commission and has read the secret chapter three times, described the 28 pages as a "preliminary police report".

"There were clues. There were allegations. There were witness reports. There was evidence about the hijackers, about people they met with - all kinds of different things that the 9/11 Commission was then tasked with reviewing and investigating," the former Democratic congressman from Indiana said on Friday.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were citizens of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government says it has been "wrongfully and morbidly accused of complicity" in the attacks, is fighting extremists and working to clamp down on their funding channels.

Still, the Saudis have long said that they would welcome declassification of the 28 pages because it would "allow us to respond to any allegations in a clear and credible manner."

The pages were withheld from the 838-page report on the orders of then president George W. Bush, who said the release could divulge intelligence sources and methods.

Still, protecting US-Saudi diplomatic relations also was believed to have been a factor.

Ben Rhodes, President Barack Obama's deputy national security adviser, said Mr Obama asked National Intelligence director James Clapper to review the papers for possible declassification.

"When that's done we'd expect that there will be some degree of declassification that provides more information," Mr Rhodes told reporters in Riyadh last week where Mr Obama met with King Salman and other Saudi leaders.

The White House says the 28 pages did not come up during discussions.

Neither the congressional inquiry nor the subsequent 9/11 Commission found any evidence that the Saudi government or senior Saudi officials knowingly supported those who orchestrated the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

But Mr Graham, the relatives of victims and some politicians think there is reason to further probe possible Saudi links.

Mr Roemer said many questions remain about the roles of Fahad al Thumairy, an official at the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles who allegedly helped two of the hijackers find housing and transport after they arrived in Southern California.

Al Thumairy was later denied entry into the United States in May 2003 after the State Department alleged that he might be involved in terrorist activity.

Mr Roemer also wants to know more about Omar al Bayoumi, who was strongly suspected of being a Saudi spy and was alleged to have been helpful to the hijackers.

"We did not discover ... Saudi government involvement at the highest level of the 9/11 attacks," Mr Roemer said.

But he added: "We certainly did not exonerate the Saudis. ... Saudi was a fertile ground for fundraising for al Qaida. Some of these issues continue to be problems today. That's why we need to continue to get to the bottom of this."

The online 28pages.org, an Internet site pushing to get the documents released, points to another document declassified in July 2015 that outlined ways in which the commission could examine possible Saudi links.

The 47-page document lists several pages of individuals of interest and suggests questions that could be pursued. One name is suspected al Qaida operative Ghassan al Sharbi.

Al Sharbi, who was taking flight lessons in the Phoenix area before 9/11, was captured in 2002 in the same place in Pakistan as Abu Zubaydah, a top al Qaida trainer who was apprehended and waterboarded dozens of times by US interrogators.

The document said that after al Sharbi was captured, the FBI discovered some documents buried nearby. One was al Sharbi's pilot certificate inside an envelope from the Saudi Embassy in Washington, although it's unclear whether the license had been mailed by the embassy or if the envelope was simply being reused.

A CIA's inspector general report in June 2015 said there had been no reliable reporting confirming Saudi government "involvement with and financial support for terrorist prior to 9/11".

But it also that people in the CIA's Near East Division and Counterterrorism Centre "speculated that dissident sympathisers within the government may have aided al-Qaida".

The rest of the chapter, titled Issues Related To Saudi Arabia, is blacked out.

A bill directing the president to release the 28-page chapter was introduced in the Senate, and nearly three dozen Republicans and Democrats in the House are backing a similar resolution.
LONDON: Penny Mordaunt said she was staying in the race to become British prime minister despite trailing rivals...
Groovin' the Moo organisers encouraged a sell-out Canberra crowd to "party safe" after two suspected drug overdoses at the music festival's first gig in NSW at the weekend.

Two teenagers were treated for drug-related conditions at the Maitland concert on Saturday, just hours before two people were hospitalised for overdoses after they collapsed at Sydney's Midnight Mafia dance party.

Crowds cheer as the DZ Deathrays play the Canberra festival on Sunday. Credit:Jamila Toderas

Groovin' the Moo organisers were contacted but declined to comment on the incidents. A message on the event's Facebook page on Sunday morning told music fans to look after each other and "party safe".

An ACT Policing spokeswoman said the force had a high-visibility presence and police encouraged concert-goers to plan ahead and drink responsibly.
It was on this day, 10 years ago, that the Beaconsfield gold mine in Tasmania collapsed, killing 44-year-old Larry Knight and trapping two other miners nearly a kilometre beneath the surface.

The two miners, Brant Webb and Todd Russell, were rescued two weeks later as the drama unfolded on television screens around the world. Thousands die around the world in mine accidents every year (and more on how local companies should respond to that follows below) but the Beaconsfield rock-fall became a global media event.

Amid the throng of reporters and broadcast crews, veteran Nine Network journalist Richard Carleton suffered a heart attack live on TV and died a short time later.

Bill Shorten, now Opposition leader, then boss of the Australian Workers Union, shot to national prominence as spokesman for the miners.
Maintaining the status-quo of American dominance happens to be what most Asia-Pacific governments actually want. An overwhelmingly powerful state sitting 12,000 kilometres across the Pacific is much more appealing than one with whom you share a disputed border - which has demonstrated its readiness to unilaterally enforce its claims.

The deployment of 1250 Marines, which is forecast to grow to 2500 in 2017, and larger still if American strategic planners have their way, is a key component of the US military's "pivot to Asia". While the pivot is routinely discussed in terms of disaster relief, cooperation building and the strengthening of historical alliances, it is in fact a program of military, economic, and diplomatic intensification with a broad coalition of regional states which aims to contain a rising China and ensure ongoing American regional dominance.

What will go unremarked, by either media or politicians, are the strategic implications of this deployment, its role in broader American military planning and its potential to bind Australian foreign policy and geographical assets to future American wars.

Earlier this month, the 2016 contingent of US Marine Rotational Force-Darwin began arriving in Australia. Where media coverage of the new additions to the permanent American base in our northern capitol does occur, it will focus on their imminent community-based volunteering activities, the friendly training rivalry between Australian soldiers and the marines, and the economic boon they represent for Darwin.

American dominance largely deters states from conflict, and provides the framework for closer economic, diplomatic, and military ties between them. There is little doubt that a benevolent US presence, promoting international norms and mediated conflict resolution, can be a great positive for a region grappling with territorial disputes, mistrust and the legacies of colonialism and war.

The Australian public is itself hugely supportive of the US-alliance. According to the 2015 Lowy Institute Poll, 80 per cent rated it as either 'very' or 'fairly' important for Australian security. At the same time, a full 58 per cent of respondents believe that the US-alliance makes it more likely that Australia will be drawn into a war in Asia that would not be in our own interest.

When the structural and strategic characteristics of Marine Rotational Force-Darwin are brought into focus, it becomes clear that the deployment heightens these risks even further. The unit constitutes a fully equipped Marine Air Ground Task Force, designed for rapid force projection in times of conflict, and capable of taking and holding strategic territory in anticipation of more substantial forces surging through.

Darwin was chosen as its location for a number of reasons: its close proximity to the straits of Malacca, the world's busiest shipping corridor through which 80 per cent of China's crude oil imports pass, the fact that it is outside of most missile threat ranges emanating from China, has low-traffic skies for aerial training, and sits astride a huge, sparsely populated, interior region of land that every year opens to live-fire simulations.

The importance of Darwin for US regional strategy in the event of conflict calls into question Australia's own freedom of action should such conflict break out. There is a great amount of path dependency at play - defence policy decisions we make now define the options that will be available to us in the future. We already have a robust alliance with the United States, which in turn has alliances with many other Asian countries whose national interests do not always align with our own. The potential domino effect of these entangled alliances is clear.
When more than $100 million was taken from the arts to establish a new fund with federal ministerial discretion, the industry feared the result would be politicised and ultimately damaging to the arts.

Those fears may have now been realised with the latest funding announcement: $1 million towards the heritage of Sir Hans Heysen (1877-1968) for a property in the South Australian electorate of Mayo, held by controversial Liberal MP Jamie Briggs, achieved as the result of lobbying by SA Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi  lobbying that is explicitly acknowledged in the government's own media release for this project.

Esther Anatolitis, the director of Regional Arts Victoria, says: "We frustrate ourselves when we expect Liberal governments to have policies in this area." Credit:Simon Schluter

This decision doesn't just have the subtle nose of the questionable. It flies in the face of the fund's own published criteria.

The purpose of the so-called Catalyst fund is to support the work of living Australian artists in developing new partnerships, building new audiences, and championing Australia's arts across the world. The annual pool is $12 million and the guidelines state that individual projects are unlikely to receive more than $500,000. Heritage is not a funding criterion of the fund. The guidelines explicitly exclude "built or natural heritage projects" and "operational" costs.
Australia claims that Timor-Leste is trying to change the borders, but there are none to change. Australia, speaking for both countries, says that the current arrangements are working. Timor-Leste, speaking for itself, says the current arrangements are not working.

Australia has stymied every attempt on our part to negotiate maritime borders, refusing until now, even with the launch of our compulsory conciliation under the auspice of the United Nations. Australia could avoid dragging this out with costs to both sides, by agreeing to negotiate now.

Australia says it prefers to negotiate not litigate and prides itself on its ability to reach bilateral agreements with its neighbours; settling maritime borders with New Zealand, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. This begs the question - why not with Timor-Leste?

Australia said let us get temporary arrangements settled first before borders. We naively, some would say, believed that borders would come. In good faith we believed that Australia would support a serious consideration of a gas pipeline to our shores, having secured one to Darwin. Does Australia simply want to exhaust contested resources (think Nauru and phosphates exploitation) until there are none? Australia fully exploited the fields of Laminaria-Corallina, (twice as close to Timor-Leste than Australia) that would be in our territory if we had maritime borders.

Despite this conflicted history, East Timor enjoys friendly relationships with its two giant neighbours, Australia and Indonesia. Both countries have played central roles in assisting us in our hard work of peace and state building and national development.

With Indonesia we have almost completely resolved our common land borders and are in the preparatory stages of our maritime border negotiations.
Former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer's claims on the lack of recognition of Sir John Monash have some merit ("Monash - The Aussie general who 'got' the Western Front", April 23-34). However, to state that a freeway and a university are the only public acknowledgements of his legacy ignores the presence of Monash on our currency's $100 note, an honour reserved for our most pre-eminent historical figures. As for Nigel Steel's assessment of Monash as a 'very capable, talented general', this might be interpreted as a bit of retrospective buffing of British pride. In 1968, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery said: "I would name Sir John Monash as the best general on the Western Front in Europe: he possessed real creative originality." Mark Sargent Dudley We need funds for schools, not stadiums During so-called community consultations about the euphemistic 'Epping Urban Activation Precinct' a couple of years ago, the Department of Planning told concerned local residents that the Department of Education had "expert demographers" who would appropriately plan for more schools in the area to cope with the anticipated large increase in the student population ("Schools in $11b funds crisis", April 23-24). Given the repeated reports over the last 12 months of the growing crisis of over-crowded schools and predictions of ever-increasing student numbers in many areas, faith in these "experts" is seriously questionable, although they really cannot be blamed if the state government will not provide the funds to build the necessary schools they recommend."St Mike" Baird was given much praise for intervening in the recent stadium debacle. But $1.6 billion was still going to sporting facilities, instead of towards schools and health facilities. Rob Phillips North Epping.

The good news is that for the same amount of money the next generation of children will be able to attend footy matches in rectangular stadiums instead of an ovals. The bad news is that these same children might not have had the opportunity to learn the difference between a rectangle and an oval. Our future space programme, which relies on even more complex ellipses, might now be out of reach. Paul Ettema Riverview Not ashamed to teach kids more than just the three Rs No John Hill, (Letters April 23-24), I am a primary school teacher with 40 years experience and I am not shame-faced that "one in seven 15-year-olds cannot read properly." I am disturbed by it but not totally surprised. And I can answer your question about what those students have been taught in addition to the reading, writing and arithmetic which you fear may have gone. Here we go: science, history, geography, music, drama, sport and art. Oh and sun safety, stranger danger, drug education, road safety, bike safety, nutrition, peer support, personal safety, making decisions, personal development, values education, personal identity and many more. You will note I have not even touched on computer technology which spans so many curriculum areas and needs many skills to be taught. These are compulsory in our schools. Would I like to ditch some of them to spend more time on reading? Would I what.

However, I also believe these topics are important and so do the people who fought to have them included in the curriculum. They argue that kids are not getting them taught in the home any more. That kids are obese or drowning or being bullied and that education is part of the solution. They're right. But teachers are not miracle workers or magicians. In my 40 years of teaching, no subject has gone from the curriculum and so much has been added, but the school day still has exactly the same number of minutes. Giving each subject the time it requires and programming inventively to achieve it, is one of the most stressful elements for anyone in teaching today. Despite all that, teachers do manage to equip most students with good literacy and numeracy skills. I am not shame-faced about that. I am proud. Sue Morgan Menai Save scrutiny for 60 Minutes exclusively It would seem that the push to ensure the vilification of Ali Elamine and the martyrdom of Sally Faulkner has started ("'Pretty face, ugly heart': The father who made the mother of his children pay a very heavy price", April 23-24). In situations such has been played out in Lebanon over the past couple of weeks, there are no winners, only losers, the children being the principal losers every time. It must also be remembered that in achieving custody both legal and physical of his children, Ali Elamine only did precisely what Sally Faulkner was hoping to do. Both parents apparently had legal orders in their respective favour by courts of competent jurisdiction and in the event of Sally Faulkner having achieved her object, the children would have been residents of Australia. Ali Elamine is not an Australian citizen and has no right of residence here so that any rights of access to the children would be subject to his being able to obtain the appropriate visa to visit this country in addition to obtaining the permission of his ex-wife.

Instead of endeavouring to occasion good or evil to either parent, the focus should be directly upon those who wanted to create a news item for the purposes of profit and had the necessary money to finance the creation of that story and their minions. Don Landers Northbridge Calling all brave politicians I share the exasperation of Rosemary O'Brien (Letters, April 23-24) with people who demand maintained or improved government services without also acknowledging that all these things cost money. Unlike Rosemary, I'll give a pat on the back, and a vote, to the party which "has the balls (or equivalent)" firstly to promise a measured examination of the future demand for fair and equitable government programs and services, and secondly, to implement the measures necessary to fund those services, even if the funding measures might alienate some of their traditional voter base. Col Nicholson Hawks Nest

I would too. However it would be for the statement "taxes will be increased to adequately fund essential government services". Michael Nairn Noble Park (Vic) Citizens of a First World country such as Australia tend to expect first-class services. Of course these have to be paid for. I am waiting for a politician with balls to commit to increases in tax. First off the rank appears to be Bill Shorten, as the ALP promises to raise the tax on tobacco, capital gains and super, and to reduce the benefits of negative gearing. John Christie Oatley A job for Charles, or one of our own

Paul Hunt (Letters, April 23-24) wonders who will send a telegram to the Queen when she reaches 100. I would imagine it would be King Charles, via email. Carolyn Wills Cremorne Hopefully it will be the president of a future Australian republic  writing as head of state of one fully sovereign country to his or her peer in another. Martyn Yeomans St Ives A climate of incomprehension

Climate science will not be settled for as long as the coal industry is donating to the Liberal Party (Letters, April 23-24). Glenn Meeves Penrith I'm beginning to think that Tony Abbott and Donald Trump may be right in not believing what scientists tell us about global warming. After all, scientists also tell us that the Neanderthals have died out! John Killingley Bundeena Obama's craven act

US President Barack Obama is threatening to veto any attempt by the US Congress to implicate the Saudi government in the September 11 attacks on the Twin Towers ("US, Saudis trapped in loveless marriage", April 23-24).Is it any wonder Obama is considered a closet Muslim and Arab sympathiser George Fishman Vaucluse Ratepayers right to worry The ratepayers of Waverley and other concerned parties are right to be suspicious of Waverley Council's plans for the historic Bondi Pavilion ("Battle to preserve public space as developers push for access to prime sites" April 23-24). The example of Barangaroo is a pertinent one - what they tell you is going to be "community space" before it's built, turns out to be a very different matter after the event. The proposed Pavilion upgrade has negligible public support because it effectively plans to privatise the best bits of the Pavilion and push community out. But this is not just about Bondi: everywhere, Sydney is under assault by moneyed interests inflicting change that no one has asked for and no one wants.

Andrew Worssam Bondi A banking lesson from NZ I am saddened to hear of the alleged bank corruption scandal and agree with Rod Miller (Letters, April 23-24). Over the Tasman, some years ago with huge dissatisfaction with the four big banks, a prominent senior MP lobbied an fought to establish KiwiBank and despite the howls of protest KiwiBank has been very successful. Even more remarkable, three little banks which had survived on customer loyalty and good thrived as thousands of mum-and-dad customers abandoned the big banks and joined up. As one of those, we have never looked back. It was enough to give the big boys a fright and did they understand that. I urge the Australian customers to show these banks once and for all they mean business with their feet. As for the king of them, the Commonweath Bank, I hope never to see them expand into the NZ retail bank market. Stuart McLaren Wellington (New Zealand) No end in sight for Newstart stuggle

I'm sure that Craig James, like the government, who prefer to measure happiness in terms of employment and productivity, will be buoyed by the news that more of us plan to work for longer ("Challenging work ahead as we rethink retirement", April 23-24). Contrast that with the middle-aged person struggling to live on the Newstart allowance, having to pay for their own re-training because the promises of the government-funded employment agencies have come to nought, and wondering whether, even then, they will be considered too old or too expensive or too untrainable to be employed. The superannuation funds may be feeding on our uncertainty but government rhetoric about health funding, tax, pensions and assets such as the family home do nothing to engender confidence about retirement. Philip Cooney Wentworth Falls Check their cheques The banks are shifting the basis of their pay scales 'towards a more illusive concept of customer satisfaction' ("Bank culture scrutiny could dent returns", smh.com.au, April 23). Presumably this is somewhere between 'elusive' and 'illusory', leaving it to customers to decide which one best matches their banking experience. Hal Colebatch Pretty Beach
If Sophie Mirabella is "the most honest politician in Australia" - as Crikey called her on Friday - then the widespread malaise with Australian politics is well founded. We're all rooned.

Her honesty, even if the label was ironic, was confessing that $10 million of public money was not given to a local hospital by the Coalition because the voters of Indi picked someone else.

Credit:Simon Bosch

"I had a commitment for a $10 million allocation for the Wangaratta Hospital that, if elected, I was going to announce a week after the election," she said. "That is $10 million that Wangaratta hasn't had because [independent] Cathy [McGowan] was elected."

A confession doesn't need to be intended by the confessor as a confession; confessors often don't realise their words have proved their guilt.
Minneapolis: Prince has been cremated in a private ceremony attended by his "most beloved" family, friends and musicians, who later celebrated his life in a small, private service.

His publicist Yvette Noel-Schure said in a statement that the 57-year-old music superstar's family and friends gathered "in a private, beautiful ceremony" to say a loving goodbye.

The statement did not say where the service was held, but friends such as percussionist Sheila E and bassist Larry Graham were both seen on Saturday entering Prince's suburban Minneapolis estate, Paisley Park.
The mother of the child recovery agent who remains detained in Lebanon after the bungled 60 Minutes-backed recovery attempt, alleges the Nine network had been doing research for a story about her son last year.

Georgina Whittington has been highly critical of how the 60 Minutes crew have been released while her son Adam Whittington remains in custody and facing serious charges for his role in orchestrating the attempted snatch of two children from a Beirut street.

Her allegations suggest planning for the Beirut operation or a child recovery story could have been under way for months at the network. It also may raise questions about who was pushing the job inside the network
A Victorian technology company striving to produce more efficient and cheaper solar power has won financial backing from the national renewable energy agency to expand its plans.

RayGen Resources, based in Melbourne, will receive a new $2.9 million government grant to help it commercialise what the company says is ground-breaking solar technology that has already received overseas interest.

John Lasich, chief technology officer at RayGen, stands in front of mirrors used to concentrate sunlight onto a highly efficient solar receiver to produce electricity under the Victorian-based project. Credit:Joe Armao

The technology involves laying out a large array of mirrors that tracks the sun throughout the day and creates a concentrated light beam onto a highly efficient solar photovoltaic receiver sitting on top of a central tower.

In March last year, RayGen opened a 200-kilowatt pilot plant at Newbridge, near Bendigo, to showcase the technology, which the company has dubbed "PV Ultra". The pilot was built with support from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, also called ARENA.
Ken Palmer remembers standing on the upper deck of the HMAS Murchison in 1952. Dressed with his fellow national serviceman in "shorts and sandals," he remembers the mushroom cloud, formed from the explosion of Britain's first atomic bomb at the Monte Bello archipelago, off Western Australia.

"They said, don't face the blast and when I tell you, you can turn around. We had just left our mother's breast, we didn't think much about it," said Mr Palmer, now in his 80s.

"When we got to Monte Bello it was a complete surprise to us. Nobody ever told us we were there . . . circling [to keep] everybody else out of the road until the climate was right to explode this atomic bomb in the bowels of the H.M.S. Plym."
Channel Nine's 60 Minutes has issued an extraordinary mea culpa over its role in the bungled recovery attempt of Sally Faulkner's two children from Lebanon.

In a segment airing at the beginning of Sunday's program, host Michael Usher said: "There's one thing we want to state very clearly from the outset. We made mistakes."

Usher said there was an internal review under way at Channel Nine into the "editorial approval of this story and the actions of our crew in Beirut".

"Our role in reporting Sally's desperate efforts to be reunited with Lahela and Noah are now the subject of a lot of soul searching here at Channel Nine," he said.
The Premier, Mike Baird, is encouraging Sydney and NSW residents to attend Anzac Day services across the state, despite the overnight arrest of a teenager on terrorism-related charges.

"My strong encouragement is if you are intending to go, go," said Mr Baird, speaking after the traditional dawn service at Martin Place on Monday.

"This is a day where we should be out there commemorating such a proud day of our history," he said.

"And even if you are not thinking of going, really try to go to a ceremony, because it is such an important part of who we are."
A NSW Labor MP has been forced to apologise for "incorrectly" wearing an official army badge the military says was not actually issued while he was serving.

But questions remain as to how Prospect MP Hugh McDermott came to possess the badge, which is worn by army members to indicate their readiness to be deployed.

Dr McDermott  who between 1985 and 1994 was in the Army Reserve and also seconded to full-time service  says he has been wearing the Australian Individual Readiness Notice (AIRN) badge "for years".
All things going well, 41 of Australia's most recent casualties of war will be honoured at the highest place on Earth this Anzac Day.

Australian Walking Wounded chief executive Brian Freeman has embarked on a trek to the summit of Mount Everest to honour 41 fallen soldiers who died in Afghanistan.

Walking wounded chief executive Brian Freeman (right) during 2015's aborted attempt to climb Mount Everest.

It is not his first attempt  an avalanche halted his progress in 2014 as he tried to reach Everest's summit.

Another avalanche, this one caused by the devastating 2015 Nepal earthquake, thundered down the 8848-metre mountain last year.
The soldier recalled in his letters to his mother the horrific weeks after landing at Gallipoli. "The first week, or ten days was wholesale slaughter," he wrote. "I've bandaged and carried to safety dozens of men horribly wounded, every time an attack is on. "It's pure luck if a man doesn't get killed in this war, if he sticks long enough at the front." Life of military service

The fair-haired, blue-eyed soldier was in his mid-30s by the time he landed in Gallipoli in 1915, having began his life in military service at just 18 when he'd travelled from his hometown in England to join the mounted police in Africa. Ms Curran said her father had joined the New Zealand Engineers in 1915 after operating in the Canadian army and was a "seasoned soldier" willing to do "what had to be done". "He knew they were going into action straight away and he wanted to be part of the action and the Canadian army were sitting there not moving at the time," she said. "By that time he wasn't a young bloke, he knew what he had to do, that was the sort of attitude he had." During his time in Gallipoli he wrote to his mother many times, describing the harsh realities of war.

"It's a mass of graves, cess pits, dug outs and saps or trenches, there is no shade," he wrote. "Water is very scarce and dirty. Most of my comrades are wounded or dead. "I've been scratched by bullets and bombs and hit by shrapnel, but never serious enough to mention. "I saw the good ship Triumph go down and she actually fired shots as she rolled over." After suffering a back injury, he was sent to Egypt to recover but returned to Gallipoli soon after to continue the fight for another six months, knowing exactly what he was being sent back into.

By the end of 1915, the dedicated sapper sent his final letter home to his mother. "I have just heard good news that Acki Baba is taken.There will be dirty work yet. We have grand weather. Goodbye dear Mother until I write again.Tell Dad I'm doing my best. Good luck to Dad. Your loving son, Alan," he wrote. Life after Gallipoli On returning to England the "inspirational", adventurous man fell in love with a telegraphist and had two little girls, Ms Curran and her older sister Connie. "They met on walking parties as they did in those days and she fell for this massively exciting young man," Ms Curran said.

"At that time all my father wanted to do was settle down in a little hamlet in Hampshire and grow food for themselves and have chickens. "I started my life in that lovely little place." Ms Curran spoke fondly of her childhood, filled with exotic songs and dances from her father's time in Africa. "We were very close, him and I. My older sister never had the same rapport with him as I did," she said. "We both loved theatrical things, he seemed to appreciate everything we did, he was an exciting man, a great father.

"He used to dance his Zulu dancing, he was wonderfully entertaining. "He learnt the Zulu language, he used to sing that to me as a child, he taught me all the Zulu phrases and pranced around, you can imagine a childhood like that, it was a bit exciting." Effects of the war While her younger years were filled with love and laughter, Ms Curran said the effects of the war on her father were apparent. "His family said he was a different person, he wasn't the same happy, lively, joking person as he had been as a young man, he was serious and sometimes angry," she said.

"I didn't know him before, I only knew him after he had come back but his sisters in his letters to him said they loved him but he wasn't the same man. "He realised what a terrible mistake it all was, the Turks were good people, he was fighting someone else's family and being older than the others he was aware of how terrible it all was. "We didn't have many conversations about that." Last days Ms Curran ventured out to Sydney in her early 20s and settled down, "I thought 'I am not going home", I was a bit like my father", and her father and mother eventually came out to Australia and settled in Maryborough where they lived out the rest of their days.

"What he died from was a chest complaint, he was only 85, I say only, because our family usually lives to a very late age but he had so many injuries, had been left for dead so many times, it is a wonder he survived as long as he did. "It gave him eight more years coming to Australia because of the sun, he wanted the sun like it was in Africa." "He would have helped the young ones" Ms Curran said she wasn't surprised by what was described in her father's letters. "I knew about those things because I had heard from other people who had been in similar situations, it wasn't a surprise, but I knew he would have coped very well," she said.
Every Sunday at 1pm three women meet in Brisbane's CBD, just a few doors from where they worked together for more than 20 years, for a catch up.

Annette Martin, 77 and Wilhelmina Krista, 90, drink cappuccinos while Peggy Groom, 90, sips english breakfast tea as they chat about the old days working at the Shingle Inn on Edward Street, a bustling restaurant that helped forge their decades-long friendship.

Wilhelmina Krista, 90, Peggy Groom, 90 and Annette Martin, 77 have been meeting every Sunday for more than 20 years. Credit:Amy Mitchell-Whittington

As Shingle Inn celebrates it's 80th anniversary this year, these three women celebrate the decades of work, laughter and love they have shared with each other.

The youngest of the group, Ms Martin worked at the Shingle Inn for 34 years catching the bus in every morning from Stafford to start baking the fruit cakes, sponges and patty cakes the English-style teahouse and restaurant was renowned for.
Five teenagers suspected of being Apex gang members have been arrested after a series of violent home invasions and car thefts in Melbourne

The youths, aged between 16 and 19, were arrested on Saturday night, though two of them have since been released without charge.

The arrests came after two homes in Ormond and Brighton East were broken into during the early hours of Saturday morning, a police spokeswoman said.

Residents at both homes were then allegedly assaulted by a group of men. In Ormond, a house of six international students was targeted.

The occupants were left battered and bruised after the violent home invasion.
Bunurong Memorial Park started in 1995, and for two decades sat as a small cemetery and crematorium in Dandenong South.

But a new, sprawling memorial park in Melbourne's south-east is attempting to transform how Melbourne views the places we bury our dead.

Jane Grover, chief executive of Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust, at the new Bunurong Memorial Park in Dandenong South. Credit:Joe Armao

The memorial park's playground. Credit:Joe Armao

Now, it is something much bigger  and something the city hasn't seen the likes of before.

"There is a change of narrative here  cemeteries are for the dead and memorial parks are for the living, and the families. They need to not be relics of the past," said Jane Grover as she trekked around Bunurong's newly completed 101 hectares.

As she walked, Ms Grover, chief executive of the Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust, pointed out the park's many features  running and walking tracks, playground, barbecue area, parklands, function rooms and a welcoming cafe.

The trust wants to turn the cemetery away from being simply somewhere a deceased person is memorialised to a community parkland where loved ones are remembered by families, among a range of other activities  some completely unrelated to death including weddings and business functions.
The father of Victoria's Premier Daniel Andrews has died after a "brave and painful" battle with cancer at the age of 65.

Bob Andrews' fight with cancer became public in 2014 as his son took on the Coalition government in the election.

Premier Daniel Andrews' with his father Bob, who died on Sunday. Credit:Eddie Jim

In a statement, Daniel Andrews said "after a brave and painful battle with cancer, my father Bob Andrews passed away this afternoon".

"Bob is gone too soon but leaves many lives enriched by his hard work and generous spirit," the Premier said.
A mother whose child attends the North Perth vacation care centre that saw two children allegedly abducted and sexually assaulted last week has appealed for an end to the blame game aimed at parents behind the community venue.

She posted on Facebook she was "shocked, but sadly not surprised" at the public vitriol that had been directed at the community organisation.

Chilling vision of the man accused of the crime in North Perth.

"It seems that an unfair amount of anger is being mis-directed at a group of committed people who were doing their job in the best way they thought possible," she said.

"These are good people who were either dedicated to a career caring for other people's children, or already had busy careers, but were prepared to step up and volunteer their own time to help run a service for their community and children."
A Perth student shot in New Orleans has been released from hospital.

Toben Clements, 21, and his friend Jake Rovacsek, 23, were shot in the chest and stomach in a suburb of New Orleans earlier this month in what police believe was a botched drug deal. They were on a holiday following the Intercollegiate Mining Games in Montana.

Jake Kovascek (left) and Toben Clements were the victims of a shooting in New Orleans. Credit:Facebook

Curtin University vice-chancellor Deborah Terry said on Friday one of the students had been discharged from hospital, but did not identify which one.

The other student remains in hospital, with his family by his side.
Gallipoli Peninsula: Veterans' Affairs Minister Dan Tehan has denied that security concerns were behind a decision to drop a Lone Pine service from Anzac Day commemorations at Gallipoli from this year on.

He has also rejected claims that concerns about hygiene and lack of facilities at last year's Lone Pine event were a factor in the decision.

Speaking on Sunday after laying a wreath at the Lone Pine memorial, Mr Tehan said that following a review of last year's centenary commemorations at Gallipoli, it was decided to shift the Lone Pine service to August 6 each year.
Washington: In September 2009, after a northern summer of warm weather and dwindling ice, a young polar bear slipped into the frigid waters of the Beaufort Sea and began to swim.

She didn't stop for food or rest until nine days later, when she finally encountered a slab of sea ice large enough to sustain her. The journey was some 400 kilometres.

That female polar bear was one of more than 100 monitored by biologist Andrew Derocher, a researcher at the University of Alberta who spent six years tracking bears in the waters off the northern coasts of Alaska and Canada.

He found that, as sea ice in those areas fractured and melted away, the bears were making longer and longer swims across the open ocean - journeys that taxed their already limited resources and proved perilous to vulnerable cubs.
Columbus, Ohio: Three marijuana growing operations were found on the premises of at least one of the homes where eight members of the same family were killed in a small town in southern Ohio last week, according to police.

Eight members of the Rhoden family between the ages of 16 and 44 were killed in four homes in Piketon, Ohio, in what Attorney General Mike DeWine called a "pre-planned execution" at a news conference on Sunday.

One of the victims, a woman, was killed while she slept as her 4-day-old baby lay, unharmed, in the same room, law enforcement officials said.
After the city government on Saturday told the high court cab aggregators Ola and Uber were operating "illegally" and assured action was being taken by its transport department, sources in these companies said that they would only apply for licence after the government comes out with its proposed cab aggregator scheme.

The past few weeks have been rough for both companies, dodging fire from almost all corners.

From the Karnataka government putting a cap on their 'surge' pricing to the Delhi chief minister banning it completely and impounding vehicles on the platform, the two companies have been left gasping.

The Delhi government wanted these two aggregators to register under its radio taxi scheme, which these companies have not agreed to. They have categorically said they would wait for the state transport ministry to come out with the cab aggregator scheme.

"We agree that at present we are unlicensed but this is because we are waiting for the city government to come out with new scheme. Why should we register under the radio taxi scheme, which is clearly not our business or operation model? We have been in touch with the government and expressed this," said a senior executive at Uber.

The Union transport ministry had earlier said it would bring out a cab aggregator scheme which state governments could follow. However, nothing has happened.

With 'surge' pricing down, both Ola and Uber are pushing customers to use their car-pooling services. Since the government banned surge pricing, the waiting time for their cabs has gone up to almost 40 minutes from an average of five minutes.

"Given the restrictions on car usage, we've seen a record number of requests for rides over the past few days, and we've added an unprecedented number of cars to meet that increased demand. Usually when the demand for Uber spikes, prices increase - just as air fares go up when demand for flights is high.

By paying drivers more at the busiest times, Uber can ensure passengers always get a ride within minutes. While surge pricing is off in Delhi during the odd-even scheme phase, we'd ask you to bear with us if your car takes longer than usual. And, when you do need to get around the city, please use uberPOOL wherever possible," Uber said in an e-mail to customers soon after the senior management met the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and transport minister Gopal Rai.

Till now, the state transport department has impounded as many as 75 vehicles belonging to both aggregators, even after the two companies had stopped surge pricing on their platform. "We do not know why they are impounding the vehicles. We have stopped the surge but the transport department is giving us reasons like the drivers do not have a licence and other requisite permissions. We will look at each challan and then approach the authorities," said one of the cab aggregators.

In Karnataka too, things have not been smooth for these operators. While Ola and Uber will now register with the transport department under the Karnataka On-demand Transportation Technology Aggregators Rules, 2016, the companies have a host of other concerns.

The companies have issues around rules such as the compulsory fixing of a digital meter, giving a hard copy of the bill, mentioning in big letters - taxi - and the cap on surge pricing.

The Karnataka Transport Department has said complaints of charging rate higher than Rs 19.5 will result in action against the aggregator.

"The licence can be suspended for a minimum of 30 days and a maximum of six months if it is found to have violated any rule, or if the complainant's claim is found to be true. A criminal complaint filed against the company or an employee," the department said.
American giant Walmart wants policy clarity for the entire retail sector before expanding its India business, as it's keen to become the leader in both physical and online spaces.

The $482-billion group, which operates chains of hypermarkets, discount department stores and grocery stores, has its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, US.

It entered India in 2006, with the aim of tapping the promising consumer market through multi-brand retail. But, till now, policy restrictions have been a hurdle.

E-commerce is another focus area for the company, which aims to grow internationally in it. But, Walmart has encountered regulatory hurdles there, too, as foreign investment is not permitted in this segment in India.

At present, it operates only in the cash-and-carry space with 21 stores in nine states, of which the last one was opened in Agra in August last year.

But, the company claims it is in India for the long haul - unlike French chain Carrefour, which exited the country in 2014.

Sources, however, said the American giant had kept its expansion plans on hold because of ambiguities in policy.

At a time when Chinese e-commerce major Alibaba is planning a direct entry into India, Walmart is unlikely to be happy with only a small share in the $600-billion (about Rs 40 lakh crore) retail sector in the country, said sources.

The Chinese group - a rival of Walmart - recently announced that its gross merchandise volume (GMV), the sum of the value of goods sold on a platform, was $463.6 billion. It claimed it had surpassed Walmart's numbers, though it is yet to announce its last quarter result.

In 2015, Walmart recorded revenue of $482 billion; its Chinese challenger could touch $490 billion by the end of the financial year 2015-16, claim analysts.

Asked if Walmart was planning to go slow in India, Iyer said the retail chain plans to open 49 more such stores by 2020, and was "well on track" to meet the target.

He also cited the National Democratic Alliance government's focus on "ease of doing business" as an encouraging step, when asked if policy ambiguity was a hurdle for the expansion plans of the company.

"We are encouraged by a positive and supportive environment in the country," said Iyer, adding the Make in India initiative was a "comprehensive and unprecedented overhaul of dated processes and policies. It represents a complete change of the government."



He also discussed the "minimum government, maximum governance" initiative and described the decision to allow 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in marketing of food products produced in India as "very progressive".

Iyer emphasised that Walmart's plans in India are all on track. "Walmart has signed MoUs with Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab and Haryana, and our team is working on identifying sites all over India."



Asked about the number of stores Walmart plans to open in India in 2016, Iyer said: "We are currently building a pipeline and we have signed term-sheets for stores in various cities around the country. It takes about 30 months to open a store."



He added: "We look at the Indian market with a long-term commitment."



So, is Walmart planning to enter e-commerce through the marketplace model, followed by Amazon India, Flipkart and Snapdeal, among others?



"At present, we don't have any plans to start a marketplace. We continue to study the developments in the regulatory space in this area," said Iyer.

On plans for multi-brand retail, the one category that Walmart had aimed to be a market leader in right from the beginning, Iyer said, "India is a long-term commitment for Walmart and we are continuously growing our B2B cash-and-carry business in the country."



He added the group "continues to study the developments in the regulatory space and at present there are no plans on multi-brand front."



The preceding United Progressive Alliance government had permitted 51 per cent FDI in multi-brand retail in 2012, with the condition that each state would decide whether or not to have foreign stores and that 30 per cent of sourcing must be done from India.

The current NDA government is opposed to any FDI in multi-brand, because of the fears of local retailers that many thousand jobs may be lost if foreign chains such as Walmart were to enter.

But, the government has not made any change in the multi-brand rules on paper yet. The only international chain operating multi-brand stores in India is UK's Tesco, in a tie-up with Tata group's Trent.

THE JOURNEY SO FAR

2007

Formed a joint venture with the Bharti group to run cash-and-carry business and give back-end support to Bharti's retail



Formed a joint venture with the Bharti group to run cash-and-carry business and give back-end support to Bharti's retail 2009

First Walmart-Bharti outlet, Best Price Modern Wholesale, opened in Amritsar



First Walmart-Bharti outlet, Best Price Modern Wholesale, opened in Amritsar 2013

Joint venture between Walmart and Bharti called off



Joint venture between Walmart and Bharti called off 2015

After a gap of 4 years, the group opens a store in Agra in August



Expansion freeze and internal probe to check if its unit had flouted anti-bribery laws



After a gap of 4 years, the group opens a store in Agra in August Expansion freeze and internal probe to check if its unit had flouted anti-bribery laws 2016

India investment is about Rs 2,500 crore

Since entering India in 2006, Walmart has opened 21 cash-and-carry stores in nine states:
Rising health care costs are a worry across the country. Patients want to pay for good diagnosis, advise and treatment; not for frills. RATAN JALAN, former CEO of Apollo Hospital who also created the Apollo Clinics and the Cradle, argues that good health care can be kept affordable if the hospitals so desire. The IIT-Kharagpur and Harvard Business School alumnus now runs a boutique health care consulting firm out of Hyderabad. Edited excerpts of a chat with Anjuli Bhargava:



How can hospitals try to keep their costs lower?

Hospitals need to ask themselves what cost elements can we remove without compromising on quality or losing a single customer. We rarely come across hospitals with an impressive cost containment strategy.

A lot of hospitals, for instance, still choose to own rather than lease space despite the high cost of real estate and investor's preference for asset light models. This doesn't really make sense as you don't get valued for what you invest in land and building. Moreover hospitals opting for large-scale replication should be able to achieve significant economy of scale, both in terms of project cost and operational expenditure.

Hospitals need to focus on ensuring high utilisation of capital-intensive assets. An expensive resource like the operation theatre complex for instance doesnt get used for more than 50 hours per week. Its the same with some high-end diagnostic equipment that hospitals procure but dont end up using optimally. Outsourcing some of the non-core services can also work well.

Aravind Eye Hospitals  a not for profit entity  has been one exception. It has a no frills infrastructure and focuses on process efficiencies. As a result, it manages to generate surplus despite offering free care to almost half its patients and at cost to another 20%. It set up an in house intraocular lens manufacturing facility of global standard to ensure significant savings in material cost.

Medanta Medicity in Gurgaon leveraged outsourcing options  they tied up with Guardian for their pharmacy operations. Some others have outsourced diagnostics and at times services like dialysis, ophthalmology or even the entire gamut of oncology services. More hospitals need to explore such options.

How can hospitals try to keep things simple on the premise that complexity adds to costs?

In healthcare, complexity seems to have become the norm. It reaches its peak more because a hospital typically aims to treat every possible ailment or organ and does that for patients from almost any income segment. I have rarely come across hospitals rationalising services or simplifying the frustrating maze of procedures a patient or his relatives go through. Even a simple outpatient visit, which may involve a physician consultation, a couple of diagnostic tests and buying some medicines, a patient, to his utter frustration, is required to make multiple visits to different cash counters and service counters and often without much guidance. A patient who is already stressed suffers even more.

Have you ever wondered why hospitals still take four hours, on an average, to discharge patients? Hospitals dealing with limited specialties or patient segments tend to fare a lot better since they are able to provide higher quality services and that too, at a lower cost.

You argue that hospitals need to drive infection control the way an airline looks at on-time performance...how and why?

Infection control is one of the many things. You'd be surprised at how many patients catch new infections while in hospital. Hospital acquired infections impact over 10% of inpatients even in the best hospitals. It is a critical issue. A hospital could pick infection control as Indigo picked on time performance as a key differentiator.

Such an exercise involves hundreds of small and big steps. Becton Dickson, a globally known medical technology firm, has launched a programme called SAFE-I to provide support to hospitals  especially smaller ones  to improve their infection control practices. The point I am making is that one needs to be fanatical about it and if one does that it can make a remarkable difference. There could be a host of other examples: waiting time, discharge process, overall hygiene and cleanliness, quality of nursing care.

Another thing hospitals fail to focus on is people...and in my view people come first.

When you say people come first...what do you mean?

Two things. One, nothing is more damaging to an organisation than frequent changes in the people, particularly at senior levels. At virtually every big name hospital chain, CEOs, particularly at the group level, have changed almost as frequently as chief ministers in Jharkhand! The average duration of CEOs is probably less than two years. This is mainly in my view because of no clear delineation of the roles between the professionals and the promoter.

I can think of only two hospitals  Wockhardt (in its earlier avatar) and Columbia Asia Hospitals  where the CEOs have had pretty long stints and it shows in their unique culture.

Second, most hospitals do not focus on aspects like career planning, objective appraisals, continuous learning and so on. Theres more lip service. Typically, you have physicians who fight their own battles about how they get discriminated (versus the so-called stars), dont get paid enough or don't get the support they want. Then there is the non-clinical staff who feel marginalised when compared to physicians.
To tap the business opportunities that the proposed payments banks will bring in, Finnish communications and information technology company Nokia plans to offer back-end support to these. The company is in talks with some of these banks and is hopeful of bagging a couple of projects.

Nokia proposes to offer solutions around data, security applications and analytics, to handle the large number of small transactions via these banks. In August last year, 11 firms got the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)'s in-principle approval to set up payments banks. Of these, Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company opted out in March. The other 10 are a Reliance-SBI combine; Aditya Birla Nuvo (Idea Cellular); Airtel; Vodafone; Department of Posts; FINO PayTech; Tech Mahindra; National Securities Depository Limited; Paytm; and Dilip Shantilal Shanghvi. Osvaldo H Di Campli, president (global enterprise and public sector) at Nokia, said while the company is still analysing the payments banks business, it is interested in being part of various projects. "We have a team in India, which is part of the global initiative and we are organised by segments and people are already engaged in discussions."

"Mainly we are addressing the needs of data centres to be automated. Most of the data centres today use legacy technology, so that is the best and first solution we will bring to the market. Nokia is looking at the whole enterprise segments. We are in discussions with the various players in the segment," he added. Nokia has been trying to branch out into various other areas in India to expand its footprint in the country. It is also going all out to showcase its Internet of Things-based products, so that it can be seen as a serious contender once the government starts the tendering process for its smart city projects.

The company plans to come out with a host of solutions for smart cities such as smart metering, active waste management, smart parking and various other sensor technology-enabled products.

In the banking space, Nokia is already working with a host of international players and has the technical knowhow that payment banks would need to reinforce their backend processes. "In the banking space, we are going after data centre automation and how to connect different branches of the bank. The complexity that we have in a bank today is very high. We are trying to provide simplification to the way that bank branches function. We have been working with various international banks," added Di Campli.

Nokia is currently working in four non-telecom areas - providing various technology-based solutions for transportation (highways, railways); energy (oil & gas, mining, utilities); public sector (defence, public safety, smart government); and large enterprises. It also helps them with cloud-based initiatives.
Power sector players have joined hands to form a Forum of Distribution Utilities (FDU) to represent the issues faced by them with central and state governments and regulatory authorities.



FDU, which will comprise both state and private distribution utilities, will function as a platform to share best practices in the power sector, exchange experiences on technology upgradation processes, efficiency improvement, solutions for operational issues, facilitate interaction with academia and research institutions, development of standards and capacity building.



Recently, former secretary of Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion Ajay Mathur, former chairman of PowerGrid Corporation R N Nayak, former chairman Central Electricity Authority Rakesh Nath and TERI director general Ajay Mathur made a presentation to the forum of regulators (FOR) and made a plead to facilitate hand holding to FDU. Besides, they also requested FOR to provide support in the form of its intellectual inputs, guidance and base corpus of Rs 30 lakh for initiating the activities.



An FDU proponent, who did not want to be identified, told Business Standard, Since the enactment of the Electricity Act, 2003, the generation and transmission sectors have witnessed significant growth. After unbundling, there are around 60 distribution companies in the country, but most of them remained state-owned except in a few pockets, including Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Surat and Kolkata. Despite distribution being a regulated business, with 15.5-16 per ent return on equity, state-owned discoms have not fared well. Only private entities stood profitable.



This apart, the efforts made through distribution franchise model have not succeeded given the paucity of funds for capital expenditure.



He argued that the establishment of FDU is important as the cumulative losses among all state-owned discoms is worth Rs 3.80 lakh crore (as on March 15, 2015) with an aggregate debt of Rs 4.83 lakh crore. The average loss per annum is Rs 60,000-70,000 crore and 90 per cent of the losses are in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Harayana, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand. Further, losses in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are estimated at Rs 15,000-16,000 crore per state per annum.



A Power ministry official said the poor performance of distribution utilities is due to high aggregate transmission and commercial losses (AT&C) (more than 30 per ent), over 50 per ent gap in supply cost and revenue realization, poor financial and operational management of the discoms, poor distribution network infrastructure, lack of metering and poor maintenance leading to breakdowns.
Chief Justice of India (CJI) T S Thakur broke down at a meeting in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday, speaking emotionally at the governments inaction in increasing the number of judges from the present 21,000 to 40,000 to handle the avalanche of litigation, saying, You cannot shift the entire burden on the judiciary. Nothing has moved since 1987 when the Law Commission had recommended increase in the number of judges from then 10 judges per 10 lakh people to 50, an unusually emotional Thakur said while wiping his eyes.

Read more from our special coverage on "NARENDRA MODI"

WATCH: Chief Justice of India TS Thakur breaks down during his speech at Jt conference of CMs and CJ of HCs in Delhihttps://t.co/xD1tro8rmX  ANI (@ANI_news) April 24, 2016

Then comes inaction by the government as the increase (in the strength of judges) does not take place, he said in a choked voice while addressing the inaugural session of the Joint Conference of Chief Ministers and CJIs of high courts here, the CJI said as the PM heard him in rapt attention.Modi, who was not slated to speak in the schedule of the programme circulated by the law ministry, said I can understand his(CJI's) pain as a lot of time has lapsed since 1987. Whatever has been the compulsions, but its better to be late than never. We will do better in the future. Let us see how to move forward by reducing the burden of the past.He said if constitutional barriers do not create any problems, then top ministers and senior SC judges can sit together to find a solution to the issue.Jab jaago tab savera (better late than never), Modi said, referring to the issues flagged by the CJI.The Bihar government also made a strong pitch for reservations to other backward classes in the lower judiciary saying a different yardstick should not be applied to it in the issue as a number of states already have provisions for quota for the backward classes in lower courts and government services.The state government has taken positive steps to provide reservation to backward classes in lower judiciary but the High Court (Patna) has not given its consent, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said in his written speech.The CJI said following the Law Commission's recommendation, the Supreme Court in 2002 had also supported increasing the strength of the judiciary. A Parliamentary Department Related Standing Committee on Law then headed by Pranab Mukherjee had also recommended taking the judge to people ratio to 50 from 10.As of today, the judge to people ratio stands at 15 judges to 1 million people which is way less than as compared to the US, Australia, the UK and Canada.The CJI also spoke of the "tug-of-war" that goes on between the Centre and the states over funding, infrastructure and other issues.The CJI said while the central government has maintained that it is committed to help the judiciary, it is the duty of the state governments to improve the infrastructure and increase the manpower.The states, he noted, want the Centre to provide funds for the purpose. "While the tug-of-war goes on, strength of judges remains where it is...five crore cases were processed and two crore were disposed.

But there is a limit to the capacity of the performance of judges," the CJI said. The courts have drawn flak for the mounting pendency of cases with litigants at their wit's end owing to repeated adjournments and rising costs. The Chief Justice said, "In 1987, the requirement was 40,000 judges. From 1987 till now, we have added 25 crore in terms of population. We have grown into one of the fastest growing economies of the world, we are inviting foreign direct investment into the country, we want people to come and make in India, we want people to come and invest in India. Those whom we are inviting are also concerned about the ability of the judicial system in the country to deal with cases and disputes that arise out of such investments. Efficacy of the judicial system is so vitally connected with the development," he said, referring to Modi government's 'Make in India' and 'Ease of doing business' campaigns. Justice Thakur said from a munsif to a Supreme Court judge, the average disposal in India is 2,600 cases per annum as compared to 81 cases per annum in the United States. "Old wine in a new bottle will not serve the purpose," he said, adding that an "emotional appeal" made by him "may work" in getting the government take note of the problems being faced by the judiciary.
Student leader has alleged that a man tried to strangulate him inside the aircraft of his Pune-bound flight on Sunday.

In a series of tweets, the JNU Student Union (JNUSU) President said that he was on a Jet Airways Mumbai-Pune flight where the incident is said to have taken place. He has alleged that the man, identified as Manas Deka, a TCS employee and a BJP supporter, tried to strangulate him.

Yet again, this time inside the aircraft, a man tries to strangulate me.  (@kanhaiyajnusu) April 24, 2016

Manas Deka, works in TCS, a strong BJP supporter assaulted me inside the aircraft. Is assault the only tool you have, to fight dissent?  (@kanhaiyajnusu) April 24, 2016

After the incident @jetairways staff completely refuses to take any action against the man who assaulted me.  Kanhaiya Kumar (@kanhaiyajnusu) April 24, 2016

Basically @jetairways sees no difference between someone who assaults nd d person who is assaulted. They will deplane you, if you complain.  Kanhaiya Kumar (@kanhaiyajnusu) April 24, 2016

Following the incident, the airline deplaned both Kumar and the alleged attacker, Kumar tweeted.



Jet Airways, in a statement, said that the passengers on the said flight were deplaned in the interest of operational safety.

Jet Airways Official Statement: pic.twitter.com/phSMR4TuoX  Jet Airways (@jetairways) April 24, 2016

Meanwhile, The Indian Express reported that the alleged attacker, identified as Manas Jyoti, has been detained by the Mumbai Police at the airport.
Last month, India and France signed a deal to make what could become the world's biggest nuclear park, with six European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) of 1,650 Mw each in Maharashtra. EDF, France's public electricity producer and supplier, now leads the negotiations. However, EPR is also facing problems. Pierre-Franck Chevet, head of the Nuclear Safety Authority in France, called ASN, speaks to Noopur Tiwari. Edited excerpts.

You said nuclear safety & security in France was worrying. Why?



There is a risk that in the years to come, if financial difficulties persist, businesses would be tempted to not undertake or delay investments related to safety.

The anomalies in the nuclear plant at Flamanville in France were discovered by whom?



They were essentially discovered because we at ASN had insisted on additional tests. There was reluctance (from the companies) but we finally got them to do these tests, the anomalies were found.

If we know we have had an anomaly, you can ensure that Indians do not repeat the mistake. For Flamanville, yes, there is a serious anomaly, an excess of carbon in the metal and it could render the pressure vessel, which ought to be very resistant, more fragile. We have asked for many more tests and these will be done only by end-2016. Then, ASN will take some months to analyse and take a stand.

Are there chances that the reactor might have to be rebuilt from scratch?



It's possible. For the moment, we don't know. EDF and Areva (the entities involved) have to study the possibilities in terms of solutions.

Will it be hard to determine if the problem is with the design or with the construction and whether these are linked? Shouldn't India wait more?



No, it's not a problem of design. But, yes, the EPR has had problems with all constructions. We even had problems related to cement and we stopped construction until the problem was fixed. There is an enormous amount of technical work. Everything needs to be tested for quality, from manufacturers to service providers. The stakes are huge. The Indian authorities should make the same moves as we have done at ASN. It's their responsibility. We can help once the reactors are bought.

Who should be held responsible in case of an accident? We have had issues of civil liability in the past in India, with Bhopal in 1984. The law puts the onus on equipment suppliers. But, for the French EPRs in India we have a 'Make in India' push. This will confuse matters.



The responsibility is first and foremost with the nuclear operator. Whether it's the design, construction or anything else. In India, it would be the NPCIL (government-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India). It's for them to make sure every thing is in order and their first responsibility is towards safety, towards people.

Back in India, the autonomy of the AERB (Atomic Energy Regulatory Board) had been questioned by some. How important is the independence of any nuclear safety regulatory authority?

Extremely essential. ASN (French Nuclear Safety Authority) was created in 2006 by a law as independent from all stakeholders--- especially from the government, the operators, and even the NGOs. By law, ASN is answerable only to the Parliament and to the people. Our role is to look into safety; not to be pro- or anti-nuclear.
Capital Small Finance Bank, India's first small finance bank, was launched here on Sunday. It opened 10 new branches on its inaugural day.

The Jalandhar-headquartered bank had been operating as Capital Local Area Bank since January 2000 with 47 branches in five districts of Punjab.

It is among the 10 entities that were given the in-principle approval by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to set up small finance banks.

While inaugurating the bank, Nirmal Chand, regional director of RBI, Chandigarh, said it was a historic day for the banking sector in India as it would be reckoned as a day when small finance banks were introduced into the banking system.

"We have regional rural banks, cooperative banks and other small entities, besides a giant network of public and private sector banks. But, there is a huge void in the banking sector," he said.

Chand noted that India has seven branches per 100,000 population compared with 40 branches per 100,000 population in developed countries. According to him, this gap can be bridged by small finance banks.

"The financial inclusion aims to have one bank account per member of the family. But, there are many families those have adult members without a bank account. Cent per cent financial literacy means one bank account per adult. Small banks can tap this population. Independent studies have revealed that around 90 per cent of the micro and small businesses have no access to the formal mainstream financial institutions. Since their ticket size is small, these banks can bring micro and small entrepreneurs into their fold," Chand added.

Sarvjit Singh Samra, managing director of Capital Small Finance Bank, said the bank's transition from a local area bank into a small finance bank has removed the geographical barrier of expansion.

Earlier, the lender's operations were restricted to five districts in the state - Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala, Amritsar and Ludhiana. Now, the lender can expand in any part of the country.

Samra, however, plans to grow in a phased manner. In the current financial year, the bank would consolidate its in Punjab by adding 29 branches. Out of this, 10 were opened on Sunday.

The bank's business is projected to increase four-fold from Rs 3,000 crore as on March 31, 2016 to Rs 12,000 crore and branch network to 216 by March 2021.

Samra said that under RBI's statutory guidelines, small finance banks should lend at least 50 per cent of their loans to an average ticket size of below Rs 25 lakh. For Capital Small Finance Bank, exposure to small ticket borrowers is 60 per cent, he added. The bank's priority-sector lending, too, is higher at 79 per cent of total advances against the RBI norm of 75 per cent.

Being the only bank with seven-day operations in rural areas, Capital Small Finance Bank expects to achieve its targets as planned.

FAST FACTS ABOUT THE BANK
The 12th round of negotiation for a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), started from this Friday at Perth, Australia, is expected to pit India further against developed countries like Australia, Japan and South Korea.

RCEP is a proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) bloc and the six states with which they have existing FTAs - Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand. Negotiations formally began in November 2012 at the Asean summit in Cambodia.

The said differences are over reduction in tariff rates on goods and market access in agriculture and services. India has gradually professed to more liberalisation in these segments but the developed countries feel our tariff rates are too high, a source in the commerce ministry said. The Indian delegation to the negotiations is led by minister of commerce and industry Nirmala Sitharaman.

India has offered to allow Asean countries, with which it already has an FTA, the most market access, eliminating tariffs on 80 per cent of all items. For Japan and South Korea, it has offered to open 65 per cent of its product space.

Australia, New Zealand and China get less preference. The government is proposing to eliminate duties on only 42.5 per cent of products, said the source. This was after Australia agreed to reduce tariffs by 80 per cent and New Zealand by 65 per cent.

Under an FTA, tariffs on most products traded between countries are either eliminated or reduced sharply, to a zero-duty regime, in phases. The commerce ministry says in our defence: "India was one of the first countries to have submitted its offers on goods, services and investments, in line with the RCEP ministerial mandate, even before the earlier round." The government also noted India's initial offer had been acceptable to most members, whereas other countries are still to offer better terms.

However, others feel RCEP leaves a lot of underlying issues hanging, as is evident from the agreement draft which has eight chapters compared to the much more comprehensive TPP's 30.

The business community is wondering how difficult it will be to tap into the Asean markets, where China already has a big presence. India's total exports to Asean was $31 billion in 2014-15, the last complete year for which data is available. This was 10.2 per cent of the country's total exports.

Many are also worried on how India will manage to secure business amidst intense competition with foreign companies. The government has repeatedly called for better competitiveness, warning that the pharmaceutical and textile sectors, for instance, will be affected.

An official from the Confederation of Indian Industry said the business community needs to be convinced on why the government was going forward with RCEP when repeated calls were being made to review India's existing FTAs. "Domestic industry feels our existing FTAs have benefited partner countries more than us," he said, requesting anonymity.

Trade unions, farmer and other bodies are also worried over how small & medium enterprises, as well as the agriculture and dairy sectors, would cope; Australia, New Zealand and Japan have a big presence in these. In fact, these nations have continued to ask for deeper access to India's agricultural markets, while, goes the complaint, continuing to subsidise their own farmers.
It now transpires that trade unions (TUs), up in arms last week against the governments earlier proposal of restricting withdrawal from an employees provident fund (PF) account, did a volte face.

In earlier consultations, the records show, they went along with the proposal. The labour ministry had conducted multiple stakeholder meetings to discuss the issues concerned before proceeding.

Contrary to their present versions, all the four major TUs  BMS, INTUC, AITUC and CITU  participated and the decision was taken after their consent. Business Standard has reviewed a copy of the minutes in this regard.

All the members are in favour of the proposal for restricting withdrawal from the Provident Fund by the members, the document shows. All top union leaders across the political spectrum were present.

Raman Pandey, president of INTUC, is recorded as having welcomed the move and stated that PF is meant for future contingencies. If premature withdrawals are allowed, the very purpose of PF will be defeated, he said at the meeting.

A K Padmanabhan, president of CITU, expresses his agreement and suggested awareness camps be organised by the Employees PF Organisation for enlightening the members on the benefits of such a restriction.

When asked to explain, D L Sachdeva, national secretary, AITUC, now accuses the government of spreading misinformation and said the curb on withdrawal was taken unilaterally. You are forcing someone to keep his money with you. Then, why not give some extra benefit for retaining this amount? he said.

The government now says it sees vested political interests behind the protests that erupted among garment workers in Bengaluru, which led to the decision being rolled back. On April 19, the government rolled back the notification of February 10, after these and other violent protests across the country.

The notification had restricted withdrawal of the employers contribution, 3.7 per cent of basic wages, to a PF account till the age of 58 years.

According to a ministry official, theyd decided to put certain curbs because a study by the retirement fund body found eight per cent of claims were for premature withdrawal. So many accounts were turning non-operative. Hence, we decided to provide interest on non-operative accounts, said the official. By an estimate, about Rs 30,000 crore was stuck in such accounts.

The ministry accepts that there was a communication gap with workers and steps will be taken by the government in future to explain any decision.

Central provident fund commissioner V P Joy, in an internal meeting after the decision to roll back the proposal, makes the same point, that communication need to be more effective.

THE STORY SO FAR
Capital Small Finance Bank rolled out its operations as the maiden small finance bank of the country from Jalandhar in Punjab. The new journey for Capital Local Area Bank which became Capital Small Finance Bank on Sunday could bring more business to its fold under the new guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India. In an interview with Komal Amit Gera, the managing director of the bank, Sarvjit Singh Samra, explains the road map. Edited excerpts:



Tell us about your expansion plans.

Read more from our special coverage on "SARVJIT SINGH SAMRA" Hire-purchase financier turns banker

As a Capital Local Area Bank, we were operating in five districts of Punjab. Now, we have licence to open branch anywhere in the country. But, we would add new branches in Punjab in the first year so that the total number of branches would reach 76 by the end of FY17. Then, we will expand to the neighbouring states of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Union territory Delhi. We plan to have 216 branches in five years.

A senior banker had indicated earlier that the model of these new age banks is not viable. What is your take on this opinion?



We have already proved the viability of this model in the past 16 years by working as Capital Local Area Bank. So, we are undeterred by such opinions. The scale of operation would help to cut cost and better business would enhance viability.

When do you plan to get listed?



We have a healthy financial performance and might not get listed very soon. We plan to get listed after four-five years.

Do you plan to give a special focus on non-resident Indian (NRI) Punjabi diaspora to mobilise business?



The NRI accounts contribute about 8 per cent-10 per cent of the bank's deposits. We plan to maintain it in our new avatar. No special focus for this segment has been proposed at present due to volatility in exchange rates and uncertainity in global economies. As a small finance bank, we would be able to get government and public sector undertaking accounts that would help us tap large volume of business.

Which verticals will you focus on?



Our focus will remain on micro, small and medium enterprises, retail lending and agriculture. With the help of financial literacy, growth in this segment can be manifold. As we hire staff from local areas, there is no language barrier and we project lucrative business from our existing segment in the new territories.
S M Reza Ali Khan, a direct descendent of Mir Jafar, the first Nawab of Bengal with the support of East India Company, is a bitter man these days. Not only is he tired of battling the perception of the descendent of a 'traitor', he is not happy with the way political parties have approached the minority issue thus far.
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PM addresses Panchayats across the country, from Jamshedpur, on National Panchayati Raj Day

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The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, today addressed all Panchayats across the country, from Jamshedpur, on the occasion of National Panchayati Raj Day. .

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The event also marked the culmination of the Gramoday Se Bharat Uday Abhiyan, which began on the 125th birth anniversary of Babasaheb Ambedkar, at Mhow, on April 14th. .

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Shri Narendra Modi emphasized that facilities and services in rural areas, should be at par with the cities. .

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The Prime Minister exhorted the Panchayat Representatives to use their tenure to work towards serving the people by aiming to bring about transformative change in the villages. .

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In particular, he said women members can play a leadership role in areas such as toilet construction. .

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He urged the Panchayats to pay special attention to childrens education, and said if children stop attending schools, it should worry the Panchayat members. .

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The Prime Minister encouraged Panchayats to think beyond budgets, and focus on Jan Suvidha. .

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After the event, the Prime Minister came down from the stage and met some of the Panchayat Representatives from across the country who had gathered in Jamshedpur. He also met the wife and daughter of one of the victims of the Patna bomb blasts, which had occurred during his rally there in 2013. .

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The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, addressed the Joint Conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices, in New Delhi, today. The Prime Minister mentioned the high level of trust that the common man has in the judiciary. .

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Referring to the speech of the Chief Justice of India, where he spoke of the large number of cases pending in various courts in India, the Prime Minister said that he understood the Chief Justices concern. He said that going forward, he hoped that the Government and the Judiciary could work together to find solutions to these issues. .

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The Prime Minister also stressed on the efforts being made by the Government to remove archaic laws from the statute books. .

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Addressing the Joint Conference of Chief Justices of States and Chief Justices of High Courts here in Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi the Prime Minister said that while the executive is under constant assessment and scrutiny in public life, through various institutions, the Judiciary normally does not face any such scrutiny. He said the Judiciary has built up an enormous faith and reputation among the people of India, and should evolve its own in-built systems for self-assessment, so that it can live up to the high expectations placed on it by the people. .

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In his presidential address Shri Justice, T.S.Thakur, Chief Justice of India expressed his deep concern on the rising vacancies of Judges in High Courts as well as subordinate courts. He referred to the enormous work load on the judiciary due to this reason. He was of the opinion that the piling of cases at various levels in courts which are at present around three crores can be effectively reduced if all the vacancies in several High Courts and district as well as lower courts are filled up. .

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Shri Thakur also suggested that services of retired Judges who are willing to work can be utilized as per the provisions of Constitution. He said the National Court management committee has also suggested to work in a mission mode for the disposal of pending cases in such a way that no case remain pending for more than five years. On the issue of Commercial courts, the Chief Justice said you need to work in a totally different environment. He said it should be where the corporate clientele should feel comfortable. .

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Welcoming the Prime Minister and Chief Justice of India at the inaugural session Shri D.V.Sadananda Gowda said, the High Courts and the State Governments have a major role to play in the development of judicial administration in the States. He recalled the adoption of a landmark resolution in the last Conference wherein it was decided that the Chief Justices of the High Courts and the Chief Ministers of the States would institute a mechanism for regular interaction amongst themselves to resolve the issues relating to infrastructure and manpower needs and facilities for the judiciary. The minister hoped that in most of the States, such a mechanism has already been instituted and this Conference would provide us the perfect opportunity to deliberate upon ways and means to take this initiative forward. .

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The Law Minister said as per information available, the Central Government and the State Governments have together spent on an average a sum of about Rs. 2,000 crores per annum during the last three years on development of judicial infrastructure. Accordingly, the overall availability of the court halls now matches the working strength of around 16000 judges / judicial officers in the subordinate judiciary. With a number of projects in hand, we are aiming at 20,000 court halls in the near future to match the availability with sanctioned strength in every state, he noted. .

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Expressing concern on the persistence of a large number of vacancies of judges and judicial officers despite notable progress made on judicial infrastructure front the minister urge the High Courts to adopt a pro-active approach in selection of the suitable candidates for various judicial positions. .

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The minister drew attention on the adverse impact on the investors sentiments due to delay in settlement of disputes. As you are aware the protracted nature of litigation in the country. He said, in order to assuage these concerns and as part of the Governments continuous efforts to forge investor-friendly environment in the country, the Government has initiated a number of steps, including setting up of Commercial Courts and amendments to Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 and the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881. These initiatives are intrinsically linked to speeding up the dispute resolution processes both within the formal court system as well as under alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. .

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Shri Gowda said concerns regarding the inordinate delays in the conclusion of the criminal trials have been expressed by various Parliamentary Committees. The Government has over the years established expert committees to review the criminal justice system in order to make it more responsive to the needs of the society. Some of the recommendations of these Committees have been implemented and legislative provisions incorporated in the procedural laws. However, legislative reforms alone are not sufficient. Reforms in policing and investigative mechanisms are as important as reforms in court processes. Law Commission of India is now reviewing both substantive and procedural aspects of our criminal justice system. He said the Chairman, Law Commission has been requested to expedite their recommendations in this regard. .

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Referring to the data compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) at the end of 2014 the minister said there were about 2.82 lakh under-trial prisoners in the jails, which constituted two-third of the total inmates. During the early years after our independence the under-trial prisoners constituted only one third of the total prisoners in jails. However, this situation prevails despite amendments in Criminal Procedure Code prescribing for release of under-trial prisoners on personal bond who have spent half of their maximum sentence. He urged the State Governments and Chief Justices of the High Courts to take appropriate steps to ensure that this provision is implemented expeditiously. .

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Shri Gowda said the e-Court Integrated Mission Mode Project was launched with the objective of improving access to justice with the help of technology. Phase I of the eCourt project witnessed significant results which, inter alia, include ICT infrastructure upgradation of subordinate courts, launch of national e-court portal and constitution of process re-engineering committees by the High Courts. Phase II, currently in progress, aims at setting up of centralized filing centres, digitization of documents, adoption of document management systems, creation of e-filing and e-payment gateways. However, there is lack of awareness about the potential of eCourt Project among the judges as well as public at large. In this connection he again urged upon Chief Justices of the High Courts to not only sensitize the members of the judiciary to utilize full potential of technological advancements being made but at the same time disseminate necessary information about litigant friendly services being provided under the project to public at large. .

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At present the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) provides summary of pending and disposed cases at the District and Subordinate court level. However, in addition periodic reports on the courts in a format that allows for the assessment of judicial productivity and congestion rates must also be published. Categorization and assignment of cases through case management system will help to ensure that the old matters are disposed of on priority basis. Grouping of cases needs to be undertaken as ongoing continuous exercise so that cases arising out of the same subject matter and involving the same question of law can be assigned to one Judge. Improved categorization will enable courts to adhere to pre-decided timelines. In this regard, rules of High Courts could be suitably amended to incorporate these mechanisms. .

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Although several important and innovative initiatives are in place to improve upon the existing court processes, yet there is significant room for further work in this regard. The High Courts must take a strong leadership role in actively promoting a shift towards higher efficiency in the implementation of the project. Further research in the area of process simplification should also be encouraged to assess if the litigants are benefitting from various initiatives and to assess what else could be done. ICT initiatives if successfully completed will ease the day to day management of court processes and provide necessary tools to the higher judiciary for performance appraisal of subordinate courts, Shri Sadananda Gowda added. .

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. On the important role played by the Bar Council in India in our judicial process, including alternative dispute resolution mechanism the minister highlighted the need to continuously engage with the bar for improving their standards and practices as also for upgrading their professional skills through continued legal education. He also appreciated the efforts of Bar Council of India in establishing first lawyers academy at Kochi in Kerala and hoped other States would also facilitate their respective State Bar Councils in such an endeavour. It is also necessary that adequate facilities are provided for the members of the Bar while designing the infrastructure for the courts. The Bar Council has also expressed keen interest in taking higher responsibilities under legal aid programmes. Keeping in mind the critical importance of co-operation from the Bar. The minister also requested the State Governments and the High Courts to actively engage the members of the State Bar Councils and Bar Associations in enlisting their support for the various programmes and initiatives towards reduction of pendency in courts. .

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Shri Sadananda Gowda said the exercise of policy formulation on judicial reforms by the Government as well as judiciary needs proper analysis and research based on reliable judicial statistics. With the computerization of the High Courts and District and Subordinate Courts, it has now become possible for the High Courts to disseminate necessary information on the functioning of justice delivery system. The Government on its part has formulated a scheme on action research on judicial reforms encouraging Law Schools, Judicial Academies and management / technical institutions to take up research projects to assess the effectiveness of judicial reform measures and assess the feasibility of introducing new reforms. 18 research projects have been sanctioned under the scheme so far. He requested the Chief Justices to facilitate these research projects in their respective High Courts. .

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Referring to a comprehensive agenda of judicial reforms placed before todays conference which encompasses a broad range of topics, he said all of which have a crucial bearing on timely delivery of justice - a goal that the Government and judiciary are jointly working to accomplish. He said, I look forward to constructive discussions in this regard. .

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Smt. Kusumjit Siddhu, Secretary,Department of Justice gave vote of thanks. .

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The Joint Conference is an occasion for the executive and the judiciary to reaffirm their resolve to support a speedy, efficient and quality justice delivery in the country, and to discuss steps required to surmount the various challenges facing the justice system, such as inordinate delays in disposal of cases in courts, facilitating access to speedy resolution of commercial disputes by economic operators, making the justice system user friendly and affordable to all, and improving the quality of legal aid services in the country. .

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Shri J P Nadda, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare inaugurated the first of its kind Current Good Manufacturing Practise (CGMP) compliant facility within the Central Government for manufacture of DPT and TT vaccine at the Central Research Institute (CRI), Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh today. .

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The Union Health Minister also announced the functioning of the Zonal Office of CDSCO from the Container Corporation of India building, Baddi to facilitate Pharma companies and exporters from Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana to get their clearances and No Objection certificates. This office will start working within a week, he informed. He also said that the HP government has agreed to provide land for the Zonal Office of CDSCO at Baddi. The Minister also announced that in order to ensure production of quality medicines, 3 to 4 comprehensive workshops will be organized in the month of May in Baddi on Good Manufacturing Practices and Good Laboratory Practices. Best experts from national and international regulators will be there to brief the industry on related issues. .

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Expressing happiness at this singular achievement of CRI, the Health Minister congratulated the Institute and stated that this is a milestone in the vaccine production capacity of the country, and. CRI as it gets ready to celebrate its 111th foundation day the coming month. .

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Shri Nadda noted that recent advancements in regulatory requirements and introduction of cGMP concept in vaccine manufacturing led to the need for creation of cGMP compliant infrastructure and processes. Considering this, CRI has been able to create this cGMP compliant facility for production of DPT group of vaccines with the guidance and support of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, he added. This makes CRI the first Central Government Institute to have cGMP compliant infrastructure for vaccine production. TT vaccine has been commercialized from this facility for Universal Immunization Programme use and production of DPT bulk has been initiated, Shri Nadda said. He further stated that as it is essential for vaccine manufacturers to have global quality standards, CRI is exploring the feasibility of establishing WHO prequalified cGMP compliant manufacturing facility for yellow fever vaccine. This will enable the institute to supply yellow fever vaccine to African and Latin American countries. .

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CRI has been working as one of the few pioneer institutions in the field of vaccine manufacturing, Shri Nadda mentioned. The institute has plans to manufacture all vaccines viz., Japanese encephalitis vaccine, Rabies vaccine and Typhoid vaccine, which were earlier manufactured in the Institute, after establishing cGMP compliant facilities and application of recent technological advancements, he informed. He also said that CRI plans to create state of the art, fully dedicated cGMP compliant laboratory for research on vaccine development and various other public health related issues. The institute plans to undertake research on newer vaccine candidates for existing and emerging diseases and to manufacture more efficacious and safer vaccines as also to contribute to the prevention of spread of novel antigenic variants. .

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In addition to the these, the Health Minister said that as part of its expansion plans, CRI is in process of acquiring 128 bighas of land from Himachal Pradesh Government for creation of cGMP compliant facility for manufacturing of therapeutic anti-sera. This initiative will increase the production capacity of the institute to cater to the ever increasing demand of these lifesaving anti-sera and also generate significant amount of employment opportunities for countrys youth. Manufacture of immunobiologicals and animal care is an important and highly technical field which requires trained manpower at every level. For Skill development in this area, CRI is initiating a certificate course in Production of Immunobiologicals and Animal Care, affiliated to the State Council of Vocational Training, Himachal Pradesh. This course will play a significant role in developing trained manpower to work in various health, research and pharmaceutical setups and provide plethora of opportunities for youth of the country, he added. Shri Nadda also stated that CRI has started apprenticeship training for maintenance of high end machinery and equipment that have been installed with creation of new cGMP facility for production of DPT vaccine in the institute. .

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The Health Minister also launched the website of CRI at the occasion. .

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Central Research Institute, Kasauli is one of the most important suppliers of vaccines for the Governments Universal immunization programme (UIP) especially for DPT and TT vaccines. The Institute is involved in manufacture and supply of various lifesaving therapeutic antisera for snake bites, Rabies and Diphtheria, and supplies Yellow Fever Vaccine to different parts of the country. Diagnostic reagents such as diagnostic antigens for typhoid, typhus fever and brucellosis and diagnostic antisera for cholera and salmonella are also manufactured and supplied to various Institutions throughout the country. .

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President Barack Obama said on Sunday that he was confident the United States and the European Union would succeed in negotiating a new trans-Atlantic trade deal by the end of the year, saying the benefits of such an agreement were "indisputable."



Obama said images of plants moving overseas and jobs lost created a narrative about trade agreements that "drives, understandably, a lot of suspicion" in places like the US and Germany. But, he added, well-designed trade deals can have greater benefits.

"It is indisputable that it has made our economy stronger," he said. "It has made sure that our businesses are the most competitive in the world." Obama's comments came as he stood next to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany during a news conference in Hanover as they prepared to preside over the opening here of the world's largest industrial trade fair.

The President's visit to Germany was intended to bolster negotiators seeking to wrap up a trans-Atlantic trade agreement between the US and the European Union, an accord that Merkel supports but that is highly unpopular in her country.

The Chancellor greeted the President at the Schloss Herrenhausen, the former summer residence of the Royal House of Hanover. They stood in front of a line of German troops in gray overcoats and green berets as the national anthems for the two nations played before returning inside for a private meeting.

Obama said he hoped the trade negotiations could be completed before he leaves office.

"I don't anticipate that we will be able to complete ratification of a deal by the end of this year, but I do anticipate that we will have completed the agreement," he said. Once negotiations are finished, he said, "people will be able to see exactly why this will be good for our two countries".

2016 The New York Times News Service
Is your referral programme working? If you go by industry surveys a handful of corporations seem to be having second thoughts already. A recent survey by human resources (HR) services firm TeamLease reveals that 49 per cent of the companies feel such programmes promote mediocrity and hinder innovative thinking.

Kiranmai Dutt Pendyala, corporate vice-president, HR, AMD Greater Asia and Europe, the Middle East and Africa, says referral programmes present a few key challenges. First, the phenomenon of "like begets like", which leads to mediocre or not-so-strong performers building their ilk in the organisation to strengthen their own position. Second, managers may play foul by bringing on board mediocre talent from their referral pool, which can be countered by having a cross-functional interview panel and rigorous screening, she points out. Third, there is a risk of nepotism or favouritism. "To make sure this does not happen, a scientific talent acquisition process provides checks and balances by weeding out mediocrity. For example, there can be hiring manager accountability for the performance of the hired candidate even after the candidate is chosen through the rigorous selection," Pendyala says.

But think before you decide to scrap your employee referral programme. A key reason why many referral programmes fail to deliver is that the organisation doesn't get behind it. If your HR staff and critical stakeholders don't appreciate why you are doing it and fail to engage your people, then it is doomed. But first, why would a company place its bets on "referred" employees?



Jagjit Singh, chief people officer, PwC India, says, "PwC's employee referral programme encourages our employees to refer external, experienced job seekers they think are best suited for various positions. In the last financial year, we closed around 33 per cent of our positions through referrals, our employees being one of the best sources of identifying qualified talent. There are various benefits attached to the firm as well, including increased alignment to the culture and growing stickiness to the organisation. It helps multiply the onboarding effort as the referee becomes another anchor besides the onboarding and buddy programme. To drive the success of this programme, we provide a cash incentive to the referee after the referral completes 90 days of service."



R Mahalakshmi, director, HR, Mondelez India, points out that the company has been using an employee referral programme called "iRefer" for the last four years. "Referrals constitute 40 per cent of our hires. The benefits we've seen from iRefer is a stronger sense of demonstrated pride in the company and the brands we represent. This reward is much higher, shall we say, than the monetary incentive that employees stand to gain as a token of appreciation."



Companies reward employees for referring hires in different ways. NIIT Technologies, which has a system known as the "Each One Get One" scheme, also uses it as a tool to promote gender diversity by providing higher cash incentives for referring women candidates. Travel company Expedia India, on the other hand, offers its employees about 150,000 travel miles or travel points, giving the referee the choice of covering miles or claiming reimbursement of the same figure in rupees.

So how should you deploy a referral programme that cuts costs and builds engagement - things it was supposed to do in the first place? Here are a few lessons from companies that seem to be doing it right.

Gangapriya Chakraverti, director, HR, Ford Motor Pvt Ltd, says. "The success of an employee referral programme depends on the culture, priorities and processes in an organisation. The referral programme is one of the key channels of talent sourcing at Ford, with close to 20 per cent of our new hires coming through the mechanism. Candidates referred by employees are put through the same assessment as any other candidate to ensure there is no dilution."



Chakraverti explains that to make a referral system successful, "one needs to eliminate individual bias and conflict of interest through robust processes while keeping employees informed of opportunities".

Richard Lobo, senior vice-president and head, HR, Infosys, says the company looks for individuals with good learnability and communication skills with a focus on technology and an entrepreneurial bent. "Employee referral is one of our key channels for lateral hiring. We believe that employees can make a good referral decision as they understand the aspirations of the candidate they refer as well as the requirements/culture of the company."



Infosys has enhanced the use of technology for employee referral in the last few years, he points out. "We have created a portal where employees can view requirements and directly submit the profiles of candidates. Since this process is completely online, employees can track the status of their referral in real time. We have also introduced special reward schemes to encourage more employee referrals; for example, we have monetary rewards defined for different job levels joining at offshore (in INR) and overseas (in USD) locations."



Faisal Nadeem Saiyed, HR director, Expedia India, says 30 to 40 per cent of the company's hires come through employee referrals. "But still, out of 100 resumes we get we tend to offer jobs to only three to five." The challenge, he believes, is to ensure employees refer genuine, high-quality talent and not just make referrals for the sake of it. "We have learnt through practice that it's very essential for us to do two things with our employees on a regular basis - one, communicate to them the roles, technology and opportunities which Expedia is working on, and secondly to ensure that our closure of employee referrals is very strict so that employees are at all points of time aware of where their references are."



Tata Chemicals Limited (TCL) covers all referral cases under its SHINE+ initiative since 2014. R Nanda, head of HR, TCL, says the company has not seen any disproportionately higher percentage of hires turning out to be mediocre when compared with the rest. "The reference system doesn't operate in isolation but as part of a bigger HR ecosystem. Hence, there is immense value in this combined process which includes our springboard, career pathing, succession planning etc." Besides, he points out, TCL uses SHINE+ as an internal job posting tool to promote job mobility and overall career development leading to better employee engagement.

Visibility of referral programmes in companies can be poor due to infrequent use or erratic postings, Nanda explains. "In SHINE+ we send out a weekly mailer on a fixed date to all users where the mail has been designed in such a way so as to be unique from the usual wave of mails a working professional gets. This is how we solved the problem of visibility, navigation and infrequent usage of the portal."



Mahalakshmi of Mondelez rejects any possibility of mediocrity being encouraged by it. "We feel strongly that the referral system helps us better the sourcing conversion ratio both in terms of closure time and quality of hire as the employees sharing recommendations engage in a preliminary screening while sharing the profile." She feels "the only area to watch out for has been to ensure that the 'conflict of interest' concerns are understood and handled in a discerning manner, in instances where the hiring manager refers likely hires".

Workplace culture as key motivator: Debabrat Mishra

nWho do you aspire to work with? Ask employees this question in your referral programme. This will help you crowd-source potential "aspirational" people for your organisation. In today's world, the biggest challenge is knowing who are the people who will raise the bar.

nHow can I reach them? You have to work hard in wooing and recruiting the people recommended by your people. Your employees might be able to help you connect with them through their networks, but don't make "familiarity" a criteria for the referral programme. A referral programme is not a substitute for your sourcing channels. It is a supplement.

nIncentivise the right behaviour. A referral incentive should ideally be non-monetary. Don't make it an outcome of cost saving. Let people have a sense of pride in enhancing the culture of the organisation and motivated to work with the best.

Debabrat Mishra

Director, Korn Ferry Hay Group
Following a hybrid competitive strategy leads to superior financial performance in the internationalisation of high-technology companies, shows a new Finnish study in the field of marketing. The study challenges the traditional view that companies can go global by adhering to one competitive strategy alone.

The study by professor of international business, University of Eastern Finland, Mika Gabrielsson, senior researcher at Aalto University Tomi Seppala, and professor of marketing, University of Vaasa, Peter Gabrielsson, used empirical data to analyse companies' implementation of a hybrid competitive strategy and their achievement of financial profitability while internationalising in the high-tech market.

Earlier studies have proposed inconclusive viewpoints on the conditions suitable for multinationals to realise a hybrid competitive strategy. The new study shows the realisation of a hybrid competitive strategy is dependent on the globalisation stage and key resources of the company.

Also, a hybrid strategy observes environmental factors and creates the preconditions for globalising companies to achieve the best possible financial performance.
Caitlyn Jenner has been the latest person to weigh-in on the issue of transgenders' ban from using public toilets and anti-LGBT bill.

The 66-year-old 'I Am Cait' star, who came out as a transgender woman last year, took to her website to write, "We all want safety and privacy in public bathrooms. But these anti-LGBT bills, like the ones in North Carolina and Mississippi, actually make us less safe, not more safe," reports E! Online.

"They open the door to abuse, aggressive and confrontational behavior in bathrooms, and encourage strangers to demand that women and girls prove that they are actually female in order to use the restroom. No one wants that," she added.

In March, North Carolina became the first state to bar transgender people from using public restrooms that do not match the sex assigned to them at birth.

The ban has spurred bands such as Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam to cancel concerts in North Carolina and for major businesses such as PayPal to cancel planned projects there.

A similar law in Mississippi, also signed this month, allows employers to cite religion when determining policies on bathroom access and dress codes.

The measures have sparked debate about the privacy and safety of both transgender and non-transgender patrons of public and work restrooms.

However, presidential candidate Donald Trump came out in supports Caitlyn Jenner and other trans-people's right to use any bathroom they feel comfortable in.
Who says Shahid Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan share cold vibes? Kareena Kapoor Khan, the most significant connection between the two actors, begs to differ the thought.

In a recent interview to a leading daily, the 35-year-old actress said that the two are "getting along too well" and her husband Saif finds her former boyfriend Shahid to be a nice guy.

In a link posted on the 'Ki and Ka' actress' official Twitter page, she said, "Really? In fact, I think they are getting along too well! I haven't gone to the sets because I haven't had the time. I have been travelling and they have been having very hectic schedules at night. Saif comes and tells me what fun they have been having on the sets. He quite enjoys chatting with Shahid and finds him a really nice guy. I don't know why they shouldn't be getting along."

The 'Haider' actor and the 'Phantom' actor will soon be seen sharing screen space for Vishal Bhardwaj's upcoming flick 'Rangoon.
The solar-powered aeroplane Solar Impulse has landed in Silicon Valley, California, after a three-day flight over the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii.

Solar Impulse 2, an experimental plane flying around the without a single drop of fuel and piloted by Swiss explorer and psychiatrist Bertrand Piccard, touched down in Mountain just before midnight.

Solar Impulse started the journey last March in Abu Dhabi. The trip has involved two different pilots flying separate legs.

It flew over San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge on Saturday evening as it prepared to land in California.

Solar Impulse gets all its energy from the sun through the 17,000 photovoltaic cells that cover the top surfaces of the craft.

"I crossed the bridge. I am officially in America," said pilot Bertrand Piccard as he flew above San Francisco Bay.

The team has seen the project beset with problems and setbacks during its pioneering airborne circumnavigation.

The plane took off from Hawaii on Thursday, resuming a journey that had stalled on the island of Oahu for almost 10 months.

It lifted off just before sunrise Friday to cheers and applause. On arrival into the skies above California, it flew holding patterns for several hours above San Francisco Bay in celebration of the achievement.

As dusk fell over the city, the team posted striking images on its social media accounts.

The Hawaii-California leg took just over 62 hours to complete because the plane travels at about the same speed as a car.

While Piccard was at the controls for this ninth leg of the round-the- trip, he and Borschberg take turns flying the plane solo.

Solar Impulse spokeswoman Alexandra Gindroz said the flight has benefited from a 'very stable weather window' and is expected to touch down on schedule.

The solar plane looks like a giant high-tech dragonfly and requires near-perfect conditions to fly.

The Solar Impulse 2 was originally supposed to land in Abu Dhabi where it started its journey in March 2015 by the end of last summer.

But a series of frustrating weather delays in China slowed progress for weeks, followed by an unexpected diversion to Japan where the aircraft was damaged on the tarmac by a storm.

It was a moment of human achievement as the five-day, five-night crossing set a record for the longest ever non-stop solo aeroplane journey.

Borschberg piloted the plane wearing an oxygen mask as it climbed up 8,000 meters high during the day.

The vehicle's batteries overheated during the trip forcing the project to stop on the Pacific archipelago while repairs were conducted.

A further 20m euros had to be raised from the supporters during the winter to keep the project going for another year.
The United States State Department has publicly acknowledged that it asked Pakistan to take concrete action against the Haqqani network after last week's massive car bombing in Kabul.

Pakistan had condemned the attack hours after it took place, reports Dawn.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack outside a building of the National Directorate for Security in Kabul on Tuesday that killed 64 people and injured more than 300 others.

Commenting on the Afghan Government's claim that Pakistan supported the group which carried out the attack, State Department's Press Office director Elizabeth Trudeau suggested on Friday evening that Islamabad continued to allow the terrorists to use its soil.

Elizabeth said that the Pakistan Government should not discriminate between terror groups regardless of their agenda or affiliation by undertaking concrete action against the Haqqanis.

Trudeau said that Pakistan had reiterated that it would not discriminate between terrorist groups "and we continue to call on them to live up to that commitment".

Within hours of the attack, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani vowed "vengeance for each drop of blood spilled", while his Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah cancelled a May 2 visit to Pakistan, citing the findings of a preliminary investigation.
Jawaharlal Nehru University students union president Kanhaiya Kumar on Sunday said a man tried to strangle him on a Jet Airways flight earlier in the day.

"Yet again, this time inside the aircraft, a man tries to strangulate me," Kanhaiya Kumar tweeted.

He alleged that the airline staff refused to take any action against the attacker.

"After the incident, Jet Airways staff completely refuses to take any action against the man who assaulted me.

"Basically Jet Airways sees no difference between someone who assaults and the person who is assaulted. They will deplane you, if you complain," he said.

The student leader was arrested on sedition charges on February 12 after allegedly raising anti-India slogans at the JNU campus. He was given bail after police failed to produce any evidence to back the charge.

--IANS

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Marxist cadres chanting "Rahul Gandhi laal salam", enthusiastic Congress workers crowding CPI-M veteran Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's road show and the red flag fluttering alongside the Congress tricolour - scenes hitherto unthinkable are now common in West Bengal.

That's not all. Erstwhile sworn enemies - former state Congress president Manas Bhunia of Sabong and CPI-M state secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra of neighbouring Narayangarh - became comrades as they campaigned for each other and the Marxist party's symbol - hammer & sickle and star - hung from trees bound to the Congress "hand" symbol.

Formed with the single-point agenda of ousting the Trinamool Congress from power, the Left Front-Congress tie-up seems to be gathering steam through vigorous joint campaigns and rallies, with the poll arithmetic making it a formidable foe of the ruling Trinamool.

But on the flip side, confusion remains over the nature of the relationship with various Left leaders speaking in different voices. The failure to officially announce a chief ministerial candidate translates into a faceless Left and there is palpable anger among a section of LF partners at the CPI-M cosying up to its new friend by snubbing time-tested allies.

Also of immense interest is the Congress and LF spearhead CPI-M's ability to transfer votes to each other.

The propelling force for the alliance was the 2014 Lok Sabha vote-share in the state. The Congress and Trinamool, which contested the 2009 Lok Sabha and the 2011 assembly polls in alliance, fought separately in 2014. While the Trinamool got 29.3 percent of the votes, the LF and the Congress received 29.5 percent and 9.6 percent respectively. The sum of the votes obtained by the latter two was 39.1 percent, tantalisingly close to the Trinamool.

The LF-Congress leaders are also hoping to corner a sizable chunk of the nearly 17 percent votes bagged by the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2014.

"No rational mind will bet on the BJP getting more than five percent votes. With the BJP becoming insignificant, the opposition votes would consolidate with the Congress-CPI-M combine," state Congresss general secretary Om Prakash Mishra told IANS.

Political analyst Udayan Bandopadhyay, however, pointed to the un-uniform vote share of the Congress in the state to prick the equal-vote-share theory.

"The alliance is very strong in North Bengal, where the combined LF-Congress vote was numerically much ahead of the Trinamool. But in South Bengal, the Congress is generally weak, except in Murshidabad and fringe pockets. Here, the vote percentage of the Trinamool is much more than the alliance," Bandopadhyay told IANS.

But what is the exact nature of the relationship?

According to LF chairman Biman Bose, there was neither a front nor an alliance with the Congress, but only seat adjustment.

Kshiti Goswami, state secretary of LF partner Revolutionary Socialist Party, corroborated Bose while speaking to IANS: "In the LF we never discussed or passed any such proposal of an alliance."

But state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was categorical that an alliance has been forged and it will form a coalition government on the basis of a common minimum programme.

For CPI-M politburo member Mohammed Salim, it was a "people's alliance" sans any formal announcement.

"It's a people's alliance, a bottom-up alliance, and not the usual top-down one. The oppressed have come together, they have formed the alliance for their own survival and victory. This is a novel experiment, not only in Bengal, but even in the national context," Salim told IANS.

Bandopadhyay felt the alliance would be able to transfer votes.

"So far they are doing well. They are hitting the streets together, taking out joint rallies and drawing graffiti together. I feel they'll be able to transfer votes.

"Hundred percent vote transfer is never possible. There'll always be fringe elements. For instance, is it possible that 100 percent of those who voted for the Trinamool in earlier elections will vote for that party this time also?"

But Goswami's RSP is angry with the Congress for fielding candidates in seats where LF constituents are in the fray.

"The Congress nominated candidates for nine seats where my party is in the fray. This is undesirable. Our local leadership is now questioning the rationale for the tie-up with the Congress.

"They are angry with the CPI-M as their local leaders support the Congress in some of the disputed seats," Goswami said, adding that all these developments have led to a crisis in the LF, formed way back n 1977.

But the biggest weakness of the alliance, according to Bandopadhyay, is the absence of an official chief ministerial candidate. Some Congress leaders like Manas Bhunia and Om Prakash Mishra have declared Surja Kanta Mishra as the face of the alliance. But the state Congress chief, said to be nursing chief ministerial ambitions, has said the decision would be taken after the polls.

Salim was unperturbed..

"Personality based is a media creation. In our system, people don't choose a leader. Rather, it is chosen by the elected representatives. We have a lot of capable leaders. Once we win, the legislators would elect a leader in five minutes," said the MP from Raiganj.

(Sirshendu Panth can be contacted at sirshendu.p@ians.in)

--IANS

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The agriculture ministers of the G7 countries agreed on Sunday to deepen cooperation to combat diseases that affect livestock by creating a system to rapidly exchange information on cases of this kind.

Ministers from Japan, Canada, Germany, Italy, the US, Britain and France issued a joint statement during the G7 ministerial meeting, which began on Saturday in Niigata, northeastern Japan.

During the meeting, which focused on strategies to ensure food safety amid a rising global population, the ministers also stressed the need to attract a young workforce into the agricultural sector and take measures to reduce the effects of climate change on food production, EFE news reported.

Agricultural production must be increased by 60 percent by 2050 to feed a global population that will reach approximately 9.2 billion, according to the forecast of the UN' Food and Agriculture Organisation.

In the joint declaration, the ministers of the world's seven most industrialized countries acknowledged the crucial role of the agricultural sector to ensure global food security, particularly in an era of rapid urbanisation, and pledged to jointly tackle the emerging challenges in agriculture.

These actions, they added, will also benefit other countries facing similar challenges.

In particular, they agreed to create an international framework for the exchange of information on animal diseases, aimed at preventing the spread of outbreaks of viral diseases such as bird flu and foot-and-mouth.

This system will also allow closer cooperation to address the increased resistance to antibiotics that bacteria are developing as a result of excessive use of these medicines in livestock.

The ministers also agreed to hold a separate meeting dedicated to the aging of the agricultural workforce later this year in which developing countries will also be invited to participate.

The two-day meeting in Niigata is the first of its kind since the one held in 2009 in the Italian city of Treviso by the G8 -- before Russia was excluded from the group -- to discuss the rise in prices of agricultural products.

The conclusions of the meeting are expected to be discussed in the upcoming meeting of the world's most industrialised countries, which will be held in the Ise-Shima National Park in central Japan on May 26 and 27.

--IANS

ksk/vt
Goa is all set to launch seaplane and amphibian rides for tourists, a top state government official said here on Sunday.

"We are soon going to start seaplane service to give an aerial view of the picturesque destinations," Goa tourism director Sanjeev C. Gauns Dessai told IANS.

He said there is much demand for air rides among tourists.

"We are awaiting clearance from the central government. Once we get the permission, we will start the seaplanes," he said.

Each plane with eight people on board can land and fly from the sea. These planes will land on the Mandovi river, giving tourists the opportunity to catch glimpses of the backwaters.

Goa is flanked by the Arabian Sea on the west and the Sahyadri mountains on the east and is criss-crossed by several rivers.

Dessai, who was here to participate in a three-day exposition of Himachal Pradesh tourism industry that concluded on Sunday, said the government is also to start amphibian buses that can run on roads as well as float on water.

"Such vehicles will be the first of its kind in India and, of course, unique in giving 'Go Goa' experience. Even this state (Himachal Pradesh) can start amphibian buses to attract more tourists," he said.

An amphibian bus, common in Singapore and London, costing about Rs.2 crore and with a capacity to carry 32 people, will run on both road and water.

These vehicles have been manufactured in Goa with technological collaboration from the US.

Goa, with a population of 1.5 million and spread over 3,702 sq km, attracts 45 lakh domestic and five lakh foreign tourists annually.

The visitors mainly come from Russia, Britain and Germany.

The state tourist department last year added hot air balloon, motorised paragliding and helicopter services to its portfolio to offer tourists aerial view of the popular destinations in the state.

--IANS

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Until a couple of years ago pregnancy was unavoidable for women in this tiny village of Arunachal Pradesh. Unavailability of contraceptives in the defunct Public Health Centres not only led to unwanted pregnancies but also lack of spacing and maternal morbidity, finally resulting in unhealthy children, with bleak chance of survival.

Thirty year-old Christina Perme (name changed) never wanted to have four children, keeping in mind her family's economic status. But she ended up becoming pregnant four times in the first six years of her marriage as neither she nor her husband could avail of any type of contraceptives, for which they still have to travel miles through hilly terrain, without the surety of returning the same day in case a downpour damages the muddy roads passing through deep forests.

Such a situation prevailed some six-seven years ago, but now the tribal women in this village either undergo tubectomy or use any other type of contraceptives to block their chances of pregnancy.

This was made possible after the government decided to hand over the public health centres to NGOs under the Public Private Partnership (PPP), which proved to be a boon for the state, which has one of the highest Total Fertility Rate in the country with a population of mere 1.4 million.

"It will be wrong to say that we had no idea about contraceptives. In fact it was the unavailability of any type of contraceptives here which led to unwanted pregnancies among our women. Now we do not become pregnant if we do not want to. Availability of contraceptives in the PHCs has helped us plan proper spacing in the births of our children," Dome Dini, a ANM (Auxiliary Nurse Midwife) with Anpum PHC now run by Karuna Trust, told IANS.

Karuna Trust, an NGO, has been tasked to manage 11 PHCs by the Arunachal Pradesh Government, all in remote areas which takes days to reach from the state capital.

According to the villagers, PHCs which used to be in a dilapidated condition and could not provide medical services even to people suffering from common cold, after being operated by Karuna Trust, are able to provide all basic medical care including family planning. Institutional deliveries have increased by 30 percent and home deliveries have come down to a great extent.

Under then PPP model, Karuna Trust is given Rs.30 lakh annually by the government to manage each PHC in Arunachal Pradesh. The PHCs now have IT-based essential supply chain management system for drugs and vaccines, reproductive and child health programmes for tribals, and delivery of generic drugs along with dental care facilities.

In the initial years Karuna Trust also received funds from Population Foundation of India to strengthen its medical care facilities in the PHCs.

"There is no doubt that Karuna Trust is doing a marvellous job. In fact by witnessing the work of the NGO and the satisfaction of the people in the remote areas, I want to give the work of more PHCs to Karuna Trust, so that we can ensure our people in the remote areas do not die due to lack of medical care," P.N. Thungan, Mission Director National Health Mission, told IANS.

Unlike earlier, now Karuna Trust posts medical staff in PHCs as per the Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS). The staff of the PHC and sub-centres reside 24X7 inside the respective campus.

"There is a drastic change in the medical services provided by the PHCs after they have been given to the NGOs to manage. It was difficult to manage the PHCs in the remote areas with limited manpower and the difficult terrain of Arunachal; so in such a situation handing over work to NGOs was the best we could do," Raja Dodum, nodal officer for National Urban Health Mission, told IANS.

Asked about the key challenges despite having the PPP model, Dodum said at times there is delay in funds for three-four months which becomes a problem.

The IANS correspondent visiting the PHC was told that at times there are unrealistic expectations among community members from the PHC due to awareness.

"Community members seek services for cardiac surgery, orthopaedics etc, which is impossible. There are districts which are affected by militant activities and lack of physical security for the staff is a major challenge," said Annop Sarmah, coordinator of Karuna Trust NE.

(Rupesh Dutta can be contacted at rupesh.d@ians.in)

--IANS

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Mahatma Gandhi's grand daughter Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee, who was recently conferred with a top French honour for her contribution in the field of environment, education and culture, says she feels bad when the Mahatma's name is used for negative reasons.

"Gandhi is the father of the nation. He will be used by political parties and also citizens, and I don't know what to say about these kinds of things. He is synonymous with truth, compassion and love, and if you are talking about Gandhi you are also talking about these things. But one feels bad if his name is used for negative reasons," Bhattacharjee told IANS in an interview.

Bhattacharjee, who has witnessed key events in the Indian political history over the decades, believes that politics has not changed over the years.

"Politics has been the same always. I'm sure that politics has always been like the way it is today. Human beings have always been power hungry -- fighting for it, killing for it; but some also had ambition to do good work. For example, when Gandhi and his supporters were fighting, they did not belong to politics but were opposing foreign rule," said Bhattacharjee, who was conferred the L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of Arts and Letters) by the French envoy this week.

Bhattacharjee has been working for the Kasturba Gandhi National Memorial Trust for the past 28 years. Founded by Mahatma Gandhi in memory of his wife, the trust serves the needy women and children in rural India.

An environmental activist, Bhattacharjee has been involved in the 'Save the Ganga Movement' (Ganga Bachao Andolan) for the past 18 years. She believes that the responsibility of cleaning the river falls on the citizens.

"If we worship the water we must also treat it well. Immersion of idols and other such things into the rivers should stop. If the citizens decide, then India will be clean. In democracy the citizens are also responsible and it is their duty to guard their rivers," said Bhattacharjee.

She also called for people's participation in making the 'Clean India' campaign successful.

"It cannot be successful unless people participate in it. If I go and dirty my streets, then leaders are not going to come and help," she added.

Bhattacharjee expressed doubts if the Delhi government's odd-even scheme can help in reducing pollution. "I hope it is successful. It is a little inconvenient in many ways but occasional attempts at this are good," she said.

(Ankush Vats can be reached at ankush.v@ians.in)

--IANS

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India cannot achieve its economic growth without a robust judiciary overseen by an adequate number of judges, Chief Justice T.S. Thakur said on Sunday.

A robust judicial system was needed to attract foreign investment and to make the Make in India campaign a success, he said.

Read more from our special coverage on "JUDICIARY" Judiciary facing crisis of credibility: Chief Justice of India

"Those whom we are inviting (for investment) are also concerned with the judicial system and justice delivery," the head of the Supreme Court said.

"Efficacy of the judicial system is so vitally connected with the development of the country."

Justice Thakur was speaking at the inaugural of the joint conference of chief ministers, chief justices of high courts and Supreme Court judges.

He said the country's judiciary, dealing with an "avalanches of cases", suffered from a poor judge-population ratio and perennial vacancies.

The ratio was dismal compared to even other developed countries.

"It is not enough to criticise. You can't shift the entire burden on judges," he said, pointing out that nine judges of the American Supreme Court together decide 81 cases in a year whereas a judge in the Indian Supreme Court decides 2,600 cases a year.

"There is a limit on the capacity of judges' performance.

"The only remedy is to establish more courts and increase the strength of the judges to 50 judges per million population," Justice Thakur said.

He said that despite the poor judge-population ratio and vacancies, the recommendations by the apex court collegium for the appointment of judges were pending with the government which was taking its own time to act on them.

Pointing that "nothing really appears to be moving", Chief Justice Thakur said all that was happening was the shifting of buck between the central and state governments on addressing issues related to the judiciary.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered to set up a committee of government officers and people from the judiciary to address the issues flagged by the head of the country's judiciary.

"I will make efforts to address the serious concerns raised by the chief justice," Modi told the conference.
Chief Justice T.S. Thakur on Sunday made an emotive appeal to the government to have more judges to ensure justice for all, prompting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to say he will tackle "the serious concerns".

Addressing a conference of chief ministers, chief justices of high courts and Supreme Court judges, Chief Justice Thakur said India's judiciary suffered from a poor judge-population ratio and serious vacancies even as it dealt with an "avalanches of cases".

The ratio was dismal compared to even other developed countries, he said, looking at the prime minister who was on the dais.

The chief justice took on the government over the failure to come up with judicial reforms, said judges should be told to work extra years when they retire, and hit out at the "commercial courts".

"It is not enough to criticise. You can't shift the entire burden on judges," he said, pointing out that nine judges of the American Supreme Court together decided 81 cases in a year whereas a judge in the Indian Supreme Court decided 2,600 cases a year.

"The only remedy is to establish more courts and increase the strength of the judges to 50 judges per million population."

According to the programme schedule, the chief justice was to speak for no more than 15 minutes. But an emotive Justice Thakur spoke for more than 35 minutes as he gave vent to his frustration.

Modi offered to set up a committee of government officers and people from the judiciary to address the issues. "I will make efforts to address the serious concerns."

India, the chief justice said, cannot achieve economic growth without a robust judiciary overseen by an adequate number of judges. This was also needed to attract foreign capital.

"Those whom we are inviting (to invest) are also concerned with the judicial system and justice delivery," he said. "Efficacy of the judicial system is so vitally connected with the development of the country."

He moaned that the suggestions of the apex court collegium for appointing more judges were pending with the government but "nothing really appears to be moving".

Justice delivery system was an illusion for 30 percent of the population living below poverty line, he said. "The infrastructure in the subordinate courts needs to be upgraded and vacancies filled."

He said more than 38 lakh cases were pending in the high courts and asked: "What is the way out?"

"We must do whatever is possible to reduce the pendency of the cases. The jails are full and overflowing."

At the same, every year, courts in India disposed off more than two crore cases.

In 1987, the government's Law Commission had said that India's judicial system needed 40,000 judges at different levels. Since then the country's population had increased by 30 crore people.

He recalled that when then chief justice Altmash Kabir told then prime minister Manmohan Singh in 2013 that nothing was being done to address the ills of the judicial system, the latter replied that it concerned state governments and they had no money.

Chief Justice Thakur took a dig at the government the way it dealt with commercial courts, saying they were not meant to draw on existing judicial infrastructure and judges strength.

The commercial courts in Dubai have "solemn and efficient environment", he said. But the way they worked in India won't "serve the purpose for which they were created".

He said one way to overcome the problem was to rope in trained judges to deal with the backlog of cases. "At this stage, to ask a judge to go home (after retirement) is criminal."

--IANS

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Iran's First Vice President Es'haq Jahangiri said that his country will harness every legal channel to retake the impounded assets subject to a US court ruling, Press TV reported on Sunday.

"The Iranian administration will definitely use all legal means to regain the assets, and the US knows that we can do that," Jahangiri was quoted as saying.

On Wednesday, the US Supreme Court ruled the transfer of nearly $2 billion to the American victims of terrorist attacks, including the 1983 truck bombing of a Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanon.

Investigators of the court concluded that Iran was responsible for that attack, which Iran has denied.

Jahangiri said the US court's decision amounted to "stealing" the funds of Central Bank of Iran (CBI) which had mainly been kept in European banks.

The US carried out such a measure under a baseless excuse and accusations against Iran, he added.

Iran's foreign minister has denounced the recent US ruling which allows the families of American victims of terrorist attacks to recover damages from Iran's frozen assets in the US banks.

Also, spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry Hossein Jaber Ansari said in a statement that the "US court ruling has mocked (international) law," and "amounts to appropriation of the Islamic Republic of Iran's property in the United States."

The assets belong to the Central Bank of Iran, which have been blocked under the US sanctions.

--IANS

ahm/
Around one crore families have till date given up cooking gas subsidy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday.

"I want to congratulate those one crore families who gave up their subsidies. It is not a small thing," he said in his monthly 'Mann ki Baat' broadcast on All India Radio.

The prime minister recalled how he had urged people to give up the subsidy on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

Moreover, over 80 percent of small-income families of pensioners, farmers, school teachers and shopkeepers, forming the overwhelming bulk of those who surrendered the subsidy, chose to do so by visiting LPG distributors.

"They did not avail of the option of surrender available on mobile apps, online or by simply giving a missed call," he said.

--IANS

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West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee on Sunday held yet another mammoth road show in the city, this time in her constituency Bhowanipore, urging people to bring her to power again.

Flanked by party legislator Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay among others, Banerjee started off the road show from Suhashini Ganguly Sarani near her residence, decrying the "three months" long assembly polls scheduled by the Election Commission.

"I have grown up amid you and went on to become an MP and then an MLA from Bhowanipore. I belong to all of you and I seek your blessings and best wishes.

"It would have been an honour for me if I could go to each and every house and seek your blessings but because of time crunch I am unable to do that.

"Never before in Bengal, elections have been held for such a long period, three months long," said Banerjee, before starting off the march across her constituency.

Amid an audience that included her close relatives, neighbours and long-time acquaintances, Banerjee said: "I am contesting from all the 294 constituencies."

There was a sea of humanity as people of all ages carrying party flags and symbols followed her while many others stood on balconies and rooftops or queued up on both sides of the road to catch a glimpse of their "Didi" as Banerjee greeted them with folded hands or waved at them flashing a big smile.

Some blew conch shells, others threw flower petals.

Amid chants of "Thanda Thanda Cool Cool, Everywhere is Trinamool", Banerjee, braving the hot and humid conditions, walked on.

Banerjee's cut-outs, posters and pictures of various sizes along with the Trinamool tricolour fluttered while loud speakers placed all across Bhowanipore played the Trinamool anthem composed and sung by famed musician Anupam Roy.

Taking on the microphone every now and then, Banerjee appealed to the people to vote for Trinamool candidates and also accused her opponents of initiating a whispering campaign.

"Opposition parties are spreading falsehood, and money is being used to indulge in a whispering campaign. I have also heard people from outside have been brought here for a whispering campaign.

"But I have faith in the people and it's the people who will give them a befitting reply," she said.

Banerjee also asserted that the development work carried out by her government in the last four and half years, would be a "subject of global research".

She also repeatedly sought forgiveness for her inability to visit every home.

"Despite this heat and humidity, I have already attended 130-140 meetings and will be conducting many more. As I have to hold meetings for all the 294 seats, I am stretched for time. I would have been honoured if I could visit every home and seek your blessings," she added.

The road show ended in Gopalpur area in Kolkata where a huge crowd waited to greet her.

--IANS

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With a new dispensation in place in Myanmar where Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is effectively in control of state affairs, experts are of the view that Indian civil society and the media should play an effective role in promoting bilateral ties with an important and strategic neighbour.

"Civil society in Myanmar has been hounded by the government so far," said Walter Fernandes, senior fellow in the North Eastern Social Research Centre, Guwahati.

"Indian civil society can teach the Myanmarese civil society on how to deal with the government and the media can play an important role in this context," he added.

Fernandes was in Shillong to attend the India-Myanmar Media Dialogue organised by the Institute of Social Sciences, Asian Confluence, Burma Centre Delhi, and the Heinrich Boll Foundation on April 20-21.

According to former Indian ambassador to Myanmar Rajiv Bhatia, northeast India should become a learning centre about India's immediate eastern neighbours.

"Media, strategic community, academia and civil society have to come together and collaborate," he said.

Ash Narain Roy, director of the Institute of Social Sciences, laid emphasis on improvement of cooperation between Indian journalists and the Myanmar media and better representation on all the important agendas of India-Myanmar relations, particularly focussing on the bordering regions of Myanmar with India.

According to Alana Golmei of the Burma Centre Delhi, the media has a very important role to play in shaping India-Myanmar relationship.

"A meaningful interaction will lead to capacity development and partnership. We are happy to forge a relationships with like-minded agencies," she said.

Mizoram is one state which can play an important role in India-Myanmar people-people ties, according to journalist Henry Lalhilmum.

Mizoram has been a stage for disputes over the Chin refugees from Myanmar but Lalhimum said that things were now changing.

"We have now realised that we have blood connection with the Chin people," he said.

"Our chief minister has visited Myanmar to attend a Chapchar-Kut festival."

Chapchar-Kut is the biggest Mizo feztival. It is celebrated during spring after completion of the Mizos' most arduous task of jhum cultivation or jungle clearing.

"When it comes to blood relations, there can be no boundaries," Lalhilmum said.

According to Khin Zaw Win, director of the Tampadipa Institute in Myanmar, India's 'Act East' policy, if implemented fully, can bring a lot of progress to the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations)-China-India (ACI) region.

"The ACI economies are poised to make unprecedented progress. A total of 600 million people can be lifted out of property," he said.

These views have come forward in the face of China's proactive approach in dealing with Myanmar.

After the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Aung San Suu Kyi assumed power on March 30, China's Wang Yi on April 5 became the first foreign minister from any country to visit Nay Pyi Taw capital city and hold talks with Suu Kyi.

China's proactive approach, however, has seemingly been met with caution by the Myanmar leadership.

"Previously, China got a lot of projects by bribing the military," former member of the the Myanmarese parliament, U Ye Tun, who was also in Shillong for the conference, told IANS.

"We have now told China that if they want to invest, there must be transparency," he said.

Apart from small development projects like hospitals, schools and educational institutes, India is participating in three major infrastructure projects in Myanmar -- the trilateral highway that culminates in Thailand, the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transport Project and the Rih-Teddim Road Project -- which are in various stages of completion.

(Aroonim Bhuyan visited Shillong at the invitation of the organisers of the Indian-Myanmar Media Dialogue. He can be contacted at aroonim.b@ians.in.)

--IANS

ab/tb/vt
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European Union officials visited a refugee camp on the Turkish-Syrian border on Saturday, one month after helping finalize a controversial EU plan to cope with the largest migration crisis since World War II.

Merkel's visit to the Nizip camp -- a sprawling complex where migrants are housed in tents and metal containers, about 30 miles east of the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep -- is intended to counter opponents of the deal, which has been criticized by human rights groups, CNN reported.

A tweet from European Council President Donald Tusk included a photo of Merkel and others being greeted with flowers presented by young women in white dresses: "Visiting victims of Syria war at #Nizip refugee camp in Turkey."

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu led the EU representatives on a tour of the camp, where they greeted children and inspected living conditions. They also inaugurated a child protection center in Gaziantep.

European Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans told reporters the camp was evidence of the "commitment of the Turkish people to accommodate en enormous influx of refugees."

"I think we, as Europeans, should state very clearly today that you are not alone in this," he said.

--IANS

ahm/
The Congress on Sunday said the Gujarat Police killed Ishrat Jahan in a staged shootout in 2004 on the orders of the then chief minister Narendra Modi and BJP leader Amit Shah.

The opposition party also said that accusations against Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in the case were "preposterous and diversionary tactics", adding that the central government was obstructing trial in the case to protect those accused in the staged gun battle.

"The fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan and three others was ordered by the then chief minister and his then minister of state for home Amit Shah," the Congress said in a statement here.

Senior party leaders Kapil Sibal told reporters: "The plain and simple intrigue of the central government is to ensure that the most important persons of the BJP/government are not brought to trial."

"A metropolitan court in Ahmedabad, Special Investigation Team formed by the Gujarat High Court and a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry have affirmed their involvement in this case," Sibal said asserting that all three dubbed the gun battle as fake.

"It is, therefore, obvious that the present tsunami of misinformation is to save the then chief minister (Modi) and the then MoS (Shah) from having to appear before the sessions court as an accused," the Congress leader added.

"The CBI filed a charge sheet in 2013 and called it a fake encounter. We are in 2016 and the case hasn't moved forward at all," Sibal said, asking "why is this case not proceeding?"

Another senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi asserted: "If this trial goes to court, Modi and Shah may be summoned as accused. This entire campaign of misinformation is based on the version of (Pakistan-American Lashkar-e-Taiba operative David Coleman) Headley who has become a paragon of virtue for the BJP."

"It was the then United Progressive Alliance government that tried and got executed terrorists like Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru. We are proud that unlike our neighbours we give a full trial to those whom we think are terrorists. But, we don't execute them in fake encounters," Singhvi added.

There are reports suggesting that files related to the Ishrat Jahan case have gone missing and the home ministry has appointed a one-man inquiry panel on the matter.

Meanwhile, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma said the Congress will corner the cental government in the upper house on all important issues, including the Ishrat Jahan and the Uttrakhand cases.

"There are grave accusations against both the present prime minister and the BJP chief. We will raise all important issues in the house and put the government in the dock," Sharma said.

He said the charges levelled by BJP leaders and union ministers against Sonia Gandhi and the then union home minister P. Chidambaram as preposterous and diversionary tactics to take the focus away from the real issues.

"We challenge the union ministers either to prove their allegations or tender an unconditional apology," Sharma said.

Mallikarjun Kharge, the leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, said: "The Congress will unite the opposition on these issues and make the government accountable."

--Indo-Asian news Service

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The Arvind Kejriwal government's odd-even traffic scheme on Sunday got a word of support from an unexpected quarter -- from a parliamentarian of Odisha's Biju Janata Dal.

The issue figured at an all-party meeting and Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan intervened to announce that she has directed parliament officials to arrange additional vehicles for members as per the traffic restriction.

Amid criticism of the scheme, BJD member B. Mahtab supported it.

"We will try that we provide vehicles to members as per the odd-even scheme. We will try (to see that) members should not suffer problems while coming to parliament," Mahajan told reporters after the meeting.

Raising the issue of problems faced by people due to restricted traffic norms, Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) leader A.P. Jithender Reddy expressed concern about how the lawmakers could perform their duties when they have only one car officially allotted.

"The speaker as the custodian of parliament and members should know about this important issue," he reportedly said at the meeting wherein some other members, irrespective of party affiliation, supported him.

However, Biju Janata Dal (BJD) floor leader in Lok Sabha Mahtab said members should cooperate and try to help in implementationof the scheme as it was aimed at curbing pollution and decongestion on Delhi roads.

At this, while a few members laughed, taking things in a lighter vein, Reddy maintained that his complaints were genuine.

"Some members rightly said that they may face problems. Even parliament can face problems, as half the vehicles can be used at a time and half will not. But we will try and find a solution," Mahajan said.

The Delhi government has, meanwhile, appealed to the parliamentarians to cooperate with the odd-even norms and has also arranged six buses to ply specially for MPs.

Delhi Transport Minister Gopal Rai spoke to Mahajan on the issue during the day and sought her support to make the anti-pollution traffic drive a success.

While the president, vice president, prime minister, union ministers, Chief Justice of India, judges of high courts, women and students, among others, are exempted under the odd-even norms, there has been no exemption for MPs.

The second phase of the odd-even scheme started on April 15 and will continue till April 30.

--IANS

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US President Barack Obama has ruled out deploying US ground troops in Syria and said military efforts alone cannot solve the country's problems.

"It would be a mistake for the US or Great Britain... to send in ground troops and overthrow the (Syrian President Bashar al-) Assad regime," he told the BBC on Saturday night.

He also said he did not think the Islamic State (IS) militant group would be defeated in his last nine months of office.

Obama, who was in London on a three-day visit, said Syria was a "heart-breaking situation of enormous complexity".

Obama said the US-led coalition would continue "to strike IS targets in places like Raqqa and to try to isolate those portions of the country and lock down those portions of the country that are sending foreign fighters into Europe".

But he said the international community would have to continue to apply pressure to all parties, including Russia, Iran and moderate opposition groups, "to sit down at the table and try to broker a transition".

Obama criticized those countries whose parliaments had not approved of action in Syria but still "want the US to do something about it". He said: "You can't have it both ways."

Talks in Geneva between the Syrian government and opposition delegations will continue into next week.

--IANS

ksk/mr
Over 40,000 people have been affected and 1,000 hectares of crop land inundated by flood waters following pre-monsoon rains for the past one week in Assam, officials said on Sunday.

Four districts -- Lakhimpur, Jorhat, Sivsagar and Charaideo -- have been inundated by flood waters, the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) said, adding that 42,658 people were hit.

The army, the National Disaster Response Force and the State Disaster Response Force helped in rescue and relief operations to help the marooned people in Chairaideo.

Chief Secretary V.K. Pipersenia reviewed the flood situation with officials in Guwahati and with all the deputy commissioners through video conferencing.

He asked them to keep a close watch on the flood situation.

Pipersenia also reviewed the preparedness of various departments and availability of medicines and essential drugs in the health and family welfare department.

The chief secretary also directed the water resources department, the PWD (national highways division) and the National Highways Authority of India to jointly inspect the damaged NH-53 at Panchgram near Hailakandi in the Barak Valley.

The Central Water Commission said the Burhidehing river in Khowang in Dibrugarh district and the Desang river in Sivasagar districts were flowing above the danger level.

The Regional Meteorological Centre at Borjhar near Guwahati said the situation was likely to improve after Monday.

--IANS

ah/pm/mr
South Korea on Sunday strongly denounced North Korea's launch of a ballistic missile from a submarine in what Seoul said was a clear violation of UN Security Council resolutions.

Seoul's foreign ministry said South Korea strongly condemned North Korea's test-firing of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) on Saturday in eastern waters off the coastal town of Sinpo, Xinhua news agency reported.

Regardless of whether it had succeeded or not, the launch was in a clear violation of UN Security Council resolutions, and the test-firing came in less than 10 days after the UN urged Pyongyang to exercise restraint following the launch of a Musudan ballistic missile on April 15, the ministry said.

South Korea has repeatedly warned of stronger and sterner response to North Korea's provocations, Seoul will step up efforts to encourage the international community to put more pressure and sanctions on Pyongyang while faithfully implementing the existing UN Security Council resolutions, the ministry said.

The statement came hours after North Korea reported successful launch of a ballistic missile from a submarine. The test was guided by top North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

North Korea-style SLBM met all technical thresholds to carry out an underwater attack operation that targets South Korea and the US. It marked the second time since May 9, 2015 that Pyongyang announced its successful test of an SLBM.

--IANS

py/vt
US Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are distancing themselves from President Barack Obama, also a Democrat, over a bill that would allow 9/11 victims to sue foreign governments.

The terror attacks on September 11, 2001, which killed nearly 3,000 people, mainly in New York and Washington DC, left in their wake thousands of bereaved US family members.

Some in the US Congress were pushing a bill that would allow victims' families to sue in court foreign governments for playing a role in financing or otherwise supporting Al-Qaeda, the radical Islamist group that staged the deadly attacks, Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.

Republican senators are split over the bill, and in an unusual twist, Democrats strongly support the bill, even though it puts them at loggerheads with Obama.

But while Obama has threatened to block the bill on fears of repercussions from some foreign governments, Sanders and Clinton have pledged their support for the bill, in an apparent bid to woo the voters who support it.

Clinton has said: "If there are people or institutions or governments who should be held accountable, that should be part of the bringing to justice anyone or any state that had any role in the horrors of 9/11."

Obama is against the 9/11 legislation because it is upsetting relations with allies, Brookings Institution's senior fellow Darrell West said.

Still, several presidential contenders support the bill because they want to give the families who lost loved ones the opportunity to sue foreign governments that were shown to have some involvement in the terrorist attack, West said.

Indeed, Sanders said earlier this week that he supports the legislation "that would allow Americans, including the families of victims of the 9/11 attacks, to use US courts to determine if foreign entities are culpable for terrorist attacks in the US and seek restitution for the damage and lives lost."

Sanders continued that he believes "it is time to declassify the 28-page section of the 9/11 Commission Report on the potential sources of foreign support received by the hijackers."

He referred to the classified part of the official US government report that shows potential sources of support for the group of men that hijacked four commercial airplanes and flew them in a suicide mission into buildings in New York and Washington in the September 11 terror attacks.

"The families of those lost on that terrible day have the right to review any evidence that connects the hijackers to foreign supporters," Sanders said.

"If no such connection exists, then our country deserves the information necessary to put that speculation behind us," he added.

--IANS

py/vt
Shraddha Kapoor is not feeling well, and the actress was forced to skip promotions of her forthcoming film "Baaghi" due to her health.

The actress took to micro-blogging site Twitter on Sunday to share an update about her health, but refrained from getting into details about what's ailing her.

She posted: "Missing promotions today because I'm really unwell. Miss me ok Tiger Shroff, Sabbir Khan #BaaghiOn29thApril".

"Baaghi", produced by Sajid Nadiadwala, is a rebellious love story which will release on April 29. It also stars Telugu star Sudheer Babu.

-*-

Vaani Kapoor indulges in sweetness of Paris

Taking out some time from her busy shooting schedule, actress Vaani Kapoor went "Befikre" to pamper her sweet tooth.

The actress, who is shooting with Ranveer Singh for Aditya Chopra's "Befikre" in Paris, shared an image of a dessert that she had.

She posted: "Believe me it's heaven! #cheatday #carefreeinparis #igersparis".

The plot of the story has not been revealed. But going by the first look, where the lead pair can be seen locking lips in a carefree way, the film seems to be a passionate love story.

"Befikre", set to release on December 9, will mark the return of Aditya to direction. He last helmed "Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi" in 2008.-*-

Sidharth Malhotra's 'good deeds' lesson to Lilly Singh

"Student of the Year" star Sidharth Malhotra took role of a teacher to impart a lesson to popular Indo-Canadian online personality Lilly Singh, also known by her YouTube username IISuperwomanII.

When the YouTube star "questioned her brain" for not following Sidharth on Twitter, the actor said it's never too late to do a good thing.

She tweeted "That moment when you realize you weren't following Sidharth Malhotra and question your brain functionality", and Sidharth responded "IISuperwomanII Never too late for good deeds! Congrats on unicorn".

To which, Lilly shared: "Thanks friend! Next time I'm in India...food together".

--IANS

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Claiming to have the largest number of smart cities in Europe, Italy is keen to partner with India in its own initiative for 100 of them over the next 20 years with an investment requirement of over $1.2 trillion, a senior diplomat here has said.

"Italy can be a strong partner for smart cities in terms of design and technology. We are very attentive and focussed on India's smart cities," Francesco Pensabene, Italian Trade Commissioner and Director of its trade promotion office here, told IANS in an interview.

"We offer a strong partnership for India for its smart cities. Italian companies can majorly contribute in terms of design and technology for the smart cities," Pensabene said, adding the services can range from consultancy to actual building of infrastructure.

The trade commissioner said his country has launched a two-year campaign this year -- "Italy: The Extraordinary Commonplace -- to explore new business avenues for Italian companies and that the Indian smart city project figures high on the priority list.

"Smart cities can be instrumental in promoting our exports of furnishing, technology, etc., to India. It is a wonderful programme," he said, even as his office circulated a paper on the project for Italian companies.

As per this paper, the Mediterranean country has 30 smart cities.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the development of 100 smart cities across India in 2015, with proposed initial allocation of Rs.48,000 crore over five years. The first batch of 20 smart cities are expected to be launched by June 25 this year.

A number of countries, including Japan, the United States, Canada, Germany and France, have already entered into various partnerships for the development of India's mission.

Italy now is looking at partnering for the smart cities to boost its exports to India, that stood at $3.6 billion in calendar year 2015, growing by 10.4 percent when compared to 2014.

"The slogan for our export promotion campaign is 'building business partnership'. We are looking at a win-win situation for both, constituting of joint programmes and cooperation in all the sectors," Pensabene said.

"Industrial machinery constitues as much as 40-50 percent of our exports to India. We are happy about the Indian government's Make in India programme. In fact, we are amongst the top exporters of marble and leather machinery to India.," the trade commissioner said.

"We are looking at increase in exports of agricultural machinery, textiles and pharma as well."

The total annual trade between India and Italy stands at $8.2 billion with the Italian deficit at $720 million. The Italian trade promotion office here is also focussing on promoting the food and wine exports to India, which has seen a growth of 27 percent in the last four years.

"Italy contributes as much as 80 percent to India's pasta imports, 30 percent to its olive oil imports and 10 percent to its wine imports," he said.

(Meghna Mittal can be reached at meghna.m@ians.in)

--IANS

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Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Sunday presided over an all-party meeting and made a strong pitch for the smooth functioning of parliament session beginning on Monday.

The meeting was held to discuss ways to ensure disruption-free parliament, whose session will continue till May 13.

The speaker sought the cooperation of floor leaders of all parties to ensure a smooth transaction of business in the lower house even as differences remained on when and how to discuss the dismissal of Harish Rawat's government in Uttarakhand and imposition of President's Rule.

"All parties have promised they will cooperate to ensure a fruitful and functional session," Mahajan later told reporters.

The new session of parliament begins on April 25 since the budget session was prorogued last month to facilitate the promulgation of an ordinance to meet the financial requirements of Uttarakhand, where President's Rule was imposed on March 27.

Government sources said they were ready to discuss all issues in both houses of parliament, including drought and imposition of central rule in Uttarakhand, but with a rider.

"We are ready to discuss all issues provided they do not clash with matters that are sub judice," a source quoted a government representative as saying at the meeting.

Later, Mahajan too said: "The issue of President's Rule in Uttarakhand is sub judice. I don't think it can be discussed before April 27."

The Supreme Court has stayed till April 27 -- the next date of hearing -- the Uttarakhand High Court order that set aside President's Rule in the hill state.

"Normally, the budget session is split into two sessions. This time, it will be an entirely new session as both houses of parliament were prorogued to facilitate constitutional requirements of Uttarakhand," said a parliamentary official.

Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge and ministers Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Rajiv Pratap Rudy were among those who attended the meeting.

"All the parties brought up the issue of drought in various parts of the country," Mahajan told reporters.

During the session, government sources said, efforts to get the support of opposition parties for the passage of key legislations, including long-pending Goods and Services Tax Bill, are expected to yield positive results.

Besides, a bill to replace the Enemy Property Ordinance, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and Companies Amendment Bill will also be taken up, informed sources said.

Issues pertaining to the Ishrat Jahan case and the Malegaon blast may figure prominently, especially in the Lok Sabha, BJP leaders said.

Congress Deputy Leader in the Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma has given a notice for the suspension of Question Hour to discuss the Uttarakhand crisis.

Meanwhile, some MPs from states where electioneering is at its peak have complained about the timing of the parliament session.

"With election process on in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, it is natural that MPs from these states will be campaigning for their parties and candidates. I think the timing of this session is not suitable," said Communist Party of India-Marxist's P. Karunakaran.

AIADMK MP K. Kamaraj, who represents Kallakurichi constituency in Tamil Nadu, also endorsed the view.

--IANS

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The 42-km Thiruvananthapuram City Road Improvement Project (TCRIP) was showcased in the PPP forum of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) held in Switzerland, said the project concessionaire.

TCRIP was one of the 12 public-private partnership (PPP) projects selected from across the world to be featured in the forum for demonstrating good governance and sustainable development, Anil Pandala, project director, told IANS.

The project was granted by Kerala Road Fund Board, a state government agency, to a consortioum of IL&FS Transportation Networks Ltd and Punj Lloyd Ltd.

It was executed in four phases starting in 2004 and finishing last month, Pandala said.

It included developing 42.06 km of city roads by strengthening surface, widening, correcting geometric and vertical profiles, providing proper facilities for drainage of storm water, enhancing pedestrian facilities, improving safety by installing solar powered and GPS enabled traffic systems, energy-saving street lighting systems, landscaping and planting of trees.

Interestingly, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had in its 2010-11 report pointed out several "deficiencies" in the execution of TCRIP.

"The project remained incomplete even after seven years of award of a contract and the government had incurred arbitration liability of Rs.125 crore (as against the estimated cost of Rs.140 crore) towards cost escalation, idling of resources, delay in handing over land, etc.," the CAG had said in its report.
Emphasising the need for appointing more judges, Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur on Sunday questioned why the IB and other agencies took so long to verify the antecedents of those recommended for appointment as judges.

"Why should the Intelligence Bureau take months (for verification of those recommended by the Supreme Court collegium)? Why not the IB be told by the prime minister and the Prime Minister's Office to send the report (on their verification) in 15 days," wondered the chief justice while talking to the media after a daylong conference of the chief ministers and chief justices of different high courts.

CJI Thakur said the huge backlog of cases can't be tackled with the present strength of judges and working extra hours, but through appointment of more judges.

"In our view, the only solution of the problem is to increase the strength of the judges. We are not saying this. The government's own law commission is saying that the country's judiciary needs 40,000 judges."

CJI Thakur said this was the situation way back in 1987 and the figure definitely has gone up in 2016.

He said that proposals for the appointment of 170 judges are pending with the government for the past two months and "I don't know at what stage the proposals are clogged".

"Of the 145 proposals cleared by the government, 90 percent are sitting additional judges and only 50 new judges have been appointed. This, in no way, has reduced the vacancies."

"I don't think there is a problem as such. The government is resourceful. It can have more hands. After all, the proposal (for appointing judges) comes from the chief justice of the high court, passing through the chief minister and the governor. Why should the IB (then) take months in undertaking the verification?" he said.

"The secretariat of the chief justice of India must know where the proposal is (lying). I must know whether the secretary (in the ministry) is sitting (on the proposal) or the IB. Whatever you have to say, say it clearly and tell us if a person is not acceptable. People are crying for justice."

Addressing the media along with Union Law Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda, CJI Thakur said the high courts were working with 50 percent of their sanctioned strength of judges.

He said the apex court's response to the revised memorandum of procedure for the appointment of judges would be sent to the government early next week.

Responding to a query on the prime minister's suggestion to set up a committee comprising government officials and the representatives of the judiciary, the chief justice wondered what this committee would do.

Regarding cutting down on holidays and putting in extra hours of work, he said the judges' work was very stressful.

"We don't go to Manali or for trekking during vacations. The vacations are spent writing judgments. So, when judges come to court after vacations, the backlog of their earlier work is over."

He pointed out that Justice J.S. Khehar and four other judges of the Supreme Court spent their entire vacations hearing a bunch of petitions against the constitutional validity of the National Judicial Appointments Commission.

Asked why he became emotional during his speech at the inaugural session of the conference, CJI Thakur said he had spent 45 years in the judiciary (22 as a lawyer and 23 years as a judge) and was committed to the system.

"Emotions indicate some sensitivity. A person should not be so emotional (but one can't help) if at the end of the career, (one finds) things are the same," he said.

--IANS

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Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday said it was wrong on the government's part to label JNU student leader as "anti-national".

"Who gave birth to in the first place? The government should think over this. It is wrong to label him anti-national," Thackeray told a meeting of party office-bearers here.

If youth are branded "anti-national" in this manner, they will not be able to work freely for the country and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will forfeit the support of youths, he warned.

Thackeray's comments came hours after alleged that a co-passenger tried to strangle him on a Jet Airways Mumbai-Pune flight in the morning.

Both Kanhaiya Kumar and the passenger -- identified as Manas D.J. of Kolkata -- were off-loaded by Jet Airways.

Joint Police Commissioner Deven Bharati said the incident was actually a scuffle in which around eight people were involved and that Kanhaiya Kumar's claims were exaggerated.

"When Kumar was asked to lodge a complaint, he declined and what his friend said about the incident in his complaint was found to be false," Bharati said.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra Minister of State for Home Ram Shinde asserted that there was no attack on Kanhaiya Kumar, president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union.

"The police report says that fighting between two passengers led to scuffle. Kanhaiya's allegations (are) baseless," Shinde said.

In view of the development, Pune Police have further tightened security for Kanhaiya Kumar.

--IANS

qn/mr
Growth and potential of e-commerce in India have been extensively commented upon, and unfortunately, this has led to state governments yearning for a share of this pie.
The concept of substantial ownership and effective control is inherent in aviation law globally. Experts debate the pros and cons of India's position, in light of the issues raised over the foreign partner's alleged control over AirAsia India operations



Aviation sector poses no security concern: Lalit Bhasin

The question of substantial ownership and effective control is an area that concerns not just the aviation industry in India. The expressions - ownership and control - have been used in various enanctments. These include in Companies Act, erstwhile MRTP Act, Competition Act, 2002, and the Sebi Takeover Code.
Of India's three leading information technology (IT) companies, the top two, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys, have been able to meet market expectations on their 2015-16 fourth-quarter performance. This is in sharp contrast to the performance of the third, Wipro, which has disappointed markets and suffered downgrades. Among the rest, mid-sized company Mindtree has turned in robust results, indicating that the smart can outpace the rest even in trying global times. (HCL Technologies, another large company, is yet to announce results.) This is more or less par for the course for India's export-driven information technology sector at a time when overall exports for the economy have severely underperformed. If the $150-billion IT sector had not been around, then overall export performance would have been absolutely disastrous.
A policy focus on generating employment offers many payoffs. Apart from winning votes, high employment is associated with good tax revenues and lower crime. Employment data are also useful for investors, as it can be correlated to future revenue and profits.

Unfortunately, India has little reliable or timely data. That may be one reason why policy has not worked well. There are several other reasons why India's workforce is persistently underemployed. A weak educational system churns out unemployable youngsters. Extremely complex and rigid labour laws encourage rampant unionism and make it hard to hire and fire in flexible fashion. Poor infrastructure and red tape make it hard to set up businesses, get goods to market and so on.

As of now, 12 million Indians join the workforce every year. This creates a need to generate 1,000,000 new employment opportunities every month. Only one nation - China - has met targets on that scale consistently and it took an entirely different path with an emphasis on manufacturing and exports.

Most nations release timely employment data. The US for example, releases monthly payroll data, as do most European nations. Indian data are more scattered and less timely. In many cases, such as the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO)'s reasonably comprehensive surveys, Indian data can be five years old. One can only hope data will improve in speed and reliability with wider use of Aadhaar, PAN, etc.

The last NSSO survey was released in 2011. The next one is due in June 2016. A trend of labour shifting out of agriculture during 2005-10 was reflected in the 2011 survey. Some 25 million agricultural workers (classified as 'self-employed') shifted to formal jobs between 2005 and 2010. Employment intensity, measured as the number of persons generating every Rs 1 lakh of real gross domestic product (GDP), declined during 2005-10 to 1.05 persons/lakh, from 1.7 persons/lakh during 1999-2004. Lower intensity means fewer jobs are generated by GDP growth.

After 2011, we are groping for data. As of April, a very small percentage, about 30 million persons were formally employed in either public or private sector jobs out of a total workforce of about 525 million. Only two per cent of that force is considered highly skilled. The workforce was around 470 million in 2011 when the last NSSO survey was released and it should have grown by 55 million since. Over 330 million were based in rural areas in 2010. The massive urban migration and urbanisation of the past five years must have led to some change in that rural/ urban split but we don't know what for sure.

Formal hires in manufacturing actually declined between 2005-10. This doesn't mean employment generation in manufacturing fell. Manufacturing grew strongly through this period. But employers circumvented complex labour laws by hiring 'casual labour' and that trend continues.

Construction, which generates high employment, has been in the doldrums since 2013. Low generic growth and consumption will have impacted jobs in retail and the financial sector. But corporate compensation for employees rose in 2015-16, a year when many other costs came down.

Higher compensation suggests some degree of tightness, at least in terms of skilled labour. That impression is backed by the Manpower Employer Outlook Survey, which says hiring has been strong for the past few quarters.

These are quarterly estimates from ManpowerGroup, an American MNC focussed on workforces. The Indian survey asks 5,203 employers, "How do you anticipate total employment at your location to change in the three months to end of June 2016, compared to the current quarter?"



The responses suggest robust hiring. Employer confidence is reckoned to be very strong. Broadly 38 per cent of survey recipients expect to hire in this quarter. In fact, India's hiring patterns and employer confidence are projected to be the strongest of the 42 countries surveyed by Manpower, although 39 nations will see expansion.

The April- June survey suggest Indian hiring will be south-focussed. The pace of hiring will decline slightly in north and west and remain around the same in the east. The big expansions will be in manufacturing, mining and construction and services. Transportation, utilities, wholesale and retail trade will contribute the least. Those trends should translate into improved financials sometime in the future for beaten-down manufacturing and construction firms.
If you go by the omens, the Parliament session, which starts Monday, is hardly going to be smooth.

The Treasury benches could demand a special session to discuss the Ishrat Jahan "fake" encounter to embarrass the Congress; the Opposition, on the other hand, is set to mount an offensive on the government for imposing President's rule in Uttarakhand.

If this dashes hopes of the session transacting any substantive legislative business, of bigger concern for some is the government's seemingly bare cupboard in proposing or initiating consultations with stakeholders on legislation that could be taken up in the Monsoon and Winter sessions.

Those in the government, however, pointed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech in Jamshedpur on Sunday, on the occasion of Panchayati Raj Day, as an indicator of the road map that he wants his government to follow.

Both, in his monthly broadcast Mann ki Baat on Sunday morning and later the speech in Jamshedpur, his focus was on the farmers and the poor. The PM said there was enough money with the government, ample policies and programmes for welfare of villages and no lack of vision. But it was important to suitably implement all this.

Bharatiya Janata Party economic cell spokesperson Gopal Agarwal said the government has initiated several reforms, in real estate and insurance sectors.

"But the Congress is bent on disrupting. We believe much can be done by giving a corruption-free administration, through executive decisions and by improving existing laws," he said, pointing at how the Modi government has made Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) more effective by utilising it for asset creation, including digging of ponds.

A government source said the revocation of industrialist Vijay Mallya's passport was yet another proof of the intent of the government, compared to the "corrupt rule of the Congress-led UPA (United Progressive Alliance)."



There is increased urgency in the government over not making full use of its first two years, having spent the time in focusing on Assembly polls.

On Sunday, PM Modi told a conference of chief ministers and chief justices how several Opposition leaders raised the issue of holding the Lok Sabha and the Assembly polls together since much time is wasted because of the model code of conduct, which comes into force a few days before the polling.

The government, however, is hopeful that it can ensure the passage of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code during the current session of Parliament.

This, it believes, will make banks bolder in writing off and restructuring loans and improve the health of the economy. The stand-off on the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Constitution Amendment Bill is likely to continue.

The session is likely to see disruptions on the Uttarakhand issue, too.

The Lok Sabha is slated to take up discussions on demands for grants of the Railway ministry and the related Appropriation Bill for 2016-17 on April 26.

This will be followed by a discussion on demands for grants of the ministries of development of north-eastern region, housing and urban poverty alleviation, skill development and entrepreneurship, social justice and empowerment and civil aviation.

The Rajya Sabha will discuss the working of the ministries of health & family welfare, human resource development, finance, micro, small and medium enterprises and external affairs.

Then, the Finance Bill, 2016, and application of guillotine will be taken up. The time for discussion and voting on these demands for grants is allocated by the Speaker. On the last of the allotted days, the Speaker puts all the outstanding demands to the vote. This device is known as "guillotine".

The session will have 15 sittings. During the last session of Parliament between February 23 and March 16, both the Houses had 16 sittings. The Lok Sabha passed nine Bills, while the Rajya Sabha cleared 11 Bills. Ten Bills were passed by both the Houses, including the Real Estate (Development and Regulation) Bill.

Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Sunday held the customary all party meeting before the start of a fresh session. The Budget session was prorogued in end-March to facilitate the promulgation of ordinances brought in by the government. This is a fresh session for the two Houses.

WORK ON CARDS
The jail bharo andolan (fill the jails agitation) by the Patidar (Patel) community on April 17 that turned violent is not only a resurgence of the reservation issue in Gujarat. Just when news flow was diminishing around the 22-year-old face of the Patidar quota stir, Hardik Patel, convenor of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS), the recent spell has turned attention towards Lalji Patel, 40, of the other body active in the stir, the Sardar Patel Group (SPG).

The difference in ideology between SPG and PAAS are at times compared with those of Mahatma Gandhi and Bhagat Singh. One is "mature", the other is "aggressive". One led by a middle-aged farmer; the other identified by a hot-blooded youth whose fiery speeches can mobilise thousands of others.

While some in both groups do not wish to be differentiated, for fear of the stir losing its momentum, others insist on it. The entire agitation around reservation in education and jobs for Patidars has oscillated between PAAS and SPG. For some, this division runs deep in the whole fabric of the traditionally land-holding community, consisting of different categories such as Leuva, Kadva, Anjana and Kutchi, mostly based on socio-economic status. Ideological differences and ways of functioning have been pulling the agitation in different directions.

In the past, both have tried to claim credit for starting it all. PAAS, especially through Hardik Patel, has claimed the organisation was set up solely to fight for Patidar reservation. While SPG maintains the group was set up more than a decade earlier, to address several issues impacting the community, including the reservation issue.

"It was registered in 2004 as Sardar Patel Seva Dal in Mehsana, to address various issues the community faced, such as unemployed youth, farmers and unmarried girls. Within a decade, the group spread to other parts of the state. It was in 2014 that the group began making concerted efforts to push for reservation, in the wake of rising unemployment among the community youths," says Purvin Patel, one of the leaders at SPG.

The group has claimed it was instrumental in organising one of the first rallies under the agitation in 2014, which went unnoticed. It was in July 2015 when a set of 12 rallies were organised in and around Mehsana and the final one at Visnagar on July 23 had turned violent. That caught media and administration attention. By then, Hardik Patel and others who were part of SPG had broken away to form PAAS. Gaining momentum from there, in 55 days there were 149 rallies held by both SPG and PAAS.

It was the August 25 mega rally in Ahmedabad which catapulted Hardik Patel and PAAS to national attention. Hardik's detention at the GMDC grounds, the rally's venue, and police excess on the gathered crowd, led to violence and arson across the state. The administration then imposed a curfew and a ban on mobile services in several cities.

It was in the heat of the agitation that differences between SPG and PAAS emerged over Hardik Patel's provocative speeches. By then, national attention had been captured by the 22-year-old, leaving the older counterpart behind.

However, the recent agitation in Mehsana, which saw Lalji Patel and others getting injured during a clash with the police, brought others into the limelight. The police say they were forced to resort to a baton charge after some began pelting stones on them. Soon, curfew was imposed in Mehsana and mobile services suspended in Ahmedabad, Mehsana, Surat and Rajkot. Observers say with the likely arrest of Lalji Patel, currently in a hospital, the scales could shift in favour of the SPG leader.

In fact, some even see the recent agitation as an opportunist move to gain control of the reservation stir at a time when Hardik Patel is in jail on a sedition charge. "In Mehsana, Lalji Patel tried to reassert himself. With Hardik Patel in jail and inaction from the government in dissuading the protesting community, SPG might have seen this as a good opportunity to resurface," opines Achyut Yagnik, a social scientist.

Whether this works in favour of SPG in the long run is to be seen. However, the recent events have been a wake-up call for the state government, yet to come up with a discernible strategy on the reservation demands of a community that has historically been the backbone of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) here. "So far, the government has shown neither strategy nor vision or policy in dealing with the issue. Simply putting people into jail won't work. It has been nine months since the agitation took momentum. If no concrete steps are taken, the government might face more such incidents," asserts Yagnik.

To its credit, the state government has held meetings directly or through mediators such as its own party persons from the community. The criticism has been around results. At least three to four major meetings have been held between the seven-member cabinet ministers' committee that was set up to look at the reservation issue and community leaders. Almost all were inconclusive.

Purvin Patel says in a meeting on March 11, the state had sought one month to come back with some concrete steps or announcements. "However, despite continually reminding them, there were no results in sight. That is when we decided to plan the jail bharo andolan. Talks with the government have been taking place for nine months but in vain," he says.

Even after the jail bharo andolan that ended violently. with PAAS calling for a state-wide bandh the next day, the state government met community leaders. However, the "fruitful" and "positive" meeting still ended inconclusively. The cabinet committee led by health minister and spokesperson Nitin Patel said the government would be reverting soon after discussions with Chief Minister Anandiben Patel and ruling party leaders.

However, the discussions seems to have revolved around the demand to release Hardik Patel from jail, rather than reservation. Community leaders said the government seemed positive on most of their demands. Among the main demands made to the government by the PAAS and SPG groups were release of Hardik Patel, withdrawal of charges on Patel youths and reservation for Patidars.

PAAS leaders have said the focus would continue to be to press for reservation and mobilise the community further. "Whoever is talking about different ideologies between PAAS and SPG has been intending to create a rift to derail the agitation. Both groups have only one agenda and that is to seek reservation for Patidars. We are no one's enemies and will continue to take Mahatma Gandhi's path to fight for our rights," maintains Pragnesh Patel, one of the PAAS leaders.

PATIDAR AGITATION
Over 105 motor vehicles were reported stolen everyday between January 1 and April 15 this year in the city, showing an alarming increase in vehicle theft cases in the national capital.

As many as 11,116 motor vehicles were reported stolen between January 1 and April 15 this year, as compared to a little less then 8,000 during the corresponding period in 2015, according to police records.

Of the cases reported till April 15 this year, the highest pertained to the eastern range (3,117) of the city, followed by northern (2,452) and south-western (2,383) ranges.

The data, compiled since 2001 (when around 22 motor vehicles were reported stolen per day), shows that the graph never reached that high. In 2015, around 90 such cases per day were reported.

However, the rate of recovery of stolen motor vehicle remain a little less than 5 per cent, a rate more or less constant in the past 15 years.

Last year Delhi Police had launched an e-FIR system for motor vehicle theft cases. Under this system, an e-police station investigates all such cases and provides the complainant with a vehicle untraced report, necessary for an insurance claim.

This system has made things convenient for both complainants and the police. Technically, local police have given up on such cases and recoveries happen mostly by operations of special staff of police districts, who focus on tracking gangs operating in and around their areas, a senior official said.

In a crackdown against auto-lifters operating in the city, Delhi Police claimed to have unearthed at least 15 active gangs between April 1 and 20 and recovered over 110 motor vehicles.

"The rate at which trained auto-lifters can dismantle motor vehicles is surprising. The parts are later sold off either in the black market or as scrap. Meerut and Muzaffarnagar have turned out to be thriving markets in this regard," the official said.

In one of the cases, the police came across a gang which procured cars with damaged bodies through a website, which was set up for auction of vehicles damaged during the Chennai floods. They used to preserve the engines and other vital parts, discarding the others as scrap.

These vital parts they used to fit inside stolen cars and sell them off as genuine second-hand vehicles. With this trick they also evaded arrest as motor vehicles are often identified by chassis numbers.

Another gang, which was unearthed recently, was a master of dismantling. They had a range of accessories -- including mirrors, lights and shock absorbers taken apart from stolen vehicles -- to offer its clientele.

The police have also tracked some stolen motor vehicle receivers in Punjab. Efforts are on to dig deeper into the nexus, the official added.
Voting on 32 seats of Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation today began at a slow pace and later gained momentum, as about 30 per cent voter turnout was registered till 1 PM, officials said.

According to Gandhinagar Collector Ravi Shankar, the highest voter turnout has been registered so far in ward no.1, which comprises several rural pockets.

"Voting has picked up gradually and touched 30 per cent mark till 1 PM. Ward no.1, having some rural areas in it, registered the highest turnout of almost 37 per cent till afternoon," Shankar said, adding no untoward incident took place during the voting.

Among those who exercised their franchise today included senior Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil and state BJP general secretary I K Jadeja.

A total 108 candidates are in fray for the polls on 32 seats of eight wards, and 202 polling booths have been set up for the polling.

In 2011, Congress had won the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation election with 18 seats out of 33, while 15 seats went to BJP.

However, later BJP came to power in the civic body after some Congress councillors switched over to the saffron party.
Wheat arrival in the mandis of Haryana has touched a new high of 58,59,554 Metric Tonnes (MT) in the ongoing wheat procurement season.

Only 35,33,271 MT of wheat had arrived in the mandis during the corresponding period last year.

While giving this information here today, a spokesman of the Food and Supplies Department said the procurement process was running smoothly in the mandis of the state.

He said that out of the total arrival, 58,58,958 MT of wheat have been purchased by the government procurement agencies at Minimum Support Price.

Giving details of the wheat procured by government agencies, he said that more than 21.16 lakh MT of wheat has been procured by HAFED, whereas Food and Supplies Department has purchased over 15.56 lakh MT of wheat.

Haryana Warehousing Corporation has purchased over 10.25 lakh MT of wheat, Food Corporation of India has purchased over 6.42 lakh MT, and over 5.17 lakh MT of wheat have been procured by Haryana Agro Industries Corporation.

He said that apart from this, 596 MT of wheat have been procured by traders.
The Bombay High Court has dismissed an application seeking a direction to CBI to arraign former Maharashtra Chief Minister Shivajirao Patil Nilangekar as an accused in the multi-crore Adarsh housing society scam.

Justice Sadhana Jadhav recently dismissed the plea of social activist Pravin Wategaonkar who had sought a direction to CBI to include Nilangekar as an accused in the scam on the ground that he had during his tenure as the state Revenue Minister allegedly illegally granted certain approvals to the Adarsh society.

The petition had alleged that Nilangekar's son-in-law Arun Dawle was allotted a flat in the plush high-rise in south Mumbai.

CBI, in its reply to the application, said that the agency had looked into the alleged role of Nilangekar and others in relation to the scam and that the material unearthed during the course of the investigation did not warrant any action against the former Chief Minister.

The agency said that after its probe into the alleged benami transactions in relation to the scam, CBI has arraigned Arun Dawle and one Sampat Khidse as accused for acquiring flats under benami names.

After hearing arguments of both sides, Justice Jadhav said the court need not interfere when the agency has already looked into the allegations and arrived at a conclusion that no case is made out against Nilangekar.

"This court is of the opinion that courts should normally refrain from interfering with the investigation unless it is apparent on the face of record that the investigation in a particular manner would result into miscarriage of justice," Justice Jadhav said.

Wategaonkar had approached the high court after a special CBI court rejected his application in February last year.
Facing frequent technical problems in its Dreamliner fleet, has found itself in a spot as absence of contractual provisions is hindering the national carrier's efforts to get financial compensation from aircraft maker Boeing.

Air India, which is working on efforts to turnaround its fortunes, has been grappling with technical glitches and other malfunction with the "game-changer" Dreamliner aircraft since their induction in the fleet over three year ago.

The every now and then glitches have forced the national carrier to ground Boeing 787-800 planes on multiple occasions, which has resulted in long flight delays and significant loss of revenue.

Last month alone, at least two Dreamliners were grounded by the airline, one in Paris and another in Kolkata, in the wake of technical problems.

A senior official said many rounds of discussions have taken place with respect to seeking compensation from Boeing but efforts have not been successful so far.

"There is no provision for (financial) compensation with respect to technical problems in Dreamliner under the agreement signed with Boeing," the official said.

The absence of such a provision in the contract is hindering the possibility of getting compensated for the technical glitches but still efforts are being made in this regard, he noted.

has already inducted 21 Dreamliners in its fleet and six more are to be delivered to it by August 2018.

Though the airline management had also considered options such as replacing the remaining six planes with five latest version (B 787-900) aircraft, the proposal did not find favour with its board.

Significantly, the Government-run airline has also been forced to take the delivery of three B 777-300ER planes, which it wanted to cancel earlier due to the absence of "cancellation" clause in the purchase agreement with the US aircraft maker.

After initially deferring the delivery of these planes, Air India now plan to induct them in the fleet next year.

Minister of State for Civil Aviation Mahesh Sharma had



last year said that the Technical Dispatch Reliability (TDR) of Air India's Dreamliner fleet was lower than the average TDR due to frequent glitches in the aircraft while admitting that there have been technical delays on account of snags in these planes.

TDR is the ratio of the number of flights delayed due to technical faults to the total number of flights, expressed as a percentage.

These snags were related to software glitches and a few others such as windshield cracks, valve failure, oil loss and TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) failure, Sharma said earlier.

Interestingly, the national carrier's engineering union has been vocal on the issue and last year had urged the management to defer deliveries of the remaining aircraft till Boeing addresses the technical issues.

The union had also called upon Air India management to seek compensation for the adverse impact on the carrier's on-time performance due to grounding of the planes.

Last month, another Air India official had said Boeing "perpetually failed" to address the technical issues with Dreamliners, which result in frequent grounding of the planes



According to officials at the airline, frequent problems with Dreamliners have been resulting not only in revenue loss but also adversely impacting the on-time performance -- a key metric for the ailing Air India.

Air India, which was one of the first customers of the Dreamliner planes, currently has 21 Boeing 787-800s in the fleet, of the 27 planes it had ordered with the US aircraft maker in 2005.

As a part of its fleet expansion plans, Air India had in January, 2006, placed orders with Boeing Company for 68 aircraft, including 27 Dreamliners and 41 B-777s and B-737- 800s.
On a hot evening in the dusty lanes at Korukupet in North Chennai, a loudpeaker fitted autorickshaw criss-crosses the neighbourhood, blaring out welfare schemes of AIADMK supremo and Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, seeking re-election from her Dr Radha Krishnan Nagar constituency.

"See the slum clearance board tenements at Power Kuppam and Ranganathapuram, Meenambal Nagar overbridge, the concrete roads, tar topped roads, Amma Kudineer (drinking water) Centre..." loudspeakers fill the air with AIADMK propaganda in this heavily congested, largely downscale area.

The "achievements" of Jayalalithaa for the rest of Tamil Nadu also finds mention without fail.

Moving into interior neighbourhoods like VOC Nagar in Tondiarpet, New Washermenpet and Royapuram, one finds several mini-buses, an initiative of the AIADMK regime, negotiating busy markets and residential areas on clean cement and tar topped roads.

Though the ruling party has boasted of various welfare schemes, residents aired a slew of grievances when this correspondent visited the constituency.

"Our area fills with columns of smoke the moment garbage is burnt at nearby Kodungayur dumpyard," says N Sathyaraj, a long time resident of Netaji Nagar. He also alleged that several residents had respiratory problems due to it.

Authorities, however, denied the charge saying that, "If at all burning happened" in the dumpyard it was the handiwork of miscreants, for which action had already been taken.

Sathyaraj rued that many schemes intended especially for the weaker sections had not reached them. "This is mainly a lower and middle class area. Strangely, we do not know why schemes like Amma Pharmacy and farm fresh outlets have not been opened up here."



He said trucks selling farm fresh vegetables also do not visit their areas.

A fish vendor, Desapattu in VOC Nagar fish market shows overflowing sewage in the market. "This is the constituency of our Chief Minister... You take a look for yourself. I do not want to comment anything."



The market does not have proper facilities for both vendors and public, he claimed.

According to another resident R Loganathan, civic infrastructure has not improved even after Jayalalithaa won from here.

Loganathan refers to a host of issues like alleged



clogged storm water drains, underground drainage and absence of a playground for children.

"Children need to go to railway land near Ezhil Nagar for playing. On rainy days even that option is shut."



He also referred to the 'long-standing problem' in the area-- with many State slum clearance board tenements-- of people finding it impossible to get a tenement they buy transferred in their names.

"Though people paid money to buy property, they could not assert their right over it or use it for collateral purposes in banks," he said.

"When the AIADMK chief herself won from here we expected solutions to long-term problems like this," he said.

Asked about these, authorities declined to comment referring to the Model Code vis-a-vis the May 16 elections.

K Vijayakumari, another resident, however, said, "it is not even a year since Jayalalithaa was elected. Already, she has given the area several new amenities like a college and new classrooms in corporation schools. I hope she will do more if she is given another opportunity."



Several other residents too had their own share of grievances, mostly on civic and traffic issues.

Citing the movement of heavy vehicles like trucks and container lorries to facilities like the IOC terminal, BPCL lube plant and Chennai Port, they demanded that their movement be regulated more or stopped.

"Day in and out we see mishaps owing to truck movement... since this constituency is represented by Amma, we expected quick solutions," a resident of Elaya Street said.

Though residents poured out grievances, they did mention that their area "shot to fame" across the state as Jayalalithaa's constituency, nudging officials to pay more attention.

There are plenty of voices in support of Jayalalithaa too, especially among women voters.

A Shantha and her husband S Antony Muthu, small time traders on Ennore High Road, listed infrastructure projects and amenities like a modernised fishing harbour, new slum clearance board tenements, a railway over bridge and Amma Kudineer (Drinking water) Centre.

"We hope she will do more when she comes back to power," they said. However, they expressed dismay that Jayalalithaa was not undertaking a door-to-door campaign.

Notably several residents were not even aware of the names of nominees of opposition parties, which sums up the overall electoral scenario in RK Nagar, indicating an edge for Jayalalithaa.

(REOPENS MDS2)



While Shimla Muthu Chozhan is the DMK candidate, former Manonmaniam Sundaranar University vice-chancellor Vasanthi Devi is the nominee of VCK, which is fighting the polls as a constituent of DMDK, People's Welfare Front, TMC combine.

One of the smaller constituencies in Tamil Nadu, RK Nagar has more women voters (97,806) than men (97,340). The total number of voters was 1,95,179 before the summary revision of electoral rolls was done this year.The revised data, according to authorities, is being collated and will be available soon.

In the 2011 Assembly elections, P Vetrivel of AIADMK won by a good margin of 31,255, defeating P K Sekarbabu of DMK in RK Nagar. He resigned in 2015 following which Jayalalithaa contested from the constituency in the bypoll.

Jayalalithaa had won from Srirangam constituency in 2011. However, she was disqualified as an MLA following her conviction by a trial court in Bengaluru in a disproportionate assets case in 2014.

She returned as Chief Minister on May 23, 2015 after being acquitted by the Karnataka High Court in the case.

In the June 2015 RK Nagar bypoll, Jayalalithaa recorded an impressive victory winning by a huge margin of 1,50,722 votes, trouncing her nearest CPI rival C Mahendran who forfeited his deposit like the other contestants.

Jayalalitha had earlier this year said the people of her RK Nagar constituency are forever etched in her heart.
The HRD Ministry has worked out an agreement between All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) to settle "regulatory discord" over running of pharmacy colleges.

According to official sources, there are over 1,000 pharmacy colleges in the country which are regulated by AICTE while PCI, which comes under the Health Ministry, lays down norms for them.

"There have been instances when the two bodies are not on the same page on key matters like fixing the number of seats in colleges. It is a case of jurisdictional overlapping. Recently, the Calcutta High Court had directed the HRD Ministry to resolve the conflict between these two regulatory bodies," an official source told PTI.

HRD Minister Secretary V S Oberoi had held a meeting with top officials of AICTE and PCI last week to discuss the issues following the high court order, the sources said.

To create greater synergy between tho two bodies, it has been decided that AICTE will mandatorily incorporate PCI norms and standards in its forthcoming Approval Process Handbook, a senior official said.

Existing pharmacy institutions will be inspected by officials of both AICTE and PCI and further action can be initiated to eliminate substandard institutions.

It has also been decided that outstanding matters of pharmacy colleges should be discussed in an elaborate manner in Executive Committee meetings of AICTE to address the quality issues, the official said.

The sources said the meeting had decided to set up a committee with the members from AICTE and PCI to look into various aspects of running pharmacy colleges.
Punjab Congress President Amarinder Singh has postponed his Canada visit after a complaint was filed against him in a Canadian court over alleged atrocities committed during his tenure as chief minister.

"I regret postponing my visit to Canada but this has been done to avoid any ugly confrontation or untoward situation," he said in an appeal to Canadian NRIs, adding that "I will fight this case legally to the finish and come to you once it is sorted out through due legal process."



74-year-old Amarinder, who is on a three-week tour of the United States and Canada, said after advice from his Canada-based lawyers in the wake of a complaint lodged by Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) against him in a court there, he has decided to reschedule his visit. Fresh dates would be worked out later.

SFJ yesterday filed a complaint in a Toronto court demanding his arrest over alleged atrocities committed during his tenure as chief minister.

Quoting his lawyers, Amarinder said, "the complaint is totally in violation of the Canadian laws and its constitution and it will be rejected by the court".

He said, he will not be deterred by such complaints by the known "India baiters who are doing the bidding of anti-India forces like the ISI".

The former Chief Minister said, his lawyers have told him that the SFJ complaint will take about three weeks to be decided.

"This it is absolutely a fake and frivolous complaint which will not stand the scrutiny of law," he claimed adding that "the moment it will be decided I will attend all the functions that were scheduled earlier".

Amarinder, who came here on April 19 and addressed NRI gatherings here, was to fly to Toronto yesterday but had to cancel his flight and was forced to wait for the court decision.

Sources said the petition moved by "Sikhs for Justice" is demanding restraining orders on him.

Amarinder was Punjab's chief minister from 2002-07.

(Re-opens NRG-17)



Meanwhile, at Sunam in Sangrur district,Amarinder charged Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal with trying to get rid of AAP's state convener Sucha Singh Chhotepur to pave the way for his own entry into Punjab.

Chhotepur has an unblemished record of over 40 years in public life, he said.

Amarinder sought deployment of adequate central security forces during the 2017 assembly elections. It is important as Punjab was "faced with a serious law and order problem with about sixty criminal gangs active in the state". Besides, two terror attacks in the state last year make it all the more necessary, he added.

He said, the Congress can face elections anytime. It was far ahead of the Akali-BJP alliance and the AAP.

"We don't see any competition leave aside a challenge from anyone", he said, while claiming the Akali-BJP alliance was already on the way out and AAP had started disintegrating.
Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh today slammed rights group 'Sikhs for Justice' over the cancellation of his meetings in Canada, saying it had played into the hands of Pakistan's ISI by trying to abuse a law aimed at safeguarding human rights of Canadian citizens.

Amarinder was denied permission by the Canadian government to hold meetings with NRIs after SFJ moved a local court seeking a stay on his meetings there, over alleged atrocities committed during his tenure as chief minister in 2002-2007.

The Canadian government had invoked provisions of "Global Affairs Canada" policy that forbids foreign governments from conducting election campaigns there or establishing foreign political parties and movements in their country.

Amarinder urged Canadian authorities, both in government and judiciary, to ensure that law is not "misused and abused" for vested political interests by groups like the SFJ "whose anti-India credentials are too well-known".

"Otherwise this law will undermine and defeat the very purpose for which it has been enacted," he said.

Amarinder, who is in Chicago, urged the government of India to take up the matter of summoning of its leaders and public representatives by the courts in Canada, with the Canadian government.

"We just cannot be equated with dictatorships where there are no judicial systems and processes in place," he said in a statement, adding, "This involves the question of the sovereignty of a nation with such a strong and transparent judicial system in place and an insult to both (the sovereignty and judiciary)."



Amarinder rejected allegations levelled in the complaint lodged against him in a Canadian court by the SFJ that there were cases of torture of Canadian citizens during his chief ministership and that the police officials allegedly involved in such incidents had been promoted by him.
Two persons were killed in a gun battle between rival groups on the campus of Aligarh Muslim University, forcing authorities to deploy Rapid Action Force and order a "major clean-up" operation in AMU hostels.

The violence left an expelled student dead last midnight while another youth, who was injured in the clash, succumbed to injuries in hospital today, AMU spokesman Rahat Abrar said.

Violence erupted on the campus around last midnight, following a clash between two student groups leading to the death of Mahtab, DIG (Aligarh Range) Govind Agarwal, who led the police operation, told PTI today.

Agarwal said trouble started when a resident of Mumtaz hostel was assaulted and his room set afire. The victim rushed to the Proctor's office to file a complaint.

As soon as of the incident spread, students belonging to two rival factions gathered and a clash broke out.

Police said Mahtab was shot dead late last night near the Proctor's office, where the warring groups exchanged fire, set ablaze a jeep and over half-a-dozen bikes, besides indulging in arson and torching the Proctor's office building.

Mohd Waqif, who was critically wounded in the firing, was rushed to Delhi where he succumbed to injuries.

According to AMU officials, Waqif was not a student but was seeking admission to the University and staying near the campus for preparing for the engineering entrance test.

An AMU official said tension between the rival groups, belonging to Azamgarh and Sambhal regions of Uttar Pradesh, has been simmering for quite some time now.

Police said an FIR has been registered against eight persons including Mohsin Iqbal, a student of MA (Political Science) and seven others, most of whom are outsiders and former students, in connection with the violence.

Rapid Action Force (RAF) was deployed at all sensitive spots, especially in view of the entrance test for the engineering college scheduled for today with over 13,000 candidates appearing from AMU campus centre alone.

The entrance test, however, passed off peacefully amid strong security measures though an uneasy calm prevailed on the campus, District Magistrate Balkar Singh said.
One more MLA from the YSR Congress today crossed over to the Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh, taking the total number of defectors to 13.

Attar Chand Basha, MLA from Kadiri constituency in Anantapuramu district, joined the ruling party in the presence of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu here this morning.

The move comes even as Leader of Opposition YS Jaganmohan Reddy met Governor E S L Narasimhan in Hyderabad to complain about the 'purchasing' of his legislators by the ruling party.

Local leaders of YSRC from Kadiri also joined the TDP along with Basha.

Like his 12 other colleagues, who claimed they deserted the lone opposition party for the sake of "development", Basha too said he joined the TDP for the development of his constituency.

It may be recalled that exodus of MLAs from YSRC began on February 22 when four of them crossed over to the TDP.

Since then, legislators have been switching to the ruling party at regular intervals with the number now touching 13.

The YSRC submitted a petition to Assembly Speaker Kodela Sivaprasada Rao seeking disqualification of the defectors.

It also sought to build a case against them by issuing a whip for voting on two no-confidence motions (one each against the government and the Speaker) in the Budget session last month but the TDP outwitted the YSRC in the political game.

Though it eventually issued a whip to its members for voting against the Appropriation Bill, the YSRC's strategy fell flat as "rules" did not permit voting.

As his legislators continue to ditch him, a baffled Jagan petitioned the Governor against the "immoral" acts of the TDP in luring and 'purchasing' the opposition MLAs and sought action against Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu.
on Sunday requested the Centre to give a one-time special package to bail out liabilities of Rs 2,000 crore inherited from the previous Congress government.

Chief Minister Kalikho Pul urged Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju on Sunday during a function organised to celebrate the National Panchayati Raj Day, to pursue the Centre for the special package to overcome the liabilities.

"Being a nascent state in terms of development, depends 100% on central funding," he said, pleading for early release of all remaining funds against various projects.

Pul said that the Centre had already assured an additional Rs 380 crore for four-laning of Banderdewa-Hollongi NH-415, besides providing solar lights to 80,000 households in the state this year.

"Work on NH-415 will commence from September after evicting all illegal structures," he said.

Terming Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) as a bridge to development, Pul said since scheme formulation and implementation starts in the villages, PRIs play an important role.

"The state government has revived the PRIs, provided more power and functions to them," he said.
A man, convicted of assaulting a policeman on being stopped for violating traffic rules, has been sent to nine months in jail by a Delhi court which took a stern view saying it can't show "undue sympathy" and a message must be sent that law is not weak.

The court, which also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on Mukesh Kumar, said hitting a public servant shows that he did not have any regard for law enforcing agencies.

"In the present case, the nature of offence is such that this court is not inclined to grant the benefit of probation to the convict. He had beaten a public servant when he was at fault," Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Ankur Jain said.

"It is clear that the court should not get carried away with undue sympathy. Hitting a public servant shows that the convict did not have any regard for law enforcing agencies. Perhaps, he knew that he might get away.

"Any undue sympathy towards convict would be counter productive. A message should be sent to the perpetrators of the crime, that law is not weak and can deal with them sternly wherever required," the magistrate said.

Mukesh, who was riding a bike with three pillion riders without helmets in 2010, was arrested for beating up constable Ravinder after he stopped them.

While others fled from the spot, Mukesh was apprehended and tried for the offences under Sections 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty) and 353 (assaulting public servant) of the IPC. He was convicted by the court last month.

"He (Mukesh) was riding a bike on which three more persons were sitting which is against the law. When he was stopped, he had the audacity to beat the constable.

"At the most he would have been challaned but to show his might he had given a blow to the constable in order to get away," the court noted while sentencing him.

Seeking leniency, Mukesh said he be released on probation for his good conduct and that he has to look after his family.

Earlier, while convicting Mukesh, a Dwarka resident, the court had observed, "No person can be allowed to take law in his own hand and beating police officials in public area cannot be appreciated in any manner.
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today offered all support and cooperation to Bhagat Singh Memorial Foundation (BSMF) for conversion of Bhagat Singh's house at his birthplace Banga in Faisalabad district (Pakistan) into a world class memorial.

This assurance was given by Badal to the visiting delegation of BSMF led by its chairman Imtiaz Rashid Qureshi from Lahore, which called on him at Punjab Bhawan here, an official spokesman said.

The Chief Minister assured Qureshi that Punjab government would bear the entire expenditure for the purchase of Bhagat Singh's house in village Banga, where he was born, to develop it as one of the finest monument to perpetuate his glorious legacy across the globe.

He reiterated that this move would certainly prove to be a milestone in sensitizing and keeping our youngsters abreast with the ideology of an iconic freedom fighter, who was equally revered both in India and Pakistan.

Badal said that the state government would extend all possible help to develop this magnificent memorial at Bhagat Singh's birthplace as a befitting tribute to this great son of the soil.

Enthused by the goodwill gesture and positive response from the Chief Minister, Qureshi expressed his gratitude to him saying that Bhagat Singh was one of the tallest heroes and would be ever remembered by one and all for times to come.

He said Bhagat Singh's legacy should not only be restricted to India and Pakistan but across the world in general and particularly in the Indian subcontinent.

Qureshi also hoped that this initiative would further strengthen the bonds of love, goodwill and friendship between the people of both these countries.

Qureshi apprised the Chief Minister that the foundation was pro-actively engaged in disseminating the life, philosophy and works of the great revolutionary Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh by organizing seminars, symposiums and panel discussions regularly on different occasions.

He also informed Badal that Shadman Chowk in Lahore has been renamed as Bhagat Singh Chowk in remembrance of the legendary hero's supreme sacrifice with concerted efforts of the foundation.

He told Badal that the foundation has filed a writ petition in the Lahore High Court to reopen the trial case of Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh to bring facts on the fore, which led to his execution along with Rajguru and Sukhdev in Lahore jail in 1931.

Felicitating the Australian envoy, Badal said she has made



every Punjabi proud by reaching the zenith of her professional career.

The chief minister invited her to visit their ancestral village Dharamkot in Moga district along with her parents.

Badal also extended an invite to her to visit his native village Badal, where he has set up educational institutions including a nursing college for girls.

He urged the Australian High Commissioner to visit the Virasat-e-Khalsa, a rare monument depicting the history of Sikhs through various audio-visual techniques.

The Australian High Commissioner offered full support and cooperation to Punjab. Sidhu said she was proud to be a Punjabi and it was her endeavour to set up joint ventures in the field of agriculture, food processing and education.

She told Badal about the indomitable spirit of Punjabis, who have enormously contributed to the Australian economy.

Badal honoured Sidhu with a memento as a token of love, affection and honour on behalf of all Punjabis.
Bombings targeting security forces in the Baghdad area killed at least eight people and wounded more than 30, security and medical officials have said.

A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle at a checkpoint on the northeastern edge of the city yesterday, killing at least seven people and wounding at least 24.

Another car bomb exploded near an army patrol in the Dura area of southern Baghdad, killing at least one person and wounding at least eight.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but suicide bombings are a hallmark of the Islamic State jihadist group, which also employs car and roadside bombs.

IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but Iraqi forces backed by US-led air strikes have since regained significant ground.

The jihadists still control a large part of western Iraq, and are able to carry out frequent bombings in government-held areas.
The bar bribery scam and factionalism in CPI(M) are key campaign points as Congress leader K Babu, who had a controversial stint as state Excise Minister and CPI(M) leader M Swaraj, are waging a tough battle for Thrippunithura assembly constituency in Ernakulam district.

BJP is testing its electoral prospects in this Hindu dominated constituency by fielding noted writer and a retired College professor Thuravoor Viswambharan.

While Babu, who has been winning the seat since 1991, said the bar bribery charges levelled against him was a "deliberate political conspiracy by CPI(M)" to tarnish his image, Swaraj claimed that "corruption" is the major poll issue in the constituency.

"Bar owners, who were forced to close down their bars due to the widely hailed liquor policy of the UDF government, are pumping money to defeat me in the elections. The people of Thrippunithura will reject all false propaganda against me. I am confident about my victory," said 64-year-old Babu, who won the 2011 elections by a margin of 15,778 votes against his nearest CPI(M) rival C M Dinesh Mani.

Babu had resigned as excise minister on January 23 this year in the wake of a Vigilance court directing filing of an FIR against him in the bar bribery case. He returned to the Oommen Chandy cabinet on February 1 after the Kerala High Court stayed the order.

The resignation of Babu, a close confidant of Chandy, had rattled the UDF government. Working President of Kerala Bar Owners Association Biju Ramesh had alleged Babu was given Rs 10 crore as bribe for renewal of licences of liquor bars, a charge rubbished by the Congress leader.

"People of Thrippunithura have already taken a decision against the Congress leader who earned a bad name during his controversial stint as Excise Minister. They will definitely vote for me to ensure a clean and transparent LDF government in the state," Swaraj claimed.

Confident about victory of Swaraj (36), who is also state secretary of Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), CPI(M) District Secretary P Rajeeve said "Thrippunithura has turned as a capital of Kerala's anti-corruption movement".

"Babu's candidature was even opposed by KPCC president V M Sudheeran on the ground of corruption. People are aware of these things. We have fielded our energetic youth leader to take on Babu," Rajeeve said.

Congress, on the other hand, believes that factionalism



in CPI(M) and late entry of Swaraj as the candidate will help Babu retain the seat.

"A strong section of CPI(M) workers in the constituency are not happy with the candidature of Swaraj, a loyalist of Pinarayi Vijayan. It is mainly because of his outbursts against their leader and veteran party leader V S Achuthanandan during the peak of factional feud in the party. Definitely, they will teach a lesson to Swaraj, who humiliated their beloved leader, in this election," a local Congress leader claimed.

Swaraj, however, rejected the charges, pointing out that Achuthanandan himself has stated that it was false propaganda by Babu to deviate attention from issues like corruption.

Admitting that there were "some minor issues" in some local committees of the party in Thrippunithura area, he also said everything has been settled and "all comrades are united against their battle against corruption".

"There are many burning issues directly affecting the people. Many parts of the constituency face drinking water shortage. Water water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.... that is the situation in this constituency. Babu is raising unnecessary issues to hide his inefficiency as a legislator in addressing such issues," Swaraj said.

BJP leader C G Rajagopal said Thrippunithura, which was the capital of erstwhile Kingdom of Cochin, is a famous centre of culture in Kerala and the party has fielded a "cultural icon" to challenge the two "corrupt fronts-- Congress-led UDF and CPI(M)-led LDF" in the elections.

He said Prof Thuravoor Viswambharan is a scholar having wide contacts in the constituency and it would help him win independent votes, besides the party votes.

"Besides, we are contesting elections as NDA and our key partner BDJS, a political offshoot of SNDP, has a strong base in the constituency. So we will be able to rewrite the history of the Constituency this time around," Rajagopal said.
With groundwater level going down by over 20 feet in areas bordering Nepal, Sitamarhi district in the state has taken a noble step by constructing 2,168 soak pits in schools, health centres and police stations among others at a war-footing to conserve and recharge water below earth.

The initiative involving community has been taken by Sitamarhi district administration in partnership with UNICEF.

The programme, which involves 11,000 teachers and 7 lakh students of government schools, has been undertaken to conserve water and avoid situation like Latur in Maharashtra in future, District Magistrate Rajiv Roushan told PTI today.

The step was part of the "Lohia Swacha Abhiyan" of the Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government.

A day before the Earth Day on April 22, Tirhut Commissioner Atul Prasad, Sitamarhi DM Rajiv Roushan along with UNICEF Programme Manager Shivendra Pandey launched the construction work of a soak pit in the district at the Dumra Girls' School.

Same day 2,168 soak pits were constructed in various locations in one go, the DM said.

The Commissioner said through this initiative around 26 crore litre of water could be saved in the district annually, which would be equal to 500 train loads of water being sent to Latur in Maharashtra in view of the acute water crisis there.

He said efforts would be made to include the initiative, probably first of its kind, in the Guinness Book of World Records.

The DM said the initiative was necessitated by looming danger of water shortage in the district as manifested by lowering of ground water level.

Survey pointed towards the stark facts that groundwater has gone down on average by 13 feet in the district.

In areas like Sonebarsa and Parihar on borders of Nepal, groundwater level had gone down by over 20 feet, he said.

Giving details of 2,168 soak pits, Roushan said 1983 of them have been built in government schools in 17 blocks, 40 in madarsas, 25 in hospitals like primary health centres, 17 police stations and 13 PDS shops among others.

Besides conserving water, soak pits would help prevent diseases due to contaminated water, he said.

Nipurnh Gupta, Communication Specialist of UNICEF told PTI that the International body has provided technical support to soak pit projects in Sitamarhi.

Buoyed by success of the pilot project in Sitamarhi, she said if other districts come out with similar initiative, UNICEF would extend them similar technical support.
The BJP today lodged a police complaint against Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee, Subrata Bakshi and Derek O'Brien alleging that they were responsible for the use of a morphed picture of Union Home minister Rajnath Singh and demanded their immediate arrest.

BJP state spokesperson Joy Prakash Majumdar along with other leaders and party workers met Joint Commissioner (Crime) of Kolkata Police, Debasish Boral at the Police Headquarter at Lalbazar and lodged a complaint against the three TMC leaders.

"Today we have lodged a complaint with the Kolkata Police in connection with the morphed picture showing Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh offering sweets to CPI(M) leader Prakash Karat.

"In our complaint we have held three - TMC party chairperson Mamata Banerjee, all India general secretary Subrata Bakshi and national spokesperson Derek O'Brien who held yesterday's press conference responsible for the entire episode and demanded their immediate arrest," Majumdar told PTI.

"Derek O'Brien held yesterday's conference after he was instructed by Mamata Banerjee. So it's clear it was whose brainchild," Majumdar added describing the incident as "unprecedented" in the history of the country's politics.

"We have seen so many things happening in Indian politics but TMC has broken all records and stooped to such a low level," he said.

"We have received a complaint from the BJP today. They have lodged a complaint with our Cyber Crime section. We are looking into the matter," Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Debasish Boral said.

Meanwhile, Left Front Chariman Biman Bose also demanded that Derek O'Brien should be arrested in connection with the morphed photograph incident.

Stating that if Jadavpur University Prof Ambikesh Mohapatra could be arrested for circulating one spoof on Mamata Banerjee and the then Railway Minister Mukul Roy then "why will not Derek O'Brien be arrested in this case? Bose questioned.

"If Ambikesh Mohapatra can be arrested for a circulating one photo which he had not created, I think Derek O'Brien must be arrested," Bose said.

TMC, following a press conference by its national spokesperson Derek O'Brien, had yesterday posted two videos and six pictures on its website. The party, however, removed the morphed picture from its website after the controversy.

(REOPEN CAL3)



After the BJP lodged a complaint with the police against TMC leaders, the TMC said as the morphed picture was removed and an apology was sought, the matter should end there.

"As soon as our research team found out that one of the pictures used was morphed, it was immediately removed. We have even sought an apology for the mistake from our end. We think the matter should end here," TMC vice-president Mukul Roy said.

"We did not morph the picture. It was already present in an website from where we had used it," Roy said.
A bomb-laden vehicle exploded today killing seven soldiers in Yemen's south, where government forces backed by air power from an Arab coalition have launched an offensive against Al-Qaeda, military sources said.

The attack, which also wounded another 14 soldiers, targeted an army convoy as it entered jihadist stronghold Zinjibar, capital of Abyan province, said the sources, blaming Al-Qaeda for the bombing.

Forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi launched the Zinjibar offensive yesterday, after similar assaults pushed the jihadists from other areas in the south.

The Saudi-led coalition that has been battling Iran-backed rebels across the country since March 2015 has deployed Apache helicopters to support the loyalist fighting on ground.

The pro-Hadi forces "retreated from Zinjibar after they entered on Saturday night" from the city's southern gate, an officer in Abyan told AFP.

"The withdrawal was decided following information that Al-Qaeda was preparing other car-bomb attacks against our troops," added the officer who requested anonymity.

Government forces also launched an offensive Saturday to drive the jihadists out of the neighbouring town of Jaar.

Fighting there killed 25 Al-Qaeda fighters and four soldiers as loyalists seized Al-Kud, five kilometres south of Zinjibar, military and medical sources said.

"After our withdrawal, Apache helicopters will target Al-Qaeda positions to secure the town," said another officer, adding helicopters had foiled two attempts to carry out bombings against troops using vehicles in Al-Kud.

Meanwhile, the Arab coalition carried out a series of air raids against Al-Qaeda in Mukalla, a southeastern provincial capital the jihadists have controlled for the past year, military sources said.

Residents reported hearing heavy explosions as coalition jets struck Al-Qaeda-held arms depots in the city.

"The air raids are in preparation for a ground operation as part of a major military offensive to chase Al-Qaeda out of Mukalla and the entire Hadramawt province," an officer said.

Coalition-backed forces have driven militants out of Aden, the southern city declared by Hadi as the country's temporary capital after the Shiite Huthi rebels overran Sanaa in September 2014.

And last week, government forces expelled militants of the jihadist network's local branch -- Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- from Huta, the provincial capital of Lahj.

The latest fighting comes as representatives of the government and the Iran-backed rebels continue with UN-sponsored peace talks in Kuwait, which began on Thursday.

The negotiations are under pressure to firm up a fragile ceasefire in their conflict that went into effect on April 11, and from which the jihadists are excluded.
National-award winning choreographer Bosco Martis is excited to turn director with yet-untitled movie, which will be a musical.

The Mumbai-born choreographer, who along with his dance partner Caesar Gonsalves, has worked on 200 songs and about 75 films, said he was nurturing the idea from a very long time.

"I am making my directorial debut by the end of this year. It will be a musical. I am in talks with leading actors but can't divulge much as I am very sceptical about my film. I have kept my fingers crossed. Four years ago, I had an opportunity to direct but things did not materialise," Bosco said.

With the film, Bosco is following in the footsteps of other choreographers including Remo D'Souza, Farah Khan and Prabhudheva.

"It's a refreshing change to see so many choreographers taking the front seat. They have presented some beautiful choreographed numbers with their films. They have made Bollywood dance global now."



Besides Bollywood, Bosco is enjoying an equally successful career down South.

"South has energetic dance moves. They will do something which needs high energy. It's almost like an action and dance package. Everyone is almost a good dancer there. We (choreopgrapher) only make it little stylised," he said.

Bosco has made everyone dance be it Amitabh Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, Mahesh Babu, Allu Arjun, Shahid Kapoor among other.

But the choreographer feels Bachchan is one of the most enthusiastic dancers still at the age of 73.

"I worked with Amit ji in 'Party Toh Banti Hai' from 'Bhootnath Returns'. He is on his toes all the time. In the scorching heat, he will reherse for a dance sequence for a long time without any umbrella. He is so humble and his hunger to learn at this age is inspiring for us," he said.

Bosco will be seen on the judge's chair again with the Indian version of American dance reality show "So You Think You Can Dance". He will be accompanied by Bollywood diva Madhuri Dixit and fellow choreographer Terrance Lewis.

"With this dance show, we are trying to show that we are at par with international standards. Contestants on the show are of next level. They are equally brilliant in both street and stage form of dance. We all were getting goosebumps while we were taking their auditions.
A 10-year-old boy drowned after he went for a swim in a canal in south-east Delhi's Kalindi Kunj area this afternoon.

Locals raised an alarm around 3.10 PM and eleven divers tried to rescue him. The child's body was fished out by 4 PM, police said.

He was rushed to a hospital where doctors declared him brought dead, a district administration official said.

Locals told police the victim, identified as Vikas, who lived near the canal at Kalindi Kunj, was last spotted going near the canal, where he often went for swim with friends, a police official said.
All central government schemes may soon have 'PM' or the names of nationalist leaders prefixed to them and films highlighting the achievements of dispensation shown "mandatorily" before screening of movies in every theatre.

These are among a set of recommendations by the Group of Ministers set up to suggest ways for increased visibility of central government schemes and achievements in states and districts.

The internal note circulated at a meeting of the GoM chaired by Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu has also recommended creating animation clips of various achievements of the government highlighting the "difference between the past and present" in a "humorous way". It has suggested roping in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry for execution.

The GoM has suggested producing a film every two weeks to highlight the government's achievements which will be played out before every film in every theatre "mandatorily", for which again it has recommended taking I&B Ministry's help.

Against the backdrop of allegations that state governments often take the credit for central schemes, the GoM has recommended that the inauguration of central schemes should be done in presence of Union ministers and MPs so the role of Centre is highlighted.

It has also recommended enhancing the authority of MPs by giving them constitutional authority to carry out checks on execution of the schemes and build in a system of penalties enforceable by central government whenever there is lack of efficiency in execution of a scheme.

If the recommendations are implemented, the monitoring committees in districts for the schemes will be headed by MPs. Currently these are headed by District Magistrates or Superintendents of Police.

As per the note, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry is amending the rules to allow MPs to head the committees.

Keen to augment its presence in the media, the GoM has recommended that every minister should give a minimum of two interviews every week to the Broadcasters-- Doordarshan and All India Radio--, besides a particular news agency.
In its biggest telecom fraud case, China has arrested 62 people including 10 Taiwanese suspected of defrauding a construction firm of over USD 17 million.

They are suspected of defrauding 117 million yuan (about USD 17.99 million) from the construction bureau of an economic development zone in Duyun City in Guizhou Province, police said.

The company reported the loss of the money from its bank account to police on December 29 last year.

The firm's finance supervisor, surnamed Yang, was contacted by several people claiming to be police officers, bank staff and procurators, saying the account Yang managed needed reviewing and directing Yang to download software from a website so they could access the bureau's account, state-run Xinhua agency reported.

Police said the fraud was masterminded by Taiwanese who recruited people from the Chinese mainland to make fraudulent phone calls from Uganda.

China in recent weeks has come under sharp criticism from Taiwan and human rights organisation for deporting 46 Taiwanese from Kenya accusing them of taking part in the telecom scam and defrauding Chinese of millions of dollars through extortions.

China's public security ministry said it believed the scamsterswere operating mostly out of South East Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands.

In addition to Kenya case, there were also recent arrests in Malaysia.

They were deported to China not to Taiwan despite court in Kenya having acquitted them.

The officials claimed to have arrested 7,700 telecom fraud suspects, including 4,600 Taiwanese, in South East Asia in the past seven years since they signed a formal agreement with Taiwan to jointly tackle crime.
JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar today alleged that a co-passenger tried to "strangle" him inside an aircraft before a flight from Mumbai to Pune, a charge dismissed as "cheap publicity" by the man who was detained in connection with the incident.

"Yet again, this time inside the aircraft, a man tries to strangulate me," Kanhaiya tweeted after the alleged incident which took place when he was inside a Jet Airways aircraft at the airport here.

Kanhaiya was subsequently offloaded from the plane by the airline staff on safety ground, forcing him to take road route to Pune to attend an event there.

The Maharashtra government has ordered a probe into the matter.

Following the incident, the man, identified as Manas Jyoti Deka (33), an employee of TCS in Pune, was detained and a non-cognisable offence filed at Mumbai airport, police said.

Prima facie it appears an argument broke out between two groups over seating onboard the flight and Kanhaiya was part of one of them, a senior police official said.

Sahar police is in the process of registering the complaints of both the parties, he added.

Deka dismissed the charge of attack and dubbed it as a "cheap publicity" stunt by the 29-year-old student leader.

"My hand just happened to brush his neck as I was trying to balance myself on an aching leg. I do not know him personally though I have seen his pictures. This is being done for cheap publicity," Manas told reporters in Mumbai.

He said he was returning to Pune from Kolkata to report for work.

Following the incident, Maharashtra Minister of State (Home) Ram Shinde said Kanhaiya was trying to malign the image of the BJP-led state government.

Nevertheless, the state government has ordered a detailed inquiry into the episode, he said.

"He had been provided full security by the state government till the time he boarded the aircraft. Nobody can be given security once inside the plane. I, too, do not get security while I am flying," Shinde told PTI.

"Kanhaiya Kumar was travelling with three other persons. He had been allotted a window seat and thus, while crossing over a passenger who was seated in the middle, he got into a fight with him. The other passenger did not even know this man was Kanhaiya Kumar and he, too, is alleging he was beaten up by the student leader," Shinde said.

Shinde said that he has asked Joint Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Deven Bharti to conduct a detailed inquiry into the incident and bring out the facts.

Yesterday, Kanhaiya was in Mumbai where he lashed out at the Modi government during a conclave organised by Left student outfits.

Shinde said, "Kanhaiya is indulging in theatrics to hog



media limelight".

"He is only trying to defame the BJP-led state government inspite of we giving him full security. A personal fight is being used to portray that people are out to kill him," he said.

Meanwhile, CPI leader Bhalchandra Kango said in Pune that the alleged attack on the JNU student union president was a "pre-planned conspiracy by undemocratic forces to prevent Kanhaiya from coming to Pune to address a rally".

Kanhaiya is associated with the student wing of CPI.

Earlier, All India Students' Federation national president Syed Waliullah Kadri said Deka's attempt to attack Kanhaiya was thwarted by his colleagues who were on the same flight.

"Kanhaiya, I and two others from JNU had boarded the flight from Mumbai. This man suddenly got up and tried to attack Kanhaiya," Kadri claimed.

Following the ruckus, the four approached Mumbai Airport authorities to file a complaint in this regard.

"After the incident @jetairways staff completely refuses to take any action against the man who assaulted me," Kanhaiya alleged in another tweet.

Hitting out at the airline further, Kanhaiya also said that it sees no difference between "someone who assaults and one who is assaulted". He appeared to also suggest that the one who is attacked will be "deplaned" by the service provider "if he complains about it".

"Basically @jetairways sees no difference between someone who assaults nd d person who is assaulted. They will deplane you, if you complain," the student union leader said in another tweet.

Following the incident, Jet, in a statement, said some guests on board flight 9W618, Mumbai to Pune, were offloaded in the interest of operational safety.

"Some guests on board Jet Airways fight 9W618 from Mumbai to Pune have been off loaded at Mumbai airport in the interest of operational safety. At Jet Airways, the safety and security of our guests and crew is always of prime importance," the airline's spokesman added.

(REOPENS BOM7)



Meanwhile, the airport police here have lodged two



'cross complaints' in connection with the incident.

"The 33-year-old complainant Manas Deka today lodged a non-cognizable (NC) offence against a group of eight people alleging that they misbehaved with him and threatened him inside the plane," a senior IPS officer said.

However, the officer said Deka did not mention Kanhaiya's name in his NC.

On the other hand, Kanhaiya's friend Dheeraj Sharma, who had accompanied him, lodged an NC against Deka alleging that the latter tried to strangulate Kanhaiya, he said.

Meanwhile, police are checking whether Deka had any affiliation with any political party.

Deka told the airport police that he was sitting at the window seat of the plane and Kanhaiya was in the middle seat between Deka and complainant Sharma. The plane was on way to Pune from Kolkata via a halt at Mumbai.

Deka and his 17 friends, who were also in the plane, were going to Pune from Kolkata, he added.

Kanhaiya and his friends boarded the plan at Mumbai.

Deka 'mistakenly' stepped on Kanhaiya's leg and then he lost his balance, said police, adding to prevent himself from falling, Deka 'mistakenly' put his hand on Kanhaiya's shoulder, while Sharma thought that Deka was trying to strangulate the student leader.

As the argument escalated, the crew captain offloaded nine people from the plane, police said.
A month after India and France signed an agreement to take forward a deal to supply six nuclear reactors for Jaitapur plant, French firm EDF has said concern over India's liability law still remains and that it will give a fresh pricing proposal for these units. The fresh techno-commercial proposal will also take into account India's concern over high per unit tariff, French government officials said.

"EDF has raised concerns about the Right to Recourse pertaining to Clause 17 (a), (b) and (c) and Clause 46 of the Civil Liability Nuclear Damage (CLND) Act 2010. We feel that there is ambiguity in Clause 46. We have raised this issue with NPCIL and the Department of Atomic Energy," said a French official.

Clause 46 of the CLND Act says, "The provisions of this Act shall be in addition to, and not in derogation of, any other law for the time being in force, and nothing contained herein shall exempt the operator from any proceedings which might, apart from this Act, be instituted against such operator."



Last month, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) had signed an agreement for building six European Pressurised Reactors (EPR) as against the earlier proposal of two such reactors.

The delay in the project, which was first signed in 2008, and concern over India's liability law came in the wake of nuclear firms Areva and EDF merging their reactor businesses into a joint venture controlled by EDF, as part of a broad restructuring last year.

In 2014, the US too had raised similar concerns about Clause 46 in particular.

Following this, just before President Barack Obama's visit to the country, India announced plans to build a Nuclear Insurance Pool to address the issue.

In April last year, Areva had also signed an agreement with NPCIL to expedite the programme.

"Things are unclear over how much insurance cover does supplier have to take. There is still a lot of ambiguity in this," the French official said.

The French government officials said the liability issue is still "manageable" but pricing still remains a major hurdle.

While the cost of the electricity generated by Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) Units I and II hovers between Rs 3 to 3.50 per unit, for JNPP, it is expected to be Rs 9.14 per unit. India is not ready to go beyond Rs 6.50 per unit.
On the eve of the the second leg of Budget session of Parliament, Congress today said it will work with like-minded opposition parties and try to put government in the dock on a variety of issues including Uttarkhand developments.

Party leaders also indicated that an adjournment motion on the Uttarkhand issue would be brought in the Lok Sabha tomorrow and plans are also afoot to embarass the government in the Rajya Sabha on the matter.

"When the Government has to be held to account and to be exposed, that is the duty of the Opposition. Parliament has every right to discuss the Uttarakhand development.

"Let us not forget that Article 356 has been abused, the authority of the Government has been abused to topple the popularly-elected Government," party's deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma told reporters here.

He was dismissing BJP's assertion that the Uttarkhand issue cannot be raised in Parliament as it was subjudice. "I can only sympathize with the BJP leaders and Ministers who have said it, for their bankruptcy on this matter", he said.

Taking a dig at the ruling party, another party leader Kapil Sibal remarked Babri Masjid is a matter which is subjudice for the last 26 years. "How many times, has it been raised in Parliament by the BJP? So when it comes to Babri Masjid, it is not subjudice, when it comes to Uttarakhand, it is subjudice.
A Delhi court has acquitted a man of the charges of criminal intimidation and extortion saying the case appears to have been cooked up only to put pressure on him.

"It appears that the story has been cooked up only to put pressure upon the accused. The allegation of threat and demand of money is vague in nature," Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Ankur Jain observed while letting off the man, a Rajasthan native, in the case filed by a woman.

The judge pointed out that it was the woman's father, a resident of Dwarka in south-west Delhi, who made her file the complaint so as to pressurise the accused to divorce his daughter, whom he had allegedly forcefully married.

"It appears in order to put pressure upon the accused, the present complaint was filed so that he agrees to divorce the daughter of prosecution witness 2 (girl's father)," the judge said.

According to the prosecution, on February 26, 2007, the accused had obtained the woman's signatures on blank papers on the pretext of getting her a job.

Later, the accused took her to some unknown place to meet his friends, who allegedly took her pictures with him, it said, adding that the man then forcefully married her and threatened to leak the photos in her locality to defame her.

The accused also allegedly demanded Rs 5 lakh from her father and warned that if the demand was not met, she would be killed. He denied all allegations and claimed trial.

The court observed that the photographs do not show that the girl was under any kind of pressure or coercion and noted that there was a delay of four months in filing the complaint.

"There is no complaint on record which could show that immediately the complaint was made by the complainant, when the incident occurred with them," the court said.
Shankaracharya Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati today claimed that cow slaughter and export of beef have increased since BJP came to power at the Centre.

"Slaughtering of cows is on the increase since BJP came to power. The export of beef has also increased under the BJP government," Swaroopanand, who is on a two-day visit to the city, told persons.

The Shankaracharya of the Dwarka-Shardapeeth said a total ban should be enforced on cow slaughter and a law be soon enacted in this regard.

He also appealed to political parties not to politicize the Ram Mandir issue. "Ram Mandir in Ayodhya is a responsibly of saints and political parties should not politicize it," he said.

Asked about the issue relating to women organizations seeking entry into core areas of certain temples, he said, "Pune-based women's group Bhumata Brigade is befooling people...If they are so concerned about women empowerment, they should launch campaign against low female literacy rate.
Dairy farming in the European mountain ranges of Alps may have begun as early as the Iron Age over 3,000 years ago, according to scientists who discovered milk fats on ancient pottery.

Dairy farming has long been an important economic and cultural tradition in the high Alps, but little is known about when and how the practice originated.

Using organic residue analysis, researchers from the University of York in the UK found evidence of dairy fats present on fragments of pottery from ancient stone structures high in the Alps.

The researchers suggest that these or pottery fragments, dated to the Iron Age, may have been used for dairying, such as heating milk, earlier than had been previously shown.

While only a small number of fragments were available for analysis due to poor preservation at high altitudes, the recovery of dairy fats from all three Iron Age sites may indicate that high alpine dairying began at least 3,000 years ago.

The findings are early evidence of nutritious resources being produced and exchanged for purposes of socioeconomic development, and are strongly tied to traditions, such as alpine cheese-making, that continue today, researchers said.

The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE.
The daughter of a northeast Georgia man suspected of shooting five people to death before killing himself says her father was a "ticking time bomb."



Lauren Hawes told The Associated Press yesterday that she, her mother Angela Dent and her 1-year-old daughter hid in a neighbor's house barely escaping with their lives while her father, Wayne Anthony Hawes, 50, went on a bloody rampage and killed five people, including her grandmother and cousin.

"He made threats before, but we never thought it would be at this capacity," Lauren Hawes said. "He's been kind of a ticking time bomb if you want to put in a few words."



Capt Andy Shedd of the Columbia County Sheriff's Office said in a statement that the Friday night shootings stemmed from a domestic dispute that left three men and two women dead at two separate locations within about a mile of each other.

The body of shooting suspect Hawes was recovered Saturday by authorities in his home in Appling.

Lauren Hawes, 26, confirmed that the bloodshed was connected to a domestic dispute between her parents: her mother had walked out on her father just a week ago.

Angela Dent had left before but this time, she took her possessions with her to prevent Hawes from destroying them as he had done in the past.

After Dent's departure, Wayne Hawes bottomed out emotionally.

"He's done things that were questionable in the past, but never to this extent. This is very surprising. We thought he could possibly hurt himself, but not others," said Lauren Hawes.

The rampage began Friday evening, when sheriff deputies responded to a home at about 8 p.M. And found three victims. Authorities then were called to a second home nearby, where two other victims were found.

"We believe the two shootings were related based on witness accounts," Shedd said. When authorities reached Hawes' house and entered, they found him dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. They also found evidence that he attempted to set the house on fire.

The victims were identified as Roosevelt Burns, 75; Rheba Mae Dent, 85; Trequila Clark, 31; Lizzy Williams, 59; and her husband Shelly Williams, 62. One of the female victims died on the way to the hospital, Shedd said. The others were dead at the scene.

"We believe some of the victims were related to the suspect's wife," Shedd said.
With six more persons dying today, the toll in the tragic poisonous sweetmeat incident in Pakistan's Punjab province reached 20, officials said.

The 20 people died of consuming poisonous sweetmeat include three children and eight of a single family.

The sweetmeat was brought from a shop by Sajjad Hussain in Layyah district on Thursday, some 325 kilometers from here, to celebrate the birth of a child.

It was served to eight members of Sajjad's family. Their condition deteriorated soon after eating the sweet. They were rushed to the nearby hospital.

"Sajjad along with his six brothers and a sister died while 12 others who consumed the poisonous sweet also breathed their last," Executive District Officer Ameer Abdullah said.

Fourteen people, including three children, had died till Friday, police said.

Abdullah said more than 30 people who consumed the same sweet are still under treatment in Nishter Hospital Multan and district headquarters hospital Layyah and condition of some of them is critical.

He said the health department has sealed the sweet shop and seized the "remaining poisonous sweetmeat" and sent for laboratory examination.

"We have also lodged an FIR the Pure Food Act against the shop owner," Abdullah said.

District Police Officer Layyah Muhammad Ali Zia said that the shop owner Khalid Mahmoud was arrested.

"Cheep imported liquid glucose is suspected to be used in manufacturing the sweetmeat at the shop instead of sugar (which costs more)," he said.

Meanwhile, Punjab province's Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has announced ex gratia of Rs 500,000 (USD 4,771) to the next of the kin of those died.
Marking the first anniversary of the massive earthquake tragedy in Nepal, Delhi Government has asked schools in the national capital to conduct mock drills for students tomorrow for enhancing their preparedness to handle the fallout of natural disasters.

"It has been decided to conduct mock drills to mark the first anniversary of Nepal earthquake on April 25 to enhance preparedness to overcome natural disasters and fire incidents," Directorate of Education (DoE) said in a communication to all government-run and private schools.

"The mock drills in schools shall be monitored by heads. Efforts should be made to take corrective action with regard to deficiencies observed during last such exercises and in no case the evacuation time should be more than 5 minutes," the letter added.

While the schools running in morning or general shifts will conduct the mock drill at 11 AM, those operating in evening shifts will hold the exercise at 3 PM.

The department has issued an eight-point guideline to be followed by schools while conducting the drill.

The schools have been asked to appoint nodal officers who will be responsible for regular upkeep and maintenance of fire safety equipment installed in the premises and also for conduct of mock drills.

DoE has asked schools to submit an online compliance report on the mock drill.

On April 25 last year, a powerful 7.9 magnitude earthquake had rocked Nepal, leaving a trail of death and destruction. Over 9,000 people were killed and more than 22,000 others wounded as aftershocks continued to rattle the Himalayan nation for months thereafter.
Adding new members to its family, Delhi zoo is all set to welcome two male Himalayan black bears from Himachal Pradesh.

"We have four female Himalayan black bears. We were looking for a male and Himachal zoo has decided to provide us with two male Himalayan black bears. They will reach the National Zoological Park soon," Riyaz Khan, zoo curator said.

Himalayan black bear, also known as moon bear or white-chested bear, can be found in the northern parts of Indian subcontinent, Korea, northeastern China, Japan and Taiwan.

"They are reproductively compatible with several other bear species and have on occasion produced hybrid offspring as well," he said.

The zoo, meanwhile, will send three brow-antlered deer to Chandigarh.

"We are sending three Sangai (brow-antlered deer) to Chandigarh and getting three Chinkara (Indian gazelle) in return as part of the exchange programme," Khan said.

The zoo has 3 Chinkara and 37 brow-antlered deer, as per the 2015 inventory report.
A UK bridal designer has launched legal proceedings against a famous fashion house for alleged breach of copyright of sketches she submitted for Kate Middleton's wedding dress nearly five years ago.

Christine Kendall is suing Alexander McQueen, the luxury label behind the dress Kate wore on her big day on April 29, 2011, after spotting similarities between the gown and her own sketches.

Alexander McQueen denies the claim as "ridiculous".

"Proceedings have been issued because our client is certain that her company's design was unfairly taken and copied. The claim is not against the duchess and there is no allegation of wrongdoing against the palace," Kendall's solicitor Humna Nadim of the Manchester firm Kuits told 'The Sunday Times'.

The bridal gown, featuring an ivory satin bodice with floral motifs appliqued onto fine silk netting, was a secret until the Duchess of Cambridge stepped from her car to enter Westminster Abbey on her wedding day.

It was designed by Sarah Burton, the creative director of Alexander McQueen.

However, Kendall believes she could see some of her own work in the dress.

She had sent ideas with a 1950s theme to Kate five months before the wedding and received a letter of gratitude from the office of Prince William and Prince Harry in January 2011.

A spokesperson for the Duchess of Cambridge told the newspaper this weekend that she had never seen Kendall's sketches.

"We are utterly baffled by this legal claim. Christine Kendall first approached us almost four years ago, when we were clear with her that any suggestion Sarah Burton's design of the royal wedding dress was copied from her designs was nonsense," said a spokesperson for Alexander McQueen.

"Sarah Burton never saw any of Ms Kendall's designs or sketches and did not know of Ms Kendall before Ms Kendall got in touch with us - some 13 months after the wedding. We do not know why Ms Kendall has raised this again, but there are no ifs, buts or maybes here: this claim is ridiculous," the spokesperson said.
UN-brokered Yemeni peace talks in Kuwait entered a fourth day today with government and Shiite Huthi rebel delegations still far from reaching an agreement to end 13 months of war.

The delegations resumed "talks and started the plenary session," Charbel Raji, spokesman for the UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, told AFP without providing further details.

Sources close to the talks said yesterday that the two sides had failed to reach an understanding on the need to firm up a fragile ceasefire in place since April 11.

Ould Cheikh Ahmed acknowledged the negotiations were difficult but expressed hopes for progress.

"The atmosphere of the talks is promising and there is common ground to build on in order to reconcile differences," the UN envoy said in a statement issued late yesterday.

The delegates had agreed to appoint two officials, one from each side, to make recommendations on how to sustain the ceasefire, he added.

But the two sides differ on priorities for the ceasefire.

The government delegation said overnight that the ceasefire should include opening safe passages to all besieged areas and releasing political prisoners as well as those abducted as part of confidence-building measures.

The Iran-backed Huthis are demanding an immediate halt to air strikes that a Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out since March 2015 in support of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

"The continuity of air strikes by targeting roads, bridges and homes like what happened yesterday... Affirms that the announcement of cessation of military actions is baseless," said Mohamed Abdulsalam, the Huthi spokesman and head of delegation.

This meant that "the path of negotiations under aggression will not be different from previous rounds," Abdulsalam wrote on Facebook, in reference to the two failed rounds held in Switzerland late last year.

The two sides also differ on the way to tackle other central issues.

The government wants the discussions to start with the issue of a Huthi pullout from areas including the capital Sanaa and relinquishing heavy arms and missiles.

The Huthis want the political process and the establishment of a national unity government to be first, sources close to the talks told AFP.

The negotiations in Kuwait opened late Thursday after the delayed arrival of representatives of the Huthi rebels and allied forces loyal to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Indian-origin South African anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada has been conferred with an honorary doctorateby the Durban University of Technology (DUT) for his outstanding contribution towards human rights, social justice and literature.

Kathrada already holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of Massachusetts, Missouri, Michigan and Kentucky in the US and local universities Durban-Westville, Witwatersrand, and Cape Town.

The veteran leader, who served just one year less in jail as a political prisoner than his long-time friend Nelson Mandela, has also received numerous other local and international awards, including the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award from the President of India in 2005.

"TheHonorary Doctor of Philosophy degreeis awarded to Kathrada in recognition of his outstanding contribution towards South African human rights and social justice," DUT said in a statement.

"DUT honorary doctorate degrees are conferred in recognition of the positive work that prominent South Africans have shown in the country. Kathrada's Honorary Doctorate will acknowledge his contributions to literature," the statement added.

Kathrada's interest in literature began at a tender age of 12, when he distributed political leaflets.

Although he dropped out of his formal studies to become a full-time political activist, he was also amongst the first Robben Island prisoners to complete a university degree.

Kathrada's writings include his books, such asMemoirs where he reflects on his timeincarceratedon Robben Island and PollsmoorPrison.

From the Island, Kathrada also wrote many letters to his niece, which is now captured in a publication.

Interestingly, Kathrada was also chosen by his fellow prisoners to head their "communications" work on the Island.

He also contributed significantly to Mandela's autobiography, which was smuggled out of prison and formed the basis forthe world-wide bestseller 'Long Walk to Freedom'.
A Dutch journalist was arrested today at her home in Turkey for tweets deemed critical of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to her Twitter account.

"Police at the door. No joke," wrote Ebru Umar, a well-known atheist and feminist journalist of Turkish origin.

Umar recently wrote a piece critical of Erdogan for the Dutch daily Metro, extracts of which she then tweeted, leading to her arrest.

"I'm not free, we're going to the hospital" for a medical examination before being taken to face prosecutors, she said in a second tweet as she left her home in Kusadasi, a resort town in western Turkey.

The Dutch foreign ministry said in a tweet that it was in "close contact with" Umar and "local authorities" and the Dutch embassy in Istanbul was "actively engaged" in the case, which had its "full attention".

Umar, who reportedly became a journalist under the influence of Theo van Gogh -- a Dutch filmmaker later murdered for making a controversial film about Islamic culture -- had written in the Metro about a diplomatic spat between Turkey and the Netherlands.

A political storm erupted this week over reports an email sent by the Turkish consulate to Turkish organisations in the Netherlands asked people to forward emails and social media posts which insult Erdogan or Turkey.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said he would ask Ankara to clarify the call, saying it was not clear what the Turkish government aims to achieve.

The Turkish consulate for its part said the note was sent by a consular official who used an "unfortunate choice of words" that was misinterpreted.

The case followed outrage in Germany after the government there gave a green light for authorities to begin criminal proceedings against popular comic Jan Boehmermann for performing a satirical poem about Erdogan.

Trials in Turkey for insulting Erdogan have multiplied since his election to the presidency in August 2014, with nearly 2,000 such cases currently open.
An expelled student of Aligarh Muslim University was killed and another injured in a gun battle between rival groups on the campus, prompting authorities to deploy Rapid Action Force and order a "major clean-up" operation in AMU hostels.

Violence erupted on the campus around last midnight following a clash between two student groups leading to the death of Mahtab, DIG (Aligarh Range) Govind Agarwal, who led the police operation, told PTI today.

Agarwal said trouble started when a resident of Mumtaz hostel was assaulted and his room set afire. The victim rushed to the Proctor's office to file a complaint.

As soon as of the incident spread, students belonging to two rival factions gathered and a clash broke out.

Police said Mahtab was shot dead late last night near the Proctor's office, where the warring groups exchanged fire.

The rampaging students set ablaze a jeep and over half-a- dozen bikes. The mob also indulged in arson and torched the Proctor's office building.

The violence was so widespread that it took police two hours to disperse trouble makers from different spots on the campus.

An AMU official said tension between the rival groups, belonging to Azamgarh and Sambhal regions of Uttar Pradesh, has been simmering for quite some time now.

Police said an FIR has been registered against eight persons including Mohsin Iqbal, a student of MA (Political Science) and seven others, most of whom are outsiders and former students, in connection with the killing of Mahtab.

The condition of Mohd Waqif, the youth who was injured in the firing, is stated to be "critical" and he has been rushed to Delhi for emergency treatment.

According to AMU officials, Waqif is not a student but was seeking admission to the University and staying near the campus for preparing for the engineering entrance test.

Rapid Action Force (RAF) was deployed at all sensitive



spots, especially in view of the entrance test for the engineering college scheduled for today with over 13,000 candidates appearing from AMU campus centre alone.

The entrance test, however, passed off peacefully amid strong security measures though an uneasy calm prevailed on the campus.

Vice Chancellor Lt Gen (Retd) Zameer Uddin Shah attributed the violence to faction-fight between rival groups of students in which most of those involved were former students including some expelled ones.

Shah said preliminary reports indicated that all those involved in the violence were "occupying hostel rooms illegally".

The VC said that in the next two weeks, "a major clean-up" operation would be conducted in different hostels with the help of RAF and local police. The drive would take place without closing the University sine die, he said.

Shah said that after June 6, when the University closes for the summer vacations, all hostel rooms would be vacated and students would be allowed re-entry only after fresh allotments.
Calling for a mass movement for water conservation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today lauded the people in Madhya Pradesh's Dewas district for building farm ponds which staved off water scarcity in a drought year.

"I was told by someone about Gowra village panchayat in Dewas district...Through cooperation of villagers, the panchayat started a movement to dig farm ponds," Modi said in his monthly radio programme 'Mann Ki Baat'.

"Through their collective efforts, 27 farm ponds were made, resulting in improvement in groundwater level. It also resulted in increase in farm yield by about 20 per cent," the Prime Minister said.

"When the water table goes up, it also vastly improves the quality of water. It is said in the world that clean drinking water also helps in bettering GDP growth," Modi said.

Madhya Pradesh Higher Education Commissioner Umakant Umrao, the brain behind the construction of farm ponds in Dewas, said he was very happy with the PM mentioning the drive.

"It is also a proud movement for Dewas farmers," he told PTI.

Umrao recalled that when he was Dewas collector from January 2006 to July 2007, he motivated farmers to build ponds. "We only provided logistical support," he added.

"Farmers pooled money, energy and land. It paid off. When I was the collector, some 2,000 ponds were built and now the number has risen to 10,000, I am told," Umrao said.

"Banks didn't give loans for constructing ponds then. Later, after providing huge security, banks gave loans to farmers under Price Lending Rate which was as high at 17 per cent. All the farmers who took the loan repaid it," he said.
The US Justice Department said it has withdrawn a request to force Apple to reveal data from a cellphone linked to a New York drug case after someone provided federal investigators with the phone's passcode.

Federal prosecutors said in a letter to US District Judge Margo Brodie that investigators were able to access the iPhone late Thursday night after using the passcode.

The government said it no longer needs Apple's assistance to unlock the iPhone and is withdrawing its request for an order requiring Apple's cooperation in the drug case.

"As we have said previously, these cases have never been about setting a court precedent; they are about law enforcement's ability and need to access evidence on devices pursuant to lawful court orders and search warrants," Justice Department spokeswoman Emily Pierce said in a statement Friday.

The Justice Department had sought to compel the Cupertino, California-based Apple to cooperate in the drug case, even though it had recently dropped a fight to compel Apple to help break into an iPhone used by a gunman in a December attack in San Bernardino that killed 14 people.

In that case, a still-unidentified third-party came forward with a technique that managed to open the phone. That entity has not been named, and the Justice Department has not revealed the method used.

Representatives for Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday night.

The tech giant had been fighting the Justice Department's attempts and said in court papers last week the government's request was extraordinary because there is likely minimal evidentiary value of any data on the phone and that Congress never authorized it to pursue such requests through the 1789 All Writs Act. It also said there is no proof Apple's assistance was necessary and that the same technique the FBI was using to get information from the phone in California might work with the drug case phone.

But prosecutors had argued that the government needed Apple's assistance to access the data, which they contended was "authorized to search by warrant."



On Thursday, several law enforcement groups filed arguments in Brooklyn federal court saying they feared the public will stop aiding police if Apple is allowed to refuse to give up information from the phone in the drug case.

The groups said they supported the government's efforts to try to reverse a magistrate judge's ruling earlier this year for Apple.
Five Indian police personnel, including an inspector, were arrested in Nepal today after they entered the country in the pretext of searching a criminal, a media report said.

The five were arrested by Nepal police from Sanagaun.

The plain-clothed policemen were carrying arms, according to the National Agency of Nepal.

They were arrested while they were heading towards Achham in search of a person accused of murdering a doctor in Punjab, the report said.

An AK-47 rifle and its 25 round of ammunition, a pistol and its 12 rounds of ammunition were seized from them, it said.
Republic of Congo's newly-reelected President Denis Sassou Nguesso has named former opposition leader and one-time finance minister Clement Mouamba as his prime minister.

"Mr Clement Mouamba is named prime minister and head of government," said a presidential decree read on state television yesterday, a week after Sassou Nguesso, who has been in power for 32 of the past 37 years, was sworn in for another five-year term.

Mouamba served as finance minister between 1992 and 1993 under the country's first elected president Pascal Lissouba, who was ousted from power by Sassou Nguesso in 1997.

He was a senior member of the opposition Pan-African Union for Social Democracy before being expelled in 2015 for taking part in the talks that paved the way for a constitutional referendum allowing Sassou Nguesso to extend his rule.

The referendum scrapped a two-term limit on presidential mandates, allowing Sassou Nguesso to bid to stay in office in March elections, which he won with more than 60 percent of the vote.

His challengers accused him of "massive" electoral fraud.

Sassou Nguesso has said the focus of his new mandate will be to strengthen the economy of the oil-producing country of four million people and tackle high youth unemployment.
Haryana Police arrested four persons including two cousins of Ashok Kaka in connection with the murder of the Congress leader.

Rohtak police today said that the accused have been arrested from Rohtak district late last night.

A dispute over some ancestral property in Rohtak was stated to be the motive behind the crime and Kaka's cousins identified as Manoj Soni (43) and Sanjay Soni (40) have been nabbed and booked for murder conspiracy, police said.

Police said the duo, both brothers, were nabbed from Ambedkar chowk in Rohtak.

Both hail from Rewari and are into business of electrical goods.

Those involved in the crime -- Sandeep and Rohit, both 19 years of age, were arrested from Jind bypass near Rohtak, police said.

A country made pistol had seized from Sandeep, they further said.

Police said based on investigations and and acting on tip off, they had carried out the arrests.

Earlier, the police had also procured the CCTV footage from houses facing the park where the incident took place and examined it thoroughly for obtaining clues.

Rohtak's SP Shashank Anand had set up a Special Investigation Team to conduct investigations.

Police today also said that they were carrying out raids to nab more accused whose names had figured in the case for murder conspiracy. After the incident, a case had been registered under the provisions of the IPC and the Arms Act against the culprits.

The 60-year-old leader was shot dead in the Model Town area when he was taking a morning walk two days back.

Kaka was considered close to former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. The former CM had asked the police to arrest the culprits immediately.
Three members of a British family, including two children, were killed today in a crash on a motorway in eastern France, police and firefighters said.

The family's Nissan hit a safety barrier on the A39 motorway around 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of the city of Dijon, jumped over an embankment and hit a bridge pillar before falling back onto the road, according to initial investigations.

The 31-year-old father and two children aged four and 12 were killed on the spot, emergency services said. A third child was airlifted to hospital with serious injuries, while the mother escaped with only minor injuries.

The family's surname was given by the authorities as Crompton, but no further details were immediately available.
French police say they are looking for a man who attacked a soldier with a box cutter in the eastern city of Strasbourg.

Local government official Dominique Jane told Europe 1 radio the incident happened in Strasbourg's train station yesterday evening. Jane said Sunday that the soldiers pushed back the aggressor, who managed to escape, as he was trying to attack one of them. One soldier was slightly injured on a cheek.

The man's motives remained unclear. Jane said the attacker spoke in Arabic, but he doesn't know the content and translation of his words.

The soldiers were patrolling the station as part of an ongoing operation in France to support police following the 2015 attacks in Paris.
A German newspaper says a Greek photographer who was working for it has been turned back by Turkish authorities at Istanbul's main airport.

The Bild daily reported that Giorgos Moutafis was prevented from continuing to Libya yesterday evening. He had to take the next plane back to the Greek capital, Athens, today morning.

It quoted the photographer as saying he had been told at passport control that his name was on a list of people who weren't allowed to enter Turkey, but wasn't given a reason why.

The reported incident comes days after a journalist with a German public broadcaster was prevented from entering Turkey. Chancellor Angela Merkel says she discussed that case during a visit to Turkey yesterday.
To ensure that Indian vaccine manufacturers have global quality standards, the government is exploring the feasibility of establishing WHO-approved Current Good Manufacturing Practice (CGMP) facility for yellow fever drugs.

Such a facility will help in supplying yellow fever vaccine to African and Latin American countries as well, Union Health Minister J P Nadda said today after inaugurating the first government facility for CGMP compliance for DPT and TT vaccines at the Central Research Institute (CRI) in Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh.

He also announced the Zonal Office of Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) will start functioning within a week from the Container Corporation of India building in Baddi near hear to facilitate pharma companies and exporters from Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana to get their clearances and no objection certificates.

Noting recent advancements in regulatory requirement and introduction of CGMP concept in vaccine manufacturing led to the need for creation of CGMP-compliant infrastructure and processes, Nadda said CRI has been able to create this CGMP-compliant facility with the support of the ministry.

"This makes CRI the first central government institute to have CGMP-compliant infrastructure for vaccine production. TT vaccine has been commercialised from this facility for universal immunisation programme use and production of DPT bulk has been initiated.

"As it is essential for vaccine manufacturers to have global quality standards, CRI is exploring the feasibility of establishing WHO prequalified CGMP compliant manufacturing facility for yellow fever vaccine. This will enable the institute to supply yellow fever vaccine to African and Latin American countries," he said.

He said the Himachal Pradesh government has agreed to provide land for the Zonal Office of CDSCO at Baddi.

Nadda also announced that to ensure production of quality medicines, three to four comprehensive workshops will be organised in May in Baddi on 'Good Manufacturing Practices and Good Laboratory Practices' where top experts from national and international regulators will brief the industry on related issues.

The Health Minister said as part of its expansion plans,



CRI is in process of acquiring 128 bighas of land from the Himachal Pradesh government for creation of CGMP compliant facility for manufacturing of therapeutic anti-serums.

"This initiative will increase the production capacity of the institute to cater to the ever increasing demand of these lifesaving anti-sera and also generate significant amount of employment opportunities for country's youth," Nadda said.

"CRI has been working as one of the few pioneer institutions in the field of vaccine manufacturing. The institute has plans to manufacture all vaccines like Japanese encephalitis vaccine, Rabies vaccine and Typhoid vaccine.

"CRI plans to create state of the art, fully dedicated CGMP compliant laboratory for research on vaccine development and various other public health related issues. The institute plans to undertake research on newer vaccine candidates for existing and emerging diseases and to manufacture more efficacious and safer vaccines as also to contribute to the prevention of spread of novel antigenic variants," he said.

He said manufacture of immunobiologicals and animal care were "important and highly technical" field which required trained manpower at every level and that for skill development in this area, CRI is initiating a certificate course in 'Production of Immunobiologicals and Animal Care', affiliated to the State Council of Vocational Training, Himachal Pradesh.

This course will play a significant role in developing trained manpower to work in various health, research and pharmaceutical setups and provide plethora of opportunities for youth of the country, he said, adding that CRI has started apprenticeship training for maintenance of high end machinery and equipment that have been installed with creation of a new CGMP facility for production of DPT vaccine.

The Health Minister also launched the website of CRI on the occasion.

CRI is involved in manufacture and supply of various life-saving therapeutic anti-sera for snake bites, rabies and diphtheria and yellow fever vaccine.
To fast track development of major ports, government is mulling giving land parcels of state-run ports to private players "on lease" for various projects.

India's top 12 major ports have an estimated 2.4 lakh acres of land, a substantial chunk of which could be utilised for projects.

"There are separate plans for Kolkata and Mumbai ports. We are making two smart cities at Kandla and Paradip, studies for which have begun. Private players could be part of our projects but land to them will be strictly on the basis of lease," Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari told PTI.

He said as development activities are gaining momentum, a large number of projects have been initiated at ports.

"I am against the idea of selling any government property to private players," the minister stressed.

Land parcels available with major ports could be given to players for a maximum period of 30 years on lease through tender cum auction.

An official said for Mormugao Trust, the lease rental has been fixed at Rs 23 lakh per annum per acre. For Kamrajar Port, it has been fixed at 5.89 lakh per annum for project related activities, while for cargo related activities it has been fixed at Rs 18.19 lakh per annum.

Likewise different rents have been fixed for other ports.

The official said the move is aimed at generating committed business for major ports on a long-term basis by facilitating development and operation of dedicated facilities by industries which are substantially dependent on it for import and/or export of their cargo and thus play a catalytic role for the Sagarmala project.

The Mumbai Trust alone has about 753 hectares with it and was earlier valued at about Rs 46,000 crore.

The National Perspective Programme for Sagarmala was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Maritime India summit earier this month.

Under the port modernisation drive, 53 projects are expected to be undertaken to ensure the port handling capacity is increased by 1,000 million tonne per annum, which includes 6 new mega port projects.

The 12 major ports in India -- Kandla, Mumbai, JNPT, Mormugao, New Managlore, Cochin, Chennai, Ennore, Paradip, V O Chidambaranar, Visakhapatnam and Kolkata (including Haldia) -- handle approximately 61 per cent of cargo traffic.
With vast swathes in several states facing drought-like situation, the Centre is drafting a model bill that would lay stress on creating large-scale rainwater storage facilities, efficient allocation of the valuable resource to states and involvement of the local populace in conservation efforts.

The bill will recommend giving precedence to drinking water supply over allocation of the resource for agricultural and industrial purposes.

Union Water Resources Secretary Shashi Shekhar attributed the current crisis in several states to poor demand-side management of water.

Noting that earlier model bills, with focus on supply-side management measures like dam construction, did not yield desired results, Shekhar said the new legislation will urge states to take steps to recharge depleting groundwater, especially in floodplain areas of rivers. Floodplain is a portion of land, stretching from river banks to the base of enclosing valley walls.

"Model laws were prepared earlier too. But those focused more on supply-side management like how we should construct dams, opt for rainwater harvesting. There was no emphasis on demand-side management like storing water, ensuring its efficient use by prioritising its allocation. This bill will focus on that part," Shekhar told PTI.

Noting that India received rain hardly for 30-35 days during monsoon, he underscored the need for creating storage facilities, particularly underground, to cut losses caused by evaporation, besides conventional reservoirs and storage tanks.

"After storage, the issue is of how efficiently you use water for rest of the year. First priority obviously should be given to drinking water for human and cattle populace and then for agriculture and industries," he said.

The bill, guidelines of which will not be binding on states, will also suggest governments to adopt a cropping pattern based on rainfall received there.

Shekhar cited the example of Maharashtra where sugarcane is grown in some areas which receive scanty rainfall. He said Israel conserved water by cultivating crops which require less water.

"We can follow the Israel model in areas which report lesser rainfall. We can grow vegetables and fruits than sugarcane there with the help of drip irrigation instead of flow irrigation. Flow irrigation causes water wastage," he said.

Laying emphasis no community participation in water management, Shekhar said all successful models in the country have locals contributing by way of handling the resource, changing crop pattern in accordance with average rainfall in the area and supplying water for agricultural purposes efficiently.

"If we want to make the country drought-free on a sustainable basis, then it is a must that communities come to fore. They will come to fore if government takes care of initial risks involved," he said.

Water being a state subject, Shekhar said the Centre's role is to work on long-term solutions with state governments when it comes to dealing with scarcity.
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar today urged the Centre to consider the state's long-standing demand for a separate high court.

Addressing the conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of High Courts here, he said, "As per Article 214 of our Constitution, there shall be a High Court for each state. Haryana Vidhan Sabha has already passed a resolution for creation of a separate High Court for Haryana," he said.

He urged the government to bring necessary legislation to fulfill the demand of his state.

Khattar said a separate high court can easily be created by bifurcating the existing building, staff and infrastructure, as was done in the case of Civil Secretariat and Legislative Assembly.

This is all the more important since the number of cases from Haryana far exceed that from Punjab, he said.

Currently, the High Court of Haryana & Punjab functions from Chandigarh, the joint capital of the two states.

He reiterated state government's stand to support the creation of All India Judicial Services on the pattern of All India Services.

He also drew the attention of the Central government for having equal representation in the High Court, claiming his state has "less than equal representation" in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. He said there is an "unwritten norm" of having 60 per cent judges from Punjab and 40 per cent judges from Haryana, that is being followed.

"This practice is not only discriminatory in nature, but also has no sanction of law. I earnestly request the Chief Justice of India and the Acting Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court to end this discriminatory tradition and practice," the chief minister said.

He also raised the issue of creation of a bench of the high court near the National Capital Territory, saying Haryana borders the national capital from three sides and its 13 districts out of the total 21 fall in the National Capital Region.

Haryana is a centre of economic activity and resultantly legal activity is tilted towards the National Capital Region, he said. However, the present seat of the Punjab and Haryana High Court is on the opposite end of the state. This leads to loss of valuable time and resources of both the people and the government.

"I, therefore, request the Prime Minister to consider setting up of a separate Bench of the High Court near the National Capital Territory. I also request Chief Justice of India and Acting Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court to support this demand," he said.

He also stressed on the need for undertaking reforms to make the judicial system less expensive, quicker and more effective, adding the state government would wholeheartedly support any and every such reform measure.
The Uttarakhand High Court will tomorrow resume the hearing on nine rebel Congress MLAs' petition challenging their disqualification by the state Assembly Speaker.

The nine legislators will present their contention before the single bench of Justice U C Dhyani, which had on Saturday recorded the arguments of counsel Kapil Sibal appearing for Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal.

The Speaker had on March 27 disqualified the nine, including former chief minister Vijay Bahuguna, who spearheaded the rebellion against Chief Minister Harish Rawat, under the anti-defection law.

This had led to a political instability in the state and imposition of President's rule.
Only the legal heirs of Maharaja Pratapsinhrao Gaekwad can challenge Maharashtra government's suit regarding possession of a prime property near India Gate here, which was allotted to the then princely state of Baroda in 1935, the Delhi High Court has said.

Maharaja Pratapsinhrao Gaekwad (1908-1968), belonging to the Gaekwad dynasty of Marathas, was the last ruling Maharaja of Baroda, the territory which merged into independent India in 1949.

Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw said this while dismissing a plea by Dr Shekhar Shah, who had sought quashing of a June 23, 2014 show cause notice issued by the government of Maharashtra under the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorized Occupants) (PP) Act 1971, about the property within the boundaries of the New Maharashtra Sadan here.

"I have wondered the locus of the petitioner (Shah) to dispute the title of the respondent (state) to the property or to claim the property to be not of state of Maharashtra but of erstwhile ruler of Baroda State. The challenge if any to the title claimed by the respondent to the property has to be by the heirs of Maharaja Pratapsinhrao Gaekwad and cannot be by the petitioner," the bench said.

The court noted that when Maharaja Pratapsinhrao Gaekwad or his heirs have no claim to the property, Shah's claim in a portion of the property, that too by an unregistered document, cannot dispute the title of the State of Maharashtra on the ground that this was the personal property of the Maharaja.

It observed that the dispute raised by the man was "a mere sham and a facade to perpetuate his illegal possession of the property."



The court dismissed Shah's petition seeking quashing of the show cause notice and clarified that the earlier interim order granting stay on it be vacated.

"The petitioner having enjoyed the interim stay, this court, to balance the equities, now directs the estate officer to complete the proceedings initiated under the PP Act within six months from the date of receipt of a copy of this judgment," it noted and asked Shah to pay cost of Rs 30,000 to the state government.

Noting that the state government has not contested Shah's petition "diligently" and allowed him to continue in the premises for the last over half a century, it directed that a copy of its judgment be forwarded to its Resident Commissioner here and to the Chief Secretary to take remedial steps.

The high court noted that without any registered



document, the right "even if any created in favour of the petitioner (Shah) by the erstwhile Maharaja Pratapsinhrao Gaekwad with respect to immovable property would be as a licensee and not as owner."



According to Shah, the property was owned, occupied and possessed by him claiming that its ownership to his father was recognised by the Maharaja and his successors.

He claimed that since the issue regarding the property was pending adjudication in the title suit, the issuance of notice was a gross abuse of provisions of the Act as it was without any jurisdiction.

The Maharashtra government, through its counter affidavit, contended that Shah's petition was not maintainable.

The court noted in its judgement that lease of the entire plot was granted by the then Government, first to the Sirmaur Durbar and thereafter to Baroda Durbar. On a major portion of the plot, the New Maharashtra Sadan has been constructed recently.

"It is obvious therefrom that Maharaja Pratapsinhrao Gaekwad or his heirs have not claimed and/or are not claiming the subject plot of land to be their personal property and have no dispute with the same being the property of the State of Maharashtra," it said.

"Here, it is not found that the petitioner (Shah) without even any semblance of title to the property has been occupying a prime valuable property in the heart of the city at India Gate, obviously to the detriment of the public at large and is using the process of the Court to perpetuate his illegal unauthorised possession," it said.
India has honoured 12 Egyptian women who have contributed in bringing about social and economic change to Egypt.

The women were honoured during the India by the Nile festival, a cultural programme held here at the India House.

"India by the Nile 2016 celebrates the engines of our social and economic change by recognising the tremendous role of women," India's Ambassador to Egypt Sanjay Bhattacharyya said in the event titled "Women of Substance".

Lauding these women's endurable spirit, Ambassador's spouse Ranu Bhattacharyya, described them as "Intelligent, fashionable and successful".

"Each one of them has overcome personal, social, political and financial obstacles on their path to success," Ranu said, adding their success that will inspire future generations.

Dressed in Indian saree, twelve women accepted their honour from Bhattacharyya.

The honoured women included Egyptian MP Dalia Fouad Yousef, world swimming champion with Down syndrome Lobna Mustafa Mahmoud, cinema director Marianne Khoury, human rights activist Mona Zulfikar, fashion designer and philanthropist Shahira Mehrez and Amal Fikri, the vice-president of Al Nour Wal Amal association, which is the first-of-its-kind in the Middle East to provide care, education, vocational training and social integration opportunities for blind girls and women.

In the opening of India by the Nile included a music show, percussion ensemble Taal Vadya Kacheri, a teaser from "Bollywood - A Love Story" choreographed by Gilles Chuyen.
Indian workers are the "worst" and the "hardest" ones to understand, Republican governor of the US state of Maine Paul LePage said, stirring another controversy a day after Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump mocked Indian call centres.

In his address to the Maine Republican convention, wherein the party selected its delegates for the July national convention, LePage alleged that foreign workers are being used in local restaurants.

LePage, who is known for making controversial remarks, said it's hard to understand workers "from Bulgaria" workers from India are "the worst ones."



He also said that one has to get an interpreter to talk to an Indian. However, he then quickly described Indians as "lovely" people.

LaPage's remarks came a day after Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump mocked Indian call centres but described India as a "great place".

Meanwhile, both LePage and Trump suffered a setback at the Maine Convention, which elected 19 of the 23 delegates who are Cruz supporters.

Maine is a small northeastern state in the US.

In his speech, LePage was highly critical of Cruz, accusing him of "stabbing us in the back".

"We reached a deal with Cruz's national campaign to put up a unity slate that would honour the wishes of the thousands of Mainers who voted at caucus. But Cruz's Northeast Political Director David Sawyer lied to us and broke the deal. Sawyer stabbed us in the back, reneged on the unity slate and betrayed the people of Maine," he said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Cruz notched up more delegates than Trump yesterday. He won at least 65 of the 94 delegates up for grabs over the weekend.

As of yesterday, Trump had 845 delegates against 559 of Cruz.

A candidate needs to have at least 1,237 delegates to earn the Republican presidential nomination.

Primaries are still to be held in 15 states, with the next round of primaries to be held in Maryland, Delaware, Philadelphia, Rhode Island and Connecticut on Tuesday.

Polls show that Trump is leading in all these states.
Indonesian warships have detained a Chinese trawler allegedly operating illegally in Indonesian waters, just weeks after a confrontation between vessels from the two countries caused tensions, the navy said today.

The trawler was intercepted by two navy ships on Friday after receiving information that a ship wanted by Interpol in Argentina had been spotted in Aceh, in the northwest of Sumatra, navy spokesman Edi Sucipto told AFP.

The boat has been taken to a naval base in Belawan, North Sumatra for investigation.

"We are currently questioning the crew to find out more about the case," Sucipto said, adding that one of them had a gunshot wound to his leg.

"It was not our officers who shot him, he was probably shot by the Argentinian authorities," he said.

The Chinese trawler was previously reported to have been fishing illegally in Argentine waters in late February.

Argentine forces in March opened fire on and a sank a Chinese boat illegally fishing in the South Atlantic after it attempted to ram a coast guard vessel.

Indonesia in 2014 launched a tough crackdown on illegal fishing which involves sinking foreign vessels caught fishing without a permit after impounding the boats and removing the crews.

Its foreign minister protested to Beijing after the Chinese coastguard last month stopped an Indonesian patrol boat from detaining a Chinese trawler.

Beijing also voiced concern last year after Indonesia destroyed an impounded Chinese fishing vessel.
Facing liquidity crunch, renewable energy firm India on Sunday said it is receiving a "lot of interest" from investors for a possible stake sale in the company as well as in its projects in the country.

India is a subsidiary of US-based energy major SunEdison, which last week filed for bankruptcy protection in the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

"Given the liquidity crunch in our parent, we are exploring equity partnerships at a project level as well as a platform level in India," India Pashupathy Gopalan told PTI when asked about the impact of the bankruptcy protection on the firm's Indian operations.

Read more from our special coverage on "SUNEDISON"

He further said: "The filing of Chapter 11 in the US, will not affect our Indian operations where we plan to continue normal course of business."

In the last six years, SunEdison India has built nearly 700 Mw of operational power plants and currently have a pipeline of 1.7 Gw to build, Gopalan said.

When asked on stake sale, he said: "Given the amazing work Power Minister Piyush Goyal has done in transforming electricity sector in India and making India the top renewable destination in the world, we are seeing a lot of interests from investors to participate in our projects and India platform."

Earlier this month, reports had surfaced that the Adani group is in talks with SunEdison to acquire the latter's Indian assets.

The group, led by billionaire Gautam Adani, has reportedly asked bankers to sound it out on whether SunEdison is also putting on the block its solar power projects in India.

The company is reported to have debt of around $12 billion.

Meanwhile, Goyal  who is also the Minister for Coal and Renewable Energy  brushed aside worries over any spillover effect of the debt woes of the world's biggest developer of renewable energy power plants on India's solar power plans.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an event in New York last week, he said: "There are always certain cases of firms failing all over the world in every industry. There was a point of time where very large airline failed in different parts of the world. You have a failed steel sector in the UK. It doesn't mean that the whole sector collapses."
Escalating the war of words over the Ishrat Jahan case, Congress today accused the BJP of spreading misinformation to "save the skin" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah while the ruling party hit back demanding apology from Sonia Gandhi and Rahul for their "sin of playing with nation's security".

"Simple truth is that this web of deceit and deception is being woven by government and certain sections of media to save the skin of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah", Mallikarjun Kharge, Anand Sharma and other senior Congress leaders told reporters here.

Addressing a joint press conference along with Kapil Sibal, Abhishek Singhvi and Shaktisinh Gohil, they released copy of a four-page statement of Gujarat police officer D H Goswami before a Magistrate which speaks about "kali dadhi" (black beard) and "safed dadhi" (white beard).

Sibal claimed that Goswami had quoted the then senior Gujarat IPS officer D G Vanzara as saying ahead of the encounter that he had already got the "green signal from Black Beard and White Beard". While Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat that time, Shah was the Minister of state for Home.

They claimed that the "harsh reality" in the backdrop of Goswami's statement is that the "fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan and three other accomplices was ordered by the then Chief Minister and present Prime Minister Modi along with the then MoS, Gujarat Amit Shah".

Hitting back, BJP national secretary Shrikant Sharma said, "Congress should stop speaking the language spoken by Pakistan. Congress leadership has committed the sin of playing with the nation's security by protecting a terrorist like Ishrat Jahan, who wanted to eliminate Narendra Modi."



He said, "Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi should now apologise to the nation for this crime," adding that Congress was resorting to this as it cannot fight Modi politically.

He accused Congress of pitting the Intelligence Bureau (IB) against the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for its own political gains, which could prove harmful for the nation.

He also reminded the opposition party that it had committed "the crime of protecting and shielding" a terrorist like Ishrat Jahan, which investigating agencies like IB and NIA, besides US's FBI have confirmed was "a Lashkar terrorist and a suicide bomber out to kill Modi".

Sibal said, "In case, Ishrat Jahan trial was to proceed, it is inevitable that PM and BJP President would be summoned as an accused", they said in the joint statement.

"Black hearted conspiracy behind lies, half truth and smoke screen being put up by BJP government to divert attention of nation in 'Ishrat Jahan case' stands unearthed", they alleged on the eve of the Parliament session.

Sibal said that this is why the last 3 months has seen a "tsunami of misinformation" and people were asking if Ishrat Jahan was a terrorist or not. He was apparently referring to the BJP's concerted attacks on former Home Minister P Chidambaram.
There were 89 private equity transactions worth USD 644 million in March this year, following which the PE investment deal tally for the January-March quarter stood at USD 2.96 billion, says a Grant Thornton report.

According to the global tax, accounting and advisory firm, the January-March PE investment deal tally registered a 14 per cent jump in terms of value of deals and 27 per cent growth in terms of number of transactions.

During the same quarter of the previous year, there were 221 PE-deals worth USD 2.59 billion.

"Growth was driven by seven big ticket investments over USD 100 million compared to only four in Q1-2015," the report said.

A sector wise analysis shows that the PE/VC activity was led by the E-commerce sector, contributing 33 per cent of investment values and startups attracting 66 per cent of investment volumes.

The quarter saw one of the biggest exits by KKR from an India focused investment -- the US private equity giant sold its stake in Alliance Tire group to Japan's Yokohama Rubber for a consideration of USD 1.2 billion.

Other key sectors which witnessed big ticket investments (over USD 100 million each) this quarter are banking and financial services, pharma, healthcare, biotech and infrastructure.

"PE/VC investments, on the other hand, continue to be attracted to the E-commerce or consumer technology sector with the quarter witnessing USD 970 million across 28 investments," Prashant Mehra - Partner at Grant Thornton India said.

He added that "notably, more than 180 startups received investments of more than USD 454 million which is encouraging".
Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar and Power Minister Piyush Goyal met US Secretary of State John Kerry here and discussed "a range of issues" including how India and the US can continue to work together on the issue of climate change as major economies.

The two ministers met Kerry last night, hours after the historic signing ceremony by 175 nations of the Paris climate change agreement in the United Nations headquarters.

Javadekar signed the agreement on behalf of India while Goyal co-chaired the meeting of the International Solar Alliance with SegoleneRoyal, theFrench Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy and President of the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) on the sidelines of the high-level climate change signing ceremony.

Following the meeting with Kerry, Javadekar told PTI the two sides discussed a "whole range of issues."



A top official said the meeting related to the manner in which Indiacooperated on climate change leading up to the Paris agreement and how both nations can continue to work together on the issue of Climate Change as major economies.

The two sides also discussed issues related to the Major Economies Forum scheduled for tomorrow and hosted by the US, the official added.

Javadekar will attend the conference.

The ministers informed Kerry about the steps India was taking towards sustainable development and tackling climate change, including the 26 new initiatives taken by the Narendra Modi government since the adoption of the Paris Agreement in December last year such as the six dollar per tonne tax on coal production and building 500,000 toilets for girl students in schools where there were no separate toilets.
Actor Joaquin Phoenix is being considered as a leading contender to play Jesus in Garth Davis' "Mary Magdalene", joining Rooney Mara in the cast.

The film's production company See-Saw Films, which is teaming with Universal Pictures Intl Productions on the project, is in early talks with the actor's representatives, reported Variety.

Phoenix, 41, has been nominated for an Oscar three times - for "Gladiator", "Walk the Line" and "The Master" - and was nominated five times for a Golden Globe.

"Mary Magdalene" is being produced by See-Saw's Iain Canning and Emile Sherman, whose credits include "The King's Speech".

Film4 co-developed the film with See-Saw. Helen Edmundson and Philippa Goslett penned the script to "Mary Magdalene," which is described as "an authentic and humanistic portrait of one of the most enigmatic and misunderstood spiritual figures in history".

Production is set to begin in the summer for an anticipated release in 2017.
JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar today said that a co-passenger allegedly tried to attack him on a flight from Mumbai to Pune.

A man identified as Manas Jyoti Deka has been detained in connection with the incident, police said, adding no FIR has been so far registered.

"A person has been detained for allegedly attacking Kanahiya onboard a Pune-bound flight. The matter is being probed further," a senior police official said.

Later, Kanhaiya was offloaded by the airline citing safety, forcing him to take the road route to Pune.

Kanhaiya, who hit the headlines after being arrested on charges of sedition in the aftermath of an event on the JNU campus where alleged anti-India slogans were raised, said in a tweet, "Yet again, this time inside the aircraft, a man tries to strangulate me".

The man's attempt to attack Kanhaiya was evaded by his colleagues who were on the same flight, according to All India Students' Federation national president Syed Waliullah Kadri.

"Kanhaiya, I and two others from JNU had boarded the flight from Mumbai. This man suddenly got up and tried to attack Kanhaiya," Kadri claimed.

Following the ruckus, the four approached Mumbai Airport authorities to file a complaint in this regard.

"After the incident @jetairways staff completely refuses to take any action against the man who assaulted me," Kanhaiya alleged in another tweet.

Hitting out at the airline further, Kanhaiya also said that it sees no difference between "someone who assaults and one who is assaulted". He appeared to also suggest that the one who is attacked will be "deplaned" by the service provider "if he complains about it".

"Basically @jetairways sees no difference between someone who assaults nd d person who is assaulted. They will deplane you, if you complain," the 29-year-old student union leader said in another tweet.

Meanwhile, Jet, in a statement, said some guests on board flight 9W618, Mumbai to Pune, have been offloaded in the interest of operational safety.

"Some guests on board Jet Airways fight 9W618 from Mumbai to Pune have been off loaded at Mumbai airport in the interest of operational safety. At Jet Airways, the safety and security of our guests and crew is always of prime importance," the spokesman added.

He is scheduled to attend an event in Pune later in the day.

(Reopens BOM 3)



In Pune, police has stepped up security measures at city



airport and the venue of Kanhaiya Kumar's rally scheduled this evening after the alleged attack on him at Mumbai airport.

Kanhaiya, who was scheduled to arrive at Pune airport at 1030 hrs this morning by a Jet Airways flight from Mumbai, had not landed in Pune by late afternoon, as representatives of Left-dominated students' organisations waited to receive him.

Girish Fonde, a students' leader from the organisers of the event in Pune, condemned the alleged assault on Kanhaiya and said they were determined to hold the scheduled meeting at Bal Gandharva auditorium (in Pune) despite the threats.

Police, who insisted on changing the original meeting venue on grounds of security, have asked the students' leader to desist from making "provocative" statements in his address.

The JNU student leader had yesterday, at an event in Tilak Nagar, came down heavily on the Narendra Modi dispensation, terming it a "Government of selfies and jumlas" as he pushed for enactment of a law to prevent caste-based prejudice in educational institutions.
BJP ally Shiv Sena today took on the Centre for branding JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar as "anti-national" and slapping a sedition case on him.

"It is wrong to brand Kanhaiya as anti-national and slapping sedition case against him. He is not anti-national. Who gave birth to Kanhaiya, Hardik Patel and Rohith Vemula? The government should ponder over it," Sena president Uddhav Thackeray said.

He said India has a large population of youth and instead of guiding them, the central government is "misleading" them.

When Hardik Patel, the Patel quota stir spearhead, became popular, he was charged with sedition, and now Kumar is fighting against the government, Uddhav said, addressing a meeting of Sena office-bearers and asked, "Who gave birth to these youths?"



The Sena leader's remarks came on a day Kanhaiya, president of the JNU Students Union, alleged that a co-passenger tried to "strangle" him inside an aircraft before a flight from Mumbai to Pune.

"Yet again, this time inside the aircraft, a man tries to strangulate me," Kanhaiya tweeted after the alleged incident which took place when he was inside a Jet Airways aircraft at the airport here.

Kanhaiya was subsequently offloaded from the plane by the airline staff on safety ground, forcing him to take road route to Pune to attend an event there.

The BJP-Shiv Sena government has ordered a probe into the matter and the alleged assailant identified as Manas Jyoti Deka (33), an employee of TCS in Pune, was detained and a non-cognisable offence registered against him.

Kanhaiya has been attacked several times since being booked under sedition charges in connection with an event at JNU where some anti-national slogans were alleged to have been raised. He is currently out on bail.
Braving all odds, a 29-year-old woman from Kashmir has taken up the daunting task to revive the once-famed handicraft numdha, the traditional embroidered rug which has over the years lost its sheen.

Arifa Jan, belonging to a not-so-literate family in the summer capital here, followed her heart and pursued her dream of becoming a businesswoman, in the process working on the revival of numdha.

"I had no interest in a government job.I always wanted to have my own business.But in Kashmir it is very difficult to setup a business especially for a woman," Arifa told PTI here.

After her Bachelor's degree in commerce from Kashmir University here, Arifa's friend at Jammu and Kashmir government's then newly setup Craft Development Institute (CDI) counselled her to take up a two-year Craft Management and Entrepreneurial Leadership programme.

Even as she enrolled herself, Arifa could not afford to pay her fee.

However, after seeing her talent, determination and zeal, CDI facilitated a grant for her provided by the then Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, which took care of her training.

Since then, there was no looking back for her.During the two-year course, Arifa also went to Kyrgyzstan for specialised training.

It was at the end of this programme that Arifa took as a challenge the daunting task of reviving the dying craft.

"I had to present a master project at the end of the degree and I choose to present the business plan for revival of numdha - Kashmir's indigenous craft," she said.

Numdha is a traditional felted Kashmir carpet, made by rolling and pressing wool by the application of moisture.

Until some years, Kashmiri drawing rooms were furnished with numdhas in winters.

There was once a huge local as well as national demand and the handicraft had a good export market.

However, the demand died down and exports declined in the past more than a decade. Arifa then decided to turn her project into a full-fledged venture and in the process help in reviving the craft by giving artisans their due.

"I did some research and found out that lack of quality has led to reduction in its demand especially in foreign markets. So, I decided to explore ways to blend the traditional craft with modern innovations to suit it especially for the present-day modern market," she said.

Having explored different production techniques and



designs of numdha, Arifa mapped and studied new trends in the market.

"I produced new designs of numdhas, and participated in an exhibition of handmade items in New Delhi. CDI sponsored the event. My designs attracted good clientele and everyone was impressed with my work," she said.

However, as she planned to take the next step, she faced many challenges - from society to finances and motivating artisans.

"Being a woman, my venturing into business was not acceptable to many people. They used to say a lot and used to criticise me for becoming an entrepreneur.But I remained determined and focused," she said, adding her family backed her idea.

But being from a poor family, Arifa had to seek financial help.

"I did not want to take a bank loan. Paying or receiving interest is forbidden in my religion, therefore a loan was not an option. Fortunately I got some help and then convinced artisans on new designs and innovative methods and that is how my venture - Incredible Kashmiri Crafts - came into being," she said.

"As of now, 25 artisans are working with me.I feel that majority of the artisans working in Kashmir do not get their due share despite hard work. So, I have increased their wages from Rs 175 a day to Rs 450 as their uplift is my priority," Arifa said.

However, she believes that something needs to be done for sustaining the livelihood of the artisans.

"My aim is to help the artisans because it is they who are the force behind the success of Kashmir handicraft.I have introduced innovative ideas and new designs but the products are made using the traditional method.

"I use superior quality raw material, 100 per cent pure wool, use azo-free dyes which are not harmful," she said.

Arifa said Kashmiri handicrafts are famous world over but focus should be on quality.

"I have 100 per cent focus on quality.I work with dedication and believe in customer satisfaction," she said.

It is these qualities that have resulted in Arifa becoming the first-ever Kashmiri woman to be nominated by the United States State Department for the Women Entrepreneurship Programme under which she was awarded US Citizenship Eligibility Certificate in 2014.

"I was pleasantly surprised when I received a call from the US Embassy in New Delhi.Three girls from India, in a total of 16 world over, were nominated and I was the only one in the list who was selected for her ground work, " she said,



However, Arifa is not interested in the US citizenship and wants to stay in Kashmir and help the craft and artisans.

Even as Arifa has become an accomplished businesswoman with revival of dying numdha to her credit, she feels she can do more.

"I want to have a Common Facility Centre to take this craft to newer heights.The demand is very high but as there is no solid setup, I am turning down huge orders.

"The government should help the people who are honest and dedicated to help revive this sector," Arifa, who has clients in countries like the US, Australia, Japan, Finland, among others, said.

In her message to the would-be entrepreneurs, she said they need to change the negative mindset.

"The key to success lies in working hard with sincerity and focusing on quality.You can succeed if you believe in yourself," she said.
The Obama administration is trying to address Iranian complaints that US financial regulations are denying Iran the sanctions relief it deserves under last year's landmark nuclear deal.

Meeting with Iran's foreign minister yesterday, Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States would not stand in the way of foreign banks or firms doing business with Iranian companies that are no longer subject to US sanctions.

Kerry also said the administration was willing to further clarify what transactions are now permitted with Iran and urged foreign financial institutions to seek answers from US officials if they have questions.

They should not assume, he said, that was once prohibited is still prohibited. Nor, he added, should they assume that transactions with Iran that remain illegal for US companies are illegal for foreign firms.

Kerry's remarks, which came at the start of his second meeting this week with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, were an attempt to resolve confusion about what is permitted under the nuclear deal in which Iran agreed to curb its atomic program in exchange for billions in sanctions relief.

Iran, as well as foreign banks and governments, have been clamoring for clarity, but it was not clear that Kerry's remarks would provide it.

"The United States is not standing in the way and will not stand in the way of business that is permitted with Iran since the (nuclear deal) took effect," Kerry said, reading carefully from a prepared text.

"We've lifted our nuclear-related sanctions as we committed to do and there are now opportunities for foreign banks to do business with Iran. Unfortunately, there seems to be some confusion among foreign banks and we want to try to clarify that as much as we can."



The areas needing clarification, he said, include access to funds and financing for foreign firms to do business with Iran along with Iran's access to its own money, which had been frozen abroad under the nuclear sanctions. Access to all of these is permitted, Kerry said.

"We have no objection (to) foreign banks engaging with Iranian banks and companies, obviously as long as those banks and companies are not on our sanctions list for non-nuclear reasons," he said.

Kerry, however, stressed that the confusion and remaining US sanctions on Iran imposed for its ballistic missile tests, human rights abuses and support for terrorism are not the only reasons for foreign reluctance to do business with Iran. He cited the fragility and questionable integrity of Iran's banking system as well as other behavior that gives business executives pause about jumping into the Iranian market.
Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad (ABAP) chief Narendra Giri today threatened the Madhya Pradesh BJP government that the sadhus will boycott the second 'shahi- shan'(royal bath) on May 9 and return home from the ongoing month-long Simhastha-Kumbh, if the things were not set right.

"If the state government doesn't set things right by May 5, Sandhus won't take part at the 'shahi-snan' on May 9 and return home," Giri told reporters here.

Giri is the head of ABAP - the governing body of 13 'akharas' of sadhus who are camping here for the Kumbh Mela.

He said during the first 'shahi-snan' on April 22, which marked the opening of the Kumbh Mela, the sadhus "were not provided facilities" and "given their respect" at Ramghat (on the river Kshipra) to take the holy dip.

Giri said Ramghat was reserved for sadhus to take holy dip between 5 AM to 12 noon.

But, he alleged during that period the bureaucrats, including Ujjain Collector Kavindra Kiyawat along with their families were seen taking the holy dip and taking selfies.

Giri claimed that the collector has apologised for the act saying that he wasn't aware of the said timings.

He further said the state government had said 50 lakh to one crore people will take part in the 'shahi-snan' on April 22 but a mere 8 to 10 lakh could take the royal bath, due to "the mismanagement and disarray arrangements" on that day.

The faithful are being made to walk 9 km for taking dip in (river) Kshipra as there was no transport facility for them, despite the tall claims of the government that it will run e-rickshaws for the devotees, he claimed.

Giri also said inexperienced officers have been put on duty to run the show and demanded deputation of experienced officers.
Los Angeles is looking to attract around 1.05 lakh Indian visitors in 2016 as it undertakes various initiatives to hard-sell itself as a preferred tourist destination.

"We are expecting 4.8 per cent growth year-on-year in numbers of Indian visitors to Los Angeles in 2016 amounting to around 1.05 lakh visitors," Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board President and CEO Ernest Wooden Jr. Told PTI.

In 2015, around 99,000 Indians visited Los Angeles, he added.

Detailing the type of visitors from India, Wooden Jr said: "It is a mix of leisure and business. Around 90 per cent of Indian visitors in 2015 were leisure while 10 per cent were business."



On the initiatives that Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board is taking to promote the city in India, he said: "Initially, the main focus is going to be to educate the travel trade community about what Los Angeles has to offer."



After that the board will talk to retail operators and eventually to the consumers directly, he added.

"The main attractions that Los Angeles offers to visitors is great sight seeing, beaches, amusement parks, Hollywood, shopping experience and diverse culinary scene," Wooden Jr said.

At present, China is among the top source markets for Los Angeles, "We are expecting the same kind of growth potential out of India in long term. The potential here is very huge."



On an average, Indian visitors' stay was 7.3 nights in Los Angeles in 2014, with an average per visitor spend of USD 108 per day.

Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board is a private, non-profit business association with a mandate to promote the city as a preferred destination.
Taking cognisance of commercial users, specially distilleries in Aurangabad, polluting water bodies, Maharashtra government has cracked the whip on such units by making penalties more stringent.

A Government Resolution (GR) issued by Water Resources department here today stated that henceforth, industries and those consuming water if found polluting nearby water bodies by discharging untreated effluents will have to pay double the fine and face disconnection of water supply.

"The guilty will have to pay double the fines if it is found that they have released waste water, which is not as per the prescribed norms laid down by Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB)," it stated.

The Aurangabad bench of Bombay High Court on June 30, 2015, had served notices to Ms Radico NV Distilleries, Aurangabad and others for releasing untreated waste in nearby farms, wells and open spaces.

A local farmer Vithhal Thube, who has agricultural farm land at Shendra MIDC in Aurangabad, had lodged a complaint this year in May that hazardous waste was being released by a distillery company killing 25 trees and rendering his agricultural field infertile.

The MPCB too had served notice to Ms Radico NV Distilleries asking it to stop production and for violating the provisions of Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974. The company had, however, denied the charges.

Industries minister Subhash Desai admitted that some industries are now resorting to digging trenches inside their industrial premises and dumping untreated waste.

"This waste later seeps into the ground and then pollutes lake, wells and ponds," he said.

The GR stated as per the "principle of the one who pollutes will pay", those found guilty of discharging untreated waste water not confiding to the MPCB norms shall have to pay double the prescribed fine.

The GR applies to non-agricultural industrial and commercial water consumers who are direct consumers of the Water Resources department.

"If the MPCB has ordered for disconnection of the water supply to such a consumer then Water Resource department shall discontinue the water supply. The department will restore the connection only after the consumer pays the fine and following the orders of the MPCB to that effect," the GR stated.
Maharashtra Governor C Vidyasagar Rao today called for setting up an institute for promotion of Sindhi language and culture in Mumbai.

"Preserving 'Sindhiyat', the language, culture and traditions of Sindhis, has become a challenge as members of the community are scattered all over the world. Thus, an institute, on the lines of Institute of Sindhology, is required in Mumbai to promote Sindhi language and culture," he said.

Rao was speaking at the inauguration of the 'Cheti Chand Mela', the annual cultural programme of the community to welcome their new year, in suburban Mumbai.

He also hailed the contribution of Sindhi community to the progress and development of India and Maharashtra.

"Despite suffering the trauma and pain of the partition, the Sindhis transformed themselves into one of the most successful communities on the strength of industry, hard work and determination," he said.

Describing Sindhis as "pioneers of start-up" revolution, the Governor called upon members of the Sindhi community to encourage others to become entrepreneurs.

He also asked the members of the Sindhi community to create a website to connect those settled across the world.

He also praised the Sindhis in Mumbai and Ulhasnagar for starting top class educational institutions offering higher education to students.

The Governor also felicitated meritorious students from the community on the occasion.
Liquor baron Vijay Mallya has appeared on the electoral rolls in the UK with his country home in Britain as his recorded address, a media report said on Sunday.

The 60-year-old, who strongly rejects any suggestion of wrongdoing and denies he has deliberately absconded from India, has been living at a three-storey mansion called Ladywalk in the village of Tewin in Hertfordshire, just over a one-hour drive north of London.

According to The Sunday Times, Mallya confirmed that my official address in the UK is at Ladywalk, adding that he had supplied this information to the Indian authorities.

The 11.5-million mansion was bought from the father of British Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton by a company with offshore links. The ownership structure of Ladywalk is perfectly legal, the newspaper quoted Mallya as saying.

Mallya, however, told the newspaper there was no concealment or tax avoidance involved and said he has been a British resident since 1992.

The report notes official documents list the owner of Ladywalk as a limited liability partnership called Ladywalk.

It has two members, including a company called Continental Administration Services, registered in St Kitts and Nevis, a Commonwealth country in the Caribbean regarded as a tax haven.

A loan to finance the property purchase in July 2015 was made by the Edmond de Rothschild private bank in Switzerland.

Official papers name the borrower as Ladywalk Investments, a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, another tax haven.

Mallya has described an arrest warrant against him as erroneous and unjustified and has recently tweeted: I fully respect and will comply with the law of the land.



His passport, which had been suspended earlier, was also revoked today.

Mallya had left India on March 2. He has refused to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on three occasions when summoned between March 10 and April 2.

ED has said it will also seek an Interpol arrest warrant against Mallya based on a non-bailable warrant issued last week by a Mumbai court in a money laundering case.
Private equity firm Milestone Capital Advisors plans to raise around Rs 1,000 crore under a commercial fund which would invest in pre-leased commercial assets in metros, a top company official said.

Under the fund, titled Milestone Commercial Advantage Fund, the company plans to invest in assets like commercial offices, IT/ITES, industrial or warehousing and retail space.

"We are looking at raising around Rs 1,000 crore under this fund. This is however, at a planning stage currently but we hope to finalise it and launch it in the next 3-4 months," its Executive Vice Chairman Rubi Arya told PTI.

She said the investments will be made primarily in pre-leased assets generating periodic yields and capital appreciation on exit.

"We will invest in 4-6 projects which are either completely leased or pre-leased up to 60 per cent or at the last mile funding stage. We plan to invest in major metros like Bengaluru, Pune, Mumbai, NCR among others," Arya said.

She said the investment ticket sizes would range between Rs 50-200 crore.

"The fund will be for five years and we will exit as and when we see the right opportunity. This time we may also look at the option of listing the projects on Real Estate Investment Trust (REITs) for exits," Arya said.

In 2008, the company had raised Rs 1,500 crore to invest in pre-leased commercial projects. Milestone has invested in 13 projects so far and even exited from eight assets.

The firm will continue to invest in residential projects under its Milestone Opportunities Fund 10 of Rs 500 crore for three and half years with a provision for up to one year extension.

The company has so far raised Rs 150 crore of the fund. "We have commenced its maiden investment of Rs 40 crore in Rajesh Lifespaces located in Thane. In addition to this, the investment committee has also approved 4 additional deals in Mumbai, Bangalore and NCR region, the talks are now at an advanced stage and we hope to close this deals in next few months," she added.

Milestone has so far raised Rs 3,700 crore across nine funds and has made 57 investments across India and has exited from 42 projects. While 30 are complete exits, the remaining 12 are partial exits.
A 13-year-old girl, who went for a medical check-up at a hospital here following a severe stomach ache, was found to be two months pregnant.

Based on the statement of the girl, who belongs to a tribal settlement in Marayur here, a case was registered against her neighbour Madu (20), who is absconding now, police said.

The girl, a sixth standard student, was found to be pregnant when she was admitted to a government hospital here following severe stomach pain last week.

On finding the young girl pregnant, hospital authorities immediately informed the police, who recorded her statement.

Police said the girl had alleged that Madu had raped her on a day when she was alone at home.

The victim was produced before the Child Welfare Committee and is presently under their care.

A case was registered under IPC 376 (rape) and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

Police said a hunt has been launched to apprehend the accused.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress President Sonia Gandhi and party vice president Rahul Gandhi will be among a battery of top national leaders who will hit the campaign trail in Kerala to woo voters for the May 16 Assembly elections.

While BJP sources said the exact date of Modi's visit to the state for poll campaign has not been finalised yet as Parliament session is starting tomorrow, Sonia Gandhi will address rallies in Thiruvananthapuram and Thrissur on May 9.

A hectic schedule has been drawn up for Rahul Gandhi who will be in the state on May 12.

He will crisscross four districts in a helicopter to address conventions at Kayamkulam, Angamally, Udumbanchola and Kozhikode, Congress sources said.

BJP, which has launched a do-or-die battle this time to open its account in the state Assembly, will see its national President Amit Shah along with Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Nirmala Sitharaman and Smriti Irani, addressing several meetings.

The saffron party has forged an alliance with Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), a political party launched by the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP), an organisation of backward Ezhava community, led by its General secretary Vellapally Natesan.

BJP-led NDA alliance is putting up a triangular fight in most of the 140 Assembly constituencies in Kerala which hitherto had witnessed a bi-polar contest between the ruling Congress-led UDF and opposition CPI(M)-led LDF.

CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, Politburo members Prakash Karat, Brinda Karat and Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar will be among the top national leaders to campaign in the state, where 93-year-old old V S Achutanandan is still the star campaigner for the Left front.

Senior Congress leader and CWC member A K Antony will begin his campaign tour from the northern Kasaragod district on May 1 and end at Thiruvananthapuram on May 14. He will be addressing poll meetings in all the 14 districts.

Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, who is the Congress-UDF candidate from Puthupally in Kottayam district, will also be addressing 14 rallies in all the 14 districts, starting from Kasaragod on Apr 26.

Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, who is trying is luck from Haripad, will begin his tour from April 27 from the state capital and conclude on May 7 at Alapuzha.

Kerala PCC President V M Sudheeran will kick off his campaign from Ernakulam tomorrow and end in Palakkad on May 8.
Prime Minister and a battery of top BJP national leaders will hit the campaign trail in Tamil Nadu for the May 16 Assembly polls starting first week of next month.

"The Prime Minister will travel to four corners of the state in two phases," a senior BJP leader told PTI.

The PM will visit the state in the "middle of May first week and second week of the same month," the leader said, adding the Prime Minister's itinerary was yet to be finalised.

BJP President Amit Shah and senior leaders, including central ministers Piyush Goyal, Prakash Javadekar and Smriti Irani were also scheduled to undertake election campaign in the state, he said.

Earlier, Modi had addressed a pre-election public meeting at Coimbatore in February but had then stayed away from speaking on Tamil Nadu politics.

However, Shah had hit out at the ruling AIADMK in his TiruchirappallI rally on April 13, alleging that it was the "most corrupt government" in India.

Unable to strike a rainbow coalition like it did for the 2014 Lok Sabha election, BJP is facing the polls with two minor allies, India Jananayaka Katchi and Akila Indiya Makkal Kalvi Munnetra Kazhagam.

The party is contesting from 168 seats, and has fielded, among others, BJP National Secretary H Raja (T Nagar), state President Tamilisai Soundarrajan (Virugambakkam) and Vice-President Vanathi Sreenivasan (Coimbatore South).

There are 234 assembly segments in Tamil Nadu.
As a Donald Trump supporter, Nedal Tamer feels he's in the minority among Muslim-Americans, comfortable with his choice yet somewhat confounded that he doesn't have more company.

Small numbers of Muslims find comfort, not concern, in Trump's strong stance on immigrants. They see it as proof that the Republican presidential front-runner could better contain extremists than other candidates.

"People have the wrong idea, even Arabs and Muslims," said Tamer, 40, who works in real estate and construction and lives in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, which is known for its large Arab and Muslim population. "I like the fact that he's a little nuts. He's got the good heart, he cares about America."



The discomfort that many Muslims have with the outspoken billionaire businessman comes from his suggestion that Muslims be banned from entering the United States. Trump also has said the US should stop the flow of refugees from countries where the Islamic State group has a significant presence. For some, it's hardest to reconcile Trump's statement that "Islam hates the West."



The Associated Press spoke to a number of Muslims who back Trump, some of whom declined to be interviewed.

Tamer was born in Lebanon and immigrated to the US in the late 1990s from the United Arab Emirates. He said Trump is speaking about extremists, such as the Islamic State group and those it inspires, not all followers of the religion.

"Many times, Trump has said, 'Not all Muslims' he's not talking about all Muslims," said Tamer, a Republican. "He says there are certain people. ... We've seen what's happening. I don't think anybody would agree with what ISIS is doing," Tamer said, using an acronym for the extremist group. "He says, 'We have to stop ISIS now, immediately.'"



In heavily Arab and Muslim Dearborn, many support Democrat Bernie Sanders, the first Jewish candidate to win a presidential primary, and people in those communities helped turn the tide toward him last month in the state's primary.

Sally Howell, an associate professor at University of Michigan-Dearborn and author of several books on Arabs and Muslims in Detroit, described them as a small demographic overall but certainly a factor in Sanders' Michigan victory over rival Hillary Clinton. It helped that he came to Dearborn to court them.
Actress Sofia Vergara feels her sacrifices were "worthwhile" when people praise her son for the way she has raised him as a single parent.

The 43-year-old actress split from first husband Joe Gonzalez in 1993, the year after their child Manolo was born, and she has always done her best to raise him to be kind, polite and well-behaved, so is thrilled when the young man's temperament is complimented, reported People magazine.

"Every time people compliment me about my son, Manolo, it is very rewarding. I was really young when I divorced his father, so I raised him trying to set the best example and give him the best that I could," Vergara said.

"When people compliment me on him, on how well mannered, how charming, funny and well-behaved he is, it makes all the sacrifices worthwhile.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un hailed a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test as an "eye-opening success", state media said on Sunday, declaring Pyongyang has the ability to strike Seoul and the US whenever it pleases.

The US, joined by Britain, said Saturday's apparent test was a violation of UN Security Council resolutions and called on the North to refrain from further moves that could destabilise the region.

South Korea's defence ministry said the launch appeared to have failed as the missile, fired from a submarine in the Sea of Japan, flew just 30 kilometres.

However, the North's state-run KCNA news agency insisted that the test, which it said was personally monitored by Kim, confirmed "the reliability of the Korean-style underwater launching system".

It cited the young leader as saying that Pyongyang "is now capable of hitting the heads of the South Korean puppet forces and the US imperialists anytime as it pleases".

"This eye-opening success constitutes one more precious gift the defence scientists and technicians are presenting to the great leaders and the party," it added.

has been pushing to acquire SLBM capability that would take its nuclear strike threat to a new level, allowing deployment far beyond the Korean peninsula and the potential to retaliate in the event of a nuclear attack.

The isolated country has conducted a number of what it says were successful SLBM tests, but experts question the claim, suggesting Pyongyang had gone little further than a "pop-up" test from a submerged platform.

The latest launch comes as the North gears up for a rare and much-hyped ruling party congress early next month  the first in 36 years  at which Kim is expected to take credit for pushing the country's nuclear and missile weapons programme to new heights.

Tension has been running high on the divided Korean peninsula since Pyongyang's fourth nuclear test in January and rocket launch a month later, which was widely seen as a disguised ballistic missile test.

The UN Security Council responded by slapping its strongest sanctions to date last month.

Pyongyang has since staged a series of short-range and mid-range missile tests, claiming it had acquired significant technical breakthroughs in its nuclear strike capability.

Many analysts and senior Seoul officials have suggested the regime may carry out a fifth nuclear test as a display of defiance and strength ahead of the May party congress.
The conduct of relief and rescue operations during the Nepal earthquake was a demanding task for the NDRF with new challenges emerging every day, a book written by the chief of country's premier disaster combat force on the devastating temblor has said.

The earthquake that hit the neighbouring country on April 25 killed nearly 9,000 people and injured 22,000 others and, as a goodwill gesture, India sent over a dozen NDRF teams to quickly launch rescue operations and provide succour to the numerous trapped.

National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) Director General O P Singh, who himself supervised the operation from the spot, has written about the entire operation in a book titled: 'Nepal Bhookamp: Zindagi ki Talaash' (Nepal Earthquake: Search for Life).

The 246-page book chronicles the operation undertaken by the NDRF from the word go, with Singh getting the first call from his control room informing about a quake in the eastern part of India as he was attending an event in the national capital chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The book, written by Singh and another NDRF officer Nishith Upadhyay, talks about the massive operation carried out by a total of 76 rescue teams from 31 countries, out of which 16 were from India (NDRF).

"During an earthquake the first day is very crucial from the point of view of conducting relief and rescue operations. As the days pass, the challenges reduce. But, during the Nepal quake, there were challenges every day," the book says recounting the magnitude of task at hand.

Soon after landing in Kathmandu, the teams fanned out to multiple locations in the capital city and areas like Sitapaila, Lalitpur and others to conduct immediate operations to find out the trapped and alive victims.

The book refers to some of the challenges like cracking open the debris of concrete and stabilising crumbling structures that the force had to undertake in order to rescue trapped people on one hand and provide medical care and essential items like food and water on the other.

The force, at the end of the operation, brought out 11 victims alive apart from 133 bodies from 86 different locations.

"I hope that the book is not only useful for people who love Nepal or researchers who work on subjects like earthquake but it is for every person. If we are able to reduce even a small fraction of damage during a future disaster, then the effort of writing this book would be considered successful," Singh said.
An Indian entrepreneur in the UK plans to set up a new trust with a starting corpus of around 1 million pound to help fund PhD level research of students from Oxford and Cambridge on positive impacts of the British empire on India.

Kartar Lalvani, founder-chairman of Vitabotics group and a philanthropist and historian, announced the "Indo-British Legacy Trust" as part of the launch of his latest book 'The Making of India: The Untold Story of British Enterprise' in London this week.

All proceeds from the sale of his book will also go into the trust, which will be aimed at students affiliated to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

"Oxford and Cambridge because these are the two leading British universities that have given India many great minds and the best of British talent," Lalvani said.

"The details of the workings of the trust are being finalised and will be launched soon but the central idea is to offer grants to students who wish to conduct in-depth study into the vast contributions the British made to India," he added.

Lalvani's book has 22 chapters, each of which focus on various aspects of British contributions that led to the creation of a unified India.

"It was the great British enterprise and its contributions in the 19th and 20th centuries which helped create a unified India, out of multi-cultural, multi-linguistic and divided regions of the vast Indian-subcontinent," Lalvani argues in the book born out of his urge to tell the other side of the story of British colonialism.

"I always felt we have only got a negative and distorted one-sided narrative of the Raj era and I wanted to highlight that India too benefitted under British rule," he said.

Founded in 1971, Vitabotics became the largest vitamin company in the UK by value sales in July 2013. The company's turnover is about USD 371 million a year and is driven by Lalvani's son Tej.
Hundreds of Nepalese today held memorial services to mark the first anniversary of last year's devastating earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people, as victims still forced to live in tents accused the government of failing to look after them.

Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli laid flowers at the demolished 19th-century Dharahara tower where people gathered to pay homage to those killed when the 7.9-magnitude temblor struck, after a minute's silence to remember the deceased.

Though the quake jolted Nepal on April 25, 2015, the memorials were being held today in its grim reminder as per the Bikram Era calendar. The quake was extremely devastating for the land-locked Himalayan nation, displacing lakhs of families besides putting a huge dent in the country's economy.

Oli paid tribute to those killed in the earthquake, wishing for the eternal peace of the departed souls as he said the government is distributing eligibility certificates to the 31,19,000 affected people to enable them to avail promised grants to rebuild their houses.

Shortly after the quake, that killed nearly 9,000 people, the government had promised to pay USD 1,850 (around 2 lakh Nepali rupees) to each family whose houses were damaged. The quake and aftershocks that hit central Nepal, including Kathmandu, also injured 22,000 others.

Ramesh Shrestha, whose house was demolished in the quake, said: "I am scared if my family will get compensation at all. It has already been a year."



Around 8,00,000 houses including hundreds of school buildings had collapsed due to the twin earthquakes of April 25 and May 12 that hit as many as 14 districts of Nepal. Some four million survivors are still living in temporary shelters, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Today, Buddhist monks in maroon robes held prayers at Swyambhunath stupa that was home to a popular temple destroyed in the quake.

Oli reached the earthquake-devastated site at Dharahara that was completely damaged by the earthquake, here amid a programme organised in commemoration of the great earthquake. A procession led by Nepalese Tourism Minister Ananda Pokharel took round of the city before converging into a gathering at the Dharahara site.

On one hand, the people of 14 earthquake-hit districts are still living under fear of a recurrence while on the other, the government's reconstruction and recovery work is progressing at a snail's pace.

A 4.2-magnitude aftershock hit central Nepal this morning as the country was marking the first anniversary of the devastating earthquake. The epicentre of the earthquake, that was felt in Kathmandu too, was located in Nuwakot district, 125 kms west of here.

With this, a total of 450 aftershocks with 4 or more magnitude have been recorded after the great earthquake.

The earthquake badly hit the country's tourism and



caused an economic loss of USD 7 billion. According to the Asian Development Bank, growth is now expected to reach just 1.5 per cent over the financial year ending in July this year - the lowest since 2007.

Although international donors pledged USD 4.1 billion financial assistance to help Nepal's post quake recovery, the reconstruction and rehabilitation works have been moving at a very slow pace due to the political wrangling in forming the National Reconstruction Authority among the major political parties.

The government had promised to distribute a lump sum of Rs 2,00,000 to those whose houses were completely damaged by the quake, However, very few people have received the relief money.

A small group of about 20 protesters dressed in black took to the streets, chanted "politicians in palaces, public in tents" and "what happened to reconstruction?". Police quickly removed their banner but allowed them to shout anti-government slogans.

During the last winter, many quake survivors in the mountainous districts of the country were forced to spend the nights under small tents with not enough food and clothing.

Days after the April 25 quake, a second temblor struck Nepal, adding to its woes.

The first earthquake of 7.9-magnitude with epicentre at Gorkha district, 150 kms west of Kathmandu, hit the country on Baishakh 12 of the year 2072 Bikram Era (April 25) and the second quake with 7.3-magnitude hit on Baishakh 29 or May 12 with epicentre at Kodari Highway in Nepal-Tibet border, 120 kms east of Kathmandu.

Nepal has experienced two great earthquakes in the past 180-year period before last year's temblor which has been dubbed as the 'Gorkha quake'.

The last 'great' earthquake that hit the country in 1934 with its epicentre at Sankhuwasabha in eastern Nepal, which also gave a big jolt to Kathmandu, killed 8,519 people, according to historical data.

A hundred years before, in 1833, a similar over 7.8- magnitude earthquake hit central Nepal and the nature of last year's temblor is close to that of this quake, say experts.

The great earthquake had damaged many historical sites including Kathmandu Durbarsquare, Patan Durbarsquare, Bhaktapur Durbarsquare, Dharahara tower, Swoyambhu stupa, Bouddhanath stupa, Gorkha Durbar, Bungamati Matshendranath temple etc.

A grand programme will be organised at Bhrikutimandap in Kathmandu tomorrow, which will be addressed by Prime Minister Oli. A group of artists are creating a 150 feet-long painting depicting the Dharahara tower, that collapsed during the earthquake, killing dozens of people.

The fear and trauma of the massive earthquake that struck the country on April 25 continues to haunt the general public even one year on as aftershocks continue to hit. An aftershock with magnitude 4 with epicentre at Sindhupalchowk district was also recorded at 4.49 pm on Friday.
The May 16 by-poll to Palair Assembly segment in Telangana is expected to witness a contest between the ruling TRS and Congress as TDP and YSR Congress have decided not to field their candidates.

The by-poll is necessitated following the death of sitting Congress MLA R Venkata Reddy and the party has decided to field his widow, Sucharita Reddy as its nominee.

The ruling TRS has chose State Roads and Buildings minister Tummala Nageswara Rao as its candidate.

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao's son state IT and Panchayat Raj Minister K T Rama Rao has been appointed as party in charge for the election.

Congress has appealed to all the other parties to let Venkata Reddy's widow be elected unopposed as per a tradition in undivided Andhra Pradesh and also in view of the departed leader's clean image.

State Congress president N Uttam Kumar Reddy has written to the parties to let the Congress nominee be elected unopposed. Party working president M Bhatti Vikramarka also called on TDP Telangana unit president L Ramana, YSR Congress president YS Jaganmohan Reddy and leaders of other parties with the request.

Heeding to the request, YSR Congress and TDP have announced their decision not to field their candidates.

Thanking the TDP for its support, Vikramarka today hoped that the CPI and CPI(M), which have a presence in Khammam district, would also not field candidates.

Responding to other opposition parties supporting the Congress in the bypoll, Rama Rao criticised them for the move.

"TDP and YSR Congress, which are anti-Congress in nature, have now come together to defeat the TRS in the Palair bypoll," he alleged.
The second half of the of Parliament, beginning tomorrow, is all set to be a stormy affair with opposition parties closing ranks over the imposition of Presidents' rule in Uttarakhand.

Even as the government has listed a heavy agenda for the session, including passage of 13 bills in Lok Sabha and 11 bills in Rajya Sabha, there is understanding among its floor managers that pushing the contentious measures like GST won't be possible in first few days.

Congress backed by the Left, JD(U) and other opposition parties, is determined to corner the Centre over the imposition of President's rule in Uttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh, calling it an "assault" on the federal structure.

The NDA government is likely to counter the attack citing instances of imposition of President's rule when Congress governments or governments backed by it or other opposition parties were in power at the Centre.

Government sources claimed President's rule was imposed 111 times in the country since 1951, out of which it happened 91 times when BJP or NDA was not in power.

Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan has called an all-party meeting today to ensure smooth functioning of Parliament.

The session begins in the middle of the raging controversy over the Uttarkhand political crisis in which the Centre's role has come in for scathing criticism, besides drought-like conditions in 10 states.

A number of opposition parties have given notices for suspension of Question Hour on the first day of the session over the Uttarakhand issue and sought a discussion on the drought in the first week.

Congress's Deputy Leader in Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma has sought a resolution by the Upper House that seeks to "deplore" the "destabilisation" of the democratically elected government in Uttarakhand and "disapprove the unjustified" imposition of President's rule in the state.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi, who had held discussions with select party leaders during a strategy meeting on the Uttarakhand crisis, had suggested that the party should take an aggressive stand on this issue.

Apart from the Uttarakhand issue, Congress will also target the government over imposition of President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh, the Pathankot terror attack, the Ishrat Jahan case, drought management and alleged communalisation of educational institutes.

After the near wash-out of the two sessions last year, the government is looking ahead to the second half of the to push bills, including the key Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill, touted as the biggest tax reform in India.

The financial business, including discussion on demands for grants of various ministries in Lok Sabha and working of some ministries in Rajya Sabha, consideration and passing of the Railways Appropriation Bill, 2016 and Finance Bill, 2016 constitutes the main agenda of this session of Parliament.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Minister Manohar Parrikar on Monday will meet industry associations to take their views on the controversial "strategic partnership" agreement that the government plans to enter into with private firms in critical projects like building submarines and fighter planes.

sources said five members each from Confederation of Indian Industry, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, ASSOCHAM and PHD Chambers of Commerce and Industry, besides a defence grouping Defence Innovators and Industry Association, will meet Parrikar on Monday, followed by a dinner.

The industry chambers are expected to express their strong reservation on the subject to the minister.

Read more from our special coverage on "DEFENCE"

The feeling among the private industry players is that only the big firms will benefit out of this move.

However, even large firms are not open to the idea since they feel that they would be restricted to just specific fields and, therefore, their overall investment and plans will get affected.

Captain (Retd) Amrinder Singh, a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence, had recently written to Parrikar against the proposed strategic partnership, saying this would only lead to "crony capitalism".

At the recently held Defexpo in Goa, various industry leaders had expressed their reservation against the move to create strategic partnership.

Industrialist Anil Ambani, who is eyeing the defence sector through his newly set up Reliance Defence, welcomed the concept of strategic partners but said there needs to be competition in inter and intra segments.

The big players are concerned over a clause that would restrict one company each to the ten broad areas of manufacturing like warships, land systems and submarines.

"Our policies have to be in line with global best practices. Sub-optimal division or groupings will make the industry inefficient. For instance, the division of ship building into above the water and below the water categories," Ambani had said at a Global Investors Summit at the Defence Expo.

A top executive of another defence firm had left everyone surprised with his strong remarks against the concept of strategic partnership.

His argument was that "strategic partnership will lead to a new caste system within the defence sector" and only few companies will benefit.

Former Defence Research and Development Organisation chief V K Aatre had earlier this year submitted a report to the Defence Ministry recommending guidelines for selecting domestic private firms for strategic partnership.

The Aatre Committee was set up by Parrikar following recommendation by the Dhirendra Singh Committee, which had come out with a report detailing the changes needed for the new Defence Procurement Procedure.

The committee had recommended that for 'Make in India' initiative to become wider in the defence sector, the government should adopt a strategic partnership model, whereby a private firm is chosen for the development of a specific identified platform.
Union Minister Ramvilas Paswan today mocked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for appealing to non-BJP parties to make a 'Sangh-mukt Bharat' and dubbed the latter as a "fine actor".

"What a fine actor he is! He did not see anything wrong with the BJP/RSS during his association with them for 17 years. Now he is singing a different tune and wants to make the country Sangh-mukt," the LJP supremo told reporters.

The Bihar Chief Minister must be complimented for being good at acting, Paswan, whose party is an ally of the BJP-led NDA at the Centre, said sarcastically.

The Union Food and Consumer Affairs Minister also rapped Kumar on the prohibition issue claiming it was he who had set up liquor shops in all corners of the state and made people addicted to liquor by making it available at their door steps over the past decade.

"If liquor is so bad for health as you have realised now, you must owe an explanation to people for making liquor available in all corners of Bihar," he said.

On JD(U) and RJD describing Kumar as 'PM material', Paswan said it is "frivolous".

He said the people of Bihar have given Kumar a mandate to make the state 'crime-free', but there have been "spurt" in murder and related crimes ever since the Grand Alliance government came to power six months ago.

"Even the policemen are not safe in Bihar any longer with several police officers being killed at the hands of the gun-wielding criminals," the LJP supremo said.

He asked the Chief Minister to "improve" the law and order situation in the state first before "nursing" national ambition.
LJP chief and Union minister Ramvilas Paswan today said he will sit on a dharna here tomorrow demanding rollback of the decision to ban toddy under total prohibition as he lent support to the Pasi community which is up in arms against the move.

"I will sit on dharna at Gardanibagh at 2 PM tomorrow in support of the toddy on 'toddy' (juice made from palm tree) cultivators and traders as it is their sole source of livelihood for ages which the Nitish Kumar government has tried to muzzle by banning toddy under total prohibition in Bihar," Paswan told reporters.

Describing toddy as "juice" and not liqour, he questioned the Nitish Kumar government's wisdom in banning the traditional beverage, the cultivation and sale of which has sustained families of the Pasi community for generations.

He demanded that the state government withdraw the decision, otherwise many people might have to commit commit suicide in fear loss of their only source of livelihood.

Paswan, the Union Food and Consumer Affairs Minister, defended consumption of toddy in raw form before sunshine, saying the juice was good for health, a view that even Mahatma Gandhi held.

He said RJD supremo Lalu Prasad as Chief Minister had kept toddy out of the Excise Act in 1991 allowing free trade of this traditional beverage.

The LJP supremo questioned Prasad for his silence over the incumbent Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's decision to ban sale of toddy altogether at public places.

"Why is Lalu Prasad not speaking on the toddy issue when he had himself lifted all restrictions on its sale long ago as the then chief minister in 1991?" Paswan asked.

The state government has banned the sale of toddy at public places as part of prohibition in Bihar, but backed trade of 'Nira' (pure juice of palm tree) in organised manner.

(REOP CAL12)



Referring to tweets by Prasad on Monday in which



he had attacked RSS, BJP, Paswan and HAM(S), Paswan said the RJD chief had accepted the leadership of Nitish Kumar for the "sake of power".

Prasad in a series of tweets had said "I can understand the restlessness of RSS, BJP, Paswanji , and Manjhiji ... Everything is fit and fine (in the Grand Secular Alliance). They (these leaders) are unnecessarily getting tensed.

"NDA people should not create any confusion among the people as they are not going to be benefitted at all from their tactics," he said adding the NDA are a "tired and defeated people."



The Union Consumer Affairs minister asked Prasad as to how Bihar government scrapped reservation in promotion for SC and ST category, specially when RJD was an alliance partner in Bihar government.

He also asked the state government to lift foodgrains timely so that beneficiaries can avail of their quota in the first week of the month.

Bihar government has so far lifted 70 per cent of its quota of grains in the month of May, Paswan added.
After civil society, conservation architects have joined the growing chorus against the proposed demolition of the 200-year-old Patna Collectorate building, saying the structure can be restored and the country has skills required for it.

Spread over nearly 12 acres on the banks of the Ganga, the complex has several buildings built over a period spanning more than two centuries. The old record room and few other structures belong to the Dutch era and are endowed with unique architecture of that period.

Kolkata-based conservation architect Manish Chakraborti, currently working on extensive architectural restoration projects in West Bengal's old Danish town Serampore, says, "Patna is a historic city and the government must explore ways to showcase its heritage instead of condemning it to oblivion."



"It's an architectural asset and part of not just Dutch or British history but also Patna's own history and dismantling it would mean erasing a great chapter of the city's past. The concept of shared heritage is well-embraced and restoration is becoming a norm around the world and in several parts of India. It's time Patna made a start in that direction," he told PTI.

The Bihar government has decided to raze the iconic buildings to replace them with a high-rise complex, citing their "poor condition" and space requirements. Patna Commissioner Anand Kishor has claimed that parts of the roof of the buildings have been damaged rendering the place unsafe.

Chakraborti, who worked on restoration of early 19th century Danish-era St. Olav's Church in Serampore, counters the argument, saying, "just because part of a roof is falling doesn't mean you knock down the entire building. Such policymaking reflects myopic vision."



"Even if the entire roof was falling, the building should still be preserved. In Olav's Church case the entire roof was falling as it had been damaged by termite, but we redid the entire roof. We must reconcile conservation with development. And, we have all the expertise we need for such holistic projects, why rush to demolition and rob one of one's own history," he said.

The iconic church, construction of which began in 1800, after three years of painstaking restoration was rededicated on April 16. It is part of the 'Serampore Initiative', a joint initiative of Danish government and West Bengal Heritage Commission to revive Danish heritage in the town near Kolkata. The old Governor House and Danish Tavern are also currently being restored.

Well-known conservation architect and Convener of INTACH Delhi Chapter AGK Menon says, "Restoration is our job. That's what conservation architects do, bringing things back to life. Patna Collectorate has not been properly kept over the decades, so it is bound to become weak. But, that doesn't mean it can't be revived and revitalised.

Former Additional Director General of ASI, B R Mani says,



"Such buildings should get protection at local level under some municipal heritage law."



"It is history and must be preserved, there can't be two opinions. But, buildings like Collectorate are getting exposed to wrecking ball because they are historic but not listed or notified under any law. Cities like Mumbai or Kolkata or even Delhi has provisions where such landmark and even private mansions and havelis are protected.

"Patna needs to have such laws but restoration should be done nonetheless, as it is an architectural heritage and carries with it the story of not just the Dutch in Patna but our story too, story of our own people, who must have helped build this iconic structure," he told
PD Hinduja Hospital and Medical Research Centre has joined hands with the US' Division of AIDS (DAIDS) to set up a centre for research for infectious diseases in India.

The hospital today signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) with the DAIDS, a Division within the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), to establish the centre.

"Hinduja Hospital has signed an LoI with the DAIDS, a Division within the US' National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), to address the issue of increasing number of cases of TB and HIV," the company said in a statement here.

NIAID is a part of the National Institutes of Health(NIH), a part of the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Under the LoI, a centre of excellence linked to the hospital, Hinduja Institute for Medical Research and Training (HIMAT), will be established.

"Our team's research work and globally recognised achievements in the field of TB, from research-based TB rapid diagnosis to successful treatment of MDR/XDR/TDR TB patients, has proven the importance and connection between research and diagnosis. Now we are taking a step further to bring contributors to the subject of TB together under one roof along with the Division of AIDS," hospital's Managing Trustee Vinoo Hinduja said.

While the hospital's research community has undertaken and processed close to 1,000 projects, tuberculosis has been an extremely active research area, she said.

"With over 35 international research projects, the Hinduja hospital research team has had at least 10 international collaborations in the field of TB and the LoI with NIAID, NIH will only fortify this commitment in research for infectious diseases," Hinduja added.
National Conference today accused ruling coalition partners PDP and BJP in Jammu and Kashmir of playing opportunistic politics and polarizing the state for electoral gains.

"PDP and BJP are playing opportunistic politics and despite pretending to be ideologically different, they were pulling on together in the government with the common agenda of polarizing the state for electoral gains," party leader Farooq Abdullah said.

The NC chief said that "growing communal polarization" across the country was undermining India's secular ethos and rich tradition of pluralism that made Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah align with a "secular" India.

"Frequent and selective targeting of a particular community by fringe elements is further alienating Kashmiri youths from national mainstream as these incidents give a lot of ammunition to forces inimical peace, who exploit the situation," he said.

"India has to grow as a vibrant inclusive and tolerant nation for which religious harmony is imperative...Any untoward incident anywhere across the country is bound to have negative fallout in the Valley where various forces are active to disturb peace," he said.

No efforts at winning hearts and minds of Kashmiri youths will succeed "as long as believers of communal politics continue to take centrestage and get official patronage", Abdullah said.
Ordering officials to resolutely guard against "overseas infiltrations" into China in the name of religion, President Xi Jinping has asserted that people of all faiths in the country should not challenge the leadership of the ruling Communist Party, the state media reported today.

"We must resolutely guard against overseas infiltrations via religious means and prevent ideological infringement by extremists," Xi told told a top-level meeting on managing religion in the world's most populous nation.

He laid out a broad guidelines under which millions of believers in China, including Buddhists and Christians, should carry out their faith without challenging the CPC's rule.

Xi said religious groups must adhere to the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and support the socialist system and socialism with Chinese characteristic called on authorities to stick to the Party's religious policies and improve religious work.

He said they should "merge religious doctrines with Chinese culture, abide by Chinese laws and regulations, and devote themselves to China's reform and opening up drive and socialist modernisation in order to contribute to the realisation of the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation.

His warning against infiltration through religion was seen as a reference to the role played by Christianity in the fall of Communism specially in erstwhile socialist countries like Poland.

CPC, which has liberalised its economic ideology by carrying out widespread economic reforms shedding its socialistic identity, remained atheistic and views spread of religion as a threat to its future.

While China before the advent of Communist rule in 1949 was predominantly influenced by Buddhism which was brought to the country by eminent Chinese monks like Xuan Zang during the Tang Dynasty (618-907), Christianity has taken deep routes in the country in recent decades despite restrictions.

While Buddhism remained a dominant faith, Christianity is regarded as the fastest growing religion in Communist China.

Unofficial estimates said China has over 65 million Christians including Catholics, Protestants as well as other church groups. In view of restrictions and limited number of Churches, most of the Christians pray at home churches which are considered illegal.

Church groups recently alleged that Crosses have been removed from a dozens of Churches in eastern Zhejiang province.

(Reopens FGN 18)



The CPC has a tenuous ties with Rome apprehending political impact of the rapid growth of Christianity as it could become a movement in later years challenging CPC's power base. Both the Chinese government and the Rome recently made efforts to improve relations with positive messages from Pope and the Chinese government.

While asking religions to adhere to CPC rule, Xi promised to fully implement the Party's policy of religious freedom, manage religious affairs in line with laws, retain the principle of religious independence and self-administration, and help religions adapt to the socialist society, state-run Xinhua agency reported.

Authorities should work to unite religious and non- religious people, and guide those religious to love their country, protect the unification of their motherland and serve the overall interests of the Chinese nation, he said.

"We should guide and educate the religious circle and their followers with the socialist core values, and guide the religious people with ideas of unity, progress, peace and tolerance," Xi said.

Religious groups, he said, shall "dig deep into doctrines and canons that are in line with social harmony and progress, and favourable for the building of a healthy and civilised society, and interpret religious doctrines in a way that is conducive to modern China's progress and in line with our excellent traditional culture.

Meanwhile, authorities must offer necessary support to the work of religious groups, and build a leadership that is politically trustworthy, democratic in conduct and efficient in their daily work, Xi added.
Snapdeal-backed PepperTap has decided to shut down its cash-burning grocery delivery operations and instead focus on expanding its logistics business.

Citing issues like high customer acquisition costs and poor app integration with partner stores, PepperTap CEO Navneet Singh said the company was "losing cash on every order" and has decided to "preserve a large amount of the investor capital" than "be at the bottom of the abyss".

"We couldn't shake off the feeling that we were walking (not racing like some other companies) towards the edge of a cliff hoping that things will get better before we reach the abyss..."



"The unique challenges of this business are not solvable in the short term and certainly not solvable without massive injections of capital. We would have to confront this issue sooner or later," Singh told PTI.

PepperTap, which is controlled by Nuvo Logistics, has raised USD 40 million so far and counts e-commerce major Snapdeal, Sequoia India, SAIF Partners, Ru-Net, Beenext and JAFCO Asia among its investors.

Last year, it had also acquired Bengaluru-based delivery startup Jiffstore for an undisclosed amount.

When contacted, a Snapdeal spokesperson declined to comment on the matter.

The decision to shut operations will result in about 150 job losses.

"We have about 200 people. While about 50 are being absorbed in the logistics business, we will have to let go of the others. We are offering compensation packages with upto three months of salary depending on the seniority and tenure of the employee," he said.

The company will now focus on expanding the logistics business. "We are already working with many e-commerce firms and have a strong reverse logistics operations. In the next few months, we will focus on strengthening our forward logistics," Singh said.

Nuvo has a presence in 32 cities in the country and works with e-commerce players like Snapdeal, Patym and Shopclues.

According to industry analysts, hyperlocal delivery startups like PepperTap, BigBasket and Grofers have been feeling the heat of a slowdown in investment as they operate on wafer-thin margins and end up losing money on every delivery.

PepperTap was already scaling down operations in certain



cities.

"The most logical thing to do to solve all three of these problems simultaneously, was to halt operations in some cities. We decided on this list by looking at the size of our customer base in each city, and the pain we would cause to all stakeholders by shutting them down. Relatively new cities with a small customer base were selected for closure," he said.

In a blog, Singh said described his journey as "a roller-coaster with ups and downs in equal measure".

Set up in September 2014, the company was processing about 20,000 orders on an average daily by October 2015 and was the "only business in town to be operating on a 100 per cent inventory-less model".

"We were going to revolutionise grocery shopping. No more queues, no more parking hassles, no more bickering with sabzi-wallahs. We would bring the existing inventory of local stores online to our app and then deliver customer orders through our super-optimal, well-trained delivery fleet for a minimal charge," Singh said in the blog.

He added that customers also seemed to love the app with local stores on its platform witnessing improving sales by an average of 30-40 per cent.

"In the race to pepper the whole country with PepperTap, we had brought too many stores online far too quickly.... To keep enticing customers to buy from our platform, we were spending a lot of time and energy to devise clever sales and discount schemes... This was not hugely problematic in itself, we had money in the bank and investors were on board with this plan," Singh wrote.

However, the "harshness of a pessimistic funding environment globally also started creeping in", which Singh said found the company at "the toughest node in the decision tree yet".

"At this point, we were forced to ask ourselves whether our continuing to operate in the grocery delivery space was not, in fact, doing a massive disservice to our current investors and employees," he added.
Thousands of people protesting against a proposed trade deal between the US and the European Union marched through the streets here, ahead of American president Barack Obama's valedictory visit to Germany.

The protestors carrying placards withslogans reading "No to TTIP," "Stop TTIP, Yes we can" and "We don't need TTIP" criticised the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement, saying the trade deal is anti-democratic and will serve the interests of big businesses and weaken labour rights.

According to police, over 35,000 demonstrators took part in the march yesterday organised by several environmental, consumer protection organisations and trade unions.

More such rallies are expected today when Obama will arrive in Hannover for his final two-day bilateral visit Germany to inaugurate the Hannover fair jointly with the country's chancellor Angela Merkel.

The US is the "partner country" of the world's largest industrial fair Hannover Messe this year, following a similar presentation by India in Hannover last year. The fair underscores Germany's commercial prowess.

Ahead of the visit, Obama told German newspaper 'Bild' that he considered Merkel as his "one of my closest partners and also a friend".

"I've worked with her longer and closer than any other world leader, and over the years I've learned from her. She embodies many of the leadership qualities I admire most. She's guided by both interests and values," Obama, who will demit office on January 20 next year, said.

The negotiations between the US and the EU on a free trade agreement began in early 2013.

When a deal is reached between the two sides, it would create the world's largest free trade zone involving more than 800 million consumers.

Its supporters argue the proposedfree trade agreement would give a big boost to the economies of the EU and the US and would create new jobs on both sides of the Atlantic by reducing or eliminating all regulatory barriers to trade and investments.

The TTIP negotiations will be a theme of discussion at a meeting between Obama and Merkel in Hannover.

The two leaders will examine the possibility of bringing down the negotiations to a successful conclusion by the end of this year, a government spokesman said.
Police lathicharged and fired teargas shells to disperse a group of people who were protesting the demolition of some buildings in Aliaganj here today, officials said.

The agitators lead by Abdul Salam, former chairman of Rampur Zila Panchayat, were protesting against demolition of 16 houses recently in the area by district administration.

They pelted stones at the policemen, forcing the police to lathicharge, said Martand Pratap Singh, Additional District Magistrate, Rampur.

"The demolished houses were illegal entities and the action was initiated under provisions of law," said Singh.

"We had offered to allotLohia Homes and plots, each measuring 100 yards to the affected inhabitants, besides providing other assistance.But instead of conceding to the legitimate offer they preferred to opt for the agitation mode," Singh added.
After providing a water train "Jaldoot" to Latur, Indian has come to the rescue of people facing acute water crisis in Navi Mumbai and Thane as the public transporter has offered water to Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) and Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC).

Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu has asked the concerned railway authorities to help NMMC and TMC to solve their water shortage problem, a senior Railway Ministry official said.

Accordingly, it has been decided that water will be supplied from Dighe dam on Thane Belapur road for the NMMC and TMC.

Read more from our special coverage on "RAILWAYS"

"We have permitted NMMC to lift water from our railway dam at Dighe for the next three months," Central Railway General Manager SK Sood said in a statement.

Railway officials along with municipal officials will visit the dam site on Monday to work out modalities for supplying water to the parched areas from the dam.

has many check dams for supplying water for its colonies, stations and other rail users.

Water tankers will be used for supplying water from Dighe dam to NMMC and TMC, both of which had to resort to sharp water supply cuts, the official said.

Railways is continuing to transport water in the 50-wagon freight train named 'Jaldoot' to the parched Latur and over 120 lakh litres of water has been supplied so far.
Arunachal Pradesh Governor J P Rajkhowa today mourned the death of two senior citizens in landslides at Thongleng village under Lumla sub-division of Tawang district yesterday.

The Governor announced an amount of Rs one lakh as ex-gratia to the nearest kin of each of the deceased and Rs 25,000 each to the seriously injured from his relief fund, a Raj Bhawan statement said.

"All injured persons should be given free treatment by the state government," he said.

Reiterating his appeal to the people and advice to the state government amid heavy rainfall resulting in landslides and floods, Rajkhowa said to avoid more such tragedies, the district authorities should shift people from all vulnerable areas and temporarily put them into suitable shelter homes till the situation improves and risk elements ruled out.

"They should be extended all assistance for livelihood including free ration, clothing, cooking utensils as per the relief manual," he said.

"Red Cross and other NGOs should also be involved in relief and rescue operations apart from the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF), Border Roads, Army and State Police, the Governor emphasised.
Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal today said Punjab government would soon set up a Regulatory Authority to keep a check on private schools of the state.

Sukhbir said that he has asked Education Minister Daljit Singh Cheema to make sure that the Regulatory Authority starts functioning at the earliest.

Punjab government is keeping a close tab on the issue of fleecing of parents by some private schools, Sukhbir said while attending the functions organised on the occasion of 125th birth anniversary of B R Ambedkar, at Bhadaur House and Daresi areas, here.

The Deputy Chief Minister said the state government would not tolerate this at any cost and that is why, a Regulatory Authority in this regard is in offing and would start functioning soon.

On Kohinoor diamond, he said that the Kohinoor belongs to all Punjabis and that the Punjab government would make all efforts to bring it back.

He said that they would be meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi in this regard very soon and would also take up this matter through diplomatic channels.

He said that if required, they would also approach the Supreme Court of India regarding this matter.

The Deputy Chief Minister said Bollywood film named Santa Banta has been banned in Punjab as it could have hurt the sentiments of Sikhs.

Regarding the parole of Davinderpal Singh Bhullar, the Deputy CM said that as per our law, even the prisoners and under trials have their rights and under the same law, they are entitled for parole as well



On killing of Mata Chand Kaur, wife of Satguru Jagjit Singh, of Namdhari Sect, the Deputy CM said that an SIT comprising Commissioner Police Ludhiana Jatinder Singh Aulakh as Chairman, SSP Khanna Satinder Singh and AIG (Crime) Ravcharan Singh Brar both as members has already been formed.

He said that the SIT has got breakthrough into the case and that the killers of Mata Chand Kaur would be behind bars soon.
In a significant step to tackle the mounting number of cases, a conference of chief ministers and chief justices of high courts on Sunday adopted a resolution to invoke a constitutional provision to appoint retired judicial officers as ad-hoc judges.

Chief Justice of India (CJI) T S Thakur announced here that the conference adopted a resolution that Article 224 A will be invoked to allow chief justices of high courts to appoint retired judicial officers as ad-hoc judges.

There is a provision in the Constitution. It means that it is meant to be invoked, he said.

Article 224 A states the Chief Justice of a high court, with previous consent of the President (Centre), can request any person who has held the office of a judge of that court or any other high court to act as a judge of the high court for that state.

There are a number of cases pending including those in the Supreme Court (SC) and the 24 high courts and various subordinate courts.

He said these ad-hoc judges will tackle criminal cases where appeals have not been heard for the past five years.

These judges will be appointed for two years or to the time they attain the age of 65.

The CJI said they can also preside over holiday courts on Saturdays and Sundays.

The conference also resolved that vacancies will be filled up in lower courts and the cadre strength will be increased by 10 per cent per annum till the review of the cadre strength is carried out in the near future.

According to latest law ministry figures, the approved strength of the subordinate judiciary is 20,214 with 4,580 vacancies. The approved strength of the 24 high courts is 1,056 and vacancies were pegged at 458 as on March 1.

In the apex court, there are six vacancies against the sanctioned strength of 31 judges, including the CJI.

SC collegium to decide on revised procedure



The SC collegium will respond next week to the government on revised memorandum of procedure, a document to guide appointment of judges to the apex court and the high courts, Chief Justice of India T S Thakur said.

He said the document, prepared by the government to enhance transparency in judicial appointments, will be sent back to the Centre next week with the collegiums comments.
An 87-year old retired Deputy Collector was allegedly hacked to death by his relative in his house in Pollachi today.

Mayilsamy was staying alone in the house in Mahalingapuram and a relative, who was there had reportedly quarreled with him this morning, police said.

The relative allegedly took a sickle and attacked Mayilsamy, who died on the spot.
Wrestler today secured an Olympic quota place for India in the men's 57kg freestyle category with a bronze-medal finish on the final day of the 1st World Olympic Qualifying tournament here.

The 25-year-old Sandeep became the fourth Indian wrestler after Yogeshwar Dutt (men's 65kg freestyle), Narsingh Yadav (men's 74kg freestyle), and Hardeep Singh (Greco-Roman 98kg) to book a berth for the Rio Games, to be held later this year.

Sandeep qualified for the Olympics by winning the playoff bout after having clinched the bronze medal.

"I am overjoyed at winning the quota and I think the hard yards that I put in before this qualifier have paid off. I was a little disappointed at having missed out on the final but it was important to eliminate that loss from my thinking as soon as possible," Tomar said.

"I was moving well today, I knew that if I kept my opponent busy and engaged, I would have a good chance. Now, all I have to do is to focus on the Olympics and these next three months are going to be extremely crucial," he added.

Only the top three finishers in each weight category here are eligible for an Olympic berth in this tournament. Securing a bronze medal was not enough to ensure a ticket to Rio and Sandeep had to fight with the other bronze medallist in his category for a lone third-place finish.

Sandeep kept his nerves during the bronze-medal qualification round and comprehensively defeated Ukrainian wrestler Andriy Yatsenko with a dominating 11-0 show.

En route his Olympic qualification, Sandeep defeated Sezar Akgul of Turkey 11-0 and Kyrgyzstan's Ulukbek Zholdoshbekov 4-1 to enter the semifinal round.

However, he could not cross the semifinal hurdle, going down to Mirjalal Hasan-Zada of Azerbaijan 8-8 in a closely-fought battle.

Sandeep came back strongly from his disappointing semifinal loss to thrash Alexandru Chirtoaca of Moldova 10-0 in his bronze medal bout to ensure that he got an opportunity to fight for a place in the Olympics.

However, other Indian men's freestyle grapplers in the fray today returned empty-handed.

Sumit got off to a poor start, losing his pre-quarterfinal bout to Hungary's Daniel Ligeti 4-6 but luckily got another chance to make it to the medal round as his Hungarian opponent reached the final of 125kg category.

He, however, failed to capitalise on the chance after getting injured and did not fight in his repechage bout.

Somveer (86kg) and Satywart Kadian (97kg), meanwhile, fumbled in the initial rounds of their respective weight divisions to crash out of the competition early.

Somveer lost to Piotr Ianulov of Moldova 0-10 in 86kg pre-quarters, while Satywart went down to Germany's Gennadji Cudinovic in a closely-fought pre-quarterfinal bout 4-5. Earlier, he had got the better of Xueyi Zhang of China 13-2 in the qualification round.
The Supreme Court (SC) collegium will respond next week to the government on the revised memorandum of procedure (MoP), a document to guide appointment of judges to the apex court and the high courts, Chief Justice of India (CJI) T S Thakur said on Sunday.

He said that the document, prepared by the government to enhance transparency in judicial appointments, will be sent back to the Centre next week with the comments of the SC collegium.

Thakur said External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who headed the group of ministers to draft the memorandum, had spoken with him on whether the collegium was ready with its response.

He said Swaraj was abroad and the SC judges were busy with their retreat at Bhopal and the Chief Minister-Chief Justices conference.

"Now she is back. We will meet her and give our comments," he said addressing a press conference on the decisions taken at the conference of chief ministers and chief justices of high courts held here.

On whether the judiciary was 'okay' with the text of the memorandum, Justice Thakur said that the core of the document, based on a Supreme Court judgement, will remain "unaltered" and that the collegium will make a recommendation.

"Things like the number of judgements a candidate has delivered are contributory in nature," he said, adding that the judiciary is ready for the new document. "We have no problems," he added.

A day before Holi, the file relating to the draft MoP was sent to the .

The collegium consists of the and four senior judges of the apex court. If the draft is ratified, it would be put in public domain by the Department of Justice in the Law Ministry. If changes are suggested, then the Law Ministry would have to redraft it.

The Democratic Alliance government wants both the Centre and state governments to have their say in recommending candidates for appointment to the higher judiciary.

While delivering its verdict on ways to make the collegium system more transparent, the apex court had asked the government to rework the MoP in consultation with the states and high courts.

The said that the collegium has now cleared all proposals sent to it in six weeks. While 145 judges were either elevated as permanent judges in the high courts or were appointed as additional judges, 169 proposals were still pending with the government, he said.

He wondered why the government was delaying the appointment of judges when there was a huge backlog of cases. Responding to a question on the delay in clearing names, Law Minister D V Sadananda Gowda said verification by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) takes time.

The CJI was of the view that IB should be asked to submit its report in a fixed timeframe. "The director of IB should depute more men. The government is very resourceful. In fact there is no system to track the recommendations made by the collegium. We should have a system to know where the recommendation is. We don't know whether a secretary is sitting on it or it is with the PMO (Prime Minister's Office) or Law Ministry," he said.

He said that most of the appointments were not fresh in nature. Additional judges have been made permanent judges in most cases. Which means that no fresh appointments were made against vacancies.

"How much time does it require when there is an avalanche of cases," he had said on Sunday morning in his address while referring to delays in appointing judges.

The CJI said 50% of the recommendations made by the high courts were rejected by the collegium as "we have raised the bar".

Referring to suggestions, including that from the prime minister, that judiciary should cut down on its vacations, he said, "we don't go to Manali. Judges of constitutional benches write their order...When one side is ready, the other is not. Ask the Bar if they are ready," he said.
Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani today said execution of central schemes here will be monitored through the Narendra Modi application by two designated groups which will be directly connected to the PM's office.

"Government wants that the benefits of its schemes should reach the common man. For it, implementation of the schemes is necessary and for this help of Narendra Modi application will be taken," Irani said while addressing a gathering here.

She said two groups have been formed in Amethi, represented by Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi in Lok Sabha, for the purpose.

"In the first group five and in the other 14 persons will be directly connected to PM office and will keep and eye on developmental schemes and send related pictures," she said and also met youths selected for these groups.

The Narendra Modi application brings latest information, instant updates and helps those who use it to contribute towards various tasks. It enables a person to receive messages and emails directly from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Irani said she will ensure coverage of 50,000 women under PM Suraksha Bima Yojna and pay the first installment for it.

The minister also said that she would bear the education expenses of children of journalist Karun Mishra, who was killed in Sultanpur last month.
Serbia's pro-European Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic was set to win a landslide victory in the general election, according to initial projections.

Vucic's Serbian Progressive Party was on track to take 52.6 percent of votes, with the Socialists -- who have been in the ruling coalition since 2012 -- in second place with 12.9 percent, according to independent observing group CESID.

The far-right Radicals were also set to return to parliament after four years without seats, led by ultra-nationalist Vojislav Seselj who was recently acquitted of war crimes charges arising from the 1990s Balkan conflicts.

The Radicals were expected to win 7.4 percent, CESID said, clearing the five percent threshold and giving them a platform in parliament for their strongly anti-European and pro-Russian views.

Vucic, 46, had called the early election saying he needed a clear mandate to press ahead with the potentially unpopular reforms required to join the European Union.

But critics saw the vote as an attempt to consolidate power, expressing concerns about Vucic's authoritarian tendencies including curbs on media freedom.

A former Seselj ally turned pro-European centrist, Vucic said as he voted in Belgrade that he was "almost certain that we'll carry on our EU integration process," expressing hope that voters would choose a "European path".

He was due to speak to make a speech later yesterday night.

Serbia, home to seven million people, opened the first stages in EU membership negotiations in December, although Brussels has said there will be no further enlargement of the bloc until 2020.

The election was Serbia's third in four years and enthusiasm appeared in short supply as voters queued at polling stations.

"We have elections too often," said retired Jelica Nikolic, 68, in Belgrade, saying she and her husband Radomir were voting more out of duty than conviction.

In the southwestern city of Novi Pazar, Edib Mahmutovic, 40, hoped the victors would "create new jobs that enable us to stay here and not have to look for a better life elsewhere in Europe".
Serbians voted today in a general election that is likely to return pro-European Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic to power, but also give a voice in parliament to the pro-Russian far right.

While Vucic's nominally conservative Serbian Progressive Party is projected to win about half of the votes, resurgent ultra-nationalists who want the Balkan country to deepen its alliance with Russia, instead of Europe, are also expected to win seats.

Casting his vote in a Belgrade suburb, Vucic said he was "not going to make any compromise" with right-wing parties and expressed hope that voters would choose a "European path".

"I'm almost certain that we'll carry on our EU integration process," he said.

Vucic called the early election saying he needed a clear mandate to press ahead with the reforms required to join the European Union.

Serbia, home to seven million people, opened the first formal stages in EU accession negotiations in December, although Brussels has said there will be no further enlargement of the bloc until 2020.

But critics see the vote as an attempt by Vucic to consolidate power, expressing concerns about his authoritarian tendencies including curbs on media freedom.

The 46-year-old premier was once a staunch ultra-nationalist, but has remodelled himself as a pro-European reformist.

The election is Serbia's third in four years and enthusiasm appeared in short supply as voters queued at polling stations, which are due to close at 8:00 pm (1800 GMT). First results are expected before midnight.

"We have elections too often," said retired Jelica Nikolic, 68, in Belgrade, who said she and her husband Radomir were voting more out of duty than conviction.

In the southwestern city of Novi Pazar, 40-year-old Edib Mahmutovic said "life is hard" and hoped the election winners would "create new jobs that enable us to stay here and not have to look for a better life elsewhere in Europe".

Vucic's current Socialist coalition partners are trailing him in second place in opinion polls, while fragmented centrist and liberal opposition groups are expected to just make the threshold for entering the 250-seat parliament.

Pro-Russian far-right groups are expected between them to take 10 to 15 per cent of the vote after several years without seats in parliament.

All eyes are on ultra-nationalist Vojislav Seselj, leader of the Serbian Radical Party, who was recently acquitted by UN judges of war crimes charges arising from the 1990s Balkan conflicts.

As he voted in the capital, the 61-year-old said the Radicals "could form a coalition with parties that renounce the European Union and favour integration with Russia".

Although a victory is out of reach for his party, Serbia's low living standards and high unemployment, plus Western demands to streamline the inefficient state sector, may endear nationalists to some discontented voters.
Seven members of a family, including a minor girl, were killed and two others were injured when their car collided with a truck in Akbarpur area of Kanpur Dehat district in the wee hours today, police said.

The incident took place at 3 AM when the family was returning from Etawah district after attending a wedding, said Pushpanjali Mathur, SP, Kanpur Dehat.

The car collided head-on with the truck near Shahzadpur village, she said.

The seven occupants of the car died on the spot, police said, adding the injured have been admitted to Kanpur Medical college where their condition is stated to be critical.

Efforts are on to arrest the absconding truck driver, said Mathur, adding that the bodies have been sent for postmortem.
A 22-year-old migrant labourer who was reported to be in a critical condition after he came into contact with a 220 kV power line in south-east Delhi's Shaheen Bagh area yesterday has succumbed to his injuries at a hospital, police said today.

Irshad, a native of West Bengal, passed away around 11.30 PM yesterday, they said.

The incident had taken place 3.30 PM when Bhura and Intihar, both migrant labourers, were fitting tiles at the first floor of the under-construction building over which the high tension wire passed by, a senior police official said.

They were cautious throughout but while operating on a tiles-cutter machine, they accidentally came within the range of the 220 kV cable and were pulled by its force.

They came into contact with the wire, following which Bhura died on spot and Irshad was rushed to hospital in critical condition.

The police have registered a case of criminal negligence at Jamia Nagar Police Station in connection with the incident but identity of the builder, who is likely to face arrest, is yet to be ascertained.

Police are also in the process of issuing notices to Delhi Transco Limited, entrusted with power transmission in the area, and civic bodies, with the land under their jurisdiction allegedly encroached upon by locals, a senior police official said.

A senior Delhi Transco Limited official said that the 220 kV power line was installed as per law but people encroached upon land below the lines, which demand a minimum distance of 17.50 metres to be spared on both sides.

"The very fact that two labourers were working in a balcony almost below the power line reflects utter violation of regulation. The matter has been taken up with civic bodies several times," the transco official added.

Yesterday's incident initially appeared like an explosion and locals raised an alarm about a cylinder blast. They later spotted two men stuck to the high tension wire and called up police. A rescue operation could be initiated only after electricity supply in the entire locality was discontinued, which took around another 15 minutes, a police official said.

He further said, a 45-year-old woman was electrocuted in the same area under similar circumstances around six months ago. The woman was hanging washed clothes at her balcony, extremely close to a high tension wire, and was pulled by its force. She died within minutes.
Affirming that Shakespeare's works speak of "changing times" the Bard's works have become "more relevant" in present day West Bengal, theatre personality Kaushik Sen has said.

Kaushik was talking to PTI last evening on the sidelines of a discussion 'Shakespeare - the World Voice for Emotions' organised by British Council here on his 400th death anniversary in which lyricist-rebel poet Srijato and music composer-director Debojyoti Mishra were also present.

Kaushik, a prominent actor-theatre personality, who talked about Bengali theatre's tryst with Shakespeare for centuries - from numerous references to the Bard by Girish Ghosh, Utpal Dutta to the present times - said the Bard's works spoke of the "changing times".

"And we must speak of time to keep our theatre alive," he said.

Shakespeare's works gain more relevance considering the "present situation" in Bengal, he said.

Asked to elaborate, he said, "It's not like 'Chalo let's do Shakespeare'. It is about how his works are related with the present times."



Drawing further parallels with the situation prevailing in Bengal for the past several years, Kaushik said a creative person needs to combat the situation where hooligans apparently have a field day, through his form of art -- the theatre of Shakespeare.

"If we utter our words in the privacy of home, that won't help. We are not poets or lyricists whose words will ignite minds when the printed works hit the stands. We are performers before an audience and our connect is direct," he said.

Agreeing with Kaushik, prominent poet Srijato said, "We are in a time when one person is killing the other. This betrayal reminds of Julius Caesar. Life is a melodrama and Shakespeare repeats life."



Debojyoti Mishra wondered why Bengal's present day Shakespeare adaptations like Macbeth or King Lear cannot be staged in Globe Theatre, London to which a top British Council official promised it will be done in future.

"In the present conflict-ridden times Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth gain more topicality," Debojyoti said.
Hundreds of Sikhs have staged a rally in Germany's western city of Essen to protest against a terror strike at a gurudwara which authorities said was carried out by radical Islamists.

The Sikhs participated in traditional procession 'Nagar Kirtan', reciting parts of the Guru Granth Sahib and singing religious hymns yesterday, exactly a week after an explosion ripped through Nanaksar Satsang Darbar Gurudwara, injuring three persons.

The peaceful march was not a reaction to the strikes, but intended to pass on the message that the religious group would not succumb to terror fears, German media reported.

Young men with swords enacted poses from the traditional Sikh martial art "Gatka" to the sounds of music and drums amid tight security as the community members, some of them holding placards in the wake of the attack, travelled through the streets.

The route for the procession, which had been planned months earlier, was changed after the attack to ensure the safety of all participants, the report said.

"I think it is important that the procession has taken place This is a clear signal that we will not be intimidated, we do not shrink back... As mayor, I am also here to show when the Sikh community attacked in Essen, the entire city is under attack. And I am also the mayor of the Sikh," city police chief Frank Richter was quoted as saying.

The two teenagers with known links to regional Islamists have been arrested in connection with the incident.

India had expressed "distress" at what has been deemed as a deliberate act from the beginning. Top Indian officials have already taken it up at the highest level as Essen authorities assured India that all steps will be taken to ensure security for all minorities including the Sikhs.

The organisers had planned to bring the 'granthi' (priest), on whom the whole pane of glass had fallen due to the impact of the explosion and was seriously injured, to the procession. He could not come down but joined through telephone.

The priest, Kuldeep Singh, said: "What happened is a shame. Those who have done this, should be blessed by God. My health is very good, would be released in a few days."



Germany has a Sikh population of more than 15,000 people and around 35 gurdwaras are located across the country.
The presentation of a report on Sri Lanka's new Constitution will be delayed till May 15 as the committee tasked to get public views on it says it cannot meet the April end deadline.

Senior lawyer Lal Wijenayake, the convener of the Committee on public representations for constitutional reform, said the report is currently under process but they would not be able to meet the April end deadline as had been agreed earlier.

"We are currently determining what recommendations should be made out of all representations made before to the committee," Wijenayake said.

The committee has been working since mid January when the work for a new Constitution began. The new Constitution will replace the current executive president headed Constitution adopted in 1978.

Wijenayake said they had consulted the public, political parties and civil society to seek views on the new Constitution.

He confirmed that the main Tamil party, Tamil National Alliance, has proposed a federal solution to be incorporated in the constitution as means to address the political aspirationsof the country's Tamil minority.

He, however, said former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the main left party, the JVP or the People's Liberation Front have failed to send in their proposals.

The need to change the present executive president headed constitutionwas pledged by the current president Maithripala Sirisena in the run up to the Jan 2015 presidential elections.

Since being elected he watered down some of the powers of the president through the 19th amendment to the constitution among other sweeping constitutional and electoral reforms.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe hopes to have the new constitution adopted by early next year.
The US has pressed Pakistan to take "concrete action" against the dreaded Haqqani network and honour its commitment of not discriminating between terror groups, a top State Department official has said following last week's terror attack in Kabul that killed over 70 people.

"We have consistently expressed our concerns at that the highest level of the government of Pakistan about their continued tolerance for Afghan Taliban groups, such as the Haqqani network, operating from Pakistani soil," State Department Spokesman Elizabeth Trudeau said on Friday.

America's concerns were raised with Pakistan again after the deadly terrorist attack in Afghan capital Kabul on April 19 in which over 70 people were killed.

Afghan authorities have blamed this to the Haqqani network and alleged this had the backing of the Pakistani establishment.

"We have pressed the government of Pakistan to follow up on its expressed commitment not to discriminate between terror groups, regardless of their agenda or their affiliation by undertaking concrete action against the Haqqanis," Trudeau said in response to a question.

Pakistani authorities have reiterated their commitment that they will not discriminate against those groups, she noted.

"We continue to call on them to live up to that commitment," the State Department spokesperson said.

"I think words matter and we continue to encourage them to have their actions match those words," Trudeau said, responding to Afghan allegations that Pakistanis helped the Haqqani network in this Kabul attack.

"Any attack the Haqqani group conducts is not possible without Pakistan's help and this has been repeatedly proven in the last 14 years," Dawa Khan Meenapal, a presidential spokesman, was quoted as saying by Voice of America.
The human resources (HR) function should harness the power of rapidly evolving technology for every aspect of workforce management, instead of limiting it to just maintaining payrolls, according to experts.

"Technology is available with the vendors in India. However, most organisations limit the usage of technology in only to payroll related activities," expert and author Jason Averbook told PTI on the sidelines of a Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) event here.

He said that technology is needed for enhancing the workforce experience and making it interactive, engaging and simple, to analyse performance, not once a year for appraisal but every month to measure productivity, and for data analytics.

"There is an opportunity for in India to do things differently by redesigning the entire process. They should first think what they want to achieve and then find the technology. should not copy but think differently to leapfrog," he added.

SHRM CEO Achal Khanna opined that while Indian are using technology in HR, the question is how productive they are.

"Through technology, data is available, but how it is used or interpreted by the companies is the issue," she said, adding that technology should be customised to suit the needs of different companies.

Career Builder General Manager (sales) Sameer Yousuf Farash said that there are different technologies for dealing with different aspects of HR, but there is a need to consolidate them in order to simplify the process.

Adoption of the right technology in is not high in India, he said, adding that companies need to know their priorities.

There is a huge opportunity in the organised as well as unorganised sectors, like real estate, for optimally using technology in HR to derive maximum productivity, he said, adding that there is a shift from laptops to mobiles in the field of technology utilisation.

"The shift in use of technology is going in the right direction. About 65 per cent job seekers in the organised sector are using mobile handsets while applying or searching for jobs," he added.
Two rockets fired into Turkey from an area of Syria controlled by the Islamic State group hit the border town of Kilis today, leaving 10 people injured, Anatolia agency said.

In the last few weeks, IS jihadists have repeatedly fired rockets at the town in the southeast of the country -- the only place in Turkey where refugees from Syria's five-year conflict now outnumber local Turks.

On Monday, just such an attack left five Syrians dead, including four children, when a rocket ripped through their home.

Turkey has responded to each of the strikes on Kilis by destroying the launching positions of the jihadists with howitzer fire.

Turkish officials have repeatedly lauded the hospitality of people in Kilis towards Syrians as an example of how Turks are hosting the 2.7 million Syrians who have fled their country's civil war.

Yesterday, after a visit to the region with top EU officials, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu insisted once again that "Turkey will respond with force" to attacks on its territory.

Neither IS nor the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front are included in a Syrian truce brokered by the United States and Russia that came into force in February.

Washington has applauded Turkey's role in the anti-IS coalition but US officials on occasion have urged Ankara to do more.
Thousands of people from different communities today took part in Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee's padayatra in the city for the ongoing Assembly elections braving April summer heat.

During the padayatra, Mamata came down heavily on the BJP government at Centre and the Opposition CPI(M) and Congress



She walked almost eight kilometres from Suhashini Ganguly Sarani in Bhowanipore till Gopalnagar Road in her Bhowanipore constituency, where she is contesting the Assembly elections.

Starting the padayatra from the Bhowanipore area along with party leaders Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, Tapas Paul, later joined by Firad Hakim and her family members, Banerjee was followed by a sea of supporters draped in party flags, coloured-faces blowing conches, throwing flowers and chanting "didi... Didi".

"It's my para... It's the area (Bhowanipore) where I have grown up and went on to become an MP and then an MLA. I belong to this place and to all of you and I seek your blessings," Banerjee said.

"Despite this heat, I have attended 130-140 meetings and will be conducting many more. As I have to hold meetings for all the 294 seats I do not have much time... Wish I could have gone to every house individually but there is not much time.. Hopefully you will forgive me for this," Banerjee said at the beginning of her padayatra.

She also rued that this year's Assembly elections were spread over such a long time.

"Assembly elections in West Bengal were never held for such a long period of three months. And Delhi (the BJP-led Central government) is doing so much politics regarding this year's elections.. They have done so much damage spreading false rumour against us...," Banerjee said.

Continuing her tirade at the Opposition, she said, the CPM and Congress have contributed nothing more than spreading falsehood against us. They have also started whispering campaign these days where money is also being used. Further I have heard people from outside have been brought in here for a whispering campaign.

(Reopens CAL16)



"But I believe people will give them (opposition parties) a befitting reply... I believe what my government has done in the last 4.5 years' time this achievement will one day become a thing of research globally," Banerjee said.

She walked through the narrow lanes of Turf road to Sambhu Nath Pandit street and then covering Harish Mukherjee road to Kalighat road and then through Chelta road to Gopalpur road.

All these roads and lanes were adorned with posters, huge-size banners, cutouts of Banerjee with Trinamool flags all over and loud speakers chanting "Mamata Mamata".

"I have to do everything...In a sense I am contesting from all the 294 constituencies. I seek your blessings so that TMC can win in all these 294 seats...And 'Ma Mati Manush' can be the winner," Banerjee said.
Thousands of opponents of a proposed transatlantic trade deal poured onto German streets today on the eve of a visit by US President Barack Obama.

Obama's trip -- to open an industrial technology fair in the northern city of Hanover and hold talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European leaders -- was intended to lend momentum to flagging efforts to see the world's biggest trade pact finalised this year.

In an interview with German newspaper Bild ahead of the visit, Obama underscored his belief that the deal will strengthen trade and create jobs.

But the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has run into major opposition, not least in Europe's top economy Germany, where its foes have raised the spectre of eroding ecological and labour market standards and condemned secrecy shrouding the talks.

A loose coalition of trade unions, environmentalists and consumer protection groups gathered a crowd of about 16,000 in front of Hanover's opera house ahead of a march through the city centre expected to draw around 50,000.

Amid a heavy police presence, one banner reading "Don't give TTIP a chance" featured the image of a bull tagged "privatisation" and a cow branded "democracy".

A mock coffin lay on the ground emblazoned with the words "Democracy killed by money" and "Here lies democracy".

"We are not demonstrating against Obama but against TTIP," said the head of one campaign group, Campact, Christoph Bautz.

"TTIP is deeply un-American and anti-European because it endangers our shared value: democracy."



A similar protest in October in Berlin drew up to 250,000 people, according to organisers, signalling an uphill battle for the deal's passage.

In a video podcast, Merkel insisted Saturday that TTIP would not ride roughshod over citizens' rights or interests.

"We don't want people to have the impression that something is being hushed up here, or that norms are being undermined. The opposite is true," she said.

In what she called a "win-win situation", Europe and the United States had the opportunity to agree on environmental and consumer protection principles that, due to the massive size of the market, "could set global standards".

After talks with Obama yesterday, British Prime Minister David Cameron also insisted TTIP "would add billions to our economies and set the standards for the rest of the world to follow".

However, US Trade Representative Michael Froman told the German business daily Handelsblatt on Friday that if the negotiators fall short, "there will be real doubts about whether we will ever get this agreement through".

The Hanover meeting comes just before a 13th round of TTIP negotiations starts Monday in New York.

But scepticism in the face of those arguments is growing in Germany, and Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel admitted this week: "It is possible that TTIP will fail.
CPI(M) and Congress today hit out at Trinamool Congress over the use of an alleged morphed picture, accusing it of bringing down electioneering to a "new low" in the state, and said complaints will be filed with police and the Election Commission in this regard.

BJP too has said it will file a complaint with police over the morphed picture which showed Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh offering sweets to CPI(M) leader Prakash Karat.

CPI(M) and Congress accused the TMC of making a "desperate attempt" to brush aside charges of a "match-fixing" between TMC and BJP.

"We will lodge police complaints both in Kolkata and in New Delhi. We will also move EC. This morphed image is a guilt conscience of TMC. As a match-fixing between both the parties have come to fore, TMC is taking those desperate steps," CPI(M) leader Nilotpal Basu told PTI.

CPI(M) Politburo member Mohammed Salim termed the use of a morphed image as "criminal offence".

Senior Congress leader and MP Pradip Bhattacharya described it as a "shameful incident" and a desperate attempt by TMC in wake of allegations of "political match-fixing" between TMC and BJP over Saradha scam.

The Congress leader termed it as a "new low" in the history of electioneering in West Bengal.

The Trinamool Congress, following a press conference by its national spokesperson Derek O'Brien, had yesterday posted two videos and six pictures on its website. The party, however, removed the morphed picture from its website after controversy.

"...Along with these two videos, six pictures were posted



on our party website, out of which one had shown Rajnath Singh offering sweets to Prakash Karat. This picture was there on our website for quite some time. But as soon as we came to know that the picture is morphed, we removed it. We have apologised. The matter should end there," Brien had told
Ahead of the crucial East Coast primaries, Republican front-runner Donald Trump's campaign team launched a blistering attack on his party rival Senator Ted Cruz from Texas, calling him a liar who is trying to mathematically exploit the nomination process.

"There's the liar (Cruz), not Trump. I mean, he's got to change the narrative. He's losing. You know, he is on the cusp of having the nomination be mathematically taken away from him. And so, he's trying to change the narrative," Paul Manafort, the Trump Campaign Manager told Chris Wallace of Fox in an interview.

Manafort, who joined the Trump campaign recently, alleged that Cruz was spreading lies about Donald Trump, who is leading against the Texas Senators by nearly 300 delegates.

"Cruz just made that up from whole cloth because he's got to find something that gets people away from focusing on the real campaign which is next Tuesday when he's going to lose all five states and probably finish third in most of them," Manafort said.

On Tuesday -- April 26 -- Republican primaries would be held in the States on Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Trump is leading in most of them as per latest polls, while Cruz is trailing behind in all of them.

"He (Cruz) has got a failed candidacy and you can see in that desperate kind of tactic the kind of way he's trying to gloss over it," Manafort said alleging that Cruz is following the same tactics which he tried against some other previous Republican candidates like Ben Carson in Iowa and Marco Rubio in Florida.

"We are running the campaign to win the votes on the first ballot and we're going to and we're going to win on the first ballot," Manafort said.

"At the end of the day its only going to hurt the party, its not going to hurt Trump because he's still going to be the votes cast on the first ballot and there's going to be no second ballot, which will be very clear when the process is over on June 7th," he said.

The Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus told the ABC that the party is working hard to make sure that "we've got an open and fair convention" so that they get to that place where they can unify around one person.

The top Republican leadership said, while Trump is leading in polls, it is a split decision on the delegate front. As of Saturday, Trump had 845 delegates against 559 of Cruz. They need to have at least 1,237 delegates to earn the Republican presidential nomination.

Priebus said the platform -- like party manifesto in India -- is up to the delegates at the convention.

"So if that's what Donald Trump is intending, then he needs to make sure that the people that agree with him are the people that are getting elected to the platform committee," he said.

"I think our platform's pretty clear on those subjects. We believe that life begins at conception and that 14th Amendment rights apply to unborn children," Priebus said.
Hitting back, today brought Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah in the line of fire on the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter issue alleging that the "tsunami of misinformation" was being spread to "save their skin" in the case.

"Simple truth is that this web of deceit and deception is being woven by government and certain sections of media to save the skin of Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi and BJP President, Shri Amit Shah", senior party leaders including Mallikarjun Kharge and Anand Sharma told reporters.

Addressing a joint press conference along with them, party leaders Kapil Sibal, Abhishek Singhvi and Shaktisinh Gohil released copy of a four-page statement of a Gujarat police officer D H Goswami before a Magistrate which speaks about "kali dadhi" (black beard) and "safed dadhi" (white beard).

Sibal claimed Goswami had quoted the then senior Gujarat IPS officer D G Vanzara as saying ahead of the encounter that he had already got the "green signal from Black Beard and White Beard". While Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat that time, Shah was the Minister of state for Home.

They claimed that the "harsh reality" in the backdrop of Goswami's statement is that the "fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan and three other accomplices was ordered by the then Chief Minister and present Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with the then MoS, Gujarat Amit Shah"



"In case, Ishrat Jahan trial was to proceed, it is inevitable that PM and BJP President would be summoned as an accused", they said in a joint statement.

"Black hearted conspiracy behind lies, half truth and smoke screen being put up by BJP government to divert attention of Nation in 'Ishrat Jahan case' stands unearthed", they alleged on the eve of the Parliament session.

Sibal said that this is why the last 3 months has seen a "tsunami of misinformation" and people were asking if Ishrat Jahan was a terrorist or not. He was apparently referring to the BJP's concerted attacks on former Home Minister P Chidambaram.

The leaders also warned BJP against attacking Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in the matter, saying it would even force an apology.

While Kharge said that the would work together with like minded parties, Sharma said that the government would be seen in the "dock" on a host of issues.

They also dismissed BJP's assertion that the Uttarkhand issue should not be raised as it was sub-judice. Kharge indicated that the Congress could be bringing in an adjournment motion in the Lok Sabha tomorrow on the Uttarakhand issue.

(REOPENS DEL 60)



Insisting that three investigations, Magisterial, SIT and CBI, have called this a 'Fake Encounter', Sibal said "We demand that in the the next 6 months the trial is completed. The accused put in the dock and appropriate punishments given".

"We want to ask why is this case not proceeding?", Sibal said adding that the the charge sheet was filled in 2013, for an encounter in 2004. "We are in 2016 and the case hasn't moved forward at all".

In the joint statement, the Congress leaders said the "plain and simple intrigue is to ensure that the most important persons of BJP/government are not brought to trial".

Besides, they claimed that this is a "sinister attempt" to set at naught the judicial enquiry by Metropolitan Court, Ahmedabad; Gujarat High Court-monitored SIT and its judgment dated 12.08.2010 and Court-monitored CBI enquiry resulting into filing of charge sheet as recorded in High Court judgment.

The Congress leaders claimed that "shocking and toxic conspiracy of influencing filing of affidavit by Government of India and allurement being given to counsel for Union of India is also borne out from a tape recorded conversation between P.P. Pandey (now acting DGP, Gujarat) and another police official G.L. Singhal."



"To achieve its nefarious design and with a view to derail the trial, present government is taking help of two IPS officers of Gujarat cadre A.K. Sharma and Rakesh Asthana and have posted them as Joint Directors of CBI", the party alleged.

Sharma dismissed as "preposterous" the BJP charge against the Gandhis in the case. He warned that the Congress would force an apology if such attacks continued.

The BJP attack is to "deflect and derail" the investigation, he said claiming that "their two top leaders should be in the dock".
Every morning, legions of supporters on Twitter wake up to news reports of their government "transforming" Delhi, but the two young IT professionals behind the media blitzkrieg, who have pipped the party's official social media teams in terms of impact, are no insiders.

Nishant Beria (28), the man behind ' Ka Mehta', and Jitender Singh (23) count among their enviable list of followers Aam Aadmi Party ministers and MLAs, journalists and even media advisors to the Delhi government.

"But we are yet to be followed by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal," rues Beria, who works with an IT company in Hyderabad. Jitender, who is with a BPO in the national capital, says, "I wish he follows us...But he retweets our posts though."



Seeking to spread "positivity" about AAP, which they claim is not being credited enough for its "refreshing outlook", the duo tweets policy announcements and important pointers from press conferences with speed and accuracy at times making it seem like coming from insiders.

"I have not met a single minister in the government till date and have no inside information. You can describe me as a curator who collects information from across the internet before putting them out in the form of capsules," says Jitender, a resident of west Delhi's Paschim Vihar.

Beria's 'AAP Ka Mehta' is followed by over 18,500 tweeple while Jitender, who goes by his own name on the microbloging website, has over 8,500 followers.

Both have collectively put out over 80,000 tweets till date, which include newspaper clippings and videos, that have been further shared by lakhs of AAP supporters.

Going by his popularity and diligence, the party recently asked Beria to join its official social media team, an offer, which he turned down due to "paucity of time".

"I scan through nearly 20 e-versions of newspapers before putting out the clippings highlighting the achievements of the government. I no have connection with the party's social media team," Jitender says.

Beria says he does not use the curious moniker 'AAP Ka Mehta' just for the sake of anonymity but to "counter" another account that goes by the name '@DrunkVinodMehta', who he terms as "anti Kejriwal".

"That account used to praise Kejriwal ji. But over time it started spreading negativity and churning out tweets eulogising the Congress party. If you observe my tweets I don't even target Narendra Modi. I just want to make the discourse more positive," Beria says.

Interestingly, Beria had sparked a unqiue social media fundraising by AAP before the 2015 Delhi Assembly polls. He had promised to donate Rs 2 to the party every time his message was retweeted, which was a major hit contributing to around Rs 30 lakh to the part's coffers in a day.
The UK government's plans to offer a support package to save Tata Steel's UK operations will meet European Union (EU) rules on state aid, Business Secretary Sajid Javid said today, insisting any deal would not be a bailout or nationalisation.

Javid had last week pledged to take a stake of up to 25 per cent in Tata Steel's Port Talbot steelworks in south Wales, as well as to inject up to 1 billion pounds of taxpayer loans, in an effort to attract a buyer and save up to 10,000 jobs in the steel sector.

Dismissing talk of part-nationalisation which may fall foul of EU rules, Javid told 'The Sunday Times' in an interview: "It will all be compatible with state aid... government can provide financing as long as it's on commercial terms.

"I don't envisage having to apply for any exemption or approval from state aid. Whatever we've got in mind is compliant. It's not a bailout; it's not nationalisation. Working within that framework we can see success at the end of the road."



"In situations like these nationalisation is rarely the answer. The British steel industry would be in much worse shape had it not been privatised in the first place," said Javid.

Last week, he returned from his second visit in a month to Mumbai, where he met Tata chairman Cyrus Mistry to flesh out details of the government support package.

The newspaper quoted sources to say the government's decision to back Port Talbot was taken by British Prime Minister David Cameron with an eye on the in-out European Union referendum.

It is believed that Cameron may be gambling that the European Commission may allow its bending of state aid rules if it helps to keep Britain within the union.

But Javid insisted: "This has got nothing to do with June 23. I don't think the referendum changes things one way or the other."



The fate of Britain's steel industry has become a hugely significant and divisive issue, on which 15,000 jobs and 25,000 in the wider supply chain hang.

Javid said: "There's every reason to think that steel can



be a viable business in Europe for commercial operators. It's an important industry economically. I wouldn't want to think that one day Britain becomes a country that has to import all its steel.

"For any economy the size of Britain, given our manufacturing base, given aerospace and automotive, these are industries that, one way or the other, rely on steel."



The Tata Group had announced last month that it would quit Britain's steel industry entirely, putting the Port Talbot steelworks up for sale as well as its vast Scunthorpe plant, which has since been acquired by Greybull Capital.

The exit appeared to catch Javid unaware as he was in Australia with his daughter at the time on an official trip.

Javid claimed his intervention persuaded the Indian conglomerate to grant Port Talbot a stay of execution.

"A few months back they contacted us. They were considering closing Port Talbot and mixing the rest of their downstream business in with their other businesses in Europe. That clearly alarmed us and we managed to persuade them that it's not in anyone's interest if you just close this hugely important part of your business.

"If you believe it's not profitable for you... It might fit in with someone else's business," Javid told the newspaper.
The US has said it would buy 32 metric tonnes of Iranian heavy water, a key component in atomic-weapons development, worth USD 8.6 million to help Tehran meet its obligations under the landmark nuclear deal signed last year.

The US does not produce heavy water on its own and so far has been buying this from Canada and India. The heavy water would be resold domestically for research and other purposes.

"The US Government, via the Department of Energy, is making a license purchase of 32 metric tonnes of heavy water from a subsidiary of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran," State Department Spokesperson Elizabeth Trudeau said.

"This heavy water will fulfil a substantial portion of the US domestic demand this year for industry and domestic research applications," she said yesterday.

Under last year's landmark nuclear deal signed between Iran, the US and five other world powers, Iran is responsible for reducing its stock of heavy water.

Noting that this material is not radioactive and does not present safety concerns, she said this transaction provides US industry with a critical product while also enabling Iran to sell some of its excess heavy water as contemplated in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Iran's compliance with the JCPOA meant this material had already been removed from Iran, ensuring it would not be used to support the development of a nuclear weapon, Trudeau said.

"Our purchase of the heavy water means it will instead be used for critically important research in non-nuclear industrial requirements here in the US," she said.

The US expects the heavy water will be delivered to the US in the coming week, initially stored at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and then resold at commercially reasonable prices to domestic commercial and research buyers, Trudeau said.

The heavy water is used in the development, production, and sale of compounds used in chemistry, biomedical and diagnostic research, environmental analysts, and physics.

Trudeau said the US was under no obligation to purchase heavy water from Iran, nor it is obligated to do so in the future, but the JCPOA required Iran to reduce its heavy water inventory below the 130 metric tonne limit.

One way to do that was to sell the excess to countries or companies. It is possible other countries may wish to purchase that in the future.

"This was a purchase that was arranged through the Department of Energy for that. That will be a statement to the world: You want to buy heavy water from Iran, you can buy heavy water from Iran. It has been done. Even the US did it," US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said in an interview to The Wall Street Journal.
Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha has said it will contest the Gujarat Assembly Polls to be held next year.

"We have decided to field our candidates for next year's Assembly election in Gujarat. The BJP government after coming to power at the Centre has betrayed the people on the issues of Ram temple, checking infiltration from Bangladesh, and involved itself in minorities appeasement like Congress," the Hidutva group's chief Chandraprakash Kaushik said.

Kaushik attacked the BJP, saying that it forgot the "Hindutva ideology" and has now turned into a secular party.

"We high hopes from BJP after it came to power. Now it has turned into a secular party and forgotten the Hindutva ideology," he said.
CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury today said he will raise the issue of morphed picture used by Trinamool Congress in the Parliament session beginning tomorrow.

"I will raise the morphed picture issue in Parliament. Our party has already lodged a police complaint in this connection in Delhi," Yechury said at an election meeting here in Hooghly district.

Senior CPI(M) leader Prakash Karat filed a complaint at Mandir Marg police station in New Delhi against TMC MP and its national spokesperson Derek O'Brien for allegedly using a morphed picture of his being offered sweets by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

Following a press conference by O'Brien in Kolkata, TMC yesterday posted two videos and six pictures on the party's website. The party, however, removed the morphed picture from its website after the controversy started.

A day after ruling Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee renewed her commitment to return land to "unwilling" farmers in Singur, the Left Front and Congress jointly held an election meeting here.

Like the morphed picture, everything is fake in TMC, Yechury alleged.

Referring to Banerjee's speeches here yesterday, Yechury said, "She has said the land is in her hand. This is not true. If it is so, why is there a litigation? And if she has the power to return the land, why she did not do it?"



Tata Motors had shifted their Nano car plant in 2008 to Gujarat from Singur in the face of Banerjee's fierce movement against forcible farmland acquisition.

After coming to power in 2011, the Mamata Banerjee government enacted a law that allowed it to reclaim 400 acres land given to Tata Motors. The Act was, however, challenged by the Tatas and matter is now pending in Supreme Court.

"People have seen the Mamata Banerjee government... It has lost (the election)," the CPI(M) general secretary said.

West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee president Adhir Chowdhury, who shared the dais with Yechury, in his address alleged that no industrialisation has taken place during the rule of TMC.

"The government is being run by anti-socials.... It has been looted," Chowdhury claimed.
Caller-Times file Conductor Antonio Gonzalez III moves between rail cars connecting lines April 1, 2014, at the Port of Corpus Christi's railroad terminal. The port in April 2015 wrapped up the first phase of the expansion of its Nueces River Rail Yard, and the second stage of the project is underway, calling for additional rail car spots and more storage.

SHARE Caller-Times file About 110 tons of steel sit waiting to be pieced together April 1, 2014, for the first phase of the Port of Corpus Christi's Nueces River Rail Yard. The port in April 2015 wrapped up the first phase of the expansion of rail yard, and the second stage of the project is underway, calling for additional rail car spots and more storage.

By Chris Ramirez of the Caller-Times

Oil isn't quite worth what it used to be, but officials for the Port of Corpus Christi say now is the time to finish its plans to improve its aging rail system.

Big, bulky cargo ships and fleets of large trucks are certainly the most visible aspects of any port of call. But here, at the Coastal Bend's largest port, its 43-mile network of tracks, engineers, conductors and rail cars also play a huge role.

It's one that is becoming increasingly important as M&G Resins USA inches closer to open its massive plant.

The port in April 2015 wrapped up the first phase of the expansion of its Nueces River Rail Yard, an $18 million project that involved creating eight unit train sidings and providing rail storage for nearly 1,300 railcars.

Now, the second stage of the project is well underway, calling for additional rail car spots and more storage.

Completing that segment  expected to cost about $28 million, $22 million of which will be paid for with a grant from the state  is crucial with M&G Resins USA's massive plant nearing completion, said John Slubar, manager of rail operations for the port.

The Port Authority was briefed on the project during its regular meeting last week.

Rail traffic has steadily climbed since the Joe Fulton International Trade Corridor opened in 2007. Port officials expect traffic to further increase once M&G Resins, an Italian company, opens its 412-acre, $1 billion polyethylene terephthalate resin-processing plant along the Nueces Bay shoreline.

Company officials said construction remains on pace to finish by the second half of this year.

When completed, M&G's plant will be the world's largest single-line producer of polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, and purified terephthalic acid, or PTA. Both are materials that are used to make plastics.

Work to improve the port's rail system now represents "a long-term vision in the works," said Jim Lee, chief economist at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.

Clearing the decks for M&G is one thing; shoring up more efficient rail can only help the port when crude prices surge and when the growth potential from the Panama Canal expansion and the opening of the Cuban market is finally realized, he said.

"The shale oil boom was a game changer for South Texas, but that was history," Lee said. "For Corpus Christi, a new game changer is unfolding. ... Improvements in the port's rail system and the entire infrastructure will become part of this new game changer."

Oil prices are nearly half their value of just two years ago, but companies are still producing and shipping their commodities, albeit with fewer people. The Association of American Railroads estimates U.S. freight railroads carried more than 400,000 carloads of crude oil in 2013, compared with 234,000 the year before and just 9,500 in 2008.

There were 42 rigs operating in the Eagle Ford Shale energy play for the week that ended April 15, down from 46 the week before.

There were nearly 250 rigs drilling in the region just three years ago, when West Texas Intermediate crude traded for $92 a barrel.

That may not always be the case.

"It is only a matter of time that crude oil prices will return to levels that would warrant sustained exports of crude oil and (liquefied natural gas) from the Eagle Ford, as well as the Permian Basin," Lee said. "We are now playing the waiting game."

In January, M&G's parent company M&G Chemicals said it would increase the capacity of the Corpus Christi facility to 1.1 million tons of PET annually. The move came after M&G increased PET capacity at its facilities in Mexico and Brazil 30 percent.

Twitter: @Caller_ChrisRam
How many of you here know of someone who has had immigration problems?

The question was asked by one of the speakers at a meeting on immigration at Del Mar College on Wednesday.

A scattering of hands slowly went up from the crowd of about 50 attending the event at the college's library.

What was not asked and what is on the whole more unlikely: how many of those immigration problems were resolved in a way that united families, brought people out of the shadows and gave dignity to immigrants?

The fact is that the nation's immigration laws are confounding, convoluted and a Rubik's cube of contrariness.

We say that we honor the rule of law but when the law throws up obstacle after obstacle for even the most law abiding immigrant, then the law is nothing more than farce.

Those obstacles are steep for immigrants who go the extra mile to follow existing U.S. law. Some may wait years for their particular category of immigrant quota to open up. But the law becomes much more punishing for families whose members have no documentation.

These are families who are "undocumented Americans," said Olivia Lopez, an adjunct professor of social work and speaker at the meeting.

They are Americans because they have lived in the United States for years, and even decades, and are immersed in American values and culture. Yet, because of circumstances peculiar to each, they have no legal documentation for their existence in the country.

Many of these families are the ones who are pinning their hopes on a favorable ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. Unfortunately, Texas is one of 26 states arguing that they should stay in the shadows of illegality.

Immigration law is a forest of acronyms, making discussion of the subject even more mind spinning. One of those acronyms is DAPA. Which is not be confused with DACA. The case that was heard before the Supreme Court this past week involved the former.

What is called Deferred Action for Parents of U.S. citizens and Lawful Residents (DAPA) is an executive order that would temporarily shield from deportation parents of U.S. citizens and those with "green cards."

The executive order, signed by President Obama in November 2014, is an expansion of an earlier executive order. That order, now in effect, protects from deportation those undocumented who arrived in the U.S. as the children. That is DACA.

The point of the executive orders is to put the priority for deportation on felons, drunken drivers, wife beaters and drug dealers.

Better to spend time and money on rounding up these bad guys rather than hardworking families.

But Texas, and 25 other Republican-led states sued to halt DAPA, arguing that the result of excluding perhaps as many 4 million immigrant parents would be too big a burden on their states. What about all those driver's licenses we would have to issue, they asked.

Left unsaid is the economic boost to the state from all those workers who would be able to pursue better jobs because they would be able to live without fear, if only for the life of the executive order.

One might say, well, the law must be obeyed, but that ignores the human consequences. Deporting these families would be wrenching because citizens, lawful residents and the undocumented may all be intertwined in the same family.

Lopez said that 45 percent of the some 280,000 undocumented immigrants have a sibling who is an American citizen. Forty percent of them has a parent who is eligible for citizenship. Deportation means disruption of families.

Yet DAPA and DACA are no more than Band-Aids on the festering sore of an unworkable immigration law. The executive order now operable, DACA, doesn't provide lawful status. The executive orders, even with a favorable court ruling, could quickly evaporate with the next president.

And a win for DAPA/DACA advocates does nothing for all the other frustrations for the dysfunctional system.

The real solution is for Congress to do its job, which is to legislate a new immigration law. Saying that the border must first be secured, as Republicans often argue, is simply a way to avoid the tough job of writing, proposing, debating and coming to agreement on a workable law.

Neither Democrats nor Republicans would be entirely happy with the political result. Democrats would be deprived of an election whipping boy. Republicans would have unhappy hard-right constituents on their hands.

But coming to a bipartisan agreement on immigration would benefit the nation. That can't be all bad.

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.
Contributed photo SWAN LAKE Watch the feet of Corpus Christi Ballet performers flutter on stage at the American Bank Center as they present "Swan Lake" in the Selena Auditorium 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. "The mesmerizing grace of the swans will bring the audience into a mystical world where spells are cast and love triumphs over evil," the news release says. Tickets to the classic love story range from $12 to $32 and are available at the American Bank Center Box Office or any Ticketmaster outlet. Esther Hackleman

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SUNDAY

BAND: The Texas Jazz Festival will host the Texas Veterans Band Bar-B-Que & All Day Music benefit from noon to 7 p.m. at LULAC Council 1 Building 3516 Holly Road. The proceeds will go toward travel expenses for the Veterans Band of Corpus Christi, which will perform at the deactivation of the USS City of Corpus Christi Submarine in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on May 29-30. Cost: $8 per plate. Information: www.texasjazz-fest.org, 361-668-1206.

YOGA: Beach Gal Bared Yoga will hold donation-based yoga classes at 3 p.m. at the Texas Surf Museum, 309 N. Water St. Participants are asked to bring their own yoga mat. Proceeds benefit the Texas Surf Museum. Cost: donations. Information: www.beachgalbared.com/yoga.

PERFORMING ARTS: Harbor Playhouse will perform the Broadway musical "Chicago" at 2:30 p.m. at 1802 N. Chaparral St. The production features dazzling dance numbers and mesmerizing musical performances. Cost: $18, adults; $10, children younger than 13. Information: 361-882-5500, www.harborplayhouse.com.

FAMILY: Disney On Ice: 100 Years of Magic will perform at the American Bank Center at 3 p.m. See your favorite Disney characters including Minnie, Mickey, Donald Duck, Goofy and an ensemble of Disney princesses, skating to more than 30 songs. Cost: Ticket prices range from $20-50. Information: DisneyOnIce.com.

PERFORMING ARTS: Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Department of Theatre and Dance will perform "Rent" at 2 p.m. at the Center for the Arts Warren Theatre. Cost: $10, adults; $7, students; $5 TAMU-CC students with valid ID. Information: 361-825-3756.

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.

THEATER: The Port Aransas Community Theatre will host auditions for "Bye, Bye, Birdie" from 2-4 p.m. at 2327 State Highway 361, Port Aransas. Cost: Free. Information: 361-749-6036.

BALLET: The Corpus Christi Ballet will present "Swan Lake" in the Selena Auditorium at the American Bank Center at 3 p.m. Cost: Ticket prices range from $12 to $32. Information: 361-882-4588.

MONDAY

LECTURE: Associate Professor of Music Joachim Reinhuber will present "Love, Strife and Pathos: Performing Beethoven" at 7 p.m. in the Bellamah Music Building Recital Hall, 905 Engineering Ave., Kingsville. Cost: Free. Information: 361-593-4143.
GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES Alex Garcia, dressed as a pirate, shakes hands with spectators during the Buc Days IBC Bank Junior Parade on Saturday, April 23, 2016, in Corpus Christi.

SHARE GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES Travis Elementary School students perform during the Buc Days IBC Bank Junior Parade on Saturday, April 23, 2016, in Corpus Christi. GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES Spectators take photos and video with smartphones while they watch the Buc Days IBC Bank Junior Parade on Saturday, April 23, 2016, in Corpus Christi. GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES Metro Elementary School students shout as they walk in the Buc Days IBC Bank Junior Parade on Saturday, April 23, 2016, in Corpus Christi. GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES Ava Cassidy holds a pirate flag during the Buc Days IBC Bank Junior Parade on Saturday, April 23, 2016, in Corpus Christi. Related Photos Buc Days Junior Parade

By Esther Hackleman, Esther.M.Hackleman@caller.com

Cheers from family, friends and supporters greeted bands, schools and floats as they processed down Shoreline Boulevard in the 79th annual Buc Days IBC Bank Junior Parade on Saturday morning.

A cannon boomed, light shimmered off sequined buccaneer costumes, and the Jolly Roger waved to kick off the children's parade, where about 60,000 landlubbers and seafarers soaked up the sun as spectators, participants or volunteers.

"The weather brought everybody out," Buccaraders President Larry Roberts said.

The Buccaraders, a group of 75 volunteers who put on the parade, helped corral participants and festivalgoers to enjoy the procession.

"Our main goal is that the kids have a great time and a safe parade," Roberts said. "We're really proud of what we do, and we feel like we're giving back to the community."

Eighty-nine bands, scout groups, dance teams and floats marched down Shoreline Boulevard from Power Street to Park Street in the parade, the midpoint of the Buc Days Festival. Proceeds from the festival benefit the Buccaneer Foundation scholarships.

"It's for the kids," Mary Gonzalez said while she and her family waited to cheer on their little pirate, who was performing with the Shaw Elementary dance team.

That family support also resonated with Natalia Menking and her family, who took part in the annual swashbuckling fun.

Menking squinted at the start of the parade as her daughters, Lillianna and Madalynn, danced in the sun and waved yellow foam daggers. The family avidly cheered on six-year-old Lillianna's classmates from Metro Elementary School of Design.

"We've been coming since my 6-year-old was a baby, but coming to the parade started long ago when I was a little girl," Menking said. "It's a tradition."

And the tradition continues.

"I want to dance," said Madalynn, 4, whose mom said she will one day join the parade as well.

Roberts said that the younger kids holding on to the hope of one day marching down the street is his motivation to continue the parade.

"You see their big eyes open and know that they are the future," Roberts said. "For the little ones in the crowd, this is something they can achieve."

Twitter: @Caller_Esther

If you go

A complete list of events can be found online at www.bucdays.com.

What: Buc Days Festival & Stripes Carnival

When: 5 p.m. Friday, noon Saturday and Sunday; continues through May 1

Where: Along the Corpus Christi bayfront

Cost: $25 advance all-you-can-ride wristbands

Tickets: www.bucdays.com, www.ticketmaster.com

What: Buc Days Festival & Stripes Carnival $2 night

When: 5 p.m. Thursday, April 28

Where: Along the Corpus Christi bayfront

Cost: $2 gate, $2 rides, $2 hot dogs, $2 sodas

What: Buc Days Toyota Illuminated Night Parade

When: 8-10 p.m. Saturday, April 30

Where: Start at Rose Street, east on Leopard Street to Shoreline Boulevard, ends at Coopers Alley Street

Cost: Free

What: Miss Buc Days and Buc Days King VIP reception

When: 4:30 p.m. Saturday, April 30

Where: Congressman Solomon P. Ortiz International Center, 402 Harbor Drive

Buc Days Junior Parade winners

Bands: Brown Middle School, sweepstakes

Elementary: Metro Elementary, first place

Middle school: Haas Middle School, first place; Cunningham Middle School, second place; West Oso Middle School, third place

Nonprofit civic floats: Girl Scout Troop 96026, first place; Garcia Family Float, second place; Cub Scout Pack 259, third place

Open class floats: Little Lex, first place; Ballet Folklorico Vivo Mexico, second place; HUT Homeschoolers Unlimited, third place

Elementary school floats: Dawson Elementary Patriettes Cheer Club, first place; JFK Elementary ACE Program Ballet Folklorico de Oso, second place; St. Pius X School Spirit Team, third place

Commercial business: Stripes, first place
Rachel Denny Clow/Caller-Times Youth attend an award ceremony recognizing volunteers and mentors with Brockton's Promise in January in Brockton, Mass. The organization is a coalition for youth development that aims to improve conditions of youth within the community by offering safe places, effective education, healthy starts and caring adults and opportunities to serve.

By Krista M. Torralva of the Caller-Times

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.  Violence children see at home can affect their chances for success in school and later in life.

That's why the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative, based at Harvard Law School in Massachusetts, advocates for trauma-sensitive schools to help children impacted by trauma to feel safe at school.

There are six attributes of a trauma sensitive school that are explained in the initiative's book, "Helping Traumatized Children Learn II: Creating and Advocating for Trauma Sensitive Schools." Those attributes came from work done in schools in Brockton, Mass., and other places, and describe what a trauma sensitive school looks and feels like, said Michael Gregory, a senior attorney with the initiative and a clinical professor of law at Harvard Law School.

Leadership and staff share an understanding of trauma's impact on learning and the need for a schoolwide approach.

"So this isn't something that just the school psychologist understands, or just a few teachers that are interested in it, but really the whole staff," Gregory said.

The school supports all students to feel safe physically, socially, emotionally, academically.

"In order to learn, kids have to feel safe to take risks ... to raise their hand to answer a question in class or to go up to the board to do a math problem. If that sense of safety isn't there, their learning is going to be held back," Gregory said.

The school addresses students' needs in holistic ways, taking into account their relationships, self-regulation, academic competence, and physical and emotional well being.

"A school culture that just focuses on getting those test scores up, but isn't looking at the other parts of the whole child, would not be a trauma sensitive school. When you walk into a trauma sensitive school you see a real attention to social skills and a real attention to extra curricular and a real attention to art and music ... a real holistic view of kids," Gregory said.

The book describes an example of a student who pushes away an adult because they fear betrayal. Another scenario involves a student who seems lazy but avoids speaking out because they fear being wrong. Supporters of the initiative say teachers and other educators in trauma-sensitive schools help children self-regulate their behaviors, succeed in both academics and other areas and look out for their physical and emotional health.

The school explicitly connects students to the school community and provides multiple opportunities to practice newly developing skills.

"You can have a great relationship with your psychologist but if you're going back into a cafeteria where there's bullying going on and nobody's helping you apply those skills you've learned in your therapy, then where the rubber meets the road, nothing's changing," Gregory said.

The initiative also says students feel more connected to the schools when their parents are also involved in school. Trauma-sensitive schools engage parents through efforts that connect them to the school.

The school embraces teamwork and staff share responsibility for all students.

An example Gregory described is of a school principal greeting the students as they come off the bus each day. The principal also talks to the bus driver, who kept alert for any unusual behavior. If a student had a rough morning, the principal can take that information back to the teachers.

Leadership and staff anticipate and adapt to the ever-changing needs of students.

An urgency in one of the schools stemmed from an earthquake in Haiti that resulted in migrant families moving to Brockton, Gregory said. The students came from destroyed villages and many lost family members. That school saw trauma that needed to be addressed.

Twitter: @CallerKMT
Guests visit the grounds of the Alamo, Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2016, in San Antonio. The Alamo is commemorating the 180th anniversary of the siege and battle of the Alamo. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

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Seceding from the United States and becoming a sovereign nation again is a fun fantasy for Texans of every political persuasion. But it takes a special kind of person to pursue secession seriously. And apparently that special kind of person isn't as rare as he or she should be.

Secession is likely to be a topic of discussion at the state Republican convention next month, according to Washington Post blogger Amber Phillips, whose report was shared by the Texas Tribune. And by "discussion" she didn't mean after way too many Shiner Bocks in the hospitality suite. She meant that it is likely to be discussed as an actual thing that could happen, by people who want it to happen.

Those people, while outnumbered and sure to fail, are expected to have their say without being dismissed as kooks because apparently there's enough pro-secession sentiment for the powers-that-be to fear being dismissive.

That's quite a pickle for a party that ought to refuse to suffer such foolishness, for the sake of a reputation already damaged by a presidential frontrunner's plan to wall off Mexico and bring back torture. It's an uncomfortable situation reminiscent of the time in 2013 when U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, explained to a woman in Luling the procedural obstacles to impeaching the president rather than tell the woman there was no legitimate reason to impeach the president. Telling secessionists firmly that the party is against it, or refusing to entertain discussion of it, would be the principled, responsible thing to do. But it also would be the hard thing to do.

We bring up Farenthold's Luling blunder not to embarrass him  again  but because impeachment and secession talk springs from the same viral opposition to President Obama. It's doubtful that there would be talk of secession from a United States governed by a President Ted Cruz  at least not by secession's current sympathizers. Democrats might become converts  and Libertarians and Greens and Socialists.

Texas' secession triggers don't speak well for it. First it was slavery and now it's the first black president. Secessionists would say now what their predecessors said then  that it's all about states' rights.

Phillips noted that in 2009 Gov. Rick Perry made a comment about secession in jest that made national news. She called it tongue-in-cheek. But in retrospect it's starting to look like a trial balloon. Gov. Greg Abbott has called for a convention of states to rewrite the Constitution to all but write the Supreme Court out of it by making it near-impossible for the court to overturn a state law.

Meanwhile, the actual secession movement claims 200,000 members, which Phillips notes would be a tiny percentage of Texas' population of nearly 27 million if indeed there are that many. But voter participation in Texas is so low that 200,000 committed voters would be a force with whom to be reckoned. Also, according to Phillips, at least 10 Republican county conventions voted in favor either of Texas independence or making it a debate topic at the state convention.

Phillips is not to be dismissed as some East Coast news media type looking for an excuse to make fun of Texans. She's a TCU Horned Frog and, for what it's worth, one of her colleagues on the Post political blog The Fix is former Caller-Times reporter Janell Ross, who grew up in Corpus Christi. If the Texas Republican Party embarrasses itself with talk of secession or with being unable to keep its secessionists under wraps, it will have itself to blame, not a Washington Post blog.

Please, Texas Republicans, for the sake of the state's reputation, pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands.
iStock/Thinkstock(CINCINNATI) -- Ohio's Attorney General says marijuana grow operations were found at three of the four places where eight relatives were shot dead in "execution type" killings.



Authorities did not provide further details.



Attorney General Mike DeWine told ABC News earlier that authorities still do not have a suspect description or motive in the Friday killings, saying the suspect or suspects took several steps to cover up their tracks and remove any possible evidence that would help police track them down.



He says authorities have received more than 100 tips so far and they are following up on all of them.



"These were pre-planned, pre-meditated execution-type killings," DeWine told ABC News Sunday. "Four different homes. A case like this is going to take some time."



The victims were all members of the Rhoden family, officials said Saturday. They were identified as: Hannah Gilley, 20; Christopher Rhoden, Sr., 40; Christopher Rhoden, Jr., 16; Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden, 20; Dana Rhoden, 37; Gary Rhoden, 38; Hanna Rhoden, 19; and Kenneth Rhoden, 44.



Seven of the victims were found in three homes along the same road in Peebles, a small village about 70 miles east of Cincinnati. The eighth victim was found later than the others in nearby Piketon, officials said.



Some of the victims appeared to have been killed in their sleep and were found shot to death in their beds, DeWine said. One victim, who appeared to be a mother, was killed lying in bed with a 4-day-old baby, he said.



Three young children -- the 4-day-old baby, a 6-month-old baby and a 3-year-old -- were found unharmed at the various shooting locations, said Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader.



At a news conference this afternoon DeWine described the killings as "a sophisticated operation."



"They thought this thing through," DeWine said.



Cincinnati-area businessman Jeff Ruby has offered $25,000 for information that leads to the gunman's arrest, officials said Saturday.



Investigators also released 911 calls that recorded family members finding their relatives dead inside their homes.



One woman called 911, sounding frantic and out of breath, telling a dispatcher she had found blood throughout her brother-in-law's house.



"I think my brother-in-law's dead," she said. "There's blood all over the house."



She then said it looked like someone else was dead there, too, before weeping into the phone.



In another 911 call, a man said: "I just found my cousin with a gunshot wound."



"Is he alive?" the dispatcher asked.



"No, no," the caller said.



Sharon Fulton, the wife of a pastor at the Union Hill Church, said there was shock within the small community of Peebles, which had a population of 1,782 at the time of the 2010 census.



"When one hurts, we all hurt," she said.



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CAMEROUN :: Cameroon: Two traffickers arrested for Primate Skulls Trafficking in the North West Region

Two people were arrested in connection with the illegal sale of dozens of primates skulls in the North West Region during an operation carried out on April 15, 2016 by the Bui Divisional of Forestry and Wildlife. A 32-year old man called Damian who was one of the traffickers travelled from Nkambe two days before his arrest, with the products to Kumbo and later attempted to sell the primate skulls but was stopped and arrested by the team that worked in collaboration with the gendarmerie company and the judiciary in Kumbo and with technical assistance from The Last Great Ape Organisation LAGA.

Preliminary investigations had established that they were at least two people involved in the deals but only one was arrested but his statements would indicate that the booty belonged to at least two of them. The other suspect a 39-year-old man called Sebastine who had 8 primate skulls had stayed behind and handed the skulls to Damian to sell in Kumbo. The team immediately set for Nkambe where he was waiting for his share of the money. On arrival, he was quickly located, arrested and transfered to Kumbo where the legal proceedings were ongoing. The consignment made of 15 mandrill skulls, a buffalo horn, six gorilla skulls and other primates parts were later presented to the state counsel in Kumbo alongside the two suspects.

Shortly after the arrest of the first trafficker, Mill Ndjaga Arland, the Bui Divisional Delegate of Forestry and Wildlife who led the operation team to the field said that We have put in place a network of intelligence gathering on illegal trafficking of wildlife species in the division which in effect, is a transit zone and after exploiting information we got, the trafficker was arrested with the support of LAGA.

The towns of Nkambe and Kumbo are considered to be transit area where products leaving parts of Cameroon transit directly to Nigeria and vice versa. This is the second time in less than 7 months that a trafficker has been arrested with wildlife products in Kumbo after ferrying the products from Nkambe.

The Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife, since the beginning of this year, is in a renewed alert mode to track down and prosecute all those endangering wildlife species in the country and President Paul Biya has just given fresh impetus to the fight wildlife officials are waging following his decision to allow the Minister incinerate in Yaounde, 3.5 tons of seized and confiscated ivory tusks and artifacts.

The ceremony that took place at the Conference Centre premises was attended by US Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power who was guest of honour at the highly publicized event. Destroying ivory is a conservation initiative that was kick-started in 1989 by President Daniel Arap Moi who burnt 12 tons of ivory to draw the attention of the international community on the slaughter of elephants in his country. The reaction was immediate and the Washington Convention banned the trade in elephant ivory. Many countries including Gabon and Congo in the Central African sub-region have proceeded to burring ivory and conservationists argue, this symbolic gesture sends a strong message to traffickers and poachers that the governments are bent on combating trafficking and also gives out the right signals to the public on the plight of the African elephant. An estimated 30 000 elephants are killed each year to supply the illegal trade in ivory.
As Are Nega, from Ethiopia in East Africa, is one of the two men in the aerial strap routine - an act performed by wrapping two straps around the wrists and being lifted into the air by the ropes.
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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 29th edition of Essens Techno Classica has ended, and heres what youve missed from Brabus.



When not modifying modern-day Mercedes Benz vehicles to the point of no return, the German company transforms old-timers into brand new automobiles. How? Through hard work, dedication, and passion, of course.

Basically, Brabus performs thorough restorations  carrying both the companys own Brabus Classic 6-Star Certified High Quality Restoration label, and Classic Datas A grade distinction for their flawless condition.

In order to qualify for this kind of appraisal, the vehicles are always disassembled to the last nut and bolt, with all parts being inspected and cataloged. Naturally, the components are completely reconditioned, while unserviceable components are being discarded and replaced with mint condition alternatives.

Experienced master bodywork specialists remove the entire paint from the body shell, in order to apply a perfect paint-job in the original color  but not before making sure the vehicles receive perfect corrosion protection using cutting-edge technology to protect the paint.

The engines are completely disassembled  in Brabus high tech engine shop  and all the parts are measured before the classic engine is reconstructed with utmost care. The rebuilding process includes grinding and honing the cylinders as well as overhauling the cylinder head. The BRABUS powertrain technicians use the same precision in overhauling the drivetrain including the automatic transmission, driveshaft and differential.

When it comes to suspension, brakes and tires, all components are replaced with new parts, thus offering optimal safety.

The cabin goes through a full overhaul as well, with the German tuning company creating cloth, leather interiors and carpeting, in any color, perfectly and fully authentically finished to the smallest detail. Naturally, the master upholsters use the same color and quality as used in series production.

As Brabus says, the work doesnt end with the purchase or the restoration, as the company offers a two-year warranty, as well as an entire range of services: from oil changes and professional inspections to complete conditioning.

The automobiles presented at Essen are three 280 SE 3.5 Cabriolets, two 280 SL Pagode models, a 300 SL Roadster paired with its hard-top sibling, the 300 SL Gullwing, and a 600 Pullman.

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Mercedes is considering the addition of a second stand-alone AMG model to sit above the GT coupe in their range.



My personal thinking is that we are now at a level where we could support another dedicated AMG model, Mercs performance division boss Tobias Moers told Autocar.

It will not be a successor to the SLS, though, as the company is thinking about taking a different route this time, getting their inspiration by their Formula 1 car. This means that if the new supercar gets approval, it will employ a cutting-edge hybrid mid-engine layout using technology from their successful F1 program.

We have the most energy-dense hybrid pack in existence, said an unnamed source to the British magazine. It would make a great deal of sense to harness that technology for the road.

Getting its inspiration from the top form of motorsport also means that the petrol engine in the hybrid powertrain will likely be a small capacity V6 unit, as another nod to the F1 relationship.

The new AMG supercar will not compete though in the hypercar class. Instead Mercedes is thinking about to place their new model as high-tech competitor against the likes of the Mclaren 650S and Ferrari 488 GTB, using the concept of the BMW i8 but offering a much higher level of performance.

The decision to proceed or not with the new hybrid supercar is expected to be taken later this year.

Note: SL GTR by Mark Holster pictured

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With a maximum towing capacity of 725 kg (1,598 lbs), the new-gen Prius has been engineered to tow a trailer or light caravan, for the first time in its 19-year history.



Its new ability has been made possible thanks to heat management measures introduced in its main electric motor-generator and differential. This, Toyota hopes, will endear the popular hybrid with its extended practicality to appeal to a wider range of customers.

Those interested in the new Prius towing capability will be able to equip the car with towing hitches and wiring systems from the automakers official range of accessories, which are said to be simple and easy to operate, with clear red and green indicators to show when a secure connection has been made. Most of the hardware is concealed behind the lower lip of the rear bumper and when the towing arm is not needed, it can be unclipped and stored in a special bag, in the boot.

Toyotas announcement on the hybrids towing ability comes right after Euro NCAP and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) have proved its safety, awarding it with 5 stars and Top Safety Pick Plus ratings, respectively. In the US, customers can buy the 2016 Prius from $24,200, while in the United Kingdom, it starts from 23,295 ($33,400).

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Launched as a concept at the 2014 Sao Paulo Auto Show, Nissans new small SUV has just been revealed in production form.



The Kicks, which is the work of a collaboration between the companys US and Brazilian studios under the supervision of global design boss Shiro Nakamura, closely mirrors the styling of the study, with its highlights being the large V-shaped grille, horizontal LED headlights, prominent wheel arches and blacked-out A- and C-pillars that create its floating roof.

Despite that, its not as bold as the Juke  and that, Nakamura explained, was deliberate, describing it as a fun to drive, but at the same time, serious vehicle.

Nissan hasnt yet revealed any info whatsoever. Nonetheless, we presume that it wont be that different from the concept, which measured 4,300mm (169.3in) long, 1,800mm (70.8in) wide and 1,600mm (63in) tall and had a wheelbase of 2,620mm (103.1in). That made it 175mm (6.9in) longer than the Juke and with a 90mm (3.5in) increased wheelbase, while width and height are almost the same.

Initially, itll be available in the Brazil, where it will also be manufactured, yet later it will be exported to other markets as well, as CEO Carlos Ghosn has confirmed, and the US could be one of them.

H/T to Gustavo from Motorchase!

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Photo: Twitter - FortisBC

Still feeling charged up about Earth Day?

Electric cars drivers may well be, with the opening of two new charging stations in downtown Kelowna.

The City of Kelowna partnered with utility company FortisBC on the project.

The stations are located in the museum parking lot at Queensway Avenue and Ellis Street. One stall is for public use, and the second is dedicated to a local car-share program.

These charge stations will allow people to park, plug-in and return to a charged vehicle after spending time exploring downtowns many amenities," said aAlf Soros, fleet services manager for the city.

The city will be responsible for day-to-day monitoring and the electricity consumption. FortisBC will own the equipment and arrange maintenance.

When charging, users wont have to pay for the electricity, but standard parking rates will apply.

The city can provide the insight into their residents' needs, while we can provide the technical expertise, access to infrastructure and ongoing support," said Fortis spokesman Mark Warren.

The location was chosen because it's central to downtown amenities.

The charging stations are Level 2, 240-volt units with a SAE J1772 connector, allowing communication and charging with most common electric vehicles.
Photo: Contributed

UPDATE: April 25

The RCMP says 32-year-old Bridgette Davies was located safe and sound last night.

ORIGINAL: April 24

Police are seeking the publics help in locating a missing West Kelowna woman.

Bridgette Davies was last seen Friday.

She is described as Caucasian, 32 years old, five feet four inches tall and 105 pounds, with dark brown hair.

Davies has a unique feature  she has one green eye and one blue eye.

Police are concerned for Davies' health and well-being, and friends and family say it is out of character for her to be out of contact for this long.

Davies drives a black 2008 Acura MDX with licence plate CE6 97L.

Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to contact their local police, or remain anonymous by calling CrimeStoppers at 1-800-222-8477, leaving a tip online at www.crimestoppers.net or by texting CRIMES (274637) ktown.
Photo: Haida Salmon Restoration

The federal government is still investigating an experiment off the West Coast almost four years ago aimed at boosting salmon stocks that sparked an international outcry.

Now a former director and operations officer of Haida Salmon Restoration Corp. says he wants to carry out another ocean-fertilizing exercise, this time off South America.

Jason McNamee says the company Oceaneos, where he serves as chief operations officer, has been in talks about fertilizing the ocean with iron with the Chilean government, which could not be reached for comment.

In July 2012, the now-inactive Haida Salmon Restoration travelled to international waters near the islands of Haida Gwaii where it dumped 100 tonnes of iron sulphate into the water in an effort to restore waning salmon stocks.

Critics said the practice was largely untested. But proponents of ocean fertilization contend the process stimulates biological productivity in the marine environment, triggering a phytoplankton bloom that travels up the food chain and ultimately bolsters salmon populations.

Environment Canada's enforcement branch launched an investigation in August 2012, though the agency recently declined to answer any questions about the case.

"As the matter is under investigation, it would be inappropriate to provide further information at this time," spokeswoman Natalie Huneault wrote in an email.

McNamee predicts this year's British Columbia return should be "one of the largest chinook fisheries ever."

"The research is clear. If you put the right sort of iron in the right place at the right time that you will stimulate a plankton bloom. And if you do it in the right place at the right time you may stimulate fisheries."

But biologist Bruce Patten of Fisheries and Oceans Canada said the possibility of a sizable 2016 salmon return can't necessarily be attributed to the 2012 iron fertilization.

Sea-surface temperatures and a particular fish stock's history are two factors considered when estimating salmon returns, though in recent years these indicators have strayed into unprecedented levels, which Patten said throws off a model's predictive ability.

Tim Parsons, a retired oceanography professor at the University of British Columbia, met early on with proponents of the Haida Gwaii experiment and recommended against the project because of what he saw as a lack of scientific supervision.

In an email, Parsons said he strongly supports iron fertilization, though he attributed part of what he considers the 2012 project's success to luck: being in the right place at the right time.

Some experts have also raised concerns over the relative absence of enforceable regulation surrounding the practice.

"There are a lot of scientists who think it's dangerous to go around dumping things like iron in the open ocean and have spent quite a lot of time trying to find ways to regulate this so it's not just a free for all," said Prof. Ken Denman of the University of Victoria, who also serves as a senior researcher with Fisheries and Oceans.

Data from the Haida Gwaii experiment is of questionable value, he added.

"Anybody who says it was a rigorous scientific experiment is either misleading or is being misled."

McNamee said the proposed Chilean project is still in an early phase, with no agreement in place.

In Canada, the iron dust was also dumped in ocean in the belief that the phytoplankton bloom would act as a natural sponge to capture carbon from the atmosphere. The project in Chile won't investigate that prospect as part of a cap-and-trade credit system, said McNamee.

"That's where most of the controversy was (in 2012). Everyone thought we were out there being cowboys hoping to make a gazillion dollars."

New projects would aim for a 50-per-cent split in funding between government and industry, would have to secure the support of the scientific community and abide by local and international laws, McNamee said.

Oceaneos began looking for scientific advisers on the Chilean project at least a year ago.

One prominent scientist who agreed to provide advice is Ricardo Letelier of Oregon State University,

Letelier said in an interview that he supports the scientific goals of the project but has concerns over the commercial applications and the way the experiment rolls out. There also needs to be an agreement among the scientific community about how these findings can be used, he said.

"These kinds of experiments, if they are well done, can provide a lot of advancement in our understanding of the complexities of ecosystem dynamics in the open ocean," said Letelier, who is originally from Chile.

"You cannot really do them without addressing the fundamental question of why you're doing this. If you're doing it for commercial purposes then I think you are doing it for the wrong reasons."
Photo: Contributed

Surrey RCMP are asking for the public's help after receiving a single 911 call reporting a woman had fired a gun on the street.

Mounties received the call just after 6 a.m. Sunday reporting that a woman was outside (on the 9500-block of 168th Street) and had discharged a firearm before entering a home.

Officers responded to the scene and contained the home, and when the occupants came outside they all denied knowledge of the reported incident.

RCMP say officers searched the residence and failed to find a gun, or any evidence to support that shots had been fired.

Mounties say neighbours also said they had not heard or seen the reported incident.

Surrey RCMP are asking anyone who may have observed the incident or a woman with a gun in the area to contact police or CrimeStoppers.
I booked a one-way ticket from Osaka, Japan, to San Francisco on eDreams recently. My middle name was incorrect, so I called (online travel agency) eDreams to make a correction. That resulted in hours of phone calls.

While I was trying to fix my name, I learned that eDreams had reserved a round-trip flight. EDreams denies this, but I have a copy of the Japan Airlines reservation and can verify the ticket number and other information. EDreams says the ticket can't be reissued with a correct name and is nonrefundable. Can you help me get a refund from eDreams?

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 Mary Reed, Sacramento, Calif.

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A: This is one of the most bizarre cases to cross my desk in a while. Not only was your middle name wrong, but you're right  eDreams booked a round-trip even though you only ordered a one-way ticket.

If you spoke with an eDreams representative by phone, then he or she should have gotten your middle name right. All eDreams would say is that your middle name was "wrongly introduced" and that changes are not allowed. So it's not entirely clear how the name was misspelled.

Typically, an airline will allow minor changes to a ticket. Just show up at the airport a little early, and ask for a correction. I'm willing to bet that you would have been allowed through security with one or two letters wrong on your ticket.

(For example, my first name is too long for some airline reservations systems, so it prints as CHRISTOPHE instead of CHRISTOPHER. I've never been turned away at the screening area, and I can guarantee you, it's not my charming personality that persuades them to let me through.)

But why would eDreams book a round-trip instead of a one-way? Ah, that's an even more interesting question. You pressed eDreams for an answer, and it finally admitted that it did indeed book a round-trip.

"During the booking process, the system detected that a round-trip would work out cheaper than buying a one-way ticket," a representative told you. "For this reason, we have confirmed a round-trip, so you could pay less than by only getting a one-way flight. Please note that the return flight will be automatically canceled, as it was not requested during the booking process."

Hmm. In the airline world, that practice is referred to as throwaway ticketing, and although it's not illegal, it violates some airline contracts. It's true that a one-way ticket can be more expensive than a round-trip because business travelers are likelier to buy a one-way. Airlines can get more money for them, even though they are offering less service. Go figure!

EDreams shouldn't have booked a round-trip, if for no other reason than that you would have been a no-show for your return flight, leaving an empty seat on a flight back to Osaka. That's a waste of resources to circumvent bad airline policy. And as my mother always said, two wrongs don't make a right.

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Our advocacy team contacted eDreams on your behalf. It apologized for the misunderstanding and refunded the $978 you spent on your ticket.

Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine and a co-founder of the Consumer Travel Alliance, a nonprofit organization that advocates for travelers.

Because of a backlog of cases, your story may not be published for several months. Read more tips at elliott.org or email chris@elliott.org.

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How airlines decide when to kick a passenger off a plane

Three top airlines changed the pricing of multi-city tickets. Here's how to avoid paying more.

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Authorities set up road blocks at the intersection of Union Hill Road and Route 32 at the perimeter of a crime scene April 22, 2016, in Pike County, Ohio. (John Minchillo, AP)

PIKETON, Ohio  Authorities are scrambling to determine who killed eight family members in a "pre-planned execution" that has shaken residents in their rural southern Ohio community.

Attorney General Mike DeWine said at a news conference Sunday that the killings at four homes near the small community of Piketon on Friday was "a sophisticated operation." Seven adults and one teenage boy were found shot in the head; three young children were not harmed.

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"This was a pre-planned execution of eight individuals," DeWine said.

Authorities remained tight-lipped Sunday about details of the investigation, any suspects or motives for the crime. They said they found marijuana operations at three of the crime scenes, but didn't say if the deaths were linked to pot. Autopsies were expected to be completed Monday.

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Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader said it was clear the family was targeted, and he's told the victims' relatives to arm themselves.

Reader said he didn't believe safety was an issue for others, but he said "If you are fearful, arm yourself."

Investigators have interviewed between 50 and 60 people in hopes of finding leads, and a team of 38 people is combing wooded areas around the shooting scenes to ensure no evidence was missed, authorities said.

"This was very methodical. This was well planned. This was not something that just happened," said Reader, noting most victims were targeted while they were sleeping.

The victims were identified Saturday as 40-year-old Christopher Rhoden Sr.; his 16-year-old son, Christopher Rhoden Jr.; 44-year-old Kenneth Rhoden; 38-year-old Gary Rhoden; 37-year-old Dana Rhoden; 20-year-old Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden; 20-year-old Hannah Gilley; and 19-year-old Hanna Rhoden.

Hanna Rhoden was in bed with her newborn baby nearby, authorities said. The infant was 4- or 5-days old. The newborn, Hannah Gilley's 6-month-old baby, and one other small child were not hurt.

DeWine said the state's crime lab was looking at 18 pieces of evidence from a DNA and ballistic standpoint, and five search warrants have been executed.

Since the slayings, authorities have refused to discuss many details of the crime, a potential motive, weapons, or the search for the assailant or assailants.

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"We don't know whether it was one or more people involved in this," DeWine said.

More than 100 tips have been given to investigators, who've set up a number for people to call as police seek information about the crimes. A Cincinnati-area businessman also put up a $25,000 reward for details leading to the capture and conviction of the killer or killers.

Robin Waddell, who owns the Big Bear Lake Family Resort just south of Piketon, said Christopher Rhoden often did work for him as a carpenter and helped out with his excavation business. He said Rhoden was a nice guy whose kids sometimes visited him while he was working.

"It's a large family," Waddell said. "There's a lot of them and they've been in this community for generations. So this is affecting a lot of people."

Maggie Owens, a cook at the town's Riverside Restaurant, said she's counts herself among those who feel they're on eggshells.

"I know a lot of people are just scared," Owens, 39, said in a phone interview on Sunday. "You don't hear about stuff like that around here."

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She said her son was friends with the younger Christopher Rhoden. She described Dana Rhoden as a woman with "a heart of gold" who gave her clothes and money when her home burned down last year.

The exact timing of the shootings remains unclear. Authorities got the first 911 call shortly before 8 a.m. Friday; the second came several hours later from another location.

Two of the crime scenes are within walking distance of each other along a sparsely populated, winding road that leads into wooded hills from a rural highway. The third residence is more than a mile away, and the fourth home is on a different road, at least a 10-minute drive away.

Todd Beekman, who owns an outdoors shop a few miles from the crime scenes, said at least one customer came in to stock up on ammunition after hearing about the shootings. But Beekman and others hanging out there midday Saturday said they weren't concerned for their own safety because it's an area where residents know and look out for each other.

"The word spread pretty fast, as it does in any rural area," Beekman said. "Everybody's kind of their own brother's keeper down here."

Associated Press
Maine Republicans elected a slate of delegates Saturday that could give an extra boost to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz if there's a divided national convention this summer.

All 14 at-large delegates elected at the state party convention support the senator from Texas. That means at least 19 of 23 delegates Maine is sending to the national convention in Cleveland are Cruz supporters.

The Maine GOP tried to eliminate controversy at the convention by making the results of last month's presidential caucuses binding with 12 delegates for Cruz, nine for New York businessman Donald Trump and two for Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

But delegates are bound only for the first vote.

If there's a contested convention, the Maine delegates could choose to support a different candidate on subsequent votes and Cruz could stand to pick up additional votes from the Maine delegation.

The selection of delegates created tension with Maine Gov. Paul LePage accusing the Cruz campaign of trying to suppress others.

Some Cruz supporters wanted an all-Cruz slate that would've left LePage, a Trump supporter, off the list entirely. But that effort came up short and LePage was selected. LePage accused the Cruz campaign of being run by "greedy hooligans."

John Grooms, a grassroots organizer from Cruz's campaign, said Cruz supporters are passionate about their candidate and sought to downplay differences by saying there was no animosity toward fellow party members who backed Trump. "We're excited about having a candidate we agree with  not the lesser of two evils," said Grooms, of Madison.

Afterward, a Trump supporter, Dr. Margaret Matthews of Hartford, Maine, said the Cruz campaign used a better ground game to fill the convention with supporters and rally support for a slate of Cruz delegates.

"No one's happy about that, but what can you do?" she said.

The 23 delegates include two who are undecided: Maine GOP Chairman Rick Bennett and National Committeewoman Ashley Ryan. LePage and National Committeeman Alex Willette support Trump.

LePage used his address to exhort the GOP to ensure a Republican is elected to the White House, regardless of whether it's Trump, Cruz or Kasich. He pointed to the growing national debt and said America could go into default like Greece if something isn't done.

The outspoken governor used crude language to refer to Barack Obama, suggesting to convention-goers that the president's last name is an acronym for "one big-ass mistake, America." He drew cheers when he said Obama "is on his way out."

"We cannot stand another liberal in Washington." LePage said.

The governor said that foreign workers are being used in restaurants after he criticized a referendum proposal to raise Maine's minimum wage to $12. He says he's disappointed his alternative proposal to hike the wage to $10 didn't get traction.

LePage said it's hard to understand workers "from Bulgaria" and workers from India are "the worst ones." He described Indians as "lovely people but you've got to have an interpreter."

Speakers at the two-day convention included two former presidential candidates, Ben Carson, who supports Trump, and Carly Fiorina, who supports Cruz. Former U.S. Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire spoke on behalf of Kasich.

Associated Press
SALT LAKE CITY  Gov. Gary Herbert's re-election bid suffered a serious setback when he failed to secure the Republican Party's nomination on Saturday, but he'll have one more chance to win in a summer primary election.

Jonathan Johnson, chairman of the board at Overstock.com, won 55 percent of the vote in two different rounds of voting at the state party convention in Salt Lake City after attacking Herbert for adopting Common Core and for his reluctance to sue the federal government for control of public lands.

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"That's a significant victory," Johnson told reporters afterward. "Nine months ago, when we started this, I don't think anyone gave me a chance."

But Johnson must win again in the June primary because he didn't earn 60 percent to win the party convention outright. Even if that had happened, Herbert secured himself a place on the primary ballot by gathering signatures under a new method that allows candidates to bypass the convention.

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The winner will face Democrat Michael Weinholtz, a former staffing company executive who scored a resounding victory in his party's convention with 80 percent of the vote after telling delegates he'll fight for medical marijuana and revealing his wife is being investigated for pot possession.

Thousands of delegates packed exhibition halls in Salt Lake City for the party conventions  a key step in Utah's nomination process that in most years has resolved Republican and Democratic contests before a primary is needed.

But that won't be the case in this year's highest-profile race  the GOP governor's contest. The June 28 primary now looms as a high-stakes showdown that will determine if Herbert will serve another term.

Herbert said after the results Saturday that he doesn't feel betrayed by the 4,000 state Republican delegates who favored Johnson. The governor said he believes his record leading Utah and his message will resonate better with the broader base of about 600,000 GOP voters who will head to the polls this summer.

Herbert delivered a fiery defense of his record before voting began at the convention  saying graduation rates and Utah's economy have improved since he took office in 2009. Hebert repeatedly jabbed his fingers in the air as he hit his points, proclaiming at a shout that he had a good record and would stand by it.

After a first round of balloting eliminated two lesser-known GOP candidates, Herbert appeared on stage again but had Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox speak on his behalf.

"Gary Herbert doesn't need this, but we desperately need Gary Herbert," Cox said. "I would run through a wall for this man."

Johnson hammered Herbert for Utah's adoption of the Common Core educational standards, something he said he'd roll back if elected.

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"We should not force local school districts into a one-size-fits-all program," Johnson said. "Parents bear the primary responsibility of educating their children."

He also criticized Herbert for using a new method that allows candidates to bypass the convention by collecting signatures to get on the primary ballot, calling it a betrayal of loyal party delegates and the GOP convention system. The new wrinkle, which adds to Utah's already complex nomination process, was designed to increase voter participation.

In other contested races, Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop easily defeated a lesser-known opponent. U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz thumped relatively unknown challenger Chia-Chi Teng at the convention, but he still faces a primary because Teng gathered signatures to compete in the primary.

The rest of Utah's all-Republican congressional delegation ran unopposed: Sen. Mike Lee and Reps. Chris Stewart and Mia Love.

The buzz at the Democratic convention surrounded Weinholtz's admission that his wife is under investigation for marijuana. He drew loud applause when he said her story puts yet another face on a problem that is forcing people to choose between getting pain relief and breaking the law.

Weinholtz said his wife hasn't been arrested, but declined to say anything else about the case. She uses it to relieve pain caused by arthritis and nerve damage, he said. He scoffed at speculation it was an election stunt, but recognized it likely helped his cause with Democratic voters.

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"The need for medical cannabis touches everyone: Republicans, Democrats, rich, poor, middle class, LDS and non-LDS," Weinholtz said, using an acronym for the Mormon church.

His opponent, medical company CEO Vaughn Cook, didn't touch on medical marijuana in his address to delegates. He instead touted himself as the candidate most electable in a general election.

The eventual Republican nominee will likely be favored in November because conservative Utah has not elected a Democratic governor since 1980.

About 4,000 delegates were at the GOP convention and 2,500 at the Democratic convention. Both events took place inside the Salt Palace Convention Center.

Associated Press
Opposes vets' benefit cut

Last month, the House of Representatives passed a bill (H.R. 3016) that included a 50 percent cut in the monthly Basic Allowance for Housing provided to children who will have a parent's earned Post-9/11 GI Bill benefit transferred to them. Now similar legislation is being considered in the Senate (S. 425) that would put the hard-fought benefits of 2.8 million post-9/11 veterans at even greater risk.

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I am standing with my fellow Non Commissioned Officers Association members in opposition to these cuts to the GI Bill and ask you to stand with us.

Please pledge to preserve the benefits promised to all new veterans and their families and oppose all attempts to use the Post-9/11 GI Bill as a piggy bank to fund other government programs.

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Nearly 1 million post-9/11 veterans have benefited from the Post-9/11 GI Bill, making it one of the most successful veterans programs in American history. Please email NCOA at advocates@NCOA.org and pledge to fight any attempts to cut education benefits for military members, veterans and our families.

Raymond Sugel Sr., West Dundee

Recently, the Illinois Senate took an important vote on yet another piece of legislation that would provide funding for social services, higher education and other programs not currently covered as a result of consent decrees during this budget impasse. While Republicans are providing shallow recommendations on alternatives or bargaining with issues that have little or nothing to do with the budget, my Democrat colleagues and I continue to take votes in support of our state's vital programs.

Almost a year has gone by without passing a budget as the full faith and credit of our state has become a sham. Treatment centers, group homes and whole hosts of social services are shutting down month after month. Universities are requesting students to pay back their MAP grants. In the Senate, we have passed bills, overridden vetoes, held numerous committees and still no agreement. Now, the comptroller has taken to withholding our pay as legislators.

It's like deja vu all over again. We shame ourselves to conduct the people's business in this way.

I am often asked if we are going to have a budget by May 31. Most years I would say yes. This year is different, however. If I am completely honest, given the length of time we have already gone without an effective budget, I have little faith we will reach an accord absent one condition: thousands and thousands of people from Illinois descending upon their state Capitol in protest. Until then, the citizens of this state can only watch and observe as this governor, ruminating over his failed agenda, stands in ruinous opposition to meeting the just demands of our people.

State Sen. Michael Noland, 22nd District, Elgin

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Submit letters to the editor via email to suburbanletters@tribpub.com. Please include your name and town of residence for publication. Please include phone number and email address for confirmation. Letters should be no more than 250 words.
Eisenhower School students recently sent two truckloads of donated items to Lake County Animal Control & Adoption Center.

These students don't just raise money for the dogs and cats at the shelter in Crown Point; they worked hard to fill the larder at the center. They donated pet food, bleach, paper towels, and the other things needed to keep animals fed and the animal center clean.

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The school's media specialists is Judy Einikis. This educator helps encourage reading wherever she can  that is part of her job description. Einikis goes further than that. She encourages kindness and generosity from all the students that meet her. Once upon a time, this position was called the librarian, but that name had to be changed to encompass all that this person does.

The students celebrated National Library Week April 10 to 16 by having a fundraiser to help the abandoned dogs and cats at the Lake County Animal Center. It was a perfect match since May is National Pet Month.

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The center is a no kill facility at 3011 W. 93rd Ave. on Crown Point's far north side. Being a no kill facility gives them a lot of animals who are sentenced to imprisonment there without much fun in their day to day existence. As prisons go, it is a loving place where staff and volunteers try to make the residents welcome and comfortable. They just are throwaways. Their owner could have no longer been able to care for them, through aging, loss of income, or in some cases death of the owner. They are rescue animals. Some were even taken from abusive owners. Whatever reason they are there, these rescue animals need love too. The Eisenhower kids have sent this to them. If you have a dog, stop and think of the joyous reaction to the word. "treat."

Students at Eisenhower brought in pet food and supplies to help care for these homeless animals.

"For every item a student brings in, I give them a raffle ticket and at the end of the week, I draw four names and those students received a plush cat or dog house," Einikis said.

The animals were not the only ones exited by the treats. The students got a real treat when Gwen Hammonds and Linda Olson and their dogs Daisy and Shelby from Power Paws joined the school in celebration of National Library Week. The surprises didn't stop there. Julie Woodburn from the Greyhound Rescue brought in Quimby, Kyle and Lucy. And Einikis had her dog Pickles the Media Mutt on hand as well.

"We are so very grateful for the children at Eisenhower School honoring us with what they did. I can't say enough about it, believe me," said Lake County Sheriff John Buncich.

kconley@post-trib.com
Hu Kaihong:

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon and welcome to today's press conference. April 24 is designated as the National Day of Space Flight from 2016 with the approval of the State Council. We are very glad to have Xu Dazhe and Tian Yulong here today. Mr. Xu is vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, administrator of the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence and administrator of the China National Space Administration. Mr. Tian is chief engineer of the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence and secretary of the China National Space Administration. They will brief you on the National Day of Space Flight and the development of China's space industry. I am Hu Kaihong, spokesperson for the State Council Information Office.

China launched its first manmade satellite, Dong Fang Hong No. 1, on April 24, 1970, making it the fifth country that was able to launch a homemade satellite using a homemade rocket. China has made great progress in the field of astronautics for more than four decades. The establishment of the National Day of Space Flight comes in line with the needs to preserve the Chinese ethos, build China into a leading country in the space industry, foster public awareness for science and culture, increase young people's interest in science, realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and further exhibit China's determination and faith in the peaceful use of outer space to promote human progress.

The theme of this year's National Day of Space Flight is the "Chinese dream, space dream." The day will be observed through a series of educational activities held nationwide, including lectures on national day, exhibitions, an open day for the public and meetings with experts on campuses.

Now, I give the floor to Mr. Xu who will give you a detailed introduction to the National Day of Space Flight and the development of China's space industry and then take questions from you.

Xu Dazhe:

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. I am very pleased to meet our friends from the press here and thank you very much for your attention and support of China's space industry.

China launched its first manmade satellite, Dong Fang Hong 1, on April 24, 1970, laying a foundation for China's space industry. Setting this day as the National Day of Space Flight demonstrates the particular attention paid by both the Party and the nation to the space industry, China's stance on the peaceful exploration of outer space as well as China's determination to maintain innovation and scale the heights of future development. We hope the establishment of the national day will become an important carrier for developing astronautics, a key platform for space education, scientific exploration and innovation, and a window for the rest of the world to better understand China's space industry.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of China's inception of the space industry. For the past six decades, people working in the industry have dedicated themselves to blazing a trail in the space industry through innovation and building a complete astronautic research and production system as well as an efficient engineering management system, powered by a high-caliber team of skilled men. They have created a space spirit and culture, made outstanding accomplishments in artificial satellite technology, manned space flight and lunar exploration, made solid progress in the development of space technology and science, and made a positive contribution to the promotion of science, the economy and national strength.

Currently, China has successfully soft landed a spacecraft on the moon and has grasped the key technologies of manned space flight, taking the country to the forefront of space technologies in the world. In addition, its self-developed Beidou Navigation System is advancing towards the integration into the global networking and the resolution ratio of remote sensing satellites has entered the Amish era. China has launched the Long March series of carrier rockets for 226 times, with a success rate of over 96 percent. It has satellite systems with complete function ranging from communication, remote sensing and navigation to technological experiment, with nearly 150 satellites currently in orbit. China's space technology has served economic and social development, with remote sensing satellites represented by a Gaofen, Fengyun, Ocean and Resources series widely applied in agriculture, forestry, land observation, mapping, water conservancy, housing construction, environmental protection, disaster reduction, transportation, meteorology and ocean development. A stable and efficient commercialized business model has taken shape in the operation of communication satellites. The development of navigation and positioning satellites are moving on a path of industrialization. The application of various satellites has yielded remarkable economic and social benefits. Take the key project of the high-resolution earth observation system as an example. With several satellites already successfully launched, the high-resolution and applied comprehensive information service platform has enabled over 1,100 companies in 18 sectors and 25 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions to realize data sharing and popularize their professionalized application. China's exploration capacity and research level in space science has improved remarkably. Space science application in manned space flight and moon exploration has made headway in development. Several scientific experiment satellites represented by the Dark Matter Particle Exploration and Practice series have been successfully launched. Many breakthroughs have been achieved in physics, chemistry, life sciences, microgravity and other space science fields. The fields of space debris observation, mitigation and protection have also made great progress. China's space exploration has become an important platform for pooling wisdom and efforts of Chinese scientists.

Recently, an activity designed to solicit ideas about the load design of the moon exploration from the public met with warm responses from young people and science enthusiasts across China. The international cooperation in space flight has achieved great accomplishments with over 100 cooperation agreements signed with 30 state-level space institutions and international organizations. China also proactively promotes the construction of the "Belt and Road" Space Information Corridor and the construction of a remote satellite constellation together with BRICS countries, and supported the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization member countries in building a multi-task, mini-satellite constellation. The World Meteorological Organization listed the Fengyun Satellites as International Business Meteorology Satellites and the International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite System authorized the Beidou Navigation System as one of the four core system suppliers. The export of space navigation products has expanded in scale and variety, with 50 satellites for commercial purposes launched for 44 times, 10 carrier launching services completed and nine satellites exported. All of these demonstrate the fact that China's high-end equipment is going global.

Developing space flight and developing power in the field is our long pursued dream. In the year of 2016, the beginning of China's 13th Five-Year Plan, China's Mars Exploration Project has been officially approved, the National Civil Space Infrastructure Construction has been established, the Chang'e-4 mission has been initiated, the Chang'e-5 project has entered a key stage, the Beidou Navigation System has accelerated integration with global networking and the non-poisonous and pollution-free Long March 5 and 7 Carrier Rockets with high thrust will make a maiden flight this year. The Tiangong-2 and Shenzhou-11 docking crafts, Gaofen-3 Satellite, Fengyun-4 Meteorology Satellite, Hard-X Ray Modulation Telescope Detection Satellite and Quantum Science Experiment Satellite will also be launched this year.

The period of the 13th Five-year Plan will bring about strategic opportunities for China's space development. The 13th Five-year Plan covering Space Flight, the 13th Five-year Plan covering Space Science and the fourth edition of China's Space Flight White Paper will be compiled this year. In the near future, the space flight industry will implement an innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development model, make full use of strategic opportunities, and take a strategy-guided, innovation-driven, integrated and industrial upgrading development path. Following the development concept emphasizing technological innovation and stepping up the two "wings" of space application and space science, China's space flight industry will demonstrate and launch new projects, enhance strategic emerging industries, nurture new businesses of "internet plus satellite application," harvest more self-developed achievements and also push forward the formulation of related laws and regulations. In other words, in five to seven years from now, China will have accomplished key scientific projects in manned space, moon exploration, Beidou navigation and high-resolution earth observation. By 2025, the National Civil Space Infrastructure construction will be completed and the space information application business will be industrialized and developed on a large scale. By 2030, all these capacities will be greatly sharpened and China will become a strong power in space flight.

China unswervingly adheres to the principle of peaceful exploration of outer space and is committed to broadening international exchange and cooperation. Starting from this new point, we are willing to take a more open attitude and collaborate with other countries to compose a new chapter in space exploration and contribute to human welfare.

Thank you. Now, I would like to take your questions.

China Daily:

I have three questions for Mr. Xu. What is the significance of setting April 24 as China's National Day of Space Flight? How does the international community feel about the issue? What activities will be arranged for celebrating China's first space day?

Xu Dazhe:

Thanks for your concern for China's National Day of Space Flight. As I have mentioned earlier, we set April 24 as the National Day of Space Flight to commemorate the launch of China's first home-grown man-made earth satellite, which was the first step in Chinese history for sending people into space and discovering the mysteries of the universe and the peaceful use of space resources. It also means that China became the world's fifth country to launch a home-grown man-made satellite, which was the first milestone in the development of China's space industry. With a history of 60 years, the industry has witnessed three milestones: launching a man-made earth satellite, sending Chinese people into space to have them orbit the earth, and realizing the Chinese millennium dream of landing on the moon. Since the first milestone event is pioneering and fundamental, it is representative and commemorative to mark the day of the event as China's National Day of Space Flight, and has been widely accepted among people dedicated to the space industry and other sectors of society. Before I came here, I learned that space agencies from more than 30 countries have sent their letters of congratulation to the National Space Administration, expressing their interest in the issue.

I believe that setting the day helps inherit the spirit of space flight, which is a part of Chinese culture and involves the traditional space spirit and the spirit to develop atomic and hydrogen bombs and man-made satellites, and also to develop manned space flight. Marking the day helps carry on the spirit and take it forward.

It helps unite Chinese strength. The dream of spaceflight is a part of the Chinese dream. We shall adhere to the Chinese path of development, carry forward the Chinese spirit and enhance Chinese wisdom.

It helps cultivate the culture of innovation. The Chinese space program has witnessed a history of independent innovation because no core technology can be bought; we must develop it by ourselves. In these circumstances, we choose a path of self-reliance and innovation.

It also helps promote opening-up and sharing. The space project is huge and complex, demanding international cooperation for exploring the mysteries of the universe for the benefit of mankind. Countries over the world, especially the big powers, must make joint efforts. I have noticed that countries with a will to become strong nations have invested more in space than they did before. We have been adhering to the principle of the peaceful use of outer space resources and hope to act with wide international cooperation. As I mentioned earlier China's National Day of Space Flight will become a window for the world to learn about China's space development. We are willing to take the opportunity brought about by this issue to enhance cooperation with our international counterparts. Thank you.

TASS:

What achievements do you think have been made due to Sino-Russia cooperation in the space industry so far? In what space fields do you hope to cooperate with Russia?

Xu Dazhe:

China and Russia have established a good method for cooperation. April 12 is Cosmonautics Day in Russia. The general manager of the Russian Federal Space Group Company invited me to attend activities celebrating the day. But it is a pity that I couldn't afford the time then and had to send a representative instead. The general manager, who was the former head of the Russian Federal Space Agency, will make a special trip to Beijing tomorrow to have talks with me and to attend activities for the celebration of China's National Day of Space Flight on April 24, a move that shows that bilateral cooperation has been good in the past and has huge room to develop in the future. The Russian space industry is further ahead than those of other countries and the International Day of Space Flight is set to mark the first man-made satellite launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957. So, it is of great significance to take the opportunity to talk about Sino-Russia cooperation. China and Russia have an outline for cooperation and dozens of collaborative projects, all of which have gone well. We have recently cooperated in aerospace power and electronic components. We will make joint efforts in exploring the mysteries of the universe, making more breakthroughs in space technologies and better use of space resources for the benefits of the people from both nations and all mankind. The room for bilateral cooperation is huge. Thank you.

China National Radio:

The development of China's space industry features a range of highlights and is quite impressive. How do you evaluate the level and strength of the industry as a whole? What's the schedule, plan and target for China's space industry? What kind of large project will be implemented next?

Xu Dazhe:

China now is truly a large country in the space industry, but the United States and Russia are still ahead and the European Space Agency (ESA) also has advanced technology. Currently, China is stepping forward to become a major power in the space industry. We hope that with the implementation of the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020), China can become one of the great powers in the industry in the next 15 years. That's a brief answer for your first question.

China's 13th Five-Year Plan has listed a number of large projects in the space industry that will be implemented in the next five years. Currently, the first thing we should do is to continue focusing on existing projects, including the third part of manned space flight, the third part of moon exploration, and the third part of the Beidou Navigation Satellite System, which are expected to be finished in five to seven years. We also plan to complete a high resolution earth observation system at the end of 13th Five-Year Plan.

Next, we will take about10 years to establish our national civil space infrastructure, which has already been released to the world. During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, we plan to develop deep space exploration, spacecraft on-orbit services and maintenance systems, a sky-earth integration information network and heavy-carrier rockets. This year is the 60th anniversary of China's inception of the space industry, and we have many programs to be launched. In January 2016, we approved the Mars exploration project. Chang'e 4 will land on the far side of the moon, which will be the first landing on the far side by a human being. And the key technology plan for heavy-carrier rockets has been approved. Thus, we have very much work to do on engineering developments for space flight during this period.

As the administrator of the China National Space Administration, I would like to say that in my mind, I have to think not only about aerospace engineering, but also space science and application. The biggest transformation for China's space industry now is to use space resources to serve national economic development and people's wellbeing. Therefore, the three systems -- remote sensing, navigation, communication -- will be expanded accordingly. Just now, I mentioned the development concept of emphasizing technological innovation and stepping up the two "wings" of space application and space science, which is a big change for us. We also should contribute more to mankind. Regarding space science, we will explore more unknown areas and understand more about surviving environments and the space environment of the earth.

NHK:

According to previous media reports, China will establish a space station around 2020. But Xinhua reported yesterday that the establishment will be carried out around 2022. Which is the exact year? If the plan is changed, why? You said just now that China would establish national civil space infrastructure around 2025, what kind of infrastructure do you mean? Could you give us a brief introduction about that?

Xu Dazhe:

Our plan is to establish a space station around 2020, and we are now carrying out a space lab project. This year, we will launch Tiangong-2 and Shenzhou-11, and conduct a range of tests for a space lab. Around 2020 or 2022, we plan to establish our space station without any change. The word "around" means 2020, 2021 or 2022, it's not an exact number. As for why, manned space flight is a challenging and complicated project, our plan is to accomplish it in 2022. Regarding your question about national civil space infrastructure, I think you can find some documents online. We plan to establish three systems: relatively completed remote sensing, navigation and communication system, in order to serve mankind and people's wellbeing. Currently, I pay more attention on how to improve strategic emerging industries and their applications. Thank you.

China Space News:

Recently, the nation has been mourning the death of Liang Sili, one of China's pioneering space scientists. Meanwhile, people have pondered again the challenging question posed by famous scientist Qian Xuesen why China's schools fail to nurture outstanding talent. My question is how will China cultivate space talent in the future? Are there any specific plans or ideas?

Xu Dazhe:

China's achievements in the space industry can be attributed to both the old generation of patriotic and dedicated scientists and technicians and the subsequent generations of high-quality, innovative talent. As you can see, many chief engineers of satellite, rocket and other large-scale projects are quite young. As far as I can remember, many foreign officials have said that they fully recognize China's achievements in the space, but they were more impressed by China's untapped potential, because there are so many young talented people who can go on working for many years.

As for the challenging question posed by Qian Xuesen, I just want to say that the purpose of creating the National Day of Space Flight is to promote innovation and to create an atmosphere welcoming to talent. We need more original ideas and leading scientists. I knew Mr. Liang very well, while Mr. Qian was the first director of an institution where I worked. I had discussed the issue with Mr. Qian. He gave us great encouragement. He believed that the young generation is working harder and doing better than his generation. But we also noticed that we need to work harder to promote innovation. We must allow people to try new things and make mistakes. We have to develop more incentive policies. This is very important.

The Communist Party of China and the Chinese government have established many methods for honoring and awarding scientists and technicians for their major contributions to the country's space industry. But those contributing to other sectors will not be overlooked. Of the 23 owners of the Two Bombs and One Satellite Award, 12 had engaged in the space industry. Their honor has stimulated generations of space scientists and technicians. The ongoing solicitation of innovative lunar probe design is meant to increase public enthusiasm for innovation.

By the way, I want to share with you one of my stories. The year before last, I visited the United States and talked with the head of NASA. During the talk, I said that space activities have many purposes. First and most importantly, it should inspire dreaming. This is very important to mankind. Second, it should promote innovation. Third, it should be beneficial to people. Fourth, it should promote cooperation. An important space industry can give outstanding scientists and technicians a chance to distinguish themselves from others.

The challenging question posed by Qian Xuese has prompted us to think about many issues. In the future, we will cooperate with the Ministry of Education, the China Association for Science and Technology, the Communist Youth League Central Committee and other departments to further arouse public interest in scientific study and pass down the spirit of Wan Hu, a legendary space pioneer in ancient China, to our children and our children's children.

Takungpao:

My first question is about China's satellites. Could you tell us what benefits they have created? The second question is about China's space industry. What role has it played in China's economic and social development? As a strategic new industry, how can it create large benefits after receiving so much investment? When you answered the questions just now, you repeatedly said that the space industry has made great contributions to the improvement of people's livelihood. Could you give us some specific examples of this? What special benefits can people get from it?

Xu Dazhe:

It's true that the space industry needs a lot of investment, but it can also create great social and economic benefits and cultivate a lot of talent. The industry has a close connection to people's livelihood. There is a popular saying that the further the spacecrafts go, the closer the space technologies come to us. China's first satellite only played the song "The East Is Red" in space. That was its only goal. This story is known by many of you here. But today, our life is closely connected with space technologies and satellite applications. For example, before we leave home, we usually check the weather forecast. China's weather satellites enjoy a good reputation throughout the world. They have made great contributions to global atmosphere observation and weather forecast. If we want to make a journey, we will use a navigation satellite, positioning satellite and Earth observation satellite.

When we want to know global news, we will use direct broadcast satellites and communications satellites. In the hinterland, even medical care and education depend on distance services provided by satellites. As soon as we launched a couple of satellites for the High-Resolution Earth Observation System, 25 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government began to build corresponding data centers. Why did they do so? That is because the satellites are closely connected with our daily life. You might have read the news about the heavy metal pollution of soil. Here you need the help of remote sensing satellites, which can analyze land use and soil conditions. Satellites have also been used to monitor plant coverage, mineral exploitation and precision farming activities. They can also estimate grain output. When Ecuador was hit by a major earthquake, we immediately provided it with pictures of the quake-hit area before and after the disaster to help the victims. The United Nations set up a platform for space-based information for disaster management and emergency response in China. So, I have reasonable ground to say that the space industry has a direct bearing on our life. If we can obtain 3D elevation photos, they will help water conservation and urban construction projects. Just a few days ago, we held a meeting to study how to use space resources to help the targeted poverty reduction campaign. This is a major task of the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020). More than 50 million Chinese people need to be lifted out of poverty. Satellites can give us a lot of data. If we can make good use of them, they will help us in all circles of life.

The data provided by the Chang'e lunar probe project has offered important data to scientists for studying moon and space environments. Therefore, you can see that the benefits of the space industry are mostly intangible. Some people have made calculations and concluded that one unit of growth in the space industry can stimulate the growth of other sectors by 10 times or even higher. When the terminal-end application of a navigation satellite was upgraded, millions of people applied for registration, because the satellite is important to transportation and fishery industries. Just now, I talked about China's key space infrastructure. If we can build it in 10 years, it will create more social and economic benefits. By then, all communications activities can be done on broadband, even if you use a fixed network or mobile network.

Moreover, satellites can be used in public management and social governance, which are also important to us. Many departments have followed our progress closely. We are making satellite observation plans, but our schedule is too tight. We can't fully satisfy the needs of national economic development and social governance. This is the current situation: We can meet basic needs, but we can't meet all of them.

Reuters:

Some people have criticized China's space program, saying it lacks transparency and might contain military implications. I wish to know how you would respond to such criticism. Also, I wonder if you would provide some details about China's annual budget for its space program.

Xu Dazhe:

China's development of its space program features openness, one of the country's five keywords in the principal ideas for development, as evidenced by our cooperation with many countries. Today, the government is holding such a press conference and I am here to answer your questions. This shows our open attitude. I just now briefed you on our plans for this year and for the next five years and ten years, telling the world such information. It's fair to say that China is becoming increasingly open, and its information increasingly transparent.

Space resources can serve national security and the economy, and therefore we integrate military and civil development into our strategy. We use space resources for preserving world peace and safeguarding China's national defense; this is an understandable pursuit. I think, on this subject, China is more and more open. I hope our friends in the United States will notice this so that we may cooperate with our American colleagues in developing astronautic technologies.

I noticed that the U.S. film "The Martian" has an imaginary scenario in which China and the United States jointly conduct a rescue mission on Mars, which shows that our American colleagues are also very keen on cooperating with us. But sadly, due to well-known reasons, obstacles still remain to our cooperation. The positive fact, however, is that we opened up a new dialogue mechanism last year, based on which we will continue our communication this year.

Speaking of the budget, China's budget for the space program is on par with its economic growth. In the latest NPC session, we announced the budget, too. Here, I can tell you, friends from the United States, that our budget is far smaller than that of the U.S. government, roughly 1/10 according to some American colleagues' analysis. The figure represents a certain degree of accuracy. That is all that I want to say. Thank you.

CCTV and CNTV:

In your briefing just now, we heard that China has formally approved its Mars exploration program. Would you please elaborate on some details? Also, since China has been very successful with its manned spacecrafts, lunar exploration flights, the Beidou sat-nav system and the Gaofen series earth surveillance satellites, I wish to know if there are new space projects to be accomplished during the 13th Five-Year Plan? Please tell us about them.

Xu Dazhe:

It has been approved to launch a Mars exploration satellite around 2020, the final year of the 13th Five-Year Plan. The probe is expected to orbit Mars, land and deploy a rover all in one mission. This is a very difficult task. Mars exploration is a major undertaking for space science and astronautics. Our Mars exploration mission was approved on Jan. 11 of this year. As the window of launch only appears once every 26 months, we are carefully making detailed plans so that we can carry out the mission in 2020, a window of opportunity.

This is a challenge for us, since only the United States has thus far both landed and conducted surface exploration on Mars successfully, and Russia has only successfully landed on Mars. We hope to complete the tasks in one mission, a fairly big leap I would say. Our Mars rover could study the soil, environment, atmosphere on Mars, and check the water on Mars, something we are highly concerned about. Studying these allows human beings to study themselves, including how life originated and what is the environment the Earth exists in. Mars is fairly close to our Earth in many aspects, because it has a certain thickness of atmosphere, but it is different from the Moon, so Mars exploration will represent China's deep space exploration in its truest meanings. Although our spacecraft have already flown into the deep space, deep space exploration cannot be a reality until we have accomplished Mars exploration.

CRI:

We know that two weeks ago, the U.S. SpaceX company successfully recovered a carrier rocket on a floating sea platform, a milestone in the human history of astronautics. It brought back the world's attention to commercial space flight. Apart from the United States, all major astronautic powers in the world have been actively promoting commercial space flights, which saw SpaceX and its peer companies rushing to take part in space exploration. What is the current development of China's commercial space flight? When will China's own 'SpaceX' appear?

Xu Dazhe:

SpaceX recovered the first-stage booster with success. But to be able to reuse and to relaunch the recovered rocket is a long way away. While we respect the courage of SpaceX, having only booster recovery technology is not enough to make low-cost launches or reduce the general cost of astronautics. It requires us to keep working on engineering and technological development as well as change the way we launch rockets. Lowering costs is a pursuit for us in the engineering sector, and in that way we can reduce expenses, making it more affordable. We should learn from our peers their courage in this regard.

Speaking of commercial space flights, China is already in the business. As I mentioned just now, China has been in the space flight service for many countries, and with all of them we signed contracts. But how we should make the most of social resources and make them serve the astronautic industry is a matter that our government is concerned about. We have an open attitude; we encourage social resources to contribute to the astronautic sector.

In addition, I wish to say that the country set up the National Day of Space Flight to raise the entire society's attention to astronautics, so that all kinds of companies, including those in the private sector, will actively contribute to the development of China's astronautic industry. At the same time, astronautics is a high-risk industry and requires every legal person and every enterprise to carefully understand the opportunities. China has raised the integration of military and civil efforts to the importance of national strategy. In so doing, we hope more resources from the private sector will come to China's national defense and astronautic industries. We welcome their participation, and will make more active policies to facilitate the development of commercial space flight.

China Xiaokang (www.chxk.com.cn):

Mr. Xu, as you also serve as chairman of the China Atomic Energy Authority, my question is related to the country's atomic energy. The Fourth Nuclear Security Summit was successfully held in Washington in early April of this year. Nuclear safety has been given close attention by the international community in recent years. As a major nuclear country, what effort and progress has China made in strengthening its own nuclear safety? I hope Mr. Xu can answer this question.

Xu Dazhe:

This question has somewhat slightly deviated from our theme today, but I can still answer your question. Nuclear resources can be very well and peacefully used for the benefit of mankind. However, in order to help the nuclear industry enjoy healthy development, we must pay close attention to nuclear safety and consider it a top priority. China has done a lot of work in the field of nuclear safety. From late March to early April, I paid a visit to Washington. Our approaches to replacing high-enriched uranium with low-enriched uranium and building a nuclear security demonstration center have been recognized by society. We must perform well in nuclear science and nuclear medicine, because they are closely related to our health and our moderately prosperous society. Now, how to make better use of nuclear power and whether we can safely use nuclear power to reach more distant planets are the questions asked of our engineers and scientists. Both of the areas are related to safety, the people's livelihood and our economic development. The purposes are the same. We want to make peaceful use of nuclear energy, and we want to enhance the well-being of mankind. Thank you.

Hu Kaihong:

That's all for today's press conference. Thank you, Mr. Xu.

Xu Dazhe:

Thank you to all of our friends from the press.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (3rd L rear) addresses a conference on religions in Beijing, capital of China. [Xinhua]

Chinese President Xi Jinping has called on authorities to stick to the Communist Party of China (CPC)'s religious policies and improve religious work.

Addressing a conference on religions that concluded on Saturday, Xi said religious affairs carry "special importance" in the work of the CPC and the central government, and that the CPC's religious policies and theories had been proven right through past practices.

He promised to fully implement the Party's policy of religious freedom, manage religious affairs in line with laws, retain the principle of religious independence and self-administration, and help religions adapt to the socialist society.

Authorities should work to unite religious and non-religious people, and guide those religious to love their country, protect the unification of their motherland and serve the overall interests of the Chinese nation.

Religious groups, meanwhile, must adhere to the leadership of the CPC, and support the socialist system and socialism with Chinese characteristics, Xi said.

They should "merge religious doctrines with Chinese culture, abide by Chinese laws and regulations, and devote themselves to China's reform and opening up drive and socialist modernization in order to contribute to the realization of the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation."

The Chinese president said one key mission in helping religions adapt to the socialist society is localization.

"We should guide and educate the religious circle and their followers with the socialist core values, and guide the religious people with ideas of unity, progress, peace and tolerance," Xi said.

Religious groups, he continued, should "dig deep into doctrines and canons that are in line with social harmony and progress, and favorable for the building of a healthy and civilized society, and interpret religious doctrines in a way that is conducive to modern China's progress and in line with our excellent traditional culture."

Politics and religions must be separated, Xi stressed. "In no way should religions interfere with government administration, judiciary and education," he said.

Meanwhile, the government's regulation of religious affairs must be in line with laws and the legitimate rights of religious people must be protected.

Authorities must offer necessary support to the work of religious groups, and build a leadership that is politically trustworthy, democratic in conduct and efficient in their daily work.

"We must resolutely guard against overseas infiltrations via religious means and prevent ideological infringement by extremists," Xi said, adding that authorities should also focus on religious issues on the Internet and disseminate the Party's religious policies and theories online.

The Chinese president urged authorities to put religious work high on their work agenda, enhance the Party's research into religious issues and step up the guidance, planning, direction and supervision on religious work.

In particular, CPC members must act as "unyielding Marxist atheists, consolidate their faith, and bear in mind the Party's tenets."

They must not seek their own values and beliefs from religions, Xi said, adding that efforts should also be made to help teenagers form a scientific outlook of the world, and guide them to believe in science, study science and promote science.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang presided over the two-day meeting, which was also attended by other top leaders including Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, and Wang Qishan.

Li, for his part, urged government organs to study Xi's speech and carry out religions-related work in a more law-based manner.

Efforts should be made to direct the religious circle and their followers to enhance social harmony and work harder towards the realization of the Chinese dream.

Top political advisor Yu Zhengsheng urged authorities to keep in mind the social effects of religions in China. "The positive role of religions should be maximized, and their negative impacts minimized," Yu said.

Highlighting the promotion of rule of law in religious work, Yu also said all sorts of disputes and problems in the religious domain should be addressed correctly and in accordance with laws.
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Photo taken on April 23, 2016 shows candidates entering the exam room in Jinan, east Chinas Shandong province. [Chinanews.com]

The human resources department of east China's Jiangxi Province said on Saturday evening that it has started investigating the alledged leak of the provincial civil service exam.

The annual exams kicked off on Saturday in several provinces across China including Jiangxi. However, some people posted on their social network accounts suggesting the exam information might have been leaked because the questions were the same as on their practice materials.

In addition, a few people were spotted distributing the answers for the tests outside the exam sites after the first test in the morning concluded.

As the exam is conducted jointly, several provinces are involved.

So far, only Jiangxi Province has responded to the situation.

China's revised criminal laws shows zero-tolerance to exam-related misconduct and has defined cheating on major national exams as a criminal crime.

People found guilty of cheating face up to seven years in jail.
Turkey is trying to handle the potential natural gas crisis caused by the volatile situation in the Middle East and its tense ties with Russia.

Turkey has taken diversified measures to handle the potential natural gas crisis caused by the volatile situation in the Middle East and its tense ties with Russia.

So far, Russia has been the largest gas supplier of Turkey, delivering gas to the latter via Ukraine or the Black Sea. However, because of the tensions between Russia and Ukraine, the Ukraine route may be closed by 2019. Turkey thus has to develop a Plan B.

Additionally, the relations between Turkey and Russia have also been less than friendly. In the recent years, the two sides have differed widely on a series of major regional issues, such as the Ukraine crisis and the Syria crisis. At the end of last year, the bilateral ties worsened further as Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet. Given this background, Turkey is eager to reduce its reliance on Russian gas to avoid being "abducted" by the latter in international affairs.

However, it's unlikely to find a substitute for natural gas in the foreseeable future. Therefore, Turkey has to diversify its gas sources to control the risks. Specifically, it has taken three measures.

First, it has been working hard to accelerate the building of the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP), which can deliver gas from Azerbaijan through Georgia and Turkey to Europe. Unfortunately, however, Azerbaijan and Georgia are situated on the border of Europe and Asia, thus easy to fall victim to geopolitical competition. That was why Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu flew to Azerbaijan immediately after the Russian fighter jet incident. He was anxious to make sure that the conflict wouldn't impede the pipeline's progress.

Also, Turkey is actively restoring ties with Israel, so as to gain access to the natural gas resources in the Eastern Mediterranean. For Turkey, there is no way to avoid Israel if it wants to use the gas there. For one thing, Israel has been cooperating with Greece and Cyprus for years to exploit gas in that area; what's more, it's unlikely for Turkey to cooperate with the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, because the latter, as a self-declared state, could not make an effective use of foreign funds, and even if it could, Turkey doesn't have the money and technology to do it.

Sadly, Turkey's efforts to cooperate with Israel are not going well. The two sides couldn't reach a consensus on the Gaza Flotilla incident, and inside Israel, there have been dissenting voices regarding the Eastern Mediterranean project.

Turkey's third option is enhancing infrastructure to improve the use of imported gas. Except for Russia, it has many other gas suppliers, such as Algeria and Nigeria. It has also struck a bigger gas deal with Iran. Also, it has the intention of buying liquefied natural gas from the United States. All these require it to improve infrastructure, hence the new gas facilities at the ports of Eregli and Aliaga.

Turkey has achieved initial success in international gas cooperation. Its gas sources have been diversified. In the future, it's very likely to be a critical juncture at the Asia-Europe gas route.

The author is a doctorate student of international relations with the School of Political Sciences at the University of Haifa.

The article was translated by Chen Xia from an unabridged version published in Chinese.

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in Vientiane on Saturday that China has reached a four-point consensus with Brunei, Cambodia and Laos on the South China Sea issue.

The four countries agreed that the territorial disputes over some islands, rocks and shoals in the South China Sea are not an issue between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a whole which should not affect the development of China-ASEAN relations, Wang told a press conference.

They agreed that the right enjoyed by sovereign states to choose on their own ways to solve disputes under the international law should be respected.

They opposed any attempt to unilaterally impose an agenda on other countries.

The four countries also agreed that territorial and maritime disputes should be resolved through consultations and negotiations by parties directly concerned under Article 4 of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC).

They believed that China and the ASEAN countries are able to jointly maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea through cooperation.

Countries outside the region should play a constructive role in this regard, they agreed.

Laos is the last leg of Wang's three-nation visit, which has taken him to Brunei and Cambodia.
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The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) announced it has conducted a successful underwater test-fire of strategic submarine ballistic missile and the top leader Kim Jong Un guided the test-fire, the official KCNA news agency reported Sunday.

The test-fire aimed to "confirm the stability of the underwater ballistic launching system in the maximum depth of waters, flying kinetic feature under the vertical flight system of the ballistic missile powered by the newly developed high-power solid fuel engine, the reliability of the phased heat separation and the working accuracy of nuclear detonating device of the warhead."

The state media said the test-fire proved "an eye-opening success" and that Kim was satisfied with the result. The DPRK-style submarine-launched ballistic missile technology met all technical requirements for carrying out an underwater attack operation, it said.

Kim said that the submarine-launched ballistic missiles strengthen the underwater operation capability of the navy and that the military is now capable of attacking South Korean forces and the United States any time.

He also urged scientists and technicians to step up the nuclear program in order to launch nuclear attacks on the United States and South Korean authorities "any time when the party (Workers' Party of Korea) is determined to do so."

But the state media did not give the date of the test-fire.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) on Saturday said the DPRK fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula and that the military is closely monitoring the move of DPRK forces for further provocations.

This is the second time the DPRK state-run media has announced the success of the test-fire of a submarine-launched ballistic missile. On May 9 of 2015, the KCNA reported that Kim Jong Un watched the test-fire of a newly developed submarine-launched ballistic missile and called it "a success as signal as satellite launch."
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Russian soldiers help unpack a shipment of relief aid in the town of Rhaibeh in the countryside of Damascus, capital of Syria on April 23, 2016. A Russian cargo plane landed on Saturday in the international airport of Damascus, carrying food parcels and medical supplies to distribute to the afflicted Syrians in hotspots near Damascus. (Xinhua/Ammar)

Russian cargo aircrafts dropped food parcels and medical kits over a district besieged by the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria's eastern province of Deir al-Zour on Saturday, a military source told Xinhua.

The cargo planes airdropped the aid to the trapped people of the Harabish district, which has long been besieged by the IS terror group, said the source on condition of anonymity.

Another Russian cargo plane landed in the international airport of the capital Damascus, carrying aid shipments to the afflicted Syrians, the source added.

Russia has continuously sent relief aid to Syria, particularly to the besieged areas, where its planes would airdrop the food and medicine in the besieged and hard-to-reach areas.

The UN has repeatedly urged the warring parties in Syria to ease the siege imposed on residential areas to allow aid in to alleviate some of the sufferings of the Syrian people.
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Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (2nd R) holds a joint press conference with the visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel (1st R), EU Council President Donald Tusk (1st L) and EU Deputy Commissioner Frans Timmermans in southeastern Turkish province of Gaziantep on April 23, 2016. The European Union (EU) would spend one billion euros (about 1.12 billion U.S. dollars) by July for projects aiming to improve the living condition of Syrian migrants in Turkey, EU Deputy Commissioner Frans Timmermans said Saturday. [Photo:Xinhua/Mert Macit]

The European Union (EU) would spend one billion euros (about 1.12 billion U.S. dollars) by July for projects aiming to improve the living condition of Syrian migrants in Turkey, EU Deputy Commissioner Frans Timmermans said Saturday.

After visiting Nizip 1 camp and child protection center in Turkey's southeastern Gaziantep province bordering Syria, Timmermans said the biggest challenge is the education of Syrians, hailing Turkey's efforts as the "best example" on how refugees should be treated.

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and top EU officials visited Syrian refugees living in a camp near the Turkish-Syrian border, and had discussions with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu about implementation of a deal aimed at stemming the flow of migrants into Europe and keeping the Schengen area safe.

"We'll meet our obligations about Syrian migrants," Merkel said after visiting the camp in the same province.

Merkel was accompanied by the president of the EU Council, Donald Tusk, and Timmermans to inaugurate the EU aid program for Syrians in Turkey.

The German chancellor said education is a major issue for the 370,000 Syrian migrants taking shelter in Gaziantep, and all Syrian children in Gaziantep would be able to have education provided with EU funds.

Germany would also contribute to a cease-fire in Syria, Merkel said, though it was not being implemented properly. She also lent support to Turkey's demand for establishment of special security zones in Syria near the border.

Davutoglu said the Turkish government had managed to decrease the number of irregular migrants crossing the Aegean between Turkey and Greece to 60 a week from 6,800 a day on average, following a deal with the EU to stop illegal migration of Syrian through Turkey to Europe.

Some 105 migrants have been sent to Europe and two Syrians were received back to Turkey from the Aegean Islands, he added.

"From now on first step is taken to mobilize EU funds. An EU project, worth 187 million euros (about 210 million dollars), has been launched today," the Turkish prime minister said, adding that the EU's support would be six billion euros (6.73 billion dollars) in three years.

Illegal migration in the Aegean has been significantly reduced since March, EU's Tusk said, referring to a EU-Turkey deal in which the EU promised to help ease Turkey's burden in hosting some three million refugees, as well as granting visa-free travel to Europe for Turkish citizens as of June.

"We are trying to move illegal migration to a legal framework," Tusk added.

On Wednesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said there were problems with the delivery of the money promised by the EU. He repeated his earlier threat of suspending the re-admission and other deals Turkey had inked with the EU to prevent irregular migration.

The readmission is also part of the March 18 deal between the EU and Turkey to regulate migration and refugee flows.

According to the deal, for every migrant Turkey receives, the EU promised to repatriate one to its member states.

Turkey's migrant readmission agreement with the EU would not be fulfilled without EU visa liberalization for Turkish citizens, Davutoglu said.
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Eight members of one family, including a teenager, were shot dead in rural Ohio on Friday, just before gunmen killed five people in Georgia.

In Ohio, seven bodies were found at three houses close to each other and an eighth was later found at a separate site, Sheriff Charles Reader told reporters.

The victims were "all adults except for a male juvenile" who was 16 years old, he said, and all members of a single family.

Two babies -- one aged four days, the other six months -- and a three-year-old child survived the shootings, he added.

The authorities gave no possible motive. And, with at least one suspected gunman still on the loose, no arrests have been made.

"Each one of the victims appears to have been executed, each one of the victims appears to have been shot in the head," Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said.

"The preliminary determination has been made that none of the individuals committed suicide," he added, saying the shooter or shooters "are still at large. We do not know their location."

Several victims were in bed when they were shot, Reader said.

The first and fourth crime scenes are separated by 30 miles (50 kilometers), the sheriff's office said.

Earlier, DeWine and Reader said in a joint statement that the first seven victims had been found "in three Union Hill Road homes in Pike County," a rural community about 80 miles east of Cincinnati.

There was no "active shooter," they said.

Schools in Pike County and surrounding areas were earlier placed on lockdown as a precautionary measure, local media reported.

Agents from the Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Investigation were leading the investigation, the statement said.

Ohio Governor and Republican presidential candidate John Kasich tweeted that the situation was "beyond comprehension."

Meanwhile, five people were found dead in northern Georgia, in two separate incidents believed to be a domestic dispute, Columbia county sheriff's officials said, according to television reports.

Local coroner Vernon Collins said five people were dead in two shootings that are possibly connected, the report added.

Firearms kill some 30,000 people in the United States each year.

However, Republican lawmakers, many of whom are backed by the powerful National Rifle Association, have blocked President Barack Obama's attempt to pass gun control legislation.
China's corn inventory will stay at a high level for a long time with the abundant supply expected to keep downward pressure on the price in the foreseeable future, an economist with the United States Department of Agriculture said on Saturday.

Fredrick Gale, an economist with the USDA Economic Research Service, said in a panel speech at the 2016 China Agricultural Outlook conference that China's corn stockpile will continue to increase this year despite intensified efforts by authorities to reduce the stocks.

"Our projections show that even after this year, there will be an increase in corn inventory in China," he said, adding that the USDA expects that China's corn inventory will peak in the 2017/18 market year.

China's corn stockpile has already reached a historic high of 200 million metric tons in April, the amount the country can consume in one year.

The State Administration of Grain announced last month that it will phase out its corn stockpiling scheme and allow markets to set prices for the grain, as part of an effort to narrow a gap between local and international prices and to reduce the corn stockpile.

The government will instead provide subsidies to the corn farmers directly.

The Ministry of Agriculture also said in November that it will reduce the corn acreage in 13 provincial areas in North, Northwest and Southwest China to help reduce the crop area.

Gale said China's corn inventory has become so high that it is difficult for the market to absorb it in a short time, adding that the USDA's estimate on China's corn consumption is lower than the estimates of China's agricultural ministry.

Gale said that the downward pressure for corn will be bad news for the farmers, but will benefit the feed companies and the pork and livestock industry.

Robert Johansson, chief economist with the USDA, said in an interview that there will be more farmers in the US who are expected to grow corn this year, and he expects the corn prices to come down this year as a result of the increased supply.

Johansson said the USDA expects the demand for feed grains and soybeans, and the livestock market in China will remain strong, and that could help continue to drive the imports of corn substitutes, such as sorghum barley and DDGs, from the US.

"We hope we can continue to sell products to feed sectors in China as long as our prices are competitive in the market," he said.
Resource-dependent provinces are losing ground to southeast provinces that do well in technology and manufacturing-oriented innovation, a report by a think tank under the nation's top planning authority said on Saturday.

"China's economic growth shows strong regional disparities and there is a widening gulf between coastal and interior provinces," said Yi Changliang, head of China Academy of Development and Reform, a think tank under National Development Reform Commission.

Yi expected that by analyzing performance index breakdown, local government in different regions will be able to better find their comparative advantages to facilitate structural changes.

Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang are the three provinces with the highest scores on China Development Index, a ranking that gauges regional performances based mainly on economic openness and potential for development of innovative industries, while Liaoning province, which relies heavily on resource and traditional industries, takes the bottom spot.

According to the report, Guangdong province leads in many areas the index takes into account, such as value-added tax paid by foreign-funded enterprises last year, the number of industries with annual sales higher than 5 million yuan, patents, and investment made in high-tech inventions.

Guangdong also tops among 20 provinces and cities that have so far released economic growth figures in the first quarter.

Yi said strong potential for future development in innovation in provinces such as Guangdong would sustain healthy economic development.

While it might take long for interior regions to find new growth engines amid economic downward pressure, Yi said they have a chance to catch up as the country is providing policy support to drive innovations, as long as they are willing to give up the old development model.

More investment is likely to pour in if the government is willing to foster the process of cultivating new industries such as the service sector, said Yi.

Xu Shaoshi, head of National Development Reform Commission, said in a meeting earlier this month that the government would establish more pilot programs in northeastern provinces this year.
Shenzhen, the birthplace of China's high-tech giants, plans to build incubators in foreign countries, including the Silicon Valley, Europe and Israel, as the southern city reaches out to global technology talents, the city's mayor said on Sunday.

"We will look for the most cutting-edge programs and talents to serve the well beings of people by using global resources," Xu Qin, mayor of Shenzhen, said at a press briefing.

Shenzhen, which neighbors Hong Kong, was created as the mainland's earliest special economic zone in 1983. The city has been at the forefront of technology innovations and is trying to become China's Silicon Valley. It is the birth place of tech giants, such as Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp.

The city's R&D investment accounted for 4 percent of its GDP last year, which is about the same as of South Korea.

The city has earmarked information technologies, biotechnologies, renewable energy and new materials as strategic industries and provides about 3 billion yuan annually as subsidies to these companies, Xu said. These industries now contribute about 40 percent of the city's GDP.

Such policies have helped the city weather the global economic downturn. Shenzhen's GDP grew 8.9 percent last year, 0.1 percentage point higher than 2014, while the country's GDP growth hit a record low in 25 years at 6.9 percent.
Religious leaders and scholars in China have voiced support for the government's stance on religions outlined by President Xi Jinping at a top-level conference.

Religious communities were advised to retain their independence and self-management by the president in his speech at the two-day National Work Conference on Religions that ended on Saturday in Beijing.

There are believers from nearly all the world's major religions in China, although nonbelievers comprise the majority of the population. Mu Zhong- jian, a professor of religious studies at Renmin University of China, describes China as a "United Nations of all religions".

At the conference, Xi said China is determined to protect its harmonious social relations among believers of various faiths. It also aims to protect believers and nonbelievers from attempted infiltration by external forces and from extremist ideas.

"We should guide and educate the religious circle and followers with socialist core values, and guide religious people with the ideas of unity, progress, peace and tolerance," he said.

At the same time, no religion can interfere with the administrative, judicial and educational functions of the State, the president said, adding that the State must uphold the rule of law when overseeing religious affairs that have a bearing on State or public interests.

Guo Chengzhen, vice-president of the Islamic Association of China, said the national religious conference provided a comprehensive guideline on religions' role in Chinese society.

"Localization for different religions has been discussed in the past, but until the conference, people were not quite clear how this should proceed."

Father Paul Lei Shiyin, the bishop of Leshan diocese in Sichuan province, under the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, said the conference had promised to provide the necessary support to various religious groups.

As a result, the Catholic Church in China now stands a better chance of overcoming the difficulties it faces, such as a shortage of clergy and being able to better serve society.

Cao Nanlai, an associate professor of religious studies at Renmin University of China, said the idea of localization is a very inclusive term and may provide enough room for different religions to develop their own innovative practices in China.

"A highlight of the conference was the government's confidence that religious canons and practices  no matter what they are  can be made to serve social harmony and progress, and can work with the core values of the modern China."

Mu, the Renmin University professor, explaining the philosophical root of China's religious policies, said there are different versions of atheism.

The atheism practiced in China not only allows, but respects, religious faiths on the individual level. It is an atheism that is based on equality and inclusiveness, Mu said.
The first public library on China's southernmost island city of Sansha opened on Thursday in the city's only school.

The school, which opened in November last year, has 28 students of kindergarten and primary-school age and 10 teachers.

Established in July 2012, Sansha administers more than 200 islets, sandbanks and reefs in the Xisha, Zhongsha and Nansha island groups, as well as two million square km of surrounding waters in the South China Sea.

On Thursday, China Publishing Group Corp. inked an agreement with the city government of Sansha to build and manage the public library.

The agreement was signed on Yongxing Island, one of the Xisha islands and the city's administrative base. The publishing house donated 13,000 books worth 300,000 yuan (46,320 $US) to the Yongxing School.

According to the agreement, the library is temporarily housed at the school, until the city government builds another venue.

Xiao Fang, president of Yongxing School, said life on the islands is still difficult because of a lack of facilities. People are also thirsty for good reading materials.

"The library will be a cultural bridge between the islands and the mainland," said Fan Xi'an, an executive of the publishing house.

The company also promised newly-published books would be added to the library's collection every year.
A Chinese bookstore closed on Saturday, World Book Day, in a stunt its owner said was intended to encourage people to think of reading as a lifelong habit, rather than a fad for a day.

The Songshe bookstore in Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province has eschewed the fanfare and heavy promotions of high-street and online rivals.

World Book Day has been organized by UNESCO since 1995. Many writers have weighed in on the importance of reading on this day and bookstores typically take it as a sales opportunity.

But Liu Lei, Songhe's owner, said the store's closure "would send out a powerful message."

There are some who seem to agree.

"It's as if mankind had not heard about books until today. Everybody is talking about reading on social networks," said avid reader Feng Jiantang. "People should read simply because they want to, not to impress others."
Activities across China mark 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death

One of the films featured at the sixth Beijing International Film Festival, which closed over the weekend, is the 2015 version of Macbeth, starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard and directed by Justin Kurzel. "Even if you have never read the original, you'll still be impressed with the visual presentation," wrote Xu Ruofeng, a Chinese critic reviewing the movie. For the 400th anniversary celebrations of the Bard's death, a flurry of activities in publishing, theater and films is taking place across China, bringing him closer to the Chinese public. Never before have Chinese lovers of Shakespeare had so many ways of approaching his immortal works.

Tickets sold out for the filmed stage production of Hamlet, featuring Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role, and which had limited screenings in selected Chinese cities.

Other Shakespearean plays in the National Theatre Live series, such as Nicholas Hytner's Othello and Sam Mendes' King Lear, will surely be welcome additions to the lineup of the Bard's offerings.

Even Coriolanus, a relatively obscure Shakespearean work by Chinese standards, wowed audiences, partly because it stars Tom Hiddleston of Thor fame and partly because a Chinese stage adaptation has put a local spin on it, sinicizing the title to General Kou Liulan. It was directed by stage luminary Lin Zhaohua.

Data is not available on how many of the Bard's plays have graced the Chinese stage, but perennial favorites such as Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet obviously have been presented more often than others.

However, complete Chinese translations seem easier to compile and publish.

RSC initiative

The Beijing-based Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press has just come out with a new complete version, supported by the British Council.

The bilingual format uses an English-language edition originally authorized by the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Chinese translations by eminent scholars including Xu Yuanchong.

In recent months, the RSC has also launched its own initiative to translate a new Chinese version specially tailored for the stage.

Another sorely needed Chinese translation for the purpose of title projection, which should adhere to the Bard's mantra that "brevity is the soul of wit", would help greatly with touring productions in the original tongue, but has not made it to the agendas of translators or sponsors so far.

The most influential version to date is the one by Zhu Shenghao (1911-44), who completed work on 31 of the plays under the direst of circumstances, including poor health and the Japanese invasion of China (he lost his translation manuscripts more than once to Japanese fires).

His genius in capturing the essence of the Bard's work could be the single most important factor in making Shakespeare accessible to one-fifth of the world's population.

Liang Shiqiu (1902-87) is so far the only Chinese who has translated every piece credited to Shakespeare. But his version is less literary and more verbatim, thus suitable for textual research for non-English speakers. Liang's version was republished this month by Penguin.

Fang Ping (1921-2008) was responsible for much of the first complete version that replicated the verse form.

Considering the difficulty of translating the Bard's lines, not to mention the ambiguity of some words, there will be no shortage of Chinese translators taking on this daunting task. According to Lu Gusun, a professor of English language at Fudan University in Shanghai, as many as three Chinese versions of Hamlet appeared before 1949, and more have seen the light of day since.

President's speech

But there is still no ideal equivalent for "To be or not to be", which is arguably the best-known Shakespearean quote in China. (Incidentally, the British Council is sponsoring a campaign for Chinese to share their Shakespearean quotes, which can be from his plays or poems.)

Shakespeare's plays have been a staple of Chinese theater or literature students. This year's celebrations are doubly meaningful because China's great dramatist Tang Xianzu died in the same year as Shakespeare, and comparative studies of the two are now in vogue.

In October, while giving a speech in London, President Xi Jinping recounted his exposure as a youth to the Bard, saying how he was attracted by the emotions in A Midsummer Night's Dream,The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth.

He also described Tang as the "Shakespeare of the East", adding, "China and Britain can share our celebrations of two literary giants and push the mutual understanding and exchange of our peoples."
Editor's note: Some Chinese universities are considering a limit on the surging number of visitors to their campuses amid concerns that the tourists might disrupt the running of the university. Should visitors be banned or restricted from entering the campuses?

Catherine (US)

Many of the well-known colleges around the world have places of historical significance or cultural value, for instance, Cambridge or Harvard. They have become tourist attractions that bring more people to campus, which makes campus look busier to people are visiting for admissions and increases awareness of the school. So, by all means, university campuses should be open to both prospective students and the regular public.
(Photo : Getty Images) According to FDI Intelligence, India attracted more FDI than China in 2015.

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India surpassed China to emerge as the top destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2015. India attracted $63 billion worth of foreign investment last year, according to FDI Intelligence - a unit of the Financial Times group.



"India replaced China as the top destination for FDI by capital investment following a year of high-value project announcements, specifically across the coal, oil and natural gas and renewable energy sectors," the FDI report said.



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The report claimed that number of projects in India rose by eight percent to 697, as compared to China's 789 projects, last year. However, the value of investments was much higher in India, helping Delhi to surpass Beijing in the FDI race.



Several well known foreign MNCs had announced big ticket and long term projects in India last year. This included UK based SunEdison's plan to build a solar panel factory in India and Taiwanese manufacturer's announcing that it would invest $5 billion in India in the next 5 years.



This is the first time that India has overtaken China in the FDI race. For four to five continuous years China piped India in almost all surveys and studies over foreign direct investment.



India is currently seen as a bright spot in the global economy that has been badly battered by recession. The Indian economy clocked 7.3 percent growth in 2015, making it the fastest growing economy in the world.



On other hand, China is at present battling unprecedented economic crisis. Almost all the important economic indicators in the Chinese economy have either witnessed stagnation or lower than expected growth during one and half years.



The Chinese government's decision last month to slash 1.8 billion jobs from steel and coal industries is widely seen as a sign of just how deep current economic crisis is.



However, despite the current economic turmoil, experts believe that it would take almost a decade for India to catch up with China's economic progress.



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Tagschina, India, Indian Economy, Chinese Economy, China and India
(Photo : Getty Images ) North Korea claims Saturday's underground ballistic missile test was a 'remarkable success.'

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North Korea reportedly test-fired a ballistic missile from an underwater platform off its eastern coast on Saturday.



According to North Korean state media, the 'successful' submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test was supervised by country's top leader Kim Jong Un.



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"At the observation post he was briefed on the plan for the test-fire and gave an order for it. As soon as the order was issued, the submarine submerged as low as the biggest depth of waters for launching and fired the ballistic missile," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. "The test-fire was aimed to confirm the stability of the underwater ballistic launching system in the maximum depth of waters."



North Korea's arch rival South Korea raised questions over the success of the launch. South Korean military officials claim that the test was a failure.



"North Korea launched a projectile which was believed to be a submarine-launched ballistic missile around 6:30 pm (09:30 GMT) in the East Sea (Sea of Japan) near the north-eastern port of Sinpo. We are keeping close tabs on the North Korean military and maintaining a full defense posture," a South Korea official noted.



The United States also confirmed the test fire, stressing that any weapon launched using ballistic missile technology is a clear violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions.



"We closely monitor North Korean activities and the situation on the Korean Peninsula, especially North Korean military activities. We call on North Korea to refrain from actions that further destabilize the region and focus instead on taking concrete steps toward fulfilling its commitments and international obligations," U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said.



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TagsNorth Korea, missile, Ballistic, submarine, South Korea
(Photo : Getty Images) Japanese carmaker Toyota believes minivans have potential in the Chinese market.

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Japanese automaker Toyota Motors Corp believes that minivans have the potential to be the next big hit in China's fickle car industry.



Multipurpose-multiperson vehicles (MPVs) are poised to hit the market after the country finally put an end to its one-child policy last year.



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Chinese consumers' change of priorities could boost the demand for family-oriented minivans, Hiroji Onishi, a senior managing officer of Toyota for China, said. He added that with the country's new rule, families are starting to get bigger; thus, the preference for vehicles is bound to grow.



Onishi believes the trend will potentially change soon. "For example, maybe MPVs will be coming out. I think of this because of the two child policy and because children live very close to their parents."



Onishi, however, acknowledged that Toyota still does not see the big demand for MPVs in China for now, but he believes the country is warming to the idea.



"Although there is a limited impact from a big rise in new babies in the medium term, in the long term, we will still be able to see a change in the size of Chinese families," research firm JATO Dynamics Ltd. wrote in a report released in March. "If we connect that to household car purchasing, a car that can comfortably hold all the family members is important."



Currently, SUVs and Crossovers are China's favorites. In fact, both vehicle types climbed nearly seven percent in China's passenger vehicle sales in the first quarter of the year, selling nearly six million units. Meanwhile, sales of SUVs are predicted to soar to 13 percent this year, according to IHS Automotive.



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TagsToyota Motors, minivans, Crossover, SUVs, MPVs, automobile industry, china
(Photo : Getty Images/ Martin Barraud) Economists say that China's total debt may result in a prolonged slowdown of the country's economic growth

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China's total debt increased to 249 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter of this year. According to some economists, this could result in a prolonged slowdown of the country's economic growth.



The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) released data showing that emerging markets as a group had lower debts in the third quarter of last year, at 175 percent of the GDP.



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The BIS data suggests that China owes a debt of 249 percent of its GDP, comparable to the Europe level of 270 percent and the US level of 248 percent.



Ha Jiming, Goldman Sachs Chief Investment Strategist, wrote in a report this year that "Every major country with a rapid increase in debt has experienced either a financial crisis or a prolonged slowdown in GDP growth."



According to Financial Times, Beijing has already resorted to massive lending to help raise economic growth, allowing for a total net debt of 162 trillion yuan ($25 trillion) at the end of March, both domestic and foreign borrowing counted.



While the total amount of debt is a recurring problem for China, one of greater concern is how quickly the debt was accumulated as China's debt was only 148 percent of its GDP back in 2007.



According to economists, it will be difficult for any economy to effectively distribute a large amount of capital within a short period if there are only a limited number of profitable projects available. With the low capital returns, the country is bound to resort to unprecedented loans.



As Beijing spends to support short-term growth as well as to counter long-term financial crisis, its new borrowing surged by 6.2 trillion yuan ($95 million) in the first three months of 2016. According to Central Bank data, this is the biggest three-month surge on record.



Billionaire investor George Soros has shown concern for China saying that "the situation eerily resembles what happened during the financial crisis in the U.S. in 2007-08, which was similarly fuelled by credit growth." Soros also mentioned that the current debt of China is twice the size of its GDP, adding that "It can reach a turning point later than everyone expects. Most of the damage occurred in later years. It's a parabolic cycle."



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(Photo : Getty Images) Toyota plans to introduce plug-in hybrid cars to China in two years.

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Japan's Toyota Motor Corporation is planning to sell heavily electrified "plug-in hybrid" cars in China in 2018, Hiroji Onishi, Toyota's head of operations for China, announced on Sunday at a media event during the Beijing auto show.



Toyota is planning to unveil plug-in hybrid versions of Toyota Corolla and Levin in China by 2018, Onishi said.



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"Our decision to launch plug-in hybrid versions of the Corolla and the Levin reflects the depth of our resolve and commitment to the Chinese market," he said.



The plan aims to make use of purchase incentives offered to Chinese consumers who are buying such fuel-efficient near-all-electric cars as well as with all-electric battery cars in the country.



Onishi, however, did not divulge whether the Japanese carmaker would produce the cars at its two local manufacturing plants for hybrid powertrain components, namely, Toyota Motor (Changshu) Auto Parts and Sinogy Toyota Automotive Energy System.



To qualify for China's incentives for plug-in hybrids, Toyota needs to meet some conditions first.



In its recent announcement, Toyota said it would localize the development of plug-in hybrid vehicles ahead the launching of Levin's and Corolla's plug-in versions in two years.



An insider, who asked for anonymity, said that plug-in hybrids for China allow vehicles to run entirely on electricity as far as over 50 km (30 miles) when charged fully.



Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles combine a diesel and gasoline engine with a rechargeable battery and electric motor. These vehicles have a longer range than conventional hybrids that are not equipped with batteries.



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TagsToyota Motor Corp, china, automobile industry, plug in, hybrid versions, Electric Car
Oklahoma residents will vote in November to decide if an article of state constitution can be abolished to pave the way for the return of a Ten Commandments monument on the Capitol grounds.

A constitutional amendment was passed in Oklahoma Senate by 39-5 to ask residents to vote on restoring a Ten Commandment monument on the Capitol grounds. The House has also approved the proposal 65-7.

The 6-foot-tall granite monument of Ten Commandments was moved from the Capitol grounds after the state Supreme Court ruled that its presence was unconstitutional, citing an article of constitution which prohibits the use of state funds for endorsement of a religion.

The voters will determine if the article can be abolished so that state funds could be directed to support religion.

The privately funded monument was the authorized by state legislature in 2009, and was erected in 2012. A lawsuit was filed for its removal by Bruce Prescott, who is a Baptist minister, on the grounds of violation of state constitution.

When the monument was removed, it angered some Republican lawmakers who said that they would restore the monument.

"Since the Oklahoma Supreme Court's decision in June regarding the Ten Commandments monument, my constituents wanted to know what could be done," Rep. John Paul Jordan (R-Yukon) was quoted as saying by Associated Press. "I knew it would be a difficult proposition to undo the ruling, so we looked at giving voters the opportunity to remove the basis for the ruling."

After the monument was built, other groups also inquired about space to place their monuments on the Capitol grounds. A satanic church in New York, a Hindu leader from Nevada, and a 'Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster,' were among those groups.

The American Civil Liberties Union, who represented Prescott, will challenge the monument in federal court, if it returns after the referendum.

Applications can be submitted by religious groups for putting monuments at the Capitol, but a decision to have them erected has been postponed till later.

When the Oklahoma Supreme Court banned religious displays at the statehouse, the groups started lobbying for statue spaces at Arkansas Capitol, which has also set up its Ten Commandment display.

Arkansas legislature passed the bill to display Ten Commandments on the basis of its historical significance, and not on the grounds of religion.

"We don't want just every group putting a statue on the Capitol grounds," said Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson. "We want it to be exclusive, we want it to be reasoned, we want it to be reflective and I think that's one of the reasons [the Ten Commandments monument] went through the legislative process to accomplish that."
The UK Parliament declared Islamic State violence against ethnic and religious minorities in Syria and Iraq as genocide, and urged the government to approach the UN Security Council for this issue.

Eyewitnesses have recounted numerous cases of ISIS atrocities, such as children beheaded before their parents, Christians tortured, killed, and crucified, in northern Iraq and Syria where the militant group is holding large territories.

The government of UK had abstained from calling ISIS violence as genocide, and maintained that it was up to international courts to decide.

The motion was introduced by MP Fiona Bruce, and passed by 278-0 votes, despite government's efforts to oppose it. Bruce urged the parliament to call it genocide and then refer the case to International Criminal Court (ICC).

"That is why supporting this motion is so important," she said during the debate. "It is about doing justice and about seeing justice being done."

"Recognizing the actions of Daesh as genocide should therefore help inject further momentum into the international efforts to stop the killings," she reiterated.

Bruce told the parliament that a Yazidi teenage girl had testified before her that every girl over the age of eight was raped by ISIS.

"She spoke of witnessing her friends being raped and hearing their screams, of seeing a girl aged nine being raped by so many men that she died," said Bruce.

The European Parliament, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and US Secretary of State John Kerry, have all called the ISIS activities as genocide.

The United Nations says that Islamic State took captive about 7,000 Yazidi women and girls in 2014, and still holds 3,500 as slaves. The group has also committed violence against Christians and Shiite Muslims.

"The British people are horrified by what they hear and see regarding the treatment of these minority groups in Syria and in Iraq, and they rightly expect that this House will use whatever tools are available to us to work to bring this to an end and achieve peace in this troubled part of the world," said Conservative MP Derek Thomas.

"A tool available to us today is to recognize these evil acts as genocide and to use our position as a permanent member of the UN Security Council so that this situation can be investigated by the international criminal court."

A number of faith-based organizations have come in support of labeling ISIS atrocities as genocide, so that communities that are on the verge of extinction in Middle East can be protected.

"We are witnessing nothing short of genocide being committed with horrifying cruelty against Christians and other minorities in the Middle East, Whole communities face annihilation and look to the international community for support," Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury said in a statement.
home US Atheist group sues California city for giant cross in public park

A city in California is getting sued because of a big cross standing in one of its local parks.

Atheist group Freedom from Religion Foundation is demanding that Santa Clara remove the granite Latin cross standing at the Memorial Cross Park. Measuring 14 feet, it was donated to the city in 1953 by the Santa Clara Lions Club to commemorate the second Spanish Catholic mission in the area in 1777.

"The Defendant's acceptance of the Cross from the Santa Clara Lion's Club and its subsequent display and maintenance of the Cross amounts to the advancement of religion, and specifically an endorsement of and affiliation with Christianity, in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution," reads the legal complaint filed by plaintiffs Andrew DeFaria and the FFRF on April 20.

In its complaint, naming Mayor Lisa Gillmore and council members as defendants, the FFRF said they had already sent a letter in 2012 to then-mayor Jamie Matthews about the cross, and they have been following up on the its removal since. The city removed the sign "Memorial Cross Park," although the cross still remains.

"It should not be necessary to sue over such an obvious and blatant establishment of religion," Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president, told Mercury News. "We waited four years for the city to act in good faith."

DeFaria, who lives in Santa Clara in close proximity to the park, has apparently been affected by the presence of the cross.

"As a non-believer in any religion, he finds the Cross on public land objectionable," says the complaint. "As a consequence, he avoids the public park and even goes so far as to avoid the street on which the park and Cross are located in order to avoid the offensive encounter with the City's endorsement of the Christian religion through this symbolism."

The group is requesting the court: to declare that the city's acceptance of the cross and its display is a violation of the Establishment of the First Amendment, of the California constitution, and their constitutional rights; for an injunction to prevent the city from "maintaining or displaying the Cross on public property, or, through subsequent transfer, on private property"; for nominal damages in their favor; and to be awarded compensation for attorney's fees and other costs.

"No one is being forced on their knees to pray there," Ginger Stasi, president of the Santa Clara Lions Club, said, as quoted by Mercury News. "Honestly, there are so many other problems in the world that need fixing."
home US Billy Graham spokesperson refutes claim that the evangelist referred to North Korea's Kim II Sung as 'God'

Jeremy Blume, the spokesperson of Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA), denied the claim made in North Korea's state media that the evangelist Billy Graham referred to Kim II Sung as "God" and said that people need not read the Bible. The said claim was released during the 104th commemoration of the national founder's birthday.

Graham was quoted to have stated that "he met the greatest among all human beings, who carried out the ultimate art of politics with high morality and being the saint of all saints." He supposedly commented that the way North Korea was ruled made him think that Kim II Sung could be God.

The publication also asserted that Graham understood why he was not allowed to share the Gospel to the North Koreans during his 1992 and 1994 visits.

"Kim is this world's God. Why would a country like this need the Holy Bible?" Graham allegedly told them.

"While Billy Graham made two trips to North Korea and knew the elder president Kim II Sung, Mr. Graham has not said anything like this. These words do not even remotely resemble Mr. Graham's theology or his language," Blume told NK News in an interview.

Graham had occasional trips to North Korea a to meet with Kim II Sung in 1992 and to re-visit sometime in 1994. He was the first religious leader to speak about the Christian faith in Pyongyang and was vocal about the warm welcome accorded to him by the leader and his people, according to BGEA.

His teachings further dispute the claims made because Graham finds it imperative to understand the Bible and considers it as the most important book, according to a column post he wrote himself.

No confirmation was given by Pyongyang based on their records that Graham actually mentioned those words. With only three references available to validate their claim, it was found out that none of the three actually contains the alleged statement.
home US Fitness trainer murdered inside Midlothian church in Texas; authorities speculate targeted attack

A fitness trainer was killed inside a church in Midlothian, Texas early Monday morning. According to the authorities, the murder could have been a targeted attack, but it is also possible that Bevers was killed because she walked in on an attempted burglary.

Terri Bevers went to Creekside Church of Christ to get ready for a fitness class that she was supposed to conduct that morning. At around 5 a.m., her dead body was found by a student who attended her class.

The 45-year-old mother of three is believed to have been killed by a person wearing SWAT tactical gear. Surveillance cameras showed the suspect walking along and vandalizing the church hall at around 3:50 a.m., approximately 30 minutes before Bevers arrived.

Authorities have not been able to establish whether the suspect was a man or a woman.

"We are backing off our statement that the suspect on video was a man. I know we said 'he' over and over again yesterday, and that was a mistake," Police Assistant Chief Kevin Johnson told NBC. He said the gait and appearance showed a possibility that the suspect could be a woman.

"It's a legitimate question right now. We no longer will say the suspect is a man," Johnson said.

Although the authorities are exploring the possibility of a targeted attack, Bevers' husband Brandon believes the opposite.

"It's strictly my opinion, [but] I don't think she was targeted," Brandon said, WFAA reported. He added that he hasn't had much time to process what happened because he needs to take care of the children.

The Dallas County Medical Examiner's office has finished conducting an autopsy but police said they are not releasing information yet about the murderer's possible motive while the investigation is still going on.

"We're discussing all possibilities. And we'll go where the evidence leads us," Johnson said.
home US Georgia doctor fired for preaching, files against state

Eric Walsh, a renowned public health doctor and formerly hired as Georgia's district health director, asserts to have been terminated from his job a day after giving copies of his sermons per request made by Department of Public Health (DPH). Walsh filed a lawsuit on April 20 for the alleged religious discrimination.

"No one in this country should be fired from their job for something that was said in a church or from pulpit during a sermon," Jeremy Dys, First Liberty attorney, told Fox News. "He was fired for something he said in a sermon. If the government is allowed to fire someone over what he said in sermons, they can come after any of us for our beliefs on anything," he added.

First Liberty, a firm known for defending religious freedom, stands for the Seventh-Day Adventist minister, accusing the government body of retaliation and religious discrimination. The lawsuit mentioned that workers were assigned to investigate his preaching, with topics covering health, religion, marriage, and sexuality.

The lawsuit further claimed that after his hiring on May 7, 2014, investigation was done over Walsh's public addresses and sermons, noting public comments on the Internet and his perspectives on various matters described as "public concern."

His contract with the DPH was officially rescinded on May 16, 2014.

"I don't believe I did anything wrong," Walsh told Fox News in an interview, adding, "This has been very painful for me. I am really a strong believer in the Constitution. But now, I feel like maybe all these ideals and values that I was raised to believe a the ideals the country was founded upon a no longer exist."

In an email to Blaze, Nancy Nydam, representative of DPH, stated that the decision was triggered by Walsh's failure to disclose his "outside employment," the knowledge of which came only in the routine background check for employees.

The offer given him was accordingly, conditional, subject to favorable background check results. Department policy states that secondary employment has to be disclosed and given appropriate approval. Said failure was a violation under the agency's policies and a violation of California law.

Adam maintained that Walsh's faith has nothing to do with his termination. She even stated that they knew already of his religious beliefs because he disclosed it in the job interview, including his preaching role in the church.
home Faith Kirk Cameron calls husbands and wives to pursue God's way in marriage tour

Sharing his secrets for a fulfilling marriage, both from Scriptures and from his 25 years with fellow actor Chelsea Noble, Kirk Cameron is teaching married couples across the United States the value of God-centered and lasting marriages in his ongoing national marriage tour "Love Worth Fighting For."

The famous Christian actor and evangelist encourages husbands and wives to know and carry out their respective biblical duties first, instead of taking their partners' roles. He lays out biblical guidelines to make marriages work and inspires hope for struggling ones.

"A lot of people don't know that marriage comes with instructions," Cameron explained when asked about God's guidelines in an interview with The Christian Post. "And, we find them right there in God's word," he added.

Cameron firmly holds in his teachings that reading the Bible as divine instruction book is truly indispensable. Husbands and wives strengthened by God's word are ready to make their marriages last.

He even reminds husbands and wives to obey the primary command that God's word shows, especially in dealing with their spouses.

"[Husbands are called by God] to love their wives and not to tell their wives that they need to submit to them," Cameron emphasized in his interview with The Christian Post. "Wives are to honor and respect and follow their husbands' lead a not to tell their husband how he ought to be a better husband," he continued.

"When each person gets their part right, regardless of how their spouse is treating them, there is hope for real change in their marriage," Cameron also shared.

In a Facebook video posted last month, he also encouraged parents to love and to be godly examples to their children. He stressed that the quantity and quality of time parents spend with their children is very important. Cameron spoke from his personal experience of having six children, two of whom he recently took to the prom.

Cameron's national marriage tour has a full schedule, with the last stop happening on Oct. 15, as the official site states. The year 2016 is also the seventh year of its series, having touched over 200 churches now.
home US Matt Chandler: Christians should engage in politics correctly during election season

With the election season heating up, Matt Chandler, pastor of The Village Church in Texas, encouraged Christians to remember that the coming election is in the hands of God. He also gave a reminder for Christians to engage in politics the right way.

Speaking in a podcast together with pastor Josh Patterson and church staff Anne Lincoln Holbaugh and Kyle Worley, all from The Village Church, Chandler said that God controls the country's political process.

"The Lord's at work in this political process. He's not panicked or nervous a He already knows who our next president is," he stated.

Chandler added that Christians should engage in politics "the right way." They should be mindful, first of all, about where they get their information so they can engage correctly. He also encouraged them to be involved especially at the local level.

They also talked about the pros and cons of the Democratic and Republican parties.

Worley said problems often arise when people expect too much from politics.

"If our hope is in Christ and the kingdom of God then we'll be able to expect from modern politics what it can deliver and not expect more than what it can deliver," he said, and the other speakers agreed.

All four speakers believed that Christians should let their values and convictions dictate how they view laws. The issue of being pro-life, for instance, should not exclusively be about the unborn. It should also encompass other concerns like poverty and war.

The November elections should urge Christians to be more discerning about the country's issues while keeping God's purposes in mind, the speakers said.

The podcast was concluded by a reminder from Patterson that God's people should be more prayerful, "maintain a posture of humility," and recognize that "God is the ultimate hope."
home World Turkish government takes hold of Christian churches, land in Diyarbakir

The Turkish government has seized churches and land in the Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey, and this has caused alarm among those who reside in the area.

Among the churches that the Turkish government took hold of, according The New York Times, is the historic Armenian church of Surp Giragos, one of the largest Armenian churches in the Middle East. Large parcels of land and other churches were also seized, with the government reportedly saying that it wants to have the area restored.

However, the Armenians and Kurds who live in the area alongside other minority groups deem that the government has a hidden agenda. According to the report, they think that officials intend to build condominiums and other luxury rental places that only the rich can afford.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said recently that the Diyarbakir municipality of Sur will become like Toledo, Spain. His office also released a video earlier this month to show their plans.

LRT: Jump Festa Universe Survival arc preview. If a team loses, their universe is immediately destroyed. Hence the name.  Todd Blankenship (@Herms98) December 17, 2016

However, Nora Hovsepian, chairwoman of the Western Region of the Armenian National Committee of America, told NY Times that this is like what happened before the beginning of the the Armenian genocide on April 24, 1915. During that time, she said, properties were confiscated illegally and the people were "displaced under the false guise of temporary relocation for its own protection."

"The temporary relocation turned out to be death marches and permanent disenfranchisement of two million from their ancestral homeland," she said.

In 2011, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during his announcement of their urban renewal plans for Diyarbakir that the government would make the city "into an international tourism destination." Demolition of old and battered residential buildings in Sur started soon after. However, the report says, since many of the structures are protected, large-scale restoration and construction are not allowed, except when urgent expropriation is declared by the government.

Now that the authorities have done just that -- using Article 27 of Turkey's Expropriation Law as a "last resort" to protect and restore the area that has suffered from violent conflict in the last few years -- people are starting to worry. According to the World Watch Monitor, the Virgin Mary Syriac Orthodox Church, the Surp Sarkis Chaldean Catholic Church, the Diyarbakir Protestant Church, the Apostolic Armenian Surp Giragos Church, an Armenian Catholic church, and the Mar Petyun Chaldean Catholic Church are now also under government control.

"The government wants to seize the heart of Diyarbakir and singularize it, ridding it of its rich multifaith and multicultural structure," said former mayor Abdullah Demirbas in a phone interview with the NY Times.

Ahmet Guvener, pastor of Diyarbakir Protestant Church, told World Watch Monitor that the Turkish government did not seize the properties in order to protect them.

"They did so to acquire them," he said.
8 Bible verses that will help you identify false prophets

Are you desperate to know what the future holds? Well, it seems that many of us are, and some of us are even going to extreme lengths to try and find out. Earlier this week, Pope Francis warned Christians against listening to fortune tellers. During a homily he delivered at Domus Sanctae Marthae, he said to those who go to seers or tarot card readers: "You do not follow Jesus! You follow another who gives you another path, a different (path)."

While it's natural to want to know what's around the corner, taking this to the extreme suggests a lack of trust in God. If we attempt to peek into the future when life gets tough, can we really proclaim that we wholly rely on God to protect us? And, if we seek the advice of false prophets, we're more likely to be focused on pursuing the false promises that they offer.

Jesus said: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me," (John 14:6). What God's got planned for us can't be learnt from a fortune teller. If we're genuine about knowing what he wants us to do we should go to him.

The Bible speaks of "many false prophets" and they're abilities to entice believers. They're not always easy to spot and that's why it's useful to remind ourselves of biblical teaching on what characteristics they usually possess.

What the Bible says about the deceitful nature of false prophets

Matthew 7:15 - Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.

Matthew 24:24 - For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.

Romans 16:18 - For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people.

2 Peter 2:1 - But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought thembringing swift destruction on themselves.

What the Bible says about identifying false prophets



Deuteronomy 18:20 - But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.

Jeremiah 23:16 - This is what the Lord Almighty says: "Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord."

2 Corinthians 11:12-13 - And I will keep on doing what I am doing in order to cut the ground from under those who want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the things they boast about. For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ.

1 John 4:1-2 - Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.
Armenian migrants in Turkey fear tense political climate

A century after her forebears fled massacres in Turkey for Armenia, Alla has gone the other way, hoping to win Turkish citizenship after leaving her impoverished homeland.

She works as a nanny in Turkey but fears deportation, one of thousands of undocumented workers from the former Soviet republic who feel hostage to a decades-old diplomatic dispute.

The conflict dates back to the killings of up to 1.5 million Christian Armenians by Ottoman Muslims that were being commemorated on Sunday, with tensions between Armenia and its Turkey-backed neighbour, Azerbaijan, especially amplified this year.

"We live in fear they (the Turkish authorities) can kick us out if something happens," said Alla, who declined having her full name published because of her illegal status in Turkey.

"When I get home from work, I thank God 1,000 times nothing happened," she said. "If I get citizenship, I won't be afraid."

Estimates put the number of Armenians here between 10,000 and 30,000. A bus ticket bringing them from Yerevan to Istanbul and, they hope, a better life costs the equivalent of about $50.

Their numbers are dwarfed by the 3 million Syrians and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have fled war but Armenian migrants feel vulnerable to the changing political winds.

Armenia, along with most Western scholars and two dozen nations, says the 1915 massacre was genocide. Turkey accepts that Armenians were killed during the upheaval of World War One but rejects declarations that it was genocide.

Animosity between the neighbours, whose border is shut, have flared this month after clashes between Muslim Azerbaijan and Armenian-backed Christian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region inside Azerbaijan that is controlled by ethnic Armenians.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the deaths of Azeris "seared our souls" and blamed Armenia for the outbreak of the worst clashes since a 1994 ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh after a war that killed thousands of people on each side.

Turks took to social media to denounce Armenians as "murderers" and proclaim Nagorno-Karabakh "Turkish territory".

"We hear rumours they will kick out Armenians because of the Azerbaijan matter," said Alla, 54. "This hate will never end."

THREAT OF DEPORTATION

Angered by international efforts to deem the century-old killings genocide, Erdogan has threatened to "deport" Armenian migrants. But he has also moved towards reconciliation, expressing condolences over the loss of life in 2014 and sending a minister to church services marking the centennial last year.

Garo Paylan, who in 2015 became one of three lawmakers of Armenian descent to enter Turkey's parliament in 50 years, this week brandished photographs of Armenian deputies killed in 1915 and demanded the assembly investigate their deaths.

"The reason I persist on this 100-year-old issue is because it continues to haunt Turkey," Paylan told Reuters.

This year commemorations were to be more muted than in 2105, with a handful of memorials planned.

Turkey cut ties with Armenia in 1993 at the height of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh. It agreed to restore relations under protocols in 2009 brokered by the United States, Russia and France but the deal did not have Azerbaijan's blessing.

"A renewed conflict could potentially draw in Turkey. It is Russian soldiers guarding Armenia's border with Turkey," said Aybars Gorgulu of the Public Policy and Democracy Studies think tank. "Sooner or later Turkey wants to normalise with Armenia."

Enmity towards Armenia leaves Turkish citizens of Armenian descent exposed, said Yetvart Danzikyan, editor-in-chief of Agos newspaper, which serves 60,000 Armenians out of a population of 78 million. The community faces pressures such as property seizures, poorly funded schools and sporadic violence.

A teenage gunman killed Danzikyan's predecessor, Hrant Dink, in 2007. A court this week began trying senior security officers accused of complicity.

"The state always leaves open wounds," Danzikyan said.

Alla's family fled strife and starvation that gripped the province of Igdir during World War One and the subsequent War of Independence that forged the modern Turkish Republic in 1923. Her grandparents found refuge across the border in Armenia.

Alla now earns $700 a month to support her mother and two children. An adult daughter, who was disabled, died this year.

Low-skilled labourers, especially women, struggle in landlocked Armenia, where per-capita income is about $4,000 an unemployment hovers at 17 percent, according to the World Bank.

Changes to immigration law in 2014 encouraged some Armenians to seek residency, but they must show large savings and pay fines. Alla said her penalty would amount to four months' wages.

New arrivals help sustain a dwindling community that flourished in these lands for four millennia until 1915.

Armenian migrants fill the pews of a Protestant house of worship every Sunday to sing exuberant hymns. The basement serves as an informal primary school with 140 immigrants.

A volunteer said Turkish authorities turn a blind eye so the school can follow the Armenian educational system.

One in three Armenians here does not plan to return home, said Anna Muradyan, a Yerevan-based independent researcher.

"They're aging, their children in Turkey have adapted and know Turkish. If Turkey doesn't expel them, they want to stay," she said.
Atheists display foetus-shaped cookies at university pro-abortion rally, horrifying students

Pro-life students criticised an atheist group at the University of North Georgia (UNG) after the latter displayed foetus and sperm-shaped cookies at a pro-abortion rally on campus this week.

The North Georgia Skeptics Society displayed the cookies with different signs asking students to complete the sentence "Abortion should remain legal because ..."

Some students said abortion should remain legal because "a woman controls her own body," according to CBN News.

UNG Students for Life posted the photos on its Facebook page, saying the images were distasteful.

"Personally, I cannot imagine why one of your members felt it a decent or clever thing to dismember baby cookies by breaking off their heads. Even to simply allow that on your table was tasteless, irresponsible, and vilethere is absolutely no removing yourself from that," wrote Carly McCurry, president of Students for Life, in a letter addressed to Skeptics Society on Facebook.

She said anyone who saw the cookies should have been horrified.

"Indeed in a 20-week abortion, the arms, legs, and head are ripped and torn apart to the unimaginable pain of the pre-born person," she said.

McCurry said another photo showed more dismembered baby heads in plastic containers with the eyes marked with red colour.

"This display was more than crassit was disturbingand it is why people are reacting with as much horror as they are. In fact, I posted this to Planned Parenthood's Action Fund page and those who identify as pro-choice responded with anger, disapproval, and embarrassment," she added.

Georgia Right to Life representatives described the pro-abortion protest as "one of the most disturbing events they had ever attended."

McCurry narrated that one professor yelled at her to leave and checked her permits while the Skeptics Society was openly playing loud rap music that discussed holding women down and raping them.

She said she's sure that most members of the Skeptics Society hate the humour but it's a depiction of the black heart that exists in the pro-abortion movement.

Students for Life founder Lauren Melendez Clickner told CBN News that she hopes students will assess what they believe in abortion, adding that she thinks these students do not know the gravity of what they are doing.

"I see a lot of apathy in college students around the issue. Hopefully they'll start thinking more about it," she said.
China: Xi Jinping warns against foreign infiltration through religion

China must be on guard against foreign infiltration through religion and stop "extremists" spreading their ideology, President Xi Jinping told a top-level meeting on managing religion, state media reported on Sunday.

China must also manage the Internet to promote the Communist Party's religious theories and policies, the official Xinhua news agency cited Xi as saying.

"We must resolutely resist overseas infiltration through religious means and guard against ideological infringement by extremists," Xi was quoted as saying at a two-day national working conference on religion that ended on Saturday.

The ruling Communist Party says it protects freedom of religion, but it keeps a tight rein on religious activities and allows only officially recognised religious institutions to operate.

The government is concerned about what it sees as the growing influence by Islamists in the Xinjiang region in the far west where hundreds of people have been killed over the past few years in violence between members of the Muslim Uighur community and majority Han Chinese.

Officials there have stepped up regulations banning overt signs of religious observance, like veils or beards.

Separately, some Chinese Christians say authorities are limiting their activities and taking down crosses on churches in coastal Zhejiang province.

Authorities have said crosses are removed because they violate regulations against illegal structures.

Protests broke out in 2014 in the heavily Christian city of Wenzhou, also in Zhejiang, over the government's cross demolition campaign.

In January, authorities also said a Christian pastors was being investigated for suspicion of embezzling funds. The investigation came after the pastor opposed the campaign to remove crosses.

Communist party members must adhere to Marxist principles and remain "staunchly atheist", Xi said in his remarks.
Mormon Church records slowest growth rate  but no need to worry, says expert

Should followers of the Mormon Church be concerned about the 1.7-percent increase in membership it recorded last yearthe slowest since 1937?

For blogger and Mormon Church growth expert Matt Martinich, this slowest growth rate should not be a cause of concern for the faithful, because more and more members of the church are becoming active in practising their faith.

Martinich, who founded the blog called "LDS Church Growth" that has been tracking Mormon Church growth and losses for the past eight years, explained that while new memberships are declining, the church saw an "unprecedented year for growth" in 2015 in terms of its territorial divisions called "stakes."

"Congregational growth and stake growth are the best measurements of the increase of active members. Those numbers really say a lot about active membership and leadership," the blogger said in an interview with Religion News Service.

"There's a net increase of 60 stakes, the most new stakes created in any year since 1998, though there were also several stakes closed. That growth has happened all over the world," he added.

For instance, Martinich said a second stake was created in Kenya last month, while two new stakes will emerge in Hong Kong later this month.

The Mormon Church growth expert also said that more active church participation has likewise been observed in some areas. The Church in Mozambique, for instance, "has achieved good results improving convert retention and member activity rates," he said.

"The church has also achieved some marginal progress in some other nations with sizable numbers of Latter-day Saints such as Brazil, Guatemala, and Taiwan. Rapid growth is currently occurring in West Africa," Martinich explained.

In terms of the number of Mormon Church missionaries around the world, Martinich admitted that this has also decreased. He hastened to add though that again, that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

The blogger-expert said the decrease is primarily because of the "surge" implemented by the Mormon Church in 2012, which saw an influx of missionaries sent to the United States.

If the current number of missionaries is compared to the figures before the "surge," an increase of 15,000 will be observed, Martinich explained.

"There were certain countries where they experienced a significant increase in missionaries. In the Philippines the number of Filipinos serving missions doubled. There are countries that have historically sent very few people on missions, like Micronesia and some nations in Africa, where more people from those countries are serving than ever before," he said.
Muslim mob destroys Christian church in Uganda, slaughters members' pigs, saying animals are 'haram'

An angry Muslim mob slaughtered pigs owned by Christians and razed their church building in a village in Uganda last week, the Morning Star News reports.

The irate Muslims destroyed the building of the 450-member Nalugondo Church of Uganda on April 12 two days after killing all the pigs owned by a church lay leader. The pigs were the primary source of income of Samuel Kijali, the church lay leader.

"We cannot live together with neighbours who are infidels. We have to fight for the cause of Allah," the Muslims shouted as they torched the building, said sources in Nalugondo village, 93 miles east of the capital Kampala.

With their church now in ruins, the 450 members of the congregation are left to pray in the open even as the rainy season approaches, a church leader said. Among the church property destroyed were musical instruments, more than 500 plastic chairs and other furniture, he added.

Kijali said before the Muslims came to his farm, he received text messages on his phone saying that he and other Christians in the village must stop raising pigs.

A few weeks later, a group of Muslims led by a certain Kambo Daudo barged into Kijali's farm and killed all his swine.

Kijali then received a text message on his phone, saying: "Let this be known to your church members that pigs are extremely unholy and an abomination before Allah, very outrageous and shameful. They are haram [forbidden] and unlawful as our holy Quran does prohibit them."

The Muslims also sent a text message to church member Kamaala Yokosani, warning him: "We are soon coming for the heads of your pigs."

Acting on their threat, they went to Yokosani's farm on April 5 and butchered all his pigs, sources said.

Although about 85 percent of the people in Uganda are Christian and only 11 percent Muslim, some areas in the east having large Muslim populations, according to Christian News. In Nalugondo village, Muslims outnumber Christians.

"It is quite difficult to resist these militant Muslims, because they have outnumbered us Christians and are accusing us that we are defiling their faith," Kijali said.
Sons of murdered Christian woman embrace Jesus Christ after witnessing mother's martyrdom

A Christian woman newly converted from Islam was recently murdered by her husband and other Muslim fanatics for her act, but she did not die in vain.

As she succumbed to her injuries, two of her sons were so touched by their mother's devotion to her new faith that they decided to follow their mother in embracing Jesus Christ. One of the brothers even brought along his friend.

In a recently filed report, persecution watchdog Open Doors USA tells the story of a woman in Ethiopia named Workitu who converted from Islam to Christianity in August last year.

Her decision angered her husband who, along with other Muslim elders in their community, threatened to kill her unless she returned to Islam.

But Workitu was undaunted. She refused to yield to the threats and stuck to her new faith.

She reported the death threats to church leaders who advised her to report the matter to local authorities in writing. She heeded the advice and wrote a letter telling about the death threats she received and requesting for protection. She sent the letter to the police and local government offices.

However, sources said the officials denied they received her letter.

Last month, Workitu was confronted by her husband and a neighbor who demanded that she sell the drought relief aid she had collected earlier for her family. She refused. This angered the two men who beat her mercilessly even after she had collapsed.

Villagers took her to a hospital where she died from her injuries five days after the attack.

Her two sonsMustafa, in his 20s, and Kedir, 17witnessed their mother's suffering and her steadfast devotion to Jesus Christ.

This prompted them to turn their backs on their father and follow their mother's embrace of Jesus Christ.

"Their mother was the only Christian in their family and the boys told the Christian leaders they want to know more about the Lord their mother worshipped," the Open Doors USA report says.

Ethiopia is ranked No. 18 on Open Door's World Watch List of countries where Christians face the most persecution.

"Ethiopia has many tribes...[who are] not necessarily favourable to Christianity, and in some places like Afar and the Somali regions, tribes are interconnected with Islam," the group says. "The ruling party in the country has blocked all the channels for freedom of expression and assembly, and has also tried to control all religious institutions in a bid to curb dissent."

Open Doors is requesting prayers from Christians worldwide to comfort and strengthen the resolve of their fellow Christians who are being persecuted in Ethiopia and other countries that have no tolerance on Christians.
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After offering free food to first-responders in the Houston area last week in response to the historic floods that soaked the area, Whataburger also found a way to aid more than just appetites.

RELATED: Photos tell story of Houston's historic flood

The popular Texas-based burger chain donated $100,000 to Red Cross to further help with relief efforts. Thousands of homes have been damaged or destroyed in the Houston area and the company urged more businesses in a news release to help aid organizations who are working to rebuild the community.

Find out how you can help at RedCross.org.
A man was fatally stabbed in front of several children at a north Houston birthday party on Saturday night.

Around 9:30 p.m., a family was hosting a children's birthday party on the driveway of their home on Walston near Sellers. Two Hispanic men, believed to be brothers, approached the gathering, apparently in an attempt to be repaid money they were owed.
Houston police are investigating the cause of a pedestrian fatality in west Houston early Sunday.

A pedestrian walking in the southbound lanes of Hillcroft near Windswept was struck and killed by the driver of a white Acura RSX at around 2:40 a.m., said Houston police spokesperson Jodi Silva. The victim, an unidentified Hispanic man, died at the scene.

After fleeing the scene, the Acura driver crashed into the rear of another vehicle at 4908 Hillcroft near Westpark, about three blocks south of where the pedestrian was hit, Silva said. The Acura driver was detained at the second scene and held on suspicion of driving while intoxicated.

The southbound lanes of Hillcroft were closed between Richmond Avenue and Westpark as authorities surveyed the scenes. As of 6 a.m., the investigation remained ongoing. Representatives from the Harris County District Attorney's Office were also on the scene.
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It's not just Trump's controversial opinions about immigration or Hispanic people that make Hispanics afraid, but what he symbolizes. There's never been a presidential candidate like Trump in the U.S., but in Latin America, he is familiar figure: the caudillo.

Journalist Roberto Giustia wrote a recent op-ed called "Chavez y Trump" in El Universal, a leading Venezuelan daily newspaper, where he connects the dots from Trump to other known caudillo leaders like Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.

Giustia said that both Trump and Chavez share a similarity in that they were "consummate showmen with a shrewd ability to manage emotions of a large audience and, using a mixture of half-truths, pin the blame for people's ills on enemies, real or imagined."

The term caudillo originates from the Spanish word for "head, cabeza and describes the leader of a political faction, often linked to a band of armed men," according to Oxford Bibliographies.

One of the first analysis of the term came in 1845, when Argentine author and politician Domingo Faustino Sarmiento described the 19th century caudillos in his essay "Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism." The commentary was mainly of Argentine leader Juan Manuel de Rosas. Caudillos were described as leaders in horseback who ruled the "Spanish American hinterlands" with the supports of militia and followers.

Something that set the caudillo apart from other leader figures is that instead of trying to please everyone, they find themselves "an incarnation of the people's desires and a personality that towers above institutions like political parties" or in other terms, a "messianic figure" to many.

Trump does exactly that, he spits out his personal opinion no matter who agrees or disagrees. Trump has been described as the embodiment of what everyone secretly thinks, but won't say out loud. People who like him worship him for it.

Latin American caudillos want to fight for the poor against corrupted individuals and big businesses in the United States, but Trump wants to fight for America's working class against parasites such as immigrants and the inept leadership of the government.

Those caudillos who find themselves outside of political parties get interesting terms after their names. Caudillos such as Argentine's Juan Domingo Peron earned his term "Peronismo." Hugo Chavez led to the left-wing political ideology named "Chavismo." Now, we're finding ourselves with the growing term of "Trumpismo."

Other Latin American articles have recently described Trump's supporters as one of a cult, which the National Review journalist described when meeting his the republican candidate's supporters. It's that kind of support that has many comparing him to caudillo Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who lost two presidential races in Mexico, but has earned increasing support for the next election.

Another trait that makes Trump a caudillo, is how he sells himself to the public. He made his brand by being a reality TV star in the Apprentice. Chavez similarly put himself in the public with his own show speaking for hours on TV.

Latin American leaders like Venezuelan cabinet minister Moises Naim told the Wall Street Journal that although many are looking for an escape from the mistakes of the political parties over the years, choosing a caudillo, like Trump, might not be the solution.

Other leaders, like Jorge Castaneda, Mexico's former foreign minister agree.

"It's not just the substance of what Trump says, but it's the style. It's a familiar and worrisome style to us," says Castaneda.

Caudillos have sparked their own controversial spin to politics, from Peron to Chavez, find out what makes these Latin American leaders similar to Trump in the gallery above.
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.
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May the force be with Cleveland entrepreneurs such as DriveMyWay, Great Lakes Biomimicry, and winners of TechPint's recent summit.

(Courtesy photo)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Force. An interaction that, when unopposed, will change the motion of an object.

In the entrepreneurial world, there are a number of forces acting out around us. The force of a female entrepreneur changing long-held misconceptions in the commercial driver's license marketplace. The force of what biomimicry could do to this region's already strong, vibrant and growing biotechnology industry. And, the force of startups and the effect of an entrepreneurial culture on Cleveland.

Michael C. DeAloia

Roll on 18 Wheeler. Every country song regarding the life of a truck driver sings about the the hard-knock life of the lonely trucker. But research done by a local startup finds that truckers want what the rest of the workforce desires: less time away from home, a chance to move up the corporate ladder and a better quality of life. DriveMyWay.com is a local startup that is offering a disruptive solution in a slow-to-change industry.

DriveMyWay.com is a unique, online recruiting service that matches Commercial Driver Licensed (CDL) truck drivers with jobs based upon their career qualifications and 23 personal preferences. The site acts as a dual-sided marketplace that allows employers to post for job openings and employees to seek new opportunities in the CDL market. Additional features of DriveMyWay.com include real-time advanced matching and filtered search. And the platform integrates with applicant-tracking systems providing the full ability to export potential employee data.

Beth Potratz recognized that given the shortage of truck driver, coupled with the strong desire of truckers to be close to home and to work more efficiently, necessitated a different employment matching service. In 2014, Potratz left the corporate life and joined the entrepreneurial ranks.

By self-funding the company, Potratz was able to build the platform she always envisioned, and in August 2015 the initial DriveMyWay.com website was took off.

Her company recently was awarded the Innovation Fund Grant B for $100,000 and is working with the staff at JumpStart. DriveMyWay.com is currently seeking the next round of funding and is in discussion with a large group of angel investors. The capital raise will support an increased investment in sales and marketing. Additionally, new monies could go into social media channels to improve the awareness of this fascinating platform.

Potratz is quick to note the incredibly strong and networked entrepreneurial ecosystem in Northeast Ohio. And she is anxious to investigate JumpStart's new Focus Fund, which seeds minority or female led companies in Northeast Ohio.

Birth of Biomimicry. Local entrepreneurial legend Tom Tyrrell is disrupting the parochial biotechnology industry in a very cool, profound way.

Perhaps Tyrrell is best known as the chap who convinced reluctant investors to let him buy three failing steel companies (including the locally based Cuyahoga Works) in 1986. He successfully turned the three steel companies around prior to them being acquired by Birmingham Steel in 1994.

Now Tyrrell is turning his attention to...biomimicry? Biomimicry is the technology of biology. It is the design and production of materials, structures and systems that are modeled after biological organisms and processes. Imagine creating fiber like a spider or capturing the sun's rays like a leaf. It is the next frontier in biotechnology ... consider it super-green technologies.

Tyrrell's new organization Great Lakes Biomimicry is creating favorable conditions for innovation in Northeast Ohio through biomimicry. Objectives of the new non-profit include establishing Northeast Ohio as the global center for "educationally driven economic development inspired by nature." Additionally, Great Lakes Biomimicry hopes to ensure that Cleveland and Akron have an abundant source of biomimicry-trained talent and that its innovation delivers superior economic value for the region.

The non-profit's current focus is to build a solid foundation for its biomimicry Ph.D. fellows program. This innovative program secures the best and brightest minds in biomimicry and brings them to Northeast Ohio. The fellows spend a few years at a local company or research facility pursing new innovations in the field. Through the exhaustive efforts of Tyrrell, Great Lakes has secured $2 million in financial commitments for this Ph.D. fellows program.

Biomimicry is a fascinating industry to watch, and no doubt having Cleveland as the "biomimicry capital" of the world would create an amazing economy of well-educated, highly paid professionals using biology to solve the world's problems.

TechPint Winners. The tech industry celebrated a good year at a recent TechPint Start-Up Summit event. TechPint is one of the largest networking tech events in Northeast Ohio.

The event, based on coworkers votes, took place at the Beachland Ballroom on April 19, as part of OHTec's Tech Week. (It should be noted that I was a judge for the TechPint Start-Up Summit.)

Awards and winners for this year's event included:
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A 13-year-old Cleveland boy was arrested Saturday after police said he robbed two pizza delivery drivers at gunpoint and tried to rob a third.

(File photo)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A 13-year-old boy arrested Saturday is suspected of robbing two pizza delivery drivers at gunpoint and trying to rob a third, police said.

The boy is being held at the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Detention Center on aggravated robbery and attempted aggravated robbery charges, according to police.

Third District detectives identified the boy because he used his own cellphone to place each of the orders, Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association President Steve Loomis said Sunday.

Loomis, who is also a Third District detective, said the boy confessed to investigators to the two robberies and one attempted robbery.

The boy and another teenager called in an order to a pizza shop March 17, Loomis said. As the delivery driver approached the home, the boy and the others were standing outside and called out for the driver to come toward them. The driver instead drove away, Loomis said.

The next day, the boys used the same tactic and robbed a driver of money, a cellphone, pizza and cookies, Loomis said.

The boy is also suspected in a third robbery of a driver, again in Cleveland's Third District, Loomis said.

Detectives obtained a search warrant for information on the cellphone number used in each of the incidents, Loomis said. Investigators tied the subscription information on the account to the boy, and obtained a warrant for his arrest.

The boy is expected to appear in Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court this week.

If you'd like to comment on this post, please visit the Cleveland.com crime and courts comments section.
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A teenage boy and two women were shot Saturday evening in a robbery attempt in Cleveland's South Broadway neighborhood.

(File photo)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A teenage boy and two women were shot Saturday evening in an attempted robbery after they stepped off a bus in Cleveland's South Broadway neighborhood, police said.

A 16-year-old boy was shot in the stomach, and two 18-year-old women were shot in the lower back and thigh, respectively, about 7 p.m. near the corner of Broadway and Osage avenues, police said.

The assailants remain at large.

The victims got off a Greater Cleveland RTA bus and three males ambushed them and tried to rob them, police said. The males opened fire and ran from the scene, police said.

Detectives are not sure how many of the males fired gunshots.

Officers found the wounded boy lying on the ground near Broadway and Fullerton avenues. They gave him emergency first aid until paramedics arrived and rushed him to MetroHealth, police said. The two women left the scene in a Chevrolet Monte Carlo and went to Marymount Hospital, police said.

The women were later transferred to MetroHealth. The victims' conditions were not immediately available Sunday.

Police did not provide a detailed description of the assailants.

If you'd like to comment on this post, please visit the Cleveland.com crime and courts comments section.
BOSTON TOWNSHIP, Ohio - Sometimes Mother Nature needs a helping hand, and on Saturday she had hundreds.

They belonged to nearly 300 volunteers who fanned out across 30 acres of former farmland in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park to plant more than 800 trees.

And it could not have been a better day, because it was Earth Day and because it brightened and warmed as the two-hour task was coming to a close.

Jennie Vasarhelyi, the park's chief of interpretation, education and visitor services, said the volunteers ranged from individuals and families to groups of students from Kent State University, employees of L.L. Bean and Starbucks, University of Michigan alums, Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts and people who work for the AECOM engineering firm.

Saturday was also the first of six annual service days when the national park makes use of volunteers for various projects.

Wendi Blaze of Lakewood said she signed up "because I love our national parks, especially the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, because it's right in our own backyard."

Vasarhelyi said that every year 6,000 volunteers give 200,000 hours to the national park here.

"This park has a degree of excellence that it would not have without the volunteers," she said.

She said other volunteers already had worked with park staff to clear invasive plant species from the farmland.

Saturday's objective was to plant trees that can thrive in a wetland habitat, so the volunteers deployed species that included sycamore, swamp white oak, red maple, sugar maple and birch.

One plant that got a head start on its own was a lone hawthorn tree that is already several years old. It is said to be a magnet for songbirds, according to the Arbor Day Foundation, in part because of the berries it produces in late summer and fall.

Phil Kinson, a volunteer who helped to direct the Saturday event, said hawthorns can also survive the ravages of browsing deer.

Chris Davis, the park's plant biologist, said the 30-acre plot had not been farmed for at least the past decade or two, and Vasarhelyi added that one goal is to make the property a good habitat for songbirds.

She said the next big volunteer event is the Cuyahoga Valley National Park's BioBlitz May 20 and 21, when the public is invited to work with scientists to inventory the biodiversity in the park.
watch now

As Flint, Michigan's water disaster continues, a blueprint to fix the city's lead contamination is being floated by the mayor of the state's capital city. A decade ago, Lansing was able to avoid a toxic tap water disaster in their city by making a decision to initiate a massive lead pipe removal program. It's a solution the city's mayor is advocating to Flint, in order to alleviate a problem that's morphed into a national scandal. "This is a crisis of epic proportions," Lansing Mayor Virgil "Virg" Bernero told CNBC's "On the Money" in a recent interview. "Those lead pipes have got to go." Back in 2004, Lansing residents began voicing complaints about their water. That led the city to act decisively, Bernero told CNBC. The Democrat has been Lansing's mayor since 2006. "Just like in Flint, some of the citizens were the canary in the mine. They brought it to our attention and we started looking into it," he added.

Bernero says officials in Lansing "dug into" the city's water safety. "We expected direct answers and we expected positive answers and we didn't get them." Instead, Bernero said, they got "rather vague" answers about lead levels. "We looked into the testing procedures, and we were not convinced the water was safe." What followed in Lansing was a 12 year project to remove about 14,000 lead water service lines, at a cost of $42 million dollars, and replace them with copper lines. The money to replace the pipes came from a capital improvement fund paid for by the utilities' customers through their water rates. The program is scheduled to be completed next year. "We started asking about lead, and what is the safe level of lead, and there isn't one, especially for kids," the mayor said. "So we said the prudent thing to do is to improve the testing and start getting these lead pipes out. Get the lead out." Now Lansing is trying to help Flint follow their lead to "get the lead out," Bernero said. "Because we've done it in Lansing, we've sent our crews over to Flint." He said that, along with Flint Mayor Karen Weaver, they've designed a lead pipe replacement plan "where we think it can be done in a year, with about 30 crews and $55 million dollars." He added that pipe replacement could cost as little as "3 to 4 thousand dollars a home." Bernero explains that's because instead of digging a huge trench from the street to each home, "we perfected a system of threading instead of trenching." That involves digging a hole by a house, then pulling up the lead pipes as copper pipe is pulled through. "You thread it through like you would thread a needle. And it cut the time and money in half to replace these pipes," he said.

"No' to new governor run

A man sits next to a stack of bottled water at a rally where the Rev. Jesse Jackson spoke about the water crises at the Heavenly Host Baptist Church January 17, 2016 in Flint, Michigan. Getty Images

Last week, the Michigan attorney general announced criminal charges against two state environmental officials and the city employee who ran Flint's water treatment plant. The three are accused of allegedly misleading regulators about the lead crisis. Separately, Governor Rick Snyder proposed the state enact tougher lead-testing rules than the federal EPA standard. The Republican also pledged he would drink Flint tap water daily for the next 30 days. Bernero, however, told CNBC he was not impressed. "The Governor says 'I'll drink the water for a month. I'll prove its safe.' [but] he'll drink filtered water," Bernero said. "He wants to do a publicity stunt and these folks (in Flint) are out there living with it, day in and day out." In 2010, Bernero was the Democratic nominee for governor, but lost the election in 2010 to Snyder. Is he planning of challenging Snyder again? "I am not" he told CNBC, "and I have been meticulous about not attacking the Governor." Still, Bernero did say for any lead pipe removal plan to get started in Flint, "There has to be an element of urgency that should be led by the Governor."


A stowaway Chihuahua was found in a checked suitcase at LaGuardia Airport in New York, March 6, 2015.

Swiped pooches were either ransomed back to their owners, or sold in a thriving black market estimated to be worth around 5 million euros ($5.61 million).

Thousands of chihuahuas and other smaller "toy" dogs were stolen from their owners across the country in 2015, according to a report in The Telegraph.

Citing data from the Italian Association for the Defense of Animals and the Environment (AIDAA), the report noted that around 3500 dogs were stolen in Europe's third largest economy last year, more than double the prior year's estimate of 1400. Overall, dog thefts in Italy tripled overall last year, with as many as 30,000 different breeds taken from their owners.

The compact canines are apparently very popular, and frequently sell for about 2500 euros ($2800) each, The Telegraph reported.

AIDAA estimates that around 10 per cent of dogs stolen are exported to northern Europe for resale, the publication reported, and frequently end up in Germany.

The full report can be found at the Telegraph's website.
Hi

I have a CDialog which I created on the heap along the way I create a Richedit and a number of other controls



When the users hits X in the right hand corner I Destroy the CDialog do I have to DestroyWindow the rich edit and child controls as well



Didn't see this



Quote: The function first destroys child or owned windows, and then it destroys the parent or owner window







Your only responsibility is to cleanup any memory allocation, handles etc you specifically created. You do that by intercepting the WM_DESTROY message and cleaning up there. WM_DESTROY is sent just before the window is deleted but while the window is actually still valid.



Typically you create things in the WM_CREATE and you dispose of it in the WM_DESTROY.

In vino veritas







Thanks







Override OnDestroy (WM_DESTROY) and destroy your RichEdit followed by 'delete' (to release heap memory) and then call the CDialog::OnDestroy().







Situation 1:

If the memory/object is used by multiple children windows and/or the parent then you create it in OnCreate (WM_CREATE) on the parent and destroy it on OnDestroy (WM_DESTROY) of the parent. The reason is because multiple children and/or parent are using it and you need it created before any children and disposed of after the children are deleted.



Situation 2:

If the memory/Object is used by ONLY the SINGLE child window EXCLUSIVELY (that is the data belongs really to the child) then you create it on OnCreate (WM_CREATE) of the child and you delete it with the OnDestroy (WM_DESTROY) of the child.



Sometimes people get lazy and just use situation 1 to cover situation 2 but there are traps in that. It is very easy to forget you need something done before the child is created which is in an unrelated block of code in the parent window create function. So generally I would advise against being lazy and using situation 1 to try and cover all situations. Using Situation 2 when it is valid to do so makes your code self contained portable without thinking about it.



Situation 2 is that most often not understood by people. I will give you a simple example I might use on your edit entry, and this is a subclass of the edit I use a lot in programs. OnCreate (WM_CREATE) of the edit box I create a string object. Whenever the user hits enter, I validate the entry via a message call and if its valid put the current value into the string object and then update the edit window to the new value. Why do this ... well because in the edit box handler hitting the "esc" key goes and gets the value from the string object and puts it back it the edit box. It is a return to last valid value function or a simple single step back. If you think about it you could extend the concept to a list and be able to scroll back thru the list of entered values something you might recognize for the entry address input of your web browser. Now the point here is the string object is the edit boxes responsibility to delete so it will do that on it's OnDestroy (WM_DESTROY). Now everything is self contained I can create as many of these edit boxes as I want into a parent and they all look after there own object string.



So basically you need to work out what data is being used where and in this regard it is very similar to thread or task code.

In vino veritas



How does one view/obtain the GCC C sources?



I dont know how to use git. I just downloaded a Windows version yesterday (havent installed it yet), and am studying an ebook on it. Or should I use GitHub? I dont know anything about these things. Is there an easier way to do it? Is there an ftp site where you can just download it from without having to learn/use some complicated source code management system?



Ive nearly completed writing my own version of only what I need from the C Standard Library, and all I need from the C++ Standard Library is a String Class, and Ive used my own for many, many years which works fine. The only thing I need yet is a full implementation of pow, and possibly exp if pow needs that, and I dont know how to do it myself. Thats why I need to study and learn from the GCC C sources. Im linking without the Standard Libraries so as to avoid the bloat, and using Windows.



But if Id have asked here first how to implement pow, within 1 minute of posting that question Id have been told to look at the GCC sources, which I dont know how to do. Thats why Im asking for instruction here first on that. Once Ive figured out how to get at the GCC sources, then I can tackle my pow issue.



I'm not the only one baffled by this...







Apparently, I downloaded the wrong program ( git ), and am studying the wrong book. Apparently I've got to learn how to use svn before I can even attempt this? This is ridiculous, in my opinion.



I guess what I'm looking for is a list of all the hoops I've got to jump through to get what I want. Something like this...



1) Download and install Subversion (and hope there is a Windows version of it);



2) Buy a book that teaches how to use Subversion;



3) Figure out how to use Subversion to navigate to GCC sources;



4) Find pow or exp and figure out how it works;



Is the above what I should do, or is there some other route?



modified 24-Apr-16 9:01am.



Frederick J. Harris wrote: This is ridiculous, in my opinion. Many things are. However, if you want source code then you have to go and search for it. Have you tried the GNU website[^]?









https://gcc.gnu.org/svn/gcc/trunk/



https://gcc.gnu.org/svn/gcc/trunk/libgcc/



Perhaps I just need to spend some time searching for pow. Haven't found it yet.



Frederick J. Harris wrote: searching for pow ... probably in a file named math.c, or similar.



The GNU C Library[^]; download without using Git: Index of /gnu/glibc[^].



The pow() and exp() functions are part of the math library which depends on the target platform processor. Once you have unpacked the glibc sources, these functions can be found here for x86 CPUs (file names for double ):



sysdeps/i386/fpu/e_pow.S : Implementation using the x87 math coprocessor.

: Implementation using the x87 math coprocessor. sysdeps/ieee754/dbl-64/e_pow.c: Implementation in plain C.

The FPU implementation is in assembler and should not need any other functions. The IEEE implementation needs other modules (at least e_exp.c) and some header files.



We have a Server and Client application developed in MFC

The Server and the client exchange data using CSocket class



We have a big Structure of size 900000 bytes to exchange data.

Our Structure contains array of integer, char and float as data members. Our structure looks like the below eg.

struct ModData

{

float LH [600];

float XS [30][600];

float NER [600];

float TDER [600];

float DER [30][600];

float SS [1500];

float SS2 [1500];

float COMP [30][1500];

char POIC [900];

int AMID [100];

char AMS [100];

char WTL [2500];

char FRN;

char XGO;

};



I am copying all the structure data to char variable and send and receive data between clients through serialization. We have a global object for the above structure whose values changes continuously based on some calculations every 250 millisec. So some of the data changes continously every 250 millisec.



Example calculations that change data:

Test->ss = Test->ss + Test->Log * Sin(5.62) * Test->LH /4.566



There are several formulas that get executed based on logics which process the data in cycles.



I want to send only the values that are changing whereas now I am transfering the entire data every 2 seconds.



Is there any better way of identifying only the changed data to send it. Please help.







Example:

C++ Copy Code enum MyPacketData { AllData = 0 , LhData, XsData, }; typedef struct { MyPacketData contentType; } MyPacketHeader; MyPacketHeader header; header.contentType = AllData; socket.Send(&header, sizeof (header)); socket.Send(pData, sizeof (ModData)); MyPacketHeader header; header.contentType = SsData; socket.Send(&header, sizeof (header)); socket.Send(pData- > SS, sizeof (ModData.SS));







Iam sorry that I didnt mention my query clearly.



A Shared memory using CreateFileMapping function is created by the Server application to share the ModData with another process named 'Plantmodel' running local which does the most of the calculations.

A GUI Client is also connected to the Server using sockets which gets the User inputs anytime. So the User gives an input anytime which is send to the server through sockets and the server updates the input in the shared memory and the plantmodel process which is already doing all the calculations in 250millisecs takes this input too. So at anypoint of time the real time data is available at the server.



My actual question is...Is there anyway to find out only the data that is changed from the big structure from the server side, so that i could use a function to update it to the other client application instead of sending the entire data.



Hi all!,



I'm planning to create a windows form based UI to my existing console project. Would be great if someone can give a detailed step-wise procedure for the same.



Here is the part of my code shows what all parameters I need to get through console:

C++ Copy Code printf ( "

" ); printf ( " -----------------------------------

" ); printf ( "



" ); printf ( " Dyad name:" ); scanf( " %s" ,fname); printf ( "



" ); printf ( " Epoch number [1-%d]:" ,NEPOCHS); scanf( " %d" ,&epoch); printf ( "



" ); printf( " Group: Haptic (0) or Visuo-haptic (1):" ); scanf( " %d" ,&lineEnable); printf ( "



" ); switch (lineEnable){ case 0: strcpy(prefix, " haptic" ); break ; case 1: strcpy(prefix, " visuohaptic" ); } printf ( "



" ); printf ( " [x] - Exit application

" ); printf ( "



" );

Thank you!





into a window or dialog. The "Main" function becomes "WinMain" and you change the compilation from

console to Win GUI.



Normally its fairly trivial as everything but the user input/output elements will compile as is.



Generally you just look at your console input/output and sketch out a couple of screens on paper

then build that and start replacing the console calls into those screens.



In that example above it would just be a dialog or window with the entry boxes. When the user

has entered them you would press a button .. Ok/Continue etc ... check the entries are valid ..

do what you want with them and continue on. It isn't really that hard.



The start point is as always build the GUI screen skeleton to move you program into it. Here

is a 5min mock up of your code you posted. I would probably use more advanced entry for epoch

but I limited myself to 5min

Copy Code #define _WIN32_WINNT 0x0500 #include <windows.h> #include <string.h> #define ID_DYANNAME 100 #define ID_EPOCHNUMBER 101 #define ID_GROUPBUTTONS 102 #define ID_HAPTIC 103 #define ID_VISUOHAPTIC 104 #define ID_PROCESS 200 char FName[256] = { 0 }; int epoch = 0 ; char prefix[256] = { 0 }; LRESULT CALLBACK WndProc(HWND hwnd, UINT msg, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam) { switch (msg) { case WM_CREATE: { CreateWindowEx( 0 , " STATIC" , " Dyad name:" , WS_VISIBLE | WS_CHILD | SS_RIGHT, 20 , 20 , 300 , 20 , hwnd, 0 , 0 , 0 ); CreateWindowEx( 0 , " EDIT" , " " , WS_VISIBLE | WS_CHILD | WS_BORDER | ES_LEFT, 330 , 20 , 100 , 20 , hwnd, (HMENU) ID_DYANNAME, 0 , 0 ); CreateWindowEx( 0 , " STATIC" , " Epoch number [1-%d]:" , WS_VISIBLE | WS_CHILD | SS_RIGHT, 20 , 50 , 300 , 20 , hwnd, 0 , 0 , 0 ); CreateWindowEx( 0 , " EDIT" , " " , WS_VISIBLE | WS_CHILD | WS_BORDER | ES_LEFT, 330 , 50 , 100 , 20 , hwnd, (HMENU) ID_EPOCHNUMBER, 0 , 0 ); CreateWindowEx(WS_EX_WINDOWEDGE, " BUTTON" , " Select Mode:" , WS_VISIBLE | WS_CHILD | BS_GROUPBOX, 120 , 80 , 320 , 70 , hwnd, (HMENU) ID_GROUPBUTTONS, 0 , NULL); HWND Button = CreateWindowEx(WS_EX_WINDOWEDGE, " BUTTON" , " Haptic" , WS_VISIBLE | WS_CHILD | BS_AUTORADIOBUTTON | WS_GROUP, 130 , 100 , 200 , 20 , hwnd, (HMENU) ID_HAPTIC, 0 , NULL); CreateWindowEx(WS_EX_WINDOWEDGE, " BUTTON" , " Visuo-haptic" , WS_VISIBLE | WS_CHILD | BS_AUTORADIOBUTTON, 130 , 125 , 200 , 20 , hwnd, (HMENU) ID_VISUOHAPTIC, 0 , NULL); SendMessage(Button, BM_SETCHECK, BST_CHECKED, TRUE); CreateWindowEx( 0 , " BUTTON" , " PROCESS ENTRY" , WS_TABSTOP | WS_VISIBLE | WS_CHILD | BS_DEFPUSHBUTTON, 150 , 165 , 200 , 50 , hwnd, (HMENU) ID_PROCESS, 0 , 0 ); } break ; case WM_COMMAND: switch LOWORD(wParam){ case ID_PROCESS: { GetWindowText(GetDlgItem(hwnd, ID_DYANNAME), &FName[0], sizeof (FName)); char Temp[256]; GetWindowText(GetDlgItem(hwnd, ID_EPOCHNUMBER), &Temp[0], sizeof (Temp)); epoch = atoi(Temp); if (SendMessage(GetDlgItem(hwnd, ID_HAPTIC), BM_GETCHECK, 0 , 0 )){ strcpy_s(prefix, sizeof (prefix), " haptic" ); } if (SendMessage(GetDlgItem(hwnd, ID_VISUOHAPTIC), BM_GETCHECK, 0 , 0 )){ strcpy_s(prefix, sizeof (prefix), " visuohaptic" ); } MessageBox( 0 , " You will process you data now" , " ENTRY DONE" , MB_OK); PostMessage(hwnd, WM_CLOSE, 0 , 0 ); } break ; } break ; case WM_DESTROY: { PostQuitMessage( 0 ); return 0 ; } } return DefWindowProc(hwnd, msg, wParam, lParam); } int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, LPSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow){ MSG msg; HWND hwnd; WNDCLASSEX wc = { 0 }; wc.cbSize = sizeof (wc); wc.lpszClassName = " DemoDialog" ; wc.hInstance = hInstance; wc.hbrBackground = GetSysColorBrush(COLOR_3DFACE); wc.lpfnWndProc = WndProc; RegisterClassEx(&wc); hwnd = CreateWindow (wc.lpszClassName, " Demo Window" , WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW | WS_VISIBLE, 200 , 200 , 500 , 280 , NULL, NULL, hInstance, NULL); while (GetMessage(&msg, NULL, 0 , 0 )) { TranslateMessage(&msg); DispatchMessage(&msg); } return ( int ) msg.wParam; }

In vino veritas



modified 24-Apr-16 23:42pm.



When I made a separate class file in code blocks and compiled it. Code blocks gived a fatal error of 'No such file or directory' and had the address of the project. I have re checked every thing but there is no problem in codes or in anything else. I have made the class using the class wizard in code blocks and also checked the box saying to keep header and source file in same directory and they are in same directory. Please tell me any suggestion on solving this problem.


Catherine Hanaway, a candidate for Missouri governor, said at a March 17 debate that Missouri was the worst state at moving people from welfare to work. While a report gave Missouri's policies a failing grade, Missouri ranks best in the country in percentage of people moving from welfare to work.
Drone attacks on Kyiv rattle family of MU Ukrainian student

Iranian drones are striking Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. It's where the parents and sister of University of Missouri Ukrainian student Vlad Sazhen live.
SHARE Pres. Andrew Jackson shown in an undated portrait. (AP Photo) Harriet Tubman, 1826-1913, a former slave, became a conductor on the Underground Railroad, the secretive safe-house system that spirited slaves out of the South to freedom. She also helped John Brown recruit soldiers for his raid on Harpers Ferry and later served as a Union Army nurse, scout and spy in the Civil War.

By Michael Collins of The Commercial Appeal

WASHINGTON  As far as U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander is concerned, Andrew Jackson and Harriet Tubman are both American heroes who have each earned their rightful place in history.

To honor one, he said, you don't have to tear down the other.

"United States history is not Andrew Jackson versus Harriet Tubman," the Maryville Republican said.

The announcement this week that Jackson, a white slave owner from Tennessee, will be booted to the back of the $20 bill to make room for Tubman, a black anti-slavery activist, has left many people in Jackson's home state with the uneasy feeling that the move is as much a politically correct attempt to diminish Jackson's legacy as it is to celebrate Tubman's accomplishments.

In his day, Old Hickory, as Jackson was fondly known, was considered a war hero and a populist fighting for the common man. But he was also a slave owner who, as the nation's seventh president, carried out the removal of Native Americans from their land in a bloody campaign that came to be known as the Trail of Tears.

In contrast, Tubman was a former slave who helped scores of other slaves escape to freedom. She also worked as a union spy during the Civil War.

In deciding to replace Jackson's image on the front of the $20 bill with that of Tubman, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew described her life as an "incredible story of courage and commitment to equality"  one that "embodies the ideals of democracy that our nation celebrates."

But many Tennesseans saw the decision as an attack on the historical contributions of a Jackson, home-state hero.

"Dismayed and disappointed would be two words we would use to describe the decision," said Howard J. Kittell, president and CEO of the Andrew Jackson Foundation in Nashville.

Kittell and other Tennesseans argue it's unfair to judge Jackson's actions on slavery and Native Americans in the 1800s through the lens of 21st century.

Though it's hard for us to imagine today, Jackson's positions on those issues and others "fell within the mainstream of American thinking" at the time, Kittell said, and it's important to evaluate him in that context.

"We need to remember our history, and history is messy," he said. "It's not a straight line of progress. It's complicated. You can't tell history in soundbites for Jackson or (Thomas) Jefferson or anyone. Our historical figures were all human, and they had great strengthens and weaknesses, just as we do, too."

Even among historians, Jackson has long been a polarizing figure, said Dan Feller, a history professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and director of The Papers of Andrew Jackson, a project to collect and publish Jackson's entire literary record.

During his presidency, many people at the time looked upon him as stalwart defender of the union and the savior of the American republic, Feller said. Others saw him as a tyrant who was going to destroy the country.

The debate over whether he deserves a place on the front of American paper currency is a discussion "not only about what happened in history, but how we ought to treat it, how we ought to recognize it, and what things we ought to honor  or not honor," Feller said.

"That debate, as long as it's realistically based upon evidence, is healthy," he said.

For Tennesseans in Congress, however, there's nothing to debate: Jackson belongs on the $20 bill.

"Andrew Jackson was a great Tennessean and American, and I am extremely disappointed that this announcement appears to be as much an attack on his legacy as it is a celebration of Harriet Tubman," said U.S. Rep. Phil Roe, R-Johnson City.

Both Jackson and Tubman should be celebrated for their historical significance, Roe said, "and it's wrong to prioritize one great American's legacy over another."

U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, said he supports finding new ways to pay tribute "to the many deserving women throughout American history." But, "I would hope we could do so without diminishing the legacy of others," he said.

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, said he's glad to see Tubman recognized on the $20 bill.

"Slavery was America's original sin and, unfortunately, we still feel the effects in our society today," he said. "This decision was too long in coming, but I welcome that a woman once again is part of our nation's history as depicted on our currency."

Still, it's good that Jackson's photo will be included on the back of the $20 and that he will remain on the bill with Tubman, Cohen said.

U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan Jr., R-Knoxville, suggested he might have a solution to the Jackson vs. Tubman quandary.

"When the next administration comes in," he said, "I hope we can convince the next treasurer to print an equal number of $20 bills with both Jackson and Tubman."
SHARE Dave Darnell/The Commercial Appeal files February 23, 1981  HISTORY MAKERS; Randle Catron and Dorothy Jean Jackson, as king and queen of the Cotton Makers Jubilee, will be part of the sweeping changes in Cotton Carnival's structure for 1981. As Carnival season gets underway, Cotton Makers join six former secret societies  Memphi, Osiris, Ptah, Ra-Met, Shelbi and Sphinx  and the Grand Krewe of the Nile, to be the newest carnival organization as carnival grand krewes.

April 24

25 years ago: 1991

Local officials Tuesday released a 1990 letter in which Memphis businessman John B. Tigrett personally guarantees $3 million for an escrow account for the taxpayers' riverfront arena. That escrow account ensures that the city and county would receive the first year of management fees should Tigrett and his partner, Sidney Shlenker, walk away or be ousted from managing The Great American Pyramid. If Tigrett honored the guarantee, it would resolve the most immediate financial problem between The Pyramid Companies and local governments.

50 years ago: 1966

Space Center, Houston  Gemini 9 astronauts Thomas Stafford and Eugene Cernan revealed plans Saturday for a "complex and sophisticated" flight that will take them a record distance into space May 17. A fast-moving chase through space with another satellite and a 2 -hour "walk" in orbit by rookie Cernan will be the main goals of their three-day cosmic journey  the nation's second manned space spectacular of the year.

75 years ago: 1941

Shelby County women have produced 6,219 garments since last June in response to an appeal from the English government and the British Red Cross for the help of air raid victims, announced project leader Mrs. W.O. Braun yesterday.

100 years ago: 1916

The 15th annual meeting of the Frisco System Medical Association will be held in this city for two days, commencing this morning. Approximately 100 doctors from the system's and from the surgeon's and physician's staff of the Frisco Railroad are expected to attend.

125 years ago: 1891

Capt. Curtis M.D. Townsend, United States Engineer of the Mississippi, Third District, has returned from a tour of inspection of the levees and reports them in a comparatively safe condition.
June 28, 2013 - Local experts are trying to shift attention away from infant mortality and towards low birth weight and prematurity, according to Catherine Joyce, director of data management at the Urban Child Institute in Memphis. (Karen Pulfer Focht/The Commercial Appeal)

SHARE

By Kayleigh Skinner of The Commercial Appeal

The Urban Child Institute in Memphis is searching for its fourth president in four months as its board and staff look to restructure and realign their work with the organization's original mission.

The organization got its start after Le Bonheur Health System merged Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center into Methodist Hospital Systems in 1995. LHS became Urban Child Institute in 2004.

Earlier this year the nonprofit announced it will give $8 million to local organizations that support the goal of improving the lives of Memphis and Shelby County children from birth to 3 years old.

Although the institute has already identified several organizations  Le Bonheur, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, and the University of Memphis  that will receive grants, the decision on a permanent leader has been less clear.

Former president and CEO Gene Cashman retired Jan 1. Henry Herrod, the board's former secretary, stepped in soon after as interim president, but resigned April 8. Board member Meri Armour has taken his place while the search continues for a permanent CEO.

Board chair Jill Crocker told The Commercial Appeal last week that Herrod's resignation was part of an effort to reduce the amount of money spent on administrative salaries and give more to the community.

According to the institute's most recent 990 tax document from 2014, as president and CEO, Cashman earned $649,046 in "reportable compensation from the organization" and an additional $40,877 "estimated amount of other compensation from the organization and related organizations." . That same year, Herrod earned $405,996 in reportable compensation and $32, 624 in other compensation from the organizations and related organizations as secretary.

Armour is not being compensated for her role as interim CEO since she is also a board member, Crocker said.

There have been leadership changes on the board as well  Crocker was appointed chair in January. Former board chair Hershel Wall resigned shortly after Cashman announced his retirement. He declined to discuss the matter. A reporter was unable to reach other board members listed on the 2014 form 990.

The Commercial Appeal spoke with Crocker, the board's new chair, about the institute's plans for the future.

Q: You've mentioned the board is moving in a new direction with the recent resignation of Henry Herrod as president. What does that mean?

A: Maybe new is not the right word. I think it's kind of a revisioning and going back to our roots, our fundamental roots. Why was the Urban Child Institute set up, what is our role in the community and how do we partner with other foundations or not for profits?

Q: How do you plan to "get back to your roots?"

A: A lot of what we're doing is strategy with (interim president and CEO) Meri (Armour): What's good and needs to continue, what needs to stop immediately and what needs to start to enhance that original purpose. (We are) really examining each of our programs, examining what we have been giving to or not giving to as far as grants and then how do we develop the partnerships in the community?

Q: How is the search for a permanent replacement going?

A: Of course we would like to have new leadership in place sooner versus later, but I think we as a board and as a staff have to really say "okay this is what we're doing" and then ask "what's your vision going into that?" I think it's dangerous to name someone too quickly when we're unsure of the direction or when there are uncertainties among our staff.

Q: Are you looking for a new president at a lower price point?

A: We don't want to exclude someone that would be a great leader, but we do have to think about what the market bears, what do other organizations that look like ours, what do they pay? Part of our due diligence has been finding that part out. We want to spend our money in the community, we don't necessarily think large compensation packages are the way to do that.

Q: UCI has been criticized in the past year for paying its leadership six figure salaries and giving grants to organizations that don't directly support the institute's mission. Do you think it's fair?

A: I would say the board agrees, and that's why we've taken the actions that we have. We committed early this year that we would give back to the community at least $8 million and we're on that road. We've gotten half of it committed at this point and to continue to strive for that. Our community needs to keep us accountable and I believe it was justified and very eye opening.

Q: UCI and its board have seen a lot of change in the last four months, with the resignation of two directors and your appointment as chair of the board in January. Is the institute in a period of transition?

A: Yes, yes, yes. The timing too, when you have people that are considering retirement it leads to natural transition. The (Memphis) Flyer and Memphis Business Journal, they brought to light things that we need to understand and to do better. Once again, accountability is a good thing. Even just as far as our own governance, there were things that became very clear that we needed as a board to be working collectively and in collaboration more so than having silos. We all get together now, we don't make one decision without all of us being involved.

Q: All of this transition began when former president Gene Cashman retired in December. Did he resign as a result of community push back?

A: There were plans for succession. Gene had said that 2016 or 2017 would probably be the time that he would want to consider retiring and he brought that to the board and basically said that he would retire to the board slash resign. We said instead of having a longer succession it might be better to just go ahead, especially in trying to move forward and go back to repurposing what UCI does. Q: Which organizations will receive some of that $8 million?

A: We are in that process, we are giving to the big three (University of Memphis, Le Bonheur Children's Hospital, University of Tennessee Health Science Center) and the Neighborhood Christian Center. There are various smaller grants that we're looking at as well, like the Women's Foundation of Greater Memphis and Leadership Memphis. Some of the other organizations we've been talking to and want to learn more about are Porter-Leath and Youth Villages. I guess the one thing we do worry about is we certainly want to hear other community partners and 501 c3's (charities) but they do have to line up much more succinctly with our purpose. Q: How do the organizations you mentioned line up with UCI's mission of helping children ages 0-3?

A: That is a great question and specifically it's one we're asking at this point. The Women's Foundation is a great organization, but would we be better in maybe looking at another area for giving? ... We're trying to be very proactive and ask because even Leadership Memphis, great it is, but is that our audience too? I think sometimes as organizations grow sometimes they shift and end up losing sight of the original purpose.
SHARE Lawrence "Boo" Mitchell

By Boo Mitchell, Special to Viewpoint

Those who choose to create music answer to a unique calling. It is not just a profession you choose, it's one that also chooses you. For me, my dad, Willie Mitchell, lent a helping hand.

He first recorded at Royal Studios and went on to be a partner at the studios and at Hi Records here in Memphis. The songwriters, artists and musicians he brought together created the Memphis soul sound and made great music.

In 1972, my father recorded and produced Al Green's hit "Let's Stay Together," and they did, recording and producing several hits throughout the 1970s. Chuck Berry recorded the album "Chuck Berry in Memphis" at the studios. My Uncle James and members of the original Willie Mitchell Band played on it.

Fast-forward to today and we are still making hits in Memphis. Mark Ronson recorded the Grammy-winning song "Uptown Funk" featuring Bruno Mars at Royal Studios. It marked the first time a song recorded in Memphis won the award for best song.

Some things have not changed from the time my dad opened Royal Studios to today. We still produce and record great music because it is our calling. But some things have. It is harder and harder to make it in the music business as sales of records and compact discs have given way to digital downloads and streams. I often wonder whether my dad and Royal Studios would be as successful if he were starting out today.

Streaming services that earn billions in advertising revenue and subscription fees pay just fractions of a penny per stream to performers, songwriters and producers. Many pay nothing at all for the performance of music released before 1972 by artists like Ike and Tina Turner, Chuck Berry, Sam and Dave, the Bill Black Combo, and Jumpin' Gene Simmons who recorded at Royal Studios.

AM/FM radio stations pay no royalties to performers. Outdated copyright laws make it difficult for creators to put a stop to online infringement of their work. The overall impact of these realities is devastating.

Creators earn less and less while others prosper through the use of their work. Many who answered the call to the profession have left. Others take second and third jobs to get by outside of the music career that we love.

Would they do it again? I know my dad would say yes, even with the financial hardships. Why? Because he loved music and he passed that love on to me.

Lawmakers in Washington can rewrite this sad tune if they take action now. On April 14, music professionals from Memphis and communities across the country participated in the Recording Academy's annual Grammys on the Hill Advocacy Day, storming Capitol Hill to address key issues with members of Congress.

We asked members of Congress to support The Fair Play Fair Pay Act of 2015. The bill brings together a number of issues into one comprehensive piece of legislation to create fair compensation for creators when others use our work to build and grow their businesses.

The bill includes provisions requiring AM/FM radio to pay artists and sound recording copyright owners when their songs are played on the radio. It safeguards current songwriter royalties.

It requires digital broadcasters to pay royalties to pre-1972 performers. It will create a standard royalty rate across all digital platforms, and it ensures that music producers receive the royalties they are due.

Music professionals should not be overlooked, nor should their valuable contributions be diminished. Music is part of who we are as Americans. We have to ensure that music remains a viable career that enriches our local communities as well as our national culture.

Creators called for change on April 14, and will do so every day until Congress reaffirms our national commitment to music and music creators. After all, music makes the world go 'round, and it certainly makes Memphis spin. But without help from Congress, the world might spin a lot slower.

Boo Mitchell is a music producer and co-owner of Royal Studios in Memphis.
The U.S. no longer requires Apples assistance to unlock an iPhone 5s phone running iOS 7 used by the accused in a drug investigation, stating that an individual provided the passcode to the iPhone at issue in this case.

The Department of Justice has withdrawn its application in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

DOJ had earlier appealed to District Judge Margo K. Brodie an order from Magistrate Judge James Orenstein, ruling that Apple could not be forced to provide assistance to the government to extract data from the iPhone 5s.

Yesterday evening, an individual provided the passcode to the iPhone at issue in this case, DOJ wrote in a filing to the court late Friday. Late last night, the government used that passcode by hand and gained access to the iPhone. The filing did not provide information on who the individual was and in what capacity he was acting.

Jun Feng, the accused in the methamphetamine possession and distribution investigation, provided the passcode to investigators, said The Wall Street Journal, quoting people familiar with the matter. Feng has already pleaded guilty and is due to be sentenced. He had earlier told investigators that he didnt remember the passcode.

The filing in the New York court has parallels to another dispute between Apple and the government over assistance in cracking an iPhone 5c running iOS 9 used by one of the terrorists in the San Bernardino killings in December. In that case in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the government had demanded Apples assistance but later asked the court to vacate its order as it had accessed data stored on the phone, using a tool from a third party.

The tool addressed only a narrow slice of iPhones, Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey said earlier this month. While it could unlock the the iPhone 5c running iOS 9, the tool does not work on the iPhone 5s or 6, he said. Apple, meanwhile, demanded to know in the New York case whether the government had exhausted all other options to get to the data.

Judge Orenstein had ruled that Apple cant be forced to extract data from the iPhone 5s under a statute called the All Writs Act, the same law invoked in the California case.

The government's reading of the All Writs Act, a statute enacted in 1789 and commonly invoked by law enforcement agencies to get assistance from tech companies on similar matters, would change the purpose of the law from a limited gap-filing statute that ensures the smooth functioning of the judiciary itself into a mechanism for upending the separation of powers by delegating to the judiciary a legislative power bounded only by Congress's superior ability to prohibit or preempt, Orenstein had written in his order.

The governments withdrawal of its demand for Apples assistance in both the New York and California cases leaves unresolved a key legal issue whether the government can compel device makers to help break the encryption and other security in their products, which is an issue of significance both to tech companies and privacy groups.

Apple could not be immediately reached for comment.
Game, set and match to the President. Thats the verdict of ConHomes resident Boris expert, Andrew Gimson, in a very fine article for the Mail on Sunday about the Mayor of Londons tussle with the Leader of the Free World. It began with Boris alluding to Baracks part-Kenyan heritage. It finished with Barack chirruping, of Churchill, I love that guy. Nothing afterwards  including Boriss attempt to keep the scrap going  will change the outcome. As Andrew says later on in his article, this encounter has proved something of a disaster for Boris.

And others think so too. Elsewhere in the Mail on Sunday, someone from the Leave campaign is quoted as saying, We had no idea Boris was going to attack Obama so provocatively. It was a misjudgment. He must stop going off-piste. The trouble for Boris is that hes representing not just himself but also a cause. If he gets it wrong, the cause can suffer too.

In fact, Boris has had a self-diminishing referendum campaign all round  at least so far. Not long after he announced his support for Brexit, there was that blustering performance on the Marr Show. Then there was that eccentric appearance before the Treasury Select Committee. Then there was that bruising article by Matthew Parris, which exhumed several skeletons from the dirty past. And now theres this, defeat by Obama. Has Boris ever had a more difficult time in politics?

And yet, and yet Boris persists. Had all of this been done by a politician with less star wattage  Chris Grayling, say, or even someone who may challenge for the Tory leadership, such as George Osborne  theyd practically be finished by now. But not the MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip. Even when hes embroiled in a race row, there always seems to be the get-out that its just Boris being Boris. Love him or loathe him, its just Boris being Boris. Agree with him or disagree, its just Boris being Boris. This latitude, enjoyed by so few other politicians, means that hell still be considered a potential future Prime Minister until he either is or categorically isnt.

Boriss non-stick powers are nothing new, but time makes them more remarkable. Just when will they diminish? Will they ever diminish? We keep on waiting, and it hasnt happened yet. For those who want Boris as the next Conservative leader, it must be a joy.

Except sometimes non-stick powers arent enough. The trouble for Team Boris is written in recent opinion polls: qualities such as likeability or what-comes-across-as-authenticity arent enough for many voters. As Andrew points out in his Mail on Sunday article, In a recent opinion poll [by ComRes], people said that although they would far rather have a meal with Boris than with Cameron, when it came to looking after their financial affairs, they would trust Cameron more. The same poll also had Boris trailing Jeremy Corbyn  Jeremy Corbyn!  not just on the question of who should run the country, but also on who would be better at negotiating with terrorists.

And what might worry Boriss supporters even more is the nature of his recent troubles. Dealing with the President of the United States; appearing before a select committee; making grand statements from Andrew Marrs sofa  these are all things that we expect a Prime Minister, or a potential Prime Minister, to do comfortably. Like him or loathe him, agree with him or disagree, David Cameron certainly can. Can this would-be successor?
According to Medical Daily, in a study that covered six million adults merely a 7 percent fraction have strived for their addiction to be treated while the remaining number are undergoing a self-imposed deterioration as they are being hounded as they grow older with respiratory Issues, lower levels of dopamine, schizophrenia, and anxiety issues. Issues which these adults have chosen to ignore deliberately.

In order to build up a high, individuals who smoke marijuana have a habit of deeply inhaling the marijuana smoke for a longer period of time. This has lead a study from the University of California San Francisco that although marijuana has no direct link to cancer it has been supplementary to more than a couple of respiratory issues such as wheezing, coughing, bacteria in the lungs, and airway inflammation among pot users - especially for those who belong to the marijuana heavy user demographic.

The majority of marijuana users from glorified rock stars to chameleon-like film actors to reclusive poets assert that their usage of the drug is to open out the creative person within. This creed has been echoed by a study from the Columbia University Medical Center that marijuana fires up the creative juices but grows into a damaging attribute with chronic ill-management.

Primarily, the brain's dopamine levels will be imbalance since the use of marijuana now fuels the brain pleasure centers which has now become a give and take release for the natural dopamine.

Marijuana in great quantities also contributes to withdrawal from reality or schizophrenia. A study from the Baycrest Health Sciences' Rotman Research Institute in Canada reported that a thinner cortex was prevalent in a set of young males who habitually smoke marijuana - which can lead to an individual to be more inclined in creating make-believe situations.

Lastly, smoking marijuana on a daily basis promotes a state of continuous uneasiness and apprehension in a person otherwise known as anxiety. A Boston children's hospitals study mentioned that marijuana use does help in lightening up a set-back but at the end it only makes them worse as it goes on.

Relevantly, females tend to be a regular user of marijuana then men as they easily become too engaged with the habit, according to NCBI.

Sources:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21769049

http://www.medicaldaily.com/long-term-marijuana-use-382538#big-shots/382538/0
Condemn The Unconstitutional Termination Of Sukma Chief Judicial Magistrate

By Indian Association of Peoples Lawyers

24 April, 2016

Countercurrents.org

On 14 April, 2016 the Chhattisgarh government dismissed Sukma's Chief Judicial Magistrate Prabhakar Gwal. A 2006 batch judicial officer, Gwal, belongs to the Dalit community and has questioned the manner in which the police have been indiscriminately arresting tribals in the conflict zones of Chhattisgarh. It is in this background, on 8th February 2016, the Sukma Superintendent of Police complained to the District Judiciary against Gwal stating that among other things he has been granting bail to naxal accused and such decisions have adversely affected the morale of the security forces and weakens the judicial process. It is based on such complaints that Chhattisgarh government dismissed Gwal on the grounds of "public interest" following the recommendation of the Chhattisgarh High Court.

Police high-handedness and harassment of those involved in the administration of justice is nothing new to the conflict zones of Chhattisgarh. Recently advocates of the Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group (JagLAG) have been forcefully evicted from Jagdalpur and pressure is being mounted on them by the police administration and police backed vigilante groups to cease their legal practice. JagLAG has been providing legal Aid to many tribals incarcerated in Jagdalpur and Dantewada. Similarly Social activists such as Soni Sori and Bela Bhatia and journalists like Malini Subramaniam, Prabhat Singh, Santosh Yadav and Somaru Nag who have been raising issues of Human rights violations by the police administration have been threatened, attacked or even arrested. Under the pretext of Mission 2016, i.e., the present offensive launched by the government to wipe out the Maoist movement in Chhattisgarh, the police in these areas have been taking steps to see that no alternate voice emanates from these areas.

Chhattisgarh jails are filled with tribals who have been arrested, several false and fabricated criminal cases are foisted upon them and they remain incarcerated for several years. Anyone who supports such tribals and questions the policies of the state are branded as terrorists or anti-national. In such a situation, the judicial system is their last hope. Hence, it is vital that the judiciary be allowed to carry on its functions in accordance with law and without any interference from the police. Gwals termination is a further step in this direction.

Interference by the security agencies in the judiciary seems to be a larger and concerted effort on the part of the BJP, the ruling party at both the Center and Chhattisgarh state. In an unprecedented move, the National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval briefed the Supreme Court judges on national security issues and the threat of terrorism at the three-day retreat held earlier in this month. Police excesses in the name of security concerns have been abundant especially in Kashmir, the North-East, Chhattisgarh, etc. It is wrong that only one view point is projected. To present a one-sided, security-centric view would amount to interfering in the judiciary.

The Indian Association of Peoples Lawyers (IAPL) condemns these acts of interference in the judiciary and harassment of those administering justice by the security agencies. Such interference also militates against the basic structure of the Constitution - namely the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary. IAPL calls upon all, especially those from the legal fraternity to resist these moves to prejudice the judiciary and also demands the immediate reinstatement of Prabhakar Gwal as the Sukma CJM.

Sd/-

Adv. Surendra Gadling (Nagpur),

Adv. Ravindra Balla (Hyderabad),

Adv. Maharukh Adenwalla (Mumbai),

Adv. Sudha Bharadwaj (Raipur)

Adv. Ankit Grewal (Chandigarh)

for IAPL








Printer Friendly Version New Direction For Resolving The Middle East Crisis By Dan Lieberman 24 April, 2016

Countercurrents.org Dr. Mazin Quimseyeh, one of the most respected and self-sacrificing Palestinian activists who fights relentlessly for human rights, has posed a question: "What would YOU advise us Palestinians (incl. leaders) to do?" The direct answer is that only those directly affected by the onslaught know how they can contest oppression and are able to evaluate the punishment they can sustain. The troubling answer is that, from an external perspective, there is little the Palestinians can do without finding themselves riddled with bullets. Provoking the Palestinians into retaliation has been Israel's strategy since day "0." By carefully designed tactics, Israel has converted Palestinians who were complacent, cooperative, and secular into being discontented, revengeful, and religiously extreme. The complacent can be subdued but remain. The revengeful must be defeated until their villages are destroyed, their memories erased, and their presence eclipsed. Israel's oppressive tactics are proportional to the defensive tactics displayed by the Palestinians -- more Palestinian defense triggers more Israeli offense. Palestinians can remain passive and be slowly destroyed or act aggressive and be more quickly destroyed. Israel has arranged the oppression so that Palestinians have two choices, either to follow Israel's directives and be reduced to an eventual bare subsistence or be incarcerated and eventually decimated. Most defenseless Palestinians will choose to live sparingly rather then not live at all. Oppression of the Palestinians has moved beyond a cause for the Palestinians and emergency measures to relieve their plight. Countering the severe persecution is an international cause that considers the dangers to all peoples from Israel's posture -- breeding terrorism, nurturing continuous conflagrations in the Middle East, and enhancing the possibility of a nuclear war. Seemingly innocent statements, such as made by Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely in an interview on the Knesset Channel, that her "dream is to see the Israel flag flying over the Temple Mount, this is the holiest place for the Jewish people," are planned to provoke Muslim nations and let the world know that, contrary to Netanyahu's' rebuttal, Israel has surrounded the Haram al-Sharif and its status under Jordan's Waqf control will soon be challenged. Appropriate reaction to the challenge will prompt violent reprisals, which will spread and cause vast areas of destruction. Is the world to suffer because a relatively few religious fanatics among the world's seven billion people want to satisfy their chaotic urgings and mark their place? Organizations arguing and fighting for Palestinian rights soothe Palestinian wounds, but the deteriorating situation cannot be halted without a unified and international movement that is dedicated to modifying foreign policies of western nations on behalf of the citizens of these nations, which means subduing Israel's ultra-nationalist aspirations and militarist activities. In the western world, only relatively small populations are aware of or sensitized to the crises afflicting others - -Palestinian, Kurd, Assyrian Christian, and Bahrain Shi'a. Without feeling the impact of a foreign oppression on them, citizens are unmoved to petition their governments to halt the oppressions. Magnitudes more emphasis must be placed in demonstrating the threats posed by Israel's policies upon the peace and stability of all the world's peoples; this is the principal mechanism for successfully resolving the Middle East crisis. For Americans, the Palestinian crisis is unique; it is the only crisis in which their nation actively supports the territorial expansion of another country and its destruction of an indigenous people. When Americans have their conscience and sleep disturbed by the realization they are participating in actions that destroy others, and that these actions will adversely affect their economic and social lives, they will proceed to move their government to defend them. To accomplish that task, the modeled and spurious portrayals of Israel as the leading democracy in the Middle East, as the rebirth of a near vanquished Jewish people, and as a victimized nation defending itself against powerful enemies must be personally shattered; a difficult effort for those who have had their minds shaped by decades of subtle indoctrination. The burning issue evolves into: (1) What is lacking in explaining to the world the seriousness of Israel's actions? (2) How can a complacent world become more aware of the dangers to themselves posed by the Israel challenge? (3) How can organizations be formed that will successfully counter the propaganda mechanisms that allow Israel to proceed unimpeded, and (4) How can governments and institutions be forced to change positions that are assisting Israel in its illegal and unlawful actions? The first observation is that Israel is not a complete state and uses its incompleteness to its own advantage.  Israel has not defined its borders or settled its border disputes with other nations. It advances borders by seizing land owned by others.  Israel has no constitution and is guided by inconsistent laws -- religious doctrines, civil laws, codes from the Ottoman era, and edicts from the British Mandate -- which are brought into play and used to suit an agenda rather than provide justice.  Israel does not have a capital that is recognized by almost all the world's nations. Its own defined capital, Jerusalem, contradicts the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine (Resolution 181), which established Jerusalem as a "separated body" with a special legal and political status, administered by the United Nations. Zionist representatives accepted that plan,  Israel has disobeyed a multitude of United Nations (UN) Resolutions. Too numerous to properly categorize, here are a few examples: Since its creation in 2006, the United Nations Human Rights Council has condemned Israel in 45 resolutions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_UN_resolutions_concerning_Israel_and_Palestine). Between the years of 1972-2011, the United States vetoed 42 Security Council Resolutions, against Israel (https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/UN/usvetoes.html). From 1955-2011, the UN Assembly passed 102 Resolutions, and on November, 2015, the UN General Assembly adopted six resolutions against Israel.  Israel does not have a police force that always protects its minorities; just the opposite, its policing is often used to protect those who offend its minorities. If Israel is not a complete state, what defines the area it occupies? As of now, Israel can be perceived as having a form of rule that advances a privileged ethnicity by exploitation and oppression -- for want of a better word, call it a national kleptocracy. From its actions, the Israel government gives the impression of housing elements of the criminally inclined. Here are just a small portion of examples that are well known and cannot be contradicted. Land, bank accounts, small factories and material goods have been seized from the Palestinians and never been returned. More than 400 Palestinian villages, intentionally destroyed by Israeli governments, remain as rubble in barren fields. Under a spurious "Absentee Property Law," Israel seized innumerable Palestinian homes, made its occupants destitute, and gave the housing to its "right of return" immigrants. Competition from Palestinians in production of competitive goods, such as olives, minerals from rock quarries, and agriculture has been suppressed with Palestinian resources destroyed and water diverted. The tourist industry, especially in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, has been manipulated to prefer Israeli business interests. Records and legacy of previous generations that inhabited the land have been intentionally destroyed. Palestinians have been killed, imprisoned and threatened only because they contested the illegal actions. Israel's intelligence agencies have engaged in assassinations of adversaries, both belligerent and innocent. Its elected leaders have been involved in assassinations, such as the killing of Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte in 1948. Treating that criminal action as a daily affair, Zvi Zameret, a former official of Israel's education ministry, published an op-ed in Makor Rishon, Sheldon Adelson's pro-settler newspaper, implying that present Swedish diplomat, Margot Wallstrom, deserved the same fate as Count Folke Bernadotte. He wrote that "I am certain that her [Margot Wallstrom] intentions will be defeated, just as were those of the disreputable Count Bernadotte." All these illegal actions continued in year 2016. In addition, although occurring much less after the first decade of 2000, the Israel government has allowed excessive money laundering, given citizenship to individuals labeled criminals in other nations, and has had an inordinate proportion of its citizens involved in the drug trade. This news seldom appears in U.S. media. Blue, White and White, Israel Becomes Major Hub in International Cocaine Trade, by Yaniv Kubovich Oct 19, 2013.

It should be noted that Israel has a "star role" in the World Drug Report for 2013 issued by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and released last June.

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.553277 Israel Seen as Paradise for Money Laundering, by William A. Orme Jr, February 21, 2000.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/21/world/israel-seen-as-paradise-for-money-laundering.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm Israel Plays Key Role in N.J. Corruption Case, But Holds Off on Own Probe, by Nathan Jeffay, July 29, 2009.

http://forward.com/news/111022/israel-plays-key-role-in-nj-corruption-case-but-ho/#ixzz425Za3r8X Israelis at Center of Ecstasy Drug Trade, by Nathan Guttman, Apr 06, 2003.

In recent years, organized crime in Israel, some with links to criminal organizations in Russia, have come to control the distribution of the drug in Europe, according to a Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs document,

http://www.haaretz.com/israelis-at-center-of-ecstasy-drug-trade-1.13809 A possible description for Israel is derived from the actions of the Zionists who formed the state. The characterization is not meant to be absolute but only to stimulate a thought; does Israel represent this type of portrayal? Robert Paxton, in "The Anatomy of Fascism," outlines his concept of the extreme ideological system. Fascism rested not upon the truth of its doctrine but upon the leader's mystical union with the historic destiny of his people, a notion related to romanticist ideas of national historic flowering and of individual artistic or spiritual genius, though fascism otherwise denied romanticism's exaltation of unfettered personal creativity. The fascist leader wanted to bring his people into a higher realm of politics that they would experience sensually the warmth of belonging to a race now fully aware of its identity, historic destiny, and power; the excitement of participating in a wave of shared feelings, and of sacrificing one's petty concerns for the group's good; and the thrill of domination. Other serious conditions for world engagement exist A moral duty to protect the Palestinian people is obvious. The continuous encroachment on their lands, livelihoods and security is a necessary and sufficient condition for galvanizing a world into action against the constant oppression. Greater danger has become apparent -- endless war until the explosion that ends all. Israel's leaders have often spoken of war for decades, nice of them. Wherever Israel goes, it will find enemies, whom Israel will silence before borders are moved for "security reasons." One day Israel will face a massive and strengthened foe that cannot be easily defeated. The foe could be Iran's 75 million and growing population, which inhabits a vast and well-protected area, serves an autocratic government, and is prepared to draw the line that challenges Israel. That Iran can only be defeated by weapons of mass destruction, by nuclear bombs that obliterate large segments of its nation. No doubt, when a Middle East antagonist faces extinction, and that will happen, that nation will use the nuclear alternative. To delay the day and prepare for it, Israel advances the subduing of any nation that might challenge it. Despite the absence of a "smoking gun," it cannot be a coincidence that Hussein's Iraq and Ghadaffi's Libya have been destroyed and Assad's Syria is under a similar attack. None of the actions against these leaders significantly benefited the U.S. and western nations, but they have had enormous benefits to Israel. The same goes for the Middle East turmoil and the Sunni/Shi'a divide -- it is in Israel's interests to constantly provoke and support the continuation of all conflagrations in the Middle East. In none of these does Israel provide a solution; in all of them Israel is a problem. Most baffling is the attitude of Israel's greatest supporters The Religious Right in the United States, Zionist Jews, and the U.S. Congress do not realize they are harming those they claim to defend. A supposedly Christian organization has shown more support for Israel than has Prime Minister Netanyahu. Evidently, this "Christian" organization is not aware that, due to Israel's policies, Christians in large numbers have been forced to leave what they consider their Holy Land, Christian religious sites are being defiled and subordinated, and Christian influence in the area is being reduced to nil. The ardent Zionist supporters of Israel have intensified antagonisms toward Jews throughout the world, have made them perceived as disloyal to the nations of which they are citizens, and have situated them so they are more vulnerable to attack. Zionism is to Jews what all extreme ideologies are to ethnic minorities; shaping them with unique and superior identity, presenting their followers as being victims and outcasts in a an envious world while isolating them, forcing them to aggressively engage others, and leading them to eventual catastrophe. The U.S. Congress reinforces a nation that acquires military capability to challenge the U.S. in the Middle East and influence the U.S. government to follow its directives. Overlooked and underplayed is Israel's' role in spreading international terrorism. Severe subjugation of the Palestinian people has led to their despair, hopelessness and desperation. From these conditions emerge radicalization and in many cases acts of revenge and retribution associated with terrorism. Oppression of the Palestinians is high on the list of ISIS' grievances against the western world. Due to a world that is complacent to their suffering, Palestinians are now being attracted to al-Qaeda and ISIS. Only a relatively few persons have become members of these terrorist groups, but it only takes a few to commit many violent acts. Whether it is planned or accidental, radicalization of the Palestinian community serves Israel's interests. Fortress Israel is well protected against severe terrorist attacks and links of Palestinians to terrorism, especially to ISIS, benefit Israel. Europe and, to a lesser degree, the United States are not as immune to ISIS attacks, and their citizens suffer the calamities provoked by Israel's policies. Examine this carefully and it appears incomprehensible; why would legislators sell their souls to increase election chances when they are placing their constituencies in jeopardy and participating in genocide of the Palestinian people? Why would anyone support these legislators? Something is so drastically wrong that making it correct seems natural. The U.S. Congress has not served its own people well, and it's time to shove that knowledge into the minds and hearts of the American people and those throughout the western word. The question answers itself: "How can a complacent world remain unaware of the dangers to themselves posed by Israel's extreme efforts?" Israel cannot be defeated internally by armed resistance or externally by war. However, those desiring peace in the Middle East and justice for the Palestinians are not asking that Israel be totally defeated and succumb to the dictates of a victor. They are asking that Israel change its policies, become a peace loving nation and realize its obligations to the Palestinians and the world community. And the peaceniks are not, as Israel propagandists want the world to believe, denying the state of Israel. That is being done by an Israel that does not define its borders, does not have a constitution, and defies UN Resolutions. Israel needs a complete makeover, which apparently can only occur by refusing Israel the resources that fuel its aggressive attitude. States have a culture and approach that includes compromising through diplomacy and recognizing that self-interest has its limitations and cannot aggressively clash with the interests of others. A self-absorbed enterprise has a psychological bent that eschews any interference, believes in its own destiny, proceeds without compromise, and uses all power to achieve ends. Noting the weapons used and wanton killings that Israel has been guilty of in Lebanon and Gaza, the use of nuclear weapons in a conflict, which wipes out the adversary, does not endanger Israel's population, and will solve Israel's objectives, is highly probable. Supporting Israel in its deliberate drive to expand and control is a sure route to eventual disaster. Because people might gamble with money but few will gamble with their lives, it is imperative to impress on the public that they are being placed in a situation that may envelop them in fallout from a nuclear holocaust. An intensive and well financed campaign of words and challenges that expose the counterproductive actions of the Religious Right, Israel's supporters, and the U.S. Congress can have a great effect. People do not remain dumb when it is more in their interest to become aware, smart and remain alive. Israel mainly succeeds in its endeavors because it has a worldwide contingent of dedicated loyalists who obey a quasi central authority, follow the same line and have the same focus -- advance Israel's interests. Their actions are efficient and carefully guided by a prepared agenda -- when Israel attacks bring in the Holocaust; when Israel is revenged, bring in terrorism and/or anti-Semitism. Individuals and organizations that counter Israel operate independently and without a unified focus. They have insufficient funds to convince audiences of Israel's treachery. Most of the audiences are already educated in the situation but powerless to use the information for decisive action. Many organizations duplicate each other's thrust and followers, dissipate effectiveness, and behave in competition. All serve a valuable purpose, have a place in the discussion, and succeed in letting everyone know they are not alone; that there is a movement to right the situation and their efforts are noticed. However, the efforts are miniscule compared to what is needed and the result is obvious -- Israel's continuous occupation and increased expansion; a trajectory toward absolute destruction of the Palestinian community and endless violence in the Middle East. The catastrophic situation demands a fresh and more unified approach to STOP ASSISTING ISRAEL AGGRESSION and OPPRESSION. Senator Bernie Sander's success in energizing a mass of the population, which previously refused to recognize the words Bernie speaks and the policies he advocates, has shown that a unified voice can awaken a dormant electorate. The STOP ASSISTING ISRAEL AGGRESSION and OPPRESSION movement needs several worldwide organizations, which are dedicated to informing citizens of the detrimental effects of Israel's policies on their lives, which means reshaping information about the crisis and policies concerning the Middle East, and constituting to counter the propaganda that misshapes policies. The numbers are there; those who vehemently disapprove Israel's policies far outnumber its adherents -- probably by a factor of 10:1, billions of people from Indonesia to Canada, compared to hundreds of millions from Israel to the United States. So, what's the problem and where are they? One problem is that the pro-Israel contingent follows the Trump philosophy -- bludgeon the opponent with made up stories, deceit and invectives. Talk with those who favor Israel and find the most rabid of them shout, scream and prevent rebuttals. If their ugly behavior does not silence critics, they resort to the ultra-low technique of labeling their antagonist as an anti-Semite. Use of anti-Semitism to silence opponents and constant reference to the World War II holocaust to promote Israel are essentials to Israel's strategy of confuse and conquer. Contradicting history with references to biblical literature in order to convince an unknowing world that Jews have returned to their ancient land and retrieved a stolen possession is another dishonest measure. Historians, archaeologists, and geneticists have shown that contemporary world Jewry has no direct ties to the ancient Hebrews, the Hebrews did not exercise much control in the area in which they wandered, and, similar to other tribes, they became extinguished by merging into other civilizations. The Jewish persona and Judaism emerged more fully in Mesopotamia and spread throughout the world. All of this has been summarized in previous articles: Return of the Israelites at www.alternativeinsight.com/Return_of_the_Israelites.html , The Jewish Caliphate at www.alternativeinsight.com/The_Jewish_Caliphate.html , and The War of Narratives at www.alternativeinsight.com/The_War_of_Narratives.html A thinking person does not need the historical narrative or archaeological diggings to demonstrate the speciousness of the claim of a Hebrew empire; just note that no major museum displays any validated documents in old Hebrew or prominent artifacts from an ancient Israel. There are no appearances or historical references to monuments, buildings, weapons, vessels, artwork, roads, tools, ceramics, earthenware, which define a people or civilization; nothing more than some seals and coins for commerce, which can be provided by local authorities. Besides, people of today have almost no relation to those from 4000 years ago. All elements that form conscience are different -- experiences are different, behavior is different, environment is different. Are Italians the same as ancient Romans? Are modern Egyptians the same as the dynastic Egyptians? DNA is not the complete story; we all have the same number of genes, but they are turned on and off in reaction to the environment. A Jewish person from Europe has much, much less similarity to an ancient Hebrew than a Palestinian who has lived for decades in a similar environment to that of the ancient tribes. A statement by Jack Gleeson, one of the actors in the popular television drama Game of Thrones, demonstrates the absurdity to which the subtle brainwashing reaches. The 19-year-old actor, who plays the boy king, Joffrey Baratheon, in the medieval drama, has been quoted that "After 'Game Of Thrones' I'd be happy to do some amateur plays but I don't think I want to do any more professional acting. I'd like to be an academic, a philosophy lecturer if possible. I'd do a Masters in Ancient Hebrew maybe, and a PhD hopefully, if I get in." A PhD in ancient Hebrew! Being as there are only about four small writings of a debatable ancient Hebrew script, what can be studied in ancient Hebrew for more than one day? In an article, The Oldest Hebrew Script and Language at www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-artifacts/inscriptions/the-oldest-hebrew-script-and-language, which summarizes work by epigraphy scholar Christopher Rollston, Associate Professor of Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures at George Washington University, Rollston contends that all the Old Hebrew discoveries are debatable and more likely use Phoenician script.

Michael Handelzalts, Haaretz, Aug 04, 2013 at http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-1.539683 ,

writes that "Modern Hebrew writing isn't really based on ancient Hebrew letters at all, and it's because of the exile in Babylon. About the end of the sixth century BCE, the Hebrew language discarded the ancient Hebrew letters and adopted Aramaic ones. This dramatic act is documented in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah in the Bible and commented on in the Talmud and in Greek sources. Perhaps the alphabet that the Hebrew language uses today, which is in fact Aramaic, should really be called Jewish." A simplified and accepted language tree, from www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320hist&civ/chapters/17abcs.htm describes Old Hebrew becoming archaic and Modern Hebrew being derived from Aramaic script. Israel's Museum of the Lands of the Bible has a more certified alphabet tree but for legal reasons cannot be reproduced. It shows proto-Canaanite as the mother alphabet and script for the western languages. Both early Hebrew (the museum uses early rather then old) and Phoenician are derived from Canaanite and both disappear with early Hebrew evolving into Samaritan. Rather than a Modern Hebrew being derived from Aramaic, the museum chart describes a Jewish language as a derivative of West Aramaic script and New Hebrew derived from the Jewish language. The popular mindset has accepted the spurious descriptions of the Hebrew tribes and their place in history, which has led to acceptance of a false attachment of modern Jewry and Israel to an ancient homeland. Keeping historical knowledge to academic books and libraries serves only academics. Releasing this knowledge elevates thought processes and places in perspective the Zionist mission. which is a venture replacing a Jewish redemption, similar to a Massachusetts Bay Colony, which expanded and expanded until it liquidated the Native American presence, replacing a Puritan experience. Today's Israeli Jews around the world may have some common ties and characteristics, but Israelis have little relation with these Jews or past Jews; Israelis are a new people, Israeli Jews, who are a product of conditioning by the administration that rules them. They have a new language, a new history, and a new conscience, a virulent nationalism and militarist spirit that had been alien to the dispersed Jews throughout their history. Way back in 1876, George Eliot penned a confusing book, Daniel Deronda, which has a controversial sub-plot -- an idealistic and aristocratic hero finds compatibility with the London Jewish community and becomes a supporter of early Zionism. Due to its dual and confusing plot, George Eliot's book was not well received. Nevertheless, the almost 150 year-old novel has been made into three films, two television programs and been adapted for the stage. The Zionists started the brainwashing early and have not stopped one day since that time. Noting that use of questionable techniques to defend a position is a clear indication that the position is indefensible, acceptable strategies can be devised to counter the techniques that enable Israel's occupation of the international mindset. Not correcting the spurious arguments that create a facade for the construction of Israel has been the greatest failure of those who want a just solution to the Middle East crisis. It is time to place a discussion of ancient Levant history at the top in the agenda of the new direction for resolving the Middle East crisis and make certain that schools of lower and higher education do not replace authentic history with biblical stories, and they do. Page 14 of the NYSTROM Atlas of World History, used in Middle Schools, quotes the Hebrew Bible (Tanach) with "unconfirmed history," and locates the Hebrews between the pages of the Akkadians and Egyptians, starting from Sumeria with Abraham, and wandering for 500 years until reaching Canaan from Egypt and establishing kingdoms, none of which are defined or mentioned to have accomplished anything -- speculation leading to nothing, and indirectly proving there was nothing. Start with the constant exploitation of the World War II holocaust The extent to which Israeli propaganda operates by continuous exploitation of the World War II holocaust to gain sympathy is well known, but the depths of the manipulations are subtly hidden. A February 2016 Public Broadcasting System (PBS) program, Nova's Memory Hackers interviewed Dr. Eric R. Kandel, one of several neuroscientists who appeared on the program. When Dr. Kandel, who was born in Vienna, Austria, spoke, a flashback to the 1938 Kristallnacht with storm troopers appeared on the screen and commentary on Dr. Kandel's leaving his home after the Nazi annexation of Austria was detailed. What did this have to do with the Memory Hacker program? Nothing. Should not PBS be criticized for this lack of judgment? In the cinema listings of the February edition of Diplomat, a Washington D.C. journal that presents embassy news, 32 out of 56 posted films were related to the World War II holocaust, Israel, or Jewish themes. This was partly due to Washington's Jewish Community Center (JCC) featuring some of the films but most appeared in other theaters. During the same month, the Washington D.C. Palestine Center had films each week on the Palestinian experience but not one of the films was listed in the Diplomat. This may be due to the failure of the Palestine Center to take advantage of the free advertising, but it shows the intensity with which Israel's followers behave in the interests of Israel. Public education, media, cinema, theater, music, wherever lives meet word or sound, the World War II holocaust, after almost 80 years, is continually highlighted. The Holocaust has an essential place in history but not a unique place that dilutes the intensity and awareness of other genocides. Israel has identified itself with the death of others to give it sustenance and life. This disregard for the sanctity of the perished and the use of their sacrifices to promote an ideology warrants a response and that response, which reveals a notorious use of the World War II holocaust, contradicts the reasons for Israel's existence. The often quoted phrases that "Israel is built on the legacy of the Holocaust," and "the Palestinians have been made to suffer because of the crimes of the Europeans against the Jews" are spurious and should be countered. Hearing these contrived remarks from pro-Palestinian activists, as I have heard, indicates the effectiveness of this purposeful misinformation. . The plans for creating Israel occurred long before awareness of the Holocaust and independent of the World War II catastrophe. The Zionist mission to subdue the native population and create a unique state for its adherents began decades before World War II. After the 1917 Balfour Declaration declared that "His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people," the Zionist Organization submitted a proposal to the Paris Peace conference, which showed a greater Israel from slightly west of Amman, Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea and from slightly south of Beirut, Lebanon to the Egyptian border in the Sinai peninsula. The shown map of the Zionist position can be found at http://www.mideastweb.org/zionistborders.htm Nor has it been proven that the UN Partition Plan, Resolution 181, gained approval due to sympathy with the European Jews. It can also be shown that the Soviet Union and its satellites voted for the plan in the expectation that the new nation would favor socialist ideals and side with them in UN debates. President Truman's catering to a Jewish electorate in his bid for the presidency by declaring support for the Partition Plan, and leaders of Central and South American countries, whose votes were decisive in enabling the Resolution, being influenced by their northern patron, were more important considerations than a moral obligation. Even if there were no Holocaust or UN Resolution 181, the Zionists would have proceeded until they succeeded in their plans and probably with more aggression. The frightful Holocaust is used to play on the fears of Israeli children. They suffer from an educational system, which instills in them that the past Holocaust means fear of a future Holocaust from which they must protect themselves. In the disguise of being educated to survive, Israelis are being trained to be fearful, alienated, suspicious and careful of the others. They are not being trained to live but are being trained to make themselves ready to kill. Education of Israel's children has a similar mind setting construction to that which has characterized totalitarian systems. Here is what the new Israel generation favors: Forward, March 8, 2016, by Naomi Zeveloff "Almost half of all Israeli Jews are in favor of transferring or expelling the state's Arab population, a major U.S. survey of Israeli public opinion has found." http://forward.com/news/israel/335292/48-of-israeli-jews-back-expulsion-or-transfer-of-arabs-new-pew-survey-says/#ixzz42LcIwsw0 If the sacrifices of its victims remain in proper perspective, the lessons of the World War II holocaust will not be forgotten. They will be forgotten if their sacrifice is transformed into a commodity for advertising and sale, whose excessive attention distracts from the principal World War II history and warnings and drives people to ask the question, "Why are we repeatedly being told this?" Charge of anti-Semitism is another weapon to silence Israel's critics I noticed the start of this campaign during the 1980's when a Rabbi from Boston, Massachusetts showed up in Maryland, and was allowed to interrupt a course in biblical archaeology at a Jewish Community Center and lecture on the subject, "Is anti-Zionism actually anti -Semitism?" No student knew who he was, where he came from, or why he was allowed to interrupt and talk to a captured audience. One of the worst charges of anti-Semitism was an accusation made against President Obama by Netanyahu's spokesman, Ran Baratz. Haaretz newspaper's Barak Ravid reports on Nov 05, 2015. Allow me to be harsh, contrary to my moderate habits," Baratz wrote in the March 3 post. "Obama's reference to Netanyahu's speech -- this is what modern anti-Semitism looks like in Western and liberal countries. And it comes, of course, alongside much tolerance and understanding toward Islamic anti-Semitism. So much tolerance and understanding that they are willing to give [Iran] an atom[ic bomb]. Combating the erroneous charges demands a huge legal defense fund for those unlawfully accused. Applying a new definition to the words will also be helpful. The former can be effective by aiding those who have either been silenced or lost their positions in educational institutes, media and industry because they have spoken against Zionism and Israel. It is a difficult operation, which if not done correctly can be counterproductive but it is not blue sky. People have actually won law suits in defense of unfair accusations of anti-Semitism. Charges of bigotry backfire, by George Lane, Denver Post, April 29, 2000. An Evergreen couple accused publicly of being anti-Semitic won a $10.5 million damage award from a federal jury Friday in a defamation lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL accused William and Dorothy Quigley at a 1994 news conference of perpetrating the worst anti-Semitic incident in the area since the slaying of Jewish talk-show host Alan Berg 10 years earlier. They were accused of launching "Operation Aronson," an effort to run their Jewish neighbors out of town, and threatening to commit acts such as painting oven doors on their neighbors' home. The jury found that the statements at the news conference, and on talk radio, were defamatory and "not substantially true." If they could do it, so can thousands of others and with those victories, charges of anti-Semitism used to silence Israel's critics will be subdued. Anti-Semitism is not only misapplied; it is not defined correctly. In a previous article, Emergence of the Real Israel at http://www.alternativeinsight.com/The_Real_Israel.html , the writer fancied a more correct characterization, which leads to a more widespread and valuable application. Arabs are also Semites and suffer magnitudes more discrimination and serious attacks than Jewish Semites. In order not to have any group monopolize the term Anti-Semitism it is preferable to use the term with more correct meanings.

Anti-SemitismA refers to discrimination against Arab Semites from non-Arabs.

Anti-SemitismAA refers to discrimination against Arab Semites from other Arabs, of which there is plenty.

Anti-SemitismJ refers to discrimination against Jewish Semites from non-Jews.

Anti-SemitismJJ refers to discrimination against Jewish Semites from other Jews, of which there is plenty. A simple rewriting of the word, such as using anti-SemitismA (discrimination against Arab Semites from non-Arabs) when appropriate, can reshape a new generation's minds, and apply a more honest characterization to the word anti-Semite. Pernicious statements are purposely inserted in arguments to confuse the issue. One pernicious statement, which must be refuted, is that there are "Two nationalities fighting for the same land." It should be rephrased that "a composition of individuals coming from various parts of the world has seized land owned by indigenous people who show title, have nourished the land for generations, and are defending themselves against the illegal intrusion." Another pernicious statement, which must be refuted, is that "the two sides have been fighting the same war for 5000 years." The two sides have scarcely known one another until about 150 years ago when the foreign Zionists arrived in Palestine and ignited the battle. In addition, let us not permit Israel's conflicts with Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran confuse the issue. These are separate quarrels that should be treated separately. If there were no Hamas, no Hezbollah, and no Iran, Israel would still be occupying the Golan Heights, Jordan valley and oppressing the Palestinians, except there would be Israeli settlements in Lebanon up to the Litani River, in Gaza, and probably most of the Sinai Peninsula. Enough of the background and pointed reasons for alarm. What can be done? If articles, books, appeals, rhetoric, demonstrations, and myriads of organizations sympathetic to the Palestinian cause -- decades of products dedicated to turning the tide against Israeli oppression -- have not succeeded by now, then those paths to success are not likely possible. Go back two decades and recall that demonstrations in Washington, D.C. for Palestinian rights covered the broad avenues with tens of thousands of participants. A similar march on March 20, 2016, which featured a demonstration against the AIPAC 2016 convention, attracted only about 1000 people. Although the oppression has become worse and is approaching a catastrophic level, the numbers willing to fight aggressively for Palestinian rights are dwindling. A side attraction to the demonstration exposed the manipulative manner of the Israeli system; several well dressed and personal Israelis appeared from nowhere, worked the crowd at the Convention entrance, and debated the demonstrators as if they understood and sympathized with the Palestinians, but after all, "the Palestinians have started it all and are not really a people. Those debating these infiltrators did not seem to realize that these Israelis were only trying to obtain information, note what the other side thought so Israelis can form suitable rebuttals, and serve as a safety valve, draining energy from the crowd, and making believe there were Israelis who were willing to listen and cooperate. A new path, with new organizations that neither complement existing organizations nor exist apart from them, but operate in an entirely different manner, which work to salvage the last flickering hope of saving a world from expected devastation, is needed. Because of the difficulties, complications, and complexities in forming organizations of this type, the following is only a hypothetical guide. These organizations are not for the faint hearted; they will be continually forced to explain themselves, combat legal challenges, and make sure they do not violate lobbyist laws. If they succeed, the other organizations succeed, if they fail, all is lost. Despite the challenges, considering the need for these organizations, some groups may find a way and accomplish the formation. This way will not be directed at Israel; Israel is its own problem and its citizens and foes must handle that situation. The argument of these organizations is with those who assist Israel in its illegal, unlawful, discriminatory, and oppressive activities, its human rights violations, and preparations for endless wars -- governments, institutions, religious groups, and lobbies. They will learn to understand that  Israel is not an island of stability; it is the center of instability.  The U.S. is not making Israel more secure; it is making other nations more insecure.  The thrust is not to delegitimize Israel; Israel's supporters have already done that. The thrust is to make Israel into a valid nation and not one that represents a criminal enterprise.  Those who claim to be supporters of human rights must change their attitude toward Israel's extensive violations of human rights or face their hypocrisy.  Israel's Palestinians have been good citizens, which show that cooperation with the Palestinians is viable if Israel becomes an inclusive government.  The U.S. is not halting an arms race; by aiding Israel it has stimulated an arms race.  Policies in the Middle East are only another part of a long line of counterproductive U.S. policies from the invasion of Vietnam to wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. Assuredly, pro-Israel groups will more and more convince an unwary public that defending Palestinian rights is related to supporting Hamas, Iran and, Hezbollah, and pro-Palestinian groups will be severely attacked. Changing the perspective from helping Palestinians to helping citizens throughout the world will change the battleground, change the players and change the direction. As one example, the Religious Right, which Netanyahu carefully nurtured, will be challenged for its anti-Christian policies that promote the decline of Christianity in the Holy Land, and for its anti-SemiticJ rhetoric that speak of the Rapture and Armageddon in the Valley of Jezreel at Megiddo in Israel. At this final battle, "Jesus Christ will lead a heavenly army to victory over God's enemies," destroying the Jewish experience and converting all Jews to Christianity. Zionists will be revealed as not representing the Jewish people and guilty of anti-SemitismJJ by leading the Jews to an ultimate destruction both in spiritual values and physical presence. Israel has not incorporated contemporary Jews into a nation; it has created a new Jew, the Israeli Jew, which has only a vague relation to world Jewry and Judaism. Organization The organization's thrust will be to reveal the errors in U.S. foreign policy, expose the manipulations that steer those policies, educate the public toward a new direction, and influence government to change direction, with emphasis on the Middle East policies. It may be preferable to start with an already well established organization that can revise its charter to become a larger organization with a central focus in the U.S. capital city, and has capacity to gather and disburse funds for operations. Subsidiary but independent associations throughout the world will coordinate activities with the central organization. The new organizations serve as a liberating force, freeing all from the misinformation that steers them to awkward thinking, to accepting the genocide of the Palestinian people as an everyday occurrence, and to being captured by a tyranny that shapes their lives in service of others rather than advancing their own nations. Re-evaluating dual citizenship, investigating Israeli immigration into key congressional districts, combating illegal operations by AIPAC, Anti-Defamation League and other pro-Israel organizations, challenging those doing business with and locating in Israel, exposing the grants by set-up organizations to Israelis who arrive at foreign shores from dubious think tanks, gain credentials, infiltrate institutions and universities and ensure "balanced" activity so that nothing happens, are only a few of the multitude of actions for moving the U.S. government to assist its citizens and not Israel's interests. If everyone is positive, the mounting criticism against the unusual support enjoyed by Israel will reach a threshold or break point that overcomes those who give Israel their undivided support. The complacent who note the bandwagon will come forth and give expression to the endeavor. No need to storm the barricades, just knock harder with a stronger fist at the closed doors. Dan Lieberman is editor of Alternative Insight, a monthly web based newsletter. He can be reached at: alternativeinsight@earthlink.net





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Reply To Chetan Bhagat, When Vanity Overtook Your Meekness

By Shahid Lone

24 April, 2016

Countercurrents.org

Mr Chetan Baghat,

Since a few of my colleagues have already sent you schooling manuals pertaining to Kashmir dispute but I am damn sure, you wont take out your black aviator and merit the things as they are. So, allow me to trespass your valuable time by laying down a few lines of factual considerations there to: In your theatrical and euphemistically open letter to kashmiris like me, which rationally lacked kosher concreteness from historical and political frames, shouldered me with a responsibility to make you aware of few facts. Lets analyze your letter in a phased manner.

Firstly, you are right when you say something terrible is happening in Kashmir but let me take your memory to ride in conflict ridden history of Kashmir. All the terrible episodes in Kashmir, for which history will never be kind on India, dates back to partition of India, when Kashmir was left as an unfinished business by British empire and India profited by sending its troops to valley and till date continues the very same trend, which was resisted violently and non-violently through every means by kashmiris and hence impressed Pandit Nehru to take up the matter to United Nations, wherein India was directed to hold free and fair plebiscite in the state but till date, it has failed to mature even after so many UN resolutions. Mr. baghat, doesn't the spirit of rationality demand to fulfil this legitemate demand of kashmiris? Space demands me to keep it brief but I advise you, kindly wear a transparent glass and re check your facts, if any, and dont term it as something terrible, it merits, by every frame of reference to qualify a GENOCIDE.

Secondly, like an emotional and patriot Indian, you want Kashmiris to assimilate with a country which is super poor, where water for IPL matches is more important than precious life of farmers, where strategies and laws are first made at Nagpur and than in the parliament. I mean really! I wonder what made you to write that? May be a birth in the ruling party is on the cards. Even basic parameters and premises of assimilation don't give us this luxury. linguistically, culturally socially, historically, geographically, we share nothing in common. To put it more candidly, heaven and hell by their very nature are bound to exist separately, so no more vomiting please! Albeit cultural assimilation in Kashmir engineered by your Pseudo-secular and Neo- liberal puppets is on the rise and is a clarion call for us.

Thirdly you were supposed to tell how future is best but like your other cynical ilks, you took the tough task of teaching history, gender studies, peace and conflict et`al and still failed miserably because your vanity overtook your meekness and you fondled with opportunism. The pain your state has inflicted on us, has culminated in a belief where every event and date is remembered, so no more fiction here!

Fourthly, let me detail you few statistics about why occupying Indian state and Indian army earned the reputation of not only we hate India but Go India, Go back. Since 1990, Indian armed forces have unleashed on kashmiris like beasts and brutally killed over 1, 00,000 people, raped more than 5000 women, enforced the disappearance of 10,000 men. Does it suffice the argument or do you wish an entire column to be dedicated on statistics?

Kashmir with its abundant and immense Hydro-electric potential supplies 80 % of electricity to the entire northern region of India, 17 % airline and tourism revenue on an average is annually received by India from valley alone. Our carpet industry is famous all over the globe and contributes 0.84 % to indian GDP ( KEA, 2012-13) and yet it appears to you as a tiny stub. Let me give you another view of strong our economy is. When Valley was cut off at stretch with the rest of the world for months during brutal reign of Omar Abdullah, we didnt die out of poverty, hunger and starvation, unlike India where one such day could lead to loss of thousands of lives and next day you will find your PM announcing relief packages for them.

You dont consider Pakistan as a real economy, yet your government interferes in the development of China Pakistan Economic Corridor. Creating turbulence and impediments in Pakistans development route and time and again trying to destabilize it with covert operations in FATA, Waziristan and Afghanistan itself speaks of your hypocrisy and concocted narrative on this front. My humble plea to you is, concentrate on judging dance shows and fiction and don't lecture us on Geo-Politics and International Relations.

Please allow me to give you a fair and settling view of womens rights under your so called terminology of fundamental Islam". We only follow the religion, which in bold and caps is written in books as ISLAM and not as moderate or extremist, leftist or rightist but yes we try our utmost to stick to its very fundamentals. If adhering and abiding by the fundamentals of ones religion makes him a fundamentalist, then we muslims feel proud under this brand.

Over 1400 years ago, Islam gave women rights that Indian society has only recently begin to enjoy. Actually there are no such kinds of special rights which men have and women dont. Like men, women can attain education, they are free to work, free to choose their spouse and marry, assist and lead in wars et`al. For more details and schooling on this particular subject and prognostication of your naivete , kindly refer to Historical role of Islam by M N Roy.

Not only article 370 but we will get rid of whole constitution, you know what, it stinks and suffocates now and is too old a burden to be carried in 21st century but only when we free ourselves from the clutches of Indian oppression.

My resistance is stronger. When I look back over my shoulder; I look for your eyes, eyes filled with hatred, coldness and thirst for blood. I feel your oppression crawling on my back. Here are my mothers, my sisters and my brothers. I am here, in the fight against oppression and occupation. Me, carrying my pain and my bitterness I'm not seeding hate. I don't fight with weapons. I fight with my words.

We will raise our voices for us, for our children, for freedom of Kashmir. We will fight for every drop of blood and for every tree on our shore. We will return children to mothers and mothers to homes. We will return peace to weary warriors. We will return laughter to life.

AS-SALAM AS SALAM, AE-SHAHEEDO AS SALAM

(Author is a narrative journalist and his columns have been carried by various international dailies. )










Presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, raised $122,666 from Hoosiers in March, compared with $19,856 given to Ohio Gov. John Kasich and $8,082 collected by GOP front-runner Donald Trump.

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By Mark Alesia and Chelsea Schneider, IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz called Donald Trump "a big-government liberal" and said he would take a much different approach than his opponent to companies that move jobs to Mexico.

Cruz told IndyStar in an exclusive interview before his rally Saturday night in Lebanon that Trump's emphasis on tariffs puts his opponent in company with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. In a rally in Indianapolis earlier this week, Trump excoriated Indy company Carrier, which is moving 1,400 jobs to Mexico.

"Big-government liberals --- like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump --- all try to use the power of government to bully and abuse and punish those who don't do what they want," Cruz said.

"Donald has a long history of threatening government retaliation against any company that moves jobs overseas --- exactly like Obama and Hillary do. I think that's exactly backward. It is a tragedy that Carrier is moving so many jobs to Mexico, but it is responding to the disaster that is the Obama-Clinton economy. It is the federal government that has driven Carrier out of Indiana and is driving jobs away from America all across this country."

"Donald has no idea how to bring jobs back to America. His response to every problem is to yell and scream and curse and insult people. But he has no actual policy to fix the problem."

Cruz said tax cuts and lifting regulations on small businesses would result in "millions of new high-paying jobs here in America."

The Texas senator spoke to about 1,000 people for about a half-hour at the Witham Pavilion at the Boone County Fairgrounds. Polls show he trails Trump slightly in Indiana, with the primary May 3.

Now Indiana is a battleground, Cruz told the crowd. Right now, Donald and I are neck and neck and the entire country and the eyes of America are on Indiana. Indiana has a platform. Indiana has a national megaphone, and we can decide which path we want to go down.

"Do we want a candidate whose only approach to the problems of America is to yell and scream and curse and insult anyone standing near him? Or do we want to get behind a campaign with a positive, optimistic, forward looking, conservative vision.

Before the event, Cruz also told IndyStar he would welcome an endorsement from Gov. Mike Pence, despite Pence's sagging popularity, and that businesses were being "bullied" into opposing religious freedom laws.

Of Pence, Cruz said, "I would certainly very much welcome Gov Pence's support. He is someone I respect and admire. He's a strong conservative who has been an effective leader for the state of Indiana. And he has been a national voice defending conservative principles for a long long time."

Asked if he requested an endorsement from the governor when they met earlier in the week, Cruz said, "He ultimately will make the decision about what to do in this race, if anything. But I respect and admire Gov. Pence a great deal."

Pence's support of Indiana's religious freedom law drew a strong backlash last year that led to changes to "fix" the law. Asked what it says about religious freedom laws when large businesses oppose them, as happened in Indiana, Cruz said there were bullied.

"Far too often the business community has given in to bullying at the expense of Christians and at the expense of people of faith," Cruz told IndyStar. "We're seeing that play out right now in North Carolina, where the business community is lining up against the people of North Carolina because of the extreme partisanship and intimidation that comes from the far left."

IndyStar has reported that the state's delegates favor Ohio Gov. John Kasich as the Republican nominee after the first ballot. Asked about that, Cruz emphasized his intent to campaign hard in Indiana and take his case to the people.

"I think any candidate for president owes it to the people to look them in the eyes, to answer their questions, to show the humility to stand in front of the voters and ask for their support and make the case," he said.
DENNY SIMMONS / COURIER & PRESS Daviess County will be completing a shell facility in the near future to the west of I-69 at the Washington, Ind., exit.

SHARE DENNY SIMMONS / COURIER & PRESS Signs are about the only thing one sees while traveling along I-69 from Evansville to Bloomington. Development along the interstate will be slow in coming as counties and towns will need to build sewer and water lines out to the exits of the highway. DENNY SIMMONS / COURIER & PRESS The Indiana Department of Transportation has nearly completed the Crane Unit Building in WestGate@Crane Technology Park in Odon, Ind., near Scotland, Ind. WestGate@Crane Technology Park has more than 20 companies which serve Naval Surface Warfare Center  Crane.

By Zach Osowski, zach.osowski@courierpress.com

INDIANAPOLIS  A drive along the new sections of Interstate 69 is full of hills, curves, classic Indiana country scenery and not much else. Now that Evansville is connected with Bloomington, and the final route to Indianapolis is planned, where are the businesses? Where are the gas stations, the hotels, the fast food?

Those are questions Todd Mosby, president and CEO of the Gibson County Economic Development Commission, hears all the time.

"If I've heard that question once, I've heard it a thousand times," Mosby said. "Heaven forbid people have to drive two miles off the highway to get gas."

Mosby said there was a false sentiment going around that once the new sections of Interstate 69 were done, economic development would quickly follow. He said there has been an immediate impact on travel but not on industry, at least not yet.

"You can't just put an industrial park down there (at the Oakland City exit)," Mosby said. "There are a lot of moving parts."

Just having a federal highway running by an exit doesn't mean businesses are lining up to locate there. For more rural counties especially, the onus is on them to create a place businesses want to move to by building infrastructure. Both Gibson County and Pike County are starting the planning process for infrastructure development out on the Interstate 69 exits.

Ashley Willis, executive director of the Pike County Economic Growth and Development Council, said they are hoping to finalize plans for an industrial access road at the Petersburg exit. Willis said the road would be visible from the highway and should entice bigger businesses to consider Pike County. They are hoping to get approval from the county council and INDOT by the summer.

"We want to be as marketable as we can," Willis said. "This is an exciting time for us and we want to make sure we are shovel ready."

Over in Gibson County, that means at least getting sewer and water lines out to the exit. Mosby said at minimum, businesses need those two resources in order to think about locating there. He said the county has already completed a study and is now doing survey work. The county is looking at paying $30 million $40 million over the next few years to get infrastructure out to the highway, Mosby said.

Mosby lobbied for fiber-optic cables to be run along the highway as another attraction to businesses but said that was scrapped because of the expense.

Other counties have been a little more proactive as far as getting ready for the highway expansion. Daviess County started construction on a shell facility last year and should be wrapping up in May. Economic Director Ron Arnold said the facility can be used by several different businesses for a variety of purposes. He said the location  the facility will be visible from the highway  was determined by Interstate 69 and a desire to capture new business. The building, and a $2 million add-on to make the facility accessible to railways, were funded through an economic development income tax established several years ago for the purpose of paying for services to make the county more attractive to businesses. A growing population, one of just 12 in Indiana, has helped bring in more money to the income tax fund.

"We've been fortunate in Daviess County," Arnold said. "We've seen population growth over the last few years and we have local politicians who have been proactive."

Since Section 4 of Interstate 69 from Crane to Bloomington opened in December, Arnold said inquiries into the facility have gone up. The location could become even more desirable once the final two legs of the highway, from Bloomington to Martinsville and finally from Martinsville to Indianapolis, are complete.

Perhaps the most notable development along the highway is at exit 87 in northern Daviess County. That exit provides access for the Crane Naval base, Westgate Academy and the small town of Odon. The naval base was there long before the highway but development has picked up more quickly there than other exits. Despite the training grounds and base, however, it is still a bit of a drive to Odon and its small number of gas stations and restaurants. Development immediately off the exit is still sparse.

Construction on Section 5, Bloomington to Martinsville, is currently underway. The final leg to Indianapolis is still in the developmental stage, although INDOT has determined Indiana 37 will be the route.

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation estimates the final leg alone will add $2.4 billion to the state's GDP. That projection is over a 20-year period, showing just how long it can take for economic development to make a full impact.

There isn't a timetable for construction starting on Section 6 and it could easily be five to 10 years before the highway is complete.

Locals are hoping to see growth before that. Willis said she hopes to see change at the Petersburg exit within the next two to three years, once some of the changes they'd like to see are in place. She said even with an attraction like Interstate 69, it can be difficult to find the right partnership.

"We've had some interest but the puzzle pieces just haven't quite fit yet," Willis said.

Mosby said a business right at the interchange is the key to seeing more development. He said once a business is established, then highway travelers will start seeing things like gas stations and restaurants right off of the exit.
Davey Blackburn, his wife Amanda and their son Weston are seen in this photograph. Amanda, who was 12 weeks pregnant, was shot in her Indianapolis home during a home invasion and later died. She and her husband moved from South Carolina in 2012 to plant a church in Indianapolis.

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Six months after Amanda Blackburn was killed, her husband spoke about forgiveness and raising their son

By Madeline Buckley, USA TODAY NETWORK, Indianapolis Star

When Davey Blackburn came home to find his wife lying on the floor, gravely injured, his first thought was that something went horrifically wrong with her pregnancy.

When I found her still breathing, I thought, This is bad, but if we can get her to the hospital, she is going to be okay, Blackburn told a church congregation in South Carolina on Sunday morning.

Blackburn didnt know someone had been in his Indianapolis home.

He didnt know in that moment that his wife, Amanda Blackburn, suffered from gunshot wounds. She died in the hospital 24 hours later.

Nearly six months have passed since the 28-year-old woman was found by her husband critically injured in their home in the citys Wynnedale-Spring Hill neighborhood on Nov. 10.

The street in the 2800 block of Sunnyfield Court is now quiet. The Blackburns home has a for-sale sign in its front yard. The only indication of the horrific violence that took place there are posters in some windows that proclaim, Thank you IMPD!

About two weeks after Amanda Blackburns death, detectives arrested three suspects in connection with her shooting death. The men, Larry Taylor, Jalen Watson and Diano Gordon face charges of murder, robbery and a slew of other felonies. Their cases remain pending.

Court documents allege that Taylor shot Amanda Blackburn after breaking into her home amid a spree of burglaries and violence with his two co-defendants.

The woman was three months pregnant. Her toddler son Weston was in his crib when his mother was shot.
Presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, raised $122,666 from Hoosiers in March, compared with $19,856 given to Ohio Gov. John Kasich and $8,082 collected by GOP front-runner Donald Trump.

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By Courier & Press Staff

Campaign officials for Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz confirmed late Saturday that Cruz will visit Evansville Sunday evening for a rally.

The event is set for Sunday 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Old National Events Plaza in Downtown Evansville.

Those wishing to attend can register for tickets at:

www.eventbrite.com/e/senator-ted-cruz-holds-rally-in-evansville-tickets-24892287502

The candidate's planned visit in Evansville follows appearances here recently by both his wife and his father.
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If the location is right, pollution is no obstacle.

For some of the former industrial properties known as brownfields, new owners are willing to pay exorbitant cleanup costs to reuse the land. Elsewhere, when the payoff isnt quite so clear, governments can work with developers on the piecemeal assemblage of a cleanup plan, which can take years to develop.

For some sites, even that much is impossible. In the wrong location, with expensive contamination and a bleak outlook, some properties will simply sit, year after year, decade after decade, as a buildings physical deterioration brings down a neighborhood and any hope of an economic rebound.

A new nonprofit enabled by legislation pending before the General Assembly is aimed at helping those properties that might otherwise be a lost cause.

The primary point is to provide capacity for smaller municipalities to deal with sites that have been stuck for a long time, said Arthur Bogen, who founded the first Connecticut brownfield land bank. The nonprofit organization has contracts with two municipalities, including Ansonia, and interest from several others.

The land bank functions by taking problematic properties off a citys hands, taking care of the cleanup process by cobbling together funds from a variety of sources, and eventually handing back a piece of land ready for reuse, free of contamination and liability.

How it works

Bogen, who owns his own consulting agency in addition to his work on brownfields with the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments, said the land bank offers a way forward that wouldnt otherwise be available. Under the legislation, a land bank would be eligible for the same remediation funding as a municipality, but as a nonprofit it would be better equipped to pursue other sources, including philanthropic donations.

Were looking to find sources beyond the normal funding, Bogen said. We can talk to foundations, and there are interested individuals who have philanthropic concerns on some of these sites.

The land bank would operate on a fee basis, taking on properties one at a time. Bogen envisions himself as the only full-time staff member.

Connecticut, with no county government, leaves many smaller towns lacking in capacity to handle complex matters like brownfield redevelopment, he said. Councils of governments are limited by their inability to take ownership of properties.

The lank bank  as opposed to a land trust, which holds property in perpetuity  would exist to fill those gaps.

Even as the legislation remains before the Assembly, the land bank is at work. Were already are up and running, Bogen said, adding that the legislation would allow the agency to become eligible for direct funding, which would take effect in July.

National interest

John Podgurski, who heads the Environmental Protection Agencys brownfields program in New England, said the program has great potential.

Its the first of its kind in New England, and we think it can be very valuable and is very necessary, he said, adding that many communities do not have the ability to tackle difficult projects on their own.

The land bank can work with the municipality from the beginning of the process, do a preliminary assessment and, from a development perspective, advance the project all the way through the process, he said.

Podgurski said there are many examples of successful land banks around the country, but none with this specific model. We believe this is something that could have significant applicability throughout New England, he said.

Tim Sullivan, deputy commissioner of the state Department of Economic and Community Development, said the bill could provide opportunities for smaller towns and cities.

What the bill does is encourage the formation of specialized nonprofits that would just do brownfield remediation, he said. Its a great way to provide more options, especially smaller communities that maybe dont have the full-time staff to take these kind of projects on.

Sullivan, who heads DECDs brownfields program, said there is potential for growth. This does not create a Connecticut land bank, but it encourages what could be multiple land banks in the state, he said. There could be competition between land banks in the future. There are plenty of sites that need work.

He said he was optimistic the bill would be passed.

The local level

Sheila OMalley, Ansonias economic development director, said the city has significant challenges and could use some extra help.

Ansonia is so small, 6.4 square miles, and we have 60-plus acres downtown that qualify as brownfields, she said. Thats a huge amount of space is a city this size that could be used for redevelopment.

But its also a city with a diminished tax base and many competing needs.

This is a tool for a community like Ansonia to take some of the burden of having to find the funding, clean it and take on some the responsibility that cities cant always take on, she said. The land bank can take the parcel, remediate it and then turn it around and give it back to the city.

Ansonia Copper & Brass, the sprawling riverfront site that takes up a huge chunk of downtown, has enormous potential alongside its liabilities, she said.

We have interested developers and potential partners, but we have demolition that needs to be done, and plenty of cleanup, she said. The question is, how do you do that, avoid the liability and come up with the funding sources?

The land bank could fill in those gaps.

Were trying to pull in as many of the funding pieces as we can, as many collaborative agreements as we can enter into to move these pieces into a developable state, she said. Copper & Brass is at the top of the list.

hbailey@ctpost.com; 203-330-6233; @hughsbailey
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Connecticut is basking in its bellwether moment.

Yes, the Land of Steady Habits is no longer just a cut-through from New York to Boston. Its become the requisite detour to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. this primary season.

So here are some keys to Tuesdays presidential primaries and the road ahead to the general election.

The snooze-bar factor

Bernie Sanders better hope college undergrads dont hit the snooze bar on primary day. His strength is young voters in the 18- to 34-year-old age segment, which broke 73 to 26 percent for the Democratic socialist senator from Vermont in a recent Quinnipiac University poll. Statewide, 45,000 people under the age of 30 have registered to vote in 2016, according to the secretary of the states office.

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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.
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Prices are up, so Leesburg Electric has decided that, as of Oct. 1, late fees will be waived.
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President Obama has electrified the EU debate, which until now has been much duller than a geriatric darts match. His intervention may seem brutal and insensitive to some, but it has shown a grave weakness in the Brexit case.

By bluntly pointing out the truth  that a post-Brexit Britain would inevitably be treated as less important in trade talks with the US  he has angered the Leave lobby, aided the Remain campaign, but also made everyone think.

For the first time, millions have been shown in hard detail that this is not a game  but a real choice with real consequences.

President Obama has electrified the EU debate, which until now has been much duller than a geriatric darts match. His intervention may seem brutal and insensitive to some, but it has shown a grave weakness in the Brexit case

The Leave campaigners have no clear or common idea of what will actually happen if they get their way. This may be because they think national independence is so vital that they will make almost any sacrifice for it, and hope the voters feel the same way.

Or it may be because they think that departure from the EU will, like a magic spell, transform the fortunes of this country for the better. In many cases it is because they have not thought very hard about it. Nor have many voters.

Now, thanks to the Obama moment, they are going to have to be much clearer. This can only benefit a campaign which, given its enormous importance to the future of the country, has so far been conducted at a disappointingly low level.

By bluntly pointing out the truth  that a post-Brexit Britain would inevitably be treated as less important in trade talks with the US  Mr Obama has angered the Leave lobby

Both sides must now raise their games. A few weeks ago, the vote seemed impossibly far away.

But the time for decision is now growing close and the true shape of the division is becoming clearer and harder.

An extreme insult

Maina Kiai, a United Nations special envoy, has come to Britain to tell us that the Government's Prevent programme  aimed at combating Islamist extremism  is all wrong. If that were not galling enough, his expenses are being met by the British taxpayer through the foreign aid budget, which supplies funds to the UN.

The Kenyan-born official saw fit, during his peculiar visit, to meet CAGE, a group which described the ghastly and murderous Jihadi John as a 'beautiful young man'. He also visited Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder now seeking to evade arrest by skulking in a London embassy, and Malia Bouattia, the radical new National Union of Students leader who has been accused of making anti-Semitic remarks.

Maina Kiai, a United Nations special envoy, has come to Britain to tell us that the Government's Prevent programme  aimed at combating Islamist extremism  is all wrong

These are not brave dissidents struggling against a despotism, but dubious fringe figures. This a free country, and we have our own powerful free institutions quite capable of preserving our liberties without the aid of the UN.

If the UN seeks to preserve free assembly from its enemies, then it is looking in the wrong place. And it definitely should not ask the British taxpayer to meet the expenses of this ridiculous jaunt.

The sweet Prince...

We are lucky to have a Prince who loves Shakespeare  as Charles plainly does.

By this enthusiasm he is blessed with wisdom. In these great works, every experience and emotion is expressed, clothed in beauty and made memorable.

The solitude and sleeplessness of power, its baleful effect on friendship, the face of treachery, the sharp edge of war, the consequences of bad choices and of indecision are all there, haunting and unforgettable.
Sir Nicholas Soames was as sharp as a tack during Commons tributes to the Queen. The Tory MP recalled his grandfather Winston Churchills description of the young Monarch as our young and gleaming champion at a No 10 dinner in her honour in 1955.

Forced to buy three new suits after losing nearly 4st, there was a new gleam, too, about slimline Soames, who ended with a rousing God save the Queen.

As he sat down, he wiped away a tear that had plopped on to his jacket. Big softie.

Sir Nicholas Soames was as sharp as a tack during Commons tributes to the Queen. The Tory MP recalled his grandfather Winston Churchills description of the young Monarch as our young and gleaming champion at a No 10 dinner in her honour in 1955

Wisecracking gay Labour MP Chris Bryant used the occasion to tell the story of the Queen Mothers quip to camp Tory Minister Norman St John Stevas when a crowd cheered them as they climbed the stairs at the Royal Opera House.

Bryant said: Her Majesty was distinctly heard to say, Lucky things, two queens for the price of one.  If anyone other than Bryant had told the story, theyd be accused of rabid homophobia.

Ministers are bracing themselves for endless my buddy Barack anecdotes from the PM at No 10 after his Obama love-in.

Even before Obamas visit he never missed a chance to let us know theyre on first-name terms, sighed one Eurosceptic Minister.

Now that the leader of the Free World has probably saved his bacon over the EU referendum, well never hear the bloody last of it.

Bob's got nothing on the game Dame

The lingering kerfuffle over the crass totty remark made by Tory MP Bob Stewart to a political hackette reminds Dog of the Thatcher-era Tory Dame who used to meet a frisky male Commons newshound for trysts on a saggy brown sofa in the old Commonwealth Writing Room. There are worse places to lie back and think of England

The lingering kerfuffle over the crass totty remark made by Tory MP Bob Stewart (pictured) to a political hackette reminds Dog of the Thatcher-era Tory Dame who used to meet a frisky male Commons newshound for trysts on a saggy brown sofa in the old Commonwealth Writing Room

Foreign Office Minister Tobias Ellwood was called by a puzzled BBC after demanding that everyone in the Corporation from John Humphrys to John Craven refer to IS by its less sympathetic name of Daesh. As presenter of Countryfile, why on earth would Craven use either?

Ah, sorry. To me hell always be John Cravens Newsround on childrens TV, explains Tobias. That was a small matter of 30 years ago.

Troops desert Emily

Accident-prone Shadow Defence Secretary Emily Thornberrys stock among fellow Labour MPs has been holed below the waterline since this paper revealed she hadnt got a clue what Defcon 1  the US term for imminent nuclear war  meant.

Thornberry, also famous for her sneering white van man and St Georges flag Twitter gaffe, invited 40 Labour MPs to a meeting. Not one turned up.

If Jeremy Corbyn escapes unscathed when he speaks at Glastonbury this summer, the Labour leader may have Tory MP Nigel Adams to thank.
A little while ago I sat next to Jeremy Hunt at a work dinner in Westminster. Mouth full of Parma ham, the Health Secretary spoke movingly about the challenges the NHS faces as the country grows up in terms of age, and out in terms of size.

He ate his fish but declined pudding (I ate his lemon tart for him). He grazed at the cheese and then jogged out, his blue shirt tucked flat into his waistband, and all this wasnt just his manly pride in maintaining a bella figura.

Hunt knew then what was coming. At the Italian restaurant that evening, he talked a lot about obesity, and how the fatberg threatens to sink HMS NHS.

And last week, we learned that our NHSs many captains are already being forced into taking evasive action. According to the Royal College of Surgeons, the overweight and smokers (lets call them fattipuffs for short) are becoming soft targets for savings.

A little while ago I sat next to Jeremy Hunt at a work dinner in Westminster. Mouth full of Parma ham, the Health Secretary spoke movingly about the challenges the NHS faces as the country grows up in terms of age, and out in terms of size

In a third of health trusts in England, treatment is being withheld or delayed for up to three million patients presenting with those conditions.

Now, according to the president of the RCS, who rejoices in the name of Clare Marx, this is not on. Not at all. Blanket bans that deny or delay patients access to surgery are wrong, she says.

Well, Im sorry, Miss Marx, but the surgeons and clinicians arent wrong. They are right.

I admit this makes me sound like an unsympathetic, horrible, fattist person. I know that the very founding principles of our sacred NHS are that it should be free at the point of delivery, and treatment should be based on need, not the ability to pay. In an ideal world, these principles would still hold.

But we do not live in an ideal world. And, as we dont, those who take more care of their health  like our slimline Health Secretary, a man who dances a mean lambada on a specially sprung floor in his London home  should be first in the queue, pushing a blubber mountain who sits and smokes himself into oblivion further down the list.

Politics is about choices, and so is healthcare. Resources are finite, whereas demand is unlimited. Inevitably, the NHS has been forced into exercising Darwinian natural selection, and helping those who it thinks have most chance of survival into the lifeboat first.

When my husband needed a liver transplant, he had to undergo a week-long battery of tests, and also complete a sheaf of forms, to prove he wasnt a George Best character, depriving another more deserving patient of a desperately needed organ. And quite right too.

In fact, I think healthcare leaders have to send out a firmer signal that those who self-inflict damage should not expect rapid and automatic service.

They have no other choice if the NHS itself is going to survive or sink beneath the waves of flab or go up in smoke.

According to Public Health England, in 2014-15 almost a fifth of children in Year 6 (those aged ten and 11) were obese, while for children in Reception (aged four and five), the figure was one in ten.

Just think of the NHS staggering under the weight of their case notes alone in a few decades.

Jeremy Hunt should come out and explain why such rationing is not just important and necessary, but right. As a nation, we are digging our own graves with our teeth, and burying the NHS as we do so.

If he wont say it, I will. Go ahead and smoke and drink and eat yourself to death. Knock yourselves out, fattipuffs.

But dont expect preferential treatment at my expense.

Sheridan, a golden girl in the making

I've managed to see Denise Gough's astonishing turn as an addict in the play People, Places and Things. Anyone with an addict in the family should try to see it.

Sheridan Smith as Funny Girl is next on my list. I am not a luvvie in the least - I often sleep through the second half.

But there are golden girls up West right now, and theatrical history is being made.

STAR TURN: Sheridan Smith in the new West End version of Funny Girl

Wasted words to a powerless sister

Every time I step out, someone beards me and says, Will you tell your brother... and I never know whats coming next.

Ive got to tell my brother Jo Johnson, Science Minister, that he has to call a new research vessel Boaty McBoatface or let down the nation.

Ive got to tell Boris that he was wrong to carve cycle superhighways out of Londons streets, and crazy to campaign for Brexit, and bonkers to take on Obama. I wont, however.

Obamas mini-break may have been choreographed and scripted to the last second  including his swift kick to the Mayoral ass  but Obama is the President and Boris is my big brother.

Staying clear of this one. My brothers dont do anything I say, so I dont know why people bother to nobble me.

But I will say this: Jo was dead right not to call that ship RRS Boaty McBoatface.

My first thought when I saw the Queens personal home movies and intimate photographs, and watched the deep pleasure they gave the Royal Family many decades on, was guilt and shame.

Since I got a camera on my smartphone, I havent stuck a single picture into an album. All evidence of the past ten years of my childrens lives is on Apples iCloud.

Every memory, birthday, celebration and moment to treasure. And we all know how secure the iCloud is
When most people think about burgers, they imagine a beef patty or two, cheese, lettuce, and maybe even bacon on a soft white bun.

A competition on Instagram, however, is hoping to change all that by proving burgers can be just as delicious, and eye catching, when completely vegan.

The competition was started by Instagram account Best of Vegan, and aimed to showcase the most creative vegan burgers that people could invent.

Fries with that? An online competition has flooded social media with images of creative, meat and dairy free burgers

Meat free: The competition, run by the Instagram account Best of Vegan, aims to showcase creative vegan food

Creative interpretation: One popular entry has been the 'rainbow sushi burger' (above) which features rainbow rice for a bun and a filling of tofu and avocado

Followers of the account got their chef's hats on and got to work creating burgers before photographing then and uploading the pictures to Instagram under the hashtag #Bestofveganburger.

One of the more unique entries has been the 'The Italiano Burger' whgich included an eggplant, capsicum and mushroom filling with a bun made up of spiralised zucchini.

Another eye-catching entry was the rainbow sushi burger, which featured rainbow coloured rice for a bun with a tofu and avocado filling.

Breaking boundries: Entrants have been encouraged to invent their own burger recipe, make it, photograph it, and post it to Instagram with the hashtag #Bestofveganburger

Delicious: The Best of Vegan account has more than 615,000 followers and is run by Brussels-based vegan Kim-Julie Hansen

'I wanted to get people excited': Ms Hansen said she wants to show people vegan food can be creative and delicious

The Best of Vegan account, which has more than 615,000 followers, is run by Kim-Julie Hansen, a passionate vegan based in Brussels.

She said she started the challenged to show people how different vegan food can be. 'Everybody loves burgers, theyre easy to make and delicious,' Ms Hansen explained.

'When you use vegan ingredients only, you can actually get a lot more creative and I wanted to get people involved and excited about making something vegan.'

Mini me: Some of the entries have included dessert burgers like mini cookie-burgers or a burger made from a pear

For everone: Ms Hansen said that Best of Vegan is an 'inclusive community' both for people who are vegan, or meat eaters who want to incorporate more vegan meals into their diet

Her followers certainly proved that vegan burgers can be creative. Some entrants made vegan dessert burgers, like one that used a pear, and another that made a mini-cookie burger.

Ms Hansen said she's been very impressed with the competition entries, and is happy that both vegans and non-vegans have supported it.
The world only received a brief glimpse of baby Prince Alexander Erik Hubertus Bertil as he left hospital with his parents Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sophia last week.

But now the newest member of Sweden's royal family has made his formal debut with the release of his first official portrait.

Following in the footsteps of the Duchess of Cambridge, who has got behind the camera to take official portraits of her own children in the past, the image of the sleeping Prince was taken by the proud father Prince Carl Philip himself.

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The first official portrait of Prince Alexander Erik Hubertus Bertil of Sweden, taken by his father Prince Carl Philip, has been released

It shows Prince Alexander, who is now five days old, dressed in a white romper suit, covered with a delicate cable knit blanket - his tiny hands clasped alongside his ears.

It's not the first time Prince Carl Philip, 36, has turned royal photographer.

He took the first official portrait of his niece Princess Estelle, daughter of Crown Princess Victoria, back in 2012.

On Friday afternoon the Swedish royal family attended a Te Deum service of thanksgiving for the new Prince Alexander Erik Hubertus Bertil.

Prince Carl Philip was joined by his father King Carl (left), mother Queen Silvia (second left), sister Princess Victoria (second right) and brother-in-law Prince Daniel at the e Deum service for the newly born Prince Alexander in the Church of the Royal Palace in Stockholm, Sweden

Members of Princess Sofia's family joined Prince Carl Philp (right) but the new mother stayed at home to bond with her new arrival

Prince Carl Philip was joined by his parents King Carl and Queen Silvia, his sister Crown Princess Victoria and members of Princess Sofia's family.

The besotted new father couldn't stop smiling throughout the service, and was showing no hint of sleepless nights, looking handsome in a dark grey suit with a waistcoat and tie.

New mother Sofia, 31, did not attend the service, opting to stay at home to bond with her new baby.

The new Duke of Sodermanland's title was officially announced on Friday at a cabinet meeting by his grandfather King Carl XVI Gustaf .

First, an official document announcing the baby's name was signed at Drottningholm Palace, which traditionally takes place at a royal birth.

Happy family: Princess Sofia and Prince Carl Philip of Sweden smile as they leave the hospital with their newborn son on Wednesday afternoon

Hours after the birth, Carl Philip spoke to reporters in a press conference to announce the new arrival and admitted he'd cried during the birth

Speaker Urban Ahlin, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, Marshal of the Realm Svante Lindqvist, stateswoman Anna Hamilton, Chief Sophia Brismar Wendel and midwife Anna Stahl were witnesses.

Prince Alexander was born on Tuesday last week at 6:25 p.m weighing at 7lbs 9oz. and measuring 19.3 inches long at Danderyds Hospital in Stockholm.

Hours after the birth, Carl Philip held a press conference at the hospital to announce the new arrival.

'When asked if he had cried during the birth, the prince replied, according to People magazine: 'Yes, actually. Of course. Couldn't stop.

Although a name is yet to be decided on sources have revealed that they have welcomed a baby boy. Pictured: The couple during Sofia's pregnancy

'For me and my wife, this is obviously a great day with a lot of emotion. Words cannot describe.'

Members of the royal family have offered official messages of congratulations to the couple on the birth of their first child, who is fifth in line to the throne.

In a statement, King Carl and Queen Queen Silvia said: 'We are extremely happy for Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia, and are delighted to have become grandparents again.

'We hope the new parents enjoy a time of peace and quiet together with their son.'

Crown Princess Victoria and her husband Prince Daniel added: 'We hope Carl Philip and Sofia enjoy these wonderful first few days with their new-born son, and we share the new parents' joy.'

Sweden's Princess Sofia has today become a mother after giving birth to her and Prince Carl Philip's first child

The couple's baby comes at an exciting time for the Swedish royal family who have recently welcomed a new baby, Prince Oscar Carl Olof (pregnant Sofia and Carl Philip pictured in Stockholm last month)

A message from Princess Madeleine and her husband Christopher O'Neill said they were 'delighted to welcome a new member of the family'.

Sofia's parents Marie and Erik Hellqvist also sent a special message to the royal couple.

'We are so pleased that Prince Carl Philip and our daughter Sofia have had their first child.

'We have longed for a grandchild for a long time, and we are both extremely proud and happy.

'We wish them great happiness together with the new member of the family, and we will provide help and support as grandparents.'

And of course the Prince's proud aunts Lina Hellqvist and Sara Hellqvist, Princess Sofia's sisters, were keen to offer their congratulations.

The happy couple, who married last June in the royal palace's chapel (pictured), first announced their pregnancy in a Facebook status in October last year

'We welcome this tiny new member of the family with great joy and love,' they said. 'We have been looking forward to becoming aunts, and we will enjoy getting to know our nephew.

'We wish the new family the very best of luck!'

Prince Carl Philip, 36, and Princess Sofia, 31, shared the happy news of the pregnancy last year via an official statement released on Facebook.

SWEDISH ROYAL FAMILY TREE King Carl XVI Gustaf, 69, who has reigned since 1973, is married to Queen Silvia, 66. Crown Princess Victoria is their elder daughter. She married Prince Daniel in 2010 and the couple have two children, four-year-old Princess Estelle and new arrival Prince Oscar. The King and Queen's only son is Prince Carl Philip, who is married to Princess Sofia - a former model and reality TV contestant. Princess Madeleine is their youngest daughter and is wed to Christopher O'Neill, an American stockbroker. The pair have two children Princess Leonore and Prince Nicolas. Advertisement

'We are so happy and excited to announce that we are expecting our first child. We are very much looking forward to it,' it read.

The birth of the couple's baby comes at an exciting time for the Swedish royal family who have recently welcomed a new baby, Prince Oscar Carl Olof.

Sofia's sister-in-law Crown Princess Victoria, sister of Prince Carl Philip, gave birth to her second child in March.

Former glamour model Sofia Hellqvist married the prince last June. The elegant brunette is known for her infectious gap-toothed smile and easygoing ways.

They dated for five years before walking down the aisle and now live together in the upmarket Djurgarden district of Stockholm.

They married in the royal palace's chapel, with the bride wearing a lace wedding dress created by local designer Ida Sjostedt.

But thanks to Princess Sofia's reality TV and glamour modelling past, Carl Philip's choice of wife initially proved controversial.

The now Duchess of Varmland's first shoot aged 20 saw her posing topless in a pair of camouflage print bikini bottoms and clutching a snake to preserve her modesty.

Unsurprisingly, when news of Carl Philip's new relationship emerged in 2010, the Swedish Royal Family were initially put 'on the defensive' as sources revealed at the time.

Since then, however, Sofia has gone out of her way to tone down her image.
An author claims to have lifted the lid on where the crown jewels were hidden during the Second World War - ending more than 75 years of speculation.

In his book Operation Big: The Race to Stop Hitler's A-Bomb, Colin Brown revealed that the royal gems were stashed in the bowels of Windsor Castle as Britain braced itself for the prospect of the German dictator dropping an atomic bomb.

Since 1940, it's remained a mystery as to where the priceless assets - including the Imperial State Crown - were stored, with theories including the vaults of an insurance company in Canada, a secret tunnel at a prison in Devon and a cave in Wales.

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UK author Colin Brown uncovered letters detailing the hiding place of the crown jewels during the Second World War, when Queen Elizabeth II was still a teenager

The letters show that the priceless royal gems were transported from the Tower of London to Windsor Castle, where they were thought to have been stored under a trapdoor in the depths of the servants' quarters

But Brown's book claims the contents of the Tower of London vaults were, in fact, taken to the Royal residence in Windsor to stop Hitler getting his hands on them in the event of an invasion.

The precise location has not been confirmed, but it's thought the hiding place was under a trapdoor in the basement of the castle, where the servants had their offices.

The Sunday Express reports that the author, from London, made the discovery when researching how Charles Howard, the 20th Earl of Suffolk smuggled the world's largest stock of 'heavy water' - vital for the development of nuclear energy - into the UK.

He uncovered a letter from General Sir Maurice Taylor to the King's private secretary at Windsor Castle in July 1940, saying that he wanted to store in there 20 jerry cans of the substance he had secured with the help of two French scientists in Bordeaux.

The Queen, pictured here wearing the Imperial Crown during her Coronation, and her sister Princess Margaret were said to have been 'mesmerised' by the jewels when the librarian showed them to the young royals

It was feared that, if the Crown Jewels were kept at the Tower of London, they may have been a target for Hitler in the event of an invasion

A letter to the Ministry of Supply from royal librarian Sir Owen Morshead at Windsor Castle then confirmed the consignment had been stored in the 'same place as the Crown Jewels' and that 'the King knows it is here'.

Brown said: 'Morshead could be counted on to be the soul of discretion. He was a distinguished solider and had been awarded the Military Cross in the First World War.

'It is said he was trusted with recovering secret letters written by Edward VIII to Hitler.'
Held in the Berners Tavern private dining room at The London EDITION, specialists from California's premiere wineries; Louis M Martini, Orin Swift , J Vineyards and MacMurray Estate, will guide guests and visitors through a selection of one-of-a-kind wines. The sessions will alternate between two themes: A Taste of California and a Louis M Martini Masterclass. Each session will provide you with insight into the wine making process and the geography in that region of the US. Experts will then be on hand to guide you on a tasting of around five to six wines. Along with some new wine knowledge, you'll also get some keepsakes to take home from the wine producers. The sessions, which run from 6pm to 8pm, are perfect for both novices and the more advanced wine drinkers. Head to the hotel's award-winning restaurant after for yet more elegant tipples and expertly prepared dishes. The next dates are October 25 and November 15.
Top British eye surgeon Sheraz Daya (pictured) is planning to perform the UK's first transplant using an artificial cornea

A top British eye surgeon is planning to perform the UK's first transplant using an artificial cornea.

Sheraz Daya has said he will carry out the complex operation within a year - pending approval from British and EU authorities.

The artificial cornea will be made from lab-grown collagen, tissue that is naturally found in the human body.

Damaged and scarred tissue - which causes loss of eyesight and blindness - is removed as part of the procedure and the 'biosynthetic' replacement is then stitched in its place.

Following the operation eye nerves and cells grow over the implanted cornea, incorporating it into the eye.

Trials at a university in Sweden have shown the method is just as successful as transplanting a natural cornea.

Mr Daya, who works at the Centre for Sight, a private clinic in East Grinstead, West Sussex, expects to treat up to a dozen patients in a UK trial once approval is granted by the relevant ethics committees.

There is growing pressure on eye banks in this country to treat increasing levels of eye disease as well as accident victims.

Last year, according to the UK transplant registry, there was an 11 per cent drop in the number of eyes being donated and a three per cent drop in cornea transplants.

A survey for the charity Fight for Sight found people were 15 per cent less likely to donate eyes than other body parts or organs.

UK Blood and Transplant, which supplies most of corneas used in more than 3,700 transplants a year says there is a delay in people getting corneas as it struggles to meet demand.

Mr Daya, an eye surgeon for more than 30 years, is medical director of Cornea Biosciences the company that makes the artificial cornea.

Limited successful human trials stopped in 2010 but now the firm is planning to commercialise the discovery.

He said: 'The artificial cornea has several advantages. There is no rejection as in human cornea grafts, no risk of disease transmission.'

The artificial cornea will be made from lab-grown collagen, tissue that is naturally found in the human body

Another major plus is that the artificial cornea has a six months shelf life compared to just one month for a human cornea.

Mr Daya claimed said that many patients stayed visually impaired for longer in the UK than the USA because of costs and the more conservative nature of eye medicine.

He believes that as many as 8,000 cornea transplants should take place in the UK but this would not be possible because of lack of sufficient donors.

'We have an unmet need in this country. People are staying visually impaired for longer because they don't donate corneas as quickly as they should,' he said.

'Donation rates have sadly decreased in the UK for a number of reasons. Donors or their families are hesitant to donate eyes concerned about the appearance of the body afterwards.

'Another reason for a reduced supply has been not asking.

'Medical and nursing staff caring for a patient who has died are in the best position to ask the family about donation.

'Between poor morale and being extremely busy the question about donation is not being asked of the family of the bereaved and as a result there is less tissue being procured.'

Dr Dolores Conroy, Fight for Sight director of research, said: 'There is a need for 70 corneas per week with the main indications being keratoconus in younger people and endothelial failure - Fuchs dystrophy - in older people.

'Fight for Sight is funding research into these conditions and we have a better understanding of the genetic cause of corneal dystrophies. With the lack ofcorneasavailable for transplants, it's vital to have new treatments.

'With more and more people suffering eye conditions, particularly with an ageing population, it is more important than ever that we help if we can.'

Damaged and scarred tissue - which causes loss of eyesight and blindness - is removed as part of the procedure and the 'biosynthetic' replacement is then stitched in its place

Helen Gillan, General Manager Tissue Services for NHS Blood and Transplant, said: 'This sounds like an interesting technique and we await further information.

'There is an urgent shortage of cornea donors in the UK. We need 10 cornea donations a day to meet the needs of hospital patients - that's 70 a week.

'However there may be some weeks when we only have 50 donations. These shortfalls can lead to life-changing transplant operations being delayed.

'We appreciate that people may feel uncomfortable about donating certain parts of their body. But restoring somebody's eyesight through cornea donation is an amazing thing to do and many families tell us donation brings them great comfort after the death of a relative.'

Mr Daya, who does third world charity surgery, said artificial corneas could bring sight to the millions of people in the world who are blind because they do not have access to corneal transplantation.
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All our journalists are required to observe the Editors' Code of Practice and The Mail on Sunday is a member of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), the regulatory body for the Press set up in response to the Leveson Inquiry.

We aim to correct any errors as promptly as possible.

An advertisement feature for a history TV channel last week referred to Auschwitz as a Polish prison. The camp was situated in Poland but, of course, was built by the occupying Nazi German regime.

A review of the TV programme Five Star Babies said the Duchess of Cambridge gave birth at The Portland Hospital. In fact it was at the Lindo Wing of St Marys Hospital, Paddington.

If you wish to report an inaccuracy, please email corrections@mailonsunday.co.uk.

To make a formal complaint under IPSO rules please go to www.mailonsunday.co.uk/readerseditor where you will find an easy-to use complaints form.

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They're the women who made some of Hollywood's biggest stars who they are today. We look at the mothers of some of the world's most famous men

Brad Pitt, 52

Mums very loving, very open, genuine and hilarious because [in the press] she always gets painted as a she-devil,' said Brad Pitt

The mum Jane Etta

The event Brad treated Jane (and father Bill) to a night out at the Oscars in 2012, where he was nominated for Best Actor for Moneyball.

He says Mums very loving, very open, genuine and hilarious because [in the press] she always gets painted as a she-devil.

Did you know? In 2012 Brads wife Angelina Jolie was said to be mortified after Jane penned an open letter in her local newspaper urging readers to vote against Barack Obama because of his support for gay marriage. Angelina was also said to be furious that Jane had bought girly clothes for their tomboy daughter Shiloh.

Mummys boy? 2/10

Harry Styles, 22

I grew up with just my mum and sister, so I respect women a lot,' said Harry Styles

The mum Anne Cox

The events Harry and his mum holidayed together in Miami last December. In March 2015 they had dinner together at Knutsford Wine Bar in Cheshire.

He says I grew up with just my mum and sister, so I respect women a lot.

Did you know? When his mum married Robin Twist in June 2013, Harry was best man at the ceremony in Congleton, Cheshire (Harrys biological father Des Styles and Anne divorced when Harry was seven).

Mummys boy? 2/10

Tom Hiddleston, 35

I believe in the strength, intelligence and sensitivity of women. My mother, my sisters are strong. My mum is a strong woman and I love her for it,' said Tom Hiddleston

The mum Diana Hiddleston

The event Diana accompanied Tom to the press night of Othello in London in December 2007.

He says I believe in the strength, intelligence and sensitivity of women. My mother, my sisters are strong. My mum is a strong woman and I love her for it.

Did you know? Diana brought up Tom alone after getting divorced when he was 12. Since then The Night Manager sex god Tom has earned a reputation as a commitment-phobe  perhaps no one can rival Diana in his affections?

Mummys boy? 3/10

Ryan Gosling, 35

I think like a woman because I grew up with my mother and my sister so Ive just been programmed like a girl,' said Ryan Gosling

The mum Donna Gosling

The event Ryan took Donna to the premiere of his movie Gangster Squad at Graumans Chinese Theatre, Hollywood, in January 2013.

He says I think like a woman because I grew up with my mother and my sister so Ive just been programmed like a girl. Im attracted to films that have strong female characters because there are strong female characters in my life.

Did you know? In 2012 Ryan and now wife Eva Mendes beamed with pride as his mother collected a degree from a university in Canada. She graduated with a bachelor of education after attending classes in Hamilton, Ontario.

Mummys boy? 4/10

Javier Bardem, 47

I watched my mother act all my life, and yet I wasnt attracted to acting as such. What attracted me was my mothers effort, her dedication, the seriousness of the work, the desire to do something,' said Javier Bardem

The mum Pilar Bardem

The event When Pilar accompanied Javier to the 2008 Oscars, where he won Best Supporting Actor for No Country For Old Men, he dedicated his acceptance speech to her in Spanish.

He says I watched my mother act all my life, and yet I wasnt attracted to acting as such. What attracted me was my mothers effort, her dedication, the seriousness of the work, the desire to do something.

Did you know? Pilar is well known in Spain as a film and TV actress  shes earned the moniker La Bardem  and particularly for her left-wing political views. As a boy, Javier would help Pilar learn her lines. Coincidentally, Pilar once played the mother of Javiers wife Penelope Cruz in a film called Live Flesh.

Mummys boy? 5/10

Colin Farrell, 39

My father works a lot, so Ive spent more time around my mother. Shes got a heart the size of Texas, man. I know if I didnt have a penny in my pocket Id be a good son. She needs to be pampered now,' said Colin Farrell

The mum Rita Farrell

The event Colin took his mother as his date to the Irish premiere of Total Recall in Dublin in 2012.

He says My father works a lot, so Ive spent more time around my mother. Shes got a heart the size of Texas, man. I know if I didnt have a penny in my pocket Id be a good son. She needs to be pampered now. Shes worked hard.

Did you know? In 2013, Rita married her boyfriend, producer Joel B Michaels, in her sons Los Angeles mansion. Colin said, I met [Joel] and vetted him and asked what his intentions were, what his future was looking like Weve all got a future! Hes a wonderful, wonderful man.

Mummys boy? 6/10

Tom Cruise, 53

People can create their own lives; I saw how my mother created hers and made it possible for us to survive. My mother was the one who rose to the occasion,' said Tom Cruise

The mum Mary Lee Pfeiffer

The event Tom was accompanied by his mother to the 2009 Golden Globe awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles where he was nominated for his performance in Tropic Thunder.

He says People can create their own lives; I saw how my mother created hers and made it possible for us to survive. My mother was the one who rose to the occasion.

Did you know? Before Mary moved into assisted living last year she lived with Tom at his mansion in Beverly Hills.

Mummys boy? 7/10

Johnny Depp, 52

For years and years I watched her wait tables. Id count her change at the end of the night. She cursed like a sailor, played cards and smoked cigarettes,' said Johnny Depp

The mum Betty Sue Palmer

The event In 2004, when Johnny was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his role in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, he took Betty Sue to the ceremony as his date.

He says For years and years I watched her wait tables. Id count her change at the end of the night. She cursed like a sailor, played cards and smoked cigarettes.

Did you know? Johnny is so close to his mum that in 1988 he had Betty Sue tattooed inside a heart on his left biceps. It has also been alleged that Johnny split from long-term partner Vanessa Paradis because she didnt get along with his mother.

Mummys boy? 8/10

Leonardo DiCaprio, 41

She supported this little kid who said, I want to be an actor, at 12 years old, which is ridiculous, and she drove me to all those auditions. Shes the reason Im able to do what I do,' said Leonardo DiCaprio

The mum Irmelin Indenbirken

The event Among other dates with her son, Irmelin recently accompanied Leo to the 2016 Oscars where he scooped the Best Actor award for The Revenant.

He says She supported this little kid who said, I want to be an actor, at 12 years old, which is ridiculous, and she drove me to all those auditions. Shes the reason Im able to do what I do.

Did you know? Leos parents divorced when he was one and, as he grew up, he lived with his mother while she juggled jobs to support them. Leo thanked Irmelin profusely in his Oscars speech, saying, I would not be standing here if it wasnt for this person.

Mummys boy? 9/10

Bradley Cooper, 41

I love having her. I wouldnt have it any other way,' said Bradley Cooper of his mum Gloria Campano living with him for two years following the death of his father in 2011

The mum Gloria Campano

The event Gloria accompanied Bradley to a secret reunion gig of Guns N Roses in California earlier this month.

He says Regarding their living situation, he commented: I love having her. I wouldnt have it any other way.

Did you know? Gloria lived with Bradley at his place in LA for two years following the death of his father in 2011. Reports claimed that Bradleys brief split with model girlfriend Irina Shayk was due to the poor relationship between Gloria and Irina.
Sue Maughans third child Dan, now eight, was born with a cleft lip and palate. Sue, 46, explains what happened and how she became involved with the international charity Smile Train.

At my 20-week scan, I was told my baby would be born with a cleft lip and palate. There was no history of clefts in my family and my previous two pregnancies had been fine.

I felt nervous and afraid, but we were put in touch with the specialist cleft lip and palate service at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, and their support  both practical and emotional  kicked in immediately.

Dan will have one more operation this year to insert a piece of bone from his hip into the top of his gum line, which still has a little break,' said Sue Maughan whose son, now eight, was born with a cleft lip and palate

I learned the main difficulty would be feeding. A cleft lip may mean that babies cannot latch on to the breast so there is no seal, and with a cleft palate the milk tends to come out of the nose.

'I found special feeding bottles online  they have soft, squeezy sides so you can squirt the milk directly to the back of the throat.

Dan was born with bilateral [two] splits in his lip. His palate [roof of his mouth] was split. He had a one-off operation to repair his lip at three months old.

'A cleft lip means there is no support for the cartilage in the nose, so the left side of Dans nose was reshaped at the same time.

Three months later, his palate was repaired. A side effect of cleft lip and palate is an increased risk of glue ear [when fluid fills the middle ear], so Dan also had to have grommets fitted.

'His hearing is slightly affected  worse when he has a cold  but he doesnt need to use aids.

Because Dans soft palate was too short, the air tended to go through his nose when he spoke, making his voice sound nasal.

'But last November he had a buccinator flap operation, where some of the cheek lining is inserted into the soft palate to make it longer. His speech has improved a lot since then.

Dan was born with bilateral [two] splits in his lip. His palate [roof of his mouth] was split. He had a one-off operation to repair his lip at three months old,' said Sue

Dan will have one more operation this year to insert a piece of bone from his hip into the top of his gum line, which still has a little break. This should help his teeth to grow more evenly.

We didnt have to think about finding help; it just happened. But because of Dan we became much more aware of charities like Smile Train (smiletrain.org.uk) that look after children in the developing world who have the same condition but little access to treatment.

'Smile Train treats anyone from infants to the elderly, and trains local doctors to carry out corrective surgery.

I started fundraising for Smile Train in 2012 and have visited Tanzania [one of the countries where they provide free cleft surgery] twice.

'Many people there believe that mothers and babies with cleft lips are cursed. In the worst cases, newborns are killed or abandoned after birth, and mothers are often rejected by their families.

The babies have difficulty breathing, eating and speaking. As the children age, the gap gets bigger and the problems get worse.

'They usually cant work or marry. Repairing a cleft lip and/or palate costs Smile Train just 150 and will transform the patients future.

Cleft Lip and Palate Association, clapa.com

CLEFT FACTS

 Around one baby in 700 worldwide is born with a cleft lip and/or palate. In the UK, the condition affects over 1,100 babies annually.

 In early pregnancy, parts of a babys face develop separately. If they do not join properly, the baby is born with a cleft.

 Research suggests the cause is a combination of genetic and environmental factors, which are not predictable or preventable.

A somewhat stressed reader recommends A Vogel AvenaCalm oral drops (9.75, avogel.co.uk), a licensed traditional herbal remedy for mild stress and anxiety. I didnt want to take drugs. Instead, this gently took the edge off my worries while I worked through the problem at hand, she writes

HEALTHY DISHES TO YOUR DOOR

A neighbour was so impressed by her deliveries from the Mindful Chef Healthy Recipe Box Company (mindfulchef.com), she rang the founders to congratulate them. I tried two plant-based boxes  each filled with fresh organic ingredients for two nutritious salad recipes  and loved them. A classic recipe box offers meat, poultry or fish. From 6 to 7 per generous portion

Always consult your doctor if you have a medical problem
A virgin who refused to submit herself to a husband, a warrior who defeated the Spanish Armada, Good Queen Bess beloved by her subjects  we all think we know Elizabeth I, says historian John Guy, who sets out to find the human behind the mythologised monarch

Queen Elizabeth in a portrait by an unknown artist, painted around 1575, 17 years into her reign

We all think we know Elizabeth. An all-powerful queen, she had red hair and wore jewel-encrusted dresses interwoven with real gold and silver thread.

She was the first queen of England to order a pair of high-heeled shoes. She inspired Shakespeare.

She encouraged brave seafarers such as Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh to establish colonies in North America. She found time to defeat the Spanish Armada.

Oh yes, and she lived and died a virgin, although she might have married her favourite, the dashing Robert Dudley, had he not already had a wife (who later died in shady circumstances).

And for all this, her people worshipped the ground she walked on. She was Good Queen Bess.

It is wonderful, heady stuff, but is it true? For my new biography Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years, I decided to find out.

The only way to peel away the spin  both hers and ours  created over the past four centuries was to go back to basics and check the vast piles of handwritten letters and papers that still exist, despite the best efforts of time, fire, flood and hungry rodents.

I went through thousands of pages, and I found that the living Queen was far more complex than the stories suggest.

Elizabeth around ten years before her coronation

For a start, to see her as all-powerful is a big mistake. She certainly believed she was special, called by God to rule and in possession of what Shakespeares Hamlet called the divinity [that] doth hedge a king  but she was a queen, not a king, and she lived in a male-dominated society.

Her father Henry VIII knew that in their world men ruled, women did not. So, from the moment Elizabeth drew her first breath, she was considered second best.

Henry had been so sure that her mother Anne Boleyn, for whom hed risked his throne, would have the son he had always craved that hed instructed his secretaries to prepare the announcements of the boys birth long before Anne went into labour.

When the child turned out to be a girl, they had to improvise, clumsily squeezing an s into each of the documents after the word prince to try to make princess  but it could only be one s as there was no room for two.

On being crowned at 25, Elizabeth had to battle to gain anything like the obedience her father had taken for granted.

Her chief adviser William Cecil, Lord Burghley, who had been her backstairs fixer since she was 15 and with whom she had a love-hate relationship, reprimanded a hapless official for talking privately to her about secret matters because they were too much for a womans knowledge.

Burghley told her point-blank that to serve Your Majestyneeds be an unprofitable service.

So he, and others around her, saw nothing wrong in keeping the reins of power firmly in their hands.

Elizabeth might have married her favourite, the dashing Robert Dudley, had he not already had a wife

They managed who was allowed to see her; they vetted the papers she saw, they drafted letters in her name, and then expected her to sign.

They also tried to cajole, threaten, even bully her into marriage.

God send Our Mistress a husband and by him a son that we may hope our posterity shall have a masculine succession, prayed Burghley to his friends behind her back.

Marriage was never to happen  Elizabeth knew better than to allow herself to be pushed around by a husband who would demand to be king. But the plotting lasted for more than 20 years, until she had passed the menopause.

Gynaecology liberated her. Once she was in her 50s and there was no point in marrying her off, she could be her own woman as never before. It was a risky time, of course, for the succession was very uncertain.

Elizabeths unpublished letters prove that the popular notion of James VI of Scotland as her only possible successor was as false as the ageing queens own red wig (with its hair never made by nature, as a visiting ambassador quipped).

She refused to name a successor, thinking it would make her weaker, and began to turn the tables on her advisers.

She learned to manipulate them just as they once had her, playing on their fears of what might happen if she were no longer there.

She mixed a machine-gun approach (I will have satisfaction, or else) and blistering reproaches with soft words of thanks.

The Wars of Religion on the Continent played into her hands. A run of plots to kill and replace her with the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots, masterminded by dissident English exiles in touch with King Philip II of Spain and French Catholics, made Elizabeths councillors stand with her. Now she could rule as well as reign.

And it was over Marys execution that Elizabeth really won her spurs. Far from being the bitter rivals of legend, the two British queens were largely friendly for some years  but once Mary was a fugitive in England and the focus of Catholic plots, things changed to the point where Elizabeth wanted her dead.

Elizabeth had a love-hate relationship with her chief adviser William Cecil, Lord Burghley, who had been her backstairs fixer since she was 15

Yet even after Mary was found to be an accomplice in a plot to kill her, Elizabeth could not execute an anointed queen  it would set too terrible a precedent, striking at the institution of monarchy itself.

In a moment of panic, she signed Marys death warrant, but took care not to authorise sending it.

She hinted that she wanted Marys gaolers to slit her throat, but they saw the trap and refused.

When Burghley then stepped in and sent off the warrant without telling her, she turned on him with the venom that only she could show, blaming him and his cronies for regicide and exonerating herself as the victim of a court conspiracy.

So great was her fury that Burghley only just managed to save his skin. Never again did he cross her. She had achieved what she wanted  Marys death  and, crucially, had kept her own fingerprints off the decision.

Having learned the hard way in her early 20s to keep out of danger after being accused of conspiracy and imprisoned in the Tower of London by her half-sister Queen Mary I, Elizabeth became expert in manipulating her advisers into doing what she wanted, but without appearing to give the order. It was a masterly technique.

Burghleys son Robert Cecil understood it: This argueth the queen would have her ministers do that she will not avow.

Then came the Spanish Armada. Was Elizabeth really the warrior queen that legend says she was?

When she addressed her troops at Tilbury, riding a white horse like Henry V at Agincourt, she did so with a speech that Churchill himself might have envied.

Who can forget that most Shakespearean of lines: I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England, too.

But the archives tell a different story. Elizabeths gut instinct was more like Neville Chamberlains than Churchills: one of shameless appeasement. She was suing for peace, and peace at any price, long after the Armada set sail.

It was thanks only to Drakes brilliant seamanship, poor Spanish planning and a providential gale that Philips ships were sent packing.

Elizabeth addressing the troops at Tilbury

Even her speech was a piece of pure theatre, choreographed to present her as the great war leader she had never been  for by the time she gave it, the Armada was already on the way to the bottom of the sea or limping back to Spain.

Her commanders, seeing war as mens work, had despaired of her. Drake had not taken kindly to being scolded after his raid on the Spanish fleet at Cadiz, which shed tried to block.

Raleigh had thought her an incompetent, parsimonious ditherer who was never prepared to take a risk.

But Elizabeth  always the pragmatist  preferred to match Englands ambitions to its resources. Dreams of empire were not hers.

And she, and her country, survived. In fact, no fewer than four more Armadas sent against her by Spain ended in failure. Unsurprisingly, she came to believe that God was a Protestant and on her side.

Not all of her subjects thought that she was on their side, however, despite her rhetoric about loving them as they loved her.

Far from her being the Good Queen Bess we know so well from legend, she was at best a distant image to most as they struggled to feed their families in times of famine, high unemployment and wealth inequality.

And, although shed given her word that she would reward the soldiers and sailors whod bravely fought for her, she did no such thing. With the royal finances stretched almost to breaking point, she left them to die of typhus, plague or starvation in the gutters. She did not even pay their wages in full.

Anyone who dared to come to London to demand his arrears of pay risked the hangmans noose.

As one victim cried out to the crowd, The gallows are the pay they give us for going to the wars. In this, Elizabeth acted very differently from Philip of Spain, who always paid his soldiers and the ransoms of those who were captured.

So if she wasnt the warrior queen wed always thought, or even as beloved by her people as wed imagined, what was she like?

Despite her exalted position, she could feel insecure and vulnerable. She had bad dreams. She could never sleep alone, instead demanding that one of her female attendants sleep on a camp bed in her bedchamber.

Elizabeths signature

In her 60s, she suffered from migraines, arthritis and toothache, sometimes stuffing a perfumed silk handkerchief into her mouth to hide her bad breath.

She was vain and courted flattery; she was jealous of her younger maids youth and beauty. She had a vicious temper, attacking one of them with her fists and breaking the girls finger. And she could swear volubly. Only the foolhardy approached her if she was in a foul mood.

Yet she could also be kind and generous. She fed Burghley with broth as he lay dying. She wrote gentle, consoling letters in her neatest writing to bereaved courtiers or their wives.

She was devastated by the death of favourite attendants. And, contrary to the textbooks, she did not create the Virgin Queen image.

That was dreamed up partly to flatter her, but chiefly to cloak the passing of the years and to glorify her reign and lack of offspring.

Most of all, she was a pragmatist. When he was free, she chose not to marry Robert Dudley, the one man shed truly loved and whom she called my own sweet Rob, because he never quite shook off suspicion after his wife was found mysteriously dead at the foot of a staircase  there, the legend is true.

And when, in her later years, the narcissistic Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex (whom shed indulged for his looks more than she should have), turned against her, she sent him to the executioner.

Once Elizabeth had taught herself to crush gender stereotypes and wield untrammelled power in her own right, once it was she, not her ministers, who was in charge, she held on until almost the very day she died.

And this despite a war lasting longer than the First and Second World Wars put together, a war that set Ireland ablaze.

Now that Ive finished my book and can look back at her, she reminds me of a circus entertainer somehow keeping piles of plates spinning on poles. Never did she drop a single one.

Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years by John Guy will be published by Viking on 5 May, price 25.

To pre-order a copy for 18.75 (a 25 per cent discount) until 8 May, visit you-bookshop.co.uk or call 0844 571 0640; p&p is free on orders over 12

SCREEN QUEENS

The drama and intrigue surrounding Elizabeth have made her an iconic role for some of our finest actresses

GLENDA JACKSON

Portrayed Elizabeth in the 1971 BBC mini-series Elizabeth R. A few months later, she took the same role in the film Mary, Queen of Scots

MIRANDA RICHARDSON

Turned Elizabeth into a comedy caricature known as Queenie for the BBC series Blackadder II (1986)

DAME JUDI DENCH

Won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her Elizabeth in Shakespeare in Love (1998)  despite only being on screen for eight minutes

CATE BLANCHETT
Todays young women are desperate to find meaning  as well as money  in their careers. But, asks novelist Lisa Owens, are they being idealistic or unrealistic?

'At 30, with a young baby and my first book about to come out, Im grateful I took the plunge when I did,' said Lisa Owens, author of Not Working

So, is your novel autobiographical? This is invariably the first thing Im asked when I tell people what Not Working is about: a young woman living in London who quits her job in order to discover her true purpose in life.

The question is a little disconcerting  it is fiction, after all, and the protagonist, Claire, is in certain ways a bit of a hopeless case.

But even I can see that Claire and I share some key characteristics: Im a woman, young-ish (well, 30), living in London, who quit my job in pursuit of a potentially elusive career.

Like Claire, I have spent more money than Id like to admit in coffee shops, and too many precious hours disappearing down internet rabbit-holes.

Unlike Claire, though, who has no idea what she wants to do, or how to go about finding out, I did leave my job with a plan.

In the summer of 2012, I handed in my notice to the publisher where I worked as an editor and enrolled on a year-long creative writing MA at the University of East Anglia, hoping to one day follow in my authors footsteps by becoming published myself.

There were a number of false starts on the novel front (Ill spare myself the embarrassment of elaborating further) before I came up with the seed of what turned into Not Working.

Claires predicament seems to have struck a chord among my peers and I have certainly encountered some of the quandaries and questions shes facing.

What if the career you embarked on in your early 20s doesnt feel right any more? How do you go about figuring out what will make you happy if you have no experience in any other field? Why does everyone else seem to be at once so professionally fulfilled while also vastly out-earning you?

I have a group of close female friends from school. Recently we were all together and realised that out of the eight of us, only two are currently in full-time office-based employment.

'While our parents were perhaps more content to find work that provided financial stability, we have grown up believing we can be anything we want,' said Lisa

Of the remaining five (not including me) two are on maternity leave, one has left her corporate job of nine years to go travelling and figure out whats next, one in the charity sector is taking a sabbatical for similar reasons and another has just decided to go freelance in events and project management.

It seems no coincidence that so many of these bright, educated and ambitious women made big life-changing decisions at around the same time.

For the mothers, there is the obvious biological clock factor at play, and this had an impact on why I left my job when I did.

I was 27 at the time, just married and knew I wanted to have children at some point  but I also wanted to give writing a go before committing to family life and the inevitable professional sacrifices it would entail.

Now at 30, with a young baby and my first book about to come out, Im grateful I took the plunge when I did.

Motherhood brings with it many privileges and gifts but time to myself  for the moment at least  is not among them.

For the rest of these school friends, I think theres a common denominator to the timing of their career changes.

We are no longer so young that the thrill of payday can make up for the lack of enthusiasm we might feel week-in, week-out. Now that our income is less disposable  where once wed splurge on nights out and clothes, the focus has turned to less glamorous things such as mortgages  the way we earn it has become much more important to us.

A number of my contemporaries from university have also followed this trend in recent years, eschewing the dependable salaries of their early 20s in favour of working for themselves in more creative capacities, such as graphic design.

Others have taken substantial pay cuts to do something that they feel contributes to the greater good  one friend moved out of private equity into the civil service for this reason.

In Not Working, Claire leaves her job because she has a niggling sense that there is something better and more rewarding out there for her, but she has neither a vocation nor a burning passion she must pursue at all costs.

I suspect this is a common problem: not everyone has the wherewithal or foresight to commit to a career such as medicine or law in their teens, and fewer people still are passionate enough about  or, lets face it, good enough at  a hobby to turn it into a viable career.

But that doesnt stop many of them feeling they are somehow failing to fulfil their creative and professional potential.

This is a notion that seems to plague Generation Y: while our parents were perhaps more content to find work that provided financial stability, we have grown up believing we can be anything we want.

I wonder if this conviction comes in part from the medias obsession with modern-day rags-to-riches stories. Most of the highest-rating television programmes in recent years  The X Factor, The Great British Bake Off, Britains Got Talent  are based around the idea of ordinary people being plucked from obscurity and catapulted to fame doing the thing they love most, be it singing, baking or performing dance routines with their dog.

Lisa with her husband, Inbetweeners star Simon Bird

The message during the emotional finales always seems to be the same  dare to dream big, pursue your passion at all costs  and even a cynic like me cant help but feel a little inspired and tearful every time the winner is announced.

But does it promote a healthy way of thinking? Might these shows  when that vicarious endorphin-rush of victory has died down  leave us feeling more dissatisfied with ourselves? Its not just TV that heaps pressure on the younger generation.

With the advent of aspirational, lifestyle-focused media such as Instagram, we are all guilty of curating our experiences to show them at their best and most enviable  and the world of work is by no means exempt.

I follow people who make their living in the arts and media industries and my feed is filled with images of beautiful books, fashion-week shows and unfeasibly exotic business-trip locations.

The more mundane, day-to-day realities of work rarely feature: inboxes full of unanswered emails, piles of invoices, sandwiches hastily devoured al desko. Is it any wonder that young people hold such high  even unrealistic  expectations of their nine-to-fives?

The twin pressures of student debt and the rising state pension age present a daunting prospect to graduates entering the job market.

Finding a meaningful, fulfilling career seems all the more crucial if you take the long view, but I think were gradually recalibrating our idea of what career means: until recently, for many it meant staying in the same line of work until you retired, whereas its now becoming increasingly acceptable  even expected  that the job you have at 21 might be nothing like the one you end up with at 65.

Nonetheless, changing profession can be hugely daunting. All the years youve spent accumulating experience, knowledge, contacts and respect can suddenly feel worthless when you decide to take the plunge and do something else.

I was very fortunate to have a supportive partner, and recognise that for many, leaving a steady job to retrain is no small undertaking, not just financially but psychologically too.

For me, mapping out the path I hoped to follow was crucial to keep me on track  I didnt just quit my job one day and get a publishing deal the next.

There were a lot of steps along the way to make it happen: get on to the masters course, complete it, find an agent and so on.

I tried to view writing as a new phase of my career, rather than a totally new career in itself, and I think that mindset, and having those smaller, more achievable goals in mind, helped to keep me sane on what was at times quite a lonely road.

This is partly why Claire in my novel encounters so many problems when she ups and leaves her job without any idea where to go next.

She acts impulsively  driven by this sense that she isnt quite where she expected to be in life  and then finds herself completely flummoxed when the answer doesnt immediately present itself.

She becomes paralysed by the number of options open to her and by the possibility that nothing will be exactly right.

In pinning all her hopes on finding this mythical, cure-all job, she loses sight of the bigger picture: that your work doesnt define you as a person and a career doesnt have to mean one role, or one industry, for 40-odd years.

Not everyone is in a position to make money doing what they love, and in writing my novel I wanted to challenge the idea that there is a dream career out there for everyone.

I think we fetishise success today in quite a particular and unhelpful way, equating how we earn our money with our self-worth, and feeling we have fallen short if we dont possess a burning love for the nuts and bolts of what we do.

I would argue that theres nothing wrong at all with work being a means to an end, as long as the end is what makes you happy  whether thats having a family, travelling, helping others or pursuing a hobby in your free time.

And, in any case, a job is a whole lot more than a title: it can also offer a ready-made community, a unique network of people pulling together for a common purpose.

These relationships may be hugely rewarding in themselves  indeed, one of my closest friends is someone I met in my first job a decade ago.

Fulfilment, after all, comes in many guises  social and emotional as well as professional  and tuning into those needs is every bit as, if not more, important than how you earn your salary. Its something I wish Id known in my early 20s.

Riddled with anxiety about whether I was in the right job, I would constantly ask myself whether I should be doing something more impressive, or exciting, or high-powered, or worthwhile, but of course those judgments are completely subjective.

Yes, your job can be the most important thing in your life, and if you love what you do, so much the better, but loving your job isnt always the same as loving yourself: that is, and always will be, a work-in-progress.
Ayesha Vardag

As a leading lawyer dubbed the Diva of Divorce, Ayesha Vardag has seen more than her fair share of family battles  starting with her own parents. She reveals how her complex relationship with her charming but absent father shaped the course of her life

Last Christmas was all about Star Wars in my family: huge excitement about the release of The Force Awakens, going to the cinema with my husband and our five children and having immense fun.

But it also forced me to relive, in a deeply troubling way, the experience of going to see the first Star Wars with my father in 1977, when I was nine  younger than my little daughter is now.

It was one of the painfully few visits he made to me and my mother when I was growing up and remains one of only a handful of childhood memories I have of my father.

There are some others. When I was maybe four or five, we played elephants on the walk home from primary school  me tucked under the back of his coat like the rear end of a pantomime horse, waving my hand behind me like a tail, while he swayed his arm before him for a trunk. It made me giggle inordinately.

I remember rowing a boat with him alone on the river Cherwell, near to where we lived in Oxford.

Whenever my father visited I was so excited; I would do my homework in morning break and in the middle of lessons so that I could jump, illicitly, on my bike and dash home at lunch time, so I could rush home at the end of the day, so I could have every possible moment with him, so I didnt waste a drop of the precious time he was giving me.

My father came from a royal Indian line of the proud Pashtun race and had a distinguished political heritage.

My grandmother, from the Lodhi family which ruled Delhi before the Mughals, grew up in such a grand way that the walk down the aisle for her wedding was the longest she had ever made  all her life she had been carried in a palanquin.

My grandfather had been a prominent pro-independence politician during the Raj and was later exiled to Saudi Arabia where he had ambassadorial posts.

He would send mules loaded with gold coins to my grandmothers fort in the Saudi desert for her to provision the house, descend upon her with hundreds of guests and feast for days, then vanish back to the world of international diplomacy.

My father met my mother, Barbara, early in his career while studying at Magdalen College, Oxford.

From left: Ayesha as a baby at 15 months, and aged six, both in Oxford

My mother, a very British, 22-year-old Northumbrian country girl, was working for the city treasury and living with an aunt.

They went to parties, danced until dawn and fell wildly in love. She drove across Europe and the Middle East with him and married him en route in Afghanistan.

Once they arrived in Pakistan, things were not as he had told her they would be. Stricken with amoebic dysentery, pregnant, devastated and alone, she borrowed money from one of his friends and came home to her parents in Northumberland to have me.

My father went into politics in his own right, and became the youngest senator Pakistan had known.

I grew up with my Scottish grandmother and English mother, on mince and tatties and haggis, in Oxford.

My father sent me postcards which were windows into another world, his world: Arabian horses, Pashtun tribesmen, women in beautiful, exotic costumes and, once, a mountain in the Himalayas.

Ayesha on her wedding day in 2014 with children (from left) Jasper, Helena and Felix

He wrote, This mountain has never yet been climbed, but one day it will be conquered, and one day you and your mother and I will be together.

I pinned the postcards on a cork notice board on the wall in the room I shared with my mother, in the Oxford house where she and my grandmother and I lodged with a couple of elderly ladies and a Siamese cat.

I filled the void with dreams and infinite romance. Whenever I had a chicken wishbone, I would wish for my father. The moments when he was with us were bound up with magic.

These memories of his visits are so strong  they were the golden times. His arrival filled our glum and overwrought household with all the fun and warmth and optimism for which I longed so deeply. He made the sun come out.

My pretty, pale mother was always so lonely, so depressed, immeasurably loving but consumed by frequent distress.

Desperately anxious, she worked all day and into the night to look after my grandmother and me on a secretarys salary and by doing piece-work. But she would blossom when he appeared, becoming happy and jolly again.

There would be money to buy things. There would be a sense of celebration. The days would be crystal-bright and filled with love and hope and inexpressible joy. It was transformational.

After I was born, he came once every year or two. It then became three years, then five. There were only three trips home that I was old enough to remember.

He always arrived without announcement and went, after a few weeks or a month, at short notice.

Black despair, loss, sleeplessness and depression would follow. Id never know when or if he was coming back. Somehow Id failed. I didnt deserve him. Id been cross, or naughty, or not interesting enough, or I hadnt managed to spend enough time with him because of school, or something.

Her father with Ayesha in Northumberland in 1968

All the other children had fathers. They all turned up at school; they were visible, real people. Some of the children had told me I didnt have a father at all. And I didnt, really.

Not like they did. I didnt have a father because I wasnt lovable enough to keep him with me, yet somehow they all pulled it off. I could never understand how.

My mother had always told me that my father needed to stay in Pakistan to work in politics and try to bring good to his country. I felt selfish wanting him to stay, but I also wished that he could try to bring good to my country instead and then hed be able to be with me.

I believed that if I was an utterly charming, beautiful, sweet and lovely little girl, the best daughter one could possibly imagine, he would stay with me and my mother, whom he said he loved so much.

I was bookish and shy, but I was lovely with him. I just wasnt as good as the other girls, or if I was, I couldnt make him see it.

* * * * *

Later, when I was 14, after years of his absence, I remember another visit  a Christmas in Oxford  being immeasurably proud to show my best friend and her father that I really did have a father after all and that he was handsome and charming and brilliant.

I was angry with my mother when she didnt want to pull out all the stops and kill the fatted calf for him. I felt my world collapse when, during that visit, she told him he had to go  that after 15 years of long-distance marriage she wanted a divorce. It was over.

He didnt visit again. Not even to see me.

Only after the divorce, in a big fight with my mother, when I was a stroppy teenager and she was at one of her lowest ebbs, did she tell me that my father had always had another family in Pakistan; that she had always been a second wife; that he had two daughters of his own and didnt care about me or want me.

Although it explained a lot, it felt surreal, as if my life up to then had been a lie. I tormented myself thinking about a wrapped-up guitar I had seen my father bring into the house, which I thought might be a present for me but which was never given. I realised with an acute pang that it must have been for one of his other children.

I felt desolate, but also as if everything finally made sense. No wonder he wasnt interested in me. He didnt need me. I was an extra, a spare.

* * * * *

As an adult, I saw my father a few more times. I had a gap year in which I went to Pakistan and joined him on the political trail, from palaces with harems to mud huts with chickens.

I became, I thought, close to him; we talked endlessly. It was in some ways complicated, but in many ways wonderful.

He told me he was sorry for his absence in my childhood and asked me to judge him not by the past but by the loving, involved future he would make with me from then on.

I went to see him again when I was 21, but by then he had installed a new, third wife who did not make me welcome.

After that trip, he told me he was not permitted to see me any more. He accepted that, which made me immeasurably angry.

I drove myself even harder to succeed, perhaps because only with extreme achievement could I see myself as having any value.

I saw him twice more, secretly and unbeknown to the third wife, in the 26 years after that: once in New York, with my children. He was as charming and jolly as ever in the brief and furtive time he gave me.

Life went on as normal without him, as I struggled to juggle single motherhood, after a failed marriage and a failed cohabitation, with building up a career to provide for my children.

Over time, by dint of relentless work and an obsessive drive for excellence, Vardags, the law firm I had founded, became known for fielding many of the best divorce lawyers in London: its court victories were all over the international media and I was dubbed the Diva of Divorce.

Gradually, I began to believe I had a real place in the world and something that I could contribute  moving the law forward and making it work for the individuals who needed me to fight for them when their families fell into disarray.

I understood their sense of fear and loss, the ache of longing, the guilt of leaving a relationship and the pain of being left, and what it takes to rebuild oneself, survive and become strong.

Finally it felt as if it all had a purpose.

I saw my father once more last Christmas, coinciding with the latest release in that mighty father-child epic, Star Wars.

Ayesha with, clockwise from left, husband Stephen Bence (with dogs Kublai Khan and Shah- Namah), Jasper, Felix and Helena

He came to see me at home for a day. He was with me from 4am to 1pm. It was all very focused.

He told me I should invest my money in some land that he and his brother were interested in buying. He was extremely enthusiastic about getting me over to Pakistan, fast.

He claimed he had come because he had been too busy to come to my wedding the previous year and wanted to meet my husband. He assured me that it was not about wanting me to buy the land. I did not believe him.

The saddest thing I find now is that, over the years, all that love, all that longing and hope and enthusiasm, have died away in me to be replaced by indifference.

I cant tell whether its denial or self-preservation, or whether life has genuinely moved on and Ive made a place where he doesnt matter.

My father is, for me, a charming vessel, hollowed out, with none of the shared memories that take a relationship beyond a genetic connection.

I have no idea what he feels about me; it would appear very little. It feels odd, unnatural  it is unnatural  but the truth is, I dont care any more. It doesnt make me feel good  it just, well, is.

All I have of my relationship with my father is a bleak portfolio of feelings: a sense of loss, a sense of never really believing Im good enough, of never believing I deserve to be loved, of expecting, always, to be left by any man I really love and tormenting myself and him with my insecurity.

And yet somehow I have had the most wonderful existence, full of love and happiness, fun and children, dancing with babies to the radio around my drawing room, swimming with dolphins at dawn, winning legal battles, building communities about which I care passionately in my family, my firm and my home.

But its a constant struggle: trying not to be the little girl who wasnt lovely enough to keep her dad, trying to reinvent myself as someone strong and whole, trying to find a normal way of life, although I never saw one up close.

I hope Ive got there, with a clever, kind-hearted, problem-solving husband whose love, understanding and capacity to forgive me, with my host of demons, never ceases to amaze me.

I have tried to turn the damage I suffered into something good.

My daughter, by my ex-partner, is brought up by a loving father, mother and two step-parents  one family, albeit in separate households, very much as a team with her at the heart of it. She burns with life and happiness and basks in love.

Shes so different from the sad little girl I was. Its not about parents staying together; its about them staying loving, present parents, even if they do that from two homes instead of one.

I work with families, usually when theyre divorcing, trying to extricate them from each other in ways that keep relationships with children alive and strong.

I have turned away vindictive mothers who have come to me to shut their children off from their fathers, or fathers who wanted to fake a desire for full custody to obtain financial leverage.

I feel strongly that there should be a legal obligation on both parents to see their children, whether its convenient for them or not.

One of my first cases was for a father who adored his daughters, but whose wife was desperate to keep him out of their lives.

Getting those girls back into contact with their father, indeed to spending regular time with him in a home he made for them, was one of the most fulfilling moments of my life.

Fathers need to be with their children regularly. If it doesnt make sense for a couple to share custody equally, they should at least make sure there is a home with each parent and a steady, regular, predictable pattern of being there.

Even if its a bore, even if their new partner gives them a hard time, even if its a long journey. So much of parenting is just turning up and not being actively obnoxious.

Mothers, too, need to respect and value that  even if they loathe and detest their exes, even if they cant bear the idea of their children with his latest girlfriend who makes them feel so inadequate, even if it rips them apart when they get picked up at the front door on a Friday evening.

They have to keep smiling and make it happen, not for the fathers, but for the children.
Q I am looking for effective cruelty-free products for mild rosacea. I have Celtic skin that has been prone to flushing, blushing and broken veins since my teens. I have combination skin but no spots. I used a mainstream brand that worked but they sell in China, which makes me uncomfortable because of the animal testing. I do hope you can help.

A Yours is one of many questions we get from sufferers of rosacea, a skin disease that causes redness and swelling on the face. It may begin as a tendency to flush or blush easily and progress to persistent redness in the centre of the face that gradually spreads over the cheeks, forehead and even the eyes.

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If the disease progresses (which it doesn't sound as if it has in your case), small dilated blood vessels called telangiectasia and tiny pimples appear on the reddened area but  unlike acne  there are no blackheads or whiteheads. The red areas can be painful or itchy, and sometimes feel as if the red area is burning, which can be particularly painful over the nose.

Although not all-natural, Kalme products include many carefully selected botanical ingredients

We have written lots about rosacea  just Search our website for previous columns and also look at our latest book The Ultimate Natural Beauty Bible (Kyle Cathie, 19.99 hardback) for an extensive feature on natural ways of treating this distressing condition.

Regarding your question, the pharmacist at Victoria Health (www.victoriahealth.com) recommends a small range called Kalme by Skin Shop that is cruelty-free and is especially suitable for rosacea and sensitive skin. A spokesman told us we do not dispatch to China and we do not have any outlets in China to purchase our products.

Although not all-natural, Kalme products include many carefully selected botanical ingredients. The range offers a Cream Cleanser, 14.95/150 ml, Day Defence Cream SPF30, 19.95/50 ml, Night Repair Cream, 19.95/50 ml, and Kalme Undercoat, 9.95/75 ml, a de-sensitising and moisturising base cream that they recommend allowing to absorb thoroughly before applying a skin cream.

It is vital to protect rosacea-prone skin against the sun and, while the SPF30 in the Kalme Day Defence Cream is a good starting point, you need to top up every two hours when you are out and about. Consultant dermatologist Dr Nick Lowe recommends bareMinerals SPF30 Natural Sunscreen powder, which comes in a brush dispenser, with three shades Light, Medium and Tan, 25. Its a perfectly portable face powder, lightly mattifying without a trace of cakeyness, according to Red magazine Beauty Director Sophie Forte.

Finally you may like to try Clear Skin Complex by Viridian Nutrition, 22.05 for 60 capsules (two a day), which has been formulated to help treat inflammatory skin conditions including rosacea.

Beauty Bible loves Delilah Farewell Concealer, 24. We're falling ever more deeply in love with this British make-up brand  and it's probably this little problem-solver which tipped us over into full-blown rapture, frankly. (They just scooped 'Best New Brand', BTW, in the CEW Awards 2016  so we're in good company.)

Who wants to carry around a bottle of foundation for day-long touch-ups? Not us. So this handy little twist-up pencil has become a handbag essential. Moisturising and so soft to blend, it glides onto skin and is brilliant for covering dark circles or sketching lightly onto cheeks, in Jo's case, where redness has crept in over the day. Currently, Delilah Farewell Concealer comes four shades  and our only niggle is that we would really like to see some deeper skintones, Delilah.

It also gives a way subtler effect than simply layering on more foundation, because you can target exactly where you want it.
Embrace the eccentric with the return of the 1980s Memphis movement. This time round its all about asymmetrical shapes, blocks of colour and no-holds-barred prints

From left: PURPLE VASE, 175, Kartell. PENDANT LIGHTS, from 215 each, Hem. YELLOW TRIPOD TABLE, 325, Channels. PINK STOOL, 205, Kartell. CANDLESTICK HOLDERS, from 20 each, Luna and Curious. CANDLESTICKS, 25 for six, Darkroom. MULTICOLOURED VASE, 40, Habitat. BOOKCASE, 2,736, Aram. On shelves, from top: YELLOW VASE, 30, Habitat. MAGNETIC BLOCKS, 34, Aram. CIRCULAR HOOKS, from 19 each, Future and Found. BOWL, 30, Habitat. COBALT VASE, 120, Anna Beam. TURQUOISE VASE, 198, Jonathan Adler. SOFA, 3,539, SCP. THROW, 165, An Artful Life. CUSHIONS, from left: BRICK PRINT, 50, Monologue London; PEACH AND WHITE, 27, A Splash of Colour; BLUE AND WHITE TRIANGLE PRINT, 69, Aria; YELLOW PENTA-PRINT, 49, Selfridges; WOOL, 79, An Artful Life, and GREY AND PINK, 27, A Splash of Colour. RUG (180cm x 120cm), 200, John Lewis. CUBE TABLE, 750, Darkroom. YELLOW AND BLUE STAIR ORNAMENTS, 200 each, Aria. FLOOR LAMP, 225, Habitat. FLOTSAM PRINT, 60, Future and Found. TALL OAK CHAIR, 2,450, Channels. On walls, from left: WALLPAPER in MEMPHIS BOUND 2, 89 for 10m, Feathr; MATT EMULSION PAINT in SORBET, 29.99 for 2.5 litres, Dulux; MATT EMULSION PAINT in ULTRA BLUE (on triangle), 49 for 2.5 litres, Little Greene; MATT EMULSION PAINT in MODERNIST WHITE, 38 for 2.5 litres, Fired Earth, and MATT EMULSION PAINT in SUN SPARKLE (on pillar), 26.98 for 2.5 litres, Valspar, from B&Q

From left: MIRROR, 166, Heals. CABINET, 70, Ikea. TABLE LAMP, 306, The Conran Shop. PINEAPPLE JAR, 47, Amara. CHAIR, 1,450, Nina Tolstrop, from 19 Greek Street. RED STOOL, 205, Kartell. HOLLY DOUBLE BED (upholstered in TEAL VELVET), 895, Button and Sprung. On bed: DUVET COVER, 20 for a set (including two pillowcases), Habitat. PILLOWCASES, 25 for two, Urban Outfitters. CUSHIONS, from left: GREY TIC-TAC PRINT, 79, An Artful Life; PINK DIAMOND PRINT, 70, Sunny Todd; RED CIRCLE PRINT, 69, Aria; BLUE, RED AND BLACK PRINT and PINK, WHITE AND BLACK PRINT (just seen), 85 each, both Heals. PENDANT LIGHTS, 139 each, both A Splash of Colour. FLOOR LAMP, 816, Aram. BLUE STEP LADDER, 229, Kartell. On walls, from left: MATT EMULSION PAINT in ULTRA BLUE, 49 for 2.5 litres, Little Greene; MATT EMULSION PAINT in MODERNIST WHITE, 38 for 2.5 litres, Fired Earth; MATT EMULSION PAINT in SORBET, 29.99 for 2.5 litres, Dulux; MATT EMULSION PAINT in SUN SPARKLE (on triangle) and MAKE-BELIEVE (on pillar), 26.98 for 2.5 litres each, both Valspar, from B&Q; WALLPAPER in DAZZLE CAM 1, 160 for 10m, Quirk and Rescue

Clockwise from top left: IN DA HOUSE PRINT, 50, Camille Walala. OVAL OUTLINE WALL ART, 99.50, and RECTANGLE OUTLINE WALL ART, 82.50, both Hollys House. TRIANGLE SHELF (80cm x 80cm), 1,250, Aria. On shelves, clockwise from top right: SPRING TOY, 6.95, Wild and Wolf. DOLLS STRIPED CANISTER, 28; GLITTER STRIPED CANISTER, 88, and UPPERS STRIPED CANISTER, 98, all Jonathan Adler. RUBIKS CUBE, 19.95, The Design Museum Shop. NDEBELE PRINT, 150, Darkroom. WALL CLOCK, 125, Alessi. CUBE SHELF (80cm x 80cm), 1,250, Aria. On shelves, clockwise from top left: HEART CARDS, 7 each, Darkroom. SUNGLASSES, 48, Lazy Oaf. TEAPOT, 35, Liberty. MUG, 12, Unique and Unity. YELLOW HOURGLASS, 35, The Conran Shop. STEEL WALL RACKS, 24 each, An Artful Life. All prices are for unframed prints

STOCKISTS

A SPLASH OF COLOUR, asplashofcolour.com

ALESSI, store.alessi.com

AMARA, amara.com

AN ARTFUL LIFE, anartfullife.co.uk

ANNA BEAM, annabeam.com

ARAM, aram.co.uk

ARIA, ariashop.co.uk

B&Q, diy.com

BUTTON AND SPRUNG, buttonandsprung.com

CAMILLE WALALA, camillewalala.com

CHANNELS, channelsdesign.com

DARKROOM, darkroomlondon.com

DULUX, dulux.co.uk

FEATHR, feathr.com

FIRED EARTH, firedearth.com

FUTURE AND FOUND, futureandfound.com

HABITAT, habitat.co.uk

HEALS, heals.com

HEM, hem.com

HOLLYS HOUSE, hollys-house.com

IKEA, ikea.com

JOHN LEWIS, johnlewis.com

JONATHAN ADLER, uk.jonathanadler.com

KARTELL, kartell.com

LAZY OAF, lazyoaf.com

LIBERTY, liberty.co.uk

LITTLE GREENE, littlegreene.com

LUNA and CURIOUS, lunaandcurious.com

MONOLOGUE LONDON, monologuelondon.com

19 GREEK STREET, 19greekstreet.com

QUIRK AND RESCUE, quirkandrescue.com

SCP, scp.co.uk

SELFRIDGES, selfridges.com

SUNNY TODD, sunnytoddprints.co.uk

THE CONRAN SHOP, conranshop.co.uk

THE DESIGN MUSEUM SHOP, designmuseumshop.com

UNIQUE and UNITY, uniqueandunity.co.uk

URBAN OUTFITTERS, urbanoutfitters.com
With the world becoming increasingly more accessible there are only a few locations left that inspire gasps of envy and sighs of wanderlust.

The Maldives and its connotations of secluded island luxury, seems to top this oh-so exclusive list, and following my visit I am happy to confirm this is not undeservingly so.

I was lucky enough to travel to the Coco Bodu Hithi resort in the Maldives with the YOU fashion team to capture everything the resort and island had to offer for a series of summer fashion stories.

After a brisk 40 minute boat transfer from Male airport, my body still dealing with the shock of the heat and something I later recognised as sunshine after such a long and grey winter in London.

Nothing can prepare you for your arrival at the Coco Collection resort. A long wooden jetty, empty beaches of white sand and crystal clear waters, it will inspire awe from even the most experienced of travellers.

Thank goodness the friendly team are on hand to meet you with water and cold towels to avoid any Victorian style swooning from over excitement, or perhaps thats just me.

So dedicated are the team to ensuring your perfect holiday the island runs on its own self-imposed time zone, 1 hour ahead of the main land to ensure guests have more time in the sunshine and chance to capture the sunset in all its glory (preferably with one of their perfectly mixed cocktails as a personal recommendation).

Where to rest your head

The highest villa category at Coco Bodu Hithi are the Coco Residences, perched gracefully on stilts these villas redefine luxury and due to their modern open design you never forget the beauty of your location. So beautiful location it is where we shot this weeks main fashion story.

Things to do

First task, take in and enjoy your marvellous surroundings, embrace paradise! Secondly, every step offers a new insta-glorious photo opportunity and the islands high speed wifi means you wont have to wait until you get home.

From the white sand beaches, azure blue seas and luxurious interiors you will be spoilt for choice. (Warning: Be prepared to lose some followers through jealousy, but you dont need negative influencers like that in your life anyway).

Coco Bodu Hithi also goes to great pains to ensure that the island never feels crowded, in fact a lot of the time you will be the only guest in sight and you can live out your own Robinson Crusoe fantasy should you wish, whilst in the lap of luxury of course.

I may have touched on the waters already but there is a reason why the North Male Atoll is world renowned, the underwater landscape is breath taking.

Rolling coral taverns teaming with tropical fish, tortoises, manta rays and for extra points try to spot (the harmless but no less unnerving) reef sharks.

The resort has its own scuba school for the more adventurous deep sea divers, and free snorkels and flippers for all guests.

After spending a millisecond at the resort it is easy understand why the Maldives appeals so much to honeymooners as not only is it a one in a lifetime destination, the seclusion also offers you a perfect setting to truly relax and unwind after all the trials and tribulations of planning your nuptials.

The Coco group do well to cater towards all their loved up couples and offer a full schedule of experiences with this in mind. Private boat trips, champagne breakfast beach picnics, sea planes and in-villa BBQs to name a few  all of which are worth putting on the wedding list!

Culinary delights

With a choice of seven restaurants and bars Coco Bodu Hithi offers offers a diverse array of dining experiences. A special shout out goes to Aqua which is located over the water and offers the freshest sea food fused with the spices of South East Asia.

Although after seeing your villa and the in-dining options it is completely understandable why you would want to hole up there!

YOU recommendations

When staying in the Coco Residences be sure to request a villa on the sunset side, so you can watch the sun set over the infinite Indian Ocean from the comfort of your private plunge pool, whilst the in house sound system plays your own playlist. You are welcome!

Hotel details

Coco Bodu Hithi is a luxurious five-star resort in the Maldives offering guests an idyllic, secluded island with turquoise waters. Comprising 100 villas, the resort also boasts seven restaurants and bars for guests to enjoy a culinary haven, an award winning Coco Spa and first-class land and water-sport facilities.

Prices start from US$910 (approximately 638) per night based on two people sharing an Island Villa on a bed and breakfast basis. Villa rates, meal supplements and transfer charges are subject to applicable GST tax, Green tax and 10% service charge.

For further information please visit: www.cocoboduhithi.com
In the anthology film, Bombay Talkies, released in 2013, Anurag Kashyap tells the story of a young man from Allahabad who makes the journey to Bachchans house in Bombay, with a bottle of homemade murabba.

Kashyap told the Wall Street Journal: Its about how a stars persona affects everyday life in India: how their dialogues are etched in stone, how each one of us unknowingly emulates our favourite onscreen characters.

Journey

Shah Rukh Khans Fan treads similar territory. In a double role, Khan plays Aryan Khanna, a Bollywood superstar, as also Gaurav Chandna, Khannas obsessed fan, who makes the journey to Khannas (read Shah Rukhs) bungalow.

The film Fan tells the story of an obsessive fan who looks just like the star.

He comes from a middle class family in West Delhis Inder Vihar.

The neighbourhood of DDA flats is brought alive on screen, complete with black Sintex tanks, bundles of pipes and wires and mohalla talent nights.

From the terrace, one can see the Metro lights blinking in the distance.

Ive long felt that Khan needed a good script, that he still has something to offer as an actor, something he hasnt done since Chak de! India.

The formulaic Chennai Express might have gotten him a new audience, a different generation of kids, but for us old fans, it was plain boring.

We, like SRK, had grown up. Like many others, I saw Baazigar, Darr and Anjaam in single screen theatres when they first came out.

In Fan, Maneesh Sharma gives Khan a taut script, which is all story and no songs, and directs a thriller that often doesnt seem like a thriller but something else - good drama that is close to real life, with several psychological layers.

Middle class West Delhi is brilliantly observed and committed to screen. Sharma, who grew up in Pitampura, stays close to his roots.

Fan raises questions about celebrity culture and the fan/ superstar binary, but goes beyond that.

It doesnt try to send any messages. For the most part, it concentrates on telling the story of these two characters, as simply as possible.

In the process, it raises questions about identity and fame, but feels no need to provide any obvious answers.

The premise of the film never bogs it down; Fan is a triumph of storytelling. Khans performance is terrific.

Its only after the film is over that the viewer starts to think: there is more to this than meets the eye.

In that sense, Fan is genuinely thought-provoking. You empathise both with the obsessed fan as well as the world-conquering superstar.

Chandna doesnt start out as a stalker, he becomes one during the course of the film.

He is the only child of loving parents who chop vegetables together. The inside of his room is not very different from the superstars house its a shrine to stardom.

In one scene, the fan manages to blag his way into the superstars house and smashes up his award trophies, framed photos and the banjo from DDLJ.

Do these objects really matter?

Acting

SRK plays the fan so convincingly that for the most part, I forgot that it was him acting.

By playing his own fan, he collapses the distance between his two selves - a star can be his own biggest fan, leading to a kind of duality within ones own self.

The script forces Shah Rukh to tap into this, the over-the-top self confidence of the superstar is coupled with the hurting vulnerability of the fan - they both are part of the same fantasy.

Both Aryan Khanna and Gaurav Chandna are shown to have normal lives, the moment they step out of this fantasy.

In one scene Aryan tells Gaurav: Look, our backgrounds are similar. I grew up in a similar middle class neighbourhood, in a similar family and we went to similar schools.

Khanna has his wife and kids. Gaurav runs a small internet cafe and is a simpleton in a harsh society.

Its people who are cruel. They will judge the superstar, as much as they do the oddball.

Both will be pulled down with scathing viciousness. Both are punished for being different. Its the way of the world.

Stardom

The bubble of stardom is a bubble, albeit one filled with luxuries.

The star is cut-off from reality, even if he doesnt want things to be that way.

He has no way of knowing who is a genuine friend and who isnt. Do they love you because you are Shah Rukh or do they love you for who you are?

Can the two ever be separated? Fan gives us a glimpse into that loneliness.

The crazy fan extends a hand of friendship, if one can call it that.

At least it is genuine. Which is why Aryan always forgives him.

He tries to save Gaurav till the very end. He literally offers his hand to save him, when he slips and falls over from the terrace in the final scene.

Its the fan who pulls away. Aryan doesnt want him to do so. After the film ended, I walked out into the foyer of the theatre and pressed the arrow button for the lift to come up.

While the lift was still lost somewhere in the chute, I realised I had left the ticket in the soft drink holder of my seats armrest.

I wanted to keep it as a memento. I had a fan moment. I went back and recovered it.

Its in a secret hiding place now. I wont tell you where it is.
Retired IPS officer DG Vanzara - one of the top Gujarat police officers accused of killing Mumbai teen Ishrat Jahan and three others purportedly linked to the LeT in a 2004 staged shootout - is preparing to take the political plunge.

The controversial former encounter specialist, who returned to the state this month after a CBI court relaxed his bail conditions, indicated he may fight next years assembly polls and the 2019 general election but refused to reveal the name of the party he will join.

The question will arise at the time of the election. Today, there is no question of choosing a party. Today, I am a citizen of this country, Vanzara told Aaj Tak, a Hindi news channel.

DG Vanzara (centre) waves to supporters after arriving in Ahmedabad on April 8. He was allowed to return to Gujarat after being arrested in 2007 in connection with extra-judicial killings.

I am just a common man. Vanzara, also an accused in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsi Prajapati alleged fake encounter cases, was in prison since 2007.

He walked out of jail in February after being granted bail on the condition that he would not enter Gujarat.

Vanzara and the other police officers claim they were killing terrorists, who wanted to assassinate Narendra Modi, the states chief minister at the time.

The Ishrat Jahan case came under the spotlight again this year when Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative David Coleman Headley told a Maharashtra court that the 19-year-old was a member of the militant groups female wing.

The BJP has since then accused the Congress, which was in power at the Centre for a decade until 2014, of conspiring to kill Modi and trying to hush up Ishrats terror links.

Those who had investigated had said that it was a fake encounter, Vanzara said.

I still say that all our encounters were genuine. There was a political conspiracy and Gujarat Police became a victim of it. I also am a victim.

The former top cop, who three years ago in a letter lashed out at BJP chief Amit Shah- Gujarats home minister when Modi was the chief minister - said he is prepared to work with him after joining politics.

There was a system and I was working under that system. He (Shah) has his own working style and I had my own working style, he said, adding that he stands by whatever he said in the outburst.

Politics is such a subject where there is no permanent enmity or friendship. There is no untouchability in politics, Vanzara said.

Vanzara was present at a recent programme in Ahmedabad where RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat was the main speaker. He tried to play down the event.

It was a function. I was present there. But, I did not meet Bhagwat ji, he said.

The retired officer praised the Narendra Modi government, terming it nationalist.

His comment came against the backdrop of a raging debate on nationalism and free speech in India, with the Opposition accusing the BJP-led centre of attempting to muzzle dissent by calling non-conformists traitors.

Vanzara expressed faith in the judicial system, saying he will come out clean after facing the trial.

There is a legal process, which goes on in courts. The government has nothing to do with it, he said.

Now, I am out on bail. There is a rule of law.
Nearly 70 per cent of Indias doctors and other medical professionals are concentrated in urban areas, a recent parliamentary panel report noted, pointing to a growing healthcare vacuum in villages where more than two-thirds of the population lives.

Mail Today met a number of health experts, who have emerged as rays of hope in the countrys darkest corners.

These are most gratifying days of my personal and professional life. Its easier to donate money, but very difficult to donate time, said Delhi-based dermatologist Dr Deepali Bhardwaj, who travels to the remote tribal areas of Madhya Pradesh for 10 days each year.

For Dr Aparna Hegde (centre), while practising in India was her calling, starting an NGO - in field of mother and child care health - was a dream. A dream that found its wings in ARMMAN in 2008.

Analysts reveal that many doctors who do not leave the country, prefer to stay in the cities and treat patients who can pay, even as people in the backwoods grapple with an acute shortage of well-trained specialists.

There are urban-rural inequities and there are also geographical inequities, the report, dissecting the functioning of Medical Council of India, said.

With rapid privatisation of medical education and healthcare since the 1980s, around 70 per cent of medical professionals work in the private health sector and around 70 per cent of these are concentrated in urban well-to-do areas.

The incentives offered to doctors by the government to work in villages have failed to be a draw in a country where a pizza reaches the destination sooner than an ambulance.

There are a few medical experts who are driven by idealism.

Everybody enters the field of medicine for an idealistic reason  we all want to serve the society. But along the way, we lose that idealism. Small concerns overrule our lives. We lose sight of the larger goal - why we got into medicine, said leading uro gynecologist Dr Aparna Hegde, who also runs the NGO ARMMAN.

The NGO tries to ensure that no mother or child dies due to lack of medical attention.

While financial stability remains a key worry for healthcare experts in the countryside, 70-year-old Dr Saurindra Mohan Deb said he never felt the urge to practice in urban areas to make more money.

I know how helpless most of these villagers are when someone from their families falls sick. They dont have anywhere to go. They are deprived of modern medical facilities as well as expert hands. Thus, I decided to practice in the rural parts only. I never tried to look for a job in urban area, said Dr Deb, who spent his entire life, working at various impoverished rural pockets of West Bengals South 24 Paraganas district.

Initially I was reluctant to go to Machil. But, when I started working there, I fell in love with my work and the people who were poor and had nowhere to go, said Dr Firdous Ahmad Bhat, who served in Kashmirs strife-torn Machil region.

The Medical Council of India (MCI) amended the Post Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2000, to reserve half of the countrys postgraduate diploma courses seats for those who have served three years in remote areas.

Relaxations such as giving 10 per cent marks to the medical students serving in villages have not proved to be effective.

Despite several benefits, doctors dont want to go to the rural areas because of various reasons. They dont get good facilities for their families such as education and ease of living as they get in urban cities, said a senior health ministry official.

We are trying our level best to move doctors to rural areas because these areas too require good healthcare services.

The Union Health Ministrys 2014 data show that 70 per cent of out patient care and more than 60 per cent of inpatient care remain in the private sector.

Private practitioners are now, therefore, the first point of contact in both rural and urban areas for many ailments, including fever and acute illnesses, care of small children, and treatment of diseases such as tuberculosis, said the parliamentary report.

However, a substantial proportion of, and in some areas even the majority of private providers might be unqualified or under-qualified.

In 2012, the Medical Council of India (MCI) decided to make one-year rural internship mandatory for admission into postgraduate medical courses.

However, doctors staged a protest in the Capital, stating that the infrastructure in primary health centres in rural areas is not adequate for them to work properly.

Health organisations in India have suggested ways to the government to draw specialist doctors to the rural areas.

There is no dearth of general practitioners, who want to work in rural areas. Many students while studying voluntarily opt to in villages. But, we have observed that there is an acute shortage of specialists, said KK Aggarwal, secretary general, Indian Medical Association.

We have also suggested that specialists can be outsourced from urban areas for which they get good money for a certain period. This way, it will become easy for the rural health centres to get specialist doctors who otherwise would not want to go there.

Across the world, countries are trying to improve healthcare services in villages.

In Canada, many provinces have started to decentralise primary care.

The Local Health Integration Network was established in Ontario in 2007, addressed the needs of people in rural areas.

In China, a $50-million pilot project was approved in 2008 to improve public health in rural areas. The country is also planning to introduce a national healthcare system.

(With inputs from Soudhriti Bhabani in Kolkata and Naseer Ganai in Srinagar)

Doctors shortage in rural J&K

By Naseer Ganai

More and more doctors posted in rural areas of Jammu and Kashmir are leaving their rural posting and opting for deputations in government medical colleges, based in Srinagar and other cities in Jammu.

The health secretary of the state on Saturday expressed his concern that the situation in rural health centres and district hospitals has reached a bleeding point.

While briefing CM Mehbooba Mufti on the shortage of doctors in the rural areas, the health secretary said against a maximum upper limit of 293 doctors, 879 are on deputation. These doctors are working on a deputation in Medical Education Department, including two government medical colleges and other departments.

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti issues directions to plug holes and doctors get back to the health centres in rural areas

The CM at a meeting of secretaries issued directions to plug holes so that deputation quota doesnt exceed 10 per cent, which is fixed under the norms.

Officials said in the health department, 10 per cent deputation is allowed to serve as registers, PGs and assistant surgeons in Medical Colleges based in Srinagar and Jammu.

However, officials say there is a long list of doctors of the health department who are in government medical colleges, leaving the district hospitals and primary health centres in rural areas without doctors.

Against sanctioned strength of 1,521 doctors for the health department, 626 are on deputation.

In the Government Medical College Srinagar, 158 doctors of rural areas are on deputation for years together while 160 doctors of the health department are under training.

Incidentally, those who have gone for deputation for higher education, have not returned to the health department even after completing their Post Graduate courses.

After getting selected as assistant surgeon in the health department to serve in rural areas, doctors usually apply for PG courses and move to the medical colleges. It is their right. But when they pursue courses like MCh, DM, etc, they should either declare their post in rural areas vacant or they should give in writing they will serve in rural areas once they complete the degree. They dont do anything, leaving rural areas without doctors for long and also blocking the post in the rural areas, said an official.

In 2014 alone, around 100 doctors from the health department were selected as PGs and registers in the government medical colleges based in Srinagar and Jammu cities and not a single doctor, who had gone for deputation, returned to the rural posting.

The problem is if 100 doctors have gone from health department to medical education in 2014, at least 50 should return to health department, who had gone for deputation some three years ago. But, none among them returns, said a senior health department official.

He said according to the rule, a person can go for a deputation for two years.

We have instances where people are on deputation for the past 25 years, the official said.

There are at least 100 assistant surgeons, who belong to the health department and should have been in rural areas, are in Government Medical College Srinagar doing almost nothing and making the whole system suffer, the official said.

Dr. Baljeet Pathania, Director Health, Jammu, told Mail Today that 360 doctors have been on deputation.

This is a problem for me. We cannot stop them from academic upgradation, but it is now going beyond the limit and creating a strain on rural health services. The government is taking a comprehensive decision about it, he said.

Ray of hope in remote areas

By Lipla Negi

Dermatologist Dr Deepali Bhardwaj travels to the remote tribal areas of Madhya Pradesh

Every year, Delhi-based dermatologist Dr Deepali Bhardwaj travels to the remote tribal areas of Madhya Pradesh for 10 days.

Unlike cosmopolitan cities like Delhi or Mumbai, people living in interiors do not know much about dermatology.

They have never seen or heard of it. A doctor these areas is seen as a ray of hope.

This is what drives Deepali. These trips are part of the health camps organised by the Madhya Pradesh Foundation, a charitable organisation founded by Dr Harsh Bhalla and Vivek Tankha.

The fact that the organisation makes a genuine effort to reach out the tribals living in the remotest parts of the state, attracted Deepali to the cause.

Her first visit to Mandla, a tribal district in the east-central part of MP, was an eye opener.

As opposed to the claims of the government, she saw patients of leprosy, which is believed to be eradicated from India.

What really shocked her was the alarming number of patient suffering from skin cancer.

I saw entire families suffering from scabies, which is a highly contagious disease, she says.

Forget about specialists, finding a good doctor with basic MBBS degree is very difficult here.

After seeing the pitiable state of healthcare in the area, Dr Bhardwaj became determined to return every year.

Its been five years since she has been religiously travelling to various tribal areas of MP, in an endeavour to bring healthcare closer to those who cant go to the hospital.

Science and Service go together

By Lipla Negi

It is hard not to get moved by the mission of Dr Aparna Hegde. For she believes in the the purpose of medical science.

For her, science and service go hand in hand. One is incomplete without the other.

Years after she came out of the medical college, Dr Hegde hasnt forgotten her mission.

Dr Aparna Hegde, a leading urogynecologist, left her job in the US to serve the poor in India

A leading urogynecologist, pelvic floor reconstructive surgeon and researcher, she got her MS degree from Stanford University.

She was awarded the prestigious IUGA (International Urogynecological Association) International fellowship in Urogynecology and pelvic reconstructive surgery and completed her two year fellowship in the prestigious department at Cleveland Clinic Florida, US.

But unlike many of her peers settling in the US, she came back.

The thought of settling for a comfortable life abroad, or even in India for that matter, never crossed her mind.
"Protests in Handwara were genuine expression of anger towards the Army and cannot be rigged on this scale as they mushroomed because of the way they were handled by the state government, former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said on Saturday.

Omar downplayed apprehensions of a new wave of militancy hitting South Kashmir, but cautioned that the government needs to remain watchful.

I dont think you can rig the protest on this scale and not to the point that people are willing to lay down their lives because of their sentiments or their feeling, Omar said in an interview to Karan Thapar on India Today TV.

National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah with party working president Omar Abdullah at the working committee meeting.

He said large number of people came out and their anger was diverted towards the army because of the alleged incident of molestation.

"There are two views regarding the incident. The fact is what you saw was a genuine expression of anger and outrage which mushroomed because of the way it was initially handled", he said.

When asked how he sees such protests in South Kashmir, Omar said in recent years, it (South Kashmir) had been calm with relatively less militancy in the area. Whatever militancy we had seen has been close to Line of Control.

Towns of Handwara, Kupwara have largely been calm. Their participation in elections... has been much healthier... There is this resentment at the excessive presence of the Army in the middle of these towns particularly a couple of bunkers that dot the two towns of Handwara and Kupwara but people were ready to take them into stride. In this case the incident of alleged molestation that was the spark that lit the fire, he said.

When asked whether incidents in South Kashmir were new wave of militancy or old ones going on, he said these were a bit of both.

It is also the result of shrinking of space that has taken place because of the alliance between the PDP and the BJP.

I think we need to understand that PDP occupied an important buffer zone between the regular mainstream political parties and separatist for their soft separatism... It appealed to a section who were not ready for full integration but perhaps weren't ready to pick up guns, demand azadi or unification with Pakistan. With PDP joining the BJP, I think their space or identity had shrunk. They find greater resonance with separatist cause than with the more right wing that is PDP..., he said.

Omar said Army was put in extremely difficult position and he thinks the state government should have been more careful about.

Knowing that target of peoples ire is going to be Army and knowing that army is ill equipped to deal with the law and order protests, I think the state government failed in preempting this sort of situation, he said.

Rejecting the claim that Handwara was a tipping point, Omar said it would be simplistic.
While HRD Minister Smriti Irani is going to lead the assault, in the deep background, faceless people are at work, to start a fight over education.

If you think you have already seen the fiercest ideological battles in the Narendra Modi era, you may be mistaken.

The debates over intolerance and nationalism were storms that shook much.

But the twister that is going to play out more truculently, even profoundly changing the old landscape, is on the horizon.

The biggest battle in the next few months is going to be fought over education.

While controversys favourite child, Smriti Irani, is going to be its face, in the deep background, faceless people are at work.

The government and its ideological guides want to recast a system which they view as biased, antiquated, irrelevant for large swathes of the population, and a refuge of work-dodgers, beneficiaries of Congress- Left patronage and the rank incompetent.

The first salvo is going to be the National Education Policy, for which a massive yagna is afoot.

Meetings have apparently been held in 94,000 villages across the country, and more than 1.1 lakh written suggestions are being screened and processed.

The new policy is supposed to bring defining changes in the structure of education, not so much in the content.

Vocational training, for instance, is likely to be made a part of the core education.

Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) may move from the periphery to the mainstream.

In villages, the government may bring Rural Institutes as ITI equivalents to impart rural focused vocational training.

There could also be a proposal to have Navodaya Vidyalayas (NVs) - residential schools for poor students in the ancient gurukul tradition - in every district.

Most of these schools are going through an acute fund shortage.

The Centre may step in to resuscitate the chain.

Also, the Sainik Vidyalaya network may be expanded to encourage more students to think of forces as a career.

There are more than 20 Sainik schools today. The big push will be on regular and time-bound training of teachers. Even yoga will be a component of this.

But more importantly, strict monitoring of how much time teachers are spending in the class and how much on junketeering abroad has already started.

Many in the government believe that recent unrest in some universities was fuelled from behind by those rattled by these checks.

Also, Indias government institutes may finally adopt the Western publish-or-perish credo, in which teachers need to constantly contribute and reinvent.

Besides bringing in accountability of teachers and administrators, the government wants to ensure that non-NET scholarships are distributed among women, minorities, disabled and backward castes; that there is last-mile utilisation of funds; and that students get fellowships through direct benefit transfer.

But the trickier ground is content. The new National Curriculum Framework, which is supposed to come later this year, could be explosive.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court in November last year asked NCERT to look into 182 supposed discrepancies and mistakes in Classes VI to XII history books.

The direction came in response to a PIL by the National Centre for Historical Research and Comparative Studies (NCHRCS).

The centres director, Hemant Goswami, argued that certain shlokas from the Rig Veda and other scriptures had been mischievously translated to mean exactly their opposite.

The Aryan invasion theory is being challenged too, along with interpretations of words like dasa and dasyu.

Architects of the new policy are already squelching through the half-lit marshlands of history, working on highly contested patches, encountering dangerous creatures.

For the first time in independent India, the Left-of-Centre narrative in education will be seriously challenged in the coming months; both structurally and in content.
The upcoming Parliament session is expected to be a high decibel clash between the ruling benches and the Opposition as Union Finance Minister and senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley hinted in an exclusive interview with India Today.

Jaitley said that the government would take on the Opposition on several issues ranging from the changing of affidavit in the Ishrat Jahan case during UPA regime to the ongoing Uttarakhand crisis.

Jaitley also accused the Congress of having helped Vijay Mallya. Jaitley called into question the role of the Uttarakhand Assembly Speaker in the Constitutional crisis that the state is gripped in.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the BJP will bring up a lot of issues, including the political crisis in Uttarakhand, changes in the affidavit of the Ishrat Jahan case and even the case of Colonel Purohit, in the upcoming session of Parliament.

The Uttarakhand issue should certainly be debated upon. The way the Constitution was violated there when the previous government was in power is unprecedented; such an instance cannot be found in history. They failed to pass the budget and the Speaker, without doing his calculations, declared that it had been passed. Democracy runs on math. To declare the failed budget as passed, there can be no bigger violation of the Constitution, said Jaitley.

He said the moment the Harish Rawat-led Congress government in Uttarakhand failed to get the budget passed, it lost all right to remain in power.

When asked about the observations of the Uttarakhand High Court which apparently went against the Centre, Jaitley declined to comment, saying the matter was sub-judice in the Supreme Court and could not be discussed, either in the Parliament or outside.

Also, Jaitley accused the Congress of trying to disrupt the working of the Parliament despite not having numbers.

We always talk to the Opposition as the country is faced with huge legislative businesses to take care of, but if the Congress believes in disrupting the Parliament without having numbers then I dont have anything to say, he said.

Speaking about BJPs strategy to checkmate the Congress by raising issues such as saffron terror, given that Colonel Purohit had been given a clean chit, Jaitley said it was the prerogative of members to raise and discuss issues.

Such issues which become public knowledge can always be discussed by MPs, like the revelations in the Ishrat Jahan case and those in the case of Colonel Purohit, Jaitley said.

Regarding the Mallya muddle, Jaitley said the present dispensation was battling the sins of previous governments.

NPAs is big issue and if the issue of Vijay Mallya comes up we will certainly have a discussion. We have taken steps to ensure recoveries; after all, these are sins of the previous government which we are trying to solve. We are bearing the brunt of it, Jaitley said.

And would the Opposition try to corner the government over the issue of drought?
The passion of doing wheelies, drifting and stoppie landed a teenager and his elder brother in jail as they used stolen motorcycles to perform stunts on the high-speed Yamuna expressway.

The crime branch of Delhi police have arrested 19-year-old Aakash Singh, and his elder brother Azad Singh (21), who were so passionate about stunt biking that they started stealing bikes to perform these dangerous stunts.

Police have also arrested their associate Rizwan from Dwarka More in south-west Delhi.

Stunt bikers are a regular sight in Noida and Greater Noida (image for representation only)

Aakash used to go for motorbike rides with his friends to Yamuna e-way and perform dangerous stunts. He also used to take pictures and videos of his stunts and upload them social media sites. All the other friends of Aakash had motorbikes, and as he could not afford it, he started stealing high-performance bikes to flaunt his skills, a senior officer said.

A student of National Open School, Aakash was also arrested earlier by Moti Nagar Police for possessing a stolen motorcycle.

Elder brother Azad worked as sales executive in a showroom in Uttam Nagar area in the past and he helped his brother fulfill his passion for stunt biking by aiding him steal the vehicle.

They not only stole the bikes but also started an auto shop where they would sell the stolen bikes. They changed the registration plate and put in a new number. They followed it up with making fake documents. They did stunts on high-end bikes and later sold it at half the price, a senior officer told Mail Today.

He added that there are several stunt bikers associated with him who go on regular rides on the expressway.

Delhi police claim that after the crackdown against stunt bikers in the city, a lot of high-speed bikers have moved towards faster roads of Noida and Greater Noida.

High-speed bikers zooming on the expressway in Noida is a common site.

Cops claim that people come from Delhi to race here, usually doing 47km long races - going back and forth, on the 23.5-km-long Noida-Greater Noida expressway.

As Noida police have installed speed monitoring cameras both on the Noida-Greater Noida eway and Yamuna expressway, stunt bikers have started changing number plates before performing stunts.
The United States may not be directly in the line of ISIS fire but theres an air of deep concern in Washington about the preparedness of European nations to deal with the crisis.

Many US top security experts working with leading think tanks in Washington caution about the extent of ISIS threat looms large over Europe, Middle East and parts of South Asia up to Pakistan.

What worries them most are the porous borders of European nations and the gaps in the intelligence sharing mechanism, which didnt improve even after the Paris attacks claiming more than 130 lives.

Theres an air of deep concern in Washington about the preparedness of the European nations to deal with ISIS

According to Brian Katulis, Senior Fellow for National Security at Center for American Progress (CAP), there is still no credible estimate on how many ISIS fighters are actually out there waging jihad alongside the ISIS.

Katulis says, These terrorists mostly comprising pop-up jihadists and radicals by Internet are very large in number than estimated and are motivated to fight and it could be America too.

A latest report on ISIS published by CAP this month says as large as 30,000 foreign recruits have joined the ISIS ranks.

Never before have jihadi foreign fighters rallied at the speed and scale as they have in the territory that ISIS now controls.

Today, between 27,000 and 31,000 fighters from more than 86 countries are estimated to have made the journey to join the ranks of ISIS, the report published on March 17 said.

Katulis and others like Rick Ozzie Nelson, a Senior Associate of Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), however, put Europe in the danger zone and in a more vulnerable position than America.

They blame European nations like Belgium fuelling jihadist passion for failure to integrate the Muslim community amidst the growing right-wing movement in some EU nations. And that threatens Americas security as well.

Nelson questions Europes capacity to gather intelligence about these fighters, their own refugee crisis back home and blames its reluctance to share intelligence as desired by the US are concern areas.

Katulis endorses Nelson when he says, Our safety is linked to the capacity of Europe in intelligence gathering and further developing those inputs into credible information sharing mechanism we continue to learn from the inputs we collect and thats what we have been doing since 9/11 attacks.

"Thats why we have a robust anti-terror apparatus on ground, but we are worried with the way Europe is battling the ISIS threat. Nelson is categorical in blaming the authorities in Belgium for the Brussels attacks. 

They (Belgium) have not done a good job, be it in intelligence gathering or reaching out to the Muslims, who have found themselves a marginalised community since 1985 and their hope for an upward mobility was never taken up by the local authorities.

There are six channels of administration in Belgium federal structure and their reluctance to share intelligence is a big handicap as in this latest attacks, he says.

There are other triggers too that have propelled the ISIS surge in Europe. Unemployment has been estimated to be as much as 40 per cent and the ISIS top agents floating in this region have only fuelled the frustration into anger against the local political establishment.

The local geography where people can travel by road or infiltrate easily make Europe a virgin ground for recruiting disenchanted youngsters.

Daniel L Byman, Director of Research and Senior Fellow of Brookings Institute, says, The greatest long-term European challenge in fighting the Islamic State is integrating the continents alienated Muslim population.

"Far-right parties, championing anti-immigrant and nationalist messages, are growing more popular; a trend that is likely to only accelerate with the increasing incidence of terrorism and the unrelenting refugee crisis.

"The rise of European xenophobia facilitates the efforts of jihadist recruiters among Europes alienated Muslim communities. Byman, author of Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Global Jihadist Movement, wrote in the New York Times soon after the Brussels attacks that the US has to lead the fight against ISIS terror and must strike deep in its strongholds.

He emphasised that to make it a success, Europe had a big role to play, primarily through concerted attempts to weaken the jihadist influence within its populations by reaching out to the alienated Muslim community.

When Indian origin kids made it into Obama's speech

Heartening to see GenNext Indian Americans arriving on the US academic and intellectual canvas the same way their parents and families demonstrated once they arrived here to realise their Big American Dreams.

A clear reflection of this was at the annual White House Science Fair on April 13. Of the 30-odd Wiz Kids grabbing a place to be next to US President Barack Obama. Maya Varma and Anarudh Ganesan found a special mention in Obamas speech where he said: 

US President Barack Obama with young participants at the White House Science Fair

Yay, theres Maya. Maya is using a low-cost microcontroller, software freely available on the Internet, and a smartphone to design a tool that allows people with asthma and other lung diseases to diagnose and monitor their own symptoms, he said.

Mayas spirit is self explanatory. My aspiration is not only to create the next big thing in my field one day, but also to make it accessible to more than a privileged few, says Maya. Even Anarudhs case is interesting.

Obama told his story saying, So when Anarudh was little, his grandparents walked him 10 miles to a remote clinic in India for vaccinations, only to find that the vaccines had spoiled in the heat.

Though he eventually got the shots that he needed, he thought, well, this is a problem, and wanted to prevent other children from facing the same risk. He developed what he calls the VAXXWAGON, and its a refrigerator on wheels that transports vaccines to remote destinations.
Threatened by kidnappings and forced conversions of their teenage girls and abandoned by the government of Pakistan, the Hindu minority living in Sindh province is waiting for a divine miracle to save them.

Earlier this month, on April 9, three teenage girls of Hindu community in Sindh province went missing from their villages.

The missing includes 14-year-old daughter Pirma Bheel of Sobho Bheel, a resident of Village Nikno Bheel Talka Islamkot, Kiran Menghwar from Hyderabad, and Leelan jogi, the 14-year-old daughter Malook jogi kidnapped from Sanghar district.

Burning religious books, kidnappings and forced conversions of Hindu girls makes the community miserable

A wave of fear and anger has been felt among Sindhs Hindu community following the kidnapping of Hindu teenage girls.

Member of Pakistan's National Assembly Ramesh Kumar says the girls were kidnapped and converted to Islam forcibly.

He alleged that girls have been kidnapped by influential Muslims of area, including Hayat Hingorjo, allegedly supported by a member of Pakistan's lower House Faqir Sher Mohammad.

Until the filing of this report, the whereabouts of all four girls were not known despite continuous efforts by the police and the victim's families.

The kidnapping of Hindu girls and forced conversion are not new in the Sindh province. Pakistans Hindu Council says four Hindu girls every month are forced to convert to Islam.

Burning the religious books of the Hindu minority, kidnapping and forced conversions of Hindu girls in Pakistan have made the lives of the Hindu community miserable, ultimately forcing them to cross border and take refuge in India.

A member of the Pakistani Hindu community shows a worship idol smashed by attackers

Two years ago in May 2014, a member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, dropped a bomb shell in the lower House, revealing that around 5,000 Hindus are migrating from Pakistan to India every year.

Currently, Pakistan is home to about two million Hindus, most of who live in the southern province of Sindh and belong to lower castes, including Sochi.

While upper-caste Hindus complain of their traders being kidnapped for ransom, lower-caste Hindus say their daughters are being targeted.

There have been a number of incidents involving kidnappings of Hindu traders and businessmen for ransom. Our community can bear looting and the kidnapping of our men, but the abduction of our daughters and burning of holy books are too painful," Dr Ramesh Kumar, who holds a National Assembly seat, told Mail Today.

Unfortunately, the frequency of these crimes is increasing due to religious extremism. According to another report from the Movement for Solidarity and Peace, about 1,000 non-Muslim girls are converted to Islam each year in Pakistan.

According to this report, every month, an estimated 20 or more Hindu girls are abducted and converted, although exact figures are impossible to gather.

On April 24, 2016, Patron-inchief of Pakistan Hindu Council, Dr. Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, who is in fact a ray of hope for the Hindus community living in Pakistan, criticised provincial governments of Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for failing to protect the minorities.

Talking to Mail today, Ramesh Kumar said the establishment of Special Task Force for the Protection of Minorities on urgent basis is the need of time.

He said the Constitution of Pakistan guaranteed for the protection of minorities rights, while founder of the Nation Quad-e-Azam had also announced to provide religious freedom for those living in the newly-born Muslim state.

Dr Ramesh said it was highly regrettable that both the provincial governments were not interested in implementing the detailed ruling of the Supreme Court dated June 19, 2014 for providing security to the minorities.

When all other religious places and leaders are having state security then why is the innocent Hindu community is being left at the mercy of terrorists, he questioned while mentioning the recent incident at Dera Murad Jamali, where religious Hindu literature books were stolen from a Hindu temple.

He demanded the provincial governments to take solid steps such as curriculum reforms. It is really embarrassing that hatred against the Hindu community is being taught in the government-run primary schools, he said.

Sadly, a handful of Muslim clerics consider it an honour to convert non-Muslim girls. Mian Abdul Malik, custodian of the Bharchundi Sharif Shrine, famous for conversions of Hindu girls, said claims were not true.

Rather, Hindu girls themselves visit them for conversion to Islam. Theres no such thing as forced conversions in Islam and in Pakistan, he told Mail Today, adding that girls themselves come to the shrine for conversion.
Last Friday the official spokesman, Vikas Swarup said that the dialogue process with Islamabad had not been suspended and that the decision to send NIA investigators to Pakistan would be taken at the appropriate time.

Earlier this month, Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit had declared that the talks between the two sides had been suspended.

Speaking at his routine weekly briefing Swarup said that while the Pathankot issue may have had salience in recent months, the two sides continued to communicate with each other at various levels, from that of the prime ministers downwards, on a variety of other issues.

Dolkun Isa, Secretary General of the World Uyghur Congress, is considered a terrorist by Beijing

A day earlier, Swarups Pakistani counterpart Nafees Zakaria had also insisted that the road to dialogue remained open and Pakistan would be ready for talks when India is ready.

Terrorism

Swarup also went out of his way to emphasise that the Pakistani Joint Investigation Teams visit to Pathankot had taken place in a constructive and cooperative environment and India would welcome cooperation on countering all forms of terrorism.

In other words, India has shrugged off the inspired stories appearing in the Pakistani media claiming that their investigation team had determined that the Pathankot attack was concocted by India to defame Pakistan.

By now the India-Pakistan relations are back to their familiar blow hot, blow cold scenario.

What exactly is the government policy on Pakistan is currently a bit difficult to determine.

But perhaps it will become irrelevant as power equations are shifting in Islamabad, with the Nawaz Sharif government on the ropes over the Panama allegations.

General Raheel Sharifs non-so-subtle response to the situation was to call for across the board accountability on the matter of corruption and to sack 11 Army officers, including a Lieutenant General and two Major Generals for corruption.

It is unlikely that Nawaz Sharif will be able to focus on his India policy for a while.

Meanwhile India is wondering what to do about the other, some would say self-inflicted, wound over the issue of Masood Azhar and China.

Four days ago, newspapers relayed what was obviously a deep source official briefing that Chinese dissidents from around the world would meet at a conference in Dharamsala.

This is, of course, the seat of the exiled Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile.

Among them would be the leader of the World Uyghur Congress, Dolkun Isa, who is classed as a terrorist by Beijing.

The conference would be under the auspices of the Citizen Power for China, led by a well known Tienanmen Square activist Yang Jianli who lives in exile in the US.

Conference

Among those present would be Uyghurs, Tibetans, Falung Gong practitioners, Mongolians, and others with a grouse with China.

Talk of waving multiple red rags at the dragon. New Delhi may have bitten off more than it can chew here.

For one Isa has a red corner notice against him which informs various member countries that the persons concerned are wanted by a particular country for prosecution.

India has been a beneficiary of the Interpol process, say, in the case of the arrest of Abu Salem in Portugal in 2002, which paved his way for extradition to India.

As of now, protests from Beijing seem to have persuaded New Delhi from providing visas to some other Uighur leaders. But that is not going to mollify Beijing.

Provoke

India should be aware that China is neuralgic about separatism in Tibet and Xinjiang, but it seems to be going out of its way to provoke Beijing in an obvious tit-for-tat for the latters relationship with Pakistan.

But this can be a dangerous game.

In the 1960s and 1970s, China supported the North-eastern insurgents, and this is something that can happen once again.

In the case of Nepal, Beijing has chosen to offer only token support to those seeking to play off China against India.

Likewise, China has taken a relatively even-handed approach on Jammu & Kashmir by recognising it to be a dispute that must be resolved by India and Pakistan, the standard formulation adopted by most countries, including our friend the US.

(For the sake of perspective: No one recognises Tibet or Xinjiang to be anything other than being a part of China).

This could change, in the past China has needled India by issuing stapled visas for people applying from the state. If China upped the ante, you could well see a Kashmiri government in exile functioning from Kashghar.

There is an escalatory logic to these tit-for-tat games which requires cool nerves and a steady hand.

Hopefully Prime Minister Modi and his National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval have them. India faces a serious geopolitical threat from the de facto China-Pakistan alliance.
The Indian Railways water relief operation in the drought-hit Latur district of Maharasthra has proved to be one of the largest relief measures in recent years.

The railways, along with Maharashtra government joined hands to make arrangements for the water supply, which included the laying down of a 3.5-km long pipeline within a record time of nine days.

Passengers collecting water from taps as a train carrying water waits to depart for Latur distric from Miraj

Officials said it was a tough challenge as the pipeline passed beneath the railway tracks and highways and the work had to be completed without obstructing any vehicular or rail movement.

The pipeline from Krishna River transported water to Miraj station, where wagons of the water train were filled.

According to railway officials, the water train from Miraj to Latur is the first in India to have covered a distance of 342 kms.

As railways took up the challenge of supplying water in parched areas of Marathwada region, it also curtailed water supply in its own residential colonies surrounding the Miraj station in Sangli district.

The water carrying capacity is 54,000 litres per wagon, but usually it can carry 50,000 litres of water

Miraj station under Pune division of Central Railway was chosen as the starting point of transporting water because Krishna River has plenty of water and flows closest to the railway station.

"Required infrastructure for transporting water was laid down with the help of local administration, Indian Railways spokesperson Anil Saxena said.

Punes Divisional Railway Manager, Bakhtiar K Dadabhoy, who supervised the operation, said up to 50 per cent water supply had to be slashed in railway colonies and in railway yards for washing of trains.

He said loading of water trains was another challenge as it involved rescheduling of passenger trains to facilitate the loading of wagons from platform no 2 of Miraj station.

Railways have the capacity to pump 16 lakh litres of water per day, which is used for the washing of trains and meeting household requirements of railway colonies.

The water supply in these areas had to be curtailed to develop additional capacity to load 25 lakh litres of water in wagons at Miraj so as to dispatch one rake of 50 tank wagons daily, Dadabhoy told Mail Today.

Officials said the jack-well of railways located by the banks of Krishna River was used with the 300mm pipeline running along a length of 3.5 km (approximately).

Additional machinery were installed to pump water from the jackwell to be stored in the Hyder well with a capacity of 32 lakh litre.

Since the Hyder well had not been used of late by railways, thorough cleaning of the well was done.

It took nearly 14 hours to fill the entire train comprising 50-tank wagons, carrying 25 lakh litres of water.

A senior rail ministry official said the wagons used for carrying water were transported from the Kota workshop in Rajasthan.

A total of 100 tankers were identified for this purpose. Since these wagons were used to transporting petroleum, crude and vegetable oil, it required technical expertise to clean these wagons and make them fit for carrying potable water.

The water carrying capacity is 54,000 litres per wagon, but usually it can bear 50,000 litres of water.

The chief works manager of the Kota Workshop took up the challenge to prepare these wagons in a record short time.

The work included steam cleaning, sludge removal, de-scaling, de-greasing and then a final cleaning of the wagons to make them fit for transportation of drinking water.

The wagons carrying vegetable oil develop thick layers of sludge inside and outside. In the first stage, wagons were steam cleaned for 12 hours for removing loose sludge, following which all the valves and pipe fittings were removed for cleaning, inspection and overhauling.

In the second stage, the remaining sludge had to be removed by steel scrapers manually, followed by a second round of scrapping. In the third stage, kerosene oil had to be applied by hand brush and left for half an hour to dissolve the fine layer of sludge and rust that usually remains after final scraping.

The wagons were then chemically treated for an hour to dissolve remaining grease and rust. In the final round, high pressure water jet was used to get a thorough and spotless cleaning.

Water put in the wagons was then drained and tested for TDS and oil and chemical contents and cleaning was declared complete only after a laboratory test declared the water fit.

Railways to the rescue

RAPID FIRE: Bakhtiark K Dadabhoy

DRM Pune Bakhtiar K Dadabhoy

MODUS OPERANDI The Central Railways and Pune Division began the operation on request of Maharashtra government. After 100 wagons were provided by the Kota workshop, we started the actual work on transporting water from Miraj to Latur by the longest water train in India. Miraj was selected as the starting point because the station is close to the Krishna River, which has abundance of water.

GROUNDWORK AT MIRAJ To start transporting water from Miraj, the local administration was required to lay some infrastructure near the Miraj railway station. However, as this was to take some time, railways started transporting water from its own resources to Latur. Additional pumps and hydrants were installed and wells were cleaned to store drinking water.

 CHALLENGES INVOLVED The biggest challenge was filling water into the wagons. Movement of passenger trains was rescheduled to facilitate the filling of wagons on the platform. It took nearly 14 hours to it. Civil and electrical departments of railways worked in close coordination with state government to complete the work on time.
Sikhs For Justice has filed a complaint against Singh

Poll-bound Punjabs Congress chief, Captain Amarinder Singh, has said the Sikhs for Justice group is playing into the hands of Pakistans ISI.

Captain is irritated by the activist organisation accusing him of ignoring human rights violations and forcing him to cancel a clutch of political meetings in Canada.

His remarks came against the backdrop of the hard-line group filing a complaint against him in court over the alleged torture of some Canadian citizens in the state when Singh was chief minister.

He later promoted the police officers who were allegedly involved in such cases, the organisation claimed.

The Canadian court issued summons to him following the complaint.

The development took place days after Singh - the face of the Congress in the state where it will fight against the ruling SAD-BJP combine and an upbeat AAP next year - was forced to cancel his public meetings, following which he shot-off an angry missive to Canadian PM Justin Trudeau.

The Sikhs for Justice are playing into the hands of Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence by trying to abuse an otherwise well-meaning and well-intentioned law aimed at protecting and safeguarding the human rights of the Canadian citizens across the world, said Singh, whos visiting Canada to woo NRIs ahead of the polls.

The SFJs move was aimed to embarrass the country and project as if human rights violations were a norm here like some dictatorships in different parts of the world, he alleged.

Citing the recent killing of a Sikh parliamentarian in Pakistan, who was gunned down because of his religion, Singh wondered if the SFJ had ever lodged any such complaint against visiting leaders from Indias neighbouring country.

Rejecting the charges, he said, First of all, there were no such incidents between 2002 and 2007 when I was the CM as it was the most peaceful period in Punjabs recent history.

He also asked why the complaint was filed a decade after the alleged incidents, and at a time when he was planning to visit Canada. Why were these complaints not made when I came here in 2004 as the chief minister of Punjab? he asked.

Referring to the promotions of some policemen accused of torturing Canadian citizens, he argued that the officers are governed by the Indian Police Service rules over which the state governments do not have any control.

Besides, we have a strong, transparent and powerful judicial system in place which takes care of everything, he said.

However, he clarified that some police officers were prosecuted over accusations of torture allegedly committed by them in the 1980s and 1990s, decades before he became chief minister of Punjab.

Singh has urged the Centre to take up the matter with the Canadian government at the highest level.
Mobile phone group EE will create 600 new jobs by bringing its call centres back to the UK.

In his first move as new chief executive, Marc Allera has revealed a raft of changes aimed at pleasing customers  including a pledge to extend superfast 4G internet to 95 per cent of the country including the Shetland Islands and the Isles of Scilly.

By the end of 2016, all of EEs customer service calls will be answered from UK-based operators, with new sites set to open in Plymouth, South Wales and North Tyneside, creating hundreds of jobs.

Bringing it back: Mobile phone group EE will create 600 new jobs by bringing its call centres back to the UK

It makes EE, which currently has 31million connections in the UK, the latest in a string of companies to abandon foreign call centres after they outsourced the work to India and other lower-wage nations in the mid-2000s.

EE also promised to improve its high-speed 4G mobile internet service.

At present many mobile operators boast coverage at levels of around 90 per cent, but this often refers to population coverage rather than geographic, leaving rural customers high and dry.

EE will seek to eradicate these so-called not-spots  as opposed to hot-spots  by reaching 95 per cent of geographic areas, even those as remote as the Shetland Islands.

Allera, who took on the role in January after EE merged with BT, said: We are really pleased were rolling out 4G coverage further than any mobile operator has ever gone. At the start of this year our geographic coverage was around 50pc, but were going to push that up to 95pc by the end of the decade.

In charge: EE boss Marc Allera

The industry should be moving towards wider geographic coverage because people move around.

He said the company was improving its customer service, and now received 16 per cent of industry complaints while having a market share of 34 per cent.

The study comes after EE claimed the top spot in a series of internet speed tests by regulator Ofcom.

The watchdog looked at EE alongside competitors Three, Vodafone and O2, testing their 4G coverage in five cities. It found EEs network delivered an average speed of 20 megabits per second (Mbps). O2 was half as fast, with average speeds of 10Mbps.

EEs plan to create more jobs in the UK shows it is following a trend already set by new owner BT.

In January, the landline owner announced its own recruitment drive after huge numbers of complaints from frustrated users. BT pledged to hire 1,000 more UK staff and move much of its Indian workforce into positions which do not involve talking to customers.

It was part of a promise to spend 80million on customer service and ensure at least 80 per cent of calls were answered in Britain by the end of this year.

The moves by big telephone companies stand in stark contrast to an announcement by Lloyds last week.

The High Street lender revealed it would be moving many IT roles from the UK to India as part of a push to axe 430 jobs and close 21 branches. Trade union Unite said customers would suffer as a result. A spokesman added: The bank forgets that these relentless cuts have a human cost.
A nurse who was on board an Australian hospital ship when it was bombed by a Japanese torpedo in World War II hid her own severe injuries so she could save others.

Ellen Savage was the only nurse to survive when the Centaur hospital ship sunk following the Japanese attack along the east coast of Australia on May 14, 1943.

Despite suffering severe bruising, a fractured nose, burst ear drums, a broken palate and fractured ribs from the bombing, Ellen concealed her injuries to assist others who were severely burned.

Ellen Savage was the only nurse to survive when the Centaur hospital ship sunk after it was bombed during World War II by a Japanese submarine along the east coast of Australia on May 14, 1943

She managed to join survivors on a makeshift raft where she treated them for 36 hours until they were rescued.

Details of her heroic ordeal have now been made available on Ancestry, along with records of her enlistment and the bravery award she was given for her role on the Centaur.

'Ellen was a brave lady. She was the only nurse to survive the sinking,' Ben Mercer from Ancestry told Daily Mail Australia.

'She was quite badly injured and didnt really let on. She fell into her nurse mode on the raft she found herself on and she looked after the men for 32 hours. She got them through that whole experience.'

Ellen was did her nursing training at a baby's health centre in Tamworth in NSW before she was asked to go to the war front.

'Australian nurses were on all the fronts where Australian servicemen served and Ellen was exactly that,' Mr Mercer said.

A Japanese torpedo struck the Centaur in the early hours of May 14, 1943 when it was sailing along Australia's east coast. The torpedo hit the oil fuel tank causing a massive explosion

Despite suffering severe bruising, a fractured nose, burst ear drums, a broken palate and fractured ribs from the bombing, Ellen concealed her injuries to assist others who were severely burned

Ellen, who managed to join survivors on a makeshift raft where she treated them for 36 hours until they were rescued, became the second Australian woman to be awarded the George Medal for bravery

'The Centaur is one of the most momentous events in history. It was seen as a war crime. It was sailing up the east coast of Australia sunk by a Japanese without any warning. There was a lot of anger.'

Following her heroic efforts, Ellen became the second Australian woman to be awarded the George Medal.

She didn't return to the front after the Centaur ordeal and instead started working at an army hospital in Concord in Sydney.

Ellen served there until March 1946.

She passed away on Anzac Day in 1985 aged 73.

Her records are among a number of brand new WWII records from the National Archives of Australia, which are being made available on Ancestry to mark Anzac Day.

Ancestry will be providing free access to all of its Australian and New Zealand military records over the long weekend. To access the collections, visit: ancestry.com.au/anzacday2016.
Hyphernkemberly Dorvilier (pictured) was sentenced to 30 years for lighting her baby on fire

A 23-year-old woman who set her newborn baby on fire in the middle of a New Jersey street was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Friday.

Hyphernkemberly Dorvilier pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter and told the court on Friday: 'I apologize first and foremost for not giving my daughter, Angelica, the life she deserved.'

The baby suffered third-degree burns over 60 percent of her body and died two hours after she was flown to a Philadelphia hospital.

The 23-year-old woman doused her newborn with flammable liquid and set her on fire on January 16, 2015, just hours after the baby was born, investigators said.

Prosecutors say she hid her pregnancy from her mother and sister.

Investigators say the baby was found with her umbilical cord and placenta attached.

According to an audio recording of the 911 call, a horrified onlooker told Dorvilier she was 'disgusting', to which she responded: 'It's not mine. It's not mine. I didn't do it.'

Handcuffed in court on Friday, Dorvilier said: 'I was on a downward spiral. I believe I hit my rock bottom.

'I apologize first and foremost for not giving my daughter, Angelica, the life she deserved. She deserved so much better.'

Police responded to a call about a fire 30 miles east of Philadelphia, and found neighbor Dave Joseph holding Dorvilier down on the ground with the baby wrapped in a smoldering towel and paper, according to the court documents.

Dorvilier was found with a can of WD-40 and a lighter in her jacket pocket, investigators said.

Members of Hyphernkemberly Dorvilier's family, including her mother Juana Sully, right, sat in the back of the courtroom during her initial court appearance via teleconference on January 20

Police said they found a trail of blood leading from Dorvilier's home and she appeared to be bleeding while at the hospital afterward.

Her mother and sister told police that they were not aware of her giving birth, but police said they found blood on the floor of the downstairs bathroom.

Joseph said the woman told him she was burning dog waste.

'It was just mind-boggling,' Joseph told the Burlington County Times. 'It was a nightmare even if you have a strong heart.'

Dorvilier's sister, Dejennie, pleaded with Judge Terrence Cook for leniency on Friday, saying that Dorvilier needs help. But the judge said the punishment was 'the sentence that justice requires'.

'The crime in this case was committed against the weakest of the weak, a helpless newborn,' Cook said. 'All she knew was the extreme excruciating pain of being set on fire by her mother, the person who was supposed to love and protect her.'

An autopsy found the baby died from smoke inhalation and burns.

'This was an atrocious act, and one that was entirely preventable given our state's law that allows someone to anonymously give up an unwanted infant,' said Burlington County Prosecutor Robert Bernardi.
The daughter of a man suspected of gunning down five people before killing himself said her father was a 'ticking time bomb'.

Wayne Anthony Hawes, 50, was found dead at his home in Appling, Georgia, in the early hours of Saturday while police suspected him in two separate shootings that left three men and two women dead.

His 27-year-old daughter Lauren said he had threatened to kill her grandmother and mother a day before the fatal shootings.

She recounted hiding with her mother, Angela Dent, and her one-year-old daughter while Hawes went on a shooting rampage that killed five people including her grandmother and cousin.

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Wayne Anthony Hawes (left), 50, was found dead at his home in Appling, Georgia, in the early hours of Saturday while police suspected him in two separate shootings that left three men and two women dead

Hawes's daughter said he was upset after her mother ended their relationship. Her parents had known each since they were teenagers and had a common law marriage, she added.

Police believed Hawes had lost control before the Friday night shootings after learning his wife wanted to divorce him.

'He's done things that were questionable in the past, but never to this extent,' his daughter told the Associated Press. 'This is very surprising. We thought he could possibly hurt himself, but not others.'

'He made threats before, but we never thought it would be at this capacity. He's been kind of a ticking time bomb if you want to put in a few words.'

His daughter confirmed the bloodshed was connected to a domestic dispute between her parents. Her mother had walked out on her father just a week ago.

Dent had left before - but this time, she took her possessions with her to prevent Hawes from destroying them as he had done in the past.

Hawes's daughter also said he had kicked both her and her daughter out of his home about two weeks ago.

Her grandmother Rheba Mae Dent, 85, and cousin Trequila Clark, 31, were found dead along with great-uncle Roosevelt Burns, 75, at a home in Johnson Drive.

Two more victims, Lizzy Williams, 59, and Shelly Williams, 62, who were family friends according to WRDW, were found at the scene of the other shooting in Washington Road.

Appling resident Ola Murray said Saturday that she sometimes saw Hawes around the neighborhood and he would often say hello while passing by.

Murray said she thought Hawes was a nice guy, but that he made a 'stupid' decision.
North Korea is ready to halt its nuclear tests if the United States suspends its annual military exercises with South Korea, the North Korean foreign minister has said.

He extended the offer during a rare interview in which he also warned that his country won't be cowed by international sanctions.

Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong defended the country's right to maintain a nuclear deterrent, and for those waiting for the North's regime to collapse, he had this to say: Don't hold your breath.

'Stop the nuclear war exercises in the Korean Peninsula, then we should also cease our nuclear tests,' he said in his first interview Saturday with a Western news organization.

North Korea's Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong answers questions during an interview, Saturday, April 23, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

Seated under portraits of former North Korean Leaders Kim Il Sung, left, and Kim Jong Il, North Korea's Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong answers questions during an interview, Saturday, April 23, 2016, at the country's Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

Ri held firm to Pyongyang's longstanding position that the U.S. drove his country to develop nuclear weapons as an act of self-defense.

At the same time, he suggested that suspending the military exercises with Seoul could open the door to talks and reduced tensions.

'If we continue on this path of confrontation, this will lead to very catastrophic results, not only for the two countries but for the whole entire world as well,' he said, speaking in Korean through an interpreter.

'It is really crucial for the United States government to withdraw its hostile policy against the DPRK and as an expression of this stop the military exercises, war exercises, in the Korean Peninsula. Then we will respond likewise.'

DPRK is an abbreviation for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Ri, who spoke calmly and in measured words, a contrast to the often bombastic verbiage used by the North's media, claimed the North's proposal was 'very logical.'

He granted the interview in the country's diplomatic mission to the United Nations.

He spoke beneath portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jung Il, North Korea's two previous leaders  the grandfather and father of current leader Kim Jong Un.

If the exercises are halted 'for some period, for some years,' he added, 'new opportunities may arise for the two countries and for the whole entire world as well.'

A new multiple launch rocket system is test fired in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang March 4, 2016

It is extremely rare for top North Korean officials to give interviews to foreign media, and particularly with Western news organizations. Pictured, leader Kim Jong Un

Ri's comments to the AP came just hours after North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine in its latest show of defiance as the U.S.-South Korea exercises wind down.

He referred to the launch in the context of current tensions caused by the military exercises. 'The escalation of this military exercise level has reached its top level. And I think it's not bad  as the other side is going for the climax  why not us, too, to that level as well?'

It is extremely rare for top North Korean officials to give interviews to foreign media, and particularly with Western news organizations.

Ri's proposal, which he said he hoped U.S. policymakers would heed, may well fall on deaf ears. North Korea, which sees the U.S.-South Korean exercises as a rehearsal for invasion, has floated similar proposals to Washington in the past but the U.S. has insisted the North give up its nuclear weapons program first before any negotiations. South Korea, too, is unlikely to agree to any such plan.

The result has been a stalemate that Ri said has put the peninsula at the crossroads of a thermonuclear war.

North Korean foreign minister: 'It is really crucial for the United States government to withdraw its hostile policy against the DPRK and as an expression of this stop the military exercises, war exercises, in the Korean Peninsula. Then we will respond likewise.'

In response to Ri's remarks, a U.S. State Department official defended the military exercises as demonstrating the U.S. commitment to its alliance with the South

In response to Ri's remarks, a U.S. State Department official defended the military exercises as demonstrating the U.S. commitment to its alliance with the South and said they enhance the combat readiness, flexibility and capabilities of the alliance.

'We call again on North Korea to refrain from actions and rhetoric that further raise tensions in the region and focus instead on taking concrete steps toward fulfilling its international commitments and obligations,' said Katina Adams, a spokeswoman for the State Department's Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs.

Sanctions, Ri said, won't sway the North.

'If they believe they can actually frustrate us with sanctions, they are totally mistaken,' he said. 'The more pressure you put on to something, the more emotionally you react to stand up against it. And this is important for the American policymakers to be aware of.'

Ri, in New York to attend a United Nations' meeting on sustainable development, said the possibility of conflict has increased significantly this year because the exercises have taken on what Pyongyang sees as a more aggressive and threatening tone  including training to conduct precision 'decapitation' strikes on North Korea's leadership.

Ri, who spoke calmly and in measured words, a contrast to the often bombastic verbiage used by the North's media, claimed the North's proposal was 'very logical.'

North Korea's Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong answers questions during an interview, Saturday, April 23, 2016, at the country's Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

This year's exercises are the biggest ever, involving about 300,000 troops. Washington and Seoul say they beefed up the maneuvers after North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test, in January, which also brought a new round of tough sanctions by the U.N. down on Pyongyang's head. The exercises are set to continue through the end of the month.

Pyongyang, meanwhile, has responded with a series of missile launches and statements in its media that the country has developed its long-range ballistic missile and nuclear warhead technologies to the point that they now present a credible deterrent and could even be used against targets on the U.S. mainland, though not all foreign analysts accept that claim.

Ri also used his presence at the U.N. conference as a forum to denounce Washington, saying in a brief statement that while North Korea is contributing to the objectives of global sustainable development by taking measures to double its production of grains to solve its food problem by 2030 and by reforesting 1.67 million hectares (4.13 million acres) of mountainous areas, it is doing so under 'the most adverse conditions due to outside forces.'

In the interview, he stated that the United States has used its power to get other countries to join in pressure on North Korea.

'A country as small as the DPRK cannot actually be a threat to the U.S. or to the world,' he told the AP. 'How great would it be if the world were to say to the United States and the American government not to conduct any more military exercises in the Korean Peninsula ... But there is not a single country that says this to the U.S.'

'These big countries alone or together are telling us that we should calm down,' he said. 'For us this is like a sentence, that we should accept our death and refuse our right to sovereignty.'

Ri said North Korea is not encouraged by the thawing of relations between Washington and Cuba or Iran.
This means that it may well have been partly responsible for the escalating deaths attributed to heroin

No tests are currently available to detect W-18 in the blood or urine,

A Florida man was sentenced to 10 years for fentanyl possession but also had a vast quantity of W-18 in his home

of the drug have been seized in Canada although it not yet a prohibited substance

A new synthetic opiate is permeating the street-drug market at an alarming speed.

W-18 produces a heroin-like high but is 100 times more powerful than fentanyl and 10,000 times more powerful than morphine.

The drug hits the market as the number of fentanyl-related deaths in Canada and America continue to climb.

Between 2009 and 2014 there were an estimated 655 deaths linked to fentanyl overdoses in Canada, according to Vice News.

W-18 produces a heroin-like high but is 100 times more powerful than fentanyl (left) and 10,000 times more powerful than morphine (right)

No tests are currently available to detect W-18 in the blood or urine, which means that it may well have been partly responsible for the escalating deaths attributed to heroin seen across North America

While in America, fentantyl killed 158 people last year just in New Hampshire alone, while heroin killed 32.

And in Massachusetts, 336 people died from fentanyl-related overdoses from October 2014 to October 2015  up from 219 deaths the previous year, according New York TImes.

But with the second major seizure of W-18 within a year in Canada, W-18 is likely to be playing a prominent part in drug fatalities in the near future.

Police in Edmonton, Canada announced a huge seizure they made back in December of four kilograms of W-18 powder, enough for hundreds of millions of pills, reported The Globe and Mail.

The drug is most likely manufactured in labs in China and then shipped over to North America using airmail.

And while fentanyl is now a controlled substance, W-18 is yet to be prohibited.

Adolphe Joseph, 34, of Miramar, Florida, was sentenced to ten years and one month in federal prison in March after admitting he had fentanyl shipped to from China, according to the Sun Sentinel.

But Joseph also had vast quantities of another drug found at his home that did not fall under the sentence.

Prosecutor Anita White told the judge that law enforcement found more than 2.5 pounds of W-18 when they searched his home. It was unclear who supplied it to him.

White told the judge: 'It kills people' and added that it was troubling Joseph had the drug.

But Joseph's lawyer Zeljka Bozanic urged the judge to disregard the W-18: 'It's not a crime to have it, at this point.'

Speaking on 4/20 day this year, Canada's Health Minister Jane Philpott said: 'One of the biggest challenges right now in Canada is the fentanyl problem  that is one of the areas where we are seeing the most dramatic rises.

'There are other new drugs that have recently come to our attention in the Canadian scene. One is something called W-18 which we are very concerned about. Those are probably some of the biggest concerns on our radar.'

Adolphe Joseph, 34, of Miramar, Florida, was sentenced to ten years and one month in federal prison in March after admitting he had fentanyl. Police also found more than 2.5 pounds of W-18 when they searched his home

Speaking on 4/20 day this year, Canada's Health Minister Jane Philpott said: 'There are other new drugs that have recently come to our attention in the Canadian scene. One is something called W-18 which we are very concerned about'

No tests are currently available to detect W-18 in the blood or urine, which means that it may well have been partly responsible for the escalating deaths attributed to heroin seen across North America.

Its incredible potency is noted even among seasoned drug users.

A man identified as Trippman on Bluelight.org, an international message board that educates the public about responsible drug use, comments: 'I don't think any sane drug user would ever consider playing with this substance.

'Sounds incredibly dangerous, even for those with opioid tolerances.'

Scientists at the University of Alberta developed W-18 in the 1980s as a potential painkiller, though it and other strains in the 'W' series, which ran from W-1 to W-32, have since been used mainly for research.
They are the 50million elections for the Government's flagship law and order policy. But in an astonishing admission, the Home Office has revealed it is spending only 2,700 publicising next month's crime tsar polls in England and Wales.

The Home Office has ignored calls from the Electoral Commission for 'vital' candidate information to be posted to voters.

The move would have cost about 9 million  the same amount Downing Street spent on a pro-EU leaflet to households ahead of the June referendum.

The Home Office has revealed it is spending only 2,700 publicising next month's crime tsar polls in England and Wales (file photo of policeman)

Instead, it is spending the 2,700 on sending posters to election officials.

The Home Office has also failed to repeat the 3million it spent on TV adverts for the 2012 polls, in which only 15 per cent bothered to vote.

Now critics fear that figure could fall even further due to the lack of publicity for the elections on May 5.

Labour's Shadow Police Minister Jack Dromey said: 'This sum [2,700] wouldn't buy you a second-hand car, let alone publicity about vital elections.

'It's almost as if the Police Minister is hiding the PCC elections from the public.'

And Rick Muir, director of the Police Foundation think-tank, added: 'The fact that the Government has spent a pitiful amount publicising the elections is deeply regrettable.'

The image of the Police and Crime Commissioners  who set police plans and budgets, and hire and fire chief constables  has suffered a number of embarrassing setbacks over the past four years.

Kent's crime tsar Ann Barnes (pictured in 2013) became the best-known nationally after The Mail on Sunday revealed that her teenage Youth PCC wrote a string of offensive comments online

WELL, WHO WOULD YOU VOTE FOR? ALLEGED CHILD ABUSER Jason Zadrozny, 35, is running as an independent candidate in Nottinghamshire despite facing a series of child sex charges, which he vehemently denies. EXPENSES SCANDAL LIB DEM Former MP Richard Younger-Ross was censured by watchdogs for buying luxury furniture on his expenses. He is standing in Devon and Cornwall. ELECTION FRAUD SUSPECT Steve Uncles, of the English Democrats, is accused of electoral fraud, which he denies, but a judge says the 49-year-old still has the right to contest the Kent election. MAN WHO SLURRED McCANNS Independent Andy Flynn, standing in the West Midlands, is said to have shared insults on Facebook about Maddie McCann's mother. He says the claims are 'misleading'. Advertisement

There have been controversies over expenses and for giving jobs to political cronies. Kent's crime tsar Ann Barnes became the best-known nationally after The Mail on Sunday revealed that her teenage Youth PCC wrote a string of offensive comments online.

PCCs are supposed to make police forces more accountable to the public, yet just 29 of the 164 candidates are female, and all but three of the total are white, the Police Foundation said. And a number of candidates are running while they have criminal charges hanging over them.

The Home Office said: 'The Government has undertaken a range of promotional activity to raise awareness, including social media activity and providing poster graphics to Returning Officers. The cost of this additional activity has been 2,700, all spent on posters.'
A 12-year-old girl has been raped by two men who took her from one of Sydney's northern beaches, police say.

It's alleged the girl was approached at Freshwater Beach on Thursday afternoon by the 25- and 22-year-olds.

The pair were then said to have driven her five minutes up the road to Brookvale, where they both allegedly sexually assaulted her.

NSW Police allege that a 12-year-old girl was raped by two men, 22 and 25, after they approached her at Freshwater Beach and drove her to a nearby location

Police were alerted and officers from the State Crime Commands Child Abuse Squad commenced an investigation.

After inquiries, detectives arrested two men at Brookvale on Friday afternoon. They were taken to Manly Police station.

The older man has been charged with three counts and the younger a single count of aggravated sexual intercourse.

Both have been denied bail and will remain in custody ahead of an appearance at Central Local Court on Thursday.
A teenage girl is in a critical condition after suffering a suspected drug overdose at a dance festival.

Emergency services were called to the Groovin' the Moo festival in Maitland, north of Newcastle, about 2:30pm on Saturday.

The girl, believed to be 15, was taken to John Hunter Hospital by paramedics, theSydney Morning Herald reports.

A teenage girl is in a critical condition after suffering a suspected drug overdose at Groovin' the Moo dance festival in NSW on Saturday

A 17-year-old was also treated for a suspected overdose, and rushed to Maitland Hospital on Saturday afternoon.

Groovin' the Moo is a national festival that has stops in Maitland, Canberra, Oakbank in South Australia, Bendigo in Victoria, and Townsville and Bunbury in Queensland.

It comes after Stereosonic, another popular dance festival, was cancelled earlier this month following drug-related deaths.

Seven people, including Sylvia Choi, 25, and 19-year-old Stefan Woodward, have died from suspected overdoses at music festivals in the past year.

Daily Mail Australia contacted Groovin' the Moo for comment.

More to come

Emergency services were called to the Groovin' the Moo festival in Maitland, north of Newcastle, about 2:30pm on Saturday

A teenage boy was also treated for a suspected overdose at the festival, and rushed to Maitland Hospital on Saturday afternoon
In 1941, when Britain stood virtually alone against Hitler, President Roosevelt dispatched a diplomat called Harry Hopkins to London to help him decide how much support to give the United Kingdom.

Was this a country that America should stand beside in its darkest hour?

On the night before he returned home, Hopkins quoted a Bible passage to Winston Churchill: Whither thou goest, I will go and where thou lodgest I will lodge, thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.

President Obama came to Britain this week with a very different message.

Never mind that the United States would never countenance giving away any of its own sovereignty, such as removing border controls with Mexico or allowing an international court to strike down its laws. When it comes to Obama and the EU, its a case of do what I say, not what I do, writes Toby Young

If we vote to leave the European Union, he announced, we shouldnt expect to negotiate a new trade agreement with America any time soon. The UKs going to be at the back of the queue, he said.

From thy people shall be my people to back of the queue in one brutal move. Obama was issuing a cold-blooded threat to Britain because he believes its in Americas interests for us to remain in the EU.

Never mind that the United States would never countenance giving away any of its own sovereignty, such as removing border controls with Mexico or allowing an international court to strike down its laws. When it comes to Obama and the EU, its a case of do what I say, not what I do.

Should we be worried?

Well, for one thing our relationship with America hasnt been all that special since Obama came to power.

As he admitted, one of his first acts as President was to remove from the Oval Office the bust of Churchill that Tony Blair had presented to George W. Bush.

When America asked for Britains help in its War on Terror in 2003, Blair did not tell Bush to go to the back of the queue.

On the contrary, we jeopardised our international reputation to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the US then, as we had done for 75 years. But that meant little to the incoming President.

To underline just what a low opinion he had of Britain, Obama said in 2010 that America would be neutral when it came to Argentina and the Falklands. Pictured here are bodies being returned from the Falklands War

To underline just what a low opinion he had of Britain, Obama said in 2010 that America would be neutral when it came to Argentina and the Falklands.

Its just as well he wasnt in the White House when Argentina invaded in 1982.

More importantly, the back of the queue line is an empty threat. The US sold $56 billion (39 billion) worth of goods in the UK in 2015, making us their largest trading partner in Europe  as big a market as France, Spain and Italy combined.

Would America really jeopardise its trading relationship with the worlds fifth-largest economy by telling us to go to the back of the queue?

Would it risk alienating one of only five members of the UN Security Council by needlessly dragging its feet in a trade negotiation? I doubt it.

And lets not forget Obamas Presidency comes to an end this year. None of the front-runners to replace him have repeated this threat.

On the contrary, Ted Cruz, who may yet win the Republican nomination, has vowed that Brexit would not affect Britains relationship with America.

Nevertheless, it was deeply disappointing, after everything our two countries have been through together, to see a US President stand beside our Prime Minister and try to frighten the British people into voting Remain.

As Harry Hopkins discovered 75 years ago, the British people dont respond well to threats.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt last night issued a dramatic final appeal to junior doctors  urging them to call off their extreme all-out strike and meet to talk instead.

Mr Hunt said the two-day strike on Tuesday and Wednesday seriously risks patient safety and would be deeply worrying for many.

Junior doctors have already held four days of industrial action this year, but have treated emergencies  until now.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, pictured, has issued a dramatic final appeal to junior doctors  urging them to call off their extreme all-out strike and meet to talk instead

In a strongly worded letter to British Medical Association chairman Dr Mark Porter, the Health Secretary suggests meeting to discuss concerns, including funding for seven-day NHS services and maximum working hours.

But the letter, seen by The Mail on Sunday, contains no suggestion Mr Hunt is willing to discuss the main issue dividing the sides: Saturday pay.

The Government wants to stop junior doctors being paid extra for working Saturdays, so hospital bosses can afford to staff wards better at weekends. In return they will get a pay rise.

But that was rejected by the BMA. After the two sides reached stalemate in February, Mr Hunt said he would impose the new contract. The BMA responded by announcing two days of all-out strikes.

Mr Hunt writes: Next weeks withdrawal of emergency care by junior doctors, called by the BMA, seriously risks the safety of many patients who depend on the NHS. He adds: The extreme action planned will be deeply worrying for patients.

I therefore appeal to you one final time to call off strike action that will see doctors withdraw potentially lifesaving care, and to meet with me on Monday to discuss a better way forward.

Junior doctors have already held four days of industrial action this year, but have treated emergencies  until now, with walkouts planned for Tuesday and Wednesday

Mr Hunt tellingly addressed the letter to Dr Porter, chairman of the BMA, going above the head of junior doctors leader Dr Johann Malawana.

He says the senior doctor has a choice as to whether a disagreement with the Government should be pursued in this way  for the first time in the history of the NHS.

Striking junior doctors will not work from 8am to 5pm on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Up to 113,000 appointments and 12,500 operations could be cancelled. Consultants will be asked to provide cover.

A BMA spokeswoman said that it would respond in due course.
Nathan Allen McClain (pictured), 36, is accused of tipping a prostitute with an exotic primate and paying her with money from the Zany Zoo Pet Store fund

An Oregon man was arrested after he allegedly tipped a prostitute with an exotic monkey, valued at $2,500, that he took from his own pet store.

Nathan Allen McClain, 36, is accused of tipping a prostitute with an exotic primate and paying her with money from the Zany Zoo Pet Store fund, which included a donation jar with money, in exchange for a sexual encounter, according to Eugene detectives.

The unidentified woman, who police tracked down at a local hotel, had the Galago primate in her possession and told authorities she received it as a tip from a client, whom she identified as McClain.

The woman was cooperative, and provided a statement to detectives, along with the animal.

Police spent two weeks investigating the whereabouts of the monkey, now named Gooey, along with missing Girl Scout money and a laptop computer that was also stolen from the pet store.

McClain had been identified as the owner of the store, but a statement released by Zany Zoo Pet Store on their Facebook page rebutted that claim and stated that his wife Abbie McClain was the actual pet shop owner.

'The owner of Zany Zoo Pets is Abbie McClain, Nathan's wife.

'When Abbie heard about Nate's possible wrongdoing, she immediately began getting his name off the business and banking accounts,' the statement said.

The statement went on to say that 'Nathan McClain will have no further association with Zany Zoo'.

'Abbie has been cooperating with the investigation. She personally thought that someone broke in to the store and stole her beloved animal and money and had no reason to suspect otherwise until contacted by the police.'

Gooey (pictured) was recovered by the Eugene Police Department on March 17 after McClain allegedly tipped a prostitute with the primate after a sexual encounter

Gooey was recovered by the Eugene Police Department on March 17, two weeks after a burglary was reported at the pet store.

Two days later, McClain was arrested by Oregon State Police for a DUII.

'McClain was observed exiting the adult porn shop next door and he appeared to be under the influence of methamphetamine. McClain was arrested and lodged in the Linn County jail for DUII,' police said.

Police said while he was being interviewed he appeared to be under the influence.

McClain was found to have to paid the prostitute for sex on March 1 with deposit and donation money from the store.

He was also arrested for prostitution and was being held at the Lane County Jail as of April 14.

Police said the investigation into the 'burglaries is unfounded' and the missing Girl Scout money was never recovered and is still under investigation.

The exotic animal, Gooey, is safe and currently at a nearby sanctuary until the USDA issues a new license for Zany Zoo Pet Store.

In the state of Oregon, it is prohibited to possess an exotic animal without a license issued by the State Department of Agriculture.
White House candidate Hillary Clinton has also waded into the Brexit debate to warn Britain against leaving the European Union.

The presidential front-runner is the second American heavyweight to voice opinion on the upcoming referendum, after Barack Obama intervened at a press conference in London last week.

The former secretary of state's senior policy adviser, Jake Sullivan, told The Observer: 'Hillary Clinton believes that transatlantic cooperation is essential, and that co-operation is strongest when Europe is united.

'She has always valued a strong United Kingdom in a strong EU. And she values a strong British voice in the EU.'

White House candidate Hillary Clinton has also waded into the Brexit debate to warn Britain against leaving the European Union

The presidential front-runner is the second American heavyweight to voice opinion on the upcoming referendum, after Barack Obama intervened at a press conference in London last week

President Barack Obama shakes hands with British Prime Minister David Cameron at 10 Downing Street

The latest foreign intervention came as Leave campaigners launched a furious backlash against Mr Obama, branding him an irrelevant 'lame duck' after the US president warned Britain would be at 'the back of the queue' for American trade deals if it backed Brexit.

Justice Minister Dominic Raab led the personalised attacks against Mr Obama as the Leave campaign tried to shift the emphasis of the campaign to immigration.

He said: 'This is really about a lame duck US president about to move off the stage doing an old British friend a favour.

'I have got no doubt that future US trade negotiators are going to look to other opportunities - I think the British will be first in the queue, not at the back of the queue.'

The attack came after Mr Obama set out in stark terms that Britain would not be able to strike a free trade deal with the US 'any time soon' if it leaves the European Union (EU) because Washington's focus would be on reaching agreement with Brussels.

Former Tory leader and ex-work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith moved to switch attention to immigration as he insisted the living wage would provoke a 'stampede' to Britain from poorer EU nations.

He wrote in The Daily Mail: 'I cheered the introduction of the national living wage, but when take-home pay in Britain is already more than five times higher than in the poorest EU countries, such a jump in wages will surely lead to another stampede to our borders.

'To make the living wage work for British people, we need to be able to control the number of people coming in.'

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks during a campaign rally at Dunmore High School on April 22, 2016 in Dunmore, Pennsylvania

Ukip leader Nigel Farage also savaged Mr Obama's trade deal remarks, insisting the president did not know what he was talking about and was being manipulated by Number 10.

'He said Britain would be at the back of the queue, no American would ever say 'back of the queue', Americans don't use the word 'queue', Americans use the word 'line',' Mr Farage told BBC Radio Four's Any Questions.

'Therefore, what Obama said when he said we would be at the back of the queue, he was doing the bidding of Cameron, and Number 10, and doing his best to talk down Britain, and I think that's shameful.'

Tory former defence secretary Liam Fox said Mr Obama's views would be irrelevant after the looming US presidential election.

'We have a referendum at the end of June, presidential elections are in November, so whoever it is that will be at the helm of the United States won't be Barack Obama. So, to an extent, whatever he says today is largely irrelevant,' he told BBC Two's Newsnight.

'It will be the next president, and the next congress, who will be in charge of any trade arrangements.'

U.S. President Barack Obama answers questions from members of the audience at an event in central London

London mayor Boris Johnson stood by his remarks that Mr Obamas comments were 'perverse'

Leave backer and former foreign secretary Lord Owen told BBC Radio 4's Today programme Mr Obama's trade embarks had been 'crafted' in Downing Street.

London mayor Boris Johnson stood by his remarks that Mr Obamas comments were 'perverse'.

At a joint press conference with Prime Minister David Cameron, the president stressed the referendum was a 'decision for the people of the United Kingdom' and he was 'not coming here to fix any votes'.

He added: 'I think it's fair to say that maybe some point down the line there might be a UK-US trade agreement, but it's not going to happen any time soon because our focus is in negotiating with a big bloc, the European Union, to get a trade agreement done.

'The UK is going to be in the back of the queue.'
Qemal was sitting in the shade of a peach tree in the village of Gerdec, trying to find a buyer for a dishevelled donkey munching on the kerbside grass nearby.

When I stopped to chat, the father of four explained he was having to sell his animal because he was broke. There is no state help here, he said. If you do not work you die.

No wonder both owner and beast looked a bit disconsolate. Then I asked Qemal whether his nation might be a role model for Britain.

He looked at me as if I was mad, then gave a big gap-toothed grin. That sounds very weird, he said. This is a very poor place. The situation is very bad. Why would you want to follow us?

A good question.

Qemal was sitting in the shade of a peach tree in the village of Gerdec, trying to find a buyer for a dishevelled donkey munching on the kerbside grass nearby

Albania is an impoverished Balkan state, still struggling to escape the legacy of cruel communism and infamous for crime and corruption. Britain, by contrast, is one of the worlds richest nations, the birthplace of the industrial revolution and mother of democracy.

Yet that is precisely the preposterous proposal put forward last week by Michael Gove, when the Justice Secretary indicated Albania was an unlikely inspiration for post-Brexit Britain.

Never mind that Britain has 20 times more people  and they are on average almost ten times richer; indeed, the Albanian economy is smaller than the size of Tesco. Nor that the Balkan state remains heavily reliant on small family farms while Britain is a leading global financial centre.

For when Mr Gove gazes across the Adriatic, he sees an alluring vision of Britains future if our nation opts to abandon Brussels in June. In a keynote Vote Leave speech, he highlighted Albania as part of a continent-wide free trade zone yet supposedly free from meddlesome interference.

That bemused donkey-vendor was far from the only local here to laugh at talk of Britain emulating their country. This is just a joke, surely, said Donika Mici, the nations biggest shoe exporter with five factories and 1,000 workers. You cant want to be like Albania. We are a democracy in name only.

It would be crazy to follow us. You respect the law, you follow the rules, you start work in the morning instead of drinking coffee in cafes. We need to follow your country.

There were similar sentiments from Zef Preci, former government minister and executive director of the Albanian Centre for Economic Research, who struggled to stop smirking at the idea anyone might want to mimic an Albanian model. Its a joke  we do not even have a model, he said, pointing out his nation was responsible for just 0.1 per cent of European trade. We are like a colonial economy that relies on cheap labour and cannot exploit its own resources.

This is not entirely true. Two years ago, hundreds of armed police backed by helicopter gunships stormed a mountain village employing 3,000 people to grow marijuana for the European market.

Almost half of Albania's population live below the global poverty line of $5 a day

After a five-day advance against villagers armed with an anti-aircraft gun, grenades, mortars and machine guns, the police destroyed more than 80,000 marijuana plants and 23 tons of cannabis. An official report suggested the illicit enterprise was equivalent to about one third of Albanias GDP.

But certainly Albania has struggled to escape the legacy of Europes most paranoid and suffocating Communist dictatorship, which cut off the country from outsiders before coming to an end 25 years ago.

There are few visible signs of those 45 years when private cars were banned and even the number of chickens a family could own was controlled by the state, beside thousands of concrete bunkers littering the landscape and a derelict rocket-shaped museum to former despot Enver Hoxha.

Yet several analysts told me that the old mindset remains strong despite the transition to democracy, with endemic corruption and politics used often for self-enrichment.

We are still ruled by the past, said Preci. People taste freedom but we do not have the institutions yet to deliver it.

The country frequently belies its bad reputation thanks to its friendly people, fine food and glorious scenery, encompassing rugged mountains and golden beaches. But these deep-rooted issues explain its struggle to develop.

Club Med, for instance, gave up on a 50 million resort plan after a five-year dispute over land ownership, while the cheap flight revolution that transformed travel failed to touch down in Albania.

And one American billionaire gave up on discussions to invest in the oil industry earlier this year, reportedly fuming it was easier to do business in Iraq than Albania.

I apprehended one of the most notorious political operators in a smart hotel, a wealthy man said by local journalists to be more powerful than any of the organised crime chiefs. He shook hands, but when I started asking questions he just stared at me then strode off with his burly minder.

So yes, it may have an enviable top rate of tax at 23 per cent (a recent rise from the previous ten per cent flat tax, a progressive measure I heard blamed on the prime ministers pal Tony Blair). But for all its quirky charms, Albania seems a strange place to pick as anyones post-Brexit nirvana  especially when growth has slackened; a quarter of the population emigrated; and almost half those remaining live below the global poverty line of $5 a day.

Michael Gove, the Justice Secretary, indicated last week that Albania was an unlikely inspiration for post-Brexit Britain

In Ndroq, a short drive from the capital Tirana, I found 75-year-old Vushe sitting on the ground outside a whitewashed bungalow as she cradled a sick baby with sunken eyes. Nearby, an outside toilet stank of urine.

Look at us  this is no life, she said. There are no jobs. We do not even have enough food to eat, so we go without bread.

Over the road, her neighbour Serme, 64, was collecting firewood to cook dinner with her grandchildren. We are poor people who would die to get to Western Europe, she said.

And theres the rub. The Out crowd do not really seek to emulate this impoverished corner of our Continent. But they are struggling badly to define the shape of Britain if it quits the Brussels club, stumbling with each flawed example they pick from Canada to Norway.

Mr Gove highlighted Albania alongside other strange paragons of peace and prosperity  Serbia, Bosnia and Ukraine  because they have access to European markets without having to accept all those pesky rules from Brussels pen-pushers.

Yet Albanias deal took six years to negotiate with the EU, which does not bode well for British stability. There is no free movement only because visa-free travel was rejected. And ironically, almost all Albanians see this as a stepping-stone to the full membership they crave so badly.

Ilir Zhilla, a businessman and former head of the Albanian Chamber of Commerce, told me they sought integration with the EU because they wanted the imposition of higher standards.

By joining we will get pressure put on us to drive reforms and do lots of good things for our country, he said.

This puts a different spin on that Albanian model. Yet for all the mirth this provoked from rural donkey-traders through to owners of the biggest businesses, the debate over Britains role in the world should not be a laughing matter.

Perhaps the Brexit campaigners should listen to Besart Kadia, British-educated director of the Foundation for Economic Freedom think-tank, which promotes free-market policies in Tirana.

You cant compare the countries for many reasons, he said. But we are acting out of a sense of inferiority to improve Albania  so they are not doing any favours for Britain with this absurd comparison.

You would need the stubbornness of a mule to disagree.

Voting to stay? Then prepare to obey EU's every whim

By Kwasi Kwarteng

If the bookies are right, on Friday, June 24, the British people will wake up to find themselves committed to membership of the EU. This will be a momentous step, and there will be consequences.

The EU will rightly say to Britain: You have had a long debate. You have voted with your eyes open and you have voted to stay with us, within the EU family.

After three years of speculation, and a four-month campaign, those countries will have no interest in our plans for substantial EU reform. Why should they?

Their attitude will simply be that of neurotic adults who have grown tired of having their time wasted by squabbling children. You have had your argument, now please keep quiet, they could justifiably say.

Or, as the Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee once said to the Left-wing intellectual Harold Laski: A period of silence from you would be welcome.

If the bookies are right, on Friday, June 24, the British people will wake up to find themselves committed to membership of the EU. This will be a momentous step, and there will be consequences

The truth is, if we vote to stay, Britain will have no bargaining position whatsoever.

The EU will be able to push through any policy, safe in the knowledge that we will continue to be members under almost any circumstances. There will be no more negotiation, no debate, no treaty reforms, at least for a very long time.

Not known for its lack of confidence, the EU will take an In vote as a ringing endorsement of the project.

ANY subsequent British complaints will be taken as seriously as the whining of a small child in the back of the family car, crying as daddy drives purposefully to the holiday resort.

Many people in my Spelthorne constituency and beyond say to me that they were only voting to stay within the EEC, the European Economic Community, in the referendum of 1975. They just didnt know it would turn into the European Union.

Of course, they are right. At a time when we commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeares death, you dont need his mastery of the English language to understand that the phrase European Union has a very different meaning from European Economic Community.

The organisation we know as the EU changed beyond recognition between the British referendum of June 1975, and the launching of the European Union 17 years later in 1992. Who knows where we will be in another 17 years time, in 2033?

UK Work and pensions minister Priti Patel speaks at a 'Vote Leave' public meeting in Birmingham

This is why, after much consideration, I have decided to vote to leave the EU.

Anyone who wants to reconsider the terms must surely vote Out. The idea that they will pull up a drawbridge, cast us out into the mid-Atlantic and never speak to us again is not credible.

These islands are not going anywhere. The EU isnt going anywhere either. Whatever happens, we will have to have some kind of relationship with it.

Discussion, compromise, trade deals, arguments  all these things are part of an ongoing relationship. Signing up to the EU as it is, under the current terms, is simply a rubber stamp for the status quo.

Pretending that you can renegotiate terms, once you have signed up to the programme, is rather like trying to reopen discussion about your employment contract on your first day at work.

The time for negotiation is before you start work.

Once you sign up, you simply start your new job and try to make things work out.

If we do vote to remain, this is exactly the approach that I, as a Member of Parliament, will adopt. Its no use crying after the event.

If we sign up, we have got to make the best of it.
The 67-year-old added he could see attraction for younger fans

Radio 2 DJ said he had seen the acts 'multiple times in their prime'

'Mega festival' will see veteran artists take to stage in California in October

It has been dubbed the greatest rock gig of all time with Sir Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones and The Who all due to perform.

But despite the unprecedented all-star line-up, broadcaster and music doyen Paul Gambaccini will not be going to the concert in California later this year  because he says the rock idols are past it and cannot do justice to their back catalogues.

Gambaccini, 67, dubbed the professor of pop, said he was content to have seen the acts in their heyday. He added: Having seen all of them multiple times in their prime, I dont feel the need to see them again.

Broadcaster Paul Gambaccini said he would not pay to see veterans perform in all-star line-up which includes Sir Paul McCartney

McCartney and Sir Mick Jagger will take part in a three-day mega music festival in California in October

I dont want to name individuals but the line-up does contain some people who are past their best voice and, you know, in my profession you pay very close attention to the voice.

I actually have an aversion to seeing heritage acts when either their voices are frayed or they dont have the physical energy they used to have.

Sir Mick Jagger, 72, McCartney, 73, and Roger Daltrey will take part in a three-day mega music festival in October alongside Bob Dylan, 74, Neil Young, 70, and 72-year-old Roger Waters of Pink Floyd. It is not yet known how much tickets will cost, but each act is expected to earn millions.

However, Gambaccini, who has a music show on Radio 2 and presents Radio 4 music quiz Counterpoint, said he could see the attraction for younger fans.

He said: I saw the late Muddy Waters when he was elderly, supporting Eric Clapton. Had he not gone on tour as an elderly man, I would never have seen him. So I am delighted that new generations can see these acts.
It has seemingly been a good week for the Remain camp.

On Tuesday, George Osbornes calculation that we would all be 4,300 a year worse off if we left the EU dominated the headlines.

On Friday, Barack Obama claimed that outside the EU, Britain would be at the back of the queue in any trade negotiations with the US.

It has seemingly been a good week for the Remain camp, writes John Curtice. On Friday, Barack Obama claimed that outside the EU, Britain would be at the back of the queue in any trade negotiations with the US

Above all, nearly all of the weeks polls put Remain clearly ahead.

Last weeks events and those poll results are not connected.

All of the polling released last week was done before the Chancellors and US Presidents comments. But it served to give the impression that the Remain camp has momentum.

In part this was a mirage. Last week was unusual as most polling was done over the phone rather than online, and such polls have long brought Remain better news.

But there was also substance to the impression. All the polls showed an increase in support for Remain compared with earlier polls from the same firms using the same methods.

Not that the swing was large, just two points on average. In an individual poll so small a shift could simply be put down to chance, but if, as last week, five polls all report the same trend, it is very likely that the balance of opinion has changed.

On Tuesday, George Osbornes calculation that we would all be 4,300 a year worse off if we left the EU dominated the headlines

In a contest that has so far appeared both very tight and unchanging, this looks like significant progress. But the race is far from over.

Even last weeks polls collectively put Remain on no more than 54 per cent once the dont knows are put to one side.

Moreover, last weeks polls done online suggest the contest is closer still, with Remain on no more than 51 per cent.

Little wonder that David Cameron is hoping the 4,300 message and Barack Obamas intervention have helped turn the tide.

Only 15 per cent of voters say that President Obamas views will be important to them when deciding how they will vote  and most of those are backing Remain already.

But what the US President has given Remain is plenty of quotes to bolster their argument that staying the EU would be better for Britains economy and its influence in the world  and voters views of the economic consequences are likely to be crucial to the outcome.
Policy states that a keeper should never enter an enclosure when it is accessible

A Florida zoo keeper who was mauled by a tiger earlier this month broke the rules when she entered the big cat's enclosure, zoo officials said.

Stacey Konwiser, 38, was killed by a 13-year-old Malayan tiger called Hati inside a secured portion of the animal's area at the Palm Beach Zoo on April 15.

On the day of the attack, the zoo's public relations manager said Konwiser had 'absolutely' not done anything wrong when she entered a portion of the enclosure where the tigers eat and sleep.

In a statement released on Friday, however, zoo president and chief executive Andrew Aiken said that Konwiser had violated zoo policy.

Stacey Konwiser, 38, pictured, was killed by a 13-year-old male Malayan Tiger called Hati on April 15 in Florida

Palm Beach Zoo president and CEO said Stacey Konwiser, a lead tiger keeper, violated policy when she entered a portion of the tiger enclosure. Pictured above is an unidentified tiger at Palm Beach Zoo

Konwiser, pictured with her husband, Jeremy, was alone when she entered the enclosure, and though the night house has surveillance cameras, they were not recording at the time

Konwiser, the zoo's lead tiger keeper, 'entered that same portion of the night house after it was clearly designated as accessible by a tiger,' Aiken said in the statement posted on the zoo's website.

'Our policy states that zookeepers are never to enter into an enclosure when a tiger is present or has access to the enclosure,' he said. 'When a tiger enclosure is secured so that no tiger can enter, then and only then are zookeepers allowed to enter the enclosure to clean, prepare food, or otherwise service the enclosure.'

The statement continued: 'There is absolutely no mystery as to how Stacey Konwiser died. The question is: why did a deeply talented and experienced Zookeeper, fully aware of the presence of a tiger and knowledgeable of our safety protocols, enter a tiger enclosure into which a tiger had access?'

The statement said Konwiser was alone when she entered the enclosure, and though the night house has surveillance cameras, they were not recording at the time.

'Why or how this could possibly occur is the subject of five ongoing investigations, including our own,' said Aiken in his statement.

Following the incident, the tiger was shot with a tranquilizer dart.

Ron Magill of Zoo Miami said in situations where a big cat or other large carnivore was threatening a human then 'unfortunately that is a death sentence for that animal'.

Federal and state authorities are investigating the cause behind last week's tragedy at the zoo, pictured.

He told NBC News: 'Our policy would be yes, if a tiger is on top of a human being here, we're not going to anesthetize it. We're going to shoot it to facilitate rescuing that human as quickly as possible. Seconds count in trying to save someone's life.'

In an earlier online statement, the zoo defended tranquilizing the tiger. The statement said the zoo considers human safety, the configuration of the area and whether a bullet could ricochet when deciding whether to shoot or tranquilize an animal.

Following the tragedy, police in Palm Beach were forced investigated death threats against the endangered tiger.

Zoo spokeswoman Naki Carter added: 'We are equipped to tranquilize and we are equipped to shoot to kill. There are a lot of things to consider.'

In a statement, the zoo said: 'The Zoo continues to cooperate with multiple agencies involving the tragedy. The Zoo is an organization deeply committed to species survival. The Zoo has no interest in assisting, allowing or encouraging blame on one of only 250 Malayan tigers remaining in existence.

Zoo officials said that no guests saw the mauling because the tiger was off-exhibit at the time of the incident.

Konwiser, the lead tiger keeper, worked alongside her husband, Jeremy Konwiser, left, at Palm Beach Zoo

The zoo, which has four similar tigers, serves as a 'breeding ground to make sure they don't become extinct'.

The investigation into the keeper's death is being carried out by West Palm Beach police, Florida Fish and Wildlife officials and by federal authorities with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The Animal Legal Defense Fund says the zoo keeper's death was preventable and urged federal authorities to impose penalties against the zoo.

'As long as employees are allowed to work in dangerously close proximity to tigers, elephants, and other dangerous animals, a significant risk of serious injury or death persists,' said the California-based group said in a statement.

Since 1990, according to the group, at least 24 deaths - and 265 injuries - were caused by 'captive big cats' in the United States.
An alleged rapist who used online dating to find his victims has been caught by police after a number of his victims reported his assaults to an anonymous sexual assault reporting website.

The man would meet up with woman he found online, drug them and take them home and rape them the Sydney morning Herald reports.

The police knew about the predator's actions but were unable to pursue him until workers from the Sexual Assault Report Anonymously (SARA) website stepped in.

A rapist who used online dating to find his victims has been caught by police after a number of his victims reported his assaults to an anonymous sexual assault reporting website

The man would meet up with woman he found online, drug them and take them home and rape them

Social workers working with SARA had received multiple reports of the same man and managed to convince one of his victims to make a formal complaint to police.

Anastasia Powell, a senior justice lecturer at RMIT University in Melbourne said few sexual assault victims are able to have their day in court or their experience validated.

'The internet is providing a new tool for victim survivors to have a voice and be heard with far greater reach and in ways previously not thought possible,' Dr Powell said.

Social workers working with SARA had received multiple reports of the same man and managed to convince one of his victims to make a formal complaint to police

'It's a way of dealing with their own trauma, seeking support, having their account validated and heard by other people.'

SARA work closely with police. If the victims who spoke with them don't want to make a formal complaint the social workers will pass de-sensitised information back to police.
A car thief that rammed a female officer into her own parked police car has been arrested and charged after fleeing the scene.

Two police officers were at an apartment complex in Carrara on the Gold Coast on Saturday afternoon when they approached a vehicle they believed to have been stolen.

The female officer attempted to remove the keys from the ignition of the car while her male partner blocked the exit route with their car.

But the man inside the stolen car drove straight into the policewoman, pinning her between two vehicles, before speeding away with another woman.

A car thief that rammed a female officer into her own parked police car has been arrested and charged after fleeing the scene

A female police officer attempted to remove the keys from the stolen car's ignition, but she was slammed into by the driver and pinned against two vehicles

The alleged car thief was found by a dog squad officer shortly after and arrested.

He was treated at the scene for minor injuries caused by the dog, who bit him during the arrest.

The woman inside the stolen car has not been found yet, while the female police officer suffered minor cuts and bruising as a result of the ramming incident.

The 31-year-old man was charged with two counts of serious assault police and one count each of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, driving without a license, willful damage and damaging police property.

He will appear in the Southport Magistrates Court on April 25.
The Republican governor of Maine is under fire again after calling foreign workers hard to understand and labeling those from India 'the worst ones'.

Gov Paul LePage made the comments will criticizing a referendum proposal to raise Maine's minimum wage to $12, saying Indians were 'lovely people' but required an interpreter.

LePage, who claimed these workers were taking away restaurant jobs, said he was disappointed his alternative proposal to raise the wage to $10 didn't gain traction.

The governor's comments came the day after Donald Trump, who LePage has publicly endorsed, impersonated an Indian call center employee during a rally in Delaware on Friday.

Republican Maine Gov. Paul LePage is under fire after calling foreign workers hard to understand and labeling those from India 'the worst ones' during a speech at the Maine GOP state convention on Saturday

The governor's comments came the day after Donald Trump, who LePage has publicly endorsed, impersonated an Indian call center employee during a rally in Delaware on Friday

The governor's comments came the day after Donald Trump, who LePage has publicly endorsed, impersonated an Indian call center employee during a rally in Delaware on Friday

LePage, who was speaking at the GOP state convention in Bangor, then joked that his wife is going to get a job as a waitress for supplemental income.

He also made a crude remark about President Barack Obama, saying Obama stands for 'One Big-A** Mistake, America.'

LePage was also heavily criticized this week after vetoing a bill that would have made the life-saving overdose prevention medication Narcan more easily available.

The bill, which allows pharmacists to dispense Naloxone without a prescription, was passed unanimously earlier this month by the state legislature, according to the Portland Press Herald.

But LePage argued the drug, commonly known by the brand name Narcan, does not 'truly save lives' but 'merely extends them until the next overdose'.

'Creating a situation where an addict has a heroin needle in one hand and a shot of Naloxone in the other produces a sense of normalcy and security around heroin use,' he wrote.

'[It] serves only to perpetuate a cycle of addiction'.

LePage was also heavily criticized this week after vetoing a bill that would have made the life-saving overdose prevention medication Narcan (pictured) more easily available

The bill came on the heels of a growing opiate epidemic in the state, with a 31 percent increase in total drug overdose deaths in just the last year.

Narcan, administered through an injection or nasal spray, can block the effect of opioids and quickly reverse an overdose. Around 30 states allow it to be bought without a prescription.

LePage made headlines in January when he discussed the state's growing problem, blaming it on men called 'D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty'.

'These types of guys, they come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home,' he continued.

'Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue we have to deal with down the road.'
The former Chancellor (left), who officially launched his campaign this morning, had more than double the number of publicly-declared supporters than Mr Johnson (centre). As of this evening, 228 out of 357 Tory MPs have gone public with their support. Mr Sunak is understood to have 147 backers, while Mr Johnson had the support of 57 MPs and Penny Mordaunt (right) just 24. Mr Johnson, though, has claimed he in fact reached the 'very high hurdle of 102 nominations', but tonight bowed out of the race because it is 'simply not the right thing to do'. He said: 'I believe I am well placed to deliver a Conservative victory in 2024 - and tonight I can confirm that I have cleared the very high hurdle of 102 nominations, including a proposer and a seconder, and I could put my nomination in tomorrow. There is a very good chance that I would be successful in the election with Conservative Party members - and that I could indeed be back in Downing Street on Friday. But in the course of the last days I have sadly come to the conclusion that this would simply not be the right thing to do. You can't govern effectively unless you have a united party in parliament.'
President Obama has called on Black Lives Matter activists to engage in meaningful debate with leaders in power rather than 'keeping on yelling at them'.

Speaking at a youth town hall event held in London Saturday, the president praised the movement for effectively bringing attention to 'the problem of a criminal justice system that sometimes is not treating people fairly based on race.

But he quickly followed the praise with criticism for what he described as their often 'harsh tone'.

Obama explained: 'You can't just keep on yelling at them and you can't refuse to meet because that might compromise the purity of your position.

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On the second full day of his visit, Mr Obama addressed young people in Westminster and then took questions from them. He called on Black Lives Matter activists to engage in meaningful debate with leaders in power rather than 'keeping on yelling at them'

Mr Obama said racial tensions in America still needed to be dealt with and people could not be complacent just because an African-American was in the White House

'The value of social movements and activism is to get you at the table, get you in the room and then start trying to figure out how is this problem going to be solved.

'You then have a responsibility to prepare an agenda that is achievable that can institutionalize the changes you seek and to engage the other side.'

Black Lives Matter protesters have been a prominent feature at presidential candidates rallies over the last few months, most notably in Trump's Chicago meet that had to be cancelled due to security concerns.

Hillary Clinton has also faced an avalanche of criticism from BLM supporters.

At a private fundraiser in South Carolina back in February she was heckled by a BLM activist.

The activist demanded an apology from the former first lady for mass incarceration and her claim 20 years ago that children in gangs had become 'super-predators.'

She was identified as Ashley Williams and was there to ask Clinton about a remark she made in Keene, New Hampshire, in January of 1996 while talking about the Violent Crime Control Act.

Black Lives Matter protesters have been a prominent feature at presidential candidates rallies over the last few months

At a private fundraiser in South Carolina back in February Hillary Clinton was heckled by a BLM activist

The activist demanded an apology from the former first lady for mass incarceration and her claim 20 years ago that children in gangs had become 'super-predators'

Clinton said at the time, that the government must have an 'organized effort against gangs, just as in a previous generation we had an organized effort against the mob.'

'We need to take these people on. They are often connected to big drug cartels. They are not just gangs of kids anymore,' she said. 'They are often the kinds of kids that are called 'super-predators.'

And her husband, former President Bill Clinton also he engaged in a heated back and forth exchange with activists In Philadelphia earlier this month, who slammed him for the 1994 crime bill he enacted.
A woman stripped naked as she was arrested in Los Angeles Saturday morning after allegedly leading police on a high-speed chase.

The sidewalk strip outside a comedy club in Downtown Los Angeles was caught on video by a reporter from a local news service.

In the video, the woman - who was identified by police as Simone Gonzalez, 32, and who police said may have a history of mental illness - can be seen rambling incoherently when approached by the reporter.

Simone Gonzalez, 32, was seen rambling incoherently on a street in Downtown Los Angeles Saturday morning

As police show up to arrest her for her suspected involvement in an assault incident Friday night, Gonzalez begins taking off her clothes and scream she will show cops her 'bruises'

Gonzalez, who police said may have a history of mental illness, claimed she was a 'victim of police brutality'

Gonzalez was seen taking off her shirt and bra and then unbuttoning her pants as officers approach

Police officers wait on the sideline as Gonzalez throws the last of her clothes on the sidewalk

She then stands by a wall and continues her rant as the police officers get closer

In the end of the video, officers arrest Gonzalez. She was later charged with felony counts and held on $75,000 bail

At various points, she accuses the reporter of being a 'slave trader' and of 'injecting' her with 'heroin needles.' She also claims she's a police officer, a firefighter, and a member of the Army.

As police officers approach the scene, Gonzalez starts shouting that she is a 'victim of police brutality' and begins taking off her clothes to show cops her 'bruises.'

She also reveals what looks like a carving of the word 'Crips' on the right side of her rib cage.

The video ends after the officers arrest the woman and pick some of her clothes off of the street.

Hours before her nude arrest, Gonzalez reportedly had an altercation with her parents and allegedly tried to strike one of them with her car. Pictured above moments before she was nabbed by the cops

Gonzalez led police on a high-speed pursuit through Los Angeles County, which was also caught on video

Earlier in the night, police said Gonzalez got in an altercation with her parents in Pasadena and allegedly tried to slam one of them with her Chevy Tahoe SUV.

While no one was hurt in that incident, Gonzalez caused damage to her parents' property, said Lt. Vasken Gourdikan of the Pasadena Police Department.

'Apparently, she perhaps rammed a few of the cars that were parked on the property and broke her parent's house window with a brick,' Gourdikan told KTLA.

After police were called around 10:45pm, Gonzalez fled in her SUV and led officers on a pursuit on the 101 freeway that at times exceeded 100mph, according to reports.

Police eventually called the pursuit off, but later found Gonzalzez ranting outside the comedy club The Lexington at 129 E 3rd Street, where she was arrested in the nude shortly before 1am Saturday.

Gonzalez was slapped with several felony charges, including assault with a deadly weapon, evading and reckless driving, KTLA reported.
CCTV footage has captured the moment two brazen thieves rammed a vehicle into a hotel before taking off with a cigarette machine.

Police are investigating a break-in at the hotel on Phillis Street in Adelaide's Maylands following reports two glass doors were shattered shortly after 5am on Sunday.

During a dramatic robbery, the hooded suspects ploughed their way through the doors of the premises at about 4.40am with the white wagon, possibly a Subaru Impreza.

The vehicle - believed to be linked to the ram-raid - has been located upside down in a river after 10.30am on Sunday. Water Operations Unit are at the scene working to retrieve the car.

Police were called to Holton Court in St Peters after a member of the public followed the tyre tracks down to the water as the offenders remain on the run.

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Footage captures the moment two brazen thieves place a cigarette machine onto their car before taking off

Earlier on Sunday, police released the black-and-white vision, showing two men emerging from the vehicle with most of their faces hidden and both appeared to be wearing black hand gloves.

Just moments later, the pair lifted the large cigarette machine onto the roof of the car before making a quick getaway out of the damaged doors.

South Australian Police are now searching for the bandits, who used the vehicle to gain access into the building in the early hours of Sunday as investigation continues.

One of the suspects has been described as 185 centimetres tall with a solid build wearing an Everlast-brand hooded jumper and canvas type work pants.

The second suspect is shorter with a smaller build wearing a light-coloured jumper.

Anyone with information are urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

the hooded suspects ploughed their way through the doors of the premises at about 4.40am on Sunday

The pair can be seen lifting the cigarette machine onto the roof of the car after smashing through the door
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A historic house belonging to actor Aidan Quinn has hit the market in upstate New York at $1.3 million.

The five-bedroom colonial house, which was built around 1782, is surrounded by 1000 acres of wild land in High Falls, not far from New Paltz in New York State.

Quinn's house was last sold in May 2004 for $375,000, a Zillow listing states.

The 4,012 square feet home is now on sale at $324 per square foot, three times the average price in the area according to Realtor.com.

The property spreads on 3.68 acres and still includes an original chicken coop as well as a classic red barn, which was moved there several years ago from the nearby Clove Chapel.

It overlooks the Mohonk nature preserve and gives access to some of the best rock climbing routes in the state.

Inside, the house includes a stone fireplace, Dutch doors, and exposed beams on the ceilings in keeping with the property's rustic feel.

Quinn, who played Rosanna Arquette's love interest Dez in the 1985 movie Desperately Seeking Susan, currently stars as Captain Thomas Gregson in CBS's Elementary.

This 18-century colonial house, located in High Falls in upstate New York, belongs to Elementary actor Aidan Quinn and is currently for sale at $1.3 million

The 4,012 square feet home includes a fireplace made out of stone and ceilings with apparent beams, in keeping with the property's rustic feel inside as well as outside

Plank floors give the property a country house feel. The five-bedroom colonial home, which was built around 1782, is surrounded by 1000 acres of wild land in High Falls, not far from New Paltz

The kitchen is built around an island topped with granite and includes a stove, butcher block counter tops as well as custom-made cabinets and litghting fixtures

The home was built for a single family and offers large communal spaces, like this dining room area in view of the kitchen. The property's five bedrooms offer more privacy

Quinn's home works out at $324 per square foot based on the current listing, about three times the $110 average price per square foot in High Falls according to Realtor.com

The property spreads on 3.68 acres and is surrounded by 1000 acres of wild land. It still includes and original chicken coop and a classic red barn, which was moved there several years ago from the nearby Clove Chapel

Quinn's estate overlooks the nearby mountains, which house some of the best rock climbing routes in New York State. Some can be accessed from New Paltz, a 15-minute drive away from High Falls

This bedroom overlooks the property's views on the nearby mountains. In addition to five bedrooms, the house includes four full bathrooms and one half-bathroom

The family home is equipped with baseboard heaters to fend off the cold New York State winters, and it also has central cooking for the warmer summer months

The rustic, old-fashioned decor is completed by wooden Dutch doors and sturdy plank floors. More than 2,000 people have viewed the house's listing on Zillow so far

In one of the five bedrooms, this cozy quilt plays along with the rustic theme displayed inside and outside the house. The property was last sold in May 2004 for $375,000 according to a Zillow listing
A young woman who was molested from the age of five and bullied horrifically through her early years of high school has revealed how she found solace in pulling out her own hair.

Kelly Inn, 28, has been suffering from trichotillomania, the intense urge to tear her hair out, since she was 13 after she became the favourite target for bullies at her Sydney high school.

The unusual form of self-harming was triggered by the intense feeling 'nowhere was safe'.

Kelly Inn, 28, became addicted to tearing her own hair out when she was a teenager suffering at the hand of school bullies and a sexual predator. She is pictured here wearing a crown-extension hair piece

'I was molested as a child, from when I was five-years-old and had no outlet to deal with that,' Kelly told Daily Mail Australia.

'I was also really struggling to fit in at school because I was bullied so much.

'It wasn't the normal kind of teasing either; it was very physical violence as well a lot of b****y girl bullying.'

Kelly is now getting help from a psychologist and has a hairdresser who fuses crown extensions onto her scalp so she cannot fuel her addiction.

She has also become a pole dancer, and she says being able to develop these skills has helped increase her confidence enough to open up about her traumatic experiences and to 'reclaim her life'.

The young mother-of-two has been working on 'reclaiming her life' since she found pole dancing five years ago. She now owns a studio and says the sport gave her back her 'sexuality'

Kelly clearly remembers the first time she pulled her hair out.

She remembers the release she felt and the sense of control it gave her at a time when she thought her sexual abuser and bullies owned her.

'The first time it happened I was just sitting in my room watching a movie.

'I was curling my hair around my fingers and felt a tingle on my scalp so I started pulling and felt instant relief.

'Within a few days I had a bald patch and I knew something was off but I kept going because it made me feel good in that moment,' she said.

Over the next year Kelly changed schools three times trying to escape the torment of bullies but wherever she went she was met with the same abuse.

This photo was taken when Kelly, left, was 13 just weeks after she first began pulling her hair out

'I am very soft and not confrontational so I guess it is easy to pick on someone like that.'

Kelly found in times of stress she would pull more hair out more often, sometimes leaving bald spots the size of a 20 cent piece.

She admits turning 14 was extremely stressful because that is when she finally decided to stand up to the man who had sexually assaulted her for nine years of her life.

'The last time I was abused was on my 14th birthday.

'I thought "it is my birthday and you are still trying to molest me" so I came out to police.

'I pulled (out her hair) so much at that time because I was so scared, I was just a child.

'When police told my family what had been happening they decided to take my molester's word over mine.

'They said they knew him and he wasn't that kind of person. They said I was just saying it for attention.'

She had her first child, right, at 16 , but hid her bald patches from her often covering them with scarves when they got bad

Kelly was taken under the care of child protective services (DOCS) and sent to live with family in Melbourne.

They found her to be 'too rebellious' and by the time she was 15 she had been moved into a foster home.

'It is so scary to feel alone at that age especially when there is no one standing up for you other than these strangers, these police, who you met five minutes ago,' she said.

Kelly dropped out of school when she became pregnant with her first child at 16. She planned to go to TAFE and do social work but found when she got there she was still 'too raw' from her own abuse to pursue that career.

After having her second child at 19 Kelly decided to enroll in nursing.

The stress associated with exams, and her failing marriage caused her to continue to pull her hair out. She knew she needed help but she didn't know how to get it.

Her hair became thin and had to be pinned in certain ways to hide the bare spots from the public

'Even just two years ago there was no information online about my condition, I felt lost,' she said.

Kelly said she would do most of her pulling at night when her children had gone to bed because 'no one would be able to see her do it', so wouldn't know about her 'embarrassing' addiction.

At 23 Kelly moved back to Sydney to help support her elderly grand mother. She began pole dancing as a hobby and found it helped her to heal and rebuild her confidence after her traumatic beginning to life.

'Pole dancing gave me back my sexuality,' she said.

'When I was molested it was taken from me and I didn't want to do anything sexual.

'Now I even enjoy the small things like running my fingers through my hair, I am glad I had the opportunity to find myself and my own sexuality through dance.'

This photo shows how thin her hair got in times of stress, her hairline is naturally much thicker and lower than this picture suggests

When she first started pole dancing she would secure her hair with spray and pins so no-one would see her bald patches.

But two years ago she made the move to see a psychologist and got in contact with a hairdresser who could help her fix the bald patches she had made from 13 years of self-harming.

She got special crown extensions made which were fused directly on to her scalp. They stop her from being able to pull the hair from her scalp.

She says the combination of pole dancing, seeing a psychologist and the protection of the hair piece have all helped her to discover who she is as a woman.

'My life has never been my own but I am claiming it back now. From my abuser who owned me for so long. From the school bullies who hurt me and from my ex-husband.

'My need to do things to please everybody else affected who I was as a person so I am claiming it all back.'

The pole dancer now owns her own studio and is thankful for the sport, her psychologist and her hairdresser who have helped her build her own identity

Kelly doesn't feel the need to pull the hair from anywhere but her crown, so only needs the scalp extensions there.

She believes the extensions give her confidence as well as blocking her from ripping out her own hair.

'I think one day I will be able to take the extensions out.

'I do still have the urge to pull sometimes especially when I have an itch or experience another trigger but it is not often.'

The crown extensions are fused directly to Kelly's scalp by her hair dresser and are a physical barrier against further pulling

Kelly is telling her story to help other people who are suffering to seek help.

'There is always support out there but you have to be patient and kind to yourself.

'The fear of being judges is based on your own insecurities. So far I haven't found any one who has reacted with negativity to my experience.'

The mother-of-two says strangers including the police she initially told about her abuse and her foster mother who took her in when she was 15 have been some of the most supportive people in her life.

Kelly has been living with her hair pulling addiction for 15 years now but believes end is in sight.

She says she is happy with her progress since she first approached a psychologist for help and says she isn't going to let her past define her.

She wants to fight the 'single mother' stereotype and give her children the best possible beginning.
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Austria's far right is on the verge of taking the country's presidency after winning more than a third of the vote in elections on Sunday.

The Freedom Party will face an independent in next month's run-off after dumping out the nation's two main parties for the first ever time.

Their success follows a campaign that focused on the impact of the migrant crisis, which has seen around 100,000 asylum seekers arrive in Austria since last summer.

Norbert Hofer, who ran on an anti-immigrant and anti-Europe platform, won 36.4 per cent of the vote to become head of state.

He will face Alexander van der Bellen, a former Green Party figurehead, who won 20.4 per cent, according to official preliminary results.

Austrian riot police have clashed with protesters (pictured) fighting new border controls as it was revealed the country's anti-immigration far right has triumphed in the first round of presidential elections

Violent clashes broke out between riot police and mask-wearing protesters during a rally against the Austrian government's planned re-introduction of border controls at the Brenner Pass

Austria deployed 300 police with helmets and shields to the demonstration this morning. Pictures show riot police using pepper spray to disperse the crowds

Norbert Hofer, who ran on an anti-immigrant and anti-Europe platform, won 36.4 per cent of the vote to become head of state

The shock result was registered as riot police used batons and pepper spray in clashes with protesters fighting controversial new controls at the country's border with Italy.

Scuffles broke out when several hundred demonstrators tried to breach police barriers at the Brenner Pass where Austria has said it will toughen controls in response to unprecedented migrant flows into Europe.

Protesters who gathered at the border this morning wore orange life jackets in a sign of solidarity with the thousands of African and Asian migrants who have drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean, and brandished a large banner with the slogan 'People Over Borders.'

One demonstrator was arrested, prompting a sit-down protest in front of the police lines by fellow marchers demanding his release, but no injuries were reported.

Fighting back: Protesters used inflatable rubber dinghies as they pushed towards a long line of riot police at Brenner Pass on the Austria- Italy border

One demonstrator was arrested, prompting a sit-down protest in front of the police lines by fellow marchers demanding his release, but no injuries were reported

Hundreds of police were sent to the border amid fears of unrest. Austrian and Tyrolean authorities announced they will reinstate border controls along Austrian's border crossings with Italy in order to stem the influx of migrants

Austria said this month it would introduce tougher controls at the pass from June 1 at the latest. Italy says the plan breaches EU rules on the free movement of people. The EU said last week it was assessing the complaint.

The Brenner Pass is the most important Alpine crossing for heavy goods traffic and the controls, if introduced, would slow Italy's main transport link to Germany, its top trading partner.

However, the protesters on Sunday were driven by humanitarian concerns over migrants fleeing war and hunger in the Middle East and Africa, not commercial ones.

They carried symbolic, purple 'World Passports' and chanted slogans against the deportation of migrants.

A similar demonstration at the Brenner Pass on April 3 resulted in more serious clashes, in which two Austrian police officers were injured.

While the presidency is largely only a ceremonial role, the fact that neither of the main ruling parties will be battling for the post on May 22 following yesterday's election result marks a major change in Austrian politics - as well as the rising role of the far right in Europe.

Members of the centre-left Social Democrats and the conservative People's Party have filled the job since it was first put to a popular vote in 1951. The two parties have ruled the nation of 8.7 million in tandem for most of the postwar era.

The president is head of state, swears in the chancellor, has the authority to dismiss the cabinet and is commander in chief of the military.

The election outcome was 'a resounding slap in the face' for the government coalition, said Wolfgang Bachmayer, who founded the OGM market research institute.

Unrest: Police used batons and pepper spray to repel Italian marchers who were protesting against plans for tighter anti-migrant checks at the Alpine pass

The marchers wore orange life jackets in a sign of solidarity with the thousands of African and Asian migrants who have drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean, and brandished a large banner with the slogan 'People Over Borders'

Austria said this month it would introduce tougher controls at the pass from June 1 at the latest. Italy says the plan breaches EU rules on the free movement of people. The EU said last week it was assessing the complaint

His comments were echoed by political analyst Peter Filzmaier. 'Only those who are satisfied vote for a government party or its candidate,' he said.

'This time, the annoyed voted for Norbert Hofer.'

Around 70 per cent of eligible voters cast their ballots, a big turnout compared with around 50 per cent six years ago when Social Democrat Heinz Fischer, now 77, was elected for his second term. He could not run for a third term.

Peter McDonald, general secretary of co-ruling People's Party acknowledged the scale of the defeat after coming in fifth in the poll with just 11.2 per cent of the vote.

'We have experienced a landslide that should give the entire political centre food for thought,' he said.

The social democratic Chancellor Werner Faymann, whose party ranked fourth, said the outcome was a clear warning to the government to work harder and cooperate better.

The Brenner Pass is the most important Alpine crossing for heavy goods traffic and the controls, if introduced, would slow Italy's main transport link to Germany, its top trading partner

The protesters on Sunday were driven by humanitarian concerns over migrants fleeing war and hunger in the Middle East and Africa, not commercial ones

Scuffles broke out when several hundred protesters, including some leftist politicians, tried to breach police barriers at the border where Austria has said it will toughen controls in response to unprecedented migrant flows into Europe

Should Hofer get the top job, he could push to bring forward a parliamentary election due to take place in 2018 as support for his party has been growing.

Polls show the Freedom Party above 30 per cent, while the coalition parties would struggle to get a combined majority.

Showing the far right's growing confidence in Europe, Marine Le Pen, leader of France's National Front, hailed a 'beautiful result', writing on Twitter: 'Bravo to the Austrian people'.

Both the candidates that made it through to the run-off had taken aim at the government over its handling of the migrant crisis. Van der Bellen criticised the government for being too harsh in its treatment of asylum applicants, while Hofer says it has been too soft.

'It could hardly be any more dramatic,' said political consultant Thomas Hofer, adding that he thought Van der Bellen would face a difficult task to win the run-offr.

Neither Faymann nor Vice Chancellor Reinhold Mitterlehner from the People's Party said they would make any recommendation for the run-off. Voters should decide independently, they said.

About 300 riot police were due to be sent to the Brenner Pass and set up barriers amid fears of unrest at the border crossing point

There were angry scenes as police with batons, shields, helmets and pepper spray battled to disperse crowds of protesters today

Making a stand: Protesters carried symbolic, purple 'World Passports' and chanted slogans against the deportation of migrants
DeGrom was back at pitch practice and will play against the Braves Sunday

But his son was healthy enough to be discharged from hospital Monday

Mets star Jason deGrom has spoken out about the 'scary' episode with his newborn that has kept him off the pitch for the last two weeks.

His son Jaxon Anthony deGrom was hospitalized after doctors detected an 'apnea' that prevented him from breathing normally while he slept.

But the young baby - born on April 11 - was well enough to return home on Monday after all the tests came back positive, according to the New York Post.

Mets star Jason deGrom (pictured right with wife Stacey) has spoken out about the 'scary' episode with his newborn that has kept him off the pitch for the last two weeks

His son Jaxon Anthony deGrom was hospitalized after doctors detected an 'apnea' that prevented him from breathing normally while he slept. Pictured, Veronica Kelly, husband former New York City Police Commissioner and parade Grand Marshall Raymond Kelly with deGrom and wife Stacey

DeGrom told the paper that baby Jaxon had remained in a Daytona, Florida, hospital for five days after the initial breathing problems and once he went five days without a problem, he was cleared to leave.

Apnea is generally more common in babies born prematurely but deGrom's son was actually born six days late.

The New York Mets had placed pitcher deGrom on the family medical emergency list last week because of his son's health complications.

DeGrom said that it was wife Stacey's sister who noticed a change in the baby's color.

He described how his difficulty with breathing happened twice in one night after which they decided to take him in for monitoring.

The New York Mets had placed pitcher deGrom on the family medical emergency list Saturday because of his son's health complications

Mets manager Terry Collins (pictured right) told the New York Daily News: 'It's great that he is back and great that things have worked out. We're all very very happy for him.'

WHAT IS APNEA BREATHING IN INFANTS? 'Infant sleep apnea is a sleep related breathing disorder. 'It involves reductions and pauses in breathing that occur during an infant's sleep. 'Partial reductions in breathing are called 'hypopneas.' Complete pauses in breathing are called 'apneas.' 'In infancy the frequency of these events increases during the stage of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. The apneas in infant sleep apnea may be central, obstructive or mixed. Central apneas occur when your body decreases or stops its effort to breathe. This results from a problem in the brain or in the heart. Source: SleepEducation.org Advertisement

DeGrom said: 'In the beginning you are waiting for the blood work to come back and they ended up doing an MRI and some X-rays so we were waiting for all those results to come back, those were stressful.'

And added: 'The first couple of days were definitely more stressful than the last few, once we noticed it had kind of stopped and the doctors said he's healthy, we just have to figure this out.'

DeGrom is scheduled to pitch Sunday against the Braves and reported to the team's facility in Port St. Lucie, Florida for throwing sessions, which he said worked as a kind of 'stress relief' from the intensity of the last week.

Mets manager Terry Collins told the New York Daily News: 'It's great that he is back and great that things have worked out. We're all very very happy for him.
A man surprised his girlfriend by proposing to her during a spring outing in Calgary, Canada - and used a drone to capture her reaction.

In the video, Adam Michaleski can be seen adjusting the drone position and posing with his sweetheart, who is holding the couple's small child in her arms.

Adam Michaleski gives the drone camera a cheeky thumbs up before his surprise

As the couple lean in for a kiss, Michaleski can be seen reaching into his pants pocket

He then gets down on one knee to propose to his surprised sweetheart

Afterwards, they lean in for a kiss and an embrace, with their small child in between them

With Calgary in the background, Michaleski puts the ring on the finger of his fiancee

As the two love birds lean in for a kiss, Michaleski can be seen conspicuously reaching into his pocket.

Moments later, he's down on one knee, and it begins to dawn on his fiancee-to-be what the outing was really all about.

Judging from the couple's passionate kiss, and the fact that Michaleski's girlfriend accepts his ring, it can be safely assumed she said yes.
Six people accused of attempting to rig an election for controversial deputy mayor Salim Mehajer have had the case against them dropped because it took too long for charges to be made.

Charges against the six stemmed from allegations they made fake documents to help Mr Mehajer be elected to the Auburn Council in 2012.

However, because authorities did not pursue the case in court until December last year, the charges fell apart because legally they must be made within six months of the offence being committed, according to the Daily Telegraph.

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Six people accused of attempting to rig an election for controversial deputy mayor Salim Mehajer (pictured with his wife, Aysha) have had the case against them dropped because it took too long for charges to be made

The six people who could see their charges dropped are: Mr Mehajer's brother-in-law Jamal Elkheir, his childhood friend Shi Lao, Fatima Kandil, Ahmad Trad, Abhinav Nehta, and Arjun Mehta.

Mr Mehajer and his sister, Fatima, still face more than 70 charges.

It comes after it was claimed a stream of 37 'suspicious' voter enrolment forms faxed from the same number sparked the electoral fraud probe into Mr Mehajer.

The controversial local politician, who is currently suspended from his western Sydney local authority, is accused of forging documents to rig the 2012 Auburn Council ballot that got him elected.

The six people who could have their charges dropped are: Mr Mehajer's brother-in-law Jamal Elkheir (pictured), his childhood friend Shi Lao, Fatima Kandil, Ahmad Trad, Abhinav Nehta, and Arjun Mehta

A stream of 37 'suspicious' voter enrolment forms faxed from the same number sparked the police probe into controversial deputy major Salim Mehajer (pictured), it has been claimed

Mr Mehajer (pictured during his wedding to wife Aysha) is accused of forging documents to rig the 2012 Auburn Council ballot that got him elected

The faxes, which were allegedly written in the same handwriting and listed non-existent addresses, were sent on 29 March 2011 - 18 months before the local government election.

They were also sent from the same Auburn-based fax number and had a 3cm-wide light grey toner strip on each page.

In July 2012, a further 57 online enrolments were submitted in just one hour from Mr Mehajer's home and office computers, police will allege.

It has been claimed that some of the names and addresses matched the 37 sent to the office 18 months earlier.

Mehajer lives in a mansion (pictured) in Lidcombe, western Sydney, with his wife Aysha

Mr Mehajer allegedly changed his details claiming he 11 other people in a three-bedroom apartment in Auburn

The 57 forms were received on the deadline day for residents to be enrolled to vote in the September local government elections.

A further 26 application forms sent earlier that day had also come from Mr Mehajer's IP addresses, an internal review by the Australian Electoral Commission found.

Mr Mehajer, who became a public figure after his lavish wedding to wife Aysha shut down parts of the western Sydney suburb, allegedly changed his details claiming he 11 other people in a three-bedroom apartment in Auburn.

He was charged with using forged documents and using false or misleading documents last December and could face 10 years in jail.
A firefighter was burned, three police treated for smoke inhalation and 60 people evacuated from their homes as authorities battled a raging inferno that started near a Phoenix suburb late Saturday.

The five-alarm fire began around 6pm Saturday at an apartment complex under construction in Gilbert, leading to nearby neighborhoods being evacuated after embers were blown onto them.

It took more than 120 firefighters, including some from neighboring cities, to contain the blaze. While some civilians have returned to their homes, others remain displaced, NBC News said.

Inferno: One firefighter suffered minor burns and three police were treated for smoke inhalation after a fire started at a Phoenix construction site Saturday, destroying seven of eight buildings being built

Blaze: One home was also destroyed in the fire, which took more than 120 firefighters from multiple cities to contain. It is not known what caused the fire, which resulted in 60 evacuees from homes near the site

The injured firefighter only had minor burns on his hands, and the police offers were treated on the scene, Associated Press said.

Seven out of eight of the apartment buildings under construction in the complex were destroyed, NBC reported, with Gilbert Fire Rescue Gary Hildebrandt telling the station that the three-story wood frames were quickly destroyed.

'With wood frame, it's going to be exposed wood which is going to burn hotter and faster,' Hildebrandt said. 'With the winds kicking up we had a hard time containing it right away.'

Firefighters battled the blaze from outside the buildings rather than venturing inside, eventually stopping it from spreading at around 9:30pm. However, it continued to burn long after.

One residential home was also razed, azfamily.com said.

Of course, it wasn't just humans affected by the fire - speaking to ABC15, local Greg Quinn explained that he and his wife were out shopping when police 'kicked down' their apartment door during an evacuation attempt.

Learning of the fire, the couple headed to the local police station, where evacuees were being given shelter, not knowing the fate of their two dogs.

However, Quinn's fretting came to an end after he discovered that a Good Samaritan had picked up the pets and taken them to the police station too.

'When tragedy strikes, no matter where you are, people just band together,' he told ABC.

Other evacuees were given shelter at Public Safety Complex Amphitheater, the station said.

The evacuation order was lifted for most around midnight Saturday, but those from nearby Legacy Village Apartments were told they would have to stay away from their homes for the time being.

The Grand Canyon chapter of the American Red Cross told ABC that it had seven volunteers on hand to help those who were displaced by the fire.

Authorities said that other than the firefighter there were no other reports of injuries.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known.
Murderer was on bail and under a serious sex offender supervision order

The 17-year-old was stabbed 49 times by Sean Price in a Melbourne park

The review was commissioned after Masa Vukotic was brutally murdered

The Victorian government has pledged $84 million to track the 'worst of the worst' sex offenders in the state after they leave prison.

The review by retired Supreme Court justice David Harper was commissioned after 17-year-old Masa Vukotic was brutally stabbed 49 times as she walked in a Melbourne park last year.

Sean Price has been sentenced to life for Ms Vukotic murder. After the trial, it was revealed Price had raped another victim two days later despite being on bail and was under a 10-year serious sex offender supervision order.

The government on Sunday accepted the 35 recommendations put forward by the Harper review into the state's sex offender system.

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The Victorian government has pledged $84 million to tackle the flaws in the justice system following the release of a review requested after the murder of Masa Vukotic

Revising the failures of the existing supervision scheme, Mr Harper found the system was inadequate because it was only able to address the risk of sexual offending.

The system was also only able to be applied to sexual offenders - failing to consider violent offences.

The Victorian government will develop a new independent governing body, the Public Protection Authority to monitor serious offenders, reported The Guardian.

Violent offenders will be under the same restrictions as sex offenders including supervisions orders, curfews and electronic monitoring that can be for life.

The board will manage members both before entering and once exiting prison.

They will also be responsible of providing access for further assistance, such as health services.

A large part of the money, $54 million will also be used to build a 20-bed unit to house Victoria's most dangerous offenders that can't be managed in the existing transitional facility, Corella Place, or the community.

The Harper review recommends any new accommodation options should be focused on community protection rather than punishment.

Accepting the system had failed Ms Vukotic, Acting Premier James Merlino said the community needed to work towards eradicating the flaws in the system.

'We can't detain everyone who is the worst of the worst  the Harper review indicates that we need a graduated response to ensure that those who are the threat to the community are appropriately put into facilities to protect the community,'

Masa Vukotic, 17, was brutally stabbed 49 times as she took a stroll in a Melbourne park in March last year

Sean Price murdered Ms Vukotic and raped another victim two days later despite being on bail and under a 10-year serious sex offender supervision order

The facility is expected to be built alongside an existing prison by 2018.

But Opposition police spokesman Ed O'Donohue believes the facility should accommodate more criminals, reported the ABC.

'I think it is highly likely a 20-bed facility will not be sufficient,' Mr O'Donohue said.

'We'll wait and see what the Government does as far as legislative reform, but there are serious questions to ask about whether there is sufficient capacity earmarked to manage these types of offenders.'

Acting Police Minister Robin Scott says there are a number of issues that still need to be addressed, such as determining who will be considered a serious offender in need of staying in such a faciliuty.

'What's been envisaged is there will be criteria established, there will then be a review based on the individual risks that persons pose, and then there will be decisions made about the supervision or detention that's required in their cases'.

The 35 recommendations put forward by the Harper review have all been accepted and will include an independent governing board to monitor serial sex offenders

Mr Merlino said Wednesday's state budget will set aside the money needed to address the reforms.

'It is unacceptable that we had someone as dangerous as Price out in the community and free to roam. If you are a danger to the community you will not be in the community.'

'We made a promise to Masa's family that we would implement these changes.'

Since the reform Ms Vukotic's mother, Masa, has praised the changes, reported Herald Sun.

'I am glad to learn that these changes will be made so that hopefully no other family suffers the pain, the loss and the heartache that we have suffered and will continue to endure forever,' she said.

'This tragedy could have happened to anyone and we need to make sure that it doesn't happen again.'
Two homes in Melbourne's south east were ransacked by violent youths

Five men believed to be linked to the violent Sudanese Apex gang have been arrested in connection to a recent spate of aggravated burglaries and car thefts - all reportedly targeting Chinese students.

Detectives from Taskforce Tense arrested the men as part of an ongoing investigation into a series of aggravated burglaries and car thefts in Melbourne's south eastern suburbs over the weekend.

The five men, aged between 16 to 19 years old, were arrested and interviewed over two burglaries in Ormond and Brighton East early on Saturday morning.

Investigators executed warrants at neighbouring suburbs Cranbourne and Hampton Park later that night, and allegedly found a stolen BMW, Honda CRV, mobile phones and a computer.

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Five men believed to be linked to the violent Sudanese Apex gang have been arrested in connection to a recent spate of aggravated burglaries and car thefts in Melbourne's south east

Last month, a violent gang-related riot in Melbourne shut down parts of the city and terrorised the public (pictured)

According to the Herald Sun, five Chinese nationals living at the Ormond home were awoken at 6am on Saturday when six African youths broke into their townhouse.

'I thought, why did they choose our house? What's their aim,' one of those Chinese students, named Tony, said.

'One or two of them had weapons  hammers. I don't want to die, I thought about that,' he said.

'I've got no idea why they picked here. I now think Australia's not a safe place. I thought it was safe before, but not now.'

The rampaging youths allegedly demanded car keys and sped off with a stolen Honda SUV and white BMW 7 series car.

Two of the arrested men have been charged with aggravated burglary, assault, theft of motor car, handle stolen goods and possess proceeds of crime.

They remain in police custody and will appear at the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Sunday.

Five Chinese nationals living at the Ormond home were awoken at 6am on Saturday when six African youths broke into their townhouse (not pictured)

The Apex gang were filmed causing chaos on March 12 as more than 100 members clashed in Federation Square and on Swanston Street (pictured)

A third man, 17, will appear at a children's court at a later date to face the same five charges.

Two more men, 18 and 16, were released without charges.

The Herald Sun reported that Chinese nationals were being targeted by the infamous Apex gang because they are seen as unlikely to fight back when threatened by gang members.

Victoria police say the arrests are 'part of an ongoing commitment toward dealing with violent gang-related offending seen across southern metro region suburbs in recent months.'

Last month, a violent gang-related riot in Melbourne shut down parts of the city and terrorised the public.

The Apex gang were filmed causing chaos on March 12 as more than 100 members clashed in Federation Square and on Swanston Street in front of families attending a Moomba community event.
Triple police killer Harry Roberts is selling signed police memorabilia of himself on a gangster website for 100 a piece.

The criminal spent almost 48 years in prison for his part in the 1966 Shepherd's Bush murders where three officers were shot dead.

But now website gangsterstuff.com is advertising signed police mugshots and wanted posters of Roberts for 100, which have proven so popular they have sold out.

It has led to calls for the 79-year-old to be sent back to prison for 'breaching his probation' and making a profit from his crimes.

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Harry Roberts is selling signed police mugshot photos, left and right, on a gangster memorabilia website

The 79-year-old, right, was jailed in 1966 for his part in murdering three police officers in west London

Gillian Wombwell, 69, widow of murdered Detective Constable David Wombwell, told the Sunday People: 'It's a complete disregard for the hurt and damage he has caused.

'If Roberts is signing and selling these photos that's in breach of his probation. When I was asked my views about his release I was told he would not be allowed to make any kind of profit out of his story.'

The People also claim the Ministry of Justice has launched an investigation into the matter.

Roberts is the last surviving member of the gang who killed DC Wombwell, 25, Detective Sergeant Christopher Head, 30, and Constable Geoffrey Fox, 41, in west London.

Wanted posters offering a 1,000 reward for information leading to his arrest are also being sold online

Geoffrey Fox, 41, left, Detective Constable David Wombwell, 25, and Sergeant Christopher Head, 30, right, were murdered by Roberts, John Witney and John Duddy in 1966

He was jailed the same year as the killings and given a minimum of 30 years but served a further 18.

In 2009, he was reportedly refused parole after threatening to kill a family he had worked for after they put a complaint in about him.

He was eventually released in 2014 and sent to live alongside unwitting elderly people.

Since then he has been spotted celebrating passing his driving test last year and laughing and joking on the streets of Peterbrough.

The website describes itself as a 'fun and informative point of reference' for gangland memorabilia enthusiasts, also offering supposedly authentic items belonging to the Kray twins and 'Mad' Frankie Fraser among others.

On the photos, the website says: 'This black & white 10 x 8 photo of Harry 'The Cop Killer' Roberts is VERY rare due to the fact he only signed a handful of photos because of restrictions placed upon him by the parole board.'

Mrs Wombwell added she was 'not surprised' Roberts was signing memorabilia because she claimed he was trying to 'maintain his celebrity' and 'revels in his infamy'.

She said 'he should never have been released' because her family are 'still blighted' by his crimes for which she feels he has shown 'no remorse'.

Police officers pictured conducting investigations on the car the officers were in when they were shot dead

The murder weapon used by Roberts to shoot DS Head and DC Wombwell, which is now on display at the Scotland Yard museum

People who have been jailed for life are subject to a 'life licence' upon their release which remains in place indefinitely.

The licence enables them to be recalled to prison at any time should it be 'considered necessary to protect the public', according to the MoJ.

Harry Fletcher, criminal justice expert and former head of the Probation Service, said the matter should be considered as a breach of parole.

He told the People: 'It is strictly forbidden for a lifer or someone who is on licence to make financial gain which is directly linked or related to their crime.'

Roberts carried out the killings with John Duddy and John Witney, who were also jailed for a minimum of 30 years.

Witney was released after 25 years but was murdered in 1999 by his heroin addict flatmate, while Duddy died in prison in 1981 aged 52.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: 'We are urgently investigating these images and will take the appropriate action if any wrongdoing is discovered.

'Offenders on licence are subject to strict conditions and anyone who fails to comply with these can be punished.'

But Darren Lovell, who runs the website, said Roberts was not making any profit from the sale of the photos.

He said: 'I would very definitely like to go on record as saying Harry Roberts did NOT in any way profit from the sale of this photo.

'I obtained one signed photo from Harry Roberts from a mutual friend who arranged for a handful of copies to be signed and given out to myself and a few other true crime collectors for our personal collections - they were given out as gifts to a chosen few and Harry did not in anyway benefit financially.

'As I understand it, Harry Roberts was not keen to do this but agreed when it was decided that some of us would make a donation to a charity fund that I was promoting at the time in aid of The Make A Wish Foundation which went on to raise nearly 2,000.

'As a collector I am always swapping and updating my collection and later on the photo became surplus to my requirements so I and I alone decided to list it for sale on the website for my own personal gain.
Lynda Bellingham's widower has bought an eight-bedroom mansion for 605,000 after reportedly evicting her two sons from the family flat.

Michael Pattemore, 61, bought the Grade II listed Manse Manor Hall at Crewkerne, Somerset, in December 2015, just a year after the Loose Women star died of colon cancer.

But her sons from a previous marriage, Robbie and Michael Peluso, say their stepfather 'evicted them' from their family home. They claim he sent them a text message while on holiday telling them to leave the North London flat he and Lynda bought for 1.1million in 2008.

Lynda Bellingham's widower Michael Pattemore has bought an eight-bedroom mansion for 605,000 after reportedly evicting her two sons from the family flat

The property developer has faced an online backlash ever since claims surfaced that he had privately disowned the sons of Oxo mum Lynda, despite telling her he would look after them.

The sons also claim Pattemore, Lynda's third husband, refused to give them a copy of her will and say they have each received just 750 in inheritance since she died - while the widower has spent thousands.

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.

Michael Pattemore, 61, bought the Grade II listed Manse Manor Hall at Crewkerne, Somerset, (pictured) in December 2015, just a year after the Loose Women star died of colon cancer

Michael (left) and Robbie (right) claim Pattemore also refused to give them a copy of her will and say they have each received just 750 in inheritance since she died - while the widower has spent thousands

In one selfie he sips a glass of wine in front of Ayers Rock in Australia.

Lynda's son Robbie, 27, a guest relations manager at a London hotel, told The Mirror: 'He said Id have to move out as hed decided to move to Somerset and wanted to rent out the flat.

'I dont think being asked to leave my home less than a year after my mum had died constitutes looking after her boys.'

A source close to the family told the paper: 'Lynda told Michael he should look after Robbie and Michael. Now theyre complaining he hasnt honoured his promise.

'Meanwhile hes bought an eight-bedroom house and been on all these holidays. I wonder what Lyndas sons will think about this. It seems to be a big contrast between his lifestyle and theirs.'

Michael, a 32-year-old actor, previously told the Mail on Sunday: He sat me down and instead of giving it [the will] to me, he read it.

'He said, This sum is to be split between you and Robbie, and another sum is to be split between you, Robbie, Bradley and Stacey, who are his children.

Life of luxury: Snapping selfies in front of famous landmarks, this is Lynda Bellingham's widower accused by her sons of splurging their mother's estate on holidays. Michael Pattemore is seen at Ayers Rock in Australia

On the beach: Following Lynda's death aged 66 in October 2014, her sons assumed that, in time, Pattemore would come to them with a copy of her will. But months passed before he finally agreed to share it

Michael Pattemore has posted pictures of his travels on Lynda Bellingham's Twitter account since her death

Sunning himself: Another one of the photos shows property developer Pattemore at the Great Wall of China

'But he added, Everythings been left to me, so it will go to you when I decide. I was sitting there crying, thinking, Oh God, no.

Robbie said: When he read it to me later, he actually chuckled and tried to make a joke, saying, So youd better not do anything to annoy me.

'He obviously realised how awkward it was that hed effectively said he now had control over everything my mother had worked for her entire life.'

Michael said: Within a few months of Mums death, hed been to Dubai three times, to Peru, to Canada to see where Mum was born and on a round-the-world trip for eight weeks.

'He also went to Dublin for a hair transplant and he bought himself a brand-new Chevrolet Corvette, despite already driving a brand-new Range Rover my mum had bought him.

He hardly made a penny the entire time he was with my mother  it was all hers.

We started to wonder if he was rubbing our faces in it.'

Pattemore (front left), son Robert (front right) and Lynda's stepson Bradley (second from left) carry her coffin

Within months of Lynda's death Pattemore had been to Dubai three times, as well as Peru, Canada and on a round-the-world trip for eight weeks

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.

MailOnline has contacted him for comment.
Australia's most prolific mass murderer has seriously assaulted four people in prison in the past 18 months including striking a member of staff over the head, official documents reveal.

Martin Bryant, who is currently serving 35 life terms at Risdon Prison in Hobart, attacked three government employees in 2014, leaving other staff 'very concerned about their safety'.

Following the assaults, authorities launched an investigation into Bryant's 'aggression,' and documents revealed his 'psychiatric medication did not appear to be maintaining [his] behaviour,' The Daily Telegraph reported.

Australia's most prolific mass murderer Martin Bryant has seriously assaulted four people in prison in the past 18 months including striking a member of staff over the head

Martin Bryant, who is currently serving 35 life terms at Risdon Prison (pictured) in Hobart, attacked three government employees in 2014

After the four assaults, Tasmania's Justice Apartment provided the government with a briefing to discuss in parliament.

'Tasmania Prison Service staff have been and to be cautious in their interactions with him,' it said.

In September it was revealed Bryant is permitted to spend several hours outside his cell each day where he is sometimes seen trying to kick an AFL ball, The Herald Sun reported.

It was also reported that Bryant spends most of his time under heavy sedation and offered chocolate to other inmates for sexual favours.

Following the assaults, authorities launched an investigation into Bryant's 'aggression,' and documents revealed his 'psychiatric medication did not appear to be maintaining [his] behaviour'

After the four assaults, Tasmania's Justice Apartment provided the government with a briefing to discuss in parliament

In September it was revealed Bryant (centre) is permitted to spend several hours outside his cell each day where he is sometimes seen trying to kick an AFL ball

The Port Arthur massacre, in which 35 people died, is the deadliest mass killing in Australia's history.

On April 28 1996 Martin Bryant, then aged 28, opened fire in the cafe, gift shop and car park. It took Bryant just 15 seconds to kill 12 people and wound 10 more in the cafe.

He then left Port Arthur, killing indiscriminately as he went. He went to a nearby B&B which his father had once tried to buy, and killed several more people there.

He was captured by police when he set the house on fire and ran out. Bryant is now serving 35 life sentences, plus an additional 1,035 years in jail.

The Port Arthur massacre, in which 35 people died, is the deadliest mass killing in Australia's history
A man, 29, has allegedly been on a 48-hour crime spree to steal a car before he allegedly took an angle grinder to an ATM and stole $7,000 worth of cigarettes.

Shannon Dunford has been charged after the Hamlyn Heights man went on a crime spree that spread across 200 kilometres from Corio to Warrnambool in the south-west coast of Victoria.

The 29-year-old is accused of stealing an orange Holden Monaro this week, and of taking an angle grinder to an ATM at the Curlewis shopping centre, east of Geelong, The Advertiser reports.

Shannon Dunford, 29, has been charged following an alleged 48-hour crime spree. He is accused of stealing an orange Holden Monaro, taking an angle grinder to an ATM, and stealing $7,000 worth of cigarettes from Caltex service station in Leopold (pictured)

He then allegedly stole $7,000 worth of cigarettes from a Leopold Caltex service station and targeted properties nearby on the Bellarine peninsula.

Mr Dunford did not apply for bail when he appeared at Geelong Magistrates Court on Friday.

He was remanded in custody to reappear on May 3.
Police say Wagner, who graduated from the school last year, picked his victims at random

The female student has been released while the male student has been undergoing surgery for injuries that aren't life-threatening

Wagner and the two students were taken to hospital, where he died

A teenage gunman was shot dead by police officers after he opened fire with a high-powered rifle outside a high school prom, injuring a couple of students, authorities said.

Jakob E. Wagner, 18, arrived at Antigo High School in Antigo, Wisconsin, at around 11pm on Saturday night and started firing at the pair, a male and a female, at the school's entrance as they left the building.

Antigo Police Chief Eric Roller said several police officers were at the scene providing security for the event and quickly stopped the threat by shooting the suspect.

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Jakob E. Wagner (pictured) arrived at Antigo High School in Wisconsin around 11pm on Saturday night and opened fire on two students before he was shot dead by police

The injured students, who were both shot in the leg, and Wagner were taken to hospital, where the female was treated for a gunshot wound and later released.

The male student was undergoing surgery for injuries that weren't life-threatening.

Langlade County Coroner Larry Shadick said Wagner died shortly after 1am on Sunday morning in the intensive care unit at a Wausau hospital.

School officials do not think Wagner targeted his victims, but believe that he had been planning to enter the prom and start shooting randomly.

Interim district administrator Donald Childs said Wagner did not graduate with his class from Antigo High School last year and was continuing to work on his diploma.

But a friend of the 18-year-old described him as a 'good kid' who loved video games, hanging out with friends and music.

Wagner (left) died in hospital after being shot by police at the scene. He recently posted a picture of this Airsoft rifle on his Instagram page

Dakotta Mills said he had known Wagner since sixth grade and considered him a foster brother. He says Wagner was raised by his mother and grandparents.

Mills says Wagner was interested in guns and wanted to become a hunter, and had gone through a hunter safety course a few years ago. But he wasn't sure Wagner could afford a gun.

Dylan Dewey said Wagner had been dating a girl at the school but that she had broken up with him last month.

Dewey described Wagner as an 'all-around good guy' and said he generally seemed happy.

But on Saturday evening, Wagner arrived at the school armed with the rifle and shot two students in the leg before he was gunned down by the officer.

'Two students who were attending prom festivities were shot as they exited the building,' Roller said.

'City of Antigo officers who were patrolling the parking area heard shots fired, and one of those officers was able to fire upon the shooter stopping the threat to additional attendees.'

He added: 'The officer's immediate response prevented further injuries and possible casualties.'

The officer in question has been placed on administrative leave, which is standard protocol, as the Division of Criminal Investigates whether the use of force was justified, WSAW reports.

Police put the prom on lockdown until a search of the area could be completed  and later everyone at the dance was escorted from the school and was safe.

Antigo Police Chief Eric Roller said several police officers were at the scene providing security for the event and quickly stopped the threat

Wagner died shortly after 1am Sunday morning in the intensive care unit at a Wausau hospital

After an initial investigation, police believe Wagner was the lone shooter and officers are conducting a search of his home seeking information, Roller said.

Sonia Reed, whose son Matthew attended the prom, said that she had been on the school's campus earlier on Saturday evening for a pre-prom procession.

She estimated that there were more than 100 students at the prom.

'I didn't see anything suspicious,' she told WSAW. 'I didn't feel any bad vibes. It seemed like it was going to be a normal prom.

She found out about the shooting when another mother called her to tell her that police were at the school and had a person 'down'.

The Unified School District of Antigo said Wagner had approached the school with a high-powered rifle and a large ammunition clip.

In a statement, the district said in a statement that 'quick actions' taken by police and district staff to secure the building 'prevented what might have otherwise been a disaster of unimaginable proportions, and we are extremely grateful for their well-rehearsed response.'

Police already were stationed to patrol the parking lot at the high school dance in Antigo, a community of about 8,000 people about 150 miles north of Milwaukee.

The school plans to have counselors available when classes resume Monday.
Motorists are being advised to avoid cheap car washes after they have been exposed as hives of modern-day slavery.

A combination of a lack of protective gear, poorly made equipment and make-do accommodation, all point towards signs of exploitation, said the former head of the Metropolitan police trafficking unit, Kevin Hyland.

And raids on car washes across the country have confirmed both human trafficking and servitude.

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Motorists are being advised to avoid cheap car washes across Britain after they have been exposed as the home of modern-day slavery (file photo)

Speaking to The Sunday Times, he said: 'We are encountering modern-day slavery like this in our day-to-day life and it is in plain sight.

'If it is clear that it is not right, then of course we should boycott it. I also think we should go one step further and report it to the authorities.

'The workers may be in an open environment but are often in debt or feel vulnerable and do not feel free to leave. They get stuck somewhere and don't know how to get out of it.'

Mr Hyland added that while this doesn't mean that all car washes are illegitimate, more robust responses must be put in place to handle modern-day slavery.

New statistics show that human trafficking and people-smuggling continue to be thriving businesses.

Last October, 29 car washes were raided in Manchester and others in Devon, Hampshire, Essex and south Wales were also investigated.

The news comes as Al Jazeera prepare to expose the horrific conditions in a ground-breaking report.

Alongside discovering car wash workers in Kent sleeping together on site in cramped conditions, Al Jazeera also filmed a woman on the north central coast of Vietnam offering to smuggle people to London for $32,000 (22,000).

And the route was intricately planned using pick up points from Russia to France.

However, smuggled immigrants face shocking conditions from the moment they begin travelling - from being doused in petrol so as not to be detected by sniffer dogs, to having to wear large nappies because of their hours spent in hiding.

New statistics show that human trafficking and people-smuggling continues to be a thriving business (file photo)

And some aren't even being welcomed into legal trades.

For, Al Jazeera revealed that a number of Vietnamese immigrants are recruited to work on makeshift cannabis plantations, that are run from people's homes.

One of these workers, who is currently based in East London, told Al Jazeera they felt like they were staying 'in a prison.'

However, after being raided last week, police are now struggling to decide whether he should be treated as a criminal or a victim of slavery.
A man had half his ear bitten off by a 'crazed cannibal', who told him that his favourite food was rare steak.

Chad Feeney, 25, was staying at a YMCA hostel in Birmingham when he was awoken in the early hours of the morning by a stranger who had just returned from a night out.

But after getting up and chatting to the man in the common room, Mr Feeney soon fell victim to a gruesome attack.

Chad Feeney, 25, was staying at a YMCA hostel in Birmingham when he was awoken in the early hours of the morning by a stranger who had just returned from a night out.

Mr Feeney, who is an engine assembler, said: 'We got onto the subject of food. I mentioned I loved pizza and he said he loved a rare steak.

'Then before I knew what was happened he jumped on top of me and started repeatedly punching me in the face.

'I tried to fight back but he was bigger than me. The I felt him bite my right ear, it sounded like someone was eating lettuce.

'There was a massive chomp and then there was blood everywhere. He had blood all over his mouth and was laughing manically to himself.'

Mr Feeney claims he was unable to find the missing part of his ear, and fears the man may have eaten it.

He said: 'He was like a crazed cannibal, he reminds me of Hannibal Lecter.

'They should lock him up and throw away the key. He was a complete lunatic.'

Mr Feeney had only moved into the YMCA hostel in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham a week before the attack after falling on hard times.

It was only a temporary measure for him while he found permanent accommodation nearer to his work at the BMW factory.

Following the alleged attack, last Saturday, the police were called and the man was evicted from the hostel.

After getting up and chatting to the man in the common room, Mr Feeney soon fell victim to a gruesome attack

Mr Feeney claims he was unable to find the missing part of his ear, and fears the man may have eaten it

Mr Feeney was taken to Good Hope hospital in Birmingham where he needed nine stitches to his ear, before being transferred to a specialist plastic surgery unit at the city's Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

He said: 'He bit through the cartilage and some was showing so they had to remove more cartilage to take it back under the skin.

'I had to have nine stitches and now I'm missing half an ear.

'It's knocked my confidence massively. At the time I was drunk and it didn't hurt but long term I've got a permanent disfigurement.'

Mr Feeney's biggest fear is that the man will return for a second helping.

He added: 'This guy's a complete and utter maniac. He's out there roaming the streets probably biting other people's ears off.

Mr Feeney had only moved into the YMCA hostel in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham a week before the attack after falling on hard times

'I don't think any of us can feel safe until he's locked away. The police should find him and put him in prison before there's another attack.

'I'm scared he's going back for a second course. I'm not staying in this hostel any more, it's not safe.'

Mr Feeney also fears that the man could attack his partner Keeley Benton, 22, a barmaid.

A spokesman for West Midlands police said: 'Police were called to the YMCA in Sutton Coldfield at around 7.20am last Friday to a report of an assault.

'A 25-year-old man was taken to hospital with a serious injury to his ear where he had to undergo surgery.

'Officers are carrying out enquiries to establish what happened. Anyone with information is asked to call 101.'
It's one of the biggest television cliffhangers since John Ross 'JR' Ewing was shot all those years ago on Dallas.

Millions of viewers are less than a few hours away from finally learning whether Jon Snow is really dead whenGame of Thrones returns to our screens at 9pm (ET) on HBO.

The series is no stranger to killing off its leads, with Sean Bean's Ned Stark beheaded at the end of the very first season.

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Jon Snow, pictured, played by Kit Harrington, was left for dead at the end of Game of Thrones series five, and whether he lives or not is a huge cliffhanger

Emilia Clarke's Daenerys Targaryen, pictured, is another character whose fate is left up in the air after she was last seen alone surrounded by an army of barbarians

But a year ago fans were stunned when Kit Harrington's character was betrayed by his allies and repeatedly stabbed and left for dead, bleeding into the snow as the last episode faded to black.

Since then the actor, who is dating show love interest Rose Leslie in real life, has been spotted on the set over the course of filming for the sixth season, although he claims he has been 'playing a corpse'.

The official line from everyone behind the HBO show is that Snow is dead, but that has not stopped rumors he will be revived.

In the fantasy show, Snow is the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, an ancient organisation that mans 'The wall' - a giant barrier of ice protecting the land of Westeros from the evil 'White Walkers' and their army of zombies.

Carice van Houten's red priestess Melisandre is rumored to be the one to bring Jon Snow back to life

Fans are also eagerly awaiting the return of alcoholic dwarf Tyrion Lannister, played by Peter Dinklage, who provides much of the comic relief and also several plot twists

It is one of the biggest supernatural elements of the show, which also focuses on the medieval-style political intrigue around the Westeros throne and disputes between the major houses, such as the Starks and Lannisters.

Conspiracy theories have been shared across the internet as to how Snow would return, such as being resurrected by a magical priestess in a similar vein to how characters have been brought back from the dead before.

And the first episode is called The Red Woman, after said priestess Melisandre, who possesses strange powers thanks to her devotion to a mystical 'Lord of Light'.

Whether or not Snow returns has been guarded with almost military-like fervor, with visitors to the show's Northern Ireland set made to sign non-disclosure forms according to The Sunday Times.

Game of Thrones has not been afraid to kill off big names before, with hero Ned Stark and villain Tywin Lannister, played by Sean Bean, left, and Charles Dance, right, both surprise deaths

Mad King Joffrey, played by Jack Gleeson, pictured, was also a shock departure after he was poisoned at his wedding

But the biggest surprise was the 'Red Wedding', where King Robb Stark (Richard Madden, right) and his mother Catelyn (Michelle Fairley, centre) were tricked by their allies and murdered

Creators DB Weiss and David Benioff have both drilled out the line that 'dead is dead'.

The show is based on the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin, and for the first time the television series is moving past the plot of the books, with Martin yet to finish the sixth of a planned seven books.

The fifth book also ends with Snow being stabbed, meaning no one in the public knows what will happen next.

But when Martin was questioned on his character's future he suggested Snow may come back to life after saying 'death is not necessarily permanent'.

A giveaway could be Harrington's hair, which remains long and curly like his television counterpart's barnet.

Fans will also be keen to see the return of Emilia Clarke's Daenerys Targaryen, a queen with three dragons at her side who was last seen alone and surrounded by an army of barbarians.

Other characters viewers can't wait to see again include Peter Dinklage's alcoholic and witty dwarf Tyrion Lannister, whose constant schemes and power plays have been responsible for some of the show's biggest plot twists.

But if Snow really is dead he will be added to a long list of fan favourites to kick the bucket, with Charles Dance's villainous Tywin Lannister and Jack Gleeson's mad tyrant King Joffrey two of the most recent shock departures.

Larry Hagman, left with co-star Priscilla Presley, was at the centre of massive public interest in 1980 when his character JR Ewing was shot on hit soap Dallas

Heroes aren't safe either, as was seen in perhaps the most shocking moment of the series when King Robb Stark and his mother Catelyn, played by Richard Madden and Michelle Fairley, were slaughtered at the 'Red Wedding' along with almost his entire army, after being tricked by one of his allies.

'Who shot JR' was a massive cliffhanger in 1980 when the most devious of the Ewing family was gunned down by an unknown assailant.

The mystery of his attacker dominated both sides of the Atlantic, with the Queen Mother even said to be perplexed.

Larry Hagman, who played JR, was offered 100,000 while on holiday in Britain to reveal the shooter's identity, but claimed none of the cast knew.

It was eventually revealed to be the character's sister-in-law Kristin Shepard, although Ewing survived and returned to his nefarious schemes.
The MOD insists the safety of personnel is an 'absolute priority'

said this should be changed in 'gross neglect' cases

The Ministry of Defence should face corporate manslaughter charges if it is found responsible for the deaths of soldiers in training, MPs insisted today.

The powerful Commons Defence Committee has recommended ending legal protection offered to service chiefs against prosecutions over Armed Forces personnel killed during exercises.

'This must change,' the committee said. 'The lives of serving personnel are worth no less than those of civilians and those responsible for their deaths must be equally liable under the law.'

The Ministry of Defence should lose its protection from corporate manslaughter charges relating to deaths in training, a committee of MPs warned today. Pictured: 1st Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment training in Canada

The committee found that since the start of 2000, 135 personnel have died while on training and exercises - 89 from the Army, 24 from the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, and 22 from the RAF.

In 11 cases, the Health and Safety Executive issued a Crown Censure - the highest penalty it can impose on the MoD.

The committee said the Government should now amend the Corporate Manslaughter and Homicide Act 2007 so the MoD can be prosecuted in such cases where there has been a Crown Censure.

The blanket exemption covering the activities of Special Forces should also be lifted where there has been 'gross neglect', it said.

'We believe this strikes the correct balance between ensuring the armed forces are able to train effectively but at the same time be corporately accountable for failings in the supervision of training, exercises and selection events,' it said.

The report comes after an inquest last year into the deaths of three reservists during an SAS selection exercise in the Brecon Beacons found there had been a 'catalogue of very serious mistakes'.

Among the committee's findings is a recommendation that the 'different circumstances' of reservists compared to full-time regular personnel should taken into account in the design and delivery of military training.

The committee stressed that the MoD's exemption from corporate manslaughter should continue to apply to military operations.

However it said that they needed to do more to reduce the numbers of personnel killed and seriously injured during training.

Since 2000, the Health and Safety Executive has imposed a 'Crown censure' on the MOD 11 times. Pictured: 11 Light Brigade training on Salisbury Plain

The committee noted there had been no civilian prosecutions against individuals in relation to training and exercises, while since the establishment of the Service Prosecuting Authority in 2010, it had brought just seven cases.

It warned there was a public perception that the forces did not take their duty of care responsibilities seriously enough and it called on the MoD to examine whether Service Law was 'fit for purpose' in holding individuals to account.

'While we have found no systemic failings, the MoD has not always got the correct balance between adequate training and reducing risk, resulting in life-changing injuries and deaths in training and selection events,' it said.

'We believe the MoD and the armed forces take their 'duty of care' responsibilities seriously. However, some members of the public do not.

'The MoD must take appropriate action to change this perception and reassure the public. Not to do so will continue to undermine confidence in the armed forces.'

Madeleine Moon, the chairman of the sub-committee which carried out the inquiry, said: 'While it is important that the MoD and the armed services are accountable for all accidents and fatalities it is equally important that they are publicly seen to be so.

'The families and friends of those who have died whilst on training and selection events need to have confidence that that lessons have been learned for the future.'

An MoD spokesman said: 'The safety of our personnel is an absolute priority and, while each death is tragic, deaths in training are rare.

'We are grateful for the committee's acknowledgement of how seriously we take the risks associated with training and that we are moving in the right direction.

'We acknowledge that more needs to be done, which is why we set up the Defence Safety Authority last year. We will now carefully consider this report and respond in due course.'
George Clooney has attended a remembrance service at the Armenian Genocide memorial in Yerevan, a century on from the event.

Clooney joined the president of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan in the solemn ceremony a day after the actor called for the events of 1915 to be recognised internationally as genocide.

Armenians say the Ottoman Empire killed 1.5million of its people, beginning on April 24, 1915.

Modern-day Turkey strongly disputes claims that the events were a genocide, and the figures stated.

George Clooney has attended a remembrance service at the Armenian Genocide memorial in Yerevan, a century on from the event

Clooney joined the president of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan in the solemn ceremony a day after the actor called for the events of 1915 to be recognised internationally as genocide

Clooney, who is visiting Armenia for the first time, will later hand out a 700,000 award as part of a humanitarian event held to recognise those who put themselves at risk to save the lives of others

Clooney, who is visiting Armenia for the first time, will later hand out a 700,000 award as part of a humanitarian event held to recognise those who put themselves at risk to save the lives of others.

During the 20-minute ceremony Clooney took part in a procession with Armenian politicians and military, before laying a flower at the memorial and soberly standing alongside Mr Sargsyan.

Flanked by two security guards, Clooney, dressed in a dark suit and black tie, wore the Armenian remembrance brooch - a purple forget-me-not flower - on his jacket.

Following the service he spoke with the four nominees for a humanitarian award who are being recognised for their work in risking their lives to save others.

On Sunday evening one of the nominees will be awarded the inaugural Aurora Prize by Clooney, that includes a grant as well as the opportunity to nominate an organisation - that has inspired the winner - for a 700,000 award.

During the 20-minute ceremony Clooney took part in a procession with Armenian politicians and military, before laying a flower at the memorial and soberly standing alongside Mr Sargsyan

Flanked by two security guards, Clooney, dressed in a dark suit and black tie, wore the Armenian remembrance brooch - a purple forget-me-not flower - on his jacket

During his visit to the country's capital, the Oscar-winning actor called for the events of 1915 to be recognised internationally as genocide.

He said: 'When someone is trying to annihilate a whole human race, culture, people, that's genocide, there can be no other version of it.'

Just a handful of countries officially recognise the Armenian genocide, including France and Russia. At the time Britain condemned the actions of the Ottoman Empire, but has never officially recognised the event as a genocide.

On Saturday night thousands of demonstrators demanding recognition from Turkey and the international community marched to the memorial in Yerevan.

During his visit to the country's capital, the Oscar-winning actor called for the events of 1915 to be recognised internationally as genocide

Just a handful of countries officially recognise the Armenian genocide, including France and Russia

Clooney has long taken an interest in humanitarian issues and co-founded the international relief charity Not On Our Watch with fellow Hollywood stars Matt Damon and Brad Pitt

A small crowd was seen burning Turkish and Azerbaijani flags.

Armenia has a fraught relationship with neighbours Azerbaijan over the conflicted Nagorno-Karabakh region, where around 75 soldiers were killed earlier this month after an outbreak of fighting.

Clooney also spoke out about how he combats the 'suffocation' caused by his fame to focus the attention on those 'who couldn't get any cameras on them'.

He added that he felt 'lucky' to be born in the United States and 'not born as a young woman who was taken by Boko Haram.'

Clooney has long taken an interest in humanitarian issues and co-founded the international relief charity Not On Our Watch with fellow Hollywood stars Matt Damon and Brad Pitt.

Clooney also spoke out about how he combats the 'suffocation' caused by his fame to focus the attention on those 'who couldn't get any cameras on them'
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews father, Bob, has died after a brave and painful battle with cancer.

Mr Andrews released a statement on Sunday via social media saying although his father died too soon he leaves many lives enriched by his hard work and generous spirit.'

Bob Andrews was diagnosed with cancer in 2014, the same year his son lead Labor to a state election victory.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews' (right) father, Bob (left), has died after a brave and painful battle with cancer.

During the election campaign the now premier visited his family cattle farm in Wangaratta, north of Melbourne with the media after telling of his fathers cancer diagnosis.

Daniel Andrews thanked friends, colleagues and complete strangers who've offered encouragement and support during his fathers 20-month battle with the illness.

On behalf of my family I want to thank the many healthcare professionals who have cared so wonderfully for Bob, Daniel Andrews wrote.

We are indebted to the staff at Wangaratta, St Vincent's, The Royal Melbourne and Ambulance Victoria for their love, care and compassion.

Bob Andrews died at the age of 66.
A British defence ministers today accused Barack Obama of 'woeful ignorance' after he claimed Britain should stay in the EU because it boosts security.

Armed Forces Minister Penny Mordaunt, a Vote Leave spokeswoman, said EU judges and the free movement rules make national security harder to maintain.

The US President flew out of Britain today after a three day visit in which he hammered away at a call for Britons to back EU membership at the referendum on June 23.

Mr Obama infuriated Brexit campaigners by claiming Britain would be at the 'back of the queue' for a bilateral trade deal with the US, insisting Britain's influence in the world was 'magnified' by EU membership.

Barack Obama waved farewell from the door of Air Force One at Standsted Airport today, ending what is expected to be his final visit to Britain as President

Mr Obama earlier boarded Marine One at Winfield House, the US Ambassador's Residence, as he prepared to depart Britain today. The President has been blasted for 'woeful ignorance' after using the trip to intervene on Brexit

But Ms Mordaunt, who worked for former president George W Bush before entering Parliament, told the Telegraph Mr Obama was wrong.

She said: 'Unfortunately this opinion betrays a woeful ignorance of the practical reality of the EU's impact on our security, and the interests of the UK and the US.

Defence Minister Penny Mordaunt accused Obama of ignoring dangers from EU judges and free movement

'Obama warned on Friday that divisions in Europe will weaken Nato, but often those divisions are caused by the EU itself.

'Obama confuses collective action and defence through Nato with the integration-at all-costs-and-damn-the- consequences ideology that too often motivates the EU.'

Ms Mordaunt claimed free movement created 'alarming weaknesses' in security because ISIS terrorists were able to travel 'unimpeded' across the Schengen zone.

And she claimed the European Court of Justice has 'repeatedly' undermined the ability of Britain and America to share intelligence.

The Minister urged President Obama to ask the CIA to 'explain to him' why a new EU intelligence agency will help.

In a BBC interview today before he flew on to Germany, Mr Obama repeated his advice to Britain to stay in the EU.

But he admitted the intelligence and security relationship between Britain and America would survive a Brexit vote.

Following his talks in London, he said: 'Weve been focusing on lots of things, including intelligence sharing, given the very real threat from terrorist groups around the world.

'They wouldnt be affected in the sense that our intelligence teams work extremely close, our militaries work extremely closely together.'

Mr Obama marked the end of his trip with a BBC interview where he admitted the intelligence and security relationship between Britain and America would survive a Brexit vote

Mr Obama left Marine One after arriving at Stansted Airport to bid farewell to Britain at the end of what is expected to be his final visit as President

Mr Obama met members of the US Air Force at Stansted before boarding Air Force One and flying out of London to Germany

But the President warned: 'Where it would have an impact is that we also have to make sure that Continental Europe is safe in order to keep us safe, and the fact that the UK is involved in conversations about how we upgrade information sharing in Continental Europe.

'The influence that it has in debates in Europe around how do we approach intelligence, how do we approach law enforcement, how do we break down some of the silos that prevent us from preventing the kinds of horrific crimes that weve seen in Brussels and Paris?

'I think we will together be less effective if were not in those forums, than we are currently, where weve got this great ally who engages in unmatched cooperation with us in the room negotiating.'

Air Force One was prepared on the tarmac at Stansted ready for Mr Obama's departure, with the President due to fly on to Germany as part of his farewell tour
British supporters of a Portuguese policeman have paid 50,000 to help him fight his libel suit against Madeleine McCann's parents, it has emerged.

Former police chief Goncalo Amaral had previously been ordered to pay Kate and Gerry McCann 395,000 in damages in April last year after accusing them of lying about their daughter's abduction.

But that libel conviction has been overturned by a court in Portugal after Amaral's appeal was upheld.

Former Portuguese police chief Goncalo Amaral (pictured) won his appeal over a court libel loss against Madeleine McCann's parents and won't have to pay them 500,000 in damages

Madeleine McCann's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, speak to the media outside court in in Lisbon during their libel action against Amaral in July 2014. Their libel victory has now been overturned on appeal

A GoFundMe page was set up to help pay for the police inspector's appeal - but the page was later taken over by an anti-McCann 'fan club', according to Antonella Lazzeri of the Sun on Sunday.

Pro-Amaral supporters boosted the fund to 52,000 before the fund was shut, the newspaper reports.

Last week the parents' Lisbon lawyer Isabel Duarte said she intended to fight the appeal decision at the Supreme Court, but had not yet assembled her legal arguments.

Amaral was part of the police investigation into Madeleine's disappearance from a vacation home in Portugal's Algarve region in May 2007, days before her 4th birthday. In 2008 he published his book about the case called 'The Truth of the Lie.'

The McCanns announced after the original libel verdict that they would plough 'every penny' of the payout into the hunt for their daughter Madeleine (pictured), who was three when she vanished on May 3, 2007

Hunt: British officers travelled to the Algarve in 2014 to scour a patch of land near Praia da Luz as part of their investigation into the toddler's disappearance from a holiday apartment seven years earlier

The McCanns sought 1.2 million euros in damages from Amaral, saying they were 'totally destroyed' and 'depressed' by Amaral's allegations and felt 'ashamed' that they might appear to have been to blame for their daughter's disappearance.

The couple, who denied the policeman's claims, had vowed to spend the pay out on the search for Madeleine.
North Korea claims it has successfully test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine and warned of its growing ability to cut down its enemies with a 'dagger of destruction.'

Leader Kim Jong-Un hailed the submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test as an 'eye-opening success', and claimed Pyongyang has the ability to strike Seoul and the US whenever it pleases.

Hours before the announcement South Korean military officials said the North fired what appeared to be a ballistic missile from a submarine off its eastern coast.

Leader Kim Jong-Un hailed the submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test as an 'eye-opening success', and claimed Pyongyang has the ability to strike Seoul and the US whenever

North Korea claims it has successfully test-fired this ballistic missile from a submarine and warned of its growing ability to cut down its enemies with a 'dagger of destruction'

The South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the projectile traveled about 19 miles on Saturday evening.

That's a much shorter than the typical distance of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, which can fly at least 186 miles.

A successful test from a submarine would be a worrying development because mastering the ability to fire missiles from submerged vessels would make it harder for outsiders to detect what North Korea is doing before it launches - giving it the potential to surprise its enemies.

While South Korean experts say it is unlikely that North Korea currently possesses an operational submarine that can fire multiple missiles, they acknowledge that the North is making progress on such technology.

A spokesman for the South Korean defence ministry said: 'North Korea launched a projectile which was believed to be a submarine-launched ballistic missile around 6:30 pm (0930 GMT) in the East Sea (Sea of Japan) near the northeastern port of Sinpo.

'We are keeping close tabs on the North Korean military and maintaining a full defence posture.'

The South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the projectile traveled about 19 miles on Saturday evening

Saturday's missile launch came amid growing concern that Pyongyang is preparing a fifth nuclear test

In a typical example of overblown rhetoric, the North's Korean Central News Agency said leader Kim Jong Un observed from a test facility as the ballistic missile surged from a submarine and spewed out a 'massive stream of flames' as it soared into the sky.

It said the missile met all technical thresholds.

Saturday's missile launch came amid growing concern that Pyongyang is preparing a fifth nuclear test.

But it was followed just hours later by a North Korean offer to impose a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing if the United States suspends annual military exercises with South Korea.

The US and Britain denounced the SLBM test as a violation of UN Security Council resolutions and called on the North to refrain from further moves that could destabilise the region.

The North's state-run KCNA news agenc cited the leader as saying Pyongyang was now capable of 'hitting the heads of the South Korean puppet forces and the US imperialists anytime as it pleases.'

But US President Barack Obama said he does not take North Korea seriously on their offer to halt nuclear tests if the US stops military exercises with South Korea.

North Korea has tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (centre) is animated as he guides a test fire of a new multiple launch rocket system

The nation's supreme leader is seen giving his verdict to uniform clad flunkies at the Paektusan Hero Youth Power Station No. 3 in Ryanggang Province

Still images broadcast on state television showed Kim on the deck of the submarine before watching the test through binoculars from shore and meeting the crew and scientists afterwards.

'This eye-opening success constitutes one more precious gift the defence scientists and technicians are presenting to the great leaders and the party,' the KCNA quoted Kim as saying.

Pictures showed the missile, with 'The North Star' emblazoned on it, soar out of the water and fly into the sky, leaving a massive plume of smoke above the sea surface.

State TV also showed what it claimed were underwater images of the missile being ejected from the submarine, using key 'cold launch' technology.

The state yesterday released photographs of leader Kim Jong Un surrounded by flunkies at the testing of a new multiple launch rocket system.

Wearing a long black duffel coat, Trilby hat and glasses, the country's supreme leader was cheered on by military figures on site at at the Paektusan Hero Youth Power Station No. 3 in Ryanggang Province.

North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January, followed by a rocket launch a month later that was widely seen as a disguised ballistic missile test.

The UN Security Council responded by slapping its strongest sanctions to date on Pyongyang.

North Korea and the rich, democratic South are stilltechnically at war after the 1950-53 conflict ended in anarmistice, not a treaty.

China and North Korea foughtside-by-side against a U.S.-backed South Korea, which joinedforces under the U.N. flag.

The North routinely threatens to destroy South Korea and theUnited States.

North Korea has conducted a number of what it says were successful SLBM tests but experts question the claim
Barack Obama has warned a trade deal between the US and UK could take a decade after a Brexit vote.

In a BBC interview marking the end of his visit to Britain, the US President spelt out what he meant by his warning that Britain out of the EU would be at the 'back of the queue' for a deal.

Mr Obama said Britain would not be punished and forced to wait until other deals were finished - but the President continued to warn deals take a long time.

But as the President appeared to soften his line, leading Vote Leave campaigner Dominic Raab seized on the new statement to insist there was no 'queue' because the United States was not negotiating with anyone else.

Mr Obama flew out of London's Stansted Airport today after a three day visit in which he threw a hand grenade into Britain's referendum battle.

President Barack Obama today told the BBC Britain would not be punished for a Brexit vote but warned trade deals take a long time and the EU agreement would be finished first

Mr Obama today insisted his claim about trade had not meant Britain would have to wait for all other nations to complete a deal.

But he warned: 'My simple point is, is that it's hard to negotiate trade deals.

'It takes a long time, and the point is that the UK would not be able to negotiate something with the United States faster than the EU.

'We wouldn't abandon our efforts to negotiate a trade deal with our largest trading partner, the European market, but rather it could be five years from now, ten years from now before we were able to actually get something done.'

He added: 'I think the broader point is that if you're interested in trade, we are on the cusp of getting a trade deal done with the European Union.

'If I am a business person or a worker in Britain, and I'm looking at the fact that I already have access seamlessly with a massive market, one of the wealthiest markets in the world that accounts for 44 per cent of my exports.

'The idea that I'm going to be in a better position to export and trade by being outside of that market and not being in the room setting the rules and standards by which trade takes place, I think is erroneous.'

Justice Minister Mr Raab told the BBC: 'The reality of what (the President) said is yes, these things can take time - it's taken almost 40 years even to get to this stage in the stalled EU-US deal.

'Britain can quite easily negotiate a free trade deal. I think we are better placed by not being prejudiced inside the EU.'

Justice Minister and Vote Leave campaigner Dominic Raab, right, today told the BBC the US was not negotiating with anyone other than the EU over trade despite Mr Obama's warning Britain would be at the back of the queue

Mr Raab added: 'The Pacific deal (with the US) has already been concluded so when he said back of the queue, I went and checked - the US has no other bilateral negotiations for a trade deal with any country other than the EU and that's stuck in the mud.

'I think we very clearly would have a strong interest in doing it.'

Vote Leave campaigner Chris Grayling MP said: 'This is a case of political positioning trumping reality and is a million miles away from from the facts on the ground.

'The United States reached deals with Canada and Australia in two years so no one will seriously believe it will take five times as long to conclude a UK deal.

'No American President would consider giving up as much sovereignty as we have. This referendum is about us regaining our independence as a nation and taking back control of our economy, our borders and the 350 million we hand to Brussels each week.'

Mr Obama, seen leaving London on Air Force One, today warned trade deals take a long time and Britain would have to wait a decade to complete an agreement

The President's claims came as Professor Patrick Minford, one of Margaret Thatcher's economics gurus, said Brexit would leave households 40 a week better off.

Prof Minford said told The Sun on Sunday: 'Prices are 20 per cent higher inside the EU compared with world prices. The system is designed to keep prices up and consumers are paying for this.

'But if we pulled out, your average Sun on Sunday reader would be 40 quid a week better off.

'Everything from food to things like cars, fridges and washing machines will all be much cheaper.'

Nigel Farage said Mr Obama had come to Britain to 'parrot the Downing Street line'

He forecast Britain's economy would grow by four per cent off the back of a Brexit vote.

And Prof Minford, who helped draw up government policy in the 1980s, added: 'Walking away from the EU will raise living standards for all of us. I can't understand where all this gloom and doom stuff comes from.

'The cost of a car or an imported cooker would suddenly drop. Food would be cheaper, too.'

Ukip leader Nigel Farage today renewed his criticism of Mr Obama's intervention.

He said: 'I'd rather he said nothing, but let's just analyse what he did say.

'He said we'd be at the back the queue  interesting isn't it? Americans don't use the word 'queue', they us the word 'line'. So he's come over here to parrot the Downing Street line.

'He's done it again with the interview yesterday saying a trade deal would take 10 years. I mean, just put a nought on, why not? Just exaggerate the whole thing.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt ruled out following a Labour suggested to stop this week's strike

Jeremy Hunt has ruled out a 'Labour plan' to trial the new junior doctors contract among a small number of trusts to stop next week's all-out strike.

A group of cross-party MPs had called on the Health Secretary to launch a pilot scheme to evaluate the so-called 'weekend effect' which sees higher mortality rates for patients admitted at weekends.

It comes as more than 125,000 patients, including pregnant women and cancer sufferers, have had hospital treatment postponed due to the mass walk-out planned for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Labour's Heidi Alexander, Conservative Dr Dan Poulter, Lib Dem Norman Lamb and the SNP's Dr Philippa Whitford told Mr Hunt in a letter that they want an independent evaluation of the weekend effect via a pilot scheme.

But speaking today on Twitter, Mr Hunt said: 'Labour ''plan'' is opportunism - only 11 per cent of junior docs go onto new contracts in August. We're staging implementation to ensure it works as intended.

'Any further delay just means we will take longer to eliminate weekend effect.'

Ms Alexander today told Sky News Mr Hunt should go ahead with pilots.

She said: 'If it is shown to improve patient care and to have a positive impact upon junior doctors with regard to the hours they are working and the quality of care that they are able to provide, I think any reasonable person at that point would say, well actually, we need to look at what the evidence shows us and move forward in a constructive way.'

Ms Alexander added later: 'With a strike just a matter of hours away, this issue is now above party politics.

'That's why MPs from a number of parties joined together yesterday to make a serious and constructive offer to the Health Secretary, backed by a number of Royal Colleges.

'Instead of sitting down to talk about this proposal, Jeremy Hunt dismissed it and labelled it 'opportunism'.

'Even at this late stage, he should do the right thing for patients, staff and the NHS and choose compromise, over strikes.'

The move comes after the Health Secretary announced he would impose the contested contract, whether or not it had the support of the British Medical Association (BMA).

Junior doctors are striking because Government wants to stop them being paid extra for working Saturdays, so hospital bosses can afford to staff wards better at weekends. In return they will get a pay rise.

But that was rejected by the BMA. After the two sides reached stalemate in February, Mr Hunt said he would impose the new contract.

Junior doctors have already held four days of industrial action this year, but have treated emergencies  until now.

Around 13,000 operations have been postponed and 113,000 appointments cancelled, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

Mr Hunt swiftly rejected the call for pilots of the junior doctor contract, insisting Labour were being opportunistic because the deal only applies to 11 per cent of people in the first phase

Writing on internet forums, expectant mothers have complained they are being put under extra stress because inductions and other procedures have been scrapped.

The letter from the MPs explains that concerns have been raised about the impact of the contract, were it imposed, and said it believed the BMA would not go ahead with next week's strike if the Government agreed to the proposal.

A BMA source said that if the Government agreed to limited trials of a pilot of the contract, representatives would be prepared to meet them to discuss the possibility of calling off the strike on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The MPs write: 'You will be aware that medical leaders, royal colleges and patient groups, have said the imposition or unilateral introduction of the contract is the wrong approach and risks permanent damage to the future of the medical workforce.

'If it remains your intention to introduce this new contract, we believe it should be piloted in a number of trusts/across a number of deaneries and for its impact on patients, staff and the 'weekend effect' to be independently evaluated.'

Labour's shadow health secretary Heidi Alexander today led calls for pilots to try and avert Tuesday's strike action

An evaluation would lead to a 'real understanding of the problem' so targeted changes can be made and a pilot would allow for misunderstandings about the contract to be cleared up.

The Government said it had 75 meetings with the BMA and three years of talks, and delaying reform further would mean not taking an important step in improving weekend care.

A spokesman said: 'We have always said that we want to introduce this contract in a phased way - for around 11 per cent of junior doctors from August - precisely so any initial problems can be ironed out.

'That's why this is simply ill-informed political opportunism from the same Labour Party responsible for the flawed contracts we have now.'

Dr Ben White, a junior doctor who has taken part in a vigil outside the Department of Health to call for new talks, insisted patients would be safe if trusts had prepared properly by cancelling 'elective' appointments in favour of emergency care.

He said: 'Trusts have had enough time to ensure patients will remain safe.
'I force feed myself leaving me with reflux for hours,' she wrote at the time

During the pregnancy, Ms Tucci kept a blog to reveal her struggles

She said she was not at all prepared for how 'full on' experience would be

A mother who gave birth to quintuplets says at times she 'locks herself in the bathroom and cries on the floor' as she adapts to life with seven children all under five years of age.

Kim Tucci, 26, and her husband Vaughn, both from Perth, welcomed the five new babies to their growing brood in January - a son, Keith, and four daughters - Ali, Penelope, Tiffany and Beatrix.

The couple change 350 dirty nappies a week and feed each infant eight times a day and although are 'overwhelmed' by the momentous job, they are the 'happiest they have ever been in their life'.

'No-one thought I could do it, and I did, I showed everyone in my life. So, I think it's the first time that I've actually been proud of myself,' Ms Tucci told Channel Nine's 60 Minutes on Sunday night.

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A mother who gave birth to quintuplets says at times she 'locks herself in the bathroom and cries on the floor'

Kim Tucci, 26, and her husband Vaughn, both from Perth, welcomed the five new babies to their growing brood in January

The couple change 350 dirty nappies a week and feed each infant eight times a day

Ms Tucci, who already had two young daughters with her husband Vaughn, fell naturally pregnant with quintuplets while trying for a boy.

The chance all babies would survive and be healthy was incredibly low.

But over a gruelling 27 weeks, Ms Tucci's body grew to accommodate each infant - each weighing more than a kilogram by the time she gave birth.

Her obstetrician, Professor Jan Dickinson, managed to deliver each healthy baby in under two minutes and said Ms Tucci had a 'super womb'.

The quintuplets were rushed to intensive care and were monitored for 24 hours a day for six weeks until they grew strong enough to return home.

Mr Tucci said that time was the hardest part of the entire ordeal.

'We went through everything. Seeing them in their incubators you know and having trouble to breathe it's scary,' he said.

'To hear 'em cry, it's great, you know? because you know they're alive'.

The couple get daily help from family and volunteers to care for the quintuplets and use feeding changing and sleeping charts to monitor each infant.

'You just gotta do it. We haven't got a choice,' Ms Tucci said.

'No-one thought I could do it, and I did, I showed everyone in my life. So, I think it's the first time that I've actually been proud of myself,' Ms Tucci said

Ms Tucci, who already had two young daughters with her husband Vaughn, fell naturally pregnant with quintuplets while trying for a boy.

Her obstetrician, Professor Jan Dickinson, managed to deliver each healthy baby in under two minutes and said Ms Tucci had a 'super womb'

Ms Tucci, who has a nine-year-old son from a previous marriage and two daughters with her husband Vaughn, fell naturally pregnant with the quintuplets (pictured) while trying for a boy

Kim Tucci, 26, and her husband Vaughn, both from Perth, welcomed the five new children to their growing brood in January - a son, Keith, and four daughters - Ali, Penelope, Tiffany and Beatrix.

The expecting mother wrote about her struggles with back pain, 12 bathroom trips a night and consuming the recommended 6,000 calories a day to feed her five babies

During her pregnancy, Ms Tucci wrote about her intense struggles with back pain, 12 bathroom trips a night and consuming the recommended 6,000 calories a day to feed her five babies.

'I'm struggling to eat and force feed myself leaving me with reflux for hours,' she wrote on her blog Surprised With Five.

'I can't tolerate a lot of dairy and I can't keep protein drinks down, I'm starting to lose weight when I really need to be gaining it.'

Her online posts about dealing with pain, nausea, changes to her body and going to the bathroom 12 times a night, amassed a following of more than 123,000 people  most of them mums who share their own personal stories.

The quintuplets were rushed to intensive care and were monitored for 24 hours a day for six weeks until they grew strong enough to return home

'I literally felt like my body was shutting down,' Ms Tucci told the program

The chance all babies would survive and be healthy was incredibly low.

Speaking to Channel Nine's 60 Minutes, Ms Tucci said she was not at all prepared for how 'full on' the experience would be and her fears after giving birth at just 30 weeks

When she asked to use another sonogram machine so she could have a clearer view of the babies, her world was turned upside-down when the doctor found five separate heart beats

'It's getting harder as each day passes to push through the pain, every part of my body aches and sleeping is becoming very painful,' she said.

'No amount of pillows are helping support my back and belly. Sometime I get so upset that I just want to throw my hands up and give in!'

'I have a lot of stretch marks now, dealing with such a huge change in my body is hard. My husband always reminds me I should wear my stripes with pride and that I should be proud of them and what my body has achieved.'

At 24 weeks along, photographer Erin Elizabeth took photos of the expecting mum to commemorate her journey.

The images became a hit on Mrs Tucci's website and Ms Elizabeth's social media.

Mrs Tucci and her husband began trying for their third and final child together last year with the hope of having a son to complete their family

Mrs Tucci was admitted to the hospital on a few occasions for minor issues but all five of the children were born healthy

'I have a lot of stretch marks now, dealing with such a huge change in my body is hard. My husband always reminds me I should wear my stripes with pride and that I should be proud of them and what my body has achieved'

The expecting mother wrote about her struggles with back pain, 12 bathroom trips a night and consuming the recommended 6,000 calories a day to feed her five babies
Wore mask while guarding hostages and said 'don't make the mistake of your life' when prisoner nearly saw his face

A Spanish journalist has described his kidnapping at the hands of Brussels airport suicide bomber Najim Laachraoui.

Belgian national Laachraoui, who blew himself up at the airport on March 22 as part of a day of deadly attacks in the city which killed 32 people, was identified last week as an ISIS prison guard known as Abou Idriss.

Freed French hostage Nicolas Henin's lawyer confirmed on Friday her client had identified Laachraoui, who registered under a false name as he travelled to Syria in February 2013 to join up with ISIS.

Journalist Marc Marginedas was among a group of men held by kidnappers who included the airport suicide bomber between October and December 2013 before being handed over to the infamous terrorists known as the Beatles who were led by Jihadi John.

Belgian national Laachraoui (pictured), who blew himself up at the airport in March as part of a day of deadly attacks in the city which killed 32 people, was identified last week as an ISIS prison guard known as Abou Idriss

Telling his story: Spanish journalist Marc Marginedas, 46, who was released by ISIS in 2014, has described his kidnapping at the hands of Brussels airport suicide bomber Najim Laachraoui

He told how Laachraoui entered a room they were being held in with a mask over his face with another hostage and told them while he stroked a white dove in his hands: 'I want to introduce you to the latest prisoner.'

Marginedas, who was freed on March 2, 2014 five months after being captured by rebel jihadists close to the city of Hama in western Syria, also described him as the 'most articulate, intelligent and reflexive' of his French-speaking jailers and said he had no doubt he would kill if ordered to.

He told Catalan daily El Periodico: 'Not one of us doubted for a second that the man we knew as Abou Idriss would hesitate if he was ordered to kill us.

'He told a French prisoner once, who came close to seeing his face: "Don't make the mistake of your life".

'We knew that looking at one of our jailers' faces would thwart any hope of freedom.

'The last time I saw the man who two years later would kill dozens of people by blowing himself up at Brussels airport was in a building near to Raqqa towards the end of January 2014.

Najim Laachraoui was one of two suicide bombers at Brussels airport in coordinated attacks that also struck a metro station in the city, killing 32 people overall. He is pictured left next to Ibrahim El Bakraoui (centre) who also blew himself up and Mohamed Abrini (right), the so-called 'man in the hat' who has been arrested

'It was when the complex logistical operation of transferring almost two dozen hostages there had been successfully completed.

'He asked me for some family details and the password of my Facebook page, which makes me think he was the one who accessed my account and changed my name for an Arab one.'

Mr Marginedas, a seasoned war reporter who described Jihadi John in an interview last year as a 'manic depressive', also said Laachraoui was the friendliest of his prison guards.

He told El Periodico in a first person piece: 'Unlike the British kidnappers we nicknamed the Beatles, he didn't want to terrify us.

'The Brussels suicide bomber was by far the most articulate, intelligent and reflexive of the French-speaking prison guards who guarded us from October 2013 to the end of of December that year in a dungeon near Aleppo.

'We were subsequently placed under the jurisdiction of the three British jihadists we nicknamed the Beatles, led by the sadist the British press have dubbed Jihadi John and his two equally psychopathic associates, who were preparing a Guantanamo-like fate for us in a house far from the city.

Journalist Marc Marginedas was among a group of men held by kidnappers who included the airport suicide bomber between October and December 2013 before being handed over to the infamous terrorists known as the Beatles who were led by Jihadi John (pictured)

'Unlike the three Englishmen, Abou Idriss/Najim Laachraoui took no pleasure observing the pain of others or inflicting it without prior provocation.

'When he was in charge the food would arrive on time, twice a day.

'He was nothing like his colleagues, who sometimes forgot us and left us days on end with nothing to eat or drink.

'One winter's night, when he saw the vegetable puree that accompanied our small rations of rice was cold, he offered to heat them up.'

The journalist also revealed Laachraoui had promised to make sure he wasn't separated from the other Spanish hostages the last time he saw him.

Marginedas, a seasoned war reporter, said Laachraoui was the friendliest of his prison guards

His account of the months he spent under the guard of the 24-year-old, who has also been linked to last November's attacks in Paris in which 130 people died, offer a valuable insight into the character of the Brussels suicide bomber.

The 24-year-old blew himself up at the city's airport with Ibrahim El Bakraoui, whose brother Khalid detonated another suicide bomb at the Maelbeek metro station shortly afterwards, killing a further 16 people.

The French journalists that recognised Laachraoui as one of their captors when his photograph was published in the aftermath of the Brussels attacks, are also understood to have identified another of their jailers as Mehdi Nemmouche.

Frenchman Nemmouche is currently in custody after killing four people in an attack on Brussels' Jewish Museum in May 2014.

A third was identified as Salim Benghalem, an ISIS recruiter sentenced in absentia in France.

French media reports last week also said the journalists had described Laachraoui as less violent than Nemmouche and said he occasionally asked them 'scientific questions he expected them to answer.'

Le Parisian quoted an interior ministry source as saying the Belgian national seemed to be 'someone of intelligence, composed, capable of adapting rapidly to new situations.'

Recalling a conversation he had with Laachroaui and another French hostage in the back of a truck while they were being taken towards Raqqa, Marc Marginedas said: 'The three-way conversation touched on Islam, Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and Muslims in France and Europe.

'It was almost a chat between friends, in a cordial tone, in which we almost forgot two of the people involved were hostages and the third a jailer who might at any moment receive the order to execute us.
New evidence suggests that the downing of the Malaysian Airlines plane MH17 was caused by a shot from a Ukrainian fighter jet rather than a ground-to-air missile.

The damning allegations will be revealed in a BBC documentary which puts forward a number of theories as to why the aircraft exploded.

It is even argued that the tragedy was caused by a CIA-backed 'terrorist operation.'

New evidence suggests that the downing of the Malaysian Airlines plane MH17 was caused by a shot from a Ukranian fighter jet rather than a ground-to-air missile (file photo)

The fresh allegations come as three Ukrainian soldiers were killed and six injured in an upsurge of fighting between pro-Russian rebels and government forces in the country's separatist east, today.

The Boeing 777 exploded over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014 and killed 298 people, as it headed towards Kuala Lumpur.

Although the official report states that the plane was hit by a Russian-made Buk missile fired from an area of the Ukraine that was under the control of Russian-backed rebels, the programme notes that people saw the aircraft being shot down by a fighter jet.

Speaking in the documentary, Natasha Beronina, said: 'It was summer, harvest time. We heard a bang.

'At first we thought we saw black smoke and two planes, little ones like silver toys. One flew straight on and the other one turned round when the bang happened and flew back from where it had come.'

Another witness even said that they saw a jet launch a missile before hearing a big boom.

The Sunday Express noted that German investigative journalist, Billy Six, interviewed 100 witnesses for the programme, seven of which said they saw a fighter jet.

The official report states that the plane was hit by a Russian-made Buk missile (pictured) fired from an area of the Ukraine that was under the control of Russian-backed rebels (file photo)

They believed that two jets were present and that one fired an air-to-air missile, while the other fired a canon from the back into MH17's cockpit.

However, this was something that was profusely denied by pilot, Captain Vladislav Voloshin, who was accused of being responsible.

In the interview, Voloshin said that there were no flights on that day and there were also no air-to-air missiles, as they were carrying air-to-surface missiles for ground targets.

Another extraordinary theory mentioned in the programme is that the aircraft was detonated in a CIA-backed 'terrorist operation', where two bombs were planted on the airliner.

The Boeing 777 was detonated over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014 and killed 298 people, as it headed towards Kuala Lumpur (file photo)

This allegation was put forward by private investigator, Sergey Sokolov, who claimed that the CIA were helped by the Ukrainian secret service and Dutch security service, to place the bombs on the plane in Holland.

He said: 'This terrorist act was a pretext for firstly intensifying sanctions on Russia, secondly to show the world that Russia is a barbarian country and thirdly to strengthen the presence of Nato in Europe, particularly Ukraine.'

Speaking after the death of three Ukrainian soldiers today, Military spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said: 'As a result of hostilities, three Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and another six wounded over the past 24 hours'.'

According to Motuzyanyk, the situation along the frontline 'had escalated again', accusing separatists of ramping up attacks against the Kiev military and using heavy weapons.

He said: 'The invaders are actively using mortars and armoured vehicles along the entire frontline.'

The damning allegations will be revealed in a BBC documentary and put forward a number of theories as to why the aircraft exploded (file photo)

Speaking to MailOnline, the BBC clarified that the documentary came to no firm conclusion about the theories and there was only a slim chance that a fighter jet had been involved.

A spokesperson, said: 'This impartial documentary takes a balanced viewpoint in reporting the competing theories surrounding the fate of MH17, including the evidence for and against those involving Russia, Ukraine and the CIA.

'It also examines in detail the findings of the official Dutch inquiry into the incident, which provide compelling evidence that the plane was brought down by a powerful ground to air missile.'

Another extraordinary theory mentioned in the programme is that the aircraft was detonated in a CIA-backed 'terrorist operation', where two bombs were planted on the airliner (file photo)

The new casualties came after three Ukrainian soldiers were killed by pro-Russian rebels in a mortar attack earlier this week, in the deadliest attack in nearly two months, the Kiev military said.

A series of truce agreements have helped reduce the violence, although sporadic clashes continue and prevent the sides from reaching a firm political reconciliation deal.

Around 9,200 people have died and more than 21,000 been injured since the revolt against Ukraine's pro-Western leadership erupted in eastern Ukraine in April 2014.

Kiev and the West accuse Russia of supporting the insurgents and sending regular troops across the border, claims that Moscow denies.

Earlier this week, Ukraine's defence minister Stepan Poltorak warned it may take years to end a war that plunged Moscow's relations with the West to a post-Cold War low.
A drug lord serving 27 years behind bars is laughing in face of justice by showing off his 3,000 gold Rolex watch and luxury designer shirts that he wears in prison.

Playboy cocaine dealer Babs Arogundade, 29, flouted a ban on bling by wearing a Datejust Rolex, a golden medallion and a silk shirt by designer Versace.

He took the pictures from an illicit camera phone and a friend posted them on Instagram with the caption 'free BP' - an allusion to the gangster's nickname.

Playboy: Cocaine dealer Babs Arogundade, 29, flouted a ban on bling by wearing a 3,000 Datejust Rolex

Flashy: He also a donned a Versace silk shirt and golden medallion. He took the pictures from a illicit camera phone and friend posted them on Instagram

A source told the Sunday People: 'The pictures show how much respect he has for the prison system - none. He's laughing at the authorities.'

The source also speculated that Arogundade was running the prison and that he was living the high life behind bars.

A Prison Service spokesman said: 'We are investigating these images. Any prisoner found to have breached our rules will be punished and may be referred to the police for further investigation.'

Before he was jailed the drug baron owned a Bentley, lived a life of luxury and regularly splashed out thousands of pounds on champagne and expensive jewellery including diamond-encrusted Rolex watches.

Arogundade, of St John's Wood, North London, was convicted last year of conspiracy to supply drugs and possession of firearms.

He was caught when police found an arsenal of guns he had stashed in a woman's car including four shotguns, a loaded Smith and Wesson handgun and a Winchester rifle when they raided the vehicle during a surveillance operation focusing on Arogundade's criminal lifestyle.

The dealer was caught when police found an arsenal of guns he had stashed in a woman's car including four shotguns, a loaded Smith and Wesson handgun and a Winchester rifle when they raided the vehicle

Also in the car they found a package containing a kilo of 74 per cent pure cocaine, which is said to have a street value of 200,000.

Weighing scales, plastic bags containing 1.22kg of crack cocaine and cutting agent were later found at an associate of Arogundade's address in Wembley.

Jailing Arogundade at the Old Bailey, Judge Anuja Dhir said: 'The court heard... about your lifestyle, which involved luxury cars, a Bentley and a Maserati, a collection of expensive watches, which were found, a Rolex and equally expensive brands, and a collection of diamond-encrusted jewellery.

Ammunition was also discovered hidden in bags in the boot of the car when police raided it in 2013

'As to the guns. You stored those guns in the car of someone I am satisfied that you took advantage of the fact she had recently broken up with her boyfriend and was more vulnerable than usual.

'I have no doubt you are not just a drug dealer, but somebody with a leading role in an organisation involved in supplying multi-kilos of Class A drugs.

'You have a charismatic personality and you were able and you did encourage and persuade others to help you in your criminal activities.

'I have no doubt that some of them did so for very little personal gain and without knowing the full extent to which you were including them in serious criminal activities.

'Some of them, formerly of good character, were drawn to you because of your personality, women who regarded you as a friend. You took advantage of that trust.'
Philip Hammond today admitted Britain might have to deploy combat troops to fight ISIS in Libya.

The Foreign Secretary acknowledged the severity of the threat on Europe's doorstep as a new government in Tripoli battles to exert some control over the war-torn country.

Mr Hammond has repeatedly said in recent weeks there are no plans in place for Britain to join a new mission in Libya - despite firm reports a 1,000-strong British force will be deployed on a training mission.

But Mr Hammond today said nothing should be ruled out, adding Royal Air Force or Royal Navy assets could also be deployed alongside the Army.

The revelation comes as David Cameron prepares to fly to Germany to join a G5 meeting with US President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Italian Premier Matteo Renzi.

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Philip Hammond, pictured last week with Libyan PM Fayez al-Sarraj in Tripoli, today said British troops could be sent to Libya if ISIS secure a foothold in the Mediterranean state

Mr Hammond made his remarks in a Sunday Telegraph interview and said it 'wouldn't make sense to rule anything out'.

He said: 'The southern Mediterranean coast is a vital security interest.

'Clearly, internationally-focused terrorists, established on the Mediterranean coast, are a threat to all the countries of Europe, including the UK.

'But if there were ever any question of a British combat role in any form - ground, sea or air - that would go to the House of Commons.'

He added: 'It is only 100 miles from Libya to Lampedusa. I think it is a threat.

'If Daesh became established in Libya and sought to use that established base to infiltrate terrorists into Europe, that would be a threat to all of us.'

Mr Hammond repeated his belief the new Libyan government would be reluctant to invite in foreign soldiers while it attempts to assert control over bitter tribal fighting.

Libya is set to be a key part of the G5 talks in Hannover tomorrow.

The failure of Libya following British and French bombing in 2011, which in support of a local uprising removed Colonel Gaddafi, has become a focus for international foreign policy after Mr Obama blasted European leaders for failing to follow through on the conflict.

Mr Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel met in Hanover today, pictured, ahead of tomorrow's G5 talks on Libya and other issues

The veteran leaders greeted each other affectionately on the latest leg of Mr Obama's farewell tour ahead of him leaving office in January

Germany rolled out the red carpet for Mr Obama as he and Mrs Merkel inspected a military guard of honour at the Herrenhausen Palace

But in an interview to mark the end of his final visit to Britain, the US President acknowledged he had to take his own share of responsibility.

He told the BBC: 'Well, I think that we were all distracted.

'So, this was something that I think we all share some collective responsibility for. I continue to believe it was the right thing to do. That had we stood by passively, that Gaddafi would have killed enormous numbers of his own people.

'Libya would have been embroiled in a continuing war that would have been even more disruptive and damaging, but what is also true is that we now have to focus on that country stabilising itself and having a government that can actually function and we can interact with.

'The good news is, this Government of National Accord, very tentative, very fragile, is beginning to come together.

Mr Obama added: 'It has enormous ramifications over the long term for Europe. It speaks to one part of the migration crisis that's been taking place, but also, it's a critical component of our overall campaign to defeat ISIL.'

US President Barack Obama, pictured today disembarking from Air Force One in Germany, admitted today he had his share of 'collective responsibility' for the failure of Libya after the 2011 bombing campaign
Four federal agents have been shot during an armed stand-off at a motel in Kansas.

Two U.S. marshals, an FBI agent and another official suffered non-life-threatening injuries during the shootout at the Country Club Motel in Topeka last night.

The four officers descended on the motel just before 10pm last night as they hunted down a man believed to be suspected armed robber Orlando Collins, WIBW reported.

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Four federal agents have been shot during an armed stand-off at a motel in Kansas. Pictured, armed police at the scene on Saturday night

During the siege, the motel was set on fire. The blaze took three hours to put out and a helicopter had to be brought in as firefighters tackled the flames

The FBI and other law enforcement officers remained on the scene on Sunday afternoon as the investigation into the shooting and fire continued

The man thought to be Collins, 29, shot at police, who returned fire.

Witnesses said they heard around 50 shot rings out as the gunman barricaded himself inside a motel room.

The four shot federal agents were taken to hospital and are said to be in a stable condition.

During the siege, the motel was set on fire. The blaze took three hours to put out and a helicopter had to be brought in as firefighters tackled the flames.

The four officers descended on the motel (left) just before 10pm last night as they hunted down a man believed to be suspected armed robber Orlando Collins (right)

Damage: A significant portion of the roof was incinerated in the blaze which followed the shooting

Police did not confirm whether the shooter was captured and he is believed to still be on the run, but the area is now safe, said police.

Officers did not confirm Collins as the shooter.

He is suspected of several armed robberies in which getaway cars were set on fire afterwards in northeast Kansas, and he is on the region's most wanted list.
A wedding dress designer has launched legal proceedings against a world-renowned fashion house after claiming it stole her ideas.

London-based designer Christine Kendall says she sent sketches to Clarence House in November 2010, ahead of the royal wedding.

After months of speculation and secrecy, the gown Kate Middleton wore to marry Prince William was designed by Sarah Burton, creative director at Alexander McQueen.

However Ms Kendall alleges her ideas were stolen by the fashion brand - which denies her claims.

The stunning dress worn by Kate Middleton on her wedding day in 2011 was kept a highly-guarded secret

The gown Kate wore to marry Prince William was designed by Sarah Burton, creative director at Alexander McQueen

The Duchess of Cambridge's intricately decorated wedding dress, designed by Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen, received a rapturous reception.

For months, it had been fashion's best-kept secret. Even the team of embroiderers at Hampton Court Palace working on the gown did not know the identity of the designer until shortly before the public announcement.

But as soon as the Duchess appeared leaving the Goring Hotel then entering Westminster Abbey on her wedding day on April 29, the secret was out.

But Ms Kendall, who owns Christine Kendall Couture, maintains it was her ideas which made the gown.

She sent 1950s themed sketches to Clarence House months before the wedding and received a letter of gratitude from Prince William and Prince Harry in January 2011.

Ms Kendall has launched legal proceedings against the label for alleged breach of copyright, having drawn similarities between the gown worn by Kate and her own designs.

Ms Kendall, who owns Christine Kendall Couture, maintains her ideas for the wedding dress were stolen

An official allegedly wrote: 'Miss Catherine Middleton has asked me to write and thank you so much for your letter of 18th November enclosing bridal gown designs.

'Miss Middleton was most interested to see your work and very much appreciated you taking the trouble to write. Should she wish to see more of your designs I will of course be in touch.'

But a spokesman for Kate said the duchess had never actually seen Kendall's sketches.

The row began in December 2013 when Ms Kendall said: 'I believe without my sketches the royal wedding dress would not have looked as it did.

'A very important part of creating a couture gown is to create aspects that are not easily copied. To my knowledge, there is nothing similar available anywhere.'

She has now issued legal proceedings at the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court in London, which can award up to 500,000 in damages.

The bridal gown featured lace applique floral detail and was made of ivory and white satin gazar, with a skirt that resembled 'an opening flower' with white satin gazar arches and pleats. Its train measured nine foot.

The Duchess of Cambridge's wedding dress, designed by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen, before it went on display at Buckingham Palace

The world looked on as the future Duchess of Cambridge emerged wearing this stunning dress

A spokesman for Alexander McQueen said: 'We are utterly baffled by this legal claim. Christine Kendall first approached us almost four years ago, when we were clear with her that any suggestion Sarah Burton's design of the royal wedding dress was copied from her designs was nonsense.

'Sarah Burton never saw any of Ms Kendall's designs or sketches and did not know of Ms Kendall before Ms Kendall got in touch with us  some 13 months after the wedding.
waved flags, carried placards saying 'Yes We Can - Stop TTIP!'

President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a joint pitch Sunday for deeper transatlantic trade in the face of mounting opposition.

After talks in the northern town of Hannover where tens of thousands marched on Saturday against the planned deal, Obama said the world's largest trade pact could be finalised by the end of the year.

'Angela and I agree that the United States and the European Union need to keep moving forward with the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations,' Obama said.

The Trans-Atlantic Trade And Investment Partnership (TTIP) has become a tough sell, particularly in Germany.

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President Obama and his political chum Angela Merkel smile as they promote a new US-Europe trade deal

The pair looked to be enjoying each other's company during what is likely Obama's last visit as president

Obama praised Merkel for 'being on the right side of history' by letting migrants settle in Germany

President Barack Obama and Chancellor Angela Merkel embrace as he arrives at the Herrenhausen Palace on Sunday

The pair had a meeting to the proposed US-Europe trade deal which has drawn ire in Germany

Obama also said they discussed tackling ISIS and he will praise Merkel's handling of the migrant crisis

Together, Obama and Merkel launched the world's largest trade fair in Hannover on Sunday

Obama waves at the crowds a day after thousands of people took to the streets to protest his visit

Touch down: President Barack Obama lands at the airport in Hannover, Germany, on Sunday morning

Obama touched down in the city on Sunday morning after a day of promoting the treaty in London

Thousands of demonstrators gathered in Germany to protest a planned free trade agreement between the U.S. and the EU, a day before President Barack Obama arrived

Obama touched down in Hannover on Sunday morning after a day of promoting the treaty in London.

He then opened the world's largest industrial trade fair in Hannover with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, before they had a meeting to discuss TTIP and other issues, including efforts to counter the Islamic State group.

The key factor behind his final stop in Germany as US president was the TTIP.

In a joint press conference after their discussion, Obama and Merkel insisted the trade deal is necessary. Obama also praised Merkel as being 'on the right side of history' by letting migrants come to Germany.

On the trade deal, he said: 'I don't anticipate that we will be able to have completed ratification of a deal by the end of the year, but I do anticipate that we can have completed the agreement.'

Both sides hope the pact will provide a shot in the arm to Western economies that are still struggling to erode the devastating effects of the global financial crisis.

'As you see other markets like China beginning to develop and Asia beginning to develop and Africa growing fast, we have to make sure our businesses can compete.'

Merkel echoed that sentiment, saying the deal was 'extremely helpful to allow our economy in Europe to grow'.

'It is good for the German economy, it is good for the European economy,' she said.

But Obama acknowledged there was popular opposition.

'People are unsettled by globalisation,' he said. 'People visibly see a plant moving and jobs lost and the narrative develops that this is weakening rather than strengthening the position of ordinary people and ordinary workers.'

'The benefits often times are diffused.'

Ahead of the meeting there was a sign of the significant hurdles that remain.

Merkel's Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel warned the deal 'will fail' if the United States refused to make concessions in 'buy American' clauses.

The streets of Hannover were crawling with activists who bitterly oppose the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP

A man on stilts and dressed like the Statue of Liberty walks in front of balloons forming the slogan Stop TTIP during the protest

Thousands of people took to the streets in protest in Hannover on Saturday, the day before Obama arrived.

Some carried placards that said 'Yes We Can - Stop TTIP!' It was a riff on Obama's 2008 presidential campaign slogan.

Organizers claimed that 90,000 people attended the demonstration in Hannover but police estimate the count was more like 30,000.

In November, more than 100,000 people in Berlin protested against the proposed pact.

Proponents say the deal would boost business at a time of global economic uncertainty. Critics fear the erosion of consumer protections and environmental standards.

Negotiators in Washington and Europe are trying to finalize key parts of the deal before the end of the year, after which Obama's successor and election campaigns in major European countries could further complicate the already difficult negotiations.

The discussions, due to resume on Monday in New York, have come under criticism for the secretive manner in which they've been conducted.

National lawmakers are only allowed to view draft documents in special reading rooms and are forbidden from talking about the documents with experts, the media or their constituents.

Proposals to create dispute settlement tribunals have also stoked fears.

EU trade chief Cecilia Malmstrom envisages special investment courts that would rule in disputes between governments and companies that feel they face undue legal hurdles to their business.

Critics say such courts could place the interests of corporations above those of democratically elected governments, citing a recent case where tobacco giant Philip Morris sued Uruguay over a law requiring graphic warnings on cigarette packages.

Alfred de Zayas, an American law professor and U.N. human rights expert, argues that such courts are unnecessary in countries that abide by the rule of law, such as the United States or the EU's 28 nations.

Backers of the special courts say they would prevent cases from being heard by American jurors who don't understand the complexities of international trade law, and ensure that U.S. companies don't face discrimination in European countries with high rates of corruption.

Juergen Hardt, a German lawmaker and the government's coordinator for trans-Atlantic cooperation, believes some of those leading the fight against TTIP 'have other motivations' beyond trade.

'They also want to incite anti-American feelings,' he said.

Demonstrators waved flags and carried placards with slogans such as 'TTIP? Nein Danke (no thanks)!'

An activist of the environment organization Greenpeace with a banner reading ' Yes we can stop TTIP!' hung from a building crane to show off his poster

The streets of Hannover were crawling with activists who worry that TTIP is a deal favouring only big business

The EU's executive branch is trying to promote the benefits of a deal.

On its website, it suggests that TTIP will boost demand for European delicacies like cheese, hams, wine, olive oil, spirits, and chocolate.

'High tariffs at U.S. customs  up to 30 percent  make some of these hard for Americans to afford  and difficult for European farmers and firms to export,' it says.

TTIP's backers hope images of Obama in Europe  where his popularity remains high  will counter those of tens of thousands protesting the deal.

In her weekly video message Saturday, Chancellor Angela Merkel said everything has been done to improve the transparency of the negotiations  within reason.

And she stated anew that European standards won't be eroded.

'We are not falling behind our standards, but securing those we have in Europe today on the environment and consumer protection,' she said.

Yet time may be running out for a deal. A spokesman for Germany's Economy Ministry said that no draft proposals have been exchanged about numerous areas of negotiation.

The two sides are also divided about the issue of tariff reductions and the opening up of the markets for services and procurement.

'In order to achieve negotiating success this year, it will be crucial to make significant progress by the summer on technical questions, so that the final negotiations are restricted to a few, politically sensitive areas,' said Andreas Audretsch, the ministry spokesman.

Obama said it was important to conclude negotiations even though Congress is unlikely to ratify the deal before he leaves office.

Opponents of a proposed transatlantic trade deal (TTIP) hold a banner reading 'Don't give TTIP any chance. Stop TTIP, CETA, TISA' during a prostest rally on the eve of U.S. President Barack Obama's visit

Protestors demonstrate against the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) free trade agreement

Officials in Washington and Brussels are trying to clinch key parts of the deal before the end of the year

The discussions, due to resume on Monday in New York, have come under criticism for the secretive manner in which they've been conducted

Juergen Hardt, a German lawmaker, said the protesters 'also want to incite anti-American feelings'

Protesters carried placards and waved flags with slogans such as 'Yes We Can - Stop TTIP!'

A man holds a United States flag with the slogan 'For America Against TTIP' during the protests in Hannover

'But if we have that deal, then the next president can pick that up rapidly and get that done,' he told the BBC in an interview broadcast Sunday.

In London on Saturday, he argued for the pact while acknowledging the tough work needed to complete it.

Despite 'enormous amounts of trade' between the U.S. and Europe, 'there's still barriers that exist that prevent businesses and individuals that are providing services to each other to be able to be able to do so seamlessly,' he said.

The pact will bring millions of jobs and billions of dollars in benefits to both sides of the Atlantic, Obama said.

Negotiating trade deals 'is tough,' Obama said, because each country fights for its own interests.

'The main thing between the United States and Europe is trying to just break down some of the regulatory differences that make it difficult to do business back and forth,' he said.

Critics worry that it would erode consumer protection and environmental standards.

Merkel is the world leader with whom Obama has worked throughout his two terms, in good and bad times, and he planned to use the visit to show political solidarity.

He praised her politics in the Sunday press conference.

On Syria, Obama defended his decision not to impose a safe zone that could help stem flows of migrants and refugees into Europe that have hurt Merkel politically.

A protester holds a placard with pictures of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President Barack Obama

'Sadly, it is very difficult to see how it would operate short of us essentially being willing to militarily take over a big chunk of that country.'

But he rushed to Merkel's defence over the refugee crisis, saying she was on 'the right side of history'.

Obama's trip follows stops in Saudi Arabia and Britain, where Obama plunged headlong into the debate over membership of the European Union.

Obama pitched in on the side of Prime Minister David Cameron, arguing that Britain would be lose influence and trade opportunities if citizens vote to leave the EU in a June referendum.

During his seven years in the Oval Office, the Democrat US president and the conservative German chancellor have grown closer and Obama sees her, among European leaders at least, as first among equals.

Aides describe a meeting of minds, two leaders who take a cerebral and analytical approach to politics.

'I have valued chancellor Merkel's thinking and perspective on a whole range of global issues throughout my presidency,' Obama said.

'You have been a trusted partner throughout my entire presidency, longer than any world leader, and I value your judgement.'

Merkel echoed his sentiment at their joint press conference.

'What you see is friendly, close, trusting cooperation that I am very pleased with, also because it helps solve international problems.'

The pair will have dinner later Sunday, and Obama will wrap up his visit Monday with a keynote speech designed to frame his vision of transatlantic relations and a meeting with Merkel and the leaders of Britain, France and Italy.

Despite the diplomatic niceties, the relationship between Obama and Merkel has had its rocky moments.

Merkel has backed austerity as the remedy to European sovereign debt crises, while Obama came down firmly in favour of short-term spending to buy time and a way out of the economic downturn.

US-German relations hit a low when it emerged that the US government had been tapping Merkel's phone.

But officials point to the Ukraine conflict as a turning point that helped both leaders begin to work in tandem.

In her weekly video message Saturday, Chancellor Angela Merkel said everything has been done to improve the transparency of the negotiations
Nine Network's 60 Minutes is doing 'some soul searching' and has admitted to making mistakes in the botched child abduction of Sally Faulkner's children which left her and a television crew in Lebanese prison cells.

Presenter Tara Brown, three television crew members and Brisbane's Ms Faulkner returned to Australia on Thursday night without her children  five-year-old Lahela and three-year-old Noah  after spending two weeks in a Beirut prison.

Presenter Michael Usher on Sunday night admitted the team had made mistakes and confirmed an internal investigation is underway.

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Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner returned to Australia on Thursday night without her children Lahela, five, and Noah, three (pictured with her baby to a different father, and her mother)

60 Minutes presenter Michael Usher admitted the Nine Network crew had made 'mistakes and failures' which saw their team, including Tara Brown as well as Ms Faulkner, imprisoned for two weeks (Usher and Brown pictured)

'There's one thing we want to state very clearly from the outset: we made mistakes,' Usher said.

He said the 'mistakes and failures' had been 'the subject of a lot of soul searching here at Channel Nine'.

Usher said the chain of events were 'complex and distressing' which had gone 'badly wrong'.

A review commissioned by the network began on Friday and will investigate the editorial approval and actions of the crew involved in the story.

A teary-eyed Brown said she did not believe it would get so bad when they originally faced questioning

'Over the past two weeks we've been limited in what we could say,' Usher said. 'In the next few weeks we'll share in detail what we know about this whole sad scenario and our role in it.'

Usher said the 'mistakes and failures' had been 'the subject of a lot of soul searching here at Channel Nine'

The 60 Minutes presenter said there was 'relief' when their team was returned to their families, who landed with Ms Faulkner.

Father of the children, 32-year-old Ali Elamine, is still pressing charges against Briton Adam Whittington, who was allegedly in charge of the operation, as well as Craig Michael and two Lebanese people involved.

A teary-eyed Brown said she did not believe it would get so bad when they originally faced questioning.

She remembered thinking: 'We are here just to do a story on a very, very desperate mother.

'We're journalists, they'll understand that. They'll see reason, you know?

'I just thought reason would prevail. And it didn't.'

Brown told Usher it had gone 'terribly', but said Ms Faulkner 'knows in her heart she's tried everything to get them [the children] back'.

'In her opinion, she had no choice but to do this.'

Usher said the mother is 'probably in a worse situation' now than she was prior to the botched abduction.

Ms Faulkner is reunited with her partner Brendan Pierce (left) and mother, brother and baby to Mr Pierce (right)

'I'm so amazed at how she's held up and how strong she's been because ultimately she's lost everything, you know? She's lost her babies,' Brown said.

Ms Faulkner told 60 Minutes she felt 'numb' following the 'surreal' incident.

She was reunited with her baby, her mother, her partner Brendan Pierce, and brother Simon.

'I'm really proud of you, you're so brave,' Ms Faulkner's mother told her.

'I had to try,' Ms Faulkner responded.

Her ex-husband agreed to drop the abduction charges if she relinquished custodial rights to their children.

A Lebanese policeman prevents Brown from looking towards journalists while escorting her form a Lebanese courthouse to Baabda Prison for women in Lebanon on April 18

The moment Brown and Ms Faulkner were freed from prison after two weeks behind bars

Brown and 60 Minutes producer Stephen Rice arrive at Sydney International Airport on Thursday night

Ms Faulkner was released on bail on Wednesday along with Ms Brown and her crew, producer Stephen Rice, cameraman Ben Williamson, sound recordist David Ballment.

They could still face further charges though they have returned to Australia.

The children will now live in Lebanon with their father, but Mr Elamine insisted that Ms Faulkner would be able to visit.

She shared an ice-cream with Lahela and Noah before leaving the country.

Mr Elamine said 'the visit was good' and that all 'enjoyed it'.

The charges against the Child Abduction Recovery International team members have not been dropped.

32-year-old Ali Elamine with five-year-old Lahela (right) and three-year-old Noah (left)

32-year-old Ali Elamine with five-year-old Lahela (right) and three-year-old Noah (left)

Ms Faulkner with their two children in happier times. The Brisbane mother returned to Australia without the children after her botched attempted at getting them back

Sally Faulkner (pictured) was released on bail after relinquishing custodial rights to the children

60 Minutes producer Stephen Rice is reunited with family on Thursday night after landing back in Sydney

60 Minutes cameraman Ben Williamson is reunited with family on Thursday night after spending two weeks in a Lebanese prison cell
Filipina death row prisoner Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso celebrated women's rights on Saturday during Kartini Day at Wirogunan prison in Indonesia.

Ms Veloso, along with 107 other female prisoners, took part in a kebaya fashion show and a singing competition to recognise the event, honoring national heroine Raden Adjeng Kartini and Indonesian women's empowerment and gender equality.

Dressed in an elaborate sheer and embroidered long sleeved top over a long dress, Ms Veloso appeared in good spirits, joining the other prisoners in the fashion parade.

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Death row prisoner Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso celebrated women's rights this week during Kartini Day at Wirogunan prison in Indonesia

Ms Veloso, along with 107 other female prisoners, took part in a kebaya fashion show and a singing competition

The annual event honors national heroine Raden Adjeng Kartini and Indonesian women's empowerment and gender equality

Last year Ms Veloso was listed for execution along with Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, after she was arrested in Adisucipto International Airport in Yogyakarta in 2010 with 2.6kg of heroin.

Her execution was postponed just minutes before she was set to face the firing squad.

Darwin lawyer Felicity Gerry, who specialises in human trafficking cases, worked feverishly to save Mary Jane Veloso's life for just over three weeks.

Dressed in an elaborate sheer and embroidered long sleeved top over a long dress, Ms Veloso appeared in good spirits, joining other prisoners in the fashion parade

Ms Veloso was listed for execution in 2015 along with Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, after she was arrested in Adisucipto International Airport in Yogyakarta in 2010 with 2.6kg of heroin

Her planned execution was postponed just minutes before she was set to face the firing squad

Ms Veloso (centre) pictured with fellow Wirogunan female prisoners celebrating Kartini Day in Indonesia

In March 2015 at the time of the execution, Ms Gerry said she was preparing for bed with a heavy heart.

'It was about midnight, my husband was away and I was there just with my daughter,' Ms Gerry said.

'I thought there's nothing more I can do. Everybody had thought all was lost and we were going to wake up and there would be [Veloso's] two little children who didn't have a mother any more.'

Mary Jane Veloso (pictured) was due to be shot by firing squad alongside Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in Indonesia

Ms Veloso, 30, was saved at the 11th hour by the actions of Darwin lawyer Felicity Gerry, who specialises in human trafficking cases

Ms Veloso (pictured with Indonesian officers) was caught smuggling 2.6kg of heroin into Indonesia in 2010

'Is she dead': Barrister and human trafficking expert Felicity Gerry (pictured) was in a race against time to save the life of Ms Veloso and she went to bed on the night not knowing whether she had been saved

Ms Gerry, a barrister who specialises in human trafficking cases, had been working feverishly to save Mary Jane Veloso's life for just over three weeks.

Ms Gerry, a Briton who had transplanted with her family to Darwin, had been working on the case of drug trafficker Lindsay Sandiford - the English legal secretary arrested for smuggling cocaine into Bali and also sentenced to death.

On April 7 this year, she spotted an email from Migrante International, the international migrants' rights body, which pleaded Veloso's case that she was an impoverished Filipina maid recruited to work in Indonesia in 2010 and carry luggage loaded with 2.6kg of heroin.

By that time no date was yet set, but the executions of eight drug dealers on Nusakambangan was a looming certainty and an eleventh hour bid to save Veloso had sprung up.

Ms Gerry pleaded Ms Veloso's case that she was an impoverished Filipina maid recruited to work in Indonesia

Ms Gerry said the fight was still on to prevent any future decision to execute Ms Veloso (pictured with her mother)

Today, Ms Gerry and her overseas counterparts are working to have Mary Jane Veloso released from prison and returned home. Pictured are Veloso's parents

'Mary Jane comes from a very, very poor family who had got this very public spirited set of lawyers, the National Union of People's Lawyers (NUPL), to see what they could do,' Ms Gerry told Daily Mail Australia.

Around 250,000 Filipinos signed a petition to have Mary Jane Veloso spared from execution by firing squad in Indonesia along with other drug smugglers

'People were coming out on the street to sign the petition to save Mary Jane. I know the law in human trafficking cases. I thought "I can help". I contacted Edre Olalia [NUPL secretary General).'

Ms Gerry emailed Mr Olalia on April 9. The following day she had a Skype meeting with Migrante International and NUPL.

'There were two issues, applying the human trafficking law to protect the victim and and telling authorities she was a human trafficking victim as defined by the law, someone who is deceived or suffers an abuse of trust or abuse of her vulnerability.

'Mary Jane was duped into going abroad to work as a maid and into carrying suitcases. Indonesia has mandatory legal protection for human trafficking. Actually, it has better laws than Australia.'

The race to save Mary Jane Veloso from the firing squad was on, and the story of Ms Gerry's bid was documented by ABC's Foreign Correspondent.

On April 16, Ms Gerry filed the legal complaint against the Filipino recruiters who had trafficked Ms Veloso.

On April 24, the Indonesian Government announced the 72 hour countdown for Veloso's execution along with Chan, Sukumaran, and five others, leaving only a last minute reprieve to save the 30-year-old maid from an impoverished Filipino family from death by execution

Even Mary Jane Veloso's family thought she had been executed on Nusakambangan (pictured) when shots rang out after midnight on April 30, unaware that the 30-year-old had been told a mere 30 minutes before she was due to meet her death that there had been a reprieve

The race to save Mary Jane Veloso from the firing squad was documented by ABC's Foreign Correspondent

Darwin barrister Felicity Gerry launched an 11th hour bid to save Mary Jane Veloso from the firing squad using human trafficking violation laws to say the young woman had been duped into carrying drugs into Indonesia

The investigation was in train. On the streets of the Philippines, 250,000 people had come out to sign the petition to save the young woman's life.

On April 24, the Indonesian Government announced the 72-hour countdown for Veloso's execution along with Chan, Sukumaran, and five others. Up to 4000 Filipinos started camping outside the Indoresian embassy in Manila.

Mr Olalia boarded a plane for Indonesia. In her Darwin office, Ms Gerry drafted and then filed a brief of amicus curiae, which is offers information that bears on the case from someone who is not a party to the case.

Ms Gerry informed all the lawyers representing the death row inmates, including Chan and Sukumaran's counsel, Julian McMahon.

Game's up: With only hours to spare before Mary Jane Velosos's execution, Filipina Maria Kristine Sergio (centre) gave herself up and was escorted by policemen inside a police headquarters in Quezon city, east of Manila, Philippines

The woman's confession saved single mother-of-two Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso from being executed in Indonesia on April 30 and may result in Veloso returning home a free woman

Meanwhile, Indonesia's president Joko Widowo and his Filipino counterpart, Benigno S. Aquino III, were due to meet at the ASEAN Summit, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to discuss the case.

The investigation into Veloso's trafficking claims had borne fruit - and a confession - but the news was yet to come out into the open and Ms Gerry and her cohorts could not know whether that would be enough to save their client.

In Cilacap, the Central Java port where the prison boats ferry family over to Nusakambangan or Death island, Mary Jane Veloso's family had gathered to say their final goodbyes.

The fateful moment arrived. At around 12.30am on April 30 - and 3am in Darwin - the shots rang out on Death Island. As far as Mary Jane's family were concerned, their daughter was dead.

Incredibly candid photos from that day show her devastated family, including her two young sons, praying on their knees during the moment they assumed she was facing the firing squad.

Sergio (wearing sunglasses) surrendered to Philippines police near Manila and asked them for protection after receiving death threats via social media and her mobile phone

Sergio was accused of 'tricking' Veloso, a poor woman from a rural town, into carrying the bag into the country with drugs sewn into the sides

The family of Mary Jane Veloso, a Philippines woman, pictured praying and 'still hoping the execution won't go through' at the moment she was expected to be executed. She was spared by the president

Ms Gerry had gone to sleep with her 12-year-old daughter, expecting the worst. 'I woke up and looked at my Twitter feed,' she said.

'My daughter asked, "is she dead" and I said, "no, she's alive!'. I was very sad for the others and it was only a temporary reprieve, but ...'

As Australia woke up to the bad news that Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran had indeed been shot dead by a firing squad, the details of just what had saved Mary Jane Veloso began to leak out.

Pictures emerged of a woman, Maria Kristina Sergio, who had handed herself in to police in the Philippines just hours before Veloso was due to be executed.

Veloso's family and friends weren't the only ones who thought she had been executed, with many Filipino newspapers going to press with that exact headline

The front page of the Philippine Daily Inquirer simply had 'Death came before Dawn ', alongside a photograph of the mother-of-two

Sergio had surrendered to Philippines police near Manila and asked them for protection after receiving death threats via social media and her mobile phone.

In the hours before the executions, charges of illegal recruitment and human trafficking were filed against Sergio.

Multiple publications had Veloso's picture splashed across the front page with headlines like 'Farewell, Mary Jane', 'All hopes fade' and 'no delay in execution', The Independent reported.

Some newspapers published scathing articles blaming the Filipino government for not being able to save her.

The front page of the Philippine Daily Inquirer simply had 'Death came before Dawn ', alongside a photograph of the mother-of-two.

Mark Darren (C) and Mark Daniel (L), sons of Filipino death-row prisoner Mary Jane Veloso arriving at Wijayapura port, as they head to visit Nusakambangan prison island, in Cilacap - the day she was scheduled to be executed

An ambulance bearing the name of Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipino facing execution, enters Wijayapura port as it heads to the prison island. It was expected to take her body away after the executions

Last minute negotiations between Philippines' President Benigno Aquino III (L) and Indonesian President Joko Widodo (R) resulted in the last minute reprieve

Celia Veloso (left), mother of Philippine death row prisoner Mary Jane Veloso (right), is pictured asking for mercy from Indonesian President Joko Widodo, at the port to enter the prison island of Nusakambangan

Activists held a candlelight vigil for death row prisoner Mary Jane Veloso outside the Indonesian embassy in Makati on April 27 2015

But despite the reprieve, Ms Gerry said the fight was still on to prevent any future decision to execute Veloso.

On March 4, 2015 Ms Gerry and her overseas counterparts were working to have Mary Jane Veloso released from prison and returned home.

She travelled to the Philippines where, at a poetry recital of works dedicated to Veloso, she met the woman's parents.

She hoped to meet Mary Jane, 'when, not if, she's home, oh yah, I'd love to meet her'.

Ms Gerry hopes that by recognising Veloso's human rights had been violated, other women in south-east Asia who have been enslaved or trafficked will be saved.

Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso, from the Philippines, during the trial in the District Court Bali Nine executions, Indonesia. She struggled during court as she cannot speak English or Indonesian

Philippine death row inmate Mary Jane Veloso praying with Pastor spiritual adviser, Bernhard Kieser, in the District Court Bali Nine executions

Filipinos protested the planned execution of Mary Jane Velosa outside the Indonesian embassy, in Makati city, south of Manila in the days leading up to her execution

A police armored vehicle carrying Filipina drug smuggler Mary Jane Veloso is loaded onto a ferry in Cilacap to take her Nusakambangan maximum security prison island on Friday April 24, before the executions

An Indonesian church caretaker (right) prepared a cross for Filipina Mary Jane Veloso intended to be used after her execution

Celia Veloso, mother of Filipina drug convict and death row prisoner Mary Jane Veloso, broke down in tears as she appeals to Indonesian President Joko Widodo for mercy

Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan were both killed by the firing squad just after midnight on 29 April 2015

Indonesian migrant workers held candles during a vigil in support of Filipina drug convict and death row prisoner Mary Jane Veloso outside the presidential palace in Jakarta
Britain's biggest pub chain has taken the unprecedented step of barring a customer who is currently undergoing chemotherapy for colon and liver cancer unless he agrees to not drink alcohol.

Bosses at John Osment's local, The Milan Bar in West Croydon, London, told him he is no longer allowed in the establishment after he collapsed twice while out drinking with friends.

They said Mr Osment, 60, is only allowed to drink in the pub if he drinks soft drinks after they were forced to call an ambulance on both occasions.

Bosses at John Osment's local, The Milan Bar in West Croydon, London, told him he is no longer allowed in the establishment after he collapsed twice while out drinking with friends (Mr Osment is pictured outside the pub)

Both times he has been taken to Croydon University Hospital where he was later discharged and allowed to go back home.

But he says the incidents happened because he has been left weak by the chemotherapy he is undergoing for his condition and claims he is 'not a bad drunk'.

In February Mr Osment was diagnosed with liver cancer and one month later he was told the cancer had spread to his colon. He is now undergoing chemotherapy at the Royal Marsden Hospital, London.

The pub chain say their decision to bar him was made after nurses in the pub said Mr Osment should not be drinking alcohol while having the treatment.

Mr Osment was only made aware of the decision when he visited the pub and was told he was not allowed in

Mr Osment said he was only made aware of the decision on April 1 when he visited the pub and was told he was not allowed in.

Now Mr Osment, who fears he may only have months to live, has hit out at the decision.

He said: 'I've been drinking there for over 10 years and never caused any trouble.

'I don't know what my prognosis is but it's possible I may die soon - so I'm just trying to enjoy the little time I have left.'

He added: 'It felt like I was being told off and yet I haven't done anything wrong. After I collapsed the second time I'd gone back to the pub and been drinking in there a week before anything was mentioned.

'I was enjoying a pint with seven pals and none of us could believe it. I don't think having cancer should prevent you being able to have a quiet drink with your friends.

'I'm not an alcoholic or a bad drunk and yet I feel like I've been treated as one.

'You have to find small pieces of happiness when you are battling something like this and having a pint with my pals is mine. I just want to munch on Nobby's nuts.'

Weatherspoons bosses said Mr Osment, 60, is only allowed to drink in the pub (pictured) if he drinks soft drinks after they were forced to call an ambulance for him on two different occasions

Yesterday a Wetherspoon's spokesman defended the decision.

He said: 'On two previous occasions the customer had come to the pub following treatment for cancer. He had collapsed in the pub both times.

'On the second occasion a couple of nurses who were in the pub helped the customer but told him that he should not be drinking alcohol while undergoing treatment for his cancer.

'Management at the pub felt that they were being put in an unfair situation. He is welcome in the pub at any time, however, we will only serve him non-alcoholic drinks.'

But Mr Osment has decided he won't be returning.

He said: 'I'll find somewhere new to drink. I'm not an unreasonable man and I accept it's not ideal when I collapse.
Jade Sharp, centre, with guide dog Brodie, right, was refused an Uber ride by driver Mohamed Mohamoud because he 'would not take pets'

A campaigning blind woman is leading a crusade against Uber drivers who refuse her a fare because she has a guide dog.

Jade Sharp, 23, started her fight after getting fed up with drivers from the private taxi firm refusing to take her golden retriever Brodie.

She successfully got Mohamed Mohamoud, 51, convicted and landed with a 1,550 bill at Hammersmith Magistrates' Court.

He is one of eight Uber drivers Transport for London (TfL) have brought cases against on Miss Sharp's evidence, four of which have already been found guilty.

Mohamoud, of Tulse Hill, south east London, cancelled on Miss Sharp, who was with her blind friend Vanessa Smith, 21, after she explained that the five-year-old working dog would be coming with them.

The pair were leaving a concert at Fairfield Halls, in Croydon, south London, at around 9.30pm on May 7 when she booked a minicab using the Uber app.

Miss Sharp, who was born blind, gave him a call to say Brodie would be joining them because Uber has no option in its app to alert drivers.

She told Mohamoud: 'I have got a guide dog travelling with me.'

He said: 'I don't take pets.'

And she replied: 'He is not a pet, he is a working dog. He is my eyes.'

She then threatened to report him to Uber, to which he replied: 'Fine, report me to Uber.'

Miss Sharp told the court: 'About ten seconds later I got a notification on my phone that the trip had been cancelled by the driver.'

He claimed he did not understand Brodie was a guide dog and refused pets on the grounds it would set off his allergies.

But District Judge Jeremy Coleman said he had not told the truth and ordered him to pay a total of 1,546 in costs and fines under the Equality Act 2010.

Judge Coleman said: 'The evidence they gave to me is consistent. I find it to be reliable and it certainly had a ring of truth about it.

'I have no reason at all to think they recorded the conversation incorrectly.

'I listened to the defendant with care but I don't believe what he said to me.

'People who suffer from this condition have enough to cope with in this life without the upset and disappointment of having someone refuse to take them in a cab for no reason at all.'

Mohamoud, who represented himself while wearing a flat cap in the dock, denied the offence when Miss Sharp, accompanied by Brodie, and Vanessa, of Liverpool, gave evidence against him.

After the case, Miss Sharp, of Roehampton, south west London, said: 'I'm happy that they found him guilty.

'All we are trying to do is raise awareness for guide dog users. It's not fair it happens to us.

'It's horrible. It is very upsetting. It really winds me up. I'm just trying to travel and it keeps happening with Uber. They are the worst.

Uber has sine apologised for the driver's actions and say he no longer works for the company (file picture)

'I want to go to the cinema tomorrow but I don't want to use Uber.'

The Guide Dogs charity engagement manager in London, Robert Harris, commended Miss Sharp for the campaign, where she has recorded all instances where she has been refused a fare and handed the log to TfL.

He said: 'It's fantastic that a guide dog user is standing up for herself. I'm pleased for Jade that she is getting successful results.

'Unfortunately it happens far too much for our guide dog users with the private hire taxi industry.'

An Uber spokesman apologised for the behaviour of Mohamoud, who no longer works for the firm.

He said: 'We would like to offer our sincere apologies to Jade.

'Whilst the drivers on the Uber platform are self-employed we remind them of their legal obligation to take service animals before they can start driving.
Bernie Sanders did not wag a finger at his surrogate actress Rosario Dawson for bringing up Monica Lewinsky at a campaign rally for the Vermont senator over the weekend.

Sanders was speaking with Jake Tapper on the Sunday show State of the Union when the journalist asked the Democratic hopeful if it was 'appropriate' for a surrogate to be talking about Bill Clinton's White House mistress on the trail, as Sanders makes a last ditch effort to dethrone frontrunner Hillary Clinton, who is ahead in the delegate count.

'Rosario is a great actress, she is doing a great job for us,' Sanders said, refusing to fully bite.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders did not denounce remarks made by his surrogate Rosario Dawson on Saturday saying he wasn't sure 'what context' Dawson was talking about Monica Lewinsky

In Wilmington, Deleware on Saturday, actress Rosario Dawson said she was 'with Monica Lewinsky' because 'bullying is bad,' suggesting Hillary Clinton supporters were attacking Bernie Sanders fans

Dawson introduced Sanders at a rally on Saturday in Wilmington, Delaware when she made the comment.

'We are literally under attack for not just supporting the other candidate,' Dawson told the crowd. 'Now I'm with Monica Lewinsky with this: Bullying is bad.'

Dawson's comment attracted a number of headlines, but Sanders pleaded ignorance after he first pivoted and Tapper asked him about it again.

'I have no idea in what context Rosario was talking about her,' Sanders said of Lewinsky, the White House intern whose affair with President Clinton almost got him removed from office in the late 1990s.

Sanders did talk about the role the actress was playing in his campaign.

'She's been a passionate fighter to see that we increase the voter turnout, that we fight for racial, economic, environmental justice,' he said.

He said he hoped that his surrogates would spend their time talking about the 'real issues' and he urged Tapper and the media to spend more time discussing the 'planetary crisis of climate change.'

With Sanders' loss in New York last week, a double-digit thumping that made the possibility of him overtaking Clinton in pledged delegates less and less realistic, Clinton allies are trying to pressure Sanders and his team to lay off the frontrunner so she isn't heavily damaged by general election time.

Actress Rosario Dawson, photographed here at a Bernie Sanders rally in Washington Square park in New York City has done a number of appearances on behalf of the liberal Vermont senator

So far, he's kept the pressure up.

He also told Tapper that he still had a path, albeit a narrow one, to the Democratic nomination.

'Well, I'm not going to tell you that it's easy,' Sanders said. 'But I think we do.'

'What polls seem to be showing is that many of the states yet to come, including California, our largest state, we have a real shot to win,' he continued.

Sanders again suggested that delegates might look at the general election match-up polls and decide to choose Sanders over Clinton, which could be interpreted as Sanders trying to sway the Democratic superdelegates to side with him over the former secretary of state.

'So, I think we do have a path to victory,' he added.

I think we have come a very, very long way in the last year, and we're going to fight for every last vote until the  California and the D.C. primary.'

As Sanders toured the Sunday shows this morning, he told George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week that Clinton would have to work to earn his support if she indeed became the party's nominee.

'Well, that is totally dependent on what the Clinton platform is and how she responds to the needs of millions of Americans who are sick and tired of establishment politics and establishment economics,' Sanders said.
Wofford said their families accepted them but he never believed gay marriage would be made legal in the United States

But five years later he met his new partner and the couple fell in love

After she died from leukemia in 1996, he thought he'd never find love again

Former Philadelphia senator was married to his wife for almost fifty years

Former senator Harris Wofford has revealed he is to wed his male partner after finding love again after his fifty-year marriage to his wife.

The 90-year-old wrote a moving op-ed in The New York Times about the tragic loss of his wife Clare Lindgren to leukemia in 1996, and beginning a new chapter of his life with Matthew Charlton - who is 50 years his junior.

Wofford, a Pennsylvania senator from 1991 to 1995 and an adviser to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., met his wife Clare while serving in the U.S. Air Force during the Second World War, he writes in the Times.

Former senator Harris Wofford has revealed he is to wed his male partner after finding love again after his fifty-year marriage to his wife

Wofford (left) and his fiance Matthew Charlton (right) pictured above in 2011

They married in 1948 and went on to have three children together. She even gave up her job to become his all-out campaigner, his 'best critic' and 'best friend'.

'Our romance and adventure continued for five decades,' Wofford wrote.

Sadly, that adventure came to an end on January 3, 1996 when Clare died from acute leukemia.

At the age of 70, Wofford was left heartbroken and sure he would 'never again feel the kind of love Clare and I shared'.

But he was wrong.

Five years later, he met Matthew - an interior decorator and furniture designer - by chance while swimming off a beach in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The 90-year-old wrote a moving essay about the tragic loss of his wife Clare Lindgren to leukemia in 1996 (pictured on their wedding day in 1948)

And despite being decades apart in age, he said they instantly 'clicked.'

The couple fell in love and Wofford, said he did not label himself as 'gay' or 'straight', he was simply happy to have found love for a second time.

In 2001, Wofford met his now-fiance Matthew Charlton (pictured) while swimming on a beach in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

'To some, our bond is entirely natural, to others it comes as a strange surprise, but most soon see the strength of our feelings and our devotion to each other. We have now been together for 15 years.W

'Too often, our society seeks to label people by pinning them on the wall  straight, gay or in between. I dont categorize myself based on the gender of those I love. I had a half-century of marriage with a wonderful woman, and now am lucky for a second time to have found happiness.'

Now Wofford, who was succeeded in office by Senator Rick Santorum, is planning to marry his new partner on April 30 - something he never believed he'd be able to do.

'For a long time, I did not suspect that idea and fate might meet in my lifetime to produce same-sex marriage equality. My focus was on other issues facing our nation, especially advancing national service for all. Seeking to change something as deeply ingrained in law and public opinion as the definition of marriage seemed impossible.

'I was wrong, and should not have been so pessimistic.'

He said that he feels 'lucky' to be in an era when marriage 'is not based on anyones sexual nature, choices or dreams. It is based on love.'

Wofford was born to a wealthy and prominent Southern family who relocated to Scarsdale, New York.

As a child he accompanied his grandmother on a trip around the world including India where he became fascinated by Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence, New Republic reported.

Wofford, a Pennsylvania senator from 1991 to 1995 and an adviser to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., met his wife Clare while serving in the U.S. Air Forces during the Second World War

They married in 1948 and went on to have three children together. She even gave up her job to become his all-out campaigner, his 'best critic' and 'best friend.'

He returned to school where he founded the Student Federalists which called for a united world government. The popularity of the organization led to Newsweek predicting Wofford would become president one day.

After serving in Army Air Corps during the Second World War, he became inspired by the civil rights movement and became the first white student to enroll at Washington's Howard University Law School since female suffragists attended in the 1910s.

Wofford also became aware of Martin Luther King Jr. to whom he began writing to discuss Gandhi's non-violent approach to civil disobedience. The pair later met and Wofford became an adviser to the famous activist.

He was also persuaded to join John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign after Kennedy called on him to help him win the 'Negro vote.'

After Kennedy's win he took a job in administration and went onto help Sargent Shriver found the Peace Corps. But he never considered running for office himself until decades later.

It was in May 1991, after the former senator John Heinz was killed in a plane crash, that Hofford was appointed to the position by Pennsylvania Governor Bob Casey.

He would lose the re-election in 1996 but that would not stop Wofford's fight for civil rights. In 2005 he met Barack Obama.

The two became good friends and during his presidential campaign, when Obama was under fire for inflammatory remarks by his former pastor, it was Hofford he chose to introduce him before making his now-famous race speech in Philadelphia.
He died on way to hospital and cause of death wasn't immediately known

A musician known around the globe as the king of Congolese rumba has died after collapsing on stage during a concert.

Papa Wemba, 66, was confirmed dead by Culture Minister Baudouin Banza Mukalay, who called his death a 'great loss for Congo and all of Africa.'

Horrifying footage from the Urban Musical Festival Anoumabo (FEMUA) in Abidjan, Ivory Coast shows the musician on stage in front of thousands of fans before he collapses and is surrounded by his concerned fellow performers.

Congolese music star Papa Wemba was performing on stage at the Urban Musical Festival Anoumabo (FEMUA) when he collapsed

Concerned musicans ran to Papa Wemba's aid after he suddenly collapsed on stage while he was performing

Horrifying footage from the concert in Abidjan, Ivory Coast shows the musician falling in front of thousands of fans

Papa Wemba was taken to a nearby clinic but could not be resuscitated. The cause of death wasn't immediately known

Papa Wemba was taken to a nearby clinic but could not be resuscitated and died on the way. The cause of death wasn't immediately known.

Congo's cultural minister described the musician, whose real name was Jules Shungu Wembadio Pene Kikumba, as 'a self-made man, a role model for Congolese youth.'

The musician rose to fame in the Congolese capital of Kinshasa during the 1970s with the band Zaiko Langa Langa.

The band are known for its guitar-based fusion of Latin and African dance styles, which inspired a generation of African musicians.

With a new band, Viva La Musica, Wemba moved to Paris in the 1980s and helped popularize Congolese music beyond Africa.

The musician, whose real name was Jules Shungu Wembadio Pene Kikumba, was surrounded by fellow performers after he collapsed

Congo's cultural minister described the musician as 'a self-made man, a role model for Congolese youth'

The musician rose to fame in the Congolese capital of Kinshasa during the 1970s with the band Zaiko Langa Langa

He later toured in the 1990s with British rock star Peter Gabriel and appears on his 'Secret World Live' album.

Wemba also was a pioneer of the 'sapeur' youth culture marked by its dedication to extravagant fashions.

The young men are known for wearing stylish suits and fedora hats, standing out in stark contrast in countries where poverty is endemic.

In 2003, Wemba spent more than three months in jail.

French and Belgian authorities accused him of helping Congolese immigrants illegally obtain visas by passing them off as musicians working with him on European shows.

Wemba was a pioneer of the 'sapeur' youth culture marked by its dedication to extravagant fashions

Wemba toured in the 1990s with British rock star Peter Gabriel and appears on his 'Secret World Live' album

Wemba moved to Paris in the 1980s and helped popularize Congolese music beyond Africa with band Viva La Musica

Wemba, who later received a suspended sentence, maintained that others had done so using his name.

The musician had appeared to be in good health just days earlier when he met with journalists at the beginning of the music festival.

Fans across Abidjan were todaymourning news of his death.
Cabinet minister Chris Grayling said the document proved why Britain had to quit the EU

Plans have been drawn up for a full-blown United States of Europe over which Britain will have 'very little say', a Cabinet minister warned today.

The Prime Minister has promised that, as a result of his referendum reforms, Britain will not be sucked into an EU superstate.

But Chris Grayling, the leader of the Commons, pointed to a document signed last September in Rome by the speakers of the national parliaments in Germany, France, Italy and Luxembourg.

It says that 'concrete proposals' to deepen EU integration towards a 'federal union of states' will be drawn up at a meeting in Luxembourg next month.

The joint declaration states: 'We are convinced that new impetus must be given to European integration. We believe that more, not less, Europe is needed to respond to the challenges we face.'

Ominously, it says that deeper integration 'should not be limited to the field of economic and fiscal matters, or to the internal market and to agricultural policy'.

It added: 'It should include all matters pertaining to the European ideal social and cultural affairs as well as foreign, security and defence policy.'

The paper goes on: 'The current moment offers an opportunity to move forward with European political integration, which could lead to a federal union of States.'

Mr Grayling, a leading voice in the Out campaign, said: 'This shows there are now serious plans for a political union, where those countries in the eurozone move towards having a single government.'

He acknowledged that Britain and Denmark would remain permanently outside.

But the former justice secretary said: 'This new entity will still make our laws for us. We will have very little say in what happens.

'We have to decide whether we want to be an independent country or whether we want to be caught up in what is heading fast towards being a United States of Europe.'

A spokesman for the European Commission said: 'I am not aware of any such initiative. This is not something related to the commission.'

The emergence of the documents comes after a weekend of feverish referendum activity triggered by Barack Obama's explosive intervention on the Brexit battle.

The US President urged Britons to vote to Remain on June 23, warning Britain would be at the 'back of the queue' for a US trade deal.
A Connecticut student was arrested Saturday after tweets he made about bombing a Donald Trump rally were picked up by the Secret Service.

Connecticut State Police allege that Sean Taylor Morkys, 20, posted the message 'Is someone going to bomb the Trump rally or am I going to have to?'

They say the psychology student then posted a second tweet warning friends to have their family members leave Trump's Bridgeport, Connecticut rally so they wouldn't get hurt.

Threat: Sean Morkys (pictured) allegedly tweeted two threats to blow up a Trump rally at Crosby High School in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Saturday. Police charged him but said he was not a threat

Police say they received the Secret Service tip-off at around 12:45pm Saturday, at which time Trump's rally at Crosby High School was still ongoing, BNO News reported.

State Police Counter-Terrorism detectives, Waterbury Police Department detectives, and special agents with the U.S. Secret Service then launched a joint investigation.

They tracked Morkys to his Waterbury home on Ardsley Road, where they questioned him up till around 5pm.

He was charged with first-degree threatening, inciting injury to a person or property and second-degree breach of peace and will go before court on May 4.

Police say he isn't a threat, and have released him on $25,000 bond.

Neither of the alleged tweets can now be seen on Morkys' Twitter account.

The Trump rally, one of two held Saturday in the state, went on as planned.

During the rally, Trump assured his followers that he would not be 'toning it down' despite claims by his chief adviser to GOP officials that he would show more restraint, ABC 7 reported.

However, Trump's Connecticut rallies still saw some controversy when a protester was dragged out of one of them in a chokehold.
Sally Faulkner has told of the moment she said her last goodbyes to her two children in Beirut when her five-year-old daughter gave her a Barbie ring 'so you don't forget me'.

The Brisbane mother had spent two weeks in a Lebanese prison cell after her and a Nine Network 60 Minutes crew's botched child abduction.

Ms Faulkner and the television crew, including presenter Tara Brown, were released on bail and returned to Australia on Thursday night.

On Sunday night's 60 Minutes, Ms Faulkner cried as she remembered what could be the last time she enjoys ice creams with Lahela, five, and Noah, three - at a McDonalds in Beirut suburb Furn El Chebbak.

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After she was reunited in Australia with her mother Karen and newborn baby Eli, Sally Faulkner has told of her last goodbyes to children Lahela, five, and Noah, three, in Beirut

The Brisbane mother with her two children to ex-husband Ali Elamine, 32, in happier times. She returned to Australia without them after a botched abduction attempt

'Lahela, she looked at me and said: 'Mummy will you take my ring?' She gave me her little Barbie ring, she said: "This is so you don't forget me",' Ms Faulkner recounted.

She said her heartbreak at having 'to say goodbye to my babies' comes 'in waves'.

She had spent the flight from Beirut 'bawling my eyes out and then I'm kind of alright one minute and then all of a sudden it floods back'.

She said she felt 'numb because it feels so surreal'.

Ms Faulkner is reunited with her partner Brendan Pierce (left) and mother Karen, brother Simon and newborn baby Eli to Mr Pierce (right)

Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner returned to Australia on Thursday night without her children Lahela, five, and Noah, three (pictured with her newborn baby to a different father, and her mother)

Ms Faulkner said her heartbreak at having 'to say goodbye to my babies' comes 'in waves'(L-R partner Brendan Pierce, brother Simon, mother Karen, Ms Faulkner, newborn baby Eli)

Ms Faulkner has been reunited with her newborn baby Eli with partner Brendan Pierce, her mother Karen and brother Simon.

'I'm really proud of you, you're so brave,' Karen mother told her.

'I had to try,' Ms Faulkner responded.

60 Minutes presenter Michael Usher admitted the team had made mistakes and confirmed an internal investigation is underway.

'There's one thing we want to state very clearly from the outset: we made mistakes,' Usher said.

He said the 'mistakes and failures' had been 'the subject of a lot of soul searching here at Channel Nine'.

Usher said the chain of events were 'complex and distressing' which had gone 'badly wrong'.

'I'm so amazed at how she's held up and how strong she's been because ultimately she's lost everything, you know? She's lost her babies,' a teary-eyed Brown said

A review commissioned by the network began on Friday and will investigate the editorial approval and actions of the crew involved in the story.

Usher said the 'mistakes and failures' had been 'the subject of a lot of soul searching here at Channel Nine'

Brown said Ms Faulkner 'knows in her heart she's tried everything to get them [the children] back'.

'In her opinion, she had no choice but to do this.

'I'm so amazed at how she's held up and how strong she's been because ultimately she's lost everything, you know? She's lost her babies,' Brown said.

Her ex-husband, Lebanon-based Ali Elamine, 32, agreed to drop the abduction charges if she relinquished custodial rights to their children.

Ms Faulkner was released on bail on Wednesday along with Ms Brown and her crew, producer Stephen Rice, cameraman Ben Williamson, sound recordist David Ballment.

They could still face further charges though they have returned to Australia.

The children will now live in Lebanon with their father, but Mr Elamine insisted that Ms Faulkner would be able to visit.

The charges against the Child Abduction Recovery International team members have not been dropped.

Father, and Ms Faulkner's ex-husband, Ali Elamine leaves court on April 18 in Beirut, Lebanon

The moment Brown and Ms Faulkner were freed from prison after two weeks behind bars

32-year-old Ali Elamine with five-year-old Lahela (right) and three-year-old Noah (left)

32-year-old Ali Elamine with five-year-old Lahela (right) and three-year-old Noah (left)
The widow of a man who drowned after being pulled out to sea in Barbados said the lack of warning signs led to her husband's death.

Eddie Flett, 71, drowned in March last year after being pulled out to sea by a strong rip-tide on Rockley Beach in Christ Church.

Mr Flett, a grandfather-of-nine, had booked the holiday as a treat for his wife, Linda, 64, in a bid to cheer her up following the death of her father six months earlier.

Eddie Flett, 71, drowned in March last year after being pulled out to sea by a strong rip-tide on Rockley Beach in Christ Church

Rockley Beach in Christ Church: The beach has now claimed several lives due to its dangerous rip-tide

The beach has become a notorious blackspot, having claimed several lives because of its dangerous waters.

Now Mr Flett's family is campaigning for warning signs to be put up.

His son, David, said: 'Dad was a wonderful man - he didn't take risks.

'We are campaigning for the tourism board to have signage put up to warn people about the rip tide.'

Mr Flett and his wife Linda had been together for 15 years, and had married five years ago.

Linda said: 'I'm terrified of water but Eddie asked if I wanted to go for a paddle so I was just going to go to the water's edge.

'It wasn't deep but it was going over my ankles so I decided to get out - Eddie asked if I minded him going for a swim.

'I gave him a kiss and said 'see you soon.'

The family of Eddie Flett (pictured, with his wife Linda), has now launched a campaign calling for heightened safety measures at the beach

When she returned to her sunbathing spot, she could not see Eddie.

She said: 'I heard someone shout to the lifeguards, who are at the other end of the beach, "I need help over here."

'I think I knew deep down that something was wrong but you don't want to believe it - then I saw them bring Eddie onto the beach.'

Despite lifeguards performing CPR for 15 minutes before the ambulance arrived, Eddie was pronounced dead at the island's Queen Elizabeth hospital later that day.

According to Linda, the beach has a history of accidents. In January, Top Gear host Chris Evans pulled a struggling pensioner out of the water at the beach.

In February last year, 80-year-old Yussuff Romatally died after being pulled from the water by lifeguards.

In April 2014, BBC film-maker Jay Merriman-Mukoro was reported missing after swimming in the sea off the beach - his body was later discovered further up the beach.

Mrs Flett said: 'My husband didn't take risks, he wouldn't even go up the ladder - there's no way he would have gone in the water if there had been signs up.

'I would say to people planning to go there, go on the internet, do your research and be very careful near the water - don't let children play in the water.'

An inquest into Eddie's death has been scheduled for later in the year, and his family are looking to trace any witnesses to the tragedy.

The family are especially keen to track down Louise Farnworth, who helped Linda on the day.

Linda said: 'It would be useful for her or anybody else who was on the beach that day to give us a statement for the inquest.

'I also just want to thank her again.'
A Hamptons rabbi to the stars who has allegedly cheated on three of his past wives is stepping down from his synagogue amid fresh rumors of yet another affair.

Rabbi Marc Schneier, 57, announced that he was leaving The Hampton Synagogue after 26 years to dedicate his time to strengthening 'relations between Muslims and Jews'.

But it seems the real problem was Schneier - who recently divorced his fifth wife - and his longtime relations with women he wasn't married to.

Rabbi to the stars Marc Schneier, 57, is stepping down from The Hamptons Synagogue after 26 years following rumors that he has cheated on his fifth ex-wife and left behind a 2-year-old daughter

Schneier, who has blamed his infidelities on a bipolar disorder, has allegedly cheated on three of his ex-wives. His fifth marriage ended after he was spotted out with current girlfriend Simi Teitelbaum (pictured together)

The wealthy congregants of the Hamptons Synagogue have finally reached their breaking point, threatening to withhold payments to the affluent temple until Schneier was ousted, according to the New York Post.

Schneier, who received a $500,000 salary as well as mortgage payments on a $3million Westhampton Beach home, instead stepped down from the synagogue he founded 26 years ago.

'Since 1990, we have made the ordinary extraordinary,' Schneier wrote in a letter to his congregants, which have included the likes of Steven Spielberg.

'Building a singular community, unique to the Jewish world. Through the years, we have broadened our horizons, expanded our knowledge, enlarged our interests, and enriched our spirits.'

Schneier's resignation comes just a year after he was expelled from the Rabbinical Council of America, an umbrella group for Orthodox rabbis, after he allegedly cheated on his fourth wife.

Tobi Rubinstein hired a private investigator, who snapped pictures of Schneier kissing one of his congregants, Gitty Leiner, during an alleged business trip to Israel in 2010.

Schneier's 13-year marriage to Toby Gotesman (left) ended after he allegedly cheated on her with fashion designer Tobi Rubinstein (right), who he made his fourth wife in 2006

But in 2010 Rubinstein hired a private investigator, who snapped pictures of Schneier kissing one of his congregants, Gitty Leiner (pictured). He wed Leiner in 2013

The scandal came only four years after Schneier had allegedly left his wife of thirteen years, Toby Gotesman, so that he could be with fashion designer Rubinstein - another congregant at his temple.

Schneier's trysts became something of a 'running joke' at the congregation.

Schneier founded the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding with hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons

'People at shul accepted his adulterous affairs and outrageous behavior', a long-time friend, who believes Schneier is as 'bipolar as the Pope is Jewish', told the Post.

'It's like "Marc cheated on his wife again, what's new? It became a running joke: the annual Marc Schneier wedding'".

Schneier claimed his infidelity was the result of a bipolar diagnosis, but his friend told the paper they weren't buying it.

'He's a clever, manipulative person,' they said. 'I think he's bipolar like I think the pope is Jewish.'

But for some time it didn't seem to bother a board of men who had been appointed by Schneier, and a congregation that was 'out to party', said Esther Muller, who has known Schneier for decades.

'They come for the 3 F's - 'fun, food, and f*****g'.

Schneier married Leiner, now 44, in 2013 and the couple had a daughter the following year. But in 2015 it seemed Schneier had strayed once again, this time with 30-something Simi Teitelbaum.

The couple soon got divorced, and it seems the congregation had finally tired of their five-time divorcee, once named one of Newsweek's 50 most influential rabbis in America.

Schneier will be leaving the church after one final summer season and will be pursuing 'professional opportunities' in the 'private sector' in New York, he told The Jewish Week.

But not all his congregants are happy to see him go.

'He's married, he's divorce - big deal,' Irwin Graulich told the Post.

'King Solomon had 20 wives. Five is nothing.'
Jeremy Clarkson has revealed the hardest part of making his new motoring show is naming it.

Writing in his weekly column in the Sunday Times the Yorkshire-born presenter said: 'When I first signed up with Amazon Prime to make a new motoring show I knew all sorts of problems lay ahead.

'There was one problem, however, that I hadn't even considered. And it has turned out to be the biggest of the lot: Choosing a name.'

Writing in his weekly column Yorkshire-born presenter Jeremy Clarkson (pictured) has revealed the hardest part of making a new motoring show for Amazon Prime to rival the BBC's Top Gear has been naming it

Writing in his weekly column in the Sunday Times, the Yorkshire-born presenter said: 'When I first signed up with Amazon Prime to make a new motoring show I knew all sorts of problems lay ahead'

In the column he wrote that he was worried if they opened up naming the show to the public as a competition, they might find themselves in the same situation as a new polar research vessel which was recently named RRS Boaty McBoatface following an online vote.

Clarkson added that in order to avoid the inevitable 'Cary McCarface' he and the team were wracking their brains trying to come up with a name which is not either already taken or legally contentious.

He said: 'Every morning I'd make a 7,000 call to the lawyer with an idea, and every afternoon I'd get a 7,000 reply saying the name was already in use by someone in New Zealand, or France or Ukraine.

'Prime Torque. Autonation. Skid mark. Everything was a no-no.'

The trio were recently spotted out and about attending a car auction - possibly for vehicles for their new show

Other names he says he considered included 'Speedbird', 'Speedwolf', 'Ironbird' and 'Wolfbird' - and one director even suggested 'Three C**** Driving Along' - but they decided it might lose them the family market.

Earlier this month Clarkson, 56, revealed the the new show cannot have the word 'gear' in it because of 'legal reasons'.

The former Top Gear host recently featured in a trailer for the still untitled show which is due to be aired in the autumn.

In it he, along with co-presenters Richard Hammond and James May, suggested titles for the show including 'Tripod' and 'Auto-mates'.

All of the ideas, including Clarkson's 'Selling England by the Pound' and 'Watcher of the Skies', which are album and song titles by prog-rock band Genesis, were shot down.

Clarkson then took to Twitter where he explained the show could not have the word 'gear' in it.

The former Top Gear host featured in a trailer for the still untitled show which is due to be aired in the autumn

He tweeted: 'Thanks for your suggestions. But be aware: for legal reasons, we cannot use a name with the word "gear" in it.'

Twitter users put forward their own show title suggestions, which included 'Three Guys, A Car and a Pizza Place' and '2 Men and a Hamster'.

A few weeks ago the trio were spotted filming in Marrakech, Morocco, for the motoring programme.

It is their next venture after leaving Top Gear following 13 years of service on the show together.

Clarkson was sacked after punching a producer on the show in a row about steak, although he has now officially apologised to producer Oisin Tymon - after settling a six-figure claim.

Clarkson flew into a rage after being told he could not order a sirloin steak after a day of filming in March last year, calling Mr Tymon a 'lazy, Irish ****' during a confrontation at a hotel in North Yorkshire.

The fracas led to him being sacked from Top Gear, with Hammond and May jumping ship shortly afterwards in support of their friend.
Joshua Molloy, an Irishman who has been released from a prison in Iraq after fighting ISIS militants in Syria

The families of two Britons and an Irishman who were jailed in Iraq after fighting ISIS militants in Syria have spoken of their relief after they were freed.

Joshua Molloy, from Ballylynan, Co Laois, a former Royal Irish Regiment soldier, was incarcerated along with British citizens Joe Akerman, also a former soldier from Halifax, and Jac Holmes, from Dorset, after crossing a border with Syria.

The three had spent months fighting against ISIS in Syria but had decided to return home when they were captured.

It is understood they were freed last night, with Ireland's Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan first to break the news to the Molloy family.

The men had been fighting with the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in Syria before deciding it was time to return home to their families.

The three men travelled to a closed border crossing and waited for help from the Iraqi Peshmerga - which never arrived.

But now they have been released from jail, Declan Molloy, Mr Molloy's father, said emotions in the family were running wild.

He said: 'We are all delighted here. We are jumping with joy to know that he is out.

'You know that Christmas morning feeling, it's a bit like that, when you find your most sought-after present under the tree, the dream present. That's how we feel.'

A Foreign and Commonwealth spokeswoman also confirmed the release of the two Britons.

She said: 'We are helping two British men make arrangements to leave Kurdistan after they were released from custody.'

Mark Campbell, a Kurdish rights campaigner for 20 years, tried to raise awareness of the men's plight by visiting the KRG High Representatives' offices in London last Friday.

Declan Molloy, Mr Molloy's father, said emotions in the family were running wild after they learned of his release

After learning of their release, he said: 'I am so happy that common sense has prevailed and these brave men have been freed and able to return to their families.

'They deserve medals not prison and I hope they will get apologies and the recognition they deserve.'

Mr Campbell had tried to dissuade Mr Holmes from travelling to Syria before he went out but had no contact with Mr Molloy or Mr Akerman before they left.

It is believed they had been in the Rojava region of Syria for some time and at least one had fought in the liberation of Sinjar, the city where thousands of Yazidis were slaughtered and fled from after ISIS took it over in 2014.

They were imprisoned in Irbil in Iraq for about 10 days by authorities from the Kurdish Regional Government and it is understood demands had been made for 15,000 dollars (10,400) in fines to be paid to secure their release.

Also released from prison were Britons Jac Holmes from Dorset, left, and Joe Akerman, right from Halifax

Mr Molloy's father, a passionate amateur astronomer, considered selling his set of telescopes in order to raise money to try to free his son.

'It was a tough battle but I have got to give my thanks to Mark Campbell in the Kurdish support group in London,' he said.

Mr Molloy got a second-hand account of his son's condition and life in the jail after a freelance reporter managed to visit him in the hours before the releases were secured.

He also paid tribute to the work of diplomatic chiefs in London and Dublin.

British consular staff in Iraq spent most of last week trying to secure their freedom.

After phoning the Molloy family late on Saturday night Mr Flanagan said: 'I welcome Joshua's release and I am pleased that he is now on his way home to join his family in Ireland.

'I would like to thank all those who helped to make this early release happen. My department will continue to provide consular assistance in this case.'

Mark Campbell, a Kurdish rights campaigner for 20 years, tried to raise awareness of the men's plight and had even persuaded Mr Holmes, pictured, not to go to Syria

It is understood Mr Molloy is in a hotel making travel arrangements out of Kurdistan and is considering spending time in Europe with fellow foreign fighters before he returns to Ireland.

His father has always insisted that his son is not a mercenary or a freedom fighter, but that he had travelled to Syria last year for humanitarian reasons.

Mr Molloy spoke to his son via Facebook after his release and reported that he was 'fine' but felt that he would need some time alone after his ordeal.

British diplomats had been working on the ground on behalf of all three men, saying that they do consular work for Irish citizens in difficulty in some countries where Ireland does not have representation.
Britain's most senior police officer has vowed to protect a minority Islamic sect after the killing of a Muslim shopkeeper in Glasgow.

Met Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe warned British Muslims that attacks on the Ahmadiyya community would not be tolerated following the death of Asad Shah.

The popular 40-year-old, an Ahmadi Muslim, 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.

Britain's most senior police officer has vowed to protect a minority Islamic sect after the killing of a Muslim shopkeeper Asad Shah in Glasgow

Met Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe warned British Muslims that attacks on the Ahmadiyya community would not be tolerated following the death of Asad Shah

According to the Observer's Mark Townsend, Sir Bernard was asked about attacks against Ahmadis and said Scotland Yard would 'robustly police anyone who carries out or threatens violence or, indeed, any other crime' against the Ahmadiyya community.

On Friday, the 58-year-old told worshippers at the country's largest mosque, the Ahmadiyya community's Baitul Futuh in Morden, south London, that his officers will keep them safe.

Speaking after prayers, Sir Bernard promised to stamp out extremism and intolerance.

'The particular reason for being here this afternoon is to stand with you after recent events in Glasgow,' he said.

'A man was murdered, an Ahmadi ... and there has been some speculation which has concerned people about why this man was attacked, perhaps because of his faith.

'I want to reassure you that we the police are here to look after you, I want to stand by you and make sure you are protected.

On Twitter, customers and strangers united in their grief and praise of the shopkeeper by writing #thisisnotwhoweare at the end of their posts, which was also written out at Mr Shah's second vigil (pictured above)

The attack on the shopkeeper came shortly after he had posted this message on Facebook celebrating Easter

'While we are here you will have that protection.'

He added: 'This country says we protect everyone's right to have their own beliefs and, provided they don't hurt other people, they have that right.

'No-one has the right to stop you in your beliefs and stop you celebrating your religion in the way you prefer.

'You hurt no-one, do a lot of good and promote good things - that's why we need to protect you.'

Mr Shah, 40, was killed at his Glasgow shop on March 24 - the day before Good Friday.

Hours before his murder, Mr Shah had written on Facebook: 'Good Friday and very Happy Easter, especially to my beloved Christian nation.'

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'.

Mr Shah belonged to the Ahmadiyya community, which promotes peace and tolerance but has been persecuted by members of orthodox Islamic sects in Pakistan.
Michelle Obama has waded into Mississippi's religious freedom law row, slamming the state for marginalizing the LGBT community.

The First Lady told 35,000 people at Jackson State University to 'stand side by side' with people of all sexualities, not only on social media but also at the ballot box.

'We see it right here in Mississippi - just two weeks ago - how swiftly progress can hurtle backward,' Mrs Obama said in her commencement speech.

'How easy it is to single out a small group and marginalize them because of who they are or who they love.'

Michelle Obama has waded into Mississippi's religious freedom law row, slamming the state for marginalizing the LGBT community

'So we've got to stand side by side with all our neighbors - straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, Muslim, Jew, Christian, Hindu immigrant, Native American - because the march for civil rights isn't just about African Americans, it's about all Americans,' she said.

In her passionate speech, the First Lady said she wanted to make America 'more equal' and 'more free' for future generations.

Mississippi laws have changed so businesses can refuse custom to those in the LGBT community on a religious basis.

Meanwhile in North Carolina, transsexual people are now only allowed to use public toilets that matched the gender on their birth certificates.

The laws have been condemned internationally and led the UK to issue a travel warning to LGBT tourists planning on visiting either Mississippi or North Carolina.

Mrs Obama's comments echoed those of the president, who said the state laws were 'wrong and should be overturned'.

The First Lady told 35,000 people at Jackson State University to 'stand side by side' with people of all sexualities, not only on social media but also at the ballot box

Campaigner: Mrs Obama said if people fail to exercise the fundamental right to vote, rights will be under threat

'In part they're are some strong emotions generated by people, some of whom are good people, but I just disagree with when it comes to respecting the equal rights of all people, regardless of sexual orientation,' President Obama said.

Continuing her speech in Mississippi, Mrs Obama said if people fail to exercise their fundamental right to vote, rights will be under threat.

'Congress will still be gridlocked. Statehouses will continue to roll back voting rights and write discrimination into the law,' she said.

She said many young black people disenfranchised themselves in the 2014 midterm elections, when only about 20 percent of them voted.

'You can hashtag all over Instagram and Twitter, but those social medial movements will disappear faster than a Snapchat if you're not also registered to vote,' the First Lady said.

Mrs Obama also user her speech to make a thinly-veiled swipe at Donald Trump, referencing his divisive manner and the birth certificate conspiracy that the Republican presidential candidate instigated in 2011.

'We pay endless attention to folks who are blocking action, blocking judges, blocking immigration, blocking a raise in the minimum wage. Just blocking,' she said.

'We are consumed with the anger and vitriol that are bubbling up, with folks shouting at each other, using hateful and divisive language.

'And then there's the countless times when that language gets personal and is directed at my husband - charges that he doesn't love our country.

'The time he was called a liar in front of a joint session of Congress. The nonstop questions about his birth certificate and his belief in God.'
She said: 'If I do have sex with him, I want some serious compensation'

An interior designer who wanted some serious compensation to have sex with a Gold Coast property developer has been jailed for 12 years for forgery and theft.

Michelle Bouchard, 55, was found guilty in the Cayman Islands Grand Court on 25 charges of stealing $3,969,550.96 from retired property developer James Handford, 88, The Daily Telegraph reported.

They met in 2007 when Mr Handford moved to Seven Mile Beach in the Cayman Islands after he sold his home in Paradise Point, Queensland for over $23 million.

Michelle Bouchard (pictured), 55, was found guilty in the Cayman Islands Grand Court on 25 charges of stealing $3,969,550.96 from retired property developer James Handford, 38

Mr Handford hired Ms Bouchard from Montreal as an interior designer.

In 2010 they opened joint back accounts before Mr Handford deposited $257,977.97 and a further $1,814,469.18, but by October 2012 the account had been overdrawn, the court heard.

A separate account was opened in April 2012 into which Mr Handford deposited $902,003.

In May 2012, Mr Handford flew back to the Gold Coast and Ms Bouchard transferred $773,146.09 into her personal bank accounts in Canada.

Mr Handford expressed an interest in a physical relationship with Ms Bouchard- she told the court that she 'was willing to have a full sexual relationship if he was willing to address my concerns.'

Mr Handford (pictured) expressed an interest in a physical relationship with Ms Bouchard- she told the court that she 'was willing to have a full sexual relationship if he was willing to address my concerns'

He wants to have a sexual relationship with me, but he does not say what he will give me in return other than some form of room and board, which isnt enough to keep me in his life.

But if I do have sex with him, I want some serious compensation ... I also know that as long as we do not have sex I am in the only position of power I have available to me, she said.

Mr Handford now resides in a nursing home on the Gold Coast and suffers from dementia.
A Liberal MP and former soldier has slammed 'poorly conceived' Australian operations in Afghanistan which could lead to the death of 'innocents' and revealed how he stopped local forces from killing 'in cold blood'.

Former SAS troop commander Andrew Hastie, who won a by-election in the West Australian seat of Canning last year, has claimed our military are ordered to partner with Afghani forces that commit war crimes.

Local forces became 'the enemy' during his time in the country in 2013 when he stopped APPRC officers (Afghan Provincial Police Reserve Company) from killing prisoners, Mr Hastie said according to Daily Telegraph.

Former SAS troop commander Andrew Hastie has claimed our military are ordered to partner with Afghani forces that commit war crimes (pictured on duty in Afghanistan)

He said local officers were punching, kicking and head-stomping prisoners during a mission in Chora Valley.

An Afghan then commander suggested they 'shoot them right here'.

When Mr Hastie protested, he said the Afghan soldiers laughed at his 'lack of nerve to kill in cold blood'.

Mr Hastie won a by-election in the federal West Australian seat of Canning last year

The Sydney-raised politician said the men were instead 'detained, processed and released three days later' thanks to him.

'Does anyone recognise the insanity of risking our lives to capture insurgents and then have them released because there wasn't a functioning judicial system to support our efforts?' Mr Hastie said.

'The stakes are too high to allow the union of poorly conceived policy with military means,' he said.

'People will be killed  and often times they will be innocents.'

Mr Hastie made the claims in an essay written for a 2014 scholarship application for Oxford University and recently provided to Daily Telegraph.
They then held her for six hours while she recovered until she swam off

Mauricio Camareno and his friends carried the animal back to the ocean

The men had noticed a strange 'lump' floating in the mouth of a river

A group of Costa Riccan surfers have rescued an exhausted baby pilot whale after the animal became stranded during low tide.

Mauricio Camareno and his friends arrived to the beach at Boca Barranca, Puntarenas, on Costa Rica's central Pacific coast, on Wednesday morning to catch some waves.

But their surfing plans were put on hold after they spotted a strange black 'lump' floating in the mouth of a small river nearby.

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A group of Costa Riccan surfers have rescued an exhausted baby pilot whale after the animal became stranded during low tide

As they went to investigate, they heard the baby whale making distressed noises.

'She was very weak and could not keep afloat,' Camareno told the Costa Rica Star.

The men say they leaped in to save the animal, which had made its way for nearly a third of a mile up river.

They began the slow and arduous process of carrying it into deeper waters. But the baby whale was so exhausted, they needed to hold her up to the surface so she didn't drown.

Eventually, after the surfers had held her for six hours, the whale was finally ready to return to the ocean.

The surfers first noticed a 'strange lump' floating in the water before they heard the animal making distressed noises

The men say they leaped in to save the animal, which had made its way for nearly a third of a mile up river

Footage of the rescue shows the surfers holding up the baby whale while she recovered from her exhausting swim

Footage of the rescue, posted on Boletines Surf, shows the surfers splashing water on the whale to keep her cool as they prop her up.

At high tide, the group guided her into deeper waters where she swum off on her own - presumably to find her mother and the rest of the herd.

Camereno said he and his friends had contacted the authorities to report the incident but they never turned up.

Pilot whales are born measuring around 4.7 feet long and weighing just over 135 pounds. They typically nurse for two years as they develop.
Pennsylvania, one of the most delegate-rich states left on the primary schedule, looks like it will be an easy pickup for frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll has The Donald up 18 points over rival Sen. Ted Cruz and 21 points over Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who grew up in the Keystone State.

Over on the Democratic side, Clinton is besting Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by 15 points.

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Republican frontrunner Donald Trump (left) and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton (right) both have comfortable leads in Pennsylvania, the delegate-rich prize that votes Tuesday

Donald Trump is way ahead of the Republican pack in polling out today from Pennsylvania, where voters head to the polls on Tuesday

In the NBC poll, the state's likely Republican voters give Trump 45 percent support, Cruz 27 percent support and Kasich 24 percent support.

Fifty-five percent of the state's likely Democratic voters support Clinton, while 40 percent like Sanders.

Trump has an even bigger lead in a new CBS News Battleground Tracker poll that came out this morning.

In that poll, Trump leads Cruz by 23 points, earning the support of 49 percent of likely Republican voters.

Cruz earns the support of 26 percent and Kasich is last again earning 22 percent support.

The numbers are tighter on the Democratic side in the CBS poll.

Clinton bests Sanders by eight points, receiving 51 percent of support from Pennsylvania's likely Democratic voters to Sanders 43 percent.

If Clinton's lead holds, because of the Democrats' proportional distribution of delegates, a win in Pennsylvania Tuesday night will be another nail in the Sanders campaign's coffin, as the former secretary of state has a nearly insurmountable lead in the pledged delegates that she needs to win her party's nomination.

Democrat Hillary Clinton has a 15 point lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Keystone State, which hosts a closed Democratic primary, which puts Sanders at a disadvantage

Additionally like New York, Pennsylvania holds a closed primary, which would bar a slew of independent voters coming to the polls to support Sanders.

If Trump wins the state he's only guaranteed 17 delegates of the 71 up for grabs.

That's because voters in Pennsylvania choose three delegates from each congressional district to head to the convention too, but who those delegates support isn't noted on the ballot.

Cruz has worked a successful ground game in other states ensuring that delegates  even those 'bound' to Trump on the first ballot  are actually the Texas senator's supporters and he may pursue the same strategy in Pennsylvania to rout the New York billionaire.

On May 3, Cruz has another opportunity, in Indiana's primary, to grab delegates away, as he mathematically can't win enough delegates to clinch the GOP nomination outright and must work to prevent Trump from earning it on the first ballot.

Polling out of Indiana, however, still looks fairly good for Trump.

The CBS News Battleground Tracker has the businessman five points ahead.

Forty percent of likely Republican voters in the state prefer Trump, 35 prefer Cruz and 20 percent say they like Kasich.

On the Democratic side, the polls are closer too.
Mexican police tortured at least 17 suspects while investigating the disappearance of 43 students in 2014, and in doing so may have destroyed chances of successful convictions, an independent report revealed Sunday.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) studied 17 of the 110 suspects arrested in the case, and found that all showed signs of beatings, with some having dozens of cuts and bruises, and at least one other saying he was electrocuted.

Incompetence by investigators and prosecutors, as well as interference in the independent investigation, also means that the truth about what happened to the missing students may never be known, the report said.

Disappearance: In 2014, 43 students disappeared from Iguala, Guerrero state, believed to have been kidnapped by corrupt police and local gangs. A new report says that at least 17 suspects were tortured

Evidence: Due to doubts cast on forensic evidence (shown being collected in 2014), the case relies heavily on testimony from some of the 110 suspects arrested - but torture claims could cause that to fall through

In September 2014, more than 100 male students from Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College traveled to Iguala, Guerrero state to protest the mayor and his wife over what they said were discriminatory government hiring policies.

The government report concluded they were kidnapped by municipal police and handed over to members of the Guerreros Unidosdrug gang.

That first official report said they were killed and their bodies destroyed by burning them for 14-15 hours in a garbage dump in the town of Cocula, Guerrero. Human remains were found in a river nearby.

But that report was criticized in September 2015 by a Mexican panel that said it was 'scientifically impossible' for the bodies to have been destroyed in the dump.

A second panel of international experts - the IACHR - was then announced, but this panel has now concluded that police brutality and bungled prosecutions have destroyed the case.

Of the 17 suspects' files examined by the panel, one said he was nearly asphyxiated with a plastic bag, and medical studies confirmed another had been slapped on the ears so hard his eardrums broke and his ears bled.

'It is a lie the way they said they caught us,' one of the men, Patricio Reyes Landa, alias 'El Pato,' said in testimony that was made public by the experts' report.

'They went into the house, beating and kicking. They hauled me aboard a vehicle, they blindfolded me, tied my feet and hands, they began beating me again and gave me electric shocks, they put a rag over my nose and poured water on it.

'They gave me shocks on the inside of my mouth and my testicles. They put a bag over my face so I couldn't breathe. It went on for hours.'

And medical reports on Agustin Garcia Reyes, a suspect whose testimony was key for the government's case, say that he went into custody with just one bruise - but hours later, when he was turned over to civilian prosecutors, they said he had 30 bruises, scrapes and scabs.

Tortured: Patricio Reyes (left) said his testicles were electrocuted by investigators while Agustin Reyes (right) reportedly gained 30 bruises, scrapes and scabs during his 'interrogation'

Arrest: Some 27 municipal policemen (pictured, in hi-vis jackets) were arrested, but the new report said investigators should have looked at the possibility of federal police and army involvement in the kidnapping

These allegations could ruin any chance of getting convictions in this, one of the highest-profile human rights cases in Mexican history, the report said.

This is especially important as the prosecution relies heavily on the testimony of cartel gunmen who now say they were tortured into confessing.

The report also makes a number of other criticisms of the government, most notably that it stonewalled the independent investigation.

It said investigations had been deliberately slowed as prosecutors dragged their feet about providing evidence.

The attorney general's office also did not let them re-interview detainees accused of the crime or obtain other information in a timely fashion.

Documents requested months earlier only arrived around a week ago, when it was too late for investigators to analyze them, the report said.

'The speed with which the attorney general's office acted in the last week contrasts with the delays and delays that occurred in the last four months,' the report said.

The report continued: 'The delays in obtaining evidence that could be used to figure out possible lines of investigation translates into a decision [to allow] impunity.'

Prosecutors, meanwhile, did not pursue investigative angles that the experts had suggested.

Delays: The independent investigators also said their work was stalled by government agencies that deliberately held back key evidence until it was too late to be examined

Other criticisms were made, including that the government had been so fixated on its version of the story that it never investigated other options, and that the existing investigation was flawed and weak.

In terms of tunnel vision, the report says, investigators never even considered the possibility of involvement by the federal police and the army.

For example, it said, the roadblocks set up on local highways around Iguala were far bigger than previously thought, and apparently coordinated by the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel to trap rivals - therefore the gang may have thought the students were part of a rival cartel.

The report also said that prosecutors provided little evidence that the garbage dump in Cocula could ever have had a fire a big enough to destroy all the bodies.

'It is clear that there was a latent rejection of any version other than the burning of the students at the Cocula dump,' the report said.

It continued: 'They turned back to that scenario time after time, without investigating other police forces or state actors.'

The panel's mandate expires at the end of this month, and it will leave Mexico with the crime still largely unresolved; only one student has been identified from charred bone fragments found in the river near the dump.

The report also found that one student sent a message to his parents from his cell phone hours after he had supposedly been killed.

The report concluded that the municipal police were the main culprits, but that the federal police should be subject to investigation too.

It also said that both the army and the intelligence agency known as CISEN had failed to hand over reports that could help the case.

The Mexican government recently released documents suggesting investigations had been opened against police and military personnel, but authorities have not answered requests about whether anyone has been arrested or charged.
A pervert doctor who groped female patients 40 years ago and robbed one of the chance of ever finding love has been sent to prison for his crimes.

Justice finally caught up with retired GP, Mohammed Haq, from Hornchurch, Essex, when the frail 74-year-old was led from the dock of St Albans Crown Court to begin his 18 month sentence.

Before, the court heard how a young single woman - who was pregnant at the time - was left so traumatised by what Haq did to her that she never felt able to let a man to touch her again.

Justice finally caught up with retired GP, Mohammed Haq, (pictured) from Hornchurch, Essex, when the frail 74-year-old was led from the dock to begin his 18 month sentence

As a result, St Albans crown court was told, the woman has never had a 'relationship' with a man since.

In a statement that was read to the court, she said: 'Since that evening I have not been in any relationship. I didn't want to be touched by any man.'

The woman said she had been looking forward to being a mother until Haq groped her at his surgery one evening.

Even as the time approached for her son to be born she couldn't bear the thought of a doctor touching or examining her.

She insisted she be allowed a Caesarian birth as a result.

Her statement continued: 'Everything changed in my life that evening... I have never felt safe to have a relationship'.

With no partner in her life, she missed being hugged or cuddled, and added: 'This will be my life forever'.

She told the court that before being indecently assaulted by the doctor she had wanted more children and didn't want her son to end up as an only child, which he did.

'He took from me the ability to love and he's a wicked man who got his kicks by abusing women,' she said.

Haq appeared in court having been found guilty earlier this year of fondling the breasts of a teenage girl and three female patients during unnecessary clinical examinations in the 1970s and early 1980s.

The married father-of-two indecently assaulted the women while he worked as a GP at the Burvill House Surgery and Hilltop Surgery in Hatfield, Hertfordshire.

Everything changed in my life that evening'... 'I have never felt safe to have a relationship. Victim

Prosecutor Miranda Moore QC told the jury at the start of his trial: 'There were inappropriate breast examinations and there was no clinical justification for what happened.'

The youngest victim was 15 when she went to see the doctor because she had swollen neck glands.

Ms Moore added: 'He asked her to take her top, her bra and her trousers off. She was standing in her pants alone in the room with no chaperone.

'He cupped her breasts and twiddled with her nipples. He told her to bend over. She felt stunned.'

One patient went to see Dr Haq for a repeat prescription of slimming pills.

'He told her to take her top off and pulled her right nipple to make it erect. Then he made both nipples erect and plucked them. He did not weigh her or give her the weight loss pills,' said the barrister.

Another woman, who is now in her 60s, went to Haq with a bad back and he touched her breasts unnecessarily.

The victim told the jury: 'He told me to take my jumper and bra off and lie on the couch. There was no second person in room.

Before, St Albans Crown Court (pictured) heard how a young single woman - who was pregnant at the time - was left so traumatised by what Haq did to her that she never felt able to let a man to touch her again

'He started touching the breast area. He was not examining me for problems he was just fondling.

'He asked me to stand up and touched my breasts again. I suppose I was young and naive.'

She said she saw Dr Haq again in 1980 when she had a rash on her neck.

'He asked me to take my jumper and bra off. I did.

'I felt shocked, having only gone with a rash on my neck. He didn't say why he was touching my breasts. He said he did not know what the rash was and gave me a prescription for some cream.'

When another woman went to Haq to find out if she was pregnant he told her to strip and squeezed her breasts.

The woman is said to have complained to the surgery receptionist who 'laughed at her'.

Haq, of Parkstone Avenue, Hornchurch denied ten offences of indecent assault on four women in the 1970s and early 80s.

During the course of the trial Judge Andrew Bright QC ruled that he had no case to answer on two charges of indecent assault.

He was convicted by the jury of eight women and four men unanimously on three counts.

They convicted him on two other charges by a majority of ten to two.

The jury cleared him of two others. They could not agree on the remaining charge.

Sentencing had been adjourned for medical reports to be prepared and he was ordered to register as a sex offender.

He asked me to stand up and touched my breasts again. I suppose I was young and naive. Victim

Haq had committed the offences on the women when he was in his thirties, but the court was told he now suffers from heart problems and is profoundly deaf.

He has diabetes, eye problems and is waiting for an operation to remove a large kidney stone. He is also suffering from depression.

In the early 1980s he was been suspended for 9 months by the General Medical Council after complaints from patients, but there was never any criminal investigation into his activities.

Years later his victims finally found the courage to tell Hertfordshire Police what Haq had done to them and he was arrested and charged.

Following his suspension in 1981, he was allowed to resume practicing as a doctor and eventually retired in 2014.

Julian Woodbridge, defending, described what Haq had done as 'the opportunistic touching of breast'.

He went on 'Even 35 years on what is obvious is that his behaviour has had an effect on the women.'

Passing sentence on Friday, Judge Bright said that because of the age of the victim, the most serious offence had been the fondling of the 15-year-old.

As a result of what he did to her, which had been for his own 'sexual gratification,' the judge said her life had been blighted by panic attacks.

The judge told Haq his victims had placed total trust in him as their GP.

'It was complete and total trust and you abused that trust with all your victims including a 15-year-old who was in no position to speak up for herself.'

Judge Bright said by contesting the allegations and forcing the victims to go to court and relive their ordeals, it was clear Haq felt no remorse for his crimes.
Police have said they are increasingly concerned after a mother went missing with her six-year-old daughter.

Rosemary Gregg, 48, from Limavady, Northern Ireland, and her daughter Orlaith, have not been seen since they left their home on Friday.

Police said they may be in the Belfast area but could also have travelled across the border to Dublin.

Police in Northern Ireland are appealing for information about the location of Rosemary Gregg, left, and her daughter Orlaith, right, who have not been seen since they left their home in Limavady on Friday

Officers appealed for the mother, or anyone who knows of their whereabouts, to come forward and they issued a description.

Ms Gregg is 5ft 9in, of medium build, with brown eyes and shoulder length dirty fair hair and wore a black Superdry jacket when she was last seen.
Israel has released a 12-year-old Palestinian girl who had been jailed after she was arrested near an Jewish settlement armed with a knife.

Dima al-Wawi spent more than two months in prison following the attempted stabbing attack.

The youngster was handed over to Palestinian authorities at Tulkarem crossing point into the northern West Bank.

Dima al-Wawi, centre, was greeted today by her father Ismail, left, and mother Sabha, right, after her release

Dima al-Wawi, 12, pictured here today being greeted by her mother Sabha, right, after she was released by Israeli authorities after serving more than two months in jail having pleaded guilty to attempted murder

Dima, pictured today at the Jabara checkpoint near the West Bank town of Tulkarem, was arrested in February near a Jewish settlement wearing her school uniform but carrying a knife

Dima, pictured with her mother, left, and brother Ahmad, right, pleaded guilty for an attempted stabbing attack

She was to travel from there to her family home near Hebron in the south of the territory.

She was arrested, wearing her school uniform, on February 9 at the entrance to a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank and found to be carrying a knife.

A wave of Palestinian knife, gun or car-ramming attacks has left 28 Israelis dead since last October, with 201 Palestinians killed over the same period, most of them while carrying out attacks.

Under a plea bargain with Israeli military prosecutors, Wawi pleaded guilty to attempted murder and possession of a knife and was sentenced to four months in an Israeli prison and a further six-week suspended sentence.

'She is the youngest Palestinian girl ever imprisoned,' her lawyer Tariq Barghouth posted on Facebook.

Barghouth said that Wawis defence team had asked the military court for her early release and it agreed.

According to Israeli military law, minors from age 12 can be charged, uniquely in the world according to United Nations childrens agency UNICEF.

Israel is currently holding about 450 Palestinian minors, around 100 of whom are under 16.

It is understood that Dima is the youngest ever Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli jail, according to her lawyer

There were emotional scenes after Dima was reunited to her mother Sabha, left, and father, right

Dima was greeted by about 80 relatives at her family's house in Halhoul, a village near Hebron, a West Bank city that has been a focal point of violence. Relatives decorated the house with balloons and posters.

Banners by the Islamic militant group Hamas along with the Fatah party of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas adorned the walls.

Dima said: 'I am happy to be out. Prison is bad. During my time in prison I missed my classmates and my friends and family.'

According to court documents provided by the military, Dima approached the West Bank settlement of Carmei Tsur on February 9 with a knife hidden under a shirt.

A security guard ordered her to halt, and a resident instructed her to lie on the ground and told her to give up the knife, which she did.

Military documents said Dima approached a Jewish settlement with a knife hidden under her school uniform

She was re-united with her family after returning to her Halhoul village near the West Bank city of Hebron

An amateur video clip shown on Israeli TV showed the resident asking the girl, who was wearing her school uniform, whether she had come to kill Jews, and she said yes.

She later pleaded guilty to attempted manslaughter in a plea bargain and was sentenced to four and a half months in prison. She was freed early after an appeal.

Her case put Israel's military justice system in a tough spot because of her young age.

Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war, and Palestinian residents there are subject to a system of military law that can sentence suspects as young as 12 to prison.

Dima pictured, was treated like a returning hero after she was released from an Israeli prison today

Locals prepared flags and banners for Dima's return to her village this afternoon after two months in jail

By contrast, Israeli settlers in the West Bank, as well as Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel, are subject to Israeli civil law, which does not allow anyone under 14 to go to jail.

The incident came amid seven months of violence in which Palestinians have killed 28 Israelis and two Americans in stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks in Israel and the West Bank.

At least 190 Palestinians have died from Israeli fire. Israel says most were attackers, and the rest died in clashes with Israeli security forces.

Many of the Palestinian attackers have been teenagers or in their early 20s.

Israel blames the attacks on incitement by Palestinian religious and political leaders that is compounded on social media sites that glorify and encourage attacks.

Palestinian officials say it is the result of despair living under Israeli occupation and frustration over the prospect of ever reaching statehood.

Dima was imprisoned by special military legislation will allows the jailing of 12-year-olds in the West Bank
There were no indications that any of the dead killed themselves, and authorities mentioned the possibility of three or more killers

A Cincinnati restaurateur has offered to pay a $25,000 reward for information regarding the execution-style murder of eight family members in Pike County, Ohio, as authorities fail to pinpoint any suspects after interviewing 30 people.

Jeff Ruby, who owns three steak houses, contacted the state's attorney general, hoping the money will lead to the arrest of one or more killers responsible for the shootings.

Seven adults and a 16-year-old boy, all members of the Rhoden family, were found dead at four homes along Union Hill Road on Friday, prompting authorities to believe they might be chasing three or more murderers.

As the chilling 911 calls made by frantic family members who stumbled upon the bloody scene have been released, some theorized that jealousy or a dispute over a $3,000 car driven by one of the victims could be behind the murders.

Heartbreaking: Husband-to-be Frankie Rhoden and his fiancee Hannah Hazel Gilley, 20, were among those killed Friday in Piketon, Ohio, according to the Morning Ledger

Tragic: Grandmother-to-be Dana Lynn Rhoden (left), 37, and her son, 16-year-old Chris Rhoden (right) were also murdered, according to the Morning Ledger. Victims Chris and Frankie are brothers

Devastating: Hanna May Rhoden (pictured left and right) was killed Friday in the Piketon shooting that has rocked the small community, according to the Morning Ledger. Her Facebook page says she was already a mother to one child

Kenneth Rhoden (left), 44, and Chris Rhoden Sr (right), 40, were named as victims in Friday's murders. Chris Rhoden Sr is the father of Chris Rhoden Jr, who was also killed in the massacre

Gary Rhoden (pictured above in an undated photograph), 38, was named as one of eight family members killed in Pike County on Friday

Eight members of the Rhoden family, including a mother sleeping in a bed with her four-day-old baby next to her, were fatally shot in the head on Friday.

Some of the victims were found in bed, indicating they were shot while they were sleeping, authorities said.

The four-day-old, a six-month-old and a three-year-old child appear to have been spared in the grisly killings, and authorities have declined to say where they have been taken.

The eight victims have been identified as: recent-father and husband-to-be Frankie Rhoden and his 20-year-old fiancee Hannah Hazel Gilley; 22-year-old mother Hanna May Rhoden; grandmother-to-be Dana Lynn Rhoden, 37; 16-year-old Chris Rhoden Jr; 40-year-old Chris Rhoden Sr; 38-year-old Gary Rhoden and 44-year-old Kenneth Rhoden.

Seven of the victims were found in three homes in Peebles, a small village 70 miles east of Cincinnati with a population of less than 1,800 people. The eighth was later found in Piketon, officials said.

Restaurateur Jeff Ruby has offered $25,000 for information leading to the arrest of any killer responsible for the massacre

Aaron Bludworth, the head of an events company Fern, responded to Ruby's tweet to say he would contribute an additional $5,000 to the reward. Pictured, Ruby, left, with Carmen Electra

In a 911 call following the shootings, a woman sounded out of breath as she frantically told a dispatcher, 'I think my brother-in-law's dead...There's blood all over the house.'

'My brother-in-law is in the bedroom and it looks like someone has beat the hell out of him,' she said.

Before weeping into the phone, she says it looked as though someone else was dead too.

The distraught woman said two men, Chris Rhoden and Gary Rhoden, at 4077 Union Hill Road appeared to be dead during the call that was placed at 7.49am Friday.

She drove to the house and discovered the horrific scene.

'I think they are both dead,' she said.

In a second 911 call that was received, a man said: 'I just found my cousin with a gunshot wound.'

The dispatcher asks, 'Is he alive?'

The man replied and said 'no, no'.

Members of the family of the victims suggested that jealousy or a dispute over a $3,000 demolition derby car (pictured) driven by Frankie Rhoden could be behind the murders.

Johnny Gambill (pictured above with his daughter, Rosemary), whose wife Lorretta was first cousin to victim Dana Lynn Rhoden, 37, suggested that the violence could have been sparked by a bitter rivalry Frankie Rhoden had with other derby competitors

Gambill (right, with his daughter Rosemary and his son), said Frankie Rhoden had been competed several times in his $3,000 1990s model Ford Crown Victoria car in local derbies, while other cars are usually only worth between $500 to $1000

Authorities have interviewed more than 30 people so far and Attorney General Mike DeWine said: 'We will continue until the case is solved. We do not know whether we're talking about one individual or two or three or more.'

Restaurant owner Jeff Ruby, who owns steakhouses in Cincinnati and Louisville, Kentucky, stepped in to help on Saturday, writing on Twitter: '2whom it may concern: Would like to post $25k reward for anyone who leads to arrest of Rhoden family killer(s) in Pike Co. Ohio. Need Contact.'

Aaron Bludworth, the head of an events company Fern, responded to Ruby's tweet to say he would contribute an additional $5,000 to the reward.

As the investigation continues, family members suggested the jealousy over victim Frankie Rhoden's demolition derby car may have set the killer off.

Frankie, who was gunned down with his fiancee Hannah Hazel Gilley, reportedly mentioned the bitterness between him and other competitors.

The 20-year-old had competed in his 1990s model Ford Crown Victoria car at local derbies and mentioned angry rows with other competitors.

Johnny Gambill, whose wife Lorretta was first cousin to Dana Lynn Rhoden, 37, said: Some of us have been talking about the jealousy that Frankie had faced over his car.

It was worth more than $3,000 and that made some people jealous around Piketon.

Gambill, a trash collector, added: ' My wife had spoken to Dana about it and we feel today that could be the reason because there aint nothing else that seems what it could it be.

The Rhodens are good people who live for each other and there is no reason why anybody should want to do this. They are all very close.'

Pastor Phil Fulton called the people who killed the Rhoden family 'evil, sick, hideous' on Friday outside his church

Authorities said the shootings appeared targeted towards the Rhoden family specifically. Above, an aerial view of one of the scenes on Friday

There is no drugs reason or money reason. Everybody is peaceful around here normally. There aint never been anything at all like this.

The whole thing is so shocking and if the car was the reason then that is so disgusting and incredible. But there were people jealous about him and his car.

Russ Clark, who runs Smash It Demolition Derbys locally with his brother Tim, said Frankie Rhodens car was worth more than many of the cars used in tournaments.

He told Daily Mail Online that most cars were valued at around $500 to $1000 with high end cars worth upwards of $2000. The victims car would easily be worth $3000 he added.

Demolition derbies are popular across the Midwest, with competitors running into each other until the last car standing is declared the winner.

The events are popular in the area and attract thousands of spectators, but competitions are governed by strict rules and drivers have to wear safety helmets.

Eight Rhoden family members were found shot to death in rural Ohio Friday. Above, one of the crime scenes

Authorities are investigating four crime scenes at homes along Union Hill Road in Pike County, including the one above

Investigators might be looking for several killers but do not know exactly how many. Pictured, a sheriff's deputy stands near one of the crime scenes east of Peebles, Ohio on Friday

They do not believe the community is at threat but Sheriff Charles Reader warned that there might still be an armed and dangerous threat at large. Above, one of the crime scenes

Police have established that the killer or killers are still at large and not among the eight victims.

'There were no indications that any of the dead had killed themselves. We have a murder - or murderers - who have done this,' DeWine said.

Authorities spoke to 100 of their relatives, and more than 30 people have been interviewed so far, although no person of interest has been apprehended and investigators are considering different theories.

Police believe the killers specifically targeted the family, and DeWine said there was no indication of a threat towards the rest of the community.

However Sheriff Charles Reader said: 'There is a threat and I believe that threat to be armed and dangerous.'

Ohio governor and presidential candidate John Kasich was 'very concerned' about the shooting and requested a briefing, DeWine said.

'We just couldn't believe it. When the governor and I talked I think he was still in shock about it,' he added.

'It's not something you expect to find in any place in the state of Ohio, it's certainly not something you expect to find in Pike County.'

Kasich said his office was monitoring the situation in Pike County while he spent the Friday campaigning in Pennsylvania for his Republican presidential bid.

'Reports we are receiving from Peebles are tragic beyond comprehension,' Kasich wrote on his Twitter account Friday.

Sources told My Fox Columbus that the shootings do not appear to be random. Above, Union Hill Road - just east of Peebles, Ohio

More than 100 friends and family members spoke to authorities. Pictured, officials speak near the scene of a mass murder east of Peebles, Ohio on Friday

Thirty officers have been dispatched, including 13 road deputies, Reader said. The FBI remains available and has not been involved directly at this time.

'We don't know how long this is going to take,' DeWine said. We will continue to work until we know who did it.'

'We're coming,' Reader said. 'When this investigation is complete it's going to point us into the direction we need to go and we will find who did this.'

Local Pastor Phil Fulton, whose church is currently housing up to 100 Rhoden families and friends, said: The people who did this are evil, sick, hideous.

Fulton described the family as close-knit and hardworking and says they were previously part of his congregation at Union Hill Church.

He said he had seen the family members together as they wept and expressed fears for their safety.

Authorities didn't release any information on whether there were multiple weapons used. Pictured, several ambulances were lined up along the road where the multiple crime scenes were located Friday

Lt. Michael Preston, of the Ross County Sheriff's Department speaks to the media on Union Hill Road that approaches a crime scene, Friday, April 22, 2016, in Pike County, Ohio

Facebook tributes for those killed are pouring in, as many in the small community knew those who were murdered.

A relative of the Rhoden family, Donna Musser, wrote on Facebook: 'Reality sets in so much when you look at these three precious babies and know they won't grow up knowing their mom's and dad's, grandma and grandpa and their aunt's and uncle's.

'I really hope the pos that walked into my families homes and killed them while Hannah held her newborn and the other babies were sleeping, I hope you truly get what you deserve hell isn't good enough for you.'

In a post with the some of the victims' photos made into a collage, one user wrote: 'Fly high my beautiful friends!! Love each of you as family!! You will be greatly missed!! Fly high. Chris Rhoden, Frankie Rhoden, Hannah Hazel Gilley, Hanna May Rhoden, Dana Lynn Rhoden'.

Another person who knew the youngest victim, Chris, wrote on Facebook: 'Still can't believe it's true, fly high Chris Rhoden. camp won't be the same without your jokes and you driving around camp in your car. praying for Piketon and the Rhoden family.'

A motive isn't clear, authorities said, but they urged other members of the Rhoden family to take precautions, and Reader advised all residents to stay inside and lock their doors Friday night.

'This really is a question of public safety, and particularly for any of the Rhoden family,' DeWine said.

Authorities create a perimeter near a crime scene on Union Hill Rd, Friday, April 22, 2016, in Pike County, Ohio

Crime scene investigation vehicles drive up Union Hill Road as they approach the location of a reported multiple shooting, Friday, April 22, 2016, in Pike County, Ohio

Media and emergency personnel stand at the perimeter of a crime scene as investigation vehicles drive up Union Hill Road, Friday, April 22, 2016, in Pike County, Ohio

Crime scene investigators were first called to Union Hill Road at 8.21am, when seven of the victims were found shot to death in the head 'execution style'.

The first three homes where bodies were found are located within a couple miles of one another on a sparsely populated stretch of road, while the eighth body - a man - was found in a house within 30 miles just before 2pm, the sheriff said.

Authorities didn't release any information on whether there were multiple weapons used or whether anything was missing from the homes.

Peebles High School imposed a precautionary lockout Friday morning after authorities notified the superintendent of shootings that had occurred a few miles away, according to Regina Bennington, secretary to the superintendent for the Adams County Ohio Valley Schools district.

High school officials said the school was back to normal operations later Friday morning.

Piketon is the site of a Cold War-era uranium plant that was closed in 2001 and is still being cleaned up.

The economically distressed county in the Appalachian Mountain region has some 28,000 residents and is roughly 80 miles east of Cincinnati.

According to satellite views of the area, the street appears to be dotted with small farms.

Anyone with information about the murders is asked to call the tip line at 1-800-BCI-OHIO.
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A top conservation expert has called for the government to invest in the restoration of Britain's colonial heritage in a bid to promote the UK abroad.

While lawmakers discuss how to stump up the more than 5 billion needed to carry out repairs on Westminster Palace, the former director of heritage England has called on the government to spend 2 million on a pilot fund for feasibility studies to repair overseas monuments to the UK's colonial past.

At its peak in the 1920s, the British Empire held sway over a fifth of world's population and a quarter of its land, holding outposts and territories in every corner of the globe.

But now the once imposing bastions of colonial power - from the grand palaces of Calcutta to the soldiers' clubs of Myanmar - are abandoned and overgrown.

Overgrown: Conservationist Philip Davies has called on the government to invest in the restoration of British colonial buildings, like this one on Ross Island in the Andaman Sea, which has fallen into ruin and is overgrown

Promote: In an unenthusiastic climate towards foreign aid, Mr Davies argues that the investment would help promote the UK

Rangoon's Secretariat building, the administrative seat of British rule and assassination site of Aung San Suu Kyi's father in 1947, Burma

The Old Secretariat building in Rangoon, Burma was built in the early 1800s and faces conversion into a hotel or a museum

In his report, Philip Davies, called for the 'dynamic conservation' of the UK relics, telling the Sunday Telegraph: 'Heritage-led regeneration works. It pays real economic dividends. Historic buildings and neighbourhoods are a huge economic and cultural asset.'

Among the sites he has brought to attention is Rangoon's Secretariat building in Burma. Once the administrative centre of the British rule, the huge red-brick building is also where Aung Suu Kyi's father was assassinated by a gang of paramilitaries in 1947.

'People's perceptions of a country and it's culture are coloured by the way in which its cultural heritage is recognised, supported and celebrated,' Mr Davies wrote in his report according to The Telegraph.

'Prominent public buildings and monuments, which symbolise Britain's shared history with a host country and which are dilapidated and decaying portray a nation unconcerned about its global culture and influence - a country in decline,' he continued.

Pegu Club, Burma was the Officers' Club for the British Army when Myanmar was the British colony of Burma. The club, principally made of teak, is now abandoned and in decay while rats and stray dogs inhabit what was Asia's most famous gentlemen's clubs

Government House in Barrackpore, north Calcutta pictured above in the 1860s. It was once the summer residence of Governors-General and had sprawling grounds. Now it is derelict and abandoned - untouched since its last use as a police hospital

Former glory: Mr Davies says the UK experience in urban regeneration could help to create jobs, skills and prosperity for 'cultural exports'

'Much of the historic fabric of Calcutta is in a shocking condition and requires urgent intervention, and conservation strategy,' said Mr Davies.

'The UK experience in urban regeneration could help to safeguard this unique shared heritage generating jobs, skills and prosperity for British cultural exports.'

His report also highlighted British outposts in far-flung Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which lie in the Andaman sea.

Ross Island was occupied by the British from 1858 until 1942 and was the administrative hub of the islands.

It is now home to the ruins of the Chief Commissioners House, the Government House, and a church, and is central to tourist visits to the island, despite the sites being overgrown.

The Government House at Barrackpore was known as the 'pearl of the Empire', just north of Calcutta the former capital of the British Raj
Joyner was knocked out and her head allegedly banged against the sink

Video shows the teen being grabbed by her hair and forced to her knees

This is the horrific moment high school teen Amy Inita Joyner-Francis was allegedly attacked and killed by a group of bullies in the school bathrooms.

The picture, taken from cellphone footage, shows the 16-year-old being forced to her knees by a girl who has grabbed hold of her hair.

Wilmington police are investigating and that the assault may have been filmed by one or more of Joyner-Francis' attackers.

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This is the horrific moment high school teen Amy Joyner was allegedly beaten to death by a group of bullies in the school bathrooms

Friends have identified the victim as Amy Inita Joyner-Francis (left and right), 16, who died after being attacked by a group in the women's bathroom at Howard High School of Technology in Wilmington, Delaware, Thursday morning

The fight broke out around 8.15am on Thursday before classes at Howard High School of Technology, a vocational school in Wilmington, Delaware.

Students who witnessed the deadly scuffle said that Joyner and another girl started fighting in one of the women's bathrooms over a boy, when a gang of other girls jumped the victim.

At one point, someone slammed her head against a sink, according to witnesses who spoke with 6ABC.

Joyner-Francis was flown to A.I. DuPont Children's Hospital in critical condition, where she was later pronounced dead. The cause of death has not been confirmed

Authorities have questioned three girls over the deadly brawl - all of whom have now been suspended from school.

'Now they know they're in very serious trouble and could spend a substantial amount of time in prison,' Mayor Dennis Williams told CBS News.

Paramedics (pictured) wheeled the student out of the school. Medics performed CPR on the victim before a helicopter arrived to transport her to a hospital

Amy was flown by helicopter to A.I. DuPont Children's Hospital in critical condition. She was later pronounced dead at the hospital

'My heart bleeds for the family,' Mayor Dennis Williams told a news conference.

Kaya Wilson was in a stall when the fight broke out and spoke with the local news station after leaving school.

'She was fighting a girl, and then that's when all these other girls started banking her -like jumping her - and she hit her head on the sink,' Wilson said.

'There was an altercation that initially started between two people, and my understanding is that additional individuals joined in against the one person,' Gary Fullman, chief of staff to the Wilmington mayor, told KTLA.

Speaking a day after her shocking death, her father Sonny Francis told FOX29: 'I thought schools were a safe place.

He added: 'I think this is a dream and I'm trying to wake up. All I know is my daughter is gone. She was the love of my life and it hurts.'

Sherry Dorsey Walker, a Wilmington city councilwoman, said that the family is asking for spiritual healing in the community and no retaliation. She says they're also 'asking people to just be calm and pray for them'.

Two female students are being interviewed by police, a spokesman for Wilmington's mayor confirmed

The cause of the death for the student is still unknown. Above, a crime scene vehicle at the school on Thursday

Mayor Dennis William was emotional as he announced Joyner-Francis' death. He said: 'My heart bleeds for the family'

The councilwoman described the victim as 'a wonderful human being', adding that 'her loss is a big void, not just in the family'.

Nathaniel Kenyatta, a freshman at the school, was friends with the victim and spoke to Delaware Online on Thursday.

He says he met her in a HVAC class and that she was an easy person to talk to.

'She was very open,' he said. 'I feel bad for the people who have known her for years.'

Her friends and neighbors knew her as the quiet teen who would focus on her homework.

Nik Stryminski told the News-Journal that Amy had kept him safe and out of a fight earlier this school year.

When he and another student were getting ready to fight she stepped in, backed him into a corner and calmed him down.

He said: 'She didn't believe in fighting, and the craziest thing is she died in a fight.'

Stryminski believes Joyner-Francis went into the bathroom not to fight but to 'talk things out'.

Troy Johnson, a sophomore at Howard, said Amy was a good influence to her peers with her calm personality, he said.

'If I were to have kids I'd want them to hang around someone like her,' he told the News Journal.

Another student said Amy was often the one who calmly counseled her friends.

Amil Gibbs, a sophomore at Howard, told the News-Journal that she would sit with Amy during lunch and tell her about problems she had in school. And Amy would encourage her to 'be strong'.

From Twitter to Facebook #RIPAmy was trending last week as several people across the nation have called her death senseless.

Actress Paige Hurd tweeted that she is 'hurt' by the loss of such a young life and her 'heart is so heavy for her and her family'

Another user tweeted about the plight of a world where a teenager 'gets murdered by her classmates in a school bathroom while other classmates record it'

Some said the worst part about Amy's senseless death is to know that 'we won't learn from this'

And others are calling for justice to be served against the girls who are responsible for Amy's death

On social media, many say they can't believe other students didn't intervene to help her.

Others said it's sickening to know that students stood there and watched and recorded as the fight erupted all because of a boy.

One Twitter user said she prays 'for this generation' and hopes 'justice will be served', while another said the world needs a 'cultural shift'.

Howard isn't known as a violent school and Police Chief Cummings said he did not know of any other problems in recent days.

Superintendent Victoria Gehrt called Amy's death an 'unbelievable tragedy for the family'. She also said that despite what happened, Howard High School of Technology 'is a safe school for our students'.

School officials canceled classes Thursday and it's unclear whether the school will reopen on Friday.

A mayoral debate on public safety that was scheduled to take place at the school Thursday night was also canceled.

A student cries in front of Howard High School of Technology on Thursday after a city official announced a student had died after the confrontation inside the school
NGOs estimate four million people still living in sub-standard temporary shelters after 185,000 homes were damaged

Approximately 100 people clashed with police and demonstrated against the slow rate of reconstruction

Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli laid a wreath at the ruins of the Dharahara tower in the heart of Kathmandu

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Mourners have gathered across Nepal to pay their respects to the nearly 9,000 people who died in last year's devastating earthquake that destroyed 600,000 homes.

People met at the remains of a historic tower in Nepal's capital Kathmandu that collapsed in the devastating earthquake to pray and lay wreaths for those who died, while frustration at the slow rate of reconstruction erupted into protests.

Prime minister Khadga Prasad Oli laid a wreath at the ruins of the Dharahara tower in the heart of the city, where the iconic structure collapsed in the April 25 2015, quake, killing 132 people.

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Memorial: Nepal has held services to mark the first anniversary of an earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 and left 100,000s homeless. Here, mourners gather at Durbar square in Kathmandu

Commemoration: A large crowd lit candles in the Nepalese capital to remember victims of the devastating earthquake

Innocence: Evanjali, aged four, leaves her own tributes to mark the anniversary of the disaster

Grief: A woman prays at a shrine to those who died in the earthquake after attending commemorations in Durbar Square

The earthquake, which had a magnitude measuring 7.8 left a total of 8,856 people dead.

Participating in the memorial ceremonies were people who lost loved ones in the quake, and others who simply came to pray for those killed.

'I lost a friend who was working at the top of the tower on that day. I hope he and others are in a good place,' said Ram Shrestha, pointing at the remains of the tower.

He said that he had just stepped out a few minutes before the earthquake struck to go shopping.

Madhav Newpane, who runs a shop near the tower, witnessed its collapse. He returned on Sunday with a bouquet of flowers and candles.

'There were many people killed here... I will never be able to forget that day,' Mr Newpane said.

Respect: Prime minister Khadga Prasad Oli (second right) laid a wreath at the ruins of the Dharahara tower in the heart of Kathmandu

Displaced: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies estimate four million people are living in temporary shelters

Ruins: Swayambhunath monastery was left in ruins without any reconstruction a year after the devastating earthquake on in Kathmandu

A monastery gives free food to people living in a sprawling squalid displaced persons camp for earthquake victims in Kathmandu

More than 600,000 homes were destroyed and around 185,000 damaged in the quake, including the Swayambhunath Monastery

About 100 protesters scuffled with riot police outside the prime minister's office, demonstrating against the slow reconstruction of the homes.

More than 600,000 homes were destroyed and around 185,000 damaged in the quake.

'Government, where is reconstruction. Open the gates of the government,' the protesters chanted as they tried to force their way through a police barricade.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said an estimated four million people are still living in sub-standard temporary shelters in conditions that pose a threat to their health and well-being.

Only 661 families have received the first installment of a 200,000-rupee (1,300) government grant, getting 50,000 rupees (326)

Temporary: Nepal has made almost no progress in rebuilding from the quake despite foreign donors pledging more than four billion dollars (2.8bn) in aid during a donor's conference last year. Above, classes begin inone of Kathmandu's oldest schools Durbar High School

Protest: About 100 protesters scuffled with riot police outside the prime minister's office, demonstrating against the slow reconstruction

Only 661 families have received the first installment of a 200,000-rupee (1,300) government grant, getting 50,000 rupees (326) so far.

Nepal has made almost no progress in rebuilding from the quake despite foreign donors pledging more than four billion dollars (2.8bn) in aid during a donor's conference last year.

The government, in disarray for nearly a decade, has not regrouped enough to be a strong force for reconstruction.

Out of the $4.1 billion (2.9bn) pledged, Nepal has so far received just $1.28 billion (0.9bn).

The delay in getting the money has been blamed on the government taking months to set up the National Reconstruction Authority, which was only completed in December.

Finance minister Bishnu Prasad Paudel blamed the delay on the wait for a detailed survey of the damaged houses before reconstruction could begin.

'Nepal had signed a written commitment in black and white that there would not be any reconstruction without the detailed beneficiary survey during the donor's meeting,' Mr Paudel said earlier.

'But until the detailed beneficiary survey was completed, there was no way we could go ahead with the actual reconstruction.'
Large services were also held in Christchurch and Wellington in New Zealand

About 45,000 people attended the commemoration at Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance

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After thousands of Australians attended Anzac Day dawn services across the country they have continued to commemorate the 101st anniversary of the Gallipoli landing at marches across the nation.

People have flocked to the streets of Sydney and Melbourne to either take part in or watch marches filled with returned service men and women.

Waving Australian flags and cheering on the diggers, children and adults alike took to the streets to show their support and honour those who have served.

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Thousands have taken part in marches across Australia to commemorate Anzac Day, including this ex-serviceman and his granddaughter

A war veteran gives a high five to a boy as he participates in the annual Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) parade in Sydney

Waving Australian flags and cheering on the diggers, children and adults alike took to the streets to show their support and honour those who have served

People waving Australian flags lined the streets in Sydney to watch the annual march

Australian Air Froce cadets are seen here taking part in the Sydney march on Monday morning

Veterans march to the Shrine of Remembrance for the Anzac Day march in Melbourne

Australian entrepreneur Dick Smith is seen in the crowd at the Anzac Day march in Sydney

Ex-servicemen and women take part in the Anzac Day march in Sydney

Onlookers waved Australian flags with some smaller attendees getting a better look from their parent's shoulders

A young girl with a Rosemary sprig pinned to her shirt was seen carrying a black and white framed photograph during the Sydney march

A representative of Papua New Guinea's Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels is seen here in Sydney. The name was given to a group of Papua New Guinean people who assisted and escorted injured Australian troops down the Kokoda trail during WWII

Two ex-servicewomen wave at the crowd during the March in Sydney

A young boy holding a banner walks alongside an exserviceman through the city centre

Veterans are also marching through the streets of Melbourne to the Shrine of Remembrance

One boy was set for the day with his face covered in tattoos and his lunchbox filled with snacks

This tiny supporter waved an Australian flag from the side of the street in Sydney

Earlier dawn services took place, with one of the biggest ceremonies held at Sydney's Martin Place, where dignitaries from Australia and New Zealand laid wreaths.

Another huge gathering was at Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance where about 45,000 visitors took over the lawn in the Botanic Gardens in a moving dawn service.

The services mark 101 years since Australian and New Zealand soldiers landed at Gallipoli and honours the armed forces past and present for their service.

Max Denning, a 92-year-old veteran and Changi prisoner of war, posed for a photograph prior to taking part in the Anzac Day march

A war veteran embraces a friend in the crowd as he marches in the annual Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) parade in Sydney

ANZAC Day dawn services have taken place across the country. Pictured is Martin Place in Sydney

At Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance thousands of people walked up the stairs at the end of the service to lay poppies

Thousands attended the service centred around the cenotaph in Martin Place on Monday morning

A gun salute at the Shrine of Remembrance for the Anzac Day dawn service in Melbourne

An ex-serviceman watches on during the Anzac Day dawn service in Sydney

Crowds gather at the Australian War Memorial for the Anzac Day dawn service in Canberra

A child walks along white crosses on the lawn following the ANZAC Day Dawn Service at Cramner Square in Christchurch

Brisbane's Anzac Square was overflowing with many up early to pay their respects to the Anzacs. Dawn services will follow across the country, followed by marches of returned servicemen and women.

The national service was held in Canberra.

Master of ceremonies Peter Meehan spoke of the service and sacrifice of those who lost their lives in battles far and wide at the Melbourne commemoration.

'Today we remember courage and unity and think about self worth and decency in the face of fear,' Mr Meehan told the crowd.

The Australian, New Zealand and British flags flew at half mast during the service but rose as the Last Post was played and shots rang out.

The Dawn Service at Currumbin RSL on the Gold Coast drew large crowds despite the rain

Opposition leader Bill Shorten (3rd right) at the Shrine of Remembrance for the Anzac Day dawn service in Melbourne

Members of the Albert Battery shoot a volley of fire during the Currumbin RSL dawn service in Queensland

Crowds sheltered themselves from the rain at Currumbin RSL

Poppies lie on the tomb of the unknown warrior during dawn service at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park

The Australian War Memorial in Canberra is seen here ahead of the service

A member of the catafalque party salutes during the Anzac Day dawn service in Sydney

The national service is being held in Canberra where thousands of people gathered

Crowds gather around the eternal flame at the Shrine of Remembrance for the dawn service in Melbourne

The years commemorations mark 101 years since the Anzacs landed at Gallipoli in Turkey in 1915

The Shrine of Remembrance at Melbourne saw thousands of people gather for the service

Members of the public gathered at the Auckland Museum in New Zealand

Dignitaries including Premier Daniel Andrews, federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and Victoria Police chief commissioner Graham Ashton took part in the service and were part of the official party that were first to lay a poppy in the inner sanctum within the shrine.

At the end of the official ceremony, bagpiper Private Benjamin Casey played a lament before the crowds made their way into the shrine.

They fuelled up at the annual gunfire breakfast before taking their place along St Kilda Road for the Anzac Day march.

Shrine CEO Dean Lee said it was good to see strong attendances again in 2016 following last year's 100th centenary commemoration of the landings at Gallipoli.

'I think Anzac Day raises many questions for us as Australians. It's an opportunity to reflect on our identity and our purpose,' he told reporters.

In Sydney Lieutenant Colonel John Moore has told the crowd this year's turnout may not be as big as last year's for the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landing, but the numbers show the service 'is still continuing to spark the interest of the people of Sydney'.

During a break before the formal start of the service, he voiced his concerns about the city's war memorials.

A member of the catafalque party stands at attention during the Anzac Day dawn service in Sydney

Thousands gathered in Wellington, New Zealand in front of the Australian memorial

Wreaths stand in front of the carillon during Dawn Service at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park

Many attended the service at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in Wellington on Monday morning

New Zealand soldiers are pictured here looking on during a dawn service

A member of the New Zealand Defence Force is seen here at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park

The City of Auckland Pipe band attended the dawn service at the Auckland Museum

Members of the New Zealand Navy look on during the dawn service at the Auckland Museum

Those who have served or are still serving in the Australian Defence Forces have gathered across the country

'Unfortunately (some memorials) are at risk and it's something we should be looking at very carefully to make sure it's something that is preserved,' he said.

In some areas, developers had come in and ruined old memorials honouring the sacrifice of past soldiers.

'Unfortunately they are desecrated,' he said.

Earlier, thousands gathered at the Auckland War Memorial to commemorate although numbers were down on last year when the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings drew record crowds to services around the country.

A large attendance is expected at the National Service of Commemoration in Wellington later in the morning.

Soldiers currently deployed overseas have also gathered to remember those who came before

Pictured is Aussie digger Private Dylan O'Shea, 19 , from Young NSW, on his first deployment in Taji, Iraq

Private Alex Ogilvie, 19, is playing the Last Post at the dawn service in Taji

Private Ogilvie is from Gladstone in Queensland, and playing a WWI bugle

Sergeant Brenton East, 31, is also currently based in Taji

Private Holand Smith, 27, will be part of the catapult party for the Dawn Service at Taji in Iraq

The crowds making the pilgrimage to Turkey are expected to be lower than last year, reflecting a drop in overall numbers after the record attendance for last year's centenary.

Thunder, lightning and rain have greeted Australians and New Zealanders as they troop in to the Anzac commemoration site to camp out overnight for the service on the Gallipoli Peninsula.

Veterans Affairs Minister Dan Tehan is Australia's senior representative at this year's service.

Security has been boosted for this year's Anzac service at Gallipoli, with international-airport style screening in place including restrictions on liquid, aerosol or gel products and inspection of electronic devices.

Governor-General Peter Cosgrove will attend the service at Villers-Bretonneux in France.

A war veteran is seen here at the Cenotaph in Sydney's Martin Place on Monday morning

A veteran salutes during the ANZAC Day Dawn Service at Cramner Square in Christchurch

An Australian soldier plays The Last Post in Sydney

Australians and New Zealanders attend the Dawn Service as part of the ANZAC Commemorative Service in Eceabat, Turkey
The ex-wife of a vicar whose current partner has ran off with TV star Robson Green has told her former husband: 'What goes around comes around!'

Helen Short, 58, was married to Rev Geoffrey Short for 16 years when he announced their marriage was over.

The clergyman, 57, had been working for Barclays in 1990 which saw him regularly travelling to Hong Kong from his home on the Isle of Man, where it is believed he met his current wife Zoila Herrera Brozus.

Helen Short, who was married to vicar Geoffrey Short for 16 years until he walked out on her said she laughed when she read about how his new wife who replaced her has run off with TV star Robson Green

Geoffrey Short, right, pictured with his OBE, has signed a deed of separation from his wife Zoila, left

It is understood Robson Green, pictured, began a relationship with Zoila after meeting her at a local gym

Ms Short, who is now married to Gary Campbell, was granted a divorce from Rev Short in 1996. She has had no contact with her ex-husband since the collapse of their marriage.

Rev Short married Filipina Zoila six years later.

However, Ms Short, who is from the Wirral, said she has found her ex-husband's current situation deeply amusing.

She told the Sunday Mirror: 'I have been laughing at all the comments about the Robson Green story. Its a case of what goes around comes around.

'I now have a lovely husband with whom I am very happy.'

Rev Short has signed a deed of separation from his wife after he discovered about her relationship with the actor, who she met in a gym near her home in Wideopen, North Tyneside.

Ms Short said she didn't realise her marriage to the clergyman was over until he said he was leaving. She said she would speak to him while on business trips to Hong Kong and hear someone in the hotel room, but she did not consider it suspicious. Even when she noticed large phone bills to a number in Hong Kong, she did not act.

She added: 'Eventually he told me it was over and he moved out. The next thing I knew one of our friends had said she had seen Geoffrey with another woman. Thats when I found out about Zoila.'
Demarcus Semer, 21, died after being shot by a police officer in Fort Piece, Florida on Saturday

A 21-year-old man died after being shot by a police officer during a traffic stop in Florida.

Demarcus Semer was in Fort Piece when two cops stopped his car on Saturday night, authorities said.

He tried to flee and ran over the legs of one of the two officers, St Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara said.

The other police officer was partially inside of Semer's car when he fired his gun, killing him, according to authorities.

That officer was trying to stop Semer, WPBF reported.

He told authorities he believed the 21-year-old had a weapon.

The officer who got run over was taken to the hospital with injuries to his leg and got out on Sunday.

Semer had no prior arrests in St Lucie County, Mascara said.

He didn't state why Semer had been stopped.

The St Lucie County sheriff's office will coordinate the investigation regarding Semer's death.
A Maori choir performed a hauntingly beautiful Song Of Sorrow at the Anzac Day dawn service at Sydney's Martin Place on Monday.

Gathered at the cenotaph before first light on the 101st anniversary of the Gallipoli landing, the leader of the choir began the song solo.

By the end of the piece she was joined by dozens of other women performing the tribute to fallen soldiers and those still fighting.

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A haunting Song Of Sorrow was performed at the Anzac Day dawn service at Sydney's Martin Place

A Maori choir performed the beautiful song for crowds gathered at the cenotaph

Thousands attended the service before first light on Monday

A traditional Maori hymn, the moving song is often sung at funerals.

It was also sung by the men of the 28th Maori Battalion when they buried their dead in the battlefields in WWII.

The moving song was just one of many tributes to the Australian and New Zealand soldiers who died fighting for their nations, as well as those still representing their countries.

One woman (pictured) began the tune solo before being joined by choir members

A traditional Maori hymn, the moving song is often sung at funerals

One of the largest ceremonies in Australia took place at Martin Place on Monday morning where dignitaries from Australia and New Zealand laid wreaths.

The services mark 101 years since Australian and New Zealand soldiers landed at Gallipoli and honours the armed forces past and present for their service.
A middle school teacher has been placed on administrative leave for distributing an article in her classroom titled 'The N-Word and How To Use It'.

Rebekah Cook, a seventh and eighth grade teacher at Utley Middle School in Rockwell, Texas, initiated a discussion of the word's significance through an article penned in 1997 detailing the black writer's personal relationship with the racial slur.

But the school district said the article was not approved as part of the curriculum, and launched an investigation stating 'racially derogatory terms have no place in our classrooms or district'.

Middle school teacher Rebekah Cook (left), was placed on administrative leave for distributing a 1997 opinion piece written by Bennie M. Currie (right), who explained the complexity of the n-word

Cook, who had been teaching her students about the Civil Rights movement, circulated the Chicago Reader article in three of her seventh grade classes on Wednesday, according to the school district.

It is unclear whether Cook, who is white, actually used the slur herself in the classroom. The school district said she intended 'to provoke discussion'.

The 1997 opinion piece 'The N-Word and How To Use It,' starts by spelling out the slur before writer Bennie Currie recounts the first time he 'accidentally used that word in mixed company'.

'It was 20 years ago at the University of Missouri, and I was engaged in lighthearted chitchat with Kent, my white roommate, when I casually called him a 'n***er.'

The article, which calls the word 'one of the most complex, perplexing, and emotionally incendiary words in the American lexicon,' attempts to chart the writer's own relationship to it, citing historical context as well as figures like Chris Rock and Richard Pryor.

Grandparent Mike Conway said it was appropriate for the discussion to be had at school it it was presented appropriately, while others held a zero-tolerance policy towards racial slurs (pictured, Utley Middle School in Rockwell, Texas)

Mike Conway, who was picking up his grandson at the school, told CBS: ''I don't use that word either and have not for many years.

'I think it's appropriate for there to be a conversation for it to be presented in school. It seems like information kids ought to be aware of if it's presented appropriately.'

Others agreed with the school district, which said there was no room for racial slurs in the classroom.

An investigation has been launched and the Rockwell Independent School District issued a statement saying: 'While the teacher has expressed that the intent of the lesson was to provoke discussion, the teacher did not seek prior approval from the campus or district.
They said it will give them a chance to respond to allegations

Saudis have long said that they would welcome declassification

Disclosure will come at time when relations between US and Saudi Arabia are strained

The Obama administration will likely soon release at least part of a 28-page secret chapter from a congressional inquiry into 9/11 that may shed light on possible Saudi connections to the attackers.

The documents, kept in a secure room in the basement of the Capitol, contain information from the joint congressional inquiry into 'specific sources of foreign support for some of the September 11 hijackers while they were in the United States.'

Bob Graham, who was co-chairman of that bipartisan panel, and others say the documents point suspicion at the Saudis.

The former Democratic senator from Florida says an administration official told him that intelligence officials will decide in the next several weeks whether to release at least parts of the documents.

The disclosure would come at a time of strained U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia, a long-time American ally.

The Obama administration will likely soon release at least part of a 28-page secret chapter (pictured) from a congressional inquiry into 9/11 that may shed light on possible Saudi connections to the attackers. Bob Graham (pictured) who was co-chairman of that bipartisan panel, and others say the documents point suspicion at the Saudis

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were citizens of Saudi Arabia. Pictured, World Trade Center just after the second crash on September 11, 2001

'I hope that decision is to honor the American people and make it available,' Graham told NBC's 'Meet the Press' on Sunday. 'The most important unanswered question of 9/11 is, did these 19 people conduct this very sophisticated plot alone, or were they supported?'

Tim Roemer, who was a member of both the joint congressional inquiry as well as the 9/11 Commission and has read the secret chapter three times, described the 28 pages as a 'preliminary police report.'

'There were clues. There were allegations. There were witness reports. There was evidence about the hijackers, about people they met with - all kinds of different things that the 9/11 Commission was then tasked with reviewing and investigating,' the former Democratic congressman from Indiana said Friday.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were citizens of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government says it has been 'wrongfully and morbidly accused of complicity' in the attacks, is fighting extremists and working to clamp down on their funding channels.

Still, the Saudis have long said that they would welcome declassification of the 28 pages because it would 'allow us to respond to any allegations in a clear and credible manner.'

The pages were withheld from the 838-page report on the orders of President George W. Bush, who said the release could divulge intelligence sources and methods.

Still, protecting U.S.-Saudi diplomatic relations also was believed to have been a factor.

Ben Rhodes, President Barack Obama's deputy national security adviser, said Obama asked National Intelligence Director James Clapper to review the papers for possible declassification.

'When that's done we'd expect that there will be some degree of declassification that provides more information,' Rhodes told reporters in Riyadh last week, where Obama met with King Salman and other Saudi leaders. The White House says the 28 pages did not come up during discussions.

Al Sharbi, who was taking flight lessons in the Phoenix area before 9/11, was captured in 2002 in the same place in Pakistan as Abu Zubaydah, a top al-Qaida trainer who was apprehended and waterboarded dozens of times by U.S. interrogators. Pictured, the aftermath, man stands amid the rubble

Tim Roemer (pictured) who was a member of both the joint congressional inquiry as well as the 9/11 Commission and has read the secret chapter three times, described the 28 pages as a 'preliminary police report.'

Ben Rhodes, (pictured) President Barack Obama's deputy national security adviser, said Obama asked National Intelligence Director James Clapper to review the papers for possible declassification.

Neither the congressional inquiry nor the subsequent 9/11 Commission found any evidence that the Saudi government or senior Saudi officials knowingly supported those who orchestrated the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

But Graham, the relatives of victims and some lawmakers think there is reason to further probe possible Saudi links.

Roemer said many questions remain about the roles of Fahad al Thumairy, an official at the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles who allegedly helped two of the hijackers find housing and transportation after they arrived in Southern California.

As is often the case, the reality is less damaging than the uncertainty California Rep. Adam Schiff

Al Thumairy was later denied entry into the United States in May 2003 after the State Department alleged that he might be involved in terrorist activity.

Roemer also wants to know more about Omar al Bayoumi, who was strongly suspected of being a Saudi spy and was alleged to have been helpful to the hijackers.

'We did not discover ... Saudi government involvement at the highest level of the 9/11 attacks,' Roemer said. But he added: 'We certainly did not exonerate the Saudis. ... Saudi was a fertile ground for fundraising for al-Qaida.

'Some of these issues continue to be problems today. That's why we need to continue to get to the bottom of this.'

An Internet site pushing to get the documents released, 28pages.org, points to another document declassified in July 2015 that outlined ways in which the commission could examine possible Saudi links.

That 47-page document lists several pages of individuals of interest and suggests questions that could be pursued. One name is suspected al-Qaida operative Ghassan al Sharbi.

The Saudi government says it has been 'wrongfully and morbidly accused of complicity' in the attacks, is fighting extremists and working to clamp down on their funding channels. Pictured, King of Saudi Arabia Salman

Reps. Walter Jones, R-N.C., Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., wrote Obama (pictured) last week saying they don't think releasing the chapter will harm national security

Al Sharbi, who was taking flight lessons in the Phoenix area before 9/11, was captured in 2002 in the same place in Pakistan as Abu Zubaydah, a top al-Qaida trainer who was apprehended and waterboarded dozens of times by U.S. interrogators.

The document said that after al Sharbi was captured, the FBI discovered some documents buried nearby.

One was al Sharbi's pilot certificate inside an envelope from the Saudi Embassy in Washington, although it's unclear whether the license had been mailed by the embassy or if the envelope was simply being reused.

A CIA inspector-general report in June 2015 said there had been no reliable information confirming Saudi government 'involvement with and financial support for terrorist prior to 9/11.'

But it said also that people in the CIA's Near East Division and Counterterrorism Center 'speculated that dissident sympathizers within the government may have aided al-Qaida.'

The rest of the chapter, titled 'Issues Related to Saudi Arabia,' is blacked out.

A bill directing the president to release the 28-page chapter was introduced in the Senate, and nearly three dozen Republicans and Democrats in the House are backing a similar resolution.

Reps. Walter Jones, R-N.C., Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., wrote Obama last week saying they don't think releasing the chapter will harm national security and could provide closure for the victims' families.

California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, has read the pages and said this past week that while he wants to see them declassified to end speculation about what they say, releasing them will not quell the debate over the issue.
A 20-year-old man slashed in the head with a tomahawk could have been a case of mistaken identity.

The victim was confronted by a man and a woman on the front lawn of his friend's house on Bardia Street in Heidelberg West, in Melbourne's north-east, on Tuesday at about 8pm.

The pair had pulled up in a maroon sedan with another person and were looking for the occupant of the house, 9News reported.

A 20-year-old man slashed in the head (pictured) with a tomahawk could have been involved in a case of mistaken identity

When the 20-year-old tried to prevent the man and the woman from going into the house a scuffle broke out and the victim was struck with a tomahawk.

The attackers fled the scene in the car and the man sought help from neighbours.

'This guy comes running over, screaming for help,' witness Ben Middlebrook told 9News.

'He was just minding the house next door for his mate.

'It's been traumatic. His head is all red - it's cut open.'

The 20-year-old man was treated by paramedics at the scene before he was taken to The Northern Hospital in a stable condition.

When the 20-year-old tried to prevent the man and the woman from going into the house, a scuffle broke out and the victim was struck with a tomahawk

The attackers then fled the scene in the car and the man sought help from neighbours

Witness Ben Middlebrook (centre) said the man came up to him, bleeding from the head

A Victoria Police spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia the man had suffered 'superficial injuries'.

'Local police are investigating the incident and the circumstances surrounding what has occurred,' she said.

'The pair are perceived to have been Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander appearance and left the scene in a maroon car. The investigation is ongoing.'

A Victoria Police spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia the man had suffered 'superficial injuries'
A council accused furniture giant Ikea of blighting a city centre with graffiti yesterday after it launched a new marketing campaign using slogans written on the pavement.

The Swedish behemoth used stencils to write two slogans on Nottingham pavements as part of its national Wonderful Everyday campaign.

One of the messages urges people to Enjoy a second cup of tea in the morning, while another says Cross the road and walk on the sunny side. extolling the virtues of tea on a pavement in Nottingham.

The Swedish behemoth used stencils to write two slogans on Nottingham pavements as part of its national Wonderful Everyday campaign

Nottingham City Council yesterday said it will issue a warning to the company rather than fine it for the graffiti, while Ikea claimed approval was not needed for this type of marketing activity.

The slogans were created on the pavements by using water pressure washers to clean spaces on the streets using a stencil of the message. The image lasts for a few weeks before fading, according to the firm.

The technique, known as reverse graffiti or clean graffiti, was pioneered by street artist Paul Curtis, who uses the moniker Moose and whose clients have included the Greater London Authority and even the Metropolitan Police.

Labour-run Nottingham City Council yesterday said it could legitimately fine the company but has chosen just to warn them.

This is not something we would condone or give our permission for, a spokesman said.

Labour-run Nottingham City Council yesterday said it could legitimately fine the company but has chosen just to warn them

We view this as graffiti and will remove it and contact the company to explain that this is something that could result in a fine. Ikea marketing manager Laurent Tiersen said the clean graffiti messages are being posted around the UK and Ireland.

He said: To launch the campaign, we are sharing hundreds of co-worker (staff) secrets to a wonderful everyday and this includes some clean graffiti messages that are posted around the UK and Ireland.

Clean graffiti is an environmentally friendly way to spread the word and is a commonly used advertising technique. We want to celebrate how the little things are the big things in life and we hope people will be inspired by our campaign.

Last November, Hackney councillors criticised government spy agency GCHQ after it used reverse graffiti on pavements in the borough to advertise jobs.

The adverts, said to have been aimed at Shoreditch hipsters, met a backlash from the council, which claims the secret listening centre should have sought permission before daubing the streets with graffiti. The slogans were also spotted in Manchester.
A man was killed after an altercation that turned into a deadly shooting between him and another man, who had a permit to carry a concealed weapon, during a service at a Pennsylvania church.

Robert Braxton, 27, was shot in the chest during a 'disturbance after an altercation' between him and another church member got out of hand at the Keystone Fellowship Church in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Sunday morning, according to NBC.

The shooting happened during an 11am service at the church. Braxton was rushed to a local hospital where he later died, according to the county's District Attorney Kevin Steele.

Robert Braxton, 27, was shot in the chest during a 'disturbance after an altercation' between him and another church member got out of hand at the Keystone Fellowship Church (pictured) in Pennsylvania

The shooter, who has not been identified, had a permit to carry a concealed weapon, which was believed to be a semi-automatic handgun, according to authorities (pictured)

Steele told NBC that the suspected shooter has not been charged at this point but he's cooperating with authorities as they work to determine if the shooting 'was fired under the law'.

The shooter, who has not been identified, had a permit to carry a concealed weapon, which was believed to be a semi-automatic handgun, Steele said.

Authorities said witnesses are still being interviewed and an autopsy is scheduled for Monday.

The church released a statement on their Facebook page shortly after the incident confirming a shooting has occurred at their place of worship.

'We at Keystone are saddened to confirm that a shooting took place at our Montgomeryville campus this morning.

'One man was shot and another is being questioned by police; no one was else was hurt.

'Police and medical personnel were called immediately. Police are investigating. Our congregation is in prayer for everyone involved.'

Investigators are unsure what brought on the altercation between the church members and the relationship between the two is unclear.

Hundreds of people were at the Keystone Fellowship Church service when the shooting occurred.
Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has denied all claims made by a newspaper that his father helped Lee Harvey Oswald distribute leaflets promoting Fidel Castro's communist regime in 1963.

The National Enquirer published photos of John F Kennedy's killer, claiming to have concrete evidence the man beside him is Cuban-born Rafael Cruz.

On Saturday, the Republican nominee blasted the new claim linking his father's Castro activism to Lee Harvey Oswald, branding it 'garbage'.

'This is another garbage story in a tabloid full of garbage,' Cruz's communications director Alice Stewart told the Miami Herald. 'The story is false; that is not Rafael in the picture.'

A newspaper article claims this man (circled) is Rafael Cruz. The man on the far right is Lee Harvey Oswald, who is seen distributing propaganda about Fidel Castro's communist regime in New Orleans in 1963

It would not be the first link between the elder Cruz and Castro; Ted (pictured together) said last year that his father tried to join Castro's guerrilla army during the 1950s revolution. But he has never been linked to Oswald

The images, released by the US government amid an investigation into JFK's 1963 assassination, show Oswald and a group walking around a street in New Orleans in 1963 handing out leaflets to passers-by.

They were used as evidence against New Orleans-based Oswald, who was murdered by Jack Ruby days after the Dallas shooting, in an investigation into the president's death. But the man in the white shirt beside him was never identified.

It would not be the first link between the elder Cruz and Castro; Ted admitted last year that his father tried to join Castro's guerrilla army during the 1950s revolution which overthrew the Batista regime in 1959. But he has never been linked to Oswald.

Photo experts sought out by the newspaper compared the images to pictures of Rafael Cruz at the time to find similarities.

'Theres more similarity than dissimilarity... it looks to be the same person and I can say as much with a high degree of confidence,' Mitch Goldstone, president and CEO of ScanMyPhotos, told the Enquirer.

The Cruz campaign claims it is 'garbage' that Rafael Cruz (pictured in January campaigning for his son) was involved with Oswald. The elder Cruz wrote in his January book about trying to fight for Castro in Cuba

'They seem to match,' Carole Lieberman, a University of California - Los Angeles forensic psychiatrist, told the Enquirer.

The images were the only source of evidence the newspaper cited for its May 2 cover story headlined 'Ted Cruz Father Now Linked to JFK Assassination!'

The Enquirer has officially endorsed Donald Trump, and wrote a defense for the story, claiming an anonymous tipster approached the editorial team with the images.

'In this instance, we believe American voters have a right to know the truth about the Cruz family,' the defense read.

The National Enquirer published a story last month that speculated about five women with whom the Republican presidential candidate was rumored to have had extramarital affairs.

He has called the claims 'complete garbage' and on April 4 told Fox News: 'I have always been faithful to my wife.'

The statement was almost a week after he had first been asked by Daily Mail Online whether he could make clear he had never cheated.

Asked directly to 'tell us on the record that you've never been unfaithful to your wife?' Cruz dodged the question and attacked Trump.

Oswald seen handing out the leaflets that read 'hands off Cuba' a few years after Castro's guerrilla army overthrew the Batista regime

Cruz said the story was 'total lies' and was 'planted by Donald Trump's henchmen'.

Cruz's evangelical faith has been central to his campaign and he has contrasted his family values with those of Trump.

In his 2015 book A Time For Truth, Texas senator Ted Cruz writes that, after his Cuba-born dad was briefly jailed for urban insurgent activities, he asked if he could join Castro at his mountain camp.

He says his father couldn't reach Castro, and instead fled to Texas, eventually renouncing Castro after he took power in 1959 and declared himself communist.

His father had already admitted to the connection, and provided more detail in his book A Time For Action released this January.

'The U.S. government was duped,' he wrote.

'The American people were duped. I was duped. When people ask me why I supported Castro in over-throwing the Cuban government, I readily admit that I didnt realize he was a communist.'
Two homes in Melbourne's south east were ransacked by violent youths

Suspected Sudanese Apex gang members who were arrested after allegedly assaulting a group of Chinese international students were released on bail for similar attacks.

Five teens - aged 16 to 19 - of African background were arrested on Saturday night over a recent spate of violent home invasions and car thefts in Melbourne's south-east over the weekend.

According to the Herald Sun, several of the youths were freed on bail accused of carrying out similar violent offences.

The revelation comes after detectives from the Taskforce Tense arrested five teens over an alleged crime spree in Brighton East and Ormond in the early hours of Saturday morning.

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Five men believed to be linked to the violent Sudanese Apex gang have been arrested in connection to a recent spate of aggravated burglaries and car thefts in Melbourne's south east

Last month, a violent gang-related riot in Melbourne shut down parts of the city and terrorised the public (pictured)

Investigators executed warrants at neighbouring suburbs Cranbourne and Hampton Park later that night, and allegedly recovered a stolen BMW, Honda CRV, mobile phones and a computer.

According to the Herald Sun, five Chinese nationals living at the Ormond home were awoken at 6am on Saturday when six African youths broke into their townhouse.

'I thought, why did they choose our house? What's their aim,' one of those Chinese students, named Tony, said.

'One or two of them had weapons  hammers. I don't want to die, I thought about that,' he said.

'I've got no idea why they picked here. I now think Australia's not a safe place. I thought it was safe before, but not now.'

The rampaging youths allegedly demanded car keys and sped off with a stolen Honda SUV and white BMW 7 series car.

Two of the arrested men have been charged with aggravated burglary, assault, theft of motor car, handle stolen goods and possess proceeds of crime.

They remain in police custody and will appear at the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Sunday.

Five Chinese nationals living at the Ormond home were awoken at 6am on Saturday when six African youths broke into their townhouse (not pictured)

The Apex gang were filmed causing chaos on March 12 as more than 100 members clashed in Federation Square and on Swanston Street (pictured)

A third man, 17, will appear at a children's court at a later date to face the same five charges.

Two more men, 18 and 16, were released without charges.

The Herald Sun reported that Chinese nationals were being targeted by the infamous Apex gang because they are seen as unlikely to fight back when threatened by gang members.

Victoria police say the arrests are 'part of an ongoing commitment toward dealing with violent gang-related offending seen across southern metro region suburbs in recent months.'

Last month, a violent gang-related riot in Melbourne shut down parts of the city and terrorised the public.

The Apex gang were filmed causing chaos on March 12 as more than 100 members clashed in Federation Square and on Swanston Street in front of families attending a Moomba community event.
God only knows from where Neil and Jenny Burdett draw their strength. It is little more than two months since they cremated their two-year-old daughter, Faye, after sharing horrific photos of her little body consumed by meningitis.

Their world, they say, has been torn away. But there are no tears, and no rage. Just a measured determination to ensure no child should have to suffer as she did.

For make no mistake, little Faye suffered cruelly as she fought for 11 days against the deadly meningitis B, which, as we now know, could have been avoided with a simple jab.

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Brave: Faye Burdett, two, died after she contracted meningitis B. Her parents posted this heartbreaking picture of her in hospital to support a campaign to roll out the vaccination to all children

Campaign: Neil and Jenny Burdett, pictured, want MPs to extend vaccination programmes to children older than five months in order to save more lives - the Government says it is too expensive

Tragically, Faye Burdett was too old to receive the vaccination, which is available on the NHS for babies aged from two to five months. And so, within 48 hours of her death, her parents took the decision to post those harrowing pictures to support a campaign to roll out the vaccination to all children.

We said in the hospital that something has to change, says Jenny. We never want to imagine another child having to suffer like Faye did, when she didnt need to. Thats what drives us.

It is why they decided, through their birthing group, to release some photos in support of a petition to extend the vaccination programme.

In 12 hours you go from having a perfectly healthy child to a child with a one per cent chance of survival, says Jenny.

But the picture everyone saw on the petition was taken at the beginning, when she was admitted to hospital, not at the end. By then she was so blown up  all full of water. She had a bruise from the tip of her toes right up to her head. Jenny stops and stares at her hands to collect herself. Id never release those pictures.

As it was, the graphic images they did release shocked the country, encouraging others, including England Rugby hero Matt Dawson, to speak up about their own childrens terrible ordeals with meningitis. And such was the groundswell of public opinion that more than 823,000 people signed the petition, making it the most signed in Downing Street history.

But last month the Government responded by saying it would not be cost effective to the NHS to extend the programme.

Today, Neil and Jenny will sit in the House of Commons to hear MPs debate the Meningitis B vaccine. They are understandably frustrated by the lack of action.

I sent a message to Mr Cameron last Wednesday asking him if he would attend the debate as an MP, or, if he couldnt, would he send someone from his cabinet to give the campaign that extra oomph, says Neil. Ive had no response.

They'll spend 9million on EU leaflets but not on vaccines for our children. No one should ever have to suffer like Faye did. As I said to my brother-in-law, if this was an animal youd put them down. It was cruel what she went through. Neil Burdett, Faye's father

Two more children have died from meningitis since Faye. Someone needs to say: This is the argument  lets do it.

This whole thing about cost-effectiveness leaves me cold. How can you put a price on a childs life?

Theyll spend 9million on leaflets telling us to stay in Europe, but they wont spend 9million on vaccines for our children.

No one should ever have to suffer like Faye did. As I said to my brother-in-law, if this was an animal youd put them down. It was cruel what she went through. Truly cruel.

He looks to Jenny for support.

Meningitis is, she says, an evil disease. After appearing to improve for several days under the dedicated care of the team at Evelina London Childrens Hospital, Faye tragically succumbed to a common complication associated with meningitis B  blood poisoning or sepsis, which prevents oxygen and vital nutrients from reaching the bodys tissues, causing them to die.

As the infection rapidly took over her body, doctors had no choice but to seek the Burdetts consent to amputate her legs, one arm and possibly both. To save their daughter, theyd have given their consent, but then, two days before her death on February 14, Fayes kidneys failed.

The kindest thing for Faye was to let her go, says Neil. He takes a deep, unsteady breath and you understand what a heartrending decision this was. The words shock and unbelievable punctuate this harrowing interview.

Charming: Faye was a 'happy go lucky' toddler, who changed from being perfectly healthy to having a one per cent chance of survival in just 12 hours before she died in hospital 11 days later

She was our only child, and our lives revolved around her, says Jenny. The whole house is full of Faye. Weve still got her toy kitchen in the bay window and her little table and chairs by the chimney.

Other than giving evidence last month to the Petitions Committee  the government body set up to consider public petitions  this is the first time the couple have spoken publicly about their treasured childs unnecessary death.

They are only doing so now in the hope they can influence MPs in todays debate.

What they have to say, though, does not make for easy reading. For this little girl was sorely let down by our NHS. Not only did she not receive the jab, but Men B was not diagnosed when her parents first took her to Maidstone Hospital, ten hours before her rash developed.

Instead, they were told to take her home and give her Calpol.

Neil and Jenny now know that, had antibiotics been administered, chances are their precious daughter would be alive today.

I was saying somethings not right, says Neil. We should have shouted louder. But three doctors said she had a viral infection, so we thought the three doctors must been right. Wed never seen one before. Faye had never been ill apart from the odd cold.

Indeed, Faye was a healthy, active little girl right up until three hours before she was taken to hospital on February 2. She was one of those happy-go-lucky children who find joy in a blade of grass.

That morning, wed gone for a play date to a friend of hers, says Jenny. We were walking back hand-in-hand, chatting about what we were going to do that afternoon. The fact she had such a good morning is something that has given me some comfort. She didnt have a cough, a sniffle  nothing.

Shortly after midday, though, Faye woke up from her nap screaming. She told me her legs hurt. She had jeans on, so I thought perhaps shed been lying funny. I pulled them off but she was still distressed.

I sent a message to Mr Cameron... I've had no response. Two more children have died from meningitis since Faye. Someone needs to say: This is the argument  lets do it. Neil Burdett, Faye's father

I put her on the settee  Faye never laid on the settee not even to watch telly. I could see she was uncomfortable and had a headache.

Im not a panicker but I phoned you, didnt I? She looks at Neil. I knew something wasnt right. She was crying and very unresponsive.

As Fayes temperature continued to rise to 41c (105.8f), Jenny called her mother, a former primary school teacher, who went with her to the GP. He took one look at Faye and referred her to Maidstone Hospital, where, shockingly, her condition was not diagnosed.

I was told to give her Nurofen before taking her in, which masked the symptoms, says Jenny. It kind of lifted her. When Neil arrived at the hospital, she even wanted to play with the toys they had there.

A junior doctor looked at her and then the consultant assessed her. I was trying to explain how Faye had been before the Nurofen  but she didnt even stop and talk to me.

She said to the junior doctor something like, Another example of an over-cautious GP.

At 5.15pm, Faye was discharged. Jenny was beside herself. She knew, as parents do, there was something very wrong with her little girl.

I said I believed she was very unwell, but the consultant said it was nothing untoward. She believed she had a viral infection and that the results of a urine sample would take 48 hours.

If Faye needed antibiotics, she said, theyd contact her GP surgery and the surgery would contact us. She told us to give her Calpol and Nurofen every other hour.

Danger signs: The rash spread across Faye's body very quickly, as she was diagnosed with meningococcal sepsis, which devastated her young body

Neil takes up the story.

Jen took her up to our bed at 9.30pm. She was so quiet and hot. We tried to get some juice down her but 20 minutes later she was sick. I sat on the edge of the bed with them and said: Ill go downstairs and sleep in the chair. If anything changes were going back to the hospital.

WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF MENINGITIS? Meningitis can affect any age group, but is more common in babies and young children If the bacteria invades their body, their immune system cannot provide resistance to fight off infection Symptoms of meningitis develop suddenly and can include: - A high temperature over 37.5C (99.5F) - Vomiting and headache - A blotchy rash that doesn't fade when a glass is rolled over it (this won't always develop) - A stiff neck - A dislike of bright lights - Drowsiness or unresponsiveness Babies may also: - refuse feeds be agitated and not want to be picked up - have a bulging soft spot on their head (fontanelle) - be floppy or unresponsive - have an unusual high-pitched cry have a stiff body Source: NHS Choices Advertisement

The next thing I know Jens waking me up saying Fayes got a rash on her head. I jumped straight out of the chair and raced upstairs. It was shortly after midnight and the rash was all over her chest. It wasnt like a rash Id seen before. Its like its bleeding under the skin  like somethings rupturing  The sentence trails away.

Jenny says: When we got her to the hospital, they stripped her in A&E and you could see the rash was just like a curtain coming down. It was getting worse and worse, covering her body. Every time you blinked your eyes, there was more.

The doctor looked at me and said: Do you know what youre looking at? I didnt. Im sorry to say shes got meningococcal sepsis, he said.

I said, Meningitis? No, shes vaccinated for that. But he said: Not this type shes not. At that stage I didnt know there were lots of different strains. I thought she was protected.

For several hours, doctors fought to stabilise Faye, before transferring her to Evelina hospital in London.

I met Jen at the hospital with her mum, says Neil. We were all in tears. The consultant took us to this room and he was almost crying. He had this big lump in his throat and was finding it hard to talk to us. Basically, he said shed got one per cent chance of survival.

Jenny clears her throat. It felt like they were talking about someone elses child. It was surreal.

He said the only option was to give her a heart bypass to let a machine take the pressure off her heart, but that would give her a 20 per cent chance. We went straight back to Faye and said: Keep fighting, baby. Dont give up. 

Miraculously, Faye began to rally.

By 3pm, they said they werent going to do the bypass operation because she was starting to fight back. Suddenly there was some hope.

Neil and Jenny continued to hope for seven more days.

Thats when we started to find out what meningitis was, and that there was a W, a Y, a C and a B strain, says Neil. We knew within two days shed lost her fingertips, because theyd gone black and had shrivelled, and we were aware shed need other severe amputations, but we kept saying, As long as we have Faye.

But by February 11, the future looked bleaker.

We decided to take her off the ventilator and to let it happen naturally. We told her Mummy and Daddy were with her and that wed always love her. We said she was a really good girl and very strong, but that she needed to stop fighting and Granddad would be waiting for her. Jenny Burdett, Faye's mother

The staff at the hospital said: You need to think about your little girl, how she will be and her quality of life. Were asking you to make the decision for us.

We looked at each other and said: The kindest thing for Faye is to let her go. Were keeping her for us. This isnt fair on her.

Shed been fighting for almost two weeks. She was tired.

Once wed made the decision that she wasnt going to suffer any more, we both felt relief. She was so damaged. You couldnt move or touch her because she had so many dead patches of skin on her. She was in a bad, bad way.

We decided to take her off the ventilator and to let it happen naturally. We told her Mummy and Daddy were with her and that wed always love her. We said she was a really good girl and very strong, but that she needed to stop fighting and Granddad would be waiting for her.

We turned off the lights and played the music she likes.

It only took half an hour once wed made it very dark and quiet  just like it was when she was going to bed, and Faye loved her sleep.

I had one hand, Jen had the other. We gave her a kiss  and then we realised she was gone. It was the only thing we could do for her: make it as peaceful and nice as possible.

Silence falls in the room. Jenny swallows. We thought we could protect her. By giving her a nice home, love and morals, we thought shed grow up to be a well-balanced young girl with a bit of spirit. She shakes her head and, for the first time, theres a note of anger in her voice.

If this Government is in a position to protect children in this country, they should. If nothing happens and they say the Men B vaccination is not worth it, theyll be surprised how loud I can shout.

We put the MPs in their positions and they should listen to the people. Meningitis is every familys fear. Dont let this happen to another child.
Anzac Day commemorations are in full swing, with the entire country recognising April 25 as a public holiday.

But even though many Australians will have a long weekend given Anzac Day falls on a Monday this year, what does it mean for retail businesses?

Every state and territory recognises Anzac Day as a public holiday but there are slightly different rules as to which business can open and trade normally.

Here's a guide to what's open on Monday, April 25:

Anzac Day commemorations are just around the corner with the entire country recognising April 25 as a public holiday. So what does it mean for businesses and trading hours?

WHAT WILL BE OPEN ON MONDAY? Woolworths and Coles: Will be open from 1pm onwards in most states, except for parts of Queensland and South Australia (closed) RSL or Services clubs: Open from 5am in association with dawn services across the country. Restricted gambling and alcohol Petrol Stations, chemists, restaurants: Not impacted by any trading restrictions across country. Normal opening hours Retail stores: Open from 1pm onwards in NSW, Victoria, QLD. Normal opening hours in NT and ACT. All retailers in WA closed all day Advertisement

New South Wales

Most business in NSW are not permitted to start trading before 1pm on Anzac Day due to restricted trading hours.

Supermarkets like Coles, Woolworths and Aldi will remain closed prior to this time. Pubs and licensed venues like RSL clubs will be open on Anzac Day.

Some retails shops are exempt from trading restrictions, including chemists, petrol stations, cafes, restaurants and takeaway restaurants. These stores can trade as normal on Anzac Day.

There are also a number of exempt trading areas, based on local government areas.

Victoria

Like NSW, Victorian based retailers are not allowed to trade between midnight and 1pm on the public holiday unless they are exempt from trading restrictions.

All business, including supermarkets and major shopping centres are allowed to open after 1pm.

Exempt shops include chemists, petrol stations, cafes, restaurants, takeaway outlets and hire outlets such as video stores. Businesses with 20 or fewer employees and businesses with no more than 100 workers at any one time in the seven days prior to Anzac Day are also exempt.

After 1pm, all businesses may open.

Queensland

Shops are not permitted to open in Queensland on Monday until 1pm. Many supermarkets like Coles and Woolworths will remain closed in certain areas, including Gold Coast, Cairns and Port Douglas.

Cinemas and amusement parts are also not allowed to start trading until 1.30pm unless they have been granted permission.

Most supermarkets across the country will only be allowed to open after 1pm on Anzac Day. Stores in Adelaide and Western Australia will likely remain closed all day

Pubs and clubs across the country will be open for Anzac Day, but most retailers won't open until after 1pm

RSL and Services clubs across the country will be open from 5am in association with dawn services

South Australia

Stores in Adelaide's CBD are not allowed to trade before 12pm on Anzac Day.

Most supermarkets outside the CBD, including Coles and Woolworths, will not open for the entire day.

Stores outside the Greater Adelaide Shopping District or a Proclaimed Shopping District can trade at any time.

Western Australia

Retailers and businesses in Perth are not allowed to trade on Anzac Day.

Small shops are exempt and can open from 6am to 11.30pm. These stores include chemists and newsagencies.

Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory

While trading restrictions do not apply for the ACT and Northern Territory, many businesses will close anyway until 1pm to follow the tradition of other states and territories.

Tasmania

Due to trading restrictions, supermarkets and other retailers under a franchise agreement will remain closed until 12.30pm on Anzac Day in Tasmania.

There are no trading restrictions on any other types of shops

Supermarkets and shopping centres in most parts of Adelaide and Perth will be closed on Monday

Australian Retailers Association Executive Director, Russell Zimmerman, said that confusion around trading hours on Anzac Day and whether or not the full days is public holiday is common for both consumers and business owners.

'All Australians are to be aware that the vast majority of stores are unable to trade on Anzac Day until between 12:30pm and 1pm, dependent on the state or territory they are in,' Mr Zimmerman said.

'On this sacred day it is important for all Australians to be able to pay their respect to the men and women who have fought for Australia, and the significant sacrifices made by so many.'

Exceptions to morning store closure do apply in some cases, and the ARA advises business owners to check the regulations and opening hours for their area and store type.

'If consumers plan to visit stores on Anzac day, they should check with the stores they intend to visit that they will be open,' Mr Zimmerman said.
The family who had eight members slain by a rampaging gunman were involved in drugs, it was revealed tonight.

Detectives uncovered marijuana grow operations in three of the four houses where the victims were shot dead.

Police were also scouring woodland around the rundown area for any further drugs, where confederate flags fly and locals wear T shirts proclaiming their Red Neck beliefs.

Police believe there may be further evidence of drug production by the Rhoden family and are examining whether the massacre was fueled by a turf war.

Scroll down for video

Heartbreaking: Husband-to-be Frankie Rhoden and his fiancee Hannah Hazel Gilley, 20, were among those killed Friday in Piketon, Ohio, according to the Morning Ledger

Tragic: Grandmother-to-be Dana Lynn Rhoden (left), 37, and her son, 16-year-old Chris Rhoden (right) were also murdered, according to the Morning Ledger. Victims Chris and Frankie are brothers

Devastating: Hanna May Rhoden (pictured left and right) was killed Friday in the Piketon shooting that has rocked the small community, according to the Morning Ledger. Her Facebook page says she was already a mother to one child

Kenneth Rhoden (left), 44, and Chris Rhoden Sr (right), 40, were named as victims in Friday's murders. Chris Rhoden Sr is the father of Chris Rhoden Jr, who was also killed in the massacre

Gary Rhoden (pictured above in an undated photograph), 38, was named as one of eight family members killed in Pike County on Friday

Members of the family of the victims suggested that jealousy or a dispute over a $3,000 demolition derby car (pictured) driven by Frankie Rhoden could be behind the murders.

Despite the unearthing of cannabis operations, Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader stated that the family were not known to him through criminal activity and he had been an officer in the area for more than 20 years.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said: Marijuana has been found in three locations at crime scenes. They were grow operations.

He said the murders had been well planned and amounted to a pre-planned execution.

He added: This is not your case where someone's got mad at someone and shot them.

It was a sophisticated operation. And those who carried it out were trying to do everything that they could do to hinder the investigation and their prosecution.

Reader added: 'This was very methodical. This was well planned. This was not something that just happened.'

The eight victims were Christopher Rhoden Sr, 40, his 16-year-old son, Christopher Rhoden Jr; 44-year-old Kenneth Rhoden; 38-year-old Gary Rhoden; 37-year-old Dana Rhoden; 20-year-old Clarence 'Frankie' Rhoden; 20-year-old Hannah Gilley; and 19-year-old Hanna Rhoden.

Reader said it was evident that it was only members of the family who were targeted and the general public were not likely to be threatened.

He added: 'Im a member of that community, its very emotional to find out that 8 people in your community have been murdered.'

Eighteen pieces of evidence were being examined for DNA clues, DeWine said, but he would not reveal what they were.

Police also refused to reveal what type of gun or bullets were used and whether they had identified a suspect.

Authorities have been scrambling to determine who targeted the clan and why. Investigators have interviewed between 50 and 60 people in hopes of finding leads, and a team 38 people is combing wooded areas around the shooting scenes to ensure no evidence was missed, Reader said.

Five search warrants have been issued and seven of the eight autopsies have been completed.

Police are also looking at claims by Rhoden family members that twenty-year-old Frankie Rhoden felt threatened by rivals jealous of his $3000 demolition derby car which he used to enter competitions, as first revealed by Daily Mail Online.

More than 100 members of the Rhoden family, who live in rundown houses and trailers dotted around the area were advised to arm themselves by Reader for their own safety.

He warned members of the Rhoden family: If you are fearful  arm yourself although he later said he was not directly asking them to defend themselves with guns.

He added: I have told the Rhoden family to be armed. If any other citizen feels that they are in jeopardy, I would advise them to do the same.

Many of the Rhodens have been taking shelter in a local church and were described by witnesses as being 'scared for their lives'.

Johnny Gambill (pictured above with his daughter, Rosemary), whose wife Lorretta was first cousin to victim Dana Lynn Rhoden, 37, suggested that the violence could have been sparked by a bitter rivalry Frankie Rhoden had with other derby competitors

Gambill (right, with his daughter Rosemary and his son), said Frankie Rhoden had been competed several times in his $3,000 1990s model Ford Crown Victoria car in local derbies and had told of angry rows with other competitors

Pastor Phil Fulton called the people who killed the Rhoden family 'evil, sick, hideous' on Friday outside his church

Authorities said the shootings appeared targeted towards the Rhoden family specifically. Above, an aerial view of one of the scenes on Friday

Members of the family of the slain victims previously put forward the theory that jealousy or a dispute over Frankie Rhoden's $3,000 car could be behind the murders.

Frankie Rhoden, 20, who was gunned down with his fiancee Hannah Hazel Gilley, also 20, was said to have spoken about bitterness between him and other competitors.

He had competed several times in his 1990s model Ford Crown Victoria car in local derbies and had told of angry rows with other competitors.

He had used his car to smash up the vehicles of other drivers, with the last car standing being declared the winner, in several local rallies.

Johnny Gambill, whose wife Lorretta was first cousin to Dana Lynn Rhoden, 37, said: Some of us have been talking about the jealousy that Frankie had faced over his car.

It was worth more than $3,000 and that made some people jealous around Piketon.

Gambill, a trash collector, added: ' My wife had spoken to Dana about it and we feel today that could be the reason because there aint nothing else that seems what it could it be.

The Rhodens are good people who live for each other and there is no reason why anybody should want to do this. They are all very close.

There is no drugs reason or money reason. Everybody is peaceful around here normally. There aint never been anything at all like this.

The whole thing is so shocking and if the car was the reason then that is so disgusting and incredible. But there were people jealous about him and his car.

Russ Clark, who runs Smash It Demolition Derbys locally with his brother Tim, said Frankie Rhodens car was worth more than many of the cars used in tournaments.

He told Daily Mail Online that most cars were valued at around $500 to $1000 with high end cars worth from $2000 upwards. The victims car would easily be worth $3000 he added.

Demolition derbies are popular across the Midwest, and Frankie Rhoden had featured his car in local demolition derbies.

The events are popular in the area and attract thousands of spectators, but competitions are governed by strict rules and drivers have to wear safety helmets.

Gambill added: The whole thing is horrible. The Rhodens are good people and I hope the police catch the people who did this soon.'

But he insisted that the massacre should not give credence to calls for stronger gun laws to be introduced in the United States.

He added: Guns dont kill people, it is people. I have got guns because I go hunting, but I would never point one at anybody.

In a 911 call following the shootings, a woman sounded out of breath as she frantically told a dispatcher, 'I think my brother-in-law's dead ... There's blood all over the house.'

'There's blood all over the house. My brother-in-law is in the bedroom and it looks like someone has beat the hell out of him,' she said.

Before weeping into the phone, she says it looked as though someone else was dead too.

The distraught woman said two men, Chris Rhoden and Gary Rhoden, at 4077 Union Hill Road appeared to be dead during the call that was placed at 7.49am Friday.

She drove to the house and discovered the horrific scene.

'I think they are both dead,' she said.

In a second 911 call that was received, a man said: 'I just found my cousin with a gunshot wound.'

The dispatcher asks, 'Is he alive?'

The man replied and said 'no, no'.

Local Pastor Phil Fulton, whose church housed up to 100 Rhoden family members and allied relations, said: The people who did this are evil, sick, hideous.

He said he had seen the family members together and they were weeping and in fear for their safety.

Eight Rhoden family members were found shot to death in rural Ohio Friday. Above, one of the crime scenes

Authorities are investigating four crime scenes at homes along Union Hill Road in Pike County, including the one above

Investigators might be looking for several killers but do not know exactly how many. Pictured, a sheriff's deputy stands near one of the crime scenes east of Peebles, Ohio on Friday

They do not believe the community is at threat but Sheriff Charles Reader warned that there might still be an armed and dangerous threat at large. Above, one of the crime scenes

Jeff Ruby, a restaurant owner in Cincinnati, tweeted (above) Saturday that he is offering a $25,000 reward for anyone that can provide information that leads to the arrest of the Rhoden family shooter or shooters

Daily Mail Online was able to reach the family at the church, but they were too upset to talk and asked, through police and church officials, for photographs of them not to be published because of safety fears.

Police have established that the killer or killers are still at large and not among the eight victims.

The horrific massacre has rocked the small community to its core. Authorities spoke to 100 of their relatives and friends gathered at a church on Friday.

During a news conference on Friday evening, DeWine said authorities have interviewed more than 30 people and will talk to more of them as the investigation continues.

'We will continue until the case is solved. We do not know whether we're talking about one individual or two or three or more,' DeWine added.

No person of interest has been apprehended and investigators are looking at different theories.

They believe the killers targeted the family specifically, and DeWine said there was no indication of a threat towards the rest of the community.

The rest of the family has been in touch with the sheriff's office for their protection.

Kimberly Newman, Victim Advocate and Program Director for the Adams County Victim Assistance Program, told reporters that the family is expressing gratitude for the support and prayers they've received.

'The Rhoden family would like to thank everyone for all the outpouring of prayers and support for their family,' the statement reads.

'They ask that you continue to keep them in their prayers. They want to thank all law enforcement from Pike County and all surrounding counties for their immediate response.'

Fulton said on Saturday the relatives of those killed are 'not doing well at all'.

Sources told My Fox Columbus that the shootings do not appear to be random. Above, Union Hill Road - just east of Peebles, Ohio

More than 100 friends and family members spoke to authorities. Pictured, officials speak near the scene of a mass murder east of Peebles, Ohio on Friday

He described the family as close-knit and hardworking and says they were previously part of his congregation at Union Hill Church, though not recently.

Fulton says his church has been a haven for grieving family members and friends and will remain open to them as needed.

Jeff Ruby, a restaurant owner in Cincinnati, tweeted Saturday that he is offering a $25,000 reward for anyone that can provide information that leads to the arrest of the Rhoden family shooter or shooters.

'2whom it may concern: Would like to post $25k reward for anyone who leads to arrest of Rhoden family killer(s) in Pike Co. Ohio. Need Contact,' Ruby tweeted.

Ohio governor and presidential candidate John Kasich was 'very concerned' about the shooting and requested a briefing, DeWine said.

'We just couldn't believe it. When the governor and I talked I think he was still in shock about it,' he added.

'It's not something you expect to find in any place in the state of Ohio, it's certainly not something you expect to find in Pike County.'

Kasich said his office was monitoring the situation in Pike County while he spent the Friday campaigning in Pennsylvania for his Republican presidential bid.

'Reports we are receiving from Peebles are tragic beyond comprehension,' Kasich wrote on his Twitter account Friday.

In addition, there were no indications that any of the dead had killed themselves, DeWine said.

'We have a murder - or murderers - who have done this,' he added.

Thirty officers were dispatched, including 13 road deputies, Reader said. The FBI remains available and has not been involved directly at this time.

DeWine noted that it's unclear how long the investigation will last, but they will continue to work until the person or persons responsible are found.

Authorities didn't release any information on whether there were multiple weapons used. Pictured, several ambulances were lined up along the road where the multiple crime scenes were located Friday

Lt. Michael Preston, of the Ross County Sheriff's Department speaks to the media on Union Hill Road that approaches a crime scene, Friday, April 22, 2016, in Pike County, Ohio

'We're coming,' Reader said. 'When this investigation is complete it's going to point us into the direction we need to go and we will find who did this.'

The eight who were murdered, including a mother sleeping in a bed with her four-day-old baby next to her, were all fatally shot in the head early Friday morning.

Some of the victims were in bed, indicating they were shot while they were sleeping, authorities said, adding that some, not all, were killed in bed.

The four-day-old, a six-month-old and a three-year-old child survived the grisly killings. Reader wouldn't say where the three surviving children were taken on Friday.

'Each one of the victims appears to have been executed,' DeWine said earlier. 'Each one of the victims appeared to be shot in the head.'

Facebook tributes for those killed are pouring in, as many in the small community knew those who were murdered.

A relative of the Rhoden family, Donna Musser, wrote on Facebook: 'Reality sets in so much when you look at these three precious babies and know they won't grow up knowing their mom's and dad's, grandma and grandpa and their aunt's and uncle's.

'I really hope the pos that walked into my families homes and killed them while Hannah held her newborn and the other babies were sleeping, I hope you truly get what you deserve hell isn't good enough for you.'

In a post with the some of the victims' photos made into a collage, one user wrote: 'Fly high my beautiful friends!! Love each of you as family!! You will be greatly missed!! Fly high. Chris Rhoden, Frankie Rhoden, Hannah Hazel Gilley, Hanna May Rhoden, Dana Lynn Rhoden'.

Another person who knew the youngest victim, Chris, wrote on Facebook: 'Still can't believe it's true, fly high Chris Rhoden. camp won't be the same without your jokes and you driving around camp in your car. praying for Piketon and the Rhoden family.'

A motive isn't clear, authorities said, but they urged other members of the Rhoden family to take precautions, and Reader advised all residents to stay inside and lock their doors Friday night.

'This really is a question of public safety, and particularly for any of the Rhoden family,' DeWine said.

Authorities create a perimeter near a crime scene on Union Hill Rd, Friday, April 22, 2016, in Pike County, Ohio

Crime scene investigation vehicles drive up Union Hill Road as they approach the location of a reported multiple shooting, Friday, April 22, 2016, in Pike County, Ohio

Media and emergency personnel stand at the perimeter of a crime scene as investigation vehicles drive up Union Hill Road, Friday, April 22, 2016, in Pike County, Ohio

Crime scene investigators were first called to Union Hill Road at 8.21am, when seven of the victims were found shot to death in the head 'execution style'.

The first three homes where bodies were found are located within a couple miles of one another on a sparsely populated stretch of road, while the eighth body - a man - was found in a house within 30 miles just before 2pm, the sheriff said.

Authorities didn't release any information on whether there were multiple weapons used or whether anything was missing from the homes.

Friday afternoon, Fulton remembered the victims fondly in interviews with local media.

'They all attended church at one time. They kind of dropped by the wayside probably three, four years ago, maybe. I would always see - out, very friendly, outgoing person. The kids seemed friendly, always you know, just good kids, seemed like,' Fulton told WKRC.

He told the Columbus Dispatch that 'Dana loved her family' and 'worked hard'.

'What a tragic thing, a tragic thing,' Fulton said. 'We just have to lift this family, this community and this whole country up in prayer.'

Fulton told WCPO that the mass murder was 'very out of character for our community, but with the ways of the world, the way things are going, I guess maybe we shouldn't be surprised. But we are. This is so tragic.'

Peebles High School imposed a precautionary lockout Friday morning after authorities notified the superintendent of shootings that had occurred a few miles away, according to Regina Bennington, secretary to the superintendent for the Adams County Ohio Valley Schools district.

High school officials said the school was back to normal operations later Friday morning.

Piketon is the site of a Cold War-era uranium plant that was closed in 2001 and is still being cleaned up.

The economically distressed county in the Appalachian Mountain region has some 28,000 residents and is roughly 80 miles east of Cincinnati.

According to satellite views of the area, the street appears to be dotted with small farms.

Anyone with information about the murders is asked to call the tip line at 1-800-BCI-OHIO.
It was a star-studded celebration of Shakespeare, with even Prince Charles making his TV acting debut.

But for all the BBCs fine efforts to commemorate the work of the Bard, it seems they could not match the appeal of Captain Mainwaring and his rag-tag Home Guard.

A repeat of a 1972 episode of Dads Army, broadcast on BBC Two on Saturday evening, attracted 1.5million viewers, 200,000 more than the corporations Shakespeare special aired immediately afterwards.

For all the BBCs fine efforts to commemorate the work of the Bard - including a sketch which featured Prince Charles - it seems they could not match the appeal of Captain Mainwaring and his rag-tag Home Guard

A repeat of a 1972 episode of Dads Army, broadcast on BBC Two on Saturday evening, attracted 1.5million viewers, 200,000 more than the corporations Shakespeare special

Even the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch, Dame Judi Dench and Dame Helen Mirren proved no match for the appeal of Arthur Lowe and company as Shakespeare Live! From the RSC sunk to second place on the channel.

The viewing figures do not include the people who went to the 360 cinemas across the country to watch the Shakespeare extravaganza.

The special show, made to mark the 400th anniversary of the playwrights death, also saw Prince Charles deliver part of the To be, or not to be soliloquy from Hamlet.

He had secretly rehearsed with Sir Ian McKellan, who was also involved in the show, and took part in a comedy sketch with other stars about the correct way of delivering the famous line.

The Prince is president of the Royal Shakespeare Society but is normally content for a role away from the stage.

Saturdays segment was not quite his Shakespearean debut. In 1965, he took the lead role in Macbeth as a teenage pupil at Gordonstoun.

But despite the novelty of seeing the heir to the throne take to the stage, it was the episode A Brush with the Law  from Dads Armys third series  that was BBC Twos most watched programme of the day.

Even the likes of Dame Judi Dench (pictured) and Dame Helen Mirren proved no match for the appeal of Arthur Lowe and company as Shakespeare Live! From the RSC sunk to second place on BBC Two

Benedict Cumberbatch and Paapa Essiedu performed as part of the BBC's special coverage to commemorate Shakespeare

It sees Captain Mainwaring taken to court charged with shining a light during the blackout. After various mishaps, he is acquitted when Edward Sinclairs verger admits it was he who broke the law.

BBC Two shows a Dads Army repeat every Saturday and, with an average audience of 1.9million, it is almost always the channels top performing programme.

However, even this is a far cry from the 18million viewers it could attract each week in its heyday during the 1970s.

Dads Army remains so popular that it was recently revived as a high-profile film starring Toby Jones, Sir Michael Gambon and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Paul Carpenter, manager of the Dads Army Appreciation Society, said: Im not surprised to hear it has beaten Shakespeare, its trounced a lot of shows in the past.

The reason behind that is because all different generations can watch it and enjoy it together, whereas things like Shakespeare probably doesnt appeal so much to the younger audience and its not so much family viewing.
A male nurse at a psychiatric hospital has been banned for nine years after allegedly tricking a patient into having sex with him and sending 60 explicit photographs.

The Queensland Civil and Administrative Appeals Tribunal heard Madai Isgrove manipulated a female patient into having an inappropriate relationship which started when he sent the woman 'flirty' text messages.

Mr Isgrove also convinced the woman to give him $660, the Courier Mail reports.

A male nurse at a psychiatric hospital has been banned for nine years after allegedly tricked a patient into having sex with him and sending him 60 explicit photographs (stock image)

The tribunal was told the relationship changed when Mr Isgrove started sending graphic text messages to the woman, detailing sexual acts he wanted to perform with her and that he wanted to watch a female nurse bathe her.

The woman told the tribunal they had sex the day after she was discharged from the psychiatric centre, and on four more occasions.

She also performed oral sex on Mr Isgrove.

Judge Alexander Horneman-Wren said Mr Isgrove took advantage of the woman's fragile state as it was known she had been suicidal when went to the hospital.

The nurse convinced a female patient to send him $660 and to perform oral sex on him, a tribunal has heard (stock image)

Queensland Civil and Administrative Appeals Tribunal was told the relationship changed Mr Isgrove started sending graphic text messages to the woman, detailing sexual acts he wanted to perform (stock image)

'He has sexually exploited a person who he knew to be amongst the most psychologically vulnerable we find in our community,' Judge Horneman-Wren said, according to The Courier Mail.

'It was his duty to care for this person, not to exploit her for his own base sexual gratification.'
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt this afternoon pleaded with junior doctors to ignore their union and turn up for work in emergency, maternity and intensive care units tomorrow.

The first ever all-out strike by doctors is due to start at 8am tomorrow for nine hours before being repeated on Wednesday in a continuing dispute over a new contract.

Mr Hunt today told MPs the NHS was 'busting a gut' to keep patients safe during the industrial action, which is a dramatic escalation by the British Medical Association after a series of strikes in non-emergency care.

The Health Secretary today warned no trade union had the right to veto a manifesto commitment and promised he would provide more than 11,000 additional doctors to deliver his planned seven-day NHS by 2020.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, pictured during today's statement, today pleaded with junior doctors to ignore their union and work tomorrow

In a Commons statement, Mr Hunt said: 'This week the BMA has called on junior doctors to withdraw emergency care for the first time ever.

'I wish to appeal directly to all junior doctors not to withdraw emergency cover which creates particular risks for A&Es, maternity units and intensive care units.

'The new contract offers junior doctors, who work frequently at weekends, more Saturday premium pay than nurses, paramedics and the assistants who work in their own operating theatres.

'More than police officers, more than fire fighters, and nearly every other worker in the public and private sectors.

'Regrettably over the course of this pay dispute 150,000 sick and vulnerable people have seen their care disrupted and the public will rightly question whether this is appropriate or proportionate action by professionals whose patients depend on them.

'Taking strike action is a choice.'

Mr Hunt added: 'We have many choices in life but one of the things we have no control over is the day of the week we get ill. That's why the first line on the first page of this Government's manifesto said that if elected we would deliver a seven-day NHS.

'We are proud of the NHS as one of our greatest institutions but we must turn that pride into actions and a seven-day service will help us turn the NHS into one of the safest healthcare systems in the world.'

Shadow health secretary Heidi Alexander slammed Mr Hunt for choosing to keep up the fight over the contract instead of giving a green light to pilots and independent assessments.

She said Mr Hunt's tactics during the dispute had been the 'the political equivalent of pouring oil onto a blazing fire'.

Mr Hunt faced Labour demanded for concessions during his statement in the House of Commons today

Labour peer Robert Winston told 5 News: 'Jeremy Hunt is making a massive mistake here. There really is a need for a compromise and I think that the doctors would be happy to accept a compromise.

Professor Robert Winston, a Labour peer, warned Mr Hunt was making a 'massive mistake'

'These are altruistic people and they don't want to strike, they don't want to withdraw their labour. And obviously the hope is that patients will not be damaged but even delaying operations is not great.'

'And I think the Secretary of State really should think again about how he can persuade what is really important in the National Health Service, right across the board, the need for high morale.

'At the moment the morale in the health service has never been lower and to some extent Jeremy Hunt is responsible for that.'

Labour veteran Dennis Skinner - who was kicked out of the Commons earlier this month for branding the Prime Minister 'dodgy Dave' - told Mr Hunt to 'wipe that smirk off his face' and 'get down to some serious negotiations'.

He said: 'He comes in here to try and blame the Opposition for what's taking place. This strike can only be caused by two sides. One are the junior hospital doctors and the other side is the government.

'He is almost giving the impression that he is reveling in standing up to the junior hospital doctors. Start negotiating now and sort the matter out.'

In his statement, Mr Hunt announced a dedicated strike page on the NHS website had been set up to help guide patients to care during this week's strike action.

He said NHS England had worked with every trust to ensure contingency plans were in place at every hospital in England.

GP practices will also extend opening hours in some areas, Mr Hunt told MPs.

The BMA has defended the walkout, repeating its stance that it will call off the strike if Mr Hunt agrees to lift his threat to impose the contract.

Plea: David Cameron has been urged by the presidents of more than 12 royal colleges and faculties to step in and break the stalemate between junior doctors and the Government - preventing tomorrow's strike

Strike: Medics will leave A&E departments, maternity units and cancer wards at 9am tomorrow in protest at the Government's plan to rip up their contracts and impose new hours and pay

Mr Hunt has rejected this offer but wrote to the BMA over the weekend calling for an urgent meeting to discuss some parts of the deal.

The impasse means it looks increasingly likely the strike will go ahead, with thousands of junior doctors withdrawing full labour, including emergency care.

Mr Hunt today defended his proposals for a seven-day NHS and promised that by 2020 there would be 11,420 more doctors trained to work in the NHS.

BMA: JEREMY HUNT HAS IGNORED DOCTORS, ROYAL COLLEGES AND PUBLIC OPINION OVER STRIKE The British Medical Association (BMA) has defended junior doctors' decision to walk out of hospitals in the first all-out strike in the history of the NHS. Today, BMA chair Dr Mark Porter told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that senior doctors were stepping in to provide emergency care. He also said the Government had 'distorted' statistics, which Mr Hunt says shows patients are more likely to die if they are admitted to hospitals at weekends. A key issue in the dispute is around weekend pay. The new, imposed contract cuts the pay offered to doctors at weekends but increases basic pay. Asked if he would walk out, Dr Porter said: 'I would look at a Government that has distorted the research and statistics to buttress its non-existent case on this, I would look at a Government that has refused to listen to royal college advice and indeed ignored public opinion on this and I would look around and see the senior doctors who are my colleagues in providing safe care. Of course I would.' Responding to Mr Hunt's 'lives at risk' claim, he said: 'The Health Secretary is trying to find some way to throw mud at the junior doctors of this country who have been providing weekend and night emergency cover since the NHS started.' Dr Porter added: 'The reality is we have advised our members to take part in contingency planning and the NHS has put in place a magnificent effort of contingency planning to make sure that safe emergency care will be delivered on Tuesday and Wednesday. It will be delivered by consultants and staff and associate specialty doctors. 'If the Government will call off the imposition, we will call off the strikes. By contrast, the Government has said over the weekend that there is nothing that will get it to call off the imposition.' Advertisement

He told MPs: 'While it is true pressures on the NHS will increase on the back of an ageing population, we are not saying the current workforce will have to bear all the strain of delivering a seven-day service - even though of course they must play their part.'

Today, more than a dozen presidents of royal colleges and faculties have written to the Prime Minister, calling for him to end the dispute.

Signatories include Professor Neena Modi, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Professor Jane Dacre, president of the Royal College of Physicians London, Dr David Richmond, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and Dr Anna Batchelor, dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine.

The letter said: 'You have spoken many times about your commitment to the NHS. In our view, as leaders of the medical profession, the ongoing impasse in the dispute between Government and junior doctors poses a significant threat to our whole healthcare system by demoralising a group of staff on whom the future of the NHS depends.

'At this 11th hour, we call upon you to intervene, bring both parties back to the negotiating table, end this damaging stand-off, and initiate an honest debate about the serious difficulties facing UK health services.'

Hospitals were last night making last-minute preparations by shuffling staff and cancelling procedures.

A total of 12,711 non-urgent operations and 112,856 outpatient appointments have been cancelled.

Patients are being asked to stay away from A&E during the walkouts unless it is a real emergency.

Consultants and nurses will fill the gaps left by up to 45,000 striking junior doctors, and paramedics have been asked to set up temporary units outside hospitals in a bid to deal with the pressure.

Some mothers due to give birth this week have been told that procedures to induce labour will be postponed for several days.

The BMA refused to meet Jeremy Hunt, who has called the action 'unacceptable' and said it threatened patients' safety.

Both parties refused to budge from their positions over the weekend, despite a flurry of letters between them.

Mr Hunt offered to meet BMA chairman Dr Mark Porter to discuss his members' concerns. But he refused to shift on his insistence that the new contracts will be imposed with or without the BMA's agreement, and Dr Porter rejected the offer.

Mr Hunt said: 'This proposed withdrawal of potentially life-saving care will worry people all over our country, and unacceptably brings into question the safety of patients.

'Very senior figures in the medical profession have urged junior doctors not to strike in this way, and I do not believe that the action proposed is proportionate.

'I know that junior doctors have a number of legitimate concerns, and want to see better working conditions to relieve the pressure they're under.

'That's why I have written to Mark Porter, asking him to meet with me today to discuss these issues and how we can rebuild trust as an alternative to damaging strike action.'

Dr Porter last night rejected Mr Hunt's invitation to meet  insisting that he could not negotiate until the threat of imposition was lifted.

He said in a reply: 'As you know, we have been pushing for further talks on the junior doctor contract ever since your announcement of imposition in February.

'While we remain committed to reaching a negotiated settlement, this cannot take place with the threat of imposition hanging over our junior doctors' heads.

'I am now repeating this offer as a way to break the current impasse: if you agree to lift imposition while talks resume, we will immediately call off the industrial action planned for April 26 and 27. I hope that even at this stage we can find a way to step back from this dispute, from the imposition of a distrusted contract, and from the consequent industrial action.'

Anger: Junior doctors asked Mr Hunt to remove the imposition of the new contract before they return to talks

JUNIOR DOCTOR STUNS VIEWERS BY RESIGNING LIVE ON AIR ON GOOD MORNING BRITAIN Dr Ben White sensationally quit as a training doctor while being interviewed on Good Morning Britain A junior doctor resigned from his post live on television this morning after insisting he and his colleagues have been 'backed into a corner' by health secretary Jeremy Hunt. Dr Ben White sensationally quit as a training doctor while being interviewed by Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain. He said: 'I have taken the decision that I am resigning as a trainee doctor to focus on a legal campaign to fight the contract on behalf of my patients and on behalf of the NHS.' Asked why it had come to this, he was visibly upset and said: 'I really feel like we have been backed into a corner and there's not a lot of sense coming out of the Government's side of things. 'We have to put patients first and we can see at the moment the understaffing and the underfunding in the NHS.' Dr White, 33, was on ITV's flagship breakfast programme to discuss tomorrow's junior doctor strike. Advertisement

By writing directly to Dr Porter, Mr Hunt bypassed Dr Johann Malawana, whose BMA junior doctors' committee is widely considered to be far more radical than the main council. Mr Hunt last wrote to Dr Malawana last week, rejecting his offer to call off the strike if the threat to impose the contract was lifted.

Separately, a group of cross-party MPs called on Mr Hunt to trial the new contracts in a small number of trusts in a bid to prevent the all-out strike.

Labour's Heidi Alexander, Conservative Dr Dan Poulter, Lib Dem Norman Lamb and the SNP's Dr Philippa Whitford, backed by the Royal College of Surgeons, called for an independent evaluation of the contracts, particularly to see if they improve weekend death rates as the Government hopes.

Reject: Mr Hunt refused to shift on his insistence that the new contracts will be imposed with or without the BMA's agreement

The BMA said that if the Government agreed to a limited pilot of the contracts, it would meet to discuss the possibility of calling off the strikes.

But Mr Hunt dismissed the plan as Labour-led 'political opportunism', saying the scheme was already to be phased in, with only 11 per cent of junior doctors to be put on the new contracts in August, as an initial stage.

Dr Anne Rainsberry, national incident director for NHS England, said: 'The effects of this action will be felt far and wide with thousands of people having their operations postponed and their care disrupted, for which we sincerely apologise.

'The NHS has been pulling out all the stops to minimise the risks to the quality and safety of care but this is an unprecedented situation.

'The NHS is open for business but we ask the public to use it wisely in this very challenging time as some services may change and some may be busier than usual.'

One woman posted on the internet forum Baby Centre that her hospital had rearranged the day she was to be induced.

Another was told she would face a two-day delay before being induced, and wrote: 'Don't think I can mentally take it.'

NHS medical director Sir Bruce Keogh said earlier this month that the trust patients placed in doctors was a 'privileged gift'.

He said the decision to withdraw all care went 'against the grain' of the Health Service.

He added: 'I encourage every doctor... to dig deep and ask whether such action is fair to patients or compatible with the values and privilege of being a doctor.'
A third of hospitals have been forced to impose emergency measures in the past six months to deal with soaring patient numbers.

One trust undertook a discharge blitz, dispatching teams of doctors and nurses to send patients home if they were deemed medically fit.

Others have placed patients in makeshift wards in A&E assessment cubicles and even the hospital gym.

Emergency: A third of hospitals have been forced to impose emergency measures in the past six months

Figures obtained by Labour show that 58 out of 152 hospital trusts have experienced serious operational incidents on at least one occasion since last November.

They were forced to implement crisis measures to avoid overcrowding including cancelling routine operations, diverting ambulances and placing patients on makeshift wards.

Justin Madders MP, Labours health spokesman, said: These reports paint a picture of an NHS in crisis on David Camerons watch.

Over winter one in three hospitals were under so much pressure that patients had to be turned away from A&E or forced to sleep in makeshift wards because there were not enough beds available.

Despite the spin, the Tories NHS policies have been found to be failing patients and failing the NHS. Ministers cannot keep ignoring the warning signs.

We need to see urgent action to ensure hospitals are able to cope and deliver effective care to patients.

Western Sussex NHS Trust imposed the discharge blitz for the first two weeks of February in a desperate attempt to free up beds, according to a Freedom of Information response.

Pressure: Staff are under pressure to free up beds as patient numbers soar and waiting times in casualty are the worst on record

Nurses, doctors and social workers were dispatched to identify patients who could be safely sent home.

Staff at the East Cheshire Trust created a makeshift ward in their A&E unit while University Hospitals Bristol temporarily put patients on beds in the hospital gym.

Earlier this month official figures showed that waiting times in casualty were the worst on record with thousands of patients being forced to languish on trolleys.

STAFF SHORTAGES Hospitals often do not have enough staff to ensure safe care, NHS workers have warned. Of 2,700 NHS healthcare staff who responded to a survey by the Unison union, 63 per cent said they worked on wards with inadequate numbers of staff to ensure safe and compassionate care, up from 45 per cent last year. Advertisement

Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK said: We have been hearing more stories of hospitals overflowing with patients and these new statistics reinforce the impression of a service increasingly under duress. What was once exceptional is becoming far less rare, and worryingly the trend is getting worse.

When hospital staff are under such pressure and free beds are so hard to find mistakes are more likely to be made. We worry that some older people who need admitting will have to wait too long in A&E or be rushed home prematurely at the end of their stay without proper plans being put in place.
In 50 years of planning parties for the Queen, shes enjoyed the company of some of the worlds most interesting and influential guests.

But when it comes to those whose conversational skills may be somewhat lacking, Lady Elizabeth Anson has one rule  sit them all together.

The veteran event planner claims that this way, boring guests wont realise they are dull  nor will they ruin the fun of those who possess more sparkling wit.

The Queen's party planner Lady Elizabeth Anson (pictured) has one rule for those whose conversation skills may be somewhat lacking - sit them all together

Among her other hints for the perfect party is that interesting guests trump fine food  and that sausages and mash can sometimes be just as good as caviar.

In an interview with the New York Times, Lady Elizabeth spoke with rare candour about a business which normally relies on strict discretion.

She revealed her codename for the Queen when organising events is Shirley Temple  although she could not remember why she decided on the former child star.

She also claimed the Queen thinks her own grandchildren do not know how to talk to one other at dinner  because they are used to interrupting the meal by serving themselves and cleaning up as they do not have as many staff.

Lady Elizabeth, 74, is the sister of late photographer Lord Lichfield and a cousin of the Queen. She has organised hundreds of events for Buckingham Palace, including Her Majestys 90th birthday celebrations last week.

HER GUIDE TO A PERFECT BASH The invitation sets the tone  if it looks cheap, guests will think you are cheap. But dont go overboard and spend thousands either.

Conversation tops caviar  interesting guests are more important than expensive food.

Good lighting is essential to set the mood and can help break up a large room.

Do your organising over the phone rather than via email because it is more efficient.

Put all the boring guests at the same table and they wont realise they are dull.

Round dining tables are best because they are less formal, and you dont have to decide who sits at the head.

End the party by announcing that the bar is closing with 20 guests left on the dance floor. That way, the event doesnt slowly peter out. Advertisement

Lady Elizabeth has also hosted events for the late Queen Mother  her first ever party was for one of her godchildren.

Since then, her events have included a disco for a teenage Prince Charles and a party for the Rolling Stones  which ended with police turning up as guests drunkenly threw unopened bottles of Dom Perignon into the Thames.

Lady Elizabeth, who also advised on the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, said the invitation sets the tone for a whole event.

She claimed a client once wanted her to use save the date notes with Swarovski crystals costing 2,500 a card, but she dismissed this as vulgarity.

Yet if the invitation is cheap, guests will imagine theres going to be acidic wine and miserable food, she added.

Lady Elizabeth advised that when it comes to boring guests, put them all at the same table because they dont realise theyre the bores, and theyre happy ... its my biggest tip.

She added: A party with good table wine and good pasta or good sausages and mash can be just as much of a success as one with Krug [champagne], caviar, oysters and lobster. Its not about expensive ingredients. Its about people.

When it comes to wrapping things up, she advised that the host should call time with 20 guests left on the dance floor. If you let it peter out, its death, she said.

Lady Elizabeth described Her Majesty as a meticulous hostess. But she said the Queen has concerns about her grandchildren when it comes to dinner parties

I made one mistake in the whole of my career, which was being persuaded to restart the band. It was a flop.

Lady Elizabeth described Her Majesty as a meticulous hostess. But she said the Queen has concerns about her grandchildren when it comes to dinner parties.

Lady Elizabeth said: She (the Queen) said to me that she found it really difficult because they didnt really know how to talk to each other.
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A solar-powered airplane landed in California on Saturday, completing a risky, three-day flight across the Pacific Ocean as part of its journey around the world.

Pilot Bertrand Piccard landed the Solar Impulse 2 in Mountain View, in the Silicon Valley south of San Francisco, at 11.45pm following a 62-hour, nonstop solo flight without fuel.

The landing came several hours after Piccard performed a dazzling fly-by over the Golden Gate Bridge as spectators watched the narrow aircraft with extra wide wings from below.

The Solar Impulse 2 has successfully crossed the Pacific Ocean and after a three-day flight from Hawaii to California

The plane performed a dazzling fly-by over San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge before landing on Saturday night

Solar Impulse 2 landed just before midnight at Moffet Field in Mountain View, California

The plane, piloted by Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard, completed a 62-hour nonstop solo flight without fuel

Piccard was all smiles as he waved to the crowd after landing the plane, which has had some bumps on its around-the-world journey

Piccard hugs his wife Michelle outside the cockpit of Solar Impulse 2 after the successful landing

Piccard and fellow Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg (pictured together) have been taking turns flying the plane since taking off from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, in March 2015

The solar-powered airplane is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation

The plane taxied into a huge tent erected on Moffett Airfield where Piccard was greeted by the project's team.

Piccard said at a news conference after he landed: 'You know there was a moment in the night, I was watching the reflection of the moon on the ocean and I was thinking "I'm completely alone in this tiny cockpit and I feel completely confident.'"

'And I was really thankful to life for bringing me this experience. It's maybe this is one of the most fantastic experiences of life I've had.'

During the flight as he performed a fly-by over Golden Gate Bridge, Piccard said: 'I crossed the bridge. I am officially in America.'

Piccard and fellow Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg have been taking turns flying the plane on an around-the-world trip since taking off from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, in March 2015.

The Solar Impulse 2 has made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China, Japan and Hawaii.

The trans-Pacific leg was the riskiest part of the plane's global travels because of the lack of emergency landing sites.

Although it's most recent landing was a success, the aircraft faced a few bumps along the way.

The Solar Impulse 2 (pictured flying over San Francisco) has made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China, Japan and Hawaii

The trans-Pacific leg was the riskiest part of the plane's global travels because of the lack of emergency landing sites

Piccard taking a selfie on board Solar Impulse 2 during a test flight over the Pacific Ocean

Piccard said: 'You know there was a moment in the night, I was watching the reflection of the moon on the ocean and I was thinking "I'm completely alone in this tiny cockpit and I feel completely confident"'

The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Hawaii in July and was forced to stay in the islands after the plane's battery system sustained heat damage on its trip from Japan.

The team was delayed in Asia, as well. When first attempting to fly from Nanjing, China, to Hawaii, the crew had to divert to Japan because of unfavorable weather and a damaged wing.

A month later, when weather conditions were finally right, the plane departed from Nagoya in central Japan for Hawaii.

The plane's ideal flight speed is about 28 mph, though that can double during the day when the sun's rays are strongest. The carbon-fiber aircraft weighs more than 5,000 pounds, or about as much as a midsize truck.

The plane's wings, which stretch wider than those of a Boeing 747, are equipped with 17,000 solar cells that power propellers and charge batteries. The plane runs on stored energy at night.

During the flight as he performed a fly-by over Golden Gate Bridge, Piccard said: 'I crossed the bridge. I am officially in America'

The tranSolar Impulse 2 will make three more stops in the United States before crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Europe or Northern Africa

Solar Impulse 2 will make three more stops in the United States before crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Europe or Northern Africa, according to the website documenting the journey.

'The adventure continues,' Piccard said. 'The story is not finished.'

The project, which began in 2002 and is estimated to cost more than $100million, is meant to highlight the importance of renewable energy and the spirit of innovation.

'I think innovation and pioneering must continue,' Piccard said. 'It must continue for better quality of life, for clean technologies, for renewable energy - this is where the pioneers can really express themselves and be successful.'

Solar-powered air travel is not yet commercially practical, however, given the slow travel time, weather and weight constraints of the aircraft.

'Maybe it will be boring in 20 years when all the airplanes will be electric and people will say "Oh it's routine"', said Piccard.

'But now, today, an airplane that is electric, with electric engines, that produces its own energy with the sun, it can never be boring. It's a miracle of technology.'

The project began in 2002 and is estimated to cost more than $100million

The carbon-fiber aircraft weighs more than 5,000 pounds, or about as much as a midsize truck

The plane's wings, which stretch wider than those of a Boeing 747, are equipped with 17,000 solar cells that power propellers and charge batteries. The plane runs on stored energy at night
Only married women can run one of the 4000 market stalls which are passed down from generation to generation

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From the dazzling array of fresh fruit, spices and textiles, the sprawling Imphal market in Manipur could be mistaken for any other bazaar in India but it has one distinct difference - all 4000 traders manning its stalls are female.

Ima Keithel which translates as mothers market is a meeting ground and trading hub, run exclusively by women and is reportedly the largest all-women market in Asia and possibly the world.

Although there is debate over when exactly it was established, some say the market dates back to the 16th century. This female-only workforce originated during the Lallup era when men from the Meitei community were called upon to serve the King leaving the women the responsibilities of commerce and farming, according to Oddity Central.

Only married women are allowed to run the stalls and family members pass their trade on to the next generation keeping the enterprising spirit alive.

Despite threat of closure over the years, the market is still thriving. It did however take a battering during an earthquake in January which killed nine people and destroyed some of its structures.

Tourists visiting the region will be greeted by friendly traders offering a lively blend of traditional handcrafted items, modern clothing and local produce.

Female traders at Ima Keithel market in Imphal, Manipur, northeastern India must be married to sell their wares at the market

Dating back 500 years, Ima Keithel which translates as mothers market is a meeting ground and trading hub. A woman sells bananas (pictured)

Run exclusively by women, it is reportedly the largest all-women market in Asia and possibly the world. Three women sell flipflops and colourful shoes (pictured)

Although Ima Keithel was damaged in the 4 January earthquake, it has returned back to normal. Nine deaths were reported from in and around Imphal due to falling debris. Imphal has a population of some 270,000 and people were jolted from their sleep and ran out of their homes in panic when the earth shook. A woman reads the news at her vegetable stall (pictured)

This female-only workforce originated during the Lallup era when men from the Meitei community were called upon to serve the King leaving the women the responsibilities of commerce and farming

Local delicacies: A Manipuri woman sells smoked and dry fish in Ima Keithel market

A woman vendor on her way with yongchak to Ima market (left) and one of the 4000 traders at the market sells garlic (right)

This market is said to reflect the empowerment of the women of Manipur. A woman vendor sells Yongchak (pictured)

Female shoppers look delighted at the selection of traditional handcrafted items, modern clothing and local produce available to buy

Tools of the trade: Women sell farming and kitchen implements and other hardware at the mother's market

Fabric of life: A view of the section of cloth and textiles being sold at Ima Market in Imphal, Manipur

Family members pass their trade on to the next generation keeping the enterprising spirit alive at the market. Vendors wait for customers (pictured)
Italian authorities are monitoring an oil slick off the country's picturesque Riviera coast, but said the risk of a new spill into the Mediterranean was limited.

The slick, which was two kilometres (1.25 mile) long and 500 metres wide, was moving slowly westwards from waters off Genoa, raising fears it could pollute holiday beaches just as the tourist season begins.

The oil is believed to have come from a pipeline leak last Sunday at a refinery at Bussala, an outlying suburb of the northwestern Italian city, that spilled large quantities of crude into the Polcevera river.

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There were fears for tourism as Genova is located in the middle of the Italian stretch of the Riviera, close to the famous resort of Portofino (pictured) but authorities said that the risk of a new spill into the Mediterranean was limited

The oil is believed to have come from a pipeline leak last Sunday at a refinery at Bussala, an outlying suburb of the northwestern Italian city, that spilled large quantities of crude into the Polcevera river

General view over a containment barrier in the waters of Polcevera river in Genoa, Italy, 23 April 2016. Heavy rains over night damaged the containment barrier which was mounted to prevent oil spilling from a leak at Iplolm pipeline to reach the Ligurian Sea

The refinery's owner, Iplom, insisted that the leak was contained, but one of the barriers erected on the river gave way on Saturday morning after heavy overnight rain, pushing crude into the sea.

After declaring a local state of emergency, Genoa's port authority and the government said that back-up floating barriers in the mouth of the river had done their job.

'The situation is delicate but under control,' said Graziano Delrio, the minister for transport and infrastructure.

Genova is located in the middle of the Italian stretch of the Riviera, close to the famous resort of Portofino and several protected areas of outstanding natural beauty, including the Cinque Terre region.

The maritime environment is also highly prized with the coastal waters providing valuable breeding grounds for sea-life as well as supporting a fishing fleet which serves the local restaurant trade.

After declaring a local state of emergency, Genoa's port authority and the government said that back-up floating barriers in the mouth of the river had done their job

'The situation is delicate but under control,' said Graziano Delrio, the minister for transport and infrastructure

Genoa mayor Marco Doria said the large slick and several smaller ones spotted by fishermen and coastguards had presumably been caused by the refinery leak on April 17.

'From an environmental point of view I am calm,' said Gianfranco Benedetti, Iplom's local safety officer.

'There was no new leak into the sea. There is not much stuff left in the Polcevera, most of it has been extracted by gully suckers,' he told the AGI newswire.

Maritime authorities in Toulon, southwest France, said they had immediately ordered heightened monitoring in the area, with the navy dispatching a Falcon 50 plane to assess the situation.

'The flight detected no slick off France and in international waters up to Savona,' just east of Genoa, they said in a statement.
They revealed they were going to launch their Sydney-based breakfast radio show on a national level over the weekend.

And to celebrate 104.1FM hosts Sam Frost and Rove McManus showed off their inner ghetto personalities.

Taking to social media, the 27-year-old former Bachelorette attempted to rap to Missy Elliot's smash hit Work It while being filmed by her colleagues.

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Points for trying: Sam Frost and Rove McManus showed off their inner ghetto personalities as the former Bachelorette attempted to rap to Missy Elliot's smash hit Work It while being filmed by her colleagues

Dressed in an orange turtle-neck jumper the reality television starlet moved her slender frame from side to side while performing arm movements as she sung into the microphone.

But the rap didn't last long as Sam quickly broke into an uncontrollable laugh.

While sitting opposite her Rove looked on with a large smile before cheering her on to keep going.

'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' he repeated over and over again into the microphone.

Getting into it: Dressed in an orange turtle-neck jumper the reality television starlet moved her slender frame from side to side while performing arm movements as she sung into the microphone

Encouraging: While sitting opposite her Rove looked on with a large smile before cheering her on to keep going. 'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' he repeated over and over again into the microphone

Hours earlier the producers of the 104.1FM breakfast show announced they would be taking the program nationally.

The network revealed that as of this month, a nightly one-hour mashup of the pair's morning show would become available for listeners across Australia.

Commencing on Tuesday, the new program will be broadcast nationally after Hamish & Andy and be followed by the Hit 30 with Emma Freeman and Angus OLaughlin at 8pm.

Speaking about the network's decision to broadcast a second Rove & Sam show daily, Gemma Fordham, head of content at the Hit Network, said in a statement: 'Rove & Sam is a show that is authentic, funny and very real.

Taking on the country: On Friday the producers of the 104.1FM breakfast show announced they would be airing the program nationally

Ready, set, go! Commencing on Tuesday, the new program will be broadcast nationally after Hamish & Andy and be followed by the Hit 30 with Emma Freeman and Angus OLaughlin at 8pm

'The decision to spread the love of Rove & Sam, across the country, is due to the positive response the breakfast show is receiving.'

Adding: 'Rove & Sam is one of our top podcasts weekly, giving us strong evidence that markets outside of Sydney are keen to be part of this show.

The decision for a mashup comes just days after the latest survey findings released by industry agency GFK put the bubbly presenters at just three per cent.

The king and queen of the breakfast radio market, Kyle Sandilands and Jackie 'O' Henderson, on KIIS FM have kept a firm lead in the time slot despite dropping from a 12.5 per cent audience share in February to 11.3 per cent.
She's no stranger when it comes to showing off her incredibly fit figure in bikini-clad snaps.

And Elyse Knowles was at it again as she leisurely lay out in the sun and flaunted her toned stomach and seemingly endless legs on Saturday.

The 24-year-old beauty posted the snap of herself to Instagram writing: 'Getting some rays' as she lapped up the sunshine in a vibrant two piece.

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Getting some rays: Elyse Knowles shared a bikini-clad snap with her followers as she lay out in the sun and flaunted her toned stomach and seemingly endless legs on Saturday

Elyse sipped from a large bottle of water as she lay out in the sun in a bright orange and white patterned bikini that showed off her busty assets.

Her sun-kissed skin glowed as she lay across two patterned towels and let her blonde locks fall over her face as she looked off to the side.

The Melbourne-based beauty was enjoying her time in the sunshine before attending a friends wedding later in the weekend.

Beach babe: The 24-year-old model is no stranger when it comes to flaunting her toned figure and earlier in the week put on a very busty display before she hit the beach in Perth

Earlier in the week she put on a very busty display in a a purple bikini as she sat back and flashed a peace sign to her followers.

The beauty flashed her toned abs in the snap, and finished her relaxed look with a pair of loose white mesh pants.

She finished her look with a straw sunhat and appeared to be makeup free and posted to social media writing: 'To the beach it is #Perth time to chill'

Priorities: Recently, the model spoke to Beauticate about how she makes time for her body and part of that means always finding the time to exercise despite her busy schedule

Busy lady: She went on to explain to the publication that her phone 'never stops', and that she has found ways to work around the constant notifications on her phone

Recently, the model spoke to Beauticate about how she makes time for her body and part of that means always finding the time to exercise despite her busy schedule.

She went on to explain that her phone 'never stops', and how she works around the constant notifications on her phone.

'I have to create phone free times where Josh [Barker, her boyfriend], Isla and I can relax at home in peace,' she said.

'We either go for a walk or snuggle up on the couch,' although she added she is most relaxed when she's not travelling and can turn her phone off.
They were barely married a year but Katie Price and Alex Reid are still locked in a bitter feud, five years after their divorce was finalised.

The cross-dressing cage fighter's latest swipe at his ex-wife sees him claim 'she tried to destroy me' and pass partial blame onto her for the 400,000 worth of debt he's lumped with.

Alex, 40, accused 37-year-old Katie of damaging his opportunities for work by being deliberately controversial about his transvestite alter-ego Roxanne as he spoke at length about his money woes in a new interview with the Mirror.

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'Katie Price tried to destroy me': Alex Reid has blasted his ex-wife for using his drag alter-ego Roxanne against him... as he confessed to 400,000 debt in a new interview

The martial artist explained: 'I think Katie has tried to destroy me to be honest. I think she just got bored with me and saw me as a way of keeping her media profile up by being controversial.

'Then she used it all against me. I want to put the record straight. I am heterosexual, though I dont deny Ive experimented. But I am not having a sex change.'

Alex claimed the mother-of-five exaggerated the involvement of Roxanne in his life to such an extent that she painted him out to be somebody's he not which has subsequently cost him jobs, according to him.

Bad blood: The martial artist explained, 'I think Katie has tried to destroy me to be honest. I think she just got bored with me and saw me as a way of keeping her media profile up by being controversial'

He added: 'I want to put the record straight. I am heterosexual, though I dont deny Ive experimented. But I am not having a sex change'

Feeling the pinch: Alex, 40, is thought to owe lawyers 75,000 in legal costs accumulated after splitting with Katie in 2011 and Chantelle Houghton - who is the mother of his daughter Dolly - a year later

He went on to divulge details about his stressful money situation, saying: 'How bad are things? I havent got a pot to p**s in.'

Alex is thought to owe lawyers 75,000 in legal costs accumulated after splitting with Katie in 2011 and Chantelle Houghton - who is the mother of his daughter Dolly - a year later.

Additionally, his Portugal holiday home - estimated to be worth around 275,000 - has plummeted in value meaning he's left forking out for a mortgage he can't afford but unable to sell.

Adding further strain to the purse strings, he owes out 50,000 in money borrowed from friends and family.

Katie's rep declined the offer to comment and MailOnline is awaiting further clarification from Alex's camp.

Love lost: In addition to Katie, Alex was engaged to Chantelle for a year in 2012

Alex's latest outburst follows on from his most recent dig which involved him saying Katie needs to 'move on' as he prepares to marry fiancee Nikki Manashe.

The 40-year-old has blasted recent comments made by the TV personality about his cross-dressing alter ego Roxanne as 'disgusting' and has insisted it's time for the star to 'leave him alone'.

Speaking to Star magazine about Katie's remarks on Loose Women, the cage fighter said: 'I was disgusted and shocked. It's never nice to hear someone put you down on national TV and, as much as she's entitled to her own opinion, I believe she should be a lot more responsible.'

Katie and Alex got together in 2009, two months after her divorce from first husband Peter Andre. They were married in Las Vegas less than a year later and confirmed they had separated in January 2011.
She was booked to appear on stage twice that day.

But Claire Danes also got in a quick cigarette break as she made her way to work at New York City's Public Theatre on Saturday.

The 37-year-old was spotted taking a drag as she tuned into her trusty cell phone, presumably just before an afternoon showing of her off-Broadway show Dry Powder.

Nicotine fix: Claire Danes got in a cigarette break as she made her way to the Public Theater in New York on Saturday

Claire cut a stylish yet casual figure as she headed outdoors with her sharp taupe coat which was knotted at the waist.

Aside from her stylish coat and blue jeans, Claire also donned a pair of glossy grey peep-toe heels.

She added a glam touch with her eye-catching teardrop earrings, but kept her hair 'do casual by pulling her strands back into a no-fuss ponytail.

Claire even appeared to go without a scrap of make-up for the day.

She has great jeans: The actress teamed her blue trousers with a sophisticated coat

Tuned in: Danes was glued to her phone with her handy white earbuds

Claire - who is currently starring in the off-Broadway play Dry Powder - is juggling her theatre commitments with being a mom to her three-year-old son Cyrus with husband Hugh Dancy.

Her play at Public Theatre is directed by Hamilton's Thomas Kail, and is about a man named Seth (John Krasinski), who sets a desperate man up with a win-win investment which is then complicated by his counterpart.

The production, which also stars Hank Azaria, is scheduled to run through May 1 at the Public Theater in NYC.

Hitting her stride: The make-up free 34-year-old combed through the streets in her grey peep toe heels

Meanwhile, Claire is signed up to return as Carrie Mathison for a sixth season of her hit Showtime series this September 2016.

It was recently revealed that the upcoming season of Claire's popular series would shift focus to be more 'domestically' based.

When asked for details, Showtime president David Nevins revealed at the Television Critics Association press tour: 'It will be set domestically, primarily in the New York area.'
He seems to have it all, multiple successful restaurants, a reputable reputation in the hospitality industry, a career in television and a family of his own.

But according to My Kitchen Rules' celebrity chef Colin Fassnidge life in the public eye has never been easy.

While speaking to the latest edition of Sunday Style the 43-year-old opened up about the difficulties of juggling a professional career and his home life.

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Coming clean: Celebrity chef Colin Fassnidge has opened up about the difficulties of juggling a professional career and his home life

The father-of-two explained to the glossy publication that it is very difficult to live with a chef because they 'burn out' quickly.

'It's a hard life, it's the highest divorce, drugs, drink, suicide industry,' he told.

'Living with a chef is very hard, it's not good. We are the worst people in the world.'

Truth: The 43-year-old explained that being a chef and married to on is 'a hard life, it's the highest divorce, drugs, drink, suicide industry'

Despite admitting life isn't all as it seems, Colin revealed he and his wife, Jane Hyland, have made a promise to one another that the drama in the kitchen remains there.

'The rule we had was you can go crazy at work but you don't take it home...it doesn't always happen like that,' he said.

The celebrity chef began his career at London's Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons in 1994.

He stayed in London for five years before flying to Australia in 1999 and met his wife, who also hails from Ireland.

Staying strong: Despite admitting life isn't all as it seems, Colin revealed he and his wife, Jane Hyland, have made a promise to one another that the drama in the kitchen remains there

Colin worked at some of Sydney's most acclaimed restaurants including Banc and est.

He's been the head chef of The Four In Hand Dining Room in Paddington since October 2005, transforming the pub into a two hatted restaurant.

The location sadly closed its doors in early 2016 with Colin claiming to Daily Mail Australia at the time that it was due to location being sold for $10million.

Making a name for himself: Since arriving in Australia in 1999 Colin has run an operated two Sydney-based restaurants - 4/Fourteen and The Four In Hand

'The reason we are getting rid of it is because it is too small for what we are doing...it costs more to run the venue because there are that many other rooms.

'So we want to do something similar but bigger with the Four In Hand name,' he continued.

He now operates 4/Fourteen in Surry Hills which he opened in May 2012.

Besides his renowned cooking locations, he was also crowned GQ magazine's Chef of the Year in 2013 and released his long-waited debut cook-book Four Kitchens in February the following year.
Kim Kardashian West donned a plunging, corseted LBD for a Miami wedding alongside husband Kanye on Saturday.

The 35-year-old reality star - boasting 140.2M followers - showcased her cavernous cleavage in a series of eye-popping Snapchats while en route in the car.

The black bustier that stylist Monica Rose selected for the Selfish author was clearly several cups too small for her.

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Going to the chapel! Kim Kardashian West donned a plunging, corseted LBD for a Miami wedding alongside husband Kanye on Saturday

Kim's surgically-enhanced assets were literally busting out of the lacy, racy frock, which she paired with a glittery choker.

As always, the Calabasas socialite sported an excess of contoured make-up, lashes, and smoky eye shadow for the Florida nuptials.

The 5ft3in curvaceous brunette finished her over-the-top look off with a Posh-inspired bouffant ponytail.

Meanwhile, Kardashian West's suited 38-year-old beau seemed amused with her narcissistic photo session involving little more than her breasts.

See more of the latest Kim Kardashian updates as she busts out of her kinky lace corset

Nice view? The 35-year-old reality star - boasting 140.2M followers - showcased her cavernous cleavage in a series of eye-popping Snapchats while en route in the car

It doesn't even fit! The black bustier that stylist Monica Rose selected for the Selfish author was clearly several cups too small for her

Squished into submission: Kim's surgically-enhanced assets were literally busting out of the lacy, racy frock, which she paired with a glittery choker

'My cutie': Meanwhile, Kardashian West's suited 38-year-old beau seemed amused with her narcissistic photo session involving little more than her breasts

Natural beauty? As always, the Calabasas socialite sported an excess of contoured make-up, lashes, and smoky eye shadow for the Florida nuptials

Diminutive diva: The 5ft3in curvaceous brunette finished her over-the-top look off with a Posh-inspired bouffant ponytail

The fame-hungry couple - nicknamed 'Kimye' - will celebrate their own second wedding anniversary on May 24.

Kim's ample display Saturday seemed destined to upstage the bride, Brazilian model Isabela Rangel, who is marrying her 'soul mate', nightclub owner David Grutman.

The Wests seemed to be enjoying their date night without their daughter North, 2, and son Saint, 4 months.

Also at the Grutman-Rangel wedding was Kim's older sister Kourtney Kardashian alongside her BFF Jonathan Cheban.

Black-clad duo: Kim's cocktail pencil dress was finished with black stilettos and a lacy maxi-cardiagan

Sharp-dressed man: The hot-tempered designer-rapper looked dapper in his black tuxedo and white dress shirt sans necktie

Yeezy and his squeezy: The fame-hungry couple - nicknamed 'Kimye' - will celebrate their own second wedding anniversary on May 24

'Today is the day I will marry my soul mate!' Kim's ample display Saturday seemed destined to upstage the bride, Brazilian model Isabela Rangel, who is marrying nightclub owner David Grutman

Man of the hour: The wealthy EDM DJ - who turns 36 next week - owns the nearby LIV Nightclub, LIV Sun Life Stadium, and STORY on South Beach

'Miami Vice': The Wests seemed to be enjoying their date night without their daughter North, 2, and son Saint, 4 months

The 37-year-old mother-of-three bared her taut 5ft1in figure in an ultra-sheer, flounced halter dress.

Being Mary Jane's Gabrielle Union also opted for a black mesh creation, which featured a plunging bodice.

6ft Australian model Elle Macpherson easily defied her 52 years in yet another black sheer gown beneath a garish reptilian cropped jacket.

Retired WWE star Hulk Hogan donned a black do-rag with his tuxedo alongside wife Jennifer McDaniel, rocking a sheer halter jumpsuit.

In not-so-basic black: Also at the Grutman-Rangel wedding was Kim's older sister Kourtney Kardashian alongside her BFF Jonathan Cheban

See through sister: The 37-year-old mother-of-three bared her taut 5ft1in figure in an ultra-sheer, flounced halter dress

B&W wedding dress code? Being Mary Jane's Gabrielle Union also opted for a black mesh creation, which featured a plunging bodice

Today's trend! 6ft Australian model Elle Macpherson easily defied her 52 years in yet another black sheer gown beneath a garish reptilian cropped jacket

Celebrating his Gawker settlement? Retired WWE star Hulk Hogan donned a black do-rag with his tuxedo alongside wife Jennifer McDaniel, rocking a sheer halter jumpsuit

Excited to hang out with Kimye: Former NBA star Scottie Pippen suited up his 6ft8in form alongside wife Larsa in a panty-revealing strapless gown

'It all started in the Chi!' The 50-year-old basketballer and his wife of nearly 20 years proudly posed with Kardashian and West

'Love you @isabelarangela. You're the most beatitude bride!' Larsa also got a snap with the woman of the hour in her plunging wedding gown alongside Kourtney and a gal pal

Selfie enthusiasts: Kim later shared this snap of herself with sister Kourtney and Larsa

Orally fixated: The busty brunette posted numerous suggestive, artsy b&w snaps from the reception where she indulged in a tiny ice-cream cone

Launched her career with a 2007 sex tape: The social media strategist had a way of making everything she put her lens (and her mouth) on seem infintely more pornographic

Former NBA star Scottie Pippen suited up his 6ft8in form alongside wife Larsa in a panty-revealing strapless gown.

America's Got Talent host Mel B wore a colourful patterned caped frock featuring a thigh-high slit alongside leather trousers-clad husband Stephen Bellafonte.

Also attending the star-studded ceremony were French DJ David Guetta and Real Housewife of Miami Lisa Hochstein.

Grey's Anatomy guest star Wilmer Valderrama looked sharp in a charcoal suit without his girlfriend, pop diva Demi Lovato.

Are they next? Shanina Shaik also opted for black, sheer, and plunging with her fiance DJ Ruckus

PDA: Kardashian West also posted this sultry snap of Australian stunner and her tongue-lashing beau - born Greg Andrews

Cute couple: Shanina took two b&w photobooth snaps with the turntable star, who was doing his Sinatra impression with an undone tuxedo tie and cigar

'CONGRATULATIONS David + Isabela!' The 25-year-old catwalker also captured a picturesque shot of the sunset ceremony and floral altar, which she captioned: 'Happily ever after!'

Eschewed the black dress code: America's Got Talent host Mel B wore a colourful patterned caped frock featuring a thigh-high slit alongside leather trousers-clad husband Stephen Bellafonte

Lavender cut-out gown: Also attending the star-studded ceremony were French DJ David Guetta and Real Housewife of Miami Lisa Hochstein

'Meeting one of my music heroes!' The 48-year-old producer looked thrilled to grab a snap of himself with the Wolves hitmaker, who had changed into a plunging black top

Solo mission: Being Mary Jane's Gabrielle Union also opted for a black mesh creation, which featured a plunging bodice

Amazon! 5ft8in Ryan Seacrest - who used to produce KUWTK - was dwarfed by his towering blonde date in a glittery silver gown

On the prowl: Two other well-dressed gentlemen in the mix were filmmaker Michael Bay and socialite Brandon Davis

5ft8in Ryan Seacrest - who used to produce KUWTK - was dwarfed by his towering blonde date in a glittery silver gown.

The former sex tape star and her family continue their adventures on the 12th season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, which premieres May 1 on E!

And the 21-time Grammy winner doesn't have another scheduled concert until The Governors Ball happening June 5 at Randall's Island Park in New York.

Just married: David's new bride - who wore a plunging and backless dress - couldn't stop smiling

Drama queens: The former sex tape star and her family continue their adventures on the 12th season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, which premieres May 1 on E!
Rebecca and Chris Judd made the announcement on Monday that they are expecting twins.

They are already parent's to four-year-old son Oscar, and two-year-old daughter Billie, and the beauty only found out by chance that she was having twins.

On Thursday the 33-year-old explained to Mamamia that she had only stopped in to the doctors by herself for a routine blood test and after seeing a second heartbeat asked 'Is that a placenta?'

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Shock news: Rebecca Judd explained to Mamamia that she had only stopped in to the doctors by herself for a routine blood test and after seeing a second heartbeat asked 'Is that a placenta?'

'The doc said while I was there I may as well pop up for another scan. And there was two [heartbeats],' she told the publication.

Rebecca explained: 'But the second one was kind of like a blob and I was like, "what is that? What is that blob? Is it a placenta?" And the doctor said "No, thats another kid".'

The beauty had been experiencing terrible morning sickness and the obstetrician was confused because she wasn't like this with her first two pregnancies.

May as well: The 33-year-old explained the doctor told her to have a scan while she was there and after they saw the second heartbeat it confirmed that she was shockingly expecting twins

So happy: Rebecca and Chris Judd have confirmed they are expecting twins

'He suggested it could be twins. I got up on the bed and there was just one baby in there. So shrugged it off,' she recalled before the second baby was found.

The happy couple confirmed the happy news in a statement on Monday evening.

We are giddy with excitement but at the same time we are really shocked, Rebecca told the Herald Sun.

We cant quite believe it. We were weighing up whether to go for a third. We thought we would give it a try, and the first go we ended up having twins, which was so unexpected.

So happy: The couple are already parents to son Oscar, four, and two-year daughter old Billie

Model and TV presenter Rebecca, revealed an initial eight week scan failed to detect the second baby.

The shock news has since forced the Melbourne based couple to consider moving to a larger property as they prepare for the arrival of two new additions to their family.

Rebecca followed the news by posting a snap on her popular Instagram account in which her baby bump is revealed for the first time.

Doting mother: Rebecca with son Oscar, who will soon have two new siblings

Captioning the shot, she wrote: 'OMGEEEEEE- freakin TWINS are on the way. I get heart palpitations and sweats telling people as I'm still in shock but also giddy with excitement.'

The brunette admits she already knows the sex of one baby - a boy - but is yet to determine the sex of the second.

Rebecca previously fielded criticism from fans after posting a selfie of her slender body - just weeks after giving birth to daughter Billie.

Surprise: Rebecca admits only one child was detected when she went for an eight week scan

'How is this nice? Way too skinny, wrote one social media follower wrote underneath the image.

Meanwhile, another critic wrote: I like following you Bec but please reconsider the message you are sending to young impressionable women.

You don't need to flaunt yourself like this. Use your beauty in a positive and a less self-indulgent way.

'I do think you are inspirational, please consider your message. Eating disorders are real and effect many young girls, they added.

Rebecca also received a strong chorus of support from her online fans, with one fan commenting: 'I think you look beautiful ...don't listen to the haters.

'Some of these negative comments are appalling. Some people have no idea when they say stupid things about other people.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia last year, she commented on her much-talked-about frame, saying: 'I've been really thin my entire life.'

'Even in school at six years old, seven years old, eight years old [I was] getting called skinny - same as my mum when she was in school.'
Actress Jessica Chastain left the world in awe on Thursday night as she complained about spending nine hours in a hot tub with hunky Australian actor Chris Hemsworth.

While appearing on the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show the 39-year-old said the romantic scene in the pair's latest flick, The Huntman: Winter's War, wasn't all it seemed.

'The most uncomfortable thing was a scene with Chris and I in a hot spring and we filmed it for like eight or nine hours in this hot tub,' she explained.

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Actress Jessica Chastain left the world in awe on Thursday night as she complained about spending nine hours in a hot tub with hunky Australian actor Chris Hemsworth

'It is funny because in the movie it makes it seem like it was a very romantic, sexy scene.

'But after an hour I started to look like a 120 year old, it was not sexy at all.'

When asked by Jimmy if 'spending nine hours in a hot tub with Chris Hemsworth all I imagined it would be,' she paused for a moment before simply answering 'and more'.

The moment: She said: 'It is funny because in the movie it makes it seem like it was a very romantic, sexy scene...But after an hour I started to look like a 120 year old, it was not sexy at all'

During her appearance on the show the American actress wore a tight floral dress which featured a structural design with lingerie-style straps.

The Juilliard graduate's dress featured flattering black side panels and a bold floral print.

The Martian star added black heels and a light brown manicure.

Jessica played up her features with a bright pink lip and dark eye liner, which complimented her porcelain complexion.

Dreaming: When asked by Jimmy if 'spending nine hours in a hot tub with Chris Hemsworth all I imagined it would be,' she paused for a moment before simply answering 'and more'

The actress has been busy hitting the promo trail to talk up her new movie The Huntsman: Winter's War, which also stars Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt and Chris

The actress has been busy hitting the promo trail to talk up her new movie The Huntsman: Winter's War, which also stars Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt and Chris.

In the Hollywood film Jessica plays the role of Sara, the Warrior, Eric's lover who was thought to be dead.

Chris portrays Eric the Huntsman in the flick, continuing on from the 2012 release of the first film, Snow White and The Huntsman, where he appeared alongside Twilight's Kristen Stewart.
She would be attending a friend's wedding with her family later that evening.

But first Kourtney Kardashian ensured she would be looking and feeling her best just in time for the nuptials with a last-minute sunbathing session by the pool with her friends, Simon Huck and Pastor Rich Wilkerson, Jr.

The 37-year-old was spotted in Miami on Saturday as she climbed out of the pool, playing with the fabric of her black and backless bathing suit.

First things first: Kourtney Kardashian got in a last-minute sunbathing session and dip just before a friend's wedding in Miami on Saturday

Pool party: The reality star then toweled off and continued her sunbathing session alongside two of her pals, who reclined on either side of her

Returning to dry land, the reality star then toweled off and continued her sunbathing session alongside her pals, who reclined on either side of her.

Kourtney laid a white towel over her waist as she adjusted the placement of her large circular shades.

The mother-of-three was fuss free for her relaxing day out, having slicked her raven black hair into a top knot and sporting a minimal coat of makeup.

A layered gold necklace added a touch of dazzle to her beachy look.

Oh la la: After enjoying a refreshing dip in the pool, Kourtney played with the fabric of her black bathing suit which covered her pert rear as she made herself back onto dry land

Chit chat: Kardashian was joined by Pastor Rich Wilkerson, Jr. and Simon Huck

No doubt the reality star was enjoying her afternoon of relaxation, and luckily for her she didn't have to stray too far for a refreshing drink.

Two cool drinks sat on a small table at the foot of her lounge chair.

Kourtney took to Instagram to sum up the sunbathing session with a photo of herself with her two pals.

Kick back and relax! No doubt the reality star was enjoying every moment of her day from her corner by the pool

Bathing beauty: The 37-year-old's black bathing suit emphasized her flat belly and pert bottom

'MiAMi,' the starlet captioned the image.

Kourtney was in town for David Grutman and Isabela Rangel's wedding alongside Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, and family friend Jonathan Cheban.

Though the trio did not appear to join the star for her sunbathing session, she was spotted earlier that day in Miami Beach alongside the group and her three-year-old daughter Penelope, whose father is Kourtney's ex Scott Disick.

Drink up: Luckily Kourtney didn't have to stray too far for a drink

Pool pals: The star captioned an image of herself with Simon and Rich as 'MiAMi'

Show off! The beauty's backless bathing suit put her toned back on display

Not seen during the outing were Kourtney's other two children with ex Scott - sons Mason, six, and Reign, one - although all three remain living with their mother following her relationship breakup last July.

However, the exes have managed to remain friendly for the sake of the kids, with Scott having access.

Scott, meanwhile, was spotted flying out of Los Angeles on Friday accompanied by a mystery blonde.

Not shy! Kardashian's scoop neck swim suit also displayed plenty of cleavage
He kicked off his acting career in 1981 when he appeared in ...Maybe This Time before landing a television role in hit series Bodyline.

Now 35 years on and Hugo Weaving is set to make a return to Australian television screens.

The 56-year-old has been revealed as the lead actor in ABC's adaptation of Elliot Perlman's novel, Seven Types Of Ambiguity.

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Coming back to screens: Hugo Weaving is set to make a return to the Australian television screens in new series Seven Types Of Ambiguity

In the show Hugo will portray psychiatrist Dr Alex Klima.

The plot of the show will feature around a scenario where a seven-year-old boy is taken from school, resulting to his parents having a frantic moment.

While the boy is returned unharmed, police arrest the mothers ex-boyfriend and then investigate his suspected accomplice.

New role: The 56-year-old has been revealed as the lead actor of psychiatrist Dr Alex Klima in ABC's adaptation of Elliot Perlman's novel

Australian actors Alex Dimitriades, Leeanna Walsman and Xavier Samuel will also appear in the film alongside Hugo.

The series, which has begun filming in Melbourne, will be produced by Tony Ayres and Amanda Higgs.

It will also be directed by Glendyn Ivin, Ana Kokkinos and Matthew Saville.

The release date for the ABC series is yet to be released.

Coming soon: Filming for the series has begun but it is not known when it will air

Hugo became a Hollywood name following his appearance in The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring in 2001 where he portrayed the role as Elrond.

He went on to feature the following two films of the fantasy adventure classic.

From there he made his debut as Agent Smith in the Matrix Reloaded and continued with the role in The Matrix Revolutions.

Hugo has also appeared in multiple Transformers films as well as Captain America: The First Avenger, Happy Feet Two and The Hobbit.

Last year he featured in Australian-filmed flick The Dressmaker alongside Cate Blanchett and Liam Hemsworth.

He also played the role of Tom Doss in Russell Crowe's upcoming film, Hacksaw Ridge, which is due to be released later in the year.
She's the lifestyle guru with her own successful catering company and blog.

And on Sunday Chyka Keebaugh celebrated not only the success of the blog, but also her popularity on social media after reaching 80,000 followers on Instagram.

Chyka's success comes after becoming embroiled in a feud with her Real Housewives of Melbourne co-star Lydia Schiavello over their respective blogs.

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'Thank you to each and everyone of my followers who have read, commented and supported me!' Chyka Keebaugh celebrated reaching 80,000 followers on Instagram on Sunday

'Thank you to each and everyone of my followers who have read, commented and supported me!' wrote Chyka.

The 46-year-old continued: 'I love sharing on my social media and my blog so thanks for being there and supporting me!'

The reality TV star recently relaunched her lifestyle blog, which features sections on home, outdoor, and food, in addition to a store offering personally branded tea towels and aprons.

Blogging beauty: The 46-year-old's lifestyle website features sections on home, outdoor, and food

Blog beef? Chyka's Real Housewives of Melbourne co-star Lydia Schiavello also has a blog, which became an issue between the two ladies on a recent episode of the reality TV series

The blonde businesswoman had a brief beef with co-star Lydia Schiavello over their respective blogs on season three of The Real Housewives of Melbourne.

On the episode, Lydia boasted about some positive press that her blog received from the Daily Mail.

However, the article left both Chyka and fellow Housewife Gamble Breaux unimpressed because it compared the brunette beauty to The Bachelor's Louise Pillidge, who also has a lifestyle blog.

Homemaker: Lydia's lifestyle website is heavy on glossy, glamorous photos and features sections on food, fashion, travel, and design

Who has the better blog? Lydia's co-stars were left unimpressed after the brunette beauty revealed that she was pleased with some positive press her blog had received on the Daily Mail

Lydia's lifestyle website is heavy on glossy, glamorous photos, and features sections on food, fashion, travel, and design.

Other celebrity lifestyle bloggers include The Bachelor's Anna Heinrich and Louise Pillidge.

Most recently Lana Jeavons-Fellows announced plans to launch her own lifestyle blog too, with a focus on hair care to help fans achieve her famously luscious locks.
He's one of the most sought after make-up artists in Australia, having worked with many big name celebrities.

And it looks like Napoleon Perdis and his family don't pack light when travelling, no doubt making sure they take their cosmetic essentials wherever they go.

On Saturday night the 46-year-old was spotted touching down at Sydney airport with his four daughters, the family sharing over 10 suitcases between them.

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Touching down: Celebrity make-up artist Napoleon Perdis was spotted arriving at Sydney airport on Saturday night

Dressed cool and casual for his trip, Napoleon was seen wearing a black T-shirt layered with a bright blue jacket.

He also sported a pair of dark trousers and some tan coloured shoes, while a few more accessories completed his travelling style.

The make-up mastermind propped a red cap on his head, while wearing a necklace with a cross pendant and a pair of cool shades.

That's a lot! The family had over 10 suitcases between them

Keeping it cool: Napoleon sported a blue jacket and red cap on the day

Meanwhile his gorgeous daughters were right by his side, all opting for casual chic outfits as well.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia in February, Napoleon said his daughters had been involved in the business since they were children sitting around the dinner table, but their future with the company was their choice.

They absolutely have an opinion about product development, he said.

What did they pack? There were around five trolleys for the family's luggage

And they absolutely have an opinion about how they feel women can be youthful no matter what age.

They are very keen to understand more and more of the business. Theyre proud of what we do, and if a couple of them want to be a part of it Im open to it, and if a couple of them want to do something else  thats perfectly acceptable.

Perdis and his wife Soula-Marie have four children: Athina, Alexia, Angelene and Lianna.
They recently celebrated their one-year anniversary after a whirlwind romance which saw them become engaged after dating for just a few months.

And Shanina Shaik and beau DJ Ruckus - real name Gregory Andrews - couldn't hide their affection for one another as they attended a friend's wedding in Miami on Saturday.

The soon-to-wed couple starred in a raunchy series of photos uploaded by Kim Kardashian during the celebrations, which sees Ruckus seductively licking Shanina's face.

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PDA alert! Shanina Shaik and fiance DJ Ruckis starred in a raunchy series of photos uploaded by Kim Kardashian during a Miami wedding on Saturday, which sees Ruckus seductively licking Shanina's face

Kim and husband Kayne West first shared a shot of themselves in a steamy embrace as they enjoyed an intimate moment during the Florida nuptials.

The rapper's face is seen nuzzled close into Kim's neck as she poses with her mouth wide ajar.

Kim captioned the shot simply: '001.'

It will be their turn soon! The couple couldn't hide their affection for one another as they attended a friend's wedding in Miami on Saturday

'Miami Vice': Kim and husband Kayne West first shared a shot of themselves in a steamy embrace as they enjoyed an intimate moment during the Florida nuptials

Shanina and Ruckus soon followed suit, as they posed for their own version of the saucy shot.

Ruckus is seen extending his tongue to Shanina's right cheek, who is shoots a sultry stare away from the lens.

Their image as labelled: '002' by the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star.

A series of equally arousing shots were then uploaded, all which were numbered in sequence, including a close up shot of Kourtney Kardashian's curvaceous behind which was clad in a sheer black dress.

Loved up: The night before the wedding, Shanina and Ruckus uploaded a raunchy video to Snapchat as they danced around to What A Man by Salt N Pepa

Packing on the PDA: In the clip a shirtless Ruckus is seen hiding behind a door, before Shanina latches onto him in an intimate embrace

On the grind: The brunette beauty then seductively runs her hands down his bare chest whilst gyrating against his body

The wedding was of Brazilian model Isabela Rangel, who is marrying her 'soul mate', nightclub owner David Grutman.

Also at the Grutman-Rangel wedding was Kim's older sister Kourtney Kardashian alongside her BFF Jonathan Cheban, Australian supermodel Elle Macpherson, retired WWE star Hulk Hogan and America's Got Talent host Mel B.

Also attending the star-studded ceremony were French DJ David Guetta and Real Housewife of Miami Lisa Hochstein.

Raunchy: A series of equally arousing shots were then uploaded, all which were numbered in sequence

Racy in lace! One shot was a close up shot of Kourtney Kardashian's curvaceous behind which was clad in a sheer black dress

The night before the wedding, Shanina and Ruckus uploaded a raunchy video to Snapchat as they danced around to What A Man by Salt N Pepa.

In the clip a shirtless Ruckus is seen hiding behind a door.

Wearing a very low-cut top, Shanina then latches onto him in an intimate embrace.

The brunette beauty then seductively runs her hands down his bare chest whilst gyrating against his body.

Newlyweds: The wedding was of Brazilian model Isabela Rangel, who is marrying her 'soul mate', nightclub owner David Grutman
They have been dating for four years and welcomed their first child together 13 months ago.

Now Carrie Bickmore's partner Chris Walker has opened up about the pair's busy schedules and tight-knit relationship.

Speaking to news.com.au the father-of-one revealed him and the 35-year-old cross paths with one another, leaving days between seeing each other.

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Speaking out: Carrie Bickmore's partner Chris Walker has opened up about the pair's busy schedules and tight-knit relationship

'Carrie works so much (on The Project) and particularly at the start of the week I find myself missing her and the kids quite a lot,' he said.

Chris also works in media and hosts ABC's The Weekly alongside Charlie Pickering - who he claims to see more than his partner.

Despite the busy schedules the personality explained that he believes the pair make their relationship work because they have a strong understanding of each other's media careers.

'We understand that this stuff probably isnt forever so weve got to go as hard as we can now,' Chris said.

Honest: The media personality has revealed he finds himself 'missing her [Carrie] and the kids quite a lot' because they could go days without seeing each other because of their schedules

He went on to gush about Carrie, saying: 'Shes amazing. Shes so supportive of our show. Im obviously supportive of her show.'

Chris and Carrie began dating in 2012 and welcomed their first child together in March 2015.

The news reader also has a son Ollie, eight, from her marriage to former husband Greg Lange, who died of a brain tumour in 2010 after a long struggle with cancer.

Despite the tragedy of losing her husband, Carrie found love again years later with series producer Chris, and opened up about their relationship during an interview with TV Week last year.

Everything is going good, it really is,' she said.

Reasoning: Despite the busy schedules the personality explained that he believes the pair make their relationship work because they have a strong understanding of each other's media careers

I think everybody enjoys company. Its been great and really nice.

In January 2014 the Gold Logie winner explained why she prefers to stay mum on her relationship.

'I'm dating Chris and I'm always very aware that I chose to live a public life and the people around me didn't and I'm very respectful of that,' she told the Courier Mail.

'Everybody likes to be able to share a life with somebody and it's been lovely to have some company.'

The West Australian also reported Carrie saying: 'Having someone you can share those moments with, and scream or cry. It's been good to share that. It's been nice and we're all good.'
Lily Collins donned a comfy catsuit for a shopping trip in Los Angeles on Saturday with her mother Jill Tavelman.

The 27-year-old actress - who relies on stylist duo Rob Zangardi & Mariel Haenn - paired her black onesie with a sheer striped blouse and booties.

Sporting a short bob, the Lancome model let her natural beauty shine through with just a bit of liquid liner.

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Mother-daughter bonding: Lily Collins donned a comfy catsuit for a shopping trip in Los Angeles on Saturday with her mother Jill Tavelman

Lily has called the jeans-clad matriarch her 'idol, inspiration, best friend, and partner in crime.'

The flea market enthusiast - who owns Waverly on Doheny - is a self-described 'purveyor of resurrected oddities.'

Collins was technically born in Guildford, but she was raised by Jill in Beverly Hills from age 5.

'She guides me through my personal life, telling me to experiment,' the strong-browed beauty gushed to Glamour back in 2013.

Casual ensemble: The 27-year-old actress - who relies on stylist duo Rob Zangardi & Mariel Haenn - paired her black onesie with a sheer striped blouse and booties

British-American stunner: Sporting a short bob, the Lancome model let her natural beauty shine through with just a bit of liquid liner

'I wouldn't be me without you!' Lily has called the jeans-clad matriarch her 'idol, inspiration, best friend, and partner in crime'

'She guides me through my personal life': The flea market enthusiast - who owns Waverly on Doheny - is a self-described 'purveyor of resurrected oddities'

'She lets me borrow her vintage. She has Chanel and eighties stuff from Yohji Yamamoto and Vivienne Westwood that she got when vintage wasnt cool.'

Her father - British pop star Phil Collins - divorced his second wife in 1996 following a 12-year marriage, and later dedicated his 1999 song You'll Be In My Heart to Lily.

The nepotistically-privileged millennial will soon fly to Seoul to shoot Netflix original film Okja with South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-Ho and actors Jake Gyllenhaal, Tilda Swinton, and Steven Yeun.

Throwback! Collins was technically born in Guildford, but she was raised by Jill in Beverly Hills from age 5

Darling daddy: The strong-browed beauty's father - British pop star Phil Collins - divorced his second wife in 1996 following a 12-year marriage, and later dedicated his 1999 song You'll Be In My Heart to Lily

Next gig! The nepotistically-privileged millennial will soon fly to Seoul to shoot Netflix original film Okja with South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-Ho and actors Jake Gyllenhaal (L), Tilda Swinton (M), and Steven Yeun (R)

Ominously, it's unclear when the Love, Rosie starlet's next two acting projects scheduled for release this year will ever see the light of day.

Collins plays a Virginia-born aspiring ingenue called Marla Mabrey in Warren Beatty's long-delayed Howard Hughes biopic opposite his wife Annette Bening.

And the Mortal Instruments actress will also play rich girl Cecelia Brady in Amazon's drama pilot The Last Tycoon opposite Matt Bomer.

Every movie is a miracle: Ominously, it's unclear when the Love, Rosie starlet's next two acting projects scheduled for release this year will ever see the light of day

Hitting theaters this year? Collins plays a Virginia-born aspiring ingenue called Marla Mabrey in Warren Beatty's long-delayed Howard Hughes biopic opposite his wife Annette Bening (R)

Streaming soon? And the Mortal Instruments actress will also play rich girl Cecelia Brady in Amazon's drama pilot The Last Tycoon opposite Matt Bomer
This teen queen may be ahead of her time when it comes to fashion, but when it comes to running errands, time is not on her side.

Sofia Richie headed out for a spot of shopping in West Hollywood, California, on Saturday.

The 17-year-old popped into luxe fashion destination Maxfield despite having somewhere to be.

Retail therapy: Sofia Richie headed out for a spot of shopping in West Hollywood, California, on Saturday

While picking up designer duds is certainly as hobby of the little sister of Nicole Richie, the star may have been popping into the store to try to find a gift.

The stylish star was due to head into the Hollywood Hills to help rapper Machine Gun Kelly celebrate his birthday on Saturday.

However, whether on the hunt for herself or the birthday boy, Sofia emerged from the store empty handed.

While just 17, Sofia is fast carving out a reputation for herself as one of Hollywood's most stylish teens.

Quick stop: The 17-year-old popped into luxe fashion destination Maxfield despite being due to head into the Hollywood Hills to help rapper Machine Gun Kelly celebrate his birthday

And while her looks may not be everyone's cup of tea, Lionel Richie's daughter certainly showed she is not afraid to adopt a style way before the masses.

For her last minute shopping run and Machine Gun Kelly's birthday, the teenager rocked a pair of silk black pants with a cropped high-neck cotton top.

Taking the look from lounge wear to cool, Sofia added a long flowing black jacket and wrapped a silk scarf around her neck.

Breaking the style mould: The teenager rocked a pair of silk black pants with a cropped high-neck cotton top and a flowing black jacket

Just bring yourself: Clearly Sofia's company was enough of a gift with the rapper - whose real name is Richard Baker - looking very pleased to have her at his party in a series of snaps posted by Sofia

Accessorizing her ensemble further, the 17-year-old threw on a grey beanie over her untamed blonde locks and strutted around in a pair of Rihanna's new furry slides from her Puma collection.

While Sofia may not have been able to find a gift for Machine Gun Kelly, the rapper did not seem to mind.

Clearly Sofia's company was enough of a gift with the rapper - whose real name is Richard Baker - looking very pleased to have her at his party in a series of snaps posted by Sofia.

Rock out: In another picture, Sofia is photographed sitting next to the tatted up star - who previously dated Amber Rose - as he strums away on a guitar

In one picture on the teen's Instagram, Sofia is photographed snuggling up to the 26-year-old musician while sitting on a swan with another pal.

In another picture, Sofia is photographed sitting next to the tatted up star - who previously dated Amber Rose - as he strums away on a guitar.

Sofia captioned the picture: 'So happy we could all b together to celebrate yuh nugget [sic].'

Also partying alongside the pair was stylist Chloe Bartoli, who was linked to Scott Disick before he split with Kourtney Kardashian.
Elle 'The Body' Macpherson has turned heads on the catwalk for decades.

And on Saturday it was no different, with the Australian supermodel cutting a very glamorous figure as she attended a friend's wedding in Miami.

The 52-year-old looked stylish in a flowing black dress and a snake-skin inspired jacket as she arrived with her youngest son Aurelius Cy Andrea Busson, 13.

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Turning heads! Australian supermodel cut a very glamorous figure as she attended a friend's wedding in Miami on Saturday, with youngest son Aurelius Cy Andrea Busson, 13

Elle's dress featured a plunging neckline and a billowing skirt and was cinched in at the waist with a snake-skin inspired belt.

It appeared her skirt was semi-sheer, with her legs being seen in the frock at times.

Her jacket - which was black and brown in colour - was a crop style.

The star teamed her look with black strappy heels and a brown clutch.

Picture perfect: Elle's dress featured a plunging neckline and a billowing skirt and was cinched in at the waist with a snake-skin inspired belt

Elle wore her long blonde-tipped locks out over her shoulders in loose tousled curls and covered her face with sunglasses.

She wore make-up including foundation and a nude lip gloss.

Her lookalike son, meanwhile, was also dressed to impress in a black suit and white shirt and black tie.

Showing off his youth, he teamed the look with sneakers.

Looking good from every angle: Elle wore her long blonde-tipped locks out over her shoulders in loose tousled curls and covered her face with sunglasses

On the day, she and Aurelius Cy were joined by Elle's billionaire husband Jeffrey Soffer and her older son, Arpad Flynn Busson, 18.

The clan were at the star-studded wedding of nightclub owner David Grutman and Brazilian model Isabela Rangel.

They joined the likes of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, Kourtney Kardashian and Shanina Shaik, with Shanina attending with her fiancee DJ Ruckus.

Family: On the day, she and Aurelius Cy were joined by Elle's billionaire husband Jeffrey Soffer and her older son, Arpad Flynn Busson, 18 (pictured with a female pal)

What a guest list: They joined the likes of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West (R), seen here with groom David Grutman
She celebrated her 37th birthday with a huge party last week at an exclusive hotel in Iceland.

But it seems that one continent isn't enough for Kourtney Kardashian, as she hosted yet another bash in Miami this week.

The reality star was joined by sister Kim, brother-in-law Kanye West and long-time pal Jonathan Cheban for the party at hip Miami restaurant Komodo on Friday night.

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Lycra pair: Both Kourtney and Kim opted for tight lycra for Kourtney's belated 37th birthday celebrations

Party people: The sisters partied with friends and Kim's husband Kanye West

And the sisters pulled no punches in their choices of outfits, choosing to pour their curves into figure-hugging lycra.

Kim, 35, chose an August Getty Atelier nude see-through midi-dress that showed off her enviable curves.

The high-necked dress was plain but exposed the reality TV star's shapely bust and legs.

She wore an extravagant satin-style jacket which was embroidered with hundreds of tiny pearls.

See the latest on Kourtney Kardashian as she celebrates with another birthday bash

Belated celebrations: Kourtney was given an extravagant five-tier birthday cake

What's so funny? Kanye seemed to find something very amusing at the party in Miami

Kim plumped for her signature contoured make-up, which she paired with a pretty pink pale lip and lashings of heavy mascara.

And birthday girl Kourtney followed her lead in a daring khaki Lycra mini-dress.

The dress featured cut-out panels which perfectly highlighted the socialite's tanned shoulder blades.

The mother-of-three kept her make-up pared back and pulled her thick hair back into a ponytail.

All smiles: Kourtney, Kim and Kanye all seemed thrilled to be in one another's company

Miami madness: The party-goers are in town for the wedding of friends David Grutman and Isabela Rangel

Pose! The group were snapped at the exclusive Komodo restaurant in the Florida resort

The sisters were joined by Kanye and Jonathan for the Friday night bash, which included an extravagant five-tier white birthday cake.

Kanye kept it casual as he rocked two-tone double denim, while Celebrity Big Brother star Jonathan chose a painted jacket.

The quartet have been in Miami for nightclub owner David Grutman and Isabela Rangel's wedding, which was celebrated on Saturday.
He has been electrifying the stage during the London leg of his Blue Neighbourhood world tour this week.

And Troye Sivan, 20, looked every inch the superstar as he departed the BBC Radio 1 studio in London on Friday.

Clad in an oversized denim jacket and hoodie, the South African-born Australian appeared stylish as he signed autographs for fans having earlier told about the inspiration behind debut album Blue Neighbourhood.

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Cool: Troye Sivan, 20, looked every inch the super-star as he departed the BBC Radio 1 studio in London on Friday

Troye was interviewed on BBC's Radio 1 about the song 'Bite' from his debut album Blue Neighbourhood.

He admitted the tune was inspired by his first ever visit to a gay bar, explaining: 'I was petrified but so curious and excited at the same time.

'It was a very dodgy club that I went into and I went with my friends'.

Keen to please: Clad in an over-sized denim jacket and black hoodie, the South African-born Australian appeared stylish as he mingled with fans and signed autographs

'I had such a good night and I wanted to capture that vulnerability, innocence and everything', he went on.

The charismatic musician also spoke about how difficult he had found the experience of coming out as gay to his parents, saying: 'I came out to my parents when I was fifteen and it was, for me, the scariest thing I've ever had to do'.

He went on to explain that after his admission, Troye's family were incredibly supportive.

It was a very dodgy club': Earlier that day, Troye was interviewed on BBC's Radio 1 about the song 'Bite' from his debut album Blue Neighbourhood, admitting that it was inspired by a gay bar

Troye is set to arrive in Christchurch to commence his New Zealand and Australian tour on July 28th.

Following dates will see him play shows in Auckland, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Wollongong, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth.

Troye released his first studio album Blue Neighbourhood in December 2015 and it reached number six on the Australian charts and seventh on the American charts.
They held an intimate civil partnership ceremony one year ago.

Yet Clare Balding and her wife Alice Arnold look as though they still have a newlywed glow as they enjoyed an idyllic jaunt to Barbados this week.

The 45-year-old BBC Sport presenter looked totally chilled out as she enjoyed her getaway with her broadcaster spouse, 53, in which they enjoyed an al fresco lunch before heading home.

Loved-up: Clare Balding and her wife Alice Arnold look as though they still have a newlywed glow as they enjoyed an idyllic jaunt to Barbados this week

The duo have been together for 15 years and initially wed in 2006, yet they returned to the register office after Clare vowed to marry when gay marriage became legal in UK.

Clare looked casual as she soaked up the sun in a brown hued top with a scoop neck, while she pulled on a sleek pair of wraparound sunglasses.

Meanwhile Alice went for a similar shape in a bolder colour as she opted for a bold coral top while her hair was work in a coiffed style with her fringe pushed to one side.

The following day the couple were seen heading to the airport in equally low-key dress, this time wearing white linen shirts while toting their bags for their journey home.

Matching looks: The 45-year-old BBC Sport presenter looked totally chilled out as she enjoyed her getaway with her broadcaster spouse, 53, in which they enjoyed an al fresco lunch before heading home

When Clare and Alice married this time last year, they did not have a ceremony at Chiswick House, West London, nor did they invite any guests.

Clare told the Daily Telegraph: They just backdate it to when you did your civil partnership, so officially now we have been married since 2006. We didnt have a big party at all actually, nobody came apart from us.

She always made clear her intentions to marry once gay marriage became legal in the UK.

We will convert, she said. I dont know when yet. It is a conversion, a piece of paper. It is not an all-singing, all-dancing event but it is terribly important.

Loved-up: When Clare and Alice married this time last year, they did not have a ceremony at Chiswick House, West London, nor did they invite any guests

Tied the knot: Clare always made clear her intentions to marry once gay marriage became legal in the UK

The next thing is to be able to say married and have people, businesses, ask what your husband or wife does without assuming you are straight or gay.

Alice and I are very, very happy and we go to a lot of things together. We are conscious of the responsibility we have [as a high-profile gay couple] and are quite happy to embrace it. Former BBC newsreader Alice has written in several newspapers in support of the legalisation of gay marriage.

She said: That one word married is crucial because it defines our relationship. The way we see ourselves and the way we wish others to see us.

Having a bite: The couple enjoyed a bite in the sun - no doubt happy to be away from the changeable British climes
Shanina Shaik certainly didn't put a foot wrong when she stepped out at Isabela Rangel and David Grutman's extravagant wedding in Miami on Saturday.

The 25-year-old Victorias Secret model strutted into the event in an eye-catching semi-sheer frock which accentuated her svelte figure.

Her toned pins were clearly on display as the bottom half of the dress boasted a see through design with a bold pattern.

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Strutting it: Shanina Shaik showed off her toned legs in a semi-transparent gown as she attended star-studded Miami wedding with her fiance DJ Ruckus

The upper-half of her look included a plunging neckline which revealed a glimpse of cleavage to passers-by.

Not wishing to draw attention away from her classic frock, the fashionista kept her look largely uncluttered - accessorising with a pair of black strappy heels, a gold choker and multiple rings.

However, the slender beauty made a slight exception to the rule with a monochrome clutch bag which added a pop of colour to the elegant ensemble.

Catwalk stunner: The upper-half of her look included a plunging neckline which revealed a glimpse of her cleavage to passers-by

Matching accessories: She paired the dress with black strappy heels, a white clutch bag and multiple rings

The Aussie beauty wore her long brunette locks in sweeping waves, while applying just the right amount of mascara and kohl eyeliner to enhance her green eyes.

Shanina also applied a nude lipstick and a dusting of pink powder onto her cheeks.

Meanwhile, her fiance DJ Rickus, real name Gregory Andrews, was equally dressed to impress while holding onto his wife-to-be's hand as he walked into the star-studded ceremony.

The music maker wore a sleek black blazer over his white button-up shirt.

Genetically blessed: DJ Ruckus, real name Gregory Andrews, was equally dressed to impress while holding onto his wife-to-bes hand as he walked into the star-studded ceremony

Natural posers: The genetically blessed pulled their best poses for the cameras that vied to capture their every move

Looking dapper in his red carpet uniform, the handsome DJ completed his look with matching black trouser, dress shoes and a black bow tie.

He completed his smart look with a pair of rounded shades.

Shanina and Ruckus first started dating in June last year following the brunette's split with her on/off boyfriend at the time, fellow model Tyson Beckford, whom she first started dating in 2008.

Later in the day, the soon-to-wed couple starred in a raunchy series of photos uploaded by Kim Kardashian during the celebrations, which sees Ruckus seductively licking Shanina's face.

PDA alert! Shanina and fiance DJ Ruckus starred in a raunchy series of photos uploaded by Kim Kardashian during the wedding

Ruckus is seen extending his tongue to Shanina's right cheek, who is shoots a sultry stare away from the lens.

Their image as labelled: '002' by the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star.

The wedding was of Brazilian model Isabela, who is marrying her 'soul mate', nightclub owner David.

Also at the Grutman-Rangel wedding was Kim's older sister Kourtney Kardashian alongside her BFF Jonathan Cheban, Australian supermodel Elle Macpherson, retired WWE star Hulk Hogan and America's Got Talent host Mel B.

Also attending the star-studded ceremony were French DJ David Guetta and Real Housewife of Miami Lisa Hochstein.
Kylie Minogue has sent Prince fans into a tizzy by teasing details of a song they recorded together during the 1990s.

Taking to Instagram in the wake of Prince's passing this week, Kylie, 47, shared a heartfelt tribute to the iconic musician on Saturday by revealing details of the pair's unreleased track, Baby Doll.

'My musical crush since my teenage years. I met Prince after his concert at London's Earls Court in 1992', wrote the Australian songstress next to an image of Prince's iconic Purple Rain album cover.

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'I said I would love to work with him': Kylie Minogue sent Prince fans into a tizzy on Saturday by taking to Instagram with teasing details of a song they recorded together during the 1990s

'I said I would love to work with him and he said, come visit the studio. He asked me where my lyrics were and where would I like my mic set up. Joking with me,' she continued.

'I did end up giving him lyrics for a song called Baby Doll. His driver delivered a cassette to me later that night.

'It was a demo of Prince singing and playing the song Baby Doll he had written using the lyrics. We never recorded it properly,' Kylie went on.

'I then had the privilege of visiting Paisley Park. It was a dream come true. Thank you for the music and memories. #ripprince #whendovescry', she concluded.

'I did end up giving him lyrics for a song called Baby Doll': Taking to Instagram in the wake of Prince's passing this week, Kylie shared a heartfelt tribute to the iconic musician on by revealing details of the pair's unreleased track, Baby Doll

Fans were quick to flood Kylie's post with messages pleading the pop princess to release the enigmatic track, with one writing: '@kylieminogue both my favorite artists on one song . You must make this happen! You should release it in his honor he would be proud'.

'Can we hear Baby Doll on your next album?' asked another.

Kylie has previously spoken about her fondness for Prince, telling Mirror in 2014 that: 'I would love to sing with Prince because he was my obsession as a teenager, literally'.

'Can we hear Baby Doll on your next album?' Fans were quick to flood Kylie's post with messages pleading the pop princess to release the enigmatic track

'I might have paid for his car because I went to see Purple Rain so many times', she admitted at the time.

Prince died at his Paisley Park estate near Minneapolis on Thursday morning after he was found collapsed in a lift.

A private ceremony celebrating his life was held at Paisley Park on Saturday, attended by the music legend's sister Tyka Nelson and brother-in-law Maurice Phillips.
She celebrated her 37th birthday this week.

And Kate Hudson decided to mark the occasion in style with an A-list studded party at her Pacific Palisades home in California on Saturday.

With a guest list that boasted the likes of Chris Martin, Demi Moore and Cash Warren, the birthday girl ensured the night would be one to remember as she hosted the festivities.

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Birthday beauty: Kate Hudson decided to mark her 37th birthday in style with an A-list studded party at her Pacific Palisades home in California on Saturday

Taking to Instagram ahead of the bash, she treated her four million Instagram followers to a glimpse into the party, snapping a selfie as she prepared to party the night away.

Sporting a thick ring of glitter around her emerald coloured eyes, the How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days star appeared to be paying homage to the eighties with her glam punk inspired look.

Gazing down the lens with her plump pout slightly parted, she revealed she was in the middle of having her hair styled as she captioned the snap: 'Getting crimped up on a Saturday.'

How to make a party last ten days: The birthday girl ensured the night would be one to remember as she hosted the festivities with an A-list guestlist that included Demi Moore and Chris Martin, who was chatting outside to Alexander Skarsgard and his girlfriend Alexa Chung

Peering out beneath her golden tresses, Kate looked ready and raring for a party as her beauty transformation looked nearly complete.

Also bringing the glamour on the evening was Demi Moore, who opted for a classic all black ensemble.

Layering up in a satin duster coat, the 53-year-old looked effortlessly chic as she headed into the bash.

That's a wrap: Layering up in a satin duster coat, the 53-year-old looked effortlessly chic as she headed into the bash. Flashing a hint of her toned pins, she opted for a flattering midi skirt and cream top ensemble

Amazing from all angles: Demi's classic all-black ensemble was timeless, yet she added a quirky twist to her outfit by donning a pair of ankle socks with her toweringly high patent court heels

Leggy lady! Alexa showed off her tanned and toned pins in a denim playsuit whilst she slipped her feet into a pair of chunky black sandals. Meanwhile, Chris got comfortable by removing his baby blue tie

Keeping it casual: Chris dressed down his crisp black shirt and trousers with a fitted beanie hat whilst he strode into the party carrying what appeared to be a little gift under his arm

Flashing a hint of her toned pins, she opted for a flattering midi skirt, whilst she elongated her lithe frame with a pair of patent Louboutin court heels which she teamed with black ankle socks.

Chris Martin also dressed up for the occasion, adding a splash of colour to his crisp black shirt with a vibrant blue satin tie.

Refusing to stray from his signature fashion calling card, the Coldplay frontman, 39, concealed his shaggy brunette locks with a snug beanie hat.

Seeming in good spirits, Chris loitered outside the home whilst chatting to Alexander Skarsgard and his girlfriend Alexa Chung before heading inside for the party.

Making an entrance: Demi's daughter with ex-husband Bruce Willis, Tallulah also made her way into the bash with a pal, no doubt looking forward to an evening of partying alongside her mother and friends

Making moves: The youngest daughter of Bruce and Demi showed off her natural beauty with a neutral make-up palette whilst she wore her caramel coloured locks in a chic half-up style

Kate was no doubt looking forward to celebrating her birthday in style after warming up for the event on Tuesday morning.

The delighted star shared a video of her birthday surprise on Instagram saying: 'Well this is one way to start your birthday!'

In the video, Kate finds three hunky men waiting in her sitting room wearing nothing but jeans.

Some night: Kate shared a photo on Instagram after the hot mess party

Famous friends: Rosie Huntington-Whiteley also joined in on the fun with Kate

Three brides: Rachel Zoe shared a photo of Kate with her bride pals

Artsy photo: Demi Moore and daughter Rumer Willis celebrated along with Kate

Dressed to impress: Samantha Ronson displayed her quirky androgynous style as she slipped into a pair of sequinned black trousers and tuxedo printed T-shirt that she wore beneath a quilted blazer

Looking all-white! Milla Jovovich was a classic beauty in a lace white top whilst a large flower tucked behind some ear added some effortless glamour to her chic and summery ensemble

Party animal: Milla seemed in good spirits as she left the party, and no doubt worked up a sweat from dancing inside the bash as her perfectly applied eyeliner had begun to run across her cheeks

One of the shirtless men takes the birthday girl by her hands and sits her down on the couch.

Blown away before they have even sung a note, the Almost Famous star cannot stop laughing and screaming.

The shirtless bunks then proceeded to serenade the actress, who is so overwhelmed she can barely even look at their muscle bound bods.

Living life to the max-i! Rachel Zoe seemed in good spirits as she teetered out of the party in pair of towering high black platform heels that were just visible beneath her monochrome maxi dress

Furry nice! Rachel layered up in a black bolero jacket which complemented her myriad of satin jewel encrusted bracelets and rings, which also matched her glittering neckline

Sticking the boot in! Sara Foster added a punk twist to her feminine and floaty ensemble which consisted of a lace white dress and stockings, by adding some chunky black military style boots

Suited and booted: Cash Warren looked dapper in a silver velvet suit that he teamed with a V-neck white top

Silver fox! Cash cut a dapper figure in his tailored suit that he teamed with white loafers
She's donned unforgettably glamorous fashions to hit the catwalk as a Victoria's Secret Angel.

But while walking around New York City on Saturday, Elsa Hosk went for a more low-key look in jeans and a T-shirt.

The 27-year-old kept comfortable as she engaged in a bit of retail therapy with her boyfriend Tom Daly.

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Laid-back: Victoria's Secret Angel Elsa Hosk kept casual in distressed jeans and a T-shirt while out in New York City on Saturday

Elsa wore a loose-fitting, short-sleeved white T-shirt, which was coupled with a pair of high-waisted, light wash jeans.

The distressed jeans featured cut-outs along the knees and highlighted the blonde beauty's long, toned pins.

She finished off the look with a pair of low-top, white sneakers, and hid her eyes behind a pair of over-sized black sunglasses.

Coordinating: The blonde beauty was spotted shopping with her entrepreneur beau Tom Daly, who matched her casual style in a button down and coordinating sneakers

Her long, blonde tresses were worn a bit tousled, but styled straight, and falling over her shoulders as she walked.

The Swedish model opted to go make-up free for the afternoon date, showing off her natural beauty.

She kept her accessories simple for the outing, sporting just a black hair tie on one wrist, though she did carry a colorful Chanel handbag.

Looking bright! Elsa added a pop of color to her look with a patterned Chanel purse with a gold, chain strap

Her hands were full on the outing, holding a blue plaid garment as well as a large, brown shopping bag.

The Victoria's Secret model showed off a big smile and looked to be in good spirits while out in the Soho area with her boyfriend.

He gave her a hand with the shopping bags, as the two were spotted walking side by side on Saturday.

At work: The blonde beauty on the Victoria's Secret runway in November in NYC

The District Vision co-founder matched his model girlfriend's laid-back style, sporting a red, button down shirt with the top few undone.

He coupled the brightly colored shirt with a pair of fitted, navy blue trousers, finishing off his coordinating look with low-top, red sneakers.
Kim Kardashian looked like a perfect mother on Sunday morning.

The 35-year-old Keeping Up With The Kardashians star was holding her daughter North West tight as she walked into Rich Wilkerson Jr's Vous church in Miami with sister Kourtney and her little girl Penelope in tow.

The night before the E! queen was in a party mood as she showed off her cleavage while attending David Grutman's wedding with husband Kanye West.

Mommy dearest: Kim Kardashian looked like a perfect mother on Sunday morning as she took North to church in Miami

Done up for God: Kim looked stylish in a low-cut white tank top paired with a slitted black pencil skirt that went below the knees and strappy black heels

Too cute: North was darling in a yellow and white dress with white choker and white high top sneakers

Kim looked stylish in a low-cut white tank top that showed off her black bra paired with a slitted black pencil skirt that went below the knees and strappy black heels.

The daughter of Kris Jenner, 60, also had on a chic black choker - which is a stark contrast to the diamond one she wore the night before - and large sunglasses.

The reality doll harked back to the Eighties with her light denim jacket. On the back it said The Life Of Pablo, which is the new album from West.

See more of the latest on Kim Kardashian as she holds daughter North attending church

She's got the look: The pinup wore her North necklace with diamond earrings and her large engagement ring to look perfectly blinged out

Surf's up? Also with Kim was her sister Kourtney who wore denim shorts that were faded and seemed more appropriate for the beach; she was holding daughter Penelope

All the right curves: The fashion designer showed off her generous backside in this skirt

She dresses differently now: The diva has been pushing a sexier image since her summer split from Scott Disick; she is also reportedly dating Justin Bieber

The church: The Vous church in Miami has as its pastor Rich Wilkerson Jr

North was darling in a yellow and white dress with white choker and white high top sneakers.

Also with Kim was her sister Kourtney who wore denim shorts that were faded and seemed more appropriate for the beach.

The ex of Scott Disick also had on a white shirt, nude strappy heels and a long dusty pink coat with a cross body purse and aviators.

The 36-year-old star held onto daughter Penelope.

Holding on: The hands-on mom wore her hair in a ponytail while clutching her mini me

The night before: Kim wore black as she went to David Grutman's wedding with husband Kanye

The star is reportedly dating Justin Bieber, though she has never been seen getting affectionate with him. They were seen on a date in October.

Kim's choker on Saturday was a hot topic.

In November the Selfish author asked for a very big push present from husband West.

In a KimKardashianWest.com post, the reality star wrote about how she wanted a $1 million diamond choker after she welcomed Saint, who was born the following month. 'This pregnancy, I would love a Lorraine Schwartz diamond choker, like the ones I've worn before to the Art + Film Gala,' the star wrote.

A big prezzie: Kim's choker on Saturday was a hot topic. In November the Selfish author asked for a very big push present from husband West. In a KimKardashianWest.com post, the reality star wrote about how she wanted a $1 million diamond choker after she welcomed Saint, who was born the following month

On Saturday night the Keeping Up With The Kardashians standout showed off exactly that - a diamond choker - when she walked into her friend's Dave Grutman's wedding to Brazilian model Isabela Rangel in Miami.

In 2014 she paired the choker, which must have been a loaner, with a royal blue silk dress.

The cost must be in the neighborhood of $1 million.

Schwartz already made the siren's engagement ring, which has been estimated to cost anywhere from $2m to $8m.

Kim then added in her post, 'Too much? LOL! Here are some other push present ideas below!'

Kim then listed several necklaces that had diamonds in them, including one for $2,600.

The beauty's post read, 'Do you guys believe in a push present? I never did, but all of my friends do!!!' said Kim. 'We have the funniest e-mail chains discussing it.'
He battled oral cancer from August 2010 until January 2011.

And when he was spotted on the red carpet at the Tribeca Film Festival on Saturday, Michael Douglas looked quite gaunt.

The 71-year-old, who is on the Board of Ploughshares Foundation and The Nuclear Threat Initiative, was attending the What We Talk About When We Talk About The Bomb forum at the festival.

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Happy to be here: Michael Douglas looked sharp in a purple button down and coordinating V-neck sweater - in honor of late icon Prince - as he attended Tribeca Talks: What We Talk About When We Talk About The Bomb in New York City on Saturday

Michael looked sharp in a purple, striped button down shirt, which he wore underneath a dark purple V-neck sweater.

He coupled the layered look with a black leather jacket, also sporting fitted, dark jeans and black dress shoes.

Michael revealed that the inspiration behind his purple look was the late icon Prince, who passed away in his Minnesota estate on Thursday at 57.

'He was such a private man, protected his work so much,' he said, adding: 'But he was an extraordinary talent, just an extraordinary talent. I really feel a loss.'

Looking thin: The Wall Street star looked a bit gaunt as he was spotted on the red carpet ahead of the discussion

He looked happy to be at the festival, showing off a smile as he joined fellow panelists Kevin Ford, Smriti Keshari, and Eric Schlosser on the red carpet.

His appearance follows a report from the National Enquirer that suggested that the star - married to actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, 46, with whom he shares two children - is once again battling cancer.

His battle: The actor previously battled oral cancer from August 2010 until January 2011

Back when he battled oral cancer, the Wall Street star - who had initially blamed it on his years of smoking and drinking - said that the particular strain he had suffered with was caused by human papilloma virus (HPV), the most common sexually transmitted disease in the US.

Douglas made the now-famous, frank admission about how he developed the illness during an interview with The Guardian newspaper when he was asked if he had regretted smoking and drinking in the past.

He candidly replied: 'No. Because without wanting to get too specific, this particular cancer is caused by HPV, which actually comes about from cunnilingus.'

In good company: Michael showed off a smile while posing beside fellow panelists (L to R) Kevin Ford, Smriti Keshari, and Eric Schlosser

However, he later backtracked on those statements, insisting he was just discussing what causes oral cancer.

Michael, who is married to Welsh actress Catherine, was diagnosed with cancer in August 2010 after a walnut-sized tumor was found on his tongue.

The star's health troubles started just a few months after his eldest son Cameron - from his first marriage to Diandra Luker - was jailed for drug possession and dealing.

A difference: Though he was seen earlier this month at the 31st Annual Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony (L), he looked visibly thinner at the Tribeca Film Festival event on Saturday (R)

And he admitted that he initially believed his disease had been triggered by the stress over his son's legal troubles.

He was diagnosed with stage four of the disease and underwent an intense course of chemotherapy and radiation to fight it.
He has never been one of televisions more retiring characters.

And Angus Deayton has shown that even at 60 he has no problem keeping up with younger stars.

He has pictured still in the full swing of a night out at 4am, clutching the hand of stunning actress Lauren Drummond, 28.

Young at heart: Angus Deayton has shown that even at 60 he has no problem keeping up with younger stars as he enjoyed a wild night out with 28-year-old actress Lauren Drummond

They were reportedly seen wandering out of notoriously wild club The Box in Soho before heading to another late bar - before deciding against paying the entry fee.

Clearly in high spirits, the pair held on to each other as they laughed their way through the capital's party district.

According to The Sunday Mirror, they then got into a taxi, with Deayton asking the driver to take them to Angel, the area of London where he is believed to live.

Both of the stars have enjoyed stints on BBC school drama Waterloo Road, but not at the same time.

Party time! The actor proved he could last the distance as he partied in Soho with the blonde beauty until 4am

Hold on to me: Clearly in high spirits, the pair held on to each other as they laughed their way through the capital's party district

Street life: Lauren - who has starred in Waterloo as has Deayton - linked arms with the funnyman as they strolled to another bar

The former Have I Got News For You host split from his partner of 24 years, Lise Mayer, last year.

Their relationship had previously survived revelations in 2002 that he had had an affair, slept with prostitutes and taken cocaine.

A representative for Deayton said he and Drummond had enjoyed an evening out as friends.

It was reported last March that the One Foot In The Grave actor and Mayer had been 'getting on with their lives' following their split.

The break up came 13 years after she stuck by her partner's side following the scandalous revelations.

Night cap: After partying at wild club The Box, the pair decided to try out another late night establishment

Won't pay the price? The pair chatted with door staff as they found out the entry charge

Unsure: Lauren was seen animatedly chatting to the actor as they discussed whether to continue their evening

No thanks! The pals decided against paying to get into another bar

Home time: According to The Sunday Mirror, they then got into a taxi, with Deayton asking the driver to take them to Angel, the area of London where he is believed to live

Let's go: The friends then headed away from Central London, and walked past a poster for Fifty Shades of Grey

Fun night out: The stars were also joined by

The story was revealed in 2002, causing the BBC to dismiss him from the hosting chair of his long-running satirical panel show.

Angus started dating American-born British screenwriter Lise in 1991, and the couple have one child together, a 14-year old son Isaac, with the help of IVF.

He later talked about his infidelities to the Guardian in 2012, saying: 'No one is in my relationship, so they can't make judgments about my relationship. There was one two-night stand, and there was an affair.

'Well, I don't think that's completely unheard of, either in the realms of relationships, or indeed television presenters. There are many who have done as much, if not worse.'
He's managed to retain his youthful looks and looks far younger than his 75 years.

And Ringo Starr's age-defying appearance was all the more noticeable when he stepped out with his 48-year-old son, Jason Starkey.

Despite boasting nearly a three decade age gap between them, the duo looked more like brothers than father and son as they stepped out in Chelsea on Wednesday.

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Here comes the son: He looks far younger than his 75 years. But Ringo Starr's age-defying appearance was all the more noticeable when he stepped out with his 48-year-old son, Jason Starkey

Clad in a fitted black blazer and crisp shirt, the Beatles drummer looked effortlessly stylish as he enjoyed a shopping trip with his son.

Keeping with a muted colour scheme, he also donned a pair of skinny black jeans, whilst he slipped his feet into a pair of trainers.

Injecting a subtle splash of colour to his outfit, he wore an orange bracelet on his wrist whilst a delicate silver peace necklace hung from his neck.

Turning back time: Despite boasting nearly a three decade age gap between them, the duo looked more like brothers than father and son as they stepped out in Chelsea on Wednesday

Emanating the spirit of his pendant, the Eleanor Rigby hitmaker flashed a peace sign of his own as he walked down the street whilst peering out behind his wayfarer sunglasses.

Sporting a mop of silver hair, Jason bore some striking dissimilarities from his famous father, but the family resemblance was clear to see.

More adventurous with his fashion sense than his dad, Jason opted for a more colourful ensemble for the outing, teaming white jeans with a green checkered shirt.

Back to black: Clad in a fitted black blazer and crisp shirt, the Beatles drummer looked effortlessly stylish as he enjoyed a shopping trip with his son. Keeping with a muted colour scheme, he opted for all-black

All about the accessories: Injecting a subtle splash of colour to his outfit, he wore an orange bracelet on his wrist whilst a delicate silver peace necklace hung from his neck

V.nice: Emanating the spirit of his pendant, the Eleanor Rigby hitmaker flashed a peace sign of his own as he walked down the street whilst peering out behind his wayfarer sunglasses

Neither here nor hair! Sporting a mop of silver hair, Jason bore some striking dissimilarities from his famous father, but the family resemblance was clear to see between the pair

Wardrobe wars: More adventurous with his fashion sense than his dad, Jason opted for a more colourful ensemble for the outing, teaming white jeans with a green checkered shirt

Meanwhile, Ringo recently made a bold political statement when he canceled a concert in North Carolina to protest a state law decried as discriminatory against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

He was due to perform a set of his All Starr Tour at the Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary, North Carolina, on June 18.

The move follows Bruce Springsteen, who canceled a concert scheduled for last Sunday, and country music artists across the South where similar laws and proposals have been passed.

In North Carolina, a new law prevents local and state government from mandating protections for LGBT people in the private sector or at stores and restaurants.

Political powerhouse: Ringo recently made a bold political statement when he canceled a concert in North Carolina to protest a state law
He was heavily criticised for performing a series of doughnuts near the London Cenotaph last month.

But whilst Chris Evans may have apologised for running rings around the war memorial, it seems he's still been practicing the stunt in the comfort of his own grounds.

Ariel views from the Top Gear host's new home in Surrey show the tell-tale skid marks left behind by the trick, suggesting the 50-year-old presenter has been putting in some hours to perfect the perfect circular spin.

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Round two: Whilst Chris Evans may have apologised for running rings around the London Cenotaph last month, it seems he's still been practicing the stunt in the comfort of the grounds of his Surrey manor

Whilst the racing car enthusiast appears to have been taking advantage of the sprawling grounds around his home, he'll no doubt have been taking precautions after previously ruining his home performing another stunt.

Back in 2005 Evans crashed his silver Ferrari 575M Maranello into a verge near his then home.

The star was also banned from driving for 56 days in 2001 and fined 600 after admitting to a speeding charge that occurred in Surrey.

Second time lucky: He was heavily criticised for performing a series of doughnuts near the London Cenotaph last month but that hasn't stopped Chris for squeezing in some more practise

Donught try it again! Ariel views from the Top Gear host's new home in Surrey show the tell-tale skidmarks left behind by the trick

The news that Evans has been continuing to practise doughnuts will no doubt come as a surprise to his Top Gear co-host Matt LeBlanc who reportedly fell out over the actor's 'disrespectful' doughnut stunt at the Cenotaph.

Last month Evans sought to play down his role in the filming of the sequences, in which fellow presenter LeBlanc and a stunt driver filled Whitehall with smoke and burning rubber by wheel-spinning in the shadow of Britain's main war memorials.

The BBC later admitted it knew of plans to film the controversial scenes in central London for six months, after seeking council and police permission to use the streets as a backdrop for its revamped show.

You spin me right round: Chris appears to have used a vintage car to perfect the circular rings

Running rings: The 50-year-old presenter appears to have been putting in some hours to perfect the perfect circular spin in his own grounds

Round and round: The star appears to have perfected the move judging by the skid marks

Spacious: The racing car enthusiast appears to have been taking advantage of the sprawling grounds around his home to perform the dangerous stunt

Following an outraged backlash Evans, who took over presenting the show after Jeremy Clarkson was sacked for hitting a producer, said: 'On behalf of the Top Gear team and Matt I would like to apologise unreservedly for what these images seem to portray.

'There's been some very incendiary comments involved and written alongside these pictures and I completely understand all this furore', but in attempt to distance himself from the stunt he added: 'This isn't a shoot I'm particularly involved in'.

Now, it has been reported the stunt has become a source of bad blood between the show's two main presenters, with Evans branding the incident a PR disaster.

Second time's the charm: Chris will no doubt have been taking precautions after previously ruining his home performing another stunt

Birdseye view: From afar it is clear the star has been running rings outside his home

The evidence: The driveway appears to have doubled up as a stunt ground for the Top Gear host

A source close to the show told The Sun: 'Since the Cenotaph their relationship has deteriorated. Chris thinks Matt has severely damaged the brand. Behind the scenes it is very frosty between them.'

But Evans moved quickly to deny a rift between the show's two frontmen.

He tweeted: 'Just been on the phone to Matt Le Blanc to confirm we are "at war" as reported in The Sun today. He says, "sure, whatever.." Why I oughta !'

Car crash scenario: Back in 2005 Evans crashed his silver Ferrari 575M Maranello into a verge near his then home so he will no doubt be more careful this time around

Politicians and a former Army chief had condemned the BBC for arranging the 'gravely disrespectful' sequence yards from Britain's main war memorial.

Colonel Richard Kemp, a retired commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said: 'It beggars belief that they were ever allowed to film here. This is a sacred tribute to millions of people who have done far more for their country than [show hosts] Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc ever will.'

The scenes, which required a council and police-approved road closure and took a large film crew hours to shoot, will now not feature in the new series of the show, which is due to air in May.

It also later emerged the scenes cost licence fee-payers 100,000 to film.

The team: Top Gear hosts Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc (pictured with The Stig) have reportedly fallen out over the actor's 'disrespectful' donut stunt at the Cenotaph

Controversial: Last month new Top Gear presenter Matt LeBlanc and a stunt driver filled Whitehall with smoke and burning rubber by wheel-spinning in the shadow of Britain's main war memorials

Undecided: Fans of Top Gear have given their damning verdict on the new series of the hit motoring show in a blow to the BBC and producers

Concerning: More than 50,000 people have gone online to give the newly released trailer (pictured) a thumbs down on the programme's YouTube channel

Meanwhile fans of Top Gear have given their damning verdict on the new series of the hit motoring show.

More than 50,000 people have gone online to give the newly released trailer a thumbs down on the programme's YouTube channel.

Many unhappy fans bemoaned the Americanisation of the show and said the new presenters - Evans, LeBlanc and Sabine Schmitz- were not as funny as Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May.
Her special day was the perfect excuse to debut yet another barely-there ensemble.

On Saturday reality star Joanna Krupa celebrated her 37th birthday at Craig's in West Hollywood in a show-stopping number.

Not only did her dress have a plunging neckline, but it also had a slit that went up to the top of her thigh.

Her special day: Joanna Krupa celebrated her 37th birthday at Craig's in West Hollywood on Saturday

The former Real Housewives of Miami star took a familiar play out of her own style book, dressing in a racy evening ensemble.

Joanna chose to highlight both her chest and her legs, opting for a draping, plunging halter top-half paired with a gathered, high-slit bottom.

The skirt half of her dress featured a zippered front, which the model chose to raise within inches of a possible wardrobe malfunction.

Go-to look: The former Real Housewives of Miami star took a familiar play out of her own style book, dressing in a racy evening ensemble

For hair, the reality star chose to highlight her sunning face by pulling her tresses back in a tight ponytail.

Joanna's tanned skin glimmered as if dipped in gold, most likely due to a mix of body shimmer and baby oil.

For make-up, the blonde beauty went the natural glam route, playing up her futures with contour, thick lashes and Barbie-pink lipstick.

Easy hair: the reality star chose to highlight her sunning face by pulling her tresses back in a tight ponytail

When she's not wearing revealing clothing, the Polish model is often fully exposing her assets.

In an interview with Bravo, the PETA and animal rescue activist explained her reasons for posing nude, as a means of helping the right cause.

'I will admit it's very sad that our society has to see something that's very shocking. We know sex sells, we know nudity sells, we know shocking images sell, so the only way for people to be like, "Holy s***, what is this?" [are] those [images that] get their attention,' she began.

'Then maybe they'll be open-minded to further research the subject. It's sad but that's how human beings are. Unless it's something really in your face they're just going to go on with their day.'
Prince cremated, with resting place secret

Loved ones cremated pop icon Prince with his final resting place to remain a secret, two days after his sudden death stunned the music world.

The 57-year-old "Purple Rain" creator, one of the most acclaimed and unique artists of his generation, will eventually be honored with a concert, his spokeswoman said.

The spokeswoman, Anna Meacham, said that Prince was cremated on Saturday and that his ashes' "final storage will remain private."

Prince, who died suddenly at the age of 57, was cremated at an undisclosed location and a spokeswoman said the final resting place for his ashes "will remain private" Mark Ralston (AFP)

"Prince was celebrated by a small group of his most beloved: family, friends and his musicians, in a private, beautiful ceremony to say a loving goodbye," she said in a statement, with a faint echo of the opening lines to "Let's Go Crazy."

"An announcement will be made at a future date for a musical celebration."

The pop legend, renowned for his stamina and prolific musical output, died suddenly Thursday at his Paisley Park estate near his birthplace of Minneapolis.

While the place of the cremation was unclear, the private service appeared to take place at Paisley Park which was full of commotion on Saturday, with an AFP photographer counting around a dozen cars parked inside its gates in the suburb of Chanhassen.

Two staff members came out with a large vase of flowers in Prince's signature purple, some of which they pulled out to give to fans who applauded in gratitude.

Maurice Phillips, Prince's brother-in-law who is married to his sister Tyka, also took the time to come out to chat and take pictures with the fans.

- Cause of death mysterious -

The cause of Prince's death remains a mystery.

The spokeswoman, in line with statements from authorities, said that at least four weeks would be needed for results of the autopsy conducted before the cremation.

Prince had been hospitalized a week earlier complaining of flu-like symptoms after his plane made an emergency landing on his way back from Atlanta where he performed what would be his final full-fledged concerts.

Authorities plan in the coming days to search Paisley Park -- Prince's sprawling headquarters that was home to a state-of-the-art studio and vaults of vast unreleased work.

But Carver County Sheriff Jim Olson told reporters Friday that the move was routine, with no indication of suicide or foul play.

The celebrity news site TMZ has reported that Prince's earlier hospitalization may have been triggered by an overdose of an opioid-based painkiller.

Prince was legendary for his marathon performances, which would often last until dawn, but had hip surgery several years ago and suffered epilepsy as a child.

- Tributes pour in -

Prince, despite his personal eccentricities, was widely hailed as one of the greatest musicians of his generation, creating a unique brand of danceable funk and mastering the guitar so extensively that he could play it behind his back or blindfolded.

Tributes have come from throughout the music world and beyond.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Friday came out to "Let's Go Crazy" on a campaign stop in Pennsylvania, calling Prince "extraordinary" and an "American original."

US President Barack Obama, who invited Prince to play at the White House last year, earlier hailed him as "one of the most gifted and prolific musicians of our time."

Prince became the sudden star of the second weekend of Coachella, the premier music festival which takes place in the California desert.

LCD Soundsystem, the influential New York electronic band that reunited for Coachella, performed a cover of Prince's early funk hit "Controversy" during the group's headlining set late Friday.

The English pop singer Ellie Goulding sang "When Doves Cry" at Coachella while Mavis Staples, the 76-year-old R&B great once signed to Prince's label, broke down with emotion before offering a rendition of "Purple Rain."

Saturday Night Live, the weekly comedy show, planned a special "Goodnight Sweet Prince" episode featuring some of its frequent skits about the entertainer as well as his performances.

Prince himself was no stranger to tribute songs. Videos posted by fans revealed that at his final show in Atlanta he performed "Heroes" by David Bowie, another music legend who died several months earlier.

A fan touches the star of music legend Prince at the First Avenue club where he started his music career in Minneapolis, Minnesota Mark Ralston (AFP)
Trump, Clinton aim to seal deal in Tuesday primaries

US presidential frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump seek to deliver knockout blows against their rivals in Tuesday's five high-stakes primaries, with pressure mounting to wrap up the nomination races and pivot toward the general election battle.

Don't expect the challengers to buckle just yet.

The extraordinary 2016 race has tested American political tradition, with the Democratic and Republican parties taking their nomination battles deep into primary season.

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton is poised to extend her delegate lead when Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island host their primaries Timothy A. Clary (AFP/File)

Clinton, aiming to become the nation's first female commander in chief, faces a resilient liberal Senator Bernie Sanders, whose grassroots campaign to highlight income inequality has mobilized millions of young voters.

But the ex-secretary of state is poised to extend her delegate lead Tuesday when Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island host their primaries.

Pressed Saturday on reports that she has begun her search for a runningmate, Clinton shook her head and replied: "I'm just working hard to win on Tuesday."

Clinton leads in polling in the northeastern states, and if she sweeps all five Sanders will be pressed to exit the race.

In Pennsylvania, Clinton turned to the general election, knocking Trump and Republican candidate Ted Cruz and tailoring her message to working-class voters eager to see a return of manufacturing jobs.

"These are not jobs that can be exported, they have to be done right here in Pennsylvania," Clinton told supporters this week in Philadelphia.

Politics professor Terry Madonna of Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania said Sanders is "obstinate" about staying in the race, perhaps to earn a speaking spot at the Democratic convention in July.

Clinton "is the inevitable nominee now and the only question is at what point does she wrap up the magic number" of necessary delegates, Madonna told AFP.

A canopy of drama hangs over the Republican race, where the math points to a contested convention.

That means Trump will have to defy the odds with particularly strong showings through the remainder of the statewide contests if he is to win the nomination outright before the party's delegates gather in Cleveland in July to pick their nominee.

Snatching most of the Republican delegates at stake April 26 would propel him that much closer to reaching the 1,237 delegates needed to nail down the nomination.

His campaign is increasingly on notice, however, that the provocative celebrity billionaire would need to surpass that number and not merely outperform rivals Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich.

"We aren't going to hand the nomination to anyone with a plurality, no matter how close they are to 1,237," Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus told an influential gathering in Florida of more than 100 Republican delegates on Friday.

"You need a majority. Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades," he added in an apparent shot at Trump, who has derided the delegate system as "rigged" against him.

- 'Wheeling and dealing' -

With the delegates huddling over whether to fight against a Trump nomination or ultimately embrace him, Priebus took aim at conservatives who have said they will not back Trump should he become the flagbearer.

"Politics is a team sport, and we can't win unless we rally around whoever becomes our nominee," said Priebus.

Trump's new campaign chief Paul Manafort told the delegates at their Florida retreat Thursday that Trump was entering a new, more professional phase.

"The part he's been playing, it is evolving into a part that now you've been expecting but he wasn't ready for."

Manafort wooing the very party establishment Trump has been railing against publicly could be seen as an effort to assure them that the demagoguery that made many Republicans wary of Trump was only a persona used to rally frustrated voters to his cause during the primaries.

Cruz had a blunt reaction to Trump's evolution.

"Donald is telling us he's lying to us," he told CNN.

The arch-conservative senator is struggling to block Trump's ascension.

"I do not believe Donald has any path to winning a majority," Cruz told Dana Loesch's radio show, repeating his assertion that "nobody" will secure 1,237 delegates before the convention's first ballot.

Cruz says his aim now is to win the nomination on a subsequent ballot, when most delegates will be free to vote for someone other than the candidate they were originally bound to.

He also said he was now looking at Indiana, which votes May 3, as the next anti-Trump firewall.

Professor Madonna said Trump will likely end up between 25 and 100 delegates short of the threshold by the time the Republican primaries conclude on June 7, and that a fierce battle will ensue for the clutch of delegates who head to the convention unbound by any requirement to vote for a specific candidate.

"It's going to come down to wheeling and dealing with 200 delegates," he said.

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will have to defy the odds with particularly strong showings if he is to win the nomination outright Timothy A. Clary (AFP)

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, aiming to become the nation's first female commander in chief, faces a resilient liberal Senator Bernie Sanders (L) Yuri Gripas (AFP)

US Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz says his aim now is to win the nomination on a subsequent ballot, when most delegates will be free to vote for someone other than the candidate they were originally bound to Timothy A. Clary (AFP/File)
N. Korea's Kim hails 'successful' submarine missile test

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un hailed a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test as an "eye-opening success", state media said Sunday, declaring Pyongyang has the ability to strike Seoul and the US whenever it pleases.

Saturday's launch came amid growing concern that Pyongyang is preparing a fifth nuclear test.

But it was followed just hours later by a North Korean offer to impose a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing if the United States suspends annual military drills with South Korea.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un inspecting an underwater test-fire of a strategic submarine ballistic missile at an undisclosed location on April 23, 2016 KCNA (KCNA VIA KNS/AFP)

The US and Britain denounced the SLBM test as a violation of UN Security Council resolutions and called on the North to refrain from further moves that could destabilise the region.

The North's state-run KCNA news agency said the test, personally monitored by Kim, confirmed the reliability of the country's underwater launching system.

It also cited the young leader as saying Pyongyang was now capable of "hitting the heads of the South Korean puppet forces and the US imperialists anytime as it pleases."

Still images broadcast on state television showed Kim on the deck of the submarine before watching the test through binoculars from shore and meeting the crew and scientists afterwards.

"This eye-opening success constitutes one more precious gift the defence scientists and technicians are presenting to the great leaders and the party," KCNA quoted Kim as saying.

South Korea's defence ministry said the missile, fired from a submarine in the Sea of Japan (East Sea), flew around 30 kilometres (18 miles) and that the test showed "certain technological progress" in the North's SLBM capability.

"It is believed... that the North would be able to deploy the SLBM weapon within three to four years, or even sooner if it dedicates all its resources on the project," ministry spokesman Moon Sang-Gyun told reporters.

- Nuclear test offer -

Pictures showed the missile, with "The North Star" emblazoned on it, soar out of the water and fly into the sky, leaving a massive plume of smoke above the sea surface.

State TV also showed what it claimed were underwater images of the missile being ejected from the submarine, using key "cold launch" technology.

North Korea has been pushing to acquire an SLBM capability that would take its nuclear strike threat to a new level, allowing deployment far beyond the Korean peninsula and the potential to retaliate in the event of a nuclear attack.

The isolated country has conducted a number of what it says were successful SLBM tests, but experts had previously question the claims, suggesting Pyongyang had gone little further than a "pop-up" test from a submerged platform.

The latest launch comes as the North gears up for a rare and much-hyped ruling party congress early next month -- the first in 36 years -- at which Kim is expected to take credit for pushing the country's nuclear and missile weapons programme to new heights.

Many analysts and senior Seoul officials have suggested the regime may carry out a fifth nuclear test as a display of defiance and strength ahead of the May party congress.

In an interview with the Associated Press in New York, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su-Yong said Pyongyang would be willing to halt further tests if Washington announced an end to annual joint military exercises with Seoul.

South Korea dismissed the proposal and warned it would seek further sanctions for the SLBM test it called an "open provocation".

"We strongly urge the North to... stop making a ridiculous attempt to link our regular joint military drills, which are defensive in nature, with a nuclear test that is banned under UN Security Council resolution," the foreign ministry said in a statement Sunday.

The annual drills always raise tensions on the Korean peninsula, with the North condemning them as provocative rehearsals for invasion.

The North made exactly the same offer in January last year, when it was flatly rejected by the United States.

North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January, followed by a rocket launch a month later that was widely seen as a disguised ballistic missile test.

The UN Security Council responded by slapping its strongest sanctions to date on Pyongyang.

Kim Jong-Un's nuclear ambitions Adrian LEUNG, John SAEKI (AFP)

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un on April 23, 2016 hailed a submarine-launched ballistic missile test as an "eye-opening success" KCNA (KCNA VIA KNS/AFP)

Image released by KCNA of the underwater test-fire of a strategic submarine ballistic missile at an undisclosed location in North Korea on April 23, 2016 KCNA (KCNA VIA KNS/AFP)
Fantasies come to life at Myanmar 'cosplay' convention

Purple-haired princesses, wolves and dolled-up maids mingled at a "cosplay" fantasy costume festival held this weekend in Myanmar, where the global role-playing craze is building up a cult following.

Hundreds gathered at the two-day convention in Yangon to enter singing competitions and chat with others sporting the colourful garb, elaborate make-up and exotic hairstyles of their fantasy idols.

In cosplay, short for costume role-play, enthusiasts gather to imitate characters from anime series, comics and video games, many drawn from Japanese pop culture.

A costume role-play enthusiast poses for a photo at a cosplay festival in Yangon Phyo Hein Kyaw (AFP)

Chuu Kay Khine, who attended the event dressed as a Japanese anime character, told AFP she was still eager for more fantasy fans to play with.

"The more people that know about it and the more friends we have the better," said the 21-year-old. "Then we could have even more fun."

Many of the eye-popping costumes on display in Myanmar's biggest city were imported from neighbouring Thailand and China, while others were homespun or specially tailored for the occasion.

The cosplay fad has swept much of the world but is still relatively new in Myanmar, where young people are racing to catch up with international trends a few years after junta-era Internet restrictions were lifted.

This year's festival is the eighth since the hobby first found a footing in the Southeast Asian country in 2012, shortly after a reformist government began loosening the military's grip on freedom of expression.

It is now one of a host of new sub-cultures mushrooming across Myanmar as it hurtles into a what promises to be a new era of freedom under a recently elected civilian-led government.

Yet like fringe fads everywhere, Myanmar's cosplay scene has not been met with universal enthusiasm.

"The main difficulty is trying to get people to accept the culture of cosplay in our country. We have to keep explaining it," Lin Aung Kyaw, a 24-year-old who helped organise the event, told AFP.

"Some animated series are just as good as films, with very meaningful plots," he added.
Nepal's quake-hit ghost village begins fragile recovery

Langtang in Nepal is now little more than a graveyard. The once tranquil mountain village was obliterated last April when a massive earthquake shattered a glacier, raining tonnes of ice, snow and rock down into the valley below, where hundreds of bodies still lie buried.

Scientists estimate the avalanche hit the ground with enough force to cause a blast more than half the strength of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, making it a miracle that anyone survived.

Those who did are making a hesitant return. Still struggling to come to terms with their loss, unable to forget the horror, they are nonetheless attempting to rebuild their lives.

Workers rebuild a tea-house in Langtang valley, Nepal's Rasuwa district Prakash Mathema (AFP)

All lost loved ones in the disaster, which killed 283 Nepalis and 43 foreign visitors in a village whose bucolic charm attracted thousands of trekkers every year. Many of the bodies were buried too deep under the debris ever to be found.

Suppa Tamang, who lost dozens of relatives including his second wife and 13-year-old son, was among the first of the villagers to return last month.

"I can't account for our losses, so many people have died, nothing is left... still, we have to find a way forward," he told AFP.

Tarp-covered shelters and a handful of construction sites now dot a landscape that was once home to more than 60 thriving guesthouses, two of them Tamang's.

Frustrated by the government's slowness in disbursing a promised $2,000 in aid, a few villagers have begun rebuilding on their own -- a daunting task in a remote Himalayan valley accessible only on foot or by helicopter.

"It is all so difficult and so costly -- we can use mules and porters for cement and food rations, but we have to pay hundreds of dollars to helicopter companies to bring metal rods, plywood and glass panes," said Tamang.

"My biggest fear is that Langtang will collapse unless people like us come back, rebuild and encourage our young to return home."

- Unique culture -

After the avalanche Langtang residents set up camp in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Kathmandu until authorities deemed it safe for them to return.

But the heat and dust of the capital left villagers yearning for their serene, high-altitude homeland.

The small Buddhist community that crossed over from Tibet and settled here hundreds of years ago relied on yak herding and farming for its livelihood until tourism transformed the local economy.

Despite an influx of visitors, villagers held on to their own cultural and religious practices, building traditional stone guesthouses with carved wooden windows and speaking a local variant of Tibetan.

The extent of the destruction wreaked by the avalanche shocked even experts -- among them hydrologist Walter Immerzeel, who went to Langtang last October to study its impact.

"So much ice and debris came down the mountain -- when you consider the total mass and compute the speed and the altitude from where it (the avalanche) originated, we estimated that the amount of energy that would have been released would have been equivalent to the energy from 7.6 kilotons of TNT," said Immerzeel, assistant professor at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

That is more than half the amount of energy released by the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

- 'Ghosts still here' -

Chiring Chokpa Lama recently opened Langtang's first new guesthouse -- a humble affair with tin and plywood walls and windows made of thin plastic sheets -- taking a brave step forward even as painful memories continue to haunt her.

Lama was at home with her 21-year-old daughter, Nangse, when the avalanche struck, burying them both.

"As we ran, everything got covered by snow, rocks and debris. It buried us as well," she recalled.

"It came down with such force, took away so many people. We never found them again."

Hours passed as Lama and her daughter screamed for help. A relative eventually dug her out but arrived too late to save Nangse.

Dazed by grief, she finally gathered up the courage to return to Langtang with her husband, leaving their two other children in Kathmandu, where they are studying.

"We have lived here for generations, everyone we ever loved lived in this valley," Lama said.

"We had to come back. There is nowhere else to go."

For many in this devout, close-knit community, the future remains uncertain, shadowed by sorrow and anxiety.

At 61, yak herder Nurpu Tamang faces a lonely life, set adrift after the avalanche killed everyone in his family, including three grandchildren.

"It was the worst day in the world, I had never seen anything like it before," said Tamang, now living in a temporary shelter in a nearby village.

For months, he woke up thinking his loved ones were still alive before realising that his nightmare was real.

"I never found their bodies... and I feel like their ghosts are still here, it makes it very hard for me to think about building another home here," he said.

"It's been a year but I haven't learned to live without them."

Last April's massive earthquake killed 283 Nepalis and 43 foreign visitors in Langtang village whose bucolic charm attracted thousands of trekkers every year Prakash Mathema (AFP)

Villager Chiring Chokpa Lama talks during an interview with AFP in Langtang valley, Nepal's Rasuwa district Prakash Mathema (AFP)
Entrenched leader Obiang who led EGuinea from terror to oil

Equatorial Guinea's tough President Teodoro Obiang Nguema seized power almost 37 years ago from a feared and ruthless uncle and has steered the tiny but now oil-rich nation with an iron glove.

Already Africa's longest-serving leader, the 73-year-old looks set to win a fresh seven-year mandate in elections Sunday.

"I am the candidate of the people. Whoever does not vote for me is rejecting peace and opting for disorder," Obiang told a scattered crowd at a campaign rally at the Malabo stadium.

Supporters of incumbent Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema gather for a presidential campaign rally in Malabo

Obiang came to power in the former Spanish colony in a 1979 coup against his uncle Macias Nguema, a fervent nationalist who found a tropical outlet for the ruthless methods of Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco after independence in 1968.

Macias, a self-proclaimed sorcerer who collected skulls, had Nazi-style notions of ethnic purity. He ruled by fear, sparing few families in waves of killings and atrocities that provoked a mass exodus to neighbouring countries.

Obiang had his uncle tried in a cinema, strung up in a cage and shot by hired Moroccan soldiers, who later formed the backbone of his bodyguard.

The former putschist then began building omnipotent security services to monitor all aspects of public life under his personal authority.

- 'Permanent contact with God' -

Heading a country with few resources, unable at first to even afford a private jet, his fiery character alienated some of his peers who would patronise him at regional summits -- until the discovery of offshore oil in the early 1990s.

With investments by mostly American firms, the country rose from being a Gulf of Guinea backwater to sub-Saharan Africa's third biggest oil producer after Nigeria and Angola.

Riding high on petro-dollars, Obiang has been magnanimous with African leaders who once mocked him such as interim Central African Republic ruler Catherine Samba Panza, who came to Malabo with a begging bowl before elections earlier this year.

The country has acquired a reputation as one of the world's most corrupt, with NGOs pointing the finger at the ruling family.

Abroad, meanwhile, Obiang has come under fire for rights abuses from numerous international organisations.

The president has also built up a personality cult, even allowing rumours of cannibalism.

In 2003, a state radio presenter described him as being "in permanent contact with God", a leader "who can decide to kill without accounting to anyone and without going to hell".

Though multi-party politics were introduced in 1991, Obiang has never officially been re-elected with less than 95 percent of the vote.

- Family dynasty -

Anyone under 40 has never known any leader other than Obiang, whose poster goes up with new building projects.

Born on June 5, 1942 to a family of modest means, he is said to have been a shy, almost retiring boy, with a taciturn streak.

After attending a religious school, he joined the army which awarded him a scholarship to a military academy in Zaragoza, Spain, and a year after independence he was put in charge of troops.

He rose quickly through the ranks. A former comrade-in-arms called him "cunning", saying "he knows how to turn a situation to his advantage even when you think there's nothing in it for him".

While Obiang maintains that his next mandate will be his last, his people see a family dynasty.

His playboy son Teodoro Obiang Mangue is second vice-president and has been given ever greater power in the ruling Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea as well as in government, though France and the US Justice Department have targeted millions in allegedly ill-gotten gains.
Top African producer bans GM cotton

Burkina Faso, Africa's top cotton producer and the sole West African nation to venture into biotech farming, is dropping genetically-modified (GM) cotton on quality grounds.

The world's 10th largest cotton producer, with four of its 19 million people dependent on the "white gold", Burkina Faso earlier this month said it was giving up Monsanto's GM Bt cotton because it had proved uneconomical.

Burkina took up GM cotton in the 2000s in the hopes of bumping up returns on what was then its top export product, surpassed in 2009 by gold.

Burkina Faso is the world's 10th largest cotton producer, with four of its 19 million people dependent on the "white gold" Georges Gobet (AFP/File)

But the country's association of cotton producers now say GM cotton, though producing higher yields, has caused a drop in crop quality.

"The cotton fibre we are producing today is short," Burkina Faso's new President Roch Marc Christian Kabore told AFP this month.

Fibre length is key in textiles with longer ones tending to produce stronger yarns because they allow fibres to twist around each other more times, also enabling higher spinning speeds.

But the shorter fibres now being produced from Burkina's GM cotton "means that in market terms it's an activity which is no longer very attractive for us," the president said.

The government, he added, has taken steps "to underpin the sector ... and help producers."

- 'A battle won' -

Those measures include tens of thousands of dollars worth of seed and fertiliser subsidies as well as price controls for producers to offset market falls.

Burkina's Inter-professional Cotton Association (AICB), grouping the country's main producers and the national cotton farmers' union, is now targeting "100 percent conventional" production, Wilfried Yameogo, director of Sofitex, Burkina Faso's main cotton company, said earlier this month.

"It's a battle won," added Christian Legay of the national council of organic food processors, an umbrella organisation of consumer groups and farm workers which wants a five-to-10 year moratorium on transgenic cotton in Burkina Faso.

But qualms over GM products and "frankenfoods" played no role in the about-face.

With Burkinabe cotton once prized for its purity and length of fibre, it was the fall in quality that weighed in favour of a return to conventional cotton.

Producers say this resulted in the sector incurring losses between 2011 and 2016 of some 48.3 billion CFA francs ($82.4 million). They insist these must come back to them in the form of compensation.

- High hopes -

In the 2000s, the emergence of GM had fueled hopes of greater production and also reduced the need for fertiliser.

This was a key issue in a region prone to drought and where cotton pests had grown resistant to eradication by pesticides.

Insecticide-resistant caterpillars -- the 'Helicoverpa armigera known as the cotton bollworm or Old World (African) bollworm -- wreaked havoc on crops and producers' livelihoods in 1991, 1996 and 2000.

GM crops were supposed to be a win-win solution -- reducing the number of pesticide treatments as well as boosting yields by as much as 90 percent, boosting per hectare profits.

Celestin Dala, a producer in Nayala in the west of the country, said that "with GM cotton two treatments are required -- six with conventional."

In 2003, Burkina authorised experimental planting by US seed giant Monsanto and Swiss multinational Syngenta. Then in 2007, Burkina launched large scale production of transgenic cotton.

Two years later, the authorities ordered farmers to seed up to 80 percent of their crop with the GM variant, leading to a reduction in labour time and facilitating the backbreaking work involved.

- 'Tactical withdrawal' -

Researchers, political and community leaders were critical of the move to launch GM crops from the outset.

"The principal of precaution was not respected," says Jean-Didier Zongo, a genetician from the University of Ouagadougou, who accuses Monsanto of "criminal" acts. He alleges the firm provided insufficiently tested seed varieties.

"These allegations are false," fired back Monsanto spokesman Billy Brennan.

He said Monsanto seeds have brought about "better yields, lower pesticide dosage and greater export volumes" to produce a "positive impact on 350,000 producer farms."

President Kabore told AFP that Burkina Faso's authorities are "pursuing talks with Monsanto".

Though the country's producers are demanding redress for the loss of income they say they can think again in the future.

"If in three, four or five years they (Monsanto) find a solution, there is no reason why we would not go back to towards GM", said Yameogo of Sofitex. "What we have here is a tactical withdrawal -- not a total rejection of GM."
Australian politician sets river on fire to protest fracking

An Australian politician has set fire to a river to draw attention to methane gas he says is seeping into the water due to fracking, with the dramatic video attracting more than two millions views.

Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham used a kitchen lighter to ignite bubbles of methane in the Condamine River in Queensland, about 220 kilometres (140 miles) west of Brisbane.

The video shows him jumping back in surprise, using an expletive as flames shoot up around the dinghy.

Australian Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham (L) poses for a photo with local resident John Jenkyn after setting fire to methane gas along the Condamine River in Queensland, about 220 km west of Brisbane, on April 12, 2016 Max Phillips / NSW Greens Party (NSW Greens Party/AFP/File)

"Unbelievable. A river on fire. Don't let it burn the boat," Buckingham, from New South Wales, said in the footage posted on Facebook on Friday evening, which has been viewed more than two million times.

"Unbelievable, the most incredible thing I've seen. A tragedy in the Murray-Darling Basin (river system)," he said, blaming it on nearby coal-seam gas mining, or fracking.

Australia is a major gas exporter, but the controversial fracking industry has faced a public backlash in some parts of the country over fears about the environmental impact.

Farmers and other landowners are concerned that fracking, an extraction method under which high-pressure water and chemicals are used to split rockbeds, could contaminate groundwater sources.

The Murray-Darling Basin is a river network sprawling for one million square kilometres (400,000 square miles) across five Australian states.

But the industry has said the practice is safe and that coal seam gas mining is a vital part of the energy mix as the world looks for cleaner fuel sources.

Origin Energy, which operates wells in the region, said it was monitoring the bubbling.

"We're aware of concerns regarding bubbling of the Condamine River, in particular, recent videos demonstrating that this naturally occurring gas is flammable when ignited," the company said in a statement to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

"We understand that this can be worrying, however, the seeps pose no risk to the environment, or to public safety, providing people show common sense and act responsibly around them."

The Australian energy firm said the methane seeps could be due to several factors, including natural geology and faults, drought and flood cycles, as well as human activity including water bores and coal seam gas operations.
Solar-powered plane lands in California after Pacific crossing

Solar Impulse 2, an experimental plane flying around the world without consuming a drop of fuel, has landed in California, one leg closer to completing its trailblazing trip.

"The Pacific is done, my friend. I love it, but it's done," said clearly relieved Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard, who piloted the craft from Hawaii to California, just before landing late Saturday.

"It's great to be in California, the land of pioneers," he said once on the ground, with Google co-founder and alternative energy enthusiast Sergey Brin on hand.

Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard (centre) greets people as the door to the Solar Impulse 2 is removed after landing at Moffett Field in Mountain View, California on April 23, 2016 Josh Edelson (AFP)

"Innovation and pioneering must continue. The clean tech revolution has to keep moving forward."

Piccard, a 58-year-old doctor by training, said that enduring the 62-hour stretch between Hawaii and the Silicon Valley town of Mountain View was one of the "most amazing" experiences of his life.

"I bet that in 10 years, electric airplanes will be transporting up to 50 people. This will happen," he added.

"This is not science fiction. It is real," Piccard said.

The arrival at Moffett Airfield southeast of San Francisco, marked the completion of the ninth of 13 legs in a journey that began last year in the United Arab Emirates.

Piccard, who has been alternating the long solo flights with teammate Andre Borschberg, will now hand over to his teammate who will pilot Solar Impulse across the United States and to New York.

- Pacific challenge -

The mission aims to promote the use of renewable energy, with an aircraft powered by 17,000 solar cells.

The plane's wingspan is wider than that of a jumbo jet but its weight is roughly the same as a car's.

Solar Impulse 2 was grounded in July last year when its batteries suffered problems halfway through its 21,700-mile (35,000-kilometer) circumnavigation.

The crew took several months to repair the damage from high tropical temperatures during the first Pacific stage, a 4,000-mile flight between Japan and Hawaii.

The aircraft was flown on that leg by Borschberg, whose 118-hour journey smashed the previous record of 76 hours and 45 minutes set by US adventurer Steve Fossett in 2006.

Born in Zurich, Borschberg is no stranger to adventure -- 15 years ago he narrowly escaped an avalanche, and then in 2013 he was involved in a helicopter crash that left him with minor injuries.

The 63-year-old took catnaps of only 20 minutes at a time to maintain control of the pioneering plane during his arduous flight from Japan, in what his team described as "difficult" conditions.

The Pacific crossing is the most dangerous due to a lack of landing sites in the event of an emergency.

Traveling at altitudes of more than 9,000 meters (29,500 feet), Borschberg at times had to use oxygen tanks to breathe and experienced huge swings in temperature throughout.

Alone throughout and utterly self-reliant in the unpressurized cockpit, he was equipped with a parachute and life raft in case he needed to ditch in the Pacific

Piccard said Saturday that he could not sleep more than 20 minutes at a time "because after 20 minutes you have to wake up and control everything and if everything goes well then you can go back to sleep."

The solar-powered plane, which stores energy in batteries for when the sun is not shining, will stop in New York before a transatlantic flight to Europe. From there the pilots plan to make their way back to the point of departure in Abu Dhabi.

The arrival of Solar Impulse 2 at Moffett Airfield, southeast of San Francisco, marked the completion of the ninth of 13 legs in a journey that began last year in the United Arab Emirates Josh Edelson (AFP)
Bangladesh workers demand justice on disaster anniversary

Thousands of Bangladeshi garment workers demanded justice on the anniversary Sunday of one of the world's worst industrial disasters, the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory complex that claimed over 1,100 lives.

Survivors of the disaster, many of whom lost limbs when the nine-storey building came crashing down three years ago, laid flowers at the site and wept as they remembered the dead.

Relatives of those killed, including some whose bodies were never found, recited verses of the Koran and prayed after gathering from early morning at Savar just outside Dhaka.

A Bangladeshi woman holds a picture of a relative who died in the Rana Plaza building collapse, on the third anniversary of the disaster on April 24, 2016 Munir Uz Zaman (AFP)

"Three years have passed and still we don't see any justice. No one has been held to account for one of history's worst man-made disasters," union leader Abul Hossain said as he led the protest.

Police have arrested and charged the owner of the building with murder, along with 40 others -- including factory officials and government inspectors who certified the flimsy complex as safe.

But no one has yet been convicted over the disaster, which ocurred after thousands of textile workers were forced to enter the building to start their shifts despite cracks appearing in its pillars one day before.

Workers also staged protests in Dhaka on Sunday and outside a state graveyard where hundreds of unidentified victims have been buried, to demand swift trials for those charged.

"Rana must be hanged!" workers shouted, referring to arrested building owner Sohel Rana who was politically influential in Bangladesh.

Others who gathered at the disaster site, which has been turned into a small lake and was Sunday full of hyacinth flowers, called for improved safety at Bangladesh's 4,500 garment factories.

"The government must shut down all faulty factories to avoid another Rana Plaza. It's unfortunate most factories remain unsafe despite such a huge tragedy," said another union leader, Touhidul Islam.

The Rana Plaza tragedy triggered international outrage and put pressure on European and US clothing brands to improve pay and conditions at the factories that supply them.

But only a fraction of Bangladesh's textile factories -- which employ a total of four million workers, mostly women -- have since been certified safe.

- 'Scenes of carnage' -

Last year the authorities completed compensation payments for the 3,000 victims, including the injured and families of the dead, but many survivors say it is not enough.

"I got 4,000 taka ($50) a month for two years. But now I don't have anything. My husband has left me as I've become mentally unstable," said Swapna Bibi, 25, who was trapped in the rubble for four days.

Firefighters were also among those who gathered, recalling how they worked for more than three weeks to pull out the dead and nearly 2,000 injured from under pancaked floors.

"The memories of those who cried for help from under the debris still haunt me and many others," said weeping firefighter Monir Hossain.

"I've never seen scenes of carnage like this. I saw workers dying one after another as they were trapped under fallen pillars or debris. I was so overwhelmed I had to be hospitalised with mental problems," he said.

At the site dozens of people held laminated photographs of missing loved ones whose bodies were never found.

"Our sole request to the government is please find my sister's body so that my mother, who has been sick, can die in peace," said Lipy Begum, whose sister Kulsum Begum, 16, has been declared dead.

The Rana Plaza building collapse Adrian LEUNG (AFP)

Activists and relatives of victims of the Rana Plaza building collapse take part in a protest march on the third anniversary of the disaster, near the site where the building once stood in Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, on April 24, 2016 Munir Uz Zaman (AFP)

The Rana Plaza tragedy in Bangladesh in April 2013 triggered international outrage and put pressure on European and US clothing brands to improve pay and conditions at the factories that supply them Munir Uz Zaman (AFP/File)
Former opposition leader named Congolese premier

Republic of Congo's newly-reelected President Denis Sassou Nguesso has named former opposition leader and one-time finance minister Clement Mouamba as his prime minister.

"Mr Clement Mouamba is named prime minister and head of government," said a presidential decree read on state television late Saturday, a week after Sassou Nguesso, who has been in power for 32 of the past 37 years, was sworn in for another five-year term.

Mouamba served as finance minister between 1992 and 1993 under the country's first elected president Pascal Lissouba, who was ousted from power by Sassou Nguesso in 1997.

Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso (R) receives the flag of the Republic of Congo during his inauguration ceremony in Brazzaville Guy-Gervais Kitina (AFP/File)

He was a senior member of the opposition Pan-African Union for Social Democracy before being expelled in 2015 for taking part in the talks that paved the way for a constitutional referendum allowing Sassou Nguesso to extend his rule.

The referendum scrapped a two-term limit on presidential mandates, allowing Sassou Nguesso to bid to stay in office in March elections, which he won with more than 60 percent of the vote.

His challengers accused him of "massive" electoral fraud.
Saudi king sacks utilities minister amid anger over prices

The king of Saudi Arabia has sacked the country's water and electricity minister, Abdullah al-Hussayen, amid public anger over price hikes, state media reported.

King Salman issued a decree on Saturday ordering his dismissal and replacement in the interim by Agriculture Minister Abdel Rahman al-Fadli, said the official SPA news agency.

His removal comes after the government reduced subsidies on electricity, water and other services.

Saudi Arabia's King Salman issued a decree ordering the dismissal of minister of electricity and water Abdullah al-Hussayen (pictured) Yasser al-Zayyat (AFP/File)

In March, the Arab News daily reported that Hussayen had called on citizens to get permits to dig their own wells in the face of increasing complaints about high water bills.

And earlier this month the newspaper said that the advisory Shura Council "appeared unconvinced" when its members grilled Hussayen and his officials about the bills.

In December, a series of unprecedented reforms were adopted in the desert kingdom, which has been hit hard by the steep fall in global oil prices over the past two years.

Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is seen as the architect of the reforms, is to set announce on Monday a programme aimed at diversifying an economy that depends on oil for 70 percent of state revenues.

But Prince Mohammed told Bloomberg News in an interview this month that the ministry's implementation of the new water tariff was "unsatisfactory".
Bangladesh police arrest student over professor's murder

Bangladesh police arrested an Islamist student on Sunday over the hacking to death of a professor one day earlier, the latest such killing claimed by the Islamic State group.

Attackers wielding machetes almost beheaded English professor Rezaul Karim Siddique on Saturday in the northwestern city of Rajshahi, following a string of similar killings of secular activists by Islamist militants.

The 58-year-old was murdered as he walked to the bus station from his home.

A man holds a portrait of Bangladeshi professor Rezaul Karim Siddique, who was hacked to death by unidentified attackers in Rajshahi on April 23, 2016 Md. Abdullah Iqbal (AFP)

The student from Rajshahi University where Siddique taught was arrested early Sunday for questioning, although the hunt was still on for other suspects, said the city's deputy police commissioner Nahidul Islam.

He said the unidentified student of public administration is a member of Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of Bangladesh's largest Islamist opposition party the Jamaat-e-Islami.

"We have detained a 21-year-old Rajshahi University student who is a Shibir member as a suspect over the murder," Islam told AFP, without detailing his alleged role in the attack.

Siddique was the fourth professor from Rajshahi University to be killed by suspected Islamists in recent years.

Five secular bloggers and a publisher have also been murdered, as well as members of minority groups and foreigners, as Bangladesh reels from rising Islamist violence.

Police said that in each of the attacks on the bloggers and online activists, attackers hacked the victim to death with machetes or cleavers.

Bangladesh's counter-terrorism chief Monirul Islam on Sunday rejected the Islamic State's claim of responsibility for the latest killing, telling reporters that "in reality, the IS does not exist in Bangladesh".

Other senior police officers made similar statements, echoing the government's stance that the attacks were carried out by homegrown militants.

"In the past they (IS) issued similar statements on their websites, but we have never found their presence here," Rajshahi police commissioner Mohammad Shamsuddin told AFP.

Siddique's wife has said her husband had never spoken out against religion, but police suspect he may have been targeted because he was seen as a free-thinker.

Siddique set up a music school, edited a literary magazine and ran a cultural group that performed music -- activities likely to have angered hardline Islamists.

The student group Shibir has a stronghold at Rajshahi University. But thousands of its activists have been detained nationwide in recent years after staging protests against the trials and executions of Jamaat leaders for war crimes committed during Bangladesh's 1971 battle for independence from Pakistan.

Hundreds of fearful teachers at Rajshahi University boycotted classes and rallied on the campus for a second day on Sunday as they protested against their colleague's murder.

"We seek protection of all teachers. We're all feeling insecure," said university teachers association president Shahid Ullah.

"If a harmless and innocent person like Professor Siddique can be murdered, nobody is safe. We want the immediate arrest of the killers," he said.

A long-running political crisis in Bangladesh, which is majority Sunni Muslim but officially secular, has radicalised opponents of the government and analysts say Islamist extremists pose a growing danger.

People gather around the body of Bangladeshi professor Rezaul Karim Siddique after he was hacked to death by unidentified attackers in Rajshahi on April 23, 2016 Md. Abdullah Iqbal (AFP)
Sending troops to Syria would be 'mistake', Obama warns

US President Barack Obama warned Sunday that it would be a "mistake" to send Western troops into Syria to overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

In an interview with the BBC, he said the United States would continue strikes against the Islamic State group while continuing efforts to broker a transition deal between the Assad regime and his moderate Syrian opponents.

"Syria has been a heart-breaking situation of enormous complexity, and I don't think there are any simple solutions," Obama said during his visit to London which ended Sunday.

US President Barack Obama answers questions from members of the audience at an event in central London on April 23, 2016 Justin Tallis (AFP)

"It would be a mistake for the United States, or Great Britain, or a combination of Western states to send in ground troops and overthrow the Assad regime.

"But I do believe that we can apply international pressure to all the parties, including Russia and Iran, who, essentially, are propping up Assad, as well as those moderate oppositions that exist and may be fighting inside of Syria, to sit down at the table and try to broker a transition.

"Now, that's difficult, and in the interim, we continue to strike ISIL targets in places like Raqqa, and to try to isolate those portions of the country, and lock down those portions of the country that are sending foreign fighters into Europe."

At least 30 civilians were killed Saturday in fighting in areas across Syria, threatening an eight-week-old truce as peace talks in Geneva remain stalled.

The truce, brokered by Russia and the United States, had raised hopes that United Nations-backed talks in Geneva this month will help resolve the five-year conflict.

"There's going to be a military component to this, to ensure that... we're also engaging in the counter-terrorism activities that are necessary," Obama said.

"But in order for us to solve the long-term problems in Syria, a military solution alone -- and certainly us deploying ground troops -- is not going to bring that about."
Syria Kurds, regime agree prisoner swap after clashes

Syrian regime officials and Kurdish representatives agreed Sunday to swap prisoners as they seek to maintain a truce that ended days of fighting in the northeastern city of Qamishli, security sources said.

The deadly clashes last week marked a rare outbreak of violence between Kurdish forces and pro-regime fighters in Qamishli, where control is split between Kurdish militia and the Syrian army and its allies.

The two sides agreed an indefinite ceasefire on Friday but tensions have remained.

Syrians inspect the damage following clashes between Syrian pro-government fighters and Kurdish forces, in the northeastern city of Qamishli, on April 21, 2016 Delil Souleiman (AFP/File)

"An agreement was reached after midnight to bring calm back to Qamishli involving an exchange of prisoners between both sides," a Kurdish security source told AFP on Sunday.

A regime security source confirmed a deal was struck during a meeting at the mainly Kurdish city's airport between government officials and representatives of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

"It was agreed to keep Friday's truce in place" with "the exchange of those captured and injured starting Sunday," the government source said.

The fighting began on Wednesday with a scuffle at a checkpoint and, according to Kurdish security forces, killed 17 civilians, 10 Kurdish fighters and 31 regime troops and allied militiamen.

The Kurdish security forces said they had arrested 102 soldiers and pro-regime fighters since the beginning of the fighting.

The deal reached on Sunday, according to the Kurdish source, would also see the regime free Kurds held in government prisons since before 2011.

Kurds will keep the positions they seized during the clashes, including a prison, the source said.

The sources could not say how many prisoners would be involved in the swap.

Both sides said they would keep channels of communication open to come to an agreement on additional points, including a potential reduced presence for pro-regime militias in Qamishli.

The army and its militia ally, the National Defence Forces, control Qamishli airport and parts of the city, as well as parts of the provincial capital Hasakeh to the south.
Differences persist as Yemen peace talks enter 4th day

UN-brokered Yemeni peace talks in Kuwait entered a fourth day Sunday with government and Shiite Huthi rebel delegations still far from reaching an agreement to end 13 months of war.

The delegations resumed "talks and started the plenary session," Charbel Raji, spokesman for the UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, told AFP without providing further details.

Sources close to the talks said on Saturday that the two sides had failed to reach an understanding on the need to firm up a fragile ceasefire in place since April 11.

Forces loyal to the Saudi-backed Yemeni president stand on the back of an armed vehicle on a road leading to the entrance of Abyan province, on April 23, 2016 Saleh al-Obeidi (AFP)

Ould Cheikh Ahmed acknowledged the negotiations were difficult but expressed hopes for progress.

"The atmosphere of the talks is promising and there is common ground to build on in order to reconcile differences," the UN envoy said in a statement issued late Saturday.

The delegates had agreed to appoint two officials, one from each side, to make recommendations on how to sustain the ceasefire, he added.

But the two sides differ on priorities for the ceasefire.

The government delegation said overnight that the ceasefire should include opening safe passages to all besieged areas and releasing political prisoners as well as those abducted as part of confidence-building measures.

The Iran-backed Huthis are demanding an immediate halt to air strikes that a Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out since March 2015 in support of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

"The continuity of air strikes by targeting roads, bridges and homes like what happened yesterday... affirms that the announcement of cessation of military actions is baseless," said Mohamed Abdulsalam, the Huthi spokesman and head of delegation.

This meant that "the path of negotiations under aggression will not be different from previous rounds," Abdulsalam wrote on Facebook, in reference to the two failed rounds held in Switzerland late last year.

The two sides also differ on the way to tackle other central issues.

The government wants the discussions to start with the issue of a Huthi pullout from areas including the capital Sanaa and relinquishing heavy arms and missiles.

The Huthis want the political process and the establishment of a national unity government to be first, sources close to the talks told AFP.
Clashes between Iraqi Kurds, Turkmen kill nine

Clashes between Kurdish peshmerga forces and Turkmen Shiite paramilitaries killed nine people in a flashpoint northern town and closed the road to Baghdad before a ceasefire was announced on Sunday.

Tuz Khurmatu, part of a swathe of territory claimed by both Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region and Baghdad, has been divided between Turkmen and Kurds since fighting erupted between the two sides last year.

A peshmerga brigadier general and another fighter and two members of Turkmen forces were among the nine people killed, said Shallal Abdul Baban, the Kurdish official responsible for the area.

Iraqi soldiers and Peshmerga forces pictured north of Baghdad on March 26, 2016 Safin Hamed (AFP/File)

A colonel in the Tuz Khurmatu police gave the same toll, and said that the highway to Baghdad was closed by forces involved in the fighting.

The clashes between the peshmerga and the Turkmen, who belong to a militia umbrella organisation known as the Hashed al-Shaabi, began at around midnight and continued into Sunday, officials said.

Hadi al-Ameri, the commander of the Badr militia, announced at a press conference on Sunday afternoon that a ceasefire deal had been reached.

"We agreed on an immediate cessation of clashes and fighting in Tuz," Ameri said.

But a witness in the town said gunfire and periodic explosions could still be heard.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered the Joint Operations Command to take "all necessary measures" to end the clashes, a statement from his office said.

And he urged the leaders of the forces involved to "focus efforts against the common terrorist enemy represented by the Daesh gangs," the statement said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State jihadist group.

Both the peshmerga and the Turkmen fighters are battling IS, which overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014.

But Kurdish forces and the Hashed al-Shaabi are vying for influence in some areas, a contest that has led to violence in Tuz Khurmatu.

The two sides traded blame for the start of the clashes.

Karim Shukur, an official from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, said the trouble began when a member of the Hashed al-Shaabi threw a grenade at one of its headquarters in Tuz Khurmatu, wounding peshmerga fighters.

The Hashed al-Shaabi meanwhile blamed the Kurds for the unrest, saying in a statement that the clashes started after Kurdish forces targeted one of their headquarters in the town.

The latest fighting came after unrest in Tuz Khurmatu last November that began as a dispute at a checkpoint that escalated into clashes inside the town.

Dozens of homes were burned, and the town has been split between Kurdish and Turkmen areas, with neighbourhood minority residents moving back across the ethnic divide.

Baghdad turned to the Hashed al-Shaabi, which is dominated by Iran-backed Shiite militias, to help stem the jihadists' 2014 advance and later push them back.
George Clooney in Yerevan for Armenian genocide commemorations

Hollywood star and rights advocate George Clooney on Sunday joined emotional ceremonies in Yerevan marking the 101st anniversary of the World War I-era Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire.

A staunch advocate of the massacre's recognition as genocide, Clooney co-chairs the selection committee of the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity which was established on behalf of the survivors.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million people were killed during World War I as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart, a claim supported by many other countries.

US actor George Clooney, with the Ararat mountain in background, co-chairs the selection committee of the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity which was established on behalf of the survivors of the Armenian genocide Karen Minasyan (AFP)

Turkey fiercely rejects the genocide label, arguing that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians rose up against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.

During an award ceremony in Yerevan on Sunday evening, the Hollywood heavyweight named Marguerite Barankitse from Maison Shalom and REMA Hospital in Burundi as an inaugural recipient of the Aurora Prize.

Barankitse, a Tutsi who saved thousands of lives - including 30,000 children -- and cared for orphans and refugees during the Burundi civil war, was given a $100,000 grant and will nominate organisations to receive a $1 million award.

"Marguerite Barankitse serves as a reminder of the impact that one person can have even when encountering seemingly insurmountable persecution and injustice," Clooney said during the award ceremony.

"We honour the million and a half lives that were lost 101 years ago. And we honour those lives by calling their tragedy by its true name. Genocide. The Armenian Genocide."

Accepting the award, Barankitse said: "When you have compassion, dignity and love, then nothing can scare you, nothing can stop you -- no one can stop love. Not armies, not hate, not persecution, not famine, nothing."

On Sunday morning, Clooney and the French singer of Armenian origin Charles Aznavour joined President Serzh Sarkisian and thousands of Armenians to lay flowers at the eternal flame at the imposing memorial in Yerevan as requiem services for the victims were held in churches across the country.

The genocide "is a part of Armenia's history, it's also a part of the world's history, it's not the pain of one nation only," the US actor and director said upon his arrival in the ex-Soviet nation's capital.

"Today, we commemorate the sacred memory of the victims of the Armenian genocide," Sarkisian said in a statement.

Turkey's "policy of denial... has not changed, as has not changed its hostile stance toward everything that is Armenian."

- Tensions with Ankara -

Over a century after the mass killings, tensions still run high between Yerevan and Ankara which supports Armenia's foe Azerbaijan in the Caucasus neighbours' conflict over the control of the disputed Nagorny Karabakh region.

Earlier this month, fierce clashes between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces in Karabakh claimed the lives of more than 100 people from all sides.

The worst clashes in decades in the separatist region erupted on April 2 and ended days later with a Russian-mediated ceasefire.

The outbreak of violence sparked fears of a wider conflict that could drag in regional powers Russia and Turkey.

Ankara openly supported its traditional ally Baku.

Moscow and Ankara have been at loggerheads since Turkey shot down a Russian warplane in Syria in November.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that "Karabakh will one day return to its original owner," while his prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, vowed to stand by Baku "until the apocalypse."

Moscow -- which has sold arms to both Armenia and Azerbaijan but has much closer ties to Yerevan where it has a military base -- has denounced the comments as "unacceptable."

In a war in the 1990s that claimed some 30,000 lives, separatists backed by Yerevan seized control of the mountainous region inside Azerbaijan that is home to the ethnic Armenian majority.

Azerbaijan and Armenia have not signed a peace deal despite a 1994 ceasefire and sporadic violence on the line of contact regularly claims the lives of soldiers on both sides.

The fragile ceasefire is largely observed but on Sunday Azerbaijan claimed it had destroyed an Armenian tank and its crew and accused Yerevan of shelling Azerbaijani villages using heavy artillery.

Mass killings of Armenians, 1915-17 P. Dere / D. Mayer, dmk/gil/jfs (AFP)

US actor George Clooney (R) and Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian lay flovers at the Genocide Memorial in Yerevan on April 24, 2016 Karen Minasyan (AFP)

The Armenian Genocide Memorial is pictured during a ceremony to commemorate the 101st anniversary of the World War I-era Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire, in Yerevan on April 24, 2016 Karen Minasyan (AFP)
Peace prayers as South Sudan awaits rebel chief's return

Heads bowed, hundreds of South Sudanese prayed for peace Sunday ahead of the expected arrival in the capital of rebel chief Riek Machar, a move hoped to help end over two years of war.

After a week of delays caused in part by disagreements over the number of troops and weapons he can bring with him, the government on Saturday issued clearance for the man due to become South Sudan's first vice president to fly to Juba on Monday.

Machar, who will arrive from neighbouring Ethiopia, can bring with him 195 men carrying AK-47 assault rifles, as well as 20 machine guns and 20 rocket-propelled grenades.

South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar Ashraf Shazly (AFP/File)

But worshippers at Emmanuel Parish, a Protestant church for Juba's Dinka community, said they hoped his arrival would herald an end to the fighting.

"We hope God will bring peace," said Joseph Deng, a 34-year old civil servant said after Sunday's service.

War was "not what people thought we would have to face when we won our independence," Deng said, as the packed congregation sang hymns, with thumping pop music pouring from giant speakers.

South Sudan's civil war began in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Machar of plotting a coup.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than two million been driven from their homes in the conflict, which has reignited ethnic divisions and been characterised by gross human rights violations.

Machar, who fled Juba when the war broke out, is due to forge a transitional unity government with arch-rival, Kiir, returning to the post of vice-president he was sacked from months before the violence began.

- 'We are all South Sudanese' -

The two leaders come from the South's two main ethnic groups -- Kiir from the Dinka people and Machar from the Nuer -- tribes that are themselves split into multiple and sometimes rival clans.

"We are all South Sudanese," said Mary Padar, after prayers in the church, a British colonial-era cinema reduced to ruins during the two-decade long war that paved the way for South Sudan's independence from Sudan in 2011, and since converted into a church.

"We have to live together because this is the only country we have," she added.

Machar was expected to return on April 18, a date already months behind the schedule agreed under an August 2015 peace deal. UN chief Ban Ki-moon has urged Machar to return to Juba "without delay".

But his wrangling with Juba over weapons saw him miss a Saturday deadline to return, issued by the United States, Britain and Norway, key international backers of peace efforts. The trio warned of the risk of "further conflict and suffering" if he did not come back to be sworn in as vice president.

On paper at least, there is now nothing blocking his return on Monday.

South Sudan's National Security issued a letter granting him flight clearance on Saturday - saying planes could not land over the weekend "due to maintenance" at the airport.

Rebel spokesman Mabior Garang, who is in Juba already, said Machar's return was an "inevitability" and that he would land on Monday as planned, "barring any additional unforeseen hurdles... by the antagonists of peace."

A 1,370-strong armed rebel force has already arrived in Juba as part of the peace deal, and government forces say they have implemented their promise to pull all but 3,420 of their troops from the city.

All other soldiers have to remain at least 25 kilometres (15 miles) outside the capital.

South Sudan's civil war began in December 2013 when Kiir accused Machar of plotting a coup AFP (AFP/File)

The civil war in South Sudan has torn open ethnic divisions and been characterised by human rights violations Samir Bol (cds/AFP/File)
More deaths in Aleppo as Obama calls for 'reinstated' Syria truce

Regime and rebel bombardment killed 26 civilians on Sunday in Syria's second city Aleppo as US President Barack Obama urged the conflict's warring parties to "reinstate" a troubled ceasefire.

Eight weeks into the declared truce between President Bashar al-Assad's regime and non-jihadist rebels, violence has escalated around Aleppo, with dozens killed by government air strikes and rebel rockets.

The surge in fighting and stalled peace talks in Geneva have dimmed hopes that the ceasefire would lay the groundwork for finally resolving Syria's devastating five-year conflict.

A reported air strike by governement forces hit the rebel-held neighbourhood of Sakhur in Aleppo on April 24, 2016 on a third day of renewed deadly violence in the battered city Ameer Alhalbi (AFP)

On Sunday, Obama said he had spoken to his Russian counterpart -- a key Assad ally -- to try to shore up the truce.

"I spoke to President Vladimir Putin early last week to try to make sure that we could reinstate the cessation of hostilities," he told reporters in Germany.

An EU spokesperson, in a statement, also urged the US and Russia as brokers of the ceasefire "to bring the maximum influence to bear in order to end these breaches of the agreement".

After at least 27 reported civilian deaths in regime bombardment across Syria on Saturday, a fresh barrage of air strikes hit Aleppo around midday Sunday.

Twelve civilians died after a strike hit an open-air fruit and vegetable market, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

An AFP photographer saw a man in a bright-blue cap carrying a shell-shocked, bleeding and barefoot young boy.

- 'Attack on Geneva process' -

Emergency responders, known as White Helmets, told AFP they were "exhausted" by the past three days of bombing in Aleppo city.

"We're back to working 24-hour shifts after we started working shorter hours because of the truce," one volunteer said.

According to the Observatory, four more civilians died Sunday in strikes on other opposition neighbourhoods.

In Aleppo's western government-held parts, 10 civilians including a woman and two children were killed early Sunday by rebel rocket fire, the Observatory said.

A regime air strike on the Salhin district also damaged the main water main, cutting off the city's supplies, local authorities said.

While officials have yet to declare the ceasefire dead, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said the escalating violence in Aleppo and elsewhere meant it had effectively collapsed.

Peace negotiations due to run in Geneva until Wednesday have faltered after Syria's main opposition group last week suspended its official participation in the talks.

The High Negotiations Committee walked away in frustration at the devastating humanitarian situation on the ground.

"The Assad regime's bombing offensive is not only a brutal attack on Syrians, but an attack on the Geneva process that is the only possible pathway to peace," HNC spokesman Salem al-Meslet said on Sunday in an emailed statement.

The truce was part of the biggest diplomatic push yet to resolve Syria's conflict, which began in March 2011 with widespread anti-Assad protests.

It has since spiralled into a multi-front war that has killed 270,000 people and drawn in regional and world powers.

- Ground troops 'a mistake' -

In an interview with the BBC aired Sunday, Obama warned Western governments should not send troops to topple Assad's regime.

"Syria has been a heartbreaking situation of enormous complexity, and I don't think there are any simple solutions," he said in London.

"It would be a mistake for the United States, or Great Britain, or a combination of Western states to send in ground troops and overthrow the Assad regime."

He urged all parties "to sit down at the table and try to broker a transition".

Obama first urged Assad to step down in August 2011 but has resisted calls by critics to use American military force to end the Syrian regime's rule.

Washington did, however, launch air strikes in mid-2014 against the Islamic State group after it seized large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

IS has suffered several major defeats in Syria's north at the hands of the Kurdish People's Protection Forces (YPG) and allied groups.

But in the northeastern city of Qamishli this week, Kurdish militia turned their weapons on Syrian government forces in rare fighting between the two sides.

The clashes began Wednesday with a scuffle at a checkpoint and, according to Kurdish security forces, have killed 17 civilians, 10 Kurdish fighters and 31 regime troops and allied militiamen.

Kurdish security forces said they had also arrested 102 members of pro-regime forces.

After several days of mediation, regime officials and Kurdish representatives agreed Sunday to swap an unspecified number of prisoners and maintain a local truce.

Kurds will keep the positions they seized during the clashes, including a prison, the source said.

Smoke rises on a main road in the Salaheddin neighbourhood of Aleppo following a reported air strike on April 24, 2016 Karam Al-Masri (AFP)

Volunteers evacuate people from a damaged building after a reported airstrike on April 23, 2016 in the rebel-held neighbourhood of Tareeq al-Bab in Aleppo Ameer Alhalbi (AFP)

US President Barack Obama speaks during the official opening ceremony of the Hanover industry Fair at the Hannover Congress Center HCC in Hanover, on April 24, 2016 Ronny Hartmann (AFP)

Aleppo city, under deadly bombardment on April 24, 2016 for a third day in succession, was once Syria's commercial hub but in 2012 it split into rebel- and regime-controlled halves Ahmed Deeb (AFP/File)
Women's blessing at Jerusalem's Western Wall curtailed

A bid by a Jewish women's group to challenge tradition at Jerusalem's Western Wall with a blessing usually conducted by men was curtailed Sunday after a decision by Israel's attorney general.

The plan was the latest by the Women of the Wall group to push for equal prayer rights at the site, the holiest location where Jews are currently allowed to pray.

Around 50 women gathered on the plaza leading to the wall amid Passover celebrations to pray, though without carrying out the full blessing.

An Israeli member of the liberal Jewish religious group Women of the Wall wears a "Tallit", a traditional prayer shawls for men, on April 24, 2016 Gali Tibbon (AFP)

They prayed under heavy police guard as ultra-Orthodox Jewish men and boys in dark suits looked on and harangued them.

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit's decision on Thursday prohibited the first-ever "women's priestly blessing" at the wall because it did not conform to local custom.

The ultra-Orthodox establishment that oversees the Western Wall strongly opposed the bid, viewing it as a desecration under their strict interpretation of Jewish law.

It had been unclear whether the women would defy the attorney general's ruling, but on Sunday they said police asked them to sign a document committing to not conduct the blessing, which they did.

They were also kept in a cordoned-off area around 50 metres (yards) from the wall itself.

Previous prayers by Women of the Wall have led to harassment and abuse by ultra-Orthodox worshippers.

- 'Absurd system' -

"In order to get our buses in, we signed that we will not raise our hands in the air, we will not bless the people of Israel and we will not put our (prayer shawls) over our heads," Anat Hoffman of Women of the Wall told AFP.

"It's pretty demeaning, and it shows I think how grotesque and absurd the system is."

Police did not respond to a request for comment.

The traditional benediction sees male descendants of the Cohanim priestly caste bless congregations during daily morning prayers. A mass blessing will be held on Monday at the Western Wall to mark Passover.

It involves the raising of hands in a form similar to the "Vulcan salute" Leonard Nimoy borrowed from Judaism for his "Star Trek" role as Mr Spock.

A grant from Nimoy's estate financed bus transportation for Sunday's event, Women of the Wall said.

Those conducting the blessing also cover their heads with prayer shawls.

Women on Sunday wore pins in the shape of the hand gesture, and at least one made the sign discreetly during prayers.

The rabbi who oversees the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinovitz, called the gathering a "provocation" and argued that the blessing they wanted to carry out had never been done "by any (Jewish) community in the world".

He also said their actions "desecrate the sanctity" of the site.

- 'Very dangerous' -

One 40-year-old ultra-Orthodox woman at the plaza called what the group was doing "very, very dangerous".

"Because we have one God, and he says what to do," the mother of 11 said.

Shaina Lidd, a 21-year-old American teaching English in Israel, took part and said she hoped a full women's priestly blessing could happen soon.

"In the future, I hope to see that happen one day, hopefully next year," she said. "But I'm still happy that we got to be together and pray."

Women of the Wall has also been pushing for an egalitarian prayer space at the wall, where men and women currently pray in separate areas.

The government in January approved an agreement to create such a space, but ultra-Orthodox parties have come out strongly against it and more discussions are being held.

The Western Wall, in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, is believed to be among the last remnants of the second Jewish Temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.

The hill above the wall is revered as the site of the temple itself. It is known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary.

It is now the location of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound and the Dome of the Rock.

Jews are allowed to visit but not pray there to avoid provoking tensions, with Israel having occupied east Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognised internationally.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews oppose visits to the site, saying that under current conditions Jews cannot sufficiently "purify" themselves to be there.

Jersualem Old City AFP (AFP)

Women of the Wall are a group pushing for equal prayer rights at Jerusalem's Western Wall, the holiest location where Jews are currently allowed to pray Gali Tibbon (AFP)
Equatorial Guinea president eyes re-election

Africa's longest-serving leader, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, was set to extend his 36-year-hold on power Sunday as the tiny oil-rich nation of Equatorial Guinea went to the polls.

Initially scheduled to be held in November, the vote was brought forward to April 24 following a presidential decree, with no reason offered for the change.

Voters lined up outside polling stations in the capital Malabo before they opened at 8:00 am (07H00 GMT). Polls are scheduled to close at 6:00 pm, with results not expected until Thursday.

Equatorial Guinea incumbent president and candidate Teodoro Obiang Nguema (centre) speaks to the media at a polling station in Malabo on April 24, 2016 STR (AFP)

Obiang, now 73, has ruled the west African country with an iron fist since 1979 when he ousted his uncle Francisco Macias Nguema, who had ruled the country since independence from Spain in 1968, in a coup and had him shot by firing squad.

The president voted late morning in the race which pits him against six other candidates.

The main opposition parties have however boycotted a vote that Obiang looks certain to win.

In the last election in 2009, he was returned to office with a sweeping 95.37 percent of votes.

Obiang's regime has frequently come under fire from human rights groups for suppressing dissident voices and the media, as well as for widespread corruption.

Equatorial Guinea has become sub-Saharan Africa's third biggest oil producer in recent years, with oil revenues accounting for more than 70 percent of national income.

But the wealth has not trickled down -- while per capita national income stands at over $10,000, more than half the population lives on less than two dollars a day.

The incumbent is running as head of a coalition of 10 parties that includes the ruling Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea.

His adversaries in Sunday's vote are mainly newcomers and figures with very little political weight.

- 'Fraud' -

The Democratic Opposition Front (FOD) coalition of dissident groups called on March 23 for a boycott of the vote, saying it would be rigged.

Andres Essono Ondo, whose Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS) group is part of the FOD, said numerous "irregularities" surrounded the poll, which he said would ensure that "President Obiang wins with a big score as a result of fraud".

The CPDS, the only opposition party represented in parliament, said it "will not recognise the president elected in the poll".

The opposition condemned the lack of an independent electoral commission as well as the regime's grip on the media.

Another FOD member, Guillermo Nguema Ela, branded the election "anti-constitutional".

Obiang and his government "do not respect either the constitution or the law", Ela said in March.

Obiang has called himself "the candidate of the people."

"Whoever does not vote for me is rejecting peace and opting for disorder," he said at a rally in the capital Malabo when he launched his campaign.
Algeria's Bouteflika in Geneva for 'routine medical check'

Algeria's ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika travelled to Geneva on Sunday for a "routine medical check", his office announced.

Bouteflika, 79, suffered a stroke in 2013 that has impeded his mobility and speech. In December, he underwent two days of medical tests at a cardiology unit in France.

His office, in a statement, said Bouteflika travelled to Geneva "for a private visit during which he will undergo a routine medical check".

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, 79, suffered a stroke in 2013 that has impeded his mobility and speech. In December, he underwent two days of medical tests at a cardiology unit in France Eric Feferberg (AFP/File)

The health of the president, who was re-elected in April 2014 to serve a fourth five-year term, has been a hot topic of conversation in Algeria over the past two weeks.
Israel frees 'youngest Palestinian' girl prisoner at 12

Israel freed 12-year-old Palestinian Dima al-Wawi from prison Sunday, more than two months after jailing her for an attempted stabbing attack, and she was warmly welcomed back in her West Bank town.

Wawi was handed over to Palestinian authorities at Tulkarem crossing point into the northern West Bank, an AFP photographer said.

She then travelled to her family home near Hebron in the south of the territory, where she was greeted by the city's governor and dozens of well-wishers with hugs, tears, songs, flags and speeches.

The mother (L) and brother of Palestinian Dima al-Wawi, 12, who is believed to be the youngest female detained by Israel, greet her in the West Bank city of Tulkarem, upon her release from Israeli prison on April 24, 2016 Jaafar Ashtiyeh (AFP)

She was arrested, wearing her school uniform, on February 9 at the entrance to a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank and found to be carrying a knife.

A wave of Palestinian knife, gun or car-ramming attacks has left 28 Israelis dead since last October, with 201 Palestinians killed over the same period, most of them while carrying out attacks.

Under a plea bargain with Israeli military prosecutors, Wawi pleaded guilty to attempted murder and possession of a knife and was sentenced to four months in an Israeli prison and a further six-week suspended sentence.

"She is the youngest Palestinian girl ever imprisoned," her lawyer Tariq Barghouth posted on Facebook.

Barghouth said Wawi's defence team had asked the military court for her early release and it agreed.

According to Israeli military law, minors from age 12 can be charged, uniquely in the world according to United Nations children's agency UNICEF.
Dutch journalist arrested in Turkey after anti-Erdogan tweets

A Dutch journalist said Sunday she was detained for several hours overnight by Turkish police after for sending tweets deemed critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Ebru Umar, a well-known atheist and feminist journalist of Turkish origin, said she was hauled out of her bed late Saturday at her home in Kusadasi, a resort town in western Turkey.

"Two men were banging on the door, and said I had to go with them because of two Tweets," she told Dutch broadcaster NOS.

Dutch journalist Ebru Umar leaves the police station in the western Turkish resort town of Kusadasi on April 24, 2016 after she was briefly detained for sending tweets deemed critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan IHLAS NEWS AGENCY (IHLAS NEWS AGENCY/AFP)

She said they spent the night at the police station "talking about politics and the situation in Turkey" before she was brought before a judge on Sunday.

Umar, 45, was later released, but said she is not allowed to leave the country and must report to police in a few days.

The columnist had recently written a piece critical of Erdogan for the Dutch daily Metro, extracts of which she then tweeted.

She had been due to fly back to the Netherlands on Sunday, and says she wants to return but is forbidden for the time being.

The hashtag #freeebru was trending in the Netherlands Sunday, with Dutch politicians and commentators calling for her release.

Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said in a statement later Sunday he was "relieved" Umar had been released.

But he slammed her arrest, saying he had contacted his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu to voice his "regret" and concerns about the case.

"I made it clear that press freedom and freedom of expression is a good thing," Koenders said in a statement.

"A country that is a candidate to join the EU should continue to push for press freedom and freedom of expression," he stressed.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte also telephoned his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu to voice his concerns.

Umar, who reportedly became a journalist under the influence of Theo van Gogh -- a Dutch filmmaker later murdered for making a controversial film about Islamic culture -- had written about a diplomatic spat between Turkey and the Netherlands.

- Email row -

A political storm erupted this week over reports an email sent by the Turkish consulate to Turkish organisations in the Netherlands had asked people to forward any emails and social media posts which insulted Erdogan or Turkey.

Rutte said he would ask Ankara to clarify the call. The Turkish consulate said the note was sent by a consular official who used an "unfortunate choice of words" that was misinterpreted.

The case followed outrage in Germany after the government there gave a green light for authorities to begin criminal proceedings against popular comic Jan Boehmermann for performing a satirical poem about Erdogan.

Trials in Turkey for insulting Erdogan have multiplied since his election to the presidency in August 2014, with nearly 2,000 such cases currently open.

In September 2015 freelance Dutch journalist Frederike Geerdink was deported from Turkey after being detained during clashes between Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels and Turkish security forces.
Obama calls on China to increase pressure on N.Korea

US President Barack Obama on Sunday urged China to increase pressure on North Korea after another "provocative" weapons test.

Speaking after a North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un hailed a submarine-launched ballistic missile test as an "eye-opening success," Obama said: "North Korea continues to engage in continuous provocative behaviour."

He added: "We have cultivated cooperation with the Chinese to put pressure on North Korea. Although it is not where we would completely like it to be."

US President Barack Obama addresses a press conference at the Herrenhausen Palace in Hanover, Germany on April 24, 2016 John MacDougall (AFP)

The test is the latest in a series of nuclear and missile tests by the isolated country.

It was followed just hours later by a North Korean offer to impose a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing if the United States suspends annual military drills with South Korea.

But Obama said: "We don't take seriously a promise to simply halt until the next time they decide to do a test."

He said progress was only possible if North Korea showed a willingness to mothball its nuclear weapons programme.

The escalating tensions come as North gears up for a rare and much-hyped ruling party congress early next month -- the first in 36 years -- at which Kim is expected to take credit for pushing the country's nuclear and missile weapons programme to new heights.
Obama urges reinstatement of Syria ceasefire

US President Barack Obama made a plea on Sunday for warring parties in Syria to return to peace talks and "reinstate" a ceasefire, as he defended a refusal to establish a safe zone in the country.

"I spoke to (Russian) President Vladimir Putin early last week to try to make sure that we could reinstate the cessation of hostilities," he told a news conference in Germany, as an increasingly troubled ceasefire was threatened by regime and rebel bombardments that claimed 26 lives Sunday.

Obama also argued that establishing a safe zone "is not a matter of an ideological objection on my part" but that "as a practical matter, sadly, it is very difficult to see how it would operate short of us essentially being willing to militarily take over a big chunk of that country."
One killed, 26 wounded as Syria rockets hit Turkish town

Five rockets fired into Turkey from an area of Syria controlled by the Islamic State group hit the border town of Kilis on Sunday, killing one person and wounding 26, the deputy prime minister said.

A first salvo hit the roof of a house in the Okcular neighbourhood while a second landed close to a mosque, Yalcin Akdogan said in Kilis, in comments reported by the Dogan news agency.

The wounded included six Syrians.

Residents look at the damage after a rocket hit a house in Kilis on April 19, 2016

Residents marched on the governor's office in Kilis in protest, only to be dispersed by police, the Hurriyet Daily said, adding that marches and protests had been banned for a month by city officials.

In the last few weeks, IS jihadists have repeatedly fired rockets at the southeastern town of Kilis -- the only place in Turkey where refugees from Syria's five-year conflict now outnumber local Turks.

Akdogan said that since the middle of January, 45 rockets have hit Kilis, killing at least 16 people. On Monday, a rocket attack left five Syrians dead, including four children.

Turkey has responded to each of the strikes on Kilis by destroying the launching positions of the jihadists with howitzer fire.

Turkish officials have repeatedly lauded the hospitality of people in Kilis towards Syrians as an example of how Turks are hosting the 2.7 million Syrians who have fled their country's civil war.

On Saturday, after a visit to the region with top EU officials, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu insisted once again that "Turkey will respond with force" to attacks on its territory.

Neither IS nor the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front are included in a Syrian truce brokered by the United States and Russia that came into force in February.
Philippine presidential favourite talks tough in final debate

A tough-talking Philippine presidential candidate vowed to kill his children if they ever took drugs during a televised debate Sunday, as analysts warned his scandalous remarks about raping a missionary could hurt his chances.

Rodrigo Duterte has become the surprise favourite to succeed President Benigno Aquino after making a name for himself in a southern Philippine city infamous for vigilante death squads.

The 71-year-old mayor of Davao has promised to crack down hard on the Philippines' criminals, and on Sunday he vowed to be a harsh president if elected next month.

Philippine presidential front-runner candidate Rodrigo Duterte gestures during a campaign in Manila on April 23, 2016 Noel Celis (AFP/File)

"I am really angry," he said in the final debate before the May 9 polls. "They say I am a killer. Maybe I am."

Asked what he would do if he learned one of his children was involved in drugs, Duterte replied: "I will kill him."

Analysts say his profanity-laced campaign has resonated in a chaotic, high-crime society with limited opportunities for a vast underclass working for a tiny elite.

A poll by Pulse Asia, released Sunday, showed Duterte pulling ahead of his rivals.

But he caused outrage with a recent joke about the jailhouse rape of an Australian lay Christian missionary who was killed in a 1989 prison riot in Duterte's own city.

He then threatened to sever ties with allies the United States and Australia after their ambassadors criticised his remarks.

Ramon Casiple, executive director of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reform, said Duterte's joke could cost him the elections.

"The rape issue is personal. It touches on family values," Casiple told AFP.

"I talked to some of his hardcore followers, some of them have already turned away from him."
US demands South Sudan allow rebel chief's return

The United States blamed South Sudan's government on Sunday for the latest hold-up in efforts to end its civil war, but warned both sides the world will not tolerate backsliding.

Rebel leader Riek Machar had been due to fly to Juba from Ethiopia on Saturday to join a transitional government, but President Salva Kiir's government blocked his flight.

He is now due to return on Monday, but US special envoy to South Sudan Donald Booth said repeated delays had called into question both parties' commitment to the agreement.

Pedestrians and traffic move past a billboard featuring portraits of the South Sudan's President Salva Kiir (R) and the opposition leader Riek Machar (C) in Juba, South Sudan, on April 14, 2016 Albert Gonzalez Farran (CDS/AFP/File)

"This marks the third time this week that plans for Machar to return ... have been frustrated by one side or the other," the senior diplomat told AFP in Washington.

"Machar frustrated the first two attempts by a last minute insistence on bringing additional security forces and additional heavy weapons -- RPGs -- with him," he said.

"Then yesterday it was the government that closed the airport," he added.

"The implementation of the peace agreement requires the formation of the transitional government -- and that requires the return of Riek Machar to Juba."

Booth warned that the United Nations Security Council is due to meet on Tuesday to discuss the crisis and that both sides could face additional international sanctions.

"They are definitely on notice," he said. "The entire world is expecting them to live up to their word and to implement the agreement that they signed last August."

- Humanitarian crisis -

Civil war erupted in South Sudan, Africa's youngest nation, in December 2013 when Kiir accused his former deputy Machar of plotting a coup.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than two million been driven from their homes in a conflict that has reignited ethnic divisions.

Machar fled Juba when war broke out but has since agreed to forge a transitional unity government with arch-rival Kiir, returning to his former post of vice-president.

Booth said Kiir's government had at the last moment raised questions about screening for the weapons that Machar's 195 men would be allowed to bring with them.

But he said two former Ethiopian officers had been mandated by ceasefire monitors to check the group's AK-47 assault rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

"There really was no excuse for this," he told AFP.

"So it really does call into question the activity over the past week and the real willingness of both parties to proceed with this."

Asked whether Washington now believes Juba's assurances that the flight can go ahead next week, Booth was cautious.

"Well, they've come up with reasons one side or the other for this not to happen," he said. "They are going to have to work this out between the two of them."

- Descent into chaos -

South Sudan became independent from Sudan in 2011 after many years of fighting with northern loyalist forces, and the United States has long been a key supporter.

But the young country's rapid descent into in-fighting has frustrated its international backers and caused a terrible humanitarian disaster and refugee crisis.

A 1,370-strong armed rebel force has arrived in Juba as part of the peace deal and government forces say they have pulled all but 3,420 of their troops from the city.

All other combattants will have to remain at least 25 kilometers (15 miles) outside the capital.

South Sudan's former Vice President and South Sudanese rebel leader Riek Machar talks during a press conference in Khartoum, Sudan on September 18, 2015 Ashraf Shazly (AFP/File)

US special envoy to South Sudan Donald Booth speak to the press, on March 25, 2015 in Juba Samir Bol (AFP/File)
UN slams North Korea missile launch, Obama rejects test offer

The UN Security Council echoed international condemnation Sunday of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test by North Korea, while US President Barack Obama dismissed Pyongyang's offer of a nuclear moratorium.

Saturday's test, personally monitored by supreme leader Kim Jong-Un, was the latest in a series of provocative moves by Pyongyang that have further fuelled tensions on the divided Korean peninsula following the North's fourth nuclear test back in January.

There are growing concerns that Pyongyang is building up to a fifth nuclear test ahead of a key political gathering early next month.

Underwater test-fire of a strategic submarine ballistic missile at an undisclosed location in North Korea, on April 23, 2016 KCNA via KNS (KCNA via KNS/AFP/File)

The Security Council said the SLBM launch marked a "serious" violation of UN resolutions aimed at curbing the North's nuclear drive, and urged Pyongyang to refrain from any further provocations.

A proven SLBM capability would take North Korea's nuclear strike threat to a new level, allowing deployment far beyond the Korean peninsula and the potential to retaliate in the event of a nuclear attack.

Kim Jong-Un hailed the test as an "eye-opening success" that underlined the country's ability to strike South Korean or US targets "anytime".

South Korea's defense ministry said the missile, fired from a submarine in the Sea of Japan (East Sea), flew around 19 miles (30 kilometers) and demonstrated clear technological progress from previous tests.

- Quick deployment -

Deployment could begin in three to four years if Pyongyang dedicates enough resources to the project, ministry spokesman Moon Sang-Gyun told reporters.

Hours after the launch, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su-Yong, speaking in New York, said Pyongyang would be willing to halt further nuclear tests if Washington announced an end to its joint military exercises with Seoul.

The annual drills always raise tensions on the Korean peninsula, with the North condemning them as provocative rehearsals for invasion

The United States had flatly rejected the same moratorium offer made by the North in January last year, and Obama, currently on a visit to Germany, was equally dismissive this time around.

"We don't take seriously a promise to simply halt until the next time they decide to do a test," the president said during a joint press briefing with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"They're going to have to do better than that," he added.

South Korea also waved off what it described as a "ridiculous attempt" to link sanctions-violating nuclear tests with regular military exercises.

- Clear and present threat -

At the same time, Obama warned of the very real dangers posed by North Korea's continued weapons testing, including the recent SLBM launch.

"Although, more often than not, they fail in many of these tests, they gain knowledge each time," he said.

"We take it very seriously, so do our allies and so does the entire world," he added.

North Korea's state television showed pictures of the missile, emblazoned with the name "North Star," trailing a large plume of smoke as it soared out of the water.

It also showed what it claimed were underwater images of the missile being ejected from the submarine, using key "cold launch" technology.

Experts have suggested that the North's previous SLBM tests were conducted from a submerged platform.

North Korea is currently gearing up for a rare and much-hyped ruling party congress -- the first in 36 years -- at which Kim is expected to take credit for pushing the country's nuclear and missile weapons program to new heights.

In recent months, the North has claimed a series of significant technical breakthroughs, including success in miniaturising a nuclear warhead to fit on a missile and testing an engine designed for an inter-continental ballistic missile that could reach the US mainland.

Kim Jong-Un's nuclear ambitions John Saeki, Adrian Leung (AFP)

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (R) observes an underwater test-fire of a strategic submarine ballistic missile at an undisclosed location on April 23, 2016 KCNA via KNS (KCNA via KNS/AFP/File)
Obama to send 250 more special forces, troops to Syria

President Barack Obama said Monday the US would send up to 250 more special forces and other military personnel to Syria to help rebels fight the Islamic State group.

Obama was in Germany for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel, and both later met the British, French and Italian leaders to discuss the battle against IS in its self-declared caliphate across northern Syria and Iraq.

In a speech in the German city of Hanover, Obama hailed NATO partners' progress in pushing back IS, which he called "the most urgent threat to our nations".

President Barack Obama says the US will send up to 250 more military trainers to help fight the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria Philipp Guelland (AFP/File)

"A small number of American special operations forces are already on the ground in Syria and their expertise has been critical as local forces have driven ISIL out of key areas," he said, using an alternative acronym for the jihadist group.

"So, given the success, I have approved the deployment of up to 250 additional US personnel in Syria, including special forces, to keep up this momentum."

The US forces will not lead the fight on the ground but provide training and advice to local forces against IS, he said.

"These terrorists will learn the same lessons that others before them have, which is: your hatred is no match for our nations, united in defence of our way of life," said Obama.

Syrian opposition group the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) said boosting the US military presence to about 300 would be "a good step" and help "rid our country of this scourge".

"But Syria will not be free of terrorism until we see the end of the Assad regime's reign of terror," added HNC spokesman Salem Al Meslet.

- Escalating violence -

While most world powers agree that IS -- which has boasted of beheadings and other battlefield atrocities as well as terror attacks in Paris and Brussels -- must be defeated, they have backed different sides in Syria's complex civil war.

Western powers have offered some support to moderate rebels, while Russia has sent troops and fighter jets to back the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Syria's conflict, which began in March 2011 with widespread anti-Assad protests, has since spiralled into a multi-front war that has killed 270,000 people.

A partial ceasefire -- which does not cover IS or Al-Qaeda's Syrian offshoot Al-Nusra Front -- was agreed two months ago in a bid to end the bloodshed.

But the truce has been undermined by escalating violence around the northern city of Aleppo, with dozens killed by government air strikes and rebel rockets.

At least 23 people were killed in regime and rebel shelling in Aleppo on Monday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said, following violence that killed at least 26 civilians there a day earlier.

- Ground troops 'a mistake' -

Obama on Sunday pressed for all parties to return to the negotiating table and "reinstate" the internationally-brokered ceasefire -- the clearest indication yet that the White House believes the truce has all but disintegrated.

A White House statement said after Monday's talks in Hanover that leaders were concerned about "increasing violations" of the ceasefire by the regime and obstruction of aid.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said after the five-way meeting that all the leaders shared the "concern that the ceasefire is fragile and is at times being dramatically violated".

Obama, Britain's David Cameron, Francois Hollande of France and Italy's Matteo Renzi had all agreed that the only solution would come through the ongoing peace talks in Geneva, she said.

A Western diplomat in Geneva told AFP that the truce deal "is in poor shape, the result very largely of Assad regime attacks on Syria civilians, towns and marketplaces, as well as on the moderate armed opposition".

But the diplomat said all parties which agreed the truce are committed to maintaining it, "and no member believes the cessation (of violence) to be over".

Obama has come under criticism for his handling of Syria's war, with opponents saying he could have done more to stem the bloodshed.

But the president -- who came to power vowing to withdraw US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan -- has stood firm in his opposition to plunging the United States into another ground war in the Islamic world.

In an interview with the BBC, Obama said that "it would be a mistake for the United States, or Great Britain, or a combination of Western states to send in ground troops and overthrow the Assad regime."

US President Barack Obama (L) was in Germany Monday for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European leaders expected to focus on the fight against the Islamic State group Jim Watson (AFP)

A Syrian man carries a child as they evacuate an area following a reported airstrike on April 22, 2016 in Syria's second city Aleppo Ameer Alhalbi (AFP/File)
Ohio family massacre a 'sophisticated operation'

The Ohio massacre of eight family members in execution-style killings was a "sophisticated operation" that will require a lengthy investigation, officials said on Sunday.

The murders this week in the village of Peebles -- a rural community 80 miles (130 kilometers) east of Cincinnati -- were "well-planned out and thought-out," Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine told reporters during a news conference.

"This is not your case where someone got mad at somebody else, they shot them, there's a witness, two witnesses," he said. "It is a very, very, very different type case."

An Ohio massacre of eight family members in execution-style killings was a "sophisticated operation" that will require a lengthy investigation, officials say Scott Olson (Getty/AFP/File)

Police found seven bodies, each with a bullet to the head, in three separate homes on Friday. An eighth body was found later at a separate site. Several victims were apparently asleep in bed when they were killed.

The shooters appeared to have spared a baby just four days old, who was found lying next to her dead mother, the authorities said. Another baby aged six months and a three-year-old child also survived.

"Those who carried it out were trying to do everything that they could do to hinder the investigation and their prosecution," DeWine said.

Investigators are working "around the clock, 24 hours a day," Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader said. "This is going to be a very lengthy process."

No arrests had been made, the officials said, declining to indicate whether they had identified any suspects or to name any possible motives.

However, investigators found marijuana "grow operations" at three of the four locations the victims had been killed, DeWine's office said, declining to indicate whether they were connected to the murders.

Responding to a reporter's question, Reader said the area had a "drug problem," adding of the victims that "I have never been involved with that family criminally and I've been in law enforcement for 20 years."

The authorities gave no further information about the sites.

"The crime scene is still being secured by law enforcement," Ohio Attorney General's Office spokesman Dan Tierney told AFP.

- Family only target -

Investigators had conducted between 50 and 60 interviews and received more than 100 tips, DeWine said, adding that they had also executed five search warrants, declining to say where.

The officials also declined to say whether the investigation extended beyond Ohio or to provide any more details.

Seven autopsies have been carried out and an eighth is set for Monday, DeWine said.

Police named the victims as Hannah Gilley, 20; Christopher Rhoden Sr., 40; Christopher Rhoden Jr., 16; Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden, 20; Dana Rhoden, 37; Gary Rhoden, 38; Hanna Rhoden, 19; and Kenneth Rhoden, 44.

Reader said he had advised surviving family members to protect themselves.

"I cautioned them they are a target and I cautioned them to be armed," he said.

"For the other citizens of this county, I don't believe that there is an issue."

It was not clear exactly when the shootings took place.

The authorities were first alerted by an emergency call shortly before 8:00 am Friday reporting blood in a home with two possibly dead men, Reader said on Saturday.

911 calls released by the authorities appeared to indicate at least some of the victims had been badly beaten.

Cincinnati-area businessman Jeff Ruby has offered $25,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in case.
Q&A: A look at nonverbal autism, facilitated communication

Benjamin Alexander, the first student with nonverbal autism to attend Tulane University in New Orleans, is an English major and a writer who's had essays published locally. He uses a form of facilitated communication, or supported typing, and hopes to educate others about living with autism.

Here are some questions and answers about nonverbal autism and facilitated communication.

WHAT IS NONVERBAL AUTISM?

In this Wednesday, March 2, 2016 photo, Sam Alexander holds his son, Ben, during a class for screenwriting at Tulane University in New Orleans. In his classes, Ben, who has nonverbal autism, sits with his dad at his side, often in a back corner with easy access to an exit. Sometimes, his father places his hand over Bens mouth to quiet him, or nudges him to participate in a discussion. Should he have an occasional outburst or simply get loud enough to be distracting, his dad walks him out of the room for a few minutes to calm down. (AP Photo/Jonathan Bachman)

Researchers have found that as few as 1 in 10 people on the autism spectrum are nonverbal, meaning they have little to no meaningful spoken language. Dr. Paul Lipkin, an autism researcher in Baltimore, says a majority of people who are autistic and nonverbal generally don't speak because of lower intellectual ability. But he and other experts say they have little doubt that some have inner voices and thoughts, some quite profound.

"It will always be one of the rarer conditions within the autism spectrum. But we are more likely to recognize someone's ability than we would have before . and to focus on the abilities," says Lipkin, director of the Interactive Autism Network at the Kennedy Krieger Institute.

CAN PEOPLE WHO ARE NONVERBAL AND AUTISTIC LEARN TO COMMUNICATE?

Yes. There certainly are cases where nonverbal people on the autism spectrum have learned to speak a few words. More often, they learn to write or type. Dr. Paul Wang, vice president of medical research for the organization Autism Speaks, points to Naoki Higashida, a young man in Japan who has written a book about his nonverbal autism, "The Reason I Jump," and Carly Fleischmann, a Canadian woman who is on the autism spectrum and has written a book with her father. In India, Tito Mukhopadhyay communicates with a very few spoken words and in writing and also composes poetry.

Some experts, such as Wang and Lipkin, think these cases are rare. However, others who study augmentative and alternative communication, or AAC, say early intervention increases the chances that nonverbal people develop language or communication of some sort, even if very basic. Some who are nonverbal are able to use software and apps with pictures to help them communicate. Some learn to type using software with predictive text. And some, like Mukhopadhyay, also can write by hand with pen or pencil.

Some teachers and parents also use facilitated communication, or supported typing. However, that method is controversial.

WHAT IS FACILITATED COMMUNICATION?

Facilitated communication, first used with patients with cerebral palsy in Australia in the 1980s, is a method in which the hand, wrist or arm of a nonverbal person is supported by another person so that he or she can type. When using predictive word processing software, typists choose from a list of words after typing a few letters. Ben Alexander uses this type of software both at home and in class. A computer voice can then read his words aloud.

WHY IS FACILITATED COMMUNICATION CONTROVERSIAL?

Studies have found that most people who used facilitated communication received too much help from assistants, raising questions about whose thoughts were really being expressed. In some instances, courts also have thrown out testimony derived from facilitated communication. A compilation of research that found this method unreliable appeared in the academic journal "Research and Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities" in 2014. Several professional organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, have issued statements about the pitfalls of facilitated communication.

"Every time researchers have looked into it rigorously, it doesn't pan out," Wang says.

But some experts say its usefulness cannot be ruled out in all cases. "I don't think it's ever been said it's a definite no. There's always exceptions to everything," says Lipkin, adding that he also wouldn't want to give false hope to families with autistic children who are nonverbal.

Connie Kasari, an autism expert at UCLA, says that if the results are consistent, "they may be real."

"I have been very much surprised by students who are able to participate fully in academics when using AAC" when behavioral testing predicted otherwise, she says. "So you never know."

___
Brisbane, North Queensland set pace in NRL

SYDNEY (AP)  Last year's finalists Brisbane and North Queensland continued to set the pace in Australia's National Rugby League with heavy wins in the weekend's eighth round.

Brisbane beat Souths 30-8 to start the round on Friday but paid a heavy price for the win, losing hooker Andrew McCullough to a serious knee injury and ending with two players  Joe Ofahengaue and Adam Blair  on report.

The win kept Brisbane atop the table with 14 points, two points clear of North Queensland who beat Parramatta 32-16 in a see-sawing game.

Cronulla has the chance to draw level with North Queensland when it plays Penrith on Sunday while Melbourne can also improve to 12 points when it hosts the New Zealand Warriors in one of three games played on Monday's ANZAC Day national holiday.

Both Brisbane and North Queensland needed a late flood of points to overwhelm their eighth-round opponents and their ability to produce those strong finishes emphasized their premiership credentials.

Brisbane led Souths 14-0 at halftime and protected their goalline for 53 minutes as they chased a 97-year-old competition record by holding opponents scoreless for three consecutive games.

But England's Sam Burgess rallied Souths who closed to within six points when captain Greg Inglis scored the first points the Broncos have conceded in 213 minutes. Souths closed within six points before Brisbane surged away with a try to Corey Oates  his seventh of the season.

Souths had been forced to make 63 more tackles than Brisbane in the first half and the effort told late in the second as the Broncos padded their lead with tries to Jordan Kahu and Corey Parker.

North Queensland preserved its unbeaten record at home in 2016 but faced a tougher test from Parramatta than the scoreline indicated.

Parramatta led 16-14 in the 66th minute when five-eighth Corey Norman was sin-binned for obstruction. Johnathan Thurston leveled the score with the resulting penalty and North Queensland exploited its numerical advantage with late tries to Antonio Winterstein and a double to Michael Morgan.

Canterbury held onto fifth place with a 21-20 win over Gold Coast, sealed by a Josh Reynolds field goal in golden point extra time.

Canberra crushed Wests 60-6 to move into sixth place. Wests trailed 12-6 after 17 minutes before conceding 48-straight points for their sixth-straight loss and their heaviest-ever defeat by Canberra.
UN human rights rep can visit North Korea, but at own risk

NEW YORK (AP)  North Korea's foreign minister said international human rights organizations are welcome to inspect conditions in the North  but some might have to travel at their own risk.

"We have our doors open for anybody who is interested to come to the DPRK and see the reality," Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday, using the acronym for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

But Ri said there are risks for those who want to "totally fabricate" the situation in the North. One person that he indicated would definitely not receive a warm welcome is the U.N.'s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea, Marzuki Darusman.

Darusman has been very outspoken about human rights abuses in the North and suggested regime change might be the only solution  a position that has made him persona non grata in Pyongyang.

"He is a person who has committed heinous crimes as we call it against the Korean people," Ri said. "And I can't be sure about his security when he comes into Korea. We never know about the people, just ordinary citizens, (what) they will do against this special rapporteur once he's in Korea."

He said human rights representatives of the European Union, which sponsored the resolution to the Human Rights Council of the U.N. and the high commissioner on human rights, can also "come into Korea at any time they might be interested."
Key developments in North Korean crisis

North Korea says it successfully tested a submarine-launched missile, while its foreign minister tells AP his country is ready to give up further nuclear tests under conditions. A look at key developments Sunday:

MISSILE TEST

Pyongyang said it successfully test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine  a worrying development because mastering the ability to fire missiles from submerged vessels would make it harder for outsiders to detect what North Korea is doing before it launches, giving it the potential to surprise its enemies.

Hours before the announcement, South Korean military officials said the North fired what appeared to be a ballistic missile from a submarine off its eastern coast. The South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the projectile traveled about 30 kilometers (19 miles) Saturday evening. That's a much shorter than the typical distance of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, which can fly at least 300 kilometers (186 miles).

U.S. Strategic Command, headquartered at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, said its "systems detected and tracked what we assess was a North Korean submarine missile launch from the Sea of Japan." It said the missile launch "did not pose a threat to North America."

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NORTH TO STOP NUKE TESTS IF ...

In New York, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong told The Associated Press that his country is ready to halt its nuclear tests if the United States suspends its annual military exercises with South Korea.

He also defended the country's right to maintain a nuclear deterrent and warned that North Korea won't be cowed by international sanctions. And for those waiting for the North's regime to collapse, he had this to say: Don't hold your breath.

Ri held firm to Pyongyang's longstanding position that the U.S. drove his country to develop nuclear weapons as an act of self-defense. At the same time, he suggested that suspending the military exercises with Seoul could open the door to talks and reduced tensions.

"If we continue on this path of confrontation, this will lead to very catastrophic results, not only for the two countries but for the whole entire world as well," he said. "It is really crucial for the United States government to withdraw its hostile policy against the DPRK and as an expression of this stop the military exercises, war exercises, in the Korean Peninsula. Then we will respond likewise." DPRK is an abbreviation for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

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HUMAN RIGHTS REPRESENTATIVES CAN VISIT NORTH, BUT AT OWN RISK

North Korea's foreign minister said international human rights organizations are welcome to inspect conditions in the North  but some might have to travel at their own risk.

"We have our doors open for anybody who is interested to come to the DPRK and see the reality," Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong told The Associated Press in an interview, using the acronym for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

But Ri said there are risks for those who want to "totally fabricate" the situation in the North. One person that he indicated would definitely not receive a warm welcome is the U.N.'s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea, Marzuki Darusman.

Darusman has been very outspoken about human rights abuses in the North and suggested regime change might be the only solution  a position that has made him persona non grata in Pyongyang.

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NORTH DEFENDS JAILING AMERICAN

North Korea's foreign minister defended the jailing of an American university student for alleged anti-state activities, but told The Associated Press that he would inform authorities in Pyongyang there is concern in the U.S. over the student's fate. He also noted that other detainees have been released before serving their full sentences.

North Korea's highest court sentenced Otto Warmbier, a 21-year-old University of Virginia undergraduate, to 15 years in prison at hard labor after he confessed he had tried to steal a propaganda banner as a trophy for an acquaintance who wanted to hang it in her church.

Warmbier, of Wyoming, Ohio, had also been charged with trying to gather information that could be used against the North Korean leadership.

The U.S. government condemned the sentence and accused North Korea of using such American detainees as political pawns.
Death toll from Ecuador earthquake tops 650

QUITO, Ecuador (AP)  The death toll from last week's magnitude-7.8 earthquake that flattened towns along Ecuador's coast has risen to 654 with another 58 people missing, the government said Saturday.

The website of the secretariat for risk management said that 113 people had been rescued alive following the quake and more than 25,000 people remained in shelters.

The death toll from Ecuador's quake has surpassed that of Peru's 2007 temblor, making it the deadliest quake in South America since one in Colombia in 1999 killed more than 1,000 people.

Roberto Ganchoso is comforted by a neighbor as he sits on what's left of his neighborhood, as he watches a bulldozer demolish the hotel next door to his property in Pedernales, Ecuador, Saturday, April 23, 2016. President Rafael Correa has said the earthquake caused $3 billion in damage and warned that the reconstruction effort will take years. His administration is temporarily raising taxes to fund the recovery. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Hundreds of aftershocks have rattled the country since last Saturday night's quake and Ecuadoreans are still sleeping outside and struggling to find food and water. Aid is arriving from abroad but relief workers have warned of delays in water distribution and said mosquito-borne illness could spread through the camps.

President Rafael Correa has said the quake caused $3 billion in damage and warned that the reconstruction effort will take years. His administration is temporarily raising taxes to fund the recovery. Even before the quake, Ecuador was bracing for a bout of austerity, with the International Monetary Fund forecasting the economy would shrink 4.5 percent this year.

Police cadet Erick Palacios holds one-year-old Juanita Yamile Marquez as he watches over her and her siblings while their mother searches for usable items inside an earthquake-damaged building, with permission from the owners, on the outskirts of Pedernales, Ecuador, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The earthquake damage has added to the already heavy economic hardships being felt in this OPEC nation because of a collapse in world oil prices. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

A man collects metal to recycle before a bulldozer demolishes homes, one week after a devastating earthquake in Pedernales, Ecuador, Saturday, April 23, 2016. Ecuadorean officials say the number of people left homeless climbed to over 25,000. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Elvia Parre, 21, eats lunch with her children and nieces and nephews inside a barn after their previous home was damaged in an earthquake one week ago, on the outskirts from Pedernales, Ecuador, Saturday, April 23, 2016. Four families are living in this barn, owned by a person who previously allowed them to live rent-free in another one of their buildings on the same property, but it was damaged by the quake. Ecuadorean officials say the number of people left homeless climbed to over 25,000. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Jahayra Zambrano comforts her daughter Ashey Zambrano inside a tent where they're living outside her mother-in-law's home that was partially destroyed by last week's earthquake in Pedernales, Ecuador, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The earthquake damage has added to the already heavy economic hardships being felt in this OPEC nation because of a collapse in world oil prices. Before the quake, Ecuador was bracing for a bout of austerity, with the IMF forecasting the economy would shrink 4.5 percent this year. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Residents clean shrimp to sell one week after the devastating earthquake on the outskirts of Pedernales, Ecuador, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The earthquake damage has added to the already heavy economic hardships being felt in this OPEC nation because of a collapse in world oil prices. Before the quake, Ecuador was bracing for a bout of austerity, with the IMF forecasting the economy would shrink 4.5 percent this year. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

A man recovers wood from the roof of his earthquake-destroyed home one week after the devastating quake in Pedernales, Ecuador, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The earthquake damage has added to the already heavy economic hardships being felt in this OPEC nation because of a collapse in world oil prices. Before the quake, Ecuador was bracing for a bout of austerity, with the IMF forecasting the economy would shrink 4.5 percent this year. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Volunteers move a tent to a new camp for residents affected one week after the devastating earthquake in Pedernales, Ecuador, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The earthquake damage has added to the already heavy economic hardships being felt in this OPEC nation because of a collapse in world oil prices. Before the quake, Ecuador was bracing for a bout of austerity, with the IMF forecasting the economy would shrink 4.5 percent this year. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
QUOTE BOX: N. Korea foreign minister on tensions with US

NEW YORK (AP)  North Korea Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong spoke to The Associated Press about the tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Some of his comments:

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"Stop the nuclear war exercises in the Korean Peninsula, then we should also cease our nuclear tests," responding to a question whether North Korea is ready to halt nuclear tests.

Seated under portraits of former North Korean Leaders Kim Il Sung, left, and Kim Jong Il, North Korea's Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong answers questions during an interview, Saturday, April 23, 2016, at the country's Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

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"If we continue on this path of confrontation, this will lead to very catastrophic results, not only for the two countries but for the whole entire world as well. (...) It is really crucial for the United States government to withdraw its hostile policy against the DPRK and as an expression of this, stop the military exercises, war exercises, in the Korean Peninsula. Then we will respond likewise."

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"The escalation of this military exercise level has reached its top level. And I think it's not bad  as the other side is going for the climax  why not us, too, to that level as well?" commenting on the test launch of a ballistic missile from a submarine in its latest show of defiance at the U.S.-South Korean exercises.

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"If they believe they can actually frustrate us with sanctions, they are totally mistaken. (...) The more pressure you put on to something, the more emotionally you react to stand up against it. And this is important for the American policymakers to be aware of."

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N. Korea to halt nuke tests if US stops drills

NEW YORK (AP)  North Korea is ready to halt its nuclear tests if the United States suspends its annual military exercises with South Korea, the North Korean foreign minister told The Associated Press in an interview in which he also warned that his country won't be cowed by international sanctions.

Just hours after North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine in its latest show of defiance at the U.S.-South Korea exercises, Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong defended the country's right to increase its military readiness.

"The escalation of this military exercise level has reached its top level. And I think it's not bad  as the other side is going for the climax  why not us, too, to that level as well?" he said in his first interview Saturday with a Western news organization, at the North Korean diplomatic mission to the United Nations.

North Korea's Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong answers questions during an interview, Saturday, April 23, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

In response to the missile firing, the U.S. State Department announced early Sunday it was restricting Ri's travel to U.N. functions only.

"Due to the DPRK's firing of a ballistic missile this morning, we have determined it necessary to limit the travel of the visiting foreign minister and his delegation to only those places necessary for them to conduct their UN ?functions," State Department spokesman John Kirby said.

Ri held firm to Pyongyang's longstanding position that the U.S. drove his country to develop nuclear weapons as an act of self-defense. At the same time, he suggested that suspending the military exercises with Seoul could open the door to talks and reduced tensions.

"Stop the nuclear war exercises in the Korean Peninsula, then we should also cease our nuclear tests," he said. If the exercises are halted "for some period, for some years," he added, "new opportunities may arise for the two countries and for the whole entire world as well."

"If we continue on this path of confrontation, this will lead to very catastrophic results, not only for the two countries but for the whole entire world as well," he said, speaking in Korean through an interpreter. "It is really crucial for the United States government to withdraw its hostile policy against the DPRK and as an expression of this, stop the military exercises, war exercises, in the Korean Peninsula. Then we will respond likewise." DPRK is an abbreviation for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Ri, who spoke calmly and in measured words, a contrast to the often bombastic verbiage used by the North's media, claimed the North's proposal was "very logical." It is extremely rare for top North Korean officials to give interviews to foreign media, and particularly with Western news organizations.

Ri's proposal, which he said he hoped U.S. policymakers would heed, may well fall on deaf ears. North Korea, which sees the U.S.-South Korean exercises as a rehearsal for invasion, has floated similar proposals to Washington in the past but the U.S. has insisted the North give up its nuclear weapons program first before any negotiations. South Korea, too, is unlikely to agree to any such plan.

The result has been a stalemate that Ri said has put the peninsula at the crossroads of a thermonuclear war.

In response to Ri's remarks, a U.S. State Department official defended the military exercises as demonstrating the U.S. commitment to its alliance with the South and said they enhance the combat readiness, flexibility and capabilities of the alliance.

"We call again on North Korea to refrain from actions and rhetoric that further raise tensions in the region and focus instead on taking concrete steps toward fulfilling its international commitments and obligations," said Katina Adams, a spokeswoman for the State Department's Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs.

Sanctions, Ri said, won't sway the North.

"If they believe they can actually frustrate us with sanctions, they are totally mistaken," he said. "The more pressure you put on to something, the more emotionally you react to stand up against it. And this is important for the American policymakers to be aware of."

Ri, in New York to attend a United Nations' meeting on sustainable development, said the possibility of conflict has increased significantly this year because the exercises have taken on what Pyongyang sees as a more aggressive and threatening tone  including training to conduct precision "decapitation" strikes on North Korea's leadership.

This year's exercises are the biggest ever, involving about 300,000 troops. Washington and Seoul say they beefed up the maneuvers after North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test, in January, which also brought a new round of tough sanctions by the U.N. down on Pyongyang's head. The exercises are set to continue through the end of the month.

Pyongyang, meanwhile, has responded with a series of missile launches and statements in its media that the country has developed its long-range ballistic missile and nuclear warhead technologies to the point that they now present a credible deterrent and could even be used against targets on the U.S. mainland, though not all foreign analysts accept that claim.

Ri also used his presence at the U.N. conference as a forum to denounce Washington, saying in a brief statement that while North Korea is contributing to the objectives of global sustainable development by taking measures to double its production of grains to solve its food problem by 2030 and by reforesting 1.67 million hectares (4.13 million acres) of mountainous areas, it is doing so under "the most adverse conditions due to outside forces."

In the interview, he stated that the United States has used its power to get other countries to join in pressure on North Korea.

"A country as small as the DPRK cannot actually be a threat to the U.S. or to the world," he told the AP. "How great would it be if the world were to say to the United States and the American government not to conduct any more military exercises in the Korean Peninsula ... But there is not a single country that says this to the U.S."

"These big countries alone or together are telling us that we should calm down," he said. "For us this is like a sentence, that we should accept our death and refuse our right to sovereignty."

Ri said North Korea is not encouraged by the thawing of relations between Washington and Cuba or Iran.

"We're happy for the Cuban people and the Iranian people that they have reached successes on their path to pursuing their own goals and interests," he said. But he added that those cases "differ totally" from the U.S.-North Korea relationship.

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Associated Press writers Kathleen Hennessey in London, Tong-hyung Kim in Seoul, South Korea, and Matthew Lee in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

North Korea's Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong answers questions during an interview, Saturday, April 23, 2016, at the country's Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

Seated under portraits of former North Korean Leaders Kim Il Sung, left, and Kim Jong Il, North Korea's Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong answers questions during an interview, Saturday, April 23, 2016, at the country's Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

Seated under portraits of former North Korean Leaders Kim Il Sung, left, and Kim Jong Il, North Korea's Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong answers questions during an interview, Saturday, April 23, 2016, at the country's Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

North Korea's Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong listens to questions during an interview, Saturday, April 23, 2016, at the country's Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

Wearing a pin with a portrait of former North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, North Korea's Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong listens to questions during an interview, Saturday, April 23, 2016, at the country's Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
Nepal marks anniversary of quake that killed nearly 9,000

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP)  People gathered Sunday at the remains of a historic tower in Nepal's capital that collapsed in a devastating earthquake a year ago, as Nepalese held memorial services to mark the anniversary of a disaster that killed nearly 9,000 people and left millions homeless.

Minor protests were also held, with demonstrators angry at the slow rate of reconstruction in the wake of the magnitude-7.8 quake that ravaged vast areas of Nepal.

Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli laid a wreath at the ruins of the Dharahara tower in the heart of Kathmandu. The iconic structure collapsed in the quake, killing 132 people. In all, 8,856 people died in the April 25, 2015, disaster.

A Nepalese man offers prayers in front of a 'Siva Lingam', symbolic of Hindu god Shiva, as he worships at a temple that was completely destroyed in last year's earthquake at the Basantapur Durbar Square in Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Government officials, diplomats and ordinary people gathered at the remains of a fallen iconic tower in the Nepalese capital on Sunday to mark the anniversary of a devastating earthquake that killed thousands and injured many more in the Himalayan nation. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Participating in the memorial ceremonies were people who lost loved ones in the quake, and others who simply came to pray for those killed.

"I lost a friend who was working at the top of the tower on that day. I hope he and others are in a good place," said Ram Shrestha, pointing at the remains of the Dharahara tower. He said that he had just stepped out a few minutes before the earthquake struck to go shopping.

Madhav Newpane, who runs a shop near the tower, witnessed its collapse. He returned on Sunday with a bouquet of flowers and candles.

"There were many people killed here on that day. I will never be able to forget that day," Newpane said.

About 100 protesters scuffled with riot police outside the prime minister's office demonstrating against the slow reconstruction of the homes. More than 600,000 homes were destroyed and around 185,000 damaged in the quake.

"Government, where is reconstruction. Open the gates of the government," the protesters chanted as they tried to force their way through a police barricade.

According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, an estimated 4 million people are still living in sub-standard temporary shelters in conditions that pose a threat to their health and well-being. Only 661 families have received the first installment of a 200,000-rupee ($1,868) government grant, getting 50,000 rupees ($467) so far.

Nepal has made almost no progress in rebuilding from the quake despite foreign donors pledging more than $4 billion in aid during a donor's conference last year. The government, in disarray for nearly a decade, has not regrouped enough to be a strong force for reconstruction.

Out of the $4.1 billion pledged, Nepal has so far received just $1.28 billion. The delay in getting the money has been blamed on the government taking months to set up the National Reconstruction Authority, which was done only in December.

Finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Paudel said the delay was because it was necessary to conduct a detailed survey of the damaged houses before reconstruction could begin.

"Nepal had signed a written commitment in black and white that there would not be any reconstruction without the detailed beneficiary survey during the donor's meeting," Paudel said Friday. "But until the detailed beneficiary survey was completed, there was no way we could go ahead with the actual reconstruction."

Now that the work is completed in 11 of the 14 districts affected by the earthquake, work will proceed at full speed, Paudel said.

Nepalese people light candles in memory of those who died in last year's devastating earthquake in Basantapur Durbar Square in Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Nepalese held memorial services to mark the anniversary of the disaster that killed nearly 9,000 people and left millions homeless. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Nepalese people light candles in memory of those who died in last year's devastating earthquake in Basantapur Durbar Square in Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Nepalese held memorial services to mark the anniversary of the disaster that killed nearly 9,000 people and left millions homeless. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Nepalese people attend a prayer meeting in memory of people who died in last year's earthquake at the Kasthamandap Hindu temple in Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Government officials, diplomats and ordinary people gathered at the remains of a fallen iconic tower in the Nepalese capital on Sunday to mark the anniversary of a devastating earthquake that killed thousands and injured many more in the Himalayan nation. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Nepalese people prepare to light candles in memory of those who died in last year's devastating earthquake in Basantapur Durbar Square in Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Nepalese held memorial services to mark the anniversary of the disaster that killed nearly 9,000 people and left millions homeless. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Volunteers hold a wreath as they await the arrival of Nepal's Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli, at the ruins of the Dharahara tower in the heart of Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Government officials, diplomats and ordinary people gathered at the remains of the fallen iconic tower in the Nepalese capital on Sunday to mark the anniversary of a devastating earthquake that killed thousands and injured many more in the Himalayan nation. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Nepal's Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli, second right, stands after laying a wreath at the ruins of the Dharahara tower in the heart of Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Government officials, diplomats and ordinary people gathered at the remains of the fallen iconic tower in the Nepalese capital on Sunday to mark the anniversary of a devastating earthquake that killed thousands and injured many more in the Himalayan nation. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

A Nepalese woman walks near a palace building damaged in last year's earthquake which now is supported by wooden logs at the Basantapur Durbar Square in Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Government officials, diplomats and ordinary people gathered at the remains of a fallen iconic tower in the Nepalese capital on Sunday to mark the anniversary of a devastating earthquake that killed thousands and injured many more in the Himalayan nation. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Nepalese protestors shout slogans against the government as they are stopped by police on the first anniversary of the devastating earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, April 24, 2016. About 100 protesters scuffled with riot police outside the prime minister's office demonstrating against the slow reconstruction of the homes. More than 600,000 homes were destroyed and around 185,000 damaged in the quake. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

Nepalese people carry tarpaulin as they protest on the first anniversary of the devastating earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunday, April 24, 2016. About 100 protesters scuffled with riot police outside the prime minister's office demonstrating against the slow reconstruction of the homes. More than 600,000 homes were destroyed and around 185,000 damaged in the quake. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)
Renewed gun debate in Australia 20 years after mass shooting

PORT ARTHUR, Australia (AP)  Carolyn Loughton still carries a bullet in her shoulder from one of the world's worst mass shootings that killed her daughter 20 years ago and galvanized Australia to drastically clamp down on guns.

Loughton threw her body over her 15-year-old daughter Sarah, but could not save her from a gunman with two semi-automatic assault rifles who methodically took headshots in a Port Arthur, Tasmania, cafe on April 28, 1996, killing 35 people.

In response, the Australian government severely restricted ownership of semi-automatic firearms, pump-action shotguns and other rapid-fire weapons. It also bought back nearly 700,000 guns from the public at a cost of $390 million.

In this Monday, April 18, 2016 photo, tourists read names on a memorial in Port Arthur, Tasmania state, Australia, where 35 people were killed by a lone gunman in 1996. The massacre galvanized Australia to drastically clamp down on guns. Today, as Australia approaches the 20th anniversary of the Port Arthur tragedy - to be remembered with a ceremony Thursday, April 28 - there is renewed debate over guns amid a review of the landmark National Firearms Agreement, adopted after the 1996 attack, and the loosening of some gun-related regulations. (AP Photo/Rod McGuirk)

Since then, the country has experienced only one case that meets the generally accepted definition of a mass shooting  four deaths in a single event  a 2014 incident in which a farmer shot his wife and three children before killing himself. Now a person living in America is around 10 times more likely to be killed by a gun than in Australia, and President Barack Obama has held up Australia's strict gun laws as a good example after repeated mass shootings in the U.S.

Today, as Australia approaches the 20th anniversary of the Port Arthur tragedy  to be remembered with a ceremony Thursday  there is renewed debate over guns amid a review of the landmark National Firearms Agreement, adopted after the 1996 attack, and the loosening of some gun-related regulations.

The review was recommended after a government inquiry into the December 2014 Sydney cafe siege that left two people and the gunman dead. Gun enthusiasts fear that any changes to the agreement could mean greater restrictions on gun ownership, while gun control advocates say the country is backsliding on its restrictions.

Taking center stage in the debate is whether Australia should import the Adler A110 shotgun, a Turkish-manufactured lever-action weapon that can fire eight cartridges in as many seconds. That's almost as fast as a pump-action shotgun.

Loughton, now 60, sees the Adler question as a tipping point. She is speaking out for the first time to protect the country's stringent gun laws.

"I've probably got 20 years of my life left. I wouldn't have thought that I would ever have to go down this track," said Loughton. "But I have seen and I know more than anybody should ever have to experience, and on my last breath on my last day, I don't want to say I could have done something."

Pro-gun activists argue that Australia's real problem is illegal guns. They point out that the Islamic State-inspired gunman in the Sydney cafe siege, Man Haron Monis, never held a gun license and his sawed-off pump-action 12-guage shotgun had not been registered. Authorities could not trace where Monis had obtained it.

Sen. David Leyonhjelm, a vocal gun proponent, complains that Australians have become "disarmed victims."

Loughton and gun control advocates say they see the erosion of gun controls. They point to relaxed requirements to establish the legitimate need for a gun and decisions by several states to waive a 28-day waiting period for a gun owner to apply for a permit to own more than one weapon.

Unlike in the U.S., Australians don't have a constitutional right to bear arms and personal protection is not recognized as a "genuine reason" required by law to own a gun.

Many say that what sets the Adler shotgun apart is a promotional video that focused on how quickly its magazine could be emptied. The video attracted a lot of attention from gun enthusiasts and horrified opponents.

Last August, the government blocked imports of the eight-shot Adler pending the outcome of the firearms review.

Gun Control Australia, an advocacy group, says allowing the weapon to be imported "will have a devastating impact on Australia's strong gun laws." The group's concerns include that the Adler's short lever action makes it quicker to reload than other guns in its class, a claim the gun's Australian importer denies.

Sen. Bridget McKenzie, who last year formed the Parliamentary Friends of Shooting group, said it is important to "have some serious methodology behind the decisions we're making rather than, 'Oh, that looks scary, therefore it must be bad.'"

In the meantime, thousands of five-shot versions of the Adler have been sold in Australia with minimum restrictions. Gunsmiths are already increasing the Adler's magazine capacity to 10 cartridges and more. In a breakdown in Australia's harmonized gun laws, the extended magazines are legal in all states except in New South Wales, the most populous.

"I can make them as big as you want," gunsmith Nik Halliwell said of the Adler magazine capacity. "If you want a 100-shot lever action, in theory, it's possible to do."

Gun advocates argue that the Adler should be available to category A license holders, the least restrictive and most common license. But Loughton and other activists say both versions of the gun should be available only to the much more restrictive category C and D licenses that are reserved for farmers, professional shooters and government agencies.

Philip Alpers, a Sydney University gun policy analyst, said the shotgun had been imported to fill a gap in the Australian market created by the Port Arthur bans.

"Whenever a firearm type is restricted, the arms industry does its best to circumvent the law," he said.

Many regard Australia's stricter gun laws as former Prime Minister John Howard's greatest legacy. But in a recent television interview even Howard said he was concerned the country's gun laws were "fraying at the edges."

Critics argue that Howard's gun buyback was futile and point to evidence that there are now more guns in Australia that there were before the 1996 massacre.

A Sydney University study found in 2013 that 1,055,082 firearms had been legally imported into Australia since the 1997 buyback  about the same number as had been collected under that program, a later buyback of handguns as well as numerous gun amnesties, court-ordered seizures and voluntary returns of weapons since 1988. That shows, gun advocates say, that there is no link between the number of guns in a country and the frequency of mass shootings.

Opponents disagree, arguing that the big difference is that rapid-fire weapons are no longer freely available.

Criminologists generally agree that the National Firearms Agreement has reduced gun homicides. There is also evidence that it had reduced suicides, accidental gun deaths and gun crime.

Port Arthur, a collection of prison ruins that are remnants of Tasmania's bleak past as a British penal colony, will mark the anniversary Thursday with a ceremony attended by many of the victims' family members.

The shooter, Martin Bryant, 28 at the time of the attack, was sentenced to 35 life terms without possibility of parole. He is now a maximum security inmate at Risdon Prison in Tasmania.

Adrian Kistan wonders if the father he lost in the Port Arthur massacre would be alive today if stricter gun laws had been in place at the time. He takes some comfort that the tragedy led to changes.

"We take some degree of hope to think that ... out of such a terrible, terrible incident where people have lost their lives and families have been scarred because of it, well at least some good came of it," he said. "Because there was a change in gun laws that controlled the manner in which firearms are dealt with in Australia."

In this Monday, April 18, 2016 photo, the gutted shell of a cafe still stands in Port Arthur, Tasmania state, Australia, where 35 people were killed by a lone gunman in 1996. After the tragedy, the Australian government severely restricted ownership of semi-automatic firearms and pump-action shotguns and bought back nearly 700,000 guns from the public. Since then, the country has experienced only one case that meets the generally accepted definition of a mass shooting - four deaths in a single event - a 2014 incident in which a farmer shot his wife and three children before killing himself. (AP Photo/Rod McGuirk)

In this Monday, April 18, 2016 photo, a stuffed bear, shells and flowers are offered at a memorial in Port Arthur, Tasmania state, Australia, to honor the 35 people killed by a lone gunman 20 years ago. A government inquiry into the December 2014 Sydney cafe siege that left two people and the gunman dead recommended a review of the National Firearms Agreement, adopted after the 1996 attack. Gun enthusiasts fear that any changes to the agreement could mean greater restrictions on gun ownership, while gun control advocates say the country is backsliding on its stringent controls. (AP Photo/Rod McGuirk)

In this Monday, April 18, 2016 photo, a tourist reads names on a memorial, at Port Arthur, Tasmania state, Australia, where 35 people were killed by a lone gunman in 1996. The massacre galvanized Australia to drastically clamp down on guns. Today, as Australia approaches the 20th anniversary of the Port Arthur tragedy - to be remembered with a ceremony Thursday, April 28 - there is renewed debate over guns amid a review of the landmark National Firearms Agreement, adopted after the 1996 attack, and the loosening of some gun-related regulations. (AP Photo/Rod McGuirk)

In this Monday, April 18, 2016 photo, the date and place "Sunday, 28th April 1996 Port Arthur" are engraved on a memorial in Port Arthur, Tasmania state, Australia, to honor the 35 people killed by a lone gunman 20 years ago. After the tragedy, the Australian government severely restricted ownership of semi-automatic firearms and pump-action shotguns and bought back nearly 700,000 guns from the public. Since then, the country has experienced only one case that meets the generally accepted definition of a mass shooting - four deaths in a single event - a 2014 incident in which a farmer shot his wife and three children before killing himself.(AP Photo/Rod McGuirk)
The Latest: Some return home after major fire in Arizona

GILBERT, Ariz. (AP)  The Latest on a five-alarm fire in the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert (all times local):

12:30 a.m.

Some residents are returning home after being evacuated during a major fire in the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert that left one firefighter injured.

Fire crews battle a blaze in the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert, Ariz., Saturday, April 23, 2016. Evacuations have been ordered for homes near the major fire. (Cheryl Evans/The Arizona Republic via AP) MARICOPA COUNTY OUT; MAGS OUT; NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT

A spokeswoman for the Red Cross says that residents in the surrounding neighborhoods were being allowed to return to their houses early Sunday. She added the evacuees from an apartment complex near the fire are still displaced.

Diana Rodriguez, a public information officer for the American Red Cross, says there were around 60 people evacuated.

Officials said the incident began at an apartment complex under construction and then spread to a home near Gilbert and Warner roads, ABC15 reported (http://bit.ly/1VQNIIB ). Gilbert Fire and Rescue posted on Twitter that Warner Road, which was closed while firefighters worked to put out the blaze, has been reopened.

Authorities said there were no immediate reports of injuries.

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10:25 pm

A firefighter was injured in a major fire in the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert.

One firefighter suffered burns on his hands and three police officers were treated on scene for smoke inhalation, Gilbert fire officials told Phoenix NBC-affiliate 12 News (http://bit.ly/24coCG2). They added the fire was no longer spreading.

Officials said the incident began at an apartment complex under construction and then spread to a home near Gilbert and Warner roads, ABC15 reported (http://bit.ly/1VQNIIB ). Warner from Gilbert to Lindsay was closed while firefighters worked to put out the blaze.

Gilbert Fire and Rescue posted on Twitter that homes from Civic Center Drive to Nunneley to Devon were evacuated, and the Public Safety Complex Amphitheater was open for evacuees.

Authorities said there were no immediate reports of injuries.

More than 120 firefighters worked to contain the five-alarm fire.

Fire crews fight a 5-alarm blaze in Gilbert on April 23, 2016.Fire crews battle a blaze in the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert, Ariz., Saturday, April 23, 2016. Evacuations have been ordered for homes near the major fire. (Cheryl Evans/The Arizona Republic via AP) MARICOPA COUNTY OUT; MAGS OUT; NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT
Turkish-Dutch journalist detained over Erdogan tweet

ANKARA, Turkey (AP)  Turkish authorities on Sunday released a Turkish-Dutch journalist from police custody but barred her from leaving Turkey as they continue to investigate tweets she posted about President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Ebru Umar, a columnist for Metro newspaper, was detained for questioning late on Saturday at her home in the Aegean resort of Kusadasi, on the orders of a prosecutor for social media postings deemed to be "insulting to state leaders," Turkey's state-run news agency reported. The journalist had tweeted in Dutch late Saturday that police were at her door and that she was being taken to a police station in Kusadasi.

Anadolu Agency said she was released following questioning by prosecutors but has been barred from leaving the country.

In a short video posted on Metro's website, Umar said she was woken up Saturday night by two police officers knocking on her door who told her to go with them because of two tweets.

"I was treated well, I can't put it any other way," she said. "I had a good evening with a 55-year-old man discussing politics and the situation in Turkey."

She said she "is not altogether free. I am not allowed to leave the country." She said a lawyer is trying to get the travel restriction lifted because she wants to return to the Netherlands.

Human rights and media freedom groups have repeatedly sounded the alarm over the limited tolerance of dissent shown by authorities in Turkey, where nearly 2,000 legal cases have been opened against individuals accused of insulting the Turkish president since Erdogan came to office in 2014. Critics say the president is taking advantage of a previously-seldom used law to muzzle dissenting voices..

Umar was detained as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and top EU officials were in Turkey to bolster a deal to stem the flow of migrants to Europe. The EU leaders have been accused of not speaking out against Turkey's crackdown on freedom of expression because of the country's role in stopping the refugee influx. Merkel has come under criticism for her decision earlier this month to grant Turkey's request to let German prosecutors and courts decide whether a German comedian insulted Erdogan.

In a tweet, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said he had called Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu in the afternoon. Rutte said Umar's detention "Directly hits our core values  freedom of expression and press freedom."

Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said he was relieved Umar had been released and said he had informed Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu that he "deplored" the situation.

"A candidate member of the EU should not meddle with press freedom and freedom of expression," Koenders said in a statement. "I have often stressed that in discussions with Turkish colleagues and will continue to do so. It is necessary, as has been shown again."

Umar wrote a column last week for Metro criticizing an appeal sent by Turkey's consulate in Rotterdam urging Turks in the Netherlands to report cases of people insulting Turkey or its leader. She compared the letter to "NSB practices," a reference to the Dutch branch of the Nazi party before and during World War II.

Rutte last week responded to reports of the appeal by saying "it is not a good thing and our ambassador will ask for clarification from the Turkish authorities."

Earlier this week, a German reporter was detained at an Istanbul airport and sent back to Cairo where he is based. A day later, authorities denied entry into Turkey for Russian news agency Sputnik's Istanbul-based general manager.

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Yemen troops, Saudi-led coalition attack al-Qaida in south

SANAA, Yemen (AP)  Hundreds of Yemeni troops loyal to the internationally recognized president have launched an operation to drive al-Qaida and Islamic State fighters out of southern coastal areas the extremists have seized amid the country's complex civil war, security officials said Sunday.

They said the forces loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi are receiving air support from the Saudi-led and U.S.-backed coalition, which until now has mainly targeted Shiite Houthi rebels. The aircraft struck targets in Mukalla, an al-Qaida stronghold and the capital of Hadramawt province, they said.

The deployment, which began a day earlier, is the latest operation against al-Qaida in Yemen's south. Troops loyal to Hadi also advanced Saturday in the town of Koud in the southern Abyan province, the province's governor said, killing 25 militants from the group in heavy clashes. The coalition has also carried out airstrikes against al-Qaida positions in the area.

The troops had been preparing for the offensive for months with the coalition's support, the officials said, adding that heavy fighting continued with al-Qaida gunmen in Abyan, near the cities of Zinjibar and Jaar. Residents say al-Qaida fighters are holing up in buildings and digging trenches to defend their positions from the advancing troops, and the security officials say the extremists have also laid mines.

There were no official casualty figures from the weekend's fighting, but medical officials and witnesses said ambulances were transporting wounded and killed al-Qaida fighters in the area. Hadramawt residents said Apache helicopters and F-16 warplanes were sighted over coastal areas including Mukalla, and had struck several targets, including port facilities.

All residents spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

Al-Qaida's affiliate in Yemen, viewed by Washington as the group's most dangerous offshoot, has exploited the conflict between the rebels and government forces to expand its footprint.

Yemen's conflict pits the government, backed by the Saudi-led coalition, against the Houthis, allied with a former president. The Houthis took over the capital, Sanaa, in September 2014, and the U.S.-backed coalition began airstrikes against them in March 2015.

The United Nations says peace talks held last week in Kuwait between the warring parties will continue.

The war has devastated Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, with many unable to access hospitals, schools or electricity. More than 14 million Yemenis lack access to sufficient food, and some 2.4 million people have been displaced.
Polish leaders threaten fate of nearly finished WWII museum

WARSAW, Poland (AP)  Poland's conservative government is taking steps that threaten an ambitious new World War II museum which international experts have spent eight years creating  the latest ideological battle the nation's nationalistic authorities are waging against the pro-European rivals they ousted from power last year.

The Museum of the Second World War has been under development since 2008 and was due to open next year in Gdansk, where the first shots of the war were fired. The $120 million project was launched with the support of former Prime Minister Donald Tusk, now one of the European Union's top leaders, a man deeply hated by the head of Poland's new ruling Law and Justice party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

The Euro-skeptic Law and Justice party accuses the state-funded museum of not focusing enough on Poland, objecting to an approach that puts Poland's wartime experience in the broader context of the fate of other nations under the German, Soviet and Japanese occupations. Kaczynski vowed in 2013 that if his party ever took power it would change the museum so it "expresses the Polish point of view."

This architectural visualization provided by Studio Architektoniczne Kwadrat in Gdynia, Poland, shows how the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk, Poland, is projected to look after its completion. The fate of the museum, which was scheduled to open in early 2017, is now uncertain after the Polish government has taken steps that could see the whole project scrapped. The government doesn't like it because it objects to its international approach and feels it is not Polish enough. (Krzysztof Droszcz/Studio Architektoniczne Kwadrat via AP)

Critics are convinced Kaczynski, the most powerful man in Poland, is also motivated by his hatred of Tusk and Civic Platform, the pro-EU party that governed Poland for eight years before Law and Justice came in last year.

A group of historians and museum professionals wrote an open letter of protest, saying they see Law and Justice's move as part of "a political struggle that involves the destruction of institutions brought to life by the previous government with no regard to their substantive value."

"It is difficult for us to accept a mindless act of vandalism carried out on our culture," they said.

The development comes amid a broader attempt by the new authorities to purge elites they believe are aligned with their political foes. Many of those losing their jobs now are professional experts with no party affiliation. The government says it aims to reshape a country that had become too liberal and whose national identity had been eroded by membership in the 28-nation EU.

Among those advising on the museum are some of the world's most renowned World War II historians, including Norman Davies of Oxford and Timothy Snyder of Yale, scholars whose works are considered sympathetic to Poles' suffering under German and Soviet occupations. The building itself is a multi-storied, avant-garde glass design chosen by a jury chaired by the Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind.

"What they have is a museum that is going to be seen as remarkable on a European and on an international scale that will draw millions to Poland," Snyder told The Associated Press.

The fate of the museum became unclear April 15 when Culture Minister Piotr Glinski announced he might merge the museum with another museum that does not yet exist  a step that would allow the government to legally abandon the concept of the original museum. The new museum would focus on the German attack on Poles on the Gdansk peninsula of Westerplatte, the opening move in the war, and Poland's defense against the German invasion in 1939.

Museum Director Pawel Machcewicz said the proposed new concept is a "fictional entity" being used as legal trick to take over his institution and break his job contract, which runs through 2019.

Abandoning the original project "would mean destroying 90 percent of the entire content of our museum, which has already been partially produced and some of which is already being installed," said Machcewicz, a historian of the 20th century with no party affiliation. "I have never heard of such a situation."

The museum's advisory board said it was "stunned and troubled" by the culture minister's announcement, which was issued without consultation.

Snyder, a signatory of that statement and author of "Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin," said the world has other World War II museums but they all take an exclusively national view. The Gdansk museum would be unique because it would be the first to involve the stories of all the affected nations in Europe and Asia, he said.

"It's an intellectual breakthrough, because it allows us to make sense of the Second World War and see if from multiple points of view," he said. "It also makes Polish history accessible to anyone from anywhere. So if you are Dutch or Japanese or American, and you go to this museum knowing nothing about Poland, at the end of it you will see how central the Polish experience was to the war."

Amid the uproar, the culture minister said all options remain, but added that merging the two museums would be the most efficient thing to do. "There is no sense in operating two museums in the same city with the same profile," he told the news agency PAP.

One stumbling block could be the stiff opposition from Pawel Adamowicz, the mayor of Gdansk, which donated the land for the museum. Adamowicz, a member of Civic Platform, said the city has the legal right to revoke the land donation if the museum is not built as planned. He said he is prepared to take that step.

Snyder says the government's concept of a museum focusing solely on Westerplatte and Poland's military struggle in 1939 would result in a narrowly focused exhibit that would not appeal to a wider international audience. He said it would also leave out key events like the Katyn massacre of some 22,000 Polish officers by the Soviet secret police.

That, he said, would be counterproductive for a government keen on spreading knowledge of Poland's suffering and military resistance.

"Why not just take credit for the museum? The Civic Platform government didn't manage to finish it before they lost power. Politicians usually finish someone else's project and take all the credit. It seems like a golden opportunity to do that," Snyder said.

This architectural visualization provided by Studio Architektoniczne Kwadrat in Gdynia, Poland, shows how the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk, Poland, is projected to look after its completion. The fate of the museum, which was scheduled to open in early 2017, is now uncertain after the Polish government has taken steps that could see the whole project scrapped. The government doesn't like it because it objects to its international approach and feels it is not Polish enough. (Krzysztof Droszcz/Studio Architektoniczne Kwadrat via AP)

FILE - The May 8, 2015 file photo shows Polish Navy troops standing at the foot of the monument to Polish defenders of the Westerplatte peninsula, where some of World War II's first shots were fired, during ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of the end of the war in Gdansk, Poland. A museum under creation for the past eight years, the Museum of the Second World War, was due to open in Gdansk in 2017 but its fate is threatened by the country's new nationalistic government. The government objects to its international approach and prefers a project that would focus exclusively on Westerplatte and the Polish military defense against Germany in 1939. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, file)

FILE - The Sept. 1, 2009 file photo shows ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of World War II at the Monument to the defenders of Westerplatte in Gdansk, Poland. Westerplatte is where the Germans opened some of the first shots of the war. A museum under creation for the past eight years, the Museum of the Second World War, was due to open in Gdansk 2017 but its fate is threatened by the country's new nationalistic government. The government objects to its international approach and prefers a project that would focus exclusively on Westerplatte and the Polish military defense against Germany in 1939. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, file)
German president near decision on whether to seek 2nd term

BERLIN (AP)  Germany's president says he will announce soon whether he wants a second five-year term, a decision that would spare Chancellor Angela Merkel a significant political headache.

Federal lawmakers and representatives from Germany's 16 states will elect the largely ceremonial head of state next February. President Joachim Gauck, a former pastor and East German pro-democracy activist with no party affiliation, enjoys support from most mainstream political parties.

However, he's already Germany's oldest president at 76 and has left open whether he will run again. If he doesn't, that would force Merkel and rivals into a politically charged search for a successor ahead of a parliamentary election later next year.
Final round of Shenzhen event postponed due to thunderstorms

SHENZHEN, China (AP)  Lee Slattery of Britain held a one-stroke lead on Sunday when the final round of the Shenzhen International was postponed due to thunderstorms.

Slattery had turned in a 34 and was on the 10th fairway when Sunday's round was suspended. Overnight leader Lee Soo-min, Alexander Levy and Callum Shinkwin were on the ninth fairway in the final group behind Slattery.

Six hours were lost to bad weather over the first two days and bad light brought an early end to the third day with Lee leading at 14 under after 11 holes.
Solar-plane pilots say trip was also test of human endurance

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP)  The two Swiss pilots taking turns to fly a solar-powered airplane around the world said Sunday the endeavor is not only a demonstration of the importance of renewable energy but also of the many challenges the human body can endure.

Pilot Bertrand Piccard completed a risky, three-day flight across a great expanse of the Pacific Ocean while sleeping only 20 minutes at a time inside the plane's tiny cockpit with no heat or air conditioning and while having to keep constant contact with the Europe-based control center.

"You have interviews, navigation control, communications with the control center in Monaco. You have health checks, a lot of health checks," Piccard said. "It's very active, there are a lot of things to do, but you can nevertheless enjoy it."

Solar Impulse 2 lands at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif., after crossing the Pacific Ocean on Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane landed in California on Saturday, completing a risky, three-day flight across the Pacific Ocean as part of its journey around the world. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Piccard said he uses self-hypnosis to keep his energy up and puts heating pads inside his shoes and gloves for warmth. He said he has no complaints about the ready-made meals he can warm up with a special heat packet and that can include risotto, chicken curry and potatoes.

On Sunday, special guests, many of them with Google, which is sponsoring the project, had a first look at the plane inside a huge white tent at Moffett Airfield. The guests also mingled and took photos with Piccard and fellow Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg.

Piccard landed the Solar Impulse 2 in Mountain View, in the Silicon Valley south of San Francisco, on Saturday night following a 62-hour, nonstop solo flight from Hawaii without fuel.

The landing came hours after Piccard made a fly-by over the Golden Gate Bridge as spectators below watched the narrow aircraft with extra wide wings.

Piccard and Andre Borschberg have been taking turns flying the plane on an around-the-world trip since taking off from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, in March 2015. It made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China, Japan and Hawaii.

The trans-Pacific legs were the riskiest part of the plane's travels because of the lack of emergency landing sites.

"We have demonstrated it is feasible to fly many days, many nights, that the technology works" said Borschberg, 63, who piloted the plane a five-day trip from Japan to Hawaii and who kept himself alert by doing yoga poses and meditation.

The project has helped to show that "as a human being you can be sufficiently sustainable to be able to fly at least five days in such a plane."

The aircraft faced a few bumps along the way.

The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Hawaii in July and was forced to stay in the islands after the plane's battery system sustained heat damage on its trip from Japan. The team was delayed in Asia, too. When first attempting to fly from Nanjing, China, to Hawaii, the crew had to divert to Japan because of unfavorable weather and a damaged wing.

A month later, with better weather conditions, the plane left Nagoya in central Japan for Hawaii.

The plane's ideal flight speed is about 28 mph, though that can double during the day when the sun's rays are strongest. The carbon-fiber aircraft weighs over 5,000 pounds, about as much as a midsize truck.

The plane's wings, which stretch wider than those of a Boeing 747, are equipped with 17,000 solar cells that power propellers and charge batteries. The plane runs on stored energy at night.

Solar Impulse 2 will make three more stops in the United States before crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Europe or northern Africa, according to the website documenting the journey.

Borschberg said the plane will again take flight this week, and the next stop could be Phoenix. But that will depend on weather.

The project, which is estimated to cost more than $100 million, began in 2002 to highlight the importance of renewable energy and the spirit of innovation.

"I think innovation and pioneering must continue," Piccard said. "It must continue for better quality of life, for clean technologies, for renewable energy. This is where the pioneers can really express themselves and be successful."

Solar-powered air travel is not yet commercially practical, given the slow travel time, weather and weight constraints of the aircraft.

"Maybe it will be boring in 20 years when all the airplanes will be electric and people will say 'Oh it's routine.' But now, today, an airplane that is electric, with electric engines, that produces its own energy with the sun, it can never be boring," Piccard said.

Solar Impulse 2 pilots Bertrand Piccard, left, and Andre Borschberg celebrate after Piccard landed their solar-powered plane at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif., on Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane landed in California on Saturday, completing a risky, three-day flight across the Pacific Ocean as part of its journey around the world. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 pilot Bertrand Piccard looks out his cockpit window shortly after landing at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif., on Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane landed in California on Saturday, completing a risky, three-day flight across the Pacific Ocean as part of its journey around the world.(AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Andre Borschberg, co-founder of the Solar Impulse project, speaks with reporters after Bertrand Piccard landed Solar Impulse 2 at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif., on Saturday, April 23, 2016. The plane, which is on an around-the-world journey, arrived from Hawaii after crossing the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Pilot Bertrand Piccard emerges from Solar Impulse 2 at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif., on Saturday, April 23, 2016, after crossing the Pacific Ocean. The solar-powered airplane landed in California on Saturday, completing a risky, three-day flight across the Pacific Ocean as part of its journey around the world. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 pilots Bertrand Piccard, left, and Andre Borschberg speak with reporters after their solar-powered plane landed at Moffett field in Mountain View, Calif., on Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane landed in California on Saturday, completing a risky, three-day flight across the Pacific Ocean as part of its journey around the world. (AP Photo/Noah Bergeq

Solar Impulse 2 pilots Bertrand Piccard, right, and Andre Borschberg celebrate after Piccard landed their solar-powered plane at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif., on Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane landed in California on Saturday, completing a risky, three-day flight across the Pacific Ocean as part of its journey around the world. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 flies over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco on Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 flies over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 flies over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco before landing at Moffett Field on Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
Obama: UK-US trade deal could take a decade after Brexit

LONDON (AP)  President Barack Obama flew out of Britain Sunday after warning that it could take a decade for the U.K. to negotiate a new trade agreement with the United States if it leaves the European Union.

In a BBC interview, Obama said "it could be five years from now, 10 years from now before we were able to actually get something done."

The U.S. and the 28-nation European bloc of which Britain is a member are attempting to seal a trade deal, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP.

President Barack Obama jogs to shake hands with British Fire and Police personnel as he leaves Winfield House in London, Sunday, April 24, 2016, as the begins his journey to Germany. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Obama said that "the U.K. would not be able to negotiate something with the United States faster than the EU."

"Our preference would be to work with this large block of countries," he added.

Obama flew to Germany after a three-day U.K. visit during which he angered supporters of an EU exit by making it clear the United States wants Britain to stay in.

He said Friday that Britain would go to the "back of the queue" for a trade deal if it votes to leave in a June 23 referendum.

That drew scorn from backers of a U.K. exit, or Brexit, who accused the president of meddling.

Nigel Farage, leader of the anti-EU U.K. Independence Party, said Sunday that "Barack Obama is not a pro-British president."

But Obama told the BBC that he hoped British voters would listen to the friendly opinion of "the president of the United States, who loves the British people and cares deeply about this relationship."

And he said the close relationship between Britain and the U.S. would endure, whatever happened.

"The bond between our two countries is unbreakable," Obama said.

Hillary Clinton, the favorite to secure the Democrats' presidential nomination, shares Obama's view on Brexit.

Senior policy adviser Jake Sullivan told the Observer newspaper that Clinton "believes that trans-Atlantic cooperation is essential, and that cooperation is strongest when Europe is United."
3 people killed in eastern Ukraine amid renewed fighting

MOSCOW (AP)  The Ukrainian government says three troops have been killed in the volatile eastern Ukraine over the past 24 hours.

Oleksander Motuzyanik from the presidential administration told a briefing Sunday that what appears to be the worst death toll in months came after the troops were shelled by Russia-backed separatists' heavy weaponry.

Local officials in the government-controlled town of Maryinka reported an hour and a half of heavy fighting that forced an evacuation of workers repairing a gas main damaged by a previous attack.
French government says it supports UK nuclear plant project

PARIS (AP)  France's economy minister has confirmed the government supports French energy company EDF's nuclear power plant project in southwest England.

Emmanuel Macron told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper on Sunday that the final investment decision "may be confirmed next September."

The decision was expected in May but EDF, which is majority-owned by the French government, decided Friday to take more time to consult with the company's unions. Some of them have expressed concerns about the financing of the 24 billion euro ($27 billion) project.

Macron insisted the project must not be further delayed.
Artist says Prince illustrations are now 'tribute' to icon

PAWTUCKET, R.I. (AP)  A Rhode Island artist who illustrated Prince every day for a year says the project will now serve as a tribute to the music icon.

Rebekah Major told The Associated Press on Saturday she began "365 Days of Prince" in March of last year to improve as an artist.

Major says she drew the pop music superstar in "every ridiculous way" she could think of once a day. She was inspired by moments within the last year of the musician's life, current events and more. One of her favorite illustrations is a play on Norman Rockwell's famous self-portrait.

This image provided by Rebekah Major shows one of Major's illustration of Prince. Major, an artist in Rhode Island who illustrated Prince every day for a year says the project will now serve as a tribute to the music icon. Major told The Associated Press on Saturday, April 23, 2016 said she began 365 Days of Prince in March 2015 to improve as an artist. (Rebekah Major via AP)

Major says Prince always resonated with her because his music "brings everyone together."

Prince was found dead Thursday at his suburban Minneapolis compound at age 57.

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Incident took place on the island of Tarva, off Norway's west coast

Three offiers were in the control tower at the time, but were not injured

A Norwegian fighter jet mistakenly machine-gunned a control tower with three officers inside during target practice earlier this month, the military said Sunday.

The pilot of the F-16 had been instructed to fire at a simulated target some 550 yards away, but accidentally hit the lookout tower with a hail of bullets.

All three officers who were inside the tower escaped unharmed, but the tower suffered some damages, The Norwegian Air Force said.

Accident: The F-16 fighter jet accidentally opened fire with a machine gun at a control tower with three officers in it during an exercise off Norway's west coast (not pictured)

Two F-16s were taking part in a mock attack on the uninhabited island of Tarva off Norway's west coast when one of them opened fire with its M61 Vulcan cannon.

The M61 Vulcan cannon is capable of firing up to 100 rounds-a-second.

Air Force spokesman Maj. Stian Roen said the incident occurred shortly after midnight on April 13.

Roen said Sunday that the aircraft was supposed to fire at a simulated target on the airfield some 500 meters (550 yards) away but that 'something went wrong.'

The lookout tower was slightly damaged by the gunfire, he said.

The pilot of the Norwegian Air Force F-16 fighter jet had been instructed to fire some 550 yards away, but hit the tower by accident (stock image)

Roen said he couldn't give further details pending the outcome of an investigation by a special commission.

In a similar incident in 2009, F-16s fired in error on the same tower, with at least one round piercing the structure, but again no-one was injured.

It's not the only incident of an F-16 misfiring. In 2014 a Dutch fighter jet accidentally strafed the control tower at the Vliehors range on the island of Vlieland, north of Amsterdam, during a training flight.
Dubai to open Marvel, Cartoon Network-branded theme park

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)  Dubai will soon have a one-stop destination for families whose tastes run from Spider-Man to velociraptors to the Powerpuff Girls.

Local developer Ilyas and Mustafa Galadari Group said Sunday its new 1.5 million square-foot (139,355 square meter) indoor amusement park on the city's desert outskirts will open on August 15.

The $1 billion IMG Worlds of Adventure park includes one section centered on Marvel Comics and another branded by Cartoon Network. Another zone is dedicated to dinosaurs and features a roller coaster to whisk thrill-seekers outside and back into the air-conditioned complex.

Marvel heroes, Iron Man and Black Widow pose at the IMG Worlds of Adventure press conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Dubai will soon have a one-stop destination for families whose tastes run from Spider-Man to velociraptors to the Powerpuff Girls. Local developer Ilyas and Mustafa Galadari Group said Sunday that a new 1.5 million square-foot (139,355 square meter) indoor amusement park it is building on the city's desert outskirts will open on August 15. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)

Dubai is increasingly looking to amusement parks to cement its standing as a tourist haven. Another company is building a massive complex elsewhere in the 2020 World Expo host city that will include Legoland and Six Flags parks.

The final steps of construction work are seen at the IMG Worlds of Adventure complex in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Dubai will soon have a one-stop destination for families whose tastes run from Spider-Man to velociraptors to the Powerpuff Girls. Local developer Ilyas and Mustafa Galadari Group said Sunday that a new 1.5 million square-foot (139,355 square meter) indoor amusement park it is building on the city's desert outskirts will open on August 15. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)

Cartoon Network characters pose at the IMG Worlds of Adventure press conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Dubai will soon have a one-stop destination for families whose tastes run from Spider-Man to velociraptors to the Powerpuff Girls. Local developer Ilyas and Mustafa Galadari Group said Sunday that a new 1.5 million square-foot (139,355 square meter) indoor amusement park it is building on the city's desert outskirts will open on August 15. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)

Lennard Otto, Chief Executive Officer of IMG Worlds of Adventure at the IMG Worlds of Adventure press conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Dubai will soon have a one-stop destination for families whose tastes run from Spider-Man to velociraptors to the Powerpuff Girls. Local developer Ilyas and Mustafa Galadari Group said Sunday that a new 1.5 million square-foot (139,355 square meter) indoor amusement park it is building on the city's desert outskirts will open on August 15. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)
PICTURED: Solar-powered plane finishes flight over Pacific

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP)  That wasn't just any plane on a fly-by over the Golden Gate Bridge.

As spectators watched the thin solar-powered aircraft with extra wide wings, it was nearing the end of the trans-Pacific leg of its around-the-world sojourn.

The global journey of Solar Impulse 2 began in Abu Dhabi in March 2015. It faced delays along the way, before attempting the most dangerous part of its sojourn: the flight over the Pacific Ocean's vast expanses, where there are few places to make an emergency landing.

Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Pilot Bertrand Piccard made the 62-hour, nonstop solo flight without fuel. Now three more stops in the United States remain.

The plane will then attempt to traverse the Atlantic Ocean on the last leg of its trip.

Solar Impulse 2 pilots Bertrand Piccard, right, and Andre Borschberg celebrate after Piccard landed their solar-powered plane at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif., on Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane landed in California on Saturday, completing a risky, three-day flight across the Pacific Ocean as part of its journey around the world. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco on Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 pilot Bertrand Piccard looks out his cockpit window shortly after landing at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif., on Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane landed in California on Saturday, completing a risky, three-day flight across the Pacific Ocean as part of its journey around the world.(AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco before landing at Moffett Field on Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 pilots Bertrand Piccard, left, and Andre Borschberg speak with reporters after their solar-powered plane landed at Moffett field in Mountain View, Calif., on Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane landed in California on Saturday, completing a risky, three-day flight across the Pacific Ocean as part of its journey around the world. (AP Photo/Noah Bergeq

This April 9, 2016 photo provided by Bertrand Piccard via Global Newsroom shows Piccard taking a selfie on board Solar Impulse 2 during a test flight over the Pacific Ocean. The solar-powered airplane on an around-the-world journey had traveled 80 percent of the way from Hawaii to California by Saturday, April 23. The aircraft's destination on this leg of the journey is Mountain View, Calif., at the southern end of San Francisco Bay. (Bertrand Piccard/Global Newsroom via AP)

FILE - In this March 31, 2015 file photo, pilots Andre Boschberg, center left, and Bertrand Piccard, at right, pose for photos with their solar powered plane in a hangar at Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality. The solar-powered airplane landed in California on Saturday, April 23, 2016, completing a risky, three-day flight across the Pacific Ocean as part of its journey around the world. (AP Photo/File) CHINA OUT

FILE - In this April 21, 2015 file photo,a solar-powered plane takes off from Jiangbei International Airport in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality. The solar-powered airplane landed in California on Saturday, April 23, 2016, completing a risky, three-day flight across the Pacific Ocean as part of its journey around the world. (Chinatopix via AP, File) CHINA OUT

Solar Impulse 2 flies over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 flies over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco, Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane, which is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation, arrived from Hawaii after a three-day journey across the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
Romanian opera apologizes after 3rd show is canceled

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP)  Romania's opera house has apologized after a third show this week was canceled at short notice and warned the public to expect more turmoil as it is rocked by a bitter dispute.

The National Opera of Bucharest expressed its regret Sunday that a ballet was not performed as scheduled "due to a number of individual actions."

Ballet dancer Marina Minoiu said spectators jeered the orchestra, who refused to perform Saturday, and applauded ballerinas who were waiting to dance.

Culture Minister Vlad Alexandrescu announced this week he would appoint a manager "of international standing" to end the turmoil which has involved international ballerina Alina Cojocaru.
Pope to youth: Happiness can't be downloaded like an app

VATICAN CITY (AP)  Pope Francis has told teenagers happiness can't be downloaded like a cellphone app.

Francis used the reference to connect to faithful aged 13-16 who are converging on Rome for a Holy Year weekend for teenagers.

During his homily Sunday in St. Peter's Square, he told a crowd of 100,000 that "happiness has no price" and is "not an app that you can download on your phones, nor will the latest update bring you freedom and grandeur in love."

Youths rest as as they wait for the arrival of Pope Francis to celebrate a mass for the Youths Jubilee, part of the Holy Year activities, in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, April 24, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

A day earlier, in a video message to the teens' rally in a Rome stadium, Francis likened being out of contact with God through lack of love to being where there's no cellphone reception.

After Mass, dozens of white-robed priests surrounded Francis, many snapping selfies with him.

Pope Francis tours St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on his open car at the end of a mass he celebrated for the Youths Jubilee, part of the Holy Year activities, Sunday, April 24, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Francis blesses youths as he celebrates a mass for the Youths Jubilee, part of the Holy Year activities, in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, April 24, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Francis tours St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on his open car at the end of a mass he celebrated for the Youths Jubilee, part of the Holy Year activities, Sunday, April 24, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

A group of Scouts arrives in St. Peter's Square prior to the arrival of Pope Francis to celebrate a mass for the Youths Jubilee, part of the Holy Year activities, in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, April 24, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
At least 26 killed as fighting rages in Syria's Aleppo

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP)  Air strikes and shelling pounded Aleppo for a third straight day on Sunday, killing two young siblings and at least 24 others in Syria's largest city and former commercial capital.

The northern city has been bitterly contested between insurgents and government forces since 2012. Opposition groups control the eastern part of the city but have come under intense strain as the government has choked off all routes to the area except a narrow and perilous passage to the northwest.

At least 10 people were killed by rebel shelling on government-held areas in the city, according to activists and Syria's state news agency, SANA. Rockets struck schools and residential areas, SANA reported. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two young siblings were among the dead.

In this image made from video posted online by the Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, people stand in rubble after airstrikes and shelling hit Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Air strikes and shelling pounded Aleppo for a third straight day Sunday, killing two young siblings and more than a dozen others in Syria's largest city and former commercial capital. (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP video)

Air strikes on the opposition side of the city killed 16, including a mother and her daughter, the Observatory said.

A video posted on social media by the Syrian Civil Defense first responder group, known as the White Helmets and which operates in opposition-held areas, suggests some of the strikes hit a market in the neighborhood of Sakhour, with footage showing overturned vegetable carts strewed among the wreckage.

The opposition High Negotiations Committee, which suspended its formal participation in peace talks with the government in Geneva last week, called the strikes "an attack on the Geneva process that is the only possible pathway to peace."

Salem Meslet, HNC spokesman, called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to hold its Damascus allies to the terms of a U.S. and Russia-brokered cease-fire that parties signed onto nearly two months ago.

"The key to ending these attacks, and to making progress in the talks, lies in Moscow," said Meslet.

The cease-fire is still technically in place, but may have completely unraveled on the ground  with violence returning to most of the contested areas of the country. The U.N.'s Special Envoy to Syria last week called on the two superpowers to salvage the truce before it totally collapses.

The Aleppo Conquest rebel coalition on Saturday threatened to dissolve the truce if pro-government forces continued to strike civilians in opposition areas.

The al-Qaida branch in Syria, the Nusra Front, and its more powerful rival, the Islamic State group, are not included in the cease-fire. The Nusra Front is deeply rooted in the areas in northern Syria controlled by opposition forces, complicating the oversight of the truce.

U.N.-mediated talks in Geneva have also been bogged down by the violence, with the Saudi-backed opposition delegation suspending its formal participation last week. The government delegation is nonetheless set to meet with U.N. envoy Staffan De Mistura Monday.

Opposition groups have said reports of a new government offensive on the opposition-held side of Aleppo would wreck the peace talks.

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Issa reported from Beirut.

In this image made from video posted online by the Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, Civil Defense workers run after airstrikes and shelling hit Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Air strikes and shelling pounded Aleppo for a third straight day Sunday, killing two young siblings and more than a dozen others in Syria's largest city and former commercial capital. (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP video)

In this image made from video posted online by the Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, Civil Defense workers run after airstrikes and shelling hit Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Air strikes and shelling pounded Aleppo for a third straight day Sunday, killing two young siblings and more than a dozen others in Syria's largest city and former commercial capital. (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP video)

In this image made from video posted online by the Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, people stand in rubble after airstrikes and shelling hit Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Air strikes and shelling pounded Aleppo for a third straight day Sunday, killing two young siblings and more than a dozen others in Syria's largest city and former commercial capital. (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP video)

In this image made from video posted online by the Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, a man helps an injured man as others stand in rubble after airstrikes and shelling hit Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Air strikes and shelling pounded Aleppo for a third straight day Sunday, killing two young siblings and more than a dozen others in Syria's largest city and former commercial capital. The northern city has been bitterly contested between insurgents and government forces since 2012. (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP video)

In this image made from video posted online by the Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, men stand in rubble after airstrikes and shelling hit Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Air strikes and shelling pounded Aleppo for a third straight day Sunday, killing two young siblings and more than a dozen others in Syria's largest city and former commercial capital. The northern city has been bitterly contested between insurgents and government forces since 2012. (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP video)
White House poised to release secret pages from 9/11 inquiry

WASHINGTON (AP)  The Obama administration will likely soon release at least part of a 28-page secret chapter from a congressional inquiry into 9/11 that may shed light on possible Saudi connections to the attackers.

The documents, kept in a secure room in the basement of the Capitol, contain information from the joint congressional inquiry into "specific sources of foreign support for some of the Sept. 11 hijackers while they were in the United States."

Bob Graham, who was co-chairman of that bipartisan panel, and others say the documents point suspicion at the Saudis. The former Democratic senator from Florida says an administration official told him that intelligence officials will decide in the next several weeks whether to release at least parts of the documents. The disclosure would come at a time of strained U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia, a long-time American ally.

FILE - In this Oct. 12, 2012, file photo Bob Graham speaks in Gainesville, Fla.. The Obama administration will likely soon release at least part of a 28-page secret chapter from a congressional inquiry into 9/11 that may shed light on possible Saudi connections to the attackers. Graham and others say the documents point suspicion at the Saudis. Graham says an Obama administration official told him that intelligence officials will decide in the next several weeks whether to release at least parts of the documents, a disclosure that comes at a time of strained U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia, a long-time American ally. (AP Photo/Phil Sandlin, File)

"I hope that decision is to honor the American people and make it available," Graham told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "The most important unanswered question of 9/11 is, did these 19 people conduct this very sophisticated plot alone, or were they supported?"

Tim Roemer, who was a member of both the joint congressional inquiry as well as the 9/11 Commission and has read the secret chapter three times, described the 28 pages as a "preliminary police report."

"There were clues. There were allegations. There were witness reports. There was evidence about the hijackers, about people they met with  all kinds of different things that the 9/11 Commission was then tasked with reviewing and investigating," the former Democratic congressman from Indiana said Friday.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were citizens of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government says it has been "wrongfully and morbidly accused of complicity" in the attacks, is fighting extremists and working to clamp down on their funding channels. Still, the Saudis have long said that they would welcome declassification of the 28 pages because it would "allow us to respond to any allegations in a clear and credible manner."

The pages were withheld from the 838-page report on the orders of President George W. Bush, who said the release could divulge intelligence sources and methods. Still, protecting U.S.-Saudi diplomatic relations also was believed to have been a factor.

Ben Rhodes, President Barack Obama's deputy national security adviser, said Obama asked National Intelligence Director James Clapper to review the papers for possible declassification.

"When that's done we'd expect that there will be some degree of declassification that provides more information," Rhodes told reporters in Riyadh last week, where Obama met with King Salman and other Saudi leaders. The White House says the 28 pages did not come up during discussions.

Neither the congressional inquiry nor the subsequent 9/11 Commission found any evidence that the Saudi government or senior Saudi officials knowingly supported those who orchestrated the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. But Graham, the relatives of victims and some lawmakers think there is reason to further probe possible Saudi links.

Roemer said many questions remain about the roles of Fahad al Thumairy, an official at the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles who allegedly helped two of the hijackers find housing and transportation after they arrived in Southern California. Al Thumairy was later denied entry into the United States in May 2003 after the State Department alleged that he might be involved in terrorist activity. Roemer also wants to know more about Omar al Bayoumi, who was strongly suspected of being a Saudi spy and was alleged to have been helpful to the hijackers.

"We did not discover ... Saudi government involvement at the highest level of the 9/11 attacks," Roemer said. But he added: "We certainly did not exonerate the Saudis. ... Saudi was a fertile ground for fundraising for al-Qaida. Some of these issues continue to be problems today. That's why we need to continue to get to the bottom of this."

An Internet site pushing to get the documents released, 28pages.org, points to another document declassified in July 2015 that outlined ways in which the commission could examine possible Saudi links.

That 47-page document lists several pages of individuals of interest and suggests questions that could be pursued. One name is suspected al-Qaida operative Ghassan al Sharbi.

Al Sharbi, who was taking flight lessons in the Phoenix area before 9/11, was captured in 2002 in the same place in Pakistan as Abu Zubaydah, a top al-Qaida trainer who was apprehended and waterboarded dozens of times by U.S. interrogators.

The document said that after al Sharbi was captured, the FBI discovered some documents buried nearby. One was al Sharbi's pilot certificate inside an envelope from the Saudi Embassy in Washington, although it's unclear whether the license had been mailed by the embassy or if the envelope was simply being reused.

A CIA inspector-general report in June 2015 said there had been no reliable information confirming Saudi government "involvement with and financial support for terrorist prior to 9/11." But it said also that people in the CIA's Near East Division and Counterterrorism Center "speculated that dissident sympathizers within the government may have aided al-Qaida." The rest of the chapter, titled "Issues Related to Saudi Arabia," is blacked out.

A bill directing the president to release the 28-page chapter was introduced in the Senate, and nearly three dozen Republicans and Democrats in the House are backing a similar resolution.

Reps. Walter Jones, R-N.C., Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., wrote Obama last week saying they don't think releasing the chapter will harm national security and could provide closure for the victims' families.

California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, has read the pages and said this past week that while he wants to see them declassified to end speculation about what they say, releasing them will not quell the debate over the issue.
Egypt leader urges people to defend state ahead of protests

CAIRO (AP)  Egypt's president urged citizens to defend the state and its institutions from the "forces of evil" on Sunday, a day before planned demonstrations against his policies, including the transfer of two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.

In a widely televised speech, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi insisted on the need for stability in the Arab world's most populous country, saying that attempts to degrade it "won't be successful" if Egypt stands united.

"We must protect these institutions because these mean the state," he said. "I am reiterating to the Egyptian people this is the responsibility of all of us, for us to protect this security and stability."

FILE - In this Friday, April 15, 2016 file photo, Egyptians shout slogans against Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi during a protest against the decision to hand over control of two strategic Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia in front of the Press Syndicate, in Cairo, Egypt. Egyptian security forces have rounded up dozens of activists, journalists, and lawyers ahead of demonstrations called for April 25 against President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's policies, including the transfer of two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia, lawyers and witnesses said Friday, April 22. 2016. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)

Earlier this month, thousands marched against el-Sissi's policies in the largest demonstrations since he assumed office in 2014. The protests featured slogans such as "leave," and "down with the regime," used in the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime leader Hosni Mubarak.

The protesters, including politicians and activists, called for more demonstrations on Monday, a national holiday that commemorates the withdrawal of the last Israeli troops from the Sinai Peninsula in 1982 under the Camp David peace agreement.

The armed forces will deploy at vital sites Monday to prevent saboteurs from taking advantage of these protests, Egypt's military spokesman Brig. Gen. Mohammed Samir said Sunday.

El-Sissi's comments raise the possibility of large-scale counter-demonstrations that could turn violent, in addition to a potentially harsh police crackdown  especially if the demonstrators attempt to reach the heavily policed Tahrir Square.

Protests are essentially banned in Egypt under laws passed after el-Sissi led the military overthrow of his elected but divisive Islamist predecessor, Mohammed Morsi, in 2013.

A petition titled "Egypt is not for sale," which calls for a reversal of the decision on the islands and supports the protests, was signed by more than 300 Egyptian novelists, lawyers and activists, and several calls have been made on social media for Monday's demonstrations to converge on Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the 2011 revolt against Mubarak.

The Muslim Brotherhood said in a Sunday statement it supports the protests and is calling on people to join them.

Since Friday, security troops have been out in force, with armored personnel carriers stationed at key traffic areas, while security agents have rounded up dozens of activists, journalists, and lawyers from their homes and cafes in downtown Cairo.

Two Interior Ministry spokesmen did not respond to repeated telephone calls seeking comment.

Also Sunday, Interior Minister Magdy Abdel-Ghaffar met with officials to review preparations to confront any attempts to "break the law," the ministry said in a statement. It quoted Abdel-Ghaffar as saying that the security apparatus would be ready to address any action that could disturb public security with "the utmost firmness and decisiveness," urging citizens to ignore calls to create chaos and drive a wedge between the people and police.

The protests earlier this month were pegged to anger over el-Sissi's decision to transfer sovereignty of the two islands to Saudi Arabia in a deal concluded in secret and announced during a visit by Saudi King Salman.

Many infuriated Egyptians accused the government of trading land for aid and investment from the oil-rich kingdom. The government insists the two islands, Tiran and Sanafir, always belonged to Saudi Arabia but were placed under Egyptian protection in 1950 because Riyadh feared they would be attacked by Israel.

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Muslims for Trump, though few, see past rhetoric, bluster

DETROIT (AP)  As a Donald Trump supporter, Nedal Tamer feels he's in the minority among Muslim-Americans, comfortable with his choice yet somewhat confounded that he doesn't have more company.

Small numbers of Muslims find comfort, not concern, in Trump's strong stance on immigrants. They see it as proof that the Republican presidential front-runner could better contain extremists than other candidates.

"People have the wrong idea, even Arabs and Muslims," said Tamer, 40, who works in real estate and construction and lives in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, which is known for its large Arab and Muslim population. "I like the fact that he's a little nuts. He's got the good heart, he cares about America."

In this April 7, 2016, Nedal Tamer stands inside a house he is renovating in Dearborn, Mich. Tamer feels that, as a supporter of Donald Trumps bid for the presidency, he is in the minority among Muslim Americans. Hes comfortable with his position, yet a little confounded that he doesnt have more company. A small number of Muslims find comfort, not concern, in Trumps strong stance on immigrants _ seeing it as proof he could better contain extremists than other candidates. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

The discomfort that many Muslims have with the outspoken billionaire businessman comes from his suggestion that Muslims be banned from entering the United States. Trump also has said the U.S. should stop the flow of refugees from countries where the Islamic State group has a significant presence. For some, it's hardest to reconcile Trump's statement that "Islam hates the West."

The Associated Press spoke to a number of Muslims who back Trump, some of whom declined to be interviewed.

Tamer was born in Lebanon and immigrated to the U.S. in the late 1990s from the United Arab Emirates. He said Trump is speaking about extremists, such as the Islamic State group and those it inspires, not all followers of the religion.

"Many times, Trump has said, 'Not all Muslims'  he's not talking about all Muslims," said Tamer, a Republican. "He says there are certain people. ... We've seen what's happening. I don't think anybody would agree with what ISIS is doing," Tamer said, using an acronym for the extremist group. "He says, 'We have to stop ISIS now, immediately.'"

In heavily Arab and Muslim Dearborn, many support Democrat Bernie Sanders, and people in those communities helped turn the tide toward him last month in the state's primary. Sally Howell, an associate professor at University of Michigan-Dearborn and author of several books on Arabs and Muslims in Detroit, described them as a small demographic overall but certainly a factor in Sanders' Michigan victory over rival Hillary Clinton. It helped that he came to Dearborn to court them.

"It's not all about the Middle East (issues)  it was young people, people who care about bread-and-butter issues: the economy, health insurance, quality of schools and policing," she said. "They were the swing vote in Michigan. Any group can claim that, but I think Arabs and Muslims considered themselves to have really made the difference."

That's not stopping some Muslims from organizing on behalf of the GOP and, by extension, Trump. Last fall, Saba Ahmed founded the Republican Muslim Coalition in the nation's capital and seeks to establish a presence nationwide.

"We will be supporting whoever the Republican nominee ends up being. And we are hopeful of Trump's business background, and that he would be able to use that to turn the economy around," she said.

Ahmed, a lawyer, said she has a lot of Muslim friends who are Democrats. But in her view, "Islamic values align with Republican values," and her list includes opposing abortion and backing traditional marriage. She acknowledges that coalition members are "very much concerned" by some of Trump's "very absurd comments," but counters that some of what he says is "overblown."

"Trump knows he can't win the general election with that type of hatred and those types of comments," she said. "So going forward, things will look different."

Some Arabs and Muslims not in the Trump camp have expressed tentative support for his comments related to the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He has said he would attempt to be "neutral," though he recently told a gathering of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that he is "a lifelong supporter and true friend of Israel."

Osama Siblani, publisher of the influential Arab American News, said Trump's supporters  Muslim or otherwise  believe he is an "independent thinker" who "will do the right thing at the end of the day." Siblani added that Trump has business enterprises all over the world, including in Arab Gulf nations, which supporters believe should mute concerns over Islamophobia.

Still, Trump is neither Siblani's personal preference nor his paper's. The Dearborn-based publication, which supported George W. Bush in 2000, has endorsed Sanders.

"I believe Trump is playing on ignorance and cashing in on fear," Siblani said.

Both Ahmed and Tamer said their pro-Republican or pro-Trump positions have led to disagreements and even arguments with other Muslims, but Ahmed said that merely speaks to wide diversity among followers of Islam.

"We can have differences of opinion in the upcoming election, but it's important for all Muslims to get involved," she said. "We are the 1 percent that can shift the outcome of the presidential election. We need more engagement."

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Follow Jeff Karoub on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jeffkaroub . His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/author/jeff-karoub .

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Associated Press writer Noreen Nasir contributed to this report.

In this April 7, 2016, photo, Nedal Tamer stands outside a house he is renovating in Dearborn, Mich. Tamer feels that, as a supporter of Donald Trumps bid for the presidency, he is in the minority among Muslim Americans. Hes comfortable with his position, yet a little confounded that he doesnt have more company. A small number of Muslims find comfort, not concern, in Trumps strong stance on immigrants _ seeing it as proof he could better contain extremists than other candidates. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
Saudi human rights activist sentenced to 9 years in prison

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP)  Rights group Amnesty International says a court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a peaceful dissident to nine years in prison and banned him from travel abroad for another nine years on charges related to his civil rights work.

Issa al-Hamid is a founding member of the Saudi Association for Civil and Political Rights, known by its Arabic acronym HASEM. Several HASEM members are serving similarly lengthy jail sentences. On Sunday, Amnesty International described his sentencing as part of a wider "ruthless onslaught against civil society" by Saudi authorities. Al-Hamid was convicted of inciting people to breach public order, insulting the judiciary, defaming the kingdom's senior religious clerics and establishing an unlicensed organization.
Forest Ranger Scott Van Laer (pictured), an 18-year search and rescue professional, is obsessed with finding hidden crash sites in the six-million-acre Adirondack Mountains in New York state

Hidden among the rugged mountains, spruce thickets and mossy bogs of New York's six-million-acre Adirondack Park lie the remnants of dozens of planes that have met their doom over the decades.

They include single-engine private planes, military jets and commercial aircrafts.

Some are well-known, like the Air Force B-47 bomber that crashed into Wright Peak in 1962, leaving wreckage visited by hikers to this day.

Others have nearly vanished, leaving little but scraps of canvas and rusted steel beneath ferns and fallen trees.

Forest Ranger Scott Van Laer, an 18-year search and rescue professional, has made it his mission to tell their stories. He's an aviation archaeologist, also known as a 'wreck chaser'.

What started as a work assignment to update a list of crash sites has become an off-duty obsession involving hundreds of hours poring over FAA and military crash records, interviewing old-timers, networking on web message boards and hiking to remote crash sites.

'This is one of the first planes I looked for,' Van Laer said as he bushwhacked through dense woods and beaver marsh on a recent Sunday.

He was in search of a Cessna 207 'Skywagon' that crashed in 1970 in the Jay Mountain range of the northeastern Adirondacks.

'Turns out I looked totally on the wrong mountain. That's because the crash list was put together by a ranger in the '80s before GPS. It wasn't precise.'

This time, Van Laer was accompanied by local resident Jim Beaton, who had visited the site soon after the crash.

Van Laer photographs pieces of a Cessna 207 that crashed into an Adirondack mountainside in 1970 in New York

Van Laer is writing a book about Adirondack plane crashes to be published next year and has documented 200 sites

Beaton led the way to the white and yellow shards of fuselage, wings and tail scattered through the swath of forest where Harvey Shaw, a former Air Force pilot, crashed in heavy fog and died.

Van Laer documented the site with photographs and GPS readings.

In addition to cataloging crash sites for the Department of Environmental Conservation, Van Laer is writing a book about Adirondack plane crashes, which he expects to publish next year.

He has documented more than 200 crashes in the region, with wreckage remaining in the woods from about 50.

Laer is documenting dozens of plane crash sites in the Adirondack Mountains with plans for a book for fellow 'wreck chasers' and hikers

He has visited about two dozen sites. Some, long forgotten in remote areas, took multiple trips to find.

'One I'm still looking for is a Connecticut National Guard plane that went down in the Moose River Plains in 1956,' he said.

'The pilot dragged himself for 36 hours with a broken leg until some loggers saved him.'

Some sites hold military history.

One is on Blue Ridge in the central Adirondacks, where a U.S. Army C-46 transport plane crashed in 1944 during a night training mission, killing the three people on board.

Despite an intense search, the wreckage wasn't found until nearly a year later by someone searching for a different lost aircraft.

'A group of wreck chasers found it about 15 years ago and put a plaque on the wing and hung a flag,' Van Laer said. 'Now a few people go to it every year.'

As he searches for sites, Van Laer often seeks out surviving relatives to see if they want to visit the wrecks.

The Adirondacks is the final resting place for many airplanes. This image shows crash survivors and rescuers from 1935

In 2014, he led a pilot's son to wreckage of a Cherokee 140 on Iroquois Mountain on the 45th anniversary of the crash. 'That one was celebratory because his father survived,' he said.

One wreck remains a mystery.

The twin-engine jet of an Atlanta developer crashed shortly after takeoff from Burlington, Vermont, in January 1971.

A search ranging from the eastern Adirondacks to the Vermont side of Lake Champlain was fruitless. The jet and five men on board are still missing.

After Van Laer happened to meet the pilot's daughter on a wreck-chasing message board, he organized a search in Lake Champlain in 2014 involving state police divers and private contractors with a mini submarine.

This aerial view shows the spot in Pine Mountain where a passenger plane with four aboard slid to a forced landing, Dec. 28, 1935

Van Laer has documented 50 crashes that still have wreckage in the woods and hiked to visit 12 in person

He helped family members organize another private search last year.

'That one's been tough,' Van Laer said. 'I really want to help bring closure to the family.'

The pilot's niece, Barbara Nikitas, of Beverly Hills, California, said Van Laer is a godsend for a family that longs for answers after 45 years.
Moldovan anti-government protesters scuffle with police

CHSINAU, Moldova (AP)  Protesters scuffled with police who fired tear gas at them Sunday during a march in the Moldovan capital attended by thousands who were demanding the resignation of the government and early elections. More than a dozen people were injured.

The protest was initially peaceful, with demonstrators claiming that the government is under the influence of politically-connected business people who dictate policy.

But later some protesters hurled stones and other objects at police as they walked toward the home of one of Moldova's most influential businessmen. Moldovan police said 14 police officers and two protesters needed medical treatment from injuries sustained in the scuffles.

Political leaders and parties declined to take part in the protest because Orthodox Christians were celebrating Palm Sunday, a religious holiday in Moldova.

Moldova has been rocked by protests since September 2015, when demonstrators began demanding a proper investigation into more than $1 billion that went missing from three banks prior to parliamentary elections in November 2014.
Israel frees youngest Palestinian prisoner

HEBRON, West Bank (AP)  A 12-year-old Palestinian girl, imprisoned by Israel after she confessed to planning a stabbing attack on Israelis in a West Bank settlement, returned home Sunday after she was freed early following an appeal.

Dima al-Wawi is believed to be the youngest female Palestinian ever imprisoned.

Al-Wawi was greeted by about 80 relatives at her family's house in Halhoul, a village near Hebron, a West Bank city that has been a focal point of violence. Relatives decorated the house with balloons and posters. Banners by the Islamic militant group Hamas along with the Fatah party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas adorned the walls.

Sabha al-Wawi, right, Palestinian mother of 12-year-old Dima al-Wawi, imprisoned by Israel for allegedly attempting to carry out a stabbing attack, comforts her daughter, after her release from an Israeli prison, at Jabara checkpoint near the West Bank town of Tulkarem, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Al-Wawi who was imprisoned after she confessed to planning a stabbing attack in a West Bank settlement has been released Sunday. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed))

"I am happy to be out. Prison is bad," al-Wawi told The Associated Press. "During my time in prison I missed my classmates and my friends and family."

According to court documents provided by the military, al-Wawi approached the West Bank settlement of Carmei Tsur on Feb. 9 with a knife hidden under a shirt.

A security guard ordered her to halt, and a resident instructed her to lie on the ground and told her to give up the knife, which she did. An amateur video clip shown on Israeli TV showed the resident asking the girl, who was wearing her school uniform, whether she had come to kill Jews, and she said yes. She later pleaded guilty to attempted manslaughter in a plea bargain and was sentenced to 4 months in prison. She was freed early after an appeal.

Her case put Israel's military justice system in a tough spot because of her young age. Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war, and Palestinian residents there are subject to a system of military law that can sentence suspects as young as 12 to prison.

By contrast, Israeli settlers in the West Bank, as well as Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel, are subject to Israeli civil law, which does not allow anyone under 14 to go to jail.

The incident came amid seven months of violence in which Palestinians have killed 28 Israelis and two Americans in stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks in Israel and the West Bank. At least 190 Palestinians have died from Israeli fire. Israel says most were attackers, and the rest died in clashes with Israeli security forces.

Many of the Palestinian attackers have been teenagers or in their early 20s.

Israel blames the attacks on incitement by Palestinian religious and political leaders that is compounded on social media sites that glorify and encourage attacks. Palestinian officials say it is the result of despair living under Israeli occupation and frustration over the prospect of ever reaching statehood.

Palestinian father Ismail al-Wawi kisses his 12-year-old daughter Dima al-Wawi, who was imprisoned by Israel for allegedly attempting to carry out a stabbing attack, after her release from an Israeli prison, at Jabara checkpoint near the West Bank town of Tulkarem, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Al-Wawi who was imprisoned after she confessed to planning a stabbing attack in a West Bank settlement has been released Sunday. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

Palestinian 12-year-old Dima al-Wawi, who was imprisoned by Israel for allegedly attempting to carry out a stabbing attack, holds flowers after her release from an Israeli prison, at Jabara checkpoint near the West Bank town of Tulkarem, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Al-Wawi who was imprisoned after she confessed to planning a stabbing attack in a West Bank settlement has been released Sunday. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

Palestinian 12-year-old Dima al-Wawi, center, who was imprisoned by Israel for allegedly attempting to carry out a stabbing attack, is comforted by her brother Ahmad al- Wawi and her mother Sabha al-Wawi, after her release from an Israeli prison, at Jabara checkpoint near the West Bank town of Tulkarem, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Al-Wawi who was imprisoned after she confessed to planning a stabbing attack in a West Bank settlement has been released Sunday. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

Palestinian 12-year-old Dima al-Wawi, who was imprisoned by Israel for allegedly attempting to carry out a stabbing attack, is escorted by Israeli border police officers and soldiers, after her release from an Israeli prison, at Jabara checkpoint near the West Bank town of Tulkarem, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Al-Wawi who was imprisoned after she confessed to planning a stabbing attack in a West Bank settlement has been released Sunday. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Sprawling corruption case with humble beginnings roils NYC

NEW YORK (AP)  After a successful attack on corruption in New York's state government, the hard-charging federal prosecutor in Manhattan appears to have set his sights on New York City.

Over the past few weeks, a series of loosely related public corruption investigations coordinated by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara have spilled into public view, with targets including high-ranking New York Police Department officials, the union representing city jail guards, and the political fundraising activities of several people with ties to New York City's mayor.

Already an embarrassment to the nation's largest police department, it remains unclear whether the widening probes could do damage to City Hall.

FILE- In this May 28, 2013, file photo, Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, addresses a news conference in New York. A series of loosely related public corruption investigations which Bharara coordinated have spilled into public view. Targets include high-ranking New York Police Department officials, the union representing New York City jail guards, and the political fundraising activities of several people with ties to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

So far, nine police officials, including four deputy chiefs, have been transferred or stripped of their guns and badges as internal affairs detectives and FBI agents examine whether officers accepted gifts and trips from businessmen in exchange for police escorts, special parking privileges and other favors.

And in recent weeks, the evolving probe has turned to campaign financing practices that have long been scrutinized by good government groups.

An animal welfare group that has been lobbying Mayor Bill de Blasio to ban carriage horses from city streets confirmed Friday that it had received a subpoena from federal prosecutors seeking documents related to its fundraising efforts for a nonprofit group created to advance the mayor's policy agenda.

After a criminal referral to prosecutors from the state Board of Elections office, other subpoenas sought records related to hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations solicited by the mayor's campaign that were rerouted to upstate Democrats running for the state Senate.

Separately, federal agents operated a wiretap that captured the conversations of two businessmen, Jona Rechnitz and Jeremy Reichberg, who were friends with two top police officials and served on de Blasio's inaugural committee in 2013 and contributed to his campaign, two law enforcement officials said.

Investigators want to know whether they have been offered any official favors in exchange for donations, according to the officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss an ongoing case.

De Blasio, a Democrat, has not been accused of any specific wrongdoing and his campaign organization has said it operated within the laws. His campaign lawyer, Laurence Laufer, on Sunday wrote a letter, which was obtained by The Associated Press, to the Board of Elections, accusing the group of selective, politically-motivated enforcement and leaking confidential investigative material to the media.

The developments have created the perception that a city that was thought to have rid itself of everyday corruption might be slipping back into the bad old days.

"If you can find a corrupt mayor of New York City, holy moly, that's a big prize," said Jennifer Rodgers, a former federal prosecutor who now heads the Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity at Columbia Law School.

Several parts of the multifaceted probe had their origins in an FBI investigation of suspicious financial transactions involving a Harlem liquor store.

Campaign financing wasn't on FBI agents' minds in 2013 when they were alerted to a series of large transfers and deposits in multiple bank accounts held by a small wholesale liquor business in Harlem, the law enforcement officials said.

Ultimately, investigators concluded that a Harlem restaurant owner was using the accounts to run a $12 million Ponzi scheme, in which Rechnitz and Reichberg were investors.

The investigators continued to scrutinize the finances of the businessmen, who have donated tens of thousands of dollars to the mayor's campaign and advocacy efforts. Authorities also learned that the pair had cultivated a relationship with Norman Seabrook, the powerful head of the 9,000-member jail guard union, and Phillip Banks III, formerly the top-ranking uniformed officer at the police department. The men all visited Israel together in 2014.

A federal subpoena issued to the union last year and reviewed by the AP has sought records detailing the flow of funds from Seabrook's union into a company controlled by Rechnitz, JSR Capital, and into other businesses.

A lawyer for Banks declined to comment. Seabrook and a lawyer for Rechnitz didn't return messages. Calls to numbers listed for Reichberg rang unanswered.

Wiretaps in that probe led to a broader examination of the cozy relationship between high-ranking police and the city's Orthodox Jewish community, the officials said.

In a related case, a member of a neighborhood patrol in an Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn was caught in a wiretapped conversation bragging that he had used connections in the NYPD to get over 150 gun licenses for people without required background checks, according to court papers charging him last week with bribery and conspiracy.

Bharara, the federal prosecutor, has been mum on the details of the investigations, but vowed in a recent speech to continue his efforts, in both state and city government.

"Executive offices in government," he said, "are far from immune from a creeping show-me-the-money culture that has been pervading New York for some time now."

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Legal defeat only emboldens 'food sovereignty' soldiers

PENOBSCOT, Maine (AP)  Heather and Phil Retberg's Quill's End Farm is idyllic to the point of New England cliche. Dairy cows, milked by hand, share space with goats and ducks near a wooden barn that overlooks a rolling green field and the summit of nearby Blue Hill.

The farm is a way of life Heather Retberg said needs to be protected from an aggressive regulatory structure that keeps small farms from getting food to local people. State legislators' pushback against "food sovereignty" advocates like Retberg, in Maine and elsewhere in the country, has only emboldened her.

"This used to be how it was decades ago. It's only changed recently, and that's a pretty aberrant period in our food history," she said. "It's my right, as an individual, to grow the food I eat."

In this Friday, April 15, 2016 photo, Heather Retberg feeds chickens at the Quill's End Farm in Penobscot, Maine. The farm represents a way of life she said needs to be protected from an aggressive regulatory structure that keeps small farms from getting food to local people. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

The Retbergs, like the food sovereignty movement they are a part of, aren't going anywhere. The movement consists of a loose collection of farmers and activists who want to exempt local food producers from federal and state regulations, arguing they work in favor of big food producers and trample on the little guy.

Sedgwick, just south of Penobscot, was the first town in Maine to approve an ordinance declaring local control of food production, and supporters believe it was the first of its kind in the country. Sixteen other Maine towns have followed.

Supporters of an unsuccessful attempt to amend Maine's constitution this year to protect food freedom said the defeat is only a bump in the road for hundreds of Mainers and others who want to ensure local control of food production.

A bill calling for the amendment, proposed by organic farmer and Democratic state Rep. Craig Hickman, would have declared the right to food as "inalienable" in Maine. The amendment, if also approved by state voters, would have made it impossible to infringe upon residents' ability to hunt, gather or farm for whatever food they choose, or to prevent them from buying from others who produce food they want.

Backers saw it as a way to prevent government from intruding in local farm production and sales, and to take food production back from corporate control. But the Maine Senate shot down the proposed amendment on March 23, a day after the House approved it by a two-thirds majority.

Opponents and skeptics, ranging from state regulators and legislators to other farmers, have described the amendment as vague, unnecessary or potentially dangerous. Some saw it as a way to skirt rules about inspections and safety that could be dangerous for consumers of products that present health risks, such as raw milk.

Sen. Peter Edgecomb, a Republican from Caribou who grew drinking raw milk up on a farm in Limestone, said he feared the law could open the doors for a food contamination incident that could scare consumers away from Maine's small farms.

"Maine ranks very high in food safety in the country," Edgecomb said. "I'd like to keep it that way."

Maine's attempt at a food freedom bill is an outgrowth of national campaigning for localized food security by groups such as the Organic Consumers Association.

Local food advocates have tried to pass state laws similar to the Maine proposal in other states, with minimal success, though they've succeeded in passing local resolutions and ordinances in several states, ranging from Vermont to Utah. A 2012 effort in New Hampshire to exempt locally grown food from federal regulations swiftly died in the Legislature.

It wasn't supported by the New Hampshire Farm Bureau Federation, and the group's policy director called it nothing more than a "feel-good" measure. Rob Johnson, the policy director, said part of the concern was that eliminating compliance with federal regulations could lead to substandard products.

The fight over food in Maine is tied in part to a bitter dispute over regulations about raw milk. The state's highest court in 2014 rejected a Blue Hill farmer's challenge of regulations that required him to be licensed to sell raw milk at his farm stand.

The ruling angered some farmers and consumers, who saw it as a strike against local control. The state contended it was a just protection of public health.

Phil Retberg, sitting in his farm store amid jars of milk and yogurt from his animals, said the food sovereignty movement is about protecting community as much as it is about protecting farms.

"When a mother calls and her kid is being weaned onto our milk, that's a part of this," he said. "It makes us necessary."

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Associated Press writer Kathleen Ronayne contributed to this report from Concord, New Hampshire.

In this Friday, April 15, 2016 photo, Heather Retberg collects eggs at the Quill's End Farm in Penobscot, Maine. The farm represents a way of life she said needs to be protected from an aggressive regulatory structure that keeps small farms from getting food to local people. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

In this Friday, April 15, 2016 photo, Heather Retberg collects eggs at the Quill's End Farm in Penobscot, Maine. The farm represents a way of life she said needs to be protected from an aggressive regulatory structure that keeps small farms from getting food to local people. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

In this Friday, April 15, 2016 photo, piglets gather at feeding time at the Quill's End Farm, a small family run operation in Penobscot, Maine. Supporters of an unsuccessful attempt to amend Maines constitution to ensure a right to food say the defeat is only a bump in the road for advocates of food freedom around the country. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

In this Friday, April 15, 2016 photo, fresh eggs are packaged for sale at the Quill's End Farm, a small family run operation in Penobscot, Maine. Supporters of an unsuccessful attempt to amend Maines constitution to ensure a right to food say the defeat is only a bump in the road for advocates of food freedom around the country. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

In this Friday, April 15, 2016 photo, Phil Retberg pours a pail of milk that will be made into cheese in the family kitchen at the Quill's End Farm in Penobscot, Maine. Retberg said the food sovereignty movement is about protecting community as much as it's about protecting farms. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

In this Friday, April 15, 2016 photo, raw milk is for sale at the Quill's End Farm, a small family run operation in Penobscot, Maine. The farm is a way of life Heather Retberg said needs to be protected from an aggressive regulatory structure that keeps small farms from getting food to local people. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Cruz, Kasich strategies align with goal of beating Trump

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP)  In an extraordinary move, Donald Trump's Republican rivals late Sunday announced plans to coordinate primary strategies in upcoming states to deprive the GOP front-runner of the delegates needed to win the Republican nomination.

Ted Cruz and John Kasich issued near-simultaneous statements outlining an agreement that may be unprecedented in modern American politics. The Kasich campaign will give Cruz "a clear path in Indiana." In return, the Cruz campaign will "clear the path" for Kasich in Oregon and New Mexico.

The arrangement does not address the five Northeastern states set to vote on Tuesday, where Trump is expected to add to his already overwhelming delegate lead. Kasich and Cruz had already retreated to Indiana, which holds its primary on May 3. Yet the shift offers increasingly desperate Trump foes a glimmer of hope in their long and frustrating fight to halt the former reality television star's unlikely rise.

Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz talks at the Old National Events Plaza in Evansville, Ind., Sunday, April 24, 2016. (Denny Simmons/Evansville Courier & Press via AP)

"Having Donald Trump at the top of the ticket in November would be a sure disaster for Republicans," Cruz's campaign manager, Jeff Roe, said in a statement explaining the new plans. "Not only would Trump get blown out by Clinton or Sanders, but having him as our nominee would set the party back a generation."

Added Kasich's chief strategist, John Weaver, "Our goal is to have an open convention in Cleveland, where we are confident a candidate capable of uniting the party and winning in November will emerge as the nominee."

The announcement marks a sharp reversal for Cruz's team, which aggressively opposed coordinating anti-Trump efforts with Kasich as recently as late last week. And it only applies to Indiana, Oregon and New Mexico  three of the 15 states remaining on the Republican primary calendar.

Yet the development underscores a bleak reality for the billionaire businessman's Republican foes: Time is running out to stop him.

Trump responded on Twitter shortly before midnight: "Wow, just announced that Lyin' Ted and Kasich are going to collude in order to keep me from getting the Republican nomination. DESPERATION!"

The announcement came less than 48 hours before voting begins across five Northeastern states where the New York billionaire leads in many polls. Trump campaigned Sunday in Maryland, which will vote on Tuesday along with Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Delaware.

Speaking to several thousand people in an airplane hangar in Hagerstown, Maryland, Sunday evening, Trump stressed repeatedly that he expects to win the 1,237 delegates needed in the first round of voting to stave off a contested convention.

"I only care about the first. We're not going for the second and third and fourth and fifth," said Trump.

As Kasich backs out of Indiana, Cruz promised to not compete in primary contests in Oregon on May 17 and New Mexico on June 7.

"We will focus our time and resources in New Mexico and Oregon, both areas that are structurally similar to the Northeast politically, where Gov. Kasich is performing well," Weaver said.

As recently as three days ago Kasich's campaign announced investments in Indiana, including the opening of two offices and the creation of a campaign leadership team. His campaign on Sunday night canceled a town hall and gathering in Indianapolis scheduled to watch the results of Tuesday's primaries.

Like Cruz's campaign, Kasich's campaign encouraged allied super PACs and other outside groups to "honor the commitments."

In recent weeks, Trump has repeatedly denounced the GOP's presidential nominating system as "rigged." That criticism is likely to intensify in the coming days.

There was far less drama on the Democratic side Sunday.

Underdog Bernie Sanders rallied thousands of voters in two New England states, seeking momentum even as he offered mixed signals on how hard he would push his differences with front-runner Hillary Clinton.

The Vermont senator largely steered clear of Clinton at a Rhode Island park, but hours later ramped up his critique before more than 14,000 supporters in New Haven, Connecticut. Sanders reiterated his call for Clinton to release transcripts of lucrative Wall Street speeches she delivered after leaving the State Department in early 2013.

"This campaign, unlike Secretary Clinton's, has not raised $15 million from Wall Street and millions more from other special interests," he said as the crowd booed at the mention of Clinton's name.

Clinton eyed victories in four or five of Tuesday's contests, which would all but cripple Sanders' White House bid.

The former secretary of state went to two Philadelphia church services attended largely by African-Americans ahead of the primary in Pennsylvania, Tuesday's top delegate prize. She declined to attack her Democratic rival by name in the morning appearance and a subsequent stop in Bridgeport, Connecticut, focusing on the GOP candidates.

Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz downplayed tensions between Sanders and Clinton, whose rivalry has become increasingly nasty in recent weeks.

"Regardless of the intensity of what's played out here ... we are going to be unified," she declared.

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Peoples reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Kathleen Ronayne in Manchester, New Hampshire; Catherine Lucey in Philadelphia; Laurie Kellman in Washington; Jill Colvin in Hagerstown, Maryland; and Brian Slodysko in Terre Haute, Indiana; contributed to this report.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton waves as she arrives to speak, Sunday, April 24, 2016, at Triumph Baptist Church in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., center right, greets people in the crowd at the conclusion of a campaign rally in Roger Williams Park, Sunday, April 24, 2016, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Bridgeport, Conn., Saturday, April 23, 2016. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks Sunday, April 24, 2016, at the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
The Latest: Teen describes police response to prom shooting

ANTIGO, Wis. (AP)  The Latest on a shooting outside of a high school prom in northern Wisconsin (all times local):

6 p.m.

A student at a Wisconsin high school where a gunman wounded two people outside a dance says police officers came in and moved students to one corner of the building after the shooting.

Police say 18-year-old Jakob E. Wagner shot and wounded two prom-goers outside Antigo High School on Saturday night. Wagner was killed by police.

Nikita Deep told the Wausau Daily Herald that about a dozen armed officers came into the school after the shooting. Students were kept there for about three hours before being released to parents.

Gov. Scott Walker and others have praised the police response, saying officers' actions likely saved lives.

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3:10 p.m.

Gov. Scott Walker is praising the police response to a shooting that wounded two people leaving a high school prom in northern Wisconsin.

Walker says in a statement that the actions of the Antigo Police Department "undoubtedly saved lives."

Police say 18-year-old Jakob E. Wagner shot and wounded two prom-goers outside the school Saturday night. Wagner was killed by police.

Walker says he and his wife, Tonette, send their thoughts and prayers to the students of Antigo High School, their families and the community.

The Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation has been asked to lead a review of the officer-involved shooting.

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1:20 p.m.

A friend of an 18-year-old who police say opened fire with a high-powered rifle outside a Wisconsin prom says the gunman loved video games, hanging out with friends and music.

Authorities say Jakob E. Wagner shot and wounded two people Saturday night in the northern Wisconsin town of Antigo. Wagner was killed by police.

Dakotta Mills says he had known Wagner since sixth grade and considered him a foster brother. He says Wagner was raised by his mother and grandparents.

Mills says Wagner was interested in guns and wanted to become a hunter, and had gone through a hunter safety course a few years ago. But he wasn't sure Wagner could afford a gun.

Mills says the Wagner he knew was "a good kid."

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1:10 p.m.

A school administrator says he does not believe an 18-year-old who shot and wounded two people outside a high school prom in northern Wisconsin targeted the victims.

Instead, interim district administrator Donald Childs tells The Associated Press he believes the gunman planned to enter the prom and start shooting randomly.

Childs says the suspect, identified by police as Jakob E. Wagner, did not graduate with his class from Antigo High School last year and was continuing to work on his diploma.

Police returned fire, fatally wounding Wagner. The school plans to have counselors available when classes resume Monday.

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12:05 p.m.

A man who says he was friends with an 18-year-old who opened fire outside a high school prom in northern Wisconsin says the gunman had been in his class.

Authorities say Jakob E. Wagner wounded two prom-goers as they left the dance late Saturday at Antigo High School, about 150 miles north of Milwaukee. An officer returned fire, fatally wounding Wagner.

Eighteen-year-old Dylan Dewey of Antigo tells The Associated Press that Wagner had been dating a girl at the school but that she had broken up with him last month.

Dewey described Wagner as an "all-around good guy" and said he generally seemed happy.

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11:30 a.m.

School officials in Wisconsin say officers outside a prom where an 18-year-old opened fire, wounding two students, "prevented what might have otherwise been a disaster of unimaginable proportions."

The Antigo School District says the suspect, identified by police as Jakob E. Wagner, shot at the two prom-goers as they left the dance late Saturday, wounding one in the leg and grazing the other. An officer returned fire, fatally wounding Wagner.

The district said in a statement that Wagner had approached the school with a high-powered rifle and a large ammunition clip.

Police already were stationed to patrol the parking lot at the high school dance in Antigo, a community about 150 miles north of Milwaukee.

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10:30 a.m.

Authorities have identified a man who they say shot and wounded two students outside of their northern Wisconsin prom as 18-year-old Jakob E. Wagner.

Police say Wagner opened fire late Saturday and shot the male and female students with a rifle as they left the high school dance in Antigo, a community about 150 miles north of Milwaukee.

Police Chief Eric Roller says an officer who was in the parking lot shot Wagner. Langlade County Coroner Larry Shadick told The Associated Press that he died early Sunday morning in the intensive care unit at a Wausau hospital.

In a news release, police say the female student was treated at a hospital and released and that the male student was undergoing surgery for injuries that weren't life-threatening.

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9:50 a.m.

A coroner says an 18-year-old man who shot two students as they left their northern Wisconsin prom has died.

Langlade County Coroner Larry Shadick told The Associated Press that the suspect died shortly after 1 a.m. Sunday in an intensive care unit at a Wausau hospital. He said police would release any further details.

Eric Roller, the chief of police in Antigo, told reporters that the suspect opened fire with a rifle late Saturday and shot the two students before an officer in the parking lot shot him.

All three were taken to a hospital.

Antigo is a community of about 8,000 people roughly 150 miles north of Milwaukee.

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6 a.m.

Wisconsin police say a person toting a rifle opened fire outside a high school prom, leaving three people injured.

Antigo Police Chief Eric Roller says in a statement that the shooter "showed up" Saturday night at Antigo High School and started firing at two people outside the building.

Roller says officers in a nearby parking lot heard gunshots, and an officer fired upon the shooter, "stopping the threat." Roller says everyone at the prom was eventually "escorted from the school and are safe."

It was not immediately known if the unidentified suspect was among the injured at the hospital, or if they were a student. Roller says the shooter was in custody.

The condition of those injured wasn't immediately known, but Roller says all three were taken to the hospital.

___

3 a.m.

Wisconsin authorities say a shooting at a high school prom has left three people injured.

Aspirus Langlade Hospital officials tell WSAW-TV (http://bit.ly/1T6xy7Z) that the facility treated three patients following a shooting at Antigo High School about 11 p.m. Saturday night. The say two have been moved to another hospital and one is expected to be discharged early Sunday morning.

WSAW says the entrance to the high school remains blocked to traffic, but parents were being allowed through to reunite with their children.

Identities of the victims and the shooter were not immediately available.
Spain police bust 2 drug-smuggling rings, seize heroin, hash

MADRID (AP)  Spanish police say they have busted two international drug-smuggling rings, arrested 20 people on suspicion of trafficking in narcotics and seized large quantities of heroin and hashish.

Police said they found 56 kilograms (123 pounds) of heroin inside hidden compartments within a Porsche Cayenne that was stopped in the northwestern town of Tui. Police arrested 12 people with Albanian and Spanish nationalities on suspicion of drug smuggling with the intention of distributing them in Spain and Portugal.
For Hillary Clinton, church offers a trusted comfort zone

PHILADELPHIA (AP)  Sunday mornings at Baptist churches fall right into Hillary Clinton's comfort zone.

"This is the day the Lord has made," Clinton said recently at Grace Baptist Church in Mount Vernon, New York, as sunshine streamed through the stained-glass windows and hit the packed pews. "Being here at this church with these beautiful people, knowing how grateful I am for this spring day. I feel blessed and grace is all around us."

Black Baptist churches may not seem like an obvious match for Clinton, a white Methodist from the Chicago suburbs. But the Democratic presidential candidate, who's been criticized for her tentative, even awkward political skills, often seems most at ease in houses of worship. It's where she's shared her faith for many years and earned a loyal following.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks, Sunday, April 24, 2016, at the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

"One thing not a lot of people really understand about her is the central role of faith in her life," said Mo Elleithee, Clinton's spokesman in her 2008 White House campaign.

Clinton points to her faith as having sustained her through hard times and informing her approach to public service. Her days in Arkansas, coupled with her strong religious beliefs, have helped her connect to churchgoers in black communities, where she enjoys overwhelming support. Democratic rival Bernie Sanders has visited churches, too, during the campaign, but doesn't have the same rapport from the altar.

"The first time I ever walked into a black church with Hillary, she knew exactly where she was, you could see an exhale from her, a big smile came on her face, she didn't just step into the building, she stepped into worshipping with them," said Burns Strider, director of faith and values outreach during Clinton's 2008 campaign. "I must have done that a hundred times with her."

Clinton visited two churches in Philadelphia on the Sunday, two days before Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary. At Triumph Baptist Church and African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, she pledged to seek criminal justice reform and fight for tougher gun regulations before the largely African-American congregations.

"We as a people have to start showing each other more respect, more kindness more love," Clinton said, repeating a campaign mantra. "I am grateful for this chance to be with you and I would be honored and humbled to have your vote on Tuesday."

Visits to churches have prompted some of Clinton's most candid, intimate moments.

On a recent trip to the Holy Ghost Cathedral in Detroit, Bishop Corletta Vaughn referenced Clinton's strength in dealing with husband Bill Clinton's infidelities.

In response, Clinton spoke about the story of the prodigal son, alluding to, as she often does, a version written by Henri Nouwen, a Catholic priest and writer. She said what the parable "teaches us is to practice the discipline of gratitude every day."

According to Vaughn, Clinton's remarks showed a "deep reservoir of faith."

"I've been in the faith business for 42 years," Vaughn said. "I know one who is authentic and genuine. Her language speaks of her faith. ... When she started talking about the prodigal son, you didn't learn that this morning."

Strider, who emails with Clinton most days about Scripture and faith, said she has seemed more willing to talk about religion during this campaign than in the past. He said Clinton had "to recognize that she's not using her faith for other means. That was really valuable for her to understand that she was actually showing her faith which could lead others to make more rational choices."

Seeking to organize religious voters for Clinton, Strider founded a group called Faith Voters for Hillary about two years ago. While he is no longer directly involved, he said it has an active online presence and over 300,000 people in its database.

Still, some black pastors question Clinton's hold on religious voters.

Darrell Scott, the senior pastor of New Spirit Revival Center in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, has endorsed Republican Donald Trump and helped organize a meeting with Trump and black clergy last year.

"She's very, very liberal. This is what I don't understand about the pastors. Christians by nature, should be conservative," said Scott, who serves as CEO of Trump's new National Diversity Coalition. "She's the absolute wrong choice for a voter of faith."

Trump's efforts to win over black churchgoers have been mixed. At that November meeting last year, some pastors criticized Trump for racially-charged language, though others emerged offering support.

Clinton reflected on her faith journey during a speech before the United Methodist Women's Assembly two years ago. She spoke warmly about her childhood church in Park Ridge, Illinois, where her mother taught Sunday school and a young Clinton helped to clean and prepare the altar for services. She also remembered her father's nightly prayers, her grandmother's hymns and the charismatic youth minister who introduced her to the idea of "faith in action."

"I loved that church," Clinton said. "I loved how it made me feel about myself, I loved the doors that it opened in my understanding of the world."

FILE - In this March 13, 2016, file photo, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton sings during service at Mount Zion Fellowship Church in Highland Hills, Ohio. Black Baptist churches may not seem like an obvious match for Clinton, a white Methodist from the Chicago suburbs. But the Democratic presidential candidate, who has been criticized for her tentative or even awkward political skills, often seems most at ease in these churches where she has shared her faith for many years and earned a loyal following in the process. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks Sunday, April 24, 2016, at the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, center, and Pastor James S. Hall Jr. listen to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speak, Sunday, April 24, 2016, at Triumph Baptist Church in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

In this April 17, 2016, file photo, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at Grace Baptist Church in Mt. Vernon, N.Y. Black Baptist churches may not seem like an obvious match for Clinton, a white Methodist from the Chicago suburbs. But the Democratic presidential candidate, who has been criticized for her tentative or even awkward political skills, often seems most at ease in these churches where she has shared her faith for many years and earned a loyal following in the process. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton waves as she arrives to speak, Sunday, April 24, 2016, at Triumph Baptist Church in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

In this April 10, 2016, file photo, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at Mount Moriah AME Church during a campaign stop in New York. Black Baptist churches may not seem like an obvious match for Clinton, a white Methodist from the Chicago suburbs. But the Democratic presidential candidate, who has been criticized for her tentative or even awkward political skills, often seems most at ease in these churches where she has shared her faith for many years and earned a loyal following in the process.(AP Photo/Bryan R. Smith, File)
Spain's king embarks on last ditch effort to form gov't

MADRID (AP)  Spain's king is meeting Monday and Tuesday with the country's political parties following four months of political paralysis in a last-ditch effort to install a government and avoid sending voters back to the ballot box.

The national election last December was historic because it ended the country's traditional two-party system with strong showings for two upstart parties that benefited from voter outrage over soaring unemployment, corruption and austerity cuts.

But the outcome brought deadlock because no party won a majority of seats in the 350-seat chamber. The parties have tried and failed to find enough common ground to form a government.

FILE - In this Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2016 file photo, Spain's acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, left, shakes hands with main Socialist opposition leader Pedro Sanchez before a meeting at the Moncloa Palace in Madrid, Spain. Spain's king is meeting Monday, April 25, 2016 and Tuesday with the country's political parties following four months of political paralysis in a last-ditch effort to install a government and avoid sending voters back to the ballot box. The national election last December was historic because it ended the countrys traditional two-party system with strong showings for two upstart parties that benefited from voter outrage over soaring unemployment, corruption and austerity cuts. (AP Photo/Paul White, File)

Here's a look at Spain's unfolding political situation:

____

THE PROBLEM

Acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's conservative Popular Party won the Dec. 20 election with 123 seats but lost the majority that had kept it in power since 2011. Rajoy told King Felipe VI in their first post-election meeting he wasn't in a position to be a candidate for premier as he had no support from other parties.

The monarch then invited second-placed Pedro Sanchez of the leading opposition Socialist party, which won 90 seats, to try and form a government. Sanchez struck a deal with centrist newcomer Ciudadanos, which has 40 seats, but was unable to convince the far-left Podemos party, which controls 69 seats, to join him or allow him to govern by abstaining from a confidence vote. Sanchez lost the two parliamentary confidence votes last month and subsequent talks with Podemos produced more animosity than agreement.

Rajoy insists his party should head a government and wants Sanchez to support an unprecedented coalition of the country's first and second parties. The Socialists, however, reject any pact with Rajoy.

Spain has never had a coalition government.

____

THE STICKING POINTS

The main hurdles to an agreement are personal or ideological.

No party wants to do business with Rajoy, chiefly because of his government's unpopular anti-crisis austerity measures and his party's links to corruption scandals. Meanwhile, Podemos doesn't want to be in a government that includes Ciudadanos  seeing it as too far to the political right. Ciudadanos feels similarly about Podemos being too radically left.

Podemos also insists on allowing the powerful northeastern Catalonia to hold a secession referendum, which all the other major mainstream parties reject.

Differences over how to deal with the nation's economic crisis  with unemployment still at 21 percent  and incessant corruption scandals are the other two divisive areas.

The Socialists and Podemos promise to roll back reforms, including a labor bill that made it easier to high and fire workers and renegotiate deficit reduction conditions. Podemos insists on raising taxes for the wealthy, removing priority status for the country's debt repayments while both parties want to raise the minimum wage. Rajoy's group claims such measures would give investors the jitters again and could wreck the country's economic recovery.

____

EUROPEAN PRECEDENTS

Fragmented election outcomes and countries going weeks or months without a government aren't unusual in Europe these days.

Irish lawmakers have failed three times to select a prime minister, leaving the country in political limbo for a record near two-month period following an inconclusive Feb. 26 election that may have to be re-run soon.

Portugal also endured weeks of suspense at the end of 2015 after the winners of an October election failed to form a minority government and the losing parties joined together to create a parliamentary majority to take power.

Belgium set a European record with a massive 541 days needed to form a government following a 2010 election.

____

THE KING'S ROLE

Felipe's role is akin to that of a referee. By law, following the December ballot a new government has to be in place by May 2  otherwise the king will have to dissolve parliament and call another election for June 26.

With the deadline approaching, the king has decided to hold a third round of talks with party leaders to see if there is any last-minute chance for an agreement. He is likely to inform the parliamentary speaker Tuesday night or early Wednesday what he has decided.

"The chances of a last-minute turn of events are rather slim as parties seem to be gearing up for new elections," said Antonio Barroso, a London-based analyst with the Teneo Intelligence political risk consultancy.

____

WHAT THE POLLS SAY

Polls suggest new elections wouldn't break the stalemate. No party is forecast to obtain a majority and more negotiations would be needed to form a coalition government.

A survey by pollster Metroscopia published recently by El Pais newspaper said Rajoy's Popular Party would garner 26 percent of voters against 23.1 percent for the Socialist Party, 19.5 percent for Ciudadanos and 16.8 for Podemos.

In other words, new elections in June could mean more months of political paralysis as parties again attempt to reach a deal on forming a government, a scenario not likely to please Spaniards or investors.

___
Poels beats Albasini to win Liege-Bastogne-Liege classic

LIEGE, Belgium (AP)  Dutch rider Wout Poels attacked near the end and held off Swiss veteran Michael Albasini to take the Liege-Bastogne-Liege classic on Sunday, the biggest win of his career.

With four riders left in the home stretch on slippery roads, the 28-year-old Poels pulled away with about 250 meters to go, and the Team SKY rider had enough of a lead to sit up in his saddle and raise his arms as he crossed the line.

Poels became the first Dutchman to win the race since Adri Van Der Poel in 1988 and fifth overall.

Wouter Poels of Team Sky celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win the Liege-Bastogne-Liege cycling classic in Ans, Belgium on Sunday April 24, 2016. Michael Albasini of the Orica Greenedge team placed second and Rui Costa of the Lampre Merida team finished third. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

"It's amazing to win Liege, it's like a dream come true after my bad crash of (four) years ago," said Poels, who ruptured a spleen and kidney and broke three ribs after crashing on the Tour de France in 2012. "Liege is a monument I would watch on TV when I was a child. To win it is incredible."

Albasini finished ahead of Portuguese cyclist Rui Costa, with 2008 Olympic road race champion Samuel Sanchez of Spain crossing in fourth place.

"Poels was just the strongest today, we were all tired," Albasini said. "I should have attacked earlier."

Spanish rider Alejandro Valverde, meanwhile, was looking to win the Ardennes double for a second year after his midweek victory in the Walloon Arrow, but finished out of contention in 16th place.

A group of eight riders led for most of the 248-kilometer (154-mile) course, which was shortened by 5 kilometers (3 miles) due to snow and heavy rain along the route.

"It was a really hard day due to the weather. You had to keep warm and I had prepared well to cope with that, especially in terms of clothing," Poels said. "You always dream of winning a race like this one, but to do it in these conditions is even more special."

Two-time Tour de France champion Chris Froome  who is not a classics specialist  overcame a minor spill to finish in 112th place, while Italian rider Vincenzo Nibali, the 2014 Tour winner, placed 51st.

With about 30 kilometers to go, only Frenchman Nicolas Edet and Alessandro De Marchi were left out in front. In driving rain, they managed to reach the top of the Col de la Redoute together, but were caught soon after.

Valverde was among the race favorites, having become the first rider to win the Walloon Arrow four times after racing to a third straight title Wednesday.

He had his eyes set on a fourth win here, too, on the eve of his 36th birthday. Inside the last 20 kilometers, he urged his teammates to accelerate but Valverde struggled near the back of the group when some 20 riders entered the last few kilometers and he finished 12 seconds behind Poels.

With one kilometer left, Albasini attacked first, with Costa, Sanchez and Poels just behind him.

But Poels timed his attack just right to win the grueling race in 6 hours, 24 minutes, 29 seconds.

"I decided to go flat out after the last corner," said Poels, who is also a support rider for Froome on Grand Tours.

(This story updates Valverde's place to 16th after organizers issued new finishing positions)

Wouter Poels of Team Sky, center celebrates as he stands on the podium with Michael Albasini of the Orica Greenedge team, right, and Rui Costa of the Lampre Merida team, after he won the Liege-Bastogne-Liege cycling classic in Ans, Belgium on Sunday April 24, 2016. Albasini placed second and Costa finished third. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Poland buries remains of World War II resistance commander

WARSAW, Poland (AP)  Poland's president and government ministers attended the state burial Sunday of a World War II resistance commander and communist regime victim whose remains were found in a hidden mass grave.

The funeral at Warsaw's Powazki military cemetery was part of democratic Poland's efforts to remind the nation about facts and figures from the past that were taboo themes under decades of communism  for example, resistance against the regime and the persecution it was met with.

The current conservative government of the Law and Justice party is especially focused on honoring wartime and communist-era independence fighters who were imprisoned, executed and secretly dumped in unmarked mass graves by the communist regime in the 1940s and '50s. Only a few of the graves have been found.

The coffin with the remains of Zygmunt Szendzielarz is driven on a horse carriage during his funeral in Warsaw, Poland, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Polish President Andrzej Duda and government ministers have taken part in the state burial of Szendzielarz, a World War II resistance commander and communist regime victim whose remains were found in a hidden mass grave. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)

One of the victims was Col. Zygmunt Szendzielarz, codename "Lupaszka," who was executed in a Warsaw prison in 1951, aged 41. An officer of a mounted regiment, he fought against the Nazi German and Soviet invasion in September 1939 and later led an underground resistance movement.

He continued his fight for Poland's sovereignty after communism was imposed on Poland in 1945. Secret security agents arrested him in 1948 and he was given a death sentence.

"Today, 65 years later, as we honor Col. Szendzielarz with these ceremonies, we are giving Poland its dignity back," President Andrzej Duda said during a funeral Mass at the Powazki church. "Dignity that was trampled by those who tortured and murdered" Szendzielarz.

"Today, Poland has top authorities who remember, honor and appreciate" such fighters, Duda said.

Szendzielarz's remains were found in 2013 among dozens of others, buried in sand under wild grass in a Powazki corner. Szendzielarz and some others were identified through DNA tests. A white stone memorial has been since put up at the site.

Polish Army soldiers walk next to the coffin with the remains of Zygmunt Szendzielarz during his funeral in Warsaw, Poland, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Polish President Andrzej Duda and government ministers have taken part in the state burial of Szendzielarz, a World War II resistance commander and communist regime victim whose remains were found in a hidden mass grave. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)

Young men dressed in World War II Polish Army uniforms walk next to the coffin with the remains of Zygmunt Szendzielarz during his funeral in Warsaw, Poland, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Polish President Andrzej Duda and government ministers have taken part in the state burial of Szendzielarz, a World War II resistance commander and communist regime victim whose remains were found in a hidden mass grave. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)

People attend the funeral of Zygmunt Szendzielarz, in Warsaw, Poland, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Polish President Andrzej Duda and government ministers have taken part in the state burial of Szendzielarz, a World War II resistance commander and communist regime victim whose remains were found in a hidden mass grave. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)

People carry portraits of Zygmunt Szendzielarz as they attend his funeral, in Warsaw, Poland, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Polish President Andrzej Duda and government ministers have taken part in the state burial of Szendzielarz, a World War II resistance commander and communist regime victim whose remains were found in a hidden mass grave. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)

A woman places flowers on the coffin with the remains of Zygmunt Szendzielarz as it is driven on a horse carriage during his funeral in Warsaw, Poland, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Polish President Andrzej Duda and government ministers have taken part in the state burial of Szendzielarz, a World War II resistance commander and communist regime victim whose remains were found in a hidden mass grave. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)

People attend the funeral of Zygmunt Szendzielarz, in Warsaw, Poland, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Polish President Andrzej Duda and government ministers have taken part in the state burial of Szendzielarz, a World War II resistance commander and communist regime victim whose remains were found in a hidden mass grave. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)

The coffin with the remains of Zygmunt Szendzielarz is driven on a horse carriage during his funeral in Warsaw, Poland, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Polish President Andrzej Duda and government ministers have taken part in the state burial of Szendzielarz, a World War II resistance commander and communist regime victim whose remains were found in a hidden mass grave. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)
Md. congressional primary features largest self-funder ever

CHEVY CHASE, Md. (AP)  A Maryland congressional primary contender has broken the record for what a self-funded House candidate has poured into a single campaign, as wine superstore owner David Trone has uncorked more than $12 million of his own amid a crowded Democratic field.

The race is the most expensive House primary in the country this election cycle, according to data compiled by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Trone faces several prominent rivals, including Kathleen Matthews, a former local television anchor who is married to MSNBC's "Hardball" host Chris Matthews.

In this Wednesday, April 20, 2016 photo, David Trone, right, owner of wine superstore chain Total Wine and More, greets commuters at the Shady Grove Metro station, in Derwood, Md. Trone, who is running in the Democratic primary for Maryland's 8th Congressional District, has put more than $12 million of his own money into his campaign. (AP Photo/Brian Witte)

Also in the race are State Sen. Jamie Raskin, an energetic, liberal constitutional law professor with a successful resume in the General Assembly, and two former aides from President Barack Obama's administration, William Jawando and former Deputy Secretary of State Joel Rubin.

Four other candidates, including state legislators Kumar Barve and Ana Sol-Gutierrez, also are running in a district that spreads from wealthy neighborhoods bordering the nation's capital up to the Pennsylvania state line.

The seat is opening because incumbent Rep. Chris Van Hollen is seeking the Democratic nomination for Senate.

While the field for Maryland's 8th Congressional District is rich with candidates, it is the spending by the owner of Total Wine and More that has caught the most attention since his late entry in January into the race. Voters have been bombarded by ads and mailings.

"It's just been overkill, and from some candidates I've gotten more than one piece of mail in a day," said Anne Fretz, 74, of Chevy Chase. She voted for Raskin after he knocked on her door, prompting her to study his candidacy. "I just think that's way too much. It's upsetting to think of how much money is being spent."

Trone's self-funding, which are direct payments and not loans to be repaid later, beats the previous self-funded record holder for a House seat, New Mexico Democrat Phil Maloof, who loaned his campaign nearly $10 million. Some of that was repaid in Maloof's losing effort in 1998, so his total net self-funding was roughly $6.3 million, according to data from the center.

Trone, whose company has 150 stores in 21 states, has been a major political donor to candidates of both parties. That's because his company has contended with changing alcohol laws in states throughout the country for years, from regulations on craft beer to Sunday store hours.

"We know how to work across the aisle," Trone said in a recent interview. "We understand how the system works, and we realize we've got to work together to get stuff done."

He has hosted Obama and former President Bill Clinton for fundraisers at his mansion in posh Potomac, Maryland. He said he could have raised the money he is spending from donors, but didn't want to be beholden to special interests. While he supports public financing, he said spending such a large sum on his campaign was the only way a nearly unknown candidate could compete with better-known candidates such Matthews and Raskin in a costly media market.

His message has resonated with some voters. While they are wowed by the amounts being spent in the campaign, supporters say his ads have been effective, direct and authentic.

Susie Moore, 49, of Chevy Chase, voted for Trone during Maryland's early voting period. Moore said she agrees with his liberal views on gun control and women's rights. She likes that he's a successful businessman who is self-funding his campaign, even though she would prefer set amounts of campaign spending by all candidates.

"I like that he was not taking money  that he ran his campaign and paid for his own campaign. So, I don't feel like he's bought by special interests, which I have a real problem with," Moore said.

Matthews is well known locally and is running as a progressive Democrat with business experience in a large company. She worked as an executive at Marriott, the hotel chain, after leaving TV. She has raised about $2.6 million for her campaign. She added $500,000 of her own money, saying Trone dramatically raised the stakes of the campaign as a wealthy self-funder.

"It's been harder to get your message out because there has been one candidate who has been able to pretty much control the airwaves," Matthews said in an interview Thursday at an early voting center.

Raskin had set a $1.5 million fundraising goal and has raised $1.9 million. He said he is sticking with his plan to out-organize and out-hustle his opponents.

"This campaign has become a referendum on the future of politics within the Democratic Party. It's parallel to what's happening in the Republican Party, but there I think that big money is winning, and I think this race can show that grassroots Democrats can beat the big money," Raskin said.

Maryland's primary is Tuesday.

In this Thursday, April 21, 2016 photo, Kathleen Matthews, a former local television news anchor and Marriott International executive who is running in the Democratic primary for Maryland's 8th Congressional District, talks to a supporter at an early voting center in Chevy Chase, Md. (AP Photo/Brian Witte)
Zoo: Tiger attacked, killed employee who didn't follow rules

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP)  A Florida zoo official says an employee who was killed by a tiger earlier this month didn't follow zoo policy.

Palm Beach Zoo CEO Andrew Aiken said in a statement posted Friday on Facebook that zoo policy prohibits zookeepers from entering an enclosure to which a tiger has access.

Stacey Konwiser, 38, was killed April 15 when a male Malayan tiger attacked her in the enclosure known as the night house, where tigers sleep and are fed. Aiken said Konwiser entered the part of the night house "after it was clearly designated as accessible by a tiger."

Aiken said five investigations are underway into the incident.
Feds deciding if coal-export project violates tribal rights

SEATTLE (AP)  For centuries, Lummi tribal fishermen have harvested, dug up clams and fished for salmon in the tidelands and waters of northwest Washington state.

Now, the tribe says a proposed $700 million project to build the nation's largest coal-export terminal threatens that way of life. The tribe last year asked federal regulators to deny permits for project, saying it would interfere with the tribe's treaty-reserved fishing rights.

The Gateway Pacific Terminal, a venture between SSA Marine and Cloud Peak Energy, would handle up to 54 million metric tons of dry bulk commodities, mostly coal, at a deep water port at Cherry Point. Coal would be shipped by train from Montana and Wyoming for export to Asia.

In this photo taken Sept. 12, 2012, tribal members from the Lummi Nation gather to announce the tribe's opposition to development of a facility at Cherry Point in Whatcom County, Wash., to ship coal brought by train from the Powder River Basin. They ceremonially burned a check on the beach to make a statement that no amount of money could buy their support for a project that would destroy their village and burial sites on the property. (Alan Berner/The Seattle Times via AP) SEATTLE OUT; USA TODAY OUT; MAGS OUT; TELEVISION OUT; NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT TO BOTH THE SEATTLE TIMES AND THE PHOTOGRAPHER

If the Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency overseeing the permitting process, finds that the proposed terminal would disrupt the tribe's rights to fish in its traditional areas, it won't issue permits. A decision is expected this week.

Like many tribes, the Lummi signed a treaty with the U.S. government in 1855 in which it ceded its land but reserved the right to hunt and fish in "usual and accustomed" areas.

"The Corps should honor the trust responsibility and deny the permit," said Timothy Ballew, chairman of the coastal tribe, which has more than 5,000 members and one of the largest tribal fishing fleets in the country. "Our fishermen have fished there since time immemorial."

Seattle-based SSA Marine says the Corps should find that project poses less than a minimal impact on the tribe's fishing rights. The company contends that the most productive fishing for the tribe does not occur near the wharf. "They didn't provide real evidence that they fish there a lot," senior vice president Bob Watters said. The company also believes an environmental review that began in 2013 should be completed.

Earlier this month, however, project developers asked state and federal regulators to temporarily halt that environmental review while the Corps heard the Lummi's request.

The terminal has become a lightning rod in the debate over whether the Pacific Northwest should become a gateway for exporting fossil fuels to Asia.

Environmental groups strongly oppose the proposal, worried about the greenhouse gases pollutants produced by burning coal and other issues such as increased train and vessel traffic. Meanwhile, some business and labor groups say it will create hundreds of jobs and generate tax revenue.

The Crow Nation of Montana, which has an option for ownership in the new terminal, backs the project as vital to its future. Lawmakers in Montana have led efforts to block the Corps from denying a permit until the environmental review is done.

If the federal agency denies the permit on the grounds of fishing rights, it wouldn't be the first time.

"It's fairly common," said Robert Anderson, a University of Washington law professor who directs the school's Native American Law Center. In 1996, the Corps denied a permit for salmon farm west of Lummi Island because it would interfere with tribe fishing rights. A federal court upheld that decision.

When federal agencies like the Corps issues permits, "they have an obligation to protect treaty resources. The Corps will have to take into account whether there will be an adverse effect on Indian treaty rights," Anderson said.

The proposal would bring up to 487 vessels to a proposed three-berth wharf in an industrial zone about 100 miles north of Seattle. The company says the site presents a unique location, partly because it can accommodate the largest ships in naturally deep water.

The tribe says increased vessel traffic would disrupt fishing practices, as well as expose the region to potential oil spills, boat collisions, pollution and other problems.

Project developers say they would take measures to avoid or minimize impacts to tribal fishing, including setting up a system to let fisherman know about vessel positions and not allowing tug or tow operations due to tribal concerns about lost fishing gear.

The tribe says impacts can't be mitigated and the terminal and activities would severely limit the ability of its members to exercise their treaty rights.

FILE - In this Sept. 15, 2015, file photo, Lummi fisherman Jay Julius steers his boat as his cousin Austin Brockie, center, and daughter Teja Julius, right, sort through fresh-caught crab near Cherry Point, Wash. For centuries, Lummi tribal members have set crab pots, dug up clams and fished for salmon in the tidelands and waters of northwest Washington state. But the tribe says a proposed $700 million project to build one of the nation's largest coal-export terminals north of its reservation will threaten that way life. (Evan Abell/The Bellingham Herald via AP, File) MANDATORY CREDIT
The Latest: Cruz, Kasich strategies align against Trump

WASHINGTON (AP)  The Latest on Campaign 2016 two days before voters in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware and Maryland cast votes for their presidential nominees (all times Eastern Daylight Time):

10:00 p.m.

The presidential campaigns of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich say they are launching collaborative strategies to deprive Donald Trump the delegates needed to win the Republican nomination.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., addresses a gathering of supporters during a campaign rally on New Haven Green in New Haven, Conn., Sunday, April 24, 2016. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Both Cruz and Kasich's campaigns released statements Sunday saying that Cruz will focus his campaign resources on winning enough delegates in Indiana, while Kasich will focus his efforts on western states including Oregon and New Mexico.

Trump, the current front-runner, needs 1,237 delegates to win the Republican nomination. If he falls short, the Republican convention in July will evolve into a rare contested convention.

Trump has repeatedly denounced the system, saying he should win the nomination even if he falls slightly short of the majority  something officials with the Republican National Committee have ruled out.

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7:50 p.m.

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is resuming his call for rival Hillary Clinton to release the transcripts of her lucrative speeches to Wall Street after she left the State Department.

Sanders says in New Haven, Connecticut, that his campaign, "unlike Secretary Clinton's" has not raised $15 million from Wall Street "and millions more from other special interests." He says he hasn't given speeches on Wall Street behind closed doors for $225,000 a speech.

Sanders says he would like to address Wall Street bankers "to their face" and tell them that their greed has destroyed the lives of many Americans.

He tells thousands of supporters near Yale University that he has his "cellphone on and I am awaiting that phone call from Wall Street" inviting him.

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6:30 p.m.

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump is accusing rival Ted Cruz of bribing delegates to the national convention to build support for Cruz's candidacy.

Trump offered no evidence to back up his accusation while campaigning in Maryland, one of a handful of states that will be voting Tuesday.

Speaking in an airplane hangar in Hagerstown on Sunday evening, Trump repeatedly stressed that he expects to win the number of delegates needed to land the nomination on the first ballot at July's national convention.

"I think we get that 1,237," he says. "I'm pretty sure."

Cruz has badly outmaneuvered Trump by ensuring that supportive delegates make it to the convention. Trump has repeatedly slammed the system as "rigged."

Cruz and rival John Kasich are hoping to force a contested convention in which delegates would be free to support them after the first ballot.

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1:20 p.m.

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is urging Hillary Clinton to join him in support of a tax on carbon emissions to curb climate change and support universal health care.

Sanders is addressing more than 7,000 people at a Providence, Rhode Island, park ahead of the state's primary on Tuesday.

Sanders says if the former secretary of state is "concerned about climate change" she should join him in pushing for a tax on carbon.

He also says Clinton and the establishment don't think the nation has "the guts" to take on the insurance and drug industries to provide universal health care.

Rhode Island allows independents to participate in the Democratic contest and Sanders' campaign hopes the senator's message will power him past Clinton in the primary.

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12:05 p.m.

Billionaire Charles Koch says he doesn't anticipate spending money on supporting or opposing the Republican presidential nominee  and he's leaving open the prospect that Hillary Clinton might be preferable to anyone currently seeking the GOP nod.

He says the candidate has to be liked as much as Ronald Reagan and "compete on making the country better" rather than tearing down opponents. Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich, he said on ABC's "This week," ''are terrible role models." He denies giving money to efforts to oppose Trump.

Koch also said "it's possible" that Hillary Clinton would be better than a Republican. But he says that he'd "have to believe her actions would be quite different than her rhetoric." The same standard, he said, goes for Republicans.

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12:00 p.m.

Hillary Clinton is reflecting on the life of Harriet Tubman in a Philadelphia church.

At Triumph Baptist Church in North Philadelphia on Sunday, Clinton praised the abolitionist for the "contributions she made to our freedom," and evoked the image of a "feisty determined woman leading slaves to freedom."

It was announced this week that that Tubman would be featured on the $20 bill. Clinton said she had visited Tubman's upstate New York home during her time as that state's senator.

Before the largely African-American congregation, Clinton also promised to work on reforming the criminal justice system and pledged to do "everything I can to take on the gun lobby."

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10:30 a.m.

Donald Trump's chief political adviser says "we're evolving the campaign, not the candidate"  adding policy speeches for a front-runner whose style has been heavy on bombast.

Paul Manafort tells "Fox News Sunday" that Trump is paying more attention to the political nuts and bolts  from counting delegates and working with party leaders.

Manafort also contends that his recorded comments at a GOP gathering last week  when he told party leaders Trump was "playing a part" onstage  were taken out of context.

Trump told supporters on Saturday that "being presidential's easy," and that he's got "to rant and rave" at rallies or people "will fall asleep."

Trump said he has no intention of reversing his provocative proposals, including building a wall along the Mexican border.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Hagerstown, Md., Sunday, April 24, 2016. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during a rally in Roger Williams Park, Sunday, April 24, 2016, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks, Sunday, April 24, 2016, at Triumph Baptist Church in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump holds up a photograph of him participating in WrestleMania during a campaign event at Crosby High School in Waterbury, Conn., Saturday, April 23, 2016. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
French soldier slightly injured in train station attack

PARIS (AP)  French police say they are looking for a man who attacked a soldier with a box cutter in the eastern city of Strasbourg.

Local government official Dominique Jane told Europe 1 radio the incident happened in Strasbourg's train station on Saturday evening. Jane said Sunday that the soldiers pushed back the aggressor, who managed to escape, as he was trying to attack one of them. One soldier was slightly injured on a cheek.

The man's motives remained unclear. Jane said the attacker spoke in Arabic, but he doesn't know the content and translation of his words.
Pope makes surprise visit to Rome park marking Earth Day

ROME (AP)  Pope Francis has made a surprise visit to one of Rome's main parks to participate in an Earth Day event.

Francis, who wrote an encyclical decrying the exploitation of the Earth's environment and resources often at the expense of the poor, went to Villa Borghese, a park filled with Sunday strollers.

He sat on an outdoor stage along with an Italian priest who has courageously denounced Naples-area mobsters for systemically dumping toxic waste on local farmland in a lucrative, illicit operation often serving legitimate businesses.

Pope Francis delivers his speech as he looks at a banner reading "I Care", during his appearance at an Earth Day event in Rome, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Francis made a surprise appearance at the Earth Day event getting up on stage to give an unscheduled address to the delight of the audience in the Villa Borghese park. (Claudio Peri/ANSA via AP) ITALY OUT

The pope told the audience that money has become a god "at the center of the world."
Rescue pup Vincent crowned 'Beautiful Bulldog' in Iowa

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP)  The owners of Vincent, a rescued 60-pound English bulldog, aren't quite sure how old he is.

All they know is that their young pup is now a pageant king, having won the 37th annual Beautiful Bulldog contest at Drake University on Sunday.

The tongue-in-cheek contest is the opening event of the Drake Relays, a prestigious track and field meet to be held next week at Drake Stadium. Vincent, a brown-and-white pup who lives just up the road from the stadium, will serve as the meet's mascot.

Vincent, owned by Meredith and Chad Green, of Des Moines, Iowa, sits on the throne after being crowned the winner of the 37th annual Drake Relays Beautiful Bulldog Contest, Sunday, April 24, 2016, in Des Moines, Iowa. The pageant kicks off the Drake Relays festivities at Drake University where a bulldog is the mascot. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

The runners-up were Meatball, whose biggest fears are garbage bags and limes, and a 1-year-old pup named Daffodil. Meatball and Daffodil will serve as alternates for the Drake Relays if for some reason Vincent can't fulfill his duties  which will mostly entail photo shoots and an introduction during Saturday's opening ceremony.

Vincent was a first-time contestant after his owners adopted him from the Illinois English Bulldog Rescue organization in February.

"It popped up and we were like, 'Let's give it a try!" Vincent's owner, Meredith Green of Des Moines, said.

His owners, who think Vincent is about 3 years old, said he likes car rides and running up the stairs. They'll find out next weekend if he's also a fan of track and field.

Vincent succeeds Tank, whose sturdy frame, gentle personality and camouflage outfit won over the judges in 2015.

The slate of competitors was down five from previous years after a few scratches and the recent death of Linus the Lovebug, last year's winner in the "Best Dressed" category.

Deliylah, who competed in 2013 and 2014, gave birth to four puppies on the day of last year's pageant contest  and she and three of her puppies took part Sunday. She won the "Drake Spirit" award for making it back to the stage after a one-year absence.

Theodore was the social media king, with more than 6,000 followers on Instagram.

Vincent, owned by Meredith and Chad Green, of Des Moines, Iowa, eats a treat after being crowned the winner of the 37th annual Drake Relays Beautiful Bulldog Contest, Sunday, April 24, 2016, in Des Moines, Iowa. The pageant kicks off the Drake Relays festivities at Drake University where a bulldog is the mascot. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Shireen Carter, of Norwalk, Iowa, sits with her bulldog Lola during judging at the 37th annual Drake Relays Beautiful Bulldog Contest, Sunday, April 24, 2016, in Des Moines, Iowa. The pageant kicks off the Drake Relays festivities at Drake University where a bulldog is the mascot. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Romeo, owned by Michon Huston, of Kansas City, Mo., lets out a yawn while waiting to be judged at the 37th annual Drake Relays Beautiful Bulldog Contest, Sunday, April 24, 2016, in Des Moines, Iowa. The pageant kicks off the Drake Relays festivities at Drake University where a bulldog is the mascot. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Finalists stand on stage during the 37th annual Drake Relays Beautiful Bulldog Contest, Sunday, April 24, 2016, in Des Moines, Iowa. The pageant kicks off the Drake Relays festivities at Drake University where a bulldog is the mascot. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Uruguay accuses 5 suspects of links to Mexican drug cartel

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP)  Uruguayan prosecutors are requesting the arrest and prosecution of two Mexicans and three Uruguayans linked to a Mexican drug cartel on money laundering and related charges.

A written opinion by prosecutor Maria de los Angeles Camino said the main suspect is the brother of the leader of the Mexican gang "Los Cuinis" and is wanted in the U.S. for drug trafficking. The statement only identified him by the initials G.G.V. The leader of "Los Cuinis" is Abigael Gonzalez Valencia, currently imprisoned in Mexico.

The suspect and his father-in-law were accused of money laundering. The statement said they could also be linked to the Jalisco New Generation cartel.

Prosecutors also requested that three Uruguayans be prosecuted for assistance of money laundering.
Los Angeles marches, rallies commemorate Armenian killings

LOS ANGELES (AP)  Weekend vigils, marches and demonstrations were held across the Los Angeles area to commemorate the killings of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians under the Ottoman Empire more than a century ago.

Tens of thousands rallied Sunday afternoon outside the Turkish Consulate just hours after a procession marched through the Little Armenia neighborhood.

Demonstrators carrying banners reading "Never Again" and "Turkey Must Pay" were met at the consulate by a small number of counter-protesters kept by police behind a barrier.

Demonstrators rally outside the Turkish Consulate to commemorate the killings of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians under the Ottoman Empire more than a century ago, in Los Angeles on Sunday, April 24, 2016. Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed starting in April 1915. Turkey denies the killings were genocide and contends those who died were victims of civil war and unrest. Turkey also insists the death toll has been inflated. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

There were no immediate reports of any arrests.

A vigil was held Saturday outside City Hall in neighboring Glendale, home to a large number of Armenian-Americans. There was also a special observance at the Armenian Genocide Martyrs Monument in Montebello, California.

Gov. Jerry Brown issued a proclamation Sunday declaring April 24 a statewide "Day of Remembrance of Armenian Genocide" in honor of those subjected to "torture, starvation, mass murder and exile."

Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed starting in April 1915. Turkey denies the killings were genocide and contends those who died were victims of civil war and unrest. Turkey also insists the death toll has been inflated.
Captain calls finding boat of Florida teens "stroke of luck"

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP)  A Norwegian ship captain has told a newspaper it was a "stroke of luck" that he discovered the boat of two teenagers lost at sea last July.

The Palm Beach Post reported Sunday (http://bit.ly/22ZuQ9D ) that Havard Melvaer was in his office aboard the huge supply ship when he stepped outside for fresh air and spotted the 19-foot-long boat.

Last summer, Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen, both 14, had left Jupiter Inlet, Florida, in the boat and never returned. Lengthy searches turned up no clues. The Coast Guard initially located the boat off New Smyrna Beach, but a company hired to retrieve it couldn't find it later.

Melvaer says the boat's in a shipping container and will arrive in Florida in May.

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Administration: Up to 250 military personnel headed to Syria

AERZEN, Germany (AP)  President Barack Obama will send an additional 250 military personnel to Syria to help local forces fighting the Islamic State group, increasing to 300 the number of U.S. forces battling extremists in the war-torn country, administration officials confirmed Sunday.

Obama was expected to announce his decision Monday during a speech in Hannover, Germany, at the close of a weeklong trip, where IS was a focus of his meetings with world leaders in Saudi Arabia, Great Britain and Germany.

The move will significantly increase the U.S. presence in Syria and comes a week after Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced the deployment of a similar number of troops to Iraq, where Islamic State militants also control territory.

President Barack Obama speaks during the opening ceremony of the Hannover Messe Trade Fair in Hannover, Germany, Sunday, April 24, 2016. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

About 50 U.S. special operations forces are already operating in Syria. Most of the additional 250 personnel will also be special operations forces, largely Army Green Berets. The group will also include an unknown number of medical and logistical troops to provide them with support.

Senior U.S. officials have been touting the success of the forces in Syria, including their ability to generate critical intelligence that gives the U.S.-led coalition a better view of what is happening on the ground, including efforts to target insurgents.

In a sign of Obama's reluctance to use of force, Monday's announcement will cap a trip during which the president advocated diplomacy over military intervention.

Asked last week whether he planned to increase special operations forces in Syria, Obama did not answer directly. But he said he'd had discussions with an adviser about options should a fragile cease-fire break down.

"None of the options are good," he said in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. "It has been my view consistently that we have to get a political solution inside of Syria and that all the external actors involved have to be committed to that as well as the actors inside of Syria. ... The sooner we can end fighting and resolve this in a political fashion, the better."

Obama has said he remains opposed to large-scale U.S. military intervention in either Iraq or Syria. But he has incrementally deepened U.S. involvement in both countries.

The increase of U.S. troops in Syria has been discussed for weeks, including rumblings last week when Carter announced sending an additional 217 U.S. troops to Iraq, the first major increase in U.S. forces in Iraq in nearly a year. Eight Apache helicopters were also being sent to Iraq for the first time to help fight against the Islamic State group there.

Both moves were carried out to help Iraqi forces as they prepare to retake the key northern city of Mosul.

The deployment brought the total authorized troop total to just over 4,000.

Obama re-entered Iraq in June 2014 with an initial contingent of 170 soldiers serving Iraqi forces as advisers in June 2014, in response to the Islamic State group's seizure of much of the northern and western part of the country.

Obama's decision on Syria was first reported Sunday by The Wall Street Journal.

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Mexican police tortured suspects in students' case

MEXICO CITY (AP)  There is strong evidence that Mexican police tortured some of the key suspects arrested in the disappearance of 43 students, according to a report released Sunday by an outside group of experts.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights expert group says that a study of 17 of the approximately 123 suspects arrested in the case showed signs of beatings, including, in some cases, dozens of bruises, cuts and scrapes.

One suspect said he was nearly asphyxiated with a plastic bag, and medical studies showed another had been slapped on the ears so hard his eardrums broke and his ears bled.

Angela Buitrago of the international experts group, left, hugs a relative of the 43 missing students, in Mexico City, Sunday, April 24, 2016. In a report released Sunday, the group said there is evidence that Mexican police tortured some of the key suspects arrested in the disappearance of the students. The 43 students have not been heard from since they were taken by local police in September 2014 in the city of Iguala, Guerrero state. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

The Mexican government recently released documents suggesting investigations had been opened against police and military personnel, but authorities have not answered requests about whether anyone has been arrested or charged.

The 43 students at the radical teachers' college of Ayotzinapa have not been heard from since they were taken by local police in September 2014 in the city of Iguala, Guerrero state. Family members and supporters of the missing students chanted "They took them away alive, we want them back alive!" at the news conference where the report was presented.

No high-ranking officials attended the presentation of the report, which called the government's investigation flawed and incomplete. But President Enrique Pena Nieto wrote in his Twitter account that the federal attorney general's office "will analyze the whole report, to aid in its investigations."

Mexico's deputy attorney general for human rights, Eber Betanzos, said authorities were investigating complaints filed by 31 people who said they had been tortured; he said six criminal cases had been opened, and had that three involved employees of the attorney general's office.

Betanzos called the case "the most exhaustive investigation in the history of Mexican law enforcement."

But the allegations of torture could endanger any chance of convictions in one of the highest-profile human rights cases in Mexican history, especially because the government's version of events  that corrupt police handed the students over to drug gang members who killed them and burned their bodies at a trash dump  hangs in large part on the testimony of some drug gunmen who now say they were tortured into confessing.

"It is a lie the way they said they caught us," Patricio Reyes Landa said in testimony made public by the experts' report. "They went into the house, beating and kicking. They hauled me aboard a vehicle, they blindfolded me, tied my feet and hands, they began beating me again and gave me electric shocks, they put a rag over my nose and poured water on it. They gave me shocks on the inside of my mouth and my testicles. They put a bag over my face so I couldn't breathe. It went on for hours."

Mexican judges are instructed to throw out confessions based on torture; Betanzos said the government's case was not solely based on confessions.

The group of experts complained the government was slow to deliver some of the evidence it had asked for; it criticized government prosecutor's investigations as flawed and incomplete, and suggested that the government wanted to stick to its version, without investigating possible involvement by federal police and the army.

For example, the report said, the roadblocks set up on local highways around the city of Iguala on the night of the disappearances were far more extensive than previously thought. The roadblocks were apparently coordinated by the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel to trap rivals; the gang may have thought the students were part of a rival cartel.

The report criticized the forensics investigations of human remains and evidence of fire at the garbage dump in the town of Cocula, Guerrero, saying that prosecutors had provided little evidence there ever could have been a fire a big enough at the site.

"It is clear that there was a latent rejection of any version other than the burning of the students at the Cocula dump, and they turned back to that scenario time after time, without investigating other police forces or state actors," the group said in its final report. Its mandate expires at the end of this month, and it leaves Mexico with the crime still largely unresolved; only one student has been identified from charred bone fragments found in a river near the dump.

The foot-dragging by prosecutors "cannot be seen as partial or improvised obstacles," said the report. "These different situations aren't casual barriers, they are structural barriers to the investigation."

The report also found that one student sent a message to his parents from his cellphone hours after he had supposedly been killed.

But the "significant evidence of torture and abuse" of the suspects was the report's most damning element.

For example, the medical reports on one suspect whose testimony was key for the government's case, Agustin Garcia Reyes, claimed he had one injury, a bruise, after marines took him into custody. But hours later when he was turned over to civilian prosecutors, they said he had 30 bruises, scrapes and scabs.

"There seems to be no limit to the Mexican government's utter determination to sweep the Ayotzinapa tragedy under the carpet," wrote Amnesty International's Americas director Erika Guevara-Rosas.

Daniel Wilkinson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Americas division, wrote that while the experts had been critical of the government investigation before, the new report "goes much further in presenting evidence of obstruction, of manipulation of evidence and even torture."

"Based on all the ways the government has obstructed the work of the group it seems clear that the reason they brought them in was never to solve the case, but rather to do PR, to do damage control in the face of the public outrage at their handling of the case," Wilkinson wrote. "If that was the calculation, clearly they miscalculated."

A member of the international experts group holds a copy of their final report in the disappearance of 43 students, in Mexico City, Sunday, April 24, 2016. The report says there is evidence that Mexican police tortured some of the key suspects arrested in the disappearance of the students. The 43 students have not been heard from since they were taken by local police in September 2014 in the city of Iguala, Guerrero state. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Alejandro Valencia, left, Angela Buitrago, second left, Francisco Cox, center, Carlos Beritain, second right, and Claudia Paz, of the international experts group hold copies of their final report in the disappearance of 43 students, in Mexico City, Sunday, April 24, 2016. The report says there is evidence that Mexican police tortured some of the key suspects arrested in the disappearance of the students. The 43 students have not been heard from since they were taken by local police in September 2014 in the city of Iguala, Guerrero state. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

A member of the international experts group holds a copy of their final report in the disappearance of 43 students, in Mexico City, Sunday, April 24, 2016. The report says there is evidence that Mexican police tortured some of the key suspects arrested in the disappearance of the students. The 43 students have not been heard from since they were taken by local police in September 2014 in the city of Iguala, Guerrero state. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

A member of the international experts group holds a copy of their final report in the disappearance of 43 students, in Mexico City, Sunday, April 24, 2016. The report says there is evidence that Mexican police tortured some of the key suspects arrested in the disappearance of the students. The 43 students have not been heard from since they were taken by local police in September 2014 in the city of Iguala, Guerrero state. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
Gangster's girlfriend faces sentencing on contempt charge

BOSTON (AP)  A woman who spent 16 years on the run with Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger (BUHL'-jur) faces sentencing this week for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating whether other people helped Bulger as a fugitive.

Catherine Greig (grehg) is already serving an eight-year prison term for helping Bulger avoid capture. She pleaded guilty to a criminal contempt charge in February for refusing to testify.

Greig is scheduled to be sentenced in U.S. District Court on Thursday. The contempt charge has no fixed maximum penalty.

Bulger fled Boston in late 1994 and remained a fugitive until he and Greig were captured in Santa Monica, California, in 2011.
Protesters in Haiti capital demand chance to vote in runoff

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP)  About 2,000 demonstrators have marched in Haiti's capital calling for resolution to a protracted impasse that has repeatedly postponed a runoff presidential election.

Protesters carried placards emblazoned with photos of Jovenel Moise, a businessman who was the leading candidate in the disputed first-round of voting.

Demonstrator Sabrina Demosthil says marchers are "calling for the runoff to be held as quickly as possible."

A national police officer tries to stop a clash between supporters of presidential candidate Jovenel Moise, from the PHTK political party with residents from a neighborhood during a march to demand the second round presidential election in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Official results said government-backed candidate Jovenel Moise got some 33 percent of first-round voting, putting him in a runoff with second-place finisher Jude Celestin. Celestin dismissed the results as a fraudulent "farce." Haiti has repeatedly postponed a runoff vote. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)

Sunday was selected as election day in an early February accord negotiated by legislative leaders and then-President Michel Martelly.

But there seemed little chance of Haiti meeting that deadline. Now, interim President Jocelerme Privert says the vote should be held late next month.

It remains uncertain when balloting will actually be held. A five-member commission is preparing to evaluate last year's contested rounds.

Moise is Martelly's preferred successor.

Supporters of presidential candidate Jovenel Moise, from the PHTK political party hold up their national identification, during a protest to demand the second round presidential election in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday, April 24, 2016. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)

A supporter of presidential candidate Jovenel Moise, from the PHTK political party rest in front of a police barricade at the entrance of the Electoral Council building during a protest to demand the second round presidential election, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday, April 24, 2016. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)

A supporter of presidential candidate Jovenel Moise, from the PHTK political party holds up a banana and his national identification, during a protest to demand the second round presidential election in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Moise is known as a successful banana farmer and the banana has become a symbol of his campaign. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)

A supporter of presidential candidate Jovenel Moise, from the PHTK political party holds up his national ID and a sign that read's in Creole " If you touch Jovenel, we will burn," in front of a police barricade at the entrance of the Electoral Council building, during a protest to demand the second round presidential election in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday, April 24, 2016. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)

Some supporters of presidential candidate Jovenel Moise, from the PHTK political party sit on the ground in front of a Police barricade at the entrance of the Electoral Council building while they hold up their national ID and bananas, during a protest to demand the second round presidential election in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Moise is known as a successful banana farmer and the banana has become a symbol of his campaign. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)

A voodoo priest performs a ceremony before the start of a protest to demand the second round presidential election in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Official results said government-backed candidate Jovenel Moise got some 33 percent of first-round voting, putting him in a runoff with second-place finisher Jude Celestin. Celestin dismissed the results as a fraudulent "farce." Haiti has repeatedly postponed a runoff vote. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)

Supporters of presidential candidate Jovenel Moise, from the PHTK political party take tires to burn in the street during a protest to demand the second round presidential election in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Official results said government-backed candidate Jovenel Moise got some 33 percent of first-round voting, putting him in a runoff with second-place finisher Jude Celestin. Celestin dismissed the results as a fraudulent "farce." Haiti has repeatedly postponed a runoff vote. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)

A supporter of presidential candidate Jovenel Moise, from the PHTK political party holds up a picture of him during a protest to demand the second round presidential election in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday, April 24, 2016. Official results said government-backed candidate Jovenel Moise got some 33 percent of first-round voting, putting him in a runoff with second-place finisher Jude Celestin. Celestin dismissed the results as a fraudulent "farce." Haiti has repeatedly postponed a runoff vote. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)
Ground troops could go to Libya - Foreign Secretary

British ground combat troops could go to Libya in the future, the Foreign Secretary has said.

Philip Hammond told The Sunday Telegraph he cannot "rule anything out" as he does not know how the situation in the north African country will evolve.

But he insisted that the question of British ground, sea or air power taking action in Libya would be put to MPs.

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond cannot rule out the possibility of British ground troops in Libya

Mr Hammond said the southern Mediterranean was an important security interest as terrorists established there would be a threat to all of Europe, including the UK.

"It wouldn't make sense to rule anything out," he said, discussing the possibility of ground combat troops going to the country.

"But if there were ever any question of a British combat role in any form - ground, sea or air - that would go to the House of Commons."

He also highlighted the closeness of Libya to the outer borders of Europe - he said it was 100 miles from Libya to the Italian island of Lampedusa which is the first stop for many migrants when they arrive to the continent.

"If Daesh (another name for Islamic State) became established in Libya and sought to use that established base to infiltrate terrorists into Europe, that would be a threat to all of us," he said.

He said he knew that the new Libyan government would be cautious about requesting Western military support but if it did, the Government would consider it.

Tory chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Crispin Blunt warned that transparency about British deployments should be more important than the Government's "curious" conditions for needing a parliamentary approval.

He said: "The British Government needs to take Parliament with it.

"I think Parliament will be quite sympathetic to the challenges the Government faces but if we're not told anything and we're given a concept of operations which looks pretty dangerous, and just around the ground element, then I think the Government could find itself getting into unnecessary trouble."
Leave campaigners seize on Theresa May comments about controlling immigration

Immigration is harder to control due to the EU's free movement of labour rules, Home Secretary Theresa May has admitted.

However, in her first major intervention in the Brexit battle, Ms May insisted the task was not impossible as she tried to distance herself from an official Treasury study showing that immigration would soar by three million by 2030.

The move came as US president Barack Obama again waded into the Brexit battle, warning the UK would have to wait up to a decade for a trade deal with America if it quits the EU.

Home Secretary Theresa May said free movement "makes it harder to control immigration, but it does not make it impossible"

Unbowed by a furious backlash from the Leave camp against "interference" in British affairs, Mr Obama moved to explain his stark statement that the UK would be at "the back of the queue" for a beneficial economic arrangement if it breaks away from Brussels.

Insisting he had not sought to "scare" Britons into rejecting Brexit, Mr Obama told the BBC: "My simple point is that it's hard to negotiate trade deals. It takes a long time.

"We wouldn't abandon our efforts to negotiate a trade deal with our largest trading partner, the European market, but rather it could be five years from now, 10 years from now, before we were able to actually get something done."

The Home Secretary's remarks on immigration were seized on by the Leave camp as proof Britain had an "open door" policy.

Ms May told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show: "Yes, free movement makes it harder to control immigration, but it does not make it impossible to control immigration."

The Cabinet heavyweight. who has kept a low profile in the referendum debate since backing Prime Minister David Cameron's Remain stance, would not be drawn on a Government document saying immigration would jump by three million.

"That was an independent figure, that was an independent estimate," the Home Secretary said of the Office for National Statistics' prediction of a steep rise in immigration, which was put out by the Treasury as part of the Government's claim that Brexit would cost each household 4,300 a year.

The Home Secretary acknowledged migrants would look at the rises in the national living wage when making a decision on whether to come to Britain.

"I think, yes, obviously, the national living wage is going up and people look when they are going to move at what they are going to earn ," Ms May said.

The Home Secretary insisted Britain had won a landmark concession from Brussels on immigration in that the EU will overturn judgments of the European Court of Justice that make it is easier for people to abuse the free movement rules.

In an explosive escalation of the highly personalised attacks launched against Mr Obama by the Leave campaign, Ukip leader Nigel Farage said the president's priority in attacking Brexit was to "guarantee his financial future".

"There is a bigger motivation and that is, with this trip, and with what he has said, he has guaranteed his financial future. He has done the bidding of the giant American corporates who want Britain to stay in the EU ," Mr Farage told Sky's Murnaghan.

Prominent Labour MP Chuka Umunna accused London mayor Boris Johnson of being "unfit" to be prime minister after his remarks drawing attention to Mr Obama's Kenyan heritage.

Brexit would make households 40 a week better off, one of Margaret Thatcher's economic gurus, Professor Patrick Minford, told The Sun on Sunday.

Mr Farage dismissed the assertion a trade deal would take a decade to complete as he noted the US finalised one with Australia in two years.
Freeing of man from Kurdish prison 'like a dream Christmas present'

The father of one of three men freed from jail in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq has said his freedom is like a dream Christmas present.

Joshua Molloy, from Ballylynan, Co Laois, a former Royal Irish Regiment soldier, was incarcerated along with British citizens Joe Akerman, also a former soldier, and Jac Holmes, after crossing a border with Syria .

The three had spent months fighting against the Islamic State.

Joshua Molloy, 24, has been freed (Family handout/PA)

It is understood they were freed last night, with Ireland's Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan first to break the news to the Molloy family.

Declan Molloy, Joshua's father, said emotions in the family were running wild.

"We are all delighted here. We are jumping with joy to know that he is out," he said.

"You know that Christmas morning feeling, it's a bit like that, when you find your most sought-after present under the tree, the dream present. That's how we feel."

A Foreign and Commonwealth spokeswoman confirmed the release of the two Britons.

"We are helping two British men make arrangements to leave Kurdistan after they were released from custody," she said.

It is understood they had been with the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), a force reported to have in the region of 25,000-50,000 fighters trying to quell IS in northern Syria.

Mr Holmes, an IT worker in his early 20s originally from Dorset, had no military experience before he went to Syria.

He was shot in one arm in a gun battle with IS forces last May.

His mother Angie said she was elated at the news and described her son and his front-line comrades as "heroes".

"Jack's family and friends are grateful for all the help and support they've received during this difficult time," she said.

"(We) would like to thank everyone including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Kurdish Regional Government for their assistance in securing his release."

Mark Campbell, a Kurdish rights campaigner for 20 years, tried to raise awareness of the men's plight by visiting the KRG High Representatives' offices in London last Friday with Mrs Holmes.

"I am so happy that common sense has prevailed and these brave men have been freed and able to return to their families," Mr Campbell said.

"They deserve medals not prison and I hope they will get apologies and the recognition they deserve."

Mr Campbell had tried to dissuade Mr Holmes from travelling to Syria before he went out but had no contact with Mr Molloy or Mr Akerman before they left.

Mr Akerman, 34, is a former British soldier from Halifax.

The men were detained after leaving the front line to come home.

It is believed they had been in the Rojava region of Syria for some time and at least one had fought in the liberation of Sinjar , the city where thousands of Yazidis were slaughtered and fled from after IS took it over in 2014.

They were imprisoned in Erbil for about 10 days by authorities from the Kurdish Regional Government and it is understood demands had been made for 15,000 dollars (10,400) in fines to be paid to secure their release.

Mr Molloy's father, a passionate amateur astronomer, considered selling his set of telescopes in order to raise money to try to free his son.

"It was a tough battle but I have got to give my thanks to Mark Campbell in the Kurdish support group in London," he said.

Mr Molloy got a second-hand account of his son's condition and life in the jail after a freelance reporter managed to visit him in the hours before the releases were secured.

"It must have been an awful place to be," he said.

Mr Molloy also paid tribute to the work of diplomatic chiefs in London and Dublin.

British consular staff in Iraq spent most of last week trying to secure their freedom.

After phoning the Molloy family late on Saturday night Mr Flanagan said: "I welcome Joshua's release and I am pleased that he is now on his way home to join his family in Ireland.

"Would like to thank all those who helped to make this early release happen. My department will continue to provide consular assistance in this case."

It is understood Mr Molloy is in a hotel making travel arrangements out of Kurdistan and is considering spending time in Europe with fellow foreign fighters before he returns to Ireland.

His father has always insisted that his son is not a mercenary or a freedom fighter, but that he had travelled to Syria last year for humanitarian reasons.

Mr Molloy spoke to his son via Facebook after his release and reported that he was "fine" but felt that he would need some time alone after his ordeal.

British diplomats had been working on the ground on behalf of all three men, saying that they do consular work for Irish citizens in difficulty in some countries where Ireland does not have representation.
George Clooney honours woman who saved 30,000 children in Burundi civil war

A woman who acted as a "mother to all children" during the Burundi civil war has been recognised for her actions by George Clooney with a million dollar (700,000) humanitarian prize.

Marguerite Barankitse, who saved the lives of 30,000 children during the country's civil war, was handed the inaugural Aurora Prize by the Hollywood actor at a ceremony in Yerevan, Armenia.

She was personally awarded 100,000 US dollars (70,000) as well as a million dollar grant to nominate to a charity or organisation that has inspired her.

George Clooney during a remembrance service at the Armenian Genocide memorial in Yerevan

Ms Barankitse, known as Maggie was heralded by Clooney as "extraordinary". He said all the finalists were people who "make the world a better place".

Clooney, who is visiting Armenia for the first time, earlier joined the president of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan in a solemn memorial service remembering the events of 1915 - when Armenians say the Ottoman Empire killed 1.5 million of its people.

Modern-day Turkey strongly disputes claims that the events were a genocide, and the figures stated.

During the prize ceremony Clooney called for the world to recognise the "Armenian genocide". Amongst the finalists for the Aurora Prize were American doctor Tom Catena, the only permanent surgeon responsible for more than half a million people in Sudan's conflicted border area with South Sudan.

Also nominated was Syeda Ghulam Fatima, a Pakistani activist who survived attempts on her life during her campaign to liberate bonded labourers, and Father Bernard Kinvi, a Togolese priest providing refuge to both sides of a civil war in the Central African Republic.

Ms Barankitse saved thousands of children left orphans during civil war in Burundi between the Tutsis and the Hutu population.

At the height of the war in 1993 the 59-year-old, a Tutsi, sheltered a group of Hutus at the Catholic diocese where she worked.

She said she will use the grant, and the million dollar prize, to further her work in the region as violence erupts in Burundi once again.

Last year Ms Barankitse was forced to flee to Rwanda once again, but remains positive.

"I am a very optimistic person and my dreams remain my dreams, when you have these values of compassion, nothing can stop you."

She called on the international community to stand with her over the current crisis and said she would travel to the Netherlands to protest and demonstrate at The Hague.

Clooney said Ms Barankitse served as a "reminder of the impact that one person can have even when encountering seemingly insurmountable persecution and injustice".

He added: "By recognising Marguerite's courage, commitment and sacrifice, I am hopeful that she can also inspire each one of us to think about what we can do to stand up on behalf of those whose rights are abused and are in most need of our solidarity or support."

The prize-winner said that she will use the million dollar grant to advance aid and rehabilitation for child refugees and orphans, and fight child poverty.
British father and two children killed in France motorway accident

A crash on a French motorway which killed a British father and two of his children may have been caused by him falling asleep or being distracted, investigators have said.

The driver's wife and their youngest child were flown to hospital following the crash which happened after 7am on Sunday on the A39 in Beaurepaire-en-Bresse between Lyon and Dijon. The youngster was thought to be seriously injured.

Two air ambulances were called to the scene and the injured child was flown to hospital in Lyon.

The Foreign Office was understood to be offering assistance

In an interview with the France3 TV channel, a member of the emergency services said two of the children were dead when they arrived and the father was trapped.

He was said to have died from a heart attack minutes after he was released from the wreckage.

Pictures showed a badly mangled family Nissan which was ripped apart after initially hitting a safety barrier.

An investigator told the TV channel the reason for the car hitting the barrier was as yet unknown, but it could have been caused by the driver falling asleep or being distracted.

The Foreign Office was understood to be offering assistance.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "We are providing assistance following a road traffic accident in France, in which three British nationals have sadly died and two others have been hospitalised.
Refugees 'are people, just like you and me', George Clooney says

Refugees are "people, just like you and me", Hollywood star George Clooney has said in a speech urging humanity to do more to help those escaping war and persecution.

The Oscar-winning actor opened up over his own ancestors' struggles in fleeing the famine in Ireland and called on people to believe they can make a difference.

"The simple truth is that all of us here tonight, are the result of someone's act of kindness.

Statues depicting the Irish famine in Dublin as George Clooney used his own ancestors' experience to draw attention to the plight of refugees

" We all stand on the shoulders of good people who didn't look away when we were in need," Clooney said during a speech at a humanitarian conference in Yerevan, Armenia.

H e added: "The Clooney family fled a famine in Ireland to come to the United States where their very survival required a room, a meal, a helping hand."

"We call them refugees, but they're just people, like you and me. And if you stand right in front of them and take a look deep into their eyes, you might just see an Irish farmer fleeing a famine.

"If we are to survive as a people we simply can't look away. Not from the people of Syria or South Sudan or the Congo."

According to UN data, 4.8 million people have fled Syria since civil war broke out in 2011.

Clooney was in Armenia as part of the Aurora Prize - an award held to recognise those who put themselves at risk to save the lives of others.
At least nine dead in Baghdad car bomb attack

BAGHDAD, April 23 (Reuters) - At least nine people were killed on Saturday when a suicide attacker detonated a car bomb at a security checkpoint in northern Baghdad, police sources said, adding that the death toll could rise.
Serbia's Vucic seeks mandate for EU talks, nationalists fight back

By Adrian Croft and Aleksandar Vasovic

BELGRADE, April 24 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic is asking Serbian voters on Sunday for four more years in power to pursue European Union membership, but he may have to contend with a resurgent ultra-nationalist opposition demanding closer ties with Russia.

Vucic called early parliamentary elections just two years after his conservative Progressive Party won a landslide election victory, propelling him into office.

The 46-year-old former hardline nationalist who converted to EU-friendly policies in 2008 says he needs a clear mandate from Serbia's seven million people for reforms to complete EU membership talks launched in December.

Both EU rules and a 1.2 billion euro ($1.35 billion) loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund oblige Vucic to privatise or downsize big loss-making state-run companies, potentially throwing thousands out of work.

"We want to complete the process of privatisation, speed up (private) investments and above all to spur the entrepreneurial spirit of the people," Vucic told Reuters in an interview this week.

Opinion polls suggest Vucic's party is on track to win 48 percent -- about the same share of the vote it won two years ago -- giving him another absolute majority in parliament.

Analysts think Vucic will continue a coalition with the second-biggest party, the Socialists, even though he does not need to, to broaden his base.

Whereas until now there has been a broad consensus in parliament in favour of EU membership, Sunday's election looks likely to bring a return to parliament of ultra-nationalists who oppose EU membership and favour closer ties with Russia.

Vojislav Seselj, a nationalist firebrand who was acquitted by the U.N. tribunal in The Hague last month of war crimes during the 1990s breakup of Yugoslavia, could emerge as the effective leader of the opposition.

His Radicals are tipped to become the third largest party, returning to parliament for the first time since 2012.

THORN IN VUCIC'S SIDE

The ultra-nationalists may complicate Serbia's EU membership talks by resisting concessions, such as ending Serbia's constitutional claim to sovereignty over Kosovo.

Critics of Vucic, who was information minister during the final years of late President Slobodan Milosevic's rule, say his government is increasingly autocratic and has stifled media freedom.

Belgrade street vendor Nadica Ciric, 39, said she would vote for Vucic, despite some calling him a dictator, because "he created jobs and saved the country from bankruptcy."

Even while integrating with the EU, Vucic's government strives to stay on good terms with traditional ally Russia, an important gas supplier. Vucic has no plans for Serbia to join NATO.

On economics, Vucic has little choice but to continue with austerity policies demanded by the IMF.

Cuts in public spending and subsidies, and tax rises helped Serbia trim its budget deficit by nearly half last year. But the economy is recovering only slowly from recession and unemployment remains around 18 percent.
Parties running in Serbia's general election

BELGRADE, April 24 (Reuters) - Following are the main parties or groups running in Sunday's general election in Serbia. Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), centre-right Leader: Aleksandar Vucic The Progressive Party was founded in 2008 when its leader Aleksandar Vucic, now prime minister, and Serbia's current President Tomislav Nikolic left the ultra-nationalist Radical Party, making a policy U-turn. The party, in power since 2012, won 48 percent of the votes in the 2014 election, the highest level of support for a single party since 2000. The party wants to pursue accession talks with the European Union, but also maintain good relations with Russia. Opinion polls predict it will remain by far the largest party.

Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), left Leader: Ivica Dacic Founded in 1990 by Serbia's late strongman Slobodan Milosevic, the SPS had a firm grip on power throughout a decade of Yugoslav wars. After Milosevic was overthrown in 2000, the party gradually changed policies and joined the ruling coalition in 2008. Its main goals are achieving more social justice, social welfare and finding a political solution for Kosovo. However, it has been supportive of austerity policies implemented by its coalition partner SNS, including a cut in public sector salaries and pensions.

The Serbian Radical Party (SRS), ultra-nationalist Leader: Vojislav Seselj Founded in early 1991, the party since its early days promoted the idea of "Greater Serbia" -- the union of Serbia and parts of Bosnia and Croatia where Serbs formed the majority. From 1998 until 2000, the party was a coalition partner to Milosevic. It lost a lot of support in 2008 when Vucic and Nikolic left to found the SNS. Boosted by leader Vojislav Seselj's acquittal by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in March, the Radical Party could emerge as the third largest party after this election, according to opinion polls. It says if it gains power it would stop accession talks with the EU, form a close alliance with Russia, stop privatisation and put heavy duties on imports.

Democratic Party of Serbia/Dveri, right wing Leaders: Sanda Raskovic Ivic (DSS), Bosko Obradovic (Dveri) The two parties joined forces before the April 24 election to try to pass the 5 percent vote threshold to enter parliament. Dveri has never been in parliament, while DSS has been out of parliament since 2014. DSS/Dveri oppose Serbia's EU accession and call for stronger ties with Russia. The two parties advocate "economic patriotism", including stopping subsidies for foreign companies and transferring them to domestic firms, financial aid to young couples for farming and higher taxes on foreign banks. Democratic Party, centre-left Leader: Bojan Pajtic Founded in 1990 when the multi-party system was first introduced in Serbia, the Democratic Party for a long time led opposition to Milosevic. Since Serbia came out of a decade of international isolation in 2000, the party has led the ruling coalition twice. Its leader, the then prime minister Zoran Djindjic, was assassinated in 2003. The party lost support in 2014 when its former leader Boris Tadic left to form his own party. The party promotes fast-track EU accession talks.
Economy, crises in focus as Obama heads to Germany

By Roberta Rampton

LONDON, April 24 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama is set to visit Hanover, Germany on Sunday to hold talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, one of his closest allies in dealing with a shaky global economy and security crises in the Middle East and Ukraine.

It will be the last stop on a six-day foreign journey where Obama has sought to shore up U.S. alliances he views as key to grow trade, defeat Islamic State militants, and offset Russian aggression in Ukraine and Syria.

Obama, who is in the last nine months of his presidential term, spent three days in London where he urged Britons to remain part of the European Union in a June referendum, a vote that could send shockwaves through the economy.

Earlier in the week, he met with Gulf leaders in Riyadh to try to allay fears that Washington had become less committed to their security.

In Hanover, he will tour and speak at a massive industrial trade fair with Merkel. The leaders want to breathe life into a U.S.-European free trade agreement which supporters say could boost each economy by some $100 billion.

Their push comes at a time when many Europeans and Americans alike are deeply suspicious the deal could cost jobs and affect standards.

"But time is not on anyone's side at the moment," said Heather Conley, a former State Department official in the George W. Bush administration, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington.

Leaders are trying to wrap up complex talks on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) before Obama, a Democrat, leaves office on Jan. 20.

Getting a sign-off from the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress in the heat of an election campaign will be a tall order. Obama has yet to secure approval for the sweeping Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, which is at a much more advanced stage.

"Getting trade deals done is tough, because each country has its own parochial interests and factions. And in order to get a trade deal done, each country has to give something up," Obama said at a London event on Saturday.

In Hanover, thousands of protesters holding placards with slogans like "Stop TTIP" marched on Saturday to express their opposition to the deal.

Before Obama returns to Washington late Monday, he and Merkel will get together with Cameron, French President Francois Hollande, and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to talk about beefing up intelligence sharing after recent attacks in France and Belgium.
A year after Nepal quake, some united in grief; others climb again

By Ross Adkin

KATHMANDU, April 22 (Reuters) - For survivors and relatives of victims of a landslide that struck with the force of half an atom bomb it is a time to grieve. For witnesses to a fatal avalanche at the Mount Everest base camp, it is time to climb again.

A year after the worst earthquake in Nepal's history struck at four minutes to midday on April 25 last year, the Himalayan nation is remembering the 9,000 victims of the 7.8 magnitude quake and a second tremor 17 days later.

Among those returning to Nepal are adventurers like Australian photographer Athena Zelandonii, who is trekking again to attend a ceremony of remembrance on Monday in Langtang village, obliterated by a huge rockfall that took the lives of 285 locals and foreigners.

They will be remembered at the memorial event where, starting at 11:56 a.m., the name of each victim will be read out.

"There was no question of not coming back," Zelandonii, 26, told Reuters in the capital Kathmandu.

Part of a group of people who searched for loved ones or themselves lived through the disaster, Zelandonii survived an avalanche on the mountain slopes above Langtang, but was stranded for days by the rockfall.

Still missing in the Langtang area is American Dawn Habash, a 57-year-old yoga instructor from Augusta, Maine, who was trekking in Nepal for the fourth time.

Son Khaled and daughter Yasmine worked shifts to try and find out about their mother after the earthquake - all they could find out was that she was last seen walking downhill toward Langtang just before the earthquake.

Both of them and Dawn's brother Randy are in Nepal for the anniversary, and hope that at least her body can be found.

"Because we need that closure," said Khaled. "Sometimes I still get these lightning-bolt thoughts - what if? And that's not healthy."

Of 181 foreigners who died in the earthquake or are still missing, 63 were in Langtang.

Villager Kartok Lama, 30, said locals had already marked the anniversary of the quake by the Tibetan calendar that they follow. They said prayers in a hut because Langtang's two gompas, or Buddhist temples, had been destroyed.

"Almost everyone from the village is back; people are rebuilding homes and hotels, and there is work going on in the fields," she told Reuters. "We want the tourists to come back."

Monday's Langtang memorial will be preceded by national commemorations on Sunday - the quake anniversary by the Nepali calendar - at the site of Kathmandu's historic Dharahara Tower that collapsed. There will be a candlelit vigil that night and three days of national mourning.

But the commemoration will be low-key in a country where one in seven people still live in makeshift homes, mostly tin shelters that dot the countryside by the rubble of buildings devastated by the quake.

For many Nepalis it's been a lost year of political bickering over a new constitution, a blockade of the Indian border by its opponents and the failure to spend $4.1 billion in aid to rebuild, pledged by foreign donors. Tourism, which accounts for 9 percent of the economy, is down.

A RETURN TO EVEREST

Climbers have been slow to return. The number getting permission to scale the world's tallest peak, Mount Everest, in the spring fair-weather window is down to 289 from last year's 357.

No one reached the 8,850 metre (29,035 ft) summit last year after an avalanche set off by the earthquake tore through Base Camp, killing at least 18 and abruptly ending the 2015 climbing season.

The disaster, and a fatal avalanche the year before on the Khumbu Icefall approach from the Nepali side of the mountain, has led some climbing firms to reconsider whether the risks are worth fees of $50,000 or more that clients pay to summit Everest.

One climber at Base Camp a year ago, Adrian Ballinger, is leading a small party to attempt Everest's northern route from Chinese Tibet. He says it is less dangerous.

"It's a beautiful place, but a terrifying place," the American said of Nepal. A dry winter and global warming has made the icefall more treacherous than ever, added Ballinger, whose expedition company Alpenglow has suffered no Everest fatalities.

Ang Tshering Sherpa, president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, disagreed, saying that an elite team called the Icefall Doctors had already secured the route. "The condition of the icefall now is like it was before the earthquake," he said.

IN THE MOUNTAIN'S SHADOW

Shaheed and Anjali Kulkarni have returned to the Everest region a year after they watched from a nearby slope as the avalanche engulfed Base Camp. They helped carry the injured to a makeshift rescue centre down the mountain.

The return of the mountaineering couple from Mumbai, India, is an exception. Numbers of trekkers have plummeted - and on less-travelled routes are still down by half - guides and lodge operators say.

One is Sunita Rai, who is struggling to rebuild her Khumbila Lodge in Dhole, a hamlet perched on a ridge 4,200 metres (13,800 ft) above sea level that is part of the Gokyo Valley trail.

"Renting this lodge was my chance to break with the past and earn a decent living," she said.

Rai has rebuilt the dining room of her lodge after the earthquake, but much of the two-storey stone building is still covered in plastic sheeting. Now the 31-year-old worries how she will pay her yearly rent of $4,700 - seven times Nepal's annual per capita income - and works as a porter at times.

"The trekkers haven't returned so to pay it I have to carry heavy loads up the mountain off-season," she said.
New Zealand's Savea withdraws from Olympic contention

WELLINGTON, April 24 (Reuters) - New Zealand's rugby sevens side suffered a major blow in their preparations for the Rio Olympics after loose forward Ardie Savea opted to withdraw from contention in order to concentrate on the 15-man game.

The 22-year-old openside flanker had played in two tournaments in the sevens World Series in Wellington and Sydney before returning to Super Rugby duty with the Hurricanes.

Savea had been expected to be available for the final two tournaments in Paris and London next month, which would have ruled him out of Super Rugby for at least a month, but New Zealand Rugby said on Sunday he would not vie for selection.

"We're naturally disappointed that we can no longer call on the services of such a great sevens player," said NZR's general manager for rugby Neil Sorensen .

"He could well have made a huge impact at Rio as he's a classy player and he proved that again in Wellington and Sydney. However, we understand his reasons.

"As we said from the outset of our Rio programme, playing sevens was very much a personal choice for players."

Savea was impressive in his two tournament appearances for the All Blacks sevens side, proving a handful at the breakdown in securing turnover ball. His ability to break tackles and run with the pace of a back was also important for the team.

New Zealand won both the Wellington and Sydney tournaments in which they had all of their Super Rugby players available.

They also won the Vancouver tournament with sevens specialists, though have struggled to dominate the tackle area without the Super Rugby players, who are typically bigger due to the greater contact in the 15-man game.

The express pace of players from the United States and South Africa has also left them exposed out wide at times, while they have also been hit hard by injuries with at least five core members having problems ahead of Rio.

Fiji lead the World Series on 147 points, having also won three tournaments. South Africa are second on 139 with New Zealand third on 135 points.

Kenya won the latest stop on the 10-city circuit in Singapore last week. It was their first tournament victory.
China says Brunei, Cambodia, Laos agree sea dispute must not hurt ties

BEIJING, April 24 (Reuters) - China has agreed with Brunei, Cambodia and Laos that the South China Sea territorial dispute should not affect relations between China and the Association of South East Asian National (ASEAN), China's Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.

Four members of the 10-member ASEAN - the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei - have rival claims to parts of the South China Sea with China, which says virtually the entire sea belongs to it. China is the biggest trade partner of many ASEAN nations.

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke to reporters in the Lao capital, Vientiane, on Saturday and was quoted by his ministry as saying China had reached "an important consensus" with Brunei, Cambodia and Laos.

The South China Sea problem was not a China-ASEAN dispute and it "should not affect China-ASEAN relations", the ministry said in a statement, referring to their agreement.

China's maritime claims are ASEAN's most contentious issue, as its members struggle to balance mutual support with their growing economic relations with China.

The grouping, which also includes Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar, expressed in February its serious concern about growing international tension over the disputed waters.

Land reclamation and escalating activity has increased tension and could undermine peace, security and stability in the region, ASEAN said in a statement at that time.

The United States has criticized China's building of artificial islands and facilities in the sea and has sailed warships close to disputed territory to assert the right to freedom of navigation.

China seeks to keep the South China Sea off of the agenda at multilateral forum, but other claimant countries, such as the Philippines, have sought to raise the issue at ASEAN summits.

The dispute has been divisive for ASEAN.
Armenian migrants in Turkey wary of political tensions

By Ayla Jean Yackley

ISTANBUL, April 24 (Reuters) - A century after her forebears fled massacres in Turkey for Armenia, Alla has gone the other way, hoping to win Turkish citizenship after leaving her impoverished homeland.

She works as a nanny in Turkey but fears deportation, one of thousands of undocumented workers from the former Soviet republic who feel hostage to a decades-old diplomatic dispute.

The conflict dates back to the killings of up to 1.5 million Christian Armenians by Ottoman Muslims that were being commemorated on Sunday, with tensions between Armenia and its Turkey-backed neighbour, Azerbaijan, especially amplified this year.

"We live in fear they (the Turkish authorities) can kick us out if something happens," said Alla, who declined having her full name published because of her illegal status in Turkey.

"When I get home from work, I thank God 1,000 times nothing happened," she said. "If I get citizenship, I won't be afraid."

Estimates put the number of Armenians here between 10,000 and 30,000. A bus ticket bringing them from Yerevan to Istanbul and, they hope, a better life costs the equivalent of about $50.

Their numbers are dwarfed by the 3 million Syrians and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have fled war but Armenian migrants feel vulnerable to the changing political winds.

Armenia, along with most Western scholars and two dozen nations, says the 1915 massacre was genocide. Turkey accepts that Armenians were killed during the upheaval of World War One but rejects declarations that it was genocide.

Animosity between the neighbours, whose border is shut, have flared this month after clashes between Muslim Azerbaijan and Armenian-backed Christian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region inside Azerbaijan that is controlled by ethnic Armenians.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the deaths of Azeris "seared our souls" and blamed Armenia for the outbreak of the worst clashes since a 1994 ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh after a war that killed thousands of people on each side.

Turks took to social media to denounce Armenians as "murderers" and proclaim Nagorno-Karabakh "Turkish territory".

"We hear rumours they will kick out Armenians because of the Azerbaijan matter," said Alla, 54. "This hate will never end."

THREAT OF DEPORTATION

Angered by international efforts to deem the century-old killings genocide, Erdogan has threatened to "deport" Armenian migrants. But he has also moved towards reconciliation, expressing condolences over the loss of life in 2014 and sending a minister to church services marking the centennial last year.

Garo Paylan, who in 2015 became one of three lawmakers of Armenian descent to enter Turkey's parliament in 50 years, this week brandished photographs of Armenian deputies killed in 1915 and demanded the assembly investigate their deaths.

"The reason I persist on this 100-year-old issue is because it continues to haunt Turkey," Paylan told Reuters.

This year commemorations were to be more muted than in 2105, with a handful of memorials planned.

Turkey cut ties with Armenia in 1993 at the height of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh. It agreed to restore relations under protocols in 2009 brokered by the United States, Russia and France but the deal did not have Azerbaijan's blessing.

"A renewed conflict could potentially draw in Turkey. It is Russian soldiers guarding Armenia's border with Turkey," said Aybars Gorgulu of the Public Policy and Democracy Studies think tank. "Sooner or later Turkey wants to normalise with Armenia."

Enmity towards Armenia leaves Turkish citizens of Armenian descent exposed, said Yetvart Danzikyan, editor-in-chief of Agos newspaper, which serves 60,000 Armenians out of a population of 78 million. The community faces pressures such as property seizures, poorly funded schools and sporadic violence.

A teenage gunman killed Danzikyan's predecessor, Hrant Dink, in 2007. A court this week began trying senior security officers accused of complicity.

"The state always leaves open wounds," Danzikyan said.

Alla's family fled strife and starvation that gripped the province of Igdir during World War One and the subsequent War of Independence that forged the modern Turkish Republic in 1923. Her grandparents found refuge across the border in Armenia.

Alla now earns $700 a month to support her mother and two children. An adult daughter, who was disabled, died this year.

Low-skilled labourers, especially women, struggle in landlocked Armenia, where per-capita income is about $4,000 an unemployment hovers at 17 percent, according to the World Bank.

Changes to immigration law in 2014 encouraged some Armenians to seek residency, but they must show large savings and pay fines. Alla said her penalty would amount to four months' wages.

New arrivals help sustain a dwindling community that flourished in these lands for four millennia until 1915.

Armenian migrants fill the pews of a Protestant house of worship every Sunday to sing exuberant hymns. The basement serves as an informal primary school with 140 immigrants.

A volunteer said Turkish authorities turn a blind eye so the school can follow the Armenian educational system.

One in three Armenians here does not plan to return home, said Anna Muradyan, a Yerevan-based independent researcher.
VW upbeat on China, plans more investments with JVs

By Jake Spring

BEIJING, April 24 (Reuters) - Volkswagen AG is optimistic that its positive sales trend from the two previous quarters will continue in China, the world's biggest auto market, its China chief Jochem Heizmann said on Sunday.

Volkswagen (VW) plans to invest 4 billion euros ($4.49 billion) with its joint venture partners in China this year, while the expansion of its share of the sports utility vehicle (SUV) and new energy vehicle (NEV) markets will be a focus over the next several years, Heizmann told reporters ahead of the Beijing auto show beginning on Monday.

VW, whose China sales fell 3.4 percent last year to 3.5 million cars, has lagged in the country's SUV boom with relatively few locally produced models.

But it plans to change that with launches of 10 locally made VW-, Audi- and Skoda-badged SUV models in the years ahead.

"There is an SUV offensive on the way," Heizmann said.

"It will begin this year with a B segment SUV," he added, declining to give details on which joint venture or brand would produce that model. B segment refers to small cars.

On new energy vehicles, Volkswagen estimates that 2 million will be sold in the overall Chinese market by 2020, in line with the government's target, with the German carmaker selling a few hundred thousand.

VW aims to build 15 new plug-in hybrids or purely electric cars in China in the next three to four years and is taking steps to boost development of online connectivity in its models, Heizmann said at an evening reception, reiterating the plans may entail hiring another 30,000 people by the end of the decade.

The group has set up a so-called future lab in China to fuse digitalisation experts with designers and enhance work on how people interact with their cars. The effort is also part of VW's push to reposition itself in the wake of its emissions scandal.

"In China, the future is on display now," the executive said. "VW is building a new world of mobility."

Heizmann also said VW is prepared for any recalls in China on any diesel-related issues, referring to the emissions test-rigging scandal last year when it came out that the automaker modified its cars to cheat emissions tests.

The company has been in talks with regulators globally on how to make amends. In China, the issue only affected roughly 2,000 cars.
Kurd-Shi'ite clashes in northern Iraq kill two -sources

BAGHDAD, April 24 (Reuters) - Clashes between Kurdish and Shi'ite Turkmen paramilitary forces broke out late on Saturday in northern Iraq, killing at least two fighters and cutting a strategic road between Baghdad and the oil city of Kirkuk, security sources said.

The violence in Tuz Khurmatu, about 175 km (110 miles) north of the capital, has become a near monthly occurrence between the armed groups, uncomfortable allies against Islamic State since driving the jihadist militants out of towns and villages in the area in 2014.

Saturday's violence began just before midnight when a small explosion near the local headquarters of two rival political parties sparked clashes between the communities in neighbourhoods across the district, according to security sources.

The violence, which continued on Sunday morning, saw fighters launch mortars into densely populated areas and fire rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns at the opposing positions.

At least one fighter from each side was killed and two civilians, including a child, were wounded, the sources said. The death toll was expected to rise since snipers were preventing people from transporting casualties to hospital.

The tensions risk further fragmenting Iraq, a major OPEC oil exporter, as it struggles to contain Islamic State, the biggest security threat since a U.S.-led invasion toppled autocrat Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Efforts to push back the ultra-hardline Sunni jihadists have been complicated by sectarian and ethnic rivalries, including a contest for territory which the Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad claims, but the Kurds want as part of their autonomous region in the north of the country.

High-level delegations from both sides arrived in Tuz Khurmatu on Sunday to try to solve the latest dispute as military reinforcements were said to be gathering outside the district.
Seychelles says helping worldwide probe into Malaysia's 1MDB fund

By George Thande

VICTORIA, April 24 (Reuters) - The Seychelles is helping an international investigation into the troubled state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), the state's Financial Intelligence Unit on the Indian Ocean archipelago said.

Transactions involving 1MDB, which has piled up $11 billion in debt, are at the centre of corruption and money laundering investigations in jurisdictions that include the United States, Switzerland, Singapore, Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates.

"The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has been assisting in an international investigation into allegations surrounding the strategic Malaysian fund called 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB)," the FIU said in a statement emailed to Reuters.

"Detailed information relating to offshore entities registered in Seychelles and other matters were passed to the competent authorities of investigating states," it said.

The statement was sent to Reuters by Seychelles president's office on behalf of the FIU. It is the first public acknowledgement that Seychelles has joined the widening investigation into 1MDB, whose advisory board is chaired by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.

UNVERIFIED BANK ACCOUNTS

The FIU did not name any entities involved in the investigation. The nation's Financial Services Authority said a search of companies registered in Seychelles would not provide information regarding shareholders or company directors.

A Malaysian parliamentary investigation found that $4.2 billion of 1MDB's money is unaccounted for or went to overseas bank accounts whose owners could not be ascertained.

It said about $700 million was sent without board approval to an account with private banker RBS Coutts in Geneva under the name of Good Star Ltd. The report said could not determine who owned the Good Star account. RBS Coutts has declined to comment.

In February, the Swiss attorney-general's office said it believed $4 billion had been misappropriated from Malaysian state companies. Singapore announced it had seized a "large number of bank accounts" as part of investigations into a company closely linked to 1MDB.

The Seychelles and other offshore financial centres have increasingly come under the spotlight as global leaders seek to clamp down on money laundering and the use of so-called tax havens.

The Seychelles has repeatedly said it works to ensure the archipelago is not a jurisdiction where money laundering or other illegal activities are allowed to go undetected.
Ceasefire in northern Iraq after Kurd-Shi'ite clashes kill 12

By Isabel Coles and Ghazwan Hassan

TUZ KHURMATU, Iraq, April 24 (Reuters) - Clashes between Kurdish and Shi'ite Turkmen paramilitary forces in northern Iraq killed at least 12 fighters and cut off a key road between Baghdad and the oil city of Kirkuk for most of Sunday before community leaders reached a ceasefire agreement.

Violence in Tuz Khurmatu, 175 km (110 miles) north of the capital, has become a near monthly occurrence between the armed groups - uncomfortable allies against Islamic State since driving the jihadist militants out of towns and villages in the area in 2014.

A small explosion just before midnight near the local headquarters of two rival political parties sparked armed exchanges between the communities that spread to most neighbourhoods and continued into Sunday afternoon, according to security sources.

Fighters launched mortars into densely populated areas and fired rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns at the opposing positions. Shops were closed and streets deserted as plumes of black smoke rose into the sky and bursts of small arms fire pierced the air.

Sources said at least three buildings were burnt down. Kurdish fighters in al-Jumhouri neighbourhood tore down a Shi'ite flag from a militia commander's house and set the building on fire, a Reuters witness said. Separately, a military vehicle was engulfed in flames on a main road.

Seven Shi'ite fighters and five members of the Kurdish peshmerga forces, including two senior commanders, were killed, security and hospital sources said. Twenty-six fighters and at least two civilians, including a child, were also wounded.

The death toll could continue to rise since snipers from both sides had been preventing people from transporting casualties to hospital for most of the day.

CEASEFIRE

A ceasefire was agreed on Sunday evening following high-level delegations from Kurdish and Shi'ite parties met in the district, said Ahmed Abdel Najjar, head of the provincial council in Salahuddin where Tuz Khurmatu is located.

All parties to the conflict were expected to meet in Kirkuk on Tuesday to try to head off a repeat of the violence.

Reinforcements from both sides that had gathered on the outskirts of Tuz Khuramtu remained in place and sporadic gunfire could still be heard inside the district, but the heaviest fighting had abated by sunset.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi phoned military commanders earlier in the day "to defuse the crisis and focus efforts against" Islamic State, which faces government forces at a front line 140 km (87 miles) away in Makhmour.

Abadi, who is also facing a political crisis sparked by an attempt to replace his cabinet with technocrat ministers, said in a statement he had directed the joint operations command to take "all necessary military measures to control the situation".

The tensions in Tuz Khurmatu risk further fragmenting Iraq, a major OPEC oil exporter, as it struggles to contain Islamic State, the gravest security threat since a U.S.-led invasion toppled autocrat Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Serbian voters resoundingly endorse leader's pro-EU policies

By Ivana Sekularac and Aleksandar Vasovic

BELGRADE, April 24 (Reuters) - Serbia's pro-western Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic won a resounding endorsement in Sunday's general election for his policy of pursuing European Union membership, securing four more years in power with a parliamentary majority.

But he will have to contend with a resurgent ultra-nationalist opposition which rejects integration with the EU and demands closer ties with Russia.

Vucic went to the polls two years early, saying he wanted a clear mandate from Serbia's 6.7 million voters for reforms to keep EU membership talks launched in December on track for completion by 2019.

Even though Vucic presided over a period of austerity, partly forced on him by the terms of a 1.2 billion euro ($1.35 billion) loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund, voters again strongly backed the 46-year-old, himself a former hardline nationalist.

His conservative Progressive Party was set to win just under 50 percent of the vote, up from 48 percent two years ago, a projection by pollsters Cesid, the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy, said.

"This is an historic result, getting more votes in absolute numbers and in percentages than two years ago when we started difficult reforms," Vucic said.

"Today's result strongly supports our democracy, diplomatic efforts and European integration," he said.

Vucic must now decide whether he will rule alone or seek to broaden his support further by continuing to govern in coalition with the Socialists, who came second with around 11.6 percent of the vote, or another party.

The election marked a resurgence by the ultra-nationalist Radical Party of Vojislav Seselj, acquitted by the U.N. tribunal in The Hague last month of war crimes during the 1990s breakup of Yugoslavia.

The Radicals were set to win around 7.8 percent of the vote, turning them into the third-biggest party in parliament after a four-year absence from the assembly.

They could turn into a thorn in Vucic's side, resisting his pro-EU policies and calling instead for an alliance with Russia.

Seselj voiced disappointment with the result but said "in future debates we will show we are superior to our opponents."

The pro-EU Democratic Party, which won around 6 percent of the vote, complained of scattered irregularities that favoured the Progressive Party, saying some voters had been given ballots that were already filled in.

Exactly how many seats in the 250-member parliament the Progressives end up with depends on how many other parties exceed the five percent threshold needed to get into the assembly.

Three parties are hovering around the five percent threshold, according to Cesid. If they all get into parliament, it would reduce the Progressives' majority.

But analysts said the Progressives were still likely to get an absolute majority of between 137 and 156 seats, compared with 158 in the old parliament.

The EU Commissioner in charge of relations with would-be member states, Johannes Hahn, said on Twitter he was confident Vucic "will use citizens' strong support in a responsible way and that it (the election) will strengthen Serbia's EU perspective."

Milan Jovanovic, a political science lecturer at Belgrade University, said the Radicals would not be able to significantly influence the government's behaviour. "Quite to the contrary, they could make the government even more determined," he told Reuters.
There's no place like home, even in the Chernobyl disaster zone

By Matthias Williams

CHERNOBYL, Ukraine, April 24 (Reuters) - Some people found life away from home so unbearable they decided to return, even when home was the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster.

Maria Lozbin was one of tens of thousands of people to be evacuated from their homes after the Chernobyl accident in April 1986, but returned with her family six years ago, to live off the land inside a 30 km (19 mile) exclusion zone where the risk of radiation poisoning remains.

A 69-year-old with a ready laugh and a green shawl wrapped round her, Lobzin said the village to which she had been evacuated was full of drunks and drug addicts.

The house into which she was moved was so shoddily constructed, with a huge crack running from the roof to the basement, that she was afraid of being killed or maimed by a falling object.

"Living there was like waiting for death," she said.

Now she lives with her son and his family back in Chernobyl, in a zone that can only be reached by crossing a checkpoint and where guides accompany curious tourists with radiation meters.

By contrast, a deathly silence hangs over the nearby abandoned town of Prypyat, where a rusting fairground wheel, and a kindergarten with toys, dolls and small beds are a grim testimony to the scale and speed of the disaster.

Lozbin keeps chickens, geese and ducks, grows potatoes and tomatoes, and goes foraging for mushrooms in nearby woods.

"There is no radiation here. I'm not afraid of anything," she said. "And when it's time for me to die, it won't happen because of radiation."

BIRD SONG

Tuesday marks the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster in then-Soviet Ukraine, caused by a botched safety test in the fourth reactor of the atomic plant that sent clouds of nuclear material across much of Europe.

The disaster and the government's handling of it -- the evacuation order only came 36 hours after the accident -- highlighted the shortcomings of the Soviet system with its unaccountable bureaucrats and entrenched culture of secrecy.

Mikhail Gorbachev has since said he considered Chernobyl one of the main nails in the coffin of the Soviet Union which eventually collapsed in 1991.

The accident killed 31 right away and forced tens of thousands to flee. The final death toll of those killed by radiation-related illnesses such as cancer is subject to debate.

A Greenpeace report ahead of the anniversary cites a Belarusian study estimating the total cancer deaths from the disaster at 115,000, in contrast to the World Health Organisation's estimate of 9,000.

The Greenpeace study also said people living in the area continue to eat and drink foods with dangerously high radiation levels.

In particular, "the 30 km exclusion zone around the Chernobyl reactor remains highly contaminated and unsuitable to live in," it said.

But that matters little to Lozbin, one of around 160 people estimated to have returned to the zone. "What's there to be afraid of?" said Maria's daughter-in-law Oleksandra Lozbin.

"I don't want to go to Kiev. Why would I leave such nature? Where could you hear cuckoos? Where could you hear the nightingale?"

Oleksandra's husband, who grew up in a village 7 km away, started coming to Chernobyl in short bursts starting in 2008 and the family settled back there permanently in 2010.

"My husband had wanted to come back to his homeland all his life," she said. "He came back when it was all closed here, when it was prohibited to come here. He crossed through barbed wire."

Oleksandra said police initially tried to force them to leave, but the family refused.

Oleksandra hopes to inspire others to move back. To remind people what life was like before the accident, the family has created a makeshift museum in a house across the street with objects collected from nearby abandoned cottages.

There are books, a doll in a cot, a rusty wheel, an abacus, and a black-and-white photo of two people. One day, she hopes, someone might see it and recognize their great-grandparents.

"We decided to save the history of Chernobyl," she said. "We hope that people will come back here and will live here, and their children and grandchildren will see what life was like here, in what kind of cots people were raised here, in what kind of boxes people stored their personal belongings and books."
Saudi-led air strikes kill 10 al Qaeda fighters in Yemen

ADEN, April 24 (Reuters) - A Saudi-led coalition carried out air strikes on the al Qaeda-held port of Mukalla in southern Yemen on Sunday, killing at least ten militants, medical sources and residents said, part of an offensive to recapture the city.

Mukalla, a shipping hub and provincial capital, is a stronghold of the powerful al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) which has taken advantage of Yemen's year-long civil war to win control over parts of the south and east.

Residents said air strikes hit a building that AQAP was using as its headquarters, as well as gatherings of the group elsewhere in Mukalla.

A Yemeni military source said the air strikes were being coordinated with troops on the ground. In recent days, residents and local officials have reported preparations for a pro-government ground offensive on Mukalla.

It comes as Yemen's government meets with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Kuwait to try to find a solution to a conflict which has killed more than 6,200 people and divided up control of the country.

Saudi Arabia and its mostly Arab coalition has carried out air strikes in Yemen for the past year to support the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi against the Houthis.

Although the main war is being fought between the Houthis and the Yemeni government backed by coalition air strikes, the military and local fighters have also been battling AQAP, which is also subject to U.S. drone strikes.

On Saturday, government forces battled al Qaeda at al-Koud near Zinjibar, another southern city considered an al Qaeda stronghold, while an air strike from a drone killed two suspected al Qaeda fighters south of the city of Marib.
One dead, 26 wounded as rockets hit Turkish town near Syrian border

By Umit Bektas and Akin Aytekin

KILIS, Turkey, April 24 (Reuters) - Rockets pounded the Turkish town of Kilis near the Syrian border on Sunday, a Reuters witness reported, killing one person and injuring 26, a day after the government promised to protect the area from repeated attacks by Islamic State militants.

Two rockets struck houses in a poor neighbourhood near the town centre in the morning. Sixteen people were injured and Turkish soldiers near the border returned fire into Syria, security sources said.

Later in the day, one person was killed and 10 more injured when two more rockets crashed into a mosque, Hurriyet Daily News reported. The mosque was 100 metres from the governor's office, where Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan was holding talks at the time.

"I am calling for our citizens to be calm," Akdogan told a news conference in Kilis. "All measures will be taken in this regard. Unfortunately there is no authority across our border."

Akdogan said measures would be announced after a cabinet meeting on Monday.

Police later used water cannon to disperse residents who were protesting what they said was the government's lack of action over the attacks, Dogan new agency reported.

Some of the residents called on the local governor to resign, while others shouted slogan against the government.

"My son wakes up with nightmares ... We aren't safe here. We are afraid to stay in our houses," Ayse, a 46-year-old woman, told Reuters.

Lying just across the border from an area of Syria controlled by Islamic State, Kilis has been peppered by rocket fire in recent weeks. On Friday two people were killed in an attack on the town, home to around 110,000 Syrian refugees.

"SAFE ZONES"

Visiting the nearby city of Gaziantep on Saturday, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu promised that all necessary measures would be taken to prevent more rocket fire.

He was accompanied by EU Council President Donald Tusk as well as German Chancellor Angela Merkel who had been expected to visit Kilis last weekend but the location and timing of the visit were changed.

Merkel said on Saturday she favoured establishing "safe zones" to shelter refugees in Syria. At a news conference with U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday she said these could be agreed areas where civilians could feel free from bombardment, rather than zones protected by foreign forces.

The militants come to the border on motorcycles and then fire rockets at Kilis, Turkish officials have said. Turkish howitzers at the border have a difficult time firing on the mobile targets.

Officials have said Turkey may call on allies in the U.S.-led coalition to take stronger action in its campaign against Islamic State along the border.

But in Kilis, patience is wearing thin. Residents said they were frustrated by what they called the government's inability to protect them. "I want the governor to resign," 26-year-old Murat told Reuters.
Deputy police chief, five family members killed in southern Russia

MOSCOW, April 24 (Reuters) - The deputy head of police of Russia's southern Samara region and five members of his family were found dead in a village house on Sunday, TASS news agency reported.

The 49-year-old Andrei Gosht and his relatives were found with multiple wounds of different types in a house in the village of Ivashevka.

Investigators have yet to comment on a possible motive.

A seven-year old girl was found alive in the house and taken to hospital with head and other wounds. She is now in a coma, TASS cited regional officials as saying.

According to local media reports, the house is owned by Gosht's parents.
Britain says can't rule out sending troops to Libya - newspaper

LONDON, April 24 (Reuters) - British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said on Sunday that he could not rule out sending troops to Libya if requested to do so by the Libyan government, but that any deployment would need to be approved by parliament.

Western powers are backing a new Libyan unity government, hoping it will seek foreign support to confront Islamic State militants, deal with migrant flows from Libya to Europe and restore oil production to shore up Libya's economy.

"It wouldn't make sense to rule anything out because you never know how things are going to evolve," Hammond told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

"But if there were ever any question of a British combat role in any form - ground, sea or air - that would go to the House of Commons," he said referring to Britain's elected parliament.

Last week Hammond told parliament there were no plans to send combat troops to Libya, responding to media reports that British special forces were already operating in the country.

Libya has been in chaos since Western-backed rebels overthrew President Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Hammond said he did not think it was likely that Libya would invite foreign military intervention, but highlighted the risk that an Islamic State stronghold in the country could pose to mainland Europe.
Turkey's Erdogan needs thicker skin, EU's Tusk says

By Ercan Gurses and Alastair Macdonald

GAZIANTEP, Turkey/BRUSSELS, April 24 (Reuters) - Turkey's president needs a thicker skin against criticism, a senior EU official suggested as European leaders try to shore up support at home for their deal with Ankara to hold back migrants.

Former Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, who chairs EU summits, was visiting a refugee camp at Gaziantep near the Syrian border on Saturday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and was asked about Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's legal moves against critical media, including a German comedian.

Tusk said press freedom was a "permanent topic" of his talks with Turkish leaders which have produced the deal under which Turkey is taking back all refugees and migrants who reach Greek islands in return for concessions from the European Union.

Recalling his own jailing in the 1980s for opposing Poland's communist government, Tusk recalled that Erdogan, too, had been imprisoned in 1999 for criticising Turkey's then rulers.

"Thirty years ago, I was imprisoned for being critical of the regime," Tusk said late on Saturday. "My good friend, President Erdogan, 15 years later also had a similar experience for expressing his views."

Criticism of Turkey in Europe poses an obstacle to the deal struck by European Union leaders with Ankara last month because approval of the EU's side of the bargain, notably waiving visas for Turkish travellers by June, requires support in the European Parliament.

Many EU lawmakers criticise Erdogan's crackdown on critics, including a lawsuit against a comedian in Germany.

Prosecutors have opened more than 1,800 cases against people for insulting Erdogan since he became president in 2014, the justice minister said last month. Those targeted include journalists, cartoonists and even children.

Tusk said: "As a politician, I have learned and accepted to have a thick skin and I have no expectation that the press will treat me with special care; quite the opposite.

"And the line between criticism, insult and defamation is very thin and relative. The moment politicians begin to decide which is which can mean the end of the freedom of expression, in Europe, in Turkey, in Africa, in Russia, everywhere."
Once a symbol of decline, Pennsylvania tests limits of Trump's appeal

By Howard Schneider

BETHLEHEM, Pa., April 24 (Reuters) - With a rusting steel mill in its center, this Pennsylvania city would seem fertile ground for Donald Trump's campaign and its vision of a declining America that only he can fix.

Yet Trump, who will be seeking voters' backing as the Republican nominee for the White House in the state's primary on Tuesday, may face a stiffer challenge than the demise of the local steel industry might suggest.

In the two decades since the blast furnaces of Bethlehem Steel went silent, the local economy did not follow the once-mighty company into decline. It bounced back.

The old mill's 1,600 acre (6.5 square km) site has been adapted as the backdrop of a novel urban park that includes an arts center, a Public Broadcasting Service studio, and a Sands casino resort with 2,400 employees. Bethlehem and the Lehigh Valley region around it have filled new industrial parks with e-commerce companies, white collar businesses fleeing New York's high costs, and global giants such as Japanese imaging firm Olympus.

Trump has stormed ahead of the Republican field successfully tapping the frustration and anger of millions of Americans who feel bruised and left behind by a fast-changing and increasingly globalized economy. The Pennsylvania ballot will test how that message resonates in areas that can serve as an example of successful transformation.

It might also give a taste of which narrative might prevail in the campaign for the November presidential election - one built around evidence of steady economic recovery and an improving labor market, or one of pessimism fueled by stagnant incomes for many and widening wealth disparities.

"If you were to design the perfect Trump location, the Lehigh Valley was that 25 years ago," said Chris Borick, a political science professor at Muhlenberg College in Allentown.

"It is a different place now. Some of the blue collar appeal that Trump may be having in other areas of the country or the state may have less of a target here."

The New York real estate mogul and reality TV celebrity is heading into the Pennsylvania contest with a solid lead, according to most polls. The most recent, published on Thursday by the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College, gave Trump a 14 percentage point lead over Ohio Governor John Kasich and a 16 point advantage over Sen. Ted Cruz.

Nationally, Trump leads in the tally of delegates to the Republican convention with 845 followed by Ted Cruz with 559 and Kasich with 148, according to Associated Press, and is looking for another big night on April 26. Primaries in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware and Maryland will allocate roughly a quarter of the remaining delegates to the July convention - the largest bloc at stake until California votes in June.

Kasich and Cruz supporters hope they can slow Trump's march to the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination by snagging delegates chosen at the Congressional district level. The Franklin and Marshall poll showed substantial differences among the candidates across this geographically and culturally diverse state, with Kasich leading around Pittsburgh, near where he was born, and Cruz in a statistical tie with Trump in the central counties that are considered more conservative.

PRAGMATIC STREAK

The Lehigh Valley is part of a Congressional district that has returned moderate Republican Charlie Dent to Washington for a decade, and Dent said he expected Kasich, whom he has endorsed, to do well there.

"The area is not as rigid ideologically as other parts of the country," Dent told Reuters. "Maybe it is the old Pennsylvania-German ethic. They expect roads to get built and paved."

That pragmatic streak was apparent last week among Kasich supporters who attended a town hall in Media, a middle class suburb south of Philadelphia.

"Trump has made his millions, but that is not like managing the federal budget," said Mary Emily Pagano, a former social worker for the local county.

A strong result for Trump in areas such as the Lehigh Valley, however, would be a bad omen for his rivals - a sign that his "make America great again" message has appeal beyond voters who are at the margins economically.

Lehigh and Northampton counties have a larger share of households than the state as a whole that earn more than $75,000, about 36 percent, a group where Kasich is even with Trump in some polls. Unemployment has also been below the national rate of 5 percent in a metropolitan area that includes Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton.

Despite the steel industry's decline, the area's manufacturing workforce is slightly larger than the national average, with a growing food processing hub, 1,000 remaining steel foundry jobs and around 75 new positions headed here from China. The Zhejiang-based Fuling company, which makes plastic cutlery and other products for fast food restaurants, decided to move its less labor intensive straw making operation to Allentown instead of paying to ship straws - and the air inside them - from China.

Olympus and other companies have put hundreds of sales, marketing and customer support positions at an office park near Bethlehem, fueling the shift from blue collar jobs. Olympus chief executive for the Americas, Barcelona native Nacho Abia, said the region was a perfect fit, with open space, proximity to the New York-Washington corridor, and a network of local colleges supplying the educated workforce he needs.

Don Cunningham, who was mayor of Bethlehem when steel production stopped and now heads the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation, does not miss the old days.

"We are better off economically, and we are better off socially," he said. "The economic base is diverse. The air is cleaner. The river is cleaner."

Yet Trump has struck a chord, said Jerry Green, president of United Steelworkers Local 2599, the union that in its World War II heyday represented more than 30,000 Bethlehem Steel employees. Membership is now down to around 1,200, based at foundry and casting operations, such as privately held Victaulic, a global manufacturer of high-end fittings used to join pipes.

Green said there was no shortage of jobs, but many of them failed to provide an adequate living or career, such as the warehouse clerk positions being created by a boom in e-commerce distribution that offer starting wages of around $11.

"Yes there are jobs, but not good paying ones," Green said. Trump's comments on trade are what most people want to hear, he said.
Austria presidential election set for run-off - ORF projection

VIENNA, April 24 (Reuters) - Far-right candidate Norbert Hofer led Austria's presidential election on Sunday but he faces a run-off against either Alexander van der Bellen, a Green Party's veteran or former Supreme Court judge Irmgard Griss as none of the candidates reached the necessary majority of more than 50 percent.
Yemeni, UAE troops seize Qaeda-held seaport city - residents

By Mohammed Mukhashaf and Mohammed Ghobari

ADEN/KUWAIT, April 24 (Reuters) - Yemeni and Emirati soldiers seized Yemen's seaport of Mukalla from al Qaeda fighters on Sunday, depriving the group of the seaport that enabled it to amass a fortune amid the country's civil war.

Around 2,000 Yemeni and Emirati troops advanced into Mukalla, local officials and residents said, taking control of its maritime port and airport and setting up checkpoints throughout the southern coastal city.

There was little fighting after a mostly Gulf Arab alliance and Yemeni forces mobilised their forces at Mukalla's suburbs, and the militants may have chosen to leave peacefully.

Residents said local clerics and tribesmen had been in talks with the group earlier in the day to exit quietly and that fighters withdrew westward to neighbouring Shabwa province.

Mukalla has been the centre of a rich mini-state that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) built up over the past year as it took control of an almost 600-km (370-mile) band of Arabian Sea coastline.

The group that has masterminded several foiled bomb plots on Western-bound airliners and claimed credit for the Charlie Hebdo magazine attack in Paris last year was pocketing around $2 million a day in customs revenues from the port.

"Coalition armoured vehicles and the army entered Mukalla and al Qaeda fighters are departing," one resident told Reuters.

Fighter jets from the mostly Gulf Arab alliance pounded the city on Sunday and killed 30 militants, residents said, as the military coalition ramped up its offensive to wrest swathes of southern Yemen from al Qaeda.

Sunday's air strikes on al Qaeda in Mukalla were carried out in coordination with a ground offensive in militant-controlled territory further west, a Yemeni military official said.

The push is being led by the United Arab Emirates, which has been training and arming local recruits for months, according to southern Yemeni tribal and political sources.

The UAE is part of a mostly Gulf Arab coalition that intervened in Yemen's civil war in March last year to support the internationally recognised government after it was forced into exile by the armed Houthi group, an ally of Iran.

WINNING BACK TERRITORY

Sunday's air strikes come as Yemen's government meets with the Houthis in Kuwait to try to find a solution to the conflict.

Around 6,200 people have died in the war, which has focused mostly around the country's Houthi-controlled centre and north, while a security vacuum spread in the south.

The United States has for years used drone strikes to target AQAP. Despite the group's gains in the last year, it managed to assassinate several of its top leaders, including its leader Nasser al-Wuhayshi, blown up on Mukalla's waterfront in June.

Fearing more air strikes, residents reported that local families were bundling into cars and driving out of town.

On Saturday, Yemeni troops battled al Qaeda at al-Koud near Zinjibar, another southern city considered an al Qaeda stronghold, while an air strike from a drone killed two suspected al Qaeda fighters south of the city of Marib.

In a statement on its official Twitter account, AQAP said it carried out a suicide bombing attack against the government troops pushing into al-Koud.
Austria far right freezes out coalition in presidency race

By Kirsti Knolle

VIENNA, April 24 (Reuters) - Austria's far right won more than a third of the vote in the presidential election on Sunday and will face an independent in next month's run-off, dumping out the country's two main parties from the post for the first time.

It was the Freedom Party's best result in a national election after a campaign that focused on the impact of the migrant crisis, which has seen around 100,000 asylum seekers arrive in Austria since last summer.

Norbert Hofer, who ran on an anti-immigrant and anti-Europe platform, won 36.4 percent of the vote to become head of state. He will face Alexander van der Bellen, a former Green Party figurehead, who won 20.4 percent, according to official preliminary results.

While the presidency is largely only a ceremonial role, the fact that neither of the main ruling parties will be battling for the post on May 22 marks a major change in Austrian politics - as well as the rising role of the far right in Europe.

Members of the centre-left Social Democrats and the conservative People's Party have filled the job since it was first put to a popular vote in 1951. The two parties have ruled the nation of 8.7 million in tandem for most of the postwar era.

The president is head of state, swears in the chancellor, has the authority to dismiss the cabinet and is commander in chief of the military.

The election outcome was "a resounding slap in the face" for the government coalition, said Wolfgang Bachmayer, who founded the OGM market research institute.

His comments were echoed by political analyst Peter Filzmaier. "Only those who are satisfied vote for a government party or its candidate," he said. "This time, the annoyed voted for Norbert Hofer."

"FOOD FOR THOUGHT"

Around 70 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots, a big turnout compared with around 50 percent six years ago when Social Democrat Heinz Fischer, now 77, was elected for his second term. He could not run for a third term.

Peter McDonald, general secretary of co-ruling People's Party acknowledged the scale of the defeat after coming in fifth in the poll with just 11.2 percent of the vote.

"We have experienced a landslide that should give the entire political centre food for thought," he said.

The social democratic Chancellor Werner Faymann, whose party ranked fourth, said the outcome was a clear warning to the government to work harder and cooperate better.

Should Hofer get the top job, he could push to bring forward a parliamentary election due to take place in 2018 as support for his party has been growing.

Polls show the Freedom Party above 30 percent, while the coalition parties would struggle to get a combined majority.

Showing the far right's growing confidence in Europe, Marine Le Pen, leader of France's National Front, hailed a "beautiful result", writing on Twitter: "Bravo to the Austrian people".

Both the candidates that made it through to the run-off had taken aim at the government over its handling of the migrant crisis. Van der Bellen criticised the government for being too harsh in its treatment of asylum applicants, while Hofer says it has been too soft.

"It could hardly be any more dramatic," said political consultant Thomas Hofer, adding that he thought Van der Bellen would face a difficult task to win the run-off with the gap between him and Hofer.
Algeria's Bouteflika in Geneva for regular check up - presidency

ALGIERS, April 24 (Reuters) - Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika left for Geneva on Sunday to undergo medical check ups, the presidency said in a statement on the state news agency APS.

Bouteflika, who suffered a stroke in 2013, has only been seen in brief state television appearances, not in person in public, since winning a fourth term in office in 2014.

"The president of the republic left the country today for a private visit to Geneva, during which he will undergo periodic medical checks," the statement said without providing details.
Italian PM likes Clinton, says Trump has a policy of fear

By Diane Bartz

WASHINGTON, April 24 (Reuters) - Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi criticized U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Sunday for his "policy of fear," and said he was firmly in Democrat Hillary Clinton's camp.

"I support very strongly Hillary Clinton because I think she is a woman able to give security to every partner, to give a message of cooperation with other parties, to continue the good policy of President (Barack) Obama" Renzi said on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" show.

"I consider Donald Trump a man who invests a lot in a policy of fear," the prime minister said.

Trump, a billionaire real estate mogul, and former U.S. Secretary of State Clinton are the front-runners to be their parties' candidates in the November presidential election.

Another European leader, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose immigration policies Trump has called "insane," declined to be drawn when asked about Trump.

"I concentrate fully on the tasks of the year 2016, which keep me pretty busy," she said in a joint news conference with Obama in Germany.

Trump has said that the refugee crisis could trigger revolutions and even the end of Europe.
Obama to send up to 250 extra U.S. military personnel to Syria -WSJ

WASHINGTON, April 24 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama is planning to announce on Monday he is sending up to 250 military personnel to Syria, sharply boosting the American presence there to help in the fight against Islamic State, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.
RICHMOND  Every year is an election year in Virginia  which means that every year, somebody, who wants some office, is asking you for some money.

This year, Virginia will elect its 11 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, in addition to casting votes for president. The campaign finance reports for candidates and political action committees through the first quarter of 2016 show that some aspirants are in better fiscal shape than others.

Rep. Dave Brat, R-7th, is unchallenged for the Republican nomination in the district, which includes Louisa and Orange counties.

Brat raised $188,648 in the first quarter, while Democrat Eileen Bedell, a lawyer from Chesterfield County, reported $10,154, including a $5,883 personal loan.

The sprawling 5th District includes the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle, Buckingham, Fluvanna, Greene, Madison and Nelson counties.

Four candidates are vying for the GOP nomination in the GOP-leaning district to replace retiring Rep. Robert Hurt, a Republican.

Technology executive Michael Del Rosso reported raising $73,668 in the first quarter, while state Sen. Thomas A. Garrett, R-Buckingham, reported raising $46,821.

Military intelligence adviser Joe Whited reported $41,520, while construction business owner Jim McKelvey reported $254,500  $250,000 of which came from a personal loan to his campaign.

Fifth District Republicans will choose their party nominee for the general election at a district convention May 14.

Democrats, meanwhile, have a well-funded candidate for the 5th District in Jane Dittmar, former chairwoman of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, who reported raising $102,577 last quarter. Dittmar is unopposed for the Democratic nomination.

Even candidates with sights on statewide elections in 2017 are busy gathering cash to fund their runs.

Lets Grow Virginia, the political action committee for GOP gubernatorial hopeful Ed Gillespie, raised $266,127 in the first quarter, according to state campaign filings compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project.

Gillespie  a communications consultant and former Republican National Committee chairman who came close to defeating U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., in 2014  reported $615,918 on hand.

Revitalize Virginia, the PAC of state Sen. Bryce E. Reeves, R-Spotsylvania, who is seeking the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor in 2017, reported raising $201,728 in the first quarter, with $298,870 on hand.

Other potential 2017 Republican challengers for statewide office did not file reports for the first quarter of 2016, but notably, Del. Rob Bell, R-Albemarle, who is running for attorney general in 2017, had $634,916 on hand at the end of 2015.

Republicans will choose their statewide slate for 2017 at a state convention rather than a primary.

Stronger Together, the PAC of Lt. Gov. Ralph S. Northam, the presumptive Democratic gubernatorial candidate, reported a modest $10,333 raised in the quarter, with $36,604 on hand.

Northams job presiding over the Virginia Senate prevented him from raising money during the General Assembly session. But the pediatric neurologists Northam for Governor campaign account had $616,844 on hand at the end of 2015.

Attorney General Mark R. Herring, a Democrat who plans to seek reelection in 2017, reported raising $76,963 in the first quarter and having $250,993 on hand, according to the filings compiled by VPAP.

Gov. Terry McAuliffes Common Good Virginia PAC raised $132,942 in the quarter, while the Dominion Leadership Trust PAC of House Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford, reported $255,350 in contributions, and $490,435 on hand.

Jim Nolan reports for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
CULPEPER  An Orange County man has died after a single-vehicle crash early Saturday morning.

According to the Virginia State Police, Michael Ryan Nixon, 25, was headed west on Route 612 (Monrovia Road) about a half-mile west of Oakhurst Road.

At about 5:30 a.m., Nixons 2002 four-door Buick crossed the center line; Nixon overcorrected and the vehicle ran off the road to the right where it crossed a creek and struck a tree, police said.

Nixon died at the scene as a result of his injuries. He was not wearing a seat belt. Speed was a factor in the crash, according to state police Sgt. Les Tyler.

State trooper F.W. Stanley investigated the crash. The Orange County Sheriffs Office and Orange County Fire and Rescue assisted at the scene.
LONDON - England - Soon to be ex-president, Barack Obama has claimed the UK could take up to 10 years to negotiate a trade deal with the US if it leaves the EU, yet the US has previously concluded free trade agreements in under two years, and is only conducting one other trade agreement at the moment.

As the fifth largest economy in the world, and a major export market for the USA, the United Kingdom is well placed to secure a swift deal too.

Commenting, Chris Grayling MP said:

This is a case of political positioning trumping reality and is a million miles away from from the facts on the ground. The United States reached deals with Canada and Australia in two years so no one will seriously believe it will take five times as long to conclude a UK deal.

No American President would consider giving up as much sovereignty as we have. This referendum is about us regaining our independence as a nation and taking back control of our economy, our borders and the 350 million we hand to Brussels each week.

The US has previously concluded major free trade agreements in under two years. The UK can expect the same.

The US-Australia free trade agreement was concluded in less than two years. Formal negotiations for a free trade agreement began in Canberra on 18 March 2003. The agreement came into effect on 1 January 2005. The US Government states that: as a result of the U.S.-Australia Free Trade Agreement, tariffs that averaged 4.3 percent were eliminated on more than 99% of the tariff lines for U.S. manufactured goods exports to Australia.

Formal negotiations for a free trade agreement began in Canberra on 18 March 2003. The agreement came into effect on 1 January 2005. The US Government states that: as a result of the U.S.-Australia Free Trade Agreement, tariffs that averaged 4.3 percent were eliminated on more than 99% of the tariff lines for U.S. manufactured goods exports to Australia.

The US-Canada free trade agreement was negotiated in less than two years. According to the Government of Canada, In 1987, both countries agreed to the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA). Negotiations toward a free trade agreement with the U.S. began in 1986. The two nations agreed to a historic agreement that placed Canada and the United States at the forefront of trade liberalization. Key elements of the agreement included the elimination of tariffs, the reduction of many non-tariff barriers, and it was among the first trade agreements to address trade in services. It also included a dispute settlement mechanism for the fair and expeditious resolution of trade disputes.

The US-Morocco free trade agreement was negotiated in less than two years. According to the US Government, His Majesty King Mohammed VI and President Bush agreed to negotiate a Free Trade Agreement in April, 2002. Negotiations began in January 2003 and agreement was reached in March 2004.

The US-Chile free trade agreement was negotiated in two and a half years. The Organization of American States notes that: Chile and the United States announced their negotiations towards a free trade agreement on 29 November 2000. Negotiations began December 6-7, 2000 in Washington D.C. and concluded 11 December 2002. The agreement was signed in Miami on 6 June 2003.

The US has concluded trade agreements with far smaller countries than the UK. As the fifth largest economy in the world, and a major export market for the US, the United Kingdom is extremely well placed to secure a swift deal.

The US currently has 20 free trade agreements in force, including with countries such as Bahrain, Costa Rica and El Salvador . Many of these are with far smaller economies than the UK. They include Australia (population: 23.4 million); Bahrain (population: 1.36 million); Canada (population: 35.5 million); Chile (population: 17.7 million); Colombia (population: 47.8 million); Costa Rica (population: 4.7 million); Dominican Republic (population: 10.4 million); El Salvador (population: 6.1 million); Guatemala (population: 16.0 million); Honduras (population: 7.9 million); Israel (population: 8.2 million); Jordan (population: 6.6 million); South Korea (population: 50.4 million); Morocco (population: 33.9 million); Nicaragua (population: 6.0 million); Oman (population: 4.2 million); Panama (population: 3.8 million); Peru (population: 30.9 million) and Singapore (population: 5.5 million) World Bank Statistics, 2016.

. Many of these are with far smaller economies than the UK. They include Australia (population: 23.4 million); Bahrain (population: 1.36 million); Canada (population: 35.5 million); Chile (population: 17.7 million); Colombia (population: 47.8 million); Costa Rica (population: 4.7 million); Dominican Republic (population: 10.4 million); El Salvador (population: 6.1 million); Guatemala (population: 16.0 million); Honduras (population: 7.9 million); Israel (population: 8.2 million); Jordan (population: 6.6 million); South Korea (population: 50.4 million); Morocco (population: 33.9 million); Nicaragua (population: 6.0 million); Oman (population: 4.2 million); Panama (population: 3.8 million); Peru (population: 30.9 million) and Singapore (population: 5.5 million) World Bank Statistics, 2016. The UK is a major export market for the US. In 2015, the US exported $119.3 billion of goods and services to the UK. This amounts to 5.37% of total US exports of goods and services. It is therefore in the USs interests to strike a free trade agreement.

The US is only negotiating one trade agreement at present. The queue is not very long.

The US is currently negotiating one trade agreement. According to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, The United States has completed negotiations of a regional, Asia-Pacific trade agreement, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement and is in negotiations of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the European Union, with the objective of shaping a high-standard, broad-based regional pact.
Tara Cady Niche Publications Senior Editor for Niche Publications of the Billings Gazette Follow Tara Cady Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

The empty nest syndrome is real.

Your children have moved on and started having babies of their own. The family canine made it through one last summer filled with joy rides and dog treats, but has since gone to doggie heaven. And here you are, eating dinner with your partner amongst an unsettling quietness, yearning for old Sally to take the scraps from your plate and howl at the moon.

Is it time to reopen your home, and your heart, to another four-legged friend?

Local experts provide suggestions for potential pet-owners on choosing the best animal for their home, budget and lifestyle.

Think territorially

Animals think territorially. You should too.

Dr. Edie Best, owner of Billings Animal Family Hospital, has practiced veterinary science for 20 years. According to Best, households should consider the space they have to offer the pet before they make any commitments. An old dog might become territorial if a newcomer arrives on his turf, especially when current companions have never been exposed to other animals.

Bringing in a kitten to a house with dogs could be disastrous. Hunting dogs may want to chase or eat the kitty. The process of integrating a feline to the home would have to be slow, cautious and gradual. And if a dog has shown any bad behavior towards other animals in the past, maybe dont do it, suggested Best.

A similar outcome can be expected with a new puppy and an older feline.

The puppy may think the cat is a new play thing. The old cat could become resentful and go into hiding. Old pets in general are the most defensive and not as accepting, Best added.

A bonding period may be the best inclination for how a potential new pet will interact in its new environment. Sandy Price, founder and director of Billings Animal Rescue Kare (B.A.R.K.), explains the importance of the rehoming centers two-week bonding period requirement.

Dogs take 72 hours to get acclimated in a new home. Cats can take up to a week or two as they are more territorial than dogs, said Price.

Price suggests setting up a litterbox in a separate room if there is already another cat in the home.

Whether the old cat needs a spot to hide or the puppy seeks room to roam, animals require adequate space for their desired range of activity.

A small space isnt fair to bigger, active canines like hunting dogs, such as labs and golden retrievers, Best explained.

Apartment dwellers can accommodate small pets like cats, ferrets, rabbits and some dog breeds. Cats arent the only animals that can learn to go inside.

Having a ferret is a lot like having a cat, noted Best. Yorkshire terriers, chihuahuas, miniature poodles and ferrets can all be litterbox trained.

Best and her colleagues provide house-training suggestions from the clinic, but you may want to consider your budget if you desire more extensive obedience training for your pet.

Bow-wow budgeting

If only the inactive dog days of summer translated to your bank account when it comes to canine care. In addition to the typical pet expenses of vet visits, vaccinations, spays and neuters, food, water and toys, dogs can require grooming, collars, leashes, microchips, walks and training. This equals big time and financial investments.

If you have no time, you shouldnt get a dog unless youre getting an old, sedentary dog, said Best.

Puppies are relentless for attention from owners, house guests and other animals.

People who are looking at getting a puppy for the first time should also go to puppy school, where they can learn how to interact with their puppy, not the other way around, suggested Price.

Training isnt some great feat, however, and it is worth the time and money.

Puppies have less issues than other adoptees. They are malleable, and you can shape them into what you want, said Best.

B.A.R.K. is a private non-profit organization that is staffed by volunteers who expect the same financial investment they put into their animals from the new pet owners.

Dogs and cats are given vaccinations, including flu shots, prior to adoption, as well as any necessary veterinary treatment within the first two weeks of rehoming. If youre basing your budget solely on the adoption fee, thats a red flag that perhaps adopting a new pet is not the right choice for you.

A purrfect fit

Does your ideal Friday night consist of binging on Netflix or gallivanting around town until the wee hours of the night? Perhaps you want a lazy pet who is okay with not being the center of attention.

Best suggests pugs, Cavalier King Charles spaniels, greyhounds, St. Bernards, Newfoundlands and Great Pyrenees if you want a fellow couch potato. Guinea pigs, rabbits and cats are also low maintenance, she said.

Terriers and herding breeds, on the other hand, require a lot of attention and time, as they are easily bored, explained Best.

If youre on-the-go and expect your pet to keep up, Price recommends an Australian shepherd or border collie. For a hiking, camping and fishing companion, Best proposes owning a shepherd, pointer or golden retriever. But if mobility is an issue, extra considerations need to be made.

We have to be careful when placing animals with owners who use canes or wheelchairs. Pets can become frightened by those devices, and well have to see how they react, said Price.

Some dogs thrive with seniors, Price noted. Whiskey, a terrier-mix, was brought into B.A.R.K. by a man with rheumatoid arthritis. Ironically enough, Whiskey only wanted those who needed him. Since then, Whiskey has been afforded three excellent placements with other seniors, who keep them as long as their housing situation allows. He has been in his current placement for three years as of March and even learned sign language as a means to communicate with his owner.

Golden retrievers are the ideal therapy dogs, though, Best noted that they are compassionate, kind, patient with kids and dont mind laying around.

Decide if your personality type blends well with the pet you desire. Whether you go to a rescue shelter, pet store or private breeder to adopt, take the time to bond with the animals and consider not just what you can provide for them, but what they can provide for you. When you find the one, youll know.
Chinese smartphone brand ZUK has now joined Lenovo and shares the ranks of Moto and Vibe to become the latest sub brand. The startup was invested in by Lenovo recently and now stands alongside bigger brand names such as Vibe and Moto. ZUK has now announced a great handset, at least as what it looks in paper for now, the ZUK Z2 Pro. The device looks like a premium handset and surprisingly holds an affordable price tag.

The ZUK Z2 Pro features a Gorilla Glass 3 protected full HD 5.2-inch Super AMOLED display and powered by Qualcomms flagship 2.15GHz Snapdragon 820 along with 6GB of RAM and up to 128GB of internal storage. The ZUK also features USB 3.1 connectivity with a Type-C port, Cat 6 LTE radio, dual NANO SIM slots, and a 3100mAh battery with Quick Charge 3.0.

A front fingerprint sensor, heart rate sensor, and Samsung 13MP f/1.8 + 8MP f/2.0 cameras with optical image stabilization and dual-tone flash are some other features. The device is powered with Android and has its own custom user interface  the ZUI 2.0.

The display has just a 0.05mm thick border around it, making it an almost bezel-lesssmartphone. ZUK has also borrowed a feature from Lenovos Thinkpadthe rollcage design. It features a shock-absorbing layer between the curved glass on the rear and the 4.6mm thick metallic frame to keep it safe from accidental drops.

The ZUK also features some mind boggling features within. For example, the camera doubles as a 15-level UV detector to give you information about the sunlight each day, ability to send selfies along with your heart rate stamped on it, precise step tracking for running and uphill movements, performing specific tasks by using gestures on the fingerprint sensor, sync with Apple iCloud, and a few others.

Also read: Shocking! Bend test shows that Xiaomi Mi 5 breaks too easily

The ZUK Z2 Pro will come in two variantsa 4GB/64GB version and a 6GB/128GB version. For now, ZUK has only announced the price for the 128GB version which is just 2,699 Yuan (Approx Rs 27,000). The price for the 4GB/64GB hasnt been announced as yet. Pre-orders will start from May 10, 2016.

With the launch of the new, highly-affordable ZUK at just Rs 27,000, devices from other players such as Xiaomi, VIVO, OnePlus and others seem to be overpriced and those from Samsung, HTC, LG seem almost unaffordable.

Also read: Xiaomi to have open sales for Redmi Note 3, Mi 5 on April 27

As for now, the devices are not yet announced for the Indian market, but will soon see its products served in the European and Middle Eastern markets. ZUK is partnering with Cyanogen for its international markets.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
Last year Hell Creek State Park on Fort Peck Reservoir operated at an $87,000 deficit.

So raising camping fees from less than $30 to $50 a night to cover more of the parks expenses would seem to make sense. Unfortunately, thats not the case.

Theres a disincentive for us to raise revenues, Chas Van Genderen, Montana State Parks administrator, told the Montana State Parks and Recreation Board during its Thursday meeting in Miles City.

Thats because Hell Creek, like many other parks, receives federal funding from a tax on the sale of fishing equipment, boats and boat fuel. Last year that amounted to $70,000 for Hell Creek State Park, a large chunk of its $228,000 in expenditures. The more money the park raises in revenue, though, the less the federal grant will pay.

I dont love this grant, Van Genderen said.

Sayonara

Hell Creek State Park has been pegged for removal from the state parks system in 2021 in part because it has a $4 million list of possible improvements. Under a new ranking system to fund the most-visited and important parks first, Hell Creek is near the bottom. Out of four classes, Class 1 being the most important parks, Hell Creek is ranked Class 3, partly because visitation is limited due to its location a long way from nowhere.

Situated on a southern arm of Fort Peck Reservoir in northeastern Montana, the closest community is Jordan, a town of less than 400 people. The town is the seat of Garfield County, which has a population of only 1,300 people.

Despite its remote proximity, though, the campground draws about 30,000 visitors annually. Consequently, the tourists  mostly anglers, boaters, campers and hunters  provide a much-needed economic boost to the rural area.

Ive been here 15 years, and its the same faces walking through the doors, said Clint Thomas, owner of Hell Creek Marina.

Marina woes

The marina has been put in limbo by the states proposal to possibly leave in 2021 unless new sources of funding can be found.

State parks is manufacturing a crisis, said James Gustafson, a Helena resident and Hell Creek user since 1987.

Gustafson has been critical of the parks management. He said the impending departure by state parks is a way to gather support for other funding sources at the expense of Hell Creek Marinas future.

Thomas contract with the state to operate a concession runs until 2018. After that hed like to renew his lease for 20 years. In fact, a bill was passed in the last Legislature to allow such long contracts with concession operators like Thomas. Longer contracts make it easier for concessionaires to secure bank loans to invest in their businesses.

Were tied into the mix of this without a whole lot of say, Thomas said. Weve been playing this game for five or six years now. That makes it tough to run a business.

County option

Advocates for the park and Thomas marina have rallied in defense. Theyve contacted local legislators as well as the states federal lawmakers seeking support for a quicker solution. Some of the ideas theyve tossed out include having the Army Corps of Engineers, which owns the property that the marina and the campground occupy, take over the marinas lease. The Corps has been noncommittal. Another is to have Garfield County take over management of the entire park.

We have to see what that looks like, said Teddy Robertson, Garfield County commissioner. The sad thing is that Garfield County is a poor county.

Robertson said the county already spends more time and money grading the 20-mile road to Hell Creek than the rest of the roads in the county combined.

Theres got to be a group effort, to sit down and see whos best able to fill those needs, Robertson said.

We think thats an ambitious project, Tom Towe, chairman of the Montana State Parks and Recreation Board, told Gustafson when he outlined the idea. We encourage you to pursue that. The public is clamoring for an opportunity to use that area.

Van Genderen said if Garfield County is serious about taking over Hell Creek, his staff would be available to explain the nuances of managing the property and whats involved in its upkeep and maintenance.

The citizens of Montana dont really care who owns the land, they just want to have the ability to recreate, Van Genderen said.

Waiting game

Thomas said hes glad that his long-time customers are getting involved in the debate.

Everybody has a lot to lose, he said, but they are pushing in the right direction now.

Yet Thomas worries that a decision may not be reached in time to keep his business solvent. Meanwhile, state parks is struggling with how to adequately fund its premier parks and still graciously back away from those it has classified as less important.

Were trying to balance a park system that has been underfunded for decades, Van Genderen said. If were going to take care of our Class 1 parks like Makoshika, were going to have to make some hard decisions.
with at least one suspected gunman still on the loose, no arrests have been made. (Representational image)

Washington: Eight members of one family, including a teenager, were shot dead in rural Ohio, just before gunmen killed six people in Georgia. In Ohio, seven bodies were found at three houses close to each other and an eighth was later found at a separate site, Sheriff Charles Reader told reporters.

The victims were all adults except for a male juvenile who was 16 years old, he said, and all members of a single family. Two babies  one aged four days, the other six months  and a three-year-old child survived the shootings, he added. The authorities gave no possible motive.

And, with at least one suspected gunman still on the loose, no arrests have been made. Each one of the victims appears to have been executed, each one of the victims appears to have been shot in the head, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said.

The preliminary determination has been made that none of the individuals committed suicide, he added, saying the shooter or shooters are still at large. We do not know their location. Several victims were in bed when they were shot, Reader said.
"I have ... again demanded that we have zones where the ceasefire is particularly enforced and where a significant level of security can be guaranteed," Merkel said.

Gaziantep, Turkey: German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday she was pushing for the establishment of special security zones in Syria near the border with Turkey where refugees could find shelter.

"I have ... again demanded that we have zones where the ceasefire is particularly enforced and where a significant level of security can be guaranteed," Merkel said in the Turkish city of Gaziantep during a joint news conference with Turkish and EU officials.
The overthrow of a US-backed Shah was a source of encouragement as black South Africans fought against apartheid, Zuma said at a press conference with President Hassan Rouhani. (Photo: AP)

Tehran, Iran: South Africa's embattled President Jacob Zuma praised Iran's 1979 revolution on Sunday at the start of a three-day state visit which he said could "dramatically expand trade" with the Islamic republic.

The overthrow of a US-backed Shah was a source of encouragement as black South Africans fought against apartheid, Zuma said at a press conference with President Hassan Rouhani.

With international sanctions against Iran now lifted under its nuclear deal with world powers business activity is likely to increase.

"Iran occupies a special place in our struggle against apartheid," Zuma said, noting how Tehran cut ties with South Africa when it was under white rule, only resuming relations in 1994 after Nelson Mandela was elected as its first black president.

Mandela, who served one term before voluntarily standing down in 1999, visited Tehran before his election and soon after leaving office.

"South Africans were inspired by the 1979 revolution, which showed that emancipation is possible, whatever the odds," said Zuma, the first serving South African president to visit since.

Having signed eight cooperation agreements ranging from energy development to business insurance, Zuma said the nuclear deal was an opportunity to deepen commercial links.

"The challenge is to dramatically expand trade volumes," he added.

Rouhani, whose government in January implemented last summer's nuclear deal with Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany, paid tribute to Mandela, who died aged 95 in 2013.

"Let us cherish the memory of the late Nelson Mandela," after whom a street is named in Tehran, Rouhani said. "He is so very much revered by both the South African and the Iranian people."

Rouhani, who Zuma confirmed has been invited to visit South Africa, said he would like to see direct flights opening up from Tehran.

Zuma's trip comes as he is under fire and accused of corruption at home.

Julius Malema, the firebrand head of South Africa's radical opposition Economic Freedom Fighters, warned that he could seek to remove Zuma's African National Congress (ANC) government "through the barrel of a gun".

Late last month, a constitutional court ruled Zuma had violated the constitution in using public funds to upgrade his private residence and said he must repay the money.

Malema, 35, was expelled from the ANC in 2012 when he was head of the party's youth wing, having said the government was not doing enough to help South Africa's poor.
North Korea is ready to halt its nuclear tests if the United States suspends its annual military exercises with South Korea, the North Korean foreign minister has said as he warned that his country won't be cowed by international sanctions.



Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong in an interview with The Associated Press defended the country's right to maintain a nuclear deterrent, and for those waiting for the North's regime to collapse, he had this to say: Don't hold your breath.



"Stop the nuclear war exercises in the Korean Peninsula, then we should also cease our nuclear tests," he said in his first interview yesterday with a Western news organisation.



Ri held firm to Pyongyang's longstanding position that the US drove his country to develop nuclear weapons as an act of self-defence. At the same time, he suggested that suspending the military exercises with Seoul could open the door to talks and reduced tensions.



"If we continue on this path of confrontation, this will lead to very catastrophic results, not only for the two countries but for the whole entire world as well," he said, speaking in Korean through an interpreter.



"It is really crucial for the United States government to withdraw its hostile policy against the DPRK and as an expression of this stop the military exercises, war exercises, in the Korean Peninsula. Then we will respond likewise."



DPRK is an abbreviation for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.



Ri, who spoke calmly and in measured words, a contrast to the often bombastic verbiage used by the North's media, claimed the North's proposal was "very logical."



He granted the interview in the country's diplomatic mission to the United Nations. He spoke beneath portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jung Il, North Korea's two previous leaders - the grandfather and father of current leader Kim Jong Un.



If the exercises are halted "for some period, for some years," he added, "new opportunities may arise for the two countries and for the whole entire world as well."



Ri's comments to the AP came just hours after North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine in its latest show of defiance as the US-South Korea exercises wind down. He referred to the launch in the context of current tensions caused by the military exercises.



"The escalation of this military exercise level has reached its top level. And I think it's not bad - as the other side is going for the climax - why not us, too, to that level as well?"
Manas Deka, works in TCS, a strong BJP supporter assaulted me inside the aircraft. Is assault the only tool you have, to fight dissent?  Kanhaiya Kumar (@kanhaiyajnusu) April 24, 2016

JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar today said that a co-passenger allegedly tried to attack him on a flight from Mumbai to Pune.A man identified as Manas Jyoti Deka has been detained in connection with the incident, police said, adding no FIR has been so far registered."A person has been detained for allegedly attacking Kanahiya onboard a Pune-bound flight. The matter is being probed further," a senior police official said.Later, Kanhaiya was offloaded by the airline citing safety, forcing him to take the road route to Pune.Kanhaiya, who hit the headlines after being arrested on charges of sedition in the aftermath of an event on the JNU campus where alleged anti-India slogans were raised, said in a tweet, "Yet again, this time inside the aircraft, a man tries to strangulate me".The man's attempt to attack Kanhaiya was evaded by his colleagues who were on the same flight, according to All India Students' Federation national president Syed Waliullah Kadri."Kanhaiya, I and two others from JNU had boarded the flight from Mumbai. This man suddenly got up and tried to attack Kanhaiya," Kadri claimed.Following the ruckus, the four approached Mumbai Airport authorities to file a complaint in this regard."After the incident @jetairways staff completely refuses to take any action against the man who assaulted me," Kanhaiya alleged in another tweet.Hitting out at the airline further, Kanhaiya also said that it sees no difference between "someone who assaults and one who is assaulted". He appeared to also suggest that the one who is attacked will be "deplaned" by the service provider "if he complains about it"."Basically @jetairways sees no difference between someone who assaults nd d person who is assaulted. They will deplane you, if you complain," the 29-year-old student union leader said in another tweet.Meanwhile, Jet, in a statement, said some guests on board flight 9W618, Mumbai to Pune, have been offloaded in the interest of operational safety."Some guests on board Jet Airways fight 9W618 from Mumbai to Pune have been off loaded at Mumbai airport in the interest of operational safety. At Jet Airways, the safety and security of our guests and crew is always of prime importance," the spokesman added.He is scheduled to attend an event in Pune later in the day. In Pune, police has stepped up security measures at city airport and the venue of Kanhaiya Kumar's rally scheduled this evening after the alleged attack on him at Mumbai airport.Kanhaiya, who was scheduled to arrive at Pune airport at 1030 hrs this morning by a Jet Airways flight from Mumbai, had not landed in Pune by late afternoon, as representatives of Left-dominated students' organisations waited to receive him.Girish Fonde, a students' leader from the organisers of the event in Pune, condemned the alleged assault on Kanhaiya and said they were determined to hold the scheduled meeting at Bal Gandharva auditorium (in Pune) despite the threats.Police, who insisted on changing the original meeting venue on grounds of security, have asked the students' leader to desist from making "provocative" statements in his address.The JNU student leader had yesterday, at an event in Tilak Nagar, came down heavily on the Narendra Modi dispensation, terming it a "Government of selfies and jumlas" as he pushed for enactment of a law to prevent caste-based prejudice in educational institutions.













After the incident @jetairways staff completely refuses to take any action against the man who assaulted me.  Kanhaiya Kumar (@kanhaiyajnusu) April 24, 2016






An emotional CJI T S Thakur today lamented "inaction" by the Executive to increase the number of judges from the present 21,000 to 40,000 to handle the "avalanche" of litigations even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured him of his government's resolve in finding a solution jointly with the judiciary.



"...And therefore, it is not only in the name of a litigant or people languishing in jails but also in the name of development of the country, its progress that I beseech you to rise to the occasion and realise that it is not enough to criticise. You cannot shift the entire burden on the judiciary," the Chief Justice of India said in a choking voice.



Addressing the inaugural session of Joint Conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of High Courts, Justice Thakur said that since 1987, when the Law Commission had recommended increase in the number of judges from then 10 judges per 10 lakh people to 50, "nothing has moved".



"Then comes inaction by the government as the increase (in the strength of judges) does not take place," he said.



He said following the Law Commission's recommendation, the Supreme Court in 2002 had also supported increasing the strength of the judiciary. A Parliamentary Department Related Standing Committee on Law then headed by Pranab Mukherjee had also recommended taking the judge to people ratio to 50 from 10.



As of today, the judge to people ratio stands at 15 judges to 10 lakh people which is way less than as compared to the US, Australia, the UK and Canada.



"In 1987, the requirement was 40,000 judges. From 1987 till now, we have added 25 crore in terms of population. We have grown into one of the fastest growing economies of the world, we are inviting foreign direct investment into the country, we want people to come and make in India, we want people to come and invest in India.



"Those whom we are inviting are also concerned about the ability of the judicial system in the country to deal with cases and disputes that arise out of such investments. Efficacy of the judicial system is so vitally connected with the development," he said, referring to Modi government's 'Make in India' and 'Ease of doing business' campaigns



Modi, who was not slated to speak as per the schedule of the programme circulated by the Law Ministry, said if constitutional barriers do not create any problems, then top ministers and senior Supreme Court judges can sit together in a closed room to find a solution to the issue.



The Prime Minister also said that it is the responsibility of all to ensure that the common man continues to have faith in the judiciary and his government will fulfil the responsibility and will not falter in helping to make the common man's life easier.



"Jab jaago tab savera" (better late than never)," Modi said, referring to the issues flagged by Justice Thakur.



"I can understand his pain as a lot of time has lapsed since 1987. Whatever has been the compulsions, but its better to be late than never. We will do better in the future. Let us see how to move forward by reducing the burden of the past," he said.



Justice Thakur said from a munsif to a Supreme Court judge, the average disposal in India is 2,600 cases per annum as compared to 81 cases per annum in the United States.



He also asked the state Chief Ministers present at the event to increase the cadre strength of the lower judiciary.



While lauding the new law to create commercial divisions in the high courts and the commercial courts at the lower level, the CJI said the new courts need separate infrastructure and new judges.



He said without proper infrastructure and environment, such courts will not serve the purpose as dealing with cases that require a different handling.



"Old wine in a new bottle will not serve the purpose," he said, adding that an "emotional appeal" made by him "may work" in getting the government take note of the problems being faced by the judiciary.





Referring to the pendency of cases, Justice Thakur said the high courts have over 38 lakh cases to dispose of and the number is increasing.



He said while the central government has maintained that it is committed to helping the judiciary, it is the duty of the state governments to improve the infrastructure and increase the manpower.



The states, the CJI said, want the Centre to provide funds for the purpose. "While the tug-of-war goes on, the strength of judges remains where it is...five crore cases were processed and two crore were disposed. But there is a limit to the capacity of the performance of judges," he said.



On the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act which sought to scrap the collegium system under which judges appoint judges, he said as the "controversy" was in the Supreme Court, the vacancies kept on increasing. The law was struck down by the apex court following which the collegium system made a comeback.



Justice Thakur said the collegium has now cleared all proposals sent to it in six weeks. While 145 judges were either elevated as permanent judges in the high courts or were appointed as additional judges, 169 proposals were still pending with the government, he said.



"How much time does it require when there is an avalanche of cases," he said. The CJI said 50 per cent of the recommendations made by the high courts were rejected by the collegium as "we have raised the bar".



He also supported the idea of implementing provisions in Article 224 of the Constitution of using the services of retired judicial officers in running courts, saying it would be "criminal" to let their experience go waste after their retirement.



He referred to a letter written by then CJI Altamas Kabir to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in February 2013 where the issues of manpower and infrastructure were flagged.



Singh had acknowledged the problem and had committed his government to resolving the issue.



Giving out statistics, Justice Thakur said when the apex court came into being in 1950, it had a strength of 8 judges, including the CJI with 1215 cases pending.



Then, he said, the pendency was 100 cases per judge. In 1960, the strength of the SC rose to 14 judges and the cases also increased to 3247. In 1977, the strength was 18 and the cases were 14501. By 2009, as is the case today, the strength of SC judges rose to 31 and the pending cases spiralled by 77181.



"In 2014, the number of cases was 81582 which was reduced to 60260. On December 2 when I took over as CJI and now, 17482 cases were filed out of which 16474 cases were disposed of," he said.



According to latest Law Ministry figures, the approved strength of the subordinate judiciary is 20214 with 4580 vacancies. The approved strength of the 24 high courts is 1056 and the vacancy was pegged at 458 as on March one.



In the apex court, there are six vacancies against the sanctioned strength of 31 judges, including the CJI.


The flow of suspected hawala funds from Gulf countries is adding to the woes of security agencies in Kashmir Vallley as the illegal money is reported to be mainly used for creating infrastructure for radicalization of youths in a bid to wean them away from centuries old Sufi tradition.



As new religious institutions dot several parts of the Kashmir Valley, they have been attracting youths more where, according to the security assessments, the young men are indoctrinated with the type of religion being followed by likes of banned ISIS and al-Qaeda terror groups.



The new trend has left many religious heads, who refused to come on record, worrying as they believe that the new generation of youth is being weaned away from Sufi tradition that has been followed in the Valley for centuries.



A senior security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said while older generation families offer prayers at their traditional mosques, the youth prefer to pray at the new religious places which have been built in the last couple of years.



As questions crop up over the funding for new mosques, the Army, Police and central security agencies believe that large amount of illegal funds are been pumped into the Valley from Gulf countries and they apparently go unchecked.



"The funds come in small amounts to avoid detection. Besides we believe that certain business houses having their establishment in these countries, overinvoice their products and pass on the surplus funds," a senior police official said.



During various stone-pelting incidents in the Valley, the security agencies have seen "ISIS-JK" flags coming soon being waved by miscreants. "While we hope this is a publicity stunt but at the same time, we are closely watching it," a senior police official said.



The recent spurt in growth of large number of local militants can be attributed to this new trend and change in mindset of sections of the younger generation who have become more hostile, is also a general observation across the board among all wings of security agencies.



This large inflow of hawala funds from Gulf countries and more Kashmiri youths getting sucked into militancy are dangerously stoking terrorism in the Valley in a fresh test for security forces in their anti-militancy operations.



An axis from Tral, Batapora, Panjgaon and Yaripora in South Kashmir is witnessing a dominance of terror group Hizbul Mujahideen, while in the other axis from Palhalan to Sopore this group and few militants of Jaish-e-Mohammed are calling the shots, according to officials.

Since January this year, nearly seven boys have reportedly vanished from the Valley with Kulgam and Anantnag in South Kashmir accounting for them. Last year, according to a reply in the Parliament, 82 boys had been sucked into militancy.



While terming it as a dangerous trend, security officials said the difference between todays militancy and that during early 1990s is the ideological conviction of the present lot is far more superior than that of the terror groups during the previous years. Kashmir is witnessing a trend of Pan-Islamisation where the young boys are opting for the path of terrorism knowing fully well that they are at the risk of being killed, the official said.



On the funding part, the security agencies feel that organisations like Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax need to focus more on flow of funds into Kashmir. The previous regime of National Conference and Congress had pushed the Enforcement Directorate to open their offices in the Valley but in last three years, only a few attachments have taken place.


Laughter and expressions of pride were well-sustained Saturday at the Billings Public Library at a ceremony recognizing the recent string of high-profile awards the library has received.

Citizens, business owners, public officials and library staff made up a crowd of about 70 gathered in the librarys wood-paneled community room to celebrate the library's U.S. Green Building Council LEED Platinum certification and a 2016 American Institute of Architects and American Library Association Library Building Design Award.

The Billings Public Library is one of 17 libraries in the nation to have a LEED Platinum certification and one of only seven 2016 recipients of an American Institute of Architects and American Library Association Building Design Award.

It was unclear whether the anonymous donor, whose $2 million helped the project land architect Will Bruder, was present, but the secret of his identity remained safe. Retiring Library Director Bill Cochran earned laughter from the audience by referring to the donor only as Mr. Smith.

Childrens librarian Cindy Patterson has worked for 23 years at the Billings Library, including a 20-year stint at the old Parmly Billings Library building. She said the difference between the two buildings was like night and day. Its amazing, Patterson said. Theres not a day I dont walk in and say Wow, I get to work here.

Though Patterson and many others might appreciate the library, Cochran devoted part of his speech to addressing the critics that question the value of constructing a $20 million library on the edge of the internet, as Cochran described the library's place in modern society.

Cochran asked that audience members deliver applause and an Amen when he pointed to them as he discussed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and how the library, as a community institution, helps the people of Billings attain those unalienable rights by providing services for everyone regardless of who they are and how much money they have.

This is the temple of language, Cochran said. I didnt have a life until I had a language.

Kelly Karmel of Design Balance described the process of attaining a Platinum LEED certification said that the librarys energy efficiency saves about $47,800 per year, or the amount of energy needed to power 30 homes.

Architect Ed Gulick, representing the Yellowstone Valley Citizens Council or YVCC, a local Northern Plains Resource Council chapter that helped garner community support for the library and its sustainable design, provided a summary of other LEED Platinum-certified buildings in Billings, of which there are six. He urged the audience to own what he believes is Billings identity as a community that values sustainability.

Assistant Library Director Michael Carlson announced the library's plan to partner with the YVCC to work with Earth First Aid to recycle damaged books in honor of the library's LEED Platinum certification.

Big Sky Economic Development Executive Director Steve Arveschoug wrapped up the ceremony by urging citizens not to settle for one successful project as the city continues to compete in the economy. "What we're doing today, what we did with this library, is to create a place and community, where your grandchildren will want to stay," Arveschoug said before leaving a question hanging in front of the audience.

Whats next?
China has complimented India for "doing a good job" in maintaining an impressive growth rate despite a global slowdown and is keen on working together to push for reforms in the international financial system to offset the inherent weaknesses.





Stating that his country was keen to ramp up investments in India, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the two major emerging economies can contribute significantly in helping the world economy by keeping up their growth momentum.



"First of all, we both need to grow our own national economies. On this front, we want to commend India for doing a good job in promoting economic growth," Wang told PTI here.



Wang, who was here to attend Foreign Ministers' meeting of RIC (Russia, India, China) grouping, further said reform of global financial system is key to protect the interest of developing countries and for recovery of the world economy.



"We need to join hands in playing a positive role in improving the global economic and financial governance because that will help protect the interests of the developing countries. It will also help the world economy to embark on a path of strong recovery," Wang said.



He said China was "optimistic" about the prospect of deeper relationship between the two countries.



"Of course, we will be happy to invest more in India. There is no doubt about it," he added. After witnessing nearly three decades of close to double-digit growth, China has seen a decline in its growth rate, making room for India to replace it as the fastest-growing major economy of the world.



However, Chinese economy remains much bigger than that of India in terms of the overall size.



China clocked 6.9 per cent growth in 2015 when India is estimated to have grown by 7.3 per cent. The IMF has projected Indian economy to grow at 7.5 per cent in 2016 and 2017.



The Chinese Foreign Minister also said his government was "looking forward" to President Pranab Mukherjee's upcoming visit to China.



"China, India relations are advancing very rapidly. We have similar positions on major international issues because we are major developing countries. And we both put economic development at the centre of our national development agenda. We are deepening our cooperation," Wang said.



Mukherjee will travel to China next month, setting off a series of high-level visits as the two countries seek to deepen their engagements despite irritants in ties over issues like Beijing blocking India's bid to get a UN ban on JeM head Masood Azhar.



Dates for the visit have not been announced yet. Mukherjee is expected to visit Beijing and Chinese industrial city of Guangzhou which has stronger trade links with India.



This will be a reciprocal visit after Chinese President Xi Jinping visited India in 2014. It will be followed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Chinese city of Hangzhou to attend the G20 leaders summit in September.



Sino-India trade ties have expanded significantly in the last few years. The bilateral trade volume was USD 70.4 billion last year.



"In September this year, China will host the G-20 summit and India is an important member of that organisation. So we stand ready to work with India more closely to ensure the success of the G-20 summit," Wang said.



On RIC, Wang said the three countries together account for over 40 per cent of world's population and they should step up strategic cooperation and work together to maintain world peace and stability. "Our three countries need to shoulder more of our common responsibilities," he said.


Hundreds of Nepalese today held memorial services to mark the first anniversary of last year's devastating earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people, as victims still forced to live in tents accused the government of failing to look after them.





Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli laid flowers at the demolished 19th-century Dharahara tower where people gathered to pay homage to those killed when the 7.9-magnitude temblor struck, after a minute's silence to remember the deceased.



Though the quake jolted Nepal on April 25, 2015, the memorials were being held today in its grim reminder as per the Bikram Era calendar. The quake was extremely devastating for the land-locked Himalayan nation, displacing lakhs of families besides putting a huge dent in the country's economy.



Oli paid tribute to those killed in the earthquake, wishing for the eternal peace of the departed souls as he said the government is distributing eligibility certificates to the 31,19,000 affected people to enable them to avail promised grants to rebuild their houses.



"The government was committed to providing safe shelter to the earthquake survivors by the rainy season. The government was raising temporary community settlements for the difficulty time in view of the coming rainy season," Oli said.



He expressed his government's commitment to accelerate the reconstruction activities, and assured of speedy distribution of relief amount with assistance on designs and mapping for the reconstruction of safe and quake-resistant houses in the quake-hit districts.



"As we have a very few artisans well-versed in woodcrafts, we need to train more people to reconstruct the quake-damaged infrastructures in their original design," he noted.



Shortly after the quake, that killed nearly 9,000 people, the government had promised to pay USD 1,850 (around 2 lakh Nepali rupees) to each family whose houses were damaged. The quake and aftershocks that hit central Nepal, including Kathmandu, also injured 22,000 others.



Ramesh Shrestha, whose house was demolished in the quake, said: "I am scared if my family will get compensation at all. It has already been a year."



Around 8,00,000 houses including hundreds of school buildings had collapsed due to the twin earthquakes of April 25 and May 12 that hit as many as 14 districts of Nepal. Some four million survivors are still living in temporary shelters, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.



Oli reached the earthquake-devastated site at Dharahara that was completely damaged by the earthquake, here amid a programme organised in commemoration of the great earthquake. A procession led by Nepalese Tourism Minister Ananda Pokharel took round of the city before converging into a gathering at the Dharahara site.



Buddhist monks in maroon robes held prayers at Swyambhunath stupa that was home to a popular temple destroyed in the quake.



A small group of about 20 protesters dressed in black took to the streets, chanted "politicians in palaces, public in tents" and "what happened to reconstruction?". Police quickly removed their banner but allowed them to shout anti-government slogans.



On one hand, the people of 14 earthquake-hit districts are still living under fear of a recurrence while on the other, the government's reconstruction and recovery work is progressing at a snail's pace.



A 4.2-magnitude aftershock hit central Nepal this morning as the country was marking the first anniversary of the devastating earthquake. The epicentre of the earthquake, that was felt in Kathmandu too, was located in Nuwakot district, 125 kms west of here.



With this, a total of 450 aftershocks with 4 or more magnitude have been recorded after the great earthquake.



The earthquake badly hit the country's tourism and caused an economic loss of USD 7 billion. According to the Asian Development Bank, growth is now expected to reach just 1.5 per cent over the financial year ending in July this year - the lowest since 2007.



Although international donors pledged USD 4.1 billion financial assistance to help Nepal's post quake recovery, the reconstruction and rehabilitation works have been moving at a very slow pace due to the political wrangling in forming the National Reconstruction Authority among the major political parties.



The government had promised to distribute a lump sum of Rs 2,00,000 to those whose houses were completely damaged by the quake, However, very few people have received the relief money.



During the last winter, many quake survivors in the mountainous districts of the country were forced to spend the nights under small tents with not enough food and clothing.



Days after the April 25 quake, a second temblor struck Nepal, adding to its woes.The first earthquake of 7.9-magnitude with epicentre at Gorkha district, 150 kms west of Kathmandu, hit the country on Baishakh 12 of the year 2072 Bikram Era (April 25) and the second quake with 7.3-magnitude hit on Baishakh 29 or May 12 with epicentre at Kodari Highway in Nepal-Tibet border, 120 kms east of Kathmandu.



Nepal has experienced two great earthquakes in the past 180-year period before last year's temblor which has been dubbed as the 'Gorkha quake'.



The last 'great' earthquake that hit the country in 1934 with its epicentre at Sankhuwasabha in eastern Nepal, which also gave a big jolt to Kathmandu, killed 8,519 people, according to historical data.



A hundred years before, in 1833, a similar over 7.8- magnitude earthquake hit central Nepal and the nature of last year's temblor is close to that of this quake, say experts.
Indian liquor baron Vijay Mallya, whose Kingfisher Airlines has been accused of having defaulted on loans of over Rs 9,400 crore and faces legal proceedings, appears on the electoral rolls in the UK with his country home in Britain as his recorded address, a media report said today.





The 60-year-old, who strongly rejects any suggestion of wrongdoing and denies that he has deliberately absconded from India, has been living at a three-storey mansion called Ladywalk in the village of Tewin in Hertfordshire, just over a one-hour drive north of London.



According to 'The Sunday Times', Mallya confirmed that "my official address in the UK is at Ladywalk", adding that he had supplied this information to the Indian authorities.



The 11.5-million-pound mansion was bought from the father of British Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton by a company with offshore links. "The ownership structure of Ladywalk is perfectly legal," the newspaper quoted Mallya as saying.



The use of companies with offshore links to buy properties in Britain has come under increasing scrutiny as the practice can allow the real owner or beneficiary to remain hidden  sometimes for tax purposes.



Such companies collectively hold up to 170 billion pounds of UK property, much of it in London and the home counties. British Prime Minister David Cameron is set to use an anti-corruption summit next month to demand more transparency on such future purchases.



Mallya, however, told the newspaper there was no "concealment or tax avoidance involved" and said that he has been a "British resident" since 1992. The report notes that official documents list the owner of Ladywalk as a limited liability partnership called Ladywalk LLP.



It has two members, including a company called Continental Administration Services, which is registered in St. Kitts and Nevis, a Commonwealth country in the Caribbean regarded as a tax haven.



A loan to finance the property purchase in July 2015 was made by the Edmond de Rothschild private bank in Switzerland. Official papers name the borrower as Ladywalk Investments, a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, another tax haven.



Mallya has described an arrest warrant against him as "erroneous and unjustified" and has recently tweeted: "I fully respect and will comply with the law of the land."



His passport, which had been suspended earlier, was also revoked today. Mallya had left India on March 2. He has refused to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on three occasions when summoned between March 10 and April 2.



ED has said it will also seek an Interpol arrest warrant against Mallya based on a non-bailable warrant issued last week by a Mumbai court in a money laundering case.
A fire broke out in the 10th floor of a building in northwest Delhi's Netaji Subhash Place area today.

No casualty has been reported in the incident which took place around 4.30 PM and as many as 20 fire tenders were rushed to the spot, a fire official said.

The incident came to light when security guards saw smoke billowing from a ventilation panel on the tenth floor of the building and raised an alarm. The fire was found to have originated in an office.

Fire fighting operation is underway to douse the blaze, the official added.









WATCH: Fire breaks out at Pearls Business Park building in Netaji Subhash Place in Delhi, fire tenders at the spothttps://t.co/AvrLSw6Act  ANI (@ANI_news) April 24, 2016




Imposition of President's rule in Uttarakhand is set to dominate the proceedings when Parliament reconvenes after recess tomorrow, with the Congress making it clear it would seek a discussion on the contentious issue despite government's claim that the matter being sub-judice it cannot be deliberated upon.



The controversial action of sacking the Harish Rawat government and imposition of Central rule a day ahead of a High Court-ordered trust vote, figured prominently at an all-party meeting called by Speaker Sumitra Mahajan.



Congress' leader in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge told reporters after the meeting that the party MPs would move an adjournment motion seeking a discussion on it under Rule 56.



However, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajiv Pratap Rudy contended,"To my knowldge, the matter is before the court and when the issue is pending in court and a decision is yet to come, there is no scope for a discussion on it. The Speaker has to take a decision on it."



Speaker Mahajan, too, appeared to share the government's view.

"The court has given stay till April 27 and I don't think till 27th (there can be a discussion)," she said when asked if a discussion on Uttarakhand can be allowed.

However, Kharge insisted on a discussion on the issue as it was important and many opposition members wanted it.



"We have raised many issues before the Speaker, of which the main one is of Uttarakhand where an attempt has been made to destabilise the Congress government and despite a High Court order, an interim stay has been obtained by the Centre from Supreme Court.



"We have raised the issue and want a discussion on this. A lot of opposition members agree on this and they also want a discussion on this," Kharge said.

On government's contention and that of the Speaker that a debate on Uttarakhand was not possible as the matter was sub-judice, Kharge said the chair was competent to allow a discussion setting aside the rules.



"There is a rule for everything. But putting (rules) aside, the Speaker can allow anything keeping in view the importance of the subject raised. We have made the request not to cite rules in a bid to suppress issues and deny a discussion," he said.



Another MoS for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said if Congress raised the issue of President's rule in the hill state, it would have to answer why it used Article 356 several times in the past to dismiss popularly elected governments which enjoyed majority and there being no Constitutional breakdown, indicating the government's readiness to brazen it out in Parliament.



"If Congress wants to raise the issue, then it would have to face its own history as Congress regimes used Article 356 88 times, with former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi using it 50 times during her tenure," Naqvi said.



Though Speaker Mahajan said she hoped the resumed Budget session would be a smooth affair, such a possibility looked remote with both the government and the opposition likely to stick to their respective stance during the proceedings.

Mahajan said the members raised various demands, including holding discussion on drought and drinking water shortage.



"Drought across the country is a major issue and there was a demand by all for a discussion on it. All have extended their support. We all hope that the coming Lok Sabha session will function smoothly," she said.



Rudy said, "There was complete assurance from all the political parties that the House will run smoothly and the environment looked very good. All have assured and there is a broad consensus that Lok Sabha should function smoothly and all parties have said this in one voice."


Mercury continued to soar today in major parts of the country with Odisha's Titlagarh scorching at 48.5 degrees Celsius even as four districts in Assam were hit by the first wave of floods affecting around 45,000 people.





Titlagarh has been experiencing extreme heat for the past several days and today the town recorded its highest temperature for the month of April in the last 17 years.



"Titlagarh had crossed 50 degree Celsius mark in 2003 on June 5 when it posted 50.1 degrees Celsius. Also, for the month of April, it is the highest since 1999 when on April 30 that year the place had registered 48.1 degrees Celsius," Director of Meteorological Centre in Bhubaneswar Sarat Sahu said.



The Odisha government has confirmed four deaths due to sun stroke, however, the suspected casualty list in the state due to heat wave has grown from 79 to 88.



Bihar too continued to sizzle under intense heatwave even though mercury dipped marginally at several places, including in the capital town Patna.



Patna remained the hottest place in the state for the second day today with maximum temperature at 41.1 degrees Celsius against 43.3 degrees C yesterday, while Gaya recorded the highest day temperature at 41.1 degrees C.



Steel city Jamshedpur in Jharkhand also scorched at 45.8 degrees Celsius. In national capital Delhi, however, the mercury remained below 40 degree Celsius mark. The maximum temperature settled at 37.3 degrees Celsius, a notch below the normal, while the humidity level in the air remained on the lower side, oscillating between 13 per cent and 56 per cent.



In West Bengal, Bankura district touched the highest at 43.8 degrees Celsius while Kolkata recorded an above normal 40.2 degrees Celsius, even as the MeT department forecast heatwave to continue for at least another four days.



In districts of Gangetic West Bengal, the mercury hovered slightly above the 40 degree Celsius mark, they said. Burdwan, Asansol and Sriniketan recorded 41.5, 41.6 and 41.7 degrees Celsius, respectively today.



In south India, Chennai, Hyderabad and several other cities recorded temperature above 40 degrees Celsius. Hisar in Haryana recorded a high of 39.4 degrees Celsius. Chandigarh braved hot weather at 35.3 degrees Celsius.



In Punjab, Amritsar recorded a high of 35.8 degrees Celsius while Ludhiana and Patiala recorded maximum of 36.5 degrees Celsius and 36.6 degrees Celsius respectively.



As Assam battled with the elements, State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) there said, so far over 1,018 hectares of crop area has been inundated by flood water, while Burhidihing and Desang Naglamuraga rivers were flowing above the danger mark in Sivasagar.
The signing of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change by 175 countries at the United Nations headquarters in New York, appropriately on Earth Day, was a historic event. The importance attached to the agreement is seen from the fact that it was a record for a one-day signing of an international agreement and as many as 60 heads of state or government personally signed the document. The ceremony came 4 months after the hard-won Paris deal which culminated decades of negotiations, through setbacks and failures, for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The deal sets the goal for global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius and further to 1.5 degrees. It proposes elimination of the use of coal, oil and gas and to replace fossil fuels by clean and renewable sources. It also imposes financial responsibilities on the rich world to help the developing countries manage the transition.



After the signing of the agreement, the real challenge lies in its implementation. It is set to be enforced from 2020 but is likely to come into force earlier. As many as 55 countries have to ratify the accord for that. Fifteen island countries have already ratified it. Major countries like the 28-nation European Union, China and India may ratify the deal at an early date. The US is planning a ratification process which a future administration will find difficult to nullify. The urgency to bring the deal into force is already clear with the world increasingly experiencing the dreadful impact of weather changes. Last year was the warmest year in human history and last month the hottest. The strongest ever hurricane was recorded this year, ice caps and glaciers are melting at a faster pace, rain patterns are changing, droughts are more frequent, water is becoming scarce and air is getting more polluted. Even before the agreement is to come into effect, there is a case for negotiating a stronger agreement.



The hope is that all countries will take their commitments seriously and make a success of the agreement by enforcing it fully in letter and spirit. As for India, it has laid out an elaborate strategy to reduce the use of fossil fuels and increase the use of clean energy. The plans have to be closely monitored for implementation and the deadlines have to be kept. If major polluters like the US, the EU, China and India enforce the agreement well, it will be a success. There is no choice because, as UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said, we are in a race against time. Again, as he said, the agreement is a covenant for the future.
Indias decision to grant visas to Chinese dissidents to participate in an international conference at Dharamsala stems from its frustration with Chinas obstructive and selective approach to fighting terrorism. Beijing has repeatedly blocked Indian attempts at he United Nations to get terrorists and terrorist organisations based in Pakistan included in a UN blacklist. Recently, it put a technical hold on an Indian request for inclusion of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Maulana Masood Azhar in the sanctions list. Indias patience, which has been fraying for a while on this matter, seems to have snapped, prompting it to adopt a tit-for-tat strategy. Its decision to grant visas to several Chinese pro-democracy activists, exiles and dissidents, including Dolkun Isa, leader of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) must be seen in this context. Indias frustration with Chinas duplicity on the question of tackling terrorism is fully understandable. New Delhi has been using dialogue to push Pakistan to halt support for anti-India terrorism with little success. It rightly turned to the UN for support on the matter, but Chinese obstructionism has resulted in Indian efforts there running aground.



However, a tit-for-tat strategy in dealing with China may not be productive. Indias decision has raised hackles in Beijing, which can be expected to retaliate. It could apply pressure on India by reviving its old policy of support to insurgents in the North-East, which it abandoned only a few decades ago. Importantly, Beijing could step up pressure along the disputed Sino-Indian border. Moves which rachet up border or other tensions with China are not in Indias interest.



In its bid to appear tough, the Narendra Modi government is, in fact, weakening Indias hand in dealing with the Chinese. It is adopting a high-risk strategy. Doing so to further Indias autonomy and security is not a bad thing but what is unfolding is muscle-flexing that undermines Indias long-term interests. Among those who are participating at the Dharamsala conference are activists who are known assets of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). India is treading dangerous ground by rolling out the red carpet for them. At a time when Indias relations with China are improving, albeit in fits and starts, the Modi government should be working on consolidating gains and sorting out differences through diplomacy and dialogue, however slow and frustrating this process might be. A strategy that is aimed at teaching the other a lesson is often counter-productive. India must pull-back from this reckless face off with the Chinese.


With temperatures in the 60s and cloudy skies that turned blue, Saturday morning was a perfect time to get out and do yard work.

Thats what about 90 volunteers did at the Montana Audubon Center in south Billings to celebrate Earth Day, one day after the official date. Adults and kids joined to take part in planting, mulching, weeding and clean-up.

The centers eighth annual Earth Day Celebration was all about giving back to the Earth, director Jonathan Lutz said.

Were fortunate to have this 27-acre site here in the heart of Billings that is a restored gravel mine, he said, watching volunteers at work. Its in a continual state of restoration, and days like this, when the community comes out, allows us to continue vegetating the site and building wildlife habitat.

Lutz, who took over as director in December, said hes discovered the center still remains relatively unknown to many people in the area.

Events like this help us stay connected with community members, but also attract new people to the site, he said.

The center focuses on education, so part-time naturalist Carol Ward sprinkled informational tidbits into her trash pick-up hike with Roberta Reimers and four of Reimers grandchildren.

A pair of Canada geese flew overhead, honking, as Ward shared a bit of the history of the Audubon Center with her small brood of volunteers. The Yellowstone River Parks Association bought the land about 16 years ago and worked to return it to its natural state.

They created a nice habitat, and all the animals that you see around here came on their own, Ward said. We have beavers and we have foxes, coyotes, we have turtles and lots of birds.

Ward, Reimers, her granddaughter Savannah Hoikkala, 15, and grandsons, Sam Reimers, 12, Jacob Reimers, 10, and Joey Reimers, 7, headed out from the center to a canal at the property's north border. They all wore gloves and carried plastic garbage bags.

The boys scampered up and down the steep side of the dry canal to pick up pieces of paper, plastic bags and other detritus. At one point, Ward called them over to show them the scat she had discovered.

If you have gloves on you can take it apart and learn something about it, she said. So this scat is full of animal hair and seeds.

It didnt come from a dog, she said, since it didnt contain any dog food. What else could it be from, she asked.

"A coyote?" Jake volunteered. Ward agreed, saying that was probably the case.

Since were not here at night, by checking the scat we can know what animals have come through here, she said.

The group continued on their way, finding everything from a TV dinner box to beer bottles, a potato chip bag and a broken toy gun.

Do you hear that? Ward asked later, alluding to a rhythmic tapping noise. Its a woodpecker.

When one of the boys pointed out the small dark clusters of berries on a tree, she told them they were looking at a Rocky Mountain juniper.

Altogether, the group collected four bags of trash and some new information. They also displayed a bit of their own knowledge.

Joey, a first-grader at Ponderosa Elementary, said hes learning about habitat.

Its a place for animals to live, he said, walking along.

Jacob, a fourth-grader at Ponderosa, said picking up the trash was great.

Its not great for the environment, though, he added.

Savannah, a West High sophomore, called the day a wonderful opportunity to get out and help the environment. Happy that countries around the world are working on the problem of climate change, she thinks even picking up garbage can make a difference.

The trash could definitely harm our animals here," Savannah said. "But with us picking it up and cleaning up after ourselves and the mess us humans have pretty much made, it helps, she said.

Reimers, the executive housekeeper at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, said she and other employees select a project every month to help out. She was glad to bring along her grandchildren on Saturday.

I think its a great opportunity to give back and learn, she said.

It also is helping her grandchildren connect what they're learning in school to the outside world, Reimers said.

At the same time, at a spot not far from the center building, another group of volunteers helped to plant about 10 Ponderosa pine trees. YRPA volunteer Elizabeth Adcock said it was to repair damage done by beavers that took down trees, leaving only stumps behind.

Community volunteer Jenny Jutz of Billings and her friend Ellen Quinn were two of the volunteers that helped to plant the trees. The pair jumped at the chance to help out.

We got an email, and I was like, Ellen, we should do this, Jutz said. So we are giving our time.

Lutz loves Earth Day and enjoys taking part in an activity related to the day. Shes excited to come back and see its progress as it continues to grow.

We took a picture with it, she said, smiling. We named it Jenelle, after Jenny and Ellen.
Iran is torn between compliance and defiance as former trading partners attempt to evade US sanctions in order to conclude new commercial deals. Potential trade and investment agreements remain hostage to the US Treasury Department although Tehran has complied with the terms of the agreement to dismantle its nuclear programme made with the 5 permanent Security Council members plus Germany.





Last week, Irans Foreign Minister Mohamed Javid Zarif met twice with his US counterpart John Kerry with the aim of overcoming banking obstacles faced by Iran and its commercial partners, including India. Although Kerry attempted to reassure Zarif, Iran still faces almost total blockage on dollar-denominated transactions cleared through US banks which are still banned from dealing with Iran as UN, but not US, sanctions have been lifted.



So far, of the estimated $100 billion in Iranian funds frozen in foreign banks, only $3 billion has been released to Iran due to US restrictions and the fears of non-US banks and firms of being heavily fined for violating the web of US sanctions. Some $15 billion in fines have already been imposed.



The US also bars dealings with leading Iranian banks, institutions, organisations and individuals, and the nuclear deal, signed in July 2015, still faces opposition from Congress and the US political establishment.



This has made Tehrans path to normalisation of commercial and political relations with the world all the more difficult and has prevented hard-pressed Iranians from seeing expected improvements in their countrys depressed economy.



In response to the refusal of the US to deliver even partial easing of sanctions involving its own banks, institutions and firms, Iran has responded with defiance. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called for maintaining the countrys policy of economic independence adopted in 1979 while the military has tested ballistic missiles and displayed the recently delivered Russian S-300 defensive missile system in the army day parade.



While Khamenei and the high command of the powerful Revolutionary Guards Corps supported the nuclear deal with the 6 powers, they also have serious reservations over the determination of the US to carry out its side of the bargain. Khamenei blasted Washington for bad faith. The US is stifling trade at a time deals are suppo-sed to be proliferating. Foreign participation in the Iranian st-ock market is still under 1% and GDP growth remains at 0.5%.



Fortunately, India has pursued a foreign policy independent of the US and has maintained close political and trade relations with Iran. Even under sanctions, India continued to export basmati rice, agricultural produce, medicines and medical equipment to Iran and to buy Iranian oil, shipped free of charge and paid 50% in rupees and half in euro frozen in Indian banks. Now that UN sanctions have been lifted, Iran expects to receive $6.5 billion in frozen funds paid in euros.



Cementing economic ties



This month, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj visited Tehran with an aim of cementing economic ties between the two countries. In addition to concluding arrangements on taxation, preferential trade and bilateral investment, New Delhi and Tehran have agreed on $20 billion in investment in petroleum, fertilisers and other projects.



India seeks to develop Irans Farzad-B gas field, the largest foreign to be discovered by an Indian company, and to commence work on the Chabahar Port in south east Iran which will permit India to bypass Pakistan when exporting goods to Afghanistan and Central Asia. India is set to issue a $150 million line of credit and to form a company in Iran to carry out the project.



To complete the strategic connections, India has already constructed a highway from the Afghan border and expects to build a rail line from Chabahar to Mashad, supplying tracks, rolling stock and other equipment, to facilitate trade.



A major customer for Irans oil even under the punitive US-driven sanctions regime, India is likely to benefit from Irans refusal to curb oil exports in line with a decision to freeze crude sales taken by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Russia, and Venezuela. Their aim was to raise the price from less than $30 a barrel by limiting supply. Having suffered severely reduced oil exports under sanctions, Iran has refused because it seeks to re-establish its market share even if the price remains low.



Chinese president Xi Jinping and a handful of Western leaders seeking lucrative commercial connections have already taken the road to Tehran. Prime Minister Narendra Modi received an invitation in January but the date for his visit has not yet been set.



His visit to Saudi Arabia this month was intended to balance New Delhis growing cooperation with Tehran and to maintain relations with Riyadh, another major oil supplier, and host to 2.9 million Indians who remitted $10 billion to India last year.
To rid the city of visual pollution caused by illegal bills and hoardings, Bangalore Political Action Committee (B PAC) on Sunday launched a campaign called #KillBills.



In a citizens collective aiming to build a better Bengaluru, residents from nine wards across the city took part in the campaign in their respective wards and removed hundreds of illegal bills, fliers and posters. Civic hub leaders appointed at each ward spearheaded the campaign. At HSR Layout, the drive started at 6.30 am and the team removed posters and illegal banners.



"Illegal posters have tarnished the beauty of the city and we aim to put an end to this. It is a long process but we would like to take one step at a time," said Kavitha Reddy, who headed the team.



At Sanjaynagar ward, civic hub leader Subhaiah T S led the campaign in which close to 200 banners and posters were removed.



A meeting was held between citizens and BBMP officials, including former palike commissioner Kumar Naik G and special commissioner for Solid Waste Management (SWM) Subodh Yadav, both residents of Sanjaynagar.



Both the officials said they will instruct ward engineers to submit an action-taken report on flex boards and hoardings collected during the drive on Sunday. Most of the flex boards and flyers relate PG centres, school admission and others. The SWM special commissioner and Naik said ward engineers will be told to call the contact numbers mentioned on hoardings and track the violators, said Subhaiah.



The other wards where the campaign took place are Radhakrishna Temple, Indiranagar, Malleswaram (Gayathrinagar ward), Sampangiramnagar, Mahalakshmipuram, Domlur and Bellandur.



CEO, B.PAC, Revathy Ashok, said: Citizens across the city have shown interest in taking part in the campaign. We shall carry out more such drives across the city and advocate sustainable measures to make our city free of visual pollution.


Need a hand? Write to us



Letters of grievances are pouring in and we are doing our best to accommodate as many as possible. Readers may write in to highlight civic problems affecting their locality and we will help address them in an interactive and effective manner.



Grievances and issues related to public utility agencies such as Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB), Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) and Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (Bescom) would be highlighted in the weekly column.



The writeups, which could be accompanied by photographs highlighting the problems, will be published on Mondays.



Mail your grievances to: peoplesproblems @deccanherald.co.in



Skywalk required



A busy ring road connects Nagarbhavi Circle and Nayandhalli signal. There are layouts on either side of the ring road. People living in ITI Layout often need to cross the ring road to catch buses or to go to Chandra Layout. Students also need to cross the roads along with their bicycles.



The traffic is very heavy and often moves at great speed. It take more than 10 minutes to find a break in the moving traffic to cross the two roads. Many accidents have happened here.



It is requested to instal either a manual request signal on either sides so that those who wish to cross the road can press the button to request the vehicles to stop or construct a skywalk with a sloping ramp so the people can cross over safely



Prakash R Kalal



Construct flyover here



The BBMP budget does not mention anything about completing the work on the flyover near Baiyyappanahalli railway cross. The commuters here have been suffering for a long timed to cross the road.



Instead of completing an ongoing project, the Palike has allotted funds to construct a flyover near Sony World, Koramangala. The local public representatives appear to be not taking any interest in the matter. Banaswadi is represented by Bangalore Development Minister K J George.



G Gopinath,

Banaswadi



Chaotic traffic near Tin Factory



The proposal to connect ITPL with Baiyyappanahalli through BMTC Volvo services is excellent as this would make it convenient for IT employees to reach their offices.



But, the chaotic traffic near Tin Factory and KR Puram overbridge on Old Madras Road. At present there are no traffic signals on this stretch and vehicles from Ring Road and Old Madras Road converge here.



A BMTC bus stop and stoppage of private buses near the bridge adds to the problem. While the travel by Metro up to Baiyyappanahalli is smooth and timely, what happens next till the crossing of KR Puram Bridge is a challenge.



Therefore to make travel easier, a plan is needed to decongest that small stretch of 500 meters.



Ramesh



Garbage dumped on vacant site



The vacant plot next to house number 240 on 3rd Cross, 2nd Block, First Stage, HBR Layout, has turned into a dump yard. The owner of this BDA site has left his plot vacant for many years. People in the vicinity dispose garbage here and sometimes, huge bags of garbage are brought in autos to be dumped here. The local civic authorities too do not lift the garbage.



While local residents took the initiative clear the weeds, the authorities in Palike have not been responding to the problem of dumping garbage. Carcasses of animals are also dumped on the vacant site, leading to health hazard. Hope the civic authorities will look into the problem.



Nithya Sunil Krishna,

HBR Layout



Ply more buses to Yeshwantpur



Residents of Vasanthnagar, Jayamahal road are facing problem as there are no buses from these areas to Yeshwantpur during afternoon and evening hours.Only a few bus services from Shivajinagar to Yeshwantpur - 94, 94E, K1, G8, 252A - operate on this route. A large number of passengers travel from Vasanthnagar, Jayamahal Road, and Munireddypalya to Yeshwantpur. We request the BMTC authorities to ply more buses from Shivajinagar to Yeshwantpur.



PTI staffers, Vasanthnagar

BSNL staff apathetic to customers



I am a senior citizen living in my independent house looking after myself. I have a BSNL landline connection (No.22560167) since several years. On April 15, I complained to the BSNL about the non-working of the line as well as the Internet connection.



I just got a docket number and the next day I got a message on my mobile that the fault booked on 22560167 has been assigned to BSNL staff Subramanian (mobile number - 9483856219). While this BSNL staff has switched off his mobile the fault booking service has been promising that service to my landline would be restored in 24 hours.



Several BSNL customers have switched over to private service providers for better service.But being a government organisation, BSNL could not care less.



It is now more than 8 days that the line has not been restored. What is worst is that numbers of 'higher ups' are being given by the so-called BSNL fault repair service staff. When we ring up those numbers we can get an answer This number does not exist or Please check the number you have dialled.



M V Nahusharaj,

Kanakapura Main Road

Unofficial holidays of BBMP



I went to the BBMP office of Pattabhiramanagara ward, Jayanagar 9th block on April 22 only to be told that the office was closed due to Kempegowda Day. Again I went to the office on April 23 and the office was closed due to Karaga.



These unofficial holidays put many citizens to inconvenience as they come from far off locations to pay/enquire about the property ax which they are supposed to pay for the year 2016-17.



This callous attitude of the BBMP needs to be condemned. BBMP should have taken appropriate measures to at least announce their holidays well in advance so that citizens could have planned their visit to the BBMP offices.



S Ashwini, Srinagar


The parents of a brain-dead youth have voluntarily donated his organs to six needy patients. Muniraju (18), a second year BA student of Ja Cha Ni First Grade College and son of M Muniyappa, a resident of the city, met with an accident on April 18 when returning to the city after attending a relatives marriage at Hoskote on his bike.





He sustained grievous injuries on his head and was admitted to Columbia Asia Hospital at Yeshwantpur in Bengaluru for treatment immediately. He was treated in ICU for five days. But his brain became dysfunctional as the treatment failed.



The doctors discussed matter with his parents and told them about a provision to donate his organs. Later, Munirajus six organs were donated to needy after his parents consent. Dr Manjunath of the hospital said, It really great that his parents agreed to donate his organs. His eyes, liver and kidneys were donated to the needy patients.




Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student union president Kanhaiya Kumar, facing sedition charge, has claimed that a co-passenger tried to strangulate him inside a Jet Airways flight at Mumbai airport.



Yet again, this time inside the aircraft, a man tries to strangulate me, he tweeted late on Saturday soon after boarding the Mumbai-Pune aircraft.



Kumar, who was on his way to Pune to address an event, later identified his assailant as Manas Deka, describing him as a strong supporter of the the BJP.



Manas Deka, works in TCS, a strong BJP supporter assaulted me inside the aircraft. Is assault the only tool you have, to fight dissent? These cowardly incidents are not going to scare us. I will be there in Pune! Join us! the JNU student union president tweeted. The airline staff offloaded Kanhaiya as well as Deka from the plane soon after the incident, forcing the JNU student leader to take road route to Pune to attend the event.



Basically @jetairways sees no difference between someone who assaults nd d (sic) person who is assaulted. They will deplane you, if you complain, Kanhaiya tweeted, even as the airline staff defended offloading of the JNU student leader from plane, citing safety grounds. According to a new agency, while the Maharashtra government ordered a probe into the incident, Deka was detained by police and booked under a non-cognisable offence.



After the incident @jetairways staff completely refuses to take any action against the man who assaulted me, Kanhaiya, however, charged.


All central government schemes may soon have PM or the names of nationalist leaders prefixed to them and films highlighting the achievements of Narendra Modi dispensation shown mandatorily before screening of movies in every theatre.



These are among a set of recommendations by the Group of Ministers (GoM) set up to suggest ways for increased visibility of central government schemes and achievements in states and districts.



The internal note circulated at a meeting of the GoM chaired by Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu has also recommended creating animation clips of various achievements of the government highlighting the difference between the past and present in a humorous way.



It has suggested roping in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry for execution. The GoM has suggested producing a film every two weeks to highlight the governments achievements which will be played out before every film in every theatre mandatorily, for which again it has recommended taking I&B Ministrys help.



Against the backdrop of allegations that state governments often take the credit for central schemes, the GoM has recommended that the inauguration of central schemes should be done in presence of Union ministers and MPs so the role of Centre is highlighted.



It has also recommended enhancing the authority of MPs by giving them constitutional authority to carry out checks on execution of the schemes and build in a system of penalties enforceable by central government whenever there is lack of efficiency in execution of a scheme.



If the recommendations are implemented, the monitoring committees in districts for the schemes will be headed by MPs. Currently, these are headed by District Magistrates or Superintendents of Police. As per the note, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry is amending the rules to allow MPs to head the committees.


Commuters often complain against drivers attached to cab aggregators that they constantly use mobile phone-based navigation maps or that they simply get stuck.



Ramesh G, 67, a resident of Fraser Town, was in for a shock on two occasions, when he booked taxis on his Uber application. It surprised me to see the driver depending on navigation maps. When I asked him if he did not know the short cut, the driver said he was from Davangere. On the next occasion, I had to guide the driver who was not familiar with the roads, he said.



Such a situation could be the result of poor internet signals or not knowing how to use the applications. Sreenivasa Rao, a techie from Whitefield, said, A large number of drivers struggle to locate the routes, which is unfair. While the BMTC buses have fixed routes and auto drivers are able to refuse going on a trip, drivers of cab aggregators are bound to take the passenger to a place, which he/she has booked using a mobile application. This forces drivers to depend on navigation maps, he said.



A top traffic police official told Deccan Herald that he came across many drivers who were not able to use the navigation maps on the mobile phone. The cab aggregators should take the responsibility of training them, he felt.



An Ola driver said most drivers attached to the aggregators are not from Bengaluru and it takes some time for them to familiarise themselves with the roads. I have been working here for the last 17 years and I do not depend on navigation maps, although I am from Mysuru, he said. Uber spokesperson Ruchica Tomar said the mobile-based app aggregator does not have its own navigation map and depends on Google maps.



We encourage drivers to use Google maps. Its reliable. When there are complaints from passengers being taken on a longer route, we check trip details. If necessary, we take action against the errant drivers, she said.



Anusha Kedambadi, a HR consultant, felt that its good for the driver to use navigation maps, which lets the commuters know if he is taking them on the correct route. Even if the driver does not use these maps, I use them to keep track of the routes, she says.



There are 10 taxi aggregators operating in the City who have entered the market in a big way, especially in the last four years. The number of aggregated cabs has gone up from 30,000 in 2013 to above 1 lakh in 2016, as a result of incentives and aggressive marketing, say experts.
An IT engineer was killed after a lorry ran him over in front of ASR Convention Hall on Outer Ring Road near KR Puram, east Bengaluru, on Sunday.





The police identified him as Amit Kumar Chetri, a native of Assam and an employee of Infosys. The incident took place around 3.45 am when he was going towards Hebbal to meet a relative.



Chetri was speeding and failed to negotiate a curve. He rammed the median and went over to the other side of the road and fell off the bike. A lorry coming from Hebbal crushed his head, killing him on the spot.



Passersby called the police. The lorry driver had fled the spot along with his vehicle. The police are checking the footage of CCTV cameras installed at nearby buildings and searching for the lorry.



Chetri was not wearing helmet and we are awaiting the post-mortem report to ascertain if he was drunk when the accident occurred, an officer said. A case has been registered at the KR Puram Traffic police station.
An elderly couple was found murdered at their house in Pulikeshinagar police limits on Sunday.



Parvathraj G (61) and Chandrakala (55)  residents of a three-storey building on Coles Road  were stabbed to death three days ago, but the murder came to light only on Sunday, the police said.



The couple suffered 15 stab injuries on their chest, stomach and back. There was no forced entry into the house. Preliminary investigation suggested that someone known to the couple might have murdered them for gain. The police have collected leads and the assailants would be arrested soon, said Additional Commissioner of Police (East) P Harishekaran.

The couple hailed from Bichkanalli in Chikkaballapur and moved to the city about 40 years ago. They owned a cycle shop, and their only son Kiran Kumar, a techie, works in the US. The couple had rented out the ground, first and second floors of the building, and were staying on the third floor. They had lent money on interest. They were last seen on April 22, around 7.30 pm, said the police.



Mala, a relative, told DH: I contacted Kiran after foul smell emanated from the house. I went upstairs upon his request, but the door was locked from outside. I informed the police who broke open the door. The bodies were lying in the hall.



The assailants used sharp-edged weapons to murder them. The bodies were sent to Bowring Hospital for post mortem. Kiran, had earlier planned a visit on May 8, but is rushing home after the incident.


Drastic depletion of water in Karnatakas reservoirs is set to hit power generation, making the state vulnerable in the simmering summer.





According to Bescom and KPTCL officials, the hydel reservoirs in the state will last for just 20 days while thermal generation stations, already under stress, are also staring at depleting water levels in their reservoirs.



Bengaluru needs 2400-2500 MW, which is 49% of the total power generated in the state. Bescom is already facing a shortage of 100-150 MW because of damage to an underground cable. Bescom and KPTCL are striving to fix the problem. Officials said it could take another 10 to 15 days to restore the underground cable. Every day, Bescom is receiving about 2,500 complaints, mostly from Bengaluru, because of the technical snag.



But the bigger challenge for both the companies will be to manage the power demand and supply in wake of water crises. The water (for power generation) in the dams will last only for 20 days. About 1200 MW is generated from Sharavathi and Linganamakki, of which 1000 MW is from Sharavathi. If these stop, then there will be power crisis in Bengaluru and state. We are waiting for rains, the official said.



Recently, Energy Minister D K Shivakumar admitted before the media that unless there is rainfall, there will be power crises in the wake of water shortage across the state.



However, Additional Chief Secretary (Energy) K Ravi Kumar maintained that there will be no power crisis in the city and state. We have water to manage till June 15. There is water for drinking and also power generation. Water supply is stopped for irrigation. In case of thermal stations too, there is no problem as water will be released from Tungabhadra and Narayanapura dams, he maintained.


NEW YORK  North Koreas foreign minister said Saturday in an interview with The Associated Press that his country is ready to halt its nuclear tests if the United States suspends its annual military exercises with South Korea.

He also defended his countrys right to maintain a nuclear deterrent and warned that North Korea wont be cowed by international sanctions. And for those waiting for North Koreas regime to collapse, he had this to say: Dont hold your breath.

Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong held firm to Pyongyangs longstanding position that the U.S. drove his country to develop nuclear weapons as an act of self-defense. At the same time, he suggested that suspending the military exercises with Seoul could open the door to talks and reduced tensions.

If we continue on this path of confrontation, this will lead to very catastrophic results, not only for the two countries but for the whole entire world as well, he said.

It is really crucial for the United States government to withdraw its hostile policy against the DPRK and as an expression of this stop the military exercises, war exercises, in the Korean Peninsula. Then we will respond likewise.

DPRK is the acronym for North Koreas official name, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.
Dr. Joely Nelson slumped from a living room chair onto a pillow on the hearth of the fireplace, her face scorched from the heat, her dead body riddled with drugs. A fellow anesthesiologist found her there after Nelson, 44, failed to show up for work at a Vail Valley Medical Center facility. He said she was depressed, upset about having a long-term disease and had killed herself.

Avon police and a medical examiner agreed that she died, probably intentionally, of a drug overdose. The hospitals safety manager told police she doubted the syringes and pills around her could have come from Vail Valley.

But a hospital report to the state showed Nelson had removed fentanyl, a powerful narcotic, and another drug illegally. The autopsy found cocaine and narcotic drugs in her blood. She died with old and new puncture marks in her legs.

So how did the Vail hospital inform the public about the death of a drug-addicted anesthesiologist in February 2014?

It didnt. As in hundreds of other drug-theft cases, hospital patients never learn if someone who treated them was involved.

Other hospitals can be left uninformed as well. Colorado hospitals from Craig to Englewood have been duped by applicants with a history of drug addiction.

In Colorado, hospital workers who get caught stealing powerful narcotics often arent reported to police or to federal authorities. Unless the state takes formal action against them, their names dont show up on licensing disciplinary lists. There is little to keep a small but dangerous number of doctors, nurses and surgical technologists from moving from hospital to hospital, taking with them their addictions and risks to patients.

Even when they get fired, they can keep their licenses  and their histories secret  by promising to enter treatment. In a review of state health, licensing board and police records, The Denver Post found cases in which hospital employees worked for years in Colorado despite recurring thefts and even convictions  sometimes while participating in addiction treatment programs.

Almost always, the thiefs identity is protected.

Hospitals have managed to keep secret the names of employees passed out with needles in their arms and blood on bathroom walls, of staffers who stole hundreds of vials of fentanyl, of nurses leaving patients in pain by stealing their medicine.

In August 2010, a drug-addled staffer at Poudre Valley Hospital passed out while a patient was being put onto the operating table, state records show. At Denver Health Medical Center, a nurse resigned in November 2013 after she was seen with needles, syringes and a tourniquet stuffed in her bag, her pupils constricted after she collapsed on an empty patient bed. She was sent home in a taxi.

All of these cases occurred after Kristen Parker, a Colorado surgical technologist, infected hospital patients with hepatitis in 2008 and 2009 by injecting herself with fentanyl and leaving behind dirty needles.

In a review of 416 state reports on missing or stolen drugs from Colorado hospitals during the last six years, The Post found:

 At least two hospital workers, including Nelson, died of drug use. In January 2010, Amanda Cornstubble, 29, also was found dead in her bed by her parents, a syringe and tourniquet at her side. Police found nine empty vials of hydromorphone in her Denver apartment, the same painkiller that Porter Adventist Hospital in Denver later found she likely stole while working there.

 When hospitals report missing or stolen medicines to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, state investigations often show no calls to police or the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. In 222 confirmed drug diversion cases, hospitals referred just 123 to local police, according to state reports listing facility responses. Only 70 showed a referral to the DEA.

 The Post inquired about 24 egregious cases involving employee syringe use and thefts of multiple drugs from hospitals. Police departments were unable to locate reports in 19 cases, in part because health department reports dont name offenders.

 Dozens of theft cases involved traveling nurses hired from contract agencies to work at multiple hospitals. In some cases, hospitals simply asked the agencies not to send the nurses back to them.

 Nursing board records show people with felony records and histories of drug addiction still manage to get new jobs in Colorados health care system.

 The state health department almost never finds fault with hospital responses  except when reports are late.

Dirty little secret

On the streets, the opioid epidemic has turned into a subject of national alarm. Opioid-related deaths have tripled since 2000. In February, President Barack Obama requested $1.1 billion to combat the problem. Black-market dealers have heightened the dangers by lacing heroin with fentanyl, creating an extremely potent but deadly high.

At the same time, the very system designed to treat this epidemic has been struggling with its own drug abuse cases.

Its kind of a dirty little secret that has gone on around the country. Its got to stop, said John Burke, president of the International Health Facility Diversion Association.

Often the health facilities dont report it properly. If they dont, the person may easily go to another facility and continue their ways,said Burke, a former police commander who investigated drug thefts at Cincinnati hospitals. Its not just the people who did this. Theres a breakdown in supervision.

This year, surgical tech Rocky Allen caused an interstate uproar after Swedish Medical Center in Englewood reported he stole fentanyl, causing the hospital to offer free blood tests to about 2,900 patients. Allen carries an unidentified bloodborne illness. Patients were tested for HIV and hepatitis.

Allen had been court-martialed for fentanyl theft while stationed in Afghanistan, yet managed to find surgical tech jobs and get fired from hospitals in Washington, California and Arizona before Swedish hired him.

Allen was arrested on federal charges in February and has pleaded not guilty. In March, an agency nurse, Kimberly Burgans, was charged with stealing fentanyl from St. Anthony Summit Medical Center.

Those public disclosures are the exception in Colorado, where hospitals that catch employees with narcotic medicines routinely fire them but rarely inform patients or the public.

Hospitals report drug diversions to the health department, which issues one-page public reports that, under state law, never name the employee even if a drug theft is confirmed. Even other hospitals are not entitled to their names.

The state Board of Nursing tracks disciplinary records by name, not by reporting hospital. Police departments say they cant always confirm that they handled a call from a hospital without a name and case number.

The upshot: Its difficult to track how police departments and licensing boards treat hospital employees who commit drug thefts on the job.

The privacy of the perpetrators gets protected even when there are massive drug thefts or evidence that employees have risked patients health by injecting themselves with narcotics at work.

The Post succeeded in identifying dozens of health care workers who stole drugs, sometimes repeatedly, by matching drug theft reports the hospitals filed with other public records. But even extensive sleuthing yielded no results in many cases.

In March 2015, for example, Denver Health Medical Center found a registered nurse had locked himself in the bathroom of the staff lounge. He was sitting on the toilet with his head between his legs. A bloody syringe lay in the toilet. The nurse was taken to an emergency room.

Afterward, he admitted he had taken fentanyl from a patients IV line and that he had a history of drug diversion. He denied contaminating any patients. Denver police provided a copy of its case report, deleting the hospital employees name because the district attorney did not file charges.

In the case of Nelson, the anesthesiologist who died of a drug overdose, Dr. Edgar Downs, a retired dentist, became so concerned that he requested a Colorado Board of Pharmacy investigation, its records show. He thinks Nelson, while severely addicted, injured him during his spinal fusion surgery at Vail Valley Medical Center in late 2013, leaving him with acute pain in his neck that required him to be transferred to an emergency room five times, court records show.

But Vail Valley Medical Center succeeded in getting an injunction in Eagle County from District Judge Russell Granger barring Downs from further disseminating his concerns through the media. The hospital claimed his allegations would cause undue reputational harm. When The Denver Post asked to review court records in that case, Granger sealed the case. The Colorado Supreme Court rejected Downs appeal of the injunction.

Vail Valley Medical Center declined to discuss Nelsons death.

Hospitals differ in response

Federal regulations require reporting thefts and significant losses of controlled substances to the DEA. They recommend calling local law enforcement and licensing boards as well. While significant is not defined, the regulations urge facilities to err on the side of caution and report it to DEA and local law enforcement authorities.

The state reports on drug diversions show hospitals differ greatly in their responses.

From March 2013 to the end of 2015, Swedish Medical Center reported to the state that nine staff members had resigned or been fired for drug diversions. State health department reports indicate that just one case was referred to local police and none to the DEA.

Swedish fired Daniel Morrison after he admitted diverting hydromorphone from May through June 2014 from the hospital while working there as a nurse. But the state health department report shows the hospital didnt report those thefts to the police or DEA. The hospital did notify the board of nursing, which allowed Morrisons nursing license to remain active after he entered into drug treatment. He also holds a nursing license in Connecticut.

The Denver Post was able to identify Morrison from a lawsuit questioning the hospitals drug diversion protocols after Rocky Allens arrest. He declined comment.

Swedish questioned the completeness of the state reports.

We are compliant in our documentation and notification of regulatory and investigative agencies, said Nicole Williams, the hospitals spokeswoman.

The state requires hospitals to report missing or stolen drugs electronically. They are asked if they notified police and licensing boards and any other entity or agency. Mark Salley, a health department spokesman, said its summary reports on drug diversion investigations could fail to mention hospital calls to the DEA because the state does not specifically require that.

Englewood police said no report on Morrisons theft was made.

In contrast, Presbyterian/St. Lukes Medical Center in Denver took a much more aggressive stance, reporting even unsubstantiated allegations that included just one missing pill to police. It filed 48 drug diversion reports with the state in the last three years, far more than any other hospital.

The hospital said only five of those investigations confirmed drug diversions. In some cases, the hospital did not confirm a diversion if an employee blood test was negative for unprescribed drugs.

Of the 222 confirmed drug diversions in the states hospitals during those six years, hospitals made referrals to all three reporting entities  the DEA, local police and state licensing board  in only 49 cases, according to state health reports.

Hospitals also differed in their approaches to testing employees caught with drugs and needles.

In Fort Collins, Poudre Valley Hospital offered more than 200 patients blood tests in December 2013 when an employee who had been infected with hepatitis C, an infectious liver disease, was suspected of stealing intravenous painkillers.

In Lone Tree, a staff member at Sky Ridge Medical Center in 2013 found a syringe with a needle on a toilet paper roll after a registered nurse left the bathroom.

The nurse tested positive for fentanyl and was fired, but was not tested for any communicable disease, according to the state report. Yet the health department found the facility acted appropriately and did not question its decision to forgo a disease check.

Treatment over revocation

In 169 of the confirmed drug diversions, hospitals reported the case to the licensing board, which can revoke a nurses license to work, state records show.

But the Colorado Board of Nursing gives nurses who steal drugs to feed an addiction a chance at redemption. Nurses addicted to drugs can keep their license if they agree to enter a program that monitors their drug use and treats their addictions.

Shaun Fitzsimmons pleaded with a manager at Denver Health Medical Center to spare his nursing license by letting him enroll in treatment when he admitted to stealing oxycodone during a shift in 2011.

An audit of his drug dispensing at Denver Health determined he removed 485 doses of narcotics, including morphine, over 13 months that could not be accounted for. Hospital officials told police Fitzsimmons likely deprived patients in severe pain of their medications, and he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor drug possession charge.

Yet he received no adverse licensing action.

After his arrest, he was hired as a nurse at the Medical Center of Aurora and later moved to California, where he holds a nursing license.

Fitzsimmons said he completed drug treatment and submitted to drug testing and monitoring for nearly four years. He said hes had no relapse.

Its a very, very difficult program, he said.

Davene Riesmeyer was a repeat offender. The state nursing board allowed her to hold a license despite her being found unconscious in 1993 in a call room at Swedish, fentanyl and other controlled substances coursing through her body.

Riesmeyer relinquished her license after she pleaded guilty to a felony charge of obtaining controlled substances by fraud and deceit. She had tested positive for the use of painkillers in 2000 while employed at Rose.

But in 2006, the nursing board reinstated her license with her promise to enter another drug treatment and monitoring program. Her license remained active despite spotty compliance with drug screening she had promised to do.

In June 2013, Riesmeyer was found unconscious in her car in a parking lot of her health care employer in Arapahoe County. She had injected the anesthetic and sedative Propofol through a catheter she inserted in her arm. She was arrested that same day for driving under the influence and unsafe driving, a criminal charge that resulted in probation.

Riesmeyer reached a final agreement with the board to relinquish her license several months later  20 years after her first drug theft. She declined to comment.

Only about 60 percent of the nearly 250 nurses in Colorado who annually receive addiction help or other counseling from Peer Assistance Services, the group tasked with rehabilitating them, actually complete the program, state data show. About 10 percent dont comply with the terms of the program and another 30 percent drop out. Those deemed unsafe to practice nursing are referred to the state nursing board for possible revocation.

He just lied

Even when cases are reported to police and criminal charges are filed, it can take months, even years, for the nursing board to take final action.

In March 2012, the Memorial Hospital in Craig fired Richard Dickerson Jr., a registered nurse anesthetist who had just arrived from Kansas. Dickerson had been found incoherent in an operating room standing over the anesthesia cart after administering an IV drug to himself, state records show. He had blood on his clothing and shoes. Blood was splattered on the floor, shower and walls of a bathroom, with syringes on the counter.

Hospital officials notified Craig police, who searched Dickersons motel room and found vials of painkillers, syringes and a letter from the Kansas Nurse Assistance Program alerting him that he needed to be monitored due to his recent diagnosis of opioid abuse.

Dickerson then returned to Kansas, where he ran afoul of the law again, this time while working at a hospital there. He was sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to drug possession charges. He relinquished his Colorado license in December 2013.

He just lied on his application, said Jennifer Riley, a spokeswoman for the Craig hospital.

She suggested that hospitals should be required to notify licensing boards even when an employee agrees to drug abuse treatment because its too easy otherwise to conceal the past.

Hospitals often tell employees caught with narcotics that if you do the treatment, this will not affect your nursing license, she said.

The Centura Health hospital system has reported at least twice to the state since 2010 that it needed a better way to track drug dispensing by nurses provided by contract agencies at one of its hospitals.

After David Laumeyer, an agency nurse, was busted by police for dealing meth, Centura determined numerous drug dispensing irregularities by him at its St. Anthony North Hospital in Westminster and Parker Adventist Hospital.

Laumeyers suspicious drug withdrawals from the hospitals started in 2010. About a year later, after another agency drug theft surfaced at Parker, Centura once again said the tracking of agency nurses still needed to be fixed at that hospital.

Drug diversion remained an issue, though, and Centura promised to the state in June 2015 that it would come up with a comprehensive, standard policy for all of its hospitals for monitoring and reporting drug diversions, which was supposed to take effect that September.

The Burgans case at Centuras Frisco hospital emerged after that.

In a statement, Centura said its hospitals had separate drug monitoring systems until last year, but they now use the best auditing software on the market.

We wish we could promise to make diversion attempts go away, but in reality we can promise two things, Centura said. Attempts to divert painkillers will continue, and so will the determination of Centura Health to find them and report them.

Even nurses with felony guilty pleas to drug offenses on their rap sheets continue to find nursing work in Colorado, records show.

Terrala Marie Butler-Perry still had a registered nurse license after pleading guilty twice, in June 2004 and March 2011, to a felony drug charge.

Employed as a director of nursing at Wheatridge Manor Care Center, a nursing home, she showed signs of impairment so severe in October 2012 that her superiors asked her to submit to a drug test. She tested positive for opiates and other controlled substances and was arrested on drug diversion charges again.

The state nursing board revoked her license in February 2014, nearly 10 years after her first guilty plea to a drug charge.

David Olinger: 303-954-1498, dolinger@denverpost.com or @dolingerdp; and Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747, cosher@denver- post.com or @chrisosher

How The Post reported this story:

The Denver Post obtained all reports from Colorado hospitals concerning drug diversions since 2010 from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

The newspaper used these reports to build a database showing how many incidents each hospital reported, how many were confirmed as employee or patient drug diversions and how often the state investigative summaries showed calls to licensing boards, police and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

The Post then turned to licensing board, police records and other sources to identify some of the hospital employees who had been fired for drug thefts.
MTN Group saw its Nigerian subscriber base decrease by 6.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2016 following recent subscriber registration requirements.

MTN Nigeria reported a 6.9 per cent decrease in its subscriber base in the first quarter of 2016, and compared to Q4 2015; with subscribers now totalling 57 million. Subscribers also ebbed away in a number of its other markets.

The company said this decrease is a result of the disconnection of 4.5 million subscribers at the end of February 2016 related to the ongoing subscriber registration process; but said it believes it has dealt with all the subscribers who were considered to be non-compliant. MTN said its operational focus is now on reconnecting subscribers through proactive engagement and winback offers.

During the first quarter of 2016, the Group was impacted by the after shocks of the events that took place towards the end of 2015, mainly the subscriber registration process in many of the countries in which we operate, with Nigeria being the largest, said MTN Group executive chairman, Phuthuma Nhleko.

In order to mitigate any future regulatory challenges, the Group took an exceptionally conservative stance by disconnecting all subscribers who could possibly be deemed to be non-compliant. This has had a significant unfavourable impact on total subscriber growth and revenue in Q1 16. Nonetheless, we believe this resolve to address compliance matters decisively, has put the Group on a solid footing as regards the subscriber registration process and regulatory matters in general, Nhleko said.

Further, the Group has undertaken a number of back to the basics structural and operational initiatives that will hopefully reset and position the Group for future growth in a rapidly evolving sector. Subscriber growth was also impacted by the weak macroenvironment, particularly in those markets reliant on oil exports. The trading environment was highly competitive.

MTN also saw its subscribers dwindle in a number of its other markets. In the Southern and East Africa region, in South Africa subscriber numbers were down by 1.7 per cent; in Rwanda by 2.5 per cent; Zambia by 1.3 per cent; and in South Sudan by 6.2 per cent. On the other hand, MTN Uganda attracted a 7.8 per cent in subscribers, on the back of attractive bundled offers, according to the operator. There was a loss of mobile money subscribers following registration requirements in 2015.

In West and Central Africa, in addition to the Nigerian losses, in Ivory Coast subscribers decreased by 2.5 per cent; in Benin 2.2 per cent; Conakry 5.2 per cent; and Congo Brazzaville by 3.3 per cent. Ghana proved one of the success stories for the region, registering 4.6 per cent growth in the first quarter. Liberia followed with 3.9 per cent growth.

In its Middle East and North African operations, Syria saw a 3 per cent decline in subscribers; Yemen a 0.3 per cent drop; Afghanistan 1.2 per cent; and Cyprus 2.4 per cent. Conversely Iran and Sudan recorded growth. MTN said its Syrian, Yemeni, and Afghan operations remain profitable despite having to operate in highly challenging environments impacting the regions subscriber growth.
Shares in BT Group returned almost three times as much as its benchmark as it used its stranglehold on rivals' access to its broadband network to build up its own product offerings, but things are about to change, The Sunday Times's Danny Fortson says in his Inside the City column.

Starting from next month Ofcom, the regulator, will be introducing changes to make it cheaper for its competitors to access the BT network. Then there is the 'great unknown' - the once in a decade review of the industry.

BT is expected to be asked to improve service levels and download speeds at Openreach, squeezing its cash cow.

A price war is probably also on the cards in the mobile space, with Sky set to enter the market possibly as early as this summer.

The margin for cutting costs has also been depleted, with analysts at Jefferies estimating the 800m pace of annual reductions of the past four to five years set to more than halve.

Taken all together, the broker estimates turnover at BT will drop 1% a year over the next four years, which will probably lead to a decline in the rate of growth of the dividend.

"Faced with a cranky regulator and newly emboldened rivals, BT is a raging buy no more. Sell", Fortson said.



Bacanora Minerals's stock should gain over the next few years as it moves towards production at its massive lithium project in northern Mexico, The Mail on Sunday's Midas column said.

The material is a critical component in mobile phones, tablets, laptops and electric and hybrid cars as a component for modern batteries.

It is also predicted that it will play a key role in energy storage.

Bacanora's chairman is industry veteran Colin Orr-Ewing, who funded initial exploration out of his own pocket before listing the firm in Toronto and then on AIM.

Company boss Peter Secker is hoping to have two buyers lined up for the firm's finished material by the end of the year. That should help it clinch the bank financing necessary to fund a processing plant to manufacture the refined products its customers require, with production from the plant expected to start in 2019.

"This stock is certainly not for the faint of heart, but for investors with a taste for adventure, this could prove an exciting investment," Midas concluded.
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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.
A woman named Linda called me Monday, wanting to talk about The Gazette's Vietnam Voices series which, for the previous eight months, has spotlighted area Vietnam veterans telling their stories in their own voices.

Frankly, I was worried. The series had wrapped up, the last video transcribed. We weren't going to be able to do another. I hate saying no.

So many of the stories and interviews had started the same way  a family member, usually a spouse, called to see if I'd make a call to the veteran. Maybe  just maybe  with a little bit of coaxing they'd share their stories. Many veterans agreed. A few politely, awkwardly declined.

That was not the purpose of Linda's call. Instead, she asked me if I had kept an email that her brother had written to me. He had originally wanted to be part of the series and then before the interview decided not to. Beforehand, he had written down a few memories to help get the conversation started  also not an uncommon thing for many of the vets I had the privilege of interviewing.

No, I said, I had not kept that email because he had not been part of the series. He had called nearly a half a year ago.

She was hoping I had something because her brother had recently died and his own children knew little of his time in Vietnam. She was hoping that maybe we'd have his own words that I could give back to children hungry for information.

My heart broke for her.

And yet no story better illustrates the reason the Gazette pushed this project so hard. These stories, like the stories of World War II veterans a generation ago, are fading at an alarming clip. However, unlike World War II vets, many veterans came back to a country that wasn't proud of their service and called them "baby killers." Those moments have had a chilling effect on veterans when it has come time to recount their histories.

That's exactly why we need folks to record the personal histories of these very honorable veterans; to remember that they served, and it, like all wars, was hell. It's also good to remember that we treated these veterans pretty callously when they returned  remember it so that we don't repeat it.

I cannot tell you how many times I've heard the comments from folks that they thought they knew the war, but didn't. This series  and the veterans in their own words  helped folks understand what war does to people you've known for years.

You cannot imagine the relief I have had seeing the project become so well received. After all, I knew the kind of reception many veterans received returning home from Vietnam, and I was apprehensive about sharing their stories again for fear of the same kind of backlash.

Just the opposite.

We received plenty of good feedback. More importantly many of the vets featured were thanked, asked to speak or met other fellow veterans who were able to talk about their experiences.

I cannot muster adequate words to thank the veterans who trusted me to help tell their stories. It has been a great honor and humbling experience to share such real and deep stories with our community, and to know that they will be preserved for future generations of Montanans. I especially thank Jimmie Kerr, Bob Sorensen, Paul Cimmino and Jim Abel who were among the first to agree, without seeing how this series would play out. I was humbled just to meet Rod Knutson, a Billings native who was held for more than seven years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. I am thrilled to continue to tell the story of the search for the remains of Alan Ashall. And with today's story of Gordon Cormier, I am reminded that we only have a finite amount of time to preserve these important stories.

Speaking of which, people have asked how many stories we produced. For lack of a better word, here are the "stats":

We interviewed 80 veterans for "Vietnam Voices." Only one decided not to go through with publishing. There were 78 men, two women. Seventy-five had videos.

There was just a little more than 5,000 column inches of text published (5,004 to be exact). That's about 175,105 words, or 500 pages of text.

If you watched every Vietnam Voices video, it totals 6,902 minutes, or just a little more than 115 hours.

The most important stat, though, is one that isn't easily quantified. These stories were in the Gazette, but not in the words of a reporter or an editor. Those stories came from men and women who were there in Vietnam and lived history  in their own words.

Not only that, but there were reminders of how a war halfway across the globe can be brought home in an instant. Take Jose Riojas' story: What he wanted to do most when he came home was feel the water of the Yellowstone River again. Even though it was cold and wintertime when he arrived back, he went there, grateful to return alive, only wanting to reconnect with "his river." So many of us probably also consider it "our river," too.

The series is done, but the stories are far from being complete or collected. My greatest hope is that as we've collected and preserved these, others will follow suit and ask a friend or a family member who served about their experiences. Maybe they'll record it, too, and in so doing another Vietnam voice will be saved.
Being a conservative and being a conservationist are not mutually exclusive. Its conservative principles that drive my commitment to conservation. Whether one believes our Earth was created by God or not, nobody can argue the fact that it is the only one we have. Its our responsibility to be good stewards and ensure our children and grandchildrens children enjoy the same outdoor opportunities that we have.

When you sent me to Washington, protecting Montanas public lands was, and remains, one of my top priorities. Party leaders and I dont always see eye-to-eye on conservation issues, but they always know where I stand. Selling off our public lands is a non-starter. Ive voted against budget resolutions and bucked party leadership on more than a couple occasions to defend our lands.

Although Ive only been in Congress for 16 months, Ive worked with groups across Montana to help craft important conservation and recreation legislation. In December, I voted for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which was reauthorized, funded, and signed into law. I also helped pass the SHARE Act in the House, and now am working with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, Montana Wildlife Federation, and others to help pass the bipartisan SCORE Act.

The SCORE Act includes the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act. Prior to its expiration in 2011, FLTFA was an important conservation tool that allowed governments to better manage the checkerboard of public and private lands. It did this by funding Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, National Park Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service conservation projects that increase public access, conserve habitat, protect water, and preserve cultural resources. FLTFA in Montana often uses land for land swaps in order to acquire high-priority lands like the Browns Gulch near Helena.

The Sportsmen's Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act is another bipartisan bill that protects the cultural right of Americans to fish and hunt. It cuts red-tape and backdoor regulations which block hunting and fishing on Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service land, and helps safeguard against new regulations that threaten to block or limit Second Amendment rights. The SHARE Act passed the House last year, and Im hopeful the Senate takes it up soon.

I have also helped lead the fight for conservation easements so our tax code gives incentives to landowners to voluntarily support conservation by donating land for a tax write off. Last year, Congress came together and enacted one of the most powerful conservation measures in decades: the federal tax incentive for conservation easement donation, which included my bill, the Conservation Easement Incentive Act of 2015.

Im a Teddy Roosevelt conservationist. Like Teddy, I believe our lands are worth cherishing. Were all in this together. While there is a lot that separates folks as Republicans and Democrats, theres also a lot that binds us together as Montanans. Preserving and conserving our public lands, I think, is one of those values. Im calling on my colleagues to work on the things that bring us together. Lets work toward better stewardship and management so our public lands can be enjoyed for generations to come.
In Montana, the land is our livelihood and provides us our unique way of life. As a fifth-generation Montanan and avid sportsman, I know hunting, fishing and access to public lands is an important treasure for our families. As a kid I hunted in the Bridgers, backpacked in the Beartooths, and fished the streams of southwest Montana with my grandfather and my dad  and still do with my own family.

Just this week, I pushed through a bipartisan energy bill that modernizes our energy policies: ensuring access to our public lands, helping our local businesses, our mining industry and supporting our hunters and anglers.

For the first time, we permanently reauthorized the Land and Water Conservation Fund which ensures that our children and grandchildren have the same access to our public lands that I did growing up in Montana. As tourism is an important economic driver in our state, we must also ensure that we have the ability to keep Montanas businesses in business. Many small businesses in Montana depend on our thriving outdoors economy, overall supporting 64,000 jobs and over $5 billion a year in consumer spending.

Montana sportsmen are frustrated with their level of access to public lands. They are frustrated with fringe groups who are obstructing worthwhile projects that are important to effectively managing our forests. By increasing transparency, we will now know how taxpayer dollars are being spent to reward extreme environmentalists who repeatedly litigate against responsible, Montana-made forest management projects. Through this legislation, I secured important reforms that promote and protect access to Montanas public lands and increase recreational opportunities for hunters and anglers.

Montanas best paying jobs rely on our wealth of natural resources. This bill makes it easier for us to expand export markets for natural gas, allowing more American energy to power the world, opening the door for American entrepreneurial innovation.

Montana is the fifth-largest producer of hydropower in the nation and we have 23 hydroelectric dams. This bill strengthens our nations hydropower development by defining hydro as a renewable fuel. This is great news for Montana and well overdue.

This bill also improves federal permitting of critical and strategic mineral production, which supports 22,000 good-paying Montana mining jobs essential to our national security and international competitiveness.

The absence of just one critical mineral or metal could disrupt entire technologies and entire industries, creating a ripple effect throughout our entire economy. For example, Stillwater Mining Company provides one of the only sources of palladium and platinum in the world.

We still have more work to do to fight back against Washington, D.C., anti-energy regulations that will cripple Montanas economy. By working together, we can build upon Montanas all-of-the-above energy portfolio to strike the right balance between developing our natural resources and protecting access to the public lands that Montanans so deeply treasure.
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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.
The developer of a proposed coal mine in Sheridan County says the planned project is being held ransom by a mining firm and ranch that control surface rights in the area.

Those remarks, delivered by Ramaco LLC CEO Randy Atkins in an interview Friday, are part of an escalating dispute between the Kentucky-based firm, Lighthouse Resources Inc., and the Padlock Ranch over Ramaco's plans to open a mine between Sheridan and Ranchester. The debate stands in stark contrast to the fortunes of many of Wyoming's coal companies which have slashed production in recent months.

Much of the disagreement centers over who has the right to operate on the property, which is made up of state and private lands. Ramaco contends a 1954 deed gives it the mineral rights to the land. Lighthouse, which operated under the name Ambre Energy until last year, says it was given the right to use the property's surface when a subsidiary halted mining at the site in 1983. Padlock claims it should be compensated for damages to its property.

The kerfuffle is subject to a pending court case and is also set for a hearing before state regulators in August.

A surface-use agreement is unnecessary for Ramaco to open the so-called Brook Mine, Atkins said. The deed gives Ramaco the right to use the surface for mining operations, he argued. But the company nonetheless attempted to reach an agreement with Lighthouse, a Salt Lake City-based coal miner, and Padlock, as part of an effort to be a good neighbor.

Those attempts have been meet with unreasonable financial demands, Atkins said. Lighthouse sought $29 million and the assumption of its pension obligations at the Decker Mine in exchange for the surface rights, he said. Lighthouse operates the Decker Mine, which sits just over the state boundary in Montana. Padlock sought lease payments 20 times greater than what Ramaco had agreed to pay other area landowners, he said.

"We were rebuffed by ransom demands," Atkins said. "Its just disappointing when you see someone trying to hold up a project for financial gain that would otherwise be a good project for our community and the state."

Lighthouse officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment. An attorney for Padlock could not be reached for comment.

In filings with state regulators, both surface owners argued Ramaco failed to provide them with detailed mining and reclamation plans. They contend the mine would harm their respective businesses. And they argue Ramaco cannot proceed without surface owner consent, a requirement of the state Environmental Quality Act.

"Padlock is reluctant to enter into agreements with a company that has been unwilling to show good faith in working with the landowner to reduce the impacts on their livestock operation and compensate fair value for disruption of operations," attorneys for the ranch wrote in an April 15 letter to the state Environmental Quality Council.

Ramaco unveiled plans for the Brook Mine to much fanfare in 2014. The mine would be the first to open in Sheridan County in more than 50 years. Gov. Matt Mead and local officials said the project could be an economic boon to northeastern Wyoming. A Ramaco-financed study estimated the mine would create as many as 600 new jobs and generate $464 million in wages over its lifetime.

The proposal emerged against the backdrop of a contracting coal market. Major Powder River Basin miners Alpha Natural Resources, Arch Coal and Peabody Energy have filed for bankruptcy in recent months, with lukewarm demand, weak prices and substantial debts combining to sink the companies.

Ramaco's plans are considerably smaller. The Brook Mine is projected to mine 8 million tons of coal annually, compared to the roughly 100 million tons produced at Peabody's North Antelope Rochelle Mine each year. But Ramaco officials have touted their plans for high-wall mining as an effective strategy for navigating the down market. High wall mining, where coal is removed from the earth with an auger, is a less expensive mining technique, they contend.

And where other mining firms are struggling to secure financing, Ramaco has a committed financial backer, Atkins said. Yorktown Partners, which the Ramaco CEO described as a multibillion dollar private equity firm based in New York, is financing Ramaco's construction of a metallurgical mine in West Virginia.

"I anticipate that we would have the same general framework of financing in Wyoming," Atkins said. "Were the only company in the U.S. right now that has no debt."

But the project has been held up by disputes over surface access almost since its proposal. Wyoming environmental authorities initially deemed Ramaco's application complete in 2014 before reconsidering the permit's status last year. The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality informed Ramaco in April the company would need to reach a surface use agreement with Lighthouse and the nearby Padlock Ranch for its application to be complete.

Each coal company filed a lawsuit; Ramaco seeking the right to mine, Lighthouse to block its competitor from the property. Initial motions to reject the other's claim were both dismissed. A trial date has yet to be set.

Ramaco, in an effort to push the project forward, has requested the state Environmental Quality Council to issue the mine a permit. The company argued in a filing to the state it should be granted a permit because it has the legal right to mine the property and has submitted mining and reclamation plans to both Lighthouse and the Padlock needed to secure their consent.

Both surface owners reject that argument, saying the plans submitted for review lack key details. They argue Ramaco has not posted the reclamation bond needed to secure a permit from the council. And the harm to their respective businesses would be substantial.

Padlock argued the mine would harm water supplies vital for its livestock operation. A Lighthouse subsidiary, argues Ramaco's plan overlap with land it controls. The company rents a building on its property, is negotiating the lease of its rail spur to Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway and has its own plans to mine 40 million tons of coal from state leases in the area. Ramaco's plans would interfere with Lighthouses' designs to transport coal from its leases.

"BHC's future plans to mine the state coal are as reasonably expected to occur as are the Brook mine's plan," the coal company wrote in a filing to the state.

Atkins, the Ramaco CEO, dismissed those claims. Wyoming regulators deemed the mine and reclamation plans complete, with the exception of surface owner consent, he said. And Lighthouse's coal reserves are of questionable economic value on their own, he said.

Looking forward, Atkins expressed optimism over the project's future. If Ramaco gets regulatory approval, he said, it could begin mining later this year.
A federal judge has sentenced a Cheyenne woman to prison for conspiring to launder money as part of a methamphetamine distribution scheme, according to court filings.

U.S. District Judge Nancy D. Freudenthal last week sentenced Gwenellyn Jackson to two and a half years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, according to the U.S. District Court of Wyoming.

Jackson, 57, also faced a charge of conspiracy to deliver methamphetamine as part of a federal indictment in September. She pleaded guilty in February to conspiracy to launder money as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors and the meth charged was dismissed.

According to the indictment, Jacksons roommate in Cheyenne would sell meth to customers who came to the house. Those customers would sometimes pay for the drug by sending a money transfer to Jackson.

The case resulted from an ongoing Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces investigation conducted by the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

The mission of the program is to identify, disrupt and dismantle the most serious drug trafficking, weapons trafficking and money laundering organizations, and those primarily responsible for the nations illegal drug supply.
In the past 27 years the town has won the Best Large Town Award and also the Best Small Town Award and the gold medal is seen as just recognition of the great work done by community workers, volunteers and the great tidy towns committee.

In the past 27 years the town has won the Best Large Town Award and also the Best Small Town Award and the gold medal is seen as just recognition of the great work done by community workers, volunteers and the great tidy towns committee.

Carrick is still up with the nations top five per cent.

And with the help of town council and county council this years target was achieved.

Local businesses must also be congratulated.

There were some magnificent floral displays outside shops and other business premises. And the committee were also able to produce their own plants and shrubs thanks to a local landowner who provided ground.

Carrickmacross Town Council congratulated the local tidy towns committee on winning a gold medal in Category D of the competition.

This is for a population from 2,500 to 5,000.

Councillors acknowledged the dedication and hard work of so many volunteers in the town.

Monaghan County Mayor Cllr Hugh McElvaney was high in his praise for the great achievement of the towns and villages in the county.

As well as Carrick taking gold, Glaslouth won a sliver medal in their category B.

And beautiful Inniskeen was the third highest ranking village in the county.

The countys achievements were celebrated in Dublin after the awards ceremony by committee members from the various towns and villages, council officials and Acting County Manager Mr David Fallon.
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Domains purchased with payment plans are not eligible to transfer until all payments have been made. Please remember that our 30-day money back guarantee is void once a domain has been transferred.

For transfer instructions to GoDaddy, please click here.
Chess champions

The top placers in the 2016 North Dakota State Chess Tournament are Nathan Amundson, Fargo, who won with a perfect five wins, zero draws, zero losses; and 17-time winner Mike Sailer, Grand Forks, the runner-up.

The Class A champion was Scott Hogfoss, Fargo. The Class B Champion is Steve Lengenfelder, Bismarck. The Class C Champion is Dustin Koska, Fargo. The Class D/E and Unrated Champion is Quin Segal, Fargo, and the Champion of the Under 1000 Division is Storm Schaan, Bismarck.

New Toastmaster

Nicole Jacobs is a new member of the Centurion Toastmasters Club. She is on her way to improving her communication and leadership skills with the help of experienced Toastmasters.

Herold inducted

Mark Herold, instrumental director at Legacy High School, has been elected to membership in Phi Beta Mu, an International School Bandmaster Fraternity. He was inducted at the annual membership breakfast March 22 in Bismarck.

Phi Beta Mu is an honorary, nonpolitical, nonprofit fraternity established in 1938. There are approximately 1,200 active members worldwide with chapters in most of the 50 states as well as Canada, Japan and Europe.

In order to be considered for membership in Phi Beta Mu, one must have at least five years of successful teaching experience and must have produced and maintained an outstanding and consistent band program in the public schools.

Sunrise ACE

Sunrise Elementary School received the Award for Counseling Excellence at the 2016 North Dakota Counseling Association convention.

Administrators Lynn Wolf and Sarah Jordan collaborated with counselor Linda Anderson to develop a counseling program that embraced the 12 American School Counselor Association components. The ACE recognizes excellence in comprehensive, data-driven counseling programs.

Grants to FFA

Tractor Supply Co., in partnership with the National FFA Foundation, announced that five North Dakota FFA chapters will receive grant funding as a part of the Grants for Growing program. North Dakota chapters awarded grants are Drake High School FFA, Gackle Streeter High School FFA, Berthold High School FFA, Kindred High School FFA and Center High School FFA.

North Dakota FFA chapters were primarily selected to receive the grants based on the merit of their applications that explained how each applying chapter proposed to use the grant funding to aid their communities. While the minimum grant amount was $500, there was no cap on the amount of funding a chapter could request for its project.

The chapters awarded grant funding can use the funds in a number of ways to benefit their community, including buying vegetation, trees, seed, chickens, feed, mulch or tools to help start or expand an FFA project that will continue for years to come.

In addition to funds donated by Tractor Supply, an in-store event was held Feb. 19-28, during which Tractor Supply shoppers could donate $1 at checkout in support of the program. All in-store event funds raised at North Dakota locations remained within the state.

Corn officers

The North Dakota Corn Utilization Council and North Dakota Corn Growers Association recently elected their executive officers to lead the organizations with terms beginning July 1.

The executive officers of the NDCUC are chairman, Scott German, Oakes; vice president, Jason Rayner, Finley; and secretary/treasurer, Terry Wehlander, DeLamere. Executive officers are elected to serve a one-year term by fellow council members.

The executive officers of the NDCGA are president, Carson Klosterman, Wyndmere; vice president, Randy Melvin, Buffalo; and secretary/treasurer, Chris Erlandson, Oakes.

DSU accepted

Dickinson State University has been accepted into Alpha Sigma Lambda, an honor society devoted to the advancement of scholarship and the recognition of nontraditional students pursuing higher education.

Alpha Sigma Lambda and its member colleges and universities recognize adult learners who accomplish academic excellence while maintaining commitments to their families and careers. The honor society has made major contributions in the areas of recruitment and retention of nontraditional students across the U.S. It is the only chapter-based honor society for nontraditional learners.

DSU will invite eligible candidates to apply for membership in Alpha Sigma Lambda and will hold its first induction ceremony the last week of the spring semester.


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TOWN OF LOCKPORT -- A 28-year-old Buffalo woman was charged Wednesday with criminal possession of a hypodermic needle and promoting prisoner contraband in the Niagara County Jail.According to the Niagara County Sheriff's Office, Kymber Ann Voelker, 189 14th St., Buffalo, was found with a hypodermic instrument in her pants by NCSO Corrections staff that while they were searching her.Voelker was taken to Town of Lockport Court, where she was arraigned and sent back to jail with a $5,000 bail placed on her for the incident.






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Save Ontario Shores (SOS), the local organization opposed to industrial wind turbine project in Niagara and Orleans counties, is calling on New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to investigate what it calls "the questionable tactics of Apex Clean Energy."Apex, a Virginia-based company, has proposed installation of an unspecified number of industrial wind turbines, standing about 620 feet hall.SOS has taken issue with an Apex representative is says attempted to discredit the group at a March 7 meeting. At that meeting, an Apex consultant said that SOS is part of a larger national anti-wind effort that involves 23 groups, that SOS is comprised of migratory people who move from place to place to battle wind projects.The portion of Mr. Shuffs presentation which focused on Save Ontario Shores was shocking and blatantly false, said SOS president Pam Atwater.In its letter to Attorney General Schneiderman, Atwater enumerated several statements made by Shuff that she called "false or misleading." She is asking the Attorney General to investigate Apex.There are growing concerns among local residents about the reckless tactics Apex is using in their attempts to sway public opinion, and their use of false and misleading information about this project and deceptive information regarding the dedicated New York State residents who are raising their voices against it.New York State has removed home rule from residents regarding the placement of large electrical generating projects and they face a host of barriers to voicing concerns, Atwater said. Additionally, they have almost no actual authority to approve or disapprove of the project. These residents should not have to endure rumors and falsehoods that assault their integrity and dedication to the well-being of their towns and indeed, to the State of New York.A scan of the letter to the Attorney General follows:
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Danielle Ta'Sheena Finn first learned about the national pageant years ago from a billboard that proudly displayed the words "Home of the first Miss Indian World."

"I used to drive by that as a kid," she said of the sign on South Dakota's Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, which included a picture of Codi High Elk, the 1984-85 winner. "I always looked up to her. She made history."

Finn will have her own shot at making history this week as she looks to become the first woman from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to earn the title at the Gathering of Nations Powwow in Albuquerque, N.M.

She competed in 2014 and came in as second runner-up. She did not enter last year, but opted to try again this year at age 25 before her eligibility expires.

The pageant will end April 30 after several days of competition. Finn and 23 other contestants will each start with an interview in front of several judges, who will ask cultural questions. Then, each will showcase a talent onstage in front of 2,000 people.

Finn chose a challenging activity two years ago. "I was shooting arrows onstage because the Lakota Sioux people are known for our archery skills," she said.

This year, she will share the story and song of the penny dress. Lakota women in the early 1900s used to wear such dresses to symbolize two worlds: Native and non-Native.

She's making her own dress adorned with 500 pennies. "It's quite heavy," she said.

Finn will also participate in a public speaking contest and a powwow dance, where she plans to perform a women's northern traditional dance in a buckskin dress.

The pageant coincides with final exams for the second-year law student, so Finn had to ask the dean of Arizona State University's law school to defer her exams. She's grateful he said yes.

Finn graduated from Century High School, having grown up in Bismarck and the Porcupine district on Standing Rock. At ASU, she is studying federal Indian law and tribal law.

Finn's Miss Indian World platform is threefold: suicide prevention, higher education and language preservation. If she is crowned the winner, she will promote her platform while making appearances at events throughout the country.
To build the largest and most complete Amateur Radio community site on the Internet - a "portal" that hams think of as the first place to go for information, to exchange ideas, and be part of whats happening with ham radio on the Internet. eHam.net provides recognition and enjoyment to the people who use, contribute, and build the site. This project involves a management team of volunteers who each take a topic of interest and manage it with passion. The site will stand above all other ham radio sites by employing the latest technology and professional design/programming standards, developed by a team of community programmers who contribute their skills to the effort. The site will be something of which everyone involved can be proud to say they were a part. We welcome your comments. The eHam.net Team, Revision 07/2020.
The Democratic-NPL party in North Dakota is in such bad shape that even Republicans are shedding tears. However, theyre only crocodile tears.

Republicans will offer sympathy only as long as Democrats cant muster the strength to be a threat, and it appears that North Dakota Democrats will be harmless for the duration.

After the debacle of a state convention, Democrats need to make a critical assessment of their role in the North Dakota political system and start to address the causes of their apparent decline. The state needs a two-party system.

First, the Republicans have done their best to throttle the Democrats by passing laws designed to suppress the Democratic vote with restrictive voter ID laws and with structuring the Legislature to deprive Democrats of their proportionate share of legislative seats.

In fact, Republicans have gerrymandered the legislative districts so that eight could be challenged for violating the constitutional requirement that districts be compact and contiguous. In addition, the two-member districts used for electing state representatives deny Democrats of at least five seats.

This is not to allege that only Republicans do electoral mischief. The Democrats in Massachusetts, Connecticut and other Democratic one-party states are doing the same thing to Republicans. The quest for power is not limited to one party or the other.

But Republicans deserve only partial credit for the decline of the Democratic Party. North Dakota Democrats are victims of national trend to the right. Measuring the dimensions of this shift in North Dakota would require extensive analysis of national, state and legislative elections.

However, a cursory comparison of the votes cast in the presidential elections 1956-1976 and more current presidential elections seems to indicate that North Dakota has experienced a 7 percent shift to the right. So the conservative trend is one reason for decline of the Democrats.

Then Democratic campaign money dried up. During the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, the state Democratic Party saw the importation of healthy sums of out-of-state money, siphoned out of Washington by the Democratic congressional delegation. That money disappeared with the delegation.

Democrats failed to cultivate a stable of potential candidates to challenge the Republicans for the state offices. Too many legislators preferred to keep their seats rather than venture onto the state stage.

Consequently, every biennial convention became a draft of reluctant last-minute candidates from the convention floor. While some excellent candidates appeared for the campaign, the party didnt.

Structurally, the party structure went to seed and it wasnt the kind of seed that produced the proverbial grassroots organization needed for success. Precinct organizations disappeared and legislative districts went without officers.

Finally, Democrats did not develop a policy program that would instill enthusiasm in the ranks.

Both parties have a problem dealing with definitions of liberal and conservative at the state level. They have leaned on the national parties for their philosophical leadership instead of developing their own state-focused ideology.

Because both parties lack their own state-oriented ideologies, they tend to engage in piecemeal warfare, with Republicans offering a minimal response to circumstances and Democrats nitpicking Republican efforts.

To be competitive, the Democrats need a cohesive agenda that addresses the felt needs of the people and thereby wins support of the voting public. Failure to do so suggests that there are no unmet needs in North Dakota.

History may give Democrats a little hope. Without a common enemy, majority parties tend to break up. The politically ambitious will start to disregard convention endorsements, legislative unity will crumble and factions will evolve.

Maybe the Nonpartisan League will find a place in the wreckage.
In an article published Friday by Zenits Rome correspondent, Deborah Lubov, we find an excellent summary of Actons recently concluded Rome conference: Freedom with Justice: Rerum Novarum and the New Things of Our Time.

Lubov writes in here roundup article:

Pope Leos encyclical on revolutionary things, many [speakers] noted, also had much to say about the demands for freedom and social justice in the late-nineteenth century as increasing numbers of people became focused upon what was called the social question. During the conference, many bishops and intellectuals from Europe and America addressed topics such as Pope Leos attempt to revive the thought of Aquinas, the continuing importance of religious, economic, and political freedom, the States role in a global economy, and socialisms resurgence today.

Following the conference, the Zenit journalist reached out for comments from Actons president Rev. Robert A. Sirico, who was in Rome as the final speaker at the event. Lubov asked him why he thought it was so important to discuss this encyclical today, especially as religious freedom is being increasingly challenged. Rev. Sirico responded:

From the outset, Leo sees the ways in which business, economics, politics, the family, business and Catholic faith all cluster into a momentous set of questions that faced the Church in his day. It is remarkable how similar is the confluence of factors in our own time.

Lubov summed up the various new things discussed in light of Leo XIIIs 1891 social encyclical:

Some of these things discussed at the conference were new forms of religious persecution in America, Europes faltering welfare states and sovereign debt crises, globalizations winners and losers, demographic deficits and migration challenges, malfunctioning financial systems, and the rise of economic populism.

To read Deborah Lubovs Zenit article in full and for other comments on the April 20 Rome conference go here: Rerum Novarum: International Experts Explore Pope Leo XIIIs Groundbreaking Encyclical.

You can continue the conversation from the April 20 conference on social media using the hash tag #125onFreedom.
At least this can explain why Jill Duggar and Derick Dillard have managed to live in Central America for this long. Apparently, the couple is still reaching out to their fans to help support them in their missionary work in Guatemala.

According to Jill and Derick's official blog, they've been working hard to help two local boys, Ignacio and Jose Pablo, learn English. The two students even wrote a special blog post on their site to thank Jill and Derick's followers for not only supporting them, but also in helping them strive for a better future.

In the post, Ignacio wrote, "I would love to thank you all for paying for my English classes. I love to learn English and the classes are really fun. I am really gracious for the English classes and I hope to learn more every day. Learning English here will help me a lot in the future. Thank you so much."

Jose Pablo added: "I would like to give you all thanks for paying my english classes. I am really really happy. Thank you so much. Let me tell you, the classes are really fun. I appreciate everything you did. I am really happy and I want to learn more."

The post also added two links for fans to learn more about the Empowering to Serve program and to help give a small donation to the Dillards' ministry.

So far, neither Jill nor Derick have made any comments on whether or not they plan on going home anytime soon.
Another new face is heading to Genoa City, and the newest character to soon debut on The Young and the Restless could be a big troublemaker.

According to reports, Chrishell Stause (ex-Jordan, Days of Our Lives; ex-Amanda, All My Children), will debut on Wednesday May 25 as a new character name Bethany Bryant, and her character description seems to indicate she will definitely find ways to add new drama to the lives of the Newmans and the Abbotts.

Bethany is described as a "young woman who relishes the chance to push things to the limit and live dangerously as long as she's not the one who gets burned. The wild child will find herself immersed in a prominent family's juicy drama."

The nod to a prominent family's juicy drama seems to indicate she could become involved in some way with either the Abbotts or the Newmans, since they are the two most prominent families in Genoa City, and are constantly at odds with one another.

No other details have been given about the character, but if she does get involved with the Newmans, Bethany could bring some new drama to Adam (Justin Hartley) and Chelsea's (Melissa Clare Egan) lives, since Hartley is Stause's real-life boyfriend. Lately, Adam and Chelsea's biggest roadblock has been breaking him away from the control of his father, Victor (Eric Braden), a move that currently seems to be working. However, it wouldn't be a soap opera if the couple remained happy for long, meaning a new lady catching Adam's eye could be the perfect way to shake things up-and who better to play such a trouble-making woman than Hartley's real-life significant other, who he is sure to have some major chemistry with.

Of course, while it is unknown what her character will actually do, it's clear Stause is very much welcome on the show's set, with her beau posting a photo of them together on Instagram, welcoming her on her first day.

Welcome to #yr @chrishell7 A photo posted by justtojustin (@justtojustin) on Apr 20, 2016 at 6:25pm PDT

"Welcome to #yr @chrishell7," he wrote.

The Young and the Restless airs Monday-Friday at 12:30 p.m. on CBS.
As India is all set to ink the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement with the United States, it must revisit its history while formulating the current policy of military-to-military ties with the US. India's strategy must address the issue of freedom from Western thought and question imperial alignments ingrained in such defence agreements.

In Lewis Carrolls Through the Looking-Glass, a sequel to Alice in Wonderland, Humpty Dumpty is asked why he gives different meanings to commonly used words. He replies, when I use a word, ... it means just what I choose it to mean. Such comic confidence is on display in abundance in geopolitical memes that originate from the West. Since 2008, the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific have been integrated into a single strategic entity and named IndoPacific by the Americans. The British did the same during World War II, when Far East was conveniently used to describe their military operations extending from the Solomon Islands to the frontiers of Burma and India (Hubbard 1944: 179).

However, more comical is the ease with which such idea-memes like IndoPacific and net-security provider get replicated in the strategic discourse of great power aspirants like India. The net result of this sustained mimicry is that India is now all set to ink the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) with the United States (US) in the coming months. Going by media reports, the LEMOA appears to be a watered-down version of the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA), which the US signs with other military allies to facilitate smooth exchange of logistics support, supplies and services on a reciprocal basis. Many see the formalisation of the IndoUS military relationship as a great leap forward in making India a great power. It is presumed that these developments will open the floodgates to American military technology for the budding Indian military-industrial complex.
Written by ACM





*Strasbourg/CoE/Angelo Marcopolo/- Experienced, twice Elected President of Austria, Heinz Fischer, Replying to a Question by "Eurofora" at the CoE, shortly after an Official Visit to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergyei Lavrov,, took a Positive stance on the prospect for "Austria to Help the EU develop anew a Friendly Cooperation with Russia" in the foreseable Future, and referred us, for the rest, to what he had "already" said, earlier Today, during his official Speech and Debate with MEPs at CoE's PanEuropean Parliamentary Assembly.



- "I am all for Co-operation and for acting as a Bridge. I am a representative of a country that has good political relationships" with all sides, and "I think that progress can be made on negotiations on Crimea and the Minsk (Peace) process. That seems obvious to me". This includes also a possible exchange of prisoners, as, there too, "I do not rule out processes being set in motion that might lead us to where we want to be", he said earlier, with obvious voluntaristic optimism.



- Meanwhile, " it is our opinion that (EU-USA) Sanctions (on Russia) are not an end in themselves. Of course, it would be good if we can Create a Situation where Europe, United, can decide to Reduce or End the Sanctions. I believe, as the German Foreign Minister does, that we should think in a Step-by-Step way. ...My feeling is that, perhaps in 1 Year, (i.e. during 2017), the process of Reducing Sanctions can Start, but we are already further along than we were. That would be Fine", Fischer Highlighted.

- But, in order to achieve that, First of all, "it is Necessary to make Progress on the Minsk Agreement" (of February 2015. See the relevant "Eurofora" NewsReport: ....), and, for that purpose, "Both Sides must Contribute to such a development".

- In fact, "2 Years ago (i.e. on 2014), when CoE's "Assembly was discussing the temporary Suspension of the Voting rights of members belonging to the Russian Federations delegation ... because of the Ukraine crisis and the situation in Crimea", (i.e. initially a Compromise, which was smashed by a last-minute Amendment by a Minority Group adding even Exclusion from PACE's Leading Bodies, which provoked the Withdrawal of all Rusian MEPs), many expected "that the Crisis could be Overcome Swiftly", he pointed out. But, "Today, (i.e. on 2016), 2 Years down the road, Nobody can claim that this Problem has been Resolved", he regretted.



- However, "there are, if I may say so, some Glimmers of Hope. The Minsk talks have been a Positive Development. They have yielded some Results, or at least partial results. The extent of the Confrontation has been Curtailed, and there is Now a Lower Number of Casualties", Fischer noted, (even if some Civilian People reportedly continue to be Killed or Wounded, particularly at the Donetsk/Luhansk Autonomist Regions of Eastern Ukraine).



- Nevertheless, "the basic Root of the Problem is still Unresolved, so the situation is still Far from satisfactory  and indeed Dangerous", the Experienced Austrian President Warned. - And "my impression ...is that Russia can hardly be satisfied with the sanctions and the cooling of its relationship with Europe. At the same time, however, Russia is not  or Not Yet  prepared to pay a reasonable price for a solution. On the other side, Ukraine must be even more Dissatisfied with the present state of affairs, yet it is Not prepared to, or is not in a position to, pay a reasonable price to reach a Solution. By that I mean the exact Implementation of the Content and Chronology of the Minsk Agreements, and (particularly) the ability to Find a workable Arrangement of Self-Government", for the Autonomist Regions of Donetsk-Luhansk, in South-Eastern Ukraine, in line with the main Promisse for a Large De-Centralisation and a Special Status inside Ukraine, already made by its President, Pedro Poroshenko, as early as since his 1st Visit to the European Institutions, Starting by the CoE, back on June 2014, (Comp. relevant "Eurofora"s NewsReport, f.ex. on CoE's "Venice Committee"'s key role), followed and much further developed, in considerable depth and concrete details, by the February 2015 "Minsk" Agreements for Peace, officialy endorsed by both sides on the spot, under the auspices and with the signature of 4 Heads of State/Government from Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany, (Poroshenko; Putin, Hollande and Merkel. See : ....). According to those Minsk Agreements, all the Main Steps, from each side, as well as Dialogue and Settlement of more Concrete Pending Issues, should have approached Conclusions around the End of 2015, but this Rendez-Vous was obviously Delayed in real practice, at least for the Time being.



- But, "there is a corRelation between the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements on the one hand, and an End to Sanctions or at least the Gradual Lifting of Sanctions. ....we believe that this is an Incentive to work even harder towards the implementation of the Minsk agreements", he noted, as far as Russia is concerned. Moreover, "Ukraine and Russia are Neighbours, and I therefore believe that Co-operation is the only way forward ... relations. It will be Damaging to both If their Relations continue to be so Poor". On the Contrary, "it would be a Good thing for Russia and Ukraine if they Improved their relatons;....We live in an Age where All our Countries must Co-exist in Europe", he noted, as far as also Ukraine is concerned, (Comp. also Supra). And, even more Widely, "for me, it remains a basic premise that as far as Europe and Russia are concerned, it is Good, if we have Good Relations. I would also argue that it would be Bad for Europe and Russia, If our Relationship is Bad", the Austrian President stressed.



=> - "In order to Improve relations, we Need to Understand the Position of the Other Side. We need to understand the other. Russia needs to understand what it is that exercises its Partners in Europe (EU)  what we are Concerned about", (probably meaning mainly Territorial Integrity of EU States, in the Borders existing since the End of the 2nd World War : A Principle that Russian President Putin was Vainly trying to promote in a "Hot" Press Conference back on 2007, at the "G8" Heads of State/Government Summit at Heiligendam, Germany, on the occasion, then, of the quite Different, Kosovo Issue inside Serbia. But USA and most EU Countries apparently realized the Topical Importance of the Territorial Integrity Principle rather Later-on, after the 2008 Georgian and particularly the 2014 Ukranian Crisis. However, in that latest case, it was, obviously also another basic Principle of International Law whichhad been breached : that of "Non Interference in the Domestic Affairs of a Sovereign Country", as even Chinese President Xi Ping observed, during his 1st Visit to the EU, in a Press Conference in Germany, on Spring 2014).



+ "Conversely, Europe (EU) must understand what it is that Russia is concerned about, and has been concerned about over the past 25 years since 1991", (i.e. since theDislocation of the ex-URSS and even of its succcessor, the CIS). - In this regard, "My personal view ... is that a policy that would lead us, within the foreseeable future, to Ukraines Accession to NATO, is one that, for Europe (EU), Ukraine and Russia, would ultimately bring more Disadvantages than advantages", the Experienced, Twice Elected Austrian President Warned, (obviously pointing at the Fact that, particularly at a notoriously Strategic Area, and mainly so Close to Moscow itself, etc., Russia had understandable concerns, even of Military Security, paticularly in that case - i.e. if Ukraine departed from a Neutrality Principle, contrary to the 1994 Founding Agreement which had initialy endorsed its Independence).

(../..)



-------------------------------------------------





***





("DraftNews", as already send to "EuroFora"s Subscribers/Donors, earlier. A more accurate, full Final Version might be Published asap).

***




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SAN ANTONIO  Mired in bankruptcy and accused in litigation of defrauding its more than 300 investors, Palmaz Scientific Inc. is now facing questions over whether it misled shareholders in selling some of its stock in 2012 and 2013.

Founded by renowned scientist Dr. Julio Palmaz, the San Antonio medical technology company hired Wall Street investment bank Jefferies & Co. to market and sell $7.5 million of the companys privately traded shares in 2011.

The problem is that Jefferies was still listed in marketing materials as the placement agent after the broker-dealer severed its ties with Palmaz Scientific later that year, according to emails from the investment banks lawyers to an investor and a person familiar with the deal. The Jefferies name on the private stock sale gave some investors confidence in the offering and influenced their decision to buy.

Their name carries a lot of weight in the investment community, said Arlington investor Toby Wilson, who bought 1,600 preferred shares for $400,000 in 2013. A copy of his agreement named Jefferies and a related company, Jefferies International, as the placement agent. When I saw their name on the private placement memorandum, my interest level in the transaction went up significantly.

Jefferies & Co. challenged Palmaz Scientifics version of events in emails to Wilson, the authenticity of which was verified by two sources with direct knowledge of the dispute. Palmaz similarly disagrees with its former investment adviser, according to Andy Taylor, a Houston lawyer hired by Palmaz to represent it in some of its litigation.

Jefferies spokesman Richard Khaleel declined to comment.

Jefferies has sent Palmaz Scientific cease-and-desist letters urging it to stop improperly utilizing Jefferies name, Jefferies attorney Jennifer Kane told Wilson in an email in March. Jefferies general counsel Jeff Whyte also told Wilson in an email that Jefferies hadnt worked with Palmaz Scientific for years.

Taylor, on the other hand, said Palmaz Scientifics contract with the investment banking firm has never been terminated by Jefferies. The offering did not close until the first half of 2014, he said in an email.

The he-said-he-said dispute could compound problems for the bankrupt biotech company. If Palmaz Scientific continued using Jefferies name on its stock offering after the two severed ties, that would be a material misrepresentation, in violation of securities laws, said James D. Sallah, a securities lawyer in Boca Raton, Florida.

I absolutely think its fraudulent because its material information if Jefferies, in fact, was no longer involved with Palmaz Scientific, Sallah said.

Separately, the Denver office of the Securities and Exchange Commission opened an investigation into Palmaz Scientific, the company disclosed in a bankruptcy filing, without providing further details. The SEC subpoenaed some of the companys records as part of the investigation, attorneys said during a hearing in San Antonio last week.

Palmaz Scientifics latest woes mark an inglorious end for what was at one time a seemingly promising biotech company that wooed investors with plans to develop the next generation of implantable devices intended to improve patients lives. The companys technology had a lot of potential uses, from cancer drug delivery to treating erectile dysfunction to cosmetic and orthopedic uses, according to a confidential document presented to investors last fall.

Rock star scientist

Palmazs biggest selling point for some was its founder, Julio Palmaz, 70, a Argentinian-born doctor who reached rock star status as a scientist and inventor after developing and patenting the first heart stent in 1985. His stent is credited with saving millions of lives and changing the treatment of heart disease across the world.

Intellectual Property International Magazine called it one of the Ten Patents That Changed the World in the past century, according to Palmaz Scientifics website. The balloon-expandable stent was used in more than 80 percent of noninvasive bypass procedures within four years of receiving approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

Julio Palmaz moved to the University of Texas Health Science Center in 1980, two years after hearing a speech by German cardiologist Andreas Gruentzig that inspired Palmazs original thinking on the stent, according to a 2014 article in medical journal PLOS ONE. He teamed up with Dr. Richard Schatz to perfect the design and soon met local restaurateur Philip Romano, founder of Romanos Macaroni Grill and Fuddruckers. Romano provided $250,000 in seed money to establish the Expandable Grafts Partnership (EGP) in 1985, the article said. Romano later would serve as a Palmaz Scientific director.

I was in the burger business giving people the same disease I came right back around to help cure with the stents! Romano told Fortune magazine in 2004.

He later would serve on Palmaz Scientifics board of directors.

EGP licensed its intellectual property to Johnson & Johnson for $10 million plus royalties in 1986. J&J later bought the rights to the stent, paying around a reported $500 million. The stent would generate billions of dollars in sales.

In 1999, Palmaz launched Advanced Bio Prosthetic Surfaces before starting Palmaz Scientific in 2008.

Palmaz Scientific plans to introduce a new class of stents and other implantable devices for a number of medical applications, Palmaz said in a news release.

The company trumpeted its intellectual property portfolio, which it now says includes about 250 patents and 150 or so pending patents.

There was no trouble finding investors, given Palmazs previous success. More than $40 million in funding has been raised since 2008. The state of Texas even took a stake in the company, providing a $3 million loan through the Texas Emerging Technology Fund. Texas taxpayers are now on the hook for nearly $4.4 million, including interest on the loan, after the state converted its secured loan into an unsecured equity investment in 2011.

Palmaz Scientific had few employees in the state, and its research and development operations were in California, so its unclear why Texas backed the company.

The Jefferies deal

In the Jefferies deal, the Wall Street broker-dealer was originally retained by Palmaz Scientific as the exclusive placement agent on a $7.5 million convertible preferred stock offering in 2010, according to Taylor, who represents Palmaz Scientific.

The company was selling its securities under a so-called Regulation D exemption that requires fewer disclosures as long as the shares are sold only to sophisticated and wealthy investors. The $100,000 minimum investment in the offering was later lowered to $25,000.

Jefferies and Dallas-based Titan Securities were listed as the broker-dealers on the offering, and they stood to make 10 percent commissions on whatever they sold. Palmaz Scientific was based in Dallas at the time.

The offering was increased to $30 million in November 2011. Less than three months later, an amended filing on the offering showed financial services companies WFG Investments and Capital Institutional Services were added as broker-dealers on the offering. Jefferies continued to be listed, though a person familiar with the private placement who requested anonymity said the company stopped working with Palmaz Scientific in the latter half of 2011.

Palmaz Scientific filed three more amended filings on the offering with the SEC in 2013, each one listing Jefferies as a broker-dealer.

In the wake of Palmaz Scientifics financial problems, Wilson in February emailed Jefferies about his $400,000 investment and the Wall Street banks role in the private placement. Whyte, Jefferies general counsel, responded to Wilson, saying Palmaz is no longer a client of Jefferies and has not been for years, therefore, we do not possess any information.

In a follow-up email last month, Jefferies attorney Kane told Wilson, As we have stated, Jefferies was not involved with Palmaz in 2013 and did not have a marketing agreement with Williams Financial, nor was it our authorized representative. To the extent that either Palmaz or Williams Financial was improperly utilizing Jefferies name, we have sent cease-and-desist letters. Wilson provided copies of the emails to the San Antonio Express-News.

Williams Financial Group

Wilsons shares were bought through WFG Investments, which is majority owned by Williams Financial Group in Dallas.

When asked this month for WFGs contact at Jefferies, Williams Financial Group President David Williams replied in an email that he couldnt find a contact at Jefferies.

Asked what WFG did to vet the offering before getting clients to invest, Williams said the firm has a policy of not publicly discussing private investments.

We can say, however, WFG is confident that it acted properly and lawfully at all times and made recommendations it believed were in its clients best interests at the time of any investment, he said.

Taylor, the Palmaz lawyer, said Jefferies allowed WFG to participate as a nonexclusive placement agent with the offering. The documents presented to Wilson that listed Jefferies as the placement agent made no mention of WFG.

Jefferies agreed not to participate in any commissions for sales brokered by (WFG), but Jefferies would continue to receive commissions on any sales brokered by Jefferies, Taylor said. He said Jefferies received commissions in 2012, but wouldnt say if that was for its previous work.

As an early-stage biotech company, Palmaz Scientific wasnt yet generating revenue, so its ability to raise capital from outside investors was key.

Voter Guide: What to know for the midterm election Your guide to the Texas and San Antonio races and candidates on the Nov. 8 ballot.

You see someone like Jefferies on the back end of it, you kind of go oh, all right, there are a lot of people involved in this. Makes me feel even better about the investment, said Oklahoma investor Robert Anderson, who bought 200 shares of Palmaz Scientific for $50,000 in 2012.

A well-known investment bank such as Jefferies would not only lend credibility to the offering, it would give investors confidence that Palmaz Scientific could fund its cash-intensive research by raising money from outside investors when needed, said Sallah, the Florida securities lawyer.

The fact that a real broker-dealer is on there with a real significant sales network  you see how material that is? he said.

Financial troubles surface

Financial difficulties at Palmaz Scientific first surfaced last summer after Palmaz warned investors in a letter to shareholders in August that the company was running out of money and likely would have already gone bankrupt and closed had the Palmaz family not injected several million dollars into it.

Bankruptcy schedules show Palmaz and his wife, Amalia, and a partnership she controls sank nearly $4 million into the company from March through the end of August last year. No bank records prior to March 2015 were included in the schedules.

Besides burning through cash, Palmaz Scientific never generated regular revenue over its eight years of operations.

Catherine Burzik, a former Kinetic Concepts boss was poised to take over as Palmaz Scientifics chairwoman and interim CEO in August. Palmaz Scientific also was negotiating an investment from the San Antonio venture capital firm Targeted Technology Fund, where Burzik is a partner. But the fund abruptly announced that it and Burzik would have nothing to do with Palmaz Scientific after the news broke.

The next month, four investors sued the company, Palmaz and former CEO Steven B. Solomon for fraud and breach of fiduciary duty, allegations the defendants dispute. The plaintiffs demanded to know where their combined $285,000 investment went. Eight other investors have since joined the lawsuit.

Palmaz Scientific was dealt a crippling setback when its efforts to raise about $32 million in a third round of financing fizzled last fall. Palmaz had told investors the company needed $23 million to take a medical device through the approval process.

Nearly out of cash and with the Palmaz family no longer willing to throw in more cash, Palmaz Scientific filed for Chapter 11 on March 4. Prior to the filing, Julio Palmaz resigned as the companys chairman.

A negative campaign

The company blamed its inability to attract new capital and continue its operations on a negative campaign of false information disseminated by certain individuals.

Palmaz Scientific didnt identify any of those individuals by name, but one of them likely was Austin investment banker Susan Harriman, who was identified in bankruptcy filings as having complained about the company to the SEC.

The SECs Fort Worth office, which opened its own investigation of Palmaz Scientific in 2014, notified the company last month that it closed the investigation without taking any action. The U.S. attorneys office in Dallas also told the company in February that it was closing a criminal grand jury investigation, indicating that the matter was fully resolved without charges. The letter also appeared to put to bed a parallel investigation by the IRS criminal investigations unit.

Palmaz Scientific sued Harriman in August, accusing her of dissuading potential investors, including Targeted Technology Fund, from investing. The lawsuit, dismissed on technical grounds Oct. 7, portrayed Harrimans complaints as retaliation against Palmaz Scientific after the company allegedly refused to hire her as an adviser.

The very same day, Harriman sued the company, Palmaz and Solomon for defamation in state district court in Dallas. Later that month, the defendants fired back with another lawsuit against her for defamation, business disparagement and tortious interference. The bankruptcy filing has automatically put on hold that case as well as all other litigation involving Palmaz Scientific.

Palmaz Scientifics assets, primarily the patents, likely will be auctioned off in a process that will be overseen by the bankruptcy court. Vactronix Scientific, a company incorporated last month and owned by Palmazs wife, is expected to submit a stalking-horse bid. This essentially would be the first offer for the assets, so other bidders would have to submit higher bids. Lawyers for some investors have said they see this as a way for the Palmazes to buy the assets at a discount.

The Palmaz family believes in this potentially life-changing technology, and strongly desires an outcome whereby millions of people worldwide can benefit from the next-generation of life-enhancing stents, Taylor said.

Its unclear what the patents are worth, but Palmaz Scientific has disclosed that it doesnt expect that a sale of the assets will generate sufficient proceeds to provide a return to shareholders.

This article was updated to correct the spelling of Dr. Richard Schatz.

pdanner@express-news.net
As a group, Jewish Latinos dont get much attention  either from Jews or Latinos in the United States.

The first detailed survey of Americans who are both Latino and Jewish aims to shed light on this minority within a minority, who number more than 200,000 people. Among the conclusions of the recently released study: Latino-American Jews are proud of their dual identities but also distinct within the larger communities of American Jews and Latino-Americans.

They dont really fit in Latin America, and they dont really fit here either, said Rabbi Juan Mejia, a Colombian-born convert to Judaism who works in Oklahoma and speaks and writes about Latino Jews.

In Latin America they were religiously deviant in mostly Catholic countries, continued Mejia, who said the new survey resonated with him. And American Jews, whose ancestors mostly came from Europe, often dont know how to relate to them either.

Mejia gave the example of one New York Jewish person who found out that Mejia was from Colombia and responded, My cleaning lady is Colombian. Latino-American Jews are on the whole highly educated and wealthier than American Jews in general. Nearly 7 in 10 Latino-American Jewish households earn more than $100,000 a year, compared with 30 percent of American Jewish households.

The studys authors also found that the group feels strongly connected to Israel and their families Latin American homelands, even if they werent born there.

They are looking for a space of their own to articulate their multiple identities, said Dina Siegel Vann, who is originally from Mexico City and directs an institute for Latino affairs at the American Jewish Committee.

The AJC commissioned the study, which was conducted by Latino Decisions, a public opinion company that convened 10 focus groups of Latino-American Jews in five cities with significant Latino Jewish populations: Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and New York.

According to the survey, Latino Jews feel very connected to the American Jewish community through Jewish culture and ritual. At the same time, focus groups members consistently described American Jews as more formal in their social and religious practices, making it difficult to relate at a personal level. Many Latino-American Jews doubted that most American Jews knew of their presence in the U.S.

Every time I say Im a Mexican Jew, they say, Oh, so your mom converted, because they dont think we exist, said one focus group participant.

Latino-American Jews said they related to the Latino-American community through the Spanish language and a shared love for close families, great parties and the entrepreneurial spirit.

They cited class and socio-economic differences as barriers between Jewish and non-Jewish Latinos.

Most felt that non-Jewish Latinos have limited experience or information about Jews altogether, the survey concluded.

Jewish communities in Latin America were built out of migrations that started in the late 19th century. The descendants of these immigrants who now live in the U.S. are overwhelmingly American citizens: 81 percent.

Latino-American Jews are not necessarily Sephardic Jews, those whose families originally came from Spain. Many Latino-American Jews in the U.S. are Ashkenazi, descended from German and Eastern European Jews.

Focus group participants talked about strong and enduring ties to Latin America. They frequently visit family, conduct business and keep up with current events and the Jewish communities in those nations.

Latino-American Jews also reported a particularly strong affinity for Israel and said their Jewishness centered more on ties to the Jewish state and Jewish culture than on synagogue or religious practice.

News from Israel does not feel like its over there; its right here, said one focus group member.
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Kubota UKs popular #MyKubota campaign is set for a return this spring, following a successful launch of the social media competition in 2015.

Once again, Kubota is asking fans to submit photos and vote for their favourite day in the life of their Kubota story, to be in with a chance of winning 500 Virgin Experience Days vouchers.

An impressive 95 stories were submitted for #MyKubota in 2015 and this year is set to be bigger and better.

Entrants are asked to upload their funniest, most scenic or creative photos that depict how the machinery is used day-to-day.

The entries will then be put to a public vote, where Kubotas Facebook community will decide which entry they like the most.

Up for grabs this year is 500 Virgin Experience Days vouchers, an exclusive Kubota merchandise pack, plus the opportunity to attend private Kubota product testing events.

In addition, the first 50 entries will all receive a free Kubota cap.

Last years competition was won by Derek Jones, following submission of a photo of his G23 Series ride on mower, which he uses to maintain Glan Gors Holiday Park in Anglesey.

Derek won a 500 Virgin Experience Days voucher and will be featured in his own #MyKubota video case study later this year.

Dave Roberts, Kubota UKs MD, said: "As the My Kubota campaign turns a year old, Im delighted to see entries open again this summer.

We love interacting with operators daily about how theyre using their machines, and the campaign provides a way to reward loyal users and hear what they have to say.

"Over the past year weve also been visiting Kubota owners all over the country to create My Kubota video case studies.

"The videos offer another glimpse into how our machinery is used day-to-day, from maintaining an alpaca farm, to the high profile work of the groundcare team at Cardiffs Principality Stadium  all of which can all be found on our YouTube channel."

Photos entries for the latest #MyKubota competition can be submitted between Monday 2 May and Sunday 12 June, with voting commencing shortly after.

Fans can enter on the Kubota Facebook page or via Twitter using the hashtag #MyKubota.

Whether youre getting the lawns back into action for spring with a ride on mower, transporting materials in an RTV, farm work with an agricultural tractor or getting local authority parks ready for the summer, Kubota is looking for a variety of entries for the public to choose their favourite.
A top red meat industry team from Wales will attend one of Northern Europes biggest food and hospitality trade fairs next week.

The objective is to spread the word about premium Welsh Lamb and its PGI credentials, and bid to boost exports to Scandinavia.

Trade representatives from Rhug Estate (Corwen), Dunbia, Randall Parker Foods, Menai Meats and 2Sisters will be joined by Farskfaruhuset, an existing Swedish distributor of Welsh Lamb.

GastroNord and Vinordic which runs from April 26-29 at the Stockholmsmassan exhibition centre, Stockholm, Sweden, is one of the major trade fairs in northern Europe for hotel, restaurants, institutional kitchens, fast food, wines, beer, spirits and ciders.

"Hybu Cig Cymru-Meat Promotion Wales (HCC) has put together this top trade presence to look to develop strong leads and open future opportunities for trade and export for PGI Welsh Lamb," said Laura Pickup, HCCs Market Development Manager.

"The boosting of Welsh Lamb sales in new markets like Scandinavia is a vital part of the industrys Red Meat Strategy to assist farmers and processors in Wales and support lamb prices at home.

"This work is also part of our EU funded programme to raise awareness of and promote Welsh Lambs PGI credentials.

"It is reassuring that after twelve months there is already evidence that the work we have done in Sweden, alongside Italy, Germany and Denmark, has managed to raise awareness of Welsh Lamb, Welsh Lambs PGI status and the broader, underlying principles of PGI status," she said.
Traditional UK produce, such as Stilton cheese, Gloucester Old Spot sausages and Melton Mowbray pork pies could be at risk if the country left the EU.

This is the warning from David Cameron, writing in the Gloucester Citizen. He said farmers would lose the protected status awarded by the EU for produce made in their traditional areas.

Cameron's warning came after the National Farmers' Union decided opting to 'remain' in the EU, rather than 'leave'.

"The farming sector contributes 9.9billion to the UK economy and employs almost half a million people," Cameron wrote.

"If we leave the EU and our farmers have to operate under World Trade Organisation rules, things would be very different.

"Protected status enjoyed across Europe by our unique products, such as Gloucestershire cider, Single Gloucester cheese and traditionally farmed Gloucester old spot pork, will be lost."

What is 'protected' produce?

A number of United Kingdom food and drink products have been granted Protected Geographical Status under European Union law.

The purpose of the scheme is to protect the reputation of regional products, promote traditional and agricultural activity and to eliminate non-genuine products, which may mislead consumers or be of inferior or different character; for example, producers cannot refer to their product as Scotch whisky unless it has been produced within Scotland, following particular methods.

The United Kingdom has a total of 65 products with protected status. Some of these items include Cumberland sausage, Stornoway black pudding, Newmarket sausage and Yorkshire Wensleydale cheese.
There were more than 30 exhibits in the Suffolk judging overall, but at the end of the day the animal judged as best of the breed overall as well as the champion Suffolk ram was exhibited by the Sasimwa Suffolk stud, York.
Is Wawa coming to Fayetteville? Heres what we know.

Wawa, a Pennsylvania-based convenience store chain that residents have long clamored for, could be coming to the area.
Kanye West interrupted Jason Binn's wedding speech.

Kanye West and Kim Kardashian West

The 38-year-old rapper stole the microphone off of the best man during the toast at Dave Grutman and Isabela Rangel's wedding, which was held at Wynwood Walls in Miami on Saturday (23.04.16), to repeat the moment he interjected Taylor Swift at the MTV Music Awards in 2009.

Speaking at the marital ceremony, the 'Real Friends' musician said: "Imma let you finish."

However, Kanye's joke was accepted well by wedding guests, which include Ryan Seacrest, Hulk Hogan and Kourtney Kardashian.

Meanwhile Kim Kardashian West, 35, took to social media with a string of intimate photographs of herself and of fellow attendees, which were captioned in number order throughout the night.

The 'Keeping Up With the Kardashians' TV personality posed with her husband, who was seductively biting her neck, a selfie of her bulging cleavage and sultry snippets of her and pals eating candy floss at the ceremony, all in a black and white filter.

The brunette beauty ended the photoshoot with a close-up shot of the nightclub owner groom clutching at his model wife's bottom, which she captioned: "015."

Meanwhile, Kanye, who has daughter North, two, and Saint, four months with the Armenian beauty is eager to expand his brood, although Kim is happy with her two children.

Speaking previously about having more kids, Kim said: "I said no way. I was so set on my two kids ... but Kanye has been mentioning it every single day lately for the past 10 days."
It was back in 1993 when Jurassic Park roared onto the big screen for the first time, took us on a terrific action-packed adventure, and introduced us to that iconic music for the very first time.

Jurassic Park

Hard to believe that this movie is now over twenty years old and is just as good now as it was when I sat down to watch it as a child all of those years ago.

The movie was an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton and saw Steven Spielberg back in the director's chair; this was his first feature film since Hook two years earlier.

Jurassic Park followed dinosaur experts Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Dr. Ellie Sattler Laura Dern) who are invited to visit John Hammond's new amusement part on an island of Costa Rica. By cloning DNA, Hammond and his team have recreated dinosaurs and now want to share them with the world.

But when the power is knocked out by a tropical storm, the park and the people on it are at the mercy of the pre-historic creatures. Grant must now battle to bring Hammond's grandchildren back to safety.

Jurassic Park was one of the standout films of the nineties and, for me, remains one of the best blockbusters of all time. It may have been over twenty years since the film was first released, but it is one of those rare films that has not dated and looks just as fantastic today as it did back in 1993.

I love the fact that Spielberg didn't just rely on special effects - even though they were cutting edge at the time - but mixed them with life-sized animatronic dinosaurs. This gives them an incredibly real feel - it's as if you could reach out and touch them; I still get that feeling every time I watch this movie.

Jurassic Park is a masterclass in blockbuster filmmaking as Spielberg has you on the edge of your seat right from the very start. He has crafted a movie that not only looks fantastic but is also driven by the characters and their relationships.

Spielberg has delivered a whole host of wonderful movies during his career and Jurassic Park is up there as one of greatest achievements. I love him as a blockbuster filmmaker as this one of the most technically flawless of all of his movies. What he achieved with this movie really is astonishing.

Jurassic Park was a massive critical and commercial hit upon release and went on to gross over $900 million by the end of its first theatrical run - become the highest-grossing film ever at the time. Re-releases of the film have followed and it has now grossed over $1 billion.

Since the release of Jurassic Park back in 1993, we have seen The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park III, and Jurassic World hit the big screen. Sadly, they have not been able to recreate the magic of the original.

Jurassic Park is a movie that really has stood the test of time and continues to thrill audiences of all ages. Children who are coming to this movie for the first time are left totally transfixed while it still sends a shiver down the spines of those of us who have seen it many times.

This really is blockbuster filmmaking at its very best.

by Helen Earnshaw for www.femalefirst.co.uk

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Kevin Feige has revealed that the third Captain America film was not originally going to follow the Civil War storyline.

Captain America: Civil War

Captain America: Civil War is set to hit the big screen at the end of the week and looks on course to be another huge smash for Marvel. The film is based on the iconic Civil War storyline from the comics... but it was not always going to be this way.

Feige, reveals that the third film was going to continue and explore further the Bucky storyline and what that would mean for Steve Rogers.

Speaking to io9, Feige said: "We developed Captain America 3 knowing we wanted to continue the Bucky story. Is Bucky going to get his mind back? What is Bucky struggling with, after the tag scene on Winter Soldier, and how does Steve's desire to save Bucky bring him into conflict with something else, thinking about how do the sins of his past sort of affect him?

"And [writers] Chris [Markus] and Steve [McFeely] came up with a number of cool plots that could've worked, but none of them were feeling worthy of a follow up to Winter Soldier."

Civil War comes two years after the success of Captain America: The Winter Solider, which saw Sebastian Stan take on the role of the Winter Solider for the first time.

The new movie sees him reunite with Chris Evans, Anthony Mackie and Scarlett Johansson, Robert Downey Jr, Jeremy Renner, Paul Bettany, and Elizabeth Olsen are some of the big new additions to the cast list this time around.

We are also going to be introduced to a series of new characters as Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Daniel Bruhl and Martin Freeman will be introduced as Spider-Man, Black Panther, Zemo and Everett K. Ross.

Captain America: Civil War will kick off Phase 3 of Marvel movies and will lay even more foundations as we head towards Avengers: Infinity War; the two-part movie will be released in 2018 and 2019.

Captain America: Civil War is released 29th April.

by Helen Earnshaw for www.femalefirst.co.uk

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Tina Fey is set to return to the big screen this May with her new movie Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is a biographical war/comedy that is based on the book The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Kim Barker.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Fey is set to take on the role of Kim Barker, who takes on an assignment as a war correspondent in Afghanistan, in the film. And you can see her in action in these two great new clips from the film.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot marks the return of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa to the director's chair - this is the first film for the duo since Focus last year. Robert Carlock is also on board having penned the screenplay.

The directors have brought together a great cast as Margot Robbie, Martin Freeman, Billy Bob Thornton, Christopher Abbott, and Alfred Molina will all star alongside Fey.

Sometimes it takes saying 'WTF' to discover the life you were always destined to lead. That's exactly what happens to cable news producer Kim Baker (Tina Fey) when she realizes her routine existence is lacking in something - and decides to 'blow it all up' by taking a crazy, WTF assignment in Afghanistan.

There, amidst a mind-boggling array of adventurers, militants, warlords and madcap chaos, Kim finds something unexpected: the strength she never knew she had. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is a hilarious and heartfelt portrait of a woman getting her life together in a global hot spot where everything else seems to be falling apart.

Fey is one of the most exciting acting talents around and I am looking forward to seeing her return to the big screen.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is released 13th May.

by Helen Earnshaw for www.femalefirst.co.uk

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OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 04/23/16 -- Costco Wholesale Canada Inc. is recalling Organic by Nature brand frozen Organic Sweet Peas from the marketplace due to possible Listeria monocytogenes contamination. Consumers should not consume the recalled product described below.

The following product has been sold by Costco warehouse locations in British Colombia, Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Recalled product

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brand Product Size UPC Codes ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- organic by Sweet Peas - Organic 2.5 kg 8 46355 00061 9 Best by dates: nature (frozen) 10.22.17 12.03.17 03.16.18 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

What you should do

Check to see if you have recalled products in your home. Recalled products should be thrown out or returned to the store where they were purchased.

Food contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes may not look or smell spoiled but can still make you sick. Symptoms can include vomiting, nausea, persistent fever, muscle aches, severe headache and neck stiffness. Pregnant women, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems are particularly at risk. Although infected pregnant women may experience only mild, flu-like symptoms, the infection can lead to premature delivery, infection of the newborn or even stillbirth. In severe cases of illness, people may die.

-- Learn more about the health risks -- Sign up for recall notifications by email, follow us on Twitter, or join the CFIA community on Facebook -- View our detailed explanation of the food safety investigation and recall process

If you suspect you have become ill from eating a recalled product, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) recommends contacting your doctor.

Background

This recall was triggered by a recall in another country. The CFIA is conducting a food safety investigation, which may lead to the recall of other products. If other high-risk products are recalled, the CFIA will notify the public through updated Food Recall Warnings.The CFIA is verifying that industry is removing recalled product from the marketplace.

Illnesses

There have been no reported illnesses associated with the consumption of this product.

More information

-- CRF Frozen Foods at 1-844-551-5595 (Monday to Friday: 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time) -- CFIA: www.inspection.gc.ca/contactus

Product photos available at: http://bit.ly/1Sr6XCY

Contacts:

Media enquiries

CFIA Media Relations

613-773-6600




George Clooney, Co-Chair of the Selection Committee, presents the $1 million Aurora Prize to Marguerite Barankitse at ceremony in Yerevan, Armenia

YEREVAN, Armenia, April 24, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Marguerite Barankitse from Maison Shalom and REMA Hospital in Burundi was named as the inaugural Laureate of the $1 million Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity. At a ceremony held in Yerevan, Armenia, Barankitse was recognized for the extraordinary impact she has had in saving thousands of lives and caring for orphans and refugees during the years of civil war in Burundi.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160424/359228LOGO

As she accepted the award from Aurora Prize Selection Committee Co-Chair George Clooney, Barankitse said: "Our values are human values. When you have compassion, dignity and love then nothing can scare you, nothing can stop you - no one can stop love. Not armies, not hate, not persecution, not famine, nothing."

As the first Aurora Prize Laureate, Barankitse will receive a $100,000 grant and continue the cycle of giving by donating the accompanying $1,000,000 award to organizations that have inspired her work. Barankitse plans to donate the award to three organizations in order to advance aid and rehabilitation for child refugees and orphans, and fight against child poverty. These organizations are: the Fondation du Grand-Duc et de La Grande-Duchesse du Luxembourg, Fondation Jean-Francois Peterbroeck (JFP Foundation), and the Fondation Bridderlech Deelen Luxembourg.

Barankitse emphasized: "I chose them because these people supported me and never abandoned me, even in difficult times. They have the same values as me and as the Maison Shalom - compassion, friendliness, dignity, and a generosity which costs nothing."

"Marguerite Barankitse serves as a reminder of the impact that one person can have even when encountering seemingly insurmountable persecution and injustice," said Mr. Clooney. "By recognizing Marguerite Barankitse's courage, commitment and sacrifice, I am hopeful that she can also inspire each one of us to think about what we can do to stand up on behalf of those whose rights are abused and are in most need of our solidarity or support."

Marguerite Barankitse saved thousands of lives and cared for orphans and refugees during the years of civil war in Burundi. When war broke out, Barankitse, a Tutsi, tried to hide 72 of her closest Hutu neighbors to keep them safe from persecution. They were discovered and executed, whilst Barankitse was forced to watch. Following this gruesome incident, she started her work saving and caring for children and refugees. She has saved roughly 30,000 children and in 2008, she opened a hospital which has treated more than 80,000 patients to date.

Guests also celebrated the exceptional contributions of the other three finalists for the Aurora Prize: Dr. Tom Catena, from Mother of Mercy Hospital in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan; Syeda Ghulam Fatima, the General Secretary of the Bonded Labour Liberation Front in Pakistan; and Father Bernard Kinvi, a Catholic Priest in Bossemptele, Central African Republic (CAR). To mark the occasion of the inaugural Aurora Prize Ceremony, these exceptional humanitarians will be presented with a $25,000 award from the Aurora Prize co-founders to support the organizations that have inspired their work.

Leading humanitarian figures and Aurora Prize Selection Committee members, including Gareth Evans, Hina Jilani, Leymah Gbowee, Shirin Ebadi and Vartan Gregorian, attended and participated in the Aurora Prize Award Ceremony.

"During the selection process for the Aurora Prize, we came across truly remarkable stories of the human spirit, and an extraordinary number of inspiring individuals who are out there making a significant difference," said Vartan Gregorian, member of the Aurora Prize Selection Committee and co-founder of 100 LIVES. "We are proud to be able to recognize Marguerite Barankitse and support the impactful work she is doing in a concrete way. She proves the tremendous impact one person can have on so many."

NOTES TO EDITORS

About 100 LIVES

100 LIVES is a new global initiative rooted in the events of the Armenian Genocide, during which 1.5 million Armenians perished. The fortunate few were saved by the courageous and heroic acts of individuals and institutions. A century later, 100 LIVES seeks to express gratitude, to share remarkable stories of survivors and their saviors, and to celebrate the strength of the human spirit.

100 LIVES is an initiative of the IDeA Foundation (Initiatives for Development of Armenia), a charitable foundation committed to promoting socioeconomic development in Armenia through investments in long-term, non-profit projects.

About the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity

On behalf of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and in gratitude to their saviors, an Aurora Prize Laureate will be honored each year with a US$100,000 grant as well as the unique opportunity to continue the cycle of giving by nominating organizations that inspired their work for a US$1,000,000 award. Recipients will be recognized for the exceptional impact their actions have made on preserving human life and advancing humanitarian causes.

The Aurora Prize Selection Committee includes Nobel Laureates Elie Wiesel, Oscar Arias, Shirin Ebadi and Leymah Gbowee; former President of Ireland Mary Robinson; human rights activist Hina Jilani; former Australian Foreign Minister and President Emeritus of the International Crisis Group Gareth Evans; President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York Vartan Gregorian; and Academy Award-winning actor and humanitarian George Clooney.

The Aurora Prize will be awarded annually on April 24 in Yerevan, Armenia.

Further information is available at www.auroraprize.com.

Photography and videos for media use: www.AuroraPrizeMedia.com http://edelman.isebox.net/100lives
It would be of tremendous solace for a large section of academia in different universities and institutions of high learning which are up in arms against what they term as persecution of students and faculty members who believe in a particular ideology which may not be in line with the thinking of the BJP government at the Centre. In a rare but much needed judgment, Allahabad High Court has sought to restore the shaking faith among the faculty and students who face dismissal of service or rustication from an institution merely on the ground of "acting in an anti-national manner" or "spreading hatred" among people or inciting disharmony in the society.

Quashing an ex-parte order passed by the Board of Governors, IIT (BHU), Varanasi, on 6 January 2016 terminating the contract of Magsaysay award winner Dr Sandeep Pandey as Visiting Faculty Professor at the IIT on the unsubstantiated charges, the court said, academic administrators should be politically neutral, at the point of time of dealing with academic or administrative matters of the University.

A decision taken by Academic Administrator has to be free from malice and has t o be exercised in free, fair and transparent manner after complying with the principle of natural justice.

It may be pointed out that the Board for Governors for IIT, BHU, had acted upon a letter sent by one Avinash, a student of MA, Faculty of Social Sciences, and BHU. He had sent certain documents and copies of e-mails and published articles by Dr Sandeep Pandey and raised objection to his political ideologies and involvement in political activities besides being an active sympathiser of Naxalites.

He was accused of not holding classes in traditional way or taking attendance. He was also said to have committed grave offence by arranging screening of banned BBC documentary on Nirbhaya tragedy 'India's Daughter' directed by Leslee Udwin. The screening of this film, the termination order said, was against the national interest.

The Academic Administrator never issued a notice to laureate Dr Pandey, who is an alumnus of the IIT, BHU, and Varanasi. It didnt take into consideration of Dr Pandeys high credentials -- Master's in Manufacturing & Computer Science from Syracuse University followed by Doctorate in Control Theory at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1992 and professor at the IIT, Kanpur, and later founded an NGO y 'Asha Trust' which focuses on strengthening democracy at the grass-root level, and on Right to Information and good corruption free governance.

He also leads National Alliance of People's Movement (NAPM), the largest network of grass-roots people's movements in India and was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay in 2002 in the emergent leadership category. Moreover, Dr Pandey had led a peace march from New Delhi to Multan in 2005 and had also served as an Adviser to the Indian Government's Central Advisory Board for Education (CABE).

However, the Board of Governors had taken cognizance of the complaint by a student that Dr Pandey used to conduct sessions in the campus to teach students about staging dharnas. He would organize lectures or screen documentary films on several controversial topics which are either political in nature or against the national interest.

The Board also accepted certain e-mail as evidence for the group discussions on such controversial topics in the classes as part of the curriculum of the developmental studies. Further, several newspaper clippings showing Dr. Pandey's involvement in demonstrations, etc. was also taken as evidence against him.

The Board of Governors held that the act of posting of Nirbhaya documentary, banned by the Government, falls under the category of cyber crime and further the topics covered by the Dr Pandey in teaching of developmental studies violated the national interest and may disturb communal harmony as well as encourage students to take law into their own hands into the campus.

A bench of judgesJustices Mahesh Chandra Tripathi and V.K. Shuklasaid though the termination order violated natural justice, but it also cast stigma on Dr Pandey without hearing him, thus causing grave damage to his reputation.

But judges wanted to lift the veil from the illegal decision taken by the Academic Administrator and Board Governors.

They noted that founder of BHU, Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya wanted complete character development of students. He believed that India is not a country of Hindus only. It is country of Muslims, the Christians and the Parsees too. The country can gain strength and develop itself only when the people of different communities in India live in mutual goodwill and harmony.

Taking strong exception to the decision taken by Board of Governors in disregard to the freedom of speech of expression, judges said, the phrase freedom of speech under Article 19 (1) (a) includes freedom of propagation of ideas, right to circulate ones ideas, opinion and views, right of citizen to speak, publish and express their views as well as rights of people to read as well as to know about the affairs of the Government.

They held that a provision of law that forces people to self censor their views for fear of criminal sanction violates the constitutional guarantee of free speech. Freedom of speech and expression includes the right to acquire information and to disseminate it which is necessary for attaining free conscience and self-fulfillment.

Ordering reinstatement of Dr Pandey to his position in BHU, judges also held that a legitimate right of freedom of speech and expression including fair criticism is not to be throttled. No responsible person in democracy could incite the people to disobey the rule of law duly enacted, but situations may arise where responsible persons may feel that it is their duty to criticise the subject and invite the people to come for discussion on subject.

The judgment that may give boost to a large section of intelligentsia which feels threatened in airing free expression also sought to clear any misunderstanding among administrators that criticism of the Government and its policies is an offence.

High Court ruled that open criticism of Government policies and operations is not a ground for restricting expression.

We must practice tolerance to the views of others. Intolerance is as much dangerous to democracy as to the person himself, judges added while recalling the words of S.G. Tallentyre, author of

'Friends of Voltaire'. I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to death your right to say it.
People are led on a tour on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass



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VOA: If You Did Not Get into Harvard, Do Not Worry

Fewer than 5 percent of the students who applied to Stanford University in California were accepted this year. About 6 percent of the applicants to Yale University in Connecticut were admitted.

But one writer says if you did not get into a school like Stanford, Yale or Harvard University, do not despair.

Jillian Berman writes for MarketWatch.com . She says students shouldnt panic if they dont get a spot. It is still possible to be successful.

Stacy Dale and Alan Krueger wrote a paper in 2011 that says students who apply to universities like Stanford and Harvard -- but do not get in -- are likely to do well anywhere.

The researchers say that confidence and ambition may predict success better than other factors. Those other factors include good grades, high SAT scores and activities out of school. The researchers say people who apply to these selective schools do well even if they are not accepted to schools like Princeton University or Dartmouth College.

Berman wrote a story last year saying a study by the Brookings Institution might be more valuable than other lists: it ranks schools based on how much value they provide their students.

The Brookings list shows how much more money students would earn graduating from one school over another.

The list includes small colleges and technical schools that focus on agriculture, engineering, nursing and medical jobs.

The idea about ambition and confidence does not always apply to minority students. The Dale and Krueger study says minority students should reach for these selective schools. That is because they can make social connections that may be useful for advancing their careers in the future.

The list created by Brookings fits with another story posted on the website 538.com.

The story is called  Shut Up About Harvard .

The writer is Ben Casselman. He says television and newspaper stories about universities fail to reflect real and honest college experience. Very few people attend a university lined with trees and brick buildings. These days, college is often a part-time or two-year experience.

Students live at home and commute to classes.

Movies that takes place on a college campus, he says, are more fiction than truth.

More truthful is a picture of an American university student who attends class part time while working and raising children.

The most popular courses are no longer literature and philosophy. The most popular are business and health care.

It is exciting to read about a student who is accepted by eight Ivy League schools . But these writers say those students will be successful anywhere.

They say that students who need help getting to class and completing a degree are a greater concern.

A professor from the University of Wisconsin spoke with Casselman. She says most of the stories about higher education in the U.S. skip the most important issue:

People cant afford to spend enough time in college to actually finish their darn degrees.

But if they do, Casselman writes, the degree remains the most likely path to a decent-paying job.

That is why students can be successful even if they do not get into a school like Harvard.

Im Dan Friedell.

Dan Friedell adapted this story for Learning English based on reporting by Marketwatch.com and 538.com. Kathleen Struck was the editor.

What do you think about the auto makers trying to sell larger vehicles in the U.S.? Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page .

__________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

campus n. the area and buildings around a university, college, school, etc.

fiction n. something that is not true

shut up phrasal verb - to stop talking, laughing, etc.

decent adj. adequate or acceptable

rank v. to place (someone or something) in a particular position among a group of people or things that are being judged according to quality, ability, size, etc.

selective adj. careful to choose only the best people or things

confidence n. a feeling or belief that you can do something well or succeed at something

ambition n. a desire to be successful, powerful, or famous

panic n. a state or feeling of extreme fear that makes someone unable to act or think normally

darn adj. used as a more polite form of damn

reach v. to succeed in achieving (something) after making an effort over a period of time

***********************

Shut Up About Harvard By Ben Casselman (ZT)

Its college admissions season, which means its time once again for the annual flood of stories that badly misrepresent what higher education looks like for most American students  and skew the public debate over everything from student debt to the purpose of college in the process.

How college admissions has turned into something akin to The Hunger Games, screamed a Washington Post headline Monday . What you need to remember about fate during college admission season, wrote Elite Daily earlier this month . Use rejection to prepare teens for college, advised The Huffington Post .

Heres how the national media usually depicts the admissions process: High school seniors spend months visiting colleges; writing essays ; wrangling letters of recommendation ; and practicing, taking and retaking an alphabet soup of ACTs, SATs and AP exams. Then the really hard part: months of nervously waiting to find out if they are among the lucky few (fewer every year, were told!) with the right blend of academic achievement, extracurricular involvement and an odds-defying personal story to gain admission to their favored university.

Heres the reality: Most students never have to write a college entrance essay, pad a resume or sweet-talk a potential letter-writer. Nor are most, as The Atlantic put it Monday , obsessively checking their mailboxes awaiting acceptance decisions. (Never mind that for most schools, those decisions now arrive online.) According to data from the Department of Education, more than three-quarters of U.S. undergraduates attend colleges that accept at least half their applicants; just 4 percent attend schools that accept 25 percent or less, and hardly any  well under 1 percent  attend schools like Harvard and Yale that accept less than 10 percent.

Media misconceptions dont end with admission. College, in the mainstream media, seems to mean people in their late teens and early 20s living in dorms, going to parties, studying English (or maybe pre-med) and emerging four years later with a degree and an unpaid internship. But that image, never truly representative, is increasingly disconnected from reality. Nearly half of all college students attend community colleges ; among those at four-year schools, nearly a quarter attend part time and about the same share are 25 or older. In total, less than a third of U.S. undergraduates are traditional students in the sense that they are full-time, degree-seeking students at primarily residential four-year colleges.

Of course, the readerships of the Atlantic and Washington Post probably dont mirror the U.S. as a whole. Many readers probably did attend selective institutions or have children they are hoping will. Its understandable that media outlets would want to cater to their readers, particularly in stories that aim to give advice to students or their parents.

But its hard not to suspect that there is also another reason for reporters focus on elite colleges: At least in major national media outlets, thats where most of them went. Theres no definitive data on where reporters went to school, but the newsrooms of influential media outlets in New York and Washington, D.C., are full of graduates from Ivy League or similarly selective colleges. Those who attended public colleges often went to a handful of top research universities such as the University of Michigan or the University of California, Berkeley. FiveThirtyEight is just as bad: The vast majority of our editorial staff, including me, went to elite, selective colleges. (I went to Columbia.)

Ninety-five percent of the newsroom probably went to private institutions, they went to four-year institutions, and they went to elite institutions, said Jeff Selingo, a longtime higher-education journalist who has a new book focused on giving advice to a broader group of students. It is exactly the opposite of the experience for the bulk of American students.

It isnt just newsrooms. Hollywood is guilty of this too  think of a movie about college , and it probably took place on a leafy suburban campus. Thats true even of movies that arent set in the real world; when the writers of the Pixar film Monsters University wanted a model for their animated campus, they visited Harvard, MIT and Berkeley, according to The Wall Street Journal . One result, Selingo said: We tend to view higher education through the eyes of private higher education, even though nearly two-thirds of U.S. undergraduates attend public institutions.

That myopia has real consequences for education policy. Based on media accounts, it would be easy to think that the biggest issues on U.S. campuses today are the spread of  trigger warnings , the rise of  hookup culture  and the spiraling cost of amenity-filled dorms and rec centers . Meanwhile, issues that matter to a far larger share of students get short shrift.

The medias focus on elite schools draws attention away from state cuts to higher-education funding , for example. Private colleges, which feature disproportionately in media accounts, arent affected by state budget cuts; top-tier public universities, which have outside resources such as alumni donations, research grants and patent revenue, are much less dependent on public dollars than less selective schools .

Or consider the breathless coverage of the college application game that few students ever play: For most students, or at least most high school graduates, getting into college isnt nearly as big a challenge as getting out. Barely half of first-time, full-time bachelors degree students graduate within six years; for part-time or community college students, that share is even lower. But it took years for what is known in education jargon as  college completion  to break into mainstream education coverage , perhaps because at selective schools, the vast majority of students graduate on time or close to it .

Even issues that do get attention, such as student debt, are often covered through the lens of elite institutions . Reporters cant resist stories of students with eye-popping debt loads in the six figures. But many of those stories involve people who went to graduate school , most ( though not all ) of whom will end up making good salaries in the long run. Meanwhile, those who are struggling most to pay off loans are often those with smaller balances who either have degrees that dont help them find jobs (often from for-profit colleges) or who never got a degree in the first place. Nearly one in five Americans age 25 to 34 has some college credits but no degree, and a growing share of them have student debt .

The biggest issue is that people cant afford to spend enough time in college to actually finish their darn degrees, said Sara Goldrick-Rab, a sociology professor and education-policy expert at the University of Wisconsin .

What few journalists seem to understand, Goldrick-Rab said, is how tenuous a grasp many students have on college. They are working while in school, often juggling multiple jobs that dont readily align with class schedules. They are attending part time, which makes it take longer to graduate and reduces the chances of finishing at all. They are raising children, supporting parents and racking up debt trying to pay for it all.

One little thing goes awry and it just falls apart, Goldrick-Rab said. And the consequences of it falling apart when theyre taking on all this debt are just so severe.

Students keep taking that risk for a reason: A college degree remains the most likely path to a decent-paying job. They arent studying literary theory or philosophy ; the most popular undergraduate majors in recent years have been business and health-related fields such as nursing.

Yet the public debate over whether college is  worth it , and the related conversation over how to make higher education more affordable, too often focuses on issues that are far removed from the lives of most students: administrative salaries , runaway construction costs , the value of the humanities . Lost in those discussions are the challenges that affect far more students: How to design college schedules to accommodate students who work, as more than half of students do ; how to make sure students keep their credits when they transfer, as more than a third of students do at least once ; and, of course, how to make college affordable not just for the few who attend Harvard but for the many who attend regional public universities and community colleges.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/shut-up-about-harvard/
This piece is a response to an article by Bikram Vohra titled 'Jet did the right thing by deplaning Kanhaiya and assailant: Here's why'

First, read it.

Done?

Sunday morning TV channels and various publications, including Firstpost, reported that the JNU student union president Kanhaiya Kumar alleged that a man on a Jet Airways flight tried to strangle him. Everyone who carried the piece were very careful to use the word 'alleged'. It was imperative because the strangulation, which was alleged, was not confirmed in those words. Jet Airways released this one line statement after the news broke: "Some guests on board this mornings flight Jet Airways fight 9W 618 Mumbai to Pune have been off loaded at Mumbai airport in the interest of operational safety."

Jet Airways Official Statement: pic.twitter.com/phSMR4TuoX  Jet Airways (@jetairways) April 24, 2016

This was the only confirmed statement media houses received, after Kanhaiya alleged the 'strangulation'. The Jet Airways statement did not mention names, it did not mention strangle or strangulation. What we know for sure is that two people were deplaned because they posed a threat to the flight's operational safety. Except for these facts, everything else is hearsay. Even what Kanhaiya Kumar claims.

But clearly we do not know enough. Because here's this piece that will tell you that Kanhaiya Kumar was 'strangled' because he made "enemies". Because that's the treatment you get when "you go around having vituperative outbursts on the mike and being petty in that the comments on the IPL and linking it to the drought were pointless since the courts have already issued marching orders." Who cares about facts? This is how it is. If it is a person we do not agree with, strangulated or not, he should be deplaned. Because the Montreal Convention tells us so. Ok, I might get accused of getting personal here.

Let me rephrase.

It takes a strong feeling of complete displeasure to overlook an alleged situation and make it a real one and then blame the alleged victim for the problem. It is probable that Kanhaiya might have blown the thing out of proportion, but we still do not know that. The only information, believable information, is that two people were deplaned. But off late there's this overwhelming need for people to take a side and prove that the side they are on is right. Pun unintended.

Kanhaiya Kumar catapulted to popularity after a video surfaced in which he was shown shouting anti-national slogans  it later turned out to be a doctored video. Rest is history.

He was in prison for 21 days. He was beaten up by goons dressed as lawyers in the Patiala House court premises in New Delhi. There were sedition charges. His supporters were arrested after a dramatic chase (and all of this is very un-alleged). But the JNUSU president emerged fearless and even more determined to take on a government he was not happy with. What is the harm in that? Let's say this boy does actually want to join Indian politics. So what? Aren't we taught our entire lives to speak our mind? Yet, when there's an example of a PhD scholar from a so-called 'left-leaning' college standing up and fighting for what he and his fellow mates believe in, there are skirmishes. There is mud-slinging. There is politics of sorts. And that's when Kanhaiya, from a student who speaks his mind, becomes a Kanhaiya, someone who speaks the language of a Congress or a Left Front. Wait for a while, soon Kanhaiya will be blamed for being pro-BJP!

According to the author, Kanhaiya should "stop whining" because he has "become mean, cheap and tacky and your speeches are now demagoguery at its worst best. And when all you do is underscore problems and offer not a scintilla of solution then you have great nuisance value but that is it." And precisely for this reason he has created the situation he is in.

So, today if I have a problem with a political leader with heavy clout and crazy mass following in the country, it's totally justifiable for someone to "strangle" me and then deplane me because of a Convention. And if I try to talk about it, I will be told that I deserved it. There's a word for such extreme reactions and it starts with I.

The author of the aforementioned article is not at fault here, the problem is with the thinking. The attitude that every voice that says a different thing has to be muffled into something which soothes your senses and suits your sensibility. Otherwise, you belong in Pakistan. You cannot be an Indian.

I agree on one point with this author. "No pilot in this day and age is going to tolerate an on-board physical scuffle." True. But it becomes a big deal because the person involved is Kanhaiya Kumar and guess what, we did not make him a celebrity, the haters did. They hated him so much that he is everywhere now and they don't know what to do with the sheer magnitude. So when this author says:

"...Do not flatter yourself.

You were not singled out, dude, cool it..."

I am sure Kanhaiya is feeling super cool right now. Seeing journalists slugging it out for or against him. But he too would be a fool to do that. It is not about him. It is what he represents.
Nashik: In a veiled attack on the Narendra Modi government, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray said on Sunday that instead of guiding the youth in the right direction, it has "given birth" to Rohith Vemula, Hardik Patel and Kanhaiya Kumar, the youth figures who have been in news in the last few months.

India has a big population of youths. Instead of giving them proper guidance and directions, the government is "misleading" them, he said and cited the examples of Rohit Vemula (Dalit scholar who committed suicide in Hyderabad University), Hardik Patel (Gujarat Patel quota stir leader who is in jail) and JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar (who has been charged with sedition).

He, however, did not name BJP or the Modi government.

The Modi government has come under attack over the way it has handled the issues related to these three youths.

When Patel became popular, he was charged with sedition, and now Kumar is fighting against the government, Uddhav said, and asked, "Who gave birth to these youths?"

Youths of the country required proper guidance and direction and it is not wrong to give advice to our friend (BJP) with whom we have an alliance, he told reporters here.

"We will oppose any bifurcation of Maharashtra," the Sena leader said in the backdrop of ongoing debate on separate Vidarbha.
Thiruvananthapuram: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress President Sonia Gandhi and party vice president Rahul Gandhi will be among a battery of top national leaders who will hit the campaign trail in Kerala to woo voters for the 16 May Assembly elections.

While BJP sources said the exact date of Modi's visit to the state for poll campaign has not been finalised yet as Parliament session is starting tomorrow, Sonia Gandhi will address rallies in Thiruvananthapuram and Thrissur on 9 May.

A hectic schedule has been drawn up for Rahul Gandhi who will be in the state on 12 May.

He will crisscross four districts in a helicopter to address conventions at Kayamkulam, Angamally, Udumbanchola and Kozhikode, Congress sources said.

BJP, which has launched a do-or-die battle this time to open its account in the state Assembly, will see its national President Amit Shah along with Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Nirmala Sitharaman and Smriti Irani, addressing several meetings.

The saffron party has forged an alliance with Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), a political party launched by the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP), an organisation of backward Ezhava community, led by its General secretary Vellapally Natesan.

BJP-led NDA alliance is putting up a triangular fight in most of the 140 Assembly constituencies in Kerala which hitherto had witnessed a bi-polar contest between the ruling Congress-led UDF and opposition CPM-led LDF.

CPM General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, Politburo members Prakash Karat, Brinda Karat and Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar will be among the top national leaders to campaign in the state, where 93-year-old old V S Achutanandan is still the star campaigner for the Left front.

Senior Congress leader and CWC member A K Antony will begin his campaign tour from the northern Kasaragod district on May 1 and end at Thiruvananthapuram on 14 May. He will be addressing poll meetings in all the 14 districts.

Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, who is the Congress-UDF candidate from Puthupally in Kottayam district, will also be addressing 14 rallies in all the 14 districts, starting from Kasaragod on 26 April.

Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, who is trying is luck from Haripad, will begin his tour from 27 April from the state capital and conclude on 7 May at Alapuzha.

Kerala PCC President V M Sudheeran will kick off his campaign from Ernakulam on Monday and end in Palakkad on 8 May.
Two unconnected events hold the promise to reshape future politics. As Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar is anointed as president of Janata Dal (U)on Saturday, his tweet two days back refers to landslide in Tawang district of Arunachal Pradesh and expresses his heartfelt condolences to bereaved families.

There is nothing amiss if the chief minister of state condoles the tragedy of a far away distant hilly state bordering China. But it would be naive to ignore underlying political implication that the message contains. Without saying in so many words, Bihar chief minister has declared his national ambition. He is all set to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Kumar has been picking up the cudgel not without preparation. He has been crafting his own grammar and a new vocabulary to counter the BJP. For instance his clarion call of sangh-mukt Bharat is rhetorically as powerful as Modis congress-mukt bharat. In a situation of changed political axis, Nitish Kumars call assumes greater relevance than that of Modi.

Nitish Kumar knows too well the significance of demagoguery and rhetoric. He intends to play the role of a pivot around which anti-BJP social and political forces can gather around against Modi. In absence of a credible face in other anti-BJP parties, Nitish Kumars projection is sure to get traction among people at the national stage.

How did a man who appeared crestfallen and grossly marginalized after his 2014 Lok Sabha defeat bounce back ? Apparently Kumar has been grossly emboldened by the success of his Bihars experiment where a coalition of OBC castes combined with Muslim sailed him through in the state assembly election in 2015. No doubt his alliance with Lalu Prasad Yadavs Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) was frowned upon by a large section of the middle class and upper caste.

The fragility of his alliance with Lalu Prasad Yadav was all too evident right since its inception. In his political life, Kumar is not known for taking provocative, belligerent or casteist stances. On the other hand, Lalu is known for taking a stance that stokes emotions and consolidate OBCs to his favour.

Kumar devised a master strategy to let Lalu make provocation to consolidate the social base while Nitish Kumar retained his image of sagacious and matured leader not given to intemperate language. What makes his task easier is the degeneration of political discourse by the BJPs top leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who desperately tried to polarize the electorate on communal lines.

In the post Bihar election phase, Kumar has no doubt acquired the image of giant killer. Though he has to concede a lot of political ground to the Congress and the RJD, at the national level, he is seen as a leader who knows how to defeat Modi. Yet there was a degree of skepticism about Kumars acceptability across the nation because of his alliance with Lalu and subsequent dalliance with the likes of Shahabuddins and other shadowy characters.

It is in this context that Nitish Kumar went ahead with full throttle to impose liquor ban on the state which is expected to cost the state exchequer around Rs 6000 crore. This move besides inventing a new grammar politics has also taken idioms and vocabulary away from Lalu Prasad Yadav who is known for advocacy of making available toddy and country made liquor to the poor. In 1991 when he took over as the chief minister for the first time, Lalu Prasad Yadav was seen egging on people to enjoy (tadi piyo mast raho) their drinks.

Though Lalus idioms appealed to a section of the Dalit-OBC section in the nineties , particularly toddy tappers, it has, over the years, triggered a massive social unrest among women in rural areas. Nitish Kumars determination to impose prohibition found immense social traction all over the state, particularly among women, and proved to be the anti-thesis of Lalus politics.

In one stroke, Nitish Kumar regained the goodwill he frittered away on account of his alliance. Given his image of a no-nonsense administrator, Kumar comes across as seasoned leader who turned around a basket-case like Bihar in a significant manner.

What makes Nitish Kumars position unique is his image of an able administrator pursuing politics of social reform with his next-door-neighbour persona of leader rooted to the ground. If the government continues to fall short on delivery and fails to revive the economy to create more jobs, Nitish Kumar would certainly tap on social discontent and would attempt to forge a power social coalition against Modi in 2019.

By then, he would have fully invented a new grammar to weave a powerful narrative to counter the BJP and Modi and fight the battle in his own terms.
Dhaka: On Sunday, Bangladesh police detained a student and an alleged activist of an Islamist organisation in connection with the murder of a liberal university professor who was brutally hacked to death by machete-wielding militants.

Hafizur Rahman was detained earlier on Sunday morning over the murder of 58-year-old Rajshahi University Professor AFM Rezaul Karim Siddiquee in Rajshahi city in northwestern Bangladesh on Saturday, the latest in a series of similar attacks on intellectuals and bloggers by the dreaded group in the Muslim-majority country.

Rahman, an alleged activist of Islami Chhatra Shibir, was detained from a Shibir dominated student mess at Chhoto Bongram, Rajshahi Metropolitan Police (RMP) Commissioner Md Shamsuddin said.

"Hafizur is a student of the university's Public Administration department," RMP Commissioner Shamsuddin was quoted as saying by the Daily Star.

Earlier on Sunday, the murder case was handed over to the Detective Branch of Police, the commissioner added.

The Professor of English literature was brutally murdered in the city's Shalbagan area on Saturday in an attack that police say bears the hallmark of the previous blogger killings.

Two years ago, another Rajshahi University teacher AKM Shafiul Islam was similarly murdered. Though his murder was initially claimed by radical group 'Ansaral Islam', police later ruled out that possibility, saying he was murdered due to personal rivalry.

But some years ago, two more professors of the state-run varsity had been killed.

There have been systematic assaults in Bangladesh in recent months specially targeting minorities, secular bloggers, intellectuals and foreigners.

Last year, four prominent secular bloggers were killed with machetes, one inside his own home.
Ida Mae Astute/ABC(NEW YORK) -- Hillary Clinton's campaign has responded to a recent ABC News interview with billionaire Charles Koch, in which the GOP donor suggested he might prefer Clinton over the remaining Republican candidates.

"Not interested in endorsements from people who deny climate science and try to make it harder for people to vote," the campaign tweeted on Clinton's account.

Not interested in endorsements from people who deny climate science and try to make it harder for people to vote. https://t.co/TWN4zYhMBh  Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) April 24, 2016

In an interview that aired Sunday on ABC News' This Week, Koch said Clinton's husband former President Bill Clinton was "in many ways" a better president than President George W. Bush.

When asked whether another Clinton presidency would be preferable to a Republican one, given those who are left in the GOP primary field, Koch replied, "It's possible."

However, Koch acknowledged he wasn't yet putting himself down as a Clinton supporter.

"We would have to believe her actions would be quite different than her rhetoric. Let me put it that way," he said.

Copyright  2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Check out the new FoneArena Daily video that gives you a quick roundup of latest technology news.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRO7lu-30pI

Samsung is reportedly testing a 5.8-inch Quad HD curved screen for the Note6 as well as a similar non-curved screen and 6GB of RAM.

Microsoft and Google have mutually reached an agreement to drop all the regulatory complaints against each other across the world.

Xiaomi India has announced that both the Redmi Note 3 variants will be available through open sale, without registration on April 27th.

SanDisk has introduced a new iXpand Flash Drive that is compact weighing only 5.3 grams and a faster USB 3.0 connector.
We know some visitors come to the website because a domain name leads them to here. If you are interested in buying 
The price of crude oil has been battered for more than a year due to a vastly oversupplied oil market. However, that market is showing signs of improving and could be poised for a big second-half rebound. That's the bullish take recently offered by Core Labs (NYSE: CLB), which detailed its outlook for the oil market when it reported its first-quarter results. Here's why Core Labs is confident that the worst is almost over the for oil market.

The improving fundamental picture

In its market outlook Core Labs noted:

The Company continues to anticipate a "V-shaped" worldwide commodity recovery in 2016, with upticks expected to start in the third quarter. Global demand for hydrocarbon-based energy continues to improve, while worldwide crude oil supply peaked in the second half of 2015 beginning a decline that Core believes will continue through all of 2016 and 2017.

Core Labs notes that not only is demand for oil improving, but supplies clearly have peaked and are now in decline. In terms of demand, the International Energy Agency (IEA) noted in its most recent oil market report that global oil demand grew by a pace of 1.8 million barrels per day last year and its expected to grow by a pace of 1.2 million barrels per day in 2016. While the rate of growth is slowing, demand is still growing.

Meanwhile, supplies have clearly peaked and have started to decline with the IEA reporting a 300,000-barrel decline in March as the steep drop in investments by oil companies takes hold. Oil companies have cut deeply into their capex budgets with Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC), for example, cutting its investment spending by 50% over last year's level. That deep spending cut will have a noticeable impact on Anadarko Petroleum's oil production, which is expected to fall from an average of 312,000 barrels per day in 2015 to as low as 308,000 barrels per day in 2016.

Look out below!

Core Labs then drilled down a little bit, focusing on the production declines in the U.S.:

The Company has observed that U.S. onshore oil production peaked in March 2015 and has fallen since then by over 600,000 barrels of oil per day ("BOPD"), some of which was offset by new additions to production in the Gulf of Mexico ("GOM") as a result of eight deepwater legacy-field developments coming on-line in 2015. This new production, from deepwater fields that includes Anadarko's Lucius and Heidelberg and Shell's (NYSE: RDS-A) (NYSE: RDS-B) Stones, offset significant declines in existing GOM fields.

We can see just how steeply oil production in the U.S. has already slumped in the following chart:

Even steeper production declines are on the way, with Core Labs suggesting that,

At current U.S. activity levels, Core predicts 2016 U.S. onshore oil production will fall approximately 1,100,000 BOPD, somewhat offset by GOM gains of approximately 200,000 BOPD, yielding a U.S. net decline of 900,000 BOPD and net decline curve rate of 10.1%. Based on currently available worldwide crude oil production data, coupled with internal Core Lab data, Core has increased its estimate of the net worldwide annual crude oil production decline rate to 3.3%, as supported by recent IEA reports that worldwide crude oil production fell 300,000 BOPD in March from February 2016 levels. March was the third consecutive month of global oil production decreases.

Driving this steep U.S. production decline are shale-focused producers with Continental Resources (NYSE: CLR), for example, expecting its average daily production to decline by 10%, while its exit-to-exit production rate will decline by nearly 18%. That's a significant shift for Continental Resources, which grew its production 27% last year. Its decline is so steep because unlike Anadarko Petroleum or Shell, it won't be seeing the benefit from legacy investments made in longer-cycle offshore projects in the Gulf of Mexico coming online this year. Instead, horizontal wells, like the ones Continental Resources develops, rapidly decline, thus requiring the company to continually invest in new wells just to keep up. Given where the oil price is right now, it can no longer afford keep up, let alone grow.

The formula for a "V-Shaped" recovery

While that's bad news in the short term, it should help the oil market heal more quickly. In fact, as Core Labs points out:

The increase in the net worldwide decline rate is predicated on sharper decline curve rates for tight-oil reservoirs and the significant decline in maintenance capital expenditures for the existing crude oil production base. This, coupled with the continuing decline in global production and the continuing increase in global energy consumption, should create a tight crude oil supply market for the second half of 2016, and that should lead to increased crude prices and industry activity levels worldwide.

In other words, supplies are coming down quicker than anticipated, while demand growth remains in tact. That should lead to a much tighter oil market later this year, fueling a much improved oil price. This would give companies like Continental Resources the cash needed to start drilling more wells to begin offsetting production declines, thus improving industry activity levels.

Investor takeaway

If everything plays out the way Core Labs expects, the oil market could be on the upswing as early as next quarter. That being said, the oil market has a tendency to not always follow expectations, especially if something unexpected enters the mix like even more oil production from OPEC or a global recession leading to weaker-than-expected demand. Bottom line: Don't take the forecast to the bank just yet, but don't dismiss it entirely, either.
Ford (F 3.57%) said on Friday that it will begin selling the F-150 Raptor in China in 2017.

The Raptor is a high-performance off-road version of the F-150, powered by a souped-up version of Ford's 3.5-liter EcoBoost twin-turbo V6. Its debut in China will mark the first time Ford has tried to sell a full-size pickup in the world's largest auto market.

What's Ford thinking here?

Chinese off-road fans might like the Raptor

First and foremost, I think Ford is thinking that well-heeled off-road enthusiasts in China might like the Raptor -- and that it might be a good brand-builder, introducing Chinese consumers to another side of the Blue Oval.

That was pretty much the official explanation. "F-150 Raptor is the ultimate showcase of the tough capability available throughout Ford's family of trucks and SUVs," said Ford China chief John Lawler in a statement. "By introducing it to the world's largest auto market, we hope to inspire a new generation of off-road enthusiasts and demonstrate how we are always bringing our customers new innovations."

There is a strong niche market for off-road vehicles in China. Models such as Fiat Chrysler's (FCAU) Jeep Cherokee and Toyota's (TM 0.39%) brawny Land Cruiser have strong followings, but pickups are a relatively new thing in China. Most of the pickup trucks in China are "gray market" vehicles, imported by private owners often at extravagant cost.

Ford's move to offer the Raptor gives Chinese enthusiasts a chance to buy Ford's well-regarded truck directly, with full factory support. Ford already imports other high-performance vehicles to China, including the ST versions of the Focus and Fiesta and the brawny Mustang GT. The Raptor should sit well alongside those offerings.

It all makes a lot of sense. But I wonder if something else is going on here.

Is the Raptor laying the groundwork for a bigger plan?

Ford's F-Series pickups are America's best-selling vehicle line and have been for decades. General Motors' (GM 4.67%) Chevy Silverado is second, and FCA's Ram pickups aren't far behind: Americans love full-size pickups.

Ford sells the F-Series in Canada, Mexico, and a few other places, including some markets in the Middle East. But for the most part, the F-Series is a uniquely North American product.

That's at odds with just about everything else Ford builds. Nearly all of Ford's products are now "global" models, sold all over the world (with some regional variants). Even the Mustang is now expected to earn its keep with sales in Europe and China and other places far from the Michigan factory that produces Ford's proud pony.

I wonder if Ford is thinking that Chinese customers might like full-size pickups -- or, put another way, if it could offer the F-Series as something more than a niche product in China. After all, here in the U.S., the F-Series is a tremendously profitable product. If it could sell well in China, too, that's a big opportunity for the Blue Oval.

While Chinese tastes in vehicles vary a bit from Americans', Chinese buyers have already shown a fondness for SUVs, including big ones -- just like Americans. Might they like big pickups, too?

Don't be surprised if Ford uses the Raptor to test the waters a bit -- and if Ford decides to start sending regular F-150s to China in a few years as well.
Ford Motor Company will release its first-quarter financial results Thursday, April 28, and investors can expect results similar to that of the past year: a truck-load of profits. Not only is North America likely to continue printing cash thanks to rapid-selling SUVs and full-size trucks, but Europe is again profitable, and the company's Asia-Pacific region just posted its best-ever annual profit.

However, one thing investors might prepare for is a sequential decline in North America's operating margin. Here's why.

Daily rental Many still believe fleet sales are entirely bad business, but upon closer inspection, that is simply not the case. There are definitely healthy fleet sales to commercial and government customers; consider that Ford's Police Interceptor utility vehicle has posted a 27% increase in sales this year through March, compared to the prior year, and has outsold Ford's Flex utility vehicle in terms of volume.

It's not a one-hit wonder, either, as Ford has a whole family of police vehicles for sale including the F-150, Expedition, and Sedan Special Service Vehicles as well as the Transit Prisoner Transport Vehicle and Police Interceptor Sedan.

2016 F-150 Special Service Vehicle Package. Image source: Ford Motor Company.

Ford works hard to earn valuable commercial and government business, and investors should be thrilled the company does well in those segments. The fleet sales associated with lower margins are those to daily rental fleet customers, and unfortunately, Ford has witnessed an acceleration in those sales during the first quarter.

During the first quarter, Ford's fleet sales accounted for 36% of total sales in the U.S., a noticeable increase from last year's 29% during the same timeframe. Moreover, the increase was largely driven by daily rental sales. This year's 36% of fleet sales breaks down into 13% commercial, 6% government, and 17% daily rental, which is unfavorable compared to last year's 13%, 5%, and 11%, respectively.

Despite posting healthy margins in North America in recent years, the rise in daily rental fleet sales could mean a second quarter of margins in North America checking in closer to the total automotive margin, which is historically lower.

Chart by author. Data source: Ford Motor Company's earnings releases.

That said, Ford's North America operating margin is facing a weak year-over-year comparison, so it's likely to still post an improvement on that front.

Is it a new trend? There are a couple of factors to consider, here. The first factor is that one quarter, assuming margins do feel some pressure when the financials are reported, doesn't make a trend. Ford's management has noted that while fleet deliveries are likely to remain elevated during the first half of 2016, it will taper off during the second half of the year and end up at or only slightly above 2015 levels.

While that means Ford's full-year North America operating margins should remain around a strong 10%, it is worth noting that its cross-town rival is doing almost the opposite when it comes to daily rental fleet sales.

As previously mentioned, 36% of Ford's first-quarter sales were generated in fleet channels, and that's quite a bit higher than General Motors' 21.5% of first-quarter sales. Moreover, GM's decline in fleet sales wasn't in the healthier government and commercial segments. GM's commercial and government fleet sales moved 9% and 23% higher, respectively, while its daily rental sales plunged roughly 36%. It will be very telling for investors to compare the operating margins from each Detroit automaker's first quarter and see if the different strategies for fleet sales make a noticeable impact.

Ultimately, North America drives the vast majority of Detroit automakers' profits, and the operating margins in this region are of high interest to investors. Ford's margins might feel some pressure due to the inflated daily rental fleet sales, but it won't be a year-long issue -- that's worth keeping in mind when glancing at Ford's financial presentation next week.

The article 1 Factor for Ford Motor Company's Investors to Keep in Mind Next Week originally appeared on Fool.com.

Daniel Miller owns shares of Ford and General Motors. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Ford. The Motley Fool recommends General Motors. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
IRAs are a great way to save for retirement, and traditional IRAs give you an up-front tax break you can use to reduce your current-year taxes. When you retire, you typically have to pay federal income tax on the amount you withdraw from a traditional IRA. Not every state follows the same rules on IRAs with their state income tax systems. In Kentucky, for instance, IRA withdrawals often qualify for an exemption from state income tax. Let's take a closer look at the provision and how you can use it to your advantage.

U.S. vs. KentuckyIn the federal tax system, when you take a withdrawal from a traditional IRA, it's almost always fully taxable. The only situation in which it isn't is if at some point you made a nondeductible contribution to your traditional IRA, and that's relatively rare.

However, Kentucky has a special provision regarding pension income. All pension and retirement income paid under a written retirement plan is eligible for exclusion for Kentucky income tax purposes up to a certain annual limit. This exclusion includes pensions, annuities, 401(k), and other deferred compensation plans, as well as death benefits, disability retirement benefits, and income received from converting a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. The exclusion also specifically includes IRA accounts.

For 2015, the maximum amount of eligible pension income that you can exclude was $41,110. If you had less than that amount of income when you combine IRA withdrawals in retirement with the other eligible income from sources listed above, then all of your pension income will be exempt from Kentucky income tax. If you had more than $41,110, then a portion of your income will still be taxed in Kentucky.

Interestingly, Kentucky appears to allow taxpayers to take the exemption for IRA withdrawals even if they haven't actually retired. Section 141.010(10)(i)(3) includes any withdrawal from an IRA within the definition of excludable distributions, without any mention of when they were made or the age of the recipient. This differs from certain other states, in which there's a distinction between retirement income from a timely IRA withdrawal and non-retirement income from an early IRA withdrawal that's subject to federal penalties.

Overall, Kentucky's laws on IRA distributions are extremely favorable to retirement investors. Being able to exclude much or all of your retirement income from state income tax is a point in Kentucky's favor in appealing to its lifelong residents and to those considering a move to the state after they choose to retire.

This article is part of The Motley Fool's Knowledge Center, which was created based on the collected wisdom of a fantastic community of investors. We'd love to hear your questions, thoughts, and opinions on the Knowledge Center in general or this page in particular. Your input will help us help the world invest, better! Email us atknowledgecenter@fool.com. Thanks -- and Fool on!

The article Does Kentucky Tax IRA Withdrawals? originally appeared on Fool.com.

Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Image Source: Pixabay.com

Artificial intelligence and UAVs are two emerging technologies with big potential. Due to the continual breakthroughs in semiconductors, natural language processing, and other technologies, some scientists think that AI could eclipse human intelligence as soon as 2029. Given the improvements in weight reduction and battery technology, many investors believe UAVs could do everything from powering Internet connections to delivering products quickly over the next decade too.

Given the two technologies' potential, it isn't surprising that Chevron (NYSE: CVX) has big plans for artificial intelligenceand UAV technology for its future. Let's explore in more detail.

HowChevronis putting AI to workChevron is currently using AI to identify new well locations and stimulation candidates in California. By using AI software to analyze the company's large collection of historical well performance data, the company is drilling in better locations and has seen production rise 30% over conventional methods. Chevron is also using predictive models to analyze the performance of thousands of pieces of rotating equipment to detect failures before they occur. By catching the problems before they become serious, Chevron has avoided unplanned shutdowns and has lowered its repair expenses. The increased production and lower repair costs have translated to more profit per well.

Although artificial intelligence doesn't play a big part in Chevron's operations right now, AI software is constantly improving. As technology advances, AI will help Chevron find new well locations in other projects outside California and lower finding costs. It will catch problems outside of rotating equipment and increase productivity. It will reduce non-productive time and increase return on investment. Overall, analysts believe artificial intelligence and digital technologies will unlock trillions of dollars of productivity gains over the next decade in the industrial sector, with the oil and gas sector being one of the prime beneficiaries.

How Chevron plans to use UAVsLike AI, UAVs currently play a small but efficient role in Chevron's operations.

In Europe, Chevron has used unmanned aerial vehicles to visually inspect flare tips on the Alba and Captain platforms in the North Sea. Using UAVs reduces the safety risk to the contractors and employees who used to do the inspections hundreds of feet above the water. Now the contractors and employees can do the inspections safely behind a monitor screen. Because of the advancements in camera and imaging technology, Chevron can perform the same quality of inspection without putting its employees at risk.

In offshore Western Australia, Chevron has used UAVs to monitor turtle tracks and nests around its billion-dollar Wheatstone Project to gather necessary environmental compliance information.Using UAVs has been a more effective and non-obtrusive method than using humans to collect the information.

As regulation concerning unmanned aerial vehiclesin different nations advance to allow for more usage, Chevron will use UAVs for more purposes and in more locations. Currently, regulation in the United States is very strict and requires UAVs to remain in the line of sight for operators for safety purposes. The regulations make inspecting pipelines with UAVs difficult, given that the operators of the UAVs would be miles away. However, Chevron has received an exemption from some of those regulations and plans to use UAVs to do aerial surveying, mapping, and detecting potential operational threats in the near future. Chevron hopes to eventually use UAVs to monitor its pipeline, production, and shipping operations. Using UAVs to gather data will save Chevron tens of millions in asset monitoring and surveying costs and will help the company catch more problems before they occur.

Using AI and UAVs fits with the Chevron WayA big reason Chevron has been one of the leaders in realizing the most upstream earnings per barrel before the crude crash was that it used the most efficient technologies to optimize profits. Given Chevron's commitment to artificial intelligence and UAVs, that focus on efficiency will continue, and the company'sAI and UAV efforts could give Chevron a competitive advantage versus smaller companies.Because Chevron is larger, the company can spread the costs through more of its operations, thus lowering the cost of AI research per barrel. The company could also get bigger discounts from third party UAV contractors.

One of the tangible impacts investors can watch for as an indicator of AI/UAV success is Chevron's unscheduled downtime for refineries and other projects. As AI and UAV monitoring improves, unscheduled downtime will decline as AI software catches problems before they occur. Less unscheduled downtime, increased productivity, and lower finding costs should also lead to higher returns on capital when controlling for project cost and crude prices.

The article How Chevron Plans to Use UAVs and AI to Deliver Big Profits originally appeared on Fool.com.

TMFJay22 has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Chevron. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Image source: Flickr user Cannabis Culture.

We can assume there were quite a few cheers when California passed Proposition 215 in 1996, becoming the first state to legalize marijuana's medical use, but 2016 could go down as the most remarkable year for the marijuana industry to date.

Since this first approval 20 years ago, the marijuana industry has witnessed 24 states in total legalize medical marijuana, of which Pennsylvania became the latest just this past week. Additionally, four states Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska have legalized the use of marijuana for recreational purposes. The 2016 elections could result in a sizable boost to both figures as favorability to marijuana among the American public continues to rise. Gallup's national poll from Oct. 2015 showed that 58% of its respondents favor the idea of nationwide legalization, whereas a CBS News poll conducted a year ago this month demonstrated that roughly five in six people want to see medical marijuana legalized.

But just as exciting for the industry is the opportunity that may be at hand for investors. Marijuana is among the fastest-growing industries in the U.S., with ArcView Market Research expecting the industry to grow at a brisk compounded annual rate of 30% between 2016 and 2020, ultimately reaching an approximate market value of $22 billion by 2020. Investment opportunities where industries can sustain a 30% growth rate for a half-decade or longer simply don't come around very often, making marijuana a seemingly attractive investment opportunity.

Image source: Flickr user Oswaldo.

Three statistics that should excite investors in marijuana's greenest state These industry dynamics and investors' opportunity are especially evident in what I'd dub marijuana's "greenest" state, Oregon.

What makes Oregon so particularly attractive is its wide-scale medical marijuana infrastructure that was already in place before the 2014 approval of recreational marijuana by voters. Having the groundwork in place was expected to translate into immediate results for Oregon's marijuana businesses and perhaps even investors.

How'd they do? I believe the following three statistics speak for themselves.

1. 112% sales growth in Oct. 2015Although marijuana possession (under a certain amount) became legal on July 1, 2015, it wasn't until Oct. 1, 2015, that recreational marijuana began retailing in medical marijuana dispensaries in Oregon. In October, based on the surveys of dispensaries conducted by Sam Chapman of New Economy Consulting and Beau Whitney of Whitney Economics, and included in the Oregon Cannabis Jobs Report, medical marijuana dispensary sales rose by 112% to approximately $23 million. Furthermore, median marijuana sales among dispensaries rose from $23,000 in September to $58,000 in October.

2. An estimated 2,155 jobs createdSecond, and also from the Oregon Cannabis Jobs Report, it's estimated that the booming recreational industry will create 2,155 jobs in 2016, generating $46 million in wages, and having an initial market within the state of $300 million. The vast majority of these jobs will come from dispensaries that sell both recreational and medical marijuana. Chapman and Whitney also suggest in their report that an additional 200 to 700 jobs could be created by Oregon's marijuana industry in 2017.

3. $181 an ounceAnother interesting statistic comes from Priceofweed.com, a website that allows consumers to anonymously input their purchase price for marijuana regardless of whether it was bought legally or on the black market. Using "medium grade" marijuana as the benchmark, no state in the U.S. comes in with a lower price per ounce, rounded up to $181 per ounce, than Oregon.

As noted by the Oregon Cannabis Jobs Report, the number of dispensaries in Oregon has jumped dramatically within less than a year to 413 from 230, of which 326 participate in recreational marijuana sales. This abundance of retail options, as well as Oregon's already vast infrastructure, is allowing it to be as competitive as possible with the black market.

Image source: White House on Flickr.

Still an uphill climbYet, in spite of these resoundingly positive numbers out of Oregon, the "green standard" of the marijuana industry, I'd still view the marijuana industry to be in an uphill struggle without the support of the federal government.

Even in Oregon, dispensaries face an uphill battle against the black market. The reason? Licensing fees for dispensaries and taxes associated with the sale of marijuana make it very difficult for businesses to compete with the black market, which has no such fees to contend with. It's possible that, as Oregon's marijuana industry matures, we could see it become increasingly competitive with the black market, but my initial inclination is that a price gap will remain as long as the federal government views marijuana as a schedule 1 substance.

Tax and banking disadvantages exist as well. Because marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, marijuana businesses have extremely limited access to basic banking services, meaning most are dealing solely in cash. This, as you can imagine, can present security concerns and constrain expansion efforts. Additionally, marijuana businesses get creamed come tax time because they're disallowed from taking normal business deductions.

All three of these factors make it very difficult for the marijuana investor to succeed, even with state-level expansion. It continues to look as if investing in the marijuana industry will remain extremely risky, despite its strong sales growth, until the federal government changes its stance on the drug.

The article Investors Should Be Encouraged by 3 New Marijuana Statistics From the "Greenest" State originally appeared on Fool.com.

Sean Williamshas no material interest in any companies mentioned in this article. You can follow him on CAPS under the screen nameTMFUltraLong, track every pick he makes under the screen name TrackUltraLong, and check him out on Twitter, where he goes by the handle@TMFUltraLong.The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter servicesfree for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe thatconsidering a diverse range of insightsmakes us better investors. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Image source: Alphabet.

As many cliched motivational posters have informed me more than once: "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."

Though possibly motivating to my third-grade self, today I find myself wondering whether the same principle applies in the case of tech giant Alphabet's own moonshots.

Several recent headlines have painted the current state of affairs at several moonshots as fraying and chaotic. However, in an effort to set the record straight, several key Alphabet executives defended their "Other Bets" progress with a series of recent public appearances.

Verily turns profitable At a recent company town hall, Alphabet co-founder Sergey Brin announced its life sciences moonshot -- Verily -- has officially become profitable.Granted, Brin hedged his disclosure slightly, saying Verily had become profitable "on a cash basis" as opposed to the GAAP accrual-based accounting required in all SEC filings. Either way, the news paints Verily as further along in executing on its business model than previous media accounts.

Image source: Verily.

The comments were a clear attempt on Brin's part to counter the recent surge in negative media reports surrounding Alphabets Other Bets, and Verily specifically. Perhaps most notably, an article late last month appearing in Stat, the Boston Globe's medical periodical, strongly criticized Verily founder Andy Conrad. The article claims Verily has undergone a "talent exodus" as the result of Conrad's ineffective leadership, largely paralleling the purported internal turmoil gripping Alphabet's Nest moonshot as well.

Re/code reported in late March that sources say Verily likely generated less than $10 million of the $448 millionOther Bets produced in FY 2015. It isn't clear whether Verily, which produces revenue via licensing deals with pharmaceutical companies and other medical bodies, was able to turn a profit on those sales, or if the segment achieved profitability after gaining additional business more recently. Either way, Brin's reported statement presents Verily in a slightly more positive light, albeit one that reeks of PR spin.

What about Nest? At the same town hall, Nest CEO Tony Fadell took the stage to address the recent spate of negative media coverage that has surrounded the smart home appliance maker, and Fadell personally.

Image source: Nest.

At the event, Fadell is quoted as saying, "Of course, we're not perfect. No company is. Nest isn't perfect. I'm not perfect. No one's perfect. But we know what our problems are. We have been addressing them over the last two years. And, frankly, we have more room to go." He also added that he was "incredibly disheartened" by the reports of Nest's apparent internal discord.

For those unfamiliar with this intriguing Alphabet subplot, a report from The Information last month shed light on apparent operational and cultural tensions at the company Alphabet purchased for $3.2 billion in 2014. The report aimed much of the criticism at Nest's well-known CEO, Fadell, who gained fame in tech circles for his leadership of the original iPod's development at Apple. Fadell's apparently combative management style rankled many within Nest, especially the leadership from its acquisition Dropcam, which reportedly led to meaningful employee departures and missed financial goals at Nest.

All told, both Fadell and Brin said the right things to do their part to quell employee or investor concerns about the state of affairs of two of Alphabet's moonshot. What's less clear, especially in light of these recent reports, is whether any of the company's high-potential Other Bets will actually prove capable of realizing their full potential. These types of long-term bets take time to manifest results. However, in light of recent headlines, investors should remember that such investments remain far from "sure things" today.

The article Signs of Progress at Alphabet's Moonshots originally appeared on Fool.com.

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fools board of directors. Andrew Tonner owns shares of AAPL. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends GOOG, GOOGL, and AAPL. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Image source: SunPower.

Slowly but surely, utilities are eating away at the revolution taking place in rooftop solar. Nevada eliminated net metering altogether, California and Hawaii reduced net metering credits for customers, and utilities across the country are starting to increase base fees and challenge net metering to reduce the savings solar provides.

The result is effectively a war between residential solar companies and the utilities they're trying to disrupt. And where your solar investments are positioned in this battle could tell you a lot about their future.

Why the battle over net metering is taking place The core disagreement between utilities and solar companies is over the price homeowners are credited for solar electricity they export to the grid. The solar energy that's produced and consumed at a home isn't in question -- it's only what's exported that matters.

As the rules stand today, in most states customers are credited with their full retail rate, known as net metering. If the rate you pay for electricity is $0.12 per kWh, you would get a $0.12-per-kWh credit for the electricity exported to the grid. Companies like SolarCity , Sunrun , and SunPower love this structure because they can sell electricity to homeowners for less than their retail rate (in this example, $0.12 per kWh), offering savings to go solar.

Image source: SolarCity.

But utilities argue that they can buy solar electricity from large solar farms at a more cost-effective rate than homeowners can. And that makes sense. NV Energy, which is owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway , was behind Nevada's massive cut in net metering and its numbers show the problem for rooftop solar. The utility has signed contracts in the last two years with First Solar and SunPower to buy solar energy for $0.039per kWh and $0.046 per kWh, respectively -- far below what you would pay for solar on your roof. So, why should it then be happy buying solar energy from customers for $0.114 per kWh, which is the latest retail rate for electricity? And why should regulators force the utility to buy that more expensive solar energy?

That's the picture if you're looking at the system as a whole. And it's hard to argue that the utility doesn't have a point that it can procure solar energy more effectively than homeowners. But that doesn't take into account other system benefits, like locally created supply, reduced need for transmission lines, reduction in demand during peak summer air condition hoursor choices in energy, something that's new to the industry.

Does choice in energy matter? One thing residential solar companies would argue is that choice in energy matters. If a customer wants to generate their own electricity they should be able to. And that's true.

But what can't go overlooked is that solar systems are still reliant on the grid for reliable operation of a home, and net metering, in one form or another, is the only way to make rooftop solar truly economical until batteries that allow 100% self consumption are an economical option.

Image source: SunPower.

Customers have the choice to go solar, but in most cases they're also reliant on compensation from the grid to make their solar choice work. And that tension between choice and compensation is the battle between solar companies and utilities today.

Community solar could solve all of these problems What could solve this problem is if customers begin getting the choice to buy solar energy from a community solar farm. These are larger solar installations that could leveraging the lower cost that scale provides, but it would still sell energy directly by customers, just like a rooftop solar system. Think of it as owning a small piece of a solar farm for yourself. And the utility would be able to accurately predict energy production and costs, making for more predictability on the grid.

I think community solar will end up being a win-win-win for customers, solar companies, and utilities in the long term, but they're relatively new to the industry right now. Keep an eye on this as a structure going forward as a way to balance everyone's interests.

Where do you stand in the solar war? I don't write any of this to take sides in rooftop solar vs. utilities, but rather to lay out the position different companies have in this battle. Utilities are often seen as the bad guys, trying to kill off a threatening innovation like rooftop solar. But there's a logical reason to think that utilities could actually help bring more solar energy to the grid more cost effectively than rooftop solar companies can. And that's one of their best arguments for utilities against net metering. If your goal is more solar energy production and not more energy choice, you may lean to the utility side of the argument.

But rooftop solar companies also have a good point that they bring choice to a market that's never had choice before. I just wouldn't expect them to win the argument that net metering will make sense forever given the low-cost solar alternatives and potential cost shift to non-solar customers in high-penetration markets.

When investing in solar, it's important to know where your company stands as the industry changes in the long term. And if you're counting on net metering to fuel your company's business model-- as SolarCity and Sunrun are -- you may want to reconsider how sustainable that model is. Utilities across the country are chipping away at net metering, and that may not be good for the disruptive rooftop solar market.

The article Solar Energy War: Utilities Set Their Sights on Rooftop Solar originally appeared on Fool.com.

Travis Hoium owns shares of Berkshire Hathaway, First Solar, and SunPower. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Berkshire Hathaway and SolarCity. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
This is a story about flags, coins, congressional spending bills and a tunnel. But sometimes theres more than meets the eye behind what appears to be a rather innocuous series of seemingly non-related events.

The Architect of the Capitol announced last September it would close off the tunnel that runs from the U.S. Capitol, under Independence Avenue and to the Rayburn House Office Building.

The memo declared that construction will last for approximately one year with the majority of the work to take place nightly between the hours of 9:00 pm and 6:00 am.

The AOC said the closure was necessary to renovate the tunnels ceiling, light fixtures, fire alarms and sprinklers.

And so as construction began, down came the flags of all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories which embroidered the tunnels wall.

The tunnel looked pretty barren. The lack of flags accentuated the tunnels parabolic, curvature. The naked, vanilla wall still revealed a shadow of each flag and its state seal imprinted on the plaster. The exposed ceiling showed a network of nine parallel pipes running between the Capitol and Rayburn.

A few days ago, House Administration Committee Chairwoman Candice Miller, R-Mich., announced that the flags wouldnt return when the tunnels work wrapped up. In place of the flags, the Architect of the Capitol would install reproductions of commemorative quarters issued by the U.S. Mint for all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories.

Each quarter serves as a reminder of the ideals, landmarks, and people from each state, as well as this nations great motto, out of many, one, Miller said in a statement.

OK. No biggie. Just an aesthetic, interior design decision. Going for a different motif, right?

Perhaps.

But one of these flags was not like the others.

Forty-nine state flags seemed fine. But it was the flag from Mississippi that caused trouble.

Georgia adopted a new flag 13 years ago, dropping Confederate imagery. That left Mississippi as the only state emblem still depicting the Confederate battle flag. The upper left-hand corner of the banner features the deep blue cross cast against a red backdrop. Thirteen stars festoon the blue stripes.

The Mississippi flag has hung in the tunnel for years. A similar subterranean passageway stretching from the capitol and to the Dirksen and Hart Senate Office buildings continues to display the flags of all 50 states, including Mississippi.

But the Mississippi flag ignited a firestorm at the capitol after a massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston, S.C. last June. Shooting suspect Dylann Roof later told police he began firing at black parishioners attending a Bible study in hopes of starting a race war.

A few days later, South Carolina GOP Gov. Nikki Haley ordered the removal of the Confederate flag from the state capitol. And Haleys decision set into motion a whirlwind of issues in Congress as lawmakers tried to usher annual spending bills to passage.

Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., crafted a little-known amendment to the appropriations bill that would fund the Interior Department. Huffmans plan would prohibit the flying of the Confederate flag at many federal cemeteries. Without fanfare, the House approved Huffmans amendment, hooking it the Interior spending bill.

But later the same night, Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., introduced an amendment to counter Huffman -- apparently at the behest of the Republican leadership. The Calvert amendment would trump Huffmans idea. As a result, the House scheduled a vote on the Calvert amendment and the full Interior Department spending bill the next day.

They couldnt have picked a worse day. It was the same day Haley would preside over a ceremony removing the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds.

The GOP brass worried it might not have the votes to pass the appropriations bill without attaching the Calvert amendment. Some Republicans simply couldnt be on the record approving a bill that wiped out the display of the Confederate flag in federal cemeteries. By the same token, the optics were awful for the Republicans. They didnt want to vote in favor of the Confederate flag just as Haley pulled down the Confederate flag.

The GOP yanked the entire Interior bill from the House calendar.

Then-House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, wanted a compromise.

I want members on both sides of the aisle to sit down, and lets have a conversation about how to address what, frankly, has become a very thorny issue, Boehner said.

It was at that point Democrats knew they had somewhat unintentionally marched House Republicans into a political box canyon.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., pushed a resolution to remove any state flag containing any portion of the Confederate battle flag from the House side of the capitol. However, the resolution included a carve-out for lawmakers to continue displaying the flag inside their offices if they chose to do so.

If the House adopted Thompsons resolution, officials would have to remove the Mississippi flag from the Rayburn tunnel. The effort would force Republicans to take a tough vote -- or pay a political price for not doing so.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., punted the resolution so the House wouldnt have to deal directly with Thompsons initiative. The House voted with McCarthy, sidestepping a direct up or down vote.

But while Republicans could a skirt a vote on the resolution, they couldnt avoid the issue.

Democrats repeatedly tried to push a vote on Thompsons resolution without success. Republicans knew how embarrassing the outcome of the issue would be: The House would most likely defeat the resolution.

That would help Democrats portray individual lawmakers -- now on the record on a specific roll call vote -- as voting in favor of maintaining the Mississippi flag. People would cry racism. Callousness. You name it. All of the things Republicans struggle with as a party that performs poorly with minority voters.

There was residual impact, too. Democrats made it clear they would try to hook a version of the Huffman amendment onto any of the remaining appropriations bills.

Variations of Huffmans plan might not pertain directly to flying Confederate flags at federal cemeteries. But Democrats could sure include an amendment to ban the display of such a symbol at any other federal facility governed by the remaining spending measures.

Thus, the appropriations process ground to a halt. Republicans couldnt risk taking a vote on such a toxic issue. The House put the appropriations cycle on ice until winter.

The maintenance of the Rayburn tunnel was long planned before this political dustup.

But last year, multiple sources confided in Fox that the timing and removal of the flags may prove fortuitous. With the refurbishment of the tunnel slated to run through this September, there was hope that the Mississippi legislature would vote to change the flag in its next session.

The Mississippi legislature concluded its 2016 session with multiple bills to redesign the state flag falling by the wayside.

Back in Washington, lawmakers stared at the start of annual appropriations bills in just a few weeks and a naked wall lining the Rayburn tunnel.

Could the summer of 2016 be a repeat of the summer of 2015?

Thats when Miller engineered the state coin idea, mothballing the flags.

Given the controversy surrounding Confederate imagery, I decided to install a new display, she said. I am well aware of how many Americans negatively view the Confederate flag. And, personally, I am very sympathetic to these views. However, I also believe that it is not the business of the federal government to dictate what flag each state flies.

And so the installation of the commemorative quarters.

As Miller says, each U.S. quarter is emblazoned with the phrase E Pluribus Unum, which means out of many, one.

The protracted banishment of the Mississippi flag forced the removal of all state flags from the Rayburn tunnel.

That would be E Pluribus Non, which means out of many, none.
President Obama ruled out Sunday sending U.S. ground troops to Syria, saying that military efforts alone arent going to solve the conflict.

It would be a mistake for the United States, or Great Britain, to send in ground troops and overthrow the Assad regime, he said in an interview with the BBC.

Obama said he didnt think the Islamic State would be eradicated in his last nine months in office, but he still believes the territory that the terror group controls can shrink. Obama called the conflict a heart-breaking situation of enormous complexity.

In order for us to solve the long-term problems in Syria, military solution along  and certainly us deploying ground troops  is not going to bring that about, he said.

Obama told the BBC the U.S.-led coalition will continue its air campaign against ISIS and target key areas like Raqqa to try and lockdown particular areas where the terror group can import foreign fighters into Europe.

The president also took a shot at several countries that havent approved actions against the Islamic State in Syria, but wanted the United States to do something about it.

You cant have it both ways, he added.

At least 250,000 people have died in the Syrian civil war over the last five years and millions have fled to Europe in hopes to escape the fighting. Obama said to fix the problem a transnational response to the issue will be needed.

Meanwhile, the collapse of a fragile truce brokered by the U.S. and Russia is feared to happen by Obama and the U.N. Syrian rebels have continued to accuse the government of breaking the truce.

Talks between the Syrian government and the opposition are expected to continue in Geneva next week.

Click for more from the BBC.
Donald Trump adviser Paul Manafort is going on the defensive against accusations that the campaign has acknowledged that Trump and his often outsized campaign is really an act that will soon end, saying Sunday that were changing the setting, not the candidate.

Manafort, the newly-hired Trump convention manager, has been defending comments he made last week to Republican National Committee officials in which he, in part, said, Trump was projecting an image.

(A secretly recorded tape of the comments was obtained by the Associated Press.)

Manafort told Fox News Sunday that the comments were taken out of context and that what he was saying was Trump will be making serious policy speeches, in addition to continuing to hold his large, raucous campaign rallies.

Were changing the settings, not the candidate, Manafort said.

Trumps closest primary rival, Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, has seized on Manaforts closed-door remarks at the RNCs spring meeting in Florida.

Cruz said Trump is just trying to fool gullible voters with promises like building a wall between the United States and Mexico and that Trump is lying to us.

Manafort said Sunday: Theres the liar.  Cruz is trying to confuse the facts. Hes going to be mathematically eliminated this week.

Since Manaforts comments in Florida, Trump has appeared as rancorous as ever, attacking the GOP establishment and calling Cruz Lyin Ted, despite pleas from his family and team to be more presidential.

Im not toning it down, Trump said at rallies Saturday in Connecticut. Being presidential is easy, but boring.

Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, on Fox News Sunday compared Manaforts RNC comments to the Wizard of Oz, saying, Toto pulled back the curtain on the wizard.
A 17th-century silk dress reportedly belonging to someone on the royal court of an English queen was found buried in sand on a Dutch island.

The Dutch News reported Thursday the dress belonged to someone who was on the royal court of English Queen Henrietta Maria. The queen was apparently traveling on a secret mission in the Wadden Sea when one of her baggage ships sank.

According to paper, the queens trip to the Dutch Republic was to deliver her 11-year-old daughter to the court of William II, Prince of Orange  whom the girl married a year before the delivery.

However, the trip was apparently a cover for a secret mission.

The mission was to sell the crown jewels and use the money to buy weapons for King Charles I. A pivotal move because the king needed the weapons in the English Civil War.

Experts at Leiden University and the University of Amsterdam confirmed the authenticity of the dress, the Dutch News reported.

The gown is well preserved and was on display at the Texel maritime museum earlier in April.

The dress was found with a book inscribed with the British house of Stuarts coat of arms, which led researchers to link the dress to British royalty.

Historians believe the dress belonged to the Countess of Roxburge, Jean Kerr.

Kerr was a confidant of the queen and was one of two women who lost baggage from the ship sinking. Researchers based the link from the style and size of the gown as well as a letter from Elizabeth Stuart to Sir Thomas Roe who wrote about how her sister-in-law lost her baggage during the crossing in 1642.

Helmer Helmers from the University of Amsterdam and Nadine Akkerman from Leiden University said they were able to solve the dress mystery fairly quickly.

Click for more from The Dutch News.
A solar-powered airplane on a journey around the world has landed in California, completing a risky, three-day flight across the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii.

Pilot Bertrand Piccard landed the Solar Impulse 2 in Mountain View, south of San Francisco, at 11:45 p.m. Saturday following a 62-hour, nonstop flight without fuel.

The aircraft started its journey in March 2015 from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, and made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China and Japan. The plane is attempting to circumnavigate the globe to promote clean energy and the spirit of innovation.

The trans-Pacific leg is the riskiest part of the plane's global travels because of the lack of emergency landing sites.
Two students attending a northern Wisconsin high school prom were wounded when struck by bullets fired by a teenage gunman who was shot by police and later died, police said Sunday.

The shooting happened outside Antigo High School around 11 p.m. Saturday, near the end of the event, according to WSAW-TV, and the school district said the quick action of staff and police prevented what might have otherwise been a disaster of unimaginable proportions.

Police identified the gunman as 18-year-old Jakob Wagner, a former Antigo student. Police said he had acted alone.

A school administrator said he does not believe Wagner targeted the victims.

Instead, interim district administrator Donald Childs said he believes Wagner planned to enter the prom and start shooting randomly.

Childs said Wagner was continuing to work on his diploma after failing to graduate with his Antigo class last year.



The teen, armed with a high-powered rifle and a large ammunition clip, approached the school as two prom attendees were leaving, the Antigo School District said in a statement.

He fired at both, wounding one in the leg and grazing the other, the statement said.

Because Antigo police were stationed to patrol the parking lot, they responded immediately, and an officer returned fire, severely wounding the shooter, the statement said.

Police said they were informed at 1 a.m. Sunday that Wagner had died.

The victims were a girl and a boy, police said.

The female was treated for a gunshot wound at the hospital and released and the male underwent surgery for non-life threatening injuries, police said.

Wagner had not attended the prom, Fox News reported.

The prom was locked down for several hours until authorities could determine there was only one gunman, Fox News reported.

A friend of Wagners, Dylan Dewey, 18, told the Associated Press that Wagner continued to help out at the school in one of the art classes.

Dewey said Wagner had been dating a girl at the school but that she had broken up with him last month.

Dewey said Wagner was an all-around good guy and said he generally seemed happy.

Antigo, a community of about 8,000 people, is roughly 150 miles north of Milwaukee.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The man authorities have described as the Phoenix freeway shooter who terrorized the city last year received a huge victory when prosecutors decided to dismiss all charges  for now.

Jerry Cobb, spokesman for Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, said that the office filed a motion to dismiss the charges, which include carrying out a drive-by shooting, without prejudice against Leslie Merritt Jr.

"In conjunction with (the Department of Public Safety), we have identified additional forensic investigation that needs to be completed in order for the case to proceed," Cobb said Friday.

This action will allow them "the necessary time" to file charges again, Cobb added. He declined to comment further.

Jason Lamm, a defense attorney representing Merritt, did not immediately return messages seeking comment. On his Twitter page, Lamm said that the gag order imposed by a judge is still in place until the charges are formally dismissed.

The news comes amid questions about the evidence that the Arizona Department of Public Safety said links Merritt to the crimes.

He was released from jail Tuesday after a judge reduced his bond  once set at $1 million  to zero. He was allowed to return home under electronic monitoring.

Judge Warren Granville imposed the gag order. As a result, lawyers said they could not discuss the evidence that prompted the shift in bond. Defense attorneys have said ballistic tests cast doubt on authorities' claims that he was behind four of the freeway shootings. The investigation into the other shootings remains open.

Although nobody was seriously injured, the shootings caused panic on Phoenix-area freeways, where 11 vehicles were hit in August and September of 2015. The head of the Department of Public Safety said the shootings were the work of a domestic terrorist, and authorities heightened patrols and surveillance in pursuit of a suspect.

Detectives took Merritt into custody Sept. 18. Gov. Doug Ducey declared, "We got him!" on Twitter five minutes after the arrest.

The governor's office issued a statement Friday acknowledging only that the case was not over.

"This issue is working through the criminal justice system, where it remains under investigation by state and county authorities. We expect the case to be treated fairly," said Ducey's spokesman, Daniel Scarpinato.

In court the next day, Merritt adamantly denied shooting any cars, telling the judge, "I'm the wrong guy."

He pleaded not guilty to drive-by shooting, aggravated assault and other charges.

His lawyers immediately began raising questions about the evidence, citing ballistics information and phone records they say provided an alibi for their client.

They also pointed to road rage shootings that happened on Phoenix-area freeways after Merritt was arrested, saying the cases were proof that the culprit was still out there.
One firefighter and three police officers were injured as they tried to contain an inferno at an unfinished Arizona apartment complex Saturday night.

Gilbert fire officials told 12 News that the firefighter suffered burns on his hands and the Gilbert police officers were treated for smoke inhalation.

Some residents who were evacuated near the major fire in the Phoenix suburb returned home early Sunday. About 60 people were evacuated from the area, American Red Cross public information officer Diana Cross said. Evacuees from an apartment complex near the fire were still displaced, she said.

Crews continue to fight apartment complex fire. Working hard to protect homes and buildings in the area. pic.twitter.com/CBQ1J2tX2c  Gilbert Fire Rescue (@GilbertFireDept) April 24, 2016

The five-alarm fire began Saturday just after 6 p.m. at an apartment complex under construction and spread to a home near Gilbert and Warner roads, ABC15 reported. Gilbert Fire and Rescue posted on Twitter that homes from Civic Center Drive to Nunneley to Deon had been evacuated.

The Arizona Republic reported that the complex was made up of at least seven, three-story buildings. Most of the complex had collapsed.

The construction was in the wood frame stage, Gilbert Fire Department Capt. Gary Hildebrandt told the newspaper. Its going to be exposed wood, so its going to burn hotter and faster, and with the winds kicking up, we had a hard time containing it right away."

More than 40 trucks and 120 firefighters worked to contain the massive blaze. Crews from Mesa, Chandler and Superstition assisted in quenching it.

The cause of the fire wasnt immediately known.

Gilbert Fire and Rescue posted on Twitter that Warner Road, which was closed while firefighters worked to put out the blaze, has been reopened.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Click for more from The Arizona Republic.
The veteran Florida zookeeper who was mauled by a tiger violated policy when she entered into the big cat's enclosure, zoo officials said.

In a statement released late Friday, Palm Beach Zoo president and chief executive Andrew Aiken said Stacey Konwiser, 38, entered "the same portion" of the tiger house that was "clearly designated as accessible by a tiger."

Konwiser, also known as "the tiger whisperer" was inside the tiger habitat on April 15, which is closed to the public, preparing for the zoo's daily 2 p.m. tiger show. It was not immediately clear what caused the tiger to attack her.

"Under Palm Beach Zoo policy, zoo employees are never allowed to enter a tiger enclosure to which the animal has access," the statement said.

Palm Beach Zoo spokesman Naki Carter told WSVN that the 13-year-old male Malayan tiger was not being exhibited when he attacked Konwiser and the public was never in danger. However, the zoo was placed on lockdown and about 25 guests were told to barricade themselves in the gift shop as a precaustion.

The tiger was tranquilized and authorities had to wait until the sedative took effect before they could come to Konwiser's aid, West Palm Beach police spokeswoman Lori Colombino said.

"She is someone that absolutely loved everything that had to do with keeping these tigers and seeing that they were enriched daily," Carter said, "and I know that just her love for them, if you knew her, then you knew about her love for these creatures."

Konwiser's death is being investigated by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The zoo is closed until Sunday at the earliest.

"All of us share two common goals: to completely understand how this could ever happen and to assure everyone that this will never happen again," Aiken said in the statement.
Genres : Anime, Action, Adventure, Fantasy

Plot Synopsis

Garo: The Animation is set in the fictitious Valiante Kingdom (??????? Variante-koku), which resembles Spain during the Spanish Inquisition. After the king, under the influence of his advisor Mendoza, launches a witch hunt that endangers both Makai Knights and Makai Priests, a Makai Priestess named Anna is burned at the stake while giving birth to Leon Luis, who is spirited of by his Makai Knight father to be trained to inherit the title of Golden Knight Garo. Years later, after Valiante is now plagued with Horrors as Mendoza, revealed to be an excommunicated Makai Priest, uses them to assert his authority after usurping the throne, the king's son Prince Alfonso seeks out the assistance of Garo to reclaim the throne. The fully grown Leon returns to the land of his birth at this time to avenge his mother, both he and Alfonso meeting while learning they are in fact maternal cousins whose grandfather was the previous Garo. Though Leon was relived for the Garo title after Mendoza's assumed death for his conduct, Alfonso now contends with the surviving Horrors in his kingdom.




A married Oregon pet shop worker paid a prostitute with cash from a Girl Scout donation jar and tipped the sex worker for her services with a small exotic primate, police said.

Nathan Allen McClain was charged on April 14 with soliciting a prostitute and was sent to Lane County Jail. He was released later that night, but authorities only announced the details of the case on Friday.

Its my first time ever recovering a monkey from a prostitute, Detective Rick Lowe told FOX12.

Police began investigating in early March when Zany Zoo Pet Store reported the theft of $7,000 in Girl Scouts donation money, a laptop and a Galago primate nicknamed Gooey. Surveillance video from a neighboring store viewed by police allegedly showed McClain, whose wife owns the store, breaking into the pet shop.

Gooey was located on March 17 when authorities interviewed an out-of-town prostitute who had the primate. The woman has not been named and is not facing charges.

The prostitute told police that McClain paid her with money taken from the pet store, including cash stolen from a Girl Scouts donation jar. Gooey was allegedly a tip for the encounter. It is against the law to own an exotic animal without a license in Oregon.

Officials arrested McClain two days later when he was observed exiting a porn shop allegedly under the influence of methamphetamine. The porn shop is next door to the Oregon State Polices Albany office. McClain was charged with DUII-controlled substance.

He was released from jail and interviewed by detectives on March 21 about the pet shop break-ins. McClain again appeared under the influence of meth during the interview, authorities said.

Lowe told OregonLive.com that he delayed McClains arrest because McClains wife, Abbie, was in the process of moving the pet store to a new location. The missing money hasnt been recovered and Lowe said there wasnt enough evidence to file charges.

McClains next court appearance is set for May 5.

Abbie has already begun the process of removing Nathan McClains name from the pet business and associated bank accounts, according to a Zany Zoo Pets post on Facebook. Nathan McClain will have no further association with Zany Zoo.

Abbie and her kids are suffering right now through this tragedy and trying to figure out the best course of action, the post said.

Gooey is being housed at a nearby animal sanctuary. Galago primates, also known as bush babies, are small animals native to Africa. They resemble lemurs.
Wisconsin police say a person toting a rifle opened fire outside a high school prom, leaving three people injured.

Antigo Police Chief Eric Roller says in a statement that the shooter "showed up" Saturday night at Antigo High School and started firing at two people outside the building.

Roller says officers in a nearby parking lot heard gunshots, and an officer fired upon the shooter, "stopping the threat." Roller says everyone at the prom was eventually "escorted from the school and are safe."

It was not immediately known if the unidentified suspect was among the injured at the hospital, or if they were a student. Roller says the shooter was in custody.

The condition of those injured wasn't immediately known, but Roller says all three were taken to the hospital.
Medical teams on Monday finished the autopsies of eight family members shot and killed in a total of four different homes in southern Ohio, as officials revealed the investigation had uncovered three marijuana growing operations.

This was a preplanned execution of eight individuals, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said. It was a sophisticated operation. And those who carried it out were trying to do everything they could do to hinder the investigation and their prosecution."

DeWine and Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader did not immediately release the results of the autopsies. The attorney general had prevously said each relative apparently was shot in the head, and that none of the shootings appeared to be a suicide.

Most were apparently sleeping when they were killed. Three young children -- including a 4-day-old infant -- were also found unhurt.

This is not your case where someone got mad at somebody else, shot him, theres a witness, two witnesses. Its a very, very different kind of case, DeWine added, saying it wasn't clear whether drugs played any role in the shootings.

All the victims were members of the Rhoden family: 40-year-old Christopher Rhoden Sr.; his 16-year-old son, Christopher Rhoden Jr.; 44-year-old Kenneth Rhoden; 38-year-old Gary Rhoden; 37-year-old Dana Rhoden; 20-year-old Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden; 20-year-old Hannah Gilley; and 19-year-old Hanna Rhoden.

DeWine said a force of at least 100 investigators had already received more than 100 tips and conducted more than 50 interviews. Five search warrants had been executed and the four crime scenes had been evaluated and secured. DNA technicians were currently examining 18 pieces of evidence at a state crime lab.

Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader said he advised other members of the targeted Rhoden family that they could be in danger and advised them to be armed.

DeWine and Reader both cautioned that the investigation likely would take a long time. A lot of what is going on here is just basic, old-fashioned police work, DeWine said.

Pastor Phil Fulton, of the Union Hill Church, described the Rhodens as a close-knit and hardworking family. He said they were previously part of his congregation, though not recently. He said a crisis resource team was at the church to work with the family.

"They're not doing well with this situation at all," Fulton said. "A tragic situation like this ..."

The Rhoden family released a statement through the Ohio Crisis Response Team Saturday, according to Fox 19.

"The Rhoden family would like to thank everyone for all the outpouring of prayers and support for their family. They ask to continue to keep them in your prayers, the statement read. They would like to thank all law enforcement from Pike County and surrounding counties for their immediate response. Especially, to Pike County Sheriff Charlie Reader for all his hard work. They would like to thank the Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, his staff, BCI agents, all EMS services and first responses.

The family also urged anyone with information to call 1-855-BCI-OHIO.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Airport screeners established a new record last week when they stopped passengers from boarding planes with 73 firearms in carry-on luggage.

The Transportation Security Administration officials said the number was reached in the seven days ending April 21 and the haul surpassed the previous high of 68 set in October.

After confiscating the 73 firearms, TSA carry-on screeners made a startling discovery: 68 of the weapons were loaded and more than two dozen had a round in the chamber, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review reported Saturday.

Two loaded guns were seized at Boston Logan Airport on Tuesday and Thursday, Fox 25 Boston reported.

Other airports where weapons were found included Raleigh-Durham, Dallas-Fort Worth, Phoenix and Detroit.

Guns aren't all that were found last week.



Two replica military rounds also were discovered in a checked bag at Tucson, the TSA reported.

Federal law bars guns in carry-on bags, but they can be transported in checked luggage if they are unloaded and declared to the airline before the flight departs, the Tribune Review reported.

Unfortunately, these sorts of occurrences are all too frequent, which is why we talk about these finds, the TSAs Bob Burns said, according to the paper.

Sure, it's great to share the things that our officers are finding, but at the same time, each time we find a dangerous item, the line is slowed down and a passenger that likely had no ill intent ends up with a citation or in some cases is even arrested. The passenger can face a penalty as high as $11,000, Burns said.

A case that ended in an arrest involved a 33-year-old woman who was going through a TSA checkpoint at Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers, Fla.

A screener spotted the gun in a bag belonging to the woman, Julie Kimmel, and notified police, Fox 4 reported.

Kimmel, of Lehigh Acres, Fla., wound up being arrested because she didn't have a concealed carry permit, the station reported.

Kimmel told officers she forgot the gun was in her bag, Fox 4 reported.

Attempts to contact her were not successful, the station reported.
The unexplained murders of an Ohio family has left residents of a small rural community shocked as authorities still tried to find Saturday any suspects and a motive in the grisly murders.

The bodies of seven adults and a teenage boy were found Friday in four different homes near Piketon, about 60 miles south of Columbus.

Kayla Hay worked with one of the victims  37-year-old Dana Rhoden  as a nurses aide at a nursing home. Hay said she was shocked and saddened when she heard that Rhoden was among the dead in the killing spree.

"I've never heard her say anything about being frightened or concerned about anything bad happening," said Hay, who described Rhoden as outgoing and friendly. "She was always in a good mood and was very bright, both in her personality and her intelligence.

All the victims identified Saturday were members of the Rhoden family. The others were identified as 40-year-old Christopher Rhoden Sr.; his 16-year-old son, Christopher Rhoden Jr.; 44-year-old Kenneth Rhoden; 38-year-old Gary Rhoden; 20-year-old Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden; 20-year-old Hannah Gilley; and 19-year-old Hanna Rhoden.

Authorities said it appeared the victims were murdered while they slept, including Hanna Rhoden, who was in bed with her newborn baby nearby. The infant was about 4-days-old. The infant, Hannah Gilley's 6-month-old baby, and one other small child were not hurt.

Police said none of the injuries appeared to be suicide. A search for the killer or killers continued Saturday, and investigators said they had interviewed more than 30 people, including three from Chillicothe.

"Investigators from Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and local law enforcement worked through the night, talking to individuals, gathering information, and executing search warrants," Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said in a news release. "Evidence from the crime scenes is being processed and analyzed through the weekend."

Robin Waddel, who owns the Big Bear Lake Family Resort just south of Piketon, told the Associated Press Christopher Rhoden often did work for him as a carpenter and helped with his excavation business. He said Rhoden was a nice guy whose kids would visit while he was working.

"It's a large family," Waddell said. "There's a lot of them and they've been in this community for generations. So this is affecting a lot of people."

Kendra Jordan, 20, said she often worked nights at a nursing home with Hanna Rhoden and described her as outgoing, funny and always smiling.

"If you were having a bad day, she'd be the first one to come up to you to question you about what was going on," Jordan said. "She was amazing."

Pastor Phil Fulton, of the Union Hill Church, described the Rhodens as a close-knit and hardworking family. He said they were previously part of his congregation, though not recently. He said a crisis resource team was at the church to work with the family.

"They're not doing well with this situation at all," Fulton said. "A tragic situation like this ..."

Scioto Valley Local School District Superintendent Todd Burkitt told the Chillicothe Gazette Saturday that the county is committed to sending support to Piketon High School beginning Monday and will stay as long as students or staff members need it.

We dont have all the answers for this, Burkitt said. Its by far the worst part of the job, when something happens to a kid. None of it makes sense.

Piketon Jr/Sr High School has about 530 students combined, according to numbers from the Ohio Department of Education.

The Rhoden family released a statement through the Ohio Crisis Response Team Saturday, according to Fox 19.

"The Rhoden family would like to thank everyone for all the outpouring of prayers and support for their family. They ask to continue to keep them in your prayers, the statement read. They would like to thank all law enforcement from Pike County and surrounding counties for their immediate response. Especially, to Pike County Sheriff Charlie Reader for all his hard work. They would like to thank the Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, his staff, BCI agents, all EMS services and first responses.

The family also urged anyone with information to call 1-855-BCI-OHIO.

The exact timing of the shootings remains unclear. Authorities got the first 911 call shortly before 8 a.m. Friday; the second came several hours later from another location.

Two of the crime scenes are within walking distance of each other along a sparsely populated, winding road that leads into wooded hills from a rural highway. The third residence is more than a mile away, and the fourth home is on a different road, at least a 10-minute drive away, said the investigation's leader, Benjamin Suver of the state Bureau of Criminal Investigations.

Authorities refused to discuss many details of the crime, including the search operations.

Officials said a Cincinnati-area businessman put up a $25,000 reward for information leading to the capture and conviction of the killer or killers.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Click for more from Fox 19.
Islamic State oil man Abu Sayyaf was riding high a year ago. With little industry experience, he had built a network of traders and wholesalers of Syrian oil that at one point helped triple energy revenues for his terrorist bosses.

His days carried challenges familiar to all oil executivesincreasing production, improving client relations and dodging directives from headquarters. He also had duties unique to the extremist group, including approving expenses to cover the upkeep of slaves, rebuilding oil facilities damaged by U.S. airstrikes and counting towers of cash.

Last May, U.S. Special Forces killed Abu Sayyaf, a nom de guerre, at his compound in Syrias Deir Ezzour province. The raid also captured a trove of proprietary data that explains how Islamic State became the worlds wealthiest terror group.

Documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal describe the terror groups construction of a multinational oil operation with help from officious terror-group executives obsessed with maximizing profits. They show how the organization deals with the Syrian regime, handles corruption allegations among top officials, and, most critically, how international coalition strikes have dented but not destroyed Islamic States income.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter called the May 16, 2015, raid a significant blow against Islamic State and heralded the death of Abu Sayyaf, the terror groups No. 2 oil executive.

Click here for more from The Wall Street Journal.
France's economy minister has confirmed the government supports French energy company EDF's nuclear power plant project in southwest England.

Emmanuel Macron told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper on Sunday that the final investment decision "may be confirmed next September."

The decision was expected in May but EDF, which is majority-owned by the French government, decided Friday to take more time to consult with the company's unions. Some of them have expressed concerns about the financing of the 24 billion euro ($27 billion) project.

Macron insisted the project must not be further delayed.

The Hinkley Point nuclear power plant could ultimately produce 7 percent of British electricity and create 25,000 jobs, according to EDF. It had been due to start producing electricity in 2023.
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A liberal women's group has held a special Passover prayer service at a Jerusalem holy site, drawing criticism from the site's ultra-Orthodox rabbi, who called it a "provocation."

The group, Women of the Wall, calls for gender equality at the Western Wall, the holiest Jewish prayer site. The site is overseen by a rabbi who enforces conservative customs, including separate prayers for men and women.

The group planned to hold an all-female "priestly blessing," a prayer typically done by men, but Israel's attorney general banned it from doing so. The Justice Ministry said a women-led priestly blessing has never been held at the Western Wall.

In a compromise, dozens of women prayed Sunday, but a group leader said they did not perform the priestly blessing. Some Orthodox Jews protested.
Have you ever encountered a film so esoteric that you didn't quite know how to put the experience into words? That's the experience I had watching Miguel Gomes' 2015 epic tome of a trilogy 'Arabian Nights.' Spread over three films and 380 minutes in total length, Gomes uses the framework of the tall tales Scheherazade used to distract the Persian king Shahryar to detail the plights of the people of Portugal. At any given time you're watching a film that is documentary as well as fantasy. You're watching a film that was made within the last three years, and yet it looks and sounds like it was made over 40 years ago with a cinema verite style. If you're someone able to let yourself be carried away by this venture, you're in for an impressive journey that is equal parts frustrating, fascinating, and beautiful.

The Restless One:

This chapter of the film opens with the closing and dismantling of Portugal's once vibrant and thriving shipping docks that employed hundreds of people. This was the lifeblood of an economy as people worked round the clock to build bigger and bigger ships. With the closing of the docs, people are without jobs and now faced with an uncertain future. In conjunction with this, a blight in the form of deadly Asian Wasps that had invaded Portugal. These wasps are a threat to the bee population which can impact crop production but also incredibly harmful to people. As these two stories tell their tales, Director Miguel Gomez has a crisis of confidence with his work and flees the film leaving his production crew to search for him.

The Desolate One:

As the film segues to the middle chapter, we follow a man who participates in all sorts of depraved and gluttonous acts and remains emotionally as well as physically unfulfilled. Combined into this story is a look at Portugal's legal and judicial system and the hypocrisies surrounding a single criminal. As these two stories play out, the film juxtaposes the bizarre and arcane aspects of Portugal's history and current difficulties against a microcosm of everyday life as we follow a group of people in an apartment building. Some people are doing well while others struggle just to live on a day to day basis.

The Enchanted One:

This portion of the film begins more fantastical than the other two pulling in a more literal interpretation of the Arabian Nights story while also pulling elements of conflicting musical tastes from ballet to modern hits to convey the changing cultural landscape of the time. Following this, we meet a group of men who are training birds for a performance using music to choreograph their flight. As the strenuous training wears on it's clear to see that what these men are doing is in effect enacting their own downfall.

Miguel Gomes' 'Arabian Nights' is not a film that is going to satisfy or entertain everyone. It's impossible to watch one part without committing to the whole endeavor. At over six hours, 'Arabian Nights' can be at all times exciting, entertaining, thought provoking, difficult, and even outright slow and boring. That isn't to say it's unwatchable or impossible to grasp, but if you're going to enjoy this film on any level what so ever, you have to be in an open and willing mindset. You have to be willing to accept that you're seeing fantasy and reality all at the same time. If you're expecting some sort of instant gratification out of the experience, you're not going to find it. 'Arabian Nights' takes a long time to tell small stories and unless you're giving it your fullest attention, you risk missing everything.

Truth be told, it took me two attempts to start Volume 1: 'The Restless One' before I was able to let myself go and just absorb the film without trying to figure it out as I went. I had to stop being a critic and just view it. I had to shut down my analytical brain completely and only then was I able to get the a thing grasp of what I was seeing. I still don't have a full handle on everything that I saw in this trilogy of films, but I can't deny that I was fascinated by it. I will absolutely be revisiting 'Arabian Nights' again. I may not try to marathon them again in the way that I did for this review, but I am eager to dig into these films and allow myself to be taken in by them one at a time. Perhaps, the best way to state my recommendation for people to see this movie is in just that way, I didn't fully understand everything that I saw, but I feel compelled to see it again very soon. 'Arabian Nights' is a work that needs to be experienced and then re-experienced.

The Blu-ray: Vital Disc Stats

'Arabian Nights' arrives on Blu-ray thanks to Kino Lorber. Each film is pressed onto its own Region A BD50 disc and open directly to their respective main menus featuring standard navigation options. All three discs are housed in a standard 3-Disc Blu-ray case allowing each disc to have its own tray for easy removal. Also included is a booklet containing an incredibly informative essay by Dennis Lim as well as a fascinating "production diary" of sorts apparently written by Miguel Gomes and add some interesting insight to the production.
Genres : Action, Crime, Comedy

Starring : Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds, Jane Alexander, Irene Cara, Rip Torn, Richard Roundtree

Director : Richard Benjamin

Plot Synopsis

Kansas City in the 1930s, private investigator Mike Murphy's partner is brutally murdered when he tries to blackmail a mobster with his secret accounting records. When a rival gang boss goes after the missing records, ex-policeman Murphy is forced to team up again with his ex-partner Lieutenant Speer, even though they can't stand each other, to fight both gangs before KC erupts in a mob war.
There's something comforting about a television program that knows what it is and doesn't try to be anything bigger or more important than it is. When I wrote a review for 'The Last Ship: The Complete First Season' I compared the show to being "good old fashioned junk food." After addictively plowing through 'The Last Ship: The Complete Second Season,' that assessment still holds true. This show is the off-brand cheese puffs of action entertainment. It may not be the best thing out there for you, but it is tasty and leaves you wanting to consume more of it.

When we last saw Commander Tom Chandler (Eric Dane), XO Mike Slattery (Adam Baldwin), Dr. Rachel Scott (Rhona Mitra) and the rest of the crew of the U.S.S. Nathan James, they had found the cure to the deadly virus that had ravaged the entire planet. However, they were now being held by the newly reformed U.S. Government headed by Amy Granderson (Alfre Woodard) who is fighting her own internal war with former police officer Thorwald (Titus Welliver). With the crew of the Nathan James under Granderson's control, they have no choice but to form a fragile alliance with Thorwald to ensure that the cure reaches the infected people of the world.

Once that situation resolves itself, Chandler and his crew set about the distribution of the cure to infected countries. What they don't expect is the rise of a militant cult of immune people to rise from the ashes of the old world. Their maniacal leader Sean Ramsey (Brian F. O'Byrne) and his younger brother Ned (Nick Court) have used the devastating Red Flu to unite survivors under the delusion that they are God's chosen and they are the rightful heirs to the planet. With a tactical nuclear submarine at their disposal, the Ramsey brothers could be the greatest threat the crew of the Nathan James has ever faced. Especially when the last man in the line of succession to the Presidency Jeff Michener (Mark Moses) is a believer in Sean's divinity.

If you made it through Season One of 'The Last Ship' then you're well aware of how things ended with that season. A war was brewing between guest stars Titus Welliver's Thorwald and Alfre Woodard's Granderson and the crew of the Nathan James was going to be caught in the middle. If you were like me, then you naturally thought that this was going to be the basis for the entirety of Season Two. Unfortunately, those guest star turns by Titus Welliver and Alfre Woodard would prove to be just that, guest star visits.

While the more tantalizing opening story would have made for the perfect Season Two, what remains of the 13-episode run isn't half bad either. What's nice to see with this season is that the show has grown a little. It has found its focus by cutting away some of the deadweight story lines and keeping its eye firmly on Commander Chandler, Dr. Scott, and the cat and mouse action with the Ramsey brothers. It's exciting because the Nathan James is unmated in the fight and have to use every resource available to them. On top of that, they're also having to convince a growing number of people who believe they're chosen by God's will. It's some exciting material that helps the series become something genuine without outgrowing its pulpy roots.

Adding a little more weight to the show is a fantastic turn from Mark Moses as a guilt-stricken President of the United States. He carries a lot of the dramatic weight of the show as a conflicted man dealing with his own actions during the crisis and his place in the new world. He shares several great moments with Eric Dane that don't feel too forced or over-scripted. It hits the right tones without dipping too far into cliched eye-rolling dramatics.

As one would expect with a show produced by action mogul Michael Bay, the show keeps up the thrills and excitement of the first season with a better effects budget. While there is still some shoddy-looking CGI here and there, the moments where the actual warship and vehicles are involved in some action look fantastic. The penchant for hyper-kinetic gun battles is as prevalent as ever. And the new cast additions of Inbar Lavi and Bren Foster as foreign commandos adds a little more international flavor to this season as some of the side members of the ship's crew are explored in more detail.

'The Last Ship: The Complete Second Season' may not have started and finished with the story one would have expected, it does find some good material to stay afloat. In some ways it's better than the first season, in others, nothing much has changed. If you were already a fan of the show, you're likely going to stay that way all the way through Season Two. If you weren't a fan the first time around, I will say this second season is a bit better, but I don't think it'll win too many new fans. It's fun for what it is and shouldn't be thought about too much. Just turn your brain off and go with it.

The Blu-ray: Vital Disc Stats

'The Last Ship: The Complete Second Season' arrives on Blu-ray thanks to Warner Bros. home video. Pressed onto three BD50 discs, the discs are housed in a standard three-disc case with identical slip cover with each disc getting its own tray to occupy. Included inside is a flier with episode summaries. An Ultraviolet Digital Copy voucher for the entire season is also included. Each disc opens with a static-image main menu with the show's theme music playing in the background with traditional navigation options. Extra features are spread throughout three discs.
SANIBEL ISLAND, Fla.Aviva Brickman, 11, had been on Sanibel Island, Fla., with her family for less than 24 hours and was already on her third shell hunt. This session was a little more official: a guided beach walk with a marine naturalist from the BaileyMatthews National Shell Museum.

Heres a fighting conch I found, said Aviva, holding up the swirled mollusk casing expertly identified by museum biologist Stefanie Wolf. Its fun to learn more about shells, but mostly I just like the different shapes and colors. Everything here is so different from the beaches at home. There are so many more shellsand palm trees.

Home for Aviva is Potomac, Maryland, and shes most familiar with Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. For this trip, in December, 12 people in her immediate and extended family were gathered on the island on Floridas west coast partly because of its reputation as a world-famous shelling destination.

There are spectacularly large amounts of shells here, said her father, Aaron Brickman. I hadnt paid that much attention to the individual types, but after the talk, I have more of a trained eye.

Meanwhile, Baoying Scott, 10, from Eugene, Oregon, was filling her bucket with an assortment of shells.

I like looking at all of them, especially the ones with color, she said.

Her mother, Ellen Scott, added: Were going to collect and then sort. We cant take them all home. In Oregon, we see mostly mussels and clams, so learning about the different shells here was quite amazing.

Where those visitors saw beauty, I now envisioned a battlefield, or at least the aftermath of one, thanks to our pre-walk talk by leader Wolf. Like many people who stoop for occasional shells, I had never connected them with living animals, much less warriors of the sea.

But Wolf, who poured a big bag of shells on a table before the walk, explained and showed evidence of how, for instance, lightning whelks devour bivalves, crabs sloppily rip through shells to eat the mollusks living within, and other mollusks suck each other up. The holes you find in shells that seem to be natures gentle suggestion to turn a shell into jewelry? Those holes are drilled by other mollusks after squirting them with a shell-softener enzyme to allow the predator access to the animals innards.

The majority of shells eat each other, Wolf said. Thats how they die.

Although death is not what one typically ponders while strolling the shoreline, the topic woke me up to the existence of molluskssoft-bodied animals with no backbones, usually encased in a shellthe second most diverse group of animals on Earth. More than half of mollusks are gastropods, comprising 70,000 living species of marine, terrestrial and freshwater snails and slugs, according to the museum. About 20,000 are bivalves, such as clams, scallops and my favorite little colorful darlings, coquinas.

Virtually no one has any idea where shells come from, including the people who live here on Sanibel, museum executive director Dorrie Hipschman told me later. Since taking the helm at the museum in 2013, Hipschman has instituted the walks, offered daily, as well as regular live tank talks at the museum, which this year have increased to one nearly every hour the museum is open. She hopes to add more tanks in the future.

Everyone comes to Sanibel loving shells, she said. We try to translate that love and passion into an understanding of the creatures that create the shells.

After Wolf demonstrated the many ways mollusks kill each other, she admonished us to not kill them ourselves by collecting live shellsillegal in Lee County, which includes Sanibel. In 2013, the county adopted the most stringent shell-collecting rules in the state. Wolf showed us how to look for signs of life inside the shell, including tips for spotting live echinodermssand dollars, sea urchins and sea stars, which also are covered by the shelling law.

The museum, however, gets an occasional pass in the name of science.

A couple times a month at low tide, we collect live shells for food for other shells, Wolf said.

I had a clearer understanding of that a few hours later, when I caught up with Wolf again at the museum during a live tank talk.

Every morning I come in, I can tell who has eaten who, she said while digging into the sand to hold up a shiny lettered olive, a small mollusk that self-polishes to reduce friction while traveling through sand.

Its the fastest shell in the tank, she said, placing it back in the water. Look, its already digging.

Wolf then pointed out a horse conch, a large predator. She reminded us to occasionally watch its progression as it moved across the floor of the tank by thrusting its foot against the bottom while lurching through the sand. By the end of her talk, it had reached the other side.
Susan Stockdale, nonfiction childrens book author and illustrator, visited local school, Tree of Life Christian Preparatory School this month.

In keeping with the schools theme of Celebrating Nature Through Literacy, Stockdale shared her research and creative process for books like Spectacular Spots and Stripes of All Types, which teaches children about animals characteristics, habitats and behavior.

Its very important to me that the information in these books are completely accurate, explains Stockdale. I often corroborate with researchers at the Smithsonian and biologists to ensure that my paintingsdown to the number of stripes on a fish or the plant an insect may be onare accurate. I have had to repaint and rewrite many pages in my books to ensure its accuracy, but this process is about educating and teaching children the truth.

Many of Stockdales books come with a classroom curriculum plan and her programs fully support the STEM, STEAM and Common Core curriculum and integrate science, math, geography, language and visual arts.

Students from both TLC Prep and Tappahannock Junior Academy sat enthralled as Stockdale shared her process for creating each of her books.

It was very inspiring to see her attention to detail and to see how passionate about her work, says Janet Armstrong, TLC Preps head teacher. She not only inspired our students, but the parents and volunteers that came to hear her as well.

In the afternoon, students put Stockdales methods to the test by doing research in order to create their own non-fiction animal book. You could see the impact Ms. Stockdale had made on the children as they worked on researching their books, comments Armstrong. When they werent in the writing workshop, they were involved in art activities that were also themed around animals. They were so excited to work on these projects and to see what their friends were working on.

TLC Prep is a a Keighth grade school off Plank Road, committed to providing quality education with a spiritual emphasis, rooted in Christian morals and beliefs. To learn more about TLC Prep, go to tlcprep.org.

Submitted by Janet Armstrong
The teacher crisis is real, and were not going to work our way out of it simply by making it easier to hire teachers.
Alcohol Delivery Service Launches in Portland, Drug Rehab Newark Comments

( April 24, 2016 ) Newark, NJ -- According to the Portland Press Herald, a new home delivery service for alcohol has officially started in the Portland. Drizly, a Boston-based technology firm, created the app and web-based service as a means connecting local retailers with consumers, but faced challenges when it came to state and federal laws. While Drizly provides the platform for sales and orders, the liquor and alcohol companies must complete the transactions themselves, including delivery. The service also requires face-to-face interaction for the completion of the sale, as to avoid exploitation by minors.

Even given Drizly's attempts to offer a responsible service, alcohol abuse is a serious problem affecting New Jersey and the rest of the country. Alcohol is often considered the most dangerous legal substance on the market, and this services has the potential to only worsen that problem. Rehabilitation centers across the country deal with the ramifications of alcohol abuse regularly, including those providing alcohol rehab in Newark. As one such facility, Drug Rehab Newark is concerned that this service could cause negative consequences unanticipated at it's inception.

A representative of Drug Rehab Newark comments:

"While this alcohol delivery service may sound fun and innovative, the risk for misuse and abuse is substantial. Regardless of its legality, alcohol is incredibly addictive and dangerous; the ability to readily acquire alcohol at any given moment has the potential to cause problems in one's private life as well as legally and medically. While alcohol delivery can reduce the urge to drive under the influence, accidents are not the only risk involved with overindulgence of alcohol. Ideally, this service would also include order tracking and limitations to avoid contributing to the alcohol abuse problem plaguing the country."

About Drug Rehab Newark 07102:

Drug Rehab Newark bring relief and rejuvenation to clients from across the United States. By focusing on the personal obstacles in one's recovery journey, Drug Rehab Newark personalizes treatment programs to best assure long-lasting sobriety. Traditional group and individual therapy sessions combined with holistic healing options like yoga, meditation, and acupuncture provide healing of the mind, body, and soul. Additionally, clients have access to a full gym and spa, salon services, and weekly events and outings. Upon completion of the rehab, referral services to sober living communities and relapse prevention services are available to help ensure the best possible start to a brand new, sober life.

For more information, visit www.drugrehabnewark.org/ or call 973-947-8129.

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As an incumbent Democrat in a heavily Democratic district, Benton County Commissioner Jay Dixon has withstood two re-election challenges from Republicans since taking office in 2001 (he ran unopposed in 2008).

Again this year, as he seeks a fifth four-year term, a Republican (Jerry Jackson) has signed up to compete for Dixons Position 2 seat in the fall  but first hell have to overcome a challenge from within his own party in the May 17 primary.

Xanthippe Xan Augerot, the former head of the Marys River Watershed Council, is also making a bid for the Democratic nomination. She filed papers on Feb. 4 to run against Dixon in the primary election and has been mounting a spirited campaign, working to raise her visibility with voters by means of lawn signs, direct mail pieces, letters to the editor, attendance at Board of Commissioners meetings and appearances at community events.

Dixon, meanwhile, has responded to the challenge, keeping up a full work schedule as a commissioner while his supporters put up pro-Dixon lawn signs, fire off letters to the Gazette-Times opinion page and gear up for a direct mail and advertising campaign of their own.

While the three-member board has been all-Democratic since the 2000 election, Dixon has established himself as slightly to the right of his colleagues, occasionally casting the lone dissenting vote on a board that is generally notable for unanimous decisions. Examples include his opposition to the 2014 purchase of the Bailey Branch railroad right of way, the 2010 acquisition of the Sunset Building and the 2004 decision to stop issuing marriage licenses until same-sex couples were given the right to wed under Oregon law.

Whether that leaves him vulnerable to a challenge from an insurgent Democrat remains to be seen.

With ballots set to go out in the middle of this week, Dixon is portraying himself as an experienced leader who already knows the job while Augerot is positioning herself as a change agent who would take a fresh approach.

'Work left to be done'

At 77, Dixon could have retired by now, but he says hed be bored to tears without the challenges of his job. Hes seeking a fifth term, he said in an interview last week, because theres a lot of work left to be done  all kinds of interesting and exciting projects Id like to see us through.

Pieces of unfinished business on Dixons to-do list include hiring successors to longtime county employees planning to retire from a number of key leadership positions; completing the implementation of a new pay-for-performance compensation system; bringing residents of the Greenberry Gap between Corvallis and Monroe into a formal fire protection district; making formal plans for the best uses of the Bailey Branch railroad right of way; coming to a final decision on whether to proceed with a proposed Corvallis-to-Albany bike path through the Highway 20 corridor; and finding concrete solutions to the problem of homelessness.

Facilities issues also loom large on Dixons agenda. A seismic study recently determined that the countys iconic courthouse is in need of some costly upgrades, the Health Department is badly overcrowded, the Public Works Department needs more space, and last fall voters rejected the countys third attempt since 2000 to pass a bond measure to fund a new jail.

On all these issues, Dixon said, his experience makes him the best-qualified candidate.

The themes of the campaign are experience and leadership, he said. Frankly, theres nobody running for this office who has the experience I have and nobody running for this office who has held the leadership positions that I have.

He also cited his long-term working relationships with key government officials, from leaders in neighboring counties to Oregons U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley and 4th District Rep. Peter DeFazio.

You dont just walk into this job and have those relationships, Dixon said. It takes time to build them.

'So many other issues'

Augerot, 55, has not held elective office before. She said she was inspired to run for county commissioner through discussions with some of the people she encountered during her six years as executive director of the Marys River Watershed Council. She stepped down in November from that position, where she focused on working with landowners to restore environmentally degraded streams around the county.

I realized there are so many other issues we have to deal with if we want to have this beautiful place, she said.

While Dixon is a familiar face to Benton County voters, Augerot is still trying to introduce herself to the electorate.

My biggest challenge is nobody knows how to pronounce my name, she said.

Her advice: Shorten it to Xan almost nobody calls her Xanthippe  and pronounce the X like a Z.

Think about Xerox and xylophone, she said.

She shares a number of Dixons priorities, especially those involving facilities.

Like Dixon, she thinks the county needs to engage the community about whether to spend millions on a seismic retrofit of the historic courthouse or start from scratch with a new facility. Shes also convinced of the need for a new jail but says a formal needs assessment should be prepared before going back to the voters for another bond  and then only after finding larger quarters for the Health Department.

Thats where I would put my efforts first, Augerot said. I think its not as big a lift as the jail  but its a good starting point.

Tackling homelessness is another goal she shares with her opponent, but she also raises a number of other issues, including finding ways to create more family-wage jobs, encourage more affordable housing, tweaking the comprehensive land-use planning process and making county government more resilient in the face of a natural disaster or economic downturn.

Im a big-picture, systems thinker. Im looking at what the problems are and the potential solutions across broad systems, she said. I can think long-term.

And while she acknowledges she lacks her opponents years of experience on the County Commission, Augerot argues she can make up for that by bringing a different perspective to the job.

I believe Im really good at building partnerships and collaborations, and I believe Ive got a different set of connections than Jay does, she said.

While there are things I dont know, Im a quick study and I can learn.
Missing Bonn man : Marius B. confirmed dead

Bonn Police have confirmed that a body found near Dusseldorf is that of the missing 20-year-old man from Bonn.

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For days, a massive search had been underway for Marius B., who went missing on April 16. The 20-year-old had last been seen celebrating with his group of bachelor friends in the recreational hall Jackelino in Niederkassel. On Saturday afternoon, police found a body in the Rhine river near Dusseldorf which fit his description. His identity has now been confirmed in an autopsy.

Helicopters, search boats, canine units and numerous police had been involved in the search for Marius B. When he didnt make it home on Sunday, his friends set out to find him. He had left the celebrations on Saturday at around 10:00 p.m. without saying goodbye to anyone. In the course of the evening, he had left his wallet and cell phone with a friend but that was apparently normal at their parties.
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.
Sony Xperia M Ultra Leaked: 6 Awesome Features you must know! Features oi -Sayan

Sony has been dormant for quite some time now and it seems that the Japanese electronics giant is prepping to launch a number of new smartphone to the market.

A report coming from China suggest that the Japanese electronic brand is all set to launch the Sony Xperia Ultra M smartphone. Apart from that the successor to the Sony Xperia C5 is also on cards. In fact, a tipster has already leaked a number of specs of the upcoming Xperia Ultra M mid-range smartphone. So without further ado, let's get started and find out what's inside!

Super Narrow Bezels are back

Sony Xperia C5 Ultra was the first smartphone to sport a really narrow bezel with the impeccable body to screen ratio, and as per reports the Xperia Ultra M is expected to feature a bezel of similar size. The leak further reveal that the smartphone will sport a 6 inch Full HD IPS-Neo Tri-Luminous display upfront with a refresh rate of 120Hz.

Packs a punch thanks to Snapdragon 652

As per the report, the Sony Xperia M Ultra will sport a Snapdragon 652 chip on the inside. This is the same chip as found in the highly successful Xiaomi Redmi Note 3. For those unaware the all new chip from Qualcomm is a powerhouse, all thanks to the Cortex A72 cores.

To sport a new gen RAM

Sony Xperia M Ultra is reported to come with 4GB GB of LPDDR4 RAM on the inside. It's worth noting that most of the mid-range phones out there still come with LPDDR3 RAM. The Xiaomi Mi5 however is one of those rare few phones under sub 30K price bracket in India to sport a new gen RAM. Apart from the RAM, the Sony Xperia M Ultra comes with 32GB of internal storage.

23MP Dual Rear Camera!

As per the leaked listing, the Sony Xperia M Ultra comes with a 23MP dual rear camera setup (24mm/F2 OSS & 75mm/F2.2 OSS). It is however, not clear whether both the cameras have a 23MP resolution or just one of the two has so. Apart from that the Sony Xperia M Ultra packs a 16MP f/2.0 front camera.

Packs a 4280mAh large battery

Sony Xperia M Ultra is reported to come with a large 4280mAh battery on the inside. The leak also mentions that the battery comes with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 technology. Besides that the use of USB Type-C port will further bolster the charging the speed.

Fingerprint Sensor for added layer of security

The Sony Xperia M Ultra is rumored to come with a Fingerprint Sensor. The location of the sensor however, isn't known as of yet.

Best Mobiles in India
US judge allows CIA torture lawsuit to proceed

Iran Press TV

Sat Apr 23, 2016 12:40AM

A US judge has allowed a lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)'s military psychologists to proceed, marking a major victory for a group of the agency's torture victims.

The decision by the District Court Judge Justin Quackenbush was a major achievement in the fight to hold CIA individuals responsible for conducting a program that according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) resulted in the torture of at least 119 men between 2002 and 2008.

The lawsuit was filed by the ACLU last October on the behalf of Suleiman Abdullah Salim, a Tanzanian national detained by the CIA and Kenyan security forces in Somalia in 2003; Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, a Libyan captured in a US-Pakistani raid the same year; and Gul Rahman, an Afghan national who died in 2002 in CIA custody from hypothermia that came by dehydration and exposure.

The case is seeking damages of up to $75,000 for the three victims, all of whom underwent torture in CIA "black sites" in Afghanistan.

According to the ACLU, the US government has so far blocked several similar cases arguing that they would jeopardize the country's security.

The ruling goes against requests by the US Justice Department which had asked the court to consider "the interests of the United States" in relation to classified details that may leak while gathering evidence for the case.

This is the only lawsuit of its kind that has been filed after a 2014 report by Senate that confirmed the CIA's use of torture and accused it of paying $80 million to a company run by two former US Air Force psychologists who had no interrogation or counter-terrorism experience.

The CIA employed brutal techniques like waterboarding, physical abuse, sleep deprivation, mock executions, and anal penetration performed under cover of "rehydration" to interrogate terror suspects imprisoned after the September 11 attacks.

These torture techniques migrated from the CIA's undocumented prisons, known as black sites, to US military prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, and Abu Ghraib in Iraq.

A former guard at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, revealed in January that CIA has staged suicides to cover up inmate deaths at the notorious US military prison.

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Dunford: Narrative, Momentum in Anti-ISIL Fight Has Shifted to Iraqis

By Jim Garamone DoD News, Defense Media Activity

IRBIL, Iraq, April 22, 2016  The narrative and the momentum in Iraq has definitely shifted from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to Iraq and its coalition allies, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said at the conclusion of his latest trip here.

This was Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford's fourth visit to the country since being named as DoD's highest ranking military officer. When he came to Iraq in August last year, ISIL still controlled the plot and momentum in Iraq and Syria.

In August, he said, "the narrative was that there was inevitability in ISIL's success in Iraq, the confidence in Iraqi security forces was really low."

As recently as May 2015, the terror group was still grabbing ground from Iraq, Dunford told journalists traveling with him.

The chairman said he now uses the negative reports from Iraq and Syria in August 2015 as the baseline of the efforts in the country.

Not Unmindful of Challenges

"I am not unmindful of the challenges, nor am I going to blow sunshine ... ," he said, "but when I look at August and I look today there [are] a couple of things that are indisputable," he said. "No. 1 is ISIL holds far less ground than they held last year. No. 2, we've had a significant impact on their resources."

A third change is the impact operations have had on ISIL's senior leaders. And finally, "their freedom of movement has been severely limited," the chairman said, and the number of foreign fighters that has been able to get in the country has been significantly cut.

"Another thing that is indisputable is that Iraqi security forces have gone from 'Hey, when are they going to start doing something?' to now having secured Ramadi and most of Hit and they are moving out the Euphrates River Valley farther into Anbar province," Dunford said.

Advancing Up the Tigris

Iraqi forces are also moving up the Tigris River Valley and are now just south of Makhmur and starting to establish positions "that will ultimately lead to operations against ISIL in Mosul," he said.

The trajectory is good for the Iraqi forces, Dunford said. Success breeds success, and Iraqi forces are having successes against the terror group. They are also applying pressure against the group across the country, he noted.

Coalition forces in Iraq operate at the express request of the Iraqi government. "We're filling in the gaps of the Iraqi security forces that are doing the fighting," the chairman said. "We didn't fight for them in Ramadi and we didn't fight for them in Hit, and with two exceptions, we didn't bleed for them. They have been bleeding themselves and conducting the operations."

And, Dunford said, he expects more progress. He met with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi yesterday. "In terms of level of cooperation, and his willingness to accept our support and work with us, we have a partner in Baghdad," he said.

Abadi Reaches Out to Kurds

Abadi not only accepted the forces the coalition has offered but also a U.S. increase in forces, Dunford said.

"Frankly, we spoke last night about the need for cooperation with the Kurds and I was able to deliver a message today to President [of the Iraqi Kurdistan region] Masoud Barzani that Prime Minister Abadi would work with his folks to get a plan developed for Mosul right away, and that he would consult with Barzani soonest to ensure that all the stakeholders agreed upon the plan," the chairman said.

This is a significant change, and will help all the stakeholders in actions against ISIL, he added. "There are definitely challenges and Mosul is not going to be tomorrow," Dunford said. "There are real political issues that need to be worked through in the coming weeks."

First, the chairman said, there has to be what Barzani called "a plan for the day after Mosul." All players need to know what the plan is after Mosul is liberated, he said. Looming questions to be answered include determining who patrols the neighborhoods, who ensures people in the city of around 1 million are fed and who ensures ISIL doesn't just go to ground inside the city, Dunford said.

But it is more than that, the chairman added. "The Sunnis have to be enfranchised," he said. "There's got to be some accommodation for Kurdish interests with the government in Baghdad dominated by, obviously, the Shia."

That's not news, Dunford said, it's what has to happen "to get to a multi-sectarian unified Iraq."

Not all this has to happen before liberating Mosul, "but there has to be an agreed-upon grand vision as the detailed plan for Mosul is written," he said.

Sequence for Liberation

The next step in the sequence is the continued generation of forces for the operation, the chairman said.

Dunford stressed that the offensive against ISIL in Mosul has already started, even though Iraqi troops are not yet directly attacking the city.

"It's like tightening a noose," he said. "We tighten the noose with positioning forces. We're tightening it with strikes. We're tightening it with targeted strikes against leadership and we're stopping the flow of fighters between Iraq and Syria."

Under the best circumstances, the chairman said he expects to see Iraqi forces continue to move up the river toward Mosul and make their way into the city to secure it. "It will take time," Dunford said. "This is incredibly difficult and complex. This is a million people in a complex urban terrain with a determined enemy who has had a long time to prepare. This is going to be a tough fight."

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Counter-ISIL Strikes Hit Terrorists in Syria, Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, April 23, 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, fighter, and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 10 strikes in Syria:

-- Near Abu Kamal, a strike struck an ISIL weapons factory.

-- Near Al Hawl, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit.

-- Near Ar Raqqah, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL vehicle.

-- Near Dayr Az Zawr, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL checkpoint.

-- Near Manbij, four strikes struck four separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed four ISIL vehicles.

-- Near Mar'a, a strike destroyed an ISIL staging area.

-- Near Washiyah, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL fighting position.

Strikes in Iraq

Rocket artillery and bomber, fighter, ground-attack, and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 20 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq's government:

-- Near Baghdadi, eight strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit, two ISIL weapons storage facilities, and three ISIL bed down locations and destroyed three ISIL bunkers and denied ISIL access to terrain.

-- Near Qaim, a strike struck an ISIL bomb-making facility.

-- Near Beiji, a strike destroyed an ISIL fighting position and an ISIL bomb.

-- Near Fallujah, three strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL-used bridge, an ISIL fighting position, two ISIL heavy machine guns, an ISIL bunker, and an ISIL tunnel system.

-- Near Hit, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed four ISIL heavy machine guns and an ISIL recoilless rifle.

-- Near Kirkuk, a strike destroyed an ISIL command and control node and an ISIL-used bridge.

-- Near Mosul, three strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed two ISIL weapons caches, an ISIL check point, two ISIL vehicles, and an ISIL bomb.

-- Near Qayyarah, a strike destroyed two ISIL mortar systems.

-- Near Tal Afar, a strike produced inconclusive results.

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.

Part of Operation Inherent Resolve

The strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to eliminate the ISIL terrorist group and the threat they pose to Iraq, Syria, and the wider international community. The destruction of ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq further limits the group's ability to project terror and conduct operations.

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, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.

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Dunford: Iraqi Forces Must Maintain Pressure on ISIL

By Jim Garamone DoD News, Defense Media Activity

ABOARD AN AMERICAN MILITARY AIRCRAFT, April 23, 2016  Now is not the time to stop and regroup in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford said after leaving Baghdad.

"The momentum has swung and  my experience tells me once you've got somebody in a headlock, you don't let them go," the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said today in an interview on his way to Cairo, Egypt's capital city.

In the counter-ISIL campaign in Iraq, Iraqi forces have retaken Beiji, Ramadi and Hit and are pushing up the Tigris River Valley to Makhmur toward the eventual battle to retake Mosul, Dunford said.

ISIL is losing resources, leaders and heart as the Iraqis keep achieving battlefield successes, he said.

Maintaining Pressure on ISIL

"It's important that we keep pressure on them -- we keep pushing and pushing -- at whatever the pace is the Iraqis can sustain," he said. "It is their fight; it is their momentum."

Dunford said that when he became chairman in October 2015, the Iraqis were reacting to ISIL. Now the shoe is on the other foot, he said, as the terrorists have to react to Iraqi military offensives.

"We want to make sure that continues," Dunford said. "I don't take that for granted, because we are dealing with a very adaptive and determined enemy. As soon as you become complacent and you think this is breaking our way, that's probably the most dangerous time."

However, Iraqi military leaders now possess a degree of confidence they didn't exhibit last year, the chairman said.

Solvable Problems

Still, Iraqi leaders are cognizant about the status of their forces, Dunford said.

"They know about the ammunition problems," he said. "They know about the shortfalls in training; they know about the manning levels and the leadership gaps; they know about maintenance and spare parts; they know they have to figure out how to sustain the fight from a logistics standpoint.

"They know this," Dunford continued. "But, they also now know that a problem is a problem and that they can be solved if they work together and work with us and work with the coalition."

The chairman said this is a healthy attitude to have as the Iraqi forces confront more combat.

"I am a big guy on the psychological factors and the human factors as the difference between winning and losing," Dunford said. "When do you win? You win when the other guys thinks he lost."

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Pressuring China over Maritime Disputes Arbitration Shows Arrogance and Prejudice: FM

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 09:50, April 23, 2016

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Friday that the Philippines' attempt to pressure China over an arbitration of maritime disputes is "either political arrogance or legal prejudice."

"There is ample legal basis for China not to participate in or accept the unilaterally-initiated process," he told a joint press conference with his Cambodian counterpart Prak Sokhonn in Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia.

The UN Charter and international law advocate peaceful settlement of disputes through dialogue and negotiation, and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) also respects the dispute settlement procedure chosen by the parties themselves.

China has insisted that the South China Sea disputes should be resolved peacefully through negotiations between the parties directly concerned, Wang said.

"So China is exercising its legitimate right to reject a compulsory arbitration," he added.

The Chinese top diplomat noted that China made a declaration that excludes a compulsory arbitration in 2006 under the Article 298 of the UNCLOS.

Manila unilaterally initiated an arbitration case against China over the maritime disputes at an international tribunal in The Hague in early 2013 under the UNCLOS.

"The Philippines' claims relating to China's territory sovereignty and maritime rights should evidently be excluded from a compulsory arbitration," Wang said.

Under the Article 4 of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), signed by China and ASEAN countries, the disputes should be resolved through consultations and negotiations by parties directly concerned.

China's rejection of a compulsory arbitration is actually a fulfillment of its responsibilities and obligations of the DOC, Wang said.

Therefore, China's position on the arbitration is in compliance with international law and the norms of international law of the sea, he said.

The Philippines' unilateral move has violated the common practice that concerned parties should reach an agreement on handling their disputes before seeking an arbitration, as well as Manila's commitment to a negotiated solution to disputes made in bilateral documents, said the Chinese foreign minister.

The Philippines has also breached the Article 4 of the DOC it has signed that territorial and jurisdictional disputes should be resolved through consultations and negotiations by parties directly concerned.

"Manila's unilateral action is actually a distortion and abuse of the international arbitration mechanism," he added.

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Darfur votes against reunification of five states into one entity

Iran Press TV

Sat Apr 23, 2016 5:27PM

The Darfur region in western Sudan has voted in a referendum against reunification of its five states into one entity.

The organizers of the referendum, which was held from April 11 to 13, said Saturday that almost 98 percent of the voters chose to keep the present multi-state administrative system in place.

Referendum commission chief Omar Ali Jamaa said "97.72 percent voted for five states."

The commission chief added that out of 3.21 million eligible voters, 3.08 million voters participated in the referendum.

The referendum had been boycotted by Darfur's main ethnic minority insurgent groups striving for greater autonomy and opposed to the central government in Khartoum.

The insurgents have been engaged an armed rebellion against the government since 2003. The rebel groups accuse the government of discrimination toward non-Arabs.

Opposition groups had claimed the war in Darfur did not allow a fair vote, and the unification election was rigged to create a "divide-and-rule" multi-state system favoring the central government.

President Omar al-Bashir, however, assured that the situation in Darfur was stable enough to conduct the referendum.

"It is the people of Darfur who choose whether they want states or one region and we are holding this referendum so that no one else can come and say we want this or that," Bashir announced prior to the vote.

The Darfur Regional Authority is divided into five federal states: Central Darfur, East Darfur, North Darfur, South Darfur and West Darfur.

Darfur had been a united region ever since it became part of Sudan in 1916. In 1994, it was divided into three states. Two more states were added in 2012.

The ruling party of Sudan, the National Congress Party, supports a multi-state authority in the region, which it says would better serve the needs of the ethnically-divided peoples of the region.

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UN chief urges South Sudan rebel leader to return to capital

Iran Press TV

Sat Apr 23, 2016 5:20AM

The United Nations (UN) has urged South Sudanese rebel leader Riek Machar to return to the country's capital to serve in a unity government, as part of an August 2015 peace deal with rival President Salva Kiir.

Machar, who leads the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-in-Opposition, a rebel faction opposing Kiir, is currently staying at rebel military headquarters in the eastern town of Pagak, near the border with Ethiopia.

Under an August 2015 deal, he was expected to return on Monday, but did not show up over new disagreements with the president over the number of weapons and soldiers he was allowed to bring along with him.

He had asked to transport 1,500 police forces and 1,410 soldiers with their weapons, which include machine guns and other equipment. Juba allowed in only 1,370 troops, and refused to allow another 1,540 forces.

A compromise agreement was reached on Thursday over the issue, and Machar was said to be scheduled for a return to the capital on the same day.

However, he has not returned for unknown reasons.

The UN's Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Friday that Kiir's government had agreed to the compromise proposal on the matter of men and weapons and said this breakthrough should help with the swift formation of the unity government.

Under the original 2015 deal, Machar is to return to the post of vice president in a new 30-month transitional government leading to elections.

The UN chief thus urged Machar to travel to the capital, Juba, "without further conditions which could jeopardize the fragile peace process and prolong the suffering of the South Sudanese people."

The country plunged into civil war in late 2013 after Kiir accused Machar of a failed coup d'etat. The camps supporting each individual then got involved in a cycle of retaliatory killings that have split the impoverished country along ethnic lines and led to the killing of tens of thousands.

Despite the peace deal, battles persist across the country. There are numerous militia forces that do not abide by peace agreements and are driven by local agendas.

"Maintaining a spirit of cooperation will be crucial as the country's leaders begin the work of reversing the years of destruction this conflict has brought upon the people of South Sudan," Ban said.

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Yemen warring sides holding constructive talks: UN envoy

Iran Press TV

Sat Apr 23, 2016 4:33AM

The UN special envoy for Yemen has described as encouraging the atmosphere of the first day of negotiations between Yemen's warring factions, calling for an end to a deadly Saudi military campaign on the impoverished state.

Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed hailed as "very constructive" Friday's direct discussions between Houthi Ansarullah fighters and their allies on the one side and Saudi-backed loyalists to ex-president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi on the other side in Kuwait.

"There was a consensus on strengthening the cease-fire and the two sides were committed to the need to achieve peace and that this is the last opportunity," he said.

Ahmed further noted that an open-ended ceasefire that began at midnight on April 10 is respected 70-80 percent across Yemen. The truce was announced as a step to calm the situation ahead of the peace talks.

The negotiations had been planned by the UN to open on April 18, but were delayed over accusations of ceasefire violations from the parties to the Yemeni conflict.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the UN official noted that he had contacted Riyadh about its aerial assaults.

The Houthis complained of continuing air raids by Saudi Arabia while the former government side complained of alleged truce breaches by the Houthis, Ahmed added.

The Ansarullah fighters and their allied army forces have stressed that they are observing the truce as an important step towards the success of the Kuwait peace talks.

Meanwhile, Saudi military spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed Asiri claimed Riyadh reserves the right to strike if ceasefire violations cannot be resolved.

In January, he admitted that Saudi Arabia was stuck in a "static war" against its southern neighbor.

Yemen has seen almost daily military attacks by Saudi Arabia since late March 2015, with internal sources putting the toll from the bloody aggression at more than 9,500.

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.

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Poised For Big Win, Vucic Highlights Serbian 'Paradox'

April 23, 2016

by Charles Recknagel

Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, a rebranded ultranationalist who shed his incendiary rhetoric after the overthrow of Balkan strongman Slobodan Milosevic, is comfortably in the driver's seat as Serbia goes to the polls this weekend.

Vucic has brought his allies to the brink of a hefty majority in the Serbian legislature by appealing in often seemingly contradictory ways to multiple segments of Serbia's broad political spectrum. He has praised Serbian war criminals yet also expressed "pride" in becoming a self-described moderate. And he promises to lead Serbia into the EU while simultaneously maintaining Serbia's deep historical ties with Russia.

But as the country goes to the polls on April 24, Vucic's carefully crafted messages could leave many Serbs, and indeed Brussels and Moscow, guessing as to which way the opportunistic 46-year-old former firebrand for the Radical right plans to steer the most populous ex-Yugoslav republic: East. West. Forward. Or Backward.

"When Vucic says to choose between past and present, he means choose between my past and my future," says Olga Beckovic, an independent political commentator in Serbia. "He is saying, 'I can again become [an ultranationalist like Vojislav] Seselj if you don't want me to be European.'"

Vucic is sufficiently confident of his popularity to have scheduled the elections two years early in a bid to strengthen his dominance of Serbia's political scene. His Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and its coalition partners fell just short of a two-thirds majority in the last election, in 2014.

A trained lawyer and former information minister for wartime Yugoslav President Milosevic, Vucic has billed the April 24 poll as the moment for Serbs to choose whether they want to return to the past or move forward to a new future. He has suggested he would use a stronger parliamentary base to bolster his efforts to lead the country into the European Union by 2020.

But what Vucic would in fact do is difficult to gauge because his first two years as prime minister have been filled with contradictions.

Since becoming prime minister in 2014 on promises of tackling endemic corruption and leading Serbia westward, Vucic has overseen formal negotiations with Brussels over Serbia's EU aspirations, including vowing to cooperate in defusing tensions with Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008, as part of the process.

But he has maintained his appeal for those suspicious of the West by simultaneously vowing to keep Serbia close to its historical partner, Russia. He has also fostered close relations with Moscow by refusing to join EU sanctions over its actions in Ukraine -- where it forcibly annexed Crimea and continues to support armed separatism -- raising questions as to whether he values relations with Brussels or Moscow more.

So far, Vucic's balancing act seems to have paid off by giving him maximum maneuvering room to build up his power base. But it also may have sown confusion among Serbs, many of whom are torn over whether the country's future lies east or west.

In an opinion poll in February profiling younger Serbs, 70 percent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 35 said they would like to work in the EU and enjoy the kind of health benefits people have there. Yet at the same time, 65 percent said they approved of Russia's foreign policy and more than half said they would favor having a Russian military base in Serbia.

Some of the reasons for such mixed feelings may be historical, including reservations about the West that remain from NATO's bombing of Serbia over Kosovo in 1999. Some of the rising Euro-skepticism also may simply mirror that in the EU itself amid the bloc's economic woes, migrant crisis, and the specter of "Brexit."

But many observers blame Vucic's own personal failure to unequivocally champion EU values.

"In Serbia, public opinion is formed top-down," says Jelena Milic of the Belgrade-based Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies. "Now we have this paradoxical situation in which for [the past] two years all the political parties have been formally in favor of EU integration but public support has dropped down significantly."

An opinion poll in February found 48 percent of Serbs would support membership in the EU, down from 51 percent in 2014.

Vucic's ambiguity may also help explain the rising political fortunes of ultranationalist parties, which are highly hostile to the West and now look poised to return to the Serbian legislature for the first time since 2012.

The ultranationalist parties are predicted to take 5-10 percent of parliamentary seats, enough to give them a pulpit from which to denounce Serbia's official EU aspirations but not enough to significantly affect government policy.

One of these parties is led by Vojislav Seselj, the leader of the Serbian Radical Party from which Vucic broke away to help found the Progressive Party in 2008 along with Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic.

Seselj, who was acquitted by the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in March, is running for a parliamentary seat on a virulently anti-EU platform, claiming he has defeated Western efforts to punish Serbian nationalists over the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

"In Serbia, Euro-skepticism is rising and that is helping our chauvinistic, pro-Russian-oriented, and anti-European parties like Seselj's party," says Dusan Janjic, founder of the Belgrade-based Forum for Ethnic Relations.

But it is not just old-guard nationalist movements that are making gains. Serbia is also seeing a mushrooming of new fledgling political parties and civic organizations that seek to directly tie Serbia's future to Russia as an alternative to the EU.

Some such parties have names that include references to Russia, such as the Serbo-Russian Movement and the Russian Party. Barely large enough to field candidates for parliament, their rise nevertheless suggests the competition over whether Serbia moves east or west will only get tougher in the future.

Where the funding for the new pro-Russia parties comes from is a mystery.

Milic, who believes they are a projection of Russian soft power, has tried to investigate their financing and was immediately subjected to anonymous cyberbullying and death threats. The threats were serious enough to warrant police protection.

The question now is whether Vucic will continue to leave open a wide window for Serbia's anti-EU forces or use his likely stronger mandate after April 24 to try to close that window before it seriously threatens his own declared EU ambitions.

Some Belgrade observers predict that so long as the EU itself fails to give Serbia clear assurances it will indeed one day join the bloc, Vucic will continue to keep his own political options open by balancing Brussels and Moscow.

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/poised- win-vucic-serbian-paradox/27692765.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.

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Pakistan 'Assures' Afghan Minister Talks with Taliban to Resume in a Month

by Ayaz Gul April 23, 2016

Pakistan has assured neighboring Afghanistan that peace talks with the Taliban "will resume in a month" to find a peaceful end to the Afghan conflict.

Taliban-led insurgent violence has spiked in Afghanistan with the onset of spring, prompting fears this year could see record levels of bloodshed across the war-torn country.

This week's deadly Taliban assault in Kabul that killed around 70 people and wounded hundreds more has observers concerned that Afghan urban centers could be the focus of the insurgency's fighting in 2016.

The rise in violence has led to increased calls from within Afghanistan for President Asharf Ghani's government to abandon its policy of seeking peace talks with the Taliban and instead intensify military operations against the insurgent group.

Prospects for peace

But, despite the pressure, visiting Afghan Minister for Refugees and Repatriation Sayed Hussain Alemi Balkhi, after a meeting with Pakistani foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz, appeared upbeat about prospects of peace talks with the anti-government forces.

The Afghan minister says that Aziz "assured him the (Afghan) peace process will resume in about a month" and it will encourage nearly three million Afghans living in Pakistan as refugees and economic migrants to return to Afghanistan.

Taliban leaders are believed to be sheltering and allegedly directing insurgent attacks from sanctuaries in Pakistan.

Afghan officials have been urging Islamabad to bring those leaders to the negotiating table. Islamabad admits having "limited" influence over some insurgent groups but says it has no control over Taliban activities inside Afghanistan.

An initial round of peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban was expected to be hosted by Pakistan in early March but the insurgent group refused to attend in a last-minute announcement.

Afghan refugees

Minister Balkhi is in Pakistan to discuss problems facing the Afghan refugee population such as harassment at the hands of local police, forced deportations and illegal detentions during counterterrorism crackdowns.

His Pakistani counterpart, Abdul Qadir Baloch, says the visiting Afghan minister has been assured the complaints are being addressed through certain steps. He insisted that mainly Afghans living illegally as economic migrants and not the registered refugees, are facing the problems. Baloch says that to address the issue, Pakistani authorities, with the help of the Afghan government, will start within a month a registration process for an estimated 1.5 million undocumented Afghans.

"So, it will be done soon and hopefully once these Afghan refugees who are unregistered, they are registered and issued with Afghan documents and we also have a record of them and thereafter this complaint of them being harassed, or arrested, or persecuted in an undesirable manner that should come to an end, that will soon will come to an end," he said.

Minister Baloch says that there are around one-and-a-half-million registered Afghan refugees in the country and he will soon submit a request to the federal cabinet to extend their stay in Pakistan until the end of 2017. The current deadline for the Afghan refugee population to legally stay in the country ends on June 30 of this year.

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S. Sudan Rebel Leader's Return Delayed Again

by Peter Clottey April 23, 2016

South Sudanese rebel leader Riek Machar's anticipated return to the capital, Juba, planned for Saturday, was delayed after President Salva Kiir's government demanded its team inspect weapons that Machar would bring along.

The government's demand came shortly after a Cabinet meeting on Friday. The Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (JMEC) had earlier announced the government in Juba had accepted plans to allow the plane carrying Machar, the designated first vice president, to land.

Weapons verification

In a statement issued by Information Minister Michael Makuei, the government said it will send a team to ascertain the types of weapons before Machar would be allowed to return to Juba.

The Sudan Tribune website quoted Makuei as saying, "All these [weapons] will have to be verified and for them to be verified CTSAMM, which is the verification body, will send a team of verifiers to Gambella to go and verify the 195 soldiers who are coming plus their individual and plus these 20 PKMs and [20] RPGs If the team leaves today [Friday] then definitely the team will be there to do the verification and probably by Monday we expect him in Juba."

Machar's arrival in Juba is a key part of the peace process to form a transitional unity government following an accord signed last year between Machar and President Kiir to end South Sudan's conflict.

Peace accord at risk

James Gatdet Dak, the official spokesman for Machar, says the latest surprise demand by the government is an indication that Kiir's government lacks commitment to carry out the full implementation of the peace accord.

He says it was regrettable that the government would pull a surprise demand after all their initial concerns were resolved to enable the smooth arrival of Machar. Dak says the new demand negatively impacts the schedule for Machar's return.

"This is a very unfortunate development as the first vice president designate prepared to travel to Juba today, we have just received a new demand from President Salva Kiir's government saying that they will send a team to go and verify the weapons that our forces are going to carry along, those who are going to accompany the first vice president to Juba," said Dak.

"We are surprised that the government has come up with this new demand today they want to verify these weapons when the Ethiopian government, which is now in charge of the weapons at the airport, has already verified and has communicated it. So it has implications on the schedule of the first vice president  The demand has caused the delay and they are several hours behind schedule and I am not very sure they are going to make it to Juba today."

Latest delay

Dak says Kiir's government is to blame for the latest delay in Machar's return. Machar delayed his arrival following disagreements over his plans to come along with weapons. He was initially scheduled to arrive in Juba last Monday to take up his post as the new first vice president after which the transitional unity government would be formed.Dak says the rebel group has registered its protest to the JMEC following the government's demand.

Supporters of the government say there is a need for verification to ascertain whether the weapons being brought into the country by the rebels are indeed what they claim to be. Dak disagreed.

"It will cause further delay of the transitional government of national unity which is needed for the implementation of the peace agreement. So if the verification will further delay the travel of the first vice president designate, this means that the formation of the transitional government of national unity will also be delayed," said Dak.

"I think it is not necessary because the number and the specifics of the weapons have been declared. The list has been provided to the government and to JMEC," he said. "They know how many AK47s are going to be brought in by the forces. They know how many forces are coming which is 195. They agreed that the number of PKM weapons is going to be 20, the number of RPGs is going to be 20. So this information has been provided and it has been agreed, and the Ethiopian government in Gambella airport has also verified the number of weapons and the types. And they have locked them in boxes and even our forces at the airport have no access to these weapons."

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Obama, Merkel to Discuss Trade, Terrorism, Refugees in Two-Day Visit

by Mary Alice Salinas April 23, 2016

U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will discuss the global economy, terrorism, transatlantic security and many other issues during his two-day visit to Germany.

Obama will hold talks with Merkel shortly after he arrives in Hanover on Sunday.

After addressing reporters, the two leaders will officially open the Hanover Messe, billed as the world's leading trade fair for industrial technology. Organizers expect 6,500 exhibitors and more than 200,000 visitors from 70 countries.

White House officials say the event shows the importance of U.S.-German collaboration on many issues, including trade and commerce.

The two hope to build support for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP. The free-trade pact is being negotiated by the U.S. and the European Union.

The president felt it was important to visit Germany during his final year in office because Merkel has been "a close partner for his entire time in office," said deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes.

The agenda includes the coalition fight against Islamic State and counterterrorism cooperation, following attacks in Brussels and Paris in recent months.

"We will be discussing both how to increase cooperation across the Atlantic and what Europeans themselves can do to better integrate their various agencies within countries and across borders," said Charles Kupchan, White House senior director for European affairs.

The talks will also touch on the status of a cease-fire in Syria and the implementation of the Minsk agreement reached by Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists.

Obama is also expected to express support for a deal between the European Union and Turkey to manage the flow of migrants and refugees from Syria and other unstable, chaotic or violent states.

The leaders and their counterparts from Britain, France and Italy will hold talks ahead of a NATO summit set for July in Warsaw.

"The president will be discussing the agenda in preparation for that summit and the importance of NATO addressing its challenges, both on the eastern and on the southern flanks," Kupchan said.

Obama will cap his visit Monday with a speech outlining his vision for future U.S.-European relations.

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Zambian Opposition Leader Denies Election Boycott Threat

by Peter Clottey April 23, 2016

The leader of Zambian's main opposition has denied local media reports that he threatened to sit out the August 11 presidential election.

The reports suggested that Hakainde Hichilema of the United Party for National Development (UPND) threatened to boycott the election if the Electoral Commission of Zambia went ahead with plans to print ballots in Dubai. Ruling party supporters said a boycott would show that Hichilema was afraid of losing to incumbent President Edgar Lungu.

"I have never indicated that we may consider not running. That's out of the question," Hichilema said. "What we are saying is that there are reasons that are basically creating anxiety among the people of Zambia as to why ballot papers would be printed by a Dubai-based company.

"This bidder is expensive  just simply that. The bidder who has been printing ballot papers in the last couple of elections here is half the price of this Dubai-based printer. And this printer is South Africa-based, which is near and has proven that he can do the job, [and] they can meet the specification."

Hichilema's comments came after a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit, the research arm of a sister company to Britain's Economist newspaper, predicted that Hichilema would win the presidential election. The EIU said recent defections from the ruling Patriotic Front to the UPND, coupled with the endorsement of Hichilema by former Vice President Guy Scott, a leading member of the PF, boosted Hichilema's chances in the election.

No letup by UPND

Hichilema welcomed the EIU report but said the UPND would not relent in its campaign to wrest power from the PF.

"We offer an alternative to the economic recovery program, which is superior to that of Edgar Lungu and the PF, who have failed to run the country, who have basically brought a lot of poverty, unemployment, budget deficit, if you like, current account deficit  and many other deficits, including the high cost of food," Hichilema said.

"We offer economic turnaround policies, stability in various economic and fiscal policies, and I think the Economic Intelligence Unit's assessment is correct, and that is in line with the general perception in the country," he said. "But we are not complacent about that. We know that the election can be stolen. That's why we are making sure that we remain active to any maneuvers that would cause manipulation of election results."

Frank Bwalya, deputy PF spokesman, said Zambians were solidly behind Lungu and the governing party, and he rejected the electoral prediction as not a true reflection of issues on the ground.

He dismissed the EIU suggestion that Scott's endorsement would help Hichilema. He also said reports of hundreds of defections from the PF were inaccurate.

"Zambians don't read the Economist Intelligence Unit report, for a simple reason that they repeat what Zambians already know through their own local economists and other social commentators. So that Economist Intelligence Unit never comes up with anything new," Bwalya said.

Hichilema said the facts on the ground showed that the UPND has the momentum in the presidential campaign. "In the 2015 presidential by-election, I am on the only candidate that gained votes in all the 12 provinces in Zambia," he added.

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Austria - Politics

Since 1955, Austria has enjoyed political stability. A Socialist elder statesman, Dr. Karl Renner, organized an Austrian administration in the aftermath of the war, and the country held general elections in November 1945. All three major parties--the conservative People's Party (OVP), the Socialists (later Social Democratic Party or SPO), and Communists--governed until 1947, when the Communists left the government. The OVP then led a governing coalition with the SPO that governed until 1966.

In the National Council (Nationalrat) 183 members are elected through an open-list proportional representation system to serve 5-year terms. There are 9 multi-member constituencies corresponding to each of the states. Each of these is subdivided into smaller, regional constituencies, of which there are 43 in total. Each party fields regional, state, and national lists of candidates. Each voter gets one ballot on which she votes for one party and may express candidate preferences within that party's regional and state-level lists. Seat allocation proceeds in three stages.

First, regional seats are allocated (d'Hondt method). Second, provincial seat allocations are calculated, the sums of parties regional seats within each province are subtracted from these totals, and seats are allocated accordingly (d'Hondt method). Third, this process repeats at the national level (Hare method), where party lists are closed. Parties must win at least one seat each in a regional constituency to qualify for seats at the state and national levels. Additionally, any candidate who receives at least one-sixth of her partys votes is automatically awarded a seat. There is a 4 percent threshold for parties to gain representation, although a party that fails to reach this mark may still gain representation if it wins at least one seat in a regional election.

Between 1970 and 1999, the SPO governed the country either alone or with junior coalition partners. In 1999, the OVP formed a coalition with the right-wing, populist Freedom Party (FPO). The SPO, which was the strongest party in the 1999 elections, and the Greens formed the opposition. The FPO had gained support because of populist tactics, and many feared it would represent right-wing extremism. As a result, the European Union (EU) imposed a series of sanctions on Austria. The U.S. did not join the sanctions formally, but together with Israel, as well as various other countries, also reduced contacts with the Austrian Government. After a 6-month period of close observation, the EU lifted sanctions, and the U.S. revised its contacts policy.

In the 2002 elections, the OVP became the largest party, and the FPO's strength declined by more than half. Nevertheless, the OVP renewed its coalition with the FPO in February 2003. In national elections in October 2006, the SPO became the largest party, edging out the OVP. On January 11, 2007, an SPO-led grand coalition took office, with the OVP as junior partner. In July 2008, following months of dispute between the ruling parties, the coalition collapsed when Vice Chancellor Wilhelm Molterer (OVP) called for early elections. New elections were held on September 28, 2008, and resulted in the formation of another grand coalition between the SPO and OVP.

The Social Democratic Party traditionally draws its constituency from blue- and white-collar workers. Accordingly, much of its strength lies in urban and industrialized areas. In the 2008 national elections, it garnered 29.7% of the vote. In the past, the SPO advocated state involvement in Austria's key industries, the extension of social security benefits, and a full-employment policy. Beginning in the mid-1980s, it shifted its focus to free market-oriented economic policies, balancing the federal budget, and European Union membership. Following the 2008 financial crisis, the SPO began advocating a tax on global financial transactions and a solidarity tax from Austrian banks that had been bailed out by the government during the crisis.

The People's Party advocates conservative financial policies and privatization of much of Austria's nationalized industry. It finds support from farmers, large and small business owners, and some lay Catholic groups, mostly in the rural regions of Austria. In 2008, it received 25.6% of the vote. The Greens won 9.8% of the vote in 2008, losing ground to become the smallest party in parliament.

Austrias rightist Freedom Party (FPO) saw its popularity grow in a series of national and state elections since 2006. In the 2008 elections, the FPO earned 18% of the vote, up from 11% in 2006. The late Joerg Haider, the former leader of the FPO, split from the party in 2005 to form the Alliance-Future-Austria (BZO). While the BZO barely managed to enter parliament in 2006 with 4.1% of the vote, Haider led his new party to a surprising 10.7% in national elections in 2008. Shortly afterwards Haider died in a car crash, and the BZO subsequently saw some of its deputies return to the FPO as the partys political fortunes declined again.

Federal President Heinz Fischer was reelected for a second term on April 25, 2010.

On 29 September 2013 elections, the Social Democrats finished with 26.8%, followed by the People's Party with 24.0%. Punished by voters tired of political squabbling and policy paralysis, both parties stumbled to their worst electoral results since World War 2 while the anti-immigrant Freedom Party (FPO) got more than a fifth of the seats in parliament.

Austria's parliamentary elections yielded the following distribution of votes (in brackets the allocation of the 183 mandates): SPO (Social Democrats) 26.8% (52); OVP (People's Party) 24.0% (47), FPO (Freedom Party) 20.5% (40); Greens 12.4% ( 24); Team Stronach 5.7% (11) and NEOS 5.0% (9). Both parties of the incumbent grand coalition of SPO and OVP lost some percentage points which migrated to the eurosceptic FPO but also to the Greens. Team Stronach benefited from BZO (Bundnis Zukunft Osterreich) dissidents, while NEOS is a newcomer to the Austrian Parliament. BZO did not pass the required 4.0% threshold and hence is not represented in the new Austrian Parliament anymore.

Possible coalitions included a renewed grand coalition of SPO and OVP with a smaller parliamentary majority than previously (99 mandates), a coalition between the OVP, FPO and Team Stronach (98 mandates) as well as a coalition between the SPO and FPO (92 mandates).

Austria's two main pro-European parties reached an agreement 11 December 2013 to form a new government following more than two months of negotiations. After receiving a narrow majority in the September 2013 election, the center-left Social Democrats and the center-right People's Party once again joined in a grand coalition government, a model that had dominated Austria's postwar history.

Austria's top diplomat Alexander Schallenberg took over as chancellor on 11 October 2021 as the ruling party tried to emerge from a corruption scandal that cost the job of one of Europe's youngest leaders. Sebastian Kurz, a 35-year-old once feted as a "whizz kid", said he was quitting the top job after being implicated in a corruption scandal. Van der Bellen said the government now had the "great responsibility of restoring trust". Kurz's centre-right People's Party (OeVP) and their junior Green coalition partners hoped to move on from the scandal and serve out the rest of their term until 2024. However, the fallout from events may continue to reverberate after prosecutors raided several OeVP-linked locations, including the chancellery and party headquarters, over allegations that between 2016 and 2018 finance ministry resources were used to pay for "partially manipulated opinion polls that served an exclusively party-political interest".

Sebastian Kurz announced 01 December 2021 his retirement from politics. The 35-year-old cited the family and the birth of his first child as the main reason on Thursday. And yet: The resignation was preceded by turbulent months. There is something draining about that, said Kurz, it made the flame in me smaller. He was critical of the constant observation to which he was exposed. "As chancellor, you have so many decisions that you have to make every day, that you know early on that you will also make wrong decisions," he said. "You're always under observation. You also constantly have the feeling that you're being hunted," Kurz added.

Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg announced 01 December 2021 he would not run for party leadership and announced his intention to resign as head of government. "I firmly believe that both positions  head of government and leader of the Austrian party with the most votes  should soon once again be held by the same person," Schallenberg said in a statement. "I am therefore making my post as chancellor available as soon as the relevant course has been set within the party," he added. This should make Schallenberg the shortest-serving chancellor in the history of the Second Republic.

Interior Minister Karl Nehammer, an enforcer of Kurz's hard line on immigration, seemed most likely to become party leader and chancellor when the OVP leadership met on 03 December 2021. In 2017 and 2019, Kurz led the OVP to the top in elections and himself to the Chancellery. If there were now new elections, the OVP would lose heavily. According to surveys, it would fall from 37.5 percent to around 20 percent. New elections should therefore not be on the OVP's agenda.





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Belize-Guatemala Border Dispute

Guatemalas 15 April 2018 national referendum saw Guatemalan residents voting on taking the long standing dispute to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Guatemalas Supreme Electoral Tribunal and Ministry of Foreign Affairs stepped up their campaign in an attempt to ensure that as many people as possible go to the polls informed, but also motivate the vote. If the Guatemalans vote yes to the ICJ, pressure will come on Belize to do likewise, that is, accept ICJ arbitration, when Belize holds its own national referendum on the matter later in 2018 or early in 2019.

Guatemala voted Yes, in the referendum, to present a longstanding border dispute between the country and neighbor Belize before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Some 76% abstained from participating in the vote, but Yes managed to win 95.9% approval from the small group which turnout on Sunday. Guatemala President Jimmy Morales was pleased with the overwhelming support which greenlights a possible international resolution. Reports state that an abysmal 7-10% of Guatemala's 7.5 million eligible voters took part in the process. Supreme Electoral Tribunal president Maria Eugenia Mijangos said the voting process took place without reports of security incidents. Observers from 25 countries monitored the polling.

Guatemalas referendum ballot asked residents: "Do you agree that any legal claim of Guatemala against Belize on continental and insular territories and any maritime areas corresponding to those territories be submitted to the International Court of Justice for resolution?" Some Guatemalans challenged the April 15th referendum because their countrys constitution mandates that the people go to a referendum after the ICJ has made a ruling in the case and not before.

Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales has called on the Latin American country's 7.5 million eligible voters to take part in a referendum on Sunday on whether the International Court of Justice (ICJ) should rule on a 200-year-old border dispute with neighboring country Belize. A final resolution could see Guatemala, a former Spanish colony, gain legal control over territory and waters currently administered by Belize, once a British colony. The disputed area covers some 12,270 square kilometers (4,737 square miles)  about half of Belize.

The referendum is the result of a 2008 accord that would see the dispute over mainland, island and maritime territory sent to the court in The Hague, if the populations of Guatemala and Belize approve. The English-speaking Belize will hold its own referendum using the same question at an unspecified date in the future. A previous joint referendum initiative, also based on the 2008 accord, failed to take place in 2013.

On April 22, 2016 Belize accused larger neighbor Guatemala of "amassing'' troops along the two countries' border following the death of a 13-year-old boy in a shooting incident apparently involving Belizean soldiers. It was a new flashpoint in a long territorial dispute between the two countries.

Guatemala has an approximately 180-year-old border dispute with Belize and territorial sea disputes with Belize and Honduras. Guatemala's traditional claim has been to the half of Belizean territory that lies south of the Sibun River. The dispute between Guatemala and Belize involves Guatemalan claims to territory held by Belize.

Belize had been a British crown colony since 1862 under the name of British Honduras, but Guatemala claimed the territory on the basis of Anglo-Spanish treaties in the 18th century. In 1994, three years after Guatemala recognized Belizean independence, most British troops left Belize. The British maintained a training presence until 2011, when the last British forces, except for advisers, left Belize.

Guatemala disputes the 1855 Treaty with its neighbor and has re-activated its claims to half of the territory of Belize as far as the River Sibun, as well as to the reef areas (cayes) of Ranguana and Sapodilla (sandy islands on a Corallian sub-foundation, situated in the southern part of the Great Barrier of Belize), and as a consequence to part of the waters of the Gulf of Amatique and the Gulf of Honduras from which it is currently excluded.

Territorial disputes between the UK and Guatemala delayed the independence of Belize until 1981. Guatemala refused to recognize the new nation until 1992 and the two countries are involved in an ongoing border dispute. Belize has suffered losses in its rainforest along the southern border as there have been numerous incursions with Guatemalans stripping the environment of its natural resources. Those resources range from xate leaves to gold and from rosewood trees to marine life.

Guatemala persists in its territorial claim to half of Belize, but agrees to the Line of Adjacency to keep Guatemalan squatters out of Belize's forested interior. Negotiations to settle the dispute have gone on for many years. Border disputes have too long been a contentious and unnecessary barrier to economic and social development in the region. They regularly frustrate international cooperation on trade, environment protection, security, and law enforcement, and are a drain on budgets and resources.

Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed US support 30 September 2002 for the resolution of a territorial dispute between Belize and Guatemala. In September 30 remarks before the Organization of American States (OAS), Powell said the approval of draft proposals to end the long-standing disagreement will be a "milestone" for the region.

Powell applauded the collective leadership of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras and the OAS in producing the draft proposals. He also recognized the technical assistance of the Pan American Institute of Geography and History and the US National Imagery and Mapping Agency in crafting a comprehensive solution to the more than century-long bilateral disagreement.

The Secretary said that the draft proposals reflected the region's commitment to peaceful dispute resolution and "are another sign that our hemisphere has come of age in common commitment to peace, prosperity and freedom."

He said acceptance of the draft proposals by the people of Belize and Guatemala would "remove a chronic obstacle to economic, environmental and social development" in the countries and their neighbors. Powell added that final resolution to the territorial dispute would inspire other nations in the region to resolve their outstanding disputes.

The Secretary concluded that "each time a dispute is settled, our hemisphere will become a little safer, a little freer, and a little more prosperous." Belize and Guatemala have signed an agreement 06 September 2005, brokered by the Organization of American States (OAS), aimed at deepening relations between the two countries while they continue trying to resolve a long-standing territorial dispute. In a September 6 statement, the OAS said the agreement committed the two countries to "respect and implement, with OAS assistance, a series of measures on a framework of negotiation and confidence-building measures as well as an architecture for future negotiation."

Belize and Guatemala agreed in 2006 to negotiations, arranged by the Organization of the American States (OAS), on settling their claims to a maritime area that is part of a long-festering boundary dispute between the two Central American neighbors.

In a 10 February 2006 statement following a meeting in Washington between officials from Guatemala and Belize, the OAS said the two countries agreed to its proposal that includes appointing a "recognized expert on the Law of the Sea" as well as inviting the government of Honduras to participate in the negotiation process. The Law of the Sea refers to a United Nations Convention that seeks to create a regime (ruling system) for the oceans.

In 2008, Guatemala and Belize signed a Special Agreement to submit Guatemalas territorial claims to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), subject to the approval of the citizens in both countries. Each country was set to hold a referendum in October 2013 to approve the agreement; however, the referenda have been postponed and a new date has not been set.

In September 2013, in his speech at the General Assembly of the United Nations, Belizes Minister of Foreign Affairs stated that Guatemalas claim is an existential threat and a constant source of anxiety to the citizens of Belize as well as to investors in the country. This issue remains largely political between both governments. In January 2014, the Foreign Ministers of both countries met in Belize to strengthen relations, plan the way forward for 2014, and enhance confidence building measures that could lead to the setting of a definite date for a referendum. The Organization of American States (OAS), which maintains an office in the adjacency zone of the two countries, serves as a mediator for any incidents that arise. In October 2014 the Belize-Guatemala Joint Commission agreed to thirteen measures to improve communication between the two countries as they fight transnational crime on the poorly monitored border.

Background

British Honduras faced two obstacles to independence: British reluctance until the early 1960s to allow citizens to govern themselves, and Guatemala's complete intransigence over its long- standing claim to the entire territory (Guatemala had repeatedly threatened to use force to take over British Honduras). By 1961, Britain was willing to let the colony become independent. From 1964 Britain controlled only defense, foreign affairs, internal security, and the terms and conditions of the public service.

On June 1, 1973, the colony's name was changed to Belize in anticipation of independence. After 1975 Britain allowed the colonial government to internationalize its case for independence, so Belizeans participated in international diplomacy even before the area became a sovereign nation. The stalemate in the protracted negotiations between Britain and Guatemala over the future status of Belize led Belizeans to seek the international community's assistance in resolving issues associated with independence. Even after Belize became independent in 1981, however, the territorial dispute remained unsettled.

The territorial dispute's origins lay in the eighteenth-century treaties in which Britain acceded to Spain's assertion of sovereignty while British settlers continued to occupy the sparsely settled and ill-defined area. The 1786 Convention of London, which affirmed Spanish sovereignty was never renegotiated, but Spain never attempted to reclaim the area after 1798. Subsequent treaties between Britain and Spain failed to mention the British settlement. By the time Spain lost control of Mexico and Central America in 1821, Britain had extended its control over the area, albeit informally and unsystematically. By the 1830s, Britain regarded the entire territory between the Hondo River and Sarstoon River as British.

The independent republics that emerged from the disintegrating Spanish Empire in the 1820s claimed that they had inherited Spain's sovereign rights in the area. Britain, however, never accepted such a doctrine. Based on this doctrine of inheritance, Mexico and Guatemala asserted claims to Belize. Mexico once claimed the portion of British Honduras north of the Sibun River but dropped the claim in a treaty with Britain in 1893. Since then, Mexico has stated that it would revive the claim only if Guatemala were successful in obtaining all or part of the nation. Still, Mexico was the first nation to recognize Belize as an independent country.

At the center of Guatemala's claim was the 1859 treaty between Britain and Guatemala. From Britain's viewpoint, this treaty merely settled the boundaries of an area already under British dominion. But Guatemala later developed the view that this agreement was a treaty of cession through which Guatemala would give up its territorial claims only under certain conditions, including the construction of a road from Guatemala to the Caribbean coast. Guatemala said it would repudiate the treaty in 1884 but never followed up on the threat.

The dispute appeared to have been forgotten until the 1930s, when the government of General Jorge Ubico claimed that the treaty was invalid because the road had not been constructed. Britain argued that because neither the short- lived Central American Federation (1821-39) nor Guatemala had ever exercised any authority in the area or even protested the British presence in the nineteenth century, British Honduras was clearly under British sovereignty. In its constitution of 1945, however, Guatemala stated that British Honduras was the twenty-third department of Guatemala. Since 1954 a succession of military and right-wing governments in Guatemala frequently whipped up nationalist sentiment, generally to divert attention from domestic problems. Guatemala has also periodically massed troops on the border with the country in a threatening posture.

Negotiations between Britain and Guatemala began again in 1961, but the elected representatives of British Honduras had no voice in these talks. George Price refused an invitation from Guatemalan President Ydigoras Fuentes to make British Honduras an "associated state" of Guatemala. Price reiterated his goal of leading the colony to independence. In 1963 Guatemala broke off talks and ended diplomatic relations with Britain. In 1965 Britain and Guatemala agreed to have a United States lawyer, appointed by President Lyndon Johnson, mediate the dispute. The lawyer's draft treaty proposed giving Guatemala so much control over the newly independent country, including internal security, defense, and external affairs, that Belize would have become more dependent on Guatemala than it was already on Britain. The United States supported the proposals. All parties in British Honduras, however, denounced the proposals, and Price seized the initiative by demanding independence from Britain with appropriate defense guarantees.

A series of meetings, begun in 1969, ended abruptly in 1972 when Britain announced it was sending an aircraft carrier and 8,000 troops to Belize to conduct amphibious exercises. Guatemala then massed troops on the border. Talks resumed between 1973 and 1975 but again broke off as tensions flared. At this point, the Belizean and British governments, frustrated at dealing with the military- dominated regimes in Guatemala, agreed on a new strategy that would take the case for self-determination to various international forums. The Belize government felt that by gaining international support, it could strengthen its position, weaken Guatemala's claims, and make it harder for Britain to make any concessions.

Belize argued that Guatemala frustrated the country's legitimate aspirations to independence and that Guatemala was pushing an irrelevant claim and disguising its own colonial ambitions by trying to present the dispute as an effort to recover territory lost to a colonial power. Between 1975 and 1981, Belizean leaders stated their case for self-determination at a meeting of the heads of Commonwealth of Nations governments in Jamaica, the conference of ministers of the Nonaligned Movement in Peru, and at meetings of the United Nations (UN). The support of the Nonaligned Movement proved crucial and assured success at the UN.

Latin American governments initially supported Guatemala. Cuba, however, was the first Latin country, in December 1975, to support Belize in a UN vote that affirmed Belize's right to self- determination, independence, and territorial integrity. The outgoing Mexican president, Luis Echeverria Alvarez, indicated that Mexico would appeal to the Security Council to prevent Guatemala's designs on Belize from threatening peace in the area. In 1976 President Omar Torrijos of Panama began campaigning for Belize's cause, and in 1979 the Sandinista government in Nicaragua declared unequivocal support for an independent Belize.

In each of the annual votes on this issue in the UN, the United States abstained, thereby giving the Guatemalan government some hope that it would retain United States backing. Finally, in November 1980, with Guatemala completely isolated, the UN passed a resolution that demanded the independence of Belize, with all its territory intact, before the next session of the UN in 1981. The UN called on Britain to continue defending the new nation of Belize. It also called on all member countries to offer their assistance.

A last attempt was made to reach an agreement with Guatemala prior to the independence of Belize. The Belizean representatives to the talks made no concessions, and a proposal, called the Heads of Agreement, was initialed on March 11, 1981. However, when ultraright political forces in Guatemala labeled the proposals as a sellout, the Guatemalan government refused to ratify the agreement and withdrew from the negotiations. Meanwhile, the opposition in Belize engaged in violent demonstrations against the Heads of Agreement. The demonstrations resulted in four deaths, many injuries, and damage to the property of PUP leaders and their families. A state of emergency was declared. However, the opposition could offer no real alternatives. With the prospect of independence celebrations in the offing, the opposition's morale fell. Independence came to Belize on September 21, 1981, without reaching an agreement with Guatemala.

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North Korea: Nuclear tests will stop after US, South halt drills

Iran Press TV

Sat Apr 23, 2016 11:5PM

North Korea says it will stop its nuclear tests on the condition that the US halts its annual military exercises with South Korea.

"It is really crucial for the United States government to withdraw its hostile policy against the DPRK and as an expression of this stop the military exercises, war exercises, in the Korean Peninsula. Then we will respond likewise," said North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong in an interview with the Associated Press in New York on Saturday.

He added that if the exercises stop "for some period, for some yearsnew opportunities may arise for the two countries and for the entire world as well."

In March, the US and South Korea began massive war games involving more than 17,000 American and 300,000 South Korean

troops, with warships and aircraft carrying out live-fire drills in the region.

Ri also defended his country's rights to maintain a nuclear deterrent, warning that the North would not be browbeaten by international sanctions.

"If they believe they can actually frustrate us with sanctions, they are totally mistaken," he added. "The more pressure you put on to something, the more emotionally you react to stand up against it. And this is important for the American policymakers to be aware of."

"If we continue on this path of confrontation, this will lead to very catastrophic results, not only for the two countries but for the whole world as well," he noted.

In March, the UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution expanding existing sanctions on the North over its missile and nuclear tests.

"A country as small as the DPRK cannot actually be a threat to the US or to the world," Ri added. "How great would it be if the world were to say to the United States and the American government not to conduct any more military exercises in the Korean Peninsula ... But there is not a single country that says this to the US."

Ri's remarks were made just hours after South Korean Defense Ministry's announcement that the North had carried out a submarine-launched ballistic missile test, which failed after flying 30 kilometers (18 miles) in the Sea of Japan.

But North Korea claims the test was "another great success" that "fully confirmed and reinforced the reliability of the Korean-style underwater launching system and perfectly met all technical requirements for carrying out ... underwater attack operation."

"The successful test-fire would help remarkably bolster the underwater operational capability of the KPA (North Korean military) navythat it is now capable of hitting the heads of the South Korean puppet forces and the US imperialists anytime as it pleases," the North's official news agency KCNA quoted North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un as saying.

On January 6, North Korea said it had successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb, its fourth nuclear test, vowing to build up its nuclear program as deterrence against potential aggression from the US and its regional allies.

A month later, Pyongyang launched a long-range rocket which it said placed an earth observation satellite into orbit. However, Washington and Seoul denounced it as a cover for an intercontinental ballistic missile test.

"These big countries alone or together are telling us that we should calm down," Ri said. "For us this is like a sentence, that we should accept our death and refuse our right to sovereignty."

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North, South Korea Differ on Success of Missile Test

by VOA News April 23, 2016

North Korea confirmed Sunday that it had conducted a submarine-launched ballistic missile test supervised by leader Kim Jong Un.

The North Korean state news agency KCNA declared Saturday's test a "great success," even as the official news agency in rival South Korea claimed just the opposite.

South Korean military officials told the Yonhap news agency that the missile flew for about 30 kilometers and that the test did not appear to have been success.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said a projectile had been fired from a submarine toward the sea. A South Korean military spokesman said Seoul was keeping close tabs on the North Korean military and maintaining a full defense posture.

North Korea has sent a barrage of missiles and artillery shells into the sea amid ongoing annual military drills between the United States and South Korea. Pyongyang says the drills are a preparation for an invasion of the North.

The U.S. State Department noted that ballistic missile launches by North Korea violate multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions.

"We call on North Korea to refrain from actions that further destabilize the region and focus instead on taking concrete steps toward fulfilling its commitments and international obligations," said State Department spokesman John Kirby, as quoted by The Associated Press.

A halt to tests?

North Korea's foreign minister told the AP in an interview later Saturday that his country was ready to halt its nuclear tests if the United States suspended the annual exercises.

Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong, in his first interview with a Western news organization, reiterated Pyongyang's long-standing position that the U.S. drove his country to develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent.

"Stop the nuclear war exercises in the Korean Peninsula, then we should also cease our nuclear tests," he said.

North Korea has floated similar proposals to Washington in the past, but the U.S. has insisted the North give up its nuclear weapons program first before any negotiations. The result has been a stalemate between the two countries and continued belligerence from the reclusive state.

Hours earlier, the North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun published a statement saying South Korean President Park Geun-hye should make her "funeral shroud."

Pyongyang has been working to acquire submarine-launched ballistic missile capability.

Saturday's test-firing came as North Korea has been preparing for a rare ruling party congress in May, the first since 1980.

The United Nations recently imposed new, stronger sanctions on North Korea in response to Pyongyang's fourth nuclear test in January and a ballistic missile test the following month.

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Kerry: No objection to the way of foreign banks engaging with Iranian banks

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

New York, April 23, IRNA -- US has no objection and does not stand in the way of foreign banks engaging with Iranian banks and companies, said US Secretary of State John Kerry before meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in New York on Friday.

Discussing the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Kerry emphasized on the fact that U.S. has lifted nuclear-related sanctions, as U.S. committed to do, and there are now opportunities for foreign banks to do business with Iran.

Referring to the existence of confusion among some foreign banks, he said that we try to clarify that as much as we can.

He added that among the nuclear-related sanctions that were lifted were those that prevented Iran from engaging with non-U.S. banks, including getting access to Iran's restricted funds that were previously held overseas.

On the reason for which the State and the Treasury Departments have been actively engaged with partner governments and the private sector in order to clarify those sanctions that have been lifted, Kerry said that, 'We understand that banks and businesses have complicated business decisions to make, and they have to make them.

He noted that, 'We recognize it is going to take some time for companies to feel confident in reengaging with Iran, and in all fairness, that is due to concerns other than sanctions.'

'I want to make clear the United States is committed to doing our part as we believe it is in our interest to ensure that the JCPOA, the nuclear agreement that we reached, that it is in fact working for all participants', Secretary Kerry said.

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Kerry Says U.S. Won't Block Foreign Firms Doing Business With Iran

April 23, 2016

by RFE/RL

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry assured foreign banks and businesses that the United States will not block them from doing business with Iran under last year's historic nuclear accord.

"The United States is not standing in the way, and will not stand in the way, of business that is permitted in Iran since the [nuclear deal] took effect" in January, Kerry said on April 22 before meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in New York.

Kerry said he was trying to clear up uncertainty among businesses outside the United States about investing in Iran. The Iranian government has complained about not getting the full economic benefit of its July 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

"There are now opportunities for foreign banks to do business with Iran," Kerry said. "Unfortunately there seems to be some confusion among some foreign banks and we want to try and clarify that."

Banks that are now free to do business with Iran include those that are holding an estimated $55 billion in frozen Iranian assets, he said. Many of those banks have been nervous about returning the funds even since the deal went into effect.

Kerry recently estimated that Iran has received only $3 billion of that $55 billion in repatriated wealth it was expected to reap under the deal, at least in part because of overcautiousness among banks.

Kerry stressed that "among the nuclear-related sanctions that were lifted were those that prevented Iran from engaging with non-U.S. banks, including getting access to Iran's restricted funds."

The only exceptions, he said, would be engaging with banks and companies that are still blacklisted by the United States.

Kerry said it was understandable that some companies might need time to feel confident about doing business in Iran.

He said if banks continue to have questions about remaining U.S. sanctions targeting Iran's ballistic-missile program and sponsorship of militant groups, "they should just ask."

He noted that Tehran also needs to take more steps to welcome foreign businesses, such as by modernizing its banking system.

The nuclear agreement eased some sanctions imposed by the United States, European Union, and United Nations in return for Tehran curbing its nuclear program.

Zarif noted that "Iran has implemented its part of the bargain," including by disposing of some of its heavy water through an $8.6 million sale to the United States announced on April 22.

Tehran has called on the United States to do more to remove obstacles to the banking sector so that businesses feel comfortable with investing in Iran without penalties.

Current U.S. policy bars foreign banks from clearing dollar-based transactions with Iran through U.S. banks, and those restrictions will continue.

Despite Kerry's assurances, some Western firms say they remain wary of doing business in Iran because of the possibility that seemingly innocent Iranian companies might have links to entities blacklisted by the United States.

Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is still the target of U.S. sanctions, in particular has extensive business interests and ties in Iran which can be hard for foreigners to discern, so businesses must take pains to be sure they are not unwittingly violating sanctions by engaging with them.

Zarif said he hoped Kerry's clarification will help. "We hope that with this statement by Secretary Kerry...now we will see serious implementation of all...benefits that Iran should [derive] from this agreement," he said.

He added that Tehran hoped Kerry's words would "open the difficult path that has been closed because of concerns that banks have about the U.S. approach toward implementation of commitments" under the nuclear deal.

Kerry said there remained some "serious differences" with Iran on implementing the deal. "Those have to be the subject of future discussion, but its important for people to understand that an agreement is an agreement," he said.

It was the second meeting this week between Zarif and Kerry to discuss sanctions relief at the UN.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/us- secretary-state-kerry-says-us-wont-block-foreign-firms- dong-business-iran-nuclear-deal-zarif/27692004.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.

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Kerry assures world business transactions with Iran are safe

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, April 24, IRNA -- US Secretary of State John Kerry assured the world that financial transactions with Iran are safe and European banks should not be worried in this regard.

Speaking to reporters before meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in New York on Friday, Kerry urged internatioanl financial institutions to inquire whenever they have any doubts on their business with Iran.

The following is the full text of the remarks made by Secretary Kerry and Foreign Minister Zarif:



SECRETARY KERRY: Good afternoon, everybody. Let me just say a few words, if I can. I'm very pleased to be meeting with Foreign Minister Zarif today to continue our discussions about the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action implementation. We had a very productive meeting earlier in the week. We exchanged a lot of thoughts. We talked about some challenges, and so I think we both decided that it was important to do some homework. And we've come back today to follow up on that conversation.

First, I want to say something about one of the issues that we have been discussing. As President Obama has said, as Secretary Jack Lew has said, and as I have said, and we have said it repeatedly, the United States is not standing in the way and will not stand in the way of business that is permitted with Iran since the JCPOA took effect.

And I want to emphasize we lifted our nuclear-related sanctions, as we committed to do, and there are now opportunities for foreign banks to do business with Iran.

Unfortunately, there seems to be some confusion among some foreign banks, and we want to try to clarify that as much as we can. Among the nuclear-related sanctions that were lifted were those that prevented Iran from engaging with non-U.S. banks, including getting access to Iran's restricted funds that were previously held overseas.

Now, we have no objection  I want to make this clear. We have no objection and we do not stand in the way of foreign banks engaging with Iranian banks and companies, obviously as long as those banks and companies are not on our sanctions list for non-nuclear reasons. But the nuclear sanctions permitted non-U.S. banks to engage with business activity and companies in Iran, and it allows them to provide access to funds and financing, and it allows Iran, importantly, to have access to its own funds.

We also  I want to say that we understand that banks and businesses have complicated business decisions to make, and they have to make them. But that is why the State and the Treasury Department have been actively engaged with partner governments and the private sector in order to clarify those sanctions that have been lifted. And if banks or any company has any question about this, we're happy to answer those questions. They shouldn't just assume that activities that were not permitted before the JCPOA are not permitted at this point in time. And so they shouldn't also assume that activities still prohibited by the primary embargo are also prohibited for foreign actors. That's not the way that works.

So when in doubt  my message: when in doubt, ask.

Now, we recognize it is going to take some time for companies to feel confident in reengaging with Iran, and in all fairness, that is due to concerns other than sanctions. And Iran, as we have said in a candid conversation, also has a certain amount it needs to do to modernize its own banking system to begin to do things to  that it hadn't done during the years that it was operating under sanctions, and that would facilitate this process.

But I want to make clear the United States is committed to doing our part as we believe it is in our interest to ensure that the JCPOA, the nuclear agreement that we reached, that it is in fact working for all participants. And just as we have upheld our commitments, we're going to continue to work with Iran to verify that they uphold theirs also. It is mutuality that was created in this, and it's important that we make sure there is mutuality in its implementation.

FOREIGN MINISTER ZARIF: Thank you, Secretary Kerry. I think what is important for everybody to understand is that the JCPOA was a balanced agreement, and Iran has implemented its part of the bargain and we hope that with this statement by Secretary Kerry and other steps that were taken by the United State, now we will see serious implementation of all JCPOA benefits that Iran should derive from this agreement so that we can ensure that agreement is a way for addressing international problems, that sanctions and pressure won't resolve international problems, but negotiations,

talks, dialogue in fact are the way to address international problems.

We hope that the statement made today by Secretary Kerry will begin to open the difficult path that has been closed because of concerns that banks had about the U.S. approach towards implementation of the commitments under the JCPOA. We will continue to have differences with the United States. Our differences are very serious in a good number of areas. We will  but we have decided together with P5+1 to address this issue, and we want to show that P5+1 and Iran have been able to resolve a very serious, difficult issue through negotiations, and I believe we should take the necessary steps in that regard. And I hope that by  through serious action so that the Iranian people can see the benefits of implementation of JCPOA, we can move forward with the long-term implications for this very important agreement, which should create the foundations and not the ceilings for resolution of international issues. Thank you.

SECRETARY KERRY: The foreign minister just mentioned one thing I just want to make clear so we're both on  addressing it. The foreign minister is correct; there are differences and some of them are obviously serious differences. Those have to be the subject of future discussion. But it's important for people to understand that an agreement is an agreement, and we need to separate, even as we are working to resolve those other differences. And nothing that I said diminishes the United States commitment to helping to resolve those differences and certainly to continue to work for the peace and stability of the region. Thank you.

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Iraq forces destroy Daesh hideouts

Iran Press TV

Sat Apr 23, 2016 10:22AM

Security forces in Iraq have inflicted heavy losses on the Daesh terrorist group in the country's west, while gearing up to free more areas from the group's presence.

On Saturday, the forces destroyed eight strongholds belonging to the group southwest of the city of Fallujah in Anbar Province, said Ismail al-Mahlavi, the commander of the Iraqi Army's operations in the sprawling western province.

All the terrorists who had been holed up in the hideouts were killed in the operation, he added.

Further north, the army freed 49 families who had been caught in a Daesh siege south of the city of Mosul in Nineveh Province. Previously, the military had rescued 200 people from the terrorist group.

Daesh has been rampaging throughout Iraq since June 2014.

Most recently, Iraqi forces recaptured the city of Hit in western Anbar from the terrorists. In December 2015, the military scored its biggest victory against Daesh in Anbar by retaking the provincial capital of Ramadi, seized by Takfiri militants last spring.

Preparations are underway for the recapture of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city.

Iraq's al-Sumaria News reported that the troops are readying to liberate Doulab and Rakhikhah in the province, attacking the areas from three directions.

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Iraqi warplanes destroy Daesh oil convoy in Nineveh province

Iran Press TV

Sat Apr 23, 2016 12:29AM

The Iraqi Air Force has destroyed a Daesh oil convoy in the northern Nineveh province, a blow to stem the Takfiri terrorist group's oil sales.

On Friday, Iraqi warplanes targeted 20 tanker trucks, loaded with crude oil, in the Qayyarah oilfield, located on the west bank of the Tigris river, Arabic-language al-Sumaria news website reported, citing an unnamed security source in the province.

According to the report, the airstrikes completely destroyed the convoy and caused a huge fire, whose thick and black smoke darkened the sky. At least eight terrorists were killed in the attack and eight others sustained injuries.

The IHS Conflict Monitor reported on Monday that 43 percent of Daesh's revenues are from oil trade, and the rest come from taxation, confiscation of businesses and property, drug smuggling, ransom, and the sale of electricity.

Russia has repeatedly said it has evidence showing Turkey was involved in the smuggling of oil from areas held by Daesh in Iraq and Syria. It also says that some 2,000 oil tank trucks belonging to Daesh have been destroyed by Russian warplanes since the start of Russia's anti-terror operations in Syria in late September.

"After our Aerospace Forces initiated the operation to terminate the illegal traffic, particularly of oil and oil products, from Syria  to Turkey, this traffic has decreased substantially," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on March 23.

Israel, which is itself believed to be supporting Daesh in the region, has also said that Ankara has been providing money to the terror group through purchasing illegal oil from it.

"As you know, Daesh enjoyed Turkish money for oil for a very, very long period of time," Israeli minister for military affairs Moshe Yaalon told reporters in the Greek capital of Athens on January 26.

Ankara, however, has strongly rejected the allegation.

Last December, the Security Council adopted a resolution aimed at clogging up the revenue stream of Daesh. It threatened sanctions on parties buying oil from the terrorist group, and advised that countries resist its demands for ransom payments.

Gruesome violence has plagued the northern and western parts of Iraq ever since Daesh terrorists launched an offensive in June 2014, and took control of portions of the Iraqi territory, including Mosul, the second largest city of Iraq and the provincial capital of Nineveh.

The militants have been committing heinous crimes against all ethnic and religious communities in Iraq, including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, and Christians. Iraqi army soldiers and fighters from allied Popular Mobilization Units are seeking to win back militant-held regions in joint operations.

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As Putin Swipes At U.S. Over Plutonium Disposal, Nuclear Cooperation Takes A Hit

April 23, 2016

by Mike Eckel

WASHINGTON -- At a forum in St. Petersburg earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin spent much of his time mocking the Panama Papers document leak, which implicated close friends of his in shady financial transactions.

Then he took time to hit his favorite punching bag -- the United States -- with an arcane allegation and a veiled threat about the disposal of one of the most radioactive substances on the planet: plutonium.

The Americans, he alleged, were reneging on a 16-year-old deal that called for reducing Russia's and the United States' stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium. He accused Washington of trying to preserve its ability to turn some of its plutonium stockpile back into a form usable for nuclear weapons.

"This is not what we agreed on. Now we will have to think about what to do about this and how to respond to this," Putin said. "By all indications, this will also be an irritant, which will provoke a corresponding reaction."

The assertion, which has been denied by the United States, went largely overlooked by the wider public. But Putin's comments caught the attention of arms-control and nonproliferation experts, as well as two U.S. senators, and serves to highlight the precarious state of affairs between Russia and the United States.

Losing That '90s Optimism

The agreement was "a sign of the ability of the two countries to work together," said Cheryl Rofer, a retired nuclear scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where U.S. nuclear weapons are designed. "I hate that we have lost the optimism of the 1990s, although not everyone thought that was a good thing then."

Plutonium has been produced in the United States and Russia for decades. In its enriched form, it is valued as fuel for nuclear weapons; in a less-pure state, it can be used to fuel power plants.

The two countries together hold the world's largest stockpiles. The most recent inventory by the U.S. Energy Department showed the United States had around 95 tons, most of which was weapons grade.

Russia, for its part, is estimated to have around 128 tons of weapons-grade plutonium.

In 2010, Moscow and Washington recommitted themselves to a deal signed a decade earlier called the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement.

That deal, which was negotiated in the 1990s, called for turning a chunk, though not all, of the countries' weapons-grade plutonium stockpiles into other forms, such as fuel for nuclear power plants.

Though the amount involved was just a fraction of the overall stockpiles -- 34 tons -- the deal has been widely viewed as a barometer of U.S.-Russian nuclear cooperation.

In the United States, the disposal process has long involved blending the plutonium with uranium and turning it into mixed-oxide fuel, or MOX, for use in power plants.

A government facility being built in South Carolina for that purpose, however, has gone billions of dollars over budget and fallen far behind schedule. The fact that uranium prices have fallen amid a global glut means there's even less demand among nuclear-plant operators for MOX.

In February, following years of mounting criticism, President Barack Obama's administration pulled funding for it, a decision that was praised by some experts and former Obama administration officials as "principled."

In place of the MOX plant, the U.S. government is leaning toward a "dilute and dispose" approach or "immobilization." That involves adding the plutonium to a nonradioactive substance, encasing it in glass or metal-can type containers or oil drums, and burying it at a federal waste site in New Mexico. Unlike with MOX, experts say this method could still allow for plutonium to be extracted some day and put back into weapons, though with difficulty.

This is what likely prompted Putin's response to a question that appeared to have been planted by organizers of the April 8 St. Petersburg forum.

"Our partners should understand that, jokes aside, all their efforts to promote information products aimed against Russia are one thing, but serious issues, especially with regard to nuclear arms, are quite a different matter and one should be able to meet one's obligations," Putin said.

The assertion drew a predictably caustic response from Dmitry Kiselyov, a television anchor and state-media boss who's known for bombastic commentary: "America Deceives!"

The two U.S. senators representing South Carolina, whose districts would suffer the loss of well-paying jobs if the MOX project were ended, also weighed in on April 11, accusing the Obama administration of allowing Putin to take the high road.

Gary Samore, who oversaw nonproliferation and arms control efforts in the White House under both Obama and President Bill Clinton, said Putin's remarks reflect Russian worries about U.S. intentions and capabilities that date back to the early days of the Cold War.

However, he said, by moving away from the MOX dilution effort, the Americans are essentially changing the agreement.

"Putin is right. We're proposing to modify the agreement," Samore told RFE/RL.

"And the Russians, if they wanted to, they would be within their rights to say that they're not going to carry through with the agreement."

The State Department, however, has denied that the United States has violated the agreement, saying it allows for the two sides to "agree on disposition methods that do not involve irradiation in nuclear reactors."

New Agreement Required?

"Accommodating any such new method of disposal...requires written agreement between the parties; we would expect such consultations on a separate agreement to begin at an appropriate later time," said Eric Lund, a spokesman for the State Department's Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation.

"The United States remains firmly committed to the [agreement] and continues to believe that verifiable disposition of excess weapon-grade plutonium -- initially enough for 17,000 nuclear weapons -- represents an important nonproliferation and arms control step," he told RFE/RL in an e-mail.

Pavel Podvig, a Geneva-based researcher who studies Russian strategic forces, said it is likely that the Kremlin was looking at the issue as a way to put political pressure on Washington as part of its overall approach toward the United States.

"The U.S. in a difficult situation," he said in an e-mail. "Renegotiating [the agreement] would mean making some accommodations with Russia. Not impossible, of course, but may be difficult to accept."

Matthew Bunn, who runs the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, agreed that if relations were better, the two sides could amend the deal, just like they did when it was renegotiated in 2010.

"I thought that was possible up until Putin made his comments," he said. "Now it would be extremely difficult for the Russians to agree to anything, given what Putin said."

Ultimately, experts say, what matters is not the increasingly likely demise of the agreement but what it says about the poisoned relationship between the two countries.

"Frankly, the way things are going, it seems to me that the agreement is nothing much at this point," Rofer said. "Mainly something to fight over."

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/putin-swipes- us-plutonium-disposal/27692331.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.

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Velayati: Any plan against Syrians' interests, unacceptable

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, April 23, IRNA -- Head of the Strategic Research Center of Iran's Expediency Council said any plan against Syria national interests will not be acceptable.

Iran supports Syria's territorial integrity and legitimate government as well as the Syrian nation's right to decide on their fate, Ali Akbar Velayati made the remarks in a meeting with Syrian Ambassador to Tehran Adnan Hassan Mahmoud.

Referring to years of resistance by the Syrian nation and government against terrorist groups and their supporters, Velayati said resistance movement will win undoubtedly.

Velayati further described the recent parliamentary elections in Syria as an important action that proved power of the Syrian government which attaches importance to people's votes.

The US and certain countries who are advocates of terrorists and extremists want a puppet state in Syria, a dream which will never come true, he added.

On Iran's military presence in Syria, Velayati said such presence is due to request of Syria's legitimate government.

For his part, the Syrian ambassador appreciated Iran's support for his country.

Despite all difficulties created by opposition groups and terrorists, Syria will make endeavors to reach a plan which takes nation's interests into consideration after five years of resistance, he said.

Adnan Mahmoud said the proposals presented by the opposition and terrorist groups are like those of by the Zionist regime.

Unfortunately ,he said, certain Arab countries that are advocates of terrorists have taken no stance against the Zionist regime's measures.

Meanwhile, they (Arab states) do everything against the Muslim and other Arab nations in the region, he stressed.

1483**1771

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Any peace plan must respect Syria interests: Velayati

ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency

Sat 23 Apr 2016 - 15:56

TEHRAN (ISNA)- A senior Iranian official has rejected as "unacceptable" any peace plan that would run contrary to Syria's national interests, reaffirming Tehran's support for the legitimate government of President Bashar al-Assad.

On Saturday, Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior advisor to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, said Iran would keep up support for Syria's "territorial integrity, independence as well as the legitimate government of President Bashar al-Assad," which has been elected by Syrian people.

Velayati, who was speaking in a meeting with Syrian Ambassador to Tehran Adnan Hassan Mahmoud, further said any peace initiative that fails to meet the interests of Syrians would not be accepted, presstv reported.

The Iranian official praised the recent parliamentary elections in the violence-hit country, saying the polls showed the Damascus government attaches significance to the nation's right to decide its fate.

He also slammed certain countries for plotting to topple the Damascus government and said the US and other sponsors of Takfiri terrorists will fail in their attempts to install a puppet regime in Syria.

Commenting on the presence of Iranian military advisers in Syria, Velayati said Tehran's advisory mission comes at the request of the Syrian government and does not need the permission of other states.

The Syrian diplomat, in turn, thanked the Iranian nation and government for standing by his country in the fight against foreign-sponsored terrorist groups.

Damascus will make all efforts to reach a peace plan that would be in line with the Syria nation's interests despite attempts by the Saudi-backed opposition to derail the peace talks, he stressed.

He further said the initiatives put forward by the Saudi-backed opposition during the negotiations resemble those of Israel, criticizing certain Arab states for failing to adopt a proper stance in the face of Israeli acts of aggression.

The meeting comes as the latest round of Syria peace talks are underway in Geneva, Switzerland, in an effort to find a peaceful solution to the deadly crisis that has reportedly claimed over 400,000 lives.

End Item

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Syria militants kill four in two major cities

Iran Press TV

Sat Apr 23, 2016 6:16PM

Militants in Syria have carried out attacks on residential areas killing four people in two major cities, the state news agency says, reporting more cases of violations of a truce deal in the Arab country.

Syria's official SANA new agency said Saturday that at least three people were killed and 17 others were injured in attacks on residential neighborhoods in Aleppo, northwest of the country.

Military sources said the assaults were carried out by al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front and affiliated groups and targeted al-Ashrafiyeh, al-Hamadaniyeh, al-Iza'a and al-Mukambo neighborhoods of Aleppo.

SANA also said terrorists fired rounds of mortars on residential areas in al-Wafideen Camp neighborhood in Damascus countryside, killing one child and injuring a woman. It said several residential areas in the capital, including al-Salehiyeh and al-Adawi neighborhoods, were also shelled by militants, with no reports available on the casualties.

Both attacks on Aleppo and near and inside Damascus inflicted considerable material damage on public and private properties, SANA said, accusing the militants of ignoring a truce deal across Syria to facilitate peace talks in Switzerland between the government and the foreign-backed opposition.

The ceasefire, which was brokered by the United States and Russia and came into effect in late February, excludes al-Nusra Front and Daesh, meaning attacks by them could not be viewed as violation of the truce. However, SANA claimed militants, presumably from other groups, continued to violate the terms of the deal on Friday and Saturday. Militants have leveled similar accusations against the government over the past days, saying scores have been killed in airstrikes carried out by government on militant positions.

Sources in Geneva, where the talks are going on, said Friday that indirect negotiations will continue under the auspices of the United Nations until at least end of April. That came despite the departure of a major Saudi-backed opposition from the talks.

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Syrian forces, Kurds agree to indefinite truce in Qamishli

Iran Press TV

Sat Apr 23, 2016 1:56PM

The Syrian government and regional Kurdish forces have reportedly declared a ceasefire deal in northeast Syria, following three days of deadly clashes in the city of Qamishli.

According to a Friday statement by the Kurdish Asayish forces, the accord took effect at 3:30 pm (1230 GMT) on Friday.

Qamishli, which is close to the border with Turkey, was the scene of deadly fighting between the two sides for the past three days, which left 26 people dead.

During the fighting, Asayish forces took control of a number of government-controlled positions in Qamishli as well as its main prison.

The Friday statement said that both sides of the conflict agreed to an indefinite truce as talks are underway to find a permanent settlement to the dispute.

"We will be committed to the truce until an appropriate solution is found," the statement added.

Syrian Kurdish groups now control wide areas of northern Syria where they are seeking their own government. Their quest for an autonomous political federation in the northern Arab country has angered Damascus.

The truce between Damascus and regional Kurds comes amid the ongoing battle against militants in the Arab country.

On Friday, the UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said some 400,000 people have lost their lives as a result of more than five years of conflict gripping the Arab country.

The UN envoy's figure was close to a February calculation by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, which said the crisis in the Middle Eastern state has claimed the lives of over 470,000 people.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. Damascus says Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar are the main supporters of the militants fighting the government forces.

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Any peace plan must respect Syria interests: Velayati

Iran Press TV

Sat Apr 23, 2016 10:19AM

A senior Iranian official has rejected as "unacceptable" any peace plan that would run contrary to Syria's national interests, reaffirming Tehran's support for the legitimate government of President Bashar al-Assad.

On Saturday, Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior advisor to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, said Iran would keep up support for Syria's "territorial integrity, independence as well as the legitimate government of President Bashar al-Assad," which has been elected by Syrian people.

Velayati, who was speaking in a meeting with Syrian Ambassador to Tehran Adnan Hassan Mahmoud, further said any peace initiative that fails to meet the interests of Syrians would not be accepted.

The Iranian official praised the recent parliamentary elections in the violence-hit country, saying the polls showed the Damascus government attaches significance to the nation's right to decide its fate.

He also slammed certain countries for plotting to topple the Damascus government and said the US and other sponsors of Takfiri terrorists will fail in their attempts to install a puppet regime in Syria.

Commenting on the presence of Iranian military advisers in Syria, Velayati said Tehran's advisory mission comes at the request of the Syrian government and does not need the permission of other states.

The Syrian diplomat, in turn, thanked the Iranian nation and government for standing by his country in the fight against foreign-sponsored terrorist groups.

Damascus will make all efforts to reach a peace plan that would be in line with the Syria nation's interests despite attempts by the Saudi-backed opposition to derail the peace talks, he stressed.

He further said the initiatives put forward by the Saudi-backed opposition during the negotiations resemble those of Israel, criticizing certain Arab states for failing to adopt a proper stance in the face of Israeli acts of aggression.

The meeting comes as the latest round of Syria peace talks are underway in Geneva, Switzerland, in an effort to find a peaceful solution to the deadly crisis that has reportedly claimed over 400,000 lives.

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Syria crisis death toll stands at 400,000: UN Envoy

Iran Press TV

Sat Apr 23, 2016 8:52AM

The United Nations special envoy for Syria says some 400,000 people have lost their lives as a result of more than five years of foreign-sponsored conflict gripping the Arab country.

Speaking on the sidelines of Syria peace talks in the Swiss city of Geneva on Friday, Staffan de Mistura said the figure was based on his "own analysis" and thus "not verified."

He initially released the death toll in an interview with Swiss TV on Thursday.

De Mistura's figures come while the UN has stopped officially counting the toll, citing lack of access to accurate data.

"We had 250,000 as a figure two years ago," said de Mistura, adding, "Well two years ago was two years ago."

The UN envoy's figure was close to a February calculation by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, which said the crisis in the Middle Eastern state has claimed the lives of over 470,000 people.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. Damascus says Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar are the main supporters of the militants fighting the government forces.

The latest round of the indirect UN-brokered negotiations aimed at finding a political solution to the Syrian crisis began in Geneva on April 13.

Five days later, however, the main opposition group, known as the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), suspended its participation in the peace talks and left the discussions to protest what it called the Damascus government's violation of a recent cessation of hostilities.

The truce, which went into effect on February 27 across Syria, initially reduced violence there, but fighting has picked up again, leaving the ceasefire in tatters.

Elsewhere in his comments, the UN envoy said the Geneva talks will continue until "probably Wednesday, as originally planned."

However, he warned that Syria's warring sides are "extremely polarized" and the truce is in trouble.

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Turkish PM Cites Dramatic Decrease in Syrian Migrant Exodus

by VOA News April 23, 2016

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Saturday that his country's efforts to deter Syrians from entering Greece by sea had drastically cut daily migrant voyages from 6,000 in November to as few as 130 since early April.

Davutoglu spoke from the Turkish city of Gaziantep near the Syrian border, alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Council President Donald Tusk.

Merkel and Tusk were seeking to enforce terms of a deal under which migrants arriving in Greece would be returned to Turkey, in exchange for nearly $7 billion in European aid.

Davutoglu also sought to dispel accusations from humanitarian organizations that the Turkish crackdown had forced Syrian migrants fleeing war to return home against their will.

"There was not a single refugee that was sent back from Turkey into Syria against their will," he said.

Merkel described the visit as an opportunity to discuss migration issues with Turkish leaders, as well as human rights matters, "in a very open and frank manner."

For his part, Tusk described Turkey as "the best example for the whole world of how we should treat refugees," and said no one has the right to "lecture" the Ankara government on how it has handled the refugee situation.

Tusk also said the immediate monetary value of European aid would exceed $1 billion in the coming months.

On Friday, Amnesty International urged members of the European delegation not to "close their eyes to the catalog of human rights abuses faced by refugees" in Turkey.

Amnesty's comments followed a recent European Parliament report that criticized Turkey's record on human rights and media freedom in 2015.

That report urged the country to improve its human rights record, and said Ankara's bid to join the 28-nation EU trade bloc would succeed or fail based on how it met those EU demands.

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Top terrorist commander killed in northwest Syria bombing

Iran Press TV

Sun Apr 24, 2016 4:32AM

The leader of al-Qaeda-linked Ahrar al-Sham terrorist group has been killed in a bomb attack that targeted the Takfiri militant's headquarters in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib.

Majed Hussein al-Sadeq, along with three other members of the militant outfit, were killed on Saturday when the attack targeted Ahrar al-Sham headquarters in the town of Binnish, located about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) northeast of Idlib, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

The Britain-based group noted that an unknown person parked his motorcycle near the terrorist base, and headed on foot towards a gathering of the Takfiris. He then detonated his explosives-laden belt, killing Sadeq and three of his comrades.

An unspecified number of the extremists was also injured in the incident. The Observatory reported that the death toll is expected to rise as some of the wounded militants are in critical condition.

Last July, one of Ahrar al-Sham's most senior leaders, identified as Abu Abdel Rahman Salqin, was killed after two unidentified bombers detonated their explosives at the terrorist group's base s in the Abu Talha area of Idlib.

Six other high ranking members of the terrorist group were also killed in the deadly incident.

Ahrar al-Sham, one of the oldest and largest terrorist groups operating in Syria since 2011, is mostly active in the country's northwestern part. The group is allied with al-Nusra Front, an offshoot of al-Qaeda terror network in Syria.

According to a February report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the conflict has claimed the lives of over 470,000 people, injured 1.9 million others, and displaced nearly half of the pre-war population of about 23 million within or beyond Syria's borders. The observatory, however, puts the number at about 270,000.

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Merkel calls for refugee 'safe zones' in Syria

Iran Press TV

Sun Apr 24, 2016 12:8AM

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she is after creating safe zones to shelter Syrian refugees in their own country close to Turkish border, an idea strongly supported by Ankara amid UN and rights groups' concerns.

"I have ... again demanded that we have zones where the ceasefire is particularly enforced and where a significant level of security can be guaranteed," Merkel said in the Turkish city of Gaziantep during a joint news conference with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and the EU officials on Saturday.

Berlin and Ankara seek to keep Syrian refugees inside Syria in order to stem the flow of asylum seekers to European shores, yet the UN has warned against the plan unless there is a way to guarantee the refugees' safety in their terror-plagued country.

Merkel, Davutoglu, and European Council Donald Tusk also visited the Nizip 1 refugee camp near Gaziantep and the border, home to 10,000 Syrian asylum seekers.

"Instead of touring a sanitized refugee camp, EU leaders should look over the top of Turkey's new border wall to see the tens of thousands of war-weary Syrian refugees blocked on the other side," said Judith Sunderland of Human Rights Watch in a statement, urging Merkel and EU officials to "go to the (Turkish) detention center for people who were abusively deported from Greece."

Under the EU-Turkey controversial deal sealed last month, Ankara agreed to take back all the asylum seekers and refugees -- including the Syrians - who had used its territory to illegally reach EU shores in return for a number of commitments from the EU, including a financial aid, visa liberalization and progress in its EU membership negotiations.

Davutoglu warned that the refugee deal with the European Union would not be fulfilled without EU visa liberalization for Turkish citizens. He also said the number of illegal asylum seekers heading to Greece has dropped considerably since the deal came into effect.

Critics, however, have accused Turkey of blackmailing Europe over the refugee crisis.

Nearly 175,800 asylum seekers have reached Europe via the Mediterranean so far this year, while over 700 people died in their journey to the continent, according to the latest figures by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Turkey is currently hosting around 2.7 million refugees who have fled from war-torn Syria.

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PKK attacks kill soldier, injure dozen policemen in southeast

Iran Press TV

Sat Apr 23, 2016 6:6PM

A Turkish soldier has been killed and a dozen police officers have been injured in separate attacks by militants from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the country's volatile southeast.

According to a statement by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), the soldier died on Saturday of injuries sustained during clashes with PKK militants in Nusaybin, a town on the Syrian border.

Also on Saturday, a dozen police officers and a civilian were injured in a PKK bomb attack in the embattled region.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a security source said PKK militants targeted a bus carrying police officers on the highway connecting Diyarbakir and Mardin Provinces.

The policemen, two of whom seriously injured, were taken to nearby hospitals.

On Friday, three Turkish police officers were killed and several others injured when PKK militants carried out an attack in Turkey's troubled eastern province of Tunceli.

The assault came after the militants detonated an improvised explosive device on the side of a road linking the provincial capital city of Tunceli and Elazig as an armored personnel carrier was passing by.

The attack prompted a swift response from the Turkish army, with reinforcements and attack helicopters dispatched to the area.

The military aircraft dropped bombs on the militants' escape routes in the region, and ground forces launched a widespread search operation to arrest the assailants.

Turkey's largely Kurdish southeast has been hit by waves of violence in clashes between government forces and PKK militants after a ceasefire fell apart in July 2015.

The Turkish military has been conducting offensives against the positions of the group in northern Iraq and Syria as well.

The operations began in the wake of a deadly July 2015 bombing in the southern Turkish town of Suruc. More than 30 people died in the attack, which the Turkish government blamed on the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.

After the bombing, the PKK militants engaged in a series of attacks against Turkish police and security forces, prompting the Turkish military operations.

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Russia, In Nod To New Kyiv Government, Suspends Debt Demands

April 23, 2016

by RFE/RL

Russia said it temporarily suspended its demand for full repayment of a $3 billion loan to Ukraine to give the new government in Kyiv time to decide what to do about it.

"We have given the new Ukrainian government an extension to assess the situation with a clear head, to reevaluate its position, and open negotiations with Russia on its debt," Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on April 22.

The move follows "a request from Ukraine" that Russia take Kyiv's current "political instability" into account, he said.

Ukraine's parliament last week approved pro-Western speaker Volodymyr Hroysman as prime minister and he and President Petro Poroshenko are still assembling their cabinet.

Poroshenko on April 22 appointed Leszek Balcerowicz, the architect of Poland's "shock therapy" economic policies and successful post-Soviet privatization drive, as a top economic adviser.

The appointment follows the naming of former Slovak Finance Minister Ivan Miclos to the cabinet and signals that Poroshenko is reaffirming his commitment to the economic reforms prescribed by the International Monetary Fund.

In view of the changes in Kyiv, Siluanov told reporters in Moscow that Russia has agreed to Ukraine's request to delay court hearings in a lawsuit Moscow filed in February over the disputed debt, which was issued in 2013 to the government of Russia-backed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych weeks before he was ousted from office.

"We gave the new Ukrainian government a reprieve," he said. Ukraine had asked London's High Court of Justice twice to postpone hearings.

The loan was a eurobond issued on the Irish Stock Exchange and governed by English law, so Russia's lawsuit was filed in London.

The lawsuit against Kyiv was filed after the two sides failed to reach a settlement of the debt, with Russia insisting on full repayment and Ukraine demanding a 20 percent writedown like it obtained from commercial creditors last year.

Kyiv missed a December 21 payment on the debt and has been in default on it ever since. While Russia has rejected any writedown of the debt, it has offered to spread out its repayment over three years.

With reporting by AFP, Interfax, and TASS

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/russia- bow-kyiv-new-leader-suspends-debt- demands-court-hearings-/27692005.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.

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St. Lukes United Methodist Church in Danville is hosting the 22nd annual National Day of Prayer Breakfast at 8 a.m. on Thursday, May 5.

Alan Larson, CEO of Danville Regional Medical Center, is the guest speaker. The theme for the 2016 National Day of Prayer is Wake Up America and the Bible scripture is Isaiah 58:1 Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet...

Larson began prayer walks in the community following the shooting of Dr. Randolph Neal. These weekly walks have spread throughout the city of Danville.

The catered breakfast is $7 per person and reservations may be made by calling the church at (434) 836-9345 or by emailing to stlukesumc@comcast.net.

St. Lukes UMC is located at 3090 North Main St. in Danville.
Graphic Illustration

Stock farm dates back 100-plus years

Gus H. Spiser was the volunteer weather observer for the United States Weather Bureau in Concho County for 30 years.

"I get a lot of kidding about the weather, but it's all good-natured, and I take it that way," Spiser told the Standard-Times when he retired in 1965.

When asked about the weather he always had an answer ready, and he modestly admitted that he's right more than 90 percent of the time, said Otis Bobbitt, head of the San Angelo Weather Bureau, when presenting him a gold lapel pin for his 30 years of service.

In reminiscing about the weather at Eden, Spiser said, "If I could have predicted anything but dry weather, I could have become rich."

Gus Spiser married Lydia Schuster. Her father was Rudolph Schuster, who was born in Loesau, Thuringen, Germany. At 14 years of age, he immigrated to America by stowing away on a ship.

Rudolph's wife, Emile Schrank, came from Bavaria, Germany, when she was 12 years old. They were married in 1879.

On Oct. 29, 1901, Rudolph bought 320 acres of land on Brady Creek 2 miles southwest of Eden. The land was part of the original Fisher-Miller Land Grant.

Rudolph and Emily Schuster had eight children: Eugenie Schuster Rauhaut, Erna Schuster Pfluger, Hulda Schuster Lubke, Lydia Schuster Spiser, Hubert, Elsie Regina "Ella" Schuster Jeske, Hildagarde Schuster Bufe and Antonia Schuster Bunger.

The Schusters were one of the founding families of the Zion Lutheran Church and Cemetery at Priddy in Mills County.

The Schusters raised cattle, hogs, chickens, wheat and corn on 320 acres. In 1916, Gus and Lydia Spiser acquired title to the Schuster property. They added registered Black Angus cattle and registered Rambouillet to their livestock inventory.

Drought years in the 1950s forced the Spisers to sell about two-thirds of the cattle herd. "All we kept was three cows, just enough to start a new herd," Gus said.

Gus and Lydia Spiser had five children: Rosalie Spiser McCoy, Alvin Hilton, Louise Spiser Anderson, Kermit and Edgar.

In 1946, Gus and Lydia moved to Eden where he was postmaster and owned and operated a drugstore. It was also when he started his volunteer weather observer job.

Gus and Lydia Spiser purchased a historic two-story rock house in Eden in 1929. The house was built over a three-year span from 1889 to 1892 by a Russian Jewish merchant in Eden named Daniel G. Benchoff.

Built of native stone quarried a few miles north of Eden, the house had two inside walls and all outside walls built of the stone that were 22 inches thick, ground floor ceilings that were 12 feet, 8 inches high and second-floor ceilings 13 feet, 8 inches high.

It was a little difficult to heat in the winter, but the thick walls kept it at least 10 degrees cooler than the outside in the summer, Spiser told the Standard-Times in 1965.

The Spisers' son Alvin Hilton Spiser acquired title to 305.1 acres of the old Schuster farm after serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II when he came home to farm in 1946.

Alvin Spiser married Joni Sorrell. They had one child: Jacquelyn Diane.

Jacquelyn, who retired from teaching school in Austin after 21 years, returned to Eden in 1999 and taught at Menard High School, where she retired again in 2004.

In 2005 when Jacquelyn Spiser applied for and received the Texas Family Land Heritage award from the Texas Department of Agriculture, the family stock farm had been in continuous ownership for 104 years.

In 2005, Jacquelyn owned and operated 1,065 acres, which included the 305.1 acres purchased by her great-grandfather, Rudolph Schuster, in 1901.

Gus Spiser died June 7, 1976, and Lydia Schuster Spiser died June 4, 1978. Alvin Spiser died in 2005, and Joni Sorrell Spiser died in 2000.

Jerry Lackey is the agriculture editor emeritus. Contact him at jlackey@wcc.net or 325-949-2291.
Pluses, minuses from rains for area crops

The cornfields in the Concho Valley are standing in water. It's a rare situation, but a welcome one no less. More than 4 inches of rainfall last week followed a 2-inch soaker the week before.

Concho Valley farmers normally plant from 3,000 to 4,000 acres in corn annually. Even though most of Tom Green County's cornfields are concentrated around Veribest, 12 miles east of San Angelo, other farms growing corn stretch south to Wall and east to Eola in Concho County.

"Our corn is already above ankle-high," David Holubec told me this week. "We planted corn as a rotation crop this year in place of cotton."

Holubec, who operates a stock farm with his sons Cole and Ceth 2 miles south of Melvin in McCulloch County, said they will cut the corn for silage to feed lambs in their feedlot.

About 500 acres of the corn around Veribest is traditionally harvested for grain. The rest is cut for silage and sold to area dairies and cattle feedlots. The silage ranges between 9 and 23 tons per acre.

Across the state, corn and sorghum crops appear to be on time and on track to produce average yields for producers, said Ronnie Schnell, the state cropping systems specialist with Texas A&M University at College Station.

Schnell said corn acreage is a little behind the five-year average, but farmers and fields are in better shape than last year.

"The weather, especially wet weather, did not cause delays as it did in 2015," he said. "There was a lot of late planting last year due to rain. It looks like the weather is cooperating for the most part across the state this year."

Last year I talked with Bobby Nedbalek, who farms near Mathis in the northwest part of San Patricio County. He said the farmers in the Coastal Bend were waiting for fields to dry out so they could start planting crops. Some fields never did, and they had to pull tractors out of the mud.

According to the weekly crop and weather report issued by the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, corn and sorghum in East Texas, the Brazos Valley and southern Texas had all been planted, with most if not all emerged, and some were waist-high or in the six-leaf stage. Other producers continued to prepare fields on schedule.

Schnell said it remains to be seen how flooding over the past week might have affected individual crops in those areas. Some prior flooding in the Brazos Valley area required farmers to replant crops.

"We could see problems in areas that received heavier rains, the 12-plus inch rainfalls, but a lot of croplands in other parts of the state, like the Panhandle, needed the precipitation as they prepare for planting," Schnell said.

"Expectations could shift with the weather, especially if prolonged drought in dry areas or rains in wet areas occurred," he said. "It's always about the timing, but it looks like we're off to a good start."

Corn planting takes place in the first two weeks of February in Nueces and San Patricio counties. In the Central Texas region, corn is planted in late February and in the Panhandle, later in the spring.

Corn production in Texas contributes approximately $1.2 billion to the state's economy.

Meanwhile, weather ranged from very warm and dry to cooler and wet across the Rolling Plains. Parts of the region reported as much as 4.5 inches of rain and hail. There were no reports of significant damage from hail. The moisture helped farmers who found plenty of subsoil moisture but were lacking moisture in topsoil as they prepared fields for crops.

In comparison, more than 8 inches in Central Texas, with more rain in the forecast, produced excessive rainfall amounts and flooding, with county roads being closed due to overflowing creeks.

In the Big Country around Abilene, scattered to very heavy rainfall was reported with some hail. Producers were unable to go into the fields and evaluate crops due to wet conditions. Tanks and creeks were full from runoff.

Jerry Lackey is the agriculture editor emeritus. Contact him at jlackey@wcc.net or 325-949-2291.
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By Dave Ramsey

Dear Dave: I'm a senior in high school here in Arkansas, and I think I want to study business in college. I've gotten an unusual offer from a small, out-of-state school. It revolves around a $3,000 student loan program where the loan converts to a scholarship if I maintain a grade-point average of 3.3 or higher. Tuition at this college costs about $34,000 a year, so I was wondering what you think about the idea.  Garrett

Dear Garrett: I'm glad you're thinking about the future. But this is not my favorite idea, because you could end up with a loan.

In business, one of the things we look at is return on investment. If I can go to one place where tuition's $34,000 a year but I could go to another place that's in-state for about $7,000, the question becomes this: Am I going to get a five times better education  or is my income going to be five times greater  by going to the expensive school? I think most of us who have been walking around a while would say no.

Your income will not be based on where you went to school, and it won't necessarily even be based on your grade-point average. It will be based on your ability to take what you learned into the marketplace, kill something and drag it home. This has as much, if not more, to do with your initiative, your perseverance, character qualities and integrity as where you went to school.

One of the great jokes in America today is that where you go to school matters. Some places may have better programs in certain areas than others, but is this particular college  which I'm guessing isn't a prestige school, since you didn't mention the name  five times better than a solid in-state school like Arkansas State or the University of Arkansas? No, it's not.

I don't think you're going to get a return on your investment overall in this picture, Garrett. Add to that this little student loan nuance and the fact that they're not giving you enough "free money" to make this a good deal, and I would have to say don't do it.

Dear Dave: My wife and I are following your plan, and we're in the middle of the Baby Steps. Do we have to wait until Baby Step 7 to buy a new car?  Alan

Dear Alan: No, you don't have to drive a beater until you pay off your house. My advice is to drive the minimum car you can until you get past the first three steps. Remember, Baby Step 1 is a beginner emergency fund of $1,000. Baby Step 2 is paying off all debt except for your house, then Baby Step 3 is fully funding your emergency fund with three to six months of expenses.

Once you've done all that, then you can move up to a nice car. I didn't say move up to a new car. I want you to save up cash a get a really nice, barely used car. I never advise buying a brand-new car unless you have a net worth of at least $1 million. At that point, you've got enough assets in place to where you won't even feel the massive hit in depreciation that comes with buying a new vehicle.

But until then, drive good used cars. That's what the typical millionaire did, and I want you to model your financial behavior after people who are in the position you want to be in some day!

Dave Ramsey is a money management expert, radio host and best-selling author.
Nathan Lambrecht/The Monitor via Associated Press La Union del Pueblo Entero's Roberta Tello displays a sign supporting President Barack Obama's executive action on immigration as Martha Sanchez stands beside her during a rally April 18 in front Bentsen Tower, which houses the Southern District of the U.S. Federal District Court, in McAllen.

SHARE Josue Aldape, (center) 11, crosses the train tracks with his younger brothers, Joan, (behind right) 8, and Josio, 10, and mother Norma, (left), after a rally supporting President Obama's executive action on immigration April 18 in front of Bentsen Tower, which houses the Southern District of the U.S. Federal District Court, in McAllen. Aldape and his siblings are U.S. citizens, but his mother and father are not and could be deported if the U.S. Supreme Court decides against deferred deportation.

States weigh what policies to implement

By Tim Henderson, Stateline.org (TNS)

WASHINGTON  As U.S. Supreme Court justices weigh whether President Barack Obama has the power to grant legal work status to about 3.5 million undocumented immigrant parents, states are weighing the costs of the decision. And they are divided on whether they will be helped or hurt economically  regardless of how the justices rule.

Justices on Monday heard arguments in the case, in which the Obama administration seeks to overrule a lower court order halting the policy. Texas and 25 other states challenged the president's 2014 executive action to give deferred deportation and legal work status to parents of U.S. citizens in a plan called DAPA, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, also called Deferred Action for Parental Accountability.

One in 4 Hispanic children has an undocumented parent, according to a new study by the National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families.

Only parents here since 2010 and who haven't been convicted of a felony or repeat misdemeanors would qualify to stay without immediate threat of deportation if DAPA is allowed to go forward.

But if the policy is struck down, parents could face the threat of deportation for being here illegally  though many of their children, an estimated 4.5 million, could remain legally because they were born here and therefore are citizens.

"There is a pressing humanitarian concern in avoiding the breakup of families that contain U.S. citizen children," U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli argued before the court.

In seeking to overturn the policy, Texas argued that it would cost the state millions of dollars to give the immigrants driver's licenses because state law requires that people authorized to work be eligible for licenses. The administration argued that Texas can't sue just because it would lose money issuing licenses when it's free to deny licenses to DAPA recipients or raise fees.

In its court brief, Texas said total unauthorized immigration costs it $59 million in extra education costs and $717 million in health care costs annually. Other states also claimed costs from unauthorized immigration with deferred deportation status, such as $9 million in Arizona's Maricopa County for law enforcement and $571,000 in Wisconsin for unemployment benefits.

But lawyers for 16 other states, led by Washington, argue they would be better off economically if DAPA was upheld. They said granting legal work status for these parents would bring in more tax revenue as they get better jobs, and prevent costly foster care for children left behind should their parents be deported.

Overall, unauthorized immigrants already pay $11.6 billion annually in state and local taxes, according to a February study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a tax policy think tank in Washington, D.C. That includes $1.5 billion in Texas and $3.2 billion in California, states with the most undocumented immigrants.

DAPA-eligible parents alone add $210 billion to the overall economy, a UCLA study in 2014 estimated. Combined with an existing policy that allows immigrants who arrived here as children to avoid deportation and work legally for two years, California could reap an additional $900 million in state taxes over five years if DAPA is implemented, a 2015 report by the left-leaning Center for American Progress estimated. That report also estimated additional tax receipts of $347 million for Illinois, $184 million for New York and $25 million for South Carolina.

DAPA was halted by an injunction before it started, and that injunction was upheld by an appeals court in November. In the case argued Monday, the Obama administration asked the Supreme Court to lift the stay on the policy and allow DAPA to start enrolling parents who qualify.

Advocates say the policy needs to move forward as soon as possible, citing recent research that indicates that children fall behind in school when their parents fear deportation.

One thing the Texas lawsuit does not challenge is the deportation priorities that took effect in 2015, which made most law-abiding undocumented immigrants a low priority for deportation. The Migration Policy Institute estimates the policy protects 87 percent of the unauthorized people in the country, or 9.6 million, from deportation though the government retains the right to make exceptions.

But while unauthorized immigrant parents may not face immediate deportation if DAPA doesn't go forward, they may remain in constant fear of it.

The justices aren't expected to rule until June. And the divided court, with only eight justices following the death of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, could rule a number of ways: In addition to ruling for or against Texas on whether the president has the power to authorize DAPA, it could be deadlocked 4-4, which would allow the lower court decision to stand and block the policy in at least part of the country. Or it could decide that Texas didn't have legal standing to sue, which could allow the policy to go forward.

Texas based its case on driver's license processing costs, saying the state loses more than $130 on each license it would be forced to offer DAPA parents, a potential cost of up to $60 million that gives the state standing to sue, it says.

Washington and the states, along with the District of Columbia, that want DAPA to go forward called the Texas argument "distorted" and said delaying the policy "is preventing our state and millions of our residents from receiving substantial economic, social welfare and public safety benefits."

Along with increased taxes from the better earnings immigrants could gain from legal work status, the proponents argued states will benefit from lower law enforcement costs as more immigrants cooperate with police. States could also avoid unnecessary foster care cases that arise when children are separated from their deported parents, they argued.

An estimated 5,100 foster care cases are created nationally each year by deportation, which costs states $132 million, the pro-DAPA states argued, citing a 2011 study by the Applied Research Center, a racial justice advocacy group now called Race Forward.

They also argued that states would have fewer traffic deaths because all drivers would be licensed, pointing to a January study by the Commonwealth Institute For Fiscal Analysis, a think tank focused on low- and moderate-income earners, that suggested that driver training and testing of undocumented immigrants helped lower the number of traffic deaths in states where licenses are issued regardless of immigration status.

"We are convinced that it will create more tax revenue, but more importantly, it will keep families together," said Noah Purcell, Washington's solicitor general.

Some states are split. In Maine and New Mexico, Democratic attorneys general signed on to the Washington brief supporting DAPA, but their Republican governors joined the other side. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie signed one anti-DAPA brief, along with New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, while Maine Gov. Paul LePage signed another.

Conversely, Nevada's Republican attorney general joined the Texas lawsuit, while Gov. Brian Sandoval, also a Republican, said he does not support the challenge. Nevada has the nation's highest share of schoolchildren with an unauthorized immigrant parent, at 18 percent, according to Pew Research Center estimates. (The Pew Charitable Trusts funds the Pew Research Center and Stateline.)

Although deportation priorities may have minimized the threat of parent deportations, the deferred deportation and permission to work conferred by DAPA is important for immigrants' peace of mind, said Randy Capps, a demographer at the Migration Policy Institute.

Raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in January targeted only 121 people who had crossed the border recently or failed to show up in immigration court, but "they scared everybody," Capps said.

As a result, information-sharing networks have sprung up on social media to help immigrants stay alert for roadblocks and raids that could separate them from their children. But they can also be a source of worrisome rumors, Capps said.

"That's why the work authorization is so important: It allows people to step out in the open and work without being afraid. It makes a big difference for the well-being of their children," he said.

According to estimates by Capps' group, the areas with the most potential DAPA beneficiaries are California, with almost 1.1 million eligible parents, and Texas, with about 560,000. Other states with more than 100,000 are Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and North Carolina.

Fear of deportation can cause parents to worry and sometimes fail to get services that help their U.S.-born children in even the most immigrant-friendly parts of the country.

In Baltimore, where Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has welcomed immigrants regardless of status, the January raids caused widespread concern among parents, said Adonia Simpson, managing attorney for immigration legal services at the Esperanza Center, part of Catholic Charities of Baltimore. In February, the center helped dozens of parents create power-of-attorney files in case they're separated from their children by deportation.

"It does provide a little peace of mind for people to have a plan in case the worst happens," Simpson said. "At least you have someone you can call on who can manage your money and take care of your kids."

Until recently in South Carolina, immigrant children of undocumented parents were denied in-state college tuition rates and state scholarships even if they were U.S. citizens. The state has agreed to stop the practice in a move toward settling a lawsuit, said Tammy Besherse, a staff attorney for the South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center, which advocates for low-income people.

The three students who sued have now been enrolled with in-state tuition and financial aid, Besherse said, "but there's no telling how many students quietly accepted the policy and decided against going to college."
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ABILENE

Wheat tour set for test plots

The annual Multi-County Wheat Tour beginning at 8:30 a.m. May 6 will be at the Taylor County variety test plots, located off State Highway 351 on County Road 521, also known as Mesquite Lane.

"This season's optimal growing conditions should really reveal what these wheat varieties can do," said Robert Pritz, Taylor County agriculture agent. "On the other hand, the abundant moisture may also show us which varieties are more susceptible to the added pest and disease pressures these weather conditions often bring. A stellar wheat growing season should make for an exciting and informative tour."

Pritz said the tour and industry-sponsored lunch are free and open to the public. For more information and to RSVP by May 4, call any of the participating Texas A&M AgriLife Extension offices in the following counties: Callahan, 325-854-5835; Jones, 325-823-2432; Shackelford, 325-762-2232; or Taylor, 325-672-6048.

FORT WORTH

Winters rancher elected TSCRA head

Richard Thorpe, Runnels County rancher, was elected president of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association during the closing session of the 139th annual Cattle Raisers Convention in Fort Worth.

Thorpe was elected a TSCRA director in March 2006. He most recently served as the first vice president alongside Pete Bonds, Saginaw, who served as president from September 2013 to April 2016.

"TSCRA has been critical to the strength and stability of the cattle industry for well over a century," Thorpe said. "It is truly an honor to serve and lead this organization in my new role as president. Also, I appreciate Pete Bonds leadership and commitment to TSCRA. Most importantly, I thank my family for always supporting me. I look forward to all that's ahead for this incredible association."

Thorpe, his wife Karen and their family own and operate Mesa T Ranch headquartered in Winters. The Thorpe ranch consists of a cow/calf and stockers operation, plus quarter horses. Thorpe also earned his medical degree from Texas Tech University.

Bobby McKnight, Fort Davis, will serve as first vice president. Hughes Abell, Austin, was elected as second vice president.

New directors include: Donnell Brown, Throckmorton; Seth Denbow, Weatherford; Heath Hemphill, Coleman; Keeling, Boerne; Leslie Kinsel, Cotulla; Carl Ray Polk Jr., Lufkin; and Gary Price, Blooming Grove.

Leslie Kinsel, Brian McLaughlin of Midland and Clay Jones of Brady were elected as executive committee members.

 Compiled by Jerry Lackey
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Tom Green Democrats to lead discussion

By Federico Martinez, Federico.Martinez@gosanangelo.com Federico_sast

A series of educational forums that will address issues such as religious liberty, "Obamacare" and the Middle East will kick off at 7 p.m. on May 5 with "The Truth About Religious Liberty." The event will be held in the Stephens Library Community Room.

The six-month "The Truth About ..." series will feature a different topic each month and is being sponsored by the Tom Green County Democratic Party. Everyone is welcome to attend and there is no admission charge.

"My goal is to make a contribution to the community by encouraging people to think, not just believe what they hear," said David Currie, chairman of the Tom Green Democratic Party. "I'm not trying to bring in just Democrats to talk about things like Obamacare. I want speakers who will be objective."

Featured presenters for the religious freedom event include Rabbi Jack Moline, president of The Interfaith Alliance in Washington, D.C., and Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, also headquartered in Washington.

A retired Baptist minister, Currie tried to select a broad variety of current topics, some more personal to him than others.

"I'm very passionate about religious liberty," he said. "When the First Amendment was created it did not say we were created as a 'Christian' society. We were formed as a secular community that needs to respect and get along with each other."

All of the monthly forums, except June, will be held at the library on the first Thursday of the month and begin at 7 p.m.

Question-and-answer periods will be held after each presentation to encourage dialogue.

The primary goal is to provide an opportunity for people with diverse opinions to dialogue about issues that are of concern to most people, Currie said. Another goal is to raise the visibility of the Democratic Party in Tom Green County.

"We need more than one party," Currie said. "Although locally we have pretty good leadership, having more than one choice or view is important."

Truth About ... Series

7 -8:30 p.m., Thursday, May 5: The Truth About Religious Freedom, Stephens Library Community Room, presenters Rabbi Jack Moline, president of The Interfaith Alliance, Washington D.C. and Brent Walker, executive director, Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, Washington, D.C.

7 -8:30 p.m., Thursday, June 9: The Truth About the Middle East and ISIL, Stephens Library. Community Room, presenters retired Three Star General Ronnie Hawkins, San Angelo.

7 -8:30 p.m., Thursday, July 7: The Truth About Obamacare, Stephens Library Community Room, presenters to be announced.

7 -8:30 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 4: The Truth About Social Security and Medicare, Stephens Library Community Room, presenters to be announced.

7 -8:30 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 1: The Truth About Public Education and Vouchers, Stephens Library Community Room, presenters to be announced.

7 -8:30 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 6: The Truth About Voter ID Laws and Voter Fraud, Stephens Library Community Room, presenters to be announced.

The public is invited to all of the presentations. There is no cost to attend.
Yfat Yossifor / Standard-Times Police chief candidate Jeff Davis.

By Ngan Ho of the San Angelo Standard-Times

Jeff Davis has about 25 years of experience working in law enforcement, with 22 of those years in the San Angelo Police Department.

Davis is running for chief of police against Mike Hernandez, Frank Carter and incumbent Tim Vasquez.

He joined SAPD in 1985 and retired in 2007 as a detective in the narcotics division. Davis took a hiatus from law enforcement after his retirement and worked in a variety of miscellaneous jobs to broaden his experience in the mainstream work environment.

"I went to work in the oil and gas industry and learned many things," he said. "I've kept up with my police training throughout the years."

Davis worked as a civilian officer at Goodfellow Air Force Base for about three years and in other sectors such as human resources, finance, communication and construction.

He currently is self-employed and is funding his own campaign, with a personal investment of about $70,000.

"I talked to a lot of people in the community, and I see the stresses that they're going through with law enforcement," Davis said. "Their complaints and concerns  a lot of it is response time."

Davis said SAPD's response time is slow, and people tell him that sometimes the police don't even show up at all for minor violations.

The department is lacking in face-to-face interaction with the community, Davis said, and people are instead asked to report minor crimes online.

Davis talked about traffic issues, noting there are too many crashes and not enough citations being issued, in his opinion, and suggested that this may be an indication of why the city is experiencing problems with motor vehicle crashes.

"I really think it's not because we don't have wonderful police officers  because we do  we have great men and women who work down there," Davis said. "I think the structure has gotten stretched out of proportion and out of shape. I think it needs to be structured a little better to have our foundation, which is our ground troops, our patrol officers."

Davis, like two of his opponents, Hernandez and Carter, said he wants to revert to the department's former district system rather than sector policing now in effect.

Davis said the city is divided into four sectors for policing, whereas it used to be eight districts. Sector policing was designed for metropolitan areas such as Houston or Dallas where there are concentrated population areas, said Davis, adding that the city saw a spike in crime as soon as San Angelo switched over to sector policing.

"We have so many square miles here in San Angelo that it doesn't work to cut San Angelo into four pieces, so we need to go back to the districts," he said. "We knew it worked."

Davis listed implementing hybrid-electric patrol vehicles for nonessential first responders, hiring civilians where appropriate and abolishing the maximum hiring age as methods to save the department money in the long run, he said.

"We have to do more with less, " Davis said. "I know that we can do it. It's going to be a lot of hard work. It's not going to be easy, and it's going to be pretty much a seven-day-a-week job to do the right thing."

Davis said he will work patrol, making calls with officers as police chief, because a leader needs to get involved to understand and fix the problems.

"Everything down there (at the police station) has a broken part or two  some broke worse than others  but there's nothing down there that we can't fix," he said. "I am a problem solver, and to solve a problem, you have to get in the mix. Roll up your sleeves and get into it."

People also need to see a police chief that's out working the streets, Davis said. That way he can see the issues the public wants to address and listen to the pains and strains they are going through dealing with law enforcement.

"We need to really bring everybody onboard and unify the community with the press, with city leaders, with other law enforcement, and bring all the brilliant minds together," he said. "Because there's no one human being  myself included  that knows everything about everything."

Jeff Davis, SAPD, DETECTIVE (RET.)

Position sought: Police chief

Age: 55

Education and experience: 26-years law-enforcement experience, 22 years at SAPD. Master Peace Officer license holder with 3,000 law enforcement training hours

On more traffic patrols: Im in favor of more checkpoints. Its a manpower issue, but if we put that in play, you catch a lot of these people. ... A lot of cities doing it to serve warrants, drug busts, finding people driving around without insurance.  Its something we need to put into play.

On drugs: We have a growing drug problem, gangs coming right and left.  Were seeing drive-bys and assaults, and we need to aggressively let them understand this is our city.

On leadership: I would implement things like random drug tests, hybrid vehicles, youth programs that I think are important. ... I would get out there with the men and women and work in a patrol car, bring together everyone, lead by example.

Vision for the department: I would build bridges across the board from the media to the public to children to citizens.  there are so many disgruntled people, but in four years youre going to love the relationship we have.
SHARE Erbey Galvan Valdez

Indicted

He is accused of having sex with student, 17

By Jennifer Rios

Sonora police are continuing an investigation into allegations that a middle school principal had sex with a high school student.

Erbey Galvan Valdez, 37, was booked into the Sutton County Jail on Friday on a charge of improper relationship between educator and student. The offense is a second-degree felony punishable by two to 20 years in prison and a fine up to $10,000.

Sutton County Sheriff Joe Fincher said Valdez posted $50,000 bail and was released Saturday.

According to two search warrant affidavits filed in the Sutton County Clerk's Office, investigators were allowed to search Valdez's 2009 silver Ford Mustang GT for hair, fiber and fluid.

In the affidavit the female student claimed to have had sex with Valdez on three occasions, two of which were in the back seat of the car. The third is alleged to have occurred at a hotel in another city.

Investigators also collected two mouth swabs from Valdez to compare to any DNA found in the vehicle, the warrant states.

Valdez was not immediately available for comment.

His wife, Maricruz Valdez, was reached Tuesday afternoon and declined to comment.

According to the affidavit, a 17-year-old high school senior told investigators Valdez began texting her in September. She is enrolled in Sonora High School.

Sonora Police Chief Tim Jarratt said Valdez was arrested after "a lengthy and detailed investigation" by local and state law enforcement agencies. Jarratt would not comment on how long the investigation took or where Valdez was arrested.

"We're still actively trying to gather information," Jarratt said.

Sonora ISD Superintendent Don Gibson said Valdez was placed on administrative leave with pay Friday afternoon pending further investigation.

In the meantime the district has appointed Brandon Duncan, the high school's assistant principal, as middle school principal.

Sonora ISD has three campuses and an enrollment of approximately 990 students. Campuses include prekindergarten through fourth grade, fifth grade through eighth, and ninth through 12th.

Sonora is 65 miles south of San Angelo.

It was Valdez's second year at Sonora Middle School, according to school records. Before moving to Sonora, he was a principal in San Saba.

Gibson said he has met with the school staffers and provided them with information to stop students from spreading false information.

The district is also going on a local radio station to address community members, Gibson said. He encouraged residents to call his office rather than listening to rumors.

"The counselor was down here the other day," Gibson said. "I know she's visited quite frequently with students about quelling rumors."

According to the Texas Education Agency, Valdez worked previously for the Paint Rock Independent School District. Robert Sanford, superintendent for Paint Rock, said he is new to the district and does not know of Valdez's employment history in the district.

The superintendent for San Saba could not be contacted by telephone or e-mail.

Photo courtesy of the San Saba News & Star.
Yfat Yossifor/Standard-Times Wastewater is treated in pools in the wastewater reuse project's pilot program at the San Angelo Reclamation Facility.

SHARE Yfat Yossifor/Standard-Times Filtration and reverse osmosis systems are used to treat wastewater in the wastewater reuse project's pilot program at the San Angelo Reclamation Facility.

By Rashda Khan, Rashda.Khan@gosanangelo.com / @Rashda_SAST

New opportunities always come with a period of challenges and adjustment. So while Big Spring and Wichita Falls led Texas, and the nation, into wastewater reclamation and potable reuse, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality had to deal with related concerns and regulations.

Here's a Q-AND-A with TCEQ spokesman Brian McGovern on wastewater reclamation and reuse in Texas.

Does TCEQ consider potable wastewater reuse a viable option?

TCEQ has approved Direct Potable Reuse projects, and communities are using these projects to extend water resources. We will continue to work with communities where logistical or technical challenges exist.

Is it safe?

All drinking water treatment facilities have their engineering designs reviewed by TCEQ to assure they meet the minimum standards in TCEQ's public drinking water regulations, found in Title 30 of the Texas Administrative Code, Chapter 290, Subchapter D. Design standards have not been established in TCEQ rules for potable-reuse projects since this is a new, innovative technology. The use of innovative technology to treat a nonstandard source water must be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, and must show that the design and operation of the facility will produce water that meets the federal and state water-quality regulations.

What have we learned in the three years since the Big Spring DPR went online?

Based on the Big Spring project, and other DPR projects that TCEQ has been involved with, the following should be considered:

Public water systems should evaluate all sources of water before moving forward with a reuse project.

The multiple barriers required for reuse projects can be expensive.

DPR projects require experienced operators and commitment to monitoring.

DPR Projects include innovative treatment technologies, which require a pilot study and a full-scale verification test.

In previous stories in this wastewater series, authorities in both Big Spring and Wichita Falls mentioned one of their biggest challenges in implementing direct potable reuse systems was dealing with TCEQ.

"I hope in five or six years, after we get some operating history, the regulatory side will be more comfortable with the technology," said John Grant, general manager of the Colorado River Municipal Water District, which owns the advanced water treatment plant in Big Spring.

Bill Riley, director of the city of San Angelo's Water Utilities Department, has been working with TCEQ on the wastewater reuse pilot plant. "From working with them, I think they understand the technology, but as we and others, they just tend to be very cautious," he said. "They just want to make sure, as we go through the process, everything is done right and properly."

Riley added that TCEQ is, after all, charged with public health and safety.

DARBY SHARES SAN ANGELO WATER THOUGHTS

Before state Rep. Drew Darby first went to Austin as an elected legislator in 2006, he served on San Angelo's City Council and its Water Advisory Board.

"We've been talking about water for a long time," said Darby, a lawyer and owner of a title company. "Reclaimed wastewater is an extremely valuable resource. From a legal standpoint it makes the most sense."

When it comes to groundwater and surface water, San Angelo has to deal with availability, negotiations, water rights, treatment and transportation.

But with reclaimed water, "we don't have to litigate, we don't have to buy it and we don't have to transport it," Darby said. "It's here and we own it."

He added that he's "an all-of-the-above kind of person."

San Angelo's surface water sources  the reservoirs of O.H. Ivie, E.V. Spence, Twin Buttes, O.C. Fisher and Lake Nasworthy  along with the groundwater source at the Hickory Aquifer well field, are part of the solution. As a council member, Darby traveled to San Antonio to study its conservation practices, and worked with others to bring down San Angelo's water usage.

"All of that works together for a comprehensive water plan," he said. "When you talk about water reuse, it's not the only answer. It's an answer to add to our water plan. People lose sight of that."

Darby noted that Texas' population growth makes DPR projects look attractive. According to the state's Regional Water Plan, Texas is projected to have 29.5 million people by 2020 and 41.9 million in 2050.

"Where are these people going to live or work? Think about all those people trying to get water for their needs," Darby said. "What's the best option we could use? It's water we already have."

Drought conditions in recent years led the 83rd Legislature to pass HB 4, HB 1025 and Senate Joint Resolution 1  collectively known as Proposition 6  which constitutionally created the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas, or SWIFT. This authorized the comptroller to transfer $2 billion from the so-called Rainy Day Fund to to help communities develop and optimize water supplies using state-subsidized loans. Darby worked with others in Austin to make SWIFT happen.

"I don't think the Legislature needs to do anything else in regards to legislation," he said. "The technology is in place. TCEQ has studied the issue. Now it's the (San Angelo) City Council's decision whether to pursue this option or not."
GREENSBORO  House Bill 2 has hit the North Carolina economy so hard it has left a black eye that wont fade for years, local business leaders and tourism officials say.

Bruce Springsteen, Cirque du Soleil and Boston have canceled shows in Greensboro over the so-called bathroom bill.

Pearl Jam abandoned a tour stop in Raleigh last week.

Blue Man Group said Friday that it wont come to Charlotte.

Ringo Starr dropped plans to perform in Cary this summer.

The high-profile cancellations have also spread to the convention industry, which is the bedrock of Greensboros tourism business and draws roughly a million people a year to the Joseph S. Koury Convention Center alone.

At the Sheraton Greensboro Hotel at Four Seasons and the Holiday Inn Greensboro Coliseum Hotel, roughly 500 hotel room bookings have been lost because of HB 2.

And there are likely more to come.

Officials hope the General Assembly will repeal the law when it convenes Monday for its next session.

Were going to be looking for something then and get this turned around, said Henri Fourrier, the president and chief executive officer of the Greensboro Area Convention & Visitors Bureau. But still, the damage has been done.

And its been adding up since the bill was passed just over a month ago.

HB 2 bans, among other things, local governments from adopting anti-discrimination rules that include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The bill also requires people to use restrooms that correspond to their biological sex.

A multitude of companies such as Apple, Pepsi and Wells Fargo have denounced the bill.

But it wasnt until Springsteen canceled his April 10 show at the Greensboro Coliseum that the controversy started to become costly.

The cancellation of that concert amounted to $100,000 in losses from parking and concession sales and set the stage for more entertainers to follow suit.

Cirque du Soleils decision will result in $68,000 in losses.

Bostons, $20,000.

So far, theres been $5 million in lost tourism dollars.

And then, of course, theres the negative publicity. Thats inestimable.

We have a black eye, and itll take years to erase, if thats even possible, said Mark File, a Greensboro resident who runs a website called RomanticAsheville.com.

The Koury/Sheraton convention center already predicts a loss of $1 million from events that canceled or withdrew their consideration of Greensboro through 2018.

One convention would have booked 4,000 room nights  the term the industry uses to measure each night a room is booked.

They were really very interested booking here for 2018, and two days after this news came out they called and canceled, said Mo Milani, the executive vice president of Koury Corp.

Each room night draws about $200 for booking and other spending by guests.

Springsteens cancellation cost the company 500 rooms that were booked at Kourys Sheraton and its Holiday Inn ahead of the April 10 concert.

When they made the announcement that Friday, the telephones were jammed for three hours with people trying to cancel, Milani said, referring to Springsteens statement released April 8.

Even conventions that dont cancel will bring fewer guests, Milani added. One convention next month of government employees from a variety of states will be missing the delegation from New York, which has banned travel for its employees to North Carolina.

And fewer guests means less traffic to local restaurants and retail shops.

This is hurting everybodys pocket, Milani said. We got a black eye, and its going to take a while to go away.

When traveling shows come to town, the tourism industry employs armies of people to staff city venues and hotels. But when theres no show, theres no work.

Take Springsteen, long the champion of working Americans. His canceled show affected about 500 local workers.

They included 225 city employees  ushers, ticket takers, security  as well as about 60 parking staffers and 30 housekeepers.

The show also would have employed about 100 stagehands for 12 hours, a cleanup crew of about 40 and 18 police officers.

Cirque du Soleil would have employed fewer people, but they would have worked over seven performances. A coliseum official said the shows would have employed 50 stagehands to set up and tear down the sets for about 12 hours at the beginning and end of the run and about 10 stagehands for three hours during the seven performances.

Even local nonprofit organizations lose when an artist cancels.

According to Spectra Food Services & Hospitality, the coliseums contract caterer and concessionaire, most concession stands are staffed by nonprofit community groups that earn a percentage of the sales. Those groups would have made more than $20,000 off of the Springsteen, Cirque du Soleil and Boston shows.

Dennis W. Quaintance, the chief executive officer and chief design officer of Quaintance-Weaver Restaurants & Hotels, said it all comes together to hurt workers, business and, ultimately, Greensboros image. His company operates the O. Henry and Proximity hotels.

Essentially the negative attention that (North Carolina) is getting is cutting the pay of some jobholders, Quaintance wrote in an email. That isnt what this community or state needs. We need more people to have jobs and for those with jobs to get their hours in so that they can bring home a full paycheck.

North Carolinas image as a tourist destination has been crafted for decades.

Now, state tourism officials believe that reputation is tarnished.

At least 13 groups and events were canceled in Charlotte within a week of HB 2s passage.

Looking ahead, things stand to get worse.

The News & Observer of Raleigh reported that the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau said as many as 16 groups are considering canceling events that could cost the local economy $24 million.

Greensboro, which has dubbed itself Tournament Town after its rich history of hosting ACC basketball tournaments, may find it harder to secure those events.

Things were bidding on now, especially for things like NCAA tournaments, these are things that are being planned two or four years into the future, Mayor Nancy Vaughan said. So if were taken off the list because of HB 2, were going to feel the ripple effects for years to come.

Beyond the largest metro areas, tourism experts fear the states trademark beach and mountain attractions will be blacklisted by travelers opposed to HB 2.

File, the Greensboro resident who runs RomanticAsheville.com, has his entire business staked on the success of Asheville and 15 mountain counties.

Ive spent my adult life promoting this place ... and its just sickening to see so much damage done in a short amount of time, said File, who has been collecting travel brochures since he was a child.

On social media, Ive had comments from people saying Im not coming this year or telling people not to come.

Im a gay man, married, and on a personal level its sickening, he said. Bigotry is bad on so many levels, and its certainly not good for tourism.

News of HB 2 has even become part of an advisory from the British government to its citizens traveling abroad.

Its amazing that now you have Great Britain putting out a travel advisory to the state of North Carolina, Vaughan said. Not only are we having trouble nationally, now were going global.

File, who has traveled the world but loves his home state, believes the backlash to HB 2 will be enduring.

Even if its repealed tomorrow, I think the damage will be long lasting, for sure, he said. I dont think theres a shadow of a doubt that seed has been planted.
In an article in the April 17 News & Record, it was stated that research at McGill University suggests that dependence on GPS reduces brain gray matter and higher functionality.

But the opposite conclusion could be reached, namely that people who depend on GPS do so because they have less gray matter. That is, less gray matter results in use of GPS rather than the opposite conclusion discussed in the article.
The Obama administration acted Wednesday to require that brokers who recommend investments for retirement savers meet a stricter standard that now applies to registered advisers: They must act as fiduciaries  trustees who are obligated to put their clients best interests above all.

The action, in rules issued by the Labor Department, could shake up how Americans retirement investments are handled by brokers. The anticipated release of the rules had been the target of heated lobbying campaigns from both the financial industry and consumer advocates.

This is a huge win for the middle class, Labor Secretary Thomas Perez said in a conference call with reporters. We are putting in place a fundamental principle of consumer protection.

The rules will be phased in starting a year from now. Full compliance will be required by January 2018.

The change could alter the types of investments  from stocks and bonds to annuities and real estate funds  that brokers recommend for peoples retirement accounts. Their recommendations may soon shift away from riskier or high-commission investments.

And brokers will have to disclose any conflict of interest related to a financial product  like commanding a high fee for recommending it  that would prevent them from putting a clients interests first.

Americans increasingly seek advice to help navigate their options for retirement, college savings and more. Many professionals provide investment guidance, but not all are required to disclose potential conflicts of interest.

The management of hundreds of billions in retirement accounts like 401(k)s and Individual Retirement Accounts could be affected. About $4.5 trillion were in 401(k) retirement accounts as of Sept. 30, plus $2 trillion in other defined-contribution plans such as federal employees plans and $7.3 trillion in IRAs, according to the Investment Company Institute, an industry group.

Critics of the current system say investors lose billions a year because of brokers conflicts of interest. The White House estimates the loss at $17 billion annually.

Regulators say problems often arise when people who are retiring or leaving a company roll over their employer-based 401(k) account into an individual retirement account. A broker they hire to make that shift might persuade them to move their money into a variable annuity or other investment that could be risky, expensive or difficult to cash out.

The Consumer Federation of America called the government action a historic win for consumers.

The financial industry, though, warns that the new requirements for brokers will likely reduce investors choices of financial products and could cause brokers to abandon retirement savers with smaller accounts.

Perez said that in drafting the final rules, his department considered many of the industrys concerns and made revisions to accommodate them. The period for the rules to begin taking effect, for example, was extended from eight months as originally proposed to one year.

At ground level, the new system will force financial advisers to adapt, consultants J.D. Power says. It joins the rise of new technology such as robo-advisers  automated wealth-management services  as factors that are causing more investors to question the value they are getting out of their advisers, J.D. Power said.

Full-service firms will need to adapt to make a clearer case for the value they provide versus lower-cost alternatives, it said.

A strict fiduciary rule might have helped some investors who have lost retirement savings in recent years.

One of them, Susan Bernardo, 58, says about seven years ago, her broker put her money into energy and real estate partnerships without explaining the risks or the fat 5 percent commission that brokers typically earn on such deals. The portfolio, once worth $400,000, has plunged to half that.

A widow and single mother from Wantagh, New York, Bernardo is also angry that the broker put money that had been set aside for her then-3-year-old son and in variable annuities that he cant touch until turning 59  at least without paying steep penalties. Earnings on variable annuities can grow tax-free, but hefty fees kick in if investors withdraw cash before they reach that age.

Unfortunately, its a little late for me, Bernardo said of the new rules. A lot of people have been hurt.

There have been numerous cases in recent years of abuses by brokers of their customers. In 2012, David Lerner Associates was fined $12 million by regulators for putting unsophisticated and elderly investors into risky real estate investment trusts.

And last year, UBS paid $15 million to settle charges that it had failed to supervise a former broker who had put investors into risky Puerto Rican funds.

Both companies neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing.
Local motorists who plan to drive west into Westchester County or beyond this upcoming weekend should hit the road in the late afternoon or brace for severe delays. Three of the Tappan Zee Bridges westbound lanes will be closed overnights and mornings as part of the $4 billion bridge replacement project.

One lane bound for Rockland and points west will remain open during the closures, the New York State Thruway Authority said. The lanes are scheduled to close from 9 p.m. Friday to 2 p.m. Saturday , then from 9 p.m. Saturday until 2 p.m. Sunday .

Traffic headaches are expected to be at their worst on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Its going to be a tough one, said Alec Slatky, spokesman for AAA Northeast. The work needs to be done, but its going to be a rough ride for sure.

The Thruway Authority is spreading the word about the work throughout the tri-state region, as far into Connecticut as Hartford, to give motorists who use the bridge a chance to find alternate routes or travel at different times if possible. Theyre also giving warning to those who normally use other bridges across the Hudson, including the Bear Mountain Bridge often used by people in northern Fairfield County, that theyll have lots of company and may have unexpected delays of their own.

The lanes must be closed because roadway plates will be lifted to make room for driving piles directly under the existing bridge where the new span will approach land, the authority said. The work is part of a revised construction schedule developed to minimize noise, water quality impacts, and traffic disruption in the future, the agency said.

The new plan allows this work to take place at the least-traveled times of the week to minimize traffic impacts, and enables it to occur with current construction activities, eliminating the need for additional work in the future, said authority spokesman Khurram Saeed.

Consisting of two spans, the New NY Bridge, as the authority refers to the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement, is scheduled to open in 2018. While the Tappan Zee Bridge was ailing five decades after it first spanned the Hudson River in the late 1950s, the new bridge is designed to last more than a century without requiring major structural work.

The eastbound lanes wont be affected by the piling project. If rain delays the work, it will be pushed back until the following Friday and Saturday.

Could the tie-ups reach clear across Westchester County and into Greenwich, or even deeper into Connecticut?

I would be surprised if the backups reached that far, said Slatky, the AAA spokesman. But certainly crazier things have happened.
Contributed photo

Maybe its becoming a trend around town, displaying artwork for sale in a home thats also on the market.

Thats the idea for the first Greenwich Art Gala, in which works by Jeff Koons and Peter Max, as well as local artists, will deck a 7-bedroom home at 35 Winding Lane that is listed for $6,495,000. The event begins May 6.
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GREENWICH  Schools Superintendent William McKersie has not elaborated on why he has decided to leave Greenwich after next school year, other than to say it is time for him to seek other professional opportunities.

McKersie announced Friday he will not seek a renewal to his contract, which runs out in June of 2017. He did not respond to requests Friday and Saturday to further explain his decision.

While school board leaders who spoke to Greenwich Time following the announcement had praise for McKersie, several sources familiar with the situation said some board members did not support a contract extension for the superintendent.

A little bit surprised by McKersies decision, Board of Education Chairman Laura Erickson said she would have supported him staying longer. But she said she did not try to make him reconsider after he told her on April 4 that he was leaving because she said she respected his decision.

More News Schools superintendent will not seek renewal of contract

I think the general tenor between Dr. McKersie and the board has been very cordial and professional, said Erickson, a Democrat. The board has certain expectations about goals that can be achieved, and Dr. McKersie sometimes has to bring us down to earth about what is realistic given all that is on the districts plate. But its been a respectful debate and discussion about where the district is headed.

Had McKersie said he wanted to stay, the board would have voted in June on a prospective contract extension.

I think that his leaving will represent a loss for the district, although I respect his decision, said school board Secretary Debbie Appelbaum, a Democrat. I would have liked to have seen him have the ability to take us to the next level.

Board Vice Chairman Barbara ONeill said McKersie has done well leading the district and that his relative longevity of four years, compared with other recent superintendents terms, brought stability to the district. But she declined to say whether she would have supported a renewal.

The decision to leave was the superintendents so it is a moot point as to what I think therefore I will not comment, said ONeill, a Republican. While here Bill has performed extremely well and accomplished what the board wanted, he brought new thinking and innovation and a renewed focus on student achievement and well-being.

Democrat Jennifer Dayton declined to make any comment on McKersies decision, and Republican Peter Sherr said that he was not available for comment. The three other board members  Republicans Peter Bernstein and Lauren Rabin and Democrat Gaetane Francis  did not return messages.

Carol Sutton, president of the districts teachers union, said she was surprised when McKersie informed her Friday of his decision.

GEA (Greenwich Education Association) has developed a strong working relationship with Dr. McKersie, Sutton said. He listened to our concerns and ideas and actively worked with us to find solutions. GEA had high hopes that the districts 20-year revolving door of superintendents would stop. We will be sorry to see him go.

McKersie joined the district in July 2012, after signing a three-year contract. In June 2014, the school board approved a new deal for McKersie that tied him to the district until June 2017. With the renewal, McKersie became the first superintendent in 12 years to commit to staying beyond his or her initial three-year pact.

McKersie has received favorable critiques in each of his three annual evaluations so far by the school board. In the latest review, for the 2014-15 school year, school board members said he was effectively managing the districts top initiatives.

People have complimented you on your approachability and willingness to listen, read an excerpt of the 2014-15 evaluation for McKersie. As we look forward to the future, we anticipate your leadership will facilitate the attainment of the aspirations the various stakeholders have for the district.

The suspension last year of Greenwich High School band director John Yoon arguably represents the most controversial chapter of McKersies leadership. He tried last June to fire Yoon for allegedly bullying two students, but the music teacher appealed. Throughout the eight-month saga, the case divided the community and sparked withering criticisms by Yoons supporters of McKersies management.

School board members decided last December to reinstate Yoon, after citing major concerns about whether McKersie and other administrators had properly investigated the allegations against Yoon.

Many in the community interpreted the boards decision as a de facto vote of no confidence against McKersie, but Erickson said she did not think the reinstatement of Yoon had created a rift between the superintendent and the board.

The decision was made by the board and the administration executed the decision that we decided, Erickson said. I do not believe that is a factor. It has been handled extremely well. It has not been a source of contention between the board and the superintendent.

A search firm, which Erickson said should be hired by September, will help the board find the next superintendent. She expects the board to select the next schools chief by the spring of 2017.

I appreciate Dr. McKersie giving us this notice, so well have time to plan a succession strategy with community input, Erickson said. I do believe that Greenwich Public Schools is a quality place to work, and we will attract the best candidates.

pschott@scni.com; 203-625-4439; twitter: @paulschott
Passover begins this weekend. And throughout the world, Jews are recalling the Exodus from Egypt.

In this recollection, we Jews cant remain indifferent to 60 million refugees fleeing their own Egypt, from places such as Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Honduras, Colombia, Myanmar, and Ukraine. We cant ignore a global refugee crisis on a scale not seen since World War II, with 40,000 additional people joining this worldwide exodus every day.

In the faces of the homeless, who have left everything behind for an unknown future, do we not see our own faces in Exodus?

The Haggadah  the telling  that we read at our Seders on the first and second nights of Passover is a retelling of the Biblical Exodus story. And in this retelling, we are reminded that each year, and in every generation, we must experience this Exodus as if we ourselves are just now leaving Egypt.

But how, in 2016  the Jewish year 5776  do we personally experience something that happened more than 3,000 years ago, for which, other than the Biblical narrative, theres little historical evidence?

This remembering depends neither upon historical scholarship, nor Egypts geography. The deeper truth of this Passover remembrance transcends the boundaries of time and space. The retelling is to experience a journey from slavery to freedom, from oppression to liberation, from deprivation to fulfillment, and to experience this as an ongoing journey that requires continual work in the service of freedom, in the service of humankind, until all are truly free.

Pope Francis recent visit to the Moria detention center on the Greek island of Lesbos, the epicenter of the exodus from the Middle East to Europe, called attention to the plight of the refugees, as did his 2013 visit to the Italian island of Lampedusa, where African refugees seek asylum.

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 the pope, as quoted in the New York Times, speaking from the detention center on Lesbos, where refugees are held captive in crowded, unsanitary, prison-like conditions.

In a welcoming gesture intended to send a message to the nations of the world, the pope brought 12 Syrian Muslim refugees, including six children, back with him to the Vatican. This Papal message of welcome comes at a time when everywhere the doors are slamming shut, with national hearts hardening against the refugee stranger.

U.S. Immigration: Open or locked door?

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

This years seventh annual diversity writing contest, sponsored by the First Selectmans Community Diversity Advisory Committee, asks high school students in Greenwich how these famous words on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, taken from a sonnet written by American poet Emma Lazarus more than a century ago, speak to them in todays world.

As coordinator for this writing contest, Im eager to read what the students have to say in response to whats a profound question in this time of world upheaval. As I write this column, last-minute email entries arrive to meet the April 22 submission deadline.

During his February visit to Mexico, the pope prayed beneath the large cross in Ciudad Juarez on Mexicos border with the United States before celebrating Mass nearby. His choice to pray here was an implicit criticism of Donald Trumps call to deport Americas 11.2 million undocumented persons and to erect a wall that keeps out the other, the stranger.

You shall not wrong nor oppress a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

The commandment to care for the stranger, and to remember that you were strangers in Egypt, is the Torahs most repetitive commandment to the Jewish people, repeated 36 times. Many other religious traditions, including Christian and Muslim, also call for welcoming the stranger.

But welcoming the stranger requires that we look beyond the tribal, ethnocentric, nativist, nationalist, religious, and xenophobic impulses that divide us. Thats something to think about during Passover week: building bridges to freedom instead of walls that enslave.

Alma Rutgers served in Greenwich town government for 25 years. Her blog is at blog.ctnews.com/rutgers/.
Growing a franchise can be hard work. You have to think about corporate sales and marketing, as well as providing for the franchisees. It looks something like this:

Each of these initiatives takes a lot of work -- and you cant do just one. The thing is, they all work together. You need to have corporate marketing to attract franchises and grow the size of the brand. You need to have marketing for the franchisees because if they are not successful, neither are you. It will also be hard to attract more franchises if your current ones are going under and not profitable. The additional marketing programs also help a lot. In some cases, you will have an owner who owns multiple shops or just one that wants to be a big spender. If corporate offers these programs through vendors, they get to have some control, provide more value to the owners and help grow the size of the brand.

Related: The 4 Essential Elements of a Franchise Marketing Plan

In this post, we will talk about franchise marketing. Specifically, how you can set it up to attract franchisees and boost the credibility of corporate.

Corporate marketing programs.

When I say corporate marketing, I mean marketing just from the business-to-business perspective. Basically, we are trying to attract more franchisees to the franchise. Here are some of the things to consider.

Have a location-based strategy. Almost all franchises have some kind of location element. That means all of your marketing strategy should be tied to location. On the corporate level, youll want to focus your efforts on the regions that you are trying to build out first. For example, you may start in Southern California, expand to Northern California and then to Arizona. When you do this, you need a good mix of online and offline marketing to build the brand and take the location by storm. Consider the following:

Local SEO

Local Google AdWords

Yelp ads

Yellow pages

Local directories

Microsites or landing pages (there is a lot to know about this one)

Local content marketing

Social media ads and social media marketing

Radio advertising

Buy billboards in the area

Sponsor sports teams in the area

TV in the area

Direct mail

Try to set up a pipeline for your franchisees

One of the main draws to any franchise is that there will be demand for business due to the brand credibility in the consumers eyes. The idea is that the franchise is so established that when you buy it, the customers will automatically come. Now in some cases, franchises take this a step further and actually deliver business to the franchisees. For example, I have some corporate franchise clients who literally send business to the owners.

Either way, corporate should be working to establish a pipeline for the owners. It makes the business much more attractive and keeps things positive.

Get on lists. Large business sites such as Entrepreneur have lists of franchise opportunities. In addition, people are constantly writing on the topic. Many of these lists are industry-specific, and will often state the best franchises to own at any given time. As part of the franchise-marketing strategy, it is a great idea to get on these lists. People read them often and they can drive a lot of business.

Get them into a funnel. People research franchise options heavily before purchasing one. There are a lot of options, price points, business models, set-up costs In general, there is just a lot to this type of business. One of the most important things you can do is get them into a funnel. Now, this can be some type of drip campaign using a tool like Infusionsoft or just a basic MailChimp email newsletter. Either way, you need to stay on their radar after you have captured their email and other actionable information. While they might download your information packet at first, they might soon forget the franchise if this is not put in place. Keep in mind that getting them to be a part of your social communities or follow your blog can also accomplish this.

Make your brand glow. Not all of the marketing needs to be direct response. Keep in mind that people need to really like the brand. They need to feel as though the franchise is greater than their current business. Or if they dont have a business, that it is a great opportunity and surefire win in general. Invest in great creative, a nice website and plenty of positive marketing to make people proud to invest in a franchise.

Have a strategy to target similar businesses. This is different for every type of franchise, but one of the main ways some franchises acquire new franchisees is by going into a non-franchises business and doing a presentation about why they should switch over. This demands a great deck, plenty of supplementary marketing materials and a sales team. If done right, it is one of the most effective strategies for acquiring new franchisees.

Related: What Franchisees Need to Know About Digital Marketing (Infographic)

Corporate marketing program for franchisees.

Outside of doing marketing to acquire franchisees and build the brand, it is also a good idea to have marketing services on the franchise level. Generally, this will be a budget of $150 to $2,000 a month per franchise (of course it all depends on the franchise and the needs), and it will be highly targeted to the individual location. If possible, there should be one standard package and other larger packages which franchisees can contract directly for.

You will need a baseline program. The baseline program should be provided by the franchise, but it can come out of a franchise fund. Generally, franchises will vote on a marketing program and budget at annual meetings. This would then get allocated to these program.

The program should be location specific. The baseline program needs to be very location specific. If it is online that is a given, but if there are offline elements, such as billboard or radio, that also needs to be very targeted. Direct mail also needs to be highly local. The most important thing is to ensure you are delivering in the right markets based on the level of franchisees you have there.

You should have options to upgrade. When creating the options to upgrade, you want to make sure they are all somewhat affordable for the franchisees. Options should then be priced in a general range that makes sense across the board versus pricing differently per region.

Its a good idea to work with an agency who has experience. To build out this type of system internally is very tough. Especially if you are a new franchise with a small team. You need expert and experienced personnel. In most cases, it is a good idea to bring on an agency with heavy local advertising experience and of course franchise experience.

Related: The Best and Worst Franchise Marketing Campaigns of 2015

Issues of which to be aware.

Two of the largest issues are communication and reporting. It is critical to be able to create a lot of reports, send them to franchises and have them be able to interpret it correctly. It is also important to have an open line of communication and excellent customer service. Without it, the value might not be fully understood. Marketing can get pretty complicated, especially digital marketing, so things like webinars and presentations are key to ensure there is ample understanding across all parties.

Additional marketing programs.

Some franchisees will only own one or two franchises, but other will own five, 10 or more. When this is the case, the franchisee will most likely consider their franchises as their own business. A franchise needs to have an agency they can trust to provide custom solutions to these type of owners. Make sure you have a solution for them that is dependable and can get them the results they are looking for.

Summing up franchise marketing.

If you are looking to attract franchisees, you need to have a clear and profitable model, a strong case for making the investment and serious brand credibility. If you do a great job with your franchise marketing, you will be well on your well to attracting new owners.

Related:

This Tutor Used a Blend of Teaching Styles to Reach Kids Worldwide

The Grewal Family Franchises Together and Thrives Together

Seeing The Right Proposition



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Haiti - Economy : Towards the increase in the efficiency of public investments





Friday at the National School of Finance, Aviol Fleurant, the new Minister of Planning and External Cooperation, has proceeded with the closing of a significant training in cost-benefit analysis of projects.



The Minister Fleurant stressed the importance of this training, which according to him "will contribute to strengthening institutional capacity and boosting the national planning system, to the adoption of better decisions in public investment to the benefit of the population."



This one-month training, for the benefit of among others many executives of 11 ministries, was also aimed at increasing the efficiency of public investments in the country.



The Minister affirmed its commitment to work towards the consolidation of efforts already undertaken, to the revaluation, the strengthening of the planning and maintenance of an institutional environment in the country.



Magaly B. C. Bien-Aime, the new Director General of the Ministry https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-17155-icihaiti-politic-installation-of-the-new-director-general-of-mpce.html who attended the closing ceremony, consider this training as the result of continuous efforts between different institutions aimed at a of the Haitian public administration.



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Economy : The Minister of Commerce visited CODEVI





This week Jessy C. Petit-Frere, he new Minister of Commerce and Industry, accompanied by two representatives of the Presidency and the Director General of Free Zones, conducted a 2-days mission to the Compagnie de Developpement Industriel S.A. (CODEVI), located in Ouanaminthe (North-East) where she met among others Limber Cruz and Mercedes Capellan, respectively Vice-President and Director General of CODEVI.



The objective of this mission was to encourage investment efforts already made by CODEVI that manufactures apparel for export, including jeans, uniforms and knitwear. Run by the Dominican group "M" the CODEVI is making a major contribution to economic and social development of the region with more than 8,000 Haitian workers benefiting in particular from vocational training.



The Minister also wanted be reassured on the working conditions of Haitian workers and lasting effects of this industry in the economy of the region. During her visit, she was able to observes the construction and acquisition of new production means of the CODEVI, with the construction of two new industrial buildings of 7,000 m2 in total, which will allow the creation of approximately 3, 000 additional new jobs by the end of 2016 https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-16087-icihaiti-economy-towards-the-creation-of-3-000-new-jobs-in-codevi.html . In addition she observed a construction site of another building of 11,330 m2 and learned the next start of works for the construction of two buildings of 8,000 m2.



The Minister presented to the group her warmest congratulations and encouraged those responsibles of the CODEVI to continue on this path, stressing that these initiatives are aligned with the priorities of the Government of Haiti and those of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry which among others, want to promote investment, job creation and wealth.



The Minister Petit-Frere also met with the workers and took the opportunity to collect their concerns. She lamented the current conditions where workers eat. The responsibles wish that the site houses a cafeteria for the benefit of workers. The Minister promised to intervene so that this project goes ahead, within a short time, to provide a net satisfaction to the Haitian workers.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-17192-haiti-dr-development-of-the-border-200-000-jobs-over-10-years.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-16078-haiti-economy-first-bilateral-investment-for-the-economic-development-of-the-border.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-15404-haiti-economy-signature-for-a-micro-park-in-ouanaminthe.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-11669-haiti-economy-codevi-industrial-park-11-years-of-successful-economic-development.html



HL/ HaitiLibre
























Haiti - News : Zapping politics...





LAPEH shares the concerns of PHTK

Jean Hector Anacacis, the Coordinator of the Alternative League for Progress of Haiti (LAPEH), party of candidate qualified for the second round, Jude Celestin, indicated "We share the same concerns as the PHTK [...] nothing indicates that Mr. Privert will organize elections. Nothing indicates that his real motivation is not a tabula rasa [...]" moreover Anaclasis said he did not rule out to take the streets alongside the partisans and supporters of PHTK, in order to put pressure on the President a.i. Jocelerme Privert, for the organization of the second round of elections "If we have to get with the PHTK to force there are elections, we have no problem."



"Parliamentarians overstep their rights"

Charles-Henri Baker President of RESPE party notes that the Parliamentarians overstep their rights that is to legislate, to monitor government actions and not to interfere in the internal affairs of the CEP that is an independent institution with well explicit prerogatives. He says noted that "the country takes a turn of delinquent State, which can lead us to unprecedented disaster," and asking the public to remain vigilant and prepare for days of uncontrollable disturbances, capable of leading us to internal conflict and decadence...



Ambassadors visits to Parliament

This week, the Ambassadors from Unites-States, European Union, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom accredited to Haiti, paid a courtesy visit to Parliament and discussed the political situation in Haiti "All have shown their concerns and expressed their will not to go out of the agreement," reported the Senator Steven Benoit



New DG of the Financial Intelligence Unit

Friday, Camille Edouard junior, Minister of Justice and Public Security has proceeded to the installation of the former Chief of Procuratorate of Port-au-Prince, Me. Sonnel Jean Francois, as Director General of the Central Unit of Financial Information (UCREF).



In his remarks for the occasion, the Minister Edouard Jr. emphasized on the integrity and serious of Me. Jean Francois which had a passage without spot in the judiciary and invited all employees of the institution to offer their collaboration to the new DG to whom he advised to take concrete actions in the fight against dirty money.



More synergy between the Ministry and the CSPJ

On Friday, the Minister Camille Edouard Junior had his first official working meeting with the Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSPJ) since his appointment as head of the Ministry. There was discussion among others on the creation of a better synergy between the ministry and the CSPJ. It should be remembered that if the CSPJ is the organ of administration and discipline of the judiciary, the administration and discipline of prosecutors by con fall under the Ministry of Justice.



Haiti-Japan Cooperation

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Jean-Charles, met with the Ambassador of Japan accredited to Haiti, Yoshiaki Hatta around the strengthening of bilateral relations between the two countries.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















By Lisa Espinosa | Published on 2016/04/23

"Time Renegades" the time-travel film from Director Kwak Jae-yong ("Daisy", "My Sassy Girl") came in number one its opening weekend and for good reason. It was a slick piece that balanced the two worlds it depicted and the relationship between dream-tied strangers realistically and with plenty of suspense. It premiered in South Korea on April 13, 2016, and had its North American release by CJ E&M on April 22, 2016.

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The plot centers around two seemingly disparate storylines set in 1983 and 2015 that become intertwined by fate, murder, and love. Nothing about this premise is unusual - save for its execution. The uncanny parallels between the lives and love stories of 1983's Ji-Hwan (Cho Jung-seok) and Yoon-jeong (Lim Soo-jung), and Geon-woo (Lee Jin-uk) and So-eun (Lim Soo-jung) are highlighted by Director Kwan's trademark ability to juxtapose scenes with elegant cuts, filtered shots, and keen sense of camera story telling. Both men fall in love with women who are ill-fated. Due to some higher connection, they can see into each other's dreams, which gives them terrifying visibility into the futures of Yoon-jeong and So-eun. Both men are whip smart and quickly learn to harness the advantage of their unusual connection in order to save So-eun, the only woman who may have a chance against a deranged killer. I can't say I was all that pleased to see that the killer was a psychopath, but the fact that his insanity wasn't a focus point was a small consolation. "Time Renegades" wasn't about understanding the motivation behind murder, but about the collaboration between two men and their women who are karmically linked. The killer was just the reason for their connection.

This film plays on the concept of reincarnation and fate, but also allows a little room for human will to take part. An action of the past can change the future. Two incarnations can work together to give peace and happiness to the future. I do wish that the mechanism of action of the changes in time were better explained - they were rather happenstance. But such is the case with time travel pieces, be it in drama or film. Also, although this film focused on saving a loved woman, the romantic dialogue surrounding the love spanning generations and incarnations wasn't too schmaltzy, a very real fault of many Korean films with romance as an integral part of the plot.

A sadly actualized fault was the underutilization of the "object of affection", namely Yoon-jeong and So-eun. The incredibly talented actress Lim Soo-jung played both and managed to bring out the two distinct personalities, but they still weren't as well-developed as the men or the action of the film. The two gentlemen headlines, Cho Jung-seok and Lee Jin-uk were, to put it lightly, fabulous. There has always been something about Jo that makes him pop in scenes. He can manipulate his voice, his facial expressions, and his presence to embody his character. It is what has made him so real and present in film and drama in such a short time despite the fact that he isn't as young as many of the up-and-comers in the market. Lee Jin-uk is no stranger to the time travel concept. He stared in K-drama "Nine: Time Travelling Nine Times" in 2013. He layered his performance well, adding elements to his character as he learned about Ji-hwan's and Yoon-jeong's tragic past and So-eun's potentially short future. He wasn't quite as compelling as Jo who emotes in a way that not many can, but Lee definitely held his own. Young Lee Tae-ri took a very different route than in the many dramas he's been in and found a grit within himself to play the troubled Kang Seung-beom and his rocky path that almost missed redemption.

The film was also beautiful. The filming of 1983 was sharply contrasted with 2015. In 1983, sepia prevailed with grainier picture quality, and beautifully set period appropriate scenes that were starkly contrasted with the sharp, bold colors of 2015 and its plentiful display of technology and sleek decorating. Night scenes weren't too dark to see. I despite when I can't see the action. In fact, I saw this action no matter the time of day and it was exciting. The fights were within the capabilities of the characters; the choreography was clean and easy to follow. The background music was beautiful save for a few emotional moments when it became cello heavy. (I hate saying there was too much cello because I'm a cellist. But there is no denying that it was overpowering!)

"Time Renegades" is a film that comes full circle as time plays on itself, and then it plays out. The entire runtime of 107 minutes is well-used and doesn't feel dull. It's a mystery that I want to jump in and help solve. The characters are ones that I want to see prevail. It is playing now in theaters so check it out to see what happens to Ji-hwan, Yoon-jeong, Geon-woo, and So-eun.

Written by: Raine from 'Raine's Dichotomy'

"Time Renegades" is directed by Kwak Jae-yong, written by Ko Jeong-woon and Kwak Jae-yong, and stars Lim Soo-jung, Cho Jung-seok, Lee Jin-uk, and Jung Jin-young.

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Published on 2016/04/24 | Source

Over 850 homeless people subsist around the subway stations of the capital and some 70 percent of them have been homeless for more than three years.

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The Seoul Metropolitan Government quoted research from the Korea Center for City and Environment Research that there were 855 homeless people in Seoul as of 2014.

Some 554 people or 65 percent are living in the downtown districts of Jung, Yeongdeungpo, Jongno and Yongsan.

The city government said the reason why they prefer these districts is that there are underground spaces to sleep in and soup kitchens nearby. About five percent of the homeless are women. The most common place to sleep was underground spaces, followed by parks, in buildings, and in the street.

The city government is trying to persuade homeless people to sleep in shelters, but last year only 3,605 people signed up for the shelter. The city government gives homeless who live in shelters housing assistance and runs self-support programs and vocational training.
Published on 2016/04/24 | Source

A growing number of singles have only their houseplants for company because they cost less and require less attention than cats or dogs.

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According to online shopping site 11st, sales of cactuses rose 17 percent in the first quarter compared to the same period of 2015. Sales of hydroponic plants grew 22 percent.

There were 5.06 million one-person households in Korea last year, up around eightfold compared to 30 years ago.

Park Seul-lok (23), an office worker, began collecting succulents a while ago and now has more than a dozen varieties. "I make pots for them using rain boots for kids or coffee cups", Park said.

Succulent topiaries have become one of the most parodied cliches on Instagram and interior design websites.

Flower shops are adopting to the changing tastes. One flower shop in southern Seoul used to sell mainly flowers but now has a range of cacti and other succulents as a growing number of students living in the area started looking for them.

Another shop in Samcheong-dong near downtown Seoul offers advice to customers on what types of plants to raise according to their personalities and living patterns. "We get around 300 customers on weekends and most of them are in their 20s and 30s who want to feel a sense of tranquility by raising plants", the owner said.

But it is not just young people who seek affection from plants. A community service center in Sadang-dong in southern Seoul distributed plants last year to 160 senior citizens who are living alone.

Cho Jae-yong at the center, said, "A lot of the elderly invited us to come and see the plants after they tended them for a year. They serve as emotional companions for them".
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
LURAY, Va. (AP)  Firefighters trying to contain a forest fire in the Shenandoah National Park got some help from a light but steady rain.

Dan Bastion, a spokesman for the multi-agency firefighting effort, says the blaze has scorched nearly 9,000 acres since April 15. It was a little over 40 percent contained Saturday.

Low humidity earlier in the week contributed to the fire's intensity, but Bastion says about two-tenths of an inch of rain knocked the flames down Friday. Light showers continued Saturday as 342 firefighters from 33 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico battled the fire. No property damage or injuries have been reported.

Several trails and roads were closed, including about 17 miles of the Appalachian Trail and a 22-mile stretch of Skyline Drive.
BRISTOL, Va.  A new team of investigators is taking a look at a 26-year-old murder case that has never brought a Bristol, Virginia, family closure.

Tammy Salyer, 18, was shot through the head Feb. 28, 1990, as she drove home from work at the Burger King on Volunteer Parkway in Bristol, Tennessee. The shooting occurred just after midnight on Interstate 81 near present-day Exit 7.

Over the years, officers have investigated a number of leads and identified possible suspects, but have never filed any charges.

The best thing I can tell you is, Im going to be working on this, Sgt. Steve Crawford said Saturday morning as he visited Salyers family.

The family approached police on Friday asking them to take another look at the case.

It lays on your heart and your mind, said Paul Salyer, her father. This will not go away. I think honestly theres somebody out there yet who is involved in this.

Crawford replied, I cant disagree with you.

The investigator said he will take a look at the evidence, resubmit it to the lab and conduct any necessary interviews. Hell also talk to previous investigators who worked on the case.

When you work on cold cases like this, you werent there, Crawford said. You didnt see what theyve seen.

Police have been working with a couple theories.

The first theory, which the family was originally told, was that Tammy Salyer was killed by a drive-by shooter.

Supposedly, the first theory, she was driving down the road and a drive-by shooter just shoots her for no reason, said Teresa Salyer Baker, her sister. She crosses the median, crosses the other lanes of traffic and hits a tree.

A second theory eventually was brought to light. Police said she may have been pulled over by an individual and was shot. The theory goes that the person then moved the vehicle to the other side of the highway.

Crawford said there are many possibilities, but it would be irresponsible to say what he believes happened.

I will follow up on things that I can follow up on, he said.

There are some issues with evidence, such as a lack of the car. Theres also only a blown-up photograph of the shell casing. The bullet disappeared. But the murder file is about four-drawers-worth of documentation and evidence, Crawford said.

A new set of eyes and new technology in recent years could result in answers, he added.

The murder last came up in 2005, when a federal grand jury took up the case.

It went to the grand jury, they presented this evidence, they called witnesses and there still wasnt enough to charge anybody, Baker said.

Although they have many questions, the Salyer family doesnt blame anyone involved in the case.

We dont blame all of the people that have tried to solve this, Baker said.

The family has dealt with the death for 26 years.

Whenever a familiar song plays on the radio, or a similar car is driving by, or they see a person that looks like her, it brings back the painful memories.

It never goes away, Baker said.

Ive been dealing with this for 26 years, Paul Salyer said. Theres so much stuff thats not been settled in this case to satisfy my mind. Somebodys out there that is involved in this and hasnt been looked at enough.

Without solid facts, he added that hes not accusing anyone.

Baker said she feels that with a new police chief, John Austin, and new investigators, there is still hope.

I will never lose hope, she said. I cant.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call police at 276-645-7400.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP)  Prince was cremated and a group of his "most beloved" family, friends and musicians celebrated him afterward in a small, private service, his publicist said Saturday.

Yvette Noel-Schure said in a statement that the 57-year-old music superstar's family and friends gathered "in a private, beautiful ceremony" to say a loving goodbye.

The statement did not say where the service was held, but friends such as percussionist Sheila E. and bassist Larry Graham were both seen Saturday entering Prince's suburban Minneapolis estate, Paisley Park. Prince's sister Tyka Nelson and brother-in-law Maurice Phillips also were seen on the grounds, as were catering trucks.

Hundreds of fans were gathered outside the estate, where a security fence was covered with purple balloons, flowers, signs and more honoring Prince. The musician lived and recorded at the compound.

Prince died Thursday at Paisley Park, and an autopsy was done Friday. But authorities have not released a cause of death and have said results could take days or weeks.

The publicist's brief statement repeated that the cause of Prince's death was unknown, and said autopsy results wouldn't be received for at least four weeks.

The statement said the "final storage" of Prince's remains would be private.

"We ask for your blessings and prayers of comfort for his family and close friends at this time," the statement said.

It said a "musical celebration" would be held at a future date.

Prince was found unresponsive in an elevator at his estate. The sheriff and a medical examiner spokeswoman declined Friday to say whether prescription drugs were taken from the home after his death.

Celebrity website TMZ, citing unidentified sources, has reported that Prince was treated for an overdose of the powerful painkiller Percocet while traveling home from concerts in Atlanta last week. The site said his plane made an emergency landing April 15 in Moline, Illinois, where he was briefly hospitalized.

Representatives for Prince did not respond to requests from The Associated Press for comment on the reports of the emergency landing and overdose treatment.

Carver County Sheriff Jim Olson has said Prince was last seen alive by an acquaintance who dropped him off at Paisley Park at 8 p.m. Wednesday. The "Purple Rain" star, born Prince Rogers Nelson, was found by staff members who went to the compound the next morning when they couldn't reach him by phone.

Emergency crews who answered the 911 call in Chanhassen, about 20 miles outside Minneapolis, could not revive Prince, the sheriff said. He said emergency workers did not administer Narcan, a drug they carry to counteract overdoses.

Prince's death came two weeks after he canceled concerts in Atlanta, saying he wasn't feeling well. He played a pair of makeup shows April 14 in that city, apologizing to the crowd shortly after coming on stage.

Early in the first show, he briefly disappeared from the stage without explanation. After about a minute he returned and apologized, saying he didn't realize how emotional the songs could be. He played the rest of the show without incident and performed three encores.

In the later show, he coughed a few times, though the show was again energetic.

Then came the reported emergency landing en route to Minnesota. The night after that, Prince hosted a dance party at Paisley Park, where some fans said he looked fine and seemed irked by reports of an illness. Prince didn't play except to tap out a few notes on a piano, and lingered only for a few minutes before disappearing.

Prince was slated to perform two shows earlier this week at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis but canceled last week because of health concerns.

Sheila E. has told the AP that Prince had physical issues from performing, citing hip and knee problems she said came from years of jumping off risers and stage speakers in heels. But she said she hadn't talked directly with him in several months.

The musician had spoken about struggling with childhood epilepsy. It was unclear if his epilepsy carried into adulthood.
Harper's dramatic HR sends Phillies to first World Series since 2009

The reigning NL MVP hit a go-ahead home run in the bottom of the eighth inning to give the Phillies a 4-3 win over the Padres
Nothing goes right for Edgewood in long trip to East Central
Fourteen biology students and seven faculty members from Lenoir-Rhyne University attended the 113th annual meeting of the North Carolina Academy of Sciences (NCAS), held April 1-2 at Methodist University in Fayetteville.

The 10 seniors attending had the opportunity to present the findings of research projects they have been working on throughout this academic year. Faculty mentors for these students were Judy Moore, Scott Schaefer and Dan Grimm. Four students received awards for their work including:

Dylan Millwood of Hixson, Tenn., Diversity of Endophytic Fungi in Leaves of Juglandaceae and Aceraceae, first place in poster competition, human biology and microbiology;

John Falls of Hickory, Disinfection of Bacillus subtilis Endospores utilizing Aqueous Ozone and Sodium Hypochlorite, second place in microbiology I;

Pashence Johnson of Lenoir, Effect of Caffeine and Adenosine on California Black Worm Lumbriculus variegates, second place in zoology, chemistry, physical science, and science education I;

Amber Walser of Linwood, The Effects of Dietary -D-Glucan on the Intestinal Microbiota of Mice (Mus musculus), second place in health science and molecular biology I.

Faculty of Lenoir-Rhyne University have been taking students researchers to the NCAS meetings for over 40 years, said Professor Marsha Fanning, chair of the School of Natural Sciences. This event offers students a great opportunity to learn outside of the classroom and network with renowned professionals in the scientific community. We are extremely proud of their accomplishments.

Fanning added that the mission of the NCAS is to promote public appreciation of science, science education, scientific research and a meaningful role for science in public policy. By having our students attend this meeting annually, we hope to encourage them to continue to be a part of that tradition, she said.

Other LR seniors presenting at the meeting included Keyarra Bumgarner of Hickory, Jennipher Harris of Raleigh, Richard Jordan of Statesville, Breanna Lucas of Hickory, Shristi Silwal of Morganton, and Robert Steljes of Statesville. Junior biology students attending included Luke Lynch of Pinehurst, Miguel Sanchez of Conover, Adam Slaght of Concord, and Ashlyn Karre of Newton.
CPI(M) and Congress hit out at Trinamool Congress on Sunday over the use of an alleged morphed picture of Union home minister Rajnath Singh, accusing it of bringing down electioneering to a new low in the state. Both parties said that complaints will be filed with police and the Election Commission in this regard.

BJP too has said it will file a complaint with police over the morphed photo.

CPI(M) and Congress accused the TMC of making a desperate attempt to brush aside charges of a match-fixing between TMC and BJP.

We will lodge police complaints both in Kolkata and in New Delhi. We will also move EC. This morphed image is a guilt conscience of TMC. As a match-fixing between both the parties have come to fore, TMC is taking those desperate steps, CPI(M) leader Nilotpal Basu told PTI.

CPI(M) Politburo member Mohammed Salim termed the use of a morphed image as criminal offence.

Senior Congress leader and MP Pradip Bhattacharya described it as a shameful incident and a desperate attempt by TMC in wake of allegations of political match-fixing between TMC and BJP over Saradha scam.

The Congress leader termed it as a new low in the history of electioneering in West Bengal.

The Trinamool Congress, following a press conference by its national spokesperson Derek OBrien, had on Sunday posted two videos and six pictures on its website.

The party, however, removed Rajnath Singhs morphed picture from its website after controversy.

...along with these two videos, six pictures were posted on our party website, out of which one had shown Rajnath Singh offering sweets to Prakash Karat. This picture was there on our website for quite some time. But as soon as we came to know that the picture is morphed, we removed it. We have apologised. The matter should end there, Brien had told PTI.

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury tweeted, A picture is worth 1000 words and morphing pictures? That is a sign of sheer panic before TMCs impending loss.

Reacting to the incident, Karat said, I have not got any opportunity of meeting Rajnath Singh ever. It is a patently false picture.

A TMC statement later on said, Two videos & 6 pics were shown at our press conference. We removed one pic immediately when our research team learnt it was photoshopped.
Forty-nine seats in the two districts of North 24 Parganas and Howrah  both of them considered the ruling Trinamool Congress impregnable citadel  will go to polls in the phase-4 elections in West Bengal on Monday, with the party upbeat about retaining their 2011 tally of 44 seats in these two districts.

Political heavyweights from all camps are in the fray in this phase, including seven ministers  five of them from North 24 Parganas alone.

The ministers testing their fates are Amit Mitra (Khardaha), Jyotipriya Mallick (Habra), Bratya Basu (Dum Dum), Purnendu Basu (Rajarhat-Gopalpur), Chandrima Bhattacharya (Dum Dum North), Arup Roy (Howrah Central) and Rajib Bandopadhyay (Domjur).

Bidhan Nagar Mayor and incumbent MLA from Rajarhat New Town, Sabyasachi Dutta, is another heavyweight from TMC.

Besides, CPI(M)s Asim Dasgupta (Khardaha), BJPs Rupa Ganguly (Howrah North) and Congress Arunabha Ghosh (Rajarhat New Town) are also in the fray.

The phase-4 elections is a prestige fight for the ruling party, which has to make sure it retains the 2011 tally because incumbent chief minister Mamata Banerjee is worried about her partys results in two of the four rounds already polled.

In North 24 Parganas (33 seats) and Howrah (16 seats), the trends of the 2013 panchayat, 2014 Lok Sabha and the 2015 municipal elections clearly showed the voters were predominantly in favour of the ruling party.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Trinamool Congress won more than the combined votes of the CPI(M) and the Congress in all 16 seats of Howrah. In North 24 Parganas, they led in 26 out of 33 seats.

The Opposition, however, hopes to make inroads in these Trinamool bastions.

Well have a clean sweep in these two districts. People of these areas have experienced change under Mamata Banerjee and have got the fruits of the development initiatives taken up by the government. There is no way the Opposition can make its presence felt here, Mallick, a senior Trinamool leader and chief of Trinamools North 24 Parganas district committee, said.

Congress leader Om Prakash Mishra, on the other hand, is confident that the Trinamool will face disastrous results in these two districts.

Even their ministers are going to lose, Mishra said.
Union minority affairs minister Najma Heptullah said in Bhopal on Sunday that her ministry had drafted a bill to protect Waqf Board properties and it would soon be put before the Union Cabinet.

Waqf is a permanent dedication of movable or immovable properties for religious, pious or charitable purposes as recognised by Muslim Law, given by philanthropists.

However, she said, as the government procedures take time, the Muslim community can start a movement or an agitation on their own to free the waqf properties from encroachments.

If people come forward to agitate, I will agitate with them on this issue.

The Waqf Board has huge properties across India spread over six lakh acres in all, the minister said.

Citing the Sacchar Committee report on welfare of minorities, she said if the Waqf properties were put to use, they can fetch Rs 12,000 crore annually.

The minister emphasised that if developed commercially, the huge sum of money from waqf properties could be used for the upliftment of Muslims in the country especially in education.

She said 100 waqf properties had been already identified across the country for their commercial development.

Heptullah said across the country wherever government offices were functioning from waqf properties, her ministry would try to negotiate with the government for providing rent for the same.

She said there were two ways to ensure removal of encroachments from the waqf properties.

First, a legislation should be brought immediately. In the past, a standing committee of parliament had returned a bill in this regard. I have again sent the bill for cabinet approval. Once the bill is passed, it will help us in putting a check on illegal encroachment of waqf properties. Second, the waqf boards should digitise their properties and go for physical verification to identify the exact details about encroachments, she said.

She was asked about what development works she had undertaken in the Phanda village (20 km from Bhopal) which she had adopted in 2014 under the pradhan mantri sansad adarsh gram yojana and why had she not visited the village in the past. She said if somebody adopted a child, it does not mean the child will always be carried in their lap.

My team, my people, local MLAs and MPs are working there in the village. This government believes in team work. We have done work there, she said.

The Narendra Modi government has increased budgetary allocation for minority welfare, she said, adding scholarships for students from the minority communities had been increased by 25%.

Earlier, Heptullah inaugurated a gathering of women writers here. She also attended a programme under Gram Udayse Bharat Uday campaign at Phanda village
Only 10% of the 10 million people expected attended the first Shahi Snan at the Simhastha fair in Ujjain.

The low turnout on Friday is being blamed on the extreme heat and drought-like conditions in many states, an overzealous police that set up barricades across the city and an overall concern for security.

Whatever the cause, it is clear that many people chose to stay away from the fairgrounds, affecting business in the holy city. Hotels, which were expected to be overflowing with guests during the month-long event, are struggling to rent out available rooms.

Vijay Jaiswal, the owner of Meghdoot Resorts, said occupancy was only 60% on Friday.

Hotels that hiked fares by up to five times on advance bookings a month ago have slashed it to one-third after lukewarm response during the first Shahi Snan.

The administration scrambled to find the reason for the low footfall, with a series a meetings on Saturday. Senior officials privy to what was discussed said chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan too was worried about the turn of events.

The state government was confident of bumper attendance during the Snan, and just three days ago in-charge minister Bhupendra Singh announced that anywhere between 10 and 20 million pilgrims were expected. And the government had good reason to expect a huge turnout crores of rupees were spent on publicity in India and abroad, inviting people to be a part of this historical fair.

However, much the governments chagrin, only 600,000-700,000 devotees turned up.

A senior bureaucrat said the extreme heat in the region was what prevented people from attending. Temperatures were touching 42 degrees Celsius in mid-April itself, which is mainly witnessed during May-end. Also the drought-like conditions in neighbouring states of Maharashtra and Rajasthan, from where a large number of people were expected, were also a major reason, he said.

On the other hand, a member of the Simhastha Central Committee, Roop Pamnani, blamed the over-the-top security arrangements. He said people were deterred because they would have had to leave their vehicles and walk a long distance in the heat to reach the venue.

Locals have advised their relatives to avoid visiting on Shahi Snan days. I too advised my friend who wanted to come from Mumbai not to come on days of Shahi Snan as their vehicles would be stopped long before they reached the ghats, said Pamnani.

Barricades around the city for traffic management during Simhastha is also said to have prevented Ujjain residents from coming out.

In fact, director general of police Surendra Sinh met senior officers on Saturday to review changes needed in the traffic- and crowd-management plan. Police superintendent MS Verma admitted that unnecessary restrictions were imposed at some intersections due to communication gap.

Security at any major event is a matter of concern. But the revelation that a map of Ujjain was recovered from SIMI activists arrested in Odisha and an astrologers much-publicised prediction of an unpleasant incident taking place during the Simhastha due to chandal yog might have played a role in the imposition of stringent restrictions in Ujjain.

Local MLA and state minister Paras Jain, however, is positive that the numbers would rise as the fair progresses and the issues are addressed. Divisional commissioner Ravindra Pastore too expressed confidence that the number of devotees would grow in the coming days.
It wouldnt be wrong to say that Ram Gopal Varma gave gangster films a new lease of life in Bollywood. Whether it was the character of Bhiku Mhatre in Satya (1998), Subhash Nagre in Sarkar (2006), or Chandu in Company (2002)  the eccentric film-maker has a knack for creating memorable characters in the grittiest films. This drama often finds its way into Varmas off-screen life too; this reflects in his posts, or controversies, on social media and even in his work space in Andheri (W). But the film-maker is rarely perturbed. He wasnt bothered when critics wrote him off a few years ago, and he certainly isnt bothered now, about what people might think of him and his acidic remarks.

I am being buried for many years now. The media has proliferated so much that, today, everything gets amplified. But the basic sentiment of me being dead or finished or gone has been around for many years. Bi****ing only gets creative with time, and why shouldnt it? Otherwise, we will all die of boredom, says Varma.

.Read: Dumb Rajinikanth fans cant tell I complimented him: Ram Gopal Varma

In 2013, after the release of Satya 2, Varma took a break from B-Town, but continued making films in several south Indian film industries. I didnt want to do Hindi films for some time, as I wanted to give another look at the kinds of films I was making. I am very impulsive by nature. Thats why I make my films very fast. But people feel I make too many films, and I make them too fast, so I make flops. Nonetheless, I would like to believe that I know what the cause of my failure is. I spent the most amount of money and time on Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag (2007) and Department (2012), and both the films are the biggest flops of my career. So, I know that failure comes when you choose the wrong material, and any director is as good as the material he handles, he says.

The 54-year-old admits that his arrogance was also responsible for his failure. I just wanted to stop, zoom out, and check whats happening before I came back [to Bollywood]. In the past two years, I have readied six scripts that can go into production any day. So, I have come back with gun, grenades and revolvers in my pocket to attack (laughs), he says.

Read: RGV Talkies will never make films on sports or God: Ram Gopal Varma

Varma insists that he has become even wilder now. I am like a wild horse. Having said that, I have tried to add some method to my madness, which will hopefully produce a result, says the film-maker, adding that intensity attracts him. I dont like family dramas or rom-coms. I never saw Rangeela (1995) as a rom-com. It could be light-hearted due to the music, humour and basic emotions, but it had a lot of intensity. I especially dont like sex comedies, because I take sex very seriously. I am most attracted to larger-than-life characters, he says.

What has the director excited currently is his new film, Veerappan, which is based on the life and killing of one of Indias most notorious bandits. Right from my debut film, Shiva (1991), I was always interested in the dark side of people. Veerappan always fascinated me. I first heard about him in 1995 or 1996 when a reward was announced to capture him, he says. At that time, Varma had planned to produce a film called Lets Catch Veerappan, with Shimit Amin as the director. It was about three guys wanting to help the police [catch Veerappan] for the reward money. But the day we started shooting, Veerappan was killed, so I junked the idea. Then, a few years back, I met some men who were part of Operation Cocoon, which was responsible for killing Veerappan. That intelligence operation caught my attention, since no one knows what happened behind the scenes of Veerappans killing, he says.

Ask him what draws him to the lives of offenders and lawbreakers, and he says, I think people will be much more interested in the story of a man who killed many people than in the story of Mother Theresa who helped many people. People have an inherent curiosity about people who live violent lives. People are attracted to anything that is highly dramatic.

Watch: Trailer of RGVs Veerappan

Is that why on the other hand, talking about his outspoken nature, Varma says he has never understood the meaning of being politically incorrect. I will say what I feel is correct. If someone gets offended by my tweets, they he or she can unfollow me. And outsiders, be it the media or anyone else, have no business peeking into my Twitter handle. Also, saying politically correct things like, Hello, how are you? or You are a very nice guy is really boring, he says.

In fact, at a time when Bollywood is increasingly being perceived as a friendly space, Varma unabashedly calls himself an unfriendly person. The problem with friends is that you help them once, and they will come back again for help. I will never go to someone for help. It doesnt make sense both ways. Also, I dont give anyone that much importance [in my life], he says.

On his expletives-laden tweet for Big B

When I said something about him, everyone went berserk. They didnt understand that it was a compliment. He, who should have been most offended, understood. It proves that people are not seeing the point I was trying to make.

On his comment on Rajinikanth

We always thought a superstar is tall, good-looking, and has a six-pack. He is none of that, and is still a superstar. He defies that entire definition. Whats wrong with that? Its the highest compliment he can get. His fans thought I was being offensive, but thats their dumbness; I am being smart.

On Anurag Kashyap

I really like Gangs Of Wasseypur 1 (2012), but I am not a fan of his kind of films. I havent seen many of his films. So, I dont know how to describe them. I like him as a person and a dialogue writer. Theres something uniquely independent about his thinking and writing, which I might not connect with, but he is original. If he has made disparaging comments about me, its fine.

On Karan Johar

I used to think that Karan makes false films, but after attending Abhisheks (Bachchan) wedding, I realised that his films are more real than my films, like Satya, because I never attend wedding ceremonies. Everyone has their own sensibilities. I have always complimented him. When I said his films are like horror films, I said it looking at the scale of his success. Any dumb person will know its a compliment. So, I respect the way he has built himself or his films, but I will never be able to watch them, as they arent my kind of movies.

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He started off his Bollywood career with a glamorous Karan Johar film  Student Of The Year (2012). But, since then, Varun Dhawan has been trying to mix things up. As he turns 29 today (April 24), we chat with him about his life, career and his thoughts on marriage.

Today, do you feel a year older or younger?

I hope a year older, because ever since I joined the industry, I have only been playing characters that are around 23-24 years, except in Badlapur (2015). So, in my head, I am still that age. But people want me to behave in a mature way. So, I hope I turn a year older (smiles).

How do you look back at your journey in the film industry?

Its too small a journey to look back on. There are many goals that I want to achieve. Its been great till now; my fans have been amazing, the media has been superb and, above all, God has been great to me. But, as I go ahead, things become tougher and tougher. Now, I want to do different roles, and try to push the envelope.

Watch: Varun Dhawan, Kriti Sanon in Manma Emotion Jaage from Dilwale

Do you think you have an advantage, since you come from a film family?

Its an advantage as well as a disadvantage. Of course, I have a bouncing board in my father (David Dhawan; film-maker), whom I can keep going to for any number of problems. But, at the end of the day, its me who will give the shot. So, I am the one who has to have the conviction. I follow my heart and my instinct about films and people. I have realised one thing though  I should only work with people I like. I find it very difficult to work with people I dont like; I cant do that.

You are trying to tap into various genres. Is that a planned move?

Not really. I do films that Id also like to watch as an audience member. Earlier, I would watch a lot of movies in the theatre, and thats when I enjoyed them the most. So, I only judge any film, whether it is good or bad, by that standard (if they are liked by a large number of people). So, my next film, which is being directed by my brother (Rohit Dhawan), is coming up. And it is an action-adventure movie, a genre that I dont think has been attempted in Bollywood before.

Watch: Varun Dhawan in Badlapur trailer

Do you get bothered when your personal life makes news?

I think it just takes away from your work sometimes. I have no issues in talking about my personal life, but I feel it takes away from my career and my characters, especially when a film is about to release. People start feeling that this is all that actors focus on. I would rather have people focus on my characters.

As you turn older, are you thinking about marriage?

I have not been thinking about it at all. I am turning older, but I dont think I am that old or mature to get hitched. But, I would want to get married in a couple of years. Before that, I want to be able to buy a house with my own money, and also one that is close to my parents house. There are so many things that I need to do before I can take the responsibility of having a life partner.

Have you found a partner?

No comments (laughs).

Read: A Lot of people dont like me: Varun Dhawan

You have been called the new-age Govinda, among other things. Whats your so-called zone?

I dont have a zone. I cant deny that I have a baby face. So, I cant start taking on characters that I dont suit. Naturally, I will be offered roles that suit my face. When I grow old and look mature, I will take on parts that fit my personality at the time. Of course, I will experiment [with my roles] and will take some risks too. I am probably not the youngest [among the new crop of actors]. But I look the youngest, which is a plus and a minus.

Unlike many, you are also open to working in films that have multiple heroes...

Until you work with other people, how will you grow as an artiste? I think thats important. If I am an audience member, and I see a hero  who plays the protagonist  come out with four films in a year, I will get bored. For instance, in my brothers film, John (Abraham) is my co-star. Since he is a bona fide action star, who better than him to learn the ropes of action from? Things become more exciting then.

Varun Dhawan and Shraddha Kapoor during the trailer launch of ABCD 2 in Mumbai. (AP Photo)

You started experimenting with your films at the start of your career

It just worked out. I couldnt have imagined the way people reacted to Badlapur (2015) or even ABCD 2 (2015). I am trying to do films that are different from each other, even in terms of the way they look. At the end of the day, films are for posterity. Whenever you take on a movie, you should keep in mind that it will be watched [and judged] many years later too.

Read: I am too well-behaved to need a girl in my life: Varun Dhawan

Do you feel the expectations from you are high now?

Actually, the expectations from me have always been a lot, even at home. And since films like Badlapur and ABCD 2 did well, the pressure is even more now. Now, people wait to see what I do next. A lot of people must be waiting for me to fail too (smiles).

Do you feel pressurised, looking at the competition around you?

In terms of the films [my contemporaries are doing], I get more inspired. When I see movies like Kapoor & Sons and Piku (2015), I get kicked about doing good films. But, I guess, I tilt a little bit more towards the darker side when it comes to film choices; thats what I like. I am a little extreme in that sense  either I like bright and happy cinema, or I enjoy really dark cinema that kids cant watch.

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Kriti Sanon is currently shooting for her next film in Budapest, Hungary, along with Sushant Singh Rajput. Like the rest of the cast, Kriti is also staying at a hotel in the capital. To make sure she feels at home in her hotel room, the actor recently went shopping in the city.

The source says, Kriti bought a few things, like photo frames and candles, for her hotel room. She has put all these things up in her room to make it feel like her room in Mumbai.

Read: Its scary to imagine yourself failing: Kriti Sanon

Confirming the news, Kriti says, The hotel room in Budapest is temporarily my home, since I will be living here for a long time. I have bought things like candles and photo frames to make it feel like home.

Read: Eating gujiyas on Holi is a must for me: Kriti Sanon
Considered one of the high-performing ministers in the Narendra Modi government, energy minister Piyush Goyal met ministers, investors and toured parts of Britains energy infrastructure during a busy two-day visit to London last week. The first energy ministers summit between India and Britain is due to be held in New Delhi in July. Amid new focus on solar energy generation, Goyal believes coal will remain an imperative for Indias energy needs for the forseeable future. He spoke on a range of energy issues during an interview with Hindustan Times.

Excerpts:

Will the large scale of demand for LED bulbs create the enabling environment to manufacture in India or they will be met through imports?

Even now, except for the chips, everything is manufactured in India. Going forward, I am told people are now starting manufacture end-to-end in India, considering the huge volumes that we are now consuming. Earlier, it was a small programme of the government, now one government company is selling 700,000 bulbs a day. We closed March 2016 by selling 90 million bulbs by that company; (checks smartphone and shows the figure) the actual figure is 97,237,518 bulbs. This year they will probably go over 150 million or 170 million bulbs. The company procures them from various sources, all AAA companies, through a transparent process. The prices have come down by 83 per cent in the last 18 months. They used to buy it at 310 rupees two years ago, now the price is down to 54.90 rupees, thanks to transparency, honesty, economies of scale and large volumes. And this is 30 per cent more illumination: earlier it was a 7 watt bulb; we now give a 9 watt bulb. Thats the power of numbers that India offers to the world; that is what I have been talking to investors here. The scale at which India is developing; the potential market size that India offers; a billion plus people aspiring for a better quality of life  it is the worlds largest energy market going forward. While most of the countries will be reducing their energy consumption, India will be quadrupling its energy consumption in the next 15 years.

What about solar cells, they are mostly imported from China.

We are looking at a programme to encourage domestic manufacturing. Very soon we will come out with a policy on that. I would like to see domestic solar manufacturing capacity to go up to at least 10 giga watt in the next few years, per year.

After LEDs you are now looking at energy efficient fans and ACs. Is there a pricing plan for them?

Going to the next level is the LED fans. A pilot of 100,000 fans has been launched in Vishakhapatnam. We will be taking up more products; next will be energy efficient agricultural pumps.

You said recently that you wanted to eliminate thermal coal imports altogether within two or three years  can you elaborate how that will be possible?

Our production of coal is increasing very rapidly. Coal India Limited increased production in our first year of government by 6.9 per cent; second year by 8.6 per cent. This kind of growth in coal production was never witnessed before. Today we have a situation in which the country has surplus coal. When I became Power minister two-thirds of our power plants were running on critical stocks; today not a single power plan has critical stocks. In fact they are sitting on so much stocks that they are telling us to hold back supplies. We have plans to ramp up coal production very aggressively  go up to a billion tonnes only in Coal India and as a nation up to a billion and a half tonnes. In this backdrop, our challenge will be to transport coal to distant, coastal plants, for which we are working for coastal movement of coal to take it to southern and western shores, so that we can eliminate imports.

What are the implications of this for the future.

India is going to expand its energy consumption to four times what it is today in the next 15 years. Western countries can cut down coal and replace it by renewables; I will need to have more coal. Where will the baseload come from? I cant tell my people that you will get power only from 6am to 5pm and after that we live in darkness. You need 24-hour power, you need a baseload; and that baseload for India is coal. We are looking at clean coal technologies to reduce the impact of pollution. In fact, the west has put an embargo on financing coal-based power plants. I think it is so counter-productive, because I want to replace my old plants with new super-efficient coal-based plants, but because of this embargo I dont get enough capital. I wont be able to replace them with energy efficient plants or less polluting plants and will continue to spew more carbon in the atmosphere because of this ill-conceived embargo. There is no other country whose commitment to climate change is comparable to Indias, whereas the developed world was supposed to put a 100 billion dollars for clean energy financing, but we dont see a single dollar out of that as yet. This was a commitment made several years ago.

What is the situation on the promise to provide electricity to everyone in the country?

That is something we are committed to, which is why we will need to have more developmental space to have more affordable energy in the system. By 2022 we had committed to provide this to all, we now feel that we may be able to do it by 2019 given the amount of work that has already happened and the fact that we believe electricity is very important for every human being to improve his quality of life.

Have you quantified the employment generation potential of the overall reforms in the sector?

My solar energy programme alone will generate about a million jobs. But overall the energy sector as it closes upto 2030 we see these huge investments coming in to quadruple our energy, I can see this sector giving us potential employment to 3 to 4 million people in different aspects: generation, transmission, distribution, efficiency, coal mining, lignite mining.

Is the low solar tariff (Rs.4.34 a unit as per latest NTPC project in Rajasthan) sustainable?

Of course, it is. There is very good radiation in Rajasthan. NTPC is a AAA company, which gave a lot of comfort to investors and the counter-party risk was almost eliminated. It is an open, transparent bidding process, reputed companies have bid at that price. It is something I have no control on. I am only providing a business opportunity. International and domestic players are coming in and bidding.

Can you say something on Indias plans for nuclear power?

I dont deal with the nuclear subject but we are open to it. We are working with different countries to secure uranium supplies, we are talking to companies on technology options. We are working to see which is the best, most safe technology to bring in. Already, some plants are under expansion in India. Jaitapur is under consideration; it is at at an advanced stage of discussion.

How are you addressing fuel shortage of gas-based power plants? We dont have enough domestic gas supplies.

We have a serious problem that we dont have enough gas in India. So for two years we had given a support programme by which we were importing gas and helping plants to make them operational. Right now the prices are very low, so the plants are quite feasible to operate even with market purchases. Going forward I am looking at tying up long-term contracts on gas so that if I can get a firm price of gas on long-term basis we can have these plants regularly work and provide spinning reserves or peaking reserves to support my renewable energy programme.

Are you looking at more investment on renewables or fossil-based activities of the sector, given that globally new investment in renewable energy has exceeded fossil fuels.

When you have two or three children, you look after all of them equally. We are also putting huge focus on renewables; as I said, we have the worlds largest renewable energy programme. We plan to have 40 per cent of our installed capacity from renewables by 2030.

Will there be new initiatives for fossil fuels?

We are actively looking at clean coal technologies. We already have join research on clean coal going on with Australia. Ill be going to MIT next month; I have already had one round of discussions; our teams are engaged with them and we are initiating more joint research with MIT on clean coal technologies. By and large all new coal-based plants coming up are super efficient plants; going forward we will also introduce ultra super efficient plants. So while using coal is an imperative for us, we are very committed to using coal efficiently and ensuring pollution is minimum.

Is there anything investors here were particularly interested in?

There is so much excitement about investing in India from investors in London; even among international investors based in London. I feel there is huge potential for India and the UK to work together both on the technology space and on the investment space. There is lot of interest in Indian debt paper, looking at masala bonds, green bonds to be issued through the London markets. Investors were very keen that India should look at further simplfying the regulatory framework and providing a single window structure where any investor can have a one-stop shop to understand the entire Indian eco system. There is some interest around dollar- denominated tariffs. We had very engaging discussions on all these issues.

Any concerns they had that you were able to allay, or not?

Usually in any such interactions certain questions so come up, lot of suggestions come up and everybody was very much excited about the immense potential that India holds in the energy sector to attract international investment. I am very confident that UK and India can work together, particularly given the commitments that both prime ministers gave to the energy sector in the joint statement that was issued during Mr Modis visit (in November 2015).

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Reliance Industries has bought crude oil from Iran after a 6-year break and is looking to strike a long-term fixed quantity deal, post lifting of sanctions.

RIL, which operates the worlds biggest refining complex at Jamnagar in Gujarat, is looking at quickly ramping up purchases to the earlier levels of about 5 million tonnes a year.

Re-established relationship with Iran, sourced crude oil post lifting of sanctions, the company said in an investor presentation after reporting 2015-16 earnings.

Bowing to international pressure to isolate Iran over its nuclear programme, RIL in January 2009 had stopped exporting gasoline or petrol to Iran. And from February 2010, it stopped buying crude oil from the West Asian nation.

RIL, which has substantial investments in US shale gas projects, besides being a big supplier of fuel, shelved its business with Iran over fears of being sanctioned.

With sanctions on Iran ending in January this year, RIL has re-established its ties with the country.

Its joint CFO V Srikanth, in a press briefing in Mumbai on Friday, said the company is engaged in talks with Iran for bigger supplies, including a term or annual fixed quantity contract.

We have had engagements with Iran before the sanctions and they have grades of crude that are attractive to us, he added.

Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) and Essar Oil Ltd are the main buyers of Iranian oil in India, importing between them about 10 million tonnes a year.

Besides, Indian Oil Corp (IOC) is looking at doubling imports from Iran to 4 mt this year. Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) too may pick up small quantities this year.
Indias public universities and technical institutes are suddenly transforming into sites of youthful turmoil and bitter contestations. Unfolding within their walls are battles for freedom of speech in universities, and less edifying skirmishes about nationalism. But my recent visit to Hyderabad Central University (HCU) reminded me that in some educational centres disquiet springs from long-thwarted yearning and suppressed struggles of students from disadvantaged and stigmatised castes and religions for a climate of equality and welcome in institutions of higher learning.

The HCU ferment refuses even today to die down. At its main gate, policepersons block entry to any outsider. However, I was able briefly to meet the protesting students and some faculty at the university. Invited for a lecture, I was let in by a side gate. After my talk, I went to the protest site to talk to the students  and also some faculty  who sent word that they wanted to meet me.

The protest site is the courtyard of a small student shopping arcade called shop.com. This became the epicentre of struggles ever since PhD Dalit scholars Rohith Vemula and his four friends  suspended by the university administration  launched a relay hunger strike in January. The frayed tent still stands at the same location. It bears the sardonic sign veli vada or Dalit ghetto, students continue their protest under it, now against the continuation in office as vice-chancellor of the man who ordered Vemulas suspension. On a screen behind the tent, among pictures of Dalit icons BR Ambedkar, Mahatma Gandhi, and Savitribai Phule is a smiling photograph of their lost comrade Rohith Vemula. A few steps away, his friends have erected a white plaster-of-Paris bust of Vemula.

Read | Rohith Vemula : An unfinished portrait

The student protests in HCU only partly resemble those in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), insofar as both seek to defend the rights of students to dissent, mainly against what they see as anti-poor, majoritarian and communal politics and policies. But it is important to recognise that unlike in JNU, the central issue in HCU student and faculty protests is the embedded institutional bias within the university against students and faculty from socially disadvantaged backgrounds.

The splendid, possibly paramount contribution of public-funded universities like JNU and HCU is that among the students admitted to these universities are growing numbers of young women and men whose childhoods were marked by want and social discrimination. Kanhaiya and Rohith are not exceptional in their deprived backgrounds, as the numbers of young people like them who battle and overcome extremely deprived backgrounds  socially, economically and educationally  to qualify for the countrys best public universities, have risen rapidly.

Read | All you need to know about the Dalit scholar suicide row

The critical difference between JNU and HCU is that the large majority of the JNU faculty nurture these young students of disadvantage. JNU students may feel compelled to battle injustice outside the university, in the larger world, but not within their campuses. The Dalit and Muslim students in HCU are not so fortunate. Senior professors from Hyderabad tell me that large sections of the university faculty are openly anti-Dalit and communal. Rohith was not the first Dalit student to have taken his life in HCU. Nine students committed suicide on the campus in the last decade, yet corrective steps were not taken to understand and change why the university remains threatening and unwelcoming to Dalit students.

Read | Union min Dattatreya charged for Dalit scholar suicide, probe ordered

One hundred and thirty scholars from around the world wrote to the VC of the hostile, casteist environment of higher education in India. A university where students turn away from life with the regularity they have at the University of Hyderabad requires urgent and massive rehauling This suicide is not an individual act. It is the failure of premier higher educational institutions in democratic India to meet their most basic obligation: To foster the intellectual and personal growth of Indias most vulnerable young people. Instead, Rohith now joins a long list of victims of prejudice at premier institutions in the country, where pervasive discrimination drives so many Dalit students to depression and suicide, when not simply forcing them to quietly drop out.

The last of these suicides occurred in the last week of November 2013, when PhD scholar M Venkatesh killed himself. Rohiths close friend Ch. Ramji recalled to Deccan Herald that Rohith was disturbed by his passing. He had said: These protests and media coverage will die out in a few days. Dalit students will continue to be harassed here. Months later, Rohith was suspended for his anti-national activities by a committee constituted by vice-chancellor Appa Rao, comprising four out of five upper-caste faculty. This action was taken even without hearing the students. Rohith wrote a month before his suicide to the VC to supply Dalit students sodium azide and a nice rope at the time of admission itself.

Unmindful of the anguish and anger of students  Dalit, Muslim, Left and liberal  in HCU, the same VC Appa Rao who ordered Rohiths suspension recently re-joined his duties. After the violent protests that followed, 24 students and 2 faculty members were arrested. It is hardly a coincidence that 14 students and both staff were Dalit, and most of the rest Muslim.

This is not only a battle for freedom of speech in universities. It is a demand, a struggle, for a climate of equality and acceptance in universities from students who emerge from disadvantaged and stigmatised castes and religions. Faculty members spoke to me about their concerns about the targeting of these students by other faculty and the police. The students agonised about their futures, convinced that they would continue to be beleaguered by a university administration led by a VC they believe to be anti-Dalit. Their teachers worried even more about their mental health. Their depression, their loneliness, their despondency. All these students are demanding is a fair, accepting, egalitarian space for them to study, understand the world, and dream.

Harsh Mander is convener, Aman Biradari

The views expressed are personal

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A four-year-old girl is fighting for life at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) after her neighbour allegedly raped and strangled her at his home in east Delhis Kalyanpuri on Saturday afternoon.

The accused attempted to kill the girl, fearing she might land him in jail. Presuming she had died, he tried to leave the girl at her house. He was caught and thrashed by the locals after the girls grandmother saw him and raised an alarm, said the police.

The police have arrested the accused, identified as Ravi Kumar, 26. Ravi is a tenant on the second floor of the building, where the girl lives with her parents and grandmother on the third floor. He was booked under the relevant sections of POCSO Act and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The girls parents work in a private company. They were at work, when the girl was reportedly attacked.

A police officer said the crime came to light on Saturday evening from Lal Bahadur Shastri hospital, where the girl was admitted in a critical condition. A police team arrived at the hospital and learnt that the girl was sexually assaulted. The doctors said she was semi-conscious when brought to the hospital.

The girl was referred to AIIMS. Her condition is said to be serious, though she is showing signs of recovery. She had received some injuries in her private parts, the officer said.

On Saturday around 3 pm, the girl was sleeping with her grandmother in their house when Ravi took her away. He then raped her in his room on the second floor. As the girl started crying in pain, Ravi got scared and gagged her. The girl fell unconscious when he strangled her.

Ravi panicked when the girl became motionless. He went upstairs, tried to leave the girl on the bed next to her grandmother. But her grandmother woke up and raised an alarm, said the officer. He said the child was reportedly bleeding.

The preliminary probe in the case revealed that Ravi was a habitual drinker and worked at a factory nearby. He shared his room with his friends. Prima facie, he was drunk when he committed the crime. We are waiting for his medical report for a confirmation, the officer said.
The central government will soon launch a child tracking system to monitor the academic progress of more than 200 million schoolchildren.

HRD minister Smriti Irani announced the proposed initiative in series of tweets on Saturday.

Introducing a child tracking system for over200million children all across the country to track movement class to class,identify drop outs.  Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) 23 April 2016

Sources at the HRD ministry said the proposal is an extension of another digital initiative called Shala-Darpan which was launched earlier in Kendriya Vidyalaya and enabled parents to keep a watch on their childs presence in the class, his performance among other things.

Like Shala Darpan this will be a digital platform that will help ministry keep a record on the childrens enrolment and their progress to another class.

Due to RTE concept of bridge schools was discontinued which disabilitated entrance of out of schoolchildren into the school system(1/2)  Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) 23 April 2016

(2/2) we r formalising learning modules to teach n assess competency so that they can enter the school system at an age appropriate class.  Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) 23 April 2016

In another tweet she said unlike the days of UPA government when monitoring the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), the programme for achievement of universalisation of elementary education was done annually, her ministry will track it online daily.

Read: Dont give schools f(r)ee hand, parents tell dy commissioner

We did mid term review online. This year we shall track SSA daily online. Real time data will help engage productively with states, she said. Irani also announced that her ministry is developing an expenditure portal that centralises various sources of school education data in India.

(2/2) we did mid term review online.This year we shall track SSA daily online. Real time data will help engage productively with states.  Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) 23 April 2016

She also mentioned a first of its kind portal for Teacher Education Institutions which will ensure transparency and grading. In another message, Irani mentioned said the Shala Siddhi scheme of her ministry will be extended to all schools.

Read: Number of govt schools surge while enrolment falls in HP
Seems like Deepika Padukone is having a gala time on the sets of xXx: The return of Xander Cage. Recently, her co-star, Tony Jaa, posted a selfie with the 30-year-old diva, wherein they both look like two kids, goofing around the sets and posting pout selfies.

The Thai actor also seconds the same, and posted, We never stop having fun when #DeepikaPadukone s on set.

We never stop having fun when #DeepikaPadukone 's on set. pic.twitter.com/xrSUqb3lO9  Tony Jaa (@tonyjaaofficial) April 22, 2016

The Bajirao Mastani actor will be wrapping up her shoot by mid of May and will be back to start her next in Bollywood.

Follow @htshowbiz for more.
A 35-year-old factory worker was allegedly gang raped by five men and her brother beaten up at an isolated stretch near Vijay Nagar on Friday night. The two were returning from Noida after work when the incident occurred.

Due to traffic on National Highway 24, her brother took the unmetalled road in Avas Vikas residential area. They had taken the alternative route from NH-24 in order to reach home quickly and avoid the congested highway.

The victim works at a garment factory in sector-63 Noida and was returning home to Ghaziabad along with her brother on a bike. According to her complaint, they were travelling via NH-24 after getting off from work around 8.30pm.

When we moved further, it was around 9.30pm and there was a long traffic jam on the highway. My brother decided to take the bike along an isolated route to reach home quickly. Five men spotted us and stopped our bike. They beat up my brother and forced me into a dense area covered with vegetation where they raped me. They threatened us with a knife and asked us not to raise our voices, the victim said in her complaint. I have never seen the men before and they were unidentified, she said.

She said she also lost her mobile phone during the incident and suspected that it could be with the assailants.

Following the incident, the woman approached the Vijay Nagar police station on Saturday morning and filed a complaint. The police lodged an FIR of gang rape and ,criminal intimidation.

Following the FIR, the woman was sent for medical examination. We have launched an investigation, said Salman Taj, superintendent of police at Ghaziabad.

The police said that the victim is a mother of three.

Officials said that they will also question the victim and her brother as to why they delayed lodging the FIR since the incident was serious in nature.

The medical examination of the victim has been conducted and the reports are awaited, a police officer said.

There have been several incidents of rape, especially involving minor girls in Ghaziabad recently. Two rape cases of minors came to light recently under Niwari and Bhojpur police station areas. In one of the incidents, a 6-year-old r was murdered after being raped by a 35-year-old man.
Two people were killed and several injured when violence erupted at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday.

Students reportedly shot at each other and set university property  including the proctors office and several vehicles  on fire. Police eventually brought the situation under control and arrested a few of the rampaging students.

An expelled student died on Saturday night while another youth injured in the clash succumbed to his injuries at a hospital on Sunday, AMU spokesperson Rahat Abrar said.

The Rapid Action Force (RAF) was deployed at all sensitive spots, especially in view of an entrance test for the engineering college.

Police sources said the violence originated from a disagreement between two student groups, following which the hostel room of a student  identified as Mohsin  was set afire around 11pm. Soon after, Mohsin went to the proctors office to lodge a complaint.

When members of the opposing group caught wind of this, they landed at the proctors office and began firing at Mohsin and his friends. Two people were critically injured in the crossfire, and had to be shifted to the medical college for treatment.

Mehtab, hailing from Ghazipur, succumbed to his injuries at the medical centre. Waqif was taken to a Delhi hospital for treatment, but he died later on Sunday.

Police said that a clash broke out between the two groups on the medical college campus too, following which police personnel from the Civil Lines and Kawarasi police stations rushed to the scene. By 1.30am, a rampaging group of students had burnt down the proctors office  destroying records and furniture. They also set several vehicles on the campus ablaze, and tried to torch the vice-chancellors lodge and guest house.

AMU public relations officer Rahat Abrar said Mehtab, an M.P.Ed student, had been rusticated from the campus. Waqif, on the other hand, was an outsider.

Deputy inspector general (Aligarh range) Govind Agarwal said rapid action force personnel were called in when the violence escalated. Police officers have been posted on the AMU campus, and the situation is now under control, he added.
Former chief minister Harish Rawat says the Supreme Courts decision that stayed the high court order quashing Presidents rule in Uttarakhand until April 27 is a setback for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as it will restrain the Centre from imposing a saffron government on the state.

In an interview with Hindustan Times, Rawat predicts that the BJP will be routed in the 2017 assembly elections, and the electoral contest will turn out to be a one-sided affair in favour of the Congress.

Is the Supreme Court order staying the Uttarakhand high courts verdict quashing Presidents rule in the state a setback for the Congress?

The apex courts decision suits us as it restrains the Centre from imposing a BJP government on the state. So, it is a setback for the BJP and a big slap on the face of its leaders.

The BJP has alleged that you illegally reoccupied the CMs chair for nearly 24 hours after the high court quashed Presidents rule and the Supreme Court reinstated it because you did not have permission either from the court or the governor.

There was nothing unconstitutional about my taking over as the CM during the intervening period Had that been the case, the high court would have directed me to take the oath of office again.

The BJP has alleged that 11 populist decisions taken by your cabinet during that period were unconstitutional, and with an eye on your vote bank.

There was nothing wrong in the decisions taken during that period. Most of them (decisions) were supplementary to the ones taken by the cabinet before my government was toppled on March 18. If I get even 25 minutes as CM again, I will take as many pro-people decisions in that time.

The BJP has denied any role in toppling your government, and said that it fell because nine Congress legislators rebelled against your leadership.

It is the BJP that engineered the defection in the Congress, and it will have to pay a heavy price for that. Before my government was toppled, it was a battle between the Congress and the BJP in the state. However, it has now turned into a war between democratic forces and the rule of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah.

But senior BJP leaders are confident that the party will prove its majority in the House.

How is that possible when they are three MLAs short of a majority? If they can do that, they should admit that they can cobble up the numbers by poaching MLAs from other parties. We, however, have the numbers and will prove our majority.

Are you ready for the assembly elections, if it were to be announced early?

The BJP helped us win more than half the poll battle by toppling our government.

What next?

I am going to start a padayatra (foot march) from Haridwar on April 25 to protest against the BJPs move of engineering a split in our party. I have prepared the road map for a state-wide anti-defection march.

How do you rate your partys chances in the next assembly polls?

It will be a one-sided affair in our favour, and the BJP will be completely routed. In its desperation to capture Uttarakhand, the BJP will lose even the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

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With Chief Justice TS Thakur making an emotional appeal to double the number of judges to handle an avalanche of backlogged cases, the focus is back on the long-standing issue of judicial delays.

Blaming successive governments for not increasing the number of judges to handle 30 million pending court cases, the CJI broke down on Sunday at a conference that was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The reason for CJI Thakurs near breakdown: The manpower and infrastructure for courts, particularly subordinate court, are far short of what is required. India currently has 21,000 judges even though the law commission, a government body, recommended almost three decades ago that at least 40,000 were needed.

Addressing the Annual Conference of Chief Justices and Chief Ministers, Justice Thakur said judges across the court system handled 2,600 cases each annually and together cleared two crore cases.

Indian courts are notorious for their slow pace in which hearings can go on for years, or even decades. More than 38 lakh cases are pending in 24 high courts and about 60,000 in the Supreme Court.

Read: Chief Justice breaks down before PM over burden on judiciary

In 2010, Justice VV Rao of the Andhra Pradesh High Court had said it would take 320 years to clear the backlog 31.28 million cases pending in various courts.

On Sunday, CJI Thakur said the central and state governments were blaming each other for the mess, and unfairly putting the onus on the judiciary to clear the burgeoning backlog.

This is not the first time that a CJI has spoken about the governments apathy towards the judiciary. Governments think the judiciary is a non-productive organ of the state. They hardly spend on the judiciary...less than 0.5% of the budget is spent on the judiciary. Lets hope the new government gives more attention to the judiciary, then CJI RM Lodha had told HT in May 2014. Barely 0.11% of the 2014-15 central budget of Rs 17.60 lakh crore is proposed to be spent on law and justice, he had said.

The Indian judicial system is one of the largest in the world. But, according to a 2012 National Court Management Systems report, although the number of judges increased six-fold in the last three decades, the number of cases shot up 12-fold.

Even by conservative estimates, the number of cases reaching courts will touch 15 crore requiring at least 75,000 judges in the next three decades, the report said.

There are other factors also that contribute to the pile-up of cases. The infrastructure available for courts - particularly lower courts - is inadequate, besides serious shortage of judges. Many courts function from rented buildings, while nearly 7,000 proposals for building courthouses were still awaiting state governments clearance.

Chief Justice of India T Thakur during his speech at the inauguration of the Joint Conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi on Sunday. (PTI)

Despite the law commission, parliamentary standing committee and the Supreme Court saying that the judge-population ratio in India should have 50 judges per one million people, the ratio continues to be abysmally low at 13 judges per one million people.

Nothing has moved since 1987, when the law commission had recommended an increase in the number of judges from then 10 judges per 10 lakh people to 50, CJI Thakur said.

According to the panels 120th report submitted to the government in 1987, countries such as the US, England, Canada and Australia had way better judge-population ratios of 107, 50.9, 75.2 and 41.5 way back in the 1980s.

As a result of the poor judge-population ratio, even if judges work at a frantic pace in India, they may never be able to clear the backlog.

Modi told the conference that his government was ready to discuss the issues hounding the judiciary to find a way out. Jab jaago tab savera (better late than never), he said.

Read: Retired judicial officers to be appointed as ad hoc judges: CJI
After three days of drama, Punjab Congress leader Captain Amarinder Singh is learnt to have cancelled his scheduled seven-day trip to Canada due to the possibility of facing a case relating to torture in a court in Toronto.

The decision came on Saturday after Singh had postponed his arrival in Toronto since he wanted to wait for the court to issue an order before he decided on his course of action.

The case was filed by the activist group Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) on behalf of a Canadian resident who was allegedly tortured during Singhs tenure as chief minister of Punjab.

An official statement released by Singh slammed SFJs lawfare, saying it was playing into the hands of the anti-India forces like the ISI to embarrass India and project as if rights violations was the norm of the day in the country (India) like some dictatorships in different parts of the world. He added, The government of India, rising above political considerations, must take up the matter with the Canadian government at the highest level.

And will the SFJ raise similar objections when Arvind Kejriwal will visit Canada by invoking the Canadian policy that prevented me from addressing public functions? Singh asked, referring to the Aam Aadmi Party leaders proposed visit later this year.

Read | Amarinder visit abroad a flop show: SAD

In a statement, SFJs legal advisor Gurpatwant Pannun said, Since Capt Amarinders presence in Canada is a condition precedent to charges going forward, the matter was delayed pending further information about Capt. Amarinders plans to visit Toronto. The victim and his counsel intend to return to court upon confirmation of Capt Amarinders presence in Toronto.

Later, in a statement released on Sunday, Singh said he planned to return to Canada in about three weeks after the case was sorted out. He asserted: This is absolutely a fake and frivolous complaint which will not stand the scrutiny of law. The moment it will be decided, I will attend all the functions that were scheduled earlier.

This, of course, led to a stalemate without the matter unable to be settled until Singh actually arrived in Canada, where he was scheduled to hold some private meetings arranged by the local unit of Indian Overseas Congress.

Singh, who arrived in Chicago on April 19 to begin his North American tour reaching out to the Punjabi NRI community, was to visit Toronto and Vancouver in Canada.

Now, he is expected to remain in the US and return to India after a visit to the West Coast, according to sources close to the Punjab Congress leader.

Earlier, Canadas foreign ministry, acting on a memorandum submitted by SFJ, had expressed its disapproval of Singh participating in foreign political campaigning in Canadian territory to the Indian High Commissioner in Ottawa, who had communicated that to the Ministry of External Affairs. Subsequently, Indias Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar had called Singh and explained the situation to him, which led to the cancellation of two large gatherings that had been on the agenda and his programme limited to private meetings.

Read | Sikh groups complain to Canadian authorities about Amarinders visit

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All central government schemes may soon have PM or the names of nationalist leaders prefixed to them and films highlighting the achievements of Narendra Modi dispensation shown mandatorily before screening of movies in every theatre.

These are among a set of recommendations by the Group of Ministers set up to suggest ways for increased visibility of central government schemes and achievements in states and districts.

The internal note circulated at a meeting of the GoM chaired by Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu has also recommended creating animation clips of various achievements of the government highlighting the difference between the past and present in a humorous way. It has suggested roping in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry for execution.

The GoM has suggested producing a film every two weeks to highlight the governments achievements which will be played out before every film in every theatre mandatorily, for which again it has recommended taking I and B Ministrys help.

Against the backdrop of allegations that state governments often take the credit for central schemes, the GoM has recommended that the inauguration of central schemes should be done in presence of Union ministers and MPs so the role of Centre is highlighted.

It has also recommended enhancing the authority of MPs by giving them constitutional authority to carry out checks on execution of the schemes and build in a system of penalties enforceable by central government whenever there is lack of efficiency in execution of a scheme. If the recommendations are implemented, the monitoring committees in districts for the schemes will be headed by MPs. Currently these are headed by District Magistrates or Superintendents of Police.

As per the note, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry is amending the rules to allow MPs to head the committees.

Keen to augment its presence in the media, the GoM has recommended that every minister should give a minimum of two interviews every week to the National Broadcasters--Doordarshan and All India Radio--, besides a particular news agency.

Each achievement must be released to media to create three to four different news items at different period of time such as at the stage of planning and conceptualization of the project, modification of the proposed project based on people feedback or expert advice, project launch or scheme execution and impact assessment (positive stories with real characters), said the note circulated at a recent GOM meeting.

The GoM has also underlined the importance of the concept of exclusive news in media houses and suggested that such information should be selectively given out to a few journalists as making them exclusive stories will ensure better coverage.

Maintaining that bland presentation of statistics does not get into print, the GoM suggested the news should be given from the point of view of the end users so it reflects how does the project or the ministrys work impacts or changes the life of an ordinary person.

The GoM also highlighted the importance of exploiting alternative publicity mediums like advertisements, field publicity and installation art.

Noting that each ministry spends money on advertisement usually directed towards print media and TV, the GoM has recommended that two other mediums which have a greater impact--radio and field publicity-- involving inter personal communication must also be considered.

The focus on radio is understandable as Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself addresses a programme Mann Ki Baat on AIR once every month.

Also, achievements and schemes should be highlighted through installation art along highways, streets, post offices, government offices, trains (inside and outside), platforms, airports, bus stands and even in the sky (via balloons), the note says.

It said the Ministry of I and B has a department that specializes in field publicity through nukkad natak (street plays), songs in villager panchyats and towns. The GoM has suggested that these teams should be involved more in taking to people the achievements of the government.

BJPs Good Governance Department is also separately planning a series of publications titled The Difference that We Made, highlighting the value addition that BJP ministers under the leadership of the Prime Minister have made.
Jawaharlal Nehru University student leader Kanhaiya Kumar was offloaded from a Pune-bound Jet Airlines flight at Mumbai airport after a fight with a co-passenger, whom he accused of trying to strangle him.

The police, however, dismissed it as a scuffle over seats and the airline said it had taken both the alleged assailant and Kanhaiya and his friend off the plane.

While Kanhaiya left for Pune by road, his friend and the other passenger, Manasjyoti Deka, filed complaints with the police. The friend accused Deka of shoving and hitting Kanhaiya and catching him by the neck.

Read: Kanhaiya says cops hiding truth behind assault, takes on Modi govt

My hand happened to brush his neck as I was trying to balance myself... I dont know him personally though I have seen his pictures. This is being done for cheap publicity, Deka, who was traveling from Kolkata to Pune where he works with TCS, said.

His friend threatened to harm me saying we will see you when you come to Kolkata.

Yet again, this time inside the aircraft, a man tries to strangulate me, Kanhaiya later tweeted. He also alleged Deka was a BJP supporter, a claim the police rejected.

After the incident @jetairways staff completely refuses to take any action against the man who assaulted me.  Kanhaiya Kumar (@kanhaiyajnusu) April 24, 2016

Joint commissioner of police (law and order) Deven Bharti said none of the allegations made by Kanhaiyas friend were found to be true. We asked him (Kanhaiya) to give a complaint but he did not. We also asked him (Kanhaiya) to do a medical test but he did not listen to us, he said.

In Pune, Kanhaiya accused the police of falsely claiming that the fight was over seats. Such brawls do not happen in planes, they happen in trains and on Mumbai locals. On whose behest are the police lying?

Read: Wrong to label Kanhaiya anti-national, BJP may lose youth support: Thackeray

Read:Kanhaiyas attack allegation a publicity stunt: Jet co-passenger

Bringing up his stand-off against the BJP, Kanhaiya said, I will take forward the fight against the government even if you beat me in plane or train.

Maharashtra minister of state (home) Ram Shinde accused Kanhaiya of trying to malign the BJP-led state government, which had given him full security till the time he boarded the aircraft.

Kanhaiya Kumar was travelling with three other persons. He was allotted a window seat and got into a fight with a flyer in the middle seat. The other passenger did not even know this man was Kanhaiya Kumar and he, too, is alleging he was beaten up by the student leader, Shinde said.

Jet Airways did not respond to Kanhaiyas charge that he was treated unfairly, but released a short statement: Some guests on board this mornings flight from Mumbai to Pune have been offloaded at Mumbai airport in the interest of operational safety.

Kanhaiya shot to fame after his arrest on sedition charges for being part of an event in JNU marking the death anniversary of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.

Read more: Kanhaiya slams Modi, claims students are against govt
A man charged by JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar of trying to strangle him on board a Mumbai-Pune flight on Sunday called said the student leaders allegation a publicity stunt.

In a series of tweets earlier, Kanhaiya said the co-passenger attacked him inside the aircraft 9W 618 when it was due to depart.

When he brought it to the notice of the Jet Airways staff, they off-loaded him and the alleged assailant. The man, identified as Manas Jyoti Deka (33), an employee of TCS in Pune, was detained and a non-cognisable offence filed at Mumbai airport, police said.

Yet again, this time inside the aircraft, a man tries to strangulate me.  Kanhaiya Kumar (@kanhaiyajnusu) April 24, 2016

Basically @jetairways sees no difference between someone who assaults nd d person who is assaulted. They will deplane you, if you complain.  Kanhaiya Kumar (@kanhaiyajnusu) April 24, 2016

My hand just happened to brush his neck as I was trying to balance myself on an aching leg. I do not know him personally though I have seen his pictures. This is being done for cheap publicity, Manas told reporters in Mumbai.

He said he was returning to Pune from Kolkata to report for work.

Yet again, this time inside the aircraft, a man tries to strangulate me, Kanhaiya tweeted after the alleged incident which took place when he was inside a Jet Airways aircraft at the airport.

The Maharashtra government has ordered a probe into the matter.

Prima facie it appears an argument broke out between two groups over seating on board the flight and Kanhaiya was part of one of them, a senior police official said. Sahar police is in the process of registering the complaints of both the parties, he added.

Following the incident, Maharashtra minister of state (home) Ram Shinde said Kanhaiya was trying to malign the image of the BJP-led state government.

He had been provided full security by the state government till the time he boarded the aircraft. Nobody can be given security once inside the plane. I, too, do not get security while I am flying, Shinde told PTI.

Kanhaiya Kumar was travelling with three other persons. He had been allotted a window seat and thus, while crossing over a passenger who was seated in the middle, he got into a fight with him. The other passenger did not even know this man was Kanhaiya Kumar and he, too, is alleging he was beaten up by the student leader, Shinde said.

Shinde said that he has asked Joint Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Deven Bharti to conduct a detailed inquiry into the incident and bring out the facts.

The student leader was arrested on sedition charges on February 12 after allegedly raising anti-India slogans at the JNU campus. He was given bail after police failed to produce any evidence to back the charge.

Read | Kanhaiya slams Modi, claims students are against govt
JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar accused police on Sunday of hiding the truth behind an alleged attack on him on a Jet Airways flight from Mumbai to Pune even as he pledged to carry forward his fight against the Narendra Modi government at the Centre.

Kumar, who is facing sedition charges in connection with an event at Delhis Jawaharlal Nehru University, alleged that a co-passenger tried to strangle him but the airline refused to act against the attacker.

Speaking in Pune, the 29-year-old Kumar said police were falsely claiming that the brawl between him and the co-passenger was over seat sharing.

Kanhaiya and the alleged attacker were subsequently offloaded from the plane on safety ground, forcing the student leader to take the road to Pune to attend an event.

Such brawls dont not happen in planes, they happen in trains and Mumbai locals. On whose behest the police are lying? asked the JNU student union president.

Manas Jyoti Deka, a TCS employee, was detained and a non-cognisable offence filed at Mumbai airport over the assault, police said.

My hand just happened to brush his neck as I was trying to balance myself on an aching leg. I do not know him personally though I have seen his pictures. This is being done for cheap publicity, Deka told reporters in Mumbai, and added Kumars allegations were a cheap publicity stunt.

But Kumar said BJP members were attacking him because of his fight against the government. I will take forward the fight against the government even if you beat me in plane or train.

Police, however, contradicted the claim that Deka was a BJP activist.

Ram Shinde, Maharashtra minister of state (home), said Kumar was trying to malign the image of the BJP-led state government.

He had been provided full security by the state government till the time he boarded the aircraft. Nobody can be given security once inside the plane. I, too, do not get security while I am flying, Shinde said.

Hes not anti-national

Uddhav Thackeray, the president of BJP ally Shiv Sena, said it was wrong to call Kumar anti-national.

Who gave birth to Kanhaiya Kumar in the first place? The government should think over this. It is wrong to label him anti-national, he said.

Kumars arrest in a sedition case over a February 9 event at JNU where alleged anti-India slogans were shouted has kicked up a political storm, with opposition parties and students criticising the central government for throttling freedom of speech.

Lab of communalism

In Pune, Kumar described the right-wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ruling BJPs ideological parent, as the force behind the Modi government.

Kumar alleged the present dispensation had converted the country into a laboratory of communalism and anti-Dalit policies.

(With agency inputs)

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A new species of primate, the White Cheeked Macaque, has been spotted in Arunachal Pradesh by a group of wildlife photographers and biologists from North East India.

The White-cheeked Macaque (Macaca leucogenys) was first spotted at the Anjaw district, nestled in the Eastern corner of Arunachal Pradesh by a team of biologists and wildlife photographers comprising Dr Ranjan Kumar Das, Udayan Borthakur and Dr Dilip Chetry, a press release issued by wildlife conservation organisation Aaranyak said today.

The team, accompanied by professional bird guide Binanda Hatibarua, was on a birdwatching trip to the area in eastern most district of India in March 2016, when they made the sighting.

On the basis of photographs of a group of macaque taken during the trip, it has been confirmed to be the White-cheeked Macaque, the release said.

Dr Das picture of a White Cheeked Macaque in Arunachal Pradesh. (Photo Courtesy: Ranjan Kumar Das)

The White-cheeked Macaque itself is a species new to science, having first been reported by Dr Li Cheng and his group from the Modog in South-eastern Tibet in China in 2015.

The species has been discovered on the basis of photographic records and differs considerably from all potential sympatric macaque species, such as Raesus Macaque, Arunachal Macaque, Tibetan macaque and Assamese macaque.

It exhibits a suit of pelage characteristics including relatively uniform dorsal hair pattern, hairy ventral pelage, relative hairless short tail, prominent pale to white side- and chin-whiskers creating a white cheek and round facial appearance, dark facial skin on the muzzle, long and thick hair on its neck, and round rather than arrow-shaped male genitalia.

A renowned bird expert Dr Ranjan Kumar Das who was able to get one of the first photographs of this species during the trip said, I am truly excited to be a part of this discovery and to contribute to the understanding of the species through my photography work.

On the basis of our observations, the photographs and experts comments, we have come to the conclusion that the macaques we observed and photographed in Anjaw District of Arunachal Pradesh are White-cheeked Macaque, Primatologist Dr Dilip Chetry said.
Facing opposition onslaught over imposition of Presidents rule in Uttarakhand, the Modi government has decided to take rivals head-on, citing instances of states being placed under central rule when Congress, Janata Party and United Front were in power.

As Parliaments Budget session resumes on Monday amid a strong possibility of a stormy start, with the opposition parties accusing the NDA government of assaulting the federal structure, the governments floor managers have decided to brazen it out and hit back citing specific cases of use of Article 356 by successive governments in the past.

At the same time, it will defend the imposition of Presidents rule in the hill state as a measure needed in the wake of a Constitutional breakdown.

Outside Parliament, BJPs spokespersons will also take the same line and insist impropriety was committed by declaring the Appropriation Bill passed while ignoring the demand by nine rebel Congress MLAs for a division vote.

According to sources, the government would flag the fact that out of 111 times Presidents rule has been imposed since 1951, Congress governments and those propped by it imposed it 91 times.

The government is likely to reel out figures regarding imposition of Presidents Rule from the time of Indias first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to the incumbent Narendra Modi.

Presidents rule was imposed 45 times during the 16-year tenure of Indira Gandhi. It was done 10 times during the 10-year rule of Manmohan Singh. In little less than five-year tenure of P V Narsimha Rao, Presidents rule was imposed 11 times, while in the 17 years Nehru ruled, central rule was imposed seven times, sources close to the government said.

During the five years Rajiv Gandhi was at the helm, it was imposed six times, while during the one-year-and-216-days tenure of Lal Bahadur Shastri, Presidents rule was imposed twice, they said.

With Opposition parties like JD-U and Left also attacking the government on this year, the government has also planned to remind them that even Janata Party and United Front governments had clamped central rule in a number of states.

While it was done 12 times during the Prime Ministership of Morarji Desai of Janta Party in a short span of two years and 126 days, V P Singhs 340-day government of National Front did it twice.

The 170-day rule of Chaudhary Charan Singh, which had the support of Congress, and the 223-day rule of Chandra Shekhar of Samajwadi Janata Party, again backed by Congress, also saw imposition of Presidents Rule four times each. H D

Devegowdas 324-day government propped by Congress also imposed Presidents rule twice, they said.

The government is likely to argue that while Presidents rule was clamped only four times during the 6 odd years Atal Bihari Vajpayee the Prime Minister, Article 356 was used only twice (in Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand) under Narendra Modi in the last two years.

Upping the ante on the Uttarakhand political crisis, Congress leaders have given notices for suspension of the question hour and adoption of a resolution condemning the imposition of Presidents Rule there when the Budget session resumes on Monday.
Manik Baruah, 37, has lost count of the number of times he was sickened with malaria when he was growing up in Guwahati. Last year, however, the malaria infection that struck him in Delhi almost killed him. Baruah was infected with chloroquine-resistant drug-resistant P. falciparum parasite, which was causing disease only in the north-eastern states a decade ago. The resistant strain has higher rates of complications and causes 90% of malarial deaths.

This deadly strain has now replaced the milder P. vivax malaria across India and now accounts for 66% of all malaria cases.Five years ago, most people hospitalised with P. falciparum in Delhi were those who were either from endemic areas in the east and north-eastern states of India or had recently travelled there. Now it is striking people who have not stepped out of Delhi, which suggests localised transmission, says Dr Anupam Sibal, group medical director, Apollo Hospitals.

Recorded malaria cases in India almost halved from 2.03 million in 2001 to 1.13 million in 2015, and confirmed deaths fell from 1,005 in 2001 to 287 people in 2015. This prompted India to launch the National Framework for Malaria Eradication in February with a target to be certified malaria free in 2030 by the World Health Organisation. The goal is to reduce the occurrence to 1 in every 1,000 across India, and stop transmission altogether by 2027.

Pan-India footprint

The plan looks great on paper but the parasites rising resistance to drugs and the Anopheles mosquitos resistance to insecticides threaten to make the countdown to elimination far from easy.

In India, 80% of malaria cases occur among 20% of its population living in the 200 high-risk districts of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, West Bengal and the seven northeastern states. With fewer than half of those infected reaching a clinic or hospital, infection deaths and cases are a lot higher than recorded. Frequent infections cause chronic malnutrition, anaemia, abortions and low birthweight babies, which raise the socio-economic burden of malaria to more than `11,000 crore ($1.94 billion), estimates the World Health Organisation.

Read:India aims for total malaria elimination after dip in deaths

The Anopheles mosquito, which bites between dusk and dawn, spreads the infection caused by single-celled Plasmodium parasites, with P. falciparum and P. vivax between them causing most infections in India. The An. culicifacies is the principal vector of rural malaria and accounts for 60-70% of annual cases, while the An. stephensi is dominant in urban areas. Irrespective of the type of mosquito spreading infection, the disease remains the same.

The parasite causes infection between persons through mosquito bites, which it uses to invade the liver and then the red blood cells. At first, the symptoms are generic  fever, headache, sweats, chills and vomiting  and at this stage, the immune system usually manages to control the infection. In severe malaria, the parasite disrupts blood supply to the vital organs, including the brain, causing seizures and death.

Tough adversary

Scientists acknowledge that the parasite is a formidable foe that has managed to evade global attempts to destroy it over six decades. Armed with the safe, inexpensive drug chloroquine and the powerful insecticide DDT, the WHO launched the Global Malaria Eradication Programme in 1955 with the goal to eliminate the disease within a decade. Billions were spent in distributing the anti-malarial medicines, insecticide-treated bednets and fogging with DDT, but the parasite and mosquito survived new drugs, insecticides and habitat changes to continue to infect and kill people in 97 nations.

Read: Govt turns to private players to fund its anti-malarial drive

Over the past decade, the parasite is steadily developing resistance to every frontline anti-malarial drug.

The parasite is now so entrenched across most parts of India that it can be controlled only with a combination of drugs. Indias National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP) rolled out the WHO-approved fast-acting combination called artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) in 2010. Under the national programme, ACTs are provided free for all, as are long-lasting insecticidal nets, which stay effective for three years and help in lowering transmission.

ACTs are made using artemisinin-based compounds in combination with other classes of anti-malarials. The ACT combination of artesunate and sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (AS+SP), for example, is the first-line treatment for uncomplicated P. falciparum malaria. With cases of resistance to AS+SP reported in the northeastern states, the Centre gave its nod to the artemether and lumefantrine (ACT-AL) combination for use in the region in April 2013.

Finishing the job

Adding to the problem is the mosquitoes growing resistance to pesticides, the mainstay of vector (mosquito) control. The Anopheles mosquito has grown resistant to DDT and malathion, but is still sensitive to pyrethroid.

GSKs malaria vaccine triggers the immune system to defend against P. falciparum when it first enters the human bloodstream and/or when the parasite infects liver cells. The vaccine, however, is only partially effective and at best can help control, and not eliminate, malaria. The way ahead is rapid-diagnostic testing and using ACTs for treatment to prevent severe illness. That, along with the use of indoor residual spraying and long-lasting insecticidal nets in endemic areas, are the tools we know work against malaria, says a Union Health Ministry official.

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One of the most prominent faces of alleged Hindu terror in India, religious leader Pragya Thakur, is likely to get off the hook in the 2008 Malegaon blasts case for lack of proof, sources said on Saturday.

Another key accused in the case, Lt. Col Prasad Purohit, is expected to be named in the charge sheet.

Sources in t he National Investigation Agency (NIA) said it didnt find concrete proof linking Thakur to the blasts that killed seven people but had enough evidence against Purohit.

He was allegedly involved in the setting up of Abhinav Bharat and met some of its members to discuss terror plans. The NIA is in the process of finalising the charge sheet, which will be submitted in a special court next month.

The evidence against Pragya looks very weak and she may not be charged, said an investigator.

The agency also decided to drop Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) provisions against the accused because of procedural lapses by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS)

Our investigation is still not complete. And as far as MCOCA is concerned, even if, for the sake of argument, it is not invoked, we have enough provisions available under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, NIA chief Sharad Kumar said. He is expected to take a final call on the charges soon. But sources said dropping MCOCA will weaken the case as confessions of the accused before a police officer will no longer be admissible as evidence in a court.

This will strengthen opposition parties, who accuse the NDA government of going slow in cases where Hindu terror suspects are involved. Several such cases  such blasts in Malegaon (September 2006 and September 2008), Samjhauta Express (February 2007) and Mecca Masjid (May 2007)  have been dogged by slow prosecution and hostile witnesses.

Of around a dozen witnesses in the 2008 Malegaon blasts, two retracted their statements five years back. One made a complaint before the Maharashtra human rights commission, alleging coercion. Two more witnesses, Yashpal Bhadana and Dr RP Singh, recently alleged the same in front of a magistrate. There are a few more witnesses who have told the NIA that they gave statements under duress. Our probe is getting hampered by this, said the investigator.

Former NIA prosecutor in the case Rohini Salian had alleged that an officer of the agency asked her to go soft on the accused after the NDA came to power.

Thakur has been in judicial custody since October 2008. She was arrested on charges of being a key conspirator in the case and is one of the 14 accused named in a Maharashtra ATS chargesheet. The case was handed over to the NIA in 2011 along with six other cases of alleged Hindu terror.
The second week of the second phase of the Kejriwal governments odd-even traffic plan has run into the reconvened budget session, with some MPs seeking exemption from road rationing.

The driving restrictions aimed at cleaning the citys toxic air came up for discussion on Sunday at an all-party meeting called by Speaker Sumitra Mahajan to discuss the agenda of the session that begins Monday, sources said.

Jithender Reddy of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeens Asaduddin Owaisi demanded that the Lok Sabha secretariat write to the Delhi government to keep members of Parliament out of the plan. Parliament was not in session when the odd-even plan was introduced in January.

Read: No data to suggest odd-even impact on Delhis air: Pollution panel

Senior Nationalist Congress Party leader Tariq Anwar suggested the secretariat give the members radio-frequency tags for two personal cars against one that allows lawmakers bring a vehicle to the high-security Parliament complex.

The proposal, however, was opposed by Biju Janata Dals Bhartruhari Mahtab. When the Chief Justice of India says he can come by bus to his office, MPs should lead by examples and not seek exemptions, sources quoted the Cuttack MP as saying.

As some lawmakers tried to shout him down, Mahtab said, This is not the floor of the House where you can shout at me. This is a meeting.

Mahajan, sources said, later told some lawmakers that seeking exemption was really unthinkable.

The secretariat came up with a solution and so did the Delhi government. The secretariat will increase the number of pool cars that MPs travel in.

The Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha run a pool-car service charging an MP Rs 5 for a ride from their residence to Parliament. Cars like WagonR, Eeco and Qualis are used for the pick-up and drop service.

While driving restrictions do not apply to president, vice-president, prime minister, union ministers, Chief Justice of India, judges of high courts and women, there is no such relief for MPs.

For them, the Delhi transport department will run a shuttle service from Monday. After talking to Mahajan, Delhi transport minister Gopal Rai ordered three DTC buses each to pick up MPs from North Avenue and South Avenue  areas where a majority of lawmakers stay  after 9am, a Delhi government spokesperson said.

The Capital kicked in the second phase of the odd-even plan on April 15, with private cars allowed on every second day in keeping with the last digit of their registration plates. The curbs will be in place till April 30 while the session ends May 13.

Read: Modi govt to brazen it out in Parliament over Prez rule in Uttarakhand

Read: Crackdown on autos for overcharging, refusing to ply by meter
An emotional Chief Justice of India (CJI) on Sunday blasted successive governments for not raising the number of judges to an extent reasonable enough for dealing with over three crore pending cases.

Not only in the name of litigants and people languishing in jails but also in the name of the development of the country and its progress, I beseech you to rise to the occasion and realise that it is not sufficient to criticise, CJI TS Thakur said in a voice choking with emotion.

Justice Thakur was addressing the annual Conference of Chief Justices and Chief Ministers in the presence of Prime Minster Narendra Modi, law minister DV Sadananda Gowda and a large number of judges.

You cant shift the entire blame onto judges. If you compare the performance of Indian judges with those in other countries, we are head and shoulders above them. The entire US Supreme Court  nine judges sitting together  decides 81 cases in a year. But an Indian judge  a munsif or a Supreme Court judge  decides 2,600 cases a year, Justice Thakur said.

WATCH: Chief Justice of India TS Thakur breaks down during his speech at Jt conference of CMs and CJ of HCs in Delhihttps://t.co/xD1tro8rmX  ANI (@ANI_news) April 24, 2016

Pointing out that the Indian judiciary clears two crore cases every year, he said: When judges from abroad come here and watch us at work, they are amazed They wonder how judges can work under such stressful conditions.

Though Modi was not slated to speak as per the programme schedule circulated by the law ministry, he told the CJI that he was ready to set up a joint panel of representatives drawn from the judiciary and the executive to deal with the problem. I can understand your agony. If something was promised in 1987 and nothing has happened till 2016, it is understandable, he said.

Justice Thakur said that when the Supreme Court began functioning in 1950, it had eight judges to handle 1,215 cases. But today, it has to handle over 60,000 cases with just 31 judges.

While 38.68 lakh cases lie pending in 24 high courts, nearly three crore cases await disposal in trial courts across the country.

The CJI requested the government to clear the proposals for judicial appointments in high courts  where 434 posts against the sanctioned strength of 1,056 still remain vacant  on a war footing.

Read | SC unlikely to get new judges for now, pending cases set to rise

Justice Thakur said the Law Commission had highlighted the poor judge-population ratio in its 120th report in 1987, and recommended that it be increased from 10.5 to 50 judges per one million people. Nothing has been done about it yet, he added.

He said that while the judiciary required as many as 40,000 judges in 1987, its current strength is just 21,000.

The CJI said that after the Law Commission report, a parliamentary standing committee and a Supreme Court order unsuccessfully pressed for increasing the judicial strength in 2002 and 2003 respectively. Then CJI Altmas Kabir even wrote to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the subject in February 2013, but the latter sought to shift the blame onto the states  saying it was for them to take the initiative. The Centre says its for the states to increase the judges strength, and states say it is for the Centre to provide funds. While this tug of war goes on, the judges strength remains where it is, Justice Thakur lamented.

Putting things into perspective, he cited the examples of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia  which have maintained a judge-population ratio of 107, 75, 50 and 41 judges per million people respectively from the 1970s and 1980s.

Terming the deadlines set for disposing cases that have been pending for five years or more as unrealistic, the CJI said they cannot be achieved unless the existing vacancies in the judiciary were filled and the judge-population ratio was raised to 50 judges per million people.

Justice Thakur ended his largely extempore speech by saying: If nothing else has worked so far, an emotional appeal may work.

Read | NDA memorandum: Judiciary-govt face-off brewing over appointments
The Delhi high court has directed the Jammu & Kashmir government to ensure protection of lands abandoned in Verinag, Kashmir, by five Kashmiri pandits, who left the valley in 1989 due to unrest.

Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw directed the Jammu & Kashmir government to have the properties of the five migrants, who are now scattered across the country, inspected by the Deputy Commissioner of Anantnag, Kashmir every six months.

The court also directed Central government to use its good offices to ensure compliance of the aforesaid directions by the Government of State of Jammu & Kashmir.

Advocate BL Wali, one of the petitioners, told HT that the order of the high court will be helpful to other Kashmiri pundits, whose properties in the valley have been encroached upon.

Out of the five petitioners, Wali and two others are currently living in Delhi, while one of the remaining two are living in Panipat and the other in Jammu. All of them are senior citizens.

Wali said all their moveable properties lying in their residential houses in Verinag were looted by local miscreants and then gutted into fire. This made our return back to valley all the difficult, Wali said.

Wali said the Jammu & Kashmir state administration showed its callousness and helplessness to protect the premises/land left, despite the existence of the state law to that effect.

He said that at one point in time their properties were being used for parking of some vehicles and as a transport yard. However, there is no encroachment now, he said.

Ordinarily petition seeking relief with respect to immovable property is filed in the High Court having territorial jurisdiction over the area.

However, Justice Endlaw made an exception in view of the same very reasons for which the petitioners have been forced to leave their immovable properties in Kashmir and take refuge in Delhi

The judge also noted that their petition was pending in the high court for the last 11 years and under interim orders passed in 2005, their properties have been ordered to be protected.

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In a significant step to tackle mounting cases, a conference of chief ministers and chief justices of high courts on Sunday adopted a resolution to invoke a constitutional provision to appoint retired judicial officers as ad hoc judges.

Chief Justice of India TS Thakur announced at New Delhi that the conference adopted a resolution that Article 224 A will be invoked to allow chief justices of high courts to appoint retired judicial officers as ad hoc judges.

There is a provision in the Constitution. It means that it is meant to be invoked, he said.

Article 224 A of the Constitution states that the Chief Justice of a high court, with the previous consent of the President (Centre), request any person who has held the office of a judge of that court or any other high court to sit and act as a judge of the high court for that state.

There are nearly 3 crore cases pending before the judiciary, including the Supreme Court, the 24 high courts and various subordinate courts.

He said these ad hoc judges will tackle criminal cases where appeals have not been heard for the past five years.

These judges will be appointed for a period of two years or upto the time they attain the age of 65.

The CJI said these judges can also preside over holiday courts on Saturdays and Sundays.

The conference also resolved that vacancies will be filled up in lower courts and the cadre strength will be increased by 10 per cent per annum till the review of the cadre strength is carried out in the near future.

According to latest Law Ministry figures, the approved strength of the subordinate judiciary is 20,214 with 4,580 vacancies. The approved strength of the 24 high courts is 1,056 and the vacancy was pegged at 458 as on March one.

In the apex court, there are six vacancies against the sanctioned strength of 31 judges, including the CJI.
Prakash Karat on Sunday filed a police complaint against Trinamool Congress leader Derek OBrien in New Delhi for morphing the former CPI-M general secretarys photograph that showed Home Minister Rajnath Singh offering him a sweet.

I have lodged a complaint with Delhi Police as morphing a photograph like the manner it was done by a political party is an offence under cyber laws. Therefore, I have requested police to register an FIR in this connection, Karat told reporters after lodging a formal complaint with Mandir Marg police station in central Delhi.

Communist Party of India-Marxist sources said Karat has, in fact, never met Rajnath on such a stage or a public function and, therefore, morphing such a picture smacked of political motives.

On Saturday, addressing a press conference in Kolkata, Trinamool Congresss floor leader in the Rajya Sabha Derek O Brien played two videos of Congress vice president Rahul Gandhis speeches and four pictures, including one that showed Rajnath Singh offering a sweet to Prakash Karat, former general secretary of the CPI-M.

Pointing to this particular picture, OBrien even called it his favourite.

However, in no time it was revealed that the photograph was photoshopped and made in an attempt to prove close links between CPI-M and BJP leaders.

The Bharatiya Janata Party later came up with the real picture -- that has Rajnath Singh offering sweets to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Trinamool subsequently admitted that the picture was photoshopped and removed it from its website.

Two videos and six pictures were shown at our press conference. We removed one pic immediately when our research team learned it was photoshopped, the Trinamool said on its official Twitter account, which was retweeted by OBrien.

The Trinamool MP subsequently in a video message on his Facebook admitted it was a mistake and sought to end the chapter.
The BJP and the CPI(M) lodged two different complaints against the Trinamool Congress on Sunday for morphing a photograph that showed Union home minister Rajnath Singh offering a sweet to former CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat, in a bid to prove close links between the two parties.

Karat filed the complaint with the Delhi Police cyber wing, accusing TMC member of Parliament Derek OBrien of defaming him using morphed pictures. Karat accused OBrien of making unfounded allegations to bring him into disrepute with the people .

In Kolkata, BJP spokesman Jayaparkash Majumdar followed him to lodge a complaint with the cyber crime section of the detective department of the police.

Karats complaint, filed with the deputy commissioner of police of the economic offences wing, reads, I wish to lodge a complaint against Derek OBrienhe has, in a press conference held in Kolkata on April 23, displayed a picture of Rajnath Singh and myself... The picture was displayed in many television channels in Kolkata.

The photograph was a morphed one. The politburo member asked police to register an FIR against OBrien.

Similarly, a team of BJP leaders visited the Lalbazar headquarters of Kolkata police and lodged a complaint with the joint commissioner of police (crime) Debashish Boral, naming Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee, party general secretary Subrata Bakshi and spokesperson Derek OBrien.
Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray said on Sunday it was wrong on the governments part to label JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar as anti-national.

Who gave birth to Kanhaiya Kumar in the first place? The government should think over this. It is wrong to label him anti-national, Thackeray told a meeting of party office-bearers.

If youth are branded anti-national in this manner, they will not be able to work freely for the country and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will forfeit the support of youth, he warned.

Thackerays comments came hours after Kanhaiya Kumar alleged that a co-passenger tried to strangle him on a Jet Airways Mumbai-Pune flight in the morning.

Both Kanhaiya Kumar and the passenger -- identified as Manas D.J. of Kolkata -- were off-loaded by Jet Airways.

Joint police commissioner Deven Bharati said the incident was actually a scuffle in which around eight people were involved and that Kanhaiya Kumars claims were exaggerated.

When Kumar was asked to lodge a complaint, he declined and what his friend said about the incident in his complaint was found to be false, Bharati said.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra minister of state for home Ram Shinde asserted that there was no attack on Kanhaiya Kumar, president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union.

The police report says that fighting between two passengers led to scuffle. Kanhaiyas allegations (are) baseless, Shinde said.

In view of the development, Pune Police have further tightened security for Kanhaiya Kumar.
Saffron and red flags on either side of the road and posters of sadhus and their kutias (huts) welcome you to the Simhastha fairgrounds in Ujjain.

Every few metres, a police officer stands guard, some visibly exhausted from a hard days work managing vehicular movement and guiding visitors to their destinations. The pomp and splendour of Ram Ghat radiates from the distance, especially during night-time.

Hindustan Times visited the venue of the Simhastha Kumbh and experienced firsthand the nightlife of Ujjain and Ram Ghat.

11 pm [Sadawal Road]

Mohammed Ismail, who vends cold drinks, shared a little-known fact about the behind-the-scenes of Simhastha  80% of the electric, plumbing and tent work was done by Muslims for this Hindu fair, he said.

Ujjain is an archetype of Hindu-Muslim unity. Sparing an incident, in which a policeman died in clashes after Babri Masjid demolition in 92, the city never witnessed any sort of communal violence, he said. Badrilal police chowki was set up near Fateh Masjid in the deceased cops memory.

11:45 pm [Dutt Akhara Media Centre]

It was almost midnight and sanitation workers were still hard at work sweeping roads and lifting garbage onto mini-trucks. The Dutt Akhara area was abuzz with activity, but the media centre set up by the state government was a quiet retreat  with a few journalists churning out stories, clicking away on their laptops and phones.

Midnight [Ramghat]

Devotees and tourists, including foreigners, thronged the ghats, looking for their chance to take a holy dip in the Kshipra river. The most vibrant of the lot dived into the water with chants of Jai Mahakaal. The temporary bridge across the river was full of people clicking photos in the surreal backdrop of colourful fountains. While some priests sat down to meditate, others retired after a hectic day of attending to devotees.

1 am [Triveni Ghat]

Life on the fairgrounds slowly vanished as a fresh batch of police personnel relieves those that stood guard during the day. Security is always on alert here. We are keeping a close eye on everyone at the ghat, suspicious people are quizzed and frisked, said a police officer in plain clothes.

Families began to head back to their homes, hotels and akhadas for the night, while a few sadhus smeared in ash arrived at the ghat for a midnight holy dip.

1:30 am [Dutt Akhara Area]

The spirit of Simhastha is kept alive even at this late hour by the Nagas, who are star attractions for photo enthusiasts.

2 am [Ujjarkheda Hanuman Road]

Grocery shops selling refreshing drinks and snacks continued to serve devotees. A vendor, Sachin Vishwakarma, who came from Lucknow to sell panaa (a mint refresher drink), said visual presentation of the refreshment was what attracted people to his stall, as he placed mint leaves in the glass with the precision of an artist. He also shared how the Kumbh fair is celebrated in Allahabad.

2:30 am [Inner Ring Road]

A birds-eye view of Simhastha fair area is a sight for sore eyes from the flyover on Inner Ring Road. The day winds up to the sound of young boys celebrating the end of a hectic Shahi Snan day.
The Madhya Pradesh government banned liquor sale in Ujjain during the month-long Simhastha but allowed two shops in front of Kaal Bhairav temple to sell alcohol.

Devotees offer liquor to Kaal Bhairav, the guardian deity of Ujjain. People line up for hours to offer alcohol to the deity, said a CISF personnel deputed at the shrine.

With a surge in pilgrims coming for the kumbh mela, liquor offerings to Kaal Bhairav have gone up. Shop owners said they sold liquor worth Rs 6 lakh in daytime on Saturday. On other days, the shops record a sale of `3 lakh or less. One shop sells country liquor and the other India-made foreign liquor.

Within an hour after a shop opened, the sale touched about Rs 50,000. The sale will cross Rs 10 lakh by late night because for tourists and pilgrims this place is unique, said Mahesh Kachway, a constable posted at the foreign liquor shop.

Apart from the two registered shops, all 14 kiosk owners, who sell flower and prasad in front of the temple, include liquor in baskets to cash in on the devotees rush. The mela administration erected iron barricades in front of the temple to control the crowd.

People also buy alcohol for them in the name of offering to Kaal Bhairav. I supplied more than 30 litres of liquor since morning to middlemen. This is the place of Bhairav baba; no one can stop liquor here, said a kiosk owner.

Kachway said, We sell liquor to people, it is not our concern if they are consuming it themselves or offering it to Bhairav.

Devotees offer liquor bottles costing Rs 50 to Rs 4,000. I came from Itarsi with my friends to offer prayers and alcohol to Baba Bhairavnath. I will offer a bottle worth Rs 2,000 because Baba had blessed me last time. I got huge profit in my business, said Sumit Gupta. I sell a country-made liquor bottle, which costs Rs 50, at `75 in the night because thousands of devotees will start coming from the evening and a long queue will be formed in front of the shops here, kiosk owner Rajesh Bhati told Hindustan Times.
A controversy erupted on the first day of Simhastha Kumbh in Ujjain on Friday after members of the all-women Akhara  Pari Akhara  were not allowed to take part in shahi snan or royal holy dip at Ramghat, considered the most sacred of ghats at the month-long fair.

An upset Sadhvi Trikal Bhawanta, who founded the Akhara in 2000, went on an indefinite fast and was admitted to a hospital with low blood sugar levels.

The administration has flouted the high court directives, which clearly stated all Akharas will be provided the same facilities, said Sadhvi Bhawanta.

This is an insult to women who are worshipped as Goddess Laxmi, Durga and Saraswati, she told Hindustan Times.

We are only asking for gender equality and demanding the same facilities that everyone else is getting, she said, adding that she is adamant on observing her fast until her demands are met.

Earlier this month, the Pari Akhara wrote a letter to district collector Kavindra Kiyawat, seeking permission to take part in shahi snan at Ramghat. The administration, however, washed off its hands on the matter and instead directed the Pari Akhara to approach the Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad.

The male-dominated Akhara Parishad has refused to recognize Pari Akhara and Kinnar (eunuch) Akhara. Anyone can form an organization while sitting at home, there are only 13 recognized Akharas, said parishad president Mahant Narendra Giri.

Meanwhile, the administration has worked out a compromise formula for members of Kinnar Akhara who took the holy dip at Gandharva Ghat, which has been reserved for them.

Rishi Ajay Das, a member of Kinnar Akhara, said that Gandharva Ghat was also part of Ramghat so they had no issue in taking a holy dip at the ghat on the bank of the Shipra River.
Its addictive, and its beautiful, and its dangerous. It is also the future  actually, very much the present  of journalism. Lets just call it P for now. Simply put, it tells you the number of visitors and page views your website is getting, and also breaks it down to which section/ reporter/story/post/photo gallery/ video/stuff is doing well, in real time. Short skirts do well; so do sex, sexism and Sunny Leone. But that does not, necessarily, mean we write only on these subjects and even invent stories. Some people, however, think differently.

This is where Chandigarhs #shortskirtban came from. An English newspaper/website  which competes with the one that I work for  reported with much passion and compassion earlier this week that short skirts had been banned in Chandigarhs discotheques by the UTs administration. Well, OK then! As anyone who has anything to do with the internet, a hashtag storm on Twitter and Facebook was only appropriate under the circumstances. It started with some typical Modi-bashing. A friend diligently asked me on Facebook: Can we blame Modi for this? Why not, I replied. Others blamed six decades of Congress rule having destroyed our culture to the point of mini-skirts.

Soon, the storm turned into a war beyond politics, with feminism being invoked. The bubble grew bigger than that one article, and was filled to capacity by the numerous news aggregating websites and opinion portals. Headlines got more and more creative; tweets got funnier; and reactions became nastier and nastier. Until someone actually opened the original article and read the whole thing down: The UT policy states that exhibition and advertisement of scantily dressed women could be the grounds for closure of a discotheque and other such places. Right then; there is no ban on wearing anything, as is clear from a careful reading of the report itself. Yes, the UT policy makes a needless reference to womens dresses in advertisements. Also, despite fire-fighting by the administration, the policy reeks of moral policing. Meanings of indecent, offensive and many such words remain vague and could likely be misused by the authorities. All that said, though, there is no #shortskirtban as such.

But Twitter and Facebook were not done yet. The war morphed into sanctimonious lectures on how there remained references that were sexist; and how the media had sensationalised the whole matter. Sure, but where did the ban come from? It came from P and its many avatars, one would believe. How does this P work? It works on eyeballs. Who has the eyeballs? Its the people who click this kind of stuff, bother hardly to read it, but share it nonetheless and make it viral. Yes, in a roundabout way, I am blaming the audience for the bad show.

Let me say some things upfront first  the newspaper in question has not done this the first time; it is not the only one that does it though it is a leader in these matters; and journalism is indeed facing a tough time in balancing eyeballs on the internet with stories from the ground. Thats not what we are discussing yet again. What has not got attention in this #shortskirtban case is the hypocrisy of the social media warriors.

Is it not sexism when a top discotheque of the city sells itself simply by posting pictures of only women on its Facebook page? Or, when it makes it a point to only post pictures of women who are wearing short skirts and plunging necklines? If one looks hard enough, there are women wearing less-revealing clothes in the background, and there are also those creatures called men who are never featured in these photos. It is sexism thats traded routinely. Whats Ladies Night on Wednesday but simply used as bait by clubs to get enough men to come after women who otherwise identify as feminists? I am not saying that women should refuse free drinks. Who in their right minds would refuse free drinks? But dont we all know why the drinks are free? Chuck that; lets get back to the point.

The ban-that-wasnt was a case of misinterpretation or, in fact, over-interpretation of the UT policy. Intentional or a mistake, it was bad journalism. Period. But when will people actually read these reports before getting fashionably angry? Until that happens, we will continue to take credit for all the rare good journalism, and blame the reader for all the rest. We will conveniently hide behind P. Whom will P, the People, hide behind?

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The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) announced on Sunday that its workers will gherao chief minister Parkash Singh Badals residence in Chandigarh on May 16 to protest the alleged Rs 12,000-crore food grain scandal in the state.

Calling it the biggest food scandal in the Badal-led SAD-BJP government, AAPs Punjab in-charge Sanjay Singh said in a statement that the party had demanded a probe by a sitting Supreme Court judge.

He said the party workers will hold protest demonstrations in various parliamentary and assembly segments in the state to highlight the scam so that the real culprits are brought to justice.

AAP forms 3-member panel to streamline future joinings

Meanwhile, the AAP announced a 3-member panel to decide on allowing outsiders into the party fold. The central panel comprises senior AAP leader Durgesh Pathak, Lok Sabha member Bhagwant Mann and the partys Punjab convener Succha Singh Chhotepur.

Sanjay Singh said the central panel was formed during a meeting of the partys election campaign committee on Saturday evening. He said all zonal and sector in-charges and also central observers of the party in Punjab had been informed that they will not longer effect any new joining without consulting the central panel.

This has been done to streamline the process of the people joining the party across the state, Sanjay added.

Grievances cell

Also, former IAS officer Jasbir Singh Bir will head the AAPs administrative and grievance cells in Punjab. Bir would also look into the matters concerning ex-servicemen, a party spokesman said.
Looks can be deceptive. A soldier to the core, ADS, our friend, is a handsome fellow with a rustic Hollywood-ian demeanour. He looks anything but philosophical or a soothsayer. When he remarked seven years ago that an effective way of beating the rough and tumble of summers is to visit the cool climes of hills before the heat picks up, we laughed it off as one of his wisecracks but when his amicable wife, Gugu, seconded him, we had to take them seriously and give it a try. That was the beginning of our early-April trysts with the beautiful Kasauli.

A small hill station with negligible commercial activity and a limited tourist sightseeing suited my better half, who hates long travels. An-hour-and-a-half s drive from Chandigarh, Kasauli has an enviable altitude of 6,200 feet above sea level. ADS booked us all at the army-run holiday home with a cautionary note: Dont hope for a five-star culture. Carry your nick knacks for self-cooking and remember to take your evening tonic along, the latter part of the advice meant especially for Jaggu, our friend who loves to indulge. The six of us embarked on our small little journey to the hills, the main aim being to authenticate the wisdom of ADS.

We checked in at the holiday home, a quiet serene place atop the famous Monkey Point or Sunset Point. Our friend had passed his first test of selecting a place that was the coolest available in station. Surrounded by pine trees, the lush green ambience was exhilarating. The direction matrix installed at Sunset Point indicated the general layout of towns in the plains across the valley, with our City Beautiful visible nicely in the haze. Wait till it is dark, you might be able to see the All-India Radio tower of Sector 34, ADS remarked, buoyed visibly by our vibrant response.

Jaggu, a good cook, was planning a barbeque dinner, meanwhile, with all his focus on the drinks bottle that he had packed fondly in multiple layers of newspaper, lest it cracked during the journey. The sun was setting and the point was packed with tourists from far and near. A sign read: Look beyond and you see beauty look down and you see litter what a shame.

The entire valley was lit up in the dying brightness of the setting sun, presenting a beautiful sight. Back at the holiday home, the cool breeze with a pleasant flavour of pine intensified, making us shift indoors. The all-glass windows of the rooms served as a perfect foil for the chill without disturbing the country view. The twinkling lights of Chandigarh on one side and Shimlas on the other led us into a game of sighting the landmarks of both places.

We were up the next morning for a trek along the ridgeline that took us around the Kasauli hamlet, a three-hour excursion, a pollution free unforgettable experience. The third day, after a lunch trip to Baikunth, a nature resort in the vicinity, it was time to get back to base. The memories and the feel of hills saw us through the difficult summer months indeed, with a chorus in unison: ADS tussi great ho.

For the past seven years, it is now a habit with us to visit Kasauli. On the trip this early April, we recounted the changes over the years. The good change is a concerted effort by the army to keep the area clean, and its putting up inspiring signs to sensitise tourists, especially the youth frequenting the hill station. The bad change is that the increased air and light pollution levels down in the valley make it difficult to sight the once prominent AIR tower of Chandigarhs Sector 34.

The writer is a Chandigarh-based retired army officer
Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Sunday urged the Centre to consider the states long-standing demand for a separate high court (HC).

Addressing the conference of chief ministers and chief justices of high courts in New Delhi, he said: As per Article 214 of our constitution, there shall be a high court for each state.

Haryana vidhan sabha has already passed a resolution for creation of a separate HC for Haryana, he said.

He urged the government to bring necessary legislation to fulfill the demand of his state.

Khattar said a separate HC can easily be created by bifurcating the existing building, staff and infrastructure, as was done in the case of civil secretariat and legislative assembly.

This is all the more important since the number of cases from Haryana far exceed that from Punjab, he said.

Currently, the high court of Haryana and Punjab functions from Chandigarh, the joint capital of the two states.

He reiterated state governments stand to support the creation of All India Judicial Services on the pattern of All India Services.

He also drew the attention of the Central government for having equal representation in the HC, claiming his state has less than equal representation in the Punjab and Haryana HC. He said there is an unwritten norm of having 60 per cent judges from Punjab and 40 per cent judges from Haryana, that is being followed.

This practice is not only discriminatory in nature, but also has no sanction of law. I earnestly request the chief justice of India and the acting chief justice of Punjab and Haryana HC to end this discriminatory tradition and practice, the chief minister said.

He also raised the issue of creation of a bench of the HC near the national capital territory, saying Haryana borders the national capital from three sides and its 13 districts out of the total 21 fall in the national capital region.

Haryana is a centre of economic activity and resultantly legal activity is tilted towards the national capital region, he said. However, the present seat of the Punjab and Haryana HC is on the opposite end of the state. This leads to loss of valuable time and resources of both the people and the government.

I, therefore, request the Prime Minister to consider setting up of a separate bench of the HC near the national capital territory. I also request Chief Justice of India and Acting Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court to support this demand, he said.

He also stressed on the need for undertaking reforms to make the judicial system less expensive, quicker and more effective, adding the state government would wholeheartedly support any and every such reform measure.
The bandh call by the Shiv Sena and other Hindu organisations over the killing of formers labour wing chief Durga Prasad Gupta received a mixed response on Sunday at Khanna in this district.

The Sena activists blocked traffic on Khannas national highway again for at least 30 minutes. Heavy police deployment in the city averted any untoward situation. During the road blockade, the police diverted traffic for the commuters safety.

The blockade ended after Jalandhar range inspector general of police Lok Nath Angra and Khanna senior superintendent of police (SSP) Satinder Singh assured the protesters that Guptas killers would be arrested. The victims wife was promised a government job.

Police also recovered the motorcycle used in the crime and secured the security-camera footage in which the shooters are caught escaping the area. Some of the shops in the main market of Khanna remained open. Shiv Sena tried to hold a march thought the city but police prevented it.

Read: Shiv Sena leader shot dead in Khanna

The cremation of the slain leader has been put off to Monday, as his family will reach Khanna on that morning. Shiv Sena state president Sanjiv Ghanouli demanded a compensation of Rs 25 lakh to the affected family. He said all Shiv Sena leaders would surrender their security covers in protest against the attacks on its leaders. Shiv Sena, Punjab, chairman Rajiv Tandon said in the past year, many party leaders had been targeted.

Killers bike recovered

Senior superintendent of police Satinder Singh confirmed the shooters getaway motorcycle had been recovered on the Lalheri road near the Khanna railway station. He said the way Durga Prasad Gupta had been shot in the chest suggested it to be the work of professional killers.

Police have also recovered two shells from the spot and a live bullet. From the security-camera footage of the fleeing assailants, they hope to gather some vital clues.

Two men on a motorcycle had shot the Shiv Sena labour wing leader twice on Saturday evening, when he was on way his house on a two-wheeler.
Panjab University (PU) students may lose their hostel seat permanently from the next academic session starting July this year for allowing outsiders to stay in their rooms illegally. Dean student welfare (DSW) Navdeep Goyal told HT a strict action will be taken those found guilty.

After receiving a list of those 30 outsiders, the Chandigarh police had caught them from the boys hostel number 4 during a raid on April 21-22 night. The raid was held after the cops received a tip off about the three absconding accused involved in a recent varsity firing incident hiding in the hostel.

Prof Goyal said, After receiving the list, we will inspect the rooms in which they were staying  and the purposes of their stay  following which an action will be taken. However, the strict action cant be taken against those come to stay only for a night for some work. Most of them are usually our own students, who are day-scholars.

He, however, added the PU administration will not disturb them till the examinations are on, but if found guilty, they could lose their rooms.

He added, After the firing incident at the PU, we had issued directions to all wardens to keep a strict check on the outsiders entry in the hostel. The hostel has been checked twice after that. We do not restrict the day-scholars to stay in our hostel for a day, but there is a provision them too. If a day scholar wishes to stay in hostel for a night, he/she has to submit application to the warden concerned, along with a fee of `25.

Sources say that 30 outsiders have been caught ever since the checking was held. But had there been no such raid, over 100 such outsiders would still be staying in the hostel, they add.

PU chief security officer Jatinder Grover said, The police, along with the PU internal security team, conducted the raid in the hostel. The police are yet to submit the list of the 30 outsiders to the DSW, following which the required action will be taken.

LONG WAITING LIST

It has been learnt the girls hostels can accommodate as many as 3,300 students, while the boys hostels can accommodate around 3,000 students. Every year, the university has a waiting list of over 400 students in both the hostels.

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The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) has appealed to the Pakistani government to locate a bir (copy) of the Guru Granth Sahib missing from a gurdwara at Haji village in Baluchistans Kachi district since earlier this week.

In a statement issued on Sunday, SGPC chief Avtar Singh Makkar said he was concerned over the missing copy of the Sikh holy book and added Islamabad must ensure incidents that hurt religious sentiments do not reoccur.

The Sikh scripture is a glowing example of secularism and religious tolerance. It contains not just the gurbani (hymns) of Sikh gurus, but also teachings of saints like Kabir, Baba Namdev and others, Makkar said.

The SGPC also sent a letter to external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, asking her to take up the matter with Pakistan. In the latter, Makkar said the issue needed efforts on the diplomatic side too because it concerned a minority in Pakistan.

The external affairs ministry should take up all such incidents, which hurt religious sentiments of a particular community, with countries where they occur . There have been incidents of hate crime against Sikhs (particularly in the US), which also need to be addressed by India at the diplomatic level, Makkar added.
Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal has claimed that the special investigation team (SIT) going after the killers of Mata Chand Kaur is close to a breakthrough.

The SIT led by Ludhiana police commissioner Jatinder Singh Aulakh, with Khanna senior superintendent of police Satinder Singh and additional inspector general (crime) Ravcharan Singh Brar as members, is close to catching the killers, he said on Sunday during the functions at Bhadaur House and Daresi here to mark the 125th birth anniversary of Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar.

Chand Kaur (85), wife of late Satguru Jagjit Singh, former head of the Namdharis, was shot dead at the Bhaini Sahib headquarters of the sect near Ludhiana on April 4.

Assures parents of fee regulation

On the burning issue of fleecing by private schools in the state, Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal has assured the agitating parents that a regulatory authority in the offing will solve the matter.

He said he had asked education minister Dr Daljit Singh Cheema to get his body functioning at the earliest. He said it.

Parents across the state have been protesting since March for reduction in the sum that schools collect in the name of building fund, re-admission fee, annual charges, and tuition fee. Even after several meetings and resolutions, the district administrations have failed to resolve the issue. Both parents and private schools have their arguments with reference to the Supreme Court and Punjab and Haryana high court rulings.

Addressing the media, Sukhbir said the Punjab government would not tolerate the fleecing of parents, which is why it had thought of making a regulatory authority.

Takes on AAP, Cong

Targeting Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener Arvind Kejriwal, Sukhbir said and the Delhi chief minister had been exposed on the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) issue. He said Kejriwal and his party had failed to even give good governance to the people of Delhi, and thats why, even Punjab would reject them.

He said Punjab Congress president Captain Amarinder Singh was a failed leader, and just like the people of Punjab, even the NRIs have rejected him.

On Kohinoor

Reacting to a question on Kohinoor diamond, Sukhbir said it belonged to all Punjabis, and he would meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi so that diplomatic channels could be used to bring it back from Britain.
Like for raptors, turtle females outsize males. The Chhatbir zoo acquired three Indian roofed turtles recently from a Ludhiana family. The turtles are striking due to their odd-shaped carapace (shell), dainty size and look, and a plastron (underside) patterned like a tiger skin. Studies reveal the females mean weight is 4.8 times of the male and is essentially an evolutionary provision aimed at reproduction/egg storage.

Though, if seen from the male viewpoint, one can well imagine the challenges posed to the poor fellow while clambering aboard the hulk on honeymoon night! Males are also distinguished from females by the formers having a concave shape to the plastron to facilitate copulation, a longer tail with a thick base, and a white band on the top of the tail in contrast to the females yellow band.

An interesting tale lies behind the zoos acquisition of this turtle species. The Ludhiana family had responded to the campaign by Turtle Survival Alliance, requesting pet owners to surrender native turtles as possession attracts legal punishment. Zoo authorities suspect the turtles were sourced from the illegal pet trade actually but declared as rescued from the wilderness by the Ludhiana family.

This turtle has been placed under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, to serve as a deterrent to the illegal pet trade. People keep this turtle to practise feng shui. However, sometimes this turtle refuses to eat in captivity, raising fears in the owners that it will die in their house and augur a bad omen. So, they panic and hand over turtle pets to zoos and claim they rescued it, explained reptile expert Dr BC Choudhury.

A HOLIDAY GONE SOUR

Arjun Balraj Mehta after arrest; (right) his sporting rifle at scene of crime. (HT PHOTO)

Some of us denizens of the hot plains can boast of spending holidays with relatives and friends commanding army formations in Kashmir and Ladakh. The attendant facilities are fabled stuff: privileges galore, liveried rum service, velvet-cover commode seats and free travel. But this particular jaunt was grotesque in its intent: to poach endangered Ladakh mammals, and to do so under army protection and provision of mountain logistics.

The arrest on April 13 of Jet Airways pilot officer Arjun Balraj Mehta and two personnel of the 254 (Independent) Armoured Brigade at Magnetic Hills, 30 kilometres from Leh, now has ensnared the brigades deputy commander, colonel Bhanu Pratap Singh, who is alleged to have provided his official Maruti Gypsy, ammunition and personnel to facilitate his guests activities.

Leh senior superintendent of police T Gyalpo told this writer that the colonels name had been included in the FIR (first-information report) registered at Leh under Sections 8 (hunting of scheduled animals), 51 (penalties), 54 (abetting contravention of the law), and 60 (prosecution proving that a person is in possession of any captive animal or animal article etc.) of the Jammu and Kashmir Wildlife Act and Sections 7 (Carrying prohibited arms and ammunition) and 27 (punishment for using weapons) of the Indian Arms Act.

This is based on the confessions of the two army personnel who said they had accompanied Mehta on orders from the colonel. They have also recorded their statements before the chief judicial magistrate of Leh. We have questioned the colonel a few times and we may arrest him, said Gyalpo.

The matter came to light on April 13 when a wildlife department team under Leh warden Tsering Angchuk witnessed Mehta firing three rifle shots at wild Urial sheep. When the wildlife team apprehended Mehta and the jawans, a truckload of army personnel landed up. We were manhandled and assaulted. Three officers also arrived and threatened to take us to the unit. They also tried to take away the keys of the Gypsy we had seized. Fortunately for us, the Leh SHO (station house officer) arrived and civilian passersby in buses stopped to look at the confrontation. This prevented the army personnel from intimidating us further, Angchuk told this writer.

AMMO DUMP

The seized Maruti gypsy of the brigade deputy commander. (HT PHOTO)

A resident of Dwarka, Delhi, Arjun B Mehta, is son of brigadier Balraj Mehta, who is posted at the army headquarters in Delhi. The rifle recovered is a .30-06 Springfield manufactured by JP Sauer and Sohn of Germany and fitted with a Nikon Monarch UCC riflescope. Mehta has seven other weapons on his arms licence, as he enjoys the category of national shooter. We recovered from him 15 empty bullet cases of the .22 bore along with 230 live bullets; and 30 live bullets of .30-06 bore along with 14 empty cases. Some of these bullets belonged to the colonel Bhanu Pratap Singh, said Gyalpo.

In the seized Gypsy displaying the banner of DY CDR, the police found the blood, skin, and hair of an animal. In a parallel development, a team probed a reported poaching incident at Huling in Hemis National Park (HNP) that took place just before April 13. Prima facie, it appears that the samples from the Gypsy are of the Blue sheep. The blood stains found at HNP are also suspected to be of the Blue sheep. A test of both samples will confirm whether the same poachers were at work in the two incidents, said warden Tsering Angchuk.

Northern Command spokesperson colonel SD Goswami told this writer: The army has initiated a court of inquiry.
A solar-powered airplane landed in California on Saturday, completing a risky, three-day flight across the Pacific Ocean as part of its journey around the world.

Pilot Bertrand Piccard landed the Solar Impulse 2 in Mountain View, in the Silicon Valley south of San Francisco, at 11:45pm following a 62-hour, non-stop solo flight without fuel. The plane taxied into a huge tent erected on Moffett Airfield where Piccard was greeted by projects team.

You know there was a moment in the night, I was watching the reflection of the moon on the ocean and I was thinking Im completely alone in this tiny cockpit and I feel completely confident. And I was really thankful to life for bringing me this experience, Piccard said at a news conference after he landed.

Its maybe this is one of the most fantastic experiences of life Ive had.

Solar Impulse 2 pilot Bertrand Piccard looks out his cockpit window shortly after landing at Moffett Field in Mountain View, California. (AP Photo)

The landing came several hours after the Piccard performed a fly-by over the Golden Gate Bridge as spectators watched the narrow aircraft with extra wide wings from below.

I crossed the bridge. I am officially in America, he declared as he took in spectacular views of San Francisco Bay.

Piccard and fellow Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg have been taking turns flying the plane on an around-the-world trip since taking off from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, in March 2015. It made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China, Japan and Hawaii.

The trans-Pacific leg was the riskiest part of the planes global travels because of the lack of emergency landing sites.

The aircraft faced a few bumps along the way.

Solar Impulse 2 lands at Moffett Field in Mountain View, California, after crossing the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo)

The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Hawaii in July and was forced to stay in the islands after the planes battery system sustained heat damage on its trip from Japan. The team was delayed in Asia, as well. When first attempting to fly from Nanjing, China, to Hawaii, the crew had to divert to Japan because of unfavourable weather and a damaged wing.

A month later, when weather conditions were right, the plane departed from Nagoya in central Japan for Hawaii.

The planes ideal flight speed is about 28mph, though that can double during the day when the suns rays are strongest. The carbon-fiber aircraft weighs more than 5,000 pounds, or about as much as a mid-size truck.

The planes wings, which stretch wider than those of a Boeing 747, are equipped with 17,000 solar cells that power propellers and charge batteries. The plane runs on stored energy at night.

Solar Impulse 2 pilots Bertrand Piccard (left) and Andre Borschberg (right) celebrate after Piccard landed their solar-powered plane at Moffett Field. (AP Photo)

Solar Impulse 2 will make three more stops in the United States before crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Europe or Northern Africa, according to the website documenting the journey.

The adventure continues, Piccard said. The story is not finished.

The project, which began in 2002 and is estimated to cost more than $100 million, is meant to highlight the importance of renewable energy and the spirit of innovation.

I think innovation and pioneering must continue, Piccard said. It must continue for better quality of life, for clean technologies, for renewable energy; this is where the pioneers can really express themselves and be successful.

Solar-powered air travel is not yet commercially practical, however, given the slow travel time, weather and weight constraints of the aircraft.

This handout photo taken on April 23, 2016 and released by Solar Impulse 2 shows the plane piloted by Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard, flying over the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco, California. (AFP Photo)

Maybe it will be boring in 20 years when all the airplanes will be electric and people will say Oh its routine. But now, today, an airplane that is electric, with electric engines, that produces its own energy with the sun, it can never be boring, Piccard said.

Its a miracle of technology.

Read | Solar aircraft on historic round-the-world journey lands in Ahmedabad
New legislation passed by the government in Xinjiang, such as the anti-terror law and the national security law, have restricted the Uyghur communitys religious and cultural freedom now more than ever before, Dolkun Isa, the Uyghur activist granted a visa by India, has said.

Isa, branded a terrorist by China and wanted in Beijing on terror charges, is expected to go to India later this month to attend a conference in Dharamsala on democracy and China.

He said under the current dispensation, any form of defiance of the government can have you arrested on charges of separatism.

Read: China fumes after India issues visa to Uyghur terrorist

Reacting to Indias move, Chinas foreign ministry said on Thursday that Isa was a terrorist on red notice of Interpol and the Chinese police. Bringing him to justice is a due obligation of relevant countries.

Whether India gave the visa as a retaliatory measure for Chinas blocking of New Delhis move in the UN to designate Pathankot attack mastermind Masood Azhar as a terrorist, is a matter of interpretation. But the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) and rights activists are baffled at the comparison between Isa and Azhar, calling the former a peace activist.

So, what is the situation in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), the biggest province in China, and the most restive?

Though 2009 possibly saw the worst riots in the region in recent history, it has seen frequent violence since; some of it has spilled out too, in Beijing and in Kunming in the southwest.

Ten days ago, the XUAR government offered cash rewards to the public for up to 5 million Yuan ($774,000) for information on terrorism in the region.

Those who provide police with significant information on planned attacks, hijacking, assassinations, poisoning, blasts or sabotage of key infrastructure facilities, can get 200,000 yuan to 5 million Yuan, a government statement said.

It is very hard to tell how many Uyghurs are in detention in East Turkestan (which is what Uyghur activists call XUAR) though it is clear that the number is disproportionate to the population in East Turkestan. Many are now jailed on charges of illegal religious activities (e.g. religious practice outside state sanctioned mosques) or on charges of endangering state security, Isa told HT over email.

Many Uyghurs have been given death sentences over the years, with close to a 100% conviction rate. In 2014, at least 36 Uyghurs were sentenced to death in East Turkestan, he said.

Read: Policies in Xinjiang brutal, cause trauma among Uyghurs

Hundreds have been killed in the violence but clear statistics are shrouded in censorship. Journalists are not barred from visiting the region.

But local authorities can stop anyone from entering any locality if they so wish. Independent verification of news coming out of the region is difficult because of a government clampdown on information.

Last December, China effectively expelled French journalist Ursula Gauthier from the magazine LObs after she wrote an article on the situation in the region.

Isa added: Since 2003, 11 Uyghurs were listed as terrorists as well as 4 organizations (including the WUC). Additionally, Uyghurs in East Turkestan have been very often labelled as terrorists for ostensible crimes (especially since 9/11), but this information is much more difficult to obtain.

The Chinese foreign ministry is yet to respond to a set of questions emailed by HT.
Long before Donald Trump could build a wall along the border to keep out illegal immigrations, if he ever gets to do so, he has erected one around his campaign to keep out foreign journalists.

This reporter has been turned down thrice requests for media credentials to his political events, rallies and victory parties, two of them just the past week during the battle for his home state New York.

Many other foreign journalists have been turned down as well  including those from China, Germany and Holland  but there may well be some exceptions, which could not be confirmed. The campaign is not coy about this, and says, up front a trait it probably gets from its straight-shooting candidate it prefers local media to those from abroad. Period.

Here is what the campaign said rejecting this reporters media credential request for attending the victory event on April 19 at the tycoons ritzy Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan: During the 2016 Presidential Primary race, the Donald J. Trump Campaign fully recognizes and respects foreign media but due to various venue sizes, media space and safety, we must limit the number of credentialed media and give priority to our national and local outlets. We appreciate your understanding.

This reporter did manage to attend Trumps victory event in Spartanburg for the South Carolina primaries in February on a general ticket, which is available to anyone who RSVPs. The difference is mostly in the waiting time to enter the venue  the general admission lines can be long and start forming way before the doors open; four hours in Spartanburg.

The Trump campaign is well within its rights to choose who it allows to its events and who it doesnt; these are private  and not public  events after all, as it has said in a different context.

And the campaign probably does get more media credential requests than it can handle on an average day, given the attention the Republican front runner is getting around the world.

Thats what it said denying this reporter credentials for the Spartanburg event: With the abundance of requests for media credentials, we have to take proactive measures with our credentialing process to ensure the success of each event.

And it threw in the stock riff that it respects foreign media but must give priority to our national and local outlets.

But the media enclosure that night looked nowhere as packed as the campaign claimed. It had the regular television news crews and print reporters, but there were plenty of vacant seats around. A police officer tried to help saying, You can easily be there  even without credentials. But the general enclosure proved to be a better hunting ground for quotes from his supporters.

And there wasnt much to the campaigns position on safety and security. The Secret Service that now protects Trump is used to foreign media around others it protects. Foreign journalists are free to travel with the secret services most important protectee, the US president, if their organizations can afford the steep cost of travel and stay.

The secret service also has no problem with foreign media cover the other candidates it protects  all of them at this stage of the race now. The Clinton campaign confirmed credential requests for this reporter multiple times, without any question  twice during the recent primaries in New York, also her home-state.

Clintons rival Bernie Sanders also has no problems with foreign media and this reporter has attended some of his rallies.

The other Republicans in the race have had no issues either. This reporter has attended political rallies of Ted Cruz, who is now placed second, and Marco Rubio, whos since dropped out.

Trump, on the other hand, is a different story altogether.
Frances rising political star Emmanuel Macron has been warned he must play his role in government as his behaviour fuels speculation he harbours ambitions to run for President in 2017.

Barely two weeks after the 38-year-old reform-minded economy minister announced he was setting up his own political movement, Macrons bandwagon is well and truly rolling.

The former banker is getting so much media attention that some Socialist Party colleagues are questioning if he can continue to serve in the government or if his presence is undermining an already unpopular President.

The unease was clear when Macron visited a factory in Chartres, outside Paris, with President Francois Hollande on Thursday.

While Macron was happy to pose for selfies with employees, he appeared less keen to be photographed alongside the President.

Emmanuel isnt here, said a visibly irritated Hollande as he lined up without his economy minister for the group shot. A grinning Macron arrived just in time to take his place in the lineup.

Later, it emerged Macron had told local newspapers he rejected suggestions he was in debt to Hollande, who brought him into the cabinet in 2014.

The quote received widespread coverage and within hours, Macron insisted his words had been taken out of context.

I have a personal loyalty to Francois Hollande. He had confidence in me and named me to the government and therefore I respect him, he said.

Visiting Warsaw on Friday, Macron complained that some people want to use the slightest word, the slightest initiative to weaken the President.

The problem for the Socialists is that while Macron refuses to rule out a bid for Frances highest office in next years election, Hollandes abysmal poll ratings make it hard for him to appear the natural candidate of the left 12 months from now.

This file photo taken on March 07, 2014 shows French President Francois Hollande waiting for a meeting at the Elysee presidential palace in Paris. (AFP Photo)

Hollandes response to Macron setting up his En marche (On the move) movement was to say the economics minister has to be in my team, under my authority.

Its a question of personal and political loyalty, the President said last week.

Ego needs reining in

Macrons cabinet colleagues have called on him to get into line.

On Wednesday Prime Minister Manuel Valls -- who has clashed with Macron in the past -- said each minister should attend to his office and to his job.

A day later, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian urged Macron to be a team player.

On Friday it was the turn of Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who said Macron was a competent minister but one who should concentrate on his work because while the economy is doing a little bit better, were not out of the crisis yet.

Growth in France has begun to pick up after a few dismal years, but unemployment remains stuck at around 10 percent and Macrons attempts to push through business-friendly reforms have met resistance.

The appeals for unity from his colleagues have done little to stop Macron setting out his political ambitions.

In an interview with Belgian newspaper Le Soir, he said he wanted to assess the state of France later this year before drawing up a plan of action, although he insisted such a plan is not a programme (for a campaign).

The aim was to foster a Presidential bid, he said -- but not necessarily for himself.

Its only after establishing a diagnosis and putting forward a plan of action that the question of which person should do it comes up, he said, hinting that the candidate could also be Hollande.

The President has said he will decide at the end of the year whether to seek re-election, but a poll last week predicted he would be eliminated in the first round of the two-round contest.

In the eyes of even Socialist voters, Hollande has so far failed to get France back to work.

The French dont want him to run. His word has been debased, said Gael Sliman, a political scientist from the Odoxa polling institute.

The same poll showed that Macron would fare better if he was named the Socialist candidate, and would progress into the second round, possibly to face far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

Yet many questions remain for a man who has never held elected office -- and Hollandes aides have been quick to fire a few shots across Macrons bows, albeit anonymously.

One said that while Macrons initiatives brought energy to the debate, he also rubbed up his own friends the wrong way.

Another, an old friend of the President, summed up the feelings of Macrons opponents: He is witty and pleasant but his ego needs reining in.
An Indian-origin doctor at a US Miami hospital has been fired after a video that showed her attacking an Uber driver and his vehicle went viral.

Anjali Ramkissoon, 30, has been on administrative leave since the video surfaced in January, and according to a statement released by a spokeswoman for Jackson Health System, was terminated from her position there yesterday.

Jackson Health System is moving forward with the termination of Dr Anjali Ramkissoon, a resident doctor, The Miami Herald quoted the statement as saying.

She is entitled to an appeal process.

Ramkissoon, who was a four-year neurology resident at the hospital, was seen in the video attempting to strike and scratch the driver, climbing into the mans vehicle and throwing objects out of it, all the while yelling and swearing at him and trying to force him to drive her home.

The driver has so far opted to remain anonymous and has declined to press charges.

Ramkissoon later apologised for the incident.

The video of the incident has nearly seven million views and sparked a lot of outrage and controversy.
Its election season in the US and its time to gripe about foreign workers and companies such as those from India, who are otherwise lovely and great people.

Republican governor of Maine, Paul LePage, who has courted controversy earlier for racist comments, said on Saturday at the partys state convention that Indian workers were the worst to understand.

LePage was making a point about foreign workers, and said restaurants on the east coast were staffed by a lot of foreigners  what if they were from Bulgaria.

And the worst ones are from India , LePage said warming up to the theme, as the audience laughed, I mean they are all lovely people  you need an interpreter.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally April 22, 2016 in Harrington, Delaware. (AFP Photo)

The governor, whose tiny northeastern state was won by Ted Cruz in the Republican caucuses in March, pushed the issue further, wanting to know if people had ever called Amazon customer care.

He went on to say he understood why America needs foreign workers  because they do the jobs that Americans dont want to perform, which is insightful and not too way off the mark.

At another rally Friday, Republican front-runner Donald Trump moaned about Indians performing outsourced back-office operations for his credit card company.

Read: Donald Trump mocks Indian call centres, but says India is a great nation

He has also complained about workers form China, Mexico and other countries taking away American jobs, which he has promised voters he will bring back.

But he proceeded to immediately call Indians great. So there.

During campaigns earlier, President Barack Obama used to hold up India as an example to push and inspire Americans to focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) courses.
Israel freed 12-year-old Palestinian Dima al Wawi from prison on Sunday, more than two months after jailing her for an attempted stabbing attack.

Wawi was handed over to Palestinian authorities at Tulkarem crossing point into the northern West Bank, an AFP photographer said.

She was to travel from there to her family home near Hebron in the south of the territory.

She was arrested, wearing her school uniform, on February 9 at the entrance to a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank and found to be carrying a knife.

A wave of Palestinian knife, gun or car-ramming attacks has left 28 Israelis dead since last October, with 201 Palestinians killed over the same period, most of them while carrying out attacks.

The mother (R) of Palestinian Dima al Wawi, 12, reacts after her release from Israeli prison. (AFP Photo)

Under a plea bargain with Israeli military prosecutors, Wawi pleaded guilty to attempted murder and possession of a knife and was sentenced to four months in an Israeli prison and a further six-week suspended sentence.

She is the youngest Palestinian girl ever imprisoned, her lawyer Tariq Barghouth posted on Facebook.

Barghouth said that Wawis defence team had asked the military court for her early release and it agreed.

According to Israeli military law, minors from age 12 can be charged, uniquely in the world according to United Nations childrens agency Unicef.

Israel is currently holding about 450 Palestinian minors, around 100 of whom are under 16.
North Korea said on Sunday that it successfully test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine and warned of its growing ability to cut down its enemies with a dagger of destruction.

South Korea couldnt immediately confirm the claim of success in what marks Pyongyangs latest effort to expand its military might in face of pressure by its neighbors and Washington.

Hours before the announcement, South Korean military officials said the North fired what appeared to be a ballistic missile from a submarine off its eastern coast. The Souths Joint Chiefs of Staff said the projectile traveled about 30 kilometers Saturday evening. Thats a much shorter than the typical distance of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, which can fly at least 300 kilometers.

A successful test from a submarine would be a worrying development because mastering the ability to fire missiles from submerged vessels would make it harder for outsiders to detect what North Korea is doing before it launches, giving it the potential to surprise its enemies.

Read: North Korea appears to fire missile from submarine, says Seoul

While South Korean experts say its unlikely that North Korea currently possesses an operational submarine that can fire multiple missiles, they acknowledge that the North is making progress on such technology.

In a typical example of overblown rhetoric, the Norths Korean Central News Agency said leader Kim Jong Un observed from a test facility as the ballistic missile surged from a submarine and spewed out a massive stream of flames as it soared into the sky. It said the missile met all technical thresholds.

The KCNA report said that after the test Kim declared that the North now has another strong nuclear strike method and also the ability to stick a dagger of destruction into the heads of its enemies, South Korea and the United States, at any time.

The KCNA report didnt say when or where the recent test-firing took place. South Korean officials said the launch on Saturday took place near the North Korean coastal town of Sinpo, where analysts have previously detected efforts by the North to develop submarine-launched ballistic missile systems.

The North last test-launched a submarine-launched ballistic missile on Dec. 25, but that test was seen as failure, the Souths Joint Chiefs of Staff said. The North first claimed of a successful submarine-launched missile test in May last year.

US Strategic Command, headquartered at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, said its systems detected and tracked what we assess was a North Korean submarine missile launch from the Sea of Japan. A statement from Strategic Command added that the missile launch did not pose a threat to North America.

US military forces remain vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations and are fully committed to working closely with our Republic of Korea and Japanese allies to maintain security, it said.

Read: Obama says US is still analysing North Koreas recent actions

The US State Department said that in response to Saturdays launch, it was limiting the travel of North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong and his delegation to UN functions in New York, where they are attending a U.N. meeting on sustainable development. The US noted launches using ballistic missile technology are a clear violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions.

We call on North Korea to refrain from actions that further destabilize the region and focus instead on taking concrete steps toward fulfilling its commitments and international obligations, said State Department spokesman John Kirby.

The UN Security Council issued a press statement that strongly condemned the firing of the submarine-launched ballistic missile, saying it constitutes yet another serious violation of council resolutions.

The Security Council members reiterated that North Korea should refrain from further actions in violation of the relevant Security Council resolutions and comply fully with its obligations under these resolutions, including to suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile program.

North Korea has recently sent a barrage of missiles and artillery shells into the sea amid ongoing annual military drills between the United States and South Korea. Pyongyang says the drills are a preparation for an invasion of the North. The firings also come as the North expresses anger about toughened international sanctions over its recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch.

North Koreas belligerence may also be linked to a major ruling party congress next month meant to further cement leader Kim Jong Uns grip on power. Promoting military accomplishments could be an attempt to overshadow a lack of economic achievements ahead of the Workers Party congress, the first since 1980.

Read: North Korea prepares ballistic missile launch, says South Korean media
US President Barack Obama said on Sunday North Korea is engaging in provocative behaviour and the United States is still analysing the countrys recent actions, after North Korea said it conducted a submarine-launched ballistic missile test.

What is clear is that North Korea continues to engage in continuous provocative behaviour, that they have been actively pursuing a nuclear programme, an ability to launch nuclear weapons, Obama said at a joint news conference with German chancellor Angela Merkel.

And although more often than not they fail in many of these tests, they gain knowledge each time they engage in these tests, he added.
Punjab Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh postponed his visit to Canada on Saturday, as he awaited the outcome of the hearing of a case filed against him in a Toronto court.

The case was filed by hardline activist group, Sikhs for Justice, alleging that a resident of Canada had been subjected to torture while Amarinder was Punjabs chief minister.

Amarinder  who was in Chicago  decided to delay his visit till an order was issued in the case and said he considered this to be a straight case of harassment.

He also said he would catch a flight to Toronto subject to the courts decision. The hearing in the case filed in the Ontario Court of Justice commenced on Saturday morning with an examination of documents submitted to ascertain whether those were adequate and if they fell within the Canadian law.

After that process, a pre-enquete or evidentiary hearing started before another justice to see if there was enough evidence of torture charges to issue a summons or an arrest warrant against the former Punjab CM.

Amarinder refuted the charges, saying his tenure as chief minister was the most peaceful time in the state, it was considered a golden period. He said he had ensured the remission of sentences to many who were jailed in cases relating to the Khalistan movement.

Whether he can actually be subject to prosecution in Canada is unclear since he holds a diplomatic passport as a Lok Sabha MP and it would be extraordinary for the Canadian Attorney-Generals office to allow the prosecution of a senior political figure from a friendly nation.

In a statement, SFJs legal adviser Gurpatwant Singh Pannu said, With information in hand, there are reasonable and probable grounds to believe that during Amarinders tenure as chief minister, there was systematic torture of Sikh nationalists campaigning peacefully for Khalistan.

1984 Punjabs darkest chapter

Addressing a gathering of Punjabi diaspora in Chicago on Friday night, Amarinder asserted that Punjab desperately needed good governance.

This is not the time for experimentation. Just because some people are telling you that you have tried so and so, now give us a chance does not qualify and entitle them to take over the reins of Punjab at a critical juncture, Amarinder said.

Later, replying to a question, Captain said: 1984 was the darkest chapter in the Sikh history. I resigned from Parliament and the party over what happened in 1984. However, Punjab needs to move forward. He said the Akalis rake up this issue only during elections and conveniently put it on the back-burner once the polls are over.

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Hundreds of Sikhs staged a rally in Germanys western city of Essen on Saturday to protest against a terror strike at a gurdwara which authorities said was carried out by radical Islamists.

The Sikhs participated in nagar kirtan, singing religious hymns, exactly a week after an explosion ripped through Nanaksar Satsang Darbar Gurdwara, injuring three persons.

The peaceful march was not a reaction to the strikes, but intended to pass on the message that the religious group would not succumb to terror fears, the German media reported.

Young men with swords enacted poses from the traditional Sikh martial art gatka to the sounds of music and drums amid tight security as the community members, some of them holding placards in the wake of the attack, travelled through the streets.

The route for the procession, which had been planned months earlier, was changed after the attack to ensure the safety of all participants, the report said. I think it is important that the procession has taken place This is a clear signal that we will not be intimidated, we do not shrink back... As mayor, I am also here to show when the Sikh community is attacked in Essen, the entire city is under attack. And I am also the mayor of the Sikh, city police chief Frank Richter was quoted as saying.

The two teenagers with known links to regional Islamists have been arrested in connection with the incident.

India had expressed distress at what has been deemed as a deliberate act from the beginning. Top Indian officials have already taken it up at the highest level as Essen authorities assured India that all steps will be taken to ensure security for all minorities including the Sikhs.

The organisers had planned to bring the granthi (priest), on whom the whole pane of glass had fallen due to the impact of the explosion and was seriously injured, to the procession. He could not come down but joined through telephone.

The priest, Kuldeep Singh, said: What happened is a shame. Those who have done this, should be blessed by God. My health is very good and I will be discharged in a few days.

Germany has a Sikh population of more than 15,000 and around 35 gurdwaras are located across the country.
Turkeys leaders have warned that its controversial migrant deportation deal with the European Union will collapse if the bloc fails to grant Turkish citizens the right to visa-free stays for tourism or business by July.

The countrys Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, said that the issue was crucial for Turkey on Saturday, and said that it was working to fulfil its commitments on the issue.

Davutoglu also said that the number of migrants crossing into Greece illegally has dropped considerably, as proof that a much criticised migration deal between Turkey and the European Union is working.

The Prime Minister was speaking at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and top European Union officials who travelled near Turkeys border with Syria in a bid to promote the troubled deal with Turkey as they face increasing pressure to reassess the agreement. The group toured a refugee camp and inaugurated a child support centre funded by the EU.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (C) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel (R) are greeted by refugees in Nizip refugee camp near Gaziantep, Turkey, April 23, 2016. (REUTERS)

European Union Council president Donald Tusk said the EU plans to spend 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) on projects this summer to improve the lives of Syrian refugees in Turkey and Davutoglu said the bloc has already launched projects worth 187 million euros ($211 million).

Human rights groups criticised the trip to what they call a sanitized refugee camp  and said EU officials should look further at the tens of thousands of Syrian refugees that are now blocked from entering Turkey.

Many have questioned the legality of the March 20 EU-Turkey deal allowing for the deportation of migrants who dont qualify for asylum in Greece back to Turkey.

Davutoglu said the number of migrants crossing illegally into Greece had dropped from around 6,000 per day in November to around 130 daily since the beginning of this month.

This drop shows the effectiveness of this joint mechanism, Davutoglu said.

Our priority was to stop the baby Aylans from washing up on the shores, and we have made great strides in this aim, Davutoglu said, in reference to drowned 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, whose images helped galvanize world attention on the plight of the migrants.

In return for the deal, the EU has earmarked 6 billion euros ($6.8 billion) to Turkey over the next four years to help improve conditions for the 2.7 million Syrian refugees inside Turkey. The EU is also set to allow visa-free travel for Turkish citizens.

Refugees try to catch a glimpse of the German Chancellor visiting the refugee camp on the Turkish-Syrian border. The proposed deportation plan has come under fire because of the moral and legal implications of it. (AFP Photo)

Rights groups, EU legislators and the UN refugee agency have questioned the moral and legal implications of expelling people from Greece back to Turkey  a country that many consider unsafe on grounds of security and human rights.

Despite insisting that it has an open-door policy for Syrian refugees, Turkey in the past few months has blocked several thousand refugees who were fleeing northern Syria at the border, providing aid to them at displaced persons camps near the border instead. Human rights groups say some of the camps have been attacked and are pressing Ankara to give the refugees shelter inside Turkey.

Amnesty International says Turkish authorities have also for the past three months been expelling around 100 Syrians a day back to their war-ravaged country  an accusation Turkey has denied. The country has also rejected claims that Turkish soldiers have sometimes shot at refugees trying to cross the border illegally.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu attends a news conference after visiting Nizip refugee camp near Gaziantep, Turkey. (REUTERS)

Davutoglu reacted angrily to the Amnesty claim on Saturday, saying not a single Syrian had been returned to his or her homeland without consent.

Tusk backed Turkey, saying the country  which is host to the worlds largest refugee population  was the best example in the entire world of how to treat refugees.

On Syria, Merkel said she was in favour of the creation of areas that are under special protection of the cease-fire, where as much safety as possible can be offered.

Merkel said: The safer people can feel, the less they have to leave their homeland.

Earlier, New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch urged EU leaders to understand the whole refugee picture at the Turkish border.

Instead of touring a sanitized refugee camp, EU leaders should look over the top of Turkeys new border wall to see the tens of thousands of war-weary Syrian refugees blocked on the other side, said Judith Sunderland, Human Rights Watchs acting deputy Europe and Central Asia director. Then, they should go to the (Turkish) detention centre for people who were abusively deported from Greece. That should make them rethink the flawed EU-Turkey deal.

Merkels visit also comes amid controversy over her decision to grant Turkeys request to let German prosecutors and courts decide whether German comedian Jan Boehmermann had insulted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Critics have accused Merkel of kowtowing to Turkey because of the countrys important role in stopping the influx of migrants to Europe.

Merkel denied that Germany was no longer raising the question of freedom of expression with Turkish leaders.

I can assure you that the fact we speak with each other so often  much more often than we used to  leads to our addressing all these issues, she said.

Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama also weighed in on the issue in comments to German daily Bild that were published Saturday. He praised Merkels political and moral leadership in the migrant crisis, but also stressed the need to uphold human rights.

The recent agreement between the EU and Turkey is a step toward a more equitable way of sharing this responsibility, he said. As the agreement is implemented, it will be essential that migrants are treated properly and that human rights are upheld.
Nathan McClain, former co-owner of the Zany Zoo Pet Store in Oregon, was arrested Thursday after investigators deduced that the man paid a sex worker money from a Girl Scout cookie jar and gave an exotic primate as a tip.

That's right. After stealing some well-donated money from a jar, the man promptly decided to give the prostitute a very generous tip, a Galago, better known as a bush baby, which is valued in the market at about $2,500.

The odd case started back in early March when Abbie McClain, co-owner of the Zany Zoo and wife to the suspect, reported to the police that the pet shop was missing a number of very valuable items. During her initial report, she listed store funds amounting to $7,000, a laptop computer and, of course, the exotic Galago monkey named Gooey.

Investigators were eventually able to find Gooey on March 17 in the care of a woman at a local hotel, who turned out to be the prostitute that McClain hired. The woman admitted that she was indeed given the Galago as a tip and that she was an out-of-state prostitute who had visited the suspect.

After submitting her statements, the sex worker, who remains unnamed, was kind enough to surrender Gooey to the authorities. Gooey is currently being taken care of in a sanctuary until such time that the little primate could be returned to the Zany Zoo Pet Store.

The suspect was arrested on March 19 after he was seen leaving an adult store. During that time, police stated that McClain appeared like he was under the influence of methamphetamine. Eventually, he was interrogated again on March 21. Police officers also remarked during his second interrogation that he looked and acted like he was under the influence of meth.

Despite the case against him being pretty much clear-cut, McClain's arrest only happened on Thursday. Detective Rick Lowe noted that the delay in his arrest was allowed in order to give the pet shop a chance to move locations.

"Out of respect for the store, I delayed the arrest date until yesterday," Lowe said.

Considering that McClain had been taken in by the police twice last month, Lowe stated that his arrest on Thursday came as no surprise to his wife.

Now that the notorious tipper is behind bars, his wife has taken it upon herself to remove all of his association to the family's business. Abbie stated in an announcement on the store's Facebook Page that she and her children have suffered as a result of her husband's actions and that she would be removing her husband's name from all business and bank accounts.

"Nathan McClain will have no further association with Zany Zoo. Nathan's potential wrongdoing has no bearing on our ability to care for our animals and customers," she wrote.

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
After being airborne for 62 hours over the Pacific Ocean, the Solar Impulse 2, an experimental aircraft attempting to fly around the world using only clean and renewable energy, has finally finished the riskiest leg of its long journey, flying from Hawaii to San Francisco and landing in Mountain View, Calif., on Saturday.

The Solar Impulse 2, which left for its around-the-world journey last year in Dubai, has made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China, Japan and Hawaii. However, what was supposed to be a smooth journey turned a bit sour last year when the trailblazing aircraft's battery system sustained heat damage during its trip from Japan. As a result, the aircraft was grounded for months as its crew repaired the damage.

Eventually, the Solar Impulse 2 became airworthy once more, with one of its designated pilots, Bertrand Piccard, who alternates with Andre Borschberg after every stop on the plane's journey, taking the solar-powered plane through its riskiest leg in its journey to date.

The Hawaii-to-San Francisco leg was particularly risky due to the absence of emergency landing areas on the ocean. Thus, if the aircraft would encounter trouble, Piccard, the pilot for the leg, would be forced to parachute out of the plane and call for rescue from the sea.

Despite the dangers and the difficulties faced by the aircraft and its pilot across the Pacific, the Solar Impulse 2 triumphantly crossed the waters and entered California on Saturday.

"The Pacific is done, my friend. I love it, but it's done. It's great to be in California, the land of pioneers. Innovation and pioneering must continue. The clean tech revolution has to keep moving forward," Piccard said.

Piccard, a doctor by training and an avid adventurer at heart, further stated that crossing the Pacific was one of the "most amazing" experiences in his life. He also expressed his optimism about the future of clean air travel.

"I bet that in 10 years, electric airplanes will be transporting up to 50 people. This will happen. This is not science fiction. It is real," he said.

The Solar Impulse 2's around-the-world journey, which is the most ambitious project in clean air travel to date, is estimated to cost upward of $100 million. Despite its cost, it is nonetheless seen as a means to highlight the importance of renewable energy and, of course, the heart and spirit of technological innovation.

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A prom in Antigo, Wisc., turned violent and bloody Saturday when 18-year-old Jakob E. Wagner reportedly opened fire on two students as they were leaving the school around 11 p.m. Police promptly responded to the attack, shooting down the gunman and ending what could have been yet another tragic school shooting.

Wagner's victims, a male and a female, whose identities remain unknown, were both taken to the Aspirus Langdale Hospital, where they received treatment for their injuries. The female was allegedly treated and sent home, while the male underwent surgery. The male victim's injuries, however, were not life-threatening.

Wagner initiated the attack using a high-powered rifle. After officers became aware of the ongoing attack, they immediately responded, with one of the officers managing to shoot down the attacker. It was found that Wagner also had a large ammunition clip.

The attacker was also taken to the hospital after being gunned down, though he eventually died of his wounds.

Eric Roller, the chief of police in Antigo, described the events that transpired Saturday night.

"Officers were in the parking lot patrolling the activities and heard the shots and an officer immediately fired upon the shooter, stopping the threat," he said.

The school district has announced a statement about the incident, praising the police officers for their quick and appropriate response to the shooting.

"Quick actions taken by police and district staff to secure the building prevented what might have otherwise been a disaster of unimaginable proportions, and we are extremely grateful for their well-rehearsed response," the district said.

Antigo is a relatively small, tight-knit community in Wisconsin with a population of just about 8,000 people. The area is located about 150 miles north of Milwaukee.

Reinhardt Balcerzak, a retired Antigo High School science teacher who now serves as a member of the city council, expressed his shock over the incident. He also extended his sympathy to the families of the students affected by the tragic incident.

"It just takes one or two that are angry about something. It's too bad that's going to be the memory for those kids. I feel bad that's their last prom. I feel bad for the ones who were shot and their parents," he said.

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When the rains stopped and the skies brightened, Houston once more was viewed by the world through a prism of disaster: thousands of homes and hundreds of thousands of people swamped by a sea of muddy brown water. The misery was fresh. The images were anything but.

Space City might be the preferred nickname, but Flood City is more like it. The furious storm that dumped more than a foot of water across a broad swath of Houston on Sunday night and early Monday brought to mind scenes from another such storm on Memorial Day 2015, which in turn rekindled memories of storms in 2012 and 2013 that produced flood victims of their own.

And future storms are more likely than ever to threaten homes and roadways with inundation, even in neighborhoods that don't border on creeks or bayous. If there is a consensus among conservationists, engineers, ecologists, hydrologists, urban planners, climatologists and other experts regarding Houston's prospects in a time of climate change, it is that neither city nor county officials have taken adequate steps to address the realities imposed by life on a rainy coastal plain.

"This should not have happened like this," said Phil Bedient, a civil and environmental engineer at Rice University who heads a research collaborative focused on severe storms and their effects. "There is something terribly wrong here."

That something, in general, is no great mystery. Decades of intense residential and commercial development across Harris County, especially on the relatively higher ground north and west of Houston's center, have taken place with only modest attempts to compensate for change to the area's natural drainage system. The crucial freshwater wetlands, which collect and retain water, have been destroyed at an alarming pace - more than 65 square miles filled in since the early 1950s, according to research done by coastal ecologist Erin Kinney.

The precise effect of a particular storm on a particular geographic area may be a complex matter. But the prescription for those who make public policy is fairly simple - plan carefully.

The information available to both developers and public agencies is more detailed than ever, with all the elevation changes in Harris County having been measured by the laser-based technology known as LIDAR and all the stream flows within a particular channel clearly established. An entirely new discipline - geospatial analysis - has emerged to show the impact of human activity within a specific environment. More than ever, new mapping technology can give builders and planners an accurate understanding of how specific projects will affect the land they sit on and the people who live or work nearby.

"It can be built right; it can be done right," Bedient said. "But you have to have rules, and you have to enforce them."

Caption: Some Houston residents said they believe Houston flooding is getting worse, concluding that a routine rainstorm shouldn't produce tropical storm like flooding. But last weeks storm was anything but routine. Last week, some parts of northwest Harris County and Houston saw up to 14 - 15 inches of rain in about a 24-hour period, with most of the rain falling in a 10-hour period. Last year, the Memorial Day flood saw similar numbers when the storm poured 12 inches in 10 hours. According to data obtain from the National Weather Service, Houston hasn't seen rainfall like that since Tropical Storm Allison.

Last year, the Chronicle reported that a review of a statistical sampling of permits issued to local developers by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found more than half were not in compliance. Those permits required the developers to take certain steps to mitigate wetlands destroyed by their construction. But apparently the work was not done.

"It's a small sample size, but it identifies a big problem," Jim Lester, president of the Houston Advanced Research Center, said at the time. "It's crazy to me that we cover up wetlands, and then we spend a lot of money to build retention ponds."

Ripe for trouble

Of course, as the evidence showed, many of those ponds never get built at all.

Established in 1982, HARC, as it is more commonly known, has as one of its core missions a greater understanding of ecosystems and watershed planning. Bill Bass, a HARC geographer who specializes in geospatial technology, said the detailed research his organization produces should be the backbone for anyone assessing the possible impact of storm runoff.

The starting point, however, is much simpler. The greater Houston area is ripe for trouble if the region's climate and geography is not always taken into consideration.

"You are dealing with a flat and gradually sloping environment and a drainage system that goes into one central area to drain out to," Bass said. "You combine those things, and then add more impervious coverage and fewer wetland areas, you have an issue that needs to be addressed. You can only widen the bayous so much. You need to keep water in some of these systems and out of the bayou in the first place."

Older aerial photos of the Katy prairie, for example, would show lots of small ponds popping up in low areas after a large rainfall, Bass said. More recent photos tell a different story.

"There is a lot of development taking place there and covering up those ponds," Bass said. "Where is all that water going to go? A large part of it used to stay in place."

More and more often, where it goes - long before it ends up in a bayou or, ultimately, Galveston Bay, is someone's living room.

Mayor Sylvester Turner said he is going to appoint a "flood czar" to try to bring order to a planning process that too often is patchwork and inadequate. Turner stressed that a solution cannot be imposed from the top down by one governmental body.

"It's a regional issue, and it's going to take all the different partners sitting at the table," Turner said. "What you do in one area impacts another. What happens in one part of town impacts people down below."

Historically, developers have had their way in Harris County. During the 1970s, '80s and '90s, the home building surge never seemed to end. In an environment that Bedient likens to a real estate "wild west," new subdivisions and shopping centers to serve them popped up one after another in Katy, Cy Fair, Spring, Tomball and everywhere in between. In time, albeit in many cases quite some time, storm runoff became more problematic.

Some developments included detention and retention ponds, but often they were not enough, and certainly not as good as the natural mini-wetlands that often dotted the undeveloped property. As well-known environmental lawyer Jim Blackburn put it last week, "We have been dumping floodwaters on ourselves in the name of growth."

As the building spree continues, tracking new highways in the suburban northwest and the so-called Grand Parkway that loops through a lot of former pasture land, the question now is being asked in more strident tones by residents who never thought they had reason for concern: Is this the new normal?

Given the unpredictability of extreme weather, perhaps "new abnormal" might be a more apt description. The fuel for an increasing sense of worry, be it among experts or homeowners, is the potential influence of climate change.

While no particular bit of extreme weather can be tied to this broad global trend, the link of slightly higher temperatures to more intense coastal rainfall - and more intense periods of drought - is persuasive to climatologists who understand how slight variations can have serious consequences.

Dry spells, too

Houston has experienced a large number of big rain dumps in recent years. It also has experienced quite a few dry spells. Perverse as the memory may seem, Houston received only 5 inches of rain between March and August of 2011.

Such is the hallmark of climate change, when extreme events like drought and flooding increase in intensity. A small bit of warming can melt glaciers and polar ice, raise sea levels, and make local climates act like they're on steroids. In places like the Texas Gulf Coast, where extreme events have long characterized the weather, the future now seems a bit more ominous.

Are rains like those experienced last week likelier than they used to be?

"In my opinion, the answer to the question is yes, but the next question is how much more, and whether that increase is big enough to need to deal with," said State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon.

Pressed for some rough calculation, Nielsen-Gammon expects an increase in total rainfall amounts up to 7 percent for each degree of global warming. Of course, more rain does not have to equal more flooding.

"This is separate from the issue of how much flooding is produced from a given amount of rainfall, which changes over time due to the built environment and flood-control measures," he said.

Records from Nielsen-Gammon's office show that there's been a fairly significant increase in the number of years when Harris County has experienced rainfall of 8 inches or more in a single event - a trend that starts around 1986.

Already, this April will go down as the wettest on record, topping a previous record set in 1976. And as most Houston residents know, most of that moisture came in one epic downpour. In fact, Monday broke the record for a daily event measured at Houston Intercontinental Airport with 9.92 inches.

New forecasting tool

Still, the most recent climate assessment for Texas shows that the state overall is going to get a lot hotter and a lot drier by century's end. Other research points to rising sea levels and increased threats to coastal towns as well as more frequent hurricanes.

One bit of good news is that this summer, the National Weather Service will be rolling out a forecasting tool that will help predict flooding on substantially more rivers, streams and bayous. The federal agency along with several academic institutions have developed a high-resolution, real-time hydrologic forecasting model for the United States that will predict flows at 2.7 million points along U.S waterways, including almost 900 in Harris County.

"Basically, water is going to be predicted just like the weather," said David Maidment, a University of Texas civil engineering professor who's involved with the project. "It's a major innovation."

Using a new $35 million supercomputer in Maryland, forecasters will be able to say where flooding will happen before the rain begins to fall, Maidment said.

"This could be really helpful for an area like Houston," he said. "Imagine what emergency responders could do with this kind of information."

Then again, that's not exactly the help that most neighborhoods consider of prime importance. They want the flooding to stop, and there is no easy way to achieve that. A radical diversion plan for some of the bayous might prevent the more dramatic flooding, but the cost could be prohibitive. Already, it is likely the federal government will have to spend a substantial sum to make improvements to the Addicks and Barker earthen reservoirs, which now have to hold back more water - for longer - than they were originally designed.

"We can't just engineer our way out of this," said Jennifer Lorenz, executive director of the Bayou Land Conservancy. "Nature has built this (drainage) in ways we cannot replicate."

'Time to get more strict'

Her organization works to protect natural wetlands in the 13 watersheds that drain into Lake Houston. Its success in projects like the Spring Creek Greenway and its 12,000-acre preserve too often are overshadowed by the endless small patches of wetland that get bulldozed every year.

"We will see more extreme weather events, and that's a catastrophe in the making," Lorenz said. "It is time to get more strict on floodway development. Businesses in this day are allowed to scrape out old trees on the bayou system and build anything they want."

Some developers take advantage of wetlands mitigation programs that allow them to enhance wetlands preservation elsewhere, often by simply writing a check. Lorenz is highly critical that the "mitigation bank" concept has any real value.

"These same builders are meeting very stringent requirements in other places and are still making money," she said. "It is time for Houstonians to gather themselves up and say we cannot continue this way. There will be more and more flooding."

Which, of course, means higher insurance premiums. And possibly diminished home values. And more deaths. And many more photos of cars bobbing in chocolate water and airboats zipping along where they have no business being.

Rice's Bedient says it does not have to be this way. Years ago, he lived in Sharpstown before moving out to Sugar Land. He praises Fort Bend County for better and better enforced regulations and a commitment to homeowners. He also praises his old home state of Florida, which has just one agency responsible for watershed management.

"I don't know what the deal is," he said of the region's inability to confront what threatens to be an overwhelming problem. "It's crazy."

Mike Morris contributed to this report.
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On that December evening, Shaun Conley walked through the door of his pretty brick house in The Woodlands, scooping up kids as they ran to him. His smile stayed bright through dinner, through baths and story time, never once betraying the churn in his gut.

"How was your day?" his wife, Christie, asked.

Fine, Shaun replied, as he had a thousand times before. Only later, after their three children were asleep, did he begin to fall.

He pulled his bewildered wife into their bedroom and closed the door.

"We need to talk," he began, swallowing hard. "I was laid off today."

In truth, it was not a complete surprise. Tens of thousands of people in the region's decimated oil and gas industries have lost jobs since the price of crude went into free fall. Still, his wife paced the room, cursing Baker Hughes, the global oil service giant and only company for which 37-year-old Shaun had ever worked. He told her they would be OK. She repeated it back to him. But in the predawn darkness, neither could sleep.

For Shaun, despair and math collided. How long would their savings last? Could they keep the house? Had he failed his family?

Christie was battling another panic, hers coming in a single thought: What will they do for health insurance?

***

It is a uniquely American predicament that strikes its middle class the hardest.

The Affordable Care Act has provided insurance to millions of poor and near-poor in recent years, but an unanticipated coverage gap has emerged for the middle and upper-middle classes. When people who once had good jobs with good health plans lose both, they suddenly are seen as too affluent to qualify for assistance yet in reality are too strapped to afford the policies available in the individual market.

"In the U.S., losing your job could mean losing your health insurance. Most other countries don't do this," says Jessica Roberts, director of the Health Law & Policy Institute at University of Houston's Law Center.

There are options for people like the Conleys, but none of them is good. For them, the safety nets of this country fail to catch.

Special section: Chronicle series looks at those affected most by changes in health care

The most common advice is to turn to COBRA, a federal program that allows unemployed workers to keep their previous employer-based coverage. Some say it is well named because of its bite.

People who use COBRA often must pay for the entire premium of typically expensive policies without any employer contribution plus an additional administrative surcharge. That can bring premiums for a family well in excess of $1,000 a month, and they usually run out in 18 months.

"The ACA, if anything, entrenched our dependence on employer-provided health insurance," Roberts says, explaining that under the law large companies are now mandated to provide health coverage, which perpetuates the cycle. "This is what we get when we link health insurance with employment."

It wasn't supposed to be like this. The majority of people in this country get their health insurance through their jobs, a perk that began in the post-World War II era and became deeply ingrained in the nation's workplace culture. When the ACA passed in 2010, the assumption was that those without employer plans could turn to the health care exchange for affordable coverage.

Premiums would stay affordable because people with modest means could get subsidies to lower the price. The higher income brackets could afford to pay out of pocket.

But in the years since the law passed, coverage has narrowed, deductibles have risen and insurers have demanded double-digit rate increases in the individual market to counteract losses they say blindsided them.

Those with subsidies have been mostly shielded. But for those who don't qualify, health coverage is becoming increasingly out of reach.

"That's the hole," Roberts says. "It is contrary to the spirit of the law."

***

Nowhere is that hole sinking faster than in Houston, a city built on oil and gas.

In the summer of 2014, crude oil was trading at $107 per barrel. Salaries and benefit packages were sky high to woo the best. Then came the crash, swift and brutal. Today, the price of oil has been slashed by more than half.

Last year alone, nearly 50,000 people in the Houston area, roughly the population of Biloxi, Miss., saw their energy-sector jobs vanish, says Bill Gilmer, an economist and director of the Institute for Regional Forecasting at the University of Houston.

On Dec. 3, Shaun Conley became one of the Houston 50,000.

Late in the afternoon, his boss texted him, asking to meet in the conference room. When Conley arrived, the first thing he saw was a woman from human resources with a blue folder. Everyone knew what the blue folder meant.

Shaun had worked for Baker Hughes for 15 years, hired out of college to work on an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. He rose to operation manager in a glass office making just over six figures. When he returned to that office that day, two boxes for his belongings were waiting for him.

As he began working on his resume, his wife began working the phone, looking for health insurance.

Christie, a stay-at-home mother of children ages 5, 3 and 1, has severe allergies treated with immunotherapy injections. The company insurance plan, extended for three months as part of Shaun's severance package, ran out early last month. Christie's treatments will last until the end of April.

She first turned to the federal exchange's special enrollment period. But because a lump sum severance payment landed in January, the family income for this year is considered too high for a subsidy - even though neither is working.

The kind of coverage she hoped for cost about $1,200 a month out of pocket on the exchange.

But even if they paid it, none of the children's doctors are in-network on any exchange plans. Christie's doctor told her he would not accept any plans off the exchange because they are too narrow and won't allow referrals for tests and treatments convenient for his patients.

Christie then looked to the private individual market. One plan's premium was $1,300 per month and had a yearly family deductible of $13,000.

She found a more affordable option, an a la carte plan offered through Private Healthcare Systems that her doctor accepts. The stripped-down offering cost about $600 a month but allows only three "sick" visits each year per person. There is no coverage for checkups for her children or preventive care.

Still, she figured she could take the kids to community clinics for their immunizations since the state of Texas offers those for free.

Then she discovered the plan is not accredited under the health care law. That means the family would face a $2,300 penalty for being "uninsured."

Which left COBRA. The Conleys now pay $1,740 per month - more than their mortgage payment.

They know they are luckier than some. They stockpiled savings, and the children's grandparents have stepped in to pay for the extras of childhood like swim lessons and preschool. But the bills keep coming. Money is tight and getting tighter. Starbucks is now a luxury.

Christie was a teacher before kids. She could do it again but is not certified in Texas. Even if she found a teaching job, day care for three young children would run nearly $3,000 a month, erasing most if not all of her paycheck.

Shaun has sent out hundreds of resumes. Looking for work fills his days. Each Wednesday morning he drives to the NorthWest Bible Church in Spring to the Between Jobs Ministry.

These days, he says, ministry meetings get so crowded "they are hanging from the rafters." Four hundred is not uncommon, many in suits and ties, clutching resumes to press into the hands of anyone who will take them.

Shaun has sent out hundreds of resumes. He had one interview in four months and didn't get the job. He's starting to look in other fields.

***

Texas continues to lead the nation in both the number and rate of uninsured, with as many as 5 million lacking coverage. If the oil industry collapse continues, that number could rise.

"This would be an entirely different population," Roberts says.

"It's not like people want to be uninsured. Most people would love to have insurance," says Amanda Shiller, a 37-year-old Magnolia mother of two, sitting outside her mother's auto repair garage, where she now helps out.

As a senior buyer making $74,000 per year, she had dodged the layoffs that swept through Canrig Drilling Technology last January and April. On Oct. 20, it was her time to go. She remembers the dread of seeing a woman from human resources already there at 6 a.m. The police were parked outside in case anyone got too angry.

Shiller's health insurance expired at midnight. She rushed to the drugstore and filled her prescriptions while she still had coverage. She has a thyroid condition, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and bipolar disorder.

She used to have "spells" when she felt irritable, her brain racing. Then she fell into deep remorse.

"The medication was like an immediate fix. I feel like I'm myself all the time. I feel normal," she says, adding that her conditions did not interfere with her work when on medication.

Her husband, Josh, works for his stepfather's law office doing administrative work, but the job pays less and does not offer insurance. With her income and insurance gone, they could not afford $1,600 per month for COBRA. She looked online at the exchange plans but initially thought they, too, were too expensive. She found an off-exchange plan for about $450 a month, but it did not cover her $1,200-per-month prescriptions.

She considered skipping insurance. She has friends who now do that. She figured that with online pharmacy coupons she could get the price down and it would be cheaper to pay out of pocket even with the penalty for being uninsured. But her son plays sports, and his teams require insurance.

So with credit cards maxed out and bills piling up, she began rationing pills.

"I would skip doses or take them every other day to make them last," she admits. When she stopped taking them entirely in late March, she felt the agitation creeping back. Stress makes her condition worse.

Earlier this month, she returned to the exchange. This time she called instead of logging on and was told her family qualified for a subsidy to reduce the premium to $483 per month.

She cashed out her entire 401(k) retirement account to pay off the truck, an old construction loan and all of the credit cards. When her unemployment runs out in Ma,y she thinks they probably can make it.

"I still view myself as middle class," she says, "But life is changing for us."
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With two midrise apartment buildings, 38 townhomes and a total of 512 units, the Communities at Willowick Park is the biggest project to date for Martin Fein Interests, a veteran Houston apartment developer.

The property at West Alabama and Las Palmas spans the equivalent of five city blocks, with a 1-acre park with fountain patterned after the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris as a central gathering place. Rather than covering the land with four-story apartments, Fein elected to go vertical on two buildings and put townhomes west of Las Palmas as a buffer to the adjacent neighborhood, saving mature live oaks in the process. That allowed for more open spaces such as a 2.25-acre dog park, a portion of which could accommodate more units when the market improves.

"You would have to go back to the go-go '60s and '70s to see this much land for apartment development," said Bruce McClenny of Apartment Data Services.

When Fein broke ground in late 2012, oil was trading around $86 a barrel, more than double today's price. As demand slows along with job growth, the project joins 29 new communities with nearly 8,100 units in the Inner Loop/Galleria areas, according to Apartment Data Services.

More Information The Communities at Willowick Park The Aria: Seven stories, 325 units, up to three bedrooms. Average rent: $2,040. The Olympia: Eight stories, 189 units, up to three bedrooms. Average rent: $3,554. The Townhomes: 38, three-bedroom rental units with two-car garages. Average rent: $5,512. Examples of amenities: 24-hour concierge services, fitness centers, lounges with skyline views, outdoor cabanas and grills, spas with private treatment rooms, a dog park and pet spa, a catering kitchen and a private dining area. See More Collapse

Martin Fein, who has developed more than 12,000 apartment units, spoke with the Chronicle after marking the official opening recently. Edited excerpts follow.

Q: How does this compare with your other projects?

A: It's by far the largest project we've done. We've basically done three buildings at one time. On the land was 171 units of rental townhomes built about 45 years ago that had for all intents and purposes reached the end of their useful life. We ended up with 10.2 acres of land in a terrific location, close to Highland Village, the Galleria, River Oaks. We want to take great care to do justice to this great location and also be sensitive to the surrounding neighborhood.

Q: The 1-acre park occupies some of the most expensive land in town. Tell me about it.

A: It's a multimillion-dollar investment to improve the park. If you look around the landscape, most of the recent apartment buildings - high-rises or midrises - are built on relatively small parcels of land on major thoroughfares with traffic and what have you. We, on the other hand, are kind of tucked into a neighborhood. We wanted to use that as one of our strengths in a competitive environment.

Q: It's not the best time to introduce a multifamily project. How do you feel about the timing?

A: There's an almost historic volume of Class A apartments opening at the same time. I've been in this business in Houston for over 40 years. I've seen these cycles. The apartment market in Houston has always healed itself.

Q: What are the prices?

A: We have units ranging anywhere from $1,300 a month to $5,000 a month.

Q: What was the thought behind having three different products?

A: We have different architectural styles so that it emulated a neighborhood where you might have different architecture styles of the single-family homes. Then we further wanted to segment the market in our apartments. One has smaller units. Another has larger units. The townhomes are the largest of all.

Q: What other projects do you have going on in Houston?

A: We have a project complete and almost leased up by Exxon Mobil in Springwoods Village. We have another project that is just under construction in the same marketplace. We have another project in Cinco Ranch that is nearing completion.

Q: How has the downturn affected your projects?

A: The market is very competitive. There is free rent in the market. This will be with us for the next year or two until all the new units are absorbed.

Q: How are projects different today?

A: With the evolution of building codes and competitive nature of our market and rent going up as Houston has grown to be a more cosmopolitan city, the product today doesn't bear any resemblance to what we built in the '70s and '80s. The common areas have become much more elaborate. Big fitness rooms, dog parks and dog washing stations. In Willowick, we have some spas there as well. We were building two- and three-story apartments. Now you're seeing only midrise and high-rises being built inside the Loop, Galleria and downtown.

Q: Is now a good time to buy land?

A: I would say there are not any real bargains there. There have been a couple of recent purchases in the city, not by our company, that really set records for land prices. It also underscores a movement to build more and more high-rises, more than ever before in the city's history.
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Michael Tracy recently described himself as "a great big, juicy, baroque dancing bear in a silver-blue Speedo pirouetting across the universe."

He looked more like a well-traveled monk, wearing a black tunic, loose black pants and black Birkenstocks. His gray beard was bushy and full, and a small ponytail punctuated the back of his balding head.

But, whatever.

Tracy, 72, was explaining what it felt like to see four of his paintings in a big, open room at Hiram Butler Gallery.

"I didn't think I would like this being so minimal because I'm a maximalist," he said. "But they hold the room. There are seven in this series, and there are seven beyond that, and there's five or six beyond that, and four others that are horizontal. But it's OK to just show two. I can concentrate on it. If someone makes a chocolate cake, and it's 10 inches in diameter and 6 inches high, you're not going to eat the whole cake. You're just going to have a piece."

We met a few hours before the show opened, and Tracy laid out two napkins with notes he'd written in bright-blue ink, sensing he'd want to cover a lot of ground with a reporter he'd never met. He said he'd rehearsed the interview the night before with a friend. "I believe in rehearsals," he said.

More Information Michael Tracy: Paintings When: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays, through May 28 Where: Hiram Butler Gallery, 4520 Blossom Tickets: Free; 713-863-7097, hirambutler.com See More Collapse

Maybe he had reason to be nervous.

Tracy hasn't had a solo show in Houston since 1988, when the Menil Collection mounted the big exhibition "Terminal Privileges."

Life on the edge of Latin America has always profoundly influenced the artist. He has lived since 1978 in the remote Texas border town of San Ygnacio, drawn to the sunny weather and Chihuahuan Desert landscape. "Everything has a prick or a thorn or a sticker that will hurt you," he said. "I love that."

In the 1980s, Tracy's beefy, politically inspired sculptures and paintings reflected his love for tortured, south-of-the-border religious symbolism - dripping with milagros and studded with spikey things - simultaneously heavenly and loaded with earth, blood and hair. He also loved Byzantine gold and concepts of the sublime.

"Terminal Privileges" toured cities across America, including New York and Los Angeles. It got Tracy tons of publicity and good reviews, and he tasted what it felt like to be a titan of contemporary art.

Perhaps because his work seemed so regionally specific; or because Tracy dove into big, ritualistic performance projects on the Rio Grande; or because San Ygnacio is a universe away from the fickle New York gallery scene - or all of those things combined - the attention didn't last.

"It just sort of came to an end. Cultural interest tapered off," Tracy said.

In the 1990s, he co-founded the nonprofit River Pierce Foundation to bring attention to the artificiality of concept of the Rio Grande as a "border" and save an early 19th-century sandstone complex in San Ygnacio, the Trevino-Uribe Rancho. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1998, and he's felt responsible for it ever since.

"It's like planting an orchard," Tracy said. "You don't necessarily expect to eat the fruit, but someone will have it. We have the largest collection of handmade stone buildings left in the country. Maintaining them is one thing, restoring them is another, and keeping them restored requires practically a school of people who are going to learn how to take care of these buildings."

Tracy has kept a hand in urban civilization by making jewelry he sells at annual Houston trunk shows and through the high-end Dallas specialty store Stanley Korshak. He's also working on some films.

And he hasn't been idle in the studio. His historic San Ygnacio compound has two - one for dark paint, one for light paint, because he doesn't want them to mix, "and it's very splashy," he said.

Dark and light forces oppose each other at Butler's gallery in Tracy's four recent paintings, which are piled inches-deep with poetic gobs, mounds and crevices of acrylic paint. On one wall hang two works from his yellow and orange "August" series. Across the room hang two black and silver paintings from his "Speaking with the Dead" series.

They ooze organic physicality. He's contacting "gestural memory" as he works, Tracy explained. "There's a lot of dance involved, because when I'm really going, I'm working on four or five different things at once."

The paint comes in plastic bags and buckets, and sometimes when a plastic bag is empty he drops it on the support and leaves it there to help build up texture, because the paint shrinks when it dries.

Tracy thinks of the "August" series as floral. "I think they're about sex, and nature renewing itself," he said. "Isn't it juicy? I want it to be juicy."

This series was inspired by bees, one of his current obsessions. Watermelon fields that once surrounded San Ygnacio are disappearing, and bees have disappeared with them, Tracy said.

The "Speaking With the Dead" paintings are thicker, gouged in places with sticks, crowbars and other instruments. They look angry.

"OK. So, OK. I suppose. Why not?" Tracy responded. "I like paint. It can hold a lot of emotion."

We were drinking coffee from pottery made by James Turrell years ago to help finance his Roden Crater project, and it was getting cold.

Tracy drifted outside for a smoke.

When he settled in again, we talked about hypnosis, politics and end-of-life anxiety.

"Often these days, I'm the oldest person in the room," Tracy said. "I want the end of my life to be just quiet and work. I have lots of projects."

Tracy feels like he's slowed down with age, but he has no plans to retire.

"Retiring is just a foreign concept," he said. "It's not what artists do unless they can't stand up."
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Does the name Franz Xaver Winterhalter ring a bell?

Maybe, if you're an art historian.

Or you might remember a mention of him during that amusing moment of "Downton Abbey" when the financially strapped Crowleys pondered what objects in their ancestral home tourists might pay to see: two portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds and "the Winterhalter."

Through much of the 19th century, Winterhalter was the most fashionable portraitist of the world's most fashionable people. A handsome, likable and talented painter from the Black Forest town of Baden, Winterhalter served more monarchs than any court painter before him - including Titian in the 16th century and Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck in the 17th century.

Winterhalter worked steadily from the 1830s to 1871, and many of his majestic state portraits still grace walls in the world's great palaces. But in the gloom of World War I, when the aristocracy scattered and many treasures disappeared, Winterhalter faded from view, too.

It's taken about a century for him to re-emerge. Since his first major museum showing in 1988, Winterhalter has become a darling of curators, and his market profile is rising. You can see why in the touring exhibition "High Society: The Portraits of Franz X. Winterhalter."

More Information 'High Society: The Portraits of Franz X. Winterhalter' When: 12:15-7 p.m. Sundays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Wednesdays, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Thursdays, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, through Aug. 14 Where: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet Tickets: $7.50-$15 general admission; 713-639-7300, mfah.org See More Collapse

Organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston - the exhibit's only U.S. venue - the show unites 45 paintings and nine couture evening dresses from museums and private collections across America and Europe, providing a scintillating glimpse into a vanished epoch.

You might appreciate Winterhalter's portraits for their painterly finesse and realistic depictions of textiles and jewelry; for their lessons in 19th-century European history; and for the windows they open into art history, since Winterhalter often paid homage to his predecessors.

But before any of that, his paintings just grab you with seductive gorgeousness. While kings and princes aren't excluded, the show plays up women who needed to look ornamental in a romantic era when ethereal beings like ballet's "Giselle" were all the rage.

Winterhalter deftly arranged even his most "intelligent-looking" clients in flattering poses and light, emphasizing delicate complexions, lustrous hair and graceful arms.

"Before there was airbrushing, there was Winterhalter's brush," said curator Helga Aurisch, during a preview. "He has this knack of capturing a likeness, keeping it recognizable, but making it just a little bit better."

A painter's friend

Winterhalter's women all have something else working, too: fabulous clothes.

"High Society" is the first Winterhalter exhibition to focus on the artist's relationship with the fashion of his day.

Aurisch draws attention to Paris' first couturier, Charles Frederick Worth, with the show's gowns. Resembling costumes in nearby portraits, the showstopping dresses seem to drift in their glass cases like elegant spirits with shockingly small waists.

Like Winterhalter, the English designer aimed to make his clients as pretty as a picture, envisioning an ideal image of European court elegance.

Worth arrived in Paris a few years before Napoleon III established the Second Empire. He built his reputation creating custom outfits for clients of the stylish dry-goods retailer Maison Gagelin-Opigez et Cie, where he initially sold silk and other decadent textiles from the big mills of Lyon. He opened his own atelier in 1857, backed by a Swedish financier.

Worth's gowns often resemble wearable wedding cakes layered with bows, tassels, ruffled trims and scalloped flourishes. He specialized in decolletage-baring bodices that would get a woman noticed at an imperial ball, although his designs were practical, too. They had at least two pieces, with separate skirts and multiple bodices that allowed their owners to transition easily from day to night.

Most importantly for Winterhalter, Worth preferred monochromatic looks - so in spite of their extravagance, his gowns never overpowered their wearers. Single colors were also easier to paint than prints, and Winterhalter could turn voluminous skirts into virtuosic displays of light and shadow, using reflective white to help "lift" his subjects' faces.

"There's no greater friend to a portrait painter than a dress all in one color," said Gary Tinterow, the museum's director.

While most of the exhibition is chronological, Aurisch created a middle room "just for the pleasure of looking," where she's showcased Winterhalter's mastery of always fashion-trendy black and white.

"Very few painters in the history of art can do black as well as this: Frans Hals and Valazquez," Aurisch said, pointing out soft velvets and fine lace. "And he can paint white on white on white even better."

A charmed life

Winterhalter grew up poor, the son of farmers in a remote village of what is now Germany. Many families in the early 1800s wanted their sons to find better lives, and Winterhalter's sent him to Frieburg when he was 13 to study art.

Training to make lithographs, he perfected his drawing technique by copying the works of Old Masters he would emulate his entire career.

Winterhalter got his first clients by sending unsolicited portraits to Grand Duke Leopold, the ruler of his native Baden. After settling in Paris in 1834, the artist made a splash at the Paris Salon and quickly became court painter for Louis Philippe, the king of the French. Winterhalter executed more than 140 commissions for the House of Orleans.

In 1842, Britain's Queen Victoria became his greatest patron, bringing him to England for three months a year for about 20 years.

Winterhalter became so popular during Old World Europe's last, opulent hurrah, you pretty much needed an aristocratic title to score a slot on his waiting list.

Along with his brother Hermann, who also painted and managed the framing, Winterhalter ran a smart business, offering a good value. He charged about $120,000 in today's dollars for a standard portrait, but he could deliver it in one to three months, faster than his rival, Jean-Auguste-Dominque Ingres.

Winterhalter generally painted the face and hands with the sitter present, then finished his canvases in his studio. Timing was important, because monarchies were shaky. The sovereign portraits were copied by the thousands and officially distributed as soon as they dried.

Neither brother married or had children. While aristocrats mention Winterhalter fondly in their diaries, much his personal life remains a mystery. The show hints at lost love with the 1840s portrait "Swiss Girl From Interlaken," portraying a pretty inkeeper's daughter. Winterhalter kept it in his studio until he died. (He also held onto the luscious, allegorical "Spring," whose model is unknown.)

Winterhalter has his critics. Some cite the lack of variety in his 1860s portraits and their shallow emphasis on fashion over personality.

Aurisch, unphased, rates him among the 19th century's most important artists.

"In a way, his life exemplifies the European version of the American dream. By the time he retired from painting, he was a multimillionaire," she said. "Today when you Google a lot of these people, you get the Winterhalter portrait. If that's not fame, I don't know what is."

The highest society

The ladies of "High Society" are a dazzling bunch, representing a seemingly endless parade of countesses, princesses and such who populated imperial balls.

Paris teemed with wealthy emigrees from Poland and Russia who flaunted their wealth and posed more provocatively for Winterhalter than the British and French royals, sometimes scandalously letting their hair down for portraits that weren't hidden in a husband's boudoir.

"And don't we love them for it?" Aurisch said.

She's smitten by the portrait "Wienczyslawa Barczewska, Madame de Jurjewicz," from 1860, depicting a stunning Polish aristocrat who was nicknamed "the marshal," both for her husband's position and her own dominant personality.

"In the 1850s, nobody else is painting like this. Manet is still in school. Monet is 17; he hasn't seen a paintbrush yet," Aurisch said.

But the painting she called "The. Most. Stunning. Portrait." features Pauline Sandor, Princess Metternich, the wife of the Austrian ambassador to the court of Napoleon III.

Pauline, wearing a tulle confection that is probably by Worth, also connects the show's fashion dots. She is credited with introducing Empress Eugenie to the designer during a ball at the Tuilleries Palace. From that point on, Eugenie ordered all of her evening wear from Worth, Aurisch said. "You have no idea how much that was: Tons of dresses. Eighteen cases of gowns for one week."

The wife of Napoleon III and a former Spanish countess, Eugenie loved lavender mauve: A faded but still lovely Worth gown of that color stands near one of her portraits. The empress, along with Queen Victoria, also loved dressing up in period costumes, especially from the 18th century; she models an ornate golden gown in a portrait from 1854.

When the Second Empire fell in 1871, Winterhalter retired and went home to Baden. He died two years later, at the age of 68, knowing the sumptuous world he had documented wouldn't last.

The exhibition's final gallery includes state portraits by a trio of imperial couples who have happy endings.

Most telling is the huge image of the elusive Empress Elisabeth of Austria, created in 1865 when she was in her prime. It's one of Winterhalter's most famous works - as much about Sisi's billowing, silver-spangled Worth dress, all froth and silver spangles, as the royal who gazes over her shoulder at you, her back nearly turned, clearly headed somewhere else.

Thirty-three years later, in 1898, Sisi was stabbed to death by an assassin while she vacationed in Switzerland.

Sadly, most of Worth's diaphanous creations for Second Empire clients have vanished. His delicate tulles barely lasted a night even when they were new, often preserved only in portraits.

Without Winterhalter's paintings, we could only imagine their magic today.
I once sat in the middle of a busy dining room at a barbecue restaurant not known for having great barbecue. I was dining with a few self-proclaimed barbecue experts. We picked through the desultory, sauce-soaked plate of barbecue and righteously declared it to be inferior. One of my companions suggested we let the owner know that there are better ways to make barbecue.

I looked toward the counter - customers were standing three-deep waiting for their orders. The line was out the door. Every table was filled.

I then realized the folly of telling a barbecue restaurant owner/pitmaster how to run their business. If you work hard, take care of your customers and provide a popular product, why should you change anything?

Still, writers and self-proclaimed barbecue experts often try to influence how barbecue is made. One of the more recent efforts is called "The Campaign for Real Barbecue" (truecue.org), founded by retired University of North Carolina professor John Shelton Reed and barbecue blogger Dan Levine. It focuses on the traditions of North Carolina barbecue, including pulled pork and "whole hog" techniques.

"True 'Cue" is determined to define great barbecue and persuade noncompliant restaurants to join in the movement through a certification process. This process involves True 'Cue members (they call themselves "Regional Smoke Detectors"), most of whom are writers and critics, judging barbecue joints in terms of their definition - specifically, barbecue cooked on pits that only use burning wood to cook and flavor the ingredients with smoke (no gas or electric assistance).

More Information Pizzitola's Bar-B-Cue 1703 Shepherd 713-227-2283 See More Collapse

Needless to say, a few pitmasters took umbrage with this definition and compliance method. Pitmaster Carey Bringle of the popular Peg Leg Porker barbecue restaurant in Nashville responded on his Facebook page: "I can assure you that (the True 'Cue folks) are not experts. First off, they are writers, not pitmasters."

Bringle's disdain for writers soaked his comments like an overly sweet barbecue sauce soaks a bad plate of brisket. Why is it your business to tell me how to run mine? Bringle uses some gas-assist equipment at his restaurant, and yet is known for having great barbecue. This would seem to nullify the True 'Cue definition. In subsequent interviews, Reed has admitted that gas-assist is acceptable in some situations.

Most barbecue folks, including Bringle, acknowledge that the heart of the True 'Cue movement is in the right place. But the method and tone may need some reworking.

In Houston, I like to think of it as the carrot-or-stick method of influence - or, if you will, the brisket-or-stick method. On the occasion that I think an underachieving restaurant has the potential to make great barbecue, I don't pick up my figurative stick and walk into the pit room and start telling them how to make barbecue.

Rather, I'll dangle a (figurative) smoky, moist brisket in the form of a casual conversation about how they make barbecue and gauge their potential interest in hearing how to make theirs better. Several years ago, I did just that at Pizzitola's Bar-B-Cue.

I'd become acquaintances with owner Jerry Pizzitola and general manager Tim Taylor. They had a loyal clientele, beautiful brick pits and a busy dining room. No need to change anything, right? But they (and I) thought they could do better. This was at the start of the "craft" barbecue movement, and their techniques were showing some age.

But we didn't sit around and write out a definition of great barbecue. Rather, we piled into our cars and headed to the epicenter of the craft movement - Snow's BBQ in Lexington and Louie Mueller Barbecue in Taylor. Jerry and Tim visited with the pitmasters and observed their techniques. I just watched, listened and learned.

By all accounts, the barbecue at Pizzitola's has greatly improved over the last few years, thanks in part to that fact-finding trip. I'd say the process of making great barbecue is not really about definition, as it is about encouraging discovery and curiosity.
BEAVERTON, Ore. - The family of a slain 18-year-old University of Texas student urged mourners at a funeral on Saturday to remember the young woman's joyful life, not just the way it ended.

Haruka Weiser's 16-year-old brother, Noboru, spoke on behalf of the family during the funeral in Beaverton, Ore., recalling sleepovers, good-natured teasing and other moments from their childhood.

"But while there is sadness in this room," Noboru Weiser said, "we are grieving about a short time in a life. When we look back at her 18 years, it is a remarkable life, not a sad one."

Haruka Weiser was killed earlier this month at UT, where she was a freshman dance student. Her body was found in a creek on the Austin campus on April 5, and police have said she was likely targeted at random.

Meechaiel Criner, a 17-year-old runaway, has been charged with murder in connection with Weiser's death.

Weiser is survived by her brother, her 14-year-old sister, Naomi, and her parents, Thomas Weiser and Yasuyo Tsunemine. Noboru said the family wanted people to remember his sister so that her joy can continue to grow in the hearts of those who loved her.

"She will love forever," he said. "She will never die."

Mourners filled Beaverton's Holy Trinity Catholic Church for the service. Haruka Weiser was a 2015 graduate of the Arts & Communications Magnet Academy in Beaverton, where a candlelight vigil was held in her honor earlier this month, and a memorial scholarship fund was created in Weiser's name last week.

At Saturday's funeral, Father Dave Gutmann told attendees that it's impossible to protect loved ones, despite best efforts. To live, one must assume risk, he said.

"It's still not enough," Gutmann said. "We are reminded of how vulnerable our fragile life is."
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Volunteers found a body Saturday morning believed to be that of a Shoreacres teenager who disappeared one month ago while walking her dog.

The nonprofit group Texas Equusearch found a decomposing female around 11:35 a.m. in a wooded area on the corner of Westview and Baywood the street where 15-year-old Abigail "Abby" English lived, according to Cedrick Collier, a sergeant at the Harris County Sheriff's Office, which is now leading the investigation.

The identity of the body cannot be confirmed until a Harris County medical examiner performs an autopsy, Collier said.

English went missing around 7 p.m. March 22, when she left her house to walk the family dog. The pet came back alone about an hour later, without its collar and leash.

English's family contacted Shoreacres Police Department on March 23 to report the teen as a runaway, Collier said. On Wednesday, Equusearch became involved after the family thought English could be missing for other reasons.

VK Lynne, a musician in North Hollywood, Calif., and friend of English, described the teen as a shy, sweet musician who "deserved a better childhood than the one she was given," without offering further detail.

English's family moved to Shoreacres last year from California. Lynne said the two met after she donated a guitar to English through an organization. Lynne mourned English's presumed death in a social media message Saturday.

"We liked each other right away, and that evolved into thrift store trips, Chinese food outings, hula-hooping in the park, and her even attending band rehearsal to meet the boys," Lynne wrote. "... to hear the humanity ripped from Abigail English, the 15-year-old redhead who played bass, listened to Christian rock, and loved orange chicken the way Arno loves wings, killed her more palpably in my brain than any external force did.

"Abby, you are valued. You may have lived in obscurity, and died in the woods of a small town, but your life meant something."

Equusearch and Shoreacres police scheduled a search around the teen's home for Saturday. About 75 volunteers responded and fanned out in five teams beginning at 8 a.m. from their base at the San Jacinto College of Maritime Training Center, 3700 Old State Highway 146 in La Porte, according to Frank Black, an Equusearch search coordinator.

About 11 a.m., the group prepared to launch a boat to search some of the area's numerous streams and gullies. They found the body in the wooded area shortly after, according to Collier.

The teen's family declined to speak to the media, Black said.

Authorities created a crime scene where the body was found. More details and an identity will not likely be available until at least Monday, Collier said.
Days after Southeast Texas was buffeted by a devastating drenching, thousands of residents are still waiting for floodwaters to recede so they can begin the recovery process already underway in much of the region.

Harris County officials monitoring levels at the Addicks and Barker reservoirs say both will continue to rise - slightly - even though they've opened reservoir gates to drain the accumulated floodwaters. That reality will prolong the misery of waterlogged northwest Harris County subdivisions that won't subside until later this week and complicate the life of residents like Malissa Sheibley, 31, who on Saturday visited her flooded home in Bear Creek Village. The water had risen a few more inches, she said, roughly estimating water levels at about 2 feet high.

"You can't even drive anywhere," said Sheibley, whose situation is complicated by the fact that she is 34 weeks pregnant.

She was trying to sort out what to do after her home was flooded, destroying the gifts the couple had received at their recent baby shower.

"It hasn't really set in," she said. "It's kind of shocking - it seems like a movie."

Addicks, which is in far northwest Harris County, is expected to rise slightly over the next few days, preventing water from draining immediately out of neighborhoods such as Bear Creek Village.

Barker, which is closer to eastern Fort Bend County, is expected to rise another foot over the same period, Jackson said. Officials do not anticipate new flooding for homes and streets in surrounding areas, including a small section of Cinco Ranch.

"Even though they're releasing the water, the reservoirs continue to rise because they continue to get water from the creeks flowing into them," said Kim Jackson, spokeswoman for the Harris County Flood Control District.

Threat of rain

Officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have increased the pace of dam releases into Buffalo Bayou.

"They're releasing a little bit more," Jackson said, adding that officials expected the reservoirs to begin falling early next week. "They're trying to get the water out as quickly as they can."

Water remains on the streets in the community closest to Clay Road, which began pooling Thursday from the rising Addicks Reservoir.

Officials predict the neighborhood "will have water in there for about another week" - though the latest round is not expected to impact many houses, Jackson said.

"Those folks are in some tough shape there," she said. "It's not going to get in their homes, but it's still difficult. It's in their streets and even creeping up their driveways.

"This is more of a mobility problem, but it's still impactful."

The possibility of more rain early this week means the Corps may interrupt the release of water.

"Any time there's a threat of rain, they have to close the gates," Jackson said.

Finally, flood control district and emergency management authorities are warning people not to enter enticing creeks and bayous - on watercraft or otherwise.

"The creeks are running fast and high. It's a beautiful day and tempting to go out on a raft or boat, but stay away from them," Jackson said. "There's a lot of stuff in that water - a lot of debris and little critters. Snakes. So, it's just not safe."

Meanwhile, residents elsewhere across the region continued the long process of drying out. City officials said they would begin picking up flood-damaged items Saturday, particularly from these areas: Acres Homes, Alabonson, Chateau Forest, Kempwood/Bingle, Hollister, Larchmont, Link Meadow, Linkwood, Meyerland, Spring Branch, Blalock, Gessner, Hemstead and Westbury.

As crews worked to pluck flood-damaged debris from streets, city officials asked residents to divide trash into several categories: normal household trash, vegetative debris, construction and demolition materials, appliances, electronics - like computers or radios - and household hazardous waste, like cleaning supplies, batteries and lawn chemicals.

Counting the damage

County officials, meanwhile, said Friday they'd submitted an initial report to the federal government, tallying the damage.

At least 4,300 homes in Harris County, Houston and the region's smaller cities flooded, Jackson said, adding that those numbers are expected to continue to rise.

Francisco Sanchez, spokesman for the county's emergency management office, said that with water finally receding, damage-assessment crews were starting to evaluate flooded homes in the hardest-hit areas.

With dropping flood levels, "we anticipate we will see a surge of requests for assistance," he said, adding that residents looking for resources to help clean up and rebuild should call 211.

Volunteers and organizations across the area were offering assistance to victims of flooding. Vicki Eichstaedt, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross, said shelters were open in Conroe, Jersey Village, Spring and Brookshire; two others were set to close Saturday.

Flood victims at Royal High School in Brookshire were being relocated to the Brookshire Civic Center on Saturday afternoon.

So far the Red Cross has had 1,407 overnight stays in shelters and distributed 12,063 relief items, Eichstaedt said.

"We're continuing to provide relief supplies so people can start to move forward," she said. "We also have several emergency response vehicles that will be touring affected areas."

Assessors also continued sending damage assessments to state officials, Sanchez said. The estimates are important to eventually have a federal disaster declaration, which would bring federal dollars to help rebuild.

"The damage assessment is going to continue for a while," he said, adding that estimates here have already tallied almost $30 million. Total damages must reach at least $35 million before state officials could apply for a federal disaster declaration, a figure Sanchez said will likely be reached.

'Count on our neighbors'

Families in Cypress-Fairbanks spent Saturday searching for normalcy. School was out the entire week in the district, which suffered $4 million worth of damage to various campuses.

"The one thing our families need is a break, an opportunity to step away from the chaos," said Jana Needham, principal of Moore Elementary School. "Our kids haven't been together in a week; they needed an opportunity to get together, see that their friends are OK and that their teachers care."

At a hot-dog cookout, families reunited and received donations from area businesses and nonprofit organizations.

"The kids' life was suddenly uprooted," said Mickie Long, a behavioral interventionist at the school. "They all say they don't want to be in school, but I know school is important for them, and I expect Monday that they will super energetic and ready for recess."

Rachel Freeman brought her two children and her mother Melody Rountree to the cookout. They have lived in the area for nearly 20 years and never experienced a flood like this one.

"The water was so far. I mean, we saw kayakers," she said. "But we are grateful that there is a really good sense of community down here. We know that we can count on our neighbors, and they can count on us."

Phylicia Davidson contributed to this report.
The attempted rapprochement now underway between the presidential campaign of Donald Trump and the leadership of the Republican Party is as predictable as it is fraught with risk for both sides - a dance between partners who never will be comfortable with each other.

For Trump, the bridge-building represents the challenge of trying to reassure nervous Republican leaders that he can avoid the erratic behavior and divisive rhetoric that have given him the highest negative ratings of any candidate in the 2016 race while reassuring his angry base that he is not selling out to a party establishment that many of them loathe.

Rules of order

For state and national Republican leaders, the outreach highlights the conflict between the revulsion many of them have felt toward a candidate who has trampled on core GOP values and inflamed much of the electorate, and a grudging acceptance that it is increasingly likely the controversial New York billionaire will be leading them into a fall campaign against Hillary Clinton.

All of this was on display at the resort hotel along the beaches in Hollywood, Fla., where the Republican National Committee met last week. The meeting was a last full gathering of the party leadership before GOP delegates arrive in Cleveland in mid-July for what could be a chaotic and potentially party-splitting convention.

For these few days, everyone was on good behavior. Cleveland could be another story. What took place in Hollywood was a program carefully planned to avoid any clashes on rules or procedures and to send signals of reassurance that all is under control.

Among the few issues up for debate was the question of whether the national convention should be governed, as it long has been, by the rules of the House, which more easily restrict challenges, or be changed to Robert's Rules of Order, which make it easier for people to snarl the proceedings.

The RNC's Rules Committee, wired in advance by party leaders, stuck to the status quo with a minimum of fuss. This will be revisited in Cleveland when the convention rules committee meets and when the opposing camps have a greater sense of which approach would benefit them more. There, it could be more difficult for party leaders to control the debate or the outcome.

Hope for rivals

In Florida, all was peace and harmony. From RNC Chairman Reince Priebus on down, the message emanating from the public sessions was all about fairness, transparency and even-handedness in Cleveland, amid reminders that the world will be watching every session, every objection and every demonstration. As Priebus said repeatedly, whatever happens there will be the decision of the delegates, not a handful of RNC officials.

Priebus also led a series of harsh attacks on Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, in an effort to leapfrog over the awkward question of just who will or should be the nominee and how that will be decided. The specter of Clinton as president remains the single unifying force in a badly divided party.

Party leaders are necessarily preparing for a contested convention that could include multiple ballots and much discord before a nominee is chosen. Despite his handsome victory in New York last week and the prospect of another good day in the five contests on Tuesday, Trump still is not guaranteed the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, despite his distant, third-place showing in the New York primary, is maneuvering to deny Trump a first-ballot victory, hoping Trump's high water mark will be the number of delegates he gets in that opening round. Cruz then intends to win the nomination on a second or third ballot.

Meanwhile, Ohio Gov. John Kasich clings to the hope that, even if he arrives in Cleveland having won only his home state and trailing by a huge number in the delegate count, practical-minded delegates will turn to him.
President Barack Obama expanded his warning to the British electorate against approving the nation's exit from the European Union, saying it could take as long as 10 years before the U.K. and the U.S negotiated a new trade agreement.

'The U.K. would not be able to negotiate something with the United States faster than the EU," Obama said in a BBC interview published Saturday. "We wouldn't abandon our efforts to negotiate a trade deal with our largest trading partner, the European market. But rather, it could be could be five years from now, 10 years now before we were actually able get something done."
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AUSTIN - It's a recurring debate in Texas politics - local government control versus big government regulation - this time applied to vehicle registration and title services.

Several Texas counties, including Harris, Bexar and Travis, are objecting to a state plan to increase the cost of in-person or mail-in automobile registrations while cutting the cost of doing it online.

Under a Texas Department of Motor Vehicles plan, processing fees for mail-in registrations would go up by $3, while in-person fees would increase by $4. The fee for online transactions would decrease by 25 cents from the current price, but cost $1.25 less than registering by mail. As a result, counties would receive less per transaction than they do at current rates.

The DMV also wants to cap the amounts that title-service companies can charge for registration ($5) and title transactions ($15).

"I hear people at the state always saying  the federal government is trying to take away state rights," Bexar County Tax Assessor Albert Uresti said. "This is an example of the state trying to take away local government rights. And who better serves the public than local government?"

DMV board members, who presented the plan at a meeting earlier this month, say the fee changes will modernize and streamline the process for these services, particularly since it offers an incentive to do business online.

"What we are trying to do is change the way we do business and push more of those registration renewal transactions online," DMV Executive Director Whitney Brewster said.

Some, like Uresti, say it effectively will shut down the state's title services, lead to worse customer service and result in an increased burden on the county and taxpayers. Bexar County has 21 full service employees and 42 limited employees to handle registration and title services.

"No matter what the plan is for centralizing, Bexar County is still going to have to be involved.  People are just used to coming into the tax office," Uresti said. "It will take years before it transitions. The system is working fine right now, and we just don't see a need to change it."

What is 'realistic'?

Currently 15 percent of state registration transactions are performed online, compared to 18 percent in Bexar County. Most state transactions, 65 percent, are handled in person.

Bexar County plans to offer the state an alternative proposal for registration fees that would increase the fees on online registrations by 25 cents in a bid to bring more money to the counties.

Tony Lazzari, president of local title-service companies San Antonio Auto Title Services and Tisdale Auto Title Services, took particular issue with fee caps to his industry.

The Bexar County businessman, who has eight title-service businesses around the county, said his offices could not continue operating with the proposed $5 and $15 limits and would have to cease operations come January 2017, when the proposal is implemented.

"If they pass this and they don't give us any leeway, title services are going to start dropping like flies," said Lazzari, who testified at this month's board meeting and whose title service businesses have been in operation for 38 years.

Such a loss of title companies would result in the county needing four more new locations and 70 new employees, according to Uresti.

"We're not opposed to a cap," Uresti said. "What we are saying is, let's come up with a realistic range, a realistic cap, and let the market dictate what they're going to charge."

Harris County

Harris County Tax Assessor Mike Sullivan opposes the proposed registration and title-service fee changes, saying the state's plan centralizes the services while leaving counties with the more labor-intensive work with less compensation per transaction.

"I'm all about efficiency  but I do think that the state should reimburse counties for the true expenses of doing the work," Sullivan said.

Sullivan, who estimates the fee structure change would cost Harris County $1.7 million in lost revenue, said his office is assembling written comments for the board.

A public comment period for the proposal ends May 23. The board plans to make its decision in June.
WASHINGTON - Anxious to turn the GOP race back onto friendlier ground in the Midwest, Ted Cruz telegraphed the importance of Indiana last Thursday at the state's annual Republican spring dinner.

"The state of Indiana is going to play a pivotal role in this election," Cruz said. "The entire country, their eyes are on the state of Indiana, the men and women in this room."

While the public face of the campaign still dwells on winning rural states like Indiana, Nebraska, Montana and South Dakota, strategists behind the scenes talk of an unpredictable war of attrition for delegates.

"The media is laser-focused on states, and we are laser-focused on delegates," said Katie Packer, a Republican strategist and founder of Our Principles PAC, which has spent more than $4.4 million since January to thwart GOP front-runner Donald Trump.

Cruz also has been campaigning in five Northeastern states that go to the polls on Tuesday. One is Pennsylvania, with a bonanza of 71 delegates. With Trump favored to dominate all five, however, Cruz is jumping ahead this week to Indiana.

Cruz acknowledges there are not enough states or delegates left for him to win the GOP nomination outright. The overriding campaign strategy, instead, has turned to making sure Trump cannot reach the 1,237 delegate majority to clinch it either - forcing a contested convention in which the Texas senator will have the upper hand with longtime party activists.

"We are headed to a contested convention," Cruz said Wednesday, making his strategy explicit in a radio interview in Philadelphia. "At this point, nobody is getting 1,237. Donald is going to talk all the time about other folks not getting to 1,237; he's not getting there, either. None of us are getting to 1,237."

There is little margin for error on either side.

Trump, riding a wave of momentum after his overwhelming win in New York, is looking ahead at the upcoming raft of favorable Mid-Atlantic state primaries, including Pennsylvania with a trove of unbound delegates who run separately from the candidates.

The morning after Trump's New York victory, his campaign released a memo asserting he is on a path to winning 1,400 delegates before the national convention in July.

Some outside analysts also handicap the race for Trump, noting that Cruz's dismal third-place showing in New York exposed a glaring weakness outside of his conservative base of tea party activists and evangelicals.

"Cruz really is perceived as a real conservative and cannot make any traction even among more moderate Republican conservatives," said Duke University political scientist John Aldrich.

That also could apply to California, the biggest prize of all, which looms large on June 7, the last day of primary voting. Trump is favored there, as well.

'Ways to stop' Trump

In a response to the Trump delegate claim, Packer's group put out a memo Thursday calculating that the billionaire's 1,400 delegates boast would entail winning 82 percent of the remaining pledged delegates. Until now, Trump has been averaging about 47 percent of the delegate haul.

To get to the magic number of 1,237, Trump needs to win about 60 percent of the delegates between now and June 7.

"Trump has to sweep everything, pretty much," said Rick Shaftan, a GOP strategist who runs the pro-Cruz Courageous Conservatives PAC.

Even if Trump could win the vast majority of the upcoming 15 primaries, proportional rules that assign delegates by congressional districts - including Indiana - allow Cruz to cherry-pick pockets of strength and deny Trump delegates.

"Even if Trump wins Indiana, there are still ways to stop him after that," said Our Principles PAC adviser Tim Miller, a former spokesman for the Jeb Bush campaign.

Indiana rates as one of the only toss-up states left on the GOP primary schedule.

"A Wisconsin-style win for Cruz would finalize that Trump can't get to 1,237," Miller said.

While the popular vote wins and state victories create welcome headlines, Cruz strategists emphasize that it is the actual delegate counts that tell the real story.

With demographics similar to Wisconsin - the state Cruz called a "turning point" - Indiana's 57 delegates represent a prime opportunity to significantly erode Trump's margin of victory, no matter which way the state as a whole tilts on May 3.

"It looks like very strong territory for us, seeing the parallels between Indiana and other states where we have done well, like Iowa, Oklahoma and Kansas," said Laura Barnett, a spokeswoman for two Keep the Promise PACS that support Cruz. "You see the connection he has with voters in those states."

Hoosier winner?

Like Wisconsin, Indiana gets a primary date to itself, meaning the state will be the focus of the campaigns' attention for an entire week, following Tuesday's primaries in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania - states where strategists say Cruz needs only to finish respectably.

Good showings by Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who remains in the race, also could deny Trump needed delegates on the Eastern Seaboard.

Cruz has made clear he is devoting significant resources to the Hoosier State, where a network of volunteers already is on the ground. He stopped at an Indianapolis delicatessen Thursday, then met with uncommitted Republican Gov. Mike Pence, a diehard conservative who had met with Trump the day before.

At the state GOP dinner in Indianapolis, Cruz promised to become part of the furniture in Indiana: "Heidi and I are going to spend a lot of time here in Indiana working to earn your votes, barnstorming the state, holding town halls, holding rallies, asking for your support."

Cruz can expect to get some help in Indiana, both from the #NeverTrump groups and the Club for Growth, a free-market group run by former Indiana congressman David McIntosh.

Back on rural, conservative turf, Cruz also found a target of opportunity this week in Trump's remarks dismissing North Carolina's new law requiring transgender people to use bathrooms that match their birth gender.

At a town hall on NBC's "Today" show, Trump said the law was unnecessary.

"There have been very few complaints the way it is," Trump said. "People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate. There has been so little trouble."

In a reprise of the fight over Houston's failed gay rights ordinance, Cruz released a web video Friday suggesting that Trump would let grown men use bathrooms with little girls, accusing him of caving in to the "PC police."

The bathroom issue highlights Cruz's effort to reposition himself as the only "true" conservative in the race, harkening back to his campaign's original template for winning the GOP nomination.

"If conservatives continue to unite around our campaign in the weeks and months ahead, Donald Trump will never earn the majority of support required to become the nominee," Cruz spokeswoman Alice Stewart wrote in an email to supporters Thursday.

Then there was Lincoln

While Cruz focuses on denying Trump a clear majority in advance of the convention in Cleveland, Trump has continued to complain of a "rigged" system that could see him winning the most votes and delegates, only to be outmaneuvered by Cruz's insider delegate operation.

Most Republican delegates become unbound if no candidate wins a majority on the first or second ballot. Cruz has been working assiduously state-by-state to ensure that the people selected as delegates are his loyalists - regardless of how their states voted.

"They're party regulars; they're activists," Miller said. "And by and large, they don't like Donald Trump."

The danger facing Cruz could be a wave of popular revulsion if Trump can make the case that the candidate with the most votes deserves to win - even if he does not get a full majority of the delegates.

Anticipating the potential fallout, GOP party leaders meeting in Florida last week laid the groundwork in a public relations battle. Addressing the party on Friday, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus recalled the contested convention of another century: "It took Abraham Lincoln three ballots to get a majority in 1860."
A bus to Beaumont costs about $20, and Texarkana will set you back around $30. But for Harris County, it'll cost about $180,000 a month.

Our jail is overcrowded, and Sheriff Ron Hickman has responded by sending 133 inmates to private jails in Jefferson and Bowie counties. This follows on 100 inmates being shipped out in June 2015. Before Hickman took charge, it had been about two years since a Harris County sheriff had to resort to this expensive and disruptive practice.

Now inmates are denied easy access to their attorneys. Family visits become a multi-hour trek. And taxpayers have to cut a check to some other county.

The problems with an overcrowded jail don't end there. Resources are stretched thin as the sheriff's office struggles to maintain control of the state's largest county lockup - and so far it looks like they're failing. The number of internal inspectors has been cut. Overtime expenses have skyrocketed. Innocent people are dying. Earlier this month, a 46-year-old man, Patrick Joseph Brown, was beaten to death by two other inmates under the vigilant eye of a security camera, but no one was watching the monitor on the other end. Brown had only been in jail for one day accused of stealing a guitar; he hadn't been convicted.

There are plenty of tools at the sheriff's disposal to keep the jail population down. Former Sheriff Adrian Garcia used every trick in the book to shorten sentences and keep numbers in check. But, as Hickman has pointed out, the real levers of power sit in the Harris County Criminal Justice Center.

Judges have extensive control over the makeup of our jail, and right now they've decided that they want it filled with the presumably innocent. About 75 percent of the people sitting in that cold, fetid tower of concrete haven't been convicted of a crime. For those sad souls, affording bail is the greatest barrier to freedom. Some people will even spend more time waiting behind bars for their trial then they could ever face in an eventual sentence.

It hasn't always been like this. In 2001 about 39 percent of people in Harris County jail were waiting for trial. In 2015, it was 60 percent.

The Harris County District Attorney's Office is finally working to tackle this problem with a $5 million initiative. The stated goals are to reduce racial disparities and improve conditions in the jail, but you don't have to commission academic studies or borrow from the vanguard policies of progressive enclaves on the coasts to know what Harris County has to do.

We stand alone as the one major county in Texas that doesn't regularly rely on personal recognizance bonds for low-risk offenders. Most major cities assign PR bonds in about 25 percent of cases. In Harris County, we use it about 5 percent of the time.

Those so-called PR or signature bonds would let people go about their normal lives until their court date, and could reduce the jail population by 67 percent overnight, according to University of Houston law professor Sandra Guerra Thompson. We're glad that judges are, in the words of state District Judge Susan Brown, "ready to try some new things." But many of these ideas aren't new. They've been tested all over our state and nation. The pre-trial office has been recommending a greater use of PR bonds for years. It shouldn't take $5 million to figure this out. After all, a bus ride to Dallas or Travis County only costs a couple bucks.
Re-appraisals

The recent flooding in Harris County has been tragic for many residents and our hearts go out to those who have been impacted.

As homeowners go about recovering, the last thing any property owner wants to worry about is property taxes. But taking some simple steps now, and taking time to understand how the system works, might save money, time and frustration. Here's some basic information.

Property taxes are calculated from the appraised value and tax rates from the property's taxing jurisdictions. The Harris County Appraisal District values your home on Jan. 1, 2016, and taxing jurisdictions adopt tax rates around October.

Residents have already begun receiving property appraisals for 2016. This year's appraisals won't take into account any damage you sustained by the recent floods. The only way homeowners can get a "re-appraisal" now is for their taxing jurisdiction to request and pay for a "special disaster reappraisal."

There are things you can do, both for this year and for next, to minimize the impact of your property taxes. Protest your 2016 property tax appraisal. Keep repair receipts, insurance claims, cost estimates and photographs of damage. Once tax bills are mailed, you can apply for a disaster payment plan to break up your payment in 4 equal installments.

In addition, HCAD and the Tax Assessor-Collector's Office are hosting a series of workshops to discuss property tax calculations and protesting. Find a full schedule at www.hctax.net.

Mike Sullivan Tax Assessor-Collector

Sands L. Stiefer, Chief Appraiser

Meyerland

As a resident of Meyerland, I have experienced with deep sadness the flooding of my own home and those of so many others in Meyerland for the second time in less than a year.

I understand the potential destruction of some weather systems. What I do not understand is the baffling inability of this city, including the Harris County Flood Control District, which is part of our property tax charges, and the Corps of Engineers to find a remedy for this horrific situation.

In past years, numerous families in Meyerland have flooded three times or more. That this ongoing problem has not been solved over these years is unacceptable.

We live in the fourth- largest city in the country, and we are a city of bayous. Surely those charged with the responsibility of flood control must finally provide a solution for this outrageous reality.

Fran Dow Friedman, Houston

City leadership

In the past, Houston has suffered through many floods costing millions of dollars. This year was no different. Sylvester Turner, our recently elected mayor, provided Houston residents with hands-on leadership.

Mayor Turner did a great job keeping the citizens informed and getting our resources out as quickly as possible.

Duncan Chapman, Houston
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The sacrifice and challenges of being a working mom for Jessica Coakley Martinez went right into the trash when Heathrow Airport security forced her to dump nearly 15 litres of breast milk, she says.

Coakley Martinez, a mother of two from California, had been on a 15-day business trip, but was determined to continue producing breast milk for her eight-month-old son at home.

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"You made me dump out nearly two weeks worth of food for my son."

While working in eight different cities, the mom would duck into closets and bathrooms to pump between meetings and presentations and then convince hotels to let her store her giant insulated bags of milk in their restaurant freezers.

By the time she was leaving Heathrow, she had nine litres of frozen breast milk and the rest was fresh in her carry-on.

But security officials there refused to let her through with the breast milk, pointing to strict regulations.

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In the U.K., only 100 millietres of liquid in a transparent container is permitted in carry-on baggage, according to the Department of Transport.

Although the airport allows mothers to bring "a reasonable amount of liquid" food for a baby "for the journey," Heathrow states on its website that this only applies if the mother is travelling with her child, which Coakley Martinez was not.

These regulations are set by the Department of Transport, and it is the airport's job to enforce them, according to Heathrow airport.

"U.K. aviation security regulations are in place to protect the travelling public and are applicable to all airports in the U.K."

Open letter to airport

While Coakley Martinez admits that she should have checked the U.K.'s civil aviation rules in advance, she claims that she had no problems bringing her stored breast milk through every other airport in four countries that she had passed through on the trip.

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"You made me dump out nearly two weeks worth of food for my son," she wrote in an open letter to Heathrow Airport that she posted on Facebook.

"This wasnt some rare bottle of wine or luxury perfume I was trying to negotiate as a carry on. This was deeply personal. This was my sons health and nourishment."

"Being a working mother and ensuring both my job and my child get exactly what they need is the hardest thing Ive ever done, but you managed to make it nearly impossible in a single afternoon," she wrote.

Coakley Martinez said she was willing to part with the fresh breast milk, but get back into the security line to check the frozen amount  but officials still said they had to confiscate the milk because it was now a "non-compliant item."

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"It was as if you were almost proud to deny me at every possible point of compromise," she wrote.

"I hope the next time you encounter another mom just trying to make it work and looking for a little help along the way, you consult your conscience ... and reconsider your options."

A similar incident occurred last year between a working mother and Delta Air Lines.

Vanessa Kasten Urango froze her breast milk and kept it cool with dry ice to bring home after an 18-day business trip.

She claimed in a Facebook post that Delta employees were uncertain how to deal with her cooler of breast milk. They ultimately allowed her to bring the milk, but not the ice.

Delta later reached out to Urango to make amends and resolve the issue after the encounter.

Also on HuffPost

Breastfeeding Photo Series Stands Up For Working Moms See Gallery
Men are more likely to support Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump for president of the United States  unless theyre prompted to think about gender, a recent study shows.

Decades of research show that men often react "in surprisingly strong ways" to what they think are threats to their masculinity, wrote the studys author Dan Cassino in the Harvard Business Review last week. And the mere thought of a female president could end up costing Clinton eight per cent of the vote, the study says.

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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to guests during a campaign stop on April 4, 2016 in La Crosse, Wis. (Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Voters in New Jersey were asked who they would pick for commander-in-chief. However, half were first asked who the primary breadwinner is in their home. Those respondents chose Republican Trump over Democrat Clinton by an eight-point-margin.

Men who were not presented with that question first preferred Clinton over Trump by a 16-point margin.

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The query had no effect on support for Bernie Sanders.

Being the breadwinner has been a linchpin of U.S. mens masculinity for decades, so even the potential of making less than ones spouse threatens accepted gender roles, Cassino wrote. Merely asking the question about income caused enormous shifts in mens choice for president, he said.

The question had the opposite effect on female voters, according to the full study published by Fairleigh Dickinson University. About 36 per cent of women supported Trump when not asked the gender question. This fell to only 26 per cent when women were asked who earns the most in their home.

Only about 15 per cent of American men earn less than their spouses do, Cassino noted. And this is highly dependent on their stage of life  as men age, they become much more likely to make the same or more than their spouse.

Also On HuffPost:
@Beyonce #LEMONADE premieres 4.23 9pm EST HBO // thank you for the opportunity to work with u Beyonce  an experience I will Never forget

A photo posted by Winnie (@winnieharlow) on Apr 17, 2016 at 6:11pm PDT
On the final day of the UN General Assembly Special Session on drugs (April 21) I hosted a side event at the UN Headquarters in New York, launching the 2016 Public Letter of the Beckley Foundation, entitled, "OUT OF UNGASS: A NEW APPROACH." I was accompanied by Senator Mark Golding, the Jamaican former Minister of Justice and Ras Iyah-V, President of the Westmoreland Hemp and Ganja Farmers Association in Jamaica, who represented the Beckley Foundation throughout UNGASS as a delegate.

The 2016 Public Letter calls for: respect for human rights and national sovereignty; protection of indigenous rights and the freedom of conscience; the right to appropriate medication; ending the obstruction to scientific and medical research into the potential benefits of prohibited plants and compounds; and the rescheduling of these plants and compounds from Schedule I to II.

OUT OF UNGASS: A NEW APPROACH

We the undersigned call on Governments and Parliaments to recognise that:

Fifty-five years after the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs was launched, it is clearly evident that the global war on drugs has had many unintended and devastating consequences worldwide, and has failed to eliminate drug production or drug use;

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Respect for human rights and national sovereignty are founding principles of the UN and, in order to protect health and liberty worldwide these principles must underpin the reform of international drug policies;

Sovereign states have the right to form and implement domestic drug policies that their governments consider best for their own citizens, in keeping with the principles of improving health, reducing harm and respecting human rights - including the freedom of conscience and religion, the free development of personality, the right to health and the rights of indigenous peoples;

Every individual's right to health includes the right to appropriate medication, but currently billions of people, four-fifths of the world's population, lack access to opiates for the relief of pain;

Current global drug policies, based on prohibition, have not only made it impossible for the majority of citizens of the world to access appropriate pain medication, but have also resulted in the obstruction of scientific and medical research into the potential benefits of the prohibited plants and compounds, to the detriment of the health of the world's population, and in contravention of the principle of scientific research being free from political intervention;

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Certain plants and substances are currently listed on Schedule I of the UN Single Convention, despite having medical potential and not being highly addictive, and despite having been used by indigenous people for millennia; these plants and substances should be moved from Schedule 1 to Schedule II, thereby opening the doors to research, and allowing physicians to prescribe them where appropriate.

Let us break the taboo on debate and embrace the clear need for reform. The time for action is now.

Yours faithfully,
For a politician in his 40s (I'm just about hanging on to that title), I'm probably not the greatest at new technology, but I do okay.

I tweet; can make my way around Facebook and I use my phone to take pictures and email. I get most of my news these days from a mobile device and I'm also rarely without my iPad, which is these days a sort of mobile Ministerial box for me.

However, the difference in the way I use mobile technology and the way my kids - the iGeneration - use what is essentially the same kind of kit, is absolutely vast. The explosion of social media and message sharing apps has revolutionised the way we communicate and my children see and use this technology in a completely different way.

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First Minister Carwyn Jones. Photo by Natasha Hirst.

The statistics are quite astonishing. This time last year there were 30 billion WhatsApp messages being sent daily, with the company employing just 34 engineers to oversee that volume of message sharing. A company just seven years old now has a billion users with 1 million new social media users being added every day, that's 12 each second.

Over 1.5 billion smartphones are sold every year, and that includes some of the poorest parts of the world. There are more people in Sub-Saharan Africa with a mobile phone than have grid electricity.

Technology is changing what we think of the world around us, the promise of self-driving capability means that a car will become a computer on wheels, and you could define a drone as a computer that flies.

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We are in the midst of a revolution and rapidly changing technology provides both an opportunity and a challenge for those in education. But it is difficult trying to work out what skills and understanding our children need to acquire so they can thrive in the world and the labour market of the future.

I am not alone in believing that giving our young people the digital skills they need is an investment in the competitiveness of the Welsh economy. Recent stats suggest there are 900,000 unfilled computing jobs across the EU, because of a lack of skills, and Wales has its share of that.

This is why we are, today, launching a five-point plan to support coding and digital literacy skills. We want Wales to meet the aspiration set for us by a group of industry experts to become 'an Agile-Digital Nation'. I want Wales to be renowned for producing talented tech innovators, world class software engineers and successful entrepreneurs capable of fuelling high skilled digital industry growth.

Of course, not everyone will become a coder when they leave school, but everyone will need basic digital skills in the same way they need literacy and numeracy. This means exposing young people to skills such as coding at an early age in school because that knowledge is going to play a critical role in their lives - whatever career they go into.

We know from both research and indeed our curriculum review that coding, or "Computational Thinking", is increasingly a required skill across all professions. The doctors, lawyers and architects of the future - not professions you might associate with coding - will increasingly be working alongside all manner of computing and digital technologies. You only need to talk to GPs about the number of patients that come in having first searched Google, or the number of apps which track health and exercise-related metrics, to see the direction that the technology is taking us.

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Wales has a great record of promoting the learning of digital skills and coding, for example the fantastic success of Raspberry Pi and that's why we've chosen Sony's UK Technology Centre in Pencoed to launch our plans today.

As a government we've made a good start to developing the new curriculum for Wales which includes plans to roll out Digital Competence and developing a new Computer Science subject from the ages of 5-16. Coding skills will be an important part of this. We know that curriculum change takes time however, whilst technology moves fast. And that's why we want to fast-track these changes into our schools.

Our plan will provide every young person in Wales with access to a coding workshop and we'll extend successful programmes like Technocamps, which has already helped educate thousands of children about coding and computer science.

The infrastructure for facilitating the teaching of coding and digital skills is being put in place and thanks to the Welsh Government's Superfast Cymru programme, schools across Wales are getting access to high speed broadband connectivity. However the human infrastructure to deliver effective digital literacy is just as important and increasing the capacity of teachers in Wales is vital.

We will work with teaching training providers to ensure new entrants to the profession have the skills they need to teach children effectively. We'll also make sure that there is effective professional development to facilitate the wider curriculum changes, and as part of the New Deal for teachers we will give more support to initiatives such as Technoteach.

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We will also work with partners in business and industry to expand the numbers of Coding Clubs in Welsh schools so young people can develop their skills in time around the curriculum. Part of our work will also be to encourage more girls to take up STEM subjects at both an earlier age and throughout their education. We can see positive changes in other parts of the world - for instance, Computer Science has for the first time become the most popular subject for new female students at Stanford University.

Nobody can predict the future but if we are to fulfil the promise of Wales as an Agile Digital Nation then we need an agile digital Welsh Government ready to anticipate the needs of the changing and growing Welsh economy and invest in giving young people the skills they need.

We need the children of Wales to be comfortable with technology.

Not just by using it, but by building it.

The next Welsh Labour Government aspires to make Wales a world leader in digital skills.

Welsh Labour's 5 Point Plan to Support Coding and Digital Literacy in Schools

1.Support the effective development of the new Curriculum for Wales by:

- Developing a new Computer Science subject for years 5-16 within a new Science and Technology Area of Learning and Experience

- Rolling out Digital Competence as a cross-cutting curriculum responsibility (on a par with Literacy and Numeracy)

- Developing a Digital Competence Framework from September 2016

2.Expand successful projects such as Technocamps and partner with innovators such as Raspberry Pi to give every child in Wales access to a coding workshop and encourage more girls to take up STEM subjects.

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3.Work with industry and local businesses to encourage Coding Clubs in every part of Wales.

4.Support projects like Technoteach to provide effective Continuing Professional Development support to teachers.
'Who is going to complain about rape jokes? Rape victims? They barely even report rape.'

- Sarah Silverman

I agree with comedian George Carlin, who said that 'anything can be funny, it all depends on how you construct the joke'. Another comedian, Daniel Tosh, made an attempt at a joke at a gig in 2012, that scared the woman he targeted. This was his joke: "Wouldn't it be funny if that girl got raped by like, five guys, right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her..." He stunned her into silence, and into leaving. The crowd laughed at her departure. The intention of this 'joke' was to humiliate and intimidate her. It worked.

What I love about humour and comedy is its ability to get to the root of something and make a point in a lateral, intelligent way, with a grim understanding of the human condition. I love comedy that has integrity and honesty, that is subversive and dark. Comedy is fascinating to me because it is so difficult to pin down or explain; it has no rules, no boundaries and can change direction on a whim. I love how it points out the absurdity and ridiculousness of our own existence. When I asked Irish comedian PJ Gallagher about it, he likened comedy to a mirror: 'People laugh because it relates directly to their own experience. Comedy holds a mirror to our lives. That's why it's so funny - we're laughing at ourselves'.

So within the context of rape jokes, what are we laughing at? - what we really believe about rape and rape victims? Or are we laughing about our own prejudices, or the myths that surround rape? Are we laughing at the victim? The rapist?

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What is funny about rape jokes?

PJ concurs with Carlin, adding that the attitude of the joke maker is the most important thing. It follows that the comic's attitude will inform the construction of the joke - the build up, background and intentions of the joke. So, what informs the success of the joke is in the construction, attitude and delivery - not the rape element.

After telling us that anything can be funny, Carlin then goes on to tell a very long rambling rape joke involving an 81 year old woman. It made me get angry, cringe, squirm and wince, but at the end of it, it came back to highlighting the ridiculousness of the 'she lead him on/she was wearing a skirt' belief that unfortunately too many people hold. We had to grin and bear the set up but the end was worth it. The butt of the joke was the rape myth and those who idiotically believe it and promote it, not the victim. Carlin used his joke to work against a pervasive element of rape culture; victim blaming.

This is why the construction of a joke involving rape or violence against women is so important. If the butt of the joke is the rape victim, which unfortunately it oftentimes is, then the comedian is just seeking a cheap laugh. Comedy is supposed to take down the oppressors, not the oppressed, as Carlin showed us. A joke that picks on the oppressed is a joke with no point. A racist joke is great as long as the joke is racism. A homophobic joke is fine as long as the joke is homophobia. The over-turned expectation which is what gives depth to humour; is the non arrival of the expected racism or homophobia. A joke about rape is fine as long as the joke is rape: the culture that supports it, the rapist, the way rape is reported, the myths people believe, or the victim blaming that survivors are treated to. But not the victim. Comedy does not have the right to further victimise victims, or give further power to oppressors. Good comedy has a point, is intelligent and understands what it is talking about. It should teach us something new, or show us a new perspective. It's job is to make us laugh. Not to laugh at our most traumatic moments at our expense.

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Downright mean jokes about rape, like Jimmy Carr's 'nine out of ten people in a gang rape said they enjoyed it' are the damaging ones. The hilarity is that the tenth person didn't enjoy it because the tenth person was the gang rape victim. I can't be the only person feeling squinty eyed about that one. Jimmy is correct; gang rape victims do not enjoy being gang raped. Is the funny thing that he is stating the obvious? Is the humour in the weird juxtaposition of the banality of statistics reporting and the violence of gang rape? Or is the humour in the ridiculousness of statistical analysis of such a shocking crime? Even if that is where the humour lies, the target of the joke is still the victim. And why would you want to mock a gang rape victim?

PJ Gallagher uses the following as a barometer for his jokes, 'Would I do this joke in front of ..... (insert category of person)?' It comes down to respecting the people who find watching you a worthwhile way to spend their evening; 'They bought a ticket - they deserve respect. Your job is to make them laugh - you're privileged'.

'Comedy ideally brings people together' says PJ, 'that's where the magic is'. People go to comedy nights to escape their boring/awful/depressing/traumatic lives, not to be reminded of it. He told me about how jokes about the recession in 2008 fell flat due to the audience not wanting to hear about something they were trying to get away from for one night a week. It wasn't funny for them. Targeting potentially vulnerable audience members does not bring people together. It isolates.
JOSH EDELSON via Getty Images Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard (R) and Andre Borschberg (L) wave to the crowd after landing Solar Impulse 2 at Moffett Field in Mountain View, California on April 23, 2016. Solar Impulse 2, an experimental plane flying around the world without consuming a drop of fuel, landed in California, one leg closer to completing its trailblazing trip. / AFP / Josh Edelson (Photo credit should read JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images)

Solar-powered aeroplane Solar Impulse 2 has touched down in California after a three-day flight over the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii.

The experimental plane is flying around the world without fuel and is now one leg closer to completing its trip.

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The aircraft started its around-the-world journey in March 2015 from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, and made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China and Japan. It's on the ninth leg of its circumnavigation.

Pilot Bertrand Piccard marveled from his plane as it cruised over the Pacific at about 16,000 feet with a nearly-full battery, according to the website documenting Solar Impulse 2's journey.

Earlier, he exchanged pleasantries with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who hailed Piccard's pioneering spirit as "inspirational,'' telling him he was making history.

Piccard responded that Ban, too, was making history by having just presided over the signing of a climate agreement supported by representatives of 175 nations.

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After uncertainty about winds, the plane took off from Hawaii on Thursday morning and was on course to land in Mountain View, California, over the weekend. The crew that helped it take off was clearing out of its Hawaiian hangar and headed for the mainland for the weekend arrival.

At one point passengers on a Hawaiian Air jet caught a glimpse of the Solar Impulse 2 before the airliner sped past the slow-moving aircraft.

The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Hawaii in July and was forced to stay in the islands after the plane's battery system sustained heat damage on its trip from Japan.

Piccard, said the destination in the heart of Silicon Valley is fitting, as the plane will land "in the middle of the pioneering spirit.'' Piccard's co-pilot Andre Borschberg flew the leg from Japan to Hawaii.

The team was delayed in Asia, as well. When first attempting to fly from Nanjing, China, to Hawaii, the crew had to divert to Japan because of unfavourable weather and a damaged wing.

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A month later, when weather conditions were right, the plane departed from Nagoya in central Japan for Hawaii.

The plane's ideal flight speed is about 45 kph, or 28 mph, though that can double during the day when the sun's rays are strongest. The carbon-fiber aircraft weighs more than 5,000 pounds, or about as much as a midsize truck.

The wings of Solar Impulse 2, which stretch wider than those of a Boeing 747, are equipped with 17,000 solar cells that power propellers and charge batteries. The plane runs on stored energy at night.
The Blog Sunday Roundup

This was a week of goodbyes. On Tuesday, with big wins in the New York primary by Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the chances for Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders to win the nominations before the conventions didn't exactly leave the building, but they're headed for the exits. Later that night, Elizabeth Warren, in an epic Twitter rant, said goodbye to Ted Cruz's whining. In response to an email Cruz sent out about the "significant sacrifice" he was making by running, including that his "health and sleep are limited," Warren tweeted: "Know whose sleep is limited? Working parents who stay up worrying about getting kids thru college w/o big debt. @TedCruz blocked #refi." At least both agree on the importance of sleep. But the saddest goodbye came on Thursday with the news of Prince's death. He was an incredibly talented, versatile, gender-bending, glow-in-the-dark genius whose music was so undeniably human and irresistible - a force of harmony in a time of division. As he wrote in his song Baltimore, "Peace is more than the absence of war."
Egypt is bracing for something significant on Monday, a national holiday to mark the 1982 withdrawal of Israeli troops from Sinai.

It's possible not much will happen, that predicted demonstrations will be tiny or quashed, but President Sisi's government is obviously rattled and nervous that reaction against his handing over of two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia will ignite widespread disruption across the country.

Sisi's agreeing to put the two uninhabited islands of Tiran and Sanafir has hit an emotional nerve in Egypt, with thousands of people protesting in Cairo when the decision was announced last week. Over one hundred were arrested and demonstrators were tear gassed by police. Most ominously for Sisi, protesters chanted the 2011 phrase "The people demand the downfall of the regime" in an echo of the mass uprising which toppled President Mubarak in 2011.

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The authorities, clearly worried that Monday will see a repeat of street protests, have reacted by arresting people in Alexandria, Upper Egypt and randomly in Cairo cafes believed to be fashionable with activists.

Some human rights defenders are taking precautionary measures out of fear of being arrested or disappeared. The Cairo-based NGO the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, which has documented hundreds of disappearance cases in the last year, has closed its head office temporarily and relocated to a secret location to carry out its work. An arrest warrant was issued for prominent human rights lawyer Malek Adly on Saturday April 23.

"Monday might not be much in itself, but it could snowball," said one activist.

Activist Yasser El-Qot is being held in detention on suspicion of distributing fliers calling for protests on Monday. Sanna Seif, who was released from prison in September 2015 after more than a year in jail for peaceful dissent, has been summoned to report to the South Cairo prosecution on April 27 on the same charges as El-Qot.

Egypt's security services, under increasing pressure to explain the death of Italian student Giulio Regeni, whose tortured body was found in early February, are clearly very nervous about how to respond to the possibility of large protests on Monday.

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Much of Egypt seems to be simmering, the infatuation with Sisi fading, and last Tuesday unrest broke out in eastern Cairo soon after a policeman allegedly shot dead a tea vendor after refusing to pay for his tea, with hundreds of people demonstrating on the streets.

The following day U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry briefly visited Cairo. Despite an intensification of assaults on human rights activists and the targeting of NGOs, Kerry managed not to mention the words human rights in his public statement at all, opting for a heavily coded, contorted phrasing of how he and Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Showery and President Sisi had "talked about ways in which we can hopefully resolve some of the differences and questions that have arisen about the internal politics and choices for the people of Egypt."

Kerry isn't oblivious to Egypt's human rights crisis, but failing to acknowledge it publicly when in Cairo damages the U.S. government's credibility and enables the repression.

In January 2016 a Human Rights First report on Egypt noted that "this year will be a defining one as violent extremism, regional conflicts, and political and economic mismanagement threaten Egypt--and as President Obama shapes his legacy in the Middle East."

This year will also be a key test of Sisi, as the Egyptian economy continues to falter and terrorist attacks increase. Despite support from Washington and the Gulf countries (The United Arab Emirates just announced 4 billion USD to help bail out Sisi, added to sixteen billion USD from Saudi a few weeks ago) Sisi's days in power look numbered.

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These thoughts are the reflection of a people-to-people trip to Cuba with National Geographic, a program that is fundamentally educational and a discovery.

In 2015, the 7th Americas Summit, in Panama City, included Cuba for the first time. This U.S. initiative would have happened without the U.S. if they had refused the presence of its neighboring island. It was the first meeting between Barack Obama and Raul Castro, that led to the reopening of the U.S. Embassy and the visit of the U.S. President in Havana. It was also the clearest indication that the US were the only nation not to have such relationship. 90 miles from Key West, it was time not to submit US foreign policy to the lobby of the Cuban Americans in Florida.

The Soviet period (1959-1989)

The U.S. always assumed -- against all evidence -- that Fidel Castro was a puppet and that he was an agent for the Soviet Union. J.F. Kennedy inherited the Richard Nixon project to invade Cuba. He scaled it down and unrealistically tried to hide the fact that the invaders had U.S. weapons and were under the protection of several US ships. Of course, like in Iraq, the U.S. would be welcomed as a liberator. The United States foreign policymakers have an uncanny ability to believe that they are always liberators as they were in Normandy. It explains why all U.S. wars since than ended in failure.

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Yet, the U.S. had an excuse: to protect Cuba, the Soviet Union brought a nuclear arsenal to defend Cuba that was a threat to the United States, and took it out following the Cuban blocus by the U.S. Navy.It explains the ostracism on Cuba until 1989, when the Berlin wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed.

The "special period" (1989-2005)

As Russia stopped subsidizing the Cuban economy, the Cuban people suffered the worst famine and destructive period of their history. Fortunately, one by one all countries reopened their Embassies and Europe and Latin America went to the rescue. In March 2016, the United States announced a "historic" opening of agricultural relationships with Cuba with the support of the US food companies, particularly Cargill, who had boycotted any such effort.

Without serious consideration for the consequences, what was a legitimate defensive policy became a political regime change blockade motivated by the inability of any Administration to confront the powerful Cuban lobby in Florida, that continued to "trade with Cuba' more or less clandestinely.

The Raul Castro era (2006- Present)

As Raul Castro succeeded his ailing brother Fidel, the country started to lift restrictions on imports, travel, private enterprises ... it would have been normal for the U.S. administration to revisit its policy. In 2003 George W. Bush had chosen to impose fresh measures designed to hasten the end of communist rule in Cuba, including tightening a travel embargo to the island, cracking down on illegal cash transfers, and a more robust information campaign aimed at Cuba. A new body, the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, is created.

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In 2015, the majority of Cuban Americans approved the lifting of the embargo, except, of course, Mario Rubio and Ted Cruz who characterized the change as a "tragic historical mistake".

The Cuban opportunity for the United States

Cuba is not a country for faint-hearted, let alone for half-hearted tiptoeing visitors. It is remarkable that the omnipresent criticism of the U.S. policy towards the country has not translated into an opposition to the US people and culture. We were received warmly, even one evening at the Comite de la Revolucion.

But we would be naive to consider that attitude as complacency. We have been responsible for 55 years of misery and the return to some form of progress happened despite the U.S. blockade. It is a political failure, but more importantly, when the Soviet bloc collapsed and let Cuba down, the United States did not seize the opportunity to compensate for this dramatic downturn. We let the Cubans down when they needed us the most. They vividly remember it.

We are welcome, but Cubans have enjoyed benefits that the U.S. ignores: social benefits, free health care and free education. They are not willing to renounce to the main benefits of socialism. The Cuban authorities have learned their lesson: they will not depend on one single country. Our luxury buses were Chinese. Out of 3 million tourists a year, one million are Canadians who have been hugely supportive of the island. Russia is still supportive. Europe has come back and all new cars are non U.S. The "youngest ones" we drove were 1959 models.

The only way the United States will be able to rebuild a normal relationship with Cuba is by being non-intrusive and understand that we need to buy the hearts and souls of the Cubans. It requires a respectful approach, not the U.S. invasion that the Cuban people fear. They are proud and want to remain masters of their destiny.

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DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - DECEMBER 31: Music producer David Guetta performs on NYE at Media City Amphitheatre on December 31, 2015 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by Cedric Ribeiro/Getty Images)

Anyone who isn't confused or conflicted on the topic of Israel probably isn't looking into it too deeply. There are two distinctly, almost surreally different narratives in Israel and Palestine... and to a great extent, both are right and both are wrong. Both peoples have suffered greatly and both have legitimate grievances against the other. Holding that juxtaposition is itself a challenge. But things get even thornier when one adds to the mix the most essential fact of all: that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians are going anywhere.



The us-versus-them paradigm articulated by both far right and far left on this issue does more to exacerbate than to solve the problem. And in their own ways, they're both delusional. The extreme right sees Israel as all angel -- all victim, no demon; while the extreme left sees the Palestinians in that same light. Such positions range from the intentionally false to the ridiculously naive. Neither position feeds the angels of our better nature, so much as the jackals of anger that inhabit the landscape of all unthinking extremes.

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Anyone seeking a real solution in Israel and Palestine rejects the us-versus-them mentality entirely. The solution to the problem is not on the level of land, but on the level of consciousness. The fundamental polarity in that region is not between Israelis and Palestinians, but between those who hate and those who love. Among both Israelis and Palestinians -- people actually living with the problem on a daily basis, not just spouting off about it in swank hotel ballrooms or on college campuses -- there are heroes who demonstrate the true fundamentals of peace-making: that any possibility of a sustainable future belongs to those who refuse, in their hearts, to reject anyone. What we need to reject is hatred itself.

The problem isn't just that the situation is so crazy; the deeper problem is the crazies on both sides.

The extreme right is filled with those refusing to acknowledge a legitimate right to dignity and respect for the Palestinians, much less the legitimacy of their desire for a homeland for themselves. Certain facets of the extreme right in Israel are unquestionably as racist against Arabs as extreme Arabs are racist against the Jews. They display at times a profound mean-spiritedness -- the willingness to grab land that does not belong to them, tolerate oppression, and put their own perceived needs before the needs of others in a way that is neither politically nor morally justifiable. One of the most tragic aspects of their position is that it counters every core Jewish value, thus making a mockery of the spiritual legitimacy of a Jewish State.



The extreme left in America, however, often refuses to acknowledge a legitimate right to dignity and respect for the Israelis. Many Americans parroting lines about "a more balanced approach in the Middle East" are promulgating the message, whether they're conscious of it or not, "To hell with the Israelis; if they die, they die." One wonders how some of them would react if Al Qaeda was amassed along our border with Canada -- a legitimate analogy to the presence of Hamas in Gaza, by the way -- building huge underground tunnels through which they could launch a military invasion of Seattle or Detroit. One can't help but think many of them would be the first to panic, their cries of "Save us!" drowning out any pleas to make sure the response is proportionate. It's not Israel's fault that Hamas forces use human shields. And oh, did I tell you? Hamas and ISIL are bros now.

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So what are we to do? Some of the most intelligent people have just thrown up their hands in despair, simply assuming at this point that the status quo will have to hold. But fortunately or unfortunately, the status quo never holds forever. What we have to do is rethink this. The biggest problem in the region is a mindset, and the only answer in the region is a new one. Only when we have a new mental filter will we have a new Middle East.



On a recent trip to Israel and Palestine, I was struck not by the hatred I saw but by the love I saw. I visited a school called Hand in Hand in an Arab village in Israel -- one of seven throughout the country -- where every classroom is headed by two teachers: one Jewish and one Arab. All Jewish students learn Arabic, and all Arab students learn Hebrew. They learn not only each other's language, but also each other's culture. Their families are involved in creating a community of inclusivity, an honor for each other's differences combined with the cultivation of shared values. Hand in Hand teachers and school administrators are committed to providing the children with that most critical aspect of peace-building: genuine affection of the other, based on familiarity and understanding -- especially during early childhood.

People such as those who created and maintain the Hand in Hand schools exist all over the Middle East. They are educators, businesspeople, politicians, journalists and more. While they aren't the ones who grab headlines in Europe or America, in both Israel and Palestine there are smart, intelligent, deeply humanistic, ready-to-do-things-differently, tired-of-all-the-fighting, know-we-have-to-compromise-so-let's-just-figure-out-a-way-to-do-it, wanting-a-better-future-for-their-kids-just-like-we-do, wonderful human beings who don't need any of us to support their attitudes of anger or victimization.

It's often not people who are the problem -- it's governments that are the problem. No, we shouldn't always agree with Benjamin Netanyahu, but neither should we kid ourselves about the deep corruption of the Palestinian Authority or the terrorist threat of Hamas.

The real partners for peace are everyday citizens -- Palestinians and Israelis who represent a survivable and sustainable future, not only for their children but also for all humanity. They are those who can listen to the righteous pleas of the other, who can genuinely acknowledge the pain of the other, and can recognize the legitimate aspirations of the other.

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They meet in a field of consciousness beyond the past, and beyond guilt. "Out beyond all ideas of good and bad, right and wrong, there is a field. I'll meet you there," wrote Rumi. And that is not just poetry. It is a description of the only place where we can meet. Those in both Israel and Palestine who are preparing that field - day after day, despite the rejection of a world that does not understand - are the true deliverers from the insanity of our times. They know the only survivable future for their children is in a land that's called Forgiveness.

I have no further listening for the naive and simplistic voices on either side of this argument. Only those who honor equally the aspirations of both Arab and Jew deserve credence, and the newly minted pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel stance so in vogue on the Left these days is no less imbalanced than the previously accepted pro-Israel/anti-Palestinian position it seeks to replace. Hate is hate, and it ultimately serves no one. No mother's son is more precious than any other mother's son. No people have more of a right than any other to a homeland. And in both Israel and Palestine, there are enough people in both places who know that. Let's support them.

As it says in A Course in Miracles, "The holiest spot on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love." I felt that holiness in both Tel Aviv and Ramallah. I saw it in the eyes and heard it in the words and felt it in the handshakes of the people I met in both Israel and Palestine.

Those who don't understand this conversation have little to offer at this point; those who do understand it, need to start thinking about this issue and engaging it more forcefully. Politics as usual doesn't even begin to provide a context for any real solution, because the biggest problem is inside our hearts. The last thing we need is more people pointing their fingers at either side; the greatest enemy is that pointed finger.

The struggle between Israelis and Palestinians is a perfect reflection of the struggle between fear and forgiveness that rages within us all. A spiritual perspective doesn't choose sides in this battle, but rather hovers above the battlefield. For only there does the battle end. The relationship between Israelis and Palestinians lays bare every wound and every yearning of the human heart, encapsulating both the tragedy of our humanity and also the potential for our redemption. The search for the Holy Land is above all else an internal journey. We shouldn't expect it to be sweet all the time; just expect it to be real.
The main theme of the US-Gulf summit in Riyadh was pronounced by US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, after meeting with his Gulf counterparts, when he said that the nuclear deal with Iran does not impose any restrictions on the US. The US military "remains committed and capable of responding to Iranian malign and destabilizing activities and deterring aggression against our regional friends and allies," especially in the Gulf, he said. He continued, "the United States shares with GCC partners the view that, even as the nuclear accord verifiably prevents Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, there are many more issues to be concerned with regarding Iran's behavior in the region," including support for terrorist groups. This is exactly what the GCC countries wanted to hear from the senior US delegation that headed to Riyadh for the second summit of its kind since the Camp David summit hosted by President Obama. Secretary General of the GCC Abdullatif Al-Zayani listed several points that were agreed upon between the two sides, including cooperation in missile defense and deploying joint patrols to intercept Iranian vessels smuggling weapons. The long-term strategic partnership reinforced by the Riyadh Summit is not a secondary issue, given the tension that has marred the relationship as Obama gave absolute priority instead to the nuclear agreement with Iran and the detente with Tehran after three decades of estrangement. That priority required the US president to isolate in his assessment nuclear talks from Iran's regional ambitions from Iraq to Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen. The policy of turning a blind eye to such practices was seen by most Gulf states as a US blessing of Iranian expansionism and hegemony in the region. The Gulf states thus lost trust in Obama, who in turn did not conceal his annoyance with these countries' objections to his policies. The decision to hold a second US-Gulf summit to repair and develop relations has reinforced the US security and strategic partnership with its traditional allies in parallel with the emerging US-Iranian relationship, which in turn is experiencing a crisis as a result of the Iranian leadership's sticking to its guns, especially with regard to its ballistic missile program. A new development here has to do with the fight against terror, affecting two main aspects: The Saudi steps to establish a pan-Islamic military alliance against ISIS and similar Sunni terrorist groups; and the unprecedented moves by the GCC and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to designate as terror groups Shiite militias led by Hezbollah. Ashton Carter described Hezbollah as one of the malignant activities carried out by Iran in the region, and welcomed the Islamic military alliance against ISIS, sending out an important message to the GCC states. President Barack Obama, in turn, stressed his opposition to the justice against sponsors of terrorism act proposed by both Democrats and Republicans in the Congress. The bill would allow if passed the families of the victims of 9/11 to sue the Saudi government on charges - denied by Riyadh - of having a role in the terror attacks. Obama said he opposed the bill before heading to Riyadh, stressing that allowing civilians to sue governments in the courts would be a dangerous precedent, thereby defusing any possible escalation that would have damaged the summit or even US-Saudi relations, especially after Riyadh threatened to pull its assets from the US to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.The US and Gulf parties discussed ways to strengthen security cooperation, according to Zayani's announcement in the wake of the Gulf defense ministers meeting with their US counterpart, including areas like missile defense, marine security, armament and training, and cybersecurity, in order to allow the GCC countries to build up their readiness to protect the region's security and stability. Zayani said the steps agreed included combatting Iranian activities that violate international law through joint operations to intercept arms shipments bound for Yemen or other conflict zones.The second summit between Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz and US President Barack Obama - who was making his fourth visit to Riyadh since taking office - was not particularly warm. However, it adhered to the parameters of strategic relations and joint interests. While the US president was waiting for the joint summit with the six GCC nations, the leaders of these countries were meeting in another summit. This had important significance and was a message to the US and its president.Indeed, by contrast, a warm and historic summit convened between GCC leaders and Morocco's King Mohammed VI, and stressed the principles of non-interference in others' affairs, mutual defense, and developing partnership towards integration and possibly including Morocco the GCC framework. During his press conference with his Moroccan counterpart, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said that the main principle of the Arab summits in Riyadh was the refusal to tamper with stability and separatism, while his counterpart stressed the importance for these countries to be in a "united bloc."Morocco is a partner in the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, and is also a key part of the pan-Islamic anti-terror alliance. These two issues are not the subject of contention between the US and the GCC except in terms of mutual expectations. Yemen remains a Saudi and Gulf priority, while the US wants to accelerate an end to that war and also wants Iran to end its intervention in Yemen. Regarding the issue of the Islamic alliance, Washington welcomes it if its focus will be on defeating terrorism, but there are differences over priorities in Iraq and Syria.Washington has focused on Iraq and the need for the Gulf countries to step up their support, economic and political, for the Iraqi government, especially as concerns Sunni regions of Iraq. However, the Gulf countries have stressed the need for the government in Baghdad to fulfil its obligations towards Sunnis, and the need to rein in Shiite militias and Iranian dictates.Disagreements continue in Syria as well because of the divergent visions and policies. Neither the Gulf countries, particular Saudi, is willing to abandon Syria; nor is the US administration ready to pursue a new policy on Syria after gradually backing away from its red lines, led by the demand for Bashar al-Assad to step down.The crux of the question will be whether US strategic policy will remain committed to the traditional alliance with the Gulf or whether it will fluctuate in light of the US-Iranian relations and the winds coming from Tehran. A segment of the Gulf states has publicly expressed their distrust in the so-called constants of the US strategic policy, after Obama undermined it. Some fear for these constants more and more in light of the uncertain identity of the next occupant of the White House, especially if his name were Donald Trump. Clearly, the US-Saudi relationship changed under Obama in a way that cannot be reversed.Prince Turki al-Faisal told CNN bluntly that there would be no choice but to re-evaluate the Saudi relationship with the US in terms of independence from the US and reliance on constant policies by US administrations. He added that no one should expect any new president to set the clock back on the relationship.Obama's fourth visit to Riyadh sought rapprochement without backing away from the new constants he introduced to the equation of the US relation with the Gulf region, namely the detente with Iran at the expense of the traditional and hitherto sole alliances with the Gulf. In the US establishment, some believe the time has come for a "reset" in the US relations with the GCC, that is restoring them to their status prior to the deal with Iran.Clearly, both the US and the Gulf at the Riyadh summit wanted to move away from mutual tensions and distrust. But clearly, something happened to the traditional relationship; the constants have expanded away from their traditional state.Nor will the surprises end in the US electoral season. Everyone in the Gulf is thus keen on lowering expectations, but also keen on preserving what is left of the strategic and security constants.Translated from Arabic by Karim Traboulsihttp://www.alhayat.com/Opinion/Raghida-Dergham/15197262/%D9%82%D9%85%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%B6-%D8%A3%D9%83%D8%AF%D8%AA-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%83%D8%A9-%D8%A8%D9%8A%D9%86-%D8%A3%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%B1%D9%83%D8%A7-%D9%88%D8%AF%D9%88%D9%84-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AE%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%AC
I'm always sad on the anniversary of the day my mother died, so when Stella phoned to tell me her cat was failing, it's not as if her news wrecked an otherwise fabulous afternoon. Cancer had taken my mother at age 57 on April 27, 1979. She was not ready to die and, at 24, I was not ready to lose her. Since then, April 27th has been a tough day for me.

"Is there any chance you could drive us to the animal hospital?" Stella asked. "I'll be right there," I said. Stella adored her dear little grey cat. I loved sweet-natured Fluffy too; I usually took care of her when Stella traveled. Stella had gone so far as to change her will to provide that if she died on her travels, Fuffy would go to me, along with a generous stipend for kibble and catnip. "It gives me peace of mind to know she'll be in good hands," she explained. That seemed a bit over the top, but when I told my friends Julie and Rob about it, they promptly changed their wills, leaving me all seven of their cats. My own will makes no provision for pets. I don't know if this means I'm less quirky than my friends, or less responsible.

When I pulled up, Stella, looking devastated, emerged from her house with Fluffy in her arms. We wept all the way to the animal hospital, reminiscing about Fluffy's happier days. Yes, we were a cliche -- a couple of senior librarians in tears over an elderly cat. But loss hurts, whether you're losing your mother, your best friend or "merely" a beloved feline. Fluffy rested quietly in Stella's arms. "She hasn't eaten for three days," Stella said. "She's suffering. I knew it was time."

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The receptionist at the animal hospital, probably all too familiar with the arrival of the weeping owners of dying cats, quickly took us to a small examining room.

I'd never actually seen a cat put to death. Two years ago, Louisa, my elderly cat, quietly crept behind the washing machine and gave up the ghost. Even as I struggled to extricate her lifeless body from that cramped space, I silently thanked her. I'd been dreading our final trip to the vet.

A technician briefly described the upcoming procedure, then took Fluffy to another room, returning her to us moments later with a small tube in one leg. "Do you want her ashes?" the technician asked. (This seemed rather tactless with Fluffy still right there.)

Stella, in tears, shook her head no.

When the vet came in, Stella said, "This must be the worst part of your job."

"It's tough," he agreed. Kneeling, he drew back the towel Fluffy was wrapped in, found the small tube, then quietly injected a drug to sedate her. "It's the same drug they give you when you get a colonoscopy," he told us. (I remember that drug! It turned the world into an extremely pleasant place -- I'd even joked, at the time, that a colonoscopy was a small price to pay for such a delightful sensation.)

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Soon Fluffy's eyes closed. The vet injected the final drug, then took out his stethoscope and listened. "Her heart has stopped," he said. He took Fluffy's body from Stella, placed her on the examining table, wrapped the towel around her and carried her from the room. "Thank you," Stella whispered as he left.

I'd never actually witnessed the moment of death. I took care of my mother round the clock throughout her long illness, but when the moment finally came, I fled. She was in a coma so I didn't have to be there for her, and I couldn't bear to see it.

Mom's slow, painful death was a horrible ordeal. When my time comes, I want to go like Fluffy. Quickly. Painlessly. In the arms of a loved one. High as a kite. But you can't elect to be gently put to death in Pennsylvania. Since I'm a person, rather than a beloved family pet, a painless death with dignity is not something I'm entitled to. I'll just have to take my chances.

"Thanks for doing this," Stella said when I dropped her back home.

"I'm glad I could," I said. I would have been sad that afternoon anyway. At least I could be there for Stella. When life takes a turn for the worse, being of comfort, or just being company, is sometimes all you can do.
"When you have these values of compassion, nothing can stop you."

Those are the words of Marguerite Barankitse, an extraordinary humanitarian - and an extraordinary woman - unafraid to walk directly into zones of war, disease and conflict to give the children robbed of their families the opportunity to live.

"The love and affection of the workers inspired me to put my life at risk for their safety, and the smiles and prayers of these slaves after they are freed is the source of my resolve."

In the hollow faces of Pakistani slaves, Syeda Ghulam Fatima found a calling to save the next generation from the inhumanity of slavery, and in the process, has helped 80,000 men, women and children reclaim their basic right of freedom and dignity.

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This weekend in Yereven, Armenia the global humanitarian community is gathered to honor Marguerite and Syeda, along with Dr. Tom Catena, the sole doctor at Mother of Mercy Hospital in the Nuba Mountains in Sudan, and Father Bernard Kinvi, a priest and mission leader in the war torn Central African Republic. These four exceptional humanitarians - the four finalists for the inaugural Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity - are a poignant reminder of the strength of the human spirit.

The most basic human emotions have enormous power. Indeed, both Marguerite and Syeda were inspired to stand up to injustices by one of the most basic human emotions - love. Their compassion gave them strength to reclaim humanity.

And Marguerite and Syeda are not alone.

All around the world - in the face of injustice, political turmoil, armed conflict and gender violence - women are energized by a common desire to build a brighter future. They are moved by a desire to secure fundamental freedoms for future generations. Women are rising up and their collective compassion has the power to spur change.

But sadly, this compassion is not shared broadly enough. Today, there is a dangerous imbalance between what people feel and what they are willing to do in practice. The first annual Humanitarian Index, released Friday reveals a "compassion gap" in a public that sympathizes with the vulnerable, but, ignorant to the magnitude of their suffering, won't personally act.

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That is, unless they are personally motivated by real individuals and real stories like those of this weekend's four finalists.

These stories transcend rhetoric. They engender a sense of responsibility in all of us and encourage the individual to ask not only "what would I do," but "what can I do" - the question that really matters.

It's up to us to tell these stories - to inspire and empower others, especially young women, to rise up and turn their compassion into action.
In a world, where many people continue to struggle with the geography of

Africa, Hanna Tetteh puts Ghana firmly on the map. As Minister of Foreign

Affairs and Regional Integration of Ghana and Chair of the Council of

Ministers of ECOWAS, Tetteh embodies the successes and challenges of her

country and gives a voice to the West African region.

By Julia Kramer

Hanna Tetteh vividly remembers the first time she came to Ghana. As a nineyear-old girl who was born in Hungary and spent her early youth in the United Kingdom, she had no idea what to expect when she first got out of the plane in Accra, the Ghanaian capital. "It was so incredibly hot and humid and I realised I had never seen so many African people at once," laughs Tetteh. "I turned to my father and said, 'Everyone is black!' His answer was: 'This is Ghana, this is your home.'"

Today, Tetteh is the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration of Ghana. In the four decades that have gone by since Tetteh's arrival in her home country, everything from her personal knowledge about, attitude towards, and position within Ghana has changed drastically. She has also witnessed her country develop into a vibrant and stable democracy featuring a fast growing economy. Despite this personal and national success, Tetteh is humble and realistic. During the symposium, she described Ghana's political achievements with the same eloquence she used to point out the challenges of economic insecurity and migration her country is facing today.

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What is the biggest change in Ghana since you arrived in the mid 1970s?

Ever since we became a democracy in 1992, we have a much more open society. Our governmental structure played an important role in making this happen. Before, people were not talking. Not because they didn't have anything to say, but because they didn't necessarily feel safe to say it. This "culture of silence" has vanished completely.



Why did Ghana become one of the most prosperous countries in West Africa, while neighbouring countries are still dealing with political and economic problems?

It didn't happen by accident. It's evolved. Our first three attempts at creating a democratic government were overthrown. By the time we were going to our fourth attempt at democracy, we decided that we wanted a multi-party democracy. We designed a constitution that allowed us to have an open conversation and provided the structures that are needed for stability. In addition, our growing middle class, which is educated and informed, keeps this democratic government on its toes.



What is the role of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the organisation that promotes regional economic integration, in the development of Ghana?

Because we are not a very big state and we think it is important for us to have good relationships with our neighbours, membership in ECOWAS has been meaningful for us. It allowed us to have access to other countries' markets in the region, and to build up supply chains in and outside of Ghana for various products we export.

On New Year's Day 2015 you tweeted: "This year will be challenging & interesting for the ECOWAS region. Nigeria,Cote D'Ivoire, Togo, Burkina Faso andGuinea will have elections." What did you mean by that?

Elections are difficult times for us. These are growing democracies, so the contests for power are rough. Thank God, the Nigerian election went peacefully. But can you imagine what would have happened if it didn't? Nigeria is the biggest country in the region. When you do a risk evaluation in the region, you know that elections in countries like Cote D'Ivoire, Togo, Burkina Faso and Guinea cause challenges.



How stable is ECOWAS?

ECOWAS experienced periods of instability - for example, during the civil war in Liberia, and last year's Ebola outbreak. Nevertheless, we are still able to find solutions to resolve those situations. It is a dynamic organisation that has not been as primarily economic as was envisioned when it started, but it provides us with a forum for cooperation on economic and social matters, as

well as in peace and security issues.

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Ghana has come to be regarded in the last two decades as an economic model for Africa, especially since the country has consistently achieved a GDP growth above 8 percent during the previous five years. What challenges does the Ghanaian economy face today?

Our economy has grown rapidly, but our infrastructure has not kept up with the demands. Right now, we have a power crisis. We simply don't have enough energy to power our economy. We also have to take external risks on board. As a country that is still largely a commodity exporter [gold, oil, cocoa], the current fluctuations in commodity prices have significant impact on our economy.

In 2007, then-president John Kufuor announced that huge oil fields had been found. He promised that within the next five years, Ghana would prove itself an African Tiger. Looking back, how realistic was this promise?

A good number of people were euphoric about the discovery of oil, because at that time, the expectation was that it would bring significant new revenue flows. And if we had found our first well, there was a possibility that we'd find a second, third, etc. Eight years later, we are more realistic about what oil has brought us. But there has also been a lot more diversification of our economy over the last twenty years.



What do you mean by "a lot more economic diversification"?

When you develop institutions and structures, it gives people a greater comfort level to invest, because there is predictability. These structures created a confidence that has allowed for more investment.

Despite the importance of foreign investors, some of the most important investors in our economy are Ghanaians who have come back to Ghana. They have a more credible story to tell than the government. After all, when you want to invest in a business, you are going to believe a businessman over the politician, right?

Despite the political and economic success of Ghana, the country has a very high rate of emigration. Why are so many Ghanaians still leaving?

It's all about the myth that you come to Europe to live a better life. Being connected and having so much information available about what's going on in the world and seeing the images of your beautiful cities and infrastructure suggests that there are more opportunities in Europe than in Ghana. Since we are not able to create jobs fast enough to give the young population things to do, they look for opportunities somewhere else.

Why is it a myth if the people are not experiencing prosperity at home?

I believe that, with the amount of effort and resources that they put into getting to Europe, if they had invested that same effort and resources in starting something at home, they probably would also have a better quality of life. One of the challenges we have, is to explain that Europe's prosperity wasn't created overnight. And that it was the people in your countries who over centuries have invested and created the spaces that you have today. And that is also what it's going to take Ghana.

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A Cuban fan uses a paper flag to shield his face from the sun during a baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national baseball team, in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, March 22, 2016. Tampa Bay defeated the Cuban team 4-1 at a game attended by President Barack Obama and Cuba's President Raul Castro. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Alluding to his own mortality, Fidel Castro told the delegates to the Seventh Congress of the Communist Party he founded that this would probably be his last speech to such a gathering. When the members of the new Central Committee were announced the following day, Fidel was not among them.Generational succession is high on the agenda of Cuba's leadership, still dominated at the highest level by "los historicos" -- the generation that fought together against the Batista dictatorship and founded the revolutionary regime. At the previous Party Congress in 2011, Raul Castro emphasized the need to build a contingent of experienced young men and women for the inevitable succession. To ease out the old guard, he introduced term limits for top government and party positions -- no more than two five-year terms -- and pledged to abide by the limit himself by stepping down as president in 2018.

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At the Congress this month, Raul reiterated the importance of rejuvenating the party. An aged leadership was "never positive," he said, reminding listeners that three leaders of the Soviet Communist Party died within months of one another a few years before it collapsed. Henceforth, Castro proposed, 60 would be the maximum age for admission to the Central Committee, and 70 would be the maximum age for assuming any leadership position.

Nevertheless, renovating the leadership will involve a "five-year period of transition to avoid doing things in haste," Castro explained, echoing his watchword for updating the economy: "without haste, but without pause." The blend of old and young was visible in the new Political Bureau. Only two of the fourteen members in the old body were dropped -- General Abelardo Colome Ibarra, who retired as minister of the Interior in October 2015 because of ill-health, and Adel Yzquierdo Rodriguez, who was removed as Minister of Economy and Planning in 2014.

Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, the architect of the party apparatus over preceding decades, retained his post as second secretary despite the fact that he is widely seen as a conservative, skeptical of economic reform. In 2013, Machado stepped down as first vice-president of the Council of State, replaced by heir apparent Miguel Diaz-Canel. Machado's retention as party second secretary suggests that Raul Castro is intent on maintaining unity at the top -- despite differences in opinion -- as the party navigates the politically treacherous waters of economic change.

Five new young members were added and their professions signal the issues the leadership sees as critical going forward. Three are technocrats: one is minister of Health, one works in biotechnology, and one works in information technology -- all high value-added fields that Cuba hopes will form the foundation for its 21st Century economy. The other two new members are the leaders of the trade union federation and the women's federation, organizations that, between them, comprise almost all Cuban adults. The inclusion of these two leaders speaks to the party's need to keep ears to the ground for early warning signs of grassroots discontent unleashed by the economic reforms.

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The composition of the new Central Committee also suggests how the leadership is preparing its team for the future. Twenty-five percent of the old committee was dropped, but the membership was expanded from 116 to 142 to accommodate the addition of 55 younger members, all below the age of 60, bringing the average age of the body down to 54.5 -- younger than the committee elected in 2011. The new committee is also 44.4% women, up from 41.7% in 2011 and just 13.3% in 1997; and 35.9% Afro-Cuba, up from 31.3% in 2011 and just 10.0% in 1997.

The Central Committee of the party represents an extended leadership group, the members of which typically hold other important posts in various state institutions. The relative bureaucratic influence of those institutions can be seen in the Central Committee's changing composition.

The biggest increase in representation in the new committee is for government officials working in economic and scientific fields (Table 1). They represent 23.2% of the new Central Committee, up from just 19.8% in the 2011 committee. Presumably, these people are more technocratically minded, and more likely to support economic reform. Representation of the party apparatus increased only slightly, to 32.4% of the committee, up from 31.0% in 2011.

Contrary to pundits who insist that the Cuban regime is really run by the military, the armed forces and police were the big losers in the renovation of the Central Committee. Even though the committee expanded from 116 to 142 members, the number of military and security officials fell in absolute terms. They comprise just 9.2% of the membership, down from 13.8% in 2011. Moreover, the long term trend in the number of active duty military and security officials in the Central Committee has been downward ever since 1965 (Figure).

Fidel Castro wasn't the only prominent Castro not included in the new Central Committee. Neither Raul's son, Col. Alejandro Castro, who negotiated the December 17 agreement to normalize relations with the United States, nor Raul's daughter, LGBT activist Mariela Castro, were included. Their absence was, no doubt, a disappointment to opponents of the U.S. opening to Cuba who have been predicting that Alejandro would succeed his father, thereby consolidating a Castro family dynasty -- North Korea in the Caribbean.

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PTRP Thiagarajan chafes a little when he arrives with his team at the Roman Catholic church in Madurai. It is 9:45am and he is bang on time. Not so the other candidates of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in the southern district of Tamil Nadu. You guys should have told me they are late, he comments mildly to his assistant, who murmurs a barely audible I told you so.

Anyway, I guess I am going to have to get used to this, he continues, as he walks out of the car, a broad smile and vanakkam (greeting with folded hands) in place.

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Thiagarajan knows hes a big man, an Ayya as the Tamilians are inclined to call respectfully the rich landlords of yore in an essentially feudalistic society. Not only does his wealthy family own vast tracts of farm land, but political pedigree too.

The same people who worked with my father in the DMK back then are now working with me"

Thiagarajan is the son of PTR Palanivel Rajan, a towering leader of the DMK who was once the Speaker of the Assembly and also a minister before his demise in 2006. His grandfather PT Rajan had served as Chief Minister of the Madras Presidency in 1936, as a prominent leader of the Justice Party.

It is perhaps apt then, that Thiagarajan has chosen legacy laced with modernity as the slogan for his election campaign as the DMKs candidate for Madurai Central constituency in 2016. #MeendumPTR announce hoardings being readied for Thiagarajans campaign. This, in Tamil, means The Return of PTR.

From Lehmann to Madurai

Thiagarajans first brush with politics was in his twenties, when he began to handle his fathers campaign funds. Palanivel Rajan was contesting an election for the very first time as a candidate of the DMK in 1996, although he had joined the party officially almost three decades earlier.

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Thiagarajan, now in the fray himself after 20 years spent shuttling between the US, Singapore and other Asian countries as a successful investment banker, says things havent changed much since 1996.

The same people who worked with my father in the DMK back then are now working with me, said Thiagarajan. The only thing that has changed is that costs of campaigning have gone up. If it was X in 1996, it is now 6X, he said.

Thiagarajan cuts an incongruous figure as he greets other DMK candidates of Madurai district at the Roman Catholic church. His Tamil is peppered with English words and slightly accented, while other candidates speak the language of the locals with the well known Madurai nasal twang.

His tales revolve around his father  the well respected PTR and his largesse during the Emergency days. During that time, our house was a safe haven for political leaders who were hiding from the police, recounts Thiagarajan to his audience at the church. The police did not dare come inside PTRs house without permission. But the other day, around 200 youngsters came on bikes to promise support to me. They created such a racket that the police came running inside thinking I was in danger, he laughs.

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His grandfather PT Rajan had served as Chief Minister of the Madras Presidency in 1936

From 2001 to 2008, Thiagarajan was a hot shot investment banker with the Lehmann brothers, setting up and running the India offshoring unit before its ultimate collapse. He miraculously survived the attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre where he worked at the time. He came back to India and set up home in Mumbai following the death of his father and post Lehmann, worked with Standard Chartered in Singapore, cracking the complex money markets.

DMK insiders say that then Chief Minister M Karunanidhi called Thiagarajan in 2006, immediately after the death of his father. Karuna wanted him to return from the US, contest the bypolls and take over Palanivel Rajans cabinet post. Thiagarajan promised to return for politics by 2011  his white American wife was pregnant with their second child and he did not want to uproot the family immediately. 2011 came and Thiagarajan, say insiders, was ready to contest. The party though did not want him.

Thiagarajan is confident of a win in the urban Madurai Central seat, riding on the formidable legacy of his father and grandfather.

The legendary turf war between Karunanidhis son MK Alagiri, Madurai strongman, and PTR Palanivel Rajan had impacted Thiagarajans chances of getting a ticket. Thiagarajan quietly went back to investment banking, without a murmur. His time would come in 2014, as another turf war within the Karunanidhi family brightened his chances. Karunas younger son MK Stalin wrested the Madurai party unit from his elder brother Alagiri, eventually ensuring his dismissal from the party itself. Thiagarajan got the call he was waiting for. It was time to come home.

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Thiagarajan is the son of PTR Palanivel Rajan, a towering leader of the DMK who was once the Speaker of the Assembly and also a minister before his demise in 2006.

Back at his sprawling bungalow after the church meetings, Thiagarajans assistant brings him a Tamil newspaper enclosed in a plastic bag. What is this? asks Thiagarajan. You gave it to me sir, so I have saved it. Shall I keep it on your table? asks the assistant. This is trash, I gave it to you to throw it in a bin, replies Thiagarajan. No one picks up trash from the floor here. There were so many people at the church and they just dumped rubbish on the floor.

Thiagarajan is confident of a win in the urban Madurai Central seat, riding on the formidable legacy of his father and grandfather. He is eager too, to implement ideas learnt abroad. My biggest drawback is a lack of connect that I have with the people in my constituency, since I live inside this big ancestral house, said a candid Thiagarajan. The concern is that people who actually know the ground dont have control over the planning and execution. That is why I am setting up a system that would enable participatory democracy at the street level, he explained.

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What he wants to do, for instance, is to enable residents of a street to decide when they want their road relaid. This instant call relay system he is setting up will have different numbers  residents would have to give a missed call to one number if they want the road relaid on, say, the Wednesday of the following week. If they preferred Saturday, missed calls would have to be given to another number. The pressures of a democracy like ours is that politicians resort to short term strategies for votes, continued Thiagarajan. This is particularly acute in India. The traditional definition of macroeconomic goods and services like infrastructure and roads  these are very hard to do, he added. He was, after all, a student of Nobel laureate and renowned Italian economist Franco Modigliani at the MIT Sloan School of Management where he did his MBA.

As Thiagarajan prepares for a fiery battle against the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) under the scorching summer sun, the excitement is palpable. I am luckier than most, he smiles. I have the luxury of covering a bar bell curve  as a local and vested in the Dravidian movement. I am a fourth generation Justice Party guy. At the other end of the spectrum I have the training of an investment banker schooled in sound management practices. I should think that would take me somewhere, he grins.

May 19 will show whether the man who miraculously survived 9/11 will scrape through as the twin political towers in Tamil Nadu are put to their ultimate test.

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The Clarksburg School eighth-grade Holocaust studies program will culminate on Thursday with exhibits and speakers. Above, survivor Max Glauben speaks in 2014.

Clarksburg Students Host Holocaust Exhibit Thursday

CLARKSBURG, Mass.  Clarksburg Elementary School's eighth grade is inviting the community to the annual Holocaust Exhibit on Thursday evening from 6 to 9.

Teacher Michael Little said this year's exhibit will mark 11 years for the Grade 8 Holocaust study program and, although the exhibit has shifted and grown from its roots, the message still remains the same.

"It is an outreach project about the Holocaust, but at its basic level it teaches kids that prejudice and discrimination lead to things like genocide," Little said. "We look at how we treat each other through a historical lens, but then boil it down to how we consider each other day to day."

This year, Leo Goldberger will share personal testimony about surviving the Nazi takeover of Denmark and escaping to Sweden during the Holocaust. Goldberger is a writer and professor emeritus of psychology at New York University, where he had been director of its Research Center for Mental Health.

Goldberger was awarded The Order of Dannebrog by Queen Margrethe II of Denmark in 1993, has served as a consultant to several Holocaust resource centers, and edited the book "The Rescue of the Danish Jews: Moral Courage Under Stress."

Williams College professor Jim Shepard will also speak and read from his award winning holocaust novel "The Book of Aron" that tells the story of a Jewish boy who is driven from the Poland countryside during World War II to the Warsaw Ghetto and the tribulations he faces.

Students will set up their exhibits that display photos, images, and information gathered from research. This year students researched rescuers such as Oskar Schindler, Irena Sendler, Varian Fry, and Carl Lutz who saved many Jews from the horrors of the concentration camps.

"We dug out a lot of information and we have some very interesting information for each rescuer," Little said. "Some of these rescuers people may never have heard of. It's pretty comprehensive."

People can take whatever they want from the exhibit. The 15 rescuer exhibits will be surrounded by other exhibits from years prior that provide "broad brush strokes" of the history of the Holocaust.

"People can go around and read about the holocaust and then they will encounter rescuers," he said. "They can read more about what happens ... it really goes as deep as they want. There is a lot."

Although students were all responsible for their own boards, Little said they were not afraid to share their talents with their classmates.

"We have some kids who are terrific at drawing so they work on other kid's boards. Some kids have a great sense of design and could just look at a board and tell if something was wrong," he said. "It really is a big collaborative effort and I always equate it to if you walk into my classroom at that time it's like walking on to a movie set."

Little said the project is made possible by donations from Robert and Elaine Baum that fund the students trip to the U.S. Holocaust Museum. He added that other local businesses support the program and will provide Goldberger with lodging and food.

Little said urged all those interested to come to the exhibit to learn something new, support the students, and to see living history.

"I think it is important to see living history and living literature because there will be a time when we don't have a survivor," Little said. "So it's good to celebrate and really reflect and carry one beautiful thought out into the world and let it spread. I think it is important for the school, the community, and I think everyone that comes to see it will be touched."
Imperial Valley News Center

Governor Brown Issues Proclamation Declaring Day of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide

Sacramento, California - Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today issued a proclamation declaring April 24, 2016 as A Day of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide in the State of California.

PROCLAMATION

Between 1915 and 1923, Armenians were subjected to torture, starvation, mass murder and exile from their historic homeland. 1.5 million lost their lives. The Armenian Genocide, also known as the First Genocide of the Twentieth Century, represented a deliberate attempt by the Ottoman Empire to eliminate all traces of a thriving, noble civilization.



Armenian communities all over the world commemorate this tragedy on April 24. On this day, we honor the victims and survivors of the genocide, and reaffirm our commitment to preventing future atrocities from being committed against any people.



NOW THEREFORE I, EDMUND G. BROWN JR., Governor of the State of California, do hereby proclaim April 24, 2016, as Day of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide.



IN WITNESS WHEREOF I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of California to be affixed this 20th day of April 2016.







___________________________________

EDMUND G. BROWN JR.

Governor of California



ATTEST:







__________________________________

ALEX PADILLA

Secretary of State
Imperial Valley News Center

SIMNSA to Build Binational Hospital on Border

San Diego, California - Sistemas Medicos Nacionales S.A. de C.V. (SIMNSA) announced plans to build the regions first hospital aimed to meet the health care needs of the growing binational community along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Scripps Health will provide consultative services to SIMNSA for the hospitals planning, construction and operation, which SIMNSA will design, build and manage to achieve the standards of the Joint Commission International Accreditation (JCI). The hospital would be the first in Tijuana and one of only six in Mexico with the JCI designation. The JCI-accredited hospital will be co-branded as an affiliate of the Scripps Health Network as part of the arrangement.

Our affiliation with Scripps will be important as we work together to transform the delivery of health care in our region, said Frank Carrillo, president and CEO of SIMNSA. This collaboration effort is the first of its kind, and the possibilities that this affiliation agreement brings are very exciting to our company.

This marks the first binational collaboration on a hospital built to serve patients from both sides of the border.

We live in a binational region where thousands of people cross the border between San Diego and Tijuana daily for work. Access to high quality health care on both sides of the border is important for our regional economy, said Chris Van Gorder, president and CEO of Scripps Health. We have been looking for opportunities to expand the Scripps Health Network and our agreement with SIMNSA is the perfect way to do so in Mexico.

Over the years, SIMNSAs medical campus in Tijuana has grown to an eight-story outpatient medical tower with services including primary and specialty care, a full-service dental clinic, state-of-the-art stem cell therapy, an ambulatory surgical center, a medical spa, radiology and laboratory. With the addition of the new hospital, it will become a world-class medical campus for the state of Baja California and beyond.

The hospital will be built in phases. The first phase, anticipated to be completed by early 2017, will consist of an emergency room with four operating rooms, an intensive care unit and 30 inpatient rooms. Upon completion of the project, the hospital will have 200 beds, making it the largest hospital in the state of Baja California. The hospital will be fully equipped to meet the needs for emergency, cardiology, neurosurgery, oncology and labor and delivery.

SIMNSA, which operates a health plan for Mexican Nationals who work in San Diego or Imperial County and prefer to access medical care in Mexico, has a long history of providing binational health care services. The SIMNSA network includes more than 200 physicians along the U.S.-Mexico border and operates medical clinics in Tijuana and Mexicali, Mexico. The clinics are not included in the Scripps affiliation agreement. The affiliation will be governed by a joint operating committee composed of members from both companies.
Imperial Valley News Center

Stand Up To Cancer Supports Innovative Research Grants for 10 Early-career Scientists

New Orleans, Louisiana - Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) announced Monday that it is awarding 10 grants of $750,000 each to early-career scientists to support innovative, high-risk, high-reward projects in cancer research. The announcement was made at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, SU2Cs Scientific Partner.

We have selected 10 scientists and projects that we believe use new insights and fresh approaches and have high potential to make a difference for people with cancer, said William G. Kaelin Jr., MD, professor of medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and chairman of the SU2C Innovative Research Grant (IRG) review committee. Just as importantly, SU2C is investing in the future of cancer research by supporting an outstanding group of early-career investigators whom we believe are rising stars in science.

The announcement marks the third time SU2C has selected a class of Innovative Research Grant recipients. Previous classes were announced in 2009 and 2011. With the new class of IRGs, the total number of recipients now stands at 36.

Serving as Stand Up To Cancers celebrity ambassador at the event is Sonequa Martin-Green, 31, an actress and producer who is a main cast member in the hit television show The Walking Dead, in which she plays a survivor of the zombie apocalypse. In real life, she has lost several members of her extended family to cancer, and has other relatives, including her mother, who are cancer survivors.

I have seen the terrible toll that cancer can take in a single family, so I respect and fully support these outstanding researchers in their battle against cancer, Martin-Green said. Hopefully the innovative ideas they are pursuing will one day spare other families the losses that my family, and so many other families have endured.

The 10 grant recipients work at eight different institutions across the country where they have their own, independent laboratories. These innovative projects are characterized as high-risk because they either challenge existing paradigms, utilize novel concepts or approaches, and because in order to receive a grant, the applicants were not requiredas they would be by most conventional funding mechanismsto have already conducted a portion of the research resulting in an established base of evidence. If successful, the projects have the potential for high-reward in terms of saving lives.

Were trying to find the superstars of tomorrow and set them on their course by giving them funding so they dont have to worry about that at this earlier stage of their career, said Sara A. Courtneidge, PhD, associate director for translational sciences of the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health & Science University and vice-chairperson of the review committee.

These grants will allow them to get off to a really good start in their independent research programs, take this research to the next level and then apply for more traditional funding mechanisms to take it forward, she said. I see it as a really good opportunity for young people not to have to worry so much about where their next grant is coming from until they've got themselves established.

The scope of the projects selected range from tumor metabolism to imaging of drug response in single cells to mathematical models of combination drug therapy to the use of certain enzymes as new anticancer targets, among other topics.

With their institutions and the titles of their proposals, the IRG recipients are:

 John G. Albeck, PhD, University of California, Davis: Targeting cellular plasticity in individual basal-type breast cancer cells;

 Kara A. Bernstein, PhD, University of Pittsburgh: Uncovering how RAD51 paralog mutations contribute to cancer predisposition;

 Juan R. Cubillos-Ruiz, PhD, Weill Cornell Medicine: Phospholipid messengers as drivers of dendritic cell dysfunction in cancer;

 Greg Michael Delgoffe, PhD, University of Pittsburgh: Metabolic reprogramming using oncolytic viruses to improve immunotherapy;

 Martin Kampmann, PhD, University of California, San Francisco: "Weak links in cancer proteostasis networks as new therapeutic targets;

 Dan A. Landau, MD, PhD, Weill Cornell Medicine: Algorithmically-driven quantitative combination cancer therapy engineering;

 Li Ma, PhD, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center: Deubiquitinating enzymes as novel anticancer targets;

 Melissa Skala, PhD, Vanderbilt University (moving to Morgridge Institute for Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison): Imaging cell-level heterogeneity in solid tumors for personalized treatment;

 Matthew G. Vander Heiden, MD, PhD, Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Defining the metabolic dependencies of tumors; and

 Hao Zhu, MD, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center: Defining the mechanistic connections between injury, regeneration, and cancer.

More than 250 applications were received, from which 16 finalists were chosen to make presentations in person to a committee of senior scientists.

They were all incredibly good, said William G. Nelson, MD, PhD, vice-chair of the review committee and director of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center in Baltimore. Very hard-working, ambitious, and imaginative, each and every one of them. Their ideas were high-risk and high-reward, but the young scientists themselves were sure bets. They are going to go places.

The term of the grants begins July 1 and runs for three years. The scientists will report their progress twice a year to SU2C and the AACR, which organized the application and review process and will administer the grants.

Since 2008, SU2C has successfully launched 19 Dream Teams, two Translational Research Teams, and 36 Innovative Research Grants with funds committed by philanthropic, organizational, corporate and individual donors, as well as non-profit collaborators.
Washington Man Pleads Guilty to Sending Death Threats

Sacramento, California - Scott Anthony Orton, 57, of Puyallup, Washington, pled guilty Tuesday to transmitting interstate threats, United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced.

According to court documents, Orton posted several threatening statements on a popular news website in which he expressed his intent to travel to Placerville, California to kill an officer of the Placerville-based company, Stem Express LLC. On July 16, 2015, among other threats, Orton wrote, The management of StemExpress should be taken by force and killed in the streets today. Kill StemExpress employees. I'll pay you for it. Orton also identified the target of his threats by name, and wrote Ill pay ten grand to whomever beats me to [the target].

Terrorizing others through threats of violence, whether communicated in person or through media websites, is cruel, dangerous and disruptive, and is also a federal crime, said U.S. Attorney Wagner. As Mr. Orton now knows, those who seek to terrorize others online will be identified and prosecuted.

This case is the product of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant United States Attorney Brian A. Fogerty is prosecuting the case.

Orton is scheduled to be sentenced by United States District Judge John A. Mendez on August 2, 2016. Orton faces a maximum statutory penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables.
Zika Virus Myths and What You Need to Know

Scottsdale, Arizona - The Zika virus pandemic has grown to a global health concern. As world health leaders learn more about the mosquito-borne virus that causes birth defects such as microcephaly, more misinformation, especially on the internet, circulates.

Mayo Clinic's Vaccine Research Group Director Dr. Gregory Poland is leading a team to create a vaccine to protect against the Zika virus. He says researchers are working behind the scenes to learn more about the virus, and it's important for the public to be careful where they are getting their information.

Here are four myths about Zika virus:

This is a conspiracy theory. Wrong. - Dr. Poland says that's irrational and unfounded.

There is no need for worry. Wrong. - Dr. Poland says that would be untrue. You need to stay informed.

The medical community understands this virus. Wrong. - Dr. Poland says that there is a lot to learn about the virus.

The U.S. is not at risk. Wrong. - Dr. Poland says almost certainly Zika will appear in the U.S. The mosquito that carries this virus is found along the southern rim of the US and up the northeast corridor. He says it is a matter of time.

Dr. Poland says, "This is a virus of considerable concern. It is a virus we are learning a lot about, so we cannot tell what all the ramifications are going to be. For reasons we do not understand, this is a virus that is causing severe abnormalities in unborn children and that's unusual for a mosquito-borne virus."

Dr. Poland urges everyone to get information from credible sources such as from Mayo Clinc and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He says the best thing you can do is, "be informed and use common sense."
Change Your Brain by Transforming Your Mind

Bethesda, Maryland - Richard J. Davidson, Ph.D., will present Change Your Brain by Transforming Your Mind at the seventh annual Stephen E. Straus Distinguished Lecture in the Science of Complementary Therapies. Dr. Davidson, known for his work studying emotion and the brain, will present research on transforming the mind through meditation, thereby altering the brain and the periphery in ways that may be beneficial for mental health, physical health and wellbeing.

From the perspective of Western neuroscience, varying forms of meditation can be seen as mental training that can regulate emotion and attention and each form has different neural and behavioral effects. Dr. Davidson will discuss data from studies on long-term users of meditation and those with shorter durations of training, highlighting longitudinal studies that track changes over time. In addition to observed neural changes, Dr. Davidson will discuss biological changes that may modulate physical health and illness.

Why

Dr. Davidson is a William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, director of the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior and founder of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dr. Davidson was named one of TIMEs 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2006, has spoken at international events such as the World Economic Forum and is a frequent collaborator with the Dalai Lama. He has published more than 300 articles, 80 chapters/reviews and 14 books as editor throughout his career. He is the author, with Sharon Begley, of The New York Times bestseller "The Emotional Life of Your Brain.

When

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

10-11 a.m. EDT

Change Your Brain by Transforming Your Mind

Masur Auditorium, Building 10

11 a.m.- 12 p.m. EDT

Reception and Poster Session

FAES Terrace, Building 10

Where

National Institutes of Health, Building 10

10 Center Drive, Bethesda, Maryland

Masur Auditorium

More information

Details are available on NCCIHs website. Sign language interpretation will be provided; for other reasonable accommodation call Prachi Patel at 301-275-4769.

Who should attend

The event is free and open to the public. It will be broadcasted live via NIH Videocast.

Hosts

This event is presented by NCCIH and supported by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health with a generous gift from Bernard and Barbro Osher.

The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health's mission is to define, through rigorous scientific investigation, the usefulness and safety of complementary and integrative health approaches and their roles in improving health and health care. For additional information, call NCCIHs Clearinghouse toll free at 1-888-644-6226.

The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health was established by the United States Congress to support the mission of the National Institutes of Health  improving health through scientific discovery. The Foundation identifies and develops opportunities for innovative public-private partnerships involving industry, academia, and the philanthropic community. A nonprofit, 501(c)(3) corporation, the Foundation raises private-sector funds for a broad portfolio of unique programs that complement and enhance NIH priorities and activities. The Foundations web site is www.fnih.org .
Intel Announces Restructuring Initiative to Accelerate Transformation

Santa Clara, California - Intel Corporation this week announced a restructuring initiative to accelerate its evolution from a PC company to one that powers the cloud and billions of smart, connected computing devices. Intel will intensify its focus in high-growth areas where it is positioned for long-term leadership, customer value and growth, while making the company more efficient and profitable.

The data center and Internet of Things (IoT) businesses are Intels primary growth engines, with memory and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) accelerating these opportunities  fueling a virtuous cycle of growth for the company. These growth businesses delivered $2.2 billion in revenue growth last year, and made up 40 percent of revenue and the majority of operating profit, which largely offset the decline in the PC market segment.

The restructuring initiative was outlined in an e-mail from Intel CEO Brian Krzanich to Intel employees.

Our results over the last year demonstrate a strategy that is working and a solid foundation for growth, said Krzanich. The opportunity now is to accelerate this momentum and build on our strengths.

These actions drive long-term change to further establish Intel as the leader for the smart, connected world, he added. I am confident that well emerge as a more productive company with broader reach and sharper execution. ...
These 'Anti-cheating' Masks to Prevent Students From Cheating Have Gone Viral on Social Media
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On the 21 April, the pop world lost one of its greatest icons: Prince. The multi-instrumentalist died at the age of 57, with hundreds of artists paying tribute by covering his many, many hits.

Walking onto stage drenched in purple light, Bruce Springsteen opened the Barclays Centre in Brooklyn with one of Princes most popular songs: Purple Rain.

Whenever I saw Prince, I left the show humbled, he told the audience. Prince Forever. God bless.

World pays tribute to Prince Show all 20 1 /20 World pays tribute to Prince World pays tribute to Prince Messages left by fans outside the Paisley Park residential compound of music legend Prince in Minneapolis, Minnesota Getty Images World pays tribute to Prince Guests dance to Prince music as a slide show flashes images of the artist above the stage during a memorial dance party at the First Avenue nightclub in Minneapolis, Minnesota Getty Images World pays tribute to Prince Nasa released the image of a purple-hued nebula to mark the passing of music icon Prince. They commented: "A purple nebula, in honor of Prince, who passed away today." One online commenter remarked: "Can anyone see #Prince playing his guitar in this #NBULA" Rex World pays tribute to Prince A Hollywood sign is illuminated in purple in memory of the late musician Prince in Los Angeles Getty Images World pays tribute to Prince A view of the Prince tribute at Times Square Hard Rock Cafe in New York Getty Images World pays tribute to Prince Candles lit in remembrance to Prince are seen around his star outside the Warner Theatre in Washington Getty Images World pays tribute to Prince Lorraine Womble reacts during a gathering in Leimert Park in memory of musician Prince Getty Images World pays tribute to Prince A Prince memorial outside the First Avenue club where music legend Prince had his first breakthrough at the start of his musical career in Minneapolis, Minnesota Getty Images World pays tribute to Prince Julya Baer, 30, (R) cries at a vigil to celebrate the life and music of deceased musician Prince in Los Angeles World pays tribute to Prince Atribute to Prince at the Ritzy cinema in Brixton, London PA World pays tribute to Prince A sign in remembrance to Prince is seen outside the Warner Theatre in Washington Getty Images World pays tribute to Prince Fans lay flowers and memorials outside First Avenue, the nightclub where U.S. music superstar Prince got his start in Minneapolis, Minnesota Reuters World pays tribute to Prince The Mercedes-Benz Superdome is lit up in the color purple in New Orleans, to honor pop legend Prince AP World pays tribute to Prince A woman holding a large poster of Prince arrives to a gathering in Leimert Park in memory of musician Prince, in Los Angeles Getty Images World pays tribute to Prince Kenneth Beavers, 49, holds a candle at a vigil to celebrate the life and music of deceased musician Prince in Los Angeles Reuters World pays tribute to Prince Loretta Thomas, 45, (L) and Deshone, 50, listen to a Prince song at a vigil to celebrate the life and music of deceased musician Prince in Los Angeles World pays tribute to Prince A man writes on a makeshift memorial as fans gather at Harlem's Apollo Theater to celebrate the life of deceased musician Prince in the Manhattan borough of New York Reuters World pays tribute to Prince A makeshift memorial is seen as fans gather at Harlem's Apollo Theater to celebrate the life of deceased musician Prince in the Manhattan borough of New York Reuters World pays tribute to Prince Sheila Clayton of St Paul, Minnesota (L) hugs an unidentified friend outside of Paisley Park, the home and studio of US musician Prince, in Chanhassen, Minnesota (EPA) EPA World pays tribute to Prince People watch as City Hall is illuminated in purple in remembrance of the late singer Prince in Downtown Los Angeles Reuters

This isnt the first time The Boss has paid tribute to a fallen rockstar during his The River tour: on the first night - on the 16 January - he played a stirring rendition of David Bowies Rebel Rebel. Then, on the 20 January, he performed the Eagles Take It Easy following Glenn Freys death.

On 14 May, Springsteen and The E Street Band will start their European Tour in Barcelona, including four gigs in the UK. Heres where to get tickets for the UK shows.

Meanwhile, Princes death is being mourned around the world. The icon was cremated in a private ceremony with just his family present.
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For almost half a century, the worlds most popular burger has remained all but unchanged by the swirls and eddies of the US fast-food business. Today, the Big Mac is still composed of the same few simple ingredients made famous in a 1974 advertising campaign: Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions  on a sesame seed bun.

Even as it was assigned the blame for Americas expanding waistlines and became a byword for US cultural imperialism, the signature McDonalds sandwich, first made in 1967, has continued to sell in the hundreds of millions. But now, on the eve of its 50th birthday, the Big Mac is about to undergo the most fundamental alteration in its history.

Last week, McDonalds began trialling two new versions of its best-selling burger at around 130 locations in Texas and central Ohio: a smaller so-called Mac Jr, and a larger Grand Mac. If the two new sizes prove to be a hit with customers, they will be rolled out across the US. From now on, the Big Mac may  technically speaking  be a Medium Mac.

McDonalds US sales fell steadily over the first half of this decade, and the company has admitted it must innovate to keep pace with consumer tastes. Its core menu is its testing ground. With stiff competition from its rivals in the so-called better burger sector, the Big Mac is struggling to maintain relevance in the industry it first helped to super-size.

This week The Weinstein Co released the first trailer for its McDonalds biopic The Founder. Oscar-tipped, the film stars Michael Keaton as Ray Kroc, the ambitious businessman who wrested the chain from its creators, the McDonald brothers, in the 1950s. Its either the origin story of an enduring American institution, or a nostalgic glimpse of a fading empires glory days.

The Big Mac was created in 1967 by one of Krocs early franchisees, Jim Delligatti, who operated several McDonalds restaurants in Pennsylvania. At the time, it was considered a prestige menu item, and a necessary response to Burger Kings Whopper. It became available across the US in 1968 and, upon its sesame seed-encrusted shoulders, McDonalds would build a global brand.

Andrew F Smith, the author of Hamburger: A Global History, teaches culinary history at the New School University in New York. He ate his first burger in 1956, back when McDonalds had only a handful of items on its menu. I didnt like the burgers, he recalled. I went because the French fries were great.

The alternative burgers Show all 10 1 /10 The alternative burgers The alternative burgers Black 'Kuro' burger Burger King Japan took weird burger mutations to new heights/lows, announcing a Premium Kuro Burger (kuro means "black") with black buns and cheese coloured with bamboo charcoal and squid ink ketchup. Burger King The alternative burgers Red burger Burger King is now serving up red cheeseburgers in Japan. The Aka Burger ("aka" means "red") comes in two varieties - Samurai Beef and Samurai Chicken, both making use of red cheese and red buns. Tomato powder was added to give the ingredients their angry colour, with the burgers also coming with a red hot sauce made from miso and hot pepper. The alternative burgers The Glamburger A restaurant in Chelsea has found a not-so-novel way to celebrate excess: by claiming to have created the worlds most expensive burger, embellished with gold leaf, lobster and caviar. Priced at 1,100 (or 1237.50 with service), the burger took three weeks to develop and has been verified by Record Setter as the highest priced in the world. PA/Groupon The alternative burgers Doughnut burger Why use buns when you have doughnuts? You can find these calorific sweet/savoury delights in America, also known as the 'Luther Burger'. The alternative burgers Ramen burger Fried ramen noodles replace the traditional bun here, which, when introduced at a Brooklyn food market, sold out in hours. The alternative burgers Pizza burger Bringing two of our favourite fast foods together, this burger is cooked inside a pizza, and packs a massive 1,360 calories. The alternative burgers Lasagna burger This invention from Philadelphias PYT sees deep-fried lasagna replace the buns. The alternative burgers Holy cow This special Father's Day dish from Reds True Barbecue in America contained 17 types of beef. The alternative burgers The Impossible Cheeseburger (Veggie burger) Don't want to eat meat but enjoy the taste of seared carcass? The Impossible Cheeseburger might be the cheeseburger for you, using plants to make "the best meats and cheeses youll ever eat." Impossible Burger The alternative burgers The 'Zinger Double Down King' burger KFC's new meat beast burger is a bun-less creation with fried chicken acting as buns, released only in Korea so far. KFC

Eventually, Mr Smith said, Mr Kroc and co realised their customers didnt just want something cheap, they wanted something that tasted good. The trifecta of taste is sugar, fat and salt; those are the flavours inherent in virtually all fast-food. The secret of the Big Mac? A lot of fat and salt! It became a symbol for McDonalds and for the entire hamburger industry.

Today, McDonalds purports to serve some 68 million customers per day, in 119 countries. The Big Mac, as potent a symbol of American capitalism as Coca-Cola or the iPhone, has been used by The Economist to compare the cost of living in different countries since 1986, when the magazine published its first Big Mac Index.

In a press release announcing the Mac Jr and Grand Mac, Scott Nickell, the president of the McDonalds Central Ohio Co-op, described the Big Mac as a McDonalds icon and a great-tasting sandwich, adding: We listened to our customers, who told us they wanted different ways to enjoy the one-of-a-kind Big Mac taste.

The Grand Mac contains one-third of a pound of beef compared to a regular Big Macs one-fifth of a pound, and it comes in a bigger bun with an extra slice of processed cheese. In 1967 Delligatti sold his new creation for 45 cents; todays Big Mac costs $3.99 (2.78). The Grand Mac will go for $4.89, while the modest Mac Jr is a mere $2.59.

Its a sensible business move, explained Darren Tristano, executive vice president at the food industry consultant Technomic. McDonalds beverages and French fries have always come in multiple sizes, he said. By creating the Grand Mac and Mac Jr, they can satisfy both price and portion sizes for different peoples tastes, without adding any new items to the menu.

Just like the Big Mac in 1967, the Grand Mac and Mac Jr are a response to market forces. For decades, the Big Mac was the standard against which all other burgers were measured, but for many of todays burger-lovers, its little more than a punchline. Who needs a Big Mac when you have better burger chains such as Five Guys, Smash Burger or the upmarket Umami Burger?

 Relishing McDonald s turnaround plan?

Chipotle Mexican Grill, considered the most successful fast casual dining chain in the US, said last month it had applied for a trademark to open a burger chain called, simply, Better Burger. The fast casual market exploded in the late 2000s and is now worth around $5bn, Mr Tristano said. It has stolen share not only from McDonalds, but from Burger King and Wendys.

Perhaps the leading purveyor of better burgers is Shake Shack, which opened its first permanent restaurant in New York in 2004 and now has almost 70 locations worldwide. Shake Shack landed in London in 2013, and this year opened its first west coast branch in West Hollywood. When it went public early last year, the company was valued at around $1.6bn.

Shake Shacks cows are said to be raised without antibiotics or hormones, and its beef ground fresh from full-muscle cuts, not scraps. The chain launched in the same year as the release of the documentary Super Size Me and shortly after the publication of Eric Schlossers book Fast Food Nation, both of which helped make the Big Mac a symbol of the evils of the food industry.

Still, McDonalds appears to enjoy its greatest success not when it tries to flog salads, but when it stays true to its original, nutritional values: salt, fat and sugar. In recent months, the firm curbed its US sales slide by offering breakfast all day. Days before the new Big Macs were unveiled, a Missouri branch announced it would serve bottomless orders of fries.

In the US, McDonalds must now jostle for position with multiple rivals. Overseas, its business continues to grow in countries where chain restaurants have yet to saturate the market. The bitter irony is that the Big Mac may be viewed more positively by consumers in the developing world than it is at home, in the culture it helped to create.

Historys most influential burger may still be a global bestseller, but in America the Big Mac fell out of fashion years ago. Its the Elvis of sandwiches. The Big Mac was for the Baby Boomer generation. It was exactly what we wanted and needed in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, said Mr Smith.

But my students go out of their way to avoid McDonalds. They prefer all these new chains who claim they dont use antibiotics or additives, who say they use grass-fed beef only  all the things that are attractive to millennials. Shake Shack may be healthier than eating a Big Mac. But then again, eating salt and fat and sugar has never been good for you, and it still isnt.
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France is committed to the 18bn power station but no final investment decision will be made before September, the French economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, has said.

Mr Macron rejected suggestions that the French electricity giant, EDF, could walk away from the British project or delay it for several years. He confirmed, however, that a much delayed announcement by EDF had been postponed for at least another five months to try to sell the project to the companys anxious unions.

The final decision to invest in the project could be made next September, Mr Macron said in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche.

EDF unions have made it clear that they hope to push off a decision until early 2017  when France will be entangled in a presidential election campaign. Union sources say that thay they will insist on prolonged, new studies of the financial and technical feasibility of Hinkley Point, which is supposed to supply 8 per cent of UK electricity by 2025.

Any lengthy delay would call into question an already tight timetable to complete the two new generation, high-pressure water reactors at Hinkley by the middle of the next decade.

Mr Macron said in his interview on Sunday that the British government would not wait and would go to our competitors if the project is seriously delayed.

This project isessential to the continuing presence of EDF in Great Britain, the minister said. What would we say to other countries like India, South Africa or Poland who want to launch their own nuclear programmes?

We would leave the field free for our American, Chinese or Russian competitors. And then what competence would we have to renew our own nuclear power stations?

The sun sets on the Hinkley Point nuclear plant in Somerset (Getty)

Mr Macron confirmed that the French government, which owns 80 per cent of EDF, was providing an extra Euros 5bn to strengthen the companys ailing finaces. He said that this would take the form of a Euros 3bn state contribution to a Euros 4bn increase in equity and the waiving of Euros 2bn in dividends due to the state for the years 2016 and 2017.

Senior engineers and unions at EDF fear that the Hinkley project could destroy an already weakened company. They have demanded a delay of at least two years to allow uncertainties about the new generation reactors planned for Hinkley to be resolved.

An internal report to the EDF board warned in February that the project could be financially disastrous, despite a commitment by the UK government to pay double the market rate for Hinkleys electricity.

Although China has agreed to invest 6.2 billion in Hinkley Point, EDF has failed to find other backers leaving it responsible for two thirds of the cost.

Both Paris and London have applied intense pressure on EDF to go ahead immediately. The British government would face huge embarrassment if Hinkley Point, intended as the first of three new mega power stations, was abandoned or postponed. In September last year, the Chancellor George Osborne said Hinkley Point was a central part of the governments strategy to make sure the lights stay on.

The current generation of nuclear power stations are coming to the end of their life. Thats going to create a very big hole in our base electricity supply unless we do something about it, he told a House of Lords committee.


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George Clooney commemorated the memory of more than 1.5 million Armenian people who were murdered in 1915 by awarding over $1 million to a Burundi woman who offered sanctuary to thousands of orphans during a civil war.

The slaughter of the Armenians on 24 April 1915 is viewed as the first massacre of the 20th century.

Mr Clooney awarded the first Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity, which recognises an individuals work to advance humanitarian causes, to Marguerite Barankitse of Maison Shalom and REMA Hospital in Burundi, who took in orphans amid civil war and genocide.

Recommended Read more The US must recognise the Armenian genocide

Before he handed over the award, he told the audience that Hitler reportedly said: Who remembers Armenia? The whole world.

By recognizing Marguerite Barankitse's courage, commitment and sacrifice, I am hopeful that she can also inspire each one of us to think about what we can do to stand up on behalf of those whose rights are abused and are in most need of our solidarity or support, he said.

We honour the million and a half lives that were lost 101 years ago. And we honour those lives by calling their tragedy by its true name. Genocide. The Armenian Genocide.

Ms Barankitse received a $100,000 grant and she can nominate organisations to receive the $1 million.

The actor attended a service at a hilltop memorial in the capital, Yerevan, alongside Armenian leaders and international officials.

Turkey still denies that the deaths constitute genocide and has claimed that the death toll was inflated. Turkey has said that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians were killed and that at least as many Turks died in the civil war.

The US does not admit the killings were genocide  president Obama referred to the murders as the first mass atrocity of the 20th century and a tragedy that should not be repeated.

Turkeys president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a statement that he welcomed the commemoration to share the grief endured by the Ottoman Armenians, as well as to honour their memories.

He then criticized efforts to politicize history through a bitter rhetoric of hate and enmity and strive to alienate the two neighbouring nations.

Canada and many other countries take the opposite stance.

Fighting earlier in April between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in Karabakh killed 100 people and has been labelled the worst conflict since the violence in 1994.


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Lord Sugar has launched a blistering attack on the party's front-runner to be London mayor, Sadiq Khan.

The billionaire businessman accused Mr Khan of being personally responsible for wrecking the Labour Party as Lord Sugar branded the City Hall favourite and Jeremy Corbyn the "Laurel and Hardy" of politics.

Lord Sugar, who quit Labour to become a non-affiliated peer in protest at what he called its anti-business stance under Ed Miliband, warned Mr Khan would be a disaster for London if he wins the May 5 showdown with Tory Zac Goldsmith.

Labour now welcomes anti-Semites and terrorist sympathisers to its ranks, the TV star warned."I would say Khan has single-handedly wrecked the Labour Party, and now he's turning his finely honed judgment on the great city of London," the peer wrote in The Sunday Times.

"Khan ran Ed Miliband's leadership campaign. He was in the room when Miliband turned on people like me, attacking the country's largest employers as 'predators', as well as Corbyn who famously called Britain's businesses the real enemy.

"Khan was one of the most senior Labour politicians to nominate Corbyn for leader. Without Khan's endorsement, Corbyn would never have made it onto the ballot.

"Under Corbyn, the lunatics have truly taken over the asylum. His ambition is to drag Britain back to the 1970s - union blackmail and three-day weeks, when our best and brightest were leaving the country in droves. Militants, Trots, anti-Semites and terrorist sympathisers all seem to have been welcomed into Labour with open arms," the peer said.

The most ridiculous claims made about Jeremy Corbyn Show all 11 1 /11 The most ridiculous claims made about Jeremy Corbyn The most ridiculous claims made about Jeremy Corbyn He called Hezbollah and Hamas friends True. In a speech made to the Stop the War Coalition in 2009, Mr Corbyn called representatives from both groups friends after inviting them to Parliament. He later told Channel 4 he wanted both groups, who have factions designated as international terror organisations, to be part of the debate for the Middle East peace process. I use (the word friends) in a collective way, saying our friends are prepared to talk, he added. Does it mean I agree with Hamas and what it does? No. Does it mean I agree with Hezbollah and what they do? No. Reuters The most ridiculous claims made about Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Corbyn thinks the death of Osama bin Laden was a tragedy Partly false. David Cameron used this as a line of attack at the Conservative Party conference but appears to have left out all context from Mr Corbyns original remarks. In an 2011 interview on Iranian television, the then-backbencher said the fact the al-Qaeda leader was not put on trial was the tragedy, continuing: The World Trade Center was a tragedy, the attack on Afghanistan was a tragedy, the war in Iraq was a tragedy. The most ridiculous claims made about Jeremy Corbyn He is haunted by the legacy of his evil great-great-grandfather False. A Daily Express expose revealed that the Labour leaders ancestor, James Sargent, was the despotic master of a Victorian workhouse. Addressing the report at the Labour conference, Mr Corbyn said he had never heard of him before, adding: I want to take this opportunity to apologise for not doing the decent thing and going back in time and having a chat with him about his appalling behaviour. The most ridiculous claims made about Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Corbyn raised a motion about pigeon bombs in Parliament This one is true. On 21 May 2004, Mr Corbyn raised an early day motion entitled pigeon bombs, proposing that the House register being appalled but barely surprised that MI5 reportedly proposed to load pigeons with explosives as a weapon. The motion continued: The House believes that humans represent the most obscene, perverted, cruel, uncivilised and lethal species ever to inhabit the planet and looks forward to the day when the inevitable asteroid slams into the earth and wipes them out thus giving nature the opportunity to start again. It was not carried. The most ridiculous claims made about Jeremy Corbyn He rides a Communist bicycle False. A report in The Times referred to Mr Corbyn, known for his cycling, riding a Chairman Mao-style bicycle earlier this year. Less thorough journalists might have referred to it as just a bicycle, but no, so we have to conclude that whenever we see somebody on a bicycle from now on, there goes another supporter of Chairman Mao, he later joked. The most ridiculous claims made about Jeremy Corbyn 'Jeremy Corbyn will appoint a special minister for Jews' False so far. The Sun report in December was allegedly based on a rumour passed to the paper by a Daily Express columnist who has written pieces critical of the Labour leader in the past. The minister did not materialise in his shadow cabinet. The most ridiculous claims made about Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Corbyn wishes Britain would abolish its Army False. Another gem from The Sun took comments made at a Hiroshima remembrance parade in August 2012 where Mr Corbyn supported Costa Ricas move to abolish it armed forces. Wouldnt it be wonderful if every politician around the worldabolished the army and took pride in the fact that they dont have an army, he added. The caveat that every politician must take the step suggests Mr Corbyn does not support UK disarmament just yet. The most ridiculous claims made about Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Corbyn stole sandwiches meant for veterans False. The Guido Fawkes blog claimed that the Labour leader took sandwiches meant for veterans at at Battle of Britain memorial service in September but a photo later emerged showing him being handed one by Costa volunteers, who later confirmed they were given to all guests. The most ridiculous claims made about Jeremy Corbyn He missed the induction into the Queens privy council True. After much speculation about Mr Corbyns republican views and willingness to bow to the monarch, his office confirmed that he did not attend the official induction to the privy council because of a prior engagement, but did not rule out joining the body. The most ridiculous claims made about Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Corbyn refuses to sing the national anthem. Partly true. The Labour leader was filmed standing in silence as God Save the Queen was sung at a Battle of Britain remembrance service but will reportedly sing it in future. Mr Corbyn was elusive on the issue in an interview, saying he would show memorials respect in the proper way, but sources said he would sing the anthem at future occasions. The most ridiculous claims made about Jeremy Corbyn He is a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Cheese True. The group lists its purpose as the following: To increase awareness of issues surrounding the dairy industry and focus on economic issues affecting the dairy industry and producers.

Lord Sugar said Mr Khan will not be independent of the Labour leader, as he accused Mr Corbyn of being on friendly terms with terror groups like Hamas.

"No one should be fooled by Khan's stance that he will be totally independent as mayor of London and not influenced by Corbyn. Amazingly, despite the crazy plans to print money to pay for public spending, the Christmas-card list that includes Hamas and the IRA, Khan says he has no regrets about giving Corbyn the top job.

"Be under no illusion, they are two peas in a pod. Clearly not the dynamic duo of Batman and Robin; more like Laurel and Hardy," the peer said.

Mr Khan has repeatedly condemned Tory claims he showed poor judgment in sharing platforms with extremists.

Lord Sugar said Mr Khan should not get to City Hall just because he peddles a "sob story" about his humble beginnings.

"Maybe I'm missing the point. As far as I can tell, Khan's main offer to London voters isn't his policies; it's that he's the Muslim son of a bus driver. Ok the boy's done good - well done!

"I myself am a working-class Jewish boy from the East End; the son of a factory tailor who never knew where his next day of work was coming from. But that was not a reason why people invested in me and my public companies," the peer said.

A spokesperson for Sadiq Khan told The Independent: "Sadiq is pleased to have backing across the business community. He will be the most pro-business Mayor London has ever had.

"By contrast Zac Goldsmith has announced no business backers and is the anti-business candidate."

PA
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Tourists planning summer holidays to three of Spain's most popular islands - Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza - will be asked to pay a new tax in a bid to conserve some of the country's most popular islands. The Balearic islands receive more than three million British tourists every year.

The green tax is currently being prepared by the Balearics' government as part of a drive to protect the islands' strained ecosystem.

After July 1 this year, visitors will be asked to pay a daily fee of up to two Euros (around 1.60) per person. That applies to the most expensive apartments and hotels in peak season; lower taxes are applied to lesser accommodation. It will apply to travellers aged 14 and over.

The tax  which was first announced last year - has been criticised by travel firms and consumer watchdogs, who say the added fee could cost make a significant difference to families planning holidays on a tight budget this summer.

Fred Isaac, of the Consumer Action website, said: This will hurt families the most, and they already face inflated prices during school holidays.

Spain's great walking trails Show all 5 1 /5 Spain's great walking trails Spain's great walking trails Ordesa Peak practice: Monte Perdido in Ordesa National Park Spain's great walking trails Pyrenees Pyrenees on the GR 11 Spain's great walking trails Cavalls El Cami de Cavalls  GR 223 Spain's great walking trails Ebro Camino Natural del Ebro  GR 99 Spain's great walking trails GR 7 The longest path of all  GR 7

Authorities say the tax will go towards preserving natural heritage. Last year Biel Barcelo, vice president of the islands coalition government, said the tax will be applied with or without the help of the Spanish state, since it is absolutely necessary to conserve the Balearic archipelago.

After the initial proposals were received badly last year, it is now planned for the tax to halve in cost after the ninth day of each stay, meaning a family of four with children over the age of 16 will pay up to 70 extra.

In Malta, a charge of 0.50 (40p) per night comes into place from June, but will be capped at 5 (4).

Abta, the travel association, said it "had concerns" about the tax, adding it could: 'have the unintended consequence of driving tourists away from the islands."

A spokesperson said: "Safeguarding the environment of the islands has to be a high priority but this tax is not the most sensible way to fund these efforts."
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The UK could take up to 10 years to negotiate trade deals with the United States if it leaves the European Union, President Barack Obama has warned.

Speaking on the future of trade, he said: It could be five years from now, 10 years from now before we were able to actually get something done".

During a three-day trip to the UK, the US president has been condemned by Brexit-voters after telling Brits to vote to stay in the EU in the coming referendum.

At the end of his UK visit, Mr Obama said in an interview with the BBC: We rely heavily on the UK as a partner globally on a whole range of issues; wed like you having more influence.

On the future of trade, however, he added that the UK would not be able to negotiate something faster than the EU.

 Obama: Brexit would hurt Britain's trade with US

Arriving in Germany for the final few days of his European tour, President Obama was met by protestors demonstrating against a planned free trade agreement between the US and the EU.

An esimated 30,000 people attended a demonstration in Hannover the day before the US leader was due to arrive in the city to open the world's largest industrial trade fair.

The Trans-Atlanstic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has been opposed by environmentalists and consumer protection groups who say the deal would allow corporations to cut labour and erode environmental standards.

President Obama's comments on the EU referendum sparked further backlash from Leave campaigners this week, including London Mayor Boris Johnson who called President Obama downright hypocritical.

Mr Johnson said: It is deeply anti-democratic - and much as I admire the United States, and much as I respect the president, I believe he must admit that his country would not dream of embroiling itself in anything of the kind.

It is incoherent. It is inconsistent, and yes it is downright hypocritical. The Americans would never contemplate anything like the EU, for themselves or for their neighbours in their own hemisphere. Why should they think it right for us?

The US president waded into the EU-debate earlier this week saying that Britain would be "at the back of the queue" following a potential separation from Brussels this year, with the European market currently the biggest trade market for the US.

Democratic presidential candidate Hilary Clinton has also voiced hopes for Britain to stay in the EU, saying she "values a strong British voice" in the union.

Ms Clintons senior policy adviser Jake Sullivan said: Hilary Clinton believes that transatlantic co-operation is essential, and that co-operation is strongest when Europe is united."

Vote Leave campaigners called Ms Clintons comments hollow, but a Downing Street source said we should listen to our closest friends a allies.

Labour MP Gisela Stuart, who co-chairs Vote Leave, said it was extraordinary that the US should urge Britain to remain part of a dysfunctional organisation.

As Mr Obama headed to Germany on the last leg of his tour of Europe and the Middle East, he praised the close relationship between the two countries, which he said had improved dramatically since the British burned down my house  a reference to the torching of the White House in the 19th century.
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Two British men and an Irishman have been released from prison in northern Iraq after being arrested while travelling home from Syria, where they were fighting against so-called Islamic State (IS).

Jac Holmes from Bournemouth, Joe Ackerman from Halifax and Joshua Molloy from Co Laois in Ireland had been detained on 15 April after reportedly trying to illegally cross a border into Iraq.

They were held for more than a week in a prison in the Kurdish city, Erbil. British diplomats worked on the ground on behalf of all three men  saying that they do consular work for Irish citizens where Ireland does not have representation.

Shortly after their release Mr Ackerman wrote a Facebook status with the word Free, which recieved hundreds of comments from his friends and family expressing relief and celebrating his release.

Mr Akerman's mother Maggie Ackerman also took to Facebook to inform worries friends and relatives of the news, writing: The news we've been waiting for has finally arrived. Joe Akerman, Jac Holmes and Josh Molloy finally coming home. [...] Amazing news.

She later wrote: Dancing singing shouting hooooooray.

Meanwhile Declan Molloy, the father of Joshua, said emotions in the family were running wild: We are all delighted here. We are jumping with joy to know that he is out, he said.

You know that Christmas morning feeling, it's a bit like that, when you find your most sought-after present under the tree, the dream present. That's how we feel.

It is understood that the men had fighting been with the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG), a force reported to have between 25,000 and 50,000 fighters resisting the advance of ISIS in northern Syria.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: We are helping two British men make arrangements to leave Kurdistan after they were released from custody.
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Junior doctors have written to Michelle Obama urging her to lobby David Cameron to reverse new the contract they fear will disadvantage female doctors and result in a wider gender pay gap and fewer female doctors.

The letter, backed by over 2,200 signatories, references Mrs Obamas work as a womens equality advocate and her support for universal access to healthcare.

The heartfelt plea for help urges Mrs Obama, who is spending three days in the UK along with her husband, to raise concerns with the Prime Minister at their meeting in London.

The letter reads as follows:

Dear Mrs Obama,

We are junior doctors working in the UKs National Health Service, writing to you with a heartfelt plea for help. We believe that our causes - healthcare and equality - transcend national borders. We would therefore be most indebted to you if you could raise our concerns with our Prime Minister, David Cameron, when you meet with him later today.

Universal health care coverage for all citizens and equality for women, are both subjects that you have been an inspirational advocate for. The successes of your programme "Let Girls Learn" speaks to us all as parents and carers, and as professionals who came into medicine believing that we are all equal.

The UK government is currently seeking to impose a new contract on all junior doctors (approximately the first 10-15 years of our careers) working in England. We believe that the new contract will put both doctors and our patients at risk, leaving us too exhausted and demoralised to do our jobs safely. Such is the depth of our feeling on this matter, we have now been on strike four times: a situation we all deeply regret.

One distressing aspect of the new contract is its discriminatory nature. Our government's own assessment of the contract acknowledges that doctors who are women, single parents, carers or disabled are all discriminated against. The government does not try to hide this, but has instead brushed it off as collateral damage: "A proportionate means of achieving a legitimate end". Furthermore, according to the government's own analysis, the increased anti-social working hours in the contract, with no extra remuneration, "will disproportionately disadvantage those who need to arrange childcare". It is also anti-family.

Last year, our Prime Minister pledged to "end the gender pay gap in a generation", so no doctor can understand why he is now perfectly willing to create a new gender pay gap in the NHS, Europes biggest employer.

To the government's embarrassment, the outcry provoked by this casual acceptance of gender discrimination has spread beyond the UK to the United Nations. A director at the World Health Organisation, having read the contract and its equality assessment, stated that the new contract contravenes the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Its "regressive policies", he explained, mean "gender equity for junior doctors is at risk" and "female doctors will face widening pay gaps with male colleagues and may be forced to quit medicine".

Britain has the sixth largest gender pay gap in the European Union, meaning that for every pound a man in Britain earns, a woman on average receives only 80 pence. That equates to women in Britain working for free for 57 days of the year. We do not want Britain to be a country in which our children grow up seeing their mothers paid less than a man, for doing exactly the same job.

We therefore appeal to you to use whatever influence you may have with the Prime Minister to encourage him to listen to our concerns and act accordingly.

Yours sincerely,

Miss Roshana Mehdian, Trauma and Orthopaedic Registrar, London

Dr Rachel Clarke, Core Medical Trainee, Oxford

Dr Taryn Youngstein, Rheumatology Registrar, London

Dr Dagan Lonsdale, ITU Registrar, London

And 2200 additional signatories
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Police forces in England and Wales used taser guns on minors at least 407 times between January 2014 and November 2015, including 57 times against those 14 years old or younger, according to a new report.

Londons Metropolitan Police Service recorded the highest frequency, using taser guns against 185 minors over the same period, 16 of whom were under the age of 14. Data provided by 18 forces (out of 43) shows there were 99.402 searches of under 18s that resulted in the arrest of 10.808 children.

The findings, researched by police-monitoring group Stopwatch, also revealed that UK police recorded 75 strip searches of minors in 2015.

The report, conceived as a formal submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, was based on a series of Freedom of Information requests to forces around the UK.

StopWatch said in a statement that the Human Rights Act has been violated, adding the information pointed to further infringements of the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child.

The group, formed in 2010, pointed to research published by the Children's Rights Alliance for England, stating children are at greater risk of injury to major organs, brain and eyes from tasers.

It added: Perhaps the most shocking thing is we don't really know what effects they have when used on children.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 15 September 2022 Members of the public in the queue on in Potters Fields Park, central London, as they wait to view Queen Elizabeth II lying in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 14 September 2022 The first members of the public pay their respects as the vigil begins around the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Hall, London, where it will lie in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2022 Crowds cheer as King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort arrive for a visit to Hillsborough Castle Getty UK news in pictures 12 September 2022 Crowds line the Royal Mile, Edinburgh, as King Charles III joins a procession from the Palace of Holyroodhouse to St Giles Cathedral following the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II Katielee Arrowsmith/SWNS UK news in pictures 11 September 2022 Members of the Public pay their respects as the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland, is driven through Ballater AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 10 September 2022 Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales, Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales, Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Britain's Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, wave at well-wishers on the Long walk at Windsor Castle AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 9 September 2022 King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort wave after viewing floral tributes to the late Queen Elizabeth II outside Buckingham Palace Getty UK news in pictures 8 September 2022 A screen commemorating Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in Piccadilly Circus, London Britain EPA UK news in pictures 7 September 2022 Police officers stand guard after Animal Rebellion activists threw paint on the walls and road outside the Houses of Parliament in protest, in London, Britain Reuters UK news in pictures 6 September 2022 Queen Elizabeth II welcomes Liz Truss during an audience at Balmoral, Scotland, where she invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2022 Visitors at the PoliNations garden in Victoria Square, Birmingham, which is made up of five 40ft high tree installations and over 6,000 plants. The PoliNations programme aims to explore how migration and cross-pollination have shaped the UKs gardens and culture PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2022 Undergraduates at the University of St Andrews take part in the traditional Pier Walk along the harbour walls of St Andrews before the start of the new academic year PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2022 The Massed Pipes and Drums parade during the Braemar Highland Gathering at the Princess Royal and Duke of Fife Memorial Park PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2022 Number 12 Company Irish Guards at Wellington Barracks, central London, before commencing their first Guard Mount at Buckingham Palace PA

The obvious medical concern is that children are smaller, and thus more vulnerable: their heart muscles and bones may not have developed fully; it is believed that cardiac rupture is more likely to occur among children.

Tasers can reach a maximum voltage of up to 50,000 volts and in 2007 the UN Committee said they can be considered a form of torture.

Oliver Sprague, Amnesty Internationals arms control programme director for the UK, said then he was concerned there was "no specific guidance on Taser use against young people and children".

Carla Garnelas, the co-director of the Childrens Rights Alliance for England (Crae), said: The use of Taser on children is a breach of their human rights. UN bodies have repeatedly called for the UK government to ban their use on children, highlighting the serious risk of physical and psychological harm they pose, yet the use of Taser on children continues. We want to see a ban on Taser use on children.

More than two-thirds of people who had a Taser used against them in England and Wales between 2010 and 2014 had been identified by police as mentally ill, according to Home Office figures released last year.
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Volunteers may be used to help the police during terrorist attacks or sex crime cases  including those involving the abuse of children  following severe cuts to police budgets.

The government announced in January that civilian volunteers with specialist skills would be given police-style powers to create a more flexible workforce.

Theresa May, the home secretary, said forces in England and Wales would be able to expand by recruiting members of the public who have strong accountancy or computer skills to help fight cyber crime.

James Brokenshire, the policing minister, revealed this week there would not be a limit on the contribution of unpaid volunteers.

When asked in the House of Commons whether their deployment would be limited in cases of child sexual exploitation, serious crime and counterterrorism, he said we should not make assumptions about where volunteers can contribute.

Mr Brokenshire said: Our consultation on the reform of the roles and powers of civilians and volunteers demonstrated the demand from forces for flexibility in how they deploy volunteer staff.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 15 September 2022 Members of the public in the queue on in Potters Fields Park, central London, as they wait to view Queen Elizabeth II lying in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 14 September 2022 The first members of the public pay their respects as the vigil begins around the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Hall, London, where it will lie in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2022 Crowds cheer as King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort arrive for a visit to Hillsborough Castle Getty UK news in pictures 12 September 2022 Crowds line the Royal Mile, Edinburgh, as King Charles III joins a procession from the Palace of Holyroodhouse to St Giles Cathedral following the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II Katielee Arrowsmith/SWNS UK news in pictures 11 September 2022 Members of the Public pay their respects as the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland, is driven through Ballater AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 10 September 2022 Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales, Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales, Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Britain's Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, wave at well-wishers on the Long walk at Windsor Castle AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 9 September 2022 King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort wave after viewing floral tributes to the late Queen Elizabeth II outside Buckingham Palace Getty UK news in pictures 8 September 2022 A screen commemorating Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in Piccadilly Circus, London Britain EPA UK news in pictures 7 September 2022 Police officers stand guard after Animal Rebellion activists threw paint on the walls and road outside the Houses of Parliament in protest, in London, Britain Reuters UK news in pictures 6 September 2022 Queen Elizabeth II welcomes Liz Truss during an audience at Balmoral, Scotland, where she invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2022 Visitors at the PoliNations garden in Victoria Square, Birmingham, which is made up of five 40ft high tree installations and over 6,000 plants. The PoliNations programme aims to explore how migration and cross-pollination have shaped the UKs gardens and culture PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2022 Undergraduates at the University of St Andrews take part in the traditional Pier Walk along the harbour walls of St Andrews before the start of the new academic year PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2022 The Massed Pipes and Drums parade during the Braemar Highland Gathering at the Princess Royal and Duke of Fife Memorial Park PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2022 Number 12 Company Irish Guards at Wellington Barracks, central London, before commencing their first Guard Mount at Buckingham Palace PA

These reforms will place the individual decision-making as to which personnel perform which roles firmly in the hands of chief officers, who have the professional expertise and local knowledge to know which powers are needed in their area.

Brokenshire said it was important not to restrict the operational powers of the police, who retain the right to deploy staff as they see fit.

Since 2010, around 12,000 frontline police officers have left the profession. There are currently at least 9,000 volunteers working with police forces.

Shadow home secretary Andy Burnham said the move sounds like a "back-door means" of filling cuts and "could lead to policing on the cheap".

He told The Independent: "The Home Secretary needs to provide assurance that it won't lead to standards being compromised or corners cut.

"The concern is that these volunteers will not be checked or trained in the same way as those who volunteer as Special Constables.

Recommended Read more Police are going to use volunteers to help combat crime

"The police service is an essential public service and cannot be provided on a voluntary basis."

Proposals in the forthcoming policing and crime bill, which Labour is asking their MPs to block, would see volunteers the ability to hand out fixed-penalty notices, take witness statements, confiscate drugs, alcohol or tobacco, control traffic and detain a person for up to 30 minutes.

The latest government crime statistics, released this week, show the murder rate in England and Wales rose by 11 per cent to 573 homicides in 2015; knife crime increased by 9 per cent and sexual offences, including rape, increased by 29 per cent.
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Brexit campaigners have shunned the leader of Frances far-right Front National, Marine Le Pen, ahead of her controversial visit to Britain to express support for those wishing to leave the European Union.

It comes as the chief of the official Leave campaign wrote to the Home Secretary Theresa May calling for the controversial French politician to be banned from entering the UK.

Ms Le Pen, who has seized on the referendum in Britain to advance her own critical stance of Brussels, is an avid supporter of Brexit because she believes that it would start a chain reaction of decomposition of the European Union.

Her office has previously confirmed the visit was under consideration before Britons head to the polling stations in June.

We dont think she should come, a spokesman for Leave.EU told The Independent. They added: We don't think her 'contribution' to the Brexit debate is helpful. Brits don't want these leaders lecturing them on how they should vote."

But the official campaign for Brexit, Vote Leave, has taken a much more hard-line approach with the leader of Frances far-right.

Campaign chiefs have suggested the controversial politician should be banned from entering the UK because she spouted "divisive and inflammatory" views and her presence in the country would not be "conducive to the public good".

In the letter to Ms May co-chairwoman of Vote Leave and Labour MP Gisela Stuart, stated that far-right leader "previously made many divisive and inflammatory comments, including comparing Muslims praying in the street to the Nazi occupation of France.

"Accordingly, I urge you to exercise your powers under immigration legislation to refuse her admission into the country if and when she attempts to visit the UK."

The Home Secretary, however, said she does not comment on individual cases.

What has the EU ever done for us? Show all 7 1 /7 What has the EU ever done for us? What has the EU ever done for us? 1. It gives you freedom to live, work and retire anywhere in Europe As a member of the EU, UK citizens benefit from freedom of movement across the continent. Considered one of the so-called four pillars of the European Union, this freedom allows all EU citizens to live, work and travel in other member states. What has the EU ever done for us? 2. It sustains millions of jobs A report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, released in October 2015, suggested 3.1 million British jobs were linked to the UKs exports to the EU. What has the EU ever done for us? 3. Your holiday is much easier - and safer Freedom to travel is one of the most exercised benefits of EU membership, with Britons having made 31 million visits to the EU in 2014 alone. But a lot of the benefits of being an EU citizen are either taken for granted or go unnoticed. What has the EU ever done for us? 4. It means you're less likely to get ripped off Consumer protection is a key benefit of the EUs single market, and ensures members of the British public receive equal consumer rights when shopping anywhere in Europe. What has the EU ever done for us? 5. It offers greater protection from terrorists, paedophiles, people traffickers and cyber-crime Another example of a lesser-known advantage of EU membership is the benefit of cross-country coordination and cooperation in the fight against crime. What has the EU ever done for us? 6. Our businesses depend on it According to 71% of all members of the Confederation of British Influence (CBI), and 67 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the EU has had an overall positive impact on their business. What has the EU ever done for us? 7. We have greater influence Robin Niblett, Director of think-tank Chatham House, stated in a report published last year: For a mid-sized country like the UK, which will never again be economically dominant either globally or regionally, and whose diplomatic and military resources are declining in relative terms, being a major player in a strong regional institution can offer a critical lever for international influence.

Conservative MP and Eurosceptic Jacob Rees-Mogg said to The Independent: Miss Le Pen and Mr Obama are equally unhelpful to the sides they purport to support. The referendum is a matter for the British people who do not like being told what to do by self-interested non participants.

Ukip leader Nigel Farage told Sky News that he did not think an intervention by Ms Le Pen would be helpful to the Brexit campaign, but he opposed legally banning her.

Ahead of her visit to the UK, Ms Le Pen told a conference in Romania last weekend: The British people will vote in two months; its a key moment in European history.

I want each people to be able to have their say on the subject  I hope that the French will also have a similar [exercise], she added. There has to be another model of cooperation between peoples; their history, sovereignty and freedom has to be respected.
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The Culture Secretary John Whittingdale has been accused of political interference in the appointment of a new director of one Britains preeminent arts organisations.

Mr Whittingdale ordered a rerun of the official selection process for a new trustee at the National Portrait Gallery after all the five candidates he had endorsed failed to make it to the shortlist. The Sunday Times reported that three of them were Tory donors or supporters and one was a former Conservative minister.

The revelation emerged in a leaked letter written by Sir David Normington, a former civil servant who was until the end of last month responsible for ensuring public posts are awarded on merit.

Recommended Read more Whittingdale admits revelations tested his faith in press freedom

In the letter, dated January 29, Mr Normington noted that a number of his candidates had political affiliations to the Conservative party and warned that political activity should not give them preferential consideration.

Mr Normington also dismissed the ministers written complaint about Sarah Anderson, who oversaw the first selection panel.

He praised Ms Anderson for helping to persuade other women to join public boards and warned Mr Whittingdale: That contribution is at risk if your complaint, which I do not believe is supported by the facts, is allowed to stand.

The vacancy on the board of the National Portrait Gallery attracted 54 applicants. Other trustees include Andrew Roberts, the historian and Stephan Shakespeare, founder of the YouGov market research firm.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 15 September 2022 Members of the public in the queue on in Potters Fields Park, central London, as they wait to view Queen Elizabeth II lying in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 14 September 2022 The first members of the public pay their respects as the vigil begins around the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Hall, London, where it will lie in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2022 Crowds cheer as King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort arrive for a visit to Hillsborough Castle Getty UK news in pictures 12 September 2022 Crowds line the Royal Mile, Edinburgh, as King Charles III joins a procession from the Palace of Holyroodhouse to St Giles Cathedral following the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II Katielee Arrowsmith/SWNS UK news in pictures 11 September 2022 Members of the Public pay their respects as the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland, is driven through Ballater AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 10 September 2022 Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales, Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales, Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Britain's Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, wave at well-wishers on the Long walk at Windsor Castle AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 9 September 2022 King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort wave after viewing floral tributes to the late Queen Elizabeth II outside Buckingham Palace Getty UK news in pictures 8 September 2022 A screen commemorating Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in Piccadilly Circus, London Britain EPA UK news in pictures 7 September 2022 Police officers stand guard after Animal Rebellion activists threw paint on the walls and road outside the Houses of Parliament in protest, in London, Britain Reuters UK news in pictures 6 September 2022 Queen Elizabeth II welcomes Liz Truss during an audience at Balmoral, Scotland, where she invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2022 Visitors at the PoliNations garden in Victoria Square, Birmingham, which is made up of five 40ft high tree installations and over 6,000 plants. 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In his letter, Mr Normington said the Culture Secretary was wrong to accuse Ms Anderson of failing to tell the rest of the appointments panel that he had five candidates who [he] considered to be particularly strong.

Mr Normington said they did not make the shortlist because the panel believed there were stronger candidates in the field.

The panel made a unanimous decision that a majority subsequently backed even after they were asked to reconsider.

Although Ms Anderson offered to reconvene the panel to hold a third discussion, Mr Whittingdale scrapped it and requested a new one with an alternative to Ms Anderson in the chair. Mr Normington said he had reluctantly agreed.

The Culture Secretary will pick the winner from those who make it through the interview stage.

Mr Normington is an outspoken critic of new proposals that would give ministers a greater say over a wide range of public appointments.

Mr Normington argues it will make it easier for ministers to appoint their own candidates and could reduce diversity

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said: Any suggestion of political intervention in public appointments is nonsense. The process is only being rerun in this case because the department believes the code was breached, leaving no choice but to make a formal complaint . . . Appointments are made based on the best person for the job.
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Hillary Clinton has said she wants the UK to stay in the European Union, adding her voice to that of US President Barack Obama in backing the Remain campaign. The front-runner for the Democratic partys presidential nomination is favoured to become the first female US Commander-in-Chief, which would make her a key diplomatic partner for the UK and EU, whether or not British voters choose Brexit in June.

In a statement to The Observer, Ms Clintons senior policy adviser, Jake Sullivan, said: Hillary Clinton believes that transatlantic cooperation is essential, and that cooperation is strongest when Europe is united. She has always valued a strong United Kingdom in a strong EU. And she values a strong British voice in the EU.

On his final presidential visit to the UK this week, Mr Obama made a strong case for the country to stay in Europe, warning Brexit would put the British at the back of the queue when it came to negotiating trade agreements. His comments drew criticism from the Leave camp, including London Mayor Boris Johnson, who wrote that it was hypocritical of the US to urge the UK to surrender control of so much of our democracy.

Ms Clintons husband, former US president Bill Clinton, has also said he hopes the UK remains part of the EU. Receiving an award for his part in the Northern Ireland peace process last month, Mr Clinton said Northern Ireland would really get whacked if Britain withdraws from the EU. I hope they dont, he said, adding: Its too easy to believe that the only solution to the problems in the world is to hunker down.

Ms Clinton and her husband were campaigning in at least three US states between them this weekend, ahead of Tuesday's primaries in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island. The former Secretary of State holds a comfortable poll lead in the two that hold the most delegates, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
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Jeremy Hunt has rejected a last-minute attempt to bring about an end to next weeks all-out strike of junior doctors describing the initiative a Labour opportunism.

Mr Hunt dismissed a letter from the shadow Health Secretary, Heidi Alexander, urging him to agree to trial the new junior doctors' contract rather than impose it across the NHS unilaterally.

The letter, which was also signed by two former heath ministers  including a Conservative - also said there should be an independent evaluation of the so-called "weekend effect" which sees higher mortality rates for patients admitted at weekends.

A BMA source said they supported the initiative and that if the Government agreed to limited trials of a pilot of the contract, representatives would be prepared to meet them to discuss the possibility of calling off the strike on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The walkout would see all junior doctors, including Accident & Emergency staff, walk out  the first time such action has been taken in NHS history by doctors.

But Mr Hunt rejected the plan warning that further delay in introducing the contract just means we will take longer to eliminate the weekend effect.

Instead he put forward a counter-proposal to the BMA in a letter to the organisations chairman Mark Porter.

In it he said he was prepared to meet the BMA to discus workforce and funding requirements for seven-day services as well as other issues outside the contract that have been of concern to junior doctors.

These include improvements in training, improving work-life balance and the burden of examination and training fees.

But he warned: The extreme action planned will be deeply worrying for patients, and place enormous additional strain on our NHS at a time of intense pressure.

In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Show all 10 1 /10 In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK 20,000 Junior Doctors marched through central London in protest at the new contract changes the government is trying to impose which they say will be unfair and unsafe In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Junior doctors protest in London In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK 4 year old Cassius takes part in a demonstration in Westminster, in support of junior doctors over changes to NHS contracts, London In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Protest over proposed changes to junior doctors' contracts, Leeds In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Junior doctors and NHS staff protesting against the health service cuts and the proposed contract changes offered by the government outside Parliament In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Junior doctors and NHS staff protesting against the health service cuts and the proposed contract changes offered by the government outside Parliament In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Over 5000 junior doctors rallied in Waterloo place, before marching through Whitehall and onto Parliament Square, in opposition to Jeremy Hunt's new working conditions for doctors In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Demonstrators listen to speeches in Waterloo Place during the 'Let's Save the NHS' rally and protest march by junior doctors In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Junior doctors marched in London to highlight their plight In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK A protester at a demonstration in support of junior doctors in London

I therefore appeal to you one final time to call off strike action that will see doctors withdraw potentially life-saving care, and to meet with me on Monday to discuss a better way forward.

In their letter to Mr Hunt, Ms Alexander, the former Conservative health minister Dr Dan Poulter, former Lib Dem health minister Norman Lamb and the SNP's Dr Philippa Whitford said the medical royal colleges and patient groups have said the imposition or unilateral introduction of the contract is the wrong approach and risks permanent damage to the future of the medical workforce.

"If it remains your intention to introduce this new contract, we believe it should be piloted in a number of trusts/across a number of deaneries and for its impact on patients, staff and the 'weekend effect' to be independently evaluated," they said.

Ms Alexander told Sky News: "I think Jeremy Hunt would need to sit down urgently today, this afternoon, with the BMA, to talk about what the scope of the pilot would be."

She added: "If it is shown to improve patient care and to have a positive impact upon junior doctors with regard to the hours they are working and the quality of care that they are able to provide, I think any reasonable person at that point would say, well actually, we need to look at what the evidence shows us and move forward in a constructive way."

But the Government said it had 75 meetings with the BMA and three years of talks, and delaying reform further would mean not taking an important step in improving weekend care.

A spokesman said: "We have always said that we want to introduce this contract in a phased way - for around 11% of junior doctors from August - precisely so any initial problems can be ironed out. That's why this is simply ill-informed political opportunism from the same Labour Party responsible for the flawed contracts we have now."
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A group of cross-party MPs has called on Jeremy Hunt to trial the new junior doctors contract in a small number of trusts in a bid to prevent next week's all-out strike.

Labour's Heidi Alexander, Conservative Dr Dan Poulter, Lib Dem Norman Lamb and the SNP's Dr Philippa Whitford told the Health Secretary in a letter that they want an independent evaluation of the so-called weekend effect which sees higher mortality rates for patients admitted at weekends.

The move comes after the Health Secretary announced he would impose the contested contract, whether or not it had the support of the British Medical Association (BMA).

The letter explains that concerns have been raised about the impact of the contract, were it imposed, and said it believed the BMA would not go ahead with next week's strike if the Government agreed to the proposal.

A BMA source said that if the Government agreed to limited trials of a pilot of the contract, representatives would be prepared to meet them to discuss the possibility of calling off the strike on Tuesday and Wednesday.

In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Show all 10 1 /10 In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK 20,000 Junior Doctors marched through central London in protest at the new contract changes the government is trying to impose which they say will be unfair and unsafe In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Junior doctors protest in London In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK 4 year old Cassius takes part in a demonstration in Westminster, in support of junior doctors over changes to NHS contracts, London In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Protest over proposed changes to junior doctors' contracts, Leeds In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Junior doctors and NHS staff protesting against the health service cuts and the proposed contract changes offered by the government outside Parliament In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Junior doctors and NHS staff protesting against the health service cuts and the proposed contract changes offered by the government outside Parliament In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Over 5000 junior doctors rallied in Waterloo place, before marching through Whitehall and onto Parliament Square, in opposition to Jeremy Hunt's new working conditions for doctors In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Demonstrators listen to speeches in Waterloo Place during the 'Let's Save the NHS' rally and protest march by junior doctors In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Junior doctors marched in London to highlight their plight In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK A protester at a demonstration in support of junior doctors in London

The MPs write: You will be aware that medical leaders, royal colleges and patient groups, have said the imposition or unilateral introduction of the contract is the wrong approach and risks permanent damage to the future of the medical workforce.

If it remains your intention to introduce this new contract, we believe it should be piloted in a number of trusts/across a number of deaneries and for its impact on patients, staff and the weekend effect to be independently evaluated.

An evaluation would lead to a real understanding of the problem so targeted changes can be made and a pilot would allow for misunderstandings about the contract to be cleared up.

The Government said it had 75 meetings with the BMA and three years of talks, and delaying reform further would mean not taking an important step in improving weekend care.

A spokesman said: We have always said that we want to introduce this contract in a phased way - for around 11 per cent of junior doctors from August - precisely so any initial problems can be ironed out. That's why this is simply ill-informed political opportunism from the same Labour Party responsible for the flawed contracts we have now.

PA
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Britain could be forced to accept unlimited immigration from other European countries even if the country votes to leave the EU, the Home Secretary Theresa May has warned.

In her first major intervention in the referendum debate Mrs May said if the UK wanted access to the single market we would have no choice but to allow the free movement of people just as we do at present.

And she insisted it was still possible to control immigration as part of the EU denying that the UK had lost control of its borders.

Yes, free movement makes it harder to control immigration but it does not make it impossible, the Home Secretary told the Andrew Marr show.

She added: If we were to be outside the EU and still wanted to access the single market then you would have to accept free movement rules.

Her comments came as President Barack Obama again waded into the Brexit battle, warning the UK would have to wait up to a decade for a trade deal with America if it quits the EU.

Unbowed by the backlash from the Leave camp against "interference" in British affairs, Mr Obama moved to explain his stark statement that the UK would be at "the back of the queue" for a beneficial economic arrangement if it breaks away from Brussels.

Insisting he had not sought to "scare" Britons into rejecting Brexit, Mr Obama told the BBC: "My simple point is that it's hard to negotiate trade deals. It takes a long time.

"We wouldn't abandon our efforts to negotiate a trade deal with our largest trading partner, the European market, but rather it could be five years from now, 10 years from now, before we were able to actually get something done."

In her interview Ms May did admit that it was harder to control due to the EU's free movement of labour rules however she insisted the task was not impossible as she tried to distance herself from an official Treasury study showing that immigration would soar by three million by 2030.

Her remarks were seized on by the Leave camp as proof Britain had an "open door" policy.

Ms May would not be drawn on a Government document saying immigration would jump by three million.

"That was an independent figure, that was an independent estimate," the Home Secretary said of the Office for National Statistics' prediction of a steep rise in immigration, which was put out by the Treasury as part of the Government's claim that Brexit would cost each household 4,300 a year.

The Home Secretary insisted Britain had won a landmark concession from Brussels on immigration in that the EU will overturn judgments of the European Court of Justice that make it is easier for people to abuse the free movement rules.

Meanwhile in an escalation of the highly personalised attacks launched against Mr Obama by the Leave campaign, Ukip leader Nigel Farage said the president's priority in attacking Brexit was to "guarantee his financial future".

What's the European Parliament ever done for us? Show all 5 1 /5 What's the European Parliament ever done for us? What's the European Parliament ever done for us? A cap on the amount of hours an employer can make you work The Working Time directive provides legal standards to ensure the health and safety of employees in Europe. Among the many rules are a working week of a maximum 48 hours, including overtime, a daily rest period of 11 hours in every 24, a break if a person works for six hours or more, and one day off in every seven. It also includes provisions for paid annual leave of at least four weeks every year Getty Images What's the European Parliament ever done for us? Helping the people of Britain to avoid smoking In 2014 MEPs passed the Tobacco Products Directive strengthening existing rules on the manufacture, production and presentation of tobacco products. This includes things like reduced branding, restrictions on products containing flavoured tobacco, health warnings on cigarette packets and provisions for e-cigarettes to ensure they are safe What's the European Parliament ever done for us? Helping you to make the right choices with your food Thanks to the European Parliament, UK consumers have access to more information than ever about their food and drink. This includes amount of fat, and how much of it is saturated, carbohydrates, sugars, protein and so on. It also includes portion sizes and guideline daily amount information so people can make informed choices about their diet. All facts must be clear and easy to understand What's the European Parliament ever done for us? Two year guarantees and 14-day returns policy for all products Consumers across the EU have access to a number of rights, from things which are potentially very useful, to things which used to be annoying. For example, shoppers in the UK receive a two-year guarantee on all products, and a 14-day period to change their minds and return a purchase, these things are useful www.PeopleImages.com-licence restrictions apply What's the European Parliament ever done for us? Keeping your air nice and fresh (and safe) Believe it or not, although the situation is improving, some areas of the UK have appalling air quality. A report by the Royal College of Physicians released on 23 February says 40,000 deaths are caused by outdoor air pollution in the UK every year. Air pollution is linked to a number of illnesses and conditions, from Asthma to diabetes and dementia. The report estimates the costs to British business and the health service add up to 20 billion every year

"There is a bigger motivation and that is, with this trip, and with what he has said, he has guaranteed his financial future. He has done the bidding of the giant American corporates who want Britain to stay in the EU," Mr Farage told Sky's Murnaghan.

Prominent Labour MP Chuka Umunna accused London mayor Boris Johnson of being "unfit" to be prime minister after his remarks drawing attention to Mr Obama's Kenyan heritage.

Brexit would make households 40 a week better off, one of Margaret Thatcher's economic gurus, Professor Patrick Minford, told The Sun on Sunday.

Before the campaign began some commentators suggested that Ms May would join Boris Johnson and Michael Gove in the Leave camp.

But she said after having looked at all the issues she was convinced that, on balance, Britain was better off in.

It is not a black and white decision, she said. It is not an issue of whether we can survive (outside the EU)  its whats best for Britains future.

Ms May said in terms of law and order being able to share criminal records with other EU countries made Britain safer  something that could be lost if we pulled out.

There is no doubt that we need to do more in exchanging criminal records but we are not going to be able to do that better outside the EU.

Challenged over accusations that Britain had lost control of its borders Ms May insisted that the idea everybody can walk into the UK was not the case.

She pointed to a letter written to her by Labour calling for her to ban the French National Front Leader Marine Le Penn who wants to campaign for Britain to pull out of the EU as evidence that the UK is far from powerless in controlling who is allowed into the country.
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During his visit to the UK, President Obama delivered a passionate plea to Britain to vote to remain in the European Union in an upcoming referendum.

The American leader's intervention in the country's fierce "Brexit" row has proven remarkably divisive in London, with some politicians attacking him for being "anti-British" and others suggesting that Obama's part-Kenyan heritage led to an "ancestral dislike of the British empire."

Obama was apparently not fazed. During a joint news conference with Britain's David Cameron, he offered a stern warning of the potential consequences for the transatlantic relationship should Britain leave the E.U. However, it wasn't just Obama's warnings that gained attention among the Brits  it was a subtle stylistic shift in the way he worded those warnings.

I think its fair to say maybe some point down the line, but its not going to happen any time soon because our focus is on negotiating with the E.U., Obama told reporters. The U.K. is going to be at the back of the queue.

 Obama: Brexit would hurt Britain's trade with US

Obama was simply repeating a warning made before by U.S. officials: that the U.S. is not interested in bilateral trade deals with individual countries, and that they would focus instead on deals with larger organizations like the E.U. However, the president's choice of words when making this point left many gobsmacked. The president of the United States had used the word "queue," typically used by Brits, rather than "line," considered the proper term in American English.

Some Brits quickly grew suspicious  was Obama pandering to his audience with this Britishism? Or was this a secret sign that someone British had been helping him craft his speech?

It's certainly true that queue is used relatively rarely in American English: As the Oxford English Dictionary says in its listing for the word, it is a "chiefly British" word. But this isn't exactly a smoking gun. As James Ball of Buzzfeed UK was quick to point out on Twitter, Obama has actually used the word "queue" a number of times before.

You can see it in this White House transcript from 2010, for example, when Obama says: "There were several people who were still in the queue who didnt have a chance to speak prior to us breaking." Or in another transcript from 2011, when he says: "Could I just say that Chuck is the only guy who asked two questions  so far. So just  when I cut off here, whoever was next in the queue  Im messing with you, Chuck." Or in yet another transcript from two years after that, when he says: "Weve got to make sure that we have a legal immigration system that doesnt cause people to sit in the queue for 5 years, 10 years, 15 years  in some cases, 20 years."

The instances of Obama using "queue" do seem relatively rare, but they exist and they appear to be off-the-cuff comments. And importantly, in none of the above examples was the president being used to trick British people to not act in their own interest. In fact, Obama has something of a habit of using British English. According to "Britishisms," a blog run by University of Delaware English Prof. Ben Yagoda with the aim of catching the British English that enters into American daily life, the president has also been caught saying things like "full stop," "run to ground" and "take a decision."

Copyright: Washington Post
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The Government is facing a rebellion from its own backbenchers over a decision to ban thousands of Syrian children living in European refugee camps from being settled in Britain.

Upwards of ten Conservative MPs are believed to be prepared to defy their party on Monday and back a proposal by a Labour peer who was saved from the Nazis and brought to London on the Kindertransport programme.

Lord Dubs has led a parliamentary campaign to take in youngsters from camps near Calais and elsewhere in Europe who, he says, are hugely vulnerable to exploitation, sexual violence and disease.

Recommended Read more Peer who was saved from Nazis calls on Britain to help Syrian children

Under current Government proposals Britain will accept more than 3,000 Syrian migrants by 2020 but ministers have insisted that these will come from camps in the Middle East and north Africa and not include children already in Europe.

With a Commons majority just 18, a rebellion by a dozen Tories could be enough to inflict defeat if all other parties back the Dubs plan.

The Lib Dem leader Tim Farron has warned there were around 30,000 unaccompanied child refugees currently in Europe who were vulnerable to sexual exploitation and Britain must play its part in resettling them.

Refugee crisis - in pictures Show all 27 1 /27 Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugee crisis - in pictures A child looks through the fence at the Moria detention camp for migrants and refugees at the island of Lesbos on May 24, 2016. AFP/Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Ahmad Zarour, 32, from Syria, reacts after his rescue by MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station) while attempting to reach the Greek island of Agathonisi, Dodecanese, southeastern Agean Sea Refugee crisis - in pictures Syrian migrants holding life vests gather onto a pebble beach in the Yesil liman district of Canakkale, northwestern Turkey, after being stopped by Turkish police in their attempt to reach the Greek island of Lesbos on 29 January 2016. Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees flash the 'V for victory' sign during a demonstration as they block the Greek-Macedonian border Refugee crisis - in pictures Migrants have been braving sub zero temperatures as they cross the border from Macedonia into Serbia. Refugee crisis - in pictures A sinking boat is seen behind a Turkish gendarme off the coast of Canakkale's Bademli district on January 30, 2016. At least 33 migrants drowned on January 30 when their boat sank in the Aegean Sea while trying to cross from Turkey to Greece. Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A general view of a shelter for migrants inside a hangar of the former Tempelhof airport in Berlin, Germany Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees protest behind a fence against restrictions limiting passage at the Greek-Macedonian border, near Gevgelija. Since last week, Macedonia has restricted passage to northern Europe to only Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans who are considered war refugees. All other nationalities are deemed economic migrants and told to turn back. Macedonia has finished building a fence on its frontier with Greece becoming the latest country in Europe to build a border barrier aimed at checking the flow of refugees Refugee crisis - in pictures A father and his child wait after being caught by Turkish gendarme on 27 January 2016 at Canakkale's Kucukkuyu district Refugee crisis - in pictures Migrants make hand signals as they arrive into the southern Spanish port of Malaga on 27 January, 2016 after an inflatable boat carrying 55 Africans, seven of them women and six chidren, was rescued by the Spanish coast guard off the Spanish coast. Refugee crisis - in pictures A refugee holds two children as dozens arrive on an overcrowded boat on the Greek island of Lesbos Refugee crisis - in pictures A child, covered by emergency blankets, reacts as she arrives, with other refugees and migrants, on the Greek island of Lesbos, At least five migrants including three children, died after four boats sank between Turkey and Greece, as rescue workers searched the sea for dozens more, the Greek coastguard said Refugee crisis - in pictures Migrants wait under outside the Moria registration camp on the Lesbos. Over 400,000 people have landed on Greek islands from neighbouring Turkey since the beginning of the year Refugee crisis - in pictures The bodies of Christian refugees are buried separately from Muslim refugees at the Agios Panteleimonas cemetery in Mytilene, Lesbos Refugee crisis - in pictures Macedonian police officers control a crowd of refugees as they prepare to enter a camp after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A refugee tries to force the entry to a camp as Macedonian police officers control a crowd after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees are seen aboard a Turkish fishing boat as they arrive on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing a part of the Aegean Sea from the Turkish coast to Lesbos Reuters Refugee crisis - in pictures An elderly woman sings a lullaby to baby on a beach after arriving with other refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A man collapses as refugees make land from an overloaded rubber dinghy after crossing the Aegean see from Turkey, at the island of Lesbos EPA Refugee crisis - in pictures A girl reacts as refugees arrive by boat on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees make a show of hands as they queue after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures People help a wheelchair user board a train with others, heading towards Serbia, at the transit camp for refugees near the southern Macedonian town of Gevgelija AP Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees board a train, after crossing the Greek-Macedonian border, near Gevgelija. Macedonia is a key transit country in the Balkans migration route into the EU, with thousands of asylum seekers - many of them from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia - entering the country every day Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures An aerial picture shows the "New Jungle" refugee camp where some 3,500 people live while they attempt to enter Britain, near the port of Calais, northern France Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A Syrian girl reacts as she helped by a volunteer upon her arrival from Turkey on the Greek island of Lesbos, after having crossed the Aegean Sea EPA Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees arrive by boat on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Beds ready for use for migrants and refugees are prepared at a processing center on January 27, 2016 in Passau, Germany. The flow of migrants arriving in Passau has dropped to between 500 and 1,000 per day, down significantly from last November, when in the same region up to 6,000 migrants were arriving daily.

In a letter to MPs, urging them to support the Dubs amendment he said the vote was a test of Britains humanity. MPs must stand up for the values and traditions that make Britain great, he said.

The Government has tried to muddy the water with a concession that will not help a single child who is alone and vulnerable in Europe. I am making a plea to MPs from all parties to stand up on Monday, ignore their party whips and find a voice.

 EU and Turkey on standoff over refugee deal

Mr Farron denied that the move would encourage more families to send their children to Europe.

"I don't think that's the case at all. What we know is that there are something like four or five million refugees fleeing from the region and a fraction, maybe a quarter of them, are in Europe, so the idea that Europe is the only place these people are heading is not true."

But the Home Secretary Theresa May insisted the Government was acting in a range of areas to help vulnerable children.

"The question we need to ask ourselves is what is in the best interests of these children.

"That is about children at risk coming from the region, not just unaccompanied children. Sometimes children can have a family member or guardian with them and still be at risk, for example of exploitation or forced marriage."

Ms May said the Government has announced it will take up to 3,000 children, some with carers, or family members, into the UK by 2020.
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Its been an extremely bad week for Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa.

The earthquake last week resulted in the death of at least 650 people, according to most recent reports, with damage amounting to more than $3 billion, and now he is at the centre of a scandal surrounding the Panama Papers, a leak of documents exposing offshore tax havens of the words rich and powerful.

On 11 April Mr Correra posted this tweet, after making several calls for the full papers to be released, demanding ALL the truth for the countrys citizens.

They spent almost a year looking for something against the Ecuadorian government and found nothing, it read.

Yet he and his estranged brother, Fabricio, were both at the centre of an anti-corruption investigation in Panama in 2012, as discovered last week by the Washington bureau of McClatchy news.

A secret email within the Panama Papers reveals possible accusations of embezzlement against the state, carried out by the brothers via a company called Orlion Group.

Panama law firm Mossack Fonsea head of compliance Sandra de Cornejo wrote on 10 May 2012 in an internal email: Although we have not found anything that ties the Correas and the entity, I suggest resigning  because of the scant cooperation received from the client.

Mossack Fonseca had been trying to obtain required know-your-customer documents about Orlion for two years from a firm called Legalsa & Asociados. Mossack Fonseca decided to stop being Orlions service provider in 2012 after an anti-corruption team got in touch.

Legalsa & Asociados then requested in 2014 on behalf of its unnamed customer to reactive the company.

Ms de Cornejo refused the request.

Orlion Group used the most secretive form of offshore company ownership, entitling people to hold a share certificate without revealing their identity. This was 2006, a year before Mr Correa entered office.

Norman Granda Castillo, an agricultural businessman described as the ultimate beneficiary of the company, insisted to the Charlotte Observer that the company is not tied to a bank account or any investments  just a property where the family works.

He claimed not to know or have dealings with the Correa brothers.

Sandra Sotillo, a spokeswoman for Panamas anti-corruption unit, said they cannot reveal the names of people involved in the investigation.

The claim of the estranged brothers being involved in this company was denied by Omar Simon, Mr Correras top adviser, who said he was a very honest person, and was also denied by Fabricio Correa.

The presidents legal adviser Alexis Mera told El Universo on 13 April that he was happy with the Panama Papers and they have shown that their government is one of the most honest in the world.

Yet the names of three officials tied to the Ecuadorean government were exposed in the papers, a so-called data dump of 11.5 million documents that led to the resignation of the prime minister of Iceland and outrage in the UK for Prime Minister David Cameron to admit he had a stake in his familys offshore funds.

The Panama Papers reveal more than 160,000 mentions of the word Ecuador.

Mr Correa promised to fight corruption when he took office in 2007. Yet Transparency International found in 2015 that 106 nations were less corrupt than Ecuador.
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An 18-year-old in Wisconsin who shot two students outside of their high school prom has been pronounced dead, according to authorities.

Recommended Read more Multiple casualties feared after shooting at high school prom

Jakob Wagner showed up to the dance in the town of Antigo about 11pm on Saturday evening and started firing his rifle outside the building.

He shot two students as they exited the building, one of whom was critically injured and the other received minor injuries, said Lieutenant Jamie Lenzer of the Antigo Fire Department.

As police patrolled the carpark they shot Mr Wagner, a former student at the school. He was taken to hospital and died at 1am Sunday morning.

Officers were in the parking lot patrolling the activities and heard the shots, and an officer immediately fired upon the shooter, stopping the threat, said Eric Roller, Antigo's police chief, in a statement.

All the people within the prom were eventually escorted from the school and are safe.

Police have not commented on a possible motive for the shooter.

Sonia Reed, whose son Matthew attended the prom, told news channel WSAW that she was on campus earlier that evening for the grand march, where students and their dates form a procession and parents cheer them on before the school announces the prom queen and king.

She estimated there were between 100 and 120 students at the dance.

I have two other children that's in the high school, and they don't want to go back, period, Ms Reed said. They're just beyond freaking out here.

Antigo is a small town of about 8,500 residents. Ms Reed described Antigo as a farmtown where students participate in the annual Drive Your Tractor to School day.

Agencies contributed to this report.
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Chilling audio recordings of two emergency calls on the day that a shooter killed eight members of the same family in Ohio have been released by authorities.

The killings were carried out execution style across four homes in Pike County on Friday.

Seven adults and one 16-year-old were killed. Three children survived the shootings, including a new born baby who was sleeping near its dead mother.

As authorities hunt for the shooter, the Ohio state attorney generals office has made available the audio recordings for two relatives of the Rhoden family who called 911.

In the first call, which took place around 8am on Friday, a woman called Bobby, breathless and distressed, tells the operator: Theres blood all over the house and that someone had beat the hell out of him, referring to her brother in law.

She reports another family member lying dead on the floor.

Is there anyone else in the house? the operator asks.

Not that I know of, the woman replies.

The operator tells her to wait outside for the emergency services.

In the second call on the same day, Donald Stone says: All that stuff thats on the news, I just found my cousin with a gunshot wound, referring to 44-year-old Kenneth Rhoden.

Is he alive? the operator asks.

No, no, he replies.

The victims have been identified as Hannah Gilley, 20, Christopher Rhoden, Sr., 40, Christopher Rhoden, Jr., 16, Clarence Frankie Rhoden, 20, Dana Rhoden, 37, Gary Rhoden, 38, Hanna Rhoden, 22, and Kenneth Rhoden, 44.

Obviously we have one person who is armed and dangerous and there may be more, two or three, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said on Friday.

Authorities said they have interviewed more than 30 people but have made no arrests.

On Saturday Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader and General DeWine said in a joint statement that investigators worked through the night processing evidence at the scene.

Officials said a Cincinnati-based businessman put up a $25,000 reward for information on the killer or killers.

Authorities refused to discuss details about the crime scenes, like the weapons used, the evidence that has been collected or whether any items were missing from the homes.

They urged remaining members of the Rhoden family to take precautions and said residents should also be wary.

Agencies contributed to this report.
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Marijuana growing operations were found at three of the four crime scenes where eight members of an Ohio family were murdered last week in a rural community of the state.

Ohios Attorney General Mike DeWine addressed the media on Sunday to provide an update on the tragedy in Pike County, where the victims were shot execution-style, most of them, while they slept.

"These were pre-planned, pre-meditated execution-type killings," Attorney General DeWine told ABC News. "Four different homes. A case like this is going to take some time.

He also said that authorities have received more than 100 tips and they are following up each and every one of them. Police have not found a clear motive nor have they identified a suspect, but they believe that more than one gunman was involved in the mass shooting.

Ohio Governor John Kasich said that he's recieved updates on the investigation as he campaigns out of state for the Republican presidential nomination.

Governor Kasich told CBS News that he is confident justice will be delivered" to whomever committed the murders.

On Saturday, the victims were identified as: Hannah Gilley, 20; Christopher Rhoden, Sr, 40; Christopher Rhoden, Jr, 16; Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden, 20; Dana Rhoden, 37; Gary Rhoden, 38; Hanna Rhoden, 19; and Kenneth Rhoden, 44.

Jeff Ruby, a Cincinnati-area businessman, is offering $25,000 reward for any information that leads to the killer or killers arrest.
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Bernie Sanders has said many of his losses to Hillary Clinton in Democratic primaries were because poor people dont vote.

The senator from Vermont, who has made fighting income inequality the rallying cry of his campaign, was asked during a taping of NBCs Meet the Press why Clinton had prevailed in 16 of 17 states so far with the highest levels of income inequalilty.

Well, because poor people don't vote, Sanders told host Chuck Todd. I mean, that's just a fact. That's a sad reality of American society.

Sanders said that while his campaign has done a good job of attracting young voters, hes had less success driving up turnout of lower-income people. In the 2014 election, he said, 80 percent of poor people did not vote.

If we can significantly increase voter turnout so that low-income people and working people and young people participated in the political process, if we got a voter turnout of 75 percent, this country would be radically transformed, Sanders said during the taping of the segment, which is scheduled to air Sunday morning.

It's not clear that larger turnout among poor voters would have actually helped Sanders against Clinton, however.

Sanders has lost Democratic voters with household incomes below $50,000 by 55 percent to 44 percent to Clinton across primaries where network exit polls have been conducted. (He has lost by a wider 21 percentage-point margin among voters with incomes above $100,000, and by 9 points among middle income voters.)

Sanders's comments were released by NBC on Saturday while he was campaigning here in Delaware, one of five states that hold primaries on Tuesday. Sanders started his day in Maryland, another of those states. During a stop in Baltimore, he argued that poverty is a death sentence, citing figures showing a discrepancy between the life expectancies of people born in rich and poor neighborhoods in that city.

During his campaign, Sanders has put forward a variety of measures aimed at helping poorer voters, including raising the minimum wage, guaranteeing paid family leave and making tuition free at public colleges and universities.

Meanwhile Hillary Clinton spent Saturday campaigning in the two states voting Tuesday  Connecticut and Rhode Island  where Sanders is considered to have the best chance.

In Rhode Island, where Sanders will campaign on Sunday, Clinton held a lively rally in Central Falls, a small city that is about 70 percent Hispanic and poor. Median household income is estimated at roughly $28,000. The crowd was largely white however, with a big turnout from organized labor.

Clinton said little about Sanders, but said her plan to make college more affordable is more practical than his free-tuition proposal. Were going to put the money where its most needed, so everyone who wants to go to college can afford to do so, she said.

The Clinton campaign told top donors at a briefing Wednesday, the day after her big victory in New York, that Clinton could well lose in Rhode Island, a person familiar with the briefing said on condition of anonymity because the session was confidential.

If Sanders does win in Rhode Island, the loss would be offset by the support of the states 9 superdelegates, all of whom are supporting Clinton.

At the same briefing for donors, campaign representatives said they are backing off direct attacks on Sanders somewhat after the New York victory, although Clinton surrogates have continued to criticize him this week.

Sanders has continued to aggressively lay out his differences with Clinton in recent days, citing the Iraq war, trade policy, fracking and other issues.

Copyright: Washington Post
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North Korea has offered to stop its increasingly ambitious nuclear weapons tests if the US ceases its annual military exercises with South Korea.

Speaking in a rare Western media interview at the UN in New York, the North Korean foreign minister defended his country's right to maintain a nuclear deterrent.

Ri Su Yong told the Associated Press the US was "totally mistaken" if it thought economic sanctions were enough to stop North Korea's nuclear programme.

"We made what we consider a very logical proposal to the US government," he said. "Stop your nuclear war exercises in the Korean peninsula, then we'll cease nuclear tests."

Asked about the comments at a news conference on his arrival in Germany, Barack Obama said the US was not taking them seriously.

North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom Show all 110 1 /110 North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea This picture taken from North Korean paper Rodong Sinmun on 14 October 2014 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un during an inspection tour of a newly-built housing complex in Pyongyang. North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un has finally resurfaced with the help of a walking stick after an unexplained and prolonged absence that fuelled rampant speculation about his health and even rumours of a coup in the nuclear-armed state North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim at the newly-built housing complex in Pyongyang AFP/Getty Images North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un during an inspection tour of a newly-built housing complex in Pyongyang North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un visits the Wisong Scientists Residential District in Pyongyang in pictures released by Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the ruling Workers Party EPA North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim at the Wisong Scientists Residential District EPA North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un inspects a tactical rocket firing drill by the Korean People's Army Strategic Force North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Launching of a tactical rocket during a firing drill by the Korean People's Army Strategic Force North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un talks to military officials during a tactical rocket firing drill of the North's Strategic Force North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un poses with soldiers after he inspected a tactical rocket firing drill by the Korean People's Army Strategic Force North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un along the North Korean soldiers North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un inspects the Hwa Islet defence detachment off the east coast of North Korea North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un speaks to navy commanders ahead of a swimming drill in North Korea North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong Un gives field guidance to the remodelling site of the May Day Stadium in Pyongyang North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un visits the remodeling site of the May Day Stadium in Pyongyang North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong Un gives advise at the construction site of the Wisong Scientists Street in Pyongyang North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea A view of the Wisong Scientists Street under construction in Pyongyang. North Korean newspaper said that Kim was greatly pleased about the eye-opening speed of construction, which he referred to as "Korea-speed," that has been created through a mass competition in all areas of the construction site North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea The North Korean paper confirmed that Kim Jong-un called for the North Korean Navy Unit 167 soldiers to devote their wisdom and enthusiasm to rounding off the combat preparations North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un aboard a submarine as he is visiting the North Korean Navy Unit 167 stationed on the east coast of North Korea North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un inspects the submarine No. 748 of Korean People's Army (KPA) naval unit 167 led 7th regiment North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un inside a submarine as he visits the North Korean Navy Unit 167 stationed on the east coast of North Korea North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un inspects the submarine No. 748 of Korean People's Army (KPA) naval unit 167 led 7th regiment North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong Un gives field guidance during his inspection of the Korean People's Army (KPA) Naval Unit 167 North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong Un gives field guidance during his inspection of the Korean People's Army (KPA) Naval Unit 167 North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un (C) poses with seamen as he inspects Korean People's Army (KPA) naval unit 167 led 7th regiment North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un advises the Korean People's Army (KPA) Unit 863 led 7th regiment North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un talks with people from the Korean People's Army (KPA) Unit 863 led 7th regiment North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un inspects the Ryo islet defence detachment standing guard over a forward post off the east coast of North Korea North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un talks with people as he inspects the Ryo islet defence detachment standing guard over a forward post off the east coast of North Korea North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un gestures as he inspects the Ryo islet defence detachment standing guard over a forward post off the east coast of North Korea North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un poses with soldiers for photo as he inspects the Ryo islet defence detachment standing guard over a forward post off the east coast of North Korea North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong Un gives field guidance to the Hydro-meteorological Service in Pyongyang North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visiting the Hydro-meteorological Service in Pyongyang EPA North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un visiting the Jangchon Vegetable Co-op Farm in Sadong District, Pyongyang. Kim said that the farm turned into a vegetable production base for the citizens of the capital city under the wise guidance of former leaders Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong Un gives field guidance to the Jangchon Vegetable Co-op Farm in the Sadong District of Pyongyang North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong Un visits Mangyongdae Revolutionary School on the occasion of the 68th anniversary of the founding of the Korean Children's Union (KCU) North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong Un visits Mangyongdae Revolutionary School on the occasion of the 68th anniversary of the founding of the Korean Children's Union (KCU) North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea A young girl shoots an arrow at a picture of President Barack Obama during an event to mark International Children's Day at Pyongyang September 15 Nursery in Pyongyang North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Children sit with a picture of South Korean President Park Geun-hye and President Barack Obama while participating in a game during an event to mark International Children's Day at Pyongyang September 15 Nursery in Pyongyang North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Children participate in a game during an event to mark International Children's Day at Pyongyang September 15 Nursery in Pyongyang North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Children carrying balls run in a game during an International Children's Day event at Pyongyang September 15 Nursery in Pyongyang North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Boys run with stuffed bears on their backs during game on the occasion of International Children's Day at Pyongyang September 15 Nursery in Pyongyang North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong Un smiles as children eat during his visit to the Pyongyang Orphanage on International Children's Day North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong Un smiles as he watches a child play during his visit to the Pyongyang Orphanage on International Children's Day North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un visits Pyongyang's Ssuk Island as he unveiled a plan to build a science and technology hall on the island during the visit North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un touring a construction site for a rest center for scientists North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong Un visits the construction site of apartment buildings for faculty members of Kim Chaek University of Technology in Pyongyang North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un touring a liquor factory in North Pyongan Province North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un inspects the machine plant managed by Ho Chol Yong North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un along with his wife Ri Sol-ju (3-R) touring a hospital specialized in the treatment of soldiers in North Korea North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un inspects the machine plant managed by Ho Chol Yong North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong Un poses for a picture with senior military staff and other participants of the first meeting of the airpersons of the Korean People's Army (KPA) in Pyongyang North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un learns to fly an airplane at the North Korean Air Force unit 447 North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un watches a football match North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un shares a joke with members of a long-range artillery unit at an undisclosed location in North Korea. Mr Kim carried out a series of visits to military installations and chaired a meeting of senior figures in the armed forces, state media said, amid global unease over a possible nuclear test. AFP North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his wife Ri Sol Ju watch a performance by the Moranbong Band at the April 25 House of Culture in Pyongyang North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un and former basketball star Dennis Rodman watch the friendly match between North Korea and an aging NBA 'All-stars' team Reuters North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un inspecting an aquarium as he visits the Songdowon International Children's Camp in Kangwon province AFP North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un inspecting the newly built athletic field as he visits the Songdowon International Children's Camp AFP North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un smiling broadly along with other officials during his visit to a youth camping site in Wonsan on the southeastern coast in North Korea EPA North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visits the Songdowon International Children's Camp, as its remodelling project nears completion Reuters North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong Un visits a swimming pool complex at the Songdowon International Children's Camp Reuters North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un looks at children as he visits a baby home and orphanage in Pyongyang AFP North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un visiting a baby home and orphanage in Pyongyang AFP North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un (C) talks to staff in an orphanage in Pyongyang EPA North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong Un applauds during the second day session of the 8th Conference of Ideological Officials of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un gives an address during the eighth conference of the ideological officials of the Workers' Party in Pyongyang EPA/Rodong Sinmun North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un reacts to participants of the 8th conference of the ideological officials of the Workers Party of Korea (WPK) in Pyongyang North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un waves during an inspection of the Korean People's Army Unit 323 honoured with the title of O Jung-hup-led 7th Regiment in Pyongyang North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un provides field guidance to the November 2 Factory of the Korean People's Army North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un inspects the construction site of the January 8 fishery station of the Korean People's Army (KPA) at undisclosed place in North Korea North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un visits the November 2 Factory at an unknown place in North Korea, a food manufacturer for the North Korean soldiers North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un inspects an electronics factory in Pyongyang North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un walks as he inspects one of the factories in Pyongyang North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un looks at the products of the electronics factory in Pyongyang North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong Un speaks and gestures during a trip to give field guidance to the Pyongyang Weak-current Apparatus Factory North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-un laughs as he tours the electronics factory in Pyongyang North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong Un visits the Songdowon International Children's Camp now being remodelled in Pyongyang North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong Un speaks as he visits the Songdowon International Children's Camp in Pyongyang North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong-Un points at remodeled building of the Songdowon International Children's Camp in Kangwon Province North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Voters line up to cast their ballots to elect deputies to the 13th Supreme People's Assembly in Pyongyang, North Korea AP North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Voters queue to cast their ballots to elect deputies to the 13th Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) in Pyongyang. North Korea holds nation-wide elections to pick deputies to the Supreme People's Assembly for a new five-year term Reuters North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the Kim Il Sung University of Politics to take part in the election of a deputy to the Supreme People's Assembly at sub-constituency No. 43 of Constituency No. 105 together with service personnel of the KPA Reuters North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea People dance to celebrate as the nation holds elections for deputies to the 13th Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) in Pyongyang Reuters North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea A woman receives a ballot to vote to elect deputies to the 13th Supreme People's Assembly in Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korean voters went to polling stations to elect a new national legislature, although they don't get to choose who to vote for since there is only one candidate per district. AP North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea People gather to watch a performer sing near an election site in the Central District near Taedong Gate, in Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korean voters went to polling stations to elect a new national legislature, although they don't get to choose who to vote for since there is only one candidate per district AP North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inside the August 25 Fisheries Station under KPA 313 Unit Reuters North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Kim Jong un laughs as he inspects the August 25 Fisheries Station under KPA 313 Unit Reuters North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrives in the August 25 Fisheries Station under KPA 313 Unit Reuters North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the bier of Kim Kuk Thae, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea and expressed deep condolences over his death in Pyongyang Getty Images North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspects the Masik Pass Hotel, ski service and lodging buildings and rest areas in the skiing courses of the Masik Pass Ski Resort in Kangwon province Getty Images North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inside a room in the Masik Pass Hotel, ski service and lodging buildings and rest areas in the skiing courses of the Masik Pass Ski Resort in Kangwon province Getty Images North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspecting the Masik Pass Hotel, ski service and lodging buildings and rest areas in the skiing courses of the Masik Pass Ski Resort in Kangwon province Getty Images North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea North Koreans gather together on the steps of Mansu Hill to lay flowers at the base of statues of the late leaders, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, in Pyongyang AP North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea North Korean soldiers gathered at Kumsusan memorial palace in support of their leader Kim Jong-Un in Pyongyang Getty Images North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea North Korean People's Army soldiers take part in a rally to swear allegiance to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ahead of the second death anniversary of former leader Kim Jong Il at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in Pyongyang Reuters North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea North Korean soldiers gathered at Kumsusan memorial palace in support of their leader Kim Jong-Un in Pyongyang Getty Images North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea North Korea soldiers stand guard on the banks of the Yalu River which separates the North Korean town of Sinuiju from the Chinese border town of Dandong North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea China has lost its key North Korean interlocutor with the purging of Kim Jong Un's uncle, but analysts say the young leader's tightening grip on power may be welcomed by Beijing, which prizes stability in its wayward nuclear-armed ally Getty Images North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong Un applauds during the second meeting of security personnel of the Korean People's Army Reuters North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves during a performance by the State Merited Chorus Reuters North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watches a performance by the State Merited Chorus Reuters North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-il (centre) touring the construction site of the Munsu Swimming Complex in Pyongyang, North Korea back in September EPA North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Citizens welcome the military parade of the Worker-Peasant Red Guards and a mass rally which started at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang Reuters North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea North Korean athletes wave their national flag and trophies during a military parade at Kim Il Sung Square to mark the 65th anniversary of the country's founding in Pyongyang AP North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea Tractors pull artillery through Kim Il Sung Square during a military parade to mark the 65th anniversary of the country's founding in Pyongyang, North Korea Reuters North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un attends a parade of the Worker-Peasant Red Guards and a mass rally in Pyongyang in celebration of the 65th anniversary of North Korea Reuters North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea A parade of the Worker-Peasant Red Guards and a mass rally in Pyongyang in celebration of the 65th anniversary of North Korea Reuters North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea A parade of the Worker-Peasant Red Guards and a mass rally in Pyongyang September in celebration of the 65th anniversary of North Korea Reuters North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea A parade of the Worker-Peasant Red Guards and a mass rally in Pyongyang in celebration of the 65th anniversary of North Korea Reuters North Korea: Inside the Hermit Kingdom North Korea A parade of the Worker-Peasant Red Guards and a mass rally in Pyongyang in celebration of the 65th anniversary of North Korea Reuters

The president told reporters that a commitment to reducing tensions was not shown "based on a press release", and that North Korea would have to do better.

Mr Ri's comments came on Saturday as the North Korean government announced it had successfully launched a ballistic missile from a submarine, a development which could render the country capable of launching a nuclear weapon without warning.

This picture released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on April 24, 2016 shows the underwater test-fire of a strategic submarine ballistic missile at an undisclosed location in North Korea on April 23, 2016 (KCNA)

South Korean media quoted military officials reporting the launch some hours earlier, saying the missile travelled some 30km before falling into the sea off North Korea's eastern coast.

Mr Ri called on the US to to suspend its military exercises first in order to open the door to talks and end the escalation of tensions.

"If we continue on this path of confrontation, this will lead to very catastrophic results, not only for the two countries but for the whole entire world as well," he said.

Picture released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on April 24, 2016 shows the underwater test-fire of a strategic submarine ballistic missile at an undisclosed location in North Korea on April 23, 2016 (KCNA)

"It is really crucial for the US government to withdraw its hostile policy against the DPRK and as an expression of this stop the military exercises, war exercises, in the Korean Peninsula. Then we will respond likewise."

The US responded to the submarine missile launch by saying it would limit Mr Ri's movements during his visit, adding that "launches using ballistic missile technology are a clear violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions".

"We call on North Korea to refrain from actions that further destabilise the region and focus instead on taking concrete steps toward fulfilling its commitments and international obligations," a spokesman for the State Department said.

During the wide-reaching interview with AP, the North Korean minister was asked about the case of an American student sentenced to 15 years' hard labour for trying to steal a propaganda poster during a tourist trip to Pyongyang.

Mr Ri defended the sentence and said the case of 21-year-old Otto Warmbier was being used by Washington "as a tactic to make our lives difficult". He said he would nonetheless relay back to North Korea the US concerns over the student's treatment.

And the minister rejected suggestions that North Korea was a hermit kingdom, closed off to external scrutiny.

"We have our doors open for anybody who is interested to come to the DPRK and see the reality," he said, thought he added there would be risks for visitors who "totally fabricate" the situation in the country.
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An Australian MP has set fire to a river in Queensland in an attempt to draw attention to the effects of local fracking, which he claims is causing methane gas to seep into the water.

Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham posted a video on his official Facebook page, where he can be seen using a firelighter to set the Condamine River on alight.

The water can be seen to set alight quickly, causing Mr Buckingham to recoil and exclaim: A river on fire! Dont let it burn the boat.

Mr Buckingham says the flammable water is caused by coal seam gas mining, or fracking, nearby: The fracking [is] just a kilometre away, methane coming up and now the river is alight, he says in the video. Unbelievable! The most incredible thing Ive seen.

Gesturing to the river, Mr Buckingham warns that This is the future of Australia if we do not stop the frackers.

The Greens MP also makes claims in the video that Labor, Liberal and National parties backed the dirty frackers and that only the Greens think this is bloody crazy.

Though the water is especially flammable due to methane gas bubbling to the surface, the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines has reported that there is no apparent safety risk in the immediate area of the seeps and no apparent evidence of environmental harm that can be attributed to the present gas seeps.

In 2012, Queensland CSG Enforcement Unit, which deals with residents and landholders concerns about the effects of fracking, assured a landholder that it was unlikely that coal seam gas mining was causing the bubbling of the river.

A factsheet from Origin Energy, who own the nearby wells, cites an investigation conducted by the Norwest Corporation which suggested that the methane bubbles could be due to natural causes such as flooding or drought as well as human activity, including fracking.

Origin Energy told AFP: Were aware of the concerns regarding the bubbling of the Condamine River, in particular, recent videos demonstrating that this naturally occurring gas is flammable when ignited.

We understand that this can be worrying, however, the seeps pose no risk to the environment, or to public safety.
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Europe will soon be hit by deadly, "once-in-a-century" extreme weather events every year, a study has found.

Severe wildfires, river floods and windstorms will affect certain areas of the continent annually by 2050, according to research published in the journal Climatic Changes.

The study concludes the issue is at historically high levels and Europe will undergo a progressive and strong increase in overall climate hazard, with a particular impact on the south-western regions.

The researchers suggest key hotspots will emerge along coastlines and in floodplains in southern and western Europe, which are often highly populated and economically pivotal.

Europes entire Mediterranean seaboard will be confronted annually with extreme droughts, coastal floods or heatwaves by the end of the century, the study adds.

Giovanni Forzieri, lead author and a scientist at the European Commissions Institute for Environment and Sustainability, said: This should be a warning to governments and institutions tasked with preparing solutions and adaptation strategies.

In Spain, you will see at least two hazards every year by 2080 that  in the current climate  only show up once in 100 years.

 UK's Day of Extreme Weather

The projections are based on climate models which assume Earths surface temperatures will rise by about two degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial era benchmark by 2050.

The worlds first global climate agreement  agreed by 170 countries in Paris last December  set a target of capping temperature increases at well below two degrees Celsius. But some scientists argue that at the current rate of fossil fuel consumption, the planet is set for an increase of four degrees or higher.

Climate change protests around the world Show all 25 1 /25 Climate change protests around the world Climate change protests around the world People rally to promote climate protection in Rome, Italy Climate change protests around the world Hundreds of demonstrators gather in front of City Hall in Los Angeles, California EPA Climate change protests around the world People hold hands to form a human chain during a gathering called by ecologist organisations in Marseille, southern France, to protest against global warming a day ahead of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP21) held in Paris Climate change protests around the world Demonstrators clash with French riot police during protests on Place de la Republique, ahead of the COP21 World Climate Change Conference 2015 in Paris, France Climate change protests around the world Demonstrators clash with French riot police during a protest on Place de la Republique ahead of the COP21 World Climate Change Conference 2015 in Paris, France Climate change protests around the world A group of people perform during a rally to promote climate protection in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Climate change protests around the world A protester sits next to his sign that reads 'Monsanto the Devil Incorporated ' as he joined hundreds of demonstrators who gathered in front of City Hall in Los Angeles, California EPA Climate change protests around the world Environmentalists dance during a protest near the Place de la Republique after the cancellation of a planned climate march following shootings in the French capital, ahead of the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21), in Paris, France Reuters Climate change protests around the world People protest next to characters dressed as wild animals during a march against climate change near the Monument to the Revolution, in Mexico City AP Climate change protests around the world Protesters carries a banner while they take part in a protest about climate change at New York City Hall steps in lower Manhattan, New York Reuters Climate change protests around the world People take part in a protest about climate change around New York City Hall at lower Manhattan, New York Reuters Climate change protests around the world People rally to promote climate protection in Piazza Castello, Turin, Italy Climate change protests around the world A woman holds a globe during a protest for the global climate day in Lugano, Switzerland Climate change protests around the world Yemenis hold banners as they participate in the Global March for Climate in the old city of Sanaia, Yemen Climate change protests around the world Protesters dressed as Santa Claus take part in a protest about climate change at New York City Hall steps in lower Manhattan, New York Reuters Climate change protests around the world People gather at the Legislative Palace in Montevideo, during the Global Climate March to demand action on climate change telling world leaders on the eve of a crunch UN summit that there is "no planet B". From Sydney to London, humid Rio to chilly New York, at least 683,000 hit the streets in 2,300 events across 175 countries at the weekend, co-organiser and campaign group Avaaz said, calling it the largest number of people to protest over climate change all at once Getty Images Climate change protests around the world Climate change protests around the world Demonstrators participate in the Global March for Climate in Athens, Greece Climate change protests around the world A man wearing a Bernie Sanders mask leads hundreds of demonstrators who marched near City Hall in Los Angeles, California EPA Climate change protests around the world Patricia Hauser joined hundreds of demonstrators who gathered in front of City Hall in Los Angeles, California Climate change protests around the world A woman holds a poster of a sick Earth as she joined hundreds of demonstrators who gathered in front of City Hall in Los Angeles, California EPA Climate change protests around the world Hundreds of demonstrators march around City Hall in Los Angeles, California EPA Climate change protests around the world A demonstrator holds cut-out of US Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders as she joined hundreds of demonstrators who gathered in front of City Hall in Los Angeles, California EPA Climate change protests around the world George Patten holds a sign that reads 'No Fracking Ever!' as he joined hundreds of demonstrators who gathered in front of City Hall in Los Angeles, California EPA Climate change protests around the world Gabrielle Sosa wears 'Rising Sea Levels' sign as she joined hundreds of demonstrators who gathered in front of City Hall in Los Angeles, California EPA

There was no comprehensive picture on how multiple climate extremes will evolve during the 21st century, Forzieri said at a meeting of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna, where he presented the findings.
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A Dutch journalist has been detained for questioning in Turkey after allegedly insulting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Ebru Umar, a columnist for the Dutch Metro newspaper was arrested on Saturday soon after posting a tweet saying police were at her door at around 11pm Turkish time.

She later tweeted that she was being taken to a police station in Kusadasi.

Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesperson Herman van Gelderen confirmed that Ms Umar has been detained, and said: We are aware of it. We are in contact and were following the case very closely.

Recommended Read more President Erdogan threatens to sue anyone who insults him

Insulting the Turkish state, government, military or police can be punishable by six months to two years of imprisonment under Turkish law.

Ms Umar, who was born in the Netherlands to Turkish parents, has made several comments about President Erdogan on Twitter, which are believed to be the reason for her arrest.

Turkish authorities have launched 2,000 lawsuits against people accused of insulting President Erdogan, including on social media, since he came into office in 2014.

Ms Umar has previously mocked Turkish restrictions to freedom of speech.

Last week, Ms Umar wrote a column for the Metro criticising an appeal send by Turkeys consulate which urged Turks in the Netherlands to report any cases of people insulting Turkey or its government.

She compared the request to NSB practices, in reference to the Dutch National Socialist Movement, a fascist party modelled on the program of the German Nazi Party.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Twitter today that he had been in contact with Ms Umar, and the Metro reported that she was treated well by police and expects to be arraigned today.

Ms Umar was arrested while German Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU officials were in Turkey looking to bolster a deal that could stem the flow of migrants to Europe by deterring them from crossing the border from Turkey to Greece.

Ms Merkel has been under fire for her decision earlier this month to approve Turkey's request to seek prosecution of a German comedian who read out an offensive poem about President Erdogan.

EU leaders have been criticised for not speaking out against Turkey's restrictions on freedom of expression due to the country's role in limiting the number of refugees entering Europe.
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European Council president Donald Tusk has praised Turkey for the way it has dealt with Syrian refugees, saying the country is "the best example" in the world.

Mr Tusk, the former Polish prime minister, made the comments after travelling with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to a refugee camp at Gaziantep near the Syrian border, which hosts 4,800 refugees, on Saturday.

He said at a press conference: [Turkey is the] best example for the whole world how we should treat refugees. No one has a right to lecture Turkey what to do.

Mr Tusk added: "This is not only a political and formal assessment... this is also my very private and personal feeling.

Turkey is home to over 2.5 million Syrian refugees, but its refugee camps can only house around 200,000. It is alleged that Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government is illegally deporting thousands of refugees back to Syria without hearing their applications for asylum.

John Dalhuisen, Amnesty Internationals director for Europe and Central Asia, voiced concerns about refugees living conditions in Turkey.

Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Show all 11 1 /11 Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Turkey's two million Syrian refugees There are already over 2.5 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, but their current camps can only hold 200,000 people ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Turkish citizens protest a new deal, also criticised by human rights activists, which will see refugees who arrived in Greece after March 20 be sent back to Turkey AP Photo/Emre Tazegu Turkey's two million Syrian refugees An estimated 80% of Syrian refugee children already in Turkey are unable to attend school BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Refugee children beg for water near the Turkey-Syria border. Turkey has been accused of illegally deporting asylum-seekers back to Syria BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees In Turkey, no-one from outside Europe is legally recognised as a refugee, meaning the 2016 deportations may not meet international legal standards for protecting vulnerable people BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees A refugee child cries as she is searched by police at the Syria-Turkey border, where 16 refugees (including three children) have been shot dead in the last four months BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Many refugees are living rough on the streets of cities such as Istanbul or Ankara (pictured) ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Turkish soldiers use water cannon on Syrian refugees BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Syrian refugees shelter from rain in the streets of Istanbul BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees A derelict building housing Syrian refugees in Istanbul Carl Court/Getty Images Turkey's two million Syrian refugees Turkey houses around half of all the refugees who have currently fled Syria Carl Court/Getty Images

Mr Dalhuisen told The Independent this week: Turkey is not a safe country for Syrian refugees and is getting less safe by the day.

Far from pressuring Turkey to improve the protection it offers Syrian refugees, the EU is in fact incentivising the opposite.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed that at least 16 people seeking sanctuary in Turkey had been shot dead up to the end of March, including three children.

Its in all areas. It happens to people coming from Idlib, Aleppo, Isis areas, Kurdish areas, a spokesperson told The Independent.

Despite these concerns, Turkey has been declared a safe country by the EU. In return for taking back refugees, the Erdogan government will receive 4.6bn in aid from the European Union, and its citizens will win the right to free movement through the Schengen area.
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Tens of thousands of protesters have demonstrated against the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal ahead of Barack Obamas visit to hold talks over the controversial proposal.

Trade unions, consumer protection groups and environmentalists said they drew a crowd of 90,000 people to demonstrate on the streets of Hannover on Saturday, although local police claim it was closer to 30,000.

Protesters carried placards with slogans such as "Yes We Can - Stop TTIP!". One Greenpeace activist hung himself from a crane to show a poster reading "Yes, we can stop TTIP!" above the crowds.

 Germany: Huge protest against EU-US trade deal on eve of Obama visit

The protests highlighted the antipathy towards the proposed free trade agreement between the US and EU, which opponents say would allow corporations to cut labour and erode environmental standards.

There is also anger over a supposed lack of transparency over the deal, with a recent YouGov survey revealing that almost half of Germans and Americans (48 per cent and 46 per cent respectively) claim they do not feel sufficiently informed.

Obama's trip was largely intended to boost waning efforts to see the TTIP finalised before the end of this year.

In a video statement on Saturday, Merkel insisted TTIP would not override citizens' rights or interests, describing it as a win-win situation" that, due to the huge scale of a market involving the US and Europe, "could set global standards".

But support for the deal among Germans has dropped from 55 per cent two years ago to just 17 per cent in 2016, according to the YouGov survey carried out for the Bertelsmann Foundation.

Support in the US has fallen from 53 per cent in 2014 to 18 per cent.

In Britain, more than 150,000 people have signed a petition by campaign group 38 Degrees urging Mr Obama to quit negotiating the deal with David Cameron.

The letter addressed to Mr Obama on the 38 Degrees website states: "British people believe that no trade deal should give corporations more power than people. There are better ways of working together. Please stop negotiations of the TTIP trade deal".

Mr Cameron publicly announced support for the deal on Friday following talks with Mr Obama, insisting TTIP would add billions to our economies and set the standards for the rest of the world to follow.

But scepticism in the face of those arguments is growing in Germany, with Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel recently admitting: It is possible that TTIP will fail.

Mr Obama's meeting with Angela Merkel marks his last stop on a six-day trip to Europe. As well as discussing the trade deal, the leaders will be discussing the Islamic State and the offset of Russian aggression in Ukraine and Syria.
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Thirty years after the Chernobyl disaster, naturalists have observed that the absence of a human population has led to thriving wildlife in Chernobyl.

The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant explosion on 26 April 1986 spewed large quantities of radioactive particles into the air, making the area unfit for human habitation.

But, seemingly with no humans to interfere, Chernobyl has since become the ideal habitat for flourishing wildlife.

Recommended Read more Haunting pictures show desolation of Chernobyl 30 years on

Wolves, bears and horses are among the large animals that have made the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone their home.

There is no conclusive data on the health of the animals that live in Chernobyl  it is unclear how the animals are affected by cancers, birth defects or other radiation-related conditions.

Despite that, the latest research suggests the presence of humans is more harmful to animal populations than the remnants of thousands of tonness of radiation.

You could say the overall affect was positive, Professor Nick Beresford, an expert at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Lancaster, told the Telegraph. Radiation is a matter of increased potential risk. But when humans are around, animals are simply shot or lose their habitat.

Chernobyl: Photography from inside 'the zone' Show all 4 1 /4 Chernobyl: Photography from inside 'the zone' Chernobyl: Photography from inside 'the zone' Sergei Gaschaks photography captured a wolf, a lynx and a white-tailed eagle in the region around the nuclear plant Chernobyl: Photography from inside 'the zone' Sergei Gaschaks photography captured a wolf, a lynx and a white-tailed eagle in the region around the nuclear plant Chernobyl: Photography from inside 'the zone' Sergei Gaschaks photography captured a wolf, a lynx and a white-tailed eagle in the region around the nuclear plant Chernobyl: Photography from inside 'the zone' The Barbastelle bat was the first of this species found in the region in more than 50 years

A handful of humans have returned to the area to live after being evacuated.

Maria Lozbin tends to her animals, including chckens and geese, and says she's glad tshe has returned to the area: "There is no radiation here. I'm not afraid of anything," she told Reuters news agency. "And when it's time for me to die, it won't happen because of radiation."

Though authorities have recommended the so-called "returnees" leave, the recommendation is generally ignored according to Leonid Bogdan, head of the EU laboratory which monitors the area.

The food produce that eat is not allowed out of the zone, though tests on some produce have shown it to be radiation free.

Mr Bogdan explained: I can tell you how radioactive about three square metres of land are. But anything larger than that and youre going to see variations within it. Thats why we dont let food out of the zone. It might be clean one day and contaminated the next.
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Twenty-eight secret pages of a report locked away in a room in the Capitol in Washington lie in the centre of a crisis between America and Saudi Arabia which threatens to have severe and widespread repercussions.

The US Congress is considering legislation which would enable the families of victims of the September 11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia, presented by the West as its most valuable ally in the Middle East, over alleged links with al-Qaeda terrorists who carried out the attacks on New York and Washington.

The issue had cast a long shadow over the recent visit of President Barack Obama to Riyadh, with the Saudis threatening to sell off $750bn of American assets they hold if the bill is passed by Congress.

The classified pages are in a file titled Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding Certain Sensitive Narrative Matters, which have never been published from the findings of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into the attacks which killed 3,000 people and injured more than 6,000 others.

Former President George W Bush claimed the publication of this part of the report would damage Americas national security by revealing sources and methods that would make it harder for us to win the War on Terror.

 Inside the White House on 9/11

But there is growing clamour for declassification of the pages along with allegations about attempts by the Saudis to keep their alleged role in the attacks hidden. The latest public figure to demand disclosure was Rudi Giuliani, the mayor of New York at the time of the attacks.

A Saudi prince, claimed Mr Giuliani, had given him a cheque for $10m (7m) in an effort to persuade him to deflect attention away from the Kingdom. The former mayor said he returned the cheque after tearing it up. He declared: His money he can keep and go burn it in hell. The American people need to know exactly what was the role of the Saudi Arabia government in the attacks: we are entitled to know who killed our loved ones and who almost killed us all.

It was reported on Sunday that White House House officials have said privately that at least some of the 28 pages will be made public.

10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Show all 10 1 /10 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In October 2014, three lawyers, Dr Abdulrahman al-Subaihi, Bander al-Nogaithan and Abdulrahman al-Rumaih , were sentenced to up to eight years in prison for using Twitter to criticize the Ministry of Justice. AFP/Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In March 2015, Yemens Sunni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi was forced into exile after a Shia-led insurgency. A Saudi Arabia-led coalition has responded with air strikes in order to reinstate Mr Hadi. It has since been accused of committing war crimes in the country. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Women who supported the Women2Drive campaign, launched in 2011 to challenge the ban on women driving vehicles, faced harassment and intimidation by the authorities. The government warned that women drivers would face arrest. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Members of the Kingdoms Shia minority, most of whom live in the oil-rich Eastern Province, continue to face discrimination that limits their access to government services and employment. Activists have received death sentences or long prison terms for their alleged participation in protests in 2011 and 2012. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses All public gatherings are prohibited under an order issued by the Interior Ministry in 2011. Those defy the ban face arrest, prosecution and imprisonment on charges such as inciting people against the authorities. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In March 2014, the Interior Ministry stated that authorities had deported over 370,000 foreign migrants and that 18,000 others were in detention. Thousands of workers were returned to Somalia and other states where they were at risk of human rights abuses, with large numbers also returned to Yemen, in order to open more jobs to Saudi Arabians. Many migrants reported that prior to their deportation they had been packed into overcrowded makeshift detention facilities where they received little food and water and were abused by guards. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses The Saudi Arabian authorities continue to deny access to independent human rights organisations like Amnesty International, and they have been known to take punitive action, including through the courts, against activists and family members of victims who contact Amnesty. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Raif Badawi was sentenced to 1000 lashes and 10 years in prison for using his liberal blog to criticise Saudi Arabias clerics. He has already received 50 lashes, which have reportedly left him in poor health. Carsten Koall/Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Dawood al-Marhoon was arrested aged 17 for participating in an anti-government protest. After refusing to spy on his fellow protestors, he was tortured and forced to sign a blank document that would later contain his confession. At Dawoods trial, the prosecution requested death by crucifixion while refusing him a lawyer. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Ali Mohammed al-Nimr was arrested in 2012 aged either 16 or 17 for participating in protests during the Arab spring. His sentence includes beheading and crucifixion. The international community has spoken out against the punishment and has called on Saudi Arabia to stop. He is the nephew of a prominent government dissident. Getty

And former Democratic Senator Bob Graham, the former head of the Senate intelligence committee, reiterated his belief that Saudi Arabia was involved in the attacks at the highest level. He said "The most important unanswered question of 9/11 is: did these 19 people conduct this very sophisticated plot alone, or were they supported? So who was the most likely entity to have provided them that support? I think all the evidence points to Saudi Arabia. I think it covers a broad range, from the highest ranks of the Kingdom through these, what would be private entities.

Two Congressmen, both of whom have seen the secret document, are behind the bipartisan motion for declassification. Stephen Lynch, a Massachusetts Democrat, held that the report offers evidence of links between certain Saudi individuals and the terrorists behind the 2001 attacks. Walter Jones, a Republican, said it also sheds light on why President Bush was so opposed to publication : Its about the Bush administration and its relationship with the Saudis.

The allegations of Saudi involvement in the attacks come against a backdrop of the ultra-conservative Kingdoms funding violent Islamist groups, often with the encouragement and support of the West. This continues now with accusations that the Saudis have supplied money and arms to the most extreme of the rebels fighting the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

The current round of exporting hardline, obscurantist Sunni doctrine from Saudi Arabia is traced back to 1992 when the countrys senior Wahaabi clerics issued a Memorandum of Advice to the royal family effectively threatening a putsch unless they were allowed to play a central role of the policies of the Kingdom both home and abroad.

The royal family felt unable to resist the demands and a key move in facilitating this was the creation of the Wahaabi dominated Ministry of Islamic Affairs, with representatives in Saudi embassies and consulates. The alleged links of the Ministrys officials to the September 11 plotters is a key claim in the projected lawsuit.

Mr Giulianis charge of attempted bribery against the Saudi prince came a day after it was revealed that the flight certificate of an al-Qaeda bombmaker named Ghassan Al-Sharbi, who had taken flying lessons for the September 11 mission, was found in an envelope stashed away at the Saudi embassy in Washington.

The certificate, along with other documents was found at the embassy during investigations after he was captured in 2002 in Pakistan, which has become a conduit for Wahaabi-funded terrorism.

The report reportedly offers evidence of links between 'certain Saudi individuals' and the terrorists behind the 2001 attacks (GETTY)

Al-Sharbi, who had not taken part in the September 11 attacks, has been held since at Guantanamo Bay. An official memo about the licence, called Document 17, written in 2003, was quietly declassified last year but did not come to public awareness until an activist, Brian McGlinchey, discovered and published it in his blog last week.

There was also a connection, it has emerged, between the Kingdoms legations in America to two Saudis, Nawaf al-Hamzi and Khalid al-Mindhar, who had arrived in the US in 2000 as the part of the first wave of September 11 hijackers.

The two men were set up in an apartment in San Diego by Omar al-Bayoumi, a fellow Saudi, who also helped them with social security paperwork and information about flying courses. There were reports that he also introduced them to an imam, Anwar al-Awlaki, who later became known as the Bin Laden of the internet and was killed in an American drone strike in Yemen.

Al-Bayoumi received Saudi government funding for his stay in the US through a Saudi aviation services company called Dallah Alco. He was listed in FBI files before the September 11 attacks as a Saudi agent (something the authorities in the Kingdom deny) and was a frequent visitor to the Kingdoms Washington embassy and consulate in Los Angeles.

Al-Bayoumi acknowledged to US investigators that he had an hour-long meeting with Fahad al-Thumairy, an official of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, who he described as his spiritual mentor at the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles, the same day that he had met al-Hamzi and al-Mindhar. Two years later al-Thumairy was stripped of his diplomatic immunity and deported from the US because of suspected terrorist links.

Osama Basnan, another Saudi living in San Diego at the time, also spent time with the hijackers, al-Hamzi and al-Mihdhar. Basnan received around $75,000 from Princess Haifa bin Sultan, the wife of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the US. The money was said to be for medical treatment for Basnans wife. Some of it went to Al-Bayoumi. Basnan was arrested for visa fraud in August 2002 and deported two months later to Saudi Arabia.

A tower collapses during the 9/11 attacks (EPA)

The lawsuit being brought over alleged Saudi culpability claims that some of Princess Haifas money was used in the upkeep of the two hijackers in San Diego. The FBI maintains it has no evidence of this and the 9/11 Commission stated it had found no link between the attacks and the royal family.

Al-Bayoumi moved to the UK in July 2001 and began a PhD course in business management at Aston University in Birmingham. He was arrested ten days after the September 11 attacks by British police at the request of the FBI. However, the US authorities subsequently said they had found no link between him and terrorism. He was released, continued his studies at Aston and later moved back to Saudi Arabia. Under Congressional pressure the FBI later reopened the case, but stood by its previous decision.

In 2012 Prince Bandar was in the news over issues of terrorism. The Prince, by then the head of his countrys intelligence service, had been tasked by the Saudi King to organise the Syrian rebels. Bandar, at a meeting in Moscow, allegedly threatened Vladimir Putin that Chechen Islamists could be activated to carry out attacks on the upcoming Sochi Olympics unless the Russian president stopped his support for Assad.

Bandar was rebuffed by a furious Putin who threatened retaliation. Details of the meeting were leaked by the Kremlin, and the Prince was relieved of his Syrian responsibilities soon afterwards by the King.

The bank used by Prince Bandars wife to send her money was to became mired in controversy and fined for breaching money laundering regulations. It was found to have links with the CIA, with some of its officials having security clearance. The FBI discovered that a number of prominent Saudis holding accounts there with Prince Bandar a regular user.

Jonathan Bush, an uncle of George W Bush, was a senior executive af Riggs Bank. He helped bring in investors for George W Bushs first oil venture, Arbusto. He was a major contributor and fundraiser to his nephews presidential campaign in 2000 and was named a Bush Pioneer for raising more than $100,000.

Jonathan Bush had been fined $30,000 in Massacheussets and a smaller sum in Connecticut in 1991 for violating registration laws on security sales in 1991. He was banned from security brokerage with the public for a year.

In May 2004 Riggs Bank was fined $25m by US authorities for violation of money laundering laws, it also agreed to pay $9m to victims of the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for illegally concealing and moving his funds out of the UK. In February 2005 PNC Financial Services acquired Riggs Bank and phased out the controversial embassy business.
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The newly-elected National Union of Students president, Malia Bouattia, has said media reports describing her as an anti-semitic Isis sympathiser are simply not true.

Ms Bouattia, 28, became the first black woman and first Muslim to be elected head of the NUS last week, beating the incumbent president, Megan Dunn, with 372 votes to 328.

But her victory has caused controversy, with some individual student unions, including Cambridge University Students Union (CUSU), considering disaffiliation from the NUS in response.

In a piece for Guardian on Sunday, Bouattia said anti-Semitic prejudice is despicable and revealed she has received rape and death threats since her election as NUS black students officer two years ago, forcing her to involve the police for her parents protection.

Ms Bouattia wrote: Instead of celebrating and publicising this incredible landmark [my election], the media coverage has been cluttered with stories calling me a racist, an anti-semite, an Islamic State sympathiser and more.

The truth is, as those who know me well understand, Ive always been a strong campaigner against racism and fascism in all its forms.

Some may not agree with my politics and ideologies, but I do believe the student movement has a shared goal: to liberate education, creating and supporting access and opportunity for all. This is what I intend to focus on.

The top 10 universities in the UK Show all 10 1 /10 The top 10 universities in the UK The top 10 universities in the UK 1. University of Oxford The top 10 universities in the UK 2. University of Cambridge The top 10 universities in the UK 3. Imperial College London The top 10 universities in the UK 4. University College London The top 10 universities in the UK 5. London School of Economics and Political Science The top 10 universities in the UK 6. University of Edinburgh The top 10 universities in the UK 7. Kings College London The top 10 universities in the UK 8. University of Manchester The top 10 universities in the UK 9. University of Bristol The top 10 universities in the UK 10. Durham University

The main controversy surrounded Bouattias campaign was over past comments describing the University of Birmingham  with its large Jewish community  as something of a Zionist outpost and separate claims about Zionist-led media outlets.

More than 300 heads of student Jewish societies and protesters previously issued Ms Bouattia with an open letter, asking her why she referred to the University of Birmingham as something of a Zionist outpost in British higher education in a 2011 article.

The Cambridge students said they have also taken issue with the fact that, at an event in 2014, Ms Bouattia - as NUSs black students officer - claimed a Zionist-led media oppresses the global south, adding that she gave support to resistance, an alleged reference to the violent form.

In the article, Ms Bouattia says there is a difference between Zionism, religion and ethnicity and made clear her condemnation of Isis.

She wrote: There is no place for antisemitism in the student movement, or in society. If any of my previous discourse has been interpreted otherwise, such as comments I once made about Zionism within the media, I will revise it to ensure there is no room for confusion.

I was not talking about the media as a whole, or repeating despicable antisemitic prejudice."

Yet newspaper reports this week still depict me as a young Muslim who supports Isis. This is simply not true.
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Thousands of passengers who have paid in full for summer trips to Turkey are being told "Your flight is cancelled - but are not always being properly advised about their options.

Demand for holidays in Turkey has slumped because of fears of terrorist attacks on tourist resorts and the largest city, Istanbul. As a result, airlines are cutting back on flights to Bodrum, Dalaman and Antalya so they can switch aircraft to more lucrative destinations, especially in Spain.

Thomas Cook Airlines has cut about one-third of its planned capacity to Turkey. Last November, Lisa Winter from Northfleet in Kent booked a return flight with the airline from Gatwick to Bodrum for her family in August. The outbound flight is still going ahead, but the return leg has been cancelled - with the family invited to give up the last two days of their holiday in order to come back on an earlier Thomas Cook flight.

Ms Winter told The Independent: To book any alternative flights is going to increase my cost by 310, as flights this many months later have increased in price. What recourse do we have?

Any airline is at liberty to cancel flights without compensation, so long as they give at least two weeks notice. They are obliged to offer a full refund, or switch passengers to alternative departures.

Some carriers have insisted that these new flights must be on their own services. But the law for any EU airline entitles passengers whose flights are cancelled to re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at the earliest opportunity. They must offer passengers the most appropriate alternative flight even if that means buying a seat with a rival carrier.

 Turkey-Syria border town faces increasing ISIL rocket attacks

The Independent told Ms Winter of her rights, and advised her to contact Thomas Cook Airlines so that they could arrange seats on an alternative easyJet flight on the original date. She kept detailed notes of the conversation with the company.

I stated that there was an alternative easyJet flight which was a closer replacement than the one I had been moved to, and said they should book me on it at their expense.

"I was put on hold, then told they cannot book flights with other airlines.

Ms Winter was offered a full refund and told that she could book the easyJet flights herself - which would have cost her over 300.

I restated their obligation and asked her to speak to a supervisor."

After consulting colleagues, the Thomas Cook representative said Ms Winter had been been misinformed about the airline's obligations. "She said that, within their terms and conditions, they can only re-book an alternative Thomas Cook flight.

When The Independent contacted Thomas Cook Airlines, a spokesperson said: Were extremely sorry for the frustration caused to Ms Winter and we will be making contact to rectify the situation.

Weve used this case to improve how we handle similar requests in future, so that our customers can still go on their well-deserved holidays.


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The Health Secretary Jeremy Hunts months-long war of nerves with the medical profession over new NHS contracts is about to reach its climax this week, as junior doctors prepare for a 48-hour walkout on Tuesday  their first strike to include emergency care.

Without thousands of operations facing long delays and a possible meltdown in A&E departments all over Britain, this is a pistols-at-drawn scenario in which one side or the other has to blink. Unfortunately for Mr Hunt, there is no sign that the doctors will blink first.

It would be humiliating for him  and for the Government, which has so far backed him to the hilt  to grasp the lifeline being thrown his way by a cross-party group of MPs, who have called for the contracts to be trialled before being rolled out nationally. The fact that Mr Hunt's opposite number, Labour's Heidi Alexander, has organised this letter no doubt also raises questions in the Health Secretarys mind about the sincerity of this offer of help.

Even so, the Government blundered in rushing to dismiss the letter as an act of political opportunism. Mr Hunt would be making an even worse error if he clung to his current course, hoping that, if push comes to shove and A&E departments collapse in chaos, public opinion will  finally  turn against the junior doctors.

Even if the shine does come off the doctors public image, the collateral damage of this weeks strike in terms of delayed operations, and possibly lost lives, is a price that no government should consider worth paying. Mr Hunt may believe the offer contained in the MPs letter is more of a nettle than an olive branch, but he should grasp it all the same.
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When I was seven, I travelled to Bangladesh. My father said it would be the first time I would experience his nation and his heritage. It was also the first time I experienced something else: witnessing a girl aged just 17 being forced to marry.

Forced marriage is a horrid custom, entirely different to arranged marriage, which relies on relatives introducing you to potential partners  a sort of vetted version of Tinder where you have the control to say yes or no. But for the young lady in Bangladesh, there was no control.

When the grooms grainy black and white photo was circulated, I watched entranced as women and girls cackled. They jibed about his short, frail body and his thick glasses. I watched as the brides tears fell, silent screams of anger.

She would lambast anyone who mentioned the grooms name. She told me she would never marry him, and I nodded. Sadly, she had no choice.

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On the morning of her nuptials, she fainted. Water splashed on her as she was dragged to be showered. As her hair matted against her sweaty skin, she screamed: I am an orphan without a father. That is why I am to be married to an ugly man."

Even I knew she was right. With no independent economic wealth, her only solution  in a poor nation with no child benefit or NHS  was a husband who could provide for her.

I recall suggesting that if the groom was weak-minded, maybe she could dominate and control him? The tears returned: You have no idea how lucky you are, with your British status and father; you wont ever suffer like me. Her words have stayed with me forever.

Though here in the UK I have suffered the horrors of a misogynistic tribal community that devalues women, I have never faced a forced marriage. But it does happen, and to learn that only a fraction of investigations into forced marriage in the UK result in a prosecution angers me. As a society, we can do better  yet we do not.

It emerged last week that a schoolboy aged just eight is among those known by the authorities to be at risk of forced marriage. Yet in West Yorkshire, only five of 51 forced marriage cases investigated since June 2014 led to a charge. The same trend is evidence in the West Midlands, where 19 of 31 investigations did not led to a charge, eight because the victims did not want to see the investigation progressed further.

Forced marriage is just one of many strands of honour abuse which adult women and men, often born and bred in the UK, are still guilty of enforcing. Misogyny and patriarchy still power many families. Unmarried young men and women in UK will remain chattel, to be traded for economic advantage to poor relatives abroad who seek British passports or for social or business progress UK. It is child abuse; gender abuse; a violation of human rights.

There is also little support for victims after they report their experience to police. Reporting honour abuse can be lonely and isolating as hell. Charity support is an inefficient postcode lottery.

Low conviction rates are the result of timidity: police, local and national government fear accusations of racism or of interfering in cultures. The answer to tackling forced marriage lies in forcefully entering ghettoised, backward communities  but with the help of progressive local community faith leaders.

Origins of forced marriage cases Show all 1 1 /1 Origins of forced marriage cases Origins of forced marriage cases Origins of forced marriage cases (Maximise window for full graphic)

They do exist. I know, as I met many volunteers within my own Muslim community last Sunday. We had gathered to discuss how we bring about change.

Religious infrastructures across the Hindu, Muslim and Sikh communities are poised to empower and educate, but they are not being supported by national government to do this. Rarely do faith leaders, powerful mentors or role models get the funding and support to reform their own communities.

The key lies in reporting abuse, and educating and supporting the fathers, uncles, mothers and aunts who make these abhorrent decisions. Once they are reformed, they can be sent in to communities to expel misogyny and promote individual empowerment from inside the religious community. The police and government need to help them to do that, not shy away from the problem for fear of cultural offence.
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Who could have predicted this time last year that the junior doctors' strike would be spearheading the anti-austerity movement? Or that the Tories would be in crisis, less than a year on from an apparently triumphant election victory? When I wrote my book, How to Dismantle the NHS in 10 Easy Steps, I never anticipated that tens of thousands of junior doctors would be mobilising to defend the NHS.

We are now seeing a decisive escalation of industrial action with a looming full-out strike. However, the BMA leadership has made it clear that it does not want to talk about the bigger picture of privatisation. Campaign groups, such as NHS Survival, talk of the de-politicisation of the NHS. This is an absurd position when you are taking on the government; no issue could be more political.

Limiting the debate to the small print of a contract ignores that this is just the latest part of a massive 30-year project of NHS privatisation. Ultimately, it will prove fatal  and the dispute will end with a compromise, or complete failure.

In fact, the junior doctor contract can only be understood in the context of privatisation. The contract is really about the restructuring of the workforce to bring down the wage bill. It is designed to increase profit margins paving the way for privatisation. If the contract is implemented, then similar contracts will follow for all NHS staff. The attack on pay and conditions is also about breaking the allegiance of NHS staff to the concept of a public, universal healthcare system. And that is why doctors are prepared to leave the NHS in droves if it is imposed upon them.

Public opinion is firmly behind the doctors. However, the doctors movement must now generalise into a national movement to save the NHS from privatisation. The government will exploit any opportunity to shift public opinion, so the BMA would do well to learn from its motto: its everyone's fight.

Over the past few months, I've seen the NHS from both sides  as a doctor, and as a patient. I've been receiving intensive treatment for a serious illness, on occasion coinciding with strike days. Knowing that industrial action is about saving our NHS means that I have been wholeheartedly behind my colleagues.

In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Show all 10 1 /10 In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK 20,000 Junior Doctors marched through central London in protest at the new contract changes the government is trying to impose which they say will be unfair and unsafe In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Junior doctors protest in London In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK 4 year old Cassius takes part in a demonstration in Westminster, in support of junior doctors over changes to NHS contracts, London In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Protest over proposed changes to junior doctors' contracts, Leeds In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Junior doctors and NHS staff protesting against the health service cuts and the proposed contract changes offered by the government outside Parliament In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Junior doctors and NHS staff protesting against the health service cuts and the proposed contract changes offered by the government outside Parliament In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Over 5000 junior doctors rallied in Waterloo place, before marching through Whitehall and onto Parliament Square, in opposition to Jeremy Hunt's new working conditions for doctors In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Demonstrators listen to speeches in Waterloo Place during the 'Let's Save the NHS' rally and protest march by junior doctors In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Junior doctors marched in London to highlight their plight In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK A protester at a demonstration in support of junior doctors in London

We are up against an establishment intent on opening up an 100bn-plus oyster for profit. We are in for a fight against powerful forces. We need to change the terms of the debate at this critical moment. Only the bigger picture of privatisation will mobilise public opinion.

We need to use simple messages to explain what privatisation means when services remain free at the point of delivery  the selling off of the NHS to corporations to profit from illness and the expansion of private health insurance.

 Jeremy Hunt imposes Junior Doctors contract

However, we cannot rely on any one organisation to save our NHS. Jeremy Corbyns leadership of the Labour party presents a window of opportunity, but he is facing a Blairite parliamentary Labour party still in love with market ideology. Only a mass public movement could pressure Labour to change its official line on the NHS.

The movement needs an NHS manifesto. As a minimum, this should demand fair contracts with decent pay and conditions that value all NHS staff, reinstating the student nursing bursary, reversing privatisation, repealing the Health & Social Care Act and restoring the NHS so it is publicly owned, run and funded.

A movement would need to link up NHS staff with other public sector workers, too. We are already seeing solidarity with the student nursing campaign to reinstate the bursary, Bursary or Bust, and with teachers who are appalled at plans to turn all schools into academies.

This is a good start; it is a launch pad for a mass movement to save the NHS, and to put an end to austerity for good.

Youssef El Gingihy is a GP and author. How to Dismantle the NHS in 10 Easy Steps is published by Zero books
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I must say, its a tremendous stroke of luck that elsewhere in the NHS things are running so smoothly, or a report about the future of the GP system might cause concern about systemic failure spreading virally through the service.

No doubt feeling liberated to speak on other matters by the tranquil relations between government and junior doctors, NHS England seizes the moment to contemplate how to improve general practice.

The aim outlined in its new report is to put general practice back on its feet  and who (other perhaps than private physicians in Knightsbridge who charge 200 for a consultation) would pick a fight with that noble ambition?

In many parts of the country, after all, you wait so long for a GP appointment that, by the time the day dawns, the complaint will either have vanished or killed you.

With my west London practice, its a bare minimum of a fortnight before the chance to see a stress-laden doctor who uses the wall clock as a makeshift stopwatch, having seven minutes to get you out of the consulting room and the next patient in.

This is why so many young GPs are willing to sacrifice anything that might vaguely be described as civilisation by going to work in Australia; why urban practices find it incredibly hard to recruit replacements for them and those retiring early; and why hospital resources are being drained by people who, unwilling to wait for their appointment, pitch up at A&E instead.

And so to NHS Englands meisterwerk  a five-year plan (what else) to find an additional 2.4bn annually for GPs. Since every hapenny of that is to be shaved from the existing NHS budget, this means either: a) that it wont be found at all, or b) that it will be found by robbing hospital consultant Dr Peter to pay GP Dr Paul, in which case Dr Peters patients will suffer.

But sod them, and back to the salvation of general practice. The theme of this report seems to be this: the way to reduce the workload on GPs is not by dramatically increasing their numbers to the kind of levels they have in France, Germany, the Netherlands and other first world countries; but by drastically reducing the number of patients.

To that noble end, NHS England wishes not merely to devolve as many of a GPs duties as possible to pharmacists and nurses, it will also encourage patients to self-manage their health by recourse to the internet.

Well isnt that the most spiffing idea anyone ever had?

And yet for all its splendour, writing as one of the countrys leading hypochondriacs, I hear alarm bells in my head.

I suppose it could be a recurrence of the tinnitus to which Ive been a martyr for so long. But in my expert opinion  and well need to be medical experts in this brave new self-treating world  what Im hearing is indeed a siren.

The problem inherent in this is one familiar both to hypochondriacs and doctors. If it isnt plain to you, make an appointment with your GP and tell that doctor that you have been using the internet as a diagnostic device. Say that, and watch the world-weary despair seep across the face opposite.

On the internet, after all, every symptom  wherever in the body, however common or rare  is a symptom of something terrible. If you have a twitch in the leg, the internet will inform you that, while it may be a trapped nerve or muscle fatigue, it might also be motor neurone disease.

The NHS at 60: has the dream been matched by reality? Show all 19 1 /19 The NHS at 60: has the dream been matched by reality? The NHS at 60: has the dream been matched by reality? 36454.bin Nick Wilkinson/Newsteam.co.uk The NHS at 60: has the dream been matched by reality? 36456.bin Nick Wilkinson/Newsteam.co.uk The NHS at 60: has the dream been matched by reality? 36455.bin Nick Wilkinson/Newsteam.co.uk The NHS at 60: has the dream been matched by reality? 36457.bin Nick Wilkinson/Newsteam.co.uk The NHS at 60: has the dream been matched by reality? 36458.bin Nick Wilkinson/Newsteam.co.uk The NHS at 60: has the dream been matched by reality? 36459.bin Nick Wilkinson/Newsteam.co.uk The NHS at 60: has the dream been matched by reality? 36460.bin Nick Wilkinson/Newsteam.co.uk The NHS at 60: has the dream been matched by reality? 36461.bin Nick Wilkinson/Newsteam.co.uk The NHS at 60: has the dream been matched by reality? 36462.bin Nick Wilkinson/Newsteam.co.uk The NHS at 60: has the dream been matched by reality? 36464.bin Nick Wilkinson/Newsteam.co.uk The NHS at 60: has the dream been matched by reality? 36463.bin Nick Wilkinson/Newsteam.co.uk The NHS at 60: has the dream been matched by reality? 36466.bin Nick Wilkinson/Newsteam.co.uk The NHS at 60: has the dream been matched by reality? 36467.bin Nick Wilkinson/Newsteam.co.uk The NHS at 60: has the dream been matched by reality? 36468.bin Nick Wilkinson/Newsteam.co.uk The NHS at 60: has the dream been matched by reality? 36469.bin Nick Wilkinson/Newsteam.co.uk The NHS at 60: has the dream been matched by reality? 36470.bin Nick Wilkinson/Newsteam.co.uk The NHS at 60: has the dream been matched by reality? 36472.bin Nick Wilkinson/Newsteam.co.uk The NHS at 60: has the dream been matched by reality? 36473.bin Nick Wilkinson/Newsteam.co.uk The NHS at 60: has the dream been matched by reality? 36474.bin Nick Wilkinson/Newsteam.co.uk

A nose bleed could be explained by the bursting of a blood vessel when you blew your nose  or by what we self-appointed doctors call a hypertensive crisis (dangerously high blood pressure, to you lay folk). The mid-afternoon fatigue that has you dozing at your desk might well be a natural part of middle age. Then again, it could be an underactive thyroid, an after-effect of sleep apnea, leukaemia, or any of 61,000 other disorders.

The internet, bless its heart, is the GPs second worst enemy after this government. Advising the untrained to use it to self-manage their health is a notion of surreal lunacy. As more people visit online medical sites, there will be a corresponding increase in the numbers listening to Vivaldi for 11 minutes before the receptionist tells them the first available appointment with a human doctor is in June 2019.

There is one way, and only one, to get general practice off its knees and keep it upright. That is sufficiently large, sustained investment in training new doctors so that there are enough to treat a growing, ageing population  and not so few that they retire at 43, or self-medicate with opiates, because of the pulverising stress.

Anything other than that is gibberish designed to deflect the attention from dangerously-low levels of funding. This is a diagnosis which any urban GP will, without recourse to the internet, be pleased to confirm.
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Many of your correspondents, as well as those writing in other newspapers, miss the point regarding the European Union and the Unites States of America. They US has one official language, English (albeit an American version), a unified legal system based on habeas corpus with individual states making much like the counties in this country which can instigate by-laws. It has an Anglo-Saxon culture that recognises the many different cultures of minorities, a nationally elected government, and a single currency that has been in place for centuries.

It bears no comparison with the multi-cultural and multi-lingual states in the EU, which is ruled by an unelected elite which has no allegiance to any of the 28 member countries and will only act in the interests of promulgating the European Project of a United States of Europe ruled from Brussels and Strasbourg. The EU is anti-democratic, corrupt, fraud-ridden and still has not had its accounts signed off for 21 years.

Like many Americans, President Obama does not understand Europe  let alone the EU and how it works. He wants the UK to remain in the EU so that America has a voice in the corridors of Berlaymont and can somehow work as brake on the worst excesses of that organisation.

He does not understand that the Britain has very little influence across the English Channel with only 8 or 9 per cent of voting rights across the various EU institutions.

David Samuel-Camps

Eastleigh, Hants

To emphasise his point about it being in the best interest of the UK to remain in the EU, President Obama referred to the special relationship and the loss of life suffered during WW2 when the USA helped to defeat the Nazis.

Yes, it is true that there was much loss of life on all sides. I am old enough to remember the dark days of 1939, when Prime Minister Winston Churchill helped to rally Britain to fight for the freedom of the world against Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. At that time, the USA waited for two years to see where the wind blew before deciding whether to join in  and then did so only after Pearl Harbour, when the Germans had effectively declared war against them.

I have not forgotten lease-lend when, after D Day, we ended up in huge financial debt which the US demanded for their help, and which took so many years for the UK to pay off.

President Obama and Hillary Clinton say that it is in the UKs best interest to stay with the EU. Translation: It is in the USA's best interest that the UK stays within the EU.

Barbara MacArthur

Cardiff

Yesterday Barack Obama said he needed us to remain in the EU to enable him to get through the TTIP deal. The top secret trade agreement, still under negotiation, is something the citizens of the UK and all over Europe are fighting against, so what makes Obama think we would back that or respect his opinion? He should just mind his own business and concentrate on carrying out the pledges he made, such as closing the Guantanamo Bay and protecting whistleblowers, instead of jailing more of them than every other US president combined.

Pete Cresswell

Enniskillen, Northern Ireland

The Government is treating the UK electorate totally unreasonably. What facts can help the average non-political voter to decide whether to vote Stay or Quit, when negotiations over the terms on which the UK might leave the EU have not even commenced, let alone been completed?

It is widely acknowledged that the negotiations could drag on for several years  up to a decade, according to some estimates  and if the EU Reforms recently achieved by the Prime Minister were anything by which to judge, the terms would be totally unsatisfactory to the UK.

If there were a period of uncertainty for several years, the economy, stock markets, and no doubt many other aspects of the business interests of the UK, would surely be shrouded in gloom and despondency. The economic crash in 2008 might well fade into insignificance.

Does this really leave the voter with a realistic choice? The Prime Minister has famously called the Quit vote a leap into the dark. Thats hardly a sensible option. But, having said that, are we really any clearer as to the long-term future of the EU? How long will it be before we are unwillingly part of the United States of Europe, probably with a continuation of the present non-elected governing bodies?

The EU referendum is truly a leap in the dark, whichever way we decide.

Peter Fitch

Woodbridge, Suffolk

US presidential election makes for a grim choice

When choosing a person to be US President, it is natural to pick someone you trust, respect and like. An experienced, competent individual. After all, its a pretty big job.

People vote for their own best interests, and this year that is no different. The top candidates seem to know what we want to hear, and they say it. The poorest and richest like the richest guy who doesn't want more money? No one really likes Hillary Clinton, but, she is a serious candidate. With Donald Trump and Ted Cruz we have a carnival roadshow. With Bible's held high, these candidates are appealing to fear and faith.

Does anyone truly believe these are best we have in America? One of them could lead the free world  Trump, Clinton or Cruz. Have we as a country slipped so far off normal that these are our best choices? Our forefathers are spinning in their respective graves.

Norm Stewart

Florida, USA
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This weekend, President Obama spent time in the UK trying to convince the sceptics that the UK should remain in the European Union. Intercepting the British tabloids, the President extended a benevolent hand (or a demagogic one, depending on how you slice it) to tell us, as your friend. that the EU makes Britain even greater.

The transatlantic special relationship lives on in the memory of British and American soldiers who fought shoulder-to-shoulder, to vanquish the world of fascist dictatorship, Obama told us. But it seems Im not the only one who felt that Obama was sticking his nose in where it certainly does not belong.

It is because we dont like interference in internal affairs by a foreign statesman or government that those on the side of Leave want out of this democracy-circumventing, Orwellian conglomerate in the first place.

Obama, of course, has a right to express his view on the issue  but why couldnt he do that at home?

The Presidents specious appeals to friendship are spurious at best; Obama has made far less effort with the UK than his two predecessors, George w. Bush and Bill Clinton. The 44th leader of the free world has made five visits to the UK during his tenure  the same number of trips as hes made to Mexico, and two of them were to attend international summits, not to focus on bilateral relations between our countries.

The irony of being lectured on such matters by Obama is that it is widely accepted by policy analysts that foreign policy has proved the most feeble area of his presidency. A policy of ambivalence punctuated by inaction, which has almost certainly emboldened Americas proclaimed enemies in the world? Thats called leading from behind.

In Jeffrey Goldbergs brilliant essay on Obamas foreign policy, the President talks unashamedly about how hed over-ruled his own generals on Iraq, says that Angela Merkel is one of the few foreign leaders that he respects, and criticises David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy for their intervention in Libya, despite playing a major role in backing the wholesale NATO bombing of the nation.

Despite this, Cameron still happily invited Obama to hector us about foreign affairs. The only thing that seems to exceed Obamas self-reverence is the Prime Ministers supinity. Obama wants to seduce us with a narrative of our shared courtship with warfare and fraternity in the war on terror, and Cameron seems willing to let him get away with it.

In another fit of hypocrisy, Obama spoke highly of the international institutions both of our countries play a role in maintaining, such as the UN. Yet, as Boris Johnson rightly pointed out, the US is the only country in the world that has failed to sign up to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child or the International Convention on the Law of the Sea, and almost refuses to grant legitimacy to the International Court of Justice.

Obama in Cuba Show all 6 1 /6 Obama in Cuba Obama in Cuba U.S. President Barack Obama makes a face towards a group of children in the audience as he stand on stage with first lady Michelle Obama as he is introduced by Ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis Charge d'Affaires to the U.S. Embassy in Cuba Obama in Cuba President Barack Obama shakes hands with Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez upon arrival to the airport in Havana, Cuba Obama in Cuba U.S. President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle approach Cuba's foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez as they arrive at Havana's international airport Obama in Cuba US President Barack Obama waves after his arrival on Jose Marti Airport in Havana, Cuba Obama in Cuba US President Barack Obama carries an umbrella as he is followed by First Lady Michelle Obama after their arrival on Jose Marti Airport in Havana, Cuba Obama in Cuba The 'Air Force One' jet carrying US President Barack Obama touches down at the Jose Marti Airport in Havana, Cuba

The egregious double-standards are boundless. The United States rabidly defends its lot by rounding up refugees for deportation and refuses to release information on the shady grounds of national security', despite much of it being of genuine public concern. Yet, here in the UK, Obama expects us to capitulate to a highly centralised bureaucracy in Brussels and surrender our law making powers and intelligence. After all, around 60 per cent of laws that pass through Westminster are made in the EU.

But what does Obama care about that? British interests are secondary to him; what matters is tailoring our situation to the best interests of his own country.

Were being told to prostrate ourselves to an undemocratic and invasive institution by a country thats never done telling us it is the exponent par excellence of world democracy.

To call for an exit from the EU is not an appeal to provincial and chauvinist mentalities, it is a call for democracy to be brought home again. No amount of hypocritical demagoguery from a US President will change that.
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It's that time of year again, when we are invited to gawp slack-jawed at the obscene amount of wealth stashed by the richest 1,000 people in the UK. But, this year, the ostentatious wealth parade that is the Sunday Times Rich List has provided something a little different: with a fall in the wealth of some of the country's very richest, it seems the super-rich have fallen on hard times.

Lakshmi Mittal, who topped the Sunday Times Rich List in 2008, has apparently lost three-quarters of his wealth, and is now worth a paltry 7.12bn. Oil billionaires Carrie and Francois Perrodo and family have meanwhile lost 42 per cent of their fortune since last year, down to 3.35bn.

So what's going on? Are we finally seeing a levelling-off of the wealth of the very richest? Could this be the start of a trend towards greater equality of wealth?

Unfortunately, that seems unlikely. While some have seen significant losses over the last year, by most meaningful measures the wealth of the very richest has actually increased.

The overall wealth of the richest 1,000 people rose by a staggering 28.5 billion last year  nearly 78 million a day. To put that into context, that increase alone could pay for over 1.8 million jobs, paid at the real Living Wage, for a year.

The idea of falling wealth inequality is equally implausible if we expand the picture to look at the wealth

of the richest 1 per cent. According to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics, the wealthiest 1 per cent has actually seen its share of wealth increase since 2010/12, with overall wealth inequality similarly rising.

Those on the Rich List now have more wealth than the poorest 40 per cent of families. Those in the wealthiest 1 per cent own as much as all the households in the bottom 57 per cent of the population put together.

The increase in the gap between the richest and the rest isn't simply a matter of soaring wealth at the very top. The poorest 10 per cent have actually seen their average level of wealth fall, while the top 10 per cent have seen a large increase in their average wealth, from 752,900 to 895,400.

This growing inequality is mostly explained by the widening gaps in property wealth, a problem exacerbated by the fact that the main tax on property  council tax  hits poorer households hardest.

Some will argue that large losses in wealth, such as those that have hit the Mittals show the dynamic nature of the Rich List  fortunes are won and lost; buccaneering 'risk-takers' and 'wealth-creators' both rewarded and punished. But many more on the list are a semi-permanent fixture.

Forbes top 10 richest billionaires in the world Show all 10 1 /10 Forbes top 10 richest billionaires in the world Forbes top 10 richest billionaires in the world Bill Gates - $75 bn The creator of Microsoft is worth $78 billion. He has topped the list for 17 out of the past 22 years - though his net worth shrank by $4.2bn (3bn) to $75bn (53.7bn). Forbes top 10 richest billionaires in the world Amancio Ortega - $67 bn The Spanish business who set up the Zara chain of high-street shops is worth $67 billion. REUTERS/ AP Forbes top 10 richest billionaires in the world Warren Buffet - $60.8 bn Warren buffet is the world's most successful investor. Forbes rates him as being worth $60.8 billion. Getty Forbes top 10 richest billionaires in the world Carlos Slim Helu - $50 bn Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecom magnate, is this years biggest loser with a fortune of $50 billion, down from $77.1 billion last year. Getty Forbes top 10 richest billionaires in the world Jeff Bezos - $45.2 bn Amazons Jeff Bezos moved up to the fifth from the fifteenth spot last year; his net worth increased to $45.2 billion. Getty Forbes top 10 richest billionaires in the world Mark Zuckerberg - $44.6 bn The biggest gainer on the 2016 list is Mark Zuckerberg , whose fortune is up $11.2 billion for a total net worth of $44.6 billion. He is the sixth richest in the world. Getty Images Forbes top 10 richest billionaires in the world Larry Ellison - $43.6 bn The American entrepreneur has a fortune of $43.6 billion Bloomberg Forbes top 10 richest billionaires in the world Michael Bloomberg - $40 bn Michael Bloomberg, whose media and financial empire has created a personal fortune of $40 bn, is said to be willing to spend up to $1bn on a presidential campaign AP Forbes top 10 richest billionaires in the world Charles Koch and David Koch - $39.6 bn Charles Koch, along with brother David Koch of Koch Industries are joint sixth and are valued at $39.6 billion. Forbes top 10 richest billionaires in the world Liliane Bettencourt - $36.1 bn Liliane Bettencourt is the heir to the LOreal empire Getty Images

This is not a glossy catalogue of rags-to-riches stories. By some measures, we are second only to the US for the lowest levels of mobility. The most recent report from the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission shows how we are failing to close the gap between rich and poor.

Some of the wealth of those on the Rich List will undoubtedly come from hard work. But then most people work hard, and for a lot less.

What has become clear from the Panama Papers leak is that so many of the super-rich are not playing by the same rules as the rest of us. The Sunday Times Rich List sounds a klaxon to remind us that we are living in dysfunctional times, and that our economy is serving the few and failing the many.

If we are to build an economy and a society where all can prosper, we need our political leaders to acknowledge the damaging effects of such vast wealth inequality, and commit to its reduction.

John Hood is acting director of the Equality Trust
Joshua Molloy, 24, pictured before he travelled to Syria, from Ballylynan, Co Laois

The father of one of three men freed from jail in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq has said his freedom is like a dream Christmas present.

Joshua Molloy, from Ballylynan, Co Laois, a former Royal Irish Regiment soldier, was incarcerated along with British citizens Joe Akerman, also a former soldier, and Jac Holmes, after crossing a border with Syria .

The three had spent months fighting against the Islamic State.

It is understood they were freed last night, with Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan first to break the news to the Molloy family.

Declan Molloy, Joshua's father, said emotions in the family were running wild.

"We are all delighted here. We are jumping with joy to know that he is out," he said.

"You know that Christmas morning feeling, it's a bit like that, when you find your most sought-after present under the tree, the dream present. That's how we feel."

A UK Foreign and Commonwealth spokeswoman confirmed the release of the two Britons.

"We are helping two British men make arrangements to leave Kurdistan after they were released from custody," she said.

It is understood they had been with the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), a force reported to have in the region of 25,000-50,000 fighters trying to quell IS in northern Syria.

Mr Holmes, an IT worker in his early 20s originally from Dorset, had no military experience before he went to Syria.

He was shot in one arm in a gun battle with IS forces last May.

His mother Angie said she was elated at the news and described her son and his front-line comrades as "heroes".

"Jack's family and friends are grateful for all the help and support they've received during this difficult time," she said.

"(We) would like to thank everyone including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Kurdish Regional Government for their assistance in securing his release."

Mark Campbell, a Kurdish rights campaigner for 20 years, tried to raise awareness of the men's plight by visiting the KRG High Representatives' offices in London last Friday with Mrs Holmes.

"I am so happy that common sense has prevailed and these brave men have been freed and able to return to their families," Mr Campbell said.

"They deserve medals not prison and I hope they will get apologies and the recognition they deserve."

Mr Campbell had tried to dissuade Mr Holmes from travelling to Syria before he went out but had no contact with Mr Molloy or Mr Akerman before they left.

Mr Akerman, 34, is a former British soldier from Halifax.

The men were detained after leaving the front line to come home.

It is believed they had been in the Rojava region of Syria for some time and at least one had fought in the liberation of Sinjar , the city where thousands of Yazidis were slaughtered and fled from after IS took it over in 2014.

They were imprisoned in Erbil for about 10 days by authorities from the Kurdish Regional Government and it is understood demands had been made for 15,000 dollars (10,400) in fines to be paid to secure their release.

Mr Molloy's father, a passionate amateur astronomer, considered selling his set of telescopes in order to raise money to try to free his son.

"It was a tough battle but I have got to give my thanks to Mark Campbell in the Kurdish support group in London," he said.

Mr Molloy got a second-hand account of his son's condition and life in the jail after a freelance reporter managed to visit him in the hours before the releases were secured.

"It must have been an awful place to be," he said.

Mr Molloy also paid tribute to the work of diplomatic chiefs in London and Dublin.

British consular staff in Iraq spent most of last week trying to secure their freedom.

After phoning the Molloy family late on Saturday night Mr Flanagan said: "I welcome Joshua's release and I am pleased that he is now on his way home to join his family in Ireland.

"Would like to thank all those who helped to make this early release happen. My department will continue to provide consular assistance in this case."

It is understood Mr Molloy is in a hotel making travel arrangements out of Kurdistan and is considering spending time in Europe with fellow foreign fighters before he returns to Ireland.

His father has always insisted that his son is not a mercenary or a freedom fighter, but that he had travelled to Syria last year for humanitarian reasons.

Mr Molloy spoke to his son via Facebook after his release and reported that he was "fine" but felt that he would need some time alone after his ordeal.

British diplomats had been working on the ground on behalf of all three men, saying that they do consular work for Irish citizens in difficulty in some countries where Ireland does not have representation.

It is understood the policy in diplomatic and consular assistance cases of refusal to pay "fines" or ransoms was maintained throughout the negotiations.
The father of one of three men freed from jail in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq has said his freedom is like a dream Christmas present.

Joshua Molloy, from Ballylynan, Co Laois, a former Royal Irish Regiment soldier, was incarcerated along with British citizens Joe Akerman, also a former soldier, and Jac Holmes, after crossing a border with Syria .

The three had spent months fighting against the Islamic State.

It is understood they were freed last night, with Ireland's Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan first to break the news to the Molloy family.

Declan Molloy, Joshua's father, said emotions in the family were running wild.

"We are all delighted here. We are jumping with joy to know that he is out," he said.

"You know that Christmas morning feeling, it's a bit like that, when you find your most sought-after present under the tree, the dream present. That's how we feel."

A Foreign and Commonwealth spokeswoman confirmed the release of the two Britons.

"We are helping two British men make arrangements to leave Kurdistan after they were released from custody," she said.

It is understood they had been with the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), a force reported to have in the region of 25,000-50,000 fighters trying to quell IS in northern Syria.

Mr Holmes, an IT worker in his early 20s originally from Dorset, had no military experience before he went to Syria.

He was shot in one arm in a gun battle with IS forces last May.

His mother Angie said she was elated at the news and described her son and his front-line comrades as "heroes".

"Jack's family and friends are grateful for all the help and support they've received during this difficult time," she said.

"(We) would like to thank everyone including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Kurdish Regional Government for their assistance in securing his release."

Mark Campbell, a Kurdish rights campaigner for 20 years, tried to raise awareness of the men's plight by visiting the KRG High Representatives' offices in London last Friday with Mrs Holmes.

"I am so happy that common sense has prevailed and these brave men have been freed and able to return to their families," Mr Campbell said.

"They deserve medals not prison and I hope they will get apologies and the recognition they deserve."

Mr Campbell had tried to dissuade Mr Holmes from travelling to Syria before he went out but had no contact with Mr Molloy or Mr Akerman before they left.

Mr Akerman, 34, is a former British soldier from Halifax.

The men were detained after leaving the front line to come home.

It is believed they had been in the Rojava region of Syria for some time and at least one had fought in the liberation of Sinjar , the city where thousands of Yazidis were slaughtered and fled from after IS took it over in 2014.

They were imprisoned in Erbil for about 10 days by authorities from the Kurdish Regional Government and it is understood demands had been made for 15,000 dollars (10,400) in fines to be paid to secure their release.

Mr Molloy's father, a passionate amateur astronomer, considered selling his set of telescopes in order to raise money to try to free his son.

"It was a tough battle but I have got to give my thanks to Mark Campbell in the Kurdish support group in London," he said.

Mr Molloy got a second-hand account of his son's condition and life in the jail after a freelance reporter managed to visit him in the hours before the releases were secured.

"It must have been an awful place to be," he said.

Mr Molloy also paid tribute to the work of diplomatic chiefs in London and Dublin.

British consular staff in Iraq spent most of last week trying to secure their freedom.

After phoning the Molloy family late on Saturday night Mr Flanagan said: "I welcome Joshua's release and I am pleased that he is now on his way home to join his family in Ireland.

"Would like to thank all those who helped to make this early release happen. My department will continue to provide consular assistance in this case."

It is understood Mr Molloy is in a hotel making travel arrangements out of Kurdistan and is considering spending time in Europe with fellow foreign fighters before he returns to Ireland.

His father has always insisted that his son is not a mercenary or a freedom fighter, but that he had travelled to Syria last year for humanitarian reasons.

Mr Molloy spoke to his son via Facebook after his release and reported that he was "fine" but felt that he would need some time alone after his ordeal.

British diplomats had been working on the ground on behalf of all three men, saying that they do consular work for Irish citizens in difficulty in some countries where Ireland does not have representation.

It is understood the policy in diplomatic and consular assistance cases of refusal to pay "fines" or ransoms was maintained throughout the negotiations.
KPMG insists the HMRC investigation 'relates solely to the personal affairs of the four individuals and is not related to the firm's business or its clients.' Getty Images

The cross-border property finance company at the centre of a probe into suspected tax evasion by KPMG bosses in Belfast had invested about 1m in a firm run by a developer who was later convicted of bank fraud, documents reveal.

Four senior partners at KPMG's College Square East headquarters have resigned from the business-advisory firm in the wake of an investigation that centres on a private company called JEAP Limited, which was set up to invest millions in property companies north and south of the border at the height of the boom.

JEAP Limited had commercial links to at least 12 high-profile businessmen, house-builders and property developers both north and south, documents reveal.

KPMG insists the HMRC investigation "relates solely to the personal affairs of the four individuals and is not related to the firm's business or its clients".

Companies House documentation reveals that JEAP's registered address was at KPMG's offices at College Square East in Belfast from 2005 to 2010, and KPMG's headquarters was used as an alternative address for company filings from 2011 to 2015. A JEAP company EGM was held at KPMG offices in 2006, and the firm's Memorandum and Articles of Association were prepared by KPMG.

The four men who were arrested last November and resigned in recent weeks are Jon D'Arcy, the Belfast operation's former chairman; Eamonn Donaghy, who headed the firm's tax practice; Paul Hollway, who was head of corporate finance at KPMG in Ireland; and Arthur O'Brien, who provided audit services.

The men have launched a legal challenge over searches of their homes and offices in Belfast and are seeking to judicially review HM Revenue and Customs' handling of the investigation

It emerged last week that in 2008 JEAP Limited invested 770,000 (980,000) in a company that was being run by a man who was defrauding banks to stave off the looming Irish property crash.

JEAP invested this sum in Northern Ireland-registered Leamont Developments Ltd in 2008 for a 5pc share of "development lands", according to company accounts.

Leamont Developments was run by convicted fraudster and property speculator Trevor McClintock. He was found guilty last year of swindling Barclays Bank and Bank of Scotland from July 2008 to April 2009.

Another director of Leamont is disgraced solicitor Michael Robin Burns, who was found guilty last year of having given false undertakings to banks that if hundreds of thousands of pounds were lent to McClintock's company as bridging loans, the firm of solicitors he worked for had the available cash needed to guarantee the loans. In fact, this was found to be false. There is no suggestion the directors of JEAP or other directors of Leamont knew at the time about the fraudulent activities of McClintock and Burns.

At the peak of the boom in 2008, JEAP invested close to 2m in four property firms.

Its most recent set of accounts, for the year to the end of March 2014, show the company had racked up losses of 4.3m (5.5m). KPMG has conducted an internal probe

Shaun Murphy, managing partner of KPMG in Ireland, said: "We have co-operated fully with the HMRC investigation."

He added: "Our firm is built on a foundation of trust and integrity."
Goodbody Stockbrokers equity analysts have stopped covering the oil and gas sector.

A Goodbody spokesman said the move was part of a long-term strategy which it has been pursuing for a number of years.

"Goodbody has a long-term strategy, which we have been pursuing for a few years, to focus our equity research on a small group of sectors where we have a competitive advantage, based on our knowledge of major Irish-listed companies, and to build out our coverage in those sectors beyond Ireland," the spokesman told the Sunday Independent.

Ending the coverage of oil and gas allows the firm to focus more of its resources on stocks in the area of business support and IT services, the spokesman added.

Conglomerate DCC is the major anchor in Goodbody's coverage of that sector. The sectors the company now covers are financials and property, gaming and leisure, airlines and travel, food and beverage, industrials (including areas like building materials and paper and packaging), and business support and IT services.

It also covers recruitment firm CPL, financial software company First Derivatives, and mining equipment firm Mincon.
Pharmaceutical-maker Alexion is weighing up Ireland for its next manufacturing investment.

Ireland is in the running for facilities which will produce the company's new pipeline of drugs, according to one of the company's most senior executives.

"We are planning where and how production for our pipeline of drugs will happen and Ireland is being considered," said Alexion's Julie O'Neill. "I don't want to say too much as it is still early days".

Alexion has already earmarked three quarters of a billion worth of investment for Ireland since arriving in 2013.

O'Neill is Alexion's executive vice president of global operations. She joined Alexion after a 17-year career with Gilead Sciences and has just been awarded an Alumni of the Year award by UCD Business School.

Locations in and outside of Dublin will be considered for new investments, O'Neill said, adding that the company has had a very positive experience in Athlone.

Ireland must compete with countries like the US, UK, and Singapore for pharmaceutical investment, she added.

O'Neill described Singapore as particularly competitive for manufacturers of biologic drugs, which her company specialises in.

Biologic are complex drugs made from plant or animal cells.

As well as a vial-filling facility in Athlone, Alexion has an operation in College Park in Blanchardstown where it is constructing its first biologics manufacturing facility outside the US, a 450m investment.

Once this is completed, the company should employ around 500 people in Ireland; its staff currently stands at about half that.

While Ireland is a very competitive location for pharmaceutical companies to operate, it is challenged by a shortage of qualified people, O'Neill said.

"Ireland produces excellent people but it is a small pool in which a lot of companies are competing," she said.

Speaking to the Sunday Independent, O'Neill also defended her company against criticism of the cost of its drugs.

Alexion's flagship product is Soliris, often described as the most expensive drug in the world. Treatment with the drug costs around $400,000 a year per patient.

It is used in the treatment of patients with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, a life-threatening disease of the blood.

The HSE has been critical of the cost of Soliris.

"I think that there is a lack of understanding about just how rare these afflictions are. These are ultra-rare disorders," said O'Neill.

"Take a common condition like diabetes - diabetes will affect about 48,000 people in every one million. However, a rare disease will affect fewer than 650 people in one million - and then for an ultra-rare drug like Soliris, the figure is less than 20 per million."
A second election is "inevitable" as there is "no way" a minority government will get through the next 12 months, Michael O'Leary has claimed.

Speaking at the annual stock auction of his Gigginstown herd at his farm near Mullingar, Mr O'Leary shook his head when asked about the current political landscape.

"A minority government won't get through a Budget, let alone survive any of the normal crises. What happens in June if the UK votes to leave the European Union? Will we have a government at that stage or will we have a load of ministers who are single-issue, liberal half-wits, who you wouldn't send to run a sweet shop, never mind a government?" he said.

The billionaire businessman said the electorate is to blame for the ongoing saga in Leinster House.

"The electorate that voted for Independents were lunatics. We can't expect to have a stable government or a well-run economy if we think elections are some kind of popularity contest where we elect every 'single-issue' candidate.

"It's all very well to care about the local hospital and local barracks, but as voters we need to grow up and elect a government that can manage the country for a four- or five-year period," he said.

"I think what's going on is a shambles but it's not the fault of politicians, it's the electorate's fault and I include myself in that. We should take responsibility for it."

He stressed that Ireland should be "very worried" about Brexit.

"It will be very damaging for us and the UK and that's why Ryanair, as the UK's largest airline, is campaigning hard to persuade people to vote 'yes'," he said moments, before his pedigree Angus herd went under the hammer at his 1,000-acre estate.

Hundreds of farmers from all over the country attended the sale of his pedigree herd which included 20 bulls and 20 heifers. Retired race horses 'War of Attrition' and 'Last Instalment' were available for selfies. His recent Irish and English Grand National and Gold Cup trophies were on display as well.

Despite the allure of a peaceful country life, in the company of good neighbours and dedicated farm management team, the 55-year-old said retirement is not on the agenda.

"It makes me want to work harder and longer. Something has to pay to keep this place going and that's the airline. The horses will lose money, the cattle break even, so I've got to work for a living to pay for the children and the farming hobby," he said.

However, after winning two Grand Nationals and the Cheltenham Gold Cup in the space of a month, Mr O'Leary says his equestrian escapades are "as good as it ever gets".

"It's probably time to stop now; it's all downhill from here," he chuckled.
Hit TV series Vikings is just one of the many shows filmed in Ashford Studios, Co Wicklow

Ashford Studios in Co Wicklow, where hit TV series Vikings is made, has finalised plans for a 90m expansion, including four new film studios of 40,000 sq ft each, a TV studio, offices, support space and visitor centre in a bid to underpin the development of a TV and film skills cluster in the county and create at least 2,500 jobs there.

The project amounts to 716,000 sq ft of space in 12 new buildings, which would enable it to cater for three or four productions at once.

Owner Joe O'Connell declined to put a date on when construction would begin or when it would be completed, adding that this would be addressed once planning permission is received.

O'Connell is prepared to fund the plans himself if necessary, he confirmed. He has income from a successful manufacturing business in China called Universal Innovations - whose customers include a global retail giant - and a separate packaging business, but declined to go into specifics on financing the plans, or whether he's seeking a grant from the Government towards the expansion.

O'Connell used his own money to build the existing 25m development, comprising 150,000 sq ft including three studios offering 60,000 sq ft of filming space.

His expansion plan further pits Ashford as a growing rival to Ardmore Studios in Bray and Ardmore's spin-off, Troy Studios (which is based in the old Dell factory in Limerick and leased from Limerick County Council by Ardmore's key figures - Siun Ni Raghallaigh, Ossie Kilkenny and John Kelleher).

Asked whether there is a risk that Ireland could end up with too much film-studio space, O'Connell said: "Amazon, Netflix and all the networks all need space for their growing TV and film production work. Other countries are fighting to do the same as us, including Northern Ireland and our neighbours, so there's always that competition.

"There is a risk involved, but I'm more confident about this than I was with the first phase. We've got to remain competitive, but the success of Vikings - which will film its fifth season here this summer - proves we can do that.

"Studios want purpose-built, state-of-the-art spaces, and this is what we're trying to give them. If this second phase is successful, we have space to add nine more studios here."

This could result in a further 2,500 jobs being created. Last year, Wicklow County Council made film studios exempt from development contributions towards infrastructure such as roads. Its councillors are also seeking an extension of the Section 481 tax credit scheme to 2025 and a raising of its project cap to 100m.

The audio-visual content production sector is worth 550m a year to the State, employing over 6,000 people directly. Penny Dreadful, filmed at Ardmore, and Vikings were worth more than 70m to Wicklow's economy in recent years.
The property developer who has been accused of double-selling apartments to unsuspecting Irish investors has added insult to injury by blaming them for not finalising their sales.

Kevin McGeever claimed that he "checked himself out" of a medical clinic where he was being treated for "shocking" blood pressure in order to "correct the record" on Dubai.

McGeever became a media sensation when he was found wandering the roads in Leitrim, claiming that he had been kidnapped and held captive for eight months.

His bizarre story prompted a garda investigation but after wasting 3,000 hours of their time at a cost of 86,851, he admitted making it all up. He got a suspended sentence for making false statements a fortnight ago in Galway.

An RTE documentary broadcast after his conviction accused McGeever of double-selling apartments and selling apartments that he didn't own and traced his dubious business activities across three continents.

One investor, Kevin Cooke, who signed up to buy eight apartments for which he paid in instalments, is suing McGeever for 835,000.

Another investor, Jim Byrne, secured a 1m judgement against McGeever after paying him 633,000 to buy four apartments - one of which he later learned had been sold to someone else.

This weekend, McGeever presented this newspaper with a prepared statement which he entitled "the Dubai Property Disaster", in which he belittled Irish investors, accusing them of being "a nightmare" and of failing to meet their repayments on their investments.

In his statement, McGeever said he first went to Dubai in 2001. Later, he bought "French-style studio apartments" off plans. He sold the lot off to a Pakistani investor.

A few years later, he started selling to Irish investors. He said he sold 127 units to Irish, 10 were finished and paid in full and the other 117 cancelled and were paid back. All of this coincided with the property crash.

"When the Irish started requesting refunds, we consulted our legal advisors in Dubai. They were totally against this. Anyone who fails to make payments as per the payments plan is not entitled to a refund."

McGeever claimed that he decided "against legal advice" to give them refunds and resold the studio apartments, at a loss to the local market.

He said he sold 50 commercial floors but all of the sales were cancelled. Not one sale was finalised.

"If all of the residential and commercial Irish clients had finalised their sales, all would be great. Sadly the opposite happened," he said.

McGeever was indicted by the FBI in connection for a fraudulent banking investment and an international warrant for his arrest was issued. He was later held for extradition in Germany.

The Criminal Assets Bureau has been investigating McGeever's financial affairs for the past three years.
IN THE MONEY: Late Late Show host Ryan Tubridy has sold his home in Brighton Avenue, Monkstown for 1.315m

RTE presenter Ryan Tubridy has offloaded his opulent period home on Dublin's south side for 1.315m, pocketing a profit of approximately 200,000 on the price he paid for it in 2013.

While the sale of the Late Late Show host's Victorian end-of-terrace house on Brighton Avenue in the salubrious seaside suburb of Monkstown is understood to have gone through a number of months ago, the exact price paid by its new owners has yet to be publicly recorded on the Property Price Register.

The ease with which Montrose's highest-paid presenter managed to dispose of the 2,600 sq ft, three-bed pile isn't surprising given its location and the standard of its accommodation.

Indeed, when Mr Tubridy bought the lovingly-restored property in November 2013, he did so within a month of it coming on the market.

Expand Close Ryan Tubridy with his former girlfriend Aoibhinn Ni Shuilleabhain. Photo: Brian McEvoy / Facebook

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Whatsapp Ryan Tubridy with his former girlfriend Aoibhinn Ni Shuilleabhain. Photo: Brian McEvoy

The broadcaster whose earnings from TV and radio came in at 495,000 in 2014 according to official figures recently released by RTE, acquired the house post-auction for 1.15m from its then owner, Amanda Pratt of the Avoca Handweavers dynasty.

Explaining his decision to sell his Brighton Avenue home less than two years after taking up residence there, the RTE stalwart told the Irish Times property supplement that it was simply too big for him.

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"Not long after I went in I realised it was bigger than I needed, it was too much. I need something cosier. This house is suited to a growing family," he said.

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The house had been a home to both Mr Tubridy and his former girlfriend, Aoibhinn Ni Shuilleabhain, prior to their decision to go their separate ways in December 2014. Ms Ni Shuilleabhain went on to purchase a new home for herself last January in Inchicore, close to Dublin city centre.

At the time of it being put up for sale last autumn, there was little or no evidence of a feminine touch at Mr Tubridy's house, judging by the description of its decor in the Irish Times. It noted that little had changed inside the house since Mr Tubridy had bought it, but said that the broadcaster's "love of books and all things 1960s" were in evidence "from the Jackie O picture over the fireplace and a framed image of Dean Martin and the Beatles Abbey Road album cover".

Describing it as a house where buyers might see value, the article noted it had previously sold for 2.5m, before selling again in 2008 for 1.9m.
Today's emergency services play a critical role in our communities. Whether the ambulance service, fire brigade or the coastguard, these organisations act as the first responders in all manner of accidents and emergencies.

If you were ever to look inside one of their vehicles, you would see that they come complete with a range of important consumables. From stretchers and bandages to oxygen and defibrillators, these products are the essential tools required by emergency personnel. It is crucial, therefore, that such supplies are available at all times.

Last week, I visited Critical Healthcare, Ireland's market leader in the supply of such emergency medical products and services.

Established in 2000 by Anne Cusack and Seamus Reilly and located in Kilbeggan, Co Westmeath, the company employs 22 staff and has an annual turnover of 5m.

"Our business can largely be divided into two main areas," explains Anne. "Firstly, we supply a comprehensive range of medial products required by a paramedic or first responder to diagnose, resuscitate and stabilise a patient.

"The most common items include stretchers, disposable medical linen, oxygen masks, vacuum mattresses, head immobilisers and a variety of bandages, dressings and syringes.

"And we also provide 'first responders' bags. Like giant-sized first aid kits, these contain everything a paramedic will require when attending a roadside or other emergency situation."

The company recently launched its own range of branded patient-care consumables under the brand name Duramedic.

One of its most successful items is Mediquilt - a patented reusable ambulance quilt. Complete with disposable covers, these quilts are specially designed to keep patients warm while on ambulance stretchers or trolleys.

"The second part of our business," said Anne, "involves the development of our own bespoke software. Called Medlogistix, this on-line and web-based service gives emergency service personnel greater control over the procurement, delivery and management of their consumable stock.

"For example, in the past, staff had to order a full box of a particular product, maybe 24 units, even though they really only required four or five individual items, because that's what came in one box.

"With our system, they can select the exact quantities of each product they require and have it delivered to their base 'just in time', thereby eliminating costly overstocking while making sure that the product they require is available when needed."

The company's target market includes the ambulance services, fire services, Coast Guard and Red Cross, as well as 'voluntaries', such as the Order of Malta, the Civil Defence and the Saint John's Ambulance Service. While having traditionally focused on the Irish market, the company's recent entry into the UK has seen overseas sales rise to almost 35pc of revenues.

Anne Cusack grew up in Sutton, Co Dublin. Her father became an entrepreneur late in life, having bought the chain of Winston Departments Stores in Dublin, Bray and Kilkenny, where he worked.

Even though she grew up around business, Anne's primary interest was really in the sciences. After school, she did Science in UCD and took a PhD in Trinity College. She went to work in the pharmaceutical industry, with Pfizer in the UK, where she worked primarily in the area of cancer research.

It was here that she met her future life and business partner Seamus Reilly. With a background in international healthcare sales, he was involved in selling stretchers into the emergency services market.

Six years later and still living in the UK, Anne began working for a Dublin pharma start-up called Biotrin International, which specialised in the production of liver-function testing kits.

"It was such a contrast to working in big pharma," explains Anne. "While you had large budgets and huge staff numbers, it was difficult to make your mark individually and change was often slow and tedious.

"A start-up is very different, faster moving and much more hands-on - something that gave me the appetite to run my own business."

Two year later, in 2000, Anne and Seamus decided to move back to Ireland. It was time to launch their own start-up. Having explored a number of health-related ideas, their research into the provision of consumable products to the emergency services presented them with their opportunity.

"Those in the sector told us of their dissatisfaction with the level of service they were receiving from suppliers. Customer service was poor and suppliers often ran out of vital stocks," explains Anne.

"With our knowledge of healthcare and our commitment to good customer care, we believed we could offer a better service."

Like most start-ups, progress was slow at first as they worked hard to win new business and to differentiate themselves from the already established competition. And if that wasn't enough of a challenge, Seamus became incapacitated shortly afterwards, following a serious horse-riding accident.

Having suffered considerable spinal cord damage that necessitated a spell in intensive care, he would spend the next seven months in the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dun Laoghaire, learning how to walk again.

"The next few years were tough both personally and professionally," admits Anne. "But support from our customers and staff helped get us through."

Seamus's return to the business two years later prompted them to look at the business differently. They decided to become more innovative, which led to the launch of their own range of branded medical consumables and their new reusable medical quilt.

Their big break came in 2009, when they won the contract to supply the Dublin Fire Brigade Service. This gave them the financial lifeline they desperately needed, as well as the opportunity to showcase what they were capable of.

Two years later, they launched their software platform, Medlogistix. A pilot test with the HSE proved that using their system provided savings of up to 40pc per year for emergency service organisations in their annual procurement budgets.

The result saw them win the contract for the first-ever fully managed web-based system for the supply of patient-care consumables for the Irish National Ambulance Service. Since then, they have won further tenders from the likes of the Dublin Fire Brigade, Dublin City Council and the Coast Guard.

Anne has great praise for her team. "We simply would not be where we are without their ongoing commitment. The women's enterprise programme, 'Going for Growth' also helped me to build both my skill set and confidence as an entrepreneur."

What's next? I ask.

"We have grown 20pc year on year for the past three years. We want to continue that level of growth, as well as expanding our export sales. We are currently targeting the NHS Ambulance Trusts in the UK, as well as developing into other European market, such as Spain and the Netherlands.

"And we are working with a specialist software-development company to make our web-based procurement platform even more efficient, more automated and thereby more scalable."

Anne and Seamus love what they do. From the very beginning, they have shown a gutsy determination, a strategic focus and an overall emphasis on customer care. They originally set out to bring about change in their industry - and that is exactly what they are doing.

For further information: www.criticalhealthcare.com

Anne's advice for other businesses

1 Trust yourself

As an entrepreneur, it's ultimately up to you to make the important decisions. While it's good to gather advice and inputs from others, it's you that has to make the call on important issues. To do that, you need to learn to feel comfortable about trusting your own instincts.

2 Be ready to work

If you're thinking about starting a business, you need to realise that it is full-time and full-on. If you have a family, then it also becomes a family affair, with everyone being involved or affected in some way. To make it work, you have to be prepared for that.

3 Find a support network

Running you own business can often be lonely. Therefore, it's important to find a network of like-minded people facing the same issues and challenges as you. These networks offer great support and can serve as a safe sounding board where you can get advice and guidance.
On the short stroll between Louis Copeland's headquarters and Brother Hubbard, one of Dublin's most popular coffee shops, a multitude of shopkeepers call out greetings from their doorways to master tailor Louis Copeland as we walk and talk our way through city centre Dublin.

People overuse the phrase 'institution' - but in Copeland's case it is about right. Four generations of his family have sold clothing here.

Historically significant Capel Street is fast becoming one of Dublin's most fashionable districts. And Copeland is delighted at its renaissance, he tells me over a strong cup of tea.

"It's great to see the likes of Brother Hubbard on Capel Street, it's kind of giving a new lease of life to the area," he says.

"Of all the stores we have, Capel Street would have been perceived as the worst location. If you had somebody coming from the UK who wanted to open a high-class menswear store, Capel Street would be the last place they would choose. But as it happens, it's our flagship and it does the biggest turnover."

It was clear from an early age that Louis III would follow his father and grandfather into business. He left school at 14 and went to technical school on Parnell Square to study tailoring and textiles. He took over the family business in his mid-20s, when it was still just one store.

Today it is a different story. Under his control it expanded rapidly, growing to six outlets plus a Gant menswear store and website.

"Up-to-the-minute clothes, and old-fashioned service" is the secret, he says.

It's not all high-end. "We have suits from 300 up to 3,000. The average would be 500/600 up to 1,200."

The business was hit hard by the recession, with revenue dropping around 40pc. It has still not recovered fully, down about a quarter on peak levels.

"Like everyone we cut costs to survive," Copeland says. But there were no store closures - bar one outlet at Terminal 1 in Dublin Airport (the opening of T2 took away too much of its customer base). The plan for now is consolidation, not new stores.

"We still have a long way to go to get back to where we were seven years ago."

Property speculation also hurt him on a personal level.

"One thing we got involved in, like everybody else, was buying properties we didn't need if I was to give one lesson to business people I'd say: stick to the knitting. The things I got involved in that I didn't know about, I got my fingers burned. Stick to what you know."

But the recession brought good news for the business too. "People were happier to dress down during the boom," he says. "I think dressing down can dress down your head too. I've noticed recently that people are starting to up their game."

Certain professions aren't afraid to wear pinstripes once again. "Prominent stripes on suits were a no-no for a few years because people associated them with bankers and so on. But now it's swinging back."

Pressure on costs also encouraged the business to develop its own-brand lines which is now paying off.

"It's probably about 50pc of turnover now," he says. A recent own-brand project is a collaboration with TV's Darren Kennedy, a regular on best-dressed lists. Their Spring/Summer collection will launch in May, their sixth season together.

"It opens a new avenue for us. We might have been known in the past for a more conservative, classic suit - Darren is very stylish and he has brought a different angle to our business. He's a fresh pair of eyes and brings a different consumer."

However, it's a fighter, rather than a fashion maven, who has had the biggest impact on his business of late.

"We've made a lot of suits for Conor McGregor, we would have dressed him at the early stages. He has great style and he is a great showman.

"You see young people going around today in three-piece suits and dickie bows - and the amount of people with beards - he has definitely set a trend. He has upped people's game as regards dressing up."

Ronan O'Gara, Pierce Brosnan and Bono have also worn his suits.

"But the most important person for us is the normal business person," says Louis.

Surely he must be forgetting the groom.

"Weddings are a huge business for us now, more so than ever before," he agrees. "People are really dressing up."

Gay weddings, of course, give them "two bites at the cherry" - two grooms to suit up.

It is still very much a family business. His son Louis (39), a business studies graduate, is heavily involved, while his brother Adrian, and his son Adrian, run the Galway store.

He loves that there is an emotional, sentimental element to selling suits - something that you don't find elsewhere in retail.

"A couple of times a year you'll have someone coming in who wants to buy a suit for their father. I'll ask them to bring their father in and they'll say he's just died - but he always wanted to be buried in a Louis Copeland suit."
The telecoms regulator is to meet Irish mobile phone operators this week amid growing disquiet about the patchy state of mobile coverage in rural parts of the country.

The meeting comes after Comreg published new documents showing poor mobile reception in several parts of the country. Border counties and the west fare worst, with large areas of land scantily covered by mobile signals.

A number of Independent TDs for rural areas are understood to have raised the issue of mobile coverage in discussions with Fine Gael and Fianna Fail as part of negotiations to form a minority government.

Meanwhile, Comreg is also set to decide on whether the country's second-biggest operator, Three Ireland, can modify its mobile-phone network in a manner that rivals fear would lessen coverage commitment. Three Ireland says that a proposal to "swap" spectrum is being done as part of a "network refresh" to merge its own network with the one it inherited when it purchased O2 Ireland in 2014.

The move is being opposed by rival operator Vodafone, which says that it would allow Three to keep mobile frequencies "without any coverage commitment whatsoever".

However, Three Ireland says that the spectrum move is not being done to save money, and the proposed changes will be "minimal".

Under Comreg licensing rules, operators are only obliged to provide mobile coverage to between 70pc and 90pc of the population, most of which is concentrated in cities and large towns.

Licensing obligations are coming in for increased criticism, with Cavan-Monaghan TD Brendan Smith and Donegal TD Pat 'The Cope' Gallagher making critical comments about the system in recent weeks.

"It's a policy issue," Comreg chairman Jeremy Godfrey said recently. "[Universal service] is for the Government to decide whether or not that's a right it wants to give everybody."

Mobile operators say they cannot provide better coverage to some areas because of planning objections.
Germany wouldn't be opposed to the UK finding a 'quick solution' with Ireland in negotiations following a possible Brexit. Photo: PA

Germany wouldn't be opposed to the UK finding a "quick solution" with Ireland in negotiations following a possible Brexit, a member of the German parliament's finance committee has said.

Dr Jens Zimmermann said it would be in Britain's interest to do this, adding that he believed the German government wouldn't block it.

He said that any agreement with Britain following a withdrawal would have to be backed by all EU member states.

But he said there may be the possibility of a "bilateral solution" for Ireland, with the other EU countries acknowledging the special relationship between Ireland and Britain.

"I think it would be in the interests of the UK to find a quick solution, especially concerning the relationship to Ireland, and I think Germany wouldn't be in opposition to that," Zimmermann told the Sunday Independent. "But it's complicated."

Ireland is expected to be the EU country worst hit by a possible British withdrawal from the EU, given its close economic, political and societal links. The impact on the peace process, the border with the North and trade between the UK and Ireland are the main issues of concern for the Irish Government.

Zimmermann said the negotiations following a possible vote to withdraw would be very difficult to complete within the two-year period, given their complexity.

"I think there might be a bilateral solution for Ireland in that situation and I think the other European member states would acknowledge that there is a special relationship between Ireland and the UK. But nobody knows," he added. Zimmerman also said he believed British Prime Minister David Cameron would have to resign if the British vote to pull out, or "the Tories would force him out".

Meanwhile, an international expert in regional and urban economics has warned that a Brexit could lead to the break-up of the EU.

"You've got a lot of nationalist tensions in most of the continent, particularly in Hungary, Poland, there's the rise of Le Pen, Pegida in Germany. You've still got the negotiations going on in Greece about the Eurozone crisis. Most of the discussion about Brexit is focused on the UK economy but there's a big feedback loop... the whole of the EU economy could be damaged," said Dr Leslie Budd, who is also an economic advisor to the Enterprise, Trade and Investment committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

"Given those political tensions, you could start to see some sort of fracture and break-up."
You would think that being able to reference an award-winning and Oscar-nominated project would be the holy grail of marketing tools, but Emma Donoghue is a little concerned about referencing Room on her latest piece of literary work.

In case you haven't read the book or seen the film (and if you haven't, where have you been locked away? No spoilers intended), Room tells the story of a five-year-old boy and his mother who are held captive - a powerful tale that earned a place on both the illustrious Man Booker and Orange prize shortlists and also garnered a host of cinematic gongs at the Golden Globes, Oscars and, most recently, the IFTAs.

Surely any publisher would leap at the chance to associate a new title with such a well-known and widely successful piece of work by the same author? Perhaps not, as it turns out the Dublin writer has just sold her first children's book.

"I'm not sure booksellers will see it as a very natural shift," laughs Emma. "'This is a children's book by the author of Room!' and yet it was writing Room that got me into writing for children because I found writing in the child's voice such an interesting exercise that then I thought it would be fun to actually do that for children. Still" She trails off, leaving me to imagine the admittedly incongruous scenario of referencing a tale inspired by Josef Fritzl's dungeon, on the front cover of a book aimed at the eight-to-12s market.

And yet, whilst the genre change marks a major departure from the content and style of her best known work to date, it's also representative of the eclectic scope of the Dublin writer who published her first work at just 23.

"I write such an odd mixture of things, I don't have the marketing power of a brand. It's not like all my books are the same and people know exactly what they're getting - every project is different," Says Emma (46). "I like fiction best because I get to call all the shots but film is sociable and thrilling. Then theatre has the most vivid sense of teamwork and with literary history you're just quietly working away on the books of the past and putting your own ego aside. Each has their own pleasures, they all offer something."

Today she's talking to me to promote UCD project Signatories which, once again, is nothing like either Room or the new children's book. It's a theatrical work, produced as part of the university's Decade of Centenaries programme, which runs at Kilmainham Gaol from April 22-24 and features the work of eight renowned writers reimagining the thoughts and actions of those involved in the Easter Rising. Emma's monologue deals with the character of Elizabeth O'Farrell, one of the three Red Cross nurses that remained in the GPO, who ended up brokering the surrender of the Irish insurgents to the British Forces.

Despite playing such a major role in the event, very few people will have heard of O'Farrell, but if you have, it's possibly the anecdote about how she was airbrushed out of the photograph that shows Padraig Pearse surrendering to the British.

"Actually, she leaned right back. She didn't want to be in it," corrects Emma. "She told a priest that she was mortified to have the surrender moment captured by the British and she didn't want to give them the satisfaction so she leaned back. That's why all you could see of her were her feet.

"At that particular moment of the surrender she was suddenly thrust into the spotlight and had an important role, but she wasn't famous otherwise, so she felt like an interesting and different angle to take," adds Emma.

"We're all so familiar with the idea of the heroic young men who rushed ahead, even though their chances were bad, and then got executed. But it was very interesting to take someone who survived and would have had that lingering guilt of 'I was involved but I didn't die' and how you go on after an event like that." A book accompanying the production will also be released this month by UCD Press.

Emma wasn't able to be in Ireland for any of the Easter Centenary celebrations, so feels the project offered a nice opportunity to "feel connected" with the occasion. As she's talking to me over the phone, she's looking out on bright sunshine and the shimmering coast of Nice in France where she, her partner Chris (Christine) Rolston and their two children are based this year while Chris, a professor, is on sabbatical. It's a long time since Emma called Dublin home. She left Ireland in 1990 to study at Cambridge, living there for eight years, working on her doctorate. It was there she met Chris, a Canadian, and the pair left together for Canada in 1998, now living in London, Ontario.

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It's a lengthy absence that has left Emma battling what she eloquently dubs "migrant forms of nostalgia". "As soon as I left the country I started wanting Tayto crisps," she laughs. "And traditional music! When I was growing up, that meant nothing to me, but then I emigrated and suddenly the sound of uileann pipes would have me in tears."

The cultural significance of the events of Easter 1916 mean very little to her Canadian friends and neighbours, although Chris has been subjected to a few history lessons. "She complains that every time I bring her to a play in Dublin it's set sometime between 1910 and 1930," says Emma. "We are rather obsessed with that period."

In documenting O'Farrell's laborious task in the 1916 Rising (the nurse had to make repeated treks around Dublin to persuade the rebel leaders in different locations that the fight was over), Emma was pleased to help bring recognition to the huge, yet frequently overlooked, role played by women in the revolution.

"It's really the first time for so much light to be shed on them, both how much they were involved and also the ways they were barred from involvement in some aspects, like the way De Valera didn't want any women fighting with him," she says.

But it also offers a time for reflection on progress. The Proclamation extolled the need for equal rights and opportunities for all its citizens, male and female.

"And yet when you think of the 1930s Constitution, the way that it describes women is not a bit the way the revolutionaries' aspirations were," muses Emma. "I think we've moved on, but I have to say some aspects of Ireland just seem so resistant to change. When I'm talking to friends outside of Ireland I just cannot explain to them why Ireland does not have reproductive choice. That's just inexplicable to them. I say 'Oh yes, we're a really modern country and we even have same sex marriage but, no, if you get pregnant then you have to stay pregnant'. For me, Ireland is never going to feel very modern until we have reproductive choice."

She has friends who have been active in the #repealtheeighth campaign, but isn't overtly involved herself. "I'm at a bit of a distance," she explains. "I sign petitions and so on but I don't take a very active role." It's an interesting confession and since she often finds herself labelled a feminist or gay writer, one might have assumed her time was consumed with championing causes close to those groups. But that isn't the case.

"Over the years, I've had no objection to contributing my time, energy or name to gay or women's causes, but I'm not a full-time activist or anything," she says frankly. "It's about time and I have to say I'm quite mean with my time in that I just want to be writing all the spare time that I have. I spend a lot of time in my imagination, trying to bring these worlds to life and I guess I just begrudge anything that pulls me too much into the present day."

She breaks into laughter at a recent memory. "When I was going to the Oscars I remember someone said to me 'What cause are you going to talk about?' and I thought 'I'm brand new at this! I don't think my very first speech is going to be [she adopts a mock impassioned shouty voice] 'let me talk to you about South Korea!'"

Ah yes, the Oscars. Surely there can be no greater feeling of 'I've made it' than gliding along a celeb-strewn red carpet like Emma did this year when she was nominated in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for Room at the Academy Awards. "The irony is that, when you're on the red carpet, you feel like a loser because everyone else on the red carpet is more famous and more glamorous," says Emma chuckling. "Among your friends you feel like a big shot, but being six inches from Leonardo DiCaprio makes you feel like a nothing."

Proving that she's still just as star-struck as the rest of us, she confesses that having Cate Blanchett rub her arm at another glitzy do was "a personal high" and gaining entry to the fabulous world of the Hollywood gifting suite was an added bonus. "It's bizarre, they're like free shops," says Emma, still clearly perplexed by the set-up whereby award nominees get offered armfuls of free clobber.

"You walk in and there's someone asking you what shoe size you are and 'would you like this bracelet?'. At book festivals you get maybe a sachet of coffee and a really heavy mug that, if you're on a book tour, you have to leave behind in the hotel because you can't go round stockpiling heavy ceramic mugs."

But there is a sincerity to those ceramic mugs that she loves in the book world. Her first foray into feature films has shown her that Hollywood often comes with a sizeable helping of fawning and banal studio speak, which was one of the reasons why she was so delighted to work with an Irish company, Element, on Room.

"The dryness and wit of the Irish was a great contrast with the high level of gushiness and soothing and complimentary speech you can get in the industry," she reveals. "We just clicked. Myself, [producer] Ed Guiney, and [director] Lenny Abrahamson would just mock each other every time we met. It makes for trust. Because if somebody can mock you but not actually do you any real hurt then you feel safer with them."

The Irish sense of banter and an appreciation of irony is what she says she most wants to instil in her children Finn (12) and Una (8): "I'd say it's the main thing I teach them."

Another work Emma has due for release later this year is The Wonder, a novel that looks at the case of a young girl who appears to be surviving without eating. The story has its roots in real historical cases and is based in rural Ireland in the 1850s, but it also raises interesting contemporary issues about fundamentalism and body image.

With a daughter not too far off tweendom, I wonder if she worries about raising a girl in a world rife with gender inequality, pressure to look a certain way and the whole sexting minefield of social media. Naturally, Emma doesn't let me away with such lazy gender stereotyping. "Raising a boy is fraught too," she challenges playfully. "We hear so much about the crisis in modern masculinity and if they are not the ones opening the doors and carrying the bags, then what are they? And how much should you encourage them to play to their own obsessive interests, things like Minecraft, and then how much should you encourage them in those soft skills that the girls seem better at?

"I think parenting is always fraught with issues," she continues. "At the start it's like learning to walk after a stroke or something. You're thinking 'everyone else manages this, why can't I?'. But there are always new challenges, now I have to help them with the internet and remember all the different passwords. They're nagging me to upgrade their software and go out in the real world more, so you have to decide what to allow them."

But she hopes the type of 'intensive parenting' that this generation is involved in will pay dividends in intimacy. "I don't think our parents fretted over it in quite the same way that we are," she says. "But on the other hand, there's a level of intimacy there that I don't think was as common in the old days. My partner is a professor and she says her students are just so close to their parents, constantly texting and Skyping.

"So I think it's a hugely rewarding business and certainly it's hugely inspiring for me. It seems like everything I've written in the last 10 years has got something to do with parenting."

Unsurprisingly, both children - born to Emma and Chris using an anonymous sperm donor - are "mad readers". "They literally fight over books," says Emma. "And, if they're going to fight, what better thing to fight over?" Her own parents, the literary critic Denis Donoghue and English teacher mother, played a big influence on her career path but she's not dreaming of her own offspring following in her writer footsteps. "I wouldn't exactly advise it because the average income of writers is incredibly low and it's not necessarily a business that's going to make anyone happy I've felt hugely lucky."

Passing through an airport recently, she was stopped by someone who recognised her face off TV and knew she had "something to do with a prize". But Emma is insistent the recognition (such as it is) and limelight is "all temporary". "People recognising you in the supermarket, that only happens for a few weeks and quickly fades, which is fine because, really, would you want to live like that?

"It's been great because you tend to assume you've passed your peak in terms of being remotely interesting to the media and then suddenly there's this shot in the arm from interest in the film that has spread a wonderful sprinkle of magic dust on all the other books too. If someone will go and see Signatories because they saw me at the Oscars, then great. But I don't expect the spotlight to stay on me."

Which is great except that with her talent and such a down-to-earth and modest attitude to fame, it seems inevitable that it really won't be too long before the spotlight's back on her once again.

UCD's Signatories runs in Kilmainham Gaol from April 22-24, then moves to the Pavilion Theatre (April 26 & 27), Civic Theatre (May 3 & 4) and National Concert Hall (May 5). Tickets from ticketmaster.ie
Ireland will take 31 migrants Syrian refugees from Greece within weeks as part of an EU scheme. Photo: Joe Klamarjoe/Getty

Another 31 Syrian refugees will arrive in Ireland within weeks, just the second group of displaced people to be relocated here since the migration crisis swept Europe.

The latest migrants who will arrive from Greece are part of an EU scheme aimed at relocating 2,600 asylum seekers from Syria and Iraq in Ireland over the next two years.

The first Syrians  a family of 10  arrived in Ireland earlier this year.

These groups are separate from several hundred asylum seekers who will be brought here under a UN programme from refugee camps in Lebanon and elsewhere.

A Department of Justice spokesperson admitted the EU relocation programme has been slow in gathering momentum, but said the Government was prepared to make more substantive pledges in line with its commitments.

Meanwhile, the Sunday Independent can reveal that the public have lodged 800 pledges to house incoming refugees to the Irish Red Cross.

More than 60pc have offered shared accommodation, while over 30pc have offered vacant houses and apartments  mostly around major cities but also including some coastal holiday homes.
TAKE IT DOWN: The Anglo mural on the quays in Dublin. Photo: David Conachy

NAMA is being ordered this weekend to remove a large-scale street painting of former Anglo Irish boss David Drumm mocked up as a laughing satanic figure from a property it holds on one of Dublin's busiest roads.

The mural covers an entire wall of a former nightclub on Dublin's Lower Ormond Quay as well the adjoining Yamamori restaurant, which is separately owned by businessman Derek Ryan, who commissioned the work.

It is in full view of the public coming from Dublin's Circuit Criminal Court where Mr Drumm will face two trials in 2017 and 2018.

It portrays two images of Drumm: one as a chuckling horned devil figure with a long Pinocchio-style nose - complete with the symbol of Anglo Irish Bank on his forehead.

In the second, Drumm is again depicted as a horned devil, dressed in a robe covered in the Anglo logo.

However, in this painting he is pulling a fire-breathing dragon, which is clutching men in business suits and wrapped around the unfinished headquarters of his former bank.

A Celtic Tiger is shown bursting through Drumm's chest, while the image of the Anglo tapes stands beside it.

Overhead a construction crane, with the word Nama across it, illustrates that the organisation is building on Dublin's skyline.

Dublin City Council has told the Sunday Independent the order will be served to Nama in the coming days under the Litter Pollution Act.

However, a Nama spokesperson has said it "does not own the property in question", so is not responsible for graffiti removal.

The 40ft graffiti has been on public display for almost three years. It is to be removed before the end of the week.

This weekend Mr Ryan told the Sunday Independent: "There was not one single objection to the image."

He added: "The country was disgusted with the banking crisis and the meaning behind it is the dragon slaying the tiger."

He later said: "If they remove it I will put something else in its place. I already have something in mind."

The move by DCC comes only weeks after Drumm stated that he feels he will never get a fair trial in Ireland.

Drumm has long been cast as the villain in Ireland's massive banking collapse. He has always maintained others were equally to blame and that he was a scapegoat.

Speaking in February, the ex-Anglo CEO told a Sunday newspaper: "My version of events, acceptance of responsibility for my failings, and information that I feel should be made public, and is critical to the public interest, will never get a hearing because evidently the establishment has much to fear from my evidence.

He later added: "It is abundantly clear that I have been made a scapegoat for all of the problems Ireland has endured since the financial crisis of 2008."

Drumm will face two trials in relation to alleged offences committed during his time as chief executive of Anglo Irish Bank.

The 49-year-old is charged with 33 counts under two separate bills concerning alleged offences committed at the now defunct bank. He has yet to enter a plea to the charges.

The former banker's bail conditions were relaxed earlier this month with the consent of gardai and the DPP which means Drumm now has to sign on at a garda station just once per day instead of twice.

Mr Drumm, with an address of Old Colony Road, Wellesley, Massachusetts in the US, faces two charges of conspiring to defraud depositors and investors at Anglo by "dishonestly" creating the impression that deposits in 2008 were 7.2bn larger than they were. He faces one additional charge in relation to the EU transparency directive.

He will stand trial for these offences on April 24, 2017.

Drumm also faces 16 counts of offering unlawful financial assistance to members of businessman Sean Quinn's family and 10 other individuals as well as 14 charges of falsifying documents. These charges will be dealt with at a trial set down for January 12, 2018. Meanwhile, the artist behind the mural has chosen to remain anonymous.
Charges recently registered against Mr Flynn's historic Netterville Manor estate in the Boyne Valley, birthplace of the writer John Boyle O'Reilly, must also be released as part of a six-month stay against the execution of AIB's court order.

The former Taxing Master of the High Court, James Flynn, must give security over three properties to AIB as part of a 2.5m personal judgement the lender has obtained against him.

Charges recently registered against Mr Flynn's historic Netterville Manor estate in the Boyne Valley, birthplace of the writer John Boyle O'Reilly, must also be released as part of a six-month stay (postponement) against the execution of AIB's court order.

Netterville Manor, which features a chapel and 12th-century castle and is currently used for weddings, private dinner parties and other events, was placed for sale last year with Knight Frank, with an asking price of 2.25m.

Last week, Mr Flynn, a celebrated collector of historical artefacts and rare books, agreed to a 2.5m personal judgement in favour of AIB.

Fortberry, where Mr Flynn is a director and shareholder, also consented to a 5m judgement in favour of the State-owned lender.

The High Court heard that Mr Flynn was concerned that the bank would seek to petition the court to have him adjudicated as a bankrupt.

If this were to happen, Mr Flynn, who is aged in his mid-sixties, would not be able to practise as a solicitor, his counsel said.

AIB had intially opposed a stay of nine months sought by Mr Flynn and Fortberry.

However, following discussions, a six-month stay to October was agreed on conditions, including security over the properties, release of the charges as well as full co-operation from the defendants with the bank.

Mr Flynn told the Sunday Independent he could not "as yet" comment on the case.

He is also being sued in fresh summary debt proceedings brought by Havbell Ltd, according to the website of the Courts Service.

Last year, Havbell, a joint venture vehicle comprising Deutsche Bank and Apollo Global Management, bought a portfolio of Irish loans from Permanent TSB for a total consideration of 800m.

The portfolio includes non-core Irish loans backed by assets - largely made up of hundreds of commercial property loans and buy-to-let mortgages - spread around the country.

AIB brought proceedings against Mr Flynn over guarantees he gave on a loan in 2008 to his company, Fortberry.

The bank brought the case after Mr Flynn and Fortberry had failed to satisfy a demand for repayment of the monies claimed to be due and owing.

The claim was initially fully defended.

It was due to be heard last Wednesday after Flynn had brought proceedings against the bank, seeking specific performance of a settlement agreement that he and Fortberry claimed had been reached with AIB.

When the case was called, however, Mr Justice Paul Gilligan was told by counsel for AIB that the company and Mr Flynn were consenting to judgement.

Judge Gilligan placed a stay on the execution of the judgements until October to allow Mr Flynn and the company sell assets, including a number of properties, to reduce what is owed.

As former High Court Taxing Master, Mr Flynn independently assessed disputed legal bills when cases have ended to achieve a balance between costs involved in litigation and services rendered.

Although referred to in law as "taxation of costs", it actually has little to do with taxes and is a term coined many decades ago.
A final letter and a sheaf of notes left by the con-woman, Julia Holmes, shortly before she died in a suspected suicide with her husband, Thomas Ruttle, are expected to be revealed at an inquest that opens tomorrow.

The documents are among the detailed evidence that will be outlined before a jury at Limerick County Coroner's Court on the mysterious circumstances surrounding their deaths

Ms Holmes (63) was a bigamist who committed fraud in several countries, before being deported back to Ireland, where she met Thomas Ruttle, and settled in his farmhouse near Askeaton, Co Limerick.

Although she used more than 20 aliases to cover her tracks, she was on the verge of being found out at the time of their deaths. The couple had not been seen for weeks, and their bodies were discovered by suspected burglars on May 18 last year.

The inquest, which will take place at Newcastle West, is expected to hear evidence from the men who found them, although they may not appear in person. The State pathologist, Marie Cassidy, will testify on the cause of their death, while gardai will outline their report on the circumstances leading up to the deaths.

Ms Holmes sent the letter - which was deemed to be her final will and testament - to her solicitor, John Fahy, in the North. He has forwarded the relevant correspondence but will not be testifying at the inquest.

Notes were also left on the kitchen table of the farmhouse which pointed to suicide and which the couple requested be read out at the inquests into their deaths. One of the notes reportedly reads: "If you find us, don't revive us."

A gun was found in the couple's bedroom but had not been discharged. Gardai suspected the cause of death was deliberate carbon monoxide poisoning.

Julia Holmes and Thomas Ruttle (56) seemed to drop out of view after television and newspaper reports of her fraudulent activities began to emerge. Gardai believe that an online campaign to expose her may have precipitated her suicide pact with Thomas Ruttle.

She was born Cecilia McKitterick in Co Tyrone, she used more than 20 aliases, as she moved from one jurisdiction to the next. She was accused of fraud in Canada, Australia and America where she spent two years in a Texas jail for defrauding local businessmen out of 500,000.

She was deported from the US after finishing her sentence, and returned to the North.

She was caught swindling again and was convicted. She faced more charges in 2011, but skipped bail and moved across the Border.

She met unsuspecting Thomas Ruttle, a quiet separated father, on the internet and they married in April 2011, despite her never divorcing her two previous husbands. One of her last scams was passing off shop-bought honey as an artisan product.

In her letter to her solicitor, Julia Holmes asked to be buried beside Thomas Ruttle in the Ruttle family plot in Askeaton. She did not get her last wish.

No one claimed her body. It remained in the morgue for over a week following the post mortem. She was eventually cremated in Little Island in Cork.

Her ashes were later reclaimed from the Cork crematorium by a mystery mourner and were returned to Askeaton.

The letter also requested that the proceeds of their estate be divided among local builders who were owed an estimated 70,000 for renovating the farmhouse.

She had ordered the renovations after she moved in with Ruttle and when the builders sought payment, she told them she had cancer.
The Law Society of Ireland has warned its solicitor members that they must always carry a copy of the Bible and the Koran if they are to strictly fulfil an order issued by one of the country's most senior judges.

The President of the High Court, Mr Justice Peter Kelly, has made it clear that when a solicitor oversees a sworn affidavit, a Bible or other relevant religious text must always be used.

The only exception is where somebody objects to the use of such a text on religious grounds.

Now the Law Society, in a circular seen by the Sunday Independent, has privately warned its members that they must strictly abide by this ruling. Christians use the New Testament, Jews tend to use the Old Testament, while Muslims swear on the Koran.

But Judge Kelly's ruling means that in practice solicitors must now always have a copy of the Bible or Koran in their possession during working hours, in case they have to administer an oath and neither is available.

A legal source said the judge was well known for his strongly held views on certain issues and this ruling was in line with his overall approach to such matters.

It is understood that the Prison Service does not have copies of the Bible or Koran available in a number of institutions.

In such situations, it is incumbent on a solicitor to make their own arrangements when overseeing the swearing of an oath.

However, Judge Kelly has insisted that proper procedures must be adhered to under all circumstances.

The judge has clearly indicated that if a Bible or other religious text is not available in certain situations, the administering of the oath must still be conducted as per legal guidelines.

He has warned solicitors that the behaviour of their profession must be trusted in this regard and stressed that a solicitor, who is also an officer of the court, carries out his or her duties under legal constraints.

The Oaths Act of 1888 is the primary legal source in this area.

Every solicitor within the State who holds a current practising certificate is also entitled to administer oaths and to use the title 'Commissioner for Oaths'.

The Law Society points out that a Commissioner for Oaths is a person who is authorised to verify affidavits - sworn statements made in writing.

A commissioner may be required if a person is giving evidence on an affidavit related to court proceedings.

A solicitor may also be needed in "making an affirmation, declaration, acknowledgement, examination, or attestation", for the purposes of a court hearing or the registration of documents.

One of the main functions of a Commissioner for Oaths is to make sure that the evidence in question is in written form.

They must also establish that their client has read the draft affidavit in question - and that there is a full understanding of its contents.

There must be a sworn declaration that the contents are true by the person raising the "appropriate testament" in their right hand and then repeating the words of the oath. The legal guidelines explicitly point out that a person who is Jewish may swear the oath by raising the Old Testament.

The Law Reform Commission conducted an inquiry into the issue of "oaths and affirmations" in 1990.

Among its recommendations was that the oath should be abolished for witnesses and jurors and for "deponents" submitting affidavits in all civil and criminal proceedings. A deponent is any person who testifies under oath - in a deposition or in writing - by signing an affidavit.

It also recommended that any juror, or any other person, who may at present be required to take an oath in judicial proceedings, should be required instead to make a "solemn statutory affirmation" before giving evidence.
Retail giant Tesco Ireland says it "vigorously denies" allegations of fraudulent concealment made against it by a former Irish supplier.

Beaumex, which supplied CDs and DVDs to Tesco Ireland, has accused the company of "concealment by fraud" for operating what Beaumex claims is an accounting system that made it impossible for the supplier to check how much it was actually owed.

Last week, in a contested hearing before the High Court, Beaumex claimed that a "very sophisticated" system operated by Tesco deliberately made it impossible for Beaumex to figure out whether it was being underpaid.

Senior Counsel Martin Hayden SC, for Beaumex, referred to a vast array of documents, spanning 52 lever arch files, supplied to it by Tesco, relating to sums allegedly owed to it.

"The defendant's accounting practices and accounts with regard to the plaintiff were such that the true amount due and owing to the plaintiff was 'concealed' and hidden from view" he said.

Tesco's approach was "systemic", Beaumex claims.

Tesco Ireland has said that the company "fully denies" all the claims made by Beaumex and will be vigorously challenging these.

Beaumex first lodged a case against Tesco in 2013, seeking 3.96m that it claims it is owed by the supermarket chain for goods supplied.

Beaumex said its new claim of fraudulent concealment predated, but was supported by, the recent findings of the UK Grocery Adjudicator, which was highly critical of how Tesco treated suppliers.

Christine Tacon, the UK's first Groceries Code Adjudicator, found multiple breaches of the UK Groceries Code, including delays in payments to suppliers and double-invoicing.

Senior Counsel Brian O'Moore, for Tesco Ireland, told the High Court last week that the paperwork referred to by Beaumex did not imply fraudulent concealment of itself and asked Beaumex to give more details to support its claim.

The case comes back before the High Court next month just as new Groceries Regulations come into force here.

Under the regulations, retailers and wholesalers with worldwide turnover of more than 50m - or who are part of a group of related companies with such a turnover - cannot change contracts unilaterally and must pay suppliers within 30 days.
The jailed fraudster Breifne O'Brien is being pursued through the High Court by a vulture fund.

The one-time socialite and conman who is serving seven years for duping his friends out of millions is being sued by Stapleford Finance Ltd which is owned by one of the world's biggest vulture funds.

The finance company is a subsidiary of the US investment fund, CarVal, which snapped up 600m of loans from the former Anglo Irish Bank two years ago. Some of the loans were in the names of high net worth individuals and many of professionals who borrowed during the boom.

Stapleford has issued 38 sets of legal proceedings since late last year demanding repayment from individual borrowers. It filed legal proceedings against O'Brien in February this year but the details of the case are not disclosed.

CarVal is one of dozens of private equity firms and hedge funds that bought up distressed Irish loans at big discounts following the property crash. In recent months, investors have been moving to cash in on their investments - which means taking possession of the asset if the loan can't be repaid and selling it on.

The legal action is the latest in a raft of cases against O'Brien, who was jailed in 2014 on 14 counts of theft and deception of five investors, three of whom had been his close friends from his days in Trinity College in Dublin. He convinced them to invest in property deals in Paris, Manchester and Hamburg and a shipping insurance scheme but all of the schemes were bogus.

O'Brien borrowed from the former Anglo Irish Bank. Shortly after his scam first came to light, a High Court judgement stated that he had taken out loans with Anglo's Dublin and London offices but had defaulted on the repayments. He borrowed more than Stg1.9m to buy properties in Reading. By February 2009, his "total indebtedness" was 2.2m "together with further interest on principal sums of 5,5m.

The IBRC - the state entity that took over the nationalised Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide - secured a judgement for 16.2m against Breifne O'Brien in February last year for loans obtained from Irish Nationwide Building Society.

The Commercial Court was told he used the money to buy properties, including in Cork and in Monkstown, Dublin. O'Brien claimed the loans were provided as a result of "reckless lending and undue influence".

The friends he duped into investing in his bogus schemes also secured judgements against him for more than 3m. O'Brien's trial for theft and deception that year heard that he used the money he stole from investors to pay for stamp duty on new properties he bought, for an extension on his house and a new car for his wife.

He pleaded guilty as his trial was due to start and was sentenced to seven years imprisonment. Gardai described his method of getting investors to transfer funds, which he would then use for other business deals and to repay other investors, had the characteristics of a Ponzi scheme.

At the time of his trial, 420,000 was recovered for his victims from assets owned by O'Brien

O'Brien appealed his sentence. He lost his appeal last December. As part of his appeal, O'Brien submitted a psychologist's report that likened his motivation to gambling, and mentioned his desire to impress others. But the judge found that O'Brien did not suffer from any known addiction. If he had, he wouldn't have been able to commit the crimes because they required the injured parties to place great trust in him.
The country now faces another general election after talks between Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny and Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin collapsed yesterday in bitter acrimony over water charges.

During a crucial meeting aimed at resolving two months of political deadlock, Mr Martin told Mr Kenny that the suspension of water charges for the lifetime of the Dail was a necessity for Fianna Fail to facilitate a Fine Gael-led minority government.

But Mr Kenny was adamant at the meeting that any deal on returning him to office as Taoiseach should not result in the long-term suspension of water charges.

Mr Martin's ultimatum came as Fine Gael's national executive met yesterday to begin preparations for a second election amid increasing fears that a deal will not be reached with Fianna Fail.

A senior Fine Gael official involved in election planning told the Sunday Independent the talks were "going nowhere" and warned that an election could be called this week.

"The party is now officially on an election footing and our executive council has been told to prepare for a general election," another senior Fine Gael source said.

A senior Fianna Fail source also said the party was "prepared to go to the country" on the water charges issue.

After the meeting in Government Buildings, Mr Kenny and Mr Martin spoke by telephone during the course of the afternoon.

It was decided that Fine Gael and Fianna Fail negotiators would hold make-or-break talks tomorrow after the two leaders had again failed to reach a compromise on the water charges issue.

However, the stalemate in the talks led to a bitter war of words, with Fine Gael accusing Mr Martin of being "spooked" by political attacks from the Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.

Before the election, Fianna Fail promised to abolish Irish Water and suspend water charges for five years.

In negotiations to facilitate a Fine Gael-led minority government, however, Fianna Fail has conceded that Irish Water need not be abolished, but insisted that its future "construct and model" be referred to an independent commission for advice.

In return for this concession, Fianna Fail insisted that water charges would have to be suspended for the lifetime of the Dail.

However, Fine Gael yesterday only agreed that water charges should be suspended for the period it takes to agree and introduce a new payment model to allow for waiver schemes and welfare packages.

Fianna Fail was not prepared to abandon its pre-election promise on the suspension of water charges.

Fine Gael believes that it will be politically difficult to reintroduce water charges once they have been cancelled for a long period.

Other policy issues in a range of areas, including increasing rent supplements, reducing hospital waiting lists, introducing tax credits for childcare and re-introducing career guidance teachers, also have to be ironed out in the negotiations between the parties.

A senior Fianna Fail source has said that it is now time for Mr Kenny to "pony up" and accept the suspension of the charges as a condition of the party facilitating a Fine Gael-led minority government.

The demand is due to fears in Fianna Fail that members, including TDs, will abandon the party if it facilitates Fine Gael in government without striking a deal on suspending charges.

"We can't agree to something that can't be sold to our party members," a senior Fianna Fail source said.

Mr Kenny is faced with similar concerns. At a recent meeting of Fine Gael councillors in Sligo, the party's general secretary general Tom Curran was told that he would be faced with a raft of resignations if the acting Taoiseach caved in on water charges.

Fine Gael's parliamentary party voted unanimously in favour of retaining the charges ahead of government talks with Fianna Fail.

A senior Fine Gael negotiator yesterday said the stalemate over water had put the talks in a "very precarious" position. "We tried to facilitate compromise on positions and options, and they were having none of it," the source added.

There have been advanced discussions between the two parties on a series of welfare packages which would make water more affordable for older people and those on low incomes.

And there are plans being discussed to introduce waivers aimed at encouraging people to conserve water.

At yesterday's Sinn Fein ard fheis in Dublin, Mr Adams targeted Mr Martin in his keynote speech.

"You promised in your manifesto to abolish Irish Water and to scrap water charges. Water charges must go. Irish Water must go," he said.

A senior Fine Gael source yesterday accused Mr Martin of "not showing real leadership" by allowing Sinn Fein to determine Fianna Fail policy.

"If he and Mary Lou McDonald and Gerry Adams believe there is a majority in favour of abolishing water charges, well then they should come together and form a government," the source said.

However, a senior Fianna Fail source yesterday said: "Fine Gael needs to put its hands up and admit failure on this issue. The entire construct of Irish Water and water charges needs to be re-examined.

"After the election, 90 TDs in the Dail are opposed to water charges. Fine Gael needs to take account of that. There is an opportunity now to wipe the slate clean and start again," the source added.
Social Democrats co-founder Catherine Murphy has been forced into an embarrassing climbdown after admitting her party did discuss forming a rainbow coalition with the Labour Party and Green Party.

Despite publicly seeking to distance herself from Labour, Ms Murphy has now confirmed a plan to form a left-of-centre alliance involving all three parties to prop up Fine Gael was examined by the Social Democrats.

The Sunday Independent last week revealed talks had taken place between Labour, the Greens and Social Democrats about supporting a government led by Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny.

After receiving backlash from supporters, Ms Murphy rushed to the national airwaves - where she was given free rein by RTE - to deny that any talks on entering government had taken place.

However, the true extent of those government talks, which can now be revealed in detail, raise serious questions over Ms Murphy's public comments.

Two weeks ago, Green Party leader Eamon Ryan held a private meeting with Social Democrats co-founder Stephen Donnelly near his home in Greystones, Co Wicklow.

At the meeting, Mr Ryan outlined his plan to form an alliance of the three parties which could exert influence in a rainbow coalition led by Fine Gael.

The Green Party leader put the same proposal directly to Ms Murphy during a discussion in Leinster House.

After his meeting with the Green TD, Mr Donnelly briefed Ms Murphy and Roisin Shortall on the proposal.

During the same period, Mr Ryan held talks with several senior Labour figures, including acting Tanaiste Joan Burton and acting public expenditure minister Brendan Howlin about the same proposal.

He also spoke to Ms Burton's chief-of-staff, Ed Brophy.

A Labour source described their discussions with Mr Ryan as "detailed".

At no stage did Labour and the Social Democrats speak directly to each other about entering government - and this newspaper did not report that they had.

However, the Social Democrats were fully aware that the proposal tabled by Mr Ryan had been offered to Labour as part of deal involving all three.

"We were talking to everyone and looking at every option and included in that was looking at whether it would be possible to form a rainbow coalition with a large centre-left component," Mr Ryan said.

Labour was initially open to the idea but has since decided against the move, as have the Social Democrats.

Questioned by the Sunday Independent about these meetings, Ms Murphy finally admitted the Social Democrats discussed Mr Ryan's proposal.

"Eamon Ryan had a conversation with Stephen about what they would like. Stephen presented it back to us and we had a brief conversation about the meeting with Eamon Ryan," Ms Murphy said.

"We don't take the same view as the Green Party and that is the approach we are going to proceed with," she added.

Mr Donnelly said a range of possibilities were discussed with Mr Ryan, including entering coalition with the Labour Party. However, he said the Social Democrats would not "do business" with Ms Burton during the next Dail term - in Opposition or Government.
Final-year college students are buying dangerous attention deficit disorder drugs, dubbed 'brain viagra', as the college exam season gets under way.

There is growing concern some hard-pressed students - desperate to either pass an exam or improve their grades - are relying on substances which should only be used when prescribed by a doctor.

College sources confirm that over the next few weeks there will be a surge in the numbers buying these substances illegally on the dark web.

With graduates still facing a tough jobs market, USI president Kevin Donoghue confirmed there is evidence certain students are using 'cognitive enhancing drugs' in the hope of boosting academic performance.

The revelation comes as new figures obtained by the Sunday Independent reveal a surge in the number of seizures of the top three most popular 'smart drugs' smuggled into the country in the past four years.

There were 2,940 Adderall, Ritalin and Modafinil tablets seized in 2014 - compared with 1,344 in 2011.

A trawl through a number of websites reveals so-called 'smart pills' are being carefully marketed online, suggesting they can unlock hidden human brainpower.

One website uses a picture of the actor Bradley Cooper in the Hollywood film Limitless, where he plays a character who becomes almost super-human after taking a pill that allegedly unleashes 100pc of his brain power.

A single Ritalin tablet, normally prescribed for ADHD sufferers, sourced from underground labs in Asia, can be purchased for 2.50.

The medication is often used during late-night cramming sessions to try and improve concentration.

However, ADHD drugs are not designed to be used as study aids, and experts warn the pills can have dangerous side-effects, including heart palpitations, sleeplessness, and stomach problems.

"If misused they can have very serious consequences, and the concern would be that a student becomes reliant on them in order to try and study," Mr Donoghue told the Sunday Independent.

"Some people suggest they improve memory and focus, while others insist that it allows you study for longer. Young people are under huge pressure during exams right now - and getting a 2.1 or a 1.1 can make a big difference to job prospects.

"It's incredibly competitive out there. Some students unfortunately feel they can't meet their targets on their own, and that they need additional support. But these substances are extremely dangerous and simply not worth it."

Excessive parental pressure placed on students to achieve high grades is adding to the problem, he added.
THE Irishman arrested in Iraq after fighting Isis in Syria has been released.

Joshua Molloy (24) from the village of Ballylinan, Co Laois, travelled to the Middle East region in April 2015 to fight against Isil with forces allied to the Kurds.

Expand Expand Previous Next Close Joshua Molloy Joshua Molloy Credit: Gerry Mooney / Facebook

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He was arrested 10 days ago after allegedly crossing the border from Syria to Iraq illegally more than a week ago.

Declan Molloy, Joshua's father, said emotions in the family were running wild.

"We are all delighted here. We are jumping with joy to know that he is out," he said.

"You know that Christmas morning feeling, it's a bit like that, when you find your most sought-after present under the tree, the dream present. That's how we feel."

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Joshua was one of three men freed from jail in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

It is understood they were freed last night, with Ireland's Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan first to break the news to the Molloy family.

"I welcome the release of Irish citizen Joshua Molloy in Iraq," Mr Flanagan said in a tweet.

"I thank all who helped & I wish him a safe journey home to join his family."

In an interview with the Irish Daily Mail - published today - from a prison in the Iraq city of Erbil, Mr Molloy, described as looking frail and exhausted, said he was trying to get home after nine months of fighting when he was arrested.

"They're feeding us here, so that's okay," he said. "I am thin from my time in Syria. I was there for nine months. I just wanted to go home. "

"I was in the British army and I read what the Kurds were doing, fighting to protect innocent people in the face of Isis," he said.

"All those terrible things were happening to the Yazidis and we weren't doing anything about it, so I decided to come and help them."

He was also adamant that any other fighters thinking of heading to Syria should not go.

It is understood he was arrested by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) 10 days ago along with two Britons, Joe Akerman and Jac Holmes, as they tried to return home.

The Department of Foreign Affairs is working with British counterparts on the case.

In a statement, Mr Flanagan said: "I would like to thank all those who helped to make this early release happen.

"My department will continue to provide consular assistance in this case."
An 19-year-old Irish girl whose brother had lobbied for her hospital transfer to undergo a life-saving operation has died.

Breda Kevane received the attention of national media last month when her brother Paddy highlighted her tragic plight.

Just over three weeks ago, he said that his sister would die unless she was transferred to a hospital that could carry out the necessary surgery.

Breda, who required urgent surgery on her airways to save her life, had been placed in an induced coma at Kerry University Hospital.

Paddy told Newstalk's 'The Right Hook' that his sister - who was 18 at the time - would likely die if she was not transferred to Cork University Hospital or University Hospital Limerick.

"If she stays in Kerry for another two or three days, the most likely outcome is that she'll die," the final year social care student told presenter George Hook.

Just received news that Breda Kevane died this morning. Her plight moved me and sad that we could not do more.  George Hook (@ghook) April 24, 2016

His heartfelt #Bed4Breda appeal fell on the right ears as Breda successfully got a bed in the Cork hospital's ICU.

But despite delighted her family when she woke up "conscious and aware" from her induced coma just over two weeks, Breda has sadly passed away.

"Just received news that Breda Kevane died this morning. Her plight moved me and sad that we could not do more," George Hook tweeted this afternoon.

At the time of Paddy's initial plea, the HSE said it would be inappropriate to comment on individual cases but that it has contacted the two hospitals involved to get an update on their overall situation.

"We have contacted the two hospitals involved to get an update on the overall ICU situation but we would stress that patients are prioritised on the basis of clinical need," the statement read.
Prison Service security staff are playing a key role keeping the death and injury toll down in the Dublin gang feuding, it can be revealed.

Gardai, who don't normally praise their colleagues in the Prison Service, say that work being done to separate the warring factions inside jail is 'definitely' keeping the death toll down on the outside.

"We're amazed how they're keeping the lid on it," one senior garda source said about the prisons staff. "The worst on both sides are inside at the moment. They are set on murdering each other and that always kicks it off outside if someone is attacked in prison."

One of the main reasons for the attack by the five gunmen on the Kinahan gang at the Regency Hotel on February was an attempt to murder Derek 'Del Boy' Hutch in Mountjoy Prison last December. This came after the murder of his brother, Gary Hutch, in Spain in September by members of the Kinahan mob.

Derek Hutch was in a recreation yard in Mountjoy Prison in Dublin when he was set on by the rival gang. He was saved only when three prison officers intervened - sources say at great risk - and pulled him in from the yard. Derek Hutch suffered stab and slash wounds and could easily have been killed, sources say.

"That was a very brave action by those officers. The public don't know how much work and risk of injury goes on every day in our prisons keeping gangs apart and keeping the lid on," a prison source told the Sunday Independent.

"We have been very successful in recent years introducing new security measures stemming the activities of the gangs in terms of blocking and finding phones that are being used in gang activity.

"There is a great deal of work and effort that goes into arranging the accommodation of gangs so that violence does not break out. We don't want to say too much because the risks are always there."

Much of the spearhead work in the prisons is carried out by the Operations Support Group which collates information on gangs and ensures that, as much as possible, they are kept apart and under control.

The 'security staff' as they are known in the prison system works closely with gardai in monitoring and managing the gangs in jail.

"All prison staff work at this though," the source said. "Our aim is to protect both our own staff and our inmates and everyone plays a role in that. We have had a lot of success that we don't talk about but it is a difficult job."

Much of the work preventing violence inside the prisons involves keeping gangs apart in separate jails and in segregated wings within jails.

With over 3,700 inmates including the most dangerous and violent gang members the work in containing the violence is 'never-ending' the source said.

Only last month an inmate in Portlaoise Prison suffered severe stab and slash wounds requiring emergency treatment and 60 stitches to his wounds after he was attacked by a group of prisoners armed with home-made knives.

Garda sources say that an attack or killing in prison 'always' precipitates violence on the outside and the relative peace in the prisons has greatly helped keep the death toll in the current feud down.

Among those serving time in the prison system are figures known to have committed gangland murders but who are serving terms for firearms or drugs possession. Included in the 'Kinahan' prison population is the country's most prolific killer said to be responsible for at least 13 murders, some of which involved the torture and secret burial of victims.

The prison service also has to contend with relatively minor figures in the gangs who are trying to further their criminal careers by attacking rivals.

The current feud has the potential to be the bloodiest in gangland history as it involves the two biggest criminal organisations in the State, with the exception of the IRA. The Dublin southside cartel, referred to as the Kinahan gang but encompassing many other major criminal families on the southside of the Liffey is currently ahead in terms of murders by four to one. Garda sources say there is no end in sight with the southside gangs determined to 'totally destroy' their rivals.

The pressure cooker environment in the prisons system is expected to be discussed at the annual Prison Officers' Association (POA) conference which is being held this week.

Earlier this month the Irish Prison Service (IPS) has confirmed that it had come to agreement with the POA over back-payments of what is effectively danger money for 178 prison officers serving at Portlaoise Prison. The offices have received a total of 986,961 back-pay for what is officially termed 'environmental allowance'.

The payment in arrears to the officers at the prison that houses the country's subversive prisoner population works out at an average of 5,544 each.

The allowance is worth 30.97 per week to each prison officer.
Sinn Fein's ard fheis this weekend will no doubt be a triumphant occasion. It has 23 seats in the Dail and could possibly become the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections. Gerry Adams will be re-elected leader unopposed. Add the unreconstructed nationalism evident in its 'celebration' of 1916 and you have all the ingredients for a party that is pleased with itself.

That triumphalism might be great for the activist, but I suspect the more thoughtful in the party will be concerned.

Sinn Fein had a bad election. Okay, Sinn Fein's slow-growth strategy seems to be working. From just four seats in 2007, it could become a formidable force in the Dail, as not all of the new TDs are lobby fodder for the bosses in Belfast. There were a few stars in the election: Pearse Doherty showed himself to be more than competent in debates on the economy.

But the party didn't pick up the support it had expected in 2016. In an election following years of austerity, with the water charges issue and even 1916, it seemed set up for a Sinn Fein breakthrough. But the party got less than 14pc of the vote - well down on its result in the European elections two years ago. It performed much worse than its sister parties in Greece and Spain, Syriza and Podemos.

It would have hoped that it could overtake Fianna Fail, which had hardly shone in Opposition, and relied on the ineptitude of Fine Gael for its recovery. The resurgent Fianna Fail remaining in Opposition makes it harder for Sinn Fein to carve out space for itself. Sinn Fein's non-involvement in government negotiations is designed for the party's long-term goal of becoming one of the top two parties in the State. But it is being accused of 'sitting on its hands'.

Those accusations are a bit unfair because Sinn Fein is persona non grata. None of the parties would do a deal with it. Even the alphabet-soup Left can't agree a transfer pact with it.

This might suit Sinn Fein for now. This is an anti-establishment 'moment'.

Populist parties and candidates are doing well because there is seen to have been a failure of the State to act effectively to deal with real problems people have. In some places, such as Greece and Spain, the populist solution is on the Left; in other places, such as the UK and France, it's on the Right.

Regardless of whether Left or Right, what they have in common is that they offer enticingly simple solutions to complex problems. They blame foreigners, financial markets and political insiders.

Wherever you are, it is broadly the same type of people who support those parties. Its voters are much more likely to be young, male and angry. Sinn Fein picks up the votes that Trump and Le Pen would in their countries.

It is to Sinn Fein's credit that it is not an anti-immigrant party - unless you happen to be the descendent of an immigrant who came to Ireland 400 years ago.

But like those voting for Trump or Farage, its voters are more chauvinistic than other parties. The European Social Survey, released last year, shows that Sinn Fein voters are less welcoming of immigrants: 21pc of its voters would allow no immigration, compared to 10pc of Fine Gael voters. On the other end of the scale, just 8pc would welcome 'many immigrants', compared to 18pc of Fine Gael voters.

On other issues, we see similar patterns. A quarter of Sinn Fein voters disagree with the statement that 'Gays should be free to live as they like.' This compares with less than 10pc of Fine Gael supporters. On other social issues, such as the role of women, we see that Sinn Fein voters are as conservative as those of Fianna Fail, which is more surprising, given the younger age profile of the Sinn Fein voter.

Where Sinn Fein's supporters differ from Fianna Fail's is that they are much less happy, and much less trusting.

That they don't trust the institutions of the State, such as gardai and the courts, might not be surprising, but they also don't trust their fellow citizens. Forty per cent of Fine Gael and Fianna Fail voters agree that 'most people can be trusted', but just 20pc of Sinn Fein's voters do.

The Sinn Fein message suits these people, but it could become a problem if Sinn Fein ever wants to govern.

While Sinn Fein's politics will delight a minority, it repulses many, even those who should be its friends. The radical Left doesn't regard it as genuinely left-wing; it sees it as a populist party using the class struggle for its nationalist ends. The centre Left regards it as too left-wing and find its brand of aggressive nationalism abhorrent.

This hits the party where it matters. Its 'transfer toxicity' might be overplayed, but Sinn Fein still gets fewer transfers than a party of its size should.

This cost it three seats in the February election. Just as many US voters will vote for anyone but Trump, most Irish ones will support anyone other than Sinn Fein.

Gerry Adams, like a Trump or Farage, gets headlines. Teenagers love selfies with him. But it stops the party from being taken seriously as a potential party of government. An interviewer had only to throw a few numbers at Adams and watch as he was left reeling in confusion.

It's hard to see him going unless he wants to go. Politicians have big egos and don't naturally realise they are a liability on their own. Sinn Fein is stuck with him.

The other problem is that the economy is improving. The 2017 or 2018 election will be a good one to win, but in the context of a recovery, Sinn Fein's message might not be as relevant. It's betting on the mainstream parties' failure, which might not happen.

Because it is important to the Northern leadership, the North is a bigger part of the party's campaign than a purely vote-seeking party would have. But it is not an issue that voters in the Republic care much about. This could also limit its growth.

As it gets bigger, expect Sinn Fein to move to the centre and it may even moderate its nationalism; but if Sinn Fein is Fianna Fail for slow learners, it can't succeed with a rising Fianna Fail.

Dr Eoin O'Malley is director of the MSc in Public Policy in the School of Law and Government, Dublin City University
Chenin Blanc was brought by Dutch settlers to South Africa in the 1680s. Originally, the Dutch distilled Chenin's wine to produce brandy, itself a word derived from old Dutch, brandewijn meaning "burnt wine".

Today, South Africa's Chenin Blanc (historically referred to as Steen), produces two main celebrated styles of dry wines. Either fresh, crisp and fruity for immediate drinking or richer and more tropical fruity styles from late-harvested grapes. The riper fruit benefits from being fermented in new oak barrels to add nutty richness and white pepper spice. These oaked wines will continue to improve over several years. As a foodie wine, Chenin is remarkably versatile. It has naturally high acidity which can refresh parts of the palate no toothbrush can reach as it cuts through any creamy, saucy or oily dishes.

Here are those that topped our taste test:

1) Chenin Blanc/ Steen 2015, Drostdy Hof, Western Cape 12.5pc

Lime zesty fragrance. Excellent concentration of pithy citrus and starfruit flavours with a bracing tangy grapefruit finish. Enjoy with deep-fried calamari rings and capers.

13 at Gerry's Supermarket, Skerries; Rowan's, Rathfarnham; Cases Warehouse, Galway, Joyce's Supermarkets, Headford, Knocknacranna, Athenry, Tuam and Inverin, and wineonline.ie

2) Barrel Fermented Chenin Blanc 2014, Kleine Zalze, Stellenbosch 14.5pc

Honey and nutty bouquet from the super ripe fruit and oak. Rich and full-bodied with the oaked spice contrasted by a lemon and pithy finish. Try with salmon fillets grilled with a sweet and sour glaze.

12.89 at winesoftheworld.ie

3) Chenin Blanc 2013, Delheim, Stellenbosch 13.5pc

Delicately scented with yellow plum aromas. Mineral salty highlights on the palate over lemony zest and flesh. Perfect with oysters.

12.95 at O'Brien's nationwide.

4) Chenin Blanc 2015, Secateurs, Badenhorst Family Wines, Swartland 13pc

Lovely lemon peel palate with a salty tang. Beautifully balanced acidity with a mineral and pithy finish. Works well with onion bhajis.

16.95 at jnwine.com and in Dublin: Whelehan's, Blackrock Cellars, Terroirs and Corkscrew.

5) Chenin Blanc 2013, Fleur du Cap, Stellenbosch 13.5pc

Butterscotch and smoky scents from fermented on new oak barrels. Spicy, peppery and peach fruit with a hint of caramel. Pair with prawns in a satay sauce.

18 at Egan's, Portlaoise and wineonline.ie

6) Darling Chenin Blanc 2015, Fairview, Paarl 13.5pc

Intense grassy and zesty palate with a tingling lemony finish. A perfect companion with lemon sole, plainly grilled and drizzled with melted butter.

18.99 at Clontarf Wines; Blackrock Cellar; Thomas's, Foxrock; La Touche Wines, Greystones and wineonline.ie

Tasting notes

James Nicholson's Spring Wine Tour comes to Cork's Opera House on Monday, May 9, and The G Hotel in Galway on Tuesday, May 10, from 6pm to 8pm. Meet winemakers and taste their wines. Pre-booking essential, tickets 15, from jnwine.com or by calling 1890 667799.
One of the four duplex penthouses with asking prices ranging from 900,000 to 1.45m at Spencer Dock, Dublin 1

It is not often that describing something as a vestige of the bygone Celtic Tiger era would be seen as a positive, but in the case of the penthouses at Spencer Dock, which went on the market for the first time this week, this is the case.

Originally built by Treasury Holdings in 2008, these four units have been rented for the intervening period. It is unlikely that apartments on such a grand scale, combining this level of size, standard and luxury, will come to the market again. Currently, the average size of a penthouse in the South Docklands is about 139sqm. These units range from 251sqm to 330sqm.

Situated on the north side of the city, behind the Convention Centre, these duplex apartments were designed by architects Scott Tallon Walker. There are four duplex units in total, with asking prices ranging from 900,000 to 1.45m. They are: 65 Baltrasna House, 251sqm, 900,000; 54 Kirkpatrick House, 246sqm, 975,000; 47 Hill of Down, 330sqm, 1.35m; and 48 Hill of Down, 272sqm, 1.45m. No 47 Hill of Down boasts a hot tub on the upper-level terrace, while the terraces of 54 and 48 have heated swimming pools.

All are triple-aspect, with multiple outdoor areas that include balconies on the lower level, terraces on the top. The bedrooms are on the lower floor, with open-plan living quarters above.

All bedrooms are double, with most including a walk-in wardobe or entrance corridor lined with fitted wardrobes.

There are Whirlpool baths in the master en suite and chrome heated towel rails in all bathrooms. 54 Kirkpatrick includes a study on the lower level. The upper levels, all open plan, are split into three areas: a living area, a kitchen in the middle, with integrated appliances, and a dining area to the other side. Floor-to-ceiling windows throughout take advantage of the incredible views that stretch from the Wicklow mountains to Croke Park and beyond, which can be enjoyed from Jacuzzi, bath, bed or living room.

Each apartment comes with two underground parking spaces, concierge service available 7am-10pm and 24-hour CCTV. This is a particular draw for potential purchasers who spend a good part of their time abroad, says agent Owen Reilly.

Built around peaceful ground-floor courtyards that boast award-winning landscaping, the Spencer Dock apartment complex is otherwise fully occupied.

Natural materials have been used throughout, with French walnut and oak floors, and solid oak joinery including all window frames which softens the overall look. These units have a BER rating of between B1-B3.

Owen Reilly believes the appeal of the penthouses is much broader than it would have been 10 year ago. He puts that down to two factors: a change in attitude to living in town, thanks mainly to the large numbers of foreign professionals who prefer city apartments to suburban homes. And second, he cites the development of the locality.

In its early days, this areas tended to shut down for the weekend once the Friday post-work drinks crowd left. Now, the docklands is well established as a busy, lively place to live, with a good choice of wine bars, cafes, restaurants, theatre, water sports, jogging tracks and excellent transport facilities.

The apartments are located near to Spencer Dock Luas stop and adjacent to the Irish Rail Docklands station.

Address: The Penthouses, Spencer Dock, Dublin 1

Agents: Owen Reilly (01) 677 7100 and Hooke & MacDonald (01) 631 8402

Viewing: By appointment
Testing time: The inspection is thorough and every aspect of the vehicle is examined

There were just under 1.5 million NCT tests carried out last year and more than half of the cars tested failed first time. However, those that fail usually have an issue that could be easily fixed, by either the driver or a mechanic, before the day of the NCT.

Broken headlights, missing bulbs and tyres in a poor condition are just three of the reasons why cars fail.

So how can you prepare your car before a NCT?

Just a few simply checks could save you time and money and if you do discover that you need to bring it to a mechanic, you will have time to shop around, rather than being under pressure due to a looming retest date.

Clean your Car: Cleaning your car inside and out will not only give the impression of a well cared-for and maintained car, but also, if your car is really dirty, then the tester can actually refuse to carry out the test.

A National Car Test inspector refused to carry out a car test because there were dog hairs in the vehicle. Also, be sure to empty the boot, as this needs to be accessible, and pay particular attention to your lights, mirrors and registrations plate, which should be clear and undamaged.

Lights: Nearly a fifth of all failures are due to lights. When your car is parked, walk around it and check all of the lights, the headlight and low beam, indicators, parking lights, number plate lights and brake lights.

The rear fog lamp, where fitted, will be checked to ensure that when in use it provides a red light which is clearly visible and the reverse provides a white light which is clearly visible.

Check that the lens and/or casings are not cracked or damaged and make sure the hazards are working too.

Either use a mirror placed behind the car or get someone to stand behind while you operate.

Inside the car, check all the warning lights on the dash, including the indicator for airbags, electronic stability control (ESC) systems and electronic braking systems (EBS)/anti-lock brake system (ABS): your car will fail if a malfunction indicator is not working or indicates a defect in the system.

Water and Fluids: Top up all the fluids and make sure you have enough fuel. Fluids include engine oil, engine coolant, power steering and brake fluid windscreen wash.

Most of these are clearly labelled under the bonnet and easy to top up, but if you are unsure, check the manual.

Tyres: Make sure all tyres are inflated to the correct pressure. You can do this at most service stations and you can find the correct pressure in your manual. There also needs to be at least 1.6mm of tread across three-quarters of the tyre.

Use a torch to ensure there are no cuts, lumps of bulges on the tyre. Otherwise, not alone will you fail, but you will have less grip and risk a blowout.

Remove hubcaps so that the wheel nuts are visible. Also an 'E' or 'e' mark indicates that the tyre is certified to comply with EU regulations and must be present on your tyres.

Windscreen and Wipers:

Make sure your wiper blades are working and are not damaged or worn, including the rear wiper. The windscreen should be free from large chips or cracks.

Handbrake: Although you are only going to be able to check the operation and not efficiency, just make sure the handbrake holds the car on a hill.

Also, pull it up to listen to the ratchet engaging - between six and eight clicks are enough, any more and your cable may be stretched, reducing efficiency.

SEATBELTS: All seatbelts must be in good condition and working, so ensure you can easily access them and that the belts and their clips are visible.

Ensure all the clips properly engage and that the belt is not frayed or cut, as that too could result in a failure. Also, if you have child seats fitted, then the NCT is required to check that they are correctly attached.

Number plates: These must be securely fastened and clearly legible. No letters or numbers should be obscured and they should be the correct size and spacing.

Documents and Fee: Bring all paperwork relating to your car, such as the vehicle registration book, registration certificate, licensing certificate and also your personal identification. If you don't have the documentation to check, you may find you will be turned away.

Remember also the fee. The test costs 55 and a re-test where test equipment must be used to check the vehicle will cost 28. It is free when only a visual inspection is required.

Don't leave the test until the last minute, you can book a test up to 90 days in advance, so do yourself a favour and allow plenty of time to make any necessary repairs to your car.

If you are unclear about any aspect of the test procedure, you can download the NCT manual from the website and this clearly details every test. Finally, if you are dissatisfied with the test result, you may appeal it through the NCTs appeal process.

- GH
'Downtown Switzerland' doesn't have to cost the earth, says a cost-conscious Thomas Breathnach.

10am: Explore the other banks

With spring in the air and natives defrosting from their Alpine winter, the city's blockbuster lake glistens with Guten Morgen appeal.

Explore its banks by hiring a city bike with Zuri Rollt, who offer free rentals from the main station. From there, peddle down the iconic Bahnhofstrasse (watch those tramlines) to where the shimmering waters await.

How: See zurirollt.ch (Deposit and ID required).

2pm: Go en trende in Zurich West

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Edgy, industrial and uber-bearded, Zurich West was a hipster haven before the term ever hit the dictionary. Subculture vultures can enjoy the district's galleries, cafes and pop-up ateliers, all with a gritty backdrop of warehouses, railways and viaducts.

Hungry? Check out Frau Gerolds Garten: an urban green-space and artsy 'It'-spot created from oh-so-eco converted shipping containers.

How: Wander solo or join freewalk.ch for their free neighbourhood tour (tips are accepted).

5pm: An epic picnic at Uetliberg

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May offers the sunniest stints of the year in Zurich, with Uetliberg - the city's very own mountain - the place to soak up the evening rays.

Its picnic paradise summit rewards with 360-degree vistas across the Alps, and everything tastes better 869m above sea level.

For vittles, make a stop en route at Coop supermarket: Emmental, white wine and a crusty loaf of Zopf bread should do it!

How: See uetliberg.ch for more. Grab the SZU Bahn rail from downtown and hike to the summit.

8pm: Clock into the Red Factory

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The Zurich underground isn't all about U-Bahns - the city boasts one of Europe's most vibrant alternative scenes.

For chilled vibes (and beer), head to Rote Fabrik: a lakeside national institution where you can stumble upon anything from earthy poetry slams to crunk hiphop sets.

How: See rotefabrik.ch; ronorp.net is Zurich's hottest alternative event guide.

Do it

Aer Lingus (aerlingus.com) flies from Dublin to Zurich daily. See myswitzerland.com and zurich.ch for more.

Read more:
As they drove in darkness under the canopy of oaks that line the winding driveway to Russborough House, Martin Cahill knew in his heart and soul that this caper was not about money. He'd make more vaulting a counter and sticking a gun in some lowly bank official's face.

This was about much more. It was about letting the bastards know that he could do as he pleased: put a bomb under the car of the State's most senior forensic scientist, break into the offices of the Director of Public Prosecutions, rob and plunder with impunity.

Cahill, otherwise known as 'The General' in Dublin's underworld, was a smart guy, but he was about to enter his Mickey Mouse phase, dressing up in a mask, T-shirts and underpants and playing up for the cameras outside the Four Courts.

Cahill didn't foresee that this night would cast a long shadow - not only would it prove fruitless in terms of money, but the beautiful Beit paintings he was about to plunder would lead inexorably to the pool of blood seeping from his body by the side of the road in Ranelagh eight years later.

On this night, a Wednesday, May 21, 1986 - 30 years ago next month - Cahill and the 10-man gang he led had only one thing in mind: carrying out a 'spectacular' that he could use to taunt the authorities.

Eddie Gallagher and Rose Dugdale had pioneered raiding Russborough House on behalf of the IRA. All Cahill had to do was follow in their footsteps, even stealing some of the same paintings.

Nobody in their right mind was going to buy them anyway, despite the fact that one, a priceless Vermeer, was among the most coveted paintings in the world.

The plan was simple. They drove in and hid their getaway vehicles, then deliberately smashed a window in the French doors at the back of the house, setting off the alarm. Hidden in the lush undergrowth, they waited to see what would happen. A squad car drove up from the Garda Station in Blessington, took a look around and, believing it was another false alarm, drove off.

The gang then broke into Russborough House. The paintings themselves were not individually alarmed, so he chose 18 smaller, easier to move artworks by Vermeer, Goya, Metsu, Rubens and other great artists, many still in their frames. On their way back to the city they dumped seven of the "lesser" paintings by the side of the road near Manor Kilbride, leaving them with 11 of the best.

The following morning was chaotic at Russborough House, built by the wealthy Earl of Milltown, and, according to the architectural historian Mark Bence-Jones, "arguably the most beautiful house in Ireland". Set in the dramatic landscape of west Wicklow, it passed through the hands of various earls, gradually falling into down-at-heel magnificence.

In 1951, Sir Alfred Beit was sitting in his summer home in Cape Town, South Africa, thinking about where to hang his fabulous collection of paintings, when his wife 'Kitty' (Clementine), thumbing through Country Life, showed him an advertisement for Russborough House and its 1,000-acre estate. They bought it by telegram the next day.

Beit's father, also Alfred, and his brother Otto, had left Hamburg, Germany, in the middle of the previous century and gone prospecting in South Africa, where they became part of the De Beers conglomerate and amassed fabulous wealth from the diamond mines of the Rand.

Alfred assembled most of the art collection, which, on his death in 1905, passed to his son, Sir Alfred, later to become a Unionist MP and confidant of the future King George V.

In the years between the wars, Sir Alfred and his wife were described as "not merely the richest young couple in London, but the handsomest".

The months that followed The General's raid on Russborough saw a game of cat and mouse between Cahill and detectives determined to outwit him. In 1987, after a long surveillance operation, a criminal recruited by the Dutch police made contact with the Cahill gang posing as an art buyer. He came to Ireland and was shown several of the Beit paintings. But a 'sting' arranged for the foothills of the Dublin Mountains collapsed in a welter of confusion.

Over the next few years, through a trickle of intelligence and international police work, most of the Beit haul was tracked down and recovered. In 1990, a Metsu, A Woman Reading a Letter was recovered by police in Ankara, Turkey, where a drug dealer was trying to swap it for a shipment of heroin.

In 1992, the Gainsborough Madam Bacelli was found in London, and shortly afterwards two more paintings were discovered behind a sofa in a London semi-D, Rubens's Head of a Monk and Concert Party by Palamedesz.

By now, Cahill was becoming paranoid about the paintings and the surveillance surrounding his every move. In an effort to offload them, he hooked up with Billy Wright, the vicious Loyalist gang leader from Portadown, who attempted to fence them to finance an arms shipment.

The big breakthrough in the investigation came in September 1993, when three Irishmen and an Eastern European were arrested at Antwerp Airport in Belgium.

Eight internationally important artworks were found in the boot of two rented cars, including the most important painting from the Beit collection, Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid by Vermeer, Goya's Portrait of Dona Antonia Zarate, the second Metsu, Man Writing a Letter and a portrait Princesse de Lamballe by Vestier.

After an in camera hearing before a magistrate, the gang was released. The Belgian authorities were worried that the provenance of some of the paintings could not be fully traced. The Vermeer, for instance, was used after the artist's death in 1676 to cover his debts. Its ownership could be followed until 1889 when a gap appeared before it was purchased by Alfred Beit senior from a Parisian art dealer.

Sir Alfred Beit died on May 12, 1994, in Dublin, leaving 3.2m in his will, which included a bequest of two paintings by Guardi "the said pictures having been stolen and not recovered at the date of this, my will".

The story of the Beit art heist took another macabre turn on August 18, 1994, when the IRA, in one of its last acts before the ceasefire, murdered Martin Cahill at the junction of Oxford Road and Charleston Road in Ranelagh, Dublin, shortly after he left his home in nearby Swan Grove to return a video, aptly titled Delta Force 3 - The Killing Game. He was repeatedly shot in the face and upper body with a .357 Magnum before the lone gunman jumped on a motorbike and disappeared.

The Provisional IRA claimed his killing was directly related to his connection to the Loyalist gang and events four months earlier, on May 21, when a UVF gang tried to plant a bomb in a pub in Pearse Street, Dublin, on a Saturday night during a crowded Republican fundraiser. When the doorman, Martin Doherty, later identified as a member of the IRA, stopped them going upstairs with the bomb, they shot him dead.

There was much speculation as to how the gang were able to escape, but the IRA Intelligence unit in Dublin soon discovered that they had been hidden by Cahill and given safe passage back across the border.

His fate was sealed.

Then in August 2002 the second Rubens, Head of a Man (also known as Portrait of Erycius Pureanus), was recovered from a northside suburb of Dublin.

Lady Beit died on August 17, 2005, in London, leaving an estate in Ireland of more than 7m, which did not include Russborough and much of its contents, which are now owned by a trust.

By then, the major paintings from the Beit collection were housed in the National Gallery of Ireland, where they are among the main attraction for international art lovers.

The two Venetian scenes by Guardi have never been recovered. The secret of their whereabouts went to the grave with Martin Cahill, but they are believed to be buried somewhere in the woods near Killakee in the Dublin Mountains. Maybe someone walking there will one day stumble across the last of the looted legacy of Sir Alfred and Clementine Beit.

As for Martin Cahill, who will remember his legacy 20 years after the so-called "daring raid" that eventually led to his death?
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Your personal finance questions  Should I give up my tracker mortgage now that interest rates are rising fast?

Q I am on a tracker mortgage so my mortgage bills have gone up twice since last July as a result of the two European Central Bank interest rate hikes. The interest rate on my tracker mortgage was 1.5pc before the ECB started to increase its rate in July. Now it is almost twice that at 2.75pc. Tracker mortgages have always been considered gold dust but I am now considering fixing my mortgage as I am worried the ECB may increase its rates again in the coming months, which would push my mortgage bills even higher. Would it be a good idea to give up my tracker and fix my mortgage?
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Colm McCarthy Opinion Free money is not the way to head off a crisis

Managing the macro economy involves three perspectives. These are the short-term  the next six months or a year; the medium-term  the next four or five years; and the long-term  the issues that demand to be addressed decades in advance. From the perspective of Irish governments in recent times, only the short-term merits attention, with the medium-term left to the civil service and the long-term to sporadic commissions and academic worrywarts.
Not for nothing was Barbara Bush known as 'The Enforcer'

Barbara Bush, tougher than her husband and known to her family as 'The Enforcer', is probably the most popular of all ex-US first ladies of recent times. Jackie Kennedy is remembered across the globe for elegance and tragedy, but she was not loved. Rosalynn Carter worked hard and was a noted campaigner on issues of mental health, but she has suffered in retrospect because of her bitterness at his defeat by Ronald Reagan, who is widely perceived to have been as great a success as Carter was a failure. The brittle Nancy Reagan was an essential support to her husband, but was thought to care little for anyone else. Hillary Clinton was loathed by those who thought her a careerist. The likeable Laura Bush did a lot of useful work but lacked her mother-in-law's commanding personality. And although Michelle Obama had rock-star status, that has diminished as she and her husband embrace luxury and celebrity. Betty Ford is probably the closest rival, having been far more effective and formidable than her husband Gerald, the 38th president, and still having a posthumous reputation for her prowess as a campaigner on addiction, not least because so many of the famous troop to the Betty Ford Clinic.
Duhaime's Legal Dictionary defines a suspended sentence as "a judicial prerogative retained by a sentencing judge on a person convicted of a crime by which the full sentencing of a convicted person is suspended or deferred until some future time commensurate with the convicted person's compliance with the terms of an interim probation order".

Sounds sensible enough.

In fact, some might say it's a fair and enlightened way to deal with those who've committed serious crimes. They get a reduction in their sentences as long as they agree to keep their noses clean for the remainder of the unserved time behind bars. If they don't, then they can be rearrested and ordered back to jail to complete the full term.

Apparently, though, even that's beset with problems. Suddenly certain suspended sentences are being declared unconstitutional after prisoners spotted a loophole in the system and applied to have their sentences thrown out of court in consequence.

The latest prisoner to benefit was freed by the High Court on Friday. He had originally been charged with theft, receiving a three-year sentence in January 2014, with the last year suspended. He was subsequently rearrested and pleaded guilty earlier this year on a separate charge of domestic violence. Nice guy.

As a result, he was brought back to prison to serve the remaining one year of the earlier sentence. Then along came Tuesday's ruling.

Lawyers for the State didn't contest his release when his case came to the High Court. What would be the point? Mr Justice Michael Moriarty had already decreed by then that certain subsections of Section 99 of the 2006 Criminal Justice Act - as amended in 2007 and 2009 - were unconstitutional as they allowed for "significantly different" treatment of people who come before the courts, particularly in their right of appeal.

There is, of course, no suggestion that Justice Moriarty was wrong to issue his ruling. Clarifying the letter of the law is what judges are for, and the legal consensus seems to be that he was only putting the final nail in the coffin of an issue which has been flagged by constitutional experts since the act came into force, not least by Supreme Court Judge Mr Justice O'Donnell, who said the section in question had given rise to "innumerable practice difficulties and problems of interpretation".

To do otherwise would have led to cases where defendants who were being tried in one court then had a previous suspended sentence reactivated by another court, only for the later conviction to be overturned on appeal, meaning he shouldn't have been sent back to jail at all.

If the fault lies anywhere it's with the Criminal Justice Act, which was evidently not clear enough in its provisions, and the best solution would be to have a government in place at the earliest opportunity to clean up the mess which this has caused and will continue to cause as prisoner after prisoner now applies to the courts to have their own detentions under the terms of the legislation overturned on the grounds that the poor pets have been unfairly treated.

Because that, of course, would never do.

The numbers of those affected may be smaller than feared, as this ruling is only applicable to those whose sentences have already been reactivated and who are appealing a current conviction. Unless they questioned its legality at the time, they won't benefit. Problems down the line can also be avoided by adjourning cases currently before the courts while the legislation is amended.

Frances Fitzgerald, current Minister for Justice, says this can be done within days once a new government is in place.

But it highlights again the disconnect between how ordinary, law-abiding citizens hope the law operates and the way that it actually works in practice. All too often it seems as if defendants have armies of clever lawyers going through legislation with the proverbial fine tooth comb in search of loopholes that can exploited to the benefit of their clients.

Where are the equally dedicated teams of smart brains going through the same legislation in the service of victims? Isn't that what legal experts and Dail subcommittees are for? To spot anomalies and possible obstacles?

Moriarty was certainly unimpressed with the tests to which lawmakers had put their own legislation through, saying that the act seemed to have been put together by people who were "quite unacquainted with the actual practices of the courts", particularly the district and circuit courts. It's not what one would call reassuring.

Blunders such as this contribute to the widespread feeling that criminals are taking the proverbial mickey. That, having already been the beneficiaries of creeping liberalisation of the justice system, as sentences shrink and criminals are encouraged to think of themselves as the real victims, they keep pushing for further concessions so that the odds are weighted even more heavily in their favour.

Even the basis on which the law has now been effectively overturned contributes to that sense. What's wrong with "significantly different" treatment of defendants? Is it not proper to treat defendants differently on the basis of their different offences and case histories and the dangers they pose?

The offences for which the six men whose cases formed the basis of Michael Moriarty's ruling on Tuesday had been originally convicted ranged from public order offences to driving without insurance, attempted robbery and violent disorder. They were all serious charges, but some were obviously more serious than others. Within hours of Tuesday's ruling, even more serious cases were being referred back to the Circuit Criminal Court, with the Director of Public Prosecutions offering no contest to their claims that their sentences should be struck down.

One case involved a 23-year-old woman who had falsely imprisoned a recruitment agency owner in Harcourt Street while she ransacked the premises. A terrifying ordeal for the victim. Another was that of a man who, together with three others, dragged a young UCD student into a lane way off Dame Street, where they beat and robbed him.

Both had the final year of their sentences suspended. Having committed further offences on release, the suspended part was reactivated and they were returned to custody. Both won their cases last week and that part of each sentence was overturned.

Who knows who else may now be preparing to challenge the conditions under which they're being held, what offences they might have committed, or the risks to which the public might be subjected by their imminent release?

Though rather than slamming the workings of the legislation on suspended sentences for not being clear enough, perhaps what we should be doing is criticising the law for not ensuring that those guilty of such serious offences served what were already light sentences in full in the first place.

The false imprisonment in Harcourt Street was committed in July 2013. By last year, the guilty woman was already out again, meaning she served only two years for the offence.

The man in the mugging case was given a four-year sentence, with the last two years suspended. In other words, also a two-year sentence for a serious crime committed at a time when he already had 20 previous convictions. In January 2015, the same man was arrested again for stealing from a shop and committing a "minor" assault - namely, hitting the shopkeeper. Are we supposed to feel safe?

A further case at Cork Circuit Criminal Court last week involved a man who entered a shop in the city carrying a wheel brace and threatened a female assistant. She was so scared by this incident that she now carries a panic alarm.

This man had 423 previous convictions, but he too had the final year of his sentence suspended on condition that he be "required to enter into a good behaviour bond for the suspended period".

What do those words even mean? Why are we repeatedly fooling ourselves that defendants with charge sheets longer than the Lee are suddenly going to stop just because we're kind enough to let them off a part of their sentence?

How gullible are we?

The most disturbing revelation last week was that Irish courts are dealing with a huge number of cases every single week of defendants who've been given suspended sentences subsequently being returned to court on separate charges for offences committed while on suspension.

The system clearly isn't working. The very basis on which these prisoners are being released - that they will endeavour not to commit further crimes - is being flouted with arrogant regularity, while the courts and legislators do nothing. It makes a mockery of the arrangements.

Even if the new Dail manages to fix this problem -and that isn't guaranteed, as the bill has already been amended twice since 2006, to little effect - it still wouldn't address that concern. How many more dice must be loaded in favour of criminals before we admit that we're paying too high a price for our own leniency?
This time last year, the siege of Gorse Hill drew to a whimpering close. The once minted Brian O'Donnell exited the grand gates of the 7m clifftop retreat in Killiney that had been the family home for the last time. He drove straight to Bank of Ireland's annual general meeting, and tossed the keys of his seized mansion at Richie Boucher, its chief executive, in a staged stunt, declaring: "here are the keys to Gorse Hill you spent 9m trying to get".

One year on, the 7m mansion lies empty, mired in litigation preventing its sale. Brian O'Donnell, the former solicitor turned property developer, likens life in bankruptcy to "purgatory", his daughter Blaise has had to give up her beloved dogs and the family keeps on losing to the bank down at the Four Courts.

Yet the O'Donnell family ploughs on. The former billionaire property developer, Brian O'Donnell, and his son, Blake, will be resuming their front row seats at Bank of Ireland's AGM on Thursday. He won't be repeating the stunt that made him the star turn at last year's event. Instead the once minted O'Donnells will be urging distressed mortgage holders with Bank of Ireland to turn up at its annual general meeting this week to get their cases "noticed" by its executives.

"We would like to say if there any people who are currently in distress, in arrears with mortgages to the bank, or have been put into bankruptcy by the bank, or whatever it is, I would strongly urge them to come to the AGM because it is the only chance they'll get to be taken notice of," said Blake O'Donnell, also a solicitor, who with his father has been representing the family against Bank of Ireland.

As for Gorse Hill, "nothing has changed since the time of the AGM and the bloody keys. Remember the bloody keys?" says Brian O'Donnell, fishing them out of his bag. (They apparently retrieved them after last year's AGM).

O'Donnell and his son have squeezed half an hour between their court engagements in Dublin and their flights back to the UK, where both live.

The O'Donnell family is scattered. Brian and Mary Patricia O'Donnell, who moved to the UK in 2011 as the financial woes kicked off, live in their rented home in Kent. Blake, the eldest, lives in London, flying back and forth to represent the family in court alongside his father.

The other three children live in Dublin but in changed circumstances. Blaise O'Donnell, one of two daughters, has parted with her beloved husky and beagle because of the constraints of apartment living.

"She had to give them away because she didn't have anywhere to keep them anymore," said Blake.

Bank of Ireland versus the O'Donnells is one of the most acrimonious debt cases in the Four Courts. Brian, a solicitor, and Mary Patricia O'Donnell, a psychiatrist, built up an international property portfolio worth 1bn during the boom but the bust left them with massive bank debts. In 2011 Bank of Ireland got a judgment order for 71.5m against the couple, and has been trying to enforce it ever since.

The bank moved to take Gorse Hill. The O'Donnells said the house was owned by a company in trust for their four children. But when the Supreme Court ordered the children to vacate, their parents flew home from London to assert their "right to residency". The bank accused the couple of "barricading" themselves in while members of the Land League protested outside.

The so-called people's protest over the repossession of a multi million euro mansion complete with swimming pool and sea views, as thousands of lesser souls faced eviction from far more modest family homes with barely a murmur, divided public opinion.

The family is not broke in the sense that thousands of mortgage holders in arrears are broke. For instance, Blake O'Donnell is dealing with the latest legal salvo from Bank of Ireland over a London property worth 132m. The Columbus Courtyard in Canary Wharf is owned by a British Virgin Islands registered company of which Blake and Bruce are directors. Bank of Ireland got wind the property was for sale, worked out that the O'Donnells stood to make a profit of 7m and rushed to court seeking orders to stop the profits being dissipated.

Columbus Courtyard pays an O'Donnell company 250,000 a year in fees to manage the building. "We can't talk about that. It's still live," says Blake. "It is completely open and transparent. There is a company. It provides management services. I and my brother are directors of it, and Brian is a consultant to it, and we work for it. That's basically it."

According to his father, Columbus Courtyard has nothing to do with Bank of Ireland anyway, as international banks financed it.

Brian O'Donnell has repeatedly claimed that the bank is making an "example of them" - he says his companies have paid over 170m to AIB and paid a total of 700m to international banks and Bank of Ireland is the only one to pursue them.

He describes "life under bankruptcy" as "purgatory": "You are not able to do anything economic, you can't have a credit card, for instance, you can't do simple operational things," he says.

He won't say what he's allowed to live on. "I'm not going to discuss that. We are getting by, that's all," he said. "It's very, very difficult. I would not recommend this course of action to anyone . . . It's ongoing."

There is an end in sight though. He and Mary Patricia are due to emerge from bankruptcy on July 29, free of his debt to Bank of Ireland. But the bankruptcy supervisor, Chris Lehane, will have a say in that.

Lehane organised a dawn raid on Gorse Hill in January 2015, fearing that valuable furniture and items might have been "concealed, removed or about to removed". He is also probing the expensive gifts the O'Donnell children received from their parents. They include a first edition of James Joyce's Ulysses bought for 42,500 in 2007 which was gifted to Blake. "Yes, they were gifts to us from our parents," said Blake.

His father says they are "fully cooperating" with Lehane and "have done everything that he has asked us to do".

When the New Land League took up their cause at Gorse Hill last year, Bank of Ireland's legal team drily claimed that O'Donnell was "ultimately a member of the landlord class". Debt is a great leveller. One of the things Brian O'Donnell wants to raise at Bank of Ireland's AGM is the pressure put on customers over debt. "A lot of people too are suicidal and are under enormous pressure," he said.

"There are a couple of friends of mine who it has happened to - they have hanged themselves under pressure.

"Another friend of mine rang me and said there are 28 farmers in Meath who have actually committed suicide over the last number of years. And this is under pressure from the banks. But nobody talks about it."

The AGM is an opportunity for people under pressure from their banks to look the executives making the decisions in the eye, he says: "It is time that they stood up."

The O'Donnell family is contesting or appealing almost every aspect of Bank of Ireland's attempts to enforce its e71.5m judgment. The family has't had much luck. Twelve months ago, he said they were in court 82 times and lost 82 times.

"Since then we have managed to keep the record going and have never won anything," he says.

"We are strong and we will continue to fight and we believe that we have a very good case against Bank of Ireland - and we believe that in time we will be countersuing them for damages for what they've done."

He clenches his fist dramatically: "We will never give up," he declares before rushing off to catch his flight. Bank of Ireland declined to comment.
David and Victoria Beckham attend The 2003 MTV Movie Awards held at the Shrine Auditorium on May 31, 2003

David Beckham and Victoria Beckham attend the British Fashion Awards 2015 at London Coliseum on November 23, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by Anthony Harvey/Getty Images)

David Beckham has agreed to take a back seat this year so his wife Victoria can concentrate on her fashion career

David Beckham and Victoria Beckham at the Victoria Beckham store on Dover Street on September 22, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by Mark Robert Milan/GC Images)

Victoria Beckham enjoys having "inventive" date nights with husband David.

The pair, who has been married for 16 years and share four children together, have recently paid glowing tributes about each other on social media websites such as Instagram, with David, 40, posting a sweet black and white photo and promising to "spoil" his wife on her 42nd birthday last week.

But it appears Victoria doesn't expect David to go overboard with gifts on date night, as the pop star turned fashion designer has apparently placed a strict spending limit on David for their romantic evenings.

"She wants to go back to the basics," a source told Britain's Look magazine. "One of Victoria's new rules is that they make dating more interesting setting a budget of 60 for a date night. This means they'll be more inventive and creative, just like they were in the beginning. One night David spent the money on ingredients for a candlelit dinner, another night they just went bowling and had a great laugh."

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The friend adds that Victoria is also "very specific" about what she wants and is dedicated to "keeping the spark alive" in her marriage. Accordingly, David has apparently also agreed to cut back on summer engagements so they have more time to spend together as a family.

While reports surfaced in March that the former sportsman had quietly stepped down as director of Victoria's eponymous fashion label, the style star insists they are still very much a partnership.

David comes to my shows and David is my business partner. Everything we do, we do everything together. We really support each other, she smiled to #legend.

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The couple is parents to sons Brooklyn, 17, Romeo, 13, and Cruz, 11, and daughter Harper, aged four.
HATS MAGIC: Milliner to the stars Philip Tracey who crowned the heads of 66 guests at the wedding of Kate and Wills is busier than ever and has just released his new collection

Philip Treacy (OBE) has hailed Irish women as 'among the most beautiful in the world' as he pays homage to his Irish muse ahead of a triumphant return to Dublin next Friday.

The milliner to the stars-whose hats have graced princesses and supermodels and adorned the cover of Vogue magazine, has said Irish women need to be aware of their authentic beauty when comparing themselves to women worldwide.

Speaking to the Sunday Independent he said: "Irish women are among the most beautiful in the world. They are known for their beauty all over. They are renowned for it. But it is a different kind of beauty. It is a natural beauty," he said.

"It is not sort of a glossy beautiful; it is more authentic. Irish women are not known for their tans or mahogany skin tones," he said, "But the classic Irish beauty is red hair and also fair skin and blue eyes", he said, "which is everywhere in Ireland."

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The designer also took the time to celebrate one of the most beautiful women he has encountered, the woman, who became his first muse and an inspiration for his work.

Speaking about Dublin woman Mari O'Leary he said: "She was the first supermodel that I ever encountered and she made a huge impression on me. When I was a student in Dublin, Mari was Ireland's answer to Linda Evangelista.

She was a very impressive model and she was very kind to me when I was a student. She was my first encounter with what a model is all about and she was the best.

Expand Close HATS MAGIC: Milliner to the stars Philip Tracey who crowned the heads of 66 guests at the wedding of Kate and Wills is busier than ever and has just released his new collection / Facebook

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"She was an excellent model and she was completely different to everyone else. She was there at the beginning of my fashion career so I learned that it is very difficult to be a good model.

"It is not easy. It is a performance. And she had a magic all of her own.

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He added, 'she was very kind to me when I was nobody."

After 25 years of overwhelming success, Treacy still maintains his down to earth attitude.

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When asked how he felt to see his renowned headpieces crowning the heads of no less than 66 guests at the Royal wedding of Kate and Wills, he said: "You feel tired. It is work. I am in the service industry and I am a hat maker."

Originally from Ahascragh, Co. Galway, the designer has lived in London for ten years, and has no plans to return to Ireland, describing the UK as "home now."

Asked how he feels when his hats create controversy, such as the headpiece of that worn by Princess Beatrice he replied simply, "It's just a hat."

Tracey returns this week to celebrate the historic centenary by taking part in the Lexus Irish Fashion Collective in the front square of Trinity College Dublin.

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The show will bring together the collections of some of Ireland's leading designers including Simone Rocha, Deborah Veale and Sharon Hoey.

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The funds will go towards creating Ireland's first Dementia village at St Joseph's Shankill. Describing his motivation to take part in the event Treacy said: "I'm sort of booking in early for a place in that dementia village. Just in case- you never know.

"It is a disease, which affects everybody. It could be me.

"I know a few people [affected by dementia] and it is a devastating experience for both the person and the family because the person basically just slowly disappears."

An estimated 44,000 people in Ireland are currently living with some form of dementia.

The figure is expected to reach nearly 104,000 by 2037.

There are over 50,000 caregivers who care for their loved ones coping with dementia.

Tickets for the event are still available, priced 100, by contacting by contacting siobhan.grant@sjog.ie or calling 1890 301 501.
FROM BOY TO MAN: William and Kate with their children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte, in the French Alps

Prince George stands on foam blocks during a Royal Mail photoshoot for a stamp sheet to mark the 90th birthday of Queen Elizabeth II. The sheet features four generations of the Royal family, from left, the Prince of Wales, Queen Elizabeth II, Prince George and the Duke of Cambridge, and the picture was taken in the summer of 2015 in the White Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace. Photo: Ranald Mackechnie/Royal Mail/PA Wire

When he went for a stroll with his parents and shot this look at the crowd.

Royal portrait by US photographer Annie Liebovitz shows Queen Elizabeth with her two grandchildren, James, Viscount Severn (left) and Lady Louise (second left) and her five great-grandchildren Mia Tindall (holding handbag), Savannah Philipps (third right), Isla Phillips (right), Prince George (second right) and Princess Charlotte (centre) in the Green Drawing room at Windsor Castle Photo: AFP PHOTO / 2016 ANNIE LIEBOVITZ

Britain's Princess Charlotte is seen in this photograph taken by her mother Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, in November 2015 at Anmer Hall in Sandringham, and released by Kensington Palace in London on November 29, 2015. REUTERS/Duchess of Cambridge/Handout via Reuters ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS PICTURE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. REUTERS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS IMAGE. EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVE. THIS PICTURE IS DISTRIBUTED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

TETBURY, ENGLAND - JUNE 14: Catherine Duchess of Cambridge attends the Gigaset Charity Polo Match with Prince George of Cambridge at Beaufort Polo Club on June 14, 2015 in Tetbury, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Kate Middleton might be one of the most stylish women in the world whose every sartorial choice is scrutinised beyond measure - but she doesn't want the same pressure for her children.

The Duchess of Cambridge is said to be very conscious of the influence her family holds with consumers and insists on dressing Princess Charlotte and Prince George in similar outfits for every portrait or rare public appearance.

In the latest portrait in honour of Queen Elizabeth's 90th birthday - Charlotte is wearing a near identical pink floral dress to the one she wore in her first official portrait and their Christmas photo, while George has been donning similar variations of knee socks and shorts.

And Kate has specifically chosen these low-key looks so as not to cause a fashion frenzy around her children's clothing. When Charlotte was first pictured in a pink floral dress by Spanish brand m&h in her first official portrait, the Madrid-based designer said she was overwhelmed by the demand.

Similarly, George's now trademark outfits - namely his leather Start-Rite shoes - sell out instantly.

Digital brand expert Holly Peacock said that the Duchess is "acutely aware" of the impact her family's fashion choices.

Expand Close Queen Elizabeth II (C) posing with her two grandchildren, James, Viscount Severn (L) and Lady Louise (2L) and her five great-grandchildren Mia Tindall (holding handbag), Savannah Philipps (3R), Isla Phillips (R), Prince George (2R) and Princess Charlotte (C) in the Green Drawing room at Windsor Castle in Windsor. Picture: ANNIE LEIBOVITZ/AFP/Getty Images / Facebook

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"The choice to dress Princess Charlotte in a very similar outfit is in my view a deliberate one," she told the Daily Mail.

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"The Duchess is very conscious of her influence in fashion. Acutely aware of the digital world we live in, the Duchess has learned from the many, many times her outfit has been sold out online almost immediately after she has worn something.

"Reacting to this she clearly tries to use her influence wisely; choosing UK or local designers, choosing affordable outfits and extending this to her children."

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Peacock also pointed out that the mother-of-two prefers to keep her children in understated clothing so as not to draw attention in "an unhealthy way."

"The Duchess' own influence is huge, particularly online - it would appear she is avoiding dressing her children in anything too gimmicky or particularly unique to avoid them creating the same stir," she added.

Expand Close Britain's Princess Charlotte is seen in this photograph taken by her mother Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, in November 2015 at Anmer Hall in Sandringham, and released by Kensington Palace in London on November 29, 2015. REUTERS/Duchess of Cambridge/Handout via Reuters ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS PICTURE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. REUTERS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS IMAGE. EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVE. THIS PICTURE IS DISTRIBUTED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY / Facebook

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"She's also avoiding the limelight focusing on Princess Charlotte and Prince George in an unhealthy way. When you think about it, it's a very powerful statement."
The Place de la Republique became a place for gathering after the Paris attacks

Twelve arrests were made after overnight clashes between French police and about 100 people in Paris.

The police said the clashes took place from Friday night to early Saturday around the Place de la Republique on the sidelines of the Night Rising protest movement.

A police car was set on fire and projectiles were thrown at police. The police used tear gas to disperse the crowd around 2am. No injuries were reported.

The Night Rising movement started on March 31 when some protesters denouncing the government's labour law changes decided to camp overnight in Place de la Republique. The square in eastern Paris became a symbolic gathering place after last year's deadly attacks upon Parisians.

Police on Saturday issued a ban on consuming alcohol by the square at night "for security reasons". It said incidents "have been fuelled by the consumption of alcohol".

The ban, valid until Monday, also prohibits bringing alcohol to the square and selling alcoholic beverages to take away.

Consumption of alcohol is generally allowed on the streets in France but local authorities can apply restrictions in certain areas.
Thousands of demonstrators protest against the planned Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership in Hannover. Photo: AP

Thousands of demonstrators have turned out in the city of Hannover to protest a planned US-Europe free trade agreement a day before President Barack Obama arrives.

Police said on Saturday that more than 20,000 people gathered for the demonstration.

Many in Germany regard the planned Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with suspicion. Protesters carried placards with slogans such as "Yes We Can - Stop TTIP!"

Proponents argue the agreement would boost business at a time of global economic uncertainty but critics worry it would erode consumer protection and environmental standards.

Officials in Washington and Europe are trying to clinch key parts of the TTIP deal before the end of the year. Mr Obama is due in Hannover on Sunday to open an annual industrial fair.
SAFETY ALERT: Authorities set up road blocks around the crime scene in rural Ohio yesterday. Photo: John Minchillo

Authorities urged residents to be on their guard and cautious in Piketon, Ohio, yesterday as the search continued for whoever fatally shot eight members of a family at four different properties, including a mother in bed with her four-day-old baby nearby.

Investigators interviewed more than 30 people hoping to find leads in the deaths of the seven adults and 16-year-old boy whose bodies were found last Friday in homes southwest of Piketon.

All victims were shot in the head, authorities said, and it appeared some were killed as they slept. The four-day-old baby and two other small children were not hurt.

Authorities didn't release the victims' names but said they're members of the Rhoden family. Investigators said none of the deaths appeared self-inflicted, so they believe at least one assailant is at large.

A motive for the slayings isn't known, authorities said, but they urged surviving members of the Rhoden family to take precautions. Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader also recommended area residents to be extra wary.

"This really is a question of public safety, and particularly for any of the Rhoden family," Attorney General Mike DeWine said.

Reader said on Friday night that authorities had met with more than 100 relatives and friends of the Rhoden family at a church.

DeWine dismissed a report that the people authorities questioned included a person of interest.

The first three homes where bodies were found are within a couple of miles on a sparsely populated stretch of road, while the eighth body, that of a man, was found in a house further away.

Authorities didn't release any information on what kind or how many weapons might have been used or whether anything was missing from the homes.

Goldie Hilderbran said she lives about a mile from where she has been told a shooting took place - news she received from a mail carrier who told her deputies had an area blocked off.

"She just told me she knew something really bad has happened," Hilderbran said.

Meanwhile in another mass shooting in the US, a man who shot and killed five people on Friday in two separate attacks was found dead in his home early yesterrday of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The body of shooter Wayne Anthony Hawes, 50, was recovered by authorities in his northeastern Georgia home,.

The Columbia County Sheriff said that the Friday night shootings stemmed from a domestic dispute that left three men and two females dead.

Hawes' daughter said her father was a "ticking time bomb" and had threatened to kill her grandmother and mother a day before the fatal shootings. Her grandmother was shot, but Hawes' wife was not among the dead.
Dr Charles Hirsch, who has died aged 79, was New York City's chief medical examiner and the man in charge of the forensic operation that followed the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in September 2001.

A dignified and softly spoken man, Hirsch had originally intended to run an isolated general practice in Alaska. When an internship in Cleveland introduced him to pathology, however, he found his true calling. In 1989 he succeeded Elliot Gross to the position in New York.

The appointment put Hirsch in charge of one of the largest and busiest laboratories in the United States. In the normal course of events he was responsible for processing around 25,000 deaths a year - nearly half the city's annual total. Of these, only a fraction - 5,000 or so - required an autopsy. Hirsch referred to this forensic process as a "dialogue with the dead".

During his 24 years in office he ran investigations into all manner of untimely deaths. Some, such as the ruling of an accidental drugs overdose in the case of the actor Heath Ledger, attracted international media interest. Other investigations were a matter of public health and safety.

Victims of the Aids epidemic were referred to Hirsch, as were 87 people killed in a fire at a Bronx club in 1990.

When reports came through of the attack on the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001, Hirsch was one of the first on the scene. He was in the middle of setting up a temporary morgue, in accordance with emergency protocol, when the South Tower collapsed. The impact knocked him to the ground, breaking all his ribs. Covered in lacerations and grey with ash, he made his way back to his offices on the corner of First Avenue and 30th Street. "He put his hand in his pants pocket and pulled out a handful of change - coins - and dust. . . a pile of pulverised concrete," recalled his colleague Shiya Ribowsky. "He said, 'Shiya, it's the most terrible thing I've ever seen.'"

In the weeks and months that followed, Hirsch and his colleagues embarked on the painstaking process of identifying the 2,753 people killed in the attack. In public, Hirsch swore that he would not rest until every single victim was returned to his or her family; privately, he aimed to identify 70pc of the dead within 100 days. Both goals proved impossible. "If reinforced concrete was rendered into dust,'' he said later, "then it wasn't much of a mystery as to what would happen to people.'' Fires continued to burn for weeks after the event, hampering recovery efforts.

Some 16 refrigerated trailers were set up to house the 16,000 body parts still to be identified. Microscopic fragments of DNA had to be shipped to laboratories and compared against samples taken from victims' possessions, usually follicles from a hairbrush or a razor. To make indirect matches, Hirsch's team took swabs from relatives and tried to match the genetic profile of the remains with the corresponding family.

The work continued on a 24-hour basis from September to December, moving to 16 hours a day from January 2002. By the summer of that year, 1,229 victims had been identified - around 44pc of the total. That number had risen to 1,634 (59pc) by the time of Hirsch's retirement in 2013.

The son of an electrician, Charles Hirsch was born in Chicago on March 30, 1937. After receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in 1958, he graduated from the University of Illinois College of Medicine and served as a deputy coroner in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1985 he became chief medical examiner of Suffolk County on Long Island.

Hirsch was not afraid to court controversy in his New York role. In 2007 he caused uproar by ruling that the death of James Zadroga, a police officer who had suffered from respiratory problems since working on recovery operations at Ground Zero, was not caused by inhaling debris but by abuse of prescription drugs. Zadroga's family sought a new verdict from Michael Baden, a pathologist who supported the idea that the officer had died from exposure to toxins in the aftermath of the attack. In 2010 the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act was passed, covering emergency workers who become ill in later life.

Hirsch was also chairman of the forensic medicine department at New York University School of Medicine. He had a fondness for epigrams that his students dubbed "Hirschisms", and enforced strict rules in reference to his cases. Judy Melinek, one of his proteges, recalled an occasion when her colleague presented Hirsch with the body of a man who had been "shot by a lady". Hirsch interjected: "Shot by a woman. Ladies don't shoot people."

In 1969, Charles Hirsch married Marie-Claude Fenart. She predeceased him in 2010, and he is survived by a daughter. He died on April 8.

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Buddha Bir Tamang (7) and his brother Subhas (2) near their home in a camp at Bogetar in Rasuwa, Nepal. Photo: Mark Condren

IT'S possible to make a convincing case that Subhas (2) and his brother Buddha-Bir (7) are incredibly lucky. Possible, but not easy.

The young Tamang brothers lost both parents last April, for one thing: their mother and father killed instantly when a building they were working in collapsed during the earthquake.

The orphans are now living in a galvanised hut, for another. It's just the one room, with eight other people. There is no running water. Right now in the camp it is oppressively hot, in the mid 30s. Next month, monsoon season starts and parts of the camp will turn to swamp, and there isn't much hope for the basic latrine system.

On top of that, Subhas and Buddha-Bir are growing boys, or should be. But food and clothes are not easy to come by - as shown by Subhas wearing a heavy fleece jacket, and little else, in the midday sun - with money in short supply. That same money shortage is likely to impact on gaining anything approaching a formal education.

So it's not immediately apparent how the brothers have won big in life's lottery.

But they have.

Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Ram Raja Kumal and his wife Sabitri, parents of Sushila, who vanished last June, at their home in Pipaltar, Nepal. Pictured with Punima (7), who lost her parents in quake. Photo: Mark Condren Ram Raja Kumal and his wife Sabitri, parents of Sushila, who vanished last June, at their home in Pipaltar, Nepal. Photo: Mark Condren Sushila Kumar, who vanished last June from her family home in Pipaltar. Photo: Mark Condren / Facebook

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Whatsapp Ram Raja Kumal and his wife Sabitri, parents of Sushila, who vanished last June, at their home in Pipaltar, Nepal. Pictured with Punima (7), who lost her parents in quake. Photo: Mark Condren

"I don't know what might have happened to the boys if we let them go... but maybe something bad," explains their grandmother Maugu Tamang (45), the matriarch of the family now living in the one-room galvanised hut.

"That's what I heard. But I don't know what 'bad' would happen."

Expand Close A woman collects firewood for cooking in the Langtang mountain range in Rasuwa. Photo: Mark Condren / Facebook

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Since the death of their parents, the two boys have twice come close to being trafficked to an 'orphanage' in Kathmandu. Both times a close male relative tried to push through the move, claiming it would see the boys' education paid right through secondary school.

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At one point, in the chaos and upheaval just weeks after the quake, the boys were in his care. It would later emerge he had accepted a cash offer - amount unknown - for the boys. He was also trying to gain access to 3,500 in government compensation due to the boys following their parents' deaths. That's a lot of money in a country where the average annual wage is less than 800, and where one third of the population ekes out a life on less than 1 a day.

This man's attempt to get the compensation led indirectly to investigations by the Nepali government's Child Welfare Board which later found there was no orphanage, no school, and no accommodation for the two boys.

On both occasions the plans to send them to an 'orphanage' were stopped -once by the authorities, once by their grandmother. The compensation will be waiting for them when they hit 16.

The young brothers are oblivious to all this, naturally. They don't say much, but Bir smiles shyly when his grandmother mentions the colourful scarf she is knitting is for him, and fearless Subhas (2) thinks nothing of jumping off a five-foot embankment in the fields farmed near the camp - and laughing to himself when he hits the ground with a thump.

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Where were they going to be sent?

Child trafficking is a thriving industry in Nepal, and arguably the term sanitises the reality. It is selling kids into domestic slavery, prostitution and forced labour.

It means dangerous and dirty work for little or no pay, with enforcement through threats and violence. Sexual abuse is common.

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It's a murky, complicated, distressing world, often connected with unregistered or unregulated orphanages in the capital (see panel), and targeting poverty-stricken families in rural districts.

Expand Close Agunita Tamang in the bottom bunk-bed and four boys above including Sureju Maiia, Krisuna Buda and Dil Buda, who were found after the earthquake, at an Umbrella home in Nuwakot. Photo: Mark Condren / Facebook

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Whatsapp Agunita Tamang in the bottom bunk-bed and four boys above including Sureju Maiia, Krisuna Buda and Dil Buda, who were found after the earthquake, at an Umbrella home in Nuwakot. Photo: Mark Condren

The exploitation of trafficked children takes many forms - the market dictates, and the market is evidently strong.

Nepal's national human rights commission estimates that up to 30,000 children are trafficked within and from the country each year.

That's 30,000 kids forced into the sex trade, domestic slavery, sweatshops, and so on. That's roughly equivalent to the population of Kilkenny. Some non-governmental organisations - both national and international - say the figure is higher.

A US State Department report classified Nepal as a Tier 2 country, meaning the government "does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so."

It has a way to go before it is classed as Tier 1, alongside the likes of Ireland.

However, don't kid yourself that its problem only concerns the other side of the world. Earlier this month, it was revealed that children from Nepal were being offered as domestic staff to rich families as far away as Britain for approximately 6,600. And while Britain is a long way from Nepal, it is not so far from Ireland.

"The department is not aware of any reported case of human trafficking (child or adult) in Ireland where the victim is from Nepal," a spokesman for the Department of Justice said.

Of course it is both the trafficker and the buyer's job to ensure the department is unaware.

Subhas and Buddha-Bir were blessed their grandmother was found and took them in after the first attempt to sell them last summer, and refused to entertain a second attempt despite an ostensibly-tempting offer.

"The boys are doing well," their grandmother says.

"Some people came to take them to Kathmandu and put them in education but I said 'No'. I was given the responsibility of looking after them so that is why I did not send them."

The boys' uncle later came to the camp. It is located at Bogetar in Rasuwa, about 120km north-east of Kathmandu. The camp was built by the residents of the nearby Dandagaun village which was flattened in the quake and saw 23 deaths, including the boys' parents.

Expand Close A local woman walks across a bridge in the Nuwakot area of Nepal. Photo: Mark Condren / Facebook

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"He told me that the boys' education should not be spoiled because of this 'so-called love'," their grandmother says with a dismissive shrug.

"But I said 'No'.

"I will try my best to feed and educate them and, if not, I will think of something. I am now working full-time, and will try my best until the last day."

Her best is based on love and responsibility. You take heart from that. The boys are lucky. Monday marks the anniversary of the first of the two quakes which killed almost 9,000 people and left up to two million homeless.

Nepali officials say more than 40,000 children either lost their parents, were injured, or were placed in a precarious situation following the disaster.

Human trafficking was scarce before the quakes - with many cases unreported - and there is no comprehensive recording system in place. But natural disasters have long been seen by child traffickers in particular as an opportunity, and Nepal is no different.

Expand Close Buddha Bir Tamang (7) and his brother Subhas (2) near their home in a camp at Bogetar in Rasuwa, Nepal. Pic:Mark Condren / Facebook

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Unicef alone intercepted 245 children from being trafficked in just two months after the quake.

Over the last year, Nepali officials say they had intercepted 400 children moving in groups without their parents.

That appears to have been a drop in the ocean.

"There are many other stories of trafficking in my head, and some of them would take your breath away (see panel above)," says Tsewang Norbu Lama, child reintegration manager with the Umbrella Foundation - an organisation that rescues vulnerable children, and which was founded by two Irish people in 2005.

"There is no easy solution, no quick solution, because you're largely dealing with people who don't know much about the wider world but believe - or want to believe - that their children can have a better life.

"And most parents want a better life for their children."

Expand Close A young boy begging on the streets of Kathmandu. Photo: Mark Condren / Facebook

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Generally, traffickers know exactly what they're doing as they prey on these aspirations - who to approach, how to convince, and how to get the child quickly out of reach.

The rural districts around Kathmandu are most-regularly targeted, because the people are predominantly subsistence farmers with low levels of education. Convincing them there are better life opportunities elsewhere - and that they can send back money earned - doesn't require major persuasion skills.

It is also easy to move children from here to Kathmandu and from there to India and further afield, if necessary.

Usually a mediator will approach the families. He or she will likely be a relative, someone that the family can trust and someone with a relationship with the orphanage or traffickers.

Unicef estimates somewhere between 7,000 and 15,000 girls are trafficked from Nepal each year. Some are taken overseas, as far away as South Africa and Europe. (Ruhama, an NGO which works in Ireland with women affected by sexual exploitation, said it has no record of assisting Nepali women over the past six years.)

But the vast majority stay local.

South Asia is the fastest-growing and second-largest region for human trafficking in the world, after East Asia, according to the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

India, alone, is home to almost half the world's 36 million slaves, and the vast majority of these Nepali girls end up in Indian brothels where they are forced to sell their bodies in appalling conditions.

In Nuwakot, for example, the natives are predominantly Tamang - an indigenous group with relatively-light skin, considered especially attractive over the open border in India.

Sushila Kumal's exact whereabouts are unknown. The 15-year-old vanished from Pipaltar in Nuwakot last June after telling her family she was going to check on crops.

For months there was no word.

"We don't have much but we spent it looking for her," her mother Sabitri Kumal says. "But we quickly ran out of money, and we didn't find her."

As with a lot of these cases, this a murky one, with claim and counter claim both within and outside the family unit. These include a suicide, Sushila apparently turning up in India, and the teenager latterly going to school in Kathmandu.

Sushila's aunt took her own life after she was questioned by police about the teenager's disappearance. It remains unclear whether she was the mediator, as some in the family openly suggest.

A phone call from an anonymous man earlier this year claimed Sushila was in Faridabad in India. But no one was able to talk to her from the family, or confirm what she was doing there.

"I am afraid she might be forced into prostitution," her mother says.

As she speaks outside her basic home, the other residents of the rural village listen in and give their frank opinions. It is obvious some feel there is more to the story than is coming out.

The explanation of how the family recently learned Sushila is apparently in Kathmandu - a long-winded story involving a mix-up with a photograph - is greeted with open scepticism. In private, one of Sushila's sisters says she recently managed to talk to her briefly by phone. "I asked her if she was happy," she says quietly. "[Sushila] hesitated for a long time. Then she said 'Yes'."

Still no one has seen her, or knows what she is doing, and whether she is safe.

Sushila dived under her bed when the earthquake hit last April. The roof collapsed, but she was safe.

She was lucky then, but it's far from certain her luck has held.

On the day of the earthquake, her little cousin Punima (7) lost both her parents. Punima was subsequently taken in by Sushila's parents and continues to live with them, despite their own poverty. They are fundamentally decent people, struggling to make ends meet.

Sushila's story, a little like Nepali child trafficking in general, leaves a lot of unanswered questions, and the uncomfortable feeling that not enough people care enough about what is going on.

Just who is driving this thriving market for 30,000 abused children each year? Why isn't much more being done to target them? And why are so many simply turning a blind eye to this ugly, life-destroying crime?

This article was made possible with the support of the Simon Cumbers Media Fund

Photos by Mark Condren

*Faked death certs and false dawns

There are around 800 orphanages registered in Nepal, but children's rights campaigners claim the country is home to a huge number of unregistered facilities.

There were some 15,000 children living in orphanages in Kathmandu alone when the first earthquake struck on April 25 last year. However, a study by Unicef, published in 2014, found that 85pc of children at the orphanages they visited had at least one living parent.

Traffickers can go to great lengths to ensure children - perhaps given up by their parents on the promise of free education or a brighter future - are considered orphans and therefore available for adoption.

One common way is to buy faking death certs for parents. Another way to 'legalise' an orphan is to publish an advertisement for 'found' children in newspapers. Nepal's laws state that if no one comes forward to reclaim a child, it can be put up for adoption as an orphan.

According to Unicef, orphanage owners can make between $5,000 to $25,000 on an international adoption.

*The Irish battling corruption

The Umbrella Foundation is a non-profit NGO set up in Nepal a decade ago by a pair of concerned Irish people. It was founded by Viva Bell and Dave Cutler in response to the growing number of corrupt children's homes or 'orphanages' in Kathmandu.

The foundation describes itself as "a safe place for children who were victims of trafficking and neglect".

Among the cases of child trafficking identified by the organisation in recent times are:

- Some areas such as Gyanghphedi in Nuwakot District, about 80km east of Kathmandu, where there are no young women as they have all been trafficked in recent years - often with the knowledge of their families. The population is only in the low hundreds - but zero young women is a striking fact.

"These people are incredibly poor," Tsewang Norbu Lama, Umbrella project manager, says. "Many send their daughters to work in India. They know it is prostitution, but it doesn't matter to them. It's how they think, and difficult to change. It's difficult for us to do anything there."

- A Korean religious group who visited a camp shelter in Haku in Rasuwa, in the foothills of the Langtang mountains, in May of last year and took at least three girls "to Kathmandu" without completing the necessary administrative or legal procedures. They remain missing.

- Nine kids rescued from an unregistered 'orphanage' in Nuwakot last year. The owner was hiring the children - all under 12 - out for work in shops and restaurants. He was taking the proceeds.

- A father in Gatlang in Rasuwa who sold his daughter for $15 to a neighbour to work as a domestic slave last year because he wanted money for alcohol.

"This was a relatively easy one for Umbrella to track, and she is in care," Tsewang says.

For more information visit umbrellanepal.org
Air strikes and shelling have pounded Aleppo for the third straight day (AP)

Aleppo has been pounded by air strikes and shelling for a third successive day, with two young siblings and at least 24 others killed in Syria's largest city and former commercial capital.

The northern city has been bitterly contested between insurgents and government forces since 2012.

Opposition groups control the eastern part of the city but have come under intense strain as the government choked off all routes to the area except a narrow and perilous passage to the north-west.

At least 10 people were reported killed by rebel shelling in government-held areas in the city.

Rockets struck schools and residential areas. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two young siblings were among the dead.

Air strikes on the opposition side of the city killed 16, including a mother and her daughter, the observatory said.

A video posted on social media by the Syrian Civil Defence first responder group, known as the White Helmets and which operates in opposition-held areas, suggests some of the strikes hit a market in the neighbourhood of Sakhour.

Footage showed overturned vegetable carts strewed among the wreckage.

The opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC), which suspended its formal participation in peace talks with the government in Geneva last week, called the strikes "an attack on the Geneva process that is the only possible pathway to peace."

Salem Meslet, HNC spokesman, called on Russian president Vladimir Putin to hold its Damascus allies to the terms of a US and Russia-brokered cease-fire that parties signed on to nearly two months ago.

"The key to ending these attacks, and to making progress in the talks, lies in Moscow," said Mr Meslet.

The cease-fire is still technically in place, but may have completely unravelled on the ground with violence returning to most of the contested areas of the country.

The UN's special envoy to Syria last week called on the two superpowers to salvage the truce before it totally collapses.

The Aleppo Conquest rebel coalition threatened on Saturday to dissolve the truce if pro-government forces continued to strike civilians in opposition areas.

The al Qaida branch in Syria, the Nusra Front, and its more powerful rival, the Islamic State group, are not included in the cease-fire.

The Nusra Front is deeply rooted in the areas in northern Syria controlled by opposition forces, complicating the oversight of the truce.

UN-mediated talks in Geneva have also been bogged down by the violence, with the Saudi-backed opposition delegation suspending its formal participation last week.

The government delegation is nonetheless set to meet with UN envoy Staffan De Mistura on Monday.

Opposition groups said reports of a new government offensive on the opposition-held side of Aleppo would wreck the peace talks.
The daughter of a Georgia man suspected of shooting dead five people before killing himself has said her father was a "ticking time-bomb".

Lauren Hawes said she, her mother Angela Dent and her one-year-old daughter hid in a neighbour's house, barely escaping with their lives, while her father, Wayne Hawes, 50, went on a bloody rampage. His victims included her grandmother and cousin.

"He made threats before, but we never thought it would be at this capacity," Lauren Hawes said. "He's been kind of a ticking time-bomb if you want to put in a few words."

Captain Andy Shedd of the Columbia County Sheriff's Office said the Friday night shootings stemmed from a domestic dispute that left three men and two women dead at two separate locations within about a mile of each other.

The body of Hawes was recovered on Saturday by authorities in his home in Appling.

Lauren Hawes, 26, said her mother had walked out on her father just a week ago. She had left before, but this time she took her possessions with her to prevent Hawes from destroying them as he had done in the past.

After Ms Dent's departure, Wayne Hawes bottomed out emotionally.

"He's done things that were questionable in the past, but never to this extent. This is very surprising. We thought he could possibly hurt himself, but not others," said his daughter.

The rampage began on Friday evening, when deputies went to a home in Johnson Drive at about 8pm and found three victims. Authorities were then called to a second home nearby, where two other victims were found.

"We believe the two shootings were related based on witness accounts," Mr Shedd said.

When authorities reached Hawes' house and entered, they found him dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. They also found evidence that he attempted to set the house on fire.

The victims were identified as Roosevelt Burns, 75; Rheba Mae Dent, 85; Trequila Clark, 31; Lizzy Williams, 59; and Shelly Williams, 62. One of the women died on the way to hospital and the others were dead at the scene.

"We believe some of the victims were related to the suspect's wife," Mr Shedd said.

Lauren Hawes said her parents had known each since they were teenagers and had a common-law marriage.

Lauren Hawes said Rheba Mae Dent was her grandmother, and Trequila Clark her cousin. She said her grandmother was retired and her cousin was a registered nurse, who graduated from Augusta State University in 2012. Roosevelt Burns was her grandmother's brother.

Ola Murry, of Appling, in north-east Georgia said the neighbourhood was devastated by the events. She said she thought Hawes was a nice person, but he made a "stupid" decision.

"I always thought he was a nice guy," she said.

"I know he did what he did, but that doesn't make him a bad guy. You know, the devil gets into you sometimes and you do stupid stuff. You got to think. You always have to put the Lord in front of you, let him lead you and you won't go wrong."
France's economy minister has confirmed the government supports French energy company EDF's nuclear power plant project at Hinkley Point.

Emmanuel Macron told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper on Sunday that the final investment decision "may be confirmed next September".

The decision was expected in May but EDF, which is majority-owned by the French government, decided on Friday to take more time to consult with the company's unions. Some of them have expressed concerns about the financing of the 24 billion euro (18 billion) project.

Macron insisted the project must not be further delayed.

The Hinkley Point nuclear power plant in Somerset could ultimately produce 7% of British electricity and create 25,000 jobs, according to EDF. It had been due to start producing electricity in 2023.
Nepalese people release balloons in memory of those who died in last year's earthquake (AP)

Nepal has held memorial services to mark the first anniversary of an earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.

People gathered at the remains of a historic tower in Nepal's capital Kathmandu that collapsed in the devastating earthquake.

Minor protests were also held, with demonstrators angry at the slow rate of reconstruction in the wake of the magnitude-7.8 quake that ravaged vast areas of the country.

Prime minister Khadga Prasad Oli laid a wreath at the ruins of the Dharahara tower in the heart of Kathmandu. The iconic structure collapsed in the April 25 2015, quake, killing 132 people. In all, 8,856 people died in the disaster.

Participating in the memorial ceremonies were people who lost loved ones in the quake, and others who simply came to pray for those killed.

"I lost a friend who was working at the top of the tower on that day. I hope he and others are in a good place," said Ram Shrestha, pointing at the remains of the tower.

He said that he had just stepped out a few minutes before the earthquake struck to go shopping.

Madhav Newpane, who runs a shop near the tower, witnessed its collapse. He returned on Sunday with a bouquet of flowers and candles.

"There were many people killed here on that day. I will never be able to forget that day," Mr Newpane said.

About 100 protesters scuffled with riot police outside the prime minister's office, demonstrating against the slow reconstruction of the homes.

More than 600,000 homes were destroyed and around 185,000 damaged in the quake.

"Government, where is reconstruction. Open the gates of the government," the protesters chanted as they tried to force their way through a police barricade.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said an estimated four million people are still living in sub-standard temporary shelters in conditions that pose a threat to their health and well-being.

Only 661 families have received the first instalment of a 200,000-rupee (1,300) government grant, getting 50,000 rupees (326) so far.

Nepal has made almost no progress in rebuilding from the quake despite foreign donors pledging more than four billion dollars (2.8bn) in aid during a donor's conference last year.

The government, in disarray for nearly a decade, has not regrouped enough to be a strong force for reconstruction.

Out of the 4.1 billion dollars (2.9bn) pledged, Nepal has so far received just 1.28 billion dollars (0.9bn).

The delay in getting the money has been blamed on the government taking months to set up the National Reconstruction Authority, which was done only in December.

Finance minister Bishnu Prasad Paudel said the delay occurred because it was necessary to conduct a detailed survey of the damaged houses before reconstruction could begin.

"Nepal had signed a written commitment in black and white that there would not be any reconstruction without the detailed beneficiary survey during the donor's meeting," Mr Paudel said earlier.

"But until the detailed beneficiary survey was completed, there was no way we could go ahead with the actual reconstruction."

Now that the work is completed in 11 of the 14 districts affected by the earthquake, work will proceed at full speed, Mr Paudel said.
North Korea's foreign minister has said his country is ready to halt its nuclear tests if the United States suspends its annual military exercises with Seoul.

He also defended the country's right to maintain a nuclear deterrent and warned that Pyongyang would not be cowed by international sanctions.

And for those waiting for the North's regime to collapse, he had this to say: Don't hold your breath.

In his first interview with a Western news organisation, Ri Su Yong held firm to Pyongyang's long-standing position that the US drove his country to develop nuclear weapons as an act of self-defence.

But at the same time, he suggested that suspending the military exercises with Seoul could open the door to talks and reduced tensions.

"If we continue on this path of confrontation, this will lead to very catastrophic results, not only for the two countries but for the whole entire world as well," he told The Associated Press in the country's diplomatic mission to the United Nations , speaking in Korean through an interpreter .

"It is really crucial for the United States government to withdraw its hostile policy against the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) and as an expression of this stop the military exercises, war exercises, in the Korean Peninsula. Then we will respond likewise."

Mr Ri, who spoke calmly and in measured words, a contrast to the often bombastic language used by the North's media, claimed Pyongyang's proposal was "very logical".

"Stop the nuclear war exercises in the Korean Peninsula, then we should also cease our nuclear tests," he said.

He spoke beneath portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jung Il, North Korea's two previous leaders - the grandfather and father of current leader Kim Jong Un.

If the exercises are halted "for some period, for some years", he said, "new opportunities may arise for the two countries and for the whole entire world as well."

Mr Ri's comments came hours after North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine in its latest show of defiance as the US-South Korea exercises wind down.

He referred to the launch in the context of current tensions caused by the military exercises, saying: "The escalation of this military exercise level has reached its top level. And I think it's not bad - as the other side is going for the climax - why not us, too, to that level as well?"

Sanctions, Mr Ri said, would not sway the North.

"If they believe they can actually frustrate us with sanctions, they are totally mistaken," he said.

"The more pressure you put on to something, the more emotionally you react to stand up against it. And this is important for the American policymakers to be aware of."

It is extremely rare for top North Korean officials to give interviews to foreign media, particularly with Western news organisations.

But Mr Ri's proposal may well fall on deaf ears. North Korea, which sees the US-South Korean exercises as a rehearsal for invasion, has floated similar proposals to Washington in the past but the America has insisted the North give up its nuclear weapons programme before any negotiations.

The result has been a stalemate between the two countries that Mr Ri said has put the peninsula at the crossroads of a thermonuclear war.

In an initial response to Mr Ri's remarks, a US official defended the military exercises as demonstrating America's commitment to its alliance with the South and said they enhanced the combat readiness, flexibility and capabilities of the alliance.

"We call again on North Korea to refrain from actions and rhetoric that further raise tensions in the region and focus instead on taking concrete steps toward fulfilling its international commitments and obligations," he said.
Three people were injured in the shooting

A person with a rifle opened fire outside a high school prom in Wisconsin, leaving three people injured, police reported.

The armed person "showed up" on Saturday night at Antigo High School and started firing at two people outside the building.

Police said officers in a nearby parking lot heard gunshots, and one officer fired on the suspect, "stopping the threat."

All the people at the prom were eventually "escorted from the school and are safe."

It was not immediately known if the unidentified suspect, who is now in custody, was among the injured at the hospital, or if they were a student.

The condition of those injured was not immediately known, but all three were taken to hospital.
A solar-powered plane has landed in California, completing a risky, three-day flight across the Pacific as part of its journey around the world.

Pilot Bertrand Piccard landed the Solar Impulse 2 in Mountain View, in the Silicon Valley south of San Francisco, at 11.45pm Saturday local time, following a 62-hour, non-stop solo flight without fuel.

The plane taxied into a huge tent erected on Moffett Airfield where Piccard was greeted by the project's team.

"You know, there was a moment in the night, I was watching the reflection of the moon on the ocean and I was thinking 'I'm completely alone in this tiny cockpit and I feel completely confident'. And I was really thankful to life for bringing me this experience," Piccard said at a news conference after he landed.

"It's maybe this is one of the most fantastic experiences of life I've had."

The landing came several hours after Piccard performed a fly-past over the Golden Gate Bridge as spectators watched the narrow aircraft with extra wide wings from below.

"I crossed the bridge. I am officially in America," he declared as he took in spectacular views of San Francisco Bay.

Piccard and fellow Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg have been taking turns flying the plane on an around-the-world trip since taking off from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, in March 2015. It made stops in Oman, Burma, China, Japan and Hawaii.

The trans-Pacific leg was the riskiest part of the plane's global travels because of the lack of emergency landing sites.

The aircraft faced a few bumps along the way.

The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Hawaii in July and was forced to stay there after the plane's battery system sustained heat damage on its trip from Japan. The team was delayed in Asia as well. When first attempting to fly from Nanjing, China, to Hawaii, the crew had to divert to Japan because of unfavourable weather and a damaged wing.

A month later, when weather conditions were right, the plane departed from Nagoya in central Japan for Hawaii.

The plane's ideal flight speed is about 28 mph, though that can double during the day when the sun's rays are strongest. The carbon-fibre aircraft weighs more than 5,000lbs, or about as much as a mid-size truck.

The plane's wings, which stretch wider than those of a Boeing 747, are equipped with 17,000 solar cells that power propellers and charge batteries. The plane runs on stored energy at night.

Solar Impulse 2 will make three more stops in the United States before crossing the Atlantic to Europe or northern Africa, according to the website documenting the journey.

"The adventure continues," Piccard said. "The story is not finished."

The project, which began in 2002 and is estimated to cost more than 69 million, is meant to highlight the importance of renewable energy and the spirit of innovation.

"I think innovation and pioneering must continue," Piccard said. "It must continue for better quality of life, for clean technologies, for renewable energy; this is where the pioneers can really express themselves and be successful."

Solar-powered air travel is not yet commercially practical, however, given the slow travel time, weather and weight constraints of the aircraft.

"Maybe it will be boring in 20 years when all the airplanes will be electric and people will say 'Oh it's routine', But now, today, an airplane that is electric, with electric engines, that produces its own energy with the sun, it can never be boring," Piccard said. "It's a miracle of technology."
Elections in Anderson County: How to vote early and what to know

What to know about the 2022 general election and voting in South Carolina, which has passed new legislation to create a period for early voting.
Mylans President, Rajiv Malik, discussed with the Economic Times as how India is playing out in the growth of the company.Emphasizing on the importance of India, being a key part of the companys operations, Malik threw light on the fact that nearly 15,000 of 35,000 global workforces of the company are based out in India. He went on to state that as many as 1,800 employees from India are engaged in Research and Development (R&D). Additionally, the company has placed the corporate team in India that takes strategic expansion related decisions for emerging markets.Malik also mentioned that nearly 25 of over 40 facilities of the company are situated in India. While giving a break-up of those facilities, Malik said that nine of those are API and eight facilities are dedicated for oral solid doses (ORD) and injectables each. Altogether, supplies of high-quality medicines to the global markets including emerging ones are sourced from India.Malik credited the Indian R&D team for developing high-quality APIs for the HIVAIDS treatment. He specified that nearly 50% of the patients receiving treatment for HIVAIDS rely on Mylan products.Malik underlined Indias contribution in drug development by stating that the generic version of AstraZenecas Nexium was developed in Nashik in Maharashtra. He added that the drug claimed 35% - 40% of the market share and was second to enter the U.S. markets. Malik said that the companys aggressive API and product development has brought the cost of HIV drugs down to $100 from $10,000.Meanwhile, Malik sees the Indian patent environment as fairly regulated, where aspects of both the affordability and protection of science are duly taken care. He told ET that the company is currently working on product pipeline for diabetes, oncology and Hepatitis C. He took pride in stating that the affordability of Gileads drug Sovaldi in India has made people from across the globe to come to India. Mylan is currently the licensing partner of the drug in India.
N. Korea Vows to Stop Nuke Tests if US Ends Military Drills With Seoul By RT April 24, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " RT "- Pyongyang said it will stop conducting nuclear tests if the US puts an end to its annual military drills in the South, North Koreas foreign minister told AP on Saturday. Stop the nuclear war exercises in the Korean Peninsula, then we should also cease our nuclear tests, Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong said in his first-ever interview with Western media. If we continue on this path of confrontation, this will lead to very catastrophic results, not only for the two countries but for the whole entire world as well. At the same time, Ri stressed that his country has the right to maintain a nuclear deterrent and will not be bullied by international sanctions. Koreas foreign minister asserted that it was the US that had pushed the North to develop nuclear weapons as a self-defense strategy, adding that the only thing that could dissuade the country from carrying out its tests, would be for the US to halt its military exercises with Seoul. It is really crucial for the United States government to withdraw its hostile policy against the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] and as an expression of this stop the military exercises, war exercises, in the Korean Peninsula. Then we will respond likewise, he said in Korean. If the drills were to be stopped for some period, for some years, new opportunities may arise for the two countries and for the whole entire world as well, he observed. Ri arrived in New York on Friday for an official UN ceremony, where over 160 countries signed on to a climate change deal reached last year. In response to Ris comments, a US official told AP that participating in military exercises in South Korea demonstrates the US commitment to the region and provides an opportunity to update existing military techniques. We call again on North Korea to refrain from actions and rhetoric that further raise tensions in the region and focus instead on taking concrete steps toward fulfilling its international commitments and obligations, said the official on condition of anonymity. Pyongyang views American exercises in the South as a rehearsal for an actual invasion of the North. This is not the first time such a proposal has been made, but the US continues to insist that North Korea must make the first move by giving up its nuclear ambitions. Tensions between Pyongyang and Seoul recently escalated after the North conducted a hydrogen bomb test in early January and successful put a satellite into orbit a month later, going against several UN Security Council resolutions. North Korea stated on Sunday that its most recent submarine-launched ballistic missile test, which was overseen by the countrys leader, Kim Jong Un, had been a great success, providing one more means for powerful nuclear attack, the North Korean news agency, KCNA, reported. It fully confirmed and reinforced the reliability of the Korean-style underwater launching system and perfectly met all technical requirements for carrying out... underwater attack operation, the news agency said. A submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) was fired on Saturday from the Sea of Japan (also known as the East Sea) in open waters at about 6:30 pm local time (0930 GMT), Seouls Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said. The missile flew for a few minutes, Yonhap agency reported, citing a military source.  Autonomous Nonprofit Organization TV-Novosti, 20052016. All rights reserved.
Obama Knows 9/11 Was Linked to Saudi Arabia



Saudi Arabia's million barrel a day output, plus its strategic location in the Middle East, means the West must pay obeisance to the regional head-choppers



By Robert Fisk April 24, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " The Independent "- Poor old Barack. Off he goes to Riyadh to talk to his so-called ally, Saudi Arabia. The Sunni Wahhabi kingdom long ago run out of patience with the US president, who befriended Shiite Iran and who failed to destroy the Alawite (read: Shiite) regime in Syria. So why is Obama even bothering coming to the Gulf? Does he have any friends left among the kings, emirs and princes of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the Emirates and Oman? Obama wont be entering the Saudi lions den. The Saudis were never as brave as lions  which is why they let the decidedly unprincely Osama bin Laden lead the Arab legion in Afghanistan  but the little cubs now trying to run the country are very angry. The ambitious, ruthless deputy crown prince and defence minister, Mohamed bin Salman, launched the kingdoms crazed war against the Houthi rebels in Yemen last year, convinced (without evidence) that Iran was arming them. The young Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubair  brilliant former Washington ambassador, a man with a silken, dangerously eloquent tongue  has no hesitation in denouncing Western weakness. And, according to the New York Times, the Saudis have even threatened to sell billions of dollars of their US assets if Congress passes a bill allowing the Saudi government to be held responsible in American courts for the crimes against humanity of 9/11. And that, indeed, is the foundation of the US-Saudi mess right now. Of the 19 hijackers involved in 9/11, 15 were Saudis, a fact diplomatically ignored in the years immediately following the attacks. The Saudis bankrolled the Taliban for many years. The Americans believe  rightly  that Isis itself today receives much support from within Saudi Arabia, though they havent gone quite so far as to say the government is behind this. Saudi Arabia, in other words, is regarded in Washington as a very dodgy nation to be an ally. But Obamas got to pretend to King Salman (the crown princes Dad) that the US still stands four-square behind the kingdoms security and sovereignty  he can hardly say hes going to support Saudi democracy for obvious reasons  and its clear that the countrys massive oil reserves, its million barrels a day output, strategic location and control of Sunni Muslim finances, means that the West has got to go on paying obeisance to all the regional head-choppers. Be sure that when King Salman dies (and may he live for many years), David Cameron will once more lower the Union flag in mourning as he did for his predecessor. The real problem is that  after years of fantasy in which, against all the evidence, the Americans persuaded themselves that the Saudis were a force for moderation in the Middle East  the Obama administration has decided that Shiite Iran and the huge influence it exerts over the Shiite governments of Iraq and Syria (and over the Shiite Hizballah in Lebanon) is a better bet than the Sunni Salafists of Arabia. Hence the nuclear deal with Tehrans new leaders, the end of sanctions against Iran and the slowly-dawning realisation among Sunnis that Washington is going to tolerate the continuation of Bashar al-Assads rule in Damascus. Iran may, as it was under the Shah, become the policeman of the Gulf. The Saudis will have to share power with them. The US wants no more free riders (as Obama snottily described the Saudis) supporting Isis. The Obama line, which will be peddled heavily this week, is that diplomacy rather than war must resolve the Sunni-Shia conflict; that America is not going to embark on any more military adventures in the Middle East (nor, one suspects, give much more support to Crown Prince Mohameds adventure in Yemen). It would be good to know what the censored 28 pages of the official US 9/11 report said about the Saudis. Maybe Obama will mention that in Riyadh? Any more talk of withdrawing billions of US assets might just persuade the Americans to open the book and let us take a peek into those secrets. See also Sanders seeks root cause of Saudi role in 9/11 : Bernie Sanders urges the United States to address the root cause of the September 11, 2001 attacks, voicing support for Senate legislation that would allow families of terror victims to sue Saudi Arabia in federal court.
When Media Shill For Saudi Money

By Moon Of Alabama

April 24, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Moon Of Alabama "- A timely Washington Post piece looks at how the Saudis bribe left, right and center:

Saudi government has vast network of PR, lobby firms in U.S. The Saudi government and its affiliates have spent millions of dollars on U.S. law, lobby and public relations firms to raise the countrys visibility in the United States and before the United Nations at a crucial time.

...

Five lobby and PR firms were hired in 2015 alone, signaling a stepped-up focus on ties with Washington. The firms have been coordinating meetings between Saudi officials and business leaders and U.S. media, ...

The Saudis are getting some bang for their money.

And just today these three well-paid-for pieces appeared. Notice how they have a common, lobby induced theme:

They may have promoted al Qaedas poisonous ideology. But Saudi Arabia is too valuable an ally against todays terrorism to allow ordinary Americans to make the kingdom pay.

Foreign Policy - Saudi Arabia Is a Great American Ally

While Tehran continues to sow anti-American terrorism across the Middle East, Riyadh holds the key to regional stability. This is not the time to back away from the House of Saud.

CBS News - Saudi officials give Obama chilly reception in Riyadh

The Saudis are particularly angry about the Iran nuclear deal, and they believe that only the next U.S. president -- whether it's Hillary Clinton or even Donald Trump -- will be able to restore Saudi Arabia's status as America's key ally in the Middle East.

The biggest sellout yet is Bloomberg which whored out the May issue of Businessweek, including the cover, to a Saudi prince:

The $2 Trillion Project to Get Saudi Arabias Economy Off Oil - Eight unprecedented hours with Mr. Everything, Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In Prince Mohammed, the U.S. may find a sympathetic long-term ally in a chaotic region.

The Saudi mafia clan is not just itself corrupt. It is massively corrupting others. It bribes them to do take part in their crimes, no matter how nefarious. Just consider this, mentioned in the WaPo lobby piece above:

In 2014, consultants at the PR firm Qorvis developed content for the Saudi Arabia embassys YouTube and Twitter pages, and ran the Twitter account for the Syrian Opposition Coalition.

The Saudis are the major money behind the war on Syria. They are building ISIS and Al-Qaeda not only in Syria but also in Yemen and elsewhere. A former Saudi foreign minister, quoted in in yesterdays Financial Times (see here), admitted such:

Saud al-Feisal, the respected Saudi foreign minister, remonstrated with John Kerry, U.S. secretary of state, that "Daesh [ISIS] is our [Sunni] response to your support for the Da'wa" - the Tehran aligned Shia Islamist ruling party of Iraq.
To See the Real Story in Brazil, Look at Who Is Being Installed as President  and Finance Chiefs By Glenn Greenwald April 24, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " The Intercept "- Its not easy for outsiders to sort through all the competing claims about Brazils political crisis and the ongoing effort to oust its president, Dilma Rousseff, who won re-election a mere 18 months ago with 54 million votes. But the most important means for understanding the truly anti-democratic nature of whats taking place is to look at the person whom Brazilian oligarchs and their media organs are trying to install as president: the corruption-tainted, deeply unpopular, oligarch-serving Vice President Michel Temer (above). Doing so shines a bright light on whats really going on, and why the world should be deeply disturbed. The New York Timess Brazil bureau chief, Simon Romero, interviewed Temer this week, and this is how his excellent article begins: RIO DE JANEIRO  One recent poll found that only 2 percent of Brazilians would vote for him. He is under scrutiny over testimony linking him to a colossal graft scandal. And a high court justice ruled that Congress should consider impeachment proceedings against him. Michel Temer, Brazils vice president, is preparing to take the helm of Brazil next month if the Senate decides to put President Dilma Rousseff on trial. How can anyone rational believe that anti-corruption anger is driving the elite effort to remove Dilma when they are now installing someone as president who is accused of corruption far more serious than she is? Its an obvious farce. But theres something even worse. The person who is third in line to the presidency, right behind Temer, has been exposed as shamelessly corrupt: the evangelical zealot and House speaker Eduardo Cunha. Hes the one who spearheaded the impeachment proceedings even though he got caught last year squirreling away millions of dollars in bribes in Swiss bank accounts, after having lied to Congress when falsely denying that he had any accounts in foreign banks. When Romero asked Temer about his posture toward Cunha once he takes power, this is how Temer responded: Mr. Temer defended himself and top allies who are under a cloud of accusations in the scheme. He expressed support for Eduardo Cunha, the scandal-plagued speaker of the lower house who is leading the impeachment effort in Congress, saying he would not ask Mr. Cunha to resign. Mr. Cunha will be the next in line for the presidency if Mr. Temer takes over. By itself, this demonstrates the massive scam taking place here. As my partner, David Miranda, wrote this morning in his Guardian op-ed: It has now become clear that corruption is not the cause of the effort to oust Brazils twice-elected president; rather, corruption is merely the pretext. In response, Brazils media elites will claim (as Temer did) that once Dilma is impeached, then the other corrupt politicians will most certainly be held accountable, but they know this is false, and Temers shocking support for Cunha makes that clear. Indeed, press reports show that Temer is planning to install as attorney general  the key government contact for the corruption investigation  a politician specifically urged for that position by Cunha. As Mirandas op-ed explains, The real plan behind Rousseffs impeachment is to put an end to the ongoing investigation, thus protecting corruption, not punishing it. But theres one more vital motive driving all of this. Look at who is going to take over Brazils economy and finances once Dilmas election victory is nullified. Two weeks ago, Reuters reported that Temers leading choice to run the central bank is the chair of Goldman Sachs in Brazil, Paulo Leme. Today, Reuters reported that Murilo Portugal, the head of Brazils most powerful banking industry lobby  and a long-time IMF official  has emerged as a strong candidate to become finance minister if Temer takes power. Temer also vowed that he would embrace austerity for Brazils already-suffering population: He intends to downsize the government and slash spending. In an earning calls last Friday with JP Morgan, the celebratory CEO of Banco Latinoamericano de Comercio Exterior SA, Rubens Amaral, explicitly described Dilmas impeachment as one of the first steps to normalization in Brazil, and said that if Temers new government implements the structural reforms that the financial community desires, then definitely there will be opportunities. News of Temers preferred appointees strongly suggests Mr. Amaral  and his fellow plutocrats  will be pleased. Meanwhile, the dominant Brazilian media organs of Globo, Abril (Veja), Estadao  which Mirandas op-ed discusses at length  are virtually unified in support of impeachment, as in No Dissent Allowed, and have been inciting the street protests from the start. Why is that revealing? Reporters Without Borders just yesterday released its 2016 Press Freedom Rankings, and ranked Brazil 103 in the world because of violence against journalists but also because of this key fact: Media ownership continues to be very concentrated, especially in the hands of big industrial families that are often close to the political class. Is it not crystal clear whats going on here? So to summarize: Brazilian financial and media elites are pretending that corruption is the reason for removing the twice-elected president of the country as they conspire to install and empower the countrys most corrupted political figures. Brazilian oligarchs will have succeeded in removing from power a moderately left-wing government that won four straight elections in the name of representing the countrys poor, and are literally handing control over the Brazilian economy (the worlds seventh largest) to Goldman Sachs and bank industry lobbyists. This fraud being perpetrated here is as blatant as it is devastating. But its the same pattern that has been repeatedly seen around the world, particularly in Latin America, when a tiny elite wages a self-protective, self-serving war on the fundamentals of democracy. Brazil, the worlds fifth most populous country, has been an inspiring example of how a young democracy can mature and thrive. But now, those democratic institutions and principles are being fully assaulted by the very same financial and media factions that suppressed democracy and imposed tyranny in that country for decades.
The Osun state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said it had been vindicated by the recent report of the ICPC which categorically indicted the state Governor Mr Rauf Aregbesola for allegedly mismanaging the N34.9 billion Federal Government Bailout Funds.

ICPC had confirmed that Osun state governor got bail out cash from the federal government for the settlement of arrears of workers salaries and emoluments but diverted the funds for other purposes, thereby defeating the purpose of the governments effort to provide succour for the workers, a statement signed by the Partys state Director of Media and Strategy Prince Diran Odeyemi said.

When we cried out that our governor had fixed the bailout, they called us liars, when we alerted that part of the fund was later used to pay a powerful contractor now in Buharis government, they denied it, what will the government say now that an independent government agency (ICPC) has confirmed and corroborated out claims, indeed, we have been vindicated, he said.

Quoting the ICPC, PDP said: Osun State received N34.988.990.000.00 as bailout fund and disbursed N18.677.224.582.20, leaving a balance of N16.311,765.418 billion as at November 2015.

The party commended the state NLC for debunking Aregbesolas claim that he is not owing them, while urging the workers to remain steadfast and united in their demand for the wages of their labour.

We are aware that Osun state workers have not been receiving full salaries since July 2015 and even at that, the state government is owing them four months salary, PDP said, expressing hope that the ICPC would wade into the governments recent propaganda towards verifying allegations that Osun State public servants had been paid salaries up to Jan 2016.
The death toll from Ecuadors devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake last week has risen to 654 people, the government has announced. The quake of April 16  the worst in nearly seven decades  injured around 12,500 people and left 58 missing along the countrys ravaged Pacific coast.

These have been sad days for the homeland, President Rafael Correa said during his regular Saturday television broadcast. The country is in crisis.Several strong tremors and more than 700 aftershocks have continued to shake the country since the major quake, sparking momentary panic but little additional damage.

Tremors are expected to continue for several weeks. With close to 7,000 buildings destroyed, more than 26,000 people were living in shelters. Some 14,000 security personnel were keeping order in quake-hit areas. Survivors in the quake zone were receiving food, water and medicine from the government and scores of foreign aid workers, though Correa has acknowledged that bad roads delayed aid reaching some communities.

Correas leftist government, facing mammoth rebuilding at a time of greatly reduced oil revenues, has said it will temporarily increase some taxes, offer assets for sale and possibly issue bonds abroad to fund reconstruction. Congress will begin debate on the tax proposal on Tuesday. Correa has estimated damage at $2bn-$3bn. Lower oil revenue has already left the country of 16 million people facing near-zero growth and lower investment.

Aljazeera.
European leaders say a new deal with Turkey to stop refugees and migrants from making dangerous journeys is working. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU officials visited a refugee camp in southeastern Turkey on Saturday in an attempt to bolster the controversial deal.

Merkel, accompanied by Donald Tusk, EU president, and Frans Timmermans, European Commission vice president, visited a camp in Nizip  near the Syrian border  to inaugurate an EU-funded project in support of Syrian children and hold talks with Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkish prime minister. Tusk praised Davutoglu and his government, saying his visit to the camp had shown him that Turkey is an example for the whole world on how we should treat refugees. Tusk said the EU will spend 1bn ($1.1bn) this summer on projects to improve the lives of Syrian refugees.

The media were not allowed into the Nizip camp to talk to refugees. But speaking to Al Jazeera through the fence, Syrians asked if they wanted to stay there or go to Europe responded with one word: Leave. In a deal agreed to last month, the 28-member EU is offering Turkey a package of incentives  from billions in refugee aid to progress on visa-free access to the bloc for Turkish citizens  in exchange for help in returning refugees.

Turkey, with 2.7 million registered Syrian refugees, is host to the largest number of refugees in the world. About 280,000 of them live in camps. Praised by Merkel and EU leaders but called inhumane by critics, the deal is aimed at discouraging people smuggling via treacherous sea routes by cutting off the main migration trail from the Middle East to Europe. Our goal is not only to stop illegal migration, but for refugees to have more opportunities near their home, Merkel said at Gaziantep University.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh, at the weekend maintained that the Federal Government will engage youth in the country for massive food production as it partners with African development Bank (AfDB) and International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA).

He said this in a statement at a two-day youth programme workshop tagged, Empowering Novel Agri-Business-Led Employment ENABLE, organised by the AfDB in collaboration with IITA.

The African Development Bank Group is our reliable and trusted partner. We are appreciative of the support of the support and cooperation that we have enjoyed from our partnership over years, with a view to jointly and meaningfully repositioning the agricultural sector in Nigeria as a virile engine of growth, Ogbeh, who was represented by the Minister of State, Agriculture, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri said.

Probably, the most topical issue in the world today is the need to harness the potential of the youth for rapid and sustainable development. Increasingly, we are seeing evidence around the world that we can no longer take our youth for granted.

For Nigeria and other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture remains essentially the most veritable and enduring platform for empowering our youths to effectively position them at t5he driving seat for implementation of policy initiatives and actions aimed at resolving the endemic challenges of poverty and underdevelopment in our different spheres.

Indeed, unless we begin to take urgent steps to empower our youth to take the baton of transforming our society and nations from us, we cannot confidently state that the future security and prosperity of our beautiful world can be guaranteed, Ogbeh said.

The minister noted that without funds nothing can be achieved through the youth in the agriculture sector. He said access and affordable finance remains a challenge in the sector. He also decried the ministrys borrowing plan approved by the National Assembly was $200 million, which is just a drop considering the population 180 million Nigerians.
The Diocesan Bishop of Lagos, Church of Nigeria, (Anglican Communion), Most Rev. Adebola Ademowo has appealed to Nigerians not to lose hope in the ability of President Muhammadu Buhari to turn things around in the country, especially in tackling the menace of Fulani herdsmen.

President Muhammadu Buhari is not someone that will condone wickedness. He will not condone anything evil. He is not silent, he said while briefing newsmen in Lagos ahead of the first session of the 33rd Synod of the Diocese of Lagos scheduled to begin on May 1 with a theme; Marks of the Church.

According to him, Buhari is highly focused and it is not right to wrongly accuse him.

Meanwhile, he called on Christians to live according to the dictates of God by not yielding to the challenges of modernisation.

Ademowo lamented that proliferation of churches with attendant preponderance of fake doctrines has made majority of Christians to shift ground, causing disunity in the Body of Christ.
Gombe State Government has increased its nutritional budget from N50 to N120 million yearly, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

We are all aware that the issue of malnutrition among children is on the increase and bad across Gombe. We want to bring it down to the barest minimum, Chairman, Maternal and Neonatal Child Health Coalition (MNCH) Gombe, Malam Alhasan Yaya, said in an interview with newsmen in Gombe on Saturday.

He said that the aim of the meeting was to find a lasting solution to the challenge of malnutrition facing the state.

He commended Gov. Ibrahim Dankwambo, for the timely release of fund to increase nutrition among children in the state.

He has jacked the budget from N50 to N120 million, his effort is commendable. The governor also promised to extend the nutrition centres from three to 11, he said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and top EU officials have arrived at the Turkish-Syrian border in an attempt to soothe tensions over a refugee swap deal between the EU and Turkey. Last month, Turkey and the EU reached a deal aimed at stopping the flow of refugees and migrants into Europe.

The deal initially slowed the number of arrivals to Greece sharply, but boats have been coming again with about 150 people a day, the International Organization for Migration said on Friday. Under the deal, Ankara agreed to take back all refugees and migrants who enter the EU illegally, in return for the EU taking the same amount of Syrian refugees directly from Turkey.

As a part of the deal, Turkey wanted to negotiate EU accession, receive $6.8bn of EU funds to house Syrian refugees, and have short-term visas waived for its citizens before the end of June. Turkey is currently hosting the largest number of Syrian refugees of any country  more than 2.7 million. But human rights groups have warned that Turkey is not a safe place to return people.

Last week, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it was investigating reports about Turkish soldiers firing live bullets at the Syrian border  a charge Turkey has denied. Also, Amnesty International said Turkish authorities have been rounding up and expelling groups of around 100 Syrian men, women and children to Syria on a near-daily basis since mid-January.

Reuters.
Punch

The All Progressives Congress has kept mum over allegations of political witch-hunting by Senate President Bukola Saraki.

Vanguard

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Saturday reassured Nigerians that the question of Change in the country was irrevocable and the present administration was completely committed to it.

Thisday

The Senate on Wednesday suspended work on the amendment of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Code of Conduct Tribunal as well as the Administration of Criminal Justice Act in deference to public opinion.

Daily Times

Mr. Ayuba Wabba, president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) , and his Trade Union Congress (TUC) counterpart, Bobboi Kaigama, said the appointment of Dr. Ibe Kachikwu as both Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, as well as Group General Manager of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) as being responsible for the perennial fuel queues prevailing in most parts of the country.

Guardian

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has won the Damaturu/Tarmuwa/Gujba/Gulani federal constituency by-election in Yobe.

Daily Trust

The former national chairman and presidential candidate of the erstwhile National Action Council (NAC), Dr. Olapade Agoro, has described the Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki, as Nigerias epitome of lawlessness and shamelessness.

Leadership

As the security agencies intensify efforts to rescue the abducted Chiboks girls, the federal government has been called upon to take drastic measures in adequately equipping the Nigerian Police with modern facilities as well as improving their working condition.

Tribune

Govt alone cannot shoulder education responsibility Buhari PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has said that government alone could not shoulder the responsibility on education, thus the need for private organisations to complement government efforts in the provision of quality education.

The Nation

A former Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Emeka Mba and nine ex-members of the board are to explain to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) all they know about the sale/lease of 700Mhz spectrum to MTN for $171million (about N34,114,500,000.00).
An Ontario man ran afoul of provincial police this week after spending a night at home with his pet parrot. Police in Brighton, between Toronto and Kingston, said they were originally called to a home at 8 p.m. on Tuesday after neighbours heard what they believed to be a domestic dispute.

Northumberland OPP Const. Steve Bates said the neighbours knew the home was usually occupied by a couple, but police found only one person when they arrived. They heard him yelling and saying, I hope you die, and so on and so forth, Bates said. So we attended and we located the male of the household alone in the house screaming at his pet parrot who apparently was beaking off at him, in his words.

The man had been drinking, Bates said, adding that the parrot did not appear to be hurt in any way.

Police did not lay any charges. Bates described the call as a very interesting one for attending officers, adding such incidents sometimes create a welcome diversion. These are the kinds of stories that police run into all the time, he said. It just adds some levity to the job.

CTV News.
As bizarre as it sounds, smoking scorpions is not unheard of in South Asian countries, but according to regional media, the practice has recently been gaining popularity in several parts of Pakistan. The scorpion venom can apparently put the smoker on an intense high, becoming highly addictive with time. So how does one smoke a scorpion, anyway? Its a simple yet effective process  a dead scorpion is dried in sunlight for several hours or a live one is burnt on coal until it dies. The dried carcass is then lit on fire and the smoke is inhaled. Since its the tail that contains the poison addicts seek, some smokers prefer to crush the dried tail and mix it with hashish and tobacco, smoking it in the form of a cigarette.

In his 2007 book Drugs in Afghanistan, sociologist David MacDonald provides the account of a friend who witnessed first-hand the effects of scorpion smoke on an addict. The effect was instantaneous with the mans face and eyes becoming very red, much more than a hashish smoker. He also seemed very intoxicated but awake and alert, although he stumbled and fell over when he tried to rise from a sitting position  the smoke tasted sweeter than that of hashish, although  it smelled foul, and the intoxicating effect lasted much longer, the book suggested.

The high, it seems, lasts for as long as 10 hours. The first six are said to be painful as the body adjusts to the substance, but the feeling slowly eases into enjoyment and later, intense pleasure. Everything appears like it is dancing, recalled Sohbat Khan, a 74-year-old former scorpion smoker. The roads, the vehicles, everything in front of me.

Sohbat was addicted to scorpion smoke as a young man in his 20s  he would purchase the arachnid for one or two rupees apiece from a vendor, who got his stash from Peshawars Matani area, rich in scorpions because of the hot weather. At the height of his addiction, he would scour the land of his village, hunting for scorpions to smoke. When the need was overwhelming and there were none to be found, he would actually travel all the way to Peshawar, in Afghanistan, to get some. It was the worst form of addiction, he said.
After much talk, The Lagos state Police Command has opened up on what happened after the highly publicized feud between Linda Ikeji and Wizkid as reported to them.

According to the Police P.R.O, Dolapo Badmos, when the police invited the parties, they agreed to resolve the matter out of court after Wizkid said he had not really meant to threaten her life, and that his rant was rather emotional, with no malicious intent attached.

Wizkid, she said, explained that the threat of sending his 16-year old cousin to beat up Linda, was also written out of anger and emotion and there was nothing else to it.

She said that even though the threat was criminal in nature, the matter was amicably resolved through Alternative Dispute resolution (ADR ).

Police say decision to resolve the matter was not because of the parties status in the society but due to genuine commitment by the parties to resolve the matter.
A Texas police department is searching for the owner of a most unusual apparent pet found roaming the streets: a young female tiger. The Conroe Police Department said officers received multiple calls just before noon Thursday about a tiger wandering in a residential neighborhood on Coral Cove Pass near League Line Road and Longmire Road.

Animal control officers captured the female tiger, which was found to be wearing a collar with a leash attached. Resident Jonathan Gessner said he spotted the surprisingly friendly tiger crouching in the bushes Thursday morning. Out of nowhere it took off running towards me, put her paws on my shoulders and started licking me in the face, Gessner told the Houston Chronicle. I was really scared at first.

The state of Texas allows for exotic animals to be kept with proper registration and insurance, but Conroes municipal code prohibits the keeping or harboring of a dangerous animal in the city. A man who identified himself only as Cody claimed to be one of the animals owners.

Her name is Nala. Shes very nice. Shes a 4-5 month old tiger, Cody told KTRK-TV. We dropped her off at a friends and I dont really know how she got out. Police said they are working to determine the identity of the tigers owner. Conroe police spokeswoman Dorcy McGinnis said the tigers owner would face a citation and the animal would not be allowed to remain in Conroe. At this point, we dont even know if the animals original home is here in Conroe, McGinnis said.

UPI.
Can you be charged with a crime for refusing to take a Breathalyzer test when stopped on suspicion of drunken driving? Its hard to think of a constitutional rights question that affects more people. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will take it up, considering whether the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure protects your breath and your blood from a warrantless search.

Two different states involved in the case offer different constitutional reasons for their practices  a sure sign that something is fishy here. The bottom line is that mandating a search without a warrant violates the Constitution, and the court should say so, regardless of the legitimate importance of combating drunken driving.

A review of the states positions should make that clear.

North Dakotas Supreme Court said that you implicitly consent to taking a blood test when you get into a car there. It added that you arent really forced to take the blood test  you just get convicted of a crime if you dont. In a sense, the court was saying that driving is a privilege, not a right.

The government cant condition the exercise of a constitutional right on the waiver of another one. The reason you can be searched before getting on an airplane is that flying isnt recognized as a fundamental constitutional right.

Is driving a constitutional right? The Supreme Court has never said so, although it has recognized a constitutional right to travel. In todays U.S., especially if you live someplace without public transportation (like most of North Dakota), you cant really travel if you cant drive.

Making consent to an invasive blood draw the condition of driving seems clearly unconstitutional. As for the assertion that you dont have to take the test, thats even weaker: the very definition of being required to do something is that youll be convicted of a crime if you dont.

The Minnesota Supreme Court said that requiring a Breathalyzer counts as a search incident to arrest, which is one of the two recognized exceptions to the usual rule that the police can only search you if they have a warrant. The trouble with this argument is that the exception is designed to provide for the safety of the arresting officer.

This is an important exception, to be sure. And for better or worse, its the legal basis for the stop-and-frisk policing policy that has been the subject of both praise and condemnation in recent years.

But while the officers safety may require a pat-down to make sure the arrested person isnt carrying a gun or a knife, testing the arrestees breath doesnt make the officer safer.

The Minnesota court pointed out that it had already allowed photographing and fingerprinting arrestees. But these administrative actions arent searches in the same way as a Breathalyzer, which analyzes the chemical contents of the inside of the body.

The Minnesota court emphasized that the search was reasonable because a Breathalyzer test is so minimally invasive. In essence, the court was saying that the Fourth Amendment allows the state to engage in a cost-benefit analysis. If the search is minimal and the gain is great, then the Constitution permits the search.

Admittedly, the Fourth Amendment is written in general terms. But the word reasonable shouldnt be taken as authority to trade away the right not to be searched because the state has much to gain. If the police carried X-ray machines around with them, they might be able to see hidden weapons or drugs, and the gain might be great  but the viewing would be a search within the terms of the Fourth Amendment, even if it wasnt invasive at all.

Theres no question that we need better mechanisms to police and prevent drunken driving. But it would be a serious mistake to sacrifice the right against unlawful search while were figuring out what those are. New technology will come. But the principle of mandatory search will sit about like a loaded weapon, to use the phrase coined by Justice Robert Jackson. The court should protect privacy and put the burden on states to figure out better ways to save lives.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics Personal Auto Minnesota
The Travelers Companies Inc. reported net income of $691 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2016, down 17 percent from $833 million in the prior year quarter. Operating income in the current quarter was $698 million compared to $827 million in the prior year quarter. These declines were primarily due to higher catastrophe losses mainly arising out of hail storms that occurred in Texas in late March, according to the insurer.

Alan Schnitzer, chief executive officer, said the company was pleased with its $428 million underwriting gain for the quarter (compared to $620 million in 2015s initial quarter) especially in light of the high catastrophe losses this year. The company achieved a 92.3 consolidated combined ratio compared to 88.9 for the first quarter in 2015.

He also praised business retention, premium increases and gains in business in both Business and International Insurance (94.9 combined ratio) and Bond & Specialty Insurance (69.3 combined ratio).

In Personal Insurance (93.7 combined ratio), Schnitzer said the company continued to build on its agency channel, with net written premium growth of 9 percent, resulting from 13 percent growth in agency automobile business and 2 percent growth in agency homeowners business.

Our results from time to time will be impacted by higher levels of catastrophe losses, as they were this quarter, but the strength of our franchises, our meaningful and sustainable competitive advantages and our relentless execution have enabled us to deliver industry-leading returns over time, and we are well positioned to continue to do so, Schnitzer said in a statement.

Travelers, one of the first insurers to report quarterly results, is not alone in feeling the effects of recent Texas storms. Allstate has not reported its overall results for the first quarter but did estimate its catastrophe losses in the first quarter from 17 events to be $830 million, with about $638 million of that in March. The insurer blamed Texas storms for two-thirds of its catastrophe losses for the quarter.

Texas has also suffered damaging hail and rain storms in April. Estimated insured losses from just one storm that hit the San Antonio area on April 12 are expected to reach $560 million for vehicles and $800 million for homes and businesses, according to the Independent Insurance Agents of San Antonio.

Topics Texas Profit Loss Windstorm
Migliora il rapporto deficit-pil. Secondo lIstat nel 2016 e sceso al 2,4% in miglioramento di 0,3 punti rispetto al 2015. Lindebitamento netto delle amministrazioni pubbliche in rapporto al prodotto interno lordo nel quarto trimestre del 2016 e stato pari al 2,3%, stabile rispetto al corrispondente trimestre del 2015.

Il saldo primario (indebitamento/accreditamento al netto degli interessi passivi), nello stesso periodo, e risultato positivo per 7.312 milioni di euro (7.315 milioni di euro nel corrispondente trimestre del 2015). La relativa incidenza sul pil e stata pari a 1,7%, invariata rispetto al quarto del 2015. Nel 2016, in termini di incidenza sul pil, il saldo primario e stato positivo e pari all1,5% del prodotto interno lordo, invariato rispetto al 2015.

Il saldo corrente (risparmio) nel quarto trimestre del 2016 e risultato positivo per 3.915 milioni di euro (10.808 mln nel corrispondente trimestre dellanno precedente). Lincidenza sul pil e stata dello 0,9%, a fronte del 2,5% nel IV trimestre del 2015. Complessivamente, nel 2016 il saldo corrente in rapporto al Pil e stato positivo e pari allo 0,6% (1,1% nel 2015). Le uscite totali nel IV trimestre sono calate dello 0,9% rispetto al corrispondente trimestre del 2015. La loro incidenza sul Pil si e ridotta in termini tendenziali di 1,2 punti percentuali, scendendo al 56%. Nel 2016 lincidenza delle uscite totali sul Pil e stata pari al 49,6%, in riduzione di 0,9 punti percentuali rispetto al 2015.

Le uscite correnti hanno registrato, nel IV trimestre, un aumento tendenziale dello 2,4% risultante da una crescita dei redditi da lavoro dipendente (+0,9%), dei consumi intermedi (+2,5%), delle prestazioni sociali in denaro (+0,6%) e delle altre uscite correnti (+11,8%). Nel trimestre gli interessi passivi sono risultati stabili. Le uscite in conto capitale sono diminuite in termini tendenziali del 30,7%; in particolare, gli investimenti fissi lordi sono scesi del 5,7% e le altre uscite in conto capitale del 50,4% Su questultima dinamica influisce, tra laltro, il venir meno degli interventi connessi alla risoluzione della crisi delle quattro banche registrati nel quarto trimestre del 2015.

Le entrate totali nel IV trimestre sono diminuite in termini tendenziali dello 0,9% e la loro incidenza sul Pil e stata del 53,7%, in calo di 1,1 punti rispetto al corrispondente trimestre del 2015. Complessivamente nel 2016, lincidenza delle entrate totali sul Pil e stata del 47,1%, inferiore di 0,7 punti percentuali rispetto al 2015. Le entrate correnti nel IV trimestre sono calate in termini tendenziali dello 0,7%; in particolare, si sono registrati incrementi delle imposte dirette (+1,9%), dei contributi sociali (+0,4%) e delle altre entrate correnti (+0,6%) e una riduzione delle imposte indirette (-5,6%). Le entrate in conto capitale hanno segnato un calo del 16,7%.

Il reddito disponibile delle famiglie consumatrici e diminuito nel quarto trimestre del 2016 dello 0,6% rispetto al trimestre precedente, mentre i consumi sono cresciuti dello 0,5%. Di conseguenza, la propensione al risparmio delle famiglie consumatrici e diminuita di 1 punto percentuali rispetto al trimestre precedente, scendendo all8%. A fronte di un aumento dello 0,2% del deflatore implicito dei consumi delle famiglie, il potere dacquisto delle famiglie consumatrici e diminuito dello 0,9% rispetto al trimestre precedente.

Nel 2016 il reddito disponibile e aumentato dell1,6% e la spesa per consumi finali dell1,3%, dando luogo a un aumento della propensione al risparmio di 0,2 punti percentuali rispetto al 2015. Il potere dacquisto e aumentato dell1,6%.

Nel quarto trimestre 2016, il tasso di investimento delle famiglie consumatrici (definito come rapporto tra investimenti fissi lordi delle famiglie consumatrici, che comprendono esclusivamente gli acquisti di abitazioni, e reddito disponibile lordo) e stato pari al 6,1%, invariato rispetto al trimestre precedente e in aumento di 0,1 punti percentuali rispetto al corrispondente trimestre del 2015. Tale dinamica congiunturale riflette un aumento degli investimenti fissi lordi dello 0,8% ed una flessione del reddito disponibile lordo (-0,6%). Nel 2016 il tasso di investimento delle famiglie consumatrici e stato pari al 6,1%, in aumento di 0,2 punti percentuali rispetto al 2015. Gli investimenti fissi lordi sono aumentati del 3,7%.
Typically, the ask price of a security should be higher than the bid price. This can be attributed to the expected behavior that an investor will not sell a security (asking price) for lower than the price they are willing to pay for it (bidding price).

But sometimes the way the bid/ask price is quoted with U.S. Treasury Bills (T-Bills) gives the appearance that the ask price is lower than the bid price. Here's a look at why the pricing is confusing and how you can understand the quotes.

Key Takeaways Generally, the asking price, or the price at which an investor is willing to sell a security, should be higher than the bidding price, or the price at which they are willing to buy the security.

That's true of Treasury Bills (T-Bills) as well, but depending on how the prices are quoted, it can give the false impression that the ask price is lower than the bid price.

This confusion emerges from the fact that T-Bills are discount bonds and sometimes the quotes listed are actually the yield on the bond, and not the price.

Doing the math and converting the bid and ask discount yields into the dollar amounts of the prices will reveal the actual pricestypically, a higher ask and lower bid.

How Bid/Ask Is Quoted for T-Bills

Since there is more than one method of quoting the bid and ask prices of T-bills, the quoted ask price may simply be perceived as being lower than the bid. However, it is possible to convert the prices quoted so that you can see an accurate comparison of the bid and ask prices.

For example, one common quote that you may see for a 365-day T-bill is July 12th, bid 2.35%, ask 2.25%. At first glance, the bid seems to be higher than the ask, but upon further inspection, you may notice that the ask is actually higher. The reason for this is that a T-bill is a discount bond and these percentages are the quoted yields, not the actual prices.

A Treasury Bill, or a T-Bill, is a short-term U.S. government debt obligation backed by the Treasury Department; it typically has a maturity of a year or less.

How to Understand Pricing

If we convert the bid and ask discount yields into the dollar amounts of the prices, we get a bid of $97.65 and an ask of $97.75. The bid is thus actually lower than the ask. Sometimes the quotes on T-bills show the actual prices, in which case you don't have to convert or calculate anything. The same T-bill above, therefore, may be quoted with a bid of 97.65 and an ask of 97.75.

So, as the dollar amount of the bid should be lower than the ask, the bid's quoted yield percentage should be higher than the ask's quoted yield percentage. The two different kinds of quotes are just different ways of saying the same thing.
The Charles Schwab Corporation (NYSE: SCHW) and Employee Fiduciary Corporation are both American-owned companies that provide 401(k) plans. The regulations concerning 401(k) plans are the same for all companies regardless of size. Therefore, when analyzing each company, it is important to view each company as a whole and compare the funds that are offered as well as the particular features of the funds.

Company Structure

The Charles Schwab Corporation provides services in four departments: investment, banking, trading, and wealth management. In November 2019, Charles Schwab announced its proposed acquisition of TD Ameritrade for a $26 billion all-stock transaction. According to CNBC, "the two firms will serve 24 million brokerage accounts, accounting for more than $5 trillion in client assets."

The Employee Fiduciary Corporation is 100% owned by the employees and focuses solely on retirement plans. As of 2020, Employee Fiduciary offers more than 30,000 mutual funds, services over 2,700 plans that are worth more than $2.8 billion, and covers approximately 75,000 clients. Each month, Employee Fiduciary processes $25 million in plan contributions and completes more than 500 distributions for participants.

The 401(k) plan is an employee benefit that many small business owners struggle to provide. The regulations are strict, and it takes a devoted staff to ensure that employees are receiving the proper amounts. Often, small businesses do not have the ability to provide dedicated staff, so they must choose retirement providers that offer assistance in monitoring the application of a 401(k) plan.

Comparing the Funds

Charles Schwab

As of 2021, Charles Schwab offers various plans for business owners. An individual 401(k) plan for owners with no employees; a SEP-IRA for owners with only a few employees; a SIMPLE IRA for businesses with up to 100 employees; a personal defined-benefit plan for owners with up to five employees; a business 401(k) plan for firms with an unlimited number of employees; and a company retirement account for businesses with established retirement plans.

Charles Schwab's main strength is its ability to reach a broad range of clients who have unique needs. Charles Schwab provides more than just retirement services, as wealth management is a large portion of the company's services. This additional service could be attractive to larger businesses that seek to minimize the number of providers with which they work. The way that Charles Schwab handles 401(k) plans is a major strength for the company because it can handle large firms as well as small businesses.

Employee Fiduciary

Employee Fiduciary is a smaller corporation and focuses on providing 401(k) plans for small businesses through 377 fund families. Employee Fiduciary is a small business compared to Charles Schwab. The size of the company, as well as the fact that it only provides retirement plans to small businesses, means that it can cater to its clients in a more personal manner.

Since Employee Fiduciary is a small business, its employees are well versed in the specific needs of other small businesses and are well equipped to provide advice. This strength is also a weakness, however, as Employee Fiduciary is in a niche market. The company is not equipped to provide services to large businesses and is limited to 401(k) retirement plans only while Charles Schwab offers investment advice, trading, banking, and wealth management.

Features of the Two Service Providers

Both companies provide reference material explaining the various 401(k) plans available and how the funds are managed. Each company offers telephonic and digital services. The Charles Schwab website offers tools to help clients make an educated decision, including IRA calculators, while the Employee Fiduciary website refers clients to third-party sites for the same calculations.

Deciding which company to choose depends on the individual needs of the client. Clients should feel comfortable with their retirement provider and the way their money is managed.
America has loomed large in the Irish political imagination for centuries for good reason. By the start of the 20th century the Irish American population in the United States was larger than the population in Ireland itself.

In the 19th century America became the nation that Irish republicans immediately looked to for inspiration and support (and they often found both, sometimes treating the place like an early ATM).

That helps explain why America was the only country that was singled out in the 1916 Proclamation. Sending significant financial and political support back to the homeland for generations was noticed.

In "Irelands Exiled Children: America and the Easter Rising," Robert Schmuhl, chair of American studies and journalism at Notre Dame, has written a lucid, scholarly study of the unique trans-Atlantic bonds that linked the two countries before and after the Rising.

In the book Schmuhl considers four key figures who helped shape Irish Americas response to news of the rebellion in Ireland. First he chooses John Devoy, the ardent Fenian who was arguably the most influential political voice among Irish Americans of the era.

Then he considers the American poet and journalist Joyce Kilmer, whose fine reporting helped shape public opinion and guide its sympathy in the immediate aftermath of the Rising. Thirdly he considers the legacy of the discreetly anti-Irish President Woodrow Wilson, who was himself descended from Ulster Protestants and implacably opposed to Irish independence.

Finally Schmuhl considers the man whose American birth  to hear many, though by no means all tell it  saved him from execution in 1916, Eamon de Valera. The contrasting backgrounds of his central protagonists mirror the complexity of the Rising itself and the diversity of responses it evoked in the U.S.

What is striking is how many voices fought to anchor the event and its meaning, right from the outset. Early reports came from England and were filtered through its perspective, and rumors were often reported as fact.

Some initial reports had it that the Rising's leaders had been shot in London, not Dublin, Schmuhl reminds us, while others made wild claims about the conduct of the volunteers and the numbers killed in the battles that were waged. The treachery of striking a blow in Dublin while England was contending with zeppelins and u-boats enraged many in Whitehall.

But many others saw a small nation take a defiant stand against their historic oppressors at a juncture in history when it was certain to have a lasting impact. Schmuhl quotes Mary McGrory, the legendary Irish American journalist and columnist, who described the 1916 Rising as the only revolution which was fomented and fought by poets.

Kilmer had come to a similar opinion, Schmuhl reminds us, even venturing to compare the Rising to a sort of movement in Irish art, suggesting it was closely related to the work of the Gaelic League, to the Irish Theatre movement, and to that phase of literary activity which is termed the Celtic Renaissance The leaders of the movement were, for the most part, men of letters.

Interest in the shocking revolt kept the story on the front page of The New York Times for weeks. Americans were astounded that a small band of Irish revolutionaries had dared to take on the might of the British Empire, and readers followed each new report ardently.

Knowing from the outset that the Rising was doomed to fail yet determined nevertheless to make the supreme gesture, the leaders had keenly understood the power of symbolism and they knew their actions would reverberate for decades to come. Even George Bernard Shaw appreciated the contradiction, describing the Rising as silly, ignorant, wrong headed  but honorable, brave and republican.

The poet W.B. Yeats, more than most, understood its power and wrestled with its legacy for the rest of his life. In a letter written about a month after the Rising he confessed to an American friend, This Irish business has been a great grief. We have lost the ablest and most fine natured of our young men. A world seems to have been swept away...

That the leaders of 1916 were composed of some of the most accomplished political thinkers of the age is a given. That they also included some of the most accomplished writers and thinkers of the era has been less remarked on.

In their wisdom (or their fury) the British decided to remove their threat by executing them one by one, leaving a political power vacuum it would take the nation decades to recover from, retarding progress toward a peaceful settlement on all sides.

In his praiseworthy work, Schmuhl reminds us how much Irish America contributed to the legacy of 1916 and its aftermath in a book that brings an important new perspective to Rising studies.

Oxford, $29.95.
The United Irish Counties Association of New York will launch a new book examining the support the Irish county organizations gave to the revolutionary leaders in the planning, formation and aftermath of the 1916 Rising.

Titled The 1916 Easter Rising: New York and Beyond, the 186 page book will go on sale at an Easter Rising commemoration luncheon on Sunday, April 24 at Antuns in Queens Village.

A first for the United Irish Counties, the committee of writers consists of 16 delegates of the individual county organizations. We relate the 16 members symbolically to the 16 martyrs executed by the British, John J. Garvey, chair of the committee, told the Irish Voice.

It's a commemorative effort to mark the centenary, which was originally planned as a pamphlet, but there was quite a bit of enthusiasm so it developed into a book, explains Gerry O'Shea, who was tasked with bringing the book to completion.

At our meetings it was proposed that we should address the lives and contributions of all 16 of the men who were executed. Especially the ones who spent time in the United States, with an eye to how that developed their growth as revolutionaries.

O'Shea himself writes the book's overview, provides a timeline to key events in the U.S. in the lead up to the Rising, and he gives an account of the 1916 leaders who came to America.

AOH National Historian Mike McCormack submitted an article on Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, the Irish Fenian leader and prominent member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Born in Cork, he would eventually be exiled to America where he eventually joined Clan na Gael and the Fenian Brotherhood in New York.

In his long life he would agitate for Ireland's independence, and become a legendary figure among nationalists. His funeral in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin in 1915 was a huge affair. He is perhaps known best in death for the graveside oration given at his funeral by Patrick Pearse, who after lamenting his passing delivered a stirring call to arms that ended with the famous lines:

They think that they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us and intimidated the other half. They think that they have foreseen everything, think that they have provided against everything; but, the fools, the fools, the fools! They have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.

Board member Mae O'Driscoll studied the life of influential Cork man Diarmuid Lynch, who is, O'Shea says, perhaps not widely known now but who once was the president of the Gaelic League of the state of New York and later upon his return to Ireland would become the divisional representative for Munster of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and a key player in the Rising.

United Irish Counties member Dorothy Foley wrote about Patrick McCartan, the Tyrone man who emigrated to the U.S. and would later play a part in the revolutionary movement (and its aftermath) in both the U.S. and Ireland.

Garvey writes about Sam O'Reilly, who participated in the Rising and saw first hand the revolution and its aftermath. Historian Ed Shevlin, a retired sanitation worker currently earning his masters degree in Irish studies at NYU, writes about John The Yank Kilgallon, a native of Far Rockaway, who as a young man fetched up in Dublin and fought in 1916.

Of all the Irish American towns in America, it had to be a Rockaway guy that wound up in the middle of the bloody battle at the Post Office, Shevlin recently told The New York Times.

Over the course of several days of fierce fighting on Sackville Street (now O'Connell Street) Kilgallon famously broke into the nearby wax museum, stole the costume of Queen Elizabeth I and returned to the fight wearing it. An unforgettable and uniquely Irish insult to the British soldiers pummeling the city center.

In further essays the role of the Irish county associations in the 1916 Rising are explored, the contributions of the GAA and the nationalist movements are also reflected upon, as are the significant contributions of the Cumman na mBan, the organization of Irish revolutionary women, and the role of religious orders like the Carmelites in the struggle for Irish independence.

I was amazed to read there was a very active Irish nationalist movement in Connecticut before and after the Rising, says O'Shea. The level of activity here and between Ireland and the U.S. deserves to be remembered and celebrated. This book does that.

For more information, email UnitedIrishCounties@gmail.com.
Easter Rising leader Padraig Pearse was ultimately put to death for his involvement in the uprising. Here we take an in-depth look at the life of Pearse and his contribution to Irish history.

Editor's Note: The 1916 Easter Rising, the rebellion which took place over the course of five days in Dublin and forever changed the course of Irish history, may have led to the execution of its leaders but, now more than ever, we remember those heroes who put their lives on the line for Irish independence. Below, Dermot McEvoy takes an in-depth look at the life of Pearse and his contribution to Irish history.

Read more History revisited: The Custom House Visitor Centre in Dublin

Padraig Pearse

Patrick (Padraig) Pearse was born in 1879 at 27 Great Brunswick (now Pearse) Street. (The building is still there and has been repaired to the way it looked in Pearses youth.) His father James was English and his mother Margaret (nee Brady) Irish. The fathers stonemason business, also at #27 Brunswick, specialized in ecclesiastic monuments. Pearse was baptized around the corner at St. Andrews and educated at the Christian Brothers School at Westland Row. He received his B.A. from Royal University and a law degree from the Kings Inn in 1901 (his law career consisted of one case, which he lost).

From all indications Pearse as a boy was a solitary figurehe prefers reading a book to playing with other childrenwith his brother Willie his closest friend. His reticence may have been caused by a cast in his right eye which was the reason he was almost always photographed in profile. This may also explain his extreme shyness where women were concerned.

His mothers family were Irish speakers from County Meath and at 16 he joined the Gaelic League, eventually becoming the editor of its newspaper. According to Richard Ellmann, he was the Irish teacher to a young man by the name of James Joyce. (Imagine, in one room, Irelands ultimate ascetic and its greatest satyr!) Showing no interest in the law, Pearse, with his love of the Irish language, turned his attention to education. He was a critic of the education system in Ireland which he believed taught Irish children how to be good Englishmen (he called it The Murder Machine).

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Thus he started Scoil Eanna (St. Endas School) in 1908, eventually settling at the Hermitage in Rathfarnham, which is today the location of the Pearse Museum. The school was a family affairbesides Thomas MacDonagh who served as assistant headmaster, the faculty included his brother Willie, his sisters Mary Brigid and Margaret, and his mother acted as housekeeper. It focused on a bilingual (Irish/English) curriculum and was a success academically, but put tremendous financial stress on Pearse. In 1914 this forced Pearse to go to America on a speaking tour to raise money. There he met John Devoy who he referred to as the greatest of the Fenians. The trip raised a much-needed 1,000 for St. Ednas. He even got time to play tourist, visiting the just-opened Woolworth Building which was then the tallest building in the world.

Pearses early politics were moderate: he was in favor of the Irish Parliamentary Party and Home Rule. But the IPPs failure to bring Home Rule home turned Pearse more militant. He joined the Irish Volunteers in November 1913. At first Tom Clarkethe puppeteer who was orchestrating this new Irish militancywas initially suspicious of Pearse because of his previous moderate political views. Clarke needed a front man for the movement. He and Sean MacDiarmada, the two guys pushing the envelope, couldnt be the face of the movement because of their jail records and their penchant for inciting havoc against the British. MacDiarmada urged Clarke to let Pearse give the oration at the Wolfe Tone Commemoration in 1913 and Clarke was so impressed with Pearse he exclaimed, I never thought there was such stuff in Pearse! Clarke had found his perfect front man.

Perhaps Pearse foresaw this future role in a poem he wrote called The Rebel:

I am come of the seed of the people, the people that sorrow That have no treasure but hope, No riches laid up but a memory Of an Ancient glory. My mother bore me in bondage, in bondage my mother was born, I am of the blood of serfs; The children with whom I have played, the men and women with whom I have eaten, Have had masters over them, have been under the lash of masters, And, though gentle, have served churls  And I say to my peoples masters: Beware, Beware of the thing that is coming, beware of the risen people, Who shall take what ye would not give. Did ye think to conquer the people, Or that Law is stronger than life and than mens desire to be free? We will try it out with you, ye that have harried and held, Ye that have bullied and bribed, tyrants, hypocrites, liars!

Pearse shot into prominence with his oration at the grave of the old Fenian Jeremiah ODonovan Rossa in Glasnevin Cemetery on August 1, 1915. Standing next to John MacBride and Tom Clarkeall three would be shot the first week of May 1916he concluded his funeral oration with a warning to the British:

The defenders of this realm have worked well in secret and in the open. They think that they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us, and intimidated the other half. They think that they have foreseen everything. They think that they have provided against everything; but the fools, the fools, the fools! they have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.

In the months ahead Pearse would work with Clarke, MacDiarmada, Plunkett and Connolly in planning the Rising. By Easter Monday he was named President of the Provisional Government and as Commandant-General was Commander-in-Chief of the Irish Volunteers. At noon on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916 he stood in front of the GPO and read the Irish Declaration of Independence, which he had written:

POBLACHT NA hEIREANN

THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF THE IRISH REPUBLIC

TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND

IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN:

In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom

We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades in arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations

We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and discipline, and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.

Read more 50 facts about the Easter Rising

In the GPO, Pearse was his usual distant self and most of the military decision-making was left up to Connolly. He did interact with all the Volunteers and gave a few little speeches that lifted the spirits of the men and women. By Friday he left the blazing GPO for Moore Street with the rest of the leadership. It was there that he decided to surrender to General Lowe. In captivity in Richmond Barracks before being moved to Kilmainham for execution, Piaras Beaslai remembers how Pearse sat on the floor, deep in his own thought, so full of them that he noticed nothing around him. His distant demeanor recalled what Pearse had once written about himself: I dont like that gloomy Pearse. He gives me the shivers.

At his court-martial, Pearse stated: My sole object in surrendering unconditionally was to save the slaughter of the civil population and to save the lives of our followers who had been led into this thing by us. It is my hope that the British Government who has shown its strength will also be magnanimous and spare the lives and give an amnesty to my followers, as I am one of the persons chiefly responsible, have acted as C-in-C and president of the provisional government, I am prepared to take the consequences of my act, but I should like my followers to receive an amnesty. I went down on my knees as a child and told God that I would work all my life to gain the freedom of Ireland. I have deemed it my duty as an Irishman to fight for the freedom of my country.

He was the first of the 1916 rebels to be executed at 3:45 a.m. Fifteen more would follow.

*Dermot McEvoy is the author of "The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising and Irish Miscellany" (Skyhorse Publishing). He may be reached at dermotmcevoy50@gmail.com. Follow him on his website and Facebook page.

* Originally published in 2016.

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Tributes were paid to more than 1,000 Irish Volunteers who marched in Co Cork on Easter Sunday 1916 as weekend events marked the centenary of their long marches around the county, writes Niall Murray of the Irish Examiner.

While no violence took place in Cork, owing to confused orders and the failure of German rifles to materialise, more than 400 marched to Macroom on that day 100 years ago.

Hundreds of walkers who retraced the footsteps of Irish Volunteers from Bandon to Kilmurry, Co Cork. Pic: Clare Keogh

In Kilmurry, where they had all first assembled on Sunday, April 23, 1916, more than 300 people marched into the village on Saturday  the same date 100 years later.

Most of them had walked from Bandon in spring sunshine, in contrast to the driving rain that marked Easter Sunday 1916.

The walkers  many from Bandon Walking Club and Cumann Seanchais na Banndan (Bandon Historical Society)  were joined by locals at Beal na Blath for the final two-mile leg of their journey. They were retracing the footsteps, and almost matched the numbers of over 350, of Irish Volunteers who marched into Kilmurry a century earlier.

They were led into the village on Saturday by Tom Hales, whose father Tom Hales led companies of the Bandon battalion of the Volunteers on the way to Macroom in 1916.

Noel Howard, chairman of Kilmurry Historical and Archaeological Association (KHAA), unveiled a plaque commemorating the assembly of local Volunteers and those of companies from Cork city, east Cork, south Cork, and the Bandon and Kinsale districts. The plaque was blessed by local Church of Ireland and Catholic clergy, Rev Anne Skuse and Monsignor Kevin OCallaghan.

Earlier, Connie Long handed the National Flag to members of F Company, 12th Battalion, who raised it in the middle of the village. His father Denis J Long commanded the Kilmurry Volunteers company on Easter Sunday, 1916 and was a key figure in local actions during the War of Independence.

Just as they had at Beal na Blath a century earlier, Cork Brigade commandant Tomas MacCurtain and his vice-commandant Terence MacSwiney arrived by car to deliver orders for the mobilised Volunteers to be dismissed to their towns and villages on reaching Macroom.

Lissarda Scouts walk along with Hundreds of walkers who retraced the footsteps of Irish Volunteers from Bandon to Kilmurry, Co Cork. Pic: Clare Keogh

On this occasion the roles were filled by Pat OLeary and Diarmuid Cohalan, but Terence MacSwineys grandson Cathal MacSwiney Brugha was among the guests at the event.

With strong family connections in the area and as mid-Corks first TD, Terence MacSwiney features strongly in exhibits about local involvement in the Irish revolutionary period that will be on display at Independence Museum Kilmurry, due to be opened by KHAA in early summer.

Local historian Michael Galvin told hundreds who assembled in the village that it is quite difficult to fully appreciate the hardship the Volunteers endured on Easter Sunday 1916.

Young men in their bucolic rural agricultural communities, were suddenly thrown into a military milieu, getting up in the early hours. They then marched long distances on meagre enough rations and poorly equipped, not knowing if they would return home in one piece or at all, he said.

All 1,000-plus Volunteers who mobilised in Cork on Easter Sunday 1916 were drenched by torrential rain when they eventually arrived home that night or next day.

Some of the other areas to which Cork Volunteers marched a century earlier also hosted events at the weekend, including Carriganima near Millstreet, where companies from Macroom, Kilnamartyra, Ballinagree, Clondrohid and Kilmurry had joined local Volunteers until MacCurtains dismiss order arrived.

MacCurtains home parish of Mourneabbey was well represented 100 years ago at the mobilisation at Bweeng, where family members of various Volunteer companies from Blarney and Mallow districts also attended a commemoration event today.

Tomas MacCurtain (Diarmuid Cohalan) and Terence MacSwiney (Pat O'Leary) pictured at a ceremony after Hundreds of walkers who retraced the footsteps of Irish Volunteers from Bandon to Kilmurry, Co Cork. Pic: Clare Keogh

At Inchigeela, the destination of companies from Dunmanway and Lyre near Clonakilty, descendants of men who had arrived there took part in a re-enactment walk and historical events.

Elsewhere in Cork, Camden Fort Meagher in Crosshaven hosted a series of seminars, re-enactments and tours over the weekend, and an anchor went on display at Cobh Heritage Centre from the German Aud vessel whose cargo of rifles destined for the 1916 rebels lies on the seabed near the entrance to Cork Harbour.
The party has, by all accounts, a relatively bright future, yet it clings to the past like a comfort blanket. Nine seats were won in the recent election but the question of the leadership hung over the gathering. And Sinn Fein likes to portray itself as anti-establishment, yet the weekend could have been lifted straight out of a Fianna Fai of Fine Gael conference.

The Ard Fheis was designed to fall on the actual anniversary of the 1916 Rising.

Sinn Fein sees itself as the real flame carriers for the leaders of the Rising and spent a reported 500,000 this year on laying its claim. So it was that the members  numbering up to 2,500  came together on this historic weekend as if they, themselves alone, represented the true spirit of the nation, as envisaged on that Easter Monday.

To be fair, they did not lay on the 1916 stuff too heavily in the convention centre. This may or may not be attributable to the partys failure to gain an uplift from its Join The Rising activities during the year so far.

Naturally, with an election looming in the north, much of the emphasis in the conference hall was on Northern matters. Much of the emphasis among the display stalls was also concerned with northern matters. These varied from northern universities to financial services and northern state agencies. There was even a stall advocating a change to the licencing laws in the north.

Up on the stage, the programme of motions was as safe as Richard Brutons seat. Martin McGuinness got a rousing reception. He had a cut at the failure of the minor political players in the north to do the best thing in the statelets interest, mentioning the relentless negativity of the smaller parties.

The irony was lost of his audience. The same charge is constantly levelled at the Shinners in the south.

Most speakers hauled the 1916 leaders from the grave, none as eloquently as MEP Matt Carthy. This state is not the republic that was envisaged by the leaders of 1916. They said the nation consisted of all its parts, not just the twenty six counties, he said.

According to Sinn Fein, had Pearse and Connolly lived a thirty two county Republic would have been a dead cert nearly a century ago.

Mary Lou McDonald is regarded as the great post-conflict hope for the party.

She received a rousing reception for her contribution from the stage, in which she referenced Fianna Fails volte face on water charges in the months before the recent election.

Fianna Fails attempt at being Sinn Fein lite had left the party scarlet at the complement they gave us by borrowing our policies, she said, in an astute observation that logically would also render Sinn Fein as Anti Austerity Alliance lite.

Pearse Doherty did come up with the killer line, referencing the political slogan, its the economy, stupid, adding that that should now be Its society, stupid.

Another of the new batch of TDs to garner plaudits was Dublins Eoin OBrion, a leading strategist and competent media performer.

One wag noted that within ten years, as Sinn Fein graduates to a fully-fledged establishment party, Eoin will morph into the new Pat Rabbitte, An encouraging difference with the other establishment parties was the age demographic at the centre.

Sinn Fein can claim to have greatest purchase on young members in politics, and many among the newer recruits are genuinely motivated to affect a different kind of politics than the status quo.

While that bodes well for the future, it is the past that the party wraps around itself. One of the most prominent books on sale at the large party shop stand was How Ireland Starved, an account of the famine, lest we forget.

The hunger strikers of 1981 were writ large around the centre, one display taking up a whole wall of the sizable third floor landing. A moving display of quilts knitted together the names of hundreds of victims of the Troubles, although notably missing were any who had their lives snuffed out by the IRA. [*Paragraph subject to clarification at bottom of this article]

The selective remembrance of those who died by violence was also evident from the stage. Micheal MacDonnacha lashed out at the shameful Glasnevin wall where all who died in 1916 are remembered alphabetically.

And just in case anybody was under the impression that things have moved on, a few young contributors in the afternoon sessions, when the TV coverage was off, ended their speeches with Tiocfaidh Ar La.

When the day of Gerry Adams retirement will come was the unspoken matter permeating the air at the conference. Hes as popular as ever among the faithful, and according to himself will be around for a few years yet.

While that may have electoral consequences in the South, the alternative is a party without Gerry, which will require a lot of glue to maintain the various strands, from centre-left social policy to right wing nationalism.

For the moment, its as you were, with Mr Adams entering his thirty fourth year as party president. And why not, when he appears to all intents and purposes to be the personification of the real Sinn Fein.

* Clarification: A spokesperson for Relatives for Justice has asked us to point out that contrary to Michael Clifford's assertion that missing from the display were the names of those "who had their lives snuffed out by the IRA" the display is a fully inclusive quilt and involves families affected by all of the armed groups  republican, loyalist and state.

The spokepesrson went on: "While the article has made an error in fact, it has by doing so also diminished the participation and memory of those whose loved ones were killed by the IRA  people who are absolutely included ... That the project is inclusive of all harms is vital for our processes of dealing with the past and that invokes challenge for all parties  Sinn Fein included. That the quilt was well received in its inclusiveness at the Ard Fheis was something that relatives of those killed were encouraged by, as dealing with the past remains difficult. Inclusivity and openess will be required if we are to see the realisation of the Stormont House Agreement mechanisms for dealing with the past."
In a remarkable feat, Chinese scientists have claimed that they have been successful in developing initial stage mouse embryos in space. On Sunday, the scientists said that this was the first time ever that mouse embryos were developed on a retrievable microgravity satellite, which will return to the earth next week.

The scientists launched the SJ-10 research probe on April 6, wherein 6,000 mouse embryos were carried in a self-sufficient camber measuring about the size of a microwave oven, Space Daily quoted Duan Enkui, a scientist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), as saying. Of these embryos, 600 were placed under a high-resolution camera, which captured images once in four hours for four consecutive days and transmitted them to the Earth.

According to Duan, the photographs showed that the embryos grew from the 2-cell stage, an initial embryonic cleavage stage, to blastocyst, the stage wherein cell differentiation are noticeable, approximately 72 hours after the launch of SJ-10.

Basically, the timing was consistent with the embryonic development on the Earth, PTI quoted Duan via Xinhua. The remaining embryos on the satellite were administered fixatives via injections about 72 hours following the launch to explore the influences of space settings on the development of embryos.

Having achieved the first ever successful development in mammalian embryos in space in history, scientists will now compare the retrieved embryos with samples collected on Earth and undertake further analyses on the profiles of initial development of embryos, when SJ-10 returns to Earth next week in a designated spot in Siziwang Banner in Inner Mongolia. According to previous reports, altogether the probe had a designed life of only 15 days.

It has been reported that the entire bullet-shaped probe is housing 19 experiments, which involve space material, microgravity combustion, microgravity fluid physics, microgravity biological effects, space radiation effects, and space bio-technology.

The studies being undertaken include examining the manner in which space radiation affects the genetic stability of fruit flies and rat cells, in addition to a combustion experiment that will experiment how materials that are used in spacecraft burn in space and discover means of making safer capsules for manned missions in the future.
Also announced are the first nbn connections to be available, also in South Australia, to residents of the small Adelaide Hills town of Mount Barker.



The Minister for Communications Mitch Fifield jointly announced the nbn connections for St Marys with the Liberal candidate for Boothby Nicolle Flint.



The Mt Barker announcement was jointly announced by the Minister and Liberal Member for Mayo Jamie Briggs.





Flint said around 2,800 home owners and businesses in Boothby can now place an order with their preferred service provider and experience the benefits of the nbns high-speed broadband for themselves.According to Flint, an additional 19,770 premises are scheduled to be switched on in coming months in the St Marys local area, using a combination of technologies.She said nbn network construction is also underway to a further 28,200 premises in the Boothby electorate, with approximately 52,000 homes and businesses in total set to be covered between now and 2018.Minister Fifield said superfast broadband in Mayo would provide the infrastructure for the future of education, business and health services. Minister Fifield said.MP for Mayo, Jamie Briggs said Its an exciting time for residents in Mayo with an additional 12,400 homes and businesses across parts of Mount Barker, Hahndorf, Oakbank, Verdun, Balhannah, Nairne, Blakiston and Littlehampton set to be able to access the nbns superfast fixed-line broadband over the coming two months.Connections across Mount Barker and surrounding areas will become available on a rolling basis throughout the next two months, beginning with parts of Mount Barker, where residents will be able to order an nbn service from next Friday, 29 April.It typically takes around two weeks to connect up to the nbn after placing an order and Briggs said all residents will require a new modem from a retailer that is compatible with the faster nbn service.Briggs said Mount Barker, Hahndorf, Oakbank, Verdun, Balhannah, Nairne, Blakiston and Littlehampton will be provided access to the nbn via Fibre to the Node (FTTN) technology, with these fixed line connections providing much improved speeds and reliability compared to current services.Minister Fifield says around 126,000 home owners and businesses across South Australia are now able to order an nbn service, and more than 56,000 homes and businesses are already connected to the nbn.The Minister restated the federal governments previous statements that under the previous Labor Government, the nbn was a mess, and there were only 813 premises connected to the nbn in brownfield areas across the whole of South Australia at the time of the 2013 election.Under the Turnbull Coalition Government, the nbn is on-track to meet its rollout forecasts and the network is due to be completed nationally in 2020, the Minister said.
Chairman Dr Ziggy Switkowski said Malone is a long-standing and respected member of the telecommunications industry and his experience will complement the diverse backgrounds and skill sets that exist on todays nbn board and help fill the gap created by Hacketts departure.



I look forward to Michael bringing new perspectives to the board table, keeping nbn focused upon our customers, valuing innovation, and successfully completing the network build.



Malone founded iiNet in 1993 and, as chief executive officer for more than 20 years, established the business as a leading internet service provider in the highly competitive Australian market. His experience includes building new companies such as the cybersecurity firm, Diamond Cyber, and board appointments at listed technology and media companies including SpeedCast Limited, Superloop and Seven West Media.





Malone has Bachelor of Science and a Post Graduate Diploma of Education, Mathematics, from the University of Western Australia.Hackett joined the nbn board as a non-executive director in November 2013 and Dr Switkowski said he has resigned from the nbn to focus fully on his increased responsibilities and active involvement in ASX listed company, Redflow. Hackett is the largest shareholder of Redflow and was recently appointed executive chairman of the company.Interestingly, Hackett sold the company he founded  Internode- to iiNet in December 2011, and continued as Internode managing director until he joined the iiNet board as a non-executive director in August 2012.Dr Switkowski acknowledged Mr Hacketts contribution saying: Simon has been a critical member of the nbn board bringing deep knowledge of the retail service provider business and a creative entrepreneurial mindset to our deliberations. There are few such individuals who match the specific needs of nbn so well at this stage of its development. We thank Simon for his active and valued contribution since his appointment in November 2013.Hackett said, It is with a sense of regret that I must bid farewell to the nbn team and to my colleagues on the nbn Board. I will greatly miss the experience of being in the midst of something so very pivotal, in a space I care about so much. It has been a privilege to be a part of such an endeavour and I would jump at the chance to return if future opportunity should arise.
Sara Meaney, managing director at BVK, says the companys most successful team members are free-thinkers. Credit: Rick Wood

At first glance, the latest jobs data reports should give employers reasons to be optimistic about the direction of the U.S. economy.

The U.S. Labor Department noted that the number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits dipped to 247,000 last week. That is the lowest weekly total since November 1973.

The bottom line: The economy is approaching full employment.

That's nice. But it also should raise a red flag for executives who have openings on their staffs: The competition for human resources is rising, according to recruitment specialists at WFA Staffing on Milwaukee's north side.

In such a tightening labor market, employers who hesitate when they believe they have found the right candidate to fill a vacant position are at risk of losing that person to a more nimble competitor, WFA president Fred D'Amato says.

"Talent is in the driver's seat today, and the talent we see does not seem hesitant to make life-altering decisions very quickly when the right person and the right employer find each other," D'Amato says. "Consider free agency: The top athletes usually receive immediate offers and are not left on the market very long. It is the wise employer who recognizes this market and alters the process accordingly in order to bring the right people on board."

Employers should consider speeding up their interviewing and hiring processes, D'Amato advises.

"Hire early for best results," D'Amato says. "There is a shortage of qualified people seeking positions. ... We find candidates who have interviewed and made favorable impressions not being available any longer after a wait of only a week to 10 days. This seems more and more to be the new normal."

Tom Krist, chief executive officer of WFA, adds: "There is too much competition for talent today. Candidates have multiple choices. If your hiring process is too long they will be gone before your offer arrives. If you like what you see, move faster  a long process may be viewed as disinterest if another company is anxious to hire your candidate."

Especially in a tight labor market, executives must be ever-mindful about their reputations as employers, according to Sara Meaney, managing director at BVK, a Milwaukee-based brand development agency.

Meaney says her company's competitive advantage is its "unhindered" culture.

"Sure, the fancy coffee, bean bag chairs and off-the-wall conference rooms  one is built as a Northwoods cabin, another like a refrigerator/meat locker, for example  may be the price of admission for a hip agency environment, but those aren't the things that ultimately keep people coming back to work every day to get the really hard work done," Meaney said. "Our most successful team members are free-thinkers and creative problem-solvers who came to BVK and stay because of an environment that encourages and rewards solutions and results over blind adherence to hierarchy and process. We hire for entrepreneurial spirit. Do-it-yourselfers. Artists. Small business owners. Rule-breakers. And then we set up the place to keep the constraints on their talents to a minimum."

Dennis Ellmaurer recently was named president of Central File Inc. in Brown Deer, where he quickly assessed the company's competitive advantages. Ellmaurer found that more than a third of the employees have been with the firm for more than 10 years.

"Our people know what is expected of them and are self-directed," Ellmaurer said. "There is a significant pay-for-performance compensation component for all employees. Salespeople are incented to sell profitable work. Everyone else in the company participates in a team bonus that encourages cooperation among departments. Misfits are weeded out of the organization."

The competition for top talent is always fierce in the banking industry.

"Our culture emphasizes putting the customer first  internally and externally," said Greg Larson, senior vice president of Brown Deer-based Bank Mutual. "We empower our employees to make a difference. Our bankers understand our clients' business, and since we're local, there is access to management and to a full team of experts available to our customers."

What are your organization's competitive advantages for attracting and retaining top talent? For some ideas for best practices you could consider replicating, read the special "Top Workplaces 2016" supplement in Sunday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Steve Jagler is the business editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Send C-Level ideas to him at steve.jagler@journalsentinel.com.
Brewer Michael Gilg controls a sample of wort in his brewery, Griessbraeu, in Murnau, Germany. Germany is celebrating its 500-year-old beer purity law, which originally allowed only water, hops and malt as ingredients  yeast was added to the list later. Credit: Associated Press

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Ingolstadt, Germany  To some it's the real deal, to others it's a bland brew, but thanks to a 500-year-old rule everybody can be sure what's in German beer.

Chancellor Angela Merkel was among those toasting the anniversary this past week of a law that allowed only water, hops and malt as ingredients  yeast was added to the list later.

Praising the law at a ceremony in Ingolstadt, southern Germany, Merkel half-jokingly quoted religious reformer and bon vivant Martin Luther, who said that "he who has no beer, has nothing to drink."

Records have that in 1516 Duke William IV of Bavaria signed a beer purity law in the city that was eventually adopted throughout Germany. It's still on the books, albeit with some exceptions, today.

The law originally stipulated that only barley should be used for beer. Other grains, such as wheat, were considered too valuable as food to be turned into beverages, according to Nina Anika Klotz, editor of beer magazine Hopfenhelden.

Another argument was consumer protection: brews that contained ingredients such as fungus and herbs sometimes had "quite undesirable results," said Klotz.

Critics say the so-called Reinheitsgebot  whose name means divine commandment in German  is little more than a marketing trick dreamed up in the early 20th century to promote German beer against foreign competitors.

While brewers in neighboring Belgium merrily make beers containing coriander and orange peel, for example, such ingredients are theoretically "verboten" in Germany. This has proved particularly frustrating for a young guard of craft beer enthusiasts trying to break into the German market.

But some old-fashioned brewers feel stifled by the law, too.

Helmut Fritsche, owner of Klosterbrauerei Neuzelle brewery some two hours west of Berlin, started what became known as the Brandenburg Beer War after authorities ruled that his black beer was illegal because it contained sugar.

"We fought for 10 years," he said. "Fought with the federation of brewers, with the state government, until the highest administrative court in 2005 decided that our black beer, that includes a pinch of sugar, could be called beer."

Fritsche now brews many beers with added natural ingredients, such as cherries, asparagus and even potatoes.

"What do we want beer as a product to represent? We want it to represent flavor. And we shouldn't inhibit the variety of flavors. Of course we should never add ingredients that are dangerous to humans," he said.

Fresh ideas may be needed if German brewers don't want their income to dry up.

While Germans are still ranked second  just after the Czechs  annual beer consumption per capita has fallen from 141 liters in 1991 to 98 liters last year.

At least one novelty seems to have the blessing of mainstream breweries, though. Last year, the share of alcohol-free beer rose to 5.6% from 5.4% in Germany thanks to its growing popularity among consumers.
The former Finney Library at 4243 W. North Ave. in Milwaukee is being converted into a space that will house a craft furniture maker, artist studios and other new uses including a possible coffee shop. Credit: Mike De Sisti

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Vacant for well over a decade, a former city library building near Milwaukee's Washington Park is undergoing renovations to house a craft furniture maker, artist studios and other new uses  including a possible coffee shop.

And that development ties in with efforts to attract more artists to the surrounding area.

The 9,500-square-foot former Finney Library, 4243 W. North Ave., operated for 50 years before it was replaced in 2003 by the new Washington Park Library, 2121 N. Sherman Blvd.

The city sold the building last year to Finney Arts Incubator LLC, led by Matthew Bohlmann, for $50,000.

Bohlmann in December 2014 sold the Wauwatosa property that housed his furniture studio for $1.5 million. He will move that business to the Finney building.

He plans to spend an estimated $265,000 to convert it into new uses, with the proceeds from the Wauwatosa building sale helping finance the Milwaukee project. Bohlmann also plans to seek a bank loan, and a $9,000 city facade repair grant.

Bohlmann and his crew started renovating the one-story building last summer. Some of the remodel work will be completed by July.

That work includes new utility lines, upgraded heating and cooling systems, exterior repairs to the building's Lannon stone planters and repairs to its floor.

But the roof is in good shape, he said, and the city did a good job of securing the property to prevent vandalism and theft.

"The building was amazingly sound for sitting all those years," Bohlmann said.

Bohlmann has done this type of project before.

The 54,000-square-foot Wauwatosa building, 6228 W. State St., was only 10% occupied when Bohlmann bought it in 2003. He converted the former scaffolding factory into a small business incubator and added several tenants.

At the Finney building, Bohlmann will use about 2,000 square feet for his furniture studio.

Also, artist Reginald Baylor plans to lease around 1,600 square feet for his studio.

Baylor, who lives in Sherman Park, said the building is in a visible, accessible location. He likes the idea of working in a place that interacts with the surrounding community, and also provides space for artists and entrepreneurs.

"I like to be around the creative community, if I can," said Baylor, whose work has been displayed at the Milwaukee Art Museum and Museum of Wisconsin Art, in West Bend.

Bohlmann is talking to other prospective tenants. He doesn't want to name them until they sign leases, but they include fashion designers and a nonprofit arts group.

The building's large windows overlooking North Ave., as well as its interior design, will help put those creative people "on display," Bohlmann said.

"I have a vision for it, and the patience," he said of the project.

Bohlmann's plans are strongly supported by neighborhood residents and artists, said Phoua Vang. She is the sustainable communities coordinator for Washington Park Partners, a group that works to improve the neighborhood's housing, businesses, parks and public safety.

"It really will bring a gathering space for artists to meet, not just from the neighborhood, but citywide," Vang said.

The redeveloped building complements efforts to attract more artists to the Washington Park area, she said.

Bohlmann's plans include converting the former library meeting room, with about 1,800 square feet, into a coffee shop. Along with providing rental income, it would create a neighborhood gathering place, he said.

That would require creating an additional entrance into the building from N. Sherman Blvd., which would need approval from the city Historic Preservation Commission. The library, built in 1953, is one of Milwaukee's newer properties that has a city historic designation.

Bohlmann was attracted to the building in part because he lives in the nearby Washington Heights neighborhood and was familiar with the property. He also knew about the building while growing up, thanks in part to relatives who lived in Sherman Park.

His redevelopment of the former library comes after the city's previous attempts to sell the property fell through.

Those earlier proposals included Wisconsin Lutheran College's 2010 plan to use the building for its pre-college program.

That proposal won approval from the Common Council and Mayor Tom Barrett. But the college didn't proceed with the plan because it was unable to raise enough money to buy and renovate the building.

Wisconsin Lutheran agreed to buy the former Finney Library for $125,000, with plans of spending $850,000 on the project.

After that sale fell through, the city then listed the building in 2013 for $75,000.

For Bohlmann, the development represents more than just a return on his investment.

"I guess, in all my things, I get the most satisfaction helping people create jobs," he said.

"If it's as a landlord, making inviting spaces where people want to work, or with other tenants creating the jobs, whatever role I have, that is what kind of drives me," Bohlmann said.

Facebook: facebook.com/JSBusiness

Twitter: twitter.com/TomDaykin

To track this project and others, check out the Land & Space Development Database, at jsonline.com/business
A squad car sits Sunday outside Antigo High School, the site of a shooting during the prom that left the shooter dead and two people injured. Credit: Jacob Byk/USA TODAY NETWORK

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Antigo  A man who shot two students at Antigo High Schools prom late Saturday had been bullied since at least middle school and had expressed an interest in guns, according to a former classmate.

Jakob Wagner, 18, fired a rifle at the two students outside the school around 11 p.m. Saturday before police shot him. He later died at a hospital, while the victims survived with injuries that were not life- threatening, according to authorities.

For the students, a night of fun and memories quickly turned frightening as armed police officers swarmed into the school.

Nikita Deep, the junior class president, had helped with the planning and setup in the weeks leading up to prom. She had been selected to the prom court as a first attendant, something she had been dreaming about since she was a little girl.

Deep said she knew Wagner, through their time in the marching band.

Its hard to kind of wrap my head around the situation, said Deep, 16. I talked to him (Wagner) a few times, but I have no idea why this happened.

The school district credited police, who already were patrolling outside the prom, with preventing a much larger tragedy.

While investigators on Sunday were trying to piece together what prompted the shootings, a former classmate of Wagners told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin that the man seemed like a nice but socially awkward and troubled student when in school.

He was bullied a lot, said Emily Fisher, 19, who graduated from Antigo High School in 2015.

Fisher said students ganged up on Wagner, called him names and may have been violent toward him, in part because of poor hygiene. The bullying occurred since at least middle school and persisted through high school, although to a lesser degree, Fisher said.

Fisher said she was not good friends with Wagner but she had given him some car rides home.

Wagner would talk about guns and weapons and made replicas of them in art class, according to Fisher. While she said an interest in guns is not unusual in Wisconsin, which has a strong hunting culture, Wagners behavior was concerning to her.

Ever since we were younger, he was one of the kids you kind of watched out for, Fisher said in a phone conversation from Menomonie, where she now lives. If someone was going to shoot the school, we thought it was going to be him.

Late Sunday, authorities said Antigo High School is safe for classes Monday but students will return amid a heightened police presence. They also said investigation of the shooting in the city of about 8,000 people located 35 miles northeast of Wausau is being turned over to the state Department of Justice.

Law enforcement agencies conducted a thorough search of the High School building and the on-site investigation has been completed, a statement posted at 5:15 p.m. on the Unified School District of Antigo website said. The advice of these experts is to resume school on Monday so that students and staff can have access to support from counselors who will be available at all school sites.

There will also be heightened police presence around the high school for the next few days to lend support.

One female victim was treated for a gunshot wound at Aspirus Langlade Hospital in Antigo and released. The other victim, a male student, underwent surgery Sunday, according to police.

The Antigo Police Department identified Wagner as the gunman and said he was pronounced dead at 1:06 a.m. Sunday after lifesaving measures at a nearby hospital. He apparently started shooting people as they left the school, before an officer already on the scene shot him, authorities said.

The officers immediate response prevented further injuries and

possible casualties, the Police Department said in a statement posted on Facebook. The initial investigation and officer response indicate this was a lone shooter and a search warrant is being executed at his residence seeking any additional information pertaining to this incident.

The Department of Justices Division of Criminal Investigation was asked to take over the shooting investigation because an Antigo police officer killed the gunman, according to Justice spokesman Johnny Koremenos, who said Sunday afternoon that state agents are busy assessing the facts at this time.

The latest in a decades-long string of U.S. school shootings drew immediate national attention, as high schools are holding proms across the country.

Officers were patrolling the school parking lot during prom before the shooting started.

The Antigo school district said Wagner had approached the school with a high-powered rifle and a large ammunition magazine. The district said in a statement that quick actions taken by police and district staff to secure the building prevented what might have otherwise been a disaster of unimaginable proportions, and we are extremely grateful for their well-rehearsed response.

Deeps parents, Noel and Lakshmi Deep, were at home when they heard from their daughter about the incident and immediately went to the school.

We were texting with other parents, and they were all there or on their way, Lakshmi Deep said. This was going to be a very fun night, and you never expect something like this to happen.
Terrill J. Thomas Credit: Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office

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The man police say opened fire in the Potawatomi casino hours after shooting a man in the chest on Milwaukee's north side was found dead in his jail cell early Sunday.

Terrill J. Thomas, 38, of Milwaukee was pronounced dead at 1:57 a.m. at the Milwaukee County Jail. There were no visible signs of trauma, according to a Milwaukee County Sheriffs Office news release.

Thomas was accused of firing a Glock 9 mm handgun in the High Roller area of Potawatomi casino around 3:30 a.m. on April 15. He ordered customers to the floor and began grabbing poker chips before a Milwaukee police officer confronted him and ordered Thomas to drop his weapon, according to court records.

After dropping his handgun in a garbage can, Thomas surrendered to police and told them he opened fire because suspicious people, whom he called snakes, were inside the casino.

Thomas was charged last week with five counts, including first-degree reckless injury and possession of a firearm by a felon for shooting a man on N. 36th St. after confronting two men he believed had stolen his Mercedes-Benz. Thomas shot at the suspected car thief and struck the mans companion in the chest.

When he appeared in court last week, his defense attorney told the judge Thomas may not have been mentally competent to proceed for further court hearings, and a competency exam was ordered and was supposed to be done by May 11.

A correctional officer discovered Thomas unresponsive and not breathing in his cell around 1:30 a.m. Correctional officers and jail nursing staff members started CPR until emergency medical officials arrived. But Thomas was pronounced dead less than half an hour later.

Milwaukee police will investigate Thomas death, and an autopsy will be performed by the Milwaukee County medical examiners office.
Comedian Dobie Maxwell has written a book about a friend who robbed a bank in a gorilla suit. Credit: Angela Peterson

A comedian most of his life, Dobie Maxwell wasn't joking when he told his best friend he would not be going down with him for two bank robberies.

Even if it meant wearing a wire to secretly gather evidence against the friend and then testifying at trial.

Maxwell, who is 53 and lives in Kenosha, tells the tale  and weaves in his own up-and-down life story  in a new book, "Monkey in the Middle."

"How many times has a best friend robbed a bank once, much less twice? That's what the story is. Would you or would you not turn your best friend in?" Maxwell said last week in an interview.

The second of the two vault raids grabbed headlines in Milwaukee and beyond because the robber  Maxwell's best friend Timothy Raszkiewicz, a jury decided  was wearing a gorilla costume, carrying balloons and pretending to be delivering a gorilla-gram to First Financial Bank in downtown Milwaukee.

That robbery was in 1993. Maxwell writes in his book that Raszkiewicz, who used to work in security at this bank, also committed a robbery there two years earlier and then whisked the $106,000 in stolen cash out of town in a car rented by Maxwell for a pleasure trip to Las Vegas.

Maxwell swears he had no knowledge of Raszkiewicz's involvement in that robbery until he told him about it months later. Raszkiewicz was a suspect in the crime, but the statute of limitations ran out before he could be charged. He did, however, plead guilty to laundering money from that first heist.

Apparently emboldened by getting away with the first robbery, Raszkiewicz planned to hit the bank again, and this time told Maxwell ahead of time. Maxwell was horrified and told his friend to let him out of his car. The two had been pals since childhood on Milwaukee's north side.

"Then head east until you get to Lake Michigan and drown yourself so I don't have to send my best friend to prison for being an idiot," Maxwell told Raszkiewicz, as related in the book.

But Maxwell agreed  foolishly, he'd tell you now  to stand across Wisconsin Ave. from the bank while his friend robbed it. In the event Raszkiewicz was caught by police, Maxwell was to go tell his mother. To authorities, that sounded a lot like the job of lookout man.

Federal agents put pressure on Maxwell, making it clear he could go to prison unless he cooperated. During a meeting at a downtown George Webb, Maxwell was wearing a wire when he got his friend to admit robbing the bank.

Despite that evidence, Raszkiewicz took his case to trial in 1997. Maxwell testified, and the defense tried to hang the robbery on him. But the jurors didn't buy it; they reached a quick guilty verdict. Raszkiewicz was sent to prison for 61/2 years.

"Timbo (Timothy's nickname; his full name is not used in the book but appears in newspaper articles about the crimes) forced my hand, and even though this was the best outcome for me, I was still feeling miserable," Maxwell writes.

There has been talk of turning "Monkey in the Middle" into a movie. The book opens with Maxwell sharing his rough start in life, which included having a drug addict mother who abandoned him and his siblings, and a father who was in a motorcycle gang. Maxwell was separated from his siblings  they have since reunited  and raised from age 5 months by his grandparents near 20th and Hampton.

Maxwell calls himself a dented can and, sarcastically, Mr. Lucky. But he has made a life working on the radio in Milwaukee, Chicago, Reno and Los Angeles, and in stand-up comedy, now mostly as a regular at Zanies clubs in the Chicago area. He also teaches comedy.

Maxwell's humorous approach to life comes through often in the book, even in his exchanges with federal agents and prosecutors. "I realize you're a comedian, but this is damn serious," one of them warns him.

The last time Maxwell saw Raszkiewicz was in court nearly 20 years ago.

"I don't wish him bad things," Maxwell said. "But people say, 'Are you buddies again?' No. Would you? I just don't want him around me."

"Monkey in the Middle" is available from the publisher, Eckhartz Press, or from Maxwell's website, dobiemaxwell.com.

Call Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or email at jstingl@jrn.com. Connect with my public page at Facebook.com/Journalist.Jim.Stingl
When Candice Barner agreed in December to rent a north side home for $950 a month, there were a few things she didn't know.

That the windows in the living room couldn't be opened.

That a foul-smelling black substance, which appears to be mold, was growing on the sagging ceiling in the basement.

That the furnace and water heater were faulty. Both would break down soon after she moved in, Barner said, leaving her without heat and hot water for several days in January.

And that the city, in 2014, had ordered that the house not be rented until damage from a small May 2014 fire  which Fire Department officials blamed on faulty wiring  was repaired and the home passed inspection.

"Nobody told me," said Barner, who moved into the home on the 5200 block of N. 48th St. with her three children. "I didn't know there was a fire."

Barner's case illustrates how tenants often pay the price when a landlord doesn't keep a property up to code.

Barner rented the house at the suggestion of Elijah Mohammad Rashaed, 46, also known as Dennis Bell, a landlord familiar to the city Department of Neighborhood Services. Companies he is linked to have rung up about $70,000 in unpaid municipal court fines and he once punched out a building inspector, according to a criminal complaint.

Tenant left in dark on home's code violations Rick Wood Candice Barner rented this house in the 5200 block of N. 48th St. at the suggestion of Elijah Mohammad Rashaed, 46, also known as Dennis Bell, a landlord well known to the city Department of Neighborhood Services. Photo Gallery: Tenant left in dark on home's code violations

Rashaed was charged with misdemeanor battery in the 2006 incident, after chasing the inspector out of a property on Teutonia Ave. and punching the inspector in the face, the complaint charged. He pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct, was fined $200 and ordered to have "absolutely no contact whatever" with the inspector or his family.

In a brief interview last week, Rashaed denied any wrongdoing. "It never happened," he said. "I never punched anyone."

Barner's house is owned by Fourth Property Development LLC, one of more than 20 corporations for which Rashaed is the registered agent. Through those companies, Rashaed is involved with 194 properties with 670 rental units, city records show.

Records show 39 of his properties are subject to monthly inspections  something the city generally orders if a landlord fails to comply with an order to repair code violations.

Rashaed told the Journal Sentinel he was unaware that one of the companies rented out a home despite the city order that the property remain vacant  even though, according to Barner, Rashaed personally suggested she rent the house.

"That shouldn't be the case," Rashaed said, adding his company should not rent properties until given the OK by city inspectors.

Barner, 36, a single mother, told the Journal Sentinel she was excited to move out of her cramped apartment to a home with a backyard for her kids, ages 7, 8 and 15.

The rent, which did not include utilities and water, was affordable. Barner receives about $900 in Supplemental Security Income and each of her two daughters receives more than $800 a month because of disabilities.

The house needed work, but Barner said she was promised "everything would be fixed up" before she moved in.

On move-in day, Barner noticed the smell emitting from the basement.

'A nasty smell'

"It smelled liked a dog in the basement," Barner said. The walls were wet and mold appeared to be growing on the ceilings and the walls. When it rains, the basement floods, "leaving a nasty smell through the house," Barner said.

It was noticeable to others as well.

Video: A tenant's story

On Jan. 26, a Time Warner Cable technician "determined it was not safe to drill" in the basement to install cable service because of the mold, said Michael Pedelty, a spokesman for the company.

When a Journal Sentinel reporter and photographer visited the basement recently, both had the taste of mold in their mouths and nostrils for several hours after leaving.

Barner said she and her children all get frequent headaches.

The backyard turned out to be off-limits to her kids, as workers left behind a large garbage container overflowing with used building materials. Debris was strewn about the yard.

The two storm doors have no windows or screens and the four windows in the living room cannot be opened.

On March 17  two and a half months after Barner moved in  city inspectors said it was OK for people to live in the house. The inspectors also declared that numerous repairs still needed to be made, including fixing "potentially hazardous" wiring, repairing the living room windows and restoring the basement to a "clean and sanitary condition."

Since city building inspectors were not allowed into the house while initial repairs were made, they cannot verify whether the work done inside the walls is up to code, said Todd Weiler, spokesman for the Department of Neighborhood Services.

In an interview with the Journal Sentinel on Wednesday, Rashaed initially said there was no mold in the house, though later said any code violations have been or would be repaired. He declined further comment.

On Friday, a supervisor with the Department of Neighborhood Services said all of the violations had been eliminated. Rashaed declined to let a reporter into the house to see the repairs.

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That was too late for Barner.

At the start of April, Barner gave notice that she would break her lease.

"I can't wait to get out of here," she said at the time.

On April 13, Barner received a notice that declared she had five days to pay the April rent  $950  or face eviction.

Barner acknowledged she had not paid her April rent, citing the condition of the house and the failure of her landlord to make needed repairs. What's more, she said, Fourth Property Development has her security deposit of about $650.

Barner moved out last Wednesday  right after she received notice she had been sued for eviction. Rashaed said he filed the action because Barner owed the April rent. By the next day the repairs were completed.

An eviction on a record can make other landlords reluctant to rent to the person.

"I don't know why he's suing me," Barner said as she was preparing to load her personal belongings into a rental storage unit. "I should be suing him."

twitter.com/cspivak cspivak@journalsentinel.com
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TeleSur |  

Bruno Kramm was arrested while protesting against a German law allowing the prosecution of citizens for insulting foreign leaders.

The head of Berlins Pirate Party branch has been jailed after protesting Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to the Pirate Partys news agency, Pirate Times.

Bruno Kramm was arrested in his home country of Germany for insulting a representative of a foreign state. The offense is based on an archaic German law that allows foreign leaders to press charges against German citizens.

Police arrested Kramm in front of the Turkish Embassy in Berlin during a protest against the German government authorizing the prosecution of German comedian Jan Boehmermann, over a poem he recited on German TV targeting Erdogan.

The Pirate Party has been staging weekly protests against the systematic terror of censorship, oppression, despotism and killings by the dictator Erdogan, as well as the arrest of poet Boehmermann.

When people slightly criticize the government in Turkey, they are persecuted, beaten or disappear. At the same time, the dictator Erdogan is allowed to significantly restrict the right of assembly and the freedom of expression in Germany, simply for saying that he beats Kurds and Christians, Kramm wrote in a statement on the party website.

One of the lines from the criminalized poems suggests that Erdogans favorite activity is minority oppression and castigation, as well as a slew of other, sexually explicit accusations such as pedophilia and zoophilia.

Pirate Parties sprung into the political arena in Sweden in 2006. Now, over 60 nations have their own branch. While specific policies vary, they all defend the freedom of expression, communication, education, respect privacy, and promote the free flow of ideas, knowledge and culture.

Bramm has since been released from jail, but in the coming days he will have to return to a police location to answer for the charges against him.

Via TeleSur

-

Related video added by Juan Cole:

RT: They took me like a criminal  Head of Berlin Pirate Party arrested for quoting Erdogan satire
Maan News Agency |  

BETHLEHEM (Maan)  A graduate student union at New York University on Friday voted in favor of joining the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights.

Two-thirds of the Graduate Student Organizing Committee cast a vote in support of the resolution, which calls on both NYU and its United Automobile Workers union affiliate to divest from all Israeli state institutions  including universities  and corporations complicit in Israeli violations.

The resolution proposes that NYU join the movement until Israel complies with international law and ends the military occupation, dismantles the wall, recognizes the rights of Palestinian citizens to full equality, and respects the right of return of Palestinian refugees and exiles.

Over 600 union members voted in the referendum, a reportedly larger-than-average turnout for union votes. The 2,000-strong union represents graduate teaching and research assistants at the university.

Some 57 percent of voters made a voluntary individual pledge to participate in the academic boycott against Israel.

The BDS movement has gained momentum over the past year, aiming to exert political and economic pressure over Israels occupation of Palestinian territory in a bid to repeat the success of the campaign which ended apartheid in South Africa.

Major actors to join the movement this year include British security giant G4S and French telecom company Orange.

The NYU unions support of BDS comes after US President Barack Obama in February signed into law an anti-BDS trade agreement reiterating that US Congress opposes politically motivated actions that penalize or otherwise limit commercial relations specifically with Israel, referring directly to BDS activities.

The Israeli leadership has widely condemned the BDS movement as antisemitic or carried out from hatred of Israel, while proponents of the movement argue divestment measures are necessary in pressuring Israel to end its decades-long military occupation.
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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |  

One of the frustrations of following the Syria conflict from the Arabic press is that when you then turn to the English language accounts, they tend to play down the importance of al-Qaeda or the Support Front (al-Jabha al-Nusra).

In American parlance, there have just been three sides the regime of Bashar al-Assad, the Free Syrian Army, and Daesh (ISIS, ISIL). The Free Syrian Army is depicted as democrats deserving US support (only some of them are).

There is a fourth force, however, al-Qaeda, which has been among the more successful fighting groups and which holds key real estate. They led a coalition of hard line Sunni Salafi groups into Idlib city last year. They have a position around Aleppo and inside it.

Even the 33 vetted guerrilla groups that are supported by the US CIA via Saudi intelligence often make ad hoc, battlefied alliances with al-Qaeda, and US munitions from other groups flow to the latter.

Al-Qaeda in Syria reports to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, a mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, so it is quite disturbing to see American allies coordinating with it.

Late last week Syrian regime planes hit civilian markets in West Aleppo with heavy civilian casualties, in what was likely a war crime. That kind of thing as must shoulder responsibility for the breakdown of the ceasefire. But it is also possible that these strikes were at least trying to hit the Nusra Front/ al-Qaeda.

On Friday, Kerry told the NYT that Russia might indeed be targeting Nusra in Aleppo,

He added that it has proven harder to separate the militant group from the more moderate opposition groups than we thought.

Then US Army Col. Steve Warren, the spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq, said of the Russian air war,

Im not going to predict what their intentions are. What I do know is that we have seen, you know, regime forces with some Russian support as well begin to mass and concentrate combat power around Aleppo.  That said, its primarily al-Nusra who holds Aleppo, and of course, al-Nusra is not part of the cessation of hostilities. So its complicated.

While it is too sweeping a statement to say that al-Qaeda holds Aleppo, it is true that al-Qaeda is one of the important groups that holds territory in West Aleppo and around the city, so it is a departure that Warren was being straight with us all.

Al-Qaeda has not signed on to the cessation of hostilities. Worse, it has convinced Free Syria Army factions such as Brigade 13 to join in its offensive against the regime, in which significant territory has been gained by the radicals.

So while it may be that the ceasefire is breaking down, it should be remembered that al-Qaeda played an important role in making it break down.

That continued aggressiveness appears to have impelled the Russians to try to cut the rebels in West Aleppo off for once and for all by cutting their supply line to Turkey.



Related video:

Russia Insider: Russian journalists show presence of Al-Qaeda in Aleppo debunking US claims about moderate rebels
The XE began what is turning out to to be a major sales revival for Jaguar. Now, the addition of the XF is adding momentum  UK market brand registrations were up 45% in March  just as a long wheelbase body for the Chinese market is announced.

The looks of the new XF are evolutionary compared to the first generation model and that seems a sensible thing to do. Jaguars are now easily recognisable and have a definite style about them. The forthcoming F-PACE hits the mark not only as a Jaguar, but also as what a sporty SUV should look like. Many would agree that its also a far more convincing first effort than the first Porsche SUV was.

There are intentional similarities with the XE at the front and rear ends, but from the side you can easily tell the new XF from its smaller brother. Thats thanks to the window in the XFs D pillar, differently shaped glazing in the rear doors and front indicators which illuminate like eyebrows above the headlights rather than as circles beside them.

The standard wheelbase sedan is 4,954mm long: at 2,960 the wheelbase is 51mm longer than before, while the front overhang is 66mm shorter. Though 7mm shorter and 3mm lower than the original XF, there is 15mm more legroom, 24mm more knee room and 27mm more headroom than before. Climb out of an XE and into an XF and you notice this straight away. Meanwhile, the XFL is 5.5 inches (140mm) longer and there is an extra 6.1 inches (157mm) of legroom plus 4.5 inches (116mm) of room for knees in the back.

Just as what has changed on the outside, so too the interior while obviously that of a new car, has quite a few similarities to the old model. JLRs rising transmission mode selector features in this car, as do the air vents which roll open and closed. However, this only applies to the ones at the ends of the dashboard: there are conventional slatted ones in the centre of the dash and the infotainment screen sits below them.

There is an intelligently designed mix of the traditional Jaguar elegance and a cocoon-like feel in the front with lots of lounging space in the back. Wood is present but kept to a minimum and on the test car, which featured the Black Pack, this was matte lacquered with black and dark grey wavy stripes. Combined with anthracite leather and a similarly coloured headliner, the effect was very much modern British luxury.

As in the XJ, XE and F-PACE, the tops of the front doors have sweeping thick curves which blend into a large and almost semi circular piece of trim which arcs around the base of the windscreen. Something else which you wont find in a rival German car are headlights controlled by a column stalk. Again, this looks and feels as if its the same one as in all other JLR vehicles. Then there are the central screen controls, are of which are instantly understood. As in the best systems from some VW Group models, there is a combination of touch and hard plastic buttons, i.e. none of this tiresome and potentially unsafe nonsense of having everything on screen with various functions accessible only via lots of eyes-off-the-road presses.

JLR deserves more points for an HVAC system which has two rows of rectangular plastic buttons, below which sit two circular buttons: on the left, the volume and on/off switch for the sound system and on the right, an ignition switch which glows when you enter the car. Simple, minimalist, safe. The system features a 10.2-inch touchscreen and is called InControl Touch Pro.

Some minor glitches include electric window switches on the drivers door which are positioned too far forward as the trim panel also has to have room for memory seat buttons. The XE has a better arrangement whereby the seat memory options are positioned below the window controls. Something decidedly strange is the absence of any way of flipping the rear seats forward from inside the car. The only way to do this is to open the boot then reach in and pull one or both cables to release them.

The XF is a good looking car to my eyes at least, the media test model, which had the supercharged 380hp V6, was also fitted with full LED headlights. These were excellent, and like other JLR models with automatic high beam, this worked faultlessly. A nano-second ahead of me wanting to flick them off, the sensors saw approaching headlights and deactivated the bright beams. Impressive stuff, and would that all suppliers systems were as good.

I would also say that the car has a fair bit more room inside it than the old XF and you definitely notice how much more space there is in the back, and compared to an XE too. I also hear that theres superior sprawling room in this new model compared to the standard wheelbase XJ.

Like Volvo with its Since 1959 tags on belt buckles and the tiny Swedish flags tagged to the seats of the XC90, JLR is finding its Britishness in new and charming ways: the phone function on the navi screen defaults to a photo of what looks like a Highlands sunset with a red telephone kiosk in the foreground. It might seem a small thing but its a nice touch for the buyers in foreign markets which Jaguar needs to lure in to the brand.

Other delights extend to  praise be  no bongs when you open the door or shut off the ignition. Nor can you be startled by any electronic buzzers from overly sensitive blind spot monitors. A Jeep Renegade you will already have read about and its soon to appear here Fiat 500X twin have this truly awful fault. In the XF, an orange light illuminates in the mirror and there is no nasty buzz.

Its been just over a year since the second generation XF sedan had its world premiere at an event in Londons Docklands, but production didnt start for a while after. The motor show debut came in April of last year in New York and the premiere of a long-wheelbase bodystyle is about to happen at the Beijing show.

The standard length car had a development code of X260, while the L is X261. What about the follow-up to the SportBrake? It has been claimed that there wont be one, as while it might sell relatively well in the UK, that seems unlikely to happen in the German brands home market where buyers are loyal to Audi, BMW and Mercedes E-segment estates.

28 April update: Jaguars Ian Callum has now tweeted that his statement ruling out a Jaguar wagon only applies to the XE.

X260 and X261use the same aluminium platform as that of two other Jaguars, the XE and the F-PACE and no doubt an evolution will be the basis of the next generation XJ and XJ L, plus other potential additional Jaguars.

XF production got underway at Castle Bromwich in the third quarter of 2015. There should also be assembly of the standard wheelbase sedan in India, likely from later in 2016. As for production in China, the XF L will be the third vehicle to be built at the Chery Auto-Jaguar Land Rover factory in Changshu, following the Range Rover Evoque and Land Rover Discovery Sport. The plant originally had an annual capacity of 130,000 vehicles per annum but this has risen with the addition of the XF L and a body shop is about to open at the same time. An adjacent engine plant, which will manufacture Ingenium 2.0-litre petrol units, it yet to come on stream but will do later in 2016. The L cars will have standard all-wheel drive and the choice of three engines: 197hp 2.0-litre turbo, 236ho 2.0-litre turbo or 335hp supercharged 3.0-litre V6. Each is approximately 200kg heavier than its standard wheelbase equivalent.

Model grades are: Pure (SE in the UK), Prestige, R-Sport, Portfolio+ and S. Next, there should be an SVR, the effective replacement for the old shape R-S saloon. This seems likely to be powered by the supercharged 5.0-litre V8 from other models such as the F-TYPE and Range Rover.

For the moment, the powertrain line-up is as follows: 163PS and 180PS 2.0-litre Ingenium diesel manual and automatic; RWD, 240PS 2.0-litre petrol (Ford-sourced) automatic; RWD, 300PS 3.0-litre diesel (Ford-built) automatic; RWD and AWD, 340PS and 380PS 3.0-litre petrol (Ford) automatic. There is a six-speed manual gearbox for certain variants or else two versions of ZFs eight-speed automatic. The ZF 8HP45 is for the 2.0-litre diesel engines and the supercharged 3.0-litre petrol, while the 8HF70 is for the 3.0-litre diesel.

The XF might only be in its first year of production so its possibly a bit early to talk lifecycles but the first facelift is likely to debut at the 2019 New York auto show. However, way before then, JLRs forthcoming in-line six-cylinder petrol engine should become available and expect a plug-in hybrid powertrain too. The third generation XF series would likely follow in early 2023.

Im still a few weeks away from trying the new E-Class, nor have I had any time at the wheel of the S90 but until then, the Jaguar gets my vote in this segment. I say that for its mix of almost intuitive steering feel, no-nonsense and properly premium feeling interior, what must be best in class space for back seat passengers and a ride on badly maintained roads that is better than a BMW 5 Series or Audi A6.
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As a registered nurse and health care writer and editor for more than 25 years, I routinely wrote or assigned stories to other writers about the health of LGBT individuals. I valued these stories not only because I was a nurse, but also because I thought the subject was worthy of coverage. I believed our nurse readers should be aware of the specific health needs of their LGBT patients.

I followed LGBT issues even more closely when my son told my husband and I that he was gay about four years ago. At that time, I was working again as a nurse. Unfortunately, I quickly realized to my dismay and disappointment that there are far too many homophobic health care providers.

It never occurred to me that some physicians and nurses might discriminate against gays, lesbians, bisexual, and transgendered individuals. I am pretty certain that during my nursing education I was taught to be nonjudgmental and to care for the physical and emotional needs of all my patients, no matter who they were or how I might personally feel about them. And as a journalist, it was hammered into my head to be objective and to gather the facts wherever the story may lead. My opinions didnt count.

I do not understand how any physician or nurse will not provide appropriate care to LGBT people. But apparently it happens. A quick internet search of LGBT and health found recent article about health cares lack of knowledge and appropriate treatment of LGBT individuals. The stories confirmed what I had experienced since my son came out.

For example, my wonderful womens health nurse practitioner says she sees many patients who are lesbians because other OB/GYN practices make them feel uncomfortable or wont see them at all.

A couple of years ago I attended a session about LGBT health at an Equality Illinois conference. An RN educator from the Howard Brown Health Center in Chicago told the attendees that she had used a federal grant to develop a training program about LGBT health needs for nurses. She traveled to different hospitals around the Midwest offering the program. But few people showed up at her presentations, she lamented. She was told that nurses werent interested.

I am open about my sons sexuality in my professional, as well as personal life. When I hear a homophobic comment or statement, I dont stand idly by, whether people like it or not. I risked fracturing a work relationship with an OB/GYN when she made a derogatory statement about lesbians. I told her my son was gay and that I did not appreciate her misguided beliefs.

Another time I had a heated discussion with a colleague about homosexuality in the middle of the clinic. The other nurses stood around stunned, not sure what to do. I was not about to back down to the other nurses statements implying my son was a sinner because he is gay. Finally, the office manager interceded and said we should stop since neither of us was willing to cede to the other.

Later that day, the nurse I had argued with, and whom I otherwise really like, came to me with tears in her eyes and said she did not mean to upset me. I told her my son was a wonderful, caring young man and that I just wanted her to rethink what her church had told her to believe about gay people.

Ironically, the over-the-top publicity Olympian Bruce Jenner received when he revealed he wanted to become transgendered Caitlyn Jenner brought renewed attention about the health care needs of LGBT people. And the medical profession seems to be paying attention.

My internet search also found articles that reflected similar sentiments to an editorial in the July 21, 2015 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine: Imagine how much better prepared the health care workforce would be to provide competent care to LGBT patients if all medical schools were to follow the recommendations of the American Association of Medical Colleges recent publication: Implementing Curricular and Institutional Climate Changes to Improve Health Care for Individuals Who Are LGBT, Gender Nonconforming, or Born with DSD.

I hope that if my son should one day be your patient, you would treat him with the same degree of medical knowledge, respect, and caring that you provide to your straight patients.

Janet Boivin is a nurse.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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Adding electronic means sortable, searchable, bigger attic, more junk. Unfortunately, no one has the guts to actually clean it. Are urinalyses from the 90s still important, or are we just being sentimental?

For everything we do in medicine, there are intended effects and side effects. During my emergency medicine residency there was a mandate that attending physicians had to see each patient cared for by their residents. While a hard transition, I think U.S. emergency medical care became far more consistent as a result. I absolutely benefited in my training, and Im certain my patients did as well.

Then came the side effects. Instead of accepting seen and agreed, for legal and billing reasons attendings had to write actual notes on every chart, often using the exact words written by residents on the very same page. Pt c/o ST. Red OP. No exudates. CV  RRR, no MRG. Resp  CTAB. Abd  soft, NT, ND. Likely viral. Recd fluids, rest, ibu, f/u w/ pmd. Basically, attending notes became abridged versions of resident notes. They added nothing to patient health, but further buried useful information and slowed care.

Back then if you requested a patients records, minutes to hours later a metal cart would arrive, sometimes with 5+ volumes of paper, mostly composed of signed consents, insurance forms, decades old labs, illegible carbon copies, admit/discharge reports, ER logs with resident plus attending notes, etc. Interspersed were the nuggets: current medications, allergies, recent procedures, last EKG, primary caregiver and emergency contact numbers. If you were lucky, you found a comprehensive recent discharge summary.

Electronic medical records offered an incredible opportunity to speed information transmission and improve care. But that promise has yet to be realized. Having worked in quite a few hospitals since residency, regardless of the EMR, I find they consistently pull me even further away from patients. I work part time in a wonderful emergency department today that uses scribes to ease the load. Its incredible working with these bright-eyed, energetic individuals, yet I still spend far more time clicking buttons than with patients. Gigabytes of data are generated, but the nuggets remain scattered and buried. Gathering history quickly from neighboring hospitals or clinics is still no easy task. Amazingly, fax remains cutting edge for transmitting records everywhere Ive ever worked.

I suspect no one person or agency is to blame for the disappointment that most of us feel with electronic medical records. Its a tough nut to crack, and hopefully, were just in the transitional years. At least, doctors are starting to make more noise now. However, rather than add to gripe mountain, Ill instead make a proposal, or my own bark at the moon.

Could one product or program exist with just the nuggets? Ill be more specific. If you are a programmer, please build me one golden graphical user interface that exists on every monitor of every hospital across the globe (like Windows Explorer, but faster). When clicked, Id like it to prompt for username and password, known only by patients, and stored on a wallet-sized card, bracelet, necklace, smartphone, napkin  no matter. Once logged in (read-only mode), I as the caregiver, enter a glowing nugget-filled virtual room with current meds, allergies, emergency contact numbers, last EKG, a 140 character PMH tweet, along with resuscitation and organ donor status. Last hemoglobin, potassium, and creatinine would be a bonus.

If you build this, I as a doctor will commit to spending 3 to 5 minutes with each of my patients during every discharge, deciding together what we may want to include in such a capsule (using a separately patient-held access code for editing). Versions of this exist in various forms, and Ive watched others crash and burn. Unfortunately, they all seem to lose sight of simple and concise. For me, the minimum viable product is the maximum desired product.

Whether built by Microsoft, Apple, Google, our federal government, the United Nations, or Estonia, I truly dont care. Next time Im toes up on a backboard in Iceland, I want those doctors to know my medical high points without needing to touch a fax machine.

For those of you worried about privacy, fear not! Patients can choose to omit anything they like, or even provide false info. For my medical record, Id enter all the info requested, because I dont want anything slowing down those Iceland doctors. But for anyone nervous about listing sensitive information, just leave that out. Include only what you want your caregivers to know should you appear in some ER impaired, or simply speaking the wrong language. As a patient, you can lie to me verbally or virtually. As your doctor, I want to know what you want me to know to help you feel better. And I dont care what your ten point review of systems and family history were on your six visits in 2013.

Let the top 5 to 10 billing platforms  I mean EMRs  continue to compete and improve. In parallel, I want a simple, concise and elegant system that floats above the rest to save me from grinding my teeth to the gums prematurely. I didnt go to med school to pan for gold. Grandpa is the only person who truly knows where to find the nuggets in his attic. Lets involve him in the cleaning.

Sam Slishman is an emergency physician.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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There is too much democracy in American politics. But there is not enough democracy in American government today.

This isn't the paradox it seems. Government and politics are not the same thing.

Politics is the business of political parties and elections. Parties' core functions are recruiting and selecting nominees for office, running general election campaigns and organizing party caucuses in legislatures. All these activities have become more democratic in the modern reform age, 1968 to the present. The rise and dominance of popular primaries since 1968 is the towering achievement. More democracy in the parties, however, has created monster campaigns that shackle democratic government and weakened the party leadership needed to make Congress work.

Government is the business of those who already have legitimate power  legislators, presidents (and governors), civil servants and judges. Our most democratic institution, Congress, is meant to be balanced by executive and judicial power. Since the Clinton-Gingrich wars in the 1990s, dysfunction in the legislative branch has caused power to flow to the less democratic institutions, especially the judiciary and the Supreme Court. The designated voice of the people, Congress, babbles incoherently.

America's political parties are mistrusted. But they need to be stronger for the federal system to regain proper balance. That means parties need to compromise their internal democracy.

This is heresy in reform doctrine, which prefers open democracy in all civic institutions. But we've learned that parties without bosses and whips are like wagons without drivers; they wander aimless trails marked by horse manure.

Political reformation has tilted at three windmills: democratizing the nomination process with primaries, getting money out of politics and, most recently, retooling primaries so they produce more moderate nominees who will vanquish partisan polarization. (The preferred formats are nonpartisan blanket primaries, also called top two primaries, used now in California and Washington, for example.)

The problem is, our two parties are reform-resistant, according political scientist Seth Masket's new book, "The Inevitable Party." Parties are not stagnant, structured institutions like corporations or agencies; they are wily, perpetually evolving "networks of intense and creative policy demanders."

He is right. Just look at the record of modern reform.

The nomination process is more open but at an unacceptable cost  the current, broken election process. Campaign finance reform hasn't just failed; it has backfired  more money than ever comes from fewer donors with less disclosure. And scattered anti-polarization reforms haven't had much impact and probably won't; if the country is truly polarized (a big "if") tinkering with primary formats is like having a pizza party in Baghdad.

The reform impulse is fundamentally confused. It dreams of a democracy without competitive, power-hungry parties, though history offers no examples. It has faith that there can be boss-less, egalitarian parties that will yield stronger, nobler government.

The Founders knew better and disliked parties and didn't mention parties in the Constitution. (Big mistake: more on that later.) Once in power, of course, they formed parties. Parties appear to be a necessary ingredient of democracy, no matter how unsavory.

The idea that democracy within parties was important is new. The Founders, I suspect, would have thought it silly.

Members of Congress and then conventions selected presidential nominees for our first two centuries. Popular primaries were a reform of the Progressive era. They didn't become ubiquitous until after 1972. Coincidentally or not, public trust and confidence in government and its leaders has declined inexorably since. The length of campaigns has increased inexorably and grotesquely. No other country has campaigns nearly so long and few use popular primaries.

Candidates at all levels no longer need parties. Donors finance campaigns, not parties. Campaigns have direct access to voters through social media and the web; they are not dependent on party permissions. Bernie Sanders isn't even a Democrat and doesn't pretend to be one! It is absurd. FDR and LBJ must be spinning in their graves.

Among the many unintended negative consequences of the reform movement, one stands out: Party leaders in Congress have no real power over their members, no whip. This exacerbates gridlock and partisan paralysis. The branch of government intended to be the most democratic is now sclerotic and handicapped.

I hope against hope that the embarrassment of this year's election scares the country enough to act. My heretical, un-American recommendations aren't progressive reforms but Machiavellian repairs.

First, the system needs to be rigged more.

Voters and donors should have less power in the nomination process; elected officials and party officials should have more. Primaries should have a diminished role and shouldn't be permitted until after the Fourth of July in election years. Some corrupt party practices need to end as well. Parties should have no role in drawing legislative districts; let the judicial branch govern that. And traps the current two-party duopoly built to abort new parties should be dismantled.

Most of this is impossible or impractical under current law.

Thus my second argument is that the Constitution must no longer be silent on political parties. They are entrenched in our political system and should be governed, in part, by constitutional authority in the form of amendments. The passing ideological predilections of various Supreme Courts have mucked up the job for long enough.

Is this fantasy politics? Perhaps, but Donald Trump has proved that conventional wisdom isn't always wise. The very fact that he is on the cusp of power is another indicator that the parties need to be less democratic in order to make government more democratic, which is what matters most.

Dick Meyer is Chief Washington Correspondent for the Scripps Washington Bureau and DecodeDC. Readers may send him email at dick.meyer@scripps.com.
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By Ed Palm

Our current presidential contenders have me thinking in terms of worst-case scenarios. Should Ted Cruz become president, I fear that the "free exercise" of religion could become mandatory. Should that come to pass, I just may become a Joel Osteen follower.

Osteen is the senior pastor of the Lakewood Church, a Protestant megachurch in Houston. I really don't know anything about Osteen's religious and social views. I've never listened to one of his sermons. I've only ever caught the first few minutes of his televised service on Sunday mornings following "Meet the Press." What I appreciate about him, however, is that he begins each of his services with a joke. Here's a typical example, paraphrased from his broadcast of April 3:

A policeman one day happened to stop a minister who was driving erratically. When the minister opened his window, the policeman thought he smelled alcohol, and he saw a thermos on the seat next to the minister.

"What's in the thermos?" the policeman asked. "Water," the minister replied, handing the thermos to the policeman.

The policeman opened the thermos and sniffed the contents. "This is wine!" he exclaimed.

"Well, I'll be!" the minister replied. "Jesus has done it again."

Osteen at least has a sense of humor. Unlike much of the religious right, he doesn't take himself or his ministry too seriously. As for church attendance becoming mandatory, I'm just extrapolating from a position I find almost as absurd  the idea that our First Amendment guarantee of the free "exercise of religion" extends to discriminating against gays, lesbians, and transgender people.

A lawyer friend assures me that legal battles lie ahead and that the crux of the issue will be whether you may legally deny secular goods, services or employment to people based on practices allowed under state and federal law but contrary to your religious convictions. The state of Mississippi believes that you may. The law their legislature recently passed is grounded in the belief that such discrimination is a "free exercise" of religion. Georgia would like to follow suit, but its governor has vowed to veto the "religious freedom" law its legislature recently passed. And, along the same lines, North Carolina has passed a law requiring people to use the restrooms that accord with their gender at birth.

Personally, I don't believe that baking a wedding cake, taking wedding photos or issuing a marriage license is a religious act. These are secular services.

Most of the people exercised about these issues, ironically, are Christians. But they seem to have forgotten some of the Christian precepts I was taught. "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's," Christ reportedly said. He is also believed to have admonished his followers "to judge not that ye be not judged." And much to the horror of the religious authorities of his day, he is said to have dined with "publicans and sinners."

To borrow a lyric from one of my favorite sixties songs, "I can't understand. It's so simple to me": If you believe homosexual practices to be sinful, don't engage in them. If you believe gay marriage to be wrong, marry a person of the opposite sex. If you're a member of the clergy, observe the marital strictures of your faith. No one will force you to do otherwise.

The most dangerous people  bar none  are those who fervently believe God to be on their side. We should have learned that on 9/11.

As for the transgender bathroom issue, back in 1968, when I went cruising around the Caribbean with 800 of my best USMC friends, we encountered unisex bathrooms at several ports. It was no big deal.

Our sons and daughters accept gay people. They understand that homosexuality isn't contagious and, to borrow a phrase from Martin Luther King Jr., that gay people deserve to be judged by the "content of their character," not by their sexual orientation. By the same token, I predict that our grandchildren will think nothing of using unisex bathrooms.

Dig me up in 20 years and tell me if I'm wrong.

Take it from the rock group the Kinks, who long ago divined the shape of things to come: "Girls will be boys and boys will be girls. It's a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world ..."

Get used to it.

***

A postscript to my recent column accounting for Trump's appeal is in order. One of my readers believes that we can't rule out racism, that some of Trump's followers see him as the "last great white hope." I'd like to believe that that's not true. But then I remember the TV coverage of an elderly white man sucker-punching an African-American protester and Trump's promise to pay the legal bills of those who put protesters in their place.
Shenandoah, IA (51601)

Today

Rain. Thunder possible. Morning high of 63F with temps falling to near 50. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

A few clouds. Low 33F. Winds light and variable.
David Harman works on is Native Maps with his wife, Becca Harman, in his North Knoxville home studio. The maps are sold at West Elm and boutiques across the U.S., and on Harman's website. SUBMITTED PHOTO

SHARE David Harman is about to release some gold-foil versions of his Native Maps, which detail neighborhoods of cities across the nation and are suitable for wall hanging. SUBMITTED PHOTO The Harmans offers an array of frames for their Native Maps in their online shop. SUBMITTED PHOTO David Harman hand prints his maps on paper that is made with renewable energy and he prints out small batches with non-toxic acrylic ink. SUBMITTED PHOTO "I print in small batches as needed, usually 40 to 50 prints at a time," David Harman said of his Native Maps collection, which he creates at his home studio in Knoxville. SUBMITTED PHOTO

By Ali James of the Knoxville News Sentinel

It started out as a bit of a challenge between friends and a fun side project that has turned into a full-time job for Knoxville artist David Harman.

Years later, his "Native Maps"  hand-printed maps depicting the neighborhoods of 10 U.S. cities  are now sold at West Elm, online and at boutiques across the country.

"One afternoon, a friend and I sat down to map out a small Dallas neighborhood called Oak Cliff, to see how well we knew it," said Harman, who was born and raised in Dallas. It took four hours. Six months later he had compiled an accurate map of the entire city. He spent hours exploring on foot and on his bike, detailing the diverse and unique neighborhoods.

At the time, Harman was a young abstract painter working in a downtown studio.

"I was painting my local surroundings, things within my arm's reach. Really digging into Dallas," he said. "Then I realized that there was so much more to discover than I thought. That was the impetus to do the Dallas neighborhood map. You get to know a neighborhood, like the cracks in the sidewalk, and I wanted to get to know the whole city."

Once Harman was satisfied with his map, he purchased some paper and printed the maps by hand. The paper is made with renewable energy and he prints out small batches with non-toxic acrylic ink.

"We really made the map for friends and family that love the city as much as we do," he said. "We were giving them away; it was very much a labor of love."

Then Harman started selling the Dallas map at markets.

"It was a way to test the map and see how accurate it was, to get neighborhood stories and feedback," he said.

Eventually other stores picked up the maps and Harman said the business grew from there.

Retailer West Elm spotted the maps at a Dallas pop-up show. "They were really interested in the concept and just said that if you expand, let us know we would like to work with you," Harman said.

In 2012, Harman moved to Knoxville with his longtime girlfriend, Becca, to obtain an MFA in painting at the University of Tennessee. They got married within two weeks.

Then two years ago, around the birth of their daughter, Augusta, it seemed like the right time to see if they could take the neighborhood map concept to other cities, so they reached out to West Elm.

"I was really hesitant to expand the concept, because who am I to make a local map of somebody else's city?" Harman said. "I thought that if I could do it with the same research and same depth of knowledge, I could see the potential in that."

They gave the business a name, Native Maps, and the next logical step was to go for some larger cities.

"So we did Chicago, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Boston initially," Harman said. "Those are all cities that I've spent time in."

To Harman, the ideal situation would be to move to a city and immerse himself in it for five years, like he has with Knoxville. Since that's not possible, he digs in online.

He starts with Google maps, cross references with City Data and then compares and layers in other maps until he has one printed design.

"If there's a consensus on a neighborhood, I'll go with that," he said. "If there's a disparity in the design, I'll call a local establishment. Just last week I changed a neighborhood in a Dallas map  it's nice that we have that flexibility. It's fairly easy to keep up to date."

Great additional resources are neighborhood associations and local blogs, he said.

"I get really specific and really entrench myself," Harman said. "The Internet is so all-consuming. If someone lost a cat in a random neighborhood in Chicago, I probably read about it."

Right now, Harman is working on mapping out the neighborhoods of Portland, Ore. He works at it for an hour or two a day; it takes about a month from start to finish to map out each city, and then he moves onto the next.

"I'm shooting for a new city every month," he said.

Harman always carries something to make notes of neighborhoods.

"One random Knoxville neighborhood that people say is Lindbergh Forest, a family-friendly little neighborhood that you could easily drive by and not know about it," he said. "The people there are really proud of that.

"In my neighborhood, Oakwood-Lincoln Park, and in Londsdale and Mechanicsville, you can see that there was a boom in the 1920s," he added. "There are pockets of what used to be and pockets of what is to come. That's really interesting."

Becca Harman, his wife and the other half of Native Maps, is wrapping up her own master's degree at UT. She pitches in when she can, helping with print runs, shipping and communicating with customers.

"She's more of a visionary," David Harman said. "I'm kind of stuck in the details of the business, and she's really good at pulling back and focusing on what's important."

At approximately $25 retail per print, real estate agents are snapping up a dozen or so at a time. The prints are also overwhelmingly popular as housewarming gifts.

During his first year in business, Harman learned the hard way that Christmas is a particularly crazy time of the year. Last year he did a print run every day for two months in the lead-up to Christmas. He keeps tabs on stock.

"I print in small batches as needed, usually 40 to 50 prints at a time," he said. "The most I've done is six or seven print runs, which is 300 to 400 posters a day."

The possibilities are endless for Native Maps, Harman believes.

"We decided early on to hold back on other mediums until we got a really good collection of cities under our belt," Harman said of their decision to focus on hand-printed maps. "We want to be the hub for maps that a local from any city would appreciate.

"But there are a couple of products that I am excited about," he said. "In the next month or so, we'll have a 16-by-20 of every city in a gold-foil-pressed map. It will be a little bit nicer and a different aesthetic."

Harman is also working with Smoky Mountain Vintage Lumber and local framers to come up with an affordable array of frames for the maps.

"We're opening a frame shop on our website," he said. "Honestly, it's really hard to find an affordable frame."

He hopes to have four to five framing options in the $40 range to sell along with the maps.

"These maps are a jumping-off point," Harman said. "A way for you to get lost in your own town, to dig in and reconnect."

To see the maps, visit Harman's website at www.nativemaps.us/
SHARE Lamar Alexander. Andrew Jackson is depicted during the Battle of New Orleans in a rendering by Frederick Coffay Yohn. (Library of Congress) Scott DesJarlais, U.S. representative. Dr. Daniel Feller Professor of History and Editor/director, The Papers of Andrew Jackson reads a passage from the 13th volume of the Andrew Jackson papers. Dr. Daniel Feller Professor of History and Editor/director, The Papers of Andrew Jackson and two other researchers have receive federal funding to collect, archive and publish the papers of Andrew Jackson. The most recent edition, the 13th volume a thick book covering the year of 1831, was published last month and includes the petticoat affair and other salacious events in his presidency. (J. MILES CARY/NEWS SENTINEL) Related Coverage James K. Polk home moves closer to national park status

By Michael Collins of the Knoxville News Sentinel

WASHINGTON  As far as U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander is concerned, Andrew Jackson and Harriet Tubman are both American heroes who have each earned their rightful place in history.

To honor one, he said, you don't have to tear down the other.

"United States history is not Andrew Jackson versus Harriet Tubman," the Maryville Republican said.

The announcement this week that Jackson  the nation's seventh president, a hero of the Battle of New Orleans and a white slave owner from Tennessee  will be booted to the back of the $20 bill to make room for Tubman, a black woman born into slavery who helped champion the cause of freedom, has left many people in Jackson's home state with the uneasy feeling that the move is as much a politically correct attempt to diminish Jackson's legacy as it is to celebrate Tubman's accomplishments.

In his day, Old Hickory, as Jackson was fondly known, was considered a war hero and a populist fighting for the common man. But he was also a slave owner who as president ordered the removal of the Cherokee and other Indians from their land in a bloody campaign that came to be known as the Trail of Tears.

In contrast, Tubman was a former slave who helped scores of other slaves escape to freedom. She also worked as a Union spy during the Civil War.

In deciding to replace Jackson's image on the front of the $20 bill with that of Tubman, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew described her life as an "incredible story of courage and commitment to equality"  one that "embodies the ideals of democracy that our nation celebrates."

But many Tennesseans saw the decision as an attack on the historical contributions of Jackson, a home-state hero.

"Dismayed and disappointed would be two words we would use to describe the decision," said Howard J. Kittell, president and CEO of the Andrew Jackson Foundation in Nashville.

Kittell and other Tennesseans say it's unfair to judge Jackson's actions on slavery and Indian removal in the early 1800s through the lens of the 21st century.

Although it's hard for us to imagine today, Jackson's positions on those issues and others "fell within the mainstream of American thinking" at the time, Kittell said, and it's important to evaluate him in that context.

"We need to remember our history, and history is messy," he said. "It's not a straight line of progress. It's complicated. You can't tell history in sound bites for Jackson or (Thomas) Jefferson or anyone. Our historical figures were all human, and they had great strengthens and weaknesses, just as we do, too."

Even among historians, Jackson has long been a polarizing figure, said Dan Feller, a history professor at the University of Tennessee and director of the Papers of Andrew Jackson, a project to collect and publish Jackson's entire literary record.

During his presidency, many people at the time looked upon Jackson as a champion of the common man, a stalwart defender of the Union and the savior of the American republic, Feller said. Others saw him as a tyrant who was going to destroy the country.

The debate over whether Jackson deserves a place on the front of American paper currency is a discussion "not only about what happened in history, but how we ought to treat it, how we ought to recognize it, and what things we ought to honor  or not honor," Feller said. "That debate, as long as it's realistically based upon evidence, is healthy."

For Tennesseans in Congress, there's nothing to debate: Jackson belongs on the $20 bill.

"Andrew Jackson was a great Tennessean and American, and I am extremely disappointed that this announcement appears to be as much an attack on his legacy as it is a celebration of Harriet Tubman," said U.S. Rep. Phil Roe, R-Johnson City.

Jackson and Tubman should both be celebrated for their historical significance, Roe said.

U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Ooltewah, called Jackson "a patriot" and said the decision to move him to the back of the bill "unnecessary"

U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Chattanooga, said he supports finding new ways to pay tribute "to the many deserving women throughout American history."

But, "I would hope we could do so without diminishing the legacy of others," he said.

U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais, R-South Pittsburgh, also criticized the decision. Tubman was an American heroine who deserves the highest recognition, DesJarlais said, but not at the expense of distorting Jackson's place in history.

"Jackson was a Tennessean through and through  a colorful character, a military hero, and most importantly, a man who believed in paying off our debts," DesJarlais said. "In fact, he was the last president to pay off our national debt in 1835. Rather than push him off the face of the $20, Washington should rededicate itself to adhering to his financial policies."

U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan Jr., R-Knoxville, said while he respects and admires Tubman, "Andrew Jackson was a more significant figure in the history of this country."

Duncan suggested he might have a solution to the Jackson vs. Tubman quandary.

"When the next administration comes in," he said, "I hope we can convince the next treasurer to print an equal number of $20 bills with both Jackson and Tubman."
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Much has been written about the ignorance, impracticality and offensiveness of many of the Republican front-runners' policy proposals. Not nearly enough has been written about the ignorance, impracticality and offensiveness of the policy proposals emanating from the Democratic side, some of which, unlike Donald Trump's Mexican-financed wall and Muslim ban, could actually become law.

Consider the race to hike the minimum wage. Bernie Sanders wants it to get to $15 as soon as possible. Hillary Clinton wants to get it there almost as soon as possible.

In the most recent Democratic debate, Sanders denounced Clinton for her insufficient ardor in racing to $15. Clinton took umbrage, and the shouting match that ensued led CNN's Wolf Blitzer to admonish them both: "If you're both screaming at each other, the viewers won't be able to hear either of you."

With the exception of some very cynical labor unions that support a higher minimum wage because it amounts to an indirect subsidy of their members' earnings and some politicians who know it is bad economics, the Fight for 15 movement is entirely well-intentioned. But good intentions do not automatically translate into good policy.

Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported that California's recent decision to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2022 is already having nasty consequences, accelerating the demise of the local apparel industry.

"I used to pay $5 to get this sewn, and now it costs $6.50," Felix Seo, the owner of Los Angeles-based Joompy told the Times, holding up a patterned dress. "But my customer doesn't want to pay that, so I can't sell it anymore."

To stay in business, Joompy will probably have to start importing its clothes.

"It will be impossible to make clothes in Los Angeles," Seo said.

This is an old story. My grandmother was a seamstress in New York's garment district. Those jobs left for the South almost 100 years ago, as costs in New York became prohibitive. They started leaving the South for Asia shortly thereafter.

Businesses don't have to send their work to low-wage countries. They can simply hire robots. Already, many restaurants facing mandated wage hikes are moving to replace human cooks and servers with machines and iPads.

The L.A. Times article had a great little infographic breaking down "Who Gets a Raise" under the minimum-wage hike by age and race. Latinos got the biggest share, with 54 percent. Unfortunately, there wasn't a companion chart showing how many of those Latinos will simply lose their jobs, resulting in the real minimum wage: zero.

Ironically, one of the original arguments for the minimum wage was that it would push nonwhites  and women  out of the labor market.

Stanford sociologist E.A. Ross defended the minimum wage on the grounds that "the coolie (i.e., Chinese laborers), though he cannot outdo the American, can underlive him." Some argued that employers should be required to pay immigrants twice the wage of American-born worker so that no firm would hire them.

Simply put, a minimum wage is no different from a tax on firms that use low-wage and unskilled labor. And if there's anything that economists agree upon, it's that if you tax something, you get less of it.

Even California Gov. Jerry Brown understands this. He just doesn't care. When he signed the new minimum-wage law, he proclaimed, "Economically, minimum wages may not make sense. But morally, socially and politically, they make every sense because it binds the community together to make sure parents can take care of their kids." This amounts to grotesque cowardice. If Brown understands that his policy doesn't work economically, he understands that the moral benefits will not materialize (though he'll reap political benefits from those aforementioned unions).

Assuming it's in everyone's interest to raise the wages of low-income workers, then the government can subsidize those wages without penalizing businesses that give jobs to those most in need of work and work experience. We could, for instance, boost the Earned Income Tax Credit or pay businesses to bump up their payrolls. These approaches have drawbacks too, but they stand a better chance of achieving the moral goals that Brown, Sanders and Clinton have in mind.

Jonah Goldberg is an editor-at-large of National Review Online and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of "Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change." He may be reached at JonahsColumn@aol.com.
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Pediatricians tell us our children are more vulnerable to the harmful effects of breathing air pollution. The recent article "Knox County air quality OK with EPA, but American Lung Association report gives it an 'F'" underscores the fact that parents have the right to know if the air their children are breathing is safe for their tiny, developing lungs.

Ground-level ozone, or smog, remains one of the nation's most dangerous air pollutants.

At levels previously labeled safe, ozone triggers asthma attacks, coughing, wheezing and can send people with lung diseases, like asthma, to the emergency room.

The U.S. Environmental Protection agency's new ozone standard will improve air quality, and our kids' health, across Tennessee.

Additionally, Tennesseans will see immediate health benefits from reducing smog and soot, which contribute to pollution, with the implementation of America's Clean Power Plan.

Nationally, the plan will reduce smog by upward of 25 percent by 2030, preventing over 140,000 asthma attacks in our children.

And Tennessee ranks 11th nationwide in public health gains from implementing America's Clean Power Plan, through potential avoided premature deaths, hospitalizations, and nonfatal heart attacks.

As a parent, I do everything I can to protect my daughter. That is why I support common-sense solutions in safeguarding her health.

Lindsay Pace, Tennessee field coordinator for Moms Clean Air Force, Chattanooga
1:47 p.m. April 24, 2016

Womack named Deputy Commissioner for Tennessee Department of Agriculture









Tom Womack will continue his service in a new role as Deputy Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Agriculture. Image courtesy of DOA.





NASHVILLE With nearly 30 years of experience working for the state, Tom Womack will continue his service in a new role as Deputy Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Agriculture.



Commissioner-Appointee Jai Templeton said the effective date will be May 1.



I am delighted that Tom has accepted the appointment, Templeton said. He has given his career to this department and the industry I hold so dear. For almost three decades, Tom has been a confidant to Tennessees Commissioners of Agriculture. He knows the department and its people, as well the various constituencies, stakeholders and citizens we serve. He has their confidence and will continue to build strong relationships.



Agriculture is in Womacks blood and public service is in his heart. Womack is well-known and highly respected in the agricultural community, having spent the majority of his tenure with the department as its spokesman and director of communications. In 2015, Agriculture Commissioner Julius Johnson appointed Womack Assistant Commissioner for Public Affairs. In that position, Womack provided administrative support for media relations, policy development and all agency programs ranging from food safety and animal health to forestry, marketing and conservation. Womack also administered the fairs program and the Tennessee Agricultural Museum, the departments primary education and outreach program.



My entire career has been in service to the citizens of Tennessee, agriculture and rural communities through this department, Womack said. I am deeply honored and grateful to soon-to-be Commissioner Templeton for the opportunity to contribute in this new way and to help build upon the solid foundation developed by Commissioner Johnson.



From 1999 to 2008, Womack assisted with the administration of the Phase II tobacco grower settlement trust, which provided more than $170 million in compensation to nearly 50,000 Tennessee farm families. He is a past president of the Communications Officers of State Departments of Agriculture organization, and his communications expertise has been recognized by the National Association of Government Communicators and twice by the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture. He has also served as liaison to the United States Department of Agriculture for agricultural disasters.



I look forward to working with our stakeholders and some of the finest employees in the state to help advance Governor Haslams priorities in the areas of efficient government and rural development, Womack said.



Tom has been a major contributor to the development of department policy and programs, Templeton continued. He will continue to be a leader for Tennessee agriculture, forest and related industries. I appreciate his willingness to serve with me as we support the work of the Governors administration. We greatly value the legacy that Commissioner Johnson leaves behind, and we look forward to strengthening the commitment to provide effective and fiscally responsible customer-focused service to Tennessees farm and forest communities.



Womack obtained his bachelors degree in Government from Western Kentucky University. He is also a 2003 graduate of the Tennessee Government Executive Institute. A former state secretary and strong supporter of the Future Farmers of America, Womack has been recognized by the National FFA Organization with the Honorary American FFA Degree and currently serves on the board of directors of the Tennessee FFA Foundation.



Tom and his wife Chrystal have five children. The couple raises beef cattle and produce hay on the family farm in White House, which is located on the Sumner/Robertson County line.

Published April 24, 2016














By Kim Jae-kyoung



SINGAPORE  Korea has lost the opportunity to establish itself as an international financial center in Asia, giving way to China and other Asian countries.



The country introduced a proper vision but it has been too cautious to make it happen.



"Korea has lost the 15 years of accumulated human and regulatory learning and experience that would have come with establishment of a global financial center," said James Rooney, chairman of Advanced Capital Partners.



Rooney, who has been serving for 15 years as vice chairman of the Seoul Financial Forum, said that during that time China has caught up and is moving ahead of Korea in many ways, including the convertibility of the Chinese renminbi.



"An excess of caution on Korea's part in order to avoid unknown risks has led to the realization and consequences of a greater risk and loss of a wonderful opportunity that was in fact clearly identified at least 15 years ago," he said.



Rooney's remarks should come as no surprise to many because of clear signs that Korea is losing its attractiveness as a financial center.



Foreign financial firms have been closing their offices here or reducing operations.



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. Goldman Sachs closed its asset management arm and UBS returned its banking license.



In the Global Financial Centers Index (GFCI) released recently, Korea saw the deepest fall, with Seoul at the 12th, six notches down from six months ago. London ranked the first, followed by New York, Singapore and Hong Kong.



The GFCI, calculated every three months and published every six months by London-based research firm Z/Yen Group, examines the global competitiveness of the major financial centers.



Foreign banks' exit from Korea, together with Korea's fall in the global financial center ranking, suggests a failure in the government's efforts to transform Seoul into a financial hub in Asia.



They highlight Korea's unfavorable market environment, with its complex regulatory system, bureaucratic control, unsupportive tax system and slowing economic growth.



These factors have combined to undermine the predictability and transparency of Korea's financial market and policies, which are essential for becoming a global financial center.



"The Korean government has kept saying that it would create a level playing field for foreign investors through deregulation but such efforts are marred by regulators' attempts to peddle their influence," a Singapore-based source knowledgeable of Korea said asking not to be named.



"Singapore's regulators always try to listen to voices of foreign financial firms and upgrade the legal-regulatory system to be more predictable and transparent, which makes the city state attractive to foreign investors. Korea should learn from it."



In the global financial center index, Singapore overtook Hong Kong to become the most competitive financial center in Asia. It ranked third in the world, just behind London and New York.



"This alludes to a more fundamental point. Korea's vision to become a financial hub in Asia depends not only on the system itself but mindset reform of policymakers and regulators who actually control it," he said.



Another major drawback is that Korea is way behind in its move to embrace technology disruption. The biggest problem is that Korea's regulatory scheme is deterring the growth of future engines of the financial sector such as fintech, or financial technology.



From a government perspective, it is very important to foster financial innovation by supporting ecosystem creation rather than direct support of fintech creation itself. This requires a major shift in both financial practices and regulatory framework.



Choi Jung-kiu, head of AT Kearney's Financial Institutions Practice for Asia Pacific, said that financial regulations controlling new entries have prevented Korean financial players from pursuing innovative approaches.



"In order to create a new fintech industry or ecosystem, the regulator should remove all unnecessary entry regulations and suspend all penalties in the initial phases of development," Choi said.



Advanced countries have placed a strong emphasis on fintech on the back of slowing global growth and greater competition in the financial sector.



For example, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has committed $225 million to the development of a fintech ecosystem. It also decided to set up an all-in-one addressing system to support fintech development.




By Nam Hyun-woo



The prosecution's investigation of a series of cases triggered by the Hyosung Group owner family's sibling rivalry is picking up speed, but the investigation seems inadequate for weakening the family's control over the group.



On Friday, Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office reportedly reallocated cases to its investigating teams so that the team in charge of Hyosung cases can focus on some 30 cases regarding the group.



Since 2014, Cho Hyun-moon, the former vice president of the textile giant, has filed some 30 suits against his elder brother and president of Hyosung, Hyun-joon, for the charges of breach of trust and embezzlement.



In 2014, the younger Cho claimed that his brother has stashed funds by creating an "art fund." The art fund was created in 2008 for the purpose of "sharing profits raised from art investment with investors" with a 30-billion won loan borrowed with Hyosung standing as a joint surety. The younger Cho claimed that the fund bought his brother's art collection at a high price and thus losses were incurred to Hyosung.



The prosecution recently summoned a key figure involved in the art fund for investigation.



In another case, Hyun-moon argued that the current president has incurred a 10 billion won loss for Hyosung by purchasing secondary shares of an LED company, Galaxia Electronics, whose major shareholder is the elder Cho.



Hyun-moon left the group in 2013 after stepping aside for the elder Cho to become heir apparent to their father Cho Suck-rai, the group's chairman. In a separate case, Hyun-joon and his father were found guilty of tax evasion in January.



Despite their tarnished reputation, Chairman Cho, Hyun-joon and third son Hyun-sang, executive vice president of the group, successfully retained their seats on the group's board.



On March 18, the group's board members reappointed the three as directors, despite calls from within and outside of the group that the Cho family should not be reappointed for the sake of other shareholders.



Also, there was opposition from National Pension Service (NPS), which then owned a 10.3 percent stake in the group, but other major shareholders gave the nod to the Cho family's control of the group. The NPS earlier this month raised its share to 11.09 percent.



The reappointment came after Hyosung netted its largest profits in 2015. Its sales amounted to 12.46 trillion won, with operating profit reaching 950.2 billion won.




By Nam Hyun-woo





KB Financial Group Chairman

Yoon Jong-kyoo

Investors initially cheered Kookmin Bank's ambitious plan to expand its non-Korean businesses aggressively, but the mega bank is still struggling to gain a foothold abroad.

Despite several attempts to diversify revenue by cutting its heavy reliance on the local market, the bank is far from its goal of being a "serious challenger," even in Asia.

Kookmin, the nation's No. 2 bank by assets, is led by KB Financial Group Chairman Yoon Jong-kyoo. Yoon previously set globalization as one of the bank's goals for diversification.

However, market analysts and experts say Kookmin's efforts have been hampered, mostly by a lack of international recognition and sales network and government regulation.

Slowest among rivals

According to data from the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), KB Kookmin Bank had 12 subsidiaries, branches and offices outside the country at the end of 2015.

This was the lowest among its five rivals. KEB Hana Bank had the most with 37, followed by Eximbank Korea (25), Korea Development Bank (23), Woori and Shinhan banks (both 24) and Industrial Bank of Korea (13).

KB Kookmin Bank posted a 29.3 billion won net profit in its overseas business last year, down 6.7 billion won from a year earlier. The share of net profit from its overseas business declined to 2.65 percent in 2015 from 3.5 percent in 2014.

In comparison, KEB Hana Bank netted 207.9 billion won through overseas business last year, up 22.7 billion won from 185.2 billion won in 2014. The share also increased to 21.4 percent from 14.9 percent.

Adding to its slow numbers, KB Kookmin Bank's overseas business will face another obstacle next month when its branch in Osaka, Japan, closes.

The Osaka branch opened in August 2012 as the second KB Kookmin branch in Japan, following the Tokyo branch established in 1992, and grew as one of the bank's key overseas businesses.

But in 2014, Japan's Financial Services Agency slapped the two branches with a suspension from new transactions between Sept. 4, 2014, and Jan. 3, 2015, saying "fundamental problems regarding the operation of management of the Japan branches' businesses were identified."

The Japanese financial regulator said in its report that some former branch managers and employees of the Tokyo branch had received cash payments "potentially deemed as rebates from corporations."

After the suspension, KB Kookmin's loan portfolios in Japan declined to $165 million as of June last year, from $381 million the previous year. The bank said last month it would close the Osaka branch because of "aggravating business conditions in Japan."

Once bitten, twice shy?

Market watchers say KB Kookmin Bank's weak overseas drive derives from its 2008 failure, when it suffered a 1 trillion won loss after purchasing a 41.9 percent stake in a Kazakhstani bank, Bank CenterCredit.

Then, Kookmin spent some 939.2 billion won as part of its globalization strategy, but the value has fallen since the global financial crisis hit the country, causing continuous losses for the Korean lender. In the wake of the losses, Kookmin Bank CEO Kang Chung-won resigned in 2010 after facing punishment from the FSS.

"After the failure, observation became palpable that KB Kookmin was intimidated by the failure and seeking a passive strategy in globalization," said an industry insider, on condition of anonymity.

Another insider said KB Kookmin has chosen "wrong timing" in its overseas moves.

An official at KB Kookmin Bank said, however, it was part of the bank's strategy to be more prudent in expanding its business.

"When it comes to overseas business, the bank has to conduct studies about the local situation as much as possible," the official said. "It is hard to say the BCC case had no impact at all on the bank's globalization strategy. But the past year has been a period for us to study the situation of the overseas market."

After taking the group's helm in late 2014, Yoon stressed the importance of globalization, but also said the bank has to be "prudent" about entering foreign markets.

In December, the bank opened its fifth Chinese branch, in Shanghai, marking its first overseas entrance in two years. Market watchers say the branch's performance will likely be a gauge of the bank's overseas business direction.
The Korea Times interviewed five global finance experts to see why Korea is losing its attractiveness as an investment destination and how the country should shift its strategy to become a financial center in Asia. The following discussion has been reconstituted based on separate interviews conducted through phone calls and emails from Apr. 6-20.  ED.

Korea advised to give up Japanese model, embrace changes

By Kim Jae-kyoung





Jeffrey Jones, international lawyer at Kim & Chang James Rooney, chairman of Advanced Capital Partners Mauro Guillen, director of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania Garcia Herrero Alicia, chief economist of Natixis Asia Pacific Mark Yeandle, associate director of

Z/Yen Group of Companies

Q: Why do you think Korea is losing attractiveness as a global financial center?

Jeffrey Jones: The factors and environment required by a financial center have not been fully implemented  a flexible labor environment, remaining foreign exchange controls, controls on fees earned by financial institutions, a high volume of audits by the Fair Trade Commission, Korean consumer loyalty to domestic institutions, broad mastery of English and so on.

James Rooney: The biggest barrier to Korea's participation in international finance has been the lack of convertibility of the Korean won. If you want to go beyond just having a domestic financial sector into real international financial intermediation, it is an essential prerequisite for onshore international market participants to have complete freedom to directly convert onshore and offshore monies between different currencies and to be able to transact business in multiple international currencies without any friction. London, Hong Kong and Singapore all have this freedom.

In the present environment, Korea's commercial banks and securities companies will never prove themselves to be competitive internationally because they are not gaining real experience by being active in the international environment. It is too late for this generation of bankers to learn what they need to know to be successful in that highly complex, risky and competitive environment.

Garcia Herrero Alicia: Korea is making the same mistake as Japan, namely protecting the incumbents, namely the domestic financial firms  true for banks but also other financial institutions.

Q: Singapore has been Asia's top financial center for a long time. What do you think is the biggest difference between Singapore and Korea from the perspective of foreign investors?

Jones: The biggest differences lie in the acceptance and promotion of foreign financial institutions by the Singapore government, liberal regulations including foreign exchange rules, ability to freely establish pricing by market forces, English usage, acceptance of foreign workers and transparency of the regulatory environment.

Rooney: Korea's regulations are oriented toward managing the domestic market, which often has very little relationship to the competitive dynamics and realities of the international market. Neither the regulators nor the market participants get to learn very much about how to participate in the global market.

Muro Gullen: I think it's more of Singapore and Hong Kong gaining more prominence because of their concerted strategies to become financial centers. Seoul will need to come up with a strategy in an already crowded field. The tax regime in Singapore is very attractive. Also, their strategy to attract the headquarters of multinational firms. And English is the language.

Mark Yeandle: The main difference now is that of reputation and sector development. Singapore is very well established as a financial center while Seoul has grown rapidly in recent years. Financial professionals know the strengths of Singapore better than those of Seoul. As an older center, Singapore is more developed in certain sectors of the financial services industry.

Alicia: Allowing for foreign competition explains Singapore's and Hong Kong's success. In addition to this, the integration of foreign talent into local institutions is much more limited in Korea than in Singapore or Hong Kong. Again, Korea seems to be emulating Japan on this, which has proven not to be the winning option.

Q: The next game changer in the financial industry is fintech, or financial technology. Korea is lagging behind other advanced countries. Do you think Seoul's setback as a financial center is attributable to the fintech factor?

Jones: Despite the tremendous IT infrastructure and technological capabilities, the regulatory environment is not conducive to innovative fintech business models. For instance, Korea still does not have an operating Internet bank. The absence of innovation is certainly one of the factors in the city's declining ranking.

Rooney: Korea's big problem in fintech is that our human talent is only gaining experience in homegrown applications and solutions, which are almost entirely disconnected from the standard practices, languages, operating systems and protocols operating in the rest of the world. So we are creating wonderful human talent but who have absolutely no capacity to write software and provide solutions that can be useful outside of Korea, and whose market audience will therefore forever be limited to 50 million people in Korea rather than the 7 billion people around the world  that is a market-scale difference of more than two orders of magnitude. This makes Korea deeply uncompetitive.

Guillen: Fintech should be an advantage for South Korea given Samsung and the venture scene. Seoul needs to take advantage of its large electronics firms for this.

Yeandle: Fintech is certainly going to be a game changer. However, it is hard to predict how it will affect the competitiveness of financial centers. Seoul performs well in the innovation measures that we track

Q: Do you think Korea's dream to become a major financial center is still feasible? If so, what is the most urgent issue for Korea to tackle to improve its competitive edge as one of Asia's leading financial centers?

Yeandle: Yes. It is certainly feasible. I think there are two things that Seoul needs to do. First, it should continue to internationalize Seoul. Great steps have improved Seoul in the past few years and it is now a more welcoming city for Westerners than it was but there are still improvements to be continued. Secondly, it needs to beef up marketing Seoul as a great place to conduct international financial business. Alarmingly few professionals in the West consider Seoul as a possible location when making location decisions.

Jones: It is possible. It will require cooperation of the financial industry, the regulators, the public, the media and the National Assembly to foster and promote a strong financial sector, innovative business models and a regulatory environment that is responsive to market forces, is transparent and permits financial institutions to be highly profitable.

Rooney: I think that Korea should shift its focus and emphasis to pursuing the implications of "Korea is rapidly becoming the country with too much money," which means that we urgently need to learn and prepare for the safe and successful management of Korea's financial assets outside of Korea, in other people's countries and in investment instruments and products and projects that we are less familiar with than investing here at home.

Guillen: They need to differentiate themselves. Competing against Singapore and Hong Kong will always be difficult. I would emphasize the link to industries in which Korea is a leader, especially electronics.

Rooney: We need to open the doors and attract experienced foreign talent, make it easier for Korean investment into overseas and into advanced products, and realize that managing finance and investment is fundamentally driven by accumulating wisdom and experience over a long period of time, so that the sooner you start, and can learn from your mistakes, the better you will do in the long term.
Bandoneon player Koh Sang-ji / Courtesy of Private Curve, Robin Kim



By Baek Byung-yeul

Koh Sang-ji is one of a few bandoneon players in Korea.

Ever since the 32-year-old lost her heart to the songs of tango great Astor Piazzolla while at university, she has taken an interest in the accordion-like instrument bandoneon and the experience has changed her life forever.

Though she started learning the instrument out of simple curiosity, she soon became skillful at playing it and enjoyed busking in the street along with her university professor who played jazz saxophone.

After leaving university, Koh buckled down to learn the instrument more professionally for three years from prominent Japanese bandoneon player Ryota Komatsu and stayed in Argentina for two years, attending Orquesta Escuela de Tango Emilio Balcarce, a music school specializing in tango.

In 2011, Koh had a shot at unexpected stardom when she appeared on the popular MBC variety show "Infinite Challenge." Koh was in the show's song contest episode accompanying comedian Jung Hyung-don and delivered a reedy bandoneon sound, which was rare in Korea.

Her background story of dropping out of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), one of the most prestigious universities in the country, to become a professional musician was enough to attract public attention as well.

The bandoneon player received acclaim through her first studio album, "Maycgre 1.0," in 2014 and two singles, "Koh Sangji X Voice Experiment 1" and "Road Bike," last year.





Koh Sang-ji plays the bandoneon, an accordion-like instrument. / Courtesy of Private Curve, Robin Kim

Love of animation

However, what has been forgotten about Koh is that she is an avid Japanese animation fan. Although she decided to pursue the way of a professional musician, she said her "undiluted musical roots" come from Japanese animation rather than tango, though many think of her as a tango musician.

"To me, tango is like an ex-lover," Koh said in an interview with The Korea Times at a cafe in Seodaemun, western Seoul, on April 13. "It is a prestigious music genre that induced me to become a professional musician, but I don't think my music is rooted in it."

Explaining how she could learn the bandoneon, Koh said she realized that she cannot love the historical Argentine music more than Argentines as the music is in their blood, not hers.

"At the time when I began playing bandoneon in the early 2000s, there were only a few tango albums in Korea," she recalled. "When I looked for more tango music, I found that Japan has a larger and deeper fan base in the music and finally I could grab an opportunity to learn from Ryota Komatsu. For three years, I regularly visited Japan to have a personal lesson from the Japanese tango master and that really helped me a lot."

But the rise of the Japanese yen-Korean won exchange rate at that time put a lot of pressure on her and that led her to visit Argentina, the home of tango. While staying in the South American country for two years, she played songs from famous tango musicians in the first year and went outside to perform with them in the second year.

"There, I learned that my kind of music was somewhere else. I cannot love tango as much as Argentines do," she said.

"Since my childhood, I really loved not only watching Japanese animation but also listening to their soundtracks. And this is probably the reason why I think my musical soul is deeply rooted in Japanese animation," Koh said, adding her ultimate goal is to produce a soundtrack of an animated feature.

She said all her albums are inspired by Japanese animation -- the title of her first studio album "Maycgre 1.0" is created by combining the first letters of her favorite animation characters such as Asuka, Rei and Mari Makinami Illustrious from "Neon Genesis Evangelion," Griffith from "Berserk" and Envy from "Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood." Her two single albums are inspired by Japanese animations "Hunter x Hunter" and "Yowamushi Pedal."

Koh said she was inspired the most by Japanese composer Shiro Sagisu, best known for his soundtrack to "Neon Genesis Evangelion" and "Nadia: the Secret of Blue Water."

"Shiro Sagisu is my ultimate goal," she said. "I am not saying that I really want to meet with him in person. I am just deeply inspired by his songs and really love his music. I can be only motivated by the soundtracks of Japanese animation ever since I fell in love with Saisu's songs."

Back to the basics

Unlike her previous albums inspired by Japanese animation, her latest album, which is slated to be released next month, will be dedicated to Argentine tango masters Piazzolla and Carlos Gardel.

"My latest release will be a cover album of tango greats Piazzolla and Gardel," Koh said. "To me, tango is a sort of starting point that led me into the world of music and I wanted to express those thoughts in the new album."

She said recording had been wrapped up and all that is left is the mixing.

"When I recorded the songs with my band, I tried to make them funkier than the originals," she said, adding the songs she chose are based on the favorites that got her lost in tango while at university.
Kim Woo-bin, Suzy / Korea Times



By Bahk Eun-ji

Drama "Uncontrollably Fond," featuring hallyu stars Kim Woo-bin and miss A's Suzy, will air simultaneously in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, its production company said Sunday.

It is about a man and a woman who were separated when they were children and later meet as a top star and documentary producer.

Kim plays the actor Shin Jun-young and Suzy is producer Noh Eul.

The drama will air through Youku Tudou, China's biggest video site, and on TV channels in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Production company Samhwa Networks said the drama also has been sold to DramaFever, a video-streaming website owned by Warner Bros.

"Uncontrollably Fond" will air in July on KBS.
Gender Equality and Family Minister Kang Eun-hee, third from left, cuts a cake with other attendees during the Rainbow Youth Center's 10-year anniversary ceremony held at the center in downtown Seoul, Wednesday. From left are Chung Byung-ho, first director of the center; a North Korea defector whose identity was withheld; Kang; Kim Kyo-shik, head

director of the Migrant Youth Foundation, operator of the center; Sabahat Moon Javaid, a Pakistani who gained help from the center; and Kang Sun-hye, current director of the center. / Courtesy of Ministry of Gender Equality and Family



By Kim Bo-eun

Sabahat Moon Javaid, 23, is perhaps one of the more privileged foreign nationals to enter Korea at a young age.

Having arrived in Korea with his mother and siblings when he was eight, the Pakistani national had less trouble than his older counterparts in learning Korean and adjusting to school life here.

However, Javaid recalls his initial struggles.

"There was a boy in elementary school who bullied me because I looked different. Other classmates also asked me why I spoke in English when I was still learning Korean," he told The Korea Times.

Javaid's father came to Korea a year earlier than his family to work at a furniture factory.

The family was able to receive support from a local church, as Javaid's father started serving as a pastor there. He is currently working at a ministry for fellow Pakistanis at a Korean church in Sindorim, southwestern Seoul.

Javaid was also a beneficiary of the Rainbow Youth Center run by the Migrant Youth Foundation, through which he was able to take part in career development opportunities and also apply for and receive a scholarship during high school.

He gained admission to Kyung Hee University, graduating with a major in hotel management. Javaid currently works at a coffee shop in southern Seoul. He is now a mentor for adolescents at a youth center in Jongno, central Seoul.

"My wish is to become a hotelier  it is my dream to work as the general manager of the seven-star Burj Al Arab Hotel in Dubai."

However, circumstances are not so favorable for most of the teenagers who come to the Rainbow Youth Center.

The center, which marks its 10th anniversary this year, has aided some 35,000 adolescents at 23 branches across the country, including North Korean defectors, migrant teens from other countries and multiracial adolescents. Close to 80 percent of them are from China and the remaining 20 percent are mainly from Vietnam, Uzbekistan and the Philippines.

Its role is both to provide direct aid by offering Korean language classes, information and programs, as well as conduct research and put forward proposals for policies on migrant teens. It provides aid to children and young people aged nine to 24.

Most at the center have spent less than a year in Korea, which means their most dire need is to learn Korean in order to transfer into local schools. They receive assistance at the center, but there are cases in which they are unable to attend school due to struggles in learning the language and because their academic abilities fall short of standards.

"In some cases the youngsters are unable to overcome the gap in schooling years which occurs during the transition, and in other cases they have not even received a proper education in their home countries," said Shin Kuk-kyun, advocacy team chief at the Rainbow Youth Center.

"This is because in most cases, they grow up in tough socioeconomic circumstances. Their parents come to Korea for a better income, which however is limited to low-paying jobs that are shunned by local people."

It is rare for these youths to enter university. Even if they become employed, the jobs remain limited to part-time positions, Shin said.

However, the center strives to offer the support they need during this critical period of life.

Data from the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family shows there are 200,000 children of 800,000 multiracial families in Korea. There are also some 30,000 North Korean defectors here. The figures continue to grow, but many in need of help remain isolated.

"The thing is, those who have the greatest needs are unable to actively seek help due to language barriers, so they are more likely to be hidden," Shin said.

"We are working with local authorities as well as Korean Immigration to reach out to youngsters in need of support."
The ruling and opposition parties reached a tentative agreement to approve a bill on lifting regulations on specialized industries in specific areas to boost employment, officials from the country's main parties said Sunday.

The floor leaders of the ruling Saenuri Party and the main opposition Minjoo Party met on Saturday and agreed to pass the bill during the 19th National Assembly's extraordinary session set to run till May 20.

The bill aims to boost employment and expand investment through deregulation and tax benefits.

The floor leaders also called Joo Seung-yong, the floor leader of the splinter People's Party, and obtained consent, according to the officials.

The move came a few weeks after the ruling Saenuri Party suffered a crushing defeat in parliamentary elections in an apparent public backlash against the party's factional infighting.

The ruling party won 122 out of 300 seats, while the Minjoo Party and the People's Party secured 123 and 38 seats, respectively. Seventeen other seats went to independents and members of another minor party.

Later on Sunday, the three parties' floor leaders will announce the agreement for approval of the bill and their joint resolution against the North's launch of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM).

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said North Korea fired a projectile that it believes was an SLBM near the East Sea on Saturday, but it flew for only about 30 kilometers, well short of the minimum SLBM range of 300 km. (Yonhap)
Bae Yong-joon

The Seoul Central District Court said Sunday that it recently ordered two officials of a food manufacturer to pay star actor Bae Yong-joon 30 million won for insulting him by publicly calling him "money-blinded" during a business dispute between the two parties.

The food manufacturer had signed a contract with Bae's food service company in 2009 to export ginseng products labeled with the company's brand, Gosireh. Bae's company promised the manufacturer annual sales of 10 billion won.

The manufacturer promised to pay 5 billion won to Bae's company for expenses including 1.5 billion won for the use of its brand name. It paid 2.3 billion won but was unable to pay the rest by the promised date.

The sales of the products were not carried out as planned, and the parties entered a series of legal disputes. But Bae already had sold off his shares of the company.

On the day of a related trial, employees and shareholders of the manufacturer held a rally with placards and signs which read "money-blinded Bae Yong-joon."

This prompted Bae to file a damages suit against the manufacturer's head and director for the insult.

"The defendants insulted Bae with ill intentions to obtain an advantage in the legal disputes by attracting public attention through Bae's status as a celebrity," the court said.

The 30 million won amount is unusually high in a damages suit involving an insult. The court said the amount was determined based on the fact that Bae is a celebrity who is heavily dependent on public attention and reputation.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un watches the test-firing of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) in this image released by Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North's Workers' Party, Sunday. / Yonhap

By Jun Ji-hye



North Korea is believed to have made progress in acquiring some technologies necessary for the development of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), South Korea's Ministry of National Defense and military experts said Sunday, following the North's latest test-fire one day earlier.



The ministry said that the North would be able to operationally deploy the SLBMs in three or four years, adding that should the Kim Jong-un regime make a concentrated effort on the development, the new weapon may enter service earlier than estimated.



According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the North launched what appeared to be a ballistic missile from a 2,000-ton Sinpo-class submarine in the East Sea at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.



The JCS downplayed the test, saying the missile flew only about 30 kilometers, well short of the minimum SLBM range of 300 kilometers.



However, on Sunday, the North said it successfully launched an SLBM, claiming that the missile was launched from its maximum underwater depth, and that its "cold launch" ejection mechanism and high-performance engine using solid fuel worked without a hitch, along with its flight controls and warhead release systems, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).



A cold launch is a complicated technology involving hurtling a missile out of the water to put it on trajectory for a designated target, necessary for SLBM development.



The ruling Workers' Party's official newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, also released a number of photos, including one showing the missile bursting out of the water.



The ministry said, after its analysis of photos released by the North, that the North is believed to have made progress in acquiring technologies necessary to launch the missile from underwater, but still failed to prove that the projectile's ballistic trajectory can follow a parabolic path.



"The North's SLBM test-fire was a clear provocative action that violated U.N. resolutions. We strongly condemn the action," ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun said.













Foreign ministry spokesman Cho June-hyuck also criticized the North in a rare statement, saying that the repressive state will face harsher sanctions if it continues to take provocative actions.



It was the first time that the foreign ministry spokesman issued a statement regarding the North's SLBM test, apparently indicating that the government is taking the progress of Pyongyang's SLBM technology seriously.



Experts also say the latest test-fire should not be characterized as a failure simply because its range fell short.



Kim Dong-yup, professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES), a research arm of Kyungnam University, said the North test-fired the SLBM in an area adjacent to land, which apparently means the purpose of the test was not to prove its range.



"In my opinion, letting the SLBM fly about 30 kilometers could have been enough to see its engine working well, the missile fixing its angle and flying, and after some period of time, the warhead detaching from the rocket," Kim said. "If the North's claims were all true, the latest test carries great significance."



Jung Young-tae, a professor at Dongyang University and a military commentator, called the test a "half success," saying that the North appeared to succeed in two stages _ launching a "capsule" containing the missile underwater, and then having the capsule open in the air so that the missile can be launched.



"To call the test a complete success, the range needs to be about 300 kilometers," he told reporters.



Other experts also paid attention to photos released by the North showing that the missile soared almost vertically toward the sky this time, while one test-fired in May last year was tilted at about a 74 degree angle to the surface of the sea when it was launched.



They say this showed that there has been improvement in the North's capability of launching the missile from underwater.



The KCNA said North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was present for the SLBM launch and stressed that Pyongyang now has the capability to strike its opponents in South Korea and the United States, with the least warning and at anytime it pleases.



Kim also said that with the SLBM launch, the North now possesses a powerful nuclear arsenal and a credible delivery system, the news agency said.



"He noted with great satisfaction that Juche Korea had access to one more means for a powerful nuclear attack as required by the strategic intention of the Party Central Committee," the KCNA report said.



It added that the leader praised the officials, scientists and technicians in the fields of national defense science and munitions factories for having successfully developed the technology for the underwater missile launch from a submarine.
By Kim Hyo-jin



President Park Geun-hye is scheduled to hold a meeting with the managing editors of major news media outlets, Tuesday, in an effort to reach out to the public, according to presidential officials, Sunday.



It will be the first time in approximately three years since she last made last contact with the nation's opinion leaders in July, 2013.



The rare move is seen as an attempt to gain momentum after the ruling Saenuri Party's stinging defeat in the April 13 general election.



The ruling party failed to hold its previous parliamentary majority of 157 seats and was relegated to becoming the second-largest party with 122 seats after the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea (MPK) with 123 seats.



Park's failure to communicate with the public and her high-handed manner when conducting state affairs with the Assembly are said to be among causes of the humiliating setback.



The scheduled meeting is interpreted as part of her efforts to turn the tables.

Pundits regard public support as critical for her to push ahead with her reform agendas in the labor and business sectors for the remainder of her 20-month term, especially when a period as a lame duck president is fast-approaching after the election defeat.



Park is expected to stress her priorities on economic policies, reiterating her unwavering will to reform the social structure to the participants, according to presidential officials.



"The public made a judgment on Park's poor governance which was characterized by a lack of communication in the election," said Hwang Tae-soon, a senior analyst at Wisdom Center. "Reaction should follow; otherwise, the administration is doomed to suffer a severe lame duck term."



Park was earlier criticized for falling short of making an apology to the public after the ruling party's crushing defeat in the election.



Park instead said "I will humbly accept public opinion and closely work with the upcoming 20th Assembly."




Ambassador of Bangladesh to Korea Zulfiqur Rahman speaks at a luncheon hosted by the Embassy of

Bangladesh at Lotte Hotel Seoul on April 20. / Courtesy of the Embassy of Bangladesh



By Rachel Lee

Korea's fast economic development is a role model for Bangladesh, which aims to become a middle-income country in seven years, the Ambassador of Bangladesh says.

Zulfiqur Rahman, who was appointed to Korea about 11 months ago, praised Korea for its rapid transformation and ethical world culture, all of which his country has tried to learn.

"We in Bangladesh envy the Korean model of development," the ambassador said at a luncheon hosted by the Embassy of Bangladesh at Lotte Hotel Seoul on April 20.

"No wonder a stream of Bangladeshi policymakers, government officials, businesspersons and would-be entrepreneurs visits Korea every year trying to learn from the Korean experience of development."

Rahman said Korea's economic miracle is not the only charm  he has become a big fan of Korean culture, dramas in particular.

"I also love Korea for other things as well: Korean food and Korean TV dramas, for example," he said. "To understand Korean dramas, and also the Korean culture, I am trying to learn the Korean language a little bit. I have thoroughly enjoyed  as much as I could understand  the KBS Korean drama Descendants of the Sun.'"

And just like Korea, Bangladesh boasts a rich, diverse culture, which is relatively unknown here, the ambassador said.

There are more than eight national festivals in Bangladesh, including the Puja-Hindu religious festival and the Pitha Utsab cake event. Every year, the country has book fairs and music and dance performances.

Bangladesh has put greater effort into increasing female participation in its society and has offered free education to girls up to high school for gender parity.

Over the past 20 years, women have become more influential. The country was ranked eighth in political empowerment of women, according to the World Economic Forum's Gender Gap Index 2015.

Bangladesh-Korea relations, established in 1972, have been vibrant in many fields, including business, culture and education.

According to the embassy, Korea is the seventh-largest foreign investor in Bangladesh. About 700 Bangladeshi students are studying at Korean universities.
South African Ambassador to Korea Nozuko Gloria Bam

By Rachel Lee

South Africa wants to encourage more Korean investment that will bring job opportunities and skills development, a South African envoy says.

"We would like to leverage partnerships with Korea in skills development, training and capacity building," South African Ambassador to Korea Nozuko Gloria Bam told The Korea Times.

The ambassador said her country has been learning from Korea's development experience and exploring the adaptation of the Saemaul Undong program's principles.

Saemaul Undong, a government-initiated campaign that changed the country in the 1970s, has been widely considered a role model to solve poverty and development issues around the world.

This year marks the 24th anniversary of bilateral relations between the two nations, which have grown steadily in many fields, including business and education. And two days from today, April 27, the southernmost African nation celebrates Freedom Day, the day the first non-racial democratic elections took place in 1994.

"This celebration is of great significance because it marks the end of over 300 years of colonialism, segregation and white minority rule and the establishment of a new democratic government led by Nelson Mandela and a new state subject to a new constitution," the ambassador said.

Mandela was the first black South African President, in 1994  a symbol of struggle against apartheid and racism and a hero of African liberation. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.

"The holding of the first non-racial elections was the culmination of years of struggle and a negotiated settlement which led to the unbanning of the liberation organisations, the release of political prisoners and the return of exiles and the formal all-party negotiations which drafted an interim constitution."

Under the theme "Together building better communities  local government is everybody's business," a series of activities will take place in the country, including musical festivals and "braais," casual social events where families and friends gather for barbecues.

"One can take a trip to Robben Island, a World Heritage site where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 18 years of his 27 years, before being transferred in 1982 to Pollsmoor prison in Cape Town and then to Victor Verster prison," the ambassador said.

Since 1994, the South African ambassador believes her country has made a successful transition  "fostering a new united, democratic, prosperous South Africa."

"At a political level, we have consolidated our democracy and built strong institutions," she said. "We have representative legislatures, an independent judiciary, independent public audit, an independent Reserve Bank, and independent constitutional bodies to provide checks and balances and protect the rights of citizens.

"Women have equal rights before the law, which did not exist before 1994. There are also increasing numbers of women in the work environment, due to advances in gender equality, which is another achievement of democracy and freedom."

The country strives to achieve further improvements by implementing programs for economic freedom, the ambassador said.

"With our massive industrialization and infrastructure program, we consciously include black people, women, the youth and persons with disability to enable them to participate in the economy," she said.

"We are still faced with a number of challenges, such as crime, poverty, unemployment, racism and sexism, among others. Thus Freedom Day affords South Africans the opportunity to make a pledge towards fighting against the legacy of racism and economic inequality."

In Korea, the South African Embassy hosted a reception at the Millennium Seoul Hilton on Freedom Day.
North Korea is ready to halt nuclear tests if the United States suspends military exercises with South Korea, Pyongyang's Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong was quoted as saying in a rare interview Saturday.



Ri made the remark in an interview with the Associated Press while on a visit to New York for U.N. meetings, renewing the North's long-running claims that the country was compelled to develop nuclear weapons to cope with what it calls U.S. nuclear threats and hostile policy toward Pyongyang.



"Stop the nuclear war exercises in the Korean Peninsula, then we should also cease our nuclear tests," Ri said, according to AP.



The communist nation made the same proposal in the past, but the U.S. has rejected it as an "implicit threat," stressing that the North is banned from nuclear tests under U.N. resolutions and that joint military exercises with South Korea are purely defensive.



The latest offer came amid growing concern that the North could carry out yet another nuclear test soon, just a few months after its fourth nuclear blast in January, in the run-up to next month's Workers' Party Congress.



Pyongyang has long claimed that annual military drills between South Korea and the U.S. are a rehearsal for invading the North, despite repeated assurances from Washington and Seoul that the maneuvers are defensive in nature.



Ri also told AP that "new opportunities" could come for the two countries if the exercises are suspended, but otherwise, the situation will "lead to very catastrophic results, not only for the two countries but for the whole entire world as well."

Ri also said that sanctions against the North won't work.



"If they believe they can actually frustrate us with sanctions, they are totally mistaken," he was quoted as saying.



Ri said that it's good to see Cuba and Iran to have improved relations with the U.S., but such cases are totally different from relations between Washington and Pyongyang. (Yonhap)




North Korea will strive to drive a wedge in the international sanction regime as sweeping punitive measures start to bite, requiring South Korea and its allies to actively counter such strategies, a Pyongyang observer said Sunday.



"The North is likely to implement an 'oblique strategy' that can get China to bolt from carrying out sanctions by fueling Sino-U.S. friction and cause internal discord within South Korea, as well as the Seoul-Washington alliance," said Chung Sung-yoon, deputy director of research at the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU).



In the report on the evaluation and strategic implications of sanctions imposed on North Korea, the research fellow said Pyongyang will also likely encourage closer ties between Beijing and Moscow, while moving to create a rift between South Korea and China, which could cause the former to ease up on sanctions. Such a development will effectively take the sting out of the latest United Nations Security Council resolution.



Resolution 2270 reached on March 2 are the toughest sanctions slapped on the isolationist country to date and come after Pyongyang detonated its fourth nuclear device and launched a long-range ballistic missile earlier in the year.



The latest sanctions resolution calls for a general ban on the import of North Korean coal, iron and iron ore, with some exceptions; prohibits the sale of aviation fuel to the North; and restricts the communist country from conducting banking transactions abroad. All U.N. members are also required to inspect North Korean cargo entering their territory.



"The North will take such steps the more the sanctions start to hurt," he predicted. The North Korean expert claimed that the recent calls for dialogue by the North are aimed at causing internal division within the countries enforcing sanctions.



He said to ensure that sanction cohesion remains strong, and to prevent China and Russia from siding with the North, there is a need to not impede the "strategic interest" of these two critical countries.



The KINU scholar then said that the current sanction, while comprehensive, aims mainly to restrict the inflow of funds to the North leadership.



"There is a need to better exploit North Korea's weaknesses," the scholar said.



The researcher, meanwhile, said that while sanctions are needed, eventually, dialogue is the only way to get the North to give up its nukes.



Chung, however, maintained that for dialogue to start, the North must at least announce a freeze on all future nuclear and missile tests, and accept inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. (Yonhap)




NK says to halt nuclear program if US, South stop drills

By Jun Ji-hye

The South Korean military remains on high alert against a possible North Korean nuclear test, with the Ministry of National Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) performing emergency duties, officials said, Sunday.

The heightened readiness comes amid growing speculation that the North's fifth nuclear test is imminent, as means to marking its upcoming national events.

The North plans to celebrate the 84th anniversary of the Korean People's Army today and hold the seventh Workers' Party Congress early next month.

A government source told reporters that military authorities here are still tracking the movements of personnel and equipment at the North's Punggye-ri nuclear test site, adding that once such equipment and personnel are pulled out of the test facility, it will indicate an impending test.

The isolated state carried out its fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6 at the facility.

On Saturday, Pyongyang's Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong renewed the regime's long-running claims that the North has been developing nuclear weapons to counter what it says are U.S. nuclear threats and hostile policies toward Pyongyang.

In a rare interview with the Associated Press upon his visit to New York for U.N. meetings, Ri said, "Stop the nuclear war exercises in the Korean Peninsula, then we should also cease our nuclear tests."

His remark was a repetition of the North's proposals made in the past, which were rejected by both Washington and Seoul which stressed that the allies' joint military drills are purely defensive, while the repressive state is banned from conducting nuclear tests under a U.N. resolution.

Experts took Ri's remark as an apparent bid to justify any additional nuclear test by his regime.

Ri made an even harsher comment, Thursday, saying that the North will counter American nuclear threats with nuclear weapons, accusing Washington of plotting to launch a nuclear attack on Pyongyang.












By Tong Kim

With the outcome of the National Assembly elections on April 13, which handed a major victory to the opposition parties over the Saenuri Party of President Park Geun-hye, there appears to be a better chance for defusing tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

This is because the administration's hardened North Korea policy, supported by its conservative ruling party, which focused on security imperatives and pressuring the North Korean regime to change or collapse, has not produced its intended result.

Instead, the policy has only intensified inter-Korean confrontation to the point of a serious security concern, after cutting off all channels of communication and closing the Gaeseong Industrial Complex.

North Korea, still defiant of UN sanctions and bilateral sanctions of individual countries, of course is the first to blame for mounting tensions on the peninsula. The North relentlessly continues to test missiles and is now threatening a fifth nuclear test.

Unfortunately, the North Koreans believe that strengthening their nuclear and missile capabilities is the only way to ensure their survival  reminded of Libya's fall after giving up its nuclear program and what happened to Iraq because it did not have nuclear weapons.

The three-pronged U.S. policy centered on deterrence, sanctions and dialogue supported by South Korea and Japan, has not made any progress towards denuclearization or contributed to the reduction of threats. And it will continue to be ineffective as long as dialogue is contingent on the tough condition requiring the North to demonstrate a credible intent for denuclearization by actions that may include a full declaration of its nuclear programs and verification by International Atomic Energy Agency inspections.

President Park's policy to pressure Pyongyang to the point of collapse unless it gives up its nuclear programs sounds like another case of wishful thinking. Pressure from sanctions certainly makes life harder for the elites and particularly for the general populace of North Korea. However, there is no assurance that even reinforced sanctions will lead to a North Korean collapse or force the North Koreans to return to the denuclearization talks.

This allied approach has not worked and will not work during the remainder of the terms of the incumbent administrations in Seoul and Washington. Public statements to North Korea that denuclearization will provide it with more security and opportunities for a better economy are neither convincing nor persuasive to the North Koreans.

The more unlikely it is for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, the more necessary it is to engage the country in dialogue. Only through dialogue is it possible to understand each other better. The North remains interested in dialogue with the United States, although it insists that a peace agreement, not denuclearization, be the agenda for negotiation. In this regard, the Chinese proposal of discussing a peace agreement in parallel with denuclearization talks still appears to be a way forward.

Given the current stage of North Korean nuclear development, it is not hard to think any eventual end state of nuclear negotiations will be a long haul  perhaps taking several years, even if things somehow start and move smoothly. What is urgently needed now is to put a stop to the further development of the North Korean nuclear program and to prevent further proliferation  especially to guard against any transfer of dangerous fissile materials into the hands of terrorists.

The North has exported missiles to some states in the Middle East, and there is no guarantee that it would not try to sell the dangerous nuclear materials to a non-state actor, especially when its economy is strapped for foreign exchange due to international sanctions.

Maintenance of an adequate deterrent is important. However, we should not forget that deterrence or sanctions alone do not prevent localized provocations or contribute to denuclearization. The purpose of deterrence is to ensure peace and stability, which is the most important immediate objective.

War should be avoided by all means possible. The election of progressive-to-neutral opposition candidates to the national parliament, most of whom are in favor of dialogue with the North Koreans, not for appeasement but for the pragmatic purpose of peace and stability on the peninsula, is a sign of encouragement. You can forget about denuclearization or unification for now. Peace is the priority.

With the ascendance of these peace forces in South Korean politics, the Park administration, badly hurt by the election outcome, will be less able to push its hard-line policy against Pyongyang, and it will be possible for the administration to opt for a renewed approach toward improved inter-Korean relations.

However, President Park is a strong-minded leader, notoriously reluctant to admit mistakes, and she may not easily change her policy.

Purely from the perspective of peace and stability, the new political landscape in the South would give some sense of easiness to the North Korean leadership. It may feel less uptight and it may even want to slow down any provocations. It must understand a new missile launch or an additional nuclear test will only make it more difficult for the peace forces, which support inter-Korean dialogue.

In the meantime, the North may decide to wait it out for the end of the Park administration, whose term runs out in less than two years, as it did for the Lee Myung-bak administration, once it had determined that it could not expect much from cooperating with President Lee.

For the South, our North Korea policy is an extension of domestic politics. The parliamentary elections are changing domestic politics, and it will influence Seoul's North Korea policy. What is your take?

Tong Kim is a Washington correspondent and columnist for The Korea Times. He is also a fellow at the Institute of Korean-American Studies. He can be contacted at tong.kim8@yahoo.com.
By Yang Dong-hee

Despite their 12 year-long free education from elementary to high school, Koreans never had a chance to learn about the great inventor, Nikola Tesla.

It was only a couple of years ago that the Serbian-American electrical engineer was known to ordinary Koreans through Tesla Motors, which was set up by Elon Musk, widely known as the CEO of Space X , and whom Hollywood star Robert Downey Jr. modeled his portrayal of Tony Stark after in Iron Man.

Tesla Motors received some 325,000 sales reservations worldwide in one week after it unveiled its Model 3 electric vehicle (EV) last month for US$35,000 (40 million won). It was the biggest preorder of any product ever.

Watching the unveiling ceremony which was done entirely by Musk on the internet, I felt like I was already in the middle of the EV era. Musk stressed "sustainable energy" and "sustainable transportation" for the human race in a relaxed and confident manner.

With only one week of orders, Tesla Motors has already exceeded Nissan Reef's five-year sales total of 200,000 cars. The ardent consumer response to the Model 3, though the EVs are scheduled to be delivered from the end of next year, is likely to be continued through the coming years, thanks to its affordable price and chief charging cost (700,000 won a year) and eight-year warranty for the batteries and motor.

The EV lacks a traditional panel and simply has a huge landscape display on the center of the dashboard and it can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in less than six seconds and travel 215 miles (350km) on a single "supercharge." The futuristic design drew my eye first. "It delivers what to my eye is the most agreeable, most romantic shape in the small-car class," according to a Wall Street Journal reporter.

A friend of mine, who had waited for the cheaper version of the Model S (USD 70,000) or the Model X (USD80,000), reserved the Model 3 online and received a confirmation email right away. It said:

"Thank you for reserving your Model 3. With your reservation, you are part of an exciting moment in history." Tesla Motors was selling the opportunity to become a part of history.

Elon Musk's continuing success through Zip2 Corporation, Paypal, Space X, and Solar City seems to be in full bloom in Tesla Motors.

Inventor Nikola Tesla contributed to the development of the alternating-current (AC) electrical system that is widely used today and he discovered the rotating magnetic field, which is the basis of most AC machinery. His significant inventions also include the induction motor, Tesla coil, and remote controlled vehicle and torpedo. His early experiments involved radiant energy of "invisible" kinds, later identified as "X-rays.'

Tesla was born in 1856 in what is now Croatia. Tesla's interest in electrical invention was spurred by his mother who invented small household appliances in her spare time while raising her son. Tesla's father was a priest and writer, and he pushed his son to join the priesthood. But Nikola's interests lay squarely in the sciences.

After studying at the Polytechnic Institute in Austria, and the University of Prague during the 1870s, Tesla moved to Budapest to work at the Central Telephone Exchange. It was while in Budapest that the idea for the induction motor first came to Tesla.

He came to the United States in 1884 with little more than the clothes on his back and a letter of introduction to famed inventor and business mogul Thomas Edison, whose DC-based electrical works were fast becoming the standard in America.

Tesla was offered the task of completely redesigning the Edison Company's direct current generators. In 1885, he said he could redesign Edison's insufficient motor and generators, making an improvement in both service and economy.

According to Tesla, Edison remarked, "There's US$50,000 in it for you _ if you can do it." This has been noted as an odd statement from Edison whose company was stingy with pay and who did not have that sort of cash on hand. After months of work, Tesla fulfilled the task and inquired about the payment. Edison, saying that he was only joking, replied, "Tesla, you don't understand our American humor." Instead, Edison offered a US$10 a week raise over Tesla's US$18 per week salary. Tesla refused the offer and immediately resigned.

After leaving Edison's company, Tesla partnered with other businessmen and started his own company. Tesla later won the so-called "War of Currents" by pursuing AC development, and by 1892, Edison was no longer in control of his own company, which was consolidated into the conglomerate General Electric.

Several books and films highlighted Tesla's life and famous works, including "Nikola Tesla, The Genius Who Lit the World" produced by the Tesla Memorial Society and the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Serbia, and the movie "The Secret of Nikola Tesla," which stars Orson Welles. And in the 2006 Christopher Nolan film "The Prestige," Tesla was portrayed by rock star David Bowie.

On Nov. 6, 1915, a Reuters news agency report from London stated that the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics were awarded to Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, however, on Nov. 15, a Reuters story from Stockholm stated the prize that year was being awarded to Sir William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg. There have been subsequent claims by Tesla biographers that Edison and Tesla were the original recipients and that neither was given the award because of their animosity toward each other.

They might have both sought to minimize the other's achievements, both refusing to accept the award if the other received it first, with both rejecting any possibility of sharing it. In the years after these rumors, neither Tesla nor Edison won the prize.

The writer worked as a reporter for The Korea Times and the Hankook Ilbo-New York, as a stringer correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. He was the first managing director in Korea of the U.S.-based International Management Group (IMG).
The U.S. Defense Department confirmed North Korea's launch of a submarine missile Saturday, saying the firing did not pose a threat to North America.



"The U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) systems detected and tracked what we assess was a North Korean submarine missile launch" at 4:29 a.m. CDT, the Pentagon said in a statement. "According to North American Aerospace Defense Command, the missile launched from North Korea did not pose a threat to North America.



"The men and women of USSTRATCOM, NORAD, and U.S. Northern Command and U.S. Pacific Command remain vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations and are fully committed to working closely with our Republic of Korea and Japanese allies to maintain security," it said.



Earlier, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the North fired what was believed to be a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) around 6:30 p.m. (Korean time) in the East Sea, but it flew for only about 30 kilometers, well short of the minimum SLBM range of 300 km.



U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby declined comment on whether the launch was successful but stressed that any "launches using ballistic missile technology are a clear violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions."



"We closely monitor North Korean activities and the situation on the Korean Peninsula, especially North Korean military activities," he told Yonhap News Agency. "We call on North Korea to refrain from actions that further destabilize the region and focus instead on taking concrete steps toward fulfilling its commitments and international obligations."



Kirby also said that the U.S. remains steadfast in its commitments to the defense of allies and will continue to coordinate closely with the ROK, Japan, and other allies and partners. (Yonhap)




The SLFP does not condone the continuation of the Emergency Regulations (The Public Security Ordinance) more than a day necessary

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KPCC photo of Steve Julian in 2001.

KPCC posted a little while ago that Steve Julian has died. Julian went public last fall with his diagnosis of advanced stage brain cancer. Since then, he and his wife, Felicia Friesema, have keep friends and fans in the loop with regular posts about the progression of the disease and their attempts to cope with his nearing death. Julian had been off the air since November.

Julian, the morning news host at KPCC since 2000, was the best friend of longtime KPCC host Larry Mantle.

"He was a singular talent," Mantle said in a story today at KPCC's website. "He is completely irreplaceable. The tone and richness of his voice perfectly conveyed the man behind it."

In January, KPCC named the studio where he broadcast "Morning Edition" the Steve Julian Studio.

From KPCC's web story by Ben Bergman:

Julian was born in Pomona in 1958 and spent the majority of his life in Southern California.

He came across as someone who was knowledgeable, friendly and accessible, and thats the kind of sound we wanted  one that was not lecturing to you but was riding along with you in the car to work, said Bill Davis, president of Southern California Public Radio/KPCC. A chance meeting launches a career in news Julian's news career began when he met Mantle while working at KPRO, a Riverside radio station, in the early 1980s. KPRO was in the process of switching its format from big band music to all-news and talk. The boss overheard Julian, who worked in production, talking to Mantle, who was the assistant news director, as they discussed the day's events in the newsroom. "The news director said that we had such great chemistry that we should co-anchor the afternoon drive time," Mantle recalled.



Before he would join KPCC in 2000, Julian spent time as a Baldwin Park police officer. He also was a playwight, director and actor on the stage around Los Angeles. He directed "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Death of Salesman" at the Covina Center for the Performing Arts and new plays at the Coeurage Theatre Company.

Julian is survived by Friesema and his mother. KPCC posted that Friesema told the station, " Donations can be made to Coeurage Theatre Company where Steve served as a board member or Ensemble Studio Theater Los Angeles where Steve was an active member. And of course, donations can be made to KPCC, because he believed so strongly in his employer that he was also a longtime contributing member."

*Monday update: Statement from Mayor Eric Garcetti:

"Steve Julian has been a beloved staple of Los Angeles radio for the last 16 years. He rode with us to work and kept us in the know. Smart, consistent, talented, and deeply caring of his listeners, Steve was a committed journalist of the highest order. Los Angeles will miss him dearly."
The gig: Steve Fifield, 68, is co-founder and principal of Century West Partners, a Los Angeles developer that has nearly 1,500 luxury apartment units under construction across the region. Century West is particular active in Koreatown, a neighborhood awash in new apartments, restaurants and bars. Before starting the firm in 2010, the Indiana native was well known in Chicago, where under the Fifield name he built high-rise office towers. To date, Fifields companies have constructed more than 6 million square feet of offices and more than 7,000 residences nationwide.

Ground floor: Fifield grew up in Gary, Ind., where his father and grandfather built houses. To help out, he manned heavy equipment and dug foundations by hand. Working with his dad gave Fifield a sense of how to shepherd a development from start to finish. But he wasnt a fan of manual labor. It really makes you serious about going to college, he said. I wanted to do something where I could use my brain not my hands.

Tough equation: Instead of home building, Fifield wanted to make math his lifes work. The first step in becoming a professor was Indiana University Bloomington, where he took graduate-level math classes while earning bachelors degrees in mathematics and economics. Although he excelled in math previously, he struggled in higher-level courses. So instead, he went to business school  putting him on a path that would lead back to real estate.

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Getting started: While getting his MBA in the early 1970s at the University of Chicago, Fifield said his math skills convinced his professor to introduce him to Philip Klutznick, a Chicago shopping center developer who would later serve as commerce secretary in the Carter administration. While still in school, he worked part time as an analyst for Klutznick and afterward got a full-time job at Klutznicks Urban Investment & Development Co. He soon went off on his own, with the goal of putting together real estate deals to make a fortune.

First profit: Fifield says a $50,000 loan from his father helped him acquire his first property: a roughly 50-unit apartment building in Chicago. He thought the investment might go sour, but then got lucky. A boom in condo conversions had begun, and some investors offered him a hefty price so they could turn the units into for-sale residences. We sold the building and my dad made a nice profit and we went from there, he says. Thats what I have been doing in most respects ever since.

Riding high: By the late 1980s, Fifield had built a Chicago real estate empire, predominantly of high-rise office buildings as white-collar job growth exploded. It was a heady time, he says. He recalls flying commercially to Italy to pick out granite slabs from quarries and zipping around the country on his private jet. It was sort of a status thing, he says of the jet. Indeed, he remembers a common question among successful developers was: What sort of jet do you have?

Money flies: Helping drive the excess, he says, were the big banks  which in a frenzy over an office boom  were willing to lend his company all the money it needed. We had banks coming to us saying, Whatever you are working on we will give you ... 100% financing, he says. People were throwing money at us, and we kind of went crazy. And so Fifield built. But he was over-leveraged and soon it all came crashing down.

Losing it all: The early 1990s recession decimated Fifield Cos. When the market tanked, Fifield says, he owed money to 17 banks and had millions of square feet of offices that just opened or were under construction. We were building four or five buildings at a time, and all of a sudden the demand was only for two or three. To survive, he sold office towers and vacation homes, while working out deals with his lenders. It was horrible, because I was working to put myself out of business, noting he sold his companys management and brokerage arms to get cash. At the end it wasnt enough. I had a net worth of negative $3 million. I owed more money than I had.

Rebuilding: After taking some time off, Fifield took a second shot at real estate investment. In 1994  with the office market still struggling  he persuaded investors to partner with him and buy the Civic Opera Building, a half-empty office tower that also housed the Lyric Opera of Chicago. For his share, he said he borrowed $1 million from his childrens trust fund. The deal worked. Fifield said he pushed the buildings occupancy to 97% and in 1997 sold it at a handsome profit. In 2006, Fifield opened his first project in Los Angeles  a 23-story luxury condo tower on Wilshire Boulevard dubbed the Californian. In 2010, he co-founded Century West Partners with L.A. investor Michael Sorochinsky.

Debt lesson: Dont get over-leveraged. Today, Fifield says he is careful to put more of his money into deals  a strategy that he says helped him weather last decades financial collapse. We had big partners and so when the going got rough it was just we didnt make money on this deal, but we didnt go broke.

Integrity lesson: When the early 1990s downturn hit, Fifield says, he worked to finish projects under construction to minimize losses for his lenders. The strategy, he says, helped him during his comeback. I was trying to win the battle for the banks so I could come back to them another day, he says.

andrew.khouri@latimes.com

Twitter: @khouriandrew

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Since topping more than $100 a barrel two years ago, the price of oil has been down  and just about out, costing both big and small investors billions across the globe.

But there are flickering signs that maybe the worst is over for King Crude as the price for the two dominant oil benchmarks  Brent and West Texas intermediate  have each climbed above $40 a barrel after dipping below $30 two months ago.

On Friday, Brent crude rose 58 cents, or 1.3%, to $45.11 a barrel, while the benchmark U.S. crude rose 55 cents, or 1.3%, to $43.73.

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Is it time to get back into oil and gas stocks? Or is it still too treacherous?

I do believe that this is probably a pretty good time to step in for any well-diversified portfolio, said Richard Ina, managing director-wealth management with UBS Financial Services in San Diego. His group sees Brent trading at $55 a barrel within a year.

Robert Rapier, chief energy analyst for Investing Daily, said the outlook is better over the long haul than it is short-term.

A lot of these companies have cut costs so much that they can make the kinds of returns at $70, $80 [a barrel] that they were making at $100, Rapier told the San Diego Union-Tribune. And a lot of the marginal producers have been squeezed out. Its not going to take $100 oil to generate the kind of cash they were generating before.

Last weekend, oil ministers from Russia and OPEC nations met in Doha, Qatar, amid rumors they would freeze production levels in an effort to boost oils international price. But the meeting fell apart and no freeze materialized.

Investors braced for the stock market to take a dive when it opened Monday, but that didnt happen.

Why not? Because while the Doha meeting didnt produce an agreement to curb rising supplies, some other events did, such as an oil workers strike in Kuwait, pipeline problems in Nigeria and Kurdistan, and continued political unrest in Libya that has reduced production in that country by 1 million barrels a day.

Plus battered U.S. producers have curtailed production and rig counts are at their lowest levels since the 1940s.

For a long-term investor, I think its a perfect time to invest because I think the market sentiment is now shifting, Rapier said.

In a recent note, Simmons and Co., one of the largest investment banks specializing in the energy industry, said, The asymmetry for oil prices is higher rather than lower over the next two years.

But the oil market has always been unpredictable and vulnerable to geopolitical factors that can alter the market virtually overnight. And there are other indications that oil prices could sink again.

Because of last years nuclear agreement with the Obama administration and other countries, Iran is producing more oil for the global market. Iran is expected to increase production by as much as 1 million barrels a day, putting further downward pressure on prices.

Saudi Arabia, the dominant member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, is said to have the ability to quickly ramp up production should it want to counter the ambitions of Iran, its chief rival in the region. That could make things tenuous for short-term investors.

Watch global inventories  they are still very high, Rapier said. Thats the downside risk.

Ina advised investors to look into companies with strong balance sheets that are not as sensitive to short-term swings.

Theyre the ones that can weather these storms when every five or seven years oil decides to get volatile again.

Energy companies with strong dividend histories help too.

With many of these oil companies paying anywhere from 3.25% to as high as 4.5% in dividends on an annual basis, its a great way to integrate that into an overall portfolio, especially for individuals who are looking to live off of some of that income, Ina said.

Rob.nikolewski@sduniontribune.com

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Question: Last holiday season our board voted to hand out money to vendors, employees, management and anyone else they felt deserved a tip or bonus. Several owners in attendance at that board meeting objected, stating association funds should not be given away in this manner. The associations accountant told the board that gifts and bonuses of association funds violate IRS Revenue Code 70-604. The board said they consulted with the associations attorney, who assured the board that such tips and bonuses were fine because courts give deference to board decisions.

Many owners here have lost their jobs and others do not make enough money to pay their bills, let alone their monthly assessments. There have been bank foreclosures and the board has foreclosed on owners who couldnt pay their association dues. Rather than give owners money away, shouldnt it go back to titleholders who paid it? Is the associations attorney right? Is it true that the board alone can make decisions to hand out bonuses of association funds to third parties?

Answer: While this question arises from a holiday season circumstance, it is an issue that has year-round implications for any bonus or tip giving. The association attorney is correct that courts tend to give deference to board decisions, but the same is not true of the IRS and adherence to the tax code. The simple irrefutable rule is: Follow the money. From where did the tips and bonus money originate? Paying monthly homeowner association payments is not a donative act; it is mandated by law, the failure of which results in foreclosure of ones property. Titleholders pay that money to fund association operations.

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The boards so-called deference also is a qualified action predicated on using sound business judgment in matters directly related to the common interest development that it has been elected to oversee. Deference does not mean that a boards actions are beyond reproach.

Unfortunately, some association attorneys rely on Finley vs. Superior Court, a 2000 case decided by the California Court of Appeal, and its progeny as blanket approval for all board decisions without titleholder vote. In Finley, the homeowner association used more than half a million dollars of homeowner-paid assessments to make contributions to a political action committee to support a local Orange County ballot measure. The association argued that the board was protected by the business judgment rule, California Corporations Code section 309. The titleholders unsuccessfully challenged those contributions as being beyond the legal authority of the board, illegal and in violation of their constitutional rights.

But there have been cases that have since limited how much deference can be given to board decisions.

In 2009, in Patrick vs. Alacer, the Court of Appeal sided with a shareholder who had made repeated demands for an investigation into allegations that directors had looted money, taken bloated salaries and participated in other misconduct. The boards special litigation committee decided to invoke its deference in not pursuing an action, claiming its decision was protected by the business judgment rule. Justices didnt agree and made it clear that directors must be disinterested and should have conducted an adequate investigation.

Then, in 2010, in Dover Village Assn. vs. Patrick Jennison, an association brought action against a unit owner, alleging that the owner was responsible for the costs of repairing a leaking sewer pipe underneath his unit. The association again cited deference to its decision to hold the unit owner responsible. But the Court of Appeal said there is no provision in the [law] that makes the Association or its board the ultimate judge of legal issues affecting the development. The deference test failed.

Generally, the business judgment rule can be rebutted by a factual showing of fraud, bad faith or gross overreaching. Given the dire consequences attached to the mandate for titleholders to pay assessments, homeowner association boards are not in a position to give any money away as tips and bonuses.

The Internal Revenue Service has addressed how to handle excess titleholder-generated assessments.

Revenue Ruling 70-604 and Private Letter Ruling 61.00-00 allows a board, after receiving approval by its titleholders through a vote, to defer income to the next year when its taxable income may be lower. The alternative to deferring income is to return excess income to the titleholders who paid it. But a board cannot give bonuses using mandated assessments for the purpose of absorbing what would have otherwise qualified as excess assessments.

The IRS and most tax professionals believe that the decision should be made by a vote of all titleholders, not just the board. If conditions during the next tax year are unfavorable, the association will end up having to pay taxes on income for both years.

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
The Russo brothers might be nerd royalty now  having directed 2014s Captain America: The Winter Soldier and this summers sequel, Civil War, before being entrusted with Marvels crown jewel, The Avengers  but when they shot the pilot for the cult TV series Arrested Development, their dailies terrified a Fox executive.

They called us up after seeing the first day of dailies, we were on set on Day 2, and they said, This is a disaster! Anthony Russo recalls of his early work on the 2003 comedy series created by Ron Howard and Mitch Hurwitz.

To be fair, we were running four or five cameras at a time, brother and directing partner Joe Russo interjects. We knew we were going to grab two seconds here, three seconds there.

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Tasked with reinventing the sitcom, the pair of self-described guerrilla filmmakers took to the streets, jumping out of vans with fully wired actors and hand-held cameras, filming permits be damned.

It was revolutionary at the time, Anthony continues. We were shooting in digital video, which nobody understood. The irony of it is that we ended up getting an Emmy for directing on the episode where they were like, You guys cant direct!

The irony of it is that we ended up getting an Emmy for directing on the episode where they were like, You guys cant direct!  Anthony Russo, director

The Arrested Development pilot would serve as a calling card for the duo, landing them a gig shooting Community, another indie-darling TV comedy.

Thats about when Marvel came calling.

We just got a call one day from our agent, who said, Marvel has a list of 10 directors that they want to talk to about the next Captain America movie, and you guys are on it, Anthony says.

We had recently done these paintball episodes for Community, Kevin [Feige, president of Marvel Studios] loved them, Joe adds. He also looks for people who understand humor. Its a combination. We were in the tonal zone for him with guys who have done a lot of comedy, and then all of a sudden he saw this paintball episode and went, They also understand the action genre, maybe we should talk to them?

Those conversations led to the well-received Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which put the brothers in line not only to direct its sequel, Captain America: Civil War (set to premiere May 6), but the two-part film The Avengers: Infinity War, coming out in 2018.

Joe (black jacket) and Anthony Russo, directors of Marvels Captain America: Civil War, in the Los Angeles Times studio on April 12, 2016. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

So what does it take to land a coveted spot on the Marvel movie roster? How did Joe and Anthony Russo persuade Marvel studios to give them, not just one, but four movies?

Really it comes down to people having done something interesting, Feige says over the phone. Regardless of scale, regardless of scope. [Jon Favreaus] Elf is an incredibly well-made movie. Joss Whedons TV projects and even his first feature Serenity are unbelievably clever, unquestionably character-focused and spectacular. James Gunn with Super and Slither'. And thats certainly the case with Joe and Anthony.

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Raised in Cleveland, Joe and Anthony, born a year apart, started as scrappy festival filmmakers. Financing their first movie, Pieces, on credit cards, they ran through the festival circuit and caught the eye of director Steven Soderbergh.

The two would form a mentor-type relationship with Soderbergh and eventually hand over three scripts to his production company: a hard-core gangster flick, an action thriller and the comedy Welcome to Collinwood. Soderberghs team picked the comedy. It was the easiest to get financed, Joe says. That decision would send the Russos down an unforeseen comedy path  Collinwood led to the FX series Lucky, about a degenerate gambler, which led to Arrested Development, which in turn led them to NBCs Community.

The truth is, I wanted [Ken] Kwapis [the director of the American Office pilot] and he wasnt available, Community creator Dan Harmon said. The reason I dont mind saying it is because it doesnt matter how you meet people. It turns out that the Russo brothers were the right choice, they just happened to be my second choice. They came in and they were amazing When I look back on the decisions that they made from square one and how much they have to do with what made Community great, Im awestruck and retroactively so grateful.

Even though the brothers unintentionally followed the cult comedy path, working on unconventional material helped teach them to subvert genre  beneficial for anyone entering the heavily saturated superhero market. Its like we were made in a Marvel machine, Joe says. The reason the [Marvel movies] work is because youre hybriding genre thats all Community is; were hybriding genre. Were making fun of genre, were deconstructing genre.

Splicing together the political thriller with Captain America certainly worked for Winter Soldier, injecting the franchise with a serious tone for hero Steve Rogers, taking him from hero to insurgent, while maintaining the comic book lightness the fans have familiarized themselves with. But now they have an even greater challenge. After 12 films, three TV series spinoffs, and with a roster of more than a dozen superheroes story lines to direct, Civil War could be one of the most complicated films to pull off. Not only will it be introducing Sonys new Spider-Man and the long-awaited Black Panther character, but Civil War will launch Marvels phase three initiative by pitting Captain America against Iron Man.

The Russos are well aware the publics tolerance for superhero fare is one bad movie away  in fact, that was baked into their first pitch to Feige. You have to switch it up as you move forward, because if you keep giving them the same thing, theyre going to tell you that they love it, and then one day youre going to put a movie out and its going to bomb, Joe says.

And how do they plan to shake up the Marvel status quo? By deconstructing the whole cinematic universe.

Were going to have to do something unexpected, says Joe. Were going to have to play with the audiences expectations. Were going to have to be radical with the tone, which is why its so diverse in tone. When we sat down to start crafting story, we went, Its going to be a very heavy movie, because we wanted to take Cap on a journey through all three films, and its a radical journey it moves him the farthest away from where he started, to go from a patriot to an insurgent.

We knew we were taking a big risk by taking these very popular characters, and putting them in a very emotionally wrought, horrific it goes full-on horror, Joe warns.

That doesnt mean Civil War is devoid of the levity and wit the audience has grown to love. This is a hybrid of light and dark, psychological horror and an epic superhero showdown. But if everyone is at war, you need to have someone to crack jokes. We were so lucky [Ant-Man] happened while we were working on the film, Joe says. We were able to bring in an actor like Paul Rudd into the movie and a character like Spider-Man so we could have a period of the movie where it did become a lot of fun, so that it wasnt just a dour experience thats typically not even commercially viable.

While the audience is siding with Team Iron Man or Team Cap across the globe for Civil War the brothers are already working on crossing the next and more challenging hurdle for Marvel, the two-part Avengers: Infinity War.

But for right now theyre on the Marvel global press circuit promoting what could easily be Marvels next blockbuster. The thing I always laugh about is we tried for years to make successful television, Anthony says. And at the end of the day we never had a show run as long as our run at Marvel.

meredith.woerner@latimes.com

MORE SUMMER MOVIES:

Our complete summer movie guide >

Every single movie coming out this summer >

5 horror movies to spike your adrenaline >

Fan favorites like Ghostbusters, Star Trek and Tarzan crash the superhero party >
Son of Saul

Sony, $30.99; Blu-ray, $34.99

Available on VOD on Tuesday

Given the Oscars historical preference for Holocaust dramas, it wasnt exactly an upset when Laszlo Nemes Auschwitz-set film won the foreign language prize this year. Still, this is a different kind of movie about a concentration camp. Its a nail-biting suspense picture, following a Hungarian Jew who takes advantage of his position of responsibility within the prison to complete a risky, highly personal mission. Geza Rohrig plays Saul, who believes hes found the body of his child and arranges with his fellow prisoners to give the boy a proper ritual burial. Nemes holds tight on his hero throughout, ratcheting up the tension, while never letting the audience forget that this is merely a symbolic gesture. The result is a movie thats tense, mournful and ultimately devastating. The DVD and Blu-ray come with a commentary track and an extensive interview.

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Phoenix

Criterion, $29.95; Blu-ray $39.95

A truly original re-imagining of the Alfred Hitchcock Vertigo plot, the melancholy German drama stars Nina Hoss as a concentration camp survivor with a reconstructed face who comes back to Berlin and gets involved in an insurance scam run by her ex-husband  who doesnt recognize her and asks her to pose as herself. Ronald Zehrfeld plays the ex, who takes the woman he betrayed to the Nazis and fusses with her look and demeanor, trying to remake her into the woman he always imagined her to be. Writer-director Christian Petzold savors the ironies of the story and builds in a few anxious sequences  including the powerhouse ending. But mostly he explores how a woman tries to come to grips with her hard past by reenacting it. The Criterion DVD and Blu-ray editions add an interview and a behind-the-scenes documentary.

The Kennedy films of Robert Drew & Associates

Criterion, $29.95; Blu-ray, $39.95

Journalist Robert Drew helped invent a new kind of filmmaking with his 1960 short Primary, which takes a rare, intimate look inside the presidential campaigns of John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey. This direct cinema approach would inspire other young artists  including Drews assistants Albert Maysles and D.A. Pennebaker  and become an immediate influence on American fiction and nonfiction movies alike. After Primary, Drew went on to document the Kennedy administration in Adventures on the New Frontier (about JFKs inauguration and early days in office), Crisis (a glimpse inside the White House during the integration of the University of Alabama), and Faces of November (a poetic look at the nations reactions to the presidents assassination). These arent just historically important films, theyre also absolutely riveting. The Criterion DVD and Blu-ray sets include interviews, outtakes, bonus documentaries and alternate cuts.

River of Grass

Oscilloscope, $34.99; Blu-ray, $39.99

American independent filmmaker Kelly Reichardt made her feature debut with this modest-but-powerful story of a depressed Florida housewife who desperately needs to leave town but doesnt have the funds. After wowing crowds at Sundance in 1995, the film largely fell out of circulation and into disrepair before Oscilloscope crowd-sourced the funds for a digital restoration, which makes it look more luminous than ever  like a sun-dappled portrait of everyday angst. Now, the company is putting this landmark picture on DVD and Blu-ray, in handsome editions that add a commentary track by Reichardt and her producer-star Larry Fessenden.

And

Dirty Grandpa

Lionsgate, $29.95; Blu-ray, $39.99

Jane Got a Gun

Starz/Anchor Bay, $29.98; Blu-ray, $34.99

Available on VOD on Tuesday

Krampus

Universal, $29.98; Blu-ray, $34.98

Available on VOD on Tuesday

Ride Along 2

Universal, $29.98; Blu-ray, $34.98

Available on VOD on Tuesday

calendar@latimes.com
On movie screens in recent years, director Todd Phillips has had Will Ferrell starting a fraternity, offered up Huggy Bear as a key crime-solving tool and relied on Zach Galifianakis to track down missing persons (twice).

The profiteering nature of modern warfare has  thus far  not been a central concern.

Yet in one of the summers most unexpected filmmaker-story pairings, Phillips arrives with War Dogs, a category-defying look at the 2000s-era underworld of U.S. gun-running. To say that the fact-based movie marks a shift for Phillips  the raunch-auteur who for much of the last decade has been working on the Hangover franchise  is like saying the wolf packs Alan Garner may have a few maturity issues.

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Our complete summer movie guide >

To viewers, the movie offers a surprise shift to drama after the exploits and goofiness of Phillips previous work. To the director, the project offers its own startling turn, not least because hes in a cinematic world of no recognizable title or category for the first time in a long while.

Its hard to go back, Phillips said, to making a movie that no one is waiting for.

Certainly few will be expecting hard-hitting issues from the helmer when Warner Bros. opens War Dogs on Aug. 19. Set in the heat of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, the film stars Jonah Hill as Efraim Diveroli, a freewheeling street kid who claws his way into the high-stakes arms-dealing game (eye-catchingly reprising his money-seeking wheeler-dealer from The Wolf of Wall Street if in somewhat different form). With his more strait-laced and reluctant childhood pal David Packouz (Miles Teller), Diveroli combs for military contracts too small for most major players to chase  the crumbs, as he calls them. (Crumbs to the weapons giants make for a plenty large cake for two inexperienced Jewish kids from Miami.)

After setting up shop in their hometown, the pair are soon embarking on tense global adventures to the chagrin of Packouzs fiancee (the Cuban Spanish actress Ana de Armas). War Dogs has the Keystone pair in dramatic scenarios  dodging machine-gun fire in Fallujah and maneuvering for a major government weapons contract by way of Albania.

Though the idea of young men in over their heads overseas will conjure certain Hangover"-ish moments (and Phillips ability to get a movie like this made at WB may owe something to that prior $1.4-billion global franchise), the tones couldnt be more different. War Dogs offers the occasional comedic beat (provided largely by Diverolis gaudy swagger). But the film mainly is interested in raising the stakes for the sympathetic if hardly blameless young men  and, more important, in indicting 21st century U.S. war as primarily a capitalist enterprise.

I think with movies like The Big Short theres a lot of interest in showing the system is rigged, Phillips, 45, said. People nowadays are coming to that realization, and a lot of movies help in that.

As with The Big Short, a film that showed its heroes profiting from the 2008 economic crash, audiences may find themselves conflicted. Watching Diveroli and Packouz try to scrap their way to the good life is likely to instill quiet cheering  then just as quickly force viewers to question their own allegiances. War Dogs walks the line between glorifying a shady life and offering a cautionary tale about it.

The nature of movies with great characters is to make us ask, Why am I rooting for them? I was rooting for Al Pacino in Scarface even though hes the worst guy in the world, Phillips added of the movie thats referenced in War Dogs.

The nature of movies with great characters is to make us ask, Why am I rooting for them? I was rooting for Al Pacino in Scarface even though hes the worst guy in the world.  Todd Phillips

Phillips, who was able to meet with the real-life Packouz but not Diveroli, seeks to bring his own sense of style to the proceedings. He directs the film with a glossy look that maximizes Miamis palm-tree vistas and a soundtrack composed heavily of arty covers.

A Hollywood trope has it that every comedian wants to make dramas and every serious personality wishes to be funny. Phillips, who wrote the War Dogs script with Jason Smilovic and Stephen Chin off a Guy Lawson Rolling Stone story about the real-life gun-runners, downplays an explicit interest in putting the three Hangover movies behind him (he also directed the similarly spirited road comedy Due Date in 2010). He says that he simply saw in the magazine article a compelling story of young men facing challenges.

But he acknowledges that the adjustment wasnt always easy.

People say comedy can be the hardest thing to do. But sometimes in comedy you can use a crutch  like, you dont know how to get out of a scene so you just have someone do something ridiculous, he said. You dont have the ability in a film like this, and that has wakened me. (Whether he wants to stay awakened for other dramas down the road is an open question; he says he hasnt decided on his next film.)

In any event, maybe an indictment of a free-market run amok isnt so far removed from the themes of Phillips earlier movies. As people look hungrily for their slice of the good life, they continue to enjoy the party-happy times, keeping them going like they will last forever. Until, one day, a nation wakes up with a nasty hangover.

MORE SUMMER MOVIES:

Our complete summer movie guide >

Every single movie coming out this summer >

5 horror movies to spike your adrenaline >

Fan favorites like Ghostbusters, Star Trek and Tarzan crash the superhero party >

Ryan Gosling, Meryl Streep, and Swiss Army Man lead the counterprogramming charge >
For as much as the heart of Outlander is tied up in the love story of Claire and Jamie Fraser, its likely that the soul of the show exists wholly in Murtagh Fraser, played by an ever-winning Duncan Lacroix.

Its a tricky thing to bring in a third to a relationship and have it play as something more than a character who is merely along for the ride, but when done well, giving a couple a true companion underlines why tricycles are so much more balanced than bicycles.

Imagine a version of Outlander where Jamie and Claire journey to France on their own, with only each other to depend on as they endeavor to change the future through subterfuge and manipulation. As appealing as this may seem on the surface (because who doesnt love a good, old-fashioned Jamie and Claire take on the world alone plot?) this weeks episode, Useful Occupations and Deceptions proves that such a plot would likely be isolating and irritating without Murtagh there to mitigate damages.

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The reason for this is relatively straightforward. While its important for Jamie and Claire to depend upon each other, their love often serves as a deterrent for the truth. Claire cant tell Jamie the truth about the continued existence of Jack Randall because she knows that it would distract him from the task at hand.

Thats where Murtagh comes in. More than just Jamies right-hand man, Murtagh serves as a steadying force for Claire as well. While its amusing when hes dispensed to accompany her everywhere as a traveling bodyguard, its deeply moving when she shares with him the truth about Randall and they come to the decision that Jamie cant know.

Its a moment the show earned throughout its first season, when Murtagh and Claires affection and burgeoning friendship was forged through a shared love of Jamie, and its heartening to see the show remember that its there.

Thats the importance of having Murtagh in France. Without him to confide in, the audience would be left to fester alone with Jamie and Claires secrets and fears, as well as making it far more difficult to get a read on where each character was at mentally without them breaking into a relationship-challenging fight.

With Murtaghs presence, the need to depend on Claires voiceover is lessened (though its still painfully overused), and the audience gets insight into how Claire and Jamie are feeling without unnecessary bits of exposition.

But Murtagh wasnt the only great thing happening in Useful Occupations and Deceptions, which may have been the first episode of the second season of Outlander that really felt like a typical episode of the series.

Much of Useful Occupations centers around Claire getting restless as the lady of the house and deciding to make herself useful at a local hospital. She quickly wins over Mother Hildegarde, the hard-nosed nun in charge, with her her magical medical knowledge from 200 years earlier which never fail to make her look like the smartest person in the room.

The hospital is great because Claire is always at her best when forced to have her wits about her, and Mother Hildegarde seems as though shes going to be an invaluable asset to the shows cast even before she name-drops being friends with Johann Sebastian Bach. Also, there is an infection-sniffing dog that works at the hospital and his name is Bouton. Perhaps you thought that Outlander was a show that didnt desperately need cute animals. You thought wrong.

Jamie, on the other hand, is feeling stymied by his lack of progress with Bonnie Prince Charles, who alleges that hes found funding for his Scottish uprising through wealthy Englishmen, much to the dismay of both Jamie and French Minister of Finance Duvernay.

Thankfully, a young scamp appears in the brothel where all of Jamies meetings with Charles take place and is quickly hired into Jamies employ to steal letters. This leads to Jamie eventually finding out that while Charles has secured funding for his uprising, hes overstating the amount hes been promised.

Its also leads to the gangs finding out that nefarious meddler Sandringham is one of the Englishmen funding Charles, which is really no surprise but isnt exactly welcome news to anyone.

But, perhaps most important, Jamie hiring the pickpocket leads to one of the best lines of dialogue Outlander has ever produced when, in response to learning that the Fergus (said pickpocket) had also complimented Suzettes breasts moments before complimenting her own, deadpans, That doesnt make me feel very special.

Useful Occupations and Deceptions is a lighter, looser Outlander and the show is all the better for it.

Follow me @midwestspitfire
Hidden in the brush of the Santa Fe Dam basin on the San Gabriel River, the homeless camp was littered with heaps of broken furniture, disgorged computers, bicycle frames, televisions, disassembled motorcycles, pieces of exercise machines, rotting food, empty containers and half-buried clothes.

Deputies Martin Villa and Liz Aguilar approached, guns ready.

Hello, Villa said, leaning over a tent door. Los Angeles County sheriffs. Were not here to arrest anybody. Were just here to get you some help.

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On this early April day in Irwindale, Villa was escorting a team of county social workers on a humanitarian mission. But a couple of months earlier, Villa had a harsher message.

Whats up with you? Villa asked, confronting two men under a bridge during a February patrol of the river. Weve warned you, advised you numerous times. You need to pack up your stuff and leave. Were going to have to start enforcing and take you to jail.

Villas contrasting approaches reflect a wider conflict between the goals of serving the homeless and battling the health and safety problems they cause. The tension is particularly stark in the more than 100 miles of river channels that crisscross L.A. County.

A March count by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority documented more than 600 people living in the San Gabriel, Rio Hondo and Los Angeles rivers and tributaries.

Largely out of sight, the camps for years attracted little public notice. But their hidden environmental costs were out of proportion to their numbers.

Last year, the county Department of Public Works conducted 19 cleanups in the San Gabriel and Rio Hondo rivers, removing 100 tons of debris and 40 containers of hazardous materials and bio-waste, according to records obtained through the Public Records Act.

In a five-day cleanup last summer in Tujunga Wash, the Los Angeles city Bureau of Sanitation removed 42 truckloads of debris at a cost of $300,000.

Then, amid a widening public awareness of homelessness, the river communities became the focus of humanitarian concern last fall with predictions of approaching El Nino storms that could fill the river channels with deadly flows.

Teams of outreach workers and law enforcement officers mobilized to visit river encampments warning people to be ready to evacuate.

At the highest levels, city and county officials adopted a public face of tolerance.

We try to take a balanced approach, said Gary Hildebrand, deputy director of the county Department of Public Works. Were trying to be sensitive to the plight these folks are in and trying to deal with them in a humane and flexible manner.

As the El Nino deluge fizzled, patrols by the sheriffs homeless detail continued, but the manner had flipped back to more traditional law enforcement.

On the February patrol, Villa and several other deputies found half a dozen camps that had reappeared after their predecessors were cleaned out. At every one they ordered the campers to leave and told them theyd be back to ensure they did.

By the letter of the law, all camps in the river are illegal. Unlike city sidewalks, where court rulings have established a constitutional right to keep personal property, the waterways are protected by the California Clean Water Act.

The law prohibits the introduction of trash, toxic liquids or human waste into the river system.

The standard is zero trash, said Samuel Unger, executive director of the Los Angeles Regional Water Control Board, the agency responsible for enforcing the Clean Water Act.

But the water board has no uniformed enforcement. It applies administrative pressure on local agencies to achieve long-term reductions of pollutants flowing into the watershed. That has principally meant building and maintaining catch systems to keep trash out of the storm drains.

Unger acknowledged that those who set up permanent camps with furniture, solar cells and electronic equipment and leave their waste in the riverbed are violating the Clean Water Act. But he could cite no formal water board rules requiring local agencies to remove camps.

In the absence of an over-arching policy, practices vary over numerous jurisdictions.

Eviction is immediate in the small portion of Tujunga Wash owned by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, a joint powers agency that has its own ordinance and prohibits overnight camping.

Ranger David Aceves patrols the area regularly and tells anyone who sets up a camp to be gone by dark.

In the city of Los Angeles, the removal of river camps is dictated more by constituent pressure than environmental issues.

Were trying to be sensitive to the plight these folks are in and trying to deal with them in a humane and flexible manner.  Gary Hildebrand, deputy director of the county Department of Public Works

A spokeswoman for the Bureau of Sanitation said the agency responds to requests for cleanups from individuals, business improvement districts, neighborhood councils and City Council offices.

Thus, extensive camps were dismantled last year along the Arroyo Seco where they were visible to motorists on the 110 Freeway. And in Studio City, where shopping centers and boutique businesses back up to the river channel, calls to police produce quick results.

But cleanups were rare in the less-visible stretch of the Los Angeles River in Elysian Valley, Atwater Village and Sepulveda Basin despite the presence of two dozen camps there identified in the March count.

Officer Luis Robles, on the transient detail in the LAPDs Northeast Division, said his team doesnt order people out of their camps.

Robles said he tries to establish a rapport with river dwellers, like other homeless people. Were not here to hassle you, he said he tells them. Were out here to get you some help. If youre in need of resources, feel free to call me.

On Saturday, volunteers working with Friends of the Los Angeles River removed an estimated 20 tons of trash.

Portions of the river are U.S. government property. In those, the response is uneven. A spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the agency teamed with the city of Azusa last year to clean up camps north of Foothill Boulevard and has conducted cleanups in Sepulveda Basin. But the string of camps in the Santa Fe Dam has escaped its notice.

A complex jurisdictional overlap confronted Villa this month when the social workers led him to the festering trash heaps there. The property is owned by the federal government but is in the city of Irwindale. The camps appeared to have been allowed to grow unchecked for years.

As promised, he did nothing but offer help.

Elsewhere in California, the response to homeless camps in protected waterways has been more decisive.

Late in 2014, San Jose removed an entrenched camp of more than 100 people from Coyote Creek running through the citys downtown.

After years of growing frustration, the trigger for the cleanup was a complaint filed by a California Fish and Wildlife warden about damage to the creek.

The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board responded with a policy.

It ordered San Jose to come up with a plan to prevent the discharge of human waste into the creek.

The result was the formation of a coalition of the city, Santa Clara County and 13 water districts to enforce the environmental law.

When an encampment is found, it is posted with a warning to residents, then cleaned, said Chris Elias, deputy officer of the Santa Clara Valley Water District, which leads the effort.

Structures will be demolished; anything that remains is taken out, Elias said.

Park rangers then sweep the area to be sure they dont come back.

Unger, executive director of the L.A. water quality board, said his staff is considering whether to follow the Bay Area model.

Meanwhile, rain or no rain, the safety of the camp dwellers and the health of the waterway still pose an uneasy balance of priorities when the sheriffs team goes into the river.

On his recent patrol, Villa was gratified to find only two camps hidden in the reeds in a picturesque section of the river where ducks and herons frequent a lagoon.

Last fall there were more than 20 camps here, he said.

Although the initial enforcement push was to save lives, it will continue, he said, to save the river.

After the rainy season the intention is to keep it cleaned out, he said.

doug.smith@latimes.com

Twitter: @LATdoug

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Jurors who threaten to derail trials by researching them on Google or posting comments about them on Twitter are often dismissed with nothing more than a tongue-lashing from a judge.

But that may soon change in California. Legislation supported by state court officials would authorize judges in some counties to fine jurors up to $1,500 for social media and Internet use violations, which have led to mistrials and overturned convictions around the country.

As jurors and judges have become more technology-savvy in recent years, the perils of jurors playing around with their smartphones have become a mounting concern, particularly in technology-rich California. A 2011 state law made improper electronic or wireless communication or research by a juror punishable by contempt.

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Supporters of the latest California measure say a potential fine would give teeth to existing prohibitions against improper social media and Internet use and simplify the process for holding wayward jurors accountable.

Its disruptive of the judicial process, and there ought to be a fairly simple and convenient way for a judge to sanction a juror based on the order that the judge has given, said Assemblyman Rich Gordon (D-Menlo Park), who authored the legislation.

But critics question whether it will have any practical effect on jurors who are constantly on sites such as Facebook and Twitter and suggest judges vet the social media activity of potential jurors before seating them.

If you have an Internet addict who just cant psychologically stop, you may want to excuse that person, said Paula Hannaford-Agor, who studies juries at the National Center for State Courts.

Brian Walsh, a judge in the Silicon Valley county of Santa Clara, said a fine could also change the dynamic between judges and juries.

You want to present the jurors obligations to serve as an inviting opportunity to participate in the democratic process, he said. One could consider it counterproductive to be laying out all the penalties a juror can incur if they blow it.

It is not clear exactly how many times juror social media or Internet use has affected trials. But anecdotal evidence suggests it is more than sporadic.

Eric Robinson, co-director of the Press Law and Democracy Project at Louisiana State University, said he used to track cases of juror social media or Internet misconduct using news accounts and other sources, but there were so many it got to be more trouble than it was worth.

Those are the ones we hear about, he said. Im sure it happens a lot more.

An Arkansas court in 2011 threw out a death row inmates murder conviction in part because of tweets. One said, Choices to be made. Hearts to be broken. Another said Its over less than hour before the jury announced its verdict.

A New Jersey appeals court in 2014 tossed the heroin possession conviction of two men after a juror was accused of searching the defendants names online and finding information about their criminal records.

A California appeals court in January cited juror Internet research in throwing out a fraud conviction against an investment firm CEO. The juror looked up a case involving an accountant the defendant blamed for the fraud.

Judges warn jurors against using social media and the Internet, and have the power to hold them in contempt if they violate those rules.

Greg Hurley, a lawyer who studies juries at the National Center for State Courts, said he is unaware of any state that fines jurors outside the contempt process.

California judges say the contempt process can be time-consuming and is rarely invoked. A juror facing contempt has a right to an attorney, and the court could get bogged down in a lengthy formal hearing. So judges often opt to replace a wayward juror with an alternate to keep the proceedings moving.

Historically, contempt has been something judges are told, Dont do, said J. Richard Couzens, a retired Placer County judge who now rotates through courts around the state. You have to follow so many rules to institute a contempt process.

Couzens, a member of the judicial committee that recommended the fines legislation, said he dismissed a juror years ago in a theft case for using a cellphone to figure out the value of a stolen item.

The fine would be similar to a traffic citation, making it relatively easy to dispense, Couzens said.

Judges could mention it when warning jurors against Internet and social media use, said Steve Austin, a presiding judge in Contra Costa County.

At the very least with the sanction, it would be a good thing youd be able to tell the jurors, he added.

The legislation initially called for giving all state judges the power to fine wayward jurors. But it was scaled back after legislators expressed concern that it could dissuade potential jurors from serving.

The bill now authorizes the judiciary to select some county courts for a five-year pilot program, which a legislative analysis said could save participating courts money. It is before the full Assembly.
Tens of thousands of protesters rallied outside the Turkish Consulate on Wilshire Boulevard on Sunday afternoon, waving flags and holding signs to commemorate the 101st anniversary of the Armenian genocide.

Dressed in purple and black shirts scrawled with messages calling for justice, the activists demanded reparations. Los Angeles police estimated the crowd at 60,000.

Get your hands off our land! they chanted.

Eastern Turkey is western Armenia!

Today, we are all Armenian, said U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) as he addressed the crowd from the stage. We have one cause and that cause is justice.

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The crowd, filled with protesters of all ages, roared in agreement. Some carried their children on their shoulders, using the day to teach them about their history.

Abraham Arakelian, 42, came from the Valley with his son so he could keep the memory of the genocide alive.

We want to show the youth what April 24 is about, he said as he held a large Armenian flag overhead.

Obviously, we want justice. If we dont do this, it will be forgotten.

Eventually, Arakelian said, he will tell his son more about the genocide, when hes old enough to stomach the painful details. For now, it was enough just to bring him.

Armenians gathered for vigils last week in Glendale and in Montebello at the Armenian Genocide Martyrs Monument, and many Armenian churches hold services to recognize the fallen.

Nora Hovsepian, chair of the western region of the Armenian National Committee of America, said Armenian people will continue to gather each year until the genocide, which began in 1915 and resulted in the death of as many as 1.5 million Armenians, is recognized by Turkey and the U.S.

It remains a crime unpunished. It is a crime against humanity, and theres no statute of limitations on that, Hovsepian said.

Armenians regard the tragedy that took place in 1915 as part of an organized, orchestrated effort by the Ottoman Turkish government. Historians have characterized what happened as a precursor of  and even a model for  genocides that followed, including Adolf Hitlers systematic slaughter of European Jews and other groups decades later.

Turkey claims half a million Armenians died when they rose up against their rulers after World War I, and denies that their deaths constitute an act of genocide.

That position conflicts with the views of most historians of the period, who agree that Armenians were victims of genocide. A number of countries have issued statements over the years condemning Turkeys actions as genocide.

President Obama referred to the deaths as genocide before his election, but he has not done so since he took office. The move maintains his predecessors reluctance to alienate Turkey, a highly valued ally in the Middle East.

Still, more than 40 states  including California  have recognized the genocide, according to the Armenian National Institute.

Were not asking for much, said Anasheh Megerdichian, 31, as she stood with a group of friends near the Turkish Consulate. We want them to admit what they did.

Megerdichian said she wasnt surprised that Obama did not call the deaths a genocide, but she was disappointed. She understands the president made the decision for political reasons, she added, but wishes he had never promised to call the massacre a genocide in the first place.

He went back on his word, she said.

Southern California is home to the largest Armenian community outside of Armenia, with Los Angeles seen as a kind of Armenian cultural mecca. More than 200,000 people of Armenian descent live in Los Angeles County, according to U.S. census data.

The county remains a point of entry for Armenian immigrants and each year, as April 24 approaches, locals drape Armenian flags over the hoods of their cars, wave them from their car windows and hang them from their businesses.

Most stores post signs in both English and Armenian telling customers they will be closed in remembrance of the genocide.

Last year, officials designated the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Western Avenue as Armenian Genocide Memorial Square, an area that is part of Little Armenia. And in March, Glendale Unified became the first school district in the country to establish a day in remembrance of the genocide.

Remembering the genocide is also a part of the curriculum at some schools in Glendale, where many of the countys Armenians live. Schools teach units and hold assemblies on the genocide in the weeks leading up to the anniversary.

Morris Sarafian, a student at UCLA, said the 101st anniversary marks a pivotal time for the Armenian community.

There is not a statute of limitations on our demands. Its not contingent on a deadline, the 21-year-old said. This is our unapologetic way of saying you are not going to get away with this.

Sarafian, whose great grandfather was a survivor of the genocide. said he learned about the killings and their consequences when he was a little boy.

At 9, my grandfather had to bury his own twin sisters, he said. They were his younger sisters.

Such stories  handed down from generation to generation  leave a lingering sense of trauma, he said.

I shouldnt have to validate my own history, Sarafian said.  This is a lived experience.

Mikael Matossian, 21, can also trace his family back to the genocide. His grandfather was a survivor who fled the city Aintab and found refuge in a Turkish farmers home.

Eventually, he emigrated to America.

Matossian said the stories his grandfather told him influenced his decisions to participate in the Armenian Student Assn. at UCLA, as well his desire to protest for recognition.

I spent 15 years of my life with him, Matossian said. That is what drives me and a lot of young Armenians to protest. Its very real to us.

sarah.parvini@latimes.com

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A solar-powered airplane landed in California on Saturday, completing a risky, three-day flight across the Pacific Ocean as part of its journey around the world.

Pilot Bertrand Piccard landed the Solar Impulse 2 in Mountain View, in the Silicon Valley south of San Francisco, at 11:45 p.m. following a 62-hour, nonstop solo flight without fuel. The plane taxied into a huge tent erected on Moffett Airfield where Piccard was greeted by projects team.

You know there was a moment in the night, I was watching the reflection of the moon on the ocean and I was thinking `Im completely alone in this tiny cockpit and I feel completely confident. And I was really thankful to life for bringing me this experience, Piccard said at a news conference after he landed. Its maybe this is one of the most fantastic experiences of life Ive had.

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The landing came several hours after the Piccard performed a fly-by over the Golden Gate Bridge as spectators watched the narrow aircraft with extra wide wings from below.

I crossed the bridge. I am officially in America, he declared as he took in spectacular views of San Francisco Bay.

Piccard and fellow Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg have been taking turns flying the plane on an around-the-world trip since taking off from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, in March 2015. It made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China, Japan and Hawaii.

The trans-Pacific leg was the riskiest part of the planes global travels because of the lack of emergency landing sites.

The aircraft faced a few bumps along the way.

The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Hawaii in July and was forced to stay in the islands after the planes battery system sustained heat damage on its trip from Japan. The team was delayed in Asia, as well. When first attempting to fly from Nanjing, China, to Hawaii, the crew had to divert to Japan because of unfavorable weather and a damaged wing.

A month later, when weather conditions were right, the plane departed from Nagoya in central Japan for Hawaii.

The planes ideal flight speed is about 28 mph, though that can double during the day when the suns rays are strongest. The carbon-fiber aircraft weighs more than 5,000 pounds, or about as much as a midsize truck.

The planes wings, which stretch wider than those of a Boeing 747, are equipped with 17,000 solar cells that power propellers and charge batteries. The plane runs on stored energy at night.

Solar Impulse 2 will make three more stops in the United States before crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Europe or Northern Africa, according to the website documenting the journey.

The adventure continues, Piccard said. The story is not finished.

The project, which began in 2002 and is estimated to cost more than $100 million, is meant to highlight the importance of renewable energy and the spirit of innovation.

I think innovation and pioneering must continue, Piccard said. It must continue for better quality of life, for clean technologies, for renewable energy; this is where the pioneers can really express themselves and be successful.

Solar-powered air travel is not yet commercially practical, however, given the slow travel time, weather and weight constraints of the aircraft.

Maybe it will be boring in 20 years when all the airplanes will be electric and people will say `Oh its routine. But now, today, an airplane that is electric, with electric engines, that produces its own energy with the sun, it can never be boring, Piccard said. Its a miracle of technology.

1 / 5 Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco on Saturday night. (Noah Berger / Associated Press) 2 / 5 The landing came several hours after the pilot performed a fly-by over the Golden Gate Bridge. (Noah Berger / Associated Press) 3 / 5 Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco. (Noah Berger / Associated Press) 4 / 5 Pilot Bertrand Piccard landed the Solar Impulse 2 in Mountain View, south of San Francisco, at 11:45 p.m. (Noah Berger / Associated Press) 5 / 5 Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco on Saturday night. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)

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A week after a Palm Beach Zoo animal keeper was killed during a tiger attack, the zoos president said the keeper had knowingly entered a part of the tiger enclosure with one of the big cats in it  which is not allowed.

Friday nights statement by Andrew Aiken, the zoos president and chief executive, is his first since Stacey Konwiser, 37, was killed by one of the four Malayan tigers on display at the zoo in West Palm Beach.

Under Palm Beach Zoo policy, zoo employees are never allowed to enter a tiger enclosure to which the animal has access, Aiken said in the statement.

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The statement was sent out along with a zoo-issued list of Media Questions, in which the zoo claimed Konwiser secured a portion of the tigers night house with one of the animals in it and then entered it, thus breaking the zoos established safety protocols.

There is absolutely no mystery as to how Stacey Konwiser died, the zoo said in the media communication. The question is: why did a deeply talented and experienced zookeeper, fully aware of the presence of a tiger and knowledgeable of our safety protocols, enter a tiger enclosure into which a tiger had access?

In another email sent Saturday, the zoo said zookeepers cannot lock themselves into a tiger enclosure because the enclosure doors only lock from the outside.

The zoo said video monitoring equipment installed in the tiger enclosure was not turned on when Konwiser entered the night house alone, because it is only used to monitor tiger cubs, of which there were none at that time.

After Konwisers death, the zoo said it implemented an interim two-person system for moving tigers in the night house, though it is not required by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

After the attack, the tiger was subdued with a tranquilizer, allowing officials to reach Konwiser. She was taken by helicopter to St. Marys Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.

Wednesday, the Palm Beach Medical Examiner confirmed Konwiser died from a neck injury.

The zoo has refused to identify the tiger, saying authorities were investigating threats made against the animal.

The zoo has also been under scrutiny for opting to tranquilize the tiger instead of shooting to kill.

Zoo officials have not disclosed how long it took for the tranquilizer to immobilize the tiger and let rescuers reach Konwiser.

The section of the night house that is off-limits to tigers has for years been used to take zoo supporters on special tours, the zoo said. Recently, the tours were extended to the general public for an additional fee.

The tiger experiences, now suspended, were 30- to 45-minute sessions that included a behind-the-scenes look and training session with a tiger and zookeeper.

All such tours are carefully monitored and supervised. No visitors, guests or staff members are ever allowed to access any night house areas without zookeeper supervision, the zoo said.

We expect to resume all talks, tours and encounters at the appropriate time, as offering such up-close experiences is integral to our mission of inspiring people to act on behalf of wildlife.

The zoos facilities, procedures and Konwisers actions the day she was killed are being investigated by agencies including the West Palm Beach Police Department, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Over the next few weeks we will continue to meet with employees, OSHA inspectors, detectives from the West Palm Beach Police Department, Florida Fish & Wildlife officers, investigators from the USDA and our own internal investigative team to understand every aspect of this tragic loss, Aiken said. All of us share two common goals: to completely understand how this could ever happen and to assure everyone that this will never happen again.

Piccardo writes for the Sun Sentinel. Sun Sentinel staff writer Erika Pesantes contributed to this report.

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Who runs the Los Angeles County jails? Its a more complicated question than it might appear. Its also a crucial question, going to the heart of the countys effort to combat rising crime, wisely manage its resources, make it own policies and balance the powers that the law and voters parcel out among elected officials. And because of Proposition 47, the initiative that changed six felonies into misdemeanors and drastically reduced jail overcrowding, its a very current and pressing question. Credit Supervisor Sheila Kuehl for asking it, and the Board of Supervisors for demanding an answer by May 10.

The quick but too simplistic answer is that Sheriff Jim McDonnell runs the jails, subject to a host of statutes and court orders that impose various restrictions and grant some interesting flexibility. But how much flexibility?

What Kuehl really asked earlier this month, as the board considered a host of actions meant to help the county adapt to Proposition 47, is whether McDonnell is required by law to hold people convicted of misdemeanors for their full sentences when crowding is reduced and he has enough space to avoid releasing them early. If he isnt, then is it his policy  and is it the boards  to hold people longer anyway?

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Many people would respond that of course, if a person is sentenced to year in jail, thats how long he should serve. But even thats not as simple as it might seem. If there were enough space to keep a person convicted of a misdemeanor and sentenced to the maximum 364 days, he would serve six months behind bars, earn an equal amount of time in good conduct credits and then be let out. Thats not early release. Thats been California law for decades. Inmates can lose their good conduct time, but rarely do.

Actual early release comes into play because of overcrowding and means that the inmate wont serve even that six months. The Rutherford overcrowding lawsuit brought against the county in the 1970s resulted in a court order that capped the jails population. To stay within the limit, the sheriff is authorized under the order to release some inmates before they have completed their terms. Until November 2014, when voters passed Proposition 47, it was common for a male Los Angeles County inmate convicted of a misdemeanor to serve only 20% of his time. On a one-year sentence, in other words, the person would serve just over a month.

Sheriffs ... enjoy broad power to control the supply as well as the demand for jail space by regulating the number of misdemeanor suspects their deputies arrest in the first place.

Theres no data to suggest that the practice was dangerous. In fact, when the percentages of sentences served were low, at least in recent years, so was crime. Now that the number is closer to 70%, crime happens to be up.

Sheriffs in 19 counties have population caps, and some have come to like them. After all, judges used to be the ones to dictate who was in jail and for how long. With their power over early release, sheriffs now get to make some of those decisions. In Los Angeles County, for example, people sentenced to less than 60 days dont do any time at all. That fact has occasionally led to tension between the sheriff and judges, as when celebrity drunk drivers like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan were sentenced to 30 days but were released in a matter of hours.

Fewer people are being arrested now, though, and jail space has been freed up. McDonnell argues that he has no choice but to keep his remaining misdemeanor inmates closer to their full sentences. That means, he argues, that the theoretical $41.6 million reduction in costs represented by the shrinking stream of inmates does not translate into an equal amount of savings. If there really is such a savings, some supervisors may want to spend it on alternative sentencing or other programs, or at least to know whether thats an option.

As the county counsel studies Kuehls question, there are several points to keep in mind. For example, sheriffs are elected officials, traditionally accountable to the public for decision-making over the use of jail space in a way that state prison wardens are not. Also, sheriffs already enjoy broad power to control the supply as well as the demand for jail space by regulating the number of misdemeanor suspects their deputies arrest in the first place (so far in McDonnells tenure, arrests are down sharply). They can create scarcity by closing down a wing or moving mentally ill inmates to single instead of double bunks  a step McDonnell took recently.

State law also gives the sheriff power, independent of any population cap or judges sentence, to order part or all of a sentence to be served at home, and power as well to lop up to six weeks off jail time for participating in certain anti-recidivism programs. And the supervisors could, at any time, authorize McDonnell to free up space by releasing non-convicted inmates occupying bunks only because they cant afford bail.

All such decisions  over what jail space to close off, what to free up, who serves time and for how long  ought to be made publicly and transparently, and with a common understanding of what the law requires. Only then will county residents have the means to hold each of their elected officials, the sheriff as well as the supervisors, accountable for their decisions in a way that, so far, they have not been.

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The presidential primaries are a long way from over, but theyve already produced an unhappy paradox: Both parties appear headed toward nominating the two most unpopular candidates in the country.

Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, has accomplished an unprecedented feat: More than two-thirds of voters say they cant stand him. In the same unpopularity contest, Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, is runner-up: more than half the voters dont like her. Ted Cruz, who still has a shot at the GOP nomination, is almost as unpopular as Clinton.

In every major poll conducted since February, all three leading candidates are underwater: more voters view them unfavorably than favorably. The negative numbers are driven mostly by partisan animosity. Republicans are divided over Trump, and Democrats are divided over Clinton  but voters in each party are united in disliking the other sides front-runners by roughly 90% in each case.

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67% of Democrats said they thought Trump would make a terrible president. Almost as many Republicans, 58%, said they thought Clinton would be terrible in the White House.

When the Pew Research Center asked voters how good a president each candidate would make, the results were striking: 67% of Democrats said they thought Trump would make a terrible president. Almost as many Republicans, 58%, said they thought Clinton would be terrible in the White House.

Weve never seen numbers like this before, Carroll Doherty, Pews chief political pollster, told me.

And that has troubling implications for the next president, no matter who he or she turns out to be. After an election, presidents must bridge the partisan divide to get much done. But no need to wait for inauguration day 2017. We already know how this is going to turn out: Were pre-polarized.

Its easy to forget, but in 2009 Obama arrived at the White House with a massive 68% positive rating in the Gallup Poll, including 41% of Republicans. Eight years earlier, the newly elected George W. Bush enjoyed a 63% positive rating, including 37% of Democrats.

The honeymoon didnt last, but the numbers meant that these presidents at least had the benefit of the doubt from most independent voters and a significant minority in the other party. They both had a base of popular support from which to negotiate with Congress. But thats unlikely to happen this time.

With the next president already held in record low esteem, both parties will be tempted to follow the strategy example set by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell during Obamas presidency: constant confrontation, instead of bipartisanship, to heighten the chance of gaining ground in the next election.

We worked very hard to keep our fingerprints off [Obamas] proposals, McConnell explained [to The Atlantic, in 2011]. The only way the American people would know a great debate was going on was if the measures were not bipartisan.

Most voters still tell pollsters they want Congress and the president to work together and get something done, of course. But that sentiment never seems to be powerful enough to overcome partisan distaste for the other side. Political scientists call this affective polarization  meaning the two sides just dislike each other more.

Whatever you call it, it produces the central political frustration of our time: political parties that see little reason to cooperate, and plenty of reasons to fight.

Is anyone pushing back?

Last week, a bipartisan group called No Labels unveiled a hopeful centrist program: a glossy catalog of sensible policy ideas, complete with poll numbers to show that each has wide public support.

Among the proposals: Allowing Medicare to negotiate with drug companies to lower prices, which gets 82% support. Passing a no budget, no pay law to withhold Congress paychecks if a federal budget isnt passed, which gets 81% support. Increased funding for childcare and early education; 79% support.

The group has assembled a centrist problem solver caucus in Congress, with almost 80 members drawn equally from both the parties.

Were trying to disrupt the dysfunction, said former Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat who chairs the organization along with former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, a Republican.

How do we encourage members of Congress and the next president to take these risks? Part of it is to say there is more support for these ideas than you think, Lieberman said. The next president has to ask: Whats my goal here? Do I just want to get reelected, or do I want to build a record?

The group has a practical side, too. Its raising money to protect centrist members of Congress from being knocked out of office in primary elections.

Its a worthy effort. But the hill they are climbing looks steeper than ever  because in the presidential campaign each side is already demonizing the other. That will make it even more difficult for the next president to bring the two parties together after January 2017.

doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com

Twitter: @DoyleMcManus

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They arrived in early November, 120 of them. A post on my daughters school website announced they would be housed in the vandrerhjem, the travelers hostel, across the street from the school.

We walked down to take a look. The temperature was near zero, and bundled in scarves and hats and gloves, we wondered how it was for the new arrivals, having trekked so far by sea and by land only to face a long Scandinavian winter. Asylum seekers, most from Syria, they had been relocated to Bornholm, an island 200-odd miles east of the Danish mainland  a summer paradise that turns bleak and deserted in winter, as we, recent arrivals ourselves, were discovering.

At the hostel, we found a few kids kicking a ball around in the asphalt turnaround. Two women in hijabs passed with mounds of bedding in their arms. A young guy in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt jabbed at a phone. A Danish woman explained in English to a black-garbed woman where the washing machines were. We felt we were intruding. As we turned to leave, a round-faced boy of seven or eight called out to us Hi! Or maybe he was trying the Danish greeting Hej.

My daughter, 12 now, had grown up mostly in Mexico with her Danish mother, Karen, and me, her American father. Shed never seen snow. Wed wanted her to have a year in a Danish school. So far it wasnt going all that well. Aviaya had yet to make friends and missed Mexico. It was miserably cold. Some days, we felt displaced here ourselves.

There had been little else in the news lately but the refugee situation. The conservative Danish coalition in power was taking a hard line. Denmark, historically liberal and welcoming, had placed advertisements in newspapers in Lebanon and Jordan warning refugees not to come. Now under pressure from the other European governments, this small, wealthy country had agreed to admit several thousand asylum seekers. Many had crossed north Germany by foot to the Danish border, hoping to make it to Sweden. Some Danes, in open defiance of their government, had spirited them across Denmark in their cars. Meanwhile thousands more refugees were pouring into Greece.

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In the days following, we passed our new neighbors on the streets: families, youths, couples, elders. The men returned our greetings, the women not always. On buses the refugees sometimes chatted loudly, earning severe glances from Danish matrons clutching their shopping bags. So many unspoken rules of behavior in a new land. We imagined the refugees came from places more like our Mexico: crowded, animated, unruly.

One afternoon that first week I went to meet Aviaya at the after-school recreation center. The boy who had greeted us at the hostel was there, playing a video game. His name was Abdel. He and a few other refugee boys had discovered the school playground, then the cornucopia of computers, food and art materials at the rec center. At first the teachers had resisted the incursion, but Abdel, ingratiating and bright, had won them over.

Aviaya came home with a notice calling for volunteers to help collect money for the refugees. On Saturday morning, we canvassed the neighborhood, door to door. Most answered, and all who did responded with donations.

A day later a taxi driver said to Karen, Youll see. This will end in hatred.

::

The following week, the fifth-grade class at the school proposed a potluck dinner to welcome their new neighbors at the hostel. The entire village was invited.

Winter deepened. The television news told of incidents and reprisals across Europe: the Paris attacks, right-wing gangs, besieged liberal politicians. In Denmark, a new law would allow police to confiscate refugees cash and valuables to pay for their accommodation, along with other harsh measures.

We passed our new neighbors on the streets: families, youths, couples, elders. The men returned our greetings, the women not always.

Some Danes seemed naive to me about these matters. I come from a country of constant ethnic jostling. Here, when you say somebody is Danish, it is understood to mean ethnic Danish exclusively. When you say someone is American, that person could be of any ethnicity. I never thought of this as an achievement but now I do. Some here insist that Muslims are different from other immigrants, they cant and wont integrate. Yet Muslims have been coming to Denmark for several generations, and I see their children on television as newscasters, writers, academics.

I decided to make a lentil soup as our contribution to the potluck dinner. I thought a Middle East staple might provide a warm, not unfamiliar offering on a cold night.

That last Saturday in November, we walked two caldrons of soup to the school and set them down with other food on a long table in a classroom hallway. The refugee women, allotted money to shop for ingredients, had made the most of it: baba ghanouj, hummus, baklava. These ladies could cook! The Danes brought mostly pasta and salads, breads and cakes.

We sat at a table with three women with head scarves. One was a lawyer from Aleppo who had fled the bombing with her daughter and grandson. Her husband had stayed behind. Another, an Iraqi she had met on the journey, had brought her son. We chatted warmly, employing a little common English. They were as curious as to what had brought us here as we were about their perilous odyssey.

After dinner, as we all stood by the food table posing for photos, I noticed the lentil soup sat almost untouched. Then I realized there were paper plates but no bowls. Or was it my soup?

No matter. We bore the caldrons home and ate it ourselves.

::

January. Our cheeks sting from icy Baltic winds. Karen, a writer and translator, is teaching Danish to immigrants who already have been granted asylum: Syrians, a Russian, young Eritrean men with frightening stories of crossing the Libyan desert for days without food. Those clever at languages will find their way more readily, while for others it will be tough.

Abdel and his friends no longer come to the school to play. The hostel children are bused to a school on the other side of the island now. Aviaya has seen snow. She is doing better but still has trouble with math. Meanwhile, she has taken an intense interest in the news.

An Islamist couple has killed 14 people and injured 22 in my home state, California. On New Years Eve in Cologne, a crowd of young North African men molested ethnic German girls. Across Europe, the mood darkens. Now a new fear is voiced, that among the refugees are Islamic State infiltrators, plants. I recall the faces of our new neighbors at the school dinner, in the street and in the market, and wonder if an Islamic State mole lurks among them.

::

Early March, and it is still cold, though first blooms and cooing doves tease us with signs of spring. The Danes who drove the asylum-seekers across Denmark to the Swedish border have been charged and are being brought to court. Yesterday Karen and Aviaya saw refugees from the hostel, people we know, in the nearby town, buying suitcases at a thrift store. Theyll be leaving the first of April, weve heard.

Weve passed a hard winter together. Well miss the words and smiles exchanged, the baba ghanouj. Maybe theyll miss us a little. Some will be permitted to make a new life here on the island or elsewhere in Denmark.

What of the others, those who dont receive asylum? More than 4 million people have fled Syria, millions more are internally displaced. Aleppo lies in ruins. Will the lawyer and her children reunite with their father, if he is alive? How long before people can go back and begin to rebuild war-razed cities, towns, villages? Years? Decades?

They cant go on but they will, piecing together hope in a world shattered by division.

Tony Cohan is the author of the memoirs On Mexican Time and Native State, and the upcoming novel The Night Fishers.

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To the editor: Jim Newton calls for amendments to the California Environmental Quality Act that will prevent communities from suing to challenge land uses, such as the proposed Southern California International Gateway switching yard in San Pedro, that deeply affect the health, safety and quality of life of nearby residents. Newton suggests these suits are simply tools of disgruntled residents, ambitious unions and lawyers seeking enrichment. (How good environmental legislation goes wrong, Opinion, April 21)

In fact, CEQA suits are risky, expensive and difficult, and nowadays, they are more important to communities than ever before.

Today, we live in congested, physically dangerous areas. The open space that once separated industry from residential areas and allowed lower density of housing areas is gone. Development has a much deeper impact everywhere. Thus, the right to challenge and a projects environmental impact report are critical to all of us.

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If a 5,000-page EIR still shows a project has substantial negative impacts on the surrounding community, maybe it does. Barring community members from demonstrating that doesnt make it better.

Joni Halpern, San Diego

..

To the editor: The proposed switching yard at the Port of Los Angeles is a bad project whose EIR was correctly rejected by a Superior Court judge. The plaintiffs suggested many feasible measures to reduce the air pollution, which were rejected by the Port and the railway company BNSF.

At the time the project was first proposed, the then-president of the Harbor Commission said that no diesel-powered trucks should be use to move containers from the docks to the rail yard. The Port reneged on that promise.

Plaintiffs in this case included the city of Long Beach, the Long Beach Unified School District, the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the state attorney general. Does that sound like a bunch of NIMBYs?

The argument that the rail yard will reduce truck trips on the 710 Freeway is spin. Transportation agencies are in the early stages of a multibillion-dollar project to allow more trucks to access the ports.

CEQA is the only thing standing between poor communities and more cancer-causing air pollution. It should be strengthened, not weakened.

Noel Park, Rancho Palos Verdes

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To the editor: Yossi Klein Halevi sheds light on the overly strict religious thinking that has sparked deadly confrontations for centuries. (The Jewish story is under assault, Opinion, April 22)

He begins by trying to clarify whether Judaism is a faith or a people, and his baffling logic fails to do that. But his ending, We are a story we tell ourselves about who we think we are, is easy to understand and is at the heart of the matter.

Stories we tell ourselves  especially when ourselves is a small group of men who create and interpret the stories while isolated from secular society  should remain just stories. Millions around the world suffer when believers apply their stories to things like what you must wear, what wall you can pray at or which bathroom you can use.

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Let them continue to tell stories, but we dont have to listen.

Edward Dignan, Long Beach

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To the editor: I was glad to learn that Halevi regards me, an atheist Jew, as a Jew. But his statement, Jews who reject Judaic beliefs but still identify with the Jewish people, its values and its fate are universally regarded among Jews as one of us, is not correct.

On July 7, 2015, the New York Times reported that David Azoulay, Israels minister of religious services, said, The moment a Reform Jew stops following the religion of Israel, lets say theres a problem, adding, I cannot allow myself to call such a person a Jew.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Azoulays remarks but did not remove him from the cabinet.

At the time I wondered if Azoulay was going to revise the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust significantly downward from 6 million.

Julian Weissglass, Santa Barbara

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To the editor: Finally, The Times decided to print articles on Saudi Arabias connection to the 9/11 attacks. (9/11 attacks reemerge as a critical test of U.S.-Saudi relationship, April 21)

The unreleased 28 pages of the 9/11 Commission report are at the center of the debate. On a recent 60 Minutes broadcast, top U.S. government officials who have seen the 28 pages said clearly that they need to be released to the public. The Saudi government has threatened to pull billions of dollars worth of investments out of the U.S. if the pages are released.

I am amazed that this had not been front-page news. Saudi Arabia receives billions of dollars worth of our most sophisticated weapons. The implication of official Saudi complicity in the 9/11 attacks and the possible coverup by successive U.S. administrations is mind boggling.

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Its high time to declassify the 28 pages.

Robert Newman, West Hills

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To the editor: Missing from the list of U.S. issues with Saudi Arabia is that nations exporting of its fundamentalist brand of Islam.

The Saudis spend millions across the Muslim world to spread their version of Islam in order to oppose the Iranian Shiite branch of Islam. Through their religious schools, Saudi clerics spread an extreme version of Islam known as Wahhabism. The sect prescribes punishments including beheadings, flogging and stoning.

The very definition of the terrorist group, al Qaeda, includes its status as a militant Sunni Islamist global organization founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden.

I have often wondered why U.S. news outlets have not investigated this aspect of Saudi-U.S. relations more persistently.

Celia Carroll, Santa Monica

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
In recent months, Bernie Sanders has transformed Dennis Brandau from a guy who hated politics into a first-time voter. On Tuesday, the 29-year-old line cook will proudly cast a ballot for the Vermont senator in Pennsylvanias Democratic presidential primary.

But the bruising campaign this year also has turned Brandau into a fierce opponent of the Democratic front-runner, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He says he has a hard time imagining backing her this fall if she wins the nomination.

I dont know if I can vote for her, Brandau said. I dont even want to hear her talk.

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Sanders chances of winning the nomination have dimmed since his 16-point loss to Clinton in last weeks New York primary. Polls show he faces an uphill race in several of the five Eastern states that vote on Tuesday, as well as in Californias June 7 primary.

Some of his supporters remain so steadfast, however, that a #BernieOrBust movement has picked up momentum on Twitter. So has an online pledge for supporters who vow to vote for Sanders as a write-in candidate if he loses the nomination.

A recent McClatchy-Marist poll found that 1 in 4 Sanders supporters would not back Clinton as the nominee, a sign of the partys deep divide  and Clintons high negatives  at this point of the race.

Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg says she is confident that many Sanders supporters will ultimately vote for Clinton if she wins the nomination, especially if she faces Republican front-runner Donald Trump or Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

They might have to hold their noses to vote for her, but shes going to seem better ... than the alternative, Greenberg said.

Sanders has pledged to back Clinton if she is the nominee, and has spoken often of the necessity of defeating Trump.

At a rally Saturday in Baltimore, he was introduced by civil rights leader Benjamin Jealous, who told a crowded downtown arena: Our No. 1 purpose in this election must be to defeat Donald Trump.

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Sanders appeared to ease some of his harsher attacks on Clinton, focusing instead on their different positions. He criticized her support of free-trade deals, her super PAC spending and her refusal to release transcripts of paid speeches she gave to Wall Street firms while she was out of office. The large crowd responded with loud boos.

In interviews, Sanders has said he has no intention of being another Ralph Nader  the third-party candidate blamed by many Democrats for siphoning votes from Democratic nominee Al Gore in 2000, helping give the White House to George W. Bush.

In the heat of the campaign things look intense, but eventually everybody comes together, said Democratic strategist Bill Carrick.

Tensions were just as high in 2008 when Sen. Barack Obama beat Clinton for the nomination, he noted, but Clinton ultimately endorsed Obama and campaigned for him.

Anne Sabin, an accountant who heard Sanders speak in the Philadelphia suburb of Oaks, says he opened her eyes to the need for campaign finance reform.

She hopes Sanders crushes Clinton and gets the nomination, she said. But if he doesnt, Ill vote for Hillary, holding my nose while I pull the lever.

Saying Im not Trump is not the most inspiring message. People might vote for [Clinton], but they wont work for her.  RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, which is backing Bernie Sanders

Early in the race, Sanders drew applause in a debate by telling Clinton that he was sick and tired of hearing about [her] damn emails, declining to join Republicans in attacking her for using a private email server while she was secretary of State.

But after his insurgent campaign caught fire he hammered her on other issues, saying at one point that he didnt think she was qualified to be president, a charge he later withdrew. But as vitriol grew on both sides, he stopped urging supporters to stop booing Clinton at his rallies.

Although Clinton and Sanders agree broadly on many policies that Republicans oppose, such as raising the minimum wage and letting people who are in the country illegally stay here, the longtime political independent has portrayed her as a political insider beholden to special interests. That image will be hard to shake.

Im not going to vote for Hillary Clinton, said Hugh Espey, executive director of the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement Action Fund, a community organizing group backing Sanders. Shes a part of the rigged political system.

While Espey believes Sanders has forced Clinton to the left on some issues, noting her opposition to the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, he doesnt trust her to keep those promises in office, and doesnt believe she will stand up to Wall Street.

His group, which is working to raise the minimum wage in Iowa, is one of many organizations trying to capitalize on the enthusiasm surrounding the Sanders campaign to build support for other causes.

This is a movement moment, Espey said. What were doing is building the political revolution Bernies talking about.

Sanders often speaks not just of winning the presidency, but of starting a political revolution.

His rallies often feel more like festivals than political events, with fans selling homemade T-shirts and candles and local bands sometimes kicking off his speeches. Millions of individuals have contributed money to help him keep pace with Clintons fundraising operation.

RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, which is backing Sanders, says if Clinton wins the nomination shell have a messaging problem in the fall election.

Saying Im not Trump is not the most inspiring message, DeMoro said. People might vote for her, but they wont work for her.

Alex Vader, 24, agrees. In recent weeks, she and her boyfriend have hit the pavement for Sanders near Philadelphia.

We were out in the snow and rain for Bernie, said Vader, an engineering student. I wouldnt do that for Hillary. She doesnt inspire me that much.

Corty Byron, 30, a musician who opened up the Sanders rally Saturday at a gym in Millersville with Woody Guthries This Land is Your Land, said he would willingly support Clinton in the fall.

A guitarist in the band has vowed to write in Sanders name in November if he isnt on the ballot.

Byron says that he is terrified of Trump winning, and that Sanders has had an impact just by running and it would be a mistake for liberal voters not to vote for Clinton on principle.

The loud voice has been heard, Byron said. Thats whats most important.

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Retired teachers Rosie Skomitz and Ron Stouffer, part of the raucous crowd that packed an old theater here last week to cheer on a Bernie Sanders revolution, have no love for Democratic superdelegates, the party insiders who have helped Hillary Clinton pad her lead in the race for the nomination for president.

It takes votes away from people and gives them to the elite, Skomitz said, summing up the typical complaint from the Sanders faithful that the nomination process is undemocratic.

But as Sanders falls further behind Clinton in amassing delegates who will choose the nominee, some of his supporters have replaced their criticism and occasional outright virulence with appeals to those Democratic elites  some of whom have long memories.

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Youre trying to woo us now, but we remember when you were trashing us, said former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, one of 21 superdelegates from the state, the largest of five that hold primaries Tuesday.

When Sanders was winning primaries in places like Michigan and Colorado, he and his supporters criticized superdelegates  Democratic leaders who can support a candidate of their choosing  as exemplary of a rigged system that robbed voters of their voice. In petitions, emails and some nasty messages on social media, thousands of Sanders backers demanded that those delegates follow the lead of their states voters.

But with time running out, Sanders campaign has switched to a different argument: Even if Clinton ultimately wins more votes and pledged delegates, the superdelegates should back Sanders because hed have a better chance at beating Donald Trump or whoever wins the Republican nomination.

We want to make a case to superdelegates that Bernie Sanders is the strongest candidate, said Mark Longabaugh, a senior campaign strategist. Superdelegates will have to balance voters wishes with their political judgment, he said: Both considerations are there. Every individual superdelegate will have to make their own decision.

Sanders trails Clinton by 275 pledged delegates but can count on the support of only 38 superdelegates, compared with 502 for Clinton, according to a count by the Associated Press. (The Sanders campaign says 42 superdelegates support him.)

Superdelegates have been catching a lot of vituperation, says Rendell, a longtime supporter of both Bill and Hillary Clinton and former Democratic national chairman.

Youre a scumbag, youre a tool of the capitalist system, a fascist, he said, citing insults lobbed by Sanders backers. " Its not the campaign  its some of his crazy supporters.

One Sanders follower sent an email saying I know who you are to Rick Bloomingdale, president of the state AFL-CIO and a Clinton supporter.

Youre trying to woo us now, but we remember when you were trashing us.  Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, one of the states 21 Democratic superdelegates, on the Sanders campaigns effort to win his support

I asked the guy, Is that a threat, or what are you saying to me? said Bloomingdale, who noted that most of the emails hed gotten from Sanders backers were polite.

It was wrong and dumb for Sanders supporters to make personal attacks on superdelegates, say both Longabaugh and Joshua Grossman, president of Progressive Kick, a super PAC lined up behind Sanders.

It certainly wasnt us, Grossman said. There are millions of people in the U.S. Not all of them are temperate human beings at all moments.

The Democratic Party put the superdelegate system in place starting in 1984 as a reaction to changes that had given voters a bigger say in choosing nominees. For party leaders, the final straw was the stormy primary season and convention of 1980 that many Democrats thought helped drag down President Carters chances for reelection.

The idea was to give members of Congress, governors and other party stalwarts a bigger voice at the convention, says Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of a book on the nomination rules. Kamarck worked in Bill Clintons White House and is a superdelegate who backs Hillary Clinton.

This is not a public process  this is a party process, Kamarck said. They have an interest slightly different from the average voter. They have an interest in the brand.

Superdelegates have never overturned the popular choice, and Kamarck says its unlikely that they would to help Sanders, a democratic socialist who served 25 years in the House and Senate as an independent, not a Democrat.

Many Clinton-friendly superdelegates turned to Barack Obama in 2008, she says, but only after he built a comfortable lead. Those superdelegates helped Obama close out the race; Clinton conceded that June.

If you cant argue that you won the most popular votes, its hard to go to people who are close to Hillary and think she would be a very good president and argue that they should start switching, Kamarck said.

Sanders has said he is at a disadvantage in states like New York and Pennsylvania, where independents cant vote in primaries. He called Clinton the candidate of the establishment in a recent interview with CBS but said superdelegates would come to his side when they realized we are defeating Trump by much larger numbers than Clinton in polls.

That argument is fragile, though; polls of hypothetical general election matchups at this stage of a presidential race generally have little relationship with an outcome. We are sophisticated enough to know that thats because no one has done a negative ad about Sen. Sanders, whereas she has taken incoming for 23 years, Rendell said of Clinton.

Some progressive groups who back Sanders have gathered more than 200,000 signatures on a state-by-state petition campaign that calls on superdelegates to get behind the candidate who wins the most votes. That may not be Sanders, conceded Grossman, one of the organizers.

Whoever has a majority of elected delegates deserves the nomination, he said. Weve been saying that since Day One.

The Sanders camp faces a tough road in trying to sway superdelegates in Pennsylvania, where most of the Democratic machinery and voters have been solidly with Clinton for years. In 2008, she carried the state by 9 points even though the race had begun to tilt decisively in Obamas favor.

At least 18 of the states superdelegates have declared for Clinton, according to a contact list compiled by Sanders backers.

They should save their breath, says Pennsylvania superdelegate Tony Coelho, who backs Clinton about 100 times over.

She is the candidate, in my view of the Democratic Party, said Coelho, a former California congressman who now splits his time between Pennsylvania and Delaware. Bernie is not even a Democrat.

Bloomingdale says Sanders backers are angry about the undemocratic nature of superdelegates, and he doesnt disagree.

I certainly would support changing the rules, but not in the middle of the campaign, he said. Its like adding a fourth out to the team thats behind to give them a chance to catch up.

joseph.tanfani@latimes.com

Times staff writer Cathleen Decker in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

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Newport Beach Councilman Scott Peotter is requesting that the City Council vote Tuesday either to replace Councilman Keith Curry as chairman of the city Finance Committee or remove him from the committee altogether.

Curry has served on the seven-member committee since 2006 and has been chairman about half that time. Councilman Tony Petros, Mayor Diane Dixon and four appointed residents make up the rest of this years committee, which reviews the citys annual budget and advises the City Council on financial matters.

Peotter alleges that Curry lately has blocked committee members from adding items to the agenda for discussion and prevented them from thoroughly reviewing budget documents.

Hes been a block with the Finance Committee, preventing them from getting anything done, Peotter said Friday. The agenda is tightly controlled by him so other people cant get items on the agenda.

Curry countered by saying Peotter is calling for his removal because Curry opposed a proposal that the city look into putting surplus money into a trust to cover its unfunded pension liability. The unfunded liability is the difference between the amount the city will owe in retirement benefits and the money it has set aside to fund them.

Committee member Patti Gorczyca, whom Peotter appointed to the panel, suggested the group explore the surplus option, according to meeting minutes.

Curry called the proposal financially illiterate.

Curry instead favors a plan already in place, in which the city uses a portion of its surplus money to accelerate payments to the California Public Employees Retirement System in an effort to pay off the citys projected $257-million liability in 19 years  11 years faster than its previous 30-year plan. The payment plan is expected to save $129 million in interest over 30 years, city staff has said.

Curry said he learned of the proposal to remove him in an email from City Manager Dave Kiff on Wednesday, the day before the council agenda was made public.

I didnt get any advance warning or courtesy notice from my colleague, Curry said.

The City Council could vote to remove Curry as chairman of the committee, remove him from the committee completely or allow him to remain in his position.

If the council chooses to remove him, Dixon would appoint another council member to the panel and remove the committee member whom that person had appointed.

Peotter said its important to make the change now, as next fiscal years budget is making its way through the Finance Committee to the City Council.

We need to flesh out all the details of the budget and look at alternative ideas, Peotter said. If we dont do this now, we wont be able to have a really good look at the budget.

Tuesdays City Council meeting will begin at 7 p.m. at City Hall, 100 Civic Center Drive.
BUDGET TRAVEL

Presentation

Jordan Mitchell-Love of the Web series The Vagabond Tales will describe his experiences seeing the world without breaking the bank.

When, where: 7:30 p.m. Monday at Distant Lands, 20 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena.

Admission, info: Free. RSVP to (626) 449-3220.

TRAVEL

Workshop

Angel Castellanos will share tips on improving your excursions.

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When, where: 6:30 p.m. Friday at Adventure 16, 11161 W. Pico Blvd., West Los Angeles.

Admission, info: Free. (310) 473-4574.

JOSHUA TREE

Poetry workshop

Take a brief hike through Joshua Tree National Park, then write poetry based on your experiences.

When, where: 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Joshua Tree Visitor Center

Admission, info: $70. (760) 367-5535

BRAZIL

Slide show

Photographer Wendy Windebank will discuss Brazil, with photos of Rio de Janeiro, Petropolis, Iguazu Falls, Pelhourino, Olinda and more.

When, where: Noon Saturday at Hummus House, 12211 Hawthorne Blvd., Hawthorne.

Admission, info: $19.50 for lunch and program. Hosted by the Network for Travel Club. RSVP to Odette Ricasa at (323) 578-3601.

Please email announcements at least three weeks before the event to travel@latimes.com.
Takes the guesswork out of public transportation at home and abroad.

Name: Transit App

What it does: Tells you how to get from Point A to Point B using bus, train, metro, ferry, Uber and other transportation options in 127 metropolitan areas in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Australia and Kenya.

Available: In the App Store, requires iOS 7.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. In Google Play, requires Android. Offers Apple Watch and app for Android wear.

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Cost: Free.

Whats hot: You wont realize how much time you can save planning until you use this app. It takes the guesswork out of navigating, and maps a route to your destination. Ive used it for a commute between San Francisco and Oakland as well as a trip from a San Diego suburb to Los Angeles. There are many features depending on your needs, including notification if your ride is approaching or you are nearing your destination. Infrequent travelers can quickly find transportation options. It will be one of the first apps I use the next time Im traveling abroad.

Whats not: It was much easier to use if I needed to find transportation for the near future. When I tried to plan travel for a trip to London this summer, it got trickier. It would also be nice if there were price comparisons for routes. If they were in the app, I couldnt find them when I was testing it on an iPhone 6 Plus.
On a warm evening in Rome, as waiters flapped tablecloths for outdoor diners at a trattoria down the cobbled alley, Ramy Al Shakarji leaned back on a bench and laughed as he described how the head of the Roman Catholic Church, plucked him, a Muslim, from a squalid refugee camp in Greece and flew him to a new life.

When we were given the chance to come to Rome, my wife and I took about three minutes to decide yes, he recalls.

That was about all the time they had. It was 9 p.m. on April 15, a night before Pope Francis visited their refugee camp on the island of Lesbos.

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Making the offer to move to Italy was Daniela Pompei, an official with Catholic charity SantEgidio, which was asked by the Vatican at the last minute to find families and then host them back in Rome at its refugee shelter in the bustling Trastevere neighborhood.

I got to Lesbos three days before the pope and it was all done in a rush, Pompei said.

Al Shakarji, 51, stopped laughing as he described the moment Francis greeted him before the flight. I felt security and peace  a man like this is a father to the world, he said.

The trip to Rome was the end of a long journey that started in Dair Alzour, a Syrian town under siege by Islamic State, where Al Shakarji recalls a rebellious neighbors decapitated head hanging from a balcony for three days.

Dont go to Syria, he said grimly, drawing a finger slowly across his neck.

In March of last year, Al Shakarji decided to risk fleeing down mined roads and past snipers to reach Turkey, taking his wife and three children with him. Between Islamic State and the government of President Bashar Assad, he saw little hope for his family in Syria.

My two sons were approaching the age for military service and to stop them becoming assassins, for either Assad or ISIS, we had to go, he said.

Now, he says his oldest son plans on training as a dentist. But first, SantEgidio is organizing Italian lessons for the families in Trastevere.

Another of the Syrians brought to Rome with Francis is Nour Essa. Sitting outside a classroom at Trastevere, Essa clutched an Italian grammar book and tried out a hesitant Come stai?  How are you?  on an African refugee in her class.

Essas family history is a refugee tale that spans the 20th and 21st centuries. Her grandfather was a Palestinian who fled the new state of Israel in 1948 and settled in Syria.

The difference is there were two sides in 1948, whereas in Syria you cant understand how many sides there are, said Essa, 30.

Essa had escaped some of the initial turmoil of Syrias civil war. She was living in Montpellier, France, while studying for a masters in microbiology, before returning to her job in 2013 at Syrias Atomic Energy Commission.

She then married and had a child, but the war was creeping into her Damascus suburb. We lived between checkpoints loyal to Assad and the Free Syrian Army and in 2015 we could smell the sulfur from chemical weapon attacks, she said.

Then her husbands draft papers arrived. The couple fled, starting a terrifying, 10-day journey across ISIS-held territory in an ambulance and then in a cattle truck.

Stopping in Aleppo, her husband was ordered to fight by ISIS fighters  real monsters, said Essa. But a smuggler guided them through minefields toward Turkey, where after waiting out rough seas and numerous tangles with Turkish police, they made it to Lesbos on March 18, packed into a dinghy at night with 50 other refugees.

We had heard the borders were closing and had to hurry, she said.

Their rush paid off. The family made it to Lesbos just two days before a March 20 deadline set by the European Union, beyond which new arrivals in Greece were to be sent back to Turkey unless they claimed asylum in Greece.

Crucially, when selecting families to fly to Rome, SantEgidio took only those who arrived before the cutoff.

I was shocked when we were asked if we wanted to go, Essa said. We shook the popes hand when we were on the plane and he caressed my 2-year-old sons head.

Addressing journalists on the flight back to Rome, Francis discussed the 12 Syrians on board, saying, It will be the duty of the Vatican, in collaboration with the SantEgidio Community, to find them work, if possible, or to maintain them. They are guests of the Vatican.

He added, I did not make a choice between Christians and Muslims. These three families had their documents in order. Then, quoting Mother Teresa, he said, Its a drop, its a drop of water in the sea, but after that drop, the sea will never be the same.

Landing at 4:30 p.m. in Rome, the Syrians did not leave the airport until nearly four hours later after completing paperwork, the start of a process that should lead to them receiving asylum status in Italy.

Now, Essa is torn between trying to reach France, settling in Italy or one day returning to Syria, from where her mother is sending her WhatsApp messages daily.

What she is sure about is that no Muslim leader has made the gesture the pope did. Muslim governments should be ashamed, she said. Instead of helping refugees, they close borders and stop visas for Syrians. If you want to work in Saudi Arabia, you cannot get a visa now.

For Al Shakarji and his family, it appears Italy will be their new home. As the light faded in the courtyard outside the SantEgidio building, Al Shakarjis 7-year-old daughter climbed onto his lap to say ciao, her first word in Italian.

I will stay here in Italy and live like an Italian, said Al Shakarji, adding with a laugh, I am loving this lasagna.

But he stopped laughing to add, What I will not stop thinking about are the thousands of people still surrounded by ISIS in my hometown.

Kington is a special correspondent.

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Six years ago Bernardino Hernandez boarded a plane to Mexico City with not much  his high school yearbook, a printer and his college copy of Thomas Mores Magician, a novel about creating a utopian community in 16th century Mexico.

He had recently graduated from UC Davis, but he felt limited by his lack of legal status in the United States. Hernandez was 21 years old and unsure whether hed ever reach his potential in a country that hed called home since he was a toddler but that now wouldnt allow him to work legally.

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Before he departed, his disapproving father gave him $1,000 in cash but warned him, I wont pay for a coyote to bring you back.

No need.

Though he gave up on his American dream in the U.S., he is now living it in Mexico.

Hernandez, 27, is at the helm of a translation company he launched last fall, leading a team of 15 linguists who offer services in nearly two dozen languages to multiple businesses, including eight transnational companies.

He regularly travels to the U.S.  as a business executive. Until recently he had been a high-level manager for a Fortune 100 company. His career in Mexico allowed him to save enough money to attend university in Canada, where he earned his masters degree.

NEWSLETTER: Get the days top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >>

Ive traveled to more places in the U.S. while living in Mexico than while I was living in the U.S. Im glad I did leave, he said. I wanted to find my own way.

Hernandez is one of more than 500,000 people ages 18 to 35 who have returned to Mexico since 2005 after spending significant time in the U.S., said Jill Anderson, an independent researcher and activist in Mexico City who has studied the phenomenon.

Although some were deported, others, like Hernandez, voluntarily returned. They are often called los otros dreamers, or the other dreamers.

Hernandezs success story runs counter to the much-told narrative of hardship and challenges many so-called Dreamers  people brought to the U.S. at a young age and who stayed illegally  face upon returning to their place of birth after growing up American.

Only a small percentage excel, Anderson said, but those who do are increasingly involved in a tight network, taking leadership roles and helping other former Dreamers. Their success is not a reflection of Mexico, but of their determination to clear hurdles in their path, she said.

I think it speaks to the amazing potential of this population, she said, who co-wrote a book, Los Otros Dreamers, on the subject. They are definitely beating the odds, and I think its because they are determined to do it no matter where they land  despite the violence, despite the corruption and impunity that plagues many Mexican communities.

Initially, it didnt come easy for Hernandez, who mistakenly believed that his U.S. education would automatically give him a leg up in Mexicos job market. As he struggled, he looked at his parents, still living in California, and what they accomplished as inspiration.

Ive traveled to more places in the U.S. while living in Mexico than while I was living in the U.S. Im glad I did leave. I wanted to find my own way.  Bernardino Hernandez, 27

A free-falling economy in the mid-1990s and minimal education had prompted Emilio and Sira Hernandez to strike out for the United States. The couple left Oaxaca, taking Hernandez, 2 at the time. They followed the harvests for farm work until settling in Santa Maria, along Californias Central Coast.

Eventually they arrived at their American dream, renting and buying enough land to start their own large vegetable farm, selling tomatillos, squash and other produce.

Hernandez led a comfortable life in Santa Maria, excelled in school, lettered in high school cross country. If he worked hard, teachers and his parents told him, he could accomplish anything.

I remember pledging allegiance to the American flag when I was a kid. I didnt even know the Mexican national anthem, he said. For me, I was more American than Mexican.

But slowly, Hernandez grew cynical. In high school, he soon discovered he didnt qualify for most scholarships because of his legal status.

His parents could foot the bill for his undergraduate studies at UC Davis, where he earned a bachelors degree in international relations and Spanish, but he would have to pay for his masters at the schools Latin American studies program. He couldnt because he couldnt legally work.

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It was 2010 and Hernandez had no way to legalize his status. It would be two more years until the Obama administration announced an immigration program that gave young people like him work permits and a reprieve from deportation.

Hernandezs feelings of disaffection with the U.S. are common among the Dreamer diaspora, Anderson said.

They realize that they did everything right, and they still couldnt take advantage of that sort of mythical American dream, she said.

When Hernandez arrived in Mexico City, he quickly realized that his American lifestyle of eating out all the time and renting an apartment in a hip neighborhood, Condesa, was too expensive in the megalopolis he now called home. He scaled down, moved to a more affordable neighborhood and shopped at open-air markets instead of chain grocery stores.

He eventually started to exploit his bilingual skills, approaching English-language schools to work as an instructor.

He learned he could make more money on his own and eventually left, taking his clients with him. He built such a large network of clients that he was once again able to live like an American: going out to dinner and nights out on the town with friends.

Still, his sights were on something more. He saved up and scored a scholarship for a masters program in modern languages and Latin American studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. After two years in school, he had the option to stay in Canada and become a resident there.

He declined, wanting to return to Mexico to take advantage of what he said was a burgeoning start-up scene.

Christina Weidemann, who attended university and worked with Hernandez in Canada, said her friends ambition and smarts arent the only reasons for his success.

He has the sense for taking advantage of being familiar with both cultures so perfectly, she said. When he is together with North Americans, his attitude changes and so does his personality. And when he is together with Mexicans, speaking Spanish with Mexicans, he changes in a way. He can adapt very well to both environments. I think thats a huge advantage.

His ability to seamlessly navigate both work cultures, paired with his university degrees, helped him land a job as a translation contractor at Johnson Controls, a Fortune 100 company that produces automobile parts. He became something of a liaison linking American and Mexican workers within the company.

I was able to communicate, for example, Mexicos business and learning needs to the U.S. headquarters, because often most of the programs or business models are U.S.-centric and do not consider the business culture in Mexico, he said.

After only eight months, he worked his way up to management. It led to an opportunity to travel for business, and he was granted a U.S. business and tourism visa in January 2015.

A month later, he flew for the first time to the U.S. for a business trip to Florida. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent at the airport did a double take when he looked at Hernandezs profile on the computer.

What are you here for? the agent asked.

Business, Hernandez said and smiled.

He was taken to another area and questioned about where he had lived in the U.S. when he was in the country illegally, but he was eventually let go.

Hernandez called his family from Miami to let them know he was stateside.

They didnt believe me, he said.

In November, he launched a start-up called QuickTrans, which is something of an Uber in that it pairs translators, transcribers and interpreters with companies seeking those services. Some of his linguists are dreamers too. Hernandez runs the outfit from his kitchen table at home. His UC Davis diploma hangs on a wall above.

He has traveled to the U.S. at least half a dozen times. The second time, he made a side trip to Californias Central Coast.

He landed in Los Angeles and rode Amtrak to visit his siblings in Santa Maria  a trip he often made when he attended summer school at UCLA.

They greeted him with a big poster that read Welcome back home.

Its funny, he thought to himself. Its not home anymore.

cindy.carcamo@latimes.com

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The Pentagon has shifted more than 100 U.S. soldiers from a desert camp near the Egypt-Israeli border in the Sinai Peninsula after a barrage of attacks by militants linked to Islamic State.

The U.S. troops, part of a little-known peacekeeping force that helps maintain the 1979 treaty between Egypt and Israel, were transferred about 300 miles south to a more secure area.

The move comes as the Obama administration is considering whether to scale back the 700 U.S. troops in the Sinai and instead use remote sensors, cameras and other technology to monitor the border.

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Sinai Province, a militant group that last year declared allegiance to Islamic State, has carried out multiple attacks on military outposts in the northern Sinai. Its fighters have killed dozens of Egyptian soldiers, including eight this month when militants fired a rocket at their armored vehicle.

The extremist group claimed responsibility after a bomb exploded aboard a Russian-chartered passenger jet over the Sinai on Oct. 31 and killed all 224 passengers and crew. In July, the group hit an Egyptian frigate in the Mediterranean Sea with a shoulder-fired missile.

The Multinational Force of Observers, or MFO, has 1,680 troops from a dozen countries. The Americans, who live behind blast walls and travel in armored vehicles, have increasingly found themselves at risk in the insurgency.

Four were injured when their convoy hit two roadside bombs in September. Several weeks earlier, an American soldier was shot in the arm when gunmen targeted the camp, near the northern Sinai village of Al-Joura.

The Pentagon responded last summer by sending 75 more troops plus counter-mortar radars and new communication equipment.

As peacekeepers, the U.S. troops arent authorized to fire at the militants  only the Egyptians are allowed do that.

The recent attacks were among the topics that Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, discussed Saturday in a closed-door meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi on Saturday in Heliopolis, a Cairo suburb.

Any major change in the peacekeeping force must be approved by all signatories to the accord, which followed the wars between Egypt and Israel and in 1967 and 1973.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter formally notified Israel and Egypt this month that the U.S. is reviewing its role in the force. U.S. defense officials say the review involves reducing the number of U.S. troops, not a full withdrawal.

Many of the troops, including staff headquarters, already have moved from El Gorah in the northern Sinai to a smaller installation near Sharm el Sheik on the southern tip of the peninsula.

The Pentagon has valid concerns about troop safety, said Eric Trager, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. But the U.S. tinkering with its force numbers, even if slightly, can give the appearance that it is second-guessing the mission, which is worrisome for the Egyptian government and provides a propaganda tool for Islamic State.

The U.S. government provides $1.3 billion in annual military aid to Egypt. It has been the second-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid since the 1979 peace accord with Israel.

The Obama administration briefly suspended military aid in 2013 to push Sisi, who had seized power in a military coup, to improve his governments human rights record.

Despite continued U.S. criticism over Sisis jailing of political opponents and activists, Secretary of State John F. Kerry visited here Wednesday to show support for Egypts government.

We talked about ways in which we can hopefully resolve some of the differences and questions that have arisen about the internal politics and choices for the people of Egypt, Kerry said after talking with Sisi.

Kerry did not detail the differences, but added that Egypt is critical to the peace and security of the region.
With less than 48-hours remaining before primary polls open in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have both built sizable leads there a new survey shows.

According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Marist poll released early Sunday, April 24, Trump now leads Texas Sen. Ted Cruz 45 percent to 27 percent with Ohio Gov. John Kasich lagging even further behind at 24 percent.

Trump Supporters Solidly in his Corner

Building on the recent momentum generated by his landslide win in his home state of New York, the poll shows 72 percent of all Trump backers insisting that they "strongly support" his candidacy.

On the Democratic side, Clinton leads Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders 55 percent to 40 percent.

"Trump and Clinton are both positioned to win the popular vote," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion. "For Democrats, it's all about the delegate counts. But for Republicans, the popular vote doesn't guarantee a big chunk of the delegates at the convention.

Meanwhile, in a hypothetical head-to-head match-up between the two front-runners, Clinton soundly thumps Trump 54 percent to 39 percent. In addition, pollsters found of the remaining three GOP candidates only Kasich tops Clinton at 48 percent to 45 percent.

Still, Trump enjoys wide appeal in the state, with men, voters over the age of 45 and those without a college degree among his strongest supporters.

As in many prior races, Trump runs poorer among female voters college graduates and voters who self-identify as "very conservative.''

As for Clinton, the former first lady and Secretary of State attracts twice as much support from African-American voters than does Sanders. She also holds huge leads among women and voters age 45 and older.

In contrast, Mr. Sanders owns big leads among younger voters and the most liberal primary voters.

Trump, Clinton Also Leading in Indiana

A recent WTHR/HPI Poll in Indiana also finds Trump at 37 percent, compared to 31 percent for Cruz and 22 percent for Ohio Gov. John Kasich. On the Democratic side, Clinton leads Sanders 48 percent to 45 percent.
Nicholas Oliviera

Nicholas Oliviera, 18, of Forks Township, is serving in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan. He graduated from Easton Area High School in 2015.

(Courtesy photo)

Nicholas Oliviera has wanted to be a soldier as long as he can remember.

Now the Forks Township resident is proudly serving in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan.

At age 18, the Easton Area High School 2015 alumnus is the youngest member of his battalion. When the Twin Towers fell on 9/11, he was barely old enough to know what happened, but the tragedy motivated him to pursue a career defending America.

"I was 4 years old when that terrible day happened," Oliviera said in an email from Afghanistan. "Whenever I see footage or a documentary about it on TV it just gets me angry. ... I find so much excitement and pride wearing a uniform that I can be proud of."

He left the Lehigh Valley in August for infantry training at Fort Benning, Georgia. Then he went on to Colorado. Then he left for Afghanistan in February for a nine-month deployment.

"Most 18-year-olds are still in high school or in college partying. Being 18 over here is a little different," he said. "A lot of my superiors tell me I should've gone to college first to get experience and have fun but I don't think I'll find any happiness in that."

Oliviera has fallen into a routine: eat, sleep, work out, work. He said he can't provide details about his duties, but said he's so busy the days pass quickly.

Locals for the most part are happy Americans are there to defend them, although soldiers there are always wary of an Afghan soldier or policeman firing on U.S. troops. Indirect fire from the surrounding mountains is a day-to-day reality.

"I'm not going to tell you some story like you would see in 'Lone Survivor' or 'Blackhawk Down' but I will say that the threat is still out there," Oliviera said.

He has no regrets about forgoing college for active duty. He misses home sometimes but knows he always has the love and support of his family.

"It is terrible being away from Easton and my family and friends, but at the end of the day it will all be worth it," Oliviera said.

Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook.
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Daniel P. Braeunig, of Williams Township, is wheelchair-bound at his preliminary arraignment Feb. 9, 2016, before District Judge Daniel Corpora on drunken-driving crashes in the Dec. 28, 2015, crash on Route 611 in the township that left 23-year-old father of two, Dallas Poff, dead. (Pamela Sroka-Holzmann | For lehighvalleylive.com)

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A man already charged with homicide and drunken driving following the death of a Williams Township man in a crash now is facing a harassment charge in a domestic fight, state police said.

Daniel P. Braeunig, 36, of the first block of Raubsville Road, at 9:30 p.m. Saturday allegedly fought with a 31-year-old woman at his Williams Township home.

Pennsylvania State Police at Belfast said Braeunig grabbed the woman around the neck and threw her to the ground repeatedly while yelling at her.

Police said the argument started after the woman had just returned home.

A harassment charge was filed against Braeunig at the office of District Judge Daniel Corpora, of Easton. Attorney Bob Sletvold, representing Braeunig, could not immediately be reached for comment Sunday.

Braeunig is scheduled to appear Monday afternoon in Northampton County Court for a preliminary hearing on charges connected to the vehicular homicide case.

During Braeunig's February arraignment, Sletvold tried to persuade Corpora to allow house arrest monitoring for Braeunig instead of sending him to prison to await the preliminary hearing.

Sletvold told the judge Braeunig is bound to a wheelchair and unable to drive, relying on a family member to drive him around. Braeunig told the judge he was injured in the crash and has undergone back, ankle and foot surgeries. At least one surgery involved fusing toes back together, he said.

Northampton County Assistant District Attorney Joseph Lupackino argued for Braeunig to be held in prison, citing a New Jersey residency listed for Braeunig and calling him a danger to society.

Corpora instead sent Braeunig to Northampton County Prison in lieu of $250,000 bail, but said he would permit 10 percent bail if approved by Pretrial Services. Braeunig has since then posted bail, online records indicate.

Braeunig on Dec. 28 allegedly had twice the legal limit for alcohol in his blood and was speeding when he struck a vehicle head-on in the township, killing 23-year-old Dallas Poff. Poff, of Easton, was the father of two young children.

Braeunig's blood-alcohol level was 0.16, according to police. Penalties begin for most drivers at 0.08.

A police analysis of his 2008 Toyota Tundra revealed he was driving 78.3 mph in a 40 mph zone when the crash occurred, court records say.

It happened in the 600 block of Route 611 when Braeunig allegedly lost control on a curve and crashed head-on into a 2004 Nissan Altima driven by Poff. Braeunig crossed into the oncoming lane and hit Poff head-on, police said.

Poff was pronounced dead at the scene.

Braeunig has had at least two prior drunken-driving convictions -- and records show he has several other DUIs pending.

Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @pamholzmann. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
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The Monroe County Coroner was called to the scene of this fatal collision between a jeep and a motorcycle on Route 611 near the point of the gap on Saturday, April 23, 2016. The road was closed while the wreck was being investigated. (Keith R. Stevenson/Pocono Record)

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A 24-year-old New Jersey man died Saturday afternoon when he lost control of his motorcycle, struck a Jeep head-on and was thrown off the bike, authorities said.

Daniel Joseph Creasy, 24, of Glen Gardner, Hunterdon County, was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after the accident at about 3:22 p.m. Saturday. An autopsy is scheduled Monday to determine Creasy's exact cause and manner of death.

Monroe County Coroner Bob Allen said the crash occurred when Creasy was southbound on Route 611 and lost control of his motorcycle at a curve -- about a half mile north of the Northampton County line.

Creasy then crossed into the northbound lane and struck a Jeep Wrangler, driven by 20-year-old Frank R. Besson of Scotch Plains, New Jersey, head-on, Allen said.

Creasy was thrown into the air, over a stone wall and landed near railroad tracks on the northbound side, Allen said. The motorcycle ended up underneath the Jeep, he said.

Allen said Creasy was traveling with four other motorcycle riders. He was wearing a helmet and other protective gear, Allen said.

Besson was not injured and there were no other reported injuries.

Route 611, in the area between Delaware Water Gap and Slateford, was closed for several hours Saturday.

Pennsylvania State Police at Swiftwater continue to investigate.

Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @pamholzmann. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Traditionally, the Sunday before the Punchestown Festival is known as Walking Sunday. On Walking Sunday, April 21, the public are invited to walk the course at Punchestown with the first walkers scheduled to set off at 2pm.

Traditionally, the Sunday before the Punchestown Festival is known as Walking Sunday. On Walking Sunday, April 21, the public are invited to walk the course at Punchestown with the first walkers scheduled to set off at 2pm.

The Racecourse circuit is 2.2 miles long. We are encouraging walkers, families, dogs and their owners, as well as children in fancy dress to come along and join in some wonderful activities that have been organised for the afternoon.

In addition to walking the course you and your dog can enter into the fun competitions such as Dog Most Like its Owner, Waggiest tail and Best Dressed dog. There will also be free collars and leads for the first 150 dogs to walk the course with special thanks to Irish Dog Foods Ltd.

Nas na Riogh Housing Association are organising the traditional inspection and walking of the course and their Convent Tea Rooms from McAuley Place will be onsite providing a selection of home baked produce. Also on display will be work from Naas Art Group, The Little Shop of Crafts, Felt Crafts, Wood Craft, FJ Photography, McAuley Place Art and Craft Group and lots more. Naas Local History Group will be meeting at the parade ring at 3pm to tell us all about the history of Punchestown Race Course. Stonebrook Pet Farm will be bringing along some little animals from their farm to meet the children who have finished walking the course. And in addition to all this there will be fun games for all ages to participate in, welly throwing, horseshoe toss, face painting and beat the goalie.

Why not come along and meet the neighbours and renew old friendships while inspecting the course and jumps and predicting the going for the races!
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Tim Farron was on the Andrew Marr Show this morning, putting in an other strong performance. What was unusual is that he was on the studio rather than the gorgeous Lake District countryside.

You can watch what he has to say here:

He talked about the joyful challenge of leading the party, of the partys success in terms of seats and vote share in local government by-elections, of how Labour, the worst opposition in history were letting the Tories away with forced academisation of schools, an attack on junior doctors and dismantling all the good things on climate change that Lib Dems had done in Government.

He talked about his main immediate focus  the Commons vote on whether the UK should take 3000 unaccompanied child refugees already in Europe who are currently vulnerable to all sorts of horrors. His challenge to Conservative MPs and ministers was to ask what they would want another county to do if it were there children who were stuck in these camps on their own in devastating circumstances. The answer is obvious. he said.

We need to earn peoples votes he said. We can bring a freshness and a decency to serve people in their communities to do what liberals always did but to do it better than ever before.

Its good stuff from Tim. My one suggestion for improvement is that he needs to have something that he brings to every interview which states our values and says who we are as a party, to emphasise our planet-saving, establishment-busting, humanitarian, internationalist heart and soul. Richard Flowers had a suggestion when I said this on Twitter.

Local to global, work hard, delivering compassion and hope @caronmlindsay @timfarron  Millennium Elephant (@millenniumdome) April 24, 2016

There was praise for Tims performance from an unexpected source, too:

A rather impressive interview by @timfarron on #Marr.  Iain Dale (@IainDale) April 24, 2016

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
The Welsh Liberal Democrats are making a big play for Labour supporters to vote Lib Dem on the regional list to stop UKIP candidates like Neil Hamilton and Mark Reckless (really) from getting elected.

From Wales Online:

Jenny Randerson  the former Acting Deputy First Minister who became a Wales Office minister  has intervened in the Assembly election campaign to urge Labour supporters to lend the Liberal Democrats their votes on the regional list in a bid to stop Ukip winning AMs.

The former Cardiff Central AM who is now a member of the House of Lords argues that Labour voters have the power to stop Ukip.

Baroness Randerson said: The truth is that Labour voters can stop Ukip gaining large numbers of Assembly Members. The power, so to speak, is in their hands.

Even Labour insiders know, in their heart of hearts, that its unlikely that they will pick up regional Assembly Members. Therefore, Labour voters must consider lending their regional vote to the Welsh Liberal Democrats to stop Ukip.

We are confident we can win constituency seats, but in some regions the battle for the fourth seat is between Ukip and the Welsh Liberal Democrats. Its a clear choice.

If Ukip dont represent your values, then people really must vote tactically.

She continued: Almost on a daily basis here in Wales we are seeing Ukip in complete chaos. Their mission may to be to divide communities, but at the moment its their own party that is divided.

Kirsty Williams was absolutely right in the leaders debate to raise the question of whether Ukip Assembly Members would even turn up.
INDEPENDENT councillor Emmett OBrien has accused the executive of Limerick City and County Council of operating in their own world.

And, at a meeting where other local councillors also lashed out at management for ignoring their concerns, Cllr OBrien said: There is a growing disconnect between us and the highest levels evident not just here but also at (full) council level. It is frankly unacceptable.

Cllr OBriens comments came at the recent meeting of the Adare Rathkeale Municipal District where councillors, for the fourth time, raised their concerns about a proposed 1m upgrade of a stretch of the N21 at Adare.

Previously, councillors argued that the plan needed to include a footpath along the Blackabbey Road from the village to the GAA field for safety reasons. They also argued that piping for sewerage should be laid while the road from the village to Murphys Cross was being upgraded.

But they were unhappy with the responses received. They were told that no funding would be available from TII (the former NRA) for the footpath as Blackabbey Road was not a national route. And Irish Water had said that Adare was not on their priority list.

Cllr Richard ODonoghue denounced the response from Irish Water as absolutely criminal. Irish Water, he argued, would prefer to dig up a perfectly good road in five years time rather than apply common sense now. The council, he said, should pay the cost of laying the pipe and charge Irish Water afterwards.

Cllr Stephen Keary also deplored the response of Irish Water arguing that it was wrong of the company to suggest there were not sufficient economic drivers.

Dont waste taxpayers money again, he said. Young couples were being prevented from setting up home in their home town of Adare, he said because there werent serviced sites. He also argued that the plan should be amended to include a push button pedestrian crossing on the Main St, one of four issues previously raised by councillors.

Director of services Caroline Curley told councillors that she had contacted the roads department of the council to see if some plan could be brought back on the Blackabbey Rd footpath. But, she said, the road is narrow and it will require land take.

On the Irish Water issue, she pointed out: It is not just in Adare. There are road works occurring everywhere, she said, but Irish Water has its own investment plan.

The talks can still go on, Ms Curley said. But she advised against holding off on passing the Adare plan until agreement was reached. She had explained, she said, the urgency of getting the car-park for the boys school done or there was the risk of losing the funding.

It is unfair to say you are being ignored, Ms Curley said. There is a process and a period of time.

Will we lose the funding? asked Cllr OBrien. There is an element of a gun against our heads.

Cllr Kevin Sheahan said he did not want to have to oppose the plan. But he said, the main objections were that the m ain services were not being installed while the opportunity was there. We are saying with one voice we acknowledge there is a footpath required for safety, he said.

They would go all the way on this, he warned.
JUDGEMENT has been reserved in the case of a man who claims he was detained unlawfully after he was arrested on suspicion of drink-driving.

During a contested hearing, Limerick District Court was told Martin McCarthy, aged 28, of Coolroe, Ballincollig, County Cork was arrested following an incident in the early hours of November 26, last.

Sergeant Val McCormack said he observed a vehicle being driven by the defendant passing Henry Street garda station at around 3.20am.

He said the lights were turned off and that Mr McCarthy appeared to be disoriented.

Following his arrest at Bishops Quay a short time later, the defendant was brought to the garda station where he supplied two specimens of breath which confirmed he was over the legal alcohol limit.

Being cross-examined by solicitor Adrian Frawley, Sgt McCormack agreed that he began the statutory 20 minute period of observation at 3.46am and that he restarted it at 3.59am after Mr McCarthy asked to go to the toilet.

The witness told the court he advised the defendant that the period of observation would be stopped and restarted if he went to the toilet but he accepted he had not made a note of this in his notebook or included it in his statement.

Its procedure, he said adding that it was best practice in accordance with his training.

Sgt McCormack agreed he had accompanied Mr McCarthy to the toilet and that he was satisfied he did not consumed any food or drink during the two minutes he was there.

In a submission to the court, Mr Frawley said there was no objective justification to restart the period of observation.

Seeking to have the case dismissed, he said his client had been detained at the garda station for 13 minutes longer than was necessary  given the evidence of the garda sergeant.

Inspector Paul Reidy, prosecuting, opposed the application saying the defendant was made fully aware of the consequences of taking a toilet break.

He added that we do not know if the defendant burped or regurgitated anything while in the toilet as he back was to Sgt McCormack.

He submitted it was absolutely necessary to restart the period of observation given a number of recent court decisions.

Judge Marian OLeary adjourned the matter to April 28, next saying she will read a number of relevant High Court judgements before handing down her decision.
WOMEN across the Mid-West, who have suffered from miscarriages, have launched a media campaign to highlight the emotional pain and utter torture that they have experienced due to University Maternity Hospital Limerick having no separate baby loss facility.

Forty past and present patients, from the Mid-West Miscarriage Support Group, have written to hospital management, calling for them to urgently provide a separate facility to be set up straight away.

According to the campaign founder, Pauline Gannon, who has suffered from four baby losses, the experience is traumatic for women as they have to travel huge lengths to be treated.

At present, women are informed of the baby loss in admissions, surrounded by pregnant women. Then they must travel to the basement for scans and reports, which involves walking past the hospital shop that is full of balloons and the congratulations. When they receive the scans, they must return to admissions, she explained.

According to the letter, sent on April 7, the lobby group has been addressing the shortcomings...to meet the needs of women who suffer a baby loss over the past two years.

Dozens of women have contributed anonymous firsthand accounts of their experiences with baby loss at UMHL, through the Campaign for Separate Baby Loss Facility at UMHL Facebook page.

Ms Gannon, mother-of-two, also set up an online petition on April 16, which has since been signed by more than 2,100 people.

In response to the campaign, a spokesperson for the UL Hospitals Group said they sympathise most sincerely with any woman/couple who has experienced a miscarriage or a threatened miscarriage.

We recognise that it is a sad time for mothers and their loved ones and we work hard every day to provide sensitive and compassionate care and ensure that the correct supports are in place.

The spokesperson stated that a 800,000 funding bid has been made to the HSE for the delivery of a new building to house early pregnancy assessment unit (EPAU) and perinatal bereavement counselling services.

The new unit would be located adjacent to the UMHL reception with a separate entrance and waiting area for those attending the clinic, with extended operating hours.

The spokesperson stated that all emergency miscarriages will continue to come to the maternity emergency unit  a 24-hour service for those experiencing difficulties.

The EPAU is a clinic for women with bleeding, pain or loss in early pregnancy. The spokesperson said that the new EPAU was, initially, meant to be part of a larger project at the hospital, but plans were stalled due to the very welcomed ministerial approval for the new maternity hospital.

Ms Gannon said that they dont have time to wait for the new maternity hospital, which is expected to be built in the next five years, on the UHL complex. Ms Gannon said that the lobby group believes that this is a downgraded version of what they want.

She said that losing a baby can be an isolating experience and that the issue is still a taboo topic.

People have to talk, and there is a whole mental health and emotional side to this. Women, when they go on to have children, they never forget this. They carry it with them.
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A captivating story of jealousy and betrayal, The Whole of the Moon is the debut novel from Carrigallen native Kevin McManus.

Set in the fictional village of Ballinastrad in the winter of 1988, the story follows Conor Doyle, who has returned from London and is reunited with his old friends. He dreams of finding a reason to stay, but that dream is shattered and a nightmare begins when a terrible crime is confessed to him. Should he tell the police or keep the secret?

The book enjoyed a successful launch last month in Charley Farrellys in Kevins native Carrigallen and so far, it has been well received by all its readers.

Anybody who has read the book have told me they enjoyed it and are looking for a sequel, which hopefully I get published in about 18 months, Kevin revealed to the Leader.

The Whole of the Moon is available to purchase at Newsround in Longford, Crannog in Cavan and Mulveys and the Reading Room in Carrick-on-Shannon. The book is also available online at easons.ie, amazon.ie, kennys.ie and bookdepository.ie.
The President of the ICMSA, has said the current period of falling milk price is inflicting a battering on Longfords economy.

John Comer also said the effect is such that, Longford has lost over 4m in direct milk income from 2014 to 2016.

He has also estimated that the total dairy-derived spend in the the county will be down by at least 7m on 2014 figures.

An unwillingness on either the part of Government or the EU to adopt serious and meaningful measures to arrest this slide means there is no immediate prospect of the price turning around, Mr Comer fumed, before pointing out that ICMSA had calculated the cost to Longfords economy on the basis of all the milk produced by the countys 118 dairy farmers in 2014 and valuing it at an average price of 38.4 cents per litre.

While no-one imagined that international dairy markets could be turned around at the click of a finger, the unwillingness of the EU and Member State to accept that an immediate rise in Intervention Price to at least 28 cents per litre is immediately required, is alarming to say the least.

ICMSA has always urged politicians and policymakers to grasp the basic fact that where farm incomes take the kind of battering that were seeing just now, then not alone does the local economy suffer through falling farm income but - based on the well-established economic principle of the multiplier effect - you see massive falls in the wider local economy as the farmers stop purchasing goods and services in their local communities.
Local News, Press Releases

By Legislator Anker's Office Published: April 24 2016

In 2012, Suffolk County Legislator Sarah Anker partnered with the Suffolk County Police Department to create a scam alert website. It is an important resource to warn residents about common phone and internet scams, and ...

Mount Sinai, NY - April 21, 2016 - In 2012, Suffolk County Legislator Sarah Anker partnered with the Suffolk County Police Department to create a scam alert website, www.scpdscamalert.org. The website was one of Legislator Ankers first initiatives upon entering office, and is an important resource to warn residents about common phone and internet scams, and illegal money schemes.

Since launching the website in 2012, Legislator Anker has worked diligently with the Suffolk County Police Department, the Suffolk County Department of Labor Licensing and Consumer Affairs, and New York Attorney General Eric Schneidermans office to provide residents with the most up-to-date information and a more user-friendly, interactive experience. The updated website contains more links and resources with valuable information about how to avoid becoming a scam victim. On the website, along with information about common scams, you can now find a link to the Suffolk County Wall of Shame Registry, which lists the individuals and companies who have been found in violation of Suffolk Countys Licensing Law, as well as information about how to report a scam.

In the past week Ive received several scam phone calls. Residents need to be vigilant against unsolicited phone calls and internet scams. It is important to never provide personal information to someone you do not know, Legislator Anker. I urge residents to be alert and to utilize the updated website and its resources.

To report a scam, please contact the Suffolk County Police Department by calling 631-852-COPS (2677).
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

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Speakers from Meta, Finnegan, Equifax and the LOT Network said it was important to use data, get involved and reach out more to improve diversity and inclusion
Norwegian exploration travel company Hurtigruten, has signed a letter of intent for the construction of up to four new explorer ships with Norwegian shipyard Kleven. The order for delivery in 2018 and 2019 is a move to meet growing demand for adventure travel from travellers in the U.S. and across the globe.



The order includes the construction of two new state-of-the-art vessels, which will be designed and customized specifically for adventure-rich expedition voyages in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, as well as along the Norwegian coastline. True to Hurtigrutens commitment to sustainability, the new ships will be equipped with advanced environmentally-friendly technology to reduce emissions. The signing marks the largest investment Hurtigruten has made in its more than 120 years of exploring the Arctic and Antarctic waters.



This is a milestone for us and expresses how confident we are in the growth of the global market for adventure tourism says Daniel Skjeldam, CEO, Hurtigruten. We intend to build the most formidable expedition ships the world has seen. Adventure tourism is one of the fastest growing global tourist trends valued at $263 billion* and has witnessed an increase of 195% in over just two years.



This is one of the largest orders in the history of Kleven. The fact that it is Hurtigruten placing the order, makes the project particularly exciting, says Stale Rasmussen, CEO, Kleven.



The new ships will offer a host of activities for adventure seekers, from climbing and kayaking to rib tours, whale and sea eagle safaris. The new vessels will explore some of the worlds most exceptionally beautiful and unspoilt natural surroundings while also offering lectures on topics relevant to the destinations they sail to from experts in areas such as history, zoology, botany, and environmental science. In addition, experienced expedition teams will accompany passengers on educational excursions to isolated places only accessible by ships or zodiac boats.



We offer our guests a truly unique experience on-board all of our ships. Every season weve seen an increase in demand from guests to travel with Hurtigruten for the unrivalled range of adventure activities we offer, notes Gordon Dirker, Managing Director, Hurtigruten U.S. It has been more than ten years since Hurtigruten last placed an order for the construction of a new ship so the prospect of being able to expand with these new vessels is very exciting.



The vessels will be designed and developed by Rolls-Royce, with the assistance of renowned Norwegian ship designer Espen ino, and built by Kleven, a longstanding partner.



Skjeldam adds, Hurtigruten is a 120-year-old pioneer company. Along parts of the Norwegian coast, Hurtigruten drew the charts - literally. We will bring this knowledge and know-how when we put the new ships into operation.



Using its current fleet of ships, Hurtigruten will offer explorer travel to additional new destinations including the Amazon Rainforest and Arctic Canada in 2017. However, the new explorer ships will allow guests to land close to the coastline of these new adventure destinations.


Researchers at UCL Energy Institute use the methodology they developed for the Third IMO GHG Study 2014 and AIS data to estimate emissions from five different ship types and display this in a new interactive map that plots 250 million data points to show the movements of the worlds commercial shipping fleet over the course of the year 2012.

The interactive shipping map has been developed by the UCL Energy Institute and London-based data visualisation and digital journalism studio Kiln, and was funded by the European Climate Foundation.

It is based on hundreds of millions of individually recorded ship positions; plotting all of these at once shows the extraordinary extent of modern shippings reach.

Based only on ship movements and without a background map, the worlds coastlines are clearly defined, with plenty of variation in ship activity: from the buzz of activity in the East China Sea to the relative quiet of Somalias piracy afflicted waters to ship movements in areas where one might not expect them, such as the Arctic and Antarctic.

The map also clearly shows the most crucial shipping thoroughfares of all: the canals linking different bodies of water, such as the Panama Canal, opened a century ago to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, and the even older and busier Suez Canal which saw 17,000 transits in 2012 alone.

To observe the flows of the global economy in more detail, users can distinguish between five different ship types; container ships, tankers, dry bulk, gas bulk and vehicle carriers.

The map for example illustrates the movements of tankers which ship oil from massive terminals in the Middle East or from offshore rigs in West Africa and elsewhere, dry bulk carriers moving aggregates, ores and coal from mines and quarries, many of which are found in Australia and Latin America.

Many of these raw materials are shipped to manufacturing regions to make finished goods which are themselves moved back across the ocean in container ships.

UCL-Energy researchers took AIS data showing location and speed of ships and cross-checked it with another database on vessel characteristics, such as engine type and hull measurements.

Using this information, they were able to compute the CO2 emissions for each observed hour, following the approach laid out in the Third IMO Greenhouse Gas Study 2014. Kiln took the resulting dataset and visualised it with WebGL on top of a specially created base map, which shows bathymetry (ocean depth) as well as continents and major rivers.

For each ship type as well as for the entire global fleet, the map displays the freight carried and CO2 emitted by the ships.

Emissions from international shipping for 2012 were estimated to be 796 million tonnes CO2 which is more than the whole of the UK, Canada or Brazil emit in a year. This number can be further broken down into 2.18 million tonnes CO2 per day or 90,868 tonnes CO2 per hour.
ExxonMobil and its employees contributed a total of $45.4 million to institutions of higher education across the country as part of the ExxonMobil Foundations 2015 Educational Matching Gift Program.



ExxonMobil employees, retirees, directors and surviving spouses contributed $13.2 million, which was matched with $32.2 million in unrestricted grants from the ExxonMobil Foundation.



The program matches donor pledges on a 3:1 ratio up to $7,500 to qualified colleges and universities in the United States, along with the American Indian College Fund, Hispanic Scholarship Fund and the United Negro College Fund. Since the Educational Matching Gift Program began in 1962, more than $600 million has been contributed to American institutions of higher learning.



Quality education is the foundation for individual opportunity and economic prosperity, said Ben Soraci, president of the ExxonMobil Foundation. We have a long history of supporting education excellence in the country. Its a shared priority, year after year, with ExxonMobil employees.



In 2015, more than 4,500 employees and retirees made individual contributions through the initiative. Although grants are unrestricted, colleges and universities are encouraged to designate a portion to math and science programs supporting student engagement.



In addition to the Educational Matching Gift Program, ExxonMobil and the ExxonMobil Foundation support and develop programs that encourage students, particularly women and minorities, to consider and pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math, as well as teacher training initiatives.
European shipowners hope that the momentum created by the Dutch Presidencys High Level Event on Short Sea Shipping held in Amsterdam last February will result in maritime directors putting Short Sea Shipping on the top priority list when they meet today in Brussels.

At the Dutch Presidency event, all participants strongly agreed on the need and urgency to finally remove all barriers. The lack of a single market, cumbersome administrative procedures, market access restrictions for service providers in ports and other barriers makes short sea shipping less competitive and also less attractive than other transport modes, commented European Community Shipowners Associations (ECSA) Secretary General Patrick Verhoeven.

This is regrettable given that short sea shipping has the potential to respond in a safe, sustainable, efficient and cost-effective manner to expected growth in transport demand, he added.

EU shipping policy has so far not delivered on its promise to create a single market for shipping. Short sea shipping remains disadvantaged compared to other transport modes. In many cases, goods transported by short sea shipping between two EU seaports lose Union status as soon as they leave port.

This entails a heavy administrative burden, involving several authorities and intermediate parties. Procedures and requirements are not only complex but also repetitive, resulting in productivity losses and unnecessary workload and stress for ship crews.

We call upon all legislators to have a short sea reflex, said Patrick Verhoeven. We see too often legislation that has, unintended, negative consequences for short sea shipping. Unfortunately there is again such an example. This time we fear the risk of competition between transport modes and even modal backshift following the International Maritime Organisations SOLAS rules on weighing of containers. While these new IMO rules as such are very much applauded by shipowners, we are concerned about the impact it has on short sea LO-LO shipping, he continued.

Containers which are loaded onto a vessel are required to comply with all new procedures, whereas those placed on a truck to be driven on board a vessel or take a landside connection do not. Therefore the cost of moving a container via a LO-LO (lift-on/lift-off) vessel may increase and lead-time may become longer. This could drive users to opt for an alternative solution.

We would certainly want this distortion to be solved as soon as possible as from a safety perspective we see no reason for this different treatment within the short sea segment and we are convinced that nobody intended to create a modal backshift with these rules, Patrick Verhoeven concluded.
Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding co., Ltd. (MES; President: Takao Tanaka) achieved production volume of 181 MAN B&W low-speed diesel engines manufactured at the Tamano Works Machinery Factory (Tamano, Okayama Prefecture) in fiscal 2015, representing for 3.28 million horsepower (results in the previous fiscal year were 181 engines and 3.54 million horsepower).



Since MES formed a technical tie-up with the Denmark-based B&W (now known as MAN Diesel & Turbo) on diesel engines in 1926, it has built a production track record as one of the worlds leading manufacturers, with cumulative horsepower production of over 90 million horsepower. MES plans production volume of 3.8 million horsepower during the current fiscal year, and expects increases due to the production of super-large engines for large container vessels.



In addition, a four-cylinder test engine with 500mm diameter cylinders has been installed at the Tamano Works Machinery Factory, and MES is currently developing products aimed at the Tier III NOx restrictions advocated by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) as well as products that will lead to reduced CO2 emissions.



Moreover, to develop a framework that better meets the demands of the market moving forward, MES plans to make capital investments in super-large engines and gas-fired diesel engines at the Tamano Works Machinery Factory, as well as equipment that accommodates Tier III NOx restrictions.



MES will leverage its track record of orders for gas-fired diesel engines to expand orders moving forward, while continuing its focus on receiving orders for the wide range of engines for bulk carriers, tankers, car carriers, LPG carriers and other vessels.





Past and Planned Production Volume of Mitsui-MAN B&W Low-speed Diesel Engines

FY2008 214 engines, 4.7 million HP

FY2009 218 engines, 4.37 million HP

FY2010 221 engines, 4.18 million HP

FY2011 220 engines, 4.31 million HP

FY2012 187 engines, 3.83 million HP

FY2013 164 engines, 3.57 million HP

FY2014 181 engines, 3.54 million HP

FY2015 181 engines, 3.28 million HP

FY2016 180 engines, 3.8 million HP

*Figures for FY2016 are planned.
A large number of Qatargas employees participated in the third annual Qatargas beach clean-up held on Saturday (23rd April) at Al Ghariya beach, 85 kilometers North of Doha.



Qatargas launched the annual beach clean-up day initiative in 2013 in coordination with the Ministry of Municipality and Environment, as part of the Companys continued commitment towards promoting environmental protection and preserving the natural beauty of the State of Qatar for generations to come.



This years beach clean-up activity witnessed the participation of a large number of Qatargas employees.



Azzam Abdulaziz Al-Mannai, Qatargas Public Relations Manager said, We would like to thank all our employees who participated in the beach clean-up activity for setting aside a few hours from their weekend holiday to participate in this worthwhile activity.

This is a clear demonstration of their personal commitment towards environmental protection. We also greatly appreciate the continued support from the Ministry of Municipality and

Environment.



Initiatives aimed at promoting environmental protection form an integral part of Qatargas Corporate Social Responsibility Programme. Our efforts in this area are fully aligned with the objectives of the Environmental Development pillar of the Qatar National Vision 2030.



A long stretch of the beach at Al Ghariya was cleaned as part of the event. This involved the



collection and removal of several bags of rubbish and debris including plastic bottles and plates, cans, wood and several other items.



Al Ghariya is a popular beach, visited by several people, especially during the weekends. The sandy beach and shallow water provide a beautiful and relaxing atmosphere. So, in addition to helping protect marine life, the removal of litter and debris from the beach will also make it a cleaner, more beautiful place for visitors.



Qatargas is totally committed to the management of the environment in which we operate. As a responsible energy operator, Qatargas is keen to promote pioneering environmental solutions to further improve the environmental performance of our LNG and other production facilities.


European shipowners welcome the significant progress made this week at the 69th session of the IMO Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC).

The basic features of a global CO2 data collection system have been agreed upon and further work on CO2 reduction commitments from shipping has been outlined.

It is very positive that IMO Member States have been able to agree on these steps in the wake of the Paris agreement on climate change, said European Community Shipowners Associations (ECSA) Secretary General Patrick Verhoeven, It confirms the unique leadership of IMO to tackle the growth of greenhouse gas emissions from our industry. We are especially pleased that under the global data collection system reporting of CO2 emissions will be mandatory.

The next MEPC meeting in October will formalise the amendment to the MARPOL Convention that will incorporate the data collection system and make it applicable to all ships over 5,000 GT. The next meeting will also continue work on the CO2 reduction commitments of shipping.

ECSA particularly supports the proposal of its international partner ICS (International Chamber of Shipping) to develop an Intended IMO Determined Contribution for CO2 reduction on behalf of the sector.

This would mirror the commitments or Intended National Determined Contributions (INDCs) which governments have made for their national economies, but from which international transport is currently excluded.

An Intended IMO Determined Contribution would make IMO Member States and the shipping industry answerable to the international community, in the same way that governments are committed to INDCs, said Patrick Verhoeven, A work plan must now be elaborated, which includes the methodology used to define the contribution, the reference years, the long-term objective and the intermediary steps, all according to a clear timetable.
The new Scandlines ferry for the route Rostock-Gedser left the Danish shipyard FAYARD on Wednesday 20 April 2016. The vessel will be named M/V Berlin on Tuesday 3 May 2016.



During the last couple of months the vessel has successfully completed a comprehensive test programme (Harbor Acceptance Tests). Therefore, the M/V Berlin was able to start on the sea trial (Sea Acceptance Tests) on Wednesday 20 April, where the manoeuvrability will be tested under usual and unusual conditions.



After the sea trial M/V Berlin is expected to arrive at her future berth in Rostock. After adjustment of the ramps M/V Berlin will be ready for operation.



Before replacing M/V Prins Joachim in the schedule, the vessel will be named at a ceremony on Tuesday 3 May 2016 with participation of invited German and Danish politicians, journalists and business partners.



With space for 460 cars or 96 lorries the capacity is more than doubled on the route Rostock-Gedser. At the same time, Scandlines is simplifying and extending the timetable with fixed departures every odd hour from both Rostock and Gedser (at 07:00, 09:00, 11:00 etc.).



In the passenger areas the design and interior is inspired by nature and the countryside, and in the spacious light rooms a spectacular view of the sea awaits the passengers. The Scandlines Buffet in the front of the ferry seats more than 300 persons as does the FoodXpress in the middle of the vessel, which also offers access to the large and modern Onboard shop. The Berlin Xpresso situated on the upper deck is decorated in the colours of the beach and has direct access to the open sun deck.


The Port of Seattle presented Holland America Line with its sixth consecutive Green Gateway Award. The Port of Seattle also presented Seattles hometown cruise line with the Technology Innovator award.



The Port of Seattle presents the Green Gateway Awards annually to cruise and commercial lines that call at the port and whose environmental efforts are deemed worthy of recognition.



Holland America Lines commitment to the environment is something were very proud of, and to be recognized for the sixth year by the Port of Seattle with a Green Gateway Award is a testament to our dedication and focus, said Orlando Ashford, Holland America Lines president. We are continuously seeking more ways to be an environmental steward and responsibly sail the worlds oceans. We are honored to earn these accolades in our hometown.



Holland America Line also received the Technology Innovator award for investing in its Seattle-based fleet that has resulted in year-over-year reductions in fuel use and resultant greenhouse gases. Port of Seattle also cited the cruise lines installation of IPCO Power Fuel Treatment systems that are designed to enhance combustion, lower emissions, improve fuel economy, extend engine overhaul intervals and lower overall operating costs.



In previous years Holland America Line received the Green Gateway Award for its use of shore power, comprehensive practices to reduce emissions and its commitment to protecting the environment.



Holland America Line also was named the 2014 Marine Environmental Business of the Year by the Port of Seattle and the Seattle Propeller Club. The company was honored for its efforts to shrink its global environmental footprint through a series of objectives that reduce consumption of fuel and water, engine emissions and generation of solid waste.


Marines from Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort and Marine Wing Support Squadron -273 Explosive Ordnance Disposal conducted training at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort April 18-22.



The 5-day evolution was conducted to train and prepare the air stations EOD personnel to an elevated standard in their ability to neutralize Improvised Explosive Devices and support intelligence operations. The training was the culminating event for the EOD technicians aboard the air station.



These Marines have been training for three months on the range and in the classroom to prepare for this training cycle, said Master Sgt. Shaun Donahue, the Staff Noncommissioned Officer in Charge for MWSS-273 EOD. This is their final event for this area of training.



Marines need to be prepared for real world scenarios which require their expertise. Mitigating and disposing of explosive hazards is a vital contribution to the Marine Corps mission success.



The training we are conducting is designed to simulate real world situations where EOD Marines would need to be called in, said Donahue. Some of the scenarios are based on operations overseas and in combat areas. We also have scenarios for stateside bomb threats for Marines to train on.



The Marines being evaluated were part of a 3-day simulation that took place at different sites around Fightertown. The purpose was to keep the training as close as possible to a real world crisis.



Today we are trying to keep the training realistic, said Donahue. There are several stations set up around the base for Marines to complete. When a team shows up at a station we present them with a scenario exactly like one they would encounter in the real world. They have to respond quickly and effectively with no guidance from the instructors.



Safety was key while the technicians operated around live explosives. Any detonation during the simulations was executed using extreme caution to minimize any possible danger to the Marines.



On this range, we are using small various explosives to simulate enemy ordnance, said Donahue. The detonations are controlled and safe for the Marines involved.



The EOD units provide a vital role to the Marine Corps. Marines must constantly train to maintain their readiness and hone their specialized skills.



These Marines need to be ready for deployment at any time both overseas and here at home, said Donahue. The training is continuous to make sure they are prepared for any given situation.


Why Russia Harasses U.S. Aircraft and Ships

Since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, tension with the West has been high, affecting eastern Ukraine, Syria and hot spots across the former Soviet sphere. Less overtly, Moscow has been working to protect areas vital to Russian interests by raising the stakes of U.S. operations there. This has manifested in numerous aggressive interceptions of U.S. military aircraft in flight, especially over the Black and Baltic seas. The interceptions, which are reportedly occurring more frequently, aim to dissuade Washington from operating in that airspace.

A Russian Su-24 jet makes a close-range and low-altitude pass near the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea on April 12. Russia sometimes uses close interceptions to deter U.S. craft without sparking outright combat. (U.S. Navy)

Analysis

On April 14, a Russian Su-27 fighter jet performed a barrel roll maneuver over a U.S. Air Force RC-135 spy plane flying in international airspace over the Baltic Sea. Just three days earlier, two Russian Su-24 bombers flew dangerously and repeatedly close to a U.S. destroyer, also in the Baltic Sea. The most recent intercept came less than a week before the NATO-Russia Council is set to convene for the first time since 2014. Along with the fighting in Ukraine and Afghanistan, military transparency and risk reduction  timely and relevant topics given the interception incidents  will be up for discussion at the meeting.

Not all interceptions are aggressive. In fact, the tactic is standard practice among militaries, both in the air and at sea. Around the world, aircraft and ships from a multitude of countries routinely intercept, visually inspect and escort other aircraft and maritime vessels passing through sensitive airspace or waters. Air forces, navies and coast guards worldwide regularly perform intercepts of this kind to enforce an air defense identification zone such as that in the East China Sea, to police operations such as NATO's Baltic Air Policing mission or, as necessary, to conduct ad hoc tactics. In these capacities, interceptions are almost invariably non-threatening; they are simply a means by which nations enhance their situational awareness and protect against contingencies.

But some interceptions deviate from the norm. In a deliberate ploy to deter a nation's forces from transiting a specific space, aircraft or ships may display aggressive maneuvers, harassing and intimidating targets. These interceptions resemble a high-stakes game of chicken, daring the foreign craft to continue on its route, despite the increased risk of collision, or back down.

Though the tactic carries a risk of damage to both sides, the initiator holds the advantage. Usually in aerial interceptions, a sleek, fast fighter jet targets a lumbering bomber or reconnaissance plane. The initiator of the encounter is often far less valuable  in monetary cost and in the number of flight crew aboard  than the intercepted target, raising the stakes for leaders (and crew) as they decide how to respond. As a fighter jet carries out dangerous maneuvers around it, the target is left to wonder about the interceptor's intentions and skill.

For Russia, close interceptions offer a means to deter U.S. craft without sparking outright combat. The tactic has worked for Moscow already: In July 2014, a Russian jet's aggressive flight so alarmed the crew of a U.S. RC-135 over the Baltic Sea that it accidentally fled into Swedish airspace to evade the interceptor.

But close intercepts do not always go as planned. In the April 2001 Hainan Island incident, for example, a collision during a close intercept left a Chinese pilot dead, his J-8II interceptor destroyed and a U.S. EP-3E signals intelligence aircraft seriously damaged. A number of Cold War-era close intercepts also caused collisions, particularly between ships. This led to the 1972 U.S.-Soviet Incidents at Sea Agreement, which sought to reduce the chances of collision and manage escalation when collisions did occur. Further efforts to limit the risk of escalation produced the 2014 Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea, which included Russia and China, as well as a 2014 agreement between the United States and China to regulate incidents between the two.

But the past few years have demonstrated that the agreements are not enough to stop such dangerous close encounters, at least not between the United States and Russia. And given the substantial tension between the two countries, a midair or at-sea collision resulting from a close interception could trigger retaliatory measures, leading to an escalation that neither side wants. Even so, as long as tension persists between Russia and the United States, the interceptions are likely to continue.

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eagle acquisition via FB.jpg

A group of local investors, known as Birdland Acquisition LLC, is poised to buy The Berkshire Eagle and several other small New England daily newspapers, vowing to beef up newsroom staffs and refocus the papers on local news coverage.

(The Berkshire Eagle / Facebook)

PITTSFIELD  Kevin Moran is a son of the Berkshires, the Western Massachusetts equivalent of the Hamptons  minus the sand and attitude.

It's a place where Upper West Siders with second homes sip lattes in Lenox, take in exhibits at The Clark in Williamstown, and head for the woods of Becket for a performance at Jacob's Pillow. It's also a place where former mill and factory towns struggle to reinvent themselves in a post-industrial world, where heroin continues to make inroads and urban ills sometimes supplant the country charm.

Few people know the Berkshires better than Moran, an Adams native who would have never guessed he'd some day be working for The Berkshire Eagle, the daily newspaper he grew up reading. He also would have never guessed he'd some day be running the Pittsfield newspaper  and several smaller papers in Vermont.

But life is strange, and the allegedly moribund newspaper industry is even stranger. That's why this week's trend-bucking news, that The Eagle is shedding its corporate ownership for local ownership, is grabbing plenty of media attention.

For the first time in more than 20 years, the venerable, Pulitzer Prize-winning daily will return to local hands as a new group of owners with strong ties to the Berkshires prepares to take over next month.

The news triggered a thunderclap of emotion in The Eagle's newsroom in Pittsfield, Western Massachusetts' third-largest city.

"Folks in our newsroom had tears of joy," said Moran, a former managing editor at The Eagle who subsequently became regional vice president of news for New England Newspapers Inc., the daily newspaper chain owned by New York City-based Digital First Media.

"It's like winning the newspaper lottery," said Moran, who's expected to keep his role overseeing The Eagle, Bennington Banner, Brattleboro Reformer and Manchester Journal after Digital First completes its sale to Birdland Acquisition LLC.

The principals of Birdland, a company formed expressly for the purpose of buying the newspapers, include three Stockbridge residents: John C. "Hans" Morris, a former president of Visa Inc.; Fredric D. Rutberg, a retired presiding justice of Central Berkshire District Court in Pittsfield; and Robert G. Wilmers, chairman and CEO of M&T Bank. The fourth owner is Stanford Lipsey, publisher emeritus of The Buffalo News and former owner, publisher and Pulitzer Prize-winner for The Sun Newspaper Group in Nebraska.

The Berkshire Eagle, once known as "The New York Tiimes of small dailies," will be sold to a group of private investors who plan to increase the size of the newsroom staff and beef up local news coverage.(Conor Berry / The Republican)

The last time The Eagle was independently owned was in 1995, when MediaNews Group, a company founded by William Dean Singleton of Denver, Colorado, acquired the Pittsfield newspaper, the Vermont papers, and a handful of other New England papers. Singleton, chairman of The Denver Post, was known for buying newspapers at firesale prices, then slashing salaries and staff.

However, the Birdland partners see their purchase  financial terms of the deal, which is expected to be completed May 2, were not disclosed  as defying the national trend of consolidating smaller newspapers into larger media organizations. This, they say, will allow for more local control and local news coverage.

"They're committed to making our papers the 'town squares' for the communities we cover," Moran said, adding that the new owners have assured a "seamless transition."

Rutberg, who left the bench last year, said Birdland's investment is intended to "reinvigorate The Eagle and its future" as a quality print and digital news and information resource devoted to the local community it serves. As a first step, the new ownership group plans to beef up staffing levels at the paper, whose daily circulation hovers around 22,000 and Sunday circulation is around 24,000.

For an editor like Moran, the new owners' emphasis on investing in traditional, community-based journalism is almost too good to be true. It bucks the national trend of layoffs, reduced newsroom budgets, and diminishing papers to the point of near irrelevancy, as consumers continue to rely on their cellphones and tablets for instant online news.

The emphasis for many media outlets in recent years has been getting the news online as quickly as possible  the industry equivalent of "Keeping up with the Joneses"  and not necessarily ensuring that a story's an actual story, fleshing out issues with journalism that's more focused on accuracy and details than digital clicks.

"They explicitly stated that they want our newspapers to be the best ones of their class in the United States," said Moran. "It will be great to invest our energies in growth and enhancement of the product and our digital sites to make readers happy and our advertisers happy."

Publisher Edward L. Woods will continue to lead the newspaper group, with Moran and the current management team and staff remaining in place. They will be joined by a substantial number of new hires in the news and business ends of the operation.

The Birdland team says its long-term strategy is refocusing its papers on local news coverage, improving editorial content, and implementing a variety of "innovative additions." An Editorial Advisory Board will be appointed to further engage the community, and citizen journalists will be recruited to enhance news coverage of the outlying parts of the county.

Kevin Moran is the vice president of news for New England Newspapers Inc. He oversees the news operations at The Berkshire Eagle and several other small dailies in New England.(Facebook)

Moran, a bespectacled, mild-mannered family man in his mid-40s, who also happens to play guitar in a punk rock band, isn't prone to crying, but he and his colleagues at The Eagle were misty-eyed when they learned their beloved paper was being sold to private owners. "They shed tears of joy, man," he said of his staff.

Moran firmly believes the new owners will return the once-great broadsheet to its rightful place as the newspaper of record for Berkshire County. The Eagle won a Pulitzer for editorial writing in 1973, and the newspaper was once known as the "New York Times of small dailies" because of its strong writing and reporting.

However, restoring The Eagle to its former glory is a tall order, especially considering the 21st century economics of the newspaper industry. But the Birdland quartet isn't a bunch of starry-eyed Baby Boomers trying to feather their nests as they approach their golden years. They're pros who collectively bring a ton of news, legal and corporate experience to the table, plus a genuine desire to reinvest in local news, according to Moran.

"I believe so strongly in our local newspapers' missions  and our people and our communities  that I would have loved to buy our newspapers," Moran said. "If I had the resources, I would have. But since I don't, I believe these guys are clearly the best for the job."

The biggest challenge facing the newspaper industry is declining ad revenue and circulation, prompting many papers to put their products online for free and figure out how to profit later. The online business model has reached the 20-year mark, or thereabouts, yet some traditional print media outlets are still struggling to compete in a 24-7 news cycle that now includes social media, bloggers, and even citizen journalists.

According to the nonprofit Pew Research Center, newspaper ad revenue has maintained a consistent trajectory since roughly 2010: Print ads have produced less revenue (down 5 percent), while digital ads have produced more revenue (up 3 percent)  but not enough to make up for the decline in print revenue. Overall ad revenue fell 4 percent, to just $19.9 billion.
Prince Death

Former Prince drummer Sheila E. consoles a fan as she leaves Paisley Park in Chanhassen, Minn., Saturday, April 23, 2016. The music superstar was pronounced dead at his Paisley Park estate near Minneapolis on Thursday. He was 57.

(AP Photo/Jeff Baenen)

MINNEAPOLIS -- Prince was cremated and a group of his "most beloved" family, friends and musicians celebrated him afterward in a small, private service, his publicist said Saturday.



The 57-year-old music superstar's family and friends gathered "in a private, beautiful ceremony" to say a loving goodbye, Yvette Noel-Schure said in a statement.



The statement did not say where the service was held, but friends such as percussionist Sheila E. and bassist Larry Graham were both seen Saturday entering Prince's suburban Minneapolis estate, Paisley Park. Prince's sister Tyka Nelson and brother-in-law Maurice Phillips also were seen on the grounds, as were catering trucks.



Hundreds of fans were gathered outside the estate, where a security fence was covered with purple balloons, flowers, signs and more honoring Prince. The musician lived and recorded at the compound.



Prince died Thursday at Paisley Park, and an autopsy was done Friday. But authorities have not released a cause of death and have said results could take days or weeks.



The publicist's brief statement repeated that the cause of Prince's death was unknown, and said autopsy results wouldn't be received for at least four weeks.



The statement said the "final storage" of Prince's remains would be private.



"We ask for your blessings and prayers of comfort for his family and close friends at this time," the statement said.



It said a "musical celebration" would be held at a future date.

How did Prince die? Singer had rep for clean living



Prince was found unresponsive in an elevator at his estate. The sheriff and a medical examiner spokeswoman declined Friday to say whether prescription drugs were taken from the home after his death.



Celebrity website TMZ, citing unidentified sources, has reported that Prince was treated for an overdose of the powerful painkiller Percocet while traveling home from concerts in Atlanta last week. The site said his plane made an emergency landing April 15 in Moline, Illinois, where he was briefly hospitalized.



Representatives for Prince did not respond to requests from The Associated Press for comment on the reports of the emergency landing and overdose treatment.



Carver County Sheriff Jim Olson has said Prince was last seen alive by an acquaintance who dropped him off at Paisley Park at 8 p.m. Wednesday. The "Purple Rain" star, born Prince Rogers Nelson, was found by staff members who went to the compound the next morning when they couldn't reach him by phone.



Emergency crews who answered the 911 call in Chanhassen, about 20 miles outside Minneapolis, could not revive Prince, the sheriff said. He said emergency workers did not administer Narcan, a drug they carry to counteract overdoses.



Prince's death came two weeks after he canceled concerts in Atlanta, saying he wasn't feeling well. He played a pair of makeup shows April 14 in that city, apologizing to the crowd shortly after coming on stage.



Early in the first show, he briefly disappeared from the stage without explanation. After about a minute he returned and apologized, saying he didn't realize how emotional the songs could be. He played the rest of the show without incident and performed three encores.



In the later show, he coughed a few times, though the show was again energetic.



Then came the reported emergency landing en route to Minnesota. The night after that, Prince hosted a dance party at Paisley Park, where some fans said he looked fine and seemed irked by reports of an illness. Prince didn't play except to tap out a few notes on a piano, and lingered only for a few minutes before disappearing.



Prince was slated to perform two shows earlier this week at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis but canceled last week because of health concerns.



Sheila E. has told the AP that Prince had physical issues from performing, citing hip and knee problems she said came from years of jumping off risers and stage speakers in heels. But she said she hadn't talked directly with him in several months.



The musician had spoken about struggling with childhood epilepsy. It was unclear if his epilepsy carried into adulthood.
BOSTON -- A toddler died Saturday after she was struck and killed by a private ambulance near Tufts Medical Center, the Boston Herald reports.

Boston Police responded to Nassau Street around 1:15 p.m. and found the child's mother crying, the newspaper reported. An EasCare ambulance struck the 2-year-old child, according to reports.

Authorities brought the child inside Tufts Medical Center where she was pronounced dead, the Boston Globe reported.

A friend of the family told the Boston Globe that the child's mother was taking her children to their apartment building at the time of the crash. The family lives across from the ambulance entrance for the hospital's emergency room, the newspaper reported.

EasCare officials said the company is "deeply saddened" by the crash and will cooperate with investigators.

Authorities did not release the child's name or any information about the driver.
BEVERLY

 A 19-year-old Williston, Vermont college student was killed Saturday morning when the car he was a passenger in crashed into a utility pole in Beverly.

The Salem News reported that Craig Sampson, a sophomore at Endicott College in Beverly, was a passenger in a BMW operated by Joseph Castano, 20, also of Williston. The car apparently went out of control and struck a utility pole just after midnight. Castano was not a student at the college but was in Beverly visiting Sampson.

The crash took place just off the college campus near the Birchmont Hall dormitory.

Both Sampson and Castano were taken to Beverly Hospital. Sampson was pronounced dead soon after arrival while Castano was admitted in fair condition.

Beverly police and the Massachusetts State Police CARS unit are investigating the accident, but police said alcohol and speed appear to be factors in the crash.
"Spiker http://www.spikercomm.com/ has clients all over the country," he said. "Our biggest client happens to be First Security Bank right here in Missoula. We have the largest apple grower and cherry grower in the country over in Chelan, Washington. We have a lot of farms. We have one of the largest potato growers. Weve done work for Arnold Palmer, weve done work for Donald Trump. Ive actually met with Trump many of times. We kind of do everything all across the country. Im leaving for Philadelphia in a few days for a client meeting."

DAVID ERICKSON [email protected]

Full Story: http://missoulian.com/news/local/spiker-communications-hires-new-specialists-and-moves-into-new-location/article_36cdb5c9-f71a-5602-a9ee-d2ce4d6dc181.html
Ushering MSGBC Oil, Gas & Power 2022 to a triumphant close, the final Ministerial panel of the conference convened under the theme, The Future of Africas Energy: COP27 and the Road Ahead, presenting a unified African position on energy autonomy and security ahead of the UNFCCCs 27th Conference of Parties in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt at the end of the year.

Speakers included H.E. Sophie Gladima, Minister of Petroleum and Energies of the Republic of Senegal; H.E. Dr. Omar Farouk Ibrahim, Secretary General of the African Petroleum Producers Organization; H.E. Gabriel Mbaga Obiang Lima, Minister of Mines and Hydrocarbons of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea; H.E. Bruno Jean-Richard Itoua, President of OPEC and Minister of Hydrocarbons of the Republic of the Congo; Hon. Tom Alweendo, Minister of Mines and Energy of the Republic of Namibia; and Milton Catelin, Secretary General of the International Gas Union. NJ Ayuk, Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber, moderated the session.

During the ministerial panel, speakers emphasized that up until now, climate change policies have largely been dictated by western and environmental organizations, organizations which have failed to consider Africas energy crisis.

There is nothing different from a just transition other than what is already in the Paris Agreement. There is a principle about equity and the ability of countries to transition in the agreement. The developed countries eventually agreed to it. They didnt like it, but they agreed to it. Lets talk about what we can do. What we are saying is that we must not be forced to do what will destroy our future and our children. We need energy to sustain our future generation. Those who are responsible for the mess we see today, should be responsible for change, said H.E. Dr. Ibrahim.

When somebody is sick, you need to diagnose what is wrong. If you do a bad diagnosis, you will never cure it. I believe that the Paris Agreement was not a good diagnosis, H.E. Minister Lima expressed, adding that, I am not pro fossil fuel; I am pro fossil fuel for Africa. Developed nations enjoyed the resource, they contaminated the world, they should be the ones who change their lifestyle. To tell Africa to stop fossil fuels is unfair. I am pro fossil fuels for Africa so that we can develop.

As such, Africa needs its own Africa-focused approach to mitigating climate change while correspondingly eradicating energy poverty.

Only Africas hydropower potential will enable us to cover the needs of people in Africa. Considering solar, where no one can compute the amount, and if you add gas and wind, Africa is in excess of energy. When you look at policies of Africa in terms of development, energy has never been a priority in Africa. We have never been able to make energy a priority at national level. The difference today is that the discourse we are having is that African should be prioritized. This is the first-time people are talking about this. This is not the Paris Agreement or the energy transition but to make sure the energy potential in Africa is made available to the continent, H.E. Itoua stated.

According to Hon. Alweendo, Namibia is developing green hydrogen simply because we have the natural resources to be able to harness it. Green hydrogen is not likely to be the source for electricity. This is mostly for hard to abate industries, the manufacturing and mining. It is more for movement and transportation and not so much for giving electricity to the people. Therefore, gas to power remains part of the solution.

The crucial importance of aligning African narratives on matters of energy and climate was underlined following yesterdays Dakar Declaration joint statement endorsed by the ministers, now set to be taken forward to the G7 and G20 summits before finally arriving at COP27.

People talk about energy transition, but before you talk about it, you need to have energy. The voice of Africa should be heard. We must exploit our resources. Yes, we must think of protecting the planet but we must think of humankind on this continent. Gas has the opportunity to provide fertilizer to feed Africa, should we say no to it? We have to work hand in hand so as to exploit our resources. For COP27, the voice of Africa should be heard. Where decisions are made, Africa must be there, stated H.E. Gladima.

Africa is the future for the world. Africa is the hope for the world, it offers solutions and practical considerations around global issues. This continent brings a practical approach to the challenges we face such as climate change. Without having a healthy growing economy, you do not have the inclination of resources or the time to devote to stewardship of the environment. The most robust arguments about the environment are put forward by wealthy countries that have developed economies. Renewables have an important role to play globally, but gas has an important role to play globally and locally. Renewables have an important role but it is only something you can do with a developed economy. In terms of hydrogen, this will be part of the global mix and part of the solution, whether its a solution for Africa is a different question. This is a question that needs to be answered by Africa, stated Catelin.

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Over the past few months, Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, two of Trump's sharpest GOP critics, have used their posts on Senate the Armed Services Committee to fact-check Trump's claims.

Without mentioning the bombastic billionaire's name, they've asked senior officers who testify before the committee about waterboarding extremists, the consequences of targeting terrorists' families, and whether NATO and America's other key alliances have become obsolete.

Connecting the threads over weeks of hearings would produce a record of remarks that could be strung together and used by opponents of the presidential candidate.

To demonstrate his fitness to be commander in chief, Trump is planning to tone down his brash personality and deliver a foreign affairs address on Wednesday  the first in a series of policy speeches. He also is planning a separate speech on the military, telling The Associated Press in a recent interview that people may be surprised by "how well I'll handle matters relative to the military."

Omitting Trump's name from the conversation allows the generals and admirals questioned by the senators to stay apolitical and out of the 2016 presidential campaign. But it's obvious that McCain, the committee's chairman, and Graham, who waged an unsuccessful bid for his party's White House nomination, are asking about positions Trump has staked out that have rattled the Republican Party and unnerved U.S. allies.

Aides to the senators said there's no coordination or strategy between the two. But McCain and Graham are close friends and foreign policy hawks. It's not unusual to see them together on the floor of the Senate, hammering the Obama administration over the Iran nuclear deal, the civil war in Syria or troop levels in Afghanistan.

Graham also wrote the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford. Without citing Trump's name, he inquired about the billionaire's pledge, if elected, to bring back the use of waterboarding  which causes the sensation of drowning  and worse against captured militants. Congress has outlawed waterboarding along with other so-called enhanced interrogation techniques.

Trump also said he would order the military to kill family members of militants who threaten the U.S., a position he has since retreated from after being heavily criticized.

Dunford responded to Graham last week in a carefully worded letter that said violating the laws of war "diminish the support of the American people and the populace of Democratic states, including allies who might otherwise support or participate in coalition operations."

Graham, a retired Air Force lawyer, has called Trump's foreign policy "gibberish" and "ill-conceived." Graham half-heartedly endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas for president because Cruz is "not completely crazy."

McCain, an ex-Navy fighter pilot and the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, hasn't wavered from his position that he will support the Republican nominee. But he's bristled over what he's called Trump's "uninformed and dangerous statements on national security issues."

Examples of McCain's and Graham's fact-checking approach were on display this past week.

On April 19, when the Army general selected to lead U.S. forces in South Korea testified before the committee, McCain seized the opportunity to undermine Trump's suggestion that the U.S. withdraw its forces from the South because Seoul isn't paying enough to cover the cost of the American military presence.

"Isn't it the fact that it costs us less to have troops stationed in Korea than in the United States, given the contribution the Republic of Korea makes?" McCain asked Gen. Vincent Brooks.

Yes, Brooks said, telling McCain the South Koreans pay half, or $808 million annually, of the U.S. presence there.

Brooks added that the South Koreans are footing the bill for more than 90 percent of a $10.8 billion project to build a base where U.S. troops will be stationed.

Two days later, Trump's claim that NATO is irrelevant and ill-suited to fight terrorism came under the microscope. As president, Trump has said he would force member nations to increase their contributions, even if that risked breaking up the 28-country alliance.

Responding to a series of questions from Graham, Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, picked to be the top American commander in Europe, assured the committee of NATO's critical importance to the U.S. Breaking up the alliance, Scaparrotti warned, would benefit Russia, the Islamic State group and even the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The issue of torture is personal to McCain, who was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for more than five years and badly abused by his captors. During a committee hearing in February, McCain asked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper if he agreed that information gained through waterboarding and other methods of torture came at too high a cost for the United States.

"I do," said Clapper, a retired Air Force lieutenant general.

"Isn't it the fact that this is - American values are such that just no matter what the enemy does, that we maintain a higher standard of behavior? And when we violate that, as we did with Abu Ghraib, that the consequences are severe?" said McCain, referring to the prison scandal in Iraq.

"Yes, sir," Clapper responded.
Bernie Tiede was sentenced to 99 years to life in prison following a new sentencing trial for his 1999 conviction in the killing of Marjorie Nugent, a widow more than 40 years his senior.

Tiede, originally given life in prison, had been incarcerated nearly 16 years when he was temporarily freed in 2014 after his original prosecutor, Danny Buck Davidson, said he believed Tiede deserved a lesser sentence because of new evidence related to claims of sexual abuse that Tiede had suffered as a minor.

Tiede, 57, was a mortician at the Hawthorn Funeral Home in Carthage, Texas, a town of about 7,000 about 150 miles east of Dallas, when he met Nugent at her husband's funeral in 1990.

The two became close friends and took lavish vacations abroad. Tiede became known around town for the gifts he gave himself and local residents  using Nugent's money.

In 1996, Tiede shot Nugent four times in the back with a .22-caliber rifle, then hid her body in a freezer next to packages of frozen meat, pecans and corn. He carried on for nine months as if Nugent was still alive before authorities searched her home and found her body.

In his confession, Tiede described her as "evil" and asserted that he snapped under the pressure of her mistreatment.

During his resentencing trial, which began April 6 in Henderson, 30 miles west of Carthage, a psychiatrist testifying for the defense told jurors the relationship between Tiede and Nugent was typical of abusive relationships and described Tiede as being like a battered wife.

Tiede's attorneys had also argued to jurors that Tiede's mental state was affected after an uncle sexually abused him as a minor.

But lawyers from the Texas attorney general's office, who replaced Davidson in the case after he recused himself, had argued Tiede was a con artist who killed Nugent to cover up his theft of her money.

Through financial documents presented during the resentencing trial, the prosecutors argued Tiede was embezzling millions of dollars from Nugent, telling her he was investing her money in the stock market but actually spending it on himself and his friends.

The uncle who Tiede had accused of sexually abusing him denied the abuse claims at trial. However, three men testified they had also been sexually assaulted by Tiede's uncle when they were minors.

"Bernie," the dark comedy inspired by Tiede's case, starred Jack Black, who portrayed Tiede as a quirky, friendly man who sang in the church choir, helped local residents start businesses and was beloved by a small, insular community.

Nugent, played by Shirley MacLaine, was portrayed as a crotchety, withdrawn scold disliked by most of the town and who constantly insulted Tiede. Nugent's family has long protested how the widow was presented in the movie, saying Tiede manipulated their mother and grandmother to steal from her and should remain in prison.

Since his release, Tiede had been living at the Austin home of filmmaker Richard Linklater, who directed "Bernie."
A.F.M. Rezaul Karim Siddique was attacked on his way to the state-run university in the city of Rajshahi, where he taught English, deputy police commissioner Nahidul Islam said. The attackers used sharp weapons and fled the scene immediately, Islam said.

The attack was similar to recent killings of atheist bloggers in Muslim-majority Bangladesh by radical Islamists.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadi websites. No further details were available.

At least three other professors at Rajshahi University have been killed in recent years, allegedly by Islamist groups.

Sajidul Karim Siddique, a brother of the victim of Saturday's attack, said the professor was a "very quiet and simple man" who was focused on studying and teaching. He led a cultural group and used to edit a literary magazine.

"So far as we know, he did not have any known enemies and we never found him worried," he said. "We don't know why it happened to him."

The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been cracking down on militant groups, which it blames for deadly attacks in the past year on secular bloggers, minority Shiites, Christians and two foreigners. It accuses the opposition of supporting religious radicals in seeking to retaliate against the government for prosecuting suspected war crimes during the country's 1971 independence war.

Some of the attacks were claimed by the Islamic State group, but the government dismisses those claims and says the Sunni extremist group has no presence in Bangladesh.

Following Saturday's attack, hundreds of students and teachers marched on Rajshahi University's campus and blocked a highway, demanding justice.

Amnesty International condemned the killing and said those responsible must be brought to justice.

"The vicious killing ... is inexcusable and those responsible must be held to account," Amnesty's South Asia director, Champa Patel, said in a statement. "This attack sadly fits the gruesome pattern established by Islamist extremist groups in Bangladesh who are targeting secular activists and writers."

"The authorities must do more to put an end to these killings. Not a single person has been brought to justice for the attacks over the past year," Patel said.
The Solar Impulse 2 picked up a strong tail wind before sunset on Friday and was cruising at 150 kph, or about 93 mph. It was expected to arrive in the San Francisco Bay area by Saturday evening.

The aircraft started its around-the-world journey in March 2015 from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, and made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China and Japan. It's on the ninth leg of its circumnavigation.

Pilot Bertrand Piccard marveled from his plane as it cruised over the Pacific at about 16,000 feet with a nearly-full battery, according to the website documenting Solar Impulse 2's journey.

He told his wife he could see the full moon's reflection on the ocean.

"For now I will say goodnight from the middle of the ocean," Piccard said during a brief conversation streamed live on the website. "This is an extraordinary experience."

Earlier, he exchanged pleasantries with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who hailed Piccard's pioneering spirit as "inspirational," telling him he was making history.

Piccard responded that Ban, too, was making history by having just presided over the signing of a climate agreement supported by representatives of 175 nations.

"What you are doing today in New York, signing the Paris agreement, is more than protecting the environment, it is the launch of the clean technology revolution," Piccard said.

The trans-Pacific leg of his journey is the riskiest part of the solar plane's global travels because of the lack of emergency landing sites.

After uncertainty about winds, the plane took off from Hawaii on Thursday morning and was on course to land in Mountain View, California, over the weekend. The crew that helped it take off was clearing out of its Hawaiian hangar and headed for the mainland for the weekend arrival.

At one point passengers on a Hawaiian Air jet caught a glimpse of the Solar Impulse 2 before the airliner sped past the slow-moving aircraft.

The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Hawaii in July and was forced to stay in the islands after the plane's battery system sustained heat damage on its trip from Japan.

Piccard, said the destination in the heart of Silicon Valley is fitting, as the plane will land "in the middle of the pioneering spirit." Piccard's co-pilot Andre Borschberg flew the leg from Japan to Hawaii.

The team was delayed in Asia, as well. When first attempting to fly from Nanjing, China, to Hawaii, the crew had to divert to Japan because of unfavorable weather and a damaged wing.

A month later, when weather conditions were right, the plane departed from Nagoya in central Japan for Hawaii.

The plane's ideal flight speed is about 45 kph, or 28 mph, though that can double during the day when the sun's rays are strongest. The carbon-fiber aircraft weighs more than 5,000 pounds, or about as much as a midsize truck.

The wings of Solar Impulse 2, which stretch wider than those of a Boeing 747, are equipped with 17,000 solar cells that power propellers and charge batteries. The plane runs on stored energy at night.
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble recently suggested that working time should be coupled to rising life expectancy. The youth wing of his Christian Democrats separately said the retirement age should gradually rise from 67 to 70 starting in 2030.

Germany decided a decade ago to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67. That was never popular with supporters of the center-left Social Democrats, the junior partners in conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel's government.

Labor Minister Andrea Nahles, a Social Democrat, told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper the retirement age won't be raised to 70 as long as she is in office and that Schaeuble's idea was unrealistic.
Retired Military Officials Are Finding High-Paying Jobs With the Saudi Government and Can Make up up to 7-Figure Salaries Working for Other Foreign Governments

Retired U.S. military personnel cannot receive consulting fees or jobs from foreign governments without expressed approval...
On April 26, Kristin Beck hopes to realize a dream of Quixotic proportions. The decorated former Navy SEAL and trans-woman aims to unseat entrenched Democratic incumbent Steny Hoyer in the primary for Maryland's 5th Congressional District in a long-shot bid for a seat in the House.

But on April 21, five days before the vote, she was working to balance press interviews and campaign efforts with the more prosaic tasks of keeping up the farm she lives on with her wife in southern Maryland -- including planning for the delivery of four tons of fertilizer the next day.

Beck, 50, began to live openly as a woman around 2013 after retiring from the Navy in 2011 as a senior chief petty officer. Then called Christopher, Beck earned a Bronze Star with valor device and a Purple Heart over the course of 13 deployments and spent time as a member of Naval Special Warfare Development Group, better known as SEAL Team Six.

Since the publication of a ghostwritten memoir in 2013 and a CNN mini-documentary that followed, Beck has achieved public acclaim as a transgender SEAL, even spending time living out of an RV as she traveled between speaking engagements. This run for Congress, however, is not a bid for more publicity, she said, but an effort to speak for others.

"I'm looking at the political machine and I see it leaving me behind," she said. "If you're a little bit different, not that Crackerjack box American, we get left out. I fought to defend every person. I fought for justice for all Americans."

Rather than being daunted by the prospect of challenging Hoyer, the House minority whip who has held his seat since 1981, Beck said she felt compelled to run because of Hoyer's very insider status.

On her campaign web site, which Beck runs with the aid of campaign manager Mike Phillips, a Marine veteran, she outlines her stance on no fewer than 71 issues ranging from ending the marriage tax penalty to reforming the Affordable Care Act, of which she is highly critical.

Beck said her campaign is most persuasive with those in her district under the age of 30 and her most effective outreach efforts are on social media, adding that her official Facebook page gets upward of 70,000 hits per week.

And while none of her platforms deals directly with the military, Beck has perspectives on many aspects of defense policy and has been closely watching efforts to open ground combat jobs to female troops. In her thinking on this issue, the tension between her former self as a no-nonsense Navy SEAL and her present efforts to promote openness and opportunity are most visible.

Beck said she absolutely stands by earlier statements that she would like to play a role in training the first female sailors to attempt the newly opened Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) courses. But she would do so, she said, only if Defense Department brass maintained their commitment to keeping the same tough physical standards, regardless of political pressure or how well women fare in the course.

"When I was in the SEAL teams, there were women I had working for me, doing UAV and intelligence work. They werent SEALS, but they were direct support to SEALs, doing hardcore work," Beck said, adding that she believed there were women who were capable of completing SEAL training and thriving in the field.

But, she said, she fears that high attrition rates for women in BUD/S -- which she sees as inevitable -- will cause lawmakers to put pressure on the military to relax standards or gender-norm them and push more women through.

"We know that women can't do pull-ups as well as men. If you're going to have them gender-norm out pull-ups, what are you going to have them do?" Beck said. "The capability and the readiness of the military is so dependent on our physical abilities and how we apply our physical abilities. If you're going up a ladder on a ship going 20 knots on eight-foot seas, pull-ups are an indication of how well you can do that."

Of the roughly 1,000 men who attempt BUD/S each year, about 400 make it through, Beck said.

Assuming a much smaller number of female applicants who want to be SEALs and are physically qualified, Beck estimates between two and eight women will make it each year.

But for those who do make it through, Beck said the cultural challenge of entering an all-male career field might not be as daunting as some believe.

"The professionalism and the mission outweighs so many other things," she said. "I don't care if you can bench-press 500 pounds, I need you to bench-press 200 pounds, but do it 40 times ... that's professionalism."

Beck, who served in the Pentagon before retiring, said she still receives invitations to speak with military brass, most recently briefing the chief of naval operations' strategic studies group earlier this year.

On transgender troops, she advocates better education and a case-specific approach that considers the needs of the service member and the requirements of the military. She advocates, for example, that troops who opt to start living as a different gender be sent to a new duty station for a fresh start, limiting unnecessary confusion. Those who opt to undergo the lengthy process of medical transition, she suggested, might be temporarily assigned to work in a military hospital, where they could remain on duty and keep easy access to therapy and procedures.

"The biggest advice I gave them is, 'This is going to happen and you can have a knee-jerk reaction or you can be ready for it,' " she said.

Beck's battles with post-traumatic stress disorder have been documented, and she said the greatest need for other veterans with PTSD is a network of local centers that provide a safe community and companionship, outside of an impersonal institution. Veterans, she said, could meet, see movies together, share a drink, or even do physical labor on a farm like hers.

"It will be a mentoring program, a downtown store front, with a coffee pot, a place for vets to go," she said. "A totally non-traditional program. By vets, for vets."

For Beck herself, she sees stability, even if her congressional bid fails. She's working on a feature film and another book now, she said, though she declined to further describe those projects.

And after decades of deployments and upheaval, she has found some permanence.

"I live here on the farm," she said. "Win or lose, I'm here on the farm anyway."

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@monster.com. Follow her on Twitter at@HopeSeck.

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DETROIT - Metro Detroiters will have a few chances to pay respects to legendary entertainer Prince over the next week.

Independent theater Cinema Detroit will play Prince's 1984 film "Purple Rain" for five nights.

David Rudolph, publicist for the theater, said the showings will honor Prince's memory and "lasting legacy" he left.

Cinema Detroit will have daily 8 p.m. showings of "Purple Rain" from April 25-29. Admission for the shows is $9

The Redford Theater will have a 7 p.m. "Purple Rain" showing April 27. Tickets cost $5.

At 10 p.m. Sunday, Kelly's Bar in Hamtramck, Mich. will host Prince tribute karaoke

A Prince tribute dance party is planned for April 25 at The Old Miami in Detroit, too. That will last from 9 p.m. to 2 p.m.

Prince died Thursday at his estate just outside Minneapolis.

He was 57.

Prince sold more than 100 million albums and won seven Grammy Awards over his career. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004.

Ian Thibodeau is the business and development reporter for MLive Media Group in Detroit. He can be reached at ithibode@mlive.com, or follow him on Twitter.
If you find yourself hesitating before drinking a glass of tap water, you're not alone.

Since dangerously high levels of lead were found in the city water supply in Flint, people all over the state have wondered, "Could it happen here?"

Local public works departments are taking steps to calm those fears and provide education on why West Michigan water is safe.

Step one is a reminder that local municipalities purchase water that has already been purified by departments of public works in Grand Rapids or Wyoming. From there, water is purchased by local governments and delivered to homes and businesses. These "service areas" are monitored for lead or other contaminants on a regular basis at certified laboratories.

Steve Boss, Allendale superintendent of water and sewer, recently spoke to the Chamber of Commerce about the township water supply, and followed up with a letter to all public water customers. Allendale purchases fully-treated water from the City of Grand Rapids. "Grand Rapids started adding polyphosphate to the water supply in 1994," Boss wrote. "Polyphosphate coats all metal surfaces and protects the pipes from leaching lead into the water."

Georgetown Township's water is purchased from Wyoming. Joel Hanenberg, township public works director, said in a recent report to the board that there are "no lead pipes in the service area." Most recent tests reveal a lead level of zero parts per billion. The latest water quality report for Georgetown is now available on the township website.

Dutch Bestemon, public works director in Hudsonville, said there are no lead service lines in the city water system. There is more detailed information in the May edition of the city newsletter, www.hudsonville.org/Newsletter/.

Hudsonville, Jamestown Township and Grandville all receive water from Wyoming. "The most recent round of lead testing conducted in Wyoming's water distribution area showed no detectable amounts of lead from any of the residential sampling sites," Besteman reported. The city, he said, has "systematically removed" all known lead service lines.

Lead contamination of public water is not a new concern, and lead is now banned from construction. For 19 years, Allendale has been testing the water in homes in the most vulnerable areas of the township. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sets 15 parts per billion (PPB) as the acceptable level for lead, but most local lead readings are 0 to 2 PPB, according to DPW directors..

Older homes may have lead plumbing fixtures, or in rare cases, an undiscovered lead service line. Owners unsure of the water quality in their homes may want to have their water tested at their own expense.

Wells are supervised by the county. Anyone with questions about the quality or safety of well water should contact the Ottawa County Health Department.
Approximately two dozen quotes and lyrics from famous Prince songs were chalked in downtown Ann Arbor over the weekend, paying tribute to the artist who died earlier this week.

The messages were left in front of the Rock Band School (also know as the Ann Arbor Music Center) located at 312 S. Ashley St.

Some of the "chalkings" were lyrics from some of Prince's biggest hits such as "Purple Rain" and "Let's Go Crazy." Others were quotes Prince has made in the media over the years.

Prince died Thursday in his Minneapolis area home known as Paisley Park. The 57-year-old musician was a seven time Grammy winner and won an Oscar as well. He's sold over 100 million records.

Since his death, numerous tributes have been paid by artists whose careers were influenced by Prince. The day after Prince's death, The Michigan Theater announced a screening of the 1984 hit movie "Purple Rain" - which stars Prince - next Saturday at 7 p.m.

Matt Durr is a reporter for The Ann Arbor News. Email him at mattdurr@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter.
DETROIT - Two men in ski masks shot and killed a man and injured his son on Detroit's northwest side Saturday afternoon.

According to the Detroit Free Press, the 24-year-old man and his 4-year-old son were outside their home on the 18300 block of Monica Street when two suspects pulled up in a gray Chevrolet Equinox and opened fire.

As of Saturday night, the child was in temporary serious condition, according to the Free Press.

The Detroit Police Department could not be reach for further comment Sunday morning.

After the shooting Saturday afternoon, police cruisers flew down Livernois to rope off the area in front of the house. The suspects had fled the scene, heading south on Monica. The Detroit Police had a helicopter up scanning the area.

The police told the Free Press that there wasn't a known motive for the shootings.

Police are looking for two men wanted in the shooting.

Ian Thibodeau is the business and development reporter for MLive Media Group in Detroit. He can be reached at ithibode@mlive.com, or follow him on Twitter.
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Aldi is holding a Monday, April 25 hiring event to fill manager trainee positions at a total of five stores in Lapeer and Genesee counties.

(Courtesy Photo)

LAPEER, MI -- A store hiring event has been scheduled for Monday, April 25 in Lapeer as ALDI seeks to fill openings at a total of five stores across Genesee, Oakland and Lapeer counties.

The hiring event is set from 7 a.m.-6 p.m. April 25 at the Best Western, 770 West St., in Lapeer, with the company looking to fill positions including manager trainees at locations including Mt. Morris, Lapeer and Oxford.

The manager trainee positions include starting pay of $22 per hour plus benefits, with an average of 45 hours a week, with the opportunity to advance into a store manager role.

Requirements include being a team player, ability to lift 45 pounds, flexible schedule, high school diploma or GED, passing a drug test and background check, as well as excellent customer service.

Job seekers can apply in person at the hiring event. A printable application for employment can be found here.
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Flint Mayor Karen Weaver speaks during her first town hall meeting at Hasselbring Community Center on Tuesday, Dec. 8.

(MLive.com File Photo)

FLINT, MI -- Mayor Karen Weaver will cover a variety of topics at a town hall meeting this week at a north side Flint church.

The town hall meeting has been called for 5 p.m.-7 p.m. Tuesday, April 26 at Metropolitan Baptist Church, 930 E. Myrtle Ave. for the mayor to provide an update on the Fast Start plan to replace lead-tainted pipes.

Weaver is expected to discuss a shift in pipe replacements to streets or sections of neighborhoods, as opposed to scattershot work that's been taking place in the city over the past two months.

She'll also address water bills that have received or are set to receive credits dating back to April 2014, with $30 million in funding via a package signed by Gov. Rick Snyder in February, and flushing of pipes by residents.

Flint residents have been asked to flush the pipes in their homes, a move being recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and City of Flint.

The EPA has said residents will be compensated for the cost associated with the water usage to perform the task.

An agenda for the meeting also states the mayor will discuss crime in the city, with a rash of shootings of late that left two women dead April 19 at Ridgecrest Village Townhomes and several other people injured, including one critically, after an April 23 incident on Woodbridge Street.
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Ghanaian Student, Nii Ofori-Quaye

24.04.2016 LISTEN

National University of Science and Technology NUST "MISIS" in Moscow, Russia hosted the final of the Days of Science Students' Conference and the 6th Youth Contest in Science and Innovations. For the first time, nominations included not only Material Science, Nanotechnologies, Metallurgy and other fields traditional for NUST "MISIS", but also Modern Languages and Communication.

We were honored to welcome distinguished experts, Julia Gryaznova, the executive director of the Russian Public Relations Association, and Anna Krupchenko, the head of the Department of Modern Languages and Culture Studies at the Academy of Professional Development and Training of Educators.

The contest received over 1000 abstracts from potential contestants in our nomination. All the abstracts have been published in conference proceedings. 10 best contestants from our bachelor's and master's degree programs participated in the final.

The experts have chosen the winner to be Ghana's - Hans Bernard Nii Ofori-Quaye, a masters student in Communications and International Public Relations program.

Nii Ofori-Quaye, won with a project model that focused on customer relations management.

By this feat the proud Ghanaian has entered the history books of the University and Russia as well for becoming one of the non-European to participate in 71st edition of science and Innovations conference.

Three participants also shared honours by taking the second place: our master's student Dorcas Obuobi-Donkor and final year bachelors students Elena Kulikova and Anna Rudakova.

Congratulations to the Nii Ofori -Quaye and many thanks to experts and conference organizers!
24.04.2016 LISTEN

Everybodys attention has been drawn to the current leaked WASSCE examination papers and the connotative damage it has inflicted on the national psyche in terms of the calibre of students and for that matter the labour force in the country. One would have expected WAEC to as it were, act swiftly and decisively to extinguish the flame that has been kindled by who knows who did what, when and how? that has left the nation in a bottomless abyss of confusion. Needless to say, immorally triumphanting in the hopeless light of fraud cannot be accepted in any part of the world not even within the inhabitants of utopia.

My heart weeps for the country when I see students voraciously devouring the so called leaked questions on whatsapp, neglecting their books in the process while they browse the stuff on smart phones. With a display of open glee the numbskulls are seen scampering around as late as two a.m to either receive a whatsapp message or copy the stuff on pieces of paper.

Leaking examination papers seems to be a norm in the West African sub-region and students now think it is their inalienable right to receive such information and go a step further to wonder why authorities are bent on thwarting their brazen importunity. Talking about the calibre of students churned out by this system is akin to kicking against the pricks since there is nothing good to write home about the current crop of students.

In essence, I am one of those who anathematize the use of pidgin english to cover up for the deficiencies of our own iniquities kindred to the British High Commissioner his Excellency Jon Benjamen, who had to lash out on the news caster, Nana Aba Anamoah for a tweet the latter made in pidgin english.

Of course she ought to have known that her carrier as a journalist projected her in a light that attracted people of all walks of life to emulate her way of speaking and writing and therefore she must show a pesdesstrian example and not to wallow in antiquated, incongrous enlish language. Those who think that the high commissioners response to the news casters epic fallibility was condescending badinage are making an egregious mistake.

It will interest readers to know, that there is a preponderate burden on the back of government to pay wages and salaries of all categories of workers; whereas there is is a commensurate laxity in the quantum of work done in the country.

Consequently, the country is replete with fraudsters, charlatants, accusers, sorcerers, conjecturers, flibbertigibbets, faultfinders, morons, besides many needless to mention. An area government can drastically cut down expenses is to check to ensure that only those who are genuinely qualified are recruited on the payroll. Government should therefore insist on eliminating examination malpractice in schools if it aims at reducing its expenditure to the barest minimum. It may involve training human resource (invigilators), acquisition of magnetic/metal detectors for schools and the examination body to avoid mobile phones being carried to the examination hall.

My humble advice is that, students especially candidates in schools should repel the notion that engaging in examination malpractice is some form of divine help that is offered them and therefore they deserve it, rather a disreputable act that should be disdained by all those with convivial habits.

The deleterious effects of examination malpractice are like a double edged sword which cuts at both sides, first the student himself is unable to proof his worth when called upon to do so and second, square pegs in round holes giving rise to low productivity and loss of man hours, stealing, corruption, and all the vices that can be named are perpetuated by these blockheaded scoundrels.

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24.04.2016 LISTEN

The Zambian capital, Lusaka, has been engulfed by crisis. Cases of ritual murders have been reported in the past months and locals have accused foreign nationals of being behind these savage killings. Angry mobs have gone on rampage burning houses and looting the shops of foreigners.

Soldiers have been sent to the streets to restore calm and order. President Lungu has condemned the attacks and has pledged to bring those behind the violence to justice. One reporter has attributed the attacks to scapegoating. She suggested that the violence was rooted in the high level of poverty and unemployment in Zambia.

For her, the locals were just putting the blame for their national problems and challenges on foreign nationals. That sounds reasonable. Isn't it? Of course it does. It makes sense to say that that Zambians might have exhausted the local blame capital and are now looking for 'outsiders' to blame. Some might say that Zambians were merely venting their anger and frustration over the poverty and misery in their land on foreigners.

It seems obvious that the economic crisis is deepening and biting hard. Thus these attacks could be construed as signs of despair and hopelessness in Zambia. After all, President Lungu and his government have been busy praying to God to save the Kwacha, to stop road accidents and to fix the problems that plague the nation.

However, the xenophobic attacks in Zambia are beyond scapegoating. They reveal a more fundamental anomaly, a festering sore which we have refused to acknowledge and address - the terror of ritualistic nonsense, the discontents of magical mentality. Let us attempt to highlight the vicious underbelly of recent attacks and crisis in Zambia. Let us take a critical look on the recent cases of murder in some parts of the country.

These murder cases were not made up or fabricated but actually happened. Photos of some victims have been posted online and families of victims have been waiting for answers and explanations. Locals thought that these were not just ordinary instances of murder. They were not cases of people who were killed in the course of a quarrel or dispute. Zambians thought that they were cases of ritual murder because the body parts of the victims had been removed.

These unresolved cases of ritual murder have led to feelings of fear and anger. What we had just witnessed in Zambia was that people decided to take laws into their hands. They decided to tackle suspected ritualists themslves and stop the senseless killings, since the government had failed to address the problem.

We have witnessed similar mob actions and reactions to ritual killings in many parts of Africa, for example in Nigeria. There have been protests against the killing of people living with albinism in East Africa. But the important questions are: Why do Zambians indulge in ritual killing and sacrifice? What can we do to stop these senseless murders?

First of all people in Zambia and in other parts of Africa believe that human body parts have magical potency. They think that human eyes, hearts, sexual organs can be used to produce potent charm which can make people succeed in business or politics. It is not clear when Africans started entertaining this belief but this notion is as old as the religious belief and practice of human sacrifice. The practice is embedded in traditional religion, and is reinforced by the teachings of christianity and Islam.

Due to this belief, people who are encountering problems in their business or politics go to local 'medicine' practitioners who may ask them to bring body parts for the preparation of very powerful charms. Those who cannot harvest the body parts commission others to do it at a fee. Some persons can also get the body parts and sell them to these 'medicine' men and earn extra income. There is a 'ritual market' and syndicate in Zambia. And this ritual market must be exposed and the ritual syndicate smashed. We need to make ritual murders history in Zambia and throughout Africa.

To achieve this, Zambians, nay Africans, need to abandon the superstitious belief that one can enhance one's success through some magical practice or ritual sacrifice of animals or humans. We need to free our minds of these misconceptions that cause people to commit atrocities. In schools, colleges and universities Zambians should be told that charms are useless. That the assumed efficacy of ritual sacrifice of humans or animals has no basis in reason, science or in reality.

The idea of presenting and promoting ritual magic as a form of 'African medicine', should be discouraged. Religious or academic experts who peddle such mistaken and misconstrued notions should be challenged and their claims critically evaluated. The charlatans who ask people to get human body parts for the preparation of charms should be arrested, exposed and sanctioned. Critical thinking Africans should become proactive in campaigning against irrational beliefs. Skeptics in Africa should not stand by and think that dangerous superstitions such as the belief in the potency of charms and ritual sacrifice of humans would simply disappear on their own.

They will not. The process of public education and enlightenment should begin right away online and offline, in the markets and in all public squares, in the slum communities, in urban and rural centers. Let us urge all Zambians to abandon superstition and embrace science, reason and commonsensical ways of enhancing their business and political fortunes. We should not wait for another wave of killings by ritualists or another mob attack before we get to work.

The xenophobic attacks in Zambia are more than a scapegoating device. They reveal the dark and destructive mindset that is pervasive in the region. Those attacks constitute a collective indictment on our reason and conscience. They shame use all. Yes the xenophobic attacks expose the terror of ritualistic nonsense in our society.

I therefore ask you to join me in exposing the various absurd, irrational and nonsensical beliefs that are used to commit atrocities in the region. Would you join me in working and campaigning against superstition based human rights abuses and in striving to achieve a more skeptical and rational Africa?
I found it profoundly intriguing that someone wrote a comment to Part III saying that the "Dubai Papers" were going to be released soon. I am certain that the term "Dubai Papers" was used to highlight the massive investments that were made in that part of the world, and the money laundering activities that certain elements in John Mahama's administration are said to have superintended over. At least it is already an established revelation, as is evident in the public domain, that the President and his cronies have a vested interest in some suspicious fiscal activities in Dubai, Doha, and elsewhere in the distant Orients.

Listening to Newsfile hosted by Lawyer Samson Anyenini on Saturday, 23rd April 2016, Richard Pelpuo came across as an empty dunderhead not even useful to sweep the forecourt of the Flag Staff House. His attitude was a reflection of the unethical manner of governance that similar reprobates in their various capacities have adopted. The problem is that John Mahama has lost control over his government. When his representatives spew rubbish with total impunity in sheer mockery of the people they were instated to help, then what other inferences can be read from such failure?

After listening to this last bit by Rasid Pelpuo, I turned off my television set and bemoaned mother Ghana.

Samson Anyenini: "Honourable Pelpuo, what are some of the opportunities your government has created?"

Rashid Pelpuo: "Let's take for example, if you go to Accra and cut grasses and put it by the roadside, you can get people to buy it to feed their cattle. Or you break stones and gather it. You do this for a month or two, you are going to get lots of stones to sell."

My GOD! With this horrible English, he managed to blow to smithereens the dignity of governance in a few seconds. In other words, cutting grass and chipping boulders are the opportunities that the government of John Mahama has been able to create. Frankly speaking, I found that not only foolish, but an abuse of the Ghanaian's senses, faculties, morals, and dignity. Shame on you Rashid Pelpuo; woabb)n pa pa!!!

I have often said that due to the unchallengeable incompetence of President John Mahama, the infinite instances of corruption of those about him have gone overboard. Therefore, the discovery of Mr. President's name in the Panama Papers as broken by "The Ghana Must Know Forum" was not surprising, albeit the quantum of money involved was. Then again, it made mathematical sense. That amount, coupled with the unrestrained theft of other amounts by government appointees over an eight year period, in daring broad daylight robbery with much impunity and carelessness, seems to be almost commensurate with the debt stock of the country.

So in spite of the billions stolen from the nation's coffers, President John Mahama is on tour at the expense of the tax payer, campaigning with a sham "accounting to the people" agenda. Well, he claimed that he was not campaigning but rather accounting to the people. You see, that is another lie that he has successfully etched in his list of endless untruths told the nation. The fact that he is telling the electorate to vote for him in 2016 and give him another four years in office is in itself a campaign statement. If he is on a true accounting to the people tour, he would shy away from such statements of electoral appeal.

Mr President's sole interest is winning elections, but not working to change lives for the better. Well, if you think that cutting "grasses" and "breaking stones" for a period of two months requires vocational skill, and that would sustain the dignity of the Ghanaian family, then clap for him. Clap, clap, clapclapclap clap...!!!

And the useless sycophants around Mr President applaud him! O GHANA!!!

Still the Tsunami of the Panama Papers rages on...
The Progressive People's Party (PPP) says it will abolish the Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE) written by junior high schools in the country if voted into office this year.

National Chairman of the party, Nii Brew-Hammond, disclosed this at a ceremony to acclaim the party's Wa Central constituency, parliamentary candidate, James Suhimininye, for the 2016 polls.

I can assure you that on January 7, 2017 when Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom is inaugurated as the President of the Republic of Ghana, BECE as we know it today will be abolished, Brew-Hammond said.

According to him, the pupils will automatically be given admission to senior high schools in the country upon completing the JHS course.

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Speaking at the confirmation ceremony, the National Chairman said since Ghana returned to constitutional rule in 1992, the lives of the people have never been better.

He said the only thing evidence is the excruciating pain they go through on daily basis to put body and soul together.

Look at the anguish the average Ghanaian goes through to get food to eat, to get clean running water drink and buy cloth. Look at the anguish the average Ghanaian goes through in ensuring that their children can go to school from kindergarten to senior high school, Brew-Hammond said.

Meanwhile, banker James Suhimininye, 43 and Upper West regional chairman of the PPP was retained on popular acclamation by delegates to represent the constituency.

Mr. Suhimininye thanked the delegates for the confidence they have in him and promised to tackle the education challenges in the region if he wins the seat to go to parliamant.

-myjoyonline


24.04.2016 LISTEN

By Kwamina Tandoh, GNA

Amasaman, (GAR) April 24, GNA - Dr Jarvis Abilla, the Medical Superintendent of Ga West Municipal Hospital, has urged the Government to cover Buruli Ulcer under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to relieve patients of the high cost of treatment.

He said an advocacy strategy and a fund raising plan must additionally be implemented to mobilise sustainable resources for Buruli Ulcer Control.

Dr Abilla made the recommendation at a ceremony at which Frimps Oil Co. Ltd donated to the Buruli Ulcer Ward of the Ga West Municipal Hospital, at Amasaman, the capital of Ga West Municipality.

He said the Hospital had relied on the generosity of companies, churches, and individuals and its internal resources, but these had not been sustainable for the up keep of the patients.

He explained that the donor pool fund, which received resources from organisations had also collapsed, giving some challenges to the facility.

Dr Abilla said some patients had been abandoned by their families and had been in the hospital for more than three years, indicating that the future plans of such patients were in jeopardy.

He explained that the disease was found usually in poor communities, which were close to damps or lakes; and in mostly Sub- Saharan Africa, and some part of Asia.

The medical doctor said the mode of transmission had not been confirmed but the causative organism was mycobacterium ulcerans.

He said an early diagnosis resulted in effective treatment and cure but a late diagnosis often led to deformities, which could lead to the amputation of the limbs.

Skin grafting, however, could save the patient.

According to information on the World Health Organisation's website, 'Buruli ulcer often starts as painless nodules, usually on the arms or legs.

'These then develop into large ulcers, with a whitish-yellowish base. Although most ulcers eventually heal, poorly managed patients may develop severe scars and local deformities, including disabling contractures.

'The disease occurs most frequently in children living in rural tropical environments, near wetlands. It can be treated with antibiotics and surgery.'

Some of the patients the Ghana News Agency (GNA) spoke to, at the Ward, burst into tears during an interview.

They expressed anguish at their conditions and appealed to the Government and the public to go to their aid.

GNA
The feuding factions in the decade-old Bunkpurugu conflict have resolved to end hostilities towards each other at a ceremony, Sunday.

The Northern region town carried out the blood burial ceremony which saw indigenes sacrificing cows and sheep to cleanse the land to usher in peace.

For over ten years, the two gates of Jamong and Jafouk, have been fighting each other over who is qualified to be king in the Bunkpurungu town of the Bunkprungu-Yunyoo district.

The hostility towards each other had been fierce and bloody resulting in the death and exodus of some residents.

Schools had to be shut down because of the conflict

In his attempt to help remedy the situation, Joy News investigative journalist, Seth Kwame Boateng found the story intriguing to film a documentary titled: Brothers at War. It captured some of the harrowing damages the conflict has caused to properties, lives of innocent natives as well as the destruction of the local economy.

Filming the documentary

The documentary also highlighted the cause of the conflict for all Ghanaians to appreciate what it meant to live at war with one's neighbor to encourage people to choose peace.

In their reaction to the revelations in the documentary, the feuding factions resolved to give peace a chance for the overall welfare of their people.

The ceremony was attended by the two gates as well as the Northern Regional minister, Abdallah Abubakari who lead a delegation of Northern Regional Security Council (REGSEC).

Joy News' Hashmin Mohammed reports that there is a hightened security presence of military men and the police in the town.

Story by Ghana | myjoyonline.com | Austin Brako-Powers | [email protected]
Over 100 selected youth from three tertiary institutions in the country are being trained on the need to venture into green entrepreneurship.

The Green entrepreneurship concept will ensure participants learn to turn energy and negative environmental challenges into money-making.

An initiative by the International Small Enterprise Promotion and Training Program, Leipzig University and Conoscope GmbH, lecturers from Catholic University (sunyani), KNUST and Koforidua Polytechnic are being introduced to modern ways to green economy.

Under the Intelligence for Innovation Africa (IN4IN), individuals, entrepreneurs, business consultants and small businesses are encouraged to participate to avert negative effect on the environment.

As part of the nationwide training program, the Cape Coast University will host 50 businesses in the green entrepreneurship competition.

Ralph Nyadu-Addo, a trainer with IN4IN, explains the project focuses on providing business solutions to environmental issues with the best innovative idea expected to receive support from a German-government renewable energy and environmental grant.

Energy and environmental problems cannot only be researched, after the research what next? We are training these people so we can turn the research into businesses to address the problems.

A business consultant and one of the participants, Stella Asiedu Boadu is excited at the opportunities provided by the training.

We are all surviving on the natural environment, so if you screw it up and you think you can run your business successfully, it will come back and bite you. No matter what business we are doing, we can be green right from the choice of the materials and chemicals we use because there are more sustainable materials.

Dr. Frank Agyin Dwumah, Director for Research and Innovation at the Koforidua Polytechnic says the institution is trying to set up an entrepreneurship centre and business incubator outfit to train students in the area.
MAX ROMEO: STEALING IN THE NAME OF JAH

Stealingstealing in the name of the Lord

My fathers house of worship, has become a den of thieves

They fed our mothers with sour grapes, and set their teeth on edge

Strike the hammer of justice, or let my people be

They tell us of a heaven, where milk and honey flow

They said, this place called heaven, the rich man cannot go

Yet the reverend drives a fancy car, buys everything tax free

The people have to sacrifice, to give in charity

My fathers house of worship, has become a den of thieves

Stealing in the name of the Lord

Max Romeos powerful and candid lyrical dexterity describes the moral ferment in the modern church. Yet the moral dilemma which the modern church faces is not unique to Christianity per se because, like all other religions, it [Christianity] is basically of anthropogenic derivation, and therefore, among many other things invariably subject to the intrinsic fallibility of human nature.

Worst of all, the tactical displacement of soteriology by prosperity theology across the decades directly and indirectly feeds into the moral ferment of the modern church.

It is also not in question that increased secularization of society and mans newfound insatiable appetite for material wealth incrementally adds up to the overall spiritual weakening of the modern church, an anthropogenic institution for the most part.

This is not to say wealth creation is a necessary evil in and of itself, however.

It is rather to reinforce the obvious, that the modern church in many ways has become a sort of war zone for the actuation of mans basest instincts along the trajectories of material greed and antisocial solidarity, or, better yet, a sort of war zone for kleptomaniacal corporatism and corporatist poisoning and destruction of the soul and spirituality, two major means of morally depotentiating society. Granted, it still is nonetheless a complex question whose theoretical resolution is also correspondingly complex, both beyond the narrow scope of these serial essays.

In spite of our stated reservations, and still in strict conformity to our reservations, religion and spirituality eventually assume a new fabric of increasingly unresolved and potentially irresolvable antithesis, a fundamental theological hegemony of sorts with enormous implications for the continued genesis of moral contradictions in the modern church. It is important we stress that our primary focus or point of reference is the mushrooming Pentecostal and Charismatic churches.

This is where the Baal of Mammon and the Cup of Poison Hemlock usurp the Eucharist and the serious business of soteriology, proselytization and eschatology.

For the most part therefore, the modern church presents itself as outright capitalist negation of the solidarity or social economy apologetics, which constituted a normative practice among communities of believers during the long-running epoch of first-century Christological ministry.

The narrative grace of the Synoptic Beatitudes underscores our line of thinking, a stance akin to the auctorial methodology Kahlil Gibran developed for his prose poetry collections, the all-time bestselling The Prophet.

Yet also, the divinely inspired instant poetic justice or comeuppance that came upon the heads of Ananias and Saphira offers a useful and powerful instantiation of a moral furtherance of the kind of dire consequences, that await those persons whose stiff innate or immanent opposition to social solidarity somehow leads to or foments the destruction of solidarized efforts measured against collective responsibility, an assertion that does not seem to point to any quantum of sense in this scientific age and a teachable epoch of scientific skepticism.

In this larger scheme of happenings, it becomes a question of hypocritical irony that corruption in Ghana today is celebrated, and those behind it [corruption] assigned a special place of public respectability among the pantheon of morally and ethically thinking human beings. Such misguided notions make for a travesty of moral intelligence, a dangerous trend for development.

And if we may also add human beings are, for the most part, social animals, an important concept that has somehow come to define the cause and consequence of looking out for each other in the evolving trajectory of man across time and space. The meme and ethos of individualism is therefore a relatively new development in the evolving mechanism of man, a theory that holds up as an indispensable assumptive factor in the practical sociology of psychosocial dynamics.

Yet the meme and ethos of individualism represents the defining character of community, a specialized symbol of mortal evolution which also confers upon as well as protects and advances the potential or innate gifts and special genius of genetic and environmental individuation. It is within the elastic perimeters of this broad theory that the notion of cult of personality evolves.

The case of Pastor Otabil presents a perfect and interesting instantiation of this controversial theory. Among other things he has successfully used his trademark rhetoric of uncompromising, fiery pragmatism to build a large following, a political capital, an empire of wealth, and an ostensible presence of charismatic authority in the Ghanaian body politic. And yet he still is phenomenally a human being, not a superhuman, and a fallible at that for that matter. As well.

However for Ghanaweb and other web portals to report Kennedy Agyapong as saying: Mensah Otabil and the Catholic Church are the only religious bodies which are true smacks of journalistic shoddiness and a malnourished brain in a serious crisis of underdevelopment. Ken is not the one to speak on what true is. Because he lacks the necessary moral credentials for this difficult task.

First of all, Mensah Otabil is not a religious body. Mensah Otabil, a philanthropist, theologian, author, entrepreneur and motivational speaker, is the non-eponymous founding overseer of International Central Gospel Church (ICGC), and this, unless of course, Ken meant something esoteric which we have no means of ever deciphering for lack of adequate information.

In another farfetched sense however, Mensah Otabil could technically qualify as a religious body or institution if we can assume that he embodies the church he founded. Unfortunately, this theory is not clear in Kens submission. We will therefore not push the boundary of his claim.

Second, and possibly, Otabils wealth may have arisen from directly fleecing his following and then reinvesting that Golden Fleece in a highly profitable diversified portfolio. And we all know he is one of Ghanas and Africas wealthiest pastors. He is one of those wealthy folks who do not publicly flaunt their wealth, surely having religiously gone the way of the ant he has successfully learnt its important ways of going about the sociology of management and thence become wiser on that account.

He has been listening to Bob Marley (and King Solomon) long enough to have known that, indeed, the rich mans wealth is in the city. But Otabils city is a labyrinthine mirage. If his city is a mirage, so is the rich mans wealth. And that complicated rich man is wealth. And so too is that labyrinthine mirage of a city. Yet this city, rich man and wealth hide openly in the depths of bank vaults, real estate, bonds and shares, transferable human capital, keiretsu, and so on. It seems Otabils wealth is scattered all over the place within the secret walls of his sexy head!

The central point here is that it is extremely difficult to decipher or unravel a complex entrepreneurial political theologian, like Otabil, because some of his shady dealings are not open books. Oh no, this is all made up, a private breach of his well-kept allegorical shenanigans. Otabil is an indigent Kweku Ananse, an indigent Church Mouse living in the more dreamlike Trasacco Valley. He did not fleece his wealthy congregation as we alleged previously. Rather, his wealthy congregation turned over their wealth to him, piecemeal, after having experienced a profusely perspiring apocalyptic epiphany to do exactly!

The wealthy fleece of his congregational sheep is actually an exquisite sartorial wolf-in-sheeps-clothing personality. The mirage-city in this sense could as well have been the more dreamlike Trasacco Valley. Why should a wealthy prosperity theologian live in a stinking ghetto when he cannot answer Tupacs titular-track, I Wonder if Heaven Got Ghetto!? Every Ghanaian corporate theological entrepreneur must be forced to answer this question the late Tupac posed! In sum, Otabil is a unique individual like everyone else, yet also fallible as everyone else. Cultures classic song Jah Alone A Christian indicts Christianized mortals such as Otabil.

Third, and finally, Ken may not be intimately familiar with the inside history of the church, particularly the Catholic Church. For instance, he may not have heard about the castratos and Catholic Church and its diabolical encyclical decree, the so-called Asiento, and the latters role in Western enslavement of Africans (and later of Native Americans), pedophilia and sexism (though we are not implying that pedophilia and sexism are only found in the Catholic Church; our Traditional Religion is guilty of these unpardonable crimes in the special case of our trokosi girls, for instance), corporate corruption in the Catholic Church, to name but a few.

Accordingly, and appropriately, we will recommend the following limited references to inform his edification. Here is the list:

Gerald Posners Gods Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican;

Jason Berrys Render Unto Rome: The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church;

Garry Wills Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit:

Brenda Ralph Lewis A Dark History of the Popes: Vice, Murder and Corruption in the Vatican;

David Kertzers The Secret History of Pius X1 and the Rise of Fascism in Europe;

Philip Jenkins Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis;

MUTABARUKA: PEOPLES COURT 2

Mr. Religious Belief and Mr. Denomination

I see where you also have been promising the black people

But you are even worse than the politicians

Yes, you say their reward will be in heaven

It would appear to me that both of you have been to heaven already and have gotten yours

The charges are too numerous to mention here

For over 500 years you have been wanted

From ever since you sent your relative here

Yes, I am talking about the same Christopher cum-bus-us

You honor the name Christopher Columbus

Hush up Columbus cum-bus-us

It dont matter he did come here to trick us

It was you who went to the Americas and Africa

With your doctrine of civilizing the savages

You taught black people to pray with their eyes closed

When they open them, you had their land and they had the Bible, with Bible and gun

You robbed, raped, murdered our fore-parents in the name of Jesus

You divided black people in groups, causing them to distrust each other

At this point we shall have to make a momentary break in the lyrical continuum of Mutabarukas song to make way for a number of necessary clarifications. Mutabaruka is not issuing a crushing blanket indictment against religion, specifically Christianity and its inspired moral authority, the Bible, per se, although there is a ring of generality to his militant lyricism of righteous indignation (anger).

Rather, he is questioning the political use of Christianity and the Bible to induce a certain sense of psychological, intellectual and cultural subservience in black humanity, to benefit white supremacy which he also sings about getting to the end of the song.

In Mutabarukas thinking, moral elitism therefore becomes a questionable character in the hands of unseen forces massaging the instruments of manufactured consent, power dynamics, and entrepreneurial theology and corporatism.

In other words, he sees the historical context behind the political use of Christianity and the Bible for purposes of creating damaging distortions in African psychology, to the point of taking the shine of humanism out of the African Personality.

Thus, the empowering agency of creative, analytic and pragmatic intellection in the African Personality suffers enormously from a calculating political use of religion and the Bible to further an insidious corporate agenda in black dehumanization. Late Tupacs controversial song I Wonder If Heaven Got A Ghetto and rapper KRS-Ones Stop the Violence Movements Self-Destruction look at some of these larger complex sociological and historical questions.

We remember Duncan Williams praying against the Cedis gravitational fall against other international currencies, even while Isaac Newton successfully attempted to unravel the secrecy behind why things fall via the pragmatic agency of scientific intellection, and Anita De Soosos claim that magical dwarfs were behind the Cedis depreciating value and Ghanas poor economy.

In this narrow sense those who exercised the greatest power over the politics of language and controlled or managed the politics of language in shaping the instruments of imagery in race relations, succeeded in creating corporatist relations of unequal dichotomy in power dynamics.

Islam, Traditional African Religion, and other religious forms are not exempt from this grand political and historical characterization. Elsewhere, though, the theological theatrics and conning diplomacies of Bishop Obinim and Rev. Owusu Bempah and Kumchacha, the conning projections and rhetorical Machiavellianism of Kweku Bonsam and Okomfo Yaw Appiahdirectly speak to the damage done to the African psychology across centuries of race relations!

And this is gradually giving way to political theology and political religion in Ghanas duopolistic culture, that is, the political use of religion by scheming politicians to create public fear among the masses from considering the question of critical mass as a means of social change as well as to undermine any sense of popular pragmatic intellection that challenges or attempts to usurp the authority of the political class.

Pragmatic scientific thinking has become a luxury for Ghanaian politicians and the countrys technocrats. Public Christians like Otabil continue to attack and even reject scientific theories, such as the Big Bang and evolution, while directly and indirectly enjoying the many benefits scientific research into these theories has created for mankind.

Stem-cell and cloning research and the incidental invention of the MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machine and research findings via CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), the latter particularly having led to a number of innovative allied inventions, are just two of those broadly defined scientific benefits Otabil and his ilk may not be necessarily aware of.

Even so, Otabils shallow grasp or lack thereof of these complicated theories is to be properly understood in another context because, in part, they question some general foundational aspects of the superstitious character of nature and of the religiocentric industry of gullibility itself. It is partly on this basis that there now exists an array of theistic and atheistic evolutionists across the wide spectrum of the biological sciences.

Evolutionary and scientific creationism, for instance, therefore has some notable presence in the respectable niche of the natural sciences, an assertion which the world-famous geneticist and physician, Francis Collins, an evangelical Christian, represents by way of his breakthrough collaborative work on the Human Genome Project, the enlightening outcomes of his forensic empiricism in laboratory research, and his insightfully edifying publications such as The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.

Collins is famously noted for saying evolution is real, but that it was set in motion by God and that evolution occurred as biologists describe it, but under the direction of God (see references for additional information). The Big Bang Theory itself was the brainchild of a brilliant Catholic scientist-priest, Georges Lemaitre.

And finally, while the West employed the political use of Christianity and the Bible to set itself from black humanity, the modern-day Ghanaian theological entrepreneur uses the same techniques to stake a claim to moral elitism quite apart from his perception of the moral and spiritual inferiority of the large following he lords over. These are serious general questions Ngugi wa Thiongo (and others) has spent some time exploring in some appreciable detail in some of his large body of literary works, something we shall take a look at in later installments of the series. Here we continue with Mutabaruka from where we left off:

The first charge is for misleading black people

Into their colorblind blindness

You have black people worshipping everything white as good

White Jesus, white winged angels, white Christmas

Even the songs talk about whiter than snow I long to be

The Bible did say: Though your sins be like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow

So, you are trying to tell me that if my sins are white instead of scarlet God will accept my sins

And by the way Michelangelo painting of his uncle

For years black people keep revering this picture as the true picture of Christ

All your holidays originate in Europe

Everything in heaven is white

Everything in hell is black

You are also charged for collecting money under false pretense

You keep saying the church have no money

Yet every little open land have a tent for a few months

Then a massive building later

Did not your Bible say that your body is the temple of God?

WOLE SOYINKA ON RELIGION

If religion was to be taken away from the world completely, including the one I grew up with, Id be one of the happiest people in the world. My only fear is that maybe something more terrible would be invented to replace it, so wed better just get along with what there is right now and keep it under control.

CONCLUSION

Surely we can all learn to forgive and to ignore Kens (and the journalists) unforgivable political scarlet sins based on his trademark by-heart talk and crass boastfulness, primitive political outlook, and crass ignorance once he dutifully consults these references and avails himself of the vast evidential information thereof.

And whether Otabil is the only true man of God is a determination only God, not any mortal, can make, unless of course, Ken is referring to the God he sees in the NPP, Akans (Asantes), and Akufo-Addo.

One wonders why a man who reportedly sleeps on an $80,000 bed can make light of his faculty in public.

REFERENCES

Ghanaweb. Otabil Is The True Man Of GodKen Agyapong. April 19, 2016.

Ghanaweb. My Bed Alone Is Worth $80,000Ken Agyapong. April 20, 2016.

Molefi Kete Asante. Henry Louis Gates Is Wrong About African Involvement In The Slave Trade. May 6, 2010.

Peter Godwin. Wole Soyinka: If Religion Was Taken Away Id Be Happy. The Telegraph. October 12, 2012.

Claude E. Stipe. Scientific Creationism and Evangelical Christian. American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 87, # 1, p. 149 (March 1985).

Building Bridges: An American Geneticist Advocates A Rapprochement with Religion. Nature 442, 110 (July 12, 2006).
24.04.2016 LISTEN

Folks, when I wrote the two-part opinion piece to condemn Kweku Baako for insulting chiefs appreciating President Mahama for providing development projects to enhance living standards, some people strongly disagreed with me, in some cases, using intemperate language to downgrade my integrity.

The opinion piece received wide coverage in the Ghanaian media (both online and print) and attracted diverse responses. Those who chose to condemn me thought I was being unreasonable and doubted my intellectual abilities, not to talk about my academic worth. I have stood my grounds since then, knowing very well that the reality will sink to prove me right. And has it not sunk all too soon?

Kweku Baako is reported to have apologized to Ghanaian chiefs for insulting them. Here is the substance of his apology: The editor-in-chief of the New Crusading Guide, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako, has retracted comments describing traditional rulers, who openly declare support for sitting presidents, as unwise.

First of all, I did not single out any particular chief, but of course some chiefs have been talking, so, I expect people to have been looking at those chiefs. If people think my language, choice of words, the kind of language I used, [were] offensive and hurt their sensibilities and sensitivities, I sincerely and humbly apologise for the choice of words, a repentant Baako said. (See http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Baako-apologises-for-unwise-chiefs-comment-433238).

Oyiwa!! A repentant Kweku Baako? We note that his earlier stentorian defence of his goof went further to worsen his problem, which was why he had no other option but to turn tail. If he knew that he was right in taking on the chiefs, why did he have to apologize to them? Being wise only after the fact? Otweea ara!!

Folks, he has already harmed the interests of Akufo-Addo whose ventriloquist he has made himself at the media front and is all over the place making utterances aimed at highlighting Akufo-Addos pursuits while persistently whitewashing his negative aspects. In that bid, he is constantly blackening President Mahama and the NDC.

What he has turned round to do noweven if his apology (premised on the conditional If) isnt genuine, it tells me a lot to know that his handlers are quick to know how the tide flows against them in the light of his unguarded utterances against the chiefs. Now, he knows that he should have used a diplomatic language in reacting to the genuine feelings being expressed by the chiefs on how President Mahama comes across to them!

Those of us who pick on issues to write about know what we are about. We do so with a clear understanding of what is at stake and hammer on everything to expose the underbelly of the mischief makers. In this instance, Kweku Baako and his handlers have quickly known that his insult has backfired. What to do but to force him to swallow back his own vomit? Will doing so damage Kweku Baakos own public image all the more? Yes!! Dont ask me how.

Even before the dust settles, we know what will happen next. The handlers will send delegations to interact with the identifiable chiefs and apologize profusely to them. They will also grease palms. Trust the unconscionable Ghanaian politicians in that sense.

The truth that these NPP people and their lackeys in the media cannot know is that the chiefs are ready to work with any government in power, which even underscores their appreciation of the good work being done by President Mahama.

Remember that the chiefs vote too and know how to do so. What I know them not to be doing is to be mounting political campaign platforms to solicit votes for the incumbent. They don't even "incite" their subjects to vote for their preferred candidates. Whether there are some behind-the-scene arm-twisting moves cannot be confirmed. Our chiefs are influential but dont hold sway over their subjects when it comes to making electoral decisions. That is why it is absolutely wrong for them to be denigrated as done by Kweku Baako and others who cannot separate the truth from their own misperceptions of political necessity in Ghana in this 21st century.

It must be clear at this point that the chiefs are political animals too (even though the Asantehene has said that he is a-political, which I strongly repudiate!!). No human being is ever a-political. Let's listen to Aristotle to learn sense thereby.

What is politics but the issue of powerhow to get it through decision-making and to use it as such? In every human affair, the need for decision-making arises. Why, for instance, would choose to wear a particular attire at a particular time or to eat what food when? It's all about the power to make decisions, which decisions may affect not only the one making them but other human beings or just anything, including the environment too!!

The chiefs are free to express their viewpoints without being so horrified by insulting comments from nonentities of Kweku Baako's type. But for access to the news medium, how could Kweku Baako make a name for himself in public discourse? In which department of life is he respected as much as our chiefs are?

My message to those who rashly take us on whenever we write about Akufo-Addo and happenings involving him is that they should do a sober reflection on their sacred cow and those issues before shooting their mouths.

I am certain that Kweku Baako and his handlers read my opinion piece (especially on Ghanaweb) and saw more to deflate their ego. Next time, let them tread cautiously. We dont hate them; we only are not happy the way they are doing politics as if without them, Ghana will collapse.

For as long as they shoot themselves in the foot, we will continue to take them on. They may initially bare their teeth but later developments will force them to see eye-to-eye with us. They had better do so if they want to be relevant to our democracy as an opposition (because that is what they deserve to be in my lifetime). I pause here.
24.04.2016 LISTEN

Folks, just when we think that the NPPs Concert Party shows will be pushed to the back burner as the electioneering campaign season opens, the main actors and actresses continue to prove us wrong. Just when we think the jokes will give way to serious issues relevant to our efforts at tackling our challenges of development, the drama veers off to the weird pitch of begging Ghanaians to try Akufo-Addo too at the helm of affairs because contesting Election 2016 is his third attempt. Hoo-doo!!

We have said time and again that the NPP is bereft of any convincing campaign message to outdo the incumbent Mahama-led administration at the polls. It demonstrated that lack of capacity at Elections 1992 and 1996 in which Jewry Rawlings trounced its candidates (the late Adu Boahen and J.A. Kufuor, respectively).

A determined Kufuor, however, rode on the support of the other minority parties to clinch victory in the 2000 run-off after failing to win directly at the first attempt. His retention in power at Election 2004 needs no elucidation. He did what appealed to the electorate.

Not so thereafter. Despite all that the NPP put into campaigning for Akufo-Addo to replace Kufuor, he flopped even after winning the first lap narrowly at Election 2008. There was too much of the carnival (kangaroo dance) in his showmanship that was to turn against him in the run-off with the late Atta Mills. He didnt enjoy the backing of the minority political parties as Kufuor had done before him. Why so? Your guess is as good as mine, even as the truth stands that without the support of the minority political parties, the NPP cannot outdo the NDC.

At Election 2012, we all saw how the NPP went about politicking. It re-opened dead wounds and hit hard on the wrong chord to fetch defeat for Akufo-Addo. The knockout punch was delivered one touch. No room for anything like a run-off. All his wailing, gnashing of teeth, and empty bravado in the petition hearing exploded in his face to prove to him that once t5he electorate saw nothing good in him, they wont favour him. His theatricals ended in smoke but his ambition to continue tempting Fate is still alive.

For Election 2016, he hasnt come out with anything new to woo the electorate. Backed by Dr. Bawumia, all that he is churning out is the selfsame stale political jingoism, abject nauseating criticism of the incumbent as if doing so will change the tide in his favour. There is more to it, though.

Akufo-Addo has begun singing a new tune to raise the tempo of the NPPs Concert Party enactments. He is singing like a canary, appealing to Ghanaians to try him too. Eih!!

Politics may be a game of chance, but it is not to be played the way Akufo-Addo is setting it up. Winning Presidential elections demands tough politicking and strategic use of every opportunity to present well-thought-out messages on nation-building. It calls for acute political efforts to sell oneself, based on stated capabilities in administrative acumen, political maturity, forthrightness, and many other traits that will catch the citizens eyes; not a mere appeal to the speculative imaginary.

It goes beyond merely churning out a catalogue of well-rehearsed criticisms of the government in power. The trail being left behind by the incumbent is visible, which needs no highlighting. A candidate who harps on such trails is wasting his time. The people already know what is working well or not working well. What they dont know is how those seeking to replace him can do better.

In other words, the electorate will not be persuaded by the flogging of the dead horse (or is it the dead goat that President Mahama says he is?). They expect messages that will win them over because they indicate a better direction. Such messages arent to be wrapped around mere promises and threats of mayhem if political power eludes them again. The voters are fed up with promises. They are looking for substance.

Unfortunately, Akufo-Addo and his cabal arent giving the messages with substance. Instead, they continue to issue threats, to hurl insults at President Mahama, and to confront the Electoral Commission. To worsen it all, Akufo-Addo has set the stage for begging the voters to try him too, which is hollow and politically misplaced. No trial-and-error in this 21st century, especially when the candidate is still carrying a heavy baggage of questionable contents. That baggage did much harm to him at Elections 2008 and 2012. Unfortunately, he has added more weight to it. How about the fracturing of the NPP under him because of his own miscalculations? Two troubles one God!!

His appeal to be tried has already hit deaf ears. It has attracted bitter criticism and wont help him gain any traction. As if thats not visible enough to his own camp, that begging to be tried has been carried to a whole new level by none other but his own wife (Rebecca Akufo-Addo). As reported, she has appealed to Ghanaians to give her husband the opportunity to steer the affairs of the country, come November 2016. Nana Akufo Addo is running for the third time. Help him to change Ghana for the better by voting for him massively in the coming elections. He is my husband, and I know what he can do. (See http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Give-my-husband-a-chance-Mrs-Akufo-Addo-433261 )

Her reason? Nana Akufo-Addo is an honest, incorruptible, and hardworking person who has the interest of the country at heart, and when given the opportunity, can turn the fortunes of Ghana around.

Then, she undercuts herself in that same breath: At this critical stage in our country where people are fast losing hope in politicians to address the current economic crisis and deal with corruption, Ghana needs a leader who is honest, decisive, incorruptible, and competent, to improve the lives of the citizenry.

All these attributes may be music to her ears but they arent to those who have continuously rejected Akufo-Addo. And there is more to it. It is pathetic for Rebecca to say that people are fast losing hope in politicians to address the current economic crisis and deal with corruption yet beg for her husband to be put in power. Is he not a politician of the old stock who has for long lost the hope, trust, and confidence of the people? Is this woman aware of Akufo-Addos sordid performance in the Kufuor administration? Or she was too busily lapping up the windfall from the corrupt Kufuor government to know what was really happening!

Akufo-Addo not corrupt or corruptible? I disagree. Happenings involving him prove his own wife wrong. Is she aware of how the NPPs affairs are being mishandled by Akufo-Addo in direct reaction to Paul Afokos insistence on the partys fund be accounted for by Fraudie Blay and Abankwah (when all indications of the funds being surreptitiously deposited in a secret account and withdrawn to serve Akufo-Addos needs)? Has she ever heard of the findings of the Nana Ohene Ntow Committee?

What is Rebeccas understanding of corruption, anyway? Generally speaking, corruption doesnt involve only money stealing or the manipulation of transactions for financial gains. It goes far far beyond that narrow scope. The frightening one for Rebecca to know about her husband is all over the placeMORAL CORRUPTION. There is a lot about Akufo-Addo in that realm to make her cringe if she has the heart to learn about it all.

For now, lets turn attention to two claims made by Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings. She is on record to have said that:

Akufo-Addos children (with Rebecca) are not his own Akufo-Addo is not a (genuine) lawyer

We dont want to go into the paternity part of the allegations. As the Gas say, Only mothers know, which explains why they are quick to poke fingers into the eyes of those with questionable origin: Ya bi onye (Go and ask your mother).

The second allegation is still strongly featured in public discourse, especially given the Gestapo style with which Justice Kpegahs suit against Akufo-Addo was used to sweep the suit under the rug. No one can ever persuade me that Akufo-Addo was duly certified by the Honourable Society of Middle Temple. His claim that his certificate was missing and the stealthy manner in which the General Legal Council enrolled him into the Ghana Bar without any concrete proof of a law qualifying certificate will continue to haunt him till he owns up. If he doesnt do so, he wont die!! Isnt there a case of moral corruption here?

What next will come from Rebecca? That her husband is healthy and virile enough to perform the functions of a President? We have already heard from the man himself that he is virile. Next flat joke, please!!

Until Akufo-Addo comes clean on these issues, he will remain unappealing, not to talk about the poor opinion of him as an arrogant and violent person. It is not for me to prove because his own unguarded utterances and happenings in the NPP, leading to violence and the division of ranks, amply speak volumes. Add to that dark spot the happenings surrounding the deported South African mercenaries and many others and you should know why Akufo-Addo and his wife are now begging Ghanaians to try him. But that begging is misplaced. It wont wash with anybody, especially in the absence of anything to erode the poor opinion about him.

Folks, we note here that nowhere in the history of party politics in Ghana has any wife of a contestant come out to do what Rebecca has done. The wives of the Great Osagyefo, Dr. Busia, Dr. Hilla Limann, Jerry Rawlings, Agyekum Kufuor, Atta Mills, John Mahama never begged Ghanaians to try their husbands. None even personalized the politicking that preceded the elections. These candidates stood the elections on their own merit and won.

I cant even recall any occasion on which the wives of the defeated Presidential candidates stooped so low as to beg Ghanaians the way Rebecca has begun doing. Why beg the electorate if your husband has the requisite qualities to recommend him to the electorate?

By choosing to beg this way, both Akufo-Addo and his wife have deepened their woes. They come across as really desperate and hollow. If Akufo-Addo has what it takes to outdo the incumbent, he must project it and stop this begging crusade. Politics in this century demands more than such an appeal to nothing!!

After playing pranks with the religious bodies under the pretext of the worn-out phrase The battle is of the Lords, is it now a matter of begging Ghanaians to help Akufo-Addo fulfill his childhood ambition? Is the Lord no more fighting his electoral battle for him? The last time I checked, he even fell down at the point of being prayed for in church. Next joke, please!!

I shall return
Washington (AFP) - The United States blamed South Sudan's government on Sunday for the latest hold-up in efforts to end its civil war, but warned both sides the world will not tolerate backsliding.

Rebel leader Riek Machar had been due to fly to Juba from Ethiopia on Saturday to join a transitional government, but President Salva Kiir's government blocked his flight.

He is now due to return on Monday, but US special envoy to South Sudan Donald Booth said repeated delays had called into question both parties' commitment to the agreement.

"This marks the third time this week that plans for Machar to return ... have been frustrated by one side or the other," the senior diplomat told AFP in Washington.

"Machar frustrated the first two attempts by a last minute insistence on bringing additional security forces and additional heavy weapons -- RPGs -- with him," he said.

"Then yesterday it was the government that closed the airport," he added.

"The implementation of the peace agreement requires the formation of the transitional government -- and that requires the return of Riek Machar to Juba."

Booth warned that the United Nations Security Council is due to meet on Tuesday to discuss the crisis and that both sides could face additional international sanctions.

"They are definitely on notice," he said. "The entire world is expecting them to live up to their word and to implement the agreement that they signed last August."

- Humanitarian crisis -

Civil war erupted in South Sudan, Africa's youngest nation, in December 2013 when Kiir accused his former deputy Machar of plotting a coup.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than two million been driven from their homes in a conflict that has reignited ethnic divisions.

Machar fled Juba when war broke out but has since agreed to forge a transitional unity government with arch-rival Kiir, returning to his former post of vice-president.

Booth said Kiir's government had at the last moment raised questions about screening for the weapons that Machar's 195 men would be allowed to bring with them.

But he said two former Ethiopian officers had been mandated by ceasefire monitors to check the group's AK-47 assault rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

"There really was no excuse for this," he told AFP.

"So it really does call into question the activity over the past week and the real willingness of both parties to proceed with this."

Asked whether Washington now believes Juba's assurances that the flight can go ahead next week, Booth was cautious.

"Well, they've come up with reasons one side or the other for this not to happen," he said. "They are going to have to work this out between the two of them."

- Descent into chaos -

South Sudan became independent from Sudan in 2011 after many years of fighting with northern loyalist forces, and the United States has long been a key supporter.

But the young country's rapid descent into in-fighting has frustrated its international backers and caused a terrible humanitarian disaster and refugee crisis.

A 1,370-strong armed rebel force has arrived in Juba as part of the peace deal and government forces say they have pulled all but 3,420 of their troops from the city.

All other combattants will have to remain at least 25 kilometers (15 miles) outside the capital.
By D.I. Laary, GNA

Accra, April, GNA - The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) has introduced a fully-packed-Language Monitoring-Instrument to check abusive speech, as political actors intensify their campaign activities to canvass votes - eight months into the November Polls.

The tools, endorsed by a wide range of stakeholders, would serve as a guide for observers to track about 70 radio networks across, the 10 regions, against allowing political actors to use their platforms as conduit to perpetrate hatred and animosity.

Mr Sulemana Braimah, the Executive Director of MFWA, told the participants that the 2016 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections ought to be contested on ideas and issues devoid of insults and the instigation of violence in order to address the concerns undermining national progress.

The monitors recruited would apply the communication guide to pinpoint individuals and radio stations that encouraged the use of abusive language so that the offenders would be named and shamed in an effort to nib the practice in the bud, he said.

The Director reminded media practitioners and journalists of their powerful role in consolidating democracy and enhancing economic development through education and information.

They should, therefore, not succumb to pressure from self-seeking politicians to disturb the national peace.

Professor Kofi Agyekum, Dean of the School Performing Arts, University of Ghana, also highlighted the importance of Language as a double-edge tool that could be used to make peace or foment conflict and create instability.

He, consequently, urged the media to assert their critical role in society and ensure that this year's elections became peaceful by focusing on decent language in broadcasting.

They should direct communicators to address issues of national concerns without recourse to the use of unsavoury language that inflamed passions, he advised.

The monitoring would be done over a nine-month period -from April to December- during which records would be taken on the times of broadcasting of programmes, the stations, their ownership and the location of radio station.

The names of hosts, guests or presenters, political party and main subjects of the discussions as well as the attribution, sources of news and programme content would be penned down.

The instrument also assesses language and expressions used, including insult, hate speech against a particular ethnic group or religion, prejudice, bigotry, inflammatory expressions, incitement, curses or ethnic slurs and stereotyping.

Politicians making unsubstantiated allegations, using gender specific insults and divisive expressions would also be closely watched.

The Foundation would also monitor types of stories, embellishment or enhancement used, programme handling by host, focus on news programmes or discussions and event broadcasting.

Agents of political parties, the media, Peace Council, National Commission for Civic Education, Electoral Commission, National Media Commission, Ghana Journalists Association and Civil Society groups validated the instrument at a meeting facilitated by MFWA.

It is under the theme, 'Promoting Decent Language and Issue-based Campaigning for Peaceful Elections in Ghana, 2016'.

The Open Society Initiative for West Africa and Star Ghana are funding the scheme.

GNA
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April 24, 2016 U.S. Officials Confirm - Syrian Army Attack In Aleppo To Hit Al-Qaeda HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

HEARING - U.S. POLICY AFTER RUSSIAS ESCALATION IN SYRIA

Assistant Secretary Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs U.S. Department of State

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2015, Transcript (pdf) Ambassador PATTERSON: That is true in the north, Mr. Issa. I would say that it is not true in the south. But, certainly, in the north, the al-Nusra Front, which is an al-Qaeda affiliate, has absorbed, as have other smaller groups, have absorbed a number of what we would have previously called the moderate opposition, yes, that is correct. U.S. Department of State, Mark C. Toner Deputy Spokesperson, Daily Press Briefing, Washington, DC, February 22, 2016 QUESTION: -- [..] Is there not  I mean, my understanding is that at least some of these [moderate] groups are commingled [with alQaeda]. You assert that you feel that you are able to delineate the territories that are inhabited by ISIL or by Nusrah or by the other groups deemed terrorist. What makes you so confident you can do that? Do you not believe that there is at least some commingling of these groups? Or intermingling? MR TONER: I would respectfully defer to others with a better knowledge of conditions on the ground. But yes, I believe there is some commingling of these groups. I think thats a reality; weve talked about it before. Department of Defense Press Briefing by Col. Warren via Teleconference from Baghdad, Iraq

Colonel Steve Warren, Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman - April 20, 2016 COL. WARREN: [..] What I do know is that we have seen, you know, regime forces with some Russian support as well begin to mass and concentrate combat power around Aleppo. So this is something we're concerned about and something we'll keep an eye on. That said, it's primarily al-Nusra who holds Aleppo, and of course, al-Nusra is not part of the cessation of hostilities. Russian Military Buildup Near Aleppo, Syria, Threatens Truce, Kerry Warns - NY Times April 23 2015 Mr. Kerry said that the Russians might be moving on Aleppo because members of the Al Nusra Front, an affiliate of Al Qaeda, were mixed throughout parts of the region, and that they were terrorists not party to the cease-fire. At the same time, he said, the region is home to insurgent groups that oppose Mr. Assad and have agreed to the cease-fire. That has proven harder to separate them than we thought, Mr. Kerry said. And theres a Russian impatience and a regime impatience with the terrorists who are behaving like terrorists and laying siege to places on their side and killing people. For the last several days the government held parts of Aleppo city and the 2,000,000 inhabitants and refugees there have been under constant bombardment with improvised gas-canister mortars and rockets from the al-Nusra side. Some heavy operations against the al-Qaeda held areas in Aleppo governate and Aleppo city are inevitable and now seem to be imminent. The statements the U.S. officials made above seem to justify such an operation. Posted by b on April 24, 2016 at 17:44 UTC | Permalink Comments
Burke County commissioners approved this week grant applications for two businesses that will create new jobs in the area.

On Tuesday, commissioners held a public hearing and approved an application for a $500,000 North Carolina Department of Commerce building reuse grant for a Hildebran textile company. The company, known as Project R-SX, plans to use the money to upgrade its HVAC system, repair a roof, make modifications to its sprinkler system and upgrade its lighting.

In return, the existing company has promised to create at least 50 new jobs with salaries that would exceed the average county wage and include health care benefits.

Burke County and the town of Hildebran would provide a 5 percent match of $12,500 each or $25,000 total.

Alan Wood, president/CEO of Burke Development Inc., told commissioners the company plans $1.2 million in renovations and plans to add $1.4 million in new equipment.

The North Carolina Department of Commerce is expected to make a decision on the grant awards in June.

Commissioners also approved a resolution for a $150,000 building reuse grant application for Fonta Flora brewery.

Fonta Flora, located in downtown Morganton, would use the grant to renovate Whippoorwill Dairy near Lake James for a brew house.

The brewery plans to use the grant to expand and improve the Whippoorwill Dairy property and create 10-12 new jobs as part of the project. The jobs would exceed the weekly wage standard and would include health care benefits. The county would contract with Western Piedmont Council of Governments to administer the grant.

The county would have to meet a $7,500 required match if the grant is approved.

In other business, commissioners:

 Approved appropriating $101,567 from the general fund, fund balance for Burke County Public Schools additional funding request for the 2015-16 budget year. The school system requested an additional $739,564 from the county.

 Approved its consent agenda, which included a proclamation declaring May 5 as National Day of Prayer; Agreement extension between Burke County and Destination by Design to add an additional 8 miles of trail to the original 2015 contract for a total contract amount of $216,080; Resolution changing the boards pre-agenda meeting locations to Glen Alpine on July 5 and to George Hildebran Fire & Rescue on Oct. 4; Memorandum of Agreement between the county and Duke Energy funding $547,099 in support of public recreational facilities; Reclassifying a position at Burke Development Inc. from senior administrative assistant to director of business retention and expansion; Approval of PARTF Grant for Lake James Overlook Park; and WPCC certification of local budget support estimated operating utility annual cost for capital improvement projects for its pottery building.
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP)  A petroleum tanker laden with 175,000 barrels of North Dakota crude was being offloaded in Europe on Wednesday, the first such overseas shipment of the states oil since Congress lifted a 40-year ban on crude exports in December.

North Dakotas congressional delegation and industry officials hailed Hess Corp.s shipment as a milestone that could open more markets in faraway refineries where premium prices are typically fetched based on foreign prices.

Its a big deal, said Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, a trade group that represents about 500 companies working in the oil patch in the western part of the state. Once you get a barrel to sea, it will fetch a better price.

The ban on crude exports was put in place in response to the energy crisis of the 1970s. Its not immediately clear what impact exporting North Dakota oil will have on prices or production, which is currently pegged at about 1.1 million barrels daily. And environmental groups have said they worry that increased supply by U.S. energy companies will lead to more pollution and higher global emissions.

Hess spokesman John Roper said the crude originated from Tioga, North Dakota in early April. It was shipped by rail to St. James, Louisiana. There, it was loaded on a tanker with ExxonMobile Corp.s offshore oil from the Gulf of Mexico.

The tanker arrived early this week in Rotterdam, Netherlands, where ExxonMobile has a refinery, Roper said. Workers were unloading the shipment Wednesday, he said.

Hess, formerly was known as Amerada Hess, is based in New York. Amerada Hess was the first company to strike oil in North Dakota in April, 1951. The oil that reached Europe was loaded at a rail facility owned by Hess and not far from where the company first found oil beneath a farmers wheat field 65 years ago.

North Dakota is the nations No. 2 producer behind Texas. Drilling has slowed in the North Dakota due to slumping oil prices, and tax revenue for the state has fallen as a result. There were 28 rigs drilling in the state on Wednesday, compared with 92 on the same day one year ago.

Roper would not disclose if the company intended to increase its North Dakota crude shipments abroad.

Where crude goes is where it gets the best value, Roper said. We are always seeking higher value. When the value is right, we will definitely do it.

The company has said that producers could earn up to $14 more per barrel for domestic sweet crude by selling it on the world market.

Sweet crude oil from North Dakotas rich Bakken and Three Forks formations has traded up to 25 percent less compared to West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark.

Oversupply at Cushing, Oklahoma  the delivery point for benchmark WTI  and the lack of pipeline capacity in North Dakota increasingly forced producers to ship product by rail to East, West and Gulf Coast refineries. In those markets, shippers typically fetched premium prices comparable to Brent crude, the global benchmark used in pricing oil imported by U.S. refineries.

Ness, president of North Dakota oil trade group, said the states light, sweet crude faces competition in those markets from similar high-quality crude from the Eagle Ford formation in Texas. Most domestic refineries are built to handle lesser-quality heavy crudes from the U.S. and Canada.

Oilmen in North Dakota have long complained that North Dakotas filet mignon-like oil has been sold at hamburger prices.

Ness said lifting the export ban should help bring higher prices for North Dakota oil.

The whole world is a market now, he said.
COTULLA  Sitting behind the front desk of the barracks-style motel they own on this South Texas towns Main Street, John and Carolyn Nelson had plenty of time to chat. As a recent weekday afternoon turned to evening, no guests had checked in.

Were completely empty right now, said John, 68, pushing aside the remnants of a dinner featuring orange sauce as a TV Land rerun flickered on a television.

More than two dozen vacant rooms, little work for their bare-bones staff  the couple said they have grown used to this in recent months, staying afloat almost solely thanks to a dry-cleaning business on the same property. But life wasnt always this slow in this town, about 90 miles southwest of San Antonio. Far from it.

From 2009 through most of 2014, Cotulla rumbled amid drillers mad dash to the oil-rich Eagle Ford Shale. Business boomed for anyone who offered beds to the thousands of workers coming to town. Competitors sprouted like weeds after the rain, sometimes charging sky-high rates for a small town.

The town, population roughly 4,000, built 20 new hotels. Before the boom? It had just four, including the Nelsons 60-year old Cotulla Motel.

Now a dramatic plunge in oil prices has meant crashing revenues and rising angst for the outsized hospitality industry, continuing a time-honored tradition in Texas drilling communities.

West Texas communities, which have boomed and busted throughout their oil-fueled history, have seen this before. In the 1980s, hotel revenues leaped and dipped like a ballet dancer. But for Cotulla and other towns new to crude dependence, this is their first taste of that tradition.

Thats whats happened before, and whats happening now, said Todd Walker, senior vice president of San Antonio-based Source Strategies, a hotel industry consultant. They dont have enough rooms when its booming. Then they build a bunch of rooms, and theyve got too many rooms.

Though hardly the only sign of trouble in Cotulla, the empty hotel parking lots here are providing some of the most prominent symbols of the economic whiplash volatile oil prices have inflicted on oil towns scattered not only across Texas but also in Oklahoma, Louisiana, North Dakota and beyond.

After surging each year since 2010  at times more than double the growth across the state  hotel revenues in Texas drilling counties fell of a cliff in 2015, according to a Texas Tribune analysis of data provided by Source Strategies.

In the 26 Eagle Ford counties in South Texas (as defined by the Texas Railroad Commission) revenues dropped 19 percent last year after nearly doubling over the previous four years. In West Texas Permian Basin, revenues tumbled 16 percent in 2015 after rising even faster since 2010.

The trends were far more pronounced in the states top oil-producing communities: In La Salle County  home to Cotulla  hotel revenues fell almost 41 percent in 2015. Gonzales, a few counties to the southeast, saw a nearly identical plunge. Statewide, revenues grew by more than 3 percent over the year.

And the bleeding appears to have worsened in 2016. Though per-barrel West Texas crude prices have inched up to around $40 in recent weeks, theyve stayed stubbornly low throughout the year  a far cry from the heady $100 days of summer 2014. And Texas oil sector layoffs, now in the tens of thousands, continue to climb.

So what will become of all those hotels?

Developers may convert some to other uses, Walker suggested, but other developers are likely to walk away, leaving locals to ponder how to fill the buildings.

If oil prices dont recover soon, Cotulla may face a heavy dose of head scratching. One hotel has already closed: the earth-toned Malana, whose four stories rising off Interstate 35 sought to offer rare luxury to dusty travelers. The project hit various snags throughout its development, several people who followed it say, pushing its opening into the downturn  too late to recoup the costs.

If other closings follow, La Salle County Judge Joel Rodriguez Jr. worries that the buildings could turn into hazards, eating up the resources of his busy fire crew. With the help of oil money, the county recently beefed up its emergency response capabilities, but the department still cant afford a ladder truck that would reach the top of the taller hotels.

I dont know if theres anything I could do or the city could do, he said. Its done. The permits are there.

But Cotulla City Administrator Larry Douvalina, whose tenure has spanned the boom, is staying relentlessly positive, calling the towns reputation as the Hotel Capital of the Eagle Ford an asset that could reel in other businesses and potentially withstand the downturn.

He and some business leaders brag about two companies plans to build a $240 million natural gas plant nearby. And they speak of setting up a free trade zone  an area where international companies could handle, manufacture and re-export goods without U.S. customs officials intervening. Some Mexican companies may come, they suggest, trying to escape congestion in Laredo, the border town about 70 miles southwest of here.

We continue to see activity that most other cities wouldnt see, Douvalina said.

CONTINUE READING HERE.
Texas lost 84,000 oil and gas jobs in just 16 months, according to the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, which has been tracking the impact of the oil and gas bust across the state.

Karr Ingham, the petroleum economist who authors the groups Texas Petro Index (which has also been in decline for 16 months), announced the latest data at the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers annual meeting this past week in Austin.

An estimated 222,000 Texans remain on so-called upstream oil and gas industry payrolls - the part of the industry that includes exploration and production activity. Thats down 27.5 percent from a high of about 306,020 in December 2014.

Ingham expects tough times are still ahead in Texas oil, with more layoffs to come.

History shows that layoffs tend to continue for several months after oil has hit bottom and started to rebound.

During the low point of the last oil and gas downturn, in October 2009, there were 184,640 employees in the upstream part of the industry in Texas.

Upstream industry employment in Texas will almost certainly continue to decline for most of the rest of the year; history suggests that employment will trough and begin to increase a good six months after prices reverse course, Ingham said in a news release.

The number of drilling rigs working in Texas reached a milestone April 8, falling to 197, the lowest number since June 1999.

In the fall of 2014, more than 900 drilling rigs were working in Texas, with more than 100 jobs tied to each rig.

Oil prices have cratered, from $107 per barrel in June 2014 to around $43 Thursday. In January and February, the benchmark West Texas Intermediate traded below $30 a barrel.

The Railroad Commission issued just 1,594 drilling permits in first quarter 2016, which the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers said is the lowest first quarter total since it started tracking that number in January 1995.

Oil prices have come up in recent days. But Ingham is urging caution.

First, it may or may not be the real deal; prices increased in part on the hope that some agreement might be reached between producing countries elsewhere in the world on production limitations and thats a prickly proposition, Ingham said. And second, price increase now produces a change in other oilfield indicators later, and indeed most other components of the index continued to decline in March.

Here are some other key data points from the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers:

Texas produced an estimated 108.4 million barrels of crude oil in March, 4.1 percent less than in March 2015.

Oil prices were down 25 percent from March 2015.

Texas natural gas output was about 721.5 billion cubic feet, a year-over-year decline of 3.3 percent.

The value of Texas gas was down 41.5 percent from last March, to around $1.18 billion.
Earths red-hued neighbor, Mars, will be the focus of a luncheon sponsored by the West Texas Geology Foundation Tuesday at the Petroleum Club.

Guest speaker will be Steven Squyres, NASAs principal investigator for the Rover Missions on Mars.

I think itll be a very interesting story to hear. The recent success of The Martian movie has Mars on everyones imagination, said Jim Geitgey, foundation chairman.

Squyres appearance is the latest in a string of high-profile speakers at the annual luncheon, which is the main fundraiser for geoscience scholarships the foundation presents. Last years speaker was Robert Ballard, who discovered the Titanic. Two years ago, the speaker was Harrison Schmitt, the last astronaut to walk on the Moon.

Squyres will discuss NASAs Mars and Rover programs. He has also agreed to speak to about 70 students, including high school robotics students, at the Blakemore Planetarium following the luncheon.

Geology students from Angelo State University, Midland College and the University of Texas of the Permian Basin have been invited to attend the luncheon.

Individual tickets are $750 and tables of eight can be sponsored for $10,000 or $5,000.

I know its a lot of money but this is our primary fundraiser, Geitgey said.

The foundation is an ancillary organization of the West Texas Geological Society, formed to support educational programs, including scholarships. Geitgey said the WTGS expects to provide $40,000 in geoscience scholarships this year. The two main sponsors this year include Nautilus Energy and Element Petroleum.
In a relatively small city in central China, a woman was buried alive April 14 for being a practicing Christian. Ding Cuimei and her husband Li Jiangong, a house church leader, were buried in rubble after a government-backed demolition team destroyed their church. Jiangong survived, but Cuimei had suffocated by the time she was pulled free.

A week after Cuimeis death, the annual China Aid Freedom and Justice Dinner was held at the Midland Country Club. The Rev. Bob Fu, leader of Midland-based international organization China Aid, has dedicated his life to fighting the persecuted in his homeland, after he and his wife, Heidi, were imprisoned 20 years ago for practicing their faith.

Midland churches have long supported persecuted ministries abroad, but when Fu came to Midland seeking asylum, he catalyzed what has become one of the most powerful and successful nonprofits fighting for religious freedom in China and across the globe.

The topic of justice is a biblical theme. Thats the calling from the Lord, Fu said in an interview before the dinner. Weve always called on the Chinese government to obey its own laws, its own constitution. In its constitution theres an explicit clause that says citizens are guaranteed freedom of religious belief. So were not advocating for something unique to American values  Were calling for them to obey their own laws.

The persecution of Chinese Christians has been going on for decades, leaving thousands of people imprisoned, beaten and tortured. China Aid has rescued more than 15 families over the past 10 years, Fu said. About six of these families remain in Midland, he said.

Most recently, China Aid has been working on a campaign to free Yang Hua, a pastor of the largest church in Chinas southwestern Guizhou province. Hua has been in police custody since Dec. 9, after he resisted authorities attempts to confiscate church property.

Because of the increasing persecution in the past year, we have been focusing on a lot of family of prisoners cases by providing support and international advocacy and biblical training for pastors, Fu said.

The church went from three or four families to more than 600 believers in the past six years, Fu said.

What they are known for in spite of the persecution and being declared as illegal because they refused to register to the communist partys United Front Working Department, is that they have been helping so many of the vulnerable in the community, especially those children who were deserted, in particular girls due to the family-planning system where many girls were just thrown on the street, Fu said.

In the past six years, the church has provided foster care for more than 3,000 of these children, Fu said.

The evening of the dinner-- which was morning in China -- Hua met for the first time with his attorneys who China Aid has supported, Fu said.

The keynote speaker at the China Aid dinner was Professor William Inboden, who has worked in the field of justice and religious freedom for many years and currently teaches at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas. He is a close friend of Fus and was part of the congressional team that initially helped the Fus gain asylum in the U.S. in 1997.

Usually you think of the human rights cities as Washington, New York and London, but Midland really became that because of (local churches and China Aids) work, Inboden said. China Aid quickly became the gold standard for a comprehensive approach to these issues. Sometimes an organization will only work on one aspect of a human rights issue, but the challenge with injustice and oppression in the world is that it takes place across a full spectrum so you need the responses to address a full spectrum. China Aid does that.

China Aid follows a three-pronged approach: expose, encourage and equip, according to its website. The organization works to expose systematic persecution, harassment, torture and imprisonment of human rights lawyers, religious communities and democracy advocates in China, financially support Chinese citizens and their families who have experience persecution by the Chinese government and provide leadership training for community and NGO leaders to defend their basic human rights.

Inboden discussed the possible trajectories of China and its impact on the rest of the world -- and the important role played by organizations such as China Aid.

China as a nation is at a real geopolitical crossroads, Inboden said. They have the second-largest economy in the world, they have a rapidly modernizing and growing military, they are really trying to act as the dominant regional power in the Asia Pacific. So as China becomes more powerful will it become more responsible or will it try to be aggressive and be a bully and dominate the region in un-peaceful ways?

Thus far, theyve been moving toward the not-so-peaceful ways, he said. For the last 30 years, the region has had tremendous economic growth and prosperity and growing political liberalization, Inboden said of the Asia Pacific region.

So it is a region that was moving in a really good direction and now China seems to be taking it into some bad directions, Inboden said. This is where I think the Chinese governments ongoing repression of religious freedoms and political freedom is of a piece with its external aggression. The government feels it needs to keep tight control on people inside the country and as that creates some understandable frustrations, it wants to pick external enemies to channel some of the peoples resentments that way.

Thus, the persecution of Chinese Christians continues. But Midland and the people of the United States as a whole are much more kin to China than some may think.

Ive traveled all over the world and met lots of different people, but there is an incredible commonality that all human beings have and that is that we all want justice, Inboden said during an interview.

All of us are created in Gods image and no person would say, I want to be imprisoned and oppressed, I want to be told what to think, where I can or cant worship or how many children I can or cant have It doesnt mean that every government will be an identical constitutional democracy necessarily, but all of them should have at least these fundamental human rights.
Someone should sue the President for ...
Packaged-food giant ConAgra Foods Inc. plans to build a plant in Fort Worth, Texas, as part of its efficiency drive.

The Omaha-based company hasn't decided which products would be produced at the $75 million plant, said spokeswoman Sue Christensen.

She said Thursday the plant would employ 400 people.

The company is working on its production efficiency at the same time it has been realigning and streamlining its product lines.

Building new plants and swapping production among existing plants is part of the process, she said. The company has also said that up to a dozen plants could be closed.

"Eventually we'll have world-class, state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities," Christensen said.

The new Fort Worth plant would be built near its distribution center and warehouse.

The company wants the Fort Worth City Council to provide a 10-year, 90 percent tax break on property improvements. To qualify, ConAgra would have to add 400 jobs within five years of opening its new plant.

The council vote is expected Aug. 29.

ConAgra has not said publicly whether it will go ahead with the project without the tax incentives.

Earlier this month ConAgra announced the sale of its cheese business to Fairmount Food Group, completing its plans to sell businesses that didn't fit its focus on higher-profit branded foods.

As part of a three-year restructuring plan announced in March, the company is focusing on brands believed to have the most potential, such as Healthy Choice, Chef Boyardee and Egg Beaters.

It has sold off such well-known brands such as Butterball, Cook's, Louis Kemp, Armour, Decker, Ready Crisp and Margherita.

___

On the Net:

ConAgra Foods: http://www.conagrafoods.com/

___

Information from: Omaha World-Herald, http://www.omaha.com
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Downtown San Antonio was filled with light, food, marching bands, royalty and several hundred thousand locals looking to party for the annual Fiesta Flambeau parade.

This year's Flambeau, themed "Long Live Texas," featured more than 150 elements, including at least 37 bands, some from as far away as Ontario, and 40 floats, according to the Fiesta Flambeau Parade Association.

Association spokeswoman Terry Acevedo Carmona said they estimated more than 700,000 people were in attendance.

The parade began in 1948 and has since become the nation's "largest illuminated night parades."

Here is a look at some of the stories and photos from the 2016 annual parade.

Running for the parade

Hundreds of costumed runners gathered to run the 2.6-mile parade course in the annual pre-Fiesta Flambeau Fiesta Fandango Saturday.

For Veronica Ramos it was her sixth Fandango run, this time as Captain Hook. Ramos was sure she could finish the run in her elaborate costume, having done so last year in a Toy Story costume complete with combat boots.

"It is a tradition we do every year," Ramos said of her friends. "We try to bring new friends in every year. It is a chance to be creative. There's free beer at the end. That is a plus."

Paul Aguilar, as Peter Pan, ran for the first time. "It shouldn't be too bad," Aguilar said in anticipation.

Parade grub

Amid all the funnel cakes, turkey legs and sausage wraps, one couple with a tent along Broadway sold the unusual item of fried ravioli, shades of the Texas State Fair in Dallas, where nearly everything is fried.

Jacob and Ana Valadez coated prepared cheese-filled ravioli with bread crumbs and fried it in cooking oil for anew, tasty treat. It was their first year to make the item for a Fiesta event.

"I saw it at a bike rally in Austin, and we thought to try it here," said Jacob.

A family tradition

For the Melchor family, it was the 29th Fiesta Flambeau in a row.

"We like the floats, the atmosphere and the gathering of people coming together," Henry Melchor said.

He explained he likes to watch out for the band of his former high school, Highlands High School, although it doesn't come every year.

The family, including wife Catherine, Adam, 8, and Ryan, 10, always get front row seats on the 1500 block of Broadway. "We stand in line" every year for the tickets and usually buy them through their church, Blessed Sacrament Catholic.

Longhorns lead the way

The University of Texas Longhorn marching band helped start the parade with 300 members, the usual number for its annual appearance in the Fiesta Flambeau.

"It's the largest single concentration of people" the band will perform live for this year, said Longhorn Band Director Scott Hanna.

Hanna said the band is an ambassador for the university. "It's a great opportunity to play for many people. For many, it's their only chance to see and hear the band. It makes us very happy," Hanna added.

Face painting

Face painting artist Tammi Blythe said the the last time she stayed through a whole parade was when she was 5. Now is is ready to give it another go.

"It's amazing. The crowd, the excitement, the energy in the air," she said holding her hands up. "It's been great with the kids in the area."

Blythe was nestled between two large bleachers overlooking the parade line at the Alamo Plaza.

She painted at least 20 children just before the start of the parade for a group of Fiesta goers.
SAN ANTONIO-- A man is in stable condition after being stabbed by his son after an argument escalated out of control, according to San Antonio police.

Police responded to the incident in the 10,000 block of Millspring on the Northwest Side at about 1 a.m., Sunday.
University Health System and the University of Texas Health Science Center recently renewed their operational partnership  a partnership that goes back nearly 50 years to the time a new medical school was built alongside a new teaching hospital.

The fundamental principle of the partnership was to provide an exceptional educational platform for medicine, bringing the brightest minds together to improve health outcomes and increase access to quality health care for all patients in Bexar County, as well as Central and South Texas.

Today, as surgeons serving University Hospital and as professors teaching at the School of Medicine at the Health Science Center and UT Medicine San Antonio, each of us has dedicated our career  and the last 20 to 30 years  to learning, practicing, mentoring students, researching new treatments and serving the essential health needs of our community. We want to thank the community for its support and share what that support means to you, your family and your neighbors.

If you have not visited University Hospital recently, you will be amazed by its transformation. With the opening of the Sky Tower, University Hospital is now one of the most beautiful, comfortable and technologically advanced hospitals in the nation, and the UHS nursing team has been awarded Magnet Status  the highest nursing accolade possible. More than 700 physicians affiliated with UT Medicine San Antonio serving UHS patients, teaching the next generation of doctors and participating in life-changing research work alongside the dedicated staff of University Health System to provide the most complex and comprehensive care to the region.

These resources are here to serve you. This hospital belongs to you. If you live in Bexar County, you are one of its owners. Decisions are made locally, based on the needs of our patients and the best interests of our community. And while some longtime residents may still think of University Hospital as the place that cares for those without health insurance, today patients with all types of health insurance choose University Hospital because of our proven quality outcomes and value. They want the advantages an academic medical center offers  the latest treatments by dedicated faculty. All of this provided in an advanced facility  University Hospital  named best hospital in San Antonio and among the Americas Best Hospitals year after year by U.S. News & World Report.

Because so many of our patients are insured, the percentage of University Health Systems budget coming from local property taxes continues to fall. It is now around 22 percent  the lowest ever. We strive to ensure that all patients, no matter their circumstances, receive outstanding and compassionate care.

Having an academic medical center in our community has strengthened the quality of medicine in San Antonio and helped address the growing physician shortage in Texas. You dont need to leave San Antonio to find a subspecialist for even the most complex health problem. In fact, many patients now travel long distances to our academic medical center for their health care.

We appreciate that most people do not want to think about anyone in their family needing the kind of specialized medical care we provide. Yet we are most grateful for the investment made over the last half- century in our academic medical center. We sincerely hope you never find yourself meeting one of us while looking up from a bed in your new University Hospital, but if you do, rest assured our team will be there in your time of need.

John Calhoon, M.D., is chair of CT surgery; Francisco Cigarroa, M.D., is director of pediatric transplantation; Fred Corley, M.D., is professor, orthopedic surgery; Glenn Halff, M.D., is director of organ transplantation; Ronny Stewart, M.D., is chair of surgery; and Ian Thompson, M.D., is director of the Cancer Therapy & Research Center.
Justin Trudeaus Liberals campaigned on a promise to be open and transparent. However, the independent Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) recently released a report questioning the governments figures and why they hadnt subjected their analysis to peer review.

The PBOs report is a scathing review of Trudeaus first six months in office. It details how the Liberals have failed on budgeting, transparency, openness, and economic forecasts.

The PBO ran their own projections and found the governments growth and jobs impacts to be exaggerated.

Bank economists and think-tanks have been even less charitable. The CD Howe Institute, for instance, says the GDP boost will only be 0.2% this year and 0.3% next year-less than half of what the government outlines in its budget.

Under the previous Conservative Government, Canadas economy continually outperformed its peers. This success took place under a policy framework of low taxes, minimal red tape, free trade, expanded transfers to provinces, and modest, but sustained investments in infrastructure, skill development and innovation.

Amid the global financial crisis, the Conservative Government offered a stimulus package to help weather the storm and used outside experts to vet the estimate of 220,000 jobs created or maintained. In the end the target was actually exceeded by 28,000.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer says the Liberals over-estimated the number of jobs their measures would create by 57,000 jobs  which doesnt even include the number of jobs that will disappear with policies like raising taxes on small businesses.

Canadians need to trust that our finances are in order and they need the proper information to be able to see how much the government is spending and where that money is going.

Canadians should be concerned with the PBOs findings that this government has not been transparent in its reporting of Canadas finances.
Posted on 04/24/2016, 1:00 pm, by mySteinbach

The Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba (IIU) is investigating the circumstances that led to the injury of an intoxicated person at the Main Street Project detoxification centre on March 25, 2016.

According to the Winnipeg Police Service, the victim grabbed hold of a cell door as it was being closed by police officers, resulting in partial amputation of one finger. He was treated in hospital and released.

Under the Police Services Act, the IIU is required to investigate whenever serious injuries may have resulted from the actions of a police officer. Serious injuries, as defined in regulations, include the loss of any part of the body.

The IIU investigates all serious incidents involving police officers in Manitoba, whether occurring on or off-duty.
SHARE "Life without a Recipe" by Diana Abu-Jaber. (Photo courtesy Amazon/TNS)

By Amy Driscoll, Miami Herald (TNS)

"Life without a Recipe" by Diana Abu-Jaber; Norton (272 pages, $26.95)



Diana Abu-Jaber has spent years carving out a life as a successful writer, struggling to reconcile the competing voices in her head, one from a tough-minded German grandmother and the other from her exuberant Arab father.

Through it all, she baked. Cookies and cakes, tarts and scones, a blizzard of confectioners' sugar blanketing all difficulties, smoothing out rough edges, sweetening the bitter. In the kitchen and in life, she became skilled in the art of improvising with whatever ingredients were at hand.

In "Life Without a Recipe," which picks up where her first memoir, "The Language of Baklava," left off, Abu-Jaber takes readers along on her bumpy and frequently surprising journey through early and middle adulthood.

For the record, that covers three marriages (two short, one still going), the painful loss of her larger-than-life father, Bud, the emotional roller coaster of writing a book and the joys (and terrors) of adopting a baby in her late 40s.

And the bittersweet thread running through that journey: learning to define her identity. Arab and American. Writer and family member. Present and past. In one scene that captures the tug-of-war, she hunches over her keyboard, longing to join in the laughter of her daughter and husband echoing from the other side of the house but compelled to keep writing.

For all of that, the book has a merry feel, as though Abu-Jaber is about to burst into laughter on the next page. A sense of life-as-adventure prevails, a legacy perhaps from her father. The stories she tells about herself are merciless, like a no-holds-barred conversation with an articulate and occasionally impulsive friend who confesses her own shortcomings but stands ready to enfold you in a hug at the slightest hint of need.

And for Abu-Jaber, that sort of love means food, always food. Food served Bedouin style, standing up, a steaming platter of cauliflower scented with garlic and cabbages studded with pomegranate seeds. On the stove  a pot of lentils ready to be sent home with the nanny. Or at the kitchen table: homemade pretzels or apple crisp or angel food cake, carefully crafted at home. All of it a "labor of sweetness."

Interpreting life through food, making the table the center of the home, is an inheritance from both sides of Abu-Jaber's family. Readers already know Bud from the first book, the man whose bear-hug embrace of life led his family back to Jordan when Abu-Jaber was a child, introducing her to the smells of mint and jasmine, the sounds of the call to prayer, the sight of minarets.

But this second book gives equal time to her grandmother, Grace, a sugar-obsessed figure with a strong sense of independence, an insatiable hunger for foil-wrapped sweets and a disdain for the institution of marriage.

Being single, Grace told Abu-Jaber, was the key to happiness. After Abu-Jaber's first divorce, her grandmother shrugged: "Well, I'm just glad you got that out of your system."

"Life without a Recipe" continues to develop the theme she started in the earlier book, the unending internal argument between wanderlust and staying home, between doing what's expected and rebelling, between sugar and spice. But this time, the conflicts play out on the adult stage of matrimony and home ownership and illnesses and babies.

Her father and her grandmother loom large in the book, frequently at odds in life and in Abu-Jaber's head. But on two topics, Grace and Bud were in rare agreement. "1. Men are terrible. 2. Save your money. (Gram: in bra. Bud: somewhere, preferably not at the horse races.)"

Abu-Jaber copes with this familial divide the way she always has  through food, through baking. This is a serious compulsion. She dreams of baking, wakes up with jaw moving, chewing imaginary banana pancakes that drip with syrup.

Sugar, she acknowledges when her doctor finally lays down the law about her creeping blood pressure, has a hold on her. It is "not only dessert but fairy dust." But as she works to reduce the outsize role sugar plays in her life, she learns a few things about letting go.

Her daughter teaches her about uncomplicated eating. When Grace is done with a brownie, she's done  even if the brownie isn't. So Abu-Jaber continues to learn about balance, learning "to answer the body, not the mind."

"Life without a Recipe" is about a lust for life, about the jumble of joy and fear and surprise and even pain. It's about that soft cookie with the crunch inside and the slice of cake with an unexpected layer of tartness. In the end, all of it tastes sweet.
Bacon and butternut squash hash isn't just for the morning. (Michael Tercha/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

SHARE Pair breakfast-for-dinner with a maple syrup cocktail. (Michael Tercha/Chicago Tribune/TNS) Mix toasted Brazil nuts, garlic croutons, roughly chopped green onion tops, grated lemon rind and salt to make a topping for your hash. (Michael Tercha/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

By Jeanmarie Brownson, Chicago Tribune (TNS)

Breakfast for dinner: pancakes sweet and savory, waffles with or without chicken, omelets, frittatas and just about any egg dish. Yum. My household continues the tradition even though we no longer have young children.

These days, we even enjoy a cocktail with our breakfast. The good news when the repast is served in the evening: Cocktails happily move beyond the bloody mary. Yes, bourbon, scotch, amaros and dark bitters prove more than welcome.

A requirement: Breakfast for dinner satisfies best when embracing savory elements. Bacon and other smoked meats and fish suffice, even in small quantities. For example, I cook multigrain pancakes in bacon fat when serving them late in the day. I add chopped ham to my scrambled eggs or top omelets with slivers of smoked salmon.

Likewise, vegetables make a welcome appearance: sauteed spinach on a fried egg sandwich and caramelized onions in the frittata. Fresh herbs added to butter transform an evening waffle topped with crispy chicken.

After a day of biking in Austria, we ordered grostl, a hash made with crispy fried potatoes, sweet onions and chopped pork sausages. Topped with a fried egg, this homey, satisfying skillet of goodness made us glad we'd exercised all day. It also made me recall some excellent breakfast hash adventures.

At home, we venture beyond the standard canned corned beef hash  especially when there is leftover meat in the house. Hash comes from the French verb hacher, literally to chop, which is the only requirement for hash  that it be chopped. Hash on the menu provides an opportunity to rekindle your food processor romance. It makes quick work of chopping the vegetables. However, I prefer a super-sharp knife and a cutting board to dice any meats, so I have pretty, little chunks to add to the hash.

I'm a huge fan of ready-cut vegetables sold in the produce section, particularly ones difficult to manage such as butternut squash. Chopped and browned to crisp goodness with bacon fat, butternut makes a fine hash. Sweet potatoes work in the recipe that follows, as do small new potatoes. Use dark purple varieties for a dramatic flair.

Add onions, garlic and spices to hashed veggies for maximum flavor and texture. I also pair smoked meats, such as ham or smoked pork chops, with the slightly sweet butternut. Use the best bacon and smoked meats you can afford; I seek out uncured varieties, so they are free of nitrates and other additives. Boar's Head, Applegate Farms and other brands are now readily available at supermarkets and on Amazon.

I've never had a hash that wasn't improved by the addition of a fried egg. Ditto for a crunchy nut topping. Here, I toast Brazil nuts (find them shelled at Trader Joe's) and chop them with garlicky croutons, fresh lemon and green onions.

Since virtually all hash, like our Austrian grostl, is quite rich, you can easily stretch the recipe that follows to 6 servings. Simply increase the eggs to an even dozen and cook them in batches.

I serve a baby kale salad dressed with a warm vinaigrette to counter the richness. In season, sliced ripe tomatoes serve the same purpose. Offering a super-chilled maple and rye cocktail makes this quite the meal to end (or start) the day.



BACON BUTTERNUT HASH WITH HAM AND EGGS

Prep: 30 minutes

Cook: 30 minutes

Makes: 4 to 6 servings

To save time, I use pre-cut butternut squash from the supermarket. Lean smoked boneless pork chops, Canadian bacon or fully cooked corned beef can stand in for the ham.

2 to 3 strips thick bacon, diced

About 6 cups (24 ounces) peeled, seeded, cubed butternut squash

3 cloves garlic

1 small red onion, quartered

1/2 small green bell or poblano pepper, stemmed, seeded, quartered

1/2 medium-size red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, quartered

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon each: freshly ground pepper, dried thyme, dried rosemary

About 2 tablespoons vegetable oil for high-heat cooking, such as safflower or sunflower

10 to 12 ounces fully cooked smoked ham, chopped into 1/2-inch pieces (about 3 cups)

8 to 12 large eggs

1/2 cup shredded cheese, such as fontina or brick

Brazil nut and lemon picada, optional, see recipe

1. Cook bacon in a large (10-inch) well-seasoned cast-iron skillet over medium heat until crisp, about 5 minutes. Remove crisp bits and reserve. Leave about 1 tablespoon bacon fat in the pan, and reserve the rest of the fat for later.

2. Put cubed butternut into a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Process with on/off turns just until butternut is chopped into rough 1/4-inch pieces. (Alternatively, roughly chop butternut into 1/4-inch pieces with a knife and a cutting board.) Transfer to a bowl; you will have about 6 cups.

3. With food processor running (no need to wash it), drop garlic into it to chop. Add red onion and peppers. Roughly chop with on/off turns. (Or chop everything by hand.) Add to butternut along with salt, pepper, thyme and rosemary. Mix well.

4. Add 1 tablespoon of the oil to the bacon fat in the skillet. Add half of the butternut mixture. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring often, until tender and golden, about 10 minutes or until squash is fork-tender. Remove to a plate. Repeat with another tablespoon of bacon fat and remaining butternut mixture. Transfer to the plate.

5. Add 1 more tablespoon bacon fat to pan along with ham. Cook until golden, about 3 minutes. Stir in butternut mixture. (Recipe can be made ahead up to this point; refrigerate if it will be longer than 1 hour.)

6. Reheat butternut mixture if necessary over medium heat. Cook over medium-low heat to crisp the bottom, about 5 minutes.

7. Meanwhile, spray 1 large or 2 medium-size nonstick skillet(s) with oil. Heat over medium-high. Carefully crack eggs into skillet. Reduce heat to low; fry eggs sunny side up until whites are set and yolks somewhat set, 3 to 4 minutes.

8. Sprinkle cheese over hash and let it melt over medium heat, about 1 minute. To serve, top each portion of the hash with two fried eggs. Sprinkle with reserved crispy bacon and Brazil nut picada.

Brazil nut and lemon picada: Put 1/2 cup (3 ounces) Brazil nuts (or whole almonds) into a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Cook until golden, about 2 minutes. Do not leave the nuts, or they will burn. Remove from heat; cool. In food processor, coarsely chop nuts with on/off turns. Add 1 cup (2 ounces) garlic croutons, 1/2 cup roughly chopped green onion tops, grated rind of 1/2 lemon and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Process to mix to coarse crumbs. Refrigerate, covered, up to 1 week.

MAPLE AND RYE COCKTAIL

Prep: 5 minutes

Makes: 1 serving

You can multiply this recipe times your number of guests and put the whiskey, amaro, syrup and bitters into a pitcher. Refrigerate up to several hours. Shake cocktails one serving at a time using a scant 1/2 cup of the mix per drink.

Ice cubes

1/4 cup rye whiskey, such as Templeton Rye

2 tablespoons amaro liqueur, such as Amaro Averna or Amaro Lucano

1 tablespoon pure maple syrup

4 to 6 dashes Angostura bitters

1 thin piece grapefruit peel (yellow part only, no white pith)

1. Fill a cocktail shaker full of ice. Pour rye, amaro, maple syrup and bitters over the ice. Cover tightly and shake vigorously for 30 seconds.

2. Strain into a stemmed cocktail glass. Add the grapefruit peel to the glass. Serve immediately.
The Castillo de San Marcos, the old fort, is shown at sunset on Feb. 25, 2014 in St. Augustine, Fla. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/TNS)

SHARE Spanish reenactment soldiers at the Castillo de San Marcos check a cannon on Nov. 15, 2013 in St. Augustine, Fla. The fort celebrated its 450th anniversary in 2015. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/TNS) Students watch the Spanish soldiers at the Castillo de San Marcos, the old fort, reenact in an iconic scene on Nov. 15, 2013 in St. Augustine, Fla. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/TNS)

By Joe Burbank, Orlando Sentinel (TNS)

If there is one destination in Florida that encompasses the rich tapestry of the Sunshine State's 503 years, the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument  the iconic fortress in St. Augustine  is it. The massive coquina-and-tabby structure located on Matanzas Bay has been a sentinel standing guard at the city's gates since it's construction began in 1672, making it the oldest masonry fort  and the only 17th century fort in existence  in the United States.

The fort's past is a tale of international intrigue that is illustrated each day through a walking tour, re-enactments, ranger talks and the adjacent St. Augustine Visitor Information Center. With a history replete with warring European nations, peaceful occupations, imprisoned natives, and even a few pirate ships along the way, the garrison has been occupied by the Spanish, the British, the Confederacy and the U.S. at various times over the centuries.

Today, operated by the U.S. National Park Service, the fort hosts 1.5 million visitors annually. Although guests can get a glimpse of the harsh conditions that soldiers and St. Augustine residents faced at the fort, the 21st century version of the Castillo includes  of course  restrooms, water fountains, lighted historical displays and an air-conditioned gift shop.

Among the highlights of a visit to the Castillo is the daily cannon firings. Using authentic era replicas of the gunpowder cannons that defended the fort, costumed actors re-enact the lighting of an actual cannon  sans the cannonball  as if in battle. The thundering booms from the re-enactments can be heard regularly in St. Augustine, blasting across the bay toward nearby Anastasia Island and Vilano Beach.

The Castillo is a rock star, literally. That is, it is a remarkably preserved example of star-shaped architecture known as "bastion" fortification. Engineered from 15th century European designs, the fort is unique for being constructed out of porous coquina rock, quarried locally from what is now Anastasia State Park, several miles to the east.

Whether for its amazing architecture or remarkable past, few structures in North America can boast such a glorious tale of survival, war, engineering, colonialism, high-stakes diplomacy and exploration of the New World.
SHARE In an attempt to recreate the photo taken nearly 50 years prior in May 1966 while stationed at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California the four friends: Dennis Puleo, from left, Tom Hanks, Bob DeVenezia (kneeling), and Bob Falk met on Cinnamon Beach Saturday, April 23, 2016 in Palm Coast, Fla. The four friends hadn't all been in the same place since being shipped off to fight in the Vietnam War. (Luke Franke/Staff) Marines buddies Dennis Puleo, from left, Tom Hanks, Bob Falk, and Bob DeVenezia view the photograph that was taken nearly 50 years prior during weapons training in Oceanside, California to memorize and recreate the scene on Cinnamon Beach Saturday, April 23, 2016 in Palm Coast, Florida. The four haven't all been in the same place since they were shipped off to fight in Vietnam. (Luke Franke/Staff) The four Marines load up to head to Cinnamon Beach as Bob Falk squeezes the surfboard, essential to the recreation of the photo, onto the elevator Saturday, April 23, 2016. The group hadn't all been in he same place since being shipped off to fight in the Vietnam War, nearly 50 years. (Luke Franke/Staff) After recreating the photo on Cinnamon Beach the four, plus Dennis' wife Joanne, all went out to lunch to tell old war stories and to catch up on each other's personal lives after combat Saturday, April 23, 2016 in Palm Coast, Florida. The four haven't all been in the same place since they were shipped off to fight in Vietnam. (Luke Franke/Staff) Related Coverage Video: Vietnam War veterans reunion photo goes viral Related Photos U.S. Marines Reunion

By Jacob Carpenter of the Naples Daily News

PALM COAST  They wanted the picture to be just right, to look as close as possible to the one they'd taken together 50 years ago, back when their memories hadn't yet been clouded by the images of war.

So Saturday morning, on the sun-drenched Atlantic shore of Cinnamon Beach on Florida's northeast coast, four U.S. Marine veterans gathered around a yellow longboard turned upright, trying to recreate a moment from five decades earlier.

Bob Falk, 71, wearing a mirror-image blue-and-white striped shirt, leaned against the longboard's left side, resting his spare hand on his hip.

Dennis Puleo, 69, removed his shoes, revealing the feet scarred by shrapnel, and pulled off his shirt, flanking the longboard on the right, mugging a wide smile for the camera with his arms extended.

Tom Hanks (not that one), 69, stepped in front of the board and took in a long, deep breath, flexing his still-thick upper chest and sucking in his now-paunchy belly.

Finally, Bob DeVenezia, 70, crouched down in front of Hanks, resting his elbows on his knobby knees, feeling Hanks' hands placed on his back.

The picture couldn't be a perfect copy. They had gray hair and wrinkled skin and undefined stomachs now. But it didn't matter.

For the first time in five decades, they were together, trying to get it right.

***

DeVenezia sat at the kitchen table in his East Naples condominium last week, trying to explain why it'd been 50 years since he'd been in the same room as three of his closest Marine Corps friends. He became quiet for a second, searching for the right words.

"We just broke up," DeVenezia said. "Life is funny like that. I didn't keep in touch with any of them. There was something about the Vietnam War and the negativity we kept hearing."

In 1966, the four U.S. Marines were stationed together in Camp Pendleton, outside San Diego. The Vietnam War was ramping up, and together, they were part of a weapons platoon  three machine gunners and one anti-tank man  getting ready to ship off to East Asia.

Over the next two years, they'd train together and deploy together. Once in Vietnam, they'd separate, enduring many of the same horrendous conditions, if not the same action. Two of them would earn Purple Hearts. Each would experience the unexplainable fear of war.

"We had the tools. We had the training," DeVenezia said. "But nothing trains you for your first combat. Nothing. Zero."

And then, once their tours were over, each lasting no more than 13 months, they went their own ways.

They would all build successful careers  DeVenezia in construction in New Jersey; Falk in retail management in Florida; Hanks in investment banking in Atlanta; Puleo in home security, some in the Northeast and some in Florida. They would all marry  a couple of them twice  and raise six children among them.

For a long time, they didn't plan to reunite. Their lives had diverged so dramatically, and the public's resentment of the war soured them on the potential camaraderie.

"I was too wrapped up in having a good time at first. Then I got married and had a kid," Falk said. "Now that I've retired, I've had a lot more time to think back on it."

About five years ago, Falk stumbled across an online memorial that Hanks created for a fallen comrade they all knew. That started a chain of events that put the four back in touch.

For a while, the four would reunite in fits and starts, a few gathering at a time, but never all at once.

Then, when Hanks was flipping through an old photo album, he spotted a picture of the four together on a beach as young Marines. It had been nearly 50 years since the photograph was taken.

He got an idea.

***

Nobody can remember the precise date when the picture was taken. Sometime in May 1966. Probably early in the month.

What they can agree on is that the snapshot captured a memorable time for the young men ranging from age 19 to 21.

They were fresh out of eight will-busting weeks of basic training in Parris Island, now stationed in San Diego's Camp Pendleton, brothers in the weapons platoon of Bravo Company. How did they, of all the Marines in Pendleton, get together?

"Nobody knows," DeVenezia said. "We were all on the same boat, we were all on the same weapons platoon, we all knew we were going to be cannon fodder, bodies for Vietnam. And you just hook up."

During the week, they would prepare for the war an ocean away, making 20-mile marches through the nearby mountains, sleeping in freshly dug holes overnight.

But on those blissful weekends, they were free men, full of energy and passion, some with a bullheaded streak typical of some young Marines.

"We cemented a relationship then, and I can't say it was all fun and games," Hanks said.

Sometimes, on their more tame adventures, they'd go to the San Diego Zoo. Sometimes, they'd bar hop, where the Navy boys were always up for a good scrap. Other times, they'd trek down to Tijuana, where surely nothing good happened.

One day, they went to the beach in Oceanside, a short jaunt from Camp Pendleton. Each donned short swimming trunks. Three paraded around shirtless, Falk in a white-and-blue striped shirt. All wore short buzz cuts.

Hanks usually carried a camera with him. Maybe a Kodak, he says now. Regardless, somebody snapped photos that day. One of Hanks sitting on Falk's shoulders. One of Puleo laid out on a surfboard, doing his best Jayne Mansfield impression, as Falk and another Marine held up the board.

Eventually, the quartet gathered for a group photo. They snagged a longboard from a surfer, stood it up and gathered in front of it.

"It's a really funny picture," DeVenezia said, "but one with a lot of heart behind it."

***

From the start, DeVenezia and Falk and Hanks were committed to the reunion in St. Augustine, a central location for the group (Falk lives north of St. Petersburg, Hanks outside of Atlanta).

It took a little prodding to get Puleo to make the two-hour drive from his Orlando home.

"The truth of the fact is, I didn't want to come," Puleo said. "I could have said 'no' 12 times."

But as they settled into conversation Saturday on the patio of a high-rise condo facing the Atlantic, they found a familiar rhythm.

Hanks busted DeVenezia's chops and whined about getting the smallest bed in the condo. Falk explained how he went to six different stores to find the perfect striped shirt for the photograph, finally spotting one on a table at Bealls. Puleo waxed poetic about new hearing aides with Bluetooth technology, offering advice about how to get them from the VA.

As the noon hour approached, they took the longboard  borrowed from a stranger in St. Augustine, Scott Miller, who'd overheard their story in a surf shop the day before  and ambled down to the beach for the photograph. Each played their part, contorting their bodies and faces as best they could, trying to recapture that long-ago moment.

They got their photo.

"Mission accomplished," Falk said as he walked back from the beach.

With the pictures snapped, they donned matching yellow polo shirts that Falk had made for the reunion and carpooled to lunch at a fish shack.

The ribbing continued. So did the tall tales. They went around the table and tried telling their life stories in three minutes or less. Puleo admitted he was glad he'd come. Hanks called it "one of the best days of my life."

Eventually, the food came. Puleo offered to say grace, and together, they bowed their heads.

It was never far from their minds that they were lucky to be here, that countless others never made it back. Sure, Puleo had once gotten his last rites after taking a piece of shrapnel that pierced through his foot, calf and thigh. And yes, DeVenezia took a bullet to the left shoulder.

But they had survived, and more than that, they had lived.

"We all know," Puleo said, "that we've been given a gift of 50 years."
Key players in 2022-23 Silly Season Can you hear it? Just listen. That is the sound of the NASCAR rumor mill starting up, and there are plenty of questions to answer for 2023.
The delusional conclusion that sun alone causes skin cancer is being debunked

Glyphosate and two fungicides increase skin cancer risk, because of their immune system suppressing properties

Scientists exploring GcMAF and vitamin D utilization as universal cancer cure

(NaturalNews) As the majority of Americans long for genetically modified foods to be labeled , some scientists must wonder if that label would need to include a skull and crossbones for GM foods sprayed with glyphosate . New science reveals that the vast majority of genetically modified crops (sprayed with glyphosate herbicide) are increasing consumers' risk of developing aggressive, deadly skin cancers.Over 80 percent of genetically modified crops are engineered specifically to withstand the deadly effects of glyphosate herbicide. It's this chemical (sprayed all over GM crops) that scientists are now linking to cutaneous melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer. The risk of skin cancer is worsened with compounding exposure to fungicides mancozeb and maneb.For far too long, we have been taught to avoid the sunlight because sun exposure has been associated with the recent, modern day explosion of skin cancer. Now scientists are beginning to understand what is really disrupting our natural relationship with the sun. While it remains important to monitor our sun exposure, the real problem with skin cancer lies in our exposure to chemicals that suppress our immune systems.Glyphosate, for example, destroys the microbial profile of the human gut. In turn, antioxidant levels within the human body are hindered, and the capability of the immune system is weakened from the inside-out. How can the skin cells be protected from the inside, if chemicals like glyphosate are blocking the body's ability to assimilate and utilize key nutrients that are needed to ward off cancer?The new study, published in the, found that glyphosate herbicide and two fungicides  mancozeb or maneb  were increasing the incidence of cutaneous melanoma during occupational sun exposure. The risk of skin cancer increased even more when exposure to both the herbicide and the fungicides occurred during occupational sun exposure.What the scientists are documenting here is an ever-increasing suppression of the human immune system through exposure to agrochemicals. The studies were conducted in Italy and Brazil, and included detailed history of participants' pesticide exposure. All possible confounding factors were controlled for as well. The study gives more backing to the World Health Organization's current conclusions that glyphosate is a probable carcinogen. Now scientists must also examine how fungicides mancozeb or maneb contribute to the overall suppression of the human immune system.We have been quick to point our finger at the sun all these years, but the human body was designed to adapt in harmony with the merciful giver of life  the sun. Our exposure to immune system suppressing chemicals is at the heart of the problem. The sun is actually part of the solution to our cancer epidemic. Vitamin D from the sun, properly synthesized by the body, actually prevents cancer. The more we are exposed to chemicals like glyphosate, the more we hinder our body's natural ability to use vitamin D. Several scientists (many who have wound up mysteriously dead in the past two years), have been researching an innate cellular science within the human body that utilizes vitamin D from the sun to protect the body from cancer. This is called the GcMAF or globulin component Macrophage Activating Factor.Soon the world will know that sunlight is not the culprit causing cancer. Sunlight and the optimal use of an intelligent science within the body (GcMAF) can provide natural healing from cancer. (Is the nagalase molecule in vaccines suppressing GcMAF function?) The systemic suppression of the human immune system is the real culprit in our modern world of disease, and we must do whatever it takes to limit our exposure to GM foods, glyphosate, and other immune system suppressing chemicals so that we can live long, happy, quality lives.
Cibus uses a process known as RTDS

Food deception is a common practice

(NaturalNews) Food companies continue to find ways to deceive their customers  the food-buying public  as they aim to maximize their profits. In the latest example, one company has found a way to pass off genetically engineered crops as "non-GMO." How can they get away with such deception? It all comes down to semantics. A San Diego company called Cibus is marketing a genome-edited, herbicide-resistant oilseed rape as non-genetically modified, on the grounds that only a few nucleotides in the existing genes of the plant were changed. They argue that because genes have not been inserted from other plants or other types of organisms, the classification is appropriate.American regulators have allowed this to happen, designating the oilseed rape from Cibus as mutagenesis rather than genetic modification . This eliminates the need for the tremendous costs in time and money that the company would need to invest in order to get regulatory approval if it actually were to be labeled a GM organism. It can take more than five years and tens of millions of dollars to gain GM organism approval in the U.S.The European Commission, meanwhile, has not yet taken an official stance on genome-edited crops, but a number of political groups in Europe are pushing for a hard line. Right now, an organism is usually considered to be GM in Europe if its genes have been changed in ways that could not have occurred naturally. By this definition, edited crops could fall under the GM classification.Rothamsted Research scientist Huw Jones said: "If Europe regulates genome-edited organisms in the same way it does GM organisms, it will kill the technology here for all except the biotech companies working with profitable traits in the major crops."The gene-editing technology Cibus uses is known as Rapid Trait Development System (RTDS), which is a type of mutagenesis technology.Cibus claims that RTDS is an "all natural" method that does not pose any of the environmental or health risks that are associated with transgenic breeding. Nevertheless, RTDS alters a genome in a way that simply wouldn't occur naturally in the course of breeding or genetic recombination. Studies are still needed to show the extent and frequency of any off-target effects that the process could have.Genome editing enables scientists to quickly and precisely change or delete certain genes and bring in useful traits. Predictably, however, in the case of Cibus , it's all about the bottom line. While they could have made edits that make the plant's oil more nutritious, for example, they have instead opted for edits that enable farmers to spray more weedkiller over the crops.Jones said: "I don't think it's too extreme to say that the way that the technology will be used for plant breeding in the future will hinge on how is regulated."Another benefit of escaping the GM classification is avoiding the stigma that is rightfully attached to GM foods. Consumer backlash is growing, as the dangers of GM food are gaining publicity, and many areas are starting to institute labeling requirements so that consumers know which products to avoid.This is far from the only example of companies using misleading practices when it comes to the content of their foods. Mike Adams, the Health Ranger , has written an entire book about the topic after testing a number of common foods, spices and supplements in his cutting-edge lab for the presence of heavy metals and other toxins. The book, Food Forensics , is a must-read for health-conscious consumers. In addition, the Food Revolution Summit provides information and research about food and pesticides.We simply cannot trust what companies want us to believe about the contents of their food. Growing your own food is one way to know for sure what you are eating, and taking the time to research the foods you buy from independent sources can help give you that extra peace of mind that you're not ingesting any harmful substances.
How chemotherapy can cause eating disorders

Chemotherapy, a traumatizing treatment

Hypnotherapy may be the answer

(NaturalNews) Billy Turner, an 11-year-old English boy, who beat cancer after a heavy dose of chemotherapy , is left with a bizarre side-effect . For the past eight years, he has eaten nothing but garlic bread. He became addicted to the Italian staple food after six months of chemotherapy to treat Hodgkin's Lymphoma, which gave him a phobia of all other foods.His desperate mother, Louise Blackshaw, 32, is now resting her hopes on a hypnotist to help her son overcome his strange food addiction, probably triggered by the cancer treatment.Many cancer patients experience eating disorders, as the treatment can affect cells in the throat, making it very painful to chew or swallow.Ms. Blackshaw said: "When Billy was having his chemo, he said eating felt very strange, as the feeling of food moving down his throat felt very pronounced. The only thing that he said didn't make him feel funny was garlic bread - so that's what he ate. I was just happy he could eat something.""But it's now eight years later and he still refuses to eat anything else."During the therapy, he complained about eating most foods, and was only able to stomach garlic bread, as all other foods seemed to get stuck in his throat.According to John Newlands, Macmillan's senior cancer nurse specialist, between half and three-quarters of people undergoing chemotherapy have changes to their taste and appetite."Chemotherapy destroys cells that divide quickly, such as those lining of the mouth and the tastebuds," he said.He further notes that taste is affected by drugs. They can make food taste dull or create a metallic or bad taste in the mouth. However, for most people this usually settles down a few weeks to a few months after the treatment.Billy was only 3-years-old when he underwent chemotherapy . For a little boy his age, treatment lasting six months can have traumatizing effects, with a severe eating disorder as a result.A phenomenon known as anticipatory nausea and vomiting is sometimes seen after chemotherapy. It makes people feel sick every time they sense something related to their chemotherapy. And for Billy, that's just about every food, except for garlic bread.Ms. Blackshaw is now resting all her hopes on hypnotherapist Felix Economakis, who specializes in helping people overcome Selective Eating Disorder (SED). In 2014, he helped to cure a 20-year-old women, who developed a fear of all foods, and had eaten chips every day since she was five. After only one session she reported improvement. Billy's mom is hopeful that her family can soon have a normal dinner too."All the doctors we visited just said that Billy was a fussy eater, but didn't know what else to say."Felix Economakis explains that when SED shows itself as a phobia to food, many doctors confuse it with a natural phase in childhood, which is fussy eating. He notes that these people act as though they are just fussy eaters, but unlike picky eaters, they would rather die than eat certain foods, due to a traumatic childhood experience which resulted in them distrusting certain foods.There are a host of problems and challenges which arise for a person who has SED, especially in the case of someone like Billy who has been struggling with it for eight years.Their physical development may be stunted, and they can develop obsessive-compulsive tendencies and social anxiety due to their fear of food. Because their fear drives them to extreme eating patterns, people with SED often suffer from nutritional deficiencies. Especially when the focus is on something as unhealthy as garlic bread, which should only be eaten in moderation along with healthy, nutrient-dense foods such as fruits and vegetables."Billy has started his hypnotherapy now and we're really hopeful that it will work. He's already beaten cancer, he can beat this too."
It is just the same size as your credit card and uses solar-powered batteries. Jonathan O'Hallaon, co-founder of the company said in an interview that "We are now at the point that we have a working prototype that can perform a highly sensitive tuberculosis test from a sample through to results in 15-20 minutes." The company is confident with the efficacy of the technology and they hope to start production before the year ends.

Usually it takes more than three days to get a diagnostic. According to Cancer.org "Routine biopsy and cytology results may be ready as soon as 1or 2 days after the sample gets to the lab. " But Q-poc can do this in less than 20 minutes.

QuanTuMDx is the company behind the Q-Poc. According to the company the cartridges contain sensors which can identify different molecules from samples. They can identify diseases based on DNA analysis. "Operation is simple: input the sample into the cartridge, insert the cartridge into the device and press go. In 10-15 minutes a result will be presented on-screen." It is very fast, cost-effective and operates using very low energy consumption.

The Guardian said this "handheld lab" or the handheld device which can detect cancer is still waiting for regulatory approval by the World Health Organization (WHO). Once approved, they are looking at using this technology in South Africa.

According to O'Hallaron it is different from the old process because Q-poc uses the most conventional diagnostic tools. It analyses the DNA of pathogens instead of the proteins in the sample as how it was practiced before. He said this technology sounds very simple but it is a ground breaking technology and nothing in the market comes close to Q-poc in terms of cancer detection.

If proven effective, this technology can definitely help in the fight with these type of diseases including cancer and tuberculosis. Early detection is always a key in receiving immediate and proper treatment.
The United States is set to buy 32 tons of heavy water from Iran, as confirmed by the spokesperson of the Energy Department on Friday.

The purchase of heavy water is in alignment with the nuclear deal agreed upon by seven world powers including Iran and US. The deal talks about the lifting of the financial sanction on Iran in exchange for the country's reduction of its ability to produce nuclear weapons. The agreement also demands Iran to reduce its accumulation of different kinds of materials used in making nuclear weapons.

Heavy water, a material used as a coolant in producing plutonium and used in medical research is expected to be resold within the US after the purchase.

"This heavy water purchase will help meet market demand in the United States, fulfilling a substantial portion of the United States' domestic industry and research needs for the year, while also contributing to the administration's nuclear nonproliferation efforts," said the spokesperson of the Energy Department, according to MSN.

Satisfied with Iran's performance of its part on the nuclear deal, US government now encourages European banks to do business with the country.

John Kerry, US Secretary of State, confirmed that the purchase of heavy water comes after Iran's fulfilment of its obligation on the deal, thereby assuring that the US government's decision to purchase said material is an assurance that Asian and European Banks should cease the fear of dealing with Iran, as per Yahoo.

Times of Israel reported that the heavy water purchase however did not win the approval of the Republicans in Congress who have been opposing the deal from the start.

Paul Ryan, House Speaker, on the other hand, supposed that what the US government claims to be their part in the nuclear deal is beyond what is required by the agreement. He infers that this step is only to subsidize the country's nuclear program. "It's yet another unprecedented concession to the world's leading state-sponsor of terrorism," Ryan noted.

This video shows some additional facts about the heavy water purchase.
The use of medical marijuana has always been under scrutiny in many U.S. states and in other countries. But in a recent decision by the United States Drug Enforcement Agency, the study on the use of medical marijuana to treat post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in veterans is now possible.

The DEA approved the use of medical marijuana in the treatment of PTSD in Arizona and Colorado, according to the Phoenix New Times.

The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) will conduct the study and it will give veterans a chance to try the said treatment. Dr. Sue Sisley, an advocate of medical marijuana, and MAPS are known to have lobbied for the study to be approved for almost seven years, and only this year did DEA gave it a green light.

According to MAPS, the approval "marks the first time a clinical trial intended to develop smoked botanical marijuana into a legal prescription drug has received full approval from U.S. regulatory agencies."

MAPS is a non-profit research and educational organization founded in 1986 "that develops medical, legal, and cultural contexts for people to benefit from the careful uses of psychedelics and marijuana."

In a press release, they said that the approval of their study means they will be able to "demonstrate the safety and efficacy of smoked botanical marijuana as a prescription medicine for specific medical uses to the satisfaction of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.".

In the same report by the Phoenix New Times, it is stated that MAPS already signed a $2.156 million contract with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment

The road to get approval from DEA is not easy, according to Dr. Sisley. "They continued submitting paperwork to the DEA, hunted for appropriate space to conduct the trials, and lobbied to the state of Colorado - successfully - to pay the bills." Despite some legislators' animosity towards the use of marijuana for any form of treatment, the study is now on the table and it is going to happen.

Post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD is a form of psychiatric disorder occurring after persons witness life-threatening events such as military combat, disasters and other traumatic incidents. Veterans from war are the usual victims of PTSD. Although the belief in the medicinal properties of pot or marijuana is still under heavy debate, the drive to help veterans suffering from PTSD is enough to consider the study and the possibility that it can indeed cure the condition.
Despite the aggressive efforts of the government and mental health practitioners, the number of people committing suicide in the United States continues to rise, reaching the highest records in nearly 30 years.

According to the report of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 13 out of 100,000 people in the United States committed suicide in 2014, a 24 percent increase from 10.5 people out of 100,000 in 1994.

During the 20-year difference, the suicide rate of males and females aged 10 to 74 has increased. People aged 10 to 14 have the highest suicide rates for females; while men aged 45 to 64 have the highest suicide rates for men.

Females tend to kill themselves with poison, 34.1 percent, while firearms are the most frequently used suicide method for men, 55.4 percent. Suicide attributed to suffocation has also increased with both males and females. The study also noted that men tend to kill themselves three times more than women.

In a report from CBS News, Dr. Maria Oquendo, president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association said that the rise of social media has contributed to the steady rise of suicide rates for teens, especially for girls.

"Now things are happening online, unmonitored, and untoward things could be going on and having adverse affects on kids," said Dr. Oquendo relating to cyber-bullying.

On the other hand, the surge of suicide rates in middle-aged men can be attributed to opiate addiction, drug abuse and employment problems.

At present, there are many support groups who are more than willing to help people overcome their suicidal tendencies. One of these groups is the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. This organization has a free 24-hour hotline 1-800-273-TALK (8255) to help those who are in need.

Other groups utilize teens love for texting to help those who have suicidal thoughts. They can be reached by texting "help" to 741-741.


In history's first ever fully solar-powered flight around the world, the Solar Impulse 2 took off from Hawaii on Friday heading towards California. Flown by Bertrand Piccard, the Solar Impulse 2 is now on its ninth leg to complete its global journey.

Along with the world's celebration of Earth Day, Piccard and his substitute pilot flew the Solar Impulse 2 now fly above the Pacific Ocean for the final and most perilous lap of the journey. This Trans-Pacific leg is considered the riskiest, as they fly above a place with no emergency landing sites.

Minutes before the flight, Piccard had a chance to talk with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who summoned him and stated that he was making history with his inspirational pioneering spirit. The pilot responded by praising the secretary general for leading the 175 nations in signing the climate agreement.

"What you are doing today in New York, signing the Paris agreement, is more than protecting the environment, it is the launch of the clean technology revolution," said Piccard, according to ABC.

This 2,200 kilogram carbon-fibre aircraft ideally runs at a speed of 45 kilometres per hour which can double at daytime when the sun is shining strong. It is equipped with 17,000 solar cells powering the propellers and charging batteries which makes the plane run at night, as per CBC News.

The journey started March 2015 for Solar Impulse 2. It began in Abu Dhabi, making temporary landing in Oman, Myanmar, China and Japan. It had to stop in July after its trip from Japan to Hawaii when the plane's battery system has been damaged.

A damaged wing has been the cause of its delay in Asia on its to fly from China to Hawaii route. After a month of repair and as soon as the weather got better, the Solar Impulse 2 left Central Japan and headed for Hawaii.

See this video for more,
A 17-year-old girl reported missing Saturday evening after being snatched off the street has been found safe in Dallas, police said.

According to investigators, Keidra Kirby's grandmother called 911 to report that the family had received a call from the teen.

"This morning Keidra was able to contact her parents and provide her location, which was at a residence in the 3800 block of Gannon in Dallas," Glenn Heights Police Chief Phillip Prasifka said Sunday. "Keidra was located by the Glenn Heights detectives and Texas Rangers."

Tawanna Kirby, Keidra's mother, spoke at a Sunday press conference and thanked the community, police and her church family for their support.

"I'm so happy my daughter is home safe," Kirby said. "Please understand that we're healing, and our daughter, she's healing, and please just understand, we do want privacy at this time," she added.

Police did not provide any further details and Prasifka said Sunday the 17-year-old's kidnapping "remains an active investigation."

Kirby was reportedly abducted while walking home with two friends at about 7 p.m. in the 400 block of Star Gazer Drive.[[376883791,R]]

According to Glenn Heights Sgt. David Jackson, a white panel van with three men pulled up alongside the group. Two masked men, wearing all black, jumped out and pulled Kirby into the van, Jackson said.

"The fact they did this in broad daylight is astounding," Jackson said. "It's highly populated, and there's a lot of foot traffic in that area. It's a good neighborhood," Jackson added.

"I'm scared, I'm nervous, but all I can do is wait," said Tawanna Kirby, Keidra's mother. "I'll be up all night. I'm not going to bed."

Police said that the van had dark tinted windows, dual rear doors, and there was an equipment rack on top of the van.

When asked if there is a safety risk, Prasifka said police are still trying to identify suspects. "We do not believe that there is a safety risk to the community," said Prasifka.

Prasifka asked that anyone with information that could help with the investigation call 972-223-3478.

Please check back for more updates on this developing story. NBC 5's Chris Jose contributed to this report.
A 19-year-old firefighter who was shot four times last week while responding to a call for help in Temple Hills, Maryland, has been released from the hospital Saturday evening, News4's Darcy Spencer reports.

Kevin Swain, a volunteer firefighter in Prince George's County, was recovering at Shock Trauma in Baltimore since he was shot Friday, April 15.

"Thank you for all the support. The support has been phenomenal," Swain said with a smile as he left the hospital. "I couldn't ask for anything else. I'm ready to go home."

Another firefighter, John Ulmschneider, was fatally shot.

Swain and Ulmschneider were responding to a welfare check at a Temple Hills home that night.

The man inside the home opened fire on the two firefighters and his brother when they entered, police said. Police said he believed someone was breaking into his home. He has not been charged.

"It's gotta be the brightest point at the end of a very trying week for us as a fire department," said Battalion Chief Eric Reith, with Prince George's County Fire and Rescue.

Swain was surrounded by his fellow firefighters as he made his way to a fire engine for the ride home.

"For public safety, a line if duty death is a dark moment and trying moment for any organization.

The sweet point is today, there's a little bit of a ray of light getting to see someone that was injured critically get to go home and complete their recovery."

"For public safety, a line of duty death is a dark moment and trying moment for any organization. The sweet point is today, there's a little bit of a ray of light getting to see someone that was injured critically get to go home and complete their recovery," Reith said.

Firefighters held a moment of radio silence Friday night, exactly one week after the shooting.

Swain's family has set up a donation site where people can give to a charity fund set up in his name.

An online fund has also been established to support Ulmschneider's family. He left behind a wife and a 2-year-old daughter.
An 18-year-old man opened fire with a high-powered rifle outside of a high school prom in northern Wisconsin, wounding two students before a police officer who was in the parking lot fatally shot him, authorities said Sunday.

Investigators did not say whether they believe the two students were specifically targeted or discuss a possible motive for the shooting outside Antigo High School late Saturday. But a school administrator said it appeared that the gunman  identified by police as Jakob E. Wagner  intended to go into the dance and start shooting randomly.

The two prom-goers who were wounded were shot as they exited the building, according to Eric Roller, the chief of police in Antigo, a community of about 8,000 people roughly 150 miles north of Milwaukee.

"Officers were in the parking lot patrolling the activities and heard the shots and an officer immediately fired upon the shooter, stopping the threat," Roller said. He said the gunman was then taken into custody. Wagner died at a hospital.

In a statement, the Unified School District of Antigo said Wagner approached the school with a high-powered rifle and a large ammunition clip. The district said the "quick actions" taken by police and district staff to secure the building "prevented what might have otherwise been a disaster of unimaginable proportions."

Interim district administrator Donald B. Childs told The Associated Press on Sunday that it appears Wagner intended to go into the building and shoot at people at the dance.

"We have no reason to believe at this point it was targeting anybody specifically," Childs said, adding that the shooting outside the entrance happened "from some distance."

The female victim was treated and released and the male victim was undergoing surgery for injuries that weren't life-threatening, police said. Childs said the wounded boy, who was shot in the leg, attended the high school but that his date, who was grazed in the shooting, was from out of state.

Nikita Deep, a student at the school who attended the prom, told the Wausau Daily Herald that police officers came into the building and moved students to one corner. Students weren't released until about 2 a.m. Sunday, three hours after the shooting.

"We heard there was a situation, but I thought it was some kind of drug bust," Deep said. "Then they flipped the lights and then about 12 officers came in and are armored. We were all frightened."

Gov. Scott Walker praised the police response, saying in a statement the actions of the Antigo Police Department "undoubtedly saved lives."

Friends said Wagner was a senior at Antigo High School in 2015, but Childs said he did not graduate with his classmates and was continuing to work on his diploma. He said the school of about 750 students will have counselors available when classes resume Monday.

Friends expressed shock that Wagner was the suspect.

"For him to do that, something just isn't right. He was a good kid," said Dakotta Mills, who said he had known Wagner since sixth grade and considered him a "foster brother."

Wagner was interested in guns and wanted to become a hunter, Mills said, but he wasn't sure Wagner could afford a gun. He said Mills was raised by his mother and grandparents and was still living at home.

Wagner loved video games and music, particularly violin and cello, and had been in the school marching band, Mills said.

Dylan Dewey, who graduated from Antigo High last year, said Wagner had been dating a girl at the school who broke up with him last month. He described Wagner as an "all-around good guy" who enjoyed hanging out with friends.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice's Division of Criminal Investigation has been asked to lead an outside review of the officer-involved shooting, agency spokesman Johnny Koremenos said.
The majority of Ted Cruzs delegates in Maine were picked for the Republican National convention over the weekend, NBC News reported.

That means at least 19 of the 23 delegates Maine will send to the convention in July will be Cruz supporters, benefiting the Texas senator if the selection process goes to multiple ballots.

Cruz grabbed 12 pledged delegates in March, winning Maines caucus. Donald Trump secured nine, while John Kasich won two.

Trump and his supporters have called the delegate process rigged, because it doesnt reflect the will of voters. They argue the nine delegates hes won should remain loyal to him on every round of voting.

The Republican National Committee says the presidential nominee is chosen by the delegates  not the voters.
Connecticut State Police arrested a man who threatened to bomb a Donald Trump event in Waterbury Saturday.

Police say the U.S. Secret Service contacted the CSP Office of Counter Terrorism around 12:46 p.m. about a post on Twitter that threatened a campaign rally for the Republican front-runner.

According to police, the initial tweet asked if "someone [is] going to bomb the Trump rally or am I going to have to?"

A second post warned the suspects friend to have family members to leave the rally so they wouldnt be harmed. The posts, which were open to public view, came from the area of Ardsley Road in Waterbury.

Police tracked down the user of the account and located the suspect, identified as Sean Taylor Morkys, at his residence. Officials interviewed Morkys and determined he was not an imminent threat to the public or to Trump.

The 20-year-old Waterbury resident was arrested and charged with first-degree threatening, inciting injury to a person or property and second-degree breach of peace.

He was processed at Troop A-Southbury and released on a $25,000 bond. He is expected in Waterbury Superior Court on May 4.
A New Hampshire man was wearing a shirt expressing his desire for alcohol when police arrested him in a drunk driving crash in front of a police department building.

Police say 29-year-old Joshua Tackett of Seabrook drove his Chevrolet Cruze off Amesbury Road in Kensington just before 9 p.m. Friday.

Tackett was going south when police say he went across the northbound lane, off the road and through a stone wall and a granite post. The car then slammed into a utility pole in front of the Kensington Police Department.

When police arrested Tackett on a DWI charge, he was wearing a T-shirt reading "This guy needs a beer," with two thumbs pointed up at his face.

Kensington Police

Tackett's car was badly damaged. He suffered minor injuries and refused treatment, according to police.

Speed and alcohol are both believed to have been factors in the crash.

The suspect was released on $750 personal recognizance bail. He is due to be arraigned Wednesday morning in Brentwood.

It was not immediately clear if he had an attorney.
A neurology resident with Miami's Jackson Health System has been fired after a controversial video involving an Uber driver went viral in January.

The hospital announced in a statement Friday it was "moving forward with the termination of Dr. Anjali Ramkissoon," and said she is entitled to an appeal process.

Dr. Ramkissoon, who was a fourth-year resident, had initially been placed on leave and removed from all clinical duties while an internal investigation was launched.

The incident started when Ramkissoon got into an Uber vehicle without a reservation and refused to get out.

The driver, Igor Belic, said she wasn't his customer, but Ramkissoon demanded a ride.

A video posted to YouTube shows the confrontation between Ramkissoon and Belic in Brickell. It shows Ramkissson trying to knee the driver as Belic asks witnesses to call 911 while holding her wrists to restrain her.

**Warning: The video below contains graphic language and content**

Ramkissoon is seen in the video hitting and kicking the driver, and throwing items, including a pair of scissors and a cellphone, out of his car. After several minutes, she eventually stops and walks away.

Ultimately, Belic decided not to press charges.

In an interview with "Good Morning America" after the incident, Ramkissoon called the incident the "biggest mistake of her life" and said there is "absolutely no excuse" for her actions.

Ramkisson admitted to GMA that she had been drinking that evening and said she was having a bad day after her father was admitted to the hospital and then her boyfriend of two years broke up with her.

"There is absolutely no excuse for my actions. I am ashamed. I am so sorry. I've hurt so many people with this," she told GMA.
Police are trying to identify a suspect after a 17-year-old was fatally shot in Saginaw Saturday.

Saginaw police Capt. Russell Ragsdale told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that that the shooting on Saturday afternoon occurred during "an altercation," but police had not determined what it was about or found an eyewitness.

Police were told the shooter left in a vehicle.

Ragsdale said, "There's not an old feud that anyone's aware of."

The Tarrant County medical examiner's office identified the victim as Jordan Miles. The medical examiner's website shows that he would have turned 18 on Tuesday.

Saginaw is located just north of Fort Worth.
Richland Hills police have located the missing nursing home resident who disappeared Saturday afternoon.

Police said that Judith Fisher-Bennet was reported missing Saturday afternoon after she wandered away from a nursing home in Richland Hills. She was last seen in the 3100 block of Kings Court. A Silver Alert was issued for Fisher-Bennett, who suffers from dementia and is known to be confused and disoriented.

The Richland Police Department said that her disappearance posed a credible threat to her own health and safety.

Police said that Fisher-Bennett was found following a suspicious person call in Fort Worth near the 8800 block of Trinity Boulevard.

Officials said that she was found safe and appeared to be in good health. She was taken to a local hospital as a precaution to be evaluated.
Marijuana growing operations were discovered at some of the crime scenes where officials said eight family members were killed in a "pre-planned execution," raising more questions as authorities scrambled to find a suspect or suspects in the slayings in a rural southern Ohio community.

The killings at four homes near the small community of Piketon on Friday was "a sophisticated operation," Attorney General Mike DeWine said at a news conference Sunday. Seven adults and one teenage boy were found shot in the head; three young children were not harmed.

"This was a pre-planned execution of eight individuals," DeWine said.

Authorities remained tight-lipped Sunday about details of the investigation, any suspects or motives for the crime. They said they found marijuana operations at three of the crime scenes, but didn't say if the deaths were linked to pot. Autopsies were expected to be completed Monday.

Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader said it was clear the family was targeted, and he's told the victims' relatives to arm themselves.

Reader said he didn't believe safety was an issue for others, but he said "If you are fearful, arm yourself."

Investigators have interviewed between 50 and 60 people in hopes of finding leads, and a team of 38 people is combing wooded areas around the shooting scenes to ensure no evidence was missed, authorities said.

"This was very methodical. This was well planned. This was not something that just happened," said Reader, noting most victims were targeted while they were sleeping.

The victims were identified Saturday as 40-year-old Christopher Rhoden Sr.; his 16-year-old son, Christopher Rhoden Jr.; 44-year-old Kenneth Rhoden; 38-year-old Gary Rhoden; 37-year-old Dana Rhoden; 20-year-old Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden; 20-year-old Hannah Gilley; and 19-year-old Hanna Rhoden.

Hanna Rhoden was in bed with her newborn baby nearby, authorities said. The infant was 4- or 5-days old. The newborn, Hannah Gilley's 6-month-old baby, and one other small child were not hurt.

DeWine said the state's crime lab was looking at 18 pieces of evidence from a DNA and ballistic standpoint, and five search warrants have been executed.

Since the slayings, authorities have refused to discuss many details of the crime, a potential motive, weapons, or the search for the assailant or assailants.

"We don't know whether it was one or more people involved in this," DeWine said.

More than 100 tips have been given to investigators, who've set up a number for people to call as police seek information about the crimes. A Cincinnati-area businessman also put up a $25,000 reward for details leading to the capture and conviction of the killer or killers.

Robin Waddell, who owns the Big Bear Lake Family Resort just south of Piketon, said Christopher Rhoden often did work for him as a carpenter and helped out with his excavation business. He said Rhoden was a nice guy whose kids sometimes visited him while he was working.

"It's a large family," Waddell said. "There's a lot of them and they've been in this community for generations. So this is affecting a lot of people."

Maggie Owens, a cook at the town's Riverside Restaurant, said she's counts herself among those who feel they're on eggshells.

"I know a lot of people are just scared," Owens, 39, said in a phone interview on Sunday. "You don't hear about stuff like that around here."

She said her son was friends with the younger Christopher Rhoden. She described Dana Rhoden as a woman with "a heart of gold" who gave her clothes and money when her home burned down last year.

The exact timing of the shootings remains unclear. Authorities got the first 911 call shortly before 8 a.m. Friday; the second came several hours later from another location.

Two of the crime scenes are within walking distance of each other along a sparsely populated, winding road that leads into wooded hills from a rural highway. The third residence is more than a mile away, and the fourth home is on a different road, at least a 10-minute drive away.

Todd Beekman, who owns an outdoors shop a few miles from the crime scenes, said at least one customer came in to stock up on ammunition after hearing about the shootings. But Beekman and others hanging out there midday Saturday said they weren't concerned for their own safety because it's an area where residents know and look out for each other.

"The word spread pretty fast, as it does in any rural area," Beekman said. "Everybody's kind of their own brother's keeper down here."
Tens of thousands of people packed Wilshire Boulevard on Sunday in a rally for justice, commemorating the 1.5 million Armenians killed by the Ottoman Turks more than a century ago.

The Armenian Genocide Commemoration March kicked off at the corner of Hollywood and Hobart boulevards in Little Armenia before demonstrators gathered for a rally, sponsored by the Armenian Genocide Committee, in front of the Turkish Consulate by Sunday afternoon.

Historians say the systemic slaughter of Armenians began on April 24, 1915 when Turkey's Ottoman government rounded up and arrested 250 intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople.

What some consider the first genocide of the 20th Century continued until 1923. But officials in modern Turkey deny there was ever a genocide. And the United States government has been reluctant to use the word genocide to describe the mass killings.

Congressman Adam Schiff has been working for nearly two decades pushing for genocide recognition.

"I think it's a grave mistake. If we're to be the human rights leaders of the world, we can't pick and choose which genocide to recognize," Schiff said.

One of the organizers from the rally says recognition is the first step, but a long list of demands still need to be met.

City News Service contributed to this report.
A greater-alarm fire tore through a building at a large apartment complex in Woodland Hills on Saturday night, authorities said.

One person was examined for a possible smoke inhalation injury and then released at the scene of the fire, which was reported just after 8 p.m. at the Warner Villa Apartments complex in the 5800 block of North Topanga Canyon Boulevard, Brian Humphrey of the Los Angeles Fire Department said.

Ninety firefighters responded and knocked down the blaze in 40 minutes, he said. Reports from the scene showed a building with flames roaring through its roof. One man rushed in with a hose and tried to battle the flames himself.

Emily Sheerer said firefighters rescued her dog, but couldn't get the cat because it was under a bed.

"It was the worst feeling ever," she said. "I was so scared. I thought he was going to be dead."

But after firefighters got the cat out, she said she started crying.

"I was so happy."

Humphrey said firefighters contained the blaze to the first-floor unit. A stretch of Topanga Canyon Boulevard was closed between Oxnard Street and the Ventura (101) Freeway.
Vice Media, a multibillion dollar company, is demanding that a Los Angeles-area indie punk-funk trio, ViceVersa, change its name and the band is fighting back.

Guitarist Zeke Zeledon, bassist Sarah Corza, and drummer Ariel Fredrickson have been playing gigs as ViceVersa mostly in the Los Angeles-area for nearly three years.

On a good month they bring in about $1,500 from gigs and merchandise. The band has played over 150 shows, released two EPs, and several music videos. They also received conditional approval from the United States Patent and Trademark Office to use the name ViceVersa in 2014.

But late last year, the band received a cease-and-desist letter from Vice attorneys, demanding they abandon their name, saying it's causing consumer confusion.

"When we first got the letter were like, 'What the heck?'" Zeledon said. "I thought that's what getting a trademark was for, to try to avoid this. It was an investment getting it done."

They spent up to $3,000 to go through the trademark process, he said.



Vice Media lawyer Kimberly Herman didn't respond to an email seeking comment.



But in opposing the name to a Patent and Trademark appeal board in March, she argued that ViceVersa is "confusingly similar in sound, appearance, connotation, and overall commercial impression" to Vice and it "covers services identical, substantially similar, and/or closely related" to those offered by Vice.

A Vice spokesperson told the Huffington Post that ViceVersa's trademark application "overlaps with the scope of our already existing federal trademark. This is a standard, cut-and-dry trademark matter and we are not involved in litigation with this band."



The band, which stays in a low-rent art studio warehouse in Whittier, started an online campaign to raise money. So far, they've raised $1,000 toward a $2,500 goal.



In a video, Zeledon reads from the cease-and-desist letter. After reading the letter Zeledon says "We wanna know, starting with our fans, if you guys feel that ViceVersa and Vice Media are similar and confusing in any way ...



"Let's make some noise and see if we could maybe say, 'What's up?' to Vice."



Charley Moore, the CEO of Rocket Lawyer, a San Francisco-based developer of online legal documents and support, said it is not uncommon for companies to defend their trademark.



"Litigation or the threat thereof is often used by the strong against the weak," said Moore, who has written extensively on patent and trademark issues.



Last year Moore wrote an article for Entrepreneur magazine about a trademark infringement lawsuit from the craft brewery, Lagunitas.

The company filed against a fellow craft brewery, Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, over a logo for a new beer. Lagunitas CEO felt the label on Sierra Nevada's brew was too similar and in an effort to protect his brand, he decided to take legal action.

The suit was eventually dropped after it went viral on Twitter.



Moore said ViceVersa faces a "David-versus-Goliath" battle.



Legal costs could amount to over $100,000 or more if the case drags out beyond letters and calls to protracted litigation, he said.



This isn't the first time Vice Media has taken on a company over trademark infringement.



Last June, the company filed a lawsuit against Virtue Marketing, a 1,200 employee film and show production company, according to the Hollywood Reporter.



Vice claimed the name Virtue because the company uses the name for its in-house creative, advertising and marketing agency, according to the Hollywood Reporter.



"Vice named its advertising agency Virtue in order to play off the Vice name (i.e., a virtue is the opposite of a vice, and the agency extols the virtues of its advertisers)," the Reporter said, citing the lawsuit.



Zeledon is committed to taking on Vice, which grew from a punk magazine in 1994 called the Voice of Montreal into a $2.5 billion international media company.



"It's become more than us, at this point," he says. "It's about any artist who's independent."
An 11-year-old girl from Somerset, Massachusetts, has died after choking on a marshmallow at a birthday party last Saturday.

Azriel Estabrooks, a student at Somerset's North Elementary School, was found unconscious at the party and hospitalized for almost a week in critical condition, according to NBC affiliate WJAR in Rhode Island.

She died Friday morning, the school principal told WJAR.

Azriel's mother, Iris, said she dropped her daughter off at the party and received a call about an hour later from the mother who was hosting.

"[She said] that I need to hurry up because something happened to my daughter," Estabrooks told WJAR. "She doesn't know what happened."

The fire department responded to the scene, authorities said.

Estabrooks said rescuers found a marshmallow lodged in her daughter's throat. She believes Azriel was unconscious for some time without oxygen to her brain before someone found her and called for help.

Estabrooks accused the host family of negligence. WJAR could not reach the family for comment at the time of the initial report.
A Florida man trying to reach Bermuda, Haiti, Cuba and Puerto Rico in a giant inflatable bubble was rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard over the weekend.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Mark Barney said long-distance runner Reza Baluchi was picked up Sunday off Florida and his "hydropod" was being towed to shore. Baluchi agreed to be voluntarily rescued.

The Coast Guard tweeted Sunday that Baluchis voyage had ended after he violated a USCG order not to embark on his seagoing journey.

The contraption, years in the making, includes 36 buoyancy balls on each side, a life jacket with a water filter, a GPS tracking device and even shark repellent.

Baluchi set out from Pompano Beach on Saturday, despite receiving an April 15 letter from the Coast Guard warning him not to depart, according to Barney.

The Coast Guard said it had reviewed Baluchi's plan and determined it to be unsafe. The first leg alone was about 1,033 miles.

Baluchi, however, was undeterred.

"Mind is power. It's 85 percent your mind. Anything you can do," he said before leaving Florida.

He tried to make a similar journey in 2014 and had to be rescued about 70 nautical miles east of St. Augustine.

Baluchi  an endurance athlete who has biked through six continents and run the perimeter of the United States  has said his eventual goal is to run through every country in the world and raise money for children in need.
Miami-Dade Fire crews were working to rescue a horse stuck in a canal in Southwest Dade.

The incident occurred at a canal near southwest 167th avenue and southwest 195th street Sunday afternoon.

According to Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, the horse went into a canal after being frightened by chickens, as the owner and walked passed a neighboring farm.

The canal was too deep for the horse to climb out of it on its own, so the owner called fire rescue for assistance.

Rescue crews braced the horse, and rescuers got in the water and assisted the horse out of the steep embankment.

The horse was checked out and released to the owner.
Crews rescued residents trapped inside a burning home early Sunday morning.

Fire rescue responded to a house fire located at the 2100 block of SW 66th ave, around 12:38 a.m. Sunday.

According to Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, crews saw flames coming out of the window of the home. Firefighters had to break through iron bars to get to the residents that were inside the home.

Firefighters were able to make entry through a window and get one person who was still inside the house out. The person was treated for smoke inhalation and was transported to the hospital.

Two other people were also transported due to smoke inhalation.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation, check back to NBC6 for updates.
A Sunrise man is facing charges after police say he fatally beat his mother's boyfriend days after the woman was found dead.

Edward Cadet, 30, was arrested Tuesday and charged with murder without premeditation in the death of 59-year-old Randy Pierson, according to Margate Police.

Cadet was being held without bond Tuesday, and it was unknown if he's hired an attorney.

Police say Cadet's mother, 60-year-old Alfonsene Valentine, was found shot to death in the 5600 block of North Bay Drive on Sunday. She was found in an open field next to North Bay Park with a gunshot wound to her head.

The circumstances surrounding her death remain under investigation.

Police said Cadet went to the Margate home Pierson shared with Valentine early Tuesday to collect his mother's belongings. The two had a conversation about their relationship and her death, and at one point, Cadet attacked Pierson, police said.

Officers arrived at the home in the 6600 block of Saltaire Terrace just before 1 a.m., where they found Pierson severely injured and unconscious without a pulse. He was taken to North Broward Medical Center where he later died from his injuries.

Cadet stayed at the scene and was taken into custody.

Police are asking anyone with information about either death investigation to call them at 954-935-5421.
Responding to a report of gunfire at a Brooklyn apartment building, police arrested six men and seized more than three pounds of marijuana and several firearms, authorities said Saturday.

Officers zeroed in on apartment 8G at 790 Eldert Lane after investigating the report of gunshot, police said. As they spoke to the occupants through a locked door, officers outside noticed a weapon and a bag being tossed from the balcony, police said.

Officers recovered the weapon and found that the bag contained two guns.

The six men inside the apartment surrendered without resisting arrest, officers said. Officers obtained a search warrant and then found the marijuana, another gun and $1,329 in cash.

The six men, ranging in age from 20 to 39, face numerous drug and weapon charges.
A cab driver was killed early Saturday morning when a speeding BMW rammed it into a utility pole on Long Island, investigators said.

Duke Obule, 23, of Queens, was speeding in the BMW at 4:15 a.m. on Hempstead Turnpike in Franklin Square when he struck the taxi and pushed it across two lanes of traffic into a utility pole, Nassau County police said.

The taxi driver, 47, of Elmont, was pronounced dead at the scene. His name was not immediately released.

A 20-year-old female passenger in the taxi was taken to a local hospital for treatment of an ankle fracture.

Obule left the accident site and was found about an hour later at the corner of Hempstead Turnpike and Evans Avenue, police said. He was arrested on charges including manslaughter, unlicensed driving and leaving the scene of an accident.
A New Jersey man has been charged with killing a 6-month-old puppy after striking it with the back side of an ax, authorities said Saturday.

Richard Bijacsko, 51, of Springfield, faces animal cruelty and weapons charges, the Burlington County SPCA Humane Police said in a press release.

Bijacsko was arrested after he told police that he hit the animal twice with the back end of an ax because it was causing problems for him.

The puppy, named Leonitis, was found dead Monday at a motel in Florence where its owner was staying.

Bijacsko was caring for the dog because the owner wasn't allowed to keep the dog at the motel. The owner wasn't identified.

It's unclear whether Bijacsko has an attorney who could comment on the charges.
A group of police officers searching for non-verbal, autistic teenager who was reported missing Saturday found him running naked in the water at a Coney Island beach.

While canvassing the Brooklyn school where he was reported missing, officers received a report of a naked teenager running on the beach at West 12 Street.

Four officers converged on the beach and were directed to an area where they spotted the 14-year-old boy walk out of the water and then run back in.

The officers stood at the shore line and tried to encourage the boy to return to the beach. He ignored them and stood in waist-high water.

Sgt. Christopher Vincenti and two officer stripped down to their pants and undershirts and waded into the water and persuaded the teen to return to the beach.

The boy was hospitalized Saturday night. His condition wasn't immediately known.

In 2013, 14-year-old Avonte Oquendo who was also autistic, ran off from his school in Queens and was found dead in a river months later. A law passed after his death requiring schools to install audible door alarms.

The city's Department of Education didn't respond to a request for comment Saturday night.
Police are looking for a man who they say groped a woman in an elevator Saturday night and attempted to follow her into her Manhattan apartment.

Investigators released a photo of the suspect taken by a surveillance camera.

A 24-year-old woman told police that the man followed her into the elevator of her building near Stanton and Pitt streets and pushed her against the wall and began to fondle her.

He then followed her to her apartment but fled when a man came to the door, police said.

Anyone with information about the suspect is asked to contact the NYPD Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS.
Two friends were killed in two related shootings a short distance away and just hours apart -- one of which was witnessed by a Pennsylvania House candidate who spoke with the victim only moments before his death Sunday.

Chris Rabb, a Democratic candidate running for state representative of Pennsylvanias 200th legislative district, was canvassing on the 1400 block of Vernon Road in Philadelphia around 3:30 p.m. Rabb's campaign manager told NBC10 the candidate introduced himself to a 21-year-old man who was in the area and they had a conversation.

The man, later identified as Alex Cherry, told Rabb he wanted to work the polls during Pennsylvania's primary Tuesday and was interested in his platform, according to the campaign manager. A volunteer with Rabb then took down Cherry's number. As Rabb and his volunteer walked away a gunman suddenly walked up to Cherry and shot him in the head at point-blank range, according to police. The gunman -- described as a man standing around 6-feet tall with short hair -- then returned to shoot Cherry two more times, said police.

"I asked my colleague to get his information," Rabb said. "And moments after we got his information he was shot in the head. I don't wish that on anyone."

Rabb managed to pull his volunteer to safety into a nearby store. Cherry was pronounced dead at the scene at 3:43 p.m. [[376917841, C]]

"I seen all the police cars but I had no idea that it was someone in my family," said Vyvyan Harris, Cherry's aunt. "But then my nephew walks over to me and says, 'Aunt Viv. He's gone.'"

Neither Rabb nor his volunteer were injured. Police also say they were not the gunman's intended targets. The campaign manager told NBC10 Rabb was "beyond devastated" by the shooting. Rabb was later interviewed by homicide detectives.

The gunman was last seen fleeing on foot southbound on the 7900 block of Fayette Street. Police have not released a detailed physical description of the suspect but say he was wearing a light grey hooded sweatshirt.

A few hours later around 7:30 p.m., about a block away on the 8000 block of Temple Road, Cherry's friend, 18-year-old Elijah Frazier, was struck and killed in a shooting. A gunman started shooting at a crowd of people after getting out of a red sport utility vehicle, investigators said.

A bullet struck Frazier in the back while a 17-year-old boy was grazed in the head. Surveillance video captured Frazier stumbling into a nearby Chinese take-out and then collapsing to the ground. He was rushed to Einstein Hospital where he later died from his injuries. The 17-year-old is expected to recover.

Frazier and Cherry were friends, a police source with knowledge of the investigation told NBC10's Monique Braxton. Investigators looked at the Somerville Gang, which has been feuding with the Vernon Road Gang, as possibly being behind the shootings, said the source.

"I'm very frustrated by the fact that we were not able to prevent this second homicide," said Philadelphia Police commissioner Richard Ross, who believes the shootings are gang-related. "We do believe that these are two rival factions. What they're fighting over we haven't pinned that down right now."

Police didn't immediately make any arrests in either shooting.

Rabb later released a statement on the deadly shooting:
If you hear about the search for a missing person in the Philadelphia area, chances are Mark Hopkins is involved somehow. The 52-year-old Mount Airy native has been the chief of Greater Philadelphia Search and Rescue (GPSAR), an organization that aids in the search for lost and missing people, for over a decade and has been involved in the group for 20 years. Throughout his career Hopkins has investigated some of the most high-profile missing persons cases in our region, including Shane Montgomery, Cayman Naib and Christopher Tully.

During his time as the GPSAR chief, Hopkins has developed a reputation of someone extremely good at his job but not particularly fond of the attention that brings, particularly from the media. Yet his image as a grumpy misanthrope with little patience or time for anything outside of finding missing people, is just that, an image. NBC10 spoke with Hopkins about the misconceptions people have about him, the most memorable cases of his career and what he believes the media, police and the general public can do to improve the way we search for missing people.



1. What were you doing before you joined Greater Philadelphia Search and Rescue?

I was involved in the Red Cross, firefighting and EMS. Different aspects of emergency services. I still do Fire and EMS on top of this but this[GPSAR] is my main thing.



2. How did you first get involved with Greater Philadelphia Search and Rescue?

I didnt find it, it found me. I was at another organization and I found out about [GPSAR]. It seemed interesting but I didnt realize it would be this interesting. It kind of became more of a calling. The more I did it the more I got addicted to doing it. It was a way to give something back and not just sit back and complain about the world without trying to affect some kind of change.



3. How did you eventually become the chief of GPSAR?

I worked my way up and down. I got promoted and demoted. Originally I was just a member and I got assigned responsibilities over time. As I moved my way up I became known as reliable and I got additional responsibilities. I developed some expertise and after some time that turned into experience and I could reproduce results and at that point I was elected to chief. Then I got re-elected then after I was at term limit and couldnt be re-elected anymore I got appointed by the board to keep the job. I guess I'm there as long as I do the job and continue to deliver results. The instant I start slurring my words or staring at the sun too much Im sure I'm done.



4. Do you think your reputation as a misanthrope is a misrepresentation of who you really are?

I dont think its a misrepresentation on anybodys part. I think sometimes you take snapshots of people. You can come up and see me at the point where Im just exhausted with the way the process is being handled and Im going at it with somebody about a case that were trying to get traction on and its been building up for weeks. In general I think we overcompensate with political correctness and niceness to the point where its become debilitating. We need to have some social sensitivity but you shouldnt have to weigh every word you say because you may lose your job at the cost of performance.



5. What are some of the most memorable missing persons cases youve been assigned to?

Its tough. Theres one guy that says the most interesting case is the current case. And theres some truth to that. Because it is the current case. Its the one thats on your mind.

There was a Bucks County man who was interesting to me because you have all the data but you dont have the end result. Last year we did so much more with so much less data. I dont know if the data, and weve gone back over to look at it, is distracting or if its too much of a shiny thing. We have a lot of people that try to conceal themselves. He wasn't one of those people.

There was a local teacher that was interesting. Never met the guy but he really seemed like a likeable guy. You look at how the people around him responded to his loss. If that response is so sincere and authentic you can almost feel like this person mustve been a really good human being.

There was a local college student that was interesting because of the amount of community outpouring and the amount of support. If you live in Philadelphia, you have a love hate relationship, the only relationship you can have with it. But to see that amount of outpouring gives you a little bit of hope that its not all bad. And when youre doing this for so long you grasp for anything that helps you believe its not all bad.



6. How has your job affected you?

It affects you but you can't let it debilitate you. As far as do you drink or do you do this or that? I dont do any of that stuff. I dont sleep so good. I didnt sleep good before this but this certainly doesnt help you sleep better. Its not conducive to a normal sleep cycle.

[The job] makes you become cynical. You see so many people wasting opportunities. You see so many missed chances. But I think that cynics are actually the ones that have the most hope. I think the people who are always cheerful live in an unrealistic fantasy land. Theyre disappointed if things arent perfect whereas were happy if things get better. And we want them to get better. I want to be proved wrong. They dont.

One thing I have to say is that I continue to be impressed by the dedication of friends and family to the missing. There have been more than a few cases that were driven by a strong family presence.



7. What are your biggest issues with the way police handle missing persons cases?

Id like to see [police] do a little more of a background check into the person. We have an urgency scale. Id like to see a realistic urgency assigned to the person. Its based on factors that would have to be modernized and adapted and Ive worked on that for a while. Its based on how long you were missing. Calling us sooner even for a consult can impact the outcome of many incidents.

8. What are things that the public can do better to aid in the search for missing people?

Pay attention. Engage people directly, eye to eye. If theres a question, dont resolve it over anything digital. Eye to eye, face to face. Or at least get on the phone. If youre worried, talk to somebody else and then both of you talk to the person.

If somebody does go missing, treat it like a crime scene because you could be contaminating valuable evidence. Get all the facts down. Go to law enforcement with a clear timeline of what happened.

It would be nice to see people be accountable. I see this ongoing in the 20-something age group where they do not take responsibility for another person in their party when theyre out. And its this thing where you just leave somebody. We have cases where people are found deceased that I felt wouldve been impacted had their friends initially said, Davids not here. Wheres he at? Oh, hell get back home. No, its not like him. We need to look around or something. Do something. Dont come back hours later because he still didnt show up at home. Im not saying you have to be responsible for the world. Start out by being responsible for the people close to you, the people you love.

It would be nice if there was a way to put the information out there without soliciting comments from people. This malicious, verbal diarrhea and mindless empathy that doesnt do anything. It makes people feel better about themselves. [People say] Prayers, prayers, so sad. But they wont get off their butts and do anything. They wont pick up a piece of trash on the side of the road but they want people to think theyre a good person. Those are the two extremes that are out there. I would like less conversation, more action.



9. Do you believe theres a bias in regards to race, economic background or gender when it comes to the kinds of missing persons cases that get more attention?

I used to feel strongly it was race. To a degree I still do. But overall I have to say its popularity. Social media has turned it into high school. Popularity turns it to the pretty girl or the pretty guy. In reality its no less a tragedy, one person versus the other. Its still a life. I think everybody deserves their fair share.

I would like to see people judged by the severity of their situation and not the color of their skin, their beauty on their face or their age. Think about the statement we often hear. "Missing, beautiful 18-year-old." Why is the word beautiful even in play? Do the most where we can help the most.

Sometimes you make choices, like a surgeon. You help this person more than this person. But I dont see a fair balance. And the media doesnt control it. The media is riding a wave. Its a self-fulfilling prophecy. While I think the media wants to be better than they are they cant because the populace is still eating the chum. By the time you retool the machine and you acquire a taste for better foods we will be overtaken and put out of business. So keep throwing them chum. And I really think that the media would like to do better stories but if you put up a story, A, B, and C, and nobodys going after C and theyre all on A, youre focusing on A more. Id say that A is kind of self-sustaining. Try and channel a little bit of A to C somehow you know? With a hashtag or something. Find some way to link that non popular person with that popular person to raise them up.



10. Looking at your career with GPSAR, what do you believe your legacy is?

I dont know. I know that there are people that were on the team when they were younger and went on to become police, firemen and emergency services people and that always makes me happy. Nothing will make me happier than you calling and saying my buddy is having a problem, I talked to him, found out he was going to do something, and it never happened. That will make me happy. The call I dont get, that you had some impact in directing.

I think you help more by teaching people. Education is always the key whether youre fighting poverty, bigotry or whatever. I dont think you have the right to come down on people unless you tried to talk to them and show them the way. I dont know about legacy. I dont know if Im a legacy kind of guy. I would hope that when Im gone, more people smile than cry. Some will smile for the wrong reasons, but theyll be smiling.

I just pick the one thing and I do the one thing. I think if everybody does that, if you want to restore violins, and thats your passion, then do it. I think the most worthless thing that you can produce or make in this world is money. What does that say? You make money. You use money to buy stuff that other more talented people make. But if you just make money, what does that leave? I think you have to do more than just produce. Thats why the world is the way it is. Youve got to do more. I would hope that theres somebody after me that continues what Im doing and they carry it forward.





To donate to GPSAR or learn more about the organization, CLICK HERE.
Police say a gunman dressed in Philadelphia Water Department attire shot and killed a man in Philadelphia Saturday afternoon.

A 36-year-old man was inside a green Pontiac Grand Prix at 4:34 p.m. on 2300 W. Huntingdon Street when a gunman opened fire. The victim was struck several times and pronounced dead at 4:47 p.m.

Police have not released a detailed physical description of the gunman but say he was wearing a Philadelphia Water Department vest or jacket. They also say he was last seen fleeing southbound on 24th Street from Huntingdon Street.

This story is developing. Check back for updates.
An investigation is underway after a man was shot and killed inside a Montgomery County church Sunday.

NBC10 has obtained the audio of police radio dispatches that went out in Montgomery County Sunday, April 24, 2016 for an active shooter situation after a gunman shot a man during a church service at Keystone Fellowship Church in Montgomeryville. Listen here.

The incident occurred during the 11 a.m. service at the Keystone Fellowship Church on Stump Road just off Route 309 in North Wales. Police say 27-year-old Robert Braxton, a member of the church, was involved in an altercation with another church member. During the altercation, at least one shot from a semiautomatic handgun was fired.

Investigators say the gunman who open fired at a Montgomery County church on Sunday morning was a fellow church member. NBC10s Lauren Mayk reports on the deadly shooting at the Keystone Fellowship Church in North Wales.

"It sounded like three pops, almost like a champagne bottle opening three times," said Breeana Somers, a 24-year-old Temple law student who was inside the church at the time of the shooting. "Everybody's trying to make themselves as small as possible. You could hear some screaming and some crying but it was pretty silent. I went under a chair in a fetal position. I tried to make myself as small as possible. It's really frightening that anything like this could happen here."

Police arrived at the church at 11:23 a.m. and found Braxton, of Montgomeryville, suffering from a gunshot wound to the chest. He was taken to Abington-Lansdale Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 12:11 p.m. An autopsy is scheduled for Monday.

Police say the other church member involved in the shooting was also injured during the altercation. He was taken to the hospital and later released. Investigators say the man is cooperating with police and no charges have been filed against him. They are currently trying to determine whether or not the shooting was justified. They also said the man has a concealed carry permit.

"There's no one in custody," said Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele. "The individual involved in the shooting is cooperating with police at this point."

The shooting happened in the sanctuary of the church while hundreds of people, including children, were present, authorities later said. At least two dozen witnesses were taken to a local police station to give statements.

Google Street View

The church released a statement in a Facebook post confirming the shooting.

"We at Keystone are saddened to confirm that a shooting took place at our Montgomeryville campus this morning," the statement read. "No one else was hurt...Our congregation is in prayer for everyone involved."

In an earlier post on the church's Facebook page, Keystone Fellowship announced a special guest pastor was scheduled to speak during its 11 a.m. service on Sunday about "serving in a country that is extremely hostile to the Christian faith."

"Please note: for our guest's safety, no photos or videotaping will be permitted," it added.

NBC10 - Lauren Mayk

It's unclear if the incident was connected with the guest.
Just call it the Purple Bridge. Philadelphia is honoring the life and legacy of Prince by lighting up the Ben Franklin Bridge with the legendary musician's favorite color Saturday and Sunday night.

"Over the course of his career, Prince was an inspiration to billions of fans worldwide, said DRPA Board Chair Ryan Boyer. In his honor, we will light the Ben Franklin bridge purple in hopes that it serves as an inspiration to the millions of people in our very own region.

The Ben Franklin Bridge is only one of many structures, buildings and bridges around the world that honored Prince after his death at the age of 57 Thursday.

"Lighting the Ben Franklin Bridge purple is just a small way to memorialize and honor Prince's amazing talent," said John Hanson, DRPA CEO.

The Wells Fargo Center, where Prince performed several times in the past, was also lit up in purple Saturday night.

Phillys tribute came the same day Princes remains were cremated during a small and private service featuring his closest family and friends.


Michelle Obama is making a cameo appearance in support of military families on an upcoming episode of the CBS hit drama "NCIS."

The network says the episode, airing May 3, features the first lady welcoming NCIS Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, played by Mark Harmon, and the wife of a Marine to the White House for a "Joining Forces" discussion with military spouses.

Joining Forces is the nationwide initiative that Mrs. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden's wife, Jill, launched in 2011 to support service members, veterans and their families.
San Diego Sheriff's deputies have arrested a man in connection with the death of a man found lying on the sidewalk, near death.

Lance Benson, 29, of Lakeside, will be booked into San Diego Central Jail on one count of murder after the victim, who has not yet been identified, was found early Sunday morning.

A newspaper delivery person called 911 when he found the man, who has not yet been identified, lying on Aquilla Drive around 4:20 a.m.

When deputies arrived on scene, they found the man unresponsive, suffering from upper body trauma. Paramedics responded, but the man succumbed to his injuries, SDSO officials said.

Neighbors in the area said they were shocked to find detectives on their doorstep.

"This is shocking," said Sharon Cerecedes. "I was asleep, my husband woke me up and said something horrible is going on."

Nelson said the victim was pronounced dead at the scene.

"It's very scary, it's something that I'm not going to be walking even my dog down that street anymore," Cerecedes said. "I used to walk down that way all the time, but Iwon't anymore."

The suspect's roommate, Derek Downey, said he didn't know what to make of it.

"I don't know what to think, living with somebody in the same household, and they do this," he said. "It just makes you think about people's characters."

The San Diego County Medical Examiner's office will conduct an autopsy and determine the official cause of death.

Anyone with information about this incident can call the Homicide Detail at (858) 974-2321/after hours at (858) 565-5200. If you would like to remain anonymous, call Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477.

No other information was immediately available.
The man accused in the slaying of his stepson, Jahi Turner, has been booked into San Diego County Jail and will soon face charges in the toddler's death.

Tieray Jones has been charged with killing 2-year-old Jahi, San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman said. His mother was deployed aboard a Navy ship at the time.

Hundreds of volunteers and police officers spent weeks searching for traces of the 30-pound toddler when he was reported missing in 2002. Law enforcement officers raked through 5,000 tons of garbage at the landfill, but came up with nothing.

Jones is charged with one count of murder and one count of felony child abuse causing death, authorities said. Both carry a 25-years-to-life sentence. It wasn't immediately clear if Jones has an attorney.

Now that Jones has been booked into jail, he will be arraigned. His bail was originally set at $5 million, but now he is no longer eligible for bail. The booking comes one day before the 14th anniversary of Jahi's disappearance.

"Jahi's disappearance rocked the community to its core 14 years ago," DA Bonnie Dumanis said. "It's without a doubt one of the highest profile unsolved cases here in San Diego County."

Dumanis and Zimmerman explained that U.S. Marshals arrested the boy's stepfather on a fugitive complaint Monday in North Carolina without incident and took him into custody.

Though new evidence has been uncovered in the case, authorities have not found Jahi's body or remains, police said.

On April 25, 2002, he allegedly disappeared from a playground at 28th Street and Cedar Street in San Diego's South Park neighborhood.

According to police, Jones told officers he was with the toddler at the park when he left to get a drink. Jones said he returned 15 minutes later and Jahi was gone.

However, officials were unable to locate Jahi's fingerprints on playground equipment, prompting speculation the child never visited the area, authorities announced Monday.

Officials say the last reported sighting of Jahi was April 22.

At the time of the childs disappearance, Jahis mother, Tameka Jones, was deployed aboard USS Rushmore.

A huge search for Jahi ensued, including a week-long police search of the Miramar Landfill, where authorities took the extreme measure of systematically raking through 5,000 tons of garbage.

Dumanis said authorities could not file charges earlier because they didn't have enough proof, though they began uncovering new evidence in the case two years ago.

"We never gave up on finding justice for Jahi. In 2003, we assigned a prosecutor and full-time investigator to the case," Dumanis said. "Unfortunately at the time we didnt have the evidence required: proof beyond a reasonable doubt, to proceed with criminal charges."

Jahis family eventually moved to Frederick, Maryland.

Officials said because this is a criminal case, they are not able to discuss any of the facts or the criminal evidence, including any new evidence they uncovered since the case went cold.
More than four years after being convicted of groping a 20-year-old woman in San Diego, a priest is behind a Catholic pulpit again.

Father Jose Alexis Davila had been at St. Judes Shrine of the West in Southcrest only two months when he was arrested in 2012. He was later reinstated at St. Judes but left by the end of the year.

"Without excusing or justifying his behavior, I think he can now safely and appropriately return to ministry, Paul S. Coakley, the Archbishop of Oklahoma City where Davila now works, said. Some actions such as the sexual abuse of a child are so grievous that the perpetrator must be permanently removed from ministry. This was not one of those actions.

Joelle Casteix, with Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), has followed Davila's case since the original sexual assault charges against him.

If he knew about Davilas background and still allowed him to be a priest, that is reckless endangerment, and it should definitely be held accountable, Casteix said.

The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City welcomed Davila to the fold in December.

I dont think being a leader means that you are free from the possibility of making mistakes or sins, Michael Chapman of the archdiocese said.

Archbishop Coakley said Davilas job came after a full investigation, including a background check, probationary period and lengthy interviews with leaders from where Davila has served.

Still, Davila's background was news to many church members in Oklahoma City.

Janet Bullard said she may be looking for a new congregation now.

It's hurtful this kind of stuff," Bullard said. "It puts a stain on the church. Most of these people are good decent people, and these scandals really hurt a lot of people and really ran a lot of people out of the church.

Casteix said shes calling on the archbishop to remove Davila from the pulpit for good.

Davila pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery in 2012 and was sentenced to three years probation.
A pilot crashed his small, two-seat plane at Ramona Airport in San Diego County Saturday but survived, authorities confirmed.

The San Diego County Sheriffs Department (SDSO) said a 56-year-old pilot walked with only minor cuts after crashing his small aircraft near the CAL FIRE helicopter landing pad at the airport around 10 a.m.

The pilot was treated at the scene by CAL FIRE firefighters. No one else was aboard the aircraft and no one on the ground was injured in the crash, deputies said.

The SDSO said Ramona Airport officials have reported the incident to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and National Safety Transportation Board (NTSB). NBC 7 reached out to the FAA for further details on the plane crash, but have no yet heard back from the organization.

Ramona Airport is located at 2926 Montecito Rd., about two miles west of the central business district of Ramona, which is about 40 minutes from downtown San Diego. The airport is owned by the County of San Diego.

The site was first developed in 1943, when the U.S. Navy built a small airstrip. In 1956, the facility was conveyed to San Diego County and the airport has grown over the past six decades into an aviation center for inland and mountain communities.

According to the County of San Diego website, the Ramona Airport is the third busiest facility in the Countys system with just over 155,000 operations each year.

CAL FIRE operates a base at the airport, which responds to about 450 calls per year, per the County website.
A man was fatally stabbed in Northwest, D.C. Saturday night, police say.

The stabbing happened in a mixed residential and commercial section of the Brightwood Park neighborhood in the 800 block of Kennedy Street NW.

Police identified the victim as Dimas Fuentes-Lazo, 38, of Northwest. He was stabbed several times and died at a hospital.

Police have not released any information about suspects or a possible motive. There have been 32 killings in the District this year, about the same as at this point last year, when the city saw a 54 percent increase in homicides over 2014.

D.C. police are offering a reward of up to $25,000 to anyone who provides informatoin leading to an arrest and conviction. Those with information are asked to call (202) 727-9099 or send an anonymous text to 50411.
Police in Bedford, New Hampshire, have arrested eight people following a riot-like situation outside a residence Friday night.

Around 8 p.m., police received the report from a resident on Curtis Court that at least eight people were involved in an on-going fight on the property.

Upon arrival, police found 13 people gathering in the driveway and the road, some armed with metal pipes, knives, and a handgun. Preliminary investigation revealed eight people had gathered outside the residence to confront the tenants of the home.

The suspect believed to be responsible for orchestrating, identified as 23-year-old Jeffrey Riley of Bedford, was found to be armed with a loaded handgun and wearing a bulletproof vest. He was charged with felony riot and felonious use of body armor. Riley was released on bail and will appear in court at a later date.

The following were also arrested and charged:

Anthony Perkins-Brainard, 24, of Hudson. Charged with felony riot and felony criminal threatening with the use of a deadly weapon.

Kevin Hardy, 43, of Manchester. Charged with felony riot.

Christopher Lombard, 37, of Derry. Charged with Misdemeanor A Riot and possession of a controlled drug.

Rachel Hamilton, 26, of Hudson. Charged with Misdemeanor A Riot.

Jeremy Champagne, 23, of Bedford. Charged with Misdemeanor A Riot.

Jason Wildes, 40, of Salem. Charged with Misdemeanor A Riot.

Alexandra Boule, 22, of Manchester, Charged with Misdemeanor A Riot.

Bedford Police are investigating the circumstances around this incident. Anyone with information is asked to contact them at 603-472-5113.
Police in Acton, Maine, are searching for a motorist who allegedly crashed into a home and fled the scene.

Deputies told WCSH that the crash occurred on Acton Ridge Road around 11 p.m. Saturday night.

Witnesses report a pick-up truck appeared to be traveling too fast while approaching a curve in the road. The vehicle allegedly left the roadway, crossed a lawn, and crashed into an elderly woman's home. The woman was trapped on the second floor because of the amount of debris caused by the crash.

The vehicle fled from the home and was last seen heading towards Wakefield, New Hampshire. Police say the vehicle may be a wrecker with a flat bed or just a flat bed truck. It should have extensive front-end damage.

Anyone with information is asked to call Deputy Corey Sweatt at 207-324-1113.
Police in Gilford, New Hampshire, have located Matthew Cram.

Officials say the 38-year-old is dead. Details have not been released.

Cram was previously reported as being last seen on April 19 at his home in Loudon, New Hampshire.

Cram's vehicle was located in a parking lot along Route 11 in Gilford on Thursday.
A woman has been charged with DWI in a crash that left one passenger dead and two seriously injured in Claremont, New Hampshire.

Police say 36-year-old Amber King of Claremont was under the influence when she crashed a Jeep Grand Cherokee on Main Street Saturday afternoon.

The SUV landed on its roof. One passenger, a 32-year-old woman, was thrown from the vehicle into Sugar River. She was taken to Valley Regional Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

A 37-year-old woman, a 35-year-old man and King were entrapped and had to be cut from the vehicle. All three were also transported to Valley Regional Hospital.

The injuries to the surviving passengers are considered serious. Police did not release any information about the extent of King's injuries.

King is being charged with aggravated felony DWI and negligent homicide.

The date of the suspect's arraignment has not been set. It was not immediately clear if she had an attorney.
Loss of parents and job insecurity were contributing factors

A NEWBURY businessman took his own life after suffering from depression.

David Guest was found dead at his home in Lamtarra Way, Greenham in September last year.

The 40-year-old project manager for a financial services company was found by his partner with a knife in his chest.

An inquest, held in Reading on Wednesday, heard that Mr Guest was dropped from high- to low-risk of self-harming, within two days.

He became depressed after losing both his parents and suffered low self-esteem due to his dyslexia. The coroner also heard he had doubts over starting a new job in July 2015.

In a statement read at the inquest, his partner, Barbara Kaye, described how her boyfriend had changed from being the fun-loving and mischievous man she knew when she moved into his house in 2014.

She said: In December 2014 he left his employers and went to America to train with an American company. When he came back he fluctuated between saying he was suicidal and claiming he was okay, to stating he was suicidal and then saying he was okay again.

I was worried he would crash from his high points. He did. He told me I just want to die.

The inquest heard how Mr Guests mental health deteriorated and that he disappeared from work in May 2015, with the intention of ending his life, but he instead chose to start to value life from now on.

However, the inquest heard, Mr Guest contemplated suicide again after his employers told him they would not be renewing his contract.

And after starting a new job in July, Mr Guest became further depressed after believing he had made the wrong choice about his new career.

A month later his relationship with Ms Kaye deteriorated to the point where they only communicated via email and text.

The inquest heard how Mr Guest had sought help for his depression and met with a crisis team in September 2015.

He was declared high risk of self-harm, but a recording error meant that he was listed as medium risk, the coroner heard.

And two days later a multi-disciplinary team deemed him to be of low risk, because of his engagement with the team.

The inquest heard how medical teams tried to contact Mr Guest days before his death and that a visit was not scheduled until the day after he died.

Mr Guests sister, Helen, criticised the downgrading of two risk levels in two days, but added: I am not saying he could have been saved, I am saying care should have been in place earlier than it was.

Recording a conclusion of suicide, Berkshire coroner Peter Bedford said: Events tragically unfolded when Mr Guests estranged partner took her daughter to school and returned to be taken completely by surprise when she found Mr Guest had deliberately stabbed himself in the chest.

The fact that Ms Kaye was taken by surprise, may reflect the fact they were living under the same roof but communicating only by email.

He was under the care of a mental health team for chronic low mood and anxiety and had been treated and prescribed various medications with no apparent benefit.

I will record that Mr Guest took his own life while suffering from chronic low mood and anxiety.
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New Delhi: An emotional Chief Justice of India (CJI) TS Thakur on Sunday broke down in front of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and lamented "inaction" by the Executive in increasing the number of judges from the present 21,000 to 40,000 to handle the "avalanche" of litigations.



Modi later assured Thakur of Centre's resolve in finding a solution jointly with the judiciary.



"And therefore, it is not only in the name of a litigant or people languishing in jails but also in the name of development of the country, its progress that I beseech you to rise to the occasion and realise that it is not enough to criticise. You cannot shift the entire burden on the judiciary," the Chief Justice of India said in a choking voice.



Addressing the inaugural session of Joint Conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of High Courts, Justice Thakur said that since 1987, when the Law Commission had recommended increase in the number of judges from 10 judges per 10 lakh people to 50, "nothing has moved".







"Then comes inaction by the government as the increase (in the strength of judges) does not take place," he said. He added that following the Law Commission's recommendation, the Supreme Court in 2002 had also supported increasing the strength of judiciary.



A Parliamentary Department Related Standing Committee on Law then headed by Pranab Mukherjee had also recommended taking the judge to people ratio to 50 per 10 lakh from 10.



As of today, the judge to people ratio stands at 15 judges per 10 lakh people which is way less than as compared to the US, Australia, the UK and Canada.



"In 1987, the requirement was 40,000 judges. From 1987 till now, we have added 25 crore in terms of population. We have grown into one of the fastest growing economies of the world, we are inviting foreign direct investment into the country, we want people to come and make in India, we want people to come and invest in India," said the CJI.



"Those whom we are inviting are also concerned about the ability of the judicial system in the country to deal with cases and disputes that arise out of such investments. Efficacy of the judicial system is so vitally connected with the development," he said, referring to Modi government's 'Make in India' and 'Ease of doing business' campaigns.



(With inputs from PTI)
Kathmandu: Five Indian police personnel, including an inspector, were arrested in Nepal on Sunday after they entered the country in the pretext of searching a criminal, a media report said.



The five were arrested by Nepal police from Sanagaun.



The plain-clothed policemen were carrying arms, according to the National News Agency of Nepal.



The Indian police personnel were arrested while they were heading towards Achham in search of a person accused of murdering a doctor in Punjab, the report said.



An AK-47 rifle and its 25 round of ammunition, a pistol and its 12 rounds of ammunition were seized from them, it said.












Mumbai: Jawaharlal Nehru University Student Union leader Kanhaiya Kumar was attacked on Sunday while he was on board a Jet Airways flight in Mumbai.



Kanhaiya claimed that a man tried to strangulate him inside an aircraft. Kanhaiya had just boarded Jet Airways fight 9W 618 when he was attacked.



Kanhaiya was in the aisle seat and the attacker was on the window seat. On the pretext of going to the washroom, the man tried to strangulate him. Kanhaiya's friends intervened but the attacker made a second attempt.



Both Kanhaiya and the attacker have been offloaded and are at the Mumbai Airport currently.



Police have detained the accused at the airport.



"Some guests on board this morning's flight Jet Airways fight 9W 618 Mumbai to Pune have been off loaded at Mumbai Airport in the interest of operational safety. At Jet Airways, the safety and security of our guests and crew is always of prime importance," Jet Airways said in a statement.




Mumbai: JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar on Saturday came down heavily on the Narendra Modi dispensation, terming it a "Government of selfies and jumlas" as he pushed for enactment of a law to prevent caste-based prejudice in educational institutions.



The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) President who hit headlines after being arrested on charges of sedition in the aftermath of an event at the JNU campus where alleged anti-India slogans were raised, went hammer and tongs against the NDA-led Centre and its pet projects.



"The Modi government is coining only jumlas (idiomatic expressions) such as Make in India, which should actually be Fake in India; Stand Up India, Start Up India, Selfie with Daughter etc. It has become a government of selfies and 'jumlas'.



"The reality is these are only tall promises by which the government is fooling the public as nothing positive was coming off the ground," he said.



The 29-year-old was speaking on the topic 'Student-Youth Assembly Against Discrimination' at an event in suburban Tilak Nagar.



Kumar said at a time when entire Marathwada region in Maharashtra was reeling under drought, "RSS-led government" was busy holding IPL matches in the state.



"I heard a wax statue of Modiji has been carved out. I also heard a 12-year old girl in Marathwada died as she ventured out to fetch water in scorching heat. Let that wax statue of Modiji be put in Marathwada," he said.



Kumar, on his first visit to the metropolis after being granted bail in the sedition case, also touched upon issues related to Mumbai during his 50-minute speech mixed with sarcastic jibes and hard-hitting words.



He said the government should pay some attention to improve commuting in suburban trains, which are usually overcrowded leading to death of passengers many a time. The JNU leader said it was high time "Brahminical system" was rooted out and an egalitarian society established in the country.



"I am not against Brahmins or any particular caste. But I am against social structure built around Brahminical system and Manuvaad. I want an end of this system and its replacement by Babasaheb Ambekar's vision (of casteless) society," he said.



He slammed those who were asking Muslims to prove their nationalism and trying to determine the food habits of the countrymen.



These issues are being seen with an eye on the next year's Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, he said.



Kumar pitched for a new law, 'Rohith Act', to stop caste-based discrimination in educational institutions, a demand made in the wake of suicide by Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad University in January.
Aligarh: Two rival groups of students clashed on the Aligarh Muslim University campus on Saturday night in which one person was killed. Firearms were reportedly used and one former student was shot at following a heated argument.



The situation turned tense after a student was attacked in AMU's Aftab Hall. The angry students had set Proctor's office on fire and burnt down two cars parked near VC's lodge and guest house.



Gunshots were fired continuously and two students were injured in the incident. One of them was a former student who succumbed to his injuries during treatment. Violence continued till 2:30 AM on Sunday.



Two rival groups clashed with each other. One former student was killed and other was injured. Police are posted outside the campus and the situation is under control, said Dr Rahat Abrar, AMU PRO.



Abrar added that admission test for B Tech and B Arch will happen as per schedule at 10 AM.







It all started with a fight near Maulana Azad Library canteen on Friday. On Saturday, the two groups had an heated argument over an old issue at Aftab Hall in Mumtaz Hostel and a student named Mohsin was beaten.



Following the incident, both the groups went to the Proctor's office and clashed again and started firing.



Sources said the students involved in clashes were from Sambhal, Azamgarh and Ghazipur.



Deputy Proctor Mehmood said they are probing the reason behind the clash. ADM (City) AK Tiwari and SP Anshul Gupta reached medical college.




Mumbai: Actor Riteish Deshmukh has donated Rs.25 lakh to 'Jalyukta Latur' as his contribution towards drought relief during his recent visit to his hometown Latur.



Jalyukta Latur is an initiative started by people's participation to make Latur water sufficient. They have taken up work of desilting the Manjira river which provides water to the area.



The work involved includes deepening and widening up the site to 80 metres across an 18 km stretch. This will help contain the rain water and it will be made available throughout the year.



The 'Ek Villain' star visited the site and was impressed by the work done by 'Jalyukta Latur' and decided to contribute towards this cause, read a statement.



One of the visitors on site even asked him if he would like to be the face of this campaign. To this, Riteish readily agreed to extend his support.




Mumbai Noted scriptwriter Abhijat Joshi, who has penned superhit films like '3 Idiots' and 'PK',

underwent brain surgery at a hospital here and is fine now.



Joshi, whose other works include 'Lage Raho Munna Bhai' and 'Wazir', was admitted to Hinduja Hospital in Mahim

earlier this week reportedly owing to a brain ailment. "He was admitted to the hospital on April 19. The surgery happened yesterday. He is fine and will be in the hospital for atleast another two days," sources said today.



The 46-year-old scriptwriter's close friends from the film industry like Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Sanjay Dutt and Aamir

Khan paid him a visit in the hospital yesterday and enquired about his health.
New Delhi: Congress on Sunday made it clear at an all-party meeting chaired by Speaker Sumitra Mahajan that it wants a discussion in Lok Sabha on the imposition of President's Rule in Uttarakhand, notwithstanding pleas by the government that the matter is pending before Supreme Court.



After the meeting, Congress leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said they have put forth their demand for a discussion on the issue and will move an adjournment motion under Rule 56 in Lok Sabha.



The all-party meeting was held in a conducive atmosphere, and the Speaker hoped that the coming session will function smoothly. She said members raised various demands, prominent among which were holding discussions on drought and drinking water shortage in several parts of the country, besides the Uttarakhand issue.



"Drought across the country is a major issue and there was a demand by all for a discussion on it. Some people have also raised the issue of imposition of President's Rule and a discussion on it. We will see as the matter is in court. There are many other issues," she told reporters.



Asked if a discussion on Uttarakhand can be allowed, she said, "The court has given stay till April 27 and I don't think till 27th (there can be a discussion)." "All have extended their support. We all hope that the coming Lok Sabha session will function smoothly," she said. Kharge insisted that the issue was important and many opposition members were in agreement for a discussion.



"We have raised many issues before the Speaker, of which the main one is of Uttarakhand where an attempt has been made to destabilise the Congress government and despite a High Court order, an interim stay has been obtained by the Centre from Supreme Court.



"We have raised the issue and want a discussion on this. A lot of opposition members agree on this and they also want a discussion on this," he told reporters after the meeting.



"We have raised these matters before them. We also requested that there is a rule for everything. But putting (rules) aside, the Speaker can allow anything keeping in view the importance of the subject raised. We have made the request not to cite rules in a bid to suppress issues and deny a discussion," he said.



The second half of the budget session of Parliament, beginning tomorrow, is all set to be a stormy affair with opposition parties closing ranks over the imposition of Presidents' rule in Uttarakhand.



The session will have 15 days of sitting with a total of 90 hours, of which around 52 hours will be devoted to government work. Asked if a discussion on Uttarakhand is possible, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Rajiv Pratap Rudy said, "The Speaker has to take a decision on it. To my knowledge, the matter is before the court and when the issue is pending in court and a decision is yet to come, there is no scope for a discussion on it."



On today's meeting, he said, "There was complete assurance from all the political parties that the House will be made to run smoothly and the environment looked very good. All have assured and there is a broad consensus that Lok Sabha should function smoothly and all the parties have said this in one voice."



He said the Finance Bill will be taken up during the first week itself. On the GST Bill, which has been pending for a long time, he said, "I am sure the report will come and we are prepared to take it up."



Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, also a Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, said, "We are expecting constructive and positive approach from Congress and the opposition. Our effort is that the House functions smoothly and constructively in a cool atmosphere." On the Uttarakhand issue, he said Congress would have to face its own music as it had dismissed popularly elected governments with majority and when there was no constitutional crisis in the past.



"If the Congress wants to raise the issue, then it would have to face its own history as it was the Congress regimes which has used Article 356 at least 88 times, with former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi using it 50 times during her tenure," he said, adding that Congress mostly used the rule for dismissing governments where there was no lack of majority or a constitutional crisis.
New Delhi: JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, who had earlier ruled out campaigning in the West Bengal and Kerala Assembly polls, has now decided to plump for a fellow JNU comrade who is in the fray for the May 16 elections in Kerala.



Ever since he walked out of Tihar jail, where he was lodged in a sedition case over an event on campus, Kanhaiya had been maintaining he was a student and not a "politician" and that he had no plans of campaigning in the Assembly polls.



However, the 29-year-old research scholar says he decided to join the campaign after Muhammed Muhassin, CPI candidate for Pattambi seat in Palakkad, mooted the idea. "He has stood by me, so I decided to hit the campaign trail," Kanhaiya said.



Muhassin, is a student at JNU's School of Social Science (SSS) and is about to complete his PhD in Adult Education. He is also the Vice President of JNU unit of All India Students Federation (AISF), the student wing of Communist Party of India (CPI).



Kanhaiya, who is the first AISF member to be elected JNU Students Union president, was arrested in February in a sedition case over an event on JNU campus against hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru during which anti-national slogans were allegedly raised.



Muhassin, was among those who led the agitation for Kanhaiya's release.



"I still maintain that mainstream politics is not my calling and I have no intention of joining it. I still plan to stick to my goal of being a teacher but with Muhassin it was different. He has stood by JNU, stood by me all the time, I couldn't refuse him," Kanhaiya said.



"And not only me but the entire AISF unit of JNU will support him. Besides, the JNU unit of the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) will also travel to Kerala to campaign for him," he added.



Asked about the campaigning schedule, Muhassin said over phone from Kerala, "Kanhaiya along with the IPTA group and JNU students is expected to be here in the second week of May. He also plans to go to Patna before that where he will address a public meeting. He may also visit his family during the same trip."



After the electrifying speech Kanahaiya delivered on his return to the campus from jail, the CPI-M General secretary Sitaram Yechury had said the student leader would be campaigning for Left parties in the Assembly polls.



However, he later stated that Kanhaiya will not travel to Kerala and West Bengal to campaign citing the bail conditions and other issues. Kanhaiya too had ruled out campaigning, saying mainstream politics is not his calling.



Kanhaiya had campaigned in south Delhi during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and in Begusarai, when his home state Bihar voted in 2015.
New York: More than one million people are now connecting to Facebook through Tor "dark web" -- which maintains privacy and leaves no digital trail -- every month, media reports said on Saturday.



According to Facebook, the growth of Tor over the past few years has been "roughly" linear, noting that some 525,000 people who accessed the service via Tor in June 2015 rose to more than one million in April this year.



"This [Tor] growth is a reflection of the choices that people make to use Facebook over Tor, and the value that it provides them. We hope they will continue to provide feedback and help us keep improving," TechCrunch quoted Facebook as saying.



Tor allows anonymous web browsing by sending data through multiple encrypted steps rather than making direct connections that shields the identity of its users.



Facebook created a dedicated address for Tor access in October 2014, making it easier for users to connect via Tor and give them privacy.



Facebook also expanded its Tor support at the start of this year by rolling out support for the Android Orbot proxy, giving Android Facebook users an easier way to use Tor. Apple's iOS platform still does not have Tor support.



Confirming Facebook's claim, a spokeswoman for Tor said in a statement: "When using Facebook website over Tor, Tor Browser is in charge of that data, so it is anonymous. Of course, someone may post a status update saying that they are at some restaurant, for instance, and that would de-anonymise them."



Tor could be used in countries where internet access or use of Facebook is blocked or censored, the Tor statement added.



"Many people use Tor in countries where the internet is censored, not in order to be anonymous. Tor allows them to access the uncensored internet, including reaching Facebook. In Iran, for instance, Facebook is blocked. So people use Tor to get onto the internet and browse and from there they can reach Facebook," it read.



Privacy activists, hackers, activists and journalists use this "dark web" to communicate securely.


New York: The US Justice Department on Friday dropped its effort to force Apple Inc to help unlock an iPhone in a drug case in New York after someone provided authorities the passcode to access the device.



In a letter filed in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, prosecutors said that investigators late on Thursday used that passcode to access the iPhone at issue, and as a result "no longer needs Apple's assistance."



The letter marked a sudden end to a closely watched case, in which the Justice Department had been appealing a ruling by a federal magistrate judge holding that he could not force Apple to assist authorities.



The case gained further significance after prosecutors in March dropped a similar effort to force Apple to help access an iPhone used by one of the shooters in December's San Bernardino killings, after a third party provided a way to crack it.



Justice Department spokeswoman Emily Pierce said the cases have "never been about setting a court precedent; they are about law enforcement's ability and need to access evidence on devices pursuant to lawful court orders and search warrants."



An Apple spokesman declined comment.



Prosecutors had been challenging a Feb. 29 ruling by US Magistrate Judge James Orenstein holding he did not have the authority to order Apple to disable the security of an iPhone seized in a drug probe.



The case predated the government effort to force Apple to help access the phone of Rizwan Farook, one of the two killers in the San Bernardino massacre, which left 14 people dead and 22 wounded.



While the Justice Department dropped that bid after a third party provided a way to access the San Bernardino phone, it continued appealing Orenstein's ruling.



FBI Director James Comey has said that the method used on the San Bernardino iPhone 5c would not work on other models, including the iPhone 5s, the type in the Brooklyn case.



That phone belonged to Jun Feng, who has pleaded guilty to participation in a methamphetamine distribution conspiracy, which prosecutors are continuing to investigate.



Unlike the phone used in San Bernardino, Feng's phone had an older operating system, iOS 7, which is not protected under the same encryption technology, which is why Apple could access it.



Apple has some 70 times before the Brooklyn case emerged helped authorities access data on iPhones, according to court filings.
Red Hulk, Ronin, and more: 10 Heroes and Villains whose secret identities were hidden from readers

There's a longstanding superhero tradition of hiding the identity of certain characters even from readers
I am Vicky

Now, as a young woman, Vicky Wallace, 33, is afraid for her life after she was assaulted and repeatedly threatened by homophobic men.

Born Ricky Wallace, Vicky knew she was different from a young age, as she preferred dresses and dolls to toy trucks and blocks, and related to girls better than she did to boys.

At age 16, she told her parents that she felt she was a woman born in the wrong body.

As a gay, effeminate boy, Vicky was called names, was bullied by her schoolmates as well as by people in her neighbourhood, and would lose friends once they realised she saw herself as female.

This led to her questioning her existence, suffering from depression, and having panic attacks.

When she graduated from secondary school, she got a job at a book store in Long Circular Mall, St James where she worked from age 17 to 23.

There too, she was teased and bullied by co-workers because of her effeminate mannerisms.

However, Vicky had a few positive influences in her life.

She had a handful of gay friends with whom she felt comfortable being herself, so she would dress as a woman and party with them.

Her parents and older brother was also accepting and supportive of her, and were heartbroken by her troubles and the effect those difficulties were having on her emotional stability.

Her father sent her to see a local psychiatrist, who explained that she was suffering from gender dysphoria. With a name for what she was feeling, the love and support of her immediate family, and a better understanding of herself, Vicky began doing research.

Working in the book shop, I read certain books which made me understand how I was different. Then I went on the Internet and researched how I felt and I found other people like me  men who felt they were girls, Vicky tells Sunday Newsday.

At the age of 18, she informed her immediate family that she would begin taking birth control pills as a form of hormone treatment, in the hopes that the estrogen would help her develop a more feminine body.

Eventually, she developed a full A-cup, but as her breasts began to show people teased her more, questioning her, and asking her what was wrong with her chest. She became suicidal.

I bore it until I couldnt any more. I attempted suicide, because from a young age I knew I felt different but I was not gay. I so desperately needed to get away from this country that, in 2009, with the help of my father, I bought a plane ticket and went to live abroad because I knew they had facilities that could help me transition, she explains.

Away from Trinidad, Vicky began dressing as a woman full time.

She applied for a name change, gained certificates in floristry and business, worked in a flower shop, and generally lived as a woman.

She eventually met a straight man, and after dating for a while, they fell in love.

However, by that then she had overstayed the time allowed by her Visa and so, in 2011, they decided to get married as a same-sex couple.

He is straight so he is attracted to women, but he knew I was a woman in a mans body and he loved me for who I was, not my gender, Vicky said.

After her marriage, Vicky joined a gender clinic and went through a psychological evaluation, proper hormone treatment, and therapy to determine whether or not she was mentally fit for gender assignment surgery.

She and her husband divorced after four years of marriage and she was cleared for gender reassignment surgery, which was performed in Thailand in February 2015.

Not long after the transformation she received an urgent call from her father, with the news that her mother, who was a diabetic, had suffered a heart attack.

She decided to return to Trinidad, now a woman, to help take care of her mother. Her return, however, was not a pleasant one.

Vicky explained that she was mostly house-bound as she cared for her mother.

But when her mother died in February, Vicky was able to leave the house as frequently as she wanted to run errands, job hunt and lime.

It was then that she realised she could no longer live in the country of her birth.

She said just prior to Carnival of this year, she was assaulted by some men and was left with cuts and bruises.

She was also threatened with rape by people who live in her community.

People in my area, if they see me in town, they would point me out and, in hearing distance, say things like Das a man yuh know. Or they would say that they dont want no batty man living up here, or Leh we kill him. Now I have to be alert. Every street corner, every alley, I have this fear, she says.

Now, being gay is a little more acceptable, but not much.

I think thats because people are more exposed to homosexuality on cable.

However, being transgendered is just a different level in Trinidad and Tobago. Its a taboo.

Its not an everyday thing.

They would see a gay man on the TV and laugh but with me, they think Im a jumbie, that Im possessed, and thats why I become a woman, she continues.

Vickys father added that even though Vicky was bullied and was called names as a young man, there was no fear for her life.

Now the threat is real. With the crime situation in Trinidad as it is, you never could tell what people will do. People are even coming to our house and making threats. I am afraid for my own life and even more for my daughter, he says.

She needs to go abroad and live in a country where there are laws to protect her, and to be with people like herself, where she could be treated with love and respect. I just want the best for her, he continues.

However, threats on her life is not the only thing Vicky has to worry about.

She is also upset that even though she changed her gender through surgery, and her name legally, she can not change her gender on any of her local official documents.

I applied for jobs but I am and my name are female but my documents say male. Once they find out I am transgender, they refuse to employ me, she states.

Vicky applied to flower shops for decorating jobs, even at her old place of employment at the book store, but they all rejected her. She claimed one person told her she would bring shame to the company, while another was afraid she had HIV/AIDS.

I cant have a life here because of the discrimination.

And there are no laws here protecting us so we have no rights, so of course there is no samesex marriage... If, God forbid, I end up getting arrested I would be amongst male prisoners, and what effect would that be on me? Its like a death sentence, she exclaims.

Vicky is aware that there are many teenagers in Trinidad and Tobago, who like her, were born in the wrong body.

They may have been beaten or otherwise physically assaulted, may have had no one to turn to, no idea how to deal with their situation, and may have contemplated committing suicide.

She hopes that by telling her story she would bring awareness to the issue from both the legal and human rights perspectives.
Today is World YWCA Day

YWCATT is concerned about the current state of affairs for women particularly with reference to domestic violence and child marriages.

It has a policy to End Domestic Violence Now and recognising that a child in an early and forced marriage is a human rights issue that affect the rights of women and girls and supports the call of the World YWCA to challenge social and cultural norms, traditions and practices in order to advance womens rights and advocate for zero tolerance of violence against women and girls in all its forms.

Child marriage is an unacceptable violation of the rights of girls and young women with long term negative consequences on their health and well-being...Child marriages also make girls and young women more vulnerable to domestic violence and sexual violence. Marlene Charles, president of YWCATT, spoke of a more low-keyed national celebration this year as opposed to last years brunch, disclosing that last Wednesday, YWCATT hosted a workshop at Blackpool Sport and Cultural Club in Tunapuna entitled Everyday Women, Everyday Leaders. A panel of successful women from diverse careers spoke to students from different schools about their career paths, how they came to their careers, the challenges they overcame and the lessons they have learnt, Charles says.

T h o m a s -Au s - tin re-emphasises the World WYCAs foresight: In every country, the YWCA is about developing leadership potential of young women and girls. Sixty percent of the World YWCAs Board is young women under 30 years of age.

Each committee includes both a young woman and a more mature woman; this is the World YWCAs model of shared and intergenerational leadership to support and develop the next generation of young women leaders. This is where 30-year-old Marissa Chester, assistant treasurer of YWCATT and second vice-chairperson of the St Augustine Local Association, has fitted in.

Elected vice president (Caribbean) World YWCA at the World Council 2015, Chester, a teaching assistant (economics) at the University of the West Indies in St Augustine, who is just starting the PhD programme, is chairperson of the audit and risk committee of the World Board and has also taken charge of bringing the 14 Caribbean groups together
What makes a killer kill?

Biological factors.

Family relationships.

IQ and education.

Culture. Gender. Religious beliefs. All of these fuel a persons propensity to become violent, says consultant community and clinical psychologist Dr Peter Weller.

Behaviour, including violence and criminal behaviour, may occur for a variety of reasons and the psychological profiles may differ even when the crimes look similar, he said in an interview.

This is why understanding the behaviours is very important if we are to try to educate the public and prevent such behaviour. Speaking in the wake of the deaths of Felecia Persad and Nekeisha Teesdale, both of whom, in separate instances, were found in the Mitan River, Manzanilla, Weller pointed out the psychological profile of people who commit violent crimes vary.

Emotion, impulse control, personality and motivation are important factors in understanding behaviours, he said.

People may be impulsively aggressive, motivated by a strong emotion and aiming to hurt someone. Thus you have the violence involved in a jealous rage and fights over money. Founder of the Caribbean Male Action Network (Cari- MAN), Weller said persons can also be instrumentally aggressive, in which case the aggression is a means to an end.

He gave the example of a person killing someone violently to send a message to their family or gang.

On the flip side, Weller said an aggressive act can also be seen as a parent spanking a child for going in the road.

It may be to teach them a lesson about safety but also because the parent is scared an angry, he said.

In these cases, the less insight the person has, the more their behaviour will be impulsive rather than instrumental. Weller said murders committed because of relationship gone sour could either be the result of emotional aggression or the behaviour of a psychopath or sociopath (a self-centred individual without guilt, shame or remorse).

Alluding to the recent murder of a man, whose burnt body was found in East Dry River, Port-of-Spain, Weller said while emotional aggression could have been the cause of the killing, the burning could also be emotional with the intention to destroy.

He said the mans death could also have been instrumental so as to hide identity of the body or send a message to onlookers.

Weller said the 2006 killing of Sean Luke, who had a cane stalk rammed up his anus, may have been the result of someone with a pathological personality.

VICTIMS SNAPSHOTS

* Sean Luke ---- The six-year-old buggered and left for dead, with cane stalk rammed up his anus, near his home in Orange Valley, Couva, in March 28, 2006. Two boys were charged and only this week the case was listed for trial in the High Court. The accused are now adults.

* Emily Annumunthodo  The four-year-old was beaten and suffocated at her Union Park, Marabella, home in March 2006 after being raped and sodomised. No arrest.

* Hope Arismandez  The eight-year-old was raped, buggered and stabbed to death. Her semi-nude body was found in a canefield in the village of Petersfield on the outskirts of Felicity on May 27, 2008. A suspect charged for her murder hanged himself in prison.

* Gerald Jones, 47 and his wife, Ann David, 44 ---- Chopped about their bodies at a forested area in Caigual, Manzanilla in June 2012. No arrest

* Richard and Grace Wheeler  chopped to death at their Carnbee home, Tobago on October 20, 2015. Two men have been charged with their murders.
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Cosmic rays are most likely to be relatively recent radiations from clusters of stars near us, according to scientists.

Such rays are high-speed atomic nuclei who have a wide range of energy, the most powerful ones racing at a high speed of light. While the earth's atmosphere protects the earth from these rays, they can be hazardous to astronauts that journey through space. They can also be harmful to scientists venturing into space, such as Mars mission astronauts.

Such rays have been created by many violent events occurring in space. These may be explosive events such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections on the sun, or massive black holes at the centers of other galaxies.

Researchers relied on the effects of NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft, which enabled researchers to assess the age of the cosmic rays, and also the distance from their source.

"Our detection of radioactive cosmic-ray iron nuclei is a smoking gun indicating that there has likely been more than one supernova in the last few million years in our neighborhood of the galaxy," said Robert Binns of Washington University and lead author of the study.

Eric Christian of NASA's Goddard Flight Space Center explained that ACE identified almost 300,000 galactic cosmic rays of ordinary iron, but only 15 of radioactive Iron-60. The very existence of Iron-60 indicates that the cosmic rays were made just recently, he said. They were probably created by clusters of massive stars within a few light years in our galaxy.

NASA's ACE program can be viewed more extensively here.
Apart from all the meetings that President Barack Obama had in U.K., the most charming one was perhaps on April 22 with the nearly 3-year-old Prince George. The little prince in his cute, white nightgown and slippers stayed up 15 minutes past his bedtime to welcome the U.S. President and First Lady Michelle Obama at the Kensington Palace.

He came forward and shook their hands. He had been allowed to stay up for 15 minutes, so he was not in trouble. He charmingly thanked his special guests for the beautiful rocking horse that he had been given when he was born. Riding on it and showing off a few of his moves, he could express his appreciation for the present he had received after birth.

That was the end of the interesting meeting, however. After that, he had to follow his 11-month-old sister, Princess Charlotte, who had already been tucked into bed.

The Obamas then had a brief tete-a-tete with the three younger Royals---Prince Harry, Prince William and Princess Kate, before they left to eat the private dinner that the palace had hosted for the Obamas.

Another interesting incident during that eventful day was spearheaded by Deputy Chief of Staff Anita Decker Breckenridge. She had requested to be allowed to meet Queen Elizabeth II, and was happy when the Queen greeted her, said President Obama. She nearly fainted with happiness, apparently!
Washington:

A blast resulting in fire and heavy smoke has been reported outside Washington DCs Tenleytown metro station. Massive emergency response came into foray as people are being evacuated to safety.



No people have been reported injured in the incident and also reason behind the blast is not known. Social media started buzzing with pictures from several witnesses accounts.



Social media messages described the panic situation on a smoke-filled Red Line train.

10 min in & no info as to why we are stopped, why no power or what is happening - people are scared @unsuckdcmetro pic.twitter.com/ix4di9D4Jo  Michael Horecki (@MHorecki) April 23, 2016

Local Authorities banned the area between Albemarle Street and Wisconsin Avenue.

Red Line: Train service is suspended btwn Van Ness & Medical Center due to fire dept activity at Friendship Heights. Bus service available.  Metrorail Info (@Metrorailinfo) April 23, 2016

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Jamshedpur:

Union ministers, BJP MPs and office bearers will be amid the rural folk listening to Prime Minister Narendra Modis address on the Panchayati Raj Day in Jharkhand when he is likely to flag his governments pro-village credentials.



They have been asked to listen to the address, to be broadcast live by Doordarshan, amidst villagers and their representatives and interact with them in what is being projected as a major drive by the party to reach out to rural India.



Party chief Amit Shah will interact with villagers in Ganoli, Ghaziabad.



There is a view in the party that while it continues to enjoy support in urban India, it needs to bolster efforts to build itself in rural areas.



Its Lok Sabha members, including ministers, will be in their constituencies, while the Rajya Sabha members will be present in different states, party spokesperson Anil Baluni said.



Uttar Pradesh, which goes to assembly polls early next year, has been given top priority with several union ministers belonging to the Upper House, including Arun Jaitley, Smriti Irani, Suresh Prabhu and Manohar Parrikar, likely to be spending the day there, party sources said.



Union ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad and Dharmendra Pradhan will be in Bihar.



Modis speech will bring the curtains down on the 11-day Gram Uday se Bharat Uday programme launched by the Prime Minister on Dalit icon B R Ambedkars birth anniversary on April 14 from his birthplace Mhow in Madhya Pradesh.



The Prime Minister believes that India cannot be developed without the development of its villages. Their progress is at the centre of his vision and that is why so many welfare and policy measures have been taken by the government, partys national secretary Shrikant Sharma said while talking about the programme.

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Washington:

In a rare honour, a street in the US state of Mississippi has been named after an Indian-American in recognition of his service to the community.



Dr Sampat Shivangi Lane was formally named yesterday in recognition of Shivangi, an eminent Republican from the state.



State governor Phil Bryant this week also reappointed him for a second seven-year term to the Board of Mississippis department of Mental Health.



We are thankful to Governor Phil Bryant for his confidence in me in bringing several changes in the department of Mental Health in the state since I took over several years ago, Shivangi said in a media release.



The department of Mental Health is the second-largest Mississippi state agency. It plays major part in caring for mentally ill, intellectual developmental disability and drug and alcohol addiction.



In 2014, Shivangi was appointed as the Chairman of the Mississippi department of Mental Health, making him the first Asian to occupy the top health post in the southern American state.



From 2005-2008, Shivangi served as the Advisor to the US Secretary of Health and Human Services.



He is the founding president of the American Association of Physicians of Indian-origin in Mississippi and is the past president and chair of the India Association of Mississippi.

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New Delhi:

Soon after Hrithik Roshan leaked some of the mails allegedly sent by Kangana, the legal tussle between the two has turned even murkier. In one of her mails, Kanganas allegedly admits that she has 98 percent symptoms of Aspergers syndrome. As a major blow to Kanganas side of story these revelations put her in the questioning state.

Her lawyer, Adv. Rizwan Siddique issued a detailed statement questioning the veracity of the leaked mails, claiming them to be unreliable and unverified.

To which Hrithiks lawyer responded that they have submitted all the evidence required to the concerned authorities.

When did it all begin?

This whole fight began when Kangana in January in an interview called Hrithik her ex, saying that I don't know why exes do silly things to get your attention. For me that chapter is over and I don't dig graves. To which Hrithik in February retaliated with a legal notice seeking an apology from her for quoting him as silly ex.

Since then it has been an ongoing legal tussle between the two. Now what remains to be seen if this war ends sometime later or will go on for making it a virtual reality Bollywood blockbuster.

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New Delhi:

In one of the steps to tackle climate change, India signed the Paris climate accord. India has made strides towards providing real solutions to tackle climate change, TERI Director General Ajay Mathur said today, a day after the country signed the Paris accord along with more than 170 nations.

Since the finalisation of the Paris Accord, India has already made strides towards providing real solutions to the very real problems of climate change. As a developing nation, we have found that growth has presented us with a great opportunity to set in motion our strategies for addressing climate change, said Mathur, who is also a member of the Prime Ministers Council on Climate Change.

He said in its journey towards sustainable growth which ensures protection of the planet against climate change, India has learnt that real-time data and human and institutional capacity are absolutely necessary for proper implementation of any plan.

These can be further strengthened when nations are able to learn from each other, share and build on each others experiences and lend support, whether financial or in terms of expertise. Going forward, India believes these will be instrumental towards the success of our common goal of ensuring just climate action, he said.

India had yesterday signed the historic Paris climate agreement along with more than 170 nations, marking a significant step that has brought together developing and developed countries for beginning work on cutting down greenhouse gas emissions to combat global warming.

Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar signed the agreement in the UN General Assembly hall at a high-level ceremony hosted by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Elaborating Indias initiatives, Mathur said one of the countrys first efforts to be rolled out has been the market-based LED lighting initiative.

Since initiation of the programme, India has completed the replacement of 100 million incandescent bulbs with LEDs which has led to a major reduction in carbon footprint by cutting nearly 25 million tons of carbon dioxide. Mathur said another initiative that India has implemented is the Perform, Achieve and Trade (PAT initiative) which mandates the most intensive industrial plants to reduce their energy consumption over a three-year cycle.

I am proud to announce that the first cycle has already surpassed targets, reducing over 30 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions, he said.

He said TERI has tried to do its part in this effort by providing technical inputs to the government for the preparation of the National Action Plans on Climate Change and the identification of targets for climate change action.

In the policy arena, TERI focuses on a range of issues by which institutional and policy changes could be brought about to promote action that would generate activities in the direction of sustainability.

TERIs programmes have brought research to life, as we have, and will continue to, help to promote scientific understanding of the drivers of climate change and provide solutions by which this growing challenge can be met effectively, he said.

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New Delhi:

An emotional CJI T S Thakur today lamented inaction by the Executive to increase the number of judges from the present 21,000 to 40,000 to handle the avalanche of litigations even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured him of his governments resolve in finding a solution jointly with the judiciary.



...And therefore, it is not only in the name of a litigant or people languishing in jails but also in the name of development of the country, its progress that I beseech you to rise to the occasion and realise that it is not enough to criticise. You cannot shift the entire burden on the judiciary, the Chief Justice of India said in a choking voice.



Addressing the inaugural session of Joint Conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of High Courts, Justice Thakur said that since 1987, when the Law Commission had recommended increase in the number of judges from then 10 judges per 10 lakh people to 50, nothing has moved.



Then comes inaction by the government as the increase (in the strength of judges) does not take place, he said.



He said following the Law Commissions recommendation, the Supreme Court in 2002 had also supported increasing the strength of the judiciary. A Parliamentary Department Related Standing Committee on Law then headed by Pranab Mukherjee had also recommended taking the judge to people ratio to 50 from 10.



As of today, the judge to people ratio stands at 15 judges to 10 lakh people which is way less than as compared to the US, Australia, the UK and Canada.



In 1987, the requirement was 40,000 judges. From 1987 till now, we have added 25 crore in terms of population. We have grown into one of the fastest growing economies of the world, we are inviting foreign direct investment into the country, we want people to come and make in India, we want people to come and invest in India.



Those whom we are inviting are also concerned about the ability of the judicial system in the country to deal with cases and disputes that arise out of such investments. Efficacy of the judicial system is so vitally connected with the development, he said, referring to Modi governments Make in India and Ease of doing business campaigns.



Watch Video Here:

PM assures emotional CJI of govt support in increasing judge strength

New Delhi, Apr 24 (PTI) An emotional CJI T S Thakur today lamented inaction by the Executive to increase the number of judges from the present 21,000 to 40,000 to handle the avalanche of litigations even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured him of his governments resolve in finding a solution jointly with the judiciary.

...And therefore, it is not only in the name of a litigant or people languishing in jails but also in the name of development of the country, its progress that I beseech you to rise to the occasion and realise that it is not enough to criticise. You cannot shift the entire burden on the judiciary, the Chief Justice of India said in a choking voice.

Addressing the inaugural session of Joint Conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of High Courts, Justice Thakur said that since 1987, when the Law Commission had recommended increase in the number of judges from then 10 judges per 10 lakh people to 50, nothing has moved.

Then comes inaction by the government as the increase (in the strength of judges) does not take place, he said.

He said following the Law Commissions recommendation, the Supreme Court in 2002 had also supported increasing the strength of the judiciary. A Parliamentary Department Related Standing Committee on Law then headed by Pranab Mukherjee had also recommended taking the judge to people ratio to 50 from 10.

As of today, the judge to people ratio stands at 15 judges to 10 lakh people which is way less than as compared to the US, Australia, the UK and Canada.

In 1987, the requirement was 40,000 judges. From 1987 till now, we have added 25 crore in terms of population. We have grown into one of the fastest growing economies of the world, we are inviting foreign direct investment into the country, we want people to come and make in India, we want people to come and invest in India.

Those whom we are inviting are also concerned about the ability of the judicial system in the country to deal with cases and disputes that arise out of such investments. Efficacy of the judicial system is so vitally connected with the development, he said, referring to Modi governments Make in India and Ease of doing business campaigns.

PM shares drought concern, pitches for mass campaign to save water

New Delhi, Apr 24 (PTI) Sharing concern over drought in various parts of the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today pitched for water conservation through a mass movement as he pinned hopes on the Monsoon which is predicted to bring upto 110 per cent of rainfall this season.

In his monthly radio programme Mann Ki Baat, he also talked about efforts to clean Ganga and Yamuna rivers, hoping that these will show results in some time.

Among other several issues, he delved on education, emphasising that the focus should now shift from enrolment to providing quality education.

During his 30-minute broadcast, Modi also expressed gratitude to one crore households which gave up LPG subsidy in response to his call and exhorted media to highlight positive news.

Talking about the drought situation in various parts of the country, he said concern over it is natural, particularly since prolonged drought leads to drop in water table in reservoirs.

To fight the drought and water scarcity, the governments will do their work. But I have seen people also make their own efforts. In several villages, an awareness has been seen with regard to the value of water and in such places, there is sensitivity and a will to do something to conserve, he said.

He referred to the weather forecast which has predicted that the country will receive 106 per cent to 110 per cent rainfall during this Monsoon and said such good news always brings peace.

But this news brings new awareness also...While the news about good rainfall brings comfort, it also provides an opportunity and a challenge. Can we run a movement from village to village to preserve water?... To whatever extent possible, we must save water.

The rain water should be preserved. The water of a village should remain in the village. If we make a resolve to do this, it is possible through a mass campaign. So even though we have a water crisis now, we have one and a half month to prepare (before the onset of Monsoon), he said.
Baghdad:

Suicide attacks targeting security forces in two Baghdad suburbs have killed at least 14 people and wounded dozens, officials said today.

A suicide car bomb struck a checkpoint in the eastern suburb of Hussainiyah late Saturday, killing six civilians and four soldiers, a police officer said. He added that another 28 people were wounded in the attack. The Islamic State group claimed the attack in a statement posted on a militant website.

Another police officer said a suicide car bomb struck a passing military convoy at around the same time in the southern suburb of Arab Jabour, killing four soldiers and wounding eight others.

Two medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release the information.

Iraqi forces backed by US-led airstrikes have pushed IS back on a number of fronts in recent months, clawing back territory seized by the extremists during their sweep across northern and western Iraq in 2014. But IS has continued to carry out attacks in and around Baghdad, mainly targeting security forces and the countrys Shiite majority.

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Brazzaville:

Republic of Congos newly-reelected President Denis Sassou Nguesso has named former opposition leader and one-time finance minister Clement Mouamba as his prime minister.

Mr Clement Mouamba is named prime minister and head of government, said a presidential decree read on state television yesterday, a week after Sassou Nguesso, who has been in power for 32 of the past 37 years, was sworn in for another five-year term.

Mouamba served as finance minister between 1992 and 1993 under the countrys first elected president Pascal Lissouba, who was ousted from power by Sassou Nguesso in 1997.

He was a senior member of the opposition Pan-African Union for Social Democracy before being expelled in 2015 for taking part in the talks that paved the way for a constitutional referendum allowing Sassou Nguesso to extend his rule.

The referendum scrapped a two-term limit on presidential mandates, allowing Sassou Nguesso to bid to stay in office in March elections, which he won with more than 60 percent of the vote.

His challengers accused him of massive electoral fraud. Sassou Nguesso has said the focus of his new mandate will be to strengthen the economy of the oil-producing country of four million people and tackle high youth unemployment.

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Pune :

Former England batting star Kevin Pietersen has been ruled out of the remainder of the Indian Premier League owing to a calf injury, dealing a blow to Rising Pune Supergiants hopes of reviving their stuttering campaign.

Pietersen, who had injured his right calf against Royal Challengers Bangalore on Friday and was carried off the field, announced he would not take further part in the cash-rich via his Instagram account.

Over & out, India! Injuries are all part of the job! Horrible tear in my calf! Sad to be leaving a really great bunch of boys but looking forward to being back with my family! London bound for a summer off! Vacation till November! Bye for now! Lots of love, KPxxx, the 35-year-old wrote on his Instagram account.

He posted a picture of himself in a wheelchair in the dressing room, with strapping on his calf, alongside the word Urgh! on Facebook soon after the incident.

Pietersen yesterday underwent a scan where the severity of the injury was confirmed, ending his IPL season early.

Pietersen, who has not played for England since their 5-0 defeat in the 2013-14 Ashes series in Australia, had scored 73 runs from four IPL innings at an average of 36.50 and strike rate of 119.67.

Supergiants are currently second last on the points table with three losses from four matches in their maiden season.
Beijing:

In its biggest telecom fraud case, China has arrested 62 people including 10 Taiwanese suspected of defrauding a construction firm of over USD 17 million.

They are suspected of defrauding 117 million yuan (about USD 17.99 million) from the construction bureau of an economic development zone in Duyun City in Guizhou Province, police said.

The company reported the loss of the money from its bank account to police on December 29 last year.

The firms finance supervisor, surnamed Yang, was contacted by several people claiming to be police officers, bank staff and procurators, saying the account Yang managed needed reviewing and directing Yang to download software from a website so they could access the bureaus account, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Police said the fraud was masterminded by Taiwanese who recruited people from the Chinese mainland to make fraudulent phone calls from Uganda.

China in recent weeks has come under sharp criticism from Taiwan and human rights organisation for deporting 46 Taiwanese from Kenya accusing them of taking part in the telecom scam and defrauding Chinese of millions of dollars through extortions.

Chinas public security ministry said it believed the scamsters were operating mostly out of South East Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands.

In addition to Kenya case, there were also recent arrests in Malaysia. They were deported to China not to Taiwan despite court in Kenya having acquitted them.

The officials claimed to have arrested 7,700 telecom fraud suspects, including 4,600 Taiwanese, in South East Asia in the past seven years since they signed a formal agreement with Taiwan to jointly tackle crime.

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Nashik:

In a move that may upset its ally BJP, the Shiv Sena on Sunday made remarks in support of JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar saying he is has been wrongly labelled deshdrohi (anti-national). Kanhaiya Kumar has been labelled deshdrohi wrongly, said Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray.

In a veiled attack on the Narendra Modi government, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray today said instead of guiding the youth in the right direction, it has given birth to Rohith Vemula, Hardik Patel and Kanhaiya Kumar, the youth figures who have been in news in the last few months.

India has a big population of youths. Instead of giving them proper guidance and directions, the government is misleading them, he said and cited the examples of Rohit Vemula (Dalit scholar who committed suicide in Hyderabad University), Hardik Patel (Gujarat Patel quota stir leader who is in jail) and JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar (who has been charged with sedition).

He, however, did not name BJP or the Modi government. The Modi government has come under attack over the way it has handled the issues related to these three youths.

When Patel became popular, he was charged with sedition, and now Kumar is fighting against the government, Uddhav said, and asked, Who gave birth to these youths?

Youths of the country required proper guidance and direction and it is not wrong to give advice to our friend (BJP) with whom we have an alliance, he told reporters here.

We will oppose any bifurcation of Maharashtra, the Sena leader said in the backdrop of ongoing debate on separate Vidarbha.

With PTI Inputs

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Ludhiana:

Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal today said Punjab government would soon set up a Regulatory Authority to keep a check on private schools of the state.

Sukhbir said that he has asked Education Minister Daljit Singh Cheema to make sure that the Regulatory Authority starts functioning at the earliest.

Punjab government is keeping a close tab on the issue of fleecing of parents by some private schools, Sukhbir said while attending the functions organised on the occasion of 125th birth anniversary of B R Ambedkar, at Bhadaur House and Daresi areas, here.

The Deputy Chief Minister said the state government would not tolerate this at any cost and that is why, a Regulatory Authority in this regard is in offing and would start functioning soon.

On Kohinoor diamond, he said that the Kohinoor belongs to all Punjabis and that the Punjab government would make all efforts to bring it back.

He said that they would be meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi in this regard very soon and would also take up this matter through diplomatic channels.

He said that if required, they would also approach the Supreme Court of India regarding this matter.

The Deputy Chief Minister said Bollywood film named Santa Banta has been banned in Punjab as it could have hurt the sentiments of Sikhs.

Regarding the parole of Davinderpal Singh Bhullar, the Deputy CM said that as per our law, even the prisoners and under trials have their rights and under the same law, they are entitled for parole as well On killing of Mata Chand Kaur, wife of Satguru Jagjit Singh, of Namdhari Sect, the Deputy CM said that an SIT comprising Commissioner Police Ludhiana Jatinder Singh Aulakh as Chairman, SSP Khanna Satinder Singh and AIG (Crime) Ravcharan Singh Brar both as members has already been formed.

He said that the SIT has got breakthrough into the case and that the killers of Mata Chand Kaur would be behind bars soon.

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London:

US President Barack Obama today ruled out any plans to send American ground troops in strife-torn Syria, saying it would be a mistake to deploy American or British soldiers to overthrow the Bashar al-Assad regime.

Obama, who has been in the UK for a three-day visit which has included a birthday lunch with Queen Elizabeth II and strong interventions in favour of Britain staying within the European Union (EU), said Syria was a heart-breaking situation of enormous complexity.

I dont think there are any simple solutions It would be a mistake for the US, or Great Britain to send in ground troops and overthrow the (Bashar al-) Assad regime, he told the BBC in an interview.

In order for us to solve the long-term problems in Syria, a military solution alone - and certainly us deploying ground troops - is not going to bring that about, he said.

Obama said the US-led coalition would continue to strike ISIS (Islamic State) targets in places like Raqqa, and to try to isolate those portions of the country, and lock down those portions of the country that are sending foreign fighters into Europe.

He had earlier said that Europe would be safer with Britain voting to stay in the EU in the June 23 referendum and be able to tackle terrorism more effectively from within.

Obama warned that Brexit could hit Britain economically and take as long as a decade to negotiate a UK-US trade deal.

It could be five years from now, 10 years from now before we were able to actually get something done. The UK would not be able to negotiate something with the United States faster than the EU. We wouldnt abandon our efforts to negotiate a trade deal with our largest trading partner, the European market, he told BBC.

However, his warning over UK-US trade deals has angered campaigners in favour of leaving the EU, with some describing him as a lame duck President who will be out of office soon.

Meanwhile, the Democratic US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton also made it clear this week that she thought it would be a mistake for the UK to leave the union.

But London mayor Boris Johnson, one of the leading voices in the Leave camp, believes the UK could be in a more favourable position to strike a trade deal with the US if it left the EU.

The issue has dominated Obamas UK visit as he leaves for Germany to hold talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel, with the main aim being to win public support in Germany for a planned US-EU free trade deal.

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Patna:

Stray incidents of violence, in which one person was killed, marred the first phase of the three-tier Bihar panchayat polls which recorded a 55 per cent voter turnout.

A presiding officer also died of heart attack at Patori block of Samastipur district but the polling process was not affected, state election commissioner said.

One person was killed when two groups clashed with firearms at Daulatpura village in Hishua block of Nawada district while a few others sustained injuries, the SEC A K Chauhan said.

Nawada SDPO Sanjay Kumar Pandey said the deceased was identified as Sunil Kumar Singh and three person who also sustained injuries in the clash were admitted to a hospital.

Chauhan said Prof Anupam Kumar deputed as presiding officer at polling station number 185 of Patori block of Samastipur district had a heart attack in the morning and was hospitalised where he died.

The incident did not affect the polling as the presiding officer was replaced, he said.

The polling by and large passed off peacefully and a total of 55 per cent of voters turnout was recorded in the first phase, Chauhan told reporters.

He said the voting percentage may slightly increase once the final figures reach the Commission.

Polling in first phase was held in 60 blocks of 38 districts where 55 per cent of 61,25,167 voters exercised their franchise, he said.

Altogether 310 persons were arrested, while 16 vehicles and 10.8 litres of illicit liquor were seized, the SEC said.

Chauhan said the Commission received reports of destruction of ballot papers from Gaya and Jamui districts.

Some people forcibly put ballot papers in the ballot box at a polling station in Kormathu panchayat of Gaya district, he said, adding that a few ballot papers were missing while there is a report of seal of a ballot box being broken.

It has been learnt that some naxalites attacked a polling station in Chakai block of Jamui district and threw ballot papers into a well, he said.

We have sought report from District Magistrates in both the cases. Repolling will be ordered only after going through the reports, Chauhan said.

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DANBURY  About 80 cardboard boxes packed with medicine, canned food and personal hygiene supplies towered in the corner of the Ecuadorian Civic Center of Greater Danbury Sunday afternoon, waiting to be shipped to Ecuador to help those affected by the recent earthquake.

On the opposite wall, images flashed of people sifting through the rubble left in the wake of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake, which killed hundreds and left thousands homeless along Ecuadors coast on April 16.

Outside, volunteers hauled cases of water, bags of supplies and boxes of donations from cars and trucks. Some people wandered into the center to drop money into a box set up in the middle of the main room, which will be sent to the Red Cross in Ecuador.

Sundays 12-hour collection drive is the latest relief effort from the Ecuadorian Civic Center, which already shipped 400 boxes of supplies and cases of water to the Ecuadorian government for distribution.

I think its amazing how we love each other and care for each other, said Angelica Idrovo, 19. Even though none of my family is affected, I still love my country and I want to help.

She said she was moved by all of the families bringing supplies to the center.

Milton Pauta, the centers president, said hes appreciative of the help received from the whole area, not just the Ecuadorean community.

This time Ecuador got help, he said. Maybe some day another community will be hurt and well be ready to help.

Most of the Ecuadorians living in Danbury come from the middle part of the country, which wasnt affected by the earthquake. While many dont have family members living long the coast, several residents went there to help and have been calling Pauta with updates.

A woman who works at a travel agency here went there on Friday, Pauta said. She called me and said everything is destroyed and people are crying. Its different than what you see on TV.

While the government has placed the death toll around 650, Pauta said the actual number could be much higher, based on what hes hearing from people there.

People over there are saying complete families and complete houses disappeared, he said.

One friend told Pauta the people really need sleeping bags, flashlights, batteries, tents and bug repellent because their homes were destroyed and they have to sleep in the streets.

Pauta said the center plans to collect supplies and money for a month. At that point, Ecuadors president will assess the supplies and decide if donations are still needed. Regardless, he said the center plans to help longer than that.

It might take a long time, maybe a couple of years, he said. It was a lot of damage.

Ecuadors president estimates the quake caused about $3 billion in damage. He said his administration has temporarily raised taxes to fund the recovery, which could take years, according to the Associated Press.

I know my country doesnt have the greatest economy, Idrovo said. Its a poor community. I know that everything we do today will help.

Her brother, Pablo Idrovo, 17, said he wanted to help those suffering in Ecuador. He was moved by the compassion he saw when people with little were giving to the collection.

They dont have that much, he said. I wanted to give them my time and help them package.
We received this note from U.S. Rep. Rosa Delauro, D-3:

NEW HAVEN  In the wake of the devastating earthquakes in Ecuador, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-3) today released the following information for local residents who may be seeking to contact family members or are interested in offering assistance to affected communities.

The United States stands with the people of Ecuador and as President Obama has said, the U.S. is prepared to offer any assistance the country may need during this time. As Ecuador continues to search for survivors and begins the process of rebuilding, my thoughts and prayers are with the country, said Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro.

In New Haven, which is home to one of the states largest Ecuadorian populations, there has been an outpouring of support from the local community. My office will continue to work with the local community to assist with aid and relief efforts, and we are ready to help in any way that we can.

According to the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Embassy in Quito and the U.S. Consulate General in Guayaquil are open. U.S. citizens with emergencies should use the contact information below.

If you are a U.S. citizen in Ecuador who needs assistance, you can contact the U.S. Embassy in Quito at 099-788-3222 or the U.S. Consulate General in Guayaquil at 04-371-7000.

If you are in the U.S. and are trying to contact a friend or family member who is a U.S. citizen and is currently in Ecuador, please call 1-888-407-4747.

You may also contact the U.S. Department of State at EcuadorEmergencyUSC@state.gov.

The Government of Ecuador will continue to post the most up-to-date information on the status of recovery efforts at http://www.gestionderiesgos.gob.ec/. Individuals in need of information may call 1-844-668-4549. This telephone number is active around the clock.

Home to Connecticuts largest Ecuadorian population, as well as the local Ecuadorian Consulate, New Haven has become a center for local relief efforts. The Ecuadorian Consulate held an informational session Monday evening, which included information on how local residents assist with relief efforts.

Monetary Donations: If individuals are interested in making direct monetary donations, two accounts have been set-up to ensure that those donations get directly to those in need.

SWIFT Transfers

Entity: Bank of America NY

SWIFT Code: BOFAUS3N

Account Name: CCU Secretaria Gestion Riesgos/Planta Central

Account Number: 01121807

Entity: Bank of America NY

Account Name: UNDP Rep. of Ecuador Account

Account Number: 3751560139

Bank ID: 111000012

Bank Type: ZBA bank

Donated Items: Local sites in Connecticut are collecting donated items to send to Ecuador.

According to the Consulate, items needed include:

Water Filters - Life Straw

Canned Food

Dried Food

Dried Milk

Diapers

Tents

Sleeping Bags

Hygienic Kits

Portable Lamps (Led or Rechargeable)

Batteries

Cookware

Baby Formula

Medicine (Refer to the Health Secretariat Drug List: http://www.salud.gob.ec/listado-de-medicamentos-y-dispositivos-medicos-basicos-para-eventos-sismicos/)

They do not need clothing and are asking people not to send additional clothing items.

Donations are being accepted at the following locations:

IRIS - 235 Nicoll Street

New Haven, CT

(203) 871-7094

CT CargoTravel

299 East Main Street

Waterbury, CT

(203) 228-4984

Tienda Ecuador Mutiservicios

43 Meriden Road

Waterbury, CT

(203) 460-2400

Mundo Latino CT

159 B North Colony

Wallingford, CT

(203) 687-1938

Iglesia Santa Maria de Bridgeport

25 Sherman Street

Bridgeport, CT

(203) 334-8811

Centro Civico de Great Danbury

20 West Street

Danbury, CT

(203) 417-3621

Valentin Travel

24 Elm Street

Danbury, CT

203-241-5198

Classic Auto Sales

458 West Main Street

Stamford, CT

203-451-3576

Income Tax Services

12 McClean Avenue

Stamford, CT

203-253-1379

Palabra de Vida

82 Camp Street

Meriden, CT

203-442-4165

Las Americas Grocery

470 Main Street

Torrington, CT

860-482-9543

La Cuencanita Grocery Store LLC

515 Main Street

Torrington, CT

860-482-9543

Mi Tierra Multiservice

178 Main Street

Torrington, CT

860-940-4105

Casa Latina

12 Bridge Street

New Milford, CT

(203) 982-2064
The three officials of the Osun State Government abducted by gunmen in Kogi State last Friday have been released.

The three officials of the Osun State Government abducted by gunmen in Kogi State last Friday have been released.It was gathered that the three civil servants released on Sunday evening were still with security operatives in Kogi State and they might not return to Osogbo, the Osun State capital until Monday.The three officials are: the Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Finance, Mrs, Adebimpe Ogunlumade; Director, State Audit, Mr. Tajudeen Badejoko, and their driver, Mr. Oladapo Arogundade.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has won the Damaturu/Tarmuwa/Gujba/Gulani federal constituency by-election in Yobe. Prof. Sunday A...

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has won the Damaturu/Tarmuwa/Gujba/Gulani federal constituency by-election in Yobe.Prof. Sunday Alao,Returning Officer of the election on Saturday in Damaturu declared APC candidate, Hon Abdullahi Kukuwa as the winner.Kukuwa scored 23,745 votes to be declared as winner against Hon Nasiru Hassan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who polled 6,990 votes to emerge second.Adamu Dina of the Advance Congress for Democracy (ACD) scored 163 votes while Jibrin Ladan of the National Conscience Party (NCP) scored 139 votes.The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the election was conducted on Saturday to replace Hon. Khadija Bukar, who was appointed minister in the federal cabinet.Mr Zannah Ibrahim, Yobe Commissioner of Police said there was no violence recorded in any of the four participating Local Government areas.NAN reports that Yobe would head for another by- election following the return of Abdullahi Kukuwa who currently represents Gulani constituency in the state assembly as winner of the just concluded by-election. (NAN)
The family of Mr Azibaola Robert, a cousin to former President Goodluck Jonathan, has told the EFCC to charge Robert to court or release ...

The family of Mr Azibaola Robert, a cousin to former President Goodluck Jonathan, has told the EFCC to charge Robert to court or release him unconditionally. Robert, the Managing Director of One Plus Holdings Ltd., was arrested by the EFCC on March 23 over the $40 million pipelines protection contract awarded to his firm by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA).Speaking on behalf of the family, Dr Faith Robert condemned the continued detention of his elder brother by the EFCC after an Abuja High Court had granted him bail on April 7.He said the remand order by an Abuja Magistrates Court which EFCC relied upon to detain Robert had expired on April 19. According to him, it is therefore, improper for the EFCC to approach another Magistrates Court in Lagos for another remand order when the Abuja High Court has granted bail to Robert. The same High Court served a production warrant on EFCC on April 12 after meeting its bail conditions.It is important to note that EFCC, an organisation created by an Act of Parliament, has continued to treat the order from a High Court of competent jurisdiction with contempt. Robert urged the EFCC to charge his brother to court, allow him enjoy the bail granted him by the Abuja High Court or free him unconditionally.
RIVERS State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has assured people of the state that projects started by his administration will be completed in lin...

RIVERS State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has assured people of the state that projects started by his administration will be completed in line with approved specifications.Wike said during his tenure, no project would be abandoned, adding that he had mapped out strategies to apply funds for their completion.The governor, who spoke on Saturday after he inspected ongoing road projects in Port Harcourt, Obio-Akpor, Ikwere and Etche Local Government Areas, pointed out that he would also complete relevant projects abandoned by the past administration.He said, Todays project inspection has been fruitful. We are happy at the pace of work at the different sites visited and the people are also happy. The reception we got is an encouragement to do more for the people.Our first year anniversary will be a celebration of wonderful projects executed by this administration. Most of the roads visited today (Saturday) will be completed by the end of May.Wike had visited the Oroigwe Road, Olukwu Road, Emeka, Igwuruta-Chokocho Road and Obio-Akpor Market Road.Meanwhile, the governor has directed the Chairman of the Local Government Service Commission, Azubuike Mmerukini, to coordinate the handover formalities by the Local Government Caretaker Committee Chairmen to Heads of Local Government.A statement signed by Wikes Special Assistant on Electronic Media, Mr. Simeon Nwakaudu, said, It should be noted that the outgoing Local Government Caretaker Committee Chairmen are now expected to hand over to the Heads of Local Government. This directive supercedes the earlier directive by the governor.
Former President Goodluck Jonathan gave the keynote speech at the Cal State Universitys Center for African Peace and Conflict Resolution...

Former President Goodluck Jonathan gave the keynote speech at the Cal State Universitys Center for African Peace and Conflict Resolutions 25th annual Africa/Diaspora conference, in Sacramento California on the 23rd of April, 2016.Represented by Mr. Reno Omokri, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan also received an award by the center in recognition of his role in promoting democracy and peace in Nigeria and Africa. Speaking at the event, the representative of the former Nigerian leader spoke on the role Dr. Jonathan played in ensuring that Nigerian remained at peace in the aftermath of the 2015 elections thus defeating doomsday prophets who had speculated that Nigeria may disintegrate based on the outcome of the polls.Dr. Jonathan said democracy is the panacea to most conflicts in Africa, and that is why the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation is committed to strengthening democracy throughout Africa by building capacity within electoral institutions and engendering willingness to accept the results of the people freely given via a transparent election process. Continuing, the former President said Until democracy is strong internally, you cannot be effective against conflict and terrorism internally and externally. The provost of the university, Professor Mike Lee, praised the outstanding character displayed by Dr. Goodluck Jonathan and called for others leaders to emulate his conscience driven leadership. The director of the center, Professor Ernest Uwazie, also commended the former President and declared that his conduct during the elections made him one of the few statesmen with the moral authority to speak on democratic issues in Africa.The full speech by the former President appears below.Being a Keynote Speech Delivered by Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, Former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, at the Center for African Peace and Conflict Resolutions 25th annual Africa/Diaspora conference, Sacramento California on the 23rd of April, 2016.ProtocolsLet me start by thanking the board of the Center for African Peace and Conflict Resolution for inviting me to give the keynote speech at its 25th annual Africa/Diaspora conference. I am truly glad to be here. During my time in office, I came to personally appreciate diaspora Africans particularly after I became intimate with intelligence data about their activities. Diaspora Africans are the single largest source of capital inflow to Africa. In Nigeria, they remit back home over $20 billion annually. This is far more than what comes in through foreign direct investment, foreign aid and loans from the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. To all the diaspora Africans here present, believe me when I say that you are the goose that lays the golden egg for Africa.You should be proud of yourselves. Can I get a round of applause for our diaspora brothers and sisters here present? (Pause for applause). If there is anything I have learnt about peace in Africa, it is that peace is more likely where a leaders ambition is driven by conscience and less likely where the leader is ego driven. Twenty five years ago, Africas largest economies were all under the control of governments whose mandates did not emanate from the will of the people. In Nigeria, we had a military junta that had just survived an attempted coup, in South Africa, we had minority White Rule characterized as apartheid and in Egypt, we had a one party state with a President that had ruled unopposed for decades. The proliferation of regimes that acquired power and sustained themselves in office by force during those times also meant that there were many opposition groups who felt that the only option left to them to compete for power was to match violence with violence.In my home region of West Africa, such opposition led to the first Liberian Civil War which reached its peak between 1990 and 1991. We also had the Sierra Leonean Civil war which started in 1991. Both wars were the major conflicts West Africa faced in the last quarter century and they both threatened to take down our sub continent to the extent that, led by Nigeria, other West African nations had to intervene through the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) in order to first enforce peace and then keep it. The point to note is that those two major conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone, were by products of the contest for power through violent and undemocratic means. The governments in those nations at that had, in the opinion of many, obtained power not by the will of the people but through military coups and their opposition wanted to usurp their powers by the same means. If the seeds of national and transnational conflicts in Africa were sown by the violent and arbitrary processes of accumulating political power, then it must mean that the seeds of peace will be planted when we as a continent reverse that process and institutionalize peaceful and predictable processes by which qualified persons may obtain power with the permission of the governed. That is why I am on record as saying that neither my ambition or the ambition of anybody is worth the blood of any citizen. Now, do not misunderstand this to mean that we should not have political ambition.No. Sigmund Freud has already established that man has only two natural urges-the urge to procreate and the urge to be great. And right there you see why we have conflict. We are fruitful meaning that we multiply in number. And then we struggle for space to dominate. So our natural urge leads us to aspire to leadership.The thing is that while nobodys political ambition is worth the blood of any citizen, their ambition should be worth the vote of all citizens or at least the majority of the electorate. In other words, blood and violence are not the currency that we should pay for acquiring power, rather, persuasion and coalition building is the new way. Twenty five years ago, we were not so convinced about this in Africa, but as genuine democracy has swept the continent, beginning from the 1991 wind of change that started in Zambia with Kenneth Kaunda to the election that just held in Benin Republic last month, what we have seen is that as democracy spread, just like light, it has conquered the darkness of war and conflict. I mentioned Liberia and Sierra Leone as two of the nations whose conflict almost set the whole of the West African sub region on fire. Well, today, those conflicts have been resolved by the introduction of genuine multiparty democracies in both Liberia and Sierra Leone. I had earlier mentioned Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt as being under the control of governments that were not truly democratic as at 1991. Today, all three of those nations are for the most part, under democratic rule.I say for the most part because Al-Sisis single opponent in Egypt boycotted the 2014 election, but the election was nevertheless adjudged as a true reflection of the will of the Egyptian people. From the foregoing, I think it is clear to state that democracy is the panacea to most conflicts in Africa, and that is why the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation is committed to strengthening democracy throughout Africa by building capacity within electoral institutions and engendering willingness to accept the results of the people freely given via a transparent election process. Of course you know that terrorism is a growing threat in Africa and beyond. Elsewhere, I have said that terrorism can only be effectively tackled when states network with each other in much the same way as Nigeria did with the Multinational Joint Task Force with which Nigeria collaborated with Benin, Cameroun, Chad and Niger to tackle terrorists. But the important question is this-if you are not able to achieve political stability within your own borders, how will you be able to collaborate with neighboring nations? In the last 25 years, African nations have been able to come to grips with what it means to be independent and their coming of age in this regard has meant that they have progressed in a continuum of maturity to the next level in the growth of nations-interdependency! On the African continent, I am proud of the work that the African Unions Peace and Security Council has been doing. This council is a shining example of the progress nations make together when they work together.If you look at the record of the AUs Peace and Security Council vis a vis the efforts of similar bodies in other continent, you would note that since 2004, we have been one of the few continental wide bodies to have achieved reasonable successes in peace and conflict resolution efforts in Africa. The major reason why there is able to be some form of government in Somalia today is because of the African Union Mission in Somalia(AMISOM) which as some of you may know is an initiative of the AUs Peace and Security Council. We have also gone beyond conflict resolution to conflict prevention. The Peace and Security Council is active in conflict resolution efforts in South Sudan and is even right at this moment trying to do the same thing in Burundi.In Madagascar the effort of this organ of the AU played a big part in preventing an escalation of the crisis that brewed in that island nation following a power tussle. The long and short of my presentation is that in the last 25 years, Africa has made immense progress in the areas of conflict resolution and prevention and those efforts are geared to achieving internal stability in member nations and the African Union has maintained that such internal stability can best be achieved if the governments of all African nations reflect the will of the majority of the people in those nations.So you see it all comes down again to democracy. Until democracy is strong internally, you cannot be effective against conflict and terrorism internally and externally because you need the people to be fully behind the government, which they will not be if they did not elect it. Conflicts and terror grows where there is local support, but democracy denies them that local support! For instance, the reason why Benin, Cameroun, Chad and Niger could work with Nigeria on the Multinational Joint Task Force is because they have been able to achieve internal country wide political stability as a result of the practice of democracy. So when you talk about best practices for conflict resolution, my recommendation would be that any practice that allows the will of the people prevail is the best means. And we have practically seen this truism on display, whether it is in Angola, Liberia, South Sudan or Madagascar.Finally, let me add that democracy is not complete when some people are disenfranchised. In many African nations, diaspora citizens cannot vote. This was the situation I met on the ground in Nigeria and I made concerted efforts to change it. It would have been my desire for diaspora Nigerians to vote in the 2015 Nigerian elections, but unfortunately that did not happen despite my best efforts.In such matters, it takes two to tango. I was in the executive and the best I could do to reform Nigeria was to convene a National Conference where Nigerians themselves could determine their course as a nation. One of the issues I had hoped would be tackled is diaspora voting. But all hope is not lost. I will continue to advocate for diaspora voting as a way of deepening democracy in Africa and I urge you all to join in this crusade. Thank you once again to the board of the Center for African Peace and Conflict Resolution for inviting me and thank you all for taking time out of your busy schedules to listen to me. May God bless you all.
Nigeria's Vice President Yemi Osinbajo yesterday said the Federal government will begin payment of the 5000 to the poor in Nigeri...









Osinbajo also disclosed that the government is also planning to train a minimum of 100,000 young Nigerians in technology.Osinbajo disclosed this while speaking at the United Action for Change Town Hall Meeting at Ikeja Airport Hotel Lagos today April 23rd.See his words which were Tweeted from the townhall meeting by his Senior Special Assistant-Media & Publicity, Laolu Akande below
The Police say they will not allow the Fulani herdsmen menace fester like Boko Haram. They plan to keep monitoring the herdsmen and che...

The Police say they will not allow the Fulani herdsmen menace fester like Boko Haram.They plan to keep monitoring the herdsmen and check their activities.Police Inspector General Solomon Arase told reporters yesterday in Abuja that the police would continue to monitor them, degrade them and continue to amputate them whenever they come up.He linked the indiscriminate killing by some herdsmen to the influx of arms and ammunition from such countries as Mali, Chad and Libya.I have repeatedly said that what is happening has to be placed against the background of what is happening in African sub-region. When you look at the period when these things started happening and the crisis with migrants and then the flow of arms across our borders, then you will understand what is happening, he said.We have been living with our own indigenous herdsmen for many years, so why is it now that there are crisis in Mali, Libya, Chad and the proliferation of firearms that the herdsmen are becoming more prevalent in the system.We have to look at it against that background and maybe they have indigenous collaborators but we will not allow them and it will not degenerate into Boko Haram. We will continue to monitor them, degrade them and continue to amputate them whenever they come up.On the ongoing recruitment into the police, IGP Arase said the new intakes will be trained with stun guns to check the rate at which innocent Nigerian get killed by policemen.A stun gun momentarily disables either a beast or a person with an electric shock.He said: We want to migrate from the use of firearms in patrols in main cities and we have ordered for stun guns. The people that will be recruited will be trained mostly with stun guns because that is what is prevalent internationally and stun guns are very effective because they can incapacitate temporarily without killing.But he could not say how much the project would cost.I cannot put a cost to it because they (guns) are not manufactured in Nigeria and you cannot pick them up on the shelves. So, it takes time and it is also susceptible to fluctuation in foreign currency.Speaking on the training facilities and the recruitment process, he said: The 10,000 police officers will not be trained in one place. We have training schools scattered around and we are going to group them into the six geo-political zones.The training schools in a particular zone will cater for the people in that zone and by doing that, I think we have been able to intervene as it concerns training and the intervention is still ongoing but I think the facilities there are good enough to welcome them into school.The 10,000 that will be recruited are segmented. Some are going to be officers and it is clear that officers cannot train with recruits. We should also know that some are going to be medical doctors, some are going to be engineers while some are going to be pilots. So, there are different categories of officers and so, they will not be plunged together but the bulk of them are going to be constables because we have not recruited for the past five years.On the criteria and ensuring a transparent process, he said: their age, educational qualification, height will be used and we also have to be sure that where they claimed they are from is true.He said: some of those people uploading their credentials on the website now are 30 to 34 and they are too old. We will not take all those ones. They must adhere to the criteria given.Do not be bothered with over 700,000 that have applied, a lot of them will be knocked out when the system starts the sorting process and there will also be exams which will be done at state level.
ATLANTIC CITY -- Glenn Straub, the owner of Revel Casino Hotel, said Wednesday he would install a massive ropes course in the shuttered building, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Straub also plans to pour sand in the entry way to create a beach lounge area.

The ropes course is expected to open in June. Straub is knocking down walls to make room for the course, which will occupy a space previously used as a valet car entrance.

Straub, a Florida developer, plans to reopen Revel this summer. He said he envisions 500 hotel rooms, some casino space, restaurants and clubs.

Straub bought the vacant 47-story resort in April for $82 million. He's thrown out various plans for the building, from housing for Syrian refugees to a water park.

The $2.4 billion casino tower opened in April 2012, but was unable to turn a profit and closed in September 2014.

Myles Ma may be reached at mma@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MylesMaNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
-- Police asked for the public's help to find the man who robbed a bank in the township Saturday afternoon.

The man showed up at the TD Bank on Route 70 around 1:20 p.m. and a note demanding money to the teller, according to township police.

The man fled on foot, toward a nearby Wawa parking lot, authorities said.

Police released a security camera photo of the wanted man on the department's Facebook page.

Anyone with information was asked to contact police at 856-983-1116, the Confidential Tip Line at 856-983-4699 or send an email to facebook@Eveshampd.org. Anonymous tips can also sent by texting ETPDTIP to 847411.

Evesham Township Bank Robbed, Public's Help Needed The Evesham Police Department is asking for the publics assistance... Posted by Evesham Township Police (NJ) on Saturday, April 23, 2016

Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahyc. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
UPDATE: Driver identified in Sunday morning fatal accident

MILLVILLE -- Police say a woman was ejected from her vehicle after it overturned on Route 55 early Sunday morning.

The woman, who has not been identified, was pronounced dead at the scene shortly before 5 a.m., according to New Jersey State Police Sgt. Jeff Flynn.

Police say she was driving a GMC SUV northbound near mile marker 29 when she lost control of the vehicle, ran off the road to the right, returned to the roadway and overturned in the center median.

She was not wearing a seatbelt, Flynn reported.

Police have not determined why she lost control of her vehicle. No other vehicles were involved and she was the lone occupant of the SUV.

Authorities expect to release the driver's identity later today, Flynn said.

Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattGraySJT. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook.
IOWA CITY -- Everything appeared to be running smoothly Tuesday morning inside the testing command center of Pearson, the world's largest education company.

At the sprawling facility here on the outskirts of Iowa City, a Pearson manager told reporters that the shift to computerized testing, such as with New Jersey's PARCC exams, placed student experience "front and center" for the company's technology staff.

"Every second that student is clicking a button or they are navigating within that browser, that lands with us to make sure they have a good experience," said Craig McNeil, who oversees the reliability of Pearson's online tests. "So it's super important that we deliver tests to students flawlessly."

Less than 24 hours later, the company faced its own big test. Students across New Jersey were locked out of their state tests Wednesday because of a mistake by a Pearson employee, spawning added criticism of the company and its controversial exams.

Pearson and New Jersey have released few details about what went wrong, saying a review is ongoing. But a rare tour of Pearson's headquarters granted to NJ Advance Media the day before the crash offered an inside view of what steps the company takes to make sure its online exams don't go dark.

With computerized exams already under scrutiny after glitches in several states, Pearson was eager to display its command center, where a team of about 15 employees constantly monitors data with the goal of ensuring testing goes off without a hitch in New Jersey and beyond.

"That's probably the most important thing we do during the day," McNeil said. "Especially this time of the year where lots of students are taking tests."

Inside the command center

About 10 minutes from downtown, Pearson's Iowa City facility is one of the British company's largest testing hubs in the United States.

Nearly 850 people work here in various roles, ranging from creating and scoring the exams to providing technical support for the online tests and the company's clients, according to Pearson.

Across the street from a sandwich shop and an eye doctor's office, the 300,000 square foot complex is no different than any other corporate campus, save for the blue and white Pearson sign out front. What makes this building unique is what's inside: the one and only Pearson command center.

To get there, visitors must have a large red pass clipped to their shirt and be escorted through a main entrance only Pearson employees can unlock. The company selected the employees allowed to talk to a reporter and asked that no photographs be taken of the data on computer screens.

Eight large television monitors are at the front of the command center, each displaying charts tracking data for a different Pearson testing program. Every 30 seconds, the company collects more than 1.5 million pieces of data, vital signs that can be used to gauge whether its dozens of online tests are working, McNeil said.

"We learn over time what drives these systems, what makes them go bump in the night," McNeil said. "And then we put graphs up so we can watch those aspects."

One of the eight screens is dedicated to New Jersey's Pearson Access Next, the online program teachers use to grant students access to their computerized tests, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) exams.

This is the program that faltered on Wednesday, preventing many students in grades 3-11 from taking their math and English tests, according to the state Department of Education.

The day before the error, the Pearson Access Next monitor displayed 20 different charts tracking metrics such as "heap usage percentage" and other technical terms that mean little to anyone outside of the command center.

These are considered "deep-dive metrics," said Chris Gerken, a leader of Pearson's performance monitoring team.

"In case something does go down, this is the first place we would go to figure out what's happening," Gerken said.

But Pearson's goal is to never see its programs crash, Gerken said.

That's why the performance monitoring team, a collection of Pearson employees with backgrounds in computer programming and IT, sits at long rows of desks in front of the eight monitors.

Dressed casually, the team members were quietly fixated Tuesday on their own computer screens where they can call up specific charts and data.

During the height of spring testing, Pearson is responsible for making sure that more than 1 million online tests go smoothly for students across the country, according to a company spokesman.

"If we actually had a monitor to monitor every single thing we need to keep our eyes on, we would have monitors as far as you can see," McNeil said.

Pearson has an alert system set up to notify the monitoring team if any data collected from the exams is unusual, Gerken said.

A team member will receive a notification if, for example, the servers are too busy or running out of memory, he said. Pearson can then add more servers or expand the capacity of its existing servers, Gerken said.

"We want to catch it here before there is actually an impact of the site (going) down," Gerken said.

When asked if the command center employees should be responsible if PARCC exams do crash, McNeil and other Pearson representatives laughed.

"We haven't had a lot of really big crises lately," McNeil said earlier in the tour.

Can it happen again?

Exactly what went wrong between the time the tour ended Tuesday and testing began on Wednesday morning is unclear.

Some schools reported that PARCC's operating system was running slowly on Tuesday afternoon. Pearson said an employee attempted to "optimize performance" of Pearson Access Next that evening.

However, the employee introduced an unexpected problem that limited access to the program, the company said. Even though the server that holds the test questions was running fine, teachers couldn't give students access to their exams, according to the state.

Many students had already been pulled from class and substitute teachers had been brought in to help administer the exams, schools said. Making up the testing on another day will take more time away from classroom instruction, superintendents said.

"It stinks that it takes away from the kids and it takes away from the teachers," Kenilworth schools Superintendent Thomas Tremaglini said.

Gov. Chris Christie's administration has consistently defended the PARCC exams despite complaints from some parents and teachers. But it was especially critical of Pearson this week in the aftermath of the blunder.

State Education Commissioner David Hespe called the mistake "totally unacceptable" during an appearance before state lawmakers on Wednesday.

New Jersey's four-year contract with Pearson, which could cost as much as $108 million, requires Pearson to conduct a "root cause analysis" that identifies the origins of the problem and how the company responded, Hespe said.

"The (education) department fully intends to hold Pearson accountable once the review is completed," Hespe said Thursday.

When asked if the state could seek financial damages, spokesman David Saenz repeated that New Jersey "fully intends to hold Pearson accountable."

Pearson has not made any of its staff available for interviews since the error.

In a statement Wednesday, company spokeswoman Laura Howe said Pearson used every resource at its disposal to identify the cause of problem and correct it. PARCC testing resumed in New Jersey on Thursday without any issues, according to the state.

As students continue to test next week, Pearson will be monitoring data in its command center here and watching for the warning signs of the next potential problem.

Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
When a powerful macroburst storm tore through Gloucester County last June, it left widespread damage in its wake.

More than 400,000 customers lost power across the region and many were displaced because of damage to their homes or long-term power outages.

Splintered trees fell into houses, pulling down power lines and blocking roadways as winds reached 85 mph.

What happens when disaster strikes? What do emergency responders do when electricity and phones are knocked out? How do you protect residents displaced by the devastation?

Officials from various agencies gathered Wednesday in Clayton for an emergency response tabletop exercise presented by the Gloucester County Office of Emergency Management. (Submitted photo)

To answer those questions, county officials and agencies gathered Wednesday to conduct a test of emergency response plans, using the June 23 storm as their scenario for the drill.

Called a tabletop exercise, representatives from Gloucester County Emergency Management were joined by the county health department, county EMS, county housing authority, American Red Cross and Inspira Health Network, said Dennis McNulty, county emergency management coordinator. Deptford emergency responders joined in, too, since one element of the exercise included a simulated emergency at a Deptford public housing facility.

Design of the exercise and its parameters took 2 to 3 months, McNulty said, giving much of the credit for organizing the effort to Jack DeAngelo, county deputy emergency management coordinator.

The initial exercise grew from a smaller effort into one that ended up involving about 60 participants.

County emergency management agencies are required to conduct annual tests of their response plans, as are county health departments, McNulty said.

In the case of county health, they were required to perform a real world exercise that includes setting up a medical needs shelter. The agencies decided to merge their efforts into a larger drill, which the health department establishing its shelter in the gym at Rowan College at Gloucester County.

The county housing authority has its own emergency response plan, focused on how residents will be sheltered in the event that one of its facilities is compromised in some way, so they joined the exercise.

Hospitals were invited, too, and Inspira joined to test how it would account for and shelter patients in its behavioral health unit. Gloucester County EMS was a natural fit, as was the Red Cross, since that agency provides shelter during a wide array of emergencies, from a house fire to a widespread disaster.

"We all learned a heck of a lot last June with the severe summer storm," McNulty said. "We essentially used a lot of the experience from that real event to design this exercise. Just about every one of our 24 municipalities were in need of assistance from the county or state at some point."

As agency representatives gathered at the county complex in Clayton on Wednesday, organizers presented the storm scenarios and the many individual emergencies that followed. Representatives described their responses, based on the various plans they have in place for dealing with emergencies.

"We challenged them," McNulty said.

They discussed topics such as how to communicate when phone service is down, how to coordinate with responding police, EMTs and firefighters, and ensuring adequate fuel is available to power backup generators.

One advantage over last June is that the county recently launched its new 700 MHz emergency communication system.

"That's a reliable and redundant system," McNulty said, that should provide better post-storm performance when cell and landline phone service is lost.

While Atlantic City Electric wasn't part of this exercise, McNulty said the utility has also learned from last June's event.

"They have certainly improved their operations," he said. "They are a good and strong partner. We've all learned and improved from last summer's storm."

ACE and PSEG were criticized for their response to power outages.

Following the Wednesday exercise, participants shared feedback.

As for takeaways from the event, McNulty said the housing authority will now seek technology to help it account for residents in the event of an emergency and collaborate with county transit to work out a plan for relocating residents.

They will also utilize the state's Register Ready program, a free service in which residents can sign up and identify any special health challenges they may have that could prevent them from getting to safety in an emergency.

A final report on the exercise, including lessons learned and recommendations, will come in a few weeks, McNulty said.

"The real value of an exercise is lessons learned and changes made following an exercise so you improve your capabilities," he said. "We're very pleased with participation and support from leadership of the organizations."

Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattGraySJT. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook.
JERSEY CITY -- Monday is the deadline for public comment on a proposed plan that would allow a New York-based company to install mooring for commercial barges in the Hudson River near Liberty State Park.

The New York State Marine Highway Transportation Company submitted an application with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to place four buoys in New York waterways, one of them being roughly 200 feet from Ellis Island.

According to a public notice, the mooring buoy would dock up to five barges at a time and measure 195 feet by 35 feet.

Critics said the plan would create an eyesore for tourists and would ultimately "harm the spirit of the park."

It remains unclear at this time what the barges would carry. A spokesman for the USACE said since the plan is still in the planning phase, and little information was available on the application.

Company officials did not return a request for comment, but their website indicates they provide general towing services and transport oversized and overweight cargo.

Officials -- including Mayor Steve Fulop -- have expressed their disapproval for the project. Greg Remaud, deputy director of the New York/New Jersey Baykeeper, said he hopes the plan is a "bureaucratic oversight" and that their are better locations to dock the barges nearby.

Friends of Liberty State Park and the Sierra Club have also showed their disapproval for the plan.

Anyone who wishes to express their concerns with the plan must send an email to the USACE at cenan.publicnotice@usace.army.mil by tomorrow. The subject line must include public notice number NAN-2016-00174-EPI.
alonso2.jpg

Michael Alonso is seen filing paperwork in June to run for a Bayonne school board seat. The former candidate for state Assembly and freeholder is part of a group that is attempting to recall Bayonne Mayor Jimmy Davis.

(Journal File Photo)

BAYONNE -- After hitting a minor problem with the filing of their recall petition, three men aiming to oust Bayonne Mayor Jimmy Davis from office are moving forward with collecting signatures for their cause.

City Clerk Robert Sloan said he approved the petition on Wednesday after the group updated it to specify that they are seeking a special election.

Michael Alonso, Donald Baran Jr. and Patrick Desmond first filed a notification of intention to recall the mayor on April 4. Davis, who defeated incumbent Mayor Mark Smith in the 2014 election, reacted at the time by calling the filing "comical."

Attorney and city resident Peter Cresci represented Desmond at a tax board hearing earlier this month in arguing for a citywide revaluation, which the board subsequently ordered the city to do. Davis called the request "purely political, plain and simple," which Cresci denied.

The recall group must obtain 8,178 signatures -- which is 25 percent of the registered voters in the last general election -- by Sept. 27 to move on to the next step of the recall process, the city clerk said.

If the group is successful with the process, a new election would be held. The recall petition states that the estimated cost of a special election is $200,000.

Unedited statements from both the recall group and the mayor that are included on the petition read as follows:

Statement from the Recall Committee:

"Recall of James M. Davis is initiated due to the Mayor's abject failure in meeting the needs of the City of Bayonne Citizens and Taxpayers. No Transparency-sued for OPRA violations. Taxes and water increased 2 years in a row; In violation of Ord. #20-16 which requires all civil employees to reside in Bayonne, Mayor Davis turned our town over to Demarco (Bernardsville), Wondowloski (Jersey City), Casais (Roselle Park) and Coffey (Oceanport). Davis brought back the garbage train. Made backroom deals to place a mosque in a residential neighborhood in violation of zoning laws. Davis called us citizens racists. Davis gives tax rebates to Developers yet raised our taxes, waives required fees for PSE&G, yet taxpayers are paying through the nose for taxes and water. No Teachers Contract as promised. Davis ran on an independent school board, then endorses candidates, and sneaks Barry Kushnir in through backroom deals. Rid of Rent Control. Davis has not cleaned up City Hall or the Board of Education; conducted no fiscal audits. Davis failed to alleviate the Bridge conditions and the Turnpike Exchange conditions. Davis allowed North Hudson to take over Health and Animal contracts. Change is now. We cannot afford 2 1/2 more years."

Statement from Bayonne Mayor Jimmy Davis:

"The initiation of recall procedure serve the political interests of the very few who would rather see Bayonne move backwards. The accusations of this group are baseless, and wholly inaccurate. Naming a few: The "garbage train" will never come back; I won't allow it. "Backroom deals" are things of the past that play no part in this new era of good government. A retroactive teachers' contract was secured during just the second month of my term, ending years of tension and bad feelings. We've committed to improving parks, roads, and the overall image of Bayonne. We've committed to restoring a sense of community and pride. And, we've opened the doors to development so that the world can see the value our City has. All of this is being done in the name of leaving a better Bayonne for future generations. I'm proud of what we've accomplished, and I'm confident that, together, we will continue to move the City we love in the right direction."

Jonathan Lin may be reached at jlin@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @jlin_jj. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
Senior living in New Jersey is bright with possibilities at Lantern Hill, a new, distinctive Erickson Living continuing care retirement community that will open in Union County this summer. The name Lantern Hill pays homage to New Jersey's railroading past. Before the days of electricity, a lantern illuminated each station along a passenger's journey. The light served as a beacon in the night, welcoming weary travelers with the promise of home, or the prospect of adventure. Today, Lantern Hill continues to light the lantern as a nod to the past and a symbol of a future filled with freedom and opportunity.

Lantern Hill is situated on a scenic 20-acre campus in New Providence. The independent living community provides a vibrant lifestyle to seniors with abundant amenities and a broad spectrum of activities and services, complemented with integrated health care and wellness.

The large, central building, called Union Square, offers numerous services and conveniences -- and it's a short indoor stroll from every Lantern Hill apartment home. In Union Square, where 83 apartment homes will be located, all Lantern Hill residents can enjoy a delicious, chef-prepared meal in one of three on-site, community restaurants; swim laps in the all-season pool; or relax and pursue a lifelong interest in the art studio or library.

Lantern Hill's on-site medical center will be operated by Summit Medical Group, the largest and oldest physician-owned, multidisciplinary medical practice in New Jersey. Residents can take advantage of prompt appointments in a location that's just steps from home.

Residents will move into the 161 independent living apartments that will open in Phase 1 in 2016, followed by the opening of 85 continuing care residences. Within the first few years, the community will add 114 more independent living apartment homes, for a total of 275. Some of the other amenities include a fitness center, transportation, 24-hour concierge services, secure underground parking and a theater.

Lantern Hill is looking for outstanding employees to join its team and will host a job fair on April 28 from noon to 6 p.m. The event will be held at the Lantern Hill Sales Office, located at 603 Mountain Ave. in New Providence.

"We are looking for enthusiastic and caring individuals to joining our dynamic team," said Patricia Swan, executive director. "Our employees experience an exceptional, team-based work environment in a community where residents experience retirement the way it is meant to be -- invigorating and fulfilling."

Jobs are available in facilities, housekeeping, hospitality, security, transportation and dining services. All open positions may be viewed at jobs.ericksonliving.com.

Candidates should apply online prior to the job fair and RSVP to schedule a time by emailing keril.garbaria@erickson.com.

Lantern Hill employees will experience an excellent work environment, competitive pay and comprehensive benefits. Erickson Living strives to be the most valued and trusted leader in senior housing and services through operational excellence, integrated senior health and wellness, and a commitment to the Erickson Way culture and values. Many Erickson campuses have been chosen the "Best Place to Work" in their communities.

Based in Baltimore, Md., Erickson Living is a leading developer and manager of continuing care retirement communities. Further information regarding Erickson Living is available at ericksonliving.com.

For more information on Lantern Hill, including building renderings and apartment floor plans, visit lanternhillcommunity.com.
In Trenton, Senate Democrats now propose to continue bankrupting the state by cutting taxes when we can't remotely afford it, while offering no means to cover the cost.

It's precisely this sloppy style of politics that dug us into this hole in the first place. They are like teens at a mall, gone wild with daddy's credit card.

And on this, of all things, there is bipartisan agreement.

Gov. Chris Christie is leading the cheering section, urging the biggest tax cut of all, the repeal of the estate tax. Has he not done enough damage to this state with his neglect, or his broken promises to fix the pension system?

New Jersey's credit rating has dropped a record nine times on his watch, and is now the nation's second lowest, behind only Illinois. Is he going for the gold with this move?

Please, governor, go campaign with your buddy Donald Trump. I'm starting to regret that I urged Christie to come back.

This all started with a rational discussion about the need to raise the gas tax. Polls show that most people hate that idea, which is understandable. We are a highly taxed state, and this one hits people of modest means hard.

But there is no realistic alternative. The fund that covers transportation costs, both highway and mass transit, is almost empty. It will run dry by this summer, with no more wiggle room. The bulldozers might have to stop, with projects half finished.

That would deal a body blow to the state's economy, and shake the confidence of every rational investor. That's why even the head of the Chamber of Commerce agrees that a tax increase of some kind is needed.

Instead of showing leadership by speaking to these sober truths, our leaders in both parties have larded up the gas tax increase with a menu of big tax cuts, as if to add sugar to a bitter medicine. The plan, from Sen. Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen), the budget chairman, calls for phasing out the estate tax, cutting the income tax on retirees, and adding a deduction for charitable donations.

Those are all reasonable ideas, if we had the money. But we don't.

Remember, Democrats are also pushing a Constitutional amendment that would force the state to vastly increase its payments into the pension fund. They have no credible plan to cover those costs, and now they propose layering these tax cuts on top.

Republicans are just as bad. Christie is hiding under his desk, proposing no solution at all to the transit crisis, seven years after he first promised to do so. He's playing a game. He wants Democrats to go first on the gas tax, hoping they'll get the blame. It's cheap politics, not leadership.

Republican legislators, meanwhile, are pushing hardest to eliminate the estate tax. Christie calls this "tax fairness," presumably in honor of George Orwell.

What exactly is "fair" about balancing a gas tax that hits the middle class with a cut in the estate tax that benefits only the wealthiest 4 percent of New Jersey households? Even more mystifying is why a Democrat like Sarlo has embraced the term.

Senate President Steve Sweeney supports Sarlo's plan, which seems greased to pass in the Senate. So the best hope lies with Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto (D-Hudson). Let's hope he throws a wrench into this plan, and forces Sweeney and Christie to start from scratch.

More: Tom Moran columns

Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com or call (973) 836-4909. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.
Steve Gleason introduces Pearl Jam during the second day of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell at the Fair Grounds on Saturday, April 23, 2016.
Remember peak oil? This well-promoted theory was gaining peak notoriety right around the same time it was announced that, when washed through a whole list of equalizing adjustments, the Chinese economy had actually usurped the U.S. to become the worlds largest. In hindsight, neither prognostication appears to have been accurate. Imagine that.

Id bet a pretty penny it was the same crowd promoting the concept that a highly manipulated, centrally-planned economy, aka China, could continue growing at eight percent-plus while our free market economy was stuck in second gear, who were also saying they could somehow discern the amount of oil trapped within the planet and more importantly gauge our ability to reach it. Once again, the anti-free market, anti-fossil fuel development crowd seems to have a problem with their calculations.

As it turned out, the world is awash in oil. Technology and engineering just had to figure out how to reach it. Because figuring things out is what free market economies do, hydraulic fracturing was developed and suddenly the U.S. is producing oil and gas on par with Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Hydraulic fracturing remains an American and Canadian extraction technique, but its not hard to imagine how world reserves could be expanded as this technology is adapted in other oil-producing regions. It now appears the world will move beyond oil before it runs out of it.

So what is the future of oil? For decades the supply of this vital commodity was manipulated by those countries, namely OPEC, with the easiest to reach reserves. As national economic concerns usurped price collusion in these nations however, the cooperation level diminished until today OPEC is barely relevant.

In an attempt to once again use price collusion to limit oil supply and lift oil prices these OPEC nations attempted last week to come to an agreement to reduce production. The discussions took place in Doha, the capital city of Qatar. This time it was the Iranians who played the part of spoiler. After being frozen out of the international oil market for decades by sanctions, the Iranians were in no mood to turn down the spigot. The word is they kind of need the money.

As extraction technology continues to improve and without the collusion of OPEC, its hard to predict where oil prices may go next, but its even harder to see how they could go materially higher.

Ive used this analogy before, but looking at a chart of natural gas prices could give us some indication. Natural gas prices peaked around 2005 at over $15 per million BTU. Now ten years after the wider adoption of hydraulic fracturing in gas production, prices today remain stuck around the $4 range.

The same pricing ratios when applied to crude oil indicate a high point around $145 a barrel, and imply an eventual price level around $38, hmm.

As a transportation fuel, oil will continue to be important for decades, but as a wealth creator we may have indeed already seen peak oil. My opinion is that well run oil companies can continue to provide solid investment returns, but the highest priced days of oil itself may be behind us. Maybe Ill get a bigger RV.
Northwest Indiana once was home to 51 independent community banks, but its becoming harder than ever to get a loan from a bank where you might see the owner or CEO at the Little League game or in church.

Horizon Bank is now buying LaPorte Savings Bank, and First Savings Bank of Hegewisch is acquiring Hammond-based Lake Federal Bank.

After the regulatory hurdles are cleared and those acquisitions go through, there will only be five community banks left with headquarters in Lake, Porter or LaPorte counties  American Community Bank, Centier Bank, First State Bank of Porter, Horizon Bank, and Peoples Bank.

The remaining community banks are in a great position to grow, offer more loans and return more value to their shareholders, said Ben Bochnowski, chief operating officer of Munster-based Peoples Bank who will be named CEO next week.

But he personally fears it could have adverse long-term effects for the community since every bank sale takes capital out of the system. That could mean less capital will be available to small businesses, especially when they're looking for commercial loans to grow and add new jobs.

"Community banks are the ones that partner with local businesses," Bochnowski said. "Everyone needs a loan at some point. If that's not happening, that affects the people working at the lumber yard and the contractors framing houses. The real world impact is houses aren't getting sold, and Realtors aren't making as much."

Community banks around the country have been consolidating because of a number of factors, including lack of access to capital, the need for more investment in technology, dwindling interest income, and growing regulatory pressure. Longtime family owners of banks are opting to sell because it might be too hard to keep up with regulatory requirements, because they're too fatigued to keep going or because no successor is in line.

Nationally, the number of banks has shrunken from 15,000 in the late 1990s to just over 6,000 today, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Just in Northwest Indiana over the last few years, Liberty Savings Bank in Whiting, Hammond's First Federal Savings and Loan Association, and Citizens Financial Bank have vanished through mergers and acquisitions. Citizens Financial had been the fourth biggest bank in Lake County history before it was acquired for $114.7 million in 2013.

Indiana once had more than 550 banks and thrifts, but now it's down to 115 bank charters, said Rod Lasley, Vice President of Products and Services for the Indiana Bankers Association.

"Northwest Indiana's no anomaly," he said. "Every section of the state has seen the same trend."

Smaller banks have struggled with regulations, especially after the Dodd-Frank rules that were imposed after the financial crisis that triggered the Great Repression, Lasley said. Independent community banks just don't have the staff or software to keep up with all the additional paperwork, such as all the consumer disclosure forms that are now required for mortgages, which have long been the bread-and-butter of community banks.

Another pressing issue has been succession, Lasley said.

"A large amount of CEOs are near retirement," he said. "But there aren't younger leaders in management ready to step in because there's been a stigma about banking for the last several years that has lead people to pursue other careers."

Community banks in Indiana are typically getting bought out by larger Indiana-based community banks with as much as $2 billion in assets, and not gobbled up by large mega banks that aren't as familiar with the local communities, Lasley said. The Indiana Bankers Association and American Banking Association have been lobbying lawmakers for some legislative relief to stem the tide of consolidation.

"In the short term, we expect to see more consolidation," he said. "But at some point legislators will see we can't keep doing this or it will stifle the economy. Loan options will get pretty thin. But it's a matter of reaching that tipping point."

Over the last few years, about 350 community banks  almost one per day  are disappearing annually in our nation through mergers and acquisitions, said Mike Schrage, president, CEO and chairman of Merrillville-based Centier, which has long advertised that it's "not for sale."

"At the pace of consolidation, over the next five years we'll be down to 4,500 banks or so nationally," in said. "Locally, Northwest Indiana will continue consolidation in my opinion."

Schrage said he believed it will be difficult for banks with fewer than $250 million in assets to remain for a number of reasons, such as being able to meet more strenuous government regulations and being able to attract and retain talent. Millennials aren't as interested in working for smaller community banks where there are fewer opportunities for advancement.

"They want something more dynamic," Schrage said. "They're not as satisfied as they were in the past to be at a community bank in their hometown."

Community banks are going to continue to get large in size and may increase to an average of $500 million in assets over the next five years and maybe as much as $1 billion in assets in the long term, Schrage said. Tighter interest margins have made it imperative to be bigger and more efficient, so community banks now have to actively pursue growth.

Centier Bank surpassed $3 billion in assets last year.

Another reason for the decline in community banking is that fewer people are launching new banks because it's more difficult to deliver returns to investors as a start-up, Bochnowski said. Bankers used to launch new banks after selling their old ones as recently as the 1990s, but only two new bank charters have been issued nationally since 2008.

"You have to have the scale, the capital and management that's committed to it," he said. "Banking is in many ways more complex and challenging."

Community banks remain invaluable because they know the ins and out of the local economies, and are better positioned to evaluate whether local business ventures are worth lending to, Bochnowski said. Local entrepreneurs won't be able to invest as much or create as much jobs without having as many community banks to turn to.

"The American economy became what it is today, because we had a stronger, faster and more robust banking system," he said. "There was capital everywhere."
Linda Steinhilber, RN, has been named director of the medical surgical departments at Porter Regional Hospital. A native of Northwest Indiana, she comes to Porter with more than 18 years in nursing leadership in Northwest Indiana and Texas.

The Purdue University Board of Trustees approved the promotion of six Purdue University Northwest faculty members to the position of associate professor effective in August. Promoted were Meden Isaac-Lam, associate professor of Chemistry; Assen Kokalov, associate professor of Spanish; Jessica Thomas, associate professor of Chemistry; Constantin Apostoaia, associate professor of Electrical Engineering; Brenda Turgeon, associate professor of Elementary Science; Su Jeong Wee, associate professor of Human Development & Family Studies/Early Childhood.

Re/Max broker-owner Roger Pace and the Matt Evans team received the Platinum Club Award for $250,000 to $500,000 in closed sales at the annual Indiana Re/Max Awards Ceremony held March 23 at Memorial Opera House in Valparaiso. Re/Max Pace Realty has offices in Crown Point and Valparaiso which encompass six counties in the Northwest Indiana/Chicago area.

Dijana Bojadziska won an award for Best Overall Performance for meeting 100 percent of her yearly goals to recruit, assess and enroll students at Job Corps centers. She is a senior admissions counselor for American Business Corporation at its Merrillville Job Corps office.

Melissa Oduwole, a career transition specialist, won a first place award for weekly earnings attained by students she had placed in jobs. She works for American Business Corporation at its Merrillville Job Corps office.
MERRILLVILLE  Two people have been charged in connection with the slaying of Diamond Lewis, the young Merrillville mother whose burned body was found Thursday in the basement of an abandoned Gary home, police said.

Kareem Jahbbar Williams, 22, of Gary, the father of Lewis' 2-month-old daughter, was charged with murder and fraud.

Williams girlfriend, Alexis Alexander, 24, also of Gary, was charged with fraud, Merrillville police Cmdr. Jeff Rice said. Other charges may be forthcoming, he said.

Williams is accused of killing Lewis by strangulation. He and Alexander later dumped her body in the abandoned home in the 1400 block of West 18th Avenue in Gary, according to Lake Criminal Court records.

Williams later returned to the abandoned home and used lighter fluid to burn Lewis' body, police said.

Williams and Alexander sold Lewis' 1999 Buick Century, which had been missing, to an auto dealer and using Lewis' FSSA-issued card to go shopping on April 15, 16 and 17, according to a probable cause affidavit.

Williams allegedly told Alexander he got into an argument with Lewis over the paternity of 2-month-old Morgan Williams, the affidavit said.

Cornelius Lewis, Diamond's father, reported his daughter and the baby missing April 16 after last speaking with her April 12. The two usually spoke every day or two, police said.

On Tuesday, the baby's paternal grandmother provided police with the possible whereabouts of the baby and later that day brought the 2-month-old uninjured to the Merrillville Police Department. She told police the child had been with her father in Gary, the affidavit says.

The baby was placed with Child Protective Services, police said.

During the investigation, Merrillville police interviewed both Williams and Alexander, who told police they last saw Lewis on April 12.

But detectives learned the couple sold Lewis' vehicle to the manager of Auto Surgeon in Gary, the affidavit said. The manager positively identified Williams from a six-person photo array.

Detectives also reviewed security video from Gary businesses where Williams and Alexander used Lewis' FSSA card April 15, 16 and 17, the affidavit said.

Alexander and another woman went to the Gary police on Thursday with information on Lewis' whereabouts.

Alexander told investigators Williams arrived at their home in Diamond Lewis car and she went out to confront him, the affidavit said. When Alexander got in the car, she saw Lewis laying lifeless in the backseat.

Williams allegedly told Alexander he and Lewis fought over paternity of the baby, he strangled her to death and then asked another girlfriend to help him put Lewis body in the car, the affidavit said.

Alexander helped Williams dump Lewis body in the abandoned house near 18th Avenue and Lincoln Street, according to court records. Alexander told investigators Williams later asked her for lighter fluid, left for a few hours and admitted upon his return that he had tried to burn Lewis body, the affidavit said.

Police are still trying to determine when and where Lewis actually was killed, Rice said.

Williams and Alexander remained in custody Sunday, he said.
Michigan City police are investigating a homicide after the co-owner of property in the 100 block of West 11th Street was found dead at 11 a.m. Saturday, police said.

The death of Hufracio Artega, 65, was determined to be a homicide, police said.

Officers have been speaking with witnesses and people of interest for several hours. No one is in custody.

Police ask anyone who may know something about the incident to call Detective Sgt. Ken Drake at (219) 874-3221, ext. 331 or email him at krdrake@emichigancity.com.
LANSING  Sunnybrook Elementary District 171 honors Excellence Award winners once a month from each grade level.

Students are chosen at Heritage Middle School and Nathan Hale Elementary School for their behavior, academics, attendance and ability to be a role model for their peers.

Students at Heritage are awarded an HEA certificate, a red Heritage Excellence T-shirt, which they are encouraged to wear on any school day, and a Jimmy Johns gift card. The award ceremony is uploaded on the Sunnybrook YouTube website.

Students at Nathan Hale are rewarded with a T-shirt, Jimmy Johns gift card and certificate for their accomplishment.

Pictured from left are Nathan Hale students Dorian Compton Jr., kindergarten; Harmony Evans, first grade; Arianna Pryor, second grade; Sebastian Gutierrez, third grade and Kenia Wyett, fourth grade.
CALUMET CITY  A group of 15 senior Thornton Fractional North High School students spent their Saturday helping the needy on April 9.

The senior board and student council members and four North faculty helped Habitat for Humanity build a home in the Pullman neighborhood of Chicago, about 15 minutes from the high school. They framed walls, built fences, read blueprints and helped in other construction functions, social studies teacher and student council co-sponsor Aaron Altenburg said.

They used nail guns, power saws and other tools.

I will most definitely do Habitat for Humanity again, Destiney Gonnigan said. I dont think enough young people (volunteer) because they think maybe it wont be fun. I think if they saw how much fun it actually was to do, they would want to try it out for themselves.

The day was a senior project that began with last years student council and grew to include the senior board this year, Altenburg said.

Each year, the group of seniors have brainstormed ideas at the beginning of the year, planned out their service project and completed their day of service near the end of the school year, in the middle of the hustle and bustle of their final few weeks of high school, Altenburg said. Each student gained not only a respect for the hard work put into building houses, but also a sense of pride and accomplishment for their part in the creation of a home.

Luz Gomez said she spent the day framing with Tiana Bogard, cutting wood to create a closet in a bedroom.

I learned to appreciate what I have by volunteering, Gomez said. I was really tired after helping and realized that it takes a lot to build one home. I am really grateful for what I have.

The students also raised $1,000 for Habitat for Humanity selling snacks during passing periods at school, Altenburg said. Student council co-sponsor Chris Russo, librarian Diana Miller-Desoto and senior board sponsor Michael Furmanek were also part of the project.
INDIANAPOLIS  For the second time in the three most recent presidential primary elections, Indiana voters could have a decisive say in which candidates win their party's nomination.

On May 3, Hoosier Republicans will choose whether to help front-runner Donald Trump get closer to a first-ballot nomination at the Republican National Convention.

Or, they can try to stop Trump by supporting U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, or any of the six other GOP candidates who quit the race long ago but whose names still will appear on the ballot.

The WTHR/HPI Indiana Poll released last week shows 37 percent plan to vote for Trump, 31 percent for Cruz and 22 percent for Kasich.

Indiana Democrats going to the polls next Tuesday can put the race almost entirely out-of-reach for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, making former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the presumptive nominee.

That would be a reversal of 2008 when Clinton narrowly won Indiana's Democratic primary, but Barack Obama added enough Hoosier delegates to his lead to effectively deny Clinton a realistic path to the nomination.

The poll shows Clinton with a 48 to 45 percent lead over Sanders, but that's within the 4 percent margin of error for the April 18-21 survey of 500 likely Hoosier voters.

This year's presidential candidates, especially on the Republican side, already are airing television ads, have visited Indiana or will be here this week following primaries Tuesday in five northeastern states.

Between Tuesday and May 3 there are no other elections, making Indiana the center of the nation's political universe for at least seven days.

"That hasn't happened too often in my lifetime, and frankly I think it's going to be great for Hoosiers and it's going to be even better for these candidates because Hoosiers are people with strong hearts and strong opinions," said Republican Gov. Mike Pence.

"I expect it's going to make every one of these candidates better for having to come to compete in Indiana for votes."

Prior to the 2008 Democratic contest, Indiana last mattered in a presidential primary in 1976 when former California Gov. Ronald Reagan won a narrow victory in the Republican primary over President Gerald Ford.

Reagan carried his Indiana momentum to the GOP convention where he nearly managed to wrest the nomination from the incumbent president for the first time since 1884, and what would have been the sixth time in U.S. history.

Nevertheless, some Hoosiers believe Indiana could have a more regular impact on the presidential nominating process if the state's primary were held earlier in the year when more candidates still are in contention.

Often both parties' presumptive nominees are decided well before Hoosiers vote on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in May.

While Democratic and Republican party rules privilege Iowa and New Hampshire as the first caucus and primary states, nothing prevents Indiana from selecting its preferred presidential candidates shortly after those states vote.

House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, is among those who think "it would be wonderful" to move Indiana's primary up.

"The problem is if you move all primaries up, then you've got every office  Congress, legislative offices, statewide offices  all with a very early primary, and then there's eight months until the the general election," Bosma said.

In addition, the General Assembly meets until mid-March in even-numbered years. So if Indiana has its primary the same day as Illinois, March 15 this year, Hoosier lawmakers would have to do their jobs while simultaneously running to keep their jobs.

Bosma said one option is to leave Indiana's primary election in May, but have the state's political parties run early presidential-only caucuses.

Under that system, citizens gather at local meetings to select their presidential picks, and ultimately the delegates to each party's national convention, without forcing counties to shoulder the costs of a full-blown election.

Bosma hinted the Legislature may look next year at creating a presidential caucus, or at least sometime before the 2020 campaigns begin.

It's a familiar idea.

In 2009, former state Sen. Sue Landske, R-Cedar Lake, who died last year, proposed a two-year study of how best to ensure "every Indiana citizen (has) the same opportunity as citizens of other states when nominating presidential candidates."

The 12-member committee set to be created by her Senate Concurrent Resolution 28 would have reviewed presidential primary practices in every state, including their cost, as well as evaluated the possibility of Indiana holding its primary the same day as other Midwest states to create a Super Tuesday-like regional election.

Landske's plan was approved by the Republican-controlled Senate, but did not advance in the Democratic-controlled House.
Well, I was rummaging through some of my old columns and found that I have written before about spring.
The schools graduates with distinction, which includes BNI seniors with a 4.0 GPA or greater, were invited to attend the dinner along with their parents and a teacher of their choice who most inspired them in their school career. Some seniors chose Bishop Noll faculty while others chose elementary school teachers.
MUNSTER  Cancer Resource Centre, 926 Ridge Road, offers free education programs and support groups for those with a cancer diagnosis and their caregivers.

For more information or to register, call (219) 836-3349.

To join a support group, call or visit www.cancerresourcecentre.com.

Yoga, 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Monday. Breathe and stretch your body and mind. Yoga classes are therapeutic as well as restorative. A prescription from your physician is required prior to attending.

Healthy Cooking, 12:30 to 2 p.m. Monday. Focuses on recipes for patients with sore mouth, taste alterations and unintentional weight loss. Seating is limited. Please note: we will be serving items that contain peanuts.

Empowerment Drumming, 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Monday. Empowerment drumming is enjoyable, physically, mentally and emotionally rewarding. It reduces stress, increases energy and over-all well-being. No previous music experience required. A prescription from your physician is required prior to attending.

Wellness Support Group, 6 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. This group provides an opportunity to share feelings, receive support and learn ways to cope with the experience of having cancer.

Yoga/stress management, 6 to 7 p.m. Wednesday. Breathe and stretch your body and mind. Yoga classes are therapeutic as well as restorative. A prescription from your physician is required prior to attending.

Reflexology, 3 to 5 p.m. Wednesday Reflexology is the practice of treating the whole body by touching the feet and sometimes the palms. A prescription from your physician is required prior to attending.

Chi Gong, 9:30 to 10:30 p.m. Thursday. Learn this ancient healing art of breath, movement, non-movement and meditation. You will be lead through a one hour session of warm ups, positions and focused movements. A prescription from your physician is required prior to attending.

Chair Yoga, 2 to 3 p.m. Thursday. Designed for those who have difficulty with the regular yoga environment. You may sit or use a chair for balance. Chair Yoga works to calm the nervous system; strengthens and quiets the mind and body. A prescription from your physician is required prior to attending.

Ukulele, 3:15 to 4:30 p.m. Thursday. Learn to play the ukulele from one of the Regions best! Rima Krutulis will instruct the class. Please call the Centre if you are a beginner. A prescription from your physician is required prior to attending.

Knit One  Nurture Too, 1 to 2:30 p.m. Thursday. Knitting and crocheting squares, scarves or blankets. Any skill level welcome. Supplies are provided or bring your own. A prescription from your physician is required prior to attending.

Tai Chi, 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Friday. The art of Tai Chi is considered meditation in motion. Classes emphasize balance, posture, breathing techniques, concentration and complete relaxation. A prescription from your physician is required prior to attending.
Businessman makes donation

CEDAR LAKE  Cedar Lake businessman Tom Krygsheld, owner of Illiana Heating and Air Condidtioning, donated $5,000 to the Project Love Food Pantry as they launched a campaign to build a new facility.

Krygsheld said he had heard about the pantry that was operating out of a small cottage behind the Cedar Lake United Methodist Church and how many people they served each week.

There were things I wanted to look into, he said. How many people took advantage of the pantry, how were the products distributed and was there a need for a new building.

This new building will be a better facility, fit all their needs, make it easier to store food safely, he said.

CLUMC Pastor Ken Puent said the pantry currently serves the entire southern portion of Lake County including Crown Point, Winfield, Leroy, Cedar Lake, Lowell, Shelby Schneider and their townships. He said the pantry provides food, paper goods, personal care items and cleaning supplies. Current estimates, according to Puent, suggest that there are 5,000 people in this area working below the poverty level, so the need for a food pantry exists.

To make a donation or for more information,email: cedar-lakeumc@yahoo.com or visit: www.projectlovefoodpantry.

Schererville student wins Indiana Collegiate Press Association award

Indiana State University students from the Indiana Statesman and The Sycamore yearbook won 14 awards in the 2016 Indiana Collegiate Press Association competition.

The Sycamore staff won a first place award for Best Special Section for the organizational life section. Design Editor Nicole Jones of Schererville, won a third place award for Best Execution of Theme.
VALPARAISO  The Jewish community came together Saturday at Temple Israel to share in a Seder meal  the ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover.

The ceremony recounts the deliverance of the Jewish people from Egypt. It is the same story Jewish people have told for more than 3,000 years. The story of Passover illustrates their passion for freedom.

"It's upon us to celebrate Passover according to the biblical law every year, and to remember we were slaves and God took us out of Egypt and freed us and redeemed us," Rabbi Shoshana Feferman said.

The Seder is the first night or first two nights of Passover, which began Friday. Feferman said the first Seder on Friday was reserved for families and the second one, like at Temple Israel, is for the community.

"Part of having a Seder is also to invite people to our Seder plate and to eat and behave like free people," she said.

During the meal and the story of the Exodus from Egypt, four cups of wine are consumed at various stages. The Seder plate consists of three matzot, which reminds the Jewish people that there are three kinds of people; those who are not yet free, those who don't care about the freedom of others and those who are free and help others become free.

The plate includes maror  bitter herbs, such as horseradish root, that remind Jewish people of the bitterness of slavery in Egypt. There is also beitsa  a roasted egg that symbolizes both the festival sacrifice and the hope for a fresh start in life.

A special cup of wine is set aside for the prophet Elijah, who will visit the Jewish people during the Seder. The rabbis of long ago taught that Elijah will come and announce a time when there will be peace in the world.
VALPARAISO  United Way of Porter County will be hosting public conversations about community needs throughout Porter County.

In 2015, United Way of Porter County conducted 55 community conversations in Porter County. Nearly 300 Porter County residents attended resulting in seven priority areas being identified  youth and education, transportation, housing, drug-free community, diverse and inclusive community, livable wages and highly engaged community.

This round of conversations is designed to go deeper on the topics discovered last year, said Kim Olesker, president and CEO of United Way of Porter County. We want to know why these topics rose to the top and what we can do to help elevate the communitys concerns.

A series of five community conversations will be held over the next four months. The first is to be held Thursday at the United Way of Porter County office building. Subsequent conversations will be held in the communities of Portage, Chesterton and Hebron.

Scott Weber, transportation planner/analyst, Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission, participated in last years conversations and said the opportunity to discuss the important issues in Porter County with community leaders broadened his perspective of what challenges affect day-to-day life.

Conversing with leaders from different backgrounds made me realize that the issues Porter County faces affect us all in some way, he said. Even though I do not have to regularly confront issues like substance abuse, domestic violence and crime, talking about these issues showed me that I still have a civic duty to be part of the conversation and prepare to act.

JoElla DePra, 1st Source Bank trust officer, participated last year as well and said many people have opinions in conversation among friends and family, but these public conversations provide a chance to be heard and be part of a community solution.

I wish more people would join in the conversation, she said. Its a great way to feel part of the development of your community and its voice.

United Way of Porter County volunteer coordinator Rebecca Tucker, the 2015 conversation coordinator and lead moderator, said it was inspirational seeing how many people were willing to share their hopes, aspirations and concerns.

Getting to be out in the community listening to their struggles and aspirations allowed me to gain a better understanding of how the community ticks, she said. It is amazing to see how much willingness to be a part of the change there is in Porter County. Thats why we are so excited to continue to conversation this year.

The results of the conversations will be part of United Ways community assessment process to align organization goals with community needs.

Residents are invited to participate. The conversation will begin at 6:30 p.m. at United Way of Porter County, 951 Eastport Centre Drive. Seating is limited. Reservations are required. For more information and to register to attend, visit unitedwaypc.org. Organizations and communities interested in hosting a community conversation can submit a request by email to info@unitedwaypc.org.
VALPARAISO  The city's five-year master plan for the Parks Department has begun, and what comes out of it could be the next ValPLAYso or Urschel Pavilion.

Parks Director John Seibert said the city has signed a contract with Pros Consulting, of Indianapolis, which oversaw the city's last master plan in 2010. Pros Consulting has partnered with SEH of Indiana, which has an office in Munster. The master plan also includes an update of the city's pathways.

The public engagement process for the plan is underway. On June 1, a public forum will be held at Central Park Plaza's William E. Urschel Pavilion.

"It's an opportunity for people to respond to questions about how we're doing and what they'd like to see," Seibert said.

Outcomes from the 2010 master plan not only included ValPLAYso: The Next Generation and the Central Park Plaza expansion, but additional miles of pathways and new playgrounds.

"There's been some major accomplishments there," Seibert said. "We achieved a lot we said we were going to from 2010 to 2015. Part of this will be a review of what we were able to do and not able to do."

Focus groups are already underway. They involve city and school officials and students, user groups like the YMCA and the Boys and Girls Club, and college students from Valparaiso University.

In May, residents will have access to an electronic survey on the Parks Department website. Also in May, some residents can respond to a written survey that is being sent out randomly.

"We hope to get a 10 to 20 percent response from those," Seibert said.

Part of the process will be how to fund and implement the plan. Once all the data is taken into account, the project team will put together drafts on what the Parks Department should prioritize.

In the fall, the first drafts will be presented during another public engagement process. The drafts will then be refined and go before the Parks Board and City Council for approval.

"We feel confident it will be a highly engaged process," Seibert said.
After attending my first Donald Trump show, Ive concluded this dystopian political race has devolved into a hybrid of the movies Mad Max and Network.

On Wednesday, fearful and angry Hoosier voters who are mad as hell and arent going to take it any more were treated to a stream of consciousness from the Manhattan billionaire. The cable news networks churned out a 24/7 stew of talking heads, soothsayers, polling data sets, Twitter screen captures, B-roll and prophets.

All this comes prior to an Indiana presidential primary that could determine who is nominated.

Trump was fascinating because his campaign has been a strange amalgamation of incendiary rhetoric from his spectacular brain with scant white paper and policy experts to back anything up. His Tweets continually pop through the ether. He didnt build a campaign to navigate the intricacies of actually winning enough delegates to prevail in Cleveland this July, and during the past month, Sen. Ted Cruz has exploited the vacuum.

Trump has turned these shortcomings into populist rants.

He has reliable lines that churn the masses into frenzy. His most stirring battle cry is, Were going to build that wall, believe me that wall is going to be built."

In response to Carrier leaving Indianapolis for Mexico, Trump promises a 35 percent tax on its imports back. On the Chinese dumping of steel into the U.S. at the expense of the Northwest Indiana cluster, Trump said, Thats not fair trade. Thats stupid trade, and were not going to do it any more. The details are deep inside his marvelous brain.

The speech was high on proclamations and complaints and devoid of policy. But the message was clear.

We get smaller and smaller, weaker and weaker. Our country is being taken advantage of."

In Bloomington last week, former Democrat congressman Lee Hamilton described a devolving America. When he began his 34-year career in the U.S. House in 1965, Americas population was 130 million people. Today Hamilton surveys a nation of 320 million, with white Americans poised to be in the minority in just a few decades. Much of the population is in angst at trends they dont understand.

In the presidential race, Hamilton observes a breathtaking gap between campaign rhetoric and policy substance, echoing what Purdue President Mitch Daniels told me last winter.

This is a very tough country to govern, Hamilton said, adding the next president will find 50 percent of the American people dead set against him or her.

Fueling that anger are fundamental changes in the economy as manufacturing processes become more productive, require fewer people, and more and more jobs are automated.

Former Sen. Dick Lugar spoke at his alma mater of Denison University last week and observed, Frequently, candidates have excused their incivility by saying that they are giving voice to an angry majority. Implicit in this story line is that voter anger is justified and will only be relieved by overturning the system.

Anger disconnected from a realistic reform agenda and lacking in respect for pluralistic views is not a political virtue, Lugar added. It is possible for anger to be real and heartfelt but simultaneously misguided and destructive."

Lugar cited four establishment virtues: Civility, experience, studiousness and compromise. But he adds, In this election cycle, we have seen these virtues not just deemphasized but scorned. Civility is equated with weakness, experience with corruption, studiousness with pedantry and compromise with a lack of principles. Instead, candidates have run on vacuous and sometimes cartoonish proposals that lack any political realism or programmatic details.

In the 1979 movie, Mad Max, the character Fifi observes, They say people don't believe in heroes anymore. Well damn them! You and me, Max, we're gonna give them back their heroes! Max responds, Ah, Fif. Do you really expect me to go for that crap?

To which Fifi says, You gotta admit I sounded good there for a minute, huh?

Last Wednesday, Trump told the thousands of mad-as-hell Hoosiers that he will cut epic deals, restore the military, build the wall and make America great again. The details, as we fume and vent, must await a later day.
While many states across the country are making it easier to vote, Indiana continues to throw up roadblocks.

And why is it that those making it more difficult make up the Republican majority in the General Assembly?

Many states are so determined to get people to the polls they allow people to register and cast ballots at the voting sites on Election Day.

That likely will never happen in Indiana, which continues to find ways to make it more difficult for some to vote.

You may recall that Indiana became the first state to require voters to show a government-issued photo ID before being allowed to vote. That came at the behest of former Secretary of State Todd Rokita, a Munster native, who used the issue as a GOP springboard to Congress.

Democrats fought that requirement, saying it hurt poor and minority voters  most of whom traditionally vote for Democrats.

Republicans argued the law helped prevent voter fraud.

Interestingly, virtually all voter fraud is committed through the absentee ballot process where there is no requirement for an ID.

The latest assault on voters came with the March passage of a law prohibiting straight-party voting for candidates in at-large races.

The new law says that those pulling a straight-party lever also will have to take a second step and cast individual votes for at-large candidates, i.e., town and city council races and township board contests.

This law, too, is an attack on Democrats who pull a straight-party lever more than Republicans.

Democrats  particularly in Lake County  encourage the party faithful to pull a straight-party ticket. Its a source of pride.

The latest attack on voting rights was engineered by Rep. David Ober, a Republican from Albion.

Ober said the change will allow someone to vote for a person from an opposing party in an at-large race.

If a person wanted to vote for someone in an opposing party, I really dont think they would have opted to vote a straight-party in the first place.

Ober admitted he would like to eliminate straight-party voting in the future.

The law approved last month and signed by Gov. Mike Pence seems to be such an intrusion into voting rights that someone should challenge its constitutionality.

In the meantime, if Republicans are so concerned about getting Democrats to vote for them, they ought to take stock of where they stand on a variety of issues.

Democrats, by and large, have been pretty well justified in asking their backers to vote a party label.
Northwest Indiana is filled with examples of current and future promise, including in the way our economy is growing and our communities are evolving.

But there remain too many examples of people going out of their way to distinguish us as the "Region of No."

Naysayers feverishly work to derail plans for expanding the South Shore commuter train lines.

Commuter trains are a proven magnet for economic development, often attracting new businesses and younger residents who prefer the convenience of taking trains into Chicago for work or recreation.

Whether these trains stop in our municipality or a neighboring one, expanding the rail lines to new Region locations would benefit us all in one form or another.

Yet segments of our Region prefer to keep us stagnating in the status quo, and might even pull our development backward a decade or two if given the chance.

Most of them simply say "no" to train expansion without offering up any alternatives for Region development  or even sound arguments for why they're against the expansion.

Hundreds of residents and some political leaders and boards have joined a chorus of "no" in response to a proposed new freight line that would run from Wisconsin to LaPorte, cutting through Lake and Porter counties.

Residents worry about the affect such a freight line would have on their property values. Proponents see the line as a way of beefing up the Chicago area's freight speed and logistics.

The overall proposal and accompanying concerns deserve more study, but we shouldn't be rushing to shout "no" to every proposal for the sole reason of not wanting it in our backyard.

During this past legislative session, our "Region of No" mentality again reared its obstructionist head.

The Indiana Department of Natural Resources sought a new law allowing it to issue its own liquor licenses to businesses operating in state parks. The issue was central to a restaurant and banquet facility planned for a renaissance of the crumbling Indiana Dunes State Park pavilion in Chesterton.

Some offered resounding opposition to the plan, though thankfully it passed the Legislature and was signed into law.

Expressing viewpoints on public matters is part of our system. But constantly chanting "no" to every development-based proposal will leave little reason for our children to stay here when they're grown.

They'll move on to areas saying "yes" to the growth and amenities with which they prefer to surround themselves.
Police officers rescued a teenage boy with autism after he wandered away from a program at a Brooklyn school.

The four officers seen here responded to reports of a missing child at P.S. 721 in Gravesend around 2 p.m. Saturday.

They say they found the 14-year-old running naked at the Coney Island Beach.

They followed him into waist-high water, brought him to safety and clothed him.

He was taken to Coney Island Hospital and is being evaluated.

P.S. 721 is an Occupation Training School for young adults with developmental disabilities.

The Department of Education says the 14-year-old boy ran away from a program run by a community-based organization at the school, though it wasn't made clear which one.

The DOE's statement reads in part:

"This is a deeply alarming incident. Nothing is more important than the safety of all students and staff. We are working closely with the organization that hosted the event and the NYPD to investigate this incident."
Two firefighters were injured while battling a two-alarm fire in Manhattan Sunday morning.

Flames broke out shortly after 5:30 a.m. at a building on Thompson Street near Broome Street in SoHo.

Fire officials say the fire began on the top floor of the building.

Two firefighters were taken to the hospital with serious but non-life-threatening burns. Another person was also injured, but refused medical attention.
Season 2, Episode 3: Useful Occupations and Deceptions

The sophomore seasons of television shows often either evolve to build on their strengths or magnify their weaknesses in an attempt to best the first. One of the aspects of Outlander I admired in its first season was its ability to deftly blend a multitude of genres and moods, pivoting in a single episode from wartime drama to swooning romanticism to farce.

While placing the current story line in Paris has given the show a richness and added visual depth, particularly in the astounding costume design of Terry Dresbach, it has also proven to be a precarious tightrope act that isnt quite being maintained. Much of this comes down to how the new characters embody every French stereotype. Theyre overtly sexual, lecherous, cunning, frivolous and not much else. Outlander isnt just having to navigate the rough terrain of crafting a second season that builds on its first, it is also contending with the challenges of adapting incredibly dense source material. But until the French characters gain more nuance the story line will continue to feel weightless.

The themes of duplicity, truth and what we sacrifice when we lie are at the heart of this episode, titled Useful Occupations and Deceptions. When Murtagh tells Claire, youre keeping a secret to save his life, after she reveals that Black Jack Randall is alive, the statement takes on a double meaning. And these themes take on a deeper meaning as the episode focuses on the widening rift between Claire and Jamie. Jamie feels overburdened in his task to get close to men like Duverney and Prince Charles in order to stop the Jacobite rebellion. Claire struggles with the ways her life has become conventional in the wake of moving to Paris. They need meaning in their lives and while they once found that in each other, the wounds Randall has left on their relationship has made that much more difficult.

Jamies anger, which is lit by an infuriating setback involving the meeting between Prince Charles and Duverney, only increases after Claire becomes fond of Mother Hildegarde (Frances de la Tour) while volunteering her medical skills at a charity hospital. I need a purpose, she pleads to Jamie. But he feels she is putting their child and her own health at risk in caring for the sick. The real heart of the matter, though, is that Jamie no longer has purpose or identity himself. When do I get to feel good? When do I get to find meaning in my day? Jamie asks before ending the argument.
Katherine Lynne Pielemeier and Wesley Graham Thompson were married April 23 at Riverside on the Potomac, a wedding venue in Leesburg, Va. The Rev. Robert Maddox, a minister of the United Church of Christ, officiated.

The bride, 33, is a director on the leadership development team in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and received a master's degree in public policy from Carnegie Mellon.

She is the daughter of Nancy R. Pielemeier and John D. Pielemeier of Washington. The brides father, a former senior foreign service officer with the United States Agency for International Development, is now an independent consultant on agricultural development. Her mother retired as a vice president of Abt Associates in Bethesda Md., a consulting firm specializing in health, social and environmental policy and international development.

The groom, 32, is the speechwriter for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the State Department in Washington. He graduated from DePaul University and received a law degree from the Catholic University of America.
Tamima Azeeza Mohammed and Ryan Hamilton Crosner were married April 23 at their home in Redondo Beach, Calif. The officiant was Shaun H. Crosner, the grooms brother, who became ordained through American Marriage Ministries for the event.

The bride, 30, and groom, 31, met at the University of Pennsylvania, from which each received a law degree and where the groom also received a master of bioethics degree.

The bride, who is taking her husbands name, is a benefits analyst at Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, an aerospace manufacturer and space-transport services company in Hawthorne, Calif., where she investigates and analyzes workers compensation claims. She graduated with honors from Stanford.

She is the daughter of Tahira Mohammed and Ronnie C. Mohammed of Bakersfield, Calif. The brides father is a senior mechanical engineer in research and development at the ice cream division of Nestle in Bakersfield. Her mother is a high school advanced-placement and honors chemistry and biology teacher at Stockdale High School, also in Bakersfield.
Anders Behring Breivik is about as evil as a man can be, a far-right terrorist who murdered 77 people with bullets and a bomb in Norway in 2011. He was tried and sentenced to 21 years in prison, the maximum in Norway, but with the possibility of extending his term if he was found to still be a public threat. Then, in a galling reversal, the fiend became the accuser, charging that his isolation in prison violated his human rights. And he won. And with his victory, however shocking it may be, the rule of law also won.

Judge Helen Andenaes Sekulic ruled Wednesday that Mr. Breiviks solitary confinement was a form of inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and ordered the government to reduce his isolation and pay his legal fees. To many Americans, the notion that isolating so heinous a murderer, especially in the relatively comfortable conditions of a Norwegian prison, would be a violation of his rights is hard to accept. Even to many in Norway, which is admirably dedicated to rehabilitating and reintegrating prisoners into society, the decision is appalling.

But Judge Sekulic was right. In effect, Mr. Breivik took the fundamental notions of human rights and the rule of law to their most extreme test: Is someone who is convinced that he stands far above the law and the rest of humanity, who can walk around an island shooting one helpless teenager after another, eligible for the same rights as the people whose rights he so flagrantly denied?
The World Bank and International Monetary Fund are pressing governments to impose a price tag on planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions, using economic leverage and technical assistance that institutions like the United Nations cannot muster.

The campaign by two of the largest international lenders comes as world leaders have begun to sign the Paris agreement on climate change, the United Nations accord that is supposed to commit nearly every country to take action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The document opened for signatures on Friday and will remain open for a year.

But the leaders of the World Bank, the I.M.F. and other major global institutions say cutting emissions enough to stave off the worst effects of climate change will not be possible unless all fossil fuel polluters are forced to pay for the carbon dioxide they emit.

There is now an overwhelmingly obvious scientific consensus that the more carbon pollution we put into the air the more impact it has on warming the massive melting of the Arctic, the cycles of droughts and flooding, the die-offs of coral reefs, the World Banks president, Jim Yong Kim, said in an interview. And to our economists, who have been studying this for quite some time, there is an equally obvious consensus that putting a price on carbon pollution is by far the most powerful and efficient way to reduce emissions.
DAKAR, Senegal  The military campaign by Nigeria and neighboring nations to combat the West African militant group Boko Haram has been hampered by a failure among those countries to share crucial intelligence  sometimes even within their own security services, American and other Western officials say.

Western partners have balked as well. The Pentagon and American intelligence services have struggled at times to provide information quickly about Boko Haram militants to the African countries  Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria  without violating restrictions on what can be shared from spy satellite imagery or electronic eavesdropping within rules for not disclosing sources and methods.

Until recently, Western officials and analysts said, Britain and the United States provided only sanitized intelligence reports to the Nigerian military. The countries feared that more detailed information might be misused by an army that human rights groups say has committed abuses against civilians as it battled Boko Haram, which has pledged loyalty to the Islamic State.

And a new intelligence fusion center, created in Chad as part of a multinational task force, has only recently overcome budget and staffing shortfalls, as well as lingering mistrust among the participating countries, to help coordinate operations.
CAIRO  An Egyptian police official filed a criminal complaint against Reuters after the news agency published an article last week connecting the police to the disappearance of an Italian student, Giulio Regeni, prosecutors said on Saturday.

The article, citing security officials, said the police detained Mr. Regeni days before his brutalized body turned up on the outskirts of Cairo  contradicting government assertions that he had not been arrested.

The complaint, filed Friday, accused Reuters and its Cairo bureau chief of spreading false news and harming Egypts image, raising new alarms about a crackdown on journalists in Egypt.

Prosecutors said on Saturday that they were investigating the complaint.

It was the most prominent legal action against a foreign media organization since the prosecution in 2014 of three journalists working for Al Jazeera English. But while that case was inflected with political tensions between Egypt and Qatar, which owns Al Jazeera, the move against Reuters seemed driven by the agencys reporting on a topic of considerable sensitivity to President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
ISTANBUL  The Turkish government has seized the historic Armenian Surp Giragos Church, a number of other churches and large swaths of property in the heavily damaged Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, saying it wants to restore the area but alarming residents who fear the government is secretly aiming to drive them out.

The city, in the heart of Turkeys predominantly Kurdish southeast, has been the scene of heavy fighting for nearly a year, since the Turkish military began a counterinsurgency campaign against militants from the Kurdistan Workers Party, which ended a two-year cease-fire in July. Many neighborhoods have been left in ruins, and hundreds of thousands of people have been forced from their homes. Surp Giragos, one of the largest Armenian churches in the Middle East, was damaged in the fighting and forced to shut its doors.

Both the Armenians, for whom Surp Giragos is an important cultural touchstone, and the Kurds have discerned a hidden agenda in the expropriations. They say the government plans to replace the destroyed neighborhoods they shared with other minorities with luxury rentals and condominiums affordable only to a wealthier, presumably nonminority class of residents.

Some analysts agree, saying even some of the better-off Syrian refugees in Turkey could end up there.
BEIRUT, Lebanon  Syrian government airstrikes on opposition-held areas near Damascus, Syrias capital, and in Aleppo on Saturday killed more than two dozen people, according to activists monitoring the conflict.

Western officials have warned that a cease-fire that took effect in February is in danger of collapsing. This past week, an opposition group walked out of the talks in Geneva aimed at finding a political solution to protest the lack of progress and attacks by Syrian government forces.

The government says it is targeting only terrorist groups that are not part of the cease-fire deal.

The United Nations envoy leading the negotiations with the warring parties, Staffan de Mistura, said the talks would continue until Wednesday as planned. But he said the two sides were extremely polarized, casting doubt on the possibility of salvaging the talks.

The violence on Saturday was likely only to harden the oppositions position. Anas al-Abda, the leader of the Turkey-based Syrian National Coalition represented in the Geneva talks, lamented the limpness of world powers and international organizations in the face of what he called massacres of civilians in Aleppo.
A duet from Suite for Five (1956) begins with a woman perched on a mans shoulder. Her legs are stretched back into the air behind her. Her torso arches up to present her face and shoulders to the front. This is a heroic lift you can see in several ballets  but the resemblance stops beneath the waist. The difference here is that the man is kneeling. The effect is weird, truncating, fascinating.

As that number develops, you cant miss its complete independence from music or the exploratory drama it creates by setting its dancers forth on separate routes. A trio from Suite keeps changing in structure. Now its a duet and a solo; now a tight-woven trio; now three separate solos in different paths and meters that nonetheless connect in overlapping orbits.

The special element of these performances is a rarity, a duet from Springweather and People (1954), originally danced (like the Suite duet) by Cunningham and Carolyn Brown. This duet was lost for decades until, two years ago, the researcher and filmmaker Alla Kovgan found a 1958 film of it. Part of it was danced again, beautifully, by Boston Conservatory students in the October-January edition of this Leap Before You Look exhibition at Bostons Institute of Contemporary Arts. But its only now, with these Los Angeles performers, that the whole duet has returned to the stage. And now we can feel the complex structure of it, with its couplings and solos, its intimacies and its distances.

Though some still use the word abstract to describe plotless choreography, Cunningham, like the choreographer George Balanchine before him and Mark Morris today, observed that humans dancing cannot be abstract. Cunningham, more than any other dance-maker, created works that operated on multiple levels. Sometimes theres nothing but this movement; but the sheer physics of it make for drama. With the Suite excerpts, thats continually true. This remains extraordinarily fresh: Dancers switch angles and routes, and present jumps and floor work, as if we were in the laboratory with them.

Sometimes, as often in the Springweather duet, we cant help seeing imagery, character and narrative. Is this movement for its own sake or is it a window to meaning? The ambiguity is essential to Cunningham dance theater. I love a moment in this dance where the woman, in profile to us, holds a formally pure arabesque. The man, approaching her from behind, places a protective hand around her torso to support her hip. She stretches her neck tenderly back toward him; were close here to the narrative of Swan Lake. But then, still holding that arabesque, she hops softly away. The story changes.
When Justin Peck unveiled The Most Incredible Thing in February, fans of this fast-rising choreographer were eager to see his first story ballet. Mr. Peck, New York City Ballets resident artist since 2014, has told subtle stories in his more abstract works for the company, through the inherent drama of form. But Incredible was his first adaptation of a narrative source, Hans Christian Andersens fairy tale of the same name, set in a kingdom where good forces meet evil.

As it turns out, the lavish Incredible, which returned to the David H. Koch Theater on Thursday  along with its extravagant sets and costumes by the Canadian artist Marcel Dzama  offers little in the way of a compelling story. In a kingdomwide contest to do the most incredible thing and win the hand of the Princess (Sterling Hyltin), a young Creator (Taylor Stanley) engineers a clock that yields lifelike figures dancing at the stroke of each hour. Incredible! His triumph is threatened by the sudden arrival of the Destroyer (Amar Ramasar), but magic prevails, as the clocks inhabitants, nearly defeated, rise up and destroy him back.

Its hard to feel invested in the dancers as characters, despite vivid dancing from the cast of 56, in particular Ms. Hyltin, Mr. Stanley and, as the Cuckoo Bird, a fittingly skittish Tiler Peck (no relation to the choreographer). Incredible succeeds more as pure pageantry, a parade of Mr. Dzamas fantastical designs: feathered and winged concoctions for the Four Seasons; flat, bobbling, spiral-emblazoned tutus for the Nine Muses; bulbous shimmering dresses for 11 children from the School of American Ballet. And lets not forget the mirror-image armor for the creepily two-headed King. Justin Peck, generally such a deft architect, keeps his choreography simpler than usual, relying heavily on unison and the exit strategy of running offstage. This draws even more attention to the costumes, which seem at times like autonomous creatures, dazzling performers in themselves.

With an original score by Bryce Dessner of the band the National, Incredible shared Thursdays program with other works set to music by American composers: Peter Martinss Barber Violin Concerto, to Samuel Barber, and Jerome Robbinss N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz, to Robert Prince. These, along with the works on Fridays mixed bill  Bournonville Divertissments, Robbinss Moves and Balanchines Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux and Symphony in Three Movements  held other kinds of stories, more ambiguous but with higher emotional stakes.
Contributing artists and photographers include Carrie Mae Weems, Rashid Johnson, Xaviera Simmons, Alec Soth, Bayete Ross Smith, Fred Tomaselli and Marilyn Minter. Their works will be used for billboards, building signs, subway advertising, Internet memes, social media and select print advertising, potentially even yard signs, and ultimately an art show at the Jack Shainman Gallery in Chelsea. Mr. Thomas, 40, said in a telephone interview that the founders were also looking for media buys in the heartland, where theyre cheapest.

Image The first advertisement produced for For Freedoms, designed by Albert James Ignacio and Wyatt Gallery. Credit... Albert James Ignacio and Wyatt Gallery

Mr. Gottesman, also 40, added, We dont have Koch brothers or Priorities USA Action money.

Super PACS typically raise unlimited sums from any donor and are inherently partisan. They function to influence elections like advertising agencies, Mr. Gottesman said, adding that For Freedoms and its projects are intended to elevate and expand the dialogue that no longer exists in our sound-bite culture, its gotcha tactics, or in its oversimplified conversations.

As more artists join, more divergent views will be seen. There are not just two sides, conservative or liberal, black or white, Mr. Thomas said. The country is increasingly confronting how one persons freedom may impinge on someone elses.

Mr. Smith, for example, who has taken over the super PACs Instagram arm, has made a series of photographs of gun owners extolling their favorite weapons. The artist Will Steacy, who describes himself as a former union laborer, makes collages that reveal a stance closer to Libertarianism.

For Freedoms has raised $5,687 toward its $50,000 goal through its website, forfreedoms.org, and an additional $15,000 from art collectors and patrons such as Barbara Alfond, John and Sharon Hoffman and Damany Weir. Its donors, ideally, are people interested in art and politics, Mr. Gottesman said.
A role debut and the start of a farewell run piqued attention on Friday when the Metropolitan Opera revived its Ottoman eye-candy production of Mozarts Abduction From the Seraglio. For the Russian soprano Albina Shagimuratova, it was her first turn in the bravura role of Konstanze, the noblewoman whose fidelity is tested when she is abducted and sold into Turkish slavery. For the conductor James Levine, this run of performances marks his final appearances as music director of a house he profoundly transformed during the four decades he held that position.

Extended ovations greeted Mr. Levine, 72, each time he took up position in the pit. And one cast member ad-libbed a tribute of his own. The bass Hans-Peter Konig, magnificent in the role of the irascible palace overseer Osmin, made a sly change to spoken dialogue in which Osmin invokes the authority of the dungeon master, or Stockmeister, substituting the word Kapellmeister  conductor  with a wink in the direction of Mr. Levine.

With its breezy mix of opera seria and slapstick, Turkish pastiche and Enlightenment denouement, Abduction can be a tough piece to pull together. There were coordination problems in some of the fast scenes, such as Osmins rage aria in Act I, in which the whiplike percussive accents from the orchestra lagged behind.

And Mr. Levines tempos sometimes felt hurried, as in the Act II showdown between Osmin and Blondchen, the English servant girl who had been gifted to him by the Pasha but who read him the riot act when he attempted to make sexual advances. The soprano Kathleen Kim brought a nimble and golden voice to the part, and finely honed physical comedy. But the fast tempo emphasized the farcical aspect of a scene that Mozart also injects with a touch of melancholy. There is compassion to be found here in the minor mode that shades Blondchens line about maintaining dignity even when freedom is lost, but you have to take the time to reveal it.
For me though, the most involving passages in Pumpkinflowers are not about politics. They are about Mr. Friedmans personal war stories. An infantrymans experience of battle is invariably at odds with the official record, which is linear, vectored, clear. But a truly fine war memoir  and Pumpkinflowers is certainly one  almost always shows just how disorienting and ambiguous combat can be.

Image Credit... Patricia Wall/The New York Times

For example: Are those armed men fighters from Hezbollah or Lebanese civilians on a hunting expedition? (Civilians, the soldiers decide  probably looking for pheasants.) Are those red lights in the distance tracer fire or fireworks from a wedding? (Fireworks. The red lights are followed by blue, yellow and green.) Is that sound an approaching enemy or the rustle of a plastic bag? (Bag.)

War means making mistakes  absurd, perverse mistakes. Like the time Mr. Friedman goes on a night mission to track down three guerrilla fighters supposedly spotted along the ridge of the Pumpkin. He climbs into his tank, which later sets off a crude I.E.D.; miraculously, he survives. The next day he discovers the truth: Those were not guerrillas he and his brethren were chasing. They were wild boar. The hoof prints mock them in the sunlight.

In 2014, Mr. Friedman wrote long stories in both Tablet and The Atlantic, arguing that the cozy ties between the foreign press corps in Jerusalem and nongovernment organizations helped create a variety of subtle, self-perpetuating anti-Israel biases. His critiques went viral and generated, as you might expect, a small tempest of controversy. What prevented this tempest from becoming much larger was Mr. Friedmans voice. It is temperate and careful, and therefore one of his best allies.

In Pumpkinflowers, he shows similar restraint. Thats partly because he takes his cues from fellow soldiers. There was no ideology at all at that outpost, as far as I could see, he writes. For this generation Ben-Gurion and Herzl were streets.

It is also partly because the security zone wars in Lebanon created a different kind of Israeli  allergic to ideology, thinkers of small practical thoughts, livers of life between bombardments. He doesnt necessary see this as a positive development. Those years of hilltop combat effectively ended the old Israeli left, with its kibbutzniks and idealists. They receded into the margins, he writes, where they remain.

But to Mr. Friedman, his time at the Pumpkin did anything but recede. It remained central to his adult identity, a vital part of his memory and psychological life. That hill is still speaking to me years later, he writes. In 2002, he decided to answer that call and visit Lebanon as a tourist, something he had the luxury to do as a Canadian-born citizen.
Q. What career objectives did you have early on?

A. I started out as a chemical engineer. After a year of working in research, I realized that becoming the world expert in a single molecule known only to 12 people was not terribly interesting. So I made a radical change. I took a job with a French brokerage firm specializing in corporate finance and I.P.O.s. In the late 1990s, there was great interest in high-tech companies just as the Euronext exchange was being launched. Engineers were sought after by finance firms to evaluate technology in target companies. My timing was perfect. I had no expertise in finance, but I understood technology. We were so busy that I learned a lot on the job quickly. Most importantly, I discovered that my true passion was working in finance.

Q. What did you learn in finance?

A. It helped me to become an entrepreneur. We worked closely with company C.E.O.s and analyzed the ingredients of their companies success. We helped executives during critical periods to obtain funding or prepare a public offering. After a few years, I switched to venture capital. There again, I looked closely at companies to decide whether to invest capital. It was a job I really enjoyed.

Q. Why did you leave a job you loved to join your fathers company?

A. In 2004, when I joined the Gorge Groupe, I had spent 10 years in finance. My father had offered, two years earlier, to hire me as a development or strategic manager in one of the groups affiliates, to learn the ropes. But I felt that such a position would not carry with it significant authority. I wanted a top executive position where I could bring added value. Finally, two years later, at age 33, I joined as the Groupes chief operating officer.

Q. Did you land that top executive position because you were the bosss son?

A. Undoubtedly, but there is no shame in that. I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do. At the time, the Groupe had some 1,200 employees and about 150 million in revenue. Seventy percent of our activity revolved around the automobile industry, delivering automated assembly line machinery to automakers in France and Europe. I spent the first few months on the job analyzing the business. I concluded that we could only expect slow growth in the auto industry. From my finance experience, I knew that in a difficult market, if you are very good, you will be the last to die. I did not want the company to die a slow death in a declining market battling against strong competitors and demanding clients.

Image I surround myself with high-quality people who are far better than myself in their respective roles, said Raphael Gorge, the chief of Groupe Gorge. Credit... Hamilton de Oliveira

So over the next four years, I implemented an exit strategy and steered the business toward growth sectors.
We were on site, pushing that button every day, said Ryan Heath, a senior correspondent who writes Politicos widely read Brussels Playbook newsletter.

It had a multiplier effect, Mr. Heath said, and that did not go down well.

The Brussels attacks punctuated what had already been an unusually newsy first year for Politicos European venture, which was started last April in partnership with the German publishing group Axel Springer. In addition to terrorism and security, subjects like the migration crisis, the ongoing war in Ukraine, grinding debt talks with Greece and the prospect of a British exit from the 28-member European Union not only kept the Continent in the headlines but also served to remind Europeans  and the rest of the world  of the importance of the often arcane policy debates taking place in Brussels.

Much like the original Politico, which was founded in 2007, its European incarnation covers its beat like a village paper, harnessing the immediacy of the Internet to deliver breaking news at a brisk tempo to a core readership of political and civic insiders. Its granular coverage of everything from ministerial summit meetings to regulatory committee hearings is leavened with tidbits from errant emails and restaurant recommendations, as well as revealing anecdotes about the biggest power brokers in Brussels.

We dont want to just write about politics, but about why these different actors are doing the things they do, said Carrie Budoff Brown, a former White House reporter for Politico who is now the managing editor in Brussels.

As a digital-first news outlet, Politico Europe uses its website as a shop window. Politico.eu offers a mix of free news and analysis as well as a menu of premium Politico Pro subscription channels focused on topics such as energy, health care and technology policy. It is a hybrid of free and for-pay offerings that has been copied from Politicos successful American operation, said Sheherazade Semsar-de Boisseson, the managing director in Brussels. So far, she said, it has exceeded its shareholders expectations both for audience and revenue.
HONG KONG  The United Steelworkers union has suspended indefinitely an unusual effort to push the United States government to restrict all aluminum imports after the campaign ran into opposition from aluminum companies, the Canadian government and even Canadian members of the union.

The union on Friday withdrew its petition to an American trade panel, which was filed the preceding Monday, after an aluminum industry group agreed to work with the union to address its main concern: Chinese aluminum production overcapacity and exports. The Aluminum Association shares many of the concerns expressed by the United Steelworkers regarding Chinese aluminum overproduction, the group said in a statement. Overcapacity must be addressed to maintain a vibrant and healthy North American aluminum industry.

The statement provided no specifics, saying only that, The industry supports ongoing efforts by the U.S. and Chinese governments to address this critical issue.

Chinas aluminum exports have surged as the countrys economy slows. Those exports have displaced Canadian exports in some international markets, triggering an increase in Canadian shipments to the United States, where they now account for two-thirds of all American imports of raw aluminum.
He sipped from a bottle of iced tea, taking his position near a corner in the L-shaped Duane Reade. From there, he could see the cold medicine in Aisle 7A, the deodorants in Aisle 3, security videos on a screen above Aisle 5 and, most important, near the entrance, the beer cooler.

The thieves love their beer.

Modelo, Heineken, Budweiser, said the man, Derek Exum, 47, a security guard in plain clothes, waiting like a hunter in a stand. The 12-pack or the 24-pack.

This is not a typical Duane Reade, the New York-based chain that began more than 50 years ago with a single store between the two downtown streets that make its name. This is the Duane Reade embedded in the Port Authority Bus Terminal near Times Square, and it is plagued by a steady assault of shoplifters and snatch-and-dash crooks who linger at the terminal, inside and out.

Mr. Exum said he had stopped more than 70 shoplifters since his employer, S.E.B. Security, placed him there three months ago. He said they were mostly catch-and-release cases in which he confronted the thief, presented him with a trespassing notice, snapped a mug shot with a cellphone camera and sent him away.
The big reveal, the fashion designer and high-end furrier Dennis Basso announced one afternoon last week, flinging open the doors leading to his latest redecorating project  a chapel.

Those are planters from France, Mr. Basso said in a gravelly voice that seems to know only one volume level, booming. The carved candleholders are from Italy. And the chapel  officially the Leland Eggleston Cofer Memorial Chapel at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center on the Upper East Side of Manhattan  still had that new-carpet smell, thanks to 93 square yards of the stuff, customized for the project, installed not long before.

This is Gods workroom, he said. You walk in here and feel like youre in the place of the Lord, no matter who your god is.

Mr. Basso has ideas about how rooms should look, down to the details: He has been known to place the name cards for his fashion show guests on their chairs himself, one by one. He said he and his husband, Michael Cominotto, underwrote the renovation because, as a public space, the chapel was not all that it could be. Like so many places in New York that are taken for granted, that people go to once or twice and then forget about, the room had the potential to be inspiring, but was not.
WASHINGTON  Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio is a relatively accessible fellow, but when asked for an interview on the subject of the schisms in his Democratic Party, his schedule was full. Instead, he sent a statement that the Hillary Clinton-Bernie Sanders presidential primary battle was strengthening the party in contrast with the divisive Republican fight.

Hes right about the Republicans. The personal invective and policy splits threaten to tear the party apart and produce an electoral cataclysm in November.

Yet that is obscuring serious problems on the Democratic side: deep divisions on policy and an almost certain nominee, Mrs. Clinton, who if not for Donald J. Trump would be the most unpopular presidential front-runner in recent times.

The differences between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders are more pronounced than those between Barack Obama and Mrs. Clinton in 2008. Then, there were modest divergences on health care and national security, highlighted by her support five years earlier for George W. Bushs decision to invade Iraq. Mainly it was a difference of style and persona, a new voice in an environment of change running against a candidate focused on recapturing the salad days of the last Democratic administration.
The circle of leaders in Rhode Island is very small, very active  and absolutely everyone knows everyone else, said James A. Morone, the director of the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy at Brown University. Its like a big Italian family.

The campaigns for all three remaining Republican candidates, for example, are working out of the same shopping plaza: A strip mall between an airport and a clotted main road here in working-class Warwick.

One afternoon last week, people were assembling signs in Mr. Trumps campaign office, decked out with a cardboard cutout of the candidate with a bald eagle. Several doors away, volunteers for Senator Ted Cruz were readying mailers, and, on another side of the plaza, a handful of volunteers were making phone calls for Mr. Kasich.

Jean Hudson, 65, stood in the parking lot in the middle of it all, and said she was delighted that the uptick in political significance had finally gotten her home state coverage on Fox News, her cable news network of choice.

I hear our name mentioned more than usual, Ms. Hudson said, giddily. Even when we have hurricanes and storms they talk about Mass. and Connecticut, never Rhode Island. Its like we dont exist.

The states Democratic establishment has thrown its weight for the most part behind Mrs. Clinton  and that, too, has come with a Lil Rhody touch.

When Bill Clinton was campaigning last week, also here in Warwick, the states speaker of the House, Nicholas A. Mattiello, called ahead to a pizzeria in nearby Cranston to make sure there would be vegan food for the former president, now herbivore in chief.
LONDON  The United States has opened a new line of combat against the Islamic State, directing the militarys six-year-old Cyber Command for the first time to mount computer-network attacks that are now being used alongside more traditional weapons.

The effort reflects President Obamas desire to bring many of the secret American cyberweapons that have been aimed elsewhere, notably at Iran, into the fight against the Islamic State  which has proved effective in using modern communications and encryption to recruit and carry out operations.

The National Security Agency, which specializes in electronic surveillance, has for years listened intensely to the militants of the Islamic State, and those reports are often part of the presidents daily intelligence briefing. But the N.S.A.s military counterpart, Cyber Command, was focused largely on Russia, China, Iran and North Korea  where cyberattacks on the United States most frequently originate  and had run virtually no operations against what has become the most dangerous terrorist organization in the world.

A review of what should be done to confront the Islamic State is on Mr. Obamas agenda on Monday, when he is scheduled to attend a conference in Hanover, Germany, with the leaders of Britain, France, Italy and Germany. Of these efforts, the cybercampaign is the newest. It is also the one discussed in least detail by officials of many countries, and its successes or failures are the most difficult to assess from the outside.
SAN FRANCISCO  From her apartment at the foot of the celebrated zigzags of Lombard Street, Judith Calson has twice peered out her window as thieves smashed their way into cars and snatched whatever they could. She has seen foreign tourists cry after cash and passports were stolen. She shudders when she recounts the story of the Thai tourist who was shot because he resisted thieves taking his camera.

And that is her tally from the last year alone.

I never thought of this area as a high-crime neighborhood, Ms. Calson, a retired photographer, said of this leafy part of the city, where tourists flock to view the steeply sloped, crooked street adorned with flower beds.

San Francisco, Americas boom town, is flooded with the cash of well-paid technology workers and record numbers of tourists. At the same time, the city has seen a sharp jump in property crime, up more than 60 percent since 2010, though the actual increase may be higher because many of the crimes go unreported.

Recent data from the F.B.I. show that San Francisco has the highest per-capita property crime rate of the nations top 50 cities. About half the cases here are thefts from vehicles, smash-and-grabs that scatter glittering broken glass onto the sidewalks.
ISTANBUL  Ebru Umar, a Dutch journalist, wrote a column last week critical of Turkeys president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his governments growing crackdown on freedom of expression. She later took to Twitter, criticizing supporters of Mr. Erdogan and using a profanity.

On Saturday night, the police arrived at her summer home in Turkey and took her in for questioning for insulting Mr. Erdogan, a crime in Turkey. Ms. Umar was released from custody on Sunday, she said on Twitter, but was barred from leaving the country.

She is the latest on a growing list of journalists, academics, cartoonists and others  nearly 2,000 cases have been filed in Turkish courts  who have faced the Turkish justice system for insulting Mr. Erdogan. The crime carries a sentence of four years in prison. Ms. Umar was detained just as European leaders, including Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, were wrapping up a visit to Turkey to highlight progress in its pact with the European Union over the migrant crisis.

Turkeys clampdown on the news media has increasingly become intertwined with Europes attempts to cooperate with Turkey on the migrant issue. European leaders, especially Ms. Merkel, are facing criticism that they are betraying European values in a bid to win over Mr. Erdogan.
We should get a move on, the chancellor said. We all know the reproaches, worries and fears, and what difficulties remain.

But if time is used wisely, she said, an agreement that will raise living standards can emerge. So my request to those who are present, she added, looking around the audience of hundreds of business leaders and politicians, is: Do it, and then we can have a great success this year.

The chancellor greeted the president at the Schloss Herrenhausen, the former summer residence of the Royal House of Hanover. They stood in front of a line of German troops in gray overcoats and green berets as the national anthems of the two nations played before the two leaders returned inside for a private meeting.

Mr. Obama said he hoped the trade negotiations could be completed before he left office.

I dont anticipate that we will be able to complete ratification of a deal by the end of this year, but I do anticipate that we will have completed the agreement, he said. Once negotiations are finished, he said, people will be able to see exactly why this will be good for our two countries.

Yet even as he expressed confidence that a deal would be reached this year, Mr. Obama acknowledged that time is not on our side, and he offered a thinly veiled warning that a deal could be doomed if politicians like Hillary Clinton, who opposes the accord, are elected this year.

If we dont complete negotiations this year, then upcoming political transitions in the United States and Europe could mean this agreement wont be finished for quite some time, Mr. Obama said, not mentioning Mrs. Clinton, his former secretary of state, directly.
Billionaire Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz are fighting ardently to be the pride of the Republican Party, but many of Orange Countys down-ticket GOP candidates are avoiding both and declining to discuss preferences.

Huge swaths of Republicans have condemned Trump. Cruz is so disliked in Washington that one of his Republican colleagues joked that if you killed him on the Senate floor and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you.

Add to that the vitriolic and often personal attacks between the two  and polls showing neither has the support of a majority of GOP voters  and its easy to see why candidates arent rushing to embrace either.

Theres no gain and only pain, so why stick your neck out  even if you have a strong feeling for one or the other? said Jodi Balma, a Fullerton College political scientist.

This year, Orange County is hosting a competitive congressional race and four competitive state legislative contests, featuring a total of 23 candidates. Of the 14 Republican hopefuls, only six acknowledged that they were supporting a presidential candidate. Among Democrats, seven of nine revealed a preference.

GOP candidates who have not publicly picked a favorite tend to be diplomatic in explaining their apparent indecision.

I believe candidates should focus on their own race and not speculate or waste energy, time (and) resources on other campaigns, said sheriffs Cmdr. Bob Peterson, whos running for Congress.

Irvine Mayor Steven Choi, an Assembly candidate who settled on Cruz last week, was more forthcoming about his mixed feelings throughout the primary season. Initially, there were 17 candidates to sort through, he noted. And the choice remained difficult even as the field has narrowed.

There are two people hurting each other, and that could make it harder for the eventual nominee in November, Choi said. Thats part of my frustration.

Was he worried that backing Cruz could make it harder for him to attract Trump supporters?

That was something I was concerned about, Choi said. But ultimately, he decided to take a stand against Trump.

If you make every decision based on whats popular, youll never stand for anything. I dont think Donald Trump is prepared. We need somebody who is a little more refined.

Not enough guts

The bitterness of the GOP presidential primary is breeding divisions among Republicans to a degree unmatched in recent memory, some experts say.

I think the emotion in this election is at an all-time high, said Irvine-based political strategist Jeff Corless, a Trump supporter. People may be more fearful of throwing their name out there in this environment. I dont think we saw this visceral of reactions in previous elections.

Petersons neutrality is the norm among the Republicans in his race to replace outgoing Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Orange. Irvine Councilwoman Lynn Schott and rental property owner Rodolfo Rudy Gaona also are not claiming a favorite. And the fourth Republican, Louis Contreras, didnt respond to inquiries.

In other races, some who jumped aboard a presidential campaign early in the race are scornful of those remaining on the sidelines.

Only cowards would ask to be a leader of a community or party and not have enough guts to reveal their presidential choice, said West Covina City Councilman Mike Spence, a longtime Cruz backer running for a tri-county Assembly district whose largest chunk is in north Orange County.

Its a different story on the Democratic side, where local candidates are not only more likely to endorse a presidential hopeful but seem unconcerned if their favorite is unlikely to be the nominee.

Of the seven Democrats in competitive Orange County races who picked a candidate, four favored Hillary Clinton and three preferred Bernie Sanders.

One reason cited for Democrats greater eagerness to endorse is that Clinton and Sanders have focused more on policy differences and avoided the intensity of personal attacks exchanged by Trump and Cruz.

Sanders backers, including congressional candidate Bao Nguyen and state Senate hopeful Josh Newman, proudly use those policy differences to distinguish themselves from Democrats in their races who prefer Clinton.

If you want to be the progressive in a blue state and rally young people, identifying with Sanders is a legitimate approach, said CSU Fullerton political scientist Scott Spitzer.

No status quo

Some local Republicans on the ballot appear unenthusiastic about the partys remaining presidential choices.

Laguna Beach Rep. Mimi Walters, for example, endorsed Jeb Bush initially and now doesnt have a favorite. And Assemblywoman Ling Ling Chang, whos running for state Senate, originally supported Marco Rubio.

We will leave it at that, said Chang campaign consultant Jim Nygren.

Of the six Republicans in competitive Orange County races who are backing a candidate currently in the race, four favor Cruz and one favors Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

The sixth, Assembly candidate and former Villa Park City Councilwoman Deborah Pauly, has been an enthusiastic supporter of both Trump and Cruz since the outset of the campaign. Though those candidates controversial positions and eagerness to disrupt the status quo have contributed to the wariness of some in the GOP, Pauly considers those qualities to be attributes.

They both have the capacity to shake up an establishment GOP that is woefully out of touch with the grass roots, disenfranchising our partys base, she said. You can practically smell their fear as the people are rising up to reassert the power of the governed and are rejecting the self-licking credentials mill of the stale Republican hierarchy.

Contact the writer: mwisckol@ocregister.com
COSTA MESA  Brad Borgin and Terri Petersen were looking to adopt a female Chihuahua to join their Chihuahua mix and Brussels Griffon at home.

But the Aliso Viejo couple, among the thousands roaming around the Americas Family Pet Expo here on Saturday, wound up taking home a little boy, instead.

My girlfriend just fell in love with his face, said Borgin, cradling a beige male Chihuahua they plan to name Chico.

The three-day expo at the OC Fair & Event Center features 425 exhibits and offers adoptable animals from dozens of rescue groups, along with demonstrations, products and competitions.

The theme of this show is to educate the public on every kind of animal that can be a companion animal, said Doug Poindexter, president of the pet expo.

He expects close to 45,000 attendees over the three days. The last day is today, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Dogs, cats, fish, birds, mice, rats, hamsters, guinea pigs, lizards and snakes all were ready to be taken home. Surfing dogs were showcased, as well as miniature horses, plus a 100-pound, green anaconda that swallows 8-pound rabbits for dinner.

Some of the animals awaiting adoption, like Chico, tugged at visitors hearts.

Ocean, an 18-month-old female pit bull, had been rescued from Tijuana along with her 11 puppies by Westminster Adoption Group Services.

But all the puppies succumbed to parvo, an infectious virus, said Courtney Dorney, WAGS shelter manager. Only Ocean survived.

Its sad, but we are going to have a happy ending, at least for the mom, she said, hoping the pit bull will find a home.

Sunny Oasis Rescue from Riverside was hoping to place some special-needs animals.

One was a white Shih Tzu mix who had been hit by a car, and whose back legs were paralyzed.

Others included a cat with three legs and a Chihuahua born without a fully-formed skull and partially blind.

Its my calling,said Michele Shoemaker of Riverside, founder of the special-needs rescue. Somebody has got to have a voice for these animals.
Last week I shared my picks for an all-day Disneyland feast, featuring some of the most iconic food items enjoyed by long-time fans of the park. Today, I head across the Esplanade to highlight some of my emerging favorites at Disneyland Resorts younger sibling, Disney California Adventure.

With the park having opened in 2001 (and re-opened in 2012), Disney California Adventure hasnt had anywhere near the 60 years Disneyland has had to create long-standing face-stuffing traditions with its fans. But several menu items there have developed near cult-like followings over the past decade.

Of course, the biggest difference between Disneyland and Disney California Adventure is that you dont need to be some big money, well-connected Club 33 member to drink alcohol in the park.

Beer, wine, and even mixed drinks are readily available throughout Disney California Adventure, so if you want to skip the three squares in favor of an all-day theme park bar crawl, heres your opportunity.

Here are my picks for breakfast, lunch and dinner in the park, along with a snack. Ive offered options for table service or quick-service meals for lunch and dinner, and for a sweet or savory snack, to accommodate your budget and your tastes.

Click on the slideshow to see my picks.

As always, I welcome your picks, too. Tweet me your favorite Disney meals, via @OCDisney or @ThemePark.

Robert Niles is the founder and editor of ThemeParkInsider.com.
Michel Kamel is a Stanford-educated rocket scientist. But the one-time aerospace executive is happy to have embraced a new career.

When you launch a rocket, theres thunder and light, he said. But what were doing now has far more impact on the nation, and on the globe.

Kamel, 47, is co-founder and chief executive of MelRok, a 5-year-old Santa Ana company that builds hardware and cloud-based software to monitor energy use in buildings  helping to slash costs and, along the way, green the planet.

With 20 engineers, and plans to add another five this year, MelRok has helped UC Irvine save energy in 160 buildings, from dormitories to research labs.

By July, 430 JCPenney stores will use MelRok software to watch how lights, air conditioners and other systems are working at any moment of the day  and detect any wasteful glitches.

MelRoks latest experiment in the internet of things or IoT in engineer-speak: sending silent signals through a San Diego FM radio station to shut off swimming pool pumps at 24 homes.

An estimated 43,000 California businesses spend all or part of their time on advanced energy, including 3,870 in Orange County, according to a new survey by Advanced Energy Economy, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group. Three quarters are small companies like MelRok.

TORRID GROWTH

In California, 508,000 people work full-time or part-time in advanced energy, including 44,100 in Orange County, from solar panel installers to electric car designers, home energy auditors, irrigation specialists, chipmakers, bio-fuel scientists and sustainability executives.

The sectors California job growth is explosive: up 18 percent in 2015, more than six times faster than the states overall payroll expansion of 2.8 percent.

Whether you realize it or not, clean tech is all around us, said Scott Kitcher, president and chief executive of CleanTech OC, a local trade group that includes advanced energy firms.

Earlier this month, CleanTech OC convened 50 professionals, including facilities managers from the Irvine Company, Broadcom and UC Irvine, for a workshop on integrated LED, or light-emitting diodes, the bulb-free, energy-efficient technology in which lighting is part of the fixture.

Irvines Altura Associates, an energy consulting firm, acted as a moderator and local lighting companies, including Tempo Industries and Performance Lighting Systems, both in Irvine, touted their expertise.

New companies are springing up in Orange County, with solid revenue and hiring, Kitcher said. Big O.C. corporations are bringing in sustainability officers to look at their supply chains. It is not just about the environment, but about creating a more competitive business model.

Advanced energy businesses spawn both blue- and white-collar jobs. Installation, maintenance, and repair firms account for 42 percent of the sectors California companies, with heating and air-conditioning technicians and solar-trained electricians in high demand.

San Francisco-based Sunrun, one of the largest U.S. solar installers, has added 210 employees in Orange County in the past year or so, including 119 designers and technicians at an Irvine design center. So far, it has installed 4,648 solar panel arrays on county homes.

San Mateo-based SolarCity, which employs 6,000 in California, has boosted its Santa Ana workforce to 300 from 200 since early 2015.

Other local companies: Newport Beachs First Element Fuel, which is setting up hydrogen fueling stations; and Irvines Blossom, which sells a $199 watering controller that allows sprinklers to be adjusted from a smartphone or tablet.

HIGH-END JOBS

Richly-paid engineering, research, and professional services are a growing slice of the sector, accounting for a third of the states advanced energy firms.

In 2012, when Michael Freeman, an Oklahoma-based engineer and inventor, looked to found a company to manufacture energy-efficient chips, he considered Boston and Silicon Valley, but settled on Orange County. Irvine has a large pool of expert semiconductor engineers, he said.

Moreover, he added, California has cornered the market on green thinking. People gravitate here to start companies. When I think green tech, I think California  from solar to battery powered cars to energy efficient power supplies.

Freemans company, Semitrex, has more than 90 employees in the U.S. and Europe, including 20 engineers in Irvine. Well add another 20 by the end of the year, he said.

Semitrex chips slash the amount of electricity wasted by so-called vampire power, the standby power drained by televisions, washing machines and other appliances when they are not turned on.

Until recently no one thought about power supply in designing consumer products, Freeman said. A stereo system was on 24/7 and the cabinet it sat in was hot enough to bake a cake.

California was the first state to adopt stiff appliance and equipment efficiency rules and, under President Barack Obama, the U.S, Department of Energy has tightened federal standards. Consumers are driving change too, Freeman said. Theyre saying, why pay to waste electricity and pollute the air?

Not every advanced energy company has been successful, however. Anaheim-based Fisker Automotive, a luxury electric automaker, declared bankruptcy in 2013. In March, Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies, a Lake Forest company that made energy-efficient natural gas and hydrogen tanks for trucks, filed for bankruptcy protection.

Still, California has 10 percent of the U.S. population, but it has 20 percent of the countrys advanced energy jobs, said Steve Chadima, who commutes between Laguna Beach and San Francisco to direct California policy initiatives for the Advanced Energy Economy trade group.

PUBLIC POLICY

Much of the explosive growth in advanced energy jobs is driven by government policy, beginning decades ago when California decoupled utility profits from the amount of electricity generated, thus spurring conservation.

In 2012, Proposition 39, a ballot initiative, closed a corporate tax loophole, and dedicated $550 million annually over five years to energy-efficiency and clean-energy projects at public buildings and schools.

Meanwhile California utilities are scrambling to add large scale solar and wind facilities to comply with a state law requiring them to generate half of their electricity from renewable sources by 2030.

The states cap-and-trade program, which uses fees on fossil-fuel burning companies to fund low-carbon initiatives, is also stimulating the advanced energy sector.

AEEs report, which draws on a survey of 831 California businesses, as well as data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, is broken down by congressional district and state legislative district to send a message that advanced energy initiatives are an economic boon.

Theres a perception that all this advanced energy stuff  solar panels for your house, driving an electric car  amounts to playthings for the rich, Chadima said. People think these jobs are all in Silicon Valley or on the coast. We show people jobs are everywhere.

Contact the writer: mroosevelt@ocregister.com; on Twitter @MargotRoosevelt
LOS ANGELES  Its been two months since a blown-out natural gas well was capped and officials spoke of thousands of uprooted families returning to their normal lives.

But nearly half of the 8,000 families that left home at some point have yet to return, many still worried about the possibility of another leak and potential health hazards from chemicals in the gas that spewed uncontrollably for almost four months.

Andrew Krownes family is among those whose lives remain in limbo.

Krowne, his wife, toddler and four other young children, are going into a fourth month at a hotel  paid for by Southern California Gas Co.  where they have celebrated four birthdays, including his wifes 40th and just last week, his daughters fourth.

The Krownes and others left to escape symptoms from nausea to nosebleeds, rashes to respiratory problems  or to avoid breathing air they feared would cause future health problems as the SoCalGas storage facility gushed 100,000 tons of climate-changing methane.

Concerns in Porter Ranch and surrounding communities were reinforced last weekend by a small gas leak and oil spill at another company operating in the Aliso Canyon, one of the nations largest natural gas storage fields and the major supplier for Southern California.

SoCalGas points out that public health agencies have found air in the community safe, but it has been forced by courts to extend paying for temporary housing while the county health department tests homes for chemicals. The department, which initially gave the all-clear signal, has fielded 300 complaints from residents since the leak was capped Feb. 18, and a survey found more than 60 percent still reporting symptoms.

Facing a much longer haul than it expected when it offered to pay for an additional week of lodging after the leak was sealed, the company now plans to move people from hotels to what it says are high-quality, longer-term apartments with kitchens that will prevent them from having to shuffle between hotels.
European Union bureaucrats declared war last week on Google. Europe cant compete with Google so, instead, Brussels will sue it for being too successful. Furthermore, the U.S. government is threatening the same punitive process of harassment, lawsuits and fines.

Thats the basis for the EUs just-announced antitrust complaint against Google. The California-based technology giant is accused of installing software into the popular Android smartphone that favors Google features, such as Google Maps, over competitor products.

Our concern, complains Margrethe Vestager, the EUs antitrust chief, is that by requiring phone makers and operators to preload a set of Google apps, Google may have cut off one of the main ways that new apps can reach customers.

Thats ridiculous because it was largely Google technology that made apps work on smartphones in the first place.

The heart of the complaint is the longstanding and controversial issue of a company bundling its technology products to favor a firms services over those of competitors. So now the EU wants to force Google to offer its competitors products on the Android phone. Next thing you know, McDonalds is going to be slapped with an antitrust complaint for not offering Wendys fries.

But if we cut through the EUs 19th century antitrust jargon, this is nothing more than a raid on Googles profits and products and market share, which is said to be too dominant. The same might be said of this years Golden State Warriors.

Well, its true that Googles Android technology has a commanding two-thirds market share in Europe. How did that happen? By Google building better smartphone technology. And if Europeans want access to all these alternative apps, they have a simple market remedy: Buy a different phone.

Is there any industry in world history that has been more hypercompetitive than high-tech? How can Google be anti-consumer when prices for Internet services and products fall year after year. The EU says consumers need more choices. There are many competitors to the Android technology  and those alternatives dont favor Google products. Why should Google be punished for having the most popular product? AT&T and Microsoft once were thought to be monopolies, and it was market forces that evaporated their lead.

The spurious complaint could cost Google tens of millions in legal costs to defend itself and billions of dollars of lost sales  but that, of course, is exactly the point. The eurozone is using trumped-up antitrust charges to improve the competitiveness of its own second-rate smartphone and other technology products. Similar claims have been brought against Facebook, Apple and Microsoft. The U.S. government should be vigorously defending American companies and jobs against such hostile litigation and regulatory barriers to trade.

Heres whats maddening. The eggheads in Washington are piling on. Federal Trade Commission lawyers are launching their own investigation into whether Google violated restraint-of-trade laws. This only validates predatory foreign claims against American companies.

Can anyone imagine the Germans, the Japanese, the Russians or the Chinese suing one of their own companies for being too successful? Never.

The Obama administration seems to be intentionally trying to export tech jobs out of America. The antitrust cops under Obama have been hyperactive in blocking multibillion-dollar mergers of American companies  from airlines to tech companies to retailers to energy firms  supposedly to protect consumers.

This month, the FTC blocked an energy merger involving multibillion-dollar Halliburton and Baker Hughes and the Pfizer-Allergan marriage. It is blocking the Staples and Office Depot merger, which Staples argues, persuasively, is necessary because all of the competition now is with online retailers like Amazon.

Some 150 mergers have been blocked by the feds under Obama, according to CNNMoney. This doesnt protect consumers, it injures U.S. competitiveness. Mergers lead to economies of scale in production costs and are more likely to lower prices than raise them.

Its clear that the Europeans are trying to bring down an American tech giant to allow their own feeble alternatives to compete. This is just a disguised form of Euro-protectionism. Washingtons case against Google is much worse: It is unpatriotic and damaging to the U.S. economy.

Things may get worse, not better, next year. Hillary Clinton has promised that, as president, she would beef up the antitrust enforcement arms of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission and hire aggressive regulators in order to better understand the link between market consolidation and stagnating incomes. Shes coming after those Ferraris and millionaire secretaries at Google and Facebook.

Then these same liberal politicians wonder why the economy is growing at a measly 1.5 percent and why businesses arent investing.

Stephen Moore is an economics consultant at Freedom Works and a Fox News contributor.
BEIRUT  Syrian government strikes hit opposition-held areas near the capital and in the countrys largest city, Aleppo, while rebels fired mortars in escalating violence that left at least 31 people killed and shattered a relative quiet in Damascus that has held since the teetering cease-fire took effect in late February.

Western officials, including the U.N. envoy leading negotiations with Syrias warring factions, have warned that a cease-fire was in danger of total collapse due to escalating violence and the walk-out by the Saudi-backed opposition group from the talks Monday. The opposition accuses the government of wrecking the talks with ongoing attacks while the government says it is only targeting terrorist groups who are not part of the cease-fire agreement.

The U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura said the talks will continue until Wednesday as planned, but said the two sides are extremely polarized, casting doubt on the ability to salvage the talks aimed at finding a political solution to the five-year conflict.

The violence on Saturday appeared set to only harden the oppositions position. Anas al-Abda, the leader of the Turkey-based Syrian National Coalition represented in the Geneva talks, lamented the international communitys limpness in responding to what he called massacres against civilians, in response to the Aleppo violence.

For the second straight day Saturday, government airplanes pounded neighborhoods in Aleppo held by the opposition, in what activists described as the most intense campaign of airstrikes since the cease-fire.

The Saturday airstrikes in rebel-held areas in Aleppo killed at least 12 people, including children, when they targeted a residential area and market in the Tareeq al-Bab district in the contested city, the activist-run Aleppo Media Center said. Images of the destruction posted on the AMC Facebook page and other sites showed destroyed buildings and rescue teams removing civilians from under rubble and the upper floors of destroyed buildings, including terrified women and children.

A day earlier, at least 18 people were killed in airstrikes on several rebel-held neighborhoods in Aleppo. Government forces have boxed-in opposition held areas from all sides except for a corridor from the northwestern edge of the city. Opposition groups have said reports of a new government offensive on their stronghold in the city would wreck the peace talks.

Syrias Prime Minister Wael Al-Halqi told Syrian Satellite TV that terrorist attacks in the city left six people dead and 25 injured. The pro-government Al-Ikhbariya TV said the Nusra Front and other groups shelled four government areas in the city.
DAKAR, Senegal  The military campaign by Nigeria and neighboring nations to combat the West African militant group Boko Haram has been hampered by a failure among those countries to share crucial intelligence  sometimes even within their own security services, U.S. and other Western officials say.

Western partners have balked as well. The Pentagon and U.S. intelligence services have struggled at times to provide information quickly about Boko Haram militants to the African countries  Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria  without violating restrictions on what can be shared from spy satellite imagery or electronic eavesdropping within rules for not disclosing sources and methods.

Until recently, Western officials and analysts said, Britain and the United States provided only sanitized intelligence reports to the Nigerian military. The countries feared that more detailed information might be misused by an army that human rights groups say has committed abuses against civilians as it battled Boko Haram, which has pledged loyalty to Islamic State.

And a new intelligence fusion center created in Chad as part of a multinational task force has only recently overcome budget and staffing shortfalls, as well lingering mistrust among the participating countries, to help coordinate operations.

The big unanswered question right now is how much are all those five countries that are participating going to collaborate and work effectively, Col. Robert Wilson, who commands U.S. Special Forces in North and West Africa, said in a recent interview here, noting that Boko Haram moves easily across borders. Benin recently became the fifth country to join the coalition.

Even within the West African countries, interior ministries often do not share information about terrorist threats with their military counterparts.

In Cameroon, an elite special operations unit, the Rapid Intervention Brigade originally trained and equipped by Israel, now gets training and equipment from U.S. Navy SEALs and intelligence not handed over to other branches and units of its security services, Western analysts said. Its a confused mess, said J.Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Councils Africa Center in Washington.

U.S. military and counterterrorism officials say intelligence sharing is a difficult issue, particularly outside established alliances. The United States confronted its own shortcomings after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, when it became clear that the FBI and CIA each had information about the hijackers not shared with the other. In the wake of the Islamic State attacks in Paris and Brussels this year, the authorities in France and Belgium, as well as throughout Europe, are seeking to fill glaring gaps in intelligence sharing.

U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials said it was a challenge to share sensitive intelligence with the West African allies fighting Boko Haram and other terrorist groups. The United States has different rules for what intelligence it shares with each country, and what one country can or cannot share with its neighbor  even though all are trying to fight a common regional enemy, like Boko Haram.

Because U.S. policy in Africa is for Africans to take the lead, a lot of the challenge is building trust among the partners themselves and not generating a dependence on what information we do have, said Alice Hunt Friend, the Pentagons former principal director for African affairs.

U.S. officials said progress was being made. Initially, it took up to two weeks to release information such as an aerial surveillance photo. Now, depending on the intelligence and the country, that is down to as little as an hour, U.S. officials said. To help speed the release of information, U.S. analysts are being encouraged to write to release  mostly meaning stripping information of sources and methods to ensure broader and faster distribution to partners without dumbing down the content. Drone photos provided by the United States recently helped the Nigerian army avoid a major Boko Haram ambush.

Brig. Gen. Donald C. Bolduc, the top U.S. Special Operations commander for Africa, said that since Nigerias president, Muhammadu Buhari, instituted military reforms in recent months, my guys are now coffee-breath close to our partners in the Lake Chad basin.

As a result, Bolduc said in an interview last week, we have developed relationships of trust.

Since taking office last year, Buhari has begun a major push to rid the country of Boko Haram, which has assaulted northeastern Nigeria for years. In past months, the group has spread across borders to terrorize the countrys neighbors, too.

The nations in the Lake Chad region that have become Boko Harams new stamping grounds  Niger, Chad and Cameroon  have long been distrustful of one another. Buhari met with their leaders one by one, shoring up support for a campaign to join forces to fight the group.

But Buharis strategy of forging individual relationships did little toward building trust among the nations themselves, say Western diplomats. All are working together now, but with a skeptical eye toward one another. And while the Nigerian-led effort has retaken a significant number of villages that were under Boko Haram control, the authorities have been less successful sustaining security, allowing fighters to continue to raid the very villages recaptured by government forces.

Military efforts have freed thousands of hostages of Boko Haram, most of them women and children. Yet the effort to press them for information about fighters appears inconsistent. In some instances the hostages, some of whom have been raped, are taken to camps where humanitarian groups spend time interviewing each about psychological problems he or she may suffer. But it appears that no one is asking about the tactics and locations of fighters, alongside whom many have lived for months.

In contrast, in Borno state in Nigeria, the military has been detaining and screening nearly everyone held hostage by Boko Haram in an effort to collect information and determine whether the individual formed an allegiance with the militants. The detentions sometimes last months, and include even children. At the Minawao refugee camp outside Moura, Cameroon, near a part of the country where Boko Haram has launched numerous attacks, residents said no one had inquired about the fighters.

There are examples of success. A young woman trained as a bomber near the border between Cameroon and Nigeria dropped her explosives and instead ran to the authorities in the village she had been sent to blow up. Her information led to a major operation that captured and killed numerous militants, officials said.

Col. Didier Badjeck, a spokesman for the Cameroon Defense Ministry, praised the emerging cooperation among the nations. One recent operation involved 500 soldiers from Cameroon and Nigeria, and guidance from the multinational task force in Chad.

In particular, he said, intelligence from Americans has been pivotal to carrying out operations. Theyve given us very good information, and we can verify it, he said. And they also have given us information that we dont have. Badjeck added, Its the first time Americans have been this involved in West Africa.
Re: Obama actions split high court [Front page, April 19]: You need to look no further than the two quotes the Register published on the Supreme Courts recent hearing of Obamas executive action on illegal immigrants. The Supreme Courts sole job is to interpret the laws. Justice Kennedy gets it when he identifies the issue as whether Obama has used his executive power to usurp Congress constitutional authority to make the laws. On the other hand, liberal activist Justice Sotomayor focuses on the economic impact of illegal immigrants, which has nothing to do with the issue of executive overreach. This is why it is so critical to get a Republican president in November so we can get a new justice who knows their constitutional duty, and will follow it.

Greg Woodard

Mission Viejo

  

Once again the president has over-stepped laws and we need the Supreme Court to make a ruling. I can only pray the court has the wisdom to do what is right for our country and not businesses and immigrant rights organizations that are willing to overlook our laws. I cannot see the good in allowing people to break our laws to come here and when they are caught say, I only want a better life or my children were born here. The parents made the choice to break the law  period.

According to the Register, the court decision will affect 3.5 million people. These are people we must help with food, health care and education, just to name a few freebies. How many of the jobs they do could be done by our returning servicemen and women? Wouldnt it be better to spend the money we spend on the illegals on our deserving service men and women? We shouldnt need organizations like Robin Hvidstons We the People Rising to protest the injustice of our broken immigration laws. We do not need more laws for the president to ignore, we need to enforce the laws we have. If you start taking the illegals cases one by one, we will never solve this problem and they will just keep coming.

Secure our border and enforce our laws. Problem solved.

Elaine Proko

Anaheim

  

I must take some exception to your statement in regard to the applicability of the rules in question and under review with the Supreme Court. You state that these rules could affect about 100,000 people in Orange County. The main article states that this affects close to 4 million people. I disagree with both counts. This issue affects more than 300 million people, all living here in the United States. Immigration, legal or otherwise, impacts all of us. It particularly impacts us all in a negative way when current laws are ignored and the government goes out of its way to provide for those who have chosen to break our laws. People make choices that they must deal with. If I choose to not pay federal income taxes, there will be ramifications as a result of that choice that affect me and my family. I do not expect a pass. But executive orders at a federal level and state drivers licenses and Medi-Cal coverage only undermine our ability to discourage illegal immigration and to adequately manage and balance legal immigration.

Robert Filacchione

Fullerton

  

Months before a presidential election, Obamas executive order for deferring deportation of approximately 4 million illegal immigrants without criminal records, but with lawfully resident children and allowing them to work, obtain drivers licenses, gain entrance into Social Security with other welfare benefits, is before the Supreme Court.

The plan was first introduced just after the House of Representatives declined a Senate-passed immigration update in 2014. Congress had (restructured) work permits and benefits as a deterrent to unlawful immigration, whereas the administration appeared to be an enabler inciting further transgressions. This was egregious in that it inferred the parents of citizen children were using their children as illegal pawns to gain lawful admittance for themselves.

President Obama promised to transform America. In addition to packing the courts, hes packing the nation, not only with illegal immigrant adults, but also unattended Central American children, Middle Eastern refugees and released drug traffickers to circulate in our communities, all under the Constitutions Preamble mandate To promote the general welfare.

Jack A. Watkins

Corona del Mar
To the surprise of some observers who thought the issue settled, Donald Trump recently reintroduced the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization into the political conversation. What Im saying is NATO is obsolete, he confirmed on ABCs This Week. Membership, he added, is extremely expensive for the United States, disproportionately so, to the extent that the organization must either be readjusted or replaced.

Faced with questions about Russias agenda along NATOs eastern flank, Trump dismissed the threat. Ukraine, he said, was very far away, and the U.S. was stuck doing the work of neighboring countries that wouldnt pull their weight.

NATO was done at a time you had the Soviet Union, which was obviously larger  much larger than Russia is today, he suggested. Im not saying Russia is not a threat. But we have other threats.

Despite the implication that hed ratchet up the war on terror within the West, Trumps remarks helped confirm critics worst fears of a belligerent new form of American isolationism on the rise. But the fact is  as so often the case with Trump  that his harsh verdict against NATO is much better rooted in reality than his rash prescription. Even if Trump is not elected president, the organization is in trouble, and it is not at all clear whether any particular policy can simply save it. NATO is too weak and too directionless for the world in which it finds itself.

It is a world where Europes domestic security, so long taken for granted in Brussels and Washington alike, is a preeminent problem police forces alone cannot adequately address. In recent testimony, the top NATO commander, U.S. Gen. Philip Breedlove, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Islamic State is spreading like a cancer among Europes waves of refugees, with militants taking advantage of paths of least resistance, threatening European nations and our own, as the Guardian reported.

Related to the Islamist cancer is another disease riddling Europe from within  anti-democratic and anti-liberal political corruption. Countries like the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia have put their future within NATO and the EU at risk as a result of political instability arising from rank corruption among top officials. Such deep-seated difficulties combine in toxic ways with the upsurge of nationalism and party cronyism that has already set nerves on edge with regard to NATO members such as Hungary.

For the troubled alliance, this is a world, too, where traditional threats  including the most traditional of all from a NATO standpoint: Russia  are back in the picture in a menacing way. Two Russian warplanes flew simulated attack passes near a U.S. guided missile destroyer in the Baltic Sea on Tuesday, Reuters recently reported, with one official describing them as one of the most aggressive interactions in recent memory.

Although there is little prospect of a full-dress Russian invasion of Europe, as NATO planners once feared, todays Kremlin has little need to roll the tanks and risk tactical nuclear war. The lesson of Ukraine is that direct traditional attacks are a poor way to secure Moscows advantage. Instead, alternate forms of aggression  cyberattack, subversion, corruption, and intimidation around key resources and strategic sites  can give Russia the edge over vulnerable NATO members, especially around the Baltic Sea.

Part of the problem, as some observers are beginning to concede, is that NATO was more or less required after the fall of the Soviet Union to set new boundaries to the frontier of the West  and because of its moral convictions and cultural commitments, the West had to draw those lines farther east than cold hard strategic thinking might recommend.

The alliance has been unwisely expanded from its original 12-nation membership to include 28 countries, absorbing many of the old communist Warsaw Pact nations and some former Soviet republics, as Victor Davis Hanson recently argued. NATO may have meant well to offer security to these vulnerable new alliance members. Yet it is hard to imagine Belgians and Italians dying on the battlefield to keep Russian president Vladimir Putins forces out of Lithuania or Estonia.

But, again, it is equally hard to imagine Putin taking a 1939-era approach to expanding his frontiers. Its not just Belgians and Italians who are too flat-footed and dispirited to prepare Eastern members for Russian alt-war while grappling with terror and turmoil at home.

Hanson is correct that NATO, contra Trump, remains essential  but that the alliance must reform itself before it implodes. The difficulty is who will do the reforming. A moratorium on new members and a hike in member spending wouldnt hurt, but theyre hardly enough.

What NATO requires is a new strategic vision, including elevating cybersecurity to a higher command level, as is now underway in the U.S. It must decide whether to allocate raised budgets to fighting internal threats or to re-establishing a unified, workable defensive posture in the east. And it must put some distance between its own values and those of the EU.

As dismaying as Turkeys behavior has been, for instance, a Turkey out of NATO would be a much bigger problem than the Turkey we must deal with today. This situation cannot extend indefinitely, but the alliance has to focus on the urgent before it turns to the important.

That kind of focus will only emerge from a political leader capable of setting out a clear, compelling vision and executing on it. Unless something changes fast in Europe, that leader will have to be the next president of the United States.
Irvine-based Coldwell Banker Commercial sold a two-story office building in Costa Mesa. The 18,208-square-foot building sold for $3.25 million to Good Neighbors USA, an international nonprofit. Michael Dorsey, a managing principal of Coldwell Banker Commercials Irvine office, brokered the transaction. The buyer plans to occupy a portion of the office and lease out the rest. Dorsey will serve as the leasing agent for the building.

On the Move

Newport Beach-based SRS Real Estate Partners has a new Southern California multi-tenant investment sales team with three new members. The team will focus on multi-tenant investment transactions in Southern California. Team members are: Chris Tramontano, senior vice president; John Redfield vice president; and Matt Hardke, first vice president. They will be based in SRS Newport Beach office.

Matthew McLarand was named principal for Irvine-based design firm MVE & Partners. He previously worked as a senior associate partner. In his new role, McLarand will focus on high-rise residential and commercial design as well as commercial work in China and Los Angeles. MVE was founded by McLarands father, Carl, in 1974.
Anyone following national and local news media the past decade would expect that population growth has shifted in recent years from the suburban periphery to the inner city. The suburbs, intoned The Atlantic a few years back, were where the American dream goes to die.

In reality, the census estimates released this month reveal a very different story, both here in Southern California and nationwide. Rather than becoming more urban, the country continues to become more suburban, with less-dense areas and regions gaining more population than their inner-city cousins.

Indeed, rather than exiting to the city, people are actually doing the exact opposite: heading to both the suburbs and the sprawling cities of the Sun Belt. Overall, suburban populations are growing faster in all but a handful of metropolitan areas. The perceived historic shift toward the urban core  based, in part, by two years of slightly higher core growth in the wake of the housing bust  has now reverted to its traditional path of dispersion.

The new numbers tell us something that was already evident to anyone who bothered to follow the recent U.S. Census Bureau reports, which once again follow well-established pathways. Since 2012, suburban and exurban counties have again grown faster than the urban ones; and this does not even account for the fact that suburbs and exurbs already constitute a much larger part of the U.S. population  seven times the population of urban cores in metropolitan areas over 1,000,000 population.

To be sure, urban cores, especially those close to downtown areas (central business districts), are doing better than before the 1990s. But only seven added more domestic migrants than the corresponding suburbs. Overall, the cores continue to lose net domestic migration, while the suburbs continue to gain, something that has been the case even in the worst year for suburban growth (2010-2011) and continued in 2014-2015. Core counties last year lost a net of 185,000 domestic migrants, while the suburban counties gained 187,000. Rather than a reversal of suburbanizing trends, we now see something of an acceleration.

This yearning for less-dense, and usually less-expensive, areas can be seen clearly in regional migration patterns. The new numbers, like those of the previous 15 years, show a distinct movement of people to less-dense, more sprawling, Sun Belt cities. Among Americas 53 largest metropolitan areas, nine of the 10 fastest growing are in the Sun Belt: Austin, Orlando, Raleigh, Houston, Las Vegas, San Antonio, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Nashville and Tampa-St. Petersburg. The only outlier is Denver, which has become a destination for people and companies fleeing still much higher-priced areas, particularly from coastal California.

Last year, for example, Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta and Phoenix each gained more people than either New York or Los Angeles, which are three to four times larger. At the same time, urban icons New York and Chicago led the nation in both the numbers and percentage of people leaving for other regions. Even New York Citys population growth, so widely celebrated in the media, has slowed markedly. It is not only well below the national average, but is now half the rate it enjoyed in 2011.

California results

Despite the strenuous attempts of Californias powerful regulators to stem sprawl and force people back into dense core cities, the people here continue to move further out. Last year, for example, Los Angeles County, by far the regions population leader, experienced 0.60 percent growth, well below the national average. Overall, the county added barely 60,000 people to its total of over 10 million. In contrast, much smaller Orange County grew by roughly 0.80 percent, which is close to the national average of 0.79 percent. But the big winner was sprawl city itself  Riverside-San Bernardino  which added 50,000 new residents, for a 1.14 percent increase, roughly equal to booming San Jose and well above the state average.

Rather than signal a break with historic patterns, the new numbers reinforce them. Since 2000, the overall population growth rate in Los Angeles County has been 6.8 percent, less than half the state and national averages. In contrast, Orange County has expanded by 11.4 percent and the Inland Empire by almost 38 percent. Besides becoming more concentrated, Southern Californias population continually has moved further to the periphery.

Unless Californias density-obsessed planners manage to shut down all peripheral development  not inconceivable under the current political and economic circumstances  the outward movement is likely to continue. This is due to the natural tendency of the groups that will most shape the future, notably, immigrants and millennials, to look for places to live in either less-dense and -congested areas, as well as those with relatively less-expensive housing.

Between 2013 and 2014, for example, the foreign-born population in the Inland Empire grew three times faster than in Los Angeles. Since 2000, the foreign-born in L.A. County grew by barely 2 percent while increasing 12.1 percent in Orange County and 59.1 percent in the Inland Empire. Immigrants are clearly headed to the suburbs.

How about millennials, the other big contributor to population growth? Between 2000 and 2014, the millennial population (aged 25 to 34) expanded by only 14 percent in Los Angeles County, well below the national average of 23 percent, while increasing 61 percent in the Inland Empire. Orange County, however, actually did worse than L.A. in terms of millennial growth, with a meager 11 percent increase.

If this trend continues, and the countys housing prices remain extraordinarily high, O.C. may face a severe shortage of younger workers in the years ahead. Clearly, cost is becoming a determining factor in millennial migration. New studies of college-educated millennials since 2010 show a distinct shift away from places like San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and New York, and to less-expensive, less-dense places like the Nashville, Orlando, Phoenix, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston, as well as the Inland Empire, and even to recovering Rust Belt towns like Cleveland and Pittsburgh.

Planners versus preferences

One of the core beliefs of our planning elites  and some allied business interests as well  is that more people are attracted to dense, urban areas than to the suburbs. Yet, these ideas clearly contradict current movements, particularly in terms of migration. Last year, over 60,000 more domestic migrants left Los Angeles than came, while Orange County lost a more modest 10,000 residents. Once again, the Inland Empire  widely decried as the heartland of sprawl  expanded by 7,000, a modest uptick, but quite vibrant compared to the demographic trends in the rest of the region.

These trends reinforce longer-term ones, although all in the context of slower overall growth. Between 2000 and 2015, Los Angeles County lost roughly 1.4 million domestic migrants while Orange County declined by 250,000. In contrast, the Inland Empire gained half a million, many from the coastal counties. As growth slows throughout California, it is increasingly clear that the population that remains here will seek to live on the periphery.

Whether these trends reflect true preferences or simply matters of cost is impossible to quantify. However, what matters from a demographic perspective is not theoretical preferences, but what people actually do, regardless of the reason. The Census numbers do tell us definitively that the vision being proffered by the state and its planning henchmen does not jibe with what people are actually choosing. Clearly, the current regime of enforced densification is not in concert with peoples preferences and needs. Unless reversed, Southern California faces a future of increased stagnation as residents seek more reasonable alternatives elsewhere.

Joel Kotkin is the R.C. Hobbs Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University in Orange and executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism (www.opportunityurbanism.org).

Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, a St. Louis-based public policy firm, and was appointed to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission.
HUNTINGTON BEACH  A 79-year-old womans car rammed into a laundromat here Saturday afternoon, sending two customers inside to the hospital with minor injuries, police said.

She was trying to pull into a front parking space and hit the gas instead of the brakes, Lt. Kelly Rodriguez said.

The cars impact shattered the glass doors just before 2 p.m. at California Coin on Yorktown Avenue near Brookhurst Street.

However, there was no structural damage to the building, and the business reopened later in the day, Rodriguez said.

Two men received cuts and bruises, Rodriguez said. The woman, who was driving alone in a Toyota Prius, was not injured.

Contact the writer: sgoulding@ocregister.com
Re: Congressman sees foe in longtime friend [Front page, April 16]: A fascinating conflict seems to be developing between Dana Rohrabacher and Scott Baugh. Apparently, Rep. Rohrabacher and his people are upset because they believe that Baugh is considering challenging them in 2018. Does Rep. Rohrabacher feel that he has some divine right to represent the 48th Congressional District? Maybe so, after all he is in his 14th term.

This is precisely what is wrong with politics today. Too many career politicians. Incumbents always argue that their years in office and extensive contacts put them in a better position to represent their constituents. What they really mean is that they can get more stuff for their districts. Personally, I would rather they spent their time preventing pork-barrel spending. We need to shrink the federal government, not grow it, and new congressmen can do that just as well as older ones.

Frankly, I hope Michelle Steel comes out and challenges both of them

Bill Hezzelwood

San Clemente

  

Let Baugh and Rohrabacher duke it out. My issue is that Rohrabacher is in his 14th two-year term and is expected to easily win reelection this year.

I dont think this is a forgone conclusion as I think the 48th district is full of Republicans fatigued with Rohrabacher and his determination to be on the wrong side of science (he says he surfs yet discounts climate change), the middle class and equality issues. And after more than two decades in office has yet to garner a position of leadership.

Obama won the district in 2012. So, Im not so sure Rohrabacher has it in the bag this year. I think voters need to explore and consider the candidacy of Suzanne Savary.

Patty Gwin

Corona del Mar

The adverse effects of rent control

Recently, I had the opportunity to discuss rents in Orange County with Register writers John Seiler and Jeff Collins. During both conversations, two topics came up that I feel crucial to understanding the rental market: rent control and the Ellis Act. While neither is an issue in Orange County, it is important to understand what is going on around California and especially in areas that are adversely impacted by rent control.

The intention of rent control is to provide and preserve affordable housing. Annual increases are limited to an amount determined by a local jurisdiction. Controlled rents have grown annually at an average of 2.2 percent. Meanwhile, market rents have grown at an annual average of 3.52 percent  all while expenses grew at an average of over 5.01 percent per year. With no limit on the growth of expenses and a restriction on the growth of income, the result is that in virtually every market with rent control a point is reached where the property owner can no longer maintain the property through the income collected. Forget making capital improvements or upgrades, basic operations such as contract services, upkeep, repairs and maintenance can no longer be supported. Not only does this diminish the overall quality of the housing stock in an area, it creates blight in the community and effectively results in limiting the supply of habitable housing for those who need it most. So a property owner is faced with two options: sell or go out of business. Enter the Ellis Act.

The Ellis Act was established in California to allow an owner to ask residents to vacate so the owner can exit the rental business. As outlined above, this is a necessary option in markets plagued by rent control. But today, the Ellis Act is being abused by speculators who use it to evict residents, sometimes to convert units to non-conforming short-term rental hotels or simply to increase rents to market values after acquiring a property. In San Francisco, Los Angeles and Santa Monica, this is causing a significant issue. Affordable units are being removed from the marketplace and replaced with luxury or market rate units that are out of reach for most.

Apartments have long been known as Americas biggest small business. Many owners are families or partnerships who have opted to invest in real estate rather than the stock market. While apartment owners care for both a physical and financial asset, one of the best ways an owner can preserve both is to keep current with market rents. Or else, as evidenced in our current circumstances, just wait until the propertys expenses have exceeded the income, demolish it and build new units. Not only does this change the fabric of our neighborhoods, but it removes needed affordable housing from the marketplace. Certainly, there is a better option.

Nicholas Dunlap

Irvine

President, Apartment Association of Orange County
On Balboa Island, during especially high tides, water from the bay burbles up through cracks in the sidewalk and laps at the top of 80-year-old sea walls, which loom several feet above lower-lying walkways.

Its an occasional nuisance. But scientists say that within the lifetime of people now being born, such flooding, exacerbated by ever higher tides and storm surges, will become increasingly common in several Orange County coastal communities as sea levels rise as much as several feet.

How much damage those areas will suffer  and how much increased costs cities will face  depends in part on how much planning and preparation officials pursue, beginning now, experts say.

Low-elevation coastal areas such as Balboa, the Newport Peninsula, Sunset Beach and Seal Beach will feel the effects first. It wont hit all at once, but gradually, over decades, according to researchers, as ankle-deep floods become knee-deep, waist-deep and eventually strong enough to wash away cars and make some homes unlivable.

Something that wouldnt have been a big flood previously will become a much more significant flood, said Timu Gallien, who researches sea level rise at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego.

Most coastal Orange County cities are beginning to act by incorporating sea level rise projections into planning documents and general plan updates, but many scientists and officials warn its too little and coming too slowly.

The current pace of progress on defensive and preparation measures is disconcerting, some experts and officials say, given the scientific consensus that human-generated, heat-trapping gases such as carbon dioxide will ensure such communities at some point will have to confront rising oceans.

And it can take years to prepare flood studies that provide detailed information on neighborhood-level vulnerabilities. Sea walls, dikes and beach sand replenishment projects cost millions of dollars and are extremely time-consuming to plan, approve and build. A National Climate Assessment in 2014 concluded that sea level rise damages to unprepared coastal communities would cost four to 10 times more than adapting and preparing.

I dont think anybody is ahead of the curve the way were going, said Lesley Ewing, a senior coastal engineer at the California Coastal Commission.

For official sea level rise projections in California, the Coastal Commission relied on a 2012 National Research Council consensus report of the best science at the time. It forecast seas south of Mendocino would rise between 1.5 and 5.5 feet by 2100, depending on the worldwide steps taken to slow emissions of planet-warming gases.

A 2013 United Nations panel forecast seas would rise globally more than three feet by 2100, an estimate many scientists thought was too conservative. New studies projecting varying rates of sea level rise are frequently published by teams of scientists, such as a groundbreaking study published in the journal Nature this month that doubled U.N. estimates by accounting for major melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

Another study, published last month by a team of scientists from UC Irvine and other institutions, found that many Greenland glaciers were at greater risk of melting from below the sea surface than previously thought because of new calculations of the depth of warm ocean water. Quicker glacial melt rates would cause seas to rise faster.

In Newport Beach, a city expected to face some of the most severe consequences, officials recently settled on a $2 million compromise plan to raise sea walls protecting flood-prone areas by nine inches, after some homeowners objected to higher walls that could interfere with their bay views, said Bob Stein, the assistant city engineer, during a walking tour around the island.

Generally, residents are skeptical about official sea level rise projections, he said.

And the current, periodic flooding isnt seen as harbinger of worse things to come by some Balboa Island residents. Its not that big, really and truly, you just walk around a puddle, said Ann Roberson, a lifelong Balboa Island resident, standing next to the sea wall on a recent day. I just dont see it as a big issue.

Huntington Beach, the other city in Orange County most threatened by sea level rise, has convened a task force to work on a coastal resiliency plan that will go into a the citys general plan update in the coming years. Seal Beach and Dana Point also are taking preliminary steps to assess whether rising seas will affect homes, businesses and roads.

Two cities in Orange County  San Clemente and Newport Beach  have gotten financial help from the Coastal Commission, which regulates land use on the California coast, to determine their vulnerability to ocean level increases and begin planning for corrective measures.

One problem is that little is known about where and how water from higher sea levels will actually arrive on specific streets and in specific neighborhoods. Thats because most sea level rise forecasts are global in scale and rely on what scientists call a bathtub model. Water levels are overlaid on topographic maps of the coastlines and uniformly raised around the world.

But thats not how the oceans actually work. Sea levels in different places are influenced by a host of regional and local factors, as well as short- and long-term oceanographic trends.

The tides alone cause sea levels to rise and fall as much as five feet every day and large storms can bring water levels up nearly two feet. Waves can be six feet or more. Seasonal patterns like El Nino can add half a foot, while yearslong climate patterns can suppress them and Greenland and Antarctic glaciers can pull sea levels higher nearby.

The imprecise localized information on when and how sea level changes may affect coastal areas stands in contrast to the confidence scientists have that oceans will rise. The lack of the former shouldnt prevent cities from beginning to plan for the latter, said Ewing, the Coastal Commission engineer.

We dont need to be waiting for the next best tool. We need to be starting to plan for sea level issues now and as new tools develop, they can improve planning operations, Ewing said. Its going to be so much better in 50 years if we have planned for sea level rise thats happening, than if we blindly stumble into it and are constantly surprised by the damages.

In terms of detailed forecasts of potential problems, Newport Beach should be ahead of many other cities in the years to come. UC Irvine scientists studying the city are developing some of the most advanced flood mapping tools in the country and testing different ways of disseminating flood risk information to residents. The research also includes two communities on each side of U.S.-Mexican border.

To create the future maps and models, the scientists several years ago painstakingly documented the location and size of storm drains, sea walls and other infrastructure that influence flooding patterns.

Many areas of the Newport Peninsula are below the level of bayside sea walls and susceptible to flooding, especially when rainstorms combine with rising seas. Drains that ferry water from curbside gutters to the ocean get closed when ocean water levels are especially high to prevent water from traveling backward through the pipes to the streets. That causes rainwater to pond on streets with nowhere to go.

Flooding patterns in Newport illustrate a key point about sea level rise, scientists say. The threat isnt just persistently higher sea levels, per se, but worsening flood damage that will become more commonplace when severe storms hit the coast in the coming decades.

Managing those floods will strain city budgets as they spend more on sending crews to build sand berms and pump trucks to drain flooded streets, experts warn. Those increased costs will be the first sign of sea level rise, said Brett Sanders, a UCI professor who is the leading the team thats creating the hyper-local flood maps for Newport Beach. Such computer models eventually will be able to simulate flooding down to individual houses, a potentially powerful tool for educating communities about the risks ahead, Sanders said.

Thats more likely to help people appreciate it, when you bring the scale down to everyday life, he said.

The UCI teams models will be able to show exactly where water would be a few inches or a few feet deep under different scenarios, he said. People are eager to know what that difference is, Sanders said. The answer could determine responses, such as when and where residents may want to remove cars to avoid damage during the strongest storms.

The UCI team surveyed residents door to door in Newport, and found that people were highly aware of flooding, but ranked their preparedness low. They werent preoccupied or concerned with potential flooding, said Kimberly Serrano, the project manager for the UCI mapping team.

The first, enhanced defenses against rising sea levels, she said, should be natural mitigation methods, such as planting oyster beds and mangrove forests that can weaken the strongest tides and slow the advance of waves. Building engineered sea walls and tide gates would come next, followed eventually by pulling back development.

Its a hard conversation, Serrano said.

California and the Pacific Coast havent suffered major storms comparable to Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Katrina on the East and Gulf coasts, Serrano said. In our collective memory there hasnt been a recent disaster to galvanize us, Serrano said.

But sea levels could become a major issue in California sooner than many think, researchers say.

In the last few decades, prevailing wind currents have suppressed ocean levels in Southern California by displacing warmer water with cooler, denser water. Those currents have already started to shift.

Plus, the sheer gravitational mass of the enormous ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica draws ocean water to the poles, depressing sea levels in places such as California. When those ice sheets melt, that water will redistribute.

The further you are from the ice sheets, the more sea level rise youll get when they melt, said Patrick Barnard, a Santa Cruz-based coastal geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, who is leading a climate change impacts team there.

Its not just low-lying Orange County areas that could be at risk over the coming several decades. Cities with bluff-top roads and houses, such as Dana Point, Laguna Beach and San Clemente, are likely to face increased erosion threats, scientists warn.

Normally, stretches of sandy beach protect the cliffs beyond from the worst wave impacts. But as sea levels rise, waves will break closer to the cliff toe.

Assuming sea levels rise three feet by 2100, cliffs will erode twice as fast in Southern California, according to Patrick Limber, who studies cliff erosion at USGS in Santa Cruz.

To prevent erosion, coastal engineers and officials often coat cliffs in concrete or build sea walls in front of them, a process called armoring. But, ultimately, armoring causes the beach, not replenished by cliff erosion, to disappear, washed away on coastal currents. Its better, Limber said, to nourish beaches with sand from offshore or elsewhere and make them wider so waves dont reach sea cliffs.

The hazard of coastal erosion is only going to get worse as we go through the 21st century. A lot of people are just not aware of that, Limber said.

In the same way that the rarest, strongest storms will herald the worst impacts of sea level rise, the danger with failing cliffs is that even though the danger builds gradually, the damage crashes down all at once. You cant predict when its going to happen, he said.

Contact the writer: aorlowski@ocregister.com. Twitter: @aaronorlowski
How much will house hunters pay for paradise?

Every year since 2008, the pollsters at Gallup compile results from a series of surveys into their Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which tracks how Americans think about their overall quality of life. Sort of a touchy-feely consumer confidence index.

The results are diced by various geographical segments and presented in both a broad aggregate benchmark as well as sliced by five subcategories tracking niche lifestyle feelings.

The just-released 2015 edition of the Well-Being Index  derived from interviews with 177,000 U.S. adults last year  had Hawaii on top, West Virginia at the bottom  and California ranked 10th, up from 12th the previous year.

Since a home purchase has a lot of emotion built into the house hunters logic, I wondered how metrics on the often intangible measurement of quality of life might explain real estate homebuying patterns.

I tossed the Well-Being Index rankings into my trusty spreadsheet  plus some state-by-state housing stats: Trulias median listing price for March and home-price appreciation rates, as measured by Federal Housing Finance Administration indexes from 2010 to 2015.

The 10 states with the highest Well-Being Index ranking had an average listing price of $422,921 in March vs. $191,313 for the 10 lowest-ranked states  a 121 percent gap between the perceived best American lifestyles and the worst.

And its a long-running trend: The 10 highest-rated states had an average 24 percent gain in home price since 2010 vs. a 12 percent gain for the 10 lowest-rated states.

Yes, you pay for quality of life.

The 10 costliest states for housing, as measured by March listing prices, include the Well-Being Indexs top state for lifestyle quality (Hawaii) and three other Top 10s (No. 4 Colorado, No. 8 Utah and California.)

Conversely, the 10 cheapest states for housing include seven of the bottom 10 in the Well-Being Index: lowest-ranked West Virginia plus Oklahoma (48), Arkansas (47), Indiana (46), Ohio (45) and Mississippi (43).

But what specific attributes draw the biggest premiums?

When looking at the five Gallup poll slices that comprise the overall Well-Being Index and comparing them to these lifestyle factors and housing prices, its intriguing to see that life isnt simply about money. Heres what my spreadsheet told me about what folks will pay the most for:

1. HEALTH AND WELFARE

Location. Location Location. Yes?

People will pay for weather and natural beauty and often the local cultures that embrace those gifts.

The 10 states with the highest rankings for Gallups physical factor  having good health and enough energy to get things done daily  have average listing prices 123 percent higher than the 10 lowest-ranked states, the largest housing-to-lifestyle cost gap I found.

Does it surprise you that of the 10 costliest states to live in, three  the good-vibe hubs of Hawaii, California and Colorado  are among the highest-ranked states for Gallups physical factors?

2. FAMILY AND FRIENDS

The Well-Being Indexs social benchmark  which measures having supportive relationships and love in your life  seems to suggest that money can buy you love.

The average listing price for the 10 states with the highest social-quality rankings was 70 percent higher than bottom 10 states. This was the second-widest top-vs.-bottom gap found among Gallups five lifestyle subcategories.

Note the 10 costliest states for housing include three of the top-scoring social states: Connecticut (2), Utah (3) and Florida (4.)

Im betting people often choose to stay near family and friends, even if it means financial hardships like pricier housing.

3. FINANCES

Many high-priced communities offer good-paying jobs and lots of anxieties as well.

That helps explain why Gallups financial factor  managing your economic life to reduce stress and increase security  looks like a modest mover of home prices.

The average listing price for the 10 states with the highest financial-success rankings was only 37 percent higher than bottom 10 states.

This benchmarks results may reflect the many challenges that housing affordability creates in high-cost markets.

4. COMMUNITY

Why will homeowners only pay a small premium for community?

Maybe this factor  liking where you live, feeling safe and having pride in your community  is something you acquire once you choose to live somewhere.

My spreadsheet shows the average listing price for the 10 states most successful in the community rankings was only 33 percent higher than the bottom 10 states.

Consider the 10 states with the priciest housing. Its a group that includes three top 10 states for community feeling  Hawaii (2); Utah (5) and Colorado (6.) But it also includes two states in the bottom 10  New York (47) and Connecticut (43).

5. JOBS

Monetary pressures force many housing-strapped families to make tough choices.

That may explain why the average listing price for the 10 states with the highest purpose rankings was just 29 percent higher than the bottom 10 states, the smallest housing-to-lifestyle cost gap.

Yes, high-quality, high-cost communities are highly desirable. But theres a price for such paradise  like a frequent need to make career and work/life choices that focus too much on financial reward, making it hard to meet the purpose factors mission of liking what you do each day and being motivated to achieve your goals.

A real test of value may come in three of the states with the highest purpose rankings  Alaska, North Dakota, and Wyoming. All are heavily tied to the now-troubled energy sector.

Will folks in these states remain liking what you do each day if energys boom-to-bust continues?

Contact the writer: jlansner@ocregister.com
Two generations of California political enthusiasts have waited for a pivotal presidential primary. Thanks to New York Republicans, 2016 is the year we get one.

After Donald Trump routed Ted Cruz and John Kasich Tuesday in the Empire State, winning 60 percent of the vote and all but four of New Yorks 95 delegates, the signs point to a primary season that goes to the last day, June 7. Thats when Californians and voters in four other states go to the polls. In the meantime, the remaining questions about this wild Republican election season have crystalized:

Can Cruz staunch what might be a six-state losing streak after Tuesdays Northeastern Primary? Is Kasich now simply a spoiler? Can Trump, who has amassed some 850 delegates  far more than Cruz and Kasich combined  reach the magic number of 1,237 on the first Tuesday in June? Finally, who has the better argument about the fairness of the GOPs delegate allocation process?

The final state to vote will be the state of California  172 delegates  the big enchilada! Cruz told reporters Wednesday. I believe well do very well in California. Our organization on the ground is incredible. You know, the strength of our campaign is the grass-roots.

Yes, Senator, we do know that. We also know that door-to-door campaigning is of limited utility in the Golden State  and that recent polling shows Trump with a commanding lead in California. Grass-roots politicking alone will not be enough to change those numbers, although a couple of other factors might come into play.

The first is whether the GOP establishment will pool its resources to wage a scorched-earth television ad campaign to try and derail the front-runner. Such an air war never really materialized in New York, and would be massively expensive in Californias many media markets.

Donald Trump will not be the nominee  if the Never Trump forces get serious, Kasich adviser John Weaver said Tuesday night as his candidate was being routed. They werent serious in New York and allowed Trump to get over 50 percent in numerous districts where he could have been stopped, Weaver added. Continued lack of engagement by Never Trumpers could allow the Trump campaign to get back on track.

Well, Trumps campaign is definitely back on track. Its next station stop is Pennsylvania, where the RealClearPolitics polling average has The Donald up by nearly 20 points. This points to the second great variable leading into California: exactly how Trump, Cruz, and Kasich will divide up the delegates in the primaries between now and June 7  and how those other results will shape voters perceptions when the primary season comes to its Western denouement.

So lets stroll through the calendar.

On the same day Pennsylvanians apportion their 71 Republican delegates, voters go to the polls in Connecticut, Maryland, Delaware and Rhode Island. Trump is ahead by double digits in all of them. If that trend holds, he heads into May on a roll  and an even larger lead in delegates. RCP political analyst Sean Trende predicts that Trump will pick up another 100 delegates Tuesday, putting him less than 300 from the magic number as the campaign heads westward.

Indiana, May 3, is the next stop. The Hoosier State has 57 delegates  whove already been selected. Under state party rules, 30 of them must vote on the first ballot in Cleveland for the winner of the primary. The other 27 are committed to support the winner in their congressional district. Who that will be is anybodys guess. Polls in Indiana show a close statewide contest between Cruz and Trump, with Kasich showing strength in selected congressional districts. One variable is whether Trumps expected sweep this week will alter the equation. Yet, Indiana is a state where Cruzs vaunted organizational strength is important. The Texas senator seems poised to do well there.

May 10, Nebraska (36 delegates) and West Virginia (34) take their turn in the spotlight. Polling is sparse, but Nebraska figures for Cruz and West Virginia should be Trump territory. But Nebraska is winner-take-all, and West Virginia isnt. So May 10 may also be a good night for Cruz. On May 17, Oregons Republicans reveal their preference. Washington state goes the following week.

Seventy-two delegates will be apportioned in those two Northwest states. Neither seems like Trump Country, but Cruz has a potential roadblock in the person of Kasich, whose moderate persona and positioning make him a viable alternative  notwithstanding the likelihood that, by May 17, Kasich will still have won only a single primary, in his home state of Ohio.

Cruz knows this, and isnt happy about it, especially as he contemplates a busy June 7 where he believes his chances of beating Trump in California, New Jersey, Montana, New Mexico, and South Dakota would be stronger in a one-on-one matchup.

[Kasichs] plan, Cruz complained to reporters, apparently rests on losing 49 states, going to the convention, and having all the delegates say, The guy who lost every state in the union, except his home state, he should be our nominee. That, quite simply, is not going to happen. What John Kasich is doing is  hes helping Donald Trump.

Such whining has become a staple of this election season. Kasich, for one, has had enough. I mean, come on, Kasich said last week. Act like youre a professional, be a pro. The governor was actually responding to the latest Trump rant about the process, but he could have been talking about Cruz as well.

Underlying the carping is a fascinating civics debate. Trumps position, distilled to its essence, is that in an era is which almost every state chooses delegates via caucuses or primaries, the candidate who wins the most contests and the most delegates should earn the partys nomination. The competing argument is that the percentage of delegates Trump has attained actually exceeds the percentage of the popular vote he has received, and that the current process is in place for a reason: namely, so party leaders can choose the strongest nominee in the event there is no consensus candidate.

Heres a third idea: Cruz won the Republican primary in his home state of Texas, while Kasich carried Ohio. Trump lives in two places, New York and Florida, and he was victorious in both. California is neutral ground. Its also the most populous state in the union. Lets let voters in Reagan Country pick the GOP nominee.

Carl M. Cannon is executive editor of RealClearPolitics.com.
GAZIANTEP, Turkey  German Chancellor Angela Merkel and top European Union officials arrived near Turkeys border with Syria on Saturday in a bid to bolster a troubled migration deal with Turkey as they face increasing pressure to reassess the agreement.

Human rights groups criticized the trip to what they call a sanitized refugee camp  and said EU officials should look further at the tens of thousands of Syrian refugees that are now blocked from entering Turkey.

The German leader is also facing pressure to speak out against freedom of speech restrictions in Turkey.

The trip to the border city of Gaziantep by Merkel, EU Council President Donald Tusk, EU Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, comes as many have questioned the legality of the March 20 EU-Turkey deal allowing for the deportation of migrants who dont qualify for asylum in Greece back to Turkey.

The EU in return has earmarked 6 billion euros ($6.8 billion) to Turkey over the next four years to help improve conditions for the 2.7 million Syrian refugees inside Turkey. The EU is also set to allow visa-free travel for Turkish citizens.

Speaking in Berlin on Friday, Merkel defended the EU-Turkey deal, saying it is absolutely right and important and helps us to protect the outer border of the Schengen (free travel) area together with our neighbors.

U.S. President Barack Obama also weighed in on the issue in comments to German daily Bild that were published Saturday. He praised Merkels political and moral leadership in the migrant crisis, but also stressed the need to uphold human rights.

The recent agreement between the EU and Turkey is a step toward a more equitable way of sharing this responsibility, he said. As the agreement is implemented, it will be essential that migrants are treated properly and that human rights are upheld.

Rights groups, EU legislators and the U.N. refugee agency have questioned the moral and legal implications of expelling people from Greece back to Turkey  a country that many consider unsafe on grounds of security and human rights.

Despite insisting that it has an open-door policy for Syrian refugees, Turkey in the past few months has blocked several thousand refugees who were fleeing northern Syria at the border, providing aid to them at displaced persons camps near the border instead. Human rights groups say some of the camps have been attacked and are pressing Ankara to give the refugees shelter inside Turkey.

Amnesty International says Turkish authorities have also for the past three months been expelling around 100 Syrians a day back to their war-ravaged country  an accusation Turkey has denied. The country has also rejected claims that Turkish soldiers have on occasion shot at refugees trying to cross the border illegally.

The New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch has urged EU leaders to understand the whole refugee picture at the Turkish border.

Instead of touring a sanitized refugee camp, EU leaders should look over the top of Turkeys new border wall to see the tens of thousands of war-weary Syrian refugees blocked on the other side, said Judith Sunderland, Human Rights Watchs acting deputy Europe and Central Asia director. Then, they should go to the (Turkish) detention center for people who were abusively deported from Greece. That should make them rethink the flawed EU-Turkey deal.

Amnesty Internationals deputy director for Europe, Gauri van Gulik told The Associated Press the delegation needs a profound reality check.

Pretending all is well for refugees in Turkey blindly denies shootings at refugees, returns of Syrians to Syria and more, all in the dogged determination to keep people out of Europe, she said.

Merkels visit also comes amid controversy over her decision to grant Turkeys request to let German prosecutors and courts decide whether German comedian Jan Boehmermann had insulted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Critics have accused Merkel of kowtowing to Turkey because of the countrys important role in stopping the influx of migrants to Europe.

Turkeys leaders, meanwhile, are warning that the whole migrant deportation deal will collapse if the EU fails to grant Turkish citizens the right to visa-free stays for tourism or business by July.
MOSS LANDING  Officials say a fisherman spotted a distressed humpback whale that was entangled in the Monterey Bay and followed the animal until rescuers arrived, helping to save its life.

California Whale Rescue director Kathy Koontz told the Monterey Herald on Friday the whale would have died if the fisherman John Favazza hadnt stayed with it.

She says Favazza was on his boat when he saw the 35-foot-long humpback whale entangled with crabbing gear.

The whale had nylon rope from a crab trap tangled around its mouth and other parts of its body. A team worked for five hours until to free the animal Thursday.

Kootnz says without help the wealth would have died from her injuries.

Humpback whales are feeding in Monterey Bay this month as part of an annual migration north from Baja California.
First National Bank is offering its Nebraska customers an opportunity to travel to Bulgaria with Habitat for Humanity to build a home for a family in need.

First National Bank will send 12 people  six customers and six employees  from across its seven-state service area to Bulgaria in September. Expenses for the 10-day Habitat for Humanity Global Village Trip will be covered by First National Bank. Applications will be accepted through May 6.

The build will happen Sept. 22 through Oct. 3 in Koistinbrod, but the 12 will stay in the Bulgaria capital of Sofia.

First National has established partnerships with community organizations such as Habitat for Humanity to advance its housing initiatives and to work toward the company goal of supporting the construction or rehabilitation of 5,000 homes by 2020. Bank employees have participated in five previous Global Village Trips to China, Haiti, Macedonia, Paraguay and Romania.

In addition, First National Bank contributed nearly $20 million in 2015 to benefit communities in Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and Texas. The bank works with seven Habitat for Humanity affiliates in Nebraska, including Box Butte County, Columbus, Fremont, Grand Island, Kearney, North Platte and Omaha.

For more information or to fill out an application for the Global Village Trip, go online to woobox.com/fm6a5g.
39 held for 'jail bharo' agitation by Patels get bail in Gujarat

India

oi-PTI

Surat, April 24:Thirty-nine people, who were arrested after the 'jail bharo' agitation by Patel community members turned violent last Sunday, April 24 have been granted conditional bail by a local court. The bail order was passed by the court of Principal District Judge Geeta Gopi yesterday.

The 39 accused were granted bail on furnishing a bond of Rs 15,000 each. While granting bail, the court observed that nearly half of those arrested did not belong to the Patel community.

The bail was granted on certain conditions, including that the accused will have to present themselves before the court once every month, and they will have to ensure that evidences against them are not tampered with.

The accused were arrested on Sunday last under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code for rioting, and Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act. They were arrested after the 'jail bharo' call given by Sardar Patel Group (SPG) and Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) turned violent on Sunday, following which Surat Police detained 435 agitators.

Later, 39 people were shown as arrested from different parts of the city, including Amroli, Sarthana, Kapodara, among others, for rioting and causing damage to public property such as CCTV cameras and signboards.

PTI
Fact Check: Snake coiling itself around Army sniper is from Indonesia, not India

At Kargil this year: The PM has celebrated Diwali with soldiers since 2014

Army suffers casualties during military exercise in Rajasthan

India

oi-Oneindia

By OneIndia Defence Bureau

New Delhi, April 24: Three soldiers of Indian Army have lost their lives during the high-profile military exercise in Rajasthan deserts.

Codenamed Exercise Shatrujeet, troops from Indian Army's Strike Corps actively participated in the simulated military missions. Around 35,000 soldiers are said to have participated in this exercise.

With no official confirmation from the Indian Army's side yet, the deaths have been attributed to excessive heat and other injuries during the exercise.

There are unconfirmed reports that the snake bite might have caused at least one death.

Sources also confirm that some soldiers were injured during they were para-dropped from the helicopters.

Indian Army Chief General Dalbir Singh had visited the site yesterday. He was briefed on the operational aspects and conduct of the exercise.

The exercise demonstrated the synergy between Army and Indian Air Force in a battle environment.

The frontline Strike Corps of the Indian Army is said to have used the exercise as an ideal opportunity to fine-tune their war fighting skills.

No details are yet available on the exact number of deaths and injuries.

Army had earlier said that an airborne brigade (Parachute Brigade) was dropped in a night mission behind simulated enemy lines.

The official twitter handle of Indian Army @adgpi too is silent on the possible deaths during the exercise.

The Army Commanders' Conference is starting in New Delhi on April 25.

OneIndia News
Kerala polls: Bar scam, factionalism in CPI(M) key campaign points

India

oi-PTI

Kochi, Apr 24: The bar bribery scam and factionalism in CPI(M) are key campaign points as Congress leader K Babu, who had a controversial stint as state Excise Minister and CPI(M) leader M Swaraj, are waging a tough battle for Thrippunithura assembly constituency in Ernakulam district.

BJP is testing its electoral prospects in this Hindu dominated constituency by fielding noted writer and a retired College professor Thuravoor Viswambharan.

While Babu, who has been winning the seat since 1991, said the bar bribery charges levelled against him was a "deliberate political conspiracy by CPI(M)" to tarnish his image, Swaraj claimed that "corruption" is the major poll issue in the constituency.

"Bar owners, who were forced to close down their bars due to the widely hailed liquor policy of the UDF government, are pumping money to defeat me in the elections. The people of Thrippunithura will reject all false propaganda against me. I am confident about my victory," said 64-year-old Babu, who won the 2011 elections by a margin of 15,778 votes against his nearest CPI(M) rival C M Dinesh Mani.

Babu had resigned as excise minister on January 23 this year in the wake of a Vigilance court directing filing of an FIR against him in the bar bribery case. He returned to the Oommen Chandy cabinet on February 1 after the Kerala High Court stayed the order. The resignation of Babu, a close confidant of Chandy, had rattled the UDF government.

Working President of Kerala Bar Owners Association Biju Ramesh had alleged Babu was given Rs 10 crore as bribe for renewal of licences of liquor bars, a charge rubbished by the Congress leader.

"People of Thrippunithura have already taken a decision against the Congress leader who earned a bad name during his controversial stint as Excise Minister. They will definitely vote for me to ensure a clean and transparent LDF government in the state," Swaraj claimed.

Confident about victory of Swaraj (36), who is also state secretary of Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), CPI(M) District Secretary P Rajeeve said "Thrippunithura has turned as a capital of Kerala's anti-corruption movement".

"Babu's candidature was even opposed by KPCC president V M Sudheeran on the ground of corruption. People are aware of these things. We have fielded our energetic youth leader to take on Babu," Rajeeve said.

Congress, on the other hand, believes that factionalism in CPI(M) and late entry of Swaraj as the candidate will help Babu retain the seat.

"A strong section of CPI(M) workers in the constituency are not happy with the candidature of Swaraj, a loyalist of Pinarayi Vijayan. It is mainly because of his outbursts against their leader and veteran party leader V S Achuthanandan during the peak of factional feud in the party. Definitely, they will teach a lesson to Swaraj, who humiliated their beloved leader, in this election," a local Congress leader claimed.

Swaraj, however, rejected the charges, pointing out that Achuthanandan himself has stated that it was false propaganda by Babu to deviate attention from issues like corruption.

Admitting that there were "some minor issues" in some local committees of the party in Thrippunithura area, he also said everything has been settled and "all comrades are united against their battle against corruption".

"There are many burning issues directly affecting the people. Many parts of the constituency face drinking water shortage. Water water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.... that is the situation in this constituency. Babu is raising unnecessary issues to hide his inefficiency as a legislator in addressing such issues," Swaraj said.

BJP leader C G Rajagopal said Thrippunithura, which was the capital of erstwhile Kingdom of Cochin, is a famous centre of culture in Kerala and the party has fielded a "cultural icon" to challenge the two "corrupt fronts-- Congress-led UDF and CPI(M)-led LDF" in the elections.

He said Prof Thuravoor Viswambharan is a scholar having wide contacts in the constituency and it would help him win independent votes, besides the party votes.

"Besides, we are contesting elections as NDA and our key partner BDJS, a political offshoot of SNDP, has a strong base in the constituency. So we will be able to rewrite the history of the Constituency this time around," Rajagopal said.

PTI
BRO Recruitment 2022: Check details for 328 vacancies, last date and salary details here

Man tries to strangulate Kanhaiya Kumar in Jet Airways flight

India

oi-Preeti

Mumbai, April 24: JNU student Kanhaiya leader, who is under fire for his anti-national comments, was on Sunday, April 24, attacked by a man, when he was travelling from Mumbai to Pune in a Jet Airways flight.

The attacker was identified as one Nagender Kumar, who allegedly tried to strangulate Kanhaiya.

Following the attack on Kanhaiya, Jet Airways issued an official statement saying, "Some guests on board this morning's flight Mumbai to Pune were off loaded at Mumbai airport in interest of operational safety." [Kanhaiya Kumar's Pune meeting venue shifted]

"At Jet Airways, the safety and security of our guests and crew is always of prime importance", it said.

Today, Kanhaiya was scheduled to visit Pune and meet students of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) who had gone on a 139-day strike last year.

On Saturday, Kanhaiya Kumar launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and demanded that the government stop "jumlas" (false promises) and start "working" as public patience was wearing out.

Kumar is out on bail after his arrest on sedition charges by the Delhi police, but since his release from the jail, he has faced multiple attacks inside and outside JNU campus.

OneIndia News
With AQI of 259, Delhi's air on day before Diwali least polluted in 7 years

Delhi LG and CM greet people on Diwali, ask people to be mindful of pollution

NSG dog, Lt Colonel Niranjan recommended for gallantry award

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

New Delhi, Apr 24: In a first of its kind, countries elite NSG (National Security Guard ) has recommended for gallantry award, a dog named 'Rocket' considering its contribution during sanitising of terrorists marred front defense, Pathankot airbase.

NSG has recommended two names, Rocket and martyr Lt Colonel Niranjan. It has to be recalled that Niranjan fought valiantly and martyred while disposing a bomb. He was the commanding officer of NSG's bomb disposal squad.

Niranjan has been recommended by the NSG for the Showrya Award. But the recommendation stands unique this time as the NSG referred its dog, Rocket for the same. Awards will be conferred in the coming

Niranjan is a son of Shivaranjan, who is an employee of BEL. Kumar pursued his mechanical engineering in Islamia Institute of Technology.

After 2002 he relocated to M V Jayaram college to continue his education. Post completion of his education he joined Indian Army as his interests very much inclined towards to serving in the army. He had performed his duties successfully for several years in bomb disposal squad.

However, NSG 2-year-old NSG dog, Rocket, which is Belgian Malinois breed has earned appreciation from his masters for rendering the instructed duty. First in in the history of NSG a dog has been recommended for the gallantry award.

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Sunday, April 24, 2016, 18:34 [IST]
Toddler who filed 'FIR' against mom gets bicycle, chocolates from MP minister

5-year-old dies after being attacked by pack of dogs in MP

OMG!600% hike? Good news for MP's ex-CMs; pension increased from Rs 26,000 to Rs 1.7 lakh

India

oi-Reetu

New Delhi, April 24: Can you imagine a 600% hike, and that too in pension?

Surprisingly, the Madhya Pradesh government has increased ex-CMs' pension by over 600%.

According to Zeenews report, "The pension has been increased almost seven times from Rs 26,000 to Rs 1.70 lakh per month.

This pension of Rs 1.7 lakh will not be given if a former chief minister of MP occupies a position in the Union or the State Cabinet."

Earlier, the state cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan gave nod for the rise in the salary and perks of members after a gap of six years.

With this, the salaries and allowances of MLAs will go up to 1.10 lakh from Rs 71,000 per month. Chief Ministers and the Speakers pay packet will rise to 2 lakh from 1.43 lakh and to Rs 1.85 lakh from Rs 1.20 lakh, respectively.

Ministers pay will rise to 1.70 lakh from Rs 1.20 lakh, and that of ministers of state to 1.50 lakh from 1.03 lakh

OneIndia News
Pratyusha Banerjee suicide: Should case be handed over to CBI?Sign online petition if you support

Pratyusha suicide case: Here is what final report of death has revealed

India

oi-Shalini

Mumbai, April 24: After so many twists and turns in the popular TV actress Pratyusha Banerjee suicide case, now the final medical report has revealed something shocking.

The report has revealed that the actress was not in her senses when she commited suicide in her apartment in Mumbai on April 1.

So far friends and family have been claiming that Pratyusha committed suicide because of her abusive relationship with her boyfriend Rahul Raj Singh and that was the main reason behind her depression too.

Rahul has also been called several times by Mumbai Police for interrogation in connection with the suicide case. [Shocking: Pratyusha Banerjee was pregnant, say doctors]

According to the final death report, the actress had consumed 135 mg of alcohol before committing suicide.

However, the report also claims that, this amount of alcohol is more than the average state and any person can lose his or her sense after consuming such amount of alcohol.

Earlier, it had also come to fore that Pratyusha was pregnant and it is also being alleged that she and Rahul both decided to abort the child mutually.

Meanwhile, it is also being claimed by Pratyusha's parents that Rahul is changing his statements now and then.

OneIndia News
Sikhs rally in Germany against gurudwara attack

India

oi-PTI

Berlin, April 24:Hundreds of Sikhs have staged a rally in Germany's western city of Essen to protest against a terror strike at a gurudwara which authorities said was carried out by radical Islamists.

The Sikhs participated in traditional procession 'Nagar Kirtan', reciting parts of the Guru Granth Sahib and singing religious hymns yesterday, exactly a week after an explosion ripped through Nanaksar Satsang Darbar Gurudwara, injuring three persons.

The peaceful march was not a reaction to the strikes, but intended to pass on the message that the religious group would not succumb to terror fears, German media reported. Young men with swords enacted poses from the traditional Sikh martial art "Gatka" to the sounds of music and drums amid tight security as the community members, some of them holding placards in the wake of the attack, travelled through the streets.

The route for the procession, which had been planned months earlier, was changed after the attack to ensure the safety of all participants, the report said.

"I think it is important that the procession has taken place This is a clear signal that we will not be intimidated, we do not shrink back... As mayor, I am also here to show when the Sikh community attacked in Essen, the entire city is under attack. and I am also the mayor of the Sikh," city police chief Frank Richter was quoted as saying.

The two teenagers with known links to regional Islamists have been arrested in connection with the incident. India had expressed "distress" at what has been deemed as a deliberate act from the beginning.

Top Indian officials have already taken it up at the highest level as Essen authorities assured India that all steps will be taken to ensure security for all minorities including the Sikhs. The organisers had planned to bring the 'granthi' (priest), on whom the whole pane of glass had fallen due to the impact of the explosion and was seriously injured, to the procession.

He could not come down but joined through telephone. The priest, Kuldeep Singh, said: "What happened is a shame.

Those who have done this, should be blessed by God. My health is very good, would be released in a few days." Germany has a Sikh population of more than 15,000 people and around 35 gurdwaras are located across the country.

PTI
Israel to limit ties with nations which voted against it in UN vote

175 nations at UN sign Paris Climate Change Agreement

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

United Nations, April 23: Representatives from 175 countries met on Friday at the UN to sign the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and made clear the urgency of taking action to stop global warming.

In order for the accord to take effect, at least 55 countries responsible for 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions must complete the ratification process, Efe news reported.

At least 15 countries, mostly small island states, have already done so on Friday.

The two countries leading the world in emissions of greenhouse gases, the US and China, committed themselves on Friday to complete the ratification process this year.

The speeches by world leaders highlighted their sense of urgency about the need to stop global warming and go beyond the commitments of the Paris Agreement.

"Record global temperatures. Record ice loss. Record carbon levels in the atmosphere. We are in a race against time," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.

"Today (Friday) is a day for our children and grandchildren and all generations to come. Together, let us turn the aspirations of Paris into action. As you show by the very act of signing today, the power to build a better world is in your hands," Ban said.

Illustrating that statement, Secretary of State John Kerry sealed the pact in the name of the US accompanied by his two-year-old granddaughter Isabelle who was sitting on his lap. He said his country "looks forward to formally joining this agreement this year".

France was given the honour to sign the pact first, in recognisation of its hosting of the UN climate change conference in Paris in December 2015, which gave birth to the pact after nearly two weeks of tough negotiations.

The more than 60 leaders and hundreds of national representatives meeting in the chamber of the General Assembly listened to a strong speech by actor Leonardo DiCaprio, a UN Messenger of Peace on the subject of climate change.

"This is the only body that can do what is needed. You, sitting in this very hall. The world is now watching. You will either be lauded by future generations, or vilified by them," he said.

Many leaders underscored the need to go far beyond what was established by the Paris Agreement, which among other measures set a worldwide commitment to keep the world's average temperature increase well below the two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

However, there remain quite a few obstacles for the achievement of this ambitious goal, particularly the divergence between developed and developing countries over thorny issues like funding, responsibility and technology transfer.

Scientists said the monthly global temperature record has kept being broken over the past 11 months, and that 2015 has become the planet's warmest year since the late 19th century, Xinhua news agency reported.

Addressing the ceremony as a youth representative, 16-year-old Getrude Clement from Tanzania said: "As young people, the future is ours, but this is not the future we want for ourselves."

After Friday, countries still have one year to ink the Paris Agreement, which remains open for signature till April 21, 2017.

IANS


Diwali to be a school holiday in New York starting next year

App that alerts when you smell bad

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New York, April 24: Do you feel embarrassed at your foul-smelling body odour? Hold on as skin care products company Nivea Men has developed a smartphone app called "NOSE" that quickly senses and tells you about the body odour so you can avoid meeting your girlfriend.

"Basically, men usually have no idea when they smell awful. The other part of the problem is that our nose is so used to our own body odour that we cannot smell our own sweat," adweek.com tech website cited Nivea Men's explanation.

NOSE, developed with the support of creative connectivity agency Happiness FCB, works in conjunction with special sensors on a custom phone cover, to determine if you smell okay, bad, or have a body odour emergency on your hands, the report said.

The beta-version of NOSE was just demonstrated in Belgium recently and it would be further tested throughout the year.

The app would then be launched during the next phase on Apple's iOS and Android platforms. A consumer version would be released later.

IANS


In the name of charity, Rs 50 lakh transferred to personal A/C: ED in chargesheet against Rana Ayyub

Journalist community demands release of Nepali editor; calls arrest attack on free speech

International

oi-Oneindia

By Maitreyee Boruah

Kathmandu, April 24: The arrest of the Himal editor and prominent Nepali journalist Kanak Mani Dixit recently has been widely condemned by the members of journalist fraternity belonging to various parts of the world.

Several prominent editors, journalists and scholars from countries like India, Nepal, Bangladesh, US, UK, Australia and Sri Lanka have asked the government of Nepal to release the senior scribe, who has been arrested on April 22 (Friday) on charges of corruption.

On April 23 (Saturday), the veteran journalist, who was arrested by an anti-graft body for allegedly misappropriating a huge amount of money by misusing his public post, was admitted to the ICU of a hospital in the Himalayan country after he complained of high blood pressure.

"It is with deep concern that we have learned of the arrest of Kanak Mani Dixit, the widely respected founder-editor of Himal Media and a courageous voice for transparency, freedom of expression and democratic rights in Nepal and across South Asia [Senior journalist held for graft in Nepal]

The charges are related to alleged corruption but Kanak Dixit says it is part of a vendetta pursued against him by people in Government," said a statement jointly issued by the journalists, activists and scholars from across the world.

The journalist community hailed Dixit as a true professional and human rights defender.

"We have known Kanak Dixit as a true professional, human rights defender and energetic journalist whose credentials are built on robust research and tremendous courage. Himal Media, a pioneer in South Asia journalism, has published Himal South Asia, Nepali Times and Himal Khabar Patrika (in the Nepali language). He has written extensively for international media including leading newspapers in India and is chairman of Sajha Yatayat, a state run transportation company, which he has been turning around from a loss-making entity," said the statement.

"Kanak Dixit's detention comes at a time of increased pressure on free media across South Asia. We call upon all national and international media organisations, individual journalists and editors, defenders of media under pressure, on those who believe in the freedom of expression, to seek Kanak Dixit's immediate release and a fair and transparent trial, free of bias," added the statement.

The statement condemned all forms of pressure tactics used by the governments of various countries on journalists.

"We call upon the Government of Nepal to issue a transparent and unequivocal statement on his detention for we are deeply concerned about his safety and rights. We condemn all forms of pressure tactics on editors like him and other courageous media figures such as Mahfuz Anam of the Daily Star in Dhaka, who is facing over 80 cases of sedition and libel in Bangladeshi courts, and other media persons who are committed to the rule of law and justice," said the statement.

OneIndia News
North Korea's Kim hails 'successful' submarine missile test

International

oi-PTI

Seoul, Apr 24: North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un hailed a submarine-launched ballistic missile test as an "eye- opening success", state media said today, declaring Pyongyang has the ability to strike Seoul and the US whenever it pleases.

The US, joined by Britain, said yesterday's apparent test was a violation of UN Security Council resolutions and called on the North to refrain from further moves that could destabilise the region.

South Korea's defence ministry said the launch appeared to have failed as the missile, fired from a submarine in the Sea of Japan, flew just 30 kilometres.

However the North's state-run KCNA news agency insisted that the test, which it said was personally monitored by Kim, confirmed "the reliability of the Korean-style underwater launching system".

It cited the young leader as saying that Pyongyang "is now capable of hitting the heads of the South Korean puppet forces and the US imperialists anytime as it pleases."

"This eye-opening success constitutes one more precious gift the defence scientists and technicians are presenting to the great leaders and the party," it added.

North Korea has been pushing to acquire submarine- launched ballistic missile (SLBM) capability that would take its nuclear strike threat to a new level, allowing deployment far beyond the Korean peninsula and the potential to retaliate in the event of a nuclear attack.

The isolated country has conducted a number of what it says were successful SLBM tests, but experts question the claim, suggesting Pyongyang had gone little further than a "pop-up" test from a submerged platform.

The latest launch comes as the North gears up for a rare and much-hyped ruling party congress early next month - the first in 36 years - at which Kim is expected to take credit for pushing the country's nuclear and missile weapons programme to new heights.

Tension has been running high on the divided Korean peninsula since Pyongyang's fourth nuclear test in January and rocket launch a month later widely seen as a disguised ballistic missile test.

The UN Security Council responded by slapping its strongest sanctions to date last month. Pyongyang has since staged a series of short- and mid- range missile tests, claiming it had acquired significant technical breakthroughs in its nuclear strike capability.

Many analysts and senior Seoul officials have suggested the regime may carry out a fifth nuclear test as a display of defiance and strength ahead of the May party congress.

AFP


Sri Lanka vs Pakistan: When and where to watch Asia Cup 2022 Final Match live online?

Sri Lankan PM eyes trade with India, China

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Colombo, April 24: Sri Lanka aims to strengthen its economy and move the country forward by entering into bilateral agreements with several countries including India and China, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said here on Saturday, April 23.

Wickremesinghe said the hour arrived for Sri Lanka to be once again the economic hub it was in the ancient world on the Silk Route, media reported.

He further said that his government was in the final stages of formulating the Economic and Technology Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) with India and were also reviewing a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China.

Additionally, his government was also looking at entering into such partnerships with Singapore, Turkey, USA and Pakistan.

"Our end goal is the creation and sustenance of a dynamic and thriving economic hub that will generate thousands of jobs," he said.

Sri Lanka is also planning to regain the Generalised System of Preference (GSP) Plus trade concessions from the EU after it was withdrawn from Sri Lanka as the island nation failed to meet certain conditions on human rights issues in 2010 when Mahinda Rajapakse was president.

The Sri Lankan government was currently in discussions with the EU and are confident to regain the trade concessions this year.

Meanwhile Wickremesinghe also welcomed the decision by the EU this week to lift a ban on Sri Lanka's fish exports which he said is a significant step towards reaping economic benefits for Sri Lanka and will fuel the growth potential of the fishing industry in the country.

The European Commission decided to lift of the ban on fisheries exports from Sri Lanka to the European Union, stating that Sri Lanka now had a robust legal and policy framework to fight illegal fishing activities.

The Sri Lankan government said that it was facing a loss of over $100 million per year because of the ban.

IANS

ahm/
Bengal election Phase 4: 2011 results in 49 seats going to polls on April 25

Kolkata

oi-Shubham

Kolkata, April 24: Forty-nine constituencies of the West Bengal Assembly will go to the election on April 25 (Monday).

Assembly Polls 2016 Coverage; Top contests of 2016 polls

These constituencies are located in two districts---North 24 Parganas (33) and Howrah (16). [List of 49 seats going to polls on April 25]

In the 2011 Assembly elections, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) won 43 of these seats while the Left Front won four and the Congress two. The BJP won of these seats in a bypoll held in 2014 at the expense of the Left. [Phase 4 is make-or-break for BJP]

Here are the details of the election results in these 49 seats in 2011:

North 24 Parganas (33 seats)

Bagda [SC]: 2011 voters number: 2,03,624; vote percentage: 85.22; winner: Upendranath Biswas of TMC [vote share: 52.71%]; difference: 20,956



Bangaon North [SC]: 2011 voters number: 1,89,468; vote percentage: 86.37; winner: Biswajit Das of TMC [vote share: 54.55%]; difference: 23,620

Bangaon South [SC]: 2011 voters number: 1,89,044; vote percentage: 86.34; winner: Surajit Kumar Biswas of TMC [vote share: 53.71%]; difference: 21,889

Gaighata [SC]: 2011 voters number: 1,86,186; vote percentage: 84.40; winner: Manjul Krishna Thakur of TMC [vote share: 55.58%]; difference: 25,447

Swarupnagar [SC]: 2011 voters number: 1,96,006; vote percentage: 87.19; winner: Bina Mandal of TMC [vote share 48.94%]; difference: 7,414

Baduria: 2011 voters number: 1,88,461; vote percentage: 89.77; winner: Abdul Gaffar Kaji of Congress [vote share 53.17%]; difference: 22,960

Habra: 2011 voters number: 1,80,475; vote percentage: 86.86; winner: Jyotipriya Mullick of TMC [vote share 55%]; difference: 25,392

Ashoknagar: 2011 voters number: 1,93,115; vote percentage: 88.31; winner: Dhiman Roy of TMC [vote share 55.39%]; difference: 27,692

Aamdanga: 2011 voters number: 1,78,120; vote percentage: 90.98; winner: Rafiqur Rahaman of TMC [vote share 53.79%]; difference: 21,557

Beejpur: 2011 voters number: 1,58,823; vote percentage: 80.07; winner: Subhrangshu Roy of TMC [vote share 51.49%]; difference: 12,612

Naihati: 2011 voters number: 1,53,264; vote percentage: 85.81; winner: Partha Bhowmik of TMC [vote share 57.39%]; difference: 27,470

Bhatpara: 2011 voters number: 1,23,505; vote percentage: 76.40; winner: Arjun Singh of TMC [vote share 70.94%]; difference: 44,385

Jagaddal: 2011 voters number: 1,72,874; vote percentage: 84.98; winner: Parash Dutta of TMC [vote share 58.80%]; difference: 36,032

Noapara: 2011 voters number: 2,05,070; vote percentage: 82.91; winner: Manju Basu of TMC [vote share 59.03%]; difference: 41,148

Barrackpore: 2011 voters number: 1,70,240; vote percentage: 77.82; winner: Shilbhadra Dutta of TMC [vote share 60.02%]; difference: 36,120

Khardaha: 2011 voters number: 1,69,658; vote percentage: 87.24; winner: Amit Mitra of TMC [vote share 56.49%]; difference: 26,154

Dum Dum North: 2011 voters number: 2,04,481; voter percentage: 86.66; winner: Chamdrima Bhattacharya of TMC [vote share 53.43%]; difference: 18,026

Panihati: 2011 voters number: 1,86,741; voter percentage: 81.09; winner: Nirmal Ghosh of TMC [vote share 58.34%]; difference: 31,432

Kamarhati: 2011 voters number: 1,61,809 vote percentage: 79.02; winner: Madan Mitra of TMC [vote share 57,96%]; difference: 24,354

Baranagar: 2011 voters number: 1,86,723; vote percentage: 79.46; winner: Tapas Roy of TMC [vote share 60.58%]; difference: 36,828

Dum Dum: 2011 voters number: 1,99,322; vote percentage: 80.82; winner: Bratya Basu of TMC [vote share 57.50%]; difference: 31,497

Rajarhat-New Town: 2011 voters number: 1,84,102; vote percentage: 89.08; winner: Sabyasachi Dutta of TMC [vote share 49.23%]; difference: 7,747

Bidhannagar: 2011 voters number: 2,00,265; vote percentage: 74.35; winner: Sujit Basu of TMC [vote share 59.53%]; difference: 35,925

Rajarhat-Gopalpur: 2011 voters number: 1,92,748; vote percentage: 77.99; winner: Purnendu Basu of TMC [vote share 59.76%]; difference: 35,725

Madhyamgram: 2011 voters number: 1,97,220; vote percentage: 88.53; winner: Rathin Ghosh of TMC [vote share 57.18%]; difference: 34,668

Barasat: 2011 voters number: 2,11,207; vote percentage: 84.85; winner: Chiranjeet Chakraborty of TMC [vote share 58.28%]; difference: 40,211

Deganga: 2011 voters number: 1,75,793; vote percentage: 90.28; winner: M Nurujjaman of TMC [vote share 49.39%]; difference: 17,300

Haroa: 2011 voters number: 1,86,630; vote percentage: 89.85; winner: Zulfiqar Mollah of TMC [vote share 45.70%]; difference: 1,124

Minakhan [SC]: 2011 voters number: 1,64,652; vote percentage: 91.82; winner: Usharani Mandal of TMC [vote share 48.66%]; difference: 7,136

Sandeshkhali [ST]: 2011 voters number: 1,72,416; vote percentage: 89.69; winner: Nirapad Sardar of CPI(M) [vote share 43.21%]; difference: 4,232

Basirhat South: 2011 voters number: 2,13,441; vote percentage: 87.22; winner: Narayan Mukherjee of CPI(M) [vote share 35.94%]; difference: 12,400. This seat was won by BJP's Samik Bhattacharjee in a bypoll held in September 2014 following the death of Narayan Mukherjee.

Basirhat North: 2011 voters number: 1,93,135; vote percentage: 86.60; winner: Mostafa Bin Kashem of CPI(M) [vote share 45.19%]; difference: 3,943

Hingalganj: 2011 voters number: 1,85,015; vote percentage: 85.93; winner: Anandamoy Mandal of CPI [vote share 45.75%]; difference: 1,015

Howrah (16 seats)

Bally: 2011 voters number: 1,42,634; vote percentage: 73.38; winner: Sultan Singh of TMC [vote share: 50.42%]; difference:6,600

Howrah North: 2011 voters number: 1,72,171; vote percentage: 72.48; winner: Ashoke Ghosh of TMC [vote share: 49.25%]; difference:19,608

Howrah Central: 2011 voters number: 2,24,536; vote percentage: 74.04; winner: Arup Roy of TMC [vote share: 62.07%]; difference:50,670

Shibpur: 2011 voters number: 1,97,987; vote percentage: 82.29; winner: Jatu Lahiri of TMC [vote share: 61.83%]; difference:46,404

Howrah South: 2011 voters number: 2,34,521; vote percentage: 76.87; winner: Brajamohan Majumdar of TMC [vote share 56.06%]; difference:31,422

Sankrail [SC]: 2011 voters number: 2,11,354; vote percentage: 81.33; winner: Sitalkumar Sardar of TMC [vote share 51.21%]; difference:17,857

Panchla: 2011 voters number: 2,06,662; vote percentage: 81.02; winner: Gulshan Mullick of TMC [vote share 45.76%]; difference:12,118

Uluberia East: 2011 voters number: 1,76,922; vote percentage: 83.38; winner: HA Safi of TMC [vote share 46.48%]; difference:19,584

Uluberia North [SC]: 2011 voters number: 1,70,752; vote percentage: 85.39; winner: Nirmal Maji of TMC [vote share 52,45%]; difference:18,448

Uluberia South: 2011 voters number: 1,75,596; vote percentage: 85.36; winner: Pulak Roy of TMC [vote share 49.48%]; difference:11,832

Shyampur: 2011 voters number: 2,08,848; vote percentage: 84.11; winner: Kalipada Mandal of TMC [vote share 56.64%]; difference: 34,619

Bagnan: 2011 voters number: 1,80,651; vote percentage: 85.51; winner: Arunava Sen of TMC [vote share 53.55%]; difference:19,270

Aamta: 2011 voters number: 2,06,749; vote percentage: 82.39; winner: Asit Mitra of Congress [vote share 51.82%]; difference: 13,719

Udaynarayanpur: 2011 voters number: 1,90,753; vote percentage: 87.40; winner: Samirkumar Panja of TMC [vote share 55.11%]; difference:23,891

Jagatballabhpur: 2011 voters number: 2,25,661; vote percentage: 83.89; winner: AK Mollah of TMC [vote share 54.19%]; difference:27,780

Domjur: 2011 voters number: 2,16,676; vote percentage: 86.25; winner: Rajiv Banerjee of TMC [vote share 54.07%]; difference:24,977

Oneindia News
Raipur: Naxal carrying Rs 1 lakh on head killed in encounter

Raipur

oi-PTI

Raipur, Apr 24: A Naxal carrying a reward of Rs 1 lakh on his head was killed in an encounter with the security forces in Sukma district on Saturday.

Sukma Additional Superintendent of Police Santosh Singh said that Jan militia commander Sodhi Pandu was killed in Kumartong village under the Kistaram police station area.

The encounter took place when a joint team of STF, District Reserve Group (DRG), and district force reached Kumartong village during a patrol.

The forces and Naxals exchanged fire for almost an hour following which other Naxals fled from the spot and Pandu's body was found, he said.

Pandu wan accused of a blast near Dharmpenta in 2015 in which one jawan had been killed and two others injures, the ASP said.

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New Data Confirms the Rise of iGaming in Europe

Published April 24, 2016 by Lee R

Sports betting leads the charge in the impressive growth of online gambling in Europe.

According to data released by Global Betting and Gaming Consultant, online gaming in Europe is booming.

The Figures

The gross gaming yield of $15.87 for 2015 capped a rise of 328 percent between 2005 and 2015. The five years from 2010 were particularly remarkable, as GGY jumped 198 percent. At that rate of growth, 2020 would yield a $21.88 billion a year market.

The Sectors

Sports betting remains the most popular form of online gambling. The percentage of contribution to iGaming revenues from that sector increased from 45.6 percent in 2005 to 48.5 percent in 2015.

In a continental landscape where popular casinos in Europe include EUCasino, Royal Vegas Casino and EuroGrand Casino, online casinos contributed 29.2 percent, up from 23.1 percent in 2005.

Online bingo remained steady, contributing 8 percent in 2005 and 9% in 2015.

However, online poker is flagging, with a contribution of just 13.4% this year, off almost ten points from 2005s 13.4 %.

European Impact

All online figures are issued from a total European iGaming market of an estimated $87 billion USD, the largest real-money online casino market in the world.

The European growth spearheads the robust overall global of iGaming, which is growing at an overall rate of 11 percent for a total gross gaming yield of approximately $37 billion a year. At this point, 85 nations have legalized Internet gambling.

Major Frontiers

The United States represents the most room for growth, as only three states currently regulate online gaming since its American debut in Nevada in 2013. The states of Delaware and New Jersey have since joined. According to accounting firm Rubin-Brown, New Jersey revenues now represent over 92 percent of the American market, at $148.8 million. Nevada follows with roughly $10 million followed by Delawares $1.81 million. India and Russia are two more massive markets still to be won. While the challenges remain, the potential for iGaming growth remains massive.
It has been reported that two Veterinary Medical students of the Michael Okpara university of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State, have died.

The students reportedly died after drowning in a swimming pool during a party.

Local reports show that the incident happened at night yesterday, May 25, during a birthday party at Kenvilles hotel, Umuahia.

The deceased have been identified as Johnson Ibe, a 200 level student, and Egwu David, a 100 level student.

The sad development has left shadowy feeling in the air at the university.
My Dear Boris Ole Chap:

Boris Johnson, you, the Mayor of the City of London is an ass. And I don't like asses. But you're not the hoofed mammal of the horse family with a braying call, typically smaller than a horse, and with longer ears. No, that would be an insult to that meek hardworking and usually industrious animal.

Boris, you're the kind of ass that is genetically unintelligent hence your propensity to bray - the characteristic loud harsh ass's cry. And when individuals like you enter politics you always transform the "pastime of the people" in really negative and noxious ways. To sum up: You're a bloviating loud-mouth politician who just loves the sound of your own voice even though it's as nauseating and nerve-grinding as chalk on a blackboard to everyone else.

Sure Boris ole chap, when you open your mouth, people expect putrid crap to come gushing out, so people just roll up their eyes in exasperation and look upwards to the heaven for some, any, divine intervention just to shut you up. Your big mouth just got you in trouble.

Your recent infantile and racist attack on President Barack Obama was vintage stupidity since your support for Britain leaving the European Union (EU) will impact not just Britain, but America. So your idiotic contention that America's president should not weigh in on the debate and upcoming referendum on June 23 and that he had no right to express his opinions on the matter, is just plain garbage.

By your own logic or illogic if Britain leaves the EU its pivot to a deeper engagement with America juxtaposed with that of the remaining EU countries is a central argument. Indeed, it's an expectation that things will be better for Britain with a recalibrated and ultra-cozy newfangled relationship with your most important ally "across the pond."

But even if you're so inherently predisposed to be dumb as to jettison your own argument and logic, I can't let you get away with the racist screed that you hurled at an underserving president. I understand your reasoning: you want to deflect President Obama's influence, power and the strength of his oratory skills that can persuade many Britons to rethink their position on leaving the EU.

Your fears of America's charismatic president who is more popular in Britain (and London) than you are justified. He can undermine your case for exiting the EU, singlehandedly, and may have done so. So you joined the more extreme elements in the Leave EU Movement to attack the US President even before he opened his mouth.

People like Mike Hookem who lurched into irrational and delusional anti-Americanism, winding the clock back to 1939, arguing without an iota of foundation that the US had it in for the United Kingdom even back then, seeing the Second World War as a way of "smashing the UK's influence in the world." This unhinged diatribe from a prominent UK politician, though uncalled for and petty, demonstrated the fact that lunacy lurks in many quarters in British politics.

So you had to go one better. You could not leave this crap alone. Noooo, you had to show that when it comes to lunacy you, Boris, stand supreme and unchallenged and you could out do anyone in British politics. So you borrowed liberally from Donald Trump's playbook on "How To Really Be A Jackass & Bray Loudly." You twisted Trump's "birther" idiocy tomfoolery and came up with the novel idea to call President Barack Obama "a half-Kenyan" who cannot be trusted because he's filled with "ancestral loathing" of Britain.

Oh heck man, you could just as easily have called him "half-white" or "mulatto." But you had to do the Kenyan thing. You could have even alluded to Britain's colonial past. Now all of Britain and the EU have seen you for what you are: a loud, bombastic, racist ass whose penchant for unnecessary incessant braying has now rendered you the Laughing Stock of the British politics.

And to think that you thought that you're the British "prime minister in waiting" to replace David Cameron at Number 10 Downing Street! President Obama has adroitly put an end to your aspirations. Boris, that's what you get when you tangle with an adult. That's what you get for wallowing in the mud. It's your long overdue comeuppance for calling Black people "piccanannies" in general, and African men in particular, as possessed with "watermelon smiles."

Boris, you'll NEVER EVER reach the level of achievement that this "half-Kenyan" has reached. And I know that that irks the hell out of you. You're a jealous, hate-filled pseudo-Caucasian ass masquerading as a human being. Now you'll never be prime minister of Britain because people have seen through you; they've removed the mask to expose the ass underneath -- a crude, obnoxious, hoofed mammal not given to intelligence and renowned for its obstinacy.

In the end the people of United Kingdom will decide if to leave or stay in the EU. The American president has made his views known with respect and tact. He's not dictated to the British people, ever sensitive to the obvious claims of "meddling." But because America is being drawn into this situation and Europe remains an important trading -- and military -- partner, President Obama had every right to speak to this issue.

Boris, you can't have to both ways: you want to leave and one of the conditions for leaving the EU, from you and your fellow "Leave Movement," is to form a stronger trading and economic bond with America. But you don't want America to have a say in how it feels about this new relationship. That's why I don't like asses, Boris. They don't make sense.

Thing is that eight former US Treasury secretaries warned that Britain's leaving the EU will be a critical threat to the global economy. And while you and your supporters called the US president a hypocrite, you did not allude that the all-Caucasian former secretaries were "half-Irish, half-Jewish or half-German." Oh, and by the way Boris, President Obama's article in the Daily Telegraph about how America's sacrifices for Europe in two world wars gave him the right to make his case, is, well, spot on. Only an ingrate would think less. Boris, we saved your butts when Hitler and company was giving you real hell.

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Bernie Sanders We're going ALL THE WAY

(Image by Tony Webster) Details DMCA



Bernie Sanders says he's taking the Democratic presidential nomination contest all the way to the party's national convention in Philadelphia at the end of July. Believe it.



With increasing intensity after each primary or caucus he loses -- and for that matter after each primary or caucus he wins -- party big-wigs call on him to concede the race and get out of Hillary Clinton's way. Politico's informal April survey of anonymous Democratic "insiders" has nearly 90% wanting Sanders out no later than the DC primary in mid-June and only 10% urging him to hold out to the bitter end.

Why isn't he listening to the 90%? As a Florida Democrat told Politico, "[t]here is no path, and there is no math." Actually there are at least four paths.

Path #1: Clinton's health fails in a very big and very public way. She's had multiple public fainting spells since 2005, including one resulting in a broken elbow in 2009. In 2012, she suffered a concussion and was hospitalized with cerebral venous thrombosis, a life-threatening blood clot condition. Her campaign health statement acknowledges these problems and throws in hypothyroidism to boot, although characterizing the 67-year-old as enjoying "excellent" health.

Path #2: Clinton is indicted in, or otherwise dragged down over, the "Servergate" affair, in which she appears to have illegally mishandled classified information while Secretary of State.

Path #3: Clinton comes to big legal or political grief over apparent connections between large donations to her family's foundation on one hand and her actions as Secretary of State on the other. For example, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia donated $10 million to the Clinton Foundation and Boeing donated $900,000. Later, Secretary Clinton cleared a $29 billion arms deal involving the two parties. You can see how that kind of thing looks. There may be some "there" there.

Path #4: The texts of Clinton's Wall Street speeches, for which she received millions of dollars in honoraria, are leaked. Clinton's refusal to release those texts tells us that their release would be politically damaging. Everything comes to light sooner or later. If it's sooner -- that is, before July -- we may find out how just how damaging.

Any of these four scenarios might result in Hillary Clinton's ignominious withdrawal from the presidential race and release of her delegates, followed by the party's scramble for an alternative nominee. If Bernie Sanders doesn't quit, he becomes the odds-on favorite for the job.

So he won't quit. And now you know why.
Reprinted from Consortium News

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has offered a curious defense of Hillary Clinton's "honesty," refuting the public's widespread view that she is a liar by narrowly defining what it means to be "honest" and arguing that she is less dishonest than she is a calculating and corner-cutting politician.

Kristof writes, "as we head toward the general election showdown, by all means denounce Hillary Clinton's judgment and policy positions, but let's focus on the real issues. She's not a saint but a politician, and to me this notion that she's fundamentally dishonest is a bogus narrative."

Kristof cites, for instance, that half of her campaign statements, as evaluated by PolitiFact, were rated either true or mostly true, comparable to how the group assessed statements by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Ted Cruz and much better than Donald Trump's 22 percent. Leaving aside the "conventional wisdom" bias of this mainstream media organization, Kristof does seem to have a point. In a narrow definition of "honesty," former Secretary of State Clinton may be "truthful" or kind of truthful half the time.

But Kristof misses the larger point that the American people are making when 56 percent of them rate her negatively and many call "crooked" and "dishonest." They seem to be commenting on her lack of authenticity and perhaps her resistance to sincerely acknowledging major errors in judgment. She only grudgingly apologized for her pro-Iraq War vote and still insists that her bloody "regime change" scheme for Libya was a good idea, even as the once-prosperous North African nation slides into anarchy and deprivation -- with the chief beneficiary the head-choppers of the Islamic State.

A Nixonian Quality

Many Americans sense that there is a Nixonian quality to Hillary Clinton -- her excessive secrecy, her defensiveness, her rigidity, her unwillingness to acknowledge or learn from mistakes. Even when she is forced into admitting a "mistake," such as her violation of State Department rules when she maintained a private email server for official correspondence, she acts as if she's just "apologizing" to close off further debate or examination. As with Richard Nixon, there's a feeling that Clinton's apologies and rationales are self-serving, not forthcoming.

Yet, while it's true that Nixon was a deceitful character -- his most famous lie being when he declared "I am not a crook" -- I would argue that he had some clear advantages over Clinton as President. He was a much more strategic thinker than she is -- and sometimes went against the grain of expectations as encapsulated in the phrase "Nixon goes to China," meaning that Nixon could open up to communist China precisely because he was viewed as such a hardliner who would never do such a thing but who finally judged that the move was in America's interests.





While it's impossible to say whether Clinton would seize unexpected openings as President, she showed none of that creativity, subtlety and courage as Secretary of State. She marched down a straightforward neocon line, doing precisely what Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted in the Middle East.

Clinton tried to sabotage President Barack Obama's diplomatic outreach to Iran and favored military solutions to Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. She also followed a rightist approach in backing the 2009 coup in Honduras that ousted an elected progressive president who had offended some of the Honduran oligarchs and outside corporate interests.

Lack of Self-Criticism

In addition, Clinton appears to have learned nothing from her support for the catastrophic Iraq War and has argued against "conflating" her Iraq decision with her Libya decision. But that suggests that she is incapable of learning a lesson from one mistake and applying it to a similar situation, an almost disqualifying characteristic for someone who hopes to become President.

Being a successful President requires extracting painful lessons from one mistake and making sure you don't make the same mistake again. But Clinton's personal arrogance or defensiveness (it's hard to figure out which is dominant) prevents her from that sort of self-criticism.

Indeed, her ritualistic (and politically timed) apology for her Iraq War vote in 2006 came across less than an honest recognition that she had done something horribly wrong than that she had to say something to appease a furious Democratic electorate as she mounted her first run for President against anti-Iraq War candidate Obama.
Reprinted from Jonathan Cook Blog

Between 500 and 700 Palestinian children are prosecuted in Israel's military courts each year, says rights group





A jabbing pain in his shoulder and thigh roused Obada from his sleep at 3am. In the half-light, the 15-year-old could make out eight masked men surrounding his bed, their rifles pointed at him.

"I felt terrified," he said of the experience of being arrested in February from his home in the village of al-Araqa, near Jenin in the northern West Bank.

Obada is one of more than 100 Palestinian children who, in recent months, have found themselves dragged from bed at gunpoint in the middle of the night by Israeli soldiers, according to children's right groups.

Testimonies like Obada's feature in a new report, No Way to Treat a Child, compiled by Defence for Children International -- Palestine (DCIP), a group monitoring Israeli violations of Palestinian children's rights.

The 440 children currently in military detention are the highest total since the Israeli army started issuing figures in 2008 -- and more than double the number detained this time last year.

The rights group says that, despite promises two years ago from the Israeli army to phase out night raids following international condemnation, in practice they are used as routinely as ever.

During his arrest, Obada said he was hit with a rifle butt, blindfolded and his hands tied with a plastic cord that cut into his flesh. "The soldiers dragged me out of the house without allowing me to say goodbye to my family and without telling me why and where they were taking me," he said.

Over the next fortnight, according to Obada, he was repeatedly beaten. Indignities included being locked overnight in a small toilet cubicle and assaulted with a taser when he protested.

For 12 days, his only break from solitary confinement was to be taken from his cell to an interrogation room where he was tied tightly to a chair, slapped and threatened.

He was repeatedly questioned about his ties to two school friends, Nihad and Fuad Waked, who had been killed a few days earlier during an attack on soldiers.

Obada's account of his arrest and detention accord with a pattern of abuse similar to other children's testimonies, said Ivan Karakashian of DCIP.

Three-quarters of children reported being physically assaulted during their detention. In nearly 90 percent of cases, parents had no idea where their child had been taken, and in 97 percent of interrogations, no parent or lawyer was allowed to be present.

Some 60 percent of children were then transferred to prisons in Israel, in violation of international law, where, typically, they waited three months for their first family visit, as relatives struggled to get entry permits to Israel.

Such abuses contrast strongly with the rights guaranteed to children both in Israel and in Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.
Soon after Sen. Bernie Sanders was declared the loser in the New York Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday night, his campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, was on MSNBC explaining the path ahead for the independent socialist from Vermont. Weaver contended, optimistically, that Sanders could potentially win all the remaining contests. When pressed on what the campaign would do should Sanders end up second to Hillary Clinton in the delegate hunt, Weaver said the campaign would spend the weeks between the final primary in early June and the Democratic convention in late July trying to flip the superdelegates who have declared their loyalty to Clinton.

To some, this might seem fanciful. Would Democratic officials throw Clinton to the curb in favor of the second-place guy who has never been a member of the Democratic Party? And would Sanders, the champion of small-d democracy and the scourge of machine politics, really turn to the equivalent of party bosses to secure the nomination after losing the popular vote?
By David Swanson, American Herald Tribune

Someone asked me to find war lies during the past few years. Perhaps they had in mind the humanitarian pretenses around attacking Libya in 2011 and Iraq in 2014, or the false claims about chemical weapons in 2013, or the lies about an airplane in Ukraine or the endlessly reported Russian invasions of Ukraine. Maybe they were thinking of the "ISIS Is In Brooklyn" headlines or the routine false claims about the identities of drone victims or the supposedly imminent victory in Afghanistan or in one of the other wars. The lies seem far too numerous for me to fit into an essay, though I've tried many times, and they are layered over a bedrock of more general lies about what works, what is legal, and what is moral. Just a Prince Tribute selection of lies could include Qadaffi's viagra for the troops and CNN's sex-toys flag as evidence of ISIS in Europe. It's hard to scrape the surface of all U.S. war lies in something less than a book, which is why I wrote a book.

So, I replied that I would look for war lies just in 2016. But that was way too big as well, of course. I once tried to find all the lies in one speech by Obama and ended up just writing about the top 45. So, I've taken a glance at two of the most recent speeches on the White House website, one by Obama and one by Susan Rice. I think they provide ample evidence of how we're being lied to.

In an April 13th speech to the CIA, President Barack Obama declared, "One of my main messages today is that destroying ISIL continues to be my top priority." The next day, in a speech to the U.S. Air Force Academy, National Security Advisor Susan Rice repeated the claim: "This evening, I'd like to focus on one threat in particular--the threat at the very top of President Obama's agenda--and that is ISIL." And here's Senator Bernie Sanders during the recent presidential primary debate in Brooklyn, N.Y.: "Right now our fight is to destroy ISIS first, and to get rid of Assad second."

This public message, heard again and again in the official media echo chamber, might seem unnecessary, given the level of fear of ISIS/ISIL in the U.S. public and the importance the public places on the matter. But polls have shown that people believe the president is not taking the danger seriously enough.

In fact, awareness has slowly begun spreading that the side of the Syrian war that the White House wanted to jump in on in 2013, and in fact had already been supporting, is still its top priority, namely overthrowing the Syrian government. That has been a goal of the U.S. government since before U.S. actions in Iraq and Syria helped create ISIS in the first place (actions taken while knowing that such a result was quite likely). Helping this awareness along has been Russia's rather different approach to the war, reports of the United States arming al Qaeda in Syria (planning more weapons shipments on the same day as Rice's speech), and a video from late March in which State Department Deputy Spokesperson Mark Toner was asked a question that a good ISIS-fearing American should have had no trouble answering, but which Toner found too difficult:

REPORTER: "Do you want to see the regime retake Palmyra? Or would you prefer that it stays in Daesh's hands?"

MARK TONER: "That's truly a -- a -- um -- look, I think what we would, uh, like to see is, uh, the political negotiation, that political track, pick up steam. It's part of the reason the Secretary's in Moscow today, um, so we can get a political process underway, um, and deepen and strengthen the cessation of hostilities, into a real ceasefire, and then, we . . . "

REPORTER: "You're not answering my question."

MARK TONER: "I know I'm not." [Laughter.]

Hillary Clinton and her neocon allies in the Congress believe that Obama was wrong not to bomb Syria in 2013. Never mind that such a course would surely have strengthened the terrorist groups that brought the U.S. public around to supporting war in 2014. (Remember, the public said no in 2013 and reversed Obama's decision to bomb Syria, but videos involving white Americans and knives won over a lot of the U.S. public in 2014, albeit for joining the opposite side of the same war.) The neocons want a "no fly zone," which Clinton calls a "safe zone" despite ISIS and al Qaeda having no airplanes, and despite NATO's commander pointing out that such a thing is an act of war with nothing safe about it.

Many in the U.S. government even want to give the "rebels" anti-aircraft weaponry. With U.S. and U.N. planes in those skies, one is reminded of then-President George W. Bush's scheme for starting a war on Iraq: "The U.S. was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in U.N. colours. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach."

It's not just rogue neocons. President Obama has never backed off his position that the Assad government must go, or even his highly dubious 2013 claim to have had proof that Assad used chemical weapons. Secretary of State John Kerry has compared Assad to Hitler. But it seems that dubious claims of someone possessing or using the wrong kind of weaponry don't quite do it for the U.S. public anymore after Iraq 2003. Supposed threats to populations don't inspire raging war fever in the U.S. public (or even support from Russia and China) after Libya 2011. Contrary to popular myth and White House claims, Qadaffi was not threatening a massacre, and the war that threat was used to start immediately became a war of overthrow. The burning need to overthrow yet another government fails to create confidence in a public that's seen disasters created in Iraq and Libya, but not in Iran where war has been avoided (as well as not in Tunisia where the more powerful tools of nonviolence have been used).

If U.S. officials want war in Syria, they know that the way to keep the U.S. public on their side is to make it about subhuman monsters who kill with knives. Said Susan Rice of ISIS in her speech, which began with her family's struggle against racism: "It is horrifying to witness the extreme brutality of these twisted brutes." Said Obama at the CIA: "These depraved terrorists still have the ability to inflict horrific violence on the innocent, to the revulsion of the entire world. With attacks likes these, ISIL hopes to weaken our collective resolve. Once again, they have failed. Their barbarism only stiffens our unity and determination to wipe this vile terrorist organization off the face of the Earth. . . . As I've said repeatedly, the only way to truly destroy ISIL is to end the Syrian civil war that ISIL has exploited. So we continue to work for a diplomatic end to this awful conflict."

Here are the main problems with this statement:
"Nobody should take delegates and claim victory unless they get those delegates with voters and voting," Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said last week. "It's a crooked system. It's a system that's rigged. And we're going to go back to the old way -- it's called, you vote and you win."

The thing is, that isn't the old way. The kind of insiders-tilted process Colorado Republicans controversially used this year, in which delegates were ultimately chosen through a state convention, used to be a lot more common. Before the 1970s, candidates seeking major-party presidential nominations chiefly had to woo party power brokers rather than voters. Some candidates entered state presidential primaries -- the few that existed -- not to win delegates so much as to prove to machine bosses that they deserved to be considered for the national ticket.

Political insiders at the time typically hated primaries, viewing them as a sideshow. It was considered unseemly for a potential president to go out and beg people for their vote before the national convention.

"How long must our system of selecting nominees for the presidency go on at the mercy of the sentimental disorders of the preferential primary -- or popularity contest -- method?" wrote New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning political biographer William S. White in 1959.

White's diatribe had been sparked by Sen. Wayne Morse. The maverick Oregon politician -- who famously answered only to his conscience and thus was known as "the loneliest man in Washington" -- had just declared his intention to run in Oregon's 1960 Democratic presidential primary as a "favorite son."

On its face, this announcement seemed harmless enough. The favorite-son candidacy was typically a means for a state party to keep its delegates in play until the strongest contenders needed them at the national convention. But Morse wasn't your typical local hero.

He couldn't be controlled.

Democratic Party National Chairman Paul M. Butler, recognizing the problems the iconoclastic Morse could cause at the convention, criticized the senator's decision. "I much prefer that the favorite sons do not interfere with bona fide candidates in presidential primaries," he said. He added: "I do not think [state presidential primaries] are a fair way to test a man's strength. But as long as we have them they should be used as fully as possible by men who sincerely seek nomination."

Soon after Butler made that statement, Morse announced he wouldn't limit himself to Oregon's primary. He was nobody's placeholder. He wanted to be president.

"I shall not run away from a good political fight if it is inevitable," he declared. He said he hoped that "professional politicians who usually are in control of political conventions would suffer political nightmares" because of his candidacy. He called for the Democratic Party to return to the "constitutional liberalism of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman."

Morse, a former Republican who had been an early critic of anti-communist demagogue Joe McCarthy, added that he "would be a candidate with no backing of any political machine, and that would be a good because the people could be sure that I would be speaking my own views."

His leap into the presidential race was viewed as a blow to the candidacy of Minnesota Sen. Hubert Humphrey. "Morse and Humphrey are in the same 'uncompromising liberal' wing of the Democratic Party," The Oregonian wrote. It added that Humphrey's chief rival for the nomination, 42-year-old Massachusetts Sen. John Kennedy, was "more of a compromising liberal."

Morse recognized the difficulties of running for the presidential nomination without the backing of party bigwigs -- that was why he was doing it. "All the odds are against me," he said, "but I've been to a lot of horse races where the long shot won."

Oregon's newspapers wondered if Morse's slap at the Democratic machine would bring about the end of his political life. One reporter called the senator's candidacy "the greatest gamble of his career -- a try for the presidency that could undercut Democratic support he would need for a senate re-election in 1962."

Worse yet, Morse refused to say he would back Humphrey, Kennedy or Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, the leading party-approved candidates, in the general election. He did express enthusiasm for former Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson, who had suggested he would accept a draft at the convention.

Morse was, of course, expected to win in his home state, with one observer noting that he "appears to show mystical promise in rallying Oregon's voters." Reporter A. Robert Smith joked that "all Portland heart specialists are assigned to emergency duty at [the high-toned] Arlington Club" in anticipation of a "Socialist" takeover of the Democratic Party.

But nobody realized how successful Kennedy would be at winning votes from across the country. His popularity relentlessly grew through the spring until, The Oregonian wrote, Oregon voters faced "a real horse race down to the wire," with Morse holding a narrow lead in the polls.

As the Oregon vote approached, and after placing a disappointing second in the Maryland and District of Columbia primaries, Morse backed off on his confident talk of winning the nomination. Instead, he began angling for the vice-presidential slot. On the TV program "Meet the Press," the 59-year-old senator predicted the convention would go through 10 ballots without settling on a candidate, and by then "even Wayne Morse could be nominated for one of the two posts."

It didn't happen. He said he expected to win Oregon "by a substantial majority," but by the time the state's election day arrived, Kennedy was in full flight. The charismatic young Massachusetts senator followed up his crushing victory over Humphrey in West Virginia by crushing Morse in Oregon. He scored 51 percent of the vote to Morse's 31.9 percent. Oregon's senator won only four Oregon counties -- Curry, Lincoln, Union and Wheeler. "Morse Out As State's 'Favorite'," The Oregonian declared.

Morse dropped out of the race, his hopes for the presidency -- and the vice-presidency -- dashed. But he -- along with Kennedy and Humphrey -- had helped start something that would dramatically change the way the major parties chose their nominees.

Kennedy, of course, went on to win the presidency in 1960. Eight years later, the Democratic primary candidacies of Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy, John's brother, proved the most dramatic of an unusually dramatic election cycle. (Morse, a leading opponent of the Vietnam War, spoke at the contentious Chicago convention.) In the years ahead, the number of state primaries increased for both Republicans and Democrats, and soon the notorious smoke-filled rooms where party bigwigs selected presidential candidates emptied out.

Anti-Trump Republicans this year may feel some sympathy for the "sentimental disorders" attitude that White, the Times columnist, expressed in 1959. But White's viewpoint is way out of date. Seventy percent of New York's Republican primary voters last week said the candidate with the most votes overall should be the nominee, period. In 2016, the people aren't willing to sit back and wait to be told who their party's presidential candidate is. They expect to make the choice themselves.

-- Douglas Perry
turtles.jpg

Tucker (not shown here) was a very lucky turtle.

(File Photo)

Turtle care vs. people care: I was greatly interested in "One lucky turtle," (April 15). A number of veterinarians and animal rescuers teamed up to provide a turtle they dubbed "Tucker" treatment in a hyperbaric chamber for medical issues affecting his buoyancy. What a great success story!

I was reminded of Ed Gavagan, a New York business owner who was attacked on the streets of that city one night as he walked home from work. He was stabbed multiple times and left for dead. He was found, taken to a hospital and survived due to the skill of a surgeon who operated on him all night. When he regained consciousness the next morning, a nurse came in to get information. Gavagan reports that when they found out he had no health insurance, they disconnected him from every life-sustaining treatment he was on, handed him a bottle of pain pills, wheeled him out the front door and told him to come back in two weeks to have his stitches removed.

What I want to know is: What health insurance, exactly, did the turtle have? It must have been awfully darn good.

David Gunn

Southwest Portland
Oregon Lottery markets to minority populations

Check your tickets. Here are the results for Saturday's Oregon lottery drawings.

(Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian)

Check your tickets. Here are the results for Saturday's Oregon lottery drawings.

Powerball ($251 million)

19, 35, 46, 59, 62, Powerball: 13; Powerplay: 5

Megabucks ($2.2 million)

7, 8, 18, 25, 35, 36

Win for Life

36, 41, 51, 52

-- The Oregonian
Matt Bell, author of Scrapper, will pay a visit to Rauchholz Memorial Library in Hemlock at 6:30 p.m. Monday, May 9, for an evening of storytelling, book signing and question-and-answer time with guests.

Bell is visiting as part of the Library of Michigans 2016 Michigan Notable Authors Tour. This year, several authors whose works were chosen as 2016 Michigan Notable Books selections will visit nearly 50 libraries throughout the state.

Bell will speak about his latest novel Scrapper, which Publishers Weekly said has the feel of Cormac McCarthys The Road set in present-day Motor City. Set in Detroit, the novel follows an illegal metal scrapper named Kelly, who scavenges for scrap metal from the hundred thousand abandoned buildings in a part of the city he calls the zone, an increasingly wild landscape where one day he finds something far more valuable than the copper hes come to steal: a kidnapped boy, crying out for rescue.

The Rauchholz Memorial Library is located at 1140 N Hemlock Road, Hemlock. For details, call (989) 642-8621 or visit www.rauchholzlibrary.org.

Bells previous novel In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods, was a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award and an Indies Choice Adult Debut Book of the Year Honor Recipient, as well as the winner of the Paula Anderson Book Award. He is also the author of two collections of fiction and a non-fiction book about the classic video game Baldurs Gate II. His next story collection, A Tree or a Person or a Wall, will be published in fall 2016. He is a native of Hemlock, and now teaches creative writing at Arizona State University.

Michigan Notable Books is designed to promote reading and raise awareness of Michigans literary heritage. The program annually selects 20 of the most outstanding books published in that year - titles that are reflective of Michigans diverse ethnic, historical, literary and cultural experience.

In addition to the tour, the Library of Michigan Foundation will host a Night for Notables on Saturday, April 2, 2016. For more information about the evening program taking place at the Library of Michigan in downtown Lansing, visit www.michigan.gov/notablebooks.
DETROIT (AP)  Federal authorities are investigating the theft of about 500 pounds of commercial-grade fireworks from a freight train that stopped in Detroit.

Donald Dawkins, a Detroit-based spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told reporters Friday that the 32 cases were gone when the CSX train arrived Wednesday in Detroit. Dawkins says investigators don't know when the explosives were stolen from train that had traveled from Chicago but they are "leaning toward Detroit."
The American Red Cross encourages eligible blood donors to donate blood this spring to ensure a sufficient supply for patients at approximately 2,600 hospitals across the country.

An upcoming blood donation opportunity in Midland will take place Tuesday from 2 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1700 W. Sugnet Road.
Taylor Cambridge of Midland, said Ingrid Mattsons presentation at Saginaw Valley State University on the Quran: Text, Context, and Tradition Thursday, enlightened her.

She presented the Quran as much more peaceful than I expected, said Cambridge, who attended with her mother because both were interested in the topic. Ive never read it, but I guess I just always thought it was harsher.

Mattson spoke at the Rhea Miller Recital Hall as part of SVSUs Dr. Raana Akbar Memorial Lecture series. The late Dr. Akbar was an advocate for religious tolerance and also served on SVSUs Board of Fellows. Mattson is an Islamic studies scholar, expert in interfaith relations and a Muslim religious leader. She also authored The Story of the Quran. It is an academic bestseller.

The Quran is our constitution, Mattson said of Muslims.

No matter where Muslims live, Mattson said they should be loyal and tolerant of other religions.

There is multi religions where we live and we should be loyal to people we live with, she said. Theres no question about these two things for most Muslims.

Were not here for no reason, but for spiritual divine. Were not the only living beings that matter, Mattson said, citing one of her favorite Quran passages.

Mattson said the Quran says, We are part of life, but there are other creatures we have to listen to and take care of.

The Quran also encourages Muslims to pay attention and think, she said.

Were not supposed to be mindless robots, she said.

In addition, she noted that the religious book emphasizes diversity, helping the needy and womens rights.

She said diversity isnt an accident, it is purposeful.

The Quran has so much emphasis on orphans, needy and the marginalized, she said. The Quran really calls to us. Are we doing enough?

She said there is no way for this society or any society to achieve perfect justice, but Muslims are called to do what they can.

It was very informational, said John Kinkena, of Midland, who attended because he was interested in learning more. I dont have a lot of knowledge of the Quran.

Muslim Annie Martin, of Saginaw, who was a friend of Akbars, enjoyed the lecture.

I thought it was very informative, she said. She covered many areas of society and many areas of Islam.

For Muslim Abeer Al-Gharaiben, a Central Michigan University sophomore, she said the lecture equipped her with many answers to questions she had about the Quran.

The strong message of the Quran, Mattson said, is it is possible to be better.
When it comes to providing access to affordable care, our health care system creates two outcomes that really work at cross purposes. People in need can access emergency care even when they cant pay for it. But the cost of that uncompensated care gets passed along unfairly to those who can pay  like small business owners. They have felt the very real burden of this cost shifting and suffer by having to pay inflated base rates for health insurance.

SBAM has supported Michigans Medicaid expansion since the beginning. We want it to be successful because we know the Healthy Michigan Plan makes good business sense. It has already covered more than 1.7 million primary care visits, translating to savings for hospitals and insurance companies by closing the coverage gap. Incentivizing citizens to avoid emergency room visits should help ease the costs that get baked into insurance rates.
How much trust do you have in the media to report news fairly and accurately?

According to recent poll results, a small minority have a favorable response to that question, and more than 40 percent said they have zero confidence.

In that study, sponsored by the Media Insight Project, just 6 percent of people say they have a lot of confidence in the media, while 41 percent have no confidence at all. Fifty-two percent of respondents said they have some confidence in those running the news business.

The study also noted that 85 percent said it was extremely or very important that the press be accurate and get the facts right. Two percent said that accuracy isnt important.

The poll surveyed 2,014 adults and was conducted Feb. 18 to March 21 by the Media Insight Project, a partnership of The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the American Press Institute.

The media, as clearly indicated by these poll results, have a lot of work to do in order to earn public trust.

It is discouraging to see so little trust in the media by the public, but at the same time it also is understandable, Midland Daily News Editor Jack Telfer said of the poll results. We certainly have to do a better job, especially at the national level where it seems like every story is reported from an analytical perspective, rather than just presenting the facts and letting the public decide the merits of the issue. I hope at the local level, here in Midland County and the surrounding areas, that the trust factor is higher, in part because all of us at the Daily News live and work in this region, and therefore know the communities we are covering and the importance of accuracy to our readers.

At the national level, the studys findings are getting noticed by newspaper editors.

The most important thing that news organizations can do is be accurate, and while we know that is a high value, this study reinforces that, Margaret Sullivan, public editor of The New York Times, said in an Associated Press article.

Sullivan added that having reader trust is both good journalism and good business. For news organizations that want to be taken seriously, there is real opportunity here and real help, she said.

Why so little trust in the media? Heres what the study discovered in questions to those polled: Sixty-nine percent of the respondents said that they trust the news less because they found stories that were one-sided or biased, while 65 percent said they lost trust in the news because of incorrect facts.

In sum, news reporting outlets have their work cut out in order to improve public trust. The top two areas to work on have been noted: 1. Accuracy; 2. Fairness.
Chainsaw Man Season 1: The anime community is now buzzing about Chainsaw Man. Although the manga has been out for 

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Entertainment / Arts

by Staff Reporter

MPOPOMA High School, one of the best secondary schools in Bulawayo, will on 7 May hold a fundraising dinner dance to raise funds for the expansion of the school.The school, established in 1959, which has been the beacon of success in the region, says it seeks to raise money to fund a number of projects such as computerisation of the library, construction of A-level double-storey block, construction of an administration block, refurbishment of laboratories, purchase of a generator, drilling of borehole and purchasing of a mini-bus. The school is selling tickets for $25 to individuals and organisations, with low rates for those buying tables to accommodate 10 people.In an interview with Sunday News, the school head, Christopher Dube, appealed to parents, the business community and former students to support the initiative."The purpose of the function is to seek for donations and raise funds for the development of the school. When the school was built, it was meant to accommodate 300 pupils with just 20 teachers but numbers have ballooned yet infrastructure has remained like that. Now we have more than 2 000 pupils and 104 teachers," said Dube.
BLOOMINGTON  A warm and dry April has Central Illinois' rich soil in good shape for spring planting, farmers say.

I have been farming for a long time, said John Olson of McLean, and it seems like I am amazed at something every year and I probably will be before the spring is over. But right now, its pretty much business as usual as far as getting into the fields.

Most farmers reported significant progress before rain arrived Wednesday, said Illinois Farm Bureau spokesman John Hawkins.

They were getting anxious and then we had some warm, dry weather and were able to get to work, he said. We had some variables in the weather and I think most of them just waited them out.

Statewide, the subsoil moisture supply as of April 17 was rated at 1 percent very short, 9 percent short, 74 percent adequate and 16 percent surplus, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics.

During the first part of the month, we had a lot of cold, windy, wet weather and it didnt allow us to get much done, Olson said. But then all of the sudden, it got calmer, warmer and dryer and it seemed like everyone got into the fields at about the same time.

Hawkins is hearing positive reports from farmers throughout Central Illinois.

They say the ground is working up fine and they are encouraged by the field conditions this spring, he said.

USDA reported that by April 17, about 12 percent of the states corn crop had been planted.

Thats not going to be the case around here, because those figures take into account the fact that a lot more corn had been planted in counties south and west of Springfield, he said. We should see that rise quite a bit, though, when the April 24 report comes out.

In mid-April last year, about 11 percent of the states corn crop had been planted.

Farmer Matt Hughes of Shirley said the wait to get into the fields didnt seem quite as long this year.

It was a warmer winter and spring, and so the ground wasnt frozen solid like it is some years, with snow standing on top, he said. Because of that, everything drained out pretty quickly. Calendar-wise, were still pretty early and so I think most of us are going to be in pretty good shape.

Brian Liverman, who farms near Atlanta, has been anxious to get into the fields for several weeks.

It seemed like we were going to have an early spring and I wanted to get going in March, he said. We didnt have any standing snow or anything like that, and so I think a lot of us were anxious, but a lot of us got in trouble four years ago by getting into the fields too early and having a cold snap kill off what we had planted early."

Illinois farmers expect to plant slightly more corn than in average years, Hawkins said, citing a USDA report that operators are expected to plant 3 percent more corn and 2 percent more soybeans.

I think that speaks to confidence some, Hawkins said. But more importantly, I think its just a sign that farmers like to use the ground they have to grow their crops. Last year, we had a lot of rain late in the planting season and that impacted McLean County some. Last year, it was a lengthy and drawn-out planting season. Its still early this year, but the conditions seem to favor planting a large crop and hoping for a good growing season.

Liverman has no plans to change what he has done in the past.
CLINTON  As the financial losses mount from Exelon's operation of the Clinton Power Station, the message from company officials that the plant may close next year without legislative intervention has taken on a renewed and pressing urgency.

The single-unit power plant situated on about 14,000 acres six miles east of Clinton has transformed from a big money producer for Exelon's fleet of 11 reactors at six Illinois sites to posting $360 million in losses over the past six years. That shift has put the 29-year-old plant in danger of early retirement  the plant's current reactor operating license will expire Sept. 29, 2026.

In 2014, Exelon informed state lawmakers  and the public  that Clinton and the Quad Cities and Byron plants in northern Illinois could be targeted for shutdowns if changes were not made to state law to help the utility more effectively compete with its counterparts in the energy industry.

So far, the Legislature has failed to act.

Without help from Springfield, contends Exelon, it's questionable the plant that employs about 700 workers and pumps $63 million in payroll dollars into the area annually will remain open.

"It's definitely something that could happen. Exelon is going to make a decision this year, by fall at the latest," said Exelon spokesman Brett Nauman.

Those sentiments were echoed recently by Exelon president and CEO Chris Crane, who said the utility is committed to keeping the plant open through May 2017, but "without urgent action on the policy front, we will have no choice but to prepare for a potential early retirement in the face of continued financial losses at our Clinton nuclear plant."

Price guarantees for the 100 million megawatt-hours of electricity generated by Exelon's plants  roughly half the electricity generated in the state in 2013  could be part of proposed legislation.

"Right now, we're negotiating what the new bill would look like," said Nauman.

Several factors are behind the downward spiral in energy prices.

Clinton's location in the state's midsection where manufacturing jobs and the accompanying demand for electricity have dwindled has put the plant in a far weaker economic position than when it opened in 1987.

Exelon also faces the economic challenges brought on by lower natural gas prices. Hydraulic fracturing, a controversial process known as fracking, that produces a greater supply natural gas has had a negative impact on nuclear energy with its higher production costs.

Ted Stoner, site vice president at the Clinton plant, sees light at the end of the tunnel for Exelon if the company can obtain financial help.

"We truly believe that in five to seven years the power prices will be back up," said Stoner.

Part of the reason for that optimism is a new federal requirement under the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan that will reduce carbon pollution from fossil-fuel power plants. The mandate has had an impact on Illinois' coal plants, with several already closed or planning to shut down as others begins the transition to natural gas by 2020.

Howard Learner, president and executive director of the Chicago-based Environmental Law & Policy Center based, thinks closing the Clinton plant should be a business decision, not a legislative issue.

The Clinton nuclear power plant is not competing very well in the competitive economic power market, he said. Everybody looks with excitement when a new natural gas plant is built. People look with excitement when a new wind farm comes, creating construction jobs.

Noting that the Clinton nuclear plant is competing with coal plants, with low-price natural gas plants "and in some ways" with other Exelon nuclear plants, Learner added, "Exelons management needs to make a decision based on the view of the market today and what the market will be in the future. But it needs to be an Exelon decision.

Still, support for nuclear energy is coming from a wide segment of the scientific community, including environmentalists who have dropped their long-held opposition.

Michael Shellenberger, founder of Environmental Progress Illinois and a former anti-nuclear activist, was among a coalition of scientists and environmentalists to sign a letter to Illinois legislators in support of nuclear energy.

Environmental groups play a significant role in the negotiations with lawmakers to add nuclear to the list of energy sources receiving subsidies, said Shellenberger.

"A single phone call from the head of the Sierra Club, the Environmental Policy Center and the National Resources Defense Council to their Illinois chapter leaders would be enough to save Clinton," said Shellenberger, who led a group of scientists on a recent visit to the Clinton plant.

As coal becomes less attractive, advocates of nuclear power see an opportunity for renewed interest in its clean and reliable energy.

In an October 2015 report on the implications of a shutdown of Exelon's three Illinois plants, The Nuclear Energy Institute, a lobbying group, noted that "over the past 10 years, the (Illinois' 11 reactors) ... have operated at 96 percent of capacity, which is above the industry average and signifcantly higher than all other forms of electric generation."

The Clinton Power Station also received the highest marks among Exelon plants last year for safety and reliability.

A decision to shutter the plants also creates the future headache of replacing the massive amount of power they produce. Wind and solar energy is expected to continue to grow as alternative sources, but the wind doesn't always blow and the sun isn't always shining.

"The average consumer could pay twice as much for electricity" if the plant closes, contends Stoner. Estimates from a state study indicate that wholesale energy prices could rise by as much as $341 annually for families and businesses in the surrounding region.

As the Clinton plant remains at the forefront of the nuclear energy debate, more than 700 workers report to work at the facility that functions much like its own city on the outskirts of Clinton.

The highest portion of the plant's operating budget pays for security for the plant and the adjacent 5,000-acre cooling lake. Employees are very aware their jobs are in jeopardy.

"We've been very transparent with staff," said Nauman. Workers have been told that "if the plant is retired, there is a job for them if they are willing to work with us. The job may be in another state or location, but Exelon is committed to taking care of them."

Exelon has delayed action on its application to renew the operating license that expires in 2026, citing budget considerations and uncertainties over the plant's future.
Bloomington-Normal

Seen/Unseen; through May 6, Jan Brandt Gallery, 1106 W. Bell St., Bloomington; paintings by Lyle Salmi; viewing by appointment at janbrandtgallery@gmail.com.; reception, 7-9 p.m. May 6.

The Earth, worn; through May 6; Heartland Community College Joe McCauley Gallery, Instructional Commons Building Room 2507, 1500 W. Raab Road, Normal; prints by Lisa Lofgren; free; 309-268-8620.

HCC Annual Juried Student Art Exhibition; through May 6, Heartland Community College Library in Student Commons Building; various media.

Alan Cring; 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 8:30 a.m.-noon Sat., through April 30, IAA Credit Union lobby, 808 IAA Drive, Bloomington; landscape photographs; free.

ISU University Galleries; noon-4 p.m. Mon., 9:30 a.m.-7 p.m. Tue., 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Wed.-Fri., noon-4 p.m. Sat.-Sun., Uptown Station, 11 Uptown Circle, Normal; rotating exhibits in three galleries; free; 309-438-8321.

2016 ISU Student Annual; through May 8, ISU University Galleries, see above; juried show open to all ISU students.

IWU Merwin and Wakeley Galleries; school hours, noon-4 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 1-4 p.m. Sat.-Sun., 7-9 p.m. Tue.; 302 E. Graham St., Bloomington; rotating exhibits; free; 309-556-3391.

McLean County Arts Center; 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Tue., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Fri., noon-4 p.m. Sat.; 601 N. East St., Bloomington; rotating exhibits, sales, rentals, art classes and lectures; free; 309-829-0011.

Bravo Charlie Alpha; through June 11, McLean County Arts Center, see above; paintings by Kevin Goodrich. Artist reception, 5-7 p.m. May 6.

Emerging Illinois Artists 2016; April 29-June 11, McLean County Arts Center, see above; juried show of 34 works by 20 Illinois university MFA students. Artists' reception, 5-7 p.m. May 6.

McLean County Museum of History; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat. (until 9 p.m. Tue.), 200 N. Main St., Bloomington; permanent and rotating exhibits; adults $5, seniors $4, students, children under 12 and members free; 309-827-0428.

Challenges, Choices and Change: Making a Home; McLean County Museum of History, see above; new permanent exhibit exploring experiences of people from around the world who made McLean County their home.

Mary Jungels-Goodyear; 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Mon.-Thu. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun., through May 31, Normal Public Library Art Gallery, 206 W. College Ave., Normal; prints; 309-452-1757.

Prairie Aviation Museum; 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Thu.-Sat., noon-4 p.m. Sun., 2929 E. Empire St., Bloomington; permanent and rotating exhibits and displays with aerial history themes; adults $5, ages 6-11 $3, 5 and under free; 309-663-7632.

Central Illinois

U of I Krannert Art Museum; 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat. (until 9 p.m. Thu. during fall and spring semesters), 2-5 p.m. Sun., 500 E. Peabody Drive, Champaign; paintings, porcelain, historical artifacts, traveling art exhibits; $3 donation suggested; 217-333-1861.

Spheres of Influence: African Vessels from the KAM Collection; through May 15, Krannert Art Museum, see above; 24 ceramic pots from regions across Africa.

Amity Township Museum; 1-3 p.m. first Sun. of month or by appointment, 510 Main St., Cornell; Amity Township Museum; 1-3 p.m. first Sun. of month or by appointment, 510 Main St., Cornell; displays and artifacts relating to history of Cornell and Amity Township; free; 815-358-2973.

Eureka College Burgess Hall Art Gallery; 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. weekdays and by appointment on weekends, third floor of Burgess Hall, Eureka College, Eureka; rotating exhibits; free; 309-467-6866.

Simpkins Military History Museum; 1-5 p.m. Tue., Thu., Sat., or by appointment; 605 E. Cole St., Heyworth; permanent and rotating military history exhibits; free (donations accepted); 309-473-3989.

The Vietnam War 50th Anniversary; through Nov. 30, Simpkins Military History Museum, see above.

Dickson Mounds Museum; 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. daily, 10956 N. Dickson Mounds Road, Lewistown; displays, special exhibits; free; 309-547-3721.

Lincoln Heritage Museum; 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 1-4 p.m. Sat., Lincoln Center at Lincoln College, 300 Keokuk St., Lincoln; Lincoln-era items, audio-visual displays, tours, exhibits, more; adults $7, children/tours $4; 217-735-7399.

Contemporary Art Center of Peoria; 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat., Riverfront Arts Center, 305 S.W. Water, Peoria; rotating exhibits in two galleries; free; 309-674-6822.

Peoria Art Guild; Foster Arts Center, Harrison and Washington streets, Peoria; rotating exhibits, gift shop; free; 309-637-2787.

Peoria Riverfront Museum; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Wed. and Sat., 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Thu.-Fri., noon-5 p.m. Sun., downtown riverfront Peoria; permanent and rotating exhibits, planetarium shows, Giant Screen Theater and events; $8-$11; 309-686-7000.

Figures of Strength: Artworks by Sculptor Nita Sutherland; through July 10, Peoria Riverfront Museum, see above; 30 works by Peoria artist, including sculptures, prints, drawings and a painting.

American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition; through May 30, Peoria Riverfront Museum, see above; touring exhibit featuring 100 Prohibition-era artifacts; $3 in addition to regular museum admission.

Museum of the Gilding Arts; 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sun., April-Oct., and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Mon.-Sun., Nov.-March, 217 N. Mill St., Pontiac; displays, history and hands-on exhibits dedicated to the art of gilding and gold beating; free (donations welcome); 815-842-1848.

Pontiac Community Art Center; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat.-Sun., 103 W. Madison St., Pontiac; rotating exhibits; 815-844-5831.

Ode to II ...; through April 29, Pontiac Community Art Center, see above; poetry-inspired art.

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum; 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sun., 212 N. Sixth St., Springfield; Lincoln-themed exhibits, historical displays, special events, more; adults $12, seniors and students $9, ages 5-15 $5, under 5 free; 217-558-8844.

Unfinished Work: The Taper Collection in the Limelight; through May 15, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum, see above; new items from Lincoln-themed collection.
DALLAS  As families and individuals start to book summer travel, a debate is rising about whether airlines make it too hard to choose the most affordable options.

Airlines say the Internet has made pricing transparent and air travel is a bargain.

Consumer advocates and lawmakers counter that comparing fees for things like baggage and extra legroom  a growing part of the cost of a trip  can be difficult, especially when travelers don't buy their ticket directly from the airline.

No changes are coming in the short-term, leaving travelers to plot their own strategies for finding the best prices. As always, it helps to plan ahead and consider whether you need extra services that might add to your cost.

Some old strategies are losing value due to changes in the way airlines operate.

The notion that Wednesday (or Tuesday) is the best day to buy your ticket isn't always true anymore. As more airlines base loyalty programs on how much you spend, not how many miles you fly, it has become harder for many leisure travelers to earn free flights.

Here are five tips from travel experts:

Know what comes with your seat by reading the fine print on the airline website. A cheap ticket that doesn't include checked baggage might not be such a bargain.

Delta Air Lines (and soon American and United) has a lower "basic economy" fare. "It looks cheap, but it's got a whole bunch of restrictions on it," says Patrick Surry, the chief data scientist at Hopper, a travel-research firm in Cambridge, Mass. "It's impossible to change it, you don't get a seat assignment, and you can't pay to upgrade. It's buyer beware  you need to do your homework."

Be flexible with dates and destinations. Flying to tourist destinations will almost certainly be cheaper and less crowded in September or even August than in July. That is of little help, however, to families with school-age children.

Check the budget airlines. For example, if you're flying to Europe this year, Iceland's WOW air and Norwegian Air Shuttle have added routes across the Atlantic.

"They may not be the most convenient or comfortable, but they may offer some attractive savings," says Henry Harteveldt, a travel analyst in San Francisco. He cautions that travelers wanting lots of optional services may find it's cheaper to stick with the older, more familiar airlines.

If you haven't done so yet, follow the Twitter accounts of the airlines on your intended route and sign up for alerts from fare-tracking services  there are several of those. That way you'll learn about a flash sale before it ends.

Families should confirm free seat assignments right away when booking on American, Delta or United, says Summer Hull, author of the Mommy Points blog. She factors in the extra fee for advance seat assignments when flying on the discount airlines that won't let you pick a seat for free.

Costs can rise quickly for a family. If mom, dad and two kids each have a suitcase, that's often $100 each way within the U.S. Want to sit together on a low-fare airline? Seat assignments run $2 to $100 each round-trip on Spirit and $12 and up on rival Frontier, although Frontier offers a discounted package of extras. If the family must reschedule, changing a nonrefundable U.S. ticket costs $200 on American, Delta or United but is free on Southwest.

Fees for certain seats and other items can vary widely  or be waived  depending on whether you belong to an airline's loyalty program and whether you're an elite member. Even using the airline's branded credit card can make a difference. Your fees might be waived on one airline but not another.

"It is totally consumer-unfriendly," says Charles Leocha, who is on a panel that advises the U.S. Department of Transportation about consumer issues. "That makes it next to impossible for consumers to comparison-shop. There is no single site for anyone to go to."
BLOOMINGTON  A Bloomington Junior High School teacher has been chosen to work with C-SPAN this summer in Washington, D.C., where he will share his passion for civic engagement with students across the country.

Seventh-grade geography teacher Greg Kocourek will spend the month of July working as a 2016 C-SPAN Summer Fellow with the education department at C-SPAN to develop new teaching materials for educators.

Its important for teachers to get outside their local network, said Kocourek. The Bloomington-Normal area is blessed with amazing teachers, but there are all kinds of things happening around the world that are just as important. Bringing those things back to the classroom is what its really all about.

In his nine years of teaching, Kocourek has traveled to China and New York to absorb information to bring back to his students.

Greg is just a bundle of energy, said BJHS Principal, Sherrilyn Thomas. He is so passionate about social sciences and works especially well with the seventh-graders.

Thomas said seventh-graders usually have middle-child syndrome in junior high school as they move between sixth and eighth grades.

Seventh-grade is a tough transition time and it takes a special teacher to understand the students and what they need. Greg absolutely gets it, said Thomas.

Kocourek said he will work the with C-SPAN team and two other selected U.S. educators to construct learning material focusing on this years presidential election.

We will create assessments like tests and lessons for teachers to use to get students excited about civic engagement, he said.

Kocourek said while teaching about politics in his classroom, he makes an effort to keep the focus bipartisan.

I want students to make up their own minds and discover their own positions on issues, he said, adding, "Working with my colleagues has been instrumental to molding my teaching practice over the years and has helped me grow as a professional.

Thomas said Kocourek is an innovative teacher who utilizes technology in the classroom and is always looking for new ways to extend student learning.

Im thrilled he was selected as part of this program. They picked a real winner, said Thomas. He will do a great job representing himself, the school and Bloomington.
BLOOMINGTON  There won't be any sitting around for the volunteers needed to build benches for bus stops on Bloomington's west side.

The Bench Blitz, from 1 to 5:30 p.m. May 7 in the parking lot of Retrofit Culture at West Washington Street and Morris Avenue, is a cooperative venture of the West Bloomington Revitalization Project, The Tool Library and Connect Transit.

Julie Lewis, a senior at Illinois Wesleyan University, was taking part in an Action Research Seminar at IWU last fall when she attended a meeting where residents expressed concern about the lack of public seating at bus stops.

The seminar focused on service learning and how to become a leader in the community, Lewis explained, so she decided to come up with a project to meet the need for seating.

Lewis said she found a simple, sturdy design using 2-by-4's and built a bench in my living room using tools from The Tool Library.

She received a $1,500 grant from the Zoellick Fellowship in Social Entrepreneurship to help with the project.

The West Bloomington Revitalization Project also is seeking sponsors for benches. A sponsorship costs $100, according to the group's website. Sponsored benches will include a plaque with the name of the sponsor or someone they want to honor.

Lewis said spnosorships will help raise money for The Tool Library and offset the costs of the bench.

Besides providing seats at bus stops, Lewis sees the Bench Blitz as a way to increase awareness of The Tool Library, support its projects and get the community more involved.

Robert Bosquez, community engagement coordinator for the West Bloomington Revitalization Project, said, We're pretty excited about it, adding when Connect Transit was contacted about the idea, they were on board.

Bosquez is hoping to have 20 to 25 volunteers that day. Volunteers don't have to build. They can help in other ways, such as assisting at the registration table, he noted.

But even people with limited or no woodworking experience are welcome.

If they want to learn to build a bench that day, we can show them, Bosquez said.

There will be two sessions, one from 1 to 3 p.m., the other from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Bosquez is hoping to have an entertaining atmosphere, with at least one food truck on hand where people can buy something to eat.

It's rewarding to see a project continue, said Lewis, who expects some fellow students and faculty members to take part in the blitz, as well as other Twin City residents.
Anytime Illinois politicians start talking about changing the tax system, taxpayers should get nervous.

Thats certainly true as the General Assembly discusses two pieces of legislation that would change the income tax system in the state. However, the issue is more about trust than which tax system is the best.

The first piece of legislation would place a question on the Nov. 8 ballot to change the state constitution to allow a graduated income tax. Illinois currently has a flat tax where everyone pays the same rate, currently 3.75 percent.

A graduated income tax would require people at different income levels to pay different rates, much like the federal income tax. To get on the ballot, the proposal must receive a three-fifths majority in the House and Senate. That would require nearly unanimous support from all the Democrats in both chambers.

Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, has filed a second bill that outlines the tax rates. If the constitutional amendment doesnt pass the Legislature, or gets rejected by voters, Langs bill would be meaningless.

His measure would set the lowest rate at 3.5 percent, less than the current rate. The highest rate would be 9.75 percent. Lang says his plan would actually be a tax decrease for 99.3 percent of taxpayers and would bring in $1.9 billion in additional revenues. That means the highest earners would pay a substantially higher rate.

Generally speaking, a married couple filing jointly would see a tax rate decrease if they make less than $200,000 a year. Those making between $200,000 and $750,000 would pay the same rate they are paying now. For those making more than $750,000, the rate would go to 8.75 percent; it would be 9.75 percent for those making more than $1.5 million.

Taxpayers should be wary of this plan. Although any plan that taxes the rich, is popular, the people in those tax brackets also are the ones that create jobs in Illinois. Scaring more job creators out of Illinois is not a good strategy.

Also, once the constitution is changed, the General Assembly can easily change the tax rates. Langs bill doesnt guarantee those will be the rates if the graduated tax is approved. It would be easier to manipulate the graduated tax to increase revenues because politicians can make it appear they are only taxing rich people.

Lang has dubbed his proposal a fair tax, but fairness depends on which tax bracket you are in and whether the General Assembly sticks with that plan.

The additional $1.9 billion in revenue also would not solve the states budget problem by itself. For this fiscal year, the state is spending about $4 billion more than it is bringing in. The General Assemblys track record with tax increases is poor. The temporary tax increase approved in 2011 was sold as a way to solve the states budget issues. Instead, the money was spent on other programs and the states financial picture continued to deteriorate.

For that reason, the General Assembly should show voters an expense reduction plan at the same time it advocates any revenue increase. No taxpayer, rich or poor, should hand over money to a state that is such a poor steward of the peoples money.
The Corn Belt countryside was once dotted with hundreds and hundreds of one-room schools. They played a vital role in rural neighborhoods, serving not only as schoolhouses but also as community centers and meeting places for all sorts of groups and events.

Alas, most of the remaining one-room schools were shuttered seven decades ago during the first great wave of school consolidation, and since then most have been torn down and the old school grounds plowed under.

The McLean County Museum of History holds a collection of records relating to Cornell School, a representative one-room schoolhouse east of Bloomington in Arrowsmith Township. This collection includes attendance schedules, teacher contracts and maintenance and supply records, among other documents. Most of the items date to the 1930s, though the district board meeting minutes begin in the late 1800s.

Cornell School goes all the way back to the early 1860s, although its unknown when the first classes were held. Originally located on land owned by Daniel Cornell, early on the school moved three-quarters of a mile east, and there it remained until closing several years after the end of World War II.

Cornell School owed its establishment to Illinois Free School Law of 1855, which enabled townships to organize school districts with elected boards empowered to levy taxes.

Before automobiles and school buses (to say nothing of paved roads) rural schools had to be within walking distance for the youngest first graders. Generally speaking, one-room school districts covered four township sections, or four square miles. Accordingly, Arrowsmith Township had eight of these school districts surrounding the village of Arrowsmiths own in-town district.

A new Cornell School building went up in the 1870s, and its said that nearby landowner John Scholl moved the old structure to his farm and used it as a hog house.

By 1883, there were 253 schoolhouses in McLean County outside of Bloomington-Normal! That astounding number speaks volumes to the wide and deep role one-room schools played in shaping the rural Midwest.

The spring term at Cornell schoolhouse opened Monday, May 5, with an attendance of eleven pupils, notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather, observed the March 21, 1894, Pantagraph. M.S. Wise (is) wielding the birch, it being his sixth term at that place. Clearly, wielding the birch was a not-so-subtle reference to corporal punishment, which was common at the time.

The 20th century brought the Standard Schools movement to improve heating, lighting, sanitation and the like to one-room schools. After extensive remodeling, Cornell was deemed standard by 1920.

The Cornell School Collection at the museum includes many fascinating items. A series of attendance schedules, for instance, tells us that there were 12 students under the charge of teacher Dorothy Webber during the fall of 1933. These schoolchildren ranged in age from 5 to 11 years old, with five of the 12 students coming from the Lawrence family.

Beginning in the 1920s and through the 1940s, the Sunday Pantagraph featured a Junior page that often reported the latest news from one-room schools across the readership area. These dispatches, written by students themselves, offer a window into a vanishing rural world.

We are all busy looking for signs of spring, read Cornell pupil Paul Vincents report from late March 1934. We are keeping a record of all the birds we see. The eighth grade is making a bird book. For art this week we drew and colored blue jays and robins.

Keeping farm kids well scrubbed was a continual problem for harried one-room school teachers. In their January 1937 report, Cornell students Hazel Scholl and brothers Robert and Lowell Lawrence noted that seventh and eighth graders had constructed Healthy Living charts. We get so many points for cleaned fingernails, combed hair, nails cut, unbroken cuticles and moons showing, they wrote.

Our blackboard decorations are hollyhocks, reported Hazel Scholl and Robert Lawrence in October 1937. The window decorations are yellow goldfinches eating milkweed seeds. The fifth and sixth grades in nature study are making posters to represent how flies scatter or spread diseases, and how to destroy flies.

The big Cornell School news in 1938 was replacement of the sooty coal furnace with an oil burner.

Sweeping school consolidation at the end of World War II spelled the end of the one-room school era in Central Illinois. With formerly muddy, rutted and often impassable county and township roads increasingly replaced with hard roads, both paved and graveled, school buses could now reliably and safely transport schoolchildren to the nearest towns.

In 1945, the newly organized McLean County School Survey Committee began working toward consolidating many of the countys surviving 231 one-room school districts.

The eight one-room schools in Arrowsmith Township then moved to disband and join the village of Arrowsmith and form a newly organized, township-wide consolidated district. Over a two-day period, Nov. 19-20, 1947, the trustees of these eight schools auctioned off any and all of their respective property. On Nov. 19, Baker, Brush College, Columbia and Plainview schools were sold off piece by piece, and the following day the same happened to Bane, Greenwood, Sangamon and Cornell schools.

In addition to the school building and one acre of ground, Cornell trustees put on the auction block a piano, bookcase, oil furnace and two outdoor sanitary privies.

The Cornell schoolhouse was eventually purchased by Jake Builta, who moved it to the nearby village of Ellsworth for use as a single-family residence. The former schoolhouse was still serving as a home in the early 1970s, though its not known if its still standing today.

With the mechanization of the Corn Belt contributing to the depopulation of the countryside and its small towns, school consolidation continued apace. In 1952 the communities of Saybrook and Arrowsmith agreed to merge their school systems, and in 1989 Saybrook-Arrowsmith consolidated with the Octavia school system in Colfax to create the Ridgeview Community Unit District.

As late as 1971, the former site of Cornell School was still visible from the road as an uncultivated patch of ground. Today, though, there are no remaining vestiges of this old one-room school.
News / Africa

by Staff Reporter

MURDER suspect has been killed by a mob in Malawi's Chikwawa district after he allegedly killed a woman and ate part of her flesh.Nyasa Times reported that the gruesome murder, which took place in Liwonde village, was discovered after the suspect had chopped off thevictim's head and disemboweled her, before eating her intestines and parts of her skin."It was a gruesome murder, you would not want to see the mutilated body," Rhoda Mawale, an officer at the Chikwawa police station was quoted assaying.Soon after the horrific crime, an angry mob approached the suspect and chased him down and killed him.The development marked a surge in the number of mob killings that have ravaged the southern African nation in the past months.An unknown man was recently reported to have been beaten to death after he was suspected of stealing in Balaka District.The man was said to have been found in a neighbour's house, following which he was severely beaten and left on nearby railway tracks, where he was run over by a train.The United Nations Commission of Human Rights has since condemned acts of mob justice in Malawi, calling on law agencies to bring culprits to book and sensitise citizens on the dangers of taking the law into their own hands.
American children who mindlessly eat sweets after meals are more likely to be overweight, a new study says. University of Michigan researchers found that kids who eat cakes and cookies after consuming a full meal have more chances of gaining excess weight compared to kids who crave salty foods.

The new study, published in the journal Pediatrics, tracked the link of eating in the absence of hunger to the weight gain of American children from low-income families. The researchers performed food experiments with more than 200 children aged 21, 27 and 33 months, and discovered that those who ate the most sweets after the meal had greater odds of becoming overweight.

Sweets May Make American Children Overweight

The researchers conducted the experiment by asking the American children's mothers to let their kids eat a usual lunch. After eating lunch, the researchers gave them a plate containing 10 Frito-Lay Cheetos cheese puffs, 10 Pringles potato chips, five frosted Keebler animal cookies, two rainbow candy blast Chips Ahoy cookies, two Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookies, two Oreos and two Keebler fudge stripe chocolate-coated cookies.

The researchers allowed the American children to eat whatever they want for 10 minutes. They found that those who consumed more sweets appeared to be heavier than the average kids at the age 33 months.

Limiting American Children's Access To Sweets

Dr. Julie Lumeng, senior study author and pediatrician at C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, told Toronto Sun that the children's behavior of craving for sweets could be inborn. She advised parents to be more vigilant about keeping sweets out from their children and limiting their accessibility.

Commenting on the study, Dr. Lenna Liu, a pediatrician at the University of Washington School of Medicine and Seattle Children's Hospital who was not associated in the research, said that the snacking habits of American children could also be influenced by poverty. She explained that there are kids who do not have access to adequate foods or healthy meals.

Liu added that parents should limit but not overly restrict their kids from eating sweet foods. "In particular, limit sugar-sweetened beverages such as soda or juice - have them drink water or lowfat milk," she recommended.
A new study published by scientists at the University of Leicester suggests that pregnant women who are exposed to violence are more likely to experience preterm birth and even low birthweight for the baby. Researchers based this study on the violence that is happening specifically in Fortaleza, Brazil and its effects on childbirth, as mothers are exposed to crime and hostility on a daily basis.

Science Daily said that this study is found in the Journal of Development Economics. The team is led by Professor Marco Manacorda of Queen Mary University of London and Dr. Martin Foureaux Koppensteiner of the University of Leicester. Scientists assigned to this project used mothers who have witnessed a homicide in the area and mothers who also live in the same place without having to see any crime of killing.

A photo posted by Soul Pics (@soulpics_photographe) on Apr 20, 2016 at 5:32am PDT

The result came out and it showed that mothers, who were exposed to homicide while they were pregnant, delivered babies who are underweight. Stress due to witnessing such crime and violence is a huge factor that affects a pregnant woman and the baby inside her during the first three months of pregnancy.

Psychcentral.com also reported about this study saying that those months are crucial, as they greatly affect the outcome of the pregnancy. They cited Dr. Koppensteiner statement saying, "We provide evidence that these effects on birthweight are driven by prematurity rather than growth retardation of full lengths pregnancies, in line with evidence from the medical literature." Koppeinsteiner added that it was through documenting the exact time of the crime being exposed to those expecting mothers was the reason why his team was able to see the link between violence and unhealthy pregnancy and childbirth.

Share this information with your friends and loved ones, especially those who are pregnant and are often exposed to violence. This article could save their lives and their baby on the way.
The Douglas County School District of Colorado bought 10 semi-automatic rifles for security reasons. The school district claims that school security officers can use the rifles in case of a shooting, security or violent threat.

Richard Payne, director of security of the district explains that in the event that they are the first ones on the scene, they want to be able to handle the situation with the correct tools on hand. However, Payne explains that he hopes they will never have to deploy them.

The director of security explains that the $12,000 spent on Bushmaster long rifles offered officers a tactical advantage during serious events. The 900-sqaure-mile Douglas County School District of Colorado includes 86 schools and 67,000 students.

The guns are line with a proactive approach the district is trying to implement on school security, according to Paula Hans, the district spokeswoman. The rifles will also be kept locked in patrol cars, and not inside schools, according to Washington Times.

Only eight armed officers of the district's 64 security staff members carry handguns. They will also be the only ones allowed to use the newly purchased rifles, according to Huffington Post.

District Superintendent Liz Fagen made the authorization to buy the guns in January after learning schools officers and sheriff's deputies were not equipped with such weapons. All guards at the school district are former law enforcement officers and have been trained to carry the military-style rifles. The rifles can only be used at the discretion of the officers.

The purchases have garnered mixed reactions from parents due to the possibility of having weapons on campuses. The purchase also raised questions about how far school officials should go in arming employees, especially after the 2012 shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Many districts in the country rushed to increase the number of school officers on campus after rampant violent events happened in schools across the nation. In a few cases, teachers were even allowed to carry concealed weapon themselves.

The decision to purchase the assault weapons in Colorado was not discussed with the school board. Payne said that the school board's approval was not required for the purchase.

Fagen mentioned that they have partnered with law enforcement at a level that has never been done before. School districts alone cannot solve the issue of unfortunate events having all over the country which makes it important to work together.
A high school in North Carolina recently opened its first-ever shooting range facility. The 1,200-square-foot structure was built to train students in the art of air rifle shooting. However, some protests have claimed that the facility could lead to greater dangers in the community.

Program Director Assures No Dangers

According to WRAL, only licensed members of Smithfield-Selma High School's Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (NJROTC) can hone their marksmanship at the newly-furnished facility. The program's commander David Wegman assured anti-gun groups that the shooting range poses no security threat.

Wegman assures that this is because NJROTC cadets are trained to observe extreme caution and forbearance while using the equipment. Becoming a qualified NJROTC cadet isn't a walk in the park either.

Strict Requirements For Enrolles

Students who enroll in the program must undergo extensive firearm training before they can use the shooting range. As of the moment, only four students have met the program's stringent requirements.

"There's a marksmanship safety test they have to take, and they have to get a 100 on it," Wegman explained. "In addition to that, they have to sign a safety pledge, get permission from home and then finally demonstrate on the range that they know how to handle one of these air rifles safely."

Proper Gun Handling

Wegman added that the NJROTC cadets follow strict operating procedures in which they "do the same thing, the same way, every single time." For his part, NJROTC cadet Timothy Jones said safety is their utmost priority.

"You go out there, and you're relying on others," said Jones. "You have to have the trust in others that they are handling a weapon, that they are not going to harm you, and you're not going to harm them."

Doubt Still Lingers

Despite these assurances, some anti-gun groups still wish Smithfield-Selma hadn't opened the shooting range. It's easy to understand why as reports of numerous school shootings continue to traumatize the American public. In particular, news regarding Smithfield-Selma's new shooting range revived the stigma of the notorious Columbine Massacre.

Columbine Massacre Tragedy

The horrific shooting happened exactly 17 years ago in Columbine High School in Colorado. Two teens carrying firearms managed to pass through the school's security before going on a brutal killing spree.

CW39 reported that the shooters gunned down 12 students and one teacher. They also injured 23 helpless civilians before ending their own lives to evade arrest.
The increasing number of drug overdose deaths in the U.S. alarms many parents in both high-trafficking counties and non-high-trafficking counties. With studies showing a 70-fold increase, there is a strong reason why many parents will be worried.

High Drug Overdose Deaths In Non-High-Trafficking Counties

According to Live Science, what is more appalling with the results of the new study is that there are counties which are not high-trafficking, yet they have a high number of drug overdose deaths. This goes to show that drugs pass from these high-trafficking counties to non-high-trafficking ones, but the latter are the ones that feel the brunt of the blow.

Another disturbing result was that there are counties that are not covered by the federal government's resources to combat drug problems, yet they show high drug overdose deaths. The lesser coverage endangers the population within these counties.

"Our research reveals several potential new drug overdose problem regions that warrant careful attention," said Jeanine Buchanich, a co-author of the study from the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Occupational Biostatistics and Epidemiology. By identifying newly-formed drug trafficking regions, the federal government may be able to act on it and implement drug curtailment measures.

Western Pennsylvania

One example given was western Pennsylvania. Drug overdose death rates in this area grew exponentially over time yet ironically, it is not considered as one with high drug trafficking.

According to Science Daily, drug overdose death rates increased by 6.7 percent every year since 1979. There are also areas where drug overdose death rates remained constant such as in counties located at the U.S. border. This indicates that more drugs are passing through these counties and are being distributed all over the U.S. affecting previously non-high-trafficking counties.

With this appalling report, there is a very good reason for parents to be worried. Drugs destroy life. Drugs kill. These findings must be enough to prompt the federal government to take the necessary action to minimize, if not altogether put a stop, to drug trafficking.
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

The world has known the iconic sonnet line by William Shakespeare from required readings in literature, and now that this day marks the 400th death anniversary of the famous writer, Shakespeare's legacy proves to still be alive.

While not many children today are used to reading the classics, parents and educators who grew up reading Shakespeare may take this opportunity to share the wonders of the poet's literature to the younger generations.

According to Forbes, April 23 could be both the day Shakespeare was born in 1564 and died in 1616 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Here are some celebrations in the United States in honor of the "the greatest writer in the English language."

1. Forbes notes that the Folger Shakespeare Library will host a 90-minute live-streamed event on April 23 titled "The Wonder of Will Live" that will feature various actors, artists, community leaders and scholars that will share personal stories and performances to show how Shakespeare affected their lives. The event will be broadcast on C-SPAN2's Book TV and streamed at Folger.edu at noon.

2. Chicago has launched the Shakespeare 400 Chicago, the "largest global" quadricentennial celebration, as reported by The Guardian. The yearlong festival consists of 850 events in more than 120 locations. A fireworks display will cap off the celebration at 10:15 p.m. at the Navy Pier + Aon, Lakefront, Downton. The complete list of events is on their website.

3. Baltimore Consort, a group that specializes in the music during Shakespeare's era, will perform The Food of Love: Songs, Dances and Fancies for Shakespeare on April 24 in Houston, Texas, according to The Guardian.

4. The University of Colorado will host a celebration at 1 p.m. in the lobby of University Theater on the Boulder campus, reports Daily Camera. Attendees can also watch a student-run performance of "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," adapted from Shakespeare's "Hamlet," that will be shown at 2 p.m.
If youve managed to pull yourself together enough to write something both interesting and intellectual about Beyonces new visual album Lemonade (which premiered last night on HBO), you are a god among men. As a mere mortal, Ive, so far, only been able to re-watch the short film repeatedly, and gather images of some of the most incredible shots I saw. This intoxicating story (brought to us by acclaimed directors like Khalil Joseph, Melina Matsoukas and Jonas Akerlund, among others) about loss, love, religion and ecstasythrough the lenses of the black women who experience it allhas many of us pulling out our copies of for colored girls, Daughters of the Dust, The Color Purple, Sula and all manner of black feminist/womanist must-reads (its also high time we all learn the name Warsan Shire, apparently). That the visuals are also incredibly gif-worthy doesnt hurt either. Here are all of the images you could ever need as reaction responses, Facebook cover photos or succinct political statements about the realities of being black, feminine, fierce and glorious in an America that would often rather you not.



Shannon M. Houston is a Staff Writer and the TV Editor for Paste. This New York-based freelancer probably has more babies than you, but thats okay; you can still be friends. She welcomes almost all follows on Twitter.

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Assessing the quality of offerings available from Netflix in 2022, it quickly becomes clear that their horror library is a real mixed bag. As competing services, and especially genre-specific ones such as Shudder, continue to expand their horror movie collections, its harder and harder for Netflix to project any sense of comprehensiveness, and its library becomes more static and reliant upon Netflix Originals on a monthly basis. At various points in the last year, for instance, Netflix could boast The Shining, Scream, Jaws, The Silence of the Lambs or Young Frankenstein, along with recent indie greats like The Witch, The Descent or The Babadook. All of those films are now goneusually replaced by low-budget, direct-to-VOD films with suspiciously similar one-word titles, like Demonic, Desolate and Incarnate.

Still, there are quality films to be found here, typically of the modern variety, from comedies like The Babysitter to more obscure (and disturbing) titles such as Creep, Raw or newer films like His House and the Fear Street trilogy. Dont expect to find many franchise staples in the mold of Halloween, but dont sleep on The Haunting of Hill House or Midnight Mass, either. Theyre not technically movies, but theyre impossible to leave off this list.

We invite you to use this list as a guide. The lowest-ranked films are of the fun-bad varietyflawed, but easily enjoyable for one reason or another. The highest-ranked films are obviously essentials.

You may also want to check out the following horror-centric lists:

The 100 best horror films of all time.

The 100 best vampire movies of all time.

The 50 best zombie movies of all time.

The 40 best horror movies on Hulu

The 80 best horror movies on Amazon Prime

The 50 best horror movies streaming on Shudder

The 50 best movies about serial killers

The 50 best slasher movies of all time

The 50 best ghost movies of all time

Year: 2016

Director: Julia Ducournou

Stars: Garance Marillier, Ella Rumpf, Laurent Lucas

Rating: R

Runtime: 99 minutes

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If youre the proud owner of a twisted sense of humor, you might tell your friends that Julia Ducournaus Raw is a coming of age movie in a bid to trick them into seeing it. Yes, the films protagonist, naive incoming college student Justine (Garance Marillier), comes of age over the course of its running time; she parties, she breaks out of her shell, and she learns about who she really is as a person on the verge of adulthood. But most kids who come of age in the movies dont realize that theyve spent their lives unwittingly suppressing an innate, nigh-insatiable need to consume raw meat. Hey, youre thinking, thats the name of the movie! Youre right! It is! Allow Ducournau her cheekiness. More than a wink and nod to the pictures visceral particulars, Raw is an open concession to the harrowing quality of Justines grim blossoming. Nasty as the film gets, and it does indeed get nasty, the harshest sensations Ducournau articulates here tend to be the ones we cant detect by merely looking: Fear of feminine sexuality, family legacies, popularity politics, and uncertainty of self govern Raws horrors as much as exposed and bloody flesh. Its a gorefest that offers no apologies and plenty more to chew on than its effects. Andy Crump



Year: 2020

Director: Remi Weekes

Stars: Wunmi Mosaku, Sope Dirisu, Matt Smith

Rating: NR

Runtime: 93 minutes

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Nothing sucks the energy out of horror than movies that withhold on horror. Movies can scare audiences in a variety of ways, of course, but the very least a horror movie can be is scary instead of screwing around. Remi Weekes His House doesnt screw around. The film begins with a tragedy, and within 10 minutes of that opening handily out-grudges The Grudge by leaving ghosts strewn on the floor and across the stairs where his protagonists can trip over them. Ultimately, this is a movie about the inescapable innate grief of immigrant stories, a companion piece to contemporary independent cinema like Jonas Carpignanos Mediterranea, which captures the dangers facing immigrants on the road and at their destinations with brutal neorealist clarity. Weekes is deeply invested in Bol and Rial as people, in where they come from, what led them to leave, and most of all what they did to leave. But Weeks is equally invested in making his viewers leap out of their skins. Andy Crump

Year: 2018

Director: Mike Flanagan

Stars: Henry Thomas, Michiel Huisman, Carla Gugino, Elizabeth Reaser, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Kate Siegel, Victoria Pedretti

Runtime: 10 episodes

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The aesthetic of The Haunting of Hill House makes it work not only as horror TV, but also as a deft adaptation of Shirley Jacksons classic novel. The monsters, ghosts, and things that go bump on the wall are off-screen, barely shown, or obscured by shadow. The series even goes back to some of the first film adaptations decisions, in terms of camera movement and shot design, in order to develop uneasiness and inconsistency. Well, maybe inconsistency is the wrong word. The only thing that feels truly inconsistent while watching it is your mind: Youre constantly wary of being tricked, but the construction of its scenes often gets you anyway. By embracing the squirmand the time necessary to get us to squirm rather than jumpThe Haunting of Hill House is great at creating troubling scenarios, and even better about letting us marinate in them. Jacob Oller



Year: 2021

Director: Mike Flanagan

Stars: Zach Gilford, Kate Siegel, Kristin Lehman, Samantha Sloyan, Henry Thomas, Hamish Linklater

Rating: N/A

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On Midnight Mass Crockett Island, every islander feels rife with misfortune. The recent oil spill nearly annihilated the fish supply, tanking the islands local fishing economy. Their homes splinter and peel in neglect to the oceans elements. The majority of residents have fled the island for lack of opportunity, leaving a paltry few behind. Only two ferries can take them to the mainland. Hope runs in short supplyand a major storm brews on the horizon.

Everything beyond that for this seven-episode series is a true spoiler, but what can be said is that even with its dabblings in the supernatural, Midnight Mass (created by The Hauntings Mike Flanagan, in his most recent collaboration with Netflix), is a show that burrows inwards instead of outwards. With both the physical claustrophobia of Crocketts setting and the internal suffering of characters placed in center stage, Midnight Mass concerns itself with horrors within: addictive tendencies, secret histories, and questions of forgiveness and belief. At one glance, its a series thats mined Catholic guilt for gold. In another, its a measured, yet spooky take on group psychology, the need for faith in sorrow, and the ethics of leadership with such vulnerable followers, weighing whether these impulses represent human goodness, evil, or simply nothing at all.

Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed. Midnight Mass offers a chance for anyone to be doubting Thomas or true believer. What difference is a miracle from a supernatural event, anyway? Katherine Smith

Year: 2015

Director: David Robert Mitchell

Stars: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Daniel Zovatto, Jake Weary, Olivia Luccardi, Lili Sepe

Rating: R

Runtime: 100 minutes

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The specter of Old Detroit haunts It Follows. In a dilapidating ice cream stand on 12 Mile, in the 60s-style ranch homes of Ferndale or Berkley, in a game of Parcheesi played by pale teenagers with nasally, nothing accentsif youve never been, youd never recognize the stale, gray nostalgia creeping into every corner of David Robert Mitchells terrifying film. But its there, and it feels like SE Michigan. The music, the muted but strangely sumptuous color palette, the incessant anachronism: In style alone, Mitchell is an auteur seemingly emerged fully formed from the unhealthy womb of Metro Detroit. Cycles and circles concentrically fill out It Follows, from the particularly insular rules of the films horror plot, to the youthful, fleshy roundness of the faces and bodies of this small group of main characters, never letting the audience forget that, in so many ways, these people are still children. In other words, Mitchell is clear about his story: This has happened before, and it will happen again. All of which wouldnt work were Mitchell less concerned with creating a genuinely unnerving film, but every aesthetic flourish, every fully circular pan is in thrall to breathing morbid life into a single image: someone, anyone slowly separating from the background, from ones nightmares, and walking toward you, as if Death itself were to appear unannounced next to you in public, ready to steal your breath with little to no aplomb. Initially, Mitchells whole conceitpassing on a haunting through intercourseseems to bury conservative sexual politics under typical horror movie tropes, proclaiming to be a progressive genre pic when it functionally does nothing to further our ideas of slasher fare. You fornicate, you find punishment for your flagrant, loveless sinning, right? (The film has more in common with a Judd Apatow joint than youd expect.) Instead, Mitchell never once judges his characters for doing what practically every teenager wants to do; he simply lays bare, through a complex allegory, the realities of teenage sex. There is no principled implication behind Mitchells intent; the cold conclusion of sexual intercourse is that, in some manner, you are sharing a certain degree of your physicality with everyone with whom your partner has shared the same. That he accompanies this admission with genuine respect and empathy for the kinds of characters who, in any other horror movie, would be little more than visceral fodder for a sadistic spirit, elevates It Follows from the realm of disguised moral play into a sickly scary coming-of-age tale. Likewise, Mitchell inherently understands that there is practically nothing more eerie than the slightly off-kilter ordinary, trusting the films true horror to the tricks our minds play when we forget to check our periphery. It Follows is a film that thrives in the borders, not so much about the horror that leaps out in front of you, but the deeper anxiety that waits at the verge of consciousnessuntil, one day soon, its there, reminding you that your time is limited, and that you will never be safe. Forget the risks of teenage sex, It Follows is a penetrating metaphor for growing up. Dom Sinacola

Year: 2014

Director: Patrick Brice

Stars: Mark Duplass, Patrick Brice

Rating: R

Runtime: 77 minutes

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Creep is a somewhat predictable but cheerfully demented little indie horror film, the directorial debut by Brice, who also released this years The Overnight. Starring the ever-prolific Mark Duplass, its a character study of two mennaive videographer and not-so-secretly psychotic recluse, the latter of which hires the former to come document his life out in a cabin in the woods. It leans entirely on its performances, which are excellent. Duplass, who can be charming and kooky in something like Safety Not Guaranteed, shines here as the deranged lunatic who forces himself into the protagonists life and haunts his every waking moment. The early moments of back-and-forth between the pair crackle with a sort of awkward intensity. Anyone genre-savvy will no doubt see where its going, but its a well-crafted ride that succeeds on the strength of chemistry between its two principal leads in a way that reminds me of the scenes between Domhnall Gleeson and Oscar Isaac in Ex Machina. Jim Vorel



Year: 2020

Director: Charlie Kaufman

Stars: Jessie Buckley, Jesse Plemons, Toni Collette, David Thewlis

Rating: R

Runtime: 134 minutes

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Many viewers will think of ending Im Thinking of Ending Things not long after its started. A cross-dissolve cascade of crude shots details the interior of a farmhouse or an apartment, or the interior of an interior. A woman we have not yet seen is practically mid-narration, telling us something for which we have no context. It feels wrong, off-putting. Something is not right. This is not how movies are supposed to work. Finally we see the woman, played brilliantly by Jessie Buckley. She is standing on the street as puffy snowflakes start to fall, like were within a 3-D snow globe with her. She looks up at a window a couple stories up. We see an old man looking down out of a window. We see Jesse Plemons looking down out of a window. We see Jesse Plemmons in the next shot picking up Jessie Buckley in his worn car. The movie music twinkles and swirls. Jessie Buckleys Lucy or Lucia or Amy is thinking of ending things with Jesses Jake. Things arent going to go anywhere good, seems to be the reasoning. Jake drives the car and sometimes talks; his behaviors seem fairly consistent until theyre not, until some gesture boils up like a foreign object from another self. Louisa or Lucy is forthcoming, a fountain of personality and knowledge and interests. But sometimes she slows to a trickle, or is quiet, and suddenly she is someone else who is the same person but perhaps with different memories, different interests. Sometimes she is a painter, sometimes a physicist, sometimes neither. Jessie and Jesse are great. Their performances and their characters are hard to describe. The best movie of 2020 is terrible at being a movie. It does not subscribe to common patterns, rhythms, or tropes. It doesnt even try to be a great movie, really, it simply tries to dissect the life of the mind of the other, and to do that by any cinematic means possible. The self-awareness of the film could have been unbearable, except awareness (and our fragmentary experience of it) is so entirely the point of everything that the film is wrapped up within and that is wrapped up within it. To say the film accepts both the beauty and ugliness of life would be a platitude that the film itself rejects. To say that love conquers all, even moreso. But these false truths flit in and about the films peripheral vision: illusions or ghosts, but welcome ones. Chad Betz

Year: 2015

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Stars: Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain, Mia Wasikowska

Rating: R

Runtime: 119 minutes

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Crimson Peak follows the traditions of gothic romance by design: I made this movie to present and reverse some of the normal tropes, while following them, of the gothic romance, del Toro says on the Arrow Blu-rays audio commentary track, a note made during the introduction between his protagonist, Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska), and her first of two love interests, Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), a baronet come to the U.S. to win over her father, the magnate Carter Cushing (Jim Beaver), and obtain financial backing for his very own clay-mining contraption. The exchange between Thomas and Edith in this scene is crucial to what the films trying to accomplish: Im sorry, he says to her, the manuscript on her desk having caught his eye. I dont mean to pry, but this is a piece of fiction, is it not?

It is. Its her fiction, in fact, a piece shes written for publication in the pages of The Atlantic Monthly. With a glance, the story has ensnared him. Ghosts, he remarks, an inscrutable smile on his lips. Edith goes on defense, stammering, Well, the ghosts are just a metaphor, really, but Thomas isnt finished: Theyve always fascinated me. You see, where I come from, ghosts are not to be taken lightly. Thomas means this as flattery and not admonition, and flattered is how Edith reacts, excitement spreading across her face at encountering a kindred spirit to accompany the actual spirits shes yet to meet. Thomas gets it. When she speaks with him, Edith doesnt need to compromise her fondness for ghost stories, as she must with her peers. She can openly appreciate them on their own terms. And so can Crimson Peak. Del Toro adores the production components of the gothic romance; hes enamored with the pomp, the circumstance, the costumes. They give him a veil of propriety, because Crimson Peak doesnt pull its punches. The audience finds out what kind of film it is from the opening shot of Ediths face, decorated by open wounds, and from the follow-up sequence, in which young Edith (Sofia Wells) is visited in dead of night by her late mothers blackened osseous specter. Crimson Peak doesnt care about catering to taste or achieving universality. It cares about freaking its viewers the hell out. After all, if horror as a genre acts as a massive umbrella sheltering all manner of aesthetics and approaches, the exercise should always be about sending an audience away with a powerful need to sleep with the lights on. Andy Crump

Year: 2017

Director: Patrick Brice

Stars: Mark Duplass, Desiree Akhavan, Karan Soni

Rating: N/A

Runtime: 80 minutes

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Creep was not a movie begging for a sequel. About one of cinemas more unique serial killersa man who seemingly needs to form close personal bonds with his quarry before dispatching them as testaments to his artthe 2014 original was self-sufficient enough. But Creep 2 is that rare follow-up wherein the goal seems to be not lets do it again, but lets go deeperand by deeper, we mean much deeper, as this film plumbs the psyche of the central psychopath (who now goes by) Aaron (Mark Duplass) in ways both wholly unexpected and shockingly sincere, as we witness (and somehow sympathize with) a killer who has lost his passion for murder, and thus his zest for life. In truth, the film almost forgoes the idea of being a horror movie, remaining one only because we know of the atrocities Aaron has committed in the past, meanwhile becoming much more of an interpersonal drama about two people exploring the boundaries of trust and vulnerability. Desiree Akhavan is stunning as Sara, the films only other principal lead, creating a character who is able to connect in a humanistic way with Aaron unlike anything a fan of the first film might think possible. Two performers bare it all, both literally and figuratively: Creep 2 is one of the most surprising, emotionally resonant horror films in recent memory. Jim Vorel



Year: 2007

Director: Frank Darabont

Stars: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden

Rating: R

Runtime: 126 minutes

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A lot of the monsters and ghosts that terrorize a large and diverse group of protagonists in Kings work are excuses to deliver deft sociological studies on how easily members of a civilized society can toss out their polite and calm pretensions and let their reptilian brains, infused with fear and paranoia, take over in order to do horrific shit in the name of individual survival. From The Stand all the way to sub-par material like Trucks, there are many examples of this approach, but none are executed as efficiently and satisfyingly as Frank Darabonts take on The Mist, Kings tale of a bunch of normal townsfolk gradually turning into a death cult when theyre trapped inside a grocery store after a mysterious mist that harbors a bunch of not-so-friendly monsters covers their town. The leader of the cult is the crazy, bible-thumping zealot played by Marcia Gay Harden, whos mocked by others as she spews a bunch of apocalyptic bible verses but becomes a more and more credible voice, much to the chagrin of the more logic-based intellectual minority, as the creatures slither closer and closer to annihilating everyone. Thus a microcosm of our contemporary world is intricately mirrored, with a majority of weak minds ruled by fear, and the minority of levelheaded individuals powerless to stop the madness. Even if we were to take out the societal symbolism of the story, The Mist would still work as a terrific 1950s style monster flick that would have made William Castle drool. The shocking ending is a big plus or minus, depending on how much you like being traumatized by a work of fiction. Oktay Ege Kozak

Year: 2017

Director: Andy Muschietti

Stars: Bill Skarsgard, Jaeden Martell, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Jack Dylan Grazer, Chosen Jacobs, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Wyatt Oleff

Rating: R

Runtime: 135 minutes

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Even if director Andy Muschettis solid take on It, one of Kings most beloved and resonant novels, didnt involve a terrifying incarnation of Pennywise the Dancing Clown/Ancient Child-eating Fear Demon (Bill Skarsgard) and the many pulse-pounding horrific set-pieces that come with him, Id be perfectly content watching the Losers Clubthe seven quirky kids who find strength in each other to fight the literal and figurative monsters out to consume their soulsshoot the shit as they ride their bikes around the seemingly serene piece of Americana known as Derry, Maine. The combination of Kings honest depiction of R-rated dialogue between early teens, the natural performances from the young actors and the palpable chemistry between them creates one of the most instinctively endearing King-branded kid gangs since Stand By Me. Focusing on the childrens section of the novel works in both giving more depth to the characters than the 1990 mini-series did, and in honing in on the storys inherent theme of fear being a self-destructive force. Skarsgards performance is different enough from Currys iconic take on Pennywise that a comparison becomes moot. While Curry fashioned a playful evil clown who obviously took pleasure out of tormenting his victims, Skarsgard creates a sort of feral animal who will starve if he doesnt feed on the childrens fear, which translates into a desperate and twitchy interpretation. Oktay Ege Kozak

Year: 2021

Director: Leigh Janiak

Stars: Kiana Madeira, Olivia Scott Welch, Benjamin Flores Jr., Julia Rehwald, Fred Hechinger, Maya Hawke

Rating: R

Runtime: 107 minutes

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The first film in Netflixs trilogy of R.L. Stine Fear Street adaptations quickly announces itself as a far more vicious and bloody beast than any of the family friendly Goosebumps installments of recent years, successfully carving out its own place in the modern meta-slasher canon while hinting at an exciting conclusion to come. 1994 garbs itself in slasher history, being particularly referential of Scream while also including numerous allusions to much more obscure 80s slashers such as Intruder, but it simultaneously (and cleverly) distracts the audience from some of its deeper mysteries, to be explored more fully in Fear Street: 1978 and Fear Street: 1666. What were left with is a film that lays its mythology out nicely, buoyed both by engaging supporting characters and cinematic violence that is significantly more grisly than audiences are likely to expect. Suffice to say, the kills of Fear Street arent messing around, and once that bread slicer makes an appearance, your jaw is likely to drop. Sequels 1978 and 1666, meanwhile, keep up just enough momentum to complete the ambitious trilogy. Jim Vorel

Year: 2019

Director: David Marmor

Stars: Nicole Brydon Bloom, Giles Matthey, Alan Blumenfeld, Celeste Sully

Rating: NR

Runtime: 90 minutes

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In the middle of a horrifying housing crisis, 1BR holds up a mirror to the isolation and desperation crushing the greater population of Los Angeles. Hollywood and the surrounding areas may be viewed globally as a home for opulence, but the majority of Los Angeles county lives closer to the poverty line than the shoreline. These extreme levels of impoverishment come with about two dozen cults masquerading as sub-culture, a mortifying picture of co-dependancy, a coerced dismissal of personal rights, and loneliness. Sarah (Nicole Brydon Bloom), a recent Los Angeles transplant, needs to find a place to live. She also needs to get into college. Oh, and Sarah needs to figure out how to navigate her uptight boss. Shes the blueprint for every mid-twenties late bloomer. The apartment hunt has been a nightmare with limited funds, but then she finds the perfect apartment. The space is close to work, affordable, and comes with one extremely cute neighbor. Unfortunately, the property is owned by a cult, obsessed with making a perfect community. Prone to extreme measures, the group, known only as CDE Properties, watches the little colony 24 hours a day. Their tried-and-true method of converting new tenants includes sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, and threats of extreme pain. Sarah does her best to resist these tactics while simultaneously convincing her captors that shes becoming one of them. In his feature film debut, writer/director David Marmor crafts a chilling survival story in the sun-bleached desert and stark fluorescent lighting of wearisome offices. A visceral expression of fear and longing, 1BR could be a new cult classic. With incredible performances, a solid twist and the possibility of a franchise sequel, 1BR aims high. The good news is the film hits most of its targets. Joelle Monique

Year: 2017

Director: Mike Flanagan

Stars: Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood

Rating: N/A

Runtime: 103 minutes

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Director Mike Flanagans Geralds Game trims fat, condenses and slims, stripping away some of the odder quirks of Stephen Kings novel to get at the heart of themes underneath. The result is a tense, effective thriller that goes out of its way to highlight two strong actors (Bruce Greenwood and Carla Gugino) in an unfettered celebration of their craft. This is nothing new for Flanagan, whose recent output in the horror genre has been commendable. Its hard to overlook some of the recurring themes in his work, beginning with 2011s Absentia and all the way through the wildly imaginative Oculus, Hush and Ouija: Origin of Evil. Every one of these films centers around a strong-willed female lead, as does Geralds Game. Is this coincidence? Or is the director drawn to stories that reflect the struggle of women to claim independence in their lives by shedding old scars or ghosts, be they literal or figurative? Either way, it made Flanagan an obvious fit for Geralds Game, an unassuming, overachieving little thriller that is blessed by two performers capable of handling the lions share of the dramatic challenges it presents. Jim Vorel



Year: 2017

Director: Neill Blomkamp

Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Carly Pope, Dakota Fanning, Steve Boyle

Rating: NR

Runtime: 72 minutes

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Originally released on YouTube throughout 2017, this is a collection of experimental (but well budgeted) sci-fi and horror short films from District 9 director Neill Blomkamp, all of which seem like seeds for potential feature film projects. Oats Studio was a project conceived by Blomkamp to do practical VFX testing while also fleshing out some of his crazier ideas, and each one of the major projects within it is very impressive in its own way. Sci-fi feature Rakka imagines an Earth overrun by telepathic reptilian aliens, as human survivors carry on a desperate and seemingly futile resistance, while Firebase pits a soldier against a reality warping River God in a southeast Asian military conflict. The true star of the show, though, is perhaps the pure horror of Zygote, in which Dakota Fanning plays a researcher on the run from a truly hideous creature that has taken over her facility, with heavy vibes of The Thing and last years PC game Carrion. The creature of Zygote, with its dozens of borrowed human limbs, is perhaps one of the most demented monsters weve seen in the horror world in recent memory, which means this short film really deserves to be seen by a bigger audience. Jim Vorel

Year: 2018

Director: Gareth Evans

Stars: Dan Stevens, Lucy Boynton, Mark Lewis Jones, Bill Milner, Michael Sheen

Rating: NR

Runtime: 129 minutes

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After the first two entries of The Raid made him a monolithic figure among action movie junkies, Apostle functions as the wider worlds introduction to the visceral filmmaking stylings of Welsh director Gareth Evans. Where his first films almost had the aesthetic of a videogame come to lifetheyre about as close to a big screen adaptation of Streets of Rage as youre ever going to findApostle might as well represent Evans desire to be taken seriously as a visual director and auteur. To do so, hes explored some well-trodden ground in the form of the rural cult infiltration movie, making comparisons to the likes of The Wicker Man (or even Ti Wests The Sacrament) inevitable. However, Apostle forces its way into the year-end conversation of 2018s best horror cinema through sheer style and verve. Every frame is beautifully composed, from the foreboding arrival of Dan Stevens smoldering character at the island cult compound, to the fantastically icky Grand Guignol of the third act, in which viscera flows with hedonistic abandon. Evans knows exactly how long to needle the audience with a slow-burning mystery before letting the blood dams burst; his conclusion both embraces supernatural craziness and uncomfortably realistic human violence. Gone is the precision of combat of The Raid, replaced by a clumsier brand of wanton savagery that is empowered not by honor but by desperate faith. Evans correctly concludes that this form of violence is far more frightening. Jim Vorel



Year: 2019

Director: Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia

Stars: Ivan Massague, Zorion Eguileor, Antonia San Juan, Emilio Buale Coka, Alexandra Masangkay

Rating: NR

Runtime: 94 minutes

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The Platform benefits immensely from the strength of its simple, high-concept premise and all the superfluous information that is withheld from the viewer. It doesnt matter that we dont know why exactly people are placed into this diabolical, vertical prison structure, in which the only sustenance arrives once a day in the form of a steadily descending, increasingly gross stone slab piled high with perishables. Nor do we really need to know how this apparent social experiment operates, although the repeated glimpses we get at cooks slaving over perfect dishes to be sent down to the doomed convicts is no doubt designed to needle at our curiosity. What matters is that we observe the differences in human reaction to this plightthe ways that different personalities react to adversity with an us or them mentality, or a predatory hunger, or a spontaneous drive toward self-sacrificing altruism. The fact that the position of the prisoners is constantly in flux is keyit gives them both a tangible reason to be the change they want to see in their world, and an almost impossible temptation to do the exact opposite out of distrust of their neighbors. One expects a nihilistic streak here, and you wont be disappointedbut theres a few glimmers of hope shining through the cracks as well. Just enough, perhaps, to twist the knife that much deeper. Jim Vorel

Year: 2016

Director: Mike Flanagan

Stars: John Gallagher Jr., Michael Trucco, Kate Siegel

Rating: R

Runtime: 81 minutes

Watch on Netflix





Hush is a simple, intimate film at heart, and one that takes more than a few cues from Bryan Bertinos The Strangers, among other home-invasion thrillers. Director Mike Flanagan, whose Oculus is one of the decades better, more underrated horror films, remains a promising voice in horror, although Hush plays things considerably safer than that ambitious haunted mirror tale did. Here, the gimmick is that the sole woman being menaced by a masked intruder outside her woodland home is in fact deaf and mutei.e., she cant hear him coming or call for help. At first, the film appears as if it will truly echo The Strangers and keep both the killers identity and motivations secretive, but those expectations are subverted surprisingly quickly. It all boils down into more or less exactly the type of cat-and-mouse game you would expect, but the film manages to elevate itself in a couple of ways. First is the performance of actress Kate Siegel as protagonist Maddie, who displays just the right level of both vulnerability and resolve, without making too many of the boneheaded slasher film character choices that encourage you to stand up and yell at the screen. Second is the tangible sense of physicality the film manages in its scenes of violence, which are satisfyingly visceral. Ultimately its the villain who may leave a little something to be desired at times, but Hush is at the very least a satisfying way to spend a night in with Netflix. Jim Vorel



Year: 2018

Directors: Yolanda Ramke, Ben Howling

Stars: Martin Freeman, Simone Landers, Anthony Hayes, David Gulpili, Susie Porter, Caren Pistorius

Rating: NR

Runtime: 105 minutes

Watch on Netflix





Weve had enough takes on worldwide zombie apocalypses to last undead enthusiasts long through, well, a worldwide zombie apocalypse. Of those takes, few are inspired, a few more are watchable though workmanlike and most are dreck, whether in TV or movie form. Cargo, a collaborative directing effort between Yolanda Ramke and Ben Howling, falls somewhere in between inspired and workmanlike, which is to say its well worth seeking out on Netflix if youve a powerful need to watch twitching, walking corpses menace a family trying to survive while isolated in Australias Outback. Martin Freeman plays Andy, stubborn husband to his wife, Kay (Susie Porter), and loving dad to their daughter, Rosie; hes piloting a houseboat to safer shores, or thats the hope. Then Kay takes a zombie bite, forcing a change of plans and setting them down the path to ruin and tragedy. For a certain kind of horror purist, Cargo denies the expectations of the genre. Its not an especially scary movie. It is, however, a moody, atmospheric movie, replacing scares with a nearly overwhelming sense of sadness. If thats not enough for you, then at least be sated by the excellent FX work. Here, zombies present as victims of debilitating illness: A waxen, carious fluid seeps from their eyes and mouths, which is suitably nauseating in the stead of workaday splatter. All the same, Cargo is never half as stomach-churning as it is simply devastating. Andy Crump



Year: 2016

Director: Babak Anvari

Stars: Narges Rashidi, Avin Manshadi, Bobby Naderi, Ray Haratian, Arash Marandi

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 84 minutes

Watch on Netflix





For most of the film, Babak Anvari is crafting a stifling period drama, a horror movie of a different sort that tangibly conveys the claustrophobia of Iran during its tumultuous post-revolution period. Anvari, himself of a family that eventually fled the Ayatollahs rule, has made Under the Shadow as statement of rebellion and tribute to his own mother. Its a distinctly feminist film: Shideh (Narges Rashidi) is cast as the tough heroine fighting back against greater hostile forcesa horror movie archetype that takes on even more potency in this setting. Seeing Shideh defy the Khomeini regime by watching a Jane Fonda workout video, banned by the state, is almost as stirring as seeing her overcome her personal demons by protecting her child from a more literal one. Brogan Morris



Year: 2018

Director: Daniel Goldhaber

Stars: Madeline Brewer, Patch Darragh, Melora Walters, Devin Druid, Imani Hakim, Michael Dempsey

Rating: NR

Runtime: 95 minutes

Watch on Netflix





As so many films in 2018 have shown us, the identities we create onlinethat we digitally design, foster and mature, often to the detriment of whatever we have going on IRLwill inevitably surpass us. The horror of Daniel Goldhabers Cam, based on the Isa Mazzeis script (in turn, based on her real experiences as a sex worker), is in this loss: that no one is ever truly in control of these fabricated identities; that the more real they become, the less they belong to the person most affected. Welcome Alice (Madeline Brewer), an ambitious camgirl who compensates for the exhausting rigor of online popularity (and, therefore, economic viability) with gruesome stunts and a rigorous set of principles dictating what she will, and wont, do in her capacity as female fantasy. Shes successful, tossing funds to her mom (Melora Walters) and brother (Devin Druid) without being totally honest about her job, but she could be more successful, trying whatever she can (within reason) to scale the ranking system enforced by the site she uses to broadcast her shows. With dexterous ease, Mazzeis script both introduces the exigencies of camgirl life while never stooping to judge Alices choice of employment, contextualizing an inevitable revelation to her family not as one of embarrassment, but as an impenetrable morass of shame through which every sex worker must struggle to be taken seriously. So much so that when someone who looks exactly like Alicewho operates under her screen name but is willing to do the things Alice once refusedgains leaps and bounds in the camgirl charts, Goldhaber and Mazzei derive less tension from the explanation and discovery of whats really going on rather than the harsh truth of just how vulnerable Alice isand we all areto the cold, brutal, indifferent violence of this online world weve built for ourselves. Dom Sinacola



Year: 2017

Director: David Bruckner

Stars: Rafe Spall, Arsher Ali, Robert James-Collier, Sam Troughton

Rating: NR

Runtime: 94 minutes

Watch on Netflix





A prime example of what might be termed the bro horror subgenre, The Rituals characters are a band of lifelong mates united in mourning a friend who has recently been killed in a brutal liquor store robbery. Luke (Rafe Spall) is the member of the group who shoulders the greatest burden of guilt, being the only one who was in the store at the time, paralyzed with indecision and cowardice while he watched his friend die. The other members clearly blame Luke for this to varying degrees, and one senses that their decision to journey to Sweden for a hiking trip deep into the wilderness is less to honor their dead friends memory, and more to determine if their bond can ever be repaired, or whether the recrimination stemming from the death is insurmountable. Where The Ritual excels is technically, in both its imagery and sound design. Cinematographer Andrew Shulkinds crisp images and deep focus are a welcome respite from the overly dark, muddy look of so many modern horror films with similar settings (such as Bryan Bertinos The Monster), and the forested location shots, regardless of where they may have been filmed, are uniformly stunning. Numerous shots of tree clusters evoke Celtic knot-like imagery, these dense puzzles of foliage clearly hiding dire secrets, and we are shown just enough through the films first two thirds to keep the mystery palpable and engaging. Director David Bruckner, who is best known for directing well-regarded segments of horror anthologies such as V/H/S, The Signal and Southbound, demonstrates a talent here for suggestion and subtlety, aided by some excellent sound design that emphasizes every rustling leaf and creaking tree branch. Unfortunately, the characters are a bit thin for what is meant to be a character-driven film, and the big payoff cant quite maintain the atmosphere of the films first two acts. Still, The Ritual is a great-looking film, and one that features one of the more memorably WTF! monster designs in recent memory. Its worth a look for that alone. Jim Vorel



Year: 2021

Director: Leigh Janiak

Stars: Kiana Madeira, Ashley Zukerman, Gillian Jacobs, Olivia Scott Welch, Benjamin Flores Jr., Darrell Britt-Gibson

Rating: R

Runtime: 114 minutes

Watch on Netflix





The first two entries in Netflixs Fear Street trilogy from director Leigh Janiak have been widely described (and widely praised) within the bounds of language often devoted to slasher moviesas solid popcorn entertainment and simple fun that represents, in this case, a welcome divergence from the more serious streak of arthouse horror weve been experiencing of late. And although it is true that theres nothing elevated or pretentious about any of these three Fear Street entries, to simply think of them as slasher films isnt quite right either, despite their gory flair. Theyre not even really meta-slashers in the mold of Scream, which was relentlessly name-checked by critics as they appraised first entry Fear Street: 1994 in particular. Rather, the real meat of this trilogy is a metaphysical, supernatural mystery that spans across lifetimes and centuriesits a story that uses the trappings of slasher cinema in two different eras, the 90s and 70s, in order to get at eventual themes of scapegoating, privilege and corrupted history. This is the bigger message that final entry Fear Street Part Three: 1666 attempts to deliver, albeit in a clumsier manner than its previous time jump, in a more difficult setting to truly capture. Three movies in, the little absurdities of this series are beginning to mount, but it at least manages to remain briskly entertaining and pretty damn bloody. Jim Vorel

Year: 2020

Directors: Brett Pierce, Drew T. Pierce

Stars: John-Paul Howard, Piper Curda, Jamison Jones, Zarah Mahler, Azie Tesfai, Kevin Bigley, Blane Crockarell, Jalayah Washington

Rating: NR

Runtime: 96 minutes

Watch on Netflix





Bens (John-Paul Howard) summer has started out on the wrong foot: His parents are in the middle of a separation thats calcifying into a divorce, and hes been sent to live with his father, Liam (Jamison Jones), for the season, working at the local marina in lakeside Michigan and taking shit from hyper-privileged brats. He also has the attention and affections of cool girl Mallory (Piper Curda), and the couple renting the house next door to his dads leave the light on when they screw, so its not all bad, except for the ancient flesh-eating witch lurking in the woods. Save for minor details like smartphones and Google image searches, Brett and Drew T. Pierces The Wretched could be mistaken for an unseen 1990s flick dug up like a lost relic of its era. The film shares in common DNA with classics like The Faculty, in which wolves skulk among the herd and only the kids are open-minded enough to realize it, but The Wretched doesnt fetishize its cultural touchstones, or function only as genre nostalgia. Practical FX work and creature design help, too, as essential to what distinguishes The Wretched from its influences as the Pierce brothers writing. They build tension and avoid playing coy: Something sinister is in the woods, they let their viewers know upfront, and they have a blast dropping clues and hints for Ben to decipher while Liam loses himself in a relationship with his new girlfriend, Sara (Azie Tesfai). The Wretcheds gore quotient likely will fall on the low side for splatter addicts, but the film understands when viscera is called for and when withholding is better. Its best scares tend to involve a glance into the darkness, where nothing should be but in which evil lurks, or through binoculars, which throws the malevolent presence lingering at The Wretcheds edges into sharp relief. The movie can go to gross places and brings appropriate sobriety to sequences of little kids being consumed by the slimy beldam posing as their mother, but the Pierce brothers prevailing tone is haunted house ride: Even at its most gruesome, The Wretched stays light on its toes. Andy Crump

Year: 2016

Director: James Wan

Stars: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Frances OConnor, Madison Wolfe, Simon McBurney, Franka Potente

Rating: R

Runtime: 134 minutes

Watch on Netflix





The film is a blast as a funhouse-style genre exercise, but theres very little holding it all together. If The Conjuring offended some with its historical revisionism, at least that film had cohesion. The Conjuring 2, meanwhile, plays with themes that never wind up being fully developed. Once the Warrens come to the Hodgsons aid, Ed explains that wicked spirits have a particular affinity for negative energy, and tend to manifest when bad things happen to people in their lives. They like to kick us when were down, he tells Peggy, and the Hodgsons are indeed down by anyones definition. Their home is deteriorated: The walls are peeling, the woodwork is cracked, and the cupboards are bare of biscuits. But matters of economy and class are window dressing. The films core is Janets overwhelming sense of loneliness. As the primary target of her familys supernatural tormentor, she has become totally isolated from her friends at school. We dont really see that, though. We just hear about it. The films script, penned by returning twin sibling screenwriting duo Chad and Carey Hayes, plus Wan, plus David Leslie Johnson, puts more emphasis on Lorraines premonitions of Eds death in an instance of just-too-muchery. Andy Crump

Year: 2019

Director: Andre vredal

Stars: Zoe Margaret Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, Austin Abrams

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 107 minutes

Watch on Netflix



Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, from director Andre vredal (Trollhunter, The Autopsy of Jane Doe) and producer Guillermo del Toro, received something of a mixed but vociferous response from critics and horror fans, who praised its visuals and creature designs, but largely criticized its choice to embark on a the stories are coming to life storyline rather than simply adapting some of the more popular stories from Alvin Schwartzs classic books in a more anthology based format. It made for an experience that was often compared to the Goosebumps film series, particularly in its approach to bringing younger audiences into the horror genre. How effectively the film actually managed to adapt the infamous illustrations of Stephen Gammell is another matter of considerable debate, but you cant really fault the effectiveness of something like the pale woman, which is suitably hideous. Jim Vorel

Year: 2017

Director: Robin Aubert

Stars: Marc-Andre Grondin, Monia Chokri, Brigitte Poupart, Luc Proulx, Charlotte St-Martin

Rating: NR

Runtime: 96 minutes

Watch on Netflix





Genre geeks didnt seem to take a lot of notice of Ravenous, beyond its Best Canadian Film award at the Toronto International Film Festivalperhaps the result of an indie zombie drama subgenre that seems to have run its course through films such as The Battery, and perhaps because its performed in French rather than English. Regardless, this is a competently crafted little drama thriller for the zombie completist, full of excellent performances from no-name actors and an intriguing take on the results of zombification. The infected here at times seem like your standard Romero ghouls, but theyre also a bit more: lost souls who have hung onto some kind of strange, rudimentary culture all their own. These aspects of the zombie plague are always hinted at, never extrapolated, but it enhances the profound feelings of loss and sadness present in Ravenous. Jim Vorel



Year: 2016

Director: Mike Flanagan

Stars: Elizabeth Reaser, Lulu Wilson, Annalise Basso, Henry Thomas

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 99 minutes

Watch on Netflix





While the first Ouija was a workmanlike, paint-by-numbers cash grab without a single original touch, its prequel, directed by tried-and-true horror fan and prolific genre filmmaker (with three quality releases in 2016 alone) Mike Flanagan, bears the aesthetic of 60s horror. From the use of the eras Universal logo to a faded, sepia-pastel look, Origin of Evil bears witness to Flanagan having fun with the creative possibilities of the project. As intriguing as all that stuff is for genre purists and cinephiles, the whole thing would still crumble if the overall tone and performances didnt match Flanagans ambitions. Thankfully, he delivers a wholly satisfying piece of PG-13 horror that deftly mixes the modern sensibilities of the genre with tried-and-true stylistic approaches from its, er, origins. Oktay Ege Kozak



Year: 2015

Director: Levan Gabriadze

Stars: Shelley Hennig, Moses Storm, Renee Olstead, Will Peltz, Jacob Wysocki

Rating: R

Runtime: 83 minutes

Watch on Netflix





Playing out in real time and framed as a continuous shot, Unfriendeds novel formal experiment quickly establishes the self-appointed limitations of its approach. But that is actually one of the core strengths of the movie: The audience only ever sees Blaires (Shelly Hennig) computer. The camera focuses on her screen; we see what she sees. This includes her friends on their computers, and her in her own window as well. She flips back and forth between tabs and applications, talking with someone, IMing someone else, fielding Facebook messages, Googling answers to questions, checking her email. The open tabs at the top of the screen offer insight into the character: Shes shopping, doing research for school or watching the video of Lauras death (as well as the video that pushed Laura over the edge). In a little bit of meta-commentary (or cross-marketing), one window is even open to the page for MTVs Teen Wolf, a show in which Hennig appears. All of this admittedly sounds clunky, but director Levan Gabriadze makes it feel organic; theres a logic and flow to Blaires actions online. Where Unfriended works best is in the build up, and as things gradually get creepier and creepierBlaire and her online pals think theres a glitch, then they think someone is playing a trick on them, then it becomes clear that there is something more sinister at work. The narrative peels back layers until the story is legitimately unsettling and uneasy: Something very familiar, but off just enough to seriously signal that not all is right with this world.Brent McKnight



Year: 2017

Director: McG

Stars: Samara Weaving, Judah Lewis, Hana Mae Lee, Robbie Amell, Bella Thorne

Rating: NR

Runtime: 85 minutes

Watch on Netflix





The Babysitter is a little guileless in its overt desire to be lovingly described as an 80s slasher homage, but simultaneously effective enough to earn a good measure of that approval it craves. With twists care of Fright Night and Night of the Demons, its at its best not when trying to slavishly recreate a past decade, but when letting its hyper-charismatic teenage characters run wild. Stylish, gory and profane to a fault, The Babysitter features a handful of bang-up performances, like Judah Lewis as a late-blooming 12-year-old, Robbie Amell as a nigh-invincible football jock and Samara Weaving as the title character, the girl of Lewiss dreamsright up until she tries to sacrifice him to the devil. Fast-moving (only 85 minutes!) and frequently hilarious, its probably the best unit of popcorn horror entertainment that Netflix has managed to put out so far. Jim Vorel



Year: 2017

Director: Paco Plaza

Stars: Sandra Escacena

Rating: NR

Runtime: 105 minutes

Watch on Netflix





Paco Plaza, the Spanish director of landmark 2007 found footage horror film R.E.C., has largely delivered diminishing returns via R.E.C. sequels. Veronica, therefore, has been received as a welcome venture into a new concept for the director, even if the results are decidedly on the derivative side. A spirit/demonic possession movie in the vein of Witchboard, the film follows a 15-year-old Spanish student (Sandra Escacena) who unwittingly invites evil into her home while conducting a ouija seance with her school chums. Where the movie shines best is largely on the presentation side: It looks great whenever its images arent too dark, capturing an interesting moment in history by setting the film in 1991 Spain. Charismatic performances from multiple child actors serve to bolster a story that unfortunately feels frustratingly familiar, recycling elements of Ouija, The Last Exorcism and practically every possession film ever written. This is very well-trodden ground, but Veronica is at the very least more than competent, even if its not the revelation for which we were hoping from the director. Jim Vorel



Year: 2017

Director: Zak Hilditch

Stars: Thomas Janes, Neal McDonough, Molly Parker

Rating: NR

Runtime: 101 minutes

Watch on Netflix





A chameleonic performance from Thomas Jane anchors this understated, gothic story set in Depression-era Middle America, told in the style of a confession by the husband (who we can tell right from the get-go is haunted by some horrible crime). When his wife (Molly Parker) insists on selling the land shes inherited rather than work it, Janes unsophisticated field hand harangues their son (Dylan Schmid) into becoming an accomplice in her grisly murder. As with every Grand Guignol tale, though, we already know that the worst part isnt the act of killing, but the endless paranoia of living with it. In the case of the movies guilty narrator, that means a vengeful and inevitable haunting filled with all the foreboding and creepy imagery you came to see. Stephen King adaptations have their hits and their misses, but this is a straightforward story that gets by on the power of a dread-steeped plot and some compelling performances by good character actors youll most likely always be happy to see get screen time. Kenneth Lowe



Year: 2017

Director: Eli Craig

Stars: Adam Scott, Evangeline Lilly

Rating: NR

Runtime: 95 minutes

Watch on Netflix





Seven years after he gave us Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, one of the best horror comedies in recent memory, director Eli Craig has finally returned with an exclusive for Netflix, Little Evil. An obvious parody of The Omen and other evil kid movies, Little Evil wears its influences and references on its sleeve in ways that, while not particularly clever, are at least loving. Adam Scott is the sad-sack father who somehow became swept up in a whirlwind romance and marriage, all while being unfazed by the fact that his new step-son is the kind of kid who dresses like a pint-sized Angus Young and trails catastrophes behind him wherever he goes. Evangeline Lilly is the boys foxy mother, whose motivations are suspect throughout. Does she know that her child is the spawn of Satan, or as his mother is she just willfully blind to the obvious evil growing under her nose? The film can boast a pretty impressive supporting cast, from Donald Faison and Chris Delia as fellow step-dads, to Clancy Brown as a fire-and-brimstone preacher, but never does it fully commit toward either its jokes or attempts to frighten. The final 30 minutes are the most interesting, leading the plot in an unexpected direction that redefines the audiences perception of the demon child, but it still makes for a somewhat uneven execution. Tucker & Dale this is not, but its still a serviceable return for Craig. Jim Vorel



Year: 2021

Director: Leigh Janiak

Stars: Sadie Sink, Emily Rudd, Ryan Simpkins, McCabe Slye, Ted Sutherland, Ashley Zukerman, Jordana Spiro, Gillian Jacobs, Kiana Madeira, Benjamin Flores Jr.

Rating: R

Runtime: 110 minutes

Watch on Netflix





Thats pretty much Fear Street Part 2: 1978 in a nutshell. This second entry of director Leigh Janiaks ambitious R.L. Stine adaptation trilogy for Netflix hits the ground running, with plenty of momentum provided by the surprisingly visceral Fear Street: 1994, and although it follows through on that films lively visuals and gruesome deaths, it finds itself hurting somewhat for compelling characters and variety in what its able to offer. Bound by its retro summer camp theming and the obvious horror allusions that theming implies, 1978 is a more lightweight diversion that occasionally finds itself spinning its wheels, although it does redeem itself with a startling transition into the jumping off point for final entry Fear Street: 1666. Nevertheless, it feels like middle child syndrome has likely come into play in this second chapter. Jim Vorel

Year: 2020

Director: Cho Il-hyung

Stars: Yoo Ah-in, Park Shin-hye

Rating: NR

Runtime: 99 minutes

Watch on Netflix





Fans of zombie cinema were hotly anticipating at least one South Korean zombie feature this year: Peninsula, the sequel to the much-loved Train to Busan was heavily hyped, but ultimately fell far short of the original. Thankfully, though, there was another Korean zombie flick waiting in the wings to step into its place, in the form of the significantly more successful (if modest) #Alive. Fans of the original World War Z novel will certainly find this story familiar, as its suspiciously similar to one of that books better-loved passages, about a young gamer/hacker in Japan who is so deeply engrossed in the web, he fails to notice the world descending into a zombie apocalypse around him, before finally being forced to unplug and go on the run. Here, the same basic premise is simply transplanted to South Korea, where the introverted protagonist must rappel down the side of his apartment building to avoid the prowling dead, while also looking for other survivors hiding among the carnage. Its a much tighter, more neatly executed story than the disappointing excesses of Peninsula, perfect for pandemic-era viewing. Jim Vorel

Year: 2022

Director: J.J. Perry

Stars: Jamie Foxx, Dave Franco, Karla Souza, Meagan Good, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Snoop Dogg

Rating: R

Runtime: 114 minutes

Watch on Netflix





Day Shift is a successful directorial debut for long-time stunt coordinator J.J. Perry. It isnt a revelation, but its mirthful and violent and feels like everyone involved had fun making it while taking their jobs seriously. Streaming is essentially the contemporary version of straight-to-video, and for some movies (like Prey) that feels like a major distribution-side miscalculation. Day Shift isnt quite at that franchise-affirming level, but Id have loved to have seen it in a theater. Part of me wishes it was a grimier, rougher film released on Shudder, with the same cast and creative team more directly evoking 1970s exploitation over 1980s action-comedy-horror, but, if you spent the early 2000s wishing Blade crossed over with Bad Boys or Lethal Weapon, Netflix has got your ticket. Kevin Fox Jr.

Year: 2020

Director: Dave Franco

Stars: Alison Brie, Dan Stevens, Sheila Vand, Jeremy Allen White, Toby Huss

Rating: R

Runtime: 88 minutes

Watch on Netflix





The Rental has De Palma vibes with Finchers cool, but lacks the formers exploitative pleasures and the latters cinematic expertise. It is, however, satisfyingly composed in terms of approach, giving the audience flashes of brutality to come or shooting it from a distance, heightening the shock and lending bloodshed sharp flinching power. Its the inconsistency of the hook that trips up Franco and imposes the effects of inertia on his story. His understanding of how thrillers tick when the implicit becomes explicit is easy to appreciate, but his wavering on when to pull the trigger, whether on his narrative or characters or even the act of violence, conveys hesitation, as if Francos short on confidence. In a way thats refreshing: Men walk behind the camera for the first time with swagger belying their inexperience, which is rarely not annoying. But The Rental has enough going for it that it could use more confidence in its unifying plot elements. Its a case where less is actually just that. Andy Crump

Year: 2021

Director: S.K. Dale

Stars: Megan Fox, Eoin Macken, Callan Mulvey, Jack Roth, Aml Ameen

Rating: R

Runtime: 88 minutes

Watch on Netflix





Till Death initially doesnt appear to play to Megan Foxs strengths. For about 10 minutes, its a dour marital drama where Emma (Fox) extricates herself from an affair in an attempt to reconcile with her wealthy husband Mark (Eoin Macken). It quickly becomes clear that Mark is controlling and abusive, but hes able to keep his worst tendencies just tamped-down enough to give Emma some hopeuntil she wakes up the morning after their seeming reconciliation handcuffed to her beau  who promptly shoots himself in the head. The burden of Emmas terrible relationship becomes physicalized and literalized as she has to drag the bastard around with her as she evades the criminals Mark has hired to come after her. This trim, compact movie is primarily a thriller, but it has horror-adjacent elementspractical gore; Marks Jigsaw-esque messages from beyond the grave; dark and gruesome flashes of humorand thats what ultimately makes it such a great match for Fox. From her popping red lipstick in the pre-mayhem sections to the blood splatter that perfectly soaks half of her face, Fox looks like a femme fatale captured mid-morph into scream queen. After years of objectification, she feels in control of her bombshell image. Jesse Hassenger

Year: 2016

Director: Mike Flanagan

Stars: Jacob Tremblay, Kate Bosworth, Thomas Jane

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 97 minutes

Watch on Netflix





Director Mike Flanagan seems to have become Netflixs go-to guy when it comes to directing Original horror moviessee: Hush and Geralds Gameand Netflix returned the favor by acquiring and then releasing the somewhat less inspired Before I Wake in 2016. Originally titled Somnia, the film was passed to several potential distributors, and even had in-theater advertising at one point, but its plans for a theatrical release were ultimately scrapped. The story of a young boy (Jacob Tremblay of Room and Wonder) with the unconscious power to manifest his dreams in reality, it draws obvious parallels to Nightmare on Elm Street, but especially to the astral plane-tripping excursions of the Insidious series, without quite having the verve of either. Still, it could be an interesting genre footnote in the career of Tremblay if this kid grows up to be an Oscar-winner someday. Jim Vorel



Year: 2021

Director: Patrick Brice

Stars: Sydney Park, Theodore Pellerin, Asjha Cooper, Jesse LaTourette, Diego Josef, Dale Whibley

Rating: NR

Runtime: 96 minutes

Watch on Netflix





Netflixs teen-centric horror machine has been revving to life lately, but it must ultimately be said that the ambitious Fear Street trilogy from Leigh Janiak had significantly more creative verve than the much more familiar Theres Someone Inside Your House. Although star Sydney Park is a likable presence, shes trapped in a film with shallow characters defined by single personality traits, in a script that feels guilty of some of the same offenses its ostensibly satirizing. The actual slashings are photographed with plenty of arterial spray, but what the film is really missing is the emotional nuance that characterized director Patrick Brices previous horror films in the Creep series. If he could have brought that kind of characterization to a high school slasher, Theres Someone Inside Your House might have been quite intriguing. Instead, its a lightweight diversion. Jim Vorel
The Federal Circuit Bar Association (FCBA), in conjunction with the John Marshall Law School, the Notre Dame Law School, and DePaul University College of Law will be offering a program on "Patent Litigation 2016: The Courts and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board" on April 28, 2016 from 8:45 am to 5:00 pm (CT) at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago, Illinois. The program will include presentations on the following topics:

 Case Management of Patent Cases in the Northern District of Illinois under the Amended Federal Rules

 Patent Case Management and Next Generation: The Corporate Counsel Perspectives

 Claim Construction in the PTAB and District Courts -- The Impact of Amendments to PTAB and Federal Rules, and Case Law Developments

 Hot Topics in Patent Law

 Damages

 Ethical Considerations in View of Amendments to PTAB and Federal Rules

The lunch keynote speaker will be Chief Judge Sharon Prost of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

The registration fee for the webinar is $250 (FCBA members) or $295 (non-members). Additional information regarding the program, including an agenda and registration details, can be found here.
This week we reported that "Apple's iPhone SE is Squeezing Market Share from China's Local Brands Huawei and Xiaomi." Will that even matter on Tuesday when Apple reports their Q2 2016 earnings? Well it could slightly, according to Forbes writer Chuck Jones who states that "the iPhone SE's that Apple has shipped to wireless carriers such as AT&T, China Mobile and Verizon will be counted as sales. This channel fill could be 2 to 3 million units and increase Apple's March quarter iPhone sales above the expected 50 to 52 million " I'm not saying that Apple is going to be breaking any records for the quarter for iPhones because they won't. Apple told us that in their guidance last quarter so there's no surprise on that front.

We noted in our Q1 earnings report that the Wall Street Journal reported Apple saying that iPhone sales grew at the slowest pace since its introduction in 2007 and forecast that revenue in the current quarter will decline at the steepest rate in 15 years, signaling an end to its recent period of hyper-growth.

Even though Apple noted that Q2 would show a slowdown in iPhone sales, the doom and gloom prophets love to drum up negativity prior to Apple reporting to grab headlines. International Business Times notes that analysts' consensus suggests Apple sold 50 million iPhones in the quarter, significantly down from the 61 million it sold in the 2015 first quarter. Again, while Apple won't have sales of 61 million because iPhone 6 mania broke every smartphone record on the planet and can't be reproduced on Apple's iPhone 6s follow-up model, Forbes thinking that the iPhone SE could be a small surprise is something to watch for on Tuesday.

With that being said, the doom and gloom that's the loudest of all today is from Ming-Chi Kuo from KGI securities, an analyst that many in the Apple community respect. They're really putting their neck on the line this time around and if they're wrong, could hurt their reputation.

According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, "Apple will underperform the industry and become the only global top-five smartphone brand to see shipments decline in 2016." Wow, that's quite the off-the-wall prediction. Forget Apple's fiscal Q2, he's made the leap for the entire year.

Kuo believes that Apple's competitors such as Samsung, Huawei and others will outperform them  even though Samsung's fake sales records are due to giving huge numbers of them away for free. I think in terms of profit, Samsung won't be doing that well at all this year  so it's hard to take Kuo too seriously on that front.

Where Kuo spends most of his time is on the belief that that Apple will stumble and deliver a lukewarm iPhone 7 model this year which will have a negative impact on Apple to the point of actually being the only smartphone OEM to show shipment declines in 2016. Again, trying to beat Apple's iPhone 6 mania sales record will be challenging, but beating those of the iPhone 6s should be easy. That's what makes Kuo's analysis suspect this time around.

In the end, it'll all boil down to the iPhone 7's sex appeal. At present, there's an odd clash in Apple rumors about the bigger shift to the iPhone actually arriving in 2017. We've heard that there's going to be an all-new curved glass form factor, a shift to OLED and more. The new form factor rumor was actually started from Kuo himself with no other source confirming such a shift. So Kuo's analysis that he doesn't "see many attractive selling points for iPhone 7 in 2H16" being the basis of his dire forecast can't be taken too seriously as we're only entering Q2.

Apple is the leading smartphone maker on the planet and they certainly have the power to deliver new hardware features that no one has on their radar screens at this point in time and the power to deliver killer apps that no one could even fathom. Apple's proven track record of delivering an exciting new iPhone model every 2 years is unlikely to be broken in 2016 and on that point  I think Kuo's forecast for 2016 is simply out to lunch.

About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments.
News / Local

by Letwin Mubonesi

A MUTARE man was arraigned before the courts last week for stealing Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority overhead copper conductors.Manica Post reported that Farai Mandaza denied the theft charges when he appeared before senior magistrate, Sekai Chiundura. Public prosecutor, Fletcher Karombe, told the court that Mandaza teamed up with two other accomplices who are still at large to steal the copper cables at Village 3, Nyamajura in Odzi."On April 6 at around 11pm, Mandaza connived with Godfrey Gumbo and Chibwanda Moyo who are still at large to go and steal copper conductorsusing Mandaza's white Nissan car to ferry the cables. They went on to cut 2 250 meters of copper conductors from a power line and were spotted by some villagers while loading the copper conductors in their white Nissan car."The trio fled from the scene leaving behind the motor vehicle which was loaded with the copper conductors after the villagers had teamed up toarrest them."The villagers made a police report leading to the arrest of Mandaza. Detectives recovered 2250 meters copper conductors valued at $13 500," saidKarombe.Mandaza denied the charges. The case goes for trial on April 22.
Theres so very, very much that could be said about this thing. But Im short of time, so Ill just make a couple of basic points:

1.

Islam is not an organization, any more than Protestantism is an organization.

There are various Protestant denominations (e.g., the United Methodist Church, the Church of England, the Assemblies of God, and so forth), and there are many hundreds, if not many thousands, of Protestant organizations (e.g., Samaritans Purse, Christian Research Ministries, Oral Roberts University, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, and etc., and etc.), but there is no single organization called The Protestant Church.

Likewise, there are various Islamic organizations around the world (e.g., al-Azhar University, Islamic Relief Services, the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, al-Qaida, the Muslim Students Association, the Islamic State, Muslims for America, and thousands of local mosques), but there is no Islamic church and there is no single Islamic organization of which all Muslims are members.

Accordingly, Muslims are absolutely not by definition barred from entering the United States because they belong to an organization seeking to overthrow the government of the United States by force, violence, or other unconstitutional means.'

Muslims dont necessarily belong to any particular organization.

But the problems with the statement above dont end there.

2.

Plainly, not all Muslims seek to overthrow the government of the United States. I shared a platform last week in Phoenix, for example, with Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a politically conservative physician  he was a Marco Rubio supporter, and now leans toward Ted Cruz  who also served for years as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy.

At any given time, there are many Muslims serving in our armed forces, among our law enforcement personnel, and in other positions of public trust. And, overwhelmingly, they do so as well as their non-Muslim colleagues do.

For what its worth, when I visited the Indiana headquarters of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) just prior to the 2012 presidential election, the imam who had just led the Friday prayer and delivered the weekly sermon confided in me that he was intending to vote for Mitt Romney. Back when I was in graduate school, one of my fellow grad students was a very devout imam from Pakistan who was an enthusiastic fan of Ronald Reagan.

3.

Some views of Islam are definitely antithetical to the principles on which the United States of America are founded. But not all. And  I speak here as someone who regularly teaches courses on the Quran (in both English and Arabic) and on the Islamic faith  I flatly assert that there is nothing in Islam or its sacred text that is necessarily antagonistic to the Constitution of the United States or to the principles of American freedom. Everything depends upon interpretation. To paint with too broad a brush too broadly is to be deeply unjust.

4.

When the statement mentions Islams form of government, Im curious to know precisely which form of government that is.

Are we talking about a caliphate? If so, precisely what is its nature to be? (Muslim thinkers have disagreed on this matter for centuries, profoundly and, often, brilliantly.) Or should it be a sultanate? Or an emirate? And what, if any, should be the place of a shura consultative council? Must the ruler be a lineal descendant of Imam Ali, as the Shia affirm? Or is that unimportant, as Sunnis have tended to think? And there are various forms of Shiism  for example, Twelver, Zaydi, and Ismaili. Which of them will give us Islams form of government. (They all disagree.) And which legal school or interpretation of sharia provides the form of government taught by Islam? Would that be the Maliki school of jurisprudence? Or, perhaps, the Hanbali? Or the Hanafi? Or the Shafii? Or the Jafari? Or the now-extinct Zahiri?

And thats just the tip of the iceberg.

There is no single form of government mandated by Islam.

When nonsense like that contained in the graphic above comes across your Facebook page, please dont pass it on unless you have good cause to believe it accurate, just, and fair. Most such things that Ive seen have been none of those things.

Posted from Salt Lake City, Utah
Patna: With more than four lakh government school teachers on strike, education at public schools in Bihar at all levels has come to a screeching halt leaving the parents and guardians of the children in a state of flux and uncertainty.

While the primary school teachers were already on strike since April 9, on Tuesday their counterparts in middle school and high school, in a sign of solidarity, went on an indefinite strike to press for the teachers' demands.

Demanding pay equality with the permanent teachers, more than 2.5 lakh contractual school teachers went on an indefinite strike last Thursday. They are also seeking a change in their status from contractual to permanent and a clear policy for promotions and raises besides demanding post-retirement benefits like pensions and provident fund.

"The government has played with our lives for much too long and we are not going to take it lying down anymore," said a teacher in Patna. He further said that while permanent teachers made close to Rs. 30,000 a month, contractual teachers were paid anywhere between Rs. 8,000 and Rs. 11,000 per month with no chance of raise or promotion.

The teachers also accuse the government of not paying their salaries for the last 2-3 years.

Bihar Education Minister P. K. Shahi, meanwhile, blasted the striking teachers saying the government had already formed a committee to look into their demands so there was no reason for them to shut down education in Bihar.

"What they are doing is hurting the children of Bihar. It does not make any sense to resort to such bullying tactics when the government had already agreed to look into their demands," the minister said.
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Iranian Women's Issues Advisor Says Mothers Fear "Morality Police"

04/24/16 Source: Radio Zamaneh

Shahidokht Molaverdi, the Iranian president's advisor on women and family affairs, says the new plan to deploy 7,000 "undercover morality police" on the streets of Tehran is causing serious concern for families.



A woman stopped by police in Tehran for not observing the morality rules

(April 2016 phot by Islamic Republic News Agency)





On Saturday, ISNA reported Molaverdi's account of a meeting she attended on April 22, where she says mothers were very concerned for their daughters' safety in view of this new plan.

The Tehran police force has announced it will deploy 7,000 undercover morality police to enforce hijab and Islamic behaviour on the streets of the city.

President Rohani reacted to the news, saying the government does not have the right to "interfere with people's public and private lives."

Molaverdi stressed that the people want the president to attend to this matter and "monitor and enforce the necessary orders ".

She added that the matter is on the agenda for the next cabinet meeting on Sunday.

The Tehran governor's office as well as a number of MPs have spoken out about the plan by police, but Friday mass Imams expressed support for it in their most recent sermons.

Police in Iran often ratchet up their presence on city streets with the arrival of spring and summer, stopping and arresting women whenever they feel they are not complying adequately with the Islamic dress code (hijab); the deployment of undercover morality police is the newest development for such efforts.





cartoon by Farsheed Rajabali, Ghanoon daily




Farhadi Film "The Salesman" Gets Last-Minute Acceptance At Cannes

04/24/16 Source: Radio Zamaneh

Asghar Farhadi's latest film, The Salesman (Foroushandeh), has been accepted into the Cannes Film Festival.



Shahab Hosseiny and Taraneh Alidousti in Asghar Farhadi's "The Salesman"



The lineup of films for the next festival had already been announced, with only one Iranian film on the list, Behnam Behzadi's Varoonegi. However, the festival has now announced the admission of Farhadi's new film.

The film is distributed by Memento, which had submitted the film to the Cannes Film Festival in January.







Asghar Farhadi speaking at his workshop at Fajr Film Festival

(April 2016 photo by Islamic Republic News Agency)





Farhadi's latest film follows the story of a couple acting in a production of Arthur Miller's Death of Salesman in Tehran.

The film, which received its production permit last September, was not finished in time for the Fajr Film Festival. Farhadi had announced that if the film was not accepted by Cannes, it would be screened for public viewing.

Salesman is Farhadi's seventh film. His earlier film, A Separation, became the first Iranian film to win the Oscar.
Mehdi Karroubi: Despite Five Years of House Arrest, He Continues to Speak Out against Abuse of Power in Iran

04/24/16

Source: International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran

Former presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi, who has been living under extrajudicial house arrest for over five years for contesting the result of Irans widely disputed 2009 presidential election, has written an open letter to President Hassan Rouhani calling on him to convince the ruling dictatorship to allow Karroubi to stand trial.





Mehdi Karroubi



Unfortunately in both the [2005 and 2009 presidential] elections, the interference by a faction within the Revolutionary Guards, the Basij militia, and the Intelligence Ministry trampled the rights of the dignified people of Iran as well as mine and imposed a lying trickster [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] ... on this country and paved the way for the most corrupt government since the [1905] Constitutional Revolution, he wrote in the Karroubi-affiliated Saham News website.

I do not expect you to end my house arrest, said Karroubi, addressing Rouhani. This is not in your realm of responsibility. But I do want you to act according to your duty to the Constitution and the people and ask the ruling dictatorship to try me in an open court based on Article 168 of the Constitution... so that with Gods help, along with my lawyers, I would be able to present evidence to prove fraud in the 2005 and 2009 presidential elections and show the people what has befallen the children of this country in legal and illegal detention centers.

In a reference to Irans supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, Karroubi added: ... this trial will make it clear who has disgracefully turned his back on the revolution and who is continuing on the revolutions path with dignity. It will show who is on which side of the argument over the result of the 2009 elections.

On March 10, 2016 Khamenei made an off-handed reference to the three Green Movement leaders held under house arrest, which include Mir Hossein Mousavi, and Zahra Rahnavard, by praising the dignified reaction of those who didnt get enough votes in Irans February 2016 elections, as opposed to the undignified reaction of those who didnt win enough votes in the 2009 elections and started a fight and dragged people onto the streets and caused a confrontation and harmed the country and made our enemies more rabid in plotting against us.

What they started was no small plot that was put out with the Grace of God, added Khamenei.

Iranian officials initially placed former presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, along with their wives Zahra Rahnavard and Fatemeh Karroubi, under house arrest on February 14, 2011 after they called for demonstrations in support of the popular uprisings in the Middle East, which came to be known as the Arab Spring. While officials released Fatemeh Karroubi, the other three have remained under house arrest for over five years without charges or trial.

Mousavi, Karroubi and Rahnavard have since become Irans most popular, though muzzled, opposition leaders along with reformist former president Mohammad Khatami, who is not under house arrest but is prohibited from public speaking.

Only close family members have been permitted brief and heavily guarded visits with the opposition leaders. Throughout their detention both Mousavi and Karroubi have suffered increasingly serious health issues, but the authorities have not permitted them to receive full medical treatment.

None of the three detained dissidents has been charged with any crime, nor have they had any trial. In addition to Iranian activists and international human rights groups, several different bodies of the United Nations have repeatedly urged the Iranian government to release them, including the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the UN Special Rapporteurs on human rights in Iran.

Karroubis letter, the authenticity of which has been confirmed by his son, Mohammad Taghi Karroubi, has been met with fiery responses from hardline and conservative news outlets in Iran.

Javan newspaper, a mouthpiece for the Revolutionary Guards, published a brief commentary on April 11, 2016 telling Karroubi that his house arrest has been a legitimate form of punishment for all enemies of the state since the era of the leader of Irans Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini.

Dont you want to revive the golden era of the late Imam [Khomeini]? wrote Javans commentator. Arent you proud you received dozens of titles from his grace? Now the Islamic Republic is taking you back to that era and showing you a small example of how the Imam treated those who rebelled against the state... You should pray for Seyyed [Ali Khamenei] for nicely calling you undignified. Back in the golden era, all of you would have been hanged with a short command.

Iranian officials often refer to the Khomeini era to justify crackdowns on their opponents.

These disgraced individuals [Mousavi, Rahnavard and Karroubi] are detained in their home but they have television sets and other amenities. If it wasnt for Islamic mercy, they should have been executed, said the Guardian Councils (charged with vetting election candidates) ultra-conservative chairman, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, during a Friday Prayer sermon on November 22, 2013.

Those who defend these individuals should tell us why then does the Quran and our theological books demand execution for those who corrupt the Earth? he added.

If a person takes out a knife and threatens the security of a neighborhood, he will be condemned and executed. But those who made our country insecure for eight months and killed our Basij militia youths [the volunteer paramilitary arm of Irans Revolutionary Guards] dont deserve capital punishment? Dont you have any shame in defending them? said Jannati. They owe it to the state for allowing them to live in their home with amenities and health care. But these individuals still refuse to apologize for their actions.

When [Mojahedin-e Khalgh] [an outlawed opposition group seeking regime change] members stood by their beliefs, the late Imam [Khomeini] ordered their execution, he added. Today these individuals are still holding on to their viewpoints, otherwise we could have had a solution.

In June 2014, outspoken conservative MP Ali Motahhari said he objected to the opposition leaders continued house arrests during a meeting with Khamenei, who replied, Their crimes are much bigger than their punishment.

If the Imam [Khomeini] was alive he would have been harsher, said Khamenei. If these individuals were put on trial, they would face heavy punishments, which you would not be pleased with. We are being kind to them.





Karroubi: "Try me in an open court"

(cartoon by Mana Neyestani, Iran Wire)





Karroubis Stinging Letters

The open letter has long been a popular means of expression by critics and political opponents in Iran. The indictments contained within the dozens of letters written by Karroubi over the years have been unprecedented from someone of his position in the history of the Islamic Republic.

Karroubi has written many letters about the arbitrary nature of Irans vetting process of election candidates. These letters date back to the early days of Khameneis appointment as Irans supreme leader in 1989 by the Assembly of Experts, when some close advisers to Khomeini and his son, including Karroubi and his allies, were being pushed outside Irans political arena.

In March 1998, when he was chairman of the Combatant Clergy Association, Karroubi wrote a letter to Jannati-who was already chairman of the Guardian Council, a title he still holds today-criticizing the disqualification of reformist candidates.

In my humble opinion and that of many of those concerned about the Islamic Revolution, the current mandatory vetting process will have serious and unpleasant consequences as we see here and there today, which could get worse in the future, wrote Karroubi. This is not in the interest of the holy Islamic Republic or the honorable institution of the Council of Guardians.

Six months later, during the election for the Assembly of Experts, Karroubi wrote to Jannati again, asking: Why are the candidates who need to be tested for their theological aptitude not being tested, but those with undisputed theological qualifications are being tested and/or rejected? (Hamshahri newspaper, October 14, 1998)

Jannati wrote back: It is our belief that problems can be solved with reason and understanding and reliance on the law... But if no solution is reached, the country will not be rudderless. With the authority given to him by Islam and the people, the supreme leader can, has and will solve the biggest problems facing the country. (Result newspaper, October 25, 1998)

Earlier that year Karroubi wrote a letter to Khamenei and criticized the arrest of Tehrans mayor, Gholamhossein Karbaschi, and other supporters of President Mohammad Khatamis reformist government.

We believe it is clear that those who have created the municipality scandal are trying to weaken Mr. Khatamis government in a vain attempt to draw the people inside themselves. But what this will do instead is embitter the people who had so much hope in [Khatamis election] and discourage them from all-out participation in the countrys development. It will also weaken the position of the Islamic Republic in the international community after gaining so much strength after the [1997] presidential elections. Surveys show that despite all the noise, people have recognized that the real motive is to prevent Khatami from doing his job. (Hamshahri newspaper, April 20, 1998)

Karroubis Evolution

Karroubi was often accused by impatient reformist MPs of being too conservative when he was speaker of Irans sixth Parliament (2000-2004). He wasnt even supported by the reformist faction during his bid to lead the legislature. After he became speaker, he came under intense criticism for bending to Khameneis demand to prevent Parliament from amending the countrys draconian press law. In fact, the sixth Parliamentary session was virtually paralyzed, incapable of ratifying any progressive laws because of repeated vetoes by the conservative Guardian Council.

In the June 2005 presidential election, growing displeasure with Karroubi resulted in him losing the backing of the reformists, who instead fronted Mostafa Moin, a technocrat with little popular support. That year Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the presidency by a wide margin, thanks to what was seen as widespread intervention by the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij militia in the first round of the election.

In an open letter to Khamenei, published on June 19, 2005 by BBC Persian after the first round of voting, Karroubi wrote: When I found out that some institutions of power were determined to change the peoples vote, I gave an interview and based on Article 57 of the Constitution I requested that you give the appropriate order to correct the wrongs that were taking place.

The office of Your Highness has given me your reply as follows: Tell Mr. Karroubi that I looked at his main points. The things you have said are completely beneath you and the intention is to create a crisis in the country. Are you aware of what you are doing?... I never expected this behavior from you and with Gods help I will not allow anyone to create a crisis in this country.

Referring to a sudden increase in his opponents votes after Karroubi received the most votes during the initial hours of the first round of voting, Karroubi wrote: In a hurried interview worthy of a coup attempt in the early hours of the morning, the spokesman for the Council of Guardians made it clear that some centers of power and influential individuals are not happy with the announcement of the election results through the Interior Ministrys lawful channel. I contacted Interior Ministry officials at 8:30 in the morning and they too were surprised by the interview, which was supposedly aired without the knowledge of the state broadcasters managers, and they told me that based on the final count sent from the polling stations that was entered into the computers of the Interior Ministry, I am still in first place.

Previously I did mention in your presence the possible interference of some factions of the Revolutionary Guards and Basij [in the election] and based on what I have heard, ministers of the interior, intelligence and justice have also sent you a letter about this and have asked that you take the necessary steps to prevent this, he added.

Karroubi also indirectly accused Khameneis son, Mojtaba, of meddling in the election and wrote: Your Eminence is well aware that in previous years the thoughtless interference of those in the circle of ruling clerics and political officials has resulted in many negative consequences for the country and the state. Therefore, with all sincerity, care and respect I beg Your Eminence not to allow such bitter experiences from happening again.

In his letter, which went unanswered, Karroubi also announced his resignation from all official posts and pledged to start his own political party, Etemad Melli (National Trust).

Many more open letters by Karroubi followed.

In May 2006, after the publication of Ahmadinejads letter to President George W. Bush, Karroubi criticized Jannati for praising Ahmadinejads divine inspirations.

As a pious man, are you not worried that exaggerations about the relationship between God and His creatures would weaken the peoples faith? wrote Karroubi. Your words [in praise of Ahmadinejad] in the Friday Prayers sermon undermine your status as a student of the Imam [Khomeini] and the seminary schools and may give people the impression that the clergy have joined the ranks of inflators and pranksters.

In March 2009, Karroubi wrote an open letter to the Intelligence Ministry condemning the destruction of places of worship belonging to Gonabadi Dervishes.

In the past three years, places of worship in Qom, Karaj, Isfahan, Boroujerd and... have been attacked and destroyed. Which fair court issued the order? Can you take such actions without legal procedures? What was the religious and civil basis for these attacks? asked Karroubi.

Three years ago there was a similar incident in Qom, where the authorities claimed that the building they destroyed was an endowment and yet the owner is very much alive and had donated the space to the Sufis, he added.

Karroubis Last Stand

Following the widespread protests against the disputed results of Irans 2009 presidential election, Karroubi not only publicly accused the authorities of fraud in naming Ahmadinejad as the victor, but also condemned the violent treatment of protesters.

In an open letter addressing former centrist President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who unsuccessfully ran against Ahmadinejad in 2005, Karroubi detailed incidents of rape: What I am telling you is what I have been told by officials who hold sensitive positions. They are members of important forces, and some of them have fought in the holy [Iran-Iraq] war.

They told me something has happened in the prisons and if just one case turns out to be true, it would be a catastrophe for the Islamic Republic and turn the bright and unadulterated history of Shia clergy into a dark and shameful saga. It would restore the reputation of disgraced dictatorships, namely the Shahs cruel monarchy, wrote Karroubi.

Some of the detainees have said that some individuals have raped the female detainees with such violence that they caused tears in their reproductive organs, added Karroubi. On the other hand, these individuals have also attacked young men so savagely that the young men were left clenching their bodies in a corner of their home with serious psychological and physical scars.

Given the importance of this matter, one would expect that an impartial and transparent commission would be set up by the Assembly of Experts to investigate, said Karroubi.

Karroubi also wrote to Tehrans Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi on May 9, 2010 expressing concern over reports that Mohammad Davari, the editor of the reformist Saham News who was at that time in his eighth month of detention, was being tortured to give false confessions.

Davari was imprisoned for helping Karroubi document the rape victims testimonies.

What is the benefit of forced confessions and apologies? I hereby inform you and others that I am solely responsible for all the documents and video clips I have provided showing instances of rape and torture. Neither Mr. Davari nor anyone else are involved and therefore theres no need to try to make them confess, wrote Karroubi.

The interrogators should give it up and not work too hard. Werent all these dark incidents enough? Now they are conducting character assassinations against people like the person who only filmed the incidents. I take responsibility for everything. I do not know how aware you are of the evidence I have presented since these incidents took place, but a person in your position should be very much informed about this matter, said Karroubi.

In another open letter published on July 21, 2010, this time addressing Ayatollah Mohammad Momen, a member of the Guardian Council, Karroubi regretted that the Council of Guardians had planted the seed of cheating in the country adding: There are many questions of historical significance that exist in the minds of the Iranian people regarding the work of the Council of Guardians, questions that should be answered at some appropriate time. Namely there are questions about the contradictory interpretations of Sharia and the Constitution regarding parliamentary legislations, the mass disqualification of candidates for the way they think or for belonging to certain political factions, and the administration of the elections.

You surely remember that in the fifth Parliamentary election, in the Meybod and Ardakan constituency, some of the votes for the winner were invalidated and instead his opponent was sent to Parliament, or the sixth Parliamentary election in Fereydoun Kenar, where vote rigging led to bitter incidents, wrote Karroubi.

Unfortunately, one must admit that all these incidents were perpetrated by the Council of Guardians. I am sorry to say to the honorable members of the Council that I am reminded of the anecdote about the man who complained about being called a thief, and said in his defense, I dont know why all the things I am accused of stealing from the neighborhood are found in my home! wrote Karroubi.

I invite you to look into the actions of the Council and the state in the ninth presidential elections when the seed of cheating was planted in the country under false pretexts by the monitoring and executive institutions, and look into the tenth presidential elections when obvious fraud led to waves of angry protests as people demanded their rights, added Karroubi. Considering the destructive impact on the country and the state, is it not time to review and reform the Councils attitude?

In an open letter to Jannati during that same year Karroubi rejected the accusation that he had caused a rebellion after the 2009 presidential election.

The so-called sedition you keep harping about was the election engineered, as usual, by you and your think tanks in the Council of Guardians and the Interior Ministry... with the intention of bringing about a favorable result, he said.

Irans Green Movement, which the government tried to forcefully and violently crush through arbitrary arrests and imprisonments, rose out of the peaceful protests against the widely disputed results of the 2009 presidential election. The movement is still a highly sensitive subject in Iran, referred to by hardliners as the sedition.

But as God Himself is most clever, your plans did not succeed and the holders of power got an unexpected result. The strange concoction that you quickly poured down the nations throat caused a backlash and exposed your rubber-stamped elections. Then, unbelievably, and despite your pledge to respect the peoples votes, you and those who engineered the election results suppressed the peoples protests in the most severe and violent fashion, said Karroubi.

In the culture you have created, the majority of the Iranian people and their assumed leaders, certainly including Mehdi Karroubi, are accused of sedition. But at the same time some individuals have deservedly become infamous for deception, trickery, and murder under the guise of religion. You, without a doubt, are a prime example, if not one who paved the way for them, he said.
South Africa's trade with Iran to rise to $8B: President Zuma

04/24/16 Report by Press TV ; photos by Islamic Republic News Agency

South Africa's President Jacob Zuma says he has agreed with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani to increase the level of trade between the two countries to $8 billion by 2020.





South Africa's President Jacob Zuma (L) with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani



South Africa's President Jacob Zuma said in Tehran on Sunday that his country plans to increase the volume of trade with Iran to as high as $8 billion by 2020.

Zuma told a meeting of Iranian and South African businessmen that the figure had been agreed on in his meeting with Iran's President Hassan Rouhani earlier in the day.

He added that trade volume between the two countries in 2015 stood at about $350 million, emphasizing that this needs to be increased drastically by relying on the potentials of both sides.

Zuma said his country views Iran as a strategic regional partner in the Middle East and Central Asia.

He said Iran has always been a key supplier of crude oil to South Africa, stressing that his country had suffered as a result of the sanctions - which prevented Iran from selling oil beyond a low ceiling of about 1 million barrels per day.

Zuma arrived in Tehran on Sunday heading a 180-member politico-economic delegation. He is visiting the Islamic Republic at the invitation of President Rouhani to discuss ways to strengthen relations between the two countries.

A series of key agreements were signed during Zuma's visit to Tehran in a variety of areas including the agriculture industry, water management, as well as joint investments and the insurance industry.

An important agreement - that was signed between Iran's Research Institute of Petroleum Industry (RIPI) and South Africa's national oil company PetroSA - envisaged cooperation over the production of gas to liquids (GTL).

The agreement already is seen to help Iran move closer to an ambitious plan to produce clean energy that was once pursued by South Africa's Sasol but later abandoned as a result of US pressures against investments in Iran as well as technical hurdles.

Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the United States, France, Britain, China and Russia - plus Germany started to implement a nuclear agreement, dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), on January 16.

After the JCPOA went into effect, all nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran by the European Union, the UN Security Council and the United States were lifted. Iran has, in return, put some limitations on its nuclear activities.

The South African leader will travel to the central Iranian city of Isfahan on Monday.

He is set to be accompanied by various cabinet ministers and a high-level business delegation.

Ahead of Zuma's visit, Amir-Abdollahian and South Africa's International Relations and Cooperation Deputy Minister Nomaindiya Mfeketo held a meeting in Tehran on Saturday and discussed the latest developments in West Asia and Africa.

The two sides commended growing relations between Tehran and Pretoria and expressed hope that the South African president's important trip would result in positive outcomes to serve the two nations' interests.

They also stressed the importance of pursuing political approaches to settle regional problems.
Riverside County sheriffs officials are still searching for a suspect in an early April robbery at a Temecula bank and are asking the publics help to find him.

The robbery happened shortly before 6 p.m. on April 1 at the U.S. Bank in the 29500 block of Rancho California Road, according to a Riverside County Sheriffs news release.

Officials say a man in his mid-30s walked into the bank with a demand note and fled the bank on foot with cash. They did not disclose the amount of money that had been taken from the bank.

Sheriffs officials have released a surveillance photo of the suspect. They are asking anyone with information about him or who he is to call 951-696-3000.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9693, agroves@pressenterprise.com or @AlexDGroves on Twitter.
News / Local

by Staff Reporter

A 39 year old man from Budiriro in Harare is in trouble after he allegedly fondled the daughter of his landlord while she was sleeping.Noah Mutenzi pleaded not guilty to the charge when he appeared before Mbare magistrate Kudzai Ziholve.Mutenzi was remanded to April 26 for trial. The court heard that Mutenzi on April 17 at 3pm fondled the landlord's daughter while she was asleep afterhe sneaked into her room. She woke up to her surprise to find Mutenzi caressing her.A report made to the police led to his arrest.
Having city attorneys take some crimes off county prosecutors plates  as Riversides Measure A proposes to do  would be new in Riverside County.

But other Southern California communities have used such a system for years, and some say it works for them.

Measure A would create a city prosecutors office to address misdemeanors such as vandalism, prostitution, commercial burglary and child abuse that are committed in Riverside. City Attorney Gary Geuss said filing the estimated 5,000 to 6,000 cases a year would require 17 employees  12 of them lawyers  and would cost $2.23 million annually.

Opponents of the measure question whether the city could effectively handle cases that always have been the Riverside County district attorneys responsibility.

Of the 12 California cities that handle misdemeanors, all but two  Anaheim and San Diego  are in Los Angeles County. Others include Burbank, Pasadena and Long Beach.

Most of those cities have had the power to prosecute lesser crimes for years, so its hard to trace why they originally made the switch or compare results before and after.

Palm Springs City Attorney Doug Holland said that, when he worked for Burbank in the 1980s, that city already had been filing misdemeanors for a long time.

We had a very good, cooperative working relationship with the District Attorneys Office, which would send the city cases that might not meet the standard to charge as a felony, Holland said.

In most cases, cities power to prosecute is outlined in an agreement with their countys district attorney. Geuss initially sought such an agreement with Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin, but talks were abandoned when they couldnt agree on terms.

Instead, Riverside proposed a ballot measure to add a city prosecutors office to the city charter.

QUALITY-OF-LIFE issue

Riverside officials have said Measure A is not meant as a criticism of the job Hestrin is doing.

No part of the criminal justice system, including no prosecutor, has adequate resources to pursue every case, Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz said.

Handling misdemeanors in the city would allow Diazs department more input, he said, which is important because We know what the community problems are.

Holland and Anaheim City Attorney Michael Houston said their city prosecution programs had similar rationales. Residents and city officials wanted to step up enforcement of misdemeanors beyond what the district attorneys resources would allow.

Anaheim is the states 10th-largest city and draws more than 20 million visitors a year to Disneyland and other attractions, Houston said. Officials wanted to focus on crimes such as sexual assault and drug possession that harm residents and drive away tourists.

Its a quality-of-life issue for the city, Houston said. I think what you hear from the community as a whole is its one of the few things a city attorneys office can do that is for the (direct) benefit of the public.

But how to measure that public benefit is a harder question.

American University law professor Jenny Roberts, who has written about misdemeanors impact on the justice system and society, said shes not aware of any research on who prosecutes misdemeanors and how effective different system may be.

Shes not familiar with Riversides proposal, she said, but in her view it makes sense to have one official handle criminal justice countywide because you could have conflicting agendas if you have two different prosecuting attorneys.

TWO MODELS

Why does it matter if its a city or county lawyer handling the case?

Geuss has said that with the power to file charges, he would have more leverage when proposing solutions other than jail.

Holland said he liked the discretion of being able to file under the state penal code as well as the municipal code, which typically covers only very low-level offenses. He also thought judges paid more attention to violations of state law.

The court looked askance at me when I walked in the courtroom prosecuting someone selling ice cream in the city without a permit, he said.

Hestrin has argued that Riversides Measure A would impose unnecessary costs on residents without getting better results, and he pointed out that his office filed more than 90 percent of misdemeanor cases submitted by Riverside police last year.

Holland also cautioned that creating a city prosecutors office would be a significant investment for Riverside. However, Houston said Anaheims 10 attorneys and four support staff prosecute 11,000 to 14,000 cases a year with an annual budget of about $2 million.

Hestrin also has said Riversides city attorney lacks the expertise to serve the city as well as the District Attorneys Office can. Geuss 26 years in the Los Angeles City Attorneys Office included criminal prosecution.

Roberts, the law professor, said the Riverside initiative sounds well-intentioned but that research has found that cracking down on lesser offenses may contribute to the problems officials hope to solve. Creating or adding to peoples criminal records may lead to them losing jobs or housing, for example, she said.

I would challenge them to solve that problem without the criminal justice system, she said.

Holland said if residents think misdemeanor crimes in their community are not being handled the way they want, having a city prosecutor could be a solution.

Either model works, he said. So much of it is going to be driven  by what the communitys expectation is.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9461 or arobinson@pressenterprise.com
Riverside police officers on Friday, April 22, arrested a 31-year-old Alabama man on suspicion that he was using a young girl for prostitution purposes, authorities said.

Rufus Oneal Freeman, 31, was arrested at the intersection of University and Iowa avenues on suspicion of human trafficking and exploitation of a minor, police say. He was booked at the Riverside Hall of Justice with bail set at $500,000 and had not been released as of Saturday.

Police say they stopped Freeman in the early morning hours as part of a vehicle check and found out that he had an underage girl as a passenger in his car.

Because of the difference in Freemans and the girls ages, and the fact that they did not appear to be related, police checked and discovered that the girl had been reported as a runaway in San Bernardino.

After further investigation, police say they believe Freeman was trafficking the girl.

The girl has since been returned to her family, officials say.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9693, agroves@pressenterprise.com or @AlexDGroves on Twitter
Jane Goodalls message to the University of Redlands Class of 2016, live with head and heart in harmony for full human potential may sound simple, but it carries big meaning.

The conservationist delivered the keynote address at the universitys College of Arts & Sciences commencement Saturday morning. She was also recognized with a Doctor of Humane Letters honorary degree during the ceremony.

It is a great honor to be welcomed into the Redlands family, she said.

Goodall told the audience in the Greek Alumni Theatre that she always dreamed of working in a natural environment.

While others encouraged her to take a different path, she said it was her mothers advice that inspired her.

Goodall worked odd jobs to pay her way to Africa, where she studied chimpanzee behavior in Tanzania and led her to develop the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977.

Today, Goodall travels the globe to encourage students to be stewards in their own communities and in nature.

It is unquestionable that we are the most intellectual creature thats ever walked planet Earth, so isnt it bizarre that we are destroying it. It is our only home, she said.

More than 700 students from the College of Arts & Sciences received diplomas during Saturdays ceremony.

During President Ralph Kuncls address to students, he reflected that he had arrived at the university around the same time many of them had.

We are far from what we were when we walked back onto campus that first time in 2012, yet we are not done evolving into who we will be, he said. Today is not an ending point; rather, it is just the beginning.

Cultural studies major and a member of the Class of 2016 Margaret Maggie Ruopp encouraged fellow graduates to take chances and to never give up during her speech at the ceremony Saturday morning. Writer and linguist Deborah Fallows, a University of Redlands Distinguished Fellow and wife of The Atlantic writer James Fallows, also received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.

This is the universitys 107th year of commencement ceremonies. It started Thursday with the School of Education, where Cal State San Bernardino professor Enrique G. Murillo Jr. was the keynote speaker.

Saturdays College of the Arts and Sciences commencement was followed by the Universitys School of Business graduation ceremony, at which San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan addressed students. According to the university, Burguan received a bachelors and masters degree there in 2007 and 2010, respectively.

Watch all three commencement ceremonies online through May 2 at www.redlands.edu/commencement.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  North Korea says it has successfully test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine and strengthened its nuclear attack capabilities.

Hours before the announcement by North Koreas state media Sunday, South Korean military officials said the North had fired what appeared to be a ballistic missile from a submarine off its eastern coast.

While South Korean experts say its unlikely that North Korea currently possesses an operational submarine that can fire multiple missiles, they acknowledge that the North is making progress on such technology.

The Norths Korean Central News Agency said leader Kim Jong Un had observed from the test facility as the ballistic missile surged from a submarine and spew out a massive stream of flames as it soared into the sky and met all technical thresholds.
Riverside Police are investigating a shooting that sent three people to the hospital Saturday afternoon, April 23, according to a news release.

Police responded at about 3:30 p.m. Saturday to the area of Madison Street and Indiana Avenue after someone reported hearing gunshots and seeing two cars apparently involved in a chase.

Officers found no victims or witnesses.

Meanwhile, at about 4 p.m., the Riverside Community Hospital called the Police Department to report that three shooting victims had arrived.

The condition of the three shooting victims and details of how they got to the hospital were not available.

The Police Departments gang unit is investigating the shooting. Anyone with information is asked to call 951-353-7243, 951-353-7242 or, to remain anonymous, 800-782-7463.
Three people have been injured, one critically, following a shooting at a high school prom in the US state of Wisconsin.







Emergency services were called between 11 pm and 11.30 pm local time, CNN reports. The incident took place at Antigo High School, near the centre of the state.

via Google Maps.

Lt. Jamie Lenzer of the Antigo Fire Department confirmed that while one victim was in a critical condition, the remaining two victims suffered minor injuries.

The school was placed under lockdown immediately after the shooting, but local media confirmed that lockdown has been lifted.

Unconfirmed reports on social media say the suspect  or suspects  have been found, but theres been no confirmation from law enforcement or other media sources.

Residents have expressed their disbelief over the shooting, with one alumni asking what has happened to our little town, where the most devastating thing to happen to our school is when we lost to Rhinelander in something?

Well update this story as it develops.

UPDATE: The towns police department has issued a statement on the shootings, outlining the evenings events and confirming there is no present threat to the community.

Source: RT / CNN.

Photo: Jamie Foth / Facebook.
Look, you dont need to be an earth scientist to recognise that a river catching  and staying  on fire is kinda unusual. Thats the point NSW Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham tried to make when he took a lighter to the methane outbursts of Queenslands Condamine River. ICYMI, heres what happened:

While thats all well and good, and were not going to begrudge an Akubra-clad bloke the opportunity to singe his eyebrows, the actual point he was trying to make is that nearby fracking operations have greatly disturbed the region  leading to a marked increase in the gas leaks you see above.

Well, the CSIRO has now hit back at Buckinghams dead-cert assumptions, claiming any number of factors could be the cause of the rivers odd bubbling.

Professor Damian Barrett, who heads up the CSIROs onshore gas team, reminded The Guardian this particular leak has been around far, far longer than Origin Energys nearby operations.

The presence of the industry there has not caused that crack to occur or that fault to occur, its been there for aeons. The gas has probably been coming to the surface there for as long as people have been there.

Instead, Barrett suggests the noticeably increasing gas seepage could be caused by shifting sediment on the river bed, or by changing water levels in the underground aquifer.

He wouldnt rule out coal seam gas operations as a cause of the leak, but did say itd be mighty unlikely.

Its not to rule it out completely, but we dont see a direct connection, a direct relationship, between whats happening on the gas fields up to this point in time and whats happening in the river

FWIW, Buckingham said he believes the CSIRO is lenient to on the industry cause they take their funds for research.

Thats a claim Barrett shot down with gusto. One more piece of advice from Barrett? Its not too clever to spark up a massive, flammable gas seepage. We might just get our kicks by watching it on repeat, though.

Source: Guardian Australia.

Photo: Jeremy Buckingham / Facebook.
The death toll from Ecuadors 7.8 magnitude earthquake has reached 654, one week after the tremors hit off the South American nations Pacific coast.

via Anadolu Agency / Getty.

Reportedly Ecuadors strongest quake in seven decades, the disaster left over 16,000 people injured, and leveled more than 7,000 buildings.

President Rafael Correa used his weekly televised address to called for eight days of national mourning, and thanked 27 nations for offering emergency support.

via Edu Leon / Getty.

While theres never a good time to suffer an earthquake, the disaster struck the nation at a particularly inopportune time  while low oil prices are good for international consumers, oil-producing nations like Ecuador are under strain.

The damage bill has been calculated at between AU $2.6B to nearly $3.9B, and Correa has proposed temporary tax hikes to aid reconstruction efforts in the damaged areas.



Source: Sydney Morning Herald / BBC.

Photo: Edu Leon / Getty.
Former Channel V host and general devil-may-care individual Danny Clayton is DJing at the Groovin The Moo festival, currently touring the country, but hes lucky to be there, after a recent, gnarly incident involving a motorbike left him black and blue.

Clayton told the Daily Telegraph that he was riding his beloved Ducati Scrambler in a paddock near the Colo River when he was came into a corner dangerously, and was thrown from the bike.

He said, of the incident:

I was practising power slides and came into a corner entirely way too fast. I high-sided, meaning I was thrown violently into the air and hit the ground very hard. I was wearing all my safety equipment, which saved me from further injury, but Ive torn major muscles in my rotator cuff, so my shoulder is injured, and I struck my ankle while coming off the bike, so I have a purple foot.

Clayton remains vertical, and says that the nasty spill hasnt deterred him from future bike-riding escapades:

I should probably put my motorcycle racing behind me. You cant keep a good dog down though.

Im still on the Groovin The Moo tour. And Im going to a surfing and motorcycle festival in the south of France this June.

Stay safe m8.

Source: Daily Telegraph.

Photo: Graham Denholm / Getty.
News / Local

by Lynnia Ndlovu

FOUR Zimbabweans allegedly took their thieving act across the border and stole 15 donkeys in Botswana, before driving them into the country but were tracked by Batswana men who caught up with them resulting in a confrontation that saw an ugly fight involving use of axes.Sunday News reported that the incident occured on Tuesday. Local villagers helped the Batswana resulting in the arrest of one of the thieves while the other three fled. Villagers handed Erick Noko (24) to the police resulting in his arrest.Noko of Tshanyaugwe village appeared before Gwanda magistrate Sheilla Nazombe on Thursday facing two counts of stock theft and illegal immigration. Prosecutor Takunda Mafudze opposed bail for Noko when he appeared for initial remand.Mafudze stated that Noko was facing a serious offence which has a long term sentence if convicted in which he is likely to run away from the trial and he was likely to steal again. Nazombwe remanded Noko in custody to 5 May for trial.Allegations are that on Tuesday, Noko and three of his friends raided 15 donkeys from Botswana in Gobajango village and drove them to Zimbabwe. However, Botswana men followed them following the donkey tracks and caught up with them at Olphant village where Noko and his colleagues fought them with axes.It is alleged that Olphant villagers arrived at the scene and rescued the Botswana men, but the other three men managed to escape. The 15 donkeys were all recovered.
Prom Shooting-Wisconsin

Two Antigo police department vehicles sit in front of the entrance to Antigo High School, Sunday, April 24, 2016, where an 18-year-old gunman opened fire late Saturday outside of a prom at the school. (Fred Berner/Antigo Daily Journal via AP)

ANTIGO, Wis. (AP) -- An 18-year-old man opened fire with a high-powered rifle outside of a high school prom in northern Wisconsin, wounding two students before a police officer who was in the parking lot fatally shot him, authorities said Sunday.

Investigators did not say whether they believe the two students were specifically targeted or discuss a possible motive for the shooting. But a school administrator said it appeared that the gunman -- identified by police as Jakob E. Wagner -- intended to go into the dance and start shooting randomly.

The two prom-goers who were wounded were shot as the exited the building, according to Eric Roller, the chief of police in Antigo, a community of about 8,000 people roughly 150 miles north of Milwaukee.

"Officers were in the parking lot patrolling the activities and heard the shots and an officer immediately fired upon the shooter, stopping the threat," Roller said. He said the gunman was then taken into custody. Wagner died at a hospital.

In a statement, the Unified School District of Antigo said Wagner approached the school with a high-powered rifle and a large ammunition clip. The district said the "quick actions" taken by police and district staff to secure the building "prevented what might have otherwise been a disaster of unimaginable proportions."

Interim district administrator Donald B. Childs told The Associated Press on Sunday that it appears Wagner intended to go into the building and shoot at people at the dance.

"We have no reason to believe at this point it was targeting anybody specifically," Childs said, adding that the shooting outside the entrance happened "from some distance."

The female victim was treated and released and the male victim was undergoing surgery for injuries that weren't life-threatening, police said. Childs said the wounded boy, who was shot in the leg, attended the high school but that his date, who was grazed in the shooting, was from out of state.

Gov. Scott Walker praised the police response to the shooting, saying in a statement the actions of the Antigo Police Department "undoubtedly saved lives."

Friends said Wagner was a senior at Antigo High School in 2015, but Childs said he did not graduate with his classmates and was continuing to work on his diploma. He said the school of about 750 students will have counselors available when classes resume Monday.

Friends expressed shock that Wagner was the suspect.

"For him to do that, something just isn't right. He was a good kid," said Dakotta Mills, who said he had known Wagner since sixth grade and considered him a "foster brother."

Wagner was interested in guns and wanted to become a hunter, Mills said, but he wasn't sure Wagner could afford a gun. He said Mills was raised by his mother and grandparents and was still living at home.

Wagner loved video games and music, particularly violin and cello, and had been in the school marching band, Mills said.

Dylan Dewey, who graduated from Antigo High last year, said Wagner had been dating a girl at the school who broke up with him last month. He described Wagner as an "all-around good guy" who enjoyed hanging out with friends.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice's Division of Criminal Investigation has been asked to lead an outside review of the officer-involved shooting, agency spokesman Johnny Koremenos said.
Democratic presidential candidate and Sen. Bernie Sanders announced he will make a campaign stop in Pittsburgh Monday -- the day before Pennsylvania voters take to the polls.

The Vermont senator will hold a rally at the Fitzgerald Field House at the University of Pittsburgh. Guests include Sen. Jeff Merkley, Kendrick Sampson and Josh Fox. Doors for the event open at 11 a.m.

Sanders has spent the last week canvassing the Keystone State, making stops in State College, Scranton, Reading, Philadelphia, Gettysburg and Millersville, among others.

Hillary Clinton still leads Sanders in Pennsylvania, with the most recent poll placing her 13 points ahead. Clinton's support among likely voters is at 52 percent compared to Sanders' 39 percent.
Hillary Clinton toured black baptist churches in North Philadelphia on Sunday leading up to Tuesday's primary election battle against Sen. Bernie Sanders in Pennsylvania.

Democratic and Republican presidential hopefuls have spent the last few days crisscrossing Pennsylvania in search of support and votes. There are five primary elections on Tuesday and candidates have been visiting those states -- including Pennsylvania.

On Sunday,Clinton visited two churches in Philadelphia. She visited Triumph Baptist Church and African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas.

At both stops, she pledged to seek criminal justice reform and fight for tougher gun regulations before the largely African-American congregations.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
31st district.jpg

31st candidates Brice Arndt, Scott Harper, Mike Regan and Jon Ritchie.

(File photos)

They're asking for your vote Tuesday -- but how often have they made it to the polls themselves?

PennLive looked into the voting records of the four candidates -- Brice Arndt, Scott Harper, Mike Regan and Jon Ritchie -- vying for the Pennsylvania 31st Senate seat.

If no third party or write-in candidate emerges, the one of the four GOP candidates could be the next state senator.

Below is a look at how many times each candidate has voted:

[App users click here to view]

Arndt registered to vote in 1986, according to his records.

[App users click here to view]



Harper registered to vote in 1991, according to his records.

[App users click here to view]



Regan registered to vote in 1996 in York County, according to his records (he was previously registered in Cumberland County).

[App users click here to view]



Ritchie registered to vote in 1993, according to his records. It is unclear if Ritchie ever voted in California, where he previously lived.
Trump Clinton

Pennsylvania primary voters will have their say Tuesday, and they're likely to choose Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, according to a new poll.

On the Democratic side, Clinton is ahead of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by 15 points among likely voters in Pennsylvania, 55 to 40 percent, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll.

Among Republicans, Trump gets support from 45 percent of likely primary voters in the Keystone State, while Ted Cruz gets 27 percent and John Kasich gets 24 percent.

Similar to races in other states, Trump polls the strongest - at 52 percent - among men, voters without a college degree and people who live in the northeast corner of Pennsylvania.

The billionaire struggles with less than 40 percent of the vote among college graduates, women, white evangelicals and people who live in the Philadelphia suburbs.

But he's still polling better than his challengers, who have 36 percent or less among those demographics.

Clinton is retaining her lead among African Americans, with 67 percent of the vote compared to 29 percent for Sanders, according to the poll.

She's also winning voters who are 45 and older, 66 to 28 percent.

Clinton is also polling well among women, 62 to 34 percent.

Sanders continues to poll well with voters younger than 45, with 60 percent of the vote compared to Clinton's 37 percent.

He also gains favor among voters who describe themselves as "very liberal," 58 to 41 percent.

Sanders also polls well with independents, 55 to 39 percent, and men, 49 to 45 percent.

Regardless of what happens in the Tuesday primary, the poll also shows Clinton or Sanders defeating Trump in the general election. Clinton would defeat the GOP frontrunner by 15 points, while Sanders would win by 20 points, according to the poll.

Sanders also defeats Cruz by 22 points, while Clinton beats the Texas senator by 11 points.

Sanders would also beat Kasich by 6 points, according to the poll, but Clinton would lose to the Ohio governor by 3 points.

The poll also revealed three other details among Pennsylvania voters: President Barack Obama's job-approval rating is 49 percent, Gov. Tom Wolf's is 45 percent, and Sen. Pat Toomey's is 43 percent.
A false classified advertisement offering used vehicles for sale outside of Pennsylvania is a scam, the Franklin County District Attorney's Office warns.

The seller in the advertisement offers vehicles at prices lower than the actual value and offers to pay all transportation costs. After an initial call, correspondence between the buyer and seller continues over text and email, according to a news release. The seller/scammer claims to be on active duty in the U.S. military stationed outside of Pennsylvania that needs to sell a vehicle that belonged to a dead relative.

Franklin County residents have made contact with the scammer, but no one has entered into an agreement or lost any money that the district attorney's office.

The district attorney's office reminds citizens that scammers often pose as sellers and post fake ads, usually with a lower price to generate interest. If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Any victims of the scam are asked to contact local police or Pennsylvania State Police.
31st district.jpg

(File photos)

With days until the Pennsylvania primary candidates are hoping to tie up last minute support in the area.

And while we could be talking about the U.S. presidential race, the Pennsylvania 31st Senate District has been one of the hottest races this year with four men -- Brice Arndt, Scott Harper, Mike Regan and Jon Ritchie -- vying for the seat and the perceived frontrunners sparing and jabbing at one another in the days leading up to the race.

Campaigns were asked for a list of endorsements. Only one -- Ritchie's campaign -- did not provide a complete list.

Brice Arndt

Pennsylvania Dental Association

Pennsylvania Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon Society

American Dental Association

Scott Harper

Firearms Owners Against Crime

Harper also issued this statement:

"I have not sought out endorsements from specific special interest groups because I do not want to be beholden to groups besides the constituents as a whole. When special interest groups endorse you they usually donate money to you and then expect a quid pro quo relationship in return for their investment. I refuse to participate in that type of legal corruption."

Mike Regan

Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry

Pennsylvania Realtors Association

Pennsylvania Bankers Association

Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association

Pennsylvania State Nurses Association

Pennsylvania Medical Society

Firearms Owners Against Crime

Pennsylvania State Troopers Association

Numerous Fraternal Order of Police Lodges

Pennsylvania State Correctional Officers Association

M.A.G.

Rep. Seth Grove

Rep. Stephen Bloom

Rep. Will Tallman

Sen. Mike Folmer

Majority Leader Jake Corman

Sen. Scott Wagner

Sen. Rich Alloway

Camp Hill Mayor Mark Simpson

Former Camp Hill Mayor Bruce McLanahan

Former Camp Hill Mayor Lou Thieblemont

Former Camp Hill Mayor Doug Morrow

The Shuler Family

The Cox Family

Kyle Brady

Carlisle Police Chief Steve Margerson

Jon Ritchie

Ritchie's campaign responded to the request for endorsements with one name -- Sen. Pat Vance. However, news reports, Facebook posts and comments made by the candidate point to additional endorsements. Subsequent attempts to get a complete endorsement list from the campaign were met with silence.

Here are additional endorsements based on news reports, Facebook posts and public comments:

Pennsylvania State Education Association

Andrew Perloff of the Dan Patrick Show

Baltimore Ravens Coach John Harbaugh
shutterstock_voting booth.jpg

(Shutterstock)

It is a rare situation when Pennsylvania has much of an influence in the Presidential primaries. However, this is one election cycle when our votes might actually matter.

Yet many legally registered Pennsylvania voters will not be allowed to cast their ballots. Independent voters, many of whom align with either Sen. Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump, and not with the "establishment candidates," will be shut out of the electoral process due to the closed primary system in our state.

This is undemocratic, unfair, and should be changed. During such an important time in our history, when it is clear that the people are looking for real change, all legally registered voters should be heard from. especially those who stand firmly outside of the two major parties.

BARBARA PATRIZZI, Philadelphia
Solar Impulse 2 lands at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif., after crossing the Pacific Ocean on Saturday, April 23, 2016. The solar-powered airplane landed in California on Saturday, completing a risky, three-day flight across the Pacific Ocean as part of its journey around the world. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
News / Local

by Tatenda Gapare

A BULAWAYO man allegedly pretended to be a taxi driver before luring a teenager to his car and drove her to Khami Dams where he raped her at knife point before trying to buy her silence by offering her $1 and R20.Sunday News reports that Lungani Ndlovu (35) appeared before Western Commonage magistrate Themba Chimiso facing rape charges. He was granted $200 and remanded to 27 April for trial.Prosecuting, Mufaro Mageza said on 5 April 2016 at around 8 am, Ndlovu met the victim in Kezi and offered her a lift to Egodini bus terminus in Bulawayo where she was headed to. The victim (16), is a Form Three pupil at Joshua Mqabuko High School."Instead of taking the victim to Egodini, Ndlovu diverted the route and took her to his house in Emganwini where he changed the motor vehicle he was using and took another Honda Fit. Ndlovu took her to an area in Khami Dams where he produced a knife and threatened to kill her when she screamed," he said.The court heard that Ndlovu had sex with the victim once, without protection and without her consent."He raped the victim inside his car and when he was done he gave her a $1 and R20 and told her not to tell anyone. Ndlovu then drove the victim to her house in Pumula South and dropped her by the gate," said Mageza.Upon arrival the victim reported the matter to her relative who then proceeded to inform the police.The victim was referred to Mpilo Hospital for medical examination.
Election Q&A: Meet the candidates for Emmet County Commission

The first, third, fourth, fifth and sixth districts are all contested races on Nov. 8.
Odebrecht out of stake in natgas Peru pipeline



Pipeline carry liquefied natural gas from the Peru LNG plant to ocean-going ships

LIMA

Petroleumworld.com 04 25 2016

Odebrecht SA, the engineering company at the center of a massive graft probe in Brazil, is selling its 55 percent stake in a $5 billion natural gas pipeline project in Peru, the pipeline manager told Reuters on Friday.

David San Frutos said international creditors interested in financing $4.1 billion of the project had asked that it have no links to Odebrecht or the corruption probe in Brazil, known as "Operation Car Wash."

Spanish utility Enagas SA, which now controls 25 percent of the project, is interested in buying 6 percent of Odebrecht's stake, said San Frutos, who heads Enagas' Peru unit.

"The remaining 49 percent will be acquired by another company or other companies" but must be approved by both Enagas and the project's other junior partner Grana y Montero SAA , San Frutos said in an email.

Odebrecht Latinvest, the company's investment unit for Latin America, said in a statement that it was evaluating proposals and declined further comment.

Enagas and Grana y Montero, which owns 20 percent in the pipeline concession, took over management of the project last month to distance it from the probe in neighboring Brazil, where the former head of Odebrecht has been convicted of bribery, money laundering and organized crime.

Odebrecht is selling billions in global assets, including a hydroelectric dam and a road concession in Peru, to raise capital as it grapples with rising debt in the wake of the corruption scandal, its chief executive told Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo in an interview published April 1.

San Frutos said he expects negotiations on financing on the pipeline to wrap up in July and that construction was ahead of schedule with 35 percent complete.

The Odebrecht-led consortium in Peru won the lucrative pipeline contract in 2014 after its sole competitor was disqualified at the last minute. Odebrecht's previous plans to build a similar pipeline had been snagged on a lack of financing.

Odebrecht and state bidding agency Proinversion denied allegations from the disqualified consortium that the auction was rigged. The attorney general's office has been investigating potential wrongdoing in the pipeline bid for more than a year, but has not presented any charges.

The pipeline is an emblematic project for President Ollanta Humala, who had hoped it would feed a future petrochemical complex and fast-growing demand for electricity.

Brazilian police said in February that they were investigating potential bribes of $3 million from Odebrecht to Humala. Humala and Odebrecht denied wrongdoing.






News / Local

by Dumisani Sibanda

FOUR managers at the struggling Hwange Colliery Company Limited (HCCL) are set to be retrenched as the coal mining firm has started restructuring as part of its survival programme.Sunday News reported that the company's managing director, Thomas Makore said the retrenchments have been approved by the board."We are now at a point where the company has started the restructuring programme which was approved by the board and the major shareholder. It will start at management level cascading downwards."Makore refused to say which management positions have been identified for retrenchment."Obviously, we are dealing with human beings here and we have to be careful how we handle the matter and therefore, I don't think it would be fair to start naming individuals," he said.However, sources within the company said four managers who are likely to lose their jobs have been identified for the exercise. The former coal mining giant is now a pale shadow of itself saddled with debts worth millions of dollars resulting in some of its property being auctioned. Workers at the mining company are owed about two years in unpaid salaries amounting to more than $16 million.But the company's managing director said he was optimistic that once the restructuring programme which is part of efforts to turn around the concern's fortunes is put in place, HCCL should be back on its feet.Last month, the HCCL acting chairman, Jemester Chininga announced that the restructuring programme would result in a reduction of the wage bill by $15 million.As of December last year, the company owed its creditors $287,3 million. Recently, the company's workers took their employer to court alleging corruption and asking for it to be put under judicial management. They also sought HCCL's delisting from the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, the Johannesburg bourse and the London Stock Exchange as part of the turnaround strategy they were proposing for the company.
News / Local

by Tinomuda Chakanyuka

SABI Gold Mine in Zvishavane which is set to resume operations in August, has pledged to allocate gold mining claims to villagers, particularly youths in the area, as part of efforts to empower the community where the mine is situated.The gold mine is expected to resume operations after a local investor, Chandiwana Mining Co-operation injected $26 million towards its resuscitation.Deputy Minister of Mines and Mining Development Fred Moyo said the allocation of gold mining claims to the local community would also help reduce illegal gold mining activities which have become rampant in the area.He said a number of youths in Zvishavane were engaging in illegal gold mining due to limited employment opportunities and the pledge by Sabi Gold Mine would go a long way in alleviating the plight of many people in the area.Sabi Gold Mine, which had not been operational for the past two years, has also become a target of illegal gold miners who have accessed the mine's shafts.Some of the illegal gold panners use explosives to blast pillars that anchor the mine shaft, leaving the shafts at risk of collapsing."There are maps that are available showing areas that we have selected as gold claims that will be allocated to local youths to carry out regularised mining."Chiefs will sit down together with councillors and other local leaders to work out the modalities on how the claims will be distributed," he said.Moyo said priority would be given to youths from rural communities who are often left out in a number of empowerment activities."Youths who should benefit are those from rural areas. We don't want to continue empowering urban youths at the expense of their rural counterparts. Of course during your selection you may consider youths from the urban part of Zvishavane but those should be a small fraction. We also have war veterans who have approached us and requested claims. They will also be covered by this programme.Moyo added that when the mine resumes operation it will also be expected to contribute to the Zvishavane Community Share Ownership Trust.Chief Mazvihwa, one of the chiefs whose subjects are expected to benefit from the gold claims pledged by Sabi Gold Mine expressed gratitude at the gesture."Naturally we are happy because of this development. Our wish is that whatever has been discussed culminates into something tangible for our people. With this development we know our people will have something to do and sound sources of income. It was requested that we educate our people on the dangers of illegal mining activities at the mine. I will personally make sure that is done. On 27 April I am convening a meeting with all community leaders in my area to make sure that message gets across to everyone," he said.Chandiwana Mining Co-operation which injected capital towards resuscitation of Sabi Gold Mine is partnering Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation in the project.
Hitting the area trail: Former President Bill Clinton greets supporters at a campaign event for his wife, Hillary Clinton, in Lower Gwynedd. He also made stops Saturday in Swarthmore, Northeast Philadelphia, and Langhorne. Story, A15 Read more

By now the pitch was familiar: Bill Clinton, his speechmaking skills sharp as ever, crisscrossed the region Saturday to stump for his wife, Hillary Clinton, "the best change-maker I've ever known," as the Pennsylvania primary nears.

He spoke in Delaware and Montgomery Counties, adding stops in Northeast Philadelphia and lower Bucks. Yet some of the day's most electrifying words were uttered not by the former president but by a former congresswoman - Gabby Giffords of Arizona, who joined him at a school in Lower Gwynedd.

Giffords, who struggles to speak because of wounds suffered in a 2011 mass shooting, said Hillary Clinton would stand up to the gun lobby.

"Speaking is hard for me," she said. "But come January, I want to say these two words: 'Madam President!' "

The crowd roared.

Bill Clinton used the "best change-maker" line to a crowd of more than 600 at Swarthmore Rutledge School, and at Wissahickon Middle School in Lower Gwynedd, where he appeared with Giffords and her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly.

Between those events, Clinton made it to the Dining Car in Northeast Philadelphia, going table to table, posing for pictures and buying pies (apple and apple-walnut) for his entourage.

The former president made his rounds as campaigns moved about the Eastern Seaboard in anticipation of Tuesday's so-called Acela Primary.

Also on Saturday, Hillary Clinton's Democratic rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, won a local victory: an endorsement by the Philadelphia Tribune, one of the nation's oldest black newspapers. The Tribune wrote that Sanders "offers an inspiring message and bold vision for America without the excessive baggage of Clinton."

Sanders later told a Wilmington audience he'd expand Social Security - and told NBC he'd lost some primaries "because poor people don't vote." Republican Ted Cruz told about 1,000 listeners outside Pittsburgh that Tuesday "is going to be a pivotal day."

In Swarthmore, some of Bill Clinton's listeners said they were undecided and came to see if he could inspire them.

"I figured, what a great opportunity to hear one of our living presidents. . . . And I want to hear what he has to say about Hillary and her plans," said Carlie Tyrell, 41, who was with her husband and 10-week-old daughter, Clara. Tyrell said she is concerned about education.

Zong Luo, 40, of Swarthmore, who came to this country from China when she was 24, said she, too, was undecided and wanted to hear about education and other issues.

Bill Clinton spoke of the need to invest in teachers but also to fund apprenticeship programs for those who don't attend college.

He said his wife wants to help refinance student debt. When he asked who was still paying off such debts, many hands went up.

In Lower Gwynedd, he drew laughs when he said of Sanders' call for tuition-free state colleges: "Do you really think the legislature you have now in Pennsylvania will pay for free tuition?"

cvargas@phillynews.com

215-854-5520 @InqCVargas

This article includes information from the Associated Press.
Police said Sunday that they were investigating the separate shooting deaths of two men Saturday in North Philadelphia.

At 7:30 a.m. Saturday, officers were called to the 1800 block of Sulis Street, where they found a man in his late 30s lying on steps outside a building, shot twice in the chest. He died at the scene.

The victim's name has not been released. Police said that they did not know a motive in the shooting and that no arrests have been made.

In the second case, about 4:34 p.m. Saturday, police were called to the 2300 block of West Huntingdon Street, where they found a 36-year-old with multiple gunshot wounds inside a green Pontiac Grand Prix. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The victim's name was not released, pending notification of relatives. Police said they did not know of a motive for the shooting.

A suspect in that case was described as a heavy-set, light-complexioned black male, 30-35 years old, 5-foot-6 to 5-foot-7, wearing a blue work uniform and a reflective vest.

jcastellano@phillynews.com

215-854-4521

@jill_castellano
News / National

by Staff reporter

The cost of electricity is set increase after the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority approved an average tariff of 11,2c/kWh from 9,83c.Power utility, Zesa Holdings had applied for a tariff increase of 14,6c/kWh to help finance imports to mitigate power shortages and expanding generation capacity.In order to ease load-shedding, imports of electrical energy were at $47,63 million as suppliers from Mozambique and South Africa were operating on a cash basis model.However, the situation is unsustainable going forward as the import tariffs are higher than what is currently obtaining especially when the power utility is saddled with a +$1 billion debt.A source said after a careful study of the proposal from Zesa, an average tariff increase of 11,2c/kWh has been granted," said an official in the Ministry and Energy and Power Development.Zimbabwe is importing power mainly from Mozambique, where it is seeking more, and South Africa and this has seen a drastic reduction in power rationing.
News / National

by Staff reporter

Zanu-PF has begun rolling out its dirty plan to systematically reclaim control of local authorities led by MDC-T while making bogus promises ahead of the 2018 general elections as the embattled ruling party targets the main opposition's traditional strongholds to win the crucial polls.Information at hand shows that the suspension of the Harare mayor Bernard Manyenyeni, this week falls into Zanu-PF's ploy to seize control on MDC-T led local authorities, particularly Harare and other major municipalities.Meanwhile, the MDC yesterday came out blazing against government ,accusing president Robert Mugabe of using "thuggish" and "pugilist approach" to suspend Harare Mayor Bernard Manyenyeni.Local Government Minister Saviour Kasukuwere suspended the Harare mayor accusing him of improper conduct and insubordination for appointing a new town clerk, James Mushore, despite government objections.The MDC said they said they are ready to confront Zanu-PF political commissar, saying a mayor could only be dethroned by an independent tribunal established by parliament in terms of the law and insisting Kasukuwere's action was ultra vires the new constitution adopted in 2013.MDC shadow minster for Local Government James Tumba said they had already lodged an urgent chamber application in the high court seeking to rescind Kasukuwere's decision.
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By Roberta Rampton and Sarah Young

LONDON (Reuters)  U.S. President Barack Obama implored young British people on Saturday not to pull back from the world, a day after sparking a row by bluntly telling Britain it should remain in the European Union to preserve its remaining global clout.

Obama angered critics of the EU on Friday by warning that Britain would be at the back of the queue for a trade deal if it left the club  one of the strongest U.S. interventions in the affairs of a western European democracy since the Cold War.

Speaking to about 550 invited British young people at a town hall event on Saturday, Obama sought to pitch a more optimistic message to young Britons, who are considered to be more pro-European, if less active, voters than their parents.

Obama said he wanted young people to reject the cynicism piped towards them by TV and Twitter, and he lauded both the European Union and NATO for sustaining peace and prosperity in Europe after centuries of war and strife.

Think about how extraordinary that is: For more than 1,000 years this continent was darkened by war and violence. It was taken for granted. It was assumed that was the fate of man, Obama said at Lindley Hall in London.

We see new calls for isolationism, for xenophobia, Obama said. When I speak to young people, I implore them, and I implore you, to reject those calls to pull back.

Joking about Britains colonial past, Obama cited a tea incident and said that the British had burned down his house  references to the 1773 Boston Tea Party protest and to the burning of the White House in 1814 by British troops.

But he stressed that the two nations had put their quarrels behind them to ensure a more stable and freer world.

DONT PULL BACK

Obamas intervention over EU membership was welcomed by Prime Minister David Cameron but it was not immediately clear how far British voters will hear or heed Obamas caution over the consequences of leaving the EU in a June 23 referendum.

A YouGov poll showed that while British voters think Obama has done a good job as U.S. president, 53 percent felt it was inappropriate for Obama to express a preference on how Britain should vote, while 35 percent said it was appropriate.

After a visit to the Globe theater to mark 400 years since the death of William Shakespeare, Obama answered 10 questions from the youth audience on issues ranging from the peace in Northern Ireland to the rights of non-binary gender individuals.

While Obamas warning about the prospects of a post-Brexit trade deal with the United States led television news broadcasts in Britain, EU membership was not raised during the question-and-answer session that lasted over an hour.

Obamas warning over trade was especially sensitive in Britain because opponents of the EU have argued that the worlds fifth largest economy could prosper by striking bilateral deals if it cut itself free from what they cast as a failed German-dominated experiment in European integration.

His meddling stems not from his concerns for Britain or, indeed Europe, but from his own  Americas  interests, former British finance minister Norman Lamont, a supporter of a British exit, wrote in the eurosceptic Daily Mail newspaper.

But some of the participants in Obamas youth meeting were positive about Obamas intervention.

It was fair, it was true, it is something that needs to be talked about for some of us that havent decided where to go, said Abdirashid Fidow, a 25-year-old charity worker.

How are we going to be special if youre going to put us at the back of the queue? I have seen a lot of friends of mine change their minds after Obama spoke yesterday.

Selected partly by a lottery run by the U.S. Embassy and partly by school and university groups that were given blocks of tickets, the Britons gave Obama a standing ovation as he closed the session to the punk rock song London Calling by the Clash.

I recognize that a U.S. leader has gone further than ever before in intervening in another democratic process outside of their own jurisdiction, said James Langford, a 25-year-old strategy consultant. That is extraordinary in itself.

I dont believe that anyone should change their mind on the sole basis of that decision. It doesnt annoy me, Langford said. He hasnt told us how to vote, hes advised us what he thinks the U.S.s perspective is.

(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
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It is being reported that Sen. Elizabeth Warren is on Hillary Clintons list of potential running mates.

The New York Times reported:

While the nomination fight is still fluid, Mrs. Clinton is confident enough of victory that she has described a vision of a running mate and objectives for the search, according to campaign advisers and more than a dozen Democrats close to the campaign or the Clintons. She does not have a front-runner in mind, they said, but she is intrigued by several contenders and scenarios. Among the names under discussion by Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Clinton and campaign advisers: Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, former governors from the key state of Virginia; Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who represents both a more liberal wing of the party and a swing state; former Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, a prominent African-American Democrat; and Thomas E. Perez, President Obamas labor secretary and a Hispanic civil rights lawyer. But Mrs. Clinton is also open to a woman, campaign advisers said. One obvious possibility is Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who is hugely popular among progressive Democrats, though she has not been helpful to Mrs. Clintons campaign, declining to endorse the former secretary of state. Still, Ms. Warren has not been ruled out, according to the campaign advisers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the confidential search process.

The entire list is very impressive. The Times goes on to report that Clinton is looking for a running mate who is qualified to be president, can aggressively make the case that she is the best choice, and will help her paint the biggest contrast with Donald Trump.

Clinton is said not to be concerned with any of the traditional ticket balancing factors. Needless to say, Sen. Warren would check the boxes for what Hillary Clinton is looking for in a running mate. Warren is extremely qualified, one of the best at driving home the Democratic message, and a Clinton/Warren ticket would be a complete contrast to what Trump is likely to offer voters.

There isnt a bad choice on the list, but Warren would fire up the Democratic base and take the fight to the Republican ticket like few others. Plus, a Warren selection would create the first all-woman ticket in US history, but would Hillary Clinton take that risk? If offered would Elizabeth Warren accept?

Former Sec. of State Clintons campaign seems to be thinking out of the box, and there is a chance that Democrats will make more history in 2016.
News / National

by Staff reporter

Morgan Tsvangirai MDC-T leader was yesterday reportedly barred from addressing Chinhoyi University Students at Chinhoyi Training Centre forcing him to move the meeting to party offices.Party members said CUT authorities claimed the training centre was booked for undisclosed government activities.The MDC-T leader blasted the Education minister Jonathan Moyo for running down state universities.
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

ZimFirst leader Maxwell Shumba has vowed to fight against former Vice President Joice Mujuru over what he termed the theft of his party name."You would think that when you write a manifesto it would come from your own vision. Nope, with Joice it's not the case. A bird and its song 'Grab other people's names and manifesto and run away with it because Zimbabweans don't care about accountability," said Shumba."The people are confused ZimFirst or ZimPFirst . Joice is smiling all the way to the bank with the loot. Thief. Zimfirsters are angry and will fight the thief from Dotito to the hilt with no reservations. She will never win the Presidency riding on our back."
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

Mthwakazi Republic Party President Mqondisi Moyo has dismissed the claims that his party was fight for the cessation of Mthwakazi from Zimbabwe saying the Mthwakazi State existed even before Rhodesia.Addressing party members during the launch of the South African province in Yeovile South Africa Moyo said although currently they no longer have a State, they know that sooner than later they shall realize their Statehood."So, while we work for the Restoration of our State, let us not let our enemies and detractors make us lose our nationhood. What happened to our State? It became a victim of rule by conquest by the British South African Company of Cecil John Rhodes. Who in hindsight seems to have worked closely with the British Parliament and the British crown either by design or by default?" Moyo said."Although subsequently the UN in correcting and righting past wrongs has declared such rule as being improper. This political correction has yet to be applied to the case of the Mthwakazi state. Part of the reason of cause being the fact that we the inheritors of that state are not clear about what we want.Just like it happened with Southern Rhodesia and subsequently the Rhodesia Front of Ian Smith, the current Zimbabwe was not designed for you as the Sons and daughters of Mthwakazi."He said however it was designed like the other preceding British sponsored regimes and to manage the people and the nation of Mthwakazi."Because on the entire continent of Africa it was only our fore fathers namaZulu who fought battles with the British effectively resulting in the death of some blue-blooded British men. So we are considered a brand of very dangerous savages that cannot be trusted with too much freedom. However, I have come here to announce that we want our state back, because like our forefathers we are able to rule ourselves," Moyo said."We do not need people from Zimbabwe to manage and supervise us.Some people think that as MRP we are calling for a cessation of Mthwakazi from Zimbabwe! That is not true. We must remember that the state of Mthwakazi existed before there was the State of Rhodesia. And certainly it existed before there was Zimbabwe. The King, His Royal Highness, King Lobengula Khumalo had representatives in the days of the League of Nations, which was the forerunner of the United Nations."Moyo said to secede is to break up a composite whole, but in their case, there was never a composite whole."There was s loose grouping of Shona Chiefs in MaShonaland, some of whom played tribute to the King on one side. And there was the well-organized government of INkosi uLobengula Khumalo on the other. Then came the BSAPC and Cecil Rhodes, forcibly joined the two entities creating a colony, therefore illegal entity called Rhodesia which has subsequently become Zimbabwe.Neither our forefathers nor we as a collective have ever played a role in the creation of this entity," he said."Circumstances have forced us to stay in it, that is why we want out. Enough is enough! Ngamanzi ne oil: akuhlangani bakithi. When the children of Zimbabwe celebrated and carried Robert Mugabe on their shoulders. The same man and the British were laying plans for our genocide as Mthwakazi children, which left conservable more than 20,000 people dead for no other reason than that they were the sons and daughters of Mthwakazi," Moyo said."They did not care whether you were Nguni, Kalanga, Venda, Sotho, Shona, Nambya or Tonga. As long as you lived within those boundaries of Mthwakazi or you spoke IsiNdebele you were a target. Why must we restore our statehood as a state less nation? To preserve our various cultures and traditions which have been relocated to the side in favor of cultures from Zimbabwe."He said to build their state into a modern day democratic state including facilitating the reestablishment of our king and therefore aligning all chiefs under him for purposes of effectively accomplishing the first point and much more."Rebuilding our educational system with emphasis on using our own systems of democracy instead of all these borrowed systems from sub- primary to tertiary levels so that our entire population has skills which permit them to have a reasonable standard of living. To establish a working health system that incorporates our herbology and indigenous knowledge systems from primary health care to tertiary health care," he said."To build and maintain a state of the art road and rail network which links all the people of Mthwakazi using state of the art vehicles for public and private transport. To build a technology which allows us as the people of Mthwakazi to create goods and services which will be second to none. And more (You add other things outside the prepared speech). For us at MRP this is not a pipe dream. This will happen during our life time. During our life time we want to accomplish this objective using peaceful means. Because we feel that what we want does not belong to anyone but ourselves. We are not weak though.None should take our striving for a peaceful solution as a sign of weaknessBecause this is a cause we believe in and we shall do whatever is necessary to realize it."Moyo said it's a cause we are even willing to lay down our lives to accomplish."So here you are displaced from the land of your birth right. Scavenging here for a living. When in your mother land there are plenty of natural resources. Either go untapped or they are exploited and stolen.We say no more to that and more thanThat the British's surrogate state of Zimbabwe has done to us. We so not seek for revenge for all the injustices suffered. Education denied, Jobs deniedHealth care denied. Descent accommodation and housing denied. Even life denied. No we do not seek revenge. We just want our state back. Because all of us as Mthwakazians, regardless of ethnicity. We want our state back," he said.He said the Anthem of Mthwakazi is Nkosi Sikelela."Mthwakazi Republic Party would like to advice AbeSizwe sikaMzilikazi kaMatshobana, that 18 April is just another day in Mthwakazi Calendar to fight on for the Restoration of our State. It's not worth it, to help Zimbabwe Celebrate its Independence while they continue to suppress and oppress us, He said."For the record Mthwakazi State was dismantled by the BSAP in 1893 after the war that saw our King Lobhengula disappearing until today, it has never been restored. 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. 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," he said."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.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."Moyo said because they shall defeat them, they shall defeat their Satanic and Evil Grand Plan against them."This is the time Mthwakazi to Unite and speak with one voice as we march forward to our Independence forward ever and backward never. 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," he said."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. We also understand that our 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."He said 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. 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," Moyo said."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."
News / National

by Cletus Mushanawani

ZANU-PF members should stop unnecessary mudslinging and wanton purges as this could see disgruntled individuals joining other political parties. Ruling party's National Secretary for Legal Affairs Patrick Chinamasa said this while addressing an extraordinary Manicaland provincial conference at Mutare Polytechnic yesterday."There was a culture of vote of no confidences which had crept into the party where some innocent members were booted out. At the end of the day we are forcing these disgruntled members to find a safe haven in the opposition parties. Some members slackened as a result of this unnecessary mudslinging and it is Zanu-PF that suffers most. We should be seen to be working towards strengthening the party and not allow personal differences to influence our decisions."From now onwards, we want people who come forward and name and shame those organising and attending clandestine meetings. These people should be bold enough to stand as witnesses when the people they alleged to be fanning factionalism are called for disciplinary hearings."Sunday News reports that Chinamasa's comments came after provincial youth chairman Mubuso Chinguno had told the meeting that they had gathered information of a clandestine meeting held in Vumba recently to push for the ouster of Manicaland chair, Dr Samuel Undenge.Chinamasa said vote of no confidence petitions should be done constitutionally, with two-thirds of the membership of that particular wing agreeing.
News / National

by Vusumuzi Dube

THE Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing has slashed incidental allowances for councillors and council officials from $50 to $10 per day while the ban on workshops, seminars and training sessions within council areas of jurisdiction remains in place.Sunday News reported that the latest directive comes after the ministry also pegged various allowances and bonuses councillors must get as it tries to plug loopholes which some local authorities were using to siphon rate payers' money at the expense of service delivery.In a circular, permanent secretary in the ministry Engineer George Mlilo, said councillors must also provide proof of accommodation and meal receipts to receive the allowances."The following travel and subsistence rates for all local authorities have been set with immediate effect; proved accommodation and meals as per authentic receipt, out of pocket allowance $10 per 24 hour period, unproved breakfast; $10, unproved lunch; $10, unproved dinner; $25. Travel and subsistence may only be paid for travel outside the council area of jurisdiction."The new rates for allowances come into effect from the date that the respective council's 2016 budget is approved. Councillors nominated to sit on council owned boards should receive an allowance that is the equivalent of half of their normal allowance for duties carried at the board," reads part of the directive by Engineer Mlilo.He also noted that the ban on councils to hold workshops, seminars and training sessions within the council area of jurisdiction, remained in force.Last month, Government also pegged monthly allowances mayors and councillors must receive. Harare mayor is supposed to get $1 250, his deputy; $840, Harare committee chairpersons will get $560 while ordinary councillors will get $550. In Bulawayo the mayor is supposed to get $1 000, deputy mayor; $660, council committee chairperson; $450 while an ordinary councillor will get $400. In other cities the mayor must get $840, deputy mayor; $550, committee chairperson; $370 and ordinary councillor; $350.Municipal mayors will get $600, deputy mayors; $400, committee chairpersons; $300 and ordinary councillors; $300. Town local board mayors will get $560, deputy mayors; $350, committee chairpersons; $300 and councillors; $250.For Lupane and Chirundu councils the mayors will get $350, deputy mayors; $280, committee chairpersons; $240 while ordinary councillors will get $200.Meanwhile the relations between Bulawayo and Government seems to be getting worse with the local authority indicating that too many directives from the ministry were inhibiting their democratic space.According to a Bulawayo council confidential report, Bulawayo councillors accused the Government of interfering in "petty issues" which they said was compromising council's autonomy."The mayor (Councillor Martin Moyo) expressed concern about Government's inclination of late to interfere in council operations, even of involving itself in petty issues by way of ministerial directives. This, in his view, compromised council's autonomy as enshrined in the constitution, and it would only be proper for council to voice its autonomous protestation against this, as council had done nothing wrong."Concurring, the deputy mayor (Clr Gift Banda) questioned the jurisdiction of the minister in terms of the new constitution. There is need for the issue of directives and their legitimacy to be examined and clarified as this is negatively affecting council's operation. In support, Clr Silas Chigora said that council should take legal advice on this matter and should demonstrate against these continuous directives from the ministry," reads part of the report.Minister Saviour Kasukuwere has however, dismissed the move by the councillors saying they should never forget that they fell under the ministry and they could not do as they will."The Local Government Ministry is their parent ministry meant to oversee how these councils functions. I know that the reason most of these councils are starting to make noise is because we are closing in on their corrupt activities, they should expect more of these directives as we move towards ensuring that council resources are not needlessly abused. As I said during the week, I will be visiting Bulawayo soon to look into a number of issues that have been brought to my attention. A directive is a directive and they know that they cannot just challenge it," said Minister Kasukuwere.
Remember Rush Limbaughs Operation Chaos, his initiative in 2008 to encourage people to vote for Hillary Clinton in the late primaries just to mess with Barack Obamas march to the nomination? Well, it looks like the Koch brothers have decided to imitate the idea.

Im loving this story for all of the angst this will cause on the Left:

Charles Koch: Its possible Clinton is preferable to a Republican for president Billionaire businessman Charles Koch said Sunday that its possible another Clinton in the White House could be better than having a Republican president. Koch, the CEO of Koch Industries, made the comment to ABC News Jonathan Karl during an interview that aired on ABCs This Week. The comment came after Karl asked about Bill Clintons presidency. Koch said Clinton was in some ways better than George W. Bush. As far as the growth of government, the increase in spending, it was 2 times under Bush that it was under Clinton, he said.

I imagine the Sanders campaign will waste no time in exploiting this.

Heres the complete ABC News interview:

UPDATE: Hillary gets it
Donald Trump will almost certainly have a big day this coming Tuesday. Hes expected to win the vast majority of the nearly 120 delegates at stake in the Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland primaries.

That accomplishment would still leave Trump off pace in terms of getting to the magic number of 1,237 delegates via primaries, caucuses, and state conventions. However, it would create a sense of momentum, and perhaps even inevitability, as Trump heads into contests where very strong performances could secure him the nomination.

The first such contest will take place in Indiana on May 3. Ted Cruz is banking on a strong showing in the Hoosier State to halt Trumps momentum and to deny him three dozen or more delegates (out of a possible 54 that are at stake). According to Tim Alberta of NRO:

Indiana has emerged as Cruzs top priority. It awards 57 delegates, and Cruzs brain trust believes a clean sweep there  or close to it  would erase Trumps already-thin margin for error and effectively end his hopes of entering Cleveland with 1,237 delegates. Accordingly, they have been preparing to throw everything they have at the state, in an effort to reapply the formula that worked to such devastating effect in Wisconsin.

Unfortunately, the latest polls out of the Hoosier State suggest that Cruz is unlikely to sweep (or nearly sweep) in Indiana. A Fox News poll finds Trump leading Cruz by 41-33 (with John Kasich at 16 percent). A poll by an Indiana television station has Trumps lead over Cruz at 37-31 (with Kasich at 22).

Cruzs team hopes the Texas Senator will surge as the primary approaches like he did in Wisconsin. However, Wisconsin (along with neighboring Iowa) is something of an exception. When Trump has led in the polls, usually he has won.

Byron York points out that Wisconsin was a special case because both the states Republican establishment and its conservative talk radio shows strongly supported Cruz. In Indiana, Gov. Mike Pence hasnt endorsed anyone (so far) and talk radio does not appear to be unified behind the Texas man.

Iowa can also be viewed as exceptional because of Trumps decision to skip the Iowa debate. Iowas demanding caucus-goers didnt appreciate the snub.

The upshot is that, although Cruz is close enough in the polls to catch Trump if things break his way, the kind of big victory he achieved in Wisconsin seems almost out of the question.

The good news is that Cruz doesnt have to have that kind of victory, though it certainly would help him. In fact, Cruz doesnt have to win in Indiana.

In March, a panel assembled by FiveThirtyEight projected that Trump would win 37 of Indianas 57 delegates. It also projected that Trump would fall 29 delegates short of the required 1,237.

More than a month later, Trump remains off pace. So a Trump victory in Indiana, if it is not decisive, is baked into a scenario in which Trump fails to win 1,237 delegates via primaries, caucuses, and state conventions.

The bad news is two-fold. First, Trump gets awfully close to 1,237 in that scenario. Second, Cruz is running way behind Trump in California, the other key contest that remains.

Thus, if there is such a thing as momentum in this primary season, Cruz would do well to get some in Indiana.
News / National

by Staff Reporter

Some colleges training students for the hospitality sector, especially food handlers, have allegedly stopped recruitment of those who test HIV-positive.Sunday Mail reported that the revelations come even as Zimbabwe boasts of HIV and Aids awareness levels above 90 percent.Although health experts concur that HIV transmission through food and beverages is unknown, The Sunday Mail has gathered that some HIV-positive students have been discriminated against in the hospitality industry.According to information at hand, Kundai (not her real name) has been doing a chef course at a named academy in Harare.Halfway through her programme she and other students were instructed to visit Beatrice Infectious Diseases Hospital for HIV tests. Those who tested positive were told they would not be certified for the course.According to the Public Health (Medical Examinations) (Food Handlers) Order of 1994, food handlers must undergo medical examinations to clear them from tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.Said Kundai: "I had to drop the course altogether after learning of my HIV and Aids status. The situation is not only at training level but also prevalent when seeking employment especially in the food, catering and beverages sectors. Some employers are demanding HIV results."According to the Labour (HIV and AIDS) Regulations (Statutory Instrument 105 of 2014), it is illegal for a person to undergo HIV testing as an employment precondition.Part of the SI reads: "No employer shall require, whether directly or indirectly any person to undergo HIV testing or any other forms of screening for HIV as a precondition to the offer of employment."No employer shall require any employee, and it shall not be compulsory for any employee to disclose in respect of any matter whatsoever in connection with his or her employment his or her HIV status." Hospitality Association of Zimbabwe president Mr George Manyumwa condemned parties engaging in such practices."We don't discriminate on either race or whether a person is living with HIV or not when we consider recruitment or employment. That is an isolated case and we are more than willing to bring the perpetrators to book," he said."However, food handlers do undergo certain medical tests for them to be certified, but HIV is not one of the diseases one is screened for."Ministry of Health and Child Care Aids and TB unit director Dr Owen Mugurungi said there were no known risk of transmission of blood borne and sexually transmitted infections during preparation or serving of food and beverages."The food industry and the consuming industry must understand that transmission of HIV and Aids by food or beverages is not a risk," he said."It is, however, against the law that people living with HIV be denied employment on the basis of their status. It needs to be emphasised to persons living with HIV that they must comply with the food hygiene and safety requirements applicable to all food handlers."Zimbabwe has an estimated 1,4 million people living with HIV and Aids and about 830 000 are women above 15 years.The International Labour Organisation provides that HIV and Aids screening should not be required of job applicants or persons in employment.In 2010, governments, employers and workers adopted a new international labour standard on HIV and Aids, the first such human rights instrument.The final instrument was based on the following principles:There should be no discrimination against or stigmatisation of workers, in particular job seekers and job applicants, on the grounds of real or perceived HIV status or the fact that they belong to segments of the population perceived to be at greater risk of more vulnerable to HIV infection;Workers, their families and dependants should enjoy protection of privacy in particular regard to their HIV status; No workers should be required to undertake an HIV test or disclose their HIV status; and Persons with HIV-related illnesses should be able to work as long as they are fit to do so.
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe has issued an order removing the disqualification from voting for felons who have completed their time, both in custody and on parole or probation. This order will allow more than 200,000 ex-cons in Virginia to register to vote in the upcoming presidential election.

Everyone understands that the Democratic candidate, presumably Hillary Clinton (for whom McAuliffe has carried much water), will gobble up the overwhelming majority of these vote. However, McAuliffe denies that this was his motive for allowing felons to vote. He says its the right thing to do.

In support of this proposition, McAuliffe points out that the ban on felon voting disproportionately affects racial minorities and economically disadvantaged Virginians. In addition he reject[s] the indefinite and unforgiving stigmatization of persons who have committed past criminal acts and deserve to re-enter society on fair and just terms.

Only a fool would believe that McAuliffe, an ambitious politician and long-time operative, wasnt motivated mainly by the thought of political benefit. But this doesnt mean hes not sincere when he says hes doing the right thing. Indeed, Im pretty McAuliffe does believe he is.

Mick Jaggar used to sing that . . .every cop is a criminal, and all the sinners saints. Most of the modern American left doesnt go quite that far, but it does view criminals as, in large measure, victims (and many police officers as abusive, if not criminal).

McAuliffe tips his hand when he refers to economically disadvantaged Virginians. The economically disadvantaged are not a protected class under any statute. From a legal standpoint, they are no more exempt from personal responsibility and the obligation to obey the law than anyone else.

Why, then, does McAuliffe rely on economic status? Im pretty sure its because he believes that criminals as a group have gotten the short end of the economic stick and therefore, from a moral standpoint, are victims. As such, they deserve to have their voting rights restored once they have served their time (and deserve to have their time shortened).

McAuliffes reference to racial minorities is another note in his victimization riff. It makes no sense in any other context. As Kent Scheidegger argues:

Racial discrimination, by definition, is discrimination on the basis of race itself rather than what a person has individually done or individually deserves. Felon disenfranchisement operates directly on the individuals choice to commit a serious violation of law without regard to race and is therefore the antithesis of racial discrimination. Numbers and so-called disproportionate impact are irrelevant when the connection to individual desert is as clear as it is in this case.

McAuliffes utterances about indefinite and unforgiving stigmatization of persons who have committed past criminal acts and re-entry into society on fair and just terms is not, as a matter of logic, a defense to an order as sweeping as his. Recidivism statistics tell us that felons released from prison are likely to commit more crimes. Thus, there is nothing inappropriate about their stigmatization.

Nor need the stigmatization be indefinite and unforgiving. An order that enabled felons to apply for voting rights after demonstrated rehabilitation with a period of obedience to the law, coupled with lawful employment, would avoid the harshness McAuliffe claims to be concerned about.

It would not, however, produce large numbers of new Democratic voters quickly enough. Thats why McAuliffe did not issue such an order.

The problem of recidivism is a central objection to the wholesale enfranchisement of felons (though not the only one). Because most felons are likely to commit new crimes, they have a strong interest in policies that are soft on crime. They are a constituency, and not a small one, for favoring criminals over victims. It is not in societys interest to create such a constituency.

For years, this concern was mainly theoretical. The crime wave of the 1970s made it highly improbable that either party would pander to felons even if they had the right to vote. The backlash by non-felons would be too strong.

Thanks in large part to the success of strong anti-crime measures (including stiff mandatory minimum sentences), this calculus no longer seems to apply. Democrats now feel free to pander to criminals, and will feel freer to do so if many more of them can vote.

And heres the saddest part. Nowadays, as noted above, when Democrats like McAuliffe push for pro-criminal measures, they arent just pandering; they are also expressing their inner leftism.

UPDATE: Scheidegger also points out that McAuliffe did not restore gun rights for felons. Yet, this decision has a disproportionately negative impact on the rights of blacks and poor people who wish to hunt and/or protect themselves. Thus, McAuliffes order flunks the fairness test by his definition.

Given the problem of recidivism, it would be daft to restore gun rights for felons. Given the same problem. it is bad public policy to create a voting bloc of once-and-future criminals.
Congolese Music legend, Papa Wemba, died around 9:10 GMT in Abidjan, the Ivory Coast capital, his manager Marie Laure Yaone, has confirmed in a Facebook post.

The Soukous maestro, who was performing with his band at the FEMUA 9 musical concert, slumped on Stage at about 5:30 GMT on Sunday. His dancers and members of the Red Cross could not revive him on stage and subsequently rushed him to a hospital where he later died.

I do not have the strength to put this information on Facebook, Ms. Yaone wrote in French.

She had published a post of how the musician slumped and was rushed to the hospital.

Papa Wemba fell on stage at Anoumabo, Abidjan where he was performing at the Legislative Femua festival, organized by the Magic System. Theres more scared than hurt. As a manager, I assure you on his state of health and beg you to not put false information.

He was quickly taken over by the Red Coss and is resting in a hospital in the square. Malongiskin Cornely Malongi whos with him s take care of everything. Thank you Lord for your grace.

However, two hours later she posted a message that heavy with grieve: You cant do this to us dad, no. with a Facebook emoticon that read: feeling shocked.

Papa Wemba, whose real name was Jules Wembadio Kikumba, was born on June 14, 1949. He was one Africas most popular musicians and perhaps the most influential Soukous performer. He was instrumental in making the genre of music popular worldwide.

In February 2003, he was convicted for involvement in the smuggling of illegal immigrants from Democratic Republic of Congo into France. He spent 3 months in prison and was released after paying a fine of 30,000.
As Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Michael Aondoakaa attracted international attention as a key figure in the cabinet of President Umaru YarAdua who provided critical legal cover for the survival of a President plagued with ill-health.

Six years after he served as Nigerias number one judiciary officer, Mr. Aondoakaa has moved almost seamlessly into a billion naira rice business, which activities have attracted the attention of the US government.

On April 8, 2014, the US Ambassador to Nigeria, James Entwistle, paid an official visit to Miva Rice Mill located in Makurdi, Benue State. That visit remains a milestone for the rice processing mill founded only in 2011 by the former Attorney General.

PREMIUM TIMES went on a facility tour of Miva Rice Mill and met Michael Aondoaka brimming with confidence as he talked about his companys backward integration activities, his joy working with over 10,000 farmers, support from the Central Bank, the growing popularity of Miva Rice with orders coming from neighbouring Cameroon, his mission to grow rice in other West African countries and his ultimate dream of continuing a family legacy started 35 years ago by his late uncle, Aper Aku, agovernor of Benue State in the Second Republic.

Aper Aku established the only integrated rice mill in the whole of Nigeria. The fact that Mr. Aondoakaa lived in the same house with Aper Aku explains what can be described as a burning passion for rice production in the family.

In the beginning

In 1982, Mr. Aondoakaa was an undergraduate of the University of Maiduguri when there was a students riot. In the aftermath, the university authorities imposed a fine on all students for damages done during the riot.

Mr. Aondoakaa returned home to his father who, having no money, gave him a measure of locally grown rice to sell in the market. The law student journeyed to a distant market in the city. He was however unable to get a good bargain because of the menace of middlemen. For many years he lived with that bitter experience of peasant farmers in the hands of market shylocks.

When he was minister, he found out that the only business the constitution permitted a government official to do was farming. He reinvigorated Mikap Nigeria Limited, a company he had incorporated in 1990. Mikap was founded for the development of agricultural value chain, energy trading and development consulting.

Specifically, the company is aimed at promoting commercial agriculture, agro-processing and marketing. Since 2011, Mikap has invested in polished parboiled paddy rice processing, with a capacity of 8.5 metric tons per hour under the brand name Miva Rice.

Located at Kilometre 5, Gboko Road in Makurdi, the Benue State capital, the company has functionally engaged over 10,000 farming communities in Benue and Cross River States in diffusing improved methods of paddy rice production. These were made possible by working with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the MARKETS II scheme of United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Inside Miva Mill

Mikaps initial investment in the rice value chain was the commissioning of 2.5-ton per hour (2.5TPH) rice processing mill in Year 2011.

The processing capacity of the plant was increased to 8.5TPH in 2003 within two years of its operation. The mill applies state-of-the-art technologies and implements international best practices of parboiled polished rice processing, packaging and marketing.

The plant delivers an upscale, export quality flagship product, Miva Rice to the market. Miva Rice is a brand of quality parboiled polished sortexed rice that is processed from locally grown long-grain hybrid rice varieties of Farro 44 (sippi) & Farro 52 (Mars) and packaged into 50kg, 25kg, 10kg and 5kg bags, respectively.

At the moment, market outreach is the Nigerian market with target being the West African sub-region. Already viable and substantial commercial orders for Miva Rice have been received from the Republic of Cameroon.

Total investment in machinery and land is N1.369 billion, made up of N869 million in equity contribution and a loan facility of N500 million under the Nigerian government Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme (CACS).

Components of the investment include: two units of Steam Boilers from India (1st unit 2,000kg/hr and 2nd unit 6,000kg/hr); two units of raw paddy pre-cleaning machines (from India); three units of paddy rice parboiled plants (from India); two units each of 250t parboiled paddy storage silos (from Turkey); two units of Rice milling plants (1st line 2.5MT/hr from S. Korea and the 2nd line 6MT/hr from India); a 60-ton Road Weighbridge (from Italy); and locally-sourced vehicles, 2Nos. 250KVA diesel generating sets, 1No. 500KVA diesel generating set, 1No. 100kVA diesel generating set, main factory building, raw paddy warehouse, finished product warehouse, administration block, water works and fuel storage dump.

Mr. Aondoakaa told PREMIUM TIMES that one of his key intentions is to add value to local foods and create sustainable wealth that will provide employment by making agriculture posh and attractive to the youth population. To this end, Mikap has committed to developing markets and adding value to locally grown rice as a way of boosting food and agricultural production for wealth creation and employment generation. Interactions with various stakeholders, including marketers, distribution chains, consumers and farmers themselves have been beneficial in honing the mastery of rice processing technology.

Partnership with USAID

The integrated mill established by Aper Aku was not used by successive governments for 25 years after he left office. A major agro player, Olam Nigeria Limited, took over the mill and they operated an out-grower scheme supported by US government.

Explaining further, Aondoakaa said:

For reasons bothering on communal issues and preferences, Olam left the scheme in 2011. When they left, the US government became stranded because they had secured approval of the State Department to fund the scheme until 2018. So they were looking for somebody else and that was how I came in. They said I had to pay 30 per cent contribution while they pay 70 per cent. I complained about my ability to pay the 30 per cent. The ambassador said they will work it out. Eventually we signed the first agreement in 2012.

We started the out-grower scheme market tool in 2013. The following year 2014 was when the US ambassador gave notice he will come and see our operation; that is accountability to the US, to see how the project is going. So on the 8th of April, 2014 he was here with his team to have direct discussion with the farmers for the market tool. He spent about two and half hours talking to the farmers about their needs. I pleaded with the Ambassador that the out-grower scheme should continue, so we now enlisted Cross River State. We realised the proximity of Cross River to Benue is just two hours or so, and Cross River already have got a very good Fadama land. The Ambassador advised that I should expand. We wanted to expand to Taraba but the crisis in Taraba was a challenge. He had got approval from the State Department for the expansion of the scheme for me, so we now expanded to Cross River. Now the agreement is signed for Benue and Cross River to train the local farmers.

So we have about 10,000 farmers working with us. That is how we became the first company to have a large farm cluster on rice supported by US government through the USAID Market Tool. They started training the farmers. They brought milling consultant from US because these people cannot give you money without consultant to manage it. The US government sent a team that came from Washington. Among them was a director from the State Department on Market Tool for Development. We signed the agreement for 2014, we signed the agreement 2015 and we have now signed for 2016. Annually they bring the agreement for me to sign.

I think they were able to influence Bill Gate Foundation which later came here and offered to develop rice scheme in Benue for $100 million. But up till now we have not been able to access the money. There are things people are supposed to do before they can benefit but all these people from government just wanted to be a member of the committee. I was scared as the chairman of the committee so I am doing things more cautiously because these white people dont joke with their money. We are still discussing and putting up structures because I dont want anybody to hold me at the end and say the $100 million was not well utilized.

CBN Anchor Borrowers Programme

At the national level, Miva Rice has received support from the Central Bank of Nigeria through the CBN Rice Farmer Anchor Borrowers programme. The CBN, based on its findings selected Umza Rice Mill in Kano and Miva for the programme modelled after the farming method in India.

Again, Aondoakaa explained how it works:

In India you cannot own land more than two hectares because the population is over one billion. They have developed perfect clusters. The Indians have farm clusters for wheat, farm clusters for rice, farm clusters for tomatoes, etc. If farming is in clusters, it is easier for farm inputs to be distributed; it is easier for them to access credit and its easier for them to market their produce. So the CBN said look, we will develop the farm cluster for rice. You will be the anchor; you need the farmers to grow the rice paddy before you can mill.

Before now, the CBN had had challenges in disbursing money to these farmers. There were issues of collateral, insurance and access to fertilizers. Now, with the anchor programme, the farmers working in cooperatives of not more than fifty members, sign the anchor agreement with us, the CBN and the banks. You also do cross guarantee among the cooperative members. So this is the first time credit is being given to the farmers without collateral. And we are able to link the farmers to inputs supply like fertilizer. They are given adequate training on improved seedlings and through these clusters like the ones in Gboko, Katsina Ala, Agatu and Otupko, fertilizers are delivered to their doorsteps.

Through this approach, farm yield has improved over three-fold from 1.5 metric tonnes of rice per hectare to over 5 metric tonnes over the same acreage. Working through the CBNs Rice Farmer Anchor Borrowers programme, we are expanding our rice-farmer support to also cover Nassarawa, Kogi and Taraba States of Nigeria and hope to achieve the yield of 8 metric tonnes per hectare during the 2016 cropping season. Five additional rice processing companies have enrolled in this scheme of CBN anchor programme so we are hoping that in two to three years the national supply gap of 1.5million metric tons will be no more so Nigeria wont need to import rice, the former Minister said.

Growing acceptance for local rice

Not too long ago, local rice found in Nigerian markets were totally produced by peasant farmers. Though more nutritious than imported rice, it was not the favourite of the middleclass and the elites. The grains were short with stones in them. With the coming of upscale entrepreneurs and the establishment of rice mill equipped with sophisticated technology such as optical colour sorter, the story has changed. The overall quality strategy targets ISO, SON & NAFDAC specifications. In addition, brands like Miva Rice have done a lot of work on product packaging, making local rice not only attractive to the Nigerian consumers but foreigners as well.

Mr. Aondoakaas mill got an order from Cameroon he could not meet. Speaking on the experience he said:

It was for 25,000MT. I think some of our Nigerian brothers took our rice to that country; they ate it only to come back here with an order. I cannot even satisfy local demands in the country, how can I think of export? But time will come when we can export. Of course if we have quality rice and surplus quantity, why would Ghana go to Thailand to buy rice and incur more cost because it takes the ships long time to arrive from Thailand. But with Nigeria, you can place your order today and it will arrive Ghana tomorrow.

Time will come when we can export tomatoes; time will come when we can export; our food is tropical which is much better.

We only need to improve our quality so that we can be more competitive. We must make sure our standard meets the international standard; and if our production cost goes down like by solving the electricity problem, it would not make business sense for any importer to journey to Thailand to import rice, get a ship to carry the rice, worry about insurance and worry about customs duties when that importer can get what he wants here locally. Local rice is healthier and more nutritious. Many consumers are not aware that virtually all the imported rice from Thailand and other places are not fresh rice. They are old stocks that had been kept for as many as eight to ten years in that countrys food reserve. They cannot sell new rice to you. Some of the imported rice are expired and have lost nutritional value, Mr. Aondoakaa explained.

Bridging national supply gap

Former Minister of Agriculture, now President of the African Development Bank, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, had in 2014 worked out Nigerias national supply gap in rice to be 1.5 million metric tonnes. This, Aondoakaa said can be bridged in four to five years if current momentum in local rice production is sustained.

PREMIUM TIMES expressed doubt over his five-year projection, pointing out that some of the capacities claimed by some mill owners have been found to be misleading. But Mr. Aondoakaa argued that the true local capacities cannot be measured by the installed capacities of existing rice mills. He said:

The capacity doesnt mean the capacity of the machines but the capacity of the farmers to give us the quality paddy. The machines are there; we have up to 24 integrated rice farms in Nigeria but where is the paddy? That is the problem. There was a pyramid of paddy outside this mill.

If I am milling at full capacity, the whole of my two warehouses, I can finish the paddy in less than one month. So where is the paddy if I am supposed to run three shifts, I am just doing two shifts until when I have enough paddy.

We are hoping that by 2018 the farmers would have had sufficient training to produce more paddy. The anchor program of CBN coupled with what I am doing with USAID Market Tool and what others millers are doing, we are hopeful that we can get there. Mali has attained self-sufficiency in rice production. Nigeria can do same. I am the President of West Africa Rice Investors Association and we are telling other West African countries to start local rice production. I am working towards growing Miva Rice in Cameroon and Sierra Leone as well.

However, the major problem is insecurity in the Middle Belt region, especially in Benue popularly referred to as the food basket of the nation. Go to Kogi, go to Taraba, the Fulani-Farmers conflict is harming local rice production. Agatu area used to be a major supplier of rice paddy but since this year I havent got one pin from that area. We invested there, through the US market tool; the rice is there in the bush but I cant go there; the farmers cant go in there. So whatever we did in terms of training, in terms of seeds assistance to farmers is lost; I am not getting any compensation. Any time you want to go there you have to meet the commissioner of police to get 12 mobile police men to go with you and spend three days. You can imagine maintaining 12 mobile policemen for three days just to harvest how much quantity of rice, Aondoakaa regretted.

CHALLENGES:

As Miva Rice continues in its quest to someday become a global brand, Mr. Aondoakaa says the challenges are multifarious. A combination of different species of paddy by farmers creates considerable difficulties in the parboiling process throwing up soaking temperature and overcooking challenges. Paddy supplies are also not thoroughly cleaned by farmers. Paddy usually contains large amount of chaff, dust and immature grains which generate Black Rice and overload the mills optical sorter.

Large scale rice milling is water intensive. As a result, the Miva Mill is currently spending considerable capital on water purchase. Other major challenges facing investment in the rice value chain are capital mobilization, lack of basic mechanization, and seasonal availability of paddy.

Complete reliance on rain for cultivation and primitive planting methods in Benue State results in single cropping per year by farmers. Because paddy is only available for a short period of 90 days at harvest time once a year, this has imposed on the company the need for long periods of stock-holding.

But all these Aondoakaa assured will be surmounted as he strives to someday be remembered by history as a major contributor in the diversification of the Nigerian economy.

*** SPONSORED***
The Israel Prison Service on Sunday in Tel Aviv lamented that the number of Palestinian minors held in Israeli prisons had soared following a wave of violence that started in October.

A spokesman for the prison system said 438 Palestinian minors were in the prisons custody in February, up from 170 in September.

He, however said that Dima al-Wawi, a 12-year-old girl, whose case received widespread attention in social and conventional media, was freed after over two months in Israeli detention.

The personnel said she was detained after she tried to stab them with a knife at the entrance to an Israeli settlement near the southern West Bank town of Halhoul where she lives.

He disclosed that Al-Wawi, who was said to be the youngest Palestinian detained in Israel, was received by family and Palestinian officials as she was handed over at a West Bank military checkpoint outside the city of Tulkarm.

Issa Qaraque, Palestinian Prisoners Affairs Minister, accused Israel of practising the ugliest savage state oppression, while Tulkarm Governor Issam Abu Bakr called the detention of children a crime against all of humanity.

Human rights organisations have protested Israels detention of minors.

They charged that Israel discriminated between Israeli minors who were subjected to Israeli civil law, and Palestinian minors, who are subjected to military law.

The officials said this was an indication that different rules applied to Palestinian minors from the occupied West Bank, which is under Israeli military rule, allowing forces to detain them at a younger age than Israeli minors.

Meanwhile, Israel has accused radical leaders of inciting youths to violence and notes that boys as young as 11 have launched knife attacks against Israelis.

Several stabbing attacks have also been carried out by girls and women.

Since October, Palestinians have launched scores of knife attacks against Israelis, protesting the ongoing occupation, as well as perceived violations.

Some 29 Israelis and more than 200 Palestinians, many of them knife attackers, have been killed in the wave of violence, they said.

(dpa/NAN)
The embattled Senate President transferred a total of $3.47 million in 40 installments in four years with his credit card to the United States, a document obtained by PREMIUM TIMES revealed.

He carried out the transactions through Guaranty Trust Bank between 2009, when he served as Kwara State governor, and 2012 when he served as the senator representing Kwara Central Senatorial District.

Prosecutors say the beneficiary accounts in the U.S. were also owned by Mr. Saraki.

Some of the senators companies, during the same period, also transferred thousands of dollars to the U.S. accounts. The companies are Carlisle Properties and West Gate Ltd.

Mr. Saraki is currently facing a 13-count charge bordering on corruption and false asset declaration at the Code of Conduct Tribunal. He allegedly committed the offence when he served as governor between 2003 and 2011.

The politician has denied any wrongdoing and alleged political persecution.

Of the 13-count charges filed against the senate president, two are related to the transfer of the $3.47 million.

Count 11 of the charges filed against Mr. Saraki states: That you, DR. OLUBUKOLA ABUBAKAR SARAKI on or about 25th August, 2008 within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Tribunal, while being a public officer as the Executive Governor of Kwara State did operate a bank account outside Nigeria when you transferred the sum of $73, 223.28 (Seventy Three Thousand, Two Hundred and Twenty-Three Thousand Dollars, Twenty-Eight cents) from your Guaranty Trust Bank Plc domiciliary account No 441441953210 to the American Express Services Europe Limited No: 730580 for onward credit to your American Express Bank, New York card account No:374588216836009 and you thereby committed an offence contrary to paragraph 3 of Part I, Fifth Schedule to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) and Section 7 of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act and punishable under paragraph 9 of the said Fifth Schedule to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) and section 23 (2) of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act.

Count 12 states: That you, DR. OLUBUKOLA ABUBAKAR SARAKI between August, 2009 and October 2012 within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Tribunal, while being a public officer as the Executive Governor of Kwara State and Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria did operate a bank account outside Nigeria when you transferred the aggregate sum of $3, 400, 000.00 (Three Million, Four Hundred Thousand Dollars) from your Guaranty Trust Bank Plc. domiciliary account No 441441953210 to the American Express Services Europe Limited no: 730580 for onward credit to your American Express Bank, New York card account No:374588216836009 and you thereby committed an offence contrary to paragraph 3 of Part I, Fifth Schedule to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) and section 7 of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act and punishable under paragraph 9 of the said Fifth Schedule to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) and section 23 (2) of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act.

A prosecution witness had told the CCT that documents related to the transfer were destroyed in an inferno.

When being cross examined by the defence counsel, Paul Usoro, at the Tribunal last Tuesday, the prosecution witness, Michael Wetkas, said Guaranty Trust Bank, GTB, told the investigation team that the transaction documents had been burnt.

There were also police reports and affidavit which they (the GTB) swore to show that some documents were burnt, Mr. Wetkas stated.

The document, obtained exclusively by PREMIUM TIMES, shows that Mr. Saraki, on August 26, 2009, transferred the $72,223.25 to the American Express Services Europe Limited no: 730580 for onward credit to the American Express Bank, New York card account No:374588216836009.

Following the transfer, the bank charged him a commission of $732.23. It is not clear what the money transferred was meant for.

That same day (August 26) one of his companies, Carlisle Properties Investment, transferred another $49,969.00.

Between September 2009 and October 2012, Mr. Saraki transferred over $3 million.

According to the document, in 2009 the senate president transferred $127,174.05 on September 8; $85,543.88 on October 21; and $127,586.41 on November 11.

In 2010, he transferred $140,319 on January 4; $140,000 on March 15; $84,000 on April 16; $134,000 on May 18; $64,000 on June 21; $80,984 on July 29; $100,000 on August 31; $18,000 on September 2; $$48,900 on October 11; and $183,232.46 on December 8;

In 2011, Mr. Saraki transferred $32,687 on February 21; $30,656.74 on March 22; $111,444.79 on June 22; $43, 651 on July 19; $91,738 on August 16; $10,000 on August 26; $65,000 on August 29; $112,140 on September 27; $147,000 on November 17; and $86,872.10 on December 14.

The document also shows that in 2012, he transferred $50,000 on January 4; $145,000 on January 27; $7000 on January 27; $94,754.63 on February 10; $60,000 on April 12; $70,000 on May 11; $55,000 on May 17; $89,411.74 on June 12; $45,000 on September 6; and $45,308 on September 24; $130,000 on October 11; $77,000 on February 17; $77,000 on February 20; $70,648.44 on March 29; $70,000 on July 4; $138,000 on July 16; and $45,000 on September 5.

Just as Mr. Saraki was making the transactions, his companies were also transferring monies to the U.S. totalling $2,099,257.00.

For instance, apart from the August 26 transfer in 2009, Carlisle also transferred $59,964 on September 7; $99,961.30 on October 16; $109,000 on November 11; $50,000 on August 12; and $150,000 on December 31.

In 2010, the company transferred $40,000 on April 14; $44,000 on April 15; $134,000 on May 14; $64,000 on June 17; $40,000 on July 23; $90,000 on August 27; $10,000 on August 30; $9,974 on August 31; $6,900 on September 1; $7,974 on September 2; $42,600 on October 5; and $183,000 on December 6.

In 2011, it further transferred $32,000 on February 21; $30,700 on March 17; $40,730.35 on May 5; $111,400 on June 7; $43,660 on July 18; $48,800 on August 10; $43,000 on August 16; $25,750 on August 29; $40,250 on August 29; $112,800 on September 26; and $150,200 on November 17.

In 2012, $146,975 on January 26; $71,000 on May 11; $5,450 on June 7; and $5,000 on December 7 were also transferred by the company.

None of the companies is currently being prosecuted. Nigerian law, however, prevents some public officials including governors and senators from operating a foreign account; a law Mr. Saraki is accused of flouting.
The Federal Government on Sunday said it is working silently towards finding a lasting solution to the incessant attacks allegedly being perpetrated by Fulani herdsmen across many states.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, disclosed this during a special prayer for the stability of the nation by an Islamic group, Saadatul Abadiyyah Organisation of Nigeria. Mr. Mohammed was also honoured as the Grand Patron of the group at the event held in Abeokuta, the Ogun State Capital.

The Minister said President Muhammadu Buhari has also set up a panel of inquiry into the recent attacks while the effects of the silent efforts would soon be felt by Nigerians.

The President did speak immediately these things happened, to the extent of setting up a panel of enquiry. But the government is going to do more than that.

These communal clashes are very delicate issues, very emotional and what the government is doing is working very silently to ensure that people who used to live together before without any conflict will go back to that. In few weeks from now, we will begin to see the result of that, he said.

Clashes by herdsmen, mainly Fulanis, and farmers from their host communities have been reported in several states including Benue, Plateau, and Taraba. President Muhammadu Buhari has been criticised for his handling of the crises which have caused the death of hundreds of people.

Electricity

Mr. Mohammed also assured that the plan by the Federal Government to generate 10,000 megawatts of electricity by 2019 is very feasible. He said the activities of violent agitators have not been helpful towards finding a lasting solution to the power problem.

The Minister, who revealed that about five gas pipelines have been completed, also stated that Nigeria has the capacity to generate enough power for its citizenry. He said the electricity situation was made worse by the activities of saboteurs who damaged pipelines providing gas to the power generating plants.

He appealed to Nigerians to be patriotic and desist from attacking facilities. He added that as soon as gas platforms are repaired, the country will have the capacity to distribute as much as 5,000 megawatts.

It is very feasible, you see actually the capacity to generate, we dont have any problems at all. Actually by February 2nd this year, we were able to generate and transmit 5, 074 megawatts of power. But we are in this situation today mainly because of the attacks on the export lines.

What we have now is that we have the capacity to generate but we dont have enough gas. And as soon as these platforms are repaired, we will be able to generate and transmit more than 5, 000 megawatts, even at 10, 000 megawatts at 2019, its quite feasible.

There are about five other pipeline projects that have been completed now and that is Ajimosho, there is Omotosho, theres one in Sapele and the combined capacity of the four projects is well over 2, 300. But because of lack of gas, we are generating less than 5000 megawatts.

The Minister restated the governments plea that Nigerians be patient during the current economic crisis in the country.

My message to Nigerians is that we feel keenly their pains, we empathize with them and we are doing everything to ensure the pain is remedied.
Three people died Saturday and 10 vehicles burnt as a filling station belonging to the state-owned Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation caught fire in Kaduna.

Witnesses said the fire started around 5:11 p.m and raged for more than three hours.

Some residents of Kinkinau GRA, where the fuel station is located, opposite Ungwan Muazu, on Nnamdi Azikwe Way, said as the inferno raged, they became apprehensive that it might spread to their shops and homes.

Babangida Kinkinau, owner of a nearby shop, said the incident occurred while a fuel tanker was discharging its content.

One of the compartments of the tanker was leaking fuel while in the process of discharge, Mr. Kinkinau said. I rushed to the scene with a bucket to assist as the manager of the fuel station uses rag to block the leakage.

Unfortunately, the fire was triggered from the fuel that flowed to the main road, which engulfed eight cars and two commercial buses on queue. The tanker and the fuel station got burnt as well as a girl and two men were killed.

I managed to remove my car from inside the fuel station.

Firefighters from the Kaduna State Fire Service and that of Kaduna Refinery and Petrochemical Company battled hard to extinguish the fire.

An official of the Kaduna State Fire Service, confirmed the death of the three people.

He however said the remote cause of the fire was not immediately known.
A former chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Chidi Odinkalu, on Saturday, emerged winner of this years Unity Schools Old Students Association, USOSA, president-general election, with a promise to champion renewed focus on qualitative education for all.

In the election, which held inside the main auditorium of the National Universities Commission headquarters in Abuja, Mr. Odinkalu polled a total number of 269 votes to thump Lawrence Wilbert, a successful telecoms executive and his only challenger in the race, who scored a total of 24 votes.

For the post of president-general, Lawrence Wilbert from FGC Ugbolawo scored 24 votes. Chidi Odinkalu from FGC Okigwe scored 269 votes, said Ngozi Oyewole, the chairman of the 3-man electoral committee and an alumnus of Federal Government Girls College, Owerri.

Mr. Odinkalus victory highlights his growing popularity amongst not just his contemporaries who believe he has the required charisma to elevate the organisation but many other pro-education advocates who have been following his tenacious campaign for improved education of the underprivileged.

I have been following Mr. Odinkalus selfless service fighting for education of Nigerians in dire straits over the years and I can tell you clearly that he has the glamour and the pedigree to take USOSA to an all-new level, said Francis Orbii, a product of Federal Government College, Ogbomoso, who voted for Mr. Odinkalu. Members apathy has made people ask what value does USOSA have? but I am hopeful that, with Odinkalu now leading us, the membership will become attractive to all USOSA alumni.

In his acceptance speech shortly after his victory was announced, Odinkalu said, USOSA has elected an executive, not a sole administrator, adding that he will avoid paralysis by analysis.

After expressing deep concerns for the current state of USOSA, Mr. Odinkalu went on to outline his policy proposals and how intends to achieve them.

We must grow membership. Over the next year, we will look to achieve full coverage of the 104 schools in the USOSA Network

We will digitize USOSAs operations, begin a proper membership database in co-operation with the member alumni groups and have a strategic communications capability that will generate both platform and content over the next year.

USOSA has an inbuilt majority of girls schools. The safety of our children in the girls schools is essential in order to bring out the best in the learners in these schools. We will propose a special advocacy and partnership programme on safety & ethics in our girls schools with clear standards and skills support.

To address the state of the Unity Schools, we will propose a new and standing policy partnership with the Federal Ministry of Education with specific deliverables and content. In particular, we will seek to address monitoring of appropriations for the Unity Schools.

To define USOSAs identity as the principal advocate for public education in Nigeria, we will propose to set up within three months an Independent USOSA Commission on the future of public education in Nigeria which will report to the next AGM.

We will explore ideas for solidarity with parts of the country where education is under attack from violence, especially the North-East and South-South.

We need to offer a deal to our young graduates to get them onto the job ladder. So we will propose a standing USOSA Schools-to-Skills programme (USOSA S2S) to be undertaken in partnership with Alumni groups and partners.

To achieve any of these, we will need a more nimble, capable organisation. We would like to propose the establishment of two programme areas in the USOSA Secretariat: a Membership, Outreach and Development Programme and an Education Reform and Advocacy.

The former will be self-financing; the latter will be funded from partnerships. Internally, we will need to take another look at our constitution and rules with a view to achieving closer synergies with the member schools. We will explore ideas for how to de-concentrate USOSA by simultaneously kinetising the member alumni. Part of what we will propose here is that the more senior member alumni groups should accept to be twinned with more junior ones, Mr. Odinkalu said.

Mr. Odinkalu ended his speech by summoning an emergency gathering of the new executive committee of the organisation.

Tonight, I have requested an emergency meeting of the new executive. We will agree on a programme and budgeting skeleton which will form the foundations for a programme and budget. We will present this programme and budget for consideration and adoption by an emergency meeting of the National Executive Committee of USOSA which we will call in May 2016, he said.

Mr. Odinkalu further told PREMIUM TIMES his organisation had the wherewithal to reposition Nigerias moribund education system by constantly engaging policymakers in the sector.

USOSA is the most enlightened body of Nigerians that is capable of fighting for education, Mr. Odinkalu said. So, were not building an alumni network, were building a movement for education.

Speaking with PREMIUM TIMES shortly after the election, Frank Nweke Jr, a former minister of information and national orientation, said the significance of USOSA could not be over emphasised, adding that Mr. Odinkalus victory was a call to service for all those privileged to obtain quality education from unity schools.

This organisation is a very significant organisation, Mr. Nweke said. Because I believe that my generation is indebted to Nigeria. We had the benefit of getting the best education money could not buy. I have young children in school because the unity school I attended is not the same as it was 34 years ago. I cannot in good conscience send my children to those schools. Those schools today are dangerous. Those schools today are decrepit. Those schools today do not have the kind of facility that day had decades ago.

Mr. Nweke, who attended Federal Government College, Maiduguri, further stated that the vision outlined by Mr. Odinkalu reflected the position of a plurality of USOSA members.

The vision that he has outlined captured the imagine and the expectation of most of us, Mr. Nweke Jr said. He didnt just put things together by himself, he embarked on a wide consultation with members in the course of the campaign to let us know that we have a responsibility as the current crop of leaders to do what needs to be done to salvage this country.

Other candidates elected unopposed in Saturdays poll are:

Mohammed Wasagu, FGC Kano- Vice President-General

Salim Ibrahim, FGC Ilorin- Secretary-General

Ibrahim Audu, FGC Enugu- Vice Secretary-General.

Patricia Ofili, FGGC Gboko- Treasurer

Katherine Pam, FGGC Langtang- Publicity Secretary.

Adama Bature, FGGC Kazaure- Assistant Publicity Secretary

Zainab Hassan, FGC Sokoto- Welfare Secretary

Ogunranti Akindele, FGC Ogbomoso- Financial Secretary

Omowunmi Odii, FGGC Benin- Assistant Financial Secretary.

Before the election, new alumni associations were inaugurated. They are: FGGC Bida, FGGC Abaji, FGGC Onitsha, FSTC Rubochi, FGC Ijanikin, FGGC Lejja, FGC Keffi and FGGC Oyo.

The Unity Schools Old Students Association is the incorporated trustee of the alumni associations of all the 104 Federal Government Colleges, Federal Government Girls Colleges, Kings College, Queens College, Federal Government Boys College, Apo, Federal Science Colleges, Suleja Academy and Federal Science and Technical Colleges in Nigeria.

Past presidents-general of USOSA include Kabir Nuhu-Koko, a director at the Central Bank of Nigeria, and Albert Okumagba, the group managing director of BGL Securities PLC.
Former President Goodluck has been honoured by the cities of Antioch and Lathrop in California for promoting peace and democracy in Africa.

At the award ceremony held in Antioch, California, on April 23, the mayor of the city of Antioch, Mayor Wade Harper, expressed his admiration for Mr. Jonathan and declared that the city of Antioch, California, was proud of his legacies, especially his act of overseeing free, fair and conclusive elections and leaving the scene when the ovation was loudest.

He recommended Mr. Jonathans behaviour to other leaders.

Mr. Jonathan, who was represented by his former aide, Reno Omokri, gave a goodwill message to the two cities that had gathered to honour him as well as to the Nigerian community in the Bay Area of California.

Mr. Jonathan said he was proud of Nigerians in the diaspora and more so of Nigerians in the US and even more so of the Nigerian diaspora in California.

Continuing, the former President said Nigerians in the diaspora were an asset to Nigeria who remitted over $20 billion home annually, much more than the World Bank, IMF and foreign direct investment.

Mr. Jonathan ended by saying he was proud of diaspora Nigerians and tried to show his appreciation for their support of Nigeria by ensuring that during his time in office at least three direct flights were initiated between America and Nigeria to ease travel and reduce costs for travellers to Nigeria.

Below is former President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathans message on the occasion.

Goodwill message to the Cities of Antioch and Lathrop

I send this message of goodwill to the Nigerian community in the Bay Area of California who have gathered at Open Heavens Community church to celebrate with me as I am honored by the cities of Antioch and Lathrop.

I had planned to be there. Indeed I had concluded travel plans. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control I could not make the trip.

I have always been proud of Nigerians in the diaspora and more so of Nigerians in the US and even more so of the Nigerian diaspora in California.

Some of you may recall that upon my ascension to the office of President on May 6th, 2010, one of my first acts was to open up a Facebook page to personally interact with Nigerians.

In June 2010, a diaspora Nigerian from the Bay Area of California informed me on my Facebook page of an abandoned building belonging to Nigeria in San Francisco and I dispatched our then ambassador to that city to claim the property and renovate it.

Hopefully, the building may again host a consulate as it once did in the 80s.

The point I am trying to make is that I have been communicating with you and I see you as an asset to Nigeria that makes me proud.

Elsewhere, I have mentioned that aside from oil, diaspora Nigerians are the single largest source of capital inflow into Nigeria.

In my last year as President you remitted $21 billion home. Much more than the World Bank, IMF and foreign direct investment.

My people, you are an asset to your fatherland. Because of the importance with which I held you, my administration facilitated direct flights to Nigeria from the US to Nigeria. We ensured no less than three airlines fly direct between Nigeria and the US including one from Houston to Lagos for the benefit of those of you from the West Coast.

We also ensured that Enugu airport was upgraded to an international airport and I recall that a number of diaspora Nigerians from the US boarded the inaugural Ethiopian airlines flight that landed there in August of 2013.

Again let me say that I appreciate the Nigerian community in the Bay Area.

I would also want like to thank Mayor Wade Harper and the council members of the city of Antioch for choosing to honor me for my efforts in promoting democracy. I am indeed humbled by their thoughtfulness in recognizing our modest efforts.

I also wish to express my gratitude to the city of Lathrop and its mayor and council for also deeming it fit to recognize our efforts.

I wish I could be there in person, however, I have asked Reno Omokri to represent and I am with you in spirit.

Thank you and may God bless Nigeria, may God bless California, may He bless the cities of Antioch and Lathrop and my God bless you.

Goodluck Ebele Jonathan

President, Federal Republic of Nigeria 2010-2015
A 32-year-old visually impaired man, Kamilu Suleiman, has decided to sell one of his kidneys to further his education.

A graduate of Electrical Electronics from Kaduna Polytechnic, Mr. Suleiman did his Youth Service Corps in 2014.

Explaining the reason for his decision, Mr. Suleiman said, Frustration is what brought the idea of my readiness to sell one of my kidneys just to get money to sponsor my education. I really want to be useful to the society. I dont want the effort of my parents to go in vein.

An indigene of Ilobu in Osun State, Mr. Suleiman was born and grew up in Kaduna State as the second of 7 children.

While explaining how he lost his sight, he stated that he was diagnosed with Glaucoma at the National Eye Centre Kaduna in 2009, but lost his sight completely in 2012 .

I was supposed to graduate in 2012 but because of a carryover (C.O) I got in one subject, I went for my NYSC in year 2013 and finished in year 2014.

I was posted to Plateau State but requested for redeployment back to Kaduna due to my condition. After I became completely blind I decided to live with a friend to avoid my parents seeing me in this condition because I dont like seeing them worried.

Mr. Suleiman said his goal is to study courses and programs that will enable him maximise his present situation.

So Im appealing to well meaning Nigerians to help me with a job or scholarship to further my education. I have applied to various media organizations seeking for job but I didnt hear anything positive.

My effort to look for somebody to sponsor my Masters program didnt yield result. I just want to further my education so as to be useful to society and help others in my condition too.

My parents dont have the money and I dont to be a burden on them, he said.

He explained some of the steps he has taken to seek support from influential Nigerians.

I got a letter from Jamaatul Nasril Islam (JNI) to my governor, Rauf Aregbesola, in 2014. Another letter to Chief Imam of Yorubaland, Mustapha Ajibade, and to the Chief Imam of my home town seeking for assistance but Im yet to hear from them.

The letter to the governor I gave it to his personal Assistant, Alhaji Sikiru. I also spoke to Deputy Speaker House of Representatives who is from my home town, Lasun Sulaiman Yusuf, who also promised to help me but as I speak to you he has stopped picking my calls, he said.

Mr. Suleiman said he had also sent a letter, through courier, to Shehu Sani, an activist who currently represents Kaduna Central in the Senate.
A former Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, Nwabu Mgbemena, is dead.

Mr. Mgbemena, 71, died of cancer on April 22 in New Jersey, U.S.

His close associate, Tony Idigo, confirmed the death on Sunday in a telephone interview.

Mr. Mgbemena was one of the pioneer editors of NAN, where he rose to serve as managing director for two terms from January, 1985 to January, 1994.

He took over as Chief Executive Officer from Olufemi Adefela, who was then the General Manager of the agency.

Mr. Adefela has had a brief stint as general manager after the retirement of Onuora Nzekwu, the pioneer General Manager of NAN.

Mr. Mgbemena attended Dennis Memorial Grammar School, Onitsha and later proceeded to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, UNN, where he obtained a Bachelors degree in journalism.

He became a lecturer at UNN, where he rose to become a senior lecturer at the Department of Journalism, which was later re-named Department of Mass Communication.

Mr. Mgbemena also obtained a masters degree from the Syracuse University in New York as well as a doctorate from the Texas Southern University in Houston, U.S.

After his teaching stint at UNN, he joined NAN as senior editor when NAN was established by the Federal Government in 1978.

Mgbemena was one of the original nine editors, employed at the take-off of NAN. They are Olufemi Adefela, Nwabu Mgbemena, Sani Sambo, Wada Maida, Dave Igiewe, Godwin Omole, Toye Olofintuyi, Willie Bozimo and Chukwura Ezebube.

Expressing his grief over the passing of his bosom friend, Idigo said that Magbemenas era at NAN marked a foray into rural reporting at NAN, with the opening of district offices at Ile-Ife and Nsukka to boost grassroots coverage.

Mr. Idigo recalled that the deceased was at one time, chairman of a pool of news agencies in West Africa with headquarters in Cotonou, Benin Republic, through which regional news agency journalism was developed in the sub-region.

He also recalled that Mgbemena served as one of the advisers on media and communication to Chief Jim Nwobodo, during his tenure as the Governor of old Anambra State.

Similarly, Wada Maida, a former NAN Managing Director, who took over office from Mr. Mgbemena, described his as a good administrator, who carried his colleagues along in taking major decisions.

As a journalist and journalism teacher, he used his experience to consolidate the achievements of the first management of the News Agency of Nigeria.

I miss a colleague, with whom I travelled the same route in NAN. Dr Nwabu Mgbemena and I joined NAN as pioneer staff, rising to head the Editorial Department and later becoming managing directors of the agency.

May his soul rest in peace, Mr. Maida said.

Dave Igiewe, a former Editor-in-Chief, said: Dr Mgbemena was a good friend of mine and colleague. His greatest legacy in NAN was the upgrading of the agency to a grade `A parastatal.

This promoted governments focus on NAN, enkindled its growth and development and enhanced staff welfare.

James Ajayi, who served as the first accountant employed in NAN, said: his death is a big loss to the NAN family and Nigeria as a whole.

The death of Mgbemena, one of the founding fathers of NAN marks the death of an era of a brilliant journalist and an administrator.

Mr. Ajayi said that Mr. Mgbemena had contributed immensely to the growth of NAN and prayed for the repose of his soul.

John Ndukuba, a retired Deputy Editor-in-Chief, who served as Senior Special Assistant to Mr. Mgbemena said that his era in NAN marked the introduction of professionalism in the management of the agency.

He elevated the entry point into the service of NAN. He added humane touch to the management of NAN.

The current Editor-in-Chief of NAN, Lawal Ado, said that Mr. Mgbemenas death was not only a loss to journalism but to the nation as a whole.

Dr Mgbemena was a humanitarian, who was always ready to listen to problems and offer solutions.

He gave NAN sense of direction. He was a father to all, Ado said.

Mr. Mgbemena was survived by wife, Faustina, daughter Nkiru and three sons.

Ms. Nkiru said that her fathers remains would be brought to his country home at Obosi in Anambra at a later date.

(NAN)
Former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar, has expressed his commitment to the newly elected executives of USOSA, the umbrella association of Unity Schools alumni, under the leadership of Chidi Odinkalu, who was voted as President-General in Abuja on April 23.

In a congratulatory message released by his media office, the Turaki Adamawa noted that his confidence in Mr. Odinkalus leadership was as a result of his long term awareness of the professors passion for education.

Atiku is Grand Patron of the Federal Government College, Okigwe, alumni association. Mr. Odinkalu was until his new appointment, Secretary of the same association.

Most of my philanthropic investments are in the area of education, particularly with my founding of the American University of Nigeria (AUN) while Odinkalu is a teacher who has spent a great deal of his time teaching around the world and doing advocacy.

The former Vice President noted that Mr. Odinkalus emergence could not have come at a more critical time, when education in our country faces huge challenges especially in the insurgency ravaged North East. He added that the countrys Unity Schools in particular are in danger of going into extinction as centres of excellence and losing the essence of their founding.

One of my children attended Unity Schools back in the day. Sadly, they are not what they used to be. But I have faith that, with a new leadership of the association in place, advocacy can be used to reverse the rot, he said.

The former Vice President also congratulated other elected members of USOSA, reminding them that a tree does not make a forest and assuring them of his support in their commitment to ensure education for all.

Alumni of Unity Schools are the last vanguard in the battle of the unity of Nigeria, Atiku said.
The Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu, said on Saturday that the federal government decided to invite investors to handle the upgrade of the four refineries located in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna because it could not afford the $700 million required to enable the facilities function at maximum capacity.

He was speaking to journalists during the re-inauguration of the Port Harcourt/Bonny Crude Supply Line at the Port Harcourt Refining Company, PHRC, Eleme, Rivers State.

We are not inviting foreign partners to take over the refineries. The total investment for that is up to $700 million and we dont have that. Let us be honest about it. So, the best thing to do is to find a very creative way to bring in investors, who will come in, work with our team here.

Investors, who have the skills to reactivate and upgrade facilities in this place and help us provide technical support and we will pay through the flow-out of the refined products over time, he said.

The standard industry practice is for technical jobs like the upgrade of the refineries to be subjected to formal bidding to ensure that the very best is awarded the contract.

Bu, Mr. Kachikwu explained that there should be no confusion about what the investors would be coming to do, since they would not come to run the refineries.

They are coming to provide funds to take our performance on these refineries to at least 90 per cent and to provide us with technical skills, he said, adding that the investors areas of intervention would be funding and technical support.

He pointed out that at the moment, Nigerians were consuming about 45 million litres of premium motor spirit, PMS daily, with 12 million litres daily coming the refineries, which are producing at 60 per cent capacity.

The minister said the country would need to upgrade these refineries and allow them develop to the point where they could perform up to 90 per cent, adding that by the time the refineries were upgraded and they started producing at that level, about 20 million litres would be produced daily.

Mr. Kachikwu who is also the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, said that with such production capacity, it would only meet up with about half of the countrys consumption.

For the umpteenth time, the Minister apologised to Nigerians for their suffering due to the fuel scarcity, urging them to sustain the patience as government was working hard to resolve the crisis.

He explained that the government had been able to recover the two critical crude supply pipelines, namely Escravos/Warri and Bonny/Port Harcourt crude supply pipelines, which were repaired after being down about seven years without supplying crude to the refineries.

For the first time, the refineries will get their crude, pay for it, they will sell their products and they will earn the income from that product.

And then, they can develop and continue to maintain the refineries even after this intervention is over. Port Harcourt is back in production, Warri is back in production; Kaduna today is receiving and will soon be back in production. It is something of joy, he said.

He added that the fuel scarcity in Lagos and Abuja was easing off now from, assuring that once Kaduna refinery began to produce, the northern part of the country would see a lot of improvement.

Over and above that, we are putting long term policies in place to ensure that while smaller marketers go out and do their stuff, we can then be the key suppliers for the rest of the country.

He commended the workers and the contractors for a job well done; adding that he has signed the promotion letters of the PHRC staff as they deserved to be rewarded.

Mr. Kachikwu, however, said a lot still needs to be done, I told you I will never give up.

We owe Nigerians the duty to ensure that the refineries are working. We owe Nigerians that, we cant give up, he said.

The minister urged Nigerians to remain resilient, support what the government is doing because this is the only way to change the system.

(NAN)
The family of Azibaola Robert, a cousin to former President Goodluck Jonathan, has told the EFCC to charge him to court or release him unconditionally.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the family made the demand at a news conference in Lagos on Sunday.

Mr. Robert, the Managing Director of One Plus Holdings Ltd., was arrested by the EFCC on March 23 for allegedly receiving $40 from the Office of the National Security Adviser. The money was reportedly meant for a pipeline contract.

Speaking on behalf of the family, Faith Robert condemned the continued detention of his elder brother by the EFCC after an Abuja High Court had granted him bail on April 7.

He said the remand order by an Abuja Magistrates Court which EFCC relied upon to detain Mr. Robert had expired on April 19.

According to him, it is therefore, improper for the EFCC to approach another Magistrates Court in Lagos for another remand order when the Abuja High Court has granted bail to Mr. Robert.

The same High Court served a production warrant on EFCC on April 12 after meeting its bail conditions.

It is important to note that EFCC, an organisation created by an Act of Parliament, has continued to treat the order from a High Court of competent jurisdiction with contempt, he said.

Mr. Robert urged the EFCC to charge his brother to court, allow him enjoy the bail granted him by the Abuja High Court or free him unconditionally.

(NAN)
The Jos Electricity Distribution Company, JEDC, has accused some of its workers of resisting reforms.

The JEDC said the workers it inherited from the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, Jos, following its sale in 2013, are resisting the reforms aimed at re-positioning the outfit.

The JEDCs Managing Director, Mohammed Modibbo, who made the observation in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday in Jos, said the workers have yet to realise that the company was now a private outfit working towards meeting strict corporate goals.

According to him, managements insistence on assessing the productivity of staff towards ensuring that everyone is an asset that adds value to the outfit, is being resisted by some workers.

We try to assess every worker and his contributions to service delivery; we try to know the needs of our customers and make sure that every worker has a duty he or she must play in the chain toward efficiency.

We also set corporate targets and insist that we must all work hard towards meeting such goals; certainly, we cannot carry along with dead woods and people that are weak, redundant and not productive, Mr. Modibbo declared.

The managing director spoke in reaction to the recent picketing of the JEDC headquarters by some workers, over alleged indiscriminate sacking some of their colleagues.

The workers, under the aegis of the National Union of Electricity Employee, NUEE, had also alleged that there was disparity in the salaries of workers, with those inherited from the old PHCN earning less than those employed by the JEDC after it took over in 2013.

Led by Musa Ayiga, NUEEs Vice President in the North-East, the workers further alleged that persons engaged as interns had yet to be regularised as permanent employees.

But Mr. Modibbo said that the JEDC had only disengaged 41 workers found not to be useful, and employed 249 new workers.

We did not engage in a mass sack of workers as is being alleged by the union; we only removed redundant personnel whose productivity has dropped.

Among those sacked were four Assistant General Managers, four Business Managers as well as principal and senior managers we found unproductive and needed replacement to enable us perform at our optimum.

We operate the company as a private outfit that knows that it could only survive if it works with the best hands that will add value to the system, Mr. Modibbo explained.

Mr, Modibbo said that Mr. Ayiga, who led the protest, was among those sacked, and expressed surprise that he mobilised students to picket the office, unmindful of the fact that JEDC promoted him before he was disengaged.

When he worked with the PHCN, he stayed for more than 13 years without promotion but we elevated him before he was disengaged, only for him to turn round and mobilise some people to disrupt service delivery, Mr. Modibbo said.

He said that it was wrong for the workers union to seek to force the company to work with people considered redundant and unproductive.

He alleged that some of the workers were sacked over unwholesome activities, adding that it was such workers that mobilised students to seal JEDCs headquarters and disrupt its services.

He said that JEDC was a private outfit that must stay afloat and survive, hence its placing of premium on productivity and resourcefulness.

The records and data are there to support the performances of those sacked and those retained, he said.

The managing director also dismissed claims of alleged disparity in salaries of workers, explaining that the salaries were harmonised in November 2015.

We harmonised the salaries in November 2015 and increased the wages by 200 per cent across board.

We know the relevance of morale to efficiency and cannot treat some workers better than others, because we all need their maximum output, he said.

Mr. Modibbo said that he had never engaged in any argument with the union, and warned that the company may be forced to take legal action against the union if it continued to mobilize thugs to disrupt its activities.

(NAN)
An aide to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Doyin Okupe, has called on leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, not to elect Ali Modu Sheriff the partys chairman.

Mr. Okupe said electing the controversial Borno politician would mean repeating the mistake the party made in adopting Goodluck Jonathan as its presidential candidate in 2015.

The PDP has been plunged into a protracted internal crisis as Mr. Sheriff, who is its substantive chairman, insists on contesting for the position at the national convention scheduled to hold on May 21 in Port-Harcourt.

Mr. Sheriffs prominent loyalists, including the partys national secretary, Wale Oladipo, said the former Borno State governor, who was appointed in February, should be allowed to lead the party into the 2019 elections.

Senator Ali Modu Sheriff is the right man for the job, Mr. Oladipo said in a text message to PREMIUM TIMES. He has my absolute support.

In a post on his Facebook wall on Sunday, the authorship of which he confirmed to PREMIUM TIMES, Mr. Okupe, who served Mr. Jonathan as a senior special assistant on public affairs, said the leaders of the opposition party are on the verge of repeating the errors that relegated them from a 16-year political dominance.

The argument that because the party is weak in the north if the chairman is zoned to the north it will strengthen the party in that zone is a puerile argument, Mr. Okupe wrote. It is not supported by fact or history.

Citing the historical precedent of two late politicians, Obafemi Awolowo and Adisa Akinloye, Mr. Okupe said politicians have their unique appeals that set them apart from each other, adding that only a genuine engagement with the partys political base could help reverse its misfortunes.

When Awolowo was alive, there were great politicians in the West, but he was of such stature that if the ruling party then appointed one national chairman per state in the west it would have amounted to no political strength or gain whatsoever. It was this type of sentiment that led to the zoning of the chairman of the NPN (National Party of Nigeria) to chief Adisa Akinloye, no doubt a political Juggernaut, but still could not produce the desired result, Mr. Okupe said. What we need to strengthen the PDP in the north is, excellent and stellar performance of PDP governors in the north and the south, diligent and committed efforts by local party leadership and passionate and courageous; genuine and dutiful; engagement of the leadership of the party at all levels with the grassroots in the zone.

Mr. Okupe also reminded PDP leaders of the failure of Adamu Muazu, who resigned as chairman in May 2015 after presiding over the partys biggest electoral disaster in history.

It is for the same reason that the fact that Alhaji Adamu Muazu, a northerner, and a two time governor of Bauchi state, could not help the fortune of the PDP in the north or even his state Bauchi, Mr. Okupe said. Presently and for some time to come, General Buhari is the most popular Northern politician and leader alive. He stands and will likely stand shoulders taller than any politician in APC or PDP in that region.

The Ogun State politician added that, because they were in charge of the presidency, he and his colleagues within the PDP underestimated the northern publics determination to see the post of president returned to the north.

In retrospect, it is regretful that based on the expedience circumstances of incumbency, we committed a politically fatal error of robbing the north of their turn to have the Presidency in 2015, and we paid dearly for it, Mr. Okupe said. We didnt know the northerners will be so tenacious in their determination to ensure that they have the presidency back and that is regrettable, he told PREMIUM TIMES.
A total of 1,934,765 displaced persons, IDPs, are currently living in formal camps, host communities and satellite camps in liberated communities as a result of insurgency in North Eastern States of Borno, Yobe, Taraba, Gombe, Bauchi and Adamawa states.

This was disclosed by the Yola Camp Coordinator , Saad Bello, who, on behalf of the Director General of NEMA, Muhammad Sani Sidi, took the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, round the facilities at Malkohi IDP Camp in Yola, Adamawa State at the weekend.

He said there were 32 formal camps in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States with a total of 189,783 IDPs. Borno has 19 camps with 150, 858 IDPs; Yobe has 9 camps with 31, 988 IDPs and Adamawa 4 camps with 6, 937 IDPs.

The Camp Coordinator added that there were 14 satellite camps in liberated communities, mainly in Borno State with 216,184 IDPs. The camps with the highest population are Ngala with 70,505; Dikwa 53,636; Bama 27, 00 and Damboa/Sabon Gari 25,311.

Mr. Saad said host communities in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states have a total of 1,391,613 IDPs. Borno state has the highest with 1, 158, 362; Adamawa 125, 689 and Yobe 107, 562.

He said Federal Government through the coordinating agency, NEMA and relevant line Ministries, Departments and Agencies have been trying to meet the needs of the IDPs in the provision of food, nutrition, non-food items (NFIs), temporary shelter, medicament, psycho-social therapy, security and protection.

He said as the government continued in the efforts to meet the needs of the IDPs, more supports were critically required for the IDPs across the three identified kinds of camps before they return back to their communities.

The critical areas where further support is needed are food, non-food items (including basic household needs), shelter, WASH, education, nutrition, protection, health and sexual reproductive health, and psycho-social helps.

The U.S. Ambassador to the UN , Samantha Power, who led a high level delegation from US to the Malkohi IDPs camp and host communities told them that they were there to determine what more could be done to defeat Boko Haram so that they can return back to their communities.

I know how difficult these last years have been for you and on behalf of President Barack Obama, I express my sympathy and my condolences for all you have lost and our resolve to try to make things better together, she said.
At least six officials of the Nigerian Medical Association died in a road accident on Sunday, an official has said.

Peter Ogunnubi, the Public Relations Officer of the Lagos State Chapter of the Association told PREMIUM TIMES that the affected executives took off from Ekiti State on their way to Sokoto State.

Six of them are already dead Mr. Ogunnubi said while sobbing over the phone.

The doctors were travelling to Sokoto for the associations Annual General Meeting.

At the time of filing this report, names of the affected members were yet to be disclosed.

In an interview with PREMIUM TIMES Sunday night, the immediate past president of the NMA, Dr. Osahon Enabulele, confirmed the incident.

For now, from my own side, though unconfirmed, there are speculations that five or seven persons have died in the process, Mr. Enabulele said. Though theres no official statement yet, what I gathered is that it was a ghastly motor accident resorting from a burst tyre.

While trying to manage the situation, the bus hit a culvert. That is the sketchy information available to me right now. But at the appropriate time, there would be official details. But clearly, there was a ghastly accident, Mr. Enabulele said.

The affected doctors took off from Ekiti State Sunday hoping to arrival Monday in time for the AGMs opening ceremony on Tuesday April 26.

Mr. Enabulele said it remained unclear yet whether the AGM would be cancelled, saying the mishap would affect the mood of participants.

My heart goes out to all Nigerian doctors, particularly the team from Ekiti State and I wish them quick recovery. If anyone is involved in the fatality, as in death, I express my condolence to their families and loved ones, He said.

At the time of filing this report, names of the affected doctors remained unknown.

More details later
The All Progressives Congress, APC, has won the Damaturu/Tarmuwa/Gujba/Gulani federal constituency by-election in Yobe.

The Returning Officer of the election, Sunday Alao, on Saturday in Damaturu declared APC candidate, Abdullahi Kukuwa, the winner.

Mr. Kukuwa scored 23,745 votes to defeat Nasiru Hassan of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who polled 6,990 votes to emerge second.

Adamu Dina of the Advance Congress for Democracy, ACD, scored 163 votes while Jibrin Ladan of the National Conscience Party, NCP, scored 139 votes.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the election was conducted on Saturday to replace Khadija Bukar, who was appointed minister in the federal cabinet.

Zannah Ibrahim, Yobe Commissioner of Police said there was no violence recorded in any of the four participating local government areas.

Yobe is, however, set to head for another by- election as Mr. Kukuwa currently represents Gulani constituency in the state assembly, a position that will now be vacant once he is sworn in as a federal lawmaker.

(NAN)
Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State on Sunday expressed sadness over the death of a former Deputy Governor of the State, Rafiu Jafojo.

In a statement issued by the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Habib Aruna, Mr. Ambode described Mr. Jafojos death as a great loss to the state.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Mr. Jafojo, who was deputy governor during the administration of Lateef Jakande, died on Saturday in his Lagos residence at the age of 80.

According to the statement, Mr. Jafojos contribution to the development of the state will not be forgotten in a hurry.

Alhaji Jafojo was part and parcel of an administration during the Second Republic that has been widely applauded across Nigeria for achieving several milestones which are still being made reference to.

He was an astute politician who was very loyal to the development of the state.

Together with Alhaji Lateef Jakande, they formed a strong partnership and set the template for this development, the statement quoted Mr. Ambode as saying.

He said, Jafojo, in spite of his age, continued to contribute his quota to the development of the state.

On behalf of the government and good people of Lagos State, I want to express our heartfelt condolence to the family of Alhaji Jafojo on this great and irreparable loss.

He surely paid his dues and Lagosians will always remember him.

The State Government under my administration will continue to ensure that the ideals he propagated while alive will continue to be upheld and improved upon, Mr. Ambode said.

(NAN)
The Peoples Democratic Party has won all the chairmanship seats in the local government elections in Ondo State.

The election, which witnessed a poor turnout of voters, also saw the ruling party winning 202 of the 203 councillorship seats, leaving one for ACPN.

The major opposition party in the state, APC, did not take part in the elections.

While announcing the results on Sunday, the Chairman of the Ondo Independent Electoral Commission, Olugbenga Ige, refused to name the total number of registered voters and those accredited for the election.

Details later
The Lagos State Government at the weekend released a White Paper on the report of the Tribunal of Inquiry into causes of civil disturbances at the Lekki Free Trade Zone (LFTZ), just as it reiterated its commitment to ensuring free access for investors not just in the area but also in other parts of the state.

According to a statement signed by the States Commissioner for Information & Strategy, Steve Ayorinde, the State Government accepted most of the recommendations of the Tribunal part of which included a directive asking that the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, be requested through the State Police Commissioner, Fatai Owoseni, to take over investigation into the gruesome killing of Managing Director of Lekki Worldwide Limited Tajudeen Disu as a fallout of the unrest.

The directive, according to the Commissioner, became imperative owing to the need to resolve the mystery surrounding Disus killing

The leaders of the Okunraye community where Disu was murdered on October 12, 2015 had claimed that the late Disu was killed by a stray bullet from mobile policemen attached to the area, while the police in turn issued a statement denying the allegation.

The State Government, in the White Paper, also directed the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Cooperatives to ensure that all outstanding compensation issues are resolved as soon as possible.

The Ministry was equally directed to ensure that the Resettlement Committee is reconstituted in line with the provisions of the Memorandum of Understanding to enable it perform satisfactorily.

The State Government further directed that a LFTZ Peace and Security Committee comprising of the Police and representatives of investors of the affected villages be constituted to receive complaints from any party in the zone and will also have further responsibility of taking action to resolve issues referred to, as spelt out in the Memorandum of Understanding.

Besides, the State Government directed the Lands Bureau to give priority to preparation of Certificate of Occupancy of excised land.

According to the White Paper, the State Government accepted the recommendation of the Tribunal that under no circumstance should payments, irrespective of how insignificant it is, be paid in cash, adding that all payments should be by cheque, duly receipted by the payee in a format that carries the said payees name, picture and signature.

The government further accepted the recommendation of the Tribunal that there should be an effective mode of communication and dissemination of information amongst all inhabitants of LFTZ, and directed the Ministry of Local Government and Community Affairs through the Special Adviser for Communities and Communication to create a platform for regular dissemination of information.

The State Government also noted the recommendation of members of the Tribunal on proper stock taking to identify communities that have not been resettled or given possession of land excised to them, and thereafter directed the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Cooperatives in conjunction with Lands Bureau and the State Valuation Office to identify such communities and complete the resettlement process.

It would be recalled that Governor Akinwunmi Ambode had on October 22, 2015 constituted a six-member Tribunal of Inquiry headed by retired judge of the Lagos High Court, Adesuyi Olateru-Olagbegi, to inquire into the remote and immediate causes surrounding the public disorder at the Lekki Free Trade Zone on October 12, 2015 which culminated into Disus killing.
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DENNIS TOWNSHIP  The state has fined a local construction company $14,000 for allegedly dumping material from a nearby erosion project into the Atlantic Ocean in Monmouth County.

Agate Construction, based in the Clermont section of Dennis Township, was a subcontractor on a $33 million erosion project in Deal.

A company representative could not be reached for comment.

The nonprofit environmental group Clean Ocean Action urged the state Department of Environmental Protection in February to take enforcement action.

To DEPs credit, they listed it as a major violation, said Zachary Lees, the groups policy lawyer. I dont think anyone in New Jersey would be happy with the dumping of that material into the ocean.

The state Bureau of Coastal and Land Use Compliance and Enforcement notified the company of the violation in March. The state received a complaint from the public Feb. 19 about excavated material, including clay, wood, asphalt and concrete, being dumped into the ocean at the Poplar Brook outfall in Deal, where the company was performing work for a firm contracted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The Army Corps and the state ordered Agate to move the material to an upland location away from the tide and issued a notice of violation to the contracted company, Manson Construction.

Manson asked the Army Corps to void the violation, saying the work was consistent with all past work practices undertaken in which the N.J. DEP and Army Corps were in full awareness without previous complaint.

According to the DEP complaint, Ely Mahan from Agate met with the state and indicated the company was not at fault and that Agate was working within the specifications of the Army Corps contract.

The DEP disagreed.

The alleged ocean-dumping by Agate was determined to be the worst of three categories, a major violation, described as intentional, deliberate, purposeful, knowing or willful. The affected area of the alleged beach dumping occupied about 2,700 square feet, according to state estimates.

The focus of our enforcement effort was, first and foremost, to eliminate the dumping of material in the intertidal and wave wash zone of the beach, DEP spokesman Bob Considine said.

Much of the material was removed on Feb. 19 and 20 when the DEP learned of the violation, but some chunks of debris remained in the wash zone that will have to be handpicked from the beach, he said. We also wanted to have the material that was dumped on the lower beach removed and properly stored until reuse or proper disposal.

The state coastal laws are designed to protect vulnerable areas that are already densely developed.

The law says, It is necessary to preserve the ecological balance of this area and prevent its further deterioration and destruction by regulating the dredging, filling, removing or otherwise altering or polluting.

The DEP fined Agate $2,000 in 2007 for allegedly failing to obtain a preconstruction permit for an underground storage tank, Considine said. The company paid $1,000 in fines after addressing the deficiency, he said.

Contact: 609-463-6712

Twitter @ACPressMiller
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.




YEREVAN, Armenia, April 24, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- At the first-ever Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity Ceremony, Aurora Prize Selection Committee Co-Chair George Clooney delivered the following remarks:

Years before anyone uttered the word genocide, there was Armenia. And although the actual word was yet to be introduced we were well aware of its characteristics.

Cruelty has always been at the core. Not self-defense. Not simply war. But the deliberate destruction of an entire people.

It happened to Armenians starting 101 years ago and we've seen it repeated all over the world since.

Germany. Cambodia. Bosnia. Rwanda.

I've seen it first hand in the broken limbs and broken families and broken hearts of the people of Darfur.

So I've seen what mankind is capable of at its worst. But I've also seen something else, something much stronger than hate.

I've seen bravery and kindness and incredible acts of love.

Tonight we celebrate the best examples of that.

The simple truth is that all of us here tonight, are the result of someone's act of kindness. The Clooney family fled a famine in Ireland to come to the United States where their very survival required a room, a meal, a helping hand.

We all stand on the shoulders of good people who didn't look away when we were in need. It might have been 101 years ago or it might have been last year.

If we are to survive as a people we simply can't look away.

Not from the people of Syria or South Sudan or the Congo.

We call them refugees, but they're just people, like you and me. And if you stand right in front of them and take a look deep into their eyes, you might just see an Irish farmer fleeing a famine or a young Armenian woman named Aurora looking for home.

We've all been given the gift of humanity at some time in our history.

Tonight's award celebrates heroism and bravery far beyond what most of us could do in a lifetime. And, our nominees didn't graduate from some hero school. They were just everyday people who saw a need and did something about it. Something extraordinary.

And so tonight we honor them. And in doing so we honor the million and a half lives that were lost 101 years ago.

And we honor those lives by calling their tragedy by its true name. Genocide.

The Armenian Genocide.

Hitler once famously said, "but who remembers Armenia?"

The answer is the whole world.

That's who.

Notes to Editors

On behalf of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and in gratitude to their saviors, an Aurora Prize Laureate will be honored each year.

Marguerite Barankitse from Maison Shalom and REMA Hospital in Burundi was named as the inaugural Laureate of the $1 million Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity. At a ceremony held in Yerevan, Armenia, Barankitse was recognized for the extraordinary impact she has had in saving thousands of lives and caring for orphans and refugees during the years of civil war in Burundi.

As the first Aurora Prize Laureate, Barankitse will receive a $100,000 grant and continue the cycle of giving by donating the accompanying $1,000,000 award to organizations that have inspired her work. Barankitse plans to donate the award to three organizations in order to advance aid and rehabilitation for child refugees and orphans, and fight against child poverty. These organizations are: the Fondation du Grand-Duc et de La Grande-Duchesse du Luxembourg, Fondation Jean-Francois Peterbroeck (JFP Foundation), and the Fondation Bridderlech Deelen Luxembourg.

Guests also celebrated the exceptional contributions of the other three finalists for the Aurora Prize: Dr. Tom Catena, from Mother of Mercy Hospital in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan; Syeda Ghulam Fatima, the General Secretary of the Bonded Labour Liberation Front in Pakistan; and Father Bernard Kinvi, a Catholic Priest in Bossemptele, Central African Republic (CAR).

Leading humanitarian figures and Aurora Prize Selection Committee members, including Gareth Evans, Hina Jilani, Leymah Gbowee, Shirin Ebadi and Vartan Gregorian, attended and participated in the Aurora Prize Award Ceremony.

The Aurora Prize will be awarded annually on April 24 in Yerevan, Armenia.

Further information is available at www.auroraprize.com.

Media contact information: 100livesmedia@edelman.com

Photography and videos for media use: www.AuroraPrizeMedia.com

Related Links

http://www.auroraprize.com



SOURCE Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity
George Clooney, Co-Chair of the Selection Committee, presents the $1 million Aurora Prize to Marguerite Barankitse at ceremony in Yerevan, Armenia

YEREVAN, Armenia, April 24, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Marguerite Barankitse from Maison Shalom and REMA Hospital in Burundi was named as the inaugural Laureate of the $1 million Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity. At a ceremony held in Yerevan, Armenia, Barankitse was recognized for the extraordinary impact she has had in saving thousands of lives and caring for orphans and refugees during the years of civil war in Burundi.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160424/359228LOGO

As she accepted the award from Aurora Prize Selection Committee Co-Chair George Clooney, Barankitse said: "Our values are human values. When you have compassion, dignity and love then nothing can scare you, nothing can stop you  no one can stop love. Not armies, not hate, not persecution, not famine, nothing."

As the first Aurora Prize Laureate, Barankitse will receive a $100,000 grant and continue the cycle of giving by donating the accompanying $1,000,000 award to organizations that have inspired her work. Barankitse plans to donate the award to three organizations in order to advance aid and rehabilitation for child refugees and orphans, and fight against child poverty. These organizations are: the Fondation du Grand-Duc et de La Grande-Duchesse du Luxembourg, Fondation Jean-Francois Peterbroeck (JFP Foundation), and the Fondation Bridderlech Deelen Luxembourg.

Barankitse emphasized: "I chose them because these people supported me and never abandoned me, even in difficult times. They have the same values as me and as the Maison Shalom  compassion, friendliness, dignity, and a generosity which costs nothing."

"Marguerite Barankitse serves as a reminder of the impact that one person can have even when encountering seemingly insurmountable persecution and injustice," said Mr. Clooney. "By recognizing Marguerite Barankitse's courage, commitment and sacrifice, I am hopeful that she can also inspire each one of us to think about what we can do to stand up on behalf of those whose rights are abused and are in most need of our solidarity or support."

Marguerite Barankitse saved thousands of lives and cared for orphans and refugees during the years of civil war in Burundi. When war broke out, Barankitse, a Tutsi, tried to hide 72 of her closest Hutu neighbors to keep them safe from persecution. They were discovered and executed, whilst Barankitse was forced to watch. Following this gruesome incident, she started her work saving and caring for children and refugees. She has saved roughly 30,000 children and in 2008, she opened a hospital which has treated more than 80,000 patients to date.

Guests also celebrated the exceptional contributions of the other three finalists for the Aurora Prize: Dr. Tom Catena, from Mother of Mercy Hospital in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan; Syeda Ghulam Fatima, the General Secretary of the Bonded Labour Liberation Front in Pakistan; and Father Bernard Kinvi, a Catholic Priest in Bossemptele, Central African Republic (CAR). To mark the occasion of the inaugural Aurora Prize Ceremony, these exceptional humanitarians will be presented with a $25,000 award from the Aurora Prize co-founders to support the organizations that have inspired their work.

Leading humanitarian figures and Aurora Prize Selection Committee members, including Gareth Evans, Hina Jilani, Leymah Gbowee, Shirin Ebadi and Vartan Gregorian, attended and participated in the Aurora Prize Award Ceremony.

"During the selection process for the Aurora Prize, we came across truly remarkable stories of the human spirit, and an extraordinary number of inspiring individuals who are out there making a significant difference," said Vartan Gregorian, member of the Aurora Prize Selection Committee and co-founder of 100 LIVES. "We are proud to be able to recognize Marguerite Barankitse and support the impactful work she is doing in a concrete way. She proves the tremendous impact one person can have on so many."

NOTES TO EDITORS

About 100 LIVES

100 LIVES is a new global initiative rooted in the events of the Armenian Genocide, during which 1.5 million Armenians perished. The fortunate few were saved by the courageous and heroic acts of individuals and institutions. A century later, 100 LIVES seeks to express gratitude, to share remarkable stories of survivors and their saviors, and to celebrate the strength of the human spirit.

100 LIVES is an initiative of the IDeA Foundation (Initiatives for Development of Armenia), a charitable foundation committed to promoting socioeconomic development in Armenia through investments in long-term, non-profit projects.

About the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity

On behalf of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and in gratitude to their saviors, an Aurora Prize Laureate will be honored each year with a US$100,000 grant as well as the unique opportunity to continue the cycle of giving by nominating organizations that inspired their work for a US$1,000,000 award. Recipients will be recognized for the exceptional impact their actions have made on preserving human life and advancing humanitarian causes.

The Aurora Prize Selection Committee includes Nobel Laureates Elie Wiesel, Oscar Arias, Shirin Ebadi and Leymah Gbowee; former President of Ireland Mary Robinson; human rights activist Hina Jilani; former Australian Foreign Minister and President Emeritus of the International Crisis Group Gareth Evans; President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York Vartan Gregorian; and Academy Award-winning actor and humanitarian George Clooney.

The Aurora Prize will be awarded annually on April 24 in Yerevan, Armenia.

Further information is available at www.auroraprize.com.

Photography and videos for media use: www.AuroraPrizeMedia.com http://edelman.isebox.net/100lives

Related Links

http://www.auroraprize.com



SOURCE Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity
DUBAI, UAE, April 24, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

NavLink, a leading ICT and Managed Services Provider today announced its partnership with Asigra, a leading cloud backup and recovery software provider since 1986. Through this partnership, NavLink joins the Asigra global partner ecosystem to deliver backup-as-a-service based on the award-winning Asigra Cloud Backup software platform. The service will be part of a bespoke suite of compliant bundled solutions delivered by NavLink to provide reliable, automated, and compliant backup and recovery for telcos and enterprises throughout 17 countries across Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160421/358249LOGO )



Tweet This: @NavLink Selects @Asigra Cloud Backup to deliver Backup-as-a-Service - http://bit.ly/1gVbOuu #cloud #backup

As one of the EMEA region's technology pioneers, NavLink provides end-to-end IT solutions to customers in various sectors including financial, healthcare, media, e-commerce, educational and governmental. For two decades, NavLink has been delivering exceptional experience in services and solutions like managed hosting, managed CPE, cloud services, NOC and operations, datacenter consultancy, licensing and support, and much more.

"In a time where ensuring an organization's data, platforms and applications are stored and protected in highly secure areas, cloud-based data protection services have been picking up traction in becoming the leading method," said Mansour Naufal, V.P. Product Development & Service Enablement, NavLink. "Through our partnership with Asigra, NavLink is able to provide award-winning cloud backup and disaster recovery solutions powered by Asigra which will help our customers reduce their investment costs, have access to secure, agentless cloud-based data protection, enable them to perform regular recovery drills, as well as have capacity for a multi-site license."

Today, businesses are faced with growing challenges to respond efficiently to new digital trends in IT, security and control. NavLink is the trustworthy choice among its growing customers as it continually transforms its services to meet the needs of the digital world. At NavLink we not only ensure peace of mind with end-to-end solutions and 24/7 NOC, we offer our customers opportunities for scalability and maximum ROI.

"We are pleased to welcome NavLink to our global partner ecosystem and look forward to collaborating with them to provide their Backup-as-a-Service offering powered by Asigra across Europe, the Middle East and Africa to organizations looking for a secure reliable data protection solution," said Tracy Staniland, Vice President, Marketing, Asigra. "With a comprehensive solution like Asigra Cloud Backup, NavLink will be able to protect data residing in the data center and beyond enabling them to easily address the diverse needs of multiple customers."

About NavLink

NavLink is a managed services and cloud provider. Founded in 1996, NavLink was one of the earliest adopters of IP service technology and quickly became a leading name throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Today, businesses are faced with growing challenges to respond efficiently to new digital trends in IT, security and control. NavLink is the trustworthy choice among its growing customers as it continually transforms its services to meet the needs of the digital world. At NavLink we not only ensure peace of mind with end-to-end solutions and 24/7 NOC, we offer our customers opportunities for scalability and maximum ROI.

More information on NavLink can be found at http://www.navlink.com.

About Asigra

Trusted since 1986, Asigra provides organizations around the world the ability to recover their data now from anywhere through a global network of partners who deliver cloud backup and recovery services as public, private and/or hybrid deployments. As the industry's first enterprise-class agentless cloud-based recovery software to provide data backup and recovery of servers, virtual machines, endpoint devices, databases and applications, SaaS- and IaaS-based applications, Asigra lowers the total cost of ownership, reduces recovery time objectives, eliminates silos of backup data by providing a single consolidated repository, and provides 100 percent recovery assurance. Asigra's revolutionary patent-pending Recovery License Model provides organizations with a cost-effective data-recovery business model unlike any other offered in the storage market. Asigra has been recognized as a Gartner Cool Vendor and has been included in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup and Recovery Software since 2010. More information on Asigra can be found at http://www.asigra.com.

Jade Noureddine

+971-55-359-6699

marcom@navlink.com

SOURCE NavLink
ATLANTA, April 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- CryoLife, Inc. (NYSE: CRY), a leading medical device and tissue processing company focused on cardiac surgery, announced today that 2016 first quarter financial results will be released on Wednesday, April 27, 2016 after the market closes. On Thursday, April 28, 2016 the Company will hold a teleconference call and live webcast at 8:00 a.m. ET to discuss the results, followed by a question and answer session hosted by J. Patrick Mackin, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of CryoLife, Inc.

To listen to the live teleconference, please dial 201-689-8261 a few minutes prior to 8:00 a.m. A replay of the teleconference will be available April 28 through May 5 and can be accessed by calling (toll free) 877-660-6853 or 201-612-7415. The conference number for the replay is 13634919.

The live webcast and replay can be accessed by going to the Investor Relations section of the CryoLife website at www.cryolife.com and selecting the heading Webcasts & Presentations. In addition, a copy of the earnings press release, which will contain financial and statistical information for the completed quarter, can be accessed on the Investor Relations section of the CryoLife website.

About CryoLife, Inc.

Headquartered in suburban Atlanta, Georgia, CryoLife is a leader in the manufacturing, processing, and distribution of implantable living tissues and medical devices used in cardiac surgical procedures. CryoLife markets and sells products in more than 80 countries worldwide. For additional information about CryoLife, visit our website, www.cryolife.com.

Contacts:





CryoLife The Ruth Group D. Ashley Lee Nick Laudico / Zack Kubow Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer 646-536-7030 / 7020 and Chief Operating Officer [email protected] Phone: 770-419-3355 [email protected]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140319/MM86518LOGO

SOURCE CryoLife, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.cryolife.com


YEREVAN, Armenia, April 24, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- At the first-ever Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity Ceremony, Aurora Prize Selection Committee Co-Chair George Clooney delivered the following remarks:

Years before anyone uttered the word genocide, there was Armenia. And although the actual word was yet to be introduced we were well aware of its characteristics.

Cruelty has always been at the core. Not self-defense. Not simply war. But the deliberate destruction of an entire people.

It happened to Armenians starting 101 years ago and we've seen it repeated all over the world since.

Germany. Cambodia. Bosnia. Rwanda.

I've seen it first hand in the broken limbs and broken families and broken hearts of the people of Darfur.

So I've seen what mankind is capable of at its worst. But I've also seen something else, something much stronger than hate.

I've seen bravery and kindness and incredible acts of love.

Tonight we celebrate the best examples of that.

The simple truth is that all of us here tonight, are the result of someone's act of kindness. The Clooney family fled a famine in Ireland to come to the United States where their very survival required a room, a meal, a helping hand.

We all stand on the shoulders of good people who didn't look away when we were in need. It might have been 101 years ago or it might have been last year.

If we are to survive as a people we simply can't look away.

Not from the people of Syria or South Sudan or the Congo.

We call them refugees, but they're just people, like you and me. And if you stand right in front of them and take a look deep into their eyes, you might just see an Irish farmer fleeing a famine or a young Armenian woman named Aurora looking for home.

We've all been given the gift of humanity at some time in our history.

Tonight's award celebrates heroism and bravery far beyond what most of us could do in a lifetime. And, our nominees didn't graduate from some hero school. They were just everyday people who saw a need and did something about it. Something extraordinary.

And so tonight we honor them. And in doing so we honor the million and a half lives that were lost 101 years ago.

And we honor those lives by calling their tragedy by its true name. Genocide.

The Armenian Genocide.

Hitler once famously said, "but who remembers Armenia?"

The answer is the whole world.

That's who.

Notes to Editors

On behalf of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and in gratitude to their saviors, an Aurora Prize Laureate will be honored each year.

Marguerite Barankitse from Maison Shalom and REMA Hospital in Burundi was named as the inaugural Laureate of the $1 million Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity. At a ceremony held in Yerevan, Armenia, Barankitse was recognized for the extraordinary impact she has had in saving thousands of lives and caring for orphans and refugees during the years of civil war in Burundi.

As the first Aurora Prize Laureate, Barankitse will receive a $100,000 grant and continue the cycle of giving by donating the accompanying $1,000,000 award to organizations that have inspired her work. Barankitse plans to donate the award to three organizations in order to advance aid and rehabilitation for child refugees and orphans, and fight against child poverty. These organizations are: the Fondation du Grand-Duc et de La Grande-Duchesse du Luxembourg, Fondation Jean-Francois Peterbroeck (JFP Foundation), and the Fondation Bridderlech Deelen Luxembourg.

Guests also celebrated the exceptional contributions of the other three finalists for the Aurora Prize: Dr. Tom Catena, from Mother of Mercy Hospital in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan; Syeda Ghulam Fatima, the General Secretary of the Bonded Labour Liberation Front in Pakistan; and Father Bernard Kinvi, a Catholic Priest in Bossemptele, Central African Republic (CAR).

Leading humanitarian figures and Aurora Prize Selection Committee members, including Gareth Evans, Hina Jilani, Leymah Gbowee, Shirin Ebadi and Vartan Gregorian, attended and participated in the Aurora Prize Award Ceremony.

The Aurora Prize will be awarded annually on April 24 in Yerevan, Armenia.

Further information is available at www.auroraprize.com.

Media contact information: [email protected]

Photography and videos for media use: www.AuroraPrizeMedia.com

SOURCE Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity

Related Links

http://www.auroraprize.com


YEREVAN, Armenia, April 24, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Marguerite Barankitse from Maison Shalom and REMA Hospital in Burundi was named as the inaugural Laureate of the $1 million Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity. At a ceremony held in Yerevan, Armenia, Barankitse was recognized for the extraordinary impact she has had in saving thousands of lives and caring for orphans and refugees during the years of civil war in Burundi.

As she accepted the award from Aurora Prize Selection Committee Co-Chair George Clooney, Barankitse said: "Our values are human values. When you have compassion, dignity and love then nothing can scare you, nothing can stop you  no one can stop love. Not armies, not hate, not persecution, not famine, nothing."

As the first Aurora Prize Laureate, Barankitse will receive a $100,000 grant and continue the cycle of giving by donating the accompanying $1,000,000 award to organizations that have inspired her work. Barankitse plans to donate the award to three organizations in order to advance aid and rehabilitation for child refugees and orphans, and fight against child poverty. These organizations are: the Fondation du Grand-Duc et de La Grande-Duchesse du Luxembourg, Fondation Jean-Francois Peterbroeck (JFP Foundation), and the Fondation Bridderlech Deelen Luxembourg.

Barankitse emphasized: "I chose them because these people supported me and never abandoned me, even in difficult times. They have the same values as me and as the Maison Shalom  compassion, friendliness, dignity, and a generosity which costs nothing."

"Marguerite Barankitse serves as a reminder of the impact that one person can have even when encountering seemingly insurmountable persecution and injustice," said Mr. Clooney. "By recognizing Marguerite Barankitse's courage, commitment and sacrifice, I am hopeful that she can also inspire each one of us to think about what we can do to stand up on behalf of those whose rights are abused and are in most need of our solidarity or support."

Marguerite Barankitse saved thousands of lives and cared for orphans and refugees during the years of civil war in Burundi. When war broke out, Barankitse, a Tutsi, tried to hide 72 of her closest Hutu neighbors to keep them safe from persecution. They were discovered and executed, whilst Barankitse was forced to watch. Following this gruesome incident, she started her work saving and caring for children and refugees. She has saved roughly 30,000 children and in 2008, she opened a hospital which has treated more than 80,000 patients to date.

Guests also celebrated the exceptional contributions of the other three finalists for the Aurora Prize: Dr. Tom Catena, from Mother of Mercy Hospital in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan; Syeda Ghulam Fatima, the General Secretary of the Bonded Labour Liberation Front in Pakistan; and Father Bernard Kinvi, a Catholic Priest in Bossemptele, Central African Republic (CAR). To mark the occasion of the inaugural Aurora Prize Ceremony, these exceptional humanitarians will be presented with a $25,000 award from the Aurora Prize co-founders to support the organizations that have inspired their work.

Leading humanitarian figures and Aurora Prize Selection Committee members, including Gareth Evans, Hina Jilani, Leymah Gbowee, Shirin Ebadi and Vartan Gregorian, attended and participated in the Aurora Prize Award Ceremony.

"During the selection process for the Aurora Prize, we came across truly remarkable stories of the human spirit, and an extraordinary number of inspiring individuals who are out there making a significant difference," said Vartan Gregorian, member of the Aurora Prize Selection Committee and co-founder of 100 LIVES. "We are proud to be able to recognize Marguerite Barankitse and support the impactful work she is doing in a concrete way. She proves the tremendous impact one person can have on so many."

NOTES TO EDITORS

About 100 LIVES

100 LIVES is a new global initiative rooted in the events of the Armenian Genocide, during which 1.5 million Armenians perished. The fortunate few were saved by the courageous and heroic acts of individuals and institutions. A century later, 100 LIVES seeks to express gratitude, to share remarkable stories of survivors and their saviors, and to celebrate the strength of the human spirit.

100 LIVES is an initiative of the IDeA Foundation (Initiatives for Development of Armenia), a charitable foundation committed to promoting socioeconomic development in Armenia through investments in long-term, non-profit projects.

About the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity

On behalf of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and in gratitude to their saviors, an Aurora Prize Laureate will be honored each year with a US$100,000 grant as well as the unique opportunity to continue the cycle of giving by nominating organizations that inspired their work for a US$1,000,000 award. Recipients will be recognized for the exceptional impact their actions have made on preserving human life and advancing humanitarian causes.

The Aurora Prize Selection Committee includes Nobel Laureates Elie Wiesel, Oscar Arias, Shirin Ebadi and Leymah Gbowee; former President of Ireland Mary Robinson; human rights activist Hina Jilani; former Australian Foreign Minister and President Emeritus of the International Crisis Group Gareth Evans; President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York Vartan Gregorian; and Academy Award-winning actor and humanitarian George Clooney.

The Aurora Prize will be awarded annually on April 24 in Yerevan, Armenia.

Further information is available at www.auroraprize.com.

Photography and videos for media use: www.AuroraPrizeMedia.com http://edelman.isebox.net/100lives

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160424/359228LOGO

SOURCE Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity

Related Links

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HENDERSON, Nev., April 24, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Travel warnings for include:

April 1 - Tunisia's Libyan border, including western mountain areas

Travelers should avoid travel to Libya and through the Libyan border due to a number of terrorist attacks against government officials as well as attacks which targeted tourists in 2015. The attacks against tourists, for which ISIS claimed responsibility, took place at beachfront hotels.

April 5 - Columbia

Though security is getting better in tourist cities like Bogota, Medellin, Barranquilla and Cartagena, however the incidence of drug-trafficking violence in urban areas has led to the deaths of American citizens. The threats including muggings and robberies, have occurred on the streets and while using public transit. The U.S. Department of State urges caution when traveling outside of major cities.

April 7 - Pakistan

The U.S. Department of State suggests avoiding non-essential travel to Pakistan due to the significant risk of terrorist attacks targeting U.S. Citizens. Suicide bombing incidents have occurred where U.S. Citizens congregate including airports, shopping districts and churches.

April 11 - Saudi Arabia

The threats targeted against U.S. Citizens by terrorist groups, affiliated with ISIL or Al-Qaida continues to be strong. The U.S. Department of State urges caution in areas where westerners gather; such as housing developments, restaurants, marketplaces, international schools and hotels. Multiple attacks have been in the form of mass shootings, explosions and suicide bombings.

April 14 - Central African Republic

Due to rapidly deteriorating security systems and the increase of violent sectarian crime, U.S. Citizens are encouraged to leave immediately. Since the overthrow of the government, looting and violence is a real threat causing airports and means of travel to be restricted with little or no warning. U.S. Citizens in need of help should contact the U.S. Embassy in Yaounde.

April 15 - Mexico

Organized crime continues to be a threat to U.S. Citizens. Violent crimes including homicide, kidnapping, carjacking, and robbery can happen anywhere, even in broad daylight. Before traveling to Mexico, check the U.S. Department of State website for a list of state-by-state assessments.

April 18 - Chad

High levels of violent crime against U.S. Citizens from terrorists groups such as The Islamic State in the West Africa Province continue to be a threat. Bombings as well as kidnapping for ransom are a threat to travelers who should be on alert in locations such as marketplaces, restaurants and places where large groups gather.

Pristine Agency is a wholesale travel provider located in Henderson, NV who offers unique travel experiences to destinations around the world.

Photos:

http://www.prlog.org/12551928

Press release distributed by PRLog

SOURCE Pristine Agency

Related Links

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"The run was as nice as it's ever been. No one was behind me on the turn so I knew I had it because before, when I've been caught, it was halfway on the run," said Dye who has competed here nine times and finished first at St. Anthony's a total of three times. "The water was the flattest ever and there was not a single bump all the way. This race is fantastic. Other than Boulder, it feels like I have home field advantage here," Dye said.

Haskins, 35, of Clermont crossed the finish line with a time of 1:58:31, 23 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Alicia Kaye, 32, also from Clermont, who followed at 1:58:54. Lauren Goss, 28, from Mount Pleasant, SC, earned a spot on the podium finishing third with a time of 2:02:11.

"I was leading most of the way on the bike, minus the last half mile. That was when Alicia passed me and it turned into a footrace for the first half of the run. I figured I could out sprint the others so I backed off a bit until the last 400 meters, sprinted and that was that," Haskins said.

The professional field included past winners, Olympians and accomplished athletes who came from around the world and throughout the Tampa Bay area to race. The triathlon course incorporated a variety of distances from the sport including Ironman and 70.3 racing, to the non-drafting Olympics distance and the ITU.

St. Anthony's Triathlon's scenic course winds along the waterfront of downtown St. Petersburg and encompasses the following distances: 1.5K (0.9 miles) swim, 40K (24.8 miles) bike and 10K (6.2 miles) run.

Winning the Third Annual St. Anthony's Sprint Triathlon men's division was John Reback, 46, North Palm Beach with at time of 1:00:20. Coming in second was Anthony Aseere, 40, of Clermont, at 1:03:34, followed by Jeff Hoffman, 37 from Tampa, who finished at 1:04:20.

In the women's Sprint race, Celia Dubey, 44, of Tarpon Springs, won with a time of 1:07:41. She came in ahead of Yelena Maloney, 36, of Tampa, who had a time of 1:09:36 and Rebecca Martz, 22, of Berkeley Springs, WV, who finished third at 1:09:41.

The sprint race followed the same course as the Olympic distance event but with shorter distances  a 750-meter swim, 20K bike and 5K run. It featured hundreds/thousands of athletes of all ages and all abilities.

For more information about the 2016 races, athletes and fans can also visit the St. Anthony's Triathlon Facebook page: Facebook.com/StAnthonysTriathlon. Registration for the 2017 races will begin Dec. 1, 2016.

About St. Anthony's Hospital

St. Anthony's Hospital is a 393-bed hospital founded in 1931 as a ministry of the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany. Celebrating its 85th year in 2016, St. Anthony's continues its rich history dedicated to improving the health of the community by providing high-quality, innovative and compassionate care. For more information on St. Anthony's, call (727) 953-6993 or go to www.BayCare.org/SAH.

About BayCare Health System

BayCare is a leading not-for-profit health care system that connects individuals and families to a wide range of services at 14 hospitals and hundreds of other convenient locations throughout the Tampa Bay and central Florida regions. Inpatient and outpatient services include acute care, primary care, imaging, laboratory, behavioral health, home care and wellness. Our mission is to improve the health of all we serve through community-owned health care services that set the standard for high-quality, compassionate care.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160424/359240

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160424/359239

SOURCE St. Anthony's Triathlon
BELGRADE, Serbia, April 24, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic's Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) today won a new electoral mandate to pursue what it terms the European path, and its goals of strengthened democracy and legal reform, claiming 51% of the vote according to preliminary results. If confirmed by the official results, to be announced on April 28, this would mean a renewed SNS majority in the Serbian parliament.

Having first been elected to head a majority government in 2014, Mr. Vucic called the early election because he said he needed four more years to enact the deep reforms needed to meet his objective of readiness for EU membership by 2020. During the campaign he called on voters to support Serbia's European path, without abandoning her traditional allies. He also indicated that there will be early steps to restructure his government, including a number of cabinet changes.

"This election today is a vote for a future of prosperity," Mr. Vucic told the press as the extent of his party's victory became plain. "We are moving now on a path from stabilization to prosperity. It will not be easy, it will not happen overnight, but I am sure it is possible and achievable and I am committed to lead this path."

The Vucic government is credited with taking strong steps against corruption, including institutional reforms of the judicial and law enforcement systems. On the economy, liberalized tax and company formation policies have helped make Serbia more attractive for inward investment, leading this year to a marked rise in its ranking in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business index, from 91st to 59th place. Following six years of contraction, the economy grew 0.8 per cent last year. Meanwhile, unemployment has fallen to 17.3 per cent from a peak of 23.9 per cent in 2012. Over the past two years, 120,000 new jobs were created.

"We have no time for celebrations," Mr. Vucic said. "The new government will have a huge responsibility and a lot of work and we would like to form it as soon as possible. We will speak to all those who would like to speak with us, who would like to share our program."

About the Serbian Progressive Party

Founded in 2008 by a breakaway group from the Serbian Radical Party, the SNS aimed to draw a line under the country's challenging post-war legacy in order to pursue Serbia's ambitious plans towards membership of the European Union. Building on the strength of its partnerships with its neighbours, Serbia under Mr. Vucic's leadership aims to see EU entry by 2020 and position itself as a key political and economic player in Europe.

SOURCE Serbian Progressive Party
If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this





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Ahmedabad, April 20 : A Jet Airways flight to Mumbai was thoroughly searched here on Wednesday following a bomb threat which authorities later declared to be a hoax.

The passengers were evacuated and the plane was towed to an isolation bay. The flight was carrying 125 passengers and six crew members. Security agencies then searched the baggage, cargo and the aircraft itself.

"The cleaning staff found a chit mentioning the word 'bomb' when the plane was being readied to fly to Mumbai," a police official said.

"However, we found nothing incriminating and the aircraft was cleared for take off," the official added.

The flight took off after a delay of about three hours. Police detained three suspects but released two of them.

The third person, a chartered accountant working with a leading consulting firm, was picked up from a hotel near the airport as the chit was found from under his seat.
Los Angeles, April 22 : Legendary pop musician Prince, who passed away at the age of 57, was reportedly treated for a drug overdose six days before his death.

Prince's jet plane made an emergency landing in Moline, Illinois, on April 15 due to a medical emergency.

Doctors gave Prince a "safe shot" after he was rushed to the hospital, something reportedly given to counteract the effects of opiates, reports tmz.com.

Doctors reportedly advised that Prince stay in the hospital for 24 hours. He left, however, after three hours.

Authorities found Prince unresponsive in an elevator when they arrived Thursday morning, responding to a 911 call. First responders tried cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), but were unable to revive the pop star and he was pronounced dead at 10.07 a.m.

Police are continuing to investigate the circumstances of Prince's death. His autopsy will be performed on Friday.

The Carver county sheriff's office also released the transcript of the 911 call that an unidentified male made to report Prince's death. The caller said the people at the house were "distraught", and said he didn't know how Prince died.
Chennai, April 22 : National Award-winning actor Bobby Simhaa and actress Reshmi Menon entered into wedlock in Tirupathi on Friday.

According to a source close to the couple, the wedding was attended by the families of the bride and groom, besides some close friends.

"Besides the families of Bobby and Reshmi, filmmaker Karthik Subbaraj and producer Elred Kumar were present at the wedding," the source told IANS.

The couple, who fell in love on the sets of last year Tamil film "Urumeen", will have their wedding reception here on Sunday.

Bobby made his acting debut with 2012 Tamil film "Kadhalil Sodhappuvadhu Yeppadi", won the National Award for his performance in the critically acclaimed 2014 film "Jigarthanda".

Reshmi has starred in Tamil films such as "Burma", "Maya" and "Kirumi".
Berlin, April 23 : German Chancellor Angela Merkel and top EU officials will on Saturday visit the Turkish-Syrian border to promote a controversial month-old migrant deal.

The visit comes amid questions over the legality of the EU-Turkey pact, which deports back to Turkey migrants who do not qualify for asylum in Greece.

Human rights groups said Turkey is not a safe place to return people, BBC reported.

Turkish officials have warned the deal could collapse if demands for visa-free EU travel for its citizens were not met.

The chancellor has faced opposition in Germany for her migration policies and has defended the deal with Turkey despite opposition from some European partners.

Her trip comes as she faces additional pressure for agreeing to the prosecution of a German comedian accused of insulting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Advocates of freedom of speech in both Turkey and Germany have called on Merkel to send out a strong message on the issue during her visit.

It has been over a month now since the migrant deal between the EU and Turkey was struck, but not everyone was convinced that it was working smoothly.

Although the number of migrants reaching Greece from Turkey has dropped by around 80 percent, few EU experts have arrived in the field, and many EU nations are dragging their feet to accept more migrants in.

Angela Merkel said the aim of the visit was to see the living conditions of migrants in Turkey.

More will be on the table, such as the promise of visa-free travel for Turkish citizens willing to go to Europe, which seems to be one of the most contentious issues.

The goal of the EU-Turkey deal is to deter migrants, mainly Syrians and Iraqis, from making the crossing between Turkey and Greece.

Under the agreement, migrants who have arrived illegally in Greece since March 20 are expected to be sent back to Turkey if they do not apply for asylum or if their claim is rejected.

For each Syrian migrant returned to Turkey, the EU will take in another Syrian who has made a legitimate request.

The scheme has reduced sharply the number of arrivals, from more than 56,000 in February to around 7,800 over the past 30 days, according to the European Commission.

However, the International Organisation of Migration said unofficial data for arrivals in Greece in recent days suggested the numbers were picking up again.

The promised relocation to EU countries seems to be slow as nations were reluctant to take in more migrants -- 103 Syrians have been resettled from Turkey to Europe, the commission said.

The EU has pledged up to $6.8 billion (4.5 billion pounds) in aid to Turkey over the next four years.

Ankara, however, expects more, including visa liberalisation, a point which faces opposition of some EU members.

"If the European Union does not take the steps it needs to take, if it does not fulfil its pledges, then Turkey won't implement this agreement," Erdogan said earlier this month.

The agreement said Turkey must meet 72 conditions by May 4 to earn the visa waiver, but diplomats said only half of those points have been met so far.

Turkey already hosts some 2.7 million Syrian refugees, at a cost of over $10 billion (7 billion pounds), the government said.
Mumbai, April 23 : Versatile actor Arvind Swamy, who has ruled the Southern film industry for a long time, says he hopes to wield the megaphone soon.

"I have plans to get into direction. Yes, I have written two scripts that I will be directing soon in a year or so. I am not sure whether it will be in Hindi or Tamil," Arvind told IANS.

Arvind, who made his Bollywood debut with Mani Ratnam's 1992 film "Roja", is returning to the Hindi film world with debutant director Tanuj Bhramar's upcoming film "Dear Dad".

The actor feels now audiences have changed and they are more receptive to new ideas.

"I was not working for a while, but now I wanted to come back and enjoy my work. These days audiences have also changed... They are more receptive to new ideas. I didn't want to do the regular films. Now, it's my time to choose films with so many options that I have," he said.

"Dear Dad" is a bitter-sweet coming-of-age story involving a father-son duo -- 14 year old Shivam and his 45-year-old father Nitin Swaminathan.
Mumbai, April 23 : Actress Shraddha Kapoor termed the death of popular musician Prince as "unfortunate" and remembered his distinct style of singing.

"It's very unfortunate, he was a legend. He had a very distinct way of singing, so it's very unfortunate that the music world has lost another legend. Rest in peace, Prince!" Shraddha about Prince's death at a radio station on Friday to promote her upcoming film, "Baaghi".

Prince was found dead at his Minnesota home on Thursday. He became a superstar in the 1980s, with the albums "1999", "Purple Rain" and "Sign O' the Times".

Shraddha was without her "Baaghi" co-star Tiger Shroff at the radio station.

"My favourite 'baaghi' Tiger is not well, so he couldn't come today. But you all can wish him, 'Get well soon, Tiger'," she said.

With "Baaghi" releasing next week, Shraddha is busy promoting the film across various platforms.

"Promotions are interesting, of course it can get a little tiring and hectic, but it's fun. The trailer got a lot of love, so here's hoping people will like the film," she said.

"Baaghi" has been directed by Sabbir Khan and also stars Telugu star Sudheer Babu.
Istanbul, April 24 : German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European Union officials visited a refugee camp on the Turkish-Syrian border on Saturday, one month after helping finalize a controversial EU plan to cope with the largest migration crisis since World War II.

Merkel's visit to the Nizip camp -- a sprawling complex where migrants are housed in tents and metal containers, about 30 miles east of the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep -- is intended to counter opponents of the deal, which has been criticized by human rights groups, CNN reported.

A tweet from European Council President Donald Tusk included a photo of Merkel and others being greeted with flowers presented by young women in white dresses: "Visiting victims of Syria war at #Nizip refugee camp in Turkey."

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu led the EU representatives on a tour of the camp, where they greeted children and inspected living conditions. They also inaugurated a child protection center in Gaziantep.

European Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans told reporters the camp was evidence of the "commitment of the Turkish people to accommodate en enormous influx of refugees."

"I think we, as Europeans, should state very clearly today that you are not alone in this," he said.
New Delhi : Title: Chittagong Armoury Raid: A Memoir; Author: Subodh Roy; Publisher: LeftWord Books; Pages: 137; Price: Rs.175 It cost only Rs.18,000 to prepare for the 1930 Chittagong Armoury Raid. That - coupled with steely determination by a ragtag group of patriots - was enough to shake the British in a far corner of India before the attackers were hunted down, tortured and sentenced to long jail terms. This is a moving story of that blood-soaked piece of history, written by the youngest participant who was 14 years old then.

Subodh Roy was born into an affluent family in Chittagong - his father was a successful lawyer - and had no interest in politics until a friend's brother convinced him that ending the British Raj was more important than building a career. So, at age 12, Roy became a volunteer at the conference of the Congress party when it was held in the port town (then East Bengal, now in Bangladesh) in 1928. This is where he first met Surya Sen, popularly known as 'Master Da', the later mastermind of the armoury raid.

Roy, who years later became a key figure in the CPI-M, recalls how Surya Sen and his men went about preparing for the Chittagong assault by procuring cars (to transport the attackers), buying illegal arms and manufacturing explosives. Ironically, for an event that was built on violence, the attack began with the young revolutionaries shouting at those guarding the police armoury: "Bhag jao, abhi Gandhi raja ho gaya!" (Run away, Gandhi has become the king.)

As the armoury was broken open, Surya Sen hoisted the tricolour and declared Chittagong to be independent. The telephone exchange and the telegraph office in Chittagong town were also destroyed to disrupt the enemy's communication channels. A simultaneous attack was launched on the Auxiliary Force Armoury manned by Anglo-Indians and Europeans. All the rifles and machine guns were captured but, sadly, there were no bullets!

As the meticulously planned attack succeeded, fear gave way to confidence and vacillation and uncertainty gave way to grim determination. But the British showed no mercy. In the final battle on the Jalalabad hill, British machine guns cut down several revolutionaries who had wanted to wage a guerrilla war with the newly captured weapons. One by one, those who did not die fighting the British were caught, tortured and jailed. A few escaped. Roy was among the 12 transported for life in the Andamans where scorpions and bed bugs were the prisoners' companions.

As fate would have it, the prisoners got Marxist and socialist books to read in the Andamans. Surprisingly, it is the government which provided the books in the hope that the revolutionary prisoners would be better off reading than plotting protests in the prison. In the process, the British sowed the seeds of communism in the minds of Roy and many others. Freed after eight years in jail, Roy joined the undivided Communist Party of India and, much later, the breakaway CPI-M. In September 2001, Roy gave the manuscript of this book to a friend with a request that it should be published only after he dies. If you want to know the Chittagong slice of India's history, read this book.

(M R Narayan Swamy can be contacted at narayan.swamy@ians.in)

Latest updates on Gandhi Jayanti 2019
Washington, April 24 : US First Lady Michelle Obama has targeted Mississippi's recent controversial "religious freedom" bill that has come under attack from rights groups.

"We see it right here in Mississippi how swiftly progress can hurtle backward," Michelle said at the Jackson State University on Saturday.

"How easy it is to single out a small group and marginalise them because of who they are or who they love."

Mississippi is under growing criticism from human rights groups and businesses over a controversial law passed on April 5 restricting the rights of the LGBT - lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender - community.

Under the law, religious organisations will be able to deny LGBT people marriage, adoption and foster care services, fire or refuse to employ them, and decline to rent or sell them property.

Medical professionals will be permitted to refuse to participate in treatments, counselling and surgery related to "sex reassignment or gender identity transitioning".

"So we've got to stand side by side with all our neighbours -- straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender; Muslim, Jew, Christian, Hindu immigrant, Native American -- because the march for civil rights isn't just about African Americans, it's about all Americans," she said.

In her speech, the first lady also reflected on the heated political battles her husband had endured as president and urged students not to fall into disarray over the "anger and vitriol" in the political environment.

"We pay endless attention to folks who are blocking action, blocking judges, blocking immigration, blocking a raise in the minimum wage. Just blocking," Obama said.

"We are consumed with the anger and vitriol that are bubbling up, with folks shouting at each other, using hateful and divisive language."

Michelle also spoke about criticism directed towards her husband over his eight years as president, including jibes made by Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.
New Delhi, April 24 : Blame it on spectrum! That's been the alibi of telecom operators on many of the ills in the system, including the call drop menace. As India readies for the next round of airwaves auction -- bigger than the $17-billion previous round -- what does it herald?

Stakeholders concede the next round of auction, which they expect some time in June, will put on the block the widest range of these scarce airwaves -- in the bands 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1,800 MHz, 2,100 MHz, 2,300 MHz and 2,500 MHz.

Further, going by the base price recommended by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the industry watchdog, and the quantum that will be auctioned, the mop-up's expected to be some Rs.560,000 crore, or a whopping $83 billion, payable over the tenure of the contract.

This is where the misgivings have already started. Industry estimates suggest telecom companies are already reeling under a debt of more than Rs.300,000 crore. At the recommended prices, the auction will swell their debt burden by as much as 185 percent.

"For the first time, the government has put abundant quantum of spectrum up for auction. But clearly, funding will be a tight squeeze for the players," said Rajan S. Mathews, the director general of the Cellular Operators' Association of India.

"Banks are also over-leveraged on the sector," Mathews told IANS.

The contention starts with the reserve price. In the Delhi circle, TRAI has recommended Rs.1,595 crore for 700 MHz band, Rs.848 crore for 800 MHz, Rs.673 crore for 900 MHz, Rs.399 crore for 1,800 MHz, Rs.554 crore for 2,100 MHz, and Rs.143 crore for 2,300 MHz and 2,500 MHz.

Given this, Mahesh Uppal, director of independent consultancy Com First, feels the base price is rather steep. "Many are already under pressure. However, this will hurt smaller players most," Uppal told IANS.

Giving the present status over total spectrum held by some top telecom companies, ratings agency ICRA says Airtel tops the list with 763 MHz, Reliance Jio is next with 596 MHZ, followed by Reliance Communications (304 MHz), Vodafone (295 MHz) and Idea (271 MHz).

At the moment, Bharti and Reliance Communications are the only two companies that have spectrum in all the 22 circles for both voice and 4G data services. Reliance Jio has this in 20 circles for voice, none for 3G data and in all the 22 circles for 4G.

Stakeholders and experts feel apart from auctioning of spectrum, the government should also make available unused airwaves with state-run companies -- Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Ltd (MTNL) -- to the private players through trading and sharing routes.

"The government should look at making use of the spectrum that the two state-run telcos hold -- between 6 MHz and 12 MHz in each and every bandwidth in all the 22 circles between them. They should particularly free up space in the 900 MHz space by trading and sharing," Mathews said.

In fact, in a bid to maximise spectrum usage, several trading and sharing deals were negotiated.

These include the ones that were struck between Reliance Jio and Reliance Communications, Bharti Airtel and Videocon and Bharti and Aircel -- as also some that did not materialise, like the one between Idea Cellular and Videocon.

"Spectrum trading allows smaller telcos to monetise underutilized holdings and the larger telcos to attain spectrum outside the auction. Thus the trend of consolidation of spectrum holdings of the telcos is expected to continue in the medium term," said ratings agency ICRA.

How will it impact on the menace of call drops?

"Certainly the auction will be important for service providers considering the various challenges they have been facing like call drops. It will improve customer experience and manage exponential data growth," Rishi Tejpal, principal research analyst at Gartner, told IANS.

"But putting forward the right reserve price will be key for the success of the auction."

Experts feel spectrum is just one issue for solving the call drop problem. The government must also facilitate in areas such as contiguity of these airwaves for their optimal utilisation and ensure that they face no hurdles in erecting towers.

But which are the frequencies that will attract more attention in the auctions? Experts maintain that since voice has matured with 82 percent tele-density and low incremental revenues from it, data will be the next focus for spectrum acquisition.

"Data remains major thrust area for telcos as the segment is relatively under-penetrated," said ICRA. "The growth in data revenues has been robust at around 120 percent over the last two years. This has resulted in increased focus of the telecom companies on enhancing their data services."

Uppal said: "I would expect most focus on the 800 MHz and 2,100 space MHz since it is immediately deployable. The 900 MHz and 1,800 MHz are valuable, but the amount available is small. There will be a modest interest in 2,300 MHz as well, used by Jio and some others for 4G services.

"But 700 MHz band will pose problems in view of the very high reserve price. Some companies like Telenor and Vodafone India have expressed some interest in it and others could bid defensively," Uppal added.

(Aparajita Gupta can be contacted at aparajita.g@ians.in)
Mumbai, April 24 : JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar alleged on Sunday that a passenger tried to strangle him on board a Mumbai-Pune flight here but the airline refused to act against the attacker.

In a series of tweets, Kanhaiya Kumar said the passenger attacked him inside the aircraft 9W 618 when it was due to depart.

When he brought it to the notice of the Jet Airways staff, they off-loaded him and the alleged assailant who was detained by the security.

Kanhaiya Kumar said he left for Pune by road for his scheduled engagement in the city.

The airline said: "Some guests on board this morning's flight Jet Airways fight 9W 618 Mumbai-to-Pune have been off-loaded at Mumbai airport in the interest of operational safety."

Said the leader of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union: "Yet again, this time inside the aircraft, a man tries to strangulate me."

He alleged that the airline staff refused to take any action against the attacker.

"After the incident, Jet Airways staff completely refuses to take any action against the man who assaulted me.

"Basically Jet Airways sees no difference between someone who assaults and the person who is assaulted. They will deplane you, if you complain," he said.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra Minister of State for Home Ram Shinde asserted that there was no attack on Kanhaiya.

"The police report says that fighting between two passengers led to scuffle. Kanhaiya's allegations (are) baseless," Shinde said.

In view of the development, Pune Police have further tightened security for Kanhaiya Kumar for his events in the city.

The student leader was arrested on sedition charges on February 12 after allegedly raising anti-India slogans at the JNU campus. He was given bail after police failed to produce any evidence to back the charge.
Kolkata, April 24 : The BJP and the CPI-M on Sunday filed separate police complaints here against West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress for publishing a morphed picture showing Home Minister Rajnath Singh offering sweets to former Marxist general secretary Prakash Karat.

The morphed picture was one of several pictures displayed by Trinamool's Rajya Sabha member Derek O'Brien on Saturday in an attempt to prove close links between Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders.

While the CPI-M has filed complaints both with Delhi and Kolkata police against O'Brien, the BJP in its complaint here named Trinamool supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and party general secretary Subrata Bakshi besides O'Brien.

"In our complaint, we have named Banerjee, Bakshi and O'Brien and demanded their arrest for this fraud," said BJP leader Jayprakash Majumdar.

Citing the example of Jadavpur University professor Ambikesh Mahapatra, who was arrested in 2012 for circulating a spoof on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Marxist veteran and Left Front chairman Biman Bose demanded O'Brien be arrested.

"The chief minister should immediately order the arrest of Derek O'Brien. The reason for which Ambikesh Mahapatra, who had forwarded a cartoon, was arrested and sent behind bars, is applicable for O'Brien also. He deserves to be in jail," said Bose.

The Trinamool on Saturday acknowledged the picture was photoshopped and removed it from its website. Subsequently O'Brien too admitted it was a "mistake", and sought to "end the chapter".
London, April 24 : Far from making you smarter, electrical stimulation of the brain's cells while solving challenging tasks can lead to mental overload, warn researchers.

The researchers wanted to test whether a treatment that sends a very weak electrical current through the skull to the outer layers of the brain, so-called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), can actually make us smarter.

The tasks for the participants were divided into three levels -- simple, medium and difficult.

The researchers found no effect of stimulation when participants performed the simple and medium tasks, yet they found a large negative effect on the most difficult tasks.

"tDCS had a disruptive effect only on the most difficult tasks that demanded a lot of concentration," said one of the lead researchers, James Roe from the University of Oslo in Norway.

"We saw that participants experienced severe problems concentrating when the task was most difficult and the brain was being stimulated," Roe noted.

"It was as though tDCS had completely overloaded a brain region crucial to performing the task, as though it crashed it," Roe explained in a paper published in the journal Neuropsychologia.

In recent times neuroscientists have been showing increased interest for tDCS. Many claim that the device can, among other things, help improve memory, increase self-control and make us more creative.

tDCS is already implemented in the rehabilitation of a range of psychiatric and neurological conditions, such as depression, stroke, Alzheimer's disease, fibromyalgia and tinnitus.

While the researchers acknowledged that tDCS can indeed have a positive impact, they said the study shed light on the effects of tDCS when we solve tasks of varying difficulty.
News / Regional

by Vusumuzi Dube

BELEAGUERED Milton High School head Mr William Ncube and his deputy Mrs Nosizi Muleya have been transferred with a mini handover-takeover ceremony being conducted by Government officials at the school on Wednesday.Officials from the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education said the head has been transferred to Magwegwe High School swapping with Mr Similo Ncube who was heading the school.Mrs Muleya has been replaced by Mr Malusi Mazibuko who was the deputy head at Gifford High School. She was transferred to deputise at Ihlathi High School in Tshabalala. Mr Mazibuko was the caretaker head when the two were initially suspended.Mr William Ncube and Mrs Muleya were initially suspended in October last year after an audit exposed alleged financial rot at the school. They allegedly swindled the institution of more than$10 000 and routinely flouted sound governance procedures.Their disciplinary hearings were held on 18 January and due to the expiry of their three months suspension they had been back in office since 25 January pending the outcome of proceedings.In the latest developments, a Sunday News crew observed a delegation from the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education and the Civil Service Commission overseeing the handover-takeover. The crew were, however, barred from entering the school.Primary and Secondary Education Ministry Permanent Secretary Dr Sylvia Utete-Masango without giving details confirmed the transfers."Our officers were in Bulawayo to effect the recommendations from the disciplinary hearings, contact the provincial education office for details," she said.Contacted for comment, Bulawayo provincial education director Mr Dan Moyo declined to comment saying this was an internal confidential matter."You people why don't you want to leave this issue alone. Some things are sensitive and confidential please just let it go," said Mr Moyo.Officials said the ministry which had earlier recommended that the two be demoted later felt that the two must just be transferred within the province.According to a letter dated 23 October outlining the charges against Mr Ncube and signed by the district education officer, Mrs Jane Ndebele, the ministry charged him with misconduct.Mr Ncube was accused of authorising the construction of a boom gate, guardroom and painting of a classroom at a total cost of $2 912 without holding finance committee meetings or following procurement procedures. He was also alleged to have authorised the installation of blinds and curtains at the school hall at a total cost of $3 245 without following procurement procedures.He was also accused of sending an unreasonable number of people, seven, to collect a kombi in Beitbridge thereby unnecessarily prejudicing the school of $310. The school head was also accused of receiving management incentives of $350 after incentives had been banned.Mr Ncube was further alleged to have also asked for an interest free loan of $2 150 from the SDA account for a chess competition in Durban in November 2014 and re-imbursed the money in February this year although terms and conditions for the loan were not spelt out.The charge sheet shows that Mr Ncube, in addition to the loan, also asked for an additional $300 pocket money and $73 for health insurance from the same account to do Nash business which was an unfair charge to the school.Charges against his deputy Mrs Muleya were not clear but sources said she was suspended by Mr Ncube prior to receiving his own suspension letter from the ministry.
Mumbai, April 24 : Shraddha Kapoor is not feeling well, and the actress was forced to skip promotions of her forthcoming film "Baaghi" due to her health.

The actress took to micro-blogging site Twitter on Sunday to share an update about her health, but refrained from getting into details about what's ailing her.

She posted: "Missing promotions today because I'm really unwell. Miss me ok Tiger Shroff, Sabbir Khan #BaaghiOn29thApril".

"Baaghi", produced by Sajid Nadiadwala, is a rebellious love story which will release on April 29. It also stars Telugu star Sudheer Babu.

-*-Vaani Kapoor indulges in sweetness of Paris Taking out some time from her busy shooting schedule, actress Vaani Kapoor went "Befikre" to pamper her sweet tooth.

The actress, who is shooting with Ranveer Singh for Aditya Chopra's "Befikre" in Paris, shared an image of a dessert that she had.

She posted: "Believe me it's heaven! #cheatday #carefreeinparis #igersparis".

The plot of the story has not been revealed. But going by the first look, where the lead pair can be seen locking lips in a carefree way, the film seems to be a passionate love story.

"Befikre", set to release on December 9, will mark the return of Aditya to direction. He last helmed "Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi" in 2008.

-*-Sidharth Malhotra's 'good deeds' lesson to Lilly Singh "Student of the Year" star Sidharth Malhotra took role of a teacher to impart a lesson to popular Indo-Canadian online personality Lilly Singh, also known by her YouTube username IISuperwomanII.

When the YouTube star "questioned her brain" for not following Sidharth on Twitter, the actor said it's never too late to do a good thing.

She tweeted "That moment when you realize you weren't following Sidharth Malhotra and question your brain functionality", and Sidharth responded "IISuperwomanII Never too late for good deeds! Congrats on unicorn".

To which, Lilly shared: "Thanks friend! Next time I'm in India...food together".
New Delhi, April 24 : Chief Justice T.S. Thakur on Sunday made an emotive appeal to the government to have more judges to ensure justice for all, prompting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to say he will tackle "the serious concerns".

Addressing a conference of chief ministers, chief justices of high courts and Supreme Court judges, Chief Justice Thakur said India's judiciary suffered from a poor judge-population ratio and serious vacancies even as it dealt with an "avalanches of cases".

The ratio was dismal compared to even other developed countries, he said, looking at the prime minister who was on the dais.

The chief justice took on the government over the failure to come up with judicial reforms, said judges should be told to work extra years when they retire, and hit out at the "commercial courts".

"It is not enough to criticise. You can't shift the entire burden on judges," he said, pointing out that nine judges of the American Supreme Court together decided 81 cases in a year whereas a judge in the Indian Supreme Court decided 2,600 cases a year.

"The only remedy is to establish more courts and increase the strength of the judges to 50 judges per million population."

According to the programme schedule, the chief justice was to speak for no more than 15 minutes. But an emotive Justice Thakur spoke for more than 35 minutes as he gave vent to his frustration.

Modi offered to set up a committee of government officers and people from the judiciary to address the issues. "I will make efforts to address the serious concerns."

India, the chief justice said, cannot achieve economic growth without a robust judiciary overseen by an adequate number of judges. This was also needed to attract foreign capital.

"Those whom we are inviting (to invest) are also concerned with the judicial system and justice delivery," he said. "Efficacy of the judicial system is so vitally connected with the development of the country."

He moaned that the suggestions of the apex court collegium for appointing more judges were pending with the government but "nothing really appears to be moving".

Justice delivery system was an illusion for 30 percent of the population living below poverty line, he said. "The infrastructure in the subordinate courts needs to be upgraded and vacancies filled."

He said more than 38 lakh cases were pending in the high courts and asked: "What is the way out?"

"We must do whatever is possible to reduce the pendency of the cases. The jails are full and overflowing."

At the same, every year, courts in India disposed off more than two crore cases.

In 1987, the government's Law Commission had said that India's judicial system needed 40,000 judges at different levels. Since then the country's population had increased by 30 crore people.

He recalled that when then chief justice Altmash Kabir told then prime minister Manmohan Singh in 2013 that nothing was being done to address the ills of the judicial system, the latter replied that it concerned state governments and they had no money.

Chief Justice Thakur took a dig at the government the way it dealt with commercial courts, saying they were not meant to draw on existing judicial infrastructure and judges strength.

The commercial courts in Dubai have "solemn and efficient environment", he said. But the way they worked in India won't "serve the purpose for which they were created".

He said one way to overcome the problem was to rope in trained judges to deal with the backlog of cases. "At this stage, to ask a judge to go home (after retirement) is criminal."
The multifarious attractions of Azerbaijan  both in Baku and the regions  were placed firmly in the spotlight The event was attended by more than 120 potential travellers to Azerbaijan, eager to know more about Azerbaijani culture, history and tourism opportunities.

An evening dedicated to Azerbaijan as a new, exotic destination for French tourists took place in Paris on 14 April, organised by the Nomade Aventure travel agency in collaboration with the French office of The European Azerbaijan Society (TEAS) and kindly hosted by the Cultural Service of the Azerbaijani Embassy in France, located in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. The event was attended by more than 120 potential travellers to Azerbaijan, eager to know more about Azerbaijani culture, history and tourism opportunities. The evening was supported by Ukrainian International Airlines, traditional partner of Nomade Aventure  which provided a tombola prize of flight tickets to Baku  and by the Qafqaz Baku Sport Hotel and Qafqaz Point Hotel, both of which offered two nights accommodation for the lucky winners.

Initially, Elmar Mammadov, Economic Advisor, Azerbaijani Embassy to France, explained that tourism is a priority sector for the country, and Issa Smatti, Area Director, Nomade Aventure, outlined the potential of Azerbaijan as a new key destination for this travel agency. Marie-Laetitia Gourdin, Director, TEAS, France, provided further information about Azerbaijan, focusing on its rich and vibrant cultural and historical heritage, together with giving some practical details on visiting the country. Pierre Thilloy, French composer and formerly Composer-in-Residence for the French Embassy in Azerbaijan, shared his experiences of the country, which he first visited in 2001. An enthusiast for Azerbaijan, he particularly concentrated on where to go to experience marvellous Azerbaijani food and the historic sites and areas of natural beauty that the country has to offer.

The presentation was followed by a visit of the museum and exhibition hall of the Cultural Service, where the audience discovered the treasures of the country through artefacts and the works of Azerbaijani artists. The audience then listened to an exquisite concert of Azerbaijani classical and traditional music performed by Azerbaijani pianist Etibar Asadli and Saddam Novruzbeyov on the balaban  a traditional Azerbaijani wind instrument  that mesmerised the attendees. Following the concert and the tombola, participants were invited to taste traditional Azerbaijani pastries, paklava and shakerbura, together with sampling healthy and energising pomegranate juice. The organisers are glad to report that several attendees have already booked travel to Azerbaijan.
Climate Leadership Catastrophe Signing the Paris Climate Agreement will put Canadas future at risk. We urge the Canadian government not to sign. Past News Releases RSS

Friends of Science Society is asking the Canadian government to refuse to sign the Paris Climate Change Agreement, slated for Earth Day, April 22, 2016, objecting to a statement by UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon that said this climate change issue should not be a subject of political debate as reported in the Wall Street Journal April 12, 2016. Friends of Science say it should be the subject of both political and scientific debate since undue influences have skewed markets and scientific messages, citing their new report Undue Influence  Markets Skewed.

Undue Influence  Markets Skewed indicates that vast sums of money from billionaire philanthropies are demonizing hydrocarbon use as reported by the July 30, 2014, US Senate Minority Report entitled The Chain of Environmental Command: How a Club of Billionaires and their Foundations Control the Environmental Movement and Obamas EPA.

Friends of Science Society say climate catastrophe claims driving radical climate policies are not supported by the evidence and question why Canadian politicians appear to offer partisan support to the recent joining of forces by three anti-oil Canadian ENGOs, as reported by The Rebel Media, April 14, 2016.

At Paris, Canadas Minister of Environment and Climate Change Minister called for a 1.5 degree Celsius target, claiming that the Marshall Islands were sinking and thus climate change action was urgent, says Michelle Stirling, Communications Manager for Friends of Science. In fact, it is reported that such islands may grow with sea level rise, Referring to the Jun 2, 2015 edition of New Scientists.

In peer-reviewed research in Global Policy of Nov. 9, 2015, Bjorn Lomborgs assessment of the Paris Agreement targets showed that even if all countries met their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, the outcome would only be a fraction of a degree (0.17 degrees Celsius) potential reduction in global warming by 2100.

Attempting to reach climate change targets for Canada would destroy the economy, according to a report by energy economist and former public servant Robert Lyman. This was also the prediction of Ezra Levant in 2002 in his book Fight Kyoto. Levant will be headline speaker at Friends of Science 14th Annual Event, May 10, 2016 a the Red and White Club in Calgary.

Signing the Paris Climate Agreement will put Canadas future at risk, says Stirling. We urge the Canadian government not to sign.

Friends of Science holds the view that the sun is the main direct and indirect driver of climate change, not you and not CO2.

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Friends of Science has spent a decade reviewing a broad spectrum of literature on climate change and have concluded the sun is the main driver of climate change, not carbon dioxide (CO2). Friends of Science is made up of a growing group of earth, atmospheric and solar scientists, engineers, and citizens.

Friends of Science Society

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Dr. Tom Kuntzleman, associate professor of chemistry at Spring Arbor University, has been announced as one of three video entry finalists competing in the fifth annual Flame Challenge. In his video entry, Dr. Kuntzleman utilizes a number of devices and experiments to give a dynamic and visually interesting answer to this years Flame Challenge question: What is sound?

The Flame Challenge is a global contest conducted by the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, New York. Since 2012, the Alda Center has used the Flame Challenge as a means of finding the best ways of communicating the wonder of science to 5th and 6th graders. Previous Flame Challenges have asked questions like what is a flame, and what is color. Schoolchildren pull double duty in determining the question to ask, and judging filmed, written and graphic entrants posing answers to that question. The winner of each category receives a $1,000 cash prize, a trip to New York City and honors at the 2016 World Science Festival.

Dr. Kuntzlemans submission was chosen as a video entry finalist from among hundreds of other entrants, though his penchant for communicating science to kids is not limited to the Flame Challenge. In addition to teaching undergraduate courses in chemistry at SAU, Dr. Kuntzleman also directs the popular Cougar Science Camp over the summer, a weeklong day camp open to kids who have completed grades K8th. He also exhibits his passion for science on Facebook and Twitter, where he posts videos of his in-lecture demonstrations and links to do-it-at-home experiments. Dr. Kuntzleman holds a bachelor of science in chemistry education from Bloombsburg University, a master of science in chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a doctorate in Physical Chemistry from the University of Michigan.

The Flame Challenge began in 2012. Imagined by actor Alan Alda as a way to convince the worlds best and brightest scientists of the necessity of clear and vivid communication with the public, and with schoolchildren specifically, it has gone on to become a wildly popular mechanism for giving both parties voice in the greater educational discourse.
Seniors are looking for new ways to leave a lasting legacy, and LifeBook is fulfilling that niche.

As seniors flock to The Villages, Florida, new company on the block, LifeBook, has experienced a surge of inquiries for their unique services. Individuals and families wanting to create a treasured archive of their lives, are relishing in the opportunity that LifeBook is now offering the Florida community.

Vice President Author Development at LifeBook USA, Duane Roemmich, said the demand for professionally written autobiographies was strong since the companys establishment in Florida in January 2016.

Seniors are looking for new ways to leave a lasting legacy, and LifeBook is fulfilling that niche, Mr Roemmich said.

For many seniors, so much about their lives remains unrecorded. Our process enables people to reconnect with their past and document these precious memories. LifeBook captures the triumphs and tribulations of life into a complete autobiography and a lasting legacy spanning generations, he said.

Linden Lawson said the LifeBook experience resulted in a renewed interest in life for her 96-year-old father, Robert.

The LifeBook experience has been a wonderful thing, both for myself and for my father. It has enlivened him and it has made him happier, Ms Lawson said.

Hes also got a sense of great pride in that this book is being published about him. Its something that he can, as a physical object, hand down to the family and to future generations, she said.

LifeBook was originally established in the United Kingdom in 2012 by Roy Moed. Mr Moeds goal was to find an affordable and accessible way for anyone, young or old, to create their very own personal autobiography, wherever they are in the world.

For further information about starting your LifeBook journey, contact 888-530-7373.
Were the perfect franchise for successful business men and women who are looking to build on their background and be a part of a high-energy brand with strong recognition and a cult-like fan base.

Attention cheesesteak lovers on the East Coast: Your lucky day may be just around the corner.

Tony Lukes Cheesesteaks -- an Internationally recognized brand that brings guests The Real Taste of South Philly -- is expanding beyond the Mid-Atlantic through an aggressive franchise expansion strategy targeting restaurant industry experts and entrepreneurs looking to own and operate a time-tested restaurant concept.

Franchise growth plans call for an additional 10 units sold over the next year, to add to the more than 20 current locations operating across the greater Philadelphia region and in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. The brand is looking to grow in southern markets along the I-95 corridor, into markets such as Richmond, Virginia, Charlotte, North Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, and Miami, Florida, among other key regions.

Were the perfect franchise for successful business men and women who are looking to build on their background and be a part of a high-energy brand with strong recognition and a cult-like fan base, said Tony Luke Jr., CEO of Tony Lukes Worldwide. Our model provides entrepreneurs a pathway to creating a lasting restaurant business with room for growth.

More than just a typical Philadelphia cheesesteak joint, Tony Lukes redefined the Philly sandwich experience with specialty favorites like the award-winning roast pork Italian and chicken cutlet. In fact, the cheesesteak was not on the menu originally. Philadelphias love for cheesesteaks prompted the Lukes to make their own version, which has stayed a bestseller since the addition to the menu in the early 90s. Tony Lukes menu now includes chicken cheesesteaks, seasoned french fries, hamburgers and more.

Tony Lukes works directly with cattle farms in the Midwest to supply stores with top-quality ribeye steak. All meat products are natural and the vegetables used in toppings are grown in Southern New Jersey and prepared with Luke family recipes. Sandwiches are served on Italian bread, baked in store every day. Each sandwich and food item is cooked to order.

Luke Jr. -- formally Lucidonio -- oversees the franchise. He is a restaurateur, actor, musician, and entertainer. Gourmet Magazine has twice hailed Luke and his restaurants for quality and innovation. Popular television series Throwdown! with Bobby Flay, Dinner: Impossible, Man v. Food, and Food Wars have all featured Luke and his restaurants on various episodes.

Tony Lukes works with MBB Management, a firm specializing in hospitality management, to run the brand from concept and development to licensing, day-to-day operations and financial accountability. Working alongside MBB, Tony Lukes has continued to expand through licensing and franchising, with close to 30 locations operating across the Mid-Atlantic and Bahrain.

For more information on the Tony Lukes franchise, visit tonylukes.com/franchise, email info(at)tonylukes(dot)com or call MBB Management at (609) 744-0132.

About Tony Lukes

Tony Lukes is a sandwich shop that specializes in Philadelphia favorites including cheesesteaks, roast pork sandwiches and chicken cutlets. Tony Lukes award-winning sandwiches are always cooked to order and served on freshly baked bread. Founded in South Philly in 1992, Tony Lukes has since turned into an international sandwich destination. With nearly 30 stores open across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and overseas in Bahrain, Tony Lukes is now extending franchise opportunities to owner-operators across the United States in select growth markets, working with MBB Management to aggressively grow.

For more information, visit tonylukes.com or call MBB Management (609) 744-0132.
AssetSmart, the leader in integrated asset management software solutions, today announced that Brian E. Thompson, CMIR, CPPM CF has been appointed Vice President of Sales, responsible for growing the companys revenues through license, subscription and professional services sales to both private and public-sector organizations, as well as leading and expanding its sales team and better integrating and aligning sales activities with the companys overall strategy.

Thompson rejoins AssetSmart with more than 25 years experience in delivering leading-edge enterprise asset management and financial software solutions, with a deep focus on ERP, platform infrastructure and cloud applications. He was previously instrumental in on-boarding many multi-billion-dollar aerospace/defense clients at AssetSmart and has progressive experience in the areas of executive leadership, strategic planning, business development, channel partners, compliance and customer success.

Brian has a demonstrated track record as a respected leader, asset management evangelist, and successful business builder. He continuously cultivates strong business relationships as well as educates our marketplace about beneficial innovations, said AssetSmart CEO Christopher J. Campbell. We are thrilled to have another proven subject matter expert and customer-centric professional on our team. Brian will play a key role in executing upon our aggressive growth plans as well as in helping AssetSmart become more responsive to our customers ever-evolving needs.

Thompson has earned the CMIR (Certified Manager of Investment Recovery) certification from the Investment Recovery Association, and from NPMA he earned the CPPM (Certified Personal Property Manager) credential and also was awarded their highest honor  the CF (Consulting Fellow) designation.

Whats exciting about rejoining AssetSmart is that we already have so many critical success factors in place including the industrys most advanced software suite, a unique customer value proposition, a strong culture of innovation and collaboration, and a loyal user base of fantastic organizations and individuals, said Thompson. We are well positioned to take the next step forward, and Im excited to be leading the sales team on this journey.

Thompson earned a masters degree in Business Administration and a bachelors degree in Management from Pepperdine University.

About AssetSmart

Founded in 1971, AssetSmart ( http://www.assetsmart.com ) provides a comprehensive suite of integrated asset, test equipment, and material management solutions for aerospace, defense, electronics, communications, manufacturing, and government organizations. AssetSmart is owned by PMSC and based at 26707 Agoura Road, Suite 201 Calabasas, CA 91302, United States. For more information about AssetSmart, please visit: http://www.assetsmart.com
23-year-old Dusty Brandom who has Duchenne muscular dystrophy We must move this technology forward for all of the boys and young men with Duchenne, and we strongly advocate for FDA approval.

Coalition Duchenne, a Newport Beach, California based charity committed to raising awareness for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and funding for Duchenne research, is proudly attending the April 25 U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory committee hearing on the efficacy of the Sarepta Therapeutics novel Duchenne drug eteplirsen. The meeting at the Marriott Conference Center in Hyattsville, Maryland, could draw more than a thousand people. The FDA usually follows the recommendation of advisory panels and will decide on whether to approve eteplirsen by May 26.

Im excited to join hundreds of Duchenne advocates as we fight for the approval of eteplirsen, said Catherine Jayasuriya, founder and executive director of Coalition Duchenne. Our funding of the science underpinning eteplirsen goes back to Dr. Steve Wiltons work on oligonucleotides over a decade ago.

Catherine funded the Dusty Brandom Fellowship at the University of Western Australia, commencing in 2005, in support of Dr. Wiltons research, elements of which are now licensed by Sarepta. The Dusty Brandom Fellowship was named after Catherines son Dusty, who is now 23 years old. Dusty has been a leader in creating awareness about Duchenne worldwide. He was featured in the 2013 award winning documentary, Dustys Trail: Summit of Borneo," and the 26th anniversary edition of the inspirational CBS television show Courage in Sports" in 2015.

The scientific and medical community are overwhelmingly in support of eteplirsen approval. I know it is challenging for the FDA to review fast tracked drugs for rare diseases but we need to get eteplirsen into the clinic, and also work on follow-on drugs that will help more boys with Duchenne. Boys like Dusty, said Catherine.

Eteplirsen skips a damaged part of the gene that codes for dystrophin, the protein missing in boys and young men with Duchenne. That damaged part of the gene, exon 51, was chosen because it is one of the more common genetic mutations.

Dusty has a relatively rare mutation on exon 16. Eteplirsen will not help him. However, follow-on drugs using the same technology will. We must move this technology forward for all of the boys and young men with Duchenne, and we strongly advocate for FDA approval, said Catherine.

About Coalition Duchenne

Coalition Duchenne was founded in 2011 to raise global awareness for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, to fund research and to find a cure for Duchenne. Coalition Duchenne is a 501c3 non-profit corporation. Its vision is to change the outcome for boys and young men with Duchenne, to rapidly move forward to a new reality of longer, fulfilled lives by funding the best opportunities for research and creating awareness.

Coalition Duchenne has several research initiatives that are making advances in potential cardiac and pulmonary treatments for sufferers of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. These include the pioneering collaboration with a team at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, led by Eduardo Marban MD, PhD, working on cardiac-derived stem cells and exosomes in Duchenne. This technology has been licensed by Capricor Therapeutics and they have launched an FDA trial. Coalition Duchenne was also instrumental advancing Phrixus Pharmaceuticals novel therapy Carmeseal. Phrixus recently announced a preclinical study showing strong results that showed Carmeseal protecting both skeletal and cardiac muscle in Duchenne.

For more information about Coalition Duchenne, visit http://www.coalitionduchenne.org.

About Duchenne muscular dystrophy

Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a progressive muscle wasting disease. It is the most common fatal genetic disease that affects children. Duchenne occurs in 1 in 3,500 male births, across all races, cultures and countries. Duchenne is caused by a defect in the gene that codes for the protein dystrophin. This is a vital protein that helps connect the muscle fiber to the cell membranes. Without dystrophin, the muscle cells become unstable, are weakened and lose their functionality. Life expectancy ranges from the mid teenage years to age 30.
Our community cares about its history and has shown it is willing to fight to preserve our heritage.

Take, for example, the outcry when Rock Island tried to sell the Hauberg mansion. The city agreed to keep it, and now volunteers are working to preserve, update and market it to better serve the community which owns it.

We suspect some of those same people will be among what we hope will be a large crowd at the 5:30 p.m. Wednesday meeting on Arsenal Island about the armys plans for another local treasure: the Rock Island Arsenal Museum.

While the garrison command has reassured Quad-Citians that the museum is NOT closing, our leaders are wise to worry about how major cuts in staffing and hours at the museum, as well as relocation of artifacts will impact our ability to preserve and tell our story.

It is a rich heritage that dates back to the Sauk and Fox tribes; a time before the European settlers ever migrated here. Each time one of the sites, structures or monuments which illustrate that rich past is gone, our community loses an opportunity to remember, and share tales of the things that made us who we are today.

Rarely are threats as immediate as the alarm sounded over the Arsenal Museums future. Many treasures are simply forgotten into oblivion. Some still can be saved, such as the Battle of Campbell's Island monument now being restored. But for every successful rescue, there is a lost cause; for example, the Moline Depot.

Hit and miss preservation strategies do more then threaten our heritage and destroy links to our past. Communities all around the world have discovered that history means tourism and tourism means dollars. It simply doesnt pay to approach preservation in the same, old way: By organizing to save them only after they are threatened with extinction.

Many of our treasurers, including the Arsenal Museum, are important to the region, so everyone in the greater-Quad-Cities area has a stake in what happens to them.

The trouble is that different cities apply different priorities to preservation. Rock Island is among the most proactive. For example, the Rock Island Historic Preservation Commission soon will consider a Heritage Tourism Plan that outlines steps to help the city preserve and promote its past. In other communities, preservation isnt even on the radar. No matter how engaged they are, however, all can benefit from a similar plan, on a regional scale. Thats no doubt why the Lakota Group included that recommendation in its Rock Island strategies.

A group of heritage advocates also have been tossing around the idea of regional planning., which would allow us to inventory our heritage assets BEFORE someone comes up with a plan to destroy them. A regional inventory also would help the Q-Cs market all our sites to those interested in reusing and sharing historic treasures.

Then, too, there is strength in numbers. So if, for example, the Black Hawk State Historic Site is threatened by Illinois budget mess, our community can join together to fight for it. And the notion of stakeholders meeting regularly to discuss our heritage is an effort worth making if only to keep the issue alive in peoples minds.

If youre interested in making such things happen, please email your support or ideas to the Quad Cities Convention and Visitors Bureaus Joe Taylor at jtaylorvisitquadcities.com or call him at 309-736-6820.

Remember, we cant save these pieces of our past once theyre gone.

Don't forget:

Town Hall meeting about the future of the Rock Island Arsenal Museum

When: 5:30 p.m. Wednesday

Where: Museum theater

Please enter the post through the Moline Gate
COLONA -- Homeowners in a rural Colona subdivision are upset about a pole building going up in their neighborhood.

Owners of 19 nearby properties filed a civil suit earlier this month claiming the construction violates both neighborhood restrictions and Henry County zoning ordinances. The suit states the building, owned by Brett and Melissa Swanson, is for business purposes, which is not permitted or allowed under the zoning ordinance.

On Thursday, Judge Jeffrey O'Connor issued a temporary restraining order halting construction. The next hearing on the suit is scheduled for May 3.

William Stengel, the Swansons' attorney, contested the idea of any zoning violation. We can guarantee absolutely that this is a residence, he told the judge, adding there is no commercial purpose whatsoever.

He said workers Thursday were putting up trusses and he will be claiming damages based of the temporary restraining order.

Mr. Stengel's written response in court files claims the subdivision has not enforced covenants for other structures and allowed numerous non-conforming uses of buildings.

Two couples  Patrick and Sheri Stohl and Mike and Brenda DeKezel  attended Thursday's hearing. Ms. Stohl said service people visiting their home have said, "Oh my gosh, what are they doing there?" because the pole building is so out of character.

She said such a structure wouldn't be allowed in other area subdivisions.

Patrick Stohl said the building's proximity to the street is part of the problem.

"If it had been (set) back, we probably wouldn't be in court, he said. It's just a pole barn in a residential area.

The couples said the Ponderosa Hills subdivision, located about 6 miles east of Colona north of Wolf Road, was created by Roy and Dorothy Goembel who also created a homeowners association. Although the homeowners association no longer exists, the couples said its covenants remain in effect.

The subdivision restrictions bar anything but single-family dwellings no taller than two and a half stories, with garages for no more than three vehicles. The restrictions renew automatically for 10-year periods unless a person or persons owning 75 percent or more of the lots sign off on the changes in whole or in part.

The Stohls said the day after their attorney, Nadine Palmgren, contacted Mr. Swanson to say he was in violation of the subdivision covenants, construction efforts ramped up with an estimated 20 people working on the building.

Henry County Zoning Officer Kyle Stromquist declined to comment on the matter.
ROCK ISLAND -- A company spokesman for a downtown Rock Island business moving its home office to a $7.2 million new building in Davenport said there is no firm date yet for the shift.

Meanwhile, Rock Island Mayor Dennis Pauley said there has been some interest expressed in the current headquarters of Bituminous Insurance Companies, 320 18th St., Rock Island, but nothing serious.

Richard Weinstein, vice president and director of NAI Ruhl Commercial Company, reiterated Mayor Pauley's comments, saying there has been interest on the sale of the downtown Rock Island building.

"I'm optimistic something will happen before very long," Mr. Weinstein said. "That would be my hope."

In July 2014, BITCO told city officials it was moving to Davenport. With it, 150 employees are moving out of Rock Island's downtown.

At the time of the announcement, Mayor Pauley said Bituminous made it perfectly clear they were doing the move on its own without Davenport poaching a business away from the Illinois Quad-Cities.

On Thursday, a Bituminous spokesman who did not want to give his name, said the company is still working some things out before moving, but was not specific. He could not give a timeline when the company would move across the river into Davenport.

A Davenport official said the new building is close to completion.

According to a Davenport building permit issued in July 2015, the location of the new Bituminous building is at 3700 Market Square Circle, south of Rave Cinemas, with the value tabbed at $7,218,823.

The owner of the Daveport property is S.J. Russell, LLC, 4600 E. 53rd St., Davenport. The contractor is Russell Construction Company. The commercial building is scheduled to be 42,676 square feet, according to the permit.

NAI Ruhl Commercial Company lists the sale price for the downtown Rock Island building at $1.1 million with the lot size being 1.03 acres. Rock Island County Supervisor of Assessments Larry Wilson said the property tax bill going out this year is $73,260.

The Rock Island headquarters was built in 1920.

"We know people have been looking at the building, but we don't know how serious they are at this time," Mayor Pauley said. "I'd like to see something, possibly retail, that would produce more income for the city.

"I want it to be put to good use. I know it needs some work."

Bruce Berger, Davenport community planning and economic development director, said Bituminous has not shared a timeline for moving with the city.

"As far as incentives, no, we have had no discussions with the company about them,": Mr. Berger said via email.
This past week I had the opportunity to share some thoughts about serving in the military at an event sponsored by the Augustana Veterans Support Group. Like many veterans who served during wartime, I have kept a lot bottled up inside me. But with the passing years, I am now able to be more open about what I experienced.

During the Vietnam era, there was great hostility directed toward those of us in uniform. I am very happy that is not the case today. It was good to see a substantial number of students at the event. That wouldnt have happened when I was on active duty.

Though the draft was still in place when I was in college and graduate school, I didnt have to serve in the military. I could have played the deferment game. But my name isnt Bill Clinton or Dick Cheney.

A student once asked why I would risk being killed when I didnt have to do so. My response was that it was the right thing to do.

That takes a little unpacking. Though I later changed my mind about U.S. involvement in Vietnam (and campaigned for Eugene McCarthy when he challenged Lyndon Johnson in the 1968 Democratic primary), I had been supportive of President Johnson when he sent ground troops to Vietnam. There are consequences for decisions we make, even if we change our minds. Integrity requires that we share in these consequences.

There was also a matter of equity. Less privileged members of society were more likely to be drafted than those more privileged. Because I had grown up dirt-poor on a farm which produced little income, I identified with those less privileged, even though by the time the war came along I was in a position of privilege as the result of scholarships and fellowships I received.

Navy the right fit

So I decided to enlist. The Army recruiter tried to sell me on artillery, enthusiastically stating that the Army had a great need for forward observers. I decided to see if I could find something more intellectually stimulating. I applied for the Air Force flight program and Naval Officer Candidate School and was accepted for both. I opted for the Navy.

As it turned out, I didnt end up in Vietnam, which is not to say that I was not in harms way. I served with the Naval Security Group, which is the surveillance and collection branch of naval intelligence. There are occupational risks in that line of work. We knew that if we were captured (as some of our people had been shortly before I went on active duty), we would be tortured.

We just about bought the farm on the first mission I was on. We were on standby for emergency destruct, which would have involved destroying everything the Navy didnt want to fall into unfriendly hands, including ourselves. Fortunately, the captain of the ship had a cool head and we got out of there.

I deeply believe in the ideals that are the foundation of our nation. Ideals such as the ringing affirmation of rights enshrined in our Declaration of Independence. It boldly asserts that there are certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness -- words that have resonated through the halls of history. Ideals such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion -- basic liberties which people in many countries can only dream about.

I am very tired of hearing people trash America. Yes, I know our country is far from perfect. Our ideals have not always been realized in practice. Yet these ideals appeal to, as Abraham Lincoln put it, the better angels of our nature. Thats whats right about America.

It was because I deeply believe in the ideals that are the heart and soul of our nation that I was willing to risk my life for our country and would have willingly sacrificed my life, had the situation called for so doing.
In the April 20 article, Health Department hails 50th Anniversary, public information officer Andrew Forbes was quoted as saying that despite ongoing state budget issues, the Health Department has not had to make any cuts and is operating at full capacity.

While the positive sentiment of his statement and of managements message is appreciated, it is not factual and is a disservice to all of the current employees at the Health Department who are working hard to dull the effects the state budget gridlock has on the department.

Lack of a state budget HAS had an impact on the Rock Island County Health Department.

In the past year, one employee has been laid off and over 10 positions have been left vacant.

These positions include an environmental health sanitarian who inspected restaurants within Rock Island County, a high-risk infant nurse who was tasked with medically tracking infants with major health risks throughout the county, three nursing positions, two case managers, and numerous other positions within the department.

Our staffing level is down nearly 20 percent over the last year and it would be unrealistic to report that the significant decrease in staffing has not had an impact on both employees and programs at the Health Department.

The most obvious effect of the state budget gridlock is the loss of the Local Health Protection Grant. The funds from this grant are needed to run the Environmental Health Program, which, among other services, inspects area restaurants, residential septic systems, and tracks the spread of West Nile Virus.

The Infectious Disease Program, which offers immunizations to the underinsured and refugees, tracks and monitors infectious diseases such as tuberculosis in our county, and provides STD testing for county residents, is also funded by this grant. These two programs, both of which are cornerstones of a health department, are not currently being funded by the state.

In the last year, the Rock Island County Health Department has been affected by losses in state funding and, due to the loss in funding, has had to make cuts in staffing and is not operating at full capacity.

Despite all of the hardships as a result of the states inability to pass a budget -- the loss of state funding, staffing cuts, and the positions left open through attrition -- the Health Department continues to provide high quality services and programs to the citizens of Rock Island County in an effort to promote and protect the health of our county.
The Association of American Railroads Tuesday noted the freight railroad industry has been recognized for the seventh consecutive year by G.I. Jobs magazine, a career guide for military job-seekers, for the industrys commitment to hiring military veterans.

Five Class I railroads were named in the magazines annual Top 100 Military Friendly-Employers list: CSX Corp. (No. 3 on the list); BNSF Railway (No. 6); Union Pacific (No. 12); Norfolk Southern (No. 19), and Canadian National (No. 63).

Americas freight railroads proudly support Americas service men and women and their families, said AAR President and CEO Edward R. Hamberger. Not only have railroads historically been a critical link in the supply chain during war time, but freight rail has been an industry in which many members of the armed services have found good-paying, private sector jobs. Today, almost 25% of the employees working for the nations freight railroads are current or former military service men and women.

The G.I Jobs list surveyed U.S. companies with earnings of more than $500 million in annual revenues and based the rankings on areas such as active recruitment efforts and results in hiring Americas former service members. The survey also looked at which companies have the best company policies for employees serving in the National Guard and Reserve. Of the 5000 companies eligible, only 2% were recognized by G.I. Jobs.

There is an attitude and skill set indicative of railroad employees that mirrors greatly with those of military service men and women, said Hamberger. Those characteristics that make for a successful military career also make for a successful railroad career. The freight rail industry plans to hire 15,000 people next year and we want veterans to consider a career in railroading.
For the week ending Oct. 15, 2022, total U.S. rail traffic was up 0.7% over the same week last year; carloads came in 3.2% higher while intermodal volume continued its downward trend, dipping 1.6%, according to the Association of American Railroads (AAR) Oct. 19 report.
Metrolinks new Arrow service will begin on Oct. 24 following a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Also, the Regional Transportation District (RTD) announces two zero fare days to encourage voter participation; the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) completes more than 80% of work outlined in its Refresh & Renew program; NJ Transit reaches agreement to fix issues at five stations on the Northeast Corridor (NEC); Austins Project Connect is back in the public eye; and Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) New York City Transit (NYCT) leadership ensures public safety announcements are being made.
Commentary

My son Craig is an automotive technician specializing in German high-performance cars (BMW M Class, Mercedes AMG, Porsches, etc.you get the picture.) He also owns a new Royal Enfield Continental GT motorcycle he has been modifying, and he and one of his buddies have started buying older rides to spruce up and modify. Craig got his start in his chosen field as a child, building Legos. He still collects and builds them.
Metro Vancouvers TransLink installs three digital murals reflecting the past, present and future of the region, through the lens of colonialism and reconciliation. Also, Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) celebrates 75 years of service; Metropolitan Transit Commission (MTC) of Charlotte, N.C., advances the LYNX Red Line project; Maryland Department of Transportation Maryland Transit Administration (MDOT MTA) launches a campaign to address sexual harassment on transit; Southern Californias Metrolink and local law enforcement promote highway/rail grade crossing safety; Metrolinx awards a contract for work to connect the Yonge North Subway Extension to existing TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) Line 1 service; and a limited-edition 1904 Sandwich has been created in recognition of the New York City subways 118th anniversary.
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Chattanooga Federal Employees Credit Union is sponsoring a Shred-It Day on Saturday.

Officials said the credit union "would like to invite you to stop by the Credit Union, located at 2011 Stein Dr. on April 30 between the hours of 8 a.m. and noon and shred your old documents.

"As a service to our members, and the community, we are offering this service in appreciation to our members and an effort to assure your old documents are destroyed properly and help eliminate identity fraud.

"Shred-it will shred your documents onsite and put your mind to rest.

"Please contact the Credit Union if you have any questions at 423 892-3738."
The Athens-Clarke County Commission approved the purchase of land to move Athens-Clarke County Fire Station No. 2 to a new location on Cleveland Road this month, less than two miles from its original location on Atlanta Highway.

The plan to move has been years in the making but has not been without controversy.
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Police in Guizhou Province have arrested 62 people for committing what they believe is the biggest telecom fraud case China has ever seen.

The 62 people, including 10 from Taiwan, are suspected of defrauding 117 million yuan (about 17.99 million U.S. dollars) from the construction bureau of an economic development zone in Duyun City.

The bureau reported the loss of the money from its bank account to police on Dec. 29.

The bureau's finance supervisor, surnamed Yang, was contacted by several people claiming to be police officers, bank staff and procurators, saying the account Yang managed needed reviewing and directing Yang to download software from a website so they could access the bureau's account.

Police said the fraud was masterminded by Taiwanese who recruited people from the Chinese mainland to make fraudulent phone calls from Uganda.
Spectators take a look at classic cars on display Saturday at Kool April Nites outside the Redding Civic Auditorium.

SHARE Greg Barnette/Record Searchlight A 1959 Cadillac Fleetwood is displayed Saturday during the Kool April Nites car show at the Redding Civic Auditorium.

By Amber Sandhu of the Redding Record Searchlight

The Redding Civic Auditorium's front lawn was packed Saturday morning with more than 1,800 classic cars on display for visitors and car enthusiasts to check out as part of the final stretch of the 27th annual Kool April Nites car show.

The event kicked off with a series of celebrations that began April 16, but the highlight remained the Kool April Nites Cruise on Friday evening where participants drove their vehicles through east Redding.

For people like Jim Wood, 84, getting his vehicle ready for display was a long time in coming. His 1931 standard Chevrolet 5-window Coupe was on display at Kool April Nites for judging the first time, after having sat in his garage on blocks for more than 40 years.

In 1966, Wood was originally looking for a roadster with a rumble seat. But then he saw the coupe, and decided to buy it for $325. "I drove it home. It barely got me there," he said.

But after moving from Southern California to Redding, changing careers and having children, the car was put away. There were times he would work on it, and then there were times he would get discouraged, because he was unable to get the engine working.

Years passed and his children grew up, and they encouraged him to start working on the coupe again. Wood has poor vision, and his hands don't work so well, so he enlisted the help of his son-in-law to get work done.

He took off the coupe's body, reworked the frame, fixed the horn, cleaned up the interior and tried to keep the deep green exterior color as close as possible to its true color. "I've done all the painting, detailing," Wood said.

The original budget he set for the car was between $18,000 to $20,000, but he's already gone over that amount. However, it's not something that bothers him, as he plans on gifting the car to his kids.

The only problem is he won't be able to drive the car back to his home. The coupe's engine stopped working as soon as he got it parked on the auditorium's lawn. Despite the hurdles, he said he was very happy with finally getting his vehicle out. "It's been challenging, but I'd do it all over again," he said.

Dudley Haines, 73, and his wife Karen Haines, 59, were visiting from Alturas and were looking at a turquoise Chevrolet Bel-Air from 1961 that was on display on stage inside the auditorium. They came to Redding specifically for the event, and to tour Lake Shasta.

Dudley Haines said he was more of a fan of European cars. He said when he was living in Juneau, Alaska, he was the only person in the state with an Aston Martin. In the past he's owned an Austin-Healey, and two Rolls-Royce vehicles. "They're like a boat," he said about the Rolls-Royce. "The two best days are the day you buy it and the day you sell it."

Doug Carney, president of Kool April Nites, said more than 15,000 people showed up to the Saturday show, and the money collected from the tickets will go to charities that benefit children in the North State. "It's all good for the community," he said.

He said the best part of the show is the inspiration people get by looking at each other's vehicles. "They see things and get new ideas," he said. "These are definitely a labor of love for these people."
SHARE Melissa Ann Radford Date of birth: Nov. 13, 1982 Vitals: 5 feet 4 inches; 135 pounds; brown hair, brown eyes Charge: Receiving stolen property Trevor Richard Laird Date of birth: Jan. 3, 1995 Vitals: 6 feet 1 inch; 120 pounds; brown hair, brown eyes Charge: Burglary Andrea Suzanne Cassle Date of birth: Dec. 15, 1971 Vitals: 5 feet 4 inches; 160 pounds; brown hair, blue eyes Charge: Possession of controlled substance Shaun Ray Gauthreaux Date of birth: Aug. 17, 1977 Vitals: 5 feet 9 inches; 192 pounds; blond hair, blue eyes Charge: Revocation of probation

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 590 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.
Police search an entryway near the ACID canal around Locust Street for a man suspected in a fatal stabbing Saturday evening. Police arrested a suspect about 7:20 p.m. Saturday off West Cypress Avenue.

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Police on Saturday evening arrested a man near downtown Redding who is suspected of stabbing another person to death.

The arrest was made about 7:20 p.m. Saturday in the 500 block of West Cypress Avenue, police said Saturday night.

Police were called to an apartment in the 2700 block of Ackard Avenue about 5:30 p.m. for a reported stabbing. Police said they found a man on the ground in front of the apartment suffering from a stab wound.

An ambulance took the unidentified man to the hospital where he later died from his injuries.

Police learned the victim and a suspect, identified as 36-year-old Morgan Eastwood Eddy of Redding, had been in a fight. Police said Eddy left before they arrived, but officers immediately started an extensive search.

After a two-hour search that involved a Shasta County Sheriff's Office K-9 and the California Highway Patrol helicopter, police found and arrested Eddy east of a car wash on West Cypress Avenue.

Eddy was interviewed by police investigators before being booked into Shasta County Jail on suspicion of murder, police said.

The victim will be identified after his next of kin is notified. Anyone with information about the stabbing is asked to call Redding police at 530-225-4214.
Carson Dykes (center) has lunch Thursday with fellow Shasta College student Chris Peluso on the campus. Both are part of the Step-Up program.

SHARE Greg Barnette/Record Searchlight Carson Dykes works on an online class Tuesday in the library at Shasta College. Step-Up program participants Adrian Hammons (from right) talks with Brian Lantz, Daniel Conklin and Sean Brown on Saturday as they and others wait to check in at the Day Reporting Center on Court Street in Redding.

By Jenny Espino of the Redding Record Searchlight

As Carson Dykes wraps up his second semester at Shasta College, his goal is this: To get a job that will support a family.

Shortly after he started to get cleaned up under the Good News Rescue Mission's recovery program for alcoholics, he entered the academic center. Fast forward about 18 months and he is earning all As and a B.

Last semester, it was all As. Dykes, 23, wants to earn an associate's degree in language arts, but his dream is to become a park ranger or police officer.

"I know it's contingent on other things," he said. "The way I see it, I want to be remembered for something positive and not for any of the bad that I've done."

Dykes, who has struggled in the past with drug and alcohol use and twice dropped out of college, is taking advantage of the Step-Up program at Shasta College. Step-Up stands for Shasta Technical Education Program-Unified Partnership.

The pilot initiative opens the college doors to non-traditional students, offenders included, and helps them stay on task so they can succeed. The referrals come from the college's four partner agencies. They can be offenders carefully hand-picked by the Shasta County Sheriff's Office and Shasta County Probation Department. Or they can be individuals in recovery programs at the Rescue Mission and youths through the California Heritage YouthBuild Academy.

The program's reach since its rollout three years ago has been limited to 63 students or about 20 each year.

Starting in the fall, participation will more than double.

Shasta College is one of eight campuses in California recently awarded a prestigious grant to expand the program to 50 students and hire staff to provide more one-on-one academic support.

The grant for $215,000 was announced by the Berkeley-based Opportunity Institute, whose "Renewing Communities" project is awarding a total of $5.9 million. The money was put up by nine foundations. Among them are the ECMC Foundation, Ford Foundation and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

An additional $119,000 in matching funds will come from in-kind donations put up by local organizations, bringing the award to $334,000, said Eva Jimenez, Shasta College economic workforce development dean.

The timing of the grant is lucky because it lets administrators give more structure to Step-Up right when it is about to get busier.

The college is expanding from three to six the number of certificate programs it will open to offenders. The partner agencies are in the process of identifying candidates for enrollment in the fall semester. Participants' first feel for college classes is in June. By then, administrators will have hired a program manager and a case manager to be housed with the Probation Department.

Daniel Conklin, 32, until last November was an inmate serving time in Minnesota and here for burglary and receiving stolen property. This fall, he looks forward to being a student.

Conklin, who acknowledges he's been in trouble most of his life, committed the crimes to feed a heroin addiction. Now he's been clean four months and trying to get his priorities in order, he said.

"I knew I wanted to be done with it, but I didn't know how to do it or how to begin. Going to prison was the turning point," he said.

He calls his job at Goodwill "awesome" and says he wants more to achieve.

This will be his second time stepping into college. Nine years ago, "drugs got the better of me," and he ended up dropping out of a construction management program in Medford, Oregon.

The Rescue Mission and YouthBuild Academy have long been sending students to Shasta College. Jimenez talked about how it only made sense to offer those students support, too.

The academy gives students ages 16 to 24 a place to earn their General Education Development (GED) diploma.

Students like Dykes, who came by way of the Rescue Mission, automatically can choose to work toward their two-year degree.

The extra support that comes with Step-Up in filling out paperwork and receiving counseling takes part of the stress out of college.

"It's complicated when you are enrolling in school, not knowing what documents I need to have and what I need to process for financial aid," Dykes said.

Offenders go straight to one-year certificate programs in areas where the labor demand is growing. This is so they can get back on their feet. They can choose the program that best suits their skills: Heavy equipment, automotive, welding, office administration, business and wildland firefighting.

It's only upon completion that they can decide whether they want to further their education and earn their associate's degree.

Conklin has settled on the welding program.

Adrian Hammons, 35, who also has high hopes for enrolling in the fall, is interested in the heavy equipment program.

"They told me, 'if you like rocks and dirt, you are going to like this,'" he said. "And I was like, I love rocks and dirt."

Methamphetamine addiction fueled some of the crimes that Hammons committed. He talked about being featured on Shasta's Most Wanted for going on the run after he was convicted for commercial burglary. Hammons, who has been clean six months, will be on probation through next February, provided there are no new violations.

The stakes are high for these students to get it right. One dirty drug test and they are out of the program.

"This is a motivator to stay clean," Jimenez said.

Hammons initially was nervous about returning to college, particularly as he's gotten older.

"It's the not knowing what to expect. I have not done testing and the little stuff I have to take care of, like grades," he said.

His mind was at ease when during an orientation session he saw people his age and older enrolled at the college.

Starting college isn't enough though.

Tracie Neal, Shasta County chief probation officer, said the offender population is large. For those who are found to be ready for their next step, basic and educational life skills, such as how to study, is lacking.

Retention rates for the first two years show there is room for improvement.

Of the 20 students picked for the launch of the program in 2013-14, 11 completed the year. Last year, the program performed better. Fourteen out of 20 students completed the year. And in each year, one student graduated with a certificate.

Jimenez and the partner agencies see the two new positions catching students before they start to fall behind. Regular meetings already are set up for program participants. There, they support each other. Because they are in a relaxed and trusting environment, it sometimes helps bring to the surface the barriers holding them back.

"Transportation and housing was an issue," Jimenez said.

Samuel Gibson, 54, is showing signs he may be ready for college and a job as a trucker. All of his adult life, he's been in and out of jail and prison. But he quit drinking about three years ago after he was sent to prison for an assault on North Market Street.

"I felt I was going to die if I drank more. I had a hard life," he said.

Whether he attends college in the fall will depend how quickly he can be housed. Gibson has been living on the streets for 20 years.

Conklin will be attending orientation next month. It's all part of taking one little step at a time, he said.

"I'm trying not to get too overwhelmed because that is when people slip into old habits and routines," he said.

Dykes keeps focused on the educational plan that his counselor helped him created, so he can eventually transfer to a four-year university.

"They are invested," he said of the program. "It's comforting to know that you are not trying to figure college on your own."
SHARE

Creighton Smith, Redding

I found the report on Shasta County's air quality to be highly misleading. First, with little industry, pollutants that combine to form ozone are largely emitted by motor vehicles. In California, motor vehicles are regulated exclusively by the State Air Resources Board. Secondly, the 13 times the levels of ozone exceeded standards are far below the state average and by any measure should not be judged a failure. Thirdly, numerous health studies have clearly demonstrated fine particulate matter is far more of a health hazard than moderate exposure to ozone. Shasta County should be highly commended for having not exceeded fine particulate air quality limits.
Cassandra Keys

SHARE Billy Morgan Don Kerns Keith Brashears Chris Busher

By Sean Longoria of the Redding Record Searchlight

The Exchange Club of Redding honored nine Shasta County firefighters Thursday during a luncheon and awards ceremony at the Red Lion Hotel.

The nine people were nominated by their departments for the club's 12th annual Firefighter of the Year ceremony, according to the club.

The following people received awards:

- Cassandra Keys, who joined the Burney Fire Protection District as a seasonal firefighter and EMT last year. She knew from an early age that she wanted to help people and spent several years working with those with special needs and in physical therapy, according to her nomination.

- Troy Velin, a member of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection training bureau. He developed a new training program to meet state and national standards and is always looking for ways to improve himself, others and the Cal Fire Shasta-Trinity Unit, a spokesman said.

- Billy Morgan, who first joined the Cottonwood Fire Department in 1972 and returned twice after taking federal firefighting positions. That included returning in 2012 as a captain and he quickly received a promotion to battalion chief, where he's remained. Morgan is "very responsive to helping new young firefighters with their future careers," according to his nomination.

- Chris Busher, a Happy Valley firefighter and EMT who joined the department in 1991. His two sons also followed in his footsteps into fire service. He's always been willing to help other communities whenever they're in need and currently mans the Happy Valley Fire Protection District's water tender.

- Don Kerns, chief of the Mountain Gate Fire Department, who's held that position since 2000 after 26 years in the Hat Creek area. He helped the department replace outdated equipment and become a more proactive agency that provides support to its neighbor firefighting crews and the state. Kerns has also helped several volunteers improve and gain jobs as paid firefighters, according to his nomination.

- Wil Francis, a Redding Fire Department battalion chief, who's been with the department full-time since 1990 in several positions. He was promoted to his current position last year and has numerous certifications. In addition to being involved in the community, his colleagues describe him as a "fireman to the core."

- Keith Brashears, a volunteer firefighter with the Shasta County Fire Department. In addition to his more than 30 years of service with the department, he's heavily involved in the Palo Cedro community. He's been a treasurer for the volunteer fire company since 1980 and managed to keep it solvent the whole time, his peers said.

- Mark Pereira, battalion chief for the Shasta Fire Department. He joined the department full time in 2008 after decades as a volunteer who held a different full-time job. He responds to nearly every call placed to the department and is always willing to lend a hand, including checking on community members even without being called to do so, according to his nomination.

- Roy Brown, a fire apparatus driver and operator for the Shasta Lake Fire Protection District and historian for the Shasta Lake Fire Association. He's taken every course available to him and is working toward getting an EMT certification. "No matter if someone is needed to work a shift at the station or set up tables for a station event, Roy is always willingly there no matter how big or small the task," his peers said.
Bharti has been expanding its spectrum portfolio and now owns 4G data across all 22 circles in India

Bharti Airtel, country's largest wireless telecom player in terms of subscribers, is considering a final dividend, or a share buyback, or a combination of both for FY16.

"The board of directors of the company will consider recommend final dividend for the financial year ended March 31, 2016 or buy back of equity shares of the company or a combination thereof, in its meeting scheduled to be held on April 27, 2016," the company said in a filing to the BSE.

Shares of the company will get a boost if it undertakes a buyback. The market has been punishing telecom stocks over the past few months, as operational metrics have deteriorated and fears of heightened competition have increased risks. The move will be seen positively by investors as it suggests that promoters see value in the company.

Bharti has been expanding its spectrum portfolio and now owns 4G data across all 22 circles in India. This makes it the only incumbent which has the ability to take on Reliance Jio.

It may be recalled that the promoters of Bharti Airtel - the Mittal family and SingTel - are also looking to acquire an additional six per cent stake in the company for Rs 7,900 crore (Rs 79 billion).

The promoters will acquire the additional six per cent stake through Bharti Telecom, which currently holds 43.96 per cent in Bharti Airtel. The additional stake in Bharti Airtel will make the telco a subsidiary of Bharti Telecom. Both the Mittal family and SingTel are in the process of infusing Rs 2,500 crore (Rs 25 billion) equity capital into Bharti Telecom through a rights issue.

In a recent stock exchange filing, Singapore Telecommunications said it had subscribed to the rights offer of Bharti Telecom through its wholly-owned subsidiaries Pastel Limited and Singtel International Investments. The objective of the Rights Issue is to "enable BTL to acquire further equity shares of Bharti Airtel," said Singtel's filing.

Photograph: Reuters
Company says faults, which were noticed soon after system upgrade on March 27, have been rectified

NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant has criticised Infosys for its allegedly poor handling of Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) portal. Replying to a series of tweets by people, complaining of technical glitches in the MCA portal, Kant said Infosys, which manages the service, was letting down the country.

"I have cross-checked with secretary, corporate affairs. As (a) service provider, Infosys has let down the country," tweeted Kant, a Kerala-cadre IAS officer of 1980 batch who previously served as the secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Kant's tweet was in reply to a Twitter user named C S Rengarajan who had complained about delay in approval for INC 21, application for declaration prior to commencement of a business. "Visiting ROC Chennai daily from March 25, no relief for approval," said Rengarajan's tweet.

Kant is driving several initiatives of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, including Startup India and Transform India, a programme to improve ease of doing business for faster economic growth.

"I am not dealing with it (MCA portal), but since there were a lot of complaints on Twitter, I checked with secretary, corporate affairs. Infosys has just not been able to manage it, they have messed it up," Kant said in a short interview over the phone.

K V R Murty, joint secretary at MCA, who is responsible for the project said, after the new system went live on March 27 this year, several issues were detected in the first two weeks as it would happen with "any system of this magnitude". However, he said, things have improved in the past two weeks.

"We, in the ministry, monitor the tickets raised by stakeholders for complaints and that has also shown a definitely downward trend," said Murty.

"So, things have certainly improved though they can be better. There is no doubt about it. We have been assured by Mr Vishal Sikka (CEO of Infosys) that they would do everything possible to ensure that no further inconvenience is caused to the stakeholders. We have seen evidence of things getting better in the last couple of weeks," he added.

In 2012, Infosys had won the $50 million (Rs 272 crore) contract, replacing the then service provider Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), for a period of five years. The contract required the Bengaluru-based company to fully automate all processes related to enforcement and compliance under the Companies Act. At that time, during the transition, the portal had developed several technical snags. These were later sorted out.

On March 27, a new portal was rolled out to comply with the new Companies Act. However, Infosys said, some technical glitches were noticed and soon rectified.

"Infosys has upgraded the MCA21 system to run on the SAP platform, which went live on March 27, 2016. Post the go-live, over 1,183 Indian companies have been incorporated and 1,647 limited liability partnerships have been registered. In addition, since March 27, 2016, there have been more than two lakh filings," the company said in a statement. It added that the system is functioning normally now.

The company said if the week gone by was compared with the same period in 2015, there was an increase of more than 20 per cent in daily filings on MCA portal.

Infosys is working on several large e-governance projects in India, including the Central Processing Centre (CPC) of the Income Tax department and India Post modernisation initiatives. The Income Tax project is considered as one of the most complex transformational initiatives by the government which has helped the I-T department improve its processes significantly.

Photograph: Reuters
Globally, the viability of on-demand businesses is being questioned

On Friday, PepperTap CEO Navneet Singh stood in front of his employees and told them that the PepperTap experiment had ended. Some of the employees knew it was coming. Several in leadership positions had been shopping for jobs. A few had already approached BigBasket and Grofers.

The shuttering of PepperTap had been in the works for a few months. The company had given out appraisal letters to employees promising them salary hikes. These hikes meant that when they went out in the market they could bargain from a position of strength. But there was a catch.

We were asked to resign en masse. And also we would be paid the new raised salary only for 22 days, said a former employee. As many as 150 out of 200 employees got this deal. A few of those who resigned said this was more to save face later when operations ceased on April 30.

A select few who knew what was happening were told that they would be absorbed into Nuvoex, said an employee who was in a leadership position. Cosmetically, it would appear at the end of the month that most people were absorbed and there were very few layoffs. But that is not true. The delivery personnel were on contract and their services will be terminated.

The closure doesnt hurt just the employees. It hurts Nuvoex as well. Snapdeal has been Nuvoexs biggest customer and that relationship triggered a $35 million investment last year. But Snapdeal, after Amazon launched Fresh, had been hoping that PepperTap would help it monetise the segment.

Snapdeal wasnt happy with the shuttering, especially now. The relationship was strained. The proof was that Snapdeals orders through Nuvoex were also dropping, said another source. Singh, however, rubbished such claims and said that Nuvoexs relationship with PepperTap was intact.

The empire started to crumble, in a manner of speaking, in May 2015. PepperTap had at the time decided on a very conservative growth plan. It had planned to expand to three cities in one quarter from its home base in Delhi. The mandate was simple: establish relationships with high-profile retailers and convince them to get on the platform. Each city growth plan was carefully calibrated.

But investors, people in the know said, were getting itchy. They saw Grofers accelerate into different geographies and wanted PepperTap to keep pace. Overnight, the plan changed. We were told to focus on aggregation and fulfilment. We had to be faster than Grofers, said a former employee.

The focus, the employee said, shifted from margins to cities. PepperTap was now targeting six cities in the quarter and 25 in seven months. We were asked to go all out and get hypermarkets on board even if it meant PepperTap got no commission in the beginning, the employee said.

PepperTap, which so far had not been discounting heavily, got into that game as well. Industry experts said discounts in the grocery business ranged from two per cent for consumer goods to 20 per cent for vegetables and fruits. The reason BigBasket can give you deeper discounts on perishables is because they source from wholesalers and stock inventory.

They dont go through retailers. Every bit of money they make is their own, said the co-founder of a company that recently pivoted away from the grocery delivery business. He explained that, on average, in the retail-sourcing model that PepperTap followed, the commission was about 20 per cent. And then add discounts and logistics fees.

Lets assume, for arguments sake, the cost of your order is Rs 100. The commission on it is Rs 20. Sources said in the worst case scenario, PepperTaps logistics cost was 35 per cent of the order value. But that is at its worst. On average it was 17 per cent. So, Rs 17 is the logistics cost.

It also needs to compete with BigBasket and offer discounts upwards of 20 per cent. Retailers refuse discounts and ask aggregators to offer discounts from their own pockets. It means PepperTap made a Rs 17 loss in the best case scenario and Rs 35 in the worst. Now, extrapolate that into the number of orders they had and you can see how they burnt cash, said the co-founder.

But this is a problem most hyperlocal players face. You have to remember they didnt take commission from plenty of hypermarkets. So there was no commission to offset costs for two or three, sometimes, even four months, said a source. The only way to get a handle is to charge for delivery, which is something no player is ready to risk. We didnt want to charge for delivery because some customers may not want to pay, Singh said.

Even globally, the viability of on-demand businesses is being questioned. Instacart, an on-demand grocery delivery service in the US around which Grofers, PepperTap and BigBasket are modeled, has increased its costs up to $10 per delivery.

The incessant discounts and marketing meant PepperTaps orders soared. At its peak in November the companys orders per day touched 30,000. It was beating its competitors hands down. But others advertised as well. And the orders started dropping.

In April, the number of orders was down to 1,100 a day and 500 from Delhi. Its average ticket price was around Rs 650. In comparison, industry experts estimate that Bigbasket handles 10,000 orders a day with an average ticket price of Rs 1,600 and Grofers 8,000 orders at an average ticket price of over Rs 1,000.

PepperTap had asked its investors for more money but none was on offer. Sources said Sequoia Capital had placed its eggs in the Grofers basket. The writing was on the wall. Singh privately told employees that the traction the company had during Diwali was all but lost. They had failed in the money-raising game and with BigBasket running the segment the company was forced to call it a day.

Rise and fall

Nov 2013

PepperTap founded

March 2015

Raises $1.8 million in seed funding from Sequoia Capital

April 2015

Raises $10 mn in Series A funding from Saif Capital and Sequoia

September 2015

Raises $36 mn Series B funding in a round led by Snapdeal

November 2015

Expands to 15 cities

December 2015

Raises $4 mn in venture debt from InnoVen Capital; acquires JiffStore in Cash and stock deal

Feb 2016

Shuts down operations in six cities

April 2016

Shuts down all operations

Photograph: Reuters
The current prime minister delights in confrontation; his government is deliberately provocative.

As of now, there is zero chance of the GST getting passed in this session.

People seem to be underestimating the Congress resilience factor. We are like the Indian elephant: we take time to move.

Congress spokesperson and Rajya Sabha member Jairam Ramesh tells Kavita Chowdhury that since the attitude of the Narendra Modi government is deliberately provocative and confrontational, it should not expect cooperation from the Congress.



The second half of the Budget session starts on Monday. What will be the Congress strategy in this session?

The murder of democracy in Uttarakhand is an important issue for us after the murder of democracy in Arunachal Pradesh and the attempted murder taking place in Himachal Pradesh. We will definitely raise the issue of destabilisation of democratically elected state governments -- its a very important issue.



Second, we will take up the Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation issue. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India has submitted its fifth report in the past six years: its a damaging indictment of the GSPC, which was run on a hands-on basis by then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.



Then, there are other issues, like the continuation of a minister in the government, Y S Chowdary, against whom there is a non-bailable warrant for non-payment of loans amounting to Rs 100 crore; the kid-glove treatment being meted out to Vijay Mallya; the Panama Papers expose... there is no shortage of issues. Its a 19-day session, where the number of working days will be 14.



Also, I have moved the Supreme Court challenging the decision to turn the Aadhaar Bill into a Money Bill. That petition will come up on April 25. In all, the prospects of Parliament running smoothly are remote.



Do you see this Budget session turning into another washout?

Much as I would like to see the drought situation and the farmer suicides issue being taken up in Parliament, there are extremely important political issues (stated before) that need to be taken up. It is the government which does not want Parliament to run and has done everything to devalue it.



The government and the finance minister have reiterated how crucial it is for the economy to get the Goods and Services Tax Bill passed in this session. Will the Congress finally come around to passing the GST?

We have consistently maintained that there are three issues in the GST bill that need to be addressed and it is for the government to respond to that. The real issue is that the Congress objections are merely an alibi; there is a strong section in the Bharatiya Janata Party that does not want the bill. Piyush Goyal (power minister) had expressed ambivalence on GST when he was not in government. Gujarat Finance Minister Saurabh Patel is not convinced either. We have put across our views to the Select Committee, but the government refuses to listen. In the Real Estate Bill, it accepted our conditions and the bill was passed.



On the GST, why doesnt the Union finance minister write to Sonia Gandhi (Congress president), communicating the governments stand, and then we shall see, instead of writing on Facebook or blogs? The ball is in the governments court. As of now, there is zero chance of the GST getting passed in this session. If this remains the attitude of the government -- arrogant, deliberately provocative, it ramrods its way into Uttarakhand -- do you expect the Congress to cooperate? Even the Atal Bihar Vajpayee government from 1998 to 2004 believed in a give-and-take relationship. The current prime minister delights in confrontation; his government is deliberately provocative. Why should we play ball?



As Congress spokesperson you have been highlighting the GSPC issue and the CAG reports.



We will definitely be raising it in Parliament. This KG (the Krishna-Godavari basin controversy on which the CAG prepared a report) is more serious than 2G (the 2G spectrum scam). It is far more insidious. Around Rs 20,000 crore was taken from banks, bombastic claims were made by the then Gujarat chief minister 11 years ago. Nothing has happened since then. Its a classic example of how a state-owned enterprise was used for political purposes. We have demanded an inquiry by a Supreme Court judge. We also want a probe by the Joint Parliamentary Committee. Even way back in 1957, Nehru got the Mundhra scandal probed.



Among the legislation that needs to be cleared is the Bankruptcy Code. What is the Congress stand on it?



The Bill is with the Select Committee; we objected to that. We wanted it to be sent to the Standing Committee, but this government sent it to the Select Committee. Let us see what comes of that.



The pattern on display for quite some time now is that the Bharatiya Janata Party gets bills cleared in the Lok Sabha with its numerical majority; then the bills get stonewalled in the Rajya Sabha where the Congress has the numbers. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has been raising the issue of redundancy of a house of unelected members....



The problem arises due to the governments reluctance to send bills to a Standing Committee, where they should rightly be discussed. Better bills emerge after scrutiny by a Standing Committee, but this government has been undermining it. As for the redundancy argument, consider the top ministers in the BJP-led government: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, Power Minister Piyush Goyal, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, Urban Development and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu, Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar. They are all Rajya Sabha members. Redundancy is a bogus argument; the Rajya Sabha has a constitutionally defined role and it is fulfilling that.



Political observers say the Congress is increasingly been perceived as a negative obstructionist force....



Jaitley, as Opposition leader in the Rajya Sabha [during the term of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre], had gone on record stating that disruption was the legitimate right of the Opposition. Pranab Mukherjee had once told me that the Oppositions job was to oppose, expose and depose. This is what the BJP did to us for five years, now its payback time. In any case, it is the governments job to achieve a consensus, and while Pramod Mahajan, Sushma Swaraj, Kamal Nath were all excellent parliamentary affairs ministers, Venkaiah Naidu has proved disastrous in that position. The government doesnt seem to have the desire to get bills passed; more importantly, it lacks the ability to reach a consensus. Even I managed to get extremely contentious bills, like the National Green Tribunal Bill and the Land Bill passed during the UPA regime.



Post the May 2014 defeat, the Congress was reduced to its lowest numerical strength (44 members in the Lok Sabha). Instead of regrouping, it seems to be on a downward spiral, losing one state after another. Its prospects do not appear bright in the ongoing elections in some states....



Wait for the election results; you might be pleasantly surprised. The epitaphs being written for the Congress in Assam and West Bengal will prove to be premature. We, in the Congress, are aware of the challenges: we are competing with the BJP, with regional parties, with new kids on the block, like the Aam Aadmi Party. There are multiple challenges. But people seem to be underestimating the Congress resilience factor. We are like the Indian elephant: we take time to move.
 Flash

China and Russia have good mechanism for cooperation in space and aerospace, and the room for cooperation is "huge", according to the head of China's space administration.

China and Russia have an outline for cooperation in this sector and cooperative projects have been conducted smoothly, Xu Dazhe, director of China National Space Administration, said at a press conference on Friday in response to a question on this topic.

Xu said the two countries are recently cooperating on issues such as astronautic dynamics and spaceflight electronic components.

China and Russia are working together to explore the universe and hopefully the two countries will improve aerospace technology and make better use of resources, Xu said.

Also, Xu said China's efforts in developing aerospace sector have always been open and transparent.

Citing plots in Hollywood blockbuster "The Martian", Xu said it may indicate that scientists in the United States are willing to cooperate with Chinese counterparts on relevant fields.

The official said that despite some "well-known" reasons that hold back such cooperation, a dialogue mechanism has been established between China and the United States and communications will be carried on via this channel.

The official stressed that China follows the civilian-military integration strategy in the aerospace sector, and that it is natural for China to use space resources for national defense and world peace purposes.

The press conference was held ahead of the China's first Space Day on April 24 to mark the launch of the country's first satellite 46 years ago.
Hitting back, the Congress on Sunday brought Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah in the line of fire on the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter issue alleging that the tsunami of misinformation was being spread to save their skin in the case.

"Simple truth is that this web of deceit and deception is being woven by government and certain sections of media to save the skin of Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi and BJP president, Shri Amit Shah," senior party leaders including Mallikarjun Kharge and Anand Sharma told reporters on Sunday.

Addressing a joint press conference along with them, party leaders Kapil Sibal, Abhishek Singhvi and Shaktisinh Gohil released copy of a four-page statement of a Gujarat police officer D H Goswami before a magistrate which speaks about kaali daadhi (black beard) and safed daadhi (white beard).

Sibal claimed Goswami had quoted the then senior Gujarat IPS (Indian Police Service) officer D G Vanzara as saying ahead of the encounter that he had already got the green signal from Black Beard and White Beard.

While Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat that time, Shah was the minister of state for home.

They claimed that the harsh reality in the backdrop of Goswamis statement is that the fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan and three other accomplices was ordered by the then chief minister and present Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with the then MoS, Gujarat Amit Shah.

In case, Ishrat Jahan trial was to proceed, it is inevitable that the PM and the BJP president would be summoned as an accused, they said in a joint statement.

Black hearted conspiracy behind lies, half truth and smoke screen being put up by the BJP government to divert attention of Nation in Ishrat Jahan case stands unearthed, they alleged on the eve of the Parliament session.

Sibal said that this is why the last 3 months has seen a tsunami of misinformation and people were asking if Ishrat Jahan was a terrorist or not.

He was apparently referring to the BJPs concerted attacks on former Home Minister P Chidambaram.

The Congress leaders also warned the BJP against attacking Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in the matter, saying it would even force an apology.

While Kharge said that the Congress would work together with like minded parties, Sharma said that the government would be seen in the dock on a host of issues.

Insisting that three investigations -- magisterial, special investigation team and

The Central Bureau of Investigation -- have called this a fake encounter, Sibal said We demand that in the next 6 months the trial is completed. The accused put in the dock and appropriate punishments given.

We want to ask why is this case not proceeding? Sibal said adding that the chargesheet was filled in 2013, for an encounter in 2004.

We are in 2016 and the case hasnt moved forward at all, he said.

In the joint statement, the Congress leaders said the plain and simple intrigue is to ensure that the most important persons of the BJP/government are not brought to trial.

Besides, they claimed that this is a sinister attempt to set at naught the judicial enquiry by Metropolitan Court, Ahmedabad; Gujarat high court-monitored SIT and its judgment dated 12.08.2010 and court-monitored CBI enquiry resulting into filing of the chargesheet as recorded in high court judgment.

The Congress leaders claimed that shocking and toxic conspiracy of influencing filing of affidavit by government of India and allurement being given to counsel for Union of India is also borne out from a tape recorded conversation between P.P. Pandey (now acting director general of police, Gujarat) and another police official G L Singhal.

To achieve its nefarious design and with a view to derail the trial, present government is taking help of two IPS officers of Gujarat cadre A.K. Sharma and Rakesh Asthana and have posted them as Joint Directors of CBI, the party alleged.

Sharma dismissed as preposterous the BJP charge against the Gandhis in the case. He warned that the Congress would force an apology if such attacks continued.

The BJP attack is to deflect and derail the investigation, he said claiming that their two top leaders should be in the dock.
IMAGE: Chief Justice of India T S Thakur breaks down during his speech at the Joint Conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of High Courts in New Delhi on Sunday. Photograph: ANI

An emotional Chief Justice of India T S Thakur on Sunday lamented inaction by the Executive to increase the number of judges from the present 21,000 to 40,000 to handle the avalanche of litigations even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured him of his governments resolve in finding a solution jointly with the judiciary.

"...And therefore, it is not only in the name of a litigant or people languishing in jails but also in the name of development of the country, its progress that I beseech you to rise to the occasion and realise that it is not enough to criticise. You cannot shift the entire burden on the judiciary, the Chief Justice of India said in a choking voice.

Addressing the inaugural session of Joint Conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of High Courts, Justice Thakur said that since 1987, when the Law Commission had recommended increase in the number of judges from then 10 judges per 10 lakh people to 50, nothing has moved.

Then comes inaction by the government as the increase (in the strength of judges) does not take place, he said.

He said following the Law Commissions recommendation, the Supreme Court in 2002 had also supported increasing the strength of the judiciary. A Parliamentary Department Related Standing Committee on Law then headed by Pranab Mukherjee had also recommended taking the judge to people ratio to 50 from 10.

As of today, the judge to people ratio stands at 15 judges to 10 lakh people which is way less than as compared to the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada.

In 1987, the requirement was 40,000 judges. From 1987 till now, we have added 25 crore in terms of population. We have grown into one of the fastest growing economies of the world, we are inviting foreign direct investment into the country, we want people to come and make in India, we want people to come and invest in India.

Those whom we are inviting are also concerned about the ability of the judicial system in the country to deal with cases and disputes that arise out of such investments. Efficacy of the judicial system is so vitally connected with the development, he said, referring to the Modi governments Make in India and ease of doing business campaigns.

Modi, who was not slated to speak as per the schedule of the programme circulated by the Law Ministry, said if constitutional barriers do not create any problems, then top ministers and senior Supreme Court judges can sit together in a closed room to find a solution to the issue.

The prime minister also said that it is the responsibility of all to ensure that the common man continues to have faith in the judiciary and his government will fulfil the responsibility and will not falter in helping to make the common mans life easier.

Jab jaago tab savera (better late than never), Modi said, referring to the issues flagged by Justice Thakur.

I can understand his pain as a lot of time has lapsed since 1987. Whatever have been the compulsions, its better to be late than never. We will do better in the future. Let us see how to move forward by reducing the burden of the past, he said.

Justice Thakur said from a munsif to a Supreme Court judge, the average disposal in India is 2,600 cases per annum as compared to 81 cases per annum in the United States.

He also asked the state Chief Ministers present at the event to increase the cadre strength of the lower judiciary.

While lauding the new law to create commercial divisions in the high courts and the commercial courts at the lower level, the CJI said the new courts need separate infrastructure and new judges.

He said without proper infrastructure and environment, such courts will not serve the purpose as dealing with cases that require a different handling.

Old wine in a new bottle will not serve the purpose, he said, adding that an emotional appeal made by him may work in getting the government take note of the problems being faced by the judiciary.
IMAGE: Congress leaders, from left, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Kapil Sibal and Anand Sharma address a press conference at the party headquarters in New Delhi on Sunday.. Photograph: PTI Photo

The Congress on Sunday made it clear at an all-party meeting, chaired by Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, that it wants a discussion in Lok Sabha on the imposition of Presidents Rule in Uttarakhand, notwithstanding pleas by the government that the matter is pending before Supreme Court.

After the meeting, Congress leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said they have put forth their demand for a discussion on the issue and will move an adjournment motion under Rule 56 in Lok Sabha.

The all-party meeting was held in a conducive atmosphere, and the speaker hoped that the coming session will function smoothly.

She said members raised various demands, prominent among which were holding discussions on drought and drinking water shortage in several parts of the country, besides the Uttarakhand issue.

Drought across the country is a major issue and there was a demand by all for a discussion on it. Some people have also raised the issue of imposition of President's Rule and a discussion on it. We will see as the matter is in court. There are many other issues, she told reporters.

Asked if a discussion on Uttarakhand can be allowed, she said, The court has given stay till April 27 and I dont think till 27th (there can be a discussion).

All have extended their support. We all hope that the coming Lok Sabha session will function smoothly, she said.

Kharge insisted that the issue was important and many opposition members were in agreement for a discussion.

We have raised many issues before the speaker, of which the main one is of Uttarakhand where an attempt has been made to destabilise the Congress government and despite a high court order, an interim stay has been obtained by the Centre from Supreme Court.

We have raised the issue and want a discussion on this. A lot of opposition members agree on this and they also want a discussion on this, he told reporters after the meeting.

We have raised these matters before them. We also requested that there is a rule for everything. But putting (rules) aside, the Speaker can allow anything keeping in view the importance of the subject raised. We have made the request not to cite rules in a bid to suppress issues and deny a discussion, he said.

The second half of the budget session of Parliament, beginning on Monday, is all set to be a stormy affair with opposition parties closing ranks over the imposition of Presidents rule in Uttarakhand.

The session will have 15 days of sitting with a total of 90 hours, of which around 52 hours will be devoted to government work.

Asked if a discussion on Uttarakhand is possible, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajiv Pratap Rudy said, The speaker has to take a decision on it. To my knowledge, the matter is before the court and when the issue is pending in court and a decision is yet to come, there is no scope for a discussion on it.

On Sundays meeting, he said, There was complete assurance from all the political parties that the House will be made to run smoothly and the environment looked very good. All have assured and there is a broad consensus that Lok Sabha should function smoothly and all the parties have said this in one voice.

He said the Finance Bill will be taken up during the first week itself. On the Goods and Services Tax Bill, which has been pending for a long time, he said, I am sure the report will come and we are prepared to take it up.

Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, also a minister of state for parliamentary affairs, said, We are expecting constructive and positive approach from Congress and the opposition. Our effort is that the House functions smoothly and constructively in a cool atmosphere.

On the Uttarakhand issue, he said Congress would have to face its own music as it had dismissed popularly elected governments with majority and when there was no constitutional crisis in the past.

If the Congress wants to raise the issue, then it would have to face its own history as it was the Congress regimes which has used Article 356 at least 88 times, with former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi using it 50 times during her tenure, he said, adding that the Congress mostly used the rule for dismissing governments where there was no lack of majority or a constitutional crisis.

Rudy said the session would discuss Railways demand for grants and the Finance Bill

There will also be discussions on development of North Eastern region, housing and urban poverty alleviation, skill development and enterpreneurship, social justice and empowerment, civil aviation and tourism, he said.

The Sikh Gurdwara Amendment Bill, passed by the Rajya Sabha, the Regional Centre for Biotechnology Bill 2016 and Compensatory Afforestation Bill 2015 and the considerations made by the Rajya Sabha on Enemy Property Bill would be other legislations to be taken up during the session, he said.

The minister said a meeting of the Business Advisory Committee is slated at 1 pm on Monday, in which time will be allotted to various issues.

Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Jay Prakash Narayan Yadav said his party raised the issue of drought and water crisis in the country and demanded a discussion, besides the issue of grant of special status to Bihar to ensure its speedy development.

Telangana Rashtra Samiti leader A P Jithender Reddy raised the issue of odd-even scheme in Delhi due to which some members face problems and sought relief from the speaker.

Leaders of a number of parties attended the meeting, including Nationalist Congress Partys Tariq Anwar, Aall India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagamms P Venugopal, Lok Janshakti Partys Ramchander Paswan, Telugu Desam Partys Thota Narasimham, Shiv Senas Anandrao Adsul, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeens Asaduddin Owaisi, Indian National Lok Dals Dushyant Chautala, Biju Janata Dals Bhartruhari Mahtab and Indian Union Muslim Leagues E Ahamed.
The Bill seeks to create a welfare fund for farmers of arid, desert and drought-prone regions, reports Archis Mohan.



At a time when several areas across India are reeling under drought, President Pranab Mukherjee has recommended consideration of a private members Bill that seeks to create a welfare fund for farmers of arid, desert and drought-prone regions. Significantly, the Bill was moved by Rajya Sabha member and senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel.

The Farmers of Arid and Desert Areas (Welfare and Other Special Provisions) Bill, 2014 was introduced by Patel in Rajya Sabha in December 2014. The proposed welfare fund would involve expenditure from the Consolidate Fund of India. The draft Bill proposes an initial corpus of Rs 10,000 crore from the central government. It estimates that a sum of Rs 20,000 crore may be involved as recurring expenditure per annum. A non-recurring expenditure of Rs 5,000 crore may also be involved from the Consolidated Fund of India.

Under parliamentary rules and procedures, a Bill which involves expenditure from the Consolidated Fund of India, cannot be passed by Parliament unless the President recommends it to the House where it is being considered.

The President can withhold the recommendation, but it is rare. The President, whether to recommend or to withhold such a Bill, goes by the advice of the government, particularly the finance ministry.

To put it in laymans language, the recommendation is required lest the Bill becomes a law and the government subsequently finds that it does not have the money to be spent from the Consolidated Fund of India, constitutional expert and former Lok Sabha Secretary General Subhash C Kashyap said.

In a letter to the Rajya Sabha secretary general a few days ago, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh had stated that the President, having been informed about the subject matter of the particular Bill, has recommended its consideration under article 117(3) of the Constitution by the Rajya Sabha.

While only 14 private members Bills have been passed since Independence, Patels Bill assumes significance given the humanitarian as well as political ramifications of drought.

The Bill seeks to create a welfare fund for farmers at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi has led from the front a campaign to woo farmers and downtrodden sections of the society.

Also, the fact that the Bill has been moved in the Rajya Sabha, where the government is in a minority, is also significant.

In the statement of objects and reasons of the Bill, Patel has identified Suarashtra and Kutch in Gujarat, several parts of Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Jharkhand, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha as frequently affected by drought conditions.

He recommends that a welfare fund should be set up for the farmers of arid and desert areas as they face frequent drought conditions and lose their crops, leading to indebtedness and distress.

The Bill seeks to provide for protective measures and special facilities for the farmers of arid, desert and drought prone areas, who are often affected by natural calamities causing loss of crops, livestock, making them vulnerable to indebtedness, disease and physical infirmities, exploitation of money lenders.

Kashyap said, While the Presidential recommendation for private members Bills that involve expenditure from the Consolidated Fund of India is necessary, such Bills, if passed by both the Houses, might still not become law if the President withholds his assent to the Bill.
If Pakistan finally and officially rules out the possibility of an Indian investigation teams reciprocal visit for the Pathankot probe, it should also be seen as the Chinese hidden veto in the India-Pakistan bilateral context, says Rajeev Sharma.



International diplomats stationed in the Indian subcontinent keeping an eye on India and Pakistan know that everything in this difficult bilateral relationship currently hinges only on one single thread: whether Pakistan will allow India a reciprocal visit by its investigation team to probe the Pathankot terror attacks.



But these wise people will do well to keep China in the frame of India-Pakistan bilateral relations.



The reasons for this are not far to seek. China has become the elephant in the room for all India-Pakistan engagements. Pakistan's India policy these days is being governed by the China factor.



In fact, Pakistan and China have synergised and synchronised their diplomatic positions in such a way that India by now knows that their respective diplomatic positions vis a vis New Delhi are jointly choreographed..



In other words, India's two nuclear armed neighbours, with each of whom India has fought wars, are in a state of diplomatic tango.



Put even more simply, straws in the winds suggest that Pakistan won't take a major diplomatic step on India without concurrence from the Chinese and the Chinese too would be taking Pakistan on board before taking a major step with the Indians.



Therefore, Pakistan won't be allowing an Indian investigation team into its territory before consulting the Chinese. If Islamabad were to do that and allow an Indian investigation team a reciprocal visit in the Pathankot case, it should not be merely seen as an NOC or No Objection Certificate from Rawalpindi, the seat military power in Pakistan, but also as an NOC from China.



China has a lot of issues to contend with as far as its own diplomatic play-out with India is concerned. These days China is smarting under an unprecedented diplomatic rebuff by the Indians whereby India, while pursuing a tit-for-tat policy, has given visas to Uighur leaders for attending a conference India this month end.



China has never been stung by India like that ever before. It has two options to counter this. One, China can come up with its own counters in the India-China bilateral context. Two, it doesn't have to waste its breath and be seen as unnecessarily upping its ante with the Indians when it has the luxury of micro-managing Pakistan's India policy in a way that its own diplomatic goals are met without spoiling relations with India.



The chances are that China would first exhaust this easy option by simply exercising its diplomatic levers with Pakistan.



A possible Chinese game plan can be of pitting India and Pakistan against each other, thus emulating the Americans who have been playing these games for decades in the region.



Therefore, the possible scenario of Islamabad allowing an Indian investigation team to visit Pakistan should not be seen in the narrow context of India-Pakistan ties but in context of the larger India-Pakistan-China triangle.

The converse would also hold true. Which means that Pakistan finally and officially ruling out the possibility of an Indian investigation team visiting on a reciprocal basis for the Pathankot probe should also be seen as the Chinese hidden veto in the India-Pakistan bilateral context.

So, a Pakistani No should then be seen in this light with the Chinese as backroom boys.



If this were to happen it would be dangerous for India-Pakistan bilateral relations and would inevitably inject a new dimension. One only hopes that the Pakistanis are sensible enough to drive their relationship with the Indians themselves rather than through the Chinese prism.



But given the state of relations between India and Pakistan on the one hand and India and China on the other, this dreadful scenario of the Chinese choreographing Pakistan's India policy can't be ruled out.



The complex India-Pakistan-China triangle has become even more complicated.

Image: Members of the Pakistans Joint Investigation Team formed to probe the Pathankot airbase attack, arrive at the National Investigation Agency headquarters in New Delhi on March 29, 2016. Photograph: Kamal Singh/PTI Photo.

Rajeev Sharma is an independent journalist and strategic analyst who tweets@Kishkindha.
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
This is the latest in a new series of letters home from a local Marine getting ready to be deployed to the Republic of Georgia to train the Georgian army for their mission in Afghanistan:

This week I spent most of my time in Germany at a planning conference. Our mission in Afghanistan is a multi-national endeavor, and our training pipeline is also.

We have to coordinate our training to match the mission of the deploying unit, and this conference in Germany was to do that. We had multiple Marine units, U.S. Army units, Georgian units, Hungarian Army as well as numerous civilian contractors represented.

Everyone has a specific responsibility and funding source, so it is a complicated thing. Throw in four different languages, (Marines and Army speak a different language), and it is a challenging process.

As part of the Georgian team, we traveled with our Georgian counterparts. When we got to Germany, we had to rent cars and drive about an hour and a half to the base where our meeting was.

My orders stated that I was to get a seven-passenger car so we would have enough room for everyone. The car that I got was built by Ford and to say it was seven passenger was false advertising. It was about the size of a midsize station wagon that had back seats that folded up in the cargo area. We managed to pack five of us in with no room to spare.

I have never driven in Germany before. The car had a diesel engine with a six speed manual transmission. I know how to drive a manual, I grew up on a farm. It has been a long time, though, and these new cars are so quiet that you cant hear the engine, so it is difficult to know when to shift.

The best way to learn to swim is to get thrown in the deep end. After five minutes and stalling the car twice, I was on the Autobahn getting passed by little old ladies. I got the hang of it but I never pushed the car to see what it would do.

There are parts of the Autobahn that have no speed limit, but in places it does. There was a feature in my car that told me what the current speed limit was at any given time. It would also tell me if I was getting out of my lane. After figuring it all out, it told me when I should shift also. Easy day.

The base hotel was full, so we stayed out in town. We were in a guest house in a small town about the size of Elmwood. It was complete with a dairy farm and a saw mill, just like home. The only restaurant was in the place we were staying, and they opened it up for us when we wanted.

An interesting thing about Bavaria is there are crucifixes everywhere. There was one in each of our rooms and a great big three-foot one in the corner of the bar down stairs, as well as a giant one as we came into the village. I am told that they are in the rooms of the schools also.

We went out and had dinner one night in the town of Regensburg, the nearest city. It is a beautiful Gothic city that was not damaged by bombing in the war so the city center still has its medieval feel. I will send a photo.

Planning complete, we headed back to Tbilisi. This Saturday I ran into a gem, the only bowling alley in town. Its name: Lebowski Bowling Club. Im sure that Jeff Bridges and John Goodman are not seeing any royalties off of this one. Not even the golden arches of McDonalds are protected here.

Editors note: This series began in the March 20 edition of The Dunn County News and can also be found at www.dunnconnect.com
Many of us yearn for a wise, empathetic doctor who knows us, and our loved ones, inside and out.

Even better, though, is a primary-care physician who belongs to a good medical practice, notes Consumer Reports.

What does a good practice look like? The Peterson Center on Healthcare and researchers at Stanford University's Clinical Excellence Research Center worked together to answer that question. The most successful ones shared these characteristics:

Extended hours. SureCare Medical Center in Springboro, Ohio, offers extended hours starting at 7 a.m. during the week and on Saturdays at 8 a.m. Doctors take turns working the late shift and on Saturdays. Knowing that the office opens early helps patients avoid trips to the emergency room, says Joseph Garland, D.O., one of the medical center's six physicians.

Careful about over-treating. At Northwest Family Physicians in Crystal, Minnesota, a six-physician office, the emphasis is on spending time with patients and understanding the case, not necessarily rushing to tests. 'If a patient has back pain but there's no sign that they need surgery, there's no point in sending them for an MRI before trying medication and physical therapy,' explains James Welters, M.D.

Open to complaints. Patient gripes are 'as valuable as compliments,' according to the Peterson Center-Stanford study. 'At most places, complaints go to a manager or a complaint department and die,' Welters says. At Northwest Family Physicians, a team of nurses, managers, lab technicians, physicians and care coordinators meets every few weeks to review all patient comments and complaints.

One-stop shopping. Top practices perform some relatively minor procedures that other practices often refer out, such as skin biopsies and injections for joint pain. Consumer Reports notes that they also try to arrange for specialists to come into the office.

Like-minded specialists, and only as needed. When they send patients to specialists, they think hard about who they're referring them to. 'You want specialists who share your attitude and philosophy,' says Nayana Vyas, M.D., of Family Physicians Group in Kissimmee, Florida, so patients don't end up with too much or too little care.

Two-way communication. The best practices actively follow up  through phone calls, repeat visits or emails  to make sure, for example, that patients take their medications as directed and that they are seen soon after they are admitted to the hospital, Garland says.

A team approach. Physicians at top practices embrace teams that include an array of health care providers, including nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nutrition counselors and social workers. 'We have a team approach,' Vyas says. It's similar at Northwest Family Physicians. 'One of our mantras is 'the doctor can't do it all,'' Welters says. In his office, everyone who sees the patient, from the receptionist on up, asks questions about what patients need, from lab tests to a flu shot.

A fair workplace. Physicians in high-performing groups were not compensated primarily on how many patients they see  and thus how much money they make for the practice. At Northwest Family Physicians, 'we have a quality bonus program,' Welters says. If the teams reach certain targets in quality and patient satisfaction, everyone gets a bonus.

Spend wisely. High-scoring doctor groups tend to avoid expensive, high-tech devices  such as the newest bone density scanner  in part because that can push doctors to order unnecessary tests to recoup the costs of the fancy equipment. Instead, responsible practices focus on the kind of technology that encourages efficiency, such as electronic medical records.
Ask the Fool

Keeping records

Q: How long should I keep various financial records?

 A.M., Elkhart, Indiana

A: Play it conservative, and keep all your tax returns, along with insurance policies, pension-related and estate-planning documents (such as wills), forever. Keep canceled checks, bank statements and receipts for at least three years, ideally seven  perhaps printing out copies if you receive them electronically. Do the same with any supporting documents for tax returns, such as 1099 and W-2 forms, charity receipts, bank and brokerage statements, and so on.

Hang on to stock trade confirmation receipts for as long as you own each stock and for at least three years (ideally seven) after you close out your position (usually by selling). Keep proof of improvements to property (such as a new roof) for at least three years after the sale of the property. Keep escrow closing documents (for both the purchase and sale of property) for at least three years (again, ideally, seven) after the property is sold.

It's smart to think twice before you throw out any documents related to your finances or major life events (such as a marriage or divorce). When you do dispose of such papers, be sure to shred them, to deter identity thieves.

Q: What's a stock's 'float'?

 R.C., Mead, Washington

A: It's the portion of shares outstanding available to be traded by the public. If a company has 20 million shares outstanding and its founder owns 18 million of them, its float is just 2 million shares. Pay attention to this number with smaller companies, as 'thinly traded' stocks with small floats can be extra-volatile. A modest demand for their shares can send the stock price soaring, due to limited supply.

Fool's School

Understanding buybacks

In 2015, companies authorized a whopping $831 billion of repurchases of their own stock, the second-most in any year, per Birinyi Associates data. Is that good news? Well, it depends.

When a company buys back (and essentially retires) some of its own stock, it typically does so on the open market. So don't worry  it won't buy your shares unless you happen to be selling them. Still, you can benefit. The more shares a company buys, the better off its shareholders are, at least in theory.

Imagine that Global Telepathic Messaging (ticker: ESPME) has 1,000 shares outstanding. If you own 250 of them, you own 25 percent of the company. If the company buys back 500 of its own shares, then 500 shares will remain. You'll still own your 250 shares, though, so you now own 50 percent of the company.

Your share of a company's earnings can grow as shares are repurchased. If Global Telepathic earned $1,000 in net income, that would be $1 in earnings per share (EPS), pre-buyback. After the buyback, though, the company would still have the same earnings, but those earnings would be spread over just 500 shares, pushing EPS up to $2. The price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio, based partly on EPS, would fall, and each share potentially would be worth more.

Stock buybacks can be better for shareholders than dividends, tax-wise. That's because companies pay taxes on the income they earn, and when they then pay out any dividends to you, you get taxed, too. So that income is taxed twice. By buying back shares, a company is still rewarding shareholders, but it's doing so without triggering taxable events.

Buybacks can make great sense when a stock is undervalued, because the company will get more shares for its money. But many companies will buy back overvalued shares, destroying value. After all, there are more productive uses of the company's money. Make sure your companies' earnings aren't increasing solely because they're reducing their share count by buying gobs of shares. Look for growing earnings and revenue, too.

My Dumbest Investment

For believers only

I had decided I wanted to invest in Netflix even before its initial public offering (IPO), when shares were made available to the public. I bought a few shares as early as I could, for less than $3 apiece (split-adjusted). Soon after its IPO, my investment counselor talked me out of Netflix, saying it would never go anywhere. So I sold it all. I figure he owes me lots and lots of money. The stock was recently trading above $100 per share. I could have had a thirtyfold or fortyfold profit.  Lois, online

The Fool responds: Many people find it hard to have sufficient faith in new and dynamic companies' futures to justify investing their hard-earned dollars in them. That's fair, and even superinvestor Warren Buffett likely would steer clear of such a company  even now  not feeling sure enough of how well it will be performing five or 10 years from now. (It does have competition, after all.)

That said, if you are very confident that it's attractively priced now and will keep growing over time, investing and hanging on makes sense. Remember that Netflix's IPO was in 2002, when its business was primarily sending out DVDs through the U.S. mail. It introduced video streaming services in 2007, and streaming is generating most of its revenue now. (The Motley Fool owns shares of and has recommended Netflix.)

Foolish Trivia

Name that company

I trace my roots back to 1922, when three scientists founded the American Appliance Company. My early focus on refrigeration soon shifted to electronics, and after buying Amana Refrigeration in 1965, I introduced the first countertop microwave oven for consumers. I developed computers for NASA that helped astronauts land on the moon.

Today, based in Massachusetts, I'm a global specialist in the defense, civil government and cybersecurity markets. My wares have included radar systems, missiles, missile guidance systems, maritime safety equipment and business jets. My 60,000-plus employees serve customers in more than 80 countries. Who am I?

Last week's trivia answer

I trace my routes back to the 1972 journey of a secondhand ship, the Mardi Gras, from Miami to San Juan, Puerto Rico. My founder bought my flagship brand (which is now my name) in 1974 for $1 and the assumption of its $5 million debt balance. Today I'm the world's largest leisure travel company, with a fleet of about 100 ships and 16 more arriving by 2020. My brands include Princess, Cunard, Holland America, Seabourn and Fathom. I employ about 120,000 people, serve more than 10 million travelers annually and rake in more than $15 billion each year. Who am I? (Answer: Carnival Corporation)

The Motley Fool Take

Cleaning up with Clorox

Shares of Clorox could make your portfolio shinier, thanks to its flagship consumer products brand and its other names such as Pine-Sol, Liquid-Plumr, Fresh Step, Glad, Kingsford, Hidden Valley, Brita and Burt's Bees.

The company raked in $5.7 billion in 2015, generating nearly $750 million in free cash flow in the process. More than 80 percent of its sales came from brands occupying the first or second market position in their respective categories.

Clorox has an impressive trajectory of dividend growth over the long term, reflecting a business that can produce consistently growing cash flows through good and bad economic times.

The company has raised dividends every year since 1977 and recently yielded 2.4 percent. Clorox also has an active share buyback program, reducing its share count over time, and in the process rewarding shareholders by boosting the value of remaining shares.

Clorox isn't likely to ever be a rapid grower, but it has grown steadily for a long time. Its revenue is rather reliable and its stock less volatile than the overall market. It hasn't been trading at bargain levels lately, so you might add it to your watch list, waiting for a lower price.
Schwab gets high J.D. Power scores

Charles Schwab has received the highest ranking in overall satisfaction in the J.D. Power 2016 Full-Service Investor Satisfaction Study. Schwab is also ranked highest in the J.D. Power U.S. Self-Directed Investor Satisfaction Study, reflecting the firm's breadth of capabilities across the range of investor preferences.

With an index score of 837 on a 1,000-point scale in the 2016 Full-Service Study, Schwab scored 33 points above the overall satisfaction industry average and received the highest scores in the areas of product offerings, commission and fees, website and account information.

Independent Branch Leader and Financial Consultant Nick Shepherd has Abilene's only Schwab office, located at 3560 Catclaw Drive.

United produce manager honored

The United Family, which operates United Supermarkets and Market Street in Abilene, recently honored Kenneth Weise as an outstanding team member at the company's 11th annual Leadership Awards dinner. Weise serves as the produce manager for the Market Street at 4450 Buffalo Gap Road.

Weise received the Team Member of the Year for the Abilene Region, which recognizes an Abilene employee devoted to the mission of The United Family. Weise has been with the company for more than three decades and continues to work in the produce department he started in 32 years ago.

Cary Services promotion

Cary Services Inc., which is based in Abilene, has announced the promotion of Jerry Eichhorst to vice president of business development. Eichhorst previously worked as general manager of the company's Abilene and San Angelo territories.

He has been with the company since April 2010, and has 31 years of previous sales and management experience in the LTL trucking industry. He holds a bachelor of business administration degree from Texas Tech University.

Abilene native chosen as president-elect of American Academy of Dermatology

Suzanne Olbricht, MD, FAAD, a native of Abilene, as been named the next president-elect of the American Academy of Dermatology, which represents more than 18,000 physicians.

She will begin her one-year term in March. Olbricht received her medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. She is an associate professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School and chair woman of the department of dermatology at Lahey Hospital & Medical Center in Burlington, Massachusetts.

Lithia Toyota of Abilene receives company award

Toyota Motor Sales recently presented its President's Award to Lithia Toyota of Abilene. The award recognizes dealerships for high standards of performance in all aspects, including vehicle and parts sales, service and customer satisfaction.

Business workshop

Texas Tech Small Business Development Center Abilene will conduct a workshop, "How to Drive Visitors to your website without Paying Anything Per Click," from 6-8 p.m. Tuesday in the Texas Tech Training Center, 749 Gateway St., Suite 301.

To make a reservation, call 325-670-0300.
ISTANBUL -- Since sneaking into Turkey four years ago, Mostafa has built a life many of his fellow migrants envy. He has learned to speak English and Turkish, obtained a room in a trendy neighborhood, and found work as a waiter.

But the idea that he is living the dream life is mistaken, says the 23-year-old, who asked that only his first name be used. Born in Iran to Afghan refugees fleeing war, Mostafa said he jumped into a smuggler's car in 2012 hoping to reach Europe and enroll in a university, but things didn't work out that way. He cannot legally leave Turkey and cannot afford a smuggler's escape; instead he does low-paying, undocumented jobs while waiting for better options to open up.

"I cannot make any plan," he says in English over breakfast at a Cihangir neighborhood cafe. "It's like the time is going by. I don't really know what is my right."

An Afghan Problem

The EU-Turkey deal passed in March provides a path for some Syrians fleeing war to gain refugee status in Europe, and Ankara has passed measures to allow the 2.7 million Syrians living in Turkey to gain work permits and other social benefits. But only about half the migrants trying to reach Europe are Syrian. Afghans make up the second-largest group, followed by Iraqis, Pakistanis, and Iranians -- and all are excluded from the deal.

"Afghans are really problematic here," says Behlul Ozkan, an associate professor of international relations at Marmara University in Istanbul. He says Turkey accepted several thousand Afghans in the 1980s owing to the Soviet-Afghan war, and resettled them in a small city in eastern Anatolia. The current round of migration from Afghanistan is different, he said. "No one knows what will happen to them."

Estimates of the undocumented Afghan population in Turkey vary widely. According to the United Nations, there some 103,221 Afghans there, of whom 3,472 have been awarded refugee status. Afghans make up more than a third of all non-Syrian migrants in Turkey. Ali Hekmat, an Afghan refugee and activist, says most of those Afghans have left Turkey with smugglers; he estimates that only about 15,000 remain.

On March 23, the rights watchdog Amnesty International reported that Turkey had forcibly returned 30 Afghan asylum seekers to Kabul; several had been part of a group attempting to reach Greece by boat and were stopped by Turkish authorities.

Turkish authorities did not respond to questions from RFE/RL. They told Amnesty that none of the Afghans had requested asylum and that they were returned voluntarily.

Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan, a fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a U.S.- and Brussels-based think-tank, says Turkey's treatment of migrants could torpedo the newly signed refugee deal signed with Europe.

"One of the main potential stumbling blocks for the EU-Turkey deal is whether or not Turkey can legitimately be considered a safe third country," she says. "If Turkey cannot be considered a safe third country, then the EU cannot return people to a place where they don't have full access to claiming asylum."

Exporting Refugees

Prior to the Syrian civil war, Afghanistan produced the most refugees of any country in the world. In the last year, Syria assumed the top spot, but Afghanistan's problems persist. The withdrawal of foreign troops has left a security and power vacuum in many areas of the country, with Taliban attacks on the rise and a government unable to restore public safety or economic growth. More than 2 million Afghans are refugees under UN protection.

"They are tired of Afghan refugees," Hekmat says of the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR. "We are refugees for 35 years and now they are working for the new refugees like Syrians and Iraqis."

Hekmat, 30, says he left Ghazni Province for Turkey in 2009 because he feared for his life after working for a company that had ties to the U.S. military. He is getting a master's degree in architecture at a university in central Turkey, while working in an undocumented job drawing blueprints.

"I work with other [Turkish] colleagues," he says. "Their salary is five times bigger than mine. It's the same work and the same time."

Hekmat says that in Turkey employers are responsible for obtaining permits for their workers, but they have little incentive to do so when they can pay lower wages to undocumented employees.

Facing the prospect of lower wages and ambiguous rights in Turkey, Afghans have looked toward Europe. About a quarter of the migrants arriving in Greece in 2016 were Afghan, according to the UNHCR. A secret EU document circulated in March outlined plans to return some 80,000 Afghans.

Challenging Road

Mostafa's story stands out because he would seem to have the gumption to succeed in exile. He was 18 when he sneaked out of Iran, where as a refugee he had limited rights and prospects, and called his parents from Turkey to ask them to wire money to his smugglers. He says he did not tell his parents in advance because he was desperate to get a chance to study and "they would never let me go."

In Turkey, he says, he got a job packaging napkins in a factory in Istanbul for a few months, then lied to UN interviewers in Ankara, telling them he was 17 and an orphan, which allowed him to stay in a camp for children. While at the camp, Mostafa unsuccessfully tried to sneak across the land border with Bulgaria. Turkish police apprehended him and held him in deplorable conditions for three months, he says.

When Mostafa reached his false 18th birthday he had to leave the camp and search for work. He spent a rainy day wandering around Istanbul looking for restaurant jobs, before reaching the modest cafe where he later spoke with RFE/RL. The owner sent him to work for his son, where Mostafa baked traditional pastries and cleaned for 12 hours a day, then slept in the eatery at night. For that he earned 600 liras ($211) a month.

"I was there for three months inside the restaurant," he says. "I asked for more salary, 150 or 200 liras more per month, and he didn't accept.... So then I was thinking I move to another place."

Mostafa says he worked as a waiter at numerous restaurants in Istanbul and the coastal city of Izmir before ultimately finding a job at a two-story cafe near his Istanbul apartment. There his income of 1,500 lira more than covered his share of the rent at the apartment he shares with a German roommate.

Mostafa faces a challenge unique to migrants in Turkey: the best jobs are in Istanbul, but he has been assigned to live in the town of Yalova, 100 kilometers to the south. Every two weeks he must sign in with police in Yalova, and he lives in fear of immigration authorities, who could arrest him for working out of his assigned city.

Days after he spoke to RFE/RL, Mostafa quit his job. He declined to explain why, but vaguely referred in a WhatsApp message to "Being persecuted. I don't know if it's a good word to use. Being treated unfair."

A week later, he had another job, waiting tables at another Istanbul restaurant.

Asked if he regrets leaving Iran, Mostafa is torn. On one hand, he has seen the world and learned two languages. "I've learned a lot. I've become a man," he says.

But on the other hand, he says, he has no legal way as an Afghan to reenter Iran. And he has barely any family in Afghanistan, a country he has never seen. He spoke to RFE/RL on the last day of Norouz, the Iranian New Year, and Mostafa noted with some relief that it was cold in Iran.

"When the weather is nice, they go out in nature with the family, they all know each other and go out and make food. I miss it," he said. Other Afghans, he added, "should stay there with their parents and find anther way."
Hollywood star and rights advocate George Clooney has led thousands of Armenians on a march to a hilltop memorial in Yerevan to commemorate the 101st anniversary of the World War I-era massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

Clooney, who is an advocate of international recognition of the massacre as a genocide, laid flowers before the eternal flame at the Tsitsernakaberd memorial on April 24 along with Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million people were killed during World War I as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart, a claim supported by many other countries.

Turkey rejects the genocide label, arguing that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians rose up against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.

WATCH: Thousands of Armenians march in Yerevan on April 23.



Based on reporting by AFP and Armenpress
At least 12 people have been killed in two car-bomb attacks in Baghdad targeting security forces.

The Islamic State extremist group was behind the larger blast on April 23, according to the Amaq news agency, which supports the group. The attack on a security checkpoint in the northern Al-Husseiniya district killed nine people and wounded 28 others.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the second bombing, which targeted an army convoy in Arab al-Jabur, an area of date palm groves on Baghdad's southern outskirts. Three people were killed there, and 11 others were wounded.

The Iraqi government has retaken several major cities from Islamic State in the past year, including the western cities of Ramadi and Hit, and slowly pushed the militants back towards the Syrian border.

Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP
Around 1,000 people have staged a rare public protest the Kazakh city of Atyrau, rallying against the government's decision to sell land in auctions.

The protest in the central Isatai-Makhambet Square on April 24 came as public fears in the city have grown that changes in the Land Code could allow sales of land to foreigners, though the government has said this will not happen.

Senior city and regional officials arrived at the scene and sought to disperse the rally by addressing the crowd and saying the Land Code did not threaten public interests. They also said that the rally was unsanctioned and protesters must disperse.

Organizers' request for official permission to stage the rally had previously been denied.

Protesters did not immediately leave and remained in the square for several hours amid the heavy presence of both uniformed and plainclothes police, though authorities did not use force to disperse the rally.

The oil region's governor, Nurlan Nogaev, told the crowd that he would relay the demonstrators' concerns to lawmakers and the government in Kazakhstan's capital, Astana.

WATCH: In the Kazakh city of Atyrau, around 1,000 people staged a rare public protest to denounce a government decision to sell land in auctions.

The amendments to the Land Code are set to take effect on July 1. They will allow the government to sell land to joint ventures, as long they are controlled by Kazakh residents.

Kazakhstan continues to bar land sales to foreigners, but the amendments will extend the maximum term of lease to foreigners from 15 years to 25 years.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev, who has led the country for more than two decades, has kept a tight lid on dissent during his reign over the country, which is the second-largest exporter of hydrocarbons in the former Soviet Union after Russia.

Slumping oil prices, however, have triggered a slide in the country's currency, sparking public protests over the past year both in Astana and the Central Asian nation's economic hub and largest city, Almaty.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Kazakh Service and Reuters
If you thought youve been seeing more teal around than usual this month, you are right.

Teal is the color of Sexual Assault Awareness month, and Blythe, the sexual assault victim services coordinator at Family Support Center in Chippewa Falls, is making sure the entire community knows it.

Workers at the center do not want their last names listed because of their sensitive jobs.

All month Blythes been working hard to make Chippewa Falls and the surrounding area aware of what sexual assault is and, more importantly, how to talk about it  which she thinks is the first step in educating the community.

Its hard to talk about rape because rape is scary and violent and it has to do with sex, she said. But we need to be getting comfortable and not hiding in the shadows, not being silent and talking about what we can do as a community to prevent this from happening to more people.

As part of the awareness month, the Family Support Center is hosting a Know More event at 5:30 p.m., Wednesday, April 27 at The Plus, 208 S. Barstow St., Eau Claire.

Local organizations such as the Chippewa County Public Health and AIDS Resource of Wisconsin, will present information at a resource fair during the event.

There will also be local musicians and performers, a survivor and ally speak-out and drawings for free prizes.

Its not just an Eau Claire event, she said. Everybody, anybody who cares about this is welcome.

They will also have a socks and underwear drive at the event so people can donate new-in-package undergarments. These go to survivors who may need new clothing after going through a sexual assault nurse examination.

When a survivor goes through one of these exams, what we know as a rape kit, sometimes they need to leave their clothes as evidence, she said. The point of the drive is to donate those items to the emergency rooms.

Community outreach is a huge part of her role. Blythe spends a lot of time giving presentations in classrooms, business and even at the Chippewa County Jail, where she is a coordinator for the Prison Rape Elimination Act.

The act gives prisoners who have experienced sexual violence the right to an outside advocate, she said.

While doing all of this is a step in the right direction, she said theres really only one thing that can be done to put an end to sexual assault.

The responsibility of stopping it is in the hands of the rapist or the abusers, and we can teach people how to reduce risk  dont go anywhere alone at night and make sure your drink is covered up at the bar  but ultimately that doesnt put an end to the problem, she said. We have to teach people not to rape.

Blythe, who started at the support center last July, said she sees about 60-80 people per quarter regarding sexual assault or sexual violence, which adds up to roughly 200 people per year.

Blythe said men and boys are also survivors who tend to be overlooked or silenced due to possible shame or humiliation.

Is it frequent? Blythe asked before answering her own question. For Chippewa County, being that so much of it is rural, I think 200 people a year is a lot.

With her role at the support center, she hopes to reduce that number. But until then, the Family Support Center Sexual Assault Victim Services offers counseling for victims, families and friends as well as assistance with medical help and the legal system.

All services are free and confidential.

The Family Support Center, located at 403 N. High St., also offers services for domestic violence, parenting services, protective behaviors education, alcohol, tobacco and other drug abuse prevention and family support and resource coordination.
Thousands of protesters have demonstrated on the streets of Moldova's capital, demanding that the government resign and calling for early elections.

The government building in Chisinau was encircled by a heavy police presence on April 24 that Moldova's Interior Ministry said would be sufficient to ensure public order during the protest, which was organized by the pro-European Dignity and Truth party.

The protesters claim Moldova's government is under the influence of a politically connected business class that dictates policy.

Moldova has been mired in political turmoil over the past year.

The parliament last month announced that the country will hold a presidential election on October 30, the first time the electorate will directly choose the impoverished ex-Soviet state's head of state since 2001.

Earlier in March, a court ruled in favor of having direct national elections to choose a president rather than a vote in parliament -- a concession to protesters who had demonstrated for months against the political elite.

Based on reporting by RFE/RL's Moldovan Service, AP, and Reuters
U.S. President Barack Obama says he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agree that Ukraine-related sanctions targeting Russia should only be lifted if Moscow complies with a deal to end fighting between Kyiv's forces and Russia-backed separatists.



"Sanctions on Russia can and should only be lifted once Russia fully complies with its commitments under the Minsk [peace] agreement," Obama told an April 24 news conference in Hannover after meeting with Merkel during the last leg of a six-day foreign trip to shore up U.S. alliances.



Merkel said that the cease-fire was not stable and that she and Obama had discussed implementation of the February 2015 peace deal brokered in Minsk to end to the conflict in eastern Ukraine that has killed more than 9,100 since April 2014.



"Unfortunately, we do not have any stable cease-fire yet and we must make progress in the political process," Merkel said, adding that she and Obama "discussed very detailed steps to be taken next in this regard."



The Kremlin has repeatedly blamed Kyiv for failing to implement the Minsk agreement.



Obama also offered words of support to the new Ukrainian government under Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroysman, who earlier this month replaced the embattled Arseniy Yatsenyuk amid stalled reforms that have frustrated Kyiv's Western allies and creditors.



"We welcome the formation of a new government in Ukraine, which we encourage to continue the political, economic, and energy reforms that can deliver progress for the Ukrainian people," Obama said.



Obama arrived in Germany earlier in the day to push for a new EU-U.S. trade pact and take part in an April 25 summit with key EU leaders.



The White House says the summit with Merkel and the leaders of France, Britain, and Italy will also address counterterrorism efforts following attacks in Paris and Brussels, the fight against Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria, the European refugee crisis, and Libya.



Speaking at the news conference, Obama made a plea for the warring parties in Syria to return to peace talks and "reinstate" a cease-fire.



He said he was "deeply concerned" about a surge in violence in Syria, where government forces have escalating bombing of rebel-held areas around the strategic city of Aleppo.



"We remain deeply concerned about the upsurge in fighting in Syria over the last several days, and we continue to agree that the only real durable solution is a political solution that moves Syria towards an inclusive government that represents all Syrians," Obama said.



He spoke of a "tragic humanitarian crisis" in the war-torn country and said he continued to believe in a political solution to the fighting there, noting that he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week to try "to make sure that we could reinstate the cessation of hostilities."

With reporting by Reuters and AP
Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has declared a "historic triumph" for his center-right Serbian Progressive Party in early parliamentary elections, promising to keep the country on its course to join the European Union.

"Serbia will continue on its European path and we'll try to accelerate it," Vucic told supporters gathered at party headquarters in Belgrade late on April 24, hours after polls closed. "There is no compromising with that."

However, he stressed that Belgrade will also maintain its friendship with Russia, its traditional Orthodox ally and supporter.

An initial projection by the independent CeSID monitoring agency said Vucic's party is set to win 49 percent of votes cast in the election.

The left-leaning Socialist Party of Serbia was set to remain the second-biggest party in parliament with 12.9 percent, while the ultranationalist Radical Party of Vojislav Seselj, acquitted last month of war crimes by a UN tribunal in The Hague, is set to be the third-largest party in parliament with 7.4 percent of the vote, CeSID projected.

The polling firm based its projections on the actual vote count at representative polling stations. The first official results are expected later this week.

Seselj, whose core ideology is based on the goal of creating a Greater Serbia, has himself publicly burned EU and NATO flags. He has also campaigned for closer ties with Russia rather than the EU, saying that would help Serbia overcome its "economic misery."

WATCH: Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic and other political leaders marked their ballots in parliamentary elections on April 24.

"We are not happy with the election results. We expected more," Seselj said late on April 24, adding that the Radicals would "show we are superior" in parliament.

Following a sluggish start, the pace of voting picked up in the April 24 election, with total turnout expected to surpass the 53 percent threshold registered in Serbia's 2012 parliamentary elections.

Vucic called the vote two years ahead of schedule, saying he needed a stronger mandate than the 131 seats that the Serbian Progressive Party now controls -- just over half the 250 seats in parliament. Such a mandate, he said, would help him achieve his stated goals of bringing Serbia closer to European Union membership and bolstering the economy by pushing through reforms required by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Formerly an ultranationalist who supported the idea of a Greater Serbia, Vucic now presents himself as a pro-European reformer.

Vucic and his governing coalition partners narrowly missed securing a two-thirds majority in the 2014 vote, when they won 158 seats.

WATCH: Serbs went to the polls on April 24 in early parliamentary elections to vote members of the countrys National Assembly. More than 6.7 million registered voters were also choosing councilors in local elections. (RFE/RLs Balkan Service)

Formed by the late Slobodan Milosevic and led by Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic, the Socialists before the April 24 vote were in control of 25 seats. The party has opposed the large-scale privatization of loss-generating state firms called for by Brussels as a condition of closer EU integration, and that the IMF has made a condition of a 1.2 billion-euro ($1.35 billion) loan.

In fact, the Socialists' opposition to privatization deals caused tension with Vucic, who has said he needs a good review in May from the IMF on Belgrade's reforms or it would be "very difficult" for him "to be the prime minister."

The Social Democratic Party of Serbia, led by ethnic Bosniak politician and Trade Minister Rasim Ljajic, rounded out the governing coalition before the April 24 ballot with nine seats in the National Assembly.

The Social Democrats are a part of the Alliance For a Better Serbia -- a coalition that also includes the Liberal Democratic Party of Serbia and the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina.

Vucic, a former Seselj ally, said as he cast his ballot in a rainy Belgrade suburb that he "not going to make any compromise" with right-wing parties.

The head of Serbia's Government Office of Kosovo, Marko Djuric, said that polling stations will be open in Serb-inhabited areas of Kosovo.

More than 110 countries recognize the independence of mostly ethnic Albanian Kosovo, but Belgrade insists it remains a province of Serbia.

Kosovo's constitution allows for dual citizenship for the Serbian community.

In previous Serbian elections, the government in Pristina did not allow Serbia's Election Commission to organize balloting within Kosovo. But the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) reached a deal with Pristina that will allow the organization to collect the votes of Kosovo Serbs.

The OSCE carried out a similar role in Kosovo for Serbia's 2012 and 2014 parliamentary elections.

With reporting by dpa, Reuters, AP, AFP, and B-92
KYIV -- Ukrainian officials said vile Russian missile strikes on civilian energy sites have caused power outages nationwide, leaving more than a million households without electricity, while Russian authorities ordered residents to leave Kherson "immediately" ahead of an expected effort by Kyivs forces to retake the crucial southern city.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, Russian protests, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Telegram on October 22 that Russia carried out a "massive attack" on Ukraine overnight and that "the aggressor continues to terrorize our country."



"At night, the enemy launched a massive attack: 36 rockets, most of which were shot down...These are vile strikes on critical objects. Typical tactics of terrorists," he wrote. "The world can and must stop this terror."



Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of Zelenskiys office, said Ukrainian air defense forces had shot down 18 of the missiles.



Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a number of missiles had been shot down on the approach to the capital.



"Several rockets flying toward Kyiv were shot down in the region by air defense forces. Thanks to our defenders!" Klitschko said.



There was no immediate word on deaths related to the missile attacks, but officials said several people had been injured.



It was not possible to verify the reports on either side.



In the face of continued Russian strikes, Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba again urged Ukraine's Western allies to speed up the delivery of modern air defense systems.



"We intercepted some, others hit the targets. Air defense saves lives. In [Western] capitals, there should not be a single minute of delay in the decision regarding air defense systems for Ukraine," Kuleba said.



Local officials said power stations were hit in the regions of Odesa, Kirovohrad, and Lutsk, while other regions reported problems with electricity.



"Another rocket attack from terrorists who are fighting against civilian infrastructure and people," the Ukrainian president's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, wrote on the Telegram app.



Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told a government meeting that from October 10 to October 20, Russian strikes damaged more than 400 facilities in 16 regions of Ukraine, including dozens of energy facilities.



"The Russian Army has identified our energy sector as one of the key targets for its attacks," Shmyhal said on October 21.



"Russian propagandists and officials speak openly about the purpose of all these attacks: Ukraine, according to them, should be left without water, without light, without heat," he said.



Meanwhile, Russian-appointed authorities in the occupied and illegally seized southern Kherson region on October 22 ordered the estimated 60,000 residents of the region's eponymous main city to leave "immediately" in the face of Kyiv's advancing counteroffensive.



"Due to the tense situation on the front, the increased danger of mass shelling of the city and the threat of terrorist attacks, all civilians must immediately leave the city and cross to the left bank of the Dnieper River," the region's Russia-backed authorities said on social media.

Russina-installed officials are moving people out of the strategic city in what they are calling an evacuation but which Ukrainian officials label as deportations.



The order came in spite of a claim by Russia's Defense Ministry on October 22 that its forces had prevented an attempt by Ukraine to break through its line of control in Kherson.



"All attacks were repulsed, the enemy was pushed back to their initial positions," the Defense Ministry said, adding that Ukraine's offensive was launched toward the settlements of Piatykhatky, Suhanove, Sablukivka and Bezvodne, on the west side of the Dnieper River.



The ministry's statement said Russian forces had also repelled attacks in the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.



Kherson city, which had a prewar population of 280,000, is one of the first urban areas occupied by Russia at the start of the invasion.



Zelenskiys office said 88 settlements in the southern Kherson region and 551 settlements in the northeastern Kharkiv region have been de-occupied, while the Ukrainian forces' counteroffensive in the Kherson region moves ahead.



Ukraine is trying to drive Russian forces in Kherson back east across the Dnieper. Russian soldiers on the western bank, where the city of Kherson is located, are reportedly close to being cut off from supply lines and reinforcements.



Natalya Humenyuk, a spokeswoman for Ukraines southern operational command, said the Ukrainian military struck the Antonivskiy Bridge over the Dnieper in the city of Kherson during an overnight curfew Russia-installed officials put in place to avoid civilian casualties.



We do not attack civilians and settlements," Humenyuk told Ukrainian television.



Ukrainian strikes made the Antonivskiy Bridge inoperable, prompting Russian authorities to set up ferry crossings and pontoon bridges to relocate civilians and transport supplies.



Russia has sent in thousands of recently mobilized troops to reinforce the defense of Kherson, the General Staff of Ukraine's armed forces said on October 21.



Zelenskiy again on October 21 urged the West to warn Russia not to blow up a dam at the Nova Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant on the Dnieper River as this could flood settlements toward Kherson.



Zelenskiy said Russian forces had planted explosives inside the dam, which holds back an enormous reservoir, and were planning to blow it up.



"Now everyone in the world must act powerfully and quickly to prevent a new Russian terrorist attack. Destroying the dam would mean a large-scale disaster," he said in his nightly address.

With reporting by Reuters, AFP, AP, and the BBC
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MADISON  Wisconsin Democrats, hobbled by losses during the past six years, see this November as a chance to start winning.

Since 2010, theyve lost a U.S. Senate seat, three gubernatorial elections to Gov. Scott Walker, two attorney general elections, control of the Assembly and Senate (twice).

In the most recent election, they saw a three-time Walker appointee elected to the state Supreme Court, expanding its conservative majority. Theyve also seen their key ally  labor unions  atrophy after Republicans passed laws targeting them.

But Democrats smell opportunity this fall, starting with the rematch between GOP U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson and Russ Feingold, the Democrat he displaced in 2010.

That, coupled with a presidential race in which Republicans face deep internal fissures and stumbles at the state level by ruling Republicans, have Wisconsin Democrats hoping to turn the tide.

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan acknowledged many Wisconsin Democrats were demoralized by their losses since 2010, when Walker was first elected. This fall, Pocan said, could start to change that.

Everyone that I talk to is excited going into 2016, said Pocan, D-Black Earth.

History puts wind at the backs of Wisconsin Democrats in a presidential election year, state party chairwoman Martha Laning noted. Wisconsin has voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1984.

The flip-side of that opportunity, said UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden, is that it puts Democrats in a must-win position. If they cant capitalize on advantageous circumstances this fall  in the context of the past six years, and with a larger turnout that typically works to their benefit  the consequences would be disastrous, Burden said.

If that were to happen, the Democratic Party would be not much more than a shell, Burden said.

Former Democratic Party chairman Joe Wineke agreed that a Feingold loss in November would be pretty devastating.

Democrats tell the Wisconsin State Journal theyre increasingly recognizing the value of backing candidates in local races for city councils and school boards.

They also recognize the 2018 election will be crucial. The winner of the gubernatorial election will have veto authority over the legislative district maps that get redrawn after 2020. Democrats frequently mention partisan redistricting that occurred after the 2010 election as part of the reason why they have been helpless to block the Republican legislative agenda.

Also in 2018, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, whose 2012 defeat of former Gov. Tommy Thompson remains the Democrats brightest victory of the past six years, will be up for re-election.

If this was just the governor, it probably would be tougher for the Democrats, Wineke said. But Tammy Baldwin will excite the liberal base. If we can get a Democratic candidate who can get the right message and raise the resources you need, its very doable to win the governorship back.

Still, the campaign challenges facing Democrats are significant. They include the likelihood they will be outspent, plummeting union membership and  to a far greater extent in Wisconsin than nationally  an energized and unified Republican establishment.

Brandon Scholz, a Republican strategist and former director of the state GOP, said Democrats weakened position in the state showed in their failure earlier this month to beat conservative incumbent Justice Rebecca Bradley.

When youre going up against a majority that has all the resources  its awfully hard to pull yourself out of the desert, Scholz said.

Show what they stand for

In the April 5 presidential primary and nonpartisan general election, Democrats had 100,000 fewer voters than in 2008  the last time there was a wide-open presidential contest  while Republicans had almost 700,000 more. And while the Democratic top brass lined up behind Hillary Clinton only to see Bernie Sanders run away with the win, establishment Republicans rallied to hand Ted Cruz a victory.

Wisconsin Republicans question if the likely Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, will match the appeal that President Barack Obama had in 2008 and 2012. The most recent Marquette Law School poll found 35 percent of respondents viewed Clinton favorably, compared to 59 percent unfavorably.

State GOP spokesman Pat Garrett described Clinton and Feingold as two Washington insiders far too focused on yesterdays politics.

But the Republican presidential front-runner, Donald Trump, fared worse in the last Marquette poll, with 22 percent viewing him favorably and 70 percent unfavorably. Cruz had 30 percent of respondents view him favorably, with 49 percent saying they viewed him unfavorably.

Again in the spring primary, Republicans benefited from an edge in spending by outside groups that dont disclose their funding sources. Outside groups supporting Bradley for the Supreme Court outspent groups supporting her liberal opponent, JoAnne Kloppenburg, by a 4-to-1 margin.

Pocan called on the Legislature to change the law to stanch the flow of money from groups that dont disclose their sources. Another solution, he said, would be to confront their contributors.

We have to go directly after those who give them money, Pocan said.

Asked whether that means boycotting companies, Pocan said people need to do whatever they think is right, but I would personally never give money to a company or a trade association that doesnt support key Democratic issues such as equality for LGBT citizens.

Dane County Executive Joe Parisi pointed to Walkers job approval rating, which fell below 40 percent last year as he mounted an unsuccessful presidential bid and oversaw a challenging state budget that cut $250 million from the University of Wisconsin. In the latest Marquette Law School Poll, Walkers approval nosed up to 43 percent.

For Democrats it gives us hope, because for three elections we felt he was invincible  but I dont get that sense anymore, Parisi said.

But as the Supreme Court race demonstrated, relying on antipathy toward Walker may not be enough to carry the day.

Republicans nationally and in Wisconsin have done a better job than Democrats in promoting a brand, said Mike McCabe, founder of Blue Jean Nation, a nonpartisan grassroots group that advocates for citizen-centered, people-powered politics.

McCabe said Republicans have conveyed to voters the principles in which their positions are rooted  less government, lower taxes and individual freedom  while Democrats struggled to do the same.

Still, McCabe said the divisions within the GOP and the unpopularity of some of their leaders give Democrats an opening this fall.

The best thing they have going for them is the Republican Party, McCabe said. But thats not enough for Democrats.  Theyre going to have to be able to show what they stand for.

Looking to local level

Several Democratic Party leaders around the state acknowledged that they have to do a better job recruiting candidates at the local level to serve on nonpartisan city councils and county, town and school boards.

In Democratic strongholds Dane and Milwaukee counties, the local government boards serve as a farm league for the Legislature. But Republicans have dominated local governments in other parts of the state.

Were starting to get religion on the idea that its something we have to do as well, said Mike Basford, chairman of the Dane County Democratic Party.

As rough as this years Supreme Court election outcome was for Democrats, there was also a bright spot in Racine County where the local party has become more active than in recent years, according to Racine County Democratic Party chairwoman Meg Andrietsch.

The Legislature carved up the Racine School District board into nine geographic regions, rather than nine at-large seats, to reduce the influence of members from the city of Racine. The board previously had four members who had been backed by the local Democratic Party, and the redrawn district lines pitted three of them against more conservative board members in the spring election.

The Democratic-favored candidates not only won all three of those seats, but a total of eight of the nine seats, Andrietsch said.

Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, D-Alma, who ran in the 2012 gubernatorial recall primary and considered running in 2014, acknowledged Republicans have done well organizing at the ward level, but its been a struggle for the Democrats.

The Republicans have done a very good job of getting people to the polls, Vinehout said. Theyve been working on a neighborhood leadership training program. We need to be doing that. Its curious to me that the techniques used by the Democrats in the 1970s and 1980s in terms of ward-based organizing, those techniques are being perfected by the high-tech statewide GOP.

Vinehout said she has seen a graying of the more active party members in recent years, but last weekend at the opening of the Vernon County Democratic Party headquarters for the upcoming fall election, she was heartened to see more young families.

Karen Dahl, 70, a Vernon County Board member and co-chairwoman of the countys Democratic Party, said one of the keys will be younger people with better education and more exposure to the world moving into the bucolic rural parts of the state. Thats starting to happen, but at a snails pace, she said.

(Republicans) have a stranglehold on the Supreme Court, the state Legislature and the governor. They can do anything they want and they are, Dahl said. But Ive been in politics long enough to know the pendulum will swing back.

The office of Wisconsins Democratic U.S. senator, Tammy Baldwin, did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
After a year of going without, McDonell Central Catholic High School and Notre Dame Middle School will see a new principal for the 2016-17 school year.

MACS announced this month the hiring of Brian Schulner, who is currently the principal at Fall Creek High School, where he will finish out the school year.

One of the things that caught our attention was that hes stayed current in the educational field and is very familiar with utilizing data evidence to implement best practices in teaching, MACS President Jeff Heinzen said. He has evidence of a good Catholic education, involvement in his church and faith, which is obviously an important part of our culture.

Heinzen will introduce Schulner at the schools annual address, Looking Forward  Celebrating our Gifts Night, at 6 p.m. Wendesday at McDonell Central Catholic High School.

Though Schulner will not be speaking at the address, families and guests are welcome to introduce themselves to him in the commons following the presentation.

Schulner was one of three finalists for the position, but those ideals and his background in teaching as well as social justice  Schulner spent several years at residential treatment facility program near Praire du Chen  really stood out to Heinzen and the hiring committee.

He also appreciated Schulners desire to give back to students.

He worked with those kids at the treatment center, and really brings that forward academically into his leadership positions, always supporting his teachers and students, Heinzen said. The kids are first, always.

Schulner describes himself as a data-hound  he was assessing ACT scores at the time of the interview  because he believes those are important in telling a part of the story and where students can improve.

The other part, however, is getting into the classrooms and getting to know his staff and students. Schulner said his teachers are never uncomfortable when he enters a classroom because they get used to seeing him around pretty quickly.

He announced his retirement from Fall Creek and then saw the job at McDonell and said he couldnt pass it up.

I thought, I want to get back to my roots, Schulner said. During the interview process and discussions I could feel the fit, the needs that they have in the sense of always wanting to make teachers better, students better. These are things Ive been working on.

Outside of work, Schulner and his wife, Karen, live on a horse farm in Fall Creek. He has two grown sons, Joshua and Andrew, and five grandchildren.

Schulner went to St. Marys Elementary School in Altoona, St. Patricks Middle School and Regis High School in Eau Claire, and he and his wife continue to attend church every Sunday. Though he works in a public school, his faith is never far from him.

Now, hes hoping to bring it closer.

He describes himself as an open door and keeps in constant contact with students, their families and staff via Facebook, Twitter and email. And while Schulner will miss Fall Creek and thinks hes leaving the school in a better place, he said he isnt quick to jump in to a new place and start changing things.

His first priority of business is getting a feel for the culture and the people at McDonell Central Catholic High and Notre Dame Middle School, and he is already excited to meet everyone.

Its going to be a new experience and its always great to get a fresh start at something, he said.

Schulner officially becomes a MAC July 1.

He has evidence of a good Catholic education, involvement in his church and faith, which is obviously an important part of our culture. Jeff Heinzen, MACS president
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Mystified Outer Banks tourists witnessed a bizarre act of nature Friday, Oct. 14, as fish began flinging themselves onto the beach at Ocracoke Island. Multiple videos shared on social media show the ocean appeared to boil with fish as they tumbled over each other in the surf. The so-called bluefish blitz concluded with thousands of dying fish piled on the sand, flopping up and down as ...
Mary Jane Chitwood Burtch, 72, of Roanoke, went to be with the the Lord Thursday, April 21, 2016. Mary Jane was born in Franklin County, Va., March 29, 1944, the only daughter of the late James Oliver and Wilda Chitwood. She was also preceded in death by her beloved husband, Bill.She attended the Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, Fla., from 1962 to 1965. Art was the passion of her life as she was a respected artist, teacher and curator. She was an active participant in the Roanoke Open Studios tour and was one of the original founders of that group. She was the finest wife, mother, grandmother and friend and will be deeply missed by all who loved and respected her.She is survived by her oldest son, James A. Burtch of Roanoke and wife, Megan; and youngest son, Joseph M. Burtch of Roanoke and wife, Jennifer. Also surviving are her cherished grandchildren, Madelyn, Xander and Teegan; special aunt, Betty Dillon; sister-in-law, Freida Chitwood; and many other loved family and friends.In lieu of flowers, her family asks that donations be made to the Taubman Museum of Art, 110 Salem Avenue SE, Roanoke, VA 24011. A memorial service will be held 11 a.m. Wednesday, April 27, 2016, at St. John's Episcopal Church in Roanoke. Interment will be private at St. John's. Arrangements by Conner-Bowman Funeral Home and Crematory, 62 Virginia Market Place Drive, Rocky Mount, VA 24151; 540-334-5151.
Peter Frampton will continue on with his scheduled dates this summer in Mississippi and North Carolina as many musicians are cancelling dates and events due to those states' controversial anti-LGBT legislation.

Frampton explains that he will no longer tour in those states until the anti-LGBT laws are overturned.

"Performing live has been one of the most important opportunities I've been given and I am lucky to share my music with so many of my amazing, loyal and diverse fans," Frampton tells Rolling Stone in a statement. "In light of recent legislation in North Carolina and Mississippi, I stand aside my fellow musicians Gregg Allman, Cyndi Lauper, Jimmy Buffett and many others to help overturn these absurd new laws."

In North Carolina, House Bill 2 was recently passed, forcing transgender people to use restrooms associated with the gender on their birth certificate. Though not explicitly targeting LGBT members, Mississippi's Religious Freedom Act allows businesses to deny customers based on religious views or fire people from their jobs.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Entertainment News
Japan will on Monday release March figures for corporate service prices, highlighting a light day for Asia-Pacific economic activity. Producer prices are expected to hold steady at 0.2 percent on year.

Japan also will see final February readings for the leading and coincident indexes; the previous scores were 99.8 and 110.3, respectively.

Singapore will provide March numbers for consumer prices, with forecasts suggesting an increase of 0.3 percent on month and a decline of 0.7 percent on year. That follows the 0.1 percent monthly decline and the 0.8 percent yearly contraction in February.

Finally, the in New Zealand and Australia are closed on Monday for ANZAC Day and will re-open on Tuesday.

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What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more.
Press Release

April 24, 2016 CHIZ: NO MORE 'MAKAPILI' IN PH EMBASSIES

IF 'GOBYERNONG MAY PUSO' WINS To make Philippine embassies truly a sanctuary for Filipinos abroad, independent vice-presidential bet Sen. Francis "Chiz" Escudero said the "Gobyernong may Puso" will get rid of embassy officials who act like "modern-day Makapili" instead of helping overstaying and undocumented Filipinos legalize their status in a foreign land. If elected into office, Escudero said he and his presidential running mate, leading presidential candidate Sen. Grace Poe, will tackle the case of the so-called "tago nang tago" or TNTs, who despite their best intentions to earn for their families, have been on the run from immigration authorities abroad. "Imbes na maging parang Makapili ang gobyerno dahil 'yung mga opisyal ng embahada sa ibang bansa ang nagtuturo kung sino 'yung iligal, dapat tulungan ng embassy natin na maging ligal ang mga Pilipinong ito," Escudero told a radio interview in Cagayan de Oro City recently. Makapili, which stands for Makabayang Katipunan ng mga Pilipino, refers to Filipinos who fought against their anti-Japanese countrymen during Japan's occupation of the Philippines from 1942 to 1945. Escudero lamented that TNTs are hesitant to seek help from the Philippine embassy regarding their case because they believe embassy officials themselves tip off immigration authorities of the host country on illegally staying Filipinos in exchange for a reward. He said the Philippine government, through its embassies, should serve the interests and welfare of its nationals abroad, especially the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who are hailed as "modern-day heroes" for keeping the economy resilient for many years. Should the "Gobyernong may Puso" win, Escudero said he and Poe will work toward legitimizing overstaying and undocumented Filipinos whose stay in a foreign land is not covered by certain legal protections. Escudero said this will be one of the priorities of the new department that they plan to put up to attend to needs of OFWs which number around 2.3 million, although the total migrant population is estimated to be around 10 million, or 10 percent of the entire Philippine population. "Tututukan namin ang kapakanan ng mga TNT sa ibang bansa. Trabaho ng departamentong ito na gawing ligal kung sinumang Pilipino na iligal na nagtratrabaho o naninirahan sa ibang bansa," the veteran lawmaker pointed out. Escudero earlier revealed that the "Gobyernong may Puso" plans to set up a P100-billion fund for the millions of Filipino migrant workers to finance a wide-ranging services for them.
Press Release

April 24, 2016 BONGBONG MARCOS BARES "A PATTERN OF CHEATING" TO DIVEST HIM OF HIS VOTES IN ABSENTEE VOTING Vice Presidential candidate Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" R. Marcos today bared "a pattern of cheating" to deprive him of his votes in the ongoing Overseas Absentee Voting. Marcos made the disclosure in a press conference in Ormoc City, Leyte saying he has received several reports over the weekend that votes being cast in his favor are being credited to fellow Vice Presidential candidate Senator Gregorio "Gringo" Honasan. "Last week, we were just hearing about votes for me not being reflected in my name in Hong Kong but now we have similar reports in Dubai, Kuwait and in Japan. Just this morning, we received another report from Okinawa of the same incident. We are seeing a pattern here," Marcos declared. Rep. Martin Romualdez who is running for the Senate also disclosed of a similar incident in Hong Kong where his votes were also not reflected in the voter's receipts. "I was told by my coordinator in Hong Kong that there were those who voted for me but did not see my name in the receipts and the Comelec officer just responded 'Noted' when told about it," Romualdez lamented. Marcos then called the attention of the Commission on Elections and service provider Smartmatic to immediately investigate the incidents and not dismiss them outright. "Dapat imbestigahan agad ng Comelec ito at ng Smartmatic because this does not reflect well on the credibility of the elections. We are very alarmed and very upset about these reports and the Comelec should not take this sitting down," Marcos asserted. Marcos further cautioned that if the vote discrepancy is being done abroad, it may happen in a larger scale in the polls on May 9. "This makes the whole electoral process vulnerable and it will reflect very badly on the credibility of the elections." Marcos said one of the reports that reached him came from a sibling of a Smartmatic employee. "These reports are coming from different sources and in different places. If this was just one incident, we could dismiss this as a mere isolated case or a machine glitch but they are happening in places very far apart. This is very very disturbing and the Comelec and Smartmatic should also be concerned about this," Marcos pointed out. The Senator also said they have already written the Comelec about the report that took place in Hong Kong last week where an overseas Filipino worker was caught on video complaining that her vote for Marcos went to Honasan in her voter's receipt. When she told the election officer about it, the OFW who said she was from Laoag City, Ilocos Norte was told that she could not vote anymore because there is an existing one ballot, one voter policy. Marcos disclosed that they have brought the Hong Kong incident to the Comelec last week but it would appear that with the succeeding reports, nothing has been done about it. The Senator stated that they have already told the camp of Honasan about the matter and they are also looking into it. "Senator Honasan is a very honest man and I know that he would not like that votes not for him are being given to him." Marcos is reiterating his earlier call for the Comelec to lay down the rules in cases where there are discrepancies in the vote receipts from the actual votes cast. "If a voter says the content of the receipt is wrong, what shall he or she do? How will he or she make the complaint? What's the procedure? Kailangan gumawa ng hakbang ang Comelec para pagpasok ng botante sa mga presinto ay alam na nila ang gagawin kung sakaling magkaroon ng ganitong problema," Marcos concluded.
Press Release

April 24, 2016 MORE MINDANAO POLITICAL KINGPINS PLEDGE SUPPORT

FOR BONGBONG MARCOS Support for the Vice Presidential bid of Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" R. Marcos, Jr. in Mindanao continues to snowball. This developed after two political kingpins in Agusan del Norte have endorsed the candidacy of Marcos before he capped the four-day sortie of his "Unity Caravan" in the South early Saturday. In a gathering of over three hundred barangay chairmen and political officers in Butuan City, former 1st District of Agusan Del Norte Rep. Jose "Joboy" Aquino II declared his support for Marcos. "Dito na tayo kay Bongbong Marcos!" said Aquino, who forged a deep friendship and alliance with Marcos during their stint as lawmakers in the House of Representatives. Likewise, Aquino endorsed Marcos to the EGP (Experiencing God in the Family), a Catholic group to which he belongs. Aquino said that in the past, he has never endorsed any politician to EGP but he is making an exception this time for the Senator because he believes in him. Agusan Del Norte 2nd District Rep. Erlpe John Amante, son of former Cong. Edelmiro Amante, and the entire slate of their local party Kusog Agusanon, also pledged their commitment to back the Vice Presidential bid of Marcos. "If not for his father hindi magiging Assemblyman si Edel Amante," he told over 160 barangay captains and other political leaders gathered in his house in Cabadbaran City. "But I'm not merely repaying a debt of gratitude. I believe that among the Vice Presidential candidates, Sen. Bongbong Marcos is the best," Amante stressed. As he expressed his gratitude for the support of his allies in Mindanao, Marcos also gave his assurance that he will continue to champion the interest of local government units. "I will always be the voice of local governments," said Marcos as he reported his efforts in the Senate for LGUs, including the move to increase the Internal Revenue Allotment share of local governments and his Barangay Retirement Benefits Bill, which was approved recently in the Senate. In addition, Marcos also exhorted the leaders of Agusan Del Norte to heed his call for national unity. He said that with the serious problems the country is facing today, it would need a united action of the entire nation to address them and enable the country to move forward to a better future for all of us. Before his sortie in Agusan del Norte, Marcos also bagged the support of Cagayan De Oro 1st District Rep. Rolando "Klarex" Uy, Misamis Oriental Gov. Yevgeny "Bambi" Emano, and the Dimaporo clan of Lanao Del Norte. Following his Mindanao sorties, Marcos is now in his family's bailiwick in Leyte where he is fortifying the whole Eastern Visayas (Region 8) to support his vice presidential bid.
Press Release

April 24, 2016 POE: WEST PHL SEA NOT CHINA'S PERSONAL AQUARIUM The West Philippine Sea is not a personal aquarium of the Chinese--it belongs to Filipino fishermen, Sen. Grace Poe stressed as she bared plans to strengthen the Philippine Coast Guard to protect Philippine waters. "Mga 15 kilometers from the shore line hindi po pwede kayong agawan ng isda doon sa mga lugar na iyon. Kaya dapat kausapin ang mga local government na tulungan talaga kayo," Poe said in response to the question of a local fisherman on how the five presidential candidates can help small fisherfolk against Chinese commercial fishing vessels in Philippine territory. "Hindi po personal aquarium ng mga Tsino ang West Philippine Sea. Alam nyo, 'yung sitwasyon dito sa Tsina parang sa paaralan kung saan binu-bully 'yung mga Grade One--tayo yun," she said. The lone independent presidential candidate said the government must take immediate measures to make sure Filipino fishermen are protected from bullying. "Unang-una, dapat dagdagan natin ang ating mga Coast Guard na mga barko. Pwede nating i-order yan kahit sa Cebu. Pangalawa, bigyan natin ng radyo ang ating mga mangingisda. Para may tutulong sa kanila," Poe said. The senator also reiterated her appeal to other claimants and allies in the region to take a stand against China and engage the Chinese government towards a binding code of conduct regarding the West Philippine Sea. This includes honoring the ongoing arbitration case with the United Nations. "Pwede nating hingin ang kanilang tulong basta wala tayong isinu-surrender sa kanila na ating sovereignty o kalayaan dahil hindi naman natin pwedeng isugal din ang buhay ng ating mga Navy. Pero kasama din doon, kailangan tayong manindigan dito sa ating teritoryo," Poe said. She said the government must also aid fishermen with other basic needs such as fishing equipment and scholarship for their children. Under her "Gobyernong may Puso" Poe will make quality education free for children of poor farmers and fishermen. She will also ensure that there will be grants for all indigent students who may want to study in a private college or university. Poe was present in all three PiliPinas Presidential Debates sponsored by the Commission on Elections. She said she was glad that the final debate was held at the University of Pangasinan in Dagupan City.
Press Release

April 24, 2016 POE TO GIVE P1B PER PROVINCIAL HOSPITAL, ONE DOCTOR PER TOWN Under her "Gobyernong may Puso," every town will have one doctor, and every provincial hospital will receive P1 billion for its repair and upgrade, independent presidential candidate Sen. Grace Poe declared in the last presidential debate. Poe, who is pushing for improved public health care and expanded health insurance coverage, said her campaign all over the country has shown her the pitiful state of many hospitals in rural areas, which fail to serve their constituents. If she wins, she said she will use the government's P140-billion collection from sin taxes to upgrade public health facilities all over the country. "Sa aking pag-iikot, ang daming mga local governments na nagrereklamo na pinabayaan sila ng gobyerno. Sila ang gumagasta sa kanilang ospital. Sa P140 billion, kung bigyan natin ang bawat isang probinsya para sa kanilang provincial hospital ng P1 billion para mapa-rehabilitate (ang ospital), at least hindi mukhang iyong mga kisame mahuhulog na. Walang tubig, wala man lang bed sheet," Poe said at the third and final presidential debate at the Phinma-University of Pangasinan in Dagupan City. A man from Northern Samar, who was introduced as Mang Jun, had asked the five presidential hopefuls how they can solve the problem in his town, where there is no doctor, no functional barangay health center and no medicines. Mang Jun's father died due to unavailable health care. "Ito ang nakakaiyak. Sinasabi nila na importante ang health care pero sa mga ibang ospital, wala man lang tubig. Katulad sa Catbalogan, galing ako doon. Paano mo pagagalingin ang mga pasyente kung hindi mo man lang malinis ang sarili mo?" Poe asked. "Bilang isang babae aalagaan ko iyong ating mga ospital." The senator said she will also establish a One Town, One Doctor (OTOD) scholarship program under her "Gobyernong may Puso" to address the lack of health personnel in rural areas. Under this program, there will be one scholarship slot for a student from each of the country's 1,634 cities and municipalities. The scholarship will cover a medicine student's expenses during the four-year course, including tuition, books and allowances. "Bawat isang town, magkakaroon ng iskolar. Kapag nag-graduate sila, magsisilbi sila ng apat na taon (sa kanilang lugar), tapos magpapalit para hindi magkukulang (ang ating mga doktor)," Poe said. There are around 66,000 registered physicians in the Philippines but only 2,944 of them are in public health. This means there is only one government doctor for every 34,000 Filipinos. A 2010 survey by the Social Weather Stations revealed that 25 percent of Filipinos have never consulted a doctor while 16 percent last saw a doctor more than five years ago. Poe said she will also ensure that all indigents will not have to pay out-of-pocket expenses when they obtain medical care. "Kapag ako naging pangulo, sisiguraduhin ko na ang mga mahihirap ay zero billing sa mga ospital," she said.
Press Release

April 24, 2016 Recto: Recruit 'bored' Pinoy hackers as cyber-commandos Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto today called on the executive department to expedite the formulation of the country's National Cybersecurity Plan and hire, the soonest time possible, "bored" Filipino experts on information technology as "cyber-commandos." Recto issued the appeal after a 23-year-old information technology fresh graduate who was arrested for hacking the website of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) reportedly admitted to the crime and claimed he did it out of boredom. "Instead of wasting their talents, these talented Filipino internet experts should be employed by the executive department as white hat hackers to protect us from real cyber-criminals," said Recto, principal sponsor of the Congress-approved bill creating the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT). A white hat hacker, according to Techopedia, is a computer security specialist who breaks into protected systems and networks to test and asses their security. White hat hackers use their skills to improve security by exposing vulnerabilities before malicious hackers (known as black hat hackers) can detect and exploit them. Although the methods used are similar, if not identical, to those employed by malicious hackers, white hat hackers have permission to employ them against the organization that has hired them. "Sayang ang mga kabataang ito kung makukulong lang. Magagamit natin ang kanilang talento sa kabutihan kung mabibigyan sila ng trabaho ng gobyerno bilang mga white hat hackers o cyber-commandos," Recto said. Recto said government can start organizing hack-fests, a competition to probe government websites for weaknesses. In addition to auditing the security features of these portals, these hack-fests can serve as recruiting fairs for would be government IT workers. "An idle mind is the Devil's workshop and idle hands his tool. Let us put the mind and the hands of the Filipino hackers to good use through the DICT," the senator added. The DICT law, Recto explained, mandates the creation of a "Cybercrime Investigation and Coordination Center." The DICT will also be tasked to formulate the "National Cybersecurity Plan" and form the "National Computer Emergency Response Team," which, Recto said, will serve as "our IT Special Action Forces or cyber-commandos." "This should be our priority, the formulation of a National Cybersecurity Plan. Hacking is now a serious security threat, not only in the Philippines but also in the global arena," Recto said. "What we have is a Balkanized system. Personnel investigating cybercrimes are so few and, worse, dispersed among government offices despite the increasing volume of transactions in all kinds of commerce being done online," Recto said. He cited the case of the Philippine National Police-Anti-Cybercrime Group (PNP-ACG), which has a personnel complement of 110, "and this in a country where 70 million have social media presence." The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), he said, is another "frontline office" which needs more "ICT investigators and equipment to flag cybercrimes and tag those behind them." Saying that the DICT should be part of the national security plan, Recto said "we now live in an era when terrorists don't have to blast bank doors to do mayhem; but simply unleash a virus that could shred or suck out financial data. "An enemy with a missile is as dangerous as one with malware," he said. "Countries we are not so friendly with may target us and criminals will always want to hack their way to our financial system," Recto said. He said the hack-attack on Bangladesh Bank shows that the threat is real and counter-measures against cybercrimes urgent. "The poor man's ATM is vulnerable to hacking too. There are identity thefts victimizing ordinary people," Recto said, citing "2014-2015 Cybercrime Report" prepared by the Department of Justice (DOJ) which ranked the Philippines 39th among countries with Internet threat activities. The PNP-ACG recorded an increase of 113% in cybercrime statistics from 288 incidents in 2013 to 614 incidents in 2014. According to the senator, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported 2,872 cases of ATM fraud during that period. The growing menace of cybercrime, "and the jobs that the ICT sector can bring," Recto said, should prod congressional and executive leaders to work for the immediate enactment of the DICT bill and thereafter implement it without delay. "Ito na ang tamang panahon," he said. Both houses of Congress passed their own version of the DICT bill last year, with minor differences. To avoid convening a bicameral conference, the Senate, before it adjourned for the campaign season last February, conveyed to the House its decision to accept the House version. Recto said that to gain Malacanang support, the DICT bill Congress had approved provides for a lean bureaucracy with a small but smart workforce. Despite its "small budget footprint", the proposed DICT will be a "powerful main server" which would spur ICT development, institutionalize e-government, and manage the country's ICT environment," Recto said. "ICT is also the third biggest source of dollars after electronics and OFW remittances. It is a growth driver. Every 10 percentage points increase in broadband penetration is said to boost the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 1 percent," he said. Among the powers and functions of the DICT is the "identification and prioritization of all e-government systems and applications." The DICT will also formulate policies and initiatives to develop and promote ICT in education and promote consumer rights to reliable broadband service.
If meal preparation and delivery service Munchery gets its way, it will be the new default dinner option for Americans alongside home cooking and takeout.

The San Francisco startup recently announced an $85 million funding round, which will be used to expand its operations and further lower the cost of its meals so its accessible to everyone, according to chief executive and co-founder Tri Tran.

Munchery cooks and delivers dinners to customers in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Seattle and New York. With the new funds, it will start offering services on weekends and also plans to prepare and deliver lunches, too.

This is an operationally heavy business, Tran said. We produce the food. Were not like a Postmates or Caviar, where we just do delivery. So the funding will be used to expand to additional markets and produce additional offerings.

With growth will also come the ability to tap into economies of scale and reduce the cost of meals, Tran said.

When Munchery started 3 years ago, many entrees cost as much as $25 because so few people used the service. While Tran would not reveal the exact number of customers who now regularly use Munchery, he said there were enough that the cost of entrees has been lowered to $10 to $12, because the company has greater ingredient purchasing power and the ability to use bulk-cooking appliances.

The companys next goal is to produce entrees it can offer for $7 to $8.

Tran acknowledges that this will be a challenge. While Muncherys kitchens are equipped to prepare meals in bulk, and its purchasing power allows it to buy affordable, organic produce, the company has a ways to go in educating potential customers that the service is real, and they wont be served cafeteria-grade food.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

A lot of people dont know how we do it, and they might envision robots doing this, or food sitting under a heat lamp for hours, Tran said. So were going to have to be more transparent. Were going to tell people how their food is prepared and how were able to do it at a price point that is affordable.

In addition to tapping into economies of scale, Munchery keeps costs down by centralizing its cooking in one main kitchen in each city. It sets up shop in areas with more affordable real estate, like the semi-industrial part of the Mission District in San Francisco, and also relies on machinery like a $50,000 oven that allows it to cook up to 500 servings of salmon at once while monitoring temperature and moisture levels.

Muncherys goal is to become an automatic mealtime choice for customers who dont want to cook at home or get takeout. But to do that, costs will have to be further lowered.

Were going to shoot for $7 to $8 per entree first, he said. If the economy of scale is even greater than that and we can bring you a $4 or $5 meal, well do it.
Anthemos Georgiades, the CEO of San Francisco startup Zumper, consoled a friend and fellow entrepreneur visiting from New York two weeks ago. The company his friend had spent three years building was being acquired. It wasnt a cash-out or a glorious exit. And it was far, far from the magical $1 billion valuation that grants a startup unicorn status.

The deal was a lifeboat  one known as an acqui-hire, where a larger company pays a small amount to grab a startups employees.

The New York startup, which had been living off its seed funding, couldnt raise its first round of venture capital, despite having what Georgiades friend believed was a significant growth opportunity. A few years ago, evidence that its product was catching on would have been enough. Now, investors wanted to know how he would get profitable.

That really made him struggle with investors, Georgiades said. They werent willing to bet without that piece of the story.

While much attention has been paid to techs unicorns, private companies valued by investors at $1 billion or more, the stumbling herd of hornless startups has its own set of problems. Before one becomes a unicorn, a company generally receives several rounds of funding from venture capitalists.

Brian Ach / Getty Images for TechCrunch

If all goes well, its value soars from the millions to the tens of millions to the hundreds of millions and then off to the rainbow prairies. And if it doesnt?

Funding falls

The number of deals where startups raised an initial round of funding, often called a Series A after the name of the class of shares issued to venture capitalists, fell for the first time since 2009, according to the MoneyTree report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. The report, which draws on data from Thomson Reuters, showed that the number of early-stage deals dropped 23 percent from the first quarter of 2015.

Early-stage startups rarely have significant revenue, let alone profit that might allow for a conventional assessment of a business worth. The price that professional investors pay in an initial round of funding is a mix of guesswork, spreadsheets, greed, fear and envy. If they think other investors are racing to pour money into a company, theyll bid it up. If they think their peers are shying away, down go the valuations. Everyone watches each other  and then makes moves as much based on the signals they see as any fundamentals.

Valuations have risen to a point that they seem to many people to be unsustainable, Blumberg Capitals David Blumberg said. The future expected value of their continued growth is lessened. People are getting more realistic and skeptical.

People should have been more skeptical sooner, Uber board member and Benchmark Capital partner Bill Gurley wrote in a blog post last week. He argued that a grow at all costs mentality and record burn rates have brought danger to the market for private tech companies, and that investment priorities will shift as a result.

Todays Unicorn entrepreneur has been trained in an environment that may look radically different from what lies ahead, Gurley wrote, adding that some are finding for the first time, perhaps in their lives, that they cant raise additional funds at a higher value than they had in previous rounds. This is uncharted territory.

Some accused Gurley of hypocrisy. As a board member of San Franciscos Uber, which was valued in December at $62.5 billion, he oversees the worlds highest-valued unicorn. But his latest salvo follows valuation cuts in both the public and private markets. (A spokeswoman for Gurley said he was not offering comment beyond what he wrote.)

In the first week of February, LinkedIns shares dropped 43 percent after its revenue projections fell short of expectations. That same week, Tableau Softwares value plunged by almost 50 percent after the data analysis and visualization companys revenue forecast fell short of analysts consensus by about $20 million.

We know that this whole creation of unicorns this last couple of years was just an anomaly, said SoftTech venture capitalist Jeff Clavier. Some of the unicorns have raised capital in a distorted reality that doesnt have any bearing.

Warnings about overvaluation began in late 2015, making investors nervous as they went into an uncertain new year. Stock market drops and the lack of initial public offerings and mergers and acquisitions made matters worse.

Without any bad thing happening in the market, people started saying Lets stop, Clavier said. Its a bit of a self-inflicted wound.

Company founders fears of an unforgiving public market have prompted them to stay private for far longer than they might have in the 90s, when companies like Yahoo and eBay raced to go public. Now, according to the MoneyTree report, venture capitalists have shifted their focus to later stages, where they can better assess companies prospects of one day turning a profit.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

There is still a certain amount of activity, but its going to be concentrated in the companies that have (positive margins) and great prospects, Clavier said.

Slower growth

At Zumper, a service for renting homes and apartments through the Web or a mobile app, Georgiades board encouraged him to shift focus away from growth at all costs early on. The company, which is not yet profitable, makes money by charging application fees to renters and letting landlords pay to promote listings. It has raised $14.6 million and is operating with only 33 employees. While Georgiades said he will seek to raise more money in the next three months, hes made sure that the companys cash on hand will last it well into 2017. And he expects Zumper to generate a profit from operations by the end of the summer.

Its so obvious an entrepreneur should focus on a business model, Georgiades said. Growth models are sexy, but at the end of the day you dont want to rely on venture capital funding.

Still, there is plenty of venture capital money to be had, Clavier and Georgiades agreed. If we are in a bubble, it is one that has deflated rather than popped  which means startups will compete all the more fiercely for the funds that are available.

To raise capital, its going to cost you a good chunk of the company, and its going to be Darwinian, Clavier said. Only the strongest companies will be able to raise.

Being sustainable

The strongest companies will be those that can increase revenue with sustainable costs, Clavier said. As a counterexample, he cited Zenefits, the health insurance broker, which laid off 250 employees, 17 percent of its staff, in February, despite achieving a $4.5 billion valuation. CEO David Sacks wrote in a memo to employees that the company had grown too fast, stretching both our culture and our controls.

You better have a model that puts you back in the black, Clavier said. Otherwise youre just digging your own grave.

Jessica Floum is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jfloum@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jfloum
So matinee idol Alexander Hamiltons going to remain the $10 bill poster boy, and Harriet Tubman will be on the $20, particularly pleasing women, African Americans and other history lovers whose grandparents didnt own slaves.

Reader Peter Moore, perhaps realizing that sometimes a fives not enough and a 10s too much, suggests that the Treasury create another denomination, a $7.50 bill for an unnamed honoree. No doubt finding an additional hero whom everyone would support will be difficult.

So Im suggesting that we forgo traditional icons to honor instead the spenders. Lets create a bill that would be of fluctuating worth  like a forever stamp  synced to the price of vending-machine Twizzlers, a nutritious snack that is, after all, the color of one third of red-white-and-blue.

And while were talking about money:

Because of a recent item about the Shirley Temple stamp, and because she knows that Im fond of ogling geegaws, Jennifer Biederbeck of Sothebys sent me the catalog of Magnificent Jewels that were auctioned in New York on Tuesday. The cover piece was the Shirley Temple Blue Diamond, which had been bought by Temples father in 1940, says the catalog, as shooting ended on The Blue Bird.

The 9.4-carat diamond, set in a ring with small diamonds flanking it, was expected to fetch between $25 million and $35 million ... but it turned out that no one bid high enough  maybe the big spenders were at the primary polls, voting  and the bauble remained unsold. Biederbeck said afterward that pink might be the new blue; a 12-carat pink diamond recently sold for $4.56 million; and Christies sent a press release saying the Jubilee Ruby, which that house sold for $14,165,000 last week, was the most expensive colored gemstone ever sold in the U.S.

Flipping through the Sothebys catalog  a process something like window-shopping  I also came across Item No. 145, a pair of platinum and diamond Barbie slippers, Harry Winston. These are diamond-studded shoes made by Winston to fit the feet of a Barbie doll. Perhaps they were for Barbie creator Ruth Handler? (They fetched $12,500.)

P.S. As to that Elliot Daingerfield Twilight painting, found behind a mirror consigned by a Pebble Beach estate to the Clars Auction Gallery in Oakland, it was auctioned for $38,435. The mirror, originally consigned, wasnt offered for sale. With the backing peeled away, it might have gone for $10, say the auctioneers. The estimate had been $6,000 to $9,000.

Ellen Komp went to see the Oakland Museum of Californias Altered State exhibition on 4/20 (when the entrance price was $4.20), and overheard another art lover say, So Ive joined a dispensary, a social club and a museum today. And in the Haight, my stomping grounds, the usual result of any San Francisco happening  happy, sad, monumental, minor, musical or political  was felt: tied-up traffic and no parking.

Even Bernie Sanders has spin doctors, as proved by a press release received the day after the New York primary: Working Families Party National Director Dan Cantor made the following statement on Bernie Sanders upset victory in New York: Bernie Sanders started at 3 percent in the polls, making his final tally of support impressive in a state where Secretary Clinton served eight years as a U.S. Senator.

The San Francisco International Film Festival opened Thursday, April 21, with Love & Friendship, writer-director Whit Stillmans take on Lady Susan, a Jane Austen novella packed, it was said, with memorable and deliciously amoral characters.

Stillman took the stage before the screening and thanked Amazon, one of the producers, for saving me from total bankruptcy. This seemed a particularly appropriate comment, because the story, in keeping with familiar Austen themes, describes the intersection of romantic passions and financial concerns.

On stage afterward, Kate Beckinsale talked about the challenges of the Lady Susan role: Its so difficult to dance and to have a corset on. I thought I would nearly die. (Checking clips about the movie, this has been a familiar talking point for the actress. Putting it on in the morning is OK, shed told E Online at Sundance. Its putting it back on after lunch thats the unpleasant one. Thats the one where youre like, I wish I didnt eat that.)

Open for business in San Francisco, (415) 777-8426. Email: lgarchik@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @leahgarchik

Public Eavesdropping

I try so hard to keep things nice and clean for you, and you just keep dumping stuff in.

Woman of the streets discussing condition of their shopping cart with man of the streets, overheard at Market and 16th by Michael Wheeler
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In April 2013, Steven Levine, then a contracted chef with fledgling Munchery, pulled a sheet pan of chicken breasts out of a creaky old oven and placed it on the counter to cool. A sheen of sweat glazed his forehead as he cranked through nearly 100 meals for that evenings dinner delivery service. It was, as he would have described it then, a very successful day.

Three years later, on a recent afternoon in the same kitchen, the chef  now a member of Muncherys research and development team  was nowhere to be found. Yet several hundred of the roast chickens for two  a recipe he developed but no longer cooks  were riding down a conveyor belt to be assembled by a hairnet-clad plating team for distribution the next night.

This is how a new industry  food delivery on a mass scale  has evolved in a few short years. Meal-delivery services at first operated like small, grassroots businesses, then, if successful, like high-volume restaurants. But thanks to multimillion-dollar rounds of funding  for Munchery, $117 million  these businesses have leaped from a handful of employees to hundreds and from the Bay Area to other cities.

In some cases, the number of daily meals produced climbs into the tens of thousands. Now, each company functions more like a mashup of a commercial food production center and a tech company, where ingredients are considered data and chefs are assuming product manager roles.

It is an entirely new dining ecosystem. With this growth, however, these entrepreneurs are discovering that disrupting food may prove more complicated than other industries. There are issues of scalability, logistics, ingredient and product quality, not to mention long-term profitability.

Munchery, Sprig the leaders

Bay Area companies like Munchery and Sprig have emerged as the leaders in the prepared-meal space. But as they have grown, others have faltered: Sprigs direct competitor, Spoonrocket, shut down suddenly in March, and last week, private chef service Kitchit acknowledged it is navigating turbulent times. As these cracks develop, its becoming clear that the future is not assured.

Michael Macor/The Chronicle

Next month, Munchery will unveil a new 35,000-square-foot commercial kitchen in South San Francisco, with room to double in size. The company also just built a commercial kitchen in Los Angeles, one of three footholds outside the Bay Area, along with New York and Seattle. By June, our reach of customers will be 23 million across all four markets, said Munchery co-founder Tri Tran.

Though their models may vary, these companies long-term visions are almost identical in their utopian-like ambition: They want to completely change the way people eat and think about meals.

I think were the next iteration of what a restaurant will look like, said Sprig co-founder and CEO Gagan Biyani. The analogy I like to draw for people is, How much did fast food change the industry? Sprig intends to change the industry  we present a fundamental shift that is as big as the difference between fast food and the mom-and-pop restaurant down the street.

And, he added, it will require a completely different consumer mind-set from today.

Now, people plan their meals, buy food in advance and end up throwing 40 percent of it into the trash, he said. Imagine a world where you didnt have to plan ahead, and you would know that anytime youre hungry, there is a great meal available to you within 10 minutes of where you are.

Michael Macor/The Chronicle

Profitable business model?

But in this venture capitalist-run environment  or bubble, depending on whom you ask  where most companies operate at a loss in the hope of a bigger payoff down the line, the question looms: Is this model even sustainable?

Muncherys Tran believes his company is scalable, although he admits the food component makes it different, and difficult. To do this, to scale quickly and maintain quality, you cant just hack it together. Food is not software; we cant replicate mindlessly.

At the most basic level, Muncherys and Sprigs short-term business models are polar opposites. While each prepares food in its own commercial kitchen (as opposed to picking it up from a restaurant like many of their on-demand competitors, like UberEats or Postmates), Munchery delivers a variety of cold dishes that the customer can heat at his or her discretion.

It also delivers dishes like sushi, salads or cooked salmon, in addition to items that will heat well, including Levines chicken, stews or even pasta. It recently launched ready-to-cook meal kits that can be finished in about 15 minutes, with dishes like beef short ribs that simply need to be seared and glazed in teriyaki sauce, or goat cheese and zucchini flatbreads.

Michael Macor/The Chronicle

Munchery is able to execute its cold-food model from just one kitchen in each market, though distribution centers are placed in various neighborhoods to make the operation more efficient. Still, on-demand is available only in San Francisco; elsewhere, orders need to be placed by 2 p.m. for same-day delivery.

Tran said that in the mature Bay Area market, Munchery makes a profit of 20 to 30 percent on every meal sold. But that number is hard to quantify without considering the kitchen construction costs, or factoring in Muncherys less established markets outside the Bay Area.

A smaller reach

On the other hand, Sprig  with its investment rounds of $57 million  brings ready-to-eat food thats hot, in 20 minutes or less. Menu items like blackened chicken with carrot-orange mash and roasted broccoli focus on healthy clean options  free of added sugars, fats and preservatives.

Sprigs reach might be smaller than Munchery  its only in San Francisco and Chicago  but that density is somewhat necessary when delivering hot food safely in an on-demand setting.

In its Civic Center kitchen this week, Sprig was bursting at the seams. Stacks upon stacks of bins containing freshly shredded zucchini noodles sat next to racks of roasted root vegetables and cooked chicken breasts; around the corner, what looked like hundreds of pounds of beef were being readied for the grill. And this was a quieter moment in an average day there; according to the Sprig team, theyre running through more than 26,000 pounds of produce each week.

Executive research and development chef Jessica Entzel, who was Sprigs first employee to join its five founders, said the team intended to stay in that particular space, a former Chevys, for five or six months. That was two years ago, and theyve had to reshuffle constantly while looking for a larger kitchen space.

Creating bigger market

Although Sprigs growth may seem conservative, Biyani  who would not discuss specific numbers  acknowledges the company is not yet profitable. Yet he insists that profitability was never the short-term goal.

We believe this has the opportunity to be the largest restaurant in the world, so were optimizing for the long term, he said. Do we care about being financially responsible and having control over our business and knowing where were making our investments? Yes, which would be a huge difference between us and other companies that havent succeeded.

Were scaling intentionally, Biyani said. We have certain milestones that we want to hit in each market before we expand.

Michael Macor/The Chronicle

It might not be as challenging as one might think.

In some ways, they have an easier problem than, say, Lyft might have in scaling, said Arun Sundararajan, a business professor at New York University.

Sundararajan said ride-hailing companies such as Lyft and Uber have to employ nonprofessional drivers. And at Airbnb, he added, everyday people are converted into part-time hoteliers. Munchery and Sprig arent converting hobbyist home cooks into commercial chefs. Theyre simply creating a bigger market for professionals.

Diverse skills, however, are required to staff this new breed of food company. A line cook looking for better hours no longer really fits the bill. Instead, those touching the food need to have worked with large-volume production.

Sitting with the teams at Munchery and Sprig for a few minutes will clue you in to the fact that because these are, at the core, tech companies, theres also a new vernacular to learn.

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

Recipes are iterated instead of changed.

A new kitchen doesnt simply open or become usable; it comes online.

Forget a culinary diploma. To survive here, youll need a background at Costco and an advanced degree in Millennial tech-speak.

Ive been here for so long that I understand how to scale it, said Levine, who now spends most of his time developing recipes for the masses. I can take a dish and what I call Muncherize it.

We scale to 200

Most new chefs would be overwhelmed by the process now, he said.

When we test, we scale to 200, said Muncherys culinary director Robert Cubberly, who previously worked at places like Google and Starbucks before joining the team a year ago. Things like fat, sodium and liquids get out of whack at scale. For each item, we have to determine the ideal batch size.

Each ingredient has its own code number, and we have as many as 18 different SKUs (stock keeping units) each night, including sides, salads and kids meals.

Perhaps the biggest challenge with food scaling is not the recipes, but the vendors.

Theyre absolutely having a hard time keeping up with what we need, Sprigs Entzel said. Its not that they wont scale with us, but we need to work together to set up specs to get what we need.

That means ordering far in advance, and sometimes finding new vendors to meet growing demand. This begs the question of sustainability: Munchery, for example, started out procuring only Marys free-range chickens, but it has had to add more chicken vendors to meet the numbers.

Facing tough competition

But to put it in context, Sundararajan said these are still a very tiny portion of commercially prepared meals in the United States. What Munchery and Sprig are doing is piggybacking on the existing infrastructure for large-scale food production, he said. This is not a new business.

Maybe. But if the next three years are anything like the last, theyll have to continue to reinvent the wheel to keep up with new competition.

Just last week, Munchery launched a membership program, which it hopes will provide value for current and new customers. And at Sprig, new cities, and new spaces, are on the horizon.

Its the nature of the business, and like any good tech company, most of the employees are willing to wear many hats to see where it leads.

All while holding out hope that the money doesnt run out.

Amanda Gold is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: agold@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @AmandaGold Instagram: @agold_sfchron
When a young programmer hired Lauren Geremia to decorate his two-story, three-bedroom apartment in San Franciscos Mission District, the only considerable items he had were his bike, his computer and his favorite chair  a black leather recliner purchased from Amazon.

This came as no surprise to Geremia. The Emeryville designer has become a style guru for young professionals in the tech industry, who are as notorious for being stylistically challenged as they are for being well compensated. After gaining recognition for her work on the headquarters of Instagram and Dropbox, as well as several new bars and restaurants around San Francisco, Geremia attracted a following of successful young professionals looking for her signature relaxed, modern style.

Its a common job for us  the guy that isnt sure where to begin or what to do, says Geremia, who is perfectly suited to this type of client. Shes neither pushy nor pretentious, despite a fine arts degree from Rhode Island School of Design and a decade of experience. Instead Geremia starts each new job with a survey of straightforward questions, including What do you wish your home provided that it never has before? Next, she presents her client with a selection of curated artwork for their review.

In this case, we came up with art that made sense based on the clients interests and the space, says Geremia, of the young man who declined to be named. She took cues from the just-renovated apartments unique stained blue-gray wood floors and cedar beams as well as the clients passions for travel and science. I love the idea of connecting innovators from one industry (technology) with innovators in the totally different realm of art and design.

Winnowing that list of 30 works to six pieces that the client wanted to buy was the first step in finding the basic palette of colors and materials. For the living room, a photograph by London photographer Noemie Goudal titled Tectonic I is the primary focal point. The blue-gray tones in the image of an erupting rock formation mirror the pale tint of the flooring and set the stage for the apartments overall color scheme of gray, black and white, punctuated with pops of warm hues. A dark gray print by Tauba Auerbach, Plate Distortion II, continues the theme in the adjacent dining area.

Aubrie Pick

The client, a bachelor, was most daunted by the idea of furnishing the great room. He knew he wanted a big inviting couch and a dining table to seat a range of guests, but he also wanted the space to feel comfortable when he was relaxing alone at home. Geremia and project designer Erin OBrien pitched one big-ticket item that fit the bill: a NeoWall modular sectional designed by Piero Lissoni for Living Divani.

I think he was sold on it when we presented it in four different configurations, and one of them involved moving a section into the most acoustically ideal spot in the room, says OBrien.

For the rest of the great room, Geremia selected lightweight occasional tables that are easy to move around, along with a vintage rolling bar cart and stacking dining chairs that support various entertaining scenarios.

In the kitchen, which the client rarely uses, Geremia selected all of the accessories and appliances for a truly pristine look. The barstools are a stark black-and-white riff on camp stools crafted by Berkeley designer Alice Tacheny. Sculptural black forms and copper accents add further contrast and warmth in the glossy white kitchen.

For the three bedrooms, one of which is a home office, Geremia continued to mix modern pieces with striking art and vintage style. In the master bedroom, for instance, a photograph by Josef Hoflehner called Sea of Japan hangs over a bed layered with handwoven black-and-white textiles; nearby sits a curvaceous caramel leather settee from Shine by S.H.O.

Right away, the architecture felt Scandinavian to me, says Geremia. The openness of the space, the light floors and the exposed beams inspired our relaxed design concept. I looked for Danish Modern pieces and vintage accessories that would help fill the space without breaking the budget.

The designers role is often a combination of style instructor and problem solver, but Geremia adds another level of service. Like an art consultant or a design adviser, she helps her clients start a collection of art and design that will stay with them and last for the duration. Case in point: The owners beloved bike now hangs artfully from the Artifox bike rack in the living room, and the computer lives in a well-ventilated niche in the office alongside an Eames chair and a curio cabinet by Piet Hein Eek.

Sarah Lynch is a freelance writer. Email: food@sfchronicle.com

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

Aubrie Pick

5 tips for creating a flexible floor plan

1. Look for a modular sofa that will accommodate the most visually symmetrical seating arrangement as well as the optimal movie-watching scenario.

2. When placing furniture, allow yourself the option to thin it out when no one else is there. Stacking chairs can be stored out of sight when not needed.

3. Create furniture plans that compartmentalize your spaces  for dining, lounging, drinking, playing games then you can activate them as needed.

4. Avoid clutter. It will make switching out the furniture plan so much easier when the time comes.

5. Consider vintage pieces that are usually smaller and more lightweight, not to mention durable if theyve already lasted this long.

 S.L.
What did they want? Jobs! When did they want them? A long, long time ago.

The Chronicles front page from April 24, 1894, covered the march of Coxeys army from Ohio to Washington, D.C.

President Cleveland is said to be greatly disturbed over the proposed visitation of Coxeys army, and he has not only sought advice on the subject from the members of his Cabinet and others in authority, but he has had a long conference with the Chief of Police, of numbers and physical presence; and, whereas, the constitutional right of petition does not justify methods dangerous to peace and good order, which threaten the question of the National Capitol, the story on The Chronicles front page reported in one long, convoluted sentence.

In other words: The president was worried these guys were going to cause more trouble.

Coxeys army was a group of men who used the long march to demand employment during what was at the time the greatest depression in U.S. history. The march, officially called the Army of the Commonwealth in Christ, gained followers across the nation and led to reforms, but the depression would drag on.

(Click to enlarge)

A note on illustrations: The drawings on this front page are wonderful remnants of another era. Four of them depict parts of a story about the shipwreck of the Los Angeles steamer off the coast of Monterey. The other shows the Coxeys army march, and despite its historical significance, it unfortunately uses the term colored to describe a driver in the march. It was common phrasing of the time, but its jarring nonetheless.

See more front pages: Go to SFChronicle.com/covers to search a database of hundreds of Chronicle Covers articles that showcase the newspaper's history.

More from the Archive The Vault Home of the San Francisco Chronicle's archive and more than 150 years of journalism covering the Bay Area and beyond.

Chronicle Covers is a yearlong project highlighting one classic Chronicle newspaper page from our archive every day for 366 days. Library director Bill Van Niekerken, art director Danielle Mollette-Parks, producer Michelle Devera and editorial assistant Jillian Sullivan contributed to the project. Tim ORourke is the executive producer and editor of SFChronicle.com. Email: torourke@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TimothyORourke
SACRAMENTO  Thousands of Californians are owed money  in some cases more than $100,000  in life insurance benefits because they did not know they were beneficiaries and insurance companies made no effort to notify them, state officials say.

Now, the state Controllers Office is trying to hand $307 million to its proper owners  and $13.3 million of that life insurance money belongs to 5,300 people living in San Francisco and Oakland, according to data analyzed by The Chronicle.

The amounts owed to individuals across the state range from $583,000 belonging to the trust of Huan Lin in Los Angeles County to 50 others owed $150,000 or more.

A Chronicle review of state data on unclaimed life insurance policies in the Bay Area and subsequent interviews with individuals revealed that many of the beneficiaries who have not collected the money owed to them have themselves died, with the money now owed to unnamed heirs. Some individuals told The Chronicle that family feuds made claiming the money owed them difficult. One elderly woman said she was tired of people telling her she was owed a $20,000 life insurance policy for her late husband.

People send me stuff and I just throw it out, she said before hanging up.

That skepticism was evident with many of the beneficiaries contacted by The Chronicle.

A San Francisco man said he had no idea his mother left him and his siblings $21,000 but asked that his name not be used because he considered it a family matter.

Thats a chunk of change, he said. I have kids, so that money would come in handy.

Tens of thousands of people in California have already collected life insurance money that had been owed to them but that they only learned about in recent years after a multistate investigation by state insurance commissioners found that insurers were not notifying individuals that they were listed as beneficiaries and had money to collect. The insurers readily checked to see when a policy holder died to stop sending annuity payments, yet would not use those death confirmations to pay beneficiaries.

In addition, a joint audit by state controllers found life insurance companies were not turning over money from unclaimed policies to states that require businesses to give the government a chance to find the rightful heirs. Instead, the companies made huge profits by pocketing payouts to beneficiaries or siphoning the accounts to pay premiums until there was nothing left and the policy was canceled, a practice state officials say was industrywide.

It was part of their business model to not pay the benefits, said California Controller Betty Yee. Even when companies knew the policy holder died, they did not contact the beneficiaries. The sheer volume of the policies in just California suggests there are a lot of Californians that may not know there are death benefits due to them.

California joined 40 other states to fight the life insurance companies beginning in 2008, reaching settlements in recent years with 25 companies that required them to pay $2.4 billion to states as unclaimed property that can be claimed by beneficiaries. The California Controllers Office is suing two companies  American National Insurance Co., and Kemper to require them to open their books to see if they, too, owe beneficiaries money. A third lawsuit, against Thrivent Financial, was dismissed and the state determined Thrivent owed no unclaimed property in California.

State insurance commissioners are still investigating 18 more life insurance companies, but have reached separate settlements with 22 companies that required the businesses to pay $5 billion to beneficiaries, including more than $400 million to California families.

Yee said many families do not know that their loved one took out a life insurance policy. When a life insurance policy is purchased, the policy holder pays premiums so that when they die, their spouse, children or other loved ones receive a lump sum payment.

The system works very well as long as you are aware you are a beneficiary, said Kevin McCarty, Floridas insurance commissioner, whose office took the lead with California to reach settlements with life insurance companies. Its when you dont know the policy exists, which is very common with older generations that would buy a policy for $5,000 or $10,000 and they pack it in the garage or attic and forget all about it.

The American Council of Life Insurers, an industry group, said benefits go unclaimed in a small percentage of cases and that life insurers want everyone to receive the benefits to which they are entitled rather than paying unpaid benefits to state governments.

The groups president, Dirk Kempthorne, said in a statement that most companies go well beyond what current laws require to see if a policy holder has died and benefits are owed.

Last week, Floridas governor signed into law a bill requiring life insurance companies doing business in the state to regularly check a Social Security database to see if policy holders have died. The law requires companies to retroactively look at policies going back to 1992 to see if there is money owed to beneficiaries.

State officials like Yee said California already has the tools to hold life insurance companies accountable without additional laws.

But those just finding out about forgotten policies arent too sure.

These companies are not regulated the way they should be, said Susan Phelan of San Francisco, whose ex-husband named her as a beneficiary on a retirement account through Prudential Insurance Co. of America, which was made public as part of the settlement with life insurance companies. It results in them coming up with policies 200 pages long that hide things that hurt people later. It allows (the companies) to add these loopholes that benefit them.

Phelan and others contacted by The Chronicle said they have had a difficult time claiming the money once they found out about it because they dont have information about the policies supposedly owed to them.

Phelan said it seems odd the state says she is owed $58,000, but that the state cant help her get more information to claim the money.

Theyve (the state) made it extremely difficult, Phelan said.

Dave Jones, Californias insurance commissioner, said companies are required to pay the full value of old policies to beneficiaries for accounts going back to 1995 that they may have been draining. The companies are also required to pay beneficiaries 3 percent compounded interest on the value of the accounts.

Thats real money for people from their husband, wife, father or mother who bought a policy and paid for it, Jones said. Those beneficiaries have a right to that money, regardless of whether its $25. And we will do everything to make sure they get it.

This article has been corrected since it appeared in print editions.

Melody Gutierrez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez

Insurance search

The California Controllers Office has a searchable website, https://ucpi.sco.ca.gov/UCP/LifeInsuranceSearch.aspx, which people can check to see whether they have unpaid life insurance settlements.
The Bay Area has its own way of doing things. And in some instances, this includes saying things in a very particular way.

Many local proper nouns, including Gough Street, Arguello and San Rafael, have certain pronunciations that Bay Area newbies commonly stumble over. Others, such as Guerneville, have unique ways longtime natives say them just for fun. And then there are the ones like "Junipero Serra" or "Valencia" that are hotly debated among locals.
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Dusks light cast a refracted glow across the water. As we nestled our boat into a cove at Shasta Lake, it was difficult to believe this was the same place as just four months earlier.

The surface was a mirror. Pines and fresh-budded oaks reflected across emerald water. Deep in the cove, high water flooded willows that had grown for years on barren lakebed. The slopes were coated with fresh grass. The air was filled with the calls of songbirds.

Bob Simms, one of Shastas old angling masters, cast out his line, and then with a smile, turned and said: Can you believe how pretty this is? Ive been coming to this lake for 50 years, and when its this pretty, it makes me wish I had another 50 years.

Shasta has received 61 inches of rain this season, which has raised the lake level 143 feet since December (its 92 percent full and at 109 percent of normal for this time of year). Since the lake isnt expected to reach its peak levels until late May, the Bureau of Reclamation is releasing water to make sure it doesnt fill too quickly. During the annual April 1 snow survey, a station at the 7,900-foot level on Mount Shasta measured a 129-inch snowpack (123 percent of normal). As that snow melts, it will release more water down the rivers and into the lake.

That means Shasta Lake, even with releases to points south, is guaranteed to stay over 90 percent for at least the next two months. That is a game-changer for recreation. Shasta will again be California's No. 1 recreation lake this summer, offering an eye-popping array of features: 370 miles of shoreline, 1,200 campsites, 11 marinas, 21 boat ramps, more than a dozen resorts, 400 houseboat rentals and  for the anglers  22 species of fish.

The old master

This past week, Simms joined the Stienstra Navy in my boat as we launched one evening for a two-day trip to explore the lake arms and fish a few coves for bass. As he scanned across the lake, the sight made him glow. Look at all that water!

Many people who love the outdoors might feel as if they know Bob as their personal friend from his radio show on KFBK in Sacramento. He has done three hours every Saturday morning for 26 years. He has also fished and camped at hundreds of lakes and streams.

Of all of them, when Shasta is full, it is my favorite, Simms said. It has everything: the beauty, great fishing, the boat-in camping, the different types of scenery, the wildlife, the history of the area. You can experience all of that at the same time.

Just like the lake, all the water rejuvenated Simms. When Im back in a cove, with flooded willows and a shoreline with fresh green grass, its difficult for a lake to look better or to find better fishing spots, he said between casts.

We fished two four-hour periods on back-to-back days and caught and released roughly 60 to 70 bass; we kept five for dinner, the sweetest tasting fish anywhere. The biggest fish were an 18-inch bass and a 13-inch crappie, and most of the fish were 12- to 14-inch spotted bass.

Every place weve fished, weve had bites and often caught bass, Simms said at one point. Thats amazing. Where else could that happen?

Everything we tried worked. Jigs or grubs, best in salt-and-pepper, rigged on quarter-ounce darthead jigs with 3/0 hooks, worked the best.

Even if you catch 20 or 30, it just doesnt get old. Its so gratifying that I dont want to leave, Simms said.

Top recreation lake

When the winter started, the water level was so low that Shasta  with its reddish, iron-based soils showing on steep, exposed lakebeds  somewhat resembled the Grand Canyon. In early fall, with dry, hot weather, temperature often in the 100s, it was more like a dust bowl. The low water devastated the businesses of marina operators, houseboat rentals and lodging services. Then it started to rain.

Many people from the Bay Area and Sacramento region have yet to see the transformation. The sight of all that water is head-shakingly beautiful, amplified by the recent lime-green budding of oak trees, along with blooming lupine, poppies, dogwoods and redbud.

We measured the surface water temperature at 63 degrees and still in the mid-50s about 10 to 15 feet deep. That means the spring-to-summer transition has just started.

In the past week, many campgrounds opened for the year. There are also four boat-in campgrounds, and with high water and no long walk up the bank anymore, these are again highly desirable. If you own a boat, you can also search out hidden flats and create your own boat-in site.

The rejuvenation is amazing. Giant Shasta is back.

Tom Stienstra is The Chronicles outdoor writer. Email: tstienstra@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @StienstraTom

If you go

Cabins and cottages: Sugarloaf at (530) 238-2448, http://shastacabins.com; Tsasdi at (530) 238-2575, www.tsasdiresort.us; Lakeshore at (530) 238-2003, www.shastacamping.com; Antlers at (530) 238-2553, www.shastalakevacations.com; Lakehead at (530) 238-8540, www.lakeheadcampgroundandrv.com; Silverthorn at (530) 275-1571, https://silverthornresort.com; Salt Creek at (530) 238-2161, www.saltcreekresort.com; Shasta Lake RV at (530) 238-2370, www.shastarv.com.

Houseboats: Shasta Marina, (530) 238-2284, https://shastalake.net; Holiday Harbor (530) 283-2383, http://lakeshasta.com; Silverthorn (530) 275-1571, https://silverthornresort.com; Jones Valley (530) 275-7950, http://houseboats.com; Antlers (530) 238-2553, www.shastalakevacations.com; Bridge Bay (530) 275-3021, www.bridgebayhouseboats.com.

Camping: 27 campgrounds with 1,200 campsites; for Forest Service sites, (530) 275-1589, www.fs.usda.gov/stnf. All camps detailed in Moon California Camping.

Boat ramps: Antlers, Bailey Cove, Centimudi, Hirz Bay, Jones Valley, Packers Bay, Sugarloaf; several others at private marinas; most with $10 to $12 fees.

Boaters/mussels: No mussel inspection required; boaters urged to conduct their own inspection and make sure boat and trailer are clean, dry and free of all weeds.

Fishing: Phils Propeller, (530) 275-4939.

Info: Shasta Lake Visitor Information Center, U.S. Forest Service, (530) 275-1589, www.fs.usda.gov/stnf; Shasta Lake Info, www.shastalake.com.
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"Humans of New York," founder Brandon Stanton has written the most beautiful tribute for his dog Susie who passed away this week.

Stanton, who has been a strong advocate for adopting senior dogs met his four legged companion while shooting in Brooklyn five years ago.
HANNOVER, Germany  President Obama mounted a strong defense of international trade deals Sunday in the face of domestic and foreign opposition, saying its indisputable that such agreements strengthen the economy and make U.S. businesses more competitive worldwide. But he acknowledged that the clock is ticking on his faltering trade agenda.

Obama, on a farewell visit to Germany as president, is trying to light a fire under stalled talks over a trans-Atlantic trade deal, a massive pact that would rewrite the rules for the billions in trade and investment between the European Union and the U.S.

At a press conference, a trade show and a private dinner with chief executives, Obama tried to counter public skepticism about the unfinished deal with Europe, while also downplaying opposition from the 2016 presidential candidates to a pending Asia-Pacific trade pact.

The majority of people still favor trade. They still recognize, on balance, that its a good idea, Obama said. If you look at the benefits to the United States or to Germany of free trade around the world, it is indisputable that it has made our economies stronger.

The president said he was confident negotiations on the trans-Atlantic trade deal could be completed by the end of year, with ratification to follow. And he said that once the U.S. presidential primary season is over and politics settle down, the trans-Pacific pact, awaiting ratification, can start moving forward in Congress.

Obama is pushing to conclude negotiations on the European deal before he leaves office, so that next president can pick that up rapidly and get that done, he told the BBC in an interview broadcast Sunday.

But its not certain that the next president would pick up where Obama leaves off on trade. The trans-Atlantic pact has not been a top issue in the campaign to choose Obamas successor. And both leading candidates  Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump  oppose the Asia-Pacific trade pact for its potential impact on American jobs and wages.

Obama isnt alone in facing opposition on trade. His host and partner on the daylong campaign, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, also is under pressure from critics who claim the trans-Atlantic deal would erode environmental standards and consumer protections.

Thousands of people took to the streets in Hannover to protest the trade deal on the eve of Obamas arrival.

Throughout the day, Obama and Merkel stressed their alignment on trade, as well as other matters.

At a press conference, Obama made a strong public show of support for Merkels handling of the migrant issue, saying she was on the right side of history on this.

Her decision to allow the resettlement in Germany of thousands fleeing violence in Syria and other Mideast conflict zones has created an angry domestic backlash. Merkel recently helped European countries reach a deal with Turkey to ease the flow, but she and the other leaders are now under pressure to revisit it.

Obama said Merkel was giving voice, I think, to the kinds of principles that bring people together rather than divide them.
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YEREVAN, Armenia  American actor George Clooney joined Armenians on Sunday marking 101 years since a massacre by Ottoman Turks of 1.5 million ethnic Armenians.

Clooney attended a service at a hilltop memorial in the capital Yerevan led by Armenian church leader Catholicos Karekin II to commemorate the victims.

The killing of more than 200 Armenian intellectuals on April 24, 1915, is regarded as the start of the massacre that is widely viewed by historians as the first genocide of the 20th century. Modern Turkey, the successor to the Ottoman Empire, vehemently rejects that the deaths constitute genocide, saying the toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

Clooney has been a prominent voice in favor of countries recognizing the killings as genocide, which the United States has not done.

Memorial events in Armenia kicked off late Saturday with a torchlight march to the memorial complex.

President Obama declined Friday to call the 1915 massacre genocide, breaking a key campaign promise as his presidency nears an end. Obama, marking Armenian Remembrance Day, called the massacre the first mass atrocity of the 20th century and a tragedy that must not be repeated.

Though Obama administration officials have debated using the genocide label in the past, this years deliberations come as Obama seeks Turkeys assistance in fighting the Islamic State group  especially along Turkeys long border with Syria. The U.S. and its European partners are also counting on Turkeys president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to help stem the influx of migrants to Europe.

Erdogan issued a message commemorating Armenians who died in 1915, without making any reference to the massacre.

In a statement that was read during a ceremony at an Armenian church in Istanbul, Erdogan said he welcomed the commemoration to share the grief endured by the Ottoman Armenians, as well as to honor their memories.

We will never give up working for amity and peace against those who try to politicize history through a bitter rhetoric of hate and enmity and strive to alienate the two neighboring nations, he said.

In a commemorative speech, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan on Sunday mentioned a recent flare-up of fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is officially a part of Azerbaijan but has been under the control of local ethnic Armenian forces and the Armenian military since a separatist war ended in 1994.

He lashed out at Azerbaijan for what he described as plans to drive all Armenians away from the region and pledged to protect Armenians living there.

Fighting this month marked the worst violence since 1994, and both sides reported Sunday the shelling of their positions by enemy fire.
In the past few years, cocktails have become her passion. She's paying attention to the latest techniques and has learned how to hit patrons' palates with the right combination of flavors. She's a bourbon aficionado who makes her own beer at home. Booze is her business, and she treats it as such.

"It's not just hanging out and taking shots with friends," she said. "It's more than that."
doran.jpeg

Kenneth Doran was found injured in the woods. (Police flier)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.-- The Annadale man who was found injured in a wooded area Thursday is in stable condition in the Intensive Care Unit at Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze, according to a hospital spokesman.

Police said that the victim suffered severe head trauma. He was listed in critical condition Friday.

The victim has injuries consistent with fireworks detonation and a history of suicide attempts and psychiatric issues, according to sources.

However, a spokesman for the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner of Public Information said that the incident was under investigation and no determination had been made about whether the incident was accidental or intentional.

Police had put out a flier asking for help in identifying the man, who was discovered bleeding and unconscious on a trail in a wooded area between Tennyson Drive and Wakefield Road around noon on Thursday.

Two mortars were recovered from the trail where a jogger found him, according to a police spokesman.

Yasia Sorbo was running through a wooded area between Wakefield Road and Tennyson Drive when she came across a man unconscious in the middle of the trail.

After passing through a short cut around 11 a.m. in between the two streets, she said she stopped running when she noticed a man laying flat on the ground, not moving and without shoes.

"He was laying down on the ground on his back, face up," she said. "He was right on the middle of the trail so you couldn't pass over him."
NYPD smartphone

120 Precinct Lieutenant Matthew Harrison used his NYPD issued smartphone to catch a burglar in West Brighton, police say. (Twitter)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Solving crimes? Yeah, there's an app for that too.

A Staten Island policeman used his NYPD-issued smartphone to track down and catch an alleged burglar before he could flee the scene of the crime in West Brighton Thursday afternoon, according to an NYPD spokesman.

At around 12 p.m., Lieutenant Matthew Harrison of the 120 Precinct was on patrol when he was alerted to a burglary in progress -- but the message didn't come from a dispatcher over his police cruiser's radio, as usual, police say.

Harrison's department issued cellphone receives instant notifications the moment a 911 call is placed from the phone's approximate vicinity, the spokesman said.

Once Harrison got the notification that a crime may be occurring on Castleton Avenue, just a few blocks from where he was located, he raced to the scene, police say.

According to the spokesman, Harrison arrived at the location moments later and was flagged down by a woman who claimed that an unknown male had climbed through her window and was inside of her home.

As Harrison approached the house, police say he confronted a male who was attempting to exit out of the bathroom window.

Upon seeing the officer, the male retreated back into the house and attempted to flee out the front door.

After a brief foot pursuit, the male was apprehended by Harrison and taken into police custody without incident, the spokesman said.

Edward Hunter, 44, of Jersey City, New Jersey was arrested and charged with burglary, according to police.

On Friday, the 120 Precinct posted an update to their Twitter account, applauding Harrison for his efforts.

The NYPD spokesman added that if it were not for the new smartphone technology alerting Harrison of the crime in process, it's possible the alleged burglar would have escaped.
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The Coalition will make no changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing arrangements, as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull signalled an election campaign focused on property values and household wealth.

After weeks of suggesting the government might make some changes to negative gearing at the higher end of the income scale, Mr Turnbull said it was "common sense" to make no adjustments to existing arrangements.

"What Labor is proposing is a huge, reckless shock to the market. This is no fine tuning; this is a sledgehammer they are taking to the property market," Mr Turnbull said in Sydney on Sunday.
Oil prices though have advanced to a five-month high as declining US crude production provided more evidence that the market is rebalancing. A tanker waits in the Delaware River before docking at one of the petroleum terminals in Pennsylvania. Credit:Bloomberg Futures rose 1.3 per cent in New York, bringing last week's gains to 8.3 per cent. US crude output dropped a sixth week, while production in Colombia fell last month. Lower prices have curbed investment in new fields. Schlumberger cut more jobs in the first quarter as the world's largest provider of oilfield services sees the industry in an unprecedented downturn. "What we're hearing from the oil services companies is just carnage," said Scott Roberts, portfolio manager and co-head of high yield who manages $US2.7 billion at Invesco Advisers in Atlanta. "The cutbacks are having a big impact on US production."

Production fall tipped The International Energy Agency reiterated on Thursday it expects non-OPEC output to fall by about 700,000 barrels a day this year, which would be the sharpest drop in a quarter century. US production fell to 8.95 million barrels a day, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. What we're hearing from the oil services companies is just carnage Scott Roberts, portfolio manager Invesco Advisers West Texas Intermediate for June delivery rose 55 cents to settle at $US43.73 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The gain capped a third-consecutive weekly increase.

Brent crude for June settlement advanced 58 cents, or 1.3 per cent, to $US45.11 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. Prices climbed 4.7 per cent this week. Energy shares followed futures higher. The S&P 500 Oil & Gas Exploration and Production Index climbed to the highest since December 2. The lows of the first quarter are "likely behind us", Goldman Sachs Group said in a note. Prices have risen from their lows amid a spate of large supply disruptions caused by pipeline outages and worker strikes, Goldman said. Schlumberger's slump Schlumberger's profit fell in the first quarter as the company, which helps explorers find pockets of oil underground and drill for it, adjusts to shrinking margins in North America as customers scale back work. Customers are slashing spending by as much as 50 percent in the U.S. and Canada.

Net income declined to $501 million, or 40 cents a share, from $975 million, or 76 cents, a year earlier, the Houston- and Paris-based company said. Profit was 1 cent more than the 39-cent average of 37 analysts' estimates compiled by Bloomberg. "It's a weak beat mainly because they guided estimates down," said Rob Desai, an analyst at Edward Jones in St. Louis, who rates the shares a buy and owns none. "North America came in weaker than we expected." Challenges from the collapse in crude prices were seen in North America, the world's largest hydraulic fracturing market, where Schlumberger reported a loss of $10 million, before taxes. Elsewhere, the company announced earlier this month plans to cut back activity in Venezuela, holder of the biggest oil reserves of any country, due to unpaid bills.

Total receivables in Venezuela are now at $1.2 billion, Kibsgaard said Friday. 'New Up' Pricing for hydraulic fracturing, which blasts water, sand and chemicals underground to free trapped hydrocarbons, was essentially unchanged during the first quarter in most of the major U.S. basins, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence report, citing data from industry consultant Spears & Associates. Oil service pricing may actually be nearing a low point, Andrew Cosgrove, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, wrote Thursday in a report. "Any enthusiasm, however, may need to be checked, as forecasts for 2H activity may show no real signs of a material recovery," Cosgrove wrote.

Schlumberger was expected to generate a North America operating profit margin at break-even, according to Capital One Southcoast. That's better than smaller competitors reporting margins as low as negative 30 percent. "Break-even is the new up," Luke Lemoine, an analyst at Capital One in New Orleans who rates the shares the equivalent of a buy and owns none, said in a phone interview before the results were released. "In this environment, it's hard to defend the 5 percent margins in North America they had talked about." Excess Costs The second quarter is expected to get worse for Schlumberger, with North American margins dipping as much as 4 percent into the red, Lemoine said. "A lot of it is carrying excess costs," he said. "Service companies have cut personnel and facilities, but they're unwilling to cut to the bone, so they are maintaining some slack in capacity."
The national Work for the Dole program is facing criticism for failing to protect the safety of volunteer workers and not helping many find work suited to their skills.

Australian Unemployed Workers' Union president Owen Bennett is urging the abolition of the Work for the Dole scheme and has launched a petition on Change.Org raising safety concerns.

Owen Bennett, founder of the Australian Unemployed Workers' Union. Credit:Jason South

The campaign follows the death last week of 18-year-old Josh Park-Fing, who fell from a trailer towed by a tractor while he was on the Work for the Dole program in Toowoomba.

Mr Bennett said his organisation has received a number of reports of cases where the safety of workers in the program has been threatened. He said workers with chronic injuries had been forced to engage in strenuous work to avoid losing their Centrelink benefits.
The last quarter of a century has seen an explosion in prime ministerial engagement with Anzac Day. Prime ministers have displaced the RSL as the custodians of the legend, acting as Anzac entrepreneurs promoting an Anzac image to an Australian public hungry to memorialise Australia's war history  or successive governments' versions of that history.

This is not to suggest that the Australian public has been duped by politicians. Prime ministers are sincere nationalists, whether we agree with their versions of Australian identity or not. A citizen can choose to engage with or reject an array of national identities, in much the same way a consumer can choose a product in the marketplace. The Anzac tradition may be more actively encouraged than others, just as some products in the marketplace are more aggressively promoted or monopolised.

Anzac Day image: more than a brown slouch hat. Credit:JOHN DONEGAN

Since 1990 prime ministers have regularly renovated Anzac in line with their pet political projects.

Such shifts have not always been successful and there are boundaries to Anzac Day that cannot be violated. Prime ministers have been disciplined to respect the positive values and themes of the Anzac tradition; service, sacrifice, honour, unity, sacredness and remembrance, all centred on the sanctified actions of the Anglo-Celtic and masculine soldiers who fought at Gallipoli.
In those first autumn days of pale gold after the massacre, there was horror and there was numbness. There was the futile attempt to make sense of the actions of a madman. There was strange talk of Tasmania's loss of innocence.

The day after Martin Bryant slaughtered strangers at Port Arthur, shattered bodies still lay out of sight in the Broad Arrow cafe, where a policewoman sat weeping on the steps, and two more in the smoking ruins of the Seascape bed-and-breakfast cottage.

Walter Mikac in front of the tree where his daughter was killed. He was there to attend the one-year memorial service of the Port Arthur massacre. Credit:Jason South

Around the old penal place of suffering that had become a tourist site, there was blood on roadways, a bullet-riddled car and behind a gumtree, tall, broad in circumference, a pathetically small rectangle of dry sticks marking where Alannah Mikac, six years old, hunted down, died. No refuge there.

I had come to Port Arthur in 1996 carrying memories of other massacres: Aramoana, the New Zealand village in 1990, where David Gray, using an AK47-style assault rifle, had killed 13, including two six-year-olds, Dion Percy and Leo Wilson; Rwanda in 1994 and Ntarama Church, a charnel house overflowing with thousands of victims of government forces and the peasant Interahamwe militia  no refuge there either. But now I stood beside the gum tree and cried: this was my land, these were my people; Martin Bryant was one of my people.
One hundred years ago, as Australia marked the first anniversary of the Anzac landings, the country was embroiled in war on the Western Front with many bloody battles ahead. The Somme and Fromelles, with the legacy they would inflict, were three months away.

The Roll of Honour in the columns of the Herald that day reveal memories of Gallipoli 12 months earlier still very fresh and, no doubt, very raw.

Poppies.

Typical of many: "BUTT.In loving memory of our dear son and brother Percy Butt killed at the Dardanelles April 25, 1915. Inserted by his sorrowing mother, father, brothers and sisters."

Families were larger then, and many who joined the first eager rush to sign up left behind more than enough siblings to mourn their loss.
It looks like a fire sale. Or an end-of-financial-year clearance. Since January, the Baird government has sold off $54.4 million in public housing to private owners.

This excludes historic terraces in Millers Point. It also excludes a $67 million sale to a Singapore developer in Glebe.

Going fast: The NSW government has sold off $54.4 million in public housing since January. Credit:Erin Jonasson

Across metropolitan Sydney, lot by lot, public housing is being steadily sold.

In one week in April, $20 million worth was sold, a Fairfax analysis of government contracts shows.
Tranter and her husband, Danny Fisher, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, had to confront the fact their son might not make it. Before Henry there was a miscarriage that devastated Tranter and made her especially conscious of how fragile life was. "That definitely brought us a bit closer to thinking about mortality than most other parents. It is a thing new parents go through, I think; you have this instinctual horror of losing a child." Hold was written in New York and Berkeley with the deadline of Max's birth pressing. Tranter lives in a tiny wooden cottage in Ocean View, an aspirationally named suburb with a motorway running between it and San Francisco Bay. Max has gone off for a walk with his dad while Henry, home from school with a cold, has his head buried in a book. Like mother, like son. The family lived in Balmain for three years before following Fisher in 2013 to Berkeley, where Tranter is also a visiting scholar in the English department. Hold is the first of her books to be set entirely in Australia and carries the scent of those Sydney summers, but with a gothic twist. In the upstairs closet of a Victorian terrace house off Oxford Street, Shelley discovers a door to a room. The empty room with its stuck-tight window, fireplace and chandelier, is not on the plans, it's hidden; a Bluebeard's Chamber.

These kinds of portal fantasies are etched deeply in Tranter's psyche as a reader and a writer. "They have so much power because they are metaphor for reading itself. That's what a book is  it lures you into another world." Henry James' famous gothic ghost novella, The Turn of the Screw, is Tranter's model of suspense. "I think of the room as a kind of character in the book because it has, or she perceives it at least to have, agency of its own. It has moods, it has power, it's very changeable, she struggles with it, she has conflicts with it, like an actual person though it is definitely not human. "One of things I really liked, working with the novel, and what I remained committed to sustain was a sense of ambiguity about what's really happening, and how real the room really is. I didn't want to come down on one side or other of the question; whether it's in her imagination or it's a real space." Writing was incidental to Tranter's early "intellectual ambitions" to enter academia. Having studied English and fine arts at the University of Sydney, she moved to New York to complete a PhD on Renaissance poetry and history at New Jersey's Rutgers University.

After finishing her doctorate, Tranter picked up the threads of a story she had been writing. Aided by a grant from the Australia Council, "one of those magical unicorn things that don't exist for many any more", she wrote her novel over the next year. The Legacy, a modern retelling of Henry James' A Portrait of a Lady, was sold as part of a lucrative two-book deal with HarperCollins, and also published in Britain and the US. It was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award and Tranter was hailed as a new voice in fiction. Much was made of the Tranter name at the time. Her parents are John Tranter, the poet, and Lyn Tranter, the literary agent. "My dad's a poet, not that many people read poetry," says Tranter. "He's a relatively successful poet but in order for a novel to be successful it has to sell a lot of copies, a lot more copies than there are people who know who my dad is, or my mum." A Common Loss followed with less fanfare. Written in the voice of Elliot, an academic who comes to question the nature of friendship upon the death of one of his inner circle, it established the themes that Tranter takes up in Hold: grief, love and betrayal.

Inhabiting the voice of a male posed no great challenge, says Tranter. "I don't feel like I'm writing autobiographically with anything I write and so you inhabit another voice and that's what's so fun. With writing fiction you get to escape yourself." Tranter was a shy, introverted child who grew up on the edge of her parent's gregarious literary circle. "I liked reading, I had my head in a book a lot of the time," she says. "I used to dread social occasions when there was other children because I would have to try and make conversation and I wasn't good at it, and it made me very anxious. "I've spent years in therapy trying to understand this and maybe it is in my DNA. For better or worse, I think it contributed to skills that are good for a writer. When you are introverted and the person with the head in the book you are also the observer." Last year, Tranter gave courageous insight into her personal life when she published an essay disclosing an abortion at age 19, the result of a pregnancy arising from an abusive relationship and rape. The events triggered an episode of depression, and self-loathing in her 20s, though her friends were none the wiser. "It was an essay I had been wanting to write in some way or another for a long time," Tranter says. "I hadn't realised how much guilt I was carrying around and self-blame. So it was really positive to write that piece and reflect on that and realise I needed to be more compassionate to myself, and I could be a bit less hard on myself about that time."

One character in Hold finds herself pregnant and is helped to have an abortion. Apart from Richard Yates's tragic Revolutionary Road, Tranter can't readily name a book which deals with this complex issue, and its absence in fiction says a lot about the distasteful nature of what passes as public debate in the United States. Other injustices also get her riled up. As a founder of the Stella Prize, she is a passionate campaigner for Australian women's writing. When her first book came out, Tranter was struck by how her idiosyncratic and personal story took on entirely different meanings for readers. Her mother is her first reader and she refuses to read negative reviews of her own work. "I just find I'm really sensitive to criticism, and that's not something I'm particularly proud of, it's just true of myself," she says. "I find it really amplifies the kind of insecurities that get in the way of writing, the kind of negative voices in your head." Hold is published by Fourth Estate at $27.99. And another thing: Before Hold, Tranter was writing a longer novel set in Brooklyn, but put it aside because it didn't come together.




One hundred and one years after the Anzacs landed at Gallipoli, we still don't know what the landing looked like. There is no actuality, because there were no cameramen. The brass forbade correspondents to go ashore with the first wave of troops.

Even if they had been allowed, none had a moving-picture camera. You will see footage on the news today and tomorrow purporting to show the landing, but it's all fake - cobbled together from various movie recreations.



The British war correspondent Ellis Ashmead Bartlett did shoot some footage in July 1915, with little training and less skill, but it's all we have. New pieces of this film have come to light in recent years, sparking debate about what it shows, but one thing it does not show is a dead body.

Terror of war: troops approach the beach landing in Saving Private Ryan. Credit:AP/Dreamworks

Still photography of war had long before crossed that bridge. Photographers showed the dead in both the Crimean and the American Civil War, but moving pictures, invented around 1895, were slow to follow. The reason was not strictly to do with censorship, although that played a part. It had more to do with a Victorian sense of decorum and decency - the idea that such images were too horrible to cope with.



In July 1916, two British cinematographers, Geoffrey Malins and John McDowell, shot footage of the first days of the Battle of the Somme. They included images of dead soldiers, and although most of that footage was cut, some shots were allowed when the film opened on August 10 in London. Twenty million people saw it; some fainted. A bishop denounced the immorality of depicting real war on screen.

By contrast, the Australian documentary films from World War I, most of them filmed in France, show virtually no dead. The films were made as a historical record, rather than for propaganda purposes. Few were shown in Australia during the war.
A droll start is ensured by the casting of comedian John Clarke as Frank's boss, Phillip, a seemingly blithe spirit who enjoys having Frank around because he makes life interesting, if complicated. When the film opens, Frank is in what Phillip calls "a mood", which means that being nice to the customers is beyond him because every home he sells reminds him of one he's sold before. He's consumed by the conviction his life is stuck on replay.

He and Phillip explore this theme in a downbeat series of set-pieces as they move through their day, inspecting properties. Saville's eye for the comedy to be found in the ordinary kicks in here and the wittiest of their talks is conducted while they're dodging a lawn sprinkler which can't be turned off. A lesser director might have had them leaping and yelping at this piece of rogue machinery but Saville is wise enough to keep the pace measured and the mood low-key. It's a delight.

Justine Clarke is an actress who moves into soap in A Month of A Sundays. Credit:Madman

Things start looking up for Frank when he receives a phone call from someone who sounds remarkably like his dead mother. For a minute or two, he toys with the wish to believe it is his dead mother, whom he misses very much, and the conversation goes on until she calls him by somebody else's name and he reluctantly snaps back to reality, realising it's a wrong number

Yes, it's a scene which requires you to suspend disbelief to an inordinate degree, given the fact that he has already established himself as a complete and irritable cynic, yet the film has built up so much goodwill that it's easy to go along with it. And there's a pay-off since this conceit produces Julia Blake as Sarah, the mystery caller, who is slightly puzzled when Frank seeks her out again, wanting to be friends.
THE SILENCES



M, 73 minutes. Opens Thursday, Cinema Nova

Moving from the festival circuit to a commercial release, this autobiographical essay film from the veteran filmmaker, lecturer and feminist activist Margot Nash dissects her uneasy and unsatisfying relationship with her late mother, a woman whose unfulfilled life with a husband who struggled with mental illness left her laced with a stoic bitterness. Nash describes, with a persuasively descriptive tone, a childhood lived amid the family's fractured life in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, always returning to what was unsaid in the past, forever "whispering its secrets, demanding to be heard". Nash divines "paranoia and mistrust" in the gaze of her father in a photo taken by her mother, and she weaves in the echoes of these internecine struggles in her own subsequent work, such as the 1995 drama Vacant Possession, so that the unflinching tone, caught between the then and the now, develops an almost visceral momentum that is powerfully devoid of sentimentality.

Poster for Shoah by Claide Lanzmann.

HOLOCAUST FILM SERIES

www.jiff.com.au

Lido Cinemas and Classic Cinemas, Saturday April 30 to Thursday May 12.

Amongst the 30 new works scheduled for this year's Holocaust Film Series is Adam Benzine's Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah (3 and a  stars, 15+, 40 minutes), an Academy Award-nominated companion piece to Shoah, Lanzmann's compelling 1985 Holocaust documentary. "It took a great deal of work and a great deal of guts to make it," says Marcel Ophuls, the director of The Sorrow and The Pity and a former friend of Lanzmann's, and the weight of the nine-hour-long feature, which took 12 years to make, remains with the ageing, combatively proud Lanzmann. His interview and archival out-takes reveal Lanzmann's techniques and strategy  including the surreptitious and dangerous filming of former Nazi death camp officers  as Lanzmann strived for what he calls "the testimony of truth". As Lanzmann cajoled one survivor during his interview, Benzine cajoles Lanzmann 40 years later, and the film offers both an insight into a masterpiece and reminder of the responsibility inherent in documentary filmmaking.
So it turns out Shepparton, Victoria, and Glasgow, Scotland, have at least one thing in common: dreams over the horizon to Europe.

Although he didn't set foot in Germany until adulthood, when a visit in 1989 coincided with the collapse of the Berlin Wall  "I've got some asbestos-ridden rocks in my house [as mementos]"  Andrew Coates, of Melbourne's art-meets-electronica band Black Cab, grew up tied emotionally and musically to the dominant nation of Europe.

Highway or autobahn: Black Cab's music looks to Europe Credit:Ian Laidlaw

"I don't know how that happened for a kid from Shepparton [but] I always felt a call from central Europe," he says, remembering being entranced by the "otherworldliness" of Germany.

It sounds something like what Jim Kerr, of Simple Minds, said to me a few years ago about how he and his friend Charlie Burchill grew up looking well beyond their Glaswegian streets and began making music that sounded less like Sauchiehall Street and more like the roads, railway lines and atmospheres of a mittel Europe they imagined.
GAME OF THRONES

Series return 

Monday 11am, 7.30pm, Showcase

In all the cult-y chatter that surrounds Game of Thrones, it's easy to forget its most remarkable achievement: to take an extraordinarily dense text  an unfinished text, at that  set in a completely fictional world, and somehow make it not just intelligible but utterly captivating to a broad audience. There have been so many promising shows on television over the last 10 years that have either strangled themselves on their labyrinthine plotting (Lost inevitably springs to mind), or worked so hard to be clever they forgot to be entertaining (like pretty much everything David Simon produced post-Wire). Delivering one successful season of Game of Thrones was quite the feat. But five and counting? Awe-inspiring. Characterisation is certainly at the heart of GoT's success. The many players are never merely chess-pieces. Each has been completely imagined and then just as completely brought to life through the casting, costumes and script. That's why we're shocked/devastated/cheering when they die. But sometimes I also like to boggle my own mind by imagining the whiteboard in the writers' room. The sheer logistics of structuring the plot of this show, not to mention the intelligence and creativity required, would not be out of place in the UN. (In fact, it might be welcomed there.) Anyhoo. Season six gets under way today! Nuff said.
HOW TO DIE: SIMON'S CHOICE



Simon Binner is the subject of How to Die: Simon's Choice, a frank and thoughtful look at the issue of assisted suicide. On SBS, Sunday, April 24. Credit:Melinda Houston

Sunday 8.45pm, SBS

Whatever your position on assisted suicide you'll find plenty of food for thought in this frank and unsensational British documentary. In January 2015 Simon Binner was diagnosed with motor neurone disease and given between six months and two years to live. Through a combination of home video, professionally-shot film, interviews with his family and friends and a commentary written by Binner but read by an actor (Binner quickly lost the ability to speak) it outlines not just Simon's choice  the decision to end his own life in a clinic in Switzerland  but the attitudes of his loved ones, and the manner in which he chose to spend his last months. It also happened to be the period in which the British government was debating its own assisted dying legislation, so the man's personal decision plays out against the background of the larger national conversation and one of the more compelling aspects of this film is the way the various public opinions are found within Simon's own circle. We think of the "right to die" as a very personal and individual choice. Which of course it is. And opponents regularly raise the spectre of people being coerced into the decision by relatives who are either after their money, or simply can't be bothered caring for them.
FRESH OFF THE BOAT

***1/2

Monday 25 April 8pm, Eleven

The title doesn't inspire a great deal of confidence, which is why I've been putting off checking out this US sitcom. And yes, it is about clash-of-cultures. Even more worrying, the plot revolves around the adventures of a high-school kid. But despite those less-than-promising credentials, it's actually great fun. For a start  unlike, say, Cristela  it targets a whole lot more than "Chinese people trying to get along in a white world". The Chinese-American characters themselves defy stereotypes. It consistently avoids cliche and predictability. Best of all, it's funny.

Lest we forget: Last year's dawn service at Gallipoli. Credit:Joe Armao

MICHAEL MOSLEY: TRUST ME, I'M A DOCTOR

New series ***

7.30pm, SBS

Blending Mosley's trademark "let's get to the bottom of this" shtick with the jolly, lightweight vibe of, say, Embarrassing Bodies this public health series is sometimes a bit too lightweight but nevertheless delivers plenty of interesting and useful information. It promises to cut through confusing and contradictory health information but the opening segment, on barbecued meat causing cancer, didn't provide nearly enough in the way of facts. Elsewhere, though  from warding off dementia to how to properly clean your ears  there's plenty of the good stuff.
Like a child left alone with a spoon and a tub of syrupy goodness, in next week's budget the federal government intends to feast on our plentiful super honey pot.

Not on the $2 trillion already in there, granted. But on the millions in contributions that are made each year.

Honey pot: The federal government wants to get its fingers sticky with super contributions. Credit:Simon Bosch

In a classic pre-budget "leak", it's been revealed the Coalition will trump Labor's plan to impose an extra 15 percentage point contributions tax on people who earn more than $250,000 and extend it all the way down to incomes of $180,000. It kicks in at $300,000 today.

This would mean a total 30 per cent tax, so a saving of only 15 points (plus the Medicare levy) on higher earners' marginal tax rates when they instead salary sacrifice the money.
From humble beginnings in aircraft cobbled together from wood, canvas and other materials, Australia's air dispatch operators have come a long way.

Millstones for grinding corn were dropped by air to a besieged garrison in Mesopotamia (Iraq) in World War I; dispatchers in planes known as 'biscuit bombers' dropped supplies to Australian and American troops fighting the Japanese in New Guinea in World War II, and today's dispatchers supply materials, food and medical equipment to Australian ground forces and civilians across the region.

New Guinea, WWII. To dispatch supplies from a Douglas C47 Dakota, widely known as a biscuit bomber, required several strong men. Credit:Courtesy of Jim Fitzpatrick/Australian War Memorial

It's a history of inventive solutions and ingenuity, which in 2016 clocks up a century of military airdrops and celebrates these 'soldiers of the sky'.

A reunion of air dispatchers and parachute riggers, organised by the Air Dispatch Association of Australia (ADDA), is in full swing at Sydney's Darling Harbour to coincide with Anzac Day.
Stephen Charles Allen and his brother, Robert Beattie Allen, joined up together in July, 1915, inspired by stories of Australians fighting at Gallipoli. Working class and single, the brothers lived at Sydney's beachside Manly with family. Stephen, 24, gave his profession as carter, and got regimental number 3002. Robert, 26, was a labourer, and number 3003.

They said goodbye to their sisters, Minnie and Flo, and mother, Hester, and shipped out with the 13th Battalion. In France and Belgium, new recruits were needed by the British and in June, 1916, the brothers were sent straight to the horror of front-line trenches known as the Western Front, where the Allies were stuck in a bloody stalemate against Germany.

Sydney's Allen family before the brothers left for France in 1916, (from left) Robert, Minnie, Flo and Stephen with their mother, Hester. Credit:Courtesy of the Australian War Memorial

On July 1, 1916, the Allies unleashed a massive bombardment of German lines. It was the start of the Battle of the Somme. The shelling could be heard across the Channel in England. The aim was to break German lines and drive the enemy north towards the sea.

The Australian Fifth Division attacked at Fromelles near the Belgian border. The diggers didn't know it, but they were being used as a diversion by British commander General Douglas Haig. Haig wanted the Germans to believe this was the main assault to draw enemy forces from the real thrust to the south where 14 British divisions went over the top along a 50-kilometre front. Further south at Verdun the French poured 16 divisions into the maelstrom to try to smash through.
It was also the most popular area for study among students doing masters by coursework degrees. There were 92,466 students completing business and management courses in 2014. These include a huge range of graduate diplomas in areas such as finance and retail. There are also a variety of MBAs including executive MBAs and MBAs with a specific focus in a field such as health administration. What are universities doing to expose students to ethics? It's an important question given the number of students wanting to work in business and management. Graduate business schools, in particular, have been teaching the concept of corporate social responsibility. It can be difficult to define but the idea seems to be that businesses are supposed to be socially and environmentally responsible as well as ethical. Critics of the concept argue that CSR is more of a marketing tool that corporations use to give the impression they are socially responsible. Others say that corporations are taking their responsibilities to society seriously as a result of the introduction of CSR in business schools.

The Melbourne Business School once had a philosopher-in-residence, John Armstrong, who tried to get students to think through increasingly complex issues such as climate change. He is now a professorial fellow at the University of Tasmania, and has written on how to worry less about money. Third Degree wonders what business schools and students would think of that. A scan of undergraduate business degrees around the country shows that most have business ethics and management units. The names of units may differ slightly; some have "governance" in their titles. However, they all essentially cover the same ideas. Curtin University, for example, requires students to discuss "ethical and moral dilemmas" in business settings. The teaching idea is that as they pick up skills, students will be able to "engage in sound moral reasoning and develop practical problem-solving strategies". Australian Catholic University students look at a range of "business ethics" relating to whistleblowing, dirty hands and global and environmental issues.

Open Universities Australia, whose courses are all online, offers a 13-week business ethics and corporate governance subject. Its aim is to make students aware of ethical issues connected with international corporate decision-making. Most university ethics subjects are 12 weeks long. It is difficult to see how business students can develop enough knowledge and skills in an undergraduate degree to navigate "ethical and moral dilemmas". While it is commendable that universities are attempting to make students think about business ethics, one unit can only scratch the surface. And, then it depends on how much theory students are getting and to what extent this is applied to real-world cases. Universities are failing students and society if they see ethics units as separate to students' accounting, banking and entrepreneurship subjects. Ethics has to be embedded in business and management subjects so that it is reinforced. Business ethics in universities is a topic that some academics discuss on social media sites such as ResearchGate, which allows academics from around the world to share their papers and post topics for discussion.This is where you get an insight into how business academics think.

One academic asked: "Are ethical standards one of the necessities of a business environment?" Curtin University's Theodora Issa prompted a lot of discussion with this question: "Teaching business ethics in universities  is it a waste of time?" She explained there are scholars who are against teaching business ethics while there are others who argue that students' views can be swayed in ethics classes. Dr Issa concludes that business school academics need to be "more aware of our impact on those individuals whom we graduate into the business world, and what impact they have on their communities and societies". And, that's the pivotal point: graduates have to be aware of the effect their actions have on others. Their clients can lose life savings, and their employees can lose their jobs.
A Lancaster bomber came crashing from the sky over Stetten, near Rottweil in south-west Germany, on February 25,1944, killing the crew, including pilot officer Sergeant Ronald Cecil Martin.

Seventy-two years later, from among the rubble, a watch engraved with Sgt Martin's initials, R.C.M, has been uncovered and given to his niece, Rhonda Maxine Merchant, from Gloucester in the state's mid north coast.

Wing-Commander Nathan Klos will present the watch to Rhonda Marchant (right). Credit:Nick Moir

"I never knew much about my uncle. I knew he was a pilot in the war, was missing in action and presumed dead," Mrs Merchant said.
Two people were hospitalised after overdoses at the Midnight Mafia dance party at Homebush overnight, according to NSW police, a day after another two were hospitalised at a festival in the Hunter region.

The overdoses were the fourth for the state in 24 hours after two teenagers were treated for drug-related conditions at a dance festival in the Hunter region on Saturday.

A 19-year-old man was taken to Concord Hospital about 12.10am but released later on Sunday morning, while a woman was also treated at Concord hospital about 2.30am for a suspected overdose.
NSW Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian has declined to rule out introducing stamp duty or land tax surcharges for foreign buyers of residential property after her Victorian counterpart declared the measures had not devastated investment in that state.

On Friday, Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas announced surcharges introduced last year on stamp duty and land tax payable by foreign buyers of residential property would be increased.

In December, Gladys Berejiklian warned there were signs the NSW property market was cooling and growth from residential stamp duty "is moderating". Credit:Daniel Munoz

Mr Pallas said his budget this week would increase the stamp duty surcharge from 3 per cent to 7 per cent and a land tax surcharge for "absentee owners" would rise from 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent.

He said the introduction of the surcharges in 2015 had "no adverse" effect on the property market and foreign investment had continued to grow.
A 16-year-old boy was in the advanced stages of planning a terrorism attack on Sydney's Anzac Day commemorations, police say.

NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said the boy was arrested by counter terrorism police near his Auburn home on Sunday afternoon.

Addressing the media after the Dawn Service in Sydney, Mr Scipione said police were unsure which Anzac Day event was to be targeted in the attack.

But he said the threat related to Sydney and was at the stage where counter terrorism officers had to act and act quickly.
A dawn service in Brisbane will herald the 101st anniversary of Anzac Day on Monday, April 25, with an Anzac march to follow.

The day commemorates the soldiers who fell at Gallipoli during World War I as well as those who have defended Australia in all conflicts and military involvements since WWII.

A Dawn Service will be held at 4.28am at the Brisbane Shrine of Remembrance at Anzac Square. Credit:Bradley Kanaris

A dawn service will be held at 4.28am at the Brisbane Shrine of Remembrance at Anzac Square in remembrance of the first allied landings at Gallipoli Cove.

The service will be followed by the Anzac Day March at 9.30am where both foreign and national army veterans as well as current servicemen will march together.
The multi-millionaire chief executive of an embattled private training empire has been accused of running a bizarre harassment campaign against a senior police officer during his former career as a cop on the Bass Coast.

Ivan Brown co-founded the Australian Careers Network, which is the subject of a major fraud investigation after its Spotswood headquarters were raided by the Australian Federal Police on April 12.

ACN is also facing legal action by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which alleges the colleges preyed on vulnerable students, some with intellectual disabilities, who enrolled in the online courses that cost up to $18,000.

Before Mr Brown was propelled onto the BRW Young Rich List in 2014 with a stake in an estimated $177 million fortune, he worked as policeman in Wonthaggi. But the extraordinary circumstances of his departure from the force have never been made public.
Residents who want to formally object to a development before the state planning tribunal will have to pay a new levy that opponents say will restrict access to justice and help developers by discouraging community involvement.

But the property industry welcomed the new charge, saying it would discourage the vexatious and frivolous objections that had made the state planning tribunal a "NIMBY plaything".

Adam Deering's request o change his name to Prince was rejected by VCAT. Credit:Pat Scala

Fees at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal are under review, with a new $51 charge proposed for residents wanting to be heard individually in a planning matter.

A residents' group whose members often fight large-scale development in Melbourne's suburbs said the proposed charge was just the latest attempt to shut down community participation at VCAT.
The iron ore price has reached $70 a tonne for the first time in more than a year but the West Australian government is not allowing itself to get swept up in the excitement.

Treasurer Mike Nahan said the overnight jump was nice, but he did not expect it to last long, and would not let it influence the government's long-term forecasts for the commodity.

Iron ore price ($US/tonne)

"It's very nice that it's high, but all I can say is that no one predicted it would fall in the last two years, no one predicted this increase and no one is predicting it will stay there," he told reporters on Friday.

"If it remains, yeah it's good, but one day does not make us rich."
Gaziantep, Turkey: Germany is seeking the creation of "safe zones" to shelter refugees in Syria, Chancellor Angela Merkel says, an idea Turkey has long championed in the face of UN caution.

Keeping refugees on the Syrian side of the border would help Brussels and Ankara, which hosts 2.7 million Syrian refugees, stem the flow of migrants to European shores.

The UN has warned against the plan unless there was a way to guarantee the refugees' safety in the war-torn state. Aid workers have opposed it.
And on Sunday he learned from former Australian deputy PM Tim Fischer that Churchill had visited. The arrival of King George V at General Sir John Monash's Headquarters at Bertangles in 1918. Credit:Australian War Memorial It made him very proud, he said. "This is important to us." Previously his family's strongest connection to the Great War was through his great-grandfather who was "quite crazy", he said: 40 years old in 1918 when he took a regiment of Algerian 'Zouaves' infantry to the frontline at Villers-Bretonneux and never came back, making M de Clermont Tonnerre's grandfather an orphan age 12. Sir Peter Cosgrove and his wife speak to Monsieur de Clermont-Tonnerre at Chateau Bertangles. Credit:Nick Miller

Before that, the house was best known as being next door to the first burial site of German flying ace Manfred von Richthofen, the 'Red Baron' who was shot down north-east of Amiens. M de Clermony-Tonnerre has written a book about the Red Baron's demise  he concluded he was shot from the ground in an area occupied by Australian soldiers  "it is possibly quite certain" an Australian took down the infamous opponent. But he doesn't approve of the Australians granting posthumous honours to their defeated enemy  he regarded Richthofen as a "predator". The war inspired his family to take up flight as a pastime  his grandmother was the first woman to fly across the Sahara. Governor-general Peter Cosgrove spent Anzac Day eve honouring the memory of Bertangles' former resident and Australia's greatest general, John Monash.

On Sunday he was guest of honour at a lunch there, hosted by Mr Brady and attended by Mr Fischer, French dignitaries, senior Australian armed forces officers  and cyclist Cadel Evans. Mr Fischer predicted that in the next few years, as the centenaries of the battles of the Western Front come, the Chateau de Bertangles would become "bigger than Gallipoli" in Australia's war remembrance. Sir Peter said he would like to see if it was possible to open up the house to more Australian visitors  at the moment the grounds are sometimes open to tourists but the interior is only publicly available for receptions and weddings. "It could provide a counterpoint to those endless acres of headstones," Sir Peter said. "The black and white photographs (of Monash at Bertangles) are pretty poignant but in the end it's a two-dimensional image of a moment frozen in time." Monash's tactics at Le Hamel  which he conceived at Bertangles - are still taught at military schools in Australia  and at the Pentagon, historian Sir Christopher Clark, another guest at the lunch, said.

He had a genuinely brilliant tactical mind. In a speech at the lunch, Sir Peter said it was a privilege to be at the chateau. "It's a place that has witnessed so much," he said. John Monash was Australia's greatest general, a man of huge intellect, resolve and humility. "His life was not always smooth sailing  he felt the sting of alienation that came from being different and growing up in the very conservative Australia of the late 1800s. "Setbacks on the ridges and in the gullies of Gallipoli led him to a period of introspection and self-doubt. He felt he was unfit, he felt that the confused demands of that campaign found him wanting, he was not used ever to being thought of as a failure.

"But the obstacles he faced helped make him the man and the success he would become." A sense of his "ordinary human imperfections" made him even more determined, Sir Peter said. "He lived and worked here and within these walls, in this room, the Australian attacks of 1918 indelibly written in the war history of the period were conceived and planned and executed." He added: "It's in our minds that great affairs need great spaces" but the scale of Monash's achievements demanded a room three times as big as Bertangles' corner dining room. He quoted an unnamed Australian solider, who reassured local French people as he marched towards Villers-Bretonneux "finis retreat, Australians ici".
Hanover: US President Barack Obama has piled praise on German Chancellor Angela Merkel for being "on the right side of history" with her open-door stance on refugees.

In effusive remarks on what might be his last trip to Germany as President, Mr Obama lauded his "friend and partner" for her "remarkable endurance." He singled out her refusal to close the border in response to Europe's worst refugee crisis since World War II, which has come at a political price.

"Perhaps because she once lived behind a wall herself, Angela understands the aspirations of those who have been denied their freedom and who seek a better life," Mr Obama said alongside Mrs Merkel, who grew up in communist-ruled East Germany, at a news conference in the German city of Hanover. "I know that politics around this issue can be difficult, in all of our countries."

Mr Obama's support will bolster the German leader, whose popularity is weighed down at home because of the influx. Even as the flow of migrants into Germany has slowed after about 1 million asylum seekers arrived in 2015, Mrs Merkel's Christian Democratic Union suffered electoral losses in three German states in March, beleaguered by criticism from some members of her own bloc and the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party.
Cairo: The Pentagon has shifted more than 100 US soldiers from a desert camp near the Egypt-Israeli border in the Sinai Peninsula after a barrage of attacks by militants linked to Islamic State.

The US troops, part of a peacekeeping force that helps maintain the 1979 treaty between Egypt and Israel, were transferred about 480 kilometres south to a more secure area.

The move comes as the Obama administration is considering whether to scale back the 700 US troops in the Sinai and instead use remote sensors, cameras and other technology to monitor the border.
PHILIPSBURG, Sint Maarten:--- The House of Parliament will sit in an urgent plenary public session on April 25. The Minister of Finance will be present for the session.

The urgent plenary public meeting is scheduled for Monday at 11.00 am in the General Assembly Chamber of the House at Wilhelminastraat #1 in Philipsburg.

The agenda point is Short, medium and long term financial outlook of St. Maarten.

This urgent plenary session of the House was requested by Members of Parliament (MPs) MP F.G. Richardson, MP G.C. Pantophlet and MP S.A. Wescot-Williams.

Members of the public are invited to the House of Parliament to attend parliamentary deliberations.

The House of Parliament is located across from the Court House in Philipsburg.

The parliamentary session will be carried live on St. Maarten Cable TV Channel 120, via Pearl Radio FM 98.1, the audio via the Internet www.pearlfmradio.com and via www.sxmparliament.org.
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Toronto  3 April 2016. Gerardo Hernandez is one of the three of the Cuban Five who had been behind bars since 1998, until U.S. President Obama freed them on  Watch video 

Toronto  3 April 2016.

Gerardo Hernandez is one of the three of the Cuban Five who had been behind bars since 1998, until U.S. President Obama freed them on December 17, 2014. The release of the three was part of the agreement negotiated between the U.S. and Cuban governments concerning future relations between the two countries. Two of the Cuban Five, Rene Gonzalez and Fernando Gonzalez were released in 2011 and 2013 after serving their full sentences. Cuba maintained its absolute insistence that the remaining three prisoners be freed and as the international protests continued to grow, freedom for Gerardo, Ramon and Antonio became a vital issue in the negotiations.

Introduction by Heide Trampus and MCed by Juan Carranza. Presentations by:

Jorge Garcia, United Steelworkers Canada

Lisa Makarchuk, Friends of Cuba Against the U.S. Blockade

Joe Mihevc, Toronto City Councillor, Ward 21

Pablo Godoy, United Food and Commercial Workers Canada

Miguel Figueroa, Communist Party of Canada

Brian Gordon Sinclair, author and dramatic interpreter of Ernest Hemingway

Javier Domokos Ruiz, Consul General of the Republic of Cuba in Toronto

Gerardo Hernandez, one of the Cuban Five anti-terrorist fighters unjustly imprisoned in the USA (Sept 1998-Dec 2014)

Sponsored by: United Steelworkers, Canada; Co-sponsored by: Worker to Worker, Canada-Cuba Labour Solidarity Network, Canadian-Cuban Friendship Association, Toronto, and Friends of Cuba Against the U.S. Blockade.
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NEW FAIRFIELD  The Great Hollow Nature Preserve, an ecologically important property that spans more than 820 acres, was recently rescued from disrepair through a multimillion-dollar renovation project.

The yearlong initiative was spearheaded by Sherman resident Gary Goldring, a developer and philanthropist who has a history of taking on capital-intensive projects that benefit the community. As a champion of outdoor stewardship, Goldring said he saw an opportunity when the YMCA of Western Connecticut sought to unload the property.

His vision calls for the preserve to serve as both a resource for area families as well as an environmental research center for students, teachers and researchers looking to learn more about the environment. As a member of the board of directors for EarthWatch, a national not-for-profit group that organizes scientific field expeditions, Goldring said he knows how difficult it can be to find properties for field work.

It was an unusual opportunity to permanently preserve more than 800 acres of land that connects two state forests, Goldring said. It seemed like an important thing to do and it will provide an opportunity for researches to do long-term projects.

John Foley, a naturalist who has been hired as the steward of the preserve, said the property provides a critical link connecting thousands of acres of protected property including the Michael Ciaola Conservation area in New York state and the Pootatuck State Forest in Connecticut.

The area feeds into the Great Swamp and includes a rich diversity of ecosystems including a large floodplain, a hemlock forest, vernal pools, wetlands and a second-growth forest that had been logged years before.

The second-growth forest will be a great opportunity for students and researchers to see what varieties of plant life grow back in that environment, Foley said.

Officials with the Great Hollow Management Foundation that created to operate the preserve said the transfer of property proved difficult and included the aid of local officials as well as state Attorney General George Jepsen. Walter G. Merritt, a famous New York City attorney in the 18th century who had his estate on the property, declared in his will that the land be preserved for public and educational purposes. After his death, Wesleyan University took over the property and eventually sold it to the United Way.

The land and nearly half-dozen historic structures on the site fell into disrepair in recent years, as the YMCA struggled to maintain the property with limited resources.

The property is really a tremendous asset to the community and Gary did a beautiful job, said New Fairfield First Selectman Susan Chapman. For the town to do something like this would have taken many years. We probably would have had to do one project at a time as grants came in, but Gary was able to get it all done at once.

She added that the scientific research Goldring hopes to encourage on the site will allow the property to become an asset not just for the community, but entire region.

As part of the renovations, the former Merritt homestead, which predates the American Revolution, was completely renovated with eye for preserving the structure, complete with wide plank American chestnut flooring and hand-hewn beams that hang from the ceiling.

The building will serve as the conference center for the preserve and also includes bedrooms and bathrooms that will eventually be used by researchers as well as artists as part of an artists-in-residence program the foundation hopes to explore. The basement of the structure also received extensive renovations to serve as a laboratory for students and researches who visit the site.

Tree crews were also brought in to clear years of vines that had grown over red oak trees that have stood for centuries, stone walls that crisscross the property and an apple orchard that produced thousands of apples this past spring after it was revived.

A grand opening celebration for the preserve will be held May 1 and will include free music, barbecue and other family activities.

Finding someone like Gary who not only has the interest in a project like this but the capability to make it happen is pretty rare, Foley said. But now the property can become a living laboratory and provide a place where people can feel an intimate connection with the world around them. This property really is a treasure.

dperrefort@newstimes.com
Next to the sleek finance nexus Steve Cohen built fronting Long Island Sound, it is a comparatively modest little nook that Alexandra Cohen is building in the opposite parking lot.

In time, the Cohen name may come to be known best by the funds Alexandras team is disbursing from the new building to those in need, rather than the money amassed in the markets each day by her spouses teams across the way.

With a new headquarters dubbed Give Central under construction on Cummings Point Road, the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation is adopting Stamford unabashedly as its permanent home, having long listed Greenwich, where the Cohens live, as the foundations official domicile, in government filings.

I see our new building as more than a headquarters, Cohen said in a Thursday interview with Hearst. I see it as our new home, a beacon of hope and giving, a community center of sorts. Our new headquarters doesnt change our mission, but allows us to expand our giving and increase our number of employees.

With assets in excess of $500 million at last report, the Cohen Foundation is among the five largest in Fairfield County, alongside the better-known Save the Children in Fairfield and AmeriCares in Stamford; and the Dalio Foundation of Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio. The massive GE Foundation has yet to specify whether its Fairfield headquarters will move in tandem with that of General Electric to Boston this summer or at a later date.

If GEs departure is already affecting local charities like the United Way of Western Connecticut, the burgeoning coffers of the Cohen Foundation could yet take up the slack. Alexandra Cohen said the foundations door  when installed  will be open to Stamford causes that need philanthropic support, with Stamford Hospital, Domus, the Mill River Collaborative and the YMCA of Stamford among the 14 local nonprofits that received funding from the Cohen Foundation in 2014.

On Monday, Cohen will board a bus in Chicago for a weeklong trip westward to learn more about community needs in that part of the country, concluding the trip in Nevada. To date, the Cohens foundation has been largely a local benefactor; of 165 donations the Cohen Foundation made in 2014, roughly half were to New York nonprofits, with more than 50 Connecticut organizations winning funding from the Cohen Foundation, along with a dozen in California and a few more sprinkled across other locales.

The Cohen fortune, of course, was built on the back of SAC Capital, the Stamford hedge fund that agreed to pay $1.8 billion in 2014 in the wake of an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into insider trading in the hedge fund industry, with multiple former SAC traders coming under scrutiny. Cohen subsequently set up Point72 Asset Management to manage his personal fortune  a job big enough to continue requiring a small army of financiers employed in Stamford and New York City  while hiring the former U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut Kevin OConnor to oversee the companys compliance. Alexandra Cohen declined comment for the record on how SACs legal scrutiny has impacted the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Foundation or her personally.

While the Cohens have a long history of philanthropy  they made their first major gift in 1996 to a childrens hospital after a daughters friend was diagnosed with leukemia  it has been in the past several years where the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundations coffers have been built up to the stage where it can make a difference on a grand scale. In 2012 it hired an executive director in Jeanne Melino who previously worked for a consulting firm called Innovative Philanthropy, and who early in her career was a New York prosecutor.

Recently, the Cohens have stretched their charitable efforts beyond the foundation. Through the separate Cohen Veterans Network earlier this month, they unveiled their first initiative to make a difference in targeted communities nationally, pledging $275 million to create a network of free mental health clinics for veterans in 25 cities. Tucked behind the Point72 headquarters in an anonymous gray building, the Cohen Veterans Network has hired as its executive director Dr. Anthony Hassan, a former U.S. Air Force officer who created a model clinic in Los Angeles while with the University of Southern California. In a Tuesday interview, Hassan said the help is badly needed given the concerns of veterans, including in attempting to bring down what has been an escalating rate of suicide.

I couldnt believe it, Hassan said of the opportunity in front of the Cohen Veterans Network. This is a gift  to be able to build a network of clinics, to develop learning mental health system ... We had two people call our San Antonio clinic just last week who said, Is this for real? Are you really free?

If the Cohens have wealth beyond imagining for most  in March, Forbes estimated their fortune at $12.7 billion  they both came from modest backgrounds, with Alexandra having grown up in New York City the daughter of an apartment building superintendent. She says she never loses sight of where she came from, and indicates she has a firm view of the horizons of what the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation can become. It is what she wants to be remembered for, and hopes it is a legacy their children can carry forward.

I am from New York City and my home is now in Connecticut so, yes, I will always take care of those in need in both of my homes  that will never change, Cohen said. To the people here in our community, I want them to know that ... our doors are always open and we want the (foundation) to be seen as a place for individuals and nonprofits to come and visit. We want to help, inspire and teach them how they too can help make a difference in someones life, and give where we can.

 Includes prior reporting by Dirk Perrefort.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-964-2236; www.twitter.com/casoulman
W alk into the studio of Peter Max and enter a world of color, light and optimism, with walls decorated with paintings and art pieces that take you back to a time of peace, love and rock and roll.

Throughout the studio complex  which occupies two stories of a nondescript building near New Yorks Central Park West  there are American icons as seen through Max's kaleidoscopic vision: the stars-and-stripes flag, the Statue of Liberty, Frank Sinatra, Woodstock. There's also a colorfully painted Baldwin piano signed by Ringo Starr in the main hallway. A Smirnoff vodka bottle Max designed hangs in the hallway. Then there are signature images of masterworks by Monet, Renoir and Degas as re-imagined through Maxs playful aesthetic. (Mona Lisa never had more reason to smile.)

At 78 and with more than five decades of prolific output, Max continues to produce projects large and small. Rooted in the psychedelic era of pop art in the 60s, the popularity of his works still remains high, whether its for its nostalgia or sheer exuberance. A few years ago, he was commissioned to paint a design on a ship for a cruise line. (He had already decorated a Boeing 707.) More recently he provided artwork for NBCs The Voice, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and hes already planning the backdrop for the 50th anniversary of the Woodstock Festival slated for 2019. Theres also a long list of museum exhibits and gallery shows scheduled, including one at the end of April at the Geary Gallery in Darien, which he will visit twice.

Max has long-since shed his flowing shirts for more J. Press outfits, such as the salmon-colored wool sweater he wore on the day of my visit. But he still has the sweet air of a transported soul from the flower-power days, and despite legal tangling last fall between his wife of 19 years and his son over ownership of works and the care of the artist. During the conflict  which received tabloid attention in New York  it was revealed that Max had a mild form of dementia, but he has never been ruled incompetent to handle his own affairs.

But on the day of my visit, Max played the gentle, soft-spoken host as he guided me around his studio, where he often walks from his Riverside Drive home on the Upper West Side.

I love coming here, he says. For me, it's a playground. My games, my colors, my tools  all the stuff that I love, its all here.

This creative sanctum is a well-lit, white room with a brightly colored, splattered floor, almost suitable for framing. Over his shoulder as he paints and listens to a variety of music, hangs a photograph of the Swami Satchidananda, the spiritual leader Max had brought to this country in the 60s.

Maxs family fled Germany to avoid Nazi persecution in 1938, when he was 1, and for the first 10 years of his life he lived in China, between a Buddhist monastery and a Sikh temple. He was taught the basics of the brush and the artistic line by his young nanny. She played a nice role in my life, he says. (He returned to Shanghai to find her four years ago, but with no success.)

I just drew a little bit, he says of those childhood days. I didn't know it was something I would do (later). But I loved it and I was good at it and I was encouraged by my mom and dad, too.

The simplicity and elegance of the line and the brush stroke were something that stayed with him. I was inspired by the Chinese art, he says. They're a very creative people.

His family then moved to Tibet, then Israel, then Paris before settling in Brooklyn in 1953, when he was in his teens. A self-described nice kid, he took art classes all along his globe-trotting youth. I didn't really know I was going to be an artist, that it was going to be my life, he says.

Max studied at Manhattans Art Student League on 57th Street, and, yes, the story of meeting Marilyn Monroe is true. The actress would sometimes travel down the street and wave and say, Hi, fellas, to the agog students hanging outside the school. One day, she noticed Maxs paint-splattered trousers and cooed to him, I like your pants. (Monroe would be one of the many American icons Max would colorfully celebrate.)

While at school, he found himself drawn to vivid hues. I had a big love of color, and soon it became precious for me. I became good at it.

His graphic-centric works and the pop art world of the 60s emerged at the same time. His love of colors and collage visually reflected the mind-shifting zeitgeist of the counter-culture. Yes, I was a hippie, he says, but one with a talent for business and branding.

Before Instagram and Photoshop there was Max, manipulating images. In an era of mass reproduction, his works became mass-marketed, gracing scores of magazine covers, posters and album covers. He appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and his face, with his broad toothy smile and caterpillar mustache, was on the cover of Life. Over time more than 72 corporations licensed his works.

There was an art world that was larger than me and I joined it and I became pretty well known, he says. It never stopped. My style, the images and the colors became very popular. Everything was happening at the same time and it all came together.

Did he feel he was representing a new generation of artists? I was just doing it. It just happened.

Art wasn't the only activity in which he became involved.

I got very much involved in spirituality, Max says. He brought Satchidananda to America, opened a yoga center, then eventually 50 yoga centers across the country. Maxs spirituality mixed with his love of astronomy and was reflected in his art, with its cosmic imagery and psychedelic colors. It grew together. It was nice. Yoga, astronomy, colors and optimism, and its like all one.

As Max aged, his playful style didnt. I never went through a dark period, the artist says.

And for the corniest of all interview questions: Whats his favorite color?

All the colors are my favorites, he says, grinning broadly. I love them all. And its still fun. Theres art everywhere around me.

Paintings by Peter Max will be on exhibition and available for sale in a presentation beginning Saturday, April 30, at Geary Gallery in Darien. www.gearygallery.com. Max will be at the gallery Thursday, May 5, 6-9 p.m. and Saturday, May 7, 4-7. Appearances are open to the public, but registration is required: 866-900-6699 or darien@roadshowcompany.com

Frank Rizzo has covered Connecticut arts for nearly 40 years. He is a theater critic for Variety and has contributed perspectives to The New York Times and American Theatre magazine.
R oxanne, Victoria and Ollie all have one thing in common  they met their friends through apps.

Using technology to find friends in the capital is not weird but helpful in finding someone youll have interests in common with, says Elizabeth Marsh.

Elizabeth was struggling to find the time to walk her dog Cherry while running her floristry business, so messaged Victoria via the app Borrow My Doggy.

Their doggy profiles matched and they now regularly meet to catch up and share the responsibility of taking care of Cherry.

Victoria and Elizabeth met via Borrow My Doggy

Huge fans of social media, jewellery designer Roxanne Rajcoomar and fashion blogger Alya Mooro met via Instagram, when they began liking each others posts of clothes and accessories they had designed.

Alya Mooro said: Its been about two years and now we see each other basically every single day.

Social media is such a big extension of our lives now so it makes sense that we would meet each other online  we spend so much time on there.

Its almost like cutting out all the dating before you become friends with someone because you already know your common interests.

Living in London and being self-employed, we have that in common so we work alongside each other and its nice to have someone to be able to bounce ideas off of.

They often meet in restaurants such as Apero to work on their fashion business together, and recently went to Paris Fashion Week.

Roxanne said the first time they met in person was at a club night run by Alya: I remember getting there and thinking Im sure her hair was like that on Instagram  it must be her!

Over in Kentish Town, freelance journalist Esra Gurkan and social media manager Ollie Fahey have been sharing a flat for eight months.

Ollie and Esra became flatmates through SpareRoom

Ollie found Esra through an ad on the flatmate finder app, SpareRoom.

He said: I did find SpareRoom as a concept quite weird because it is quite a big decision to choose to live with someone, and SpareRoom is quite a casual thing.

Having said that, it is very useful having the app on your phone and we wouldnt have been able to find flatmates in such a short space of time otherwise.
A young man is critically injured following a street brawl in south London.

Emergency services found the 22-year-old man suffering from head injuries after being called to a "fight involving a large number of people" on Kennington Road shortly before 3am on Sunday, police said.

He was rushed to hospital where officers said he is in a "critical but stable" condition.

Detectives were this morning combing the scene for evidence, leaving the road closed at the junction with Windmill Row.

No arrests have been made, a Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said.
A police officer was taken to hospital after being deliberately hit by a motorcyclist in south London.

Two officers on foot patrol in Clapham spotted two motorcyclists who were riding recklessly along Clapham High Street and had concealed number plates in the early hours of Sunday, police said.

The riders pulled into Clement Avenue where officers attempted to stop them.

But Chief Inspector Roy Smith, from Lambeth police, said one of the motorcyclists, who was riding a Yamaha R1, failed to stop and deliberately rode at his colleague.

The rider then fled towards Clapham High Street.

The police officer, who is in his 40s, was taken to St Thomas Hospital for treatment and he was later discharged.

Ch Insp Smith said: Yet again this demonstrates the danger police officers put themselves through to protect the public.

This driver showed complete disregard to the public and the officer on foot.

We would urge anyone with information to contact us.

The motorcyclist involved in the collision, which happened at 12.40am on Sunday, is described as an olive skinned man, about 5ft 10in tall, of skinny build and aged between 20 to 30 years old.

He was wearing a black jumper or biker jacket, blue jeans and a white full face motorcycle helmet.

No arrests have been made.

Anyone with information should call police on 101, quoting CAD 441 of 24 April.
J eremy Hunt has dismissed a plan to try and avert the looming junior doctors strike as opportunist.

A cross-party group of MPs, including shadow health secretary Heidi Alexander, urged Mr Hunt to test the highly contested new contract in a small number of trusts rather than imposing it across England.

But the health secretary said the contract, which is not supported by the British Medical Association (BMA), is already being rolled out slowly.

Mr Hunt posted on Twitter: Labour plan is opportunism  only 11 per cent of junior docs go onto new contracts in August.

A BMA source said that if the Government agreed to limited trials of a pilot of the contract, representatives would be prepared to meet them to discuss the possibility of calling off the strike on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Ms Alexander, Conservative Dr Dan Poulter, Lib Dem Norman Lamb and the SNP's Dr Philippa Whitford said in a letter to Mr Hunt that the imposition or unilateral introduction of the contract is the wrong approach and risks permanent damage to the future of the medical workforce.

The MPs added: If it remains your intention to introduce this new contract, we believe it should be piloted in a number of trusts/across a number of deaneries and for its impact on patients, staff and the 'weekend effect' to be independently evaluated.

The Government said it had 75 meetings with the BMA and three years of talks, and delaying the reform further would mean not taking an important step in improving weekend care.

A spokesman said: "We have always said that we want to introduce this contract in a phased way - for around 11 per cent of junior doctors from August - precisely so any initial problems can be ironed out.

That's why this is simply ill-informed political opportunism from the same Labour Party responsible for the flawed contracts we have now.
A severely autistic young man has been trapped in emergency south London accommodation for five months after his previous residential care was shut down amid allegations of abuse.

Matthew Robinson, 23, moved into what should have been temporary accommodation in Bromley after the scandal-hit trust responsible for his care closed at short notice.

His care provider, the John Townsend Trust, went bust last December after CQC inspectors shut down its Westgate College in Margate, Kent - where Mr Robinson was a student - because of institutionalised failings and abuse.

While he was a student, he lived at a boarding house attached to the college, Thanet Lodge, where footage  leaked to the BBC earlier this month  showed a care worker dancing naked around a severely disabled young man during an alcohol-fuelled party in 2014.

After leaving the college and Thanet Lodge, Mr Robinson moved into another care home run by the trust, which was also closed when the organisation went into administration.

His mother Gill Robinson, 56, said Bromley Council has neglected her son by failing to permanently rehome him for five months, while he remains living at the basic emergency accommodation where he is provided with a bed, food and two visits from a carer per day.

Mr Robinson's mother Gill fears her son is losing his independence / Gill Robinson

She told the Standard: My son is really showing signs of anxiety and stress.

When he first arrived there, he was sitting in his room all day, every day because there was nothing for him to do and to me, thats like keeping him in a prison.

He has nothing meaningful, there is no structure for him. He has no friends there. He needs something meaningful that will help him develop his independence, he needs activities.

If the council is leaving him there, that is neglect.

Speaking about the behaviour of the care workers at Thanet Lodge and allegations of abuse at Westgate College, the mother-of-two said: He would have been in the boarding house when the video was filmed. We dont really know what he saw of the abuse.

It was a very unsettling time.

Mrs Robinson, a HR director, said she has found a suitable permanent home for her son in Worthing, Sussex but it was rejected by the councils funding panel, who want to explore other options.

A spokeswoman for the council said: It would not be appropriate for the council to provide information on individual placements but we would like to offer reassurance that we always have the wellbeing and independence of our clients at the forefront of what we do.

We take time to assess peoples needs and where appropriate identify how these needs can be met whilst making sure they are safe.
D on Cheadle, director and co-writer of the biopic, Miles Ahead has spoken about how tough he found playing the lead role.

The film opens this weekend in the UK and focuses on the struggle Miles Davis had at parts of his career.

Cheadle, who plays Davis, said: I needed to hibernate for six months after the movie.

It was incredibly challenging and ultimately at the end of it I felt like those pictures of people who have just climbed Everest.

Don Cheadle and Ewan McGregor on set / Icon Film Distribution

"We tried to get as much of the music into the film as we could and give people an overview of the man and what it was that he did and dealt with."

The movie was a decade in the making after Miles Davis was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.

The actor, known for his roles in Hotel Rwanda and Oceans 11, was pitched the role by Miles Davis' nephew.

Cheadle said that he "wanted to do something crazy" with the role.

Ewan McGregor plays a music journalist in the film who is following Davis as he struggles to get his music career back ontrack.

The movie opens in cinemas across the UK this weekend.
W ith a cult following and a brilliant back catalogue of work, Louis Theroux is one of Britains best and most well-loved documentary filmmakers.

Now hes back with his latest work, Drinking to Oblivion  a 60-minute look at alcoholism in south London.

As with much of Therouxs more recent work its a deeply sad topic, approached from a warm and human perspective.

Instead of offering staggering statistics and shock-and-awe tactics, Therouxs quietly powerful film sees him follow a series of people who find themselves in Kings College Hospital due to their drinking.

Theres Pieter, grieving the death of his father and spiralling back into patterns of alcohol abuse that could see his partner of three years, Mariana, have to leave him. Then theres Aurelie, who lives a subdued life consigned to the steady habit that she knows will lead her to an early death, with a new boyfriend who certainly doesnt seem to have her best interests at heart.

Most shocking is Joe, the first person we meet in the documentary. Hes in a bad, bad way  sketchy, right at the brink, and being detoxed by the hospital. When hes off the booze hes a different person entirely, but his upwards and downwards cycles offer perhaps the clearest view of an addiction that has a potent hold on its victims. Can he take control before he deals himself serious damage?

Best TV dramas 2016 1 /38 Best TV dramas 2016 The Missing The addictive and twisty second series of the BBC's crime anthology series BBC/New Pictures/Robert Viglasky Dark Angel Joanne Froggatt stared as Victorian mass murderer Mary Ann Cotton in this ITV drama ITV Close to the Enemy Stephen Poliakoff's post-war drama thriller BBC/Little Island Pictures Ordinary Lies The BBC anthology drama returns with more twisted tales BBC/Red Productions/Adrian Rogers The Night Of Riz Ahmed stars in HBO's critically acclaimed crime mini-series HBO Cold Feet The classic ITV comedy-drama returns - and it's just as good as it ever was ITV Victoria ITV have given Poldark some stiff competition with this period drama about a young Queen Victoria ITV Poldark The BBC's hit drama returns with more brooding, and less naked scything BBC/Robert Viglasky One of Us The BBC kept everyone guessing with this claustrophobic four-part whodunit Ripper Street The fan-favourite Victorian police drama returned for Series 4 BBC/Tiger Aspect 2016/Bernard Walsh The Secret Agent Toby Jones led the cast in the BBC's Joseph Conrad adaptation BBC/World Productions/Mark Mainz/Matt Burlem The Living and the Dead The BBC's gothic romance debuted in full on iPlayer BBC Preacher AMC's adaptation of Garth Ennis' cult comic book is available week-by-week on Amazon Prime Amazon / AMC Versailles A raunchy royal romp around the court of King Louis XIV, spicing up Wednesdays on BBC Two Canal +/ BBC Locked Up The Spanish prison drama came to the UK thanks to Channel 4's Walter Presents series Channel 4 / Global Series Peaky Blinders The Birmingham-set gangster thriller was more popular than ever in its third series BBC/Caryn Mandabach Productions Ltd/Tiger Aspect/Robert Viglasky The A Word The BBC gave us a nuanced and emotional take on autism BBC/Fifty Fathoms Marcella Anna Friel stars in ITV's British take on the Scandi-noir thriller ITV Grantchester James Norton is back as the crime-solving vicar ITV / Lovely Day Stag The comedy-thriller from the team behind The Wrong Mans is both hilarious and chilling BBC/Des Willie/Hal Shinnie/Matt Burlem Vinyl Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger present a glossy drama about the Seventies music industry HBO American Crime Story: The People vs OJ Simpson Cuba Gooding Jr leads an all-star cast in a dramatic re-telling of the 'trial of century' BBC/Fox Happy Valley Sarah Lancashire returned as Sgt Catherine Cawood for a second series of the gritty crime thriller BBC/Red Productions/Ben Blackall The X Files Mulder and Scully return for a brand new set of mysteries War and Peace The BBC's epic adaptation of the Russian literary classic BBC/Mitch Jenkins Call the Midwife The BBC period drama moved into the Sixties for Series 5 BBC/Neal Street Productions/Sophie Mutevelian Dickensian Charles Dickens' most famous characters collide in this historical soap BBC Jericho ITV's British western set in the wilds of Yorkshire Silent Witness The hugely popular detective drama returns for a 19th series

Theroux is as watchable as ever, once again displaying a deft touch with his interviewees. For fans of his work, Drinking to Oblivion is another must-see.

BBC Two, Sunday, 9pm
GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP)  Racing restrictions that were briefly placed on about 25 horses at a second Fonner Park barn in Grand Island were lifted Saturday.

The Nebraska Department of Agriculture had announced the restrictions Friday afternoon after a horse in the barn exhibited signs of equine herpes. On Saturday, those restrictions were lifted after test results showed the horse did not have the illness, department spokeswoman Christin Kamm said.

The racing venue is under quarantine after three other horses there recently tested positive for equine herpes. One horse was euthanized; the other two are being treated.

The 750 to 850 horses at Fonner Park can't leave until the minimum 21-day quarantine is lifted. Fonner will continue racing through May 7, but the horses in the barn where the sick horses were kept are currently banned from racing, Kamm said.

Prairie Meadows Race Track in Altoona, Iowa, has quarantined and is monitoring horses that recently arrived from Fonner Park.

The virus cannot be spread to humans or other animals, but it can be transferred to other horses through boots, buckets, clothes, feed, tack or alternative means. Symptoms of the disease include fever, decreased coordination, hind limb weakness, leaning against a wall to maintain balance, lethargy and the inability to rise.
Sometimes, the facts can be so overwhelming that creating and passing legislation is a no-brainer. Other times, the same facts are hidden by blind ideology. So is the case with the recent Nebraska legislative override of LB947 which would allow folks that fall under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) to practice their chose profession in Nebraska.

First, what is DACA? Lets begin by saying it is the law of the land. President Obama, whether you like that particular stroke of his pen or not, by executive action declared that children who were brought to this country illegally and were under the age of 15, have been here since 2007 of before, have not been convicted of a felony or significant misdemeanor, cannot be removed from this country. Like it or not, it is current fact.

A couple of additional facts; They must be in school, graduated from high school or have their GED, have served in the military and been honorably discharged, and pose no threat to national security or public safety. In other words, they are living in the United States and have legal status, not citizenship, but legal status.

Take Nebraska for instance. They went to elementary and high school and our taxes paid for their education. Say they then go on to higher education and now want to live and work in the state (Nebraska) where they grew up. Say they want to be a cosmetologist, a teacher, a CPA or an attorney. For these professions and many others you have to obtain a state license to practice your chosen profession.

In Nebraska, this was not possible, so many of these nearly lifelong Nebraska residents who were brought here at an early age through no fault of their own, who have received a quality education and want to be productive contributing members of society would have to take their new profession to another state. Since they can stay here legally, I have to ask the question. Why would we do that?

What would you have them do? They cant be deported. They are well educated and ready to become taxpaying adults in careers they dreamed of. And they will do exactly that. The question was, could they do it in Nebraska?

The legislature said yes by a wide margin because under current federal law, it just made sense. Gov. Ricketts said no and vetoed LB947. He would prefer that all that effort and tax dollars the teachers poured into DACA students for years, and the students desires to become productive members of society be taken to places like Iowa, or other states that accept the facts as they are and works the best they can to do what is best for their state.

So, Wednesday, the Legislature took to the floor of the Senate and overrode Ricketts veto. The same thing happened to Ricketts last year when he vetoed legislation that would allow these same folks to get driver licenses.

Now, before you attack me for supporting this bill along with the majority of state senators, lets make a point. This is not about illegal immigration. That very serious problem, although the states must deal with it every day, belongs squarely in the halls of the United States Congress who for thirty years has been insubordinate in its duties to enact immigration reform or even to insist that immigration law and border control be strictly enforced.

The states are left with the dilemma of how to best govern given Washingtons partisan struggle with who is going to control the House and Senate and who will occupy the White House. Every immigration move they make  or better put, dont make  is political to them and has nothing to do with actual people. They need to be called out on this issue at every opportunity.

But here in Nebraska I echo what Sen. John Stinner told me after the vote. We did the right thing. Given the facts as they exist and current federal law; given the fact these children were brought here and are doing whatever they can to make the most of their life; given they grew up here and want to live here as many of us did and do, I agree. We did the right thing.

(Publisher note: LB947 does contain language that says, should the federal status of the DACA individuals change, that their state license to practice may also be affected. This is also the right thing to do.)

As always, discussion is welcome. I learn a lot from our readers.
St. Louis is asking a lot from companies interested in providing high-speed Internet access here. It wants cheap, gigabit-speed connections across the entire city, plus free or discounted access in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

What the city is offering in return is less clear.

A request for information issued last week mentions that companies may be able to use a variety of public assets and infrastructure, including light poles and city-owned fiber-optic cable. It also says the city, the Downtown STL business group and the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership will make the critical investments and policy modifications required to secure faster Internet service.

That doesnt pledge a single dollar of public money, however, and one expert believes the city wont succeed without making a firmer commitment.

Its not enough to say were here and we would like something better, said Christopher Mitchell, director of the community broadband initiative at the Minneapolis-based Institute for Local Self Reliance. We havent seen this approach be very successful.

St. Louis officials seem to realize that no company will do everything they want. Mobin Khan, Downtown STLs director of economic development and research, said companies dont have to respond to all parts of the request.

A provider could propose to serve innovation corridors such as downtown and the Central West End, for example, without having to offer discounted service in low-income areas. The intent is that collectively, from all the companies wanting to enter the market, we will be able to address all the goals, Khan explained.

A few places  such as Chattanooga, Tenn., and the Metro East community of Highland  have built their own citywide fiber networks. The guess here is that St. Louis, a much bigger city with plenty of other infrastructure needs, wont go nearly that far.

Other cities have made progress using a low-cost approach. Louisville, Ky., issued a request for information similar to St. Louis in November 2013 and found three small companies willing to lay fiber in certain areas. It also caught the attention of Google Fiber, which said last fall that it might expand into Louisville.

Google Fiber put Los Angeles on its expansion list, too, after that city launched a gigabit project last year.

Google Fiber  which offers super-fast connectivity for $70 a month  is already available in four cities, upcoming in seven and potential in 11 more.

St. Louis would love to join that list. We have reached out to Google, Khan said. I dont know if they will respond formally, but we hope they will come to the table.

The city can count on a response from Elite Systems, says Jayson Vaughn, owner of the small Internet provider. His company serves more than 20 commercial and residential buildings in and near downtown, including 11 where it provides gigabit-speed service to apartment and condo dwellers.

Vaughn wasnt sure which parts of the proposal he would respond to or what questions he would have for the city, but praised officials for making broadband a priority. Were super excited about it, he said.

The attitude of AT&T and Charter Communications, the regions main Internet providers, may determine how fast the gigabit goals are reached. Charter says it expects to submit a plan, while AT&T already has announced that it will bring gigabit service to parts of the St. Louis area.

The prospect of competition  from Google, Elite or anyone else  could speed up those plans. And that competitive jolt, Mitchell suggests, may be the most valuable outcome of the citys efforts.
A friend of a friend lost a job recently at a Catholic high school in the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

Times are tough and donations and enrollment werent keeping up.

So a few people were let go.

The suddenly jobless person  a lifelong Catholic who had worked for a couple of different Catholic schools  did what most in that situation would do. They went to see about getting unemployment while looking for another job.

I contacted the state of Missouri to get unemployment benefits kicked in, the person told me. The person asked that I not use their name as they feared retribution in their own parish for criticizing the church. I found out the Archdiocese doesnt pay unemployment.

Indeed, churches in nearly every state are exempt from paying into unemployment insurance programs, though many  including many Catholic dioceses  participate voluntarily.

Not so in St. Louis.

For the Archdiocese of St. Louis, its a simple matter of dollars and cents, says Kevin Loos, managing director of human resources.

Loos says he sympathizes with the laid off employees situation, but he points out that the handbook all employees receive explains that the church doesnt pay into the unemployment insurance system.

We specifically tell people thats the case, Loos says. Its not something anybody should be surprised about.

But it happens every now and then.

In both 2005 and 2009 when there were teacher layoffs in the St. Louis Archdiocese, the Post-Dispatch interviewed former employees who said they were surprised to not have access to unemployment benefits.

Theres the law, and then theres whats morally correct, and in the church thats always a problem, said Bob Fehey, 66, of Fenton, after losing his job in 2009.

Loos said then, and repeated this week, that the decision balances out the need to provide other benefits and be good stewards of donors funds.

It comes down to an economic decision, he said. If magically I had another quarter of a million dollars, there would be a clamor for how to best invest that money.

So the unemployed do without any safety net to help them as they begin their next job search.

That didnt sit well with the person I spoke to who is doing some odd jobs to make ends meet.

Ive told this to many Catholics, and not one person knew that the church didnt pay unemployment, they said. Its a matter of justice.

That seems to be how some churches see things.

Last week, Loos was at a conference of the National Association of Church Personnel Administrators. During a panel discussion with 26 dioceses represented, he asked how many of them pay unemployment. Six of them did, he said.

Nationally, among larger Catholic dioceses, Oakland, Calif., and Richmond, Va., both pay into the state insurance program or self fund to provide the benefit to their employees.

A survey the association conducted in 2009 found that out of 45 Catholic dioceses, 25 of them either paid into the state system or provided a similar unemployment benefit through a reimbursement program.

Loos said the St. Louis Archdiocese has had the discussion every few years, but the decision is always to spend the churchs resources elsewhere.

Loos says a former archbishop taught him to think about the little old lady in the pew on Sunday putting her money in the basket as it passes by. How would she like her money invested?

The laid off Catholic high school employee thinks along similar lines.

One sees economics. The other sees justice. The truth likely lies somewhere in between.
HAVAT GILAD, West Bank  The bulletproof tour bus, filled with retirees, groaned up the narrow dirt road to meet some of Israels most notorious Jewish settlers, renegade young firebrands known as the hilltop youth.

The stereotype is of monsters, high school dropouts, Arab killers, thieves of Arab land and uprooters of Arab olive trees, the host, Rabbi Meir Goldmintz, told his visitors. The truth is they are the greatest kids, they love this land and want to make their lives here.

As vacation season approaches, Israeli settlers are opening a bold new front in their battle for legitimacy: tourism.

The zealous hospitality comes as Europe demands special labels identifying products from settlements they consider illegal footholds of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. The United States disparages the growth of the settlements and blames them in part for the failure of the two-state solution, which envisions Israel living side by side with a Palestinian state.

The settlers are fighting back  by rolling out the welcome mat.

They are offering a sampling of the good life, with fine cabernets and artisanal cheese on the hilltops of the rugged, rural biblical land populated by the gun-toting children of Abraham (armed, they say, to protect themselves from Palestinian attackers).

They are welcoming biblical tourists  evangelical Christians and Jews who want to vacation at ancient sites that appear in the Old Testament and Torah  and geopolitical tourists, travelers who want to see the reality behind the headlines.

The tourist era

About 400,000 settlers live in the West Bank, in what Israelis call Judea and Samaria, the biblical names. About 15 percent hail from the United States.

Some settlers live in placid suburban-style gated developments filled with residents fleeing Israels high cost of living for more affordable West Bank villas. Other settlements are built exclusively for ultra-Orthodox Jews. Some settlers are ideological, claiming a right to live on the land they say God promised them.

Most of the worlds nations consider the Jewish settlements in the West Bank illegal. The United States labels them illegitimate and obstacles to peace.

In this campaign, wine tastings are a new weapon against a two-state solution. Holiday chalets are new facts on the ground.

The 1970s and 80s were the settlement era, when we had to build as much as we could, otherwise they would give it back to the Arabs. We had to block the Palestinians, said Karni Eldad, the co-author of Yesha Is Fun, a guidebook about vacationing in the West Bank, known to settlers as Yesha.

Now were in the tourist era, Eldad said, when raising the profile of the settlements is part of the struggle to keep this land, securing our forefathers land, that we conquered with our blood.

Among tours being offered: visits to ancient springs (that Palestinians say they relied on) and the Shiloh archaeology park (where settlers say the Ark of the Covenant was kept).

Drinking wine is a good thing. People begin to be friends, said Vered Ben Saadon, pouring a fruit merlot in her familys Tura Winery at the Rechelim settlement.

There are also zip lines, New Age massages, craft-beer breweries, spiritual retreats and petting zoos  often at sites protected by Israeli soldiers.

We were a bit nervous, but we thought it was more important to be brave, said Judy Russell, 72, an Australian, at Shiloh last week.

Palestinian leaders are incensed.

They block every chance to have a sovereign Palestinian state while promoting the growth of Israeli settlements, said Xavier Abu Eid, a Palestine Liberation Organization adviser.

Abu Eid complained that historic Jericho, Burqin and Nablus in the Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank get relatively few tourists. Once-popular Bethlehem has the West Banks highest unemployment, he said, while illegal Israeli settlements are developing a whole new industry under the full support of the Israeli government.

Beyond the negative

In addition to vineyards and mountain biking, some guides offer more provocative trips. One series of tours, titled Hilltop Youth: Who Are You?, invited visitors to get to know the outposts beyond such negative associations as violence, messianic ideology, rebellion.

On a recent trip, seniors crowded into the yeshiva at Havat Gilad, which has been dismantled several times by Israeli authorities who have accused its settlers of attacking Israeli police and shooting at Palestinians and destroying their olive trees. In January 2015, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian they said was about to throw a firebomb on a road leading to the settlement.

Despite the hillbilly appearance, the Gilad farmers love guests, the Yesha guidebook said. But the long-haired hilltop youth declined to engage. When a tourist approached with a camera, one young man put his head down on the table.

Theyre shy, a guest said.

The hilltops want to be the new normal. Because how illegal can they be if they get Israeli electricity, water, roads and army protection?

We have to be normal, said Noam Cohen, who runs a music club at Neve Erez, a hilltop settlement in the Judean wilderness that was once dismantled by Israeli authorities who said it was built on land privately owned by Palestinians.

No one can say its not yours  open the Bible, Cohen said on a peaceful afternoon, the sound of the wind punctuated by target practice from a nearby army base.

When people come here, they experience a different side of us: nature, music, olives, lemons, he said.

But not Palestinians?

It just wont fit, Cohen said.

Opening doors

The shift to openness and tourism is credited to Dani Dayan, the former chairman of the settler Yesha Council. Brazil recently rejected Dayan as Israels ambassador. He is now Israeli consul general in New York.

We understood that if we want people to agree with us, we have to open the doors, said Yesha spokeswoman Miri Maoz-Ovadia.

Maoz-Ovadia said there had been huge growth in settlement tourism in the past five years. The 1.5 million annual visitors to the West Bank now encounter 15 new multilingual settlement visitors centers, 20 boutique wineries and some 200 bed-and-breakfasts  in spite of Palestinian pressure on Web hosts such as Airbnb to stop the offerings.

We need to broaden our audience internationally, said Gedaliah Blum, who runs a marketing website from the Eli settlement.

China has no anti-Semitism, there are no hang-ups, he said. Theyre interested in wines.

After a surge in support from settlers aided Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus 2015 victory, some see no reason to be discreet.

To be a settler means to vote against the two-state solution. You dont want to be turned out of your home, Eldad, the guidebook author, said as she baked granola at the Tekoa settlement south of Bethlehem, the clang of construction in the air.

Eldad said she hopes tourism will dispel inaccurate media reports in which the story is always, Look how the settlers assaulted the poor Arabs.

The situation is not hilltop youth burning a house in Duma, Eldad said, referring to the young Jewish extremists who are the alleged perpetrators of a firebombing in a West Bank village that killed a Palestinian mother, father and their 18-month-old baby, and severely burned their son, 5.

This rarely happens, Eldad said.

At that same hilltop where the arsonists came from, there is a herd of goats that has unbelievable cheese, she said.
It pains us to reverse this newspapers support for what seemed like a worthy Missouri constitutional amendment, but we cannot advocate a clear attempt to deceive voters with what now appears to be a Trojan horse measure. Were talking about a ballot initiative that aimed to raise $305 million a year for childrens health by hiking the state tobacco tax.

Had the initiatives language stopped there, wed be 100 percent behind it today, as we were when we endorsed it in February. But the measure contains a clause with unacceptable long-term implications for important scientific research.

The group Raise Your Hands for Kids touted this initiative as a way to raise money for young children by increasing the states cigarette tax, the lowest in the nation, from 17 cents to 77 cents a pack. The poisonous part involves language stipulating the new tax revenue cannot be used for abortions, abortion services or for human cloning or research, clinical trials, or therapies or cures using human embryonic stem-cells.

The stem-cell language has sent Missouri Cures, a coalition that successfully campaigned for a constitutional amendment protecting stem-cell research in 2006, running from this initiative. Likewise, Washington University has withdrawn support and is now lobbying against it.

State Sen. Jill Schupp, D-Creve Coeur, is another former supporter who has bolted. Having previously raised funds for the campaign, she is now writing donors to explain her decision to withdraw support and asking them to do the same.

Schupp says the initiative was hijacked and that it threw a bone to groups against stem-cell research and anti-abortion proponents.

Linda Rallo, executive director of Raise Your Hands for Kids, says her group inserted the language because of a Washington University report in 2013 about why a campaign the year before to raise the states tobacco tax had failed. The report suggested care should be taken to mitigate opposition by anti-abortion groups.

But the university said in a statement that inferring that strong anti-research language should be included in future initiatives is a complete overreach of the authors intentions.

The real shame is that children and needy families could lose access to an estimated $28 million a year from the tax, which would have gone for screenings, preventive health care and other services. The sharply higher tax would be a big incentive for smokers to quit, and some of the money from it was slated for smoking cessation.

Rallo insists the stem-cell and abortion language was added only to make it crystal clear that the taxes raised could be used solely for children and smoking cessation. She says objections were raised too late for her to take the language out of the proposal.

She accused opponents of not wanting to help kids but did not acknowledge her own role in alienating them  and, unfortunately, this newspaper.
The police operation saw a shocking 50 per cent of targeted stores break the law in selling alcohol to minors.

Auckland bars are facing prosecution after half of those in a police sting sold booze to under age drinkers - including to a 15 year old.

A police operation in the Auckland policing district on Saturday night found four out of eight on-license premises sold to minors.

The four premises - located in Ellerslie, Panmure and Newmarket - will be prosecuted under the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act.

The police "controlled purchase operation" came a month after five other bars in Auckland's west were caught selling liquor to minors in a separate, but similar operation.

READ MORE:

* Auckland liquor store boss caught in police sting blames bad eyesight

* Auckland liquor store's license on the rocks

* Business owner high and dry over liquor licensing

Auckland Police District Prevention Manager Inspector Gary Davey said it was "disappointing" and "frustrating" that stores would not play by the rules.

"We continue to have premises seemingly flout the law and their obligations," he said.

Davey said only one of the four premises that sold alcohol to minors on Saturday night requested identification.

The identifications clearly showed the minors' ages, he said.

Whether the bars lost their licences would be determined by the Alcohol Regulatory Licensing Authority, but Davey hoped any action by the authority would get the message across to the bars.

"If you sell alcohol to minors you will be dealt with in the strongest way possible."
Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation CEO Ruma Karaitiana says they need more apprentices - fast.

A drastic shortage of apprentices is putting strain on New Zealand's construction industry as work ramps up throughout the country.

The current labour market is able to support the building of 15,000 houses per year, but that is not enough to support the growth in demand.

Over the next two years, demand for new houses is expected to hit 28,000.

KIRK HARGREAVES/FAIRFAX NZ In 2008 - when the recession hit - there were about 9800 apprentices. Now there are just 5000.

Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation (BCITO) chief executive Ruma Karaitiana said to kickstart large building projects this year, they needed more apprentices - fast.

READ MORE:

* Delays inevitable as builders struggle to cope with boom

* Christchurch quake rebuild to cross halfway point in 2016

* Aucklanders told to ditch cars as huge CBD build nears

"The industry needs to train more people and they need to do it now. Our traditional workforce pools are shrinking."

DEAN KOZANIC/FAIRFAX NZ Construction work in Christchurch has switched from residential to non-residential, as the focus moved into the city centre.

In Wellington, eight major projects had received consents this year, he said.

"So we will see more and more cranes popping up in the horizon soon, which we haven't seen for some time."

In Christchurch, there was also a lot of construction that had switched from residential to non-residential, as the focus moved into the city centre, he said.

There were a number of major projects in Auckland, which were yet to be started, Karaitiana said.

In the big smoke, the construction boom had been nicknamed 'The Wall of Work' - indicating it was going to be an "incredibly busy year", he said.

"We need people to come on really, really quick."

There had always been a shortage of apprentices, but the problem was getting worse, Karaitiana said.

"We've always had boom and bust and we are heading into a boom again, which will be higher and longer than ever before."

Most companies pulled back on spending during the recession to try and survive, he said.

In 2008 when the recession hit, there were about 9800 apprentices - now, there are just 5000, Karaitiana said.

The Christchurch rebuild helped the construction industry get out of the recession fast, as there was a "sudden burst" of activity, he said.

"There was a period of shortage, then all of a sudden there was a period of high demand."

Another factor in the lack of apprentices was what Karaitiana as the "replacement challenge", he said.

"We are losing quite a lot of people at the same time with baby boomers coming through."

Current apprentices were made up of a "big chunk" of school leavers, through to people looking for a change in career, he said.

The average age of apprentices was 26, he said.

"People are moving around an awful lot. We've got people who have been in the workforce for three or four years and then changing their mind."

There was a common thought that school leavers should head to university rather than do an apprenticeship, Karaitiana said.

"Teachers and parents are still focused on university as a first choice - they don't see apprenticeships as a first choice for a career . . .

"It's not about uni being bad, it's about bad choices being made the first time around. They could have made a better choice."

About 900 of BITCO's apprentices had come from a university background, he said.

To encourage more people to start apprenticeships, the organisation was working with schools to ensure those interested knew what they had to achieve, Karaitiana said.

"We are working with schools, teachers and career advisors to make sure they make the right subject choices, including English and maths.

"It is not an industry for dummies."

They were also focusing on gender diversity in the male-dominated industry, he said.

Meanwhile, Registered Master Builders chief executive David Kelly is encouraging apprentices to enter the Registered Master Builders Carters 2016 Apprentice of the Year.

Kelly hoped the competition would raise profile around the value of an apprenticeships, he said.

"We are experiencing a real shortage of builders right now, with the industry calling out for more apprentices . . .

"For the apprentices, the competition is a great way to launch their careers."

Last year, Lower Hutt man Bryce Pemberton took out the Wellington title, but also came in at third place in the national competition.
Nick Schwarzer was part of the fire dancers in Hamilton on Saturday night.

One Hamilton man spends a typical Saturday night munching on fire.

Jamie Miller has been fire-dancing and fire-eating for a few years now.

There is a bit of a process to it.

First he makes sure he lines his stomach - either with food or a milk drink.

"Then if something goes wrong, it helps," Miller says in a matter-of-fact way.

Next, he swallows an activated charcoal tablet.

That helps remove the toxins from the system, he says.

And then it's all about dipping the tools into the fuel, lighting up, dancing around and then swallowing.

"Of course I love it, or I wouldn't do it," Miller says, still matter-of-fact.

Not everyone in his family loves that he loves it, though.

"Mum doesn't mind, but Gran is a different story," he says with a chuckle.

Miller started his fire habit in Hamilton, but moved away for a few years.

When he returned, he found the fire community had died down and he wanted to reignite interest.

But there was an obstacle. He came back to study Japanese and linguistics.

Miller was a poor student and it costs $112 for 20 litres of fuel.

"I started a club [at Waikato University] because you get money for it.

"But because I got it for free, I thought it's rude to keep it to myself, so I'd better share it with the community."

So in March he started up the first event at Claudelands Park for fire dancers to come down and have a spin, and anyone else who wanted to see it or have a go.

The second one was on Saturday night.

And it is gaining in popularity.

"We went from having 14 people interested in an event to 160. This time around it is 260 plus."

One of the people who likes to come down and have a play is Nick Schwarzer.

He has been fire-dancing for about two years now, and says he only has a few tricks up his sleeve.

Schwarzer started the hobby to learn new skills and meet people.

And it's panning out for him.

"Oh, look, it's good for a laugh," Schwarzer says.
A new hospital ward at Rannerdale Veterans Care Facility is named for Lance Corporal Jacinda Baker. (First published 2016).

The parents of a fallen soldier speak out proudly as a medical wing is named in her honour this Anzac Day.

Anzac Day was always important to the Baker family, but it took on extra significance when their daughter's name was added to the local cenotaph.

Jacinda Baker, a 26-year-old from Christchurch and a Lance Corporal serving in Afghanistan, died in 2012 alongside two others when the Humvee they were travelling in struck an explosive device.

DEAN KOZANIC/FAIRFAX NZ Jacinda Baker's public funeral was held alongside the two soldiers who were killed in action alongside her, Corporal Luke Tamatea and Private Richard Harris.

She was the first New Zealand woman killed in combat since the death of nurse Lesley Cowper in the Vietnam War.

READ MORE:

* Anzac Day services: When and where are they on?

* Governor-General's open letter: 'We do not glorify war on Anzac Day'

* David Slack: 'The going down of the sun, again'

* First to arrive, first to die, a family remembers WWI soldier Piana Pera

* Dame Kiri deeply moved by her return to Great War graveyards

* One family's sacrifice in the Great War was too much for community to bear

* Help measure the Anzacs in massive new WWI crowd-sourcing project

Nearly four years after her death, a veteran's care facility is naming its new ward after her, to memorialise the sacrifices made by Baker and other young soldiers.

NZDF Jacinda Baker pictured with her partner Geoff Fosbender in 2011.

The Rannerdale Veteran's Care facility in Christchurch is constructing its new Jacinda Baker medical wing, which will provide space for 10 more veterans to receive hospital level-care.

The charitable group runs the facility, which currently houses 65 veterans. It provides both residential, medical and palliative care.

It has secured funds to build the Jacinda Baker wing, but is fundraising on website PledgeMe for equipment. It is aiming to raise $75,000.

NZDF Lance Corporal Jacinda Baker was killed by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in 2012.

Peter Baker, Jacinda's father, said the family was honoured by the naming of the wing, which will be announced on Anzac Day.

It was appropriate that a medical wing be named after his daughter, who was a medic, he said.

"It shows some recognition for what she did and what she had been doing in the Army and also in Afghanistan.

"It's good for Jacinda ... We're very happy."

On Anzac Day, the family would attend the dawn service at Burnham Military Camp, where Baker was trained and later posted.

They would also attend a service at her former high school in Rangiora.

Joyce Baker, Jacinda's mother, said that one day veterans of her daughter's generation may require Rannerdale's services.

"In 20 or 30 years' time it might be the colleagues she served with, or under, who are at Rannerdale, and it'll be a name they recognise," she said.

"Veterans from East Timor, Afghanistan and elsewhere aren't mentioned so much right now, but they will be in the future."

Choosing to name the new wing after a young soldier was a deliberate gesture, intended to recognise the work and sacrifices made by younger soldiers, said Rannerdale general manager Steve Shamy.

"[Baker] was proud to be a medic in the New Zealand Army and proud of the work she carried out," said

"We acknowledge her Canterbury connection, her medical training, professionalism, dignity and respect  core values of the New Zealand Defence Force and Rannerdale."

The Jacinda Baker medical wing is expected to be completed in August.
91 year old World War Two veteran Roy Harvey Brookes places a wreath on the remembrance wall outside the Whangamata RSA with his son Kevin Brookes along with his great grandsons Hayden and Josh. Mr Brookes was assigned to the Royal Navy from 1942-1945 and was a seaman for five campaigns.

Fine weather greeted thousands of people paying their respects at Anzac services around the Waikato.

An estimated 6000-7000 people attended Hamilton's dawn service at Memorial Park, while numbers in the hundreds were common at towns across the region.

Te Aroha RSA president Owen Passau said he was happy with the turnout for the parade, from the clubrooms in Rewi St to the cenotaph, and the public response.

CLAIRE FITZJAMES World War Two veteran George 'Cop' Howard is pushed by his grandson with fellow WWII veteran Roy Harvey Brookes who is pushed by his son and great grandsons and son.

READ MORE

* Final training flight took Leo Dempsey's bright, athletic brother

* Hamilton Anzac dawn service: great granddad's medals and remembering lost loved ones

In his speech at the cenotaph, Passau reflected on this year's centenary of the establishment of the New Zealand Returned Soldiers Association, which became the Returned & Services Association.

CLAIRE FITZJAMES Whangamata Scouts Tommy Mullholland, Jamie Jacobs, Liam Rogers and Katie Twamley march in the Whangmata Civic Parade

"Its establishment recognised a need to provide care for returning soldiers and to honour the memory of those who would never return," he said. "Support, welfare services and remembrance has been at the heart of the RSA since 1916."

Around 600 people welcomed the ANZAC dawn in Whangamata this morning and up to 1000 applauded veterans and service personnel as they paraded along Port Road in the Civic Parade.



In a service held in the Whangamata War Memorial Hall, Whangamata RSA President Geoff March and the parade Marshall spoke of the support and the community RSA provides to veterans.



Whangamata RSA Padre Terri Sorenson described the dawn service unbelievable as the sun rose from the horizon.



"It was like a chocolate box picture," he said.



Royal New Zealand Navy Lieutenant Commodore Mike Hester, who has a holiday home in Whangamata, was the guest speaker and highlighted the importance of service before self in our communities.



"That aspect of service before self is not something just owned and embodied by local military, it is embodied by those in our emergency services and those in community leadership roles, schools, and business.



"and that nature of service before self is a very important part of New Zealand society and how it makes its way in the world," he said.

Caitlin Wallace Sam Kapoor represents the Ngaruawahia Fire Brigade at the wreath laying.

Caitlin Wallace Malcolm Harding pays tribute at the Ngaruawahia service to his father and two uncles who died in the second world war.

Caitlin Wallace Waikato District Council mayor Allan Sanson pays tribute on behalf of the council.

Caitlin Wallace Controlling the crowds is Ngaruawahia local Bill Hutt who proudly wears his fire service badge.

Natalie Polley Ev Otto, a 93-year-old Battle of Cassino veteran from Pukekohe and member of RSA Franklin, joined the march in Pukekohe outside the town hall.

EMMA JAMES/FAIRFAX MEDIA The Guard make their way to the cenotaph at Cambridge anzac civic service

EMMA JAMES/FAIRFAX MEDIA Waipa District Mayor Jim Mylchreest being escorted by Lt Sam Leach at the Cambridge civic service

EMMA JAMES/FAIRFAX MEDIA Cambridge High School head boy Taine Rose and head girl Grace Lewis at the wreath laying ceremony, Civic Service. Anzac Day.

EMMA JAMES/FAIRFAX MEDIA St Peter's School head girl Rebecca Goodman and head boy Jacob Norris at the Cambridge Anzac Civic Service

BENN BATHGATE/FAIRFAX NZ The Rotorua civic service parade passes the Cenotaph.

MARK TAYLOR / FAIRFAX NZ Services march at the Hamilton dawn parade.

MARK TAYLOR / FAIRFAX NZ ANZAC Day dawn parade at Hamilton Memorial Park.

MARK TAYLOR FAIRFAX NZ Crowds gather before crosses at Hamilton's Memorial Park.

MARK TAYLOR FAIRFAX NZ A big screen showing wartime images brought WWI to the Hamilton public.

FRANCES FERGUSON / FAIRFAX NZ Sydney Killgour was dispatched to the Pacific ready to defend against Japan serving as a Leading aircraftman in the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Here he lays a wreath at the Tokoroa dawn service.

BENN BATHGATE An estimated 2000 people attended the dawn service in Rotorua.

Steve Edwards An estimated 300 to 400 people attended the Anzac Day dawn service in Te Aroha, on a par with past years.
TJ Flay has a row of medals on his chest - they're his great grandfather's.

The Cambridge nine-year-old was marking Anzac day at Hamilton's Memorial Park on Monday, as one of several thousand at the dawn service.

For TJ it was all about remembering his ancestor, Charles Edward Gauthern, who was a prisoner of war for five years.

MARK TAYLOR FAIRFAX NZ Hamilton's dawn service normally attracts upwards of 6000 attendees, organisers say.

"I was the first person to ever represent [my great grandfather], I think," TJ said.

READ MORE:

* Thousands greet Waikato Anzac Day dawn

* In the midst of desolate memories: honouring Anzac Day

* New hospital wing for veterans to be named for soldier killed in battle

* Lost love etched on widow

"I asked my nana and she said that I could - because that was his daughter."

MARK TAYLOR/FAIRFAX NZ TJ Flay, 9, was on a quest to find out what his great grandfather's medals meant.

Gauthern was from Northland, and reportedly served on various fronts in World War II.

And TJ had a special mission for the day because his family no longer knew what Gauthern's medals were for.

It was up to TJ and his family to ask around and report back to his grandmother.

Libby Wilson This was the first dawn service Sarah Erb made it through without tears since she lost her then partner Luke Tamatea in August 2012. Pictured from left are Levi Randall, Eden Randall, Luke Jerome, Sarah Erb with a picture of Luke Tamatea, Jayden Randall, Regan Randall (front), Kaia Randall, Dane Randall and Denise Erb.

He met his great grandfather, but it's not war stories that stick in his mind.

"I remember that when he could pull out his teeth I tried to."

As an ex-army medic, Sarah Erb is a dawn parade regular.

But the since her then partner Corporal Luke Tamatea was killed on duty in Afghanistan on August 19, 2012 the experience is quite different.

Tamatea was one of three Kiwis who died in Afghanistan when their Humvee was destroyed by a roadside bomb in the Bamiyan province.

The 2016 service was the first Erb made it through without tears since Tamatea's death.

"Obviously since his passing the whole dynamic of the dawn parade has changed, but it's just something that I always do," Erb said.

"I guess it's a time to be with him, and to remember him as a family."

"Four years on it's kind of refreshing to be able to come and remember the good times than be so sad about it," Erb said

Their daughter, Keira, 6, was having her first Anzac day away from her mum, in Kawerau with Tamatea's family.

For Erb, it felt good to have so many Hamiltonians turn out for the dawn service and she felt there was a sense of pride among the crowd.

She was also impressed by the prayer.

"It touched on all parts of everyone's loss, remembering soldiers past and present."

Between 6000 and 8000 people normally came to the Hamilton dawn service, events manager Tracey Wood said.

"In some ways dawn seems to be people's service of choice and I think it's because there are more returned service people at dawn. And it has an atmosphere that you can't beat."

She'd spoken to daughters who brought their 91-year-old father from Taupo especially for the service in 2016.
Dont issue any more licenses for finance companies plea from depositors group By Quintus Perera View(s): View(s):

Please do not issue any more licenses to commence finance companies, is the plea made to THE Central Bank (CB) by the Central Investment and Finance Ltd Depositors Association (CIFLDA). Reflecting on a decision of the CIFLDA, its President, K.W. Gunawardena told the Business Times (BT), this week that the CB has already issued nearly 40 such licenses to establish finance companies and only a few, about three or four, are properly functioning while all others appear to be in trouble. He said that when these mushroom finance companies fail large number of depositors suffer and have to go from pillar to post to recover their savings.

Thus, Mr. Gunawardena said that most of these finance companies are only hoodwinking the poor depositors and ultimately dupe them  similar to the plight that they are faced with now. Therefore, CIFLDA is urging the CB not to issue any licenses, until and unless those finance companies now declared failed are put in order and the depositors dues of such finance companies settled fully. Most of CIFLDA members depend on interest from deposits for life-saving medication while already more than 50 have died for lack of funds. Many of the politicians now in power who were in the opposition then, made various promises which are yet to be fulfilled.

Meanwhile, Udena Alawattegama, Director, Non-Banking Institutions, CB has informed the association that a German investor has shown interest to take over CIFL. There are more than 14 lands said to be owned by CIFL. Mr. Gunawardena said that the CB has made arrangements to value them through a certified chartered valuer of which 10 have been valued at nearly Rs. 1 billion. Once this process is completed, the report on the valuation would be placed before court that is dealing with a fraud case against CIFLs former Chairman, Chula Gunawardene alias Deepthi Perera that will be taken up for further hearing on May 27.

Deepthi Perera, according to Mr. Gunawardena has indicated that he is willing to take over CIFL to run it with a long term loan of Rs. 1 billion from the CB, but Mr. Gunawardena pointed out that the CB is neither prepared to grant this loan nor issue a mandate to run CIFL. He said that with regard to the fraud case against Mr. Perera the CID has completed all their investigations and the report is now with the Attorney General to issue a charge sheet on the latter.
Five day week: SL private sector wants it, unions oppose it, workers unsure View(s):

COLOMBO  A 5-day week with the weekend off would surely warm the hearts of many, hard-working Sri Lankan workers but unions here are opposing the move for different reasons. Some workers say they are happy to get two off days but are unaware that this process could find their overtime, a valuable component of the monthly wage, reduced, Sanjeewa, a garment worker, was also unaware of the proposed reduced working week. Five-day week? Ah  is that happening? If so it would be good. Sri Lanka follows a 45 hour work week in line with ILO conventions currently spaced to 8 hours daily from Monday to Friday and five hours on Saturday. Female workers are entitled to 60 hours overtime per month while their male counterparts get unlimited overtime.

The government some months ago proposed a 5-day week with an additional hour per day to make up for abandoning the Saturday half-day. This in line with long-standing demands by employers to close factories and offices at the weekend citing rising costs of production from the use of power, air conditioners and water on Saturday. More than 200,000 mostly female workers are employed at the countrys free trade zones. Dhammika Fernando, President of the Free Trade Zone Manufacturers Association, says that keeping factories open on a Saturday is costly, uneconomical and a white elephant. There is low productivity and workers dont work. They idle and we are paying.

Unions say a 5-day week will deprive workers of overtime. Anton Marcus, General Secretary of the Free Trade Zone and General Services Union, says the government is siding with employers in pushing a 5-day week where workers will be on their feet for over nine hours a day with no overtime because they would be too tired or not get overtime. Thats not correct, argues Mr. Fernando who manages a jewellery plant at one of the zones. Companies are willing to allow overtime during the week. Some of our member firms are willing to even pay overtime for the extra hour per day. Female workers normally get about two hours overtime per day based on orders.

However Mr. Marcus says workers are exhausted working long hours and if the new rule comes in it would be a 10-hour day (inclusive of a one hour break) plus 1-2 hours of overtime. Already physically unfit, their health would further suffer if they are to work extra hours. Present rules however permit companies to implement a 5-day week, which is happening in some cases, with the consent of workers. Unions are not opposed to this arrangement. What they object to is legalising this informal process and then forcing it on the workers. Shanthini, another 24-year old worker, says she has to work as many hours as possible to send money to her home in the village and pay other debts.

Health and safety issues aside, many like Shanthini want to work more and even forego the weekend if overtime is available.

If they earn 20,000 rupees (about US$138) a month which includes many hours of overtime, at least 15,000 rupees is sent home and they manage with a measly 5,000 rupees for food and accommodation. They are eternally in debt to the local shop, eat very little and often sick though they work, said Mayura. Dharmawardena  Coordinator, All Ceylon Federation of Free Trade & National Workers Congress. Though the stipulated government basic wage is 10,400 rupees per month, employers says companies offer more at 14,000 rupees and a take home of 20,000 rupees which is much higher than working outside the zones.

Wages are high in the zones, asserts Mr. Fernando. But workers are on their feet for nine hours a day, often skipping meals to meet targets which are tied to financial incentives connected to the final take-home pay. Some of them dont even drink water to avoid going to the toilet and lose time, said trade unionist Mr. Marcus. Recent studies show workers suffer from anemia and a host of other ailments due to lack of proper food and overwork. Incentive bonuses and other financial benefits are invariably tied to targets and higher productivity. Conditions in boarding houses where most of the women, from rural villages, live are also in appalling conditions. A senior official at the Labour Ministry says the 5-day week is only permitted if both parties  employers and workers agree. ILO officials in Colombo last December unavailable for comment. (This was written as part of an ILO training course in Turin, Italy  FEIZAL)
Police chief: Secret ballot and one spoilt vote View(s):

Even if Speaker Karu Jayasuriya cautioned members of the Constitutional Council regarding media leaks about their deliberations when they met last Monday to select a new Police Chief, the story was out.

In the absence of a consensus as to who should become the IGP from among three recommended by President Maithripala Sirisena, the matter was put to a vote in a secret ballot. Five members of the Council voted in favour of Senior DIG Pujith Jayasundera whilst Senior DIG S.M. Wickremesinghe received only one vote. Speaker Jayasuriya refrained from voting and only seven members of the Council were present. But the story behind the story was that one of the votes was spoilt!

Earlier, before the three senior DIGs were asked to be on hand, Speaker Jayasuriya had written to various state agencies to ascertain whether there were any adverse reports against the three aspirants. These included the Presidential Commission of Inquiry to Investigate and Inquire into Serious Acts of Fraud, Corruption and Abuse of Power, State Resources and Privileges (PRECIFAC), the Human Rights Commission and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

When sittings began after a delay, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) Parliamentarian Vijitha Herath raised objections over the Council taking a decision to select one of the three candidates recommended by President Sirisena.

He argued that if this was the procedure, the CC should have used the same criterion when an Attorney General was picked. On that occasion, he pointed out that the CC had sent back to President Sirisena the three names he had forwarded and asked him to recommend one nominee. That was how Jayantha Jayasuriya had been selected as Attorney General.

However, Mr. Herath said, this time the President was asking the CC to pick one persons from a list of three. He contended that the CC had set a precedent and was now changing it.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe intervened to point out that there was no provision in the Constitution barring the CC from selecting a person from the names forwarded to it. He said the choice had been left to the CC by President Sirisena to ensure greater transparency. He did not want to be accused of favouritism in the event SDIG S.M. Wickremesinghe was selected. This was because he hailed from the Polonnaruwa District, the Presidents constituency. That was why the CC was being asked to take a decision, he pointed out.

Other than discussions on Mr. Jayasundera and Mr. Wickremesinghe, the CC did not take up the case of Chandana Wickremeratne, SDIG Southern Range.

Two civil society representatives  Shibly Aziz and Radhika Coomaraswamy  were not present at Mondays meeting.

Puttalam with dengue canal wins clean city award

It was a Western Provincial Councillor who made the acid remark about the previous Governments campaign to control dengue.

He said if the mosquitoes that spread the disease could read posters and banners in the streets warning about dengue, the menace would be over.

This time, the Presidential Task Force and the Health Ministrys dengue eradication branch have together launched a campaign in Puttalam, one of the badly affected areas. A banner reads:

Do not allow dengue mosquitoes to spread once again; you may be the next target; make sure that there are no dengue mosquito breeding places around you by keeping your environment clean.

It is quite ironic that the health authorities have sought to alert the people of Puttalam over the matter rather than insisting the Secretary or the Special Commissioner of the Puttalam Urban Council should ensure that there are no dengue breeding grounds in that area.

In Puttalam town, there is an ancient drainage canal which runs some kilometres from Nedunkulam tank to Puttalam Lagoon. This is known to be a mosquito breeding canal.

Due to the negligence of the Puttalam Urban Council, this canal has not been maintained for many years and has become a breeding ground for Dengue.

Strangely, the Puttalam Urban Council was awarded first place in 2014 and the third place in 2015 for maintaining the cleanest city in the Northwestern Province.

This is at the performance enhancement competition of the Local Authorities and was conducted by the Local Government Department of the North Western Province among the 34 local authorities including the Municipality of Kurunegala.

Jacket of gold

Rather than return from an overseas trip with a fistful of dollars or currency spilling out of his suit, the official of a top agency instead returned with a jacket which virtually costs a fortune.

Charged in many ways with getting greenbacks for his country, our man instead treated himself to a near 2 million rupee-worth jacket from a US store. Colleagues at a ministry which overseas this agency have dubbed him the man with the jacket of gold.

The episode doesnt end there. The official wants to claim this purchase as part of his expense account.

Ministry officials have sought a clarification from higher-ups on whether or not to allow this expense as an official purchase.

Survey reveals priority perceptions of the people

The cost of living is issue number one confronting Sri Lankans, followed by bribery and corruption, according to a survey conducted by the Marga Institute in January and February this year.

This Institute which is also known as the Centre for Development Studies, a non-profit organisation, carried out the countrywide survey on behalf of the March 12 Movement. This movement of civil society groups was formed after they signed a declaration on that date last year to support President Maithripala Sirisena in the fight against political corruption.

A target group profile of males and females between the ages 18 and 60, belonging to all categories in the socio-economic classification of households in the urban and rural sectors countrywide was selected for the survey.

The three fold survey of 400 individuals from different work disciplines was aimed at determining three main objectives. They are:

General public awareness and perceptions of bribery and corruption.

Effectiveness of Government campaigns against bribery and corruption.

Public opinion on what should be done to minimise/eradicate bribery and corruption in Sri Lanka.

Whilst noting that the cost of living was rated as number one priority, bribery and corruption are seen by those interviewed as the second most important issue. It noted that politicians, schools, police and the former Government were associated  without being prompted  with bribery and corruption by the sample.

Unprompted association of incidents, the conclusions in the survey note are those relating to the previous administration, school principals asking for bribes to enlist children at their schools, Customs office and Divineguma Programme. The survey noted that three out of five persons of the sample stated that bribery and corruption had increased during the previous five years (before 2015).

The survey also revealed that three in five of sample members are not aware of the Right to Information Act and the Declaration of Assets and Liabilities Act.

Rajapaksa and nekath politics

Perhaps next to religion, for Sri Lankan politicians of different hues it would be astrology.

So much so, a thriving industry of professionals and phonies make a handsome living out of it.

In 1969, a widely read local astrological journal, now defunct, headlined a story on the outcome of the French presidential elections where Georges Pompidou was contesting Alain Poher.

The newspaper said in bold letters that it was victory hands down for Poher but Pompidou won comfortably. An embarrassed editor was to remark to a colleague that he was right but something rotten had happened.

A person had handed down to him the horoscope of Pompidou and declared it was that of Poher. Hence, he had erred only on the name.

This week, former President Mahinda Rajapaksas assertion that the National New Year auspicious times were not correct was to bring a prompt response. The response came from a committee chaired by Cultural Affairs Minister S.B. Nawinna and seven of the 30 member committee that had formulated the auspicious times.

Among the questions raised by the media was one about Mahinda Rajapaksas comments. Journalists wanted to know why he had chosen a time close upon 1 p.m. on April 15 for the oil anointing ceremony. A member of the Committee was quick to respond. Rajapaksa was facing the north western direction and that was inauspicious, he said.

Another from the media shot back. He said North Western would mean Wayamba and whether that should be inauspicious to Minister Nawinna too (who was from the area). The reply was an embarrassed, but dead pan  it was in the direction of the Wayamba Province and there was nothing bad for the Minister.

Buying while crashlanding

Though technically insolvent, SriLankan Airlines still wants to buy Canadian-made Bombardier aircraft.

This was revealed by a top official of the national carrier when he met pilots for a discussion on Thursday.

The official said such aircraft could undertake domestic and regional flights.

Minister seeks OIC help for Muslims

A Government Minister has sought help from Muslim countries to enshrine provisions in the proposed Sri Lanka Constitution to protect the interests of Muslims.

Industry and Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen discussed the role of the Muslim community in the constitution-making process with senior officials of the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC), his spokesman A.M. Jameel said.

A former member of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), Mr. Jameel is now a strong backer of Bathiudeen All Ceylon Makkal Congress or Peoples Congress.

Mr. Jameel said their meeting was inevitable since the Northern Provincial Council had earlier called for the merger of the Northern and Eastern Provinces in the proposed Constitution. If that happens, Muslims would be in a minority, he said.
Sirisena faces May Day test of strength, growing challenge from pro-Rajapaksa JO View(s):

Despite threats of disciplinary action, dissidents go full steam; President asks why UNP going soft on former leaders

Polonnaruwa VAT bombshell reverberates at crucial talks with IMF in Washington; major topic at Cabinet meeting

Tax not withdrawn, experts not sacked, but major changes made in proposals to reduce burden on people

He neither put a halt to new taxes nor sent home the Governments economic advisors who reportedly recommended them.

Yet, President Maithripala Sirisena was able to ensure a few concessions were offered when the Value Added Tax (VAT), the biggest burden for low and middle income groups, becomes effective. There is still an element of uncertainty when a VAT increase to 15% comes into effect though it is currently scheduled for May 2. Other tax measures have already been made effective from April 1.

State Minister for Finance, Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena told the Sunday Times an extraordinary Gazette notification was due on May 2 but would be backdated if there was a delay. The outcome of talks between the Government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington DC was being awaited. The Government made a case for an IMF Extended Fund Facility of US$ 3 billion whilst talks in Colombo saw a possible offer of US$ 1.2 billion. Reports from Washington DC indicate that a sum above US$ 1.2 billion but below US$ 3 billion would be the likely outcome. Stating Sri Lankas case to the IMF for the enhanced facility was a delegation led by Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake.

In what seemed a surprising turn of events, President Sirisena declared during a speech at the national New Year celebrations at Pulasthipura in Polonnaruwa, that he would not introduce any tax that would be a burden on the people. He said he had read reports in sections of the newspapers about the revision of VAT. He warned that if there were economic experts who made such proposals, he would send them home. The policy of the Government was to alleviate the burdens of the people and not to heap more, he said. Sirisenas tough statement hit the headlines and reverberated in the Colombo-based diplomatic community. In Washington, where Finance Minister Karunanayake was negotiating for an extended facility with the IMF, and a promise that his Government would impose certain taxes in order to win an IMF loan, there was a barrage of queries for him. Has the Government gone back on its commitments to ensure financial discipline? How would it make up for the shortfall in revenue if VAT was not increased? These were some of the questions tossed at him. A Washington-based Sri Lankan told Karunanayake about the Presidents tough comments and the minister confessed he was unaware of what had gone on in Sri Lanka. There was no official intimation to him from the Presidents office or anyone in the Government if indeed VAT was not going to be increased. He was out on a limb, so to say.

President kept in the dark

This was naturally the focal point of discussion when ministers held their weekly meeting on Tuesday morning this week. Sirisenas gaffe at Pulasthipura became clear. Yet, there were related issues that he was concerned about. Sources at the Presidents office said Sirisena was livid that a Central Bank high official and an Economic Advisor who were among those who held official level talks with an IMF team when it was in Colombo just days ago had exceeded their brief. Both had lived abroad for many years and returned to take up their new jobs with the new Government last year. The President had not been kept informed about the commitments they made on behalf of his Government. This prompted Sirisena to propose that in future all fiscal matters should be discussed by him with Premier Wickremesinghe and Finance Minister Karunanayake. It appeared that what he was saying was that he too must be kept informed of what those in charge of the countrys finances were doing.

Making the situation worse were reports that Karunanayakes push for an enhanced Extended Fund Facility during talks in Washington had been stymied by the commitments made by the duo. Sirisena also noted that he and Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) ministers should be consulted when it came to fiscal measures affecting the public. He was of course underscoring the need for a greater dialogue between the two parties that form the Consensus Government. Otherwise, all ministers gather for their cabinet session every week and there is weekly interaction there.

President Sirisena vowed at the Pulasthipura meeting he would not allow the imposition of taxes that would place hardships on the people. Ironic enough, it was Sirisena himself who urged a staffer at the Cabinet office to collect copies of a memorandum forwarded by Finance Minister Karunanayake at the ministerial meeting on March 2. In that, Karunanayake had recommended tax increases and referred to negotiations for an IMF Extended Fund Facility. Sirisena did not wish that any references be made to the IMF. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe then undertook to present another memorandum. A special ministerial meeting was fixed for March 4 for a discussion on the matter.

His ten page memorandum was titled MINIMISING THE GLOBAL DOWNTURN ON THE SRI LANKAN ECONOMY AND CLEARING UP THE COLOSSAL AMOUNT OF REPORTED LIABILITIES AT PUBLIC SECTOR INSTITUTIONS. A recommendation for introducing new taxation in five different areas was made. They were (1) Non-corporate income tax and corporate tax  to suspend budgetary proposals for one year and continue the 2015 rates. (2) Corporate income tax  to impose 17.50 % rate instead of budget 2016. (3) To implement the Capital Gains Tax. (4) Nation Building Tax (NBT)  to revise the budget 2016 proposals and lower the NBT from 4% to 2%. (5) To introduce a single VAT rate of 15%. Budget 2016 proposed a two band  8% and 12% instead of a single rate of 11% before.

Premier Wickremesinghes memorandum which made no reference to the IMF but laid emphasis on the global downturn was accepted. Thereafter, the memorandum came up for study by the Cabinets Economic Affairs Management Committee which is chaired by the Premier. We will soon explain to the public that the tax measures were necessitated because we are paying the bad debts of the previous Government, Premier Wickremesinghe told the Sunday Times. He said ad hoc tax increases would not be made. By late June or July we would have put in place a mechanism to improve the economic situation, he added. The balance of payments issue is expected to form one of the main elements in his speech at the United National Party (UNP) May Day rally at Campbell Park, Borella.

VAT off utility services

State Minister Abeywardena told a news conference after Tuesdays ministerial meeting that VAT was being increased to 15% due to a drop in state revenue. Over the years, he said, public sector salaries have increased but the Government had not cut down on welfare measures. He said: There are about 77,000 registered to pay VAT. Only 35,000 are active. Of that only 15,000 pay VAT. The threshold to pay VAT has been reduced over the years. In 2013 those who were required to pay were those having a turnover of Rs. 500 million for three months. In 2014 it was reduced to Rs. 250 million for three months, in 2015 to Rs. 100 million for three months and in 2016 per quarter it was reduced to three million rupees.

President Sirisena has now ordered that VAT should not affect electricity and water charges. We cannot proceed without increasing Government revenue. This is the best way to gain revenue. It should be mentioned that the increase is not on the advice of the IMF or the World Bank. This is a measure to bridge the deficit in the budget. We are a country which has welfare measures and therefore cannot impose direct taxes. Commodities that bring revenue to the country like tea exports have been affected. We have faced consequences of a world economic downturn. Due to this, we have been compelled to revise the VAT. It will not affect the pharmaceutical items. Some say it will affect the health sector. It will only cover the private sector health services. It will apply to those channeling doctors to obtain treatment. Pharmaceuticals have been exempted totally from VAT.

The VAT will be applicable only for luxury items. If a person purchases goods from a supermarket, the VAT will be added to the price of that particular item and will not been shown separately in the bill.

Q: The Prime Minister also made a statement in Parliament regarding the implementation of the VAT. The President also has made some comments. Why did the President intervene?

Abeywardena: The President and the Prime Minister have said the same thing. Earlier there was an opinion that electricity and water too would be affected. The PM and the President have now discussed and decided that it will not affect electricity. Therefore we will be issuing instructions not to impose it for electricity.

Q: If a decision has been taken not to impose VAT on electricity, water and other essentials, the revenue target will be reduced?

A: No, the excise, tobacco, vehicle import taxes have increased. Revenue also has increased as a result of detection of illegally imported items. But the revenue is not adequate.

Q: How will it apply for the telecommunication services?

A: It will apply for fixed lines and mobile telephones.

Q: What about the private education sector?

A: Yes it will affect the private education sector. People who send their children to an international school can afford to pay VAT.

State Minister Abeywardena claims that the increase in VAT is not on the advice of the IMF or the World Bank and adds that it is to bridge the deficit in the budget. Other Government leaders have also remarked that the IMF was not imposing conditions for the Extended Fund Facility, a ridiculous suggestion indicating the IMF was so kindly granting such a facility for Sri Lanka to overcome a balance of payments crisis on grounds of generosity or sympathy. The reality is far from that. As revealed last week, Sri Lanka has already agreed to three different criteria laid down by the IMF. The main one is that the overall 2016 budget deficit should not exceed 5.4 percent. On the one hand the State Minister for Finance says there was no advice from the IMF but on the other a formal commitment has been made as part of measures to ensure financial discipline at IMFs request.

In new measures that came into effect from April 1, the exclusion of profit-making businesses from Economic Service Charge (ESC) had been removed. Also removed will be the present maximum liability of Rs. 120 million per year. The rate has been increased from 0.25% to 0.50%. The period for carrying forward of ESC to be set off against income tax payable for any period commencing from April 1, 2016 has been reduced from five to three years. Petrol, diesel and kerosene retail trade shall be liable for ESC if the aggregate turnover for a quarter is Rs. 50 million. Tax is to be calculated at 1/10th of the liable turnover of such trade.

Corporate income tax rates for certain sectors is to be continued as in the year of assessment 2015/2016. Changes have been made in Banking and Financial services (28%), Insurance Industry (28%), Trading activities (28%), Liquor (40%), Tobacco (40%), Lottery (40%) and Betting and Gaming (40%). Progressive income tax rates, tax free allowance, the tax deduction and tax exemptions on the profit from employment, currently applicable to year of assessment 2015/2016 on personal income tax including Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) is to be continued. The Ministry of Finance, according to the office of the Commissioner General of Inland Revenue, has declared that provisions preventing employer settling employees PAYE tax liability (instead of deducting from employees remuneration) will be introduced.

Sirisenas political bombshell

It was not only granting limited relief from the increase in VAT that engaged President Sirisenas attention at the ministerial meeting last Tuesday. He also dropped a political bombshell when he said that most UNP ministers have stopped criticising the previous administration and his predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa. The remarks come at a time when some SLFP ministers and parliamentarians expressed concerns to Sirisena over a meeting Rajapaksa had with Premier Wickremesinghe on April 5. They were seeking clarification on what was the position since they had taken up tough positions against them during the presidential and parliamentary elections. They were apparently unaware that Wickremesinghe had, soon after the meeting with Rajapaksa, briefed Sirisena on the outcome. He had explained that Rajapaksa and Joint Opposition leader Dinesh Gunawardena had met him primarily to discuss issues relating to former Presidents security.

This was ahead of the latters departure to China. As revealed in these columns, the duo discussed several matters including the Premiers proposed discussions in China on projects in Hambantota, which is Rajapaksas home turf and the abolition of the Executive Presidency when a Constitution is formulated. It later transpired that during Premier Wickremesinghes talks, Sri Lanka mooted the conversion into equity the Chinese loans for two major projects in Hambantota  the Magampura Port and the Mahinda Rajapaksa International Airport. A third was the Norochcholai coal-fired power plant. This week, Rajapaksa also had a meeting with Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne though details of what they discussed are not known.

Sirisena also told the ministers at Tuesdays meeting that the remaining Army component of the former Presidents security detail would be withdrawn after May 1. It will be replaced by the commando arm of the Police, the Special Task Force (STF). Minister Sarath Fonseka was to point out that in terms of a ruling by the then Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva, personal security entitlement was limited to some twenty categories. He, however, did not elaborate.

Thajudeen case: More arrests soon

Sirisenas remarks to his ministers came as different state agencies were wrapping up investigations into some cases which have remained in the public focus for several months. One such case is the CID probe on the death of national rugger player Wasim Thajudeen. During the Rajapaksa administration, the Police conducted investigations but it was later ruled that Thajudeens death was caused by an accident. However, the present Government leaders to whom the case became an election issue directed a CID investigation. Later, in February a court ruling said the death of Thajudeen appeared to be a murder and ordered that those involved be arrested. Later, in March the court gave two months extension to the CID to execute that order.

Investigations took a dramatic turn this week when the Officer-in-charge of Traffic at the Narahenpita Police made a statement to the CID that the former OIC Crimes there had allegedly withheld vital evidence. He has claimed that at 3 a.m. on the day Thajudeens body was found near Shalika Grounds; the then Senior DIG Anura Senanayake had visited the station and spoken to the former OIC Crimes. He has provided details of what he claims had taken place. A source said, He (the former Narahenpita OIC Crimes) is fully co-operating with the investigations. He has also alleged that another top Police officer who has since left the service was in the know of the incident and claimed he did not do anything at the time. He had closed the file on the basis that the incident was an accident. The former OIC Crimes, Sumith Chinthaka Perera, has been remanded till May 5. CID sources said yesterday that more arrests were to follow in the coming week.

Wasim Thajudeens death came into public focus first after what then appeared to be an innocuous incident. The rugger players purse had been found by a civilian along Park Road, at a junction which was the turn off to Issipathana College. He had taken the purse to the Kirillapone Police Station unaware the Havelock Town area belonged to the Narahenpita Police. The Officer-in-charge there has had the presence of mind to record a statement from the finder and inventorise the items in the purse. Days later when the Kirillapone Police conducted inquiries they realised that the purse belonged to Thajudeen. It raised questions on how a man who died in an accident near the Shalika Hall along Park Road could have dropped his purse a few hundred metres behind. And that too, in a car where all windows were closed. CID detectives have found that a controversial senior Police officer, now retired, had visited the Kirillapone Police one night and severely reprimanded the OIC for not bringing the finding of the purse to his attention. The OIC had later been transferred out.

Like the CID, the Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID) has also concluded discussions with the Attorney Generals Department over some high profile investigations. In one case, FCID sources said, an important personality and others associated with him are to be arrested in the coming week over allegations of money laundering and fraudulent acts.

Basils bid to strengthen new party

All in all, it is likely there will be a spurt of cases against leading personalities of the previous Rajapaksa administration. This, however, appears to have not deterred the former President from going ahead with plans for a new political party. Joining him in this effort now is his brother and former Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa. The latter has successfully involved chairpersons and members of local councils who lost their positions due to dissolution of their institutions by the UNF Government. This includes groups who supported the UNF when they were serving members.

The one-time local councillor group has titled their organisation the Palaath Palana Manthri Sansadaya (Local Council Members Guild). Basil Rajapaksa told the Sunday Times, This group will form the nucleus of the new partys political bureau. He said other leading civil society members, those from clergy, trade unions, university academics, teachers and other different work disciplines will also be members of this body. He pointed out that a similar political bureau was set up by the late Sirimavo Bandaranaike after the SLFP suffered an ignominious defeat at the parliamentary elections in 1977. She did this at that time to strengthen the party, he added. He said that the new partys parliamentary group would work together with the political bureau.

This Guild will participate in the Joint Opposition May Day rally at the Lalith Athulathmudali Grounds in Colombos Kirillapone area. However, Opposition sources said it was unlikely Rajapaksa would formally announce the formation of the new party on that day. Yet, for the organisers of the Joint Opposition rally, the priority number one is to ensure a large turnout. Towards this end, buses are being arranged for participants to arrive in Colombo from different parts of the country. In a bid to ensure no SLFP parliamentarians or organisers in districts and electorate level attend the event, the leadership has threatened disciplinary action. However, they failed to take such action against those who took part in the Joint Opposition rally at Hyde Park early last month. They defied a warning of the SLFP Central Committee not to do so. With equal vigour, the pro-Sirisena faction in the SLFP is also making arrangements to hold its rally at the Ramparts in Galle.

Even for the pro-Sirisena SLFP group, the salary increases to state and private sector employees will be a highlight. Minister John Seneviratne told the Sunday Times, We will re-iterate the need for a minimum wage of Rs. 10,000 for all workers and allowances amounting to Rs. 2,500 be given to them. He said District Committees had been set up to ensure that larger crowds turn up for the rally under the patronage of President Sirisena. He said it was proposed to announce other perks to be given to workers. An amendment to the Shop and Office Act will also ensure maternity payments are granted by those in the private sector, he added.

The nearly disgraced Basil Rajapaksas return to Opposition politics, particularly after the parliamentary elections of August last year, has also seen other developments. He has closed ranks with National Freedom Front (NFF) leader Wimal Weerawansa with whom there was some political acrimony.

Weerawansa told the Sunday Times, The NFF will participate in the Joint Opposition rally. We will continue to remain with them. He said different May Day resolutions were now being formulated. They would be adopted at the rally, he said. He declared that among the resolutions was one which would refer to the burdens placed on the people by the increase in taxes, particularly the VAT.

Others included condemnation of the Government for the measures it had adopted posing threats to national security, suppression of trade unions and peoples rights and the sell-out of state enterprises.

JVP focus on new economy

Like the Joint Opposition, an appeal to the Government to relieve the tax burdens on the people is one of the highlights of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) May Day rally. JVP parliamentarian and Information Secretary Vijitha Herath told the Sunday Times, Our May Day rally will be on the theme New Economy-New Society-empowering the masses. The JVP procession willstart from the S.deS. Jayasinghe playground in Dehiwala and proceed to the Burgher Recreation Club (BRC) grounds in Colombo for the rally. He said his party hoped to pass a series of resolutions on a wide range of issues. Among them will be reducing the tax burden on the public, improving national unity, abolishing the Executive Presidential system, taking legal action on acts of corruption and fraud, resolving the northern and eastern land issues and finding a solution to the issues concerning the fishermen in the northern province. Other resolutions will include protecting the free health system, putting a stop to the Economic and Technical Co-operation Agreement (ECTA) with India and one on the United States intervention in foreign countries.

The UNP resolutions are still being formulated and Media Minister Gayantha Karunatilleke said he was unable to say what they were, He said a resolution would take note of the pay increase the Government had granted both to employees in the state and private sectors (in 2015).

For President Sirisena who is still trying hard to take full control of the SLFP, the upcoming May Day will be a serious political challenge. That it comes at a time when he entertains a perception that some UNPers in the Cabinet of Ministers are not criticising the previous Government or more particularly Mahinda Rajapaksa adds to that test of strength. One of the major drawbacks for the UNP component in the Government is the absence of a communications strategy to educate the people on different issues and ward off suspicions. They have not gone beyond the previous Governments practice of issuing media releases whilst their own members are making contradictory statements on issues. These do not bode well for Prime Minister Wickremesinghe.
Taking back the space of legitimate public dissent View(s):

The regular posturing by the so-called Rajapaksa-led Joint Opposition calling for the upholding of democratic rights in Sri Lanka must be treated with the rightful contempt that it deserves.

Condemning hypocritical posturing

Even as sanctimonious hypocrisy drips off the tongues of these worthies when they speak with fervor on multifarious topics, ranging from the appointments of the Attorney General and the Inspector General of Police to contemplated tax increases, let us remind them of some salient home truths.

In truth, these are individuals who do not have even a smidgen of honesty or integrity to critique the performance of the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe Government, as problematic as that has become. These were the same hypocrites who stood idly by even as former President Mahinda Rajapaksa literally destroyed the remnants of institutional independence in this unfortunate country, rendering public officers and judges quivering like jellies as they responded to the crack of the Medamulana whip.

When the ugly tentacles of political and family patronage, the likes of which the public had never seen before, reached out to every nook and cranny and public funds were spent with impunity on Rajapaksa-projects that were monumentally useless, engineering much of the current economic crisis that we face, did these characters ever utter a whimper of protest?

A larger question that is relevant

Now in their dotage, the once seemingly leftist patrons of this oppositional movement look more than extraordinarily ridiculous in the public eye as they bellow forth on the need to observe the Rule of Law. Was the Rule of Law observed when they virtually kicked a Chief Justice out of office with less ceremony than that afforded to a common criminal? Lest we forget, one leftist worthy in that motley crowd referred to the Chief Justice on the floor of the House in disparaging tones more fit to be used by a street cleaner.

No doubt, now that the roles have been reversed, judicial independence would be spoken of in the same unctuous manner as is used by the flag bearers of the Joint Opposition towards other matters. As Sri Lankas media, more used to sound bites and quotable quotes rather than engaging in probing investigative journalism, rush to give these individuals airtime, viewers can only ask wonderingly if they take the people of this country to be fools.

But there is a larger question that is relevant here. The capturing of the legitimate space of public dissent by the Rajapaksa-led Joint Opposition should worry those genuinely concerned with Sri Lankas governance. This is the unfortunate result of the absence of forceful and independent voices who professed their commitment to restoring Sri Lankas democratic culture during the January 2015 change.

Storm clouds of public anger

As citizens look on in profound skepticism at the theatrics of the Joint Opposition, cynicism in regard to the very terms Rule of Law and good governance or yahapalanaya increases in an insidious tidal wave of apathy throughout the country. This is heightened by the many missteps of the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe coalition Government. In the South, its apathy on moving against gross corruption allegations against the frontliners of the previous regime has become more and more pronounced. It is becoming clear that easy excuses that the legal process is complex and takes time will not do. The effect of show arrests and publicity circuses are also dwindling. In the North and East, there is extreme unease about the process of reconciliation and justice held out by the Government which has so far, been limited to rhetoric.

So sixteen months into a dimming Rainbow Presidency, we have storm clouds of furious public questioning directed at this Government at several levels. Worse, there is unseemly crowing by the very individuals implicated in abuse of public finds about the tardiness of the authorities in taking action against them. Disillusionment and withdrawal of the citizenry from public engagement with the process of governance is exceedingly more dangerous than outright oppression. As history of this nation itself shows us, repression only leads to a critical mass of anger which builds up over time and releases itself in a catastrophic reaction against those who repress. This is exactly what happened last year.

However, in our critical questioning of the distasteful deterioration of the January 2015 democratic movement to politics as usual, we may acknowledge some basic facts. The political drivers of this movement had only one aim in mind, namely regime change and the expulsion of the Rajapaksas for political gain. The grand rhetoric of good governance was merely a cover for a much more pedestrian grab for power. This is a conclusion that seems inevitable, given the singular inability of the coalition administration to bring about structural reforms, even in terms of small essential steps.

Conformity to due process needed

Thus, there are certain questions that this Government should be asked to answer. First and foremost is its commitment to constitutional governance. Essentially, should Sri Lanka be plunged into suspenseful disquiet each and every time that the Constitutional Council sits to determine its primary function under the 19th Amendment, which is of approving or recommending nominees to key positions and bodies? Public controversy over the appointments of the Attorney General and the Inspector General of Police were bad enough. Are we to see this process repeated, for example, in the case of appointments to the appellate courts? This would bring about a farcical situation indeed.

The process thereto needs therefore to be clarified and made publicly accountable. Individuals who have a clear conflict of interest in the making of relevant decisions by the Council should be compelled by law not to participate in the decision making. This is an obvious principle of caution that any first year law student would be familiar with. In the appointment of the IGP therefore, it was against all norms that a Minister who was under investigation by the police should have sat in and deliberated on the Council.

What was in issue then and now is conformity to due process. This is what the popular vote in January 2015 underscored. This must preoccupy critical minds in regard to the functioning of this Government, quite apart from the Joint Oppositions laughable lecturing on governance, casually shrugging off its disgraceful history with nary an apology.

Even at this rather muddled state that we are, a turn-around is still possible.
Putting the houses in order View(s):

Our Political Editor deals on this page with the state of confusion within the National Government on the issue of the Value Added Tax (VAT) and like the VAT itself, the confusion has been passed on to the people. Such confusion has become the hallmark of the UNP-SLFP coalition Government. It also betrays the competitive spirit among the equal partners within the coalition eager to score brownie points with the voter. One-upmanship, it seems, is the flavour of the month.

It is now becoming clear that the UNP is blaming the previous Administration (of which the SLFP was the dominant party) for the countrys economic woes while the SLFP, both inside and outside the coalition Government, is placing the blame on the UNP for the current state of the economy. Oh, what a mess of scrambled eggs is this?

In the midst of all, going nearly under the radar until the newspapers brought it to light, is the massive US$ one billion 65,000 houses project in the North and East (mostly the North). This project was rushed through the Cabinet in the same manner and with the same haste as the numerous unsolicited projects which this Government accused the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government of rushing through at the time. The elephantine Cabinet seems to adopt a you scratch my back, Ill scratch yours attitude merely rubber stamping Cabinet memorandums presented by their colleagues. The Housing Minister raised a feeble objection at the beginning to this project, and called for a better evaluation, but has been silent since.

The project was too big however, to escape public scrutiny altogether. Even belatedly, it has raised a storm and the technical, economic, environmental and political aspects of it are now beginning to surface.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the guardians of the people of the North (though less of the East), has suddenly woken up to what is otherwise seemingly a project that is on a fast-track mode for final approval. There is a trace of jealousy in its objections to this massive project. The Leader of the Opposition and TNA leaders statement last week accuses the Government, inter-alia, of trying to gain political advantage out of this exercise. The complaint that there is a lack of transparency has come long after even the President made a visit to Jaffna some weeks ago to see for himself a model house built by the Anglo-French developer.

The fact is that the TNA feels it will be left out in the hot sun, out of the loop in the distribution of these 65,000 houses for those thousands of families that were affected by the 30-year virtual civil war and the political advantage thereby will go to the Government (UNP).

Political considerations have dogged the post-war reconstruction of the Northern Province. Unless the TNAs seal of approval is given, or the Chief Ministers blessings are obtained no development ought to take place in the North, seems to be the credo of the Northern politicians. The former Rajapaksa Government learnt this bitter lesson the hard way. It believed that reconstructing the railway line to Jaffna and beyond, putting up electricity pylons, paving the highways and building bridges to reconnect the North with the rest of the country were going to win it the hearts of the Northern voters. The TNA saw to it that this was not to be. It pooh-poohed the development of the North and kept whipping the communal bogey; spoke of war crimes and Geneva resolutions. Will this Government face the same fate?

Politics aside, there are several other issues concerning this project. Chief among them is the cost of each of the 65,000 units now standing at US$ 15,230 (Rs. 2.1 million) and the ability to pay back the French loan on offer for the project.

Proponents say the cost comes complete with accessories like furniture, TV, gas, electricity and water supplies. They argue that the project is supported by a loan and that work can begin straightaway with Indian labour, if necessary; that each unit can be fitted in days and the long-suffering displaced can start moving in as early as this year itself. Opponents have gone on record to say each house is overpriced by as much as Rs. One million.

A report by the University of Moratuwa has conceded the speed with which the houses can be built and that local raw material like sand and timber could be dispensed with in putting up these pre-fabricated houses, but point to a host of negatives in the construction of these houses, not least the fact that they are unsuitable climate-wise for the North. The developers are yet to respond to this technical report. Already, ugly stories have started circulating about the indecent hurry to get the project off the ground and if kickbacks to individuals and political parties are part of a sweet deal as transparency seems to be in short supply.

Whatever the pros and cons, whether the war affected now living in mud hovels will get pre-fabricated steel dwellings; whether or not it suits the harsh climate of the North; whether these units are environment friendly; whether the North should be dotted with 65,000 houses looking like the line-rooms of the tea plantations (of course, much better in comparison); or whether world steel prices are low and the North is being used as the dumping ground for cheap steel, pale into insignificance with the financial pay back option available to the Government. And especially so, at a time when the Government and the nation are facing a debt crisis of a very serious nature.

If the project gets underway now, the amortisation (repayment) of the US$ one billion loan will have to begin as early as in 2018 at the rate of US$ One hundred million a year (Rs. 14.6 billion) for ten years thereafter. This is when the cost of a house funded by the World Bank, the EU and India is estimated at Rs. One million in comparison to the Rs. 2.1 million house by the Anglo-French developer. It is difficult to justify the cost of a house built at twice the price for a relatively small group of families given the overall needy pool throughout the country.

There are a large number of conflict affected families in the North and East, but there are also a number of poor families in the rest of the country who are sorely in need of some kind of basic habitation and sanitation. The Housing Minister has launched a project 2025 Samata Sevana (Housing for all by 2025) promising shelter to every citizen by 2025 illustrating the problem of housing in the country.

The Government has to deal in a fair and equitable way with the competing claims for the different sub-groups in the provision of basic housing amenities. It cannot wait for an ideal situation to many of the issues on cost, durability, new methods of construction, operation and maintenance aspects of new technology that the Anglo-French developer promotes to be resolved when the urgent provision of housing to conflict affected families is its priority.

It is therefore prudent for the Government to consider a smaller project of the size in the range of US$ 50 million (not One billion) to test the new technology being proposed under this project. The financier would have to trim the price in line with the revised scope of the project. The local construction industry that says it can do the job for cheaper can be given part of the revised project. The Government should be able to make a reasonable justification to go ahead with the project with the revised features and cost.

Otherwise, the whole exercise smacks of yet another Rajapaksa style project which Government politicians so rightly condemned in Opposition, and the people were wary of  and where you leave the tab to be picked up by future Governments and future generations.
Every story this evening happened By Kaveesha Fernando View(s): View(s):

The Grassrooted Trusts V Day 2016: Tenderness, presented a chilling message on gender based violence in the groups own distinctive way. As always, we have no message for you. Were just holding up a mirror. Every story this evening is true. Every story this evening happened. Think about what our response should be. Laugh at how ridiculous our reality can be.

With this rather unconventional beginning, the Grassrooted Trusts V Day 2016: Tenderness performance on April 1 at Barefoot Cafe began. One might wonder at this opening if they were unaccustomed to previous Grassrooted performances, but this in fact is the usual Grassrooted style  no nonsense and to the point. Everything about the performance was quite simple and direct. The different stories presented were delivered in an almost conversational tone, accentuating the message  the fact that it could have been your sister, your wife or your daughter  and also that for some, this is what they call reality.

This years V-Day performance was presented in partnership with Women in Need and directed by Jith Peiris and Hans Billimoria. Women in Need has been working closely with women and children subject to violence for the past 25 years, while the Grassrooted Trust is an organization which focuses on HIV awareness, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and gender-based violence and related issues. This series of performances usually revolves around several themes and this year all the acts were based on violence against women.

First off in the line-up was The Daddy Reprisal. Described as a mad incestuous dance, this act was a story of three separate cases of incest as told from the point of view of three fathers and also their three daughters. Dominic and Amaaya, Danu and Salome and Anuruddha and Uda portrayed the father-daughter duos. While the men explained their actions in a calm and collected manner for the most part, their daughters accounts of abuse at the hands of someone so close to them were emotional and heartbreaking. What was even more chilling was the way in which the fathers continued chatting over a beer after the discussion.

Next up was Sashinis Happy New Year monologue of how her abusive husband drove her to the point of homicide. Dance, Ponnaya, Dance was an account of how the police abuse transgender women and was brought out in the form of dance. Indu Dharmasenas Kurunduwatta Boba brought out the hypocrisy of Sri Lankan society, while She said yes was a moving account of how sometimes people find the lines between rape and consent blurry. In it, Dinos character represents the mindset of certain males who take advantage of women who are intoxicated and vulnerable. Dharinis portrayal of a confused young woman who had too much too drink and cannot decide if she was raped or not was quite moving, and highlighted the many perceived ambiguities of rape. Michelles monologue in A ghost infested crotch related a story which could happen to anyone  a harsh reality which almost every woman lives in fear of. Hers was the account of a woman who was gang raped and then abused at the hands of the very policemen whom she went to, to report the crime. Her final words Too brutal doesnt mean less true also sends a message to a society which sometimes prefers to close their eyes to everyday realities and pretend that they do not take place.

Forgive-me-nots reminded the audience that even the clergy are not always blameless. Gehans character threatens to harm his wife should she tell anyone about the abuse and one wrong move on her part leads him to more abuse. In the end, the epilogue of the story comes on screen  she forgives him and goes back to him, and then, in place of a reaction comes what is arguably the most common phrase used by Sri Lankans  What to do?

This years V-Day performance asked its audience to laugh at how absurd reality can be  bringing out the uncomfortable truths and many contradictions in the Lankan perspective on gender-based violence. Can attitudes be changed? The Grassrooted Trust has made it their mission to do so.
Making it to Everest Base camp View(s):

Sri Lankans Jayanthi Kuru-Utumpala and Johann Peries who are gearing to summit Mount Everest have already begun their journey  here in a short description they describe the progress theyve made as conveyed through their support team in Colombo.

The Lobuche Base Camp acclimatization treks were followed by a trek to Everest Base Camp. Both of us have been to Everest Base Camp before however this time it felt different: It will be our home away from home for the coming month and a half. We had sent some gear directly to Everest Base Camp  yaks had brought it up. This gear is for the extreme weather conditions and technical ice climbing that we will encounter as we trek to higher altitudes. It includes our full body suits, our ice axes, and an additional sleeping bag that will we use at Camp 2 and beyond. Above Everest Base Camp there are four additional camps prior to the summit of Everest. The Lobuche Base Camp acclimatization treks were followed by a trek to Everest Base Camp. Both of us have been to Everest Base Camp before however this time it felt different: It will be our home away from home for the coming month and a half. We had sent some gear directly to Everest Base Camp  yaks had brought it up. This gear is for the extreme weather conditions and technical ice climbing that we will encounter as we trek to higher altitudes. It includes our full body suits, our ice axes, and an additional sleeping bag that will we use at Camp 2 and beyond. Above Everest Base Camp there are four additional camps prior to the summit of Everest.

After arriving at Everest Base Camp we focused our training to tailor our individual strengths and weaknesses. This has meant that we have done different activities over the past week. Jay has trained further on Mt Lobuche, whilst Johann has trained around Everest Base Camp. Both camps are relatively close to each other and both Jay and Johann are with guides from International Mountain Guides. Training like this enables them to practice working on specific skills like ice climbing, jumaring (a technique used to climb ropes), and crossing crevices.

The weather is now very cold however when it is sunny it can be a little warm. We find ourselves wearing many layers for warmth but also broad-brimmed hats. At these altitudes we are also more susceptible to sun burn  something we never experience in Sri Lanka! We are feeling good and have appreciated the opportunity to train and practice in the mountains.

Follow the Mirror Magazine each week as we trace the duos journey to the summit
D.B. Nihalsingha will be remembered with gratitude: President View(s):

The funeral of award-winning film maker and pioneering television director D.B.Nihalsingha will be held at the General Cemetery, Borella this morning.

Dr. Nihalsingha (77) passed away on Thursday.

He directed several award-winning films including Welikathara, his directional debut in 1981, as well as Maldeniye Simion and Kelimadala. He also won awards for film editing for movies such as Sathsamudura and Sagarayak Meda.

Dr. Nihansingha also introduced professional television production to Sri Lanka in 1979, commencing with Sri Lankas and South Asias first Colour teledrama,  Dimuthu Muthu. He was the founder Chairman of the National Film Corporation.

President Maithripala Sirisena was among those who expressed their condolences on the passing away of Mr. Nihalsingha.

Dr. D.B. Nihalsinghas service for the development of the local cinema will be remembered by the nation with gratitude. His passing away is an irreparable loss to the Sri Lankan cinema industry, the President said in his message of condolence.
Accident victims body exhumed for 2nd postmortem By L.B. Senaratne View(s): View(s):

The body of a 29-year-old hair dresser from Kandy, who died in a three-wheeler accident, was exhumed this week, after his father alleged that his son had not died in an accident but had been murdered.

Dilshan Chamara Malwana died in late February when he was reportedly knocked down by a three-wheeler at Hapugoda, in the Katugastota Police area. The three-wheeler had been driven by a soldier identified as Sunil Shantha Kumar who was in remand till April 1 and released on bail.

M. Nihal Upatissa, the victims father, had lodged a complaint with the Katugastota Police before his son was buried, claiming that he suspected foul play. However, the Police had ignored his complaint at the time saying his son had died in an accident.

He was buried in a cemetery close to their house at Kahawatta, Ambatenna after a postmortem conducted by the Kandy Judicial Medical Officer (JMO) Dr Sivasubramaniam.

However his parents moved the Kandy Magistrates Court for a second postmortem by another JMO outside Kandy

The Court allowed the motion and the body was exhumed this week. It is to be sent to the Colombo JMO for the examination.
Dons in dialogue to deal with ragging and sexual violence in univesities View(s):

University academics, officials and student counsellors are discussing ways and means to prevent ragging and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in Sri Lankas higher-learning institutes.

A ten-day dialogue got underway on Thursday at Colombos Galadari hotel with academics and university administrators from Sri Lankas 15 universities. Also attending the dialogue are academics and student administrators from India.

During the dialogue  organised by the University Grants Commission (UGC) in collaboration with the Association of Commonwealth Universities  the participants will recommend new laws, policies, institutional mechanisms and reforms to regulate and reduce ragging. They will also come up with training programmes for staff and students.

Declaring open the dialogue, UGC Chairman Mohan de Silva said sexual and gender-based valance was hidden in universities while ragging which was visible had been accepted as a norm.

Parents and students have suffered for decades. There is a national outcry to stop the menace of ragging. That is why we are promoting a policy of zero tolerance for ragging and will critically analyse the problem. We will adopt a legally valid process to minimise ragging, Prof. de Silva said.

Prof. Raj Kachroo, founder trustee of the Aman Satya Kachroo Trust, an independent anti-ragging movement, said the main issue in India was the lack of a complaining mechanism to find out or become aware of the incidents and act on them.

How can we expect a student to complain to his vice chancellor when he is reluctant to tell his parents the torment he undergoes, he asked.

He said independent mechanisms were needed to to make the government aware of the situation and bring about corrective measures. Prof. Kachroo said they launched an on-line system for making complaints and this helped to collect information and consult students and parents separately.

Addressing the participants, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said that the rule of law must apply in the university premises. He said marshals and senior student counsellors cannot tackle the issue alone. He said there should be a separate counsellor for student complaints on ragging.
Lifting of fish export ban: EC miffed over early announcement View(s):

The European Commission (EC) has objected to Thursdays early announcement by the Fisheries Ministry in Sri Lanka that the ban on Lankan fisheries product exports to Europe has been lifted by the European Union.

Taking up the matter through diplomatic channels in Brussels, the Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE) has sought clarification on how the announcement was made by the ministry in advance before the decision was formally announced.

The Fisheries Ministry in an official communique on Thursday said that the EU had informed the ministry that it had lift the ban with effect from April 21. The statement said a special media briefing would be held on the same date where Minister Mahinda Amaraweera would be explaining about the benefits of lifting the ban.

However soon after the media queries were made from the ministry whether the ban had been lifted another statement followed. It said the EU was due to take a decision regarding the lifting of the ban on April 21 and the Minister would be briefing the media about the decision.

A third media release by the ministry followed thereafter blaming the media for publishing baseless reports.The Sunday Times learns the Prime Ministers office had taken up the matter with the Fisheries Ministry.

The European Commission spokesperson in apparent reaction to the Fisheries Ministrys move to make the advance announcement refrained from making mention of the recommendation to lift the ban. Subsequently a press release was issued.

Fish exports to EU countries from Sri Lanka is set to begin by July with approval from the European Council  the Cabinet of the 28 member-state Ministers  now pending, officials said.

This weeks European Commission Decision on Sri Lanka recommending the lifting of the ban on fish exports is likely to be taken up within the next two to three months by the European Council.
The Floating Market has sunk, vendors and UDA agree By Anushiya Sathisraja View(s): View(s):

Many of the nearly 100 stalls in Colombos Floating Market were closed while sellers at others seemed to be asleep, with no customers to be seen as we visited the site.

It appears clear that, as a little business hub and tourist attraction, the Floating Market had failed and that those who had invested in opening stalls at the market, had suffered.

The Urban Development Authority (UDA) now acknowledges the failure and says it is attempting to grant some redress to the stallholders  but this leaves the authority with the huge debt incurred in building the market.

A rental for a single floating stall is about Rs. 18,000 per month which is divided among four traders per boat.

Each trader has to pay Rs. 4,500 in rent out of total monthly income, but vendors generally earn much less than they had done at the Manning Market and their previous pavement stalls on Bastian Road, where redevelopment had forced their departure.

T. Kalyani, 49, an achcharu vendor, said what was needed most was a bridge between the Floating Market and the main road to bring in customers, and a solution that takes away the odour of the Beira Lake, where boats with stalls are moored.

The number of customers who come to the Floating Market compared to other places is very low, and with the stink our business has fallen drastically, she said.

If a bridge is opened, visitors will be able to come to the stalls. The current situation is that visitors have to go around the street to come to the floating stalls, Ms. Kalyani said.

Another seller, 55-year-old K. Rani who comes from Kolonnawa and manages a fruit stall at the market, said she had stopped paying her monthly rent to the UDA.

We were evicted from where we were in Bastian Road and our shops were demolished.

Then we were asked to pay an advance of Rs. 6,000 and a monthly rent of Rs 4,500 for one of the boats to be used as a stall for our business.

I hardly earn Rs. 300 a day now  how can I pay Rs. 4,500 as rent? she asked. I used to earn at least Rs. 2,000 a day while I was running my business on Bastian Road.

They should at least assist us in some way now that they have moved us here for this failing project of theirs.

A very different view came from Mohammed Nazaar, 60, who sells electronic goods at the Floating Market.

We were given a very nice and valuable place to continue our business activities so it is up to us to maintain our business, Mr. Nazaar said. I pay Rs. 12,000 in rent. To be frank, I dont have any problems with running my electronics business.

He said, however, that the previous government, which set up the Floating Market, had not given enough thought to the convenience of the people when they implemented plans to beautify Colombo.

They should have placed the shops on Bastian Road on the approach to the bus stand because many people wont come inside the market to do their shopping because they are rushing home after work, Mr. Nazaar said.

Toy-seller T.D. Prasad says the boats have no doors and cannot be locked and so he has little choice but to spend each night in the open boat as packing up all his toys, transporting them home in the evenings and bringing them back each morning was too costly and impractical.

The income is very low. On a daily basis we earn about Rs. 400-500, he said. On the day this market was declared open there was a good turnout as it was something new and people wanted to see what it was all about. Now it is on the decline, Mr. Prasad said.

The Floating Market, as it is, cannot be continued, UDA Chairman Ranjith Fernando acknowledged.

We will have to look into what can be done to rectify the situation. Plans are underway to relocate the vendors in another place where they can do their business well. We have planned to build some stalls to assist in the relocation.

He said bringing down the rent was impractical as the UDA had to recover the cost of building the Floating Market. The total cost of building the Floating Market, including repairing the drainage system in the area, was about Rs 1 billion, he said.

President of the Floating Market Traders Association, H.M.P. Silva said the association had asked the UDA to move the vendors back to Bastian Road.

The future of the Floating Market is in the governments hands, he said.

Beira Lake algae will worsenRising temperatures will cause a significant increase in algal blooms in the Beira Lake, Colombo University geography professor Dr. Ranjan Piyadasa said. The blue-green algae will cause a lack of oxygen in the lake, causing fish to die. Algal blooms flourish in warmer waters. There will be a 20 per cent boost in lake algae over the next century, including a 5 per cent increase in blooms that are toxic to fish and animals, Dr. Piyadasa said. Central Environment Authority Director-General K.H. Muthukudaarchchi, however, said the algal blooms were a natural phenomenon and we dont have any strong opinion about this.
More than about the arts British Councils Director of Arts, Graham Sheffield who was in Sri Lanka talks to Smriti Daniel View(s): View(s):

Halfway through our interview Graham Sheffield, British Councils Director of Arts, remembers a speech he has to write. He needs to work on a lecture he will deliver in Brazil on the role of symphony orchestras in international diplomacy.This is Sheffields area of expertise  how such cultural programmes can be about much more than a display of skill and repertoire: Its a very interesting thing, because actually now orchestras are beginning to contribute a remarkable amount in terms of engaging young and new audiences through their music, through digital means, through virtual reality, through technical innovation and also building diaspora engagement. Its more and more not just about the event but the work you do in the community and with the community you are visiting.

Sheffield, who stepped into his current post in 2011, is responsible for leading and delivering a global arts strategy and programme across the British Councils 110 country operations.I have never gone into keep a ship afloat. I have always been more interested in the radical change, and I enjoy it, he says with evident relish. A former Artistic Director of the Barbican Centre in London, Sheffield also worked at the BBC, where he was a Radio 3 producer for some 12 years. In a career focused on developing the arts, Sheffields most notable posts have included being a founder of the Meltdown Festival and a former Chair of the Royal Philharmonic Society. He is currently the chair of the UKs largest music charity, Help Musicians. His resume is filled with honours, most recently an ISPA International Citation of Merit for lifetime achievement in the arts.

When he came to work at the British Council, Sheffield says his first priority was to get the arts back on the agenda. He has since overseen a period of expansion and increased investment in the arts at the British Council. His priorities have included the launch of a cultural skills programme and a digital arts programme as well as the enlargement of the British Councils extensive art collection.Though his stint was supposed to last only three years, Sheffield has been invited to simply carry on without a fixed time frame. He says he intends to stay for as long as he feels he can make a difference: This is probably the most challenging role I have had ever in my career, I suppose because of the scale of it and the complexity of the different strands of it  political, social, diplomatic, artistic, financial  untangling all that knitting and finding coherence in it keeps me on my toes.

He has seen his hopes for their programme flower in the most unexpected of contexts: In Lebanon, Sheffield remembers meeting with women in a refugee camp in Beirut  they were staging the Greek tragedies of Sophocles and Sheffield was fascinated by how the plays seemed to resonate deeply with the actors. That stays with me constantly, he says. Seeing women finding contemporary relevance, seeing their own predicament as women reflected; bereaved women, women without employment or unregarded in society being able to express themselves very powerfully through art and seeing the impact that has had on them as citizens and what they can do in society.

Aside from work in West Asia, Gulf and North Africa, Sheffield has also planned major extended seasons in Brazil, China, Qatar, India, Mexico and South Africa, and was in Sri Lanka earlier this month to meet with country directors and managers from this region as well as the arts team from the UK. They are working on a strategy for South Asia, and Sheffield says the focus is on understanding what has worked and changing what hasnt.

The process is rooted in a framework authored by Sheffield that gives teams around the world a sense of direction to interpret it in the local context. I am certainly not going to impose an arts policy from British Council central on Sri Lanka or anywhere else, he says, emphasising only that the framework allows for a commonality of approach and a way of standardising evaluations. Sheffield says he is here in part to become acquainted with the islands cultural programmes and policies but he underlines how making them a priority can drive growth and development. In other parts of the world, several small countries such as Singapore, and some larger ones as well, see the arts and other creative industries as vital to both economic prosperity and growth but also to social stability and social improvement as well. Sheffield notes that the creative sector is the fastest growing sector in the UK economy, now approaching some 7  8 per cent of the GDP, equal to some 64 billion pounds. Those are some pretty powerful figures, he says.

An arts policy needs to be about more than individual programmes but about creating a sense of what art can contribute to society in general, says Sheffield. Considering this is a country with such a rich cultural past, it will be interesting to see how that can be turned into something that defines Sri Lanka for the future. Wed like to help and it would be interesting to work on. This leads quite naturally into a conversation on the recruitment of arts to the service of the peace and reconciliation agenda. Again, Sheffield is frank about the UK having its own fair share of problems. He refers to Northern Ireland, where conflict between unionists (who wanted to remain within the United Kingdom) and nationalists (who favoured a united Ireland, independent of British rule) spanned some three decades of violence and claimed thousands of lives.

Certainly the arts continue to play a pivotal role in increasing understanding between the different communities in Northern Ireland, he says. I am not over-claiming for arts, but I am saying it is a part of the solution. He speaks of creating spaces for dialogue and of how artists are often able to articulate perspectives in their work that there is no room for in more formal or political processes. However, we have got to see this as a long game. Particularly for young people in former conflict zones, the arts can provide some alternative pathways for them whether it is for self-expression or skill development. Through such programmes, the benefit to the UK is indirect but the benefit to the community is direct, he acknowledges, but then again: Thats fine by me.
A World War 1 soldier was present at the Katikati RSA dawn parade this morning for the first time, along with close to 500 members of the public, returned service men and women and representatives of the armed forces.

The World War I soldier was Corporal JW Cahill, depicted in full 1918 infantry uniform in a new painting in Katikatis memorial square where the dawn service was held.

The crowd gathers outside the Katikati War Memorial Hall in the pre-dawn light in readiness for this mornings Anzac Day service. Photos: Elaine Fisher.

Alongside the painting is the huge river boulder bearing a plaque with a poem by former Katikati resident and well-known New Zealand war poet Mike Subritzsky.

Katikatis main street, closed to the through traffic, was eerily quiet as people gathered at the Memorial Hall in the towns centre where at 6am the dawn service began.

Peter Mackay, Katikati RSA president, began the service by acknowledging all those who had attended and making special mention of the battle of Long Tan in August 18, 1966, which was the last time Australian and New Zealand troops were together in active conflict.

It is not well known that the Australians lost 18 men and 31 wounded in the battle. The New Zealand Royal Artillery 161 Battalion supported the Australian D Company.

When the battle was finally won the Australians discovered they had been facing a force 10 times their size.

Following prayers led by Rev Brendan Gibbs, and the laying of wreaths, author Mike Subritzsky read aloud his poem commemorating war dead and Anzac Day commemorations.

Wreath laying at the Katikati Anzac Day Dawn Service.

Katikati Primary School children were among those to lay wreaths at the Katikati Anzac Day Dawn Service.

Representatives of Katikati College lay a wreath at the Katikati Anzac Day Dawn Service.

Former Katikati resident and well-known New Zealand war poet Mike Subritzsky reads his poem which engraved on a plaque in memorial square during this mornings Katikati Anzac Day Dawn Service.

Rev Brendan Gibbs leads prayers at the Katikati Anzac Day Dawn Service.

The painting of Corporal JW Cahill, reproduced from the original by George Butler by Katikati artist Steve Graveson drew a lot of attention at the end of this mornings Katikati Anzac Day Dawn Service.
Theres a couple of characters Jordan Luck would love you to meet.

The Jordan Luck Band debut album Not Only....But Also is set for release next Friday, and its the first time the front man has recorded since The Exponents.
COLUMBUS  The office renovations went so well, Agri-City Insurance Agency in Columbus decided to step up moving day.

With a fresh coat of paint on the walls and some new carpet and office furniture in place, Agri-City shifted its scheduled move to an office at 3314 26th St., Suite B, from May to early last week.

Agri-City, which also has offices in Schuyler and Norfolk, is turning 100 this year. The company, formerly known as Folda and Company, was previously located at 2466 18th Ave.

Everything got pushed up. We moved everything and got the computers hooked up Monday, said Eric Ceder, office manager and agent for Agri-Citys Columbus location.

Were functioning today (Tuesday), said Ceder, who joined the company in January.

The company is owned by R.J. Gall, who operates the Norfolk office of the all-lines general insurance agency.

A policyholder's calls to an insurance company can mean dealing with losses -- crops, houses, vehicles -- but they can also leave a customer with a smile on their face.

There was the hail storm that struck the south end of Columbus two years ago, which left an Agri-City Insurance Agency policyholder looking at extensive damage to the roof, siding and windows of his home.

The homeowner and adjuster were clear on the easy-to-see damage, but later, upon closer inspection, there was underlying damage discovered and questions about whether it was covered by the insurance policy.

It took some time, but the homeowner was very happy when the insurance company paid full replacement costs for all the damage, Agri-City agent Randy Berlin said.

Then theres the Agri-City policyholder who just this month was the beneficiary of some hometown customer service.

The policyholder, who suffered the loss of his wife about six months ago, had allowed his homeowners coverage to lapse. Agent Brad Nelson called to remind the longtime customer of the overdue payment and found the renewal check was in the mail.

Nelson wasnt done.

Nelson got on the phone and got the insurance company to waive its $15 late fee. He went a little further to get the company to restore the customers paid-in-full discount on the policy, which amounted to another $75.

That happened this week, Nelson said. The customer was really happy about that.

The company, which opened in Columbus in 1991, offers a range of insurance products, including farm, crop and hail, business lines, health, life and personal lines (auto, homeowner and flood).

Agri-Citys Columbus office was feeling some growing pains in the old digs on 18th Avenue.

There were three agents, Berlin, Nelson and Nancy Hinz, in an office built for two when Ceder came on board about a year ago.

It was a little snug, joked Ceder.

The new 26th Street suite includes five offices, a spacious conference room, plenty of storage space and a good-size breakroom.

Its easily tripled the size of our previous office, Ceder said.

That's plenty of room for Agri-City agents to practice the companys mission statement of working with customers to help them understand their insurance needs and take the worry out of sustaining devastating losses.

Agri-Citys business model stresses that agents are vested in their communities and tailor insurance coverage to best meet customer needs.
As of August 1859, a transcontinental railroad had been talked about, promoted, encouraged and desired for three decades. But, nothing specific had been done except for some route surveys.

An Illinois politician, Abraham Lincoln, who would run for president in 1860, visited Council Bluffs, Iowa, in 1859 and met with Mr. Grenville Dodge, a 28-year-old railroad engineer. Lincoln asked Dodge, Dodge, whats the best route for a Pacific railway to the west? Dodge replied instantly, From this town (actually Omaha, just across the Missouri River) out the Platte Valley. Dodge convinced Lincoln that the transcontinental should run almost straight out the 42nd parallel from Omaha through the Platte Valley until it reached the Rocky Mountains.

Lincoln was elected president in 1860. In March 1861, he was inaugurated and on April 12, 1861, the Civil War began. Dodge joined the Army and became a general. Lincoln was preoccupied for the next four years by the war. But neither Dodge nor Lincoln forgot about the transcontinental.

On June 28, 1861, with the Civil War underway, the Central Pacific Railroad of California came into formal existence. The stage was now set for the building of the transcontinental east from California.

In January 1862, the Pacific Railroad was spoken about at length in Congress, its proponents pointing out the military necessity of a transcontinental. Busy as Lincoln was with the war, he made it clear to Congress that despite the war, he advocated passage of a Pacific Railroad bill and construction of the road.

On May 6, 1862, the House of Representatives passed the Pacific Railroad bill. The Senate passed it on June 20. It called for the creation of a corporation, the Union Pacific, that would build a track west from the Missouri River while the Central Pacific would build east from Sacramento. On Sept. 2, 1862, the initial meeting of the directors of the U.P. took place in Chicago. The Union Pacific Corporation itself was officially born just over a year later in October 1863.

Now President Lincoln needed to make a decision as to the starting point of the U.P. Despite the lack of a railroad running to Council Bluffs, not to mention the lack of a bridge there over the Missouri River, Lincoln decided the Union Pacific would make Omaha the starting point. The groundbreaking ceremony took place with great fanfare the first week of December 1863. Eleven months later on November 4, 1864, the president approved the first 100 miles of the permanent location of the tracks from Omaha west.

In April 1865, the Civil War came to an end and President Lincoln was assassinated a few days later. The best and most powerful friend of the transcontinental railroad was gone. Meanwhile, U.P. surveyors were busy, laying out the track route on the north side of the Platte River.

By Aug. 2, 1865, surveyors began surveying the track line from the little town of Columbus, Nebraska, at the mouth of the Loup River, along the north side of the Platte for 150 miles west. The survey party of 15 men camped at Columbus for four days to take on supplies, especially stake timber for the line. The surveyors needed stakes to mark the line. Perhaps John Ricklys Columbus saw mill provided the stakes. Later Rickly did obtain the contract for providing the U.P. with wood for the locomotives to burn.

Behind the surveyors came the graders to lay out a grade for the track, one that was level with only a bit of curve, 2 feet or more above ground level, so it would not be flooded out. Men worked with shovels, picks, wheel barrows, teams, scrapers and sometimes a dump wagon, drawn by a horse.

Mid-October 1865 found the graders at Columbus as advance teams made their way across the next 100 miles west. Preparations were also underway for putting in the foundations of the Loup River railroad bridge just west of the town, which at 1,500 feet in length, was scheduled to be erected in the spring of 1866. The trestles were being made in Chicago in accordance with measurements and instructions laid out by the surveyors.

By Dec. 31, 1865, the Union Pacific had laid 40 miles of track west out of Omaha. With the Civil War over, thousands of young veterans were gathering in Omaha to become workers for the U.P. The population of Omaha doubled in size to 15,000. Mountains of supplies piled up. General Grenville Dodge was hired as chief engineer for the U.P. and the Casement brothers were put in charge of laying the track. The working end of the U.P. was put on a military basis. And by mid-April 1866, the Casement brothers and their crews began building west from the end of the track at Fremont.

Even before the U.P. track layers pushed on from Fremont toward Columbus and beyond, other advance preparations were underway. Telegrams from chief engineer Dodge back to New York kept the U.P. leadership informed: March 12, 1866: Must have three spans Loup Fork Truss. Can make temporary bridges for balance. Single pile bents will not stand in channel. Piles drove east abutment and three east piers. West abutment and west pier half drove.

Dodge also received telegrams back providing information or giving instructions. Regarding the Loup River railroad bridge: April 7, 1866: Mr. Davis is sawing the timber for Loup Fork Truss bridge. There is little more than one third of the piles drove for the temporary bridge over the Loup Fork.

By the end of May 1866, the Union Pacific railroad track pushed through Columbus. A U.P. telegram dated May 28, 1866 said, Track laid to west end of station at Columbus (across the Loup River, at 86.5 miles from Omaha). The bridge over the Loup River was only a temporary pile trestle eventually replaced by a more permanent one.

On May 31, 1866, a U.P. telegram reported: Eight thousand feet track laid today. Ninety seven and quarter miles laid (from Omaha, counting sidings). Columbus hard place (.) men had big drunk (.) two days lost. Columbus was the first town the track crews had come to since leaving Fremont that had beer and whiskey for sale. Despite the two-day setback, by June 4 the track had reached the 100-mile post well beyond Columbus.

The track layers pushed on to Grand Island, Kearney, Cozad and North Platte. In the meantime, just west of Columbus, U.P. bridge workers labored to replace the temporary Loup River pile trestle bridge with a more permanent one constructed with the timber trestles that had been cut in Chicago. They built it on top of foundation piers of stone masonry. A U.P. telegram of Nov. 29, 1866 read: The Truss bridge over Loup Fork is completed.

We now know from Union Pacific telegrams archived in Council Bluffs, Iowa, that the transcontinental railroad track was laid through Columbus on Monday, May 28, 1866, and that by May 31, the U.P. was already several miles west of town. All three of our Platte County history books  Taylor, Phillips and Curry  however, say that the track came through Columbus on Sunday, June 1, 1866. June 1 was actually a Friday on the 1866 calendar, not a Sunday. Our three historians gleaned the date and other information from a June 1875 edition of the Columbus Republican newspaper.

While some of the information about the transcontinental coming through Columbus as described in our county history books is inaccurate, descriptions of the Columbus population turning out to watch is probably OK. Here is what Mr. I.N. Taylor, who wrote our first county history in 1876, had to say:

 ... The whole city  men, women and children  went out to witness the wonderful spectacle of a live engine slowly creeping along as the rails were laid, a pair at a time, by a gang of disciplined workmen, all moving with the harmony of a clock, and completing the track-laying at the rate of 10 feet per minute. This event was to Columbus and Platte county, the beginning of a new life ... ."

References:

Ambrose, Stephen E., Nothing Like It in the World, NY, Simon & Schuster, 2000.

Calendar, 1866, http: //www.hf.rim.or.jp/~kaji/cal/cal.cgi?1866

Curry, Margaret, The History of Platte County Nebraska, Culver City, CA, Murray and Gee, 1950.

Phillips, G.W., Past and Present of Platte County Nebraska, Vol. I, Chicago, IL., S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1915.

Taylor, I.N., History of Platte County Nebraska, Columbus, NE, Columbus Republican Print, 1876.
Fire destroyed a Palm City home on Pine Tree Lane April 24, 2016. MARTIN COUNTY FIRE RESCUE)

By Elliott Jones, TCPalm.com

MARTIN COUNTY  An unoccupied two-story waterfront house was destroyed by fire in a Palm City neighborhood Sunday morning, according to officials.

At 6 a.m., a boater alerted 911 of the fire in the 600 block of Southwest Pine Tree Lane, in the Rustic Hills neighborhood, said Martin County Fire Rescue Division chief Jon Belding.

Eight fire units and about 30 firefighters responded and had the fire under control by 6:45 a.m., he said. Residents of a neighboring house about 20 feet away were asked to stay out of their dwelling during the fire.

The Florida Fire Marshal is investigating the fire in conjunction with Martin County Fire Rescue. The investigation will be going on all day as firefighters continue to monitor the site, Belding said. So far a cause hasnt been determined.

The house is in the north side of the subdivision, which is one of the older ones in Palm City, he said. The house has a dock and the structure fronts on the St. Lucie River.
A year with the Apple Watch: What works, what doesn't, and what lies ahead? About a year ago, Apple announced and released its first Apple Watch. The long-rumored product was Apple's first all-new product category since the iPad and its first under CEO Tim Cook. To say that expectations were high would be an understatement. To date, we don't really know much about how the Apple Watch has sold -- Apple folds it into the "Other products" category... Ars Technica

How I hacked Facebook, and found someone's backdoor script As a pentester, I love server-side vulnerabilities more than client-side ones. Why? Because it's way much cooler to take over the server directly and gain system SHELL privileges. <()> Of course, both vulnerabilities from the server-side and the client-side are indispensable in a perfect penetration test. Sometimes, in order to take over the server more elegantly, it also need some client-side vulnerabilities to do the trick. But speaking of finding vulnerabilities, I prefer to find server-side vulnerabilities first. Devcore

Got a hot seller on Amazon? Prepare for e-tailer to make one too Rain Design has been selling an aluminum laptop stand on Amazon.com Inc. for more than a decade. A best-seller in its category, the $43 product has a 5-star rating and 2,460 customer reviews. In July, a similar stand appeared at about half the price. The brand: AmazonBasics. Since then, sales of the Rain Design original have slipped. "We don't feel good about it," says Harvey Tai, the company's general manager. "But there's nothing we can do because they didn't violate the patent." Bloomberg

Siemens team unveils 3D printing spider-bots Researchers in the US have demonstrated prototype spider-like robots equipped with 3D printing technology that are able to work together to construct complex structures and surfaces. Developed by a team at Siemens Corporate Technology's Princeton campus the devices -- dubbed SiSpis -- are the latest step in the development of autonomous mobile manufacturing techniques that Siemens' believes could ultimately play a major role in the manufacture of everything from aircraft to ships. The Engineer

The web is Doom In July 2015 I suggested that the average web page weight would equal that of the Doom install image in about 7 months time. Recall that Doom is a multi-level first person shooter that ships with an advanced 3D rendering engine and multiple levels, each comprised of maps, sprites and sound effects. By comparison, 2016's web struggles to deliver a page of web content in the same size. If that doesn't give you pause you're missing something. So where does this leave us? MobiForge

EFF sues DOJ over its refusal to release FISA court documents pertaining to compelled technical assistance Given the heightened interest in the government's efforts to compel companies like Apple to break into their own products for them, the EFF figured it would be a good time to ask the government whether it had used FISA court orders to achieve these ends. Naturally, the government would rather not discuss its efforts to force Apple, et al. to cough up user data and communications. Tech Dirt

Tech giants can decay and die too Back in 2000, at the height of the dotcom bubble, it would have made a better than average April Fool's joke. Running a story that the Daily Mail was thinking about taking over the web giant Yahoo would have raised some wry smiles, in much the same way as the Brighton Argus buying Apple might do today. Back then, the internet colossus could have bought the British publisher and dismissed the cost as loose change, hardly worth putting on the balance sheet. Stuff.co.nz

Solar Impulse 2 plane takes off from Hawaii to California -- with no fuel An experimental plane trying to fly around the world without a single drop of fuel took off from Hawaii on Thursday, resuming a journey that had stalled on the island of Oahu for almost 10 months. The Solar Impulse 2, piloted by Swiss explorer and psychiatrist Bertrand Piccard, lifted off just before sunrise to cheers and applause. It will head for the San Francisco Bay area, some 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) away. CNN

Has the 'impossible' EM drive being tested by NASA finally been explained? The EM drive, the so-called "impossible" space drive that uses no propellant, has roiled the aerospace world for the past several years, ever since it was proposed by British aerospace engineer Robert Shawyer. In essence, the claim advanced by Shawyer and others is that if you bounced microwaves in a truncated cone, thrust would be produced out the open end. The Examiner

How Amazon Kindle Unlimited scammers wring big money from phony books What if scam artists could make thousands of dollars publishing free, fake books that people are tricked into opening but never read? It looks like that's happening. Amazon created Kindle Unlimited, a Netflix for books, that's delivering indie authors revenue and readers. But it turns out that the way it works may have created an opportunity for scammers to steal earnings from real writers producing genuine works. The Observer

How the Internet is changing the English language People from the midwestern United States say "pop," while people from the coasts say "soda." Southerners might say "y'all" instead of "you guys." And people from the Internet say a lot, actually. Abbreviations like "v important" or "p cool" signify something that "very important" and "pretty cool" do not. The use of a \_()_/ conveys something a bit more subtle than "I don't care," or even "I don't know." The Daily Dot

How to kill patent trolls once and for all If you ask entrepreneurs and investors in Silicon Valley what's holding back innovation, patent trolls will surely be high on all of their lists. Why are patent trolls so deleterious? Well, these companies exist for no other reason than to gobble up patents and then file frivolous lawsuits over semantic patent violations against any target they can find, with the hope of cashing in with a big settlement. The Week

Studio 360 Janicza Bravo makes short films about loneliness. In one, Michael Cera plays an abrasive paraplegic who can't get lucky. In another, Gaby Hoffmann plays a phone stalker for whom the description "comes on too strong" is not strong enough. Bravo's shorts employ the visual grammar of art-house cinema: over-the-shoulder shots representing a character's point of view, handheld tracking shots depicting urgent movement, lingering closeups to heighten intimacy or unease, carefully composed establishing shots with an actor in the center of the frame. The New Yorker

We've reached peak smartphone Two things became apparent after the end of the Spring 2016 Smartphone Glut. One: Android is still a second-class citizen when it comes to gaming, and two: smartphones are in a ridiculously boring place. Gizmodo

Bendable 'wallpaper' cameras are right around the corner Researchers have taken a giant leap toward the production of flexible cameras -- sheets of lenses that can twist and deform, allowing you to wrap them around just about anything you might choose, providing you with fields of view unimaginable with current technology. Like something from science fiction, the flexible lens array, designed by scientists at Columbia University in New York, has the ability to adapt its optical properties when bent. The Christian Science Monitor

What convolutional neural networks look at when they see nudity Automating the discovery of nude pictures has been a central problem in computer vision for over two decades now and, because of its rich history and straightforward goal, serves as a great example of how the field has evolved. In this blog post, I'll use the problem of nudity detection to illustrate how training modern convolutional neural networks (convnets) differs from research done in the past. Clarifai

Spy chief pressed for number of Americans ensnared in data espionage U.S. lawmakers are pressing the nation's top intelligence official to estimate the number of Americans ensnared in email surveillance and other such spying on foreign targets, saying the information was needed to gauge possible reforms to the controversial programs. Reuters
Mesosphere recently open-sourced its Data Center Operating System (DC/OS) for developers to tinker and build upon as their app's running framework.

The sudden announcement of its DC/OS public wide access is driven by the company's vision to further broaden its community of developers, partners and users, which in turn will help Mesosphere further enhance the capabilities of its datacenter technology.

This move is also supported by Mesosphere partners including Cisco, Autodesk, EMC, Confluent, Hewlett-Packard (HP) Enterprise, Equinix, Puppet, Accenture, NGINX, Verizon, and Microsoft. These companies have previously been granted exclusive access to the DC/OS platform.

Through the platform's general availability, other companies can now take advantage of the data solutions DC/OS offers to help them easily adapt to the current technology market and employ "advanced operational and architectural practices" as seen in companies such as Yelp, Twitter, Netflix and Apple.

Initial steps to hire a team of system engineers that develop the complexities in programming a software's internal structure may now be skipped as DC/OS "eliminates much of this work."

Processes involved in "Docker containers to big data systems" are handled by Mesosphere's platform, with specified features that include:

Mesos and Marathon based container orchestration platform highly regarded as the most-proven and most production-ready by the industry; Installation of complex distributed systems like Apache Spark, Apache Cassandra, Apache Kafka and HDFS using fast, push-button and app-store-like procedures through the DC/OS Universe; High-availability and fault-tolerance for all types of workloads, applications, and services; Turning thousands of machines into a single logical computer allowing significant simplification of datacenter management protocols through GUI-based monitoring; Automated placement of tasks and containers by intelligent workload scheduling to increase efficiency; And standardized virtual machine, bare metal or cloud-deployed user experiences.

The current technological model is changing every day and Mesosphere hopes to deliver a powerful tool to handle the constant changes in the industry.

DC/OS "is all about the community" and the company urges the public to "download it, hack on it, try to break it," or whatever developers have in mind to take advantage of the DC/OS platform anytime, anywhere.

A demo for DC/OS can be viewed below:

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Brazil has a new means of fighting the mosquito-borne Zika virus. The country now has "sweating" billboards designed to attract and kill mosquitoes that potentially carry the birth defect-causing virus.

"The Mosquito Killer Billboard," created and launched by advertising agencies Posterscope and NBS, releases carbon dioxide and a lactic acid solution to imitate human breathing and sweat.

The agencies said that the billboard was designed to lure the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is known to transmit the Zika virus, from up to 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) away. Mosquitoes attracted to the billboard are trapped as they stick upon landing and eventually die because of dehydration.

Two Mosquito Killer Billboards have so far been installed in Rio de Janeiro, and Posterscope and NBS have called for more installations. The technical specifications of the billboards have also been published by the marketing firms online and may be downloaded for free, allowing those from other parts of the world to also make and use the boards to trap and get rid of disease-carrying mosquitoes.

Otto Frossard from Posterscope said it is impressive that the idea can help save many lives. However, some experts voiced their concerns over the repercussions of placing the mosquito-trapping billboards in public places, where they can attract the attention of both humans and insects.

"I do have a few concerns," said University of Southampton pest control expert Chris Jackson. "Maybe if it was not in a high-density place, where people are sitting perhaps with exposed legs ... otherwise, you're pulling in hungry mosquitoes and providing them with exposed human flesh."

The World Health Organization (WHO) has already labeled Zika as a global public health emergency and called for more actions to be taken globally. The link between fetal abnormalities and birth defects such as microcephaly, a disease that results in small heads among affected babies, and Zika virus raises concern over the spread of the mosquito-borne disease.

To date, however, no Zika treatment or vaccine is yet available and the best way to prevent getting the disease is to avoid mosquito bites.

The WHO said that mosquito traps could be one way of controlling the spread of Zika, albeit further research is needed to determine the efficacy of this method.

Watch how the Mosquito Killer Billboard works in the video below:



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The surge in the number of women opting for a double mastectomy to treat breast cancer could have been influenced by the coverage of celebrity cancer treatments, a new study found.

A team of researchers from the University of Michigan studied 727 articles released in major print publications in the United States about breast cancer diagnoses and choice treatments of celebrities.

Between 2000 and 2012, 17 celebrities decided to go public with their condition and chosen treatments.

Out of these celebrities, four went for a double mastectomy. The research team found that 45 percent of the media coverage on these celebrities mentioned this specific procedure.

There were 10 celebrities who chose the single mastectomy (breast conserving treatment) route. The team found that out of the media coverage on these celebrities, 26 percent discussed the specific procedure.

During this period, the number of breast cancer patients in the U.S. who had a double mastectomy at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center surged by almost five-fold.

"People underestimate the impact of celebrity news reports on medical knowledge. It's naive to think this is not a source from where we get our medical information," said study author Dr. Michael Sabel, a breast cancer surgeon and the Center's surgical oncology chief.

Recently, the patients come in and tell their doctors that they want to have a bilateral mastectomy. More patients are using the information they get outside, including the Internet, to come to their own conclusions about their preferred treatment.

"Much more often, patients are not coming in asking what their options are for treatment," added Sabel.

In September 2015, a study confirmed the so-called "Angelina Jolie Effect." Researchers from Austria proved that the actress' elective surgeries and proactive take on breast cancer helped improve the general awareness on the testing and treatments for genetic cancer.

Researchers from the University of Michigan stressed that many women arrive at their decision to get double mastectomy based on incorrect information about the procedure's risks and benefits.

The problem now is that since many patients see their surgeons with a decision already, surgeons have reduced chances to educate their patients.

The findings of the new study were published in the Annals of Surgical Oncology journal on April 6.

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Teenage girls studying in all-girls schools are twice as likely to have an eating disorder compared to those educated at mixed schools, according to a new study.

This could be an unintentional effect of an aspirational culture in those academic institutions, according to Oxford University researchers who also found a higher prevalence of eating disorders in schools with high rates of university-educated parents.

For a long time clinicians in the field have noted that they seem to see more young people with eating disorders from some schools than others, but this is the first empirical evidence that this is the case, said child and adolescent psychiatrist and lead researcher Dr. Helen Bould, who worked with other scientists from the University of Bristol, UCL, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Swedens Karolinska Institute.

The team studied over 55,000 Swedish pupils who finished secondary education from 2002 to 2010, finding that 2.4 percent of them suffered an eating disorder. After they accounted for individual factors, they saw the figures significantly vary depending on the kind of school attended as well as the students background.

Those who attended in all-girls schools and came from well-educated families were twice as likely (3.3 percent) as those from mixed schools and with less-educated backgrounds (1.3 percent) to have an eating disorder  including anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and binge eating disorder.

The findings suggest that girls can develop one of these disorders after seeing peer behavior, particularly in single-sex school populations. For Bould, it could either be the aftermath of these selected schools culture that urges perfectionism, or simply the result of other schools better identifying the disorders in their students for proper diagnosis and treatment.

Eating disorders affect 5.7 percent of adolescent girls, or nearly two in a 30-person class. They are considered serious illnesses: a young girl with anorexia, for instance, is about six times as likely to die young as her peers without the condition.

Psychotherapist Harriet Parsons from BodyWhys, the Eating Disorders Association of Ireland, said that based on their experience, attending a same-sex school is not a contributing factor in developing eating disorders.

Our experience at BodyWhys has been that our services are being sought out by more and more boys schools and mixed schools, Parsons said, debunking the prevailing belief that these are only a female issue.

The findings were published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

Photo: Francisco Osorio | Flickr

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Chronic pain sufferers may benefit from a non-invasive light therapy, a new study has found.

Researchers from the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital of McGill University were able to provide pain relief in mice using optogenetics - a highly specific, non-invasive method of light therapy.

Once neurons were subjected to yellow light, the pain response to light and heat was inhibited. The researchers said that pain relief was seen to last for more than 24 hours in mice with 1 hour of inhibition.

The experiment crossed two transgenic mice to develop a mouse with peripheral neurons that are sensitive to light therapy. To achieve this, one mouse was modified to express the Cre recombinase in Nav1.8+ neurons, while the other mouse was made to carry the gene coding for opsins.

Senior author and professor of neurology and neurosurgery at McGill University Philippe Seguela explained that the opsins, which respond to light, can only be expressed if Cre recombinase is present.

"When we transfer these to neurons, we can control their responses simply by illuminating the skin with innocuous yellow light," said Seguela.

About 25 million American adults complain of pain that lasts for three months, according to the 2012 National Health Institute Survey.

The most commonly prescribed treatment for chronic pain includes opiates that make pain sufferers develop tolerance to the drug. A few weeks ago, the Obama administration proposed rules to curb the growing opioid abuse. In the United States alone, about 2 million individuals are dependent on painkillers, which kill more than 40 people every single day because of overdose.

Since systemic drugs can diffuse to unwanted areas, it lacks spatial specificity and molecular selectivity that can even worsen pain. Seguela said that optogenetics hurdles that problem by modifying, through genetic restriction and local light delivery, the specific cellular subpopulations involved in pain. He added that optogenetics has an advantage over drugs used to treat chronic pain because of its high temporal and spatial control on neuronal activity.

The study can be translated to humans through viral expression.

"Opsins can be packaged in viruses and viral expression can be genetically restricted to specific neuronal populations allowing a higher cellular selectivity," said Seguela. "This will allow chronic pain patients to benefit from a non-invasive and highly precise analgesic method to modulate their pain."

The study aims to understand the physiology of chronic pain and provide groundwork for alternative pain management. The findings were published in eNeuro.

Photo: Ryan Weisgerber | Flickr

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Google's parent company Alphabet Inc. announced its financial results for the first quarter of 2016, which show that losses from Other Bets businesses have increased to $802 million, as opposed to $633 million in the previous year.

These businesses include autonomous cars, home automation products Nest, Google Fiber and its experimental technology lab dubbed X. Not so long ago, we have seen Alphabet X showcased its bipedal robot that has the ability to climb stairs and overcome hurdles.

Google's Other Bets companies, though, have contributed $166 million in revenue. However, the results failed to hit Wall Street targets.

In the period ending on March 31, Alphabet collected $20.26 billion in revenue, or $7.50 per share. In some way, Wall Street was expecting to see extra cents, $7.97 based on $20.37 billion in revenue, according to data compiled by Reuters.

Spending more money in building traffic for the company's mobile advertising services is deemed as among the reasons why Alphabet missed Wall Street targets.

Payments to other websites, known as traffic acquisition costs (TAC), reached $3.8 billion and accounted for 21 percent of advertising revenues, Alphabet's Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat said during a press conference. The percentage of ad revenues Alphabet used up on TAC also showed an annual increase by 13 percent.

Sameet Sinha, analyst at B. Riley & Co., said that investors must have to get used seeing the increased TAC. For Sinha, this is the "cost of doing business."

"If you're getting mobile searches from Apple devices, you have to pay Apple for traffic so that revenue can happen," explained the analyst.

Porat added that the practice of spending more money to drive traffic is likely to go up as the shift to mobile carries on.

While Alphabet is a little under what investors were expecting, Porat said the first quarter results signify a "tremendous start to the year" with 23 percent growth in constant currency and 17 percent increase in revenues year-on-year.

"We're thoughtfully pursuing big bets and building exciting new technologies, in Google and our Other Bets, that position us well for long term growth," she said.

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Low-vision users can now magnify their screen using a smartphone app, a new study has revealed.

Those with visual problems often find it difficult to read their screens. Zooming in the text or image does not help, as navigation becomes troublesome. This is what researchers from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear of Harvard Medical School want to address by developing a smartphone app that amplifies the built-in zoom feature by magnifying the screen to Google Glass.

The technology allows the magnification of smartphone screens to Google Glass. With the screen magnified to the user's preference, navigation can be done using simple head movements.

"When people with low visual acuity zoom in on their smartphones, they see only a small portion of the screen, and it's difficult for them to navigate around - they don't know whether the current position is in the center of the screen or in the corner of the screen," said Gang Luo, senior author and associate scientist at Schepens Eye Research Institute of Mass. Eye and Ear.

The head-motion app gives users to have a good sense of orientation. This ultimately addresses the loss of context and navigation issues seen in usual smartphone magnifications.

To evaluate the effectiveness of the technology, the team had two groups - one group using only the built-in zoom, while the other using head-motion Google Glass app. The time for task completion was compared between the two groups. Researchers found that those who used the head-motion based navigation have a 28 percent reduction in average trial time than those who used manual scrolling.

At present, the researchers are also studying whether the head-motion based navigation is better than voice-based navigation. The team is also looking at developing the technology to include more gestures on the Google Glass.

As of late, the interest on the use of smart glass is growing. A few weeks ago, Microsoft offered its HoloLens "mixed reality" technology, which gives users to see a magnified image of their surroundings.

Shrinivas Pundlik, PhD., one of the researchers, said that they are looking at the future of smart glasses functioning without any paired device, and the head-motion based navigation technology they developed is not limited to those who have visual problems - anyone who wants to see the bigger picture can use it.

The finding was published online in Transaction on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering.

To see a demonstration of the head-motion based app, watch below.

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More than 200,000 convicted felons in Virginia may participate in the November elections, as the state restores the voting rights of those who have successfully served their sentence.

The voting rights extend to convicted ex-felons who have completed parole, probation and any supervised release as of April 22, 2016.

The restored suffrage of former felons is part of a bigger initiative that aims to reverse the Virginia's long-standing history of the African-American's voting rights suppression.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) signed the executive order, which includes the restoration of the ex-convicts' right to vote. However, it's not just about reinstating their freedom to choose a leader.

This move also allows previous offenders the right to run for public office or become a notary public if they choose to. Moreover, it reinstates their right to jury duty.

"Too often in both our distant and recent history, politicians have used their authority to restrict peoples' ability to participate in our democracy. Today we are reversing that disturbing trend and restoring the rights of more than 200,000 of our fellow Virginians who work, raise families and pay taxes in every corner of our Commonwealth," said McAuliffe.

Upon the signing of the executive order, 206,000 ex-felons in Virginia who will benefit from the voting rights.

Furthermore, he gave instructions to the Secretary of the Commonwealth to come up with a monthly order similar to the one he signed so that future ex-felons who successfully did time will be able to regain these rights.

McAuliffe added the importance of breaking down the barriers that prevent ex-offenders from participating in civic life and in building a more equal and stronger Virginia.

The Maryland State Senate restored the same rights in February wherein approximately 40,000 ex-offenders regained their rights to vote.

However, not every state is convinced of the move. In December 2015, Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R), who was then newly elected, reversed his predecessor's executive order, which granted voting rights to convicted ex-offenders following the completion of their sentences.

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The Hubble Space Telescope will be celebrating its 26th year since its launch on April 24, 1990 and, while some of the grander images of space it allowed humanity to see are displayed in the Hall of Fame as part of the celebrations, let us commemorate its contributions for more than two decades this time around.

When you read or hear the name "Hubble Space Telescope," the first thing you would most likely imagine are better defined images of the planets in our galaxy or visions of nebulas millions of light years away that your ordinary telescope cannot even detect.

But the Hubble Space Telescope was not just a great idea that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) decided to work on and successfully launch. The project, from the very idea, took decades to accomplish and experienced many bumps along the way. One of the biggest bumps was, of course, the financial aspect.

The Idea

Humans have always had a fascination with space and the heavenly bodies and there have been breakthroughs with the way we understand celestial bodies even with just pure observation or, in the more "modern" 16th to 18th centuries, early telescopes. In order to find out more about what lies beyond the Earth's atmosphere, telescopes were built bigger and situated higher -- one such giant telescope is the Hooker Telescope on Mount Wilson -- which the noted Astronomer Edwin Hubble used to discover that the Andromeda is a galaxy and not a mere nebula, among other things.

In spite of his many discoveries using only the Hooker Telescope, all astronomers were of the opinion that many more discoveries can be made if only they had a clearer view of space -- they knew that the clouds and dust in the Earth's atmosphere caused inconsistencies with observations.

The Beginning

It was in 1923 when German scientist Hermann Oberth wrote about the possibility of sending a telescope out in space but it was not until 1946 that his idea received a very well written support courtesy of Princeton astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer who wrote about the scientific benefits of such an idea.

The Delay

NASA launched two Orbital Astronomical Observatories (OAOs) after 1957 but its capabilities were limited and it was not until 1969 that the National Academy of Science approved the Large Space Telescope (LST) project. If you thought that was it then you are mistaken. After the approval, there were more studies done in order to determine the feasibility of the project. For years after that, that was mostly what could be done because of budget constraints.

It was not until 1974 that the LST Working Group figured out a way to go around the budget constraints by suggesting that the telescope be equipped with interchangeable instruments. This was because the working group needed to figure out a way to downsize the telescope to decrease the cost but still keep it well-equipped to prevent it from losing its scientific value.

The Turning Point

The project still needed funds or parts to actually be able to make the improved telescope and that is where the European Space Agency (ESA) stepped in. In 1975, the ESA decided to join the project and take care of 15 percent of the funding by providing the Faint Object Camera (FOC), an integral part of the LST. In return, ESA was guaranteed 15 percent telescope time - that is ESA's astronomers will be allowed to use the LST 15 percent of the total time during its operation.

In 1977, Congress finally approved funding for the LST and this is when Hubble began to take shape.

The Hubble As We Know It

In order become more efficient, NASA and its contractors had to build a space shuttle that can take off, leave satellites in orbit and come back down to Earth for reuse.

The Hubble Space Telescope would have celebrated its 26th year in space a few years ago but its original 1983 launch was delayed because the people involved underestimated the cost for building and maintaining the large Cassegrain reflector telescope. It was finally fully built and ready to launch by 1985 but the Challenger accident in 1986 halted the project. However, this also forced the group to reconsider the LST's construction at that time and make improvements in possible weak areas.

By April 1990, the LST was finally ready to go and both NASA and ESA finally launched the fruit of their partnership and labor. From then until now, Hubble has made more than 1.2 million observations and is the source of thousands of studies that led to hundreds of new discoveries about space.

The Future Of Astronomy

It is safe to say that the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope is much like the Apollo 11 mission for astronomers. It will not stop with Hubble because more powerful telescopes will be launched by 2018 and mid-2020s but Hubble definitely made its mark for humanity.

Here's a bonus photo of one of the ways Hubble sees the Universe.

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If you're looking for an incentive to get up and move, you may want to refer to a new U.S. study.

Researchers have found that for every extra hour of basically doing nothing, the risk of having hardened arteries due to the buildup of calcium deposits goes up by as much as 12 percent.

If that isn't bad news enough, they didn't find any connection between exercise and calcification. This means exercise may not offset the negative impact of prolonged sitting to increased cardiovascular risk or that between exercise and a sedentary lifestyle, the latter bears more weight as far as health goes.

The results are also significant since "this is one of the first studies to help tease out the ways in which sedentary time relates to heart disease risk by evaluating this early marker of atherosclerosis in the heart arteries," said co-author Julia Kozlitina, PhD, assistant professor of Department of Clinical Science of University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

Currently, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death and kills more than 17 million people around the world, according to American Heart Association. As a preventive and monitoring mechanism, calcium scan is recommended for individuals with at least moderate chances of having a heart attack.

The study doesn't imply that exercising is useless, but it may help more if a person just spends less time on their seats and more time moving around.

"Remember, the recommended physical activity guidelines for adults are 150 minutes of at least moderate-intensity exercise per week," said Dr. Jacquelyn Kulinski, assistant professor of Division of Cardiovascular Medicine in Medical College of Wisconsin.

It can also help to switch regular desk with either treadmill or standing desk and to walk around during lunchbreaks.

For the study now found in Journal of American College of Cardiology, at least 2,000 participants from the Dallas Heart Study with an average age of 50 were considered. They wore a fitness tracking device to assess their sedentary period, which ranged from an hour to 11 per day, and their heart evaluated with a calcium scan. They also performed exercises with an average time of 29 minutes.

The researchers learned that most of the people who were more likely to be sedentary were already diagnosed with hypertension or diabetes. They also had a high body mass index, which is indicative of obesity. These factors have also been closely associated with higher odds of cardiovascular disease.

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U.S. companies should consider reassigning pregnant women, women who plan to conceive, or men whose wives or partners are contemplating pregnancy to indoor tasks to reduce their mosquito bite risks and exposure to Zika-infested areas, according to federal health authorities.

This is only one of the general guidelines released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) on April 22 to shield workers from occupational exposure to the Zika virus.

While the main transmission route of the virus is through mosquito bites, the guidance also recognized that Zika can be sexually transmitted.

Outdoor workers are considered most at risk for Zika infection.

"Some workers, including those working with insecticides in areas of active Zika transmission to control mosquitoes and healthcare workers who may be exposed to contaminated blood or other potentially infectious materials from people infected with Zika virus, may require additional protection," noted the federal health and safety agencies in a statement.

As interim guidelines, however, the newly released guidance is not legally enforceable, clarified OSHA deputy assistant secretary Jordan Barab, who added that advisory guidelines such as this one are typically provided during epidemics and emergency situations.

Based on earlier recommended guidelines for protection against the West Nile virus, health officials urged companies to provide outdoor workers with insect repellants containing EPA-approved active ingredients; protective clothing for the arms, legs, and other exposed parts of the skin; and hats with mosquito netting for the face and neck.

Employers are also urged to allow workers to wear lightweight and loose-fitting clothes, both to protect against harmful UV rays from the sun and act as a mosquito barrier.

It is deemed important, too, to remove sources of standing water to minimize or eliminate areas for mosquitoes egg-laying, and to educate workers about doing this at their workplace.

Following its earlier travel guidance, the CDC also encouraged employers to promote flexibility in required travel, particularly to places with active Zika transmission. Pregnant women are still advised to delay travel to those countries and regions.

According to Jill M. Shugart of CDC, the occupational guidelines were primarily discussed with the airline and cruise ship sector, which expressed initial concerns with the agencys January travel guidelines for pregnant women. She added, though, that they usually consulted with trade groups and unions regarding the matter.

The CDC recommended pregnant women to avoid entire Zika-ridden countries, but afterwards amended that to cover only areas below 6,500 feet in elevation due to the inability of Zika-carrying mosquitoes to survive at high altitudes.

The new guidance is also imbued with careful phrasing, such as employers asked to consider reassigning to indoor areas if requested by a worker.

Read the full interim guidance here [PDF].

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The digestive system's smooth muscle tone is maintained by a molecular pathway, a study has found.

Researchers from the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Medical School have found a new molecular pathway that keeps the smooth muscles of the digestive system in check. The calcium ion-controlled pathway found in their mice study may aid in the development of treatments for a range of digestive diseases including incontinence, swallowing disorders, gastroesophageal reflux (GERD) and pancreatitis.

Senior author and associate professor of microbiology and physiological systems Ronghua ZhuGe said that the study underpins genetic studies involved in treating digestive disorders.

Understanding the molecular pathway of the digestive system is crucial in the development of treatment options that target specific genes. Available treatments for diseases such as reflux are not without side effects. For instance, a past study has shown that those who take proton-pump inhibitors have a 20 to 50 percent chance of developing chronic kidney disease.

According to a 2012 study, gastrointestinal disorders are a substantial source of morbidity, mortality and cost in the United States, with GERD as the most common diagnosis in more than 8 million visits.

"Knowing how these muscles stay contracted for such long periods of time will allow us to develop potential new treatments for these diseases," said ZhuGe. "The next step is to see whether this molecular mechanism in mice also operates in humans."

To keep the sphincters functioning well, these must often be in their basal tone. Smooth muscles maintain their basal tone by remaining contracted for long periods of time. Having healthy functioning sphincters is important in the digestive system. When the sphincters become impaired, serious diseases like achalasia or GERD can occur.

To gain insight on how smooth muscles can stay contracted for a long time, the team studied the internal anal sphincter of mice. They found that genetic deletion of a calcium-dependent MLC kinase (MLCK) eliminates basal tone and makes mice become incontinent. To further understand the pathway, ZhuGe and colleagues sought the help of Misheng Zhu from Nanjing University in China to produce mice that would allow them to switch off channels and test their hypothesis. Switching off the calcium ion-controlled pathway or TMEM16A indeed cause the mice to lose most of its basal tone.

The study findings were published in Nature Communications.

Photo: Rene Schwietzke | Flickr

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A massive lake may be hiding under thick Antarctic ice, potentially harboring ancient life-forms existing undisturbed for millions of years.

This is what data presented at a European Geosciences Union meeting in Vienna, Austria indicated, drumming up interest in subglacial lakes such as Lake Vostok, the largest one in the continent measuring at least 240 kilometers (149 miles) long and 50 kilometers (31 miles) wide.

After boring through 2-mile Antarctic ice in 2013, scientists from the Bowling Green State University reported finding more than 3,500 DNA sequences  including bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes  and never-before-seen life-forms on Earth from the ice of Lake Vostok. However, other experts doubted the samples and methodology involved in the study.

Now, the discovery of another huge lake under the Antarctic ice sheet renews interest in the matter  and the chance to study existing life in a subglacial water form.

Satellite imagery showed scientists grooves on the surface of ice similar to those identified above known subglacial bodies of water.

Weve seen these strange, linear channels on the surface, and are inferring these are above massive, 1,000-kilometer-long channels, and theres a relatively large subglacial lake there too, Martin Siegert of Imperial College London, a member of the research team, told New Scientist.

According to Siegert, the ribbon-shaped lake is about 100 kilometers (62 miles) long by 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) wide, with long canyons and channels appearing to extend from it for over 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) toward the eastern Antarctic coast on Princess Elizabeth Land.

He added that a U.S. and China team recently flew over the area and collected ice-penetrating radar data to help verify the features lying under the ice. They will meet in May to study the results and test their hypothesis about the lake.

University of Aberystwyths Bryn Hubbard dubbed it the last un-researched section of the continent, although full confirmation of the findings is still pending.

Proving the lake and its channels existence is projected to boost research on Antarctica, whose biodiversity is believed to be as rich as the deep oceans of the world, with one research team reporting 130,000 cells in each milliliter of subglacial lake water. Christine Dow of the Goddard Space Flight Center of NASA called it the last pole of ignorance, a greater understanding of which will greatly impact the ice sheets tectonics and hydrological evolution.

And this new lake is far more accessible and easier to probe than Vostok or other remote bodies as it is situated only 100 kilometers from the closest research station, a decent distance based on Antarctic standards.

Back in January, Siegert and other scientists from Durham University, Imperial College London and international organizations detected a formerly undiscovered Antarctic canyon system believed to be exceeding the length of the Grand Canyon and rivaling its depth.

For lead researcher Stewart Jamieson of Durham, it is astonishing for such humongous features to have evaded detection for a long time, with the bed of Antarctica being even less familiar than the Martian surface.

Jamieson and other scientists stressed on the importance of these revelations not just because of the prospect of discovering novel, unique life forms on the planet, but also in better understanding the ice sheets response to climate change.

A separate study, for instance, found that massive icebergs breaking off from the ice sheets  once thought to be a sign of global warming  may actually be helping keep climate change at bay as they are melting. The icebergs are thought to release nutrients into the ocean, inciting massive plankton blooms that can absorb significant amounts of carbon.

Photo: NASA ICE | Flickr

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The incredible things we find on Pluto -- new photographs show that not only do they have a lot of craters, but some of them have a halo effect.

It's been almost a year since man was finally able to reach and see the dwarf planet through New Horizons spacecraft, but the multitudes of pictures it obtained through its flyby continue to astound us.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has released on April 21 a series of photographs identifying the presence of certain unique craters in the western side of the planet in the Vega Terra region, a cratered plateau upland.

These halo craters are quite big, with the largest measuring 50 kilometers (30 miles) across, although it still pales in comparison to the biggest impact crater on Earth found in South Africa called Vredefort Dome, which spans 300 kilometers (186 miles) wide. It is also the oldest, estimated to be more than 2 billion years old.

The upper-left photo shows these "craters on Pluto look like a cluster of bright halos scattered across a dark landscape," tweeted NASA.

The lower-right photo, on the other hand, is from Ralph/Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA) of New Horizons.

"[It should] indicate a connection between the bright halos and distribution of methane ice, shown in false color as purple. The floors and terrain between craters show signs of water ice, colored in blue," NASA explained.

While the images and the subsequent discovery are fascinating, the scientists aren't quite sure why these halo craters exist, although one possible explanation is the presence of methane ice on their walls and rims.

The scientists are also stumped on why these types of craters are not found across the planet even if it has a lot of methane ice. Most probably, we just have to attribute it to the extremely varied terrains of the planet.

Ever since the flyby, both scientists and space enthusiasts seem to be having a grand time discovering various shapes on the planet's surface like a giant spider, as well as possible unique crystal structures composed of methane and benzene, which make up remnants of a frozen lake.

So the question is, can you guess what NASA will find next?

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Starting September, Ontario will start giving boys free vaccinations against the human papillomavirus (HPV) and its potential subsequent cancers.

Ontario's HPV program is currently offering free vaccines to Grade 8 girls. According to Ontario's Health Minister Dr. Eric Hoskins, the HPV program will be extended to cover all Grade 7 students starting September this year.

In the extended program, about 154,000 youth will have the chance to be immunized against HPV for free annually. Incoming Grade 8 female students will still receive the two-dose vaccines to ensure they don't miss out on the chance to be immunized.

The move from Grade 8 to Grade 7 and inclusion of boys in the program follows recent scientific finding as well as the advice of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization in Canada.

"Helping to protect Ontarians against cancer is part of our government's plan to build a successful and vital province. Expanding access to the HPV vaccine to include boys is an evidence-based decision and it is the right thing to do," said Hoskins.

The expanded program is part of the bigger Immunization 2020 initiative, which is Ontario's five-year plan to increase the people's access to vaccines that can save lives.

Ontario's chief medical officer of health Dr. David Williams added that expanding Ontario's HPV program will help the province protect more children from the cancers linked to HPV at a phase when the vaccine can be most active.

In an American study published in March, researchers found that within the first six years of the United States' own HPV program, there was a 64 percent drop in the occurrence of HPV strains that affect girls aged 14 to 19.

There was also an impressive 34 percent dip in the HPV strains that target young women aged 20 to 24.

HPV is the most common of all sexually transmitted diseases. This could lead to several types of cancers such as throat, genitals and cervical cancers between people aged 40 and 70.

Due to its prevalence, doctors advise young children to become vaccinated against HPV prior to their sexually active years.

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Researchers are using artificial intelligence (AI) to solve increasing poaching activities, applying computer science and game theory to lead the innovation to outwit poachers in the wild.

A team of scientists have successfully created an AI system that "learns" information and uses data to map out ranger patrols that are most effective in protecting endangered animals living in the wild.

These ranger patrols are still the most direct wildlife protection methods against poachers. Unfortunately, despite the efforts, many agencies do not have advanced equipment and even funds to stop the illegal activities.

"In most parks, ranger patrols are poorly planned, reactive rather than pro-active and habitual," said Fei Fang, a doctoral candidate at the University of Southern California's (USC) computer science department.

Now, a team of researchers is upping the ante with advanced science. They have created an application they dubbed the Protection Assistant for Wildlife Security or PAWS.

PAWS uses computer and mathematical models to predict the poachers' behaviors. This game theory-based application can then help park rangers to efficiently conduct their patrols.

USC computer science professor Milind Tambe led the PAWS development, which was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The AI system was built on the idea of applying game theory to the protection of wildlife that they called "green security games."

Tambe added that the PAWS development is a way of showing how AI can have a huge impact on society. Similarly, the Transportation Security Administration and the Coast Guard utilized similar approaches to protect waterways and airports.

Some of these systems were created by Tambe, who is also the Teamcore Research Group on Agents and Multiagent Systems director.

PAWS was first created in 2013. In 2014, its pilot system was put to the test in Malaysia and Uganda. While the system revealed some limitations, there were many improvements that resulted from the first learnings.

PAWS's key advancement is the incorporation of complex terrain data. This covers the protected area's topography, which then led to the creation of practical routes to limit the differences in elevations that could slow down patrol action. This then saves not just time but also energy.

"We need to provide actual patrol routes that can be practically followed. These routes need to go back to a base camp and the patrols can't be too long," added Fang.

In February, the researchers presented their study at the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence.

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An F-16 fighter jet delivered when speed mattered most.

In a life-saving mission, a Norwegian fighter jet transported medical equipment from one hospital to another in the country last April 4, stated media reports. The critically ill patient needed a specialized lung and heart treatment called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation to survive.

The hospital where the patient was admitted to lacked this equipment, and it was situated in the town of Bod in central Norway. But another one in Trondheim, found 450 kilometers (about 300 miles) to the south, had the machine, prompting staff to seek airforces help to transport it.

The timing was impeccable as two F-16 fighter jets were just gearing for takeoff from an airbase near Trondheim. One of the jets had an external hold for transporting equipment.

They didnt ask questions, except for what size the machine was, said chief medical doctor Anders Wetting Carlsen of Saint Olaf Hospital, which sent the machine out to the needy patient.

It was top speed from there as the machine was immediately loaded onto the vehicle, which reached its destination in less than 25 minutes.

That distance usually takes 35 minutes, air squadron head lieutenant colonel Borge Kleppe told local newspaper Verdens Gang. By land, the journey would have also taken 10 hours  precious time that could spell death for the waiting patient.

The medical equipment reached the hospital in Bod 40 minutes after the call to the airforce was made.

Kleppe, who has been flying these fighter jets for 13 years, recalled that it is not routine for F-16s to carry external storage tanks. Had they received the call a few minutes later, the plane would have already departed.

It's good to be able to help civil society in this way. And when it became clear that it had such an outcome, it gives an extra good feeling, Kleppe shared.

The patient was later moved to the University Hospital of Troms where heart and lung specialist Dr. Kristian Barnes praised the swift action of the military. He said it was something he had never experienced before  a rare occasion that the life-saving equipment had to be borrowed from a distant facility at such short notice.

Medical emergencies abound worldwide, but timely response makes a whole difference. A 38-year-old Indian mans heart, for instance, started beating again 45 minutes after it stopped working due to cardiac arrest, thanks to extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR), an emergency procedure considered once standard CPR fails.

Photo: Matthew Allen Hecht | Flickr

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Whistleblower Edward Snowden filed a lawsuit at the Oslo District Court in Norway in order to seek assurance that the country will not extradite him to the United States if he attends a local award ceremony.

Snowden is this year's recipient of the Ossietzky Prize after the local branch of writers' group PEN International decided to award him because of his contribution in defending freedom of speech.

"With this year's Ossietzky Prize Norwegian PEN wants to highlight that surveillance may only be carried out within the framework of internationally accepted legal standards for the protection of individual civil liberties," says Norsk PEN in a press release. "By awarding the prize to Edward Snowden, Norwegian PEN wishes to pay respect to the unique role he has undertaken as a whistle blower."

Snowden's trip to Norway could put him at risk of getting extradited to the United States, where he is facing espionage charges for leaking classified information.

The Schjodt law firm filed the lawsuit on Snowden's behalf, arguing that political crimes and other governing rules on extradition were not included in the bilateral treaty that exists between Norway and the United States. It added that Snowden's whistleblower activities are undoubtedly executed in the light of political reasoning.

According to the law firm, it has evidence on the United States' filing of extradition request to local authorities in Norway should Snowden arrive in the country.

Snowden has been avoiding extradition charges by the United States since 2013. He is now in Russia, where he is allowed to seek asylum. Snowden fears that going to Norway to receive his award will put him at the huge risk of getting apprehended by U.S. officials. If extradited, Snowden is bound to face trial in U.S. court.

"Edward Snowden has revealed the questionable, extensive global surveillance and espionage conducted by states on their citizens and on single countries," says Norsk PEN. "Snowden's disclosure of NSA's surveillance of millions of phone calls resulted in a ruling in the US court of appeals, that the NSA's storage of telephone metadata is indeed illegal, because it was not approved by Congress."

Snowden has been invited to receive the award in Oslo on Nov. 18. Norwegian PEN said that they will do their best to ensure that Snowden will be at the awarding ceremony to personally receive his prize.

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With the heightened tension on territories from northern to southern Asia, Japan takes a move on tightening its security environment with its first radar-evading fighter jet. The Japan's stealth fighter jet took its maiden flight on April 22.

The stealth fighter jet X-2 took off for its first test flight in Nagoya Airport, Japan. The aircraft was tested with different maneuvers such as descending, circling and climbing. Its test flight reflected simulated training and it "was extremely stable," according to the pilot.

After the test flight of the fighter jet, it landed on Japan Air Self-Defense Force at Gifu Air Base.

The twin engine stealth fighter jet was manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.

"[The X-2] integrates an airframe, engines, and other advanced systems and equipment all adaptable to future fighters," said Mitsubishi.

The X-2 reflects the red and white colors of Japan. It also has a specialized coating to become less detectable by other devices. This fighter jet has the ability to absorb or deflect radar signals from other electronics.

Data gathered from the test flight will be analyzed and reviewed by the Defense Ministry Program to be able to further develop the aircraft.

Other countries such as China have also developed aircraft with the same characteristics as the Japan's stealth fighter jet. The Shenyang FC-31 of Beijing and fifth gen twin-engine J-20 also have stealth feature. United States' F-117 Nighthawk (no longer in service), B-2 Spirit Bomber, F-35 Lightning II and F-22 Raptor all have the stealth designs.

Japan's creation of the first radar-evading jet is just one way of increasing its defense in the country as China also increases its budget on military by 7.6 percent in 2016 and is being aggressive in its offense in territories of interest.

Japan strained ties with China is due to a dispute on the Senkaku Island, East China Sea. Leaders across the globe are also alarmed with the increased tension and territorial dispute on the Korean peninsula and seas from northern to southern Asia.

A record of 571 times of Chinese aircraft surrounded Japan's airspace in 2015. Just recently, Chinese aircraft are seen flying over Okinawa Island, Miyako Island and East China Sea.

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With its wide canopy and thick understory, an old-growth forest could potentially act as a buffer against increasing temperatures, as well as keep animals and plants cool under its shade, a new study in Oregon revealed.

Led by postdoctoral scholar Sarah Frey, a team of scientists from Oregon State University compared temperature regimes under the canopy in primeval and plantation forests in the Oregon cascades.

Frey said little is actually known about the more subtle differences in temperature between mature forest types, although experts know that closed-canopy forests are likely to be cooler than open areas.

To find out the subtle differences, Frey and her colleagues collected temperature data from 2012 and 2013 at 183 locations, about more than one third of which were in plantations. They also assessed forest structure data which were collected through LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging), an aerial mapping technique with lasers that can detect extremely small-scale differences in forest structures.

What the team discovered is this: when matched with the characteristics of younger second-growth forests, the characteristics of old-growth forests lessen maximum summer and spring air temperatures as much as 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 degrees Celsius).

Frey said subtle yet vital gradient in structure from old-growth forests to plantations have a marked effect on these forests' temperatures.

Researchers said temperature is greatly affected by elevation and even tiny changes in topography, but the way forests were managed was a crucial factor in determining temperature differences.

Study co-author and university professor Matt Betts said that to the untrained eye, old-growth forests and plantations might only look similar when it comes to factors that affect temperature such as canopy cover.

"So, the magnitude of the cooling effect of old-growth structure is somewhat surprising," said Betts.

Implications Of The Study

To their knowledge, Frey and her team's study is the first broad-scale test of whether subtle changes in forest structures due to different management practices can actually influence forest temperature regimes.

Researchers said landowners who include biodiversity as a management goal could boost their aims by fostering standards with high biomass, closed canopies, and complex understory vegetation.

Management practices that could create "microclimates" -- for amphibians, birds, insects, and even mammals -- promote conservation for species that are temperature-sensitive should temperatures increase as a result of global warming.

The study, which is featured in the journal Science Advances, was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Photo: Oregon State University | Flickr

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The Chinese government just gave its people two more reasons to support home grown smartphones from the likes of Huawei and Xiaomi over Apple. Regulators have shut down Apple's iTunes Movies and iBook services in China, according to reports.

The digital media stores were launched in China about six months ago and Apple appeared to have secured the government's approval for opening them. But last week, China's State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television called for the stores' closure.

Offering reasons why it demanded the closure of the store, the regulatory body pointed to rules the Chinese government established in February that forbid foreign countries from publishing content online, according to reports.

And in a move that hints that things could get even tougher for Apple soon, the government agency supported its demands by citing an older rule, from 2008, that requires licenses to broadcast videos online. And only Chinese companies are eligible for those licenses.

An Apple spokesperson expressed the company's intent to push for the reopening of the iBook Store and iTunes Movies. But considering that Chinese regulators have just now began questioning Apple's Internet privileges, the company may be fighting a losing battle and could find itself treated like other foreign tech firms in China.

Impact on Apple Sales in China

The shuttering of iTunes Music and the iBook Store come just in time to dampen Apple's delivery of the iPhone SE, which arrived in China and other countries on March 31.

Generating $18.4 billion during the first quarter of 2016, a 14 percent increase year over year, the Greater China region, China and Taiwan, has brought Apple growth at a time when growth [pdf] in the America and Japan has been slowing.

China has been one of the few territories where a thirst for Apple's high-end handsets still remains. But with the current crackdown on Apple services, it appears the company's goodwill with China may be exhausted or close to it.

Impact On Apple And China's Relationship

For years, China has been crafting and enacting broad polices that throttle the growth of foreign companies doing business on its soil. The country has largely used antitrust investigations to collar the likes of Microsoft, Google, Toyota and other outsiders.

Much of China's aggressive policing of foreign tech company have been attributed to the 2013 revelations of former NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, though some analysts and pundits have speculated that the country was looking to justify throttling outsiders in favor of promoting homegrown business.

Though Apple is one of eight companies China has said are too entrenched in the country's core, the tech company has enjoyed much more leniency from the government than has been afforded its contemporaries. While Apple hasn't had to suffer the raids and tall orders, there have been some rough patches in its relations with China.

The Chinese government performed what it called a security assessment of Apple products last year, acting on suspicions that iOS could have backdoors that enable the U.S. government to spy on consumers in China.

The Chinese government has been mum on that audit. Meanwhile, it has been sizing up iOS from another angle pertaining to the mobile OS's security  besides possibly offering backdoor access to the U.S.  it might be too secure for China's government.

Apple's war with the U.S. Department of Justice over iOS' high-level encryption has undoubtedly held the attention of the Chinese government, which had already been pushing for the company to offer officials in China exclusive to the mobile OS through a backdoor.

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Anonymous Ghost Squads DDoS Attack Closes Down KKK Website

The Anonymous vs. Ku Klux Klan (KKK) cyber war is well known to all of us. In continuation of that war, Anonymous affiliate Ghost Squad brought down one of major website belonging to the KKK members.

In a series of powerful distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks just a few hours ago, Anonymous has shut down the official website of Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Ghost Squad, the group said to be behind this attack works with the online hacktivist Anonymous. The reason for attacking the KKK is the blunt racism in the name of free speech.

In an exclusive conversation with one of the attackers, HackRead was told that:

We targeted the KKK due to our hackers being up in their face, we believe in free speech but their form of beliefs is monolithic and evil. We stand for constitutional rights but they want anyone who is not Caucasian removed from earth so we targeted the KKK official website to show love for our boots on the ground and to send a message that all forms of corruption will be fought. We are not fascist but we certainly do not agree with the KKK movement. They are the Fascists and they are the Racists.

An error message The kkkknights.com page isnt working is displayed for those visiting the website.

One of the attackers also tweeted about the attack:

https://twitter.com/_s1ege/status/723952348641546240

KKK has not for the first time come under attacks by Anonymous. Earlier, the hacktivists disclosed personal information of KKK members. In October 2015, the group also carried out DDoS attacks on KKKs website, as one of the Klan members apparently harassed a woman on Twitter.

This is not it. In 2014, the official website of a Mississippi-based white supremacist organization The Nationalist Movement (nationalist.org) was also spoiled with messages like Good night white pride.

The KKK Knights website is still offline across the world as shown in the screenshot below:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded an unprecedented number of apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border in a fiscal year. | Read More
A visitor at the Worldwide Arms Museum in the southern beach town of Vung Tau. Photo: Nguyen Long/Thanh Nien

A private antique weapons museum owned by a British man has been reopened in the southern beach town of Vung Tau after being closed in late 2012.

The Worldwide Arms Museum, the first private museum in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, has a collection of more than 1,000 army costumes and weapons from England, France, Mongolia, Turkey, Vietnam and China.

Robert Taylor, 66, said he has been collecting army costumes and weapons since he was 19. He said he will leave this collection to Vietnam, his second home.

Taylor said a container with more than 500 items is being sent to Vietnam by his friends abroad.

The museum opened in January 2012 on Hai Dang Street before it was closed late that year due to personal reasons.

The museum is now located at 98 Tran Hung Dao Street, Vung Tau.

Following are images of items on display at the museum. Photo credit: Zing.vn
Employees work at Cafatex shrimp and Pangasius Catfish factory in the Mekong Delta province of Hau Giang. Photo: Reuters

With nearly half of their exports going to the 11 other countries that are set to sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership with Vietnam, seafood businesses have become the latest supporters of the controversial and secretive free trade agreement.

In its recent analysis of the likely impacts of the TPP, the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers said local seafood exporters would benefit since the signatories are set to reduce or eliminate 90 percent of import taxes.

For instance, Japan -- the second largest buyer of Vietnamese tuna after the US  has for long imposed higher taxes on Vietnamese products than on those from other ASEAN countries.

But it recently removed import taxes on tuna and salmon imported from other TPP members, and this would possibly increase Vietnamese tuna exports to that country by 5-15 percent next year, the association said.

Le Van Quang, CEO of Minh Phu Seafood Corporation, does not expect a considerable increase in Vietnamese shrimp exports to most of the other TPP nations. He said they have already signed bilateral trade agreements with Vietnam, meaning the new pact would not cause much change to tax policies.

However, Quang expects Vietnamese shrimp exports to the US to rise dramatically because the two countries have not signed any trade agreement yet.

With local supplies running out, Vietnamese seafood producers also expect the TPP to bring them cheap raw materials from countries like Malaysia, Mexico, and Peru.

The positive forecasts come even as Vietnam's seafood exports have plunged because of the economic situation.

Vietnam shipped US$4.69 billion worth of seafood products in the first nine months, down 17.8 percent year-on-year.

Declines were reported in most of its key markets like the US, with total seafood exports falling by 20 percent this year, and frozen shrimp shipments dropping by 43 percent.
Bad weather conditions and a strong competition from other exporters have hampered the usually fast growth of Vietnam's agricultural sector, officials said.

The sector expanded only 2.08 percent in the first nine month, with the annual growth expected to inching up to 2.21 percent, according to the agriculture ministry. That would be the lowest since 2011.

Exports from the sector in October dropped 6,94 percent from a year ago to $2.55 billion. In the first 10 months, exports fell 6.1 percent to $11.5 billion. Staples such as coffee, rice, tea and seafood saw sharp declines of between 8.4 to 31.4 percent.

The ministry estimated that the sectors export revenues this year will hit $30 billion, down 2.8 percent from last year. Such a decline would be a sharp contrast from a 11.2 percent increase last year.

Nguyen Thi Hong, head of the ministrys Planning Department, said the industry is facing difficulties from both natural and market factors.

The worst El Nino year in two decades has brought record heat and drought across the country and severely affected crop and seafood farming activities.

Hong said the bigger challenge is that Vietnam has had to compete against new rice exporters such as Myanmar and Cambodia.

Fish and shrimp farmers have also scaled down their business due to low prices.

Hong said demand from traditional buyers of Vietnams agriculture products such as the US, Japan and Europe has dropped along with higher quality and safety requirements.

She said Vietnamese agriculture products become less competitive also because several Asian countries devalued their currencies following China. That has made Vietnamese exports more expensive.
FPT, Vietnam's biggest technology company, has rejected reports that it is going to sell retail and distribution businesses, saying it will only reduce its investment.

By selling parts of FPT Retail and FPT Trading, the company will be able to focus more on IT and telecom services, which are seeing "big opportunities," deputy CEO Nguyen The Phuong told news website Dau Tu on Tuesday.

FPT now owns a 84.27 percent stake in FPT Retail and 100 percent of FPT Trading.

He denied media reports that FPT planned to exit from the segment of retail and distribution and that it failed to compete with top mobile retailer The Gioi Di Dong (Mobile World).

The move will help the company find investors with financial capacity and experience who can help expand its business, he said.

Phuong did not reveal how many shares FPT will put up for sale, saying that Viet Capital Securities and Japanese-owned securities firm Nomura have been hired as consultants.

Previously speaking with Thanh Nien, Nguyen Bach Diep, CEO of FPT Retail, which operates digital store chain FPT Shop and Apple-authorized stores F.Studio, said FPT has been always focusing on developing the retail business.

As the group's fastest growing subsidiary, FPT Retail accounted for 19.6 percent of its revenue last year, she said. Figures from the company showed the subsidiary posted revenue of more than VND7.83 trillion (US$346.76 million) last year, up 148 percent from 2014.

FPT Retail expects its revenue to hit VND10 trillion ($442.57 million) this year, she said.

Japanese-owned news website Nikkei Asian Review last week cited an unnamed source from FPT as saying that the company will possibly sell off its retail and distribution operations by the end of this year.

FPT reportedly plans to add another 50 outlets to its current network of 260 nationwide under new investors.

The deal was estimated around VND2.3-2.7 trillion ($103-121 million), an analyst said in the news report.
Shrimp are harvested at a farm in Ca Mau Province in southern Vietnam. Photo: Chi Tin/Thanh Nien

New free trade deals with EU and Asian markets are expected to increase Vietnams seafood exports to more than US$7 billion this year, a trade group said.

Truong Dinh Hoe, general secretary of Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Processors, said at a recent meeting in the Mekong Deltas Can Tho that exports in 2016 are expected to grow 6.3 percent from last year.

Half of the revenue will come from shrimp exports, which are poised to increase around 12 percent, Hoe said, as cited by the Saigon Times Online.

Benefits from free trade pacts with EU, Japan, South Korea and ASEAN neighbors will help Vietnam weather the tough competition from Ecuador, India, Indonesia and Thailand, he said.

Tuna exports are also expected to rise 8 percent from last year, and squid and octopus shipments 10 percent.

Vietnamese seafood businesses had a bad year in 2015 when exports dropped 14.5 percent from the previous year to $6.7 billion. Hot weather and low prices prompted businesses to scale down their operation, according to insiders.
A body of a whale was washed to shore in Thua Thien-Hue Province Saturday night and locals believe it is just another victim of the industrial pollution that has been killing fish in mass in recent days.

Locals said the whale of more than 100 kilograms was first washed to shore when it was still alive but seemed tired.

They thought it was stranded and pushed it out to the sea.

But the body showed up a short time after that.

Locals said they found whale bodies once in a while, but the animals were all big and old.

This one is only 100 kilograms, so its very strange, Nguyen Vinh, a local fisher, told news website Zing.

There have been many fish washed to shore dead on recent days, so were worried that it might just be another one.

Tons of dead fish have been washed ashore in Thua Thien-Hue and several nearby provinces  Ha Tinh, Quang Binh and Quang Tri  for the past two weeks, apparently due to industrial pollution.

Between March 16 and April 11, three dead whales of 40, 50 and 80 kilograms were also washed ashore in Nghe An Province, to the north of Ha Tinh.

Binh Thuan Province also reported a 10-ton dead whale on April 4.

The central government on Friday ordered an investigation on suspicions that Taiwanese-invested Hung Nghiep Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Company in Ha Tinh has discharged untreated wastewater into the sea, after a local fisherman reported that he saw a large sewage pipe from the company discharging wastewater into the sea.
Hailstorms injured at least five people and damaged around 4,300 houses in the northern highlands Monday and 90 others in the Central Highlands Tuesday while a storm destroyed more houses in the south.

Hoang Thai, director of the agriculture department in the northern province of Cao Bang, said the hail hit four districts from 8:30 to 10:15 p.m.

Some of the ice pellets were the size of a human fists, locals said.

They said the ice broke through the roofs and damaged the insides of their houses.

Thai said the hail was both the most violent and widespread ever in Cao Bang.

Five people were injured in Tra Linh District, and nearly 4300 houses and other buildings were affected. Some 110 hectares of crops were damaged in Ha Lang and Ha Quang Districts.

A hailstorm swept away 86 roofs in Lam Dong in the Central Highlands within half an hour Tuesday afternoon, and another storm destroyed 12 others the same day.

Local officials said the latter caused a blackout for several hours and traffic jams on a national highway.



In Dong Nai Province near Ho Chi Minh City, a rainstorm, thought to be the biggest ever to hit the province, collapsed or blew off the roofs of more than 230 houses and damaged crops.

Authorities are assessing the damage and providing relief.

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Local fishers hold a funeral ceremony for a dead whale in Nghe An Province on April 8, 2016. Photo credit: Tuoi Tre

At least three dead whales have been found in the central province of Nghe An over the last month, local media reported.

In the latest incident, on Monday afternoon, some tourists found the carcass of a whale on Cua Lo Beach.

The whale measured around one meter in length and 40 kilograms in weight. There were some wounds on its body.

Local fishers then held a ritual burial for the whale, which they considered sacred.

Three days earlier, a 44-year-old fisher also found a dead whale near the same beach. The whale was around 1.5 meter-long and weighed 80 kilograms.

On March 16, another fisher in Nghi Loc District nearby found the carcass of a whale ashore. The body had started decaying. The whale was around 1.5 meter-long and weighed around 50 kilograms.

While some local fishers believe that beached whales are signs of good luck, environmentalists are very concerned. They say it is unusual to see several dead whales in a particular place within a short period of time.

There have been several media reports and studies linking recent whale deaths around the world to the intense El Nino weather conditions and also to climate change.
A private banker at Grupo BTG Pactual SAs Singapore unit had his bank accounts frozen and was questioned in a probe related to a debt-ridden Malaysian government investment fund, according to people familiar with the case.

Yak Yew Chee, employed by BSI Bank in Singapore, has filed a request to the Singapore High Court to access his funds, according to two people, who asked not to be identified because the information isnt public.

The senior private banker was a relationship manager for 1MDB Global Investments Ltd., a unit of 1Malaysia Development Bhd, as well as Aabar Investments, SRC International Sdn. and financier Low Taek Jho, according to one of the people.

In September, several of Yaks accounts containing S$10 million ($7 million) were frozen as part of investigations surrounding 1MDB Global. He is applying for the release of funds for personal income taxes, legal fees and basic expenses, the person said. A court hearing is scheduled for Friday.

Large number

Singapores central bank and white-collar police said Monday in response to queries on 1MDB that authorities had seized a large number of bank accounts in connection with possible money-laundering in the country. 1MDB, whose advisory board is headed by Prime Minister Najib Razak, has been the subject of overlapping investigations at home and in countries including Switzerland and Hong Kong amid allegations of financial irregularities.

BSI spokesman Luciano Crobu said the banks policy is to not comment on such queries. Yaks lawyer didnt respond to messages requesting comment. Low, who has been linked to 1MDB, didnt return calls at his Hong Kong company Jynwel Capital.

1MDB declined to comment on the matter. Abu Dhabis Aabar Investments, which signed an agreement to form a joint venture with 1MDB in 2013, didnt respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore and Commercial Affairs Department said they have sought and continue to seek information from several financial institutions, and are interviewing various individuals. Singapore is cooperating with authorities including those in Malaysia, Switzerland and the U.S., the agencies said in their statement on Monday.

Malaysian probe

1MDB said in a statement late Monday it remains committed to fully cooperating with any lawful authority and investigation.

Malaysias attorney general closed the door on a graft investigation into Najib last month, clearing the premier of wrongdoing over a personal contribution of $681 million from Saudi Arabias royal family, and funds from a company linked to 1MDB that appeared in his personal bank accounts before a general election in 2013.

Najib has maintained the funds were not used for private benefit, with $620 million later returned to the Saudi donors, although there hasnt been a clear explanation as to what the rest was spent on or where that money is now. Both the premier and 1MDB have consistently denied any wrongdoing.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu meets with German Chancellor Angela Merkel upon her arrival at Gaziantep airport, April 23, 2016. Photo: Bundesregierung/Steffen Kugler/Handout via Reuters

Germany is seeking the creation of "safe zones" to shelter refugees in Syria, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday, an idea Turkey has long championed in the face of U.N. caution.

Keeping refugees on the Syrian side of the border would help Brussels and Ankara, which hosts 2.7 million Syrian refugees, stem the flow of migrants to European shores. The U.N. has warned against the plan unless there was a way to guarantee the refugees' safety in the war-torn state. Aid workers have opposed it.

The cessation of hostilities in Syria which began at the end of February and was sponsored by Russia and the United States to allow for peace talks, has since faltered. The opposition, which walked out of negotiations in Geneva said the truce, which excluded powerful jihadist groups such as Islamic State and the Nusra Front, al Qaeda's branch in Syria, was no longer in place.

At a news conference in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, Merkel called for "zones where the ceasefire is particularly enforced and where a significant level of security can be guaranteed."

As tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the fighting in Syria are unable to cross into Turkey, and instead are camped near the Azaz border crossing where local agencies offer humanitarian support, some have accused Turkey of stealthily forming such a zone.

The EU-Turkey agreement to send back thousands of migrants from the Greek islands to Turkey has also been fiercely criticized by United Nations refugee and human rights agencies, as immoral and a violation of international humanitarian law. Rights groups say Turkey is not a country where returnees can be guaranteed proper protection.

The agreement, coupled with border closures in Europe that meant smugglers could not secure passage to northern Europe, initially slowed the numbers of new arrivals to Greece.

But boats have been arriving with about 150 people a day, indicating the "hermetic sealing" of the route appears to be over, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.

Turkey "best example"

One side of the bargain, used to sell the migrant deal to the Turkish public, was Turks winning quicker visa-free travel to Europe, a pledge that now could go unfulfilled, at least by the June deadline Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had wanted.

On Saturday Davutoglu said there would be no more readmissions if visa liberalization was not enacted, but that he believed the EU would take the necessary steps.

"We have said that Turkey naturally must fulfill the conditions, these are 72 projects that must be implemented," Merkel said. "My aim is that we stick to those understandings. Provided that Turkey delivers the relevant results."

Davutoglu, Merkel, EU Council President Donald Tusk and Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans visited a refugee camp in Nizip and the inauguration of a child protection center in Gaziantep.

Following comments from a Turkish officials that there were problems in releasing the 3 billion euros ($3.37 billion)promised to Turkey to look after refugees, Tusk said access to the funds was being accelerated.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrian children in Turkey have no access to education. Davutoglu said Turkey had met all its responsibilities, including giving refugees the right to work.

But a work permit scheme for refugees designed to protect them from exploitation has been slow to gain traction, with many Syrians unable to apply without the support of their bosses.

Yet Tusk on Saturday praised Turkey as a refugee host.

"Today Turkey is the best example in the entire world of how to treat refugees. I am proud that we are partners. There is no other way," he said.

Amnesty International has said Syrians are being shot at trying to enter Turkey while others are being deported to Syria against their will, a claim Davutoglu refuted on Saturday.

"While Turkey and Europe haggle over long standing political battles like visa free travel, refugees continue to suffer with little chance of protection in Europe and serious violations against them in Turkey," said Gauri van Gulik, deputy Europe director at Amnesty International.

"All states have a duty to protect refugees that can't be traded away for political expediency."
A Malaysian parliamentary inquiry into 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) said the board of the troubled state fund had failed to carry out its responsibilities and its former chief must be further investigated.

The bipartisan Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which tabled the much delayed report in parliament, said it found the financing and performance of 1MDB "unsatisfactory".

It called for the advisory board of the fund - chaired by Prime Minister Najib Razak - to be abolished and any reference to the prime minister be changed to finance minister in the company's memorandum and articles of association.

This is one of the final reports on investigations into alleged mismanagement at 1MDB, and a financial scandal surrounding Najib.

The PAC said former 1MDB CEO Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi has to take responsibility.

"As such, enforcement agencies are asked to investigate Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi and anyone else related," according to a summary of the report. The full report was not immediately available to Reuters.

Overseas bank statements

Shortly after it was released, opposition leader Tony Pua, who was part of the PAC, told a news conference the report vindicates critics of 1MDB. It "confirms gross mismanagement and wanton neglect of all principles of good governance and accountability" at the fund, he said.

"I think at the very least (Najib) should be held ministerially culpable. Anything else we don't know, as we don't have the overseas bank statements of 1MDB," said Pua, an MP with the Democratic Action Party (DAP).

Najib was not named directly in the report.

Pua lamented the failure to get crucial information on 1MDB's foreign banking transactions, which are the subject of money-laundering and fraud investigations in the United States, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Singapore. The 1MDB fund has denied those allegations.

Concern over 1MDB began after its debt rose from 5 billion ringgit in 2009 to 42 billion ringgit ($10.77 billion) by 2014, the report said. The fund sold its land and power assets last year as part of a restructuring plan to pare down its debt pile.

The PAC began its probe into 1MDB last May. The committee's work stalled in July when PAC chairman Nur Jazlan Mohamed stepped down after being appointed deputy home minister.

'Shocking misdeeds'

Pua said "many other shocking misdeeds and transgressions" were disclosed in the report which would provide "sufficient damning evidence to indict not only the entire top management, but also the entire Board of Directors".

An interim report by the auditor-general last year found nothing suspicious after vetting the fund's accounts. Malaysia's attorney-general rejected a call by the central bank to initiate criminal proceedings against 1MDB.

The Wall street journal, citing documents from international probes, reported that investigators believe nearly $1 billion moved through state agencies, banks and companies linked to 1MDB before eventually finding its way into Najib's personal accounts.

The 1MDB fund has denied that any of its funds went to the prime minister. The Attorney-General cleared Najib in January of any corruption or criminal offences, saying the $681 million was a gift from a member of Saudi Arabia's royal family and that most of it was returned.

The scandal has rocked Najib's government as public outrage over the alleged mismanagement and corruption grows. The scandal has fueled a sense of crisis in a country under economic strain from slumping oil prices and a prolonged slide in its currency last year.

Najib has consistently denied any wrongdoing and said he never took any money for personal gain.
A refugee hugs a boy next to a border fence at a makeshift camp for migrants and refugees at the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idomeni, Greece, April 23, 2016. Photo:REUTERS/ALEXANDROS AVRAMIDIS

After weeks stranded at a closed border in northern Greece, migrants and refugees are seeking out new, irregular routes to get into Macedonia, clambering through forests and over hills under the cover of darkness.

As dusk fell on Saturday evening, a Reuters witness saw a group of up to 70 people crossing into Macedonia from Greece, at a point where there is no razor wire fence between the two countries. They darted in and out of a forest, hiding from authorities.

It was roughly a 20 km (12 mile), or four hour walk from Idomeni, a sprawling tent city hosting thousands of refugees and migrants stranded by a cascade of border shutdowns throughout the Balkans in February.

Others at the campsite were also mulling their options to leave Idomeni and find vulnerable points along the border to cross into the Balkans, the preferred route to western Europe.

"There is no other solution," said Moutaz, a Syrian from Aleppo.

"Let him (others) put himself in my position, what would he do with this life we are living? Will he be ok with it, what is happening and what he is seeing?"

Human rights organizations say the living conditions at Idomeni are appalling.

Fellow Syrian Eyas from Damascus said he would attempt to cross the Albanian border further west. "There is a chance you will get there through the Macedonia route but the Macedonian military will send you back," he told Reuters.

Some people chance the trek on their own. Others use traffickers, who charge anything between $350 and $600 per person to smuggle people across the border.

A refugee carries a girl on his shoulders at a makeshift camp for migrants and refugees at the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idomeni, Greece, April 23, 2016. Photo:REUTERS/Alexandros Avramidis



A million migrants, many fleeing Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries in conflict in the Middle East, Asia and Africa have poured into Europe through Greece since last year.

There are more than 10,200 people camped out in tents in the fields of Idomeni. Greek authorities have repeatedly urged refugees and migrants to move to organized reception centers elsewhere in the country.

Last month, Turkey and the EU sealed a controversial deal intended to halt the flow of illegal migrants into Greece from Turkey in return for financial and political rewards for Ankara.

There is now growing concern that migrants will increasingly use Italy as their conduit into Europe after the EU-Turkey pact, with more boats coming from North Africa - or even across the Adriatic Sea from the Balkans after the border closures there.
U.S. President Barrack Obama is reflected in a mirror as he takes part in a Town Hall meeting at Lindley Hall in London, Britain, April 23, 2016. Photo: Reuters/Stefan Wermuth

A trade deal between Britain and the United States could take five to 10 years to negotiate if Britain votes to leave the European Union at a June 23 referendum, U.S. President Barack Obama told the BBC in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

"It could be five years from now, 10 years from now before we're actually able to get something done," Obama told the British broadcaster in an excerpt posted online.

Obama, who is in the last nine months of his presidential term, has spent the last three days in London urging Britons to remain part of the EU as a divided British public prepares to vote on whether to remain a member of the 28-country bloc.

He told the BBC that Britain would not get preferential treatment over the EU when it came to negotiating a new trade deal.

"The UK would not be able negotiate something with the United States faster than the EU," Obama said. "We wouldn't abandon our efforts to negotiate a trade deal with our largest trading partner, the European market."

Obama's visit and decision to intervene in the EU debate has angered the Eurosceptic "Out" campaign, which has repeatedly argued that Britain could easily negotiate deals and get better terms outside the EU.
A man walks past a 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) billboard at the funds flagship Tun Razak Exchange development in Kuala Lumpur, in this March 1, 2015 file photo. Photo: Reuters/Olivia Harris

The Seychelles is helping an international investigation into the troubled state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), the state's Financial Intelligence Unit on the Indian Ocean archipelago said.

Transactions involving 1MDB, which has piled up $11 billion in debt, are at the center of corruption and money laundering investigations in jurisdictions that include the United States, Switzerland, Singapore, Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates.

"The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has been assisting in an international investigation into allegations surrounding the strategic Malaysian fund called 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB)," the FIU said in a statement emailed to Reuters.

"Detailed information relating to offshore entities registered in Seychelles and other matters were passed to the competent authorities of investigating states," it said.

The statement was sent to Reuters by Seychelles president's office on behalf of the FIU. It is the first public acknowledgement that Seychelles has joined the widening investigation into 1MDB, whose advisory board is chaired by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Unverified bank accounts

The FIU did not name any entities involved in the investigation. The nation's Financial Services Authority said a search of companies registered in Seychelles would not provide information regarding shareholders or company directors.

A Malaysian parliamentary investigation found that $4.2 billion of 1MDB's money is unaccounted for or went to overseas bank accounts whose owners could not be ascertained.

It said about $700 million was sent without board approval to an account with private banker RBS Coutts in Geneva under the name of Good Star Ltd. The report said could not determine who owned the Good Star account. RBS Coutts has declined to comment.

In February, the Swiss attorney-general's office said it believed $4 billion had been misappropriated from Malaysian state companies. Singapore announced it had seized a "large number of bank accounts" as part of investigations into a company closely linked to 1MDB.

The Seychelles and other offshore financial centers have increasingly come under the spotlight as global leaders seek to clamp down on money laundering and the use of so-called tax havens.

The Seychelles has repeatedly said it works to ensure the archipelago is not a jurisdiction where money laundering or other illegal activities are allowed to go undetected.
A former member of the Australian army has failed in his bid for government compensation for a raft of smoking-related conditions, with a tribunal ruling that his service did not cause him to smoke. The man had served 20 years with the army, joining in 1979 at the age of 17. He argued before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal that his smoking habit arose out of his defence service, and therefore that service had caused his subsequent medical conditions. The former member argued his smoking and smoking-related medical conditions were a result of his service in the Australian army. Credit:Glenn Campbell Those conditions included diabetes, vascular disease, macular retinopathy and peripheral neuropathy, heart disease, osteoporosis, depressive disorder, hypertension, renal artery disease, hyperlipidaemia and anxiety disorder. Once he joined the army, others would offer him cigarettes, he argued. He said the instructors were smokers, and during breaks the instructors would stand with the other smokers. He said people would be "lighting up every chance they got".

The tribunal heard how he felt he had to join the group of smokers to fit in. He said the non-smokers were "separate", and that he was offered cigarettes, which he accepted and then went to the canteen and bought them himself. In 2014, the member applied to the Repatriation Commission for medical treatment and pension. His application was denied but he appealed and was once again denied by the Veterans' Review Board. The former member and the commission agreed his conditions were  either directly or indirectly  a result of smoking. The only issue before the tribunal was whether his conditions were "defence-caused". Tribunal deputy president Ian Molloy decided that the conditions were not caused by the member's service in the army. On the day he joined, he had completed a questionnaire, in which he said he smoked eight cigarettes a day. Mr Molloy pointed to the man's smoking records, which showed that during basic training he was smoking two packets of cigarettes a week and that consumption, "increased over the years attributed variously to stress from the job, depressed mood, and continued peer pressure".
Red Bus Explorer tourist operator John Williams endures a sharp business downturn over the three months of winter, before the Floriade spring festival fills his vehicle with tourists.

Mr Williams hopes international flights from Singapore and Wellington, which begin in September, will keep the momentum coming.

The Red Explorer Bus operator, John Williams, with his bus at the National Museum of Australia. Credit:Graham Tidy

"I'm very optimistic about people coming in from south-east Asia and New Zealand, it has been a bug bear people having to get off in Sydney, they are told there's everything to see in Sydney and northing to see in Canberra," Mr Williams said.

Canberra Business Chamber says the ACT government should double spending annually on tourist marketing for the territory. In a submission for the 2016-17 ACT budget, the business chamber says foreign tourists are forecast to rise this financial year, including a 15.5 per cent jump in the number of Chinese visitors.
Two males suffered facial injuries when they were assaulted by a pair of young men near an underpass in Canberra's south on Saturday night.

Police said a group of four people, three male and one female, were walking near the underpass on Namatjira Drive in Weston, near McDonalds, around 9pm when two young men approached them from behind.

The pair assaulted two of the male people in the group and caused serious facial injuries. ACT Policing did not release details of how old the victims were.

Police believed the offenders were attending the ACT Jam 2016 BMX riding event at Weston Creek Skate Park.

One of the offenders was described as being in his late teens or early twenties, with a dark complexion.
The continued decline of big mainstream beer brands Victoria Bitter and Carlton Draught is causing major headaches for owner SABMiller five years after it paid $12.3 billion for the Foster's beer business.

The global brewing conglomerate has been unable to stem the long and slow slide of VB and Carlton Draught, the two biggest brands in the prized Australian portfolio, even though stablemate beers Carlton Dry and Great Northern are making solid headway.

The mainstream beer brands Carlton Draught and Victoria Bitter are losing favour. Credit:Louie Douvis

The soft performance of VB and Carlton Draught has been outlined by SABMiller's global chief executive Alan Clark in a trading update for the 12 months ended March 31, by the parent company.

"Our mainstream brands Victoria Bitter and Carlton Draught continued to decline, partially mitigated by the strong performance of Carlton Dry," Mr Clark says.
Twelve months on from the pomp, circumstance and jingoism that marked the 100th anniversary of the landing at Anzac Cove, it is time to reflect on an even deadlier phase of The Great War.

In April 1916, most Australian troops were living in camps in the Egyptian desert as units were being divided, reorganised and restructured to incorporate the tens of thousands of willing recruits who were arriving from the antipodes.

The more seasoned diggers, who, after the Allied failure to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula and bring about the capitulation of the Turks, saw their efforts dismissed as a "sideshow", would have been watching events in France with keen interest.

Not only was the rapidly evolving trench stalemate the main event, it was also their next stop.
Merlin Baker (Letters, April 22) accuses the Canberra Liberals of "policy hypocrisy" in opposing light rail. However, the Liberals' busway policy is entirely consistent with the ACT government's 2012 Analysis of the City to Gungahlin Transit Corridor, which (as the Grattan Institute's April 2016 report noted) found that the benefits of light rail would be similar to bus rapid transit but would cost more than twice as much and prompted Infrastructure Australia to reject the government's 2012 light rail funding submission. Even the ACT government's light rail business case acknowledges that light rail will deliver only 50 cents of public transport benefits for every dollar expended. The ALP's decision to opt for light rail has far more to do with grubby politics than sound public transport policy, namely to secure Shane Rattenbury's vote and hang on to government. Given that the cost of light rail (which the ACT government refuses to reveal) is likely to be more than $1 billion, the Federal government's agreement to contribute $60 million hardly amounts to a ringing endorsement and will do little to forestall more massive rate hikes. The federal government contributed more than six times that amount ($365 million) towards the estimated $949 million cost of Gold Coast Stage 1.

The Queensland state government contributed an even larger amount ($464 million) and Gold Coast ratepayers only had to contribute $120 million. Interestingly, the ACT government's most recent submission to Infrastructure Australia seeks funding for busways from Belconnen to Civic and Woden to Queanbeyan. Bruce Taggart, Aranda Traffic issues Following on from Ken Keeling's missive (Letters, April 21) about poor road planning, I recall turning off Kings Avenue to go west on Parkes Way just after the flyover had been completed to find the merge lane onto Parkes Way was ridiculously and dangerously short as to be almost non-existent. It was soon extended but didn't anyone check the plans or if not constructed to the plans check the actual construction?! If Shane Rattenbury's white elephant of a light rail proceeds, and I hope it does not for the sake of all ACT ratepayers and travellers, what sort of havoc will this unprofessional approach produce to the various traffic arrangements?

Eric Hodge, Pearce Human rights roles Kirsten Lawson's article "Pay cuts for human rights commissioners" (April 18, p5) was incorrect in its statement that "The government rolled seven commissioner positions into four in its new Human Rights Commission". Before the restructure there were three individuals appointed to five commissioner roles plus the Public Advocate and Victims of Crime Commissioner, while under the new structure there are four individuals appointed to eight commissioner roles. These roles have distinct functions under the Human Rights Commission Act 2005, but are linked by the instrument of appointment to make the structure more logical. For example, commissioner roles involving the handling of complaints are the responsibility of a single individual  the Discrimination, Health Services and Disability and Community Services Commissioner. The article also incorrectly stated that a separate domestic violence co-ordinator position had "disappeared". In fact, the Victims of Crime Commissioner is the domestic violence project co-ordinator, as had been the situation before the restructure.

Simon Corbell, Attorney-General Euthanasia debate There are people who regard the sanctity of life as being undiminished by any degradation of its quality, such that it should be unthinkable for life to be taken, even if requested by the victim as an humanitarian measure to relieve unremitting suffering. Clearly Peter Comensoli ("Growing euthanasia statistics should be a warning", Times2, April 20, p5)  and, perhaps the other members of Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, which he represents  is of that group. There is a much larger group who recoil with horror at the prospect of intractable pain or mental anguish and would welcome the opportunity to call an end to such circumstances. Thankfully it is no longer a criminal offence to commit suicide  once, bewilderingly, a capital offence  but if these victims are so incapacitated, or even just so scared of botching the job, as to be incapable of this act without third-party assistance that door remains closed. Thus these victims are legally condemned to agonise their way to their very last gasp, against their wishes. That is outrageous, intolerant, actually torture. Peter Comensoli cites 'the failure of laws', although he is silent on instances of complaints or litigation in these cases. Because the law fails to protect the vulnerable against maiming or slaughter by irresponsible road users should all drivers' licences be revoked? Hugh Gibbon, Pearce

Mean streets reflect market manipulation Housing affordability and living amenity are in dire straits. This is especially true in new ACT suburbs, traditionally places where affordability and amenity were available, notably for families buying a first home. The "market" has clearly been heavily manipulated resulting in this cruel and socially irresponsible situation. The government as landowner, and speculative builders are riding this gravy train. "Solutions", like declaring a typological category of "affordable" (slum-like) housing, providing grants (that rapidly get absorbed), and building smaller houses on tinier blocks, are all discriminatory. "Urban-sprawl" blight is not applicable in well-planned, land bountiful Canberra, but is used as an excuse for minuscule blocks, land-wasting unused "linear" parks etc, and incongruous serried ranks of miserable flats. Slowly but surely, the current "market" has to be cooled (by 10 per cent at least), and amenity restored, through increased land supply, simpler subdivisions, decent-sized blocks, excluding spec builders (there's enough retail profit in the components of a house already), and selling land only to bona fide owner-occupiers at fixed prices, say at publicly ascertainable cost to produce, plus say, a 5-10 per cent margin (reflecting location), and no auctions, ballots, etc. Jack Kershaw, Kambah

Examine song 'cycle' H. Ronald (Letters, April 20) fails to stop and consider what nexus there might be between the unthinking drunken misogyny of the songs he so lightly dismisses and the shockingly high level of violence against women (with family violence one subset of this) in Australian society. Perhaps, the issue of "the age-old rite of passage, the bawdy rugby song" when spewed not in the relative privacy of the dressing room but loudly and proudly on public streets, deserves more rigorous and thoughtful attention than you are able to bring to it. Peter Dark, Queanbeyan, NSW The future is looking grim if we don't act now on climate change

March, globally, was the hottest on record and the article "March temperatures highest on record" (April 21, p1) reported that, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric, each of the past 11 months have broken global temperature records. Last year was the hottest year on record globally and 14 of the 15 hottest years on record have occurred in the past 15 years. As a member of the Australian government delegation at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, I was a witness to then environment minister Ros Kelly signing the UN Climate Change Convention. On April 22, 2016, 24 years later, at least 162 nations will sign the Paris Agreement on climate change. But global warming has significantly worsened and we are on track to a 4 to 6 degree temperature rise by 2100. Once there was a view that, when global warming reached a crisis point, governments and people would take real action. I no longer think this is the case. Humanity has its collective head in the sand. People, the media and governments are absolutely indifferent. What does it take for humanity to start caring for the future of their grandchildren and for the planet? Rod Holesgrove, O'Connor

Environment issue Malcolm Turnbull may say the election is about re-establishing the ABCC, but others think this election is about saving what's left of our precious environment. The government's 2011 State of the Environment Report (the next report is due in December, 2016) land-use summary says: "In 2001, it was estimated that soil acidity affected 50million hectares of surface layers and 23million hectares of subsoil layers, estimated to cost $1.585billion per year in lost agricultural production [and] soil acidification affects about half of Australia's agriculturally productive soils. "The rate of land clearing, one of the most significant pressures affecting the land environment, is slowing, but still averaged around one million hectares each year over the decade to 2010. "Climate change is expected to bring about profound changes in the Australian land environment, particularly native vegetation and production systems [and] current rates of soil erosion by water across much of Australia exceed soil formation rates by a factor of at least several hundred and, in some areas, several thousand.

"Realising a more positive outlook for Australia's land environment will require renewed resolve, effort and investment." The condition of our land is the issue this election, not the inner-city issue of the ABCC, and our prime minister should start explaining how he is going to address land degradation if he wants to be re-elected. Stuart Walkley, Lyneham Middle East challenge Amin Saikal ("Bernie Sanders dares to challenge Israel", Times2, April 20, p5) accuses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of rejecting a Palestinian state when it is the Palestinian Authority that refuses to recognise Israel. He says nothing of Palestinian Authority incitement by its leaders, in its media and its schools where maps show no Israel at all, of its refusal to condemn acts of terror and of honouring those who commit them. He ignores Hamas firing rockets from civilian areas and using women and children as human shields.

Saikal claims Netanyahu is undermining peace by "continuously treating Hamas as a 'terrorist organisation"'. Hamas, which is virulently anti-Semitic and has sworn, through its charter, to Israel's destruction, is designated a terrorist organisation by the US and Canada, while its military wing is designated a terrorist organisation by Australia, Britain, Egypt and other countries. Saikal cites Bernie Sanders in support of his contentions, but Sanders recently showed his ignorance in an interview claiming Israel killed 10,000 innocents in Gaza, five times the number even Hamas claims. Most alarmingly, by claiming Australia's rightful support of Israel, a democratic ally, "has certainly played into the hands of extremist groups", Saikal portrays himself as an apologist for such groups. Hardly the company a distinguished professor at one of Australia's most prestigious universities should be keeping. J. White, Griffith

War's tragedies The young men who are so easily conscripted into the horrific cause of Islamic State are perhaps not so extraordinary. They are not the first young men, full of bravado and testosterone, hungry for adventure and respect, sometimes with chips on their shoulders, to sign up for doubtful causes, about which they may know very little. Not the first to go to far-off places where they are expected to kill or be killed, take part in atrocities and, if they come back, live damaged lives. Unless we understand how this can happen, conflict after conflict, and find ways to avert such a fate for these young lives and for the vast numbers of people touched by war, it will go on happening, decade after decade all over the world. Not a bad day, perhaps, to give it some thought? Richard Manderson, Narrabundah All at sea

Nicholas Stuart ("Below surface of sub deal", Times2, April 19, p4) needs to do more study before launching into another ship-building article when he says: "The French have the most experience constructing large, ocean-going submarines." The Germans have a bit more experience. After all they nearly defeated Britain in World War II by sinking 2788 cargo ships, even operating in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean and along the US Atlantic coast and into the mouth of the St Lawrence River in Canada. The Japanese built the largest submarines, the I-400 Class, in World War II that each carried three fighter-bombers intended to attack the US west coast. At that time, the French managed one large submarine, the Surcouf, lost in April 1942. At war's end, the Germans had readied two revolutionary sub designs that were far faster than British corvettes and frigates. Yes, the war ended 71 years ago but the knowledge gained then, at such an appalling cost, still has merit. So let us not blunder this time.

Rod Olsen, Flynn TO THE POINT AVOIDING COMMISSION Australian banks have agreed to pay $121 million over four years to fund ASIC. Apparently, this is what it is worth to them to avoid a royal commission. So far, no one seems to have calculated the reputational and ethical cost to both the industry and ASIC of this inevitably compromising arrangement. Helmut Simon, Watson

POLICIES RUIN PLANET Gerry Murphy's strange comments on "the Greens" (Letters, April 21) ended with the exhortation to the Greens back to the "crazy planet from which they came". It's a prescient suggestion because this planet's going to be totally stuffed by the policies Gerry Harvey seems to support! We'll need another planet. Philip Telford, Tarago, NSW TOWER FAR FROM TRAM

Ian Warden ("Infinity towers loom over future", Gang-Gang, April 21, p8) claimed 200-metre "connectivity" from the new tower block to the tram. According to Google Maps, whilst a gang-gang perched on Ingeborg's Nordic shoulder may be a fast 550-metre glide from the terminus, the journey for pedestrians will be at least 750 metres. There are, however, already several bus routes running alongside this development, providing superb connectivity to both Belconnen and Civic. Kent Fitch, Nicholls HIGH-RISES ARE UGLY The plans for more high-rise development in our beautiful city are frightening, I might as well move to the Gold Coast with its endless tall accommodation blocks  though they do have the beautiful Pacific Ocean to relieve the ugliness of the high-rises. While progress is inevitable, can't the qualified experts in our city be allowed to have greater say before we become yet another concrete jungle?

E. Gray, Mawson GET BETTER TEACHERS I agree with Jenna Price ("Office of Learning and Teaching to lose funds", Times2, April 19, p5). I have several pesky questions though. If OLT is so important to the educational scheme, why can't our current crop of teachers read and write to standard university expectations? The way to improve the quality of teachers is simple. Raise the bar for matriculation. Stop enrolling deadbeats and the intellectually-challenged into education curricula. Gerry Murphy, Braddon
As of December 2015, Australia had 37,337 people in prison. It's only three years since we hit 30,000, but we are on track for 40,000 prisoners by the end of this year. Our imprisonment rate is 200 per 100,000. To place this in its historical context, it was 66 per 100,000 in 1985.

Canada's imprisonment rate is 106 per 100,000. England and Wales, the highest in Western Europe, is at 147. The rate in the US is just under 700, but at least this is finally heading down.

It costs nearly $110,000 a year to house a prisoner. In the ACT the figure is more than $150,000. Credit:Jay Cronan

Indigenous people account for only 3 per cent of Australians, but 27 per cent of the adult prison population. Worse still, a third of the adult female population and 59 per cent of the juvenile detention population are Indigenous. An Indigenous man is more likely to go to prison than university.

It costs nearly $110,000 a year to keep someone in prison. In the ACT, the figure is more than $150,000. Australia spends more than $3.4 billion on prisons every year. And then there are the non-monetary costs, including loss of personal autonomy and privacy, the risk of violence, institutionalisation, exposure to more serious criminals, the potential loss of housing and employment, and the impact on prisoners' families. But don't we need prison to prevent crime?
This year marks the centenary of Will Dyson becoming Australia's first official war artist. Ballarat-born Dyson, a remarkably talented and versatile artist-writer, had struggled to find a congenial niche in Australia, but after venturing to England in 1909 became such a stunning success as a cartoonist for the London Daily Herald that he was described six years later as the most famous Australian in the world.

Dyson retained a sentimental attachment to his homeland despite feeling he had to leave it to make his mark. He was profoundly moved by the Australian Imperial Force's contribution at Gallipoli, and his emotions were further stirred when Australian soldiers became involved at the Western Front in 1916 and suffered immense casualties at Fromelles and Pozieres  almost 30,000 in two months.

Dyson felt impelled to contribute. He volunteered to go to France to create an illustrated record of this significant epoch in the national story. His application declared that he wanted "to interpret in a series of drawings, for national preservation, the sentiments and special Australian characteristics of our army". Dyson, by now 36, began as an artist during the most severe French winter for decades.

Some artists who followed Dyson to the Western Front gravitated to colourful landscapes or scenes of dramatic action  blood-and-thunder bayonet charges, lethal military hardware, straining horses dragging big guns forward. Dyson's focus was different. He concentrated on the men.
Last week's SBS Insight program examined the most contentious subject in Indigenous affairs  how best to care for Indigenous children who need to be removed from their families due to abuse and neglect. At the heart of the discussion was the most difficult question of all: how to reconcile the protection of the wellbeing and development of children with the promotion of Indigenous culture and identity to avoid a repeat of the Stolen Generations.

Compelling viewing was the story of Ruby, a young Indigenous woman from Cape York who, after being removed, was raised in Melbourne with a non-Indigenous carer. Ruby stayed connected with her Indigenous heritage and culture through the work of Victorian Indigenous organisations, whilst growing up in a loving and supporting home with her foster 'mum'.

How to reconcile the protection and development of children with the promotion of Indigenous culture and identity to avoid a repeat of the Stolen Generations? Credit:Glenn Campbell

Due to the thought and planning that went into meeting Ruby's material and spiritual needs, she has now been able to return to her country in Cape York secure in her Indigenous identity. She is as free to participate in her people's traditional ways as she is to enjoy all the educational, employment, and other advantages of mainstream Australia.

The program did not shy aware from the hard issues. Most participants  which included Indigenous leaders Josephine Cashman, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Anthony Dillon  recognised that the tragic levels of parental dysfunction in some Indigenous communities justified the removal of children from their families. The statistics alone illustrate an Indigenous child welfare crisis. At the start of this century, 4000 Indigenous children, or 2 per cent of the total Indigenous child population, were in care across Australia; today there are 15,000 children and 6 per cent of total children in care.
Born in Berlin in 1915, King left Germany in 1939 and sought refuge in England. She began her art studies at the prestigious Royal Academy in London but finished them in Glasgow when London was bombed during WWII.

"Halfway between 100 and 101," the centenarian died peacefully in the presence of her family late Saturday night, her long-time gallerist Stuart Purves said.

Renowned Australian sculptor Inge King, who for more than 60 years was a pioneer of contemporary sculpture in her adopted homeland, has died in Melbourne.

She eventually fell in love with an Australian, the printmaker Grahame King, whom she would later marry and the two moved to Australia in 1951. They established themselves in Warrandyte and, together, dug out a studio under the Robin Boyd-designed home where they raised two daughters.

Forward Surge, Inge King's best-known work, on the lawn of the Arts Centre Melbourne. Credit:Robin Whittle

King has previously spoken of the impact of the Australian landscape on her work  utterly foreign to her as an emigre from Europe - her monumental sculptures seen across Melbourne, from the iconic waveform design on the lawn of the Arts Centre (Forward Surge), the majestic, shimmering rings in the grounds of the Heide Museum of Modern Art (Rings of Saturn) to the eponymous red ringed-structure on the edge of Eastlink (Red Rings).

"I have always thought of sculpture on a large scale," she told Fairfax Media in 2013. "The Australian landscape fascinates me. It's vast and rough, it's untidy and how can you counter that? You can make something 10 or 20 metres high and it doesn't mean anything. It has to have power and the power comes through simplicity and inner strength."

National Gallery of Victoria curator David Hurlston, who first met the sculptor as a drawing student of her husband's at RMIT University in the 1970s and coordinated a retrospective at the NGV in 2014, said King once described her first impression of Australia as "like opening a can of flat beer."
Having lumbered itself with a faintly jokey name, the National Theatre of Parramatta gets serious with its inaugural production; the Australian premiere of Scottish writer Stef Smith's 2015 Edinburgh Festival Fringe hit Swallow.

Smith weaves her play from three voices: the reclusive, agoraphobic Anna (Luisa Hastings-Edge), who makes collages out of bird feathers and basil pesto; Rebecca (Megan Drury), smarting after being dumped by her boyfriend, and Sam (Valerie Berry), who feels he has been born into the wrong body.

All three are alone with their struggles and each is in danger to some extent, either through self-harm or from the violent attention of others. Anna seems to be sustaining her fever dream on nothing more than tap water. Rebecca has hit the bottle hard and has the scars to prove it. Sam is a target for intolerance.

Tentatively at first, Smith has them establish contact. Each is slowly drawn out into the light.

There's no plot to Swallow beyond that required to bring the characters together and Smith's language-driven, sometimes gallows-humorous text has the potential be a static exercise.

Director Kate Champion brings her choreography background into play, however, enlivening the experience with modest but telling physical elements and playing close attention to the tempo of each vignette.
The best friends at Kylie's wedding. Amee didn't hesitate. "I'll carry your baby tomorrow," she told her best friend. Surrogacy is complex and controversial. Commercial surrogacy  banned within almost every states and territory  can be fraught. The now notorious "baby Gammy" case in 2014 was a perfect storm for opponents of commercial overseas surrogacy. Even altruistic arrangements can go wrong despite the best intentions. Brett and Amee. Medical advances have increased fertility options, but social, moral and legal frameworks struggle to keep up. The differing laws between Australian jurisdictions are such a mess that a federal parliamentary inquiry is considering a multitude of changes. Its recommendations are due within weeks.

But when the midwife first mentioned surrogacy, Amee and Kylie were oblivious to all that, consumed with grief for the baby girl that Kylie had named Sophie. Brett and Amee at their wedding. Later they would come to know what it felt like  the questioning of their motives, the criticism of their choices. It takes strength, conviction and love to weather those moments. Amee and Kylie had met 10 years earlier at a Sydney software company. In 1998, Amee was 18, just split from a boyfriend and killing time before she could get into the NSW police academy. Kylie was 24 and emerging from a broken marriage. They were both keen to party and started spending time together outside work. Amee and Kylie during the pregnancy with Zoe. Credit:Alana Taylor

Later, Amee left the company to enter the academy. She became a police officer, fulfilling her professional dream, and she also met the love of her life, Brett, at the academy. Amee began her police career and then, by a coincidence that some call fate, she and Kylie ended up living in the same NSW country town, Bargo, for a while during 2001-02. The Bargo interlude cemented their friendship. Kylie and Amee in hospital after the birth of Zoe. By the time Kylie returned to Sydney, after a relationship break-up, she was pivotal in Amee and Brett's lives. She filmed the births of their first two children, Samuel and Jordy, in 2004 and 2005. Neither of the births were easy  Amee had retained placentas and bled copiously. Watching her friend undergoing such traumatic births was frightening. "But that's our relationship  nothing's too hard or scary for us," Amee says.

Zoe alongside mementos of Sophie. Credit:Alana Taylor Back in Sydney, Kylie longed for a family of her own. Several miscarriages, each requiring surgery afterwards, had buffeted Kylie's self-esteem, affected her health and created tensions in her relationship. Secretly, Amee was worried about her. So she was quietly relieved when Kylie met a new man, Adrian Raftery, in 2007. Zoe and Hamish. Their mother Kylie's best friend Amee carried Zoe and an ACT surrogate carried Hamish. Credit:Alana Taylor Kylie and Adrian married quickly. He knew about the miscarriages, but they were keen to start their family. Just before Christmas that year, 2007, Kylie saw a specialist. She had corrective surgery for Asherman's Syndrome, a condition where parts of her uterus had fused.

In the meantime, Amee and Brett had their third child, Abbey, via C-section. Amee declared her childbearing years over and had her fallopian tubes tied. She could not imagine carrying another child. Amee's husband Brett, also a police officer, died suddenly after a pub brawl. Amee and Brett transferred from NSW to the Northern Territory police early in 2008. Their last catch-up with the Rafterys was at Abbey's christening. Although she felt it deeply, Amee did not articulate how much she would miss her best friend. She stubbornly refused to utter the dreaded word  goodbye. From left: Hamish Raftery (3) Amee Meredith, Zoe Raftery (4 months) and Kylie Raftery. Amee was a surrogate for Kylie's youngest child Zoe. Credit:Joe Armao

At least, Amee thought, she was leaving Kylie in Sydney, happy with Adrian and ready to start a family  settled after years of uncertainty. Then everything fell apart, when Kylie's daughter Sophie was stillborn at 32 weeks. Amee Meredith, left, and Kylie Raftery. Amee was a surrogate for Kylie's youngest child Zoe. Credit:Joe Armao Despite her earlier gynealogical issues, Kylie had fallen pregnant soon after Amee and Brett moved to the NT. But at 32 weeks pregnant, Kylie woke up one morning in excruciating pain. She rang Amee in Darwin to ask what labour felt like. "That was probably the most important phone call I ever had with her," Amee says. "Because I told her to phone the hospital. If she hadn't been in hospital, she would have died "

Amee with her three children. Kylie's uterus had ruptured, the old scar tissue proving fatal for her baby and almost for her too. After Sophie's death, Amee felt uncharacteristically helpless. "Your whole friendship, everything else is doable  she breaks up with a boyfriend, I'm the one threatening to kneecap him, she's drunk at the pub and I'm the one picking her up. Everything else was achievable. Except for this." Amee returned to Darwin, anxious that her chaotic life as a mum would be too painful for Kylie to hear of. Kylie would give anything to be in that situation. The demands of police shift work and a young family meant Amee and Brett were fighting, too often, but they agreed on one thing. They wanted to help Kylie and Adrian have a healthy baby. Brett was excited, he loved Kylie too.

But after visiting them in the NT, Kylie was worried about her friends. She thought they needed time to focus on their relationship and told Amee so. Amee was deeply frustrated. Then, from nowhere, another sudden death left the two friends shattered. Late in 2009, Amee was seconded to an Aboriginal community 350 kilometres from Katherine, where they were now living. Brett stayed in Katherine with the kids. After midnight on New Year's Eve, Amee was working. Back in Katherine, Brett was off-duty for the night. He got into a nightclub fight. A colleague rang Amee to say that Brett had been knocked out and ambos were at the scene. Amee's initial reaction was anger. "I was annoyed with him for getting involved," she says.

Amee drove back to Katherine through the first dawn of 2010. A new year filled with possibilities. But when she got to Katherine Hospital, she found Brett's condition was serious. They were flown to Darwin Hospital where Brett had emergency surgery. "They had to remove part of his brain," Amee recalls. It was the harshest of realities. Brett had a 1 per cent chance of survival, the doctors said. And even if he survived ... During the unbearable hours that Amee grappled with Brett's life and death, Kylie turned up. "I remember seeing her and just losing it," Amee says. It was little more than a year since Amee had flown to Kylie's side and Sophie had been stillborn.

Brett's life support was switched off the next day and Amee's future felt defined by the loss: she was a widow with three kids under six. When asked whether their losses, so close together, strengthened their friendship, Kylie's eyes fill with tears. "I was in no fit state to support her, she was in no fit state to support me." But somehow it worked. Amee remained desperate to be Kylie and Adrian's surrogate. She needed it. But Kylie told her to focus on herself on the kids. Kylie and Adrian instead found in the ACT another surrogate, who carried their baby. Their son, Hamish, was born in Canberra Hospital in July 2012.

While the Rafterys were immersed in the complex world of surrogacy, Amee was barely coping. She was grieving, juggling police shifts and looking after three kids  one diagnosed with autism. Then she sat through a harrowing, prolonged 18-month manslaughter trial over Brett's death. Amee was also overcome with jealousy that someone else (the ACT surrogate) was giving her best friend Kylie the gift of life. "The selfish part of me was devastated. That was something that I was meant to be doing," Amee says. "I felt like I owed it to Brett and I was letting him down, letting everybody down." The friendship weathered these difficult feelings. Amee kept them to herself, but Kylie knew.

By the time Kylie and Adrian started talking in 2013 about a sibling for Hamish, Amee believed she was ready. Four years had passed since Brett's death. She had received counselling, given up shift work and had a new partner. In the meantime, the Rafterys had moved to Melbourne, partly because they were considering using an overseas commercial surrogate, which is illegal from NSW. But Amee wouldn't let someone else take the job second time around. One day early in 2014, she got off the "red eye" flight from Darwin and headed to a Melbourne IVF clinic with Kylie. Amee was good at carrying babies, but Kylie was worried her friend's birthing history (the retained placentas) might put doctors off. "When they said Amee was [medically] fine to go, you could have picked both our jaws up off the floor," Kylie says.

Amee and her new partner, Richie, underwent counselling and psychological testing, as did Kylie and Adrian. Kylie and Adrian's embryo was transferred to Amee in March 2015. It turned into a viable pregnancy. "I FaceTimed her from the toilet with the pregnancy test," Amee says, laughing. One night early in the pregnancy, after Amee had some bleeding, she dreamt of Brett. "He told me to stop stressing and that everything would be OK." She rang Kylie the next morning and they cried together. Because there were no surrogacy laws in the NT, where Amee lived, if she gave birth there Kylie and Adrian wouldn't be recognised as the parents and would have to try and adopt the baby. So Amee needed to give birth in Victoria. Thirty-five weeks into the pregnancy, Amee started getting pains. The doctor didn't know if Amee was in labour but said she should fly south in case.

It was a false alarm. But two weeks later, Amee was sitting on Kylie's couch in Melbourne late at night, watching a true crime show, when her waters broke. She ran to Kylie's bedroom leaving a trail of fluid on the floor tiles. The two friends laughed hysterically. On November 27, 2015, Amee gave birth to Kylie and Adrian's healthy daughter, Zoe, via C-section, at a hospital on the Mornington Peninsula. Kylie gripped her friend's hand tightly throughout. It was difficult for Kylie to witness. She felt responsible for the pain Amee experienced. "It's hard to see someone you love go through something so excruciating [just] for you." Afterwards, Kylie took baby Zoe and placed her tenderly on Amee's arm. The birth resulted in Kylie's precious second daughter. But Amee also received an immeasurable gift.

"It allowed me to complete a chapter of my life  to have closure. It was something that I needed to do for Brett," Amee says. While this surrogacy delivered untold happiness, not all are as straightforward. And not everyone believes Amee had the right to carry her friend's child. One submission to the federal inquiry likened surrogacy to the work of Hitler and, while she was pregnant with Zoe, Amee endured comments that she would not be able to give the baby up. Kylie says this kind of analogy is upsetting. "I don't think they should make those judgments until they've been in those shoes," she says. "We didn't know what surrogacy was until Sophie died." The future of surrogacy in Australia hangs in the balance. Some submissions to the federal inquiry call for a ban on surrogacy altogether, similar to changes recently proposed in Sweden. Others want wider access to surrogacy, including commercial arrangements within Australia.

Amee has little time for those who want surrogacy banned, or for those who questioned her motives. She had witnessed her friend's immense suffering. "I've seen the pain, the loss and grief. I watched Kylie break  [This] was about giving her something that was taken away so brutally." AUSTRALIA'S SURROGACY LAWS Commercial surrogacy is illegal within Australia (except in the NT) ACT  Altruistic surrogacy allowed for couples. Overseas commercial surrogacy banned since 2004. NSW  Altruistic surrogacy allowed. Overseas commercial surrogacy banned since 2011.
A rapist using online dating to find victims was caught out after multiple young women reported his assaults to an anonymous sexual assault reporting website.

Police had already received several complaints about the man, who would meet women he found online, drug their drinks and take them home to rape them. However, they had not been able to pursue them.

An increasing number of victims of sexual abuse are turning to the internet in their search for justice. Credit:Penny Stephens

But social workers at the SARA (Sexual Assault Report Anonymously) website run by the South Eastern Centre Against Sexual Assault in Victoria were also receiving reports about the online predator and they persuaded one woman to make a formal statement to police.

"They picked him up for it," centre manager Carolyn Worth said.
A Sydney couple sued for defamation by a neighbour over comments on a community social media page say mounting legal fees could leave them bankrupt and they have no means to defend themselves against the plaintiff's latest appeal.

Matthew and Annette Palmer thought their fight with Nader Mohareb was finished after a settlement was negotiated, a term of which included the publication of an apology on the Scotland Island Community Facebook page.

Matthew Palmer was sued for defamation over an unflattering Facebook post about his neighbour Nader Mohareb. Credit:Facebook

But what should have been a straightforward resolution to the dispute collapsed when the page's moderator, unaware of the agreement, deleted the apology.

The case returned to court and the Palmers sought a lump sum costs order of $14,721, but District Court judge Judith Gibson refused, saying the page administrators should have been contacted prior to the publishing of the apology. She further found Mr Palmer subsequently removed the apology after it was reposted.
Back then, Tenterfield, like many towns and villages across Australia, had sent their men and horses across the sea to war.

In his old AIF uniform, slouch hat replete with emu feathers, riding boots, leather bandolier and .303 rifle strapped across his back, Hamilton would not have been out of place 100 years ago in the northern NSW town.

Come Anzac Day, JimHamilton has been riding his black stockhorse Bundygun down Tenterfield's main street at the head of the parade for about 20 years.

Hamilton rides the very saddle his great uncle Willy Bunyan used while serving with the Australian Light Horse in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign from 1916 to 1918.

Jim Hamilton and Bundygun outside the Tenterfield and District Soldiers Memorial. Credit:Peter Reid

"We marked the centenary of the Anzac landings last year and now its the turn of the Light Horse," said Hamilton who has worked most of his 60 years in the bush.

"They took part in the Battle of Romani to protect the Suez Canal in 1916 and of course, next year is the centenary of the famous Light Horse charge at Beersheba."

The Australian War Memorial says 136,000 "walers" (the general name applied to Australian horses abroad) were sent overseas for use by the Australian Imperial Force and the British and Indian governments. Only one horse, Sandy,belonging to Major General Sir William Bridges who was killed at Gallipoli, made it back to Australia. At war's end, due to quarantine restrictions, the remaining 13,000 animals were either sold for use by the British Army in India or put down.
A mobile phone application that tracks how safe people feel in different environments will hopefully create a more rounded picture about how we feel about crime and victimisation, Gold Coast researchers say.

Griffith University PhD candidate Michael Chataway helped create iExperience,a mobile data collection platform, in a bid to change the way we record how fearful we feel in certain areas.

Mobile app tracks how safe you feel in your neighbourhood at different locations and times of day. Credit:Darren Pateman DJP

"A lot of what we know about people's fear of crimes come from paper pencil surveys in neighbourhoods,which is good if we want to know about how people feel about crime in a specific neighbourhood or time" he said.

"They don't determine whether fear of crime changes around the natural environment.
In the unlikely event of Clive Palmer fielding a slate of candidates for the federal parliament as in 2013, he certainly doesn't appear to have the cash to promote them. And if he did, an alphabet of interested parties would descend on him, starting with ASIC, the AWU, and the AFP. Imagine being a PUP candidate in the Townsville seat of Herbert?

So where will the first preference votes of those who voted for Palmer candidates in 2013 go in 2016? Because in Queensland these votes will be decisive in the 2016 election.

Where will the first preference votes of those who voted for Palmer candidates in 2013 go in 2016? Credit:Daniel Munoz

It is wrong to assume Greens preferences will decide whether the ALP gets enough seats to govern, certainly not in Queensland, where in 2013 PUP outpolled the Greens in every one of the 21 Coalition held seats except Ryan and Brisbane.

In nine of the Coalition's outer metro and regional seats, the number of PUP first preference votes in 2013 was greater than the margin required to hold the seat in 2016.
A senior police officer has told hundreds of grieving friends and relatives of a slain taxi driver that he's "embarrassed" it took five hours to notify the man's family of his death.

Mohamud Mohmud Muketar, 31, was killed less than 200 metres from his home on Wednesday after finishing his shift at 11.30pm.

Hundreds of members of the African community meet at Fitzroy Town Hall to discuss safety. Credit:Meredith O'Shea

He had just parked the taxi he shared with his father on Condell Street, next to Fitzroy police station, and started walking home when he was attacked on the street.

No one has been arrested over the late-night killing.
Prescription drug addicts who jump between different health services are being targeted by a new $30 million plan to tackle deadly medicine overdoses that claim more lives than road accidents.

Last year, 330 Victorians died from prescription drug overdoses  more than the road toll  so Health Minister Jill Hennessy is allocating $30 million in Wednesday's state budget to set up real-time prescription monitoring for 1900 GP clinics, 1300 pharmacies and 200 hospitals.

The Victorian government is moving to clamp down on prescription drug overdoses. Credit:

The new system, to be operational by 2018, will allow doctors and pharmacists to identify drug addicts who go "prescription shopping" by visiting different doctors and chemists.

There has been a surge in the number of drug overdose deaths over the past five years, led by addictive medications such as Valium, which has been linked to more drug deaths than illegal narcotics.
The most dangerous violent criminals who have served their time in prison but cannot be safely released in the community will live in special post-jail facilities, under a dramatic widening of Victoria's community protection regime.

A new $54.2 million 20-bed secure facility to house high risk offenders is the centrepiece of the Andrews government's response to the long-awaited review of the management of serious sex offenders, triggered by Sean Price's murder of 17-year-old Masa Vukotic.

Corella Place in Ararat, which is known as the "Village of the Damned". Credit:Pat Scala

Currently only serious sex offenders assessed as an unacceptable risk to community safety can be placed on these supervision orders, or forced to live at Corella Place, dubbed the Village of the Damned, near Ararat, but the review has recommended that violent offenders be added to the system.
Finding out how staff at a childcare provider could let a 4 and 5-year-old child walk off from a holiday program to be abducted and sexually abused and not notice them missing will be the focus of a West Australian government investigation.

Now that police have charged a 52-year-old man with child sex offences over the horrific crimes that shocked Perth this week, the focus is on the actions of staff and the company that employs them.

CCTV footage was released as part of the manhunt. Credit:WA Police

Staff at the centre, which cannot be named for legal reasons, never noticed the children missing for an hour and were contacted by police after a member of the public found them wandering in a park where they were dumped.

The provider is under scrutiny for not notifying the parents of other children until the day after the offences, with some angry about being told after they had dropped their children off at the program on Wednesday.
The WA government has allocated $13.1 million over three years in the 2016/17 state budget for the Mental Health Court Diversion Program.

Mental Health minister Andrea Mitchell said the program identified people whose criminal offending was potentially the result of mental illness and offered them an alternative to prison through access to mental health treatment and support services.

Program offers people with mental health issues an alternative to prison. Credit:Tanya Lake

Attorney General Michael Mischin said since March 2013, about 934 adults and 898 children had been referred for treatment, with 80 per cent of adults who completed the program either ceasing offending or committing less serious crimes.

- AAP
Washington: Billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, a key source of financing for conservative Republican causes along with his brother, said Democrat Hillary Clinton might make a better president than the candidates in the Republican field.

Mr Koch, in an interview to air on Sunday on the US network ABC's This Week program, said that in some respects Bill Clinton had been a better president than George W. Bush, who Mr Koch said had increased government spending.

Then when asked if Hillary Clinton would be a better president than the Republicans currently running, he said: "It's possible, it's possible."

ABC said Mr Koch, who along with his brother David leads an influential political organisation called Freedom Partners, has been displeased so far with the tone of the Republican presidential race, in which billionaire Donald Trump leads senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Ohio governor John Kasich.
MINNEAPOLIS  Darrell Rembert is grilling ribs to raise money for a youth group at the Trinity Tabernacle Church on Plymouth Avenue in the Northside of Minneapolis. The church is one of many in the neighborhood where Prince Rogers Nelson was born and raised, and on Saturday Rembert grilled as a homeless man named David (randomly) approached.

God bless you, sir. How are you doing today? Rembert asked David on Saturday afternoon. Whats your name? You can call me brother Rembert.

David  shuffling, grabbing at an aching lower back and carrying a half-smoked cigarette  told Rembert his name and said he was somewhat surprised to report he felt alright.

Today was another day, he noted.

I feel good, brother Rembert.

All night Thursday and Friday thousands gathered at Princes home in Chanhassen, Minnesota and at the music venue First Avenue to pay homage to Minneapoliss most famous son, bonafide global music icon taken too soon from this world. It was a party, because anywhere that Princes music is played usually comes with a good time. But on Plymouth Avenue on Saturday afternoon where Rembert was smoking ribs and David was being saved, the only thing marking Princes death were purple balloons and memories of a neighborhood kid, not a creative deity.

And the artistic immortality mentioned in many stories written over the last few days about a musician whose work has resonated across races and continents is a worldly thing, Rembert knows. If Prince was as devout a Jehovah's Witness as some say he was, he knew it too.

When hes standing in line and God reads from the book, he aint gonna be Prince. God is not gonna care about any of that, Rembert said. God only cares about what is in your heart, and besides, He already knows the story.

Princes story began across the street from Remberts Trinity Tabernacle Church in the 1200 block of Russell Avenue. In Gary, Indiana, Michael Jacksons home is a tourist attraction, preserved as a museum for a man who fits in the same category of Prince  brilliance and global talent from a skinny kid born into Midwestern mundanity. On Russell Avenue, Princes childhood home is just sitting there, serving as the setting for another familys evolving story.

No plaque, no symbol known worldwide, no purple markings. Just a home.

Marilyn (Rembert's wife), like almost everyone on the Northside, has a Prince story of her own. She was in sixth grade  11 years old, maybe  when Prince and his band played at a school dance.

It was a real treat, she said. They played Atomic Dog and all those songs from back then.

She wore a purple shirt and secured a purple tablecloth on a table next to her husbands grill. She and a young man from the church walked up and down the block tying purple balloons to light poles to attract the attention of drivers. The smoke rolling from Remberts grill would do the rest.

In France they lit the Eiffel Tower for Prince. How amazing is that? Rembert wondered. On the Northside of Minneapolis, Marilyn paid homage with simple purple balloons, and raised money for the kids of the church by selling rib tip dinners for $10, hot links for $2.50.

He was just a neighborhood kid, Rembert said, playing ball like the rest of us.

Except Prince had something inside of him  a gift, if you want to call it that, and he got out of the house on Russell Avenue and achieved something very few people do. If he obtains immortality through his art, thats all well and good, but brother Rembert knows thats not the most important thing.

Will you pray with me? he asked David, grabbing his hands. Eyes closed, head bowed, Rembert told David about the sinners on the cross at either side of Christ, and that they, too, were offered the blissful immortality of Heaven if they accepted the crucified man on Calvary Hill as their lord and savior. Thats all it takes.

Really? I didnt know that, David said.

Yes, its true, Rembert reassured him.

With only 50 cents to his name, he said, David asked if there was any way he could get a sandwich.

Come back at noon and Ill have a plate for you, Rembert told him. Thats when it will be ready.

Rembert went back to cooking after David went on his way. The 54-year-old remembered his great fandom of Prince following the release of Purple Rain, then his difficulties with some of the sexuality surrounding the musician, and finally coming to terms with knowing he would never support everything the neighborhood kid did but believing he was a good person, and that everyone is judged by God, not their fellow man.

See because of my beliefs I tend to stray away from all this talk of Prince as an icon and all of that, Rembert said. What most people dont know is that like a lot of black musicians Prince was brought up in the church. He came up from the city and the struggle; he was brought up into the Gospel.

Rembert recalled Hezekiah, who was sick and nearing death when God told him he would die and told him to have his house in order.

Prince had told fans and friends just last week at a party at his home to Wait a few days before you waste any prayers, Rembert recalled.

I dont know if he had his house in order or not, Rembert said. But I always say prayers cant hurt.

Rembert went back to quietly cooking; a few neighbors stopped by to grab plates of food and hot links to go. Marilyn busied herself inside preparing baked beans and coleslaw. There were no huge crowds waiting in line and dancing all night, or mourners creating thousands of small memorials to be shown over and over again on live TV, or anything, really, that is much different than any day on the Northside.

As the purple balloons waved in the wind, creating shadows on Plymouth Avenue, noon passed.

David never showed.
Next Friday marks a miserable anniversary for 48-year-old Rupert Onslow, otherwise known as the 8th Earl of Onslow.

For it was on that day, one year ago, that he received a panicked phone call telling him that Clandon Park, the magnificent house in Surrey that his family had lived in for over two hundred years, from 1730 till 1956, was on fire.

Without wanting to be trite, says Onslow, on the phone from his office at insurers Lloyds of London, Dont watch your house burn down, even if it isnt actually your house.

The not actually your house comment there may need some explaining. Like many old aristocratic families in Europe, the Onslows found the financial burden of keeping up a magnificent stately home impossible with the demise of the last remnants of the feudal system and the post-war rise in wages.

So, in 1956, Ruperts father, the 7th Earl, gave Clandon Park to the powerful British conservation charity, the National Trust.

It was an inspired decision. The house became one of the Trusts most visited properties, thanks in large part to the extraordinary Marble Halla fantastical, cavernous space clad entirely in ornately carved white marble, and generally recognized to be one of the finest rooms in England.

The Onslows decamped to a nearby farmhouse on the estate, but were able to continue using the house, by arrangement with the Trust, for social and family events.

Says the Earl, I never lived there, but I had my stag do there, I had my 21st there, my sisters 18th . So its very much part of ones life without ever having lived in it. So it was not a nice experience in any way to watch it burn. I had never seen anything like that, to be honest. It was ferocious and extraordinary, an extraordinary sight as you are standing on the lawn watching that.

The blazestarted by faulty electricswas so intense that few of the contents of the house could be saved.

Did they have the right procedures in place? Clearly not, because 90 percent of house is gone and 95 percent of the contents are gone. They did everything with the best intentions. But whatever best intentions they had werent good enough to protect the art.

It was fairly clear to the Earl in the aftermath of the destruction that a project to rebuild the house didnt make sense.

The National Trust, however, disagreed with the Earl and swiftly announced plans to use the insurance payout to partially reconstruct Clandon, including the Marble Hall.

Full restoration, according to a report in the Guardian, is only planned for the ground-floor rooms, where later alterations and additions will be peeled back to its appearance when it was built in 1720, designed by the Venetian architect Giacomo Leoni, while the upper floors will become conference rooms and event spaces.

The prospect fills Lord Onslow with horror.

I simply dont get what they are going to have achieved when they have finished. They will have 40,000 square foot of empty building, that isnt original.

I dont think that making Frankenstein architectural monsters is what the National Trust should be doing. They are in the preservation profession not the building trade. They will have nothing to put in it other than random pieces from other places. If they want a conference center, they should go and buy a conference center for much less money.

Onslow argues that rather than rebuild his family home as a pastiche, the Trust should leave Clandon as a ruin, and use the payout to purchase other endangered buildings or vulnerable eco-systems.

The National Trust has been arguing that the insurance money from Clandon can only be used for Clandon, but Onslow, who works in insurance, says this categorically isnt the case. (However the insurers, Zurich, recently indicated in a report in the Daily Telegraph that they are prepared to be flexible in accommodating the needs of the National Trust as the final decision about the future of Clandon rests on them.)

Onslow himself has witnessed the devastation in closer detail than most, as he was recently lowered in a metal cage dangling from a gigantic crane into the burnt-out heart of the Marble Hall.

I got gently lowered through where the ceiling used to be, he says. It was quite harrowing, to say the least.

Even down the phone line, you can hear the lump forming in his throat.

It was certainly very different from the last time he had been in the Marble Hall, for the wake of his godfather.

It was one of the great rooms in Britain, but it is gone now. Clandon was that room and the saloon behind it. They were the two rooms in the house. The other rooms were normal, standard, very over-the-top, Georgian rooms. They were rooms that you would find similar versions of in a lot of other places.

But those two rooms were genuinely extraordinary.

And now, they are a pile of blackened rubble.

The Marble Hall was shattered. Virtually every slab of marble is shattered. The two things that are very much alive and well are the two Rysbrack fireplaces, and the National Trust keeps saying, Well, we can rebuild around those. But theres virtually nothing else left on the first floor.

So does Onslow think Clandon should simply be left as a haunting ruin?

Yes, I think so. I mean thats what it is; its a ruin, theres nothing, its dead and anything they build now will be a pastiche.

Onslow suggests the Trust would be better served buying Wentworth Woodhouse, a stately pile in Yorkshire said to be the likely inspiration for Jane Austens Pemberley in Pride and Prejudice. It happens to be the largest private house in England and is on sale for a snip at 8m.

I think, for me, if I was the Trust, I would think that was the most amazing project. And theyll say Well, we dont own it, but they didnt own Clandon to begin with, thats just an issue of whos got what name on the title deeds.

Its 250,000 square feet. So its six times larger than Clandon. You could get your arts center, you could get a school, you could get housing, you could get office start-up buildings all set in 80 acres, not nine acres.

In a statement, the National Trust told the Daily Beast: When the National Trust took over ownership of Clandon Park in the 1950s after it was gifted by Lady Iveagh, it was declared inalienable, meaning it can never be sold or mortgaged. So if we were to leave the building as a ruin we would only recover from the insurer the relatively modest sums involved in the salvage operation and the stabilization of the remaining building. Its not the case that we could walk away with a payout equivalent to the cost of rebuilding the house and then use it elsewhere.

That is, however, missing the point. We wouldnt want to walk away from Clandon. The Trust exists to look after places in our care for ever, and that is why we are committed to rebuilding it.

Says Onslow: Ultimately, its not our house. So I wouldnt really expect to have that much more influence than any other member of the National Trust. Its not mine, its not ours, so therefore why would I be able to do anything other than put forward ideas, which I hope will be listened to?

But no-one can expect me to stop caring about it. Its ingrained in the DNA.

And for Onslow, truly caring about Clandon means letting it go, letting it slip with dignity into that good night.
Comedian W. Kamau Bell isnt ready to embrace the title of Bernie Sanders surrogate. But as a Berkeley native, he jokes that he really has no choice but the feel the Bern.

I cant rep as hard for anybody as I repped for Obama, Bell, whose new CNN show United Shades of America premieres this week, tells The Daily Beast in a wide-ranging interview about this major turning point in his career. The most he will say about the Democratic presidential race, the day before New Yorkers cast their votes decisively for Hillary Clinton, is this: Im hoping that by the time the primary gets to California that a vote for Bernie Sanders means something.

Bell says hes worried that if he does come out too strongly for one of the Democrats, the media will not only call on him to address racism, but also to speak for that candidate. Im not ready to be one of the black people he calls when its time to explain something, Bell says of Sanders. Im glad the list is getting longer. First it felt like Killer Mike and Killer Mikes cousin. Now its gotten to Rosario Dawson and Spike Lee.

With his CNN debut on Sunday and a new stand-up special making its Showtime premiere this Friday, Bells profile is about to reach a whole new level. He titled the special Semi-Prominent Negro and in it he talks about becoming the guy the media calls when Al Sharpton isnt available. Because Im a somewhat famous person, I get to decide how to end racism in America? he wonders aloud, laughing.

Ending racism is a tall order for a semi-prominent comedian like Bell, who, up until now was best known for his short-lived late-night talk show Totally Biased and an unfortunate incident of real-life discrimination that he turned into a popular This American Life story. But with his CNN show, he is at least trying to remind people that racism still exists.

I never wanted to be in the late-night talk show wars and I think somehow with Totally Biased I got caught up in all that, Bell says of his previous show, which was canceled in November 2013. Suddenly, there are articles about how we finally have a black voice in late-night.

Totally Biased started off airing once a week and was moderately successful. But when FX moved the show to its new FXX spin-off network and tried to make it air five nights a week, it quickly fell apart. John Oliver and Samantha Bee have proven that once a week is plenty, Bell remarks now.

There were definitely a few ways I could have gone after Totally Biased ended, he adds. One of those was getting a job at Starbucks. But instead, CNN came calling with the idea to add him to its roster of travel reality programs, hosted by the likes of Anthony Bourdain, Morgan Spurlock and Lisa Ling. Instead of sampling food from the around the world like Bourdain, Bell would sample the racism of America.

Sunday nights premiere finds Bell traveling down south to confront members of the KKK on camera. In the opening scene, he drives down a dark country road to have a clandestine meeting with the Imperial Wizard of the International Keystone Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

I get out of the car, and I see the gun and then I see a phalanx of Klan members and I think I say, Oh shit, Bell recalls. That was legitimate. It wasnt me trying to be funny. It was me thinking, This might be a worse idea than I thought.

By the side of the road, there was a sense ofsince I couldnt see 10 feet in front of methat all of a sudden I could be overwhelmed by a hundred Ku Klux Klan members, Bell continues. You dont know what theyre going to try to pull off. Like, yeah we kind of want to be on CNN, but if we kill this black host, then were international news, he imagines them thinking. That image and that costume and that idea has killed a lot of my people.

For a lot of Americans, they think the Ku Klux Klan is like the boogey man, they dont actually think its a real thing any more, Bell says. For me, Im excited for people to realize in a big way that this is real, theyre still out there. Just because theyre not in your community, doesnt meant theyre not in any community, he adds. We cant throw the worst part of racism into the dustbin of history.

Of course, before Bell got his chance to remind America that the Klan still exists, Donald Trump did it for him. To me, if there was ever a more cynical moment in electoral politics, I dont know what it was, he says of the Republican candidates reluctance to disavow David Duke and white supremacy. Youre actually afraid of alienating the Klan?!

In a more sinister way, Bell says, the Right has been trying to paint the KKK as a fundamentally Leftist organization, as evidenced by a Super Tuesday shouting match on CNN. That was a long time ago. They have since moved into a new neighborhood called the Republican side of the aisle.

Throughout the premiere, Bell uses comedyin person, in voiceover and in taped stand-up bits that interrupt the actionto undercut the Klans message of intolerance. But at the same time, he is giving them a platform on the worlds most recognizable news network.

I am aware that its a very volatile image, he says, adding that he is mostly concerned about how African-American viewers will receive it. For some black people, its going to be a hard thing to watch, to see the Klan in any format. Even if its a format that is trying to demystify them and tear down the veilpun intended.

He says he has already talked to some who watched the episode and think that he was making jokes with Klan members. As if joking with the Klan was the same as supporting them. I knew we were heading into some choppy waters here, Bell says. But I just felt like, Is this the kind of thing Id want to see if I turned on the TV? If I turned on the TV and I saw a black comedian hanging out with the Klan, I think I would stop and watch.

CNN is counting on it, airing United Shades of America immediately following Sundays season premiere of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, which has been a big ratings winner for the network over the past several years. In Bell, they see the next Bourdain, with the added bonuses of controversy and comedy.

Theres a lot of power in laughter, Bell says of the shows unique approach to difficult subjects. Whenever I was making the Klan laugh about their own inconsistencies and hypocrisies, theres power in that. As an example, he points to a scene in which two KKK members try to convince him that being gay is an abomination. When Bell replies by pointing out that the Bible says the same thing about eating shellfish, one of them jokes about going to Red Lobster the night before. And just like that, he says, their whole thing falls apart.

If you tell someone something and theyre not laughing, Bell says, then youll never know whether or not they are actually listening. But if theyre laughing, he adds, you know theyre listening.
SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA  On the night of May 30, 2013, conservationist Jairo Mora saw the last sea turtle he would ever try to save. That night, Mora and four foreign volunteers slipped out of the butterfly-wing gates of the rescue center where they worked on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast and took a drive down the notoriously dangerous Moin Beach. The next morning, police found Moras beaten body facedown in the sand. He had been dragged back and forth across the beach until he suffocated.

At the time of his murder, Mora was working to protect the eggs of the endangered leatherback sea turtles that nested on Moin, but his conservation efforts did not sit well with the local poachers who sell the eggs, a rumored aphrodisiac, on the black market for a sizable profit. Before he was killed, Mora had been threatened and assaulted, but he continued to save eggs until his murder.

Mora's slaying was not seen as unusual in Latin America, where more environmentalists are killed than anywhere else in the world. From the Amazon in Brazil to the deserts in Mexico, activists continue to be murdered at a record pace. Just last month, Berta Caceres, a prominent Honduran activist, was killed in her home after years of protesting against a hydroelectric dam project. In 2014, 88 other activists were killed in the region.

With its reputation for environmental friendliness, Costa Rica had long stood out from its neighbors as a safe haven for environmentalists, and for many, Moras murder was seen as evidence of the expanding violence against activists. Now, despite the blemish on Costa Ricas image, the countrys handling of Moras case stands as a rare positive example.

This month, judges doled out the maximum sentences to four poachers found guilty of the crime. The convictions have provided a glimmer of hope in the bleak atmosphere that environmentalists in Latin America face, but overall little has changed.

According to 2014 study by international NGO Global Witness, the average numbers of reported environmentalist murders has more than doubled since 2010. More than 80 percent of these reported killings were in Latin America.

Researchers now compiling data from 2015 believe it was the deadliest year for environmentalists on record. Though better reporting mechanisms are likely responsible in part for the increasing numbers, researchers believe other factors are also at play.

We think companies are getting more and more desperate to access resources, Billy Kyte, the lead researcher of the Global Witness study, told The Daily Beast. The pressure for natural resources is fueling competition between local communities and large extractive industry and dam companies."

This problem is especially acute in resource-rich Latin America, where many large corporations have received swaths of land through government concessions. Those affected by these land grabs tend to live in indigenous or farming communities where land ownership is crucial to survival.

These murders are rarely punished and only a handful of reported environmentalist murders globally have been prosecuted. In Latin Americawhere impunity is often higher for crimes in generalMoras case is one of only a handful of environmental murders to result in a conviction.

With Moras case now solved, environmental groups are pointing to the Caceres murder as an important opportunity to break the cycle of impunity. Due to Caceres's visibility and notoriety abroad, a conviction for her killing would send a message.

A credible investigation that results in arrests would help to restore the idea that there is not simply blanket immunity for the murders of environmentalists, John Knox, an independent expert on human rights and the environment for the United Nations, told The Daily Beast. If [potential killers] thought there would be accountability there may be people who would still risk it, but there would be nothing like the numbers that you see here.

Despite mounting pressure internationally and the past threats on Caceress life, the Honduran government has continued to classify the murder as a failed robbery rather than an assassination, and Caceress fellow activists have cast doubts on the governments commitment to a thorough investigation.

This month, members of Caceress family traveled to Washington, D.C., to call for an independent investigation into the murder, but U.S. officials have thus far said they would not launch a separate inquiry.

While Caceress and Moras murders both caught international attention, other killings continued without attracting much notice. In March alone, two other environmentalists were murdered in Central America. Nelson Garcia, a member of Caceress group of protesters, was shot in the face on March 16, and Guatemalan Walter Mendez was shot in his home after receiving threats for his campaigns against illegal logging. If recent years are any indication, the coming months will see many more deaths.

All of this pressure is because so many people knew [Caceres] personally, but this happens to countless others all the time, Knox said. The murders are just the tip of the iceberg because there are countless environmentalists who are harassed for every one that is murdered.
On April 24, 1916, some 1,600 rebellion-minded Irish nationalists staged an uprising, seeking an end to Great Britains rule in Ireland. Slow to react at the start, the British rushed troops across the Irish Sea and amassed a force of nearly 20,000 soldiers by the time the revolutionaries surrendered six days later.

Once the smoke cleared, 485 people were deadmostly civiliansand more than 2,600 wounded. Destruction of property, especially in central Dublin, was extensive$255 million in todays currency by one computation.

Though whats now known as the Easter Rising was planned and carried out in Ireland, America played a pivotal role in what happened in the rebellion. The Proclamation that was read announcing The Provisional Government of the Irish Republic named just one country besides Ireland. The republican cause, the document acknowledged, received support from the exiled children in America.

When the Rising occurred, one-fifth of the U.S. population (approximately 20 million people) claimed Irish heritage either through immigration or ancestry, according to census data. More than 1.5 million had migrated to the New World in the mid-19th century because of the Great Famine, and as the new immigrants became settled they often welcomed relatives to join them.

John Devoy, exiled to the U.S. in 1871 for anti-British activity, raised an estimated $100,000 ($2.5 million currently) and surreptitiously sent the money back to Ireland to buy arms and other supplies. Though a naturalized American citizen and long-time resident of New York, Devoy always referred to the island of his birth as home.

Seven of the uprising leaders signed the Proclamation, and five of them lived or spent time in America. One signatory, Thomas J. Clarke, was even a naturalized American citizen.

In assessments of the revolt, commentators on this side of the Atlantic drew parallels to Americas own revolutionary pastto the Boston Tea Party and the Battle of Lexingtonand P.H. Pearse (president of the Provisional Government and U.S. visitor in 1914) was often compared to George Washington.

The Risings combat and its aftermath14 rebels, including all seven signatories, faced firing squads in Dublin between May 3 and 12became front-page news in the U.S. The New York Times devoted page-one attention to news from Ireland for 14 consecutive days. During a 19-day period (April 25 through May 13), front-page stories appeared in The New York Times 17 days, The Boston Globe 16, The Chicago Tribune and The World (in New York) 11.

On May 2, The Washington Post published an editorial that, in retrospect, is newsworthy in itself. Arguing that the rebellion was poorly organized and poorly executed, The Post projects into the future with a warning for Britain about responding to the revolt.

The uprising, abortive as it proved to be, is nevertheless a reminder that the Irish question remains to be settled, the editorial says. If the British government has not entirely lost its balance, it will not make fierce reprisals in Ireland, but will deal tolerantly even with the ringleaders of the insurrection.

But the fierce reprisals, ultimately, lasted longer than the actual revolt. When the executed rebels began to be called martyrs in articles, public opinion took a definite turn. Strong criticism began to be leveled at the United Kingdom, while a sense of compassion developed for the republican-seeking fighters.

Among Irish Americans what was happening a century ago prompted concern for relatives and friends. Less parochially, the general public became curious whether a new front was taking shape in the Great War being waged in Europe. Was the British empire facing bloody internal hostility as well as an existential threat externally from Germany and other Central Powers?

Throughout the spring of 1916, Sir Cecil Spring Rice, Britains ambassador in Washington, sent regular dispatches back to London, describing American thinking. In late April, he said, The attitude of public opinion as to the Irish rebellion is on the whole satisfactory.

But, after the executions and the condemnation they provoked, he reported in June, The attitude towards England is changed for the worse by recent events in Ireland, adding later . . . I do not think that anything we could do would conciliate the Irish here. They have blood in their eyes when they look our way.

Sympathy and support for the republican cause increased, both in Ireland and America, during the summer of 1916. One person, though, who kept distance from what he viewed as an internal matter for the British was Woodrow Wilson.

Seeking re-election to the White House, Wilson worked hard to keep the Irish Question at more than arms length from his campaign, despite the historic loyalty of Irish Americans to the Democratic Party. While Americans on their own provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in humanitarian aid, he and his administration remained remote and silent.

But 47 years after the uprising, another president made a point of honoring the rebels and what they signified. Six months before his assassination, John Kennedy became the first foreign head of state to visit the military cemetery, where the executed leaders are buried.

After that ceremony, Kennedy delivered a speech in Irelands parliament that looked back to a time of bloody struggle yet eventual success. He boldly asserted, No people ever believed more deeply in the cause of Irish freedom than the people of the United States.

With the Easter Rising, its not poetic hyperbole to invoke W.B. Yeatss line in Easter 1916: All changed, changed utterly.

Robert Schmuhl is professor of American studies and journalism at the University of Notre Dame and author of Irelands Exiled Children: America and the Easter Rising, published by Oxford University Press.
Another year, another spring offensive. The massive truck bomb that detonated in Tuesdays morning rush hour followed by gunfire, killing 28 and wounding hundreds more, was sadly nothing new for the Afghan capital. More than 15 years after Western leaders declared victory over the Taliban in Afghanistan, the insurgents now control more territory than at any time since.

In Britain, the attack did not even make the lunchtime news. Western leaders want to pretend the war is over and the media has been falling in line, even though 12,000 NATO troops are still there, including 9,800 Americans and 500 Brits. The wife of one deployed British soldier told me the Post Office refused to take her care package, assuring her all the troops left long ago.

Instead the focus is on ISIS and Syria and dealing with the wave of refugees overwhelming Europe.

Yet, the second biggest group of people fleeing their homeland are Afghans. Last week on the Greek island of Lesbos, waiting for the Pope to come and play Good Samaritan in a detention camp, I met newly arrived Afghan families who had made the 3,000 mile journey. They included a widow and her two sons who had sold their house to raise the $20,000 cost.

The only good thing they had to say about the NATO presence was it had brought in mobile phones that enabled them to join Whatsapp to plan their migration.

They had left despite the likelihood that Europe will send them back. If your apartment is burning you are going to jump out even if in doing so you might lose your life, said the elder son.

Not only are the Taliban on the up in places where they never were, but ISIS has also been carving a foothold in eastern Afghanistan.

Are we in danger of losing the place where all this started  the land we swore would never again be left as ungoverned space in which terrorism could flourish? Its common to trace the beginnings of ISIS back to the war in Iraq but its founders cut their teeth in Afghanistanas did one of the main jihadi recruiters in the now infamous Brussels suburb of Molenbeek which spawned the Paris attacks.

If Afghanistan is lost thats very sad for not only did we lose many lives and spend billions of dollars there but it once seemed a great success. Happy endings are few and far between in my job as a war correspondent yet back on Christmas Eve 2001, I remember sitting on the roof of Kabuls Mustafa Hotel looking out over the hills and thinking this was one. Music, long banned by the Taliban, was blaring up from the street. The first snow was falling and children playing.

Just 60 days after the first US bombing raid following 9/11, the Taliban regime was gone, far quicker than Pentagon estimates. They had been driven out by a combination of B52 bombers and Afghan fighters, as well as buying off commanders with CIA dollars in a latter-day version of the Great Game. Lt Colonel Rob Fry, commandant of the Royal Marines at the time, told me; We thought wed found the philosophers stone of intervention.

So what went wrong? How did we turn success in Afghanistan into defeat?

In the end 140,000 NATO troops with the most sophisticated weapons on earth failed to overcome a bunch of supposedly ragtag guerrillas led by a one-eyed mullah whose own followers described as dumb in the mouth and who later turned out to be dead.

If we understood why, we might understand why it is we cant end wars any more.

In my view the problem was political more than military. As Gen Macarthur said it is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it. After the initial stage, we never really knew what we were trying to doand we didnt understand what we were going into.

People have questioned why we hadnt learnt from history. Britain had after all fought three Afghan wars of which it lost two. And there was a more recent experience. If you go to Herat, a warlord called General Wahab has built a rotunda on a hill containing the extraordinary Jihad Museum.

It houses captured Soviet weapons, tanks, Mig fighter jets and a garish gallery of warlord portraits. Under the dome is a gruesome sound and light display of how the Russians were defeated, complete with bullet sounds and bloodcurdling screams.

We also have an actual live Russian, boasted Gen Wahab. It turned out the guide is a Russian who was taken prisoner and stayed on.

When he dies will be buried here and then we will have a dead Russian, he added.

No one can visit that museum and think invading Afghanistan is a good idea. Yet the point, says Gen Wahab, is not triumphalism. The point is to show the new generation they should not go back to fighting.

Afghanistan has a very young population70 per cent of the people there are under 30. Most dont want to go back to fighting. But they need opportunities. Without them, they join Taliban or ISIS or use those mobile phones to look abroad and decide to leave.

Lamb is the author of Farewell Kabul; From Afghanistan to a More Dangerous World, forthcoming from HarperCollins on May 3.
PARIS  Near Place Vendome in the most luxurious corner of Paris, a few steps from the Ritz and across from a new Louis Vuitton store, but high above the street where nobody is likely to notice, a legend engraved in stone marks the site of the Ambassade du Texas, and informs the passer-by below that on 29 September 1839 France was the first nation to recognize that short-lived republic.

This historical relic of Lone Star independence in la ville lumiere is a quaint reminder of the nation that once was and, between the etched lines, of its particularly grim, even gruesome, history of slavery, anti-Hispanic racism, grand delusions and grinding privations. French recognition, after all, was not a matter of idealism or ideology, but of greed, and much of Texas at the time was a hell on earth that some of the cynical French tried to sell to their countrymen as paradise.

Today we are hearing once again there are Texans who want independence. Not a lot, perhaps, but apparently enough to embarrass the already embarrassing state Republican Party (home to Canadian-born Sen. Ted Cruz) at its convention next month. Between 10 and 22 county and district conventions, depending on whom you talk to, have said the topic should be debated.

Theres almost no chance Texas Republicans will actually vote in favor of seceding, mind younot least because most of the party wants nothing to do with this, writes Amber Phillips in The Washington Post, but the fact were even mentioning secession and the Texas GOP convention in the same sentence suggests that the once-fringe movement has become a priority for at least some conservative grass-roots Texans.

In 2009, Texas Gov. Rick Perry flirted with the notion of secession, if Washington continues to thumb their noses at the American people, who knows what may come out of that?

But a key reason the modern secession movement looks more than a bit ridiculous, aside from the fact its unconstitutional, is because one of its founders in the 1990s was a wacko named Richard Lance Rick McLaren, now serving a 99-year sentence for kidnapping and engaging in organized crime.

After McLaren had been in the slammer for about a decade, in 2007, the Houston Chronicle found Hostage No. 802782, as he called himself, completely unrepentant. Like many a fundamentalist and terrorist, he cherry-picked historical documents to convince himself and a handful of followers, Were just the (keepers) of the 1836 constitution.

In 1997, after a week-long standoff with Texas Rangers, McLaren had agreed to a two-page cease-fire accord that, in his view, as the Chronicle put it, duped authorities into opening the door for Texas freedom. Eventually.

A former district attorney put McLarens document in perspective. His mind was so scattered that day, we could have given him a banana peel and hed have signed the back of it, Albert Valdez told the Chronicle. It was just nonsense, but it was a way of appeasing him."

When one delves into the little-known history of Franco-Texan relations, one finds that they, too, were rife with chicanery.

When Texas was part of Mexico, slavery was outlawed and under threat, but when it won its independence in 1836, it wrote the right to own blacks into its constitution, while ruling out citizenship for Africans, the descendants of Africans, and Indians. (In 1836 there were about 5,000 slaves in Texas, a quarter-century later, there were 183,000, making up about a third of the states entire population.)

Francois Lagarde, a professor emeritus at the University of Texas who is now back in his native France, is one of the few scholars whos looked closely at that period from a European perspective. In the 2003 book, The French in Texas, which he edited, Lagarde notes that while the slave-holding guarantee encouraged immigration from the southern United States, it complicated hoped-for annexation because of Northern opposition, and it caused a problem when it came to desperately needed international recognition.

The French and British, clearly, did not give a damn about the so-called Monroe Doctrine warning foreign powers to stay out of the Western Hemisphere. They were all over the place, in fact, and ready to protect their interests. But the British, who had abolished slavery in 1833, would not recognize the independence of Texas until the Texas Congress ratified a secret treaty on the suppression of the slave trade in 1842, according to Lagarde. (As I wrote in my book, Our Man in Charleston, last year, stopping the African slave trade was a British obsession.)

The French werent so picky. They still had slaves in their colonies (abolition didnt come until 1848) and they had considerable ambitions in Latin America. Decades later they would conquer Mexico and try to establish a satellite empire there, and in 1838 they already were nibbling around the fringes of the country. Theyd sent a naval squadron to Vera Cruz to blockade Mexican ports in retaliation for unpaid debts, as Lagarde writes, and by the end of the year they had stormed the city.

One of the French admirals aides visited Galveston and Houston a few months later and wrote a report, quoted by Lagarde, that seems to have been a model of the genre: Mexico would never win Texas back as the Anglo-Saxon race was obviously superior to the degenerate Spanish race. Slavery was unavoidable, as the profit was high, and if France were to establish very advantageous commercial relationships with Texas, it would have to allow slavery.

At about the same time, Lagarde tells us, the French embassy in Washington sent a young, ambitious and rather unscrupulous junior diplomat, Alphonse Dubois de Saligny, to check out the new republic. It took him three months to get there from D.C., he spent about the same amount of time traveling to some parts of Texas, lied about traveling to others, and wrote a glowing report in which he opined that the Mexican race was doomed to disappear before the onrush of modern civilization pioneered by the Texians, that annexation by the United States would never take place, and that the Indian threat was negligible.

Thus France should recognize the Republic of Texas to take advantage, in de Salignys words, of the opportunity open to us to establish our influence over a portion of this continent, and to open important outlets for our industry and navigation.

De Saligny then went back to Paris, where he worked with the Texas envoy there on the Treaty of Amity, Navigation and Commerce signed in October 1839. According to Lagarde, there may have been a little sweetener involved: a $50,000 bribe to the French authorities.

But the hoped-for influence and commerce between France and Texas never did materialize. Internationally, the Anglo-Saxon Texans preferred the Anglo-Saxon English, and, close at hand, yes, they did want to be annexed by the United States, and finally they wereprovoking the 1846-1848 war in which the U.S. won California as well.

De Saligny, meanwhile, seems to have let his easily caricatured French arrogance get the better of him, pissing off the locals at every turn by paying his bills with counterfeit currency, or not at all, and sending a flunky to kill the pigs (with pistols and a pitchfork) of one of the men to whom he owed cash. When the man with the pigs grabbed de Saligny by the throat and shook him, de Saligny, indignant, wrote, In view of such facts, Sir, I should be tempted to believe myself in the midst of a savage tribe, rather than in the bosom of a civilized and friendly nation.

As Lagarde tells us, despite efforts to persuade the French to come to beautiful Texas, few did. At the time, the newly conquered French colony of Algeria was much more promising. A few of the French who did come left a mark. One Parisian designed the first state capitol building in Austin, but Lagarde concludes on a note that suggests just how difficult life was for most of those who put their faith in the vaunted promise of an independent Texas. He quotes a report in the Houston Telegraph and Texas Register written in 1843 from the settlement at Victoria, about 120 miles southeast of San Antonio:

The few French Families that settled near this town have suffered many privations.  They expected to find a paradise in Texas, where they would obtain the comforts and even the luxuries of life with little labor, and of course they were disappointed. Several of them became insane, probably from discouragement and the suffering they were enduring. One of them, an old lady, while insane paddled across the Guadeloupe [River] on a log, and as soon as she got upon the opposite bank, she commenced dancing and singing in high glee, supposing she was out of Texas. She had previously been exceedingly melancholy.
ROME  Just what is it that the Vatican does not get about predator priests? Apparently a lot.

Father Joseph Jeyapaul is a priest from India who admitted to raping two adolescent girls in Minnesota when he served the Crookston diocese from 2004 to 2005.

After being charged with the abuse, which included rape and forcing at least one of the girls to perform fellatio on him, he fled home to India, where he was eventually arrested on an Interpol warrant. He was then extradited back to Minnesota, where he admitted his heinous crimes and entered a plea bargain in which, in exchange for a lighter sentence, he copped to molestation of one of the girls.

Jeyapaul was suspended from the priesthood and served a year and a day in prison in Minnesota, then was deported back to India after his release last July. The Minnesota diocese where he worked also settled a civil lawsuit with the victims in which one accused him of systematic abuse in the confessional of the Blessed Sacrament Church in Greenbush, Minnesota, where he would then tell the girl it was her fault, that she had made him impure.

How much more proof would one need that the man cannot be trusted with minors?

Apparently, Jeyapauls rap sheet is not enough to kick him out of the priesthood for good. In February, the Vatican approved lifting his suspension from the priesthood and agreed that he could be reassigned to a new parish in India. That parish even made him the diocesan head of its commission for education.

We are not only disgusted and alarmed, but we realize there is a serious danger, Minnesota attorney Jeff Anderson said during a press conference last week. Pope Francis has broken a pledge. This priest is a predator who needs to be stopped, and they have chosen not to stop him.

Anderson, who has been at the forefront of the legal battle for victims of clerical sex abuse in Minnesota, is involved because he represents one of the victims Jeyapaul went to prison for abusing. Megan Peterson, now 26, has stepped forward to tell her story to protect children. She asked Anderson to file a public danger (nuisance) federal lawsuit against the Ootacamund diocese in Tamil Nadu, India.

Standing by Anderson this week at the press conference, she said that when she heard that the Vatican had lifted Jeyapauls suspension for crimes against her, she felt abused, degraded and re-victimized all over again.

Peterson is asking the Indian diocese for more than $75,000 in damages for making her relive her trauma by forgiving her abuser in what is seen as a legal attempt to get the Indian diocese to rethink allowing Jeyapaul to start his new job.

Children deserve to be protected in India and nobody is doing this at this point," Peterson said at the televised press conference. "This pope has said that bishops who cover up [sexual abuse] and the offending clerics have no place in the church. I feel like this is a slap in the face."

Peterson is not the only one calling foul. The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) says this is the last straw. It may be the most irresponsible Vatican move weve ever seen: Catholic officials in Rome have lifted the suspension of a recently convicted predator priest, SNAPs outreach director Barbara Dorris said in a statement. We are stunned and saddened by such blatant recklessness and callousness.

Dorris added that the survivors are grateful that Peterson filed the lawsuit, which she referred to as a novel approach to trying to protect children from known predators by taking legal action to expose predators the church has reinstated or protected.

Still, it gives one pause to think that the Vatican could turn such a blind eye to a case in which the priest admitted to abusing minors and was sentenced in a secular court.

I say this carefully and only after considerable thought, David Clohessy, SNAPs director told The Daily Beast. The Jeyapaul case is the worst case weve seen.

Whether Jeyapauls new diocese will consider the lawsuit and refuse to let the errant priest keep his job is of great concern to Anderson and victims alike.

The Vatican under Pope Francis and the Bishop in India have both made the decision to permit this predator to continue in ministry after his conviction for child sex abuse and are promoting him as safe and trustworthy and holy, Anderson said. And as we speak, there are hundreds of children who we know trust him and believe him to be trustworthy.
GRAND ISLAND  Racing restrictions that were briefly placed on about 25 horses at a second Fonner Park barn in Grand Island were lifted Saturday.

The Nebraska Department of Agriculture announced the restrictions Friday afternoon after a horse in the barn exhibited signs of equine herpes. On Saturday, those restrictions were lifted after test results showed the horse did not have the illness, department spokeswoman Christin Kamm said.

The racing venue is under quarantine after three other horses there recently tested positive for equine herpes. One horse was euthanized; the other two are being treated.

The 750 to 850 horses at Fonner Park can't leave until the minimum 21-day quarantine is lifted. Fonner will continue racing through May 7, but the horses in the barn where the sick horses were kept are currently banned from racing, Kamm said.

Prairie Meadows Race Track in Altoona, Iowa, has quarantined and is monitoring horses that recently arrived from Fonner Park.

The virus cannot be spread to humans or other animals, but it can be transferred to other horses through boots, buckets, clothes, feed, tack or alternative means. Symptoms of the disease include fever, decreased coordination, hind limb weakness, leaning against a wall to maintain balance, lethargy and the inability to rise.
College Station High School student Samana Askari won the Interior Design Star Event at the recent state Family, Career and Community Leaders of America contest, and will advance to the national contest this summer in San Diego. The school's culinary team, composed of Mia Elizondo, Ariel Carter and Esella Aguilar took third place; and Katelyn Kocman won the cupcake battle. A&M Consolidated High School student Catya Martinez-Gloria placed fifth in the state fashion design contest. Ten other College Station school district students received gold or silver medals in their individual assessments.
A&M Consolidated High School student Janisah Saripada recently took top honors in the Extemporaneous Health Poster event at the HOSA-Future Health Professionals contest in Galveston. Saripada was given the theme of "Heart Age" and had three hours to design and create her poster. With her victory, she earned a spot in the national HOSA contest in Nashville, Tennessee, in June. HOSA is an international student organization created to promote career opportunities in the health care industry and to enhance the delivery of quality health care to all.
Titans, the fourth Texas epic from San Antonio novelist Leila Meacham, features twins separated at birth who find their lives intertwined in the early days of Texas oil (Grand Central Publishing, $26 hardcover).

Nathan Holloway is content with life on the family wheat farm near Gainesville until a wealthy stranger from Dallas arrives, claiming to be his birth father.

Samantha Gordon is the only child of a well-to-do ranching couple near Fort Worth. Although she is happy with her adoptive parents, Samantha naturally has questions about where she came from. A mysterious letter from an Oklahoma doctor sets her on a quest to know more.

Meanwhile, Texas is anticipating an oil boom. The story is set in 1900, six years after oil was discovered in Corsicana and a year before the first big boom would blow in at Spindletop, near Beaumont.

Nathan and Samantha, at age 20, become major figures in an effort by a Dallas company to drill for oil on the Gordons' ranch property.

Love, lies, secrets, loyalty, betrayal and triumph all come into play as the story unfolds.

Meacham keeps the reader moving quickly through the 594-page saga as she did with her earlier Texas epics - Roses (2010), Tumbleweeds (2012) and Somerset (2014). I have enjoyed all four books, reading each in just two or three days, and they're all in the 500-600 page range.

Her novels are well-researched family dramas, packed with numerous twists, turns and surprises. With Mother's Day just around the corner, Titans might be on the wish list of moms who are Meacham fans.

Meacham, 77, wrote Roses after retiring as a high school English teacher. Back in the 1980s, she penned three romance novels, and now that she has become a best-selling author those three earlier books are being reissued starting this summer.

Meanwhile, she is at work on another novel set in Paris (France, not Texas) during World War II.

Meacham will be presented the A. C. Greene Award, given annually to a distinguished Texas author, at the 2016 West Texas Book Festival in Abilene in September.

Texas women: Noted Austin author Sarah Bird pays tribute to Texas women in an essay published as a small gift book, A Love Letter to Texas Women (University of Texas Press, $16.95 hardcover).

"Whatever end of the political spectrum you want to come at her from," writes Bird, "there is something undeniably special about the Texas Woman.

"It doesn't matter whether or not you believe you are special," she continues, "because the rest of the world does."

Lady Bird Johnson and Laura Bush get specific recognition, as well as Ann Richards, Molly Ivins, Barbara Jordan, the writer's classmates at a Catholic school who made her feel welcome as a newcomer, the friendly ladies at a neighborhood beauty salon and women who teach their men to dance.
Hundreds turned out to St. Francis Episcopal Church in College Station on Saturday for the annual Blessing of the Animals Festival, which featured everything from rescue dogs to llamas and snakes and the highlight of the event, a blessing from the church's rector bestowed upon pets brought by community members.

"We say thanks to God for the animals and ask Him for health, a happy home and a good life for the animal," church rector Dean Lawrence said. "Saint Francis is our namesake, and he is known for being the patron saint of animals ... We do this based on the history of the church and who Saint Francis is, and we want to represent him through our church."

The festival has been hosted by the church for nearly 10 years, Lawrence said. The church partners not only with shelters and animal organizations, but also the Bryan Police Department and College Station Fire Department. Firefighters brought a fire engine to the festival to educate the public on the truck's features and the fire department itself, and Bryan Police Department canine handler Sgt. Chad Hanks performed training exercises with his K-9 partner, Kohn.

"They asked us to come out here, and this is a big event," Hanks said. "Part of being a K-9 officer is performing at these functions. It's also nice to get out and do stuff besides just being on patrol. It's nice to see people."

When Kohn wasn't performing police dog exercises, he was resting in a festival tent, getting belly rubs from visiting children. Hanks said he liked having Kohn interact with the public.

"People will try and donate dogs to us advertising that the dog bites people all the time, and that's not what we want," he said. "I want a dog like Kohn, who's calm and listens to commands and lets kids pet him."

Urgent Animals of Hearne had several dozen dogs and puppies on display for adoption, as did Aggieland Humane Society and Bryan Animal Center. Groups, including the Reptile Hospice & Sanctuary of Texas, brought along animals for the public to interact with, such as snakes, lizards and mammals ranging from llamas to rabbits.

Dozens were drawn to the adoptable pets at the festival playing with and visiting the dogs of Urgent Animals of Hearne. Though the organization wasn't performing on-site adoptions without pre-screening owners, visitors could arrange to adopt them after the event. Urgent Animals of Hearne has 130 dogs in its care, and all of its kennels are full.

"These are all dogs that would otherwise be dead without us," said volunteer Deb Fatheree. "The animal shelter in Hearne only has eight kennels."

Fatheree said many people showed interest in the dogs at the festival, with many wanting to either adopt or foster.

Hannah Musgrove, a volunteer with Big Dog Huge Paws out of Bryan, said she fosters several of the dogs on display at the festival.

"I have been working in animal rescue for the last six years, and there are never enough people rescuing, never enough foster homes," she said. "If coming out on a Saturday and spending time here helps the animals, then it's worth it."
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By Melissa Carter, Special to The Gleaner

According to the National Network to End Domestic Violence, financial abuse is a contributing factor in 98% of all domestic violence cases. Abusers exert power and control in numerous ways, including limiting or controlling access to financial assets. This dynamic creates forced dependency and entrapment. This could occur throughout the relationship or surface when a victim attempts to leave an abuser.

In response to this chilling reality, the Allstate Foundation has awarded over $1 million in 11 years to the Kentucky Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Allstate Foundation funds support KCADV's Economic Empowerment work through 15 domestic violence shelters throughout Kentucky, including Owensboro Area Shelter and Information Service (OASIS).

I recently had the opportunity to work with domestic violence survivors at OASIS. This experience was enlightening to the barriers survivors face to becoming financially self-sufficient and independent.

Many victims are disallowed from working, are forced to quit a job, or suffer impaired job performance as an effect of ongoing trauma. Abusers may force victims to accrue debt or sign financial documents, or they may make unfavorable financial transactions in the victim's name. For victims of economic abuse, it can feel overwhelming or impossible to consider the cost of independence. When a survivor has children, she may feel additional financial strain.

The Allstate Foundation's funding supports individual case management, financial education classes, Individual Development Accounts (IDAs), micro loans, credit counseling, free tax preparation, and housing. Last year, 2,600 individuals received financial empowerment services using The Allstate Foundation's Moving Ahead Through Financial Management curriculum.

Allstate Foundation funding has also helped 115 survivors purchase their own cars, so that they can commute to work or school.

I am grateful to have the opportunity to help survivors in the Owensboro area navigate the often-daunting financial mainstream. Financial competency and independence are necessary to building safe, healthy, and strong communities. I am proud to work for a company like Allstate that is so committed to empowering survivors and ending domestic violence.

If you suspect a friend or family member is in an abusive relationship, the most important thing you can do is to let them know that they have support and options to leave the relationship. If you are concerned about the safety of your friend or family member, or to learn about victim services in your area, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or 1-800-787-3224.

Melissa Carter is an Allstate agent and a resident of Henderson.
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A court battle for records that shed light on some of Kentucky's most heinous child abuse cases has finally ended, and the resolution is a huge victory for the public. It establishes that government agencies are not above the law.

The state agreed Monday to pay nearly $700,000  including $250,000 in fines  to the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader to settle their open records case against the Cabinet for Health and Family Services.

In addition, earlier this year the state settled a case with the Todd County Standard and agreed to pay the paper $33,511 for legal expenses and $6,625 in fines. In that case, the cabinet tried to withhold records detailing the abuse of 9-year-old Amy Dye, who was beaten to death in February 2011 by her adoptive brother.

The state's efforts to conceal records in cases where children suffered fatal or near-fatal injuries from abuse and neglect began in 2009. That's when the dispute started between the cabinet and the state's two largest newspapers.

For seven years, attorneys for the cabinet repeatedly fought the disclosure of abuse records. Running up legal bills with taxpayer money, the cabinet tried to argue it was protecting the confidentiality of family members and others connected to children in abuse cases. But the cabinet's motives were questionable. It appeared the cabinet was more interested in hiding evidence of its own shortcomings.

In the Dye case, for example, the cabinet denied certain records even existed before eventually being forced to turn over them over to the Todd County newspaper. When they were finally released, we learned Amy Dye's teachers had warned social workers about signs of abuse in her home.

Some of the harshest criticism of the cabinet's efforts to withhold information came from Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd. In an order he signed in December 2013, he wrote, "The cabinet has intentionally continued to employ a wholesale blanket approach to withholding public records despite such an approach being prohibited by the Open Records Act and contrary to the court's repeated orders to support any and all redactions by case-by-case analysis."

Shepherd, who also wrote that state officials had behaved like the open records law was "an obstacle to be circumvented rather than a law mandating compliance," imposed a $756,000 fine against the cabinet. Then the cabinet, again spending the public's money on legal fees, appealed.

Two months ago, the Kentucky Court of Appeals upheld Shepherd's ruling. Gov. Matt Bevin's administration appealed to the state Supreme Court, but only in an effort to have the fine reviewed. As a result, the settlement agreement was reached.

Wes Jackson, the Courier-Journal's president, and Rufus Friday, the Herald-Leader's president and publisher, both said their papers are looking at options to use the fine money  $125,000 each  to promote child welfare and government transparency. Their focus on serving the public is honorable, and we commend their efforts.

Bevin, through spokeswoman Jessica Ditto, put the blame for a long and expensive legal battle on former Gov. Steve Beshear.

"This settlement saves the taxpayers over $500,000, plus additional legal expenses," Ditto said.

Bevin's approach to resolving this case could be a good first step in changing the cabinet's secretive and self-serving culture. We'll know in time if he truly stands for transparency and open government  as he should.

This editorial was written by the Kentucky New Era.
Trick-or-treat, walk Ed Stone's Haunted Halls and more this week in SE Iowa

Your guide to getting off the couch and out the door this week in Southeast Iowa.
Since Brandon Blackstock has been gone? Kelly Clarkson may be able to breathe again, but it now sounds like the beloved 
NORWALK -- As the opioid epidemic surges in Connecticut, so has the number of babies born with neonatal abstinence syndrome, a set of problems experienced by newborns exposed to opiate drugs in the womb.

The number is small, but has more than doubled in a decade, from 0.27 percent of all births in 2002 to 0.73 percent in 2011, according to a report by the state Department of Public Health. Nationwide, nearly 22,000 babies were born with the syndrome in 2012, a five-fold increase since 2000, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Not all hospitals are seeing a rise in such births. For instance, Norwalk Hospital doesn't report a recent increase in babies exposed to opioids and a spokesperson said the numbers are "holding steady."

However, that doesn't mean the city is immune to the problem.

For decades, there have been women who have gotten pregnant while addicted to opioids, said Alan Mathis, CEO of Norwalk-based addiction treatment center Liberation Program.

Though the situation is sad, and far from ideal, he said there is a silver lining.

"When an (addicted) woman becomes pregnant, typically they work harder to get into treatment," he said. "It's a wake-up call, and we in the field know it's our responsibility to get them into treatment and provide a full array of treatment and support to them, so they can be healthy and the baby can be healthy."

Addict and

mother

Jessica had been hooked on heroin for two years when she found out she was 4 months pregnant.

Shortly afterward, while in prison, she decided to start taking methadone to treat her addiction. She had been told if she quit cold turkey, she had a higher chance of miscarrying.

But she was also told her baby would go through withdrawal once he or she was born because of the exposure to methadone, which -- like heroin -- is an opioid.

Jessica, 21, worried about this for months, knowing firsthand how awful withdrawal can be. Finally, on April 9, she gave birth to her son, Nicholas.

She whispered to him over and over, "I'm sorry.

"I love you.

"I only did it to try to help you."

Jessica, who grew up in New Fairfield, was terrified what would happen to Nicholas. Babies withdrawing from opioids can have seizures, fevers, breathing difficulties, diarrhea, excessive sweating and high-pitched crying, among other symptoms.

Would Nicholas suffer as the opioids left his tiny body?

How to treat

drug-exposed babies

Doctors and nurses statewide commonly use a version of the Finnegan Neonatal Abstinence Scoring System, a tool developed in the 1970s, to determine whether a drug-exposed baby needs treatment. The tool employs a list of questions about symptoms and a range of scores, which doctors tally to make a conclusion.

If the babies score high enough, medicines like morphine are commonly used to manage their withdrawal symptoms. Morphine depresses the symptoms but prolongs the time the baby needs to stay in the hospital after birth.

A new approach is being taken at Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital, which has campuses in New Haven and Bridgeport, allowing babies with neonatal abstinence syndrome to spend less time in the hospital and receive less medication.

The main idea is to bring parents into the treatment process.

"They are not included in the care; they are the care," said Dr. Matthew Grossman, who worked with a team at the hospital to reform the way they cared for babies with the syndrome.

"We tell the parents, 'You are the treatment and you need to be here as much as possible,' " Grossman said. "You have everything your baby needs."

The infants and their parents stay in their own rooms in the general ward, which is important because these babies need a low-stimulation environment. Parents are encouraged to swaddle, rock and feed their babies more often.

"If the baby is in a quiet environment, being fed by the mother frequently, comforting the baby, holding the baby, it seems to make a big difference in terms of reducing the hospitalization for the baby," said Dr. Robert Herzlinger, director of neonatology at the Bridgeport Hospital campus of Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital.

The hospital has decreased the average length of stay for babies with the syndrome from 28 days, as was typical from 2003 to 2007, to 7.4 days. Morphine use decreased from 98 to 24 percent, and the maximum dose administered was reduced by more than 50 percent, Grossman said.

For its innovative approach, the hospital was selected to receive the 2015 Pediatric Quality Award from the Children's Hospital Association, which represents 220 hospitals nationwide.

Meanwhile, Mathis and his Liberation Programs colleagues stressed the importance of getting mothers into treatment while they are still pregnant. "For women who are not in treatment and using opiates, the chances of them going to term aren't as good," said Patti Juliana, Liberation's chief program officer. But, she said, many of the women she's seen in her decades in the treatment business are willing to get clean for their babies. "They'll do for the babies what they won't do for themselves," she said.

Moms and medicine

Other area hospitals use a combination of parent bonding and medications to treat babies exposed to opioids, which include heroin and prescription painkillers like Vicodin and Percocet.

Dr. Kristen Hougland, director of the neonatal intensive care unit at Danbury Hospital, called the bonding a "crucial" aspect of the treatment.

"One of the main things that we can do in the NICU for any family is to ensure that they have good bonding with their babies, and that they feel both bonded and comfortable with the infant when they take them home," Hougland said.

"Sometimes you're able to interact and help with that," she said. "Sometimes people aren't at the point where they are able to work on the issues."

Babies born with the syndrome stay in the hospital's NICU, which has individual rooms where parents can stay with them.

At Stamford Hospital, doctors use morphine and a drug called clonidine to treat babies with the syndrome.

Dr. Gerald Rakos, chairman of the hospital's pediatrics department, said hospital staff decided to add the second medication about two years ago. Since then, Rakos said, it has helped cut hospital stays almost in half.

He, too, stressed the importance of involving parents. "There's no question that we try to involve the parents as much as we can," he said.

Years afterward, he added, these children do seem to have higher rates of learning disabilities and behavioral issues.

"There is some biological basis for it, but a lot has to do with resources and child-rearing," he said.

What is important is the environment the babies go home to, Herzlinger added.

"They need to go home to a nurturing environment," he said. "If the mother is unable to provide or meet the physical and emotional needs of the baby, then that really could have an adverse effect."

Nicholas

After 24 hours of labor, Jessica gave birth to Nicholas, who weighed 7 pounds 7 ounces, at Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital.

Five days later, sitting side by side on a bed, she and Nicholas's father, Mike, changed their son's diaper. They took turns holding their son, who has deep blue eyes and a full head of dark brown hair.

Nicholas slept most of the time, letting out a cry every now and then. Nicky, as they call him, had mild withdrawal symptoms and didn't have to take morphine. Mike and Jessica said they were happy with the care they received at the hospital.

For the parents, their son symbolizes a new chance at life -- a chance to live their lives the way they had hoped before they became addicted to heroin.

Jessica and Mike took Percocet, a powerful prescription painkiller, before switching to less expensive heroin. They lived in abandoned buildings and the backseats of cars. They stole to pay for their drugs.

They both ended up in prison.

Jessica had been living in a treatment center in New Haven for the three months leading up to her birth. She and her son were discharged from the hospital on Thursday and will live at the center for another month while she finishes her rehabilitation.

Mike, 26, a certified machinist, hopes to find a job soon. He waits for Jessica and Nicholas to join him in Waterbury, where he lives with his parents.

"Our baby has given us a reason to do better in life," Mike said."He's truly a gift from God."

Staff writer Linda Conner Lambeck contributed to this report.
WESTPORT -- "Two Steps Forward: Contemporary Cuban Art," showcasing recent works by Cuban artists, will be on view starting April 29 at the Westport Arts Center.

The free opening reception for the show is set from 6 to 8 p.m. that evening at the arts center, 51 Riverside Ave. It will be on display through June 4.

The exhibition features contemporary Cuban art from the private collection of Greenwich residents Terri and Steven Certilman. The Certilmans obtained the pieces directly from the artists during travels to Cuba over the last decade, according to publicity from the arts center.

"The unique political, social and economic conditions in Cuba have combined to catalyze what may be the world's highest concentration of artistic talent," Steven Certilman said in a statement released by the arts center. "Their works are as diverse as the country's rich cultural heritage. It is said that the eyes are the windows of the soul. Art is the window to the Cuban soul."

Certilman and guest curator Arianne Faber Kolb curated the show's painting and sculpture. The exhibition title of "Two Steps Forward" refers to the current political and artistic climate in Cuba and the thaw in relations with the United States. Even though travel and trade restrictions now allow artists to access more resources and gain exposure, change continues to be slow, according to the arts center, so the title officials chose refers to the adage, "two steps forward, one step back."

Artists represented in the exhibition include established figures such as Abel Barroso, Luis Enrique Camejo, Manuel Mendive, Juan Roberto Diago, Jose Roberto Fabelo and Kcho, as well as younger artists Joniel Leon, Harold Lopez, William Perez and Mabel Poblet.

For information, call 203-222-7070 or visit www.westportartscenter.org.
ROWAYTON

Most Rowaytonites will tell you that there aren't many better ways to enjoy a nice, warm summer morning along the Five Mile River than by lounging out on Rowayton Market's waterside patio.

Whether it's grabbing one of their heavenly breakfast sandwiches or simply wasting some time while waiting for Downunder Kayaking to open up, you're unlikely to find a more serene setting.

Yet, frequenters of the "Market" (as locals lovingly refer to it) will quickly notice during their next visit that something--more specifically, someone--is missing from this idyllic setting.

That someone is Douglas Brooks, the behind-the-counter server at the Market who for the past eight years had been lighting up customers' and co-workers' days alike. Unfortunately, customers will no longer be greeted by that gold-glinted (thanks to a few golden teeth) smile of Brooks, as the 41-year-old Honduras native lost his battle with stomach cancer at the end of March.

"The customers loved him because he always would remember their orders, and the workers loved him because he was this hilarious guy who had an uncanny way of creating new ways to never stop talking about his family," said James Murphy, a former co-worker of Brooks' and recurrent customer at the Market.

The Market will be accepting cash donations at their coffee bar and checkout register to help support Brooks' widow, Leticia, and his two daughters.

WEST NORWALK

Many high school seniors, as well as their parents, have reached the conclusion that college tuitions have reached a simultaneously mind-numbing and all-time pocket-emptying point.

Similarly, all recent college graduates can attest to one simple truth: take all the money that you can get for school and take it from anywhere that you can get it.

The West Norwalk Association, too, realizes the financial constraints that college can place on the shoulders of ambitious college applicants, which is why they are offering high school seniors from the neighborhood a chance to apply for a scholarship to go towards the growing costs of continuing their educations.

If you are a current West Norwalk resident who has lived in the neighborhood for at least 4 years and are an accomplished student who demonstrates character and a community-oriented mindset, then you may be eligible for this $1,000 scholarship.

Submissions will be accepted up until May 1, when the neighborhood association's board members will then select the scholarship recipient. To review the terms of entering the contest and download the application, go to westnorwalk.org and click on the scholarship tab.

The winner will be announced later on June 1.

SOUTH NORWALK

One South Norwalk resident is seeking additional manpower in what he describes as a battle to wrest control of the neighborhood from the hands of a local contractor and to place it back into the hands of the community.

After only about a dozen residents showed up to Thursday's Zoning Commission hearing to speak in defense of preserving the South Norwalk community, self-proclaimed community activist Ernie Dumas is leading the charge to galvanize his neighbors and redouble efforts to remove the Norwalk-based AMEC Carting from what used to be primarily a residential neighborhood in the vicinities of Lubrano Place, Olean and Kossuth streets, Hemlock Place and Belle Avenue in South Norwalk.

Dumas claims that the early-morning ruckus and the displeasing aesthetics caused by AMEC's commercial usage of their properties on these streets is disrupting the way of life in this area of South Norwalk.

"A lot of us are concerned because this isn't the right way of life for people, who have lived in this area for their entire lives and own homes here, to have to sit here and look at this," said Dumas, who has lived in the area since 1997. "If the city really wanted to help us and do anything for the people of this community, they would come down here, plant some trees and make it look nice."

Dumas is imploring other like-minded residents to join him as he and his small coalition look to reorganize in time for when the application to remove AMEC's large storage containers from the neighborhood is re-examined in May.

To join Dumas' cause, call him at (203) 943-6550.

CRANBURY

When a rumor about a proposed zip-line began to permeate through the Cranbury neighborhood back in early December, it was the final straw for some homeowners in the area.

In reply to the latest perceived affront from the city, some Cranbury residents got together and elected to form a group -- the Cranbury Preservation Association (CPA) -- whose mission was to preserve what they viewed as a delicate balance within the neighborhood.

"It's a group of neighbors that are just trying to help their city and their neighborhood," said Diane Lauricella, a spokesperson for the newly formed association, as she described the group's intent. "All we're looking for is the balanced development of Cranbury."

The CPA's latest efforts to preserve Cranbury Park will include lobbying the City Council to consider amending rules regarding the park's bunkhouse, which was refurbished back in 2012 only to see it be rented out for private events years later and become what Lauricella referred as "a party house."

The first step in the process of uniting the neighborhood against developments like these, Lauricella said, was getting more people in the neighborhood involved in the cause. That's why, in the next couple weeks, the CPA -- which currently consists of roughly two dozen families -- will be ramping up its efforts to recruit new members to its cause.

"We'll be going door-to-door, and we're even going to try and have a barbecue at one of the members' houses," said Lauricella on some of the ways the CPA plans on enlisting new members.

To find out more information on the CPA, you can email Patty Ruffo at cranburypa@gmail.com.

To share your community and neighborhood news with The Hour, contact staff writer Pat Tomlinson at (203) 354-1046, or at ptomlinson@thehour.com.
NORWALK --In 2015, Norwalk police responded to 409 domestic violence incidents in the city. On each of those calls, officers were equipped with a tool to help predict the likelihood that a victim may become a domestic violence lethality statistic.

The tool -- an 11-question Domestic Violence Lethality Screen -- is provided to seven area police departments by the Domestic Violence Crisis Center (DVCC) to assist officers in assessing "high danger" victims and to make referrals to DVCC if needed.

Developed by Dr. Jacquelyn Campbell of Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, the Lethality Assessment Program (LAP) is designed to reduce the number of homicides resulting from domestic violence by creating a greater awareness of danger and immediately connecting victims to domestic violence services.

"We use (the screen) for all cases," said Norwalk Police Chief Thomas Kulhawik. "We voluntarily participate in the program and have done so since early on."

LAP screening, initially piloted in 2013 in Norwalk and 13 other cities across the state, is now done by 80 law enforcement agencies in Connecticut, including Stamford, Norwalk, Westport, Darien, New Canaan, Wilton and Weston.

Since 2010, two Norwalk domestic-violence related cases have resulted in the death of a victim.

On Sept. 10, 2014 a 62-year-old Norwalk woman was strangled to death in a Dreamy Hollow condominium in what police characterized as a domestic violence incident. Bertony Thompson, a 46-year-old city man, was accused of murdering the woman during an argument over his alcohol abuse. Police said the two had been involved in a long-term relationship. Thompson has been held on $1 million bond since his Sept. 12, 2014 arrest on murder charges.

That was Norwalk's first domestic violence-related homicide in the city since Gilbert Orlando killed his ex-wife, Enid Dickens, and his mother-in-law, Rona Knight, on June 14, 2010.

Police training is provided once a year in the LAP program, according to DVCC Attorney Advocate Allison Roach.

"Once the assessment is done, or even if the victim refuses to answer the questionnaire, the police department will make a referral to us," Roach said. "Our first goal is to make sure that the victim is safe."

Police are instructed as to when a lethality assessment is appropriate. A series of questions on the LAS questionnaire range from the obvious (Has he/she ever threatened to kill you or your children?) to perhaps the more obscure (Is he/she unemployed?).

If the answer to one of the three questions following questions is positive, the victim is assessed as "high danger."

1) Has he/she ever used a weapon against you or threatened you with a weapon?

2) Has he/she threatened to kill you or your children?

3) Do you think he/she might try to kill you?

If a positive answer to four of the following questions is obtained, police are advised to contact the DVCC hotline.

1) Does he/she have or a gun or can he/she get one easily?

2) Has he/she ever tried to choke you?

3) Is he/she violently or constantly jealous or does he/she control most of your daily activities?

4) Is he/she unemployed?

5) Has he/she ever tried to kill himself/herself?

6) Do you have a child that he/she knows is not his/hers?

7) Does he/she follow or spy on you or leave threatening messages?

"Our main priority of a lethality screen call is to ensure that the victim has a safety plan in place, that they have a phone and that they have a safe place to stay," Roach said.

During a 12-month period from January through December 2015, seven local police departments and Connecticut State Police performed 380 LAP screens. Of those, 153 presented as "high danger." At the time of the screening, 117 of those victims spoke with a DVCC LAP hotline counselor. Out of the total number of screenings, 231 victims went on to use other DVCC services, even though they may not have presented as high danger or immediately spoken with a LAP hotline counselor, according to the DVCC.

In a collaboration with the DVCC, Norwalk police Officer Maggie Thompson serves as the domestic violence liaison between the police department and DVCC. DVCC victim advocate Lili Vizcaino meets with Thompson weekly.

"There is much better communication since we started this," Thompson said. "I think the program has helped change attitudes within the police department and has helped officers to communicate more effectively. And if either Lili or I have a question, we can immediately contact each other."

"It's also made the police more aware of DVCC's services and has helped us obtain better contact information for victims so that we can follow up," Vizcaino added.

Following a weekly docket meeting on the domestic violence cases before the court, Vizcaino and Thompson review the LAP calls for the past week, during which they discuss calls where victims spoke with or declined to speak with DVCC; discuss whether or not dual arrests were warranted in cases where both parties were arrested; and decide which cases might benefit from a home visit.

Every week, Vizcaino, Thompson and another Norwalk police officer embark on visits to victims who may be in danger and who have not responded to other efforts to contact them.

"People are nervous at first, mainly because they think they've done something wrong," Thompson said. "But when they understand why we're there, most people open up and we learn a lot."
LINCOLN  Southeast Community College in Nebraska has released the names of students who received degrees, diplomas or certificates during graduation exercises following the 2016 winter quarter.

Ceremonies were held in March for students graduating from the Lincoln and Milford campuses. Beatrice holds ceremonies following the Spring and Fall quarters.

Graduates from Grand Island included: Skyler Barlow, associate of science; Lynda Brabander, associate of applied science in business administration; Jaimie Supencheck, associate of applied science in business administration; Coleton Hill, associate of applied science in diesel ag equipment service tech, distinction; and Callie Newman, associate of applied science in early childhood education.

Activities

Jesse Zwiener of Albion, Kelsey Martinsen of Cedar Rapids, Austin Partridge of Grand Island and Cuba McKenzie of Silver Creek are members of the Enactus team at the University of Nebraska at Kearney that took top honors in regional competition recently in Anaheim, Calif., and will compete at national competition in St. Louis May 15-17. Enactus students at UNK participate in several projects, including New Venture Adventure Day for high school students to develop leadership and entrepreneurial skills. They also operate a coffee shop, Brewed Awakening, the first student business on campus.

Caleb Staehr, a freshman from Grand Island, is a member of Handbell Choir II at Concordia University that will perform May 1 in the Music Center Recital Hall on the Concordia campus in Seward.

Music composed by Concordia University students Caleb Staehr and Lauren Staehr, both of Grand Island, was featured in a recital on April 20 at the Seward campus. Caleb is a freshman and Lauren is a senior at Concordia.

Hallick Lehmann, a junior from Albion, presented an academic project at Concordia Universitys sixth annual Academic and Research Symposium on April 11.

Eleanor Cerveny of Aurora and Danielle Murray of Fullerton have been initiated into The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi at Wayne State College in Wayne. Only the top 10 percent of seniors and 7.5 percent of juniors, having at least 72 semester hours, are eligible for membership.

University of Nebraska at Kearney students Alyssa Wetovick of Fullerton; Makenzie Hinrichs and Tanner Peshek, both of Hastings; and Austin Edgehill of Ord are members of the dance ensemble that presented Synergy, a concert dance that demonstrates the relationship between music and movement, April 21-23 at the Kearney campus.

Honors

Jessica Shultis of Dannebrog and Curtis Wetovick of Fullerton are among 32 University of Nebraska-Lincoln seniors who will be recognized as Chancellors Scholars during the All-University Honors Convocation at 2 p.m. April 24 at the Lied Center for Performing Arts. Chancellors Scholars are students who graduated in December or who will receive their degrees in May or August and have maintained 4.0 grade-point averages on all collegiate work at UNL and elsewhere. Shultis is the daughter of Wayne and Lauri Shultis. Wetovick is the son of Rick and Marne Wetovick.
LINCOLN  The Nebraska Cattlewomen have announced that the 2016 Nebraska Beef Ambassador Contest will be held June 10 at the Mid-Plains College campus in Broken Bow.

The Nebraska Beef Ambassador Program provides an opportunity for youth ages 14 to 24 to become spokespersons and future leaders for the beef industry. The two divisions, senior and collegiate, will be judged on three different areas of the industry consisting of a mock consumer promotional event, mock media interview and an issues response.

Place holders will receive a cash prize while the winners, in addition to a cash prize, will take home a custom belt buckle. The Nebraska Cattlemens Foundation also will be providing a scholarship to the winner of the collegiate division.

Anyone who enjoys public speaking and is passionate about the beef industry is encouraged to participate in the contest.

For more information, contact the Nebraska Cattlewomen at ncw@necattlemen.org or call (308) 760-6464 for a complete set of rules and registration form.
Their children, Michelle Mendyk, Debra and Steve Davidson and Shelia and Jeff Lair, along with their six grandchildren all of Missouri, would like to honor them with a card shower. Cards may be sent to 1501 Duncan Drive, Liberty, MO 64068.
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Linkedin Words and Photos Kevindra P. Soemantri (The Jakarta Post)  Sun, April 24 2016

My first bowl of pho was from Pho 24, a pioneer of modern Vietnamese dining in Jakarta.



I remember thinking how could a soup could be so crystal clear yet packed with intense natural flavor?



There was the deep rich flavor of the meat slices, a fragrant broth, chewy rice noodles that gave an overall texture and crunchiness to the dish along with minty-peppery fresh coriander leaves.



Eighteen years after that initial encounter, I visited NamNam Noddle Bar, a festive shrine to the humble bowl of pho andfinallyto the signature Vietnamese sub sandwich, the bahn mi.



NamNam Noodle Bar, another creation from Singapores Les Amis Group, has several outlets in Jakarta; I visted the one in Plaza Indonesia.



Walking into the restaurant during the lunch rush, I saw the the back-of-the-house, team, visible through the open kitchen in front of the restaurants stool bar, working fast.



The wait staff also moved at speed: Imagine The Flash slowed down to about 20 kilometers an hour-passing the salt, taking dirty bowls, giving out water bottles, handing patrons their bills, taking orders, pouring soups and greeting guests.



I chose to sit at the stool bar and watch the activity. There I heard nostalgic Indochinese music in the background to help me to settle in. I barely had time to sit and post a message to Twitter before a server took my order.



What I loved was that I didnt need to drill down through the menu. The presentation of dishes was focused, clear and effortless. As I watched the work at the bahn mi counter, my pho arrived.



It was an immsense bowl of fragrant broth with chicken, homemade meatballs and tripe cooked until they were as soft as braised veal tendons.



A sip of the broth was like breathing in deep in a meadow full of herbs-fragrant and refreshing, even during the rush.



Unlike as in some other restaurants, which encourage diners to add mint leafs, coriander leafs and scallions to taste; at NamNam, the recipe for pho is fixed.



The recipe is already adjusted to local palates and is perfect, as is. However, additional herbs are available (Rp 8,000 [about 60 US cents] will get you a big bowl of coriander leaves).



One thing that hit me were the meatballs. While they were of the Indonesian variety, there was a definite inspiration behind this bulb of meat.



Chef Nam, the principal, was looking for something local to be added to his menu. Then he found out about Indonesias bakso.



A man of dedication, Nam trained for a short time as the protege of a local tukang bakso, following and learning everything from the meatball vendor, from how he chose his meat at a traditional market at dawn to how he worked in his home kitchen.



Nams efforts paid off; his bakso are some of the finest Ive ever tasted-meaty and with a perfect crunchy texture resulting from a precise proportion of meat to flour and a perfect cooking time. This bowl was truly comforting to the soul.



For my next dish, I tried bahn mi, the original Indochinese fusion food, which, in its original incarnation, mixes the Franco-Austrian baguette, French liver pate and Vietnamese staple ingredients such as fresh coriander herbs, carrots and bean sprouts.





At NamNam, the baguette itself was more festive than filling, with more air in the dough leading to a lighter bread. My bahn mi was the Australian wagyu version, with a hint of spicyness from the chilli sauce, julliene-cut carrots and cucumbers that added natural crunchiness. Last but not least, there were green coriander leaves that bound everything in harmony.



NamNam doesnt use liver pate, as its taste is unfamilar for Indonesian diners.



I finished my lunch with Vietnams iconic finger food: Translucent sping rolls, as captivating to look as it as they were to eat. Vietnamese springrolls is a dish like no other, offering a perfect mix of the delicious and the healthy. Inside was a crunchy sweet shrimp that was poached to perfection, glass noodles done to perfect consistency and spring onions that gave the dish an extra hint of flavor.



Chef Nam is an inspiration. Born toward the end of Vietnams war with the US in the 1970s, he flew to Denmark and eventually enlisted in that nations army.



His culinary career began to pick up steam when he worked for Les Amis in Singapore and the Legian Hotels in Bali, ending as the Chedi Clubs food and beverage director. One day after work, chef Nam came home not with a fiery spirit but in total silence. He asked himself if serving gourmet fare to wealthy diners was his first, best destiny? The answer was no.



Chef Nam returned to Les Amis and to his traditional roots in Vietnamese cuisine. NamNam was launched in Singapore and the rest is history.

___________________________________

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Linkedin thejakartapost.com (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, April 24, 2016

The police have urged people working in the hospitality industry of Bali to help in the early detection of terrorist threats and thereby secure Bali's status as a global tourism destination.

Bali Police chief Insp. Gen. Sugeng Priyanto called for the preparedness of all human resources at hotels and restaurants on the popular holiday island.

"A security force must be trained for the early detection of any situation potentially creating disruptions," he said at a terrorism-related seminar in Bali on Sunday, as quoted by news agency Antara.

Bali Police would provide training for civil security personnel of tourism facilities at the Police School in Singaraja.

Security officials had to be on alert at all times to conduct checks on visitors, including hotel guests, Sugeng said, adding that hotels and restaurants also had to cover their respective perimeter with CCTV for better security and monitoring.

CCTV footage had helped to investigate many cases, for example the bomb attack on the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta in 2003, he explained.

Sugeng also urged hotels and restaurants to complete their security measures with metal detectors and security gates. Assigning Bali's traditional security personnel, called Pecalang, to secure a location was also an option to prevent unwanted acts in the world-renowned tourism destination, Sugeng said.

Concerns about terrorism in Indonesia have risen following coordinated terrorist attack in Jakarta in January, which killed eight people, including four suspects, and injured dozens more. (rin)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post)  Sun, April 24 2016

This weeks monthly cover travel focus takes us to Bangkok, where contributor Willy Wilson tells us about his culinary odyssey through the Thai capital.

Coincidentally, I was in Manila this week for the World Street Food Congress and interviewed one of the chefs mentioned in Willys article: Duangporn Songvisava, better known as Bo, famous for her fine-dining restaurant Bo.lan, which made the S. Pelligrino list of the 50 best restaurants in Asia, and what she describes as its crazy, funky, cool counterpart, ERR.

Listening to Bo describe her slow-food approach-and how Thai food uniquely balances tastes and textures-was an eye opener and something that well explore in a later issue.

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Linkedin thejakartapost.com (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, April 24, 2016

Five Indonesian boat crew members who evaded a kidnapping attempt by a Philippine militant group arrived back in Jakarta on Saturday, after the hijack of their vessels in mid-April. However, 14 Indonesians continue to be held by the notorious group.

The crew members were working on the Henry tugboat and Christy barge when the militant group took over the vessels as they sailed through Malaysian and Philippine waters on April 15.

The five returned Indonesians are Yohanis Serang, Sembara Oktafian, Rohaidi, Royke Frans Montolalu and Rumawi. Malaysian authorities, who secured the Henry and Christy, handed over the crew members to the Indonesian government on April 21.

"Five are already in Jakarta and one is still in Tawau [in Sabah state, Malaysia]," Muhammad Iqbal, director of Indonesian citizens at the Foreign Ministry, said as quoted by tempo.co on Sunday.

One crewmember named Lambas Simanungkalit remained in Malaysia as he was shot by the Abu Sayyaf group during the hijacking.

After the incident, the two vessels were returned to Tarakan, North Kalimantan, escorted by Malaysia's water police. The vessels have now arrived in Jakarta.

During the hijacking, Abu Sayyaf members failed to take over the Henry and the Christy as Malaysian authorities protected the vessels. However, four of the vessels Indonesian crewmembers did not evade the kidnapping and were taken hostage by Abu Sayyaf members who used speed boats to retreat to Tawi-Tawi waters in the Philippines.

The four joined 10 other Indonesian hostages from the tugboat Brahma 12 and the barge Anand 12, which were hijacked in late March. The notorious group has asked for a US$1 million ransom for the crew.

The government was prioritizing the safety of the 14 Indonesians being held, Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said on Saturday.

"Based on the information we received, Alhamdulillah [thank God] the Indonesian crew are in good condition. We keep making efforts," she said as quoted by tempo.co, adding that the government had intensified communications with the Philippine government to reach a solution. (rin)
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Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, April 24, 2016

Indonesia, Turkey and the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) eye to agree on the structure of their planned Islamic infrastructure bank within six months.

Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro was in Washington DC representing Indonesia at the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings from April 12 to 18. There he also held a tripartite meeting with IDB president Ahmad Mohamad Ali and the deputy prime minister of Turkey, Ali Babacan, on the establishment of the Islamic Mega Infrastructure Bank to be cofounded by the three parties.

The meeting discussed the banks structure and business scheme, said the Finance Ministrys head of fiscal policy, Swahasil Nazara.

"It is not final yet, Indonesia, Turkey and the IDB will appoint senior officials to formulate the governance structure in more detail, the target is six months from now," he told reporters recently.

There was no word yet on the capital to be contributed by the founding countries, nor on the size of the bank, Swahasil said.

"[We will talk about] the governance structure first, then we will discuss how much money will be invested," he added.
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Linkedin Aleksandra Krstic (The Jakarta Post) Brussels  Sun, April 24 2016

The recent shoot-out in Azerbaijan between the ethnic Armenians and Azerbaijani forces brought yet another round of casualties, psychological trauma and property destruction. Sudden and severe as it was, the event sent shock waves all over Caucasus and well beyond.

Most observes would fully agree that for such (frozen) conflicts like this between Azerbaijan and Armenia, mediation and dialogue across the conflict cycle have no alternative.

Further on, most would agree that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) with its Minsk Group remains both the best suited forum as well as the only international body mandated for the resolution of the conflict.

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Linkedin Kim Tong-hyung (Associated Press) Seoul, South Korea  Sun, April 24, 2016

North Korea said Sunday that it successfully test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine and warned of its growing ability to cut down its enemies with a "dagger of destruction." South Korea couldn't immediately confirm the claim of success in what marks Pyongyang's latest effort to expand its military might in face of pressure by its neighbors and Washington.

Hours before the announcement, South Korean military officials said the North fired what appeared to be a ballistic missile from a submarine off its eastern coast. The South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the projectile traveled about 30 kilometers (19 miles) Saturday evening. That's a much shorter than the typical distance of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, which can fly at least 300 kilometers (186 miles).

A successful test from a submarine would be a worrying development because mastering the ability to fire missiles from submerged vessels would make it harder for outsiders to detect what North Korea is doing before it launches, giving it the potential to surprise its enemies.

While South Korean experts say it's unlikely that North Korea currently possesses an operational submarine that can fire multiple missiles, they acknowledge that the North is making progress on such technology.

In a typical example of overblown rhetoric, the North's Korean Central News Agency said leader Kim Jong Un observed from a test facility as the ballistic missile surged from a submarine and spewed out a "massive stream of flames" as it soared into the sky. It said the missile met all technical thresholds.

The KCNA report said that after the test Kim declared that the North now has another strong nuclear strike method and also the ability to stick a "dagger of destruction" into the heads of its enemies, South Korea and the United States, at any time.

The KCNA report didn't say when or where the recent test-firing took place. South Korean officials said the launch on Saturday took place near the North Korean coastal town of Sinpo, where analysts have previously detected efforts by the North to develop submarine-launched ballistic missile systems.

The North last test-launched a submarine-launched ballistic missile on Dec. 25, but that test was seen as failure, the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. The North first claimed of a successful submarine-launched missile test in May last year.

U.S. Strategic Command, headquartered at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, said its "systems detected and tracked what we assess was a North Korean submarine missile launch from the Sea of Japan." A statement from Strategic Command added that the missile launch "did not pose a threat to North America."

U.S. military forces "remain vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations and are fully committed to working closely with our Republic of Korea and Japanese allies to maintain security," it said.

The U.S. State Department would not comment on the reports of Saturday's launch, but noted "launches using ballistic missile technology are a clear violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions."

"We call on North Korea to refrain from actions that further destabilize the region and focus instead on taking concrete steps toward fulfilling its commitments and international obligations," said State Department spokesman John Kirby.

North Korea has recently sent a barrage of missiles and artillery shells into the sea amid ongoing annual military drills between the United States and South Korea. Pyongyang says the drills are a preparation for an invasion of the North. The firings also come as the North expresses anger about toughened international sanctions over its recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch.

North Korea's belligerence may also be linked to a major ruling party congress next month meant to further cement leader Kim Jong Un's grip on power. Promoting military accomplishments could be an attempt to overshadow a lack of economic achievements ahead of the Workers' Party congress, the first since 1980.
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Linkedin Ruslan Sangadji (The Jakarta Post) Palu, Central Sulawesi  Sun, April 24, 2016

An alleged member of the East Indonesia Mujahidin group led by Indonesian terrorism fugitive Santoso has apparently surrendered to security forces.

Irfan Maulana aka Akil turned himself in to authorities on Friday evening in Tamanjeka of Poso Pesisir subdistrict in Poso, Central Sulawesi, Operation Tinombala task force spokesman Adj. Sr. Cmr. Hari Suprapto said on Friday.

Irfan had surrendered because he could no longer stand hiding in the forests with Santoso and his supporters, as the group's logistics routes had been severed by security personnel, Hari said.

A member of Operation Tinombala, speaking on condition of anonymity, told thejakartapost.com that Irfan had gone to his father-in-law's house in Tamanjeka, telling his family that he wanted to turn himself in.

Irfan's father-in-law then contacted Tamanjeka village chief Muhammad Sambara, who in turn called a member of the Operation Tinombala task force in Poso Pesisir, asking him to come to Tamanjeka to discuss the surrender modalities.

The family and security personnel then apparently agreed to have Irfan picked up in a nearby plantation area at dawn to avoid attention from other residents.

Security personnel had brought Irfan to Operation Tinombala's security post in Poso Pesisir before taking him to the State Intelligence Agency (BIN)'s post in Poso, said the source.

The surrender of one of the suspected terrorists on a police wanted list leaves another 26 alleged members of the East Indonesia Mujahidin group on the list, Hari said.

Security officials suspect that the group has split in three. One lead by Santoso, the other two groups lead by Basri aka Bagong and Ali Ahmad aka Ali Kalora, respectively.

Operation Tinombala, which involves at least 3,500 Police and Military personnel, was launched in January as a renewed effort to capture Santoso and his followers, who are believed to be hiding in mountainous areas of Poso. (rin)
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Linkedin Words and Photos Theodora Hurustiati (The Jakarta Post)  Sun, April 24 2016

Ive recently returned to Udine after a brief period in Jakarta. Unfortunately, back in Italy; I dont have the luxury of visiting street food vendors or calling Gojek whenever I feel hungry. Plus, if I eat out or order in frequently, Ill run the risk of going bankrupt!



However, when pressed for time, lunches are often at risk of becoming optional. At times like this, sandwiches are my salvation. Like many Italians; when Im desperate, I make myself a ham and cheese toast. When Im not so hopeless though, Mexican wraps are my favorites for quick lunches. Among the different types of stuffed sandwiches, these quesadillas are the simplest to prepare, using just a few ingredients. As the name suggests, queso, cheese in Spanish, is its main component. Other than that youre free to add any vegetable or protein you like. I need to be able to fit into my old pants again after a month of eating in Jakarta, so I opted for the avocado. Otherwise seared chicken or a sunny-side-up egg wouldve been included.

Serves 2

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Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, April 24, 2016

State-owned PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk (TLKM) booked a first-quarter profit of Rp 4.59 trillion (US$347.9 billion), an increase of 20.4 percent compared to Rp 3.81 trillion booked in the same period last year.

With a 16.6 percent revenue increase to Rp 27.54 trillion, Indonesias largest telecommunication provider recorded a triple-double digit growth in the first quarter of 2016. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose 18.8 percent to 14.66 trillion.

"This is a satisfying performance, we got double digit growth in revenue, EBITDA, and net income," President Director Alex J. Sinaga said recently.

Previously dominated by telecommunication sector revenue, the Data, Internet & IT Service sector is now considered to be the main contributor with 37.4 percent of consolidated income sitting at Rp 10.30 trillion. The sector grew 45.1 percent compared to Q1-2015.

"This growth is supported by a high growth in broadband service customers, both fixed broadband and mobile broadband Telkomsel Flash. Our Telkomsel Flash customer base increased 42.2 percent to 43.84 million," Vice President of Corporate Communication Arif Prabowo said.

For fixed broadband, led by the IndiHome program, customer numbers have grown 20.7 percent to 4.2 million customers.

"Our 4G LTE is now available in 100 cities, plus there was intensive promotion of the IndiHome Triple Play program. Both reflected in our broadband growth," Arif said.

The countrys largest telecommunication operator reported revenue growth of 14.24 percent.

The double-digit revenue growth is its first in five years. The company also recorded a 9.57 percent profit growth compared to 2014. In terms of profitability ratio, Telkom showed a slight decrease in its performance with a 14.02 return on assets (ROA) compared to 14.9 percent last year, but return on equity (ROE) increased from 24.71 to 24.97 percent.

Telkom's president director Alex J. Sinaga said that the company performed well this year to have paid out Rp 9.29 trillion in dividends. Reporting revenue of Rp 102.47 trillion, this is the first time Telkom has reached a revenue above Rp 100 trillion, the contribution of subsidiaries other than Telkomsel also increased, he said at the annual general meeting (AGM) on Friday.

The dividend payout date falls on May 4 this year and dividends will be paid on May 26. These will be divided into a cash dividend of Rp 7.74 trillion or Rp 78.86 per stock and the special dividend of Rp 1.55 trillion or Rp 15.77 per share. Currently, there are 98.18 billion outstanding shares.

"For capital expenditure we budget around 22 to 25 percent from the revenue," Alex said, explaining that 2016 capital expenditure would be around Rp 22.54 to 25.61 trillion.

However, the debt to equity ratio (DER)has increased from 0.65 in 2014 to 0.78 in 2015, as Telkom liabilities rose by 30.64 percent compared to a 9.58 percent total asset increase. The company has shown more aggression to leverage financing in 2015 as long-term debt increased by 59.78 percent.

"But that DER number is still small and controllable; there is still room for more debt," Alex said.

AGM also made some staffing changes; finance director Heri Sunaryadi was replaced by Harry M. Zen, known for his previous position as Credit Suisse Indonesia director. Independent commissioner Parikesit Suprapto was replaced by Pontas Tambunan whom was a deputy in the State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) Ministry. (dan)
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Linkedin thejakartapost.com (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, April 24, 2016

The capitals Transjakarta bus service will be extended to include connections to the satellite cities of Bekasi and Depok in West Java starting on Monday.

Forty buses will ply the Jakarta-Bekasi route, while 30 will serve Depok in the early stage of the operation, Jakarta Transportation Office head Andro Yansyah said on Sunday.

The operation will concentrate on rush hours from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. in the morning and 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. in the evening. Only a third of the buses will be in operation outside of those times.

"There will be 20 buses connecting Jakarta with East Bekasi and another 20 with West Bekasi, while for Depok, there is only one route," he said as quoted by news portal kompas.com on Sunday.

The service aims to alleviate congestion woes for commuters traveling between Jakarta and the two cities. It is part of a wider program to address public transportation shortages in the Greater Jakarta area, with 600 buses plotted to serve Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi. The initial phase of implementation will see 200 buses in operation by the Transportation Ministry.

Passengers would be charged Rp 3,500 (27 US cents) to reach the capital city from their respective satellite cities, except, perhaps for the longer Bogor route, for which the fare was still under discussion, Andri said. (rin)
Democrat Joe Sestak came tantalizingly close to winning a seat in the U.S. Senate six years ago and is hoping Tuesday to secure a rematch, but the party establishment wants nothing to do with him, pouring millions into the campaign of his chief rival.

The former two-term congressman and retired Navy rear admiral is wearing his outsider status as a badge of honor as he seeks the nomination to take on Republican Sen. Pat Toomey this fall in a race that could tilt control of the Senate.

He has said that he is fighting for the soul of the Democratic Party, and that political party leaders arent in it for people any longer, theyre in it for power and themselves.

Im not a politician, he said when the candidates were asked at a Friday debate if they would represent a break with the status quo. Four-and-a-half million dollars  half of it by my own Democratic Party  has been put in against me, he said.

Party-endorsed candidate Katie McGinty focused instead on the Republican incumbent. Ill do something very different from what Pat Toomey has done. Pat Toomey has sold out the middle class, she said.

McGinty, a former state and federal environmental policy official, has trumpeted the broad range of support she has received, from President Barack Obama to Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid to former Gov. Ed Rendell. At the same time she has sought to tap anti-establishment sentiment by looking to the general election.

Sestaks frosty relationship with party leaders dates to 2009 when he was recruited to challenge then-Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, then was asked to step aside when Specter switched parties to the delight of Democratic Party leaders. But Sestak refused to drop out  even after former President Bill Clinton was recruited to dangle a government job offer in front of him.

Sestak went on to beat Specter in the primary and lose to Toomey by only 2 percentage points in the 2010 general election, upsetting the Democrats plans for regaining the seat in a state where they outnumber Republicans 4-to-3.

Sestak again doesnt figure into the Democrats plan.

The resulting tension has shaped a race in which McGintys side has outspent Sestaks two-to-one. She has been aided by nearly $2 million from a national party committee and $1.75 million from Washington-based Emilys List, which backs female candidates who support abortion rights.

Despite the fundraising disadvantage, the 64-year-old Sestak has led nearly every independent poll. But a large bloc of undecided voters  nearly one in three, according to a new Franklin and Marshall College poll  is adding uncertainty to Tuesdays election.

Sestak spent the last six years as a regular on the local party event circuit around Pennsylvania, earning loyalty from rank-and-file activists. He also walked across the state last year to kick off his campaign.

The partys search for an alternative candidate ended last summer when it tapped McGinty, 52, a member of Gov. Tom Wolfs administration who had also worked for Al Gore, Bill Clinton and former Gov. Ed Rendell.

She has run a radio ad voiced by Obama and Vice President Joe Biden made a campaign stop for her in Pittsburgh. McGinty said in one TV ad that Obama endorsed her because he knows Im a fighter.

She has drummed out that theme in her ads, presenting herself as a champion for the middle class and womens causes, the 9th of 10 children of a Philadelphia cop and a diner waitress. In recent days, her campaign and Emilys List have also aired attack ads against Sestak.

Sestak has leaned on his military service and touted endorsements by two of the states largest newspapers, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He has also told the story of his young daughters successful fight with brain cancer as his motivation for running for Congress in 2006 and backing Obamas signature 2010 health care law.

One wild card is how a third candidate, John Fetterman, will affect the race, even though he trails badly in the polls and fundraising.

Hes best-known in western Pennsylvania, where he is the 46-year-old mayor of the impoverished steel town of Braddock, about 10 miles outside Pittsburgh. He is 6-foot-8, scowling, bald and tattooed, and his liberal and unconventional campaign  he has dropped in on bars, rock music venues and hookah lounges  has won over some younger voters.

A semiretired owner of a spring manufacturing shop, Joe Vodvarka, was also added back on the ballot in recent days after a dispute in court over whether he had submitted enough signatures. His family has run his low-profile campaign.
Pennsylvania, long an afterthought in presidential primary stakes, may emerge as a key player in crowning this years Republican presidential nominee.

Pennsylvania will send a whopping number of delegates to Julys unsettled Republican National Convention who, under a state party rule, can vote for whichever candidate they choose.

As a result, Pennsylvanias April 26 statewide primary election is relatively meaningless  a beauty pageant. What is meaningful, however, is whom primary voters will select to send to Cleveland as the 54 uncommitted delegates.

And then the drama begins, said Michael McMonagle, a delegate candidate from Montgomery County who supports Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Who can persuade who?

Polls show New York businessman Donald Trump leading both Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich in Pennsylvania, where primary contests are usually so late that the eventual presidential nominee is no longer in doubt.

This year, theres a real campaign in Pennsylvania, and its about the delegates.

On Pennsylvanias primary ballot are 162 people who are running to be a GOP convention delegate. They are elected by congressional district, three for each of Pennsylvanias 18 districts for a total of 54.

Seventeen other delegates  the state party chairman, Rob Gleason, Pennsylvanias two national GOP committee members and 14 picked in May by party leaders  must vote for the winner of Pennsylvanias statewide primary election, but only on the first convention ballot. Beginning with the second ballot, they are as uncommitted as the 54 elected delegates.

For now, campaigns are trying to win pledges of allegiance from delegate candidates and, later, they expect to jockey to get party leaders to pick the campaigns supporters as the 14 delegates.

Many delegate candidates are relatively anonymous, and some are better-known officeholders. But the delegate candidates names appear on the ballot without any affiliation to a presidential candidate, meaning voters wont necessarily know who they are really supporting.

You can go in there and vote for Trump and vote for three delegates that are three votes against Trump, said Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa., a state co-chairman of Trumps campaign.

For the Democrats, the process is less mysterious: Primary voters select 127 delegates who are affiliated on the ballot with either former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. The rest of the 210 Democratic convention delegates are picked by the party and most must support the winner of the states presidential primary vote.

Republican Party officials and political operatives say they expect an onslaught of delegate persuasion to begin in earnest after the election. A below-the-radar persuasion effort began last week, with Trump and Cruz loyalists telephoning delegate candidates to try to secure pledges of support. The Trump and Cruz campaigns have released a list of supportive delegates and are preparing campaigns to get them elected.

Some delegate candidates say they feel bound, at least on the first convention ballot, to vote for whichever presidential candidate wins their congressional district. Many are remaining noncommittal, at least publicly.

I think that is my responsibility to hear everybody out and make a judgment at some point, said Calvin Tucker, a delegate candidate from Philadelphia. I think that is the purpose of being uncommitted.

There is some high-level support for Kasich in the Pennsylvania GOP  including former Gov. Tom Ridge and national GOP committeeman Bob Asher  and that creates the potential that a bloc of delegate votes will favor Kasich.

The last time a Republican convention was so unsettled, in 1976, candidate Ronald Reagan picked one of Pennsylvanias senators, Richard Schweiker, as his running mate in an effort to pick up support from the states delegates.

Asher is cautioning delegates against taking a hard stance for or against a particular candidate.

We really have to consider who we think has the best chance of beating Hillary Clinton, Asher said, and when we get to Cleveland, we need to put our prejudices aside.
Afghan child casualties soar as urban warfare escalates: UN

AFGHANISTAN: Child casualties have soared in Afghanistan this year as the Taliban stepped up attacks in urban areas, the United Nations has said, branding the figures appalling.

violencereligion

By AFP

Sunday 24 April 2016, 11:00AM

An Afghan woman and children walk near the gate of Ministry of Defence in Kabul as security personnel cordon off the scene of a suicide bombing. Photo: Wakil Kohsar/AFP

Between January and March, 161 children were killed and 449 others injured  a 29 per cent increase from a year earlier  the UNs mission in Afghanistan said in a report.

Danielle Bell, the missions human rights director, said women and children have suffered the most as the insurgents have launched more bomb attacks in populated areas.

In the first quarter of 2016, almost one third of civilian casualties were children, said Bell in the report.

If the fighting persists near schools, playgrounds, homes and clinics, and parties continue to use explosive weapons in those areas... these appalling numbers of children killed and maimed will continue.

Increased fighting in populated areas continues to kill and injure women and children at higher rates that the general population.

The figures come days after the Taliban launched its spring offensive by trying to retake control of Kunduz, the north-eastern provincial capital they briefly captured last year.

The militants have intensified their insurgency since the end of NATOs combat mission in 2014, launching brazen attacks on urban areas that saw last year become the bloodiest for civilians on record.

In the first three months of 2016, 600 civilians were killed and 1,343 were injured, the report said.

The number of deaths fell 13% from a year ago, while the number of injuries rose by 11%.

The Taliban were responsible for six out of every 10 casualties, according to the UNs report.

Last year, there were 11,002 civilian casualties, including 3,545 deaths, according to UN figures released recently.
Facebook Live eyes broadcast market

BANGKOK: Now that Facebook Inc has rolled out a live-streaming video feature to all of its users worldwide, the social media giant is looking to take on YouTubes video-sharing service as well as live TV broadcasts.

technologyeconomics

By Bangkok Post

Sunday 24 April 2016, 11:00AM

Facebook Live is now targeting the broadcast market, as the global social media company lines up to take on the Google video giant YouTube. Photo: Facebook

After previously limiting Facebook Live to celebrities and public figures, the move is aimed at capitalising on the growing digital video advertising market. Facebook users now watch 100 million hours of video daily on the social networking service.

Japans Line Corporation also offers a live video-sharing service on its own social media platform, which is widely used in Thailand.

Both Facebook and Line seek to overtake YouTubes video-sharing service and traditional television as the primary destination to view visual media.

Facebook Live will enable people to connect with friends, family and fans in a way that's more lively, said, Will Cathcart, vice-president for product management at Facebook, during a recent live video conference with Southeast Asian news media.

Facebook users watch live videos three times longer than normal videos, he added.

Mr Cathcart said Facebook was working closely with content creators to help them monetise and build their businesses on Facebook. In the long term, the company envisions a video ecosystem that is supported by a revenue-sharing model.

Ariya Bhanomyong, managing director of Line Thailand, said the company rolled out its video-sharing feature by broadcasting live concerts. It is also helping venue owners use digital marketing to reach concert-goers via the Line platform.

Burin Kledmanee, chief operating officer of Ready Planet, a local digital media agency, said social media players had jumped onto the live broadcasting bandwagon, potentially threatening the fate of TV broadcasters.

Siwat Chawareewong, president of Digital Advertising Association (Thailand), said live streaming was one of social media users favourite features.

Content creators can use new alternative channels, Facebook Live and Line Live, to reach audiences and generate ad revenue, he said.

A report conducted by the Digital Advertising Association said Facebook's ad revenue in Thailand had surpassed that of YouTube for 2014-15.

Facebooks ad revenue increased to B1.9 billion in 2015, up from B980 million in 2014. YouTubes ad revenue was B1.59 billion in 2015, up from B854 million in 2014.

By contrast, Facebooks ad revenue was B255 million in 2013, while YouTube generated B472 million.

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Italian hotel owner, 46, found dead in Patong room

PHUKET: Police and doctors have yet to pinpoint the cause of death of a 45-year-old Italian national who was found dead at a hotel he ran in Patong early Saturday morning (April 23).

death

By The Phuket News

Tuesday 26 April 2016, 06:53AM

Pol Capt Ying Yong Chuaikit of Kathu Police responded to a call this morning about a body found at a small hotel on Phra Metta Pung Mueang Sai Kor Rd and reported to the scene  room number 216 on the second floor of a multi-storey shophouse.

Pol Capt Ying Yong was accompanied by fellow investigators, Kusoldham rescue workers and Dr Suchada Vichutanon of Patong Hospital.

Authorities found the body of a man on a bed inside the room.

The deceased was named as Italian national, Nicola Rauseo, 45*.

Next to his body, there was a note written on a sheet of A4 paper, which authorities said was written in Italian and English languages, but declined to elaborate further on the note's contents.

Authorities did not note any signs of a struggle or foul play, in the room or on the man's body, which was estimated to have been dead for no less than two hours and subsequently transported to Patong Hospital for further examination.

Police questioned a 15-year-old minor who was identified as a dependent child*** of the deceased, who reported last seeing the deceased at around 8.30pm on Friday (April 22), when the minor said Mr Rauseo had asked for the minor to help look after the hotel's service counter so that he could go up to rest in his room.

The person who discovered the man's body on Saturday morning, who was named by police as the wife**** of the deceased, was reportedly away on business in Chumphon, and had just returned to Patong this morning (April 23) at 6.50am.

When Mr Rauseo failed to answer knocks on his door, the woman** said she used her spare key to open the door, and subsequently found his body, police said.

The woman** reported that Mr Rauseo did not drink alcohol, but smoked, drank a lot of soft drinks, had a sleeping disorder and had undergone cervical surgery in the previous 3-4 months, police said.

The investigation has yet to be concluded.

"We will not pursue this case further untill the cause of death has been confirmed by the hospital, or we recieve a direct request from his immediate Italian family," said Pol Capt Ying Yong.

*Mr Rauseo, whose name was initially transliterated as Mr Russo, would have turned 46 on May 18, 2016.

**The name of the woman who found the body of Mr Rauseo has been removed from this story as per request to not violate her privacy.

***The word used to describe the minor's relationship with the deceased was Luke Lieng () which implies that the minor was a dependent of the deceased, though not necesirly by legal order or obligation.

****According to Pol Capt Ying Yong, the marriage between Mr Rauseo and the woman** was not registered.
Three dealers nabbed as 1.5 kilos of Thai 'brick weed', 10g of crystal meth seized

PHUKET: More than 1.5 kilogrammes of compacted, dried cannabis and just under 10 grams of crystal meth have changed hands from local dealers to Phuket authorities following recent seizures and arrests.

drugs

By Darawan Naknakhon

Sunday 24 April 2016, 11:15AM

Phuket police yesterday (April 23) announced their latest drug suppression progress, credited to two separate teams between the hours of 4.30pm and 11pm the previous evening.

The initial arrest, of 20-year-old Panupong Chuchaat, was executed by a mixed task force comprising Thalang police officers and civil defence volunteers from the districts Stability Division, headed by district admin clerks (palad) Seereepong Leeprasit and Danai Jaikaeng.

Authorities were tipped off that Panupong had been selling small baggies of marijuana to local teens and proceeded to stage a sting operation by luring the suspected dealer with a B200 purchase at the young mans house in Thepkrasatris Moo 2.

At the suspects house, officers made an initial seizure of two small baggies of weed, and proceeded to search the house, in which they found and seized 18 more baggies of marijuana, all in reported to weigh 30.6 grammes.

Mr Panupong was booked and charged with possession of a Category 5 drug with intent to sell.

Authorities then expanded their net, bringing their investigation further up the supply line, and collaborating with counterparts in Phukets Muang District, who organized a task force led by Phuket Muang District Chief Suphot Chanakit, defence clerks Wiratdet Boonreuankhao and

Somsak Saengkaew, along with district admin clerk and chief of the districts stability division, Mr Samran Yukhunthorn.

The task force set up a sting op in the parking lot of the main Super Cheap store in Rassada, where they seized half a kilo of bricked Thai weed from 24-year-old Nitti Namkul. A subsequent search of Mr Nitts residence in Rassadas Moo 1 uncovered an additional kilo of bricked weed, bringing the reported seizure up to 1.56 kilos.

Authorities didnt end their investigation there, however, and proceeded to arrest 50-year-old Noom Toom-ong with 9.66 grammes of crystal meth stashed at a bus garage at Laem Hin in Koh Kaew sub district.

Mr Nitti was charged with possession of a Category 5 drug (dried, compacted marijuana) with intent to sell, while Mr Noom was charged for possession of a Category 1 drug (crystal meth) with intent to sell.
Consistency in politics has been far from the rule in the history of the English-speaking nations since 1952.

A commonwealth has grown up, often violently, in the shadow of a former empire, democracies have gone to war, U.S. presidents have come and gone, died and resigned. Many continuing experiments in self government remain dicey given the turbulence of the second half of the 20th century.

There is, however, one grand exception: A 90-year-old great-grandmother better known as Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.

Its a heady title for the most famous lady in the world, known to most of her subjects as HM The Queen. She turned 90 on Thursday, and with more than 64 years on the throne, has reigned longer than her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria (later also Empress of India), who died in 1901.

While clearly she has lived what most of us would describe as the somewhat coddled life of royalty, to underestimate the deeper undercurrents of experience and wisdom she brings to her inheritance has put more than a few prime ministers (and American presidents) in their place.

At her accession following the death of King George VI, her prime minister was Winston Churchill, with whom she became great friends and was in awe of his experience as the nations war leader. Relationships with other PMs, as with U.S. presidents, were varied. Most couldnt be described as close friendships. There is, after all, a clear difference between a sovereign and an elected official. Those who fail to remember their place learn the distinction the hard way.

As for sitting U.S. presidents, except for Lyndon Johnson, HM The Queen has met with every American chief executive from Eisenhower to Obama. She met Harry Truman prior to her accession and later, former President Herbert Hoover.

King Farouk of Egypt, just before his deposition in 1952 by nationalist forces, was reported to have told a British nobleman that the whole world is in revolt and that In a few years there will only be five kings in the world  the King of England and the four kings in a pack of cards.

The fatalistic Farouk was a touch off in his prediction. Along with the United Kingdom, Europe holds 12 constitutional monarchies, all thriving, ranging from Norway to Spain. Republicanism has made few inroads there  something to do with such governments adapting to modern challenges and working too well.

Meanwhile on Thursday around 1,000 beacons were set alight across Britain, the first lit at Windsor Castle by the Queen. Good feeling, party politics aside, ruled the day as Britons gave their pragmatic, deserved salute, to a woman who vowed nearly 60 years ago I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something else  I can give my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.

She has done that, and with a grace and dignity her subjects and the rest of the world admire. She said of her countrymen: We are a moderate, pragmatic people, more comfortable with practice than theory.

Without HM The Queen, the world indeed would be a poorer place. God bless her.

William Parkinson has spent more than 48 years as a reporter and editor at newspapers, the Associated Press and United Press International in this country and abroad. Hes mad about cats  and words. His column appears on Mondays. Email him at wparkinson@cumberlink.com.
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How to watch and what to know about South Dakota State at North Dakota
Rossann Williams takes a bite of truffle mac & cheese while perusing a restaurant wine list.

This is soooo good, says the cheerful president of Starbucks Canada, who happens to be parked at a company cafe on Bloor St. W. near Royal York Rd. for an interview with The Star.

Its one of the first three locations in Canada set to launch a wine, craft beer and tapas menu on Tuesday, capping a whirlwind year of innovations at the 45-year-old coffee chain that first opened in Toronto two decades ago.

Since taking the helm of Starbucks Canada two years ago, Williams has been laser focused on taking the java behemoth into the digital future with its new mobile order and pay app  an industry first  while expanding offerings to include new kale and quinoa options at lunch to alcohol and small, shareable plates after 2 p.m. to keep customers coming in both day and night.

RELATED:We tried 10 Starbucks wines  and theyre actually good

The first three booze locations are in higher-end neighbourhoods in Toronto, including 446 Spadina Rd. north of St. Clair Ave. W., 1740 Avenue Rd. north of Lawrence Ave. and 3079 Bloor St. W. at Thompson Ave.

Williams says the move is intended to elevate the Starbucks experience, but critics say only time will tell whether this will actually work across the chain of 1,300 locations in Canada.

Fast food chicken chain KFC started offering beer more than a year ago at locations at YongeSt.-Bloor St. and in the Stockyards but never expanded the concept, while Taco Bell put beer on its menu board at one Chicago location last summer.

Evenings are an occasion where customers can gather with friends or family or find a quiet spot by themselves to enjoy a sophisticated, welcoming environment, Williams explains.

Launching in tonier neighbourhoods makes the pilot project a lot less risky for the established chain with the ubiquitous green and white mermaid logo, industry watchers say.

Its easier for them to do than it is for (fast food competitor) McDonalds in that they appeal to an older, wealthier crowd, said Douglas Fisher, president of food consultancy FHG International in Toronto.

I believe that Starbucks is enhancing its product line and maximizing its revenue in relation to the rent that they are paying for their pristine locations, he added.

The new menu includes two flatbreads, one meat and one veggie ($7.95), spinach artichoke dip with pita chips ($6.95), truffle mac & cheese ($6.95), meatballs with tomato basil sauce ($5.95), bacon-wrapped dates ($5.95), marinated chicken skewers ($5.95) and truffle popcorn ($2.95).

Two of the four wines are from the Niagara region including 6 ounces of Vintage Ink Chardonnay for $11 and Fielding Estate Riesling at $10. A split bottle of prosecco is $9, Italys Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio is $13 for a 6-ounce glass and so is Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand.

Locations serving evening menu in Toronto

A rotating selection of Ontario craft beer and cider will cost $5 to $6.

Correction - April 4, 2016: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said KFC offered beer at its location in the Distillery District. In fact, KFC does not have a store in the Distillery District.



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CALGARYShady Hashem travelled part way around the world to study as a mine engineer in Canada, at times paying triple the local tuition and working at a call centre to put himself through school, only to graduate in one of the worst job markets in recent memory.

Theres no jobs, says Hashem, 28.

I talk to a lot of engineers, and the expected time to get a job is between six months and a year.

He came to Calgary to look for work after finishing classes at Halifaxs Dalhousie University in December, hoping to find something in Albertas oilsands with his co-op work experience at Syncrude last summer. But postings are slim, and he hasnt heard anything back after applying for 50 or so jobs in recent weeks.

Im applying everywhere, but I havent heard back from anybody yet, not even an email that says: Sorry, this position has been filled, said Hashem. Thats very frustrating.

Hashem, originally from Egypt but now a permanent resident of Canada, is one of the many recent engineering grads who are struggling to find jobs as the oil-and-gas industry continues to slash jobs in the aftermath of the global oil price plunge.

Those still in school looking for work experience also face a daunting market as summer approaches.

Colleen Bangs, manager of career services at the University of Calgary, says only about a third of the 659 engineering students at the school have found placements for their yearlong internships as companies cut back on campus recruitment.

Something Ive noticed, particularly in this last semester, is that theres a bit of an impending feeling of doom, said Bangs.

Thats in stark contrast to the situation just a couple years ago, when the industry was booming.

It was just a very different climate. Employers were racing to make offers, said Bangs. Whereas now its a bit more sombre to be totally honest. Its a lot slower, much like were seeing in the general marketplace.

Several companies are cutting back on student hirings. Suncor says its reduced hiring compared with recent years without giving specifics, while Cenovus Energy says it isnt hiring any students at all for now, paid or unpaid.

Cenovus spokesman Brett Harris said in an email that the company suspended the program given the challenging economic environment, which has resulted in more than 30 per cent of the companys overall workforce being cut since the end of 2014.

Its not all doom and gloom, however.

At the University of Alberta, close to 70 per cent of the 1,300 students looking for four-month co-op placements have found them, said assistant professor Tim Joseph at the universitys school of mining and petroleum engineering.

He said employers still have short-term hiring needs  and while the co-op students are paid a healthy salary ranging from around $3,000 to over $6,000 a month at times, companies arent on the hook for senior-level salaries, benefits or other long-term obligations.

Its not the same expense as a full hire. You can normally get two to three people for the price of one, said Joseph.

Joseph said hes hoping to get over 80 per cent of students in co-ops this summer, compared with a peak of 96 per cent in the boom years. Students who cant find placements risk losing their spot in the co-op program, and graduating without crucial work experience.

But even those graduating with experience are struggling, said Joseph, as they look for those elusive long-term, full-time jobs. He recently asked for a show of hands in the graduating class of about 850 of those who had a job lined up, and said only about 20 per cent raised their hands.

Hashem was fortunate enough to find co-op placements throughout his program so has some savings to live off, but hes cut back on expenses where he can.

With few jobs to apply for, hes spending most of his time these days trying to further improve his skills, taking an online course on project manager principles so he can apply for civil engineering jobs.

He says he has up days and down days as he tries to stay focused and optimistic.

Im doing my best, he said. Im improving my qualifications, but Im still waiting.

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To be or not to be remembered? There is no question the world is taking notice of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeares death. Events around the world  from Stratford, Ont., to Kabul and points in between  celebrate and commemorate the worlds best-known English language playwright. Here are just a few.

Stratford, Ont.: The Stratford Festival was once known as the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and it plans a series of events including: productions of As You Like It, the Henriad history cycle, for which the Tom Patterson Theatre will be reconfigured into a theatre in the round, and Macbeth; and chances for young people to participate by, among other things, writing their own love poems or participating in The Stroke of Death, a look at how fear of death affects how we act.

Ottawa: The University of Ottawa will officially launch a series of events on Jan. 23 with Paul Gross and Martha Henry and university president Allan Rock. They include a series of Friday lunchtime lectures from professors on how Shakespeare impacts their fields of study, from Feb. 5 to April 8; the Shakespeare + Canada Symposium from April 21 to 23; an exhibition of works by Canadian writers and scholars inspired by Shakespeare; a sonnet-writing competition; and a reading of Hamlet in all languages spoken by university faculty, from Arabic to Yiddish, on April 23, as well as Falstaff Pub Nights and a Shakespeare Insult-a-Thon.

Toronto: The Toronto Public Library has a week of events around the anniversary and plenty throughout the year, including screenings of film adaptations of his work and a one-man show by Chris Humphries that looks at what Shakespeares life would have been like; performances of Elizabethan music, puppet shows, scholarly talks, plays and a Shakespeare for Kids library club.

Chicago:Shakespeare 400 Chicago plays host to the largest tribute, a series of events showcasing theatre companies from around the world, beginning with Measure for Measure by Russias Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre, which ran in January, to The Winters Tale from the U.K.s Cheek by Jowl from Dec. 14 to 21. Heres some fun for foodies: Chicago Chefs Explore the Complete Works is a yearlong event featuring cuisine derived from Shakespeare works.

The Globe Theatre, London. This theatre stands just a few hundred yards from the site of the original Globe in which Shakespeare was a shareholder and where his plays were first performed. Here, every day is a celebration of him and his work, but they are pulling out the stops with many other events including, on April 23 and 24, The Complete Walk, which will see 10-minute films playing on a route through the old city.

Stratford-upon-Avon, England:World Shakespeare Congress, the quinquennial event that runs from July 31 to Aug. 6, is a two-part event beginning in Stratford-upon-Avon and heading to London, attracting scholars, artists and musicians from around the world, and featuring a series of discussions, lectures and performances.

Around the world: A two-year tour of the world by 16 members of Shakespeares Globe theatre company will entail performances of Hamlet in almost 200 countries by the time the tour ends in April. Theyve already been to places as diverse as Kabul and Malta; you can follow their experience on Twitter and YouTube.

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The memorable settings of these new titles include a municipal park in St. Johns that has become home for unusual wildlife; a remarkable waterfront bar in Brooklyn; a funeral home in Illinois; and an Alaskan tugboat.

The Most Heartless Town in Canada, By Elaine McCluskey

The place is Elm St., in front of the swimming pool in the fictional Nova Scotia town of Myrtle. It is the setting for an iconic photo taken of a weeping teenager, her hair wet, standing beside a skinny guy wearing a T-shirt that says, Im With Stupid and an arrow pointing at the girl. The photo was taken by a (fictional) Toronto newspaper to accompany a think piece headlined The Most Heartless Town in Canada, following the murder of eight bald eagles in Myrtle. The girl is Rita Van Loon, our narrator, who now, seven years later, wants to set the record straight about what happened that day. McCluskey knows whereof she writes: She lives in Dartmouth, is married to a news photographer and is a former Canadian Press bureau chief.

The Lifeboat Clique, Kathy Parks

The setting for this young-adult novel is a rickety old boat, its motor missing, with a gallon of water and few supplies on board. A group of teenagers manages to climb aboard the hopeless craft after a tsunami swallows their California coastal neighbourhood. On board are: Denver Reynolds, our cocky 16-year-old narrator and the most unpopular girl in Grade 11; Abigail, her red-haired and freckled arch-enemy and former best friend; Abigails ditzy friends Hayley and Sienna; and Trevor, an irritating member of a garage band (though we know from Chapter Uno  all the chapters get Spanish numbers  that he isnt long for this world (the idiot drinks sea water, which you must never, ever do when youre stranded on a boat in the ocean)). Parkss sixth novel will be easily devoured by teenage girls in Grade 9 (Nueve) and up.

The Truth About Death and other Stories, Robert Hellenga

The setting for the title novella is a funeral home in Galesburg, Ill., where the Oldfields prepare the bodies of the recently departed for their send-off and muse on questions of life and death. And a lot of life is certainly compressed into the storys 140 pages  we become intimately acquainted with several members of the extended family, journey as far afield as Rome, and find wit and succour in New Yorker cartoons. The back cover bills the story as a masterpiece of sardonic humor that confronts Death head on. In fact, the more important truth about The Truth About Death is that it deals amusingly yet honestly about that wonderful interlude before death intervenes.

The Alaskan Laundry, By Brendan Jones

This accomplished first novel is set on The Rock, a.k.a., Archangel Island, Alaska, a slab of rock 50 miles long and 15 miles wide. After the death of her mother, 18-year-old Tara Marconi leaves Philadelphia and her boyfriend in hopes of finding a new life in Americas northernmost outpost. And she does: Tara gets a job in the commercial fishery and works her way up from hatchery assistant to king crabber, while making a home she can call her own out of an old tugboat. Jones, like his central character, works in a commercial fishery and lives on a tugboat, in Sitka, Alaska.

Sunnys Nights: Lost and Found at a Bar at the Edge of the World, By Tim Sultan

The place is Sunnys Bar, a dockside bar on Brooklyns waterfront. Sultan then 27, discovered it late one night in the winter of 1995 when he came upon a sign that said, simply, Bar, a spot he later learned was open only on Friday. On that first occasion, he found a group of men drinking and watching a Martha Graham modern dance film. Thats when he first met the charismatic Sunny Balzano, the most arresting presence he had ever encountered. The rest is history  including the personal histories of Sunny, Sultan and sundry others, plus anecdotes, exploits and skinny dips after midnight. Always amusing, often edifying, beautifully told. This unusual memoir has received a warm reception since its release in February.

Work Like Any Other, By Virginia Reeves

There are two distinct settings in this debut historical novel: the first is a farm in Alabama in the 1920s. When his wifes farther dies, Roscoe T. Martin gives up his work as an electrician, a job he loved, to work this chunk of land, which he hates, that his wife has inherited. The second is Kilby Prison, where Roscoe is sent to serve out the long sentence he receives after his diverting of electricity onto the farmland electrocutes an Alabama Power employee. Back and forth we go, one chapter on the land, the next in the prison, as we follow the emotional growth of a young man punished for trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Sarah Murdoch, smurdoch49@gmail.com

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Iceland

Watch this if: The real estate market doesnt give you enough anxiety as it is.

Iceland first made its mark on the Toronto theatre scene in 2012, when it scooped up the Audience Choice Award at the SummerWorks Festival. It then went on to win its playwright, Nicolas Billon, the Governor Generals Award for Drama (as one third of a collection). Four years later, Iceland returns with the same stellar cast that put it on the map (Kawa Ada, Claire Calnan and Christine Horne) and a financial crisis setting that luckily (for the play, at least) hasnt become less fraught since its premiere.

April 25-May 14, the Theatre Centre, 1115 Queen St. W.

Botticelli in the Fire/Sunday in Sodom

Watch this if: You want to learn about a famous painter and an infamous wife portrayed by a soon-to-be famous playwright.

For the amount that Jordan Tannahills name gets thrown around as the future of Canadian theatre, this surprisingly marks the first time the much-hyped playwright will debut new works in one of the citys major institutions. And not one but two plays are on offer here: one about the famous painter Sandro Botticelli and his scandalous romantic exploits; the other a contemporary revisit to Sodom and Gomorrah from the perspective of Lots Wife. This will be one complex night at the theatre.

April 26-May 15, Berkeley Street Theatre Downstairs, 26 Berkeley St.

SheDot Festival

Watch this if: You like listening to funny people tell jokes, who also happen to be badass boss women.

The annual SheDot Festival is coming back to Toronto to celebrate the citys funniest women over four days this week. This years edition has assembled a small army of performers (over 90, to be specific) for jam-packed evenings of showcases and workshops. One cant-miss lineup is SheDot TDot hosted by Allana Reoch (British Teeth, the Sketchersons, Panacea!) featuring local ladies like Ify Chiwetelu, Julia Bruce and Rush Zilla on Saturday night. #Bossypants

April 28-May 1, Comedy Bar, 945 Bloor St. W.; the Corner Comedy Club, 163 John St.

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Whether fighting discrimination, lobbying for the rights of Indo-Canadians or speaking out for those who couldnt, Jagat Jack Uppal strived to improve life for all in the city he loved.

The pioneering community leader never sought the spotlight but it often found him, most recently this month when Vancouver council named a street after Uppal, recognizing his commitment to social justice. Its the first time in the citys history that a street or any municipal asset has been named after a South Asian Canadian and it happened on the same day council was celebrating the citys 130th birthday.

When it came to selecting the name of a street in a waterfront re-development area sprouting in the citys River District, the late Uppals name was top of the list for the Civic Asset Naming Committee, says councillor Andrea Reimer. Every year, the public submits candidates for consideration by the committee, which picked Uppal because of his decades of contributions to the community.

Uppals roots run deep in the once industrial neighbourhood on the banks of the Fraser River, in the southeastern corner of the city. His family first settled there after arriving from Punjab in 1926 when he was an infant. It was home to many poor Indo-Canadians like the Uppals. While he was one of the first Sikh students accepted into Vancouvers public school system, he and his older brother had to drop out to help support the family after their fathers death.

Those early years helped build character, and throughout his life, Uppal spoke out for the disadvantaged. As a young activist, he helped lobby for voting rights for South Asians, granted in 1947. After years working in the lumber industry, he struck out on his own in 1971, establishing Goldwood Industries on nearby Mitchell Island.

Uppal helped many immigrants establish themselves in their adopted homeland, hiring them at the mill when other companies turned them away. His daughter, Cindy Bains, is now company president.

Uppal was also instrumental in establishing the Ross St. Sikh Temple, a beacon for Vancouvers faithful when he joined others in the community to purchase the site.

Uppal died in 2014 at age 89. More than 2,000 mourners paid their respects.

He would have been very humbled and happy that the City of Vancouver and Canada honoured him, says Bains, of the April 6 tribute to her father. She added he spent his life putting the needs of others first and taught his children to do the same.

There are no words to express how proud we are of him, she said of Uppals four children.

When she was growing up in the Uppal house, it was like a post office with people coming and going, she recalls, noting that his office at Goldwood was the same. He was like a social worker that didnt get paid. There were always long lineups of people waiting for him to fill out their income taxes and when someone needed a friend, Uppal was there to listen.

In accepting an honorary doctorate of laws from Simon Fraser University, Uppal advised graduating students they would be judged by how they treated others.

I love humanity and it is the essence of my being, he said in 2012. I want to infect you with the same desire to do for others as you would do for yourself because greatness is defined by service.

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HALIFAXSeveral hundred people including the chief of police and the mayor of Halifax marched through the citys downtown today to express concern over a recent series of violent deaths.

March organizer Quentrel Provo says the idea is to show that people have had enough of gun-related violence in the city.

Provo says he believes people have to do their part and shouldnt rely only on police to solve the problem.

He calls the recent killings heartbreaking and says the community can no longer remain silent.

On Saturday police found the body of 20-year-old Daverico Downey in North Preston near Halifax.

The body of Tyler Richards was found in a Cook Avenue home last Sunday, while 23-year-old Naricho Clayton of Dartmouth was shot dead on Gottingen Street on Tuesday.

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Stunned by Mike Duffys acquittal in Ottawa? Brace yourself for the possibility of similarly surprising verdicts at Queens Park, where other court cases are casting shadows.

While its impossible to predict the outcomes of pending trials  related to deleted emails over gas plants, or byelection shenanigans in Sudbury  dont be shocked if other judges are equally unwilling to convict politicians and political staffers of criminal acts, merely for practicing the dark arts of politics.

Perhaps its time we stopped trying to criminalize the cut and thrust of politics.

Theres a difference between impropriety and illegality. Unscrupulous doesnt mean unlawful.

The Duffy decision reminds us that the wheeling and dealing or give and take of politics are not a natural fit for the criminal courts. Politics may seem shadowy, but its also full of grey areas that dont fit into the black-and-white prisms through which people prefer to view our world.

Voters, opposition politicians and editorial writers have every right to demand the best of those in power: Unimpeachable ethics, pristine comportment, and purity of motives (good luck with that).

But anyone looking for perfection in politicians  and the perception of perfection  is living in a world of fantasy best found in the realm of faith. In the real world of political deal-making and decision-making, there is only the imperfection of endless compromises  many of them made in good faith, some of them stinking to high heaven.

The Duffy verdict illustrates the profound difference between conduct that doesnt pass the smell test, and supposed misconduct that must pass a higher legal test of criminal wrongdoing.

The court of public opinion is paramount at election time, when voters are the supreme judges as to who will win power. The law courts, however, determine who will lose their freedom if convicted of a crime based on evidence and sworn testimony.

This is not to defend Duffys questionable conduct, nor the Senates outlandish sense of entitlement. Some have wrongly described Duffys unequivocal acquittal as a vindication (revenge against the Prime Ministers Office under Stephen Harper seems more apropos), but it was no such thing.

The judge merely pointed out the obvious distinction between Duffys seemingly dubious expenses, and the appallingly loose rules at the Senate. You cant send someone to jail if he didnt break the rules, even if  or precisely because  the rules were ridiculously loose or inconsistently applied.

Thats not a criminal matter but a question of public policy. Its also worth noting that the RCMP spent more than $1 million investigating the allegations of Duffys relatively paltry use or misuse of public funds which seems, in retrospect, like a misallocation of police resources.

What does this say for the cases now looming over Queens Park? Are there similar keystone cops antics at play provincially, where the opposition routinely dashes off letters to the Ontario Provincial Police demanding investigations?

Accusations that the governing Liberals tried to buy off an unwanted candidate in a 2015 Sudbury byelection have always struck me as a stretch. As party leader, Premier Kathleen Wynne had already declared that she would not sign his Liberal nomination papers (her absolute right), so the idea that he needed to be bribed by others with loose talk of being hired as a low-paid local constituency assistant just to make him go away was just that  loose talk. Except that it was caught on tape (police laid bribery charges against a top Sudbury Liberal activist, Gerry Lougheed, who has denied any wrongdoing).

The OPPs multi-year probe, also requested by the opposition, into deleted emails in the premiers office under Dalton McGuinty  possibly but not necessarily related to the cancellation of gas-fired power plants  also seems like overkill (charges related to email deletions were laid against former McGuinty staffers David Livingston and Laura Miller, who both deny any wrongdoing). Every time theres a shredding truck outside government offices, or public servants use the phone  instead of putting it in writing and archiving it  will the opposition call in the cops?

Its too easy to offload the responsibilities of the Official Opposition  and voters  onto the police. We need to distinguish between throwing the bums out and throwing them in jail.

There will always be situations, notably theft of public funds, that cry out for police investigations. But crying wolf  and criminalizing our political culture by calling the cops at every turn  is no substitute for the democracy and accountability of our parliamentary system.

Martin Regg Cohns Ontario politics column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. mcohn@thestar.ca , Twitter: @reggcohn

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Mike Duffy is innocent. The embattled senator has been unequivocally cleared of all criminal charges laid against him.

But the question that lay behind those 31 charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust remains unresolved: Should Duffy be a senator at all?

More specifically, should the long-time Ottawa resident represent Prince Edward Island in the Senate?

Justice Charles Vaillancourt approached this question in his 308-page ruling Thursday, noting that the Constitution Act specifically requires that senators be resident in the provinces they represent.

But he pointed out that it was not a question he was prepared to answer.

This trial is not about whether Senator Duffy was/is legally qualified to be a senator from PEI, the judge wrote.

Yet as the ruling makes clear, it was a question that consumed Duffy ever since former prime minister Stephen Harper first raised the idea of appointing him to the upper chamber.

Canadas Senate is an odd institution. It has virtually the same powers as the elected House of Commons. But, since its members are appointed by whoever happens to be prime minister whenever a vacancy occurs, it has little political legitimacy.

Its role, as envisioned at Confederation, was to represent the interests of the provinces. To that end, senators are constitutionally required to own $4,000 worth of property in the province they are appointed to represent.

More important, they are required to be resident in the province for which they are appointed  to live there. If they cease living there, the constitution requires them to quit the Senate.

Only senators who are appointed to cabinet, and therefore required to spend more time in Ottawa, are exempted from this rule.

Duffy, who is no fool, was aware of this problem from the beginning. As the judge notes, his initial reaction to Harpers offer of a Senate appointment was that he should represent Ontario, which is where he lives.

Harper said no. There were Ontario Senate seats open. But none would go to Duffy. If he wanted a Senate position, he would have to represent P.E.I., the province of his birth.

The former journalist was assured by Harper, by an official in the prime ministers office and by two senior Conservative senators that everything would be fine.

Duffy already owned a summer cottage in P.E.I. It was unusable in winter and situated on a road that wasnt plowed. But that didnt matter. He was told he could claim it as his primary residence and thus meet the constitutional requirements.

In a December 2008 meeting, Harper explained the twisted logic succinctly: Since Duffy was being appointed to represent P.E.I. in the Senate, then by definition he must live in P.E.I.

As Vaillancourt points out: This was not some minor bureaucratic official speaking, but the prime minister of Canada.

Still Duffy fretted. A Charlottetown newspaper published an article questioning his residency qualifications. What was he to do? Again he approached a senior Conservative senator.

He was told to make sure he charged the Senate living expenses for his time spent in Ottawa. Otherwise, the Conservatives political enemies would able to argue that he lived in the national capital region and not in P.E.I.

From that, according to Thursdays ruling, flowed the bizarre scenario in which Duffy charged taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars for living in his own, longtime suburban Ottawa home.

That, in turn, led to the inevitable scandal, the $90,172.24 payment to Duffy from top Harper aide Nigel Wright and ultimately the criminal charges that were dismissed last week.

But in the end, the central problem remains unresolved. Mike Duffy is an engaging fellow. And he is certainly not guilty of any crime. In fact, the judge paints him as a victim of Wright, the prime ministers office and unnamed individuals whom Vaillancourt describes as deceitful and manipulative.

Yet neither is Duffy constitutionally qualified to sit as a senator from P.E.I. He may have a P.E.I. drivers licence. He may even choose to file P.E.I. income tax returns.

But he doesnt live there in any real sense. He lives in Ottawa.

Thomas Walkoms column appears Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday.

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MONCTON, N.B.Denis Arsenault hosted an important visitor the other day at his Moncton offices, a moment that revealed much about his companys grand ambitions.

Arsenault is CEO of OrganiGram, producer of Canadas only organic medical marijuana, and the only licensed grower east of Ontario.

His visitor was Brian Gallant, the boyish, 33-year-old premier of New Brunswick, who came to offer wage subsidies to help the company expand.

Arsenault, whose company aims to get a running start on a legalized recreational marijuana market, did not miss the irony of Gallants visit.

The premier is supporting marijuana production just 30 years after one of his predecessors, Richard Hatfield, was arrested and put on trial for marijuana possession.

Its clear society has evolved, said Arsenault, a tall, clean-cut executive who looks like he would be comfortable in any corporate boardroom in the country. Seventy to eighty per cent of the Canadian population is in favour of some form of legalization.

Last Wednesday, Health Minister Jane Philpott announced that the federal government will introduce legislation to legalize marijuana next spring.

Arsenault said he expects Health Canada will have to license more producers across the country to be able to meet the demand for recreational marijuana. He expects to carve a portion of that market, and is preparing for the day.

OrganiGram Holdings Inc.  publicly traded on the TSX Venture Exchange  already owns a neighbouring building and land where it can expand.

Id say we can get to 25,000 kilograms production capacity, which would take us in the vicinity of $200 million per year in annual production, Arsenault said.

OrganiGram  which opened in 2014 and had its first sales last year  is one of only 30 producers licensed by Health Canada.

Behind barbed wire at its offices in an industrial park, prescribed marijuana is packaged and direct mailed to patients across the country.

In terms of sales weve posted our last quarterly results at about $1.4 million for the last three months, said Arsenault. Things are going in a very nice direction.

Arsenault said the current expansion will give OrganiGram a sales capacity of about $25 million, a level he expects to reach sometime in 2017.

The expansion  which is strictly for medical marijuana  is adding new areas where different strains of marijuana will be grown, processed and stored.

There are two main ingredients in marijuana. Youve got THC which is psychoactive ingredient. Youve got CBD which is really the medical compound in it, and when we talk about children with epilepsy, its really the product in there that helps with those seizures, he said.

You grow different strains because not everybody wants a product that is very high in THC or high in CBD, so theres a very wide variety of products that we grow.

Marijuana is also prescribed to deal with pain and the symptoms of MS, Parkinsons, PTSD, sleep disorders and anxieties.

Security at the Moncton facility is tight. Staff and visitors must don white lab coats and hair nets while high-tech equipment monitors environmental conditions, and an untold number of security cameras track every movement.

Travelling from room to room, you see horticulturalists tending to plants at varying stages of growth, all bathed in a surreal pink glow from special lighting.

Our climate control is very important, said Nico Nache, OrganiGrams director of operations. The temperature, humidity, the airflow, and light intensity is all controlled via computer according to the plant needs.

The company currently has about 47 employees, but that will grow quickly. Gallants announcement last month means the province will provide a payroll rebate of about $8,800 for each of 113 new jobs.

OrganiGrams potential is being watched closely by the province.

Since it was legalized there, the state of Colorado has seen tax revenues from marijuana equal to what they had been collecting on alcohol.

Stephen Horseman, New Brunswicks minister of Justice and Public Safety, said he has met with the governor of Colorado and reached out to Oregon and Washington State to find what lessons have been learned since those states legalized marijuana.

Horseman  a former police officersaid hes keeping an open mind on the issue and adds that New Brunswick could use the extra revenue to help pay for services like education and health care.

Arsenault said revenue for the province could be significant.

When you look at how much tax or remittances that NB Liquor provides the province on an annual basis, you may get a situation where you can double that, he said.

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The tongue lashing city councillors gave police last week over controversial paid duty was the latest sign of the Toronto Police Associations waning influence at city hall.

Members of the executive committee took turns ripping into the fact thousands of highly trained  and paid  Toronto cops have an iron grip on lucrative off-duty assignments.

I think many councillors are fed up with this, Councillor James Pasternak told reporters. The paid-duty officers are costing in the $30 million range, theyre using taxpayer-funded motorcycles and squad cars and horses and uniforms which we incur the cost of replacing while theyre moonlighting and its just not right.

For TPA president Mike McCormack, such talk is the new normal.

He recently sent a dont-stick-your-neck-out letter to union members that said political leaders care more about special interests than backing frontline officers.

Theres the provinces new ambiguous street-check regulation, Premier Kathleen Wynnes systemic racism comment on the lawn at Queens Park and city councils unanimous support of a police anti-racism motion.

Also looming is Mayor John Torys transformational policing task force. It is supposed to produce a blueprint for modernizing the delivery of police services while reining in costs, which could lead to closed police divisions, a hiring freeze, layoffs, or all of the above.

The TPA has little choice but to push back.

We will strongly and aggressively oppose any recommendation that we feel has a negative impact on the safety of our members and the community, McCormack stated in email.

But just how far is the TPA willing to go? Back to an era of intimidation and the politics of fear that cowed politicians into meeting their demands? It wasnt all that long ago that a councillor who openly questioned or criticized the police was in for a bruising ride from the TPA.

Members of the union executive would make a beeline to city hall to warn the naysayer that were going after you, says Craig Bromell, TPA president from 1997 to 2003.

When we showed up, believe me, the whole building knew we were there. His nicknames ran the gamut from Bro to Bully in Black and other names not fit to print.

We werent the most powerful police union, we were the most powerful union in the country. We were it.

Bromell infamously led a wildcat strike at 51 Division, the True Blue campaign  the union sold stickers to identify motorists as police supporters. Bromell had no qualms about threatening an outbreak of Blue Flu, where officers would call in sick to protest an issue.

Former city councillor Brian Ashton, who sat on the civilian oversight police board from 1992 to 1996, remembers well when the police were so powerful, the public would just side with them immediately.

And so did the politicians.

On his website, Bromell boasts he negotiated three contracts totaling 24 per cent in raises with dramatic improvements to pension and medical packages.

Ashton recalls Bromells predecessor, Art Lymer, showing up at one of his campaign meetings and telling the crowd how much the councillor doesnt support policing.

That was the pressure they were prepared to put on board members and making the connection back to the politicians  the motherlode, the money, the real control, the real power, says Ashton, now president of the Canadian National Exhibition Association.

While Bromells hardball tactics worked 20 years ago, he doubts theyd play well in 2016, Ashton says.

Todays officers are better educated and come from different disciplines. They will understand the changing role and culture of policing in Toronto so its going to be difficult for the police union to pressure politicians into compliance.

McCormack is also, generally, more thoughtful and measured in his responses, and cares about his image, unlike Bromell. The presidents of police unions tend to reflect the rank-and-file of the day, Ashton says.

A city councillor, who asked not to be named, said the TPA brand is damaged from the Bromell days.

Bromell not only disagrees that his combative approach is passe, hes urging Canadian police unions to become more aggressive, applauding the Montreal Police Unions new billboard campaign to combat negativity about officers.

The police unions only job is to protect those who protect others, not the community, not the politicians. Their only function in life is to protect those coppers and their civilian members.

He is currently putting the final touches on his soon to be released autobiography, Copfather, and penning a blog filled with incendiary, pro-police commentary.

But todays kinder, gentler Toronto Police Association believes public opinion matters.

Our fight against crime is not only played out in the court of law, but can also be won in the court of public opinion, reads a TPA bulletin to its members filled with public opinion polling numbers.

Weve found the best way to shape public opinion is by improving our public and government relations initiatives and changing the narrative on policing.

With files from David Rider

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Black Lives Matter is declaring a huge victory after other members of the black community refused to discuss racism and equity in a private meeting with Mayor John Tory and police Chief Mark Saunders.

Those discussions cannot move forward in the absence of Black Lives Matter, which was not invited to Saturdays meeting, the black community members told the mayor and police chief at city hall.

The outcome is proof that the black community wont be divided, said Black Lives Matter organizers, who have refused to meet privately with Tory.

The community spoke today ... These tactics that the mayor is trying to use to divide respectable black people over people who refuse to be apologetic about their rage and about the trauma they experience every day having to navigate anti-black racism, that is problematic and were calling that out, said Yusra Khogali, in front of Toronto police headquarters.

The confrontational Black Lives Matter activists have been protesting the treatment of black citizens by Toronto police, including the practice of carding. The group is also demanding an overhaul of the Special Investigations Unit, the body that polices the police.

Tory came out of the morning meeting promising to move as quickly as we can to have a public meeting that will include Black Lives Matter.

We will proceed to find a way to get them at the table with some of the other groups that have a concern about these issues, he told reporters.

Neil Price, one of about 15 black community members at Saturdays meeting, said Tory now understands the gathering should never have happened without Black Lives Matter.

The mayor was asked to set aside discussions about feelings of safety and comfort, said Price. If its uncomfortable to sit in front of a group of young people who are passionate and angry, then thats your job as mayor and we hope he takes that message seriously, he said.

The fact that the mayor has said that he has heard the community, has understood that we are united in this and wants to have a public meeting with us, I think thats definitely a progressing point, said Black Lives Matter Toronto co-founder Alexandria Williams.

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After the release of his second report on the provinces Special Investigations Unit (SIU) three years ago, then Ontario ombudsman Andre Marin echoed Winston Churchill in a speech to students at Carleton University. The SIU, he said, is the worst system of police oversight in Canada  except for all the others.

More recently, critics, including Marin, have slammed the police oversight body as inadequate, unnecessarily secretive and too cosy with the cops.

As Premier Kathleen Wynne and Attorney General Madeleine Meilleur respond to criticism by pointing to an upcoming review of legislation that governs police and the SIU, here are some helpful suggestions borrowed from around the world to stitch together a model of police accountability agency.

More transparency

The SIU investigates police involvement when someone dies or is seriously injured. The officers are almost always cleared of criminal wrongdoing, but the public never knows why, aside from small glimpses in minimal SIU news releases. The actual reports on the investigation go to the attorney general and are kept secret from the public.

In San Francisco, the Office of Citizen Complaints (OCC) publishes reports on its investigations every month.

Naming officers

Since Andrew Loku was shot and killed by a Toronto police officer last summer, there have been calls for authorities to name the cop that fired the gun. The SIU doesnt do this; the public learns an officers name only if that officer is criminally charged. But the Police Integrity Commission (PIC) of New South Wales submits some of its reports on police conduct to the state parliament, and when it does, subject officers names are included  even those not alleged to have done anything wrong.

If anything, thats even better, says Frank Ferdik, a criminology professor at the University of South Carolina, arguing that such transparency can embolden public confidence in police offices.

Investigators you can believe in

Until the SIU was created in 1990, police forces in Ontario handled their own inquiries into alleged police misconduct, or had another police service step in and take the reins to create separation between the accused officer and the investigators. Changing social attitudes created pressure for more robust, critical oversight, which led to the rise of nominally civilian agencies such as the SIU. Like the Independent Police Complaints Commission in Britain, leaders at the SIU are not allowed to come from policing backgrounds, though some investigators are former cops.

This has been controversial, says Paul McKenna, a police accountability expert from Dalhousie University, explaining that some believe even a minority of former police can create a pro-officer bias. While SIU investigators are banned from probing police forces they once worked for, others go further. The Police Integrity Commission in New South Wales, for example, doesnt employ any former police who worked for law enforcement anywhere in the state.

Consequences for not co-operating

Officers in Ontario are required by law to immediately notify the SIU when it appears its mandate could apply, and to co-operate fully with any investigation. But the SIU doesnt have the power to discipline police that fail to do this. A 2011 report from Chief Justice Patrick LeSage stated an SIU director couldnt legally require a police chief to investigate compliance or report to the oversight agency.

Ferdik said the Office of Citizen Complaints in San Francisco can force police officers to appear at hearings and also ensure they are disciplined for not complying, and the office can also recommend policy changes to improve policing and soothe friction with the public.

Police buy-in

McKenna and Ferdik say winning the support and co-operation of police is one of the biggest obstacles facing civilian oversight agencies. This problem showed up in Toronto when former SIU director Ian Scott publicly criticized then police chief Bill Blair for failing to answer more than 100 letters hed sent regarding a lack of co-operation during investigations.

Ferdik describes SIU analogues in Australia that have good relationships with the police they investigate. He says it starts from the top, with the chief and the deputy chiefs of police services.

A lot of them, because they want the reputation of the police department to stay as clean-cut as possible, they want to make sure theres no bias, theres enhanced legitimacy on behalf of private citizens, he said. Its difficult to find, he added, but its not entirely impossible.

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Many Canadians were introduced to the concept of post-incident contact during the recent high-profile trial of Jian Ghomeshi, the former CBC star. In acquitting Ghomeshi of four counts of sexual assault and one of choking, Judge William Horkins explored the later actions of the three women who accused Ghomeshi and found them discordant with what he expected of an assault victim  a controversial comment that inflamed debate over an already difficult subject.

Each complainant in this case engaged in conduct regarding Mr. Ghomeshi, after the fact, which seems out of harmony with the assaultive behaviour ascribed to him, Horkins said in his ruling. He was also bothered that the women did not disclose these flirtatious after-the-incident behaviours when they first gave statements to the police and the Crown.

One woman sent a bikini photo; another cuddled with Ghomeshi at a park and sent him a love letter; the third gave Ghomeshi a hand job at a subsequent get-together after the alleged assault.

As troubled as Horkins was by this, some experts in the field of sexual assault are troubled by the judges comments, which they consider to be out of step with the times.

Women who have been assaulted by people they know act in ways that are often counterintuitive, said University of Ottawa law professor Elizabeth Sheehy, who teaches sexual assault law.

Sheehy said it is important for judges to understand that there is no script.

Recently, the Star has looked into new allegations against Ghomeshi, made by a woman in the Toronto music business whose reaction was very different. The woman alleges that in 2013, when she was in her early 20s, Ghomeshi jumped on her, choked and forcibly kissed her, then put one hand between her legs. She managed to wriggle free and left. The woman provided the Star with a chain of text messages with Ghomeshi that indicate he pursued her in the following weeks, but she rebuffed him and eventually he gave up.

Not even texting me back today? That just makes s--t awkward, Ghomeshi wrote in a text to the woman the day after the incident.

Neither Ghomeshi nor his lawyer, Marie Henein, has responded to the Stars questions about this new set of allegations. The woman has not made a complaint to the police.

This woman chose to ignore Ghomeshi, but legal experts in the field of sexual assault say it is not unusual for someone in a social setting to remain friendly with a person who hurt them.

At first there is often a sense of confusion, a sense of denial, said Toronto criminal lawyer David Butt. It is not unusual for the relationship to continue.

We have to be very careful about constructing templates and imposing them.

What makes this situation different from assault by a stranger, Butt said, is that the incident occurs in the context of a social relationship. Some people may immediately break off ties, but others may seek to continue and possibly normalize the relationship, hoping that it will not happen again.

Experts say this is well understood when it comes to domestic violence. In that case, the victim and accused may share a residence, have children and financial ties. In the case of Ghomeshi and the three women, it was a dating relationship. Legal experts say the courts are struggling to understand why a person in that situation would be nice to an alleged abuser.

University of Windsor law professor Julie Macfarlane said, We do not seem to have judges who really understand the dynamics of these situations.

Macfarlane said there is immediate confusion for victims after these incidents: Here you have someone who until a few minutes ago you really liked, and they have done something to you that you are not comfortable with. It is perfectly normal to later try and reach out and figure out if this was an aberration. The woman may ask, did I make this happen? Is this my fault?

She said a persons charm, or perhaps a desire to offer someone a second chance, could draw the woman back to her attacker.

In the Ghomeshi case, his lawyer, Marie Henein, made much of the fact that post-incident contact by the three women was not disclosed when they first spoke to police and the Crown. Henein brought out this historical information through a raft of emails kept by her client.

In the case of complainant Lucy DeCoutere, a photograph was shown in court of Ghomeshi and DeCoutere cuddling in the park later in the weekend when he allegedly attacked her in his home, striking and choking her. DeCoutere also was revealed to have sent Ghomeshi a handwritten love letter signing off with the words I love your hands.

Why withhold such information?

Horkins said he could understand if DeCoutere had withheld information because she feared that to some audiences this post-event socializing would reflect badly on her claims that this man had in fact assaulted her. Horkins quarrel with DeCoutere was that she offered a different reason for hiding the information, telling court she planned all along to reveal the socializing at trial.

I suspect the truth is she simply thought that she might get away with not mentioning it, Horkins said.

Another sexual assault charge against Ghomeshi was dropped by Crown attorney Michael Callaghan before trial. The Star has found the charge was dropped after the complainant provided police with a short chain of emails that showed she exchanged friendly words after an alleged incident. Callaghan told court he had no reasonable prospect of conviction.

The alleged incident in that case took place in August 2002 at the Owen Sound Summerfolk music festival, where Ghomeshi was singing.

The complainant, whose name remains protected by a publication ban, has told the Star that Ghomeshi picked her out of the crowd and invited her to meet him at his hotel room so they could go out for dinner. Once there, she said he kissed her and repeatedly squeezed her neck, staring at it intently. She said he slapped her hard when she tried to leave. Then he wasnt laughing and shoved his hands in my mouth and checked my back teeth and gums like a dentist. Thats when I pushed him off and left, she said.

When first interviewed by the Star in 2014, the woman provided a series of friendly emails she had exchanged with Ghomeshi. They show that months later she did see him again, on one occasion, when he was performing at a Toronto event. She said they did talk and kiss good night. In a recent interview, the woman said she decided to give him another chance, thinking that perhaps his aggressive behaviour had been an aberration. They did not see each other again after the Toronto event.The woman said she was told by the Crown: It is not that we dont believe you; its that we dont think this is a case we can win. The woman said that the Crown and police were worried because she was extremely friendly with Ghomeshi in the emails. She said there was also a concern that she did not confront him about what he did.

The woman said she chose to disclose everything to police when she first was interviewed. I was upfront about everything, she said.

Law professor Macfarlane said it is often the case that a person will not bring forward information out of a fear they will not be believed.

In sexual assault cases, unlike most other criminal cases, it is the post-incident contact of the alleged victim that is at issue. Lawyers interviewed by the Star said that in the case of a murder, for example, it is the pre- and post-incident behaviour of the accused that takes prominence. Not so in the case of sexual assault, and particularly not when, as in Ghomeshis trial, the accused does not testify.

Veteran trial lawyer John Rosen, in an interview, said heavy scrutiny is the norm in a typical criminal case.

Everybodys conduct after an event, both complainant and accused, is a material piece of evidence, said Rosen.

In the Crown vs. Ghomeshi, none of his subsequent actions were scrutinized, and no additional witnesses were called.

Ottawa law professor Sheehy said this focus on the alleged victims post-incident conduct makes it very difficult to successfully prosecute a sexual assault.

I think this gives a profound message that unless you govern all of your behaviour from the moment of the assault, say nothing, record nothing  unless you perform absolutely perfectly in the days, weeks and months after the incident, then you run the risk of not being believed, Sheehy said.

Ghomeshi remains on bail pending a separate trial in June on one remaining charge of sexual assault.

When do I get to see you

In early 2013, Ghomeshi, then 45, was very much at the top of his game. In his sixth year hosting the music and culture show Q on CBC radio, he commanded a loyal audience across Canada. Appearing on Q, for a new musical band, could be a golden opportunity.

At a music industry party in early 2013, the woman met Ghomeshi. Her job involved promoting musical artists. Over the next six months, the two texted from time to time.

The texts show Ghomeshi trying, unsuccessfully, to get the woman to go for a drink.

You have plans tonight? he asked in February that year.

Hello sir! Yes I am isolated and (working) all night, now that Im not so sick.

In March, Ghomeshi and the woman exchanged messages regarding one of the womans artists and Ghomeshi asked when are we having that much anticipated drink. Later he typed: so are we meeting up later? I need to know so I can go about losing a friend by blowing them off. He then joked they could spend the first hour seeing if you know how to pronounce my brown person name.

The woman responded: Hahhahaha just awful. And no I actually cant tonight ill (sic) probably be working pretty late.

In June, the woman texted Ghomeshi, and asked if he wanted tickets to see a band she was promoting. Ghomeshi told her in a text that he would attend with a girlfriend.

In the days after the concert, Ghomeshi continued his attempts to see her, eventually inviting her to his house.

How is Monday night for you? Dinner?

Monday works:) the woman responded, and noted to Ghomeshi that he likely didnt expect that.

I like to remain an optimist, Ghomeshi responded. Butter chicken would be on his menu. Ghomeshi ran a countdown, texting in anticipation: 53 hours, he wrote at one point, unless thats creepy. In which case Ive not started any such thing.

In interviews with the Star, the woman said in her field it is not unusual to mix business with a coffee, drink or dinner. Q can make or break an artist, she said.

In 2013, Ghomeshi lived in Cabbagetown, in a former peanut factory converted to townhomes. The evening she first visited him, in early July that year, was the day of a massive rainstorm. Ghomeshi was a perfect gentleman. He expressed surprise that she had not listened to Q that day and played his opening monologue  on climate change  for her.

As the rain pelted his Sackville St. home, the woman gave Ghomeshi a work-related presentation on her laptop, featuring her bands. They had one glass of wine each. She was home by 11 p.m. The woman said there was no intimate contact. Before midnight, Ghomeshi texted, asking her out the following week. She told him she was busy.

The next morning, as Toronto work crews cleared storm drains, Ghomeshi texted: Happy Tuesday  when do I get to see you.

The woman responded saying she was sick and joked it was caused by his dinner. In a later interview with the Star, the woman said the illness was invented. She was concerned that Ghomeshi was trying to date her and a friend had warned her to be careful about crossing that line, given his position at Q.

Ghomeshi persisted: Whats wrong with you? We didnt even make out. At least that would make it worth it.

Over the next few weeks, Ghomeshi on five occasions asked to see her. The woman made excuses  she was still ill, cleaning up after the flood, a relative was in town. The fifth time, she agreed to meet him for a drink on a Monday in late August. She asked where he wanted to go.

Ghomeshi replied: I dont know where. I didnt think it through that far. Just know I wanna see you. By which I mean  Jian wants to see you.

When the day arrived, Ghomeshi texted the woman, saying he had just returned from Los Angeles. He asked if she wanted to have dinner, drinks, or we could also hang on my rooftop.

The woman replied: Lets meet up for a not too late drink! Totally your call where.

Ghomeshi suggested she come to Cabbagetown, and they would figure out a place she would not have to drive to. The woman responded that she did not mind driving as she had an early morning meeting the next day. The text messages show that he suggested coming to his house and she agreed.

Text when youre here cause Im on roof and may not hear door. Also  I hope you like red wine. Also  its f---ing gorgeous up here, Ghomeshi wrote in a series of messages shortly before 9 p.m.

In an interview, the woman described what happened after she arrived. She said she entered Ghomeshis home. He met her downstairs and they chatted for about an hour. He poured red wine into two glasses and they went to his rooftop. On the roof, there were couches and lounge chairs. She said, There was a different vibe than the first time. I thought, oh no, this is a thing.

She said they both sat down  she on a lounge chair that was upright  and Ghomeshi began telling her that he suffered from anxiety and had recently lost a keepsake during an Air Canada flight when his luggage went missing. He would not say what it was. I dont know if I can trust you yet, he said. She said she was increasingly concerned with the vibe. She thought: This is not the direction this should be going.

At one point, she said Ghomeshi convinced her to change her seat and move to lie down on a reclining lounge chair, to look at the stars. She did and they continued chatting. She said she was in mid-sentence when Ghomeshi, who was sitting on another chair to her left, lunged on top of her.

In an effort to get Ghomeshis account, the Star provided the following description of the womans allegations to Ghomeshi and his lawyer in writing several weeks ago and again this week. They have yet to respond.

The Stars letter to Ghomeshi states:

You encouraged the woman to lie on a one-person chaise longue looking at the stars. You were sitting in a chair beside her. While she was looking at the stars, without consent, you jumped on her, putting the full weight of your body on top of the woman. You put both hands around her throat and choked her, while kissing her aggressively and trying to force your tongue down her throat. You removed one of your hands and thrust it between her legs. The woman was wearing tights. You said to the woman, Im going to f--- you so hard you wont be able to walk for a week, and I am going to stick my finger inside of you and f--- you so hard. During this time, according to the woman, you made deep, guttural, animal style sounds. The woman managed to extricate herself from the situation by pushing you away. She recalls saying too fast, too fast. She made an excuse to leave and you insisted on walking her to her car a few blocks away. You gave her a kiss on the cheek.

In the Stars interview, the woman said that after leaving his home, she drove two blocks, pulled over and cried. She said Ghomeshi had asked her to text him when she got home and she did, texting Home! Asked about her use of an exclamation mark, and her reasoning for sending a text at all, she said she did it because he asked if she would let him know if she arrived home safely and she often uses exclamation marks in texts.

The woman eventually told the story to a small group of people. A male friend was upset and very supportive. A woman told her, Why would you go there?

According to the message chain, Ghomeshi texted her the next day at 11:27 a.m.

Hi. Happy Tuesday. Thanks for an amazing night.

She did not respond. He texted again at 6:36 p.m.: Not even texting me back today? That makes s--t awkward.

The woman responded that night by text, saying she had left her phone at home. She later told the Star this was a lie, an attempt to avoid Ghomeshi.

Id like to see you, Ghomeshi texted the following day. Over the next few days, the woman made numerous excuses. Ghomeshi responded at one point: Its like that?

She replied that she was having a terrible week at work and was now living at a friends place.

Ghomeshis last text to her was on Aug. 27: Aww Im really sorry to hear that. Sounds totally frustrating for sure.

Kevin Donovan can be reached at 416-312-3503 or kdonovan@thestar.ca .

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TAXPAYERS ON HOOK FOR $2.2 BILLION

CRONYSIM RULES CLEAN ENERGY

Excellent short clip from Friday on Fox Biz. SunEdison benefited to the tune of $750 million from taxpayers, mostly through its purchase of First Wind. Marc Morano discusses green skeletons, Solyndra 2, renewable illusions, and rampant crony capitalism at SunE.
Mayor John Torys executive committee has voted unanimously to ask the province for legislative changes to allow lesser-paid special constables to direct traffic. Thats whats done in Vancouver, where sworn municipal constables have been granted authority to direct traffic at public, private and community events. Torontos previous auditor general  now a member of a police modernization task force  recommended the city create a similar program.

A look at the two systems:

Vancouver Traffic Authority

What is it: The program started in 1999 to assist the Vancouver Police Department with traffic and pedestrian control functions. Its members are non-union, uniformed personnel who have restricted peace officer authority limited to performing duties authorized by statute. The primary function is to provide traffic direction at large events, including concerts, sporting events and cultural festivals.

Qualifications: Minimum 19 years of age, Grade 12 diploma or GED equivalent, Canadian citizen or permanent resident, physically fit and in excellent health, a valid B.C. Class 5 drivers licence with no restrictions and a good driving record, vision corrected to 20/20 and must meet colour vision standards, no business or employment conflict of interest, no criminal convictions, nor adult criminal charges pending.

Training: Applicants complete a formal paid training program over an eight-to-10-week period on evenings and weekends. Training includes legal studies, use of force, radio procedure and traffic intersection control.

Pay: Special municipal constables are paid between $22.28 and $25.98 an hour. Uniforms and equipment are supplied, uniform cleaning is provided, 12 per cent in lieu of benefits.

Fees charged to hire traffic auxiliaries for parades, concerts, TV productions and special events: $56.67 an hour. Administrative fee is included in the hourly rate.

Toronto Police Service  Paid Duty Officers

What is it: Off-duty police officers are available for hire to provide police presence for a range of functions including traffic control, funeral escorts, film shoots, sporting events, concerts and special events.

Qualifications: Minimum 18 years of age, Canadian citizen or permanent resident, minimum Ontario Grade 12 or its equivalent, no criminal convictions for which a pardon has not been granted, be of good moral character and habits, be able to pass a security clearance and background investigation, credit and reference checks.

Training: Every new recruit receives 24-weeks of training including defensive tactics, driving, firearms, neighbourhood policing and investigative training.

Pay: Almost 80 per cent of uniformed Toronto police officers made the 2015 Sunshine List of workers earning more than $100,000 a year, including income earned through paid duty. By 2018, the base salary for a first-class constable will rise almost 5 per cent from the current rate to $98,450, with those who receive the maximum retention pay set to make $107,312. Staff receive a comprehensive pension and benefits package.

Rates charged to hire off-duty cops as set by the Toronto Police Association: Police constables $68 (minimum four hours), Sergeants (when in charge of four or more officers) $76.50 (minimum four hours.) The TPS also collects a 15 per cent administrative fee and charges for equipment rental, including $37.38 an hour (for a minimum three hours) for a police cruiser.

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A York Region trustee is alleged to have pressured senior staff to boost her daughters marks so she could get into a competitive university program, the Star has learned.

The request from Trustee Linda Aversa and higher-ups was so intense, according to a school board source, that senior staff spent multiple hours of their workday over a two-week period discussing it.

She should have known better, said a source with inside knowledge of the incident involving the trustee, who represents Wards 3 and 4 in Vaughan. She used her access to petition for her daughter.

Aversa said the allegations are incorrect and she never asked for marks to be raised.

As any parent would, I did have appropriate dialogue with my daughters school about her education, but I have never asked anyone to boost her marks.

The allegations of trustee interference come as the York Region District School Board faces ongoing concern about how it is being run, increasing discontent among staff and an unusually high number of resignations of well-respected senior managers. The Star also recently revealed how trustees secretly voted their new and relatively inexperienced director an unprecedented 10-year contract.

The behaviour and influence of some trustees across the GTA, who are elected by the public, has long been a headache for the province. Months after troubleshooter Margaret Wilsons hard-hitting report on improving the culture of fear in the Toronto District School Board, including clarifying the role of trustees, similar issues are surfacing in York.

A growing number of parents and employees say its time the province turns its attention north of Toronto, and have been sharing their concerns with the education ministry.

The culture of fear is snowballing within the schooling community, wrote York parent Rukshan Para in an email to Education Minister Liz Sandals in March. (The) third largest school board in this province seems like a dysfunctional board.

A spokesperson in Sandals office said the ministry has received some correspondence regarding this matter (on the complaints of governance, culture of fear) and is currently reviewing.

According to multiple sources, Aversa approached staff at her daughters high school last June to ask if they could raise a mark she needed to get into a competitive business program.

Aversa first went to the teacher, and then to the principal of Emily Carr Secondary School in Woodbridge, the Star was told. But when her requests were rejected, she took her complaints to superintendent Becky Green to see if there was any way her daughters final grade for a math class could be boosted to an A  a mark she needed to help get accepted into the prestigious program, according to a source.

Green told the Star that while she cannot discuss parents or students for privacy reasons, the allegations are categorically incorrect.

However, sources said the request was repeated numerous times over a month and during two of those weeks, requests were made multiple times a day. For staff dealing with the issue, it occupied more of their time than it should have, one source said.

Sources also said Green was getting pressure from above to look into it. After nearly a month of constant questioning, the superintendent held her ground and would not change the mark, sources say.

Soon after, Green was transferred to another jurisdiction within the board. While some say her expertise was required in that area, others believe it was a retaliatory move.

Via email, a spokesman for director of education J. Philip Parappally said the allegations in your email are false. The director has and will continue to support superintendents of schools, through their respective associate directors, in responding to parents questions and concerns in a manner that is consistent, fair, equitable and in alignment with all relevant board policies and legislation.

Green was reached twice by the Star and did not wish to comment, but later agreed to speak by phone after the boards communications office intervened. She said she was moved to the central region last fall after nine months in the west region, was not surprised by the change and was happy about the move.

When asked about the trustees alleged interference, school principal Paolo Burzese declined to comment and referred the Star to the boards communications office.

Michael Barrett, president of the Ontario Public School Boards Association, said he advises trustees to stay away from any such discussions with their childrens school so theres not even so much as a perceived conflict.

I can tell you what Ive done myself  and Ive had six kids in the system  Ive always lived by the rule that as a trustee you are certainly able to attend your childs events and things of that nature, thats not a problem, said Barrett, a trustee for 14 years in the Durham District School Board.

But I always separate the role of trustee from the role of parent, so if there were issues at the school or with my child, I never attended those meetings. My wife always went to deal with those issues.

I suggest thats a good rule to follow and what elected officials in his board are told when they take office, he added.

For many, this much-talked-about incident is indicative of how the climate within the York board has changed since Parappallys arrival.

We have nothing to do with grades, said Joel Hertz, a former trustee, who said he, like many others in the board, had heard about the incident, but did not have first-hand knowledge of it.

The only true responsibility trustees have is hiring the director and figuring out how to pay him, said Hertz, who in his 10 years as a trustee, said he couldnt recall a similar incident.

Hertz said York trustees undergo training and are expected to follow a code of conduct that specifically calls out this behaviour.

A trustee shall not use his or her office to advance his or her interests or the interests of any family member or person or organization with whom or with which the trustee is related or associated, said the code.

He said he is troubled by the story, and that so many people in the board knew about the incident. The more people I talked to, the more this story seems to be a well-known fact, he said, adding he was concerned at the time that the penalties for trustees breaching the code were too lax.

Suzanne Craig, the TDSBs newest integrity commissioner appointed to provide advice on the code of conduct and trustee obligations under the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, says the traditional system of reporting grievances against a trustee and director can be problematic.

If the quarrel is with the very person that is stated in the process that will deal with it, you have a problem. said Craig, who stressed she was speaking generally and did not have any knowledge of the incident, nor affiliation with the York school board. And what it does is, it puts a chill across the institution, because the complainant knows they have no protection, she said.

In the Toronto public board, trustees in the past have come under fire for sending their assistant in to classrooms to observe teachers or pressuring senior staff to move preferred principals or superintendents to their ward. In one case, former Scarborough Southwest trustee Liz Moyer asked senior staff to hire her daughters for a summer program that provided jobs for at-risk youth.

While it is not uncommon for parents to approach teachers or principals about their childrens marks, it is unusual for such issues to be dealt with by a superintendent or for such requests to be made so persistently. And typically, teachers or principals would be open to altering a mark if a student showed sufficient understanding of the curriculum overall.

The parent group in York, calling itself the Coalition for Good Governance in YRDSB, has sent an open letter to parents, parent councils and the province calling for the resignation of chair Anna DeBartolo and several other trustees, saying they are concerned about poor governance and leadership within the board.

In recent stories, the Star outlined how Parappallys leadership style and decade-long contract have raised eyebrows and contributed to growing tensions at the board. DeBartolo has told the Star the 10-year contract was needed to bring long-term stability. Across Ontario, contracts are typically five years.

Para, who ran for trustee in 2014, recalls when he went door-to-door campaigning, many asked him about why there was a need for trustees.

In light of recent findings, he admits he cant help but ask the same thing.

Are the trustees even acting on behalf of their constituents? he said. I am not sure.

Lifting the lid on directors contracts:

The Star requested contracts for all directors of education in public boards across Greater Toronto via freedom-of-information legislation. Where contracts were not released or were redacted, the Star has appealed to the provincial privacy office:

Durham District School Board:

Refused to release contract of Martyn Beckett on several grounds, including that it would violate his privacy. According to Ontarios Sunshine List, however, Beckett earned $197,878.70 and taxable benefits of $661.65 in 2015. He recently left the board to become assistant deputy minister in the learning and curriculum division of the provincial education ministry.

Halton District School Board:

Released contract of Director Stuart Miller, though all details regarding pay, benefits and vacation were blacked out  including his salary and benefits, which according to the provinces Sunshine List totalled $224,693 in 2015, when he was associate director for most of the year before being promoted to the helm. Outgoing director David Euale earned $242,260.

Peel District School Board:

The first board to respond, calling the Star one week after the request was sent, and a week later providing Tony Pontes contract, in full. His four-year contract includes $249,311.50 in salary, a $10,000 yearly car allowance as well as seven weeks annual vacation. In 2015, he had $11,696.92 in taxable benefits, according to Ontarios Sunshine List.

Toronto District School Board:

The board posted the contract of interim director John Malloy on its website this month, noting Malloy will earn $272,000 a year. The first term of his contract runs until July 2017 and he is entitled to six weeks of vacation and 10 lieu days.

York Region District School Board:

Initially, the board said it had to issue third-party notice to J. Philip Parappally, but then released his contract, with some portions blacked out  including the length of the contract, which the board has previously publicly stated is 10 years, as well as his salary, which in 2015 was $268,267.75 with $13,568.35 in taxable benefits, according to the Sunshine List.

Trustees whove ruffled feathers:

Some GTA school-board trustees who have attracted controversy in recent years:

Elizabeth Moyer: The former Toronto trustee was officially reprimanded by the board in 2014 after an independent investigator found she sexually harassed two senior staff members by touching one inappropriately and making a suggestive comment to another. In 2013, emails obtained by the Star showed she asked a superintendent to inquire about hiring her daughter for a board-run program meant for at-risk teens. Both her daughters worked in the program the previous summer.

David Smith: The Toronto trustee came under fire for his attendance, with records showing he either phoned in for meetings or didnt attend most. In 2013, he went to seven meetings, missed three and phoned in for 12, more than half the board meetings that year. In 2015, he was ousted from office for failing to file his campaign expenses on time. After appealing the matter in court, he was allowed to return.

Frank DAmico: In 2011, the Toronto Catholic trustee publicly apologized for comments he made, saying they were insensitive. A student had written to him about a woman whose family member was not allowed to enrol in three Catholic high schools because he didnt have immigration papers. DAmico replied that the students aunt was lucky I didnt answer the phone because my first call would be to Immigration Canada . . . (I want to remind you of) 9/11. Sept. 11, the day that changed the world . . . I am forward (sic) your concern to the RCMP and to Immigration Canada.

Alice Anne LeMay: In 2011, the then-Halton Catholic board chair remarked that gay-straight alliances in schools do not fit the teachings of the Catholic Church. She also said the board does not allow Nazi groups for the same reason. She later apologized on the boards website.

Noor Javed covers York Region for the Star and can be reached at njaved@thestar.ca

Kristin Rushowy is an education reporter and can be reached at krushowy@thestar.ca

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In the 100 years since he was gunned down in the first hours of the Easter Rising, Neville Frydays death has always been mysterious.

Was he killed defending the city, an Irish-Canadian soldier pressed into service against an uprising in his home country  or had he just been out for a stroll at a dangerous moment in history?

Fryday, who was shot in the stomach, was the first soldier of Torontos 75th battalion killed overseas. It was 1916, and he was en route to a battle in France he would never see.

In the Toronto Daily Star, his death made the front page in early May: Were the Toronto troops, which left the city about six weeks ago, rushed across to Ireland to assist in quelling the Sinn Fein rebellion in Dublin? it asked.

A few days later, his family in Toronto received a letter, written before his death. Neville and a brother had been granted leave and both brothers had planned to see their mother in Dublin.

As the rebellion came to a head just about the time the two brothers were due to arrive in Ireland, it is likely that they both reported to the military headquarters, and were assigned duty in putting down the rising, the Star reported in an update story, couching its suppositions. Perhaps it is the irony of his fate which makes it all the more difficult for the relatives to bear with equanimity their bereavement.

According to his enlistment papers, Fryday was 22, but family records place him a few months shy of his 17th birthday when he was killed.

He was quite a young chap, the Star noted, and it is said that he had not yet reached his eighteenth year.

The circumstances of Neville Frydays death have long been dissected on Internet forums, but for the 100th anniversary of the rising, his story is receiving its largest audience ever.

The rising, which began April 24, 1916, ended with close to 500 dead, including many civilians. Public opinion had not been supportive, but the executions of the groups leaders created martyrs that became touchstones in the fight for Irish independence. The struggle would continue for years, and cost thousands more lives. It would lead to civil war, the Troubles and decades of division in both the United Kingdom and Ireland. And at the beginning, by chance, stood a young Irish Canadian.

Joe Duffy, an Irish broadcaster with a daily show on Raidio Teilifis Eireann (RTE), researched Fryday and 39 others for his book and accompanying TV documentary, Children of the Revolution, which aired on RTE last month.

I received an email one morning, it must have been three years ago, said Rev. Canon Barbara Fryday, a rector with the Church of Ireland: Do you know anything about Neville Fryday?

Fryday, whose father-in-law played with Neville when they were boys, first heard of Neville at a funeral in the 1990s. Nevilles nephew had died and someone asked if he would be buried with Neville.

Lots of people just said, Who is Neville?  she remembered, speaking from her home in Ireland. When I spoke to my husband on my way home he knew an awful lot more than he was letting on  I think sometimes families find it difficult to talk about difficult situations.

Neville Fryday was born in September 1899 in County Tipperary, Ireland, one of 13 children. When his father, a farmer, died in 1905, his mother came to Canada with her older children, leaving behind Neville and a few of his siblings with family, and later bringing them to Canada.

By July 1915, Fryday enlisted with the army in Toronto, pretending to be 21. He listed his mother as his next of kin  she was now living back in Ireland.

The 75th battalion landed in Liverpool on April 9, 1916, and Fryday was among the first batch of soldiers to be granted leave on April 18, said Tim Stewart, author of soon-to-be-released Torontos Fighting 75th in the Great War.

In the years since Neville had left Ireland, the long-simmering quest for home rule was inching closer to reality. In 1912, a bill to grant Ireland limited self-government had been introduced to British Parliament.

In the north of Ireland, many Protestants wanted to keep their allegiance to the Crown and formed volunteer forces and armed rifle associations, explained Mark McGowan, a professor of Irish Canadian history at the University of Toronto. In response, a group of Irish nationalists, most hoping their country would evolve like Canada and Australia into a semi-autonomous nation, formed their own volunteer force called the Irish Volunteers.

When the First World War broke out, the self-government bill was put on hold, and Irish from both sides of the debate enlisted. While many of the nationalist Irish Volunteers thought fighting in the army could help them win home rule after the war, others, who were more radical, didnt enlist, hoping they could bring about home rule while Britain was preoccupied with Germany, McGowan said.

On April 24, 1916, rebel forces from within the Irish Volunteers, along with Irish Citizen Army and the Irish Republican Brotherhood, seized the General Post Office and a number of key sites in Dublin, using smuggled German weapons. Just after noon, rebel leader Patrick Pearse proclaimed the birth of the Irish Republic on the steps of the General Post Office: We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible, he said, in part.

There were snipers all along James Street between Dublin castle and Trinity College, the documentary Children of the Revolution narrates. Australian and New Zealand Anzacs on leave in the city were among those dragged in by frightened students to protect the college. So how did Neville Fryday, the 16 year-old Canadian soldier from Tipperary, end up meeting his death here?

As a soldier on leave, he was likely wearing his khaki military uniform, but there are no eyewitness accounts.

Nobody would have said to him My God dont go out in a British army uniform,  Duffy says in the documentary.

Frydays service record doesnt offer clarity about what happened to him in the first hours of the rebellion. The day after he was shot, he is listed as absent, and by early May, an entry cites an unnamed Irish Command official reporting that he was shot and killed while on duty. Other parts of the record have that crossed out: Should read, gunshot wound, abdomen, killed. Either way, historians explain, on duty doesnt preclude a soldier being on leave.

Back in Canada, the Toronto Daily Star wondered whether Fryday was part of the official British response.

By the time he (Neville) was shot, it was simply too soon for him to be called up, given the timeline, communications etc., Duffy wrote in an email to the Star. After a lot of research, I am pretty clear that Neville was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Historian Tim Stewart had initially wondered about Fryday being pressed into service, but agreed that he appeared to be a victim of circumstance.

He may very well have been heading back to dock to pick up a boat to travel back to England, Stewart wrote in an email, noting that he was due back to his battalion the next day.

In the confusion of the riots, there were no inquests or answers. In Canada, Neville Frydays descendants heard different stories:

Wilf Fryday, from London, Ontario, now in his 80s, said the story always was that his Uncle Neville had been shot in the back by a rebel sniper.

Marion Fryday-Cook, a great-niece who lives outside of Halifax, was always told, Uncle Neville died fighting the great cause for Ireland.

Marions brother Jim Fryday thought Neville was a British soldier stationed in Ireland because trouble was brewing. Their father died young, and there was no one to ask: It was just whatever we thought we heard, she said. When they watched the documentary, their understanding shifted with new information: Were thinking, wrong place, wrong time.

Barbara Fryday said it appears that Neville was shot by rebels who thought he was a British soldier. While many of the injured were taken to Jervis Street Hospital, Neville was taken to Mercers Hospital, where his uncle was a surgeon. There was obviously somebody with Neville when he was shot, she said. Whether it was his brother or sister, whoever was with him was made sure to take him to Mercers Hospital, so his uncle could look after him.

The street fighting and shelling destroyed parts of Dublin, and the rising ultimately ended with the surrender and arrest of Pearse and the other key players between April 29 and April 30.

McGowan said when the leaders were marched through the streets, people hurled objects at them. This was a rising that was considered to be a stab in the back, when you consider there were tens of thousands of Irish men and women who were in the British Expeditionary Force fighting, he said.

When the rebel leaders were executed, Irish opinion changed. That is the hinge moment so to speak in this whole process  that turned the Irish population away from a more constitutional approach to home rule, he said.

After six days in hospital, Neville Fryday died on April 30, 1916. He was buried in a Dublin cemetery under a Canadian military headstone.

Barbara Fryday said that some in the family had suggested that had Neville gone to the western front in France, the horrors would have broken the rather timid boy.

Maybe it was a blessing in disguise, that he escaped that kind of awfulness, she said. It doesnt bear thinking about really, does it?

Two Irelands: a timeline

1912: Home rule bill is introduced. It offers limited self-government in Ireland but asserts the supreme authority of the U.K. Parliament over all persons, matters, and things in Ireland. The bill divides unionists who want to maintain allegiance to the British, and republicans who want independence. Each side forms volunteer militias.

1914: War breaks out and home rule is in limbo.

1916: Rebel forces launch a rebellion on April 24, taking over key sites in Dublin and declaring an Irish Republic. The rising ends with the surrender of rebel leaders, the majority of whom are executed.

1918: War ends in Europe, and nationalist movement Sinn Fein, with a manifesto to not attend Westminster and instead establish an Irish assembly, wins a majority of Irish seats in the U.K. general election.

1919: Sinn Fein MPs, led by Eamon de Valera, create a Dublin parliament, Dail Eireann, and reassert Irish independence. The Irish War of Independence (or the Anglo-Irish War) follows as the Irish Republican Army wages guerrilla warfare against British forces in the country.

1921: A truce leads to a treaty which grants Ireland dominion status, but partitions the country into two  the Irish Free State in the south and Northern Ireland, still controlled by Britain.

1922: Civil war erupts within the republican movement between those who accept the treaty (lead by Michael Collins, who helped negotiate it) and hardliners who want Ireland free of British rule entirely (lead by Eamon de Valera). Those against the treaty called a ceasefire in May 1923. Collins followers (he was assassinated during the war) formed a party that later became Fine Gael, while de Valera founded the Fianna Fail party. McGowan said the roots of Irish politics stem from that split, with relations between the two parties remaining strained over the years.

1937: A new constitution replaces the Irish Free State with Ireland or Eire in Gaelic.

1949: Irish Republic is established, and Ireland leaves the British Commonwealth, while the six counties in the north, Northern Ireland, retain their ties to Britain.

1968: After years of the unionist power in Northern Ireland, the minority republican population, largely Catholic, begin a civil rights movement calling for equality. Growing tension leads to violence, rioting and British intervention. A 30-year period of violence between paramilitary groups on both sides known as The Troubles begins.

1998: After several years of talks, the Good Friday agreement is signed, setting out how Northern Ireland should be governed by a Northern Ireland Assembly, representing both unionists and nationalists. The first phase of self government does not last long, with Britain reintroducing direct rule from 2002 to 2007.

2007: Parliament in Northern Ireland is restored, led jointly by former foes, Ian Paisley from the Democratic Unionist Party and Martin McGuinness from Sinn Fein.

Sources: BBC, Encyclopedia Britannica, Northern Ireland Assembly

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The conclusions from a series of scientific surveys of the Great Barrier Reef bleaching event  an environmental assault on the largest coral ecosystem on Earth  are in, and scientists arent holding back about how devastating they find them.

Australias National Coral Bleaching Task Force has surveyed 911 coral reefs by air, and found at least some bleaching of the vast majority of them. The bleaching was the worst in the reefs northern sector  where virtually no reefs escaped it.

Between 60 and 100 per cent of coral are severely bleached on 316 reefs, nearly all in the northern half of the Reef, Prof. Terry Hughes, the lead researcher, said in a statement to the news media.

Severe bleaching means that coral could die, depending on how long they are subject to these conditions. The scientists also reported that based on diving surveys of the northern reef, they already are seeing nearly 50 per cent coral death.

The fact that the most severely affected regions are those that are remote and hence otherwise in good shape, means that a lot of prime reef is being devastated, said Nancy Knowlton, Sant Chair for Marine Science at the Smithsonian Institution, in an email in response to the bleaching announcement. One has to hope that these protected reefs are more resilient and better able to (recover), but it will be a lengthy process even so.

Knowlton added that Hughes, who led the research, is NOT an alarmist.

Coral bleaching occurs when coral are stressed by unusually high water temperatures, or from other causes. When this happens, symbiotic algae, called zooxanthellae, leave the coral bodies. This changes their colour to white and can also in effect starve them of nutrients. If bleaching continues for too long, coral die.

There already have been reports of mass coral death around the Pacific atoll of Kiribati this year  and widespread coral bleaching worldwide, a phenomenon that scientists attribute to a strong El Nino event surfing atop a general climate warming trend.

Tourism involving the Great Barrier Reef is worth about $6.5 billion annually, and accounts for close to 70,000 jobs, according to the news release from the Australian National Coral Bleaching Taskforce.

Recently, journalist Chelsea Harvey reported that some scientists think coral bleaching this extensive could be a sign of dangerous climate change caused by humans.

The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, just after saying that countries should avoid such dangerous interference with the climate, adds that atmospheric greenhouse gas levels should be stabilized within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change.

Indeed, recent research suggests that although Great Barrier Reef coral have a mechanism to protect them if waters warm up beyond normal, but then cool down again before a second warming that crosses the bleaching threshold. However, as oceans continue to warm, it found, that pattern will be less prevalent, meaning that coral will be less able to cope.

Past global coral bleaching events have occurred in 1998 and 2010. In 1998, scientists ultimately documented through much followup research that 16 per cent of the worlds coral died in that event. The full toll of the current global bleaching event has not been determined.

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ATLANTAThe daughter of a northeast Georgia man suspected of shooting five people to death before killing himself says her father was a ticking time bomb.

Lauren Hawes told The Associated Press on Saturday that she, her mother Angela Dent and her 1-year-old daughter hid in a neighbours house  barely escaping with their lives  while her father, Wayne Anthony Hawes, 50, went on a bloody rampage and killed five people, including her grandmother and cousin.

He made threats before, but we never thought it would be at this capacity, Lauren Hawes said. Hes been kind of a ticking time bomb if you want to put in a few words.

Capt. Andy Shedd of the Columbia County Sheriffs Office said in a statement that the Friday night shootings stemmed from a domestic dispute that left three men and two women dead at two separate locations within about a mile of each other. The body of shooting suspect Hawes was recovered Saturday by authorities in his home in Appling.

Lauren Hawes, 26, confirmed that the bloodshed was connected to a domestic dispute between her parents: her mother had walked out on her father just a week ago. Angela Dent had left before  but this time, she took her possessions with her to prevent Hawes from destroying them as he had done in the past.

After Dents departure, Wayne Hawes bottomed out emotionally.

Hes done things that were questionable in the past, but never to this extent. This is very surprising. We thought he could possibly hurt himself, but not others, said Lauren Hawes.

The rampage began Friday evening, when sheriff deputies responded to a home at about 8 p.m. and found three victims. Authorities then were called to a second home nearby, where two other victims were found.

We believe the two shootings were related based on witness accounts, Shedd said. When authorities reached Hawes house and entered, they found him dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. They also found evidence that he attempted to set the house on fire.

The victims were identified as Roosevelt Burns, 75; Rheba Mae Dent, 85; Trequila Clark, 31; Lizzy Williams, 59; and her husband Shelly Williams, 62. One of the female victims died on the way to the hospital, Shedd said. The others were dead at the scene.

We believe some of the victims were related to the suspects wife, Shedd said.

Lauren Hawes said her parents had known each since they were teenagers, and had a common law marriage.

Lauren Hawes said Rheba Mae Dent was her grandmother, and her cousin was Trequila Clark. She said her grandmother was retired and her cousin was a registered nurse, who graduated from Augusta State University in 2012. She said Roosevelt Burns was her grandmothers brother. She also said family knew the Williams family from church and while her dad wasnt much of a church-goer, he was neighbourhood friends with Shelly Williams.

Ola Murry of Appling in northeast Georgia said the neighbourhood is still devastated by the events. Murray said she thought Hawes was a nice guy, but he made a stupid decision.

She would see him around the neighbourhood and he would often say hello while passing by.

I always thought he was a nice guy, Murray said. I know he did what he did, but that doesnt make him a bad guy. You know, the devil gets into you sometimes and you do stupid stuff. You got to think. You always have to put the Lord in front of you, let him lead you and you wont go wrong.

An investigation is ongoing.

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Ancient primates may have travelled from South to North America about 21 million years ago  back when the continents were separated by 160 kilometres of water. The swashbuckling monkeys are reported in a study published this week in Nature magazine.

We never wouldve predicted they wouldve been here, lead author Jonathan Bloch of the Florida Museum of Natural History told Nature.

Bloch and his colleagues identified seven monkey teeth encased in 21-million-year-old rocks in the Panama Canal Basin. The teeth, which belong to a previously undiscovered, capuchin-like species they have dubbed Panamacebus transitus, represent the oldest evidence of monkeys on the North American continent  and the first evidence of a mammal crossing the ocean that once separated it from South America.

The Isthmus of Panama  which connected what was once the island of South America to Central and North America  formed just 3.5 million years ago, at least according to most research. Until then, South America  where New World monkeys lived  was a long, watery trip away from our continent.

But the idea of monkeys rafting around unintentionally on beds of vegetation isnt as crazy as it sounds. To get to South America in the first place, monkeys had to cross over from Africa. Most scientists believe that happened about 40 million years ago. The Atlantic Ocean would have been a bit narrower than it is now, thanks to the way the continents have shifted, but it still would have been quite the trip. The monkeys in question were probably carried off to sea on uprooted trees after some kind of storm or other natural disaster.

The intrepid travellers that crossed to Panama didnt live to be the ancestors of modern monkeys in the region  those forefathers came much later, once the land bridge allowed mammals to move between continents with ease. And they didnt make it very far north, either, at least based on the lack of fossils throughout the continent.

At the time of the migration, Panama may have had plants quite similar to the ones the monkeys would have lived on in South America. They found all the fruits and things they were used to eating, Bloch told Science magazine. But as they moved farther north, they had to do without their favourite fruit trees.

We hope to find more monkey fossils, but time is definitely a factor, Bloch said in a statement. The expansion of the Panama Canal blasted through millions of years of rainforest growth, allowing Bloch and other paleontologists to excavate fossils that had previously been hidden. Were fighting against the forest that wants to grow over the rocks again. The expansion of the Panama Canal provides a once-in-a-century opportunity for these kinds of exciting discoveries. But we cant assume well always be able access these rock exposures, he said.

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Science is starting to shed some light on the curiously continuous cycle of moral outrages.

There are big mysteries there. Why are some people so quick to moral outrage? Why are people set off by different triggers? Why does the shooting of a lion named Cecil last summer spark outrage, but not any number of other animal deaths?

Psychologists say it all starts to make sense if you think of outrage as a form of display. Expressing it advertises a persons views and allegiances to potential allies. And the more popular a victims cause, the less risky it is to join in displaying your umbrage.

In an attempt to test this display hypothesis, psychologists at Yale created an outrage-provoking situation in the lab. One of two players was randomly handed some money to share with the other  or not.

The interesting part was the behaviour of a third party, who acted as a bystander. The bystander, if outraged enough by the tightwad behaviour of one of the players, could inflict punishment in the form of a fine. The bystander gained nothing for it, and in fact had to pay to inflict the fine  and yet about 30 per cent of bystanders found it worth the cost.

But those punishers ended up profiting in the end: In a game geared to measure trust, the other players placed more trust in the bystanders who inflicted fines on the tightwads. The psychologists published their findings recently in the journal Nature.

Psychologist Jillian Jordan, who led the Yale experiment, said she wasnt trying to suggest that people were faking outrage for the purpose of looking good. She believes people genuinely feel the outrage. The point was to explain why so many have the urge to share it so ostentatiously.

In real-world cases, most people unconsciously tally costs and benefits, said Harvard psychologist Max Krasnow. There is a cost to outrage, in terms of social risk. The cost shrinks when there are more and more people expressing it in solidarity. If youre, say, the only person lobbing yogurt at the Icelandic Parliament in response to the Panama Papers  like protesters did this month  you might well get arrested. But if youre part of a teeming mob, your collective display of outrage can lead to the ousting of the prime minister.

Why do some incidents provoke almost universal outrage and others set off only those in certain age groups or of particular political leanings? One of the most universal sources of outrage is stealing or hoarding resources, said psychologist Eric Pederson.

The theory is that this is ingrained in humans because our ancestors foraging cultures survived by sharing; if Joe helped himself to what others hunted and gathered, but then did not share his good fortune when he found berries or killed a wildebeest, hed get in deep trouble.

Humanitys deeply rooted antipathy for cheaters helps explain the recent outrage over tax evaders. But in other cases, said psychologist Robert Boyd, the definition of whats outrageous is dictated by less objectively obvious cultural norms. Humans are wired to pick up cultural rules and norms, and to aim outrage at violators, he said. Cultural norms vary by political leanings, geography and other factors. Often theres a large generation gap.

Harvards Krasnow said it all comes back to the fact that displays are aimed at potential allies. An outraged person may have no personal tie to a given issue, but outrage can signal sympathy with those who do. This can be quite noble and selfless, not entirely self-serving; the two blur together in ways that allow human civilization to work to the extent that it does.

Are people outrage-impaired if they didnt rail against the Cecil shooting, an infamously terrible twitter joke about AIDS in Africa or how a Muslim passenger was recently kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight for speaking Arabic? Not necessarily.

Its a complicated game were playing, Krasnow said, and sometimes the best strategy is to say nothing.

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MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF.A solar-powered airplane landed in California on Saturday, completing a risky, three-day flight across the Pacific Ocean as part of its journey around the world.

Pilot Bertrand Piccard landed the Solar Impulse 2 in Mountain View, in the Silicon Valley south of San Francisco, at 11:45 p.m. following a 62-hour, non-stop solo flight without fuel. The plane taxied into a huge tent erected on Moffett Airfield where Piccard was greeted by projects team.

You know there was a moment in the night, I was watching the reflection of the moon on the ocean and I was thinking Im completely alone in this tiny cockpit and I feel completely confident. And I was really thankful to life for bringing me this experience, Piccard said at a news conference after he landed. Its maybe this is one of the most fantastic experiences of life Ive had.

The landing came several hours after the Piccard performed a flyby over the Golden Gate Bridge as spectators watched the narrow aircraft with extra wide wings from below.

I crossed the bridge. I am officially in America, he declared as he took in spectacular views of San Francisco Bay.

Piccard and fellow Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg have been taking turns flying the plane on an around-the-world trip since taking off from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, in March 2015. It made stops in Oman, Burma, China, Japan and Hawaii.

The trans-Pacific leg was the riskiest part of the planes global travels because of the lack of emergency landing sites.

The aircraft faced a few bumps along the way.

The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Hawaii in July and was forced to stay in the islands after the planes battery system sustained heat damage on its trip from Japan. The team was delayed in Asia, as well. When first attempting to fly from Nanjing, China, to Hawaii, the crew had to divert to Japan because of unfavourable weather and a damaged wing.

A month later, when weather conditions were right, the plane departed from Nagoya in central Japan for Hawaii.

The planes ideal flight speed is about 45 km/h, though that can double during the day when the suns rays are strongest. The carbon-fiber aircraft weighs more than 5,000 pounds, or about as much as a mid-size truck.

The planes wings, which stretch wider than those of a Boeing 747, are equipped with 17,000 solar cells that power propellers and charge batteries. The plane runs on stored energy at night.

Solar Impulse 2 will make three more stops in the United States before crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Europe or Northern Africa, according to the website documenting the journey.

The adventure continues, Piccard said. The story is not finished.

The project, which began in 2002 and is estimated to cost more than $100 million, is meant to highlight the importance of renewable energy and the spirit of innovation.

I think innovation and pioneering must continue, Piccard said. It must continue for better quality of life, for clean technologies, for renewable energy; this is where the pioneers can really express themselves and be successful.

Solar-powered air travel is not yet commercially practical, however, given the slow travel time, weather and weight constraints of the aircraft.

Maybe it will be boring in 20 years when all the airplanes will be electric and people will say Oh its routine. But now, today, an airplane that is electric, with electric engines, that produces its own energy with the sun, it can never be boring, Piccard said. Its a miracle of technology.

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Donald Trump still has some evolving to do.

The Republican presidential front-runner returned to his characteristic bluster on the stump in Connecticut on Saturday, despite an aides promise of a more sedate candidate ahead of the general election.

Being presidential is easy, Trump said at a rally in Bridgeport, before embarking on a routine about how Democrat Hillary Clinton relies on a teleprompter to say as much as good afternoon, and renewing an attack on Republican competitor Ted Cruzs Canadian birth.

Its much easier than what I have to do  up here I have to rant and rave and keep you people going, or else youre going to fall asleep on me, Trump said.

Trump and Cruz have traded shots over an appearance at the Republican National Committees meeting last week in Florida by Paul Manafort, the veteran political consultant brought on to manage Trumps delegate-wrangling operations. Manafort attempted to smooth tensions between the real estate developer and the partys establishment, saying that Trump has been projecting an image with a public persona that differs from the real person.

The candidate also said this week that a new phase was coming as the state nominating contests enter a key stretch and he edges closer to securing enough delegates to be the partys presumptive nominee.

The campaigns evolving and transitioning, and so am I, Trump told the Wall Street Journal. After his crushing win in the New York primary, Trump referred to Cruz as Senator rather than his customary Lyin Ted.

But the nickname was back on Saturday, along with a new taunt: Rafael, Trump said at an earlier appearance in Waterbury, Conn., referring to Cruzs given name. Rafael! Straight out of the hills of Canada. Trump has said that Cruzs birth outside the U.S. makes him ineligible to be president. Many legal experts contend Cruz is eligible for the presidency because his mother was an American citizen when he was born.

Polls show Trump is poised to do well in Connecticut and the other four northeastern states  Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland  that vote on Tuesday. Trump has positioned himself as a political outsider taking on what he calls a crooked and rigged political system hes said is attempting to rob him of the partys nomination despite his lead in the popular vote.

When hes sitting in a room and hes talking business and hes talking politics and its a private room, its a different persona, Manafort told about 100 people during a closed session at the Republican meeting, according to audio shared with Bloomberg by a participant.

When hes out on stage, when hes talking about the kinds of things hes talking about on the stump, hes projecting an image thats for that purpose, Manafort said. The two youll start to see come together in the course of the next several months.

Cruz, a first-term senator from Texas, seized on Manaforts comments as proof of a disconnect between Trumps public image and his likely governing philosophies. The socially conservative lawmaker has attempted to convince voters that his rival is a New York liberal and opportunist masquerading as an anti-immigrant, gun-supporting Republican in order to win the nomination. In interviews on Thursday he said Trump has been lying to us.

Manafort said on Fox News Sunday that his remarks were taken out of context. He said that he was talking about the settings Trump would be in, not his policies.

We were evolving the campaign, not the candidate, and the settings were going to start changing, Manafort said.

Trumps oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., also said Sunday that his fathers style would evolve but not his proposals.

Its not that its an act, but sometimes he does have to talk about things in a certain way to be able to draw the requisite attention that that topic actually needs, the younger Trump said on CNNs State of the Union. I think for him this is very natural evolution.

Despite the comments, Trump continued to emphasize one of his key policy proposals  an extended border wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

Were building the wall, folks, Trump told the boisterous crowd in Bridgeport. Referring to Cruz, Trump said, What he did was he said, He will change, he wont build the wall and he wont do this. Everything Ive said Im going to do, folks.

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ANTIGO, WIS.An 18-year-old man opened fire with a high-powered rifle outside of a high school prom in northern Wisconsin, wounding two students before a police officer who was in the parking lot fatally shot him, authorities said Sunday.

Investigators did not say whether they believe the two students were specifically targeted or discuss a possible motive for the shooting outs Antigo High School late Saturday. But a school administrator said it appeared that the gunman  identified by police as Jakob E. Wagner  intended to go into the dance and start shooting randomly.

The two prom-goers who were wounded were shot as they exited the building, according to Eric Roller, the chief of police in Antigo, a community of about 8,000 people roughly 240 kilometres north of Milwaukee.

"Officers were in the parking lot patrolling the activities and heard the shots and an officer immediately fired upon the shooter, stopping the threat," Roller said. He said the gunman was then arrested. Wagner died at a hospital.

In a statement, the Unified School District of Antigo said Wagner approached the school with a high-powered rifle and a large ammunition clip. The district said the "quick actions" taken by police and district staff to secure the building "prevented what might have otherwise been a disaster of unimaginable proportions."

Interim district administrator Donald B. Childs told The Associated Press on Sunday that it appears Wagner intended to go into the building and shoot at people at the dance.

"We have no reason to believe at this point it was targeting anybody specifically," Childs said, adding that the shooting outside the entrance happened "from some distance."

The female victim was treated and released and the male victim was undergoing surgery for injuries that weren't life-threatening, police said. Childs said the wounded boy, who was shot in the leg, attended the high school but that his date, who was grazed in the shooting, was from out of state.

Nikita Deep, a student at the school who attended the prom, told the Wausau Daily Herald that police officers came into the building and moved students to one corner. Students weren't released until about 2 a.m. Sunday, three hours after the shooting.

"We heard there was a situation, but I thought it was some kind of drug bust," Deep said. "Then they flipped the lights and then about 12 officers came in and are armoured. We were all frightened."

Gov. Scott Walker praised the police response, saying in a statement the actions of the Antigo Police Department "undoubtedly saved lives."

Friends said Wagner was a senior at Antigo High School in 2015, but Childs said he did not graduate with his classmates and was continuing to work on his diploma. He said the school of about 750 students will have counsellors available when classes resume Monday.

Friends expressed shock that Wagner was the suspect.

"For him to do that, something just isn't right. He was a good kid," said Dakotta Mills, who said he had known Wagner since sixth grade and considered him a "foster brother."

Wagner was interested in guns and wanted to become a hunter, Mills said, but he wasn't sure Wagner could afford a gun. He said Mills was raised by his mother and grandparents and was still living at home.

Wagner loved video games and music, particularly violin and cello, and had been in the school marching band, Mills said.

Dylan Dewey, who graduated from Antigo High last year, said Wagner had been dating a girl at the school who broke up with him last month. He described Wagner as an "all-around good guy" who enjoyed hanging out with friends.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice's Division of Criminal Investigation has been asked to lead an outside review of the officer-involved shooting, agency spokesman Johnny Koremenos said.

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The Iowa State University College of Human Sciences bestowed assistant professor of kinesiology Elizabeth Whitener Stegemoller with the Early Achievement in Research Award. Stegemoller received the award on April 21 at the colleges annual Faculty and Staff Awards ceremony.

The award is annually given to a faculty member whose exemplary research performance or scholarship accomplishments have occurred unusually early in their career. Stegemoller is formerly of Farmington.

Colleagues of Elizabeth Stegemoller proclaim that this talented researcher is a leader in studying movement science and motor disability, and achieving national and international prominence within the field.

Stegemoller is a leader in researching Parkinsons disease, its effects on the neural control of movement, and therapeutic strategies for patients dealing with the disease. She has impressive research accomplishments at this early career stage, including 28 peer-reviewed publications, of which she was first author on 15.

Included in Stegemollers research findings is the 2 Hz barrier  a frequency threshold at which movement originating in the primary cortex becomes impaired in patients with Parkinsons disease.

One colleague said, This is one of the most important motor behavioral findings described in Parkinsons disease in the past two decades.

Stegemoller is known nationally as the neuroscience expert in music therapy. She has been invited to deliver 13 lectures across the country since 2013, has made numerous media appearances, and hosts an annual Parkinsons Disease Research Forum. Since she joined the Iowa State University faculty in 2013, the number of times her research has been cited annually has increased by nearly 150 percent.

Stegemoller is also an advocate for furthering research into Parkinsons disease. She has submitted 21 grants since 2013 to National Institutes of Health, Iowa Department of Education, Parkinsons advocacy groups, and nonprofit science foundations. In addition, she regularly calls for increased funding for Parkinsons research in Washington, D.C., as the Parkinsons Action Network Iowa representative. She has already received over $250,000 in grant funding and with over $2 million pending in applications. In the vast majority of these, she is the principal investigator.

One colleague wrote, Dr. Stegemoller is doing all the things that a young investigator must do to be productive. I am very impressed with what she has accomplished since joining our department.
By almost any measure, Eric Hoskins has had a rough time over the past few months.

A chorus of doctors is demanding he be fired as Ontarios health minister because their fees are being trimmed; patients are staging protest rallies over cuts at local hospitals; health-care stakeholders are resisting his plans to dramatically reform the home-care system; political opponents are attacking him for the governments handling of the suicide crisis in the remote First Nations community of Attawapiskat. The list goes on.

Despite the attacks, though, Hoskins has forged ahead with his personal agenda of sweeping changes that ultimately could affect everything from doctors incomes to where patients go for treatment of a minor ailment.

One of the changes he has been quietly pushing without much fanfare is a national pharmacare program.

Weve seen multiple studies now that have demonstrated that a national pharmacare program makes sense  it makes sense financially, it makes sense in terms of health-care outcomes and it makes sense in terms of equity, Hoskins said in an email.

And I think it makes sense, intuitively, to all of us as Canadians.

As Hoskins sees it, pharmacare would provide free, life-saving drugs to all Canadians. Currently, up to 20 per cent of Canadians fail to fill their prescriptions, such as blood pressure medication, because they cant afford it.

In such a relatively rich country as Canada, no one should have to choose between paying for medicine or putting food on the table, he says.

Under a national plan, prescription drugs would be included in the medicare system similar to doctor and hospital costs.

The federal and provincial governments would pay for the program, which could run more than $1 billion a year, with the costs split between Ottawa and the provinces, although it would mean slightly higher taxes.

But the net savings  and they are huge, nearly $10 billion a year by some estimates  would come by eliminating the need for private drug insurance.

By making pharmacare one of his top priorities, Hoskins is going down a well-worn path. Similar calls for a universal plan go back 50 years, yet none has succeeded.

Thats despite polls that show more than 90 per cent of Canadians support universal access to prescription drugs. And its despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of Canadians have no private drug plans or plans that provide only minimal drug coverage. These people usually have minimum-wage jobs or temporary or seasonal work.

The reasons Canada is nowhere close to implementing such a plan are simple: stiff opposition from private insurance companies and skittish politicians who dont want anything to do with raising any taxes  even for a sensible and fiscally solid cause  for fear of voter backlash.

Over the past year, Hoskins has quietly pushed the pharmacare agenda with provincial and federal health ministers. As a start, he convinced his colleagues at a meeting in January to set up a working group to look into the issue.

Now hes stepping up his efforts as Ottawa turns its attention towards the coming negotiations later this year on a new federal-provincial health accord. He wants pharmacare to be a key part of the accord talks.

Hoskins knows his work is cut out for him because Jane Philpott, the new federal health minister who like Hoskins is a doctor, told a Commons committee earlier this month that she lacks any mandate to create a universal plan, stating it sounds like it might be expensive.

Also, several provinces are balking, saying they want to see how much cash Ottawa is willing to cough up before they will start talking with them.

In July, the proposed plan will be high on the agenda when the premiers hold their annual meeting. In October, Hoskins will host the next federal-provincial meeting of health ministers, where he will again lobby hard for a national framework accord on pharmacare.

His long-term goal is to have an agreement by July 1, 2017, that says at a minimum Canada will have a national plan in place within five years.

To help Hoskins succeed, the public needs to become involved and tell politicians they care deeply about this issue. It will be impossible to get traction on pharmacare unless theres a sustained public call for action.

A concerted public campaign would help ensure improved access to prescription drugs for all Ontario and Canadian residents, providing them with the medications they need.

And the timing for such a campaign might be perfect.

Says Hoskins: Next year marks Canadas 150th anniversary. I cant imagine a better gift to Canadians than a national pharmacare program.

Bob Hepburns column appears Sunday. bhepburn@thestar.ca

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Why are so many famous people dying?

Perhaps they arent. Possibly I am overreacting to a minor phenomenon, am over-emotional about pop culture, have been reading too many journalists with space to fill.

But I was wrong. There are more celebrities now and thus more of them available to die, which they do, generally drugged and unhappy. The BBC confirmed this by asking their obituaries editor, Nick Serpell, how busy he was.

By this time in 2012 Serpell had written five obituaries that had been used on the BBCs various platforms. This year it was 24. It reported that the death gallery in the Daily Telegraph, a paper that doesnt attract younger readers, had 38 reads at this point in 2014. It currently stands at 75.

But why? There was a baby boom and now there is a dying boom. Prince and David Bowie were boomers. People who became famous in the Sixties are readying to die now, at least those who die of natural causes.

But theres a more interesting angle, that there are more famous people now, not just because there were more famous boomers but because there are more opportunities for fame. As well, social media provide more ways to talk about the famous dead which is why a perfectly pleasant actor like Alan Rickman got so much attention when he recently departed.

In my father or grandfathers generation, the only famous people really were from cinema, Serpell says. There was no television. Then, if anybody wasnt on TV, they werent famous.

Think of fame as a liquid  a treasured liquor for which most citizens would happily sell their offspring, sadly  that travels about the nation in tanker trucks. It is sprayed and splashed about. By luck as much as design, it falls in ever smaller drops and doesnt land evenly. It is a truth universally acknowledged that most people dont deserve the fluid they receive.

Shakespeare was famous in his own time in his own way, which was local and theatrical, with little left of his work left in pen and ink. It astonishes me that people still know of him. I have never been able to sell a Canadian editor on my writing about him at length.

People became known via word of mouth, handbills and a world of news journals in various forms. Then came books, film, radio and TV and then came the fragmentation of every means of communication, so that islands of people formed and never spoke to other islands.

Foreign fame is different. Much as I love British comedy, I didnt know Victoria Woods work  she died last week, having kept quiet about the cancer that killed her  but I do know that of Jennifer Saunders, a visionary. Woods era coincided with the years when I worked hardest and took in the least pop culture, Saunders era when life slowed a little.

I am interested in the rhythm of peoples lives and when they have more or less time for pleasure. Famous people and their fans attention are like slots fitting into slots and then slipping out again, like Ikeas hinges.

I also note the craving for fame, which is why mourning is so suspect. People mourn the figures of their youth; they are sad about their own deterioration. Untalented people become notorious rather than famous: they make a sex tape, kill a lion, have a dodgy facelift, have rich coarse parents, or kill people in unusual ways. They become celebrit s.

Three brilliant British novelists died of old age recently. I wrote about the death of mystery writer Ruth Rendell but not about Anita Brookner or Margaret Forster. Rendell wrote mysteries about social isolation and tiny little creepy people packed with envy, vengeance and spite. We all know people like that, and so the column registered.

But Brookner and Forster wrote brilliantly about dull people, i.e., us as opposed to them, which may be why their literary fame didnt hang around. Nobody wants to think of themselves as boring. Their novels sank.

As for how to die famously, do it like Bowie.

Shoot a scary video in November of yourself blindfolded on a hospital bed about to rise into the ether, call it Lazarus, release it on Jan. 7, and die three days later. Scare the retroactive hell out of everyone who saw it, and make fans like me unable to go to bed without quivering under the duvet. Talk about fame. I think of Bowie every time I go to bed and my dreams are unrelentingly peculiar.

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Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader addresses the media, hesitating briefly before saying that his county is small and he knows the family, at a press conference in Piketown, Ohio, on Friday, April 22, 2016. Reader stated that multiple victims were killed in an execution style shooting and that the shooter is still at large. (Sam Greene/The Cincinnati Equirer via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT; NO SALES
Britain's retailers are still on the ropes according to a leading accountancy group.

In its latest report on profit warnings, EY said the number remained remarkably high across all businesses in the first three months of the year.

But store groups stood out as the worst hit with eight stock market-listed retailers saying profits would be lower than expected  the most since 2011. In the past six months one in five listed retailers have issued a profit warning.

Hurdle: William HIll has issued a profit warning

Christian Mole, a retail specialist at EY, said retailers were continuing to feel the pressure from hard bargains driven by the UK consumer looking for better value.

Overall 76 companies issued warnings in the first three months of 2016, just one fewer than in the same period last year. EY described this as remarkably high given how many companies had already reduced expectations towards the end of last year.

The accountancy group also cited the intense competition that comes as a result of overcapacity.

Bookmaker William Hill was among those issuing warnings, though its fall from grace was more a matter of bad luck after what it described as the worst Cheltenham festival in recent history  from a bookmakers point of view  because of the number of favourites that won.

This week the Office for National Statistics will release its first estimate of gross domestic product in the first quarter of the year. Capital Economics said it expected the economy to have grown by 0.4 per cent in the first quarter, down from 0.6 per cent for the last quarter of 2015.

But the consultancys chief UK economist Vicky Redwood said: There is a high risk of a weaker number. Business surveys have been overwhelmingly downbeat.
DEPARTMENT SALE Chinese tycoon Yuan Yafei could be putting House of Fraser on the market.

Yafei, head of the Sanpower conglomerate, bought the department chain two years ago for 450million.

But it was been reported that it could now be sold to C.banner  another Chinese outfit run by Yafeis brother-in-law Chen Yixi.

Potential sale: Chinese tycoon Yuan Yafei could be putting House of Fraser on the market

MILLIONAIRE OUTBURST The founder of scandal-hit claims management firm Quindell has labelled its new management stupid after their actions saw him investigated by the Serious Fraud Office.

Rob Terry quit in August last year, and incoming chairman Richard Rose changed its 2013 accounting figures to show a 64million loss instead of a 107million profit.

Quindell is now known as Watchstone Group.

SEOUL MATES Pottery business Denby has made a comeback after winning unexpected interest in South Korea.

The 200-year-old firm was rescued out of administration by Hilco in 2009 and has since doubled annual sales to 50million.

Economy woes: The recovery faltered at the start of the year as worries about the global economy and Britains future in the European Union took their toll

It has now opened a site in Gangnam, the Seoul district made famous by 2012 pop hit Gangnam Style, and a third of turnover comes from overseas.

ENGINEERING OFFER One of Britains oldest engineering firms has been put on the market by owner Dubai International Capital.

Doncasters, a 238-year-old firm based in Burton-upon-Trent in East Staffordshire, has a 1.2billion price tag.

ECONOMY WOES The recovery faltered at the start of the year as worries about the global economy and Britains future in the European Union took their toll.
BUY THIS Berenberg has a buy rating on the group behind the Costa coffee and Premier Inn chains.

Whitbread hopes to have 85,000 hotel rooms under its Premier brand by 2020, up from 60,000 today, while Costa will be looking to continue its strong run by expanding in both the UK and overseas and deploying more of its Costa Express self-service machines.

Berenberg has a target of 5000p. At the close on Friday its share price was 3887p.

Expansion: Costa owners Whitbread are looking to expand the coffee shop chain in the UK and overseas

SELL THIS Investors are expecting positive news from Countrysides forthcoming trading update.

The introduction of an extra stamp duty levy on second homes sparked a sales surge in the first quarter of the year.
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By Mark Hallum

State Sen. Joseph Addabbo (D-Howard Beach) said the delayed opening of a portion of the Rockaway Boardwalk will be a blow to the surrounding community after the city postponed the work because of the crane collapse in Manhattan.

The city pushed back the completion date from Memorial Day to July because of high winds disrupting work. Until then, business owners and beachgoers alike will have to deal with an incomplete section of walkable space between the 108th Street and 124th Street beaches, the residue of the devastating damage inflicted on the Rockaway peninsula by Hurricane Sandy.

While I am frustrated and disappointed that the repairs will not be finished by then as originally promised, I intend to work closely with the Department of Parks and Recreation, appropriate city agencies and related companies to ensure that the remaining work to complete this and other sections of the inevitable boardwalk opening will be done in a timely, professional and careful manner, Addabbo said.

The postponement comes following new safety procedures put in place after the crane collapse that took place in Lower Manhattan in February, killing one person. The regulations dictate that cranes must operate in a safe mode whenever winds reach a speed of 20 mph, in order to protect workers and pedestrians.

According to the city, 80 percent of the boardwalk will be open to the public by Memorial Day, and 100 percent will be open by July.

Other criticism for the delay comes from City Councilman Eric Ulrich (R-Ozone Park).

Everyone knows the reconstruction of the boardwalk has been a boondoggle since day one This administration has failed to deliver on its promise to help Hurricane Sandy victims time and time again, Urlich said.

The boardwalk from Beach 86th Street to 107th Street was supposed to be finished ahead of schedule in February, and the economic effects from the delay for the businesses along the unfinished section will be sorely felt. According to the city Department of Parks and Recreation, 4.2 million people visited Rockaway beaches in 2014. The revenue to be generated from foot traffic on the Rockaway Boardwalk during Memorial Day weekend, which means that establishments without access to reconstructed portions of walkway could be missing out on profits.
Guatemala has deployed 3,000 troops to its disputed border with Belize following a shooting incident that killed a Guatemalan teen, Defense Minister Williams Mansilla said.

"It is a preventive measure, it is not a declaration of war," Mansilla told AFP by telephone from northern Guatemala, where he was overseeing the deployment.

The United States expressed concerned over the sudden spike in tensions between the two Central American nations.

The State Department issued a statement to "urge calm and restraint by both sides."

Guatemala has made claims over more than half of Belize\s territory dating back 150 years to when its small neighbor was a British colony known as British Honduras.

Tensions between the two have long been simmering despite agreement to try to resolve the territorial dispute in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) following separate referendums.

They ratcheted up dramatically on Wednesday, when a shooting incident occurred that each country said happened on its side of the border.

According to Guatemala, a Belize patrol shot and killed a 13-year-old Guatemalan boy walking home from field labor, and wounded his father and brother.

Belize rejected that version and said one of its patrols came under fire from Guatemalan civilians and responded in "justifiable self-defense."

Each side accuses the other of a preceding series of other acts of violence, and fears are rising over the militarization along the border.

The State Department said it was "deeply concerned" by the reports of the boy\s death. It expressed condolences to his family.

"We urge calm and restraint by both sides, and we call for a full investigation of the facts surrounding this tragedy," the statement said.

Belize\s Prime Minister Dean Barrow, in a recorded audio message, said he met with Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales on the margin of a UN meeting in New York to complain that the Guatemalan measures "escalate tension to an utterly unacceptable degree."

Barrow said both agreed "there is an immediate need to de-escalate tensions."

He added that an "impartial" investigation into the shooting by the Organization of American States (OAS) was being carried out.

Belize was also asking the US to send forensic experts to help recreate the circumstances of the shooting incident, he said.

Although Belize became independent in 1981, Guatemala did not recognize it for another decade because of its territorial claims, prompting Britain to keep a small military presence in its former colony as a deterrent until five years ago.

Guatemala and Belize have issued separate statements accusing the other of a number of violent acts against its forces or citizens in the border area in the past two decades.

The heightened border dispute is the first foreign policy challenge for Morales, a former TV comedian who became Guatemala\s leader in January after pulling off a surprise victory in an election to replace his predecessor felled by a corruption scandal.

In a recorded address to the nation Thursday, Morales accused Belize of "cowardice" over the killing, saying Guatemalan forces would assert "strict protection for the sovereignty" of the shared border river.

The OAS and Britain both voiced concern over the rising tensions and urged the two neighbors to leave the dispute in the ICJ\s hands.

Britain\s minister of state for Latin American affairs, Hugo Swire, appealed for "moderation" from both nations and said the ICJ was "the best path" to settle the dispute.

SOURCE: AFP
President Barack Obama made a bold intervention into the politics of Washington\s closest ally on Friday, exhorting Britons to stay in the EU and warning that if they left they would be at "the back of the queue" for a U.S. trade deal.

Obama\s plea to British voters ahead of a June referendum on membership of the European Union was welcomed by Prime Minister David Cameron and other supporters of the EU, but denounced by those campaigning to leave as meddling in British affairs.

Britain\s influence on the world stage was "magnified" by its membership of the 28-member bloc, Obama said at a press conference alongside Cameron, who has bet his political future by calling the referendum to put to rest an issue that has divided his own Conservative Party for generations.

Rebutting criticism that he was interfering, Obama invoked the cherished "special relationship" between Washington and London.

"If one of our best friends is in an organisation that enhances their influence and enhances their power and enhances their economy, then I want them to stay in it," Obama said. "Or at least I want to be able to tell them: \I think this makes you guys bigger players.\"

On trade, he took aim at one of the main "Out" arguments  that Britain could easily negotiate deals and get better terms on its own. The United States would regard a deal with the EU as a higher priority than a separate agreement with a much smaller market such as a stand-alone Britain, Obama said.

"It\s fair to say that maybe some point down the line there might be a UK-US trade agreement but that\s not going to happen anytime soon because our focus is negotiating with a big bloc, the European Union, to get a trade agreement done," Obama said.

"And the UK is going to be in the back of the queue, not because we don\t have a special relationship but because given the heavy lift on any trade agreement, us having access to a big market with a lot of countries rather than trying to do piecemeal trade agreements is hugely efficient."

Cameron said Britain should listen to its friends, and he could not think of any close ally who wanted a Brexit.

Obama set out his case in a newspaper article that invoked the interlinked history of the United States and Britain and the tens of thousands of Americans lying in European war graves.

"As your friend, I tell you that the EU makes Britain even greater," the headline read.

"Together, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union have turned centuries of war in Europe into decades of peace, and worked as one to make this world a safer, better place," Obama wrote.

But those campaigning for an "Out" vote in the June 23 referendum were dismissive.

London\s New York-born Mayor Boris Johnson, a leader of the "Out" campaign from within the Conservative Party widely seen as angling for Cameron\s job, said Obama\s advice was "incoherent, inconsistent and downright hypocritical".

Obama was urging Britain to pool its sovereignty with other nations in a way that the United States would never countenance for itself, Johnson wrote in a newspaper column.

He also referred to "the part-Kenyan President\s ancestral dislike of the British empire", a comment widely criticised as demeaning the EU debate, and even denounced as "dog-whistle racism" by an opposition Labour politician.

Other "Out" campaigners said Obama\s views did not matter because this is his last year in office.

"Obama doesn\t have the authority to deny us a (trade) deal, as he will be long gone before any such proposals are on the table," said Richard Tice, co-founder of Leave.EU, one of several "Out" campaigns.

Experts struggled to find a precedent for Obama\s direct appeal to British voters.

"It is the biggest intervention I can think of by an American president who has turned up in this way and intervened directly in the politics of a Western democracy since the end of the Cold War," said Anand Menon, professor of European politics and foreign affairs at Kings College London.

"It is above and beyond what people do in Western democracies. And if you think as I do that it is a fear thing, then it works."

Opinion polls suggest that "In" is ahead, but the race is tight and the number of undecided voters is very high.

Many U.S. banks and companies fear a Brexit would cause market turmoil, diminish the clout of Washington\s strongest European ally, hurt London\s global financial hub status, cripple the EU and weaken Western security.

The "Out" campaign says such fears are exaggerated and Britain would profit from greater control over its regulation, the ability to make bilateral trade deals and the right to restrict immigration from EU neighbours.

Many in the "Out" camp say they are passionate supporters of the special relationship with the United States and think Britain would open itself up to America and to the world if it cut loose from what they regard as the dysfunctional EU.

Before talks at Cameron\s Downing Street office, Obama and his wife Michelle congratulated Queen Elizabeth, who celebrated her 90th birthday on Thursday.

Prince Philip, Elizabeth\s 94-year-old husband, took the wheel of a Range Rover to drive the Obamas to lunch on the territory of Windsor Castle, a royal residence that traces its history back over almost 1,000 years to William the Conqueror.

SOURCE: REUTERS
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.
Flames destroyed an abandoned home Sunday at 332 Germania Ave. in Schenectady, Schenectady Deputy Fire Chief Don Mareno said.

"It's a goner," Mareno said of the home.

When firefighters arrived shortly after 11:13 a.m., they saw a heavy fire on the second floor, moving up into the attic.

The two-alarm fire required 21 firefighters and 30 minutes to subdue.

"No injuries, thank God," Mareno said.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Hillary Clinton's advisers and allies have begun extensive discussions about who should be her running mate, seeking to compile a list of 15 to 20 potential picks for her team to start vetting by late spring.

Clinton's team will grapple with complicated questions like whether the United States is ready for an all-female ticket, and whether her choice for vice president would be able to handle working in a White House in which former President Bill Clinton wielded significant influence on policy.

While the nomination fight is still fluid, Hillary Clinton is confident enough of victory that she has described a vision of a running mate and objectives for the search, according to campaign advisers and more than a dozen Democrats close to the campaign or the Clintons.

She does not have a front-runner in mind, they said, but she is intrigued by several contenders and scenarios.

Among the names under discussion by Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and campaign advisers: Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, former governors from the key state of Virginia; Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who represents both a more liberal wing of the party and a swing state; former Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, a prominent African-American Democrat; and Thomas E. Perez, President Barack Obama's labor secretary and a Hispanic civil rights lawyer.

But Hillary Clinton is also open to a woman, campaign advisers said. One obvious possibility is Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who is hugely popular among progressive Democrats, though she has not been helpful to Clinton's campaign, declining to endorse the former secretary of state.

Still, Warren has not been ruled out, according to the campaign advisers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the confidential search process.

Clinton has offered general guidance as her team begins the search: She cares less about ideological and personal compatibility than about picking a winner, someone who can dominate the vice-presidential debate and convince Americans that Clinton is their best choice.

She also wants a partner who is unquestionably qualified for the presidency and would help create the strongest contrast with the Republican ticket, which could be dogged by questions about Donald Trump's fitness for the presidency or Sen. Ted Cruz's unbending conservatism, according to those interviewed. And she wants someone who could be an effective attack dog against either candidate.

Despite the passions stirred during the primary, Clinton does not feel pressure to enthrall the supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, since she thinks most of them would ultimately vote for her, an assertion backed up by polling.

The most unpredictable issue for the search, at least at this early stage, is the turmoil in the Republican race, which may not yield a nominee until the party's convention in mid-July.

Clinton is likely to make her pick soon after the Republican ticket is known, according to Democrats close to the campaign, and her political calculations in choosing a running mate may shift depending on whether the opposing nominee is Trump, Cruz or someone unexpected, and who the Republican No. 2 is. If Gov. John Kasich of Ohio or Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a Cuban-American, end up on the Republican ticket, Clinton might be more inclined to pick Brown (to help her in Ohio) or Perez (to help excite Hispanic voters).

Advisers to Clinton said she was in the unique position of having firsthand expertise at the vetting and selection process: She was deeply involved in Bill Clinton's search in 1992 that resulted in the selection of Al Gore, then a senator from Tennessee, with whom she later clashed at times. She supported Bill Clinton putting another young Southern moderate on the ticket, which was seen as a bold choice at the time  and which her advisers point to as evidence that she may be unconventional if she is nominated.

Her experience with Gore colors her perspective in two ways, according to Democrats who have spoken to her about the vice presidency.

She knows that if she chooses a younger and ambitious vice president, she will have someone by her side who may be making calculations with an eye toward running for the presidency in 2024. The past two vice presidents, Joe Biden and Dick Cheney, were widely seen as devoted to their jobs; they appreciated and sought power, but given their ages, they were not determined to seek their bosses' job in the future. Clinton, 68, likes that fact, Democrats say, and has to decide if she wants a rising star or a seasoned hand who is not interested in the presidency, like Bill Nelson, 73, a senator from another key state, Florida.

Clinton is also well aware of the inherent tensions between a vice president and a powerful first lady (or first gentleman). She and Gore became rivals in the White House as she led the health care overhaul effort and he pursued his "reinventing government" initiative, and both wanted their portfolios to be Bill Clinton's top priority. Advisers said that in the current search, Hillary Clinton wants a running mate who would accept and appreciate that Bill Clinton, as a former president, would offer expertise and guidance  and perhaps play a formal role on specific issues  if she were president.
Bangkok

Banharn Silpa-archa, a provincial political powerbroker who served a scandal-ridden 16 months as Thailand's prime minister in 1995-96, has died at age 83.

His death early Saturday morning was announced by Bangkok's Siriraj Hospital, where he was admitted Thursday after an asthma attack.

Banharn was considered a master of pork barrel politics, making his home province of Suphanburi, in Thailand's central rice-growing region, one of the country's most developed and prosperous-looking. His domination of politics and business there led to it being dubbed "Banharnburi."

However, his wily political ways played out badly at the national level.

Critics charged that corruption and mismanagement of the economy during his stint as prime minister paved the way for the collapse of Thailand's currency, sparking the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

Born in Suphanburi to a family of ethnic Chinese traders, he went into the construction business without completing his higher education. Thailand's building boom of the 1960s  fueled by infrastructure development promoted by the United States as it used Thailand as a rear base during the Vietnam War  made him a millionaire. He joined the conservative Chart Thai Party and was elected to Parliament in 1976, becoming party leader in 1992.

Banharn became prime minister in 1995 by hammering together a coalition with similar regional-based political party leaders keen to share the spoils of power. He also served in a variety of ministerial posts in several governments over four decades. Banharn, or members of his government, were accused  sometimes unfairly  of accepting bribes for arms contracts and bank licenses, looting a bank of more than $3 billion, appointing incompetent cronies to the Cabinet and state enterprises, firing corruption fighters, politicizing the central bank, engaging in land scams and illegal logging, muzzling the press and blocking political reform.

"Banharn is a great provincial politician," social critic Sulak Sivaraksa commented during one of the many crises of Banharn's term in office. "Unfortunately, that's not what's needed in a prime minister at this moment."

The nicknames he acquired reflected his affinity to money politics. He was known as "the walking ATM," "the eel"  for his party's ability to slide from one side of the political spectrum to the other  and "Mr. 20 percent," for allegedly skimming that amount off government contracts in his early career, an allegation he always denied. Banharn seemed to most appreciate the ceremonial perks of his job, presiding over the celebrations of King Bhumibol Adulyadej's 50 years on the throne, and hosting foreign dignitaries.
Sanaa, Yemen

Yemeni forces loyal to the internationally recognized government killed 25 al-Qaida militants in heavy clashes Saturday in southern Yemen, a provincial official said, following an airstrike campaign this month by a Saudi-led coalition against al-Qaida positions in the area.

Ground troops were advancing in Saturday's clashes in the town of Koud in the southern province of Abyan, said al-Khedr al-Seidy, the province's governor.

Elsewhere, a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb southwest of the Abyan provincial capital of Zinjibar to stall advances by the military in the province. The explosion led to an unknown number of casualties among the army forces.

Al-Qaida's affiliate in Yemen, viewed by Washington as the group's most dangerous offshoot, has exploited the conflict between Shiite rebels and government forces to expand its footprint.

A Saudi-led, U.S.-backed coalition supporting Yemen's internationally recognized government is battling Shiite rebels known as Houthis and their allies.

The Houthis have held Yemen's capital, Sanaa, since September 2014, and their advance across the Arab world's poorest country brought the Saudi-led coalition into the war in March 2015.
The number and names of the people that were in the Ramon and Espinosa expeditions has been a subject of controversy in the literature. Ramon 
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An Amsterdam native is one of four people worldwide being considered for a new award recognizing exceptional humanitarian efforts.

Dr. Tom Catena, the sole doctor at a hospital serving at least a half-million people in the rebel-held Nuba Mountains of Sudan, is a finalist for the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity. The prize is a project of 100 Lives, which celebrates people who helped the needy during the Armenian Genocide a century ago.

The winner, to be announced in Armenia on Sunday, will receive $100,000 and the opportunity to direct $1 million in donations to organizations that he or she nominates. The selection committee for the prize includes Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel and actor and humanitarian George Clooney.

"This is the inaugural Aurora prize so I feel especially honored to be considered among the four finalists," Catena said by email this week. "My hope is that the award is able to shed some light on the plight of the Nuba people as the indiscriminate bombing and shelling of civilians continues."

More Information How to help Donations for Dr. Tom Catena's work can be sent to the African Mission Healthcare Foundation: http://www.amhf.us/ See More Collapse

He will not leave Sudan to attend Sunday's ceremony, but will be represented by his niece, Michela, daughter of Montgomery County Judge Felix Catena.

Catena discussed his work at Mother of Mercy Hospital in an interview with the Times Union a year ago, conducted through the video messaging service Skype.

He described the people he treats in the midst of a military conflict that has raged since 2011. That's when the Republic of South Sudan was formed, following a 2005 peace agreement that ended a decades-old civil war. Though many Nuba people identified with South Sudan, they were not allowed to join with the new nation. Fighting began anew between the region's rebels and the Khartoum government.

In any given week, Catena treats people with malaria, tuberculosis, pneumonia and leprosy. Soldiers arrive with battle wounds, and villagers with injuries from government bombing. On the day of the interview, Catena recalled a 10-year-old child who stepped on a land mine a week before and died before getting to the hospital.

"By far, the hardest part is losing a patient, especially a child," Catena said.

Catena lives at the hospital and is on-call 24/7. He works with a staff of about 60 people, including nurses, pharmacists, and lab and operating room staff. Only a handful received formal schooling. The others have been trained on the job.

Humanitarian organizations and volunteers are not allowed in the rebel-held territory where he works. According to the Aurora Prize website, the Catholic organization that sponsored Catena wanted him to return to the United States when the current conflict started, but Catena insisted on staying.

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Catena has worked in Africa more than 15 years, and in the Nuba region since 2008. His efforts have gained wide recognition in recent years. He was named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People in 2015. Filmmaker Andrew Berends, whose movie "Madina's Dream" is about the Sudan war, described meeting the 51-year-old doctor as "the closest I have come to meeting a saint" in his write-up for Time magazine. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof's piece about him in June was headlined "'He's Jesus Christ.'"

A documentary about Catena, directed by his Brown University classmate Kenneth Carlson, with Maria Shriver as the executive producer, is to premiere at Brown's commencement May 29, when Catena will be awarded an honorary degree.

In his interview a year ago, Catena said he shuns the spotlight except for the chance it gives him to discuss the injustices he sees. Because they work through governments, official international organizations like the United Nations do not get any medications, even vaccinations, to the people he serves.

Other finalists for the Aurora Prize are Marguerite Barankitse, who has cared for orphans and refugees during the civil war in Burundi; Syeda Ghulam Fatima, who has worked to eradicate bonded labor, a modern form of slavery, in Pakistan; and the Rev. Bernard Kinvi, whose Catholic mission has saved hundreds from persecution and death during civil war in Central African Republic.

chughes@timesunion.com  518-454-5417  @hughesclaire
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Albany

Does the air suddenly smell a little better in Albany County? Is it fresher, cleaner, more invigorating?

That's the sweet smell of freedom. Well, it could also be spring, but let's focus on freedom.

You see, the Albany County Legislature did something unexpected last week. It decided that you can have a little more control over how your family celebrates the Fourth of July. It sided, just this once, with freedom and choice over constraint and safety.

More Information Contact Chris Churchill at 518-454-5442 or email cchurchill@timesunion.com See More Collapse

It voted to lift the ban on sparklers.

That may seem like a little thing. But for a control-freak county that is famously suspicious of letting its citizenry make the most basic of life decisions, this is significant.

You may not be able to eat trans fat or buy coffee in a polystyrene cup, but darn it, you should be allowed to light a sparkler to celebrate the independence of a country that is already great, despite what a certain presidential candidate says.

But we can't celebrate just yet.

While the "Let Freedom Sparkle Act"  my name for it  passed overwhelmingly last Monday, it hasn't been signed by County Executive Dan McCoy. A spokesperson told me he has yet to decide whether to veto the bill and won't make up his mind until after a May 2 public hearing.

Would McCoy, a former firefighter, really try to stifle liberty's spitting, sizzling flame?

Yes, he probably would.

But with 30 votes in favor and just seven against, the "Let Freedom Sparkle Act" would seem to have a veto-proof majority. So you can make your Fourth of July plans accordingly.

My favorite quotes on this topic are from the great philosopher of Cohoes, the Socrates of Remsen Street, a wise man who also happens to be a former firefighter.

"When adults are given the opportunity to be responsible, they are responsible," Shawn Morse, who was once chairman of the County Legislature and is now, as regular readers of this column surely know, the mayor of Cohoes.

"We put 12 lit candles on top of a cake and have our kids put their face close to the cake to blow them out," Morse added. "With appropriate supervision, that kid makes it to his 13th birthday."

That's logical and reasonable, but traditionally those have not been attributes with much pull in the Albany County Legislature.

Last year, the county was the only one in the region that continued to forbid Fourth of July sparkler sales in the wake of a new state law that allowed local legalization.

That was then. The new law smartly notes that "certain fireworks should not be labeled dangerous when they pose little to no danger to the public," and it would allow "sparking devices" to be sold from June 1 to July 5 and Dec. 26 to Jan. 2.

The legislation was sponsored by Bryan Clenahan of Guilderland and Alison McLean Lane of Menands  both Democrats. Four of the seven legislators who voted against the bill are Republicans, proving that neither party has a lock on petty and mindless restrictions.

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"I've got a libertarian streak, so it was a tough decision," said Legislator Mark Grimm, a Republican from Guilderland who explained his vote against the bill with fire and safety concerns.

Yes, it's true. A sparkler could burn someone or start a fire. So could matches and hundreds of other things that are perfectly legal. We can't outlaw risk.

I want to return to what Morse said about responsibility, because I think it's a key point.

A country that wants a responsible and engaged citizenry has to treat people like responsible citizens. If we assume the masses are too stupid to use a sparkler without burning down their neighborhoods, the result will be a citizenry that lacks common sense.

Albany County is like a helicopter parent who hovers over a child's every move, fearful the kid will break his leg if he strays from mommy's worrying gaze, and who makes every last decision, believing that mommy always knows best.

That kid may stay safe and sound, but he'll never really thrive. He won't become an independent thinker or a self-reliant adult. He won't be able to solve his own problems without help from some authority or demogogue.

People like that are dangerous for democracy. They're susceptible to politicians who promise to solve every problem by force of personality, blame others for economic struggles and offer simplistic solutions.

Sure, sparklers are a small thing. The principle isn't.

cchurchill@timesunion.com  518-454-5442  @chris_churchill
Cedar Brock is a writer, an actor, a lover of theater and a straight-A student with a penchant for walking around barefoot. When friends speak of Brock, they describe someone who is outspoken but friendly, funny and supportive.

But identity is a tricky thing, and gender is one that hasn't been as easy for the 22-year-old to figure out.

So it was with much dismay when on an unusually warm day in April, while Brock was sunbathing topless with some fellow students in a park near the Russell Sage campus in Troy, that a campus security officer approached and asked point blank if Brock was a "boy or a girl."

What followed was a confrontation between the officer and Brock's friends; the officer demanded Brock put a shirt on and the friends wondered which law Brock had broken. New York state law explicitly allows toplessness among individuals of any gender under a 1992 court ruling, but the Troy police were eventually called and Brock eventually put a top on.

Brock, who's from the town of Berlin, was born with female anatomy, but doesn't identify as male or female. With close-cut hair and a face free of makeup, the average person might describe Brock as androgynous, resembling both male and female  and indeed, that's the term Brock prefers.

"Being comfortable with your body is important and, I'm sorry, but it's 2016. Things need to change," said Brock, adding that there should be nothing controversial about a nipple.

The incident was a deeply uncomfortable one for Brock and the campus, which found itself thrust into the national debate around transgender rights when dozens of students organized a topless rally at the park last Wednesday. College officials called the incident a "teachable moment" and said they will begin looking at sensitivity training for public safety officers and other staff, and consider adopting transgender-friendly policy recommendations from students.

More and more colleges and universities nationwide are grappling with how best to accommodate transgender students  or whether to accommodate them at all  when it comes to housing policies, health coverage, access to public restrooms, and much more mundane things, like class rosters and student ID cards.

That's because the national debate around transgender rights has garnered more attention than ever in recent years, spurred in part by popular culture icons like Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner but also by controversial legislation like the new bathroom law in North Carolina, which requires transgender people to use the bathroom corresponding with the gender on their birth certificate.

Higher education had, for the most part, managed to stay out of the fray until 2013, when the Department of Education made it clear that the Title IX federal law banning schools from discriminating on the basis of sex also applied to gender identity and expression. Up until then, some colleges had already moved to become more inclusive by installing gender-neutral restrooms or revising housing policies to allow students to live with members of any gender.

The new language from the federal government worried a number of religious or religiously affiliated colleges, who viewed it as encouraging practices and policies that would violate the long-held religious beliefs of their institutions.

In 2014, the Department of Education granted the first-ever religious exemptions under Title IX to two Christian universities in Michigan and California. Since then, the number of institutions seeking and receiving exemptions has grown considerably. As of March, 36 campuses had received exemptions and 22 more were under consideration. None were in New York; most were in the South.

"There are religious colleges where if you are known to be LGBT, they will expel you," said Genny Beemyn, director of the Stonewall Center at UMass Amherst. "We continue to hear from students who are facing discrimination  being denied admission, being barred from using the appropriate bathrooms or housing, being denied the opportunity to use gender-appropriate names or pronouns, anything you can think of. The exemptions from Title IX are simply a tool to discriminate against LGBT students under the guise of religious rights. It's a shame it's being allowed."

Beemyn tracks transgender policies at colleges and universities across the nation for the advocacy group, Campus Pride, and has found examples of actions both large and small that can make a transgender student feel welcome.

Bathrooms, housing and health care get the most attention, Beemyn said, but small things like allowing a student to use a preferred name on their student ID or having faculty use a student's preferred pronoun can have a big impact.

While colleges and universities are barred from discriminating against transgender students under Title IX, some institutions have adopted their own anti-discrimination policies to provide an extra layer of protection and inclusion. One such place is Ithaca College, a private college in New York that consistently ranks as one of the top trans-friendly institutions in the U.S.

Ithaca revised its policy in the early 2000s to include gender identity and expression as a protected class, and then adopted an open housing policy that allows students of any gender identity to live together. In addition, roughly half of the buildings on campus have gender-neutral restrooms, and the campus website and app include a searchable map for students to easily locate them.

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"Trans people, before they get to campus, experience enormous obstacles," said Luca Maurer, program director of Ithaca's Center for LGBT Education, Outreach and Services. "About half of transgender students in middle school and high school say they skipped a day of school in the last month because of safety concerns, and they have lower GPAs as a result. The statistic I'm most concerned with is the number who report no plans to go to college. Since we know they face these obstacles, what I want to do is create more access."

New York has made moves in the last year to increase its protections for transgender individuals. Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued statewide regulations in October 2015 to ban discrimination and harassment against transgender people by employers, housing providers, businesses and creditors.

A month earlier, the State University of New York announced a sweeping new policy designed to make the public university system a national leader for diversity and inclusion. The SUNY Student Assembly, on its own, passed a handful of resolutions in the last year supporting gender-inclusive housing, gender-neutral restrooms and preferred name policies.

"When student leaders come together and say with a loud, clear voice that we want inclusivity on campus, then our campuses and trustees should listen and we hope that when we pass these resolutions, they take what we're saying very seriously," said Marc Cohen, president-elect of the Student Assembly.

For Brock, the topless incident in the park has become an educational opportunity.

Advances for gay rights gained a certain momentum among straight people who could say they knew a gay person, friend or colleague. Many people just don't know any transgender people, Brock said, which makes them mysterious and easier to fear.

"It's a learning thing," Brock said. "I'm a person just like you're a person. We just need some more education on the subject, and I'm glad to be a part of it."

bbump@timesunion.com  518-454-5387  @bethanybump
Retired Bishop of Killaloe, Roscrea native, Bishop Willie Walsh has penned his memoirs which will be launched in Damer House, Roscrea on Thursday evening next, April 28th, writes Noel Dundon.

Bishop Willie was never far from the media headlines during his years as Bishop of Killaloe, because of his willingness to speak honestly about the many challenges facing the Catholic Church. Though his candour was not always well received, very few would argue that, at times, Willie Walsh acted as a much-needed voice in the wilderness.

For all his willingness to speak out, Willie Walsh is No Crusader - the title of his beautifully crafted book. His primary motivation is a discipleship of love, the gospel message of Jesus Christ. A sense of his own priesthood as discipleship matured as Willie Walsh matured, informing his words and deeds; and was never stronger than when he took up the bishops crozier.

By admission, Willie Walsh would be more comfortable wielding a hurley than a pen, but a near-death experience in 2014 prompted him to reflect ever more deeply on his own life, his faith and his ministry of over fifty years. In this book, which combines memoir with deep personal reflection, his gentle, conversational style guides the reader through the story of an ordinary man from an ordinary family.

This is no rose- tinted view of Ireland, the Catholic Church or the world. Willie Walsh is not afraid to ask the difficult questions  questions that will need to be faced by the institutional Church if it is to try and regain the credibility lost in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Neither does he shy away from the difficult questions of faith and what it means to be a Catholic in an increasingly secular Ireland. The extent to which faith is questioned through Bishop Walshs personal journey might surprise some. Yet, in these honest reflections, many will find a resonance of their own thinking about faith and belief.

'No Crusader' is a unique publication from one of the Churches hierarchy, and provides much food for thought and insight. It is a thoroughly enjoyable and enlightening read from a humble servant in his retirement.
The countdown is on to the Irish Restaurant Awards All-Ireland final in the DoubleTree by Hilton on Monday, May 16th. With less than four weeks to go, the Irish Restaurant Awards pay tribute to three of county Tipperarys best eateries.

Larkin's Bar & Restaurant was named as the Co. Tipperary finalist for Bunzl McLaughlins Best Gastro Pub 2016. This award recognises the gastropub that offers an innovative menu of food which suitably complements their drink selection. The Best Gastropub will provide restaurant quality dining, whilst not compromising on the traditional pub atmosphere.

Chez Hans was awarded as Co. Tipperarys Classic Drinks and Masottinas Best Wine Experience finalist. This award recognises the restaurant that prides itself on its wine selection. An interesting array of wines will be on offer to cater for a wide range of wine lovers, and will be appropriate for the type of cuisine served.

The Old Convent was named as Elavons Best Hotel Restaurant in Co. Tipperary 2016. Elavons Best Hotel Restaurant award recognises the hotel restaurant that best encompasses all the qualities of great hospitality  exemplary customer service, top quality food and a welcoming and relaxing atmosphere.

Chief Executive of the Restaurants Association of Ireland, Adrian Cummins commented, The restaurants that are coming out on top in each county are setting the standard for good food, drink and service nationwide. They have won these awards because of their hard work year round and their achievements should be acknowledged as such.

These three top Tipperary eateries, along with over 300 other restaurants, cafes and gastropubs nationwide, now go forward to stage two of the competition and are in the running to win the Munster and All-Ireland titles in their respective categories. There are three components to phase two of the judging process. Each element is independently assessed by BDO;

Mystery Guest Visit (55%) This component of the awards is conducted by Customer Perceptions Ltd, specialists in mystery shopping, consumer insights and customer satisfaction surveys. All County Winners and Dublin shortlists will receive a mystery guest visit throughout the month of March, April or May.

National Awards Academy (35%) Our National Awards Academy is made up representatives from each of the regional judging panels and will meet in early May to judge the County Winners. The Academy members include food writers, journalists, bloggers, culinary academics and hospitality magazine editors.

Menu Judging (10%) All County winners and the Dublin Shortlist in each category are asked to submit a copy of their food menu and wine list for judging.

Regional and All-Ireland winners will be announced at the Irish Restaurant Awards final on Monday, 16th May 2016.
THE CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT CALL OUT THIS POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST WITH AN EPIC E-MAIL CHAIN TO COUNCIL WOMAN JOLIE JUSTUS!!!

Airport Plan /Justus reply / Possible conflict of interest

We are surprised, as an attorney, you would not consider it a CONFLICT OF INTEREST to let the consultants, AvAirPro and their partners, who the city has already paid over $8,800,000 to sell the single terminal idea, evaluate the Crawford Plan? Maybe you did not realize AvAirPros who did the Crawford Plan evaluation is the main push behind the single terminal plan. They have been before your committee almost weekly pushing their single terminal plan.





AvAirPros is lining up to manage the a new single terminal, leasing all the shops and restaurants as well as doing janitorial services on the terminal and planes. How could you not see the obvious conflict? You let the fox in the hen house. THIS ACTION SHOULD NULLIFY ANY DECISIONS MADE AS A RESULT OF AvAirPros REPORT BELOW. You can clearly see where they took the Crawford Plan, added whatever they needed to jack up the price and distort the plan and then told you it was too expensive! WOW! Perhaps the AIA should take a look at this one.

Airport presentation e-mail chain . . .

Jolie Justus

CFRG / MO

Kansas City's long journey to a single-terminal airport is being touted by consultants paid to push the plan with little support in this town.Accordingly . . .Here's the money link and the crux of their argument . . .############Even better, check the back and forth betwixt these tax fighters and the council lady who seems to lean toward the new single-terminal airport idea, and, has yet to schedule a presentation from alternative architects for a new plan.Dear Councilwoman Justus,We want to be sure we have the correct information. Are you the person who decides whether Crawford Architects in Association with Woods Bagot will be allowed to present their p;an for KCI Airport Renovation to the Airport Committee?Anytime someone has a plan to deliver the same amenities, in a much safer environment in the terrorist threatened world we live in and save $300 -$400,000,000 we believe they deserve the opportunity to present their plan.Sincerely,##############Mr. -------Thank you for your message regarding the terminal at KCI. As you clearly understand, this is a major community decision and I truly appreciate your thoughtful engagement and input on the issue.I serve as the Chair of the Airport Committee. In that role, I have participated in a comprehensive and deliberative fact finding process in an attempt to find a solution for KCI - an airport that is dire need of modernization, due to its age and the fundamental changes in air travel over the last five decades.Your correspondence inquired about an alternative plan for the airport that has been shared with the public by Crawford Architects ("Crawford plan"). At the request of the Airport Committee, the Crawford plan was vetted by a company hired by the airlines that serve KCI. Pursuant to city ordinance and the lease agreement with the airlines that serve KCI, any terminal plan presented to the voters of Kansas City must be agreed upon by both the Aviation Department and the airlines. Based on those requirements and the fact that any modernization of KCI will be paid for by the airlines, it was important to me that we hear directly from the airlines regarding the Crawford plan. The airlines' analysis and response was presented to the Airport Committee during a public hearing on February 2, 2016. I have attached for your reference, a memorandum that details the major deficiencies in the Crawford plan.Rather than simply reject the Crawford plan outright however, I think it is important for me to share with you the process that has been followed to date.In 2013 the City Council passed a resolution adopting the 2008 Airport Master Plan Update that recommended a new single terminal for KCI. The response from the public was immediate. It was clear that the general public had many questions relating to need, cost and convenience. At that time, the Mayor appointed a citizen Airport Terminal Advisory Group (ATAG) that spent a year holding key stakeholder and town hall meetings. At the conclusion of that process, the ATAG issued a recommendation that a new terminal is the optimal facility solution for Kansas City travelers and airlines.On February 6, 2014, the previous City Council approved Legislative Ordinance #140114, a Master Amendment to the Use and Lease Agreement between KCI and the airlines, effective May 1, 2014. The Master Amendment incorporated Exhibit K - Terminal Project Procedures, which defined the structure for a terminal program negotiation between the Aviation Department and KCI's airline partners. Exhibit K detailed a methodical and non-political process to evaluate both Major Renovation and New Terminal options. Exhibit K requires an agreement between the airlines and the Aviation Department before a terminal development project can begin.At the direction of the city ordinance and the current lease agreement with the airlines, the KCI Terminal Leadership Committee was established. The Terminal Leadership Committee is comprised of leaders from the City Manager's Office, Aviation Department and the airlines serving Kansas City International Airport. The airlines elected the city's largest carrier, Southwest Airlines, as the airlines' liaison. Several airline industry experts were contracted to conduct research and planning.Over the course of the last two years the Terminal Leadership Committee met more than 80 times including meetings, workshops and charrettes during which the Terminal Leadership Committee exhaustively revisited research from prior master plans and studies. Throughout this process both renovation of the existing terminals and new design/build options were given equal, objective study and consideration by the Terminal Leadership Committee. The group revisited future aviation demand for the Kansas City market and established facility requirements based on that future demand.During this process there were numerous briefings to the City Council and the Airport Committee by the Terminal Leadership Committee, airline industry representatives and city staff. The Airport Committee held ten public hearings that included presentations regarding the terminal development process, air service evolution, airport financing, and airport customer convenience. A due date was set for May 1, 2016, for the Terminal Leadership Committee's final recommendation and on April 26, 2016 at 1:30PM, they will make their presentation and final recommendation to the entire City Council.In January of this year, Crawford Architects shared their plan with local media and the Airport Committee. At the Airport Committee's request, the Terminal Leadership Committee elected to interrupt its planning and negotiation process to give the Crawford plan due consideration and analysis. Once the analysis was complete, their findings were presented to the Airport Committee at a public hearing on February 2, 2016. As previously mentioned, a copy of that presentation is attached hereto. As it turns out, the Crawford plan is very similar to one of the major renovation plans the Terminal Leadership Committee vetted during its extensive process. When I asked a spokesperson for the Terminal Leadership Committee and Southwest Airlines about the Crawford plan, he indicated to me that he was appreciative of the opportunity to review the plan, because it gave the group a second opportunity to look at the option of a major renovation. The Crawford plan allowed the group to confirm, once again, that a major renovation will not meet the existing and future technical and operational needs of air travelers and airlines.Throughout this entire process I have worked to ensure the Airport Committee conducts an educational, thorough and transparent process, so that committee members and the general public can use facts and data to make a decision about this critical community issue. In addition to the public hearings, I have attended dozens of meetings to discuss the future of KCI. I have met with individuals and businesses, including Crawford Architects, to discuss alternative plans or ideas for how we can improve KCI. I have communicated with hundreds of people throughout Kansas City as we make the decision on the future of our airport. I am satisfied with the thorough process conducted by the Terminal Leadership Committee and I anxiously await their final recommendation on April 26. Once that presentation has been made, it will be up to the City Council to determine whether to approve the recommendation and send the plan to a vote of the people. Pursuant to the ordinance passed by the previous City Council, any recommendation by the Terminal Leadership Committee will require a public vote before it can be adopted.KCI has been a good airport for nearly 50 years. We have come to appreciate its convenience and affordability. Now we stand at a fork in the road. Kansas City can choose to keep patching and painting KCI, or we can allow the airlines to pay for a Kansas City-sized, Kanas City-convenient, modern, affordable airport that serves our community for the next 50 years. I hope you are able to tune in or attend the presentation on April 26, 2016 at 1:30, so we can continue this important community dialogue and answer more of your questions.Thank you again for taking time to make your voice heard.##################Dear Councilperson Justus,Thank you for answering my email from April 15. However, you did not answer my question Are you the person who decides whether Crawford Architects in Association with Woods Bagot will be allowed to present their plan for KCI Airport Renovation to the Airport Committee (and the entire City Council)? In not answering, I feel you did answer. I realize this is a touchy subject and trying to not be responsible for the outcome is the political correct thing to do. However, you were elected by the voters of KCMO to represent them, not the airport consultants or the airlines. The voters want honesty and openness in our government and this process has been anything but. Lets put all the cards on the table.CFRG / MO has been involved in the Airport from the very beginning. If fact we were kicked out of the first meeting of the ATAG for no reason except for the fact ATAG moderators knew we had been outside gathering signatures on a petition to force the issue to a vote of the public. We attended almost every meeting. You alluded to this possible vote. I say possible because as you know, there are some working now to circumvent the voters on this issue. Many in our group feel circumvention would be grounds for a recall.We are surprised, as an attorney, you would not consider it a CONFLICT OF INTEREST to let the consultants, AvAirPro and their partners, who the city has already paid over $8,800,000 to sell the single terminal idea, evaluate the Crawford Plan? Maybe you did not realize AvAirPros who did the Crawford Plan evaluation is the main push behind the single terminal plan. They have been before your committee almost weekly pushing their single terminal plan.AvAirPros is lining up to manage the a new single terminal, leasing all the shops and restaurants as well as doing janitorial services on the terminal and planes. How could you not see the obvious conflict? You let the fox in the hen house. THIS ACTION SHOULD NULLIFY ANY DECISIONS MADE AS A RESULT OF AvAirPros REPORT BELOW. You can clearly see where they took the Crawford Plan, added whatever they needed to jack up the price and distort the plan and then told you it was too expensive! WOW! Perhaps the AIA should take a look at this one.What would be wrong with Crawford speaking for themselves? If you are interested in a fair and balanced, open and honest city government, you should think for yourself and let the council and the general public have access to the Crawford Plan Partners for a presentation and questions and answers. If their plan is not up to par, let the public and your follow council members make that decision, not paid competing consultants. What is the aviation department afraid of? Why do you and the aviation department insist on controlling this process and letting only those of similar mind present alternatives? You have spent $8,800,000 on consultants so far, paying for an unbiased report from architects and engineers on the Crawford Plan should not be a problem. Lets have a forum where the plans are laid out side by side. Why does city hall always try top force their idea on the public? They think we are stupid and incapable of making good decisions. Well, we think they need to look in the mirror.We will share your reply with our members as many have been awaiting an answerSincerely,###################Developing . . .
Negotiations between the Energy Ministry and the representatives of the countrys creditors made significant progress this week with the drafting of a particularly tight timetable that foresees the completion of a complicated plan for splitting the Independent Power Transmission Operator (ADMIE) from Public Power Corporation (PPC).

It is not yet clear whether the final agreement includes a provision contained in the original draft regarding the alternative of a 100 percent sale of ADMIE in the case that the above plan is not achieved.

The agreement between the ministry and the creditors provides for the immediate launch of the process separating the grid operator from PPC just after Parliament ratifies a bill replacing an older law that provided for the sale of 66 percent of ADMIE.

It is reminded that the new bill dictates the sale of a 49 percent stake of ADMIE to the private sector (29 percent to a strategic investor and 20 percent floated on the Greek stock market), while the remaining 51 percent will be passed on from PPC to the state. The bill is also set to regulate all issues pertaining to the compensation that PPC will receive for the sale of the 51 percent stake in ADMIE to the state.

Potential investors

According to the agreed timetable, potential investors will be invited to express their interest in June. Then, the progress of the tender needs to be reviewed in October so that the process of selecting a strategic investor for the countrys power grid operator can be completed by the end of the year.

The situation remains unclear, however, in regards to the reduction of PPCs share in the countrys retail and wholesale markets, as there were no concrete decisions reached on this point in Tuesdays meeting between Energy Minister Panos Skourletis and the creditors mission chiefs in Athens. Greeces bailout agreement provides for the sale of 40 percent of PPCs lignite output in the case that no agreement is reached on the tender for production capacity.

Nevertheless, ministry sources said this week that the real opening of the Greek electricity market will only take place by way of consortiums formed between PPC and private investors. They also said that besides Edison  the Italian company that has already invested in Greece and is controlled by Electricite de France (EDF)  talks are also under way with enterprises from Israel and Russia, as well as the USA. Skourletis on Tuesday met with the head of Edison in Athens.

Source: ekathimerini.com

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NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg thanked Greece for its commitment to the Alliance for many decades, its investment in collective defence, and its significant efforts to cope with the biggest migrant and refugee crisis in Europe since WWII

Visiting Athens on Friday (22 April), NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg met with the Greek President Prokopios Pavlopoulos, Prime Minister Aleksis Tsipras and Defence Minister Panos Kammenos to discuss current security challenges and NATO's response.

Mr. Stoltenberg thanked Greece for its commitment to the Alliance for many decades, its investment in collective defence, and its significant efforts to cope with the biggest migrant and refugee crisis in Europe since World War Two.

The Secretary General recalled that "NATO is in the Aegean Sea because Greece, Germany and Turkey requested our assistance to help cut the lines of human trafficking," and stressed that, as part of international efforts, "NATO is helping counter criminal networks, secure our borders and save lives. NATO is also working with the EU closer than ever before." Mr. Stoltenberg thanked Greece for contributing three ships to NATO's deployment in the Aegean, and for the excellent cooperation with Turkey and the EU's border agency Frontex.

In preparation for the NATO Summit in Warsaw in July, the Secretary General also discussed with his Greek hosts NATO's efforts to address the root causes of the refugee and migrant crisis. "We are assisting partner countries in the Middle East and North Africa to strengthen their own defence and fight terrorism and instability", he said. The Secretary General stressed that this month NATO started training Iraqi officers and stands ready to support Libya.

"We also discussed the challenge of a more assertive Russia, responsible for aggressive actions in Ukraine", Mr. Stoltenberg said. He stressed that in response to Russia's actions the Alliance has increased collective defence and deterrence, "not to provoke a conflict, but to prevent a conflict, and to keep our citizens safe." At the same time, NATO is keeping lines of political dialogue open, as testified by the recent meeting of the NATO-Russia Council.

Source: NATO.INT

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
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Mashreq, Dubai's third-biggest lender by assets, on Sunday posted a 18.3 percent fall in first-quarter net profit as it failed to recoup as many bad debts as it did in the corresponding period of last year.



The lender made a net profit of Dh532 million ($144.9 million) for the three months to March 31, it said in a statement, a decrease on the Dh651 million recorded for the corresponding period of 2015.



Mashreq said its profit growth would have been flat on an annual basis if it wasn't for the impact of recoveries in the first quarter of 2015. Recoveries in the banking industry usually refer to the collection of a loan amount from a borrower in default, for which the bank had previously made a provision.



The bank made net impairments worth Dh366 million in the first quarter, the statement said, up from the net Dh196 million set aside for bad loans in the same three months of last year.



Loans and advances at the end of March were 7.9 percent up on the same point of 2015 at Dh61.1 billion, and deposits over the same period grew 6.3 percent to Dh75.6 billion.



The bank expects its wholesale operations to grow 25 to 30 percent above the market in 2016 as it pushes into new sectors including real estate, non-bank financial institutions, education, healthcare and multinational companies, John Iossifidis, Mashreq's head of corporate and investment banking, said in February. - Reuters
South African President Jacob Zuma arrived in Iran on Sunday to strengthen political, trade and investment ties after crippling international sanctions against the Islamic Republic were lifted earlier this year, his office said.



South Africa is hoping to exploit a market hungry for investment as tens of billions of dollars worth of Iranian assets will now be unfrozen and global companies that have been barred from doing business there will benefit.



Iranian media said the two countries signed eight agreements on cooporation in areas including trade, industries, investments, agriculture, water resources and oil industry research and development. No details of the accords were given.



Iranian media also said the two countries called for strengthening intelligence cooperation in the fight against terrorism.



In opening remarks after his arrival, Zuma said various mechanisms had been discussed "to strengthen our political, trade, investment and economic, as well as people-to-people relations between our countries."



"The lifting of nuclear-related sanctions against Iran provides immense potential for closer commercial and investment cooperation between South Africa and Iran," the presidency said in a statement.



Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in remarks carried by state television that South Africa had supported Iran during its time under sanctions.



"Today, after the nuclear accords and the end of sanctions against Iran, there is a sharp competition between Asian and European countries for cooperation agreements with Iran, but we will never forget our close friends from the era of sanctions," Rouhani said, referring to South Africa.



Pretoria is considering building an oil refinery that will process Iranian crude to bolster its petrol supply and reduce its dependence on foreign companies.



Iran has been frustrated that few trade deals have been implemented since the sanctions were lifted in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme, as foreign banks still steer clear of processing transactions.



On April 15 Iran called on the United States and European Union to help it access the global financial system, but the White House said the nuclear deal did not include giving Tehran such access.



Zuma's visit was the second South African state visit to Iran, the first having been undertaken by late president Nelson Mandela in 1999.  Reuters
Rivoli Group, a leading lifestyle retailer in the Middle East, has opened its first mono-brand Rado boutique in Bahrain Seef Mall, offering an exclusive selection of the iconic Swiss watchmaking brand.



Ramesh Prabhakar, managing partner of the Rivoli Group, said: Bahrain is a growing and key market for the luxury watch sector; hence we are proud to celebrate the opening of the first mono-brand Rado boutique in this region.



We believe that the demand is going to grow even more in the coming years and we look forward to exploring new and different opportunities across Bahrain as the market continues to evolve. With the prime location of the boutique in the heart of Bahrain Seef Mall, we offer a genuine Rado lifestyle experience to local customers and visitors, he added.



The new Rado boutique sees modern design and smooth black elements that blends with a range of elegant taupe and bronze tones, while the ambience delivers on a luxurious feel that portrays the spirit of the avant-garde brand, a statement said.



In addition to the Rado True Thinline and Rado D-Original families, recent additions such as the HyperChrome and DiaMaster collections are also available for viewing in the boutique.



Founded in Switzerland in 1917, Rado watches differ from the traditional Swiss approach in the innovative use of high tech materials and distinct design. Rado pioneered the use of a number of materials that are unique within the watch making industry, including tungsten and titanium carbide, hi-strength ceramics, lanthanum and sapphire crystal.



Rado watches are iconic in design, and are renowned for the ground breaking use of super strength high-tech ceramic, winning a number of prestigious international design awards. The Rado HyperChrome is the brands flagship collection, featuring a mono-bloc case in plasma high-tech ceramic  a patented process first used by Rado.



In this unique process the case and strap elements take on a metallic look while retaining the lightweight, high-comfort features of tough, scratch resistant ceramic. Their smooth stylish surfaces can be metallic or matte, crafted in an ever-expanding array of colours.



Since its inception over two decades ago, the Rivoli name has been synonymous with luxury lifestyle retail. Today, the Rivoli Group has an established footprint in the UAE, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain with a diverse portfolio featuring over 110 international prestigious brands.  TradeArabia News Service
Emirates Airline, ranked as The Most Valuable Airline Brand in the World by the 2016 Brand Finance Global 500 report, has chosen Leo Burnett Dubai as its new full-service advertising agency, following a competitive, multi-agency pitch.



The partnership between Emirates Airline and Leo Burnett Dubai will commence in June, and the agency will be tasked with developing strategy, creative, trans-creation and various adaptations for the business needs of Emirates Airline in the Mena region. This would include the Gulf, including Yemen, Levant, covering Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Iran, and North Africa, including Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.



Chris Galanto, Emirates senior vice president, Advertising said: During the RFP process, the Leo Burnett team demonstrated an excellent grasp of our strategic, brand and tactical communication requirements, and the ability to deliver inspiring creative work across channels. Importantly, they offered several initiatives to improve production and process efficiencies. We look forward to working with them.



Kamal Dimachkie, executive regional managing director at Leo Burnett Dubai, said: We have tremendous respect for Emirates Airline as a company and as a brand. Emirates has been a force in the region and is a global leader in the field of travel. Just like it has redefined the industry in which it operates, the Emirates brand continues to lead and to innovate.



This is a huge responsibility that we will treasure and honour. We will collaborate with Emirates and support them with daring ideas and lateral communication solutions that enable them achieve their objectives, Dimachkie added.  TradeArabia News Service
Irans government has approved a model for new contracts but it was still being processed by a commission, said the head of Iran's petroleum contracts committee.



Seyed Mehdi Hosseini, asked when the final draft of the contract will be ready and presented, told an oil summit in Paris that the committee he chairs was hoping for June or July.



"We are doing our best to do something in June or July," Hosseini said, adding that the Iranian government had approved the model for the new contract.



Hosseini later told reporters that bidding and negotiations for Iran's oilfields will start in June or July.



"The fields that will come for bidding are mostly big fields," he said, adding that some common fields it shares with other countries would also be open to bidding.



"Bidding will begin in late June or early July," Hosseini said.



He added that the National Iranian Oil Company may also carry out negotiations for some individual projects.



He invited international oil companies to "start sending their interests" on potential projects. Iran hopes to attract international oil companies to invest in its oil sector and boost production with the new contracts.



Ties with Stockholm



Meanwhile, Iran and Sweden are keen to expand cooperation on energy issues, the countrys oil minister was quoted as saying by Iran Daily, which cited Shana.



"Cooperation in the oil sector has been limited in the past," said Bijan Namdar Zanganeh after a meeting with Swedish Energy minister Ibrahim Baylan.



Swedish companies can supply Iran's petroleum industry with the required state-of-the-art machinery, he added.



The minister highlighted that Tehran and Stockholm can cooperate in optimizing energy consumption in the petrochemical industry and production of industrial machinery.  Reuters & Agencies
Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) said the eastern government attempted to export 650,000 barrels of oil this week, breaching UN resolutions, but that workers at the Marsa El-Hariga terminal had refused to load the shipment.

"This had the potential to be a very ugly incident and I am pleased that it has been resolved peacefully without injury to anybody or loss of revenue or damage to the integrity of NOC or the country," Tripoli-based Chairman Mustafa Sanalla said in a statement.

Libya's eastern government is one of two rival administrations set up in 2014. Its efforts to sell oil through a parallel oil company have so far been unsuccessful, and have been fiercely resisted by the NOC in Tripoli, which has retained the backing of Western governments.

The NOC has said it will work with a UN-backed unity government that arrived in Tripoli last month to coordinate future oil sales.

Sanalla said he had informed the unity government's prime minister, Fayez Seraj, about the attempted sale, and that Seraj "took the necessary steps to stop the vessel from loading".

The NOC statement said the marketing manager of the parallel company had instructed eastern oil firm Agoco to load the shipment on April 21-23 for DSA Consultancy FZC, a company registered in the United Arab Emirates.

It said the shipment was intended for the Distya Ameya, an Indian-flagged vessel that remained at Marsa El-Hariga.

"Agoco employees and port officials understood this was a political attempt to divide the country, and I am very proud that they resisted the pressure to load this vessel," Sanalla said.

"We have been in communication with the master of the ship," he added. "We have informed him he is breaching UN resolutions and we have asked him to leave Libyan waters immediately. He has turned off his vessel's tracking system."

The parallel oil company says the NOC in Tripoli is illegitimate because it does not have the backing of Libya's eastern government, which was nominated by the internationally recognised parliament.

A spokesman for the parallel oil company, Mohamed Al-Manfi, said the tanker's departure had been disrupted after the NOC had threatened port officials, but added that it was still in port and that "procedures for the tanker will be facilitated in the coming hours".

"If the corporation in Tripoli continues with such actions we will prevent any tanker from dealing with them," he said.

The UN Security Council last month said the unity government had the "primary responsibility" for preventing illicit oil sales, urging it to communicate any such attempts to the UN committee overseeing Libya-related sanctions.

The resolution also restated a call for member states to cease contact with any "parallel institutions".

Since the uprising that toppled autocrat Muammar Gaddafi five years ago, Libya's oil production has been slashed by rivalry between armed factions, attacks by Islamic State militants and labour disputes.

Output has fallen to less than a quarter of the 1.6 million barrels per day produced before the uprising.
Despite the free fall in oil prices in 2015, Saudi Arabias consumer appetite for spending remains strong, with most Saudis envisaging an increase in their spending on general discretionary products, a report said.



The consumer has been insulated from the pressures which the oil price weakness may have had on other aspects of the economy, given a strong buffer of foreign exchange reserves, low levels of debt and a currency that remains robust, explained the sixth annual Emerging Consumer Survey  a detailed study profiling consumer sentiment and its drivers across the emerging world  published by the Credit Suisse Research Institute of Credit Suisse, one of the world's leading financial services providers.



Perhaps surprisingly, the Saudi Arabian consumer moved up to share the number two spot on our consumer confidence scorecard, from the fifth spot last year, the report said.



Saudi Arabia again ranked best among when asked In your opinion is now a good time to make a major purchase?. Fifty-three per cent of the respondents voted that it was at least a good time for a major purchase, and 23 per cent of those thought it was an excellent time.



Again this year we see a continuation of the trend where the highest income earners are the most optimistic about the state of their personal finances. We believe Saudis remain positive about the outlook of their personal finances due to their expectation that the government will continue to support private consumption by disbursing bonus salaries, although we believe it is unlikely this year, the report said.



Market penetration in Saudi Arabia remains high across products, with above 90 per cent levels for items such as computers, cars and smartphones. This indicates that the opportunity in some areas lies in product substitution rather than increased penetration. There is, however, an important caveat, according to Credit Suisse.



The survey may not fully reflect the impact of the 2016 budget announced at the turn of the year when the government announced for the first time an increase in gasoline prices as part of an overall review of subsidies levels (fuel, electricity, water, etc). The budget hinted at the introduction of fees and taxation which has been common in several Gulf Cooperation Council countries so far. Both previously mentioned initiatives are set to put relative pressure on the Saudi consumers purchasing power in the future.



Stefano Natella, head of Global Markets Research at Credit Suisse, said: Our study continues to provide a timely insight into the drivers of consumer sentiment across the emerging world. Our analysis suggests that over the last two years, approaching 100 million new households across our survey countries have found their way into the middle class.



Aided by innovations in technology, e-commerce and an optimism broadly driven by the younger consumer, the analysis delivered in this report continues to suggest that even in a challenging economic cycle, structural investment opportunities will continue to benefit investors.



Giles Keating, deputy global chief investment officer at Credit Suisse, said: Weak currencies, political risk and commodity exposures all contributed to the wide range of consumer sentiment expressed in this years report. The negativity of in Russia, South Africa and Brazil contrasted sharply with the relative optimism apparent in India, China and Saudi Arabia.



A granular understanding of the factors in play is key for investors looking to judge the range of risks and opportunities across these markets. The depth of analysis delivered in this report underlines the ambition of the Credit Suisse Research Institute to provide such guidance to clients and assist their investment and corporate strategies.  TradeArabia News Service
The Police Band and traditional craftsmen in a ceremonyto bid farewell to the cruise ship Artania which docked in Bahrain.

Cruise tourism soared by 28 per cent in Bahrain this year, compared with last year, reported the Gulf Daily News, our sister publication, citing figures that showed a total of 122,182 cruise travellers visited Bahrain from November to April.



To read further, please visit GDNonline.




UAE-based Alpha Destination Management, along with Natalie Tours, has successfully organised Kazakhstan Roadshows in four major cities in Kazakhstan.



The roadshows, which were held from April 14 to 21, took place in Astana, Almaty, Pavlodar and Ust-Kamenogorsk.



Top management representatives from 20 hotels representing Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah, Fujairah and Ajman participated in this event.



Abdullah Aridi, director, Business Development, Alpha Destination Management, expressed his optimism over the recently-concluded Roadshow, noting that around 400 travel agents attended the event in the four cities.



Aridi disclosed that Kazakhstan is one of the major feeder market for the UAE adding that the main idea behind this roadshow was to explore new venues in order to project massive marketing, promotion and networking initiatives.



Aridi stated that they also participated at the Kazakhstan International Tourism Fair (KITF 2016), which is a three-day event held at the Atakent International Exhibition Centre in Almaty, Kazakhstan.



He elaborated that the event showcased products like enhancing tourism opportunities, tourism services and solutions, tourism kits and essentials, accommodation services, luxury services, food and hotel services and other tourism requirements.



The international fair showcased the leading resorts of the world and by conducting workshops and interactive forums, had been an attractive fair for all viewers, he added. - TradeArabia News Service
Destination Zanzibar, Zanzibar based tourism-marketing agency, will highlight the island as more than sun, sand and sea at the Arabian Travel Market (ATM) 2016 opening tomorrow in Dubai, UAE.



The campaign will focus on the islands luxury travel, halal tourism, purposeful travel, MICE as well as private villas rentals and real estate offerings.



The isles tourism sector is currently undergoing major shift bringing diverse travel experiences to visitors as well as investment opportunities across the sectors, said Hafsa Mbamba, managing director, Destination Zanzibar.



Zanzibar was recently voted as one of the top destinations to watch out for in 2016 by Conde Nast Traveller. The publication describes it as one of those places, along with Timbuktu, Kilimanjaro and Marrakech, that conjures up extraordinary, exotic images from Arabian Nights coloured with dhows, spices and treasures  as well as evoking darker stories of traders and adventures on the hunt for elephants, gold, power and slaves, she added.



Although we have historic and trade ties with the Gulf, we have not adequately tapped into this market in the past. Our campaign here is aimed to revive those ties and invite tourists to come discover our shared history and enjoy the amazing attractions.



Supported by Zanzibar Commission for Tourism, Destination Zanzibars proposed marketing drive will cover extensive promotion across key areas including investment opportunity in tourism.



As an emerging Indian Ocean destination, the need of the hour is to promote the Zanzibar, her tourism products and services in its entirety. Arabian Travel Market provides an environment to integrate with international trade and businesses less exposed to Zanzibar, her tourism products and services. We believe this exhibition will allow us to better share insights on our islands and allow visitors an opportunity to learn the beauty of Zanzibar, noted Dr Mirajji Ussi, marketing director, Zanzibar Commission for Tourism.



Destination Zanzibar, which debuts its international visit at the ATM, has partnered up with Fumba Town Development, the new first-of-its-kind sustainable real estate development, to collaborate and support sectors for the purpose of travel and investment promotional drive.



Fumba Town offers modern and affordable living as well as commercial space and a unique investment opportunity into the growing real estate sector in Zanzibar. The association encourages industry integration with one aim, to promote tourism and investment in Zanzibar.  TradeArabia News Service
Maldives Marketing and PR Corporation (MMPRC) returns this year to Arabian Travel Market 2016 with a focus on increasing its tourism popularity and future plans to invest in the countrys infrastructure.



As a year round holiday destination the Maldives has established itself as a premier destination for luxury travel," said Moosa Zameer, minister of tourism of Maldives. Arabian Travel Market offers an ideal platform to present Maldives as a family-friendly destination particularly for travelers from this region. Tourism in any destination flourishes with investment in infrastructure facilities for its tourists. Our investment plans include expansion of Ibrahim Nasir International Airport has with further investments in pipeline to increase the bed capacity. Much attention is also being paid to sustainable tourism and renewable energy in the Maldives. The Green Resort Award is again being used as a means of inspiring the providers of tourism facilities to commit to a greener lifestyle.



Middle East remains one of the emerging markets for Maldives with a total share of 3.4 per cent. In the year 2015 a total of 41,976 tourists from Middle East visited Maldives. Compared to arrivals figures in 2014 this is an increase of 12.8 per cent. Looking into arrivals for 2016 a steady growth is observed. In January 2016 an increase of 11.7 per cent was observed and for February 2016, 8.9 per cent increase of arrivals was recorded.



The Maldives is well known for its breath-taking vistas, its nature and its enigmatic underwater attractions. The island nation also offers excellent diving spots with an array of outdoor activities such as snorkeling, surfing and fishing.



This year, MMPRC will bring 52 local travel agent, tour operators, destination management companies and hotel partners such as PER AQUUM Hotels & Resort Maldives, Sun Siyam Resorts, Hideaway Beach Resort & Spa, Jumeirah Vittaveli and the recently opened Amari Havodda to the Arabian Travel Market, which runs from April 25 to 28 at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Center.



The Maldives stand is located in Sheikh Saeed Hall 03, Stand Number AS3050. - TradeArabia News Service
Mumbai: Compliance of corporate governance norms need to be made more practical if they are to be complied with in spirit rather than only the letter of the law.

A recent study bears this out as it revealed that most companies are finding it difficult for instance to comply with the transparency norms while dealing with auditors.

Queried about this, Kalpana Unadkat, partner, Khaitan & Co, who advises foreign investors on their investments in India and corporate governance issues, said there is a major issue related to Independent directors for instance, when it comes to evaluating board members.

The majority of times its a tick box exercise and few take it seriously. Its still an old boys club. The compliance officer says it take a lot of time to evaluate all directors.

Her experience as an independent director has been good. One has duties. No one, for example, can turn up without reading the documents sent to them, she says.

However whilst the UK for instance has regular training for independent directors and head hunters for the selection of independent directors in India there is a nomination committee but 80 per cent selected are not really independent.

Pranav Haldea, the managing director of PrimeDirector.com, says no one wants a complete stranger on the board. And this is true even abroad. Invitations are often given on strong references.

Some other cumbersome compliances required are the 19 compliances needed by listed companies on the BSE; the ministry of corporate affairs has five ongoing compliance e-forms to be filed excluding filing of activities undertaken by the company. There are also 12 statutory filings required under the labour laws. These are only some of the compliances.
Tribune News Service

Amritsar, April 24

The 5178 Teacher Union has warned the state government of holding its forthcoming protests in the Assembly constituencies of the Chief Minister and the Education Minister.

This was decided in a meeting of the union held at the historic Ram Bagh here today.

Members of the union also held a protest against the ruling SAD-BJP coalition government for not accepting their long-pending demands.

Union president Raj Kumari said the members were recruited in 2014 on a monthly salary of Rs 6,000. After a year, just Rs 500 were hiked in their salaries. She said the government was insincere from the beginning. The written test was conducted in 2011 but they were recruited in 2014.

Though 5,178 posts were advertised but only half of these were filled.

All of them were hired on a three-year contract period. The agitating teachers demanded regularised job and at least their basic pay.

They said all of them were postgraduates with BEd and had passed the Adhyapak Yogata test.

On the other hand, a regular master teacher was given a salary of Rs 45,000 monthly, they added.
Tribune News Service

Amritsar, April 24

Singapores Scoot Airlines is all set to commence Singapore-Amritsar flight from May 24. This was stated in a company release here today.

In a statement here today, Scoots CEO, Campbell Wilson, said, Scoot is expanding its network to India with addition of three new destinations. Our airline will commence services from Singapore to Amritsar on May 24; Singapore to Jaipur from October 2, besides taking over Singapore-Chennai route from Tiger Airways from May 24.

He said, Scoot is excited to bring our proposition of value travel and service in India. Fliers will soon be able to fly to amazing destinations in our network through the Singapore hub on our brand new 787 Dreamliners featuring in-flight connectivity, in-seat power and a wide range of customization options.

Scoots new services to Amritsar and Jaipur will bring travellers to the magnificent Golden Temple and the stunning Pink City. It will enable guests in Scoots network to discover Indias mystique and allure, he added.

To mark its launch in India, Scoot is offering a limited-time promotion from now till April 28 for guests booking from India to Scoots destinations across its network.

One-way economy fly fares from Chennai, Amritsar and Jaipur start from US$ 64 to Singapore and US$ 189 to Sydney, besides US$ 179 and US$ 459 for ScootBiz to Singapore and Sydney, respectively.
Aparna Banerji

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, April 24

At the humble home of a nondescript political science professor in Jalandhar lies a rare treasure of antique coinage, currency, rare magazines and newspapers which he has been painstakingly collecting ever since he was a kid.

Rajiv Kumar Sharma, assistant professor in political science at AS College, Khanna, has been collecting coins for the past 17 years.

He has chased beggars by river banks, traversed ancient bazars and lanes in cities and contacted collectors for years in pursuit of rare currency and coinage. Collecting coins is almost like a second job which he follows owing to his passion and love for antiquities. Even on holidays, he often foregoes sightseeing to go digging coinage antiquities from markets.

While his father Mast Ram was also interested in numismatics, in terms of better knowledge of the subject, he considers Dr Rajendra Sharma, a professor, as his guru.

Dr Rajendra Sharma is the head of the political science department, Doaba College, Jalandhar. I found the real value and inspiration of collecting coins from him. I used to visit his home and found rare objects. My curiosity was profoundly raised. I realised that I had a passion for antique coins since then, he said.

Rajiv Sharma managed to lay his hands on his first coin at his home in Phagwara at the age of 10, when he talked a beggar into handing him rare coins.

Till that time, I never had a collection of my own. But conversing with a beggar, I got to know that he had some rare coinage. Although at that age I didnt know its true value, I, however, got to know it was something very important. So I kept coaxing him until he relented, he laughs.

from page 1

The 42-year-old Sharma today has a collection of over 500 old coins, which included rare treasures with Hindu iconography, from as early as the fifth and sixth centuries, to a rare collection of coins and currency notes from the East India Company spanning between 1717 and 1911. He, of course, also has some important coinage from the 20th century as well.

Interestingly, while his maiden attempt at finding coins was not the only one where he had help from a beggar, he said usually, beggars have been a key on many rare and precious coins in the collection, which he has been able to find. At times, he has had to go after them for days to find a lead.

Sharma in fact found the rarest treasures in his collection  two fifth and sixth century coins  with Ram Lakshman and Shiva icons from beggars on the banks of the river Godavari at Nasik when an excursion for his family turned into a treasure hunt for him.

On a visit to Nasik, the family went for a trip to the banks of the Godavari. While they enjoyed themselves, I caught up with a group of beggars who claimed that they had fine coins. While many times I have also been duped or lied to, in any case it seemed worth a try. The beggar promised to bring it to me on the riverbanks so I waited for him and finally I had coins with very fine and rare iconography with me. Even in many other cities, beggars often have some or other old coins stashed with their belongings for which they are usually willing to bargain for, he said.

Whenever Sharmas family goes for a trip anywhere, one of the top complaints is that he is always roaming old markets. His wife says, Be it Amritsar or Nasik or Gujarat, he is always going to old markers or talking to beggars to lay his hands on a valuable coin. He also collects a lot of old newspapers or important international magazine editions wherever he finds them.

He has both old and new currency from Poland, Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, among other countries. At one time, he kept following a collector for a coin for two years until he relented.

While he recently shifted to his new home and has spent much of his life in rented accommodations, he said, There

were times when, while living in rented homes, we kept our clothes elsewhere, but made a special place for the coins in almirhas and suitcases because these are the most prized and precious possessions. They are especially valuable for the time and energy I have given to this vocation. I am on the lookout for many more coins and especially governor seals. The happiest part at the end of the day is that I have a treasure ranging centuries and generations which have fallen in my lap. Since I teach political science, I treasure these for their historical and political value and plan to teach posterity about its importance.

Coin collections

Among his fifth and sixth century coins with Hindu iconography are Ram Darbar coins with Ram and Laxman icons with the inscription Ram Laxman Jaanak on their on one side and a darbar with two figures seated under an ornate umbrella flaked by three figures on the other. Another coin has Shiva inconography and a cow with the inscription Bharat Gochar on the one side and a seated Shiva icon on the other

A coin from the Maharaja Ranjit Singh period with the seated Maharajas icon on one side and Guru Nanak and Mardanas icons on The other

A circa 1717 one rupee coin of the East India Company with the Sach Bolo Pura Tolo inscription with an icon of Hanuman. Another with an inscription Ram Bhagat Hanuman circa 1911

A one quarter anna circa 1894 coin with the Queen of Englands profile on it

A currency note for Rs 10 with King Georges icon on it

Coins with Stalin inscriptions before the collapse of the Soviet Union

He has a versatile collection of East India Company coins ranging from 1800s until 1911

Also possesses a rare Rs 2 anna eight currency note

Among the collections of his magazines are

Time Magazine editions with listed covers:

Vietnam Flashback (1995), Khrushchev  Cold War (1959), Soviet Union Collapse (1991), Hitler Special, Gulf War (February 1991), Indo-Pak War (January 1972), Indo-Chinese War (1962) and The Bloody Birth of Bangladesh (1971).
Tribune News Service

Jammu, April 24

The six-day tour of students from Mumbai culminated in a ceremony at Usman Auditorium in Nagrota today.

The national integration tour of 165 children and 19 school principals, teachers and other staff members from Classes VI to X from Mumbai interacted with children studying in the Army Goodwill School. They were taken to places of tourist interest. Fourteen schools were a part of the tour.

At the closing ceremony, Lt Gen RR Nimbhorkar, General Officer Commanding, 16 Corps, welcomed and thanked Father Jude Fernandez SJ for coordinating the tour.

He appreciated the fact that the children were able to get a glimpse of the life of a soldier on the Line of Control (LoC). The students were motivated by the address.

Lt Gen Nimnhorkar bolstered the confidence of young students. He shared with them display of courage and valour by soldiers deployed on the LoC and in the hinterland guarding the nation round the clock.

He exhorted the students to be good citizens who should try and contribute to keep the nation safe. He gave away mementos to the students.

Peter de Souza of the Brihan Mumbai Inter-School Republic Day Group from Mumbai, accompanying the children, said, Mumbais children need to understand the role and ethos of the Services in a little more detail. After convincing principals and formal presentations to schools and parents, this trip materialised.

Patrick de Souza of St Stainsalus High School said he was fascinated by the training centre at Sarol with activities like shooting, crossing Burma Bridge, information on IEDs, pitching tent and communication systems.

Kaenat Salmani of Anjuman-I-Islam Girls High School said, The cultural programme by students of the Army School was amazing. Chantel Chaves of St Josephs Convent High School said she was floored by team work, discipline, punctuality, commitment, willingness to save others and tough routine of the Army.
Rajmeet Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 24

With the US-based Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) moving court demanding his arrest upon his arrival in Toronto, Punjab Congress chief Capt Amarinder Singh today cancelled his tour of Canada. But he will continue with his engagements in the US before returning to India.

I will fight back the baseless case filed by Gurpatwant Singh Pannu in a Toronto court. My Canada-based supporters are moving the higher court. But by the time the case is decided, it will be too late, said Capt Amarinder.

The PPCC chief accused the Sikhs for Justice for playing into the hands of the Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Aam Aadmi Party.

Slamming the Sikh organisation, he alleged it was trying to abuse a well-meaning and well-intentioned law aimed at protecting and safeguarding the rights of Canadian citizens across the world. He urged the Canadian authorities to ensure that the law was not misused by the SFJ whose anti-India credentials were only too well known.

He suggested that the Government of India should take up the issue of Indian leaders being summoned by courts in Canada with the Canadian Government. He rejected the allegations levelled against him that there were instances of Canadian citizens having been tortured during his tenure as Punjab CM between 2002 and 2007 and that police officials allegedly involved in such incidents had been promoted by him.

Presuming, for the sake of argument, that such incidents did take place, why did it take someone more than 10 years to file a complaint and why was the complaint not made when I visited Canada in 2004 as Punjab CM? Capt asked SFJ office-bearers.
Washington, April 24

Indian workers are the worst and the hardest ones to understand, Republican Governor of Maine Paul LePage said, stirring another controversy a day after Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump mocked Indian call centres.

In his address to the Maine Republican convention, wherein the party selected its delegates for the July national convention, LePage alleged foreign workers are being used in local restaurants.

LePage, known for making controversial remarks, said it's hard to understand workers from Bulgaria but workers from India are the worst ones.

He also said one has to get an interpreter to talk to an Indian.  PTI
Shahira Naim

Tribune News Service

Lucknow, April 24

Aligarh Muslim University authorities today decided to hold a high-level probe by an external agency into the last nights violence on the campus in which two students, one present and another former, were killed and properties, including vehicles, were torched.

AMU Vice-Chancellor Lt-Gen Zameer Uddin Shah today met AMU officials and took stock of the situation on the campus. He said an impartial probe was necessary to identify elements which instigated the violence.

Factional clashes between two student groups suddenly flared up late last night when both arrived at the proctors office and set it on fire, burnt down two cars and half a dozen motorbikes parked near VCs lodge and guest house. Firearms were reportedly used and the two students were shot at.

The violence continued till 2:30 am. Besides police, additional forces, including the Rapid Action Force, were rushed in to defuse the tense situation on the campus.

A former student, who had been shot at, succumbed to his injuries within an hour. The other critically injured student was shifted to a hospital in Delhi for treatment where he died this evening.

The clashes broke out over a minor incident on Friday near the Maulana Azad Library canteen. A heated argument between the two student groups resulted in one Mohsin being assaulted and his room set on fire.

ADG (law and order) Daljit Chaudhary today claimed that they have identified the perpetrators responsible for the violence on the AMU campus late last night. An FIR has been lodged and we would soon nab the masterminds, he said.
Chandigarh, April 24

The Nepal police today detained a five-member team of the Punjab Police which had gone there to arrest a murder accused.

Senior police officials said efforts were to secure the cops release. Sources said the Sangrur police team led by Ahmedgarh SHO Roshan Lal was probing the murder of Ahmedgarh resident Dr Ramesh Puri, who was killed on April 19, allegedly by a group of Nepalese labourers. Sources said the cops, carrying AK-47 guns, were in mufti when they raided hideouts of the accused in Nepal.  TNS
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 24

The Punjab Government today announced to bear the entire expenditure on the purchase of Shaheed Bhagat Singhs house and its conversion into a world-class memorial at Chak No 105 GB (now Bangay village) in Lyallpur, Pakistan.

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal offered support for the initiative to the chairman, Bhagat Singh Memorial Foundation, Imtiaz Rashid Qureshi.

Qureshi had filed a writ petition in the Lahore High Court to reopen the martyrs case, whose trial had led to his execution along with Rajguru and Sukhdev in the Lahore jail in 1931.

Badal said Bhagat Singhs house at Bangay village, where he was born, would be developed as a monument to perpetuate the martyrs legacy across the globe.

Qureshi said Bhagat Singhs legacy should not be restricted to India and Pakistan. He hoped that this initiative would strengthen the bonds of goodwill and friendship between the people of both countries.

Declared a heritage site two years ago, Bhagat Singhs birthplace was thrown open to the public last month. On his martyrdom day (March 23), activists of Lyallpur gathered in the village for the Sardar Bhagat Singh Mela. The Pakistan Government has spent around Rs 5 crore (in Indian currency) on the preservation of the house.
Chinese economy remains much bigger than that of India in terms of the overall size.

Moscow: China has complimented India for "doing a good job" in maintaining an impressive growth rate despite a global slowdown and is keen on working together to push for reforms in the international financial system to offset the inherent weaknesses.

Stating that his country was keen to ramp up investments in India, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the two major emerging economies can contribute significantly in helping the world economy by keeping up their growth momentum.

"First of all, we both need to grow our own national economies. On this front, we want to commend India for doing a good job in promoting economic growth," Wang told PTI here.

Wang, who was here to attend Foreign Ministers' meeting of RIC (Russia, India, China) grouping, further said reform of global financial system is key to protect the interest of developing countries and for recovery of the world economy.

"We need to join hands in playing a positive role in improving the global economic and financial governance because that will help protect the interests of the developing countries. It will also help the world economy to embark on a path of strong recovery," Wang said.

He said China was "optimistic" about the prospect of deeper relationship between the two countries.

"Of course, we will be happy to invest more in India. There is no doubt about it," he added.

After witnessing nearly three decades of close to double-digit growth, China has seen a decline in its growth rate, making room for India to replace it as the fastest-growing major economy of the world.

However, Chinese economy remains much bigger than that of India in terms of the overall size. China clocked 6.9 per cent growth in 2015 when India is estimated to have grown by 7.3 per cent.

The IMF has projected Indian economy to grow at 7.5 per cent in 2016 and 2017. The Chinese Foreign Minister also said his government was "looking forward" to President Pranab Mukherjee's upcoming visit to China.
Washington, April 24

Indian workers were the "worst" and were the "hardest" ones to understand, Republican governor of the US state of Maine Paul LePage said on Sunday, a day after Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump mocked Indian call centres.

In his address to the Maine Republican convention, wherein the party selected its delegates for the July national convention, LePage alleged that foreign workers are being used in local restaurants.

LePage, who is known for making controversial remarks, said it's hard to understand workers "from Bulgaria", but workers from India are "the worst ones."

He also said that one has to get an interpreter to talk to an Indian. However, he then quickly described Indians as a "lovely" people.

LaPage's remarks came a day after Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump mocked Indian call centres but described India as a "great place".

Meanwhile, both LePage and Trump suffered a setback at the Maine Convention, which elected 19 of the 23 delegates who are Cruz supporters.

Maine is a small northeastern state in the US.

In his speech, LePage was highly critical of Cruz, accusing him of "stabbing us in the back".

"We reached a deal with Cruz's national campaign to put up a unity slate that would honour the wishes of the thousands of Mainers who voted at caucus. But Cruz's Northeast Political Director David Sawyer lied to us and broke the deal. Sawyer stabbed us in the back, reneged on the unity slate and betrayed the people of Maine," he said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Cruz notched up more delegates than Trump on Saturday. He won at least 65 of the 94 delegates up for grabs over the weekend.

As of Saturday, Trump had 845 delegates to Cruuzs 559.

A candidate needs to have at least 1,237 delegates to earn the Republican presidential nomination.

Primaries are still to be held in 15 states, with the next round of primaries to be held in Maryland, Delaware, Philadelphia, Rhode Island and Connecticut on Tuesday.

Polls show that Trump is leading in all these states.  PTI
Washington: A 36-year-old Guatemalan woman has been sentenced to three years in prison for smuggling undocumented migrants from India into America. Rosa Astrid Umanzor-Lopez, who was extradited from Guatemala, said that between January 2011 and her arrest on February 4, 2014, she and other conspirators recruited individuals in India who were willing to pay large sums of money to be smuggled into the US. Many of these smuggling events involved illegal entry via the US-Mexico border near McAllen and Laredo, Texas. PTI

Construction tools firms smartphone out

New York: US-based construction power tools firm DeWalt has unveiled its first smartphone "MD501" with tough looks and even though it is a full touchscreen device, the user can work on it with gloves on. The smartphone is water-resistant and can work in temperatures from -20 degrees up to 60 degrees Celsius. DeWalt has added an amplified loudspeaker to the phone for clearer speakerphone calls at noisy work sites. It is expected to cost $544 when available. IANS

Novel way to make fertiliser with sunlight

Washington: Scientists have developed a new, eco-friendly method to produce ammonia, the main ingredient of fertiliser, using sunlight. The researchers discovered that light energy can be used to change dinitrogen (N2), a molecule made of two nitrogen atoms, to ammonia (NH3), a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen. The new light-driven chemical process that creates ammonia can lead to future developments that will enhance global agricultural practices while decreasing the dependence of farmers on fossil fuels. PTI

Web editor jailed for seditious articles

Singapore: A 23-year-old editor of a website has been sentenced to 10 months in prison for publishing seditious articles intended to provoke unwarranted hatred against foreigners. Ai Takagi, who is 12 weeks pregnant, is the Chief Editor of socio-political website The Real Singapore (TRS). An Australian of Japanese descent, she said she set up TRS in 2012 to let Singaporeans express their views without fear. One article was entitled "Why Some Singaporeans Feel Annoyed With Pinoys (a short name for Filipinos) In Singapore". PTI
WASHINGTON  The Senates leading Republican voices on national security are assembling an indictment of Donald Trumps worldview by soliciting rebuttals from U.S. military leaders that challenge the accuracy and legality of the GOP presidential front-runners most provocative foreign policy positions.

Over the past few months, Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, two of Trumps sharpest GOP critics, have used their posts on the Senate Armed Services Committee to fact-check Trumps claims.

Without mentioning the bombastic billionaires name, theyve asked senior officers who testify before the committee about waterboarding extremists, the consequences of targeting terrorists families, and whether NATO and Americas other key alliances have become obsolete.

Connecting the threads over weeks of hearings would produce a record of remarks that could be strung together and used by opponents of the presidential candidate.

To demonstrate his fitness to be commander in chief, Trump is planning to tone down his brash personality and deliver a foreign affairs address on Wednesday  the first in a series of policy speeches. He also is planning a separate speech on the military, telling The Associated Press in a recent interview that people may be surprised by how well Ill handle matters relative to the military.

Omitting Trumps name from the conversation allows the generals and admirals questioned by the senators to stay apolitical and out of the 2016 presidential campaign. But its obvious that McCain, the committees chairman, and Graham, who waged an unsuccessful bid for his partys White House nomination, are asking about positions Trump has staked out that have rattled the Republican Party and unnerved U.S. allies.

Aides to the senators said theres no coordination or strategy between the two. But McCain and Graham are close friends and foreign policy hawks. Its not unusual to see them together on the floor of the Senate, hammering the Obama administration over the Iran nuclear deal, the civil war in Syria or troop levels in Afghanistan.

Graham also wrote the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford. Without citing Trumps name, he inquired about the billionaires pledge, if elected, to bring back the use of waterboarding  which causes the sensation of drowning  and worse against captured militants. Congress has outlawed waterboarding along with other so-called enhanced interrogation techniques.

Trump also said he would order the military to kill family members of militants who threaten the U.S., a position he has since retreated from after being heavily criticized.

Dunford responded to Graham last week in a carefully worded letter that said violating the laws of war diminish the support of the American people and the populace of Democratic states, including allies who might otherwise support or participate in coalition operations.

Graham, a retired Air Force lawyer, has called Trumps foreign policy gibberish and ill-conceived. Graham half-heartedly endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas for president because Cruz is not completely crazy.

McCain, an ex-Navy fighter pilot and the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, hasnt wavered from his position that he will support the Republican nominee. But hes bristled over what hes called Trumps uninformed and dangerous statements on national security issues.

Examples of McCains and Grahams fact-checking approach were on display this past week.

On April 19, when the Army general selected to lead U.S. forces in South Korea testified before the committee, McCain seized the opportunity to undermine Trumps suggestion that the U.S. withdraw its forces from the South because Seoul isnt paying enough to cover the cost of the American military presence.

Isnt it the fact that it costs us less to have troops stationed in Korea than in the United States, given the contribution the Republic of Korea makes? McCain asked Gen. Vincent Brooks.

Yes, Brooks said, telling McCain the South Koreans pay half, or $808 million annually, of the U.S. presence there.

Brooks added that the South Koreans are footing the bill for more than 90 percent of a $10.8 billion project to build a base where U.S. troops will be stationed.

Two days later, Trumps claim that NATO is irrelevant and ill-suited to fight terrorism came under the microscope. As president, Trump has said he would force member nations to increase their contributions, even if that risked breaking up the 28-country alliance.

Responding to a series of questions from Graham, Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, picked to be the top American commander in Europe, assured the committee of NATOs critical importance to the U.S. Breaking up the alliance, Scaparrotti warned, would benefit Russia, the Islamic State group and even the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The issue of torture is personal to McCain, who was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for more than five years and badly abused by his captors. During a committee hearing in February, McCain asked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper if he agreed that information gained through waterboarding and other methods of torture came at too high a cost for the United States.

I do, said Clapper, a retired Air Force lieutenant general.

Isnt it the fact that this is - American values are such that just no matter what the enemy does, that we maintain a higher standard of behavior? And when we violate that, as we did with Abu Ghraib, that the consequences are severe? said McCain, referring to the prison scandal in Iraq.

Yes, sir, Clapper responded.
Last night 60 Minutes addressed its Lebanon ordeal -briefly- with footage of its crew and Sally Faulkner reunited with family in Australia.

In the past two weeks weve been limited in what we could say about Australian mum Sally Faulkner and our crew detained in Beirut. Theres one thing we want to state very clearly from the outset  we made mistakes, Michael Usher said.

Usher said 60 Minutes staff and management had already begun interviews with its internal review panel, headed up by founding 60 Minutes producer Gerald Stone.

He also spoke briefly with Tara Brown, who said she thought Lebanese police would not view them as complicit.

I really thought Were journalists, were doing our job, they will see reason, theyll understand that,' she said.

That we are here just to do a story on a very, very desperate mother.

Nine did not address payments that have been revealed by media.

Meanwhile Nine News boss Darren Wick has told News Corp, We cant sit here and think: we didnt do anything wrong, we had a bit of bad luck. You make your own luck.

We have to look at how we operate. Weve wandered into a foreign country and basically walked into a storm.

But Adam Whittingtons mother, Georgina, has pleaded with Nine for assistance.

I dont have any money, I dont want any payment, but if you can help with my sons legal fees and costs, that would be good, she said.
London: Britain's annual rich list released on April 24 has a distinctly Indian flavour with two sets of India- born brothers grabbing the top two slots.

Mumbai-born property magnates David and Simon Reuben have topped 'The Sunday Times' Rich List 2016 with a fortune of 13.1 billion pounds, followed by the Hinduja brothers at 13 billion pounds.

The Reubens, who own London Oxford Airport and London Heliport, have increased their fortune by 3.4 billion pounds in the past year to jump to the top slot. Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja, who head the Hinduja Group, hold on to their slot from last year with an unchanged fortune.

However, another Indian tycoon did not have a similarly fruitful year with Lakshmi N Mittal's steel empire taking a hit from the global industry crisis and losing nearly three-quarters of his wealth.

The Arcelor Mittal chief held the top slot on the list back in 2008 with a whopping 27.7 billion pounds, which is now down to just 7.12 billion this year. He slips to 11th on the list from 7th last year.

"The guys at the top who are feeling the pain this year are often hit by a cocktail of plunging stock markets, low oil prices and the crisis in the steel industry sometimes by all three," said Robert Watts, compiler of the 2016 list.

Completing the top three is Warner Music owner Len Blavatnik, who has 11.59 billion pounds. He has dropped two places after a reduction in wealth by 1.58 billion pounds.

The UK has clocked 120 billionaires this year, the highest recorded since 2006, but the number of London billionaires fell for the first time since the financial crash from 80 in 2015 to 77. On the global scale, India has a record 56 billionaires, compared to 193 in China and 43 in Russia.
This week Foreign Correspondent screens footage from a UK doco which uncovers human rights violations in Saudi Arabia -and how some are fighting back.

Undercover cameras provide a rare window into one of the worlds most secretive countries, revealing how Saudi Arabia ruthlessly crushes internal dissent  and how some people are fighting back.

Saudi Arabia is one of our key allies in the Arab world. Its a major trading partner whose defenses are plumped up by billions of dollars worth of arms and equipment bought from western powers

which might help explain why its atrocious human rights record slides by largely unremarked.

In Saudi they say, the walls can hear. There is no freedom of thought.  Saudi dissident

Journalists  if they are allowed in  cannot operate freely. But now a British documentary team has skirted those restrictions, using secret cameras to expose the harshness of life inside the strict Wahhabist kingdom  public beheadings, floggings, stark poverty and women harassed by religious police.

Dissenters risk life or liberty.

Im now on Ghweifat Road. Im trying to drive across the Saudi border, so lets see what happens.  activist Loujain Hathloul, jailed for 73 days after defying a ban on women driving

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.  blogger Raif Badawi, sentenced to 1000 lashes and 10 years in jail

Ali is just a normal Arab boy who dreams of freedom.  mother of Ali Nimr, who was arrested at age 17 then sentenced to death by beheading for his role in street protests

No country is the perfect ally, perfect partner without reservations whatsoever. So you know, welcome to the real world, welcome to the premier league.  General (Ret.) David Petraeus, former CIA director

9.30pm on Tuesday April 26 on ABC.
UK actress Pearl Mackie has been revealed as the new companion on Doctor Who.

She plays the new character named Bill -perhaps a nod to original Doctor, William Hartnell.

Landing the role will skyrocket Mackies star, given she is a relative unknown on screen.

She appeared in one episode of BBCs medical drama Doctors and studied at Bristols Old Vic Theatre School, recently performing with the National Theatre. She speaks French and Spanish and is skilled in Ballet, Jazz, Period Dance and Tap -and is a big fan of afros.

Im incredibly excited to be joining the Doctor Who family. Its such an extraordinary British institution, I couldnt be prouder to call the TARDIS my home!

Peter Capaldi is such a brilliant actor, and his Doctor is such a wacky and wonderful character, I cant wait to see what adventures are in store for him and Bill throughout time and space. Reading the script at the audition I thought Bill was wicked. Fantastically written, cool, strong, sharp, a little bit vulnerable with a bit of geekiness thrown in  I cant wait to bring her to life, and to see how she develops through the series.

I always loved stage combat at drama school so I cant wait to get on set and kick some evil monsters into the next dimension!

Shooting the trailer was absolutely mental, there were pyro technics and smoke and I met my first Dalek! Im not sure it will ever become the norm seeing crazy monsters on set, but I cannot wait to meet some more! The weirder the better, bring it on!

Peter Capaldi said: It is a genuine delight to welcome Pearl Mackie to Doctor Who. A fine, fine actress with a wonderful zest and charm, shes a refreshing addition to the TARDIS and will bring a universe of exciting new possibilities to The Doctors adventures.

Steven Moffat, Lead Writer and Executive Producer adds: A new face in the TARDIS, a new voyage about to begin: welcome aboard the amazing Pearl Mackie! This is where the story really starts.

Charlotte Moore, Acting Director of Television said: Its so exciting to be revealing the much anticipated new companion to the nation in such spectacular style. Pearl brings a wonderful energy and lights up the screen. She will captivate Doctor Who fans old and new across the globe.

Brian Minchin, Executive Producer adds: Were utterly thrilled to have the hugely talented Pearl join Doctor Who and I cant wait to begin her new adventures in time and space!

Doctor Who will return later this year with a Christmas Special before the final season to be helmed by Steven Moffat in 2017. Chris Chibnalls first season debuts in 2018.
Hi, my name is Scott C. Waring and I wrote a few books and am currently a ESL School Owner in Taiwan. I have had my own UFO sighting up close and personal, but that's how it works right? A non believer becomes a believer when they experience their first sighting. You witnessed it, your perceptual field changes, so now you need to share it.





I created this site to help the UFO community get a little bit organized. I noticed that there was a lot of chaos when searching for UFO sighting reports, so I hope this site helps. I wanted to support those eyewitnesses who have tried to tell others about what they have seen, yet were laughed at by even closest of friends.





More and more each day the governments of the world leak bits and pieces of UFO information to the public. They have a trickle down theory in hopes of slowly getting citizens use to the idea that we are not alone in universe and never have been. The truth is being leaked drop by drop until one day we look around and find ourselves neck high in it.





The discovery of alien species in existence is the most monumental scientific event in human history, suppression of that information is a crime against humanity.





About me:

I live in Taiwan. I OWN MY OWN ENGLISH SCHOOL, AND ONCE HAD 5 SCHOOLS.

Am Former USAF at SAC base (flight line).

Age: 42

Educ: BA in Elem ed. Masters in Counseling ed.





I had two UFO sightings, (30+bus size orbs) in military and in 2012 personally saw the UFO over Taipei 101 building on New Years Day (and recored it).
Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) Volodymyr Yelchenko on behalf of Ukraine signed the Pairs Agreement on Climate Change at the UN Headquarters in New York on Friday.

Thus, Ukraine joined other members of the international community in signing the Paris Agreement, Interfax reported.

The UN News Center reports that the Paris Agreement "will enter into force 30 days after at least 55 countries, accounting for at least 55 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, deposit their instruments of ratification or acceptance with the Secretary-General."
Mumbai: After 'Kapoor and Sons' success, Alia Bhatt is gearing up for 'Udta Punjab' and her untitled film with Shah Rukh Khan. In between different film sets and projects, Alia is leaving no stone unturned to make the most of her time and have fun.

The actress is currently in Bangkok where she was shooting for a brand. After finishing up her work, Alia Bhatt dined out with a friend.

Dressed in a stunning black backless dress, Alia Bhatt looked gorgeous. The actress shared the picture with her fans on her official Instagram account.

On April 23, Alia had also shared a natural no-make up picture with her fans.
Mumbai: Hrithik Roshan, who is currently in the midst of a legal battle with Kangana Ranaut, is gearing up for his next film Kaabil.

The actor, along with his entire family, celebrated his parents wedding anniversary as they completed 45 years. Hrithik took to his official Twitter account and shared the picture with his fans.

Along with the picture, the actor wrote, When love is a commitment, d commitment can create more love.45years! #laughterBestwithFamily thank u al 4 ur wishes.

When love is a commitment,d commitment can create more love.45years! #laughterBestwithFamily thank u al 4 ur wishes. pic.twitter.com/Q7lmGCR6Lp  Hrithik Roshan (@iHrithik) April 23, 2016

However, in the picture we see the actor in a completely new avatar. With chopped up locks and clean shaved face, Hrithik looked dapper. Now, we wonder if this is his look from the upcoming film Kaabil.

In the romantic drama, we'll see Hrithik romancing Yami Gautam.
A physicist from University of Texas at Austin, named Omid Kokabee is in an Iran prison for five year for declining to cooperate on Military study for the Islamic Republic, has been found with kidney cancer.

Friends and supporters of Kokabee believe that the cancer is the result of the years-long declination to permit him to get treatment for his kidney disease. The illness diagnosis has now ignited professors and students at UT in Austin, many of whom are Kokabee's friends, to urge university officials and call the public's attention about his plight, International Human Rights in Iran reported.

A Ph.d student at UT, Navid Yaghmazadeh expressed his thought and addressed UT president Gregory L Fenves via twitter, "Omid should be here working on his research, not in prison, I wish he had more support from UT."

Yaghmazadeh stated a rally is now being fixed for the upcoming week, it will be held outside the Robert Lee Moor Hall in UT. The rallyists will show their support for Kokabee's rights to treatment. Yaghmazadeh, is also an Iranian student who enlisted at UT-Austin for his post-graduate studies five years ago. He is also trying to have a conversation with Fenves calling the UT president to assist increase consciousness to the suffering of the experimental laser physicist, Patch reported.

The details of the said rally is still being organized, Yagmazadeh explained the rally would possibly be attended by fellow Iranian students and some people from the physics department. Furthermore advocates are utilizing the powers of social media to spread the advocacy further on the physicist's imprisonment.
New Delhi: Shah Rukh Khan knows how to create a perfect balance between personal and professional life.

Though the 50-year-old actor is busy with his latest release 'Fan,' upcoming flick 'Raees' and the 'Knights' in the IPL series, he flew off to London to spend a "wicked weekend" with his kids, Aryaan and Suhana, who are studying there.

The 'Dilwale' actor took to his Twitter handle to inform about his weekend plans.

In reply to a post by Knight Riders' official Twitter page, which showed the players having gala time watching 'Fan' in a multiplex, SRK wrote, "Hope u guys like it. In London for a few days. Wicked weekend with the kids. But rushing back to be with u boys soon."

Hope u guys like it. In London for a few days. Wicked weekend with the kids. But rushing back to be with u boys soon https://t.co/V8YG3bfaZ6  Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) April 22, 2016

AbRam too joined his dad to meet his elder siblings in London.

The inseparable father-son duo was clicked while checking-in at the Mumbai airport.
Washington: Have trouble sleeping on your first night in a new place? That is because one brain hemisphere remains more awake than the other, apparently in a state of readiness for trouble, a new study has found.

Scientists explain what underlies the "first-night effect," phenomenon that poses an inconvenience to business travellers and sleep researchers. Sleep is often noticeably worse during the first night in, say, a hotel or a sleep lab.

"In Japan they say, 'if you change your pillow, you cannot sleep.' You do not sleep very well in a new place. We all know about it," said Yuka Sasaki from Brown University in the US.

Over the course of three experiments, researchers used several methods to precisely measure brain activity during two nights of slumber, a week apart, among a total of 35 volunteers.

They consistently found that on the first night in the lab, a particular network in the left hemisphere remained more active than in the right hemisphere, specifically during a deep sleep phase known as "slow-wave" sleep.

When researchers stimulated the left hemisphere with irregular beeping sounds (played in the right ear), that prompted a significantly greater likelihood of waking, and faster action upon waking, than if sounds were played in to the left ear to stimulate the right hemisphere.

In other sleep phases and three other networks tested on the first night, there was no difference in alertness or activity in either hemisphere.

On the second night of sleep there was no significant difference between left and right hemispheres even in the "default-mode network" of the left hemisphere, which does make a difference on the first night.

The testing, in other words, pinpointed a first-night-only effect specifically in the default-mode network of the left hemisphere during the slow-wave phase.

For the study, researchers used electroencephalography, magnetoencephelography, and magnetic resonance imaging to make unusually high-resolution and sensitive measurements with wide brain coverage.

The findings were published in the journal Current Biology.
The Crucible crowd are still awaiting their first English quarter-finalist as Mark Williams wasted little time disposing of his good friend Michael Holt in the second round.

Williams steams ahead

Leading 10-6 after two sessions, Wales' Williams required just five frames to seal the deal. A half century break took him five frames clear before a mini revival by Holt gave the Hitman hope.

Holt composed breaks of 109 and 56 as he clawed two frames back. A third consecutive success was not out of sight when he produced another half century break, but Williams was eventually able to edge frame twenty. With one more frame required, Williams produced a break of 58 to win comfortably 13-8. Mark Williams will now play either Judd Trump or Ding Junhui in the last eight, though the Welshman will not be too fearful as he claimed earlier in the week that he is "a tough man to beat", as he proved against Holt in this latest encounter.

Rocket yet to take off

The second round pitted the 2013 finalists against each other as Barry Hawkins met Ronnie O'Sullivan. An intense high quality start saw two half century breaks and three centuries, including an excellent 139 by O'Sullivan, as the Rocket took a 3-2 lead.

Yet Hawkins was not prepared to buckle and the world number eleven gritted his teeth agains the man ranked five frames above him, as Hawkins edged a scrappy final three frames to lead 5-3 at the end of the session. The pair renew acquaintances on Sunday afternoon.

Saturday's evening session sees Ricky Walden and John Higgins begin the first session of what is likely to be a very close contest. It will also see the culmination of Mark Selby against Sam Baird, with the world number one edging the contest 9-7 after two sessions.
Going on a vacation but fretting about leaving the pet behind because its not allowed at tourist places? Well, now, theres a place that allows you to enjoy a vacation and have your pet by your side, too.

To cater to the growing number of Bengalureans having pets but unable to the go out on a picnic or vacation, Jain Farms Resorts offer pet vacations. This package helps families bring their pets, dogs and cats, and spend some quality time in our 750 acres of green space and our unique pool for pets, says Cyril Gonsalves, manager at the resort. Other facilities offered include a separate bed and basic requirements for the pet, even pet accessories.

I have two dogs at home. Every time we plan for a family vacation, we have to ask our relatives to take care of the dogs although we would love to take them along only because most tourist places do not allow pets. I hope more such pet vacation spots like Jain Farms open up, says Annapurna Shreepathy of N.R. Colony.

The resort also offers other outdoor activities such as spotting exotic birds, taking a plantation tour or making clay pots.

Pet friendly places in Bengaluru
3-term incumbent, heart surgeon vie in race for Congress

A three-term incumbent with ties to Oxnard faces a heart surgeon with a celebrity wife in the 24th Congressional District.
Photos by ROB VARELA/THE STAR Volunteers Mattisyah Schock (right) and David Kahn help repackage handmade shmura matzo from Israel Tuesday.

SHARE Schock helps repackage handmade shmura matzo. The unleavened bread is a symbolic part of Passover traditions. ROB VARELA/THE STAR Eli Muchnik (left), Rabbi Aryeh Lang and other volunteers at the Chabad of Camarillo repackage handmade shmura matzo from Israel Tuesday to distribute to about 500 local families to use in their Passover Seder meal.

By Robyn Flans, Special to The Star

For Jews, the freedom that Passover commemorates is joyous.

This year, the eight-day celebration begins at sunset Friday through nightfall April 30.

Rabbi Richard Spiegel, of Temple Etz Chaim in Thousand Oaks, said the holiday is a "beautiful mix of story, rituals, family, friends and community getting together."

The first two nights there are Seders, which means order and the meal's order comes from the Haggada.

The Passover story is acted out around the Seder table through the ritual of the food, Spiegel said.

For instance, the unleavened bread called matzo was created when the Jews were in such a hurry to flee from Pharaoh's bondage the bread did not have time to rise. It is eaten for the entire eight days.

"There is horse radish  the bitter herbs," Spiegel said. "And we talk about the bitterness of slavery as we eat it."

The haroseth  the mixture of apples, nuts and wine eaten on the matzo  represents the mortar used in the bricks of the ancestors when enslaved in Egypt.

Rabbi Michele Paskow, of Simi Valley's B'nai Emet, mentioned the parsley on the Seder plate that represents the joy of spring.

"The happiest part is the Seder because Passover is just starting," Paskow said. "Everybody is excited. They're coming for a nice dinner, the story, the singing and the fun."

Generational lessons

Rabbi Aryeh Lang, of the Chabad of Camarillo, said one of the highlights of Passover for him is hearing the children ask the Four Questions, which explain why this night is different from every other night.

"The interaction with the youngsters is my favorite part," Lang said. "Hearing them explain what they've learned about Passover is always a special moment."

Lang said the Seder should focus on the children.

"Some of the dipping of the vegetables in salt water is to perk the interest of the children, so they ask questions as to why we are doing all these things we don't usually do," Lang said. "One of the mitzvahs is to really tell the children the story.

"How many people remember what they ate on the Mayflower? But we remember what our ancestors ate leaving Egypt 3,000 years ago. They ate matzo. Throughout the ages we've been able to hold on to the tradition and keep the lessons alive to remind ourselves we are inherently free."

Lang said to get the kids involved, they often use puppets to act out the plagues which were inflicted upon the Egyptians.

Four cups of wine is a ritual that surrounds the reciting of the plagues. Spiegel explained that the four cups of wine are joyous, but there is compassion for the Egyptians.

"The joy is after hundreds of years we are out of slavery in Egypt. The sadness is what it took to get out," Spiegel explained. "When we recite the 10 plagues, we dip our fingers and take wine out. We actually diminish the second cup before we make the blessing and drink from it because of the suffering incurred by the Egyptians."

Even if the kids get tired, they'll wait until the end for the afikomen  the hiding of the matzo  which usually ends up with a prize for the child who finds it.

Symbolism explained

Paskow said she loves the symbolism of the holiday and speaks about it to the congregation.

"I think the whole holiday is so profound," she said. "I like the discipline of not eating bread for a week and the spiritual part that the rabbis like to talk about is we're cleaning out our ego, the puffed up part of ourselves, and we have to do spring cleaning and start fresh."

Lang agreed.

"Sometimes we are slaves to ourselves, with our own limitations," Lang said. "The word 'Egypt' in Hebrew comes from the words constraint and limitation.

"Leaving Egypt today essentially is a daily process to try to go out of our own restrictions thinking we can't do it, we can't make it, whatever we put our hearts and minds to. That's an internal Egypt, an internal bondage we place ourselves in. Sometimes we have to break through the bondage."

He likened the act of ridding the home of bread before Passover to the cleansing of the soul.
Colleen Cason

Joan Gendreau found her true calling running what has to be the only children's toy store on Earth that bars kids from entering.

That may sound a touch cranky on the face of it, but the youngsters ultimately get the dolls and devices and in the best possible way.

Over the past three decades, Gendreau and a corps of fellow volunteers built the Children's Services Auxiliary of Ventura County Holiday Toy Store into a local institution that lets foster parents pick out gifts for their kids at no cost. To date, tens of thousands of toys have made their way to thousands of kids.

We live in a time when so many of us cast about for our life's purpose, unsure when and where to commit. Sometimes we never do.

Now a great-grandmother Gendreau put herself on a path to helping others with no red neon arrow pointing the way, no iridescent rainbow leading to a big, fat pot of gold, no yellow brick road to skip down.

Success and satisfaction were far from guaranteed.

Yet Gendreau said "yes" in a heartbeat. "When it came up, I grabbed it," she told me.

The Ventura volunteer prefers the view through the windshield over what she sees in the rearview mirror. She had a rough upbringing in rural Montana after her mom died young. Seeking an education, she enlisted in the Army and became a medic.

She was widowed in her 30s with five kids to raise. With all that on her plate, she also taught parenting skills. One Christmas season in the early 1980s, her students mentioned they were spread too thin to buy Christmas presents for their foster kids.

With scant funds she and a friend refurbished toys and threw a party with presents for all.

Her do-gooding could have stopped there. Instead, she helped found the Children's Services Auxiliary of Ventura County. She started amassing an inventory of new and refurbished toys in her garage for kids whose upbringing is supervised by the courts after they are removed from their homes because of abuse or neglect. To make sure only qualified families received this aid, the organization works with Ventura County Children and Family Services.

Radio station KVTA started fundraisers for the event. The Ventura County Fire Department began donating busloads of toys through its Spark of Love drives. And the event is so involved organizing must begin in April  which fittingly enough is National Volunteer Month.

The Holiday Toy Store pops up in donated storefront space in December and stays open from 8 in the morning until 7 at night. Parents receive a voucher and an invitation. Many travel by bus so volunteers offer them a seat and a cup of coffee when they arrive.

Over the years, Gendreau and the other volunteers developed a mental database of toys suitable for every age. They advise the parents who ask for suggestions. They take pride in fulfilling the wish of a parent who arrives with a particular item in mind.

The joy for both parent and volunteer can be overwhelming.

"At some time every day someone cries. A good kind of cry," Gendreau said.

Excluding kids from the toy store shows what a big heart she has. A person of dignity, she wants parents to maintain theirs.

"We tell parents 'we want you to have the privilege of giving toys to the kids.' Then the kids think the toys come from the parents."

People may think Gendreau handles a lot, but she puts her hands together for foster parents. Over the years, she has come to admire couples who take in five children at time. Or those who raise babies exposed to drugs in the womb. One family welcomed two girls whose mom and dad died in jail.

Gendreau is about as unassuming as they come, said Jean Goodell, her friend of 20 years.

I suppose that explains why Gendreau failed to mention to me the scholarship started in her name by Children's Services Auxiliary. The organization wanted to honor "Joan's passion, integrity and compassion for making a difference in a child's life (which) sets her apart."

To hear Gendreau tell it, committing to this cause has made all the difference in life.

"Oh gosh," she said, "I'm the lucky one. I knew I was supposed to do this."

Even after more than 30 years, she sounds as excited as a kid at Christmas.

Email Colleen Cason at casonpoint101@gmail.com.
SHARE CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Ventura County Fire Department.

By Staff Reports

Crews with the Ventura County Fire Department helped the Los Angeles County Fire Department fight a blaze Saturday afternoon in Westlake Village, officials said.

Ventura County firefighters were called just before 2:00 p.m. to a 2 to 3 acre brush fire near the county border, officials said.

Crews on scene said the fire was near a mobile home park but was not immediately threatening any structures.

This story will be updated.
ROB VARELA/THE STAR Nurse Miriam Witt and Dr. Jubran Dakwar, shown above in a hallway at St. John's Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, spent a week on a medical mission helping Syrian refugees.

SHARE Syrian refugees stroll on the main street of the Al Za'tari refugee camp in Jordan in October 2015. The associated press/Raad Adayleh left: Dakwar and Witt spent a week providing care on a medical mission to a refugee camp for Syrians. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO the associated press/Manu Brabo The Al Za'tari refugee camp near the Syrian border in Jordan, as seen Oct. 23, 2013. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Syrian refugees crowd a clinic at Al Za'tari, a camp in Jordan where 80,000 refugees live.

By Tom Kisken of the Ventura County Star

Jubran Dakwar's grandmother was raised Catholic in the Arab nation of Syria. After meeting a Palestinian man, she left to be married in his homeland.

The creation of Israel as a nation in 1948 closed the border to Syria. Wadeaa Jubran never saw her parents or siblings again.

Dakwar, an Oxnard critical care doctor, thought of his heritage as he journeyed 7,500 miles to a refugee camp in the Jordan desert, eight miles from the Syrian border. There, as a medical missionary, he offered care to refugees chased from his grandmother's birthplace by bombs, persecution and shrapnel of civil uprising that began in 2011 and mutated into war.

Some in the Al Za'tari camp of 80,000 refugees fled from their home several years ago. Others, pushed by bombs and terrorism, continue to come, their family's possessions crammed into backpacks.

Many are in need of medical care. Bomb shrapnel disfigured the face of an 11-year-old girl named Hadeel just before her family fled Syria three years earlier. When she was told plastic surgeons could help her look like her friends, she cried.

Few if any of the refugees know where they will land. They carry hope like the rest of their possessions. Sometimes, it jingles in their pockets.

"A lot of people carry house keys in their pocket thinking they can go home," said Miriam Witt, an Oxnard nurse who went on the mission with Dakwar.

Some people do leave to return to Syria. Often, they're then not allowed back in the refugee camp.

Blocked from care

Witt and Dakwar work at St. John's Regional Medical Center in Oxnard. She's a 26-year-old registered nurse from Washington who volunteered at an orphanage in Kenya and helped earthquake victims in Nepal.

After Dakwar's grandparents married, they lived in Israel. He was born in Haifa, Israel, and moved with his parents to the United States at age 4. Like his grandmother, he is Catholic.

He's 36, a critical care specialist who leads St. John's staff of doctors as chair of the hospital's medicine department.

Nurse and doctor teamed up for their mission through a nonprofit, the Syrian American Medical Society. They worried their efforts wouldn't make a dent but felt compelled to go, pushed by family history and a need to show the refugees they were not alone.

Al Za'tari, the biggest refugee camp in the Middle East, is surrounded by barbed wire and patrolled by armed guards. People live in rectangular shelters that look like portable storage units.

The flow of refugees has helped turned what was once a camp of tents into a quasi-city that many believe will become permanent. There is electricity, at least at night, water and a sewage system. People can buy food, bicycles, clothing, even wedding gowns on a main strip called the Champs-Elysees.

Children play everywhere, 9-year-olds looking like they are 5 because of malnourishment. At night, they try to board the buses that take medical volunteers in and out of camp.

Overwhelmed by the needs, the Jordan government stopped providing free medical care for the refugees in November 2014. Now, nearly all the health care comes from outside organizations.

The refugees say they feel forgotten.

"It's easy to feel lost in the world when you're behind barbed wire and without basic freedoms," said Dakwar.

On the mission, 60 people treated 6,000 patients over a week. Dakwar and Witt, working as a team, saw 40 patients a day, sometimes more. They treated people for diabetes, hypertension and malnourishment.

A woman fled Syria after being injured two weeks earlier by a bomb in a barrel-shaped device. She lost sight in her right eye and suffered wounds requiring skin grafts.

SYRIAN CRISIS

More than 250,000 Syrians have been killed.

Syrians have been killed. More than 1 million have been injured.

have been injured. 4.8 million Syrians have left the country.

Syrians have left the country. 6.5 million displaced people remain in the country.

displaced people remain in the country. 11.5 million Syrians need health care.

For more information, go to http://bit.ly/1END1dC.

For information on the Syrian American Medical Society, go to https://www.sams-usa.net/foundation/.

Source: United Nations

Another woman brought her 2-year-old daughter who has a disorder that could have possibly been stemmed through prenatal care. The woman couldn't afford such care. She was pregnant again.

Dakwar treated the daughter and gave the mother vitamins to take during the pregnancy. He wanted to do more but was blocked by the lack of resources.

"It's a bandage on a hemorrhage," he said.

Finding grace

The refugees need care and homes and many other things. But they waited in line for doctors without complaining. They offered thanks for everything. They found hope.

Dakwar and Witt called it grace.

"I saw sadness and loss and grief," said Witt, "but I saw more compassion and love and gratitude."

They were on the mission for a week. Witt thought of how the Syrian crisis, more than 5 years old, keeps going. Like a health condition that needs constant care, it is chronic.

As Dakwar offered care and listened to stories about bombs and limbo, he thought of the need to take care of others. He thought of the world as a global family.

He thought of his grandmother, born in Syria. He wondered if maybe somehow he was related to the refugees he wanted to help.

Then he considered a bond that seemed deeper than blood.

"We're all connected by our common humanity," he said, acknowledging the realization made him emotional. "It's life changing."
SHARE

Conservatives should be delighted that Harriet Tubman's likeness will grace the $20 bill. She was a Republican, after all, and a pious Christian. And she routinely exercised her Second Amendment right to carry a gun, which she was ready to use against anyone who stood in her way  or any fugitive slave having second thoughts. On her long road to freedom, there was no turning back.

Instead, we've had mostly silence from the right. Donald Trump did mouth off, of course, opining that slated-to-be-displaced Andrew Jackson "had a great history" and that substituting Tubman  who, he allowed, was "fantastic"  amounts to "pure political correctness." Ben Carson defended Jackson as "a tremendous president" who balanced the federal budget.

Both men suggested that Tubman instead be put on the $2 bill, which nobody uses. That would be a great recipe for tokenism. I'm glad Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew made a bolder and more meaningful choice.

It matters who's on the money. Since the ancient Greeks began stamping coins with images of their gods, nations have used currency to define a pantheon of heroes. Tubman was a great hero not because of who she was but what she did: bravely fight to expand the Constitution's promise of freedom and justice to all Americans.

Critics who polluted social media with invective following Lew's announcement seemed to look past Tubman's deeds and focus on her identity. Yes, she was a black woman. If anyone can't deal with that fact and doesn't want to use the new bills when they finally come out, feel free to send them to me.

Tubman was born into slavery on Maryland's Eastern Shore around 1822. She escaped to Philadelphia in 1849 but returned to the South more than a dozen times, risking life and liberty, to lead runaway slaves to freedom. Slave owners reportedly offered bounties of thousands of dollars for capturing the diminutive woman known on the grapevine as "Moses."

"I was conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years," she said later in life, "and I can say what most conductors can't say  I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger."

But that was just the beginning of Tubman's heroic service. During the Civil War, she guided a team of Union scouts operating in the marshlands near present-day Beaufort, South Carolina. In 1863, she led a raid on plantations along the Combahee River that freed more than 750 slaves  becoming, apparently, the first woman to lead U.S. troops in an armed assault.

Later in life, she worked alongside Susan B. Anthony and others in the crusade for women's suffrage. She died in 1913, frail yet still unbowed, having lived one of the greatest of American lives.

Is it political correctness or historical revisionism to put her defiant likeness in our pockets? Of course  and high time, too.

Unceasing struggle has expanded the meaning of "we the people," once reserved for white men only. As our understanding of freedom and equality has changed, so has our reading of the nation's history. In fighting for the rights of African-Americans and women, Tubman risked her life for the highest of American ideals. Her example ennobles us all.

By definition, the study of history requires interpretation and assessment. The many vital contributions made by black people, women and other "outsiders" were long overlooked or undervalued. We are now able to see Tubman through a sharper lens, and she was magnificent.

As for Jackson, history has been less kind. He was a major slave owner, of course, like so many of our early presidents. If that alone were enough to get a president booted from our money, we'd have no dollar bills, no nickels and no quarters. Of course we should keep George Washington and Thomas Jefferson around, understanding their flaws while celebrating their greatness.

But Jackson also initiated the forced migration of thousands of Native Americans from the Southeast to the West, an exodus called the "Trail of Tears" that can only be described as genocidal. He knew that many Indians would die along the way  just as Southern plantation owners, New York financiers and other supporters of slavery knew that keeping human beings in bondage was wrong.

Still, Jackson did win the Battle of New Orleans. If he hadn't, the young nation might not have survived the War of 1812. I say let's put him on the $2 bill, if anybody can find one.

Eugene Robinson's email address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com. He writes for The Washington Post Writers Group.


Before his scheduled appearance at 1 OAK Nightclub, Keeping up with the Kardashians reality TV star Scott Disick and friends, which included 1 OAK owner Scott Sartiano dined at STACK Restaurant & Bar inside The Mirage Hotel (Photo credit: David Becker/WireImage).

Photo credit: David Becker/WireImage.

After a long meal, Scott Disick hit the red carpet just after midnight at 1 OAK with a casual look that included a tailored black button down shirt paired with designer denim and brown boots.

Scott Disick at 1 OAK Nightclub

httpvh://youtu.be/6zVgdt8Iezs

Photo credit: David Becker/WireImage.

The outside of 1 OAK was packed with onlooking fans trying to steal a photo of the Reality TV Star as he made his first scheduled appearance since returning to the states.

Photo credit: David Becker/WireImage.

Once the group settled into their table Scott hyped up the crowd by getting on the mic and welcoming the packed house to 1 OAK. He shouted who is ready to party with The Lord? Lets get ready to tear the roof of this place!

Photo credit: David Becker/WireImage.

Scott sipped on water throughout the night while his group mixed drinks with Grey Goose Vodka and drank champagne.

Photo credit: David Becker/WireImage.

After joining DJ Freestyle Steve (Justin Timberlakes Tour DJ) in the DJ booth, Scott hung out with friends that included Rapper Molly Mall and quick visit from professional boxer Amir Khan, who stopped to take a photo with Disick.

Photo credit: David Becker/WireImage.

The group left 1 OAK just after 2 AM.

Photo credit: David Becker/WireImage.


Sex Panther, the new resident DJs for Club Nikkis Industry Night on Wednesdays, welcomed the ladies of Crazy Horse Paris (above) at the MGM Grand on July 27, 2011 (Photo courtesy of Club Nikki).

The ladies had a great time dancing and spraying Champagne during the performance.

Photo courtesy of Club Nikki.

Photo courtesy of Club Nikki.

Photo courtesy of Club Nikki.

Photo courtesy of Club Nikki.

Photo courtesy of Club Nikki.

Photo courtesy of Club Nikki.
This is a story from almost another time, even if it was only 20 years ago. A time when Bengaluru could love even a policeman and collectively grieve over his death. Not something we can say about policemen today, when the khaki arouses mostly feelings of intense dislike and fear, for all the wrong reasons. Thats why its important to recall Meesey Thimmaiah.

It was cloudy and about to rain heavily that monsoon morning in August 1995, but nothing could stop my husband from going to work on time. As I prepared the lunch boxes for our three children, he stood in front of the mirror, oiling and combing his big moustache to perfection. Then he walked out the door with the children, to drop them off at school in Peenya and then head to work in his clean white shirt and khaki trousers. I stood at the gate, waving to them, and him, for a long time. It was the last time Lakshamma would see him twirl his moustache. That afternoon, she would receive word that Meesey Thimmaiah had died.

Head constable (traffic) Thimmaiah had died saving a woman and her daughter from being run over by a speeding tempo that had disobeyed his signal to stop. He, who had been a sight to watch as he choreographed traffic at GPO Circle for years.

Thimmaiah joined the traffic police force in 1977, and he and G.R. Lakshamma, both natives of Koratagere taluk in Tumakuru district, were married a year later. My husband always had a thing for big moustaches. In 1985, he started to grow his own moustache. Soon, people were calling him Meesey Thimmaiah. He loved it, and oiled and combed it everyday. The Police department even gave him an annual allowance of Rs. 500 for it, Lakshamma, now 56, recalled.

The man was not only fastidious, he was also very punctual and strict about his police duty. I dont recall him taking leave at all. He never had any allegations or complaints against him. And he couldnt stand people misbehaving in public or shouting abusive words. Perhaps that was why he felt it was always important for him to be at his post  to ensure that people behaved. Oh, if only we had Thimmaiah on our roads today!

If the city lost a good cop, Lakshammas loss, needless to say, was far greater. Her husband, father to their three children, the familys sole breadwinner was suddenly gone. Her eldest son T. Venuprasad was then only 13, the younger Arun Kumar 10, and daughter Chaitra just seven.

I was so shocked I fell unconscious for sometime when I heard the news. But life had to go on, I had the children to take care of, Lakshamma says. Soon after the last rites, I began doing the rounds of Vidhana Soudha, asking the government to give me my husbands job. I was willing to be a traffic policewoman.

Lakshamma says she must have visited the state secretariat at least fifty times, but gave up hope after six months of trying. Instead, she joined a garment factory where she worked for two years. I was getting a salary of Rs. 1,000. Meanwhile, the then Chief Minister Deve Gowda gave us Rs 5,000. And with some more money from other people, I was able to pay my childrens school fees and keep the kitchen fire going. After renewed attempts to get a government job on compassionate grounds, I was able to get the post of a second division assistant in the states Department of Industries and Commerce, where I work even today.

Venuprasad took up a job as a driver in an IT firm when he turned 18, and continues in that job even today. Arun Kumar is a gym trainer. Both aspired to a police constables job to emulate their father, but failed. Daughter Chaitra, a post-graduate in commerce, too, tried and was shortlisted, only to be rejected because she was an inch too short for a police job.

The government awarded Thimmaiah a gold medal posthumously for his excellent service. GPO Circle, which he manned for several years, was renamed Police Thimmaiah Circle.
A view of the Nhon Hoi oil refinery and petrochemical complex in Binh Dinh Province. - File Photo

In 2009, the project of PTT Public Company Limited (Thailand) had attracted public attention right from its initial days. Under the original plan, this giant project was to be licensed in June 2015, but that has not happened yet.

The undertaking was initially estimated to cost US$28.7 billion but was revised down to nearly $22 billion in the feasibility study. Thai oil and gas company PTT had partnered with Saudi Aramco for a proposed $22bn refinery and petrochemical complex in Viet Nam.

The Nhon Hoi oil refinery and petrochemical complex will use 660,000 barrels of crude oil per day, equivalent to 30 million tonnes per year.

The project will be located in the Nhon Hoi Economic Zone in Binh Dinh Province, designed to be Viet Nam's first petrochemical refinery complex. The provincial government is preparing 2,000 hectares of land to make room for construction of the oil refinery and petrochemical complex, which is to be developed in two phases.

Work on the project is expected to commence in early 2017 with plans to commission the complex in 2022.

Chairman of Binh Dinh People's Committee Ho Quoc Dung was quoted by Nguoi Lao Dong newspaper as saying that the PTT (Thailand) and its partner Saudi Aramco sent their new plan to change the project scale and lower planned capacity and reschedule project construction.

After numerous adjustments, in September 2014, the Binh Dinh People's Committee, PTT and Saudi Aramco submitted a specific report on the project to the Ministry of Industry and Trade for appraisal and submitted it to the government for approval.

In 2014, the Government gave the nod for implementation of the oil refinery complex and agreed to add it to the master plan for development of the oil and gas industry in Viet Nam.

Global oil down

Nguyen Ngoc Toan, deputy director of the Nhon Hoi Economic Zone attributed the slow progress to the global oil prices which are continuing to fall. Until now, the investor has not applied for an investment licence. Thailand's PTT Plc and Saudi Arabia's Aramco would inform local authority of their decision this June, he added.

Chairman of Binh Dinh People's Committee Ho Quoc Dung said that in the near future the province would work with PTT to confirm the project, and if the investor really wanted to continue. The province would also work with relevant ministries to consider more incentives for the investor amidst the current difficult economic situation.

In case the investor did not wish to continue the project, the province would offer the land to other investors who wanted to use this land fund for industry and tourism purposes, according to the Provincial Department of Planning and Investment.

According to Ho Sy Thoang, former chairman of PetroVietnam the oil refinery industry was now facing a hard time. An oil refinery needed at least 20 years for investment capital depreciation. Currently, profit for the global oil refinery industry was very low at around 5 per cent to 6 per cent. Only a completed project can survive. Projects such as the Nhon Hoi oil refinery were not feasible due to very low profits. According to Thoang, the development of the project should be reconsidered.

Dang Dinh Dao former head of Economic Research and Development Institute said that amid the difficult situation with regard to global oil prices, investors reconsidered and restructured their project. That was understandable as oil prices have a major effect on their project. The global oil crash had also affected several oil refineries. In Viet Nam, the government should be cautious in developing oil refineries as their finished products cannot compete and it was unreasonable.
The morphed photo of Rajnath Singh and Prakash Karat was posted and removed by the Trinamool Congress from its Facebook page. (Photo: Twitter)

New Delhi: CPI(M) leader Prakash Karat filed a complaint against TMC MP Derek O'Brien on Sunday for allegedly using a morphed picture of his being offered sweets by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

Targeting the Mamata Banerjee-led party over the photo episode, Karat said TMC is getting "increasingly desperate" as the poll campaign in West Bengal goes on.

It shows the level to which TMC can "stoop to", he said.

Karat, the former CPI(M) general secretary, has lodged the complaint at Mandir Marg police station in the national capital.

Read: TMC in soup after morphed photo of Rajnath, Prakash Karat emerge

"He (O'Brien) has used morphed picture in his press conference and it has also been put on website of Trinamool Congress and this is being widely shown on the (news) channels also.

"So, it is politically defamatory and got the party (CPI-M) and myself into disrepute among people. So, action should be taken," Karat said in his complaint.

He said displaying the "fabricated" photograph on TMC's website falls under cyber crime and that it was O'Brien who should be held responsible for "using" the image.

Karat said CPI(M) will also take up the issue before people of the state to "expose" the ruling party "politically".

The Trinamool Congress, following a press conference by its national spokesperson O'Brien, had yesterday posted two videos and six pictures on its website. The party, however, removed the morphed picture from its website after controversy.

O'Brien had yesterday told PTI that the image was removed from the TMC website on realising that the photograph was a morphed one.

Meanwhile, the BJP also lodged a police complaint against Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee, Subrata Bakshi and Derek O'Brien alleging that they were responsible for the use of a morphed picture of Union Home minister Rajnath Singh and demanded their immediate arrest.

BJP state spokesperson Joy Prakash Majumdar along with other leaders and party workers met Joint Commissioner (Crime) of Kolkata Police, Debasish Boral at the Police Headquarter at Lalbazar and lodged a complaint against the three TMC leaders.

"Today we have lodged a complaint with the Kolkata Police in connection with the morphed picture showing Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh offering sweets to CPI(M) leader Prakash Karat.

"In our complaint we have held three TMC party chairperson Mamata Banerjee, all India general secretary Subrata Bakshi and national spokesperson Derek O'Brien who held yesterday's press conference responsible for the entire episode and demanded their immediate arrest," Majumdar said.

"Derek O'Brien held yesterday's conference after he was instructed by Mamata Banerjee. So it's clear it was whose brainchild," Majumdar added describing the incident as "unprecedented" in the history of the country's politics.

"We have seen so many things happening in Indian politics but TMC has broken all records and stooped to such a low level," he said.

"We have received a complaint from the BJP today. They have lodged a complaint with our Cyber Crime section. We are looking into the matter," Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Debasish Boral said.

Meanwhile, Left Front Chariman Biman Bose also demanded that Derek O'Brien should be arrested in connection with the morphed photograph incident.

Stating that if Jadavpur University Prof Ambikesh Mohapatra could be arrested for circulating one spoof on Mamata Banerjee and the then Railway Minister Mukul Roy then "why will not Derek O'Brien be arrested in this case? Bose questioned.

"If Ambikesh Mohapatra can be arrested for a circulating one photo which he had not created, I think Derek O'Brien must be arrested," Bose said.

TMC, following a press conference by its national spokesperson Derek O'Brien, had yesterday posted two videos and six pictures on its website. The party, however, removed the morphed picture from its website after the controversy.
Members of Patidar community pelting stones at Police during their Jail Bharo Andolan for demanding release of Hardik Patel in Mahesana on Sunday. (Photo: PTI)

Surat: Thirty-nine people, who were arrested after the 'jail bharo' agitation by Patel community members turned violent last Sunday, have been granted conditional bail by a local court.

The bail order was passed by the court of Principal District Judge Geeta Gopi yesterday. The 39 accused were granted bail on furnishing a bond of Rs 15,000 each.

While granting bail, the court observed that nearly half of those arrested did not belong to the Patel community. The bail was granted on certain conditions, including that the accused will have to present themselves before the court once every month, and they will have to ensure that evidences against them are not tampered with.

The accused were arrested on Sunday last under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code for rioting, and Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act.

They were arrested after the 'jail bharo' call given by Sardar Patel Group (SPG) and Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) turned violent on Sunday, following which Surat Police detained 435 agitators.

Later, 39 people were shown as arrested from different parts of the city, including Amroli, Sarthana, Kapodara, among others, for rioting and causing damage to public property such as CCTV cameras and signboards.
Heavy clashes erupted Sunday between Kurdish peshmerga forces and Shi'ite paramilitary troops inside a contested town north of Baghdad, a spokesman said.



A quarrel between two neighbors, a Kurd and a Shi'ite Turkoman, evolved into a military confrontation between the peshmerga forces and Shi'ite fighters who share the town of Tuz Khormato, said Karim al-Nouri, the spokesman for Iraq's paramilitary forces - which are made up mainly of Shi'ite militias.



Al-Nouri accused the Kurds of using tanks and shelling homes belong to Turkoman residents, saying senior officials were in talks to end the conflict. He said the clashes resulted in causalities, but didn't give a specific number.



Alarmed by the development, Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered the Joint Military Command to "take all the necessary military measures to control the situation in Tuz Khormato and to avoid the consequences.''



Local officials in the town were not available to comment. Tuz Khormato is located about 130 miles (200 kilometers) north of Baghdad.



Elsewhere on Sunday, officials said suicide attacks targeting security forces in two Baghdad suburbs killed at least 14 people and wounded dozens.



A suicide car bomb struck a checkpoint in the eastern suburb of Hussainiyah late Saturday night, killing six civilians and four soldiers, a police officer said. He added that another 28 people were wounded in the attack. The Islamic State group claimed the attack in a statement posted on a militant website.



Another police officer said a suicide car bomb struck a passing military convoy at around the same time in the southern suburb of Arab Jabour, killing four soldiers and wounding eight others.



A day earlier, a suicide attack on a Shi'ite mosque in the southwestern suburb of Radwaniyah killed 13 worshippers and wounded 35 others, a police officer said.



Three medical officials confirmed the casualty figures from the weekend attacks. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release the information.



Iraqi forces backed by U.S.-led airstrikes have pushed IS back on a number of fronts in recent months, clawing back territory seized by the extremists during their sweep across northern and western Iraq in 2014.



But IS has continued to carry out attacks in and around Baghdad, mainly targeting security forces and the country's Shi'ite majority.
Nearly 98 percent of voters in Sudans western Darfur region have voted against reuniting the five separate states in the war-torn region, according to the electoral commission overseeing the referendum.

Darfur referendum commission chief Omar Ali Jamaa said Saturday 3.2 million of Darfurs 3.5 million registered voters cast ballots in the election, which was monitored by international observers including the Arab League and the African Union.

Major rebel and opposition groups, who believe uniting the region would give the people there more autonomy, boycotted the vote and accused the Khartoum government of fudging the result numbers.

"These results reflect the fraud the Sudanese government continues to employ in all of its elections. It's the falsification of the will of the masses," said Jibril Bilal, a spokesman for the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), one of Darfur's two main rebel groups. "These results are not real nor logical. We don't acknowledge the referendum, which most of Darfur boycotted."

The rebel groups argued that displaced people could not vote in the election and residents in three of the camps for displaced people in central Darfur protested against the referendum.

The referendum, which took place April 11-13, came as part of a peace process to end conflict that has raged in the region for 13 years and cost the lives of more than 300,000 people, according to the United Nations.

The U.S. Department of State also raised questions over the legitimacy of the vote, saying it could not be considered credible under current rules and conditions.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir  who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes related to the genocide in Darfur  has insisted the election was free and fair.
Should Britain choose to break off from the European Union in a June 23 referendum, a new trade deal between it and the United States could take five to 10 years to negotiate, President Barack Obama said Sunday on British television.

"The U.K. would not be able negotiate something with the United States faster than the EU," Obama said. "We wouldn't abandon our efforts to negotiate a trade deal with our largest trading partner, the European market. But rather, it could be five years from now, 10 years from now, before we could actually get something done.

Obama, whose final term as president will end in January, has spent the last three days traveling around Britain, advocating to its people that they should vote to remain part of the EU.

The president recently published a column in The Telegraph newspaper strongly urging the country to stick with the EU, arguing that Britain would be stronger for it.

The United States sees how your powerful voice in Europe ensures that Europe takes a strong stance in the world, and keeps the EU open, outward looking, and closely linked to its allies on the other side of the Atlantic," he wrote. "So the U.S. and the world need your outsized influence to continue  including within Europe.

The statements drew a sharp rebuke from those who back Britains exit. Right-wing Independence Party leader Nigel Farage had strong words for the U.S. leader, saying he should butt out.

London Mayor Boris Johnson described Obamas statements as hypocritical and perverse and said U.S. leaders would never contemplate anything like the EU for themselves.

WATCH: President Obama's Town Hall in London
The death toll from the devastating earthquake in Ecuador has risen to 654, officials said.

The quake, the worst in nearly seven decades, injured at least 12,500 people and left another 58 people missing along the country's Pacific coast.

These have been sad days for the homeland, said a visibly moved President Rafael Correa during his regular Saturday TV broadcast. The country is in crisis.

Thousands of soldiers and police have been deployed throughout Ecuador to provide emergency relief, including temporary shelters and food. In addition, scores of aid workers from dozens of nations, including Spain, Peru, Cuba, Bolivia and Venezuela have arrived to assist in the relief efforts.

Officials said 113 people had been rescued alive from buildings damaged by the quake, which struck eight days ago.

The United Nations on Friday appealed for $72.7 million to provide aid to 350,000 people over the next three months  about half the number it estimates are in need of help.

UNICEF reports that the quake has affected at least 150,000 children, having damaged 119 schools.

Humanitarian organizations warn the country still faces huge risks, as the homeless are now prey to disease-bearing mosquitoes and dirty drinking water.

Electricity and water supplies are only being slowly restored.
At first glance, the black-and-white photo suggests a sweet innocence. Nine neighborhood boys in knee pants cluster together, some smiling as they look directly at the camera.

The image, taken in 1929 in Bremen, Germany, introduces a dark story. Decades later, one of the photos subjects sent it to another, along with a letter in which he explained that he went on to become a Nazi guard at Germanys Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and yet "never touched a Jew."

The letters recipient, shown standing with a bicycle, experienced his mothers murder on Kristallnacht and eventually became a rabbi.

"What I wanted to hear from Gunther was how he felt about his job. Did he think that killing Jews was the proper thing to do?" the rabbi wrote to the sender. There was no reply.

Special exhibit

What motivates ordinary individuals? How would we behave in trying circumstances? Such questions arise from that photo and other artifacts in "Some Were Neighbors," a special exhibition of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Subtitled "Collaboration & Complicity in the Holocaust," the exhibit challenges viewers to understand a sordid chapter of history and the importance of social responsibility.

"If an accident happens on the street, is it my business to act or not?" asked Zsuzsanna Kozak, who coordinated the project.

She thinks it can strengthen youngsters moral framework to act honorably "before we are paralyzed."

Kozak runs the Visual World Foundation, a Budapest-based non-profit organization to promote peace through media literacy education and video production.

Promoting peace

Last year, Kozak was among educators who gathered at the U.S. museum for an international conference on Holocaust education.

Organized by the museum and UNESCO, the conference brought in teams from 10 countries that have had limited curricula on the Holocaust or other genocide studies: Chile, Hungary, India, Lithuania, Mexico, Morocco, Namibia, South Korea, Rwanda and Turkey.

Each countrys team left with a project plan.

Hungarys drew on the "Neighbors" exhibit to create a traveling student art installation highlighting the Holocaust and sparking public discussions about contemporary tensions such as the migrants blocked from the country by an imposing border fence erected last year.

The anti-discrimination project, called "Your Decision," trains bystanders to be "upstanders."

Kozaks team worked with educators from six Hungarian schools  from elementary through college levels  whose students explored themes of tolerance and inclusion.

Each group studied "Neighbors" components such as the film clip of a Holocaust-era public shaming or the Bremen boys photo or another of witnesses to a 1943 police roundup of Jews in Amsterdam. Each group was asked to make art communicating the concepts theyd learned.

The students' collective works were unveiled at an exhibit last week in Budapest at the Canadian embassy, a major sponsor.

Youths, teachers and school psychologists connected in person after months of Facebook collaboration, and met with adviser Eva Fahidi, a Holocaust survivor.

Graphic messaging

Their focus was on the art and its graphic messaging.

David Kovacs, a student at the Secondary School of Art in the western Hungarian city of Szombathely, interpreted the 1943 Amsterdam photo as a crime scene with missing people.

Teenagers from the Lauder Javne Jewish Community School in Budapest made a 3-D rendering of the Bremen boys photo, separating the letter recipient and another boy from the rest.

'This is all about us'

Students at Budapests Primary School for the Visually Impaired made a collage juxtaposing the Bremen boys photo with two similar images: one of Rwandan youngsters and another of themselves grouped around a skateboard.

They labeled it "Ez mind rolunk szol!" or "This is all about us!"

"People in Rwanda killed their neighbors based on the fact that there were different names written on their identity card: Tutsi or Hutu. It is as if we killed each other because one of us is Hungarian and the other one is Slovakian," one of the young students said at the reception.

Kozak  in the Washington area earlier this month  said the young artists realized just how easily they could become oppressors or the oppressed.

Theyd studied how, in earlier generations, some individuals resisted but others cooperated with Nazis to spy on their neighbors, seize possessions of Jews, or repair the trains that transported them to labor camps.

'Touched by this'

"All of us are touched by this. We still feel the consequences," said Kozak, who was born in 1974. She recalled learning little of that World War II history as a schoolgirl, just like her mother, raised in post-war Communist Hungary. "There is such a cultural silence  taboo."

"Coming to terms with history is a big issue in Hungary," said M. Andre Goodfriend, a former U.S. deputy chief of mission in Budapest. "Theres a lot of polarization within the society and a lot of claims that the government has been whitewashing history."

Goodfriend, now with the State Departments eDiplomacy office, said the official view, even after Hungarys sovereignty in 1989, has been "that all of Hungarian society was victimized" during the German occupation. "This causes some friction in Hungarian society, particularly in the Jewish community that knows that average Hungarians played a role. ..."

With the original "Neighbors" exhibit, "we wanted to shake peoples assumptions about what the Holocaust is," said Peter Fredlake, who directs the U.S. museums teacher education programs. The student installation "pushes back against the Holocaust narrative Hungarians hear today, one that ignores personal responsibility and claims victimhood."

Talking about issue

Fredlake said that, since the international conference, the other nine countries teams also have been exploring social and political contexts for talking about genocide and mass atrocities.

The Hungarian students installation is scheduled to travel to the six participating schools beginning in May before moving to other sites such as the International Jewish Youth Camp in Szarvas and to a gallery in Austria.

Workshops and debates are planned for each location. Kozak said she hopes the installation will be seen broadly, for years, because intolerance "is a universal challenge."
A year-long independent investigation into the disappearance of 43 students in Mexico has failed to determine what happened to the young men, in the face of what researchers call "obstructions" by government authorities.

A five-member panel appointed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights -- an autonomous arm of the Organization of American States -- issued its final report Sunday, in a case that has rocked the country and drawn international attention.

The team arrived in March 2015 to Iguala, in the southern state of Guerrero. It was the last place the students, who attended the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College, were seen in public on September 26, 2014. They have not been heard from since.

According to the government, local police detained the students after they hijacked buses to attend a protest. They then turned the men over to the Guerreros Unidos drug gang that burned their bodies in a nearby garbage dump.

But the public, especially the families of the missing, have questioned the official story and protested what they call a lack of transparency in the case.

Last September, the IACHR experts also rejected the government's theory, saying there is no scientific proof that an immense fire took place at the landfill in the neighboring town of Cocula.

The 605-page report released Sunday falls short of claiming that federal police and soldiers were directly involved in the mass disappearance, but it notes that they were present at different locations that night.

The panel said Mexican authorities showed "little interest" in moving forward with new lines of investigation, blocked them from re-interviewing suspects, and attempted to discredit the IACHR investigation. It also noted that a study of 17 of the approximately 110 suspects detained in the case revealed signs of beatings.
Richard Check labored for 43 years, 5 months, and 15 days as a rigger in eastern Pennsylvanias Bethlehem Steel, formerly the second-largest steel corporation in the United States.

In his final four-and-a-half years on the job, he was working 12-hour days, everyday, as the company tried to keep his division going.

By 1994, the work had taken a toll on his body.

All I was doing was eating, sleeping, going to work, and going to the toilet, Check said.

He retired from Bethlehem Steel shortly before it filed for bankruptcy and closed its doors for good, nearly 150 years after its founding.

The experience honed Check's political views, turning him into a strong union supporter, even though he had some grievances with the United Steelworkers union that negotiated on his behalf.

If you didnt have a union today  you wouldnt even get minimum wage, like my father. When he started in 1910  12 cents per hour, Check said.

Outsider appeal

Labor union rights remain a top priority for former steel and manufacturing workers across the nation. In Bethlehem, its an issue that transcends party lines among former steelworkers.

When I worked in the plants, Republicans would come right out in the open and say, I vote Republican. But the first thing out of their mouth after they would say that [was], I would never work here at Bethlehem Steel if there wasnt a union, said Frank Behum, a fourth and last generation employee of Bethlehem Steel, where he worked for 32 years.

They were Republicans that were smart enough to know, because of safety reasons, you couldnt afford to follow the [anti-union] edicts of the Republican party. You had to look to the Democrats to save your butt, Behum added.

But this years election may be different.

Lester Clore, a 33-year veteran of the Bethlehem plant, said Republican Donald Trumps talk of bringing back jobs from overseas and Democrat Bernie Sanders platform to ensure fair wages for its workers are both attractive to many of his friends.

We like some of the things that Trump is saying, [and] some of the things that Bernie Sanders is saying, Clore said. "But were smart enough to know that we can be being played, too.

Preying on fear

The problem, Clore adds, is he doesnt believe either candidate has the nuts and bolts to follow up on their campaign promises  one of the reasons he is likely going to vote for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this election.

"Heres a guy, [Trump], who advocates that hes pro-union, yet he cant deal with his own workers down at the casino," Clore said. "Theyre on strike, and he cant seem to sit down and negotiate a fair agreement with them."

Behum, who supports Sanders for president, said he, too, encounters folks who plan to vote for Trump but feels his ideas prey upon peoples fears that politicians ultimately help themselves  not their constituents.

They know the politicians dont listen to the electorate, they only listen to the banks," he said.

Post-manufacturing era

Similar to union rights, many ex-steel and manufacturing workers in Bethlehem take a firm stance on free-trade agreements.

They were largely opposed to NAFTA  The North American Free Trade Agreement  when it was signed into law by former President Bill Clinton in 1994, and are opposed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) today.

Manufacturing workers and union members  theyre very aware of the role that these free-trade agreements have played in moving manufacturing and unionized jobs overseas, said Jill Schennum, a cultural anthropologist and board member of Steelworkers Archives, a nonprofit organization that collects oral histories and provides educational outreach regarding the Bethlehem Steel plant.

Unlike other areas of the country, Schennum said, the economy of Bethlehem has seen a revival.

But its now-prominent warehousing and service sectors require a separate set of skill sets, which she says do not provide many of the same benefits as manufacturing.

Those warehouse jobs arent the same as steel jobs. They average about $13 an hour, they are mostly non-union jobs, she said. Many warehouses in this area employ people on temporary contracts and dont even hire them directly.

Despite past disappointments and the uncertainty that lies ahead for future generations  for residents Richard Check, Frank Behum, and Lester Clore, Bethlehem will always remain home.

"Bethlehem was a great place. It still is a great place, Clore said. It would be an even better place if they had the manufacturing jobs back.

PHOTO GALLERY: Related photos to Bethlehem Steel Co.
The police recruitment board has provided special smartphone apps for the aspirants to locate their examination centres. Officials said that all the 1132 test centres have GPS tagging. (Representational image)

Hyderabad: With 5.36 lakh candidates ready to attend the written examination for the first ever Telangana Police recruitment on Sunday, officials will use fingerprint bio-metric machines in examination halls to prevent fraud.

At the 1132 examination centres spread across all the districts of the state, invigilators will verify candidates using these machines to ensure no impersonators sneak into the halls. The candidates have been asked to reach the centres and report before one hour. Earlier, police had received information that scamsters had lured a few aspirants promising them help to cheat in the examination.

The police recruitment board has provided special smartphone apps for the aspirants to locate their examination centres. Officials said that all the 1132 test centres have GPS tagging.

The board has also provided an SMS service for the candidates for the same purpose.

A two-way SMS service is provided as an alternative to the smartphone application. Candidates can use their registered mobile number to send an SMS with their registration number or hall ticket Number to 9222273310. They will receive an SMS with their allotted test centre address and link for navigation using maps, said Dr. J. Purnachandra Rao, chairman of TSLPRB. He said that using biometric devices will help the invigilator, thoroughly verify the identity details of the candidates.

The device will also collect fingerprints and photo of the candidates, which will be used for comparison during the subsequent physical measurement test, physical efficiency test and final written examination etc. The Biometric devices are being used on a large scale to cover over 5.36 lakh candidates. If anybody tries to indulge in any illegal activity, action will be taken against such persons as per law, said Mr. Rao.
King Salman of Saudi Arabia has fired the countrys water and electricity minister following massive public backlash over a price hike on utilities.

The move Saturday comes less than six months after the government cut subsidies on water, electricity and other utilities.

Abdullah al-Hussayen will be replaced by Abdel Rahman al-Fadhli, Saudi Arabias current agriculture minister.

The Saudi government announced the steep cut in utility subsidies in December as oil prices dropped around the world and it needed to rein in spending.

Anger at rising water prices

As prices of water began to rise, Saudis became increasingly vocal on social media about their displeasure, and the Consumer Protection Association asked the government to rethink its decision.

In March, Hussayen responded to the public outcry by instructing citizens to get permits and dig their own wells to offset the rising water bills. Earlier this month, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman called the ministrys decision to raise utilities prices unsatisfactory.

Now, we are working diligently on reforms within the water ministry so that things will be in accordance with the agreed plan, he said in an interview with Bloomberg, though he did not provide further details.

The oil-dependent country is attempting to diversify its economy, which currently relies on oil for about 70 percent of state revenues, and Prince Mohammed is set to announce plans for a post-oil future during an event Monday.
Preliminary vote tallies in Serbia show the coalition of pro-European Union parties led by Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic sweeping to a landslide win in Sunday's general elections.

Monitors report Vucic's Progressive Party with nearly 53 percent of the vote and the allied Socialists who have been ruling in a coalition for the past four years with an additional 13 percent.

The ultra-nationalist pro-Russian Radical Party of Vojislav Seslj, who was recently acquitted of war crimes charges in The Hague, was running a distant third with 7 percent. Voter turnout was set at 53 percent.

Vucic called the elections two years early, seeking a new mandate to enact tough economic and political reforms demanded by EU gatekeepers in exchange for moving forward with the EU membership process.

His critics accused him of calling the vote now to avoid public discontent that many predict will occur when those reforms fully impact daily life in the Balkan country of 7.1 million residents.

In recent weeks, the anti-EU Seslj, freed by a United Nations tribunal last month, described Sunday's vote as an informal referendum on whether Serbia joins the "enemy."
A daring but ultimately unsuccessful raid by al-Shabab fighters off the coast of Somalia last month has led authorities to change the way they respond to such threats.

The militants of al-Shabab, a group trying to unseat the internationally supported government, hijacked fishing boats near the piracy hub of Harardhere and used them to ferry hundreds of fighters in an attack on March 14 that targeted the relatively stable region of Puntland in northeast Somalia.

The fighters made a surprise, coordinated landing in two areas along the coast. "No one suspected they were going to use stolen boats, admitted Admiral Abdirazak Diriye Farah, commander of the Puntland Maritime Police Forces.

But authorities said there was a fatal flaw in the group's daring battle plans: They used small fishing boats to ferry 600 men, many of whom could not swim, across tricky ocean waters.

The difficult landing meant that Puntland and Galmudug regional administrations gained the upper hand, killing hundreds of al-Shabab militants and capturing many others. Only a small number of militants, along with their top commanders, escaped.

The attack was a disaster for al-Shabab, which admitted defeat for the first time. Spokesman Ali Dhere said, You win sometimes, you lose other times."

Al-Shabab threatened to retaliate. Farah said his men would be able to defend the coast if another attack occurred, but in the wake of the last raid, regional administrations have rethought their defense plans.

Authorities in Puntland say they are establishing a maritime base in Garaad, a coastal village where the al-Shabab militants landed. Units of the Puntland Maritime Police Forces, armed with heavy weaponry and speedboats, will be deployed soon, Farah told VOA in an interview.

Their mandate is to protect the coast from threats by illegal fishing, human and arms trafficking, and confront attacks, he said.

Farah said his forces, who are trained for maritime combat, regularly share information with the international anti-piracy maritime forces stationed off the coast of Somalia and are well-equipped to fend off another such raid.

This week, the U.N. Security Council called for the resumption of military offensives against al-Shabab.
A solar-powered plane has safely landed in the U.S. Pacific Coast state of California after completing the riskiest leg of its journey around the world - a 56-hour flight over the Pacific Ocean.

The flight was dangerous because there were no emergency landing sites.

The Solar Impulse 2 landed shortly before midnight Saturday at Moffett Airfield in California's Silicon Valley.

Earlier in the day, the plane flew over San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge to the delight of many spectators, but remained aloft until night time when winds decreased.

Pilot Bertrand Piccard said landing in Silicon Valley will help link the plane's journey around the world to the pioneering spirit of the area.

"Can you imagine crossing the golden Gate Bridge on a solar-powered plane, just like ships did in past centuries? But the plane doesn't make noise and doesn't pollute," said Piccard in a live video feed from the plane.

The plane also moves very slowly at 45 kilometers per hour, double that when the sun's rays are strongest.

Next: New York

Solar Impulse 2 will fly across the continental U.S. to New York before crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Europe or North Africa before arriving back in Abu Dhabi, where the flight originated in March 2015.

The carbon fiber single-seat Solar Impulse 2 has a 72-meter wingspan, which is longer than the wingspan of a Boeing 747, and weighs about as much as an automobile. The 17,000 solar cells built into the wings harness the sun's energy and charge onboard batteries.

The project is the brainchild of Swiss aviator Piccard and fellow pilot Andre Borschberg, who are alternating each leg of the historic flight. The duo say they are aiming to demonstrate that alternative energy sources and new technologies can achieve what some consider impossible.

WATCH: Related video of solar plane
Protests Sunday in Bangladesh are marking the third anniversary of the collapse of a garment factory building that killed more than 1,000 people.

The eight-story factory in a Dhaka suburb turned into a pile of rubble and twisted metal on April 24, 2013, killing and injuring workers.

No one has been convicted in connection with the disaster. Families of the dead workers and the surviving workers feel they have not been adequately compensated for their losses.

During the protests, union leader Abul Hossain said, "Three years have passed and still we do not see any justice. No one has been held to account for one of history's worst man-made disasters."

The Rana Plaza tragedy sparked international outrage and put pressure on European and U.S. clothing brands to improve pay and conditions at the factories that supply them.

Cracks appeared in the Rana Plaza building the day before the disaster. While a bank and a market housed in the complex decided to close, a number of the garment workshops ignored the danger.

More than 3,000 people were in the complex when it collapsed.

At the time of the collapse, wages in the $20 billion industry were as low as $37 a month for the four million workers, the majority of them women.
Billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump, trying to lock down the U.S. Republican presidential nomination, said he continues to believe in his anti-immigrant proposals, even as questions emerge about his authenticity.

One of his key campaign aides, Paul Manafort, told party leaders last week that Trump has been playing "a part" in the campaign and that he is "evolving" into a more traditional presidential candidate.

But the brash Trump assured a rally of cheering supporters in Connecticut Saturday that he has no intention of abandoning his proposals to temporarily keep Muslims out of the United States and to build a wall to block immigrants from streaming into the United States from Mexico.

"You know, being presidential's easy -- much easier than what I have to do," said Trump, a one-time television reality show host who has never held elective office. "Here, I have to rant and rave. I have to keep you people going. Otherwise you're going to fall asleep on me, right?"

He assured the crowd, "Everything I say I'm going to do, folks, I'll do."

His chief rival for the nomination, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, said Manafort's admission to the party's leaders at a conference in Florida prove that Trump's public pronouncements are "just a show. This is just a lie. Donald is telling us he's lying to us. Trump is a phony."

Five states vote

The two rivals face off in more nominating contests on Tuesday, in the northeastern states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania.

Pre-election surveys show Trump is favored to win in all five states as he attempts to move closer to winning enough delegates to the party's July national convention to clinch the nomination before the quadrennial gathering opens.

Trump has a significant lead in the chase for convention delegates, but most of them are only pledged to vote for him on the first ballot.

If Trump does not secure the nomination then by reaching the required 1,237 majority of convention delegates, many of his delegates could switch their allegiance to Cruz or a third candidate in the race, Ohio Governor John Kasich, on subsequent ballots.

Cruz has acknowledged that he won't reach the 1,237 figure before the convention, but says that neither will Trump.

Cruz has outmaneuvered Trump in securing pledges from many convention delegates to vote for him beyond the first ballot and now is focusing his campaign efforts to keep the New York developer from reaching a first ballot majority.

Cruz, a firebrand conservative in the halls of Congress in Washington, won pledges of second-ballot support from at least 65 of the 94 convention delegates selected Saturday in several states. But Cruz's effort would be for naught if the nomination battle with Trump doesn't reach a second ballot.

Numerous Republican officials voice the fear that Trump would badly lose November's national election to the likely Democratic nominee, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Numerous national political surveys show Clinton, seeking to become the first female U.S. president, well ahead in a hypothetical face-off against Trump.

Some prominent Republicans also question Trump's philosophical views, expressing doubts whether he is the conservative he says he is on a variety of social issues, including abortion and health care, where he held more liberal views in years past.

One prominent Republican donor, industrialist Charles Koch, said Sunday "it's possible" that Clinton is preferable to a Republican in the national election.

Clinton holds a significant lead over her sole challenger, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, in the race for the Democratic nomination, but has yet to clinch it.

She is favored in all five of the states voting Tuesday.
Sunday marks the 216th birthday of the U.S. Library of Congress, an institution that not only protects historic books and papers but preserves the best of American writing, song and film.

The collection  the largest in the world, by collection size  is housed in three buildings on Capitol Hill in Washington. The oldest of the three, the Jefferson Building, is just across the street from the U.S. Capitol.



Among its holdings are an original copy of the Declaration of Independence, a Gutenberg Bible, 1 million issues of world newspapers, 3 million sound recordings and at least two famous Stradivarius violins.

The library is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. It is in a period of transition, as President Barack Obama's nominee for librarian of Congress awaits the results of her confirmation hearing with the U.S. Senate April 20.

If approved, Carla Hayden, currently the head of the public library of the city of Baltimore, Maryland, would take over the leadership of the Library of Congress, becoming the first African-American, and the first woman, to do so.

Hayden's goals

Hayden has said she would like to make more of the library's resources available online, making it more useful to people in the rural United States who may never get to travel to its headquarters.

She has also said she would like to expand the library's outreach to smaller libraries around the country and continue the public and private partnerships that help the library manage its extensive collections.

Hayden got a warm welcome at her hearing Wednesday, but confirmation is not guaranteed. The Senate is expected to make a decision on Hayden before its summer recess begins in July.

The library has had an interim leader since September, when former Librarian of Congress James Billington stepped down after 38 years on the job. His resignation came just weeks after the library was criticized for widespread computer failures and a watchdog agency's report that the library was wasting millions of taxpayer dollars.

Venerable institution



If confirmed, Hayden will take leadership of an institution whose history goes back to the second president of the United States, John Adams. In 1800, he approved legislation to spend $5,000 of federal money to buy "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress," essentially as research materials for legislation lawmakers might be considering. The first library catalog was published in 1802 and listed 964 volumes and nine maps.

The collection has suffered several fires. The original 3,000-volume collection was largely destroyed in 1814 when British troops attacked Washington in what is known in the United States as the War of 1812  a territory and trade dispute between the British and the new American forces who had won a war of independence from Britain in 1783.

Rebuilding collection

After the British left Washington, President Thomas Jefferson helped replenish the library in 1815 by selling his entire personal collection  6,487 books  to the federal library for $23,950. The books were indeed a boost to the fledgling institution, as Jefferson was a scholar on many subjects: law, language, horticulture, philosophy and various branches of science. He is known to have written in a letter to his predecessor, John Adams: "I cannot live without books."

Unfortunately, a fire in 1851 destroyed much of his original collection. In 1998, library staffers began a 10-year effort to replace those volumes. By 2008, they had managed to replace all but 300 of the original works.

Over the years, the library has become a resource less focused on simply aiding lawmakers with research and more with becoming a cultural repository for American creative works of all kinds, as well as collections of foreign literature. It also serves as the U.S. copyright agency, a research library containing works in 450 languages, and a public institution featuring 22 reading rooms. It sponsors prizes in American fiction and music and is the home of the nation's poet laureate, a post currently held by California writer Juan Felipe Herrera.

Today, while the library's three massive buildings may seem an oasis of peace on busy Capitol Hill, it is not fully insulated from contemporary politics. In the past week, a committee in the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill blocking the library from changing its subject headings and search terms from "illegal aliens"  a term critics complain is negative and unclear  to "noncitizens." The library's stance on this issue is just one of the many issues the next librarian of Congress will have to confront.
T Nagar, Triplicane and Perambur performed the worst as noise recorded exceeded CPCB prescribed limits for every single observation.

Chennai: Chennai is the fifth most noisiest metro city in India as per a report by Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and its commercial, residential and silence zones are actually noisier than its industrial zones.

The CPCB gathered data from 35 noise monitoring systems installed by it in nine metro cities, including Chennai, for the period 2011-14 and compiled it to get an idea of noise pollution problem in its report Status of ambient noise levels in India.

Analysing the compiled data for four years, it was found by CPCB that Chennai stood fifth in violations of CPCB-set noise level standards after Mumbai, Lucknow, Hyderabad and New Delhi. In the same period, Bengaluru and Kolkata have observed least number of violations.

In Chennai, noise monitoring systems by CPCB are located at two commercial zones, T Nagar and Perambur, one silent zone, eye hospital, one industrial zone, Guindy and one residential zone, Triplicane.

T Nagar, Triplicane and Perambur performed the worst as noise recorded exceeded CPCB prescribed limits for every single observation. In eye hospital, a silence zone, the noise levels recorded always reached limits of commercial zone which is 65dB in the morning and 55dB at night.
Claire and Jamie are in France for one reason: To prevent the disastrous Jacobite rebellion that will bring the English wrath down onto the Scottish highlands. That is why Jamie bounces from palaces to brothels, pretending to be a sympathetic, loyal subject of the uninspiring Bonnie Prince Charlie, and why Claire takes tea with high-born ladies like her friend Louise, who is less amusing when shes not getting waxed.

Still, thats a hard idea to build a narrative arc around for several reasons. Rebellions are violent and exciting: Think of the jolt George Washington sends through Hamilton when he predicts, Were gonna fly a lot of flags half-mast. Theres drama in death. Theres not a lot of drama inherent in trying to stop death before it starts.

Besides, most Americans know little and care less about the internecine power squabbles of 18th-century European kings. The power struggles on Game of Thrones work in part because the show feeds its audience something that feels kind of like history, only more fun. Perversely, it can be easier to grasp stakes when the conflict is Lannisters against Targaryens than when its Protestants against Catholics. Plus, you know, dragons.

Outlander cant offer dragons. It has to do something else to keep audiences interested: Make sure its characters care about something other than their stated goals. Let Jamie and Claire be a little bored by the machinations required by this Jacobite stuff too. Give them B-plots in which to shine.

Useful Occupations and Deceptions episode does that. It establishes that, yes, Jamies always game for beating the Minister of Finance at chess. (He claims he respects the man too much to let him win, which is a funny thing to say to a fellow you recently tossed into a body of water.) And Claire is okay with providing basic sex-ed to servants and timid English ladies who never learned about the birds and the bees. But neither Claire nor Jamie feels fulfilled by their cushy Parisian lives. Both of them crave action.

Jamie is spying, sure, but his situation calls on him to be less Jason Bourne and more George Smiley. And Claire, expected to do nothing more taxing than playing cards in various mansions, is getting claustrophobic. My life has gotten more conventional by the day, she laments. As have I.

Oh, and Murtagh needs action too  but hes getting some, in the form of Claires ladys maid. I suppose youve never heard of birth control, Claire says to Murtagh. Control? he replies blankly. Yes, Murtagh, control.

(Fun fact: Condoms have existed in one form or another for at least several hundred years, and possibly since antiquity. And while the English call condoms French letters, the French call them English hoods.)

Lacking any French letters or English hoods, Claire returns to the squat, cheerful apothecary, Monsieur Raymond, to get her maid some herbal contraceptives. Raymond has lots of drugs and few morals, although, he points out, he stops short of selling lethal poisons to his customers.

He also notes Claires ennui and suggests that she might find satisfaction in volunteering at the local charity hospital, run by nuns and a hobbyist whos a butcher by trade (yikes) out of what looks like a huge, empty church. Soon enough, a far more self-actualized Claire is playing House, diagnosing patients by tasting their urine.

I had the most wonderful day! she enthuses to Jamie when she returns to Jareds mansion. I lanced two boils, changed dirty dressings, and saw my first case of scrofula! Jamie isnt in the mood to appreciate this, however, because Prince Charles boasted that he actually has the financing he needs for his war, and Jamie cant figure how Charlie made this coup. Jamie is also being uncharacteristically caveman-like, annoyed that a barefoot and pregnant Claire wasnt waiting for him at home.

I thought youd be happy for me, she says, sounding sincere, if totally naive. As Murtagh anticipated, Jamies feeling more sullen than selfless. He stalks out and doesnt get happy again until, later that night, he spots a Gavroche-type pickpocket who he chases, tackles, and convinces to work for him. A more satisfied Jamie renames the urchin Fergus and brings him home, where Fergus attempts to charm the women of the house by complimenting their breasts. Hey, it works in brothels.

With Ferguss help, Jamie and Co. steal Prince Charless correspondence. Its encoded, but a page of sheet music provides a clue. Jamie approaches Claires boss at the hospital, the highly competent German-speaking, harpsichord-playing Mother Hildegard, who is a friend of the composer J.S. Bach. (She also has a marvelous dog that sniffs out medical issues in the canine take on a CAT scan. The New Yorker cartoon basically writes itself!) She helps them understand that, as Claire puts it, the key is the key. Does that pun work in French or only in English?

Regardless, our heroes use the key to decrypt Prince Charles letters and discover that, though he was exaggerating the extent of his war chest, he does have significant backing  and both Dougal and the Duke of Sandringham may be involved. In spite of these tidings, Jamies undaunted. Hes made progress, and hell make more. Claire is feeling better too, now that shes doing some good at the hospital.

But shes also concerned. Sandringhams new secretary, whom she met at Versailles, is Captain Black Jack Randalls brother, Alexander, who told her that their nemesis is still alive. Jamie wasnt with her and she hasnt yet shared the bad news. Worse still, after remembering an old family tree, Claire realizes that Jack Randall needs to live at least another year in order to father a child with none other than meek little Mary Hawkins, Louises English visitor. Otherwise, her 20th-century husband will never be born.

If Jamie finds out his abuser Captain Randall lives, he wont rest until he has killed him. But what would happen to Frank, centuries later? Looks like Claire is facing one of the cardinal risks of mixing sex with time travel: The possibility that her current lover will ensure that her future lover never exists.
Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Following the completion of Princes autopsy, the musicians remains were cremated at an undisclosed time upon release to his family. According to a statement from his publicist, earlier today Prince was celebrated by a small group of his most beloved: family, friends and his musicians, in a private, beautiful ceremony to say a loving goodbye at his Paisley Park estate. The cause of death remains unknown and it will be at least four weeks before we receive the results of the autopsy, the statement continued. An announcement will be made at a future date for a musical celebration. The final resting place of his remains will be kept private.

Prince was found dead earlier this week in his Paisley Park estate in Minnesota. The music legend was 57.


Bernie Tiede, who was the real-life inspiration for the wonderful 2011 Richard Linklater film Bernie, has been sentenced to 99 years to life for killing Marjorie Nugent in 1996. Tiede, a mortician, was portrayed with astonishing empathy by Jack Black (Roger Ebert notably campaigned hard for Black to get an Oscar nomination). He began a relationship with Nugent, 40 years his senior, and allegedly endured emotional abuse from her, later calling her evil. She was portrayed by Shirley MacLaine. He ended up shooting her in the back four times with a rifle and hiding her in a freezer for nine months, which is, of course, the most rational way to end a relationship. Tiede was convicted in 1999 and released by the state of Texas in 2014 when details surfaced about his being abused as a minor. He then moved into a garage owned by Linklater in Austin, Texas, which was a (rather unusual) condition of his release. The 10-person jury cogitated for 4.5 hours before slapping Tiede with the new 99-year verdict. We cant wait to see Linklater make a movie about this.
Srinagar: Opposition National Conference (NC) said on Saturday that restoring greater autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir is the only way forward to settle its political issues. It also asserted that continued India-Pakistan dialogue will ensure lasting regional peace.

Reiterating its stand on the autonomy issue, the NC said it is core of the partys political agenda and a way forward towards resolution of the political issue of the State.

In a resolution, adopted at an eight-hour long central working committee meeting of the NC, presided over by its president Dr Farooq Abdullah, the party said its stand on this important agenda is loud and clear, as autonomy is imperative for upholding the political dignity and rights of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. NC working president and former Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, also attended the meeting held in Jammu.

Briefing reporters on the deliberations of the meeting, a party spokesman said that the NC central working committee stressed the need for continued dialogue between India and Pakistan, asserting it is the only way forward towards restoration of sustained peace in the region.

The sustained dialogue can open window for all the problems between India and Pakistan, including issue regarding Jammu and Kashmir, the meeting resolved in another resolution. It reiterated that un-interrupted dialogue process should continue in the larger interests of the people of both the countries.

In yet another resolution, the committee reiterated its principled stand to uphold the pluralistic and secular ethos of Jammu and Kashmir and said that it has become vital as divisive forces are hell-bent upon dividing the State on regional and religious lines. The party expressed grave concern over some recent incidents where in concerted efforts were made to polarize the State on communal and regional basis.

CWC firmly resolves its commitment to the integrity and unity of the State and shall continue to strive to protect secular, pluralistic and democratic ethos of the state, the resolution added.

The spokesman said that the CWC expressed deep anguish over the Handwara incidents and sought judicial inquiry by a sitting High Court Judge into the entire episode.

The victims should be adequately compensated and rehabilitated, it demanded while expressing solidarity with all those who lost their dear ones in the Army and police actions. It sought severe punishment to the guilty.
Giddy Up Glamour, a Texas-based retailer specializing in clothing, jewelry and novelty items, has signed a lease on space at University Parks Drive and Franklin Avenue, joining Fuzzys Taco Shop and Bicycle World on the first floor of a building that Waco businessman Trent Weaver continues to market.

The family-owned chain with locations in the Fort Worth Stockyards district, Nacogdoches, College Station and Athens will take 1,700 square feet between the taco location now under construction and the bike shop, meaning the entire first floor of the 34,000-square-foot building with a warehouse look has been taken.

Giddy Up Glamour began as a part-time collaboration involving the Nancy and Gary Christian family of Athens in East Texas and a handful of designers the family knew. At first, the retailer sold exclusively online and at weekend shows but bowed to pressure from fans to open its first boutique in its hometown in 2011.

Always ready for a new challenge, we began searching around Texas in early 2012 for an additional location, the company website says. After visiting several towns, we found the right fit in the historically famous Stockyard District of Fort Worth. Now you can also shop Giddy Up Glamour in College Station and Nacogdoches.

We continually search for new locations to bring Giddy Up Glamour to your area as well, the website post concludes.

Now Waco has found itself on the list, said Weaver, adding he thinks the store will open by the first week of August.

Weaver said Giddy Up Glamour is taking 1,700 square feet, but thinks the Christians may have interest in expanding into the 17,000-square-foot top floor, where he envisions a combination of office and retail space taking shape. He added that other prospects have been doing some tire kicking.

Though the Christians could not be reached for comment, Weaver said the family has local ties. Nancy Christians niece, Jennifer, is married to Wes Allison, who serves as president and CEO of the Extraco Events Centers, he said.

They have been in Waco before, but I think their decision to locate here has a lot to do with Wacos evolution and boom, Weaver said. Waco is just a good spot for them to take the next step in their operation. It is becoming a premium shopping experience, with Chip and Joanna Gaines Magnolia Market at the Silos, the Findery, Spice Village, McLane Stadium, the food trucks on University Parks, near our place, and whatever else happens along the river.

Magnolia Market at the Silos, located at South Sixth Street and Webster Avenue, reportedly attracts 20,000 visitors a week.

Strong online presence

Weaver said Giddy Up Glamour sells a variety of womens clothing and accessories and has 310,000 fans on Facebook. It reportedly has created a global following with its online offerings, having received orders from Russia, Australia, Thailand, the United Kingdom, Italy and Japan.

We are continually amazed at the new places we ship, the family states in a message on its website.

Elsewhere in Weavers building, crews have taken advantage of the wet weather to make progress on the interior of Fuzzys Taco Shop, with hopes of soon moving outside.

The construction guys have really been blowing and going, and we hope to get Fuzzys in there by mid-to-late July or August in a worst-case scenario, Weaver said.

He is placing a walkway, a patio for outdoor dining, a roll-up door and a walk-up bar area near the Mary Avenue area of the restaurant.

Fuzzys Taco Shop, based in Fort Worth, has grown to 85 locations in 11 states. Its menu includes quesadillas, sandwiches, desserts, breakfast items and a jumbo burrito, but it has forged its reputation with a variety of tacos, including shrimp tacos, shredded chicken tacos, shredded spicy pork tacos and tempura shrimp tacos.

Weaver calls his building and development going on there Stones Throw because of its proximity to downtown and Lake Brazos.
Applause

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Executive Director Carter Smith recently honored several men and women for outstanding acts of service at the 12th annual Law Enforcement Division Awards Ceremony in Austin.

The ceremony recognized Texas game wardens, non-commissioned TPWD employees, first responders from other agencies and members of the general public.

A Directors Life Saving Citation was awarded to Bosque County Game Warden Matthew Bridgefarmer for rescuing two fishermen from their sinking inflatable raft.

Bosque County Sheriffs Deputy Richard Flood received a Directors Award for assisting Bridgefarmer in that rescue.

Class acts

Local residents inducted into the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi include Shelby Crockett, of Clifton, initiated at Angelo State University; and Andrea Fonseca, of West, initiated at the University of Texas at Austin.

Area students at McMurry University who received scholarships recently at the Scholarship Day are Ryan Alexander, of Mart, and Cody Baker, of Mexia.

In the military

U.S. Air Force Airman Taylor A. Drake, a 2013 graduate of A.J. Moore Academy, graduated from basic military training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. He is the son of Dawn Drake, of Irving, and Jeffrey Drake of Las Vegas, Nevada.

Send submissions to neighborplus@wacotrib.com.
Abbott FFA senior Trent Uptmore was honored as one of the states top young cattle feeders at the 2016 San Antonio Livestock Exposition Junior Commercial Steer Show.

For the past three years, Trent has been excelling in junior commercial steer shows. The competitions simulate what successful individuals in the commercial cattle feeding industry are expected to know and how they would run their business.

Trent is the son of Sherry and Ted Uptmore Jr., of West, and the grandson of Adele and Ted Uptmore Sr., of West, and the late Bobby and Barbara Sturm, of Port Lavaca.

Contestants take a test covering general animal health, nutrition, marketing, meat science and beef industry current events. They also participate in an interview or prepared speech covering the same subject matter. In addition, the contestants keep a record book showing all costs, receipts and more involving their project.

They must also be able to show how they would finance their project, calculate break-evens and perform other calculations used by cattlemen on a daily basis.

Contestants feed two to four head of steers for each show. The cattle are not halter-broke or shown like market steers. They are judged on feeding performance, such as average daily gain, feed conversion and total gain. They are also given a live visual appraisal, receive an ultrasound, or the caracasses are graded hanging on the rail to determine the quality and yield grade.

Cattle that are most market-ready and would provide the greatest amount of highest-quality meat receive the most points.

Trent won grand champion at the San Antonio Livestock Exposition Junior Commercial Steer Show. He was awarded a $10,000 scholarship along with a $1,000 cash prize and custom-made trophy buckle.

He also received a $500 cash prize for having the best pen of steers and another $500 cash prize for having the highest test score. He was awarded a 2016 livestock trailer as part of the grand champion winnings.

Trent drew praise from the judges and other contestants on the quality of his cattle, his knowledge and speaking ability, and his strong performance on the test. Trents speech was about the mechanics and challenges of the fluctuating national cattle herd size.

At the conclusion of his speech, Ryan Rathmann, professor of animal and food sciences at Texas Tech University and livestock grader for the commercial steer show, said, Young man, Ive got a class full of college seniors that need to hear that speech. I need to invite you up so you can do that. Im impressed how you took a complex subject and explained it in a way that we can all understand.
McLennan Countys attorney hopes leaders adopt a policy aimed at deterring intentionally abusive open records requests, while others say the move could be construed as having a chilling effect on access to public information.

Attorney Mike Dixon, who represents McLennan County and its officeholders, said county staff is trying to process burdensome active requests before looking into a provision in the Texas Public Information Act that allows counties to charge high-volume requesters for staff time.

Theres an inherent flaw where government assumes that people are going to use the act responsibly and for proper purposes, Dixon said. All too often people use it as a means to inflict cost, inflict a lot of burden on governmental entities.

The Public Information Act guarantees the right of any person to access government records. Governmental bodies must promptly release requested information that is not confidential by law, and the requester cannot be asked why the information is being sought.

The government can charge for the cost of materials needed to make copies of records but generally not for staff time required to process requests.

Dixon said a few people abuse the system by overloading staff with submissions and refusing to clarify broad information requests. Dixon said the county receives some requests that read as if the individual is seeking information from the beginning of time, and when they are asked to clarify, the requester says, No.

Dixon would like the county to take advantage of a provision that allows a governmental body to establish a reasonable limit, not less than 36 hours in a 12-month period, on the amount of time personnel are required to spend producing public information for an individual. If requests go beyond a formally adopted limit, the requester can be required to pay for the costs to produce the public information, including staff time.

The limit does not apply to elected officials, nonprofit groups or most governmental bodies, political subdivisions or news publications.

The governmental body would also be required to provide the requester with a statement detailing the time spent on the requests and the time accrued toward the established limit.

Jim Hemphill, who serves on the board of directors of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, said there have been arguments on both sides of the provision.

Legislators concerns

State legislators have raised concerns during the past several sessions about requesters abusing the system and filing public information requests in bad faith, Hemphill said. They have argued those requests are filed not with the goal of obtaining information but to harass and impose costs on governmental bodies, he said.

Whether thats true or not, its a frequently voiced concern, Hemphill said.

But he said the counter concern is that this provision could have a chilling effect on the easy access to public information the law provides for.

Theres significant pushback that either intent or the effect of any limitations would be to chill or discourage or prevent legitimate access and thus undermine the ultimate goal of the Public Information Act, which is to ensure the public has access to public information, Hemphill said.

Dixon said staff can spend up to six hours a week answering open records requests.

The act is flawed in a lot of ways in that it doesnt provide any protections against abuse really, Dixon said. Its taking so much time that its crazy.

County Administrator Dustin Chapman said Wednesday afternoon he had already dedicated three hours that day to answering requests.

Moody resident Randall Scott Gates said hes probably the only person who files requests with the county.

I believe that all McLennan County government has taken a very antagonistic approach to transparency and open government, Gates said.

The county received at least 25 open records requests from Gates between March 14 and April 18, according to the county.

Gates, a retired law enforcement officer, said it should only take about 15 minutes to comply, but county staff spends 200 hours trying to figure out how to keep from giving the information.

Gates said he files specific requests that are not so broad that they would cause an issue.

Control of information

They are desperate to control that information and control the flow of information, he said.

Gates filed a request April 18 with the county for all information during the past six months related to the sheriffs office drug dog Ace. In his original request, Gates pre-empted a request for clarification from the county he expected to receive.

He ended the request stating no clarification was needed. He wanted all the information.

If you have no staff capable of complying with the statutory duties of your office, please advise it is your opinion you do not have to comply with the Act due to incompetence, and the AG can address that, he wrote.

As he expected, the county sought clarification, saying his request is very broad, vague and undefined. The request is not sufficiently defined in scope or the actual records sought. We are requesting that you clarify and narrow your request to assist us in determining what information is responsive. It would be more cost-effective for you and this office for you to clarify and narrow your request. We would hope that you would work with us in trying to minimize the diversion from other work county employees have to perform.

In October, the Texas Attorney Generals Office notified the county that District Attorney Abel Reyna had violated the Texas Public Information Act after failing to provide text messages related to the DAs response to the May 17 Twin Peaks shootout. Gates had filed the request and at the time said the DAs office finally gave him a portion of the information, but not until after two attorney generals opinions, a complaint and a ruling that the office violated the Texas Public Information Act.

Gates said he also has been overcharged by the county for filing requests. In March 2015, he said, he received a $60 refund check from the county for an overcharge for a public information request. Gates said it could have been a misinterpretation, but the added fees could have been meant to discourage access to public information.

In an open records request filed with the county April 15, Gates again included in his letter that there was no need for the county to respond with a letter for clarification, as his request was not vague and was intended to be comprehensive. The response to your demand for clarification will only receive a reply that I want all responsive information that I have not already received.

County Judge Scott Felton said an unbelievable amount of open records requests come to his office and to the sheriffs office.

Most of them are from the same requester, Felton said. Its something were supposed to do but its real taxing on our office.

Dixon said he plans on checking with other agencies that have implemented the provision to see what has worked and what hasnt. He said he is looking to adopt a reasonable limit allowed by law without reinventing the wheel.

The best thing we could do is adopt a policy to try to at least control costs, Dixon said.
The horrors of war are beyond description, said Robinson resident James P. Jim Haston. For this reason, the Temple native doesnt talk about what he saw or did in combat. All he will say is that he served in three operations during World War II in the U.S. Navy in the Commander, South Pacific Force and Area under the flag of Fleet Admiral William F. Bull Halsey.

The former Navy man, who turned 95 on April 14, served in operations in the Northern Solomon Islands and the Gilbert Islands, but he prefers to focus on his more positive memories.

Growing up in the Great Depression in Temple, Haston joined the work force early. He had a service station job after school and also threw newspapers. When he got the chance to drive a cattle truck, he did so. (Hed been driving since he was 11.) He also worked in a mill.

Haston joined the U.S. Navy  even though he had an exemption  and was sworn in in August 1942. I wanted to do something for my country, he said.

After boot camp in San Diego, he left the States in February 1943 aboard what had been a French luxury liner. But there wasnt much luxury left, Haston said. To make matters worse, his bunk was in the bow of the ship, just behind the compartment that housed the anchor chain, which clattered continuously.

The ship carried 4,000 men who didnt know where they were going. For the first few days out, it was escorted by a blimp. After 48 hours, however, the blimp returned to land and the ship and its crew were all alone. Word came that they were headed for New Caledonia. Haston found out later they had gone south to cross the equator to avoid Japanese submarines and then went west, where they stopped for three days in New Hebrides. Though there was no ceremony for those crossing the equator for the first time, his Shellback certificate was signed by Halsey himself.

First brush with danger

As they left, Haston said all hell broke loose when they were hit by a typhoon with 40-foot swells. It was an unnerving experience for him.

Arriving in New Caledonia, Haston was among a work detail on a ship in dry dock. Thats when he discovered he was part of COSMOPAC, though at the time, the crew was unsure what that meant. The headquarters was in Noumea, and Haston was assigned as a driver on the line, carrying officers where they needed to go, including Halsey himself at least twice.

He soon made assistant dispatcher of vehicles and boats, and later, chief dispatcher.

Lateral move, better job

Haston was assigned to pick up Vice Admiral John Henry Newton, who eventually persuaded Haston to join him instead of the Third Fleet. After serving with Halsey for 19 months, he went to work for Newton, whom he referred to his admiral.

Admiral Halsey was a man you would follow to the end of the world, Haston said. Admiral Newton was great, too.

In February 1945, Newton was assigned to Commander in Chief Pacific Headquarters at Pearl Harbor. Haston went with him. He said he ate the same food as Newton and stayed in the back of his house.

In the meantime, Newton decided he didnt like the fact that Haston was a 1st carpenters mate and urged him to go to school. He was promoted to 1st class coxswain, then 2nd class boatswain mate and, finally, 1st class boatswain mate. Newton offered to get him into officers candidate school if he would stay in the Navy, but Haston declined. He was discharged in October 1945.

Haston came home and went back to the mill, where he worked from some 30 years. Later, he took a second job at a dairy cattle auction business, which covered seven states. He was extremely busy. When his mom was in a nursing home, he met a woman that worked there, and in 1975, he married Joyce Kurtz; theyre still together. They honeymooned in Searcy, Arkansas, as Haston was working and couldnt take time off. In 1978, he retired for good.

Today, Haston is happy that he served during the war. There were good times and bad times, he said. If I had to do it again, I would.

He says hes no hero. There were three heroes in World War II: The ones who gave their lives, the ones who came back crippled and scarred, and the civilians back home that sacrificed and built our war machinery.

He also thinks highly of Bill Johnson of Johnson Roofing. I want to thank Mr. Johnson for all he has done for veterans, he said.

Voices of Valor, which features stories about Central Texas veterans, runs on Sundays. To suggest a story about a Central Texas veteran, please email voicesofvalor@wacotrib.com.
Hyderabad: The prevailing heat wave conditions in TS adversely affected Mission Kakatiya works, as public representatives and officials are forced to avoid taking up lake restoration works due to the scorching temperatures.Though only a month is left for monsoon to set in, not even 50 per cent of the tanks have been covered so far in Phase-II.

Added to this, contractor-official nexus in the Mission Kakatiya works is leading to large-scale corruption and substandard works, defeating the very purpose of the scheme. The government set up a helpline number (040-23472233) last week to enable people and all stakeholders give feedback, suggestions and lodge complaints if any, on Mission Kakatiya works.

The number has up till now received nearly 200 calls, of which nearly half are related to irregularities in taking up works while the rest pertain to delay in commencement of works and sub-standard works.

We are noting all the suggestions and complaints given by the stakeholders. Teams are being sent to the spot to ascertain facts. If irregularities and corruption are proven, we will blacklist the guilty contractors besides initiating action against the officials, said irrigation minister T. Harish Rao.

He added, Unfortunately, the enthusiasm shown by public representatives like MLAs and officials during the Phase-I last year is missing this time. They are not seen engaged in these works in many constituencies. The prevailing heat wave conditions could be the reason.

Mr Rao said that Khammam fared better with works launched in 600 lakes of the 750 lake tenders that were finalised. In the remaining districts, not even 50 per cent of the works has been covered so far, he said.

However, the situation has improved during the last three days after the minister personally took up the issue with Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who directed district ministers, party MLAs, MLCs and other leaders to confine themselves to their local areas and ensure speedy progress of Mission Kakatiya works.

Following this, all the ministers and MLAs are touring their districts and launching Mission Kakatiya works since April 21. Irrigation principal secretary S.K. Joshi on Saturday held a video conference with officials to review the progress of works.

This is the last and final warning for officials and contractors. They have to face severe consequences if they fail to meet the deadlines. Engineers who are not staying in their district headquarters and attending to works will be suspended, Mr Joshi warned.

Mission Kakatiya was initiated last year to revive 45,000 tanks and minor irrigation sources in five years by taking up nearly 9,000 tanks every year. Last year, 9,306 tanks were taken up but works were finished only in 8,034. This year, of the 9,500 tanks were taken up, not even 50 per cent have been covered so far.
Mumbai: The Mumbai police on Sunday dismissed JNU Students Union Leader Kanhaiya Kumars allegation that a co-passenger tried to strangle him in a Jet Airways flight.

Emphasising that Kumar did not lodge a police complaint despite repeated requests from the senior inspector, Joint Commissioner Deven Bharti told the media that Whatever has been alleged by his (Kanhaiya Kumar) friend, in our inquiry we've found it not to be true.

Student leader Kanhaiya Kumar had earlier on Sunday alleged a co-passenger of trying to strangle him onboard a flight to Pune.

Read: Kanhaiya Kumar faces shoe attack in Hyderabad

The man identified as Manas Jyoti Deka has been detained in connection with the incident, and a non-cognisable offence has been filed against the 33-year-old TCS employee on the basis of Kumars allegation.

Speaking to reporters at Mumbai, Deka said that the allegation was yet another publicity stunt by Kumar.

My hand just happened to brush his neck as I was trying to balance myself on an aching leg. I do not know him personally though I have seen his pictures. This is being done for cheap publicity, reports quoted Manas as saying.

Read: Man detained for trying to strangulate JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar

Following the incident, Kanhaiya was offloaded by the airline citing safety, forcing him to take the road route to Pune. Kumar is off to Pune for a rally along with three other colleagues from JNU.

Dekas to attack Kanhaiya was evaded by his colleagues who were on the same flight, according to All India Students' Federation national president Syed Waliullah Kadri.

"Kanhaiya, I and two others from JNU had boarded the flight from Mumbai. This man suddenly got up and tried to attack Kanhaiya," Kadri claimed.

Following the incident, Maharashtra Minister of State accused Kanhaiya of attempting to malign the image of the BJP- lead state government.

He had been provided full security by the state government till the time he boarded the aircraft. Nobody can be given security once inside the plane. I, too, do not get security while I am flying, Shinde told PTI.

Kanhaiya Kumar was travelling with three other persons. He had been allotted a window seat and thus, while crossing over a passenger who was seated in the middle, he got into a fight with him. The other passenger did not even know this man was Kanhaiya Kumar and he, too, is alleging he was beaten up by the student leader, Shinde said.

Shinde said that he has asked Joint Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Deven Bharti to conduct a detailed inquiry into the incident and bring out the facts.

Previously, Kanhaiya was also attacked at an event, commemorating BR Ambedkar's 125th birth anniversary, in Hyderabad, where an activist had hurled shoe at him. On the same day, his car was attacked by some men reportedly belonging to Bajrang Dal when he arrived in the city.

Kumar was arrested on February 9 on charges of sedition for organizing a pro-Afzal Guru event on JNU campus. The event was organised to deliberate over the issue of capital punishment.

His arrest kicked off a furore across the nation, with varied views on nationalism pouring in from different sections of the society. The intelligentsia along with the students of varied university collectively protested the government's take on the issue.
Chennai: Perturbed over the increase in number of new law colleges and sale of law degrees to unqualified persons, the Madras high court has observed, Many persons roaming in the corridors of the court, one fine day, take the avatar of an advocate. This only proves the fact that many law colleges are selling law degrees to unqualified persons and it is evident that anybody can procure a law degree, without even attending classes. This is nothing but fraud.

Upholding the enrolment rules of Bar Council of Tamil Nadu, a Division Bench comprising Justices V. Ramasubramanian and N. Kirubakaran said this kind of procuring law degrees fraudulently has to be prevented by Bar Council and action should be taken against those colleges for selling degrees or conferring degrees on people, who do not even attend classes. It was to be pondered over as to whether it would be possible to get B.E degree or MBBS degree in this way, the Bench added.

The Bench said, It is a shame on the part of the Bar Council to remain a mute spectator to selling of law degrees by letter pad colleges. Urgent remedial steps have to be taken to contain this menace, otherwise, criminal elements and undesirous people would hijack the very system itself and in fact, criminalisation of Bar has already started.

The presence of number of colleges and the competition prevailing to get students admitted for the sake of money were the factors responsible for the present situation.

The bench said as on date, there were about 1,200 law colleges in India as against 800 two years ago. Surprisingly, 92 colleges were approved by Bar Council of India (BCI) in 2014 and in effect, for every three days, BCI accredited one new college.

While granting permission to start a new college, BCI was supposed to consider the demand and supply, and thereafter, decide about granting of permission.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday made a strong pitch for strengthening democracy at the grassroots level as he asked the gram panchayats to play active role in developmental activities, taking advantage of the immense resources and schemes of his government.

On the Panchayat Day, he said the countrys progress depends hugely on the development of villages and emphasised the need for bridging the gulf between cities and rural areas by ensuring that all modern day facilities reach even the far off places.

While laying thrust on progress of rural areas, with particular focus on farmers, women-folk and child care, Modi said he wants to leave a legacy after his five-year tenure which would be talked about in terms of exceptional achievement in the years to come.

We need to strengthen panchayats. The gram sabhas are as important as Parliament, he said addressing a programme on the culmination of 10-day Gram Uday Se Bharat Uday campaign here in the tribal-dominated state of Jharkhand.

We have to work shoulder-to-shoulder to fulfill the dreams, Modi said, underlining the need for cooperation between gram panchayats and the central government.

Pitching for progress of villages, he asked the village heads to take a lead in undertaking developmental activities, including infrastructure development, construction of toilets to ensure end to open defecation, ensuring proper healthcare to prevent child birth mortality and provision of better education to ensure there is no school dropouts.

Earlier there was shortage of funds. Now there are lot of finances availableThere is no dearth of funds. There is no dearth of schemes. But there is a need for dedication by those who work at the grassroots level, Modi said.

Be aware, remain alert. Lead from the front. Then officers will also do their work, he told the village heads. In this context, he particularly emphasised the role of women panchayat representatives, who constitute 40 per cent of the 30 lakh representatives.

Ensure that open defecation of our mothers and sisters is brought to an end. Ensure construction of toilets. Take a pledge in this regard. There is nothing more shameful than our mothers and sisters defecating in the open, Modi told the women representatives of panchayats.

Asking the women representatives to take a lead in bringing about changes in social lives, he said they should see to it that there is proper utilisation of funds.

The women representatives also look into the aspects like child nutrition and pregnancy-related issues, he said.

He suggested that each village should take up one task each year like ensuring all farmers get crop insurance, ensuring preservation of water, ensuring digitalisation, and ensuring adequate attention to children.
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Muir, Jacqui Lambie and Glenn Lazarus all voted the same way. So did the DLP senator John Madigan, but as his term was due to expire this year anyway, his personal sacrifice is not quite as anguished.

It's a fascinating decision that these three took, and not one that can be explained by conventional political strategy. Any of them could quite reasonably have justified a "Yes" vote; after all, the ABCC has been Coalition policy for several elections and the government clearly has a mandate to reintroduce it. Any of them could have argued that on balance their continued presence in the Senate was of greater value to their supporters than a single issue, blah blah blah. We've all seen these sorts of self-justifying arguments before.

"In the race of life, always back self-interest," goes the famous line from the old political warhorse Jack Lang. "At least you know it's trying."

And in many ways, self-interest would have fitted nicely with political cunning. After all, Malcolm Turnbull and his government are now rather weepingly in need of this double-dissolution election. Can you imagine how awkward it would have been for them to win the ABCC legislation, then spend six months moping about NOT attacking the Labor Party on its shameless refusal to take on the rotten protection racket that is the stop me if you've heard this before?

In many ways, a decision en masse to give the government its legislation would have been the most diabolical and clever revenge the crossbench could have wrought on Turnbull, a prime minister who was quite friendly to them as a group right up to the point at which he decided to, you know, eliminate them from the face of the Earth and everything.
The boats have stopped, but Australia hasn't won. The "solution" has instead created festering problems that will keep getting worse. Our leaders surely know this, yet despite a looming election and the chance to debate sensible change, they seem determined to pretend the current policy can be sustained. Not forever, it can't.

It's only when you stand back, take stock, and look beyond the usual focus on people languishing in detention, that the full cost of Australia's present approach to asylum seekers becomes clear.

The price is lost national influence, diminished stature and complicity in sour governance.

Some problems are blindingly obvious: the tap of crystal champagne flutes in Cambodia as then immigration minister Scott Morrison coddled the odious regime of Hun Sen, the region's longest-serving autocrat. Australia's $55 million promise saw a total of four refugees settled, and even Cambodia admits the deal was a failure (although the money probably softens the disappointment for Hun Sen).
New Delhi: The Chief Justice of India on Sunday broke down in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi while inaugurating a Joint Conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices at Delhi.

A teary-eyed Justice Thakur said that alongside all the other policies that the PM was campaigning for, such as the FDI and Make for India, it was equally important to concentrate on the judiciary and showcase a better India to the world.

Chief Justice of India TS Thakur breaks down during his speech at Jt conference of CMs and CJ of HCs in Delhi pic.twitter.com/97SJDnyXXz  ANI (@ANI_news) April 24, 2016

Judges strength has been put in cold storage for past three decades. In some petitions, we have to dispose ourselves in extremely stressful conditions. You cannot shift the entire burden on the judiciary, Justice Thakur said. I request your government to address the issue," he added.

Read: Supreme Court collegium to decide on revised MoP: CJI

The Chief Justice was delivering the inaugural address, and was going in length on the present condition of the Indian judiciary when he lost his composure.

"Mere criticism of the judiciary is not enough. Speeches have been made in past, people have spoken in conferences ... there has been debates in Parliament, but I think nothing really appears to be moving. Centre says that they commit themselves but puts the responsibility on state governments, who in turn put the onus on centre, claiming lack of funds," he said.

Maintaining that the performances of Indian judges is head and shoulder above those of other countries, he said, "While this tug of war goes on, the judges' strength remains where it is, 38 lakh cases remain where they are,'' he added.

"In 1987, the requirement was 40,000 judges. From 1987 till now, we have added 25 crore in terms of population. We have grown into one of the fastest growing economies of the world, we are inviting foreign direct investment into the country, we want people to come and make in India, we want people to come and invest in India," the CJI said.

He said following the Law Commission's recommendation, the Supreme Court in 2002 had also supported increasing the strength of the judiciary. A Parliamentary Department Related Standing Committee on Law then headed by Pranab Mukherjee had also recommended taking the judge to people ratio to 50 from 10.

Responding to the emotional outburst, Modi said agreed that redundant laws need to be removed, and also assured that his government was ready to work with the judiciary on increasing the number of judges.
An Anzac charity that received millions of dollars from government grants and ticketed events is now being investigated over fears it did not pass on the money raised to veterans associations.

The federal government has ordered an investigation into the Camp Gallipoli Foundation and has stripped it of its permit to use the protected word "Anzac" just days before the foundation stages a series of educational and fundraising events around the country on Anzac Day.

Camp Gallipoli at Melbourne Showgrounds last year. Credit:Simon Schluter

The move by the Department of Veterans Affairs comes after Fairfax Media revealed the foundation's chief executive, Chris Fox, may have personally profited from the foundation by charging "management fees" worth up to $1.5 million a year through commercial companies owned by his family and an associate.

The Camp Gallipoli Foundation, which last year received $2.5 million federal grant, has been unwilling to substantiate its claims that it donated money raised on behalf of veterans' charities despite collecting millions of dollars in ticketing revenue, donations and sponsorships from corporate Australia.
The fate of the troubled landmark Indiana building on the Cottesloe ocean front has taken another twist with news that a default notice has been issued against the company that holds the lease.

Depending on the response from pub, bar and restaurant operator Red River Leisure, the lease could be ended and the council would then re-assume responsibility for the neglected building - some 25 years earlier.

Troubling times for Cottesloe's Indiana building.

WAtoday earlier reported that plans for a $5 million redevelopment of the Indiana restaurant on Cottesloe beach had been shelved.

The proposal included a new restaurant, boatshed facilities for the Cottesloe Surf Life Saving Club and public toilets.
Scores of cars have had their tyres slashed around the Fremantle area in the early hours of Sunday morning as victims poured out their experiences, frustration and anger on Facebook.

And they want to know what the police are going to do about it.

A Volkswagen Beetle with two slashed tyres. Credit:Facebook

Choben Ray posted "At least 70 cars so far . . . driveways and on street . . . Attfield street and Chester all the way up to South Fremantle (and many side streets) Please report to police if it happened to you."

There was no shortage of victims and potential reports.
A tunnel as part of the controversial Perth Freight Link will reduce road deaths, increase house values and create more jobs, a study has found.

The report, prepared by Matusik Property Insights, found the tunnel was likely to have a greater positive effect on residential values than improving surface traffic routes.

Main Roads opt for Perth Freight Link tunnel

Transport Minister Dean Nalder said it was important to note the potential drop in the number of road fatalities by up to 70 per cent.

"Since announcing Roe 8, we have consistently said it would reduce congestion and make our roads safer," he said.
A Transperth bus was extensively damaged in an ambush by youths in Yangebup on Saturday night while its passengers smashed windows through kicks and with hammers.

The driver was shaken, but uninjured.

One of the shattered windows on the Transperth bus. Credit:WA Police

Police said about 10.45pm, a large group of youths, who had left a party, flagged down a Transperth bus heading to the Cockburn train station on Yangebup Road.

Spokeswoman Susan Usher said the youths filled the bus and several were standing in the aisle.
Students torched a jeep and several bikes after a former student was killed and one other injured during clashes between two groups at Aligarh Muslim University campus in Aligarh. (Photo: PTI)

Lucknow: Two persons  a student and a former student  were killed in a clash between two groups at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) late Saturday night.

The angry students set the proctors office on fire and burnt two cars and half a dozen motorcycles parked near the vice-chancellors lodge and guest house. Firearms were reportedly used and two students were shot at in the ensuing violence.

The agitating students set a jeep and over half a dozen motorcycles on fire. The violence was so widespread that it took the police nearly two hours to defuse the situation at different spots on the campus.

The former student, Mahtab, who had been shot, succumbed to his injuries within one hour. The injured student, Mohammed Waqif, was shifted to Ganga Ram hospital in Delhi for advanced treatment where he died on Sunday.

According to reports, trouble began with a small incident on Friday  a fight between students near the Maulana Azad Library canteen. Two groups of students had a heated argument over the incident on Saturday and a student named Mohsin was assaulted in Mumtaz hostel and his room set on fire. The student rushed to the proctors office to lodge his complaint where two rival student factions also gathered and a clash broke out.

The warring groups exchanged fire in which a former student was shot dead and another injured. The mob also indulged in arson and set the proctors office building on fire. The violence continued till 2.30 am Sunday when additional forces were rushed in.

Sources said the students involved in clashes were from Sambhal, Azamgarh and Ghazipur.

They added that trouble between rival groups from Azamgarh and Sambhal districts had been simmering for some time now.

Dr Rahat Abrar, AMU PRO, said on Sunday that the police has been posted outside the campus and the situation is now under control. Deputy proctor Mehmood said the incident was being probed and the students found guilty would face punishment.

The Rapid Action Force has been deployed on the campus after an entrance test for B.Tech and B.Arch was held on Sunday.

Meanwhile, in Lucknow, ADG (law and order) Daljit Chaudhary said on Sunday that they have identified the perpetrators responsible for the violence on the Aligarh Muslim University campus. We are acting in accordance with the university officials. Those behind this crime have been identified, an FIR has also been lodged, and we will soon be able to nab the masterminds, the police official said.

The police said an FIR has been registered against eight persons, including Mohsin Iqbal, a student of MA (political science) and seven others, most of whom are outsiders and former students.
The proposal had been pending with the state government since January 2015 but was kept on hold due to elections to local bodies.

Hyderabad: The stage is set for a hike in property tax in urban areas after a gap of 14 years. The proposal had been pending with the state government since January 2015 but was kept on hold due to elections to local bodies.

With the elections now over, the government has initiated the process to revise property tax. Municipal administration minister K.T. Rama Rao has called a meeting with chairmen and commissioners of municipal corporations and municipalities here on Monday to discuss and finalise the tax proposals.

Official sources said the hike would be in the range of 10 to 30 per cent and would vary in corporations and municipalities. The hike became imminent after all the local bodies brought to the notice of the government that they could no longer sustain themselves with the existing revenues. The decision to increase salaries for sanitation and other staff had compounded their financial woes. The hike will first come into force in the 35 urban bodies, since a hike was effected in 31 new nagar panchayats in April 2015.
Hyderabad: Lack of a permanent vice-chancellor is proving to be trouble for Osmania University. An amount of Rs 20 crore is due to the varsity from UGC but nobody knows when it will be released.

Also, a grant of Rs 50 crore was announced to OU in 2013 after it was nominated as an University with Potential for Excellence. This fund was required to be spent in five years, otherwise it would lapse. In the first phase, Rs 30 crore was released by UGC and it was utilised for building infrastructure and procuring equipment for labs.

OU authorities sent a report in 2015 to New Delhi about the usage of funds and an inspection team was supposed to arrive, check and approve the second transfer of funds. But the visit hasnt happened yet.

Osmania University Teachers Association members said the makeshift administration, without a full-time V-C, meant funds under UPE category were put on the backburner. The principal secretary (Education) is the acting V-C at the moment.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 24/04/2016 (2374 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

VANCOUVER  The federal government is still investigating an experiment off the West Coast almost four years ago aimed at boosting salmon stocks that sparked an international outcry.

Now a former director and operations officer of Haida Salmon Restoration Corp. says he wants to carry out another ocean-fertilizing exercise, this time off South America.

Jason McNamee says the company Oceaneos, where he serves as chief operations officer, has been in talks about fertilizing the ocean with iron with the Chilean government, which could not be reached for comment.

In July 2012, the now-inactive Haida Salmon Restoration travelled to international waters near the islands of Haida Gwaii where it dumped 100 tonnes of iron sulphate into the water in an effort to restore waning salmon stocks.

Critics said the practice was largely untested. But proponents of ocean fertilization contend the process stimulates biological productivity in the marine environment, triggering a phytoplankton bloom that travels up the food chain and ultimately bolsters salmon populations.

Environment Canadas enforcement branch launched an investigation in August 2012, though the agency recently declined to answer any questions about the case.

As the matter is under investigation, it would be inappropriate to provide further information at this time, spokeswoman Natalie Huneault wrote in an email.

McNamee predicts this years British Columbia return should be one of the largest chinook fisheries ever.

The research is clear. If you put the right sort of iron in the right place at the right time that you will stimulate a plankton bloom. And if you do it in the right place at the right time you may stimulate fisheries.

But biologist Bruce Patten of Fisheries and Oceans Canada said the possibility of a sizable 2016 salmon return cant necessarily be attributed to the 2012 iron fertilization.

Sea-surface temperatures and a particular fish stocks history are two factors considered when estimating salmon returns, though in recent years these indicators have strayed into unprecedented levels, which Patten said throws off a models predictive ability.

Tim Parsons, a retired oceanography professor at the University of British Columbia, met early on with proponents of the Haida Gwaii experiment and recommended against the project because of what he saw as a lack of scientific supervision.

In an email, Parsons said he strongly supports iron fertilization, though he attributed part of what he considers the 2012 projects success to luck: being in the right place at the right time.

Some experts have also raised concerns over the relative absence of enforceable regulation surrounding the practice.

There are a lot of scientists who think its dangerous to go around dumping things like iron in the open ocean and have spent quite a lot of time trying to find ways to regulate this so its not just a free for all, said Prof. Ken Denman of the University of Victoria, who also serves as a senior researcher with Fisheries and Oceans.

Data from the Haida Gwaii experiment is of questionable value, he added.

Anybody who says it was a rigorous scientific experiment is either misleading or is being misled.

McNamee said the proposed Chilean project is still in an early phase, with no agreement in place.

In Canada, the iron dust was also dumped in ocean in the belief that the phytoplankton bloom would act as a natural sponge to capture carbon from the atmosphere. The project in Chile wont investigate that prospect as part of a cap-and-trade credit system, said McNamee.

Thats where most of the controversy was (in 2012). Everyone thought we were out there being cowboys hoping to make a gazillion dollars.

New projects would aim for a 50-per-cent split in funding between government and industry, would have to secure the support of the scientific community and abide by local and international laws, McNamee said.

Oceaneos began looking for scientific advisers on the Chilean project at least a year ago.

One prominent scientist who agreed to provide advice is Ricardo Letelier of Oregon State University,

Letelier said in an interview that he supports the scientific goals of the project but has concerns over the commercial applications and the way the experiment rolls out. There also needs to be an agreement among the scientific community about how these findings can be used, he said.

These kinds of experiments, if they are well done, can provide a lot of advancement in our understanding of the complexities of ecosystem dynamics in the open ocean, said Letelier, who is originally from Chile.

You cannot really do them without addressing the fundamental question of why youre doing this. If youre doing it for commercial purposes then I think you are doing it for the wrong reasons.

 Follow @gwomand on Twitter
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 23/04/2016 (2375 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The author of a private members bill to frame reconciliation with indigenous people into workable Canadian law launched a national tour for it in Winnipeg this weekend.

Were all in this together, so we need to understand what this bills about and how it will bring us to that promised land of reconciliation, Quebec MP Romeo Saganash told the Free Press Friday evening.

Its also the centre of the country, so its appropriate to start here. I appreciate Mr. Justice Sinclairs strong letter of support, and its a show of appreciation on my part for the work people continue to do on this declaration, the NDP politician said, referring to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESSA man with a plan came to Winnipeg as part of a tour to rally support to abolish the Indian Act. Cree NDP MP Romeo Saganash presented a private members bill to Parliament Thursday thats designed to move indigenous people and the country forward on reconciliation. Photo taken at Mere hotel. April 22, 2016

The private members bill to have the declaration adopted is Saganashs second and was tabled in Parliament Thursday. That was followed in lockstep by former Manitoba judge Murray Sinclairs support in one of his first public acts as a new senator. With it came Sinclairs pledge to push the bill through the Senate.

I support him wholeheartedly in this endeavour and pledge to do what is necessary to ensure passage when the bill gets to Senate, Sinclair said in his statement.

The senator sees the bill as a valuable tool to reshape Canadas legal and institutional relationship with indigenous people.

In many ways, Canada waged war against indigenous people through law, and many of todays laws reflect that intent, the senator said. The Indian Act is a leading example, but it is not alone. Other laws and policies need to be scrutinized with an eye to reconciliation and, where found lacking, will need to be changed.

The full adoption and implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples will not undo the war of law, but it will begin to address that wars legacies, Sinclair wrote.

Saganash had a series of private and public meetings with grand chiefs Derek Nepinak, Sheila North Wilson, Mennonite leaders and young people, among others in Winnipeg, staggered over the weekend. He flies out Tuesday.

The tour picks up again in a couple of week in Saskatchewan, and meetings in other parts of Canada will follow over the coming months.

Private members bills rarely make it into law, but Saganash said he figures this time theres political and public momentum to propel his bill forward.

The 94 calls for action by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission  which was chaired by Sinclair  are built on the declaration. The provinces and the federal government have backed the TRC report. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote the TRC into the job descriptions for the justice and indigenous affairs ministers.

The TRC says the declaration on the fundamental rights of indigenous peoples needs to be the framework for reconciliation in this country, so we need this legislative framework to achieve that. Thats what Im proposing. The (Liberals) supported the bill in the previous Parliament, and Im hoping theyll do the same this time, the MP said.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennetts been non-committal.

The one Liberal MP who has come out in support of the bill is Robert-Falcon Ouellette (Winnipeg Centre).

Saganash is a man who doesnt give up, and hes built up decades of experience on the file. His first bill died under Stephen Harpers Conservatives, but that was before the TRC. Saganash was personally involved in the development of the UN declaration, having lobbied for it with the Grand Council of the Crees in Quebec as far back as 1984. Hes written scholarly papers about it for years.

I started out at the UN with the initial phase Now, this private members bill allows me to bring that declaration into domestic law. It will complete the work I started in 1984, he said.

The UN adopted the declaration in 2007, but Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand  countries with large indigenous populations  refused to recognize it. Canada was the last of the four holdouts to endorse it, in 2012 , with the condition it was an aspirational document and not legally binding.

By definition, UN declarations arent legally binding, but the caveat was widely seen as limiting the impact of the declaration here.

Bill-C 262, under the title the United Nations Declarations on the Rights of Indigenous People Act, would set out the legislative framework to make the declaration legally binding in Canada. At its core is the TRC call to action that relates to federal, provincial, territorial and municipal levels of government adopting the UN declaration, Saganash said.

Such a law wont replace the Indian Act, as some supporters believe, but it might hasten its abolition.

Manitobas Grand Chief Derek Nepinak has repeatedly called for the abolition of the Indian Act. Former national chief Matthew Coon Come wrote an op-ed that appeared in the Montreal Gazette Wednesday that called Saganashs bill a way for Canada to reject the colonial past.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 24/04/2016 (2374 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Police are searching for two suspects spotted in the area just before a massive $4.5-million inferno destroyed three residential properties in Wolseley around 3:45 a.m. Saturday.

Theyre conducting a second investigation into two garage fires that caused $80,000 damage on nearby Chestnut Street around the same time.

Police and fire investigators suspect theyre dealing with the same people in all the fires, Const. Rob Carver said Sunday.

Currently, its two investigations. Weve got two fires geographically close at the same time, Carver said.

The Chestnut fires are being treated as arson, he said. As for the huge blaze at Westminster Avenue and Maryland Street, We dont have enough yet to say its arson.

It appears the fire started in the new construction. It appears the fire spread to the two other buildings.

Four injured firefighters were all released from hospital Sunday while one of two sisters who live in one of the houses remained in hospital.

The blaze destroyed the 11-unit Flats on Westminster as well as adjacent older multi-storey houses on Maryland and Westminster.

The Flats on Westminster was scheduled to open this year with 11 units over four floors. A website for the development touted its proximity to a supermarket, the University of Winnipeg and Health Sciences Centre, but offered little additional information other than to provide a way to book an appointment. It was not immediately clear if the units were condominiums for sale or rental units

The real estate agent did not respond to interview requests Sunday.

Neda and Helen Procner barely survived the blaze  firefighters broke down a door to rescue them.

Trapped between flames on their front porch and on the wheelchair ramp in the rear, Neda Procner could only think of two things: she wasnt going to leave her sister, who uses a wheelchair, and they were going to die.

Neda Procner (left) and Linda Walker look at Procners house on Maryland Street.

Thats when Winnipeg firefighters sprayed water onto the roof over the front porch and a firefighter broke through their front door.

The emergency staff were amazing, Procner said Saturday, looking at her heavily damaged home of 21 years just hours after the ordeal.

She said the entire family in the other house  including a baby born a few months ago  also escaped before the structure was gutted.

Carver said it is difficult to tell if anyone broke through the heavy fencing around the construction site. The fire was so intense, it actually melted the lights in the bus shack at the corner. Westminster United Church did sustain some damage  it did affect the church, he said.

A church official who asked not to be named said Westminster United, directly across the street, had a main door scorched and plastic melted over stained glass windows and notice boards, but the stained glass windows were not damaged. They are very thankful there was not a strong wind blowing towards Westminster United, she said.

She said the house on Westminster was known locally as Raspberry Manor because of the colour of its trim and was a very old and familiar dwelling.

Carver said police were on alert in Wolseley Sunday night.

Well certainly have it on our officers radar. Well have increased patrols, he said.

Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press An MTS crew Sunday morning checks out the scene of the fire that destroyed three properties in the Wolseley neighbourhood.

Procner said she was asleep in her third-floor bedroom when she awoke to the sounds of crackling noises and saw an orange glow coming through the window.

When Procner made her way downstairs and looked out the back window, she saw an electrical panel on the house behind on fire and saw sparks and flames on the wooden wheelchair ramp outside. She ran to her sisters first-floor bedroom.

I told my sister  who was now up  we have to get out. I called 911 and said the house next door is on fire, and my sister is in a wheelchair. They said someone had already called and they were on their way.

We went to the front door, but the front porch was in flames, so we couldnt get out. Thats when I saw the firefighters show up.

They couldnt see us. I opened the (inner) door to call them, and so much smoke came in I had to put my arm up over my nose. I looked around and couldnt see my sister because of the smoke. Then they sprayed water over the roof of the porch.

Thats when the firefighter broke through the door and yelled at me to get out. They pulled me out right away. I rushed across the road to a neighbours. I didnt know if my sister was still alive. But they carried her out. Her wheelchair is still in the house, melted.

Procner, her sister and four firefighters were taken to hospital to be treated for minor burns and smoke inhalation. All were later listed in stable condition, and all but Helen Procner had been released by Sunday afternoon.

She needs a place to go, said her sister-in-law Linda Walker. She is staying in the hospital until a wheelchair and accessible accommodations can be arranged for her, Walker said. Health-wise, Helen is OK, she said. She has a couple of scratches and burns.

JASON HALSTEAD / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Firefighters work at the scene of a massive overnight blaze in Wolseley that started in an under-construction condominium building and spread to two neighbouring homes near the corner of Westminster Avenue and Maryland Street on April 23, 2016.

Winnipeg Fire District Chief Greg Cannell said the firefighters were injured rescuing the woman in the wheelchair and fighting the blaze.

Cannell said the unfinished condo was destroyed and they also consider the other two houses writeoffs.

He said the cause of the fire is considered suspicious, and it is being investigated by the arson unit.

 with files from Carol Sanders

nick.martin@freepress.mb.cakevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca
New Delhi: Imposition of President's rule in Uttarakhand is set to dominate the proceedings when Parliament reconvenes after recess on Monday, with the Congress making it clear it would seek a discussion on the contentious issue despite government's claim that the matter being sub-judice it cannot be deliberated upon.

The controversial action of sacking the Harish Rawat government and imposition of Central rule a day ahead of a High Court-ordered trust vote, figured prominently at an all-party meeting called by Speaker Sumitra Mahajan.

Congress' leader in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said that the party MPs would move an adjournment motion seeking a discussion on it under Rule 56.

However, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajiv Pratap Rudy contended,"To my knowldge, the matter is before the court and when the issue is pending in court and a decision is yet to come, there is no scope for a discussion on it. The Speaker has to take a decision on it."

Speaker Mahajan, too, appeared to share the government's view.

"The court has given stay till April 27 and I don't think till 27th (there can be a discussion)," she said when asked if a discussion on Uttarakhand can be allowed.

However, Kharge insisted on a discussion on the issue as it was important and many opposition members wanted it.

"We have raised many issues before the Speaker, of which the main one is of Uttarakhand where an attempt has been made to destabilise the Congress government and despite a High Court order, an interim stay has been obtained by the Centre from Supreme Court.

"We have raised the issue and want a discussion on this. A lot of opposition members agree on this and they also want a discussion on this," Kharge said.

On government's contention and that of the Speaker that a debate on Uttarakhand was not possible as the matter was sub-judice, Kharge said the chair was competent to allow a discussion setting aside the rules.

"There is a rule for everything. But putting (rules) aside, the Speaker can allow anything keeping in view the importance of the subject raised. We have made the request not to cite rules in a bid to suppress issues and deny a discussion," he said.

Another MoS for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said if Congress raised the issue of President's rule in the hill state, it would have to answer why it used Article 356 several times in the past to dismiss popularly elected governments which enjoyed majority and there being no Constitutional breakdown, indicating the government's readiness to brazen it out in Parliament.
KALABURAGI: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah dismissed reports that central leaders of Congress had denied him an appointment to discuss about reshuffle of the ministry, forcing him to cancel his visit to New Delhi on Saturday.

During an interaction with the media here, he said: I dont know why these rumours are being spread. They are hundred per cent false. I think they are being spread by detractors with a view to malign me. I am going to reshuffle my cabinet, let there be no ambiguity about it. I have not been able to visit Delhi due to the drought in the state. I was supposed to go to Delhi to attend a conference, but I have deputed the law minister as I am going to tour drought affected areas of Belagavi and other districts. He said he would visit Delhi in the first week of May to seek the approval of top leaders for a rejig of his ministry.
Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa with her party candidates at the campaign meet in Tiruchy on Saturday. (Photo: DC)

Tiruchy: The Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa on Saturday assured the people that her government would implement more welfare measures for them if voted to power again.

Seeking votes for the partys 67 candidates from Tiruchy, Karur, Pudukkottai, Thanjavur, Nagapattinam, Tiruvarur, Vellore, Tiruvannamalai and Villupuram districts at a mammoth election meeting here, she claimed that all her promises made in the 2011 Assembly elections had been implemented. Besides this, her government was implementing several unannounced schemes like Amma Unavagam.

She charged the DMK with not fulfilling several promises the party made during the 2006 elections. Film actor Nameetha joined the AIADMK today in the presence of Jayalalithaa.

The AIADMK leader said her government was making all efforts to improve the farming sector as well food production in the State by implementing the second green revolution and renovating water bodies.

The World Bank had agreed to extend financial assistance for `2,950 crore for renovating water bodies in the State. Food production which was 75.95 lakh tonnes during 2010-2011, went up to 1.27 crore tonnes in 2014-15, registering an increase of 68.46 per cent.

She also accused the DMK of making a false propaganda against the AIADMK, especially with regard to figures of suicides by farmers and said 1060 farmers committed suicide during 2009, and it was 541 in 2010.

It was 68 in 2014, and this too was due to domestic quarrel, she claimed.

She said the DMK knew well it would not win even a single constituency in coming elections. The AIADMK will sweep all 234 constituencies. The DMK also knew it cannot finish even second place in the coming election. Hence, the opposition party was spreading a false propaganda and enacted dramas ; but the people will dismiss such attempts. Jayalalithaa appealed to the Election Commission to take suitable action against DMK for such fraudulent and cheating activities.

It was because of DMKs attitude that Sri Lankan Tamils were still suffering. The AIADMK government made all out efforts to safeguard the interests of the island Tamils. The DMK has no idea of introducing total prohibition, she said.
A young man wanted to make a point about racism in the United States, but his plan backfired when he was exposed for a liar by police. 20-year-old Khalil Cavil of Texas was working at the Saltgrass Steak House in Odessa when he claimed he was discriminated against because of his Muslim name. Cavil took
Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu and Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge ahead of an all-party meet in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI/file)

New Delhi: Amid all indications that the next Parliamentary session beginning on Monday is set to be a stormy affair, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan has called an all-party meeting today to ensure smooth functioning of Parliament.

The session begins in the middle of a raging political controversy over the Uttarakhand political crisis in which Centre's role has come in for scathing criticism.

The session, which commences on April 25, is in fact the second part of the Budget session but since both the Houses were prorogued after the first part of it beginning February 23 and coming to an end on March 16, this will be a new session.

It will be the 8th session of 16 Lok Sabha and 239th session of Rajya Sabha.

Drought in ten states and the resultant water scarcity will also be raised in a big way by the Opposition parties, some of whom have already given notice in this regard to the Chair.

Congress is bracing to attack the government and rope in other opposition parties on the Uttarakhand issue.

Congress's deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma on Thursday gave the notice to Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari under Rule 267 for taking up the resolution after suspending all business.

The resolution seeks to "deplore" the "destabilisation" of the democratically elected government in Uttarakhand and "disapprove" the "unjustified" imposition of President's Rule there under Article 356 of the Constitution.

Government is also bracking for disruptions by Congress at least in the first few days on the Uttarakhand issue.
Nathan Allen McClain

By: Chan Yuan

(Scroll down for video) A married man was arrested after giving a small monkey to a prostitute.

Police in Eugene, Oregon, said that the manas wife reported the exotic animal missing along with money from the sale of girlsa scout cookies.

After a two month long investigation, police determined that store owner, Nathan Allen McClain, took the missing items.

McClain and his wife are the owners of the Zany Zoo pet store. Police said that they reviewed surveillance videos of nearby businesses while trying to identify a possible suspect.

After combing through hours of videos, detectives determined that a woman, who is a known prostitute, had the monkey.

The woman told police that she received the exotic monkey named Gooey, from McClain as a tip for her services. She also received cash.

After his arrest, McClainas wife wrote on Zany Zooas Facebook page that she has severed business ties with him. Gooey was temporarily placed in the custody of a nearby sanctuary.
Patna: Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Sunday mocked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for appealing to non-BJP parties to make a 'Sangh-mukt Bharat' and dubbed the latter as a "fine actor".

"What a fine actor he is! He did not see anything wrong with the BJP/RSS during his association with them for 17 years. Now he is singing a different tune and wants to make the country Sangh-mukt," the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief told reporters.

The Bihar chief minister must be complimented for being good at acting, Mr Paswan, whose party is an ally of the BJP-led NDA at the Centre, said sarcastically.

The Union minister also rapped Kumar on the prohibition issue claiming it was he who had set up liquor shops in all corners of the state and made people addicted to liquor by making it available at their door steps over the past decade.

"If liquor is so bad for health as you have realised now, you must owe an explanation to people for making liquor available in all corners of Bihar," he said.

On JD(U) and RJD describing Kumar as 'PM material', Paswan said it is "frivolous".

He said the people of Bihar have given Kumar a mandate to make the state 'crime-free', but there have been "spurt" in murder and related crimes ever since the Grand Alliance government came to power six months ago.

"Even the policemen are not safe in Bihar any longer with several police officers being killed at the hands of the gun-wielding criminals," the LJP chief said.

He asked the chief minister to "improve" the law and order situation in the state first before "nursing" national ambition.
Lucknow: A day after he was denied permission to hold public meetings in Azamgarh, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Sunday said the ruling Samajwadi party was "insecure" of him.

"Yesterday did a roadshow in 4 districts UP very good public response esp from youth for 12 hours peaceful but stopped Azamgarh SP is insecur (sic)," he wrote on micro-blogging site Twitter this morning.

Yesterday did a roadshow in 4 districts UP very good public response esp from youth for 12 hours peaceful but stopped Azamgarh SP is insecur  Asaduddin Owaisi (@asadowaisi) April 24, 2016

"Samajwadi party is stopping from holding public meetings, enter Azamgarh remember @yadavakhilesh power is not ETERNAL I will be coming more (sic)," he tweeted.

Samajwadi party is stopping from holding public meetings ,enter Azamgarh remember @yadavakhilesh power is not ETERNAL I will be coming more  Asaduddin Owaisi (@asadowaisi) April 24, 2016

AIMIM chief was yesterday denied permission by authorities to hold public meetings in Azamgarh in the wake of tension in Mubarakpur area there.

Application to hold public meeting was received from Owaisi's party but he was denied permission, Azamgarh District Magistrate Suhash L Y had said.

Addressing his partymen at a meeting, Owaisi had exhorted them to prepare for the 2017 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

"Start preparations for the elections so that our people could have representation in the Vidhan Sabha," he had told party workers in Siddarthnagar.

"We are neither against any religion nor against any person," Owaisi, who was on a UP tour, said.
I'm used to scrolling through my Facebook timeline quickly, but one of my friends' posts caught my attention. It said "Shabbat Shalom from Pakistan." Shabbat Shalom from the home of the Taliban, the nation at war. It was signed by Zuriel Ben-Israel. That is his Hebrew name - his Pakistani name is withheld to protect his personal safety.

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There are almost no Jews left in Pakistan. In 2014, the media reported that there were seven Jews left in Pakistan, but they hide their identities for fear of their neighbors and the authorities. Ben-Israel, 57, married with six children, describes himself as an ardent Zionist, who maintains a full Jewish life thereby endangering his life and the lives of his family. His children serve in senior positions in the education system in the country, and all of them are college graduates.

Ben-Israel holding a sign that says 'Next Year in Jerusalem'

Over the years, many Jews kept their religion in Pakistan a secret, fearing for their lives, however, the knowledge of their Jewish identity has been passed down from generation to generation.

"I know that we are descendants of the Jewish people, but I have no official documents that could prove my family's history," he says.

But paradoxically, in order to make aliyah to Israel, he is required to prove that he is Jewish. "I started thinking what I had to do to convert, but all of my friends are Muslims. Pakistan has no rabbi, a Jewish community, or a synagogue - and therefore I can't perform the official steps required for conversion."

Secret meetings

One of the conditions for the conventional conversion process, or alternatively, to be recognized under the Jewish Law of Return - is belonging to a Jewish community. Over the past five years, Ben-Israel has been studying Hebrew, the Bible, kashrut laws and whatever else is required, and says he is ready to convert even though his Judaism has been passed down to him throughout the generations.

"I'm living a Jewish lifestyle, and I make it a point to celebrate the holidays with my family," he says, "but every day that passes I am aware that this is not an easy process."

Ben-Israel's Facebook page

"I live in a society in which the very desire to be connected to the Jewish people could put me in danger, and the fact that I don't show up at the mosque for prayers, and I'm not marrying off my grown up daughters raises suspicions among my neighbors. So why am I doing this? Because I have an inner voice that is guiding me to the truth. Pakistan is not a simple country, journalist Daniel Pearl was murdered here because he was Jewish. But I'm willing to take those risks, because I love my people and God."

In pictures he sent me, Ben-Israel and his family are seen celebrating Hanukkah and Israel's Independence Day, as well as meetings with other people who see themselves as descendants of the Jewish people. They avoid meeting out in the open to escape their neighbors' watchful eye.

Placing hopes on Israelis

Zuriel Ben-Israel says he has sent hundreds of letters to every possible official or organization in Israel and the Diaspora who might be able help him, but to no avail.

Rivka Meyer from the United States, who aids Ben-Israel and translates all of his correspondences into English, jumped on the opportunity to send me information, details and pictures of the family.

The Chief Rabbi's office confirmed that they received his request and directed it to the office of the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef. The Immigration and Absorption Ministry has yet to respond. The Shavei Israel organization, which specializes in descendants of Jews who don't possess official documents, has also not responded yet.

Two of Ben-Israel's daughters

The Jewish Agency said that "according to the Interior Ministry's regulations, to make aliyah to Israel one must present documents proving entitlement to the Law of Return. We will be happy to receive the applicant's phone number so we could try and help him as much as possible, provided he has the appropriate documents in his possession."

But due to the circumstances, Ben-Israel has no official documents that could prove he is Jewish. It appears that the only solution is for him to immigrate to Israel under a special arrangement, and only then could he and his family complete the full conversion process required in Israel.

In the absence of a response from Israeli authorities, Ben-Israel hopes that Israeli citizens can help him.

He asked I publicize his name despite the danger involved. "I'd rather take a chance, than wait for another decade for something to happen," he writes. "I feel exhaustion in my heart and soul, and I can't stop thinking about how I could prove my sincerity and love for the Jewish people, and how I could further open my heart and soul to them."
The Women of the Wall will perform a partial priestly blessing at a cordoned off area of the Western Wall on Sunday morning after Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit barred them from holding the full ceremony.

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The group, which calls for gender equality at the Western Wall, reached a compromise with the attorney general, according to which they will perform the ceremony and read the verses, however they will do so without wearing a Talit (Jewish prayer shawl), and without raising their hands over the community in blessing  two central facets of the prayer.

The priestly blessing is traditionally only performed by men who can trace their roots back to the Cohen priestly class of the holy temple periods.

The Women of the Wall (Photo: EPA)

Several weeks ago, the Women of the Wall group announced their intentions to perform the ceremony during Chol HaMoed (the intermediate days of Passover). However, the Rabbi of the Western Wall, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, turned to the attorney general and requested to legally bar the women from holding the ceremony, a request the attorney general accepted.

While Mandelblit was still serving as Cabinet Secretary, he headed a committee to address the concerns of the Women of the Wall group, and formulated a compromise whereby a mixed gender area at the wall was established.

At the time, a petition to the Supreme Court was submitted against the Women of the Wall, but was rejected.

The historic Supreme Court ruling on the matter of Women of the Wall determines that it is permitted for the women to pray according to male custom, including putting on Tefilin (phylacteries) and Talit, reading from the Torah scroll, and saying Kadish (the prayer of mourning). However, the attorney general made the unusual decision to define the priestly blessing as off limits, and barred the women from performing the ceremony in full.

Anat Hoffman, chairwoman of Women of the Wall, said in response that "although we disagree with the decision of the attorney general, we intend to stand by our commitments to abide the law. However, we can't disregard the absurdity of the demands by the religious affairs minister and chief rabbi that we don't raise our hands in blessing, put on a Talit over our heads, or bless the people of Israel on Sunday morning, while the very next day, the men will be allowed to perform all of these rituals."

Ultra-Orthodox officials have called on their followers to protest the prayers by the women, and have even threatened to disrupt the ceremony.
North Korea said on Sunday it had conducted a submarine-launched ballistic missile test supervised by leader Kim Jong Un and it was a "great success" that gave the country "one more means for powerful nuclear attack."

North Korea fired one missile from a submarine off its east coast on Saturday, South Korea's military said, amid concerns that the isolated state might conduct a nuclear test or a missile launch ahead of a rare ruling party meeting in May.

The missile flew for about 30 km (18 miles), a South Korean Defence Ministry official said late on Saturday, adding its military was trying to determine whether the launch may have been a failure for unspecified reasons.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said launches using ballistic missile technology were "a clear violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions."
Hundreds of Police and Border Police reinforcements have been deployed to Jerusalem to secure the city during the Jewish festival of Passover as 1043 visitors went up on the Temple Mount on Sunday, 158 of them Jews and the rest tourists.

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Visitors were allowed to enter the Temple Mount complex in groups from the early morning hours until 11am.

Security forces are on high alert in light of Palestinian incitement claiming Israel is trying to change the status quo on the Mount, which is the holiest site in Judaism and third holiest in Islam.

Security forces on the Temple Mount (Photo: Reuters/Archive)

Verbal clashes erupted between Muslims and Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount on Sunday morning when Muslim worshipers shouted insults at the Jews.

Clashes between Jewish and Muslim worshipers on the Temple Mount (:  )

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In addition, 13 Jewish visitors, three of them minors, and a Muslim visitor have been detained and removed from the area after breaking the rules of the holy site that allows Jewish visits, but not worship.

Right-wing Temple Mount acivist Yehuda Glick, who survived an assassination attempt in October 2014, was among the Jews who visited the Temple Mount on Sunday. "The security forces are making an effort to ensure everything goes well," Glick said.

Verbal clashes on the Temple Mount.

"Police have preemptively arrested Arab rioters who were planning to disrupt (Jewish visits) and create tensions. We mustn't allow terrorism to dictate what we do. I have confidence that the security forces will thwart any attack attempt or any attempt at violence. The Temple Mount is a center for peace, not a center for war. It is appropriate that anyone who speaks of unity and peace should visit the Temple Mount. Those who have a different agenda should not come here," he continued.

In addition to the Old City, police officers have been stationed in crowded areas and shopping centers. The regular security deployment to Jerusalem and its surroundings has been expanded and security on major roads into the capital has also been increased. Meanwhile, several major roads in the capital will be closed off to vehicles Sunday-Wednesday from 7am to 8pm due to expected traffic.

Police forces had run-ins with Jewish groups on their way to the Temple Mount during the holiday itself as well. These groups planned to go on the Temple Mount with animals to perform the Passover sacrifice as part of an event organized by the right-wing Return to the Mount movement.

Temple Mount activist carrying goat to the Temple Mount.

On Seder night, 10 Jews were detained in several different locations near the Temple Mount and four young goats were seized before they could be sacrificed. The suspects were taken for questioning at the police's David Area station while the goats were taken to the Agriculture Ministry's enforcement and investigations unit. One of the goats was found tied up and abandoned in the Old City, while another was found in a cardboard box carried by three of the suspects.

Temple Mount activist carrying goat to the Temple Mount.

Every year on Passover, Jewish radicals are detained near the Temple Mount with animals in their possession that they intend to sacrifice. Police, who has been working to calm the volatile area, have warned prominent right-wing activists in advanced not to perform the sacrifice, and banned two of them, Rafael Morris and Yair Kahati, from Jerusalem during the holiday due to intelligence that they were planning to perform the Passover sacrifice. Morris was arrested in the Old City on Friday afternoon after violating the ban order imposed on him, and his remand has been extended by two days.

The Return to the Mount movement said the ban orders won't stop them. "The Israel Police's ban orders won't deny us our right and duty to perform the Passover sacrifice at the appropriate time. We call on the people of Israel to come to the Temple Mount today and demand to be allowed to perform this immeasurably important commandment," the movement said in a statement.

Morris himself said that "the Shin Bet is investing all of its efforts in the Temple Mount activists, and the more they focus on the Jewish activists, the more they bolster terrorism and encourage the rioters on the Temple Mount."
BAGHDAD - Suicide attacks in two Baghdad suburbs on Sunday killed at least 14 people and wounded dozens, Iraqi officials said.

A suicide car bomb struck a checkpoint in the eastern suburb of Hussainiyah late the night before, killing six civilians and four soldiers, a police officer said, adding that 28 other people were wounded in the attack.

Meanwhile, a suicide car bomb struck a passing military convoy at around the same time in the southern suburb of Arab Jabour, killing four soldiers and wounding eight others, another police officer said.

Two medical officials confirmed the casualty figures.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, which bore the hallmarks of Islamic State extremist group.
After consulting the family members of the departed leader, the party finalised Ms Sucharitas name, disclosed TPCC chief N. Uttam Kumar Reddy and working president Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka here.

Hyderabad: The Congress on Saturday named Sucharita Reddy, wife of deceased MLA Ramreddy Venkata Reddy, as its candidate for Palair Assembly seat for which bypoll will be held on May 16.

After consulting the family members of the departed leader, the party finalised Ms Sucharitas name, disclosed TPCC chief N. Uttam Kumar Reddy and working president Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka here. They appealed to other parties to support the Congress nominee and teach the TRS a lesson.

Meanwhile in Vijayawada, TD chief N. Chandrababu Naidu left the decision to contest or support other parties to TS TD leaders.He advised to them to weigh the pros and cons and take a decision. According to sources, the TD may support the Congress candidate but not declare it publicly.
A special meeting was held two weeks ago at the Jabel Mukaber elementary school in East Jerusalem between the students and families of Palestinian terrorists who were killed while attacking Israelis.

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Amongst those who spoke at the meeting was Mohammad Aliyan, the father of Baha Aliyan, who, along with another, killed three Israelis on a bus in the Jerusalem neighborhood of East Talpiot (Armon HaNatziv), which is adjacent to Jabel Mukaber.

In pictures from the event posted on a Facebook page with the school's emblem, Aliyan can be seen speaking with the children and taking pictures with them. A post on the page praises the terrorists and their families, and thanks the families for their visit.

Family members of Mohammed Ali, who was shot to death after committing a stabbing attack at the Damascus Gate, also participated in the meeting, in addition to representatives from the Palestinian Ministry of Education.

Mohammad Aliyan and a student at the East Jerusalem middle school

After his son's attack, Mohammad Aliyan launched a commemoration campaign in honor of his son, which included among other things encouraging children to read. During an event held in memory of the terrorist at Al-Quds University in Abu Dis, Aliyan explained that "if the nation isn't educated, it won't be able to confront the occupation. Baha is an idea, and an idea will never die. Today, I have more than 1,000 Bahas. The students will carry out his legacy."

Mohammad Aliyan speaks at a convocation at the Jabel Mukaber Elementary School

"The incitement happening in East Jerusalem schools and at informal educational organizations has continued to in full force in recent months," said Go Jerusalem chairman Maor Tzemach.

"I call on the government to deal with this continuing neglect, which is affecting Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem and adds fuel to the fire of terror."

Following Baha Aliyan's attack

The Jerusalem municipality responded by saying that the event took place at a private school that isn't regulated by the municipality or the Israeli Ministry of Education. Therefore, they don't have the ability to interfere with what is being taught there.

There are many private schools in East Jerusalem which are not under the purview of the Israeli Ministry of Education, and they receive no funding from the ministry or from the municipality. The Jabel Mukaber school is operated by an association called "Jabel Mukaber" which is funded by Islamic officials.

School officials refused to comment.
MOUNTAIN VIEW- A solar-powered airplane landed in California on Saturday, completing a risky, three-day flight across the Pacific Ocean as part of its journey around the world.

Pilot Bertrand Piccard landed the Solar Impulse 2 in Mountain View, in the Silicon Valley south of San Francisco, at 11:45pm. following a 62-hour, nonstop solo flight without fuel. The plane taxied into a huge tent erected on Moffett Airfield where Piccard was greeted by project's team.

"You know there was a moment in the night, I was watching the reflection of the moon on the ocean and I was thinking 'I'm completely alone in this tiny cockpit and I feel completely confident.' And I was really thankful to life for bringing me this experience," Piccard said at a news conference after he landed. "It's maybe this is one of the most fantastic experiences of life I've had."
KILIS - Two rockets hit the Turkish town of Kilis near the Syrian border on Sunday, wounding some people, a Reuters witness at the scene reported.

There were no dead reported and ambulances were rushing to the scene. Kilis has been repeatedly struck by rocket fire from an area of Syria controlled by Islamic State militants.
Tens of thousands of people visited Israel's nature reserves and national parks on Sunday, the first day of Chol HaMoed, with some sites reaching full capacity and closing their gates and heavy traffic felt throughout the country.

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The popular Nature and Parks Authority sites were the Ein Gedi nature reserve, the Caesarea national park, the Ein Feshkha nature reserve, the Eshkol National Park and Gan HaShlosha National Park.

Visitors at the Kinneret (Photo: Kinneret Authority)

The popular KKL-JNF sites were the Biriya Forest and Ein Zeitim, Goren Park in the upper Galilee, the Gilboa Forests, the Ramot Menashe Biosphere Reserve, the Ben Shemen Forest, the Forest of the Martyrs, and the Haruvit Forest.

Hundreds also participated in a hike on the new scenic trail at the Naftali Mountains Forest in the Golan Heights to see the blooming flowers.

Hikers enjoying the bloom at the Naftali Mountains Forest (Photo: KKL)

KKL-JNF foresters are offering free guided tours in the Bar'am Forest in the upper Galilee, the HaBesor Stream's scenic trail and in areas of the western Negev.

Traffic jams all across the country (Photo: Ofer Meir)

Eight of the Kinneret's (Sea of Galilee) beaches were closed to new visitors after reaching full capacity. Around noontime, there were close to 70,000 visitors on the lake's shores.

Visitors at the Kinneret (Photo: Kinneret Authority)

Many visitors sought to escape the high temperatures at northern Israel's different streams in the Golan Heights, the upper Galilee and the western Galilee. The Indie Park site on the Jordan River, near Yesud HaMa'ala, also closed due to overcrowdedness.







In Haifa, an estimated 10,000 people attended the 26th International Children's Theater Festival that offered plays and street performances by 10 international groups. The festival is expected to hold some 200 different events.

Street performance in Haifa (Photo: Haifa Theater)

Special events for teenagers are being held at the Auditorium in the Carmel, which include performances, workshops, dance parties and more. In addition, all of the museums in the city and the Carmel Zoo are free of charge.
The Nazareth District Court ruled Sunday that land tenders in Afula, in which only Arabs won, was illegal due to price-fixing.

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The winner's opponents claimed that the former illegaly coordinated their bids, as they submitted the same proposal: NIS 255,555. Forty six people out of 300 participants won a tender for 43 units. Following their win demonstrations erupted in the city in December against the Israel Lands Administration and against the Afula's mayor Yitzhak Meron.

The court's ruling does not include reference to the ethnicity of the winners. The judge noted that contrary to the position of the Land Authority, which claimed that the coordination of prices was due to familiarity and kinship among the bidders, about close to 20 bidders were using "a unifying identity" - the engineer Muhammed Mokary - who told the group that 255,555 is his lucky number. All members of Mokary Group submitted their bids together through his firm, and the bank guarantee was delivered through the office.

The judge, Nazareth's District Court President Avraham Avraham, noted that this is undoubtedly a unifying factor that incorporated another smaller group, with which it coordinated prices. A third group, stated the judge, was associated indirectly, through a bank guarantee, to the Mokary Group.

Protest in Afula, December 2015 (Photo: George Ginsberg)

The judge also held that the appeal committee of the Israel Lands Authority (on whose decision the lawsuit is based upon) erred when it did not deal with this claim as a unifying factor, he added, "Coordination between bidders causes a serious damage to the principle of equality. The bidders joined together to coordinate their proposals, dividing the market between them."

"After we found two flaws in the tender process", the judge ruled, "on the one hand, vague and misleading formulation of the conditions and on the other, improper coordination between the offerers, both of these struck a serious blow to the principle of equality in the tender. My conclusion is that there is no escape from the cancellation of the entire auction."

The judge was asked to consider the claim that the petition was filed with a lack of integrity on the part of the petitioners as the suit was filed because they are Arabs who won a tender in a Jewish city.

"I do not examine the hearts and kidneys of the petitioners. My job is to craft a judgment that seeks to determine the claims that are spread out before me by the petitioners. And all that I can do, and all I have done, is to examine whether these are real arguments - and I found real ones - because of the damage in practice to the principle of equality of tenders, not because of the ethnicity of the Arab respondents."

About 200 residents of Afula demonstrated against the mayor last December after the auction results were announced carrying signs that read, "The mayor wants to build a mosque", "Arabs out", and "we have come to banish the darkness ."
An Israeli amateur birdwatcher accidentally discovered an ancient scarab seal belonging to a senior Egyptian official of the Thirteenth Pharaonic dynasty dating as far back as the 18th century BCE, researchers at Haifa University announced on Sunday.

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Alexander Ternopolsky was birdwatching near the Tel Dor archaeological site on Israels Carmel Coast, where an ongoing excavation of the ancient port city of Dor is taking place, when he happened upon the incredible find. Ternopolsky immediately handed it over to the archeological team working at the site.

Ancient scarab seal discovered near Mt. Carmel (Photo: Tel Dor Excavations)

According to Haifa University, the coastal city of Dor at the foot of Mt. Carmel was a key port city for thousands of years. Until the Romans built Caesarea, Dor was the most important commercial center in area and a trading base for spices, resin, and other commodities that were highly valued by the ancient Egyptians. The city was even mentioned in several ancient Egyptian documents dating back 3500 years.

A preliminary study concluded that the stone scarab is engraved with the name of its owner as well as his position. The description of the scarab owners position includes such phrases such as overseer of the treasury, bearer of the seal, and more, but the owners name has not yet been deciphered.

The scarab must have belonged to a very senior figure in the kingdom, probably the viceroy responsible for the royal treasury, explains Prof. Ayelet Gilboa from the Department of Archeology at Haifa University, who is heading the excavations at Tel Dor together with Prof. Ilan Sharon from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

The excavators suggest several theories explaining how the scarab might have reached Tel Dor. The first is that either a representative of the viceroy or the viceroy himself may have come to Dor.

Another option is that the scarab arrived at Dor at a much later stage, perhaps even during the Roman period, when there was demand for such Egyptian antiques.

Since the scarab rolled down from the mound and was not found in its archeological context, we will probably never really know when and how it got here and where it has been, said Prof. Gilboa.
India has a developed economic relationship with the Gulf monarchies, and has lately invested in re-furbishing of political ties. The most vivid example of this was the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the UAE recently, and earlier that of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Saudi Arabia, which yielded the important gain of Riyadh helping us apprehend leading terrorists.

These Sunni Gulf states have traditionally had strong ties with Pakistan. With Shia Iran too, for a number of years, New Delhi has cultivated a productive bilateral relationship and is engaged in the construction of the Chabahar port, a facility of geostrategic significance. Indeed, military ties with Israel have also been nourished to mutual satisfaction.

This is the diplomatic backdrop in which India looks ready to dispatch a flotilla of warships in early May, which will be engaged in displaying Indian capabilities in the region, and is slated to make port calls in Dubai in the UAE, Bahrain and Oman. A separate ship of war will call at Bandar Abbas in Iran. It will be short-sighted to read this entire schema as showing the flag, or a projection of military power, the present-day equivalent of what used to be known as gunboat diplomacy. Indias foreign policy postulates and postures are simply not geared towards intervening militarily in this region of vital strategic significance to us as a supplier of oil which also plays host to some eight million Indian workers and professionals.

Properly speaking, the purpose of this naval exuberance appears to be no more than letting the regional states know that we do possess some capabilities of a military kind, and could conceivably become partners with states in West Asia in the defence field in the future, possibly even cooperating in joint defence production.

However, Indian policy-makers will do well not to lose sight of the fact that the Gulf states are heavily committed with the Americans as far as their defence goes. They are not likely to be in any need of military coordination with a country like India in the foreseeable future. Any military kinetics involving India in this region cannot even be a distant thought.

Of course, the US is pressing India to sign up as a strategic ally through the inking of foundational agreements. The first of these, the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement, was keenly discussed during the visit of US defence secretary Ashton Carter earlier this month. It is not unlikely that sending off a flotilla of naval vessels to the Gulf in an area of strong US military engagement links to the notion of an early equation with the Americans. Is India also signalling China, for instance? Doubtful. Indian claims to naval power projection are unlikely to be taken too seriously.
Sundar Lal Maurya, a cook by profession, is enjoying the glory that has come his way because of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav.

A promise fulfilled?

Five years ago, when she came to power, Mamata Banerjee had promised that she would turn Darjeeling into Switzerland, Digha into Goa and Kolkata into London. Over the months and years, the first two promises virtually escaped the collective memory of the people of West Bengal. However, Ms Banerjees vow to make West Bengals capital into the British capital has remained a topic of discussion in the city, sometimes evoking levity, and sometimes derision.

Not only Ms Banerjee, even her detractors would not have imagined that her promise to make Kolkata into London of the East would boomerang so badly. On March 31, the Vivekananda Road flyover came crashing down, killing over two dozen innocent people.

Ms Banerjee did not waste time in blaming the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the predecessor Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government during whose tenure the contract for the construction of the ill-fated flyover was given to the Hyderabad-based company IVRCL.

However, very soon it became clear that the use of sub-standard construction material and the rush to complete the flyover before the polls were the main reasons for the collapse. I dont understand what all this outcry is about. Why do we not realise that Didi has fulfilled her promise and turned Kolkata into London and that is the reason why bridges are falling down, a wag quipped, referring to the famous nursery rhyme London Bridge is falling down.

Cooking up dreams

Sundar Lal Maurya, a cook by profession, is enjoying the glory that has come his way because of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav.

Mr Maurya, who works as a cook in the Yadav household, has asked Tipu Bhaiyya  as Mr Yadav is fondly called at home  to get a bridge that would link his village Sunva in Faizabad district to the main road over the river Saryu.

This week, Mr Yadav went to Faizabad to inaugurate the bridge and in his speech he said that it was on the insistence of Mr Maurya that he got the bridge constructed. Mr Yadav also laid the foundation stone for setting up a government girls intermediate college as well as a community health centre in Mr Mauryas native village.

With Mr Yadav acknowledging Mr Mauryas contribution to the development in his village, the sun now refuses to set in the Maurya household.

Sher Bahadur Singh, the head of the Sunva village, says, Maurya could have asked for something for himself or his family but chose development over his personal gains and that is what makes him a good neta.

The people of Sunva are already planning to ask Mr Maurya to contest the next Assembly elections from their area and, if that happens, it will be another addition to the Yadav clan in politics because the cook proudly says that he is treated like a family member.

Hitting

Hitting the bullseye

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal is known for cracking crafty jokes that are often laced with political undertones.

While addressing an international conclave at India Habitat Centre on Delhi traffic and environment issues on April 19, Mr Kejriwal did not miss the chance to utilise the occasion to pitch for votes in favour of his Aam Aadmi Party in the forthcoming Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) polls.

Many people are expressing their concern over the pedestrians and cyclists not getting their due share on Delhi roads Let me tell you that the PWD roads under Delhi government are now being redesigned to address the requirements of all sections of people, including the pedestrians and cyclists. But we cant do much about the MCD since MCD is not under our control now. Let our party win the MCD polls, we will take care of those roads.

He continued, Mosquito menace is another big problem for Delhiites. Let me also clarify that this is again the responsibility of the MCD authorities. Once we win MCD polls, we will certainly look into it. The audience read between the lines and even cheered for all his cryptic observations.

Mr Kejriwal, knowing fully well that he had hit the bullseye, flashed a mischievous smile at mediapersons who were left wondering how he managed the double business at the conclave  interaction with the delegates and wooing the locals for MCD polls.

STUMPED

Achche din?

Prem Chand Prasad, the former private secretary of Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, has resurfaced in Lutyens Delhi.

Mr Prasad, whose name had also cropped up in the multi-crore Vyapam scam, has been missing in action in Madhya Pradesh for almost two years now and the buzz in state Bharatiya Janata Party circles and the state secretariat was that he was lying low.

The alleged scam had brought a bad name to the BJP government as well as Mr Chouhan, who, along with some of his family members, was accused of being involved in the scam by the Opposition Congress. But lately Mr Prasad, who was considered a close confidant of Mr Chouhan, has been seen by many in Lutyens Delhi, which has given rise to speculation that he has got some indication that perhaps his achche din have arrived.

Stumped by Swarup

A recent weekly briefing by the ministry of external affairs (MEA) had its lighter moments. It all started when one journalist wanted to put two questions to MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup. Mr Swarup then replied that only one question per person was allowed.

But I didnt attend the last briefing. So can I ask two questions, joked the journalist. No. You cant. Questions cant be carried forward, said Mr Swarup with a broad smile. It was then that another journalist jumped in, saying, You can always have a second innings, implying that permission should be granted to all to ask a second question.

But it was the MEA spokesperson who had the last word. This isnt a Test match. This is T20, replied Mr Swarup. It was an answer that left the journalist stumped.

A sweet beginning

The bitterness between the Delhi police and the Aam Aadmi Party government is gradually coming to an end thanks to newly-appointed police chief Alok Kumar Verma who is taking a series of measures to ensure timely redressal is provided by the men in khaki to the grievances of the elected representatives in the national capital.

Unlike his predecessor B.S. Bassi, who was engaged in a bitter verbal war with the AAP leadership over a host of contentious issues, Mr Verma has not interacted with the media so far. Instead, he has told his officers to be in regular touch with AAP legislators and Bharatiya Janata Party MPs and ensure their complaints are well attended to on time.

Not only this, Mr Verma has given standing instructions to the joint commissioner of traffic police to also take the help of the local police during the second phase of the 15-day odd-even car rationing scheme that will come to an end on April 30.

Some within police circles feel that Mr Vermas focus is to ensure that law and order prevails in the city. Thats precisely why he wants to help legislators at the local level, so that there is no social disorder in the city. Also, he was overwhelmed when the AAP government had announced compensation of Rs 1 crore for those policemen who end up losing their lives while on duty.

Lets see what the new police chief has to offer in future in order to change the Delhi polices unfriendly equation with the AAP.

Jhadu story

The jhadu story

Chhattisgarh agriculture minister Brijmohan Agrawal, a close associate-turned-rival of chief minister Raman Singh, has created a ripple in ruling Bharatiya Janata Party circles in the state by making a carefully crafted bizarre remark while addressing partymen in Raipur on the occasion of the BJPs foundation day on April 6.

I started my political career with a jhadu (broom), he had observed while narrating how he did not hesitate to sweep the floors of the party office in his initial days in the BJP. His remarks had compelled many in the gathering to read between the lines.

With rumours of his growing proximity to Chhattisgarh Aam Aadmi Party convenor Sanket Thakur making the rounds in the BJP, some wondered if Mr Agrawal was looking for greener pastures in the Arvind Kejriwal-led party by narrating the jhadu story. Some others saw it as a last-ditch effort by him to catch Prime Minister Narendra Modis attention by cultivating a sweepers image for him to relate to Mr Modis tea-seller to PM story.

Mr Singhs followers appeared unfazed. It was, after all, a saffron broom, not the Kejriwal jhadu that Mr Agrawal sought to brandish, they quipped.
Washington: April 22 was Earth Day 2016 and the heat is on. A team of researchers has revealed that when it comes to global warming, just half a degree matters a lot.

European researchers have found substantially different climate change impacts for a global warming of 1.5 degree C and 2 degree C by 2100, the two temperature limits included in the Paris climate agreement.

The additional 0.5 degree C would mean a 10-cm-higher global sea-level rise by 2100, longer heat waves and would result in virtually all tropical coral reefs being at risk.

Lead author Carl Schleussner said, "We found significant differences for all the impacts we considered. We analysed the climate models used in the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)] Fifth Assessment Report, focusing on the projected impacts at 1.5 degree C and 2 degree C warming at the regional level. We considered 11 different indicators including extreme weather events, water availability, crop yields, coral reef degradation and sea-level rise."

The team, with researchers from Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands, identified a number of hotspots around the globe where projected climate impacts at 2 degree C are significantly more severe than at 1.5 degree C.

One of these is the Mediterranean region, which is already suffering from climate change-induced drying. With a global temperature increase of 1.5 degree C, the availability of fresh water in the region would be about 10 percent lower than in the late 20th century. In a 2 degree C world, the researchers project this reduction to double to about 20 percent.

In tropical regions, the half-a-degree difference in global temperature could have detrimental consequences for crop yields, particularly in Central America and West Africa. On average, local tropical maize and wheat yields would reduce twice as much at 2 degree C compared to a 1.5 degree C temperature increase.

Tropical regions would bear the brunt of the impacts of an additional 0.5 degreeC of global warming by the end of the century, with warm spells lasting up to 50% longer in a 2 degreeC world than at 1.5 degreeC. "For heat-related extremes, the additional 0.5 degreeC increase marks the difference between events at the upper limit of present-day natural variability and a new climate regime, particularly in tropical regions," explains Schleussner.

The additional warming would also affect tropical coral reefs. Limiting warming to 1.5 degreeC would provide a window of opportunity for some tropical coral reefs to adapt to climate change. In contrast, a 2 degreeC temperature increase by 2100 would put virtually all of these ecosystems at risk of severe degradation due to coral bleaching.

On a global scale, the researchers anticipate sea level to rise about 50 cm by 2100 in a 2 degreeC warmer world, 10 cm more than for 1.5 degree C warming. "Sea level rise will slow down during the 21st century only under a 1.5 degree C scenario," explains Schleussner.

Senior scientist William Hare said that the results add to a growing body of evidence showing that climate risks occur at lower levels than previously thought. It provides scientific evidence to support the call by vulnerable countries, such as the Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States, that a 1.5 degreeC warming limit would substantially reduce the impacts of climate change.

The research is published in Earth System Dynamics.

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The companies in September agreed to bury all patent infringement litigations against each other, settling 18 cases in the United States and Germany

Mumbai: Microsoft Corp and Alphabet Inc's Google have reached a deal to withdraw all the regulatory complaints against each other, the companies told Reuters.

"Microsoft has agreed to withdraw its regulatory complaints against Google, reflecting our changing legal priorities. We will continue to focus on competing vigorously for business and for customers," a Microsoft spokesperson said in an email.

Google, in a separate email, said the companies would want to compete vigorously based on the merits of their products, not in "legal proceedings".

The companies in September agreed to bury all patent infringement litigations against each other, settling 18 cases in the United States and Germany.

"... Following our patent agreement, we've now agreed to withdraw regulatory complaints against one another," Google said on Friday.

Google's rivals had reached out to US regulators alleging that the Internet services company unfairly uses its Android system to win online advertising, people with knowledge of matter told Reuters last year.

The European Commission also accused Google last year of distorting internet search results to favor its shopping service, harming both rivals and consumers.

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Mumbai: The US Justice Department on Friday dropped its effort to force Apple Inc to help unlock an iPhone in a drug case in New York after someone provided authorities the passcode to access the device.

In a letter filed in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, prosecutors said that investigators late on Thursday used that passcode to access the iPhone at issue, and as a result "no longer needs Apple's assistance."

The letter marked a sudden end to a closely watched case, in which the Justice Department had been appealing a ruling by a federal magistrate judge holding that he could not force Apple to assist authorities.

The case gained further significance after prosecutors in March dropped a similar effort to force Apple to help access an iPhone used by one of the shooters in December's San Bernardino killings, after a third party provided a way to crack it.

Justice Department spokeswoman Emily Pierce said the cases have "never been about setting a court precedent; they are about law enforcement's ability and need to access evidence on devices pursuant to lawful court orders and search warrants."

An Apple spokesman declined comment. Previously, the company had argued in court that prosecutors had not provided any evidence to bolster their claim that they had exhausted other methods to get data from the phone. Apple said it was not even clear that they had asked the suspect and his associates.

Though officials said the passcode had just come to light, the development marks the second time the federal government has dropped a contentious fight over the extent of its power over private companies after Apple pressed it to say what methods it had tried.

Prosecutors had been challenging a Feb. 29 ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge James Orenstein holding he did not have the authority to order Apple to disable the security of an iPhone seized in a drug probe.

The case predated the government effort to force Apple to help access the phone of Rizwan Farook, one of the two killers in the San Bernardino massacre, which left 14 people dead and 22 wounded.

While the Justice Department dropped that bid after a third party provided a way to access the San Bernardino phone - apparently for more than $1 million - it continued appealing Orenstein's ruling.

FBI Director James Comey has said that the method used on the San Bernardino iPhone 5c would not work on other models, including the iPhone 5s, the type in the Brooklyn case.

The phone belonged to Jun Feng, who has pleaded guilty to participation in a methamphetamine distribution conspiracy, which prosecutors are continuing to investigate.

Unlike the phone used in San Bernardino, Feng's phone had an older operating system, iOS 7, which is not protected under the same encryption technology, which is why Apple could access it.

Apple has some 70 times before the Brooklyn case emerged helped authorities access data on iPhones, according to court filings.

The company changed its stance last year after the New York magistrate invited them to argue whether the Justice Department was stretching the more than 200-year-old and very general All Writs Act, which compels help executing warrants, to include more active assistance.

Apple said prosecutors were going too far, especially since Congress had more recently limited what communications providers could be compelled to do.

Magistrate Orenstein agreed. Though prosecutors have continued to push for mandated cooperation, in many cases under seal, Apple has been objecting and appealing.

The New York case has drawn less attention than the one in California, but the fact that a ruling favorable to Apple has been allowed to stand gives it more significance going forward.

While the FBI is continuing to fight in other courts, more attention has turned to a draft bill by leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee that would force all manner of companies to turn over unencrypted data when served with a court order.

The majority of the technology industry bitterly opposes the measure, arguing that requiring back doors would make all communication more vulnerable to hackers and that US citizens and companies would simply get their encryption from providers in other countries.

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Guwahati: Over 40,000 people have been affected and 1,000 hectares of crop land inundated by flood waters following pre-monsoon rains for the past one week in Assam, officials said on Sunday.

Four districts -- Lakhimpur, Jorhat, Sivsagar and Charaideo -- have been inundated by flood waters, the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) said, adding that 42,658 people were hit.

The army, the National Disaster Response Force and the State Disaster Response Force helped in rescue and relief operations to help the marooned people in Chairaideo.

Chief Secretary V.K. Pipersenia reviewed the flood situation with officials in Guwahati and with all the deputy commissioners through video conferencing.

He asked them to keep a close watch on the flood situation.

Pipersenia also reviewed the preparedness of various departments and availability of medicines and essential drugs in the health and family welfare department.

The chief secretary also directed the water resources department, the PWD (national highways division) and the National Highways Authority of India to jointly inspect the damaged NH-53 at Panchgram near Hailakandi in the Barak Valley.

The Central Water Commission said the Burhidehing river in Khowang in Dibrugarh district and the Desang river in Sivasagar districts were flowing above the danger level.

The Regional Meteorological Centre at Borjhar near Guwahati said the situation was likely to improve after Monday.
Patna: Stray incidents of violence, in which one person was killed, marred the first phase of the three-tier Bihar panchayat polls which recorded a 55 per cent voter turnout.

A presiding officer also died of heart attack at Patori block of Samastipur district but the polling process was not affected, state election commissioner said.

One person was killed when two groups clashed with firearms at Daulatpura village in Hishua block of Nawada district while a few others sustained injuries, the SEC A K Chauhan said.

Nawada SDPO Sanjay Kumar Pandey said the deceased was identified as Sunil Kumar Singh and three person who also sustained injuries in the clash were admitted to a hospital.

Chauhan said Prof Anupam Kumar deputed as presiding officer at polling station number 185 of Patori block of Samastipur district had a heart attack in the morning and was hospitalised where he died.

The incident did not affect the polling as the presiding officer was replaced, he said.

The polling by and large passed off peacefully and a total of 55 per cent of voters' turnout was recorded in the first phase, Chauhan told reporters.

He said the voting percentage may slightly increase once the final figures reach the Commission.

Polling in first phase was held in 60 blocks of 38 districts where 55 per cent of 61,25,167 voters exercised their franchise, he said.

Altogether 310 persons were arrested, while 16 vehicles and 10.8 litres of illicit liquor were seized, the SEC said.

Chauhan said the Commission received reports of destruction of ballot papers from Gaya and Jamui districts.

Some people forcibly put ballot papers in the ballot box at a polling station in Kormathu panchayat of Gaya district, he said, adding that a few ballot papers were missing while there is a report of seal of a ballot box being broken.

It has been learnt that some naxalites attacked a polling station in Chakai block of Jamui district and threw ballot papers into a well, he said.

"We have sought report from District Magistrates in both the cases. Repolling will be ordered only after going through the reports," Chauhan said.
Patna: This is interesting. A couple who had been separated for 16 years, made up because of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar.

Vijanti Devi, 50, parted ways from her husband Govind Singh in 2003 because of his drinking habit.

As per a report in India Today, Vijanti was subjected to domestic violence due to Singh's drinking habits.

"I was subjected to domestic violence daily because of my husband's drinking habits, when it was impossible to take any more, I separated from him," she was quoted as saying by the website.

However, Singh, 58, a resident of Bihar's Rohtas district, got a chance to reunite with his wife after the recent prohibition imposed in Bihar.

Vijanti had not spoken to Singh over the past 16 years but decided to him a second chance after prohibition helped him stay away from booze.

The report further says that the couple decided to re-marry after their daughter Guddi, who was one year old when her parents had separated, convinced her mother.

The re-marriage of Vijanti and Govind took place on April 18 in Rohtas's Mohhaddiganj.

"I was fed up with my husband's drinking habits. I separated from him because of his drinking. After prohibition there is hope once again that he won't drink. I thank Nitish Kumar for this," Vijanti says.

On the other hand, Guddi is quoted as saying, "Usually it's the parents who distribute wedding invite of their children but its vice versa for me."
Patna: Union Minister Ramvilas Paswan on Sunday mocked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for appealing to non-BJP parties to make a 'Sangh-mukt Bharat' and dubbed the latter as a "fine actor".

"What a fine actor he is! He did not see anything wrong with the BJP/RSS during his association with them for 17 years. Now he is singing a different tune and wants to make the country Sangh-mukt," the LJP supremo told reporters.

The Bihar Chief Minister must be complimented for being good at acting, Paswan, whose party is an ally of the BJP-led NDA at the Centre, said sarcastically.

The Union Food and Consumer Affairs Minister also rapped Kumar on the prohibition issue claiming it was he who had set up liquor shops in all corners of the state and made people addicted to liquor by making it available at their door steps over the past decade.

"If liquor is so bad for health as you have realised now,you must owe an explanation to people for making liquor available in all corners of Bihar," he said.

On JD(U) and RJD describing Kumar as 'PM material', Paswan said it is "frivolous".

He said the people of Bihar have given Kumar a mandate to make the state 'crime-free', but there have been "spurt" in murder and related crimes ever since the Grand Alliance government came to power six months ago.

"Even the policemen are not safe in Bihar any longer with several police officers being killed at the hands of the gun-wielding criminals," the LJP supremo said.

He asked the Chief Minister to "improve" the law and order situation in the state first before "nursing" national ambition.
Patna: LJP chief and Union minister Ramvilas Paswan on Sunday said he will sit on a dharna here tomorrow demanding rollback of the decision to ban toddy under total prohibition as he lent support to the Pasi community which is up in arms against the move.

"I will sit on dharna at Gardanibagh at 2 PM tomorrow in support of the toddy on 'toddy' (juice made from palm tree) cultivators and traders as it is their sole source of livelihood for ages which the Nitish Kumar government has tried to muzzle by banning toddy under total prohibition in Bihar," Paswan told reporters.

Describing toddy as "juice" and not liqour, he questioned the Nitish Kumar government's wisdom in banning the traditional beverage, the cultivation and sale of which has sustained families of the Pasi community for generations.

He demanded that the state government withdraw the decision, otherwise many people might have to commit commit suicide in fear loss of their only source of livelihood.

Paswan, the Union Food and Consumer Affairs Minister, defended consumption of toddy in raw form before sunshine, saying the juice was good for health, a view that even Mahatma Gandhi held.

He said RJD supremo Lalu Prasad as Chief Minister had kept toddy out of the Excise Act in 1991 allowing free trade of this traditional beverage.

The LJP supremo questioned Prasad for his silence over the incumbent Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's decision to ban sale of toddy altogether at public places.

"Why is Lalu Prasad not speaking on the toddy issue when he had himself lifted all restrictions on its sale long ago as the then chief minister in 1991?" Paswan asked.

The state government has banned the sale of toddy at public places as part of prohibition in Bihar, but backed trade of 'Nira' (pure juice of palm tree) in organised manner.
atna: A huge fire broke out in Bihar's Darbhanga district on Sunday, killing at least two people and destroying scores of houses.

According to media reports, more than 700 houses, spreading across several villages, were gutted in the blaze. At least two elderly people have died of heart attack as the raging blaze engulfed their homes.

It took several hours by fire fighters to douse the inferno. The cause of the fire was not immediately known.

Several people have also sustained burn injuries.

According to District Magistrate Chandrashekhar Singh, the fire blazed in Khaparpura, Kolhanda, Patori and Ramtol villages, mostly thatched structures.

About half a dozen cattle were also charred to death, Singh said adding, he along with relief and rescue teams were camping at the affected villages.

Food packets were being distributed among the affected people, while damage to properties was assessed for distribution of ex-gratia among them, the DM said.

This is the third such incident in the state in less than a month.

About a week ago, at least a dozen people were killed when a fire broke out in a house during a function. Majority of the victims were from the same family.

The Bihar government had announced a compensation of Rs 4 lakh each to the families of the victims.

In another fire incident on April 16, a petrol pump in Bihar's Rohtas district was gutted in a blaze.

There was no casualty but the facility was destroyed.

Meanwhile, Bihar continued to sizzle under intense heatwave today even though mercury dipped marginally at several places, including capital town Patna, even as MeT department forecast the weather conditions to prevail for the next 24 hours.

Patna remained the hottest place in Bihar for a second day today with maximum temperature at 41.1 degrees Celsius against 43.3 degrees Celsius yesterday, while Gaya recorded the highest day temperature at 41.1 degrees Celsius, a weather department official said.

The maximum temperature in Bhagalpur stood at 40.4 degrees Celsius down by one degree Celsius since yesterday, while Purnea recorded a peak time temperature at 40.5 degrees Celsius against 38.9 yesterday, they said.
Lauren Hawes said yesterday that she, her mother Angela Dent and her 1-year-old daughter hid in a neighbor's house barely escaping with their lives while her father, Wayne Anthony Hawes, 50, went on a bloody rampage and killed five people, including her grandmother and cousin. (Photo: AP)

Atlanta: The daughter of a northeast Georgia man suspected of shooting five people to death before killing himself says her father was a "ticking time bomb."

Lauren Hawes said yesterday that she, her mother Angela Dent and her 1-year-old daughter hid in a neighbor's house barely escaping with their lives while her father, Wayne Anthony Hawes, 50, went on a bloody rampage and killed five people, including her grandmother and cousin.

"He made threats before, but we never thought it would be at this capacity," Lauren Hawes said. "He's been kind of a ticking time bomb if you want to put in a few words."

Capt Andy Shedd of the Columbia County Sheriff's Office said in a statement that the Friday night shootings stemmed from a domestic dispute that left three men and two women dead at two separate locations within about a mile of each other.

The body of shooting suspect Hawes was recovered Saturday by authorities in his home in Appling. Lauren Hawes, 26, confirmed that the bloodshed was connected to a domestic dispute between her parents: her mother had walked out on her father just a week ago.

Angela Dent had left before but this time, she took her possessions with her to prevent Hawes from destroying them as he had done in the past.

After Dent's departure, Wayne Hawes bottomed out emotionally.

"He's done things that were questionable in the past, but never to this extent. This is very surprising. We thought he could possibly hurt himself, but not others," said Lauren Hawes.

The rampage began Friday evening, when sheriff deputies responded to a home at about 8 p.m. and found three victims. Authorities then were called to a second home nearby, where two other victims were found.

"We believe the two shootings were related based on witness accounts," Shedd said. When authorities reached Hawes' house and entered, they found him dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. They also found evidence that he attempted to set the house on fire.

The victims were identified as Roosevelt Burns, 75; Rheba Mae Dent, 85; Trequila Clark, 31; Lizzy Williams, 59; and her husband Shelly Williams, 62. One of the female victims died on the way to the hospital, Shedd said. The others were dead at the scene.

"We believe some of the victims were related to the suspect's wife," Shedd said.
New Delhi: A 76-year-old retired vice principal of a government school in Delhi was killed while resisting a robbery bid at his house, police said, suspecting someone known to the victim to be behind the incident.

Pratap Singh Dahiya's body was found lying in a pool of blood by his domestic maid at his house in Satyawati Colony in Ashok Vihar area of north Delhi on Sunday morning.

The maid then raised an alarm, and police were informed around 9.30 a.m.

"Dahiya's body was recovered from the store room on the ground floor of his two-storey house. His hands were tied with a rope and his head was smashed against a wall which might be the cause of his death," Deputy Commissioner of Police Vijay Singh told IANS.

"Robbery could be the reason behind the act as the house was ransacked. But we are yet to find the details of valuables missing from the house," the officer said.

After the initial inquiry, police said they could not find any signs of forcible entry into the house which raised the suspicion that the assailant might have been known to the victim.

The police officer said Dahiya, who retired from the Keshav Puram government school situated a few kilometres from his house, was registered in the Delhi Police senior citizens list.

Dahiya, father of four children -- a son and three daughters, was killed just three days after an area police officer visited his house to enquire about his health and other problems.

After registration of the elderly citizen with the Delhi Police senior citizens cell, an area police officer has to visit the house of the elderly at least once in a month to give them better sense of safety and security.

Police said Dahiya was living alone in his house as his wife Narayani Devi, a former principal of a government school in Bharat Nagar in north Delhi, had gone to the US to meet their son and two daughters who have settled there after getting US citizenship.

Dahiya's third daughter, who lives in Rohini in north Delhi, also went to the US along with her mother a few days ago.

A case under charges of murder and voluntarily causing hurt while committing robbery have been registered at Bharat Nagar police station.

Police said they were probing the case from all angles -- including robbery and personal enmity.

"We have detained several people," DCP Vijay Singh said.
Shimla: Goa is all set to launch seaplane and amphibian rides for tourists, a top state government official said here on Sunday.

"We are soon going to start seaplane service to give an aerial view of the picturesque destinations," Goa tourism director Sanjeev C. Gauns Dessai told IANS.

He said there is much demand for air rides among tourists.

"We are awaiting clearance from the central government. Once we get the permission, we will start the seaplanes," he said.

Each plane with eight people on board can land and fly from the sea. These planes will land on the Mandovi river, giving tourists the opportunity to catch glimpses of the backwaters.

Goa is flanked by the Arabian Sea on the west and the Sahyadri mountains on the east and is criss-crossed by several rivers.

Dessai, who was here to participate in a three-day exposition of Himachal Pradesh tourism industry that concluded on Sunday, said the government is also to start amphibian buses that can run on roads as well as float on water.

"Such vehicles will be the first of its kind in India and, of course, unique in giving 'Go Goa' experience. Even this state (Himachal Pradesh) can start amphibian buses to attract more tourists," he said.

An amphibian bus, common in Singapore and London, costing about Rs.2 crore and with a capacity to carry 32 people, will run on both road and water.

These vehicles have been manufactured in Goa with technological collaboration from the US.

Goa, with a population of 1.5 million and spread over 3,702 sq km, attracts 45 lakh domestic and five lakh foreign tourists annually.

The visitors mainly come from Russia, Britain and Germany.

The state tourist department last year added hot air balloon, motorised paragliding and helicopter services to its portfolio to offer tourists aerial view of the popular destinations in the state.


Washington: If you don't remember your way around, then it could be an early sign of Alzheimer's disease, according to a recent study.

Long before Alzheimer's disease can be diagnosed clinically, increasing difficulties building cognitive maps of new surroundings may herald the eventual clinical onset of the disorder, finds the Washington University study.

Senior author Denise Head said that these findings suggest that navigational tasks designed to assess a cognitive mapping strategy could represent a powerful new tool for detecting the very earliest Alzheimer's disease-related changes in cognition.

She added that the spatial navigation task used in this study to assess cognitive map skills was more sensitive at detecting preclinical Alzheimer's disease than the standard psychometric task of episodic memory.

The cognitive findings from this study are consistent with where in the brain the ill effects of Alzheimer's disease first surface, as well as with the progression of the disease to other brain regions.

"Our observations suggest a progression such that preclinical Alzheimer's disease is characterized by hippocampal atrophy and associated cognitive mapping difficulties, particularly during the learning phase," said first author Samantha Allison. "As the disease progresses, cognitive mapping deficits worsen, the caudate becomes involved, and route learning deficits emerge."

The study is published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.
Washington: Stoking controversy, Republican governor of US state of Maine Paul LePage has said that Indian workers were the "worst" and the "hardest" ones to understand.

As per a report in The Times of India, in his address to the Maine Republican convention, Page alleged that foreign workers are being used in local restaurants.

This was where the party selected its delegates for the July national convention, 

LePage also said that one had to get an interpreter to talk to an Indian.

However, he described Indians as "lovely" people too.

Page's remarks came a day after Republican presidential front runner Donald Trump used fake Indian accent to mock a call centre representative in India.

The billionaire from New York had said that he called up his credit card company to find out whether their customer support is based in the US or overseas.

"Guess what, you're talking to a person from India. How the hell does that work?" he had told his supporters in Delaware.

"So I called up, under the guise I'm checking on my card, I said, 'Where are you from?'" Trump had said and then he copied the response from the call center in a fake Indian accent.

"We are from India," Trump had impersonated the response, as per PTI.

"Oh great, that's wonderful," he had said as he pretended to hang up the phone.

However, at the same time, he had described India as a great place, asserting that he is not angry with Indian leaders.

"India is great place. I am not upset with other leaders. I am upset with our leaders for being so stupid," he had said.

"I am not angry with China. I am not angry at Japan. I am not angry with Vietnam, India. All these countries," he had added.

Trump had mentioned the fake call to India during his remarks on what he described as "crooked banking."

Delaware, is a hub for the America's banking and credit- card industry.

Topping the list include Bank of America, Citibank Delaware, M&T Bank and PNC Financial Services Group.

"They are making a lot of money," he had said.

"You can't allow policies that allows China, Mexico, Japan, Vietnam, India. You can?t allow policies that allows business to be ripped out of the United States like candy from a baby," Trump had said in his address.

"The manufacturing jobs are being stolen. Our jobs are being taken. We are losing at every front. There is nothing good. Our country does not win anymore. The jobs are being stripped. Factories are closing. We are not going to let this happen anymore," he had further said.

(With PTI inputs)
Washington: A day after US Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump mocked Indian BPO employees for their accent, Republican governor of US state of Maine Paul LePage on Saturday said, Indian workers are the "worst" and "hardest" to understand, stirring another controversy by his party members in this election cycle.

In his address to the Maine Republican convention, wherein the party selected its delegates for the July national convention, Page alleged that foreign workers are being used in local restaurants.

LePage said workers from India are "hardest" and "the worst ones" to understand and one has to get an interpreter to talk to an Indian. However, he then quickly described Indians as "lovely" people.

LaPage's remarks came a day after Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump mocked Indian call centres but described India as a "great place".

However, both LePage and Trump suffered a setback at the Maine Convention, which elected 19 of the 23 delegates who are Cruz supporters.

Maine is a small northeastern state in the US.

In his speech, LePage was highly critical of Cruz, accusing him of "stabbing us in the back".

"We reached a deal with Cruz's national campaign to put up a unity slate that would honour the wishes of the thousands of Mainers who voted at caucus. But Cruz's Northeast Political

Director David Sawyer lied to us and broke the deal. Sawyer stabbed us in the back, reneged on the unity slate and betrayed the people of Maine," he said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Cruz notched up more delegates than Trump yesterday. He won at least 65 of the 94 delegates up for grabs over the weekend. As of yesterday, Trump had 845 delegates against 559 of Cruz.

A candidate needs to have at least 1,237 delegates to earn the Republican presidential nomination.

Primaries are still to be held in 15 states, with the next round of primaries to be held in Maryland, Delaware, Philadelphia, Rhode Island and Connecticut on Tuesday.

Polls show that Trump is leading in all these states. (With PTI inputs)
New Delhi: Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen has said that one don't have to be a critic of Islam to get killed in Bangladesh, because Islamists would kill you even for writing poetry or playing Sitar.

Conflict in Bangladesh is between secularism and Islamic fundamentalism. Atheist, rationalist and secularist bloggers are being murdered in the country, she said, adding Bangladesh has laws against blasphemy, but those criticising Islam and atheists are being harassed.

Addressing a rationalist conference in the Estonian capital of Tallin, the author called for pressurising the Bangladesh government to protect the rights and lives of atheist bloggers.

She said that Islam must go through an enlightenment process that other religions have gone through. I hope secular movement will develop in Bangladesh to bring about laws based on equality, Nasreen said.

She condemned the killing of professor Rezaul Karim by Islamists and said Atheist bloggers are not around, all left the country, or hiding. So Islamists killing secular progressive people.

Referring to her own situation in her native country, she said, In 1990s, Islamists issued fatwa against me, and Bangladesh government protected them not me.
Aligarh: In a major incident of violence in Aligarh Muslim University campus, one ex-student was shot dead after clashes broke out between two groups.

Reportedly, the proctor's office was also set on fire.

The violence took place on Saturday night.

Sources say firearms were openly used inside the campus.

Reportedly, the student's death was a result of gang war in the university campus.

Heavy security has been deployed at AMU campus in the wake of clash.
Srinagar/New Delhi: The flow of suspected hawala funds from Gulf countries is adding to the woes of security agencies in Kashmir Vallley as the illegal money is reported to be mainly used for creating infrastructure for radicalization of youths in a bid to wean them away from centuries old Sufi tradition.

As new religious institutions dot several parts of the Kashmir Valley, they have been attracting youths more where, according to the security assessments, the young men are indoctrinated with the type of religion being followed by likes of banned ISIS and al-Qaeda terror groups.

The new trend has left many religious heads, who refused to come on record, worrying as they believe that the new generation of youth is being weaned away from Sufi tradition that has been followed in the Valley for centuries.

A senior security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said while older generation families offer prayers at their traditional mosques, the youth prefer to pray at the new religious places which have been built in the last couple of years.

As questions crop up over the funding for new mosques, the Army, Police and central security agencies believe that large amount of illegal funds are been pumped into the Valley from Gulf countries and they apparently go unchecked.

"The funds come in small amounts to avoid detection. Besides we believe that certain business houses having their establishment in these countries, overinvoice their products and pass on the surplus funds," a senior police official said.

During various stone-pelting incidents in the Valley, the security agencies have seen "ISIS-JK" flags coming soon being waved by miscreants. "While we hope this is a publicity stunt but at the same time, we are closely watching it," a senior police official said.

The recent spurt in growth of large number of local militants can be attributed to this new trend and change in mindset of sections of the younger generation who have become more hostile, is also a general observation across the board among all wings of security agencies.

This large inflow of hawala funds from Gulf countries and more Kashmiri youths getting sucked into militancy are dangerously stoking terrorism in the Valley in a fresh test for security forces in their anti-militancy operations.
New Delhi: Hindu fundamentalists are becoming dangerous in India and the country needs to separate religion from the state, famed Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasrin has said.

In a series of tweets from a conference in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, the author also said that India needs one law for all.

She also highlighted the problems faced by women and said that India has become one of the most dangerous countries for women.

She also said that secular feminist movement is starting in India but has a lot to do.

Noting that feminism is not the property of the west, she said that many women oppose me when I support women's rights. They think God decides best.

Feminism has long opposed religion. Religion is patriarchal through and through, she added.
Delhi: The Congress said on Sunday that it was the duty of the judiciary to decide if Ishrat Jahan was a terrorist or not.

Addressing the press in the national capital, senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal said, "Ishrat and three other were killed in an encounter. There was a magisterial enquiry, which found that this encounter was 'fake'. All four were killed by the Gujarat Police. They were killed in close range. When the matter reached the Gujarat HC an SIT was constituted."

"The Gujarat government under Shri Modi nominated a member in the SIT as well. SIT even said this was a 'fake encounter'. The matter went to the CBI, who then filed a chargesheet in 2013. Even they called it a 'fake encounter'. The chargesheet was filled in 2013, for an encounter in 2013. We are in 2016 and the case hasn't moved forward at all," he added.

"We want to ask why is this case not proceeding," Sibal questioned.

He further said, "There is statement by Deputy SP Goswami. It states - That time Rajendra Kumar told DG Vanzara talk to CM about it, Shri Vanzara told he would talk to 'white beard' and 'black beard' and thereafter I came out of chamber of Shri Vanzara, PP Pandey also came out. On 14th June 2014, I along with G Singhal went to chamber of DG Vanzara. GL Singhal was disagreed regarding the draft complaint as there was something to do about a girl Ishrat. but, Vanzara was adamant. Shri Vanzara also told that he approved from CM, Deputy SP said - I went to Shri Vanzara asking him to agree with what Shri Singhal wanted, but he refused saying everything was decided, he had already got the green signal from 'black beard' and 'white beard'. This is a statement under Section 164 under CrPC. If this goes to trial, then they people mentioned are liable to be questioned."

"This is why the last three months has seen a tsunami of misinformation and people were asking if Ishrat Jahan was a terrorist or not. It is the duty of the judiciary to decide if she was a terrorist or not. But three investigations, magisterial, SIT and CBI, have called this a 'fake encounter'. We demand that in the the next six months the trial is completed. The accused put in the dock and appropriate punishments given. If a person is innocent, then let the court exonerate him," Sibal said.

At the same time he questioned, "What is happening? The accused are all out on bail. Pandey, an accused and out on bail is now acting DG of Police. Singhal got a promotion. Vanzara has retired and saying that he might enter politics. The officers who were caught on tape trying to save the accused are now a part of the CBI."

On his part, another Congress leader, Abhishek Manu Singhvi maintained. "If this trial goes to court Shri Modi and Shri Shah (BJP president Amit Shah) may be summoned as accused. This entire campaign of misinformation is based on the statement of Mr Headley who has become paragon of virtue as far as BJP is concerned. It was the UPA which tried fully and executed terrorists like Kasab and Afzal. We are proud that unlike our neighbours we give a full trial to those whom we think are terrorist. But, we don't execute them in 'fake encounters'."

But three investigations, Magisterial, SIT & CBI, have called this a 'Fake Encounter': @KapilSibal  INC India (@INCIndia) April 24, 2016

If this trial goes to court Shri Modi & Shri Shah may be summoned as accused: Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi  INC India (@INCIndia) April 24, 2016

Meanwhile, it was reported on April 22 that a one-man inquiry panel of the Home Ministry, probing the missing files related to the case of alleged fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan, has been asked to expedite its work and finish the task at the earliest.

Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi is believed to have told Additional Secretary in the Home Ministry BK Prasad to speed up the probe and file a report at the earliest as the government may have to face queries of MPs in the coming session of Parliament beginning Monday, official sources said.

Top Home Ministry officials are of the opinion that the files were misplaced and could be found if a concerted effort is made.

Prasad, a Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officer, is retiring on May 31 and the government wants the task given to him to be completed as early as possible.

Government does not want any delay in finding the files and wants a quick report and Prasad has been told this in clear terms, the sources said, as per PTI.

The panel, constituted on March 14 following an uproar in Parliament, was asked to inquire into the circumstances in which the files related to the case of Ishrat Jahan, who was killed in an alleged fake encounter in Gujarat in 2004, went missing.

The panel was asked to find out the person responsible for keeping the files and relevant issues.

The papers which went missing from the Home Ministry include the copy of an affidavit vetted by the Attorney General and submitted in the Gujarat High Court in 2009 and the draft of the second affidavit vetted by the AG on which changes were made.

Two letters written by the then Home Secretary GK Pillai to the then Attorney General late GE Vahanvati and the copy of the draft affidavit have so far been untraceable.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh had disclosed in Parliament on March 10 that the files were missing.

The first affidavit was filed on the basis of inputs from Maharashtra and Gujarat Police besides the Intelligence Bureau where it was said the 19-year-old girl from Mumbai outskirts was a Lashkar-e-Taiba activist but it was ignored in the second affidavit, Home Ministry officials said.

The second affidavit, claimed to have been drafted by the then Home Minister P Chidambaram, said there was no conclusive evidence to prove that Ishrat was a terrorist, the officials said.

Pillai had claimed that as Home Minister, Chidambaram had recalled the file a month after the original affidavit, which described Ishrat and her slain aides as LeT operatives, was filed in the court.

Subsequently, Chidambaram had said Pillai is equally responsible for the change in affidavit.

Ishrat, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in an encounter with Gujarat Police on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.

The Gujarat Police had then said those killed in the encounters were LeT terrorists and had landed in Gujarat to kill the then Chief Minister Modi.

(With PTI inputs)
In his address to the Maine Republican convention, wherein the party selected its delegates for the July national convention, Page alleged that foreign workers are being used in local restaurants. (Photo: AP)

Washington: Indian workers are the "worst" and "hardest" to understand, Republican governor of US state of Maine Paul LePage said, stirring another controversy by his party members in this election cycle.

In his address to the Maine Republican convention, wherein the party selected its delegates for the July national convention, Page alleged that foreign workers are being used in local restaurants.

LePage said workers from India are "hardest" and "the worst ones" to understand and one has to get an interpreter to talk to an Indian. However, he then quickly described Indians as "lovely" people.

LaPage's remarks came a day after Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump mocked Indian call centres but described India as a "great place".

However, both LePage and Trump suffered a setback at the Maine Convention, which elected 19 of the 23 delegates who are Cruz supporters.

Maine is a small northeastern state in the US. In his speech, LePage was highly critical of Cruz, accusing him of "stabbing us in the back".

"We reached a deal with Cruz's national campaign to put up a unity slate that would honour the wishes of the thousands of Mainers who voted at caucus. But Cruz's Northeast Political Director David Sawyer lied to us and broke the deal. Sawyer stabbed us in the back, reneged on the unity slate and betrayed the people of Maine," he said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Cruz notched up more delegates than Trump yesterday. He won at least 65 of the 94 delegates up for grabs over the weekend.

As of yesterday, Trump had 845 delegates against 559 of Cruz.

A candidate needs to have at least 1,237 delegates to earn the Republican presidential nomination.

Primaries are still to be held in 15 states, with the next round of primaries to be held in Maryland, Delaware, Philadelphia, Rhode Island and Connecticut on Tuesday.

Polls show that Trump is leading in all these states.
Mumbai: A major controversy erupted after JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar alleged that he was assaulted on a Jet Airways flight to Pune on Sunday morning in Mumbai.

Kanhaiya alleged that a man tried to strangulate him. According to Kanhaiya Kumar, Manas Deka, who works in TCS and a strong BJP supporter, assaulted him.

However, a police official from Mumbai Sahar police has revealed an altogether different story.

'It was a seat issue'

"From the preliminary inquiry it has been learnt that the co-passenger had a window seat and while taking the seat he bumped into Kanhaiya Kumar," a police official said, according to a report in Hindustan Times.

'No assault or fight took place'

"They pushed each other, but there was nothing like an assault or a fight," the police official added.

However, police say that they can ascertain anything only after recording of statements of flight crew and the two involved in the incident.
New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union President Kanhaiya Kumar on Sunday alleged that a fellow flyer in Jet Airways flight, whom he claims was a BJP supporter, physically assaulted him.

Taking to Twitter, Kumar wrote, Yet again, this time inside the aircraft, a man tries to strangulate me.

Yet again, this time inside the aircraft, a man tries to strangulate me.  Kanhaiya Kumar (@kanhaiyajnusu) April 24, 2016

After the incident Jet Airways staff completely refuses to take any action against the man who assaulted me, he said adding, Basically Jet Airways sees no difference between someone who assaults nd d person who is assaulted. They will deplane you, if you complain.

After the incident @jetairways staff completely refuses to take any action against the man who assaulted me.  Kanhaiya Kumar (@kanhaiyajnusu) April 24, 2016

Basically @jetairways sees no difference between someone who assaults nd d person who is assaulted. They will deplane you, if you complain.  Kanhaiya Kumar (@kanhaiyajnusu) April 24, 2016

Manas Deka, works in TCS, a strong BJP supporter assaulted me inside the aircraft. Is assault the only tool you have, to fight dissent?  Kanhaiya Kumar (@kanhaiyajnusu) April 24, 2016

Meanwhile, Jet Airways issued a statement that the safety and security of the guests and crew is always of prime importance to them.

Some guests on board this morning's flight Mumbai to Pune were off loaded at Mumbai airport in interest of operational safety, read the statement.

A man identified as Manas Jyoti Deka has been detained in connection with the incident, police said, adding no FIR has been so far registered.

"A person has been detained for allegedly attacking Kanahiya onboard a Pune-bound flight. The matter is being probed further," a senior police official said.

Denying his claims, Joint Commissioner of Police, Deven Bharti said, "Kanhaiya Kumar has not lodged any complaint despite request from Senior Inspector.Whatever has been alleged by his friend, in our inquiry we've found it not to be true."

The man's attempt to attack Kanhaiya was evaded by his colleagues who were on the same flight, according to All India Students' Federation national president Syed Waliullah Kadri.

"Kanhaiya, I and two others from JNU had boarded the flight from Mumbai. This man suddenly got up and tried to attack Kanhaiya," Kadri claimed.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra Minister of State for Home Ram Shinde asserted that there was no attack on Kanhaiya.

"The police report says that fighting between two passengers led to scuffle. Kanhaiya's allegations (are) baseless," Shinde said.

This is not the first time that Kanhaiya has been assaulted as several attempts have been made in the past on the fiery student leader, who shot to fame after his arrest and release on sedition charges for organising an event at Delhi`s Jawaharlal Nehru University to mark the anniversary of the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, where anti-India slogans were allegedly raised.

Earlier, slippers, shoes were hurled at Kanhaiya in Nagpur where he was addressing a public meeting on the occasion of 125th birth anniversary of BR Ambedkar.

On the same day, some men reportedly belonging to Bajrang Dal attacked Kanhaiya`s car when he arrived in the city.

(With Agency inputs)
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday addressed the nation through his popular radio programme 'Mann Ki Baat'.

PM Modi addressed the nation on a number of issues ranging from water crisis to education. He also thanked citizens for giving up LPG subsidy for the needy.

Water conservation

PM Modi pitched for water conservation efforts in the coming monsoon so as to avert water shortages faced this time around in different parts of the country.

"Can we have a water conservation campaign in village after village this time? People should clean their ponds this year to enhance their storage capacity and farmers may use the pond soil as top layer in their fields. This will help their crops too," he said in the 19th edition of his `Mann Ki Baat` address broadcast by All India Radio.

"Ever since the information that there will be more than normal monsoon this year, people have been excited as the news has brought peace and joy for everyone. Our people must use the opportunity to conserve maximum water this season," Modi said.

PM lauds Railways for water train

He also appreciated the Indian Railways and the common man in battling the drought-like situation in parts of the country.

"The railways was swift in sending water to Latur (in Maharashtra). It is very commendable. But there are many water conservation initiatives taken by common people across the country which never receive due recognition," the prime minister said.

Modi gave the example of Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra where farmers have stopped producing crops which require substantive quantities of water.

"The farmers have decided not to produce sugarcane. They have switched to fruit and vegetables which require less water," the prime minister added.

Modi asked the people to take inspiration from villages in Porbandar area of Gujarat where people preserved rainwater in underground tanks in their houses.

'Quality education is need of the hour'

PM Narendra Modi on Sunday said that the government should now focus on quality education.

In his 19th radio address `Mann ki Baat`, Modi said that every government has worked to improve education in the country in their own way.

"So far, the government was focussed on spreading education across the country. But the time has come to shift focus on quality education. Now, the government should emphasise more on learning rather than schooling," Modi said.

PM thanked citizens for giving up LPG subsidy

"I want to congratulate those one crore families who gave up their subsidies. It is not a small thing," he said in his monthly `Mann ki Baat` broadcast on All India Radio.

The prime minister recalled how he had urged people to give up the subsidy on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

Moreover, over 80 percent of small-income families of pensioners, farmers, school teachers and shopkeepers, forming the overwhelming bulk of those who surrendered the subsidy, chose to do so by visiting LPG distributors.

"They did not avail of the option of surrender available on mobile apps, online or by simply giving a missed call," he said.

"I want to congratulate those one crore families who gave up their subsidies. It is not a small thing," he said in his monthly `Mann ki Baat` broadcast on All India Radio.

The prime minister recalled how he had urged people to give up the subsidy on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

Moreover, over 80 percent of small-income families of pensioners, farmers, school teachers and shopkeepers, forming the overwhelming bulk of those who surrendered the subsidy, chose to do so by visiting LPG distributors.

"They did not avail of the option of surrender available on mobile apps, online or by simply giving a missed call," he said.
New Delhi: Union Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptullah on Sunday supported BJP's firebrand leader Giriraj Singh's remark in which he had proposed a law in the country that same number of children should be allowed for families across religions whether Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian.

Speaking to ANI, Heptullah said, Giriraj ji has said it now. But I have been a votary of small family with two children for long.

I have three children myself, and I am also a culprit. Had there been two-child limit back then, I too would have stuck to it, revealed Heptullah, who is a Muslim herself.

Giriraj drew a massive flak when he had said, Hindus should have two sons, Muslims, too, should have two sons. Our population is coming down. Bihar has seven such districts where our population has gone down. Population rules have to be changed, only then will our daughters be safe. Otherwise, like Pakistan, we too will have to keep our daughters under the veil.

There should be such a law in the country that same number of children should be allowed for families across religions whether Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian. The population policy should be the same for all. And if you want our country to be a developed nation, population control is necessary," he added.

The Opposition had condemned his remarks, stating his basic purpose is to create a "divide" between the Hindus and the Muslims for "short term political gains"

(With PTI inputs)
New Delhi: Former CPM general secretary Prakash Karat on Sunday filed a complaint against Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Derek O`Brien for showing a "morphed" picture which showed Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh offering sweet to the senior CPI(M) leader.

"The Trinamool Congress has resorted to a very low level tactic by presenting a morphed picture of me and Shri Rajnath Singh. I have had no opportunity to meet Rajnath Singh, but this has been done to politically defame me and my party and show me in bad light among the people," Karat told ANI.

"Since this is a patent case of using a fabricated picture and put on the website, this comes under the cyber offence and I have lodged a complaint with the Delhi police to proceed against Derek O`Brien under the relevant laws," he added.

Meanwhile, CPI leader D. Raja has said the episode proves the party led by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is desperate and afraid of defeat in the assembly polls.

"This shows that the TMC is desperate and it is afraid of impending defeat in the coming elections, otherwise they must not have stooped to such low. The Election Commission should take cognizance of this issue," he added.

O`Brien had called a press conference yesterday in which he showed two videos of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi`s speeches and four photographs, including one that showed Union Home Minister Singh offering sweet to former CPM general secretary Karat.

His press conference was prompted by an earlier one by the Congress, where a 2001 video was aired that showed Mamata Banerjee referring to the BJP as "a natural ally" of the TMC.In response, O`Brien sought to show that the Left and the BJP were "two sides of the same coin".

However, the photograph showed by O` Brien turned out to be "photoshopped" as the BJP later released the "real picture" - in which Rajnath is seen offering sweet to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The TMC removed the photograph from its website, admitting the mistake.However, this did not seem to pacify the BJP, who have threatened to proceed with legal action over the blunder.

"Mamata and the TMC have realised that the ground has slipped from beneath their feet in west Bengal and are resorting to untoward methods. And that is why they showed this morphed picture showing Rajnath feeding a sweet to Karat ji and that too at a BJP office," BJP leader Sidharth Nath Singh told ANI.

"We are working on a legal recourse which will be sorted out tonight and we will take legal action tomorrow. Be it cyber crime or filing an FIR, we will take action on TMC and O`Brien. We will even have him arrested if we have to," Singh said.
Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday met a young girl in Jamshedpur who lost her father in the Patna blast in October 2013.

PM Modi tweeted about the meeting saying, "Felt glad to meet this young girl in Jamshedpur. She lost her father in the Patna blast in October 2013."

Felt glad to meet this young girl in Jamshedpur. She lost her father in the Patna blast in October 2013. pic.twitter.com/fzSct5zhLq  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 24, 2016

The Prime Minister was in Jharkhand today where he made a strong pitch for strengthening democracy at the grassroots level as he asked the gram panchayats to play active role in developmental activities, taking advantage of the immense resources and schemes of his government.

On the 'Panchayat Day', he said in Jamshedpur that the country's progress depends hugely on the development of villages and emphasised the need for bridging the gulf between cities and rural areas by ensuring that all modern day facilities reach even the far off places.

While laying thrust on progress of rural areas, with particular focus on farmers, women-folk and child care, Modi said he wants to leave a legacy after his five-year tenure which would be talked about in terms of exceptional achievement in the years to come.

(With Agency inputs)
Jamshedpur: Amid a shutdown called by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch 'Gramoday Se Bharat Uday Campaign' on the occasion of 'Rashtriya Panchayati Raj Diwas' in Jharkhand on Sunday.

Around three thousand panchayat representatives from all states of the country will participate in this programme.

The Prime Minister will address the gathering, which will be beamed live to all the Gram Sabhas of the country.

On the occasion, he will also give away prestigious awards to states like Kerala, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Sikkim, which have devolved maximum powers to Panchayats so far.

Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, will get awards for having made the maximum progress in aligning their laws to Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act 1996. This award is being given for the first time.

Meanwhile, security has been beefed up at the area as the JMM will reportedly make attempts to disrupt the Prime Minister's event, despite severe warnings of consequences by the district administration.
Jamshedpur: Speaking on the occasion of National Panchayati Raj Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday that according to Mahatma Gandhi India lived in villages and yet facilities there were not at par with cities.

"Government programmes like this were held in Delhi but we have ventured out to the states and organised important programmes in the states. We're making efforts to organise various events for social development at places outside Delhi so that more people can be connected. 'Gramodaya Se Bharat Uday' began from Mhow, where the great Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar was born," the PM said.

"For the first time, we have focused on rural development in our budget. People in villages have shown trust on me for for years. As their representative, I'm determined to do something for them," he added.

PM Modi further said, "Those serving in village should think - I have the opportunity to do something transformative during my tenure and serve my village. So many women are serving in Panchayats. They can show tremendous leadership in matters affecting the villages. I request women representatives in villages to take a resolution to build toilets so that no mother or woman is forced to defecate in open. It is such a shame that despite so much development, women and girls are forced to defecate in open in villages."

"40% women representatives must also take steps to ensure that death of woman during pregnancy should not take place in villages. Steps must be taken to spread awareness in villages to take precautionary measures during pregnancy so that no more a child loses his mother," he advised, and asked, "How many Panchayat representatives take responsibility of ensuring that no child is deprived of poliovirus vaccine? Did we build roads or not, did the budget come or not, we should rise beyond these worries and look at Jan Suvidha."

"When children of a village stop attending schools, it should worry the Panchayat members. Imperative that Panchayat representatives in villages take initiative towards developing public life in villages," PM Modi went on to say.

"Panchayat Raj is a structure, is a democratic system but till steps for public development are not taken nothing can be achieved. I want to ask my Panchayat representatives, can they not share the stress of developing villages along with me?" the PM pointed out.

Panchayati Raj Sammelan was organised on the occasion of National Panchayati Raj Day in Jamshedpur.

PM Modi inaugurated Kisan Single Window Center at event.
New Delhi: JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, who had earlier ruled out campaigning in the West Bengal and Kerala Assembly polls, has now decided to plump for a fellow JNU comrade who is in the fray for the May 16 elections in Kerala.

Ever since he walked out of Tihar jail, where he was lodged in a sedition case over an event on campus, Kanhaiya had been maintaining he was a student and not a "politician" and that he had no plans of campaigning in the Assembly polls.

However, the 29-year-old research scholar says he decided to join the campaign after Muhammed Muhassin, CPI candidate for Pattambi seat in Palakkad, mooted the idea. "He has stood by me, so I decided to hit the campaign trail," Kanhaiya said.

Muhassin, is a student at JNU's School of Social Science (SSS) and is about to complete his PhD in Adult Education. He is also the Vice President of JNU unit of All India Students Federation (AISF), the student wing of Communist Party of India (CPI).

Kanhaiya, who is the first AISF member to be elected JNU Students Union president, was arrested in February in a sedition case over an event on JNU campus against hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru during which anti-national slogans were allegedly raised.

Muhassin, was among those who led the agitation for Kanhaiya's release.

"I still maintain that mainstream politics is not my calling and I have no intention of joining it. I still plan to stick to my goal of being a teacher but with Muhassin it was different. He has stood by JNU, stood by me all the time, I couldn't refuse him," Kanhaiya said.

"And not only me but the entire AISF unit of JNU will support him. Besides, the JNU unit of the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) will also travel to Kerala to campaign for him," he added.

Asked about the campaigning schedule, Muhassin told PTI over phone from Kerala, "Kanhaiya along with the IPTA group and JNU students is expected to be here in the second week of May. He also plans to go to Patna before that where he will address a public meeting. He may also visit his family during the same trip."

After the electrifying speech Kanahaiya delivered on his return to the campus from jail, the CPI-M General secretary Sitaram Yechury had said the student leader would be campaigning for Left parties in the Assembly polls.

However, he later stated that Kanhaiya will not travel to Kerala and West Bengal to campaign citing the bail conditions and other issues. Kanhaiya too had ruled out campaigning, saying mainstream politics is not his calling.

Kanhaiya had campaigned in south Delhi during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and in Begusarai, when his home state Bihar voted last year.
Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has dismissed an application seeking a direction to CBI to arraign former Maharashtra Chief Minister Shivajirao Patil Nilangekar as an accused in the multi-crore Adarsh housing society scam.

Justice Sadhana Jadhav recently dismissed the plea of social activist Pravin Wategaonkar who had sought a direction to CBI to include Nilangekar as an accused in the scam on the ground that he had during his tenure as the state Revenue Minister allegedly illegally granted certain approvals to the Adarsh society.

The petition had alleged that Nilangekar's son-in-law Arun Dawle was allotted a flat in the plush high-rise in south Mumbai.

CBI, in its reply to the application, said that the agency had looked into the alleged role of Nilangekar and others in relation to the scam and that the material unearthed during the course of the investigation did not warrant any action against the former Chief Minister.

The agency said that after its probe into the alleged benami transactions in relation to the scam, CBI has arraigned Arun Dawle and one Sampat Khidse as accused for acquiring flats under benami names.

After hearing arguments of both sides, Justice Jadhav said the court need not interfere when the agency has already looked into the allegations and arrived at a conclusion that no case is made out against Nilangekar.

"This court is of the opinion that courts should normally refrain from interfering with the investigation unless it is apparent on the face of record that the investigation in a particular manner would result into miscarriage of justice," Justice Jadhav said.

Wategaonkar had approached the high court after a special CBI court rejected his application in February last year.
It was designed by Sarah Burton, the creative director of Alexander McQueen. However, Kendall believes she could see some of her own work in the dress. (Photo: AP)

London: A UK bridal designer has launched legal proceedings against a famous fashion house for alleged breach of copyright of sketches she submitted for Kate Middleton's wedding dress nearly five years ago.

Christine Kendall is suing Alexander McQueen, the luxury label behind the dress Kate wore on her big day on April 29, 2011, after spotting similarities between the gown and her own sketches.

Alexander McQueen denies the claim as "ridiculous". "Proceedings have been issued because our client is certain that her company's design was unfairly taken and copied. The claim is not against the duchess and there is no allegation of wrongdoing against the palace," Kendall's solicitor Humna Nadim of the Manchester firm Kuits told 'The Sunday Times'.

The bridal gown, featuring an ivory satin bodice with floral motifs appliqued onto fine silk netting, was a secret until the Duchess of Cambridge stepped from her car to enter Westminster Abbey on her wedding day.

It was designed by Sarah Burton, the creative director of Alexander McQueen. However, Kendall believes she could see some of her own work in the dress.

She had sent ideas with a 1950s theme to Kate five months before the wedding and received a letter of gratitude from the office of Prince William and Prince Harry in January 2011.

A spokesperson for the Duchess of Cambridge told the newspaper this weekend that she had never seen Kendall's sketches.

"We are utterly baffled by this legal claim. Christine Kendall first approached us almost four years ago, when we were clear with her that any suggestion Sarah Burton's design of the royal wedding dress was copied from her designs was nonsense," said a spokesperson for Alexander McQueen.

"Sarah Burton never saw any of Ms Kendall's designs or sketches and did not know of Ms Kendall before Ms Kendall got in touch with us some 13 months after the wedding. We do not know why Ms Kendall has raised this again, but there are no ifs, buts or maybes here: this claim is ridiculous," the spokesperson said.
Mumbai: JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar got a surprise of his life when out of all the people, Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray supported him and criticised his ally BJP for labelling him 'anti-national'.

During a meeting of party office-bearers, Thackeray said The government should thing about who gave birth to Kanhaiya Kumar in the first place. It is wrong to label him 'desdrohi' (anti-national).

Further advising the government to handle issues related to youth with caution, he said, Youth are in huge numbers in our country and therefore Centre must take care. In this way youth will not be able to work freely.

"India has a big population of youths. Instead of giving them proper guidance and directions, the government is "misleading" them, he added and cited the examples of Rohit Vemula (Dalit scholar who committed suicide in Hyderabad University), Hardik Patel (Gujarat Patel quota stir leader who is in jail) and JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar (who has been charged with sedition).

The JNU leader had earlier in the day alleged that a BJP supporter tried to strangulate him in Jet Airways flight.

He also said that the Jet Airways staff refused to take any action against the man who assaulted him.

(With Agency inputs)
Salem: With the election fever at its pitch in Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa does not forget to list the multiple freebies her government has distributed.

The handouts include laptops, mixers, grinders, fans, gold coins and school kits.

As per a report in NDTV, a rough estimate suggests that the state government may have spent close to Rs 21,000 crore on them.

However, the DMK has alleged that the products are substandard.

They have also said that contracts to supply these items were given in an opaque manner.

The report also said that laptops were supplied by Chinese laptop maker Lenovo and have drawn few complaints.

But complaints have been received over malfunctioning of free mixers, grinders and fans, procured by Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation.

The website quoted a family in a village near Salem saying that the moment they plugged in the mixer, its power cord sparked and the appliance died.

On the other hand, the Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation have said that they used multiple companies to source these appliances.

They were also quoted as saying that appliances were procured under strict terms.

The criteria is said to be not just lowest price, but production capacity, bank credentials and past performance of the company.

The website further says that of the companies that supplied fans, only two appeared to be genuine manufacturers - the Hyderabad-based Yash International and Airoware International.

They were registered as separate companies but with a common director and had a functioning website listing various types of fans and confirmed they had supplied to the Tamil Nadu government.

But companies like Chennai-based Arunachala Impex and Bharat Agri International Trading Ltd, which bagged contracts for mixers and fans, described themselves as trading companies.

They procured mixers and fans from manufacturers and sold them to the state government.



An official at Arunachala was quoted by NDTV as saying, "We do all businesses like pulses, electronic goods, geometry boxes etc. We are traders and are eligible to do all business."



However, a person at Bharat Agri declined to comment when asked from where they procured these items.

When TNCS Corporation was asked to clarify an official said that in some cases, contracts for freebies are given to traders who have partnerships with manufacturers who make these appliances at competitive rates.

And, quite often, those manufacturers are based in China.

The companies that had won tenders to supply grinders, at least five out of six were based in Coimbatore.

Almost all were manufacturers.
Meerut: Days after saying that entry of women in the Shani Shingnapur temple will lead to crimes such as rapes against them, Shankaracharya Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati on Sunday claimed that cow slaughter and export of beef have increased since BJP came to power at the Centre.

"Slaughtering of cows is on the increase since BJP came to power. The export of beef has also increased under the BJP government," Swaroopanand, who is on a two-day visit to the city, said.

The Shankaracharya of the Dwarka-Shardapeeth said a total ban should be enforced on cow slaughter and a law be soon enacted in this regard.

At the same time, he also appealed to political parties not to politicize the Ram Mandir issue.

"Ram Mandir in Ayodhya is a responsibly of saints and political parties should not politicize it," he said, as per PTI.

Earlier, the 94-year-old seer had said that women should not have entered the sanctum sanctorum of the Shani Shingnapur temple as it will bring bad luck to them.

New agency ANI had quoted the Shankaracharya as saying - ''women entered Shani temple's inner sanctum, due to this, incidents of rapes will increase further.''

(With Agency inputs)
New Delhi: Expressing disappointment over the Centre's stand on the political turmoil in Uttarakhand, leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad has on the eve of the Budget Session said that the Congress Party may bring a resolution condemning the move of the ruling dispensation.

In an exclusive interview to ETV head Jagdish Chandra, Azad said the Congress Party is tough on this issue.

The state`s `ousted` chief minister Harish Rawat had earlier said he is still expecting a call from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying `let`s forget what has happened in the past and start from the beginning`.

Earlier on Friday, the Supreme Court admitted the Centre`s challenge to the Uttarakhand High Court`s decision and restored President`s rule for the simple and technical reason that the April 21 High Court ruling issued by Uttarakhand Chief Justice K.M. Joseph had not been "made available in the public domain".

The apex court ruled that the High Court`s judgement would "remain in abeyance" till the next date of hearing on April 27.

The apex court also issued directions to the High Court to release the signed judgement by April 26 to all parties involved in the case, who will subsequently file copies before the apex court on April 27.

The Supreme Court also received an oral undertaking from Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi that the Centre would not revoke the President`s rule in Uttarakhand till April 27 and try to impose a BJP regime in the state.

Meanwhile, Azad also that the Congress Party wants the Mehbooba Mufti-led Jammu and Kashir Government to complete its full term.He, however, said that the government should not have interfered on the NIT students` issue.

During the second half of the Budget Session, the BJP-led NDA Government hopes to garner the support of opposition parties in passage of key legislations, including the GST Bill.

Besides, the Bill to replace Enemy Property Ordinance, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and Companies Amendment Bill will also be taken up.

Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan earlier in the day held an all-party meet to discuss ways for smooth functioning of the Parliament.

During the meeting, Mahajan sought cooperation from floor leaders of different parties to ensure smooth transaction of business in the House.
Dehradun: Rebel Congress leader Vijay Bhauguna mocked former chief minister of Uttarakhand Harish Rawat over attending a rally organised on the occasion of Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna's Jayanti and said that the ousted state chief should practice the late leader's ideals.

Bahuguna told ANI that H.N. Bhauguna would never have behaved in an unconstitutional manner the way Rawat-led had conducted itself in the recent past.

"Those who respect Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna I would like to express my gratitude towards them, the thing here to see is that are we following his beliefs? If he would have been the Chief Minister and finance bill proposed by his party would have failed in the house, he would have straight gone to the Governor's residence. The Parliamentary procedure has been out rightly ridiculed in the recent past in Uttarakhand," said Vijay Bhuguna.

"The Chief Minister of Uttarakhand did not step down from his position, rather in partnership with the speaker made sure that people get disqualified before time," he added.

Rawat further vouched for fresh elections and expressed hope that the Supreme Court will not dissolve the President rule.

"The common man here is fully aware and I believe fresh elections should take place. The president rule was imposed rightly in the state. I am sure the Supreme Court will not dissolve thePresident rule," said Bahuguna.

On Friday, the apex court admitted the Centre's challenge to the Uttarakhand High Court's decision and restored President's rule over the state for the simple and technical reason that the April 21 high court ruling issued by Uttarakhand Chief Justice K.M. Joseph had not been "made available in the public domain".

The apex court ruled that the High Court's judgement would "remain in abeyance" till April 27, the next date of hearing.

It also issued directions to the high court to release the signed judgement by April 26 to all parties involved in the case, who will subsequently file copies before the apex court on April 27.

The Supreme Court also received an oral undertaking from Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi that the Centre would not revoke president's rule in Uttarakhand till April 27 and try to impose a BJP regime in the state.
London: US President Barack Obama on Sunday ruled out any plans to send American ground troops in strife- torn Syria, saying it would be a "mistake" to deploy American or British soldiers to overthrow the Bashar al-Assad regime.

Obama, who has been in the UK for a three-day visit which has included a birthday lunch with Queen Elizabeth II and strong interventions in favour of Britain staying within the European Union (EU), said Syria was a "heart-breaking situation of enormous complexity".

"I don't think there are any simple solutions? It would be a mistake for the US, or Great Britain to send in ground troops and overthrow the (Bashar al-) Assad regime," he told the BBC in an interview.

"In order for us to solve the long-term problems in Syria, a military solution alone - and certainly us deploying ground troops - is not going to bring that about," he said.

Obama said the US-led coalition would continue "to strike ISIS (Islamic State) targets in places like Raqqa, and to try to isolate those portions of the country, and lock down those portions of the country that are sending foreign fighters into Europe".

He had earlier said that Europe would be safer with Britain voting to stay in the EU in the June 23 referendum and be able to tackle terrorism more effectively from within.

Obama warned that Brexit could hit Britain economically and take as long as a decade to negotiate a UK-US trade deal.

"It could be five years from now, 10 years from now before we were able to actually get something done. The UK would not be able to negotiate something with the United States faster than the EU. We wouldn't abandon our efforts to negotiate a trade deal with our largest trading partner, the European market," he told BBC.

However, his warning over UK-US trade deals has angered campaigners in favour of leaving the EU, with some describing him as a "lame duck" President who will be out of office soon.

Meanwhile, the Democratic US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton also made it clear this week that she thought it would be a mistake for the UK to leave the union.

But London mayor Boris Johnson, one of the leading voices in the Leave camp, believes the UK could be in a more favourable position to strike a trade deal with the US if it left the EU.

The issue has dominated Obama's UK visit as he leaves for Germany to hold talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel, with the main aim being to win public support in Germany for a planned US-EU free trade deal.
Washington: US President Barack Obama will on Monday announce plans to send up to 250 more military personnel to Syria, according to a senior administration official, intensifying US assistance to rebels as a ceasefire falters.

Obama "tomorrow will announce that he has authorised up to 250 additional forces deploying to Syria," the source said, adding that the president would confirm the deployment in a speech in the northern city of Hanover.

US troops in Syria are mandated to advise and assist Syrian rebel and anti-Islamic State forces.

Obama is currently in Germany for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The pair will be joined Monday by leaders from Britain, France and Italy, a meeting called at Obama`s request and which looks set to focus on the fight against the Islamic State group.

"The president has authorised a series of steps to increase support for our partners in the region, including Iraqi security forces as well as local Syrian forces who are taking the fight to ISIL," said the official.

Obama is set to announce the decision at the Hanover trade fair before the meeting with European leaders.

On Sunday Obama pressed for parties to the Syrian conflict to return the negotiating table and "reinstate" a faltering internationally-brokered ceasefire.

"I spoke to (Russian) President Vladimir Putin early last week to try to make sure that we could reinstate the cessation of hostilities," Obama told a news conference in Germany.

That was the clearest indication yet that the White House believes the increasingly troubled ceasefire has disintegrated as regime and rebel bombardments claimed 26 lives Sunday.

The White House has argued that the ceasefire, while imperfect, is worth pursuing and is the only way out of the brutal five-year war.

But its stance is bringing Washington and its allies into ever more conflict with rebel groups on the ground, which continue to be on the receiving end of regime attacks.

Pressure on Obama is increasing in the United States, which in is the throes of a fiercely fought presidential election race, and from European allies who want to halt a massive influx of refugees.

Many of Obama`s critics have called for a safe zone to be established, something that could bring Western militaries into direct conflict with Russian and Syrian forces already in the area.

Obama insisted that establishing a safe zone "is not a matter of an ideological objection on my part".

"As a practical matter, sadly, it is very difficult to see how it would operate short of us essentially being willing to militarily take over a big chunk of that country."

Obama has come under criticism for his handling of Syria`s war, with opponents saying he could have done more to stem the bloodshed.

But the US president -- who came to power vowing to withdraw US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan -- has stood fast in his opposition to plunging the United States into another ground war in the Muslim world.
District of Columbia: US presidential frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump seek to deliver knockout blows against their rivals in Tuesday`s five high-stakes primaries, with pressure mounting to wrap up the nomination races and pivot toward the general election battle.

Don`t expect the challengers to buckle just yet.

The extraordinary 2016 race has tested American political tradition, with the Democratic and Republican parties taking their nomination battles deep into primary season.

Clinton, aiming to become the nation`s first female commander in chief, faces a resilient liberal Senator Bernie Sanders, whose grassroots campaign to highlight income inequality has mobilised millions of young voters.

But the ex-secretary of state is poised to extend her delegate lead Tuesday when Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island host their primaries.

Pressed Saturday on reports that she has begun her search for a runningmate, Clinton shook her head and replied: "I`m just working hard to win on Tuesday."

Clinton leads in polling in the northeastern states, and if she sweeps all five Sanders will be hard pressed to exit the race.

In Pennsylvania, Clinton turned to the general election, knocking Trump and Republican candidate Ted Cruz and tailoring her message to working-class voters eager to see a return of manufacturing jobs.

"These are not jobs that can be exported, they have to be done right here in Pennsylvania," Clinton told supporters this week in Philadelphia.

Politics professor Terry Madonna of Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania said Sanders is "obstinate" about staying in the race, perhaps to earn a speaking spot at the Democratic convention in July.

Clinton "is the inevitable nominee now and the only question is at what point does she wrap up the magic number" of necessary delegates, Madonna told AFP.

A canopy of drama hangs over the Republican race, where the math points to a contested convention.

That means Trump will have to defy the odds with particularly strong showings through the remainder of the statewide contests if he is to win the nomination outright before the party`s delegates gather in Cleveland in July to pick their nominee.

Snatching most of the Republican delegates at stake April 26 would propel him that much closer to reaching the 1,237 delegates needed to nail down the nomination.

His campaign is increasingly on notice, however, that the provocative celebrity billionaire would need to surpass that number and not merely outperform rivals Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich.

"We aren`t going to hand the nomination to anyone with a plurality, no matter how close they are to 1,237," Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus told an influential gathering in Florida of more than 100 Republican delegates on Friday.

"You need a majority. Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades," he added in an apparent shot at Trump, who has derided the delegate system as "rigged" against him.With the delegates huddling over whether to fight against a Trump nomination or ultimately embrace him, Priebus took aim at conservatives who have said they will not back Trump should he become the flagbearer.

"Politics is a team sport, and we can`t win unless we rally around whoever becomes our nominee," said Priebus.

Trump`s new campaign chief Paul Manafort told the delegates at their Florida retreat Thursday that Trump was entering a new, more professional phase.

"The part he`s been playing, it is evolving into a part that now you`ve been expecting but he wasn`t ready for."

Manafort wooing the very party establishment Trump has been railing against publicly could be seen as an effort to assure them that the demagoguery that made many Republicans wary of Trump was only a persona used to rally frustrated voters to his cause during the primaries.

Cruz had a blunt reaction to Trump`s evolution.

"Donald is telling us he`s lying to us," he told CNN.

The arch-conservative senator is struggling to block Trump`s ascension.

"I do not believe Donald has any path to winning a majority," Cruz told Dana Loesch`s radio show, repeating his assertion that "nobody" will secure 1,237 delegates before the convention`s first ballot.

Cruz says his aim now is to win the nomination on a subsequent ballot, when most delegates will be free to vote for someone other than the candidate they were originally bound to.

He also said he was now looking at Indiana, which votes May 3, as the next anti-Trump firewall.

Professor Madonna said Trump will likely end up between 25 and 100 delegates short of the threshold by the time the Republican primaries conclude on June 7, and that a fierce battle will ensue for the clutch of delegates who head to the convention unbound by any requirement to vote for a specific candidate.

"It`s going to come down to wheeling and dealing with 200 delegates," he said.
Idomeni (Greece): After weeks stranded at a closed border in northern Greece, migrants and refugees are seeking out new, irregular routes to get into Macedonia, clambering through forests and over hills under the cover of darkness.

As dusk fell on Saturday evening, a Reuters witness saw a group of up to 70 people crossing into Macedonia from Greece, at a point where there is no razor wire fence between the two countries. They darted in and out of a forest, hiding from authorities.

It was roughly a 20 km (12 mile), or four hour walk from Idomeni, a sprawling tent city hosting thousands of refugees and migrants stranded by a cascade of border shutdowns throughout the Balkans in February.

Others at the campsite were also mulling their options to leave Idomeni and find vulnerable points along the border to cross into the Balkans, the preferred route to western Europe.

"There is no other solution," said Moutaz, a Syrian from Aleppo.

"Let him (others) put himself in my position, what would he do with this life we are living? Will he be ok with it, what is happening and what he is seeing?"

Human rights organisations say the living conditions at Idomeni are appalling.

Fellow Syrian Eyas from Damascus said he would attempt to cross the Albanian border further west. "There is a chance you will get there through the Macedonia route but the Macedonian military will send you back," he told Reuters.

Some people chance the trek on their own. Others use traffickers, who charge anything between $350 and $600 per person to smuggle people across the border.

A million migrants, many fleeing Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries in conflict in the Middle East, Asia and Africa have poured into Europe through Greece since last year.

There are more than 10,200 people camped out in tents in the fields of Idomeni. Greek authorities have repeatedly urged refugees and migrants to move to organised reception centres elsewhere in the country.

Last month, Turkey and the EU sealed a controversial deal intended to halt the flow of illegal migrants into Greece from Turkey in return for financial and political rewards for Ankara.

There is now growing concern that migrants will increasingly use Italy as their conduit into Europe after the EU-Turkey pact, with more boats coming from North Africa - or even across the Adriatic Sea from the Balkans after the border closures there.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un hailed a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test as an "eye-opening success", state media said Sunday, declaring Pyongyang has the ability to strike Seoul and the US whenever it pleases.

Saturday`s missile launch came amid growing concern that Pyongyang is preparing a fifth nuclear test.

But it was followed just hours later by a North Korean offer to impose a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing if the United States suspends annual military exercises with South Korea.

The US and Britain denounced the SLBM test as a violation of UN Security Council resolutions and called on the North to refrain from further moves that could destabilise the region.

South Korea`s defence ministry said the missile, fired from a submarine in the Sea of Japan, flew around 30 kilometres (18 miles).

The North`s state-run KCNA news agency said the test, personally monitored by Kim, confirmed the reliability of the country`s underwater launching system.

It also cited the young leader as saying Pyongyang was now capable of "hitting the heads of the South Korean puppet forces and the US imperialists anytime as it pleases."

Still images broadcast on state television showed Kim on the deck of the submarine before watching the test through binoculars from shore and meeting the crew and scientists afterwards.

"This eye-opening success constitutes one more precious gift the defence scientists and technicians are presenting to the great leaders and the party," the KCNA quoted Kim as saying.Pictures showed the missile, with "The North Star" emblazoned on it, soar out of the water and fly into the sky, leaving a massive plume of smoke above the sea surface.

State TV also showed what it claimed were underwater images of the missile being ejected from the submarine, using key "cold launch" technology.

North Korea has been pushing to acquire an SLBM capability that would take its nuclear strike threat to a new level, allowing deployment far beyond the Korean peninsula and the potential to retaliate in the event of a nuclear attack.

The isolated country has conducted a number of what it says were successful SLBM tests, but experts had previously question the claims, suggesting Pyongyang had gone little further than a "pop-up" test from a submerged platform.

The latest launch comes as the North gears up for a rare and much-hyped ruling party congress early next month -- the first in 36 years -- at which Kim is expected to take credit for pushing the country`s nuclear and missile weapons programme to new heights.

Many analysts and senior Seoul officials have suggested the regime may carry out a fifth nuclear test as a display of defiance and strength ahead of the May party congress.

In an interview with the Associated Press in New York, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su-Yong said Pyongyang would be willing to halt further tests if Washington announced an end to annual joint military exercises with Seoul.

The annual drills always raise tensions on the Korean peninsula, with the North condemning them as provocative rehearsals for invasion.

The North made exactly the same offer in January last year, when it was flatly rejected by the United States as an "inappropriate" effort to link nuclear testing with regular military exercises.

North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January, followed by a rocket launch a month later that was widely seen as a disguised ballistic missile test.

The UN Security Council responded by slapping its strongest sanctions to date on Pyongyang.

jhw/gh/mtp


The importance of mobile phones to contemporary teenagers was also reflected in Francis's message to the concert. (Photo: AFP)

Vatican City, Holy See: Happiness is not an app you can download on your mobile phone, Pope Francis told thousands of teenagers on Sunday at a mass to mark a weekend dedicated to youth.

"Freedom is not always about doing what you want. In fact it is the gift of being able to choose the right way," he said in a homily punctuated by regular bursts of applause from the crowd on a packed St Peter's Square.

"Your happiness has no price. It cannot be bought and sold: it is not an application you download on a mobile phone. Even the latest version cannot help you to grow and become free in love."

An estimated 70,000 teenagers were in Rome for a weekend of events to celebrate Francis's Jubilee year dedicated to the theme of mercy.

In a surprise move on Saturday, the 79-year-old pontiff heard confessions from 16 of them and a video message from him was broadcast at a rock and rap concert in the Stadio Olimpico.

One of the teenagers chosen to confess to the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics said she had been trembling as she approached the chair on which the pope was sitting in St Peter's Square.

"But as soon as I sat down I had the feeling of being next to a normal person rather than the pope. Francis is really one of us," Anna Taibi, 15, told La Repubblica newspaper.

The Sicilian teenager said she had been touched by Francis's tenderness as he listened to her confession.

"I expected him to give me a penance ... instead he absolved me and let me go."

The importance of mobile phones to contemporary teenagers was also reflected in Francis's message to the concert.

Clutching an iPhone, he told his audience that living without Jesus was like not having any signal. "Always be sure to go where there is a network: family, parish, school," he said.
Marib: Yemeni troops backed by Saudi-led coalition air strikes on Sunday recaptured a southeastern provincial capital held by al Qaeda for the past year and an oil terminal, military sources told AFP.

"We entered the city centre (of Mukalla) and were met by no resistance from Qaeda militants who withdrew west" towards the vast desert in Hadramawt and Shabwa provinces, said the officer, speaking to AFP by phone from the city which the jihadists seized last April.

The officer who requested anonymity told AFP that residents of Mukalla, home to an estimated 200,000 people, had appealed to the jihadists to spare the city the destruction of fighting and pull out.

The Saudi-led Arab coalition battling Iran-backed rebels in Yemen since March 2015 carried out air strikes against Qaeda positions in Mukalla to pave the way for the entry of Yemeni troops, according to military sources.

Troops also recaptured Mina al-Dhaba oil terminal in Shehr, further east, the sources said, while a provincial official in Shabwa said jihadists had fled from the nearby city of Azzan.
YEREVAN, APRIL 23, ARMENPRESS. Many Syrian refugees have integrated in Armenia and our Government has extended a helping hand to them. This was stated by the Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration Vigen Sargsyan during the Aurora Dialogues discussions. People who moved to Armenia from Syria, Iraq, are children of those people, who went through the Armenian Genocide. Syrian refugees have integrated in Armenia. The Government has extended a helping hand and supported them, and provided all documents and responded to their every need, Armenpress reports Sargsyan saying.

The Aurora Dialogues discussions began on April 23 in Yerevan. The discussions are initiated by the 100 LIVES and Aurora Awards. As Armenpress reports, the discussions are being held in the Matenadaran Institute of Ancient Manuscripts of Yerevan. Scientists, philanthropists, media experts, humanitarians and others are participating in the event.

The discussions are dedicated to urgent humanitarian issues and challenges throughout the world.

Through its discussions and Q&As, Aurora Dialogues aims to launch public discussions, which will contribute to forming a better future and learning from the past. Humanitarian issues and refugee crisis will be discussed.
YEREVAN, APRIL 23, ARMENPRESS. The resumption of new military operations by Azerbaijan against the people of Artsakh bears genocidal risks. Director of Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Hayk Demoyan told about this during Against the Crime of Genocide second global forum. Considering all this, the Armenian Armed Forces have assumed the responsibility of preventing the possible genocide. Moreover, international institutions and the UN must also take measures to prevent the possibility of a new genocide by Azerbaijan, Armenpress reports Demoyan saying.

Hayk Demoyan emphasized the fact that 25 years ago the military units of the Soviet Union and the Azerbaijan SSR jointly implemented the Operation Ring which resulted in the death of 100 peaceful civilians, villages were emptied, and 20 thousand Armenians became refugees. Unfortunately, those who were responsible for this act were not punished, conditioned by the change of political realities and the collapse of the Soviet Union. But this was the starting point of hatred against Armenians, which Azerbaijan started to use in the future and now continues to use, Hayk Demoyan stated.

He reminded the participants of the forum that Azerbaijani murderer Ramil Safarov killed Armenian officer during NATO trainings with an axe while the latter was asleep just because he was Armenian. After that tragedy I started to observe the announcement of the Azerbaijani leadership and the public, and I realized that Azerbaijan plans to continue its genocidal policy, Demoyan said.
YEREVAN, APRIL 23, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan and Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon had a phone conversation on April 23. The conversation took place at the initiative of the UN Secretary-General.

As Armenpress was informed from the Department of Public Relations and Mass Media of republic of Armenia Presidents Office, during the conversation Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed regret for the suspension of his visit to Armenia due to unforeseen circumstances.

The Secretary-General, highlighting the peace process of Nagorno Karabakh issue, expressed his full support for the activities of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs.

President Sargsyan, mentioning that the Armenian public has long been looking forward to the visit of the Secretary-General, hoped that it will be possible to rearrange his visit in the near future.
YEREVAN, APRIL 23, ARMENPRESS. The consistent efforts for the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide stop neither before the anniversary of the Genocide, nor during it, and nor after. Foreign Minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandian told about this during the second global forum Against the Crime of Genocide. It is evidenced by the fact that we hold the second global forum Against the Crime of Genocide. This forum grows into a key format for the prevention of genocides. Now we can record that thank to the consolidated efforts of the Armenian people, as well as the international support the Armenian Genocide has become globally known, Armenpress reports Nalbandian mentioning.

The Minister reminded the participants of the forum the words of President Sargsyan during the opening speech, that any genocide in the world must be viewed as a consequence of the failure of international community and its prevention as the responsibility of the entire humanity.

Minister Nalbandian touched upon the issue of Hrant Dink, the 1.5 million and 1st victim of the Genocide. He stated that many Turks rose for justice in Turkey, but the Turkish authorities continue their denialist policy, which is a continuation of the crime.
YEREVAN, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS. The situation is currently calm in the Nagorno Karabkh-Azerbaijan line of contact, in an interview with Armenpress Armenian Defense Minister said this.

Azerbaijani side increases the level of tension and makes ceasefire violations in these days and in memorable days. The tension was escalated by the use of large caliber mortars by Azerbaijan in the northeastern and southeastern directions. Tonight some tensions were recorded, however, the top military officials of the Defense Army control the situation. The staff is in its place, is insecure, safe and implements its tasks. Now the situation is calm, Armenian Defense Minister announced.

According to data received from the NKR Defense Army, Azerbaijan fired artillery strikes from noon of April 23 till the night of April 24 in the Nagorno Karabakh-Azerbaijan line of contact.It is noteworthy that Azerbaijan targeted not only military positions, but also the Mataghis civilian settlement. One Azerbaijani shell hit the village area. Fortunately there are no casualties.
Martinez wrote that, although she should have looked up the rules, the regulation that breast milk was not allowed if the mother was travelling without her baby was incredibly unfair. (Photo: Facebook)

London: Irked over the behaviour of Heathrow airport security staff in London, an upset mother has penned down a heartfelt letter describing how she was forced to dump four gallons of frozen breast milk that she had preserved for her son, according to a report in The Washington Post.

Jessica Coakley Martinez, mother of two, said that she was traveling without her eight-month-old son and was 'humiliated' after she was forced to dump nearly 14.8 litres of preserved breast milk.

In an open letter posed on her Facebook page, she wrote, "You made me dump out nearly two weeks worth of food for my son."

Her complete Facebook post read as follows:

"I normally would not post something this personal, but I do not remember the last time I felt so justly upset.

An Open Letter to Aviation Security in Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport:

Being a working mother is the hardest thing Ive ever done. Trying to manage the logistics of drop-offs and pick-ups and conference calls and meetings and finding the time and energy to make sure both your family and work are getting ample amounts of your care and attention is both challenging and fulfilling, but mostly extremely exhausting and stressful. When youre fortunate enough as I am to have a job that involves travel, its an exciting opportunity, but it comes with even more extreme challenges when you have kids  being away from them, managing care back home from afar, and in my case, figuring out how youre going to feed your 8 month old breastfed baby while youre required to be away for 15 days and travel to eight different cities. For months I pumped and froze milk during the day and in the middle of the night to feed my son with the hopes I would have enough to see him through my time away, but eventually I had to deal with the sense of failure I felt when I realized it wouldnt be enough to nourish him while I traveled, and thus I would have to introduce formula. Formula is perfectly acceptable (I clearly give it to my son), but as we had established a good breastfeeding relationship, it was my first choice and priority. I had also breastfed my first son until a year, so I wanted to give my second son the same.

To help ease the personal guilt, I resolved to pump at every possible moment between my meetings, presentations, business lunches and dinners, taxis, flights, and long waits in airports. This meant pumping while sitting on toilets in public restrooms; stuffed in an airplane bathroom; in unsecured conference rooms, showers, and closets because certain office spaces didnt have a place for a nursing mother  and then dealing with the humiliation when a custodial employee accidentally walked in on me. It meant having to talk about my personal matters (my nursing schedule) with my professional coworkers and my supervisor in order to sneak away to said closet or public bathroom  a discomfort I had to learn how to swallow if I was to supply my son with breast milk. It meant going to each hotel and convincing them to store my giant insulated bags of milk in their restaurant freezers to preserve it. It meant lugging this giant block of frozen breast milk through four countries, airports and security checkpoints and having them pull out every single ounce of breastmilk and use mildly inappropriate sign language to convey "breast" and "milk" so that they would let me through. Which they did. Every one of them. Except you.

You made me dump nearly 500oz of breastmilk in the trash. You made me dump out nearly two weeks worth of food for my son.

I acknowledge my part in this equation. I should have looked up the Civil Aviation rule. You do not allow breastmilk on the plane if the mother is not traveling with her baby  a regulation in and of itself that is incredibly unfair and exclusionary in consideration of all of the other working mothers like me who are required at certain times to spend time away from their baby, but intend to continue to breastfeed them. That being said, more than 300oz of that milk was frozen. Solid. Like a rock. I was willing to let go of the liquid milk. But you also wanted the solid milk because it could melt and become a liquid.

I travel significantly for work and personal leisure. I have two small children and have breastfed them both, bringing frozen breastmilk on plane after plane after plane, including in countries with strict liquid laws. Never have I ever been asked to throw out the milk because it might at some future time become a liquid. In fact, in most of those locations, they simply test the liquid milk as well and let me take it ALL on, liquid or frozen, child or no child with me. The truth is that had I read the Civil Aviation rule regarding liquids, I still would not have checked the bag because by its very definition, a liquid is not a gas or a solid. And since the milk was frozen, it was by all technical definitions a solid, so I had no reason to believe that it wouldnt meet your standards, as it had met the non-liquid standards of dozens of airports around the world on so many of my previous trips,, including four in the past week alone.

I offered to check it. But that wouldnt work either according to you because I had crossed the border and the only way for me to check the bag now was to exit the airport and re-enter  which I was also willing to do. But you wouldnt give me the milk back  because now it was a non-compliant item and needed to be confiscated. It was as if you were almost proud to deny me at every possible point of compromise. Despite my begging, pleading and even crying out of sheer shock and desperation for a solution (which you essentially scoffed at with annoyance), you treated me as if I was trying to smuggle liters of hydrogen peroxide onto the plane. There was no room for discussion; its the law.

And yet how many times have I not taken off my shoes or taken out my laptop or not put my liquids in a quart bag full of 3oz bottles or rather had WAY more than a quart bag full of 3oz bottles? I cant even count the number of times Ive seen people attempt to bring on a unique souvenir that is deemed a potential weapon and theyre sent back out to check it so they can keep it. It happens. A lot.

Airport security is extremely important  it is essential in the worlds current threat environment, and I'm deeply appreciative of the work done by thousands of aviation security workers at airports around the globe; but its not a production line, despite the perception. There is an important place for customer service, judgment and critical thinking, and there are moments that should be treated as opportunities to assist people in their travel when there is ample evidence that an individual or item isnt a threat. I can say this because I've not only seen it, I've experienced it at many airports, domestic and international. Rules and procedures at airport security are rarely universally enforced because similar to police officers, a significant aspect of your job is public trust and engagement, which includes using your judgment regarding appropriate enforcement in complex situations. Such as a mother trying to bring food home for her baby. In fact, after I agreed to dump the liquid milk after being spoken to by a manager, I was asked by a different employee what to do with the milk, as if it was open for discussion. Apparently it wasn't clear to her off the bat, which leads me to believe there are exceptions made in similar situations in the past.

This wasnt some rare bottle of wine or luxury perfume I was trying to negotiate as a carry on. This was deeply personal. This was my sons health and nourishment. This was the money I would now need to spend buying formula that wasnt necessary. This wasnt tomorrows milk; it was two weeks worth of nutrition for my child. And it was the countless hours of my time, my energy, even my dignity in some instances, all driven by my willingness to go to any length to get my child what he needs that you dumped into the trash like a random bottle of travel shampoo and deemed a hazard, simply because I made the completely logical and scientifically supported assumption that a solid isnt a liquid. And your absolute unwillingness to use professional judgment and customer service to make a reasonable exception in the face of equally reasonable circumstances is shameful.

If I acted irate, its because it was the only appropriate reaction I could muster. I now dont have the option to solely breastfeed my son because I dont have enough milk to supply him while Im at work, despite all of my best efforts. Being a working mother and ensuring both my job and my child get exactly what they need is the hardest thing Ive ever done, but you managed to make it nearly impossible in a single afternoon. Security is the priority, but it isnt and shouldnt be your only goal, and it certainly shouldnt punish those you intend to protect. Beyond literally taking food from my childs mouth, you humiliated me and made me feel completely defeated as a professional and a mother. I hope the next time you encounter another mom just trying to make it work and looking for a little help along the way, you consult your conscience (as well as a physical science textbook) and reconsider your options."
Hinkley Point, which EDF is to build in partnership with China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN), will be Britain's first nuclear power plant in decades

France's energy giant EDF will give the final green light to the controversial construction of two nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point in Britain in September, Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron said Sunday.

French President Francois Hollande "has confirmed France's engagement" in the project, and "the final decision on investment could be confirmed in September", Macron said in an interview with weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche.

The final investment decision had been expected in May, but EDF, which is 85 percent owned by the French state, announced a delay on Friday saying it first had to consult with an internal committee as demanded by France's unions. This could set the project back for several months.

"The investment in the two reactors at Hinkley Point will be equivalent to a year of investments by EDF. This won't shake its financial trajectory," Macron added, denying rumours France could pull out of the project.

Macron added that the project would promote French technology in the face of American, Chinese and Russian competition.

Hinkley Point, which EDF is to build in partnership with China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN), will be Britain's first nuclear power plant in decades and is to provide seven percent of its energy needs by 2025.

With a projected cost of 18 billion ($26 billion, 23 billion euros), it will also be one of the world's most expensive nuclear power plants.

Questions have been raised about the financial viability of the project as EDF is struggling with a debt pile of more than 37 billion euros ($42 billion).

On Friday, the French government announced that it would plough three billion euros ($3.4 bn) into the energy provider, as part of a four-billion-euro capital increase.
Vijay Mallya, seen during the US Formula One Grand Prix, at Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas, in October 2015

India's government has revoked former airline boss Vijay Mallya's passport, after he failed to appear before investigators over a loan probe, the foreign ministry said on Sunday.

Mallya, a part-owner of the Force India Formula 1 team who used to run a liquor empire and Kingfisher Airlines, left India on March 2 despite calls for his arrest and is believed to be in Britain.

The 60-year-old, once dubbed the "King of Good Times", had his diplomatic passport suspended earlier this month after he failed to appear before India's financial crimes agency in connection with the loan case.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesman Vikas Swarup said the decision was taken after Mallya's unsatisfactory reply to notices served by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) agency.

"After having considered replies by Vijay Mallya, MEA revokes his passport under Passports Act," Swarup said.

The ED is looking into the finances of Kingfisher Airlines, which ceased operating in 2012 leaving millions of dollars in unpaid bills.

On Monday, an Indian court issued an arrest warrant for Mallya after he failed to appear for questioning at the ED, which is seeking his extradition from Britain.

The agency's investigation relates to loans which the state-run IDBI bank made to Kingfisher Airlines, despite allegedly knowing it was suffering financial troubles -- leading the bank to sustain huge losses.

A group of Indian banks, mostly state-run, are also chasing the embattled tycoon to recover $1.34 billion in unpaid loans.
By Ayla Jean Yackley ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A century after her forebears fled massacres in Turkey for Armenia, Alla has gone the other way, hoping to win Turkish citizenship after leaving her impoverished homeland. She works as a nanny in Turkey but fears deportation, one of thousands of undocumented workers from the former Soviet republic who feel hostage to a decades-old diplomatic dispute. The conflict dates back to the killings of up to 1.5 million Christian Armenians by Ottoman Muslims, which was commemorated on Sunday, with tensions between Armenia and its Turkey-backed neighbour, Azerbaijan, especially amplified this year. "We live in fear they (the Turkish authorities) can kick us out if something happens," said Alla, who did not want her full name published because of her illegal status in Turkey. "When I get home from work, I thank God 1,000 times nothing happened," she said. "If I get citizenship, I won't be afraid." Estimates put the number of Armenians here between 10,000 and 30,000. A bus ticket bringing them from Yerevan to Istanbul and, they hope, a better life costs the equivalent of about $50. Their numbers are dwarfed by the 3 million Syrians and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have fled war. But Armenian migrants feel vulnerable to the changing political winds. Armenia, along with most Western scholars and two dozen nations, says the 1915 massacre was genocide. Turkey accepts that Armenians were killed during the upheaval of World War One but rejects declarations that it was genocide. Animosity between the neighbours, whose border is shut, have flared this month after clashes between Muslim Azerbaijan and Armenian-backed Christian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region inside Azerbaijan that is controlled by ethnic Armenians. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the deaths of Azeris "seared our souls" and blamed Armenia for the outbreak of the worst clashes since a 1994 ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh after a war that killed thousands of people on each side. Turks took to social media to denounce Armenians as "murderers" and proclaim Nagorno-Karabakh "Turkish territory". "We hear rumours they will kick out Armenians because of the Azerbaijan matter," said Alla, 54. "This hate will never end." THREAT OF DEPORTATION Angered by international efforts to deem the century-old killings genocide, Erdogan has threatened to "deport" Armenian migrants. But he has also moved towards reconciliation, expressing condolences over the loss of life and sending a minister to church services marking the centennial last year, and to a commemoration held on Sunday. "We once again respectfully remember the Ottoman Armenians who lost their lives in World War One conditions, and I express my condolences to their children and grandchildren," Erdogan said in a message to the Armenian Patriarchate, according to media reports. In central Istanbul, a few hundred people, clutching carnations and photographs of Armenian luminaries killed in the massacres, held a moment of silence at a grassroots memorial. Nearby a small group protested, holding signs that read: "The genocide is an imperialist lie." Police kept the groups apart. An overwhelming majority of Turks do not believe a genocide occurred. Garo Paylan, who in 2015 became one of three lawmakers of Armenian descent to enter Turkey's parliament in 50 years, this week brandished photographs of Armenian deputies killed in 1915 and demanded the assembly investigate their deaths. "The reason I persist on this 100-year-old issue is because it continues to haunt Turkey," Paylan told Reuters. Turkey cut ties with Armenia in 1993 during war in Nagorno-Karabakh. It agreed to restore relations under protocols in 2009 brokered by the United States, Russia and France but the deal did not have Azerbaijan's blessing and collapsed. "A renewed conflict could potentially draw in Turkey. It is Russian soldiers guarding Armenia's border with Turkey," said Aybars Gorgulu of the Public Policy and Democracy Studies think tank. "Sooner or later Turkey wants to normalise with Armenia." 'WOUNDS' Enmity towards Armenia leaves Turkish citizens of Armenian descent exposed, said Yetvart Danzikyan, editor-in-chief of Agos newspaper, which serves 60,000 Armenians out of a population of 78 million. The community faces pressures such as property seizures, poorly funded schools and sporadic violence. A teenage gunman killed Danzikyan's predecessor, Hrant Dink, in 2007. A court this week began trying senior security officers accused of complicity. "The state always leaves open wounds," Danzikyan said. Alla's family fled strife and starvation that gripped the province of Igdir during World War One and the subsequent War of Independence that forged the modern Turkish Republic in 1923. Her grandparents found refuge across the border in Armenia. Alla now earns $700 a month to support her mother and two children. An adult daughter, who was disabled, died this year. Low-skilled labourers, especially women, struggle in landlocked Armenia, where per-capita income is about $4,000 and unemployment hovers at 17 percent, according to the World Bank. Changes to immigration law in 2014 encouraged some Armenians to seek residency, but they must show large savings and pay fines. Alla said her penalty would amount to four months' wages. New arrivals help sustain a dwindling community that flourished in these lands for four millennia until 1915. Armenian migrants fill the pews of a Protestant house of worship every Sunday to sing exuberant hymns. The basement serves as an informal primary school with 140 immigrants. A volunteer said Turkish authorities turn a blind eye so the school can follow the Armenian educational system. One in three Armenians here does not plan to return home, said Anna Muradyan, a Yerevan-based independent researcher. "They're aging, their children in Turkey have adapted and know Turkish. If Turkey doesn't expel them, they want to stay." (Editing by Nick Tattersall, Timothy Heritage and Ros Russell)
Leave campaigner Nigel Farage has accused the US President of "parroting the Downing Street line" on why the UK should remain in the EU.

The UKIP leader said the "global political class" was "clubbing together" in order to support David Cameron ahead of a referendum on EU membership in June.

It comes after Barack Obama said Britain could have to wait a decade for a free trade deal with the United States if it votes to leave.

Mr Farage told Sky's Murnaghan show: "He said 'We'd be at the back of the queue'.

"Interesting, isn't it? Americans don't use the word 'queue'. They use the word 'line'.

"So he's come over here to parrot the Downing Street line ... He's parroting the Cameron line.

"If a British prime minister was to intervene in a presidential election, America would go absolutely berserk and say this was ridiculous outside interference. I'd rather he said nothing."

Mr Obama used the BBC's Marr Programme to explain why he had given the Remain campaign his support during his three-day official visit.

"For ordinary voters I thought it would be relevant to hear what the President of the United States, who loves the British people and cares deeply about this relationship, has to say about it," he said.

But when questioned about what would happen if Britain was to leave the EU, he said that it would not affect US-UK co-operation on intelligence.

Earlier, US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton joined the battle over Britain's EU future by throwing her support behind the campaign to remain in the European Union.

Mrs Clinton's senior policy adviser Jake Sullivan told the Observer: "Hillary Clinton believes that transatlantic co-operation is essential, and that cooperation is strongest when Europe is united.

"She has always valued a strong United Kingdom in a strong EU. And she values a strong British voice in the EU."

Story continues

Mr Obama has now flown to Germany for the last leg of his tour of the Middle East and Europe, where he will take part in a meeting of the G5.

The President held talks about the fragile Syrian ceasefire with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

He told a joint news conference: "We remain deeply concerned about the upsurge in fighting in Syria over the last several days and we continue to agree that the only real, durable solution is a political solution that moves Syria towards an inclusive government that represents all Syrians."
By David Dolan and Thomas Escritt ISTANBUL/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A prominent Dutch journalist has been detained by Turkish police while on holiday, Dutch officials said on Sunday, a week after she criticized President Tayyip Erdogan in print for clamping down on dissent. Columnist Ebru Umar, who is of Turkish descent and an outspoken critic of Erdogan, was detained by police overnight in Turkey where she was on holiday. She tweeted on Sunday that she had been released but was not allowed to leave the country. In the free newspaper Metro last week, Umar called Erdogan a "dictator" and criticized a Turkish consular official in the Netherlands for asking all Turks there to report incidents of insults against Erdogan in the country. The call was widely criticized and later withdrawn. Erdogan is known for his readiness to take legal action over perceived slurs. At his behest, prosecutors in Germany are pursuing a comedian for mocking him. Critics say Erdogan uses the courts to stifle dissent. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who joined the criticism of the Turkish official's call, said he had spoken with Umar after her arrest. "Had telephone contact with Ebru Umar last night," he said on his official Twitter account on Sunday. A Dutch foreign ministry spokesman said of her detention: "We are aware of this and we are following the situation closely. We are in contact with her." "NO JOKE" On her official Twitter account, Umar tweeted overnight: "Police in front of the door. No joke." She later tweeted that she was being taken to a police station in Kusadasi, a resort town on Turkey's Aegean coast. "Free but under country arrest," she said in a tweet on Sunday afternoon, her first since her arrest 15 hours earlier. Umer's Twitter feed showed she had recently engaged in spirited exchanges with her critics on Twitter. She reposted a tweet from someone claiming to have reported her to the police. Insulting the president is a crime in Turkey punishable by up to four years in jail, but the law had previously been invoked only rarely. Since Edogan became president in 2014, prosecutors have opened more than 1,800 cases against people for insulting him, the justice minister said last month. Those who have faced such suits include journalists, cartoonists, academics and even school children. Erdogan has said he is open to criticism, but draws the line at insults. Germany has decided to allow prosecutors to pursue a case against a German comedian who mocked Erdogan. This decision has angered many Germans, who see it as a sop by Chancellor Angela Merkel to an authoritarian leader. Last year, Turkey deported another Dutch journalist after she was detained on suspicion of aiding Kurdish militants. Born in The Hague to Turkish parents, Umar has been an outspoken critic of militant Islam, first in columns for the website of Theo van Gogh, who was murdered by a radical Islamist in 2004 after making films critical of the religion. Writing in Metro and the critical website GeenStijl, she has denounced headscarves, excessive noise from mosques and what she sees as excessive Dutch tolerance, attracting bulging bags of hate mail from furious critics. (Editing by Tom Heneghan)
Canada's Liberal government is prepared to overhaul the country's laws governing broadcasting, media and cultural industries, with Heritage Minister Melanie Joly announcing Saturday a public consultation on how to "strengthen the creation, discovery and export of Canadian content in a digital world."

"Canada's cultural and creative industries are important drivers of innovation and a vibrant part of our economy," says Joly.

"As we adjust to the realities of rapid technological advances and changing consumer behaviour, I am launching consultations to better understand the challenges and opportunities brought on by this transformation."

Joly told the Globe and Mail newspaper she was willing to change laws such as the Broadcasting Act and the Telecommunications Act, as well as modify the mandates of the CBC and the CRTC  Canada's broadcast regulator.

She added the government could create new laws or agencies based on the feedback by 2017, when she will also prepare a new cultural strategy with International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland.

Netflix as a gamechanger

The CRTC has long had requirements for networks to carry certain amounts of Canadian content. But it cut that quota drastically last year under the Conservative government, after the industry was shaken up by the arrivals of online media services such as Netflix.

Last year, Ottawa eliminated its 55-per-cent requirement for Canadian programming on daytime local TV, with the CRTC saying the protections were no longer relevant in a world of abundance and choice. However, during the weekday prime-time slot, from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., the requirement that 50 per cent of programming be Canadian remains.

Also under the relaxed rules, specialty TV channels  which currently have Canadian content requirements that range from 15 per cent to 85 per cent  will see their CanCon requirements harmonized at 35 per cent overall. There will no longer be specific CanCon requirements for the evening hours on specialty channels.

The regulator's decision is not expected to take effect until 2017. Netflix arrived in Canada in late 2010 and does not have to ensure a quota of Canadian content, which is usually less popular than big-budget U.S content.

Netflix and similar services have shaken up the industry by offering more choices than traditional subscription TV at a bargain price point. The number of Canadians cutting their cable cords, meanwhile, is soaring.
Barack Obama said the US-led coalition would continue "to strike ISIS targets in places like Raqqa, and to try to isolate those portions of the country. (Photo: AP)

London: US President Barack Obama on Sunday ruled out any plans to send American ground troops in strife-torn Syria, saying it would be a "mistake" to deploy American or British soldiers to overthrow the Bashar al-Assad regime.

Obama, who has been in the UK for a three-day visit which has included a birthday lunch with Queen Elizabeth II and strong interventions in favour of Britain staying within the European Union (EU), said Syria was a "heart-breaking situation of enormous complexity".

"I don't think there are any simple solutions. It would be a mistake for the US, or Great Britain to send in ground troops and overthrow the Assad regime," he told the BBC in an interview.

"In order for us to solve the long-term problems in Syria, a military solution alone - and certainly us deploying ground troops - is not going to bring that about," he said.

Obama said the US-led coalition would continue "to strike ISIS targets in places like Raqqa, and to try to isolate those portions of the country, and lock down those portions of the country that are sending foreign fighters into Europe".

He had earlier said that Europe would be safer with Britain voting to stay in the EU in the June 23 referendum and be able to tackle terrorism more effectively from within.

Obama warned that Brexit could hit Britain economically and take as long as a decade to negotiate a UK-US trade deal.

"It could be five years from now, 10 years from now before we were able to actually get something done. The UK would not be able to negotiate something with the United States faster than the EU. We wouldn't abandon our efforts to negotiate a trade deal with our largest trading partner, the European market," he told BBC.

However, his warning over UK-US trade deals has angered campaigners in favour of leaving the EU, with some describing him as a "lame duck" president who will be out of office soon.

Meanwhile, the Democratic US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton also made it clear this week that she thought it would be a mistake for the UK to leave the union.

But London mayor Boris Johnson, one of the leading voices in the Leave camp, believes the UK could be in a more favourable position to strike a trade deal with the US if it left the EU.

The issue has dominated Obama's UK visit as he leaves for Germany to hold talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel, with the main aim being to win public support in Germany for a planned US-EU free trade deal.
By Roberta Rampton and Kylie MacLellan LONDON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama made a bold intervention into the politics of Washington's closest ally on Friday, exhorting Britons to stay in the EU and warning that if they left they would be at "the back of the queue" for a U.S. trade deal. Obama's plea to British voters ahead of a June referendum on membership of the European Union was welcomed by Prime Minister David Cameron and other supporters of the EU, but denounced by those campaigning to leave as meddling in British affairs. Britain's influence on the world stage was "magnified" by its membership of the 28-member bloc, Obama said at a press conference alongside Cameron, who has bet his political future by calling the referendum to put to rest an issue that has divided his own Conservative Party for generations. Rebutting criticism that he was interfering, Obama invoked the cherished "special relationship" between Washington and London. "If one of our best friends is in an organization that enhances their influence and enhances their power and enhances their economy, then I want them to stay in it," Obama said. "Or at least I want to be able to tell them: 'I think this makes you guys bigger players.'" On trade, he took aim at one of the main "Out" arguments -- that Britain could easily negotiate deals and get better terms on its own. The United States would regard a deal with the EU as a higher priority than a separate agreement with a much smaller market such as a stand-alone Britain, Obama said. "It's fair to say that maybe some point down the line there might be a UK-US trade agreement but that's not going to happen anytime soon because our focus is negotiating with a big bloc, the European Union, to get a trade agreement done," Obama said. "And the UK is going to be in the back of the queue, not because we don't have a special relationship but because given the heavy lift on any trade agreement, us having access to a big market with a lot of countries rather than trying to do piecemeal trade agreements is hugely efficient." Cameron said Britain should listen to its friends, and he could not think of any close ally who wanted a Brexit. Obama set out his case in a newspaper article that invoked the interlinked history of the United States and Britain and the tens of thousands of Americans lying in European war graves. "As your friend, I tell you that the EU makes Britain even greater," the headline read. "Together, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union have turned centuries of war in Europe into decades of peace, and worked as one to make this world a safer, better place," Obama wrote. "DOWNRIGHT HYPOCRITICAL" But those campaigning for an "Out" vote in the June 23 referendum were dismissive. London's New York-born Mayor Boris Johnson, a leader of the "Out" campaign from within the Conservative Party widely seen as angling for Cameron's job, said Obama's advice was "incoherent, inconsistent and downright hypocritical". Obama was urging Britain to pool its sovereignty with other nations in a way that the United States would never countenance for itself, Johnson wrote in a newspaper column. He also referred to "the part-Kenyan President's ancestral dislike of the British empire", a comment widely criticized as demeaning the EU debate, and even denounced as "dog-whistle racism" by an opposition Labour politician. Other "Out" campaigners said Obama's views did not matter because this is his last year in office. "Obama doesn't have the authority to deny us a (trade) deal, as he will be long gone before any such proposals are on the table," said Richard Tice, co-founder of Leave.EU, one of several "Out" campaigns. Experts struggled to find a precedent for Obama's direct appeal to British voters. "It is the biggest intervention I can think of by an American president who has turned up in this way and intervened directly in the politics of a Western democracy since the end of the Cold War," said Anand Menon, professor of European politics and foreign affairs at Kings College London. "It is above and beyond what people do in Western democracies. And if you think as I do that it is a fear thing, then it works." Opinion polls suggest that "In" is ahead, but the race is tight and the number of undecided voters is very high. Many U.S. banks and companies fear a Brexit would cause market turmoil, diminish the clout of Washington's strongest European ally, hurt London's global financial hub status, cripple the EU and weaken Western security. The "Out" campaign says such fears are exaggerated and Britain would profit from greater control over its regulation, the ability to make bilateral trade deals and the right to restrict immigration from EU neighbors. Many in the "Out" camp say they are passionate supporters of the special relationship with the United States and think Britain would open itself up to America and to the world if it cut loose from what they regard as the dysfunctional EU. Before talks at Cameron's Downing Street office, Obama and his wife Michelle congratulated Queen Elizabeth, who celebrated her 90th birthday on Thursday. [L5N17P4BN] Prince Philip, Elizabeth's 94-year-old husband, took the wheel of a Range Rover to drive the Obamas to lunch on the territory of Windsor Castle, a royal residence that traces its history back over almost 1,000 years to William the Conqueror. (Additional reporting by London bureau; writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Estelle Shirbon; editing by Peter Graff)
With the Philippines' presidential election quickly approaching on May 9, many Filipinos in B.C. are watching the race closely to see what the outcome could mean for their native country.

Some local Filipino-Canadians are even working to shore up support  among registered voters both here in Canada and in the Philippines  for a popular but controversial candidate referred to by some as the "Philippine Donald Trump."

Rodrigo Duterte, who is leading in the polls, has raised eyebrows for his comments on women and has been accused by some for being responsible for the extrajudicial killings of drug dealers and other criminals during his time as mayor of Davao, the country's fourth largest city.

'Duterte Harry'

"His campaign speeches are punctuated by every swear word in the vernacular," said Leonora Angeles, a professor with UBC's School of Community and Regional Planning who was born in the Philippines.

Angeles said Duterte is not the only controversial candidate. Running for vice-president is Ferdinand (Bongbong) Marcos, the son of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos who was exiled from the country 30 years ago.

The current president Benigno Aquino III, who belongs to the Liberal Party, has served since 2010 and cannot run again because of term limits.

"It tells you how frustrated people are with the corruption and inefficiency of the political system," Angeles said. "It really echoes I think the nostalgia for a strong leader and authoritarian leader, and that's also why Bongbong Marcos is very popular."

Support in Metro Vancouver

That popularity extends to Filipino citizens living overseas who are eligible to vote in the upcoming election.

According to the Philippine Consulate in Vancouver there are more than 200,000 Filipinos living in Western Canada (which includes Alberta, B.C., the Yukon and NWT), and of those, 33,000 are registered to vote.

Grassroots groups that support Duterte have sprung up across Canada, and here in the Lower Mainland a group of FIlipino Canadians formed the Vancouver chapter of the Duterte for President Movement earlier this year.

Story continues

Glenn Delfino, one of the founders of the group, said Duterte wants to bring federalism to the Philippines, and so his group aims to teach Filipinos here and in the Philippines about what could mean for the country.

"We'd like to influence back home in the Philippines that the country can have a good government  there is something we can learn from Canada," Delfino said.

"We can influence and educate the public, the Filipinos, that his [Duterte's] platform is different. So then they have family back home, they call them and explain what the platform is, because a lot of people in the Philippines don't have access to the media, and some of the media is very controlled by the elite."

Though Duterte is controversial, the group said that he cleaned up the crime-riddled city of Davao, and could do the same for the rest of the country.

"People in the Philippines are sick and tired of being oppressed by their own government," said Eddie Ubalde, another member of the group.

"All of the previous presidents in the Philippines all come from the same family, the same area. They all belong to the elite. Duterte came from the mass[es]. We are behind this guy simply because he is there for us. He will represent change. That's the key word here. Change, in capital letters."

Time for change?

UBC professor Leonora Angeles said there is also support for other candidates in the local Filipino community.

"If you talk to the business people here in Vancouver, I think many of them would prefer the continuation of the current Aquino administration," she said, adding that she believes that means a vote for Liberal Party presidential candidate Mar Roxas and vice-president candidate Leni Robredo.

But she admits that many are tired of the political leaders that have come since the reign of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, and so while some may want the Liberal Party to stay in power, others may want a bigger change.

"People are really tired of the old political system  and are really willing to take chances this time.

"That's why Duterte is top of the polls," said Angeles.

With files from CBC's The Early Edition

To hear an interview with Leonora Angeles listen to the audio labelled: Filipino-Canadian professor describes the candidates and political context of upcoming Philippines presidential election.
By Steve Holland and Amanda Becker HOLLYWOOD, Fla./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top advisers to Donald Trump assured Republican Party leaders on Thursday that the New York billionaire would adopt a more presidential demeanor soon, to temper the image projected during his campaign so far. Trump's representatives, including newly recruited senior advisers Paul Manafort and Rick Wiley, met privately with leaders of the Republican National Committee at an oceanside resort hotel where the party is holding a three-day meeting. The part that hes been playing is now evolving into the part that youve been expecting. The negatives will come down, the image is going to change," Trump senior adviser Paul Manafort assured the party leaders, according to an audiotape of the session heard by Reuters. Trump has been "projecting an image" to energize voters, Manafort said, adding that he will soon concentrate on "crooked Hillary," the nickname that Trump has given to Democratic favorite Hillary Clinton. "You'll see a different guy," said Manafort. But in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Trump suggested he was not ready to change from the style that has brought him close to the Republican presidential nomination. "I just don't know if I want to do it yet," he said. In recent weeks, Trump has railed against the party for developing what he said was a "rigged" system in which Cruz was able to amass delegates in Colorado without Republicans actually voting. Chatting over shrimp, crab legs and an open bar, Trump's advisers expressed confidence that their candidate would win the Republican presidential nomination without the party having to resort to a contested convention in Cleveland in July, according to three attendees. Trump, 69, needs 1,237 delegates to win the nomination outright for the Nov. 8 election. Rivals Ted Cruz, 45, and John Kasich, 63, are trying to stop him from getting a majority of delegates, so they can force a contested convention in which one of them could emerge as the nominee. Cruz told a conservative talk radio host, Mark Levin, that Manafort's comments show that Trump's campaign style "is just an act." Party leaders told reporters after the session that Trump's envoys said Trump, as the Republican nominee, would be able to expand the party's electoral map to include several states Republicans have not won in a general election in a generation. One attendee, South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Matt Moore, said the Trump team told the group it expected Trump to adopt a "more presidential demeanor" over the next few weeks.Moore said he was taking a wait-and-see attitude on whether Trump would change. "The proof is in the pudding," he said. Manafort told reporters after the meeting that "we talked about how we're going to expand the map." As for how to change the negative image some voters had of Trump, Manafort said: "We just have to present him in a way that shows all sides of Donald Trump." 'STOP FIGHTING AMONG OURSELVES' Former presidential candidate Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon who has endorsed Trump, also addressed the group. Talking to reporters as he walked into the meeting, Carson said his message was that Republicans should "stop fighting among ourselves" and unite behind Trump. I dont think anyone can win if the Republican Party and the conservatives dont consolidate," he said. Trump, who has alarmed some establishment Republicans with his comments on immigration, Muslims and trade, has begun to moderate his message in recent days. Trump's campaign has hired staff versed in the ways of Washington and has begun holding regular meetings on Capitol Hill with current and potential supporters. Trump clashed again on Thursday with Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, this time over a North Carolina law passed last month requiring transgender people to use government and school bathrooms that correspond with the sex on their birth certificates. During an appearance at an NBC "Today" show town hall, Trump sided with critics of the law, passed by a Republican-controlled legislature, saying it was unnecessary and that North Carolina was "paying a big price" because of negative business reaction. His comments drew immediate criticism from Cruz, a staunch social and fiscal conservative who supports the law and said Trump had caved to political correctness as he seeks to broaden his appeal. (Reporting by Steve Holland and Amanda Becker; Additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Ginger Gibson; Editing by Frances Kerry, Peter Cooney and Simon Cameron-Moore)
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Gaziantep, Turkey: Turkeys leaders have warned that its controversial migrant deportation deal with the European Union will collapse if the bloc fails to grant Turkish citizens the right to visa-free stays for tourism or business by July.

The countrys Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, said that the issue was crucial for Turkey on Saturday, and said that it was working to fulfil its commitments on the issue.

Davutoglu also said that the number of migrants crossing into Greece illegally has dropped considerably, as proof that a much criticised migration deal between Turkey and the European Union is working.

The Prime Minister was speaking at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and top European Union officials who travelled near Turkeys border with Syria in a bid to promote the troubled deal with Turkey as they face increasing pressure to reassess the agreement. The group toured a refugee camp and inaugurated a child support centre funded by the EU.

European Union Council president Donald Tusk said the EU plans to spend 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) on projects this summer to improve the lives of Syrian refugees in Turkey and Davutoglu said the bloc has already launched projects worth 187 million euros ($211 million).

Human rights groups criticised the trip to what they call a sanitized refugee camp  and said EU officials should look further at the tens of thousands of Syrian refugees that are now blocked from entering Turkey.

Many have questioned the legality of the March 20 EU-Turkey deal allowing for the deportation of migrants who dont qualify for asylum in Greece back to Turkey.

Davutoglu said the number of migrants crossing illegally into Greece had dropped from around 6,000 per day in November to around 130 daily since the beginning of this month.

This drop shows the effectiveness of this joint mechanism, Davutoglu said.

Our priority was to stop the baby Aylans from washing up on the shores, and we have made great strides in this aim, Davutoglu said, in reference to drowned 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, whose images helped galvanize world attention on the plight of the migrants.

In return for the deal, the EU has earmarked 6 billion euros ($6.8 billion) to Turkey over the next four years to help improve conditions for the 2.7 million Syrian refugees inside Turkey. The EU is also set to allow visa-free travel for Turkish citizens.

Rights groups, EU legislators and the UN refugee agency have questioned the moral and legal implications of expelling people from Greece back to Turkey  a country that many consider unsafe on grounds of security and human rights.

Despite insisting that it has an open-door policy for Syrian refugees, Turkey in the past few months has blocked several thousand refugees who were fleeing northern Syria at the border, providing aid to them at displaced persons camps near the border instead. Human rights groups say some of the camps have been attacked and are pressing Ankara to give the refugees shelter inside Turkey.

Amnesty International says Turkish authorities have also for the past three months been expelling around 100 Syrians a day back to their war-ravaged country  an accusation Turkey has denied. The country has also rejected claims that Turkish soldiers have sometimes shot at refugees trying to cross the border illegally.

Davutoglu reacted angrily to the Amnesty claim on Saturday, saying not a single Syrian had been returned to his or her homeland without consent.

Tusk backed Turkey, saying the country  which is host to the worlds largest refugee population  was the best example in the entire world of how to treat refugees.

On Syria, Merkel said she was in favour of the creation of areas that are under special protection of the cease-fire, where as much safety as possible can be offered.

Merkel said: The safer people can feel, the less they have to leave their homeland.

Earlier, New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch urged EU leaders to understand the whole refugee picture at the Turkish border.

Instead of touring a sanitized refugee camp, EU leaders should look over the top of Turkeys new border wall to see the tens of thousands of war-weary Syrian refugees blocked on the other side, said Judith Sunderland, Human Rights Watchs acting deputy Europe and Central Asia director. Then, they should go to the (Turkish) detention centre for people who were abusively deported from Greece. That should make them rethink the flawed EU-Turkey deal.

Merkels visit also comes amid controversy over her decision to grant Turkeys request to let German prosecutors and courts decide whether German comedian Jan Boehmermann had insulted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Critics have accused Merkel of kowtowing to Turkey because of the countrys important role in stopping the influx of migrants to Europe.

Merkel denied that Germany was no longer raising the question of freedom of expression with Turkish leaders.

I can assure you that the fact we speak with each other so often  much more often than we used to  leads to our addressing all these issues, she said.

Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama also weighed in on the issue in comments to German daily Bild that were published Saturday. He praised Merkels political and moral leadership in the migrant crisis, but also stressed the need to uphold human rights.

The recent agreement between the EU and Turkey is a step toward a more equitable way of sharing this responsibility, he said. As the agreement is implemented, it will be essential that migrants are treated properly and that human rights are upheld.
The 60-year-old, who strongly rejects any suggestion of wrongdoing and denies that he has deliberately absconded from India, has been living at a three-storey mansion called Ladywalk in the village of Tewin in Hertfordshire, just over a one-hour drive north of London. (Photo: PTI)

London: Indian liquor baron Vijay Mallya, whose Kingfisher Airlines has been accused of having defaulted on loans of over Rs 9,400 crore and faces legal proceedings, appears on the electoral rolls in the UK with his country home in Britain as his recorded address, a media report said on Sunday.

The 60-year-old, who strongly rejects any suggestion of wrongdoing and denies that he has deliberately absconded from India, has been living at a three-storey mansion called Ladywalk in the village of Tewin in Hertfordshire, just over a one-hour drive north of London.

According to 'The Sunday Times', Mallya confirmed that "my official address in the UK is at Ladywalk", adding that he had supplied this information to the Indian authorities. The 11.5-million-pound mansion was bought from the father of British Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton by a company with offshore links.

Read: Ministry of External Affairs revokes Vijay Mallya's passport

"The ownership structure of Ladywalk is perfectly legal," the newspaper quoted Mallya as saying.

The use of companies with offshore links to buy properties in Britain has come under increasing scrutiny as the practice can allow the real owner or beneficiary to remain hidden sometimes for tax purposes.

Such companies collectively hold up to 170 billion pounds of UK property, much of it in London and the home counties. British Prime Minister David Cameron is set to use an anti-corruption summit next month to demand more transparency on such future purchases.

Mallya, however, told the newspaper there was no "concealment or tax avoidance involved" and said that he has been a "British resident" since 1992.

The report notes that official documents list the owner of Ladywalk as a limited liability partnership called Ladywalk LLP.

It has two members, including a company called Continental Administration Services, which is registered in St. Kitts and Nevis, a Commonwealth country in the Caribbean regarded as a tax haven.

A loan to finance the property purchase in July 2015 was made by the Edmond de Rothschild private bank in Switzerland. Official papers name the borrower as Ladywalk Investments, a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, another

tax haven.

Mallya has described an arrest warrant against him as "erroneous and unjustified" and has recently tweeted: "I fully respect and will comply with the law of the land."

His passport, which had been suspended earlier, was also revoked today.

Mallya had left India on March 2. He has refused to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on three occasions when summoned between March 10 and April 2.

ED has said it will also seek an Interpol arrest warrant against Mallya based on a non-bailable warrant issued last week by a Mumbai court in a money laundering case.
Insulting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan can leave journalists open to prosecution  even outside Turkey. (Photo: Via web)

Ankara: A Dutch journalist was arrested on Sunday at her home in Turkey for tweets deemed critical of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to her Twitter account.

Police at the door. No joke, wrote Ebru Umar, a well-known atheist and feminist journalist of Turkish origin. Umar recently wrote a piece critical of Erdogan for the Dutch daily Metro, extracts of which she then tweeted, leading to her arrest.

I'm not free, were going to the hospital for a medical examination before being taken to face prosecutors, she said in a second tweet as she left her home in Kusadasi, a resort town in western Turkey.

The Dutch foreign ministry said in a tweet that it was in close contact with Umar and local authorities and the Dutch embassy in Istanbul was actively engaged in the case, which had its full attention.

Umar, who reportedly became a journalist under the influence of Theo van Gogh  a Dutch filmmaker later murdered for making a controversial film about Islamic culture  had written in the Metro about a diplomatic spat between Turkey and the Netherlands.

The case followed outrage in Germany after the government there gave a green light for authorities to begin criminal proceedings against popular comic Jan Boehmermann for performing a satirical poem about Erdogan.

Trials in Turkey for insulting Erdogan have multiplied since his election to the presidency in August 2014, with nearly 2,000 such cases currently open.
A man holds a portrait of Bangladeshi professor Rezaul Karim Siddique, who was hacked to death by unidentified attackers, in Rajshahi. (Photo: AFP)

Dhaka, Bangladesh: Bangladesh police arrested an Islamist student Sunday over the gruesome murder of a professor one day earlier, the latest such killing claimed by the Islamic State group.

Attackers wielding machetes almost beheaded English professor Rezaul Karim Siddique on Saturday in the northwestern city of Rajshahi, following a string of similar killings of secular activists by Islamist militants.

The 58-year-old was hacked to death as he walked to the bus station from his home.

The student from Rajshahi University where Siddique taught was arrested early Sunday for questioning, although the hunt was still on for other suspects, said Rajshahi deputy police commissioner Nahidul Islam.

He said the unidentified student, who is studying public administration, is a member of Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of Bangladesh's largest Islamist opposition party the Jamaat-e-Islami.

"We have detained a 21-year-old Rajshahi University student who is a Shibir member as a suspect over the murder," Islam told AFP, without detailing his alleged role in the attack.

Siddique was the fourth professor from Rajshahi University to be killed by suspected Islamists in recent years.

Five secular bloggers and a publisher have also been murdered, as well as members of minority groups and foreigners, as Bangladesh reels from rising Islamist violence.

Police said that in each of the attacks on the bloggers and online activists, attackers hacked the victim to death with machetes or cleavers.

There was no immediate reaction from the government to the Islamic State's claim of responsibility.

In the past it has denied IS has a presence in the country, instead blaming homegrown Islamist militants for the murders and the opposition for trying to destabilise the country.
s China's President Xi Jinping gesturing as he attends a meeting with 'foreign experts' at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. (Photo: AFP)

Beijing: China must be on guard against foreign infiltration through religion and stop extremists spreading their ideology, President Xi Jinping told a top-level meeting on managing religion, state media reported on Sunday.

China must also manage the internet to promote the Communist Partys religious theories and policies, the official Xinhua news agency cited Xi as saying.

We must resolutely resist overseas infiltration through religious means and guard against ideological infringement by extremists, Xi was quoted as saying at a two-day national working conference on religion that ended on Saturday.

The ruling Communist Party says it protects freedom of religion, but it keeps a tight rein on religious activities and allows only officially recognised religious institutions to operate.

The government is concerned about what it sees as the growing influence by Islamists in the Xinjiang region in the far west where hundreds of people have been killed over the past few years in violence between members of the Muslim Uighur community and majority Han Chinese.

Officials there have stepped up regulations banning overt signs of religious observance, like veils or beards.

Separately, some Chinese Christians say authorities are limiting their activities and taking down crosses on churches in coastal Zhejiang province.

Authorities have said crosses are removed because they violate regulations against illegal structures.

Protests broke out in 2014 in the heavily Christian city of Wenzhou, also in Zhejiang, over the governments cross demolition campaign.

In January, authorities also said a Christian pastors was being investigated for suspicion of embezzling funds. The investigation came after the pastor opposed the campaign to remove crosses. Communist Party members must adhere to Marxist principles and remain staunchly atheist, Xi said in his remarks.
Clinton narrows Sanders' chances at nomination

WASHINGTON  Hillary Clinton can't win enough delegates Tuesday to officially knock Bernie Sanders out of the presidential race, but she can erase any lingering honest doubts about whether she'll soon be the Democratic nominee.

After her victory in New York this past week, Clinton has a lead over Sanders of more than 200 pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses. As she narrowed Sanders' dwindling opportunities to catch up, Clinton continued to build on her overwhelming support among superdelegates.

In the past two days, Clinton picked up 11 more endorsements from superdelegates, according to an Associated Press survey.

Factoring in superdelegates, Clinton's lead stands at 1,941 to 1,191 for Sanders, according to the AP count. That puts her at 81 percent of the 2,383 delegates needed to win the nomination. A2

LOCAL

Burgerville holds hiring event in Corvallis

The biggest sign yet that the Corvallis Burgerville is getting close to opening didnt happen at the former Wendys location on Ninth Street  but at Corvallis High School.

More than 100 people applied for jobs Saturday during a hiring event at the school. The Vancouver, Washington-based chain plans to fill 30 to 40 open employee positions at a Corvallis Burgerville location, the city's first, at 2300 N.W. Ninth St.

Burgerville officials announced that the Corvallis location would become its 41st store during an unveiling event last September, with a planned opening this past winter. But after hearing customer feedback and realizing the scope of work necessary to convert the former Wendys into a unique Burgerville, company officials pushed the opening back to early summer, said Jack Graves, Burgerville chief cultural officer. A9

INTERNATIONAL

Climbers return to Everest after disasters

MOUNT EVEREST BASE CAMP, Nepal  When the earthquake struck last year and thousands of tons of snow and ice and earth came crashing down the mountain, some feared the climbers might never return to Mount Everest.

But despite back-to-back Everest disasters  the 2015 earthquake and a massive avalanche the year before  hundreds of mountaineers have come back for a new season. B8

COLUMNISTS

Mike McInally; A8

George Will; A8

Paul Newberry; B1

Carolyn Hax; C3

John Rosemond; C3
Egyptian mother Aaz Menhom cups her hands under a running tap in her yard to let her young children Atef and Nada drink.

"It's a blessing from God. I was bathing them once every four days, now they can wash every day," she says, beaming broadly.

Menhom, 27, whose family share a sparsely-furnished one-room home with her sister and five nephews, used to have to ask for water at neighbours' doors.

Armed with a bucket, she had to repeat the exhausting process several times a day just so she could do her daily chores.

But all that has now changed as a result of clickfunding, a concept launched in Egypt by a startup business, Bassita, that has transformed Menhom's life for the better.

Bassita, which means "simple" in Arabic, is harnessing the growing Internet penetration in the country and raising funds through social networking campaigns.

It posts photos and videos of micro-development projects, and sponsors undertake the funding once a certain number of shares and "likes" are raised.

"You're one click away from changing the world," reads a banner on the bassita.org website, founded in 2014 by two Frenchmen in their 30s who have settled in Cairo, Alban Menonville and Salem Massalha.

The goal is to "revolutionise" online advertising, said Menonville.

"If I want Facebook advertising to reach a million people, Facebook will ask me a price," he said.

"Instead of paying it to Facebook the idea is to pay it for something positive, and the Internet user will provide visibility," he said.

"The user becomes a philanthropist," said Massalha, who is of Egyptian origin. "As far as we know, no one else uses this model."

The company has also boasted success in other fields.

Partnered with a Cairo optician, it campaigned in 2014 to fund 1,000 pairs of spectacles for craftsmen and women, including embroiderers in the impoverished Fayoum province, southwest of Cairo.

- Clicks for water -

The dramatic improvement in Menhom's life came through a joint campaign with the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) to supply running water to 1,000 homes in southern Egypt.

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About 7.5 million people in Egypt have no access to clean water in their homes.

A video showing the comedian Maged al-Kedawny, along with the Arabic hashtag "a click connects to water," was viewed on Facebook more than two million times in three days after the campaign's launch in February.

One hundred homes have been connected to piped water since mid-March, according to UNICEF.

"In the next six months, 1,000 homes will be connected to water in four provinces," said its Egypt representative, Bruno Maes.

Several companies are financing the $170,000 project, which includes a hygiene awareness programme.

Among the sponsors are US giant SC Johnson, Egypt's Wadi Degla and the Emirati ride hailing app Careem.

"In the end everyone is a winner, there will be more people who see the campaign, and the more money invested, the more partner companies gain visibility," said Careem's director in Egypt, Shalaby Hadeer.

Bassita, which won a 2015 Orange Prize for African social ventures, wants to export its success story.

"Europe needs environmental projects, Africa perhaps more in health and transportation. This model can apply to all those problems," said Menonville.
Langtang in Nepal is now little more than a graveyard. The once tranquil mountain village was obliterated last April when a massive earthquake shattered a glacier, raining tonnes of ice, snow and rock down into the valley below, where hundreds of bodies still lie buried. Scientists estimate the avalanche hit the ground with enough force to cause a blast more than half the strength of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, making it a miracle that anyone survived. Those who did are making a hesitant return. Still struggling to come to terms with their loss, unable to forget the horror, they are nonetheless attempting to rebuild their lives. All lost loved ones in the disaster, which killed 283 Nepalis and 43 foreign visitors in a village whose bucolic charm attracted thousands of trekkers every year. Many of the bodies were buried too deep under the debris ever to be found. Suppa Tamang, who lost dozens of relatives including his second wife and 13-year-old son, was among the first of the villagers to return last month. "I can't account for our losses, so many people have died, nothing is left... still, we have to find a way forward," he told AFP. Tarp-covered shelters and a handful of construction sites now dot a landscape that was once home to more than 60 thriving guesthouses, two of them Tamang's. Frustrated by the government's slowness in disbursing a promised $2,000 in aid, a few villagers have begun rebuilding on their own -- a daunting task in a remote Himalayan valley accessible only on foot or by helicopter. "It is all so difficult and so costly -- we can use mules and porters for cement and food rations, but we have to pay hundreds of dollars to helicopter companies to bring metal rods, plywood and glass panes," said Tamang. "My biggest fear is that Langtang will collapse unless people like us come back, rebuild and encourage our young to return home." - Unique culture - After the avalanche Langtang residents set up camp in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Kathmandu until authorities deemed it safe for them to return. But the heat and dust of the capital left villagers yearning for their serene, high-altitude homeland. The small Buddhist community that crossed over from Tibet and settled here hundreds of years ago relied on yak herding and farming for its livelihood until tourism transformed the local economy. Despite an influx of visitors, villagers held on to their own cultural and religious practices, building traditional stone guesthouses with carved wooden windows and speaking a local variant of Tibetan. The extent of the destruction wreaked by the avalanche shocked even experts -- among them hydrologist Walter Immerzeel, who went to Langtang last October to study its impact. "So much ice and debris came down the mountain -- when you consider the total mass and compute the speed and the altitude from where it (the avalanche) originated, we estimated that the amount of energy that would have been released would have been equivalent to the energy from 7.6 kilotons of TNT," said Immerzeel, assistant professor at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. That is more than half the amount of energy released by the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. - 'Ghosts still here' - Chiring Chokpa Lama recently opened Langtang's first new guesthouse -- a humble affair with tin and plywood walls and windows made of thin plastic sheets -- taking a brave step forward even as painful memories continue to haunt her. Lama was at home with her 21-year-old daughter, Nangse, when the avalanche struck, burying them both. "As we ran, everything got covered by snow, rocks and debris. It buried us as well," she recalled. "It came down with such force, took away so many people. We never found them again." Hours passed as Lama and her daughter screamed for help. A relative eventually dug her out but arrived too late to save Nangse. Dazed by grief, she finally gathered up the courage to return to Langtang with her husband, leaving their two other children in Kathmandu, where they are studying. "We have lived here for generations, everyone we ever loved lived in this valley," Lama said. "We had to come back. There is nowhere else to go." For many in this devout, close-knit community, the future remains uncertain, shadowed by sorrow and anxiety. At 61, yak herder Nurpu Tamang faces a lonely life, set adrift after the avalanche killed everyone in his family, including three grandchildren. "It was the worst day in the world, I had never seen anything like it before," said Tamang, now living in a temporary shelter in a nearby village. For months, he woke up thinking his loved ones were still alive before realising that his nightmare was real. "I never found their bodies... and I feel like their ghosts are still here, it makes it very hard for me to think about building another home here," he said. "It's been a year but I haven't learned to live without them."
Yemeni troops backed by Arab coalition air strikes on Sunday recaptured a southeastern provincial capital held by Al-Qaeda for the past year and an oil terminal, military sources told AFP. The gains come after pro-government forces began an offensive aimed at securing parts of the country captured by jihadist militants who have exploited a 13-month war between Gulf-backed loyalists and rebels supported by Iran. The offensive coincides with UN-brokered peace talks in Kuwait after a ceasefire entered into effect on April 11, but from which jihadists groups are excluded. "We entered the city centre (of Mukalla) and were met by no resistance from Al-Qaeda militants who withdrew west" towards the vast desert in Hadramawt and Shabwa provinces, a military officer told AFP by phone from the city the jihadists seized last April. The officer, who requested anonymity, said residents of Mukalla, home to an estimated 200,000 people, had appealed to the jihadists to spare the city the destruction of fighting and to withdraw. Yemeni military sources said Emirati military vehicles were used in the operation and that troops from the Gulf country, a key member of the Saudi-led coalition, were among the forces that entered Mukalla. AFP could not immediately confirm these reports from officials in the United Arab Emirates. The Arab coalition battling rebels in Yemen since March 2015 carried out air strikes against Al-Qaeda positions in Mukalla to pave the way for the ground troops, military sources said. Troops also recaptured Mina al-Dhaba oil terminal in Shehr further east, the sources said. Earlier Sunday, military sources said pro-government forces seized Riyan airport and an army brigade headquarters Al-Qaeda had held for a year on Mukalla's outskirts. Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is regarded by Washington as the network's most dangerous branch, and has carried out deadly attacks on the West in the past. Last month, a US air strike on an Al-Qaeda training camp in Hadramawt province killed dozens of fighters in a major blow to the jihadists. A provincial official in Shabwa said jihadists also fled from the town of Azzan on Sunday which they seized in February. - Bomb kills 7 troops - As the anti-jihadist offensive gained momentum, a bomb-laden vehicle exploded Sunday, killing seven soldiers and wounding 14. They were in a convoy entering another southern jihadist stronghold -- Zinjibar, capital of Abyan province, said military sources, blaming Al-Qaeda for the attack. The coalition, led by Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia, has deployed Apache helicopters to support loyalists fighting on the ground. Forces loyal to internationally recognised President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's government have retreated from Zinjibar after entering it late Saturday, an officer in Abyan told AFP. "The withdrawal was decided following information that Al-Qaeda was preparing other car-bomb attacks against our troops," added the officer who requested anonymity. Government forces also launched an offensive Saturday to drive the jihadists from the neighbouring town of Jaar. Fighting on Saturday killed 25 Al-Qaeda fighters and four soldiers as loyalists seized Al-Kud, five kilometres (three miles) south of Zinjibar, military and medical sources said. "After our withdrawal, Apache helicopters will target Al-Qaeda positions to secure the town," said another officer, adding that helicopters had foiled two attempts to attack troops using vehicle bombs in Al-Kud. Similar assaults have pushed the jihadists from other areas in the south in recent months. Coalition-backed forces have driven militants from Aden, the southern city declared by Hadi as Yemen's temporary capital after the Shiite Huthi rebels overran Sanaa in September 2014. And last week, government forces expelled AQAP militants from Huta, the provincial capital of Lahj. When US President Barack Obama met Gulf leaders on Thursday in Saudi Arabia, they discussed the wars in Yemen and Syria. During the visit, Ben Rhodes, one of Obama's closest advisers, urged all warring sides in Yemen to participate "constructively" in the Kuwait talks that began on Thursday, saying that a political solution would "allow for a focus on AQAP in Yemen".
By Ayla Jean Yackley ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A century after her forebears fled massacres in Turkey for Armenia, Alla has gone the other way, hoping to win Turkish citizenship after leaving her impoverished homeland. She works as a nanny in Turkey but fears deportation, one of thousands of undocumented workers from the former Soviet republic who feel hostage to a decades-old diplomatic dispute. The conflict dates back to the killings of up to 1.5 million Christian Armenians by Ottoman Muslims that were being commemorated on Sunday, with tensions between Armenia and its Turkey-backed neighbour, Azerbaijan, especially amplified this year. "We live in fear they (the Turkish authorities) can kick us out if something happens," said Alla, who declined having her full name published because of her illegal status in Turkey. "When I get home from work, I thank God 1,000 times nothing happened," she said. "If I get citizenship, I won't be afraid." Estimates put the number of Armenians here between 10,000 and 30,000. A bus ticket bringing them from Yerevan to Istanbul and, they hope, a better life costs the equivalent of about $50. Their numbers are dwarfed by the 3 million Syrians and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have fled war but Armenian migrants feel vulnerable to the changing political winds. Armenia, along with most Western scholars and two dozen nations, says the 1915 massacre was genocide. Turkey accepts that Armenians were killed during the upheaval of World War One but rejects declarations that it was genocide. Animosity between the neighbours, whose border is shut, have flared this month after clashes between Muslim Azerbaijan and Armenian-backed Christian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region inside Azerbaijan that is controlled by ethnic Armenians. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the deaths of Azeris "seared our souls" and blamed Armenia for the outbreak of the worst clashes since a 1994 ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh after a war that killed thousands of people on each side. Turks took to social media to denounce Armenians as "murderers" and proclaim Nagorno-Karabakh "Turkish territory". "We hear rumours they will kick out Armenians because of the Azerbaijan matter," said Alla, 54. "This hate will never end." THREAT OF DEPORTATION Angered by international efforts to deem the century-old killings genocide, Erdogan has threatened to "deport" Armenian migrants. But he has also moved towards reconciliation, expressing condolences over the loss of life in 2014 and sending a minister to church services marking the centennial last year. Garo Paylan, who in 2015 became one of three lawmakers of Armenian descent to enter Turkey's parliament in 50 years, this week brandished photographs of Armenian deputies killed in 1915 and demanded the assembly investigate their deaths. "The reason I persist on this 100-year-old issue is because it continues to haunt Turkey," Paylan told Reuters. This year commemorations were to be more muted than in 2105, with a handful of memorials planned. Turkey cut ties with Armenia in 1993 at the height of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh. It agreed to restore relations under protocols in 2009 brokered by the United States, Russia and France but the deal did not have Azerbaijan's blessing. "A renewed conflict could potentially draw in Turkey. It is Russian soldiers guarding Armenia's border with Turkey," said Aybars Gorgulu of the Public Policy and Democracy Studies think tank. "Sooner or later Turkey wants to normalise with Armenia." Enmity towards Armenia leaves Turkish citizens of Armenian descent exposed, said Yetvart Danzikyan, editor-in-chief of Agos newspaper, which serves 60,000 Armenians out of a population of 78 million. The community faces pressures such as property seizures, poorly funded schools and sporadic violence. A teenage gunman killed Danzikyan's predecessor, Hrant Dink, in 2007. A court this week began trying senior security officers accused of complicity. "The state always leaves open wounds," Danzikyan said. Alla's family fled strife and starvation that gripped the province of Igdir during World War One and the subsequent War of Independence that forged the modern Turkish Republic in 1923. Her grandparents found refuge across the border in Armenia. Alla now earns $700 a month to support her mother and two children. An adult daughter, who was disabled, died this year. Low-skilled labourers, especially women, struggle in landlocked Armenia, where per-capita income is about $4,000 an unemployment hovers at 17 percent, according to the World Bank. Changes to immigration law in 2014 encouraged some Armenians to seek residency, but they must show large savings and pay fines. Alla said her penalty would amount to four months' wages. New arrivals help sustain a dwindling community that flourished in these lands for four millennia until 1915. Armenian migrants fill the pews of a Protestant house of worship every Sunday to sing exuberant hymns. The basement serves as an informal primary school with 140 immigrants. A volunteer said Turkish authorities turn a blind eye so the school can follow the Armenian educational system. One in three Armenians here does not plan to return home, said Anna Muradyan, a Yerevan-based independent researcher. "They're aging, their children in Turkey have adapted and know Turkish. If Turkey doesn't expel them, they want to stay," she said. (Editing by Nick Tattersall and Timothy Heritage)
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
Clinton narrows Sanders' chances at nomination

WASHINGTON  Hillary Clinton can't win enough delegates Tuesday to officially knock Bernie Sanders out of the presidential race, but she can erase any lingering honest doubts about whether she'll soon be the Democratic nominee.

After her victory in New York this past week, Clinton has a lead over Sanders of more than 200 pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses. As she narrowed Sanders' dwindling opportunities to catch up, Clinton continued to build on her overwhelming support among superdelegates.

In the past two days, Clinton picked up 11 more endorsements from superdelegates, according to an Associated Press survey.

Factoring in superdelegates, Clinton's lead stands at 1,941 to 1,191 for Sanders, according to the AP count. That puts her at 81 percent of the 2,383 delegates needed to win the nomination.

At stake Tuesday are 384 delegates in primaries in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. This group of contests offers Sanders one of the last chances left on the election calendar to gain ground in pledged delegates and make a broader case to superdelegates to support him. A2

INTERNATIONAL

Climbers return to Everest after disasters

MOUNT EVEREST BASE CAMP, Nepal  When the earthquake struck last year and thousands of tons of snow and ice and earth came crashing down the mountain, some feared the climbers might never return to Mount Everest.

But despite back-to-back Everest disasters  the 2015 earthquake and a massive avalanche the year before  hundreds of mountaineers have come back for a new season. With them, they bring millions of dollars to this poverty-wracked nation. B8

Chernobyl plant remains a symbol of an age

PRIPYAT, Ukraine  Before the fire, the vomiting, the deaths and the vanishing home, it was the promise of bumper cars that captured the imagination of the boys.

It will be 30 years ago Tuesday that Pripyat and the nearby Chernobyl power plant became synonymous with nuclear disaster, that the word Chernobyl came to mean more than just a little village in rural Ukraine and that this place became more than just another spot in the shadowy Soviet Union. B9

COLUMNISTS

Mike McInally; A8

George Will; A8

Paul Newberry; B1

Carolyn Hax; C3

John Rosemond; C3
By Emily Flitter and Luciana Lopez

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton scored sweeping victories in nominating contests in their home state of New York, and immediately cited those wins to argue that they are all but unstoppable as their respective parties presidential nominees.

Trumps crushing defeat of Ted Cruz in Tuesdays primary election tilted the energy in the Republican race back to the front-runner, just as Republican National Committee members begin meeting in Florida on Wednesday to discuss their July convention, where the nominee will be chosen.

For the Democratic favorite, Clintons more narrow victory over Bernie Sanders snapped a string of victories by the 74-year-old democratic socialist and gave her a much-needed lift with more tough fights ahead.

The eventual victors of the Democratic and the Republican nominating campaigns will face each other in Novembers general election.

Trumps win, celebrated to the tune of Frank Sinatras New York, New York at Trump Tower in Manhattan, marked a rebound from his Wisconsin defeat two weeks ago. It set him up for another big night on April 26, when Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Maryland will hold primaries.

With a campaign staff reboot and a more focused performance, Trump has sought to improve in recent weeks as a candidate. The tone of his victory speech was in keeping with a more measured style the often-brash billionaire has adopted.

We dont have much of a race anymore based on what Im seeing on television, Trump said as television networks projected a large margin of victory for him. Senator Cruz is just about mathematically eliminated.

Trump, 69, predicted some amazing weeks ahead for his campaign.

Still, he has a long way to go to seal the nomination and begin trying to heal the wounds in his bitterly divided party. Some fence-mending may happen when he sends campaign advisers to the RNC meeting starting in Hollywood, Florida, on Wednesday.

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Trumps haul of most of New Yorks 95 delegates moved him closer to the 1,237 needed to win the nomination outright. Anything short of that will lead to a contested convention when Republicans hold their national conclave July 18-21 in Cleveland.

Theres only two issues left for Republicans: Will Trump get 50 percent of the delegates prior to Cleveland, and if not, how close will he be? New York gives him a nice boost, but it will take weeks before we know the answer, said Ari Fleischer, who was White House press secretary under President George W. Bush.

Cruz, a 45-year-old U.S. senator from Texas, came in third in New York and gave his primary night speech in Philadelphia, where he was already focused on running in Pennsylvania. He called on Republicans to unite around his candidacy.

Ohio Governor John Kasich, 63, a long-shot candidate, is seeking to use his second-place showing in New York as proof he is emerging as Trumps central challenger in the states that come up next on the calendar.

NO KNOCKOUT PUNCH FOR CLINTON

Clinton, a former U.S. senator from New York, former secretary of state and former first lady, got nowhere near the knockout punch she needed to finally put Sanders away.

But the broad smile on her face as she gave her victory speech spoke volumes about how important New York was to her bid to become the first female U.S. president.

Today you proved once again theres no place like home, Clinton said. This one was personal.

The race for the Democratic nomination, she said, is now in the home stretch, and victory is in sight.

Clinton, 68, was to campaign in Philadelphia on Wednesday. Sanders flew home to Vermont to take a day off the campaign trail.

Clintons win made it nearly impossible for Sanders to overtake her commanding lead in delegates needed to win the nomination.

Dilawar Syed, a tech entrepreneur who is also the co-founder and vice chairman of the AAPI Victory Fund, a Super PAC focused on mobilizing Asian-American voters, said it looked like Clinton has the nomination.

Clearly Senator Sanders has a lot of supporters and enthusiasm there. He also has raised a lot of good resources, Syed said. "I think the primary will go on for some time. But just looking at the numbers, we know where this is going.

Sanders campaign vowed to fight on until the Democrats nominating convention in Philadelphia July 25-28.

Look, were going to go to the convention, Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver told MSNBC. He said it was extremely unlikely that either candidate would have the delegates needed to win the nomination outright.

Democratic strategist Jim Manley said Clinton has a delicate balancing act in trying to draw in Sanders supporters while pivoting to a general election matchup against the Republican nominee.

She runs a risk. If she goes too far to the left (to draw in Sanders supporters), shes going to upset independents and others that shes going to need in the general, Manley said.

Nationally, the race for the nominations has tightened recently for both parties, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Tuesday.

Clinton and Sanders are tied among Democrats, with each drawing about 47 percent support in the national poll. At the beginning of the year, Clinton led Sanders by nearly a 2-to-1 margin; Sanders has closed that gap over the past few months.

Among Republicans, Trump leads with 44 percent support, compared with 33 percent for Cruz and 16 percent for Kasich.

The April 15-19 poll surveyed 719 Democrats and 593 Republicans. It has a credibility interval of 4.7 percentage points.

(Additional reporting by Alana Wise and Megan Casella in Washington, Jonathan Allen in New York and Emily Stephenson in Philadelphia; Writing by Steve Holland; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
LEBANON  Kim Hawes can always tell when her kindergartners have been to preschool.

They're better at listening and following directions. They understand there's a time they'll have to sit quietly on the carpet. They're better at being social with others.

"The biggest thing we all notice is the social stuff," said Hawes, who has taught kindergarten for 10 years at Cascades Elementary School in Lebanon.

"I'm totally up for as many preschools as can be. The more, the merrier."

Hawes is getting her wish. Starting this fall, Cascades and Pioneer schools in Lebanon will be among the mid-valley schools starting new preschool partnerships.

Lebanon's programs will be extensions of preschools already operating: Kidco Head Start will have an additional site at Cascades, and a preschool program similar to the one operated by the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Greater Santiam will open at Pioneer.

Lebanon school officials stress that neither preschool will be a district program. District staff members won't teach the classes, and other than providing school space, no district general funds will be used to run them.

But Oregon lawmakers have made it clear that early education is a priority, and some see the new partnerships as another step toward what may become a statewide public preschool system.

In Lebanon, both the preschools will be paid for through Kindergarten Partnership & Innovation grants provided by the Early Learning Hub of Linn, Benton & Lincoln Counties. Enrollment will be free to families.

All school districts in Linn and Benton counties received Hub funding to ease students' transition to kindergarten. Nothing guarantees the funding will remain past the 2015-2017 biennium, but it is hoped for, said Kristi May, coordinator of the Early Learning Hub of Linn, Benton & Lincoln Counties.

"It will depend on what the early learning package is, the amount of early learning funds that are received during the next legislative session," she said. However, she added: "The state has been highly supportive of early learning.

Different districts are using the funds in different ways. Some are inviting preschool providers to train with elementary teachers on early learning issues. Some are providing summer school opportunities, or packets of activities to try at home.

In contrast to Lebanon, Albany does plan its own district-run preschool program: a full-fledged, all-day, district-staffed pilot project at Waverly Elementary School.

Funded by the Hub grant, the Waverly Child Development Center will serve 40 students ages 3 to 5 in morning and afternoon sessions.

"The ultimate goal of the centers work is to ensure future academic success for these children by reaching them at what is now widely recognized as the most critical life learning stage for future achievement," Anne Griffith, principal of Waverly Elementary, told the Democrat-Herald.

In Lebanon  and also in Sweet Home, which is working with its Boys & Girls Club to offer a preschool based on the same curriculum used as the Lebanon club's program  the idea is to make room for more children to have a preschool experience.

While the preschoolers may not go on to attend the Lebanon schools, it's a chance to introduce young children to the concept of school in general. Going to class at Cascades or Pioneer gives them a sneak peek at the kind of hallways, gyms, libraries, playgrounds and classrooms they'll experience as kindergartners.

At Pioneer, Principal Tonya Cairo said it's also an opportunity to reach out to new parents.

Just getting our families excited to come into our schools and be a part of our community  you dont have to wait till kindergarten to do that," she said. "Lets get them in as early as we can.

Early learning priority

Statewide, most little Oregonians don't attend preschool. Studies generally list affordability and access as the two key factors for those who do.

State-funded Head Start programs in Oregon enrolled not quite 8 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds in 2013-14.

The 2013 report from the Kids COUNT Data Center, a project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, found 60 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds in Oregon don't attend a preschool program at all, state-funded or otherwise.

Yet early learning programs are a growing priority for Oregon lawmakers, who created The Early Learning Division in 2013 and put it under the oversight of the Oregon Department of Education. Through that division, a separate round of funding grants is paying for Preschool Promise, a partnership effort similar to the projects being funded through the Kindergarten Innovation funds.

Before an ethics scandal involving his fiance prompted his resignation, Gov. John Kitzhaber said he believed the state's public school system eventually should extend to cover preschool.

While that specific goal has not been voiced by the current administration, Gov. Kate Brown has said she will make early learning and literacy programs a priority. In her state of the state speech a year ago, she said she plans to fight for "a seamless education system spanning birth to career."

Preschool advocates say they're all for extra support, but some are wary that increased state attention will come with oversight they don't necessarily want or believe is best for kids.

Karen Madsen-Barton is teacher and director at Sundborn Children's House in Albany, a nonprofit, independent Montessori school for ages 3 to 6. If the state were interested in supporting or staffing Montessori-style preschools, she said, she'd be thrilled  but she's worried that's not what will happen.

Oregon already has the nation's worst four-year high school graduation rate, according to the U.S. Department of Education's figures from 2013. Studies from 2010 indicate almost a quarter of Oregon's K-12 students are chronically absent, missing 10 percent or more of the school year.

The argument is, start earlier. There is incredible value in understanding what is happening with early learners," Barton said. "But imposing learning is a major concern for me."

Maria Montessori, an Italian physician who studied child development worldwide, developed an education system a century ago that provides young children with opportunities for self-directed learning. That goes against the grain for most public educators today, who have a set curriculum they need to get through in a set time, Barton said.

"Were imposing a curriculum on children. And guess what, you get one chance," Barton said. "'Were only going to be on 32 today were not going back to page 32, and you have exactly 12 and a half minutes before we turn the page.'

Older children are better at handling such a setup, but young minds can be turned off school for good, she said.

"Working with this age group for 44 years, I have some concern were going to be imposing that kind of a system  teacher-centered learning  on very young children," Barton said. "That is not developmentally appropriate, period.

Some parents and teachers have the same concerns.

Rachel White of Albany, who has one son who just finished preschool and another about to start, worked in a preschool class for six years. She loved having preschool for her older son and said she wishes more children could be exposed, but not if preschool is going to become the new kindergarten.

For young children, play is learning, White said, and that's developmentally appropriate. Preschool emphasizes playtime, while in her experience, kindergarten emphasizes academics.

"It's very regulated, very curriculum-oriented ... they have to do this, they have to do that," she said. "I wouldnt want to see that.

The new kindergarten?

Kindergarten teachers at Pioneer and Cascades say they aren't worried about that happening with the programs that will be using their buildings. Both preschools have been working with young children for many years.

Pioneer's Maureen Holt said she loves meeting children who attended a Head Start program. "I can't praise them enough, because they do a beautiful job of transitioning children into kindergarten," she said.

The teachers said they'd like to think the state also would offer play-based, child-centered, developmentally appropriate preschool  but based on changes kindergarten classes have undergone in past decades, they're not sure what to expect.

At Cascades, Hawes said children who joined her class a decade ago weren't necessarily reading by the end of the year. Now, that's a priority.

Last year's kindergarten curriculum included 45 "sight" words children needed to be able to recognize by the end of the year, and Hawes said she felt that was a lot. The new requirement: 88.

"But I have been shocked," she added. "The majority of my kids have risen to that level."

At Pioneer, Holt said kindergarten  once just a half-day program, including rest times  has long been considered the new first grade. She said she could see preschool becoming the new kindergarten if it becomes part of the public system.

"I really don't want to see our kids terribly pushed into doing things that don't come naturally. If they're ready, I'm all for it, but I think we have to be kind of careful," she said.

That said, she and Hawes both think they could take their kindergartners much further and faster if they had rooms full of children who had already had even a brief introduction to the school system.

"A lot of the kids who come in from preschool basically know all their letters and sounds," Holt said. Ones who haven't, in contrast, often "don't know what their name looks like."

Hawes said she's never had a kindergarten class where every child had been to preschool. If she had, she figures she could cut way back on repetition of routines that help children learn to line up, raise their hands and take turns, and instead simply concentrate on learning.

If that happens someday, she said, "Really, the sky's the limit."
The United States insisted Friday that foreign banks should feel free to do business with Iran after Tehran's compliance with a nuclear deal with world powers. Secretary of State John Kerry downplayed fears that Asian or European banks could fall afoul of Washington's continuing sanctions against Iran's non-nuclear activities. And, as Kerry met with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif for the second time in a week, Washington itself agreed to buy 32 tonnes of Iranian heavy water. These parallel moves in support of non-US trade with Iran will enrage President Barack Obama's domestic critics, who argue he has already ceded too much ground to Tehran. "I want to emphasize we've lifted our nuclear-related sanctions as we committed to do," Kerry told reporters, sitting alongside Zarif in a New York hotel. "And there are now opportunities for foreign banks to do business with Iran," he said. Kerry said that this included those banks that are holding an estimated $55 billion in frozen Iranian assets, who have been nervous about returning the funds even after the deal. "Unfortunately, there seems to be some confusion among foreign banks and we want to clarify that as much as we can," Kerry admitted. And, he promised, if banks have questions about the remaining sanctions targeting Iran's missile program and sponsorship of militant groups, "they should just ask." Zarif welcomed the statement. "Iran has implemented its part of the bargain," he said. "And we hope that with this statement ... that we see serious implementation of all the JCPOA benefits that Iran should derive from this agreement," he added, referring to the deal. Separately US officials said they would spend $8.6 million to buy Iranian heavy water, even as the nuclear deal came under sustained attack from critics in both countries. Hardliners in Tehran argue that President Hassan Rouhani has been tricked into surrendering control of Iran's nuclear program without getting much in return. And in Washington, Obama's critics claim he plans to allow an unreformed Iran access to US finance despite the separate sanctions remaining in place. - Heavy water deal - The State Department defended the heavy water deal. "This transaction provides US industry with a critical product, while also enabling Iran to sell some of its excess heavy water," spokesman John Kirby said. He said the purchase had come after Iran met its obligations under the nuclear accord implementation process. And he added: "This material had already been removed from Iran, ensuring it would not be used to support the development of a nuclear weapon." The heavy water purchase immediately came under attack in Washington as another concession to Tehran and a crack in the wall barring Iran from the US financial system. "Once again, the Obama administration is handing Iran's radical regime more cash," declared Ed Royce, chairman of the House foreign affairs committee. "US purchase of this sensitive material goes well beyond what is required by the nuclear agreement." House Speaker Paul Ryan did not mince his words. "This purchase -- part of what appears to be the administration's full-court press to sweeten the deal -- will directly subsidize Iran's nuclear program," he said. "It's yet another unprecedented concession to the world's leading state-sponsor of terrorism." But a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, insisted to AFP the transaction did not break any rules. "Regardless of whether or not this is in US dollars, this licensed transaction is limited in scope," he said. "This routing through third-country financial institutions is similar to the mechanism that has been used for years to allow other authorized transactions," he said. - Frozen billions - Kerry admitted this week that Iran has thus far been able to access only around $3 billion of the $55 billion the State Department estimates that it is owed. US sanctions still exist to punish Iran for its missile program and sponsorship of Middle East "terrorist groups," and Washington officials' hands are partly tied. Washington had hoped European and Asian banks would free up the frozen funds and allow Rouhani's government to show its people the benefits of international cooperation. But European officials have told AFP their bankers fear they could face fines or even criminal cases against their US subsidiaries if they rush in. The US has scrambled expert teams -- "akin to a roadshow," in spokesman Kirby's phrase -- to reassure international bankers that they can do business. - Enraged Republicans - But the spectacle of American officials effectively working to promote foreign business engagement with the Islamic republic has enraged Obama's Republican opponents. Lawmakers have threatened to pass renewed bars on Iranian interaction with the US financial system, through which many dollar-denominated transactions pass. But officials feel the credibility of the nuclear deal, which was implemented in January, depends on Iran's moderates being able to point to economic progress. In theory, the European Union lifted its nuclear-related sanctions against Tehran at the same time as Washington. But Iran's Revolutionary Guards, still under sanctions for their role in sponsoring attacks by Middle East militant groups, have extensive business interests. And any private sector investment or financial services provided to Iran that was found to be linked to the group could expose European banks to US prosecution.
WASHINGTON  China has pulled out all the stops in vilifying the Philippines for pursuing arbitration to resolve their maritime disputes in the South China Sea, said Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Russel.

In a speech at the University of Southern California on Friday, Russel said the United States was determined not to let China undermine the interests of other nations with conflicting maritime claims.

We dont object to China exercising international maritime rights, but we do urge it to clarify its South China Sea maritime claims consistent with international law and to recognize other countries possess the same rights it exercises, he said.

Territorial claims are notoriously hard to resolve, and some disputes pre-date the creation of the Peoples Republic of China, he said.

Manila filed a case before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague contesting the legality of Chinas nine-dash line claim over the South China Sea and the West Philippine Sea under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

China cites historical facts for justifying its claim to 90 percent of the sea, which is also being contested by Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei and Malaysia. It has expressed intention to ignore the tribunals ruling expected in the coming weeks.

We are committed to a rules-based regional order that benefits all nations and we wont accept the division of the region into spheres of influence, he said.

Russel said from day one, the Obama administration has been clear-eyed about the potential for both conflict and cooperation with China.

Obama has had about 30 face-to-face meetings with his Chinese counterparts so far in addition to phone calls, letters and senior envoys to resolve differences and to shape Chinas choices to encourage responsible stewardship and contributions to global leadership.

Story continues

The 1982 UNCLOS covers issues such as who has jurisdiction to fish or drill for oil in any given location. It guarantees freedom of navigation, overflight and other lawful uses of the seas.

We dont ask China to renounce its territorial claims in the East or South China Seas, but we do ask China to renounce unilateral and destabilizing actions that change the status quo at the expense of the other claimants, he said.

We dont object to China exercising international maritime rights, but we do urge it to clarify its South China Sea maritime claims consistent with international law, he added.
The human gut is a complex and amazing system, and the more we learn about it, the more amazed we are. It turns out
- Presidents Uhuru Kenyatta and Yoweri Museveni officially break ties over the construction of oil pipeline

- Kenya states that it will go solo on the construction of the pipeline to exploit its oil resources

Haggling over the oil pipeline deal between Uganda and Kenya led to delays in preparation for Nairobi to construct its own oil pipeline and has now been cited as the key reason for disagreement between presidents Uhuru Kenyatta and Yoweri Museveni.

At the end of the 13 Northern Corridor Integration Projects Summit in Kampala on Saturday April 23, 2016, Nairobi made it clear that it was going solo on the oil pipeline.

Effectively, this ends renewed talks between Uhuru and Museveni that had started in March 21, 2016 when the latter visited Nairobi.

READ ALSO: Uganda leaves Kenya out of massive KSh 400 billion oil pipeline deal

A statement issued by the Presidential Service Communications Unit soon after the summit in Kampala said that Kenya will embark on the construction of the Lamu-Lokichar pipeline while Uganda will build the other pipeline through its southern borders.

However, both countries agreed to continue cooperating on petroleum issues since they are new to the industry.

Both Uhuru and Kenyatta mutually agreed on ending the project.

During the meeting in State House Nairobi on March 21, 2016, technical teams from Kampala and Nairobi discussing the Kenya - Uganda oil pipeline project had failed to come to an agreement on where the pipeline is to pass through.

The discussion centred on constructing the pipeline from Hoima on Lake Albert through Kenyan "northern route" through the oil field of Lokichar; and the Kenyan Southern route option through the town of Nakuru with a loop to Lokichar.

The third option was a route from Hoima to Tanga in Tanzania - which is what Uganda will now settle on.

Kenya favoured the the northern route through Lokichar, as part of the Lamu Port, South Sudan, Ethiopia Transport project, known as Lapsset.

Uganda's oil reserves were discovered some nine years ago and there are fears that delays in determining the constructing of the pipeline could hinder commercialisation of the product.

The country's first oil refinery is expected to be running by 2017.

Source: TUKO.co.ke
ALBANY POLICE

Accidental discharge  10:21 p.m. Thursday, 800 block Belmont Avenue S.W. Two gunshots were negligently fired inside an apartment and went through the floor into a downstairs apartment. Kenyon Decker, 23, of Albany, was arrested on charges of reckless endangering and discharging a firearm within the city limits.

Elude, stolen vehicle arrest  1:57 a.m. Friday, Coastal Farm & Ranch, 1355 Goldfish Farm Road S.E. An officer on patrol saw a vehicle in the business parking lot with one headlight and attempted to pull it over. The driver fled. The pursuit ended in the area of Waverly Drive and Clay Street S.E. when the officer struck the suspect vehicle to spin it out. Nicholas Dean Carter, 26, of Eugene, was arrested on charges of felony attempt to elude, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, reckless driving, reckless endangering and driving while suspended. His initial bail was set at $25,000. Also arrested in the incident were Alicia Lorie Clarkson, 29, of Springfield, and Erica Nicole Smith, 28, of Eugene, who both were booked and released at the jail, each on a charge of unauthorized use of a vehicle.

Stolen vehicle  7:49 a.m. Saturday, 800 block 19th Avenue S.W. A light gray Honda Civic was reported stolen. It was recovered later that day.

LINN COUNTY SHERIFF

Stolen vehicle  5:33 a.m. Friday, 36900 block KGAL Drive. A vehicle was reported stolen and was last seen earlier in the morning.

Meth in a shoe arrest  8:10 p.m. Friday, Linn County Jail. Shirley McCuen, 55, of Harrisburg, was arrested on charges of delivery and possession of methamphetamine and third-degree theft. Her initial bail was set at $16,500. McCuen was at Grocery Deals in Harrisburg when an employee reported that she was shoplifting. A deputy responded, contacted McCuen and later discovered nearly a half-ounce of meth in her boots.

Safe in a creek  11:45 a.m. Saturday, 2300 block Kenworthy Road. A caller reported finding a small safe that was thrown into a creek with its door pried open. The safe appeared in the creek in the last day or so.

Stolen car  12:41 a.m. Saturday, 32700 block Highway 228. A caller reported that a 2006 Suzuki Forenza was taken from a former equestrian facility sometime during the week. The keys were left under the seat.

LEBANON POLICE

Domestic assault arrest  5:30 a.m. Saturday, Linn County Jail. David Rood, 41, of Lebanon, was arrested on charges of felony fourth-degree assault (domestic violence) and strangulation. His initial bail was set at $53,000.
Vladimir Putin

As peace talks remain in a stalemate, Syria's fragile ceasefire is collapsing.

And the regime and its allies seem ready to pick back up where they left off.

Russia, which supports the regime of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has reportedly been moving artillery units to parts of northern Syria where regime forces have a presence, according to The Wall Street Journal. US officials worry that it signifies an impending return to full-scale fighting.

Iranian forces are also massing near the front lines, according to The Journal. Russia and Iran have both been major backers of the Assad regime throughout Syria's five-year civil war.

Earlier this year, Russia announced a military drawdown in Syria, but Russian forces and equipment have remained in the country to support the Assad regime.

Meanwhile, in Geneva, peace talks have sputtered as Syrian officials refuse to negotiate a deal with the opposition that would see Assad leave power.

This has long been a major sticking point  the opposition insists that Assad must step down, and many moderate rebels consider the regime, rather than terrorist groups, their main enemy in Syria. Assad has hung onto power as the violence in his country has ground on, and he continues to refuse to cede power to the opposition.

And despite the ceasefire, which applies to the regime and the opposition but not terrorist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, pro-regime forces attacked a market in the rebel-held town of Maaret al-Nouman in Idlib province.

One opposition negotiator said this week that the ceasefire is over, according to The Journal.

The attack on Maaret al-Nouman, a town with a strong rebel presence where residents have been protesting to repel Al Qaeda influence, serves as another example of Assad's aims in Syria.

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In an email to Business Insider, Abu Faisal, a Syrian aid worker who goes by a pseudonym and has been working with locals in Maaret al Nouman, explained the situation in Idlib:

It's also a clear sign by the regime that they bombed Maaret Al Nouman and nearby Kafranbel (some 10 died there as well on the same day) on purpose, or singled them out specifically. Both towns are what you could consider the most 'secular' and pro-[Free Syrian Army], anti-Nusra towns in all of Idlib. Assad hit them on purpose since protests against Nusra (which have not stopped for 39 straight days) do not fit the story he's trying to tell the world, that we are all terrorists or terrorist sympathizers.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Russia's RIA new agency, in Damascus, Syria in this handout file picture provided by SANA on March 30, 2016. REUTERS/SANA/Handout via Reuters/Files

Assad claims to be fighting terrorism in Syria, but he has mostly targeted opposition fighters who oppose his rule.

Analysts say his goal is to wipe out moderate rebels until there are only two groups left standing  the regime and its allies on one side, and terrorist groups on the other. Assad likely hopes that he can force the West into accepting his rule if he frames it as a choice between him and terrorists.

Airstrikes against areas with a strong Free Syrian Army presence embolden Jabhat al-Nusra, Faisal said. The militants seek to portray themselves as protectors of civilians targeted by the Assad regime.

"They can say, 'Look at you guys protesting against us while the regime kills you,'" Faisal said. "'We are your saviors. No one else is helping you.'"

Still, the ceasefire quelled rebel fighting in Syria long enough to allow the Assad regime to make gains against ISIS (also known as the Islamic State, ISIL, or Daesh) while it better positions itself against rebel positions, according to strategic security firm The Soufan Group. This gives Assad more legitimacy with the West while also ensuring that the regime is in a good position to fight moderate rebels if the ceasefire collapses.

The group explained in a note:

The Assad regime reenters the fighting as the unquestioned winner of the tenuous cessation in hostilities. The lull in violence allowed Assads forces and allies to temporarily refocus efforts towards combating the so-called Islamic State, with some significant success. Assads ability to retake territory controlled by the Islamic State in Palmyra and surrounding areas demonstrated to members of the U.S.-led anti-Islamic State coalition the effectiveness of the regimes ability to counter the Islamic State  thus providing Assad some level of increased international legitimacy.

And it's unlikely that negotiations between the regime and the opposition will ultimately be effective. The Soufan Group notes: "So long as Iran and Russia continue to empower the Assad regime through direct military support, any efforts at genuine reconciliation will be frivolous."

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By David Mugabe KAMPALA (Reuters) - Tanzania wants an 8 percent stake in Uganda's planned oil refinery, a Ugandan minister said on Friday, a move that could be designed to boost Tanzania's bid to secure a pipeline route for Ugandan crude over a rival pitch by Kenya. Uganda has been discussing plans for a refinery for about seven years. It would process some oil from fields it is developing, although most crude would be exported. Kenya, with its own oil fields under development, wants a joint pipeline. But Uganda, which initially said it had picked the Kenyan route, has since said it would pursue a pipeline through Tanzania. Nairobi has been pushing for Kampala to switch its plans. Government plans to begin construction of a refinery have been delayed repeatedly by spats with oil companies over the whether Uganda needed it and by a protracted tendering process. "Tanzania has offered to take its full share of the 8 percent offered in the refinery," Irene Muloni, Uganda's energy minister, told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference. She said she was awaiting written confirmation. The $2.5 billion project is to be developed as a public-private partnership. Last year, the government picked a consortium led by Russian firm RT-Global Resources to acquire a majority stake, develop and operate the plant. The Ugandan government has previously said the private developer would acquire 60 percent, with 40 percent shared between regional states which were interested. Uganda discovered crude near its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) 10 years ago, but has yet to start production after repeated delays. Choosing a route to export the crude from the land-locked nation is a vital step. France's Total, London-listed Tullow Oil and China's CNOOC have been pushing for a decision on a pipeline. Total backs the Tanzanian option. Tullow wants the pipeline to run through Kenya where it has other oil interests. (Writing by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Edmund Blair/Ruth Pitchford)
CHISINAU (Reuters) - Around 1,000 demonstrators scuffled with Moldovan riot police on Sunday in long-running anti-government protests and threatened to storm buildings owned by a prominent businessman in central Chisinau. Since last September thousands have regularly turned out to protest at the disappearance of $1 billion from banks, which has led to widespread disenchantment with the ex-Soviet state's political and business leaders. Insiders say the banking fraud, a steady haemorrhaging abroad of the equivalent of one-eighth of Moldova's gross domestic product in unsupported loans over several years, reflects deep-seated corruption. The appointment of a new prime minister in January with close ties to Vladimir Plahotniuc, one of Moldova's richest men, has angered opposition lawmakers and citizens, who want a snap parliamentary election. Hundreds of police carrying batons and protective shields formed a barrier between Plahotniuc's house and the crowd, who were shouting "Down with the mafia" and "Power to the people, not to the oligarchs". A similar stand-off was taking place nearby, with crowds throwing stones, sticks, eggs and bottles at police who were protecting a business centre owned by Plahotniuc. The demonstration was an offshoot of a larger protest, where 7,000 gathered around government buildings earlier on Sunday. One of the leaders of the protest, Inga Grigoriu, called on demonstrators to rally again on Monday morning with the aim of disrupting the government's work. "I ask you all to come tomorrow at seven to block the government building and not allow officials inside," she told the crowds. A decision in March to allow the next president to be chosen in national elections rather than a vote in parliament failed to appease protesters. (Reporting by Alexander Tanas; Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Ros Russell)
The logo of France's state-owned electricity company EDF is seen next to the Electricite de France (EDF) thermal electricity production plant in Cordemais, France, April 21, 2016. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe (Reuters)

By Geert De Clercq

PARIS (Reuters) - French utility EDF has secured a new government-backed multibillion-euro financing package ahead of making the final investment decision on its Hinkley Point nuclear power plant project in Britain.

Without mentioning the 18 billion pound (23 billion euros) British project, EDF said on Friday that following a review of long-term financing requirements, its board had decided to issue 4 billion euros worth of shares "by the closure of the 2016 accounts".

In addition, it said it would offer to pay dividends on 2016 and 2017 profits in shares. The government, as the 85 percent majority shareholder, has already accepted to take its dividend for 2015 in shares, saving EDF 1.8 billion euros of cash.

Separately, the government said it would subscribe to 3 billion euros of the planned 4 billion euro capital increase and would also take the scrip dividend options.

In an interview with French daily Le Figaro after the board meeting, EDF Chief Executive Jean-Bernard Levy said the company needed additional financial means for future projects.

He added that while EDF's cash position is healthy, the credit rating agencies downgraded the company last year and may do so again. "EDF is highly in debt and the imbalance between the company's assets and its equity capital is worrying," he said.

The government also said that in order for EDF to finance its new projects it would back a plan to open up the capital of its grid operator unit RTE to outside investors by end June, with a view to completing the sale of shares by end 2016.

The government has already said state-owned bank Caisse des Depots et Consignations could buy half of RTE.

EDF said on Friday the RTE sale is part of a plan to sell 10 billion euros worth of assets by 2020, including thermal power generation plants outside France and companies in which EDF has minority equity stakes.

The company also plans to cut operational expenditures by at least 1 billion in 2019 compared to 2015.

Story continues

Ahead of the financing plan announcement, EDF put back the final investment decision on Hinkley Point by several weeks to give time to conduct a consultation with its works council.

Two sources close to EDF said Levy had agreed to a works council review, which should delay a final investment decision until after EDF's May 12 shareholders meeting.

A source close to the French economy ministry said the works council procedure could take two to four months.

The source also said the state's EDF stake should remain around 85 percent as the state's partial subscription to the share issue would compensate the dilution of the share dividend.

(1 euro = 0.7791 pounds)

(Editing by Greg Mahlich and Richard Balmforth)
BERLIN (Reuters) - Europe and the United States should wrap up a U.S.-European free trade deal this year or people will start thinking it might never happen, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman told a German newspaper.

Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to discuss the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with U.S. President Barack Obama when he visits a trade show in Hanover on Sunday and Monday. The visit comes at a time when support for TTIP has plunged in Germany and the United States.

In an interview published on Friday, Froman told the newspaper Handelsblatt he wanted an agreement on TTIP this year but not at any cost. "We won't agree to a sort of 'TTIP Lite'," he said.

Asked whether it was realistic to conclude talks on TTIP in 2016, Froman said the EU and the U.S. had a "unique opportunity" if both sides had the political will for an agreement.

"If we don't get it done, then we create a great deal of uncertainty on whether we will ever get it done," he said.

On Wednesday, German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said TTIP negotiations were "frozen up" and their success or failure depended on Washington.

Merkel defended TTIP on Friday, saying it was an opportunity for the "Mittelstand" - the small and medium-sized companies seen as the backbone of Germany's economy, many of which worry the deal would give too much power to multinationals. Merkel said it would give them advantages on the U.S. market.

Speaking at an event hosted by the German brewing association in Ingolstadt, Merkel said the beer industry was increasingly benefiting from exports given that beer consumption in Germany was stagnating.

"So I encourage the critics of the free trade agreement to have another think about it," she said.

German government said at a news conference on Friday Berlin aimed to conclude TTIP negotiations by the end of 2016 and Merkel would stress that to Obama in her discussions with him in Hanover.

The United States is Germany's biggest trading partner. Advocates of the trade deal say it would unleash further growth while critics warn it could undermine consumer rights and environmental protection.

(Reporting by Michelle Martin in Berlin and Joern Poltz in Ingolstadt; Editing by Andrew Roche)
By Arshad Mohammed and Kiyoshi Takenaka HIROSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) - John Kerry will not offer an apology for the United States' use of the atomic bomb against Japan when he becomes the first U.S. secretary of state to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum on Monday, a senior U.S. official said. Kerry is visiting the city, which was obliterated by a U.S. atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945, to attend gathering of foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies that Japan opened on Sunday with a call to end nuclear weapons. The U.S. diplomat is to join his counterparts from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan on Monday to tour the city's atomic bomb museum and to lay flowers at a cenotaph for its victims, becoming the first in his post to do so. "If you are asking whether the secretary of state came to Hiroshima to apologise, the answer is no," a senior U.S. official told reporters late on Sunday. "If you are asking whether the secretary and I think all Americans and all Japanese are filled with sorrow at the tragedies that befell so many of our countrymen, the answer is yes," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added. Kerry's trip could pave the way for an unprecedented visit to Hiroshima by a sitting U.S. president when Barack Obama attends the annual G7 summit to be held in Japan next month. While saying the White House has yet to make a decision, the senior U.S. official said Obama has shown he is willing to do controversial things such as visiting Havana last month. The official suggested there was no "great or insurmountable angst about the optics or the politics of a visit to Hiroshima." He also said there was no Japanese effort to seek a U.S. apology, "nor is there any interest in reopening the question of blame for the sequence of events that culminated in the use of the atomic bomb." Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, who presides over the two-day meeting, on Sunday said ministers will discuss anti-terrorism steps, maritime security and issues related to North Korea, Ukraine and the Middle East. Some of the topics discussed on Sunday included countering violent extremism, the battle against Islamic State militants and the effort to end the five-year Syrian civil war, a second U.S. official told reporters. Maritime security is on the cards after China rattled nerves in the region with its controversial reclamation work in the South China Sea. Some talk of nuclear nonproliferation is inevitable given North Korea's fourth nuclear test in January. During World War II, a U.S. warplane dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, reducing the city to ashes and killing 140,000 people by the end of that year. Hiroshima's suffering is vividly displayed at the museum the ministers will tour, including their charred and torn clothes, a tricycle ridden by a three-year old boy who died from the blast and statues of the victims, their flesh melting from their arms. Three days after dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the United States dropped one on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered six days later. (Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka and Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
By Tiemoko Diallo BAMAKO (Reuters) - Authorities in Mali said on Friday they had arrested a member of a group linked to al Qaeda that has claimed responsibility for attacks that killed dozens in Mali and neighbouring Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast. Fawaz Ould Ahmed was captured by security and intelligence services in Bamako on Thursday as he was preparing to carry out another attack, said security ministry spokesman Amadou Sangho. "We found him with grenades and a small suitcase containing weapons. He was behind the attacks on the Radisson, the Hotel Nord Sud, the La Terrasse restaurant and the Hotel Byblos," he said. He said Ould Ahmed was a member of al Mourabitoun, a militant group allied to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Beginning with an attack on La Terrasse in Bamako in March last year that killed five people, the two groups have teamed up to target civilians at locations frequented by westerners. Seventeen people died in the attack on the Hotel Byblos in the town of Sevare in August and 20 in the November raid on the luxury Radisson Blu in the capital. Attacks on a restaurant in neighbouring Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou and a beach resort town in Ivory Coast in January and March of this year left dozens more dead. There were no casualties in last month's attack on Bamako's Hotel Nord Sud, which serves as the headquarters of the European Union's military training mission in Mali. Al Mourabitoun and AQIM claimed responsibility for all the attacks, but Sangho only linked Ould Ahmed to attacks inside Mali. Islamist violence is on the rise across West Africa despite a 2013 French-led military intervention that sought to drive militants out of northern Mali, which they had seized a year earlier. Before Ould Ahmed's capture, Malian officials had claimed to have arrested a number of suspected militants over the past month, who they say organised or carried out the assaults. "(Ould Ahmed) could have even carried out an operation this Friday. So it's a big win for the DGSE (intelligence service) which has arrested five terrorist bosses in less than four weeks," an intelligence officer said, asking not to be named. Some experts question the importance of the recent arrests. Contacted by Reuters, five academics who focus on Islamist militant groups in the region said they had never heard of Ould Ahmed. (Additional reporting by Adama Diarra; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Andrew Roche)
By Jan Strupczewski and Francesco Guarascio AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - There will be no deal between Greece and its lenders on Friday that would unlock loans and enable vital debt relief talks, despite some progress on the reforms Athens must implement in exchange, euro zone and IMF officials said on Friday. "Don't expect any deals today," the chairman of euro zone finance ministers Jeroen Dijsselbloem told reporters, noting however, he was "hearing good news from Athens" on headway made in negotiations on a Greek reform package. "There is more work to be done. We are determined to continue the work. We're not there yet," International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said. The package of reforms is aimed at producing a primary surplus of 3.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2018 "and beyond", according to a deal between Athens and euro zone governments signed last August. But there is disagreement between Greece, the euro zone and the IMF on whether the measures, which include pension and income tax reform and setting up a privatisation fund and a scheme to deal with bad loans, will be enough to reach that number. The IMF believes that as things stand now, instead of 3.5 percent of GDP, Greece will only achieve a primary surplus - the budget surplus before debt-servicing costs - equivalent to 1.5 percent of economic output in 2018. The Fund and the euro zone are also at odds over how long Greece will be able to maintain a primary surplus of 3.5 percent and therefore its ability to service its public debt in the long run. The debt stood at 177 percent of GDP last year. Germany and several other countries believe that with proper reforms Greece can keep such a surplus for decades and point to the fact that the country does not need to service its debt for the next seven years. The Fund says this is unrealistic, and therefore the euro zone must grant the country debt relief through extending maturities and grace periods. "Debt is a discussion we've not had before. The only thing we had was a promise that if the Greeks would commit fully and deliver on the programme we would look at, if necessary, further debt measures," Dijsselbloem said. The range of views on whether Greece needs debt relief stem from different macroeconomic assumptions among the lenders on Greek growth and fiscal performance over the next 30 years, officials said. "There is more to be done and a debt sustainability to be agreed upon as well. It's critically important," Lagarde said. But German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said debt relief talks were not a priority. "That is not in the foreground. What is in the foreground is what has been agreed last year must be implemented," he said, referring to fiscal targets set last August. Officials said differences over reforms in Greece have narrowed substantially in the last few days and have flagged the possibility of calling an extraordinary meeting of euro zone finance ministers on April 28 to clinch a deal. "I can tell you that there was very good progress in Athens. In my view, we are close to an agreement," European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Pierre Moscovici said. One official close to the talks said some differences were as small as 100 euros. "Right now only immaterial discrepancies remain," the official said, adding the main difference now was over personal income tax credits, which now stood at 2,100 euros. The IMF believes that Greece should not raise taxes further, but broaden the tax base by eliminating lots of existing exemptions, which it said now effectively exempted 55 percent of Greek households, while the euro zone average was 18 percent. "The IMF insists on a reduction to 1,800 euros and the Greeks have come down to agreeing to 1,900 euros," the official said. "The difference is 0.1 percent of GDP, which is less than 200 million euros out of a package of reforms worth 5.4 billion euros," the official said. (Reporting By Jan Strupczewski and Francesco Guarascio; Additional reporting by Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
US President Barack Obama has told an audience of young British people to reject isolationism, pessimism and cynicism.

Speaking after he made it clear he does not want the UK to leave the EU, he appeared to make a veiled call for young people to vote to stay in the EU during an event billed as a US-style 'town hall' meeting.

The Remain campaign got a further boost on Saturday night as the favourite to win the Democratic nomination in the race for the White House, Hillary Clinton, reportedly made clear that she was in favour of the UK staying in the EU.

Her senior policy adviser Jake Sullivan told the Observer: "Hillary Clinton believes that transatlantic cooperation is essential, and that cooperation is strongest when Europe is united.

"She has always valued a strong United Kingdom in a strong EU. And she values a strong British voice in the EU."

Mr Obama told his audience at Royal Horticultural Halls on Saturday: "We see calls for isolationism or xenophobia. We see those who would call for rolling back the rights of people.

"I think we can understand they are reactions to changing times.

"But, when I speak to young people, I implore them, and I implore you, to reject those calls to pull back."

But Out campaigner Boris Johnson, who was criticised on Friday for an attack on Mr Obama described as racist, shrugged off the president's criticism and continued to claim he was being "hypocritical".

"I think this is all a complete distraction. An attempt by the Remain campaign to throw dust in people's eyes," he said.

"Over the last few days, nobody on that side of the argument has been able to answer the key point that I have been making which is that it is inconsistent, perverse and yes, it is hypocritical of the United States to tell us that we should sacrifice more of our independence than they would ever dream of doing themselves."

Mr Obama's message on Friday, made as he stood alongside Prime Minister David Cameron, had been one of warning as he suggested a trade deal between the UK and US would be at the "back of the queue" if the UK quit the bloc.

Story continues

But it was an altogether more positive tone he took on Saturday.

"My primary message is going to be to reject pessimism and cynicism, know that progress is possible and that problems can be solved," the President said.

"Progress requires the harder path of breaking down barriers and building bridges, and retaining the values of tolerance that our nations have worked to defend."

Justice Minister Dominic Raab branded the President an irrelevant "lame duck" after his remarks.

"I have got no doubt that future US trade negotiators are going to look to other opportunities - I think the British will be first in the queue, not at the back of the queue."

Earlier, UKIP leader Nigel Farage also savaged Mr Obama's comments, saying the President's intervention was at the "bidding of Cameron" and accused him of "doing his best to talk down to Britain".

On Friday night, Mr Obama and First Lady Michelle had dinner with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry, where they also met Prince Georg e.

During the 'town hall' meeting, the President said that George was adorable .

Before his meeting on Saturday, Mr Obama visited the Globe Theatre to mark the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death.

He then went on to have talks with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who said afterwards that he had an "excellent" discussion with the President, with subject matter including inequality and the impact of technology and global corporations on world populations.

Tonight, the President will meet David Cameron again, when US ambassador Matthew Barzun will host a private dinner.
By Howard Schneider BETHLEHEM, Pa. (Reuters) - With a rusting steel mill in its center, this Pennsylvania city would seem fertile ground for Donald Trump's campaign and its vision of a declining America that only he can fix. Yet Trump, who will be seeking voters' backing as the Republican nominee for the White House in the state's primary on Tuesday, may face a stiffer challenge than the demise of the local steel industry might suggest. In the two decades since the blast furnaces of Bethlehem Steel went silent, the local economy did not follow the once-mighty company into decline. It bounced back. The old mill's 1,600 acre (6.5 square km) site has been adapted as the backdrop of a novel urban park that includes an arts center, a Public Broadcasting Service studio, and a Sands casino resort with 2,400 employees. Bethlehem and the Lehigh Valley region around it have filled new industrial parks with e-commerce companies, white collar businesses fleeing New York's high costs, and global giants such as Japanese imaging firm Olympus. Trump has stormed ahead of the Republican field successfully tapping the frustration and anger of millions of Americans who feel bruised and left behind by a fast-changing and increasingly globalized economy. The Pennsylvania ballot will test how that message resonates in areas that can serve as an example of successful transformation. It might also give a taste of which narrative might prevail in the campaign for the November presidential election - one built around evidence of steady economic recovery and an improving labor market, or one of pessimism fueled by stagnant incomes for many and widening wealth disparities. "If you were to design the perfect Trump location, the Lehigh Valley was that 25 years ago," said Chris Borick, a political science professor at Muhlenberg College in Allentown. "It is a different place now. Some of the blue collar appeal that Trump may be having in other areas of the country or the state may have less of a target here." The New York real estate mogul and reality TV celebrity is heading into the Pennsylvania contest with a solid lead, according to most polls. The most recent, published on Thursday by the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College, gave Trump a 14 percentage point lead over Ohio Governor John Kasich and a 16 point advantage over Sen. Ted Cruz. Nationally, Trump leads in the tally of delegates to the Republican convention with 845 followed by Ted Cruz with 559 and Kasich with 148, according to Associated Press, and is looking for another big night on April 26. Primaries in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware and Maryland will allocate roughly a quarter of the remaining delegates to the July convention - the largest bloc at stake until California votes in June. Kasich and Cruz supporters hope they can slow Trump's march to the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination by snagging delegates chosen at the Congressional district level. The Franklin and Marshall poll showed substantial differences among the candidates across this geographically and culturally diverse state, with Kasich leading around Pittsburgh, near where he was born, and Cruz in a statistical tie with Trump in the central counties that are considered more conservative. PRAGMATIC STREAK The Lehigh Valley is part of a Congressional district that has returned moderate Republican Charlie Dent to Washington for a decade, and Dent said he expected Kasich, whom he has endorsed, to do well there. "The area is not as rigid ideologically as other parts of the country," Dent told Reuters. "Maybe it is the old Pennsylvania-German ethic. They expect roads to get built and paved." That pragmatic streak was apparent last week among Kasich supporters who attended a town hall in Media, a middle class suburb south of Philadelphia. Trump has made his millions, but that is not like managing the federal budget, said Mary Emily Pagano, a former social worker for the local county. A strong result for Trump in areas such as the Lehigh Valley, however, would be a bad omen for his rivals - a sign that his "make America great again" message has appeal beyond voters who are at the margins economically. Lehigh and Northampton counties have a larger share of households than the state as a whole that earn more than $75,000, about 36 percent, a group where Kasich is even with Trump in some polls. Unemployment has also been below the national rate of 5 percent in a metropolitan area that includes Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton. Despite the steel industry's decline, the area's manufacturing workforce is slightly larger than the national average, with a growing food processing hub, 1,000 remaining steel foundry jobs and around 75 new positions headed here from China. The Zhejiang-based Fuling company, which makes plastic cutlery and other products for fast food restaurants, decided to move its less labor intensive straw making operation to Allentown instead of paying to ship straws - and the air inside them - from China. Olympus and other companies have put hundreds of sales, marketing and customer support positions at an office park near Bethlehem, fueling the shift from blue collar jobs. Olympus chief executive for the Americas, Barcelona native Nacho Abia, said the region was a perfect fit, with open space, proximity to the New York-Washington corridor, and a network of local colleges supplying the educated workforce he needs. Don Cunningham, who was mayor of Bethlehem when steel production stopped and now heads the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation, does not miss the old days. "We are better off economically, and we are better off socially," he said. "The economic base is diverse. The air is cleaner. The river is cleaner." Yet Trump has struck a chord, said Jerry Green, president of United Steelworkers Local 2599, the union that in its World War II heyday represented more than 30,000 Bethlehem Steel employees. Membership is now down to around 1,200, based at foundry and casting operations, such as privately held Victaulic, a global manufacturer of high-end fittings used to join pipes. Green said there was no shortage of jobs, but many of them failed to provide an adequate living or career, such as the warehouse clerk positions being created by a boom in e-commerce distribution that offer starting wages of around $11. "Yes there are jobs, but not good paying ones," Green said. Trump's comments on trade are what most people want to hear, he said. "He talks a good game. Can he produce? If people were sure he could, they would probably support him." (Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
By Michelle Nichols and Valerie Volcovici UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - China and the United States, the world's top producers of greenhouse gas emissions, pledged on Friday to formally adopt by the end of the year a Paris deal to slow global warming, raising the prospects of it being enforced much faster than anticipated. The United Nations said 175 states took the first step of signing the deal on Friday, the biggest day one endorsement of a global agreement. Of those, 15 states also formally notified the United Nations that they had ratified the deal. Many countries still need a parliamentary vote to formally approve the agreement, which was reached in December. The deal will enter into force only when ratified by at least 55 nations representing 55 percent of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. China and the United States together account for 38 percent of global emissions. "China will finalise domestic legal procedures on its accession before the G20 Hangzhou summit in September this year," China's Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli told the U.N. signing ceremony, attended by some 55 heads of state and government. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who signed the deal with his 2-year-old granddaughter Isabelle on his lap, said the United States "looks forward to formally joining this agreement this year." President Barack Obama will formally adopt the agreement through executive authority. The deal commits countries to restraining the global rise in temperatures to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. But even if the pact is fully implemented, promised greenhouse gas cuts are insufficient to limit warming to an agreed maximum, the United Nations says. The first three months of 2016 have broken temperature records and 2015 was the planet's warmest year since records began in the 19th century, with heat waves, droughts and rising sea levels. "The era of consumption without consequences is over," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Friday. "We must intensify efforts to decarbonise our economies. And we must support developing countries in making this transition." 'REASON FOR HOPE' Many developing nations are pushing to ensure the climate deal comes into force this year, partly to lock in the United States if a Republican opponent of the pact is elected in November to succeed Obama, a Democrat. Once the accord enters into force, a little-noted Article 28 of the agreement says any nation wanting to withdraw must wait four years, the length of a U.S. presidential term. The deal also requires rich nations to maintain a $100 billion a year funding pledge beyond 2020, providing greater financial security to developing nations to build their defences to extreme weather and wean themselves away from coal-fired power. "We need to mobilise the necessary financial resources," French President Francois Hollande said. "We need to ensure that our words become actions." The U.N.'s previous climate deal, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol entered into force only in 2005. Kyoto dictated cuts in greenhouse gas emissions only for developed nations, unlike the Paris Agreement which involves both rich and poor but lets all countries set national targets. The previous first-day record for signatures for a global agreement was set in 1982 when 119 states signed the Convention on the Law of the Sea. "More countries have come together here to sign this agreement today than for any other cause in the history of human kind and that is a reason for hope," actor and U.N. Messenger of Peace on climate change, Leonardo DiCaprio told the event, taking place on Earth Day. "But unfortunately the evidence shows us that it will not be enough. Our planet cannot be saved unless we leave fossil fuels in the ground where they belong," he said. (Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton, Louis Charbonneau, and Luciana Lopez; Editing by David Gregorio and Frances Kerry)
DAKAR (Reuters) - Three Red Cross workers have been freed unharmed after being held prisoner for several days in northern Mali, the humanitarian organisation said on Friday. "The best news we could get: our three colleagues in Mali are free, safe and sound," Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said on Twitter. The ICRC lost contact with four of its staff on Saturday as they were driving back to their base in the town of Kidal. One of the four was found on Sunday and said the team had been accosted by a man on a motorcycle who demanded they follow him. "They were detained by a community in northern Mali before being released this morning," said Valery Mbaoh Nana, the ICRC's spokesman in Mali's capital Bamako. He said he could give no further details for security reasons. The Kidal region is home to a number of armed groups. Islamist militants are still active in the area despite a 2013 French-led military intervention to drive them from the desert north. Among them are fighters linked to al Qaeda who have mounted deadly attacks in Mali and neighbouring states in the past year. The incident involving the ICRC workers came a day after the group's local guide was arrested by French soldiers from a regional anti-militant operation, the ICRC spokesman said. Media reports had linked the workers' disappearance to the Islamist militant group Ansar Dine, claiming the group had demanded the guide's release in exchange for freeing the ICRC staff. But Nana said the ICRC did not believe the four workers' detention had been linked to the arrest and denied the organisation had struck a deal for their release. "We have not received claims or specific requests. They have been released without conditions," he said. (Reporting by Marine Pennetier; Editing by Joe Bavier and Andrew Roche)
SUNDAY

Author reading: The Timberline Review, 2 p.m., Grass Roots Books & Music, 227 S.W. Second St., Corvallis. Authors Rick Attig, Henry Hughes, Jeanne Krinsley and Kelli Osborn will share readings of the winter/spring edition of the Timberline Review. Information: 541-754-7668 or grassrootsbookstore.com.

Corvallis Youth Symphony, 3 p.m., Austin Auditorium, LaSells Stewart Center, 875 S.W. 26th St. Advance tickets: $10, at the door $12, students $2. Information and tickets: http://cysassoc.org/tickets.

Lebanon Community Chorus: Spring Pops Concert, 3 p.m., First Assembly Church of God, 726 Oak St. Kevin Nordquist will direct the concert, which includes a guest performance by the Lebanon High School Chamber Choir. Selections from "South Pacific," "The Phantom of the Opera," "Les Miserables" and Gershwin. Admission: $8 general, $5 students and seniors. The chorus donates $500 to Lebanon Schools Foundation music education. Tickets can be purchased at Lebanon Bi-Mart or at the door. Information: 541-243-4104.

MONDAY

Line dance, couples dance, dance lesson, 6 p.m., Albany Eagles Lodge, 127 Broadalbin St. S.W. Instructor Ernie Briggs leads a dance lesson at 7 p.m. Admission: $4 per person. Information: 541-974-0470.

International Folk Dancing, 7 p.m., 1180 25th Ave. S.W., Albany. No partner needed. Admission: $4. Information: 541-967-8017 or grholcomb96@gmail.com.

Live music by Bryson Skaar, 7:30 p.m., Imagine Coffee, 5460 S.W. Philomath Blvd., Corvallis.

TUESDAY

Artists reception: Loosely Bound: A 10-Year Creative Journey, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Giustina Gallery, LaSells Stewart Center, 875 S.W. 26th St., Corvallis. Twelve fiber artists from the group Loosely Bound discuss projects featured in the exhibit. Light hors doeuvres and a cash wine bar available. Information: http://oregonstate.edu/lasells/gallery.

Community Movie Night with Ygal Kaufman: House on Haunted Hill (1959), 7 p.m., Darkside Cinema, 215 S.W. Fourth St., Corvallis. The film will be preceded by newsreels, commercials, cartoons and other goodies from the year it was released. Donations accepted. Information: https://cmnyk.wordpress.com.

WEDNESDAY

Author event: Ziggy Rendler-Bregman, 7 p.m., Grass Roots Books & Music, 227 S.W. Second St., Corvallis. Rendler-Bregman will read from and sign her book The Gate of Our Coming and Going. Information: 541-754-7668 or grassrootsbookstore.com.

KRKT and Oregon Jamboree Mystery Concert, 7 p.m., Austin Auditorium, LaSells Stewart Center, 875 S.W. 26th St., Corvallis. KRKT and Oregon Jamboree partner every year to host the concert, typically featuring a country musician. The artist's identity is not revealed until showtime. Admission: $20. The concert benefits the St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital. Tickets available at https://www.festivalticketing.com/boxoffice/?cref=A2CD6555-4AD3-4E82-AB68-CFDA5B889C1B.

Screening of Monty Python and The Holy Grail, 7 p.m., Whiteside Theatre, 361 S.W. Madison Ave., Corvallis. Admission: $5-$7. Advance tickets are available at Corvallis Brewing Supply, 119 S.W. Fourth St., and at http://viciousrabbit.brownpapertickets.com.

THURSDAY

Albany Writers, 7 p.m., Albany Fire Department Station No. 13, 1980 Three Lakes Road S.E. A no-cost amateur writers group. Information: 541-704-4116.

Author event: Donald Levering, 7 p.m., Grass Roots Books & Music, 227 S.W. Second St., Corvallis. Levering will read from and sign his Coltranes God, a book of poetry about music, primarily jazz, blues and bluegrass, with special guest author Clemens Starck. Information: 541-754-7668 or grassrootsbookstore.com.

Live music by Three for Silver, Vanfald, 9 p.m., Bombs Away Cafe, 2527 N.W. Monroe Ave., Corvallis.

FRIDAY

Wearing the World: International Fashion Show and Silent Auction, 6:30 p.m., Corvallis Multicultural Literacy Center, 700 S.W. Madison Ave. A collection blending traditional elements and modern spirit gathered from more than 20 countries. Tickets: $15 in advance at The Arts Center, 700 S.W. Madison Ave.; 541-754-7225; or www.cmlcenter.org. Tickets: $17.50 at the door.

Faery Free-for-All, 7 p.m., Ashbrook Independent School, 4045 S.W. Research Way. Comedy by Patrick Rainville Dorn. Tickets: $8 at the door, or call 541-766-1063, ext. 254, for advance tickets.

Improv Smackdown: 2 Towns vs. Calapooia, 7:30 p.m., Majestic Theatre, 115 S.W. Second St., Corvallis. Local competitive team improv in the style of Whose Line Is It Anyway? Tickets: $10 to $12; 541-738-7469 or www.majestic.org.

SATURDAY

National Cohousing Open House Day tour, 10:30 a.m., CoHo Ecovillage, 1975 S.E. Crystal Lake Drive, Corvallis. RSVP: cohocontact@cohoecovillage.org.

Open house, 1 to 4 p.m., O.H. Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory, 3550 S.W. Jefferson Ave., Corvallis. Twenty-minute guided tours of the largest tsunami research facility in the country. Tours start every five minutes and cover tsunami research, coastal hazards in Oregon, and coastal engineering.

Dia celebration, 3 p.m., main meeting room, Corvallis-Benton County Public Library, 645 N.W. Monroe Ave. Cultural celebration featuring a music and dance workshop with storytelling by Habiba Addo. The celebration emphasizes the importance of literacy for children of all linguistic and cultural backgrounds.
By Steve Holland and Amanda Becker HOLLYWOOD, Fla./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top advisers to Donald Trump pledged to Republican Party leaders on Thursday that the New York billionaire would adopt a more presidential demeanor after weeks of bashing the party, and urged them to unify behind the political outsider. Trump's representatives, including newly recruited senior advisers Paul Manafort and Rick Wiley, met with leaders of the Republican National Committee behind closed doors at a conference room at an oceanside resort hotel where the party is holding a three-day meeting. Over shrimp, crab legs and an open bar, the advisers expressed confidence that Trump would win the Republican presidential nomination without the party having to resort to a contested convention in Cleveland in July, according to three attendees. Trump, 69, needs 1,237 delegates to win the nomination outright for the Nov. 8 election. Rivals Ted Cruz, 45, and John Kasich, 63, are trying to stop him from getting a majority of delegates, so they can force a contested convention in which one of them could emerge as the nominee. Party leaders told reporters after the session that Trump's envoys said Trump, as the Republican nominee, would be able to expand the electoral map to include several states Republicans have not won in a general election in a generation. One attendee, South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Matt Moore, said the Trump team told the group it expected Trump to have a "more presidential demeanor" over the next few weeks.In recent weeks, Trump has railed against the party for developing what he said was a "rigged" system in which Cruz was able to amass delegates in Colorado without Republicans actually voting. Moore said he was taking a wait-and-see attitude on whether Trump would change. "The proof is in the pudding," he said. Manafort told reporters after the meeting that "we talked about how we're going to expand the map." As for how to improve Trump's negative image held by some voters, Manafort said: "We just have to present him in a way that shows all sides of Donald Trump." 'STOP FIGHTING AMONG OURSELVES' Former presidential candidate Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon who has endorsed Trump, also addressed the group. Talking to reporters as he walked into the meeting, Carson said his message was that Republicans should "stop fighting among ourselves" and unite behind Trump. I dont think anyone can win if the Republican Party and the conservatives dont consolidate," he said. Trump, who has alarmed some establishment Republicans with his comments on immigration, Muslims and trade, has begun to moderate his message in recent days. Trump's campaign has hired staff versed in the ways of Washington and has begun holding regular meetings on Capitol Hill with current and potential supporters. Trump clashed again on Thursday with Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, this time over a North Carolina law passed last month requiring transgender people to use government and school bathrooms that correspond with the sex on their birth certificates. During an appearance at an NBC "Today" show town hall, Trump sided with critics of the law, passed by a Republican-controlled legislature, saying it was unnecessary and that North Carolina was "paying a big price" because of negative business reaction. His comments drew immediate criticism from Cruz, a staunch social and fiscal conservative who supports the law and said Trump had caved to political correctness as he seeks to broaden his appeal. Cruz, along with Kasich, 63, the Ohio governor, addressed leaders on Wednesday at the RNC meeting, which is focused on the party's July convention. Cruz said he had the ability to unite the party behind him after a bitter nomination battle. Kasich cited opinion polls showing he was the only Republican candidate who could defeat Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. (Reporting by Steve Holland and Amanda Becker; Additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Ginger Gibson; Editing by Frances Kerry and Peter Cooney)
By Idrees Ali WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Twenty civilians were likely killed and 11 others injured in nine U.S. air strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria between Sept. 10, 2015, and Feb. 2, 2016, the U.S. military said on Friday. The deaths brought the number of civilians killed since the U.S. air campaign against the Islamic militants began in 2014 to 41, said Colonel Patrick Ryder, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command. He added that 28 civilians had been injured during that time. "We deeply regret the unintentional loss of life and injuries resulting from those strikes and express our deepest sympathies to the victims' families and those affected." Ryder said. Eight civilians were killed during an Oct. 5 strike on a mortar firing position near Al Huwayjah, Iraq, Central Command said in a statement. Separately, it said five civilians were killed on Dec. 12 in Ramadi, Iraq after they "unexpectedly moved into the target location after weapons were already in flight." "In all of the cases released today, assessments determined that although the strikes complied with the law of armed conflict and all appropriate precautions were taken, civilian casualties unfortunately did occur," the statement said. The U.S.-led coalition has carried out 11,539 air strikes against Islamic State as of April 12, with 7,794 in Iraq and 3,745 in Syria, according to U.S. military data. "It is also important to highlight again Daesh's culpability due to their continued, cowardly tactic of hiding and operating among civilian populations," Ryder said, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State. Ryder added that 162 allegations of civilian casualties had been received, 112 of which were deemed not credible, since the beginning of the campaign. (Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Paul Simao)
By Kaori Kaneko TOKYO (Reuters) - The United States will propose that President Barack Obama visits Hiroshima, Japan's Nikkei newspaper said on Friday, in what would be the first visit by an incumbent U.S. president to the city devastated by a U.S. nuclear attack 71 years ago. Citing an unidentified senior U.S. government official, the business daily said Washington planned to propose to Tokyo a visit by the president on May 27, at the end of a Group of Seven (G7) summit hosted by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. In Washington, a White House official said no decision has been made. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga denied the visit was being arranged and declined further comment. Diplomatic protocol means any announcement should come from the U.S. side. "It is not true that a visit to Hiroshima by President Obama is being arranged between the United States and Japan," Suga told a regular news conference. "The schedule of the U.S. president is a matter for the United States to decide. The (Japanese) government will refrain from comment." A U.S. warplane dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, killing thousands of people instantly and about 140,000 by the end of that year. Nagasaki was bombed on Aug. 9, 1945, and Japan surrendered six days later. A presidential visit would be controversial in the United States if it were seen as an apology. A majority of Americans view the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as justified to end the war and save U.S lives. The vast majority of Japanese think the bombings were unjustified. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said during a visit to the city this month that Obama wanted to travel there, although he did not know if the president's schedule when he visited Japan for the May 26-27 summit would allow him to. Hiroshima bombing survivors, and other residents, have said they hope for progress in ridding the world of nuclear weapons, rather than an apology, if Obama makes the historic visit. Hopes for Obama's visit to Hiroshima were raised after a speech in April 2009 in Prague when he called for a world without nuclear weapons. He later said he would be honored to visit the two cities that suffered nuclear attack. Kerry, who toured the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and Museum, called its haunting displays "gut-wrenching" and said everyone should visit. The displays include photographs of badly burned victims, the tattered and stained clothes they wore and statues depicting them with flesh melting from their limbs. (Additional reporting by Chang-Ran Kim and Tim Gardner in Washington; Writing by Linda Sieg; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Robert Birsel and Bill Trott)
By Mohammed Ghobari KUWAIT (Reuters) - Yemen's warring factions held their first direct talks in a U.N.-backed peace process on Friday and will meet again despite failing to agree on an agenda, participants said. The United Nations envoy, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, said the meetings in Kuwait had been constructive and the positive atmosphere was a step forward in efforts to end the conflict. They discussed a more permanent ceasefire in Yemen and how it would be implemented, he said. The talks, which opened late on Thursday, seek a solution to a war which has killed more than 6,200 people, triggered a humanitarian crisis and enabled al Qaeda and Islamic State militants to consolidate their presence in the country. They bring together the Iran-allied Houthi movement, who control the capital Sanaa, and its General People's Congress (GPC) allies with the Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, based in the southern port city of Aden. "The meetings held today were constructive and the atmosphere is an important advancement," Ould Cheikh Ahmed told a news conference. "We will intensify our efforts." But sources present at the talks, delayed since Monday due to the late arrival of the Houthi delegation and its allies, said the two sides continue to be divided on the priorities. The government delegation wants Houthis and fighters loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh to withdraw from cities and hand over weapons before discussing a political solution, the sources said. The Houthis and its allies want the formation of a new government representing all parties, which will then oversee disarmament. They also want to focus the discussion on security arrangements and detainees, the sources added. The sources declined to be named because the talks, being held at the palace of Kuwait's ruling emir, are closed to the media. A temporary truce between the government and Houthis has mostly held in place since April 10 in preparation for the talks although both sides have accused each other of violations. The Yemen conflict began in September 2014 when the Houthis seized Sanaa. A Saudi-led Arab alliance intervened in March last year, launching a campaign of mostly air strikes against the Houthis in support of Hadi's forces. (Writing by Sylvia Westall; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
Albany, CACelebrating Earth Day and the 4th year anniversary of the first occupation, about 30 farm defenders occupied two acres on the south side of the Gill Tract and vow to stay on the land to halt construction indefinitely. The group is making three demands: 1) STOP THE DEVELOPMENT, 2) PRESERVE THE LAND FOR SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE, 3) CREATE A COMMUNITY PROCESS FOR DESIGN & STEWARDSHIP OF GILL TRACT.

The Gill Tract was sold to the University of California in 1928 under the condition it would be used for agricultural research and education. But contractors began construction work on the southern portion of the Gill Tract in January 2016, removing and paving over the healthy topsoil of the historical farm. The area the farm defenders occupy at the moment is slated to become a Sprouts supermarket, which has been facing a boycott campaign by members of the community for the last three years.The group Occupy the Farm is escalating with a sustained occupation after having organized several actions to stop construction. This year alone, the group removed surveying stakes from the land, disrupted the grand opening week of a Sprouts supermarket in Oakland, locked-down to construction machinery, and even sat in meditation on their path to stop construction. Five activists had been arrested at those previous actions, but no charges were brought against them in court."Our occupation will stall construction until the UC and its corporate partners cancel construction projects on the land," explained Susan Park, member of Occupy the Farm. Such tactics of disruptions and blockades of construction, increasing costs beyond expected, has effectively caused several other socially and environmentally contested projects to be cancelled in the US and elsewhere.Community members, students, and UC faculty have put forth an alternative proposal to use all twenty acres of the historic Gill Tract for urban agriculture, agroecology, and food justice, serving the University of Californias mission of research and education for the public good, while also operating as a productive urban farm that provides students, workers, and community members with access to affordable local produce. This proposal better aligns with UC President Napolitanos Global Food Initiative as well as the sustainability and climate mitigation policies of the state of California.The UC administration's argument for privatization and construction is shortsighted and irresponsible, explains Gustavo Oliveira, a PhD student at Berkeley who also teaches a class on Food and the Environment. The UC could embrace the vision of agroecology for this land to generate three times more revenue than it is obtaining through the privatization of this valuable public asset.Stanford has raised over $3 million since it launched the O'Donohue Family Stanford Educational Farm in 2014, and they accomplished this with significantly less academic resources and prestige than the University of California holds on urban agriculture and agroecology.Mission Statement:Occupy The Farm uses a broad spectrum of tactics, including direct action, to reclaim and expand the commons for sustainable farming and community education. We are building a network of relationships with nature and each other that will sustain us, respect our common human heritage, and unite us in our struggles against oppression. Our goal is to heal our ecosystems, expand biodiversity, and embrace the wisdom of indigenous & traditional practices of stewardship and knowledge of the land, as we work to dismantle the systemic injustices which have separated people from these central relationships.Background:The privatization and construction launched on the site has been contested by students, faculty, and members of the community for almost two decades. In 2004, the UC Regents approved commercial development despite years of campaigning by students, faculty, and community members for the preservation of the land for urban agriculture and food justice, and proceeded bulldozing greenhouses in 2008 and contracting with Whole Foods for development of the site.In April 2012, Occupy the Farm reenergized this struggle by camping on the land and planting a publicly-accessible farm on the Gill Tract. Under pressure, Whole Foods pulled out of the proposed development, and the UC administration granted protection for a portion of the land, some of which is now the vibrant Gill Tract Community Farm.However, the 7 acres of the southern portion of the Gill Tract remains slated for development with a shopping center anchored by Sprouts supermarket, a high-end senior housing complex, and a parking lot. UC Capital Projects now seeks to implement this project despite another occupation in May 2013 and other mobilizations on the land in 2014 and 2015, two lawsuits, an Albany City referendum effort, broad based and constant community participation at the Albany City Council in favor of preserving the farmland for agricultural use, and an ongoing campaign for Sprouts to drop its proposed construction project over the Gill Tract.
ILWU Local 10 has again initiated a May Day rally and march which will start at their union hall at 400 Northpoint St. in San Francisco. They have also invited Danny Glover and Bernie Sanders to speak.

Join ILWU Local 10 for May Day 2016 National Day of Mourning for victims of police terror: Bernie Sanders, Danny Glover invited to speakApril 23, 2016by Clarence Thomas, past secretary-treasurer for Local 10Bernie Sanders embraces Danny Glover at a rally in Greenville, S.C., on Feb. 21, 2016. Former NAACP President Ben Jealous is behind them.  Photo: ABC NewsFor the second consecutive year, the ILWU Local 10 will be withholding its labor for eight hours to commemorate May Day. This May Day, Local 10 is calling for a National Day of Mourning for Black and Brown unarmed victims of police killings across the country. In 2015, the May Day theme was to Stop Police Terror.Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders has been invited to speak May Day. While there is no confirmation as yet, the invitation is being strongly considered by his campaign organizers. Local 10 and the ILWUs International Executive Board have endorsed his candidacy.Black longshore workers stood up to the police who brutally tried to put down the legendary 1934 general strike in San Francisco. Blacks, then unwelcome in most unions and often used as strikebreakers, were rewarded by Harry Bridges, head of the ILWU, with full membership, thus beginning a long tradition of Black dockworkers in the city.Danny Glover has been campaigning with Bernie Sanders in various states throughout the country and most recently in New York. Glover, actor and activist, raised in San Francisco, will appear at one of the rallies. As a student leader at San Francisco State University, he led the longest student strike in America history, which established the School of Ethnic Studies, and he was a prominent figure in the anti-apartheid struggle.Also invited to speak is Mike Farrell, cast member of popular TV series M*A*S*H*, a life-long opponent of the death penalty. Farrell has debated and spoken about this issue on many occasions across the country. Additional speakers will include family members of victims of police violence and community, social justice and labor activists.This years May Day festivities include a pre-rally at the Local 10 union hall located at 400 North Point St. in San Francisco Fishermans Wharf to be followed by a march and rally at Harry Bridges Plaza near the Ferry Building. The ILWU was born out of the struggle against protesting police violence against maritime workers in all major West Coast ports in the Big Strike of 1934. The San Francisco Labor Council is supporting ILWU Local 10s march along the Embarcadero, site of the longshoremens battle with police in the Big Strike of 1934.May Day, International Workers Day, is a holiday born in the USA to celebrate labors struggle to gain the eight-hour work day. In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions passed a resolution in Chicago declaring that eight hours would constitute a legal days work on May 1, 1886.Labors struggle to achieve the eight-hour work day faced bloody repression as business-controlled government tried to crush the workers movement. The workers were determined to end long hours of brutal exploitation and were victorious.Clarence Thomas  Photo: Delores Lemon ThomasLocal 10 has been in the vanguard of labor in its acts of resistance protesting racial policing. This years May Day mobilization is advancing five demands supported by Rev. Clementa Pinkney, South Carolina state senator, church pastor and one of the slain Emanuel 9 of Charleston. Demands include: 1. End to racist policing; 2. Economic justice, a $15 living wage now; 3. Health care for all, Medicaid expansion; 4. Quality education as a basic human right; and 5. Voting rights expansion.Longshore unions can take the lead in building workers solidarity to end racist policing and also achieve economic and social justice for the working class as it did in 1886 to achieve the eight-hour work day. If the working class is to be heard, then labor must shut it down. All out for May Day 2016.Clarence Thomas, past secretary-treasurer for Local 10, organizer for previous May Day actions, third generation longshoreman and member of Local 10 for 30 years, can be reached at thomas-
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A criminal charge against the owner of a Pho noodle restaurant on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City for five days late in business registration has been dropped after the Chief Procurator of the Supreme People's Procuracy found the man not guilty of "illegally doing business".

Local prosecutors have been asked to cancel the prosecution proceedings against the Pho owner, after chief procurator Le Minh Tri said that the restaurant owner had not violated Article 159 of the Criminal Code, which punishes individuals for conducting business without a registration certificate.

Chief procurator Tris decision put an end to the case against Nguyen Van Tan, owner of a small business inBinh Chanh district in the suburban area of Ho Chi Minh City, which has evoked public concern and criticism of the administration of justice and even prompted intervention from Prime Minister.

After a meeting on Saturday with the Chief Procurator of the Supreme People's Procuracy, the Ho Chi Minh City Peoples Procuracy directed the prosecutors of Binh Chanh district to immediately terminate the previously issued indictment, make a public apology to Tan and offer him appropriate compensation for possible damages.

Two prosecution officers, including Le Thanh Tong, deputy head of Binh Chanh districts procuracy and prosecutor Ho Van Son, have been suspended from office.

Nguyen Van Tan, 50 years old, opened a restaurant August last year, offering the main dish Pho and coffee drinks during breakfast and lunch. Eight months later, he was faced with a criminal charge of doing business illegally after district police had come to check on his business several times and then accused him of doing business without a registration certificate as well as breaking regulations on food safety and hygiene standards.

The district prosecutor issued an indictment against Tan on March 11.

When the case started to attract media attention last week, top government officials had to jump in to prevent a possible public outcry about an unfair business environment in the country.

The Prime Minister, in a meeting last Wednesday, requested Ho Chi Minh Citys government to intervene and identify the individuals responsible for bringing criminal charges against the noodle restaurant owner.

Secretary of the city's Party Committee Dinh La Thang asked the chief prosecutor of the municipal procuracy to thoroughly review the case and instructed Binh Chanh police to submit a detailed report.

He stressed that if the local authorities had been wrong to bring a criminal charge against the restaurant owner, they would face severe punishment.

The 2013 Constitution clearly states that the State allows people to do business in areas that are not prohibited. And such crime of illegally doing business will no longer be criminalized when the newly revised penal code comes into effect in July 2016.
Previewing the Kentucky Oaks Starting Gate: The Kentucky Oaks has seen more horses taken out by injury, illness, or distance limitations than the Kentucky Derby this year. So far, we have seen Songbird dominate her division only to spike a fever and be taken off the Oaks list of contenders.

We have also seen one previously undefeated filly named Cathryn Sophia be removed from consideration as trainer John Servis believes the seven-furlong Eight Belles Stakes on the Kentucky Derby undercard would suit his filly better. However, without the main competition of Songbird, Cathryn Sophia is now a strong possibility to line up in the Kentucky Oaks starting gate.

With the prep races now over and the field looking pretty set, lets look at how the race stands now as if it were to run this weekend. The order from first to fourteenth is merely based on points, not personal opinion rankings.

Terra Promessa  This Curlin filly looks to be a major threat in the Oaks. She is bred to appreciate every bit of nine furlongs and runs with a strong extension that eats up a lot of track. She has only faced defeat once, which was in her career debut. She seemed to have a tougher race in the Fantasy when stablemate Taxable gave her a tough go and a good fight. Both fillies have made the Oaks, and both look good. Terra Promessa may be one of the better fillies we see this year. Dont count out the Oaklawn horses!

Lewis Bay  Finally breaking through in the Gazelle, we have seen that this filly is best going nine furlongs, the distance of two of her three wins. She is bred on an incredible cross that should carry her around four turns if needed. This Bernardini filly is a main competitor, in my opinion, even if she hasnt faced the toughest competition in New York. She should have no problem on Oaks day.

Land Over Sea  Finally breaking away form Songbird in the Fair Grounds Oaks, Land Over Sea stormed to a win that was impressive both on paper and visually. She could be a tough customer in the Oaks, especially with some of the speed signed on here if everyone runs their race. She would benefit from speed but doesnt seem to need a lot of it. The filly that has been chasing Songbird all year finally gets away from her main competition and even provides her owners a chance to win both the Kentucky Oaks and the Derby in one weekend!

Weep No More  Benefiting from a lot of speed in the Ashland, Weep No More took everyone by surprise and defeated Cathryn Sophia, Rachels Valentina, and Carina Mia by the small margin of a neck with a length covering the top four horses. Weep No More seems to need a lot of speed for her to do her best running, but she could get some speed like she did in the Ashland if Cathryn Sophia uses her speed along with other speedy fillies. Weep No More would be the second horse in two years to come out of the Ashland and win the Kentucky Oaks if she were to do so.

Go Maggie Go  Go Maggie Go is the only undefeated filly in the Oaks field with Songbirds defection. However, the Kentucky Oaks will only be her third lifetime start! She jumped from a six-furlong maiden to an 8.5-furlong Grade II race. She won the Gulfstream Park Oaks in the slop over Off the Tracks and Gomo. She is short on foundation coming into this race and is possibly even shorter on pedigree as her pedigree is questionable for nine furlongs. Ghostzapper over Tale of the Cat does not exactly scream, Send me two turns! I wouldnt count on her to finish first on Oaks day, but she has speed!

Cathryn Sophia  After suffering her first defeat in the Ashland, John Servis told the racing world that she would not go in the Kentucky Oaks because his filly had distance limitations. However, it seems that he thought his filly was not enough to face Songbird seeing as with that filly now out of the race, Cathryn Sophia is back in. If she can improve off her Ashland run and use her speed, she could be a major threat here. Many people have been saying that she has been the best filly all along, and if she can win the Kentucky Oaks, others may believe that, too.

Mo dAmour  After winning her first stakes in the Busher Stakes, Mo dAmour looked like a promising filly to take connections King of Prussia Stables and Todd Pletcher back to the Kentucky Oaks. However, in her next start, Mo dAmour failed to finish better than third while Lewis Bay kicked into gear and clearly was better than the rest of the fillies in the race. Her pedigree suggests she may struggle a bit with distance, but under the right circumstances, she could be a very good racehorse. She may just need more time.

Venus Valentine  Donning a new pair of blinkers in her morning workouts, Venus Valentine has been breezing very well at Churchill Downs. In her latest work, coming on April 20, she went six furlongs in 1:11.13, the fastest of three works for that distance. She had a pace meltdown in the Rachel Alexandra Stakes and failed to make her presence felt in the Fair Grounds Oaks. If she can hone some of her speed and improve off that effort on Kentucky Oaks day, she has a live shot.

Mokat  She earned her way into the Kentucky Oaks with a third in the Santa Ysabel Stakes and a second in the Santa Anita Oaks. Considering she has been chasing Songbird in her last two starts, it may say something of her talents. However, she only has one win in seven lifetime starts which came in a maiden special weight traveling a mile on the turf at Del Mar. While she has been running well on the dirt, she is not winning. She may be better bred for the turf as an Uncle Mo filly out of a Premiership mare.

Rachels Valentina  With the Kentucky Oaks being her second off the layoff, she should improve. She is not running against Songbird and was able to out battle Cathryn Sophia last out in the Ashland. Her first official workout at Keeneland since the Ashland didnt really turn any heads, but she seems to be full of energy. I like her chances in the Oaks.

Royal Obsession  This very expensive filly did not prove fast enough to catch Land Over Sea in the Fair Grounds Oaks in which she finished fourth, so she shipped to New York. There, she took on the Gazelle Stakes but was still was no match for Lewis Bay. I believe this filly needs more time to mature and might prove to be a bit slow. She is bred very well, so we know she has a future as a broodmare, but her aspirations to be a Kentucky Oaks winner may be a bit too unlikely.

Dream Dance  After a second place in the Fair Grounds Oaks, Dream Dance was sent to Keeneland where she won an allowance race on April 16. She has had good runs and bad runs in stakes competition and seems to want to run a distance. She is a daughter of Afleet Alex out of a Vindication mare, so the breeding is there. She has run nine times already with seven of those starts coming as a two-year-old. She has experience, but is she good enough?

Nickname  Nickname tried to salvage some much needed Kentucky Oaks points when she went to post in the Grade III Beaumont Stakes at Keeneland on April 17. She, however, lacked a winning fight and finished second. She won the Grade I Frizette last fall and then finished fourth in the Breeders Cup Juvenile Fillies. She is in the Kentucky Oaks field but has not won a race since October. Since her fourth in the Breeders Cup, she has finished second three straight times. Sometimes, horses just like to finish second.

Taxable  Steve Asmussen sent this filly in the Fantasy Stakes against stablemate Terra Promessa, and she did not disappoint. She has spent her entire racing career at Oaklawn, never finishing worse than second in three races. She has her spot in the starting gate but likely lacks just a bit on experience when in comparison to the rest of the field. She has a lot of pedigree behind her and should have no problem getting nine furlongs. However, she will really need to step it up to make her presence known on May 6.

The Kentucky Oaks is set to go off on May 6, 2016, at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. The race is held annually, entering its 142nd year in 2016. The race is run on the main dirt track around two turns at a distance of 1-1/8 miles, rain or shine. The race is restricted to three-year-old fillies.
Barrie, ON Diamond Pet Food and its distributor Costco is now paying out claims to Canadians whose pets required screening for salmonella poisoning or treatment for Diamond Pet Food and its distributor Costco is now paying out claims to Canadians whose pets required screening for salmonella poisoning or treatment for salmonella infection , or died after consuming certain Diamond Pet Foods in 2011 and 2012.

They are making those calls as we speak, he adds.

Costco is now in the process of making 115,000 automated phone calls to people Costco knows bought Diamond Pet Food, says lawyer Jeff Orenstein from the Consumer Law Firm in Ottawa. It was Orensteins firm that headed up the class action in Canada on behalf of lead plaintiffs in the case.Although the respondents in the class action admit no liability, Diamond Pet Food and Costco have agreed to make payments to claimants in order to settle the class-action suit in a speedy fashion, according to the information provided on the claims website.The amount of payment depends on the damages sustained and varies from the cost of replacing the pet food to larger amounts to cover the costs of veterinary care, or costs related to the death of the animal.Those eligible are consumers who purchased Diamond Pet Food, which was recalled on April 6, April 26, April 30, and May 4 and May 5 of 2012, providing they did not return the product to the dealer, did not exchange the product and did not sign a release in favor of the defendants.According to the statement of claim, the plaintiffs fed their dog Kirkland Signature Super Premium Adult Dog Lamb, Rice & Vegetable Formula purchased from Costco in Barrie, Ontario.In March of 2012, the dog became extremely ill. The dog was vomiting, had runny diarrhea, became dehydrated and lost consciousness. They rushed the dog to the nearest veterinarian for treatment and tests. The dog was discharged with no known case. The bill for the dogs care was close to $1,500. A few weeks later, Costco contacted the plaintiffs to say that they may have purchased salmonella-contaminated pet food.Although Costco told the plaintiffs that they would refund the cost of the pet food, it ultimately refused because the plaintiffs had no bills or pet food bags.According to the statement of claim, the plaintiffs have suffered damages as a result of purchasing the Pet Food Products, including worry and concern, the costs of purchasing the contaminated food product and replacing it with a safe food product, including sales taxes, the costs of making an additional trip to a retail store to purchase safe, non-contaminated pet food, the price of postage to secure a refund offered by the Defendants, the cost of the veterinarians, treatment and the trip(s) to make such visits for diagnosis and treatment, and otherwise.Consumers with animals who consumed Diamond Pet Food recalled on the above dates but with no health consequences are eligible for refunds with a sworn statement of claim available on the claims website - no bill is required.Consumers whose animals suffered more serious consequences are required to submit more detailed claims with bills for veterinarian services and submit sworn statements.
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- Some reportedly destroyed evidence hold a great deal of incriminating details against Nigeria's Senate President

- The Senate president Bukola Saraki is said to have made some very outrageous fiscal transactions

- Documents have been obtained to back claims of the fraudulent transactions

- Saraki has faulted reports that the EFCC for exonerated the CCT chairman Danladi Umar of fraud

- The Senate president argues that Umar is tainted and holds no moral high-ground as to be in charge of his case at the CCT

An investigation by Premium Times suggest that the embattled Senate President transferred a total of $3.47 million in 40 installments in four years with his credit card to the United States (US).

He carried out the transactions through Guarantee Trust Bank between 2009, when he served as Kwara State governor, and 2012 when he served as the senator representing Kwara Central Senatorial District, the report revealed.

Senator Bukola Saraki at the CCT

Prosecutors say the beneficiary accounts in the US were also owned by Mr Saraki.

Some of the senators companies, during the same period, also transferred thousands of dollars to the U.S. accounts. The companies are Carlisle Properties and West Gate Ltd.

Mr. Saraki is currently facing a 13-count charge bordering on corruption and false asset declaration at the Code of Conduct Tribunal. He allegedly committed the offence when he served as governor between 2003 and 2011.

The politician has denied any wrongdoing and alleged political persecution.

Of the 13-count charges filed against the senate president, two are related to the transfer of the $3.47 million.

Count 11 of the charges filed against Mr Saraki states: "That you, Dr Olubukola Abubakar Saraki on or about 25th August, 2008 within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Tribunal, while being a public officer as the Executive Governor of Kwara state did operate a bank account outside Nigeria when you transferred the sum of $73, 223.28 (Seventy Three Thousand, Two Hundred and Twenty-Three Thousand Dollars, Twenty-Eight cents) from your Guaranty Trust Bank Plc domiciliary account No 441441953210 to the American Express Services Europe Limited No: 730580 for onward credit to your American Express Bank, New York card account No:374588216836009 and you thereby committed an offence contrary to paragraph 3 of Part I, Fifth Schedule to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) and Section 7 of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act and punishable under paragraph 9 of the said Fifth Schedule to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) and section 23 (2) of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act."

READ ALSO: Conspiracy: Ekweremadu for Senate President, 10 APC senators scheme

Count 12 states: "That you, Dr Olubukola Abubakar Saraki between August, 2009 and October 2012 within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Tribunal, while being a public officer as the Executive Governor of Kwara state and Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria did operate a bank account outside Nigeria when you transferred the aggregate sum of $3, 400, 000.00 (Three Million, Four Hundred Thousand Dollars) from your Guaranty Trust Bank Plc domiciliary account No 441441953210 to the American Express Services Europe Limited no: 730580 for onward credit to your American Express Bank, New York card account No:374588216836009 and you thereby committed an offence contrary to paragraph 3 of Part I, Fifth Schedule to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) and section 7 of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act and punishable under paragraph 9 of the said Fifth Schedule to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) and section 23 (2) of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act."

A prosecution witness had told the CCT that documents related to the transfer were destroyed in an inferno.

When being cross examined by the defence counsel, Paul Usoro, at the Tribunal last Tuesday, the prosecution witness, Michael Wetkas, said Guaranty Trust Bank, GTB, told the investigation team that the transaction documents had been burnt.

There were also police reports and affidavit which they (the GTB) swore to show that some documents were burnt, Mr. Wetkas stated.

According to Premium Times, Saraki, on August 26, 2009, transferred the $72,223.25 to the American Express Services Europe Limited no: 730580 for onward credit to the American Express Bank, New York card account No:374588216836009.

Following the transfer, the bank charged him a commission of $732.23. It is not clear what the money transferred was meant for.

That same day (August 26) one of his companies, Carlisle Properties Investment, transferred another $49,969.00.

Between September 2009 and October 2012, Mr Saraki transferred over $3 million.

According to the document, in 2009 the senate president transferred $127,174.05 on September 8; $85,543.88 on October 21; and $127,586.41 on November 11.

In 2010, he transferred $140,319 on January 4; $140,000 on March 15; $84,000 on April 16; $134,000 on May 18; $64,000 on June 21; $80,984 on July 29; $100,000 on August 31; $18,000 on September 2; $$48,900 on October 11; and $183,232.46 on December 8;

In 2011, Mr. Saraki transferred $32,687 on February 21; $30,656.74 on March 22; $111,444.79 on June 22; $43, 651 on July 19; $91,738 on August 16; $10,000 on August 26; $65,000 on August 29; $112,140 on September 27; $147,000 on November 17; and $86,872.10 on December 14.

The document also shows that in 2012, he transferred $50,000 on January 4; $145,000 on January 27; $7000 on January 27; $94,754.63 on February 10; $60,000 on April 12; $70,000 on May 11; $55,000 on May 17; $89,411.74 on June 12; $45,000 on September 6; and $45,308 on September 24; $130,000 on October 11; $77,000 on February 17; $77,000 on February 20; $70,648.44 on March 29; $70,000 on July 4; $138,000 on July 16; and $45,000 on September 5.

READ ALSO: Revealed! Top 5 crazy things that Nigerians kill themselves for (pictured)

Just as Saraki was making the transactions, his companies were also transferring monies to the U.S. totalling $2,099,257.00.

For instance, apart from the August 26 transfer in 2009, Carlisle also transferred $59,964 on September 7; $99,961.30 on October 16; $109,000 on November 11; $50,000 on August 12; and $150,000 on December 31.

In 2010, the company transferred $40,000 on April 14; $44,000 on April 15; $134,000 on May 14; $64,000 on June 17; $40,000 on July 23; $90,000 on August 27; $10,000 on August 30; $9,974 on August 31; $6,900 on September 1; $7,974 on September 2; $42,600 on October 5; and $183,000 on December 6.

In 2011, it further transferred $32,000 on February 21; $30,700 on March 17; $40,730.35 on May 5; $111,400 on June 7; $43,660 on July 18; $48,800 on August 10; $43,000 on August 16; $25,750 on August 29; $40,250 on August 29; $112,800 on September 26; and $150,200 on November 17.

In 2012, $146,975 on January 26; $71,000 on May 11; $5,450 on June 7; and $5,000 on December 7 were also transferred by the company.

None of the companies is currently being prosecuted. Nigerian law, however, prevents some public officials including governors and senators from operating a foreign account; a law Saraki is accused of flouting.

Meanwhile, Dr Bukola Saraki, has dismissed the purported clearance of the Chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), Danladi Umar, by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in relation to his alleged involvement in a N10 million corruption case.

Saraki contended that there was no time the EFCC cleared Umar, and that even where such clearance existed, it was a confirmation of his (Sarakis) position that the CCT under Umar could not ensure fairness in his trial.

Saraki, who spoke in Abuja through his lawyer, Ajibola Oluyede, argued that the clearance purportedly issued Umar by EFCC could not override the recommendation made in 2014 by the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) for Umars prosecution.

Oluyede said it was only the AGF that possesses the power, under the law, to reverse a decision to prosecute, arguing that his clients application urging Umar to disqualify himself from the trial was still at the tribunal.

He faulted reports that the application had been thrown out by the tribunal, noting that since the prosecution was yet to respond to it, and it had not been heard, the tribunal could not have decided.

He also faulted reports that he was thrown out of the tribunals sitting venue. He said that he was at the proceeding until it was adjourned.

READ ALSO: Nigerians would have stoned Jonathan if  former governor

He said that he would argue the application before the tribunal once it was ripe for hearing.

We are not saying he (Umar) is guilty. We are saying he is tainted and that he cannot act independently while the EFCC that is investigating him and had indicted him is now prosecuting our client before him. That is why we asked him to recuse himself from the trial.

He did so before in the case involving former FCT Minister, Jeremiah Useni, where he excused himself from the hearing on the ground that he had close relationship with Useni. We are asking him to do so again now because of the facts that we have presented, Oluyede said.

Referring to some additional documents he filed before the tribunal, Oluyede noted that upon the EFCC report of June 24, 2014, the then AGF directed then EFCC Chairman, Ibrahim Lamorde to prosecute Umar and his aide, Ali Gambo for accepting bribe from an accused person, Rasheed Taiwo.

Source: Legit.ng
A nuclear power plant station model by China National Nuclear Corporation is pictured at the World Nuclear Exhibition 2014, the trade fair event for the global nuclear energy sector, in Le Bourget, near Paris October 14, 2014. Photo by Reuters.

China is getting closer to building maritime nuclear power platforms that could one day be used to support Chinese disputed projects in the South China Sea (Vietnam's East Sea), a widely-read state-run newspaper said on Friday.

China has rattled nerves with its military and construction activities on the islands it occupies in the South China Sea (Vietnam's East Sea), including building runways, though Beijing says most of the construction is for civilian purposes, like lighthouses.

The Global Times, an influential tabloid published by the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily, said the nuclear power platforms could "sail" to remote areas and provide a stable power supply.

Liu Zhengguo, head of the general office of China Shipbuilding Industry Corp, which is in charge of designing and building the platforms, told the paper that the company is "pushing forward the work".

"The development of nuclear power platforms is a burgeoning trend," Liu said. "The exact number of plants to be built (by the company) depends on the market demand."

Demand is "pretty strong" he added, without elaborating.

The paper quoted a January report from the China Securities Journal that a demonstration platform is expected to be completed by 2018 and put into service by next year.

Chinese naval expert Li Jie told the newspaper the platforms could provide power for lighthouses, search and rescue equipment, defense facilities, airports and harbors in the South China Sea (Vietnam's East Sea).

"Normally we have to burn oil or coal for power," Li said.

"Given the long distance between the Nansha Islands and the Chinese mainland and the changing weather and oceanic conditions, transporting fuel could be an issue, which is why developing the maritime nuclear power platform is of great significance," he added, using the Chinese name for Vietnam's Spratly Islands.

China claims almost the entire South China Sea (Vietnam's East Sea), which is believed to have huge deposits of oil and gas, and is building islands on reefs to bolster its claims. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims to parts of the waters, through which about $5 trillion in trade is shipped every year.

Visiting Brunei, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi repeated China's stance that disputes should be resolved peacefully through negotiations between the parties directly concerned.

China has been angered by a case bought by the Philippines to the Court of International Arbitration against China's South China Sea (Vietnam's East Sea) claim, and says it will neither participate in the case nor accept the verdict.
Fire water should only ever really be used to describe v. strong booze, not the state of an actual river in Australia.

But, here we are. Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham has chucked some footage from his recent trip to Queenslands Condamine River up on Facebook, and it shows the water being permeated by strong surges of methane gas  a gas which is very, very flammable.

So he decided to light it. As you do.

The whole point of the clip is to demonstrate what Buckingham believes to be the effects of fracking in the region.

The practice, which is right up there on the Greens list of energy no-nos, disturbs the Earth to get to that sweet, sweet coal seam gas (CSG), and the Greens believe that meddling to be the cause of this flammable nastiness.

In the clip, Buckingham describes it as a tragedy in the Murray Darling Basin.

This is the future of Australia if we do not stop the frackers across all states and territories this is utterly unacceptable.

For what its worth, theres been some debate over the cause of the rivers increasingly gassy outbursts. A 2013 report posited it may be caused by underwater aquifers refilling and pushing the gas to the surface, or by the general effects of drought.

Speaking on The Project tonight, he also said he believed similar reports on the phenomenon from the CSIRO  which does actually take research funding from energy companies  may be bent in favour of the CSG industry.

While thats a long bow to draw, the gas leaks remain curious at best, and indicative of serious environmental damage at worst.

Source and photo: Jeremy Buckingham / Facebook.
Minister of Defence, Gerry Brownlee and Commander Joint Forces New Zealand, Major General (MAJGEN) Tim Gall, were there to farewell the 100 NZDF personnel who will deploy to Iraq from Australia for the Building Partner Capacity training mission.

During the three week exercise in Adelaide Australian Defence Force (ADF) and NZDF personnel will integrate into the single Task Group that will train the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF).

The exercise will include a series of scenarios designed to ensure the Task Group trainers are ready for the tasks and environment they will face in Iraq.

Those travelling to the exercise include trainers, health, logistics and force protection personnel, as well as headquarters staff.

The Mission Readiness Exercise has proved invaluable for the past two rotations, as it enabled the Task Groups to integrate and build key relationships. This meant they could hit the ground running when they got to Taji, said MAJGEN Gall.

Now in its 11 month of operations, Task Group Taji, the combined Australian and New Zealand task force, is achieving good progress and is having a tangible and positive impact on the ability of the ISF to combat ISIL.

Over 4000 Iraqi soldiers have completed unit-level and individual specialty courses conducted by Task Group Taji since late April 2015. We expect more ISF members will be trained in coming months, showing the Iraqi governments regard for the value of the training programme and the enhanced capabilities of their trained forces, said MAJGEN Gall.
Egg-sized hail stones battered the mountainous district of Tay Giang in the central province of Quang Nam on Saturday, said local authorities.

The severe weather occurred around noon when a thunderstorm dumped hails, measuring several centimetres in diameter, on the commune of Trhy and later on three other communes A Xan, Chom and Ga Ry.

Residents in the affected areas described the hail as the worst hail storm they had ever seen in their life.

The hail fell for two hours, damaging houses, vehicles and crops. The event was reported by the local authority and the people as it was the "unprecedented hailstorm with hail stones the size of chicken eggs.

The hail pierced some houses metal sheet roofs. But the real damage is visible with crops, especially medical plants which were almost crushed by the hail, said deputy chairman of Tay Giang peoples committee.

It was terrible. I have never seen such a scene. Some residents were so frightened that they all ran into house to hide, said a local official.

There has been no confirmation about the casualties and damage caused by the hailstorm.

Earlier a hailstorm hit the most part of Quang Dien district in the central province of Thua Thien  Hue. The hail lasted about 30 minutes, damaging 700 hectares of crops and blowing eight roofs.

It was reportedly the most severe hailstorm in more than 40 years however there were no casualties.

Local authorities are taking measures to help badly-affected people recover from the hail storms destruction.

In the past few months, whirlwinds and thunderstorms followed by heavy hailstorms brought havoc to many northern and central provinces in Vietnam, a warning of the complicated climate changes taking place.

These hailstorms have killed at least one person and caused serious damage to 4,000 houses and several hectares of crops.
<p>Carrie DeBord</p><table><tbody><tr><td><br><br></td></tr></tbody></table>

The pit bull's injuries were bad - really bad. The side of the dog's head was covered in open wounds, and part of her left ear was missing. While no one knew exactly what happened to her, she'd probably been used in dogfights, or stabbed with a knife before being dumped to die.

Carrie DeBord

The shelter holding the dog had plans to euthanize her. Then things got even worse. Her head wound ruptured, causing her to lose a lot of blood.

As the pit bull bled in the shelter, two nonprofit rescue groups worked behind the scenes - Dallas DogRRR in Fort Worth, Texas, and Second Chance Rescue NYC in New York. Volunteers from the groups had learned about the dog - who was named Addy - and made fast plans to pick her up first thing in the morning. As soon as Addy was in their care, Dallas DogRRR volunteers rushed her to the Country Brook Animal Hospital to get her the urgent care she needed. One of the volunteers posted a picture of Addy on Facebook with an "SOS" call for a foster home. When Carrie DeBord saw Addy's photo, she already had six dogs in her care, including a pit bull foster dog, Tess, who had been saved from death row. DeBord had no room for another dog, especially one in such a severe condition, but she couldn't stop thinking about Addy. "My heart broke and I desperately wanted to help," DeBord tells The Dodo. "I knew I would do it, even though I'd never done so previously."

Dodo Shows Wild Hearts Orphaned Deer Runs Back To The Wild With Her Best Friend

Carrie DeBord

As luck would have it, a family adopted Tess that week, which gave DeBord the space she needed to foster Addy. She got in touch with Dallas DogRRR, and as soon as Addy was medically cleared to leave the animal hospital, Addy was delivered to DeBord's home. Based on the veterinarian's instructions, DeBord had to keep Addy isolated in a room by herself so her head wounds could heal. Addy had also been diagnosed with a severe case of luxating patella, a knee condition that required surgery, so she had a 12-week recovery period for this as well.

Carrie DeBord

For the first few months at DeBord's house, Addy slept in a spare room while taking a cocktail of heavy pain medications and antibiotics. The only time she left the house was to go outside to "use the bathroom," or visit the veterinary hospital for wound cleanings and hydrotherapy treatments.

Carrie DeBord

One would think a dog who's been through so much would end up mean and bitter. If she did, who would blame her?

Carrie DeBord

But according to DeBord, Addy has shown incredible resilience, patience and tenacity. "She's by far a dog that has endured the harshest of circumstances I have ever dealt with," DeBord tells The Dodo. "But she's a very happy pup."

Carrie DeBord

After being medically isolated for four months, Addy is finally well enough to socialize with others. This week, DeBord introduced Addy to three of her dogs, including Tuck, a male pit bull rescue. The dogs played well together, and Addy started doing something adorable - she now lifts her chin all the way up, and grins in a way that shows how happy she is.

Carrie DeBord

"I first noticed her doing this the first time she met and played with Tuck," DeBord says. "As they played together Addy seemed to find relief and comfort in being outside and with another dog. Gaining her freedom and the chance to play seemed to bring her real happiness."

Carrie DeBord

Each day, Addy continues to improve - both physically and emotionally. Besides playing with her new doggy friends, she loves playing tug-of-war, chasing a ball and cuddling with people she trusts. "She is really blossoming," DeBord says. "It's beautiful to see her smiling and finding her dog joy."

Carrie DeBord

When Addy is fully recovered, she'll be looking for her forever home. "The perfect family for Addy is one with another fun and playful dog for Addy to run and play with," DeBord says. "It's very clear she desires and enjoys this. Equally important is a family that will allow Addy to be physically close and cuddle with her human, and a family sensitive to her need for consistent ear cleaning and infection monitoring. Other than that, lots of love, structure and doggie leadership!"

Carrie DeBord

Carrie DeBord
THE DISTRICT

Officer accused in off-duty incident

A D.C. police officer has been arrested on charges that a service weapon was pointed at a driver during an alleged off-duty road-rage incident in the District in February, officials said Thursday.

Michael Minor, 46, of Temple Hills, Md., was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon in connection with a Feb. 20 encounter, in which drivers fought on Interstate 295 after nearly colliding, police said.

 Clarence Williams

MARYLAND

Man charged in fatal shooting in Clinton

Prince Georges County police arrested a 25-year-old Maryland man in connection with a fatal shooting in Clinton last week, authorities said Saturday.

Antonio Barnett, of the 2300 block of Love Place in Waldorf, was charged in the April 16 death of Carl Marshall, police said.

 Donna St. George

Virginia

Fire remains inside Shenandoah Park

A fire in the southern part of Shenandoah National Park continued to grow Saturday, authorities said.

But they said they are confident that it can be kept from houses and communities.

 Joe Heim
Many of the students at Potomac View Elementary in Woodbridge hail from Guatemala, El Salvador or Mexico, sometimes showing up at school within days or weeks of their arrival to the United States. The adjustment  to longer school days, to a new language and to new friends  can be difficult.

There is one teacher who understands that more keenly than others. Pablo Giudici moved from Argentina in the fall, leaving behind a long teaching career and transplanting his family from a suburb of Buenos Aires to Prince William County.

So, Giudici tells his first-grade class, he gets it: I understand what you feel.

Giudici is one of 56 teachers in Prince William who came to the countys classrooms through the Visiting International Faculty (VIF) program, which brings teachers from around the world to work as world-language and general-education teachers for U.S. children. The teachers are able to work for as many as five years before they return home.

Giudici is helping to fill a critical need for teachers of English-language learners at Potomac View, where the population of students learning English has exploded during the past decade. More than two-thirds of students are English-language learners, with most coming from Latin American countries. Giudici rotates among classes, teaching small groups of students who often need extra attention.

Giudici co-teaches first-graders with Caroline Mazzotta. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)

He worked with several squirmy first-graders Friday, teaching them a lesson about insects. They read books about the critters, and Giudici asked them to share what they learned with the group.

So some of them can fly? he asked the students, who eagerly waved their hands to be called on.

Some live on the ground! one girl said confidently.

Some eat  whats it called?  other insects, another girl chimed in.

Some are ugly! another girl said, cracking a sly grin and sending the group into laughter.

First-grade teacher Caroline Mazzotta, who co-taught the insect lesson that day, said students are drawn to Giudici because of his energy and enthusiasm.

The kids adore him, Mazzotta said.

David Young, chief executive of VIF International Education, said the program was designed with the idea that students  even those who may never travel outside the United States  should be exposed to global perspectives. The company was inspired by Youngs parents, who grew up in rural North Carolina, met in college and later moved to New York City, where they were exposed to a vast array of cultures.

That kind of led them to make this lifelong commitment to multicultural learning, Young said. His father, James Fred Young, went on to become the president of Elon University.

The company has brought more than 12,000 teachers from 77 countries to U.S. schools over the past three decades.

Young said he hopes VIF teachers, in turn, gain skills and knowledge that will help them when they return to their homeland, bringing U.S. perspectives to their students and colleagues.

Liza Bacuyag came from the Philippines to teach second grade at River Oaks Elementary School in Woodbridge. She has taught for nearly three decades in public and private schools in Manila and Saudi Arabia. But, for her, teaching in a U.S. school has been an education in itself.

One method she hopes to adopt for Filipino classrooms is guided reading, a technique of grouping students according to reading ability and tailoring instruction and material for each group. Many of the classrooms where she has taught lack the resources to do that kind of instruction, but she thinks she can replicate it by creating the books herself.

Darlene Faltz, supervisor of recruitment and specialty programs for Prince William County schools, said bringing in VIF teachers helps the school district work with English-language learners but also gives the students something they may not otherwise get in a Northern Virginia classroom.

It promotes our goal of providing our students with a global education perspective, Faltz said.
Data on college-level test participation can help determine which schools are trying hardest to energize all kids. But getting the figures from some schools can be tough. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

In my long and often unsuccessful effort to persuade high schools not to keep secrets, April 8 was a good day. Before I had to call Mamaroneck High School to ask, as I do every year, for its statistics, I saw for the first time it had posted everything I needed on its website.

Mamaroneck is the suburban New York campus where I got the idea for what is now called the Americas Most Challenging High Schools list, the 2016 version of which was recently released by The Washington Post. Twenty years ago, Mamaroneck was the scene of a book I was writing about the nations best public high schools. It had great teachers but a sadly narrow view of how to treat average students.

[See the 2016 Americas Most Challenging High Schools rankings]

Only kids with the top grades and test scores got to take the schools Advanced Placement courses. One ambitious junior, Kerry Constabile, was barred from the AP U.S. history course, despite her growing love for political science, because of bad marks in the ninth and 10th grades. She was so angry that she studied for the AP course on her own, getting the homework from friends, and passed the AP final exam despite getting no help from her high school.

The refusal to let some motivated students take the most challenging courses is common in many parts of the country. I invented the list to honor schools that opened those courses to anyone who wanted to work hard and to shame the majority of schools, such as Mamaroneck, where the thinking was that students not on the honor roll should have no say about the quality of their classes.

College-level test participation is the best method I have found to determine which schools are trying hardest to energize all kids. I take the number of AP, International Baccalaureate and Cambridge tests given each year and divide by the number of graduating seniors, so big schools that graduate 600 kids have no advantage over small schools that graduate just 50. Some schools fill out the forms we send them. I can also find data on the profiles posted on counseling website at schools.

But at Mamaroneck, where my book got mixed reviews, the number of AP tests, graduates and other useful numbers were not posted. Every year, I had to ask the districts spokesman if I could please have them.

The lists top sin, in the view of many educators, is that I rank the schools on it. The Association of Independent Schools of Greater Washington says rankings are misleading and irrelevant to mission-oriented schools and/or detrimental to students and their families who are seeking a good match placement. It says significant corrosion often results for all when even only a small number of schools participate in such practices.

I thanked the associations executive director, Dick Jung, for sending me those official warnings. He was the first association official in five years to return my calls or emails. But he declined to answer my questions: Does that mean you dont believe parents are capable of looking at a ranked list in a newspaper and making their own intelligent judgment of its worth? What examples can you cite of actual harm to families and schools from rankings?

[What our most famous private school is hiding]

Under the Freedom of Information Act, public schools have to give me the data. The private schools can ignore me, but gradually they have been embracing the Internet-era view that useful information belongs to all. I have hopes that even Sidwell Friends, which gave my daughter a fine education, will loosen its policy of keeping secret data you would find on the profiles posted by Washington International  which has the top spot in this years D.C. regional rankings  and other area private schools, including Holton-Arms (No. 18), National Cathedral (No. 29) and Georgetown Visitation (No. 32).

Mamaroneck Schools Superintendent Robert Shaps told me last week that his school boards commitment to transparency for the community led to the new posting of its data. He and high school Principal Elizabeth Clain have ended the bad old days of keeping students like Kerry Constabile out of AP courses  leading to a national ranking of 594, putting it in the top 3 percent. Why cant all schools follow that excellent example?
BLOOD DONATIONS

BLOOD DRIVES Tuesday 3-7 p.m., Rust Library, 380 Old Waterford Rd., Leesburg, 866-256-6372; May 1, 8 a.m.-1 p.m., Sterling United Methodist Church, 304 E. Church Rd., Sterling, 800-733-2767; May 9, 2-7 p.m., Village at Leesburg, 1603 Village Market Blvd., Leesburg, 800-733-2767; May 13, 10:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m., Northern Virginia Bahai Center, 21415 Cardinal Glen Cir., Sterling, 800-733-2767.

INOVA BLOOD DONOR CENTER Mondays noon-8 p.m., Tuesdays 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Fridays 6 a.m.-4 p.m. and Sundays noon-4 p.m. Dulles Town Center, 45745 Nokes Blvd., Sterling. 866-256-6372 or inova.org/donateblood.

FIRST AID

FIRST AID/ADULT, INFANT AND CHILD CPR/AED Fauquier Hospital Medical Office Building, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. Call for schedule. 540-316-3588. Registration required.

HEARING

DISABILITY RESOURCE CENTER Technical assistance through the Virginia Department for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and presentations to businesses, civic groups and schools. Third Tuesdays 2-5 p.m., Workplace, 205 Keith St., Warrenton. Call for an appointment, 800-648-6324; TDD, 540-373-5890. Free.

FREE HEARING TESTS Age 18 and older. Mondays-Thursdays 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m., Blue Ridge Speech and Hearing Center, 19465 Deerfield Ave., Suite 201, Lansdowne. 703-858-7620. Registration required.

HEARING LOSS, TINNITUS AND MENIERES SYNDROME SUPPORT For all ages, including parents of children with hearing loss. First Fridays 2 p.m., Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. 703-430-2906.

NORTHERN VIRGINIA RESOURCE CENTER FOR THE DEAF AND HARD OF HEARING Age 18 and older, second Tuesdays 10 a.m., Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 571-258-3400.

HEARING LOSS OUTREACH Free referrals. Fourth Thursdays 10 a.m.-noon, Loudoun County Workforce Center, 102 Heritage Way, Leesburg; third Thursdays 10 a.m.-noon, Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. Free appointments: 703-430-2906 or nvrcloudoun@aol.com.

MENTAL HEALTH

COUNSELING FOR SEXUAL VIOLENCE SURVIVORS Provided by Loudoun Citizens for Social Justice. 703-771-9020.

CRISISLINK Suicide and crisis intervention. The organization provides community education, has a volunteer crisis response team and offers CareRing, a daily telephone outreach program for the elderly and disabled. 703-527-6016, volunteer@crisislink.org or crisislink.org.

PIEDMONT CHAPTER, NATIONAL ALLIANCE ON MENTAL ILLNESS Serves Fauquier, Orange, Madison and Rappahannock counties. Support group, education classes and events for people living with mental illness, plus their family members. First Wednesdays 7-9 p.m. Fauquier Hospital, 500 Hospital Dr., Sycamore Room A, Warrenton. 571-426-8213.

NORTHERN VIRGINIA CHAPTER, NATIONAL ALLIANCE ON MENTAL ILLNESS A support group, classes and programs for people living with mental illness and their family members. naminorthernvirginia.org.

PREGNANCY, PARENTING

ADOPTIVE FAMILY PRESERVATION Adoptive families discuss common experiences; registration required. Third Tuesdays 12:30-2 p.m. Ashburn Library, 43316 Hay Rd. Call 703-941-9008, Ext. 23, or email jmellerio@umfs.org.

BIRTHRIGHT OF LOUDOUN COUNTY Free pregnancy tests, baby clothing, transportation and support throughout pregnancy, 823 S. King St., Leesburg. 703-777-7272.

BOND BETWEEN US Nonprofit group offers support to birth parents when children have been placed for adoption. Fourth Tuesdays 7:30 p.m. Call for location. 703-771-7844.

BREAST-FEEDING SUPPORT Mondays 9:30-10:30 a.m., Fauquier Hospital Family Birthing Center, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-3588.

DAD SUPPORT New and expectant fathers share ideas. First Tuesdays 7 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg. 703-858-6360.

FOR THE CHILDRENS SAKE A group for separating or divorcing parents to share advice. Four-hour session weekly. Information : 703-391-8599 or fitsfoundation.org.

LA LECHE LEAGUE Mother-to-mother support and breast-feeding information. 10 a.m. second Wednesdays in Warrenton, 540-351-6103. Third Fridays 10:15-11:45 a.m., call for location, 703-444-7386. Second Fridays 10:15 a.m., Ashburn Library, 43316 Hay Rd., 703-431-3852; Thursdays 10 a.m.-noon, Panera Bread, 43670 Greenway Corp. Dr., Ashburn, email lllashburn@gmail.com. Third Fridays 10:15 a.m., Christ the Redeemer Church, 46833 Harry F. Byrd. Hwy., Sterling, 540-338-4637.

LOUDOUN FATHERHOOD PROGRAM Fathers discuss the joys and challenges of being a parent. Meets every other Saturday for two hours for four months; sponsored by Northern Virginia Family Service. 571-748-2796. Free.

LOUDOUN NURTURING PARENTING PROGRAM Positive parenting techniques; children attend with parents. Registration required. Call 703-771-3973, Ext. 27, or email nurturingprogram@lcsj.org . Free.

MOTHERNET/HEALTHY FAMILIES LOUDOUN Program links first-time parents with medical, social and educational resources to give children a socially and physically healthy start in life. Family support workers meet with participants in homes. English-Spanish translation provided. 703-444-4477, Ext. 217, or inmed.org .

NEW MOTHERS SUPPORT Wednesdays 9:30-11:30 a.m. Inova Loudoun Medical Pavilion, 224 Cornwall St., Leesburg, main entrance. Babies welcome. 703-858-6360.

YOUNG PARENT SERVICES Support for teenage parents. Loudoun County Department of Family Social Services, 52 Sycolin Rd., Leesburg. Call for times. 703-771-5375.

ONLINE CHILDBIRTH EDUCATION PROGRAM Inova Loudoun Hospitals Web-based program uses animation, videos and interactive activities to guide users through the basics of childbirth, breast-feeding and caring for newborns. 703-858-6360. thebirthinginn.org/classes.

PARENTING ALONE GROUP For parents of school-age children who have lost a spouse or partner to cancer. Second Tuesdays 5:30-6:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. 703-698-2536 or email jennifer.eckert@inova.org .

PREGNANCY AND CHILDBIRTH SUPPORT Childbirth Solutions Resource Center, 8393 W. Main St., Marshall. 571-344-0438.

SENIORS

EXERCISE EQUIPMENT Weights, treadmills, bikes and a cardio-glide. Instruction provided. Age 55 and older. Weekdays 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. Free.

FITNESS FOR PEOPLE 55 AND OLDER Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays 1-1:45 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 571-258-3400. $36, 12-visit card.

EYE CARE LensCrafters staff members will clean glasses and make minor repairs. Second Wednesdays 1-2 p.m. Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. 703-430-2397. Free.

INOVA LOUDOUN MOBILE VAN Blood pressure checks. Second and fourth Tuesdays 9:30 a.m.-noon, Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling, 571-258-3280; first Wednesdays 9:30 a.m.-noon, Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039.

LAUGHING YOGA FOR SENIORS I mprove flexibility and balance. Thursdays 9:30-10 :30 a.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. Free.

LOUDOUN ADULT DAY CENTERS For seniors with physical limitations or memory loss, a safe and social environment, therapeutic activities, individualized care and respite for caregivers. Limited transportation. Sliding-scale fees. Weekdays in Leesburg, 7:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m., 703-771-5334; Purcellville, 571-258-3402; and Ashburn-Sterling, 571-258-3232.

SENIOR OUTREACH SERVICES Free and confidential assistance from an Area Agency on Aging case manager. Call for an appointment or sign up at the Senior Center at Cascades. First and third Wednesdays 11 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. 571-258-3280.

SENIOR OUTREACH SERVICES Free and confidential assistance from an Area Agency on Aging Elder case manager. Sign up in the Leesburg Senior Center lobby. Second and fourth Thursdays 11 a.m.-noon and 12:30-4:30 p.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. Free.

SENIOR OUTREACH SERVICES Free and confidential assistance from an Area Agency on Aging Elder case manager. Call for an appointment or sign up at the Carver Center. First and third Mondays, 12:30-5 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 703-737-8741. Free.

ZUMBA GOLD CLASS: For people 55 and older who are learning Zumba for the first time, or those who prefer a lower-impact version. The fitness program combines Latin and international music with dance.Thursdays 11 a.m. Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. 571-258-3280. $12.

TAI CHI Stretching and strengthening movements. Mondays 11 a.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. Free.

ZUMBA GOLD CLASS Age 55 and older. Wear rubber-soled shoes and comfortable clothing; bring water and a towel. Tuesdays 11 a.m., Tuesdays and Fridays at 1 p.m. Senior Center of Leesburg, 102 North St. NW, Leesburg. 703-737-8039. $24 per month.

SUPPORT GROUPS

AL-ANON SERVICE CENTER OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA A volunteer is available 24 hours with information for spouses, family members and friends of problem drinkers. 703-534-4357 or 877-339-8350. Mondays 8 p.m. Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 125 W. Washington St., Middleburg, 540-554-2747; Tuesdays 7:30 p.m. St. James Episcopal Church, 14 Cornwall St. NW, Leesburg, 877-339-8350; Fridays 8:30 p.m. Grace Episcopal Church, 6507 Main St., The Plains, 800-344-2666; Tuesdays 12:15 p.m. Warrenton Church of Christ, Route 29 N., 540-347-7448; Tuesdays 7 p.m. and Saturdays 8:30 p.m. Warrenton Presbyterian Church, 91 Main St., 800-344-2666.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS Various meeting times and locations in Loudoun County. 800-208-8649 or 703-876-6166. nvintergroup.org.

ALZHEIMERS CAREGIVER SUPPORT For those who care for people with Alzheimers disease and other forms of dementia. Fourth Wednesdays 4-5:30 p.m. The Villa at Suffield Meadows, 6735 Suffield Lane, Warrenton. 540-316-3800.

ALZHEIMERS SUPPORT First Tuesdays 10-11 a.m. Spring Arbor Assisted Living, 237 Fairview St. NW, Leesburg. 540-338-6520.

ALZHEIMERS CAREGIVERS SUPPORT For those caring for people with Alzheimers disease and other forms of dementia. Second Mondays 7-8:30 p.m. Galilee United Methodist Church, 45425 Winding Rd., Sterling. 703-430-9229. galileeumc.org.

ALZHEIMERS CAREGIVER SUPPORT Emotional, educational and social support for family members and friends of people with the disease. Third Saturdays 10 a.m. Loudoun County Area Agency on Aging, 20145 Ashbrook Pl., Ashburn. Call 703-771-5407 or email lesley.katz@loudoun.gov.

ALZHEIMERS SUPPORT First Wednesdays 4 p.m. Leesburg Adult Day Center, 16501 Meadowview Ct., Leesburg. 703-771-5334.

TALK ABOUT CURING AUTISM A nonprofit organization educating and supporting families affected by autism. tacanow.org.

AUTOIMMUNE SUPPORT Last Thursdays 6:30-7:30 p.m. Jackson Building, 209 Gibson St., Leesburg. Email autoimmunesupport@hotmail.com .

BEREAVED PARENT SUPPORT One-on-one counseling is available. Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814. scsm.tv.

BEREAVEMENT SUPPORT For those experiencing loss because of the death of a loved one. Age 18 and older. Third Mondays 1 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Chestnut Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. Sponsored by Capital Caring. 703-957-1800.

BREAST CANCER SUPPORT Fourth Tuesdays 7-8 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Tower, Chestnut Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-349-0588.

BREAST CANCER SUPPORT For those with new diagnoses or starting treatment. Register if attending for the first time. Fourth Mondays 5:30-6:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. 703-858-8857.

BREAST CANCER SUPPORT For those who have finished treatment, have had a recurrence or metastatic breast cancer. Register if attending for the first time. Fourth Mondays 6:30-8 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. 703-858-8857. Free.

BREAST CANCER SUPPORT ASSISTANCE FUND Loudoun County residents who have received a diagnosis or have undergone treatment in the past 12 months are eligible to apply for financial assistance. Areas included are wigs, bras, puffs and prostheses, mammograms and medical bills, food and help with utilities, rent or mortgage, and transportation costs. The Pink Assistance Fund has been established by the Loudoun Breast Health Network. lbhn.org.

CANCER SUPPORT Oncology nurses, social workers and spiritual care providers offer education and support to patients, families and caregivers. Second Mondays 5:30-6:30 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Sycamore Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-2273.

CANCER SUPPORT Life with Cancer, for patients, family members and friends. Second Thursdays 7 p.m. Ashburn Presbyterian Church, Room 202, 20962 Ashburn Rd. 703-729-2012. ashburnpresbyterian.org.

CAREGIVER SUPPORT GROUP Third Saturdays 10 a.m. Loudoun County Area Agency on Aging, 20145 Ashbrook Pl., Ashburn. 703-771-5407. alz.org/nca.

CAREGIVER SUPPORT AND RESOURCE GROUP Wednesdays 10:30 a.m.-noon (no meeting first Wednesdays), Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814. scsm.tv.

CARING FOR AGING PARENTS Support group. Confidential. Fourth Wednesdays 7:30 p.m., Family Focus Counseling Service, 20-B John Marshall St., Warrenton. 540-349-4537.

CHADD PARENTS SUPPORT For parents of children with ADD/ADHD. Fourth Sundays 3 p.m. KinderCare, 44051 Ashburn Village Shopping Plaza. chadd.nova loudoun@gmail. com .

CHRONIC ILLNESS SUPPORT Tuesdays 10:30-11:30 a.m. Spiritual Care Support Ministries, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814 or scsm.tv.

COFFEE AND CONVERSATION: Support for those discouraged because of illness, bereavement, caregiving or a loved one in the military. Thursdays 10 a.m.-noon. Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814.

COMPASSIONATE FRIENDS For parents who have experienced the death of a child. First Wednesdays 7:30 p.m. St. James Episcopal Church, 14 Cornwall St. NW, Leesburg. 540-882-9707.

CREATING AND CONNECTING Two-hour art therapy and relaxation workshop for cancer patients. Every other month, 12:30-2:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. Call for dates. 703-858-8850.

DEPRESSION BIPOLAR SUPPORT ALLIANCE OF WESTERN LOUDOUN Saturdays 3 p.m. Purcellville Library, 220 E. Main St., Carruthers Room. Call 703-431-7160 or email kathy@dbsanca.org.

DROP-IN GRIEF SUPPORT For those coping with a death. Second and fourth Wednesdays 1-2 p.m. St. Davids Episcopal Church, 43600 Russell Branch Pkwy., Ashburn. Sponsored by Capital Caring. 703-597-1781.

SUPPORT FOR FAMILIES OVERCOMING DRUG ADDICTION April 21 at 6:30 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Sycamore Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-9221 or email cbfolker@yahoo.com.

GAY, LESBIAN, BISEXUAL AND TRANSGENDER YOUTH AND PARENT SUPPORT A group in partnership with Metro DC PFLAG. Fourth Sundays 4-6 p.m. Unitarian Universalist Church, 22135 Davis Dr., Sterling. 703-328-6518.

GRIEFSHARE Open to anyone who has experienced the death of a loved one. Tue sdays from 7-8:30 p.m. Purcellville Baptist Church, 601 Yaxley Dr., Purcellville. Call 540-338-0918 or email caring@purbap.org. Workbook, $15.

GRIEFSHARE Nondenominational seminar and support group. Tuesdays 7:30-9 p.m., and Wednesdays, 1-2:30 p.m. Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814. Free.

GRIEF SUPPORT Sponsored by Hospice Support of Fauquier County. Individual counseling available. First and third Thursdays 3:30-5 p.m. Hospice Support Office, 42 N. Fifth St., Warrenton. Registration required. Call 540-347-5922 or email hospicesupport@verizon.net.

GRIEF SUPPORT Wednesdays, 10:30 a.m.-noon, Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814.

HOSPICE SUPPORT Free medical-equipment loan facility for Fauquier County residents. Especially needed are donations of wheelchairs, bedside commodes, rolling walkers, electric hospital beds, shower benches and chairs, adult diapers, lift chairs, Ensure and hospital bed mattresses. 540-347-5922.

LOOK GOOD, FEEL BETTER For women undergoing or emerging from cancer treatment. Every other month, 6:45 to 9 p.m. ,Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. Call for dates. 703-776-2820. Free.

LOUDOUN CHADD SUPPORT Led by Children and Adults With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Third Thursdays 7 p.m. Leesburg Town Hall, lower-level conference room, 25 W. Market St. 703-669-2445.

LOUDOUN INTERGROUP OF OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS Fellowship and support. For locations and times, call 571-420-2012. oa.org.

LYME DISEASE SUPPORT Fourth Sundays 2-4 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Conference Room A and B, Leesburg. Go to natcaplyme.org or email loudounlymeadvocates@gmail.com.

LYME DISEASE SUPPORT Third Thursdays 7 p.m. Warrenton Church of Christ, 6398 Lee Hwy. Access Road, Warrenton. 540-347-7265 or email lymeinfauquier@gmail.com.

MADD LOUDOUN VICTIM SUPPORT For those who have been affected by drunken driving. Third Wednesdays 7:30 p.m. 210 Wirt St., Leesburg. 540-338-6491.

MAN-TO-MAN CANCER SUPPORT Sponsored by Loudoun Cancer Care Center, for prostate cancer patients and their families. Second Tuesdays 6:30-8 p.m. Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. Call 703-858-8857 or email karen.archer@inova.org.

MENOPAUSE SUPPORT Third Thursdays 6:30-9 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg (second floor, Patient Education Room). 703-858-8060.

MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS SUPPORT Saturdays 10:30 a.m. Fauquier Hospital Chestnut Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-349-2826.

MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS SUPPORT Last Sundays 2-4 p.m. Cascades Library, 21030 Whitfield Pl., Potomac Falls. 703-771-4256.

NAR-ANON FAMILY SUPPORT For those affected by loved ones with addiction. Meaningful Mondays, 7-8 p.m., Galilee United Methodist Church, 45425 Winding Rd., Sterling. 703-203-9792; Wisdom Wednesdays 7-8 p.m., St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church, 37730 St. Francis Ct., Purcellville, 703-606-7125; Serenity Thursdays, 7-8 p.m. Leesburg Presbyterian Church, 207 W. Market St., Leesburg, 703-606-7125.

PARKINSON'S SUPPORT Open to anyone with Parkinson's disease, family members and caregivers. First Tuesdays 1:30-3 p.m. Call for Ashburn location. 571-442-8851.

POST-PARTUM SUPPORT Second and fourth Wednesdays 1-2:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Cornwall Campus, 224 Cornwall St., Leesburg. 703-909-9877. Email lamckeough@gmail.com. Registration required.

REACH TO RECOVERY Home visit program for mastectomy and lumpectomy patients. Temporary prostheses, exercise instruction and encouragement. 703-938-5550.

SEXUAL ASSAULT AND INCEST SURVIVORS GROUP COUNSELING Services provided by Loudoun Citizens for Social Justice and the Loudoun Abused Womens Shelter are free and confidential. 703-771-9020.

SEXUAL ASSAULT SURVIVORS EMPOWERMENT SUPPORT Sponsored by Sexual Assault Victims Volunteer Initiative. Child care available with 48-hours notice. Mondays; call for times and locations. 540-349-7720.

SPIRITUAL SUPPORT GROUP For cancer patients, family members and friends. Third Tuesdays 6:30-8 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. 703-858-8850.

STROKE SURVIVORS AND CAREGIVERS SUPPORT Second Wednesdays 11 a.m.-noon, Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg, second floor, Patient Education Room. 703-858-6667 or robyn.thomson@inova.org.

SUICIDE COUNSELING Third Wednesdays 7-8:30 p.m. Leesburg Town Office, Conference Room 2, lower level, 25 W. Market St., Leesburg. 703-587-1618 or survivorsofsuicidelossleesburg@gmail.com.

WOMENS SUPPORT Sponsored by Services to Abused Families. Tuesdays 6:30-8 p.m. Confidential location. 540-825-8876.

WIDOW AND WIDOWER SUPPORT Third Mondays 11 a.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039.

WOMENS CANCER SUPPORT Woman to Woman, first Wednesdays 6:30-8 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. Registration required. 703-858-8850.

MISCELLANEOUS

BRAIN TRAUMA SURVIVORS BROWN BAG LUNCH For survivors and caregivers, first Tuesdays, noon-1:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg, second-floor Patient Education Room. Call 703-737-3150 or email jberg@braininjurysvcs.org. Free.

BRAMBLETON HEALTHY LIVING EXPO May 1, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Brambleton Town Center, 42395 Ryan Rd., Brambleton. Health ckeck stations, exercise demonstrations, music, moon bounces, face-painting, balloon artist and vendors. 703-542-2925. Free.

CHILD DEVELOPMENTAL SCREENINGS For ages 2-5. Children may not be kindergarten-age-eligible. Sponsored by the Loudoun County public schools Child Find Center. 571-252 - 2180.

CHOLESTEROL SCREENINGS Weekdays 6 a.m.-8 p.m. Fauquier Health LIFE Center, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-2640. Registration required. $35.

EMERGENCY FOOD SUPPLIES Loudoun residents who are in need can receive a free three-day supply of groceries. Supplies are distributed Mondays through Saturdays by Loudoun Interfaith Relief. 703-777-5911. interfaithrelief.org.

FAUQUIER FREE WALK-IN MEDICAL CLINIC Patients must call Thursdays from 12:30 to 1 p.m. to register for the clinic, which begins at 5:30 p.m. Patients are also seen by appointment Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Fauquier and Rappahannock residents only. Bring proof of address for the first visit. Patients cannot have Medicaid, Medicare or private insurance. Information: 540-347-0394 Tuesdays or Thursdays, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

FAUQUIER HOSPITAL BISTRO SENIOR SUPPER CLUB Nutritious meals and fellowship for people 55 and older. Tuesdays and Thursdays 4:30-6:30 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Bistro on the Hill, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-3588. $5.49.

GAMERS UNION FOR TEENS WITH ASPERGERS Youths 12 to 21 interact through gaming; their caregivers meet for networking. Second Tuesdays 6 p.m. Rust Library, 380 Old Waterford Rd., Leesburg. 703-777-0323. Free.

HEROES (Hometown Enabling Relationships, Opportunities and Empowerment through Support) is a program for military families. A trained volunteer provides support to military members and their families, from pre-deployment up to two years post-deployment. Assistance includes financial help, job placement, family care and mental health services. heroescare.org or email caring@purbap.org .

INOVA LOUDOUN HOSPITAL MOBILE HEALTH SERVICES BLOOD PRESSURE SCREENINGS Monday 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Levis Hill House, 1000 W. Washington St., Middleburg; Tuesday 9 a.m.-noon, Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling; Wednesday 10 a.m.-noon, Lansdowne Woods, 19400 Leisure World Blvd., Leesburg; Thursday 10 a.m.-noon, Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville; Information: 703-858-8818 or inova.org/mobilehealth. Free.

LOUDOUN CARES INFORMATION AND REFERRAL HELPLINE Call for help in finding resources for county residents who are dealing with rent eviction, utility cut offs, needed health care, employment and more. 703-669-4636.

MASSAGE FOR COUPLES Friday 6-8 p.m. Fauquier Health Wellness Center, 419 Holiday Ct., Warrenton. 540-316-2640. $55 per couple. Registration required.

MOTOR SKILL SCREENINGS Birth to 21 months. First Thursdays, Blue Ridge Speech and Hearing Center, 19465 Deerfield Ave., Suite 201, Lansdowne. Call for an appointment. 703-858-7620. Free.

NORTHERN VIRGINIA LONG-TERM CARE OMBUDSMAN Call for help in resolving complaints related to long-term-care facilities. 703-324-5861.

PRESCRIPTION TAKE-BACK DAY Turn in your unused or expired medications for safe disposal Saturday from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at six sites in Loudoun County. The sites include Eastern Loudoun Sheriffs Station, 25216 Loudoun County Pkwy, South Riding; the Lansdowne Public Safety Center, 19845 Sandridge Way, Lansdowne; Middleburg Town Hall, 10 W, Marshal St., Midddleburg; and Firemans Field, 250 S. Nursery Ave., Purcellville. There will also be a drop-off location at the DEA Museum, 750 Miller Dr., Suite F-1, Leesburg. For information, go to dea.gov.

REIKI SESSION Wednesday 6-8 p.m. Fauquier Health Wellness Center, 419 Holiday Ct., Warrenton. 540-316-2640. Free. Registration required.

ROAD TO RECOVERY, for cancer patients who need rides to appointments. 410-781-6909. Email jen.burdette@cancer.org. Free.

SEVEN LOAVES FOOD PANTRY Individuals and families can receive a three-day supply of food, distributed Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays 10 a.m.-noon. 540-687-3489 or sevenloavesmiddleburg.org.

TREE OF LIFE FOOD PANTRY Serving western Loudoun County. Food is delivered Wednesdays and Saturdays. 703-554-3595.

WHEN A MAN FACES GRIEF Four-week series focusing on men healing from loss. Wayne Ralston and Jim Presely are the facilitators. Thursdays in May, 7-8:30 p.m. Spiritual Care Support Ministries, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. Non-denominational. 540-349-5814, Free.

 Compiled by Sandy Mauck

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Loudoun County and Fauquier County health calendar

Loudoun County and Fauquier County health calendar

Loudoun County and Fauquier County health calendar

Loudoun County and Fauquier County health calendar

Loudoun County and Fauquier County health calendar

Loudoun County and Fauquier County health calendar

Loudoun County and Fauquier County health calendar

Loudoun County and Fauquier County health calendar
Steven Snethkamp, a composer based in East Lansing, Mich., will find himself in esteemed company Saturday, when his name joins those of composers such as Beethoven and Mussorgsky on the program of Orchestral Palettes, the final concert of the Loudoun Symphony Orchestras 25th-anniversary season.

The centerpiece of the concert, at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn, will be the professional premiere of Snethkamps composition, Interstellar Arias, winner of this years American Composer Competition. The concert will open with Beethovens Consecration of the House Overture and conclude in grand fashion with Mussorgskys Pictures at an Exhibition.

Snethkamp, 33, composed Interstellar Arias during his graduate studies at Indiana University, where the piece had its only performance last year. It was selected from more than 70 entries as winner of the competition, sponsored by the Loudoun Symphony.

Mark Allen McCoy, the orchestras music director and conductor, said that the symphony holds the competition every two or three years to promote new music and give composers a showcase for their work. The prize includes a $1,000 award and the first professional performance of the composition, he said.

Oftentimes their work may get a premiere someplace and then get shelved for the rest of their life, McCoy said.

Snethkamp describes Interstellar Arias as a musical contemplation about existence and our spiritual relationship with the universe.

I imagine these songs being sung by a drifter in the universe, expressing their personal struggle with the big questions of existence, he said. In the program notes, he imagines the drifter as a disembodied soul adrift among the stars.

Snethkamp urges listeners to bring their own interpretations to the music.

One of the things that music does not do very well is convey specific ideas, Snethkamp said. But one of the things it does really, really well is convey things that are deeply personal and hard to express in words.

He said the piece took on new meaning for him when his father died last year. He had composed the piece as a philosophical daydream while his father was still living, he said.

Now it means something completely different, he said. The fact that my own interpretation of it has changed means that it is successful for me.

McCoy said he likes the concept of the composition, and that Snethkamp had done a marvelous job of creating flow through the piece.

It impressed me that someone so young had such a great handle on the orchestration part of it, he said. Even though its a big orchestra and a big score, hes written it in such a way its not cluttered.

McCoy said that it was fitting to open the concert with the Beethoven overture, because the competition is the groups way of looking for the next Beethoven. He chose the demanding Pictures at an Exhibition as the final piece to showcase the orchestras range. The musical suite, composed for piano by Mussorgsky and arranged for orchestra by Ravel, culminates with the majestic Great Gate of Kiev.

McCoy, who has conducted the Loudoun Symphony Orchestra since 1997, said he made a deliberate effort to bring the orchestra out into the community during its 25th season. The group has also performed concerts this year at the National Conference Center, Franklin Park Arts Center and the Middleburg Community Center.

Clarinetist David Hughes, a retired lawyer who helped found the Loudoun Symphony a quarter-century ago, said the orchestra performs at a high level despite consisting mostly of volunteers. Although some of the musicians are conservatory-trained professionals, most members perform without pay, he said.

Hughes described the orchestra in the early days as a ragtag group that did not have regular practice space. The quality has improved significantly over the years, he said, crediting McCoys leadership.

Nothing succeeds like success, he said. Once you find that the orchestra is playing well, then a lot of people want to join it. And the people who are [already] there want to play well, so they dont spoil the performance.

McCoy said the orchestra members are looking forward to performing Snethkamps composition.

This piece has so much for everybody to do, he said. Its quite a complicated piece, but everybodys so engaged with it that . . . they really like performing it.

The Loudoun Symphony Orchestras Orchestral Palettes concert will be Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, center, prepares to pose for a photo with his staff during a bill-signing ceremony in Annapolis on April 12. Sitting with Hogan are Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, left, and House Speaker Michael E. Busch. (Patrick Semansky/AP)

The question of whether Marylanders would receive a tax cut this year came down to a fraction of a percentage point  0.04, to be exact.

That was the difference between the tax rate the state Senate wanted to apply to high earners and the rate that the more progressive House of Delegates said it could accept.

When the two sides couldnt agree, a proposal for paid sick leave  which proponents had planned to link with the tax-cut bill to generate support from Gov. Larry Hogan (R)  also went by the wayside.

In the end, despite strong support for tax cuts from Hogan, House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert), the only major tax package to land on Hogans desk was a hotly debated $37.5 million credit for the defense and aerospace firm Northrup Grumman, which has a heavy presence in Maryland.

All of us thought we were this close to real, meaningful tax relief, and unfortunately the speaker of the House and Senate president dropped the ball and failed to get it done, Hogan said last week, a day after the legislature adjourned. Its very frustrating and disappointing.

Maryland has not enacted widespread tax relief in nearly two decades. But Hogan campaigned on a platform of lowering taxes, and both Busch and Miller seemed on board this year, buoyed by robust state revenue and eager to act on recommendations from a commission they created to help improve the states economy. economic climate.

[Push for Md. tax relief has two key backers -- Miller and Busch]

The Senate initially proposed lowering the rate for the highest bracket from its current 5.75 percent to 5.60 percent. That idea was untenable to the House of Delegates, whose Democratic lawmakers have long believed that the states 1998 income-tax reduction caused budget deficits and, combined with the 2008 recession, hindered the states ability to expand services.

Republicans say that required spending increases also contributed to the deficit issue.

Our tax package this year was geared toward the middle class, and thats what our caucus wanted, said House Majority Leader Anne R. Kaiser (D-Montgomery), one of three delegates assigned to work out a deal with the Senate.

But Senate negotiators insisted on across-the-board rate reductions.

The Senate felt everyone needs some relief, said Senate Budget and Taxation Committee Chairman Edward J. Kasemeyer (D-Baltimore County), who led the chambers negotiating team. Its a difference in fundamental philosophies.

Both chambers offered cuts for middle-income taxpayers, but to varying degrees. The House proposal would have saved $150 a year for households making $150,000, while the Senates plan would have reduced taxes by $64 for the same families.

But the House snubbed high earners with its starting offer, approving a tax package with no rate reductions for families earning at least $300,000.

As the end of the session drew closer, House negotiators, all of them Democratic lawmakers taking direction from Buschs office, eventually budged on the top bracket, offering to trim the rate to 5.69 percent.

The Senates team, made up of two Democrats and a Republican, countered with 5.65 percent. But the House didnt accept the proposal and didnt counteroffer. Both sides decided they had moved far enough, even though their proposals for high earners were so close that the difference in the amount saved by a family making $300,000 would have been just $120.

The Department of Legislative Services estimated that the Senates plan for high earners would reduce state revenue by an extra $30 million, compared with the House proposal. House negotiators said the additional hit concerned them.

It was tens of millions of dollars of lost revenue, and thats not so small, said Del. Jay Walker (D-Prince Georges), who led the House negotiating group.

The House tax package initially included a change that would allow corporations to base their tax rates on sales in Maryland, rather than a combination of sales, property and payroll in the state.

Supporters said the policy would benefit companies with a big presence in the state because many would face a lower tax burden under the single-sales method. But some Republicans raised concerns about how the change would affect other businesses, such as large telecommunications firms based in other states.

House lawmakers agreed to drop the single-sales provision during the negotiations with the Senate. Both chambers favored expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit that benefits the working poor, something Hogan had proposed as well.

But as the clock ticked toward midnight on April 11, there were no more efforts to bridge the .04 percent gap in the proposed rates for high earners.

When the annual legislative session ended, the tax-relief proposals were dead  and the much-pushed-for sick leave bill had died along with them.

House lawmakers had approved the sick-leave legislation, which would have made Maryland the fifth state to require most employers to provide the benefit if they have at least 15 workers.

Progressives had pushed hard for the measure, spurred by calls from liberal advocates and the White House.

Many lawmakers said it was understood in Annapolis that the legislations best chance of success would come if it was tied to a tax-relief package, so that Hogan  a former small-business man himself  would have to decide whether fulfilling his tax pledge was worth accepting an employee-friendly initiative.

With tax relief sputtering, the sick-leave measure never came up for a vote on the Senate floor.

It was a given that that was the deal, Kasemeyer said. One was going to be contingent upon the other, so that if the governor didnt sign one, the other didnt take effect. But we didnt get far enough to worry about that.
(REUTERS/John Stillwell)Kate Middleton and Prince William kiss at the balcony of the Kensington Palace after their wedding ceremony.

The rumors about Kate Middleton's pregnancy were reinvigorated once again when a fresh batch of rumors revealed that the Duchess and Duke of Cambridge are expecting twins. There is no official statement from the Palace yet, but speculations may not be true especially with the royal couple's busy schedules to fulfill their duties and take care of their two children.

Kate and William's toddlers, Prince George, 2, and Princess Charlotte, 1, may be having a twin sibling soon. According to reports, Kate is rumored to be pregnant for a few weeks now. The royal couple, apparently, did not expect the surprising news.

However, there are several proofs that could easily debunk the renewed rumors. One proof is her wardrobe choice during her trip with William in India and Bhutan. She wore tight jeans and body-hugging dresses that did not show a baby bump. Plus, Queen Elizabeth is also someone who would not approve of Kate travelling to faraway places.

It can be remembered that Gossip Cop debunked the earlier pregnancy rumors in a statement in February. The Palace exclusively told Gossip Cop that they never made any confirmation regarding such reports. Thus, the reports and rumors about the Duchess of Cambridge's pregnancy are not true.

The news outlet also emphasized OK! magazine starting the rumor in October of last year, which contradicts its claim last month that the Duchess is already "almost 12 weeks" pregnant.

Earlier this month, the royal couple visited Taj Mahal, as a part of their India and Bhutan visit, 24 years after Princess Diana set foot in the place. Before arriving, the Cambridge's communication secretary Jason Knauf released a statement, according to E! Online, that Prince William is lucky to visit the place where "his mother's memory is kept alive by so many who travel there."

"Twenty-four years on from her visit to the Taj, the duke and the duchess are looking forward to seeing this beautiful place for themselves and creating some new memories as they say thank you to the people of India at the conclusion of this tour," Knauf added.
A second man has been arrested in connection with the fatal shooting of a 37-year-old Northwest Washington man in January, who police say may have been killed because of drug dispute.

Eugene Ledex Sherman, 53, of Southeast, was arrested just after 5 p.m. Saturday and charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of Matthew Shevlin. Shevlin was found shot outside his Mount Vernon condo on Jan. 22, and later died at a hospital.

Sherman joins 18-year-old David Davalier Harvey, who was arrested at the scene a few minutes after police found Shevlin. Harvey has been charged with first-degree murder and carrying a gun without a license.

Around 10:30 a.m. on Jan. 22, police responded to reports of gunshots in the 400 block of M Street NW, and when they arrived, found Shevlin in the courtyard of his apartment complex suffering from gunshot wounds to the head and chest. Police said when they arrested Harvey at Shevlins residence, he had a jar filled with marijuana that was labeled White Fade Out. After searching Shevlins apartment, police found numerous other jars filled with marijuana that were similar to the one Harvey had.

Surveillance video from the time of the incident shows three men approach Shevlins apartment, and later shows Shevlin running away from a man carrying a gun, police said.
Washingtons Metro came into the world 40 years ago full of promise. It was a rail system of the future. Then, reality set in. (Lee Powell/The Washington Post)

Metros failure-prone subway  once considered a transportation jewel  is mired in disrepair because the transit agency neglected to heed warnings that its aging equipment and poor safety culture would someday lead to chronic breakdowns and calamities.

For nearly half a century, almost since construction of the subway system began, federal experts, civic and business groups, private transit organizations, and some Metro general managers and directors have raised red flags.

The alarms came repeatedly, at public hearings and Metro board meetings, in crash investigations and published studies, including 14 reports reviewed for this article: The agency lacked a robust institutional safety consciousness, its maintenance regime was close to negligent, and the system desperately needed a steadier, more dependable source of financing.

But generations of executives and government-appointed Metro board members, along with Washington-area politicians who ultimately dictated Metros spending and direction, steered the agency on a different course.

Americas subway, which opened in 1976 to great acclaim  promoted as a marvel of modern transit technology and design  has been reduced to an embarrassment, scorned and ridiculed from station platforms to the halls of Congress. Balky and unreliable on its best days, and hazardous, even deadly, on its worst, Metrorail is in crisis, losing riders and revenue and exhausting public confidence.

Thousands of pages of documents and dozens of interviews show that the decline of Metro is a story about head-in-the-sand leadership through its history, about political inertia and timidity among the multiple jurisdictions that govern the agency, about fateful misjudgments in strategic planning, and about cautions ignored or underestimated while the subway grew older and rot set in, just as the warnings had predicted.

In the past 15 months alone  among other, uncountable, less spectacular Metro emergencies and daily annoyances  this has happened:

Scores of passengers were sickened, one fatally, in a smoke-filled tunnel; a fire in a Metro power plant slowed and canceled trains for weeks; major stretches of the system were paralyzed for hours by a derailment stemming from a track defect that should have been fixed long before; and, on March 16, in an unprecedented workday aggravation for every Metro straphanger, the entire subway was shut down for 24 hours for urgent safety repairs.

Just this weekend, fire on a Red Line track near the Friendship Heights station caused the evacuation of a train in a tunnel and disruption for hours.

[Federal Transit Administration investigating Saturdays Metro track fire]

Meanwhile, many commuters are opting out. Subway ridership, which increased annually for 13 years starting in 1996, is down 5 percent since 2010 and continues to fall, even as the regions population grows. Metro has long blamed the decline on economic and social factors. But in October, for the first time, the agency acknowledged another reason: the frequency of severe delays.

Riders have been forced to budget more travel time to avoid being late, one report noted. Another cited concern by customers over service quality and reliability.

The on-time rate for Metro trains, which hovered above 90 percent for most of 2012, was down to 84 percent last year because of railcar, power and track equipment problems that led to longer and more variable travel times.

In addition to that bad news last year, huge money problems surfaced.

It was stunning about the financial disrepair, James C. Dinegar, president of the Greater Washington Board of Trade, said in an interview about the 130-mile rail system, a vital engine of the regions economy. It was stunning about the safety culture, but also the state of [equipment] disrepair, he said. I do think that its inexcusable that they have so many different problems.

Death spiral

What went wrong?

Based on volumes of records, some dating back 40-plus years, and interviews with former and current Metro officials and other close observers of the agency, a lot went wrong.

Its a story about a modern-era subterranean rail network constructed in a fast-paced, congested metropolitan area. Bostons and New Yorks systems, by contrast, were born in less-crowded regions more than a century ago. Metro was built with two tracks, not four as in New York  and with few pocket tracks, where trains can be parked out of the way  to hold down costs and minimize public disruption during the work. Now there is too little room in the narrow tunnels for maintenance and repair crews and hundreds of thousands of commuters together.

[Metros biggest meltdowns in recent years]

As one former Metro executive said, its about a two-lane road running at interstate-highway speeds, carrying interstate-highway traffic, with limited off-ramps.

Its also a story about the agencys early faith in automation  that computers would negate human error  which seemed to stunt the development of a safety culture, resulting in disasters. And its about years of deferring unglamorous but vital infrastructure maintenance as the subway matured, while officials instead pushed for more expansion: more rail lines and stations, more ribbon-cuttings and opportunities for economic development.

Its about a legacy of poor communication between unionized workers and their bosses regarding deficiencies in the system  a persistent disconnect that spans the agencys existence, said the new general manager, Paul J. Wiedefeld. Many employees fear being disciplined or branded as malcontents if they point out flaws. The problem, which Wiedefeld hopes to rectify, has a corrosive impact on subway safety and service.

And its a story about money, about elected leaders unwilling to seek a special tax to pay for Metro, afraid of a voter backlash. Its about a $3 billion-a-year agency without dedicated funding (unique among big U.S. transit systems) going hat in hand to the governments of Maryland, Virginia and the District, seeking annual operating subsidies from three jurisdictions with differing priorities and budget constraints.



Metro General Manager Paul Wiedefeld, center, listens during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing earlier this month on the state of the Metro system. (Bill OLeary/The Washington Post)

The alarms have been remarkably consistent. On safety, in multiple reports over four straight decades, the National Transportation Safety Board faulted Metro for overreliance on automation and neglecting safety procedures.

On funding, the U.S. comptroller general said in 1979 that Metro risked a continuing financial crisis unless the local jurisdictions created a dependable stream of cash. In 2004, the general manager warned of a death spiral unless investments were made in maintenance. The following year, a blue-ribbon commission said that as the system aged, it was literally falling apart.

Concern about Metros fragmented governing structure also is not new. A private study in 1982 called the structure of the board of directors entirely unsuitable for its task. And yet another blue-ribbon commission, in 2010, said that Metros troubling decline in performance will continue unless fundamental changes are made to improve governance, leadership and accountability.

Now comes the work of resurrecting Metro, of reviving a subway that recorded about 214 million passenger trips last year, down from a peak of 225 million in 2009.

Its a herculean task that falls to a fresh cast of leaders.

Wiedefeld, a former head of the Maryland Transit Administration, was hired as general manager in November after serving as director of Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport.

Vowing to take a methodical approach to fixing the system rather than lurching from one crisis to another, he said he is finalizing a comprehensive maintenance plan that will involve significant service disruptions to make room for work crews in tunnels.

D.C. Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), elected chairman of Metros governing board in January, has started beating the drum for dedicated funding  a proposal so seemingly untenable politically that, until now, supporters of the idea hadnt bothered pushing for it for years.

Maybe theres nowhere for Metro to go but up.

[Board chairman says government not paying fair share]

We have gotten behind the eight ball so far, so deep, and deferred this stuff for so long, that the size of the hole we have to climb out of is monumental, said Richard A. White, who became Metro general manager in 1996 and held the job for a decade. His was the longest tenure of any of the 15 chief executives, including a few interim appointees, in the agencys history.

Given Metros record of wrong-way decisions, White said, I dont think we should be surprised where we are after going down this road.

Identifiable hazards which could lead to disaster

Amid much hoopla surrounding the 1970s construction of Metrorail  heralded as a marvelous creation that would usher the capital area into the future, advancing the region economically and socially  there was an undercurrent of worries. And some of those concerns would echo through the years in moments of calamity.

1 of 15 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  What Washington D.C.s Metro looked like in the 1970s and 80s View Photos A look back at D.C.s Metro system over the decades. Caption A look back at D.C.s Metro system over the decades. Nov. 7, 1973 Metro construction miners and blasters with a jumbo drill worked on a hole at Rock Creek Parkway and Cathedral Ave NW. James K.W. Atherton/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

In September 1970, less than a year after Congress gave the go-ahead for the subway to be built, three federal agencies published a joint report warning that Metro, in relying heavily on automation, was too cavalier about the potential for human mistakes in train operations. Metrorails designers and others working to develop the system had paid insufficient attention to the need for strict, written safety criteria.

The absence of provisions for a disciplined, systemic review of the entire project has resulted in a system with identifiable hazards which could lead to disaster in future operations, the report said.

Those concerns, over time, would turn out to be prescient, as technical malfunctions, some involving automation, as well as faulty communications and poor training, contributed to rail accidents that killed 14 people: three in 1982, one in 1996, nine in 2009 and one last year. Two of the dead were train operators, and the rest were passengers.

Workers and managers resisted efforts at reform because they were set in their ways and because they were more concerned about keeping revenue-producing trains running on time, some former officials said.

What I found at [Metro], you would set up a [safety] training session and two-thirds of the people wouldnt show up, recalled John B. Catoe Jr., who was the agencys top executive from 2007 to 2010. Their managers felt they were needed for something more important.

Catoe said he blamed himself, in part, because he relied on a top-down management style that was unsuccessful.

The agency never solved those shortcomings in its workplace culture so that it could meet the NTSBs professional safety standards and improve customer service, said Chris Zimmerman, who was a Metro board member for 12 years, until 2010. Almost every general manager I knew wanted to do something to change the institutional culture of the place, he said. But its not an easy thing to do.

[Workers say a safety culture doesnt exist]

The public bears some responsibility, said Zimmerman, a former member of the Arlington County Board. Many people give lip service to the idea of safety-related maintenance, then get angry when track work delays their commutes. And that creates tension within Metro  an endless push-pull between upgrading infrastructure and moving trains efficiently.

Nobody really believes in a safety-first culture; they only believe it after the fact when something [bad] happens, Zimmerman said. Really what they believe in is Me get home first. And there is a trade-off.

Six months before the subway opened in March 1976, the NTSB issued a report about Metro that repeated the federal warning from 1970: The agency was overly wedded to the concept that computers, far more than people, would control train movements in the years ahead as automation technology grew more sophisticated.

The apparent belief is that through this increased automation, the impact of human error could be reduced or even eliminated, the report said, and went on to criticize Metros approach as automation for automations sake.

And this happened: On Jan. 6, 1996, a train under computer control was barreling too fast, at 75 mph, in a blizzard. Unable to decelerate quickly enough on snow-covered rails near the Shady Grove station, the train slammed into a parked, unoccupied train, killing the operator.

Metro could have turned off its automated system during the storm and let train operators do the driving in manual mode. But it had decided not to.

The train was thus allowed to continue to operate in automatic mode at above-normal speed on known slippery tracks toward a location where significant station over-run could result in a collision, NTSB officials later said, warning that Metros total faith in technology, no matter how advanced and sophisticated that technology may be, is inappropriate.

The agencys reliance on computer-driven trains led to far greater catastrophe June 22, 2009, when the automated system broke down. After a technical glitch fouled the intricate process of communication between track-based electronics and the computer on a train traveling near the Fort Totten station, the computer failed to register that an idle train was parked just ahead. So it didnt apply the brakes.

In the ensuing rear-end crash  the worst disaster in Metros history  the operator of the moving train and eight of her passengers were killed.



Several people were killed after a Metro train rear-ended another on the Red Line north of Fort Totten in 2009. (James M. Thresher/For The Washington Post)

The NTSB, in its report on the accident, offered a litany of Metro shortcomings, including problems with internal communications . . . recognition of hazards . . . assessment of risk from those hazards . . . and implementation of corrective actions.

And it said the troubles were all evidence of an ineffective safety culture in the organization  that the transit agency had failed to vigorously apply the lessons learned from previous Metrorail accidents and incidents.

After the Fort Totten crash, Metro shut down its automated train-operation system and has been re-engineering and rebuilding it ever since. For seven years, nearly all trains have been running in manual mode  with humans at the controls.

It usually doesnt end up well

Metro also has let its tracks, electrical systems, rail cars and other equipment deteriorate, despite escalating warnings that major repairs or replacements were required.

A principal reason has been the unwillingness of Washington-area jurisdictions to contribute the billions of dollars necessary to pay for the work.

As a result, especially in the 1980s and 1990s, Metro received far less money than it said was needed  although, after the shock of the 2009 crash, local jurisdictions and the federal government agreed on a six-year, $5 billion Metro capital investment plan.

That was still less than half of what Metro had said was the necessary amount. And yet the agency has failed to use all the funds available to it. From 2011 to 2015, Metro spent only $3.7 billion of $5.1 billion that was budgeted. The reason? A recent Metro report cited an array of factors, including insufficient management controls and delays in executing contracts by both Metro and its vendors.

By the early 1990s, then-General Manager David L. Gunn was urging the agencys governing board to start setting aside money to begin a big rebuilding program.

Commuters started realizing that something was amiss in 1999, when Metro endured days of crippling disruptions during the busy Cherry Blossom Festival. Concern also grew because of a rash of escalator breakdowns.

But political leaders in Maryland, Virginia and the District, who share responsibility for the transit system, balked at levying taxes or fees to pay for an overhaul, while they continued to press for expansion.

First, they wanted to concentrate on completing the Blue and Green lines, partly to encourage revitalization of some of the areas less-affluent neighborhoods. Most of that was accomplished in the 1990s. Later, they wanted to focus on adding the Silver Line, to promote economic growth in Northern Virginia and eventually create a rail link to Dulles International Airport.

When the subway opened in 1976, it was just five stations along an embryonic stretch of the Red Line in downtown Washington. It reached its originally envisioned size (not including the Silver Line) in the early years of the new century.

When White used the phrase death spiral to call attention to Metros need to start rebuilding parts of the existing system, he said he got pushback from Metro board members and the elected officials who appointed them.

Instead, they kept pushing for Metro to grow. The politicians who held the purse strings seemed happy to invest in laying new tracks and opening new stations, where they could tout development at opening ceremonies. But they cared less about spending for maintenance to prevent breakdowns years later, when they might no longer be in office.

Said White: People couldnt get enough of this extension stuff, and didnt want to listen to anything about taking the medicine, and taking care of what needed to be taken care of.

The problem of infrastructure maintenance as an afterthought manifests itself in many ways, large and small, and riders suffer the consequences: Brake trouble disables a train and they are ordered to get off, for instance, or a broken rail forces trains traveling in opposite directions to share one track, resulting in long delays, crowded platforms and, these days, a storm of irate tweets.

There are no more dramatic examples than two in recent months, involving Metros failure to properly maintain heavy-duty power cables in tunnels. The insulation wore out over time, exposing the electrical wires.

On Jan. 12, 2015, this led to a fire on tracks in a Yellow Line tunnel near the LEnfant Plaza station. Noxious fumes enveloped a stalled train, sickening more than 80 passengers, one of whom died from inhaling the smoke.

1 of 45 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Images from the smoke-filled train and rescues at LEnfant Plaza station in 2015 View Photos One person died in the January 2015 Metro incident in a tunnel outside the LEnfant Plaza Metro station after scores of riders were trapped aboard a train as it filled with smoke. Caption One person died in the January 2015 Metro incident in a tunnel outside the LEnfant Plaza Metro station after scores of riders were trapped aboard a train as it filled with smoke. Jan. 12, 2015 Passengers react Monday afternoon as smoke fills a Metro train in a tunnel outside LEnfant Plaza Metro station. Saleh Damiger Wait 1 second to continue.

Then last month, on March 14, an electrical fire broke out in a tunnel near the McPherson Square station before the subways morning opening. Two days later, after inspectors determined that frayed power cables were the cause  as they had been in the LEnfant Plaza calamity  Wiedefeld shut down the subway for an emergency inspection and repairs.

In an interview, the new general manager talked about trying to get his arms around the mess that he inherited and figure out the best way to fix it.

One of the things that has kind of struck me, this agency has had some of the top people in the business . . . come through it, Wiedefeld said. What is it about when they get here, it usually doesnt end up well, especially in the last 10 years?

Political leaders and their representatives on the Metro board also were wary of saving money if it meant sacrificing service.

In 2006, then-interim general manager Dan Tangherlini was rebuffed when he urged cost-reducing measures such as replacing some short escalators with stairs, selling Metros headquarters building, and buying rail cars made from an older design rather than commissioning expensive new engineering work.

The board resisted efforts we needed to adopt a more efficient, leaner approach, Tangherlini recalled. They wanted the system they already had, but they didnt know where they were going to get the dollars to pay for it.

After nine months as a fill-in top executive, Tangherlini did not get the general managers job, largely because Virginia representatives on the Metro board were worried that his interest in revitalizing existing subway lines would threaten the agencys commitment to building the Silver Line.

Tangherlini said he was in favor of the extension but also felt that older parts of the subway were in dire need of attention.

Part of my challenge, he said, was convincing some of the board that we needed to care about the other color lines, as well.

The time for definitive action is now

Perhaps the one Metro issue that has spurred the most public debate with the least results is the lack of a dedicated revenue source.

Anybody who pays close attention to the agency knows that it is the nations only major subway without a regional sales tax, gasoline tax or other source of funds designated to support a significant part of its budget. Other transit systems typically get 20 to 50 percent of their operating revenue from such taxes or fees.

By contrast, Metro must beg every year for hundreds of millions of dollars from the District, Maryland and Virginia to pay its operating costs. It also has to ask them  and ask the federal government, too, in recent years  for capital-improvement money to cover infrastructure upgrades and buy major equipment.

After an exhaustive study in 2001, the U.S. General Accounting Office warned that Metro faced a shortfall of nearly $4 billion that it needed just to rehabilitate the existing system and increase its capacity to handle projected regional population growth.

With few exceptions, however, state and local political leaders were unwilling to risk angering voters by seeking new taxes or fees. And their resistance hardened after the 2002 elections, which delivered a pair of setbacks for transit funding.

In a referendum in Northern Virginia and the states Hampton Roads area, voters rejected a proposal to raise local sales taxes to pay for transportation. Conservative groups opposed any tax hike, while some pro-transit groups fought against the measure because the money would have been used not only for Metro but for roads.

Also that year, Maryland elected a new governor, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), who was much less supportive of transit funding than his predecessor, Democrat Parris N. Glendening.

As the funding shortage continued to stir concern, the alarm was sounded again, in a 2005 report by a high-level Metro funding panel. It warned that Metro would face dire results without dedicated funding and fresh money from the federal government.

The time for definitive action is now, the panel, appointed by local governments and business groups, declared, if Metro is to avoid a downward spiral in its condition and performance.



The National Transportation Safety Board conducted public hearings in 2010 into the fatal Red Line train collision, with testimony from then-Metro General Manager John B. Catoe. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

Still, a dedicated funding source was not forthcoming. Catoe described presenting a staff report to the Metro board in 2008 that said the agency needed $11 billion to buy new rail cars and other equipment and to pay for subway repairs, including upgrading track signals and fixing water leaks in tunnels.

I was looked at like I was crazy, he recalled. Where are we going to get $11 billion? That was the reality. Thats what its going to cost.

The push for a dedicated tax was also stalled by a parallel  and surprisingly successful  effort to wrest more money for Metro from the federal government.

After years of effort, then-U.S. Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) and a bipartisan group of Washington-area lawmakers persuaded Congress to pass a bill authorizing $150 million a year in federal funds to Metro, as long as local jurisdictions kicked in an equal amount.

The assistance was welcome. But it came with conditions: It provided only capital-improvement funds, not money for Metros operating expenses. And it ends in fiscal 2019, unless Congress and the White House decide to extend it.

Moreover, on the downside for transit advocates, the Davis bill, as it is called, decreased pressure to move ahead on a permanent dedicated funding source from the region.

Evans, Metros new board chairman, said that to meet Metros needs, a regional dedicated funding source would have to provide an additional $1 billion annually for capital improvements. The transit agency has estimated that a 1-cent hike in sales taxes in the jurisdictions served by Metro would yield close to $700 million a year.

Any effort to raise more money for Metro through a tax or fee, however, would immediately face formidable opposition from critics who argue that the agency is guilty of grossly mishandling the money it already has received.

[Mutual disdain: Youve got your head in the sand.]

For example, in addition to leaving money unused, Metro spent federal grant money improperly for years, according to a 2014 outside audit. As a result, the Federal Transit Administration has greatly restricted Metros access to such funds.

Nobody was stealing money, said longtime board member Mortimer L. Downey, who preceded Evans as chairman. But people were not managing the way they should.

As he put it, its kind of like a bank teller losing track of where the money is.

Is it any surprise that the system has failed?

One explanation for Metros perpetual troubles lies in what could be considered its original design flaw: Responsibility for the agency is divided among so many players that ultimately no one is held accountable.

Its partly a function of geography. Unlike the subways in New York, Boston, Chicago and other big cities, the Washington areas rail system crosses state lines.

Authority over Metro (which is the official nickname of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, or WMATA) is shared equally on its 16-member board. The District, Maryland, Virginia and, since 2010, the federal government each appoint four representatives. Two of the four are voting members, and two are alternates.

Board members past and present complain that nothing important gets done unless the Districts mayor and the governors in Annapolis and Richmond reach a consensus and push an issue forward. But the three often have divergent interests or are too busy with other matters to give Metro the attention it needs.

This is the issue where everybody owns WMATA and then nobody owns WMATA, said White, the former general manager. Its an institutional orphan. After the sometimes exhilarating job of building the subway was finished, and responsibility shifted to taking care of what you already had, White said, nobody owned it.



Richard Sarles took the top job at Metro in March 2010 after his predecessor, John Catoe, announced he was leaving. (Tracy A Woodward/The Washington Post)

Last year, Metros progress in dealing with its problems effectively ground to a halt while a bitter battle raged among board members over the selection of a new general manager. Wiedefeld was finally hired in November  14 months after his predecessor, Richard Sarles, had announced his impending retirement and 10 months after he departed the agency.

In addition, throughout Metros history, many board members have secured their posts through political patronage and lacked expertise in transportation.

U.S. Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) is preparing a Metro reform bill that would require future board appointees to be certified as transit, management or financial experts.

Ultimately, Metros failure rests on the shoulders of its governing board, a group that is not currently required to meet any standards or even demonstrate that they know anything about large-scale transit operations, Delaney said. Is it any surprise that the system has failed?

The concern isnt new. In 1982, for example, a study commissioned by the Greater Washington Research Center described the composition of the board as entirely unsuitable for overseeing the management of an operating transit system. And in 2010, a task force appointed by the regions top government and business groups reached a similar conclusion.

The latter study, Moving Metro Forward, was commissioned after the 2009 rail crash that killed nine people. The report found that the elected chief executives in Maryland, Virginia and the District do not meet to discuss Metro issues and have never agreed to uniform expectations or role descriptions for their board members.

The panel recommended creating a WMATA Governance Commission with seven members, including the governors of Maryland and Virginia and the Districts mayor. The idea was for the officials to meet twice a year; to set goals, priorities and expectations for their Metro board representatives; and to hold the appointees accountable.

The report was issued Nov. 17, 2010. Within two months, the heads of the transportation departments in the three jurisdictions had killed the proposed commission. They did not want to commit their chief executives to such semiannual meetings.

Instead, they adopted some of the reports easier recommendations, such as giving Metros general manager the additional title of chief executive officer.

[Metro is a mess. Here are your ideas for making it better.]

James Dyke, who was chairman of the Greater Washington Board of Trade at the time and was co-chairman of the blue-ribbon panel, said the three jurisdictions chose low-hanging fruit over the more substantial proposal for a high-level governance commission.

Ultimately, the executive leadership of the jurisdictions has to have responsibility, said Dyke, who later served on Metros board. Like others on the transit board, Dyke said, he was frustrated by a lack of guidance from above. The governors have to meet regularly and set a common agenda, he said.

Until then, it will be largely up to Wiedefeld to bring Metro back to life.

We tend to manage a bit crisis-by-crisis, Wiedefeld said, sitting at a conference table in his new office one recent morning.

On his desk across the room, his cellphone sounded a jolting alarm, like a submarine dive horn, and he got up to check what was wrong. Mechanical trouble in a tunnel was threatening a service delay, it turned out. He said his phone frequently delivers such news.

We have to think through this thing as a system, and think up systemic approaches to these things, Wiedefeld said, promising to take an orderly, comprehensive approach.

He warned that he almost certainly will have to shut down parts of the subway for days at a stretch to get the job done. Its going to be some tough medicine to swallow. But its medicine that maybe weve got to take.
Ian Henderson, 26, of Germantown, Md., right, chats with a customer after returning the man's Kia sedan to him last year in Washington. (Faiz Siddiqui/The Washington Post)

It seemed almost too good to be true: $200 a month for unlimited parking in Penn Quarter. No need to navigate the constellation of signboards outside parking garages; prolonged morning searches for a spot would become a thing of the past.

Kate Genser, 35, of Petworth said Zirx on-demand valet was ideal for parking at her communications job near CityCenterDC. With a tap on a smartphone icon, she would summon an attendant who would arrive via scooter. She would hand over the keys to her Nissan Versa and head into work.

I used it as my commuter pass, she said. My logic was if my garage is $13 a day, that would be $260 a month. Sixty bucks of savings  why not try it?

But a year after it launched in the District, on-demand valet parking has proven unprofitable and difficult to sustain. A month after her January monthly pass went into effect, Genser received an email from Zirx that said, Unfortunately, we are temporarily pausing our service in D.C.

That left the nations capital devoid of an industry that investors had hailed as the future of parking  the Uber of parking, if you will  and a lifesaver for motorists in cities such as D.C. where spaces are scarce and expensive.

Ian Henderson, 26, of Germantown, Md., races between downtown parking garages last year as a valet for Zirx in Washington. (Faiz Siddiqui/The Washington Post)

In San Francisco, for example, attendants for Luxe, wearing blue jackets, competed against yellow-clad Zirx valets. For a brief period, pink-clad attendants parked for Carbon, another on-demand valet service that has since folded.

[Need parking? Oil change? Gas? Theres an app for that.]

But the idea never really caught on in the District or some of the companies other markets.

I mean, we were wrong, said investor Ethan Kurzweil, who was involved in a multimillion-dollar investment in Zirx from Bessemer Venture Partners. Economically, on-demand parking didnt work.

Zirx, which was the first such service to launch in D.C., halted service earlier this year in all six cities in which it operated: San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego, New York and the District.

That leaves Luxe as the major player in on-demand valet. But Luxe has no plans for expansion at the moment, a company spokesman said, and intends to focus on its six existing markets: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Austin and New York. Late last year, it pulled out of Boston and Philadelphia. The company said it wants to aggressively home in on the user experience by narrowing its coverage area.

Two of its six markets are profitable today, including New York, the company said.

D.C. is definitely on the next set of cities that were evaluating. We were thinking about launching there last year, and we decided not to, said Luxe chief executive Curtis Lee.

We love D.C., and D.C.s a city thats perfect for this kind of service, Lee said.

For Zirx, the on-demand model simply wasnt turning a profit, said CEO Sean Behr. It was too hard to flood the streets with enough valets to keep wait times down while also making money.

The number one reason why I believe that on-demand valet parking doesnt work as well as Id like it to work is the nature of the supply, Behr said. I would argue that the supply of parking spaces is fixed and inelastic. And in on-demand companies, what you really want is variable and unlimited.

This month, the company announced it had shifted resources to serve as a software platform for businesses  a more fruitful model, Behr says.

Its new customers include Openbay, a mobile platform for arranging auto repairs, and Bama Commercial Leasing, which leases cars to some Uber drivers. The existing network of valets can transport cars and provide concierge services  oil changes and gas refills  for companies, who pre-arrange the jobs, Behr says.

The refocused company expects to break even in all eight cities where it operates by next month. That includes the six where it previously offered on-demand valet, plus Boston and Chicago. Thats in contrast to January, when, Behr says, it was losing money in nearly all of them.

Because Zirx had to prepay for its parking, unfilled spots meant lost money. Turnover was another issue: Ideally, the same spot would be used at different times by three or four cars per day, Behr said, but that rarely proved to be true.

And the parking spots, leased at peak hours in places such as Dupont Circle and Farragut Square, didnt come cheap.

If you look at most parking lots, theyre generally full during the day Monday through Friday and pretty empty on the weekends and at night, Behr said. Thats the problem. When you really need the parking inventory is when the parking lots are mostly full.

Companies had poured more than $36 million into Zirx, which secured funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, BMW iVentures and others. About 400 drivers nationwide worked for the company as paid contractors making an hourly wage. Drivers earned bonuses depending on customer volume, company officials said.

Toward the end of January, as Zirx moved toward halting service, Genser said she noticed that wait times skyrocketed.

One night, while dining with friends at a restaurant on 14th Street, she summoned a valet to return her car from Penn Quarter at about 8:30 p.m. She was shocked to see a wait time of 45 minutes pop up on her phone. Normally, itd be five or 10 minutes.

When her friends left the restaurant, she browsed the nearby Trader Joes to pass the time.

Eventually, she said, I called them, and I was like, This cant happen. The guy hustled over to my car  it was very sweet.

She said she often felt bad for the attendants, who worked in rain, sleet and snow, and for the company itself, which she thought couldnt possibly be turning a profit.

In my mind, I couldnt make the math work, and I felt bad because I knew they could not possibly be making money on my $200 a month, Genser said.

Kurzweil said it became evident that Zirxs business model was flawed.

Ubers a better business than this turned out to be, Kurzweil said. Uber only has drivers. Uber is such that you can charge enough to pay people something they will provide the service for.

Behr, who described on-demand valet as like magic in a previous interview last year, said he believes in the product but that someone else will have to make it work.

The most likely candidate appears to be Luxe, which announced this month that it had secured $50 million in funding led by Hertz Global Holdings, positioning it as the industry leader and more than doubling Zirxs investments. Lee declined to go into specifics about the companys profits.

Behr, who says on-demand valet is near and dear to his heart, wished his onetime competitor luck.

I think figuring out how to get that model to work will take time and will take money, he said. I hope that theyll be able to get it, figure it out and it will work.
GEORGIA

Daughter: Man was ticking time bomb

The daughter of a northeast Georgia man suspected of fatally shooting five people Friday before killing himself said her father was a ticking time bomb.

Lauren Hawes told the Associated Press on Saturday that she and her 1-year-old daughter hid in a neighbors house  barely escaping with their lives  while her father, Wayne A. Hawes, 50, went on a bloody rampage and killed five people, including her grandmother and cousin.

Hes been kind of a ticking time bomb if you want to put in a few words, Lauren Hawes said.

Capt. Andy Shedd of the Columbia County Sheriffs Office said in a statement that the Friday night shootings stemmed from a domestic dispute and left three men and two women dead at two locations within about a mile of each other. Hawess body was recovered Saturday in his home in Appling.

 Associated Press

ARIZONA

Suspect dead, officers wounded in shootout

Two officers are in stable condition, with one requiring surgery, and a suspect is dead after a shooting Saturday at a Walmart in suburban Phoenix, authorities said.

Mitchell Oakley, 24, was killed after opening fire on the officers, who were responding to a call from a Walmart employee about a trespasser, Chandler police said.

As they approached, they were shot multiple times within a matter of seconds, police Chief Sean Duggan said.

 Associated Press

Flight attendant pleads not guilty in cocaine smuggling case: A JetBlue flight attendant accused of trying to sneak a suitcase full of cocaine through Los Angeles International Airport has pleaded not guilty to a federal charge. City News Service said Marsha Gay Reynolds entered the plea Friday to possessing cocaine with intent to distribute. Authorities say during a random security screening at LAX in March, the former Jamaican beauty queen tried to flee. Authorities found about 70 pounds of cocaine in her luggage.

Death penalty sought for man accused in four slayings: A prosecutor is seeking the death penalty against a Cleveland truck driver accused in the slayings of four people. Cleveland.com reported that Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty has filed a new indictment including specifications that would allow a jury to recommend the death penalty for 45-year-old Robert Rembert Jr. Rembert pleaded not guilty Friday to more than 20 charges in the four slayings  three last year and one in 1997. Prosecutors say DNA evidence ties Rembert to the strangulation deaths of Rena Mae Payne, 47, in 1997 and Kimberly Hall, 31, last June. He also is charged with shooting his cousin, Jerry Rembert, 52, and Morgan Nietzel, 26, at a Cleveland home he shared with the two.

 From news services
At least 350 people are reported dead following an earthquake that rocked central Ecuador on April 16.

At least 350 people are reported dead following an earthquake that rocked central Ecuador on April 16.

At least 350 people are reported dead following an earthquake that rocked central Ecuador on April 16.

SYRIA

As cease-fire teeters,

at least 31 are killed

Syrian government strikes hit opposition-held areas near the capital and in the countrys largest city, Aleppo, while rebels fired mortars in escalating violence that left at least 31 people dead.

Saturday was the second straight day in which government planes pounded neighborhoods in Aleppo held by the opposition, in what activists described as the most intense campaign of airstrikes since the cease-fire began in February.

Western officials, including the U.N. envoy leading negotiations with Syrias warring factions, have warned that the truce was in danger of total collapse because of escalating violence and Mondays walk-out from the talks by the Saudi-backed opposition group.

 Associated Press

Merkel, E.U. officials visit Turkish border: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and top European Union officials arrived near Turkeys border with Syria on Saturday in a bid to bolster a troubled migration deal with Turkey as they face increasing pressure to reassess the agreement. In a ceremony attended by Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, the Western dignitaries inaugurated a childrens support center for Syrian refugees funded by the 28-member bloc. Human rights groups criticized the trip to what they termed a sanitized refugee camp  and said E.U. officials should look further at the tens of thousands of Syrian refugees now blocked from entering Turkey.

Residents clean shrimp to sell one week after the devastating earthquake on the outskirts of Pedernales, Ecuador, Saturday. (Rodrigo Abd/AP)

ISIS claims hacking death of scholar in Bangladesh: Rezaul Karim Siddiquee, 58, an English professor at Rajshahi University, was hacked to death Saturday in northwestern Bangladesh, police said. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. Police said the murder was similar to other recent attacks on secular bloggers by Islamist militants.

Death toll from quake in Ecuador nears 650: The death toll from Ecuadors devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake last week has risen to 646 people, President Rafael Correa said Saturday. The April 16 quake, the worst in nearly seven decades, injured about 12,500 people and left 130 missing along the countrys ravaged Pacific coast. With close to 7,000 buildings destroyed, more than 26,000 people are living in shelters. Several strong tremors and more than 700 aftershocks have continued to shake the country. Tremors are expected to continue for several weeks.

Dual bombings kill at least 12

in Baghdad: At least 12 people were killed on Saturday in two separate car bomb attacks in Baghdad targeting security forces, police sources said. An attack on a security checkpoint in the northern al-Husseiniya district killed nine people and wounded 28 others. An army convoy in Arab al-Jabour, south of the city, was the target of the second attack, in which three people were killed and 11 wounded. The Islamic State, through an allied news agency, claimed the first bombing.

Soldier killed, 12 police officers wounded in Turkey: A Turkish soldier was killed in an armed attack in Nusaybin in Turkeys southeast, and 12 policemen and three civilians were wounded in an ambush attack on a police vehicle, the armed forces and other security sources said Saturday. Attacks on Turkeys security forces have increased amid a surge in violence in the predominantly Kurdish southeast that has killed hundreds of people since the collapse in July of a cease-fire agreement between the Kurdistan Workers Party, a separatist militant group, and the state.



 From news services
T. T. Robinson is the author of the New York Times Deployment Diary and a political correspondent for NextGen MilSpouse.

Noticing the growing pile of rejected dresses, the saleswoman asked me what I was shopping for. I responded, I know what I want, I just cant seem to find it. Something conservative but cute, shorter than work length, longer than club length. Im not opposed to a romper, but dont really want a skirt. Help. She laughed and asked me if I was shopping for a specific event. The words formulated in my brain but I couldnt get them out. I didnt want to tell her.

I couldnt wait for the weekend reunion of my colleagues from the Bush-Cheney administration at the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas, but I didnt want to say that. A company picnic, I said, Nothing too riveting, but Ill see co-workers I havent seen in a while. As I looked in the mirror (having found the perfect shirt dress), I thought: Why did I say that? This event was exciting; I was going to see a former president, vice president, first lady and countless friends. When did I become so embarrassed to be a Republican?

I grew up in a conservative, Catholic family. I remember voting for President George H.W. Bush in my schools straw ballot in the 1980s. Ive voted mostly with the party over the years. I joined the College Republicans and planned rallies for the troops, went to seminars on entrepreneurship and volunteered for Sen. Jim Talents reelection campaign in Missouri. I swear I bled little red elephants. Following graduation, I worked on President George W. Bushs 2004 campaign in Florida and fell further in love with politics, the party and the process. I worked on the Presidential Inaugural Committee and was honored to receive an appointment in Bushs administration. We even had a softball league. Some of my fondest memories are from those years; it was an incredible time to be alive. I was (and still am) truly proud to have been a part of it all.

As the years passed, though, I became more liberal on social issues, not understanding why my best friend from college couldnt marry his longtime boyfriend. I struggled with the line between the right to life and a womans right to make her own decisions about what to do with her body. I read and reread the Constitution, studied the Federalist Papers and came to better understand the ideals on which our nation was founded. I quickly learned what it was like to make $30,000 a year in the District (along with the necessity of having multiple roommates).

Republican front-runner Donald Trump has given some braggadocious victory speeches in the past, but his remarks after New York's primary on April 19 showed a newly polished, presidential candidate. Here's a look at his changed style. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

I shifted closer to the middle, but there was still so much about the Republican Party that I loved. It was the party that fought to give more funding, better equipment and training to my husband  a Navy pilot. The party that pressed for veterans health reform. The party that gave us a president who delivered the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief program to combat HIV in Africa. The party that encouraged and promoted the growth of small businesses.

But more than anything, it was the people. My colleagues in the Bush administration were compassionate, innovative and enthusiastic. We were men and women of various ages, demographics and backgrounds, woven together by our common belief in a president, a mission and, above all, the importance of character. The hours were long, but the years went fast. At the opening of Bushs presidential library in Dallas three years ago, I was again surrounded by those colleagues. When President Obama was introduced, every person in attendance rose in thunderous applause. I realized then what made that group of colleagues so special: our respect for the office of the president.

Three years later, at this months reunion, tears came to my eyes as I listened to Bush speak about what made our country great. We fought for inclusion, not isolationism. We were patriots, not protectionists, and we worked to advance freedom, not fear.

I was proud to be a Republican. The GOP I worked for, fundraised for and fundamentally believed in put forward candidates who reflected my values. But now? Im embarrassed to be a Republican because of who is leading in the polls. Weve become a party that preys on the discouraged, not one that fosters hope. Were incentivizing anger, not integrity. We tear down others to promote ourselves. If our current front-runner is the GOP candidate, I wont vote Republican in November. Im still stuck in that dressing room: I know what I want. I just cant seem to find it.
If Donald Trump were a car, he would be a Porsche. If he were an animal, hed be a lion. And people like Porsches and lions.

Or, at least, Walmart moms do, according to a focus group of Republican primary-voting Walmart moms conducted this past week in Pittsburgh by Democratic pollster Margie Omero and Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. (Walmart moms are defined as women who have children younger than 18 at home and have gone to the store at least once in the past month. The focus groups  the two pollsters did another one with swing moms in suburban Philadelphia  were funded by Walmart.)

Characterizing Donald Trump as a type of car or animal resulted in some fascinating descriptions  from the GOP group, women depicted him as a Porsche, a Ferrari, a muscle car, a boxer who stands his ground, a bulldog, an Escalade, a lion (fierce and king of the jungle) and as an unpredictable cat, Newhouse and Omero wrote in a memo summarizing the results. These Moms praised him as someone who speaks his mind, stands his ground, and is refreshingly politically incorrect.

[The most baffling moments from Donald Trumps Washington Post ed board interview]

The focus group, which was split evenly between Trump supporters and those backing another Republican candidate, provides a fascinating window into not only how Pennsylvanians view Trump on the eve of the states primary, on Tuesday, but also into how the real estate mogul is viewed more broadly.

The findings should be comforting for Trump and deeply concerning not only for Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, his rivals for the Republican nomination, but also for the Never Trump movement within the GOP establishment.

These GOP Walmart moms seem to want no part of the #NeverTrump movement, Newhouse told me Sunday. In fact, they respect his strength and his straight talk and believe he is the partys best shot to beat Hillary.

[Trump is playing a part, campaign chief tells GOP leaders]

Lets break it down.

Most importantly, the GOP primary race as seen through the lens of these Walmart moms is, effectively, Trump vs. everyone else. Neither Cruz nor Kasich make much of an impression with these women  even this late in the primary process.

Voters were generally unable to tell us much about either Cruz or Kasich, Republican primary voters seemed to dislike Cruz perhaps more than the swing Moms; he was generally described in both groups as religious, gorilla  almost human, or like a neighbors dog  you dont know if theyre going to bite,  Omero and Newhouse wrote. Kasichs image was even thinner, I think they like him in Ohio, said one, too sane, or Mild, like a kitten, said others.

Then theres the fact that for all the attention paid to Trumps comments about women during his long life in the public eye, the vast majority of these GOP Walmart moms seems strikingly unbothered by his views on women.

When these GOP Moms were pushed about Trumps gender issues, there was some acknowledgment that he may be a sexist, but general agreement among these women was that I dont really care, Ive seen worse,  Newhouse and Omero wrote.

Thats an absolutely stunning finding  at least to me.

[The new Donald Trump should scare the hell out of the GOP establishment]

When it comes to the broader delegate fight, the women in the focus group think Trump is also in very good shape and think it would be deeply unfair for the person who enters the convention with the most votes and delegates not to be chosen as the Republican nominee.

Id feel terribly misled, one woman said when asked about the prospect. Cheated, another said. (Not surprisingly, this group was equally dismissive about the prospect of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan or some other white knight candidate riding to the rescue at the convention; If convention turned to someone like Paul Ryan  shows that GOP leaders dont really care about them, Newhouse tweeted while conducting the focus group.)

Finally, theres a very strong sense that Trump represents the GOPs best chance of beating Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton in the fall  despite lots and lots of polling that suggests he would be a decidedly weak nominee against the former secretary of state.

The Walmart moms said they would feel relieved, concerned, good and optimistic with Trump as the nominee  a remarkable set of emotions toward the business mogul. There was no hesitation among the GOP women that Trump could beat Clinton and that they would support the GOP nominee  even if he hadnt been their first choice, Newhouse and Omero wrote.

With Trump coming off a huge win in New York last Tuesday and almost certainly headed to a five-state sweep this Tuesday, these findings suggest that among the GOP rank and file, he is considered far more likely to be the Republican nominee than is commonly understood in Washington  a frightening prospect for party leaders, who believe that nominating Trump could be a massive electoral disaster for their side.

Pittsburghs not that far from Washington, D.C., but these GOP Walmart moms are a world apart from D.C. in their views on this race, Newhouse said. Weve long passed Valentines Day, but among these women, its coming up all roses for Donald Trump.
Cletus Abate said the issue of transgender people in bathrooms will lead her to vote for Ted Cruz rather than Donald Trump, whom she supported for months, in Pennsylvania's primary on Tuesday. (Katie Zezima/The Washington Post)

Cletus Abate was aghast after learning last week that the Pennsylvania legislature is considering a bill that would extend protections to transgender people, including allowing them to use the bathrooms they choose.

So she took a petition and packets outlining what opponents see as threats from the legislation to a Ted Cruz rally, handing them out to anyone who would listen, including the candidate himself.

Im here because Donald Trump came out on the news and said he doesnt have a problem with transgender bathrooms, Abate said.

Transgender rights have become an unlikely and heated issue in the presidential campaign after North Carolina enacted a law that, among other things, mandated that people use the restroom that corresponds to the gender on their birth certificate.

[Bathroom law puts North Carolina governor in crossfire of GOP civil war]

Allowing transgender people to use the restrooms of their choice has split Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, and even drawn attention from President Obama in recent days. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

Cruz has seized on Trumps assertion that the North Carolina law, which also rolled back other protections for gay, lesbian and transgender people, was unnecessary and bad for business  corporations including PayPal and Deutsche Bank scrapped plans to create jobs in the state after the legislation was enacted. Trump said there has been little trouble with allowing people to use the restroom they want, though he later said that states should have the power to enact their own laws. Trump also said he would let transgender reality-television star Caitlyn Jenner use the womens restroom at his properties.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich said he probably wouldnt have signed the North Carolina law, while both Democratic candidates have condemned it.

Theres been a significant amount of conversation about it on the presidential level, said Cathryn Oakley, senior legislative counsel at the Human Rights Campaign, who said 50 anti-transgender bills have been filed nationwide this year. In terms of it being new territory, the answer is yes.

[Trump criticizes controversial N.C. transgender law]

Cruzs argument centers on the idea that allowing transgender women to use womens restrooms would lead to deviants dressing up as women and preying on young girls. His campaign released an ad accusing Trump of capitulating to the PC police and asking viewers whether a grown man pretending to be a woman should use a restroom with your daughter or wife.

Donald Trump thinks so, the ad reads.

Cruz has woven his support of North Carolinas law into his stump speech. There has been some backlash: A woman holding a Trans lives matter sign protested outside of a stop Cruz made in Allentown, Pa., on Friday.

Don Uber of Apollo, Pa., says he fears that allowing transgender women into ladies rooms could put girls using the restrooms at risk. (Katie Zezima/The Washington Post)

As the father of two young girls, I can tell you it doesnt make any sense to allow adult grown men strangers to be alone in a bathroom with little girls, Cruz said at a rally here, drawing loud applause from the crowd.

He called Trumps views on transgender people political correctness on steroids.

Evil! a woman in the crowd yelled.

President Obama weighed in on the issue Friday from Britain, which issued a travel advisory warning residents about the North Carolina law and another enacted in Mississippi that allows businesses to refuse service to same-sex couples on religious grounds.

I want everybody here in the United Kingdom to know that the people of North Carolina and Mississippi are wonderful people, said Obama, who also took a question from a person who claims no gender. I also think that the laws that have been passed there are wrong and should be overturned.

[Obamas quiet transgender revolution]

Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have forcefully condemned the laws, and Sanders said he would overturn them if elected president.

Here in Pennsylvania, the battle over transgender rights has been brewing for years. It is the only Northeastern state that does not extend anti-discrimination protections to gay and transgender people, which some members of the Republican-controlled legislature have attempted to change in session after session. They have found an ally in Gov. Tom Wolf (D), who this month issued executive orders barring gender-based discrimination against employees and job applicants in state government and its contractors. Pennsylvanias physician general is a transgender woman.

The governor has called for passage of the Pennsylvania Fairness Act, which would provide protections to gay and bisexual people in housing, employment and public accommodations  including public restrooms. An employer does not need to construct new facilities to comply. The bill is stalled in the legislature because of a contentious battle over the budget.

[Truth and transgender: He had lied to her once. He wasnt going to do it again.]

Opponents here have seized on the national controversy over transgender rights, labeling it the bathroom bill, as many did in North Carolina.

Sally Keaveney, chief of staff to state Sen. Larry Farnese (D), who sponsored the legislation, said this is the first time opponents have used the specter of transgender people in bathrooms to fight a statewide anti-discrimination bill. A number of conservative groups have launched a website dedicated to defeating the bill. It urges Pennsylvanians to call their elected officials, highlights that the bill will affect the commonwealths public schools and claims such legislation will lead to an increase in sexual assault, something organizations who work with assault victims call a myth.

More than 30 municipalities in Pennsylvania, including Allentown and Scranton, both of which Cruz visited Friday, have passed transgender protections, according to Adrian Shanker, executive director of the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center in Allentown.

We are facing one of the most significant threats to religious liberty and privacy rights in the history of the Commonwealth, reads the handout that Abate brought here, which she got from one of the organizations opposing the measure.

At least 18 states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws barring discrimination against transgender people, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, and at least 200 cities and counties prohibit discrimination based on gender identity.

Cruz has defended religious-liberty legislation in both North Carolina and Indiana, which has a primary May 3 and where controversy erupted last year after Gov. Mike Pence (R) signed a law that many viewed as anti-gay.

Campaigning in Indiana over the weekend, Cruz said people have the right to do whatever they want, including if a man wishes to dress as a woman and use her home bathroom. Cruz said that he is fine with transgender people using a public unisex bathroom but that people do not have the right to impose their lifestyles on others.

Cruz said that if the law allows for a man to enter a little girls restroom, and stay there and he cannot be removed because he simply says at that moment he feels like a woman, youre opening the door for predators.

Don Uber, a 69-year-old accountant from Apollo, Pa., agrees with Cruz. Uber, who has a 2-year-old granddaughter, said he is more concerned about male sexual predators dressing up as women and going into womens restrooms with girls than he is about predators using mens rooms near boys.

Theyre going to have other men in there that can protect the boys, Uber said. Its our duty as men to be protectors, and opening up [womens] bathrooms to men is failing our responsibilities.

Uber said he believes the law will just allow men to walk into womens rooms.

You dont even have to cross-dress. You can go in in a business suit and say, I define myself as a female, and theyre okay with that, he said.

Lizabeth Kleintop, a transgender woman and Moravian College professor from Bethlehem, Pa., said she uses womens restrooms not because it is a choice, but rather because she identifies as a woman.

Our interest in going to the restroom is to pee, Kleintop said.

Cruz does have at least one transgender fan: Jenner, who has said she supports Cruz and would like to be his transgender ambassador. In the latest episode of her show, I Am Cait, Jenner was informed that Cruz supported a group of pastors that worked to defeat a Houston anti-discrimination ordinance. Jenner called Cruz totally misinformed about transgender people but said he can take care of the big issues.

A representative for Jenner declined to comment when asked about Cruzs stance on the North Carolina law.

Abate said shes willing to fight as long as it takes to defeat the bill. She insists that she is not bigoted and has gay and lesbian friends and family members but says she believes such legislation violates the rights of people, businesses and places of worship that dont want transgender people in single-sex bathrooms.

Abates newly enacted crusade is now driving her political choices. For months she has supported Trumps candidacy, but his transgender comments have made her reevaluate, just days before Pennsylvanias Republican primary on Tuesday.

I guess that I am going to be pulling the lever for Cruz, she said.
President Obama arrived Sunday in Germany, where he will encounter a Europe struggling with terrorism, an anemic economy and an unprecedented migrant crisis that have provoked nationalism and xenophobia in some quarters of the continent.

Its not my place to tell Europe how to manage Europe, Obama said in Bild Zeitung, a German newspaper, prior to his arrival.

But the president has used his tour of Britain and Germany to provide some unusually frank advice to the Europeans on issues such as dealing with refugees, major trade deals and terrorism. In the United Kingdom, where Britons will go to the polls in June to vote on whether to remain in the European Union, Obama warned repeatedly  in an editorial, a news conference and a BBC interview  that a withdrawal from the bloc would be unwise.

[Obama plunges into heated debate over Britains future in the E.U.]

He arrives in Germany at a moment when German Chancellor Angela Merkel, his closest overseas ally, is under unprecedented pressure due in part to her strong advocacy for migrants pouring into Europe at levels not seen since World War II.

Under a deal that Merkel brokered late last month with the Turkish government, virtually all of the migrants who attempt to enter Europe via the Aegean Sea  including Syrians  will be sent back to Turkey. In exchange, Turkey gets $6.6 billion and the promise of jump-started talks on its E.U. membership. Merkel also has played an essential role in maintaining European unity for tough sanctions designed to punish Russia for its aggression in Ukraine. She has been an advocate for a far-reaching trade deal between the United States and Europe  the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership  that has drawn fierce opposition from some Germans.

[E.U. strikes deal to return new migrants to Turkey]

Obama was fulsome in his praise for the German leader, saying that he had worked with her longer and closer than any other world leader. Shes pragmatic and focused on whats actually possible, Obama told Bild Zeitung. I trust her.

He called her leadership on the migrant crisis courageous.

Shes demonstrated real political and moral leadership, Obama told the Germany newspaper. We cannot simply shut our doors to our fellow human beings when they are in such desperate need. That would be a betrayal of our values.

The president has had less-kind words for other European leaders in recent months. In an interview with the Atlantic magazine, Obama complained that European countries were depending too heavily on the United States for their security, calling them free riders and worrying about the state of the European Union.

I wouldnt describe European unity as in a crisis, but I would say it is under strain, Obama said at a news conference in London.

On Monday, Obama is expected to speak at the Hanover Messe, a massive German trade show, on Europes future and the importance of its partnership with the United States. After the speech, he will huddle with the leaders of Italy, France, the United Kingdom and Germany at an impromptu summit organized by Merkel.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Obama on Sunday attend the opening ceremony of the Hanover industry Fair in Hanover, Germany. on April 24, 2016. (Ronny Hartmann/AFP/Getty Images)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was asked Sunday to reminisce about her fondest moments with President Obama during the seven years of his presidency.

Her short, remarkably unsentimental answer explains why she has become Obamas closest overseas ally and the presidents political and ideological soul mate on critical issues such as Syria, terrorism and containing Russian aggression in Ukraine. More than most American presidents, Obama disdains what he regards as needy, showboating allies. Merkel is most definitely neither.

The chancellor grimaced at the question from the German reporter. I am not in a position to take stock now, she replied curtly. There was too much important work to do.

Obama, who is incapable of speaking in anything other than full  and frequently florid  paragraphs, smiled broadly and used the moment to pay Merkel a compliment.

She has a really good sense of humor that she doesnt show all the time at press conferences, Obama said. Shes a little more  shes much more serious in front of all of you.

An amused smile flashed across Merkels face, prompting a storm of clicking camera shutters from the photographers in the room.

Obama was officially in Germany for the Hannover Messe, a major trade and technology show here that is promoting American companies and products. After their news conference, he and Merkel presided over the fairs opening ceremony, which included robots and music from the Broadway show Wicked. Later in the evening they dined with German and American CEOs.

The real reason Obama came to Germany was simpler and more straightforward: Merkel asked him.

These are tough times for Europe, which is struggling with terrorism, an anemic economy and an unprecedented migrant crisis. They are also tough times for the longtime German chancellor, who faces unprecedented pressure, due in part to her strong advocacy for migrants pouring into Europe at levels not seen since World War II.

Perhaps because she once lived behind a wall herself, Angela understands the aspirations of those whove been denied their freedom and who seek a better life, Obama said of Merkel, who grew up in the formerly communist east.

In an attempt to relieve some of the pressure, Merkel and Turkish leaders brokered a deal late last month that will send virtually all of the migrants who attempt to enter Europe via the Aegean Sea  including Syrians  back to Turkey. In exchange, Turkey gets $6.6 billion and the promise of jump-started talks on its E.U. membership.

The challenges facing Merkel were front and center throughout the news conference, especially when the two leaders discussed the plight of Syrian refugees and the need for a safe zone inside that country where the displaced would be protected from the Islamic State and Syrian President Bashar al-Assads forces.

Obama voiced sympathy for Syrians caught in the middle of their countrys brutal civil war. We all care deeply about the tragic humanitarian crisis inside of Syria. I live with this every day, he said. But he said he opposes a safe zone administered by the United States that might lead to fewer migrants, because securing such an area would require thousands of troops and come with too many difficult questions.

How do you do it? And who is going to put a bunch of ground troops inside of Syria? Obama asked. How do you let people in? And who do you let in and who do you let out? And how is it monitored?

Merkel didnt disagree. Instead, she said Western allies had to figure out a way through the peace negotiations with Russia, Iran and Assads regime to help protect Syrias most vulnerable citizens. We have to send a message to them, she said of the thousands of desperate Syrians trying to flee the country for Europe.

The two leaders also talked about their mutual support for a far-reaching trade deal between the United States and Europe  the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership  that has drawn fierce opposition from some Germans. The day before Obama arrived, thousands of people gathered in Hanover to protest the deal. Obama expressed hope that some of the resistance to the deal in the United States might start to ease after the primary season is over.

I think we all know that elections can sometimes make things a little more challenging, he said. People take positions, in part, to protect themselves from attacks.

Merkel offered her endorsement of the pact in typical no-nonsense fashion: It is important for the German economy, she said. It is important for the whole European economy. We ought to have an interest in speeding negotiations up.

The reporters had more questions. Merkel pressed forward with her staccato answers.

She was asked about the prospect of working with a Republican presidential candidate  front-runner Donald Trump  who has called her welcoming refugee policies insane.

Merkel arched an eyebrow and cocked her head, a gesture far more revealing than her answer. Cameras clicked furiously. First, I concentrate on the task ahead for 2016. Im quite busy with that, thank you very much, she replied.

A reporter wondered whether she felt some vindication for keeping Germany out of the 2011 NATO-led effort in Libya that toppled Moammar Gaddafi, a mission that Obama now acknowledges was poorly planned. Lets look ahead. Lets look at what we want to achieve, she said of the deeply tribal country. It is not easy. Not at all.

As the news conference ended, Obama was asked whether he has any regrets that he cannot continue in office like Merkel, who has served as chancellor since 2005 and does not face a term limit. Obama replied that a country as big and diverse as the United States needs fresh legs but that he is glad Merkel is sticking around. The world benefits from her steady presence, he said.

Picking up a thread from the Trump question, Obama closed with a forceful defense of Merkels wisdom and compassion, especially on the refugee issue.

She is on the right side of history on this, Obama said, his voice rising. I am very proud of her for that, and I am proud of the German people for that.

If Merkel was pleased, she didnt show it. Instead, she flashed her poker face.
A Kurdish fighter runs for cover during a confrontation with Shiite forces in Tuz Khurmatu, Iraq on April 24. (Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

Kurdish troops and Iraqi Shiite forces exchanged mortar and machine-gun fire Sunday in a flare-up that killed at least 12 people and raised concerns about the states ability to control an array of armed militia groups as areas are freed from the Islamic State.

The fighting broke out in Tuz Khurmatu, an ethnically and religiously mixed tinderbox town that is 120 miles north of Baghdad. Both sides blamed each other for the conflagration.

The Islamic State was pushed out of the surrounding area in 2014, but the armed groups here have since jostled for control and influence. Keeping militias under state control, and preventing them from turning on one another, is a major test for the Iraqi government as it slowly claws back territory from the Islamist militants.

As the fighting escalated Sunday, with both Kurds and Shiite militias sending reinforcements to the town, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered the army to take all necessary measures to control the situation. Leaders from all sides were contacted to defuse the crisis and focus efforts against the common threat of the Islamic State, a statement from his office said.

The area, home to a mix of Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen, and both Sunnis and Shiites, is not new to clashes. Fighting also broke out between Shiite Turkmen and Kurdish forces in November last year, until a cease-fire was reached between local leaders. Since then, some residents have erected concrete walls to divide their neighborhoods.

Turkmen fighters with Iraqi Shiite militias claimed to have burned two tanks belonging to the Kurdish forces during the clashes Sunday. A Kurdish commander, Col. Azad Serwan, was also killed, both sides confirmed.

At least 10 fighters and two civilians were killed, Reuters reported. Shiite militias accused Kurdish forces of blocking them from being able to transport their casualties to a hospital.

Heavy shelling hit residential neighborhoods of the city, said Mohammed Ahmed, a 28-year-old resident, speaking by phone with the crack of gunfire audible behind him.

The town has become a second Kashmir said Turkmen member of parliament Niazi Oghlo, referring to disputed territory between Pakistan and India.

Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of Iraqs Badr Organization, one of Iraqs most powerful Shiite militias, arrived in nearby Kirkuk to negotiate a resolution with Kurdish commanders.

All sides have agreed to stop hostilities immediately, said Kirkuks Kurdish governor, Najmaldin Karim. He said there would be a subsequent meeting to work out a longer-term solution but that he thought armed groups that are not official state forces should not be allowed inside towns and cities.

Its not the first time  there is always tension, he said.



Read more

U.S. military chief pays quiet visit to Iraq post where Marine died

It was a childrens soccer game. Of course he knew he was going to kill children.

In Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State is in retreat on multiple fronts

Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Israeli border police walk through the Muslim quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem in April. (David Vaaknin/For The Washington Post)

The gas station in the French Hill neighborhood looks much like any other, but it stands at one of the main flash points between the citys Jewish and Arab populations.

That is why, on a dirt hilltop just beyond the carwash and gas pumps, the Israeli border police have set up a permanent lookout post.

It is an attempt, they say, to keep the peace.

From the Israeli settlement of French Hill, the security forces have a birds-eye view into one of East Jerusalems most volatile Arab neighborhoods, Issawiya. It is a place of angry protests against Israel, and it has produced more than a handful of militants.

For Palestinians, the border police, with their distinct dark-green uniforms and armored police jeeps, are the ones causing the tension. Critics say that their patrols are antagonistic and that the checkpoints they set up at a moments notice are an infringement on freedom of movement.

Officer Mor Hadad and Staff Sgt. Chen Cohen (behind) stand guard at the exit of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya. (David Vaaknin/For The Washington Post)

They are a clear symbol of Israels occupation, Palestinians say.

For Israelis, though, the units, stationed at friction points such as this one and others around the country and in the West Bank, are the brave heroes of what many have termed a knife intifada, and the number of young Israelis wanting to join their ranks is growing.

For the past six months, as Palestinians have carried out hundreds of stabbings, shootings and vehicular attacks against Israelis, the border police have found themselves in the line of fire. More than 175 have been injured  some seriously  and two officers have been killed as they worked to protect civilians.

Even during periods of quiet, the police units face a difficult challenge, monitoring border crossings and tumultuous checkpoints between Israel and the West Bank.

Assisting the Israeli police and the army in law enforcement and counterterrorism operations, the units often face sharp criticism for being too harsh or heavy-handed with Palestinians.

Since a new wave of violence began Oct. 1, at least 180 Palestinians have been killed, more than half of them carrying out attacks against Israelis. The rest were shot dead during clashes with the Israeli military or border-police units. About 29 Israelis and four foreign nationals have been killed by Palestinians.

Despite the risks, the number of new recruits to the unit was the highest it has ever been, Israeli media reported last month. They arrive via Israels universal military draft even though they are part of the police force.

I chose this unit because I wanted to contribute to my country, said Chen Cohen, who after completing her compulsory service volunteered for extra time. I knew it would be hard, but I wanted to see action.

She said not every job available for women in the Israeli army would give her a chance to be this close to the action.

I couldnt see myself doing anything else. I wanted to be out in the field, said Mor Hadad, who is still fulfilling her military service. She was close friends with Hadar Cohen, a new recruit who was fatally shot in Jerusalem in February.

I signed up knowing that it would be dangerous, but its what I wanted. Now, when I go out, I think about Hadar, she said.

Their motivation is high, and their motto is: Attack us, not civilians.

I dont think all Palestinians are against us, but there is a large group of people who pose a danger to French Hill, said Alon Velan, a resident of that neighborhood whose home sits on a street close to the entrance of Issawiya. They want to harm Jews, and the only thing that stands between us and them is a small unit of policemen.

Abu Khalid, a Palestinian who washes Jewish- and Arab-owned cars at the French Hill gas station, said the presence of the border police and their impromptu checkpoints create frustration and spark the violence.

Every morning there, is congestion here. It is collective punishment, he said. What they dont understand is that there are good and bad people everywhere; not all our people are bad.

A group of youths on Issawiyas main thoroughfare said the border police make their lives miserable.

They come in and raid our village. They say that young people in Issawiya are throwing rocks at them, but not one of the recent operations came from here, said Shaheen, 20. He has spent two years in an Israeli jail for security offenses.

They come here and provoke us, said his friend Mohammed, 19. Both declined to give their last names, saying they were fearful of the police. Mohammed points out pockmarked walls on nearby buildings. Thats where they shoot at us.

Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer and commentator, said the border police have become a symbol of the occupation.

Its a misnomer to call them border police, she said. They are not protecting any border, but they are present in the heart of occupied Palestinian territory and often use the worst tactics to go after Palestinians.

Shaul Shay, previously head of the armys military history department, said the border police get a bad rap because they are stationed in these tense areas, their actions are under intense scrutiny and what they do often appears in a negative light.

On one hand, they are fighting terrorism. On the other, they have become the victims and the targets, said Shay, a lecturer at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center. Many of the attacks have been against the border police officers, but there is no other choice because civilians cannot deal with this challenge. It is the task of a country to protect its civilians, and the border police are the best trained to fight this type of war.

Read more:

Palestinians struggle to define Palestinians who attack Israelis

Israelis are calling attacks a new kind of Palestinian terrorism

Israel steps up home demolitions to punish Palestinian attackers

Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world
People inspect damage at a site hit by Saudi-led airstrikes in the al Qaeda-held port city of Mukalla in southern Yemen. (Reuters)

Signaling a major shift in Yemens grinding civil war, Saudi-backed forces Sunday appeared to mount a large-scale offensive to drive militants aligned with al-Qaeda out of their strongholds in the countrys south.

The coordinated attacks on strongholds held by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, known as AQAP, would be a first for the coalition dominated by Saudi Arabia, which began launching airstrikes and then ground attacks last year against Shiite rebels, known as Houthis. Saudi Arabia views the Houthis as proxies of its primary regional rival, Shiite Iran, and has refrained from targeting AQAP.

Under cover of airstrikes by the coalition, fighters aligned with Yemens internationally recognized government pushed toward the city of Mukalla and surrounding areas. Mukalla has become AQAPs de facto capital.

Considered al-Qaedas most powerful franchise, AQAP seized the port city last year amid widening chaos in Yemen, a development that alarmed the United States. AQAP militants have seized much of Yemens southeastern coastal areas and used Mukalla as a base to plant even deeper roots in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula nation, possibly to stage attacks on Western targets.

[Yemen is turning into Saudi Arabias Vietnam]

Residents of Mukalla said coalition ground troops, including forces from the United Arab Emirates, entered the city from the east as AQAP militants fled.

Coalition warplanes have been targeting the city since midnight, hitting the airport and cultural center, said Ali Atkhaleqi, a freelance journalist who spoke by telephone from Mukalla.

Until now, coalition forces  including fighters linked to the government of Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi  had not targeted AQAP. The terrorist groups members also have fought the Houthis and, in turn, refrained from attacks against forces aligned with the coalition, raising suspicion of an informal truce between them.

The offensive targeting Mukalla and nearby areas comes amid recently restarted talks brokered by the United Nations to end Yemens multifaceted civil war. The fighting intensified last year after Houthi rebels toppled the government and advanced to the major southern port city of Aden, battling Islamist militants, southern separatists and Hadi allies along the way.

The peace negotiations in Kuwait City resumed Thursday with the major parties to the conflict in attendance, including representatives of former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh. His loyalist forces  many drawn from Yemens splintered military  have been crucial allies of the Houthis in battles against fighters aligned with the internationally recognized government.

The conflict has killed an estimated 6,000 people and created what U.N. officials describe as a humanitarian catastrophe. Previous U.N.-backed peace talks collapsed because of an inability to stem fighting on the ground.

Footage posted on social media, which could not be independently verified, purported to show clashes on the outskirts of Mukalla, as well as the aftermath of air raids on the city. In one video, heavy gunfire could be heard in the background as residents fled to safety in their vehicles.

Speaking by telephone from Mukalla, a journalist said many AQAP militants had withdrawn from the city by Sunday afternoon. Coalition fighters moved in from the east, he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of concerns for his safety.

There is a lot of fear among residents as AQAP fighters flee, he said. People are relieved that they are going, but they fear that there will be chaos as a result.

It is unclear why the coalition has turned its firepower on AQAP-held areas, although the offensive comes just days after President Obama visited Saudi Arabia. In private, U.S. officials have expressed concern that Saudi Arabias intervention in Yemen has empowered the al-Qaeda franchise.

Even as the Saudi-led coalition had avoided attacking AQAP until now, U.S. drone strikes have continued to target the group, killing senior leaders.

[U.S. targets al-Qaeda in Yemen airstrike that kills dozens, Pentagon says]

During Sundays assault on Mukalla, AQAP fighters appeared to put up little resistance. Unconfirmed reports on Twitter from residents in Yemen alleged that ahead of the offensive, local tribesman attempted to negotiate the withdrawal of AQAP fighters from the city.

Yazeed al-Jabari, a businessman in Mukalla, said friends described seeing columns of artillery-loaded tanks and trucks coming down from the Saudi border in the past 24 hours. UAE flags were spotted on the machinery, he said.

All of this makes it clear to me that the coalition is intent on taking over the city, Jabari said by telephone.

Troops from the United Arab Emirates provided critical momentum to allied Yemeni fighters during an assault last summer on Aden. Houthi militants were driven out, and Aden became a base for pro-coalition forces and Hadis government.

But Aden eventually descended into lawlessness, including attacks claimed by Yemens nascent Islamic State affiliate. One of those attacks, a car bombing, killed Adens governor in December.

Since the summer, the Saudi-led coalitions progress has mostly stalled in the face of fierce Houthi counterattacks.

Read more

How the Yemen conflict risks new chaos in the Middle East

Obama called Yemens war on terror a success. Now Yemen is in crisis.

Forget what youre hearing. The civil war in Yemen is not a sectarian conflict

Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Relatives of the 43 missing students hold signs that say Where are they? after listening to an expert groups report presentation in Mexico City on April 24. (Marco Ugarte/AP)

A group of outside experts who have spent more than a year investigating the disappearance of 43 students discovered that authorities, including federal police and soldiers, were tracking in real time the movement of the students on the night of their abduction.

They identified a possible motive for the crime: The buses may have been used to traffic heroin out of the western town of Iguala, and the students may have inadvertently commandeered one of them, prompting a furious search for them. The experts documented torture of suspects, and they debunked the governments central conclusion, denying that the students were burned to death in a remote trash dump in the mountains far from any homes.

But as the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts  which includes prominent lawyers and prosecutors from across Latin America convened by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights  wrapped up its work with the release of its second and final report on Sunday, it is for members a frustrating ending, both for the unsolved mystery that remains and the belief that the Mexican government impeded their investigation.

The crime against the 43 students at the teachers college in Ayotzinapa nearly two years ago has been the defining human rights case of President Enrique Pena Nietos administration. The circumstances confirmed so far have highlighted how government officials and police have been bought off by drug cartels and serve on their behalf. It has laid bare the incompetence of investigators, who have failed to protect crime scenes and properly handle evidence, and raised warnings of abuse with repeated allegations that authorities tortured their suspects.

Above all, the crime has called into question the will of federal authorities to uncover the truth about what happened to the students or whether they chose instead to invent a false narrative to put the case to rest.

The government wasnt cooperating, and thats what should be under investigation, said Joy Olson, executive director of the Washington Office on Latin America, who attended the reports presentation in Mexico City. What theyve shown is that the official story about what happened is not sustained by the facts.

She defended the quality of the groups investigation and said whatever questions remain have more to do with the lack of assistance from the government.

And thats what makes it so damn sad today,she added.

The Mexican government did not have an immediate response to the latest report, but Pena Nieto tweeted that he thanked the experts for their work and that the attorney generals office would analyze the complete report to enrich their investigation.

Eber Omar Betanzos Torres, the deputy attorney general responsible for human rights, spoke in defense of the government on Sunday evening. He told reporters that the government gave the experts full access to information for the development of their work. Of the 941 requests for information, he said, about 85 percent have been fulfilled.

The experts said that months of government silence were followed by a dump of documents just days before their deadline, giving them too little time to analyze them.

The case has prompted widespread outrage and months of protests by hundreds of thousands of people. On Sunday, hundreds gathered in a university courtyard in Mexico City to hear the groups conclusions. The crowd chanted from one to 43 before the event started.

Although the groups presentation was largely a technical discussion of facts, the ultimate message was one of frustration about the lack of help from the Mexican government. Despite being invited by the government to investigate the case, the members were denied almost all access to the Mexican military, despite soldiers documented presence at several locations where the students were seen. Requests for documents languished for months, and an apparent smear campaign began against the group in parts of the Mexican news media. Such delay tactics and obfuscation have reminded many observers of the classic moves of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, sometimes called the perfect dictatorship.

This felt like the old-style PRI manipulation of trying to go through the motions of doing another study  which was really needed  and using it just to muddy the waters, said Daniel Wilkinson, managing director for the Americas division of Human Rights Watch, who also attended. I think the reports absolutely devastating.

Among the most serious allegations to arise from the study is the claim of widespread torture by police. A study of 17 of the roughly 110 suspects arrested in the case showed cuts, bruises and other injuries consistent with torture. One suspect reported a plastic bag had been held over his head until he nearly asphyxiated.

They began beating me again and gave me electric shocks, they put a rag over my nose and poured water on it, one suspect, Patricio Reyes Landa, said in testimony cited in the report, the Associated Press reported. They gave me shocks on the inside of my mouth and my testicles. They put a bag over my face so I couldnt breathe. It went on for hours.

In their two reports, exceeding 1,000 pages in total, the independent investigators littered the governments case with holes.

The governments conclusion, what the former attorney general called the historic truth, that the students were burned in the trash dump in the hills above the town of Cocula, has been refuted by the group of experts and an Argentine forensic team that has studied the case, using fire experts to examine the dump site. They did not find evidence that a fire large enough to consume 43 bodies occurred there.

Authorities have said that bone fragments from the one student confirmed by a lab in Innsbruck, Austria, were found in a plastic bag along the Rio San Juan in Cocula, well below the trash dump. But the experts have photos apparently showing that police and prosecutors were at that same site the day before the bag was supposedly found and carried similar bags, raising the prospect that evidence was planted there.

The report found that police, apparently in cahoots with a local drug cartel, set up checkpoints in an area far larger than previously known to prevent the Ayotzinapa students from escaping Iguala on buses late on the night of Sept. 26, 2014. The experts also concluded that the students were not involved in organized crime and were enrolled at the Raul Isidro Burgos Normal school in Ayotzinapa.Although authorities have alleged the students cellphones were burned the night they were killed, the investigators found that some phones were active for months after the disappearance.

The group wasnt able to find the students, obviously, Wilkinson said. But its shown to what extent this government was willing to go, not to find the students, but to impose a fiction that it calls a historic truth.

Read more:

Outrage over missing students broadens into fury at corruption, inequality

A young political star in Mexico takes on a major battle: Fixing the schools

Mexicos miserable year

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
The boat of the two Florida teens who went missing last summer during a fishing trip has been found off the coast of Bermuda, according to the Palm Beach Post.



The 19-foot Seacraft boat that Perry Cohen and Austin Stephanos, both 14-year-old residents of Tequesta, were in when they vanished on July 24 was found on March 18 about 100 miles from Bermuda, Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Ryan Doss said in a statement, CNN reports. An iPhone and other personal items were found on board the boat.



Doss said that a marine store sticker on the boat and the engine's serial number helped identify the Stephanos family as the boat's owners.



"This is an open missing persons case, and we hope that [the Fish and Wildlife Commission] reopens their investigation and utilizes the expert resources of other government agencies as well as the private sector if necessary to extrapolate the data from the recovered iPhone," Cohen's parents said in a statement posted to the Perry J. Cohen Foundation's Facebook page Saturday morning.













The boat and all items on board have been turned over to the Florida branch of the FWC, Pamela Cohen and Nick Korniloff said. The boat is expected to arrive back in Florida on May 16.



The Seacraft was previously spotted near Daytona Beach, Florida, on July 26, two days after the boys went missing, according to the Post. The Coast Guard attached a data marker buoy to the boat and left to continue the search for the boys, but upon returning to the location of the buoy, the boat had vanished.



After the boys went missing during a burst of bad weather, a massive search ensued from Florida to North Carolina. U.S. Coast Guard Spokesman Petty Officer Mark Barney told PEOPLE at the time that the search had spanned tens of thousands of nautical miles and extended about 90 miles off the coast.



The Coast Guard eventually ended the public search for the boys on July 31, but the families' private search stretched into early August.



Both families have spent the ensuing months launching the Perry J. Cohen Foundation and AustinBlu Foundation, which both aim to improve boater safety.
Maryland will make its mark on the future of politics. From the White House, to seats in the Capitol and Baltimore's City Hall, voters will cast ballots for their choice of the next leaders in the Maryland Primary Election. 11 TV Hill presents a voters' guide, giving you everything you need to know about the candidates and the rules and procedures for voting on Tuesday.
Algiers (AFP) - Algeria's ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika travelled to Geneva on Sunday for a "routine medical check", his office announced.

Bouteflika, 79, suffered a stroke in 2013 that has impeded his mobility and speech. In December, he underwent two days of medical tests at a cardiology unit in France.

His office, in a statement, said Bouteflika travelled to Geneva "for a private visit during which he will undergo a routine medical check".

The health of the president, who was re-elected in April 2014 to serve a fourth five-year term, has been a hot topic of conversation in Algeria over the past two weeks.

Speculation over his successor has been rife in Algerian media and on social media since visiting French Prime Minister Manuel Valls tweeted a picture of a very weak-looking Bouteflika on April 10.
Algiers (AFP) - Algeria's ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika travelled to Geneva on Sunday for a "routine medical check", his office announced, at a time of renewed speculation over his health.

Bouteflika, 79, suffered a stroke in 2013 that has impeded his mobility and speech. In December, he underwent two days of medical tests at a cardiology unit in France.

His office, in a statement, said Bouteflika travelled to Geneva "for a private visit during which he will undergo a routine medical check".

The health of the president, who was re-elected in April 2014 to serve a fourth five-year term, has been a hot topic of conversation in Algeria over the past two weeks.

Speculation over his successor has been rife in Algerian media and on social media since visiting French Prime Minister Manuel Valls tweeted a picture of a very weak-looking Bouteflika on April 10.

On the rare occasions that he appears in public, usually to receive foreign dignitaries, he has been in a wheelchair and speaking with difficulty.

Bouteflika had already been hospitalised in Paris in 2005 because of an intestinal haemorrhage from which he never fully recovered.

In early 2006, he spent a week undergoing post-operative medical exams at the same hospital.

Several months later he disappeared from public view for 50 days, again sparking speculation about his health and whereabouts.

Then a year after his surgery, he said he had been "very, very sick" but had "come out absolutely fabulous".

"People need to stop talking about my health," he said.

Bouteflika's decision to seek a fourth mandate sparked criticism from those who questioned his ability to rule.

He did not campaign and voted from a wheelchair, but still won 81 percent of the vote.
Hollywood has been warning the world about the threat of nuclear war and the danger of nuclear power for decades, from On the Beach and Dr. Strangelove to Fail Safe and The China Syndrome. Those concerns will be explored again at the Atomic Age Cinema Festival, set for Wednesday at the Raleigh Studios Charlie Chaplin Theater in Hollywood.

Actor and activist Esai Morales, who will serve as a panelist, told

Esai Morales

Deadline that he hopes that the festival will be a wake-up call and that attendees will come away with a renewed sense of useful peril  the natural concern about things that are truly pressing. Too often were scared about things that we shouldnt be and not scared about things that we should be.

Organizers say the festival is dedicated to all films about nuclear power and the clear and present danger of terrorist threats, with ISIS stating their next target could be nuclear. Fears are being revived of dirty bombs and the very real risks of radioactivity contamination causing millions of deaths. Concerns are heightened with the safety and security of the 440 nuclear power plants in 31 countries. Recent terror events make it imperative that we become aware of the problem to resolve the problems. Nuclear accidents like Three Mile Island, Chernobyl or Fukushima should never be forgotten, nor repeated.

Kicking off the festival at noon will be a screening of Hot Water, a documentary about the contamination of natural resources in the American Southwest from decades of uranium mining and atomic testing. Heres the trailer:

Nuclear Savage: The Islands of Secret Project 4.1, which will screen at 2 PM, documents how American scientists used Marshall Islanders as human guinea pigs to study the effect of radioactive fallout on people. Director Adam Horowitz will be on hand to introduce it. Heres a preview of the film:

Michael von Hohenberg, whose film Final Picture explores the effects of fallout on a small German town in the aftermath of a nuclear war, will be on hand to screen it at 4:15 PM. Atom bombs are the stupidest things weve ever created, he told Deadline via phone from Germany. My film tells people that we have to eliminate nuclear weapons before they eliminate us. We have to do something. Heres the trailer:

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A panel discussion will follow the 7:30 PM screening of The Man Who Saved the World, the story of Russian Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, who prevented an all-out nuclear war in 1983 by refusing to act on orders after receiving a false report that U.S. missiles were heading toward the Soviet Union. The film is narrated by Kevin Costner. Watch an extended trailer here:

Other panelists include actress and anti-war activist Mimi Kennedy; Libbe HaLevy, producer and host of the podcast Nuclear Hotseat; and moderators Harvey Wasserman, author and anti-nuke activist, and Kat Kramer, actress and founder of the Films That Change the World documentary series.

Wasserman said that he hopes that the the No. 1 thing people should come away with is that we need to shut down the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant as soon as possible. It sits on an active earthquake fault, and Michael Peck, its former senior resident inspector, says it could not stand up to a likely earthquake.

We also have to look at the terror threat, he told Deadline, calling nuclear power plants pre-deployed weapons of mass destruction.

Concerns that nuclear facilities could become targets of terrorists were renewed last year when surveillance footage of a top official at a Belgian nuclear power facility was discovered in the apartment of a suspected terrorist linked to Novembers Paris attacks.

Among those already confirmed to attend are former NASA scientist Dennis Watts and actors Ed Asner, Louis Gossett Jr., Maria Conchita Alonso, Ed Begley Jr., George Chakiris, John Savage, Karen Kramer and Bai Ling.

For free tickets, contact ilenepr@sbcglobal.net

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Rupi Kaur





You might recall last March, a little bit of a kerfuffle happened on Instagram. It wasnt about #freethenipple, or the latest Kardashian selfie, but it was, once again, to do with a female user on the platform.



Rupi Kaur, a Canadian student and artist, had uploaded a photograph of herself lying on her bed. Instagram promptly removed it stating that the image went against community guidelines. Why? Because there was visible menstrual blood on her trousers and bed.



As a part of my final project for my visual rhetoric course I created this image to demystify the period and make something that is innate "normal" again, she wrote in the accompanying post.



She went on to attack Instagram for allowing countless photos/accounts where women (so many who are underage) are objectified, pornified, and treated less than human.



Despite removing the image not once but twice, Instagram eventually backed down and restored the picture after a huge outcry.



Using menstrual blood in art certainly has the ability to shock but is it any different from other artists who use bodily fluids in their work? Why are pieces such as Marc Quinns Self, which used ten pints of his own blood to make a cast of his head, embraced by the art world but an artist such as Carina Ubeda, who uses her own menstrual blood, is accused of being sensationalist?



The Chilean artist saved five years worth of her own blood for her piece Cloths and hung the soiled rags which were embroidered with words such as destroyed.







Carina Ubeda





Again, people found it difficult to deal with. Many thought that the exhibition, held at the Centre of Culture and Health in Chiles Quillota in 2013, to be filthy and disgusting.



However, one visitor of the exhibition, Silvana Saez, told the Daily Mail: Male blood is celebrated for being brave while ours is a shame. This won't change until we release our body as the first stage of political struggle, repression and male power of centuries.









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trump-430

Sarah Levy





Using menstrual blood in art is certainly a political statement. But artist Sarah Levy took the idea to a whole other level when she painted a portrait of Donald Trump with her menstrual blood last September. Calling it Whatever, the piece was a response to remarks that the Republican hopeful had made about TV presenter Megyn Kelly after she hosted a debate. He said of her: You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.





Levy told USA Today: I was outraged that he was basically using womens periods not just to avoid a political question but also to insult her and all womens intelligence.



Elsewhere, menstrual blood is used because it can, in all honesty, look quite beautiful. For her project Beauty In Blood, Denver-based feminist artist Jen Lewis collects her menstrual blood before drizzling it down a clean toilet bowl to render interesting designs. Her husband then photographs the swirling red.



The final images are captivating. In her artistic statement, Lewis insists she makes this work because, Institutionalised hierarchies maintain and support the outdated patriarchal belief that menstruation makes the female body inferior to the male body. Here, the blood isnt "disgusting" or gross. It becomes a thing of beauty.





jen-lewis





And men are getting involved too (albeit by using different tools). Anonymous Middle Eastern artist Saint Hoax added menstrual blood to Disney princesses after a friend told him a story about being rejected by a man after she suddenly came on her period during a first date. "Girls get their period once a month. Sometimes it gets messy. Get over it," he writes on his website.



As people become more relaxed about talking about menstruation, and myths and taboos are shattered, expect more of this pioneering art to appear. Whether you find it aesthetically pleasing or not, it certainly succeeds in starting a conversation.

















Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?



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Eec36f314eae46b0900410f5ef9e57c2

Keep your drones at home, folks.

Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority is warning punters to keep their flying toys away from crowds during the country's ANZAC Day celebrations Monday.

SEE ALSO: The company that will help knock misbehaving drones out of the sky

The memorial day for all those who served in war, held each year on April 25, marks the date Australian troops landed at Gallipoli, Turkey in 1915 during World War I. Parades and fly pasts by military planes are aways a feature, and to keep everyone safe, CASA would prefer drone incidents not be a part of the day.

"What people are trying to do of course is get good pictures of the Anzac Day events, and that's understandable but they've got to understand there are some risks," CASA spokesperson Peter Gibson told ABC News.

"It's really important to follow these safety rules, they're simple but they're really important. People have got respect those regulations and indeed there are penalties if you breach those rules."

Under current rules, drones must remain within line-of-sight and away from populous area. In addition, they cannot come within 30 metres of buildings or people.

As more Australians get their hands on recreational drones, the regulatory body is being forced to clarify when and where they can be flown. In late 2015, CASA had to remind people to keep the gadgets away from bushfires, despite the opportunity to take spectacular video and photos.

"There are more drones than ever, so we needed to do something to educate the public," Gibson told Mashable Australia at the time.


Sydney (AFP) - An Australian politician has set fire to a river to draw attention to methane gas he says is seeping into the water due to fracking, with the dramatic video attracting more than two millions views.

Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham used a kitchen lighter to ignite bubbles of methane in the Condamine River in Queensland, about 220 kilometres (140 miles) west of Brisbane.

The video shows him jumping back in surprise, using an expletive as flames shoot up around the dinghy.

"Unbelievable. A river on fire. Don't let it burn the boat," Buckingham, from New South Wales, said in the footage posted on Facebook on Friday evening, which has been viewed more than two million times.

"Unbelievable, the most incredible thing I've seen. A tragedy in the Murray-Darling Basin (river system)," he said, blaming it on nearby coal-seam gas mining, or fracking.

Australia is a major gas exporter, but the controversial fracking industry has faced a public backlash in some parts of the country over fears about the environmental impact.

Farmers and other landowners are concerned that fracking, an extraction method under which high-pressure water and chemicals are used to split rockbeds, could contaminate groundwater sources.

The Murray-Darling Basin is a river network sprawling for one million square kilometres (400,000 square miles) across five Australian states.

But the industry has said the practice is safe and that coal seam gas mining is a vital part of the energy mix as the world looks for cleaner fuel sources.

Origin Energy, which operates wells in the region, said it was monitoring the bubbling.

"We're aware of concerns regarding bubbling of the Condamine River, in particular, recent videos demonstrating that this naturally occurring gas is flammable when ignited," the company said in a statement to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

"We understand that this can be worrying, however, the seeps pose no risk to the environment, or to public safety, providing people show common sense and act responsibly around them."

The Australian energy firm said the methane seeps could be due to several factors, including natural geology and faults, drought and flood cycles, as well as human activity including water bores and coal seam gas operations.
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"For the record...we did fly to Vegas and tried to land twice at two different airports. And it was too dangerous so safety first always and we flew home."View Entire Post 
Thousands of Bangladeshi garment workers demanded justice on the anniversary Sunday of one of the world's worst industrial disasters, the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory complex that claimed over 1,100 lives.

Survivors of the disaster, many of whom lost limbs when the nine-storey building came crashing down three years ago, laid flowers at the site and wept as they remembered the dead.

Relatives of those killed, including some whose bodies were never found, recited verses of the Koran and prayed after gathering from early morning at Savar just outside Dhaka.

"Three years have passed and still we don't see any justice. No one has been held to account for one of history's worst man-made disasters," union leader Abul Hossain said as he led the protest.

Police have arrested and charged the owner of the building with murder, along with 40 others -- including factory officials and government inspectors who certified the flimsy complex as safe.

But no one has yet been convicted over the disaster, which ocurred after thousands of textile workers were forced to enter the building to start their shifts despite cracks appearing in its pillars one day before.

Workers also staged protests in Dhaka on Sunday and outside a state graveyard where hundreds of unidentified victims have been buried, to demand swift trials for those charged.

"Rana must be hanged!" workers shouted, referring to arrested building owner Sohel Rana who was politically influential in Bangladesh.

Others who gathered at the disaster site, which has been turned into a small lake and was Sunday full of hyacinth flowers, called for improved safety at Bangladesh's 4,500 garment factories.

"The government must shut down all faulty factories to avoid another Rana Plaza. It's unfortunate most factories remain unsafe despite such a huge tragedy," said another union leader, Touhidul Islam.

The Rana Plaza tragedy triggered international outrage and put pressure on European and US clothing brands to improve pay and conditions at the factories that supply them.

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But only a fraction of Bangladesh's textile factories -- which employ a total of four million workers, mostly women -- have since been certified safe.

- 'Scenes of carnage' -

Last year the authorities completed compensation payments for the 3,000 victims, including the injured and families of the dead, but many survivors say it is not enough.

"I got 4,000 taka ($50) a month for two years. But now I don't have anything. My husband has left me as I've become mentally unstable," said Swapna Bibi, 25, who was trapped in the rubble for four days.

Firefighters were also among those who gathered, recalling how they worked for more than three weeks to pull out the dead and nearly 2,000 injured from under pancaked floors.

"The memories of those who cried for help from under the debris still haunt me and many others," said weeping firefighter Monir Hossain.

"I've never seen scenes of carnage like this. I saw workers dying one after another as they were trapped under fallen pillars or debris. I was so overwhelmed I had to be hospitalised with mental problems," he said.

At the site dozens of people held laminated photographs of missing loved ones whose bodies were never found.

"Our sole request to the government is please find my sister's body so that my mother, who has been sick, can die in peace," said Lipy Begum, whose sister Kulsum Begum, 16, has been declared dead.
NEW YORK  Early in his career in Congress, Democrat Tony Hall of Ohio had his politics worked out, but he wasnt sure how to combine them with the convictions of his Christian faith.

Then he took an official research trip to Ethiopia during the great famines of the early 1980s, and these two powerful forces in his life came crashing together.

I saw 25 children die one morning. As I walked among these people, mothers were handing me their dead children, thinking that I was a doctor and that I could actually fix them, take care of them. I was stunned, said Hall.

I came home from that experience  seeing death. I had seen so many people die. I thought, this is a way that I can bring God into my workplace and not have to preach.

About that time, Hall formed a friendship  one rooted in decades of weekly prayer partner meetings  with another member of Congress who was equally committed to defending human rights. Together, Hall and Republican Frank Wolf of Virginia excelled as a bipartisan team focusing on poverty, hunger and religious freedom.

Theyre still working together, even though Wolf left the House of Representatives in 2014. He currently holds the Wilson Chair in Religious Freedom at Baylor University. Hall left Congress in 2002, when President George W. Bush asked him to serve for several years as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations on food and agriculture issues. Hall has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times.

Both men agreed that it would be harder for this kind of bipartisan, faith-centered friendship to flourish today, in an era in which the anger and distrust on display in Washington, D.C. have reached toxic levels.

To make matters worse, said Wolf, it has become harder to defend basic human rights when they are linked to faith, because religious liberty has turned into a dangerous term in public life  one consistently framed in quotation marks in mainstream news reports, implying that it has become tainted.

Talking about religious liberty has become something that divides people, rather than bringing us together, said Wolf, after a forum on global religious freedom issues at The Kings College in lower Manhattan (where I am a senior fellow).

At this point, Wolf added, its like religious liberty is something that only old white men believe in. I think we are going to have to switch to using language about freedom of conscience, because no one is listening to what we are saying.

Another key element of this problem, said Hall, is that debates about religious liberty have become linked to another linguistic landmine in the public square  the vague word evangelical.

At this moment in American politics, he said, media professionals and other opinion shapers see evangelicals as judgmental and negative, as fire-breathing people who have no love or mercy in their lives. ... Christians, and especially evangelicals, are people that you are supposed to be afraid of.

So when you start talking about religious liberty, the first thing people say is that this is an evangelical issue and then thats that. ... Whats happening in our politics here in America is actually making it harder to help suffering and persecuted Christians around the world, and thats tragic.

In all, Hall added, there are currently 40 armed conflicts in the world and many of them are linked to conflicts rooted in religion and, in particular, the oppression of religious minorities.

During visits to Iraq, Hall and Wolf learned that Iraq was home to 150,000 Jews as recently as 2003, but now there are fewer than a dozen. In this same time frame, the number of Christians in Iraq has fallen from 1.5 million to 250,000.

During visits to refugee camps in the region, Wolf said, they heard Christians ask one question over and over: Does the West care about us?

But that wasnt the most haunting question, he said. The most powerful question was, Does the church in the West care about us? ... The church has been relatively silent and we are seeing the end of Christianity in the cradle of Christianity. ...

We used to care. We used to care dramatically.
By Ruma Paul DHAKA (Reuters) - A university professor was hacked to death on Saturday in northwestern Bangladesh, police said, with Islamic State claiming responsibility for the latest in a series of attacks on liberal activists. Two assailants on a motorcycle attacked Rezaul Karim Siddiquee, 58, an English professor at Rajshahi University, slitting his throat and hacking him to death, Rajshahi city police chief Mohammad Shamsuddin told reporters, quoting witnesses. He was found lying in a pool of blood near his home, where he was apparently waiting for a bus to the university campus about 200 kilometers (125 miles) northwest of Dhaka when he was attacked. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the killing of the professor for "calling to atheism", the U.S.-based SITE monitoring service said quoting the militant group's Amaq Agency. Police said the murder was similar to other recent attacks on secular bloggers by Islamist militants. But fellow university teachers said Siddiquee, while active in cultural events, never spoke or wrote anything about religion or Islam. "Professor Rezaul was killed in a similar fashion as the killings of bloggers," Shamsuddin said, adding he was a peaceful person and had no enemies. The Muslim-majority nation of 160 million has seen a surge in violent attacks over the past few months in which members of minority Muslim sects and other religious groups have also been targeted. Five secular bloggers and a publisher have been hacked to death in Bangladesh since February last year. A group affiliated with al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the killing of a liberal Bangladeshi blogger earlier this month, the SITE has said. Bangladesh authorities said the homegrown militant group Ansarullah Bangla Team is behind the attacks on online critics of religious extremism. The gruesome killing on Saturday triggered a protest by teachers and students of the Rajshahi University, blocking a major road and demanding immediate arrest of the killers. Three teachers at the university have been killed in recent years. Islamic State has also claimed responsibility for the killings of two foreigners, and attacks on mosques and Christian priests in Bangladesh since September, but police said local militant group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen was behind those attacks. The government has denied that the Islamic State or al Qaeda groups have a presence in Bangladesh. At least five militants have been killed in shootouts since November as security forces have stepped up a crackdown on Islamist militants looking to establish a sharia-based Muslim state. (Reporting by Ruma Paul; Editing by Clelia Oziel)
Does a Ford Edsel by any other name look as foul?

Probably, and perhaps even worse, especially if the notorious 1958 car flop  an ugly gas guzzler named after Henry Fords son Edsel  had been called, lets say, Utopian Turtletop. That was just one of many creative suggestions put forth by Pulitzer Prizewinning poet Marianne Moore. Others included Thunderblender, Mongoose Civique and Anticipator. Moore did not charge for her creative labors  she was friends with the wife of a Ford marketer who had solicited her services  but the poets foray into automotive branding is a reminder that countless writers and artists have lent their skills to more commercial endeavors, often to rather amusing results.

Not all artists are unrepentant bohemians. At some point or another, almost every serious artist has yielded to certain financial pressures or incentives, or perhaps just the need to eat. Bach, Mozart, Hayden and Beethoven were all obsessed with earning money through their art, economist Tyler Cowen reminds us in his book In Praise of Commercial Culture. As Charlie Chaplin confessed late in his life, I went into the business for money and the art grew out of it. If people are disillusioned by that remark, I cant help it. Its the truth.

Even the indomitable Dr. Seuss spent a good chunk of his career in a corporate Waiting Place.

You have to start somewhere. And its easy to forget  particularly in an age when 22-year-old entrepreneurs raise millions of dollars to launch startup ventures  that somewhere is often a corporate enterprise. Countless cartoonists and illustrators, for example, got their start in advertising and other industries. Before he got his big break, Eric Carle, author of the childrens classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar, was a graphic designer for The New York Times and an art director for an advertising agency, illustrating lobsters and insects for allergy-tab advertisements. Shel Silverstein worked for years as a cartoonist for Playboy while also deploying his skills toward more PG-themed fare as an author of such childrens classics as The Giving Tree.

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Even the indomitable Dr. Seuss, who wrote such anticonsumerist works as How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Lorax, spent a good chunk of his career in a corporate Waiting Place before a fluke encounter on a Madison Avenue sidewalk with an old college friend launched his legendary writing career. Before that, Seuss capacious imagination had largely fueled advertising campaigns for his largest client, Standard Oil Company. Long before children were being entertained by the Grinch or the Sneetches, magazine readers were encountering surreal beasts with Seussian names like the Karbo-nockus or Moto-raspus in ads for Essolube motor oil or Flit insecticide (both Standard Oil products).

Sometimes, as with Seuss, the commercial venture provides an invaluable (not to mention paid) opportunity to explore ones craft and develop as an artist. Muppets creator Jim Henson first used his band of handmade puppets to help make ends meet, making about 180 somewhat absurdly violent television commercials for various instant-coffee brands. It wasnt long before the Muppets were selling everything from dog chow to chow mein, and these commercial endeavors proved integral to their eventual on-screen success as well as Hensons creative development.

In some cases, the corporate world is not just a forum for honing ones artistic skills but also an important source of ideas. Kurt Vonnegut Jr., author of bestsellers like Slaughterhouse Five and Cats Cradle, was hired in 1947 at the age of 24 to join a small team of content marketers within the global energy giant General Electric. As part of his public-relations job, Vonnegut interviewed numerous GE scientists about their research, and some of what he learned about  such as attempts to control the weather  would form the basis for several key creations of his own, such as the Ice-9 featured in Cats Cradle.

The capitalist market economy, Cowen argues, is a vital but underappreciated institutional framework for supporting a plurality of coexisting artistic visions  [and] helping consumers and artists refine their tastes.

And within that commercial framework lie a host of opportunities for aspiring artists. Or, put another way: Sometimes you may have to sell out to sell yourself, but the important thing is to be able to tell the difference. Or, as Dr. Seuss wrote (and knew full well) in Oh, the Places Youll Go!:

Step with care and great tact

and remember that Lifes

a Great Balancing Act.

Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.

And never mix up your right foot with your left.

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LONDON (Reuters) - British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said on Sunday that he could not rule out sending troops to Libya if requested to do so by the Libyan government, but that any deployment would need to be approved by parliament. Western powers are backing a new Libyan unity government, hoping it will seek foreign support to confront Islamic State militants, deal with migrant flows from Libya to Europe and restore oil production to shore up Libya's economy. "It wouldn't make sense to rule anything out because you never know how things are going to evolve," Hammond told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper. "But if there were ever any question of a British combat role in any form - ground, sea or air - that would go to the House of Commons," he said referring to Britain's elected parliament. Last week Hammond told parliament there were no plans to send combat troops to Libya, responding to media reports that British special forces were already operating in the country. Libya has been in chaos since Western-backed rebels overthrew President Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Hammond said he did not think it was likely that Libya would invite foreign military intervention, but highlighted the risk that an Islamic State stronghold in the country could pose to mainland Europe. "If Daesh (Islamic State) became established in Libya and sought to use that established base to infiltrate terrorists into Europe, that would be a threat to all of us," he said. (Reporting by William James; Editing by Ros Russell)
Bruce Springsteen, left, and Elton John showed the late Prince some love on Saturday night. (Photos: Getty Images)

Related: Mariah Carey pays emotional on-stage tribute to Prince: He was there when I really needed somebody

While fans lined the streets outside Paisley Park on Saturday  where a memorial for Prince was being held at his compound following his cremation  some of the music legends peers were thinking of ways to pay tribute to him. Bruce Springsteen and Elton John were two of the superstars who honored Prince onstage during their shows on Saturday.

Springsteen performed at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, kicking off the show with a cover of Purple Rain. His version was slow  and very Boss-like  and audience members sang along when they werent cheering. Springsteen ended the song by saying, Prince forever. God bless.

Meanwhile, John, who called Prince the greatest performer I have ever seen and a true genius, honored the man in Las Vegas. After talking a little about their contrasting lifestyles (Prince would be coming home as John was getting up for the day), he called him a purple warrior" and broke into his own timeless hit I Guess Thats Why They Call It The Blues, while a slideshow of Prince photos appeared in the background.

Meanwhile, the folks at Saturday Night Live put together a tribute show for Prince, which was hosted by Jimmy Fallon.

And former cast member Tim Kazurinsky posted buzzed-about-but-never-aired footage of Prince jamming during the afterparty for the shows 40th anniversary special last year. Its pretty incredible.

Related: Jennifer Hudson and Her Color Purple Castmates Pay Tribute to Prince With Purple Rain

Prince died suddenly on Thursday at his home in Chanhassen, Minnesota. He was just 57. On Saturday, his publicist confirmed that Princes remains have been cremated and their final storage will remain private. The publicist added, Prince was celebrated by a small group of his most beloved: family, friends and his musicians, in a private, beautiful ceremony to say a loving goodbye.

Results of his autopsy, which was performed on Friday, could take several weeks.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band paid their respects to Prince by opening their Saturday-night show with a cover of "Purple Rain."

Bathed in purple lighting and donning a purple scarf, Springsteen - playing the first of two shows at Brooklyn, N.Y.'s Barclays Center - took the stage, strumming the opening chord and leading the band into a reverential version of the 1984 hit. The group normally opens shows with "Meet Me in the City," but it made an exception at the New York venue.

Read More: Jimmy Fallon Remembers Prince During 'SNL' Special Tribute

Especially poignant was the blistering guitar work of Nils Lofgren, who played an elongated solo before Springsteen led the crowd in a sing-along.

"Prince, forever," Springsteen said at the end. "God bless!"

Watch the video, shot by Stan Goldstein, below.
Since my grandmother lived on the bay in Babylon, New York, my family had many wonderful boating weekends filled with trips and exploration. As a kid what better excitement could be had than searching through the old deserted buildings on Fox Island or traveling to Fire Island to enjoy the white sandy beaches along the Atlantic?

As the years continued and my brother and I were in high school we found other commitments that for one reason or another were seemingly important. My dad sold the old boat one unremembered day and it moved on down the canal for the last time out of our lives. Several years later while in my 20s, completing my third year at college and hankering for some excitement, I bought a small rowboat from an acquaintance and one warm May weekend planned a big boating trip across the bay.

Since Final Exams were over I coaxed my girlfriend to stuff a picnic basket with goodies from KFC and before noon we were on our way. I remember rowing and rowing and more rowing. It seemed like we were not even moving, the islands ahead were still tiny dots along the horizon. About halfway across the bay my hands started feeling the burns of blisters forming on my landlubber skin and the omnipresent salt and spray didnt help much.

Sad to say, the day went downhill quite rapidly from that point despite all of my dreamed visions of a vigorous romantic adventure. Within two weeks, after my bruises mended, I gave the rowboat away to my cousin who lived on the next block from grandmas dock.

This week we celebrate the inventor of outboard marine engines, Ole Evinrude. Born in Gjvik, Norway on April 19, 1877, little Ole came to the United States with his family when he was five, settling near the town of Cambridge, Wisconsin, home of the Oldest Scandinavian Methodist Church in the U.S. where his father took up farming.

Little is known about the early years of Evinrude except that he was always interested in machines and mechanics, often repairing equipment when needed. By age 16 he took an apprenticeship as a machinist in Madison and at nights studied engineering on his own.

At the age of 23 Evinrude co-founded the custom engine firm Clemick & Evinrude where he invented the first practical and reliable outboard motor that had a hand crank on the flywheel, allowing an easy start for the two-stroke engine, but this was only a motor and not coupled to a propeller yet. The first real gasoline-powered outboard motor was developed by a young Yale engineering student, Cameron Waterman in 1903 who went on to make his Porto-Motor at a Detroit factory until he was bought by Arrow in 1917.

Getting back to good old Ole, it seems that although he was a latecomer to the boat propulsion market he was not one to let any grass grow under his feet both in engineering and family life. It is said that while Evinrude concentrated on the mechanical aspects of his company, he hired his first love, Bessie Cary, to manage the books.

When asked why he chose to design outboard engines, Evinrude would tell the story of a time when Bessie and he were on Lake Okauchee two and a half miles from shore, and she had the desire for ice cream. Because the ice cream was melted by the time Evinrude rowed back with it, he always had the resolve to replace the oar with some type of gasoline engine device. Obviously impressed by his determination, Bessie and Ole were married in 1906.

In 1907 he founded Evinrude Motors of Milwaukee with the goal of developing a 1.5 horsepower outboard consisting of one cylinder. It became an instant success upon its introduction in 1909  the good years before Europe plunged the world into WWI. By 1912 the firm employed 300 workers.

One interesting spin-off of this tale concerns two teenagers who worked for him at his Milwaukee-based machine shop. It seems they loved to build and repair motorcycles, often tinkering around with them into the late hours. One of the kids, Arthur Davidson, went on to form Harley-Davidson, a company also based in Milwaukee.

By 1913 Ole Evinrude had to sell his share of the outboard motor company to raise enough money to take care of his ailing wife, even signing a no-competition clause to do so. Not content to keep idle, he kept designing in his garage a much improved version of his first engine. By 1921 he was back manufacturing a twin engine unit on his own that overtook sales of the original. In 1929 his new company merged with the old and he became president again of the arrangement.

Bessie, who had retired in 1928 for health reasons, died in 1933. Ole Evinrude died the following year it is said from a broken heart at age 57. The Evinrude company merged with the Johnson Motor Company in 1936 to form the Outboard Marine Corporation. OMC declared chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2000 and its assets were subsequently acquired by Bombardier Recreational Products, a Canadian company, which continues to build Evinrude branded outboard motors.

Rearrange these letters to make another sentence yielding the same result:

TWO PLUS ELEVEN
Prince George made a surprise appearance at Kensington Palace on Friday  in his pajamas!



The little royal, who stole the spotlight earlier in the week in his cutest royal portrait yet, appeared in a hallway wearing a plush robe (embroidered with his name!), matching gingham blue pajamas and slippers just before the start of his parents' dinner with President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.



In a photo shared on Kensington Palace's Twitter, George can be seen sharing a handshake with the President. Other pictures show him riding a rocking horse  a gift from the Obamas when he was born.





Prince George thanks @BarackObama for his rocking horse, given to him when he was born pic.twitter.com/xXIF8QeQvz a Kensington Palace (@KensingtonRoyal) April 22, 2016









Although George, who turns 3 in July, was permitted to stay up late for the special occasion, his nearly 1-year-old sister Princess Charlotte was fast asleep, says a palace source: "George stayed up for a few minutes when the President and the First Lady arrived, but Charlotte was in bed." (George had previously been playing with a plush version of First Dog Bo, a past gift from the Obamas.)



Prince William, Princess Kate (in an L.K. Bennett dress) and Prince Harry are hosting the First Couple for a private dinner, with Harry warmly greeting Mrs. Obama with a double kiss.





. @BarackObama and @MichelleObama arrive at Kensington Palace for dinner with The Duke, Duchess and Prince Harry pic.twitter.com/ZdXMj24pCL a Kensington Palace (@KensingtonRoyal) April 22, 2016





The special evening  which followed lunch Buckingham Palace with the Queen  was arranged by William on behalf of all three royals, and "they were delighted that [the First Couple] were able to accept," a palace source tells PEOPLE.





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Prince George in His Pajamas Shaking Hands with President Obama Is the Greatest Moment in U.S.-British History| The British Royals, The Royals, Barack Obama, Kate Middleton, Michelle Obama, Prince George, Prince Harry, Prince William



"The three of them have built up a relationship with the President and First Lady over the years," adds the source.





The Duke, Duchess and Prince Harry chat with the President and First Lady before dinner at Kensington Palace pic.twitter.com/vWCru1ifDW a Kensington Palace (@KensingtonRoyal) April 22, 2016





Kate, who wore a teal and purple LK Bennett dress, and William first met the couple at Buckingham Palace in 2011 just after the royal wedding. It was their first joint engagement as a married couple.



In 2014 William visited the Oval Office, where he and President Obama discussed the campaign to clamp down on illegal wildlife trafficking.



Of course, Prince Harry has his own special relationship with the White House  and in particular with Mrs. Obama.









Last June, he hosted the First Lady and First Daughters Malia and Sasha  along with grandma Marian Robinson  for tea at Kensington Palace.



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Then in October, it was the First Couple's turn to play host to a visiting Prince Harry  where the chemistry between Mrs. Obama and the royal was on adorable display.



The two will be reunited once again next month, when they team up in Orlando for Harry's Invictus Games for veterans.
By Siva Govindasamy and Joseph Sipalan SINGAPORE/KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - With an eye on China's more muscular stance in the South China Sea, Southeast Asian governments are stepping up efforts to replace ageing fighter aircraft fleets, paving the way for multi-billion dollar deals in a boon for warplane makers. Despite tight budgets across the region, sales executives say they are busier than ever after a five-year lull - and both industry and government sources say the next months could see several multi-billion dollar deals from Malaysia to Vietnam. A trade conference held in Kuala Lumpur this week thronged with would-be buyers and salesmen from Russian, French, British, Chinese, Pakistani and American firms. Held every other year, attendees reported it was busier than ever. A prime drawcard was one of the region's biggest prizes: Malaysia, which is set to finally replace its Russian 1990s-era MiG-29 fighters after several years of delays. Industry sources say Kuala Lumpur could buy up to 18 jets, a deal potentially worth more than $2.5 billion. Options include the Saab Gripen, the Eurofighter Typhoon, Russian Sukhoi Su-30, and the Sino-Pakistani JF-17. France is optimistic about winning an order for Dassault-built Rafales but other bidders are also hopeful. "We are hoping to make Malaysia the ninth country to buy the Typhoon," said John Brosnan, who heads the Asian business for BAE Systems, one of the partners in the Eurofighter consortium. Malaysia's defense ministry did not respond to requests for comment on the talks. Vietnam, eyeing options beyond traditional supplier Russia, is among those next on the buyers list. It has had preliminary talks with Saab and France's Dassault to purchase at least 12 fighter jets, industry sources and a separate source familiar with the government talks said. "They seem to be keen on moving away from Russia, but it has been dormant so far," said Kaj Rosander, regional director for Gripen exports at Saab. "It looks like the next call will be on Vietnam." Industry sources say Vietnam is also in talks with Moscow over several Su-35s. Officials at Rosoboronexport, Russia's arms export agency, declined to comment on any negotiations. Vietnamese officials rarely comment on procurement matters, and did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment. FOCUSING MINDS While reluctant to comment publicly, officials in countries including Indonesia and Vietnam privately say their renewed interest in new fighter jets is driven in large part by China's growing presence in the disputed South China Sea. Chinese state media reported this week that a military plane had landed on Fiery Cross Reef, one of a number of new runways on reclaimed artificial islands, fuelling expectations that China will soon deploy fighter jets at the doorstep of many of the Southeast Asian claimants. "Rising tensions in (the Asia Pacific region) have seen a long overdue process of military modernization move up the political agenda in a number of countries," Craig Caffrey, principal analyst at IHS Jane's said in a report. "The Philippines, Indonesia, Japan and Vietnam are all following Chinas lead and we see no sign of this trend coming to an end." Beijing for its part says it needs the facilities for self-defense and says the United States and others are militarizing the region, not China. By rights, U.S. defense firms should be benefitting as the region renews and revamps - they were a heavy presence in Southeast Asian sales 1980s and 1990s. But they now they face tough competition, as well as tighter purse strings. Thailand, which has Northrop F-5s and Lockheed Martin F-16s, has bought the Saab Gripen and could order more from the Swedes, say industry sources familiar with the negotiations. "We do want new jets, we have long-term plans, but we don't have the money for it," Major General Kongcheep Tantrawanit, Thai defense ministry spokesman, said. "There are no deals in the making right now." Boeing executives had been plugging their F/A-18E/F Super Hornets to Malaysia, which operates the older Boeing F-18 Hornet variants. But Kuala Lumpur appears to be leaning towards the Europeans, say industry sources. Boeing's only presence at this week's show was to promote its unmanned systems. Boeing officials did not respond to requests for comment. Meanwhile, Indonesia, which operates older Lockheed Martin F-16s, is close to an order for Russian Su-35s to supplement its Su-30s, industry and government sources said. It is also a partner in the Korean Aerospace Industry KF-X fighter jet programme, which Lockheed is helping to develop. Lockheed did not respond to requests for comment. For U.S. players, that leaves the list of likely partners at Singapore, which operates only U.S. fighters jets and is a partner in the Lockheed F-35 program. The region's other supplier, of course, is China itself. Its JF-17, which it developed with Pakistan is a being marketed as a viable low-cost option for air forces, including Malaysia and Myanmar. (This story corrects executive name spelling to Rosander in paragraph 9) (Additional reporting by Patpicha Tanakasempipat in BANGKOK, Manuel Mogato in MANILA, Aradhana Aravindan in SINGAPORE; Editing by Clara Ferreira Marques and Lincoln Feast)
Eric Barbanel, M.D., a physician in Middletown, N.Y., spends as much time these days explaining to patients why they don't need medications as he does prescribing them.

"Sometimes they ask for an antibiotic before they even say hello," he says. But Barbanel has a message for them: More medicine is not always better medicine.

To back that up, he points to several Consumer Reports brochures on the wall of the exam room: If you've just hurt your lower back, you probably don't need an MRI. If you're here for a routine physical, there's little point to an EKG. And antibiotics? They're useless against a cold.

"When I talk it through, they get it95 percent of the time, we're able to come to a meaningful conclusion," Barbanel says.

Barbanel is determined to have his patients and their families understand that many types of care they're used to receivingincluding care that he used to deliver himselfturns out to be needless. Many doctors still offer, and many patients expect, unproductive care that may be driven by habit, advertising, outdated training, or financial incentives, he says.



'Choosing Wisely' Has Its Fourth Anniversary

Barbanel credits his change in approach to a nationwide educational campaign, Choosing Wisely. The campaign, launched by the ABIM Foundation, turned four years old this month.

"I think my care has improved as a result, and my patients are happy," he says.

Consumer Reports is a partner in the Choosing Wisely campaign, which is an effort to get patients and their providers to think twice, and talk together, about tests, drugs, and treatments that are not truly necessary.

The extent of unnecessary care? About 30 percent of U.S. healthcare expenditures, by several estimates.

At the core of Choosing Wisely are more than 70 national medical specialty societies that have each named at least five common things they urge their colleagues to reconsider offering because the evidence just doesn't back them up.

Story continues

450 Things to Question

From 45 recommendations when the campaign kicked off in April 2012, the list has grown to more than 450 items that providers and patients should question, including:

Also growing is the campaign's influence on care around the country and worldwide. Patients may find themselves in a conversation influenced by Choosing Wisely in Atlanta, San Francisco, Annapolis, or many other medical communities that have embraced the campaign.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has supported more than two dozen local projects to bring Choosing Wisely values into practice. Similar campaigns now have been launched in a dozen countries.

Free Brochures, Posters, and Cards

Consumer Reports' contribution to the campaign includes more than 250 brochures, posters, rack cards and wallet cards, which are free for consumers and for like-minded organizations that wish to distribute them to their clients, members, employees, or the public.

Major employers, hospitals, government agencies and consumers now view those materials thousands of times a week online. Among the most popular are cautions about treatments for back pain, pink eye, and sinusitis.

No matter what medical issues you're facing, CR recommends that you and your family help promote these doctor-patient discussions. It can feel challenging at first, but make a practice of asking these five important questions, whenever a health care provider offers you something new:

Do I really need this test or procedure?

What are the risks and side effects?

Are there simpler, safer options?

What happens if I don't do anything?

How much does it cost?

To remember these questions, here is a card you can print and tuck next to your insurance card.





More from Consumer Reports:

How to raise your good cholesterol

Do the new blood pressure guidelines affect me?

8 Ways to Save on a Gym Membership





Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers on this website. Copyright  2006-2016 Consumers Union of U.S.
Eric Barbanel, M.D., a physician in Middletown, N.Y., spends as much time these days explaining to patients why they don't need medications as he does prescribing them.

"Sometimes they ask for an antibiotic before they even say hello," he says. But Barbanel has a message for them: More medicine is not always better medicine.

To back that up, he points to several Consumer Reports brochures on the wall of the exam room: If you've just hurt your lower back, you probably don't need an MRI. If you're here for a routine physical, there's little point to an EKG. And antibiotics? They're useless against a cold.

"When I talk it through, they get it95 percent of the time, we're able to come to a meaningful conclusion," Barbanel says.

Barbanel is determined to have his patients and their families understand that many types of care they're used to receivingincluding care that he used to deliver himselfturns out to be needless. Many doctors still offer, and many patients expect, unproductive care that may be driven by habit, advertising, outdated training, or financial incentives, he says.



'Choosing Wisely' Has Its Fourth Anniversary

Barbanel credits his change in approach to a nationwide educational campaign, Choosing Wisely. The campaign, launched by the ABIM Foundation, turned four years old this month.

"I think my care has improved as a result, and my patients are happy," he says.

Consumer Reports is a partner in the Choosing Wisely campaign, which is an effort to get patients and their providers to think twice, and talk together, about tests, drugs, and treatments that are not truly necessary.

The extent of unnecessary care? About 30 percent of U.S. healthcare expenditures, by several estimates.

At the core of Choosing Wisely are more than 70 national medical specialty societies that have each named at least five common things they urge their colleagues to reconsider offering because the evidence just doesn't back them up.

450 Things to Question

Story continues

From 45 recommendations when the campaign kicked off in April 2012, the list has grown to more than 450 items that providers and patients should question, including:

Also growing is the campaign's influence on care around the country and worldwide. Patients may find themselves in a conversation influenced by Choosing Wisely in Atlanta, San Francisco, Annapolis, or many other medical communities that have embraced the campaign.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has supported more than two dozen local projects to bring Choosing Wisely values into practice. Similar campaigns now have been launched in a dozen countries.

Free Brochures, Posters, and Cards

Consumer Reports' contribution to the campaign includes more than 250 brochures, posters, rack cards and wallet cards, which are free for consumers and for like-minded organizations that wish to distribute them to their clients, members, employees, or the public.

Major employers, hospitals, government agencies and consumers now view those materials thousands of times a week online. Among the most popular are cautions about treatments for back pain, pink eye, and sinusitis.

No matter what medical issues you're facing, CR recommends that you and your family help promote these doctor-patient discussions. It can feel challenging at first, but make a practice of asking these five important questions, whenever a health care provider offers you something new:

Do I really need this test or procedure?

What are the risks and side effects?

Are there simpler, safer options?

What happens if I don't do anything?

How much does it cost?

To remember these questions, here is a card you can print and tuck next to your insurance card.



More from Consumer Reports:

8 Ways to Boost Your Home Value

Why your cable TV bill is going up

Get the Best Cell Phone Plan for Your Familyand Save up to $1,000 a Year





Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers on this website. Copyright  2006-2016 Consumers Union of U.S.
Chrissy Teigen is one hot mama!

The 30-year-old model and her husband, John Legend, enjoyed their first date night since welcoming daughter Luna Simone on April 14.

WATCH: John Legend and Chrissy Teigen Share First Photo of Baby Luna's Face

The new parents spent some alone time at celebrity hot spot The Nice Guy in West Hollywood, California, on Saturday. Teigen stepped out in a sheer beige Balmain bodysuit and leather leggings, which she paired with a camel-colored trench and a bronze smoky eye.

AKM-GSI

Yes, this is a woman who gave birth two weeks ago. She's killing it!

Some people appear to be pissed that the Cravings author dared to go out to dinner while having a newborn at home, however. Luckily, she took the backlash in typical Teigen stride -- by calling out the mayhem on Twitter.

I went to dinner. People are pissed. Good morning! pic.twitter.com/oQ54mtet8c  christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) April 24, 2016

WATCH: NSFW! Chrissy Teigen Turns Up the Heat for Pre-Baby Date Night

Teigen was quick to point out just how passive aggressive some of her followers were being, quoting one of the more pointed tweets and noting that another talked about "vagina smells" in the comments section. Seriously.

"i never wanted to leave my daughter, i love her, BUT THAT'S JUST ME" - the passive aggressiveness is real!  christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) April 24, 2016

talking about vagina smells in the comments. what in the.  christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) April 24, 2016

Thankfully, one of her kinder fans asked the truly important question of the night: What did Teigen eat for dinner? The answer was a "delicious" meal of "seared scallops with [leeks] and potato puree."

Story continues

seared scallops with leaks and potato puree. delicious! https://t.co/VjiVr9PsxU  christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) April 24, 2016

leeks* - i will never forgive my autocorrect for that one  christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) April 24, 2016

PHOTOS: 4 Stars Who Rocked Red Carpet Pregnancy Style

It's nice to know that not everyone is out to get her! And it definitely hasn't caused Teigen to lose her sense of humor. When another fan asked how Luna was doing, Teigen responded, "I dunno i can't find her."

i dunno i can't find her https://t.co/fEj8rFHEMI  christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) April 24, 2016

Well played!

WATCH: Chrissy Teigen Thanks Fans For Well-Wishes With a Perfect Tweet

This was Teigen and Legend's second public outing in two days, following a run for errands in Los Angeles on Friday. Since we couldn't see her outfit the first time, we're pretty happy we got a good glimpse of her fabulous date night look.

While we haven't seen little Lulu in the outside world yet, she has already made her social media debut, including appearances on Instagram and Snapchat. Check out some of the baby girl's adorable photos in the video below.

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Dave Chappelle was so distraught when he learned Prince had died, he almost canceled a stand-up show he had planned in San Francisco.

But Chappelle went on because that's what Prince would have wanted, the San Francisco Chronicle reported him as saying.

"This is black 9/11," Chappelle told the crowd at the Chapel on Friday night, according to the Chronicle.

Chappelle dedicated most of the four-hour show to Prince and reminisced about their time together and what the iconic musician meant to him, according to the Chronicle.

Chappelle and Prince were forever intertwined after the 42-year-old comedian portrayed Prince in one of the most famous skits on his former Comedy Central show. Fans loved the skit and so did Prince, Donnell Rawlings, a Chappelle's Show castmember, told The Hollywood Reporter.

"He thought it was hilarious," Rawlings said of Prince's reaction. "And I think [Chappelle and Prince] really built a friendship after that sketch."

Read More: Prince Loved When He Was Portrayed by Dave Chappelle

Chappelle told the audience at the Chapel he learned of Prince's death when he started getting calls from reporters for comment. "I kept wondering all day, 'Why are they calling me?'" Chappelle reportedly said. "I'll tell you what: I didn't know him well, but I knew him well."

In a 2014 interview with Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon, Chappelle marveled about Prince using his own joke against him when he featured a photo of Chappelle dressed as Prince on the cover of his September 2013 single "Breakfast Can Wait."

"That's a Prince judo move right there.  You make fun of Prince in a sketch and he'll just use you in his album cover," Chappelle told Fallon. "What am I going to do - sue him for using a picture of me dressed up like him?  That's checkmate right there."

Read More: 'Tonight Show': Dave Chappelle Explains How Prince Used His Own Joke Against Him (Video)
ELKO  Earthquakes have been big news after deadly ones hit Japan and Ecuador, but in a state where mines are prevalent even small quakes can be a hazard.

According to U.S. Geological Survey data, Nevada is the fourth-most seismically active state. It falls behind Alaska, California and Hawaii.

In a week's time, Nevada had 54 quakes of magnitude 1.5 or greater. There were 232 in one month and 3,039 seismic events in the last year, including one north of Carlin, near several of Newmont Mining Corp.s and Barrick Gold Corp.s surface and underground mines.

According to USGS there have been 12 seismic events near Carlin since November and they ranged between 1.7 to 3.4 magnitude.

These numbers may seem small but a 3.2 magnitude quake caused Barrick employees to stop work. The quake hit at 10:24 a.m. on Feb. 28 a little more than 25 miles northwest of Carlin and about a half-mile deep.

Goldstrike reported that the earthquake was felt throughout the underground and the mine was evacuated, said Barrick Manager of Communications and Corporate Affairs Leslie Maple.

Newmonts mining operations in the area were not impacted.

Maple said many times when a quake happens it will affect Barrick or Newmont mines but usually not both because of where the faults are in the ground.

The largest quake to hit Nevada in the past 20 years was the 6.2 in 2008 near Wells, according to USGS data. Since it was far from most of the mines it didnt affect them, but that doesnt mean large quakes dont hit the Silver State.

The largest known earthquake in Nevada was a magnitude 7.1 on Oct. 3, 1915, in Pleasant Valley, almost 40 miles southeast of Winnemucca. At Kennedy, two adobe houses were destroyed, mine tunnels collapsed and concrete mine foundations were cracked. In Winnemucca, buildings were damaged and in Battle Mountain water tanks were thrown down. The quake was felt from Oregon to California and beyond Salt Lake City.

One of the most striking effects of this earthquake was the large increase (and decrease) in the flow of springs and streams throughout northern Nevada, stated USGS.

A similar size quake hitting Carlin could have devastating effects on the town and the surrounding mines.

Ground Monitoring Helps With Safety

Newmont has a team of geotechnical experts who oversee ongoing monitoring programs as part of our normal mining operations  for both surface and underground mines, said Newmont Director of Communications and External Relations for North American Region Rhonda Zuraff. Regarding earthquake response, Newmont has a region-wide post-earthquake geotechnical procedure which includes, among other things, employment of ground checks.

Barrick and Newmont work together to monitor ground conditions, but they've only been partnered since 2014.

Goldstrike Underground Division Manager Roger Hoops said the equipment was installed after the mine experienced a couple seismic events close together. Employees asked how the company knew it was safe to go back in and Hoops said Barrick decided to talk to Newmont and the Nevada Seismological Laboratory at the University of Nevada, Reno and USGS.

Goldstrike also uses sensors from the Institute of Mining Seismology to monitor in the underground, and employs an engineer dedicated to tracking and monitoring seismic activity in the area. Four units were installed on Barrick property and three units were installed on Newmont property, said Zaheer Jamkhana, senior mining engineer for Goldstrike underground division.

The equipment picks up all ground movement, including blasts, but it can tell the difference between a controlled explosion and a seismic event, Jamkhana said.

The system can pick up events five miles from the site, and because they have the monitoring equipment seismologists can tell the mine how close the earthquake was to the underground. The seismic event on Feb. 28 was 275 feet from one of Goldstrike's haulages and 963 feet from the shaft," said Amanda Norfleet, Goldstrike chief geologist for the underground.

When to Evacuate

The size of an event and its magnitude determine if the mine needs to be closed for a time, but generally if it is felt throughout the underground it is evacuated, said Miguel Lamadrid, Goldstrike superintendent of technical services for the underground.

After the event is over, the mine is inspected. Since the miners know where the quake occurred, the inspectors can pay particular attention to the areas closest to the seismic event, Lamadrid said.

The inspection usually takes about four hours, he said. After the Feb. 28 event, crews found a small crack and a monitoring system was put in, but there hasn't been any movement.

The ground support systems in Barrick and Newmont underground mines are engineered to provide some protection. Jamkhana said the underground support is designed to move with an earthquake.

The ground support systems in use are considered ideal for small to moderate ground motion, however, larger events can require up to entire mine evacuations, Zuraff said.

All underground mines are designed with escapeways either by a portal exit or shaft. If an underground mine cannot be evacuated quickly, both companies maintain refuge chambers at various locations.

These chambers provide emergency shelter including, air, water, food and communication equipment and would be utilized if miners are not able to safely exit the mine, Maple said.

While earthquakes are more likely to affect the underground, both Newmont and Barrick constantly monitor their pit highwalls. The surface mines have similar safety and evacuation protocols if movement is detected.

Hoops said the bigger concern on site is usually the concrete structures on the surface because they aren't designed to move.

Goldstrike is the most often impacted by seismic events based on the geography in the area, Maple said. So far, they have not experienced damage as a result of an earthquake.
QUITO (Reuters) - The death toll from Ecuador's devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake last week has risen to 654 people, the country's emergency management authority said on Saturday. Last Saturday's quake, the worst in nearly seven decades, injured around 16,600 people and left 58 missing along the country's ravaged Pacific coast. One hundred and thirteen people were rescued from damaged buildings. "These have been sad days for the homeland," President Rafael Correa said during his weekly television broadcast earlier on Saturday. "The country is in crisis." Several strong tremors and more than 700 aftershocks have continued to shake the country since the major quake, sparking momentary panic but little additional damage. Tremors are expected to continue for several weeks. With close to 7,000 buildings destroyed, more than 25,000 people were living in shelters. Some 14,000 security personnel were keeping order in quake-hit areas, with only sporadic looting reported. Survivors in the quake zone were receiving food, water and medicine from the government and scores of foreign aid workers, although Correa has acknowledged that bad roads delayed aid reaching some communities. Correa's leftist government, facing mammoth rebuilding at a time of greatly reduced oil revenues for the OPEC country, has said it would temporarily increase some taxes, offer assets for sale and possibly issue bonds abroad to fund reconstruction. Congress will begin debate on the tax proposal on Tuesday. Correa has estimated damage at $2 billion to $3 billion. Lower oil revenue has already left the country of 16 million people facing near-zero growth and lower investment. The country's private banking association said on Saturday its member banks would defer payments on credit cards, loans and mortgages for clients in the quake zone for three months, to help reconstruction efforts. (Reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb and Diego Ore; Editing by David Evans and Bill Trott)
Kuwait City (AFP) - UN-brokered Yemeni peace talks in Kuwait entered a fourth day Sunday with government and Shiite Huthi rebel delegations still far from reaching an agreement to end 13 months of war.

The delegations resumed "talks and started the plenary session," Charbel Raji, spokesman for the UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, told AFP without providing further details.

Sources close to the talks said on Saturday that the two sides had failed to reach an understanding on the need to firm up a fragile ceasefire in place since April 11.

Ould Cheikh Ahmed acknowledged the negotiations were difficult but expressed hopes for progress.

"The atmosphere of the talks is promising and there is common ground to build on in order to reconcile differences," the UN envoy said in a statement issued late Saturday.

The delegates had agreed to appoint two officials, one from each side, to make recommendations on how to sustain the ceasefire, he added.

But the two sides differ on priorities for the ceasefire.

The government delegation said overnight that the ceasefire should include opening safe passages to all besieged areas and releasing political prisoners as well as those abducted as part of confidence-building measures.

The Iran-backed Huthis are demanding an immediate halt to air strikes that a Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out since March 2015 in support of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

"The continuity of air strikes by targeting roads, bridges and homes like what happened yesterday... affirms that the announcement of cessation of military actions is baseless," said Mohamed Abdulsalam, the Huthi spokesman and head of delegation.

This meant that "the path of negotiations under aggression will not be different from previous rounds," Abdulsalam wrote on Facebook, in reference to the two failed rounds held in Switzerland late last year.

The two sides also differ on the way to tackle other central issues.

Story continues

The government wants the discussions to start with the issue of a Huthi pullout from areas including the capital Sanaa and relinquishing heavy arms and missiles.

The Huthis want the political process and the establishment of a national unity government to be first, sources close to the talks told AFP.

The negotiations in Kuwait opened late Thursday after the delayed arrival of representatives of the Huthi rebels and allied forces loyal to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
By David Dolan and Thomas Escritt ISTANBUL/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A prominent Dutch journalist has been detained by Turkish police while on holiday, Dutch officials said on Sunday, a week after she criticised President Tayyip Erdogan in print for clamping down on dissent. Columnist Ebru Umar, who is of Turkish descent and an outspoken critic of Erdogan, was detained by police overnight in Turkey where she was on holiday. She tweeted on Sunday that she had been released but was not allowed to leave the country. In the free newspaper Metro last week, Umar called Edogan a "dictator" and criticised a Turkish consular official in the Netherlands for asking all Turks there to report incidents of insults against Erdogan in the country. The call was widely criticised and later withdrawn. Erdogan is known for his readiness to take legal action over perceived slurs. At his behest, prosecutors in Germany are pursuing a comedian for mocking him. Critics say Erdogan uses the courts to stifle dissent. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who joined the criticism of the Turkish official's call, said he had spoken with Umar after her arrest. "Had telephone contact with Ebru Umar last night," he said on his official Twitter account on Sunday. A Dutch foreign ministry spokesman said of her detention: "We are aware of this and we are following the situation closely. We are in contact with her." "NO JOKE" On her official Twitter account, Umar tweeted overnight: "Police in front of the door. No joke." She later tweeted that she was being taken to a police station in Kusadasi, a resort town on Turkey's Aegean coast. "Free but under country arrest," she said in a tweet on Sunday afternoon, her first since her arrest 15 hours earlier. Umer's Twitter feed showed she had recently engaged in spirited exchanges with her critics on Twitter. She reposted a tweet from someone claiming to have reported her to the police. Insulting the president is a crime in Turkey punishable by up to four years in jail, but the law had previously been invoked only rarely. Since Edogan became president in 2014, prosecutors have opened more than 1,800 cases against people for insulting him, the justice minister said last month. Those who have faced such suits include journalists, cartoonists, academics and even school children. Erdogan has said he is open to criticism, but draws the line at insults. Germany has decided to allow prosecutors to pursue a case against a German comedian who mocked Erdogan. This decision has angered many Germans, who see it as a sop by Chancellor Angela Merkel to an authoritarian leader. Last year, Turkey deported another Dutch journalist after she was detained on suspicion of aiding Kurdish militants. Born in The Hague to Turkish parents, Umar has been an outspoken critic of militant Islam, first in columns for the website of Theo van Gogh, who was murdered by a radical Islamist in 2004 after making films critical of the religion. Writing in Metro and the critical website GeenStijl, she has denounced headscarves, excessive noise from mosques and what she sees as excessive Dutch tolerance, attracting bulging bags of hate mail from furious critics. (Editing by Tom Heneghan)
By Roberta Rampton and Andreas Rinke HANOVER, Germany (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Sunday he would do whatever he could to advance a controversial trade deal with the European Union in his last eight months in office, but warned that time was running short. Obama has pushed to complete two trade agreements before his term ends on Jan. 20 - with Pacific nations and with the EU - but has run into a growing swell of populist concerns about the impact on jobs, consumer protections and the environment. "Time is not on our side," he conceded to business leaders at the Hanover Messe, a massive industrial trade fair. "If we don't complete negotiations this year, then upcoming political transitions in the United States and Europe would mean this agreement won't be finished for quite some time." Obama is in Germany to promote the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, but the issue was overshadowed by discussions on the crises in Syria, Ukraine and Libya when the two leaders met. On Monday, they are set to hold talks with British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Francois Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on some of the same issues. But first, they had dinner in a 17th century palace with chief executives of some of the largest U.S. and German companies such as Microsoft, Dow, Lockheed Martin, Honeywell, BASF, Bayer and Siemens. Also at the dinner was Matthias Muller, CEO of Volkswagen, whose company has admitted to cheating diesel emissions tests in the United States, a scandal that involves 11 million vehicles worldwide. POLITICAL CAPITAL Obama normally does not sit through lengthy opening ceremonies. But in a sign of the political capital he is spending on trade - and his affection for Merkel - he took a front row seat for an unusual interpretative dance performance featuring robots, futuristic music and acrobatic break-dancing. The day before Obama arrived, thousands of protesters holding placards with slogans like "Stop TTIP" marched to express their opposition to the deal, and his motorcade whizzed past a few more as he drove through the north German city. Obama acknowledged his message about the benefits of trade has not broken though. "The benefits oftentimes are diffuse, whereas a particular plant or business that feels its been hurt by outside competition feels it very acutely," he told reporters. Obama said he hoped the deal, which supporters say could boost economies on each side of the Atlantic by $100 billion, would be agreed this year. But final ratification will take more time. The Trans Pacific Partnership is first in the queue for the U.S. Congress, which is not clamoring to hold a final vote. Obama said that could change after the Democratic and Republican parties make their final selections of candidates this summer. "When we're in the heat of campaigns, people naturally are going to worry more about whats lost than whats gained with respect to trade agreements," he said. 'RIGHT SIDE OF HISTORY' Germany is the last stop on a six-day foreign tour where Obama has sought to shore up U.S. alliances he views as important not only for the economy but also to defeat Islamic State militants and counter Russian intervention in Syria and Ukraine. "Strong growth in Europe is particularly important given the array of pressing challenges - whether it's security, defense, migration or refugees," Obama said. Obama came to Germany from London where he urged Britons to vote to stay in the European Union in a closely-watched June referendum or face being at "the back of the queue" as a non-EU member hoping for a new trade deal with the U.S. Earlier in the week, he met with Gulf leaders in Riyadh to try to allay fears that Washington had become less committed to their security, especially after the nuclear deal with Iran, the regional rival of Saudi Arabia. Obama said he was "deeply concerned" about a surge in violence in Syria, where government forces have stepped up bombing of rebel-held areas around the strategic city of Aleppo. Merkel urged the parties participating in troubled peace talks in Geneva to agree to humanitarian zones where fleeing Syrians could feel safe from bombardment. She and Obama made clear that they did not favor the creation of classic "safe zones" which would need to be protected by foreign forces. Both leaders expressed concerns about ceasefire violations in eastern Ukraine and said sanctions imposed against Russia following its 2014 intervention there, could not be eased if the situation on the ground did not improve. Ties between Washington and Berlin reached a low point three years ago following revelations of widespread surveillance of German citizens, including the bugging of Merkel's mobile phone, by the U.S. National Security Agency. But in recent years, the two Cold War allies have patched things up. Obama praised Merkel for her "steady leadership" and handling of Europe's refugee crisis, saying her decision last year to welcome hundreds of thousands of migrants to Germany had put her "on the right side of history". He joked that Merkel, who lacks his easy-going charm, had a "really good sense of humor" even if it wasn't always on public display, drawing chuckles from the 61-year-old chancellor. Merkel refused to be drawn when asked whether she was concerned that she might soon have to work with Donald Trump, the leading Republican candidate for president, who has labeled her refugee policies "insane". She said only that she was watching the American election campaign "with interest". (Additional reporting by Joseph Nasr in Berlin; Writing by Noah Barkin; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
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DAKAR (Reuters) - Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang is expected to extend his 37-year rule after elections on Sunday which he says will give him more than 90 percent of the vote. Obiang, Africa's longest-serving leader, has ruled the former Spanish colony since 1979 when he ousted his uncle in a military coup. Opponents say elections in the small West African oil producer have been consistently rigged and some have called for a boycott. Voting went ahead peacefully and without incident on Sunday, observers said, although in some regions there appeared to be a low turnout. Casting his ballot, 73-year-old Obiang said that those voting for him "were voting for the continued development of Equatorial Guinea". The country boasts the highest GDP per capita in Africa thanks to an oil and gas drilling boom. But it ranks 144 out of 187 states on the United Nations' 2014 Human Development Index. Equatorial Guinea has a reputation for corruption and human rights abuses, allegations the government denies. Critics say oil money is funneled to a rich elite while much of the country is mired in poverty. A 2004 U.S. Senate probe showed millions of dollars channeled by Obiang and relatives into the disgraced Riggs Bank. Obiang's eldest son, known as Teodorin, who is a vice president and potential successor, has faced corruption and money-laundering investigations in the United States and France that cast him as a playboy splashing out millions on luxury items. "The headlines announcing Obiang's re-election were likely written long ago," said Jeffrey Smith, an international human rights consultant. "It was inevitable that the ruling party would maintain power, unfortunately to the detriment of the people who have long suffered under callous dictatorship and devastating poverty." (Reporting By Edward McAllister; Editing by Nerys Avery)
Malabo (Equatorial Guinea) (AFP) - Africa's longest-serving leader, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, was set to extend his 36-year-hold on power Sunday as the tiny oil-rich nation of Equatorial Guinea went to the polls.

Initially scheduled to be held in November, the vote was brought forward to April 24 following a presidential decree, with no reason offered for the change.

Voters lined up outside polling stations in the capital Malabo before they opened at 8:00 am (07H00 GMT). Polls are scheduled to close at 6:00 pm, with results not expected until Thursday.

Obiang, now 73, has ruled the west African country with an iron fist since 1979 when he ousted his uncle Francisco Macias Nguema, who had ruled the country since independence from Spain in 1968, in a coup and had him shot by firing squad.

The president voted late morning in the race which pits him against six other candidates.

The main opposition parties have however boycotted a vote that Obiang looks certain to win.

In the last election in 2009, he was returned to office with a sweeping 95.37 percent of votes.

Obiang's regime has frequently come under fire from human rights groups for suppressing dissident voices and the media, as well as for widespread corruption.

Equatorial Guinea has become sub-Saharan Africa's third biggest oil producer in recent years, with oil revenues accounting for more than 70 percent of national income.

But the wealth has not trickled down -- while per capita national income stands at over $10,000, more than half the population lives on less than two dollars a day.

The incumbent is running as head of a coalition of 10 parties that includes the ruling Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea.

His adversaries in Sunday's vote are mainly newcomers and figures with very little political weight.

- 'Fraud' -

The Democratic Opposition Front (FOD) coalition of dissident groups called on March 23 for a boycott of the vote, saying it would be rigged.

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Andres Essono Ondo, whose Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS) group is part of the FOD, said numerous "irregularities" surrounded the poll, which he said would ensure that "President Obiang wins with a big score as a result of fraud".

The CPDS, the only opposition party represented in parliament, said it "will not recognise the president elected in the poll".

The opposition condemned the lack of an independent electoral commission as well as the regime's grip on the media.

Another FOD member, Guillermo Nguema Ela, branded the election "anti-constitutional".

Obiang and his government "do not respect either the constitution or the law", Ela said in March.

Obiang has called himself "the candidate of the people."

"Whoever does not vote for me is rejecting peace and opting for disorder," he said at a rally in the capital Malabo when he launched his campaign.

"Many say that they are tired of seeing me, it's been 36 years already. True, but I've dedicated my life to this country," he said.
By George Thande

VICTORIA (Reuters) - The Seychelles is helping an international investigation into the troubled state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), the state's Financial Intelligence Unit on the Indian Ocean archipelago said.

Transactions involving 1MDB, which has piled up $11 billion in debt, are at the centre of corruption and money laundering investigations in jurisdictions that include the United States, Switzerland, Singapore, Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates.

"The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has been assisting in an international investigation into allegations surrounding the strategic Malaysian fund called 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB)," the FIU said in a statement emailed to Reuters.

"Detailed information relating to offshore entities registered in Seychelles and other matters were passed to the competent authorities of investigating states," it said.

The statement was sent to Reuters by Seychelles president's office on behalf of the FIU. It is the first public acknowledgement that Seychelles has joined the widening investigation into 1MDB, whose advisory board is chaired by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.

UNVERIFIED BANK ACCOUNTS

The FIU did not name any entities involved in the investigation. The nation's Financial Services Authority said a search of companies registered in Seychelles would not provide information regarding shareholders or company directors.

A Malaysian parliamentary investigation found that $4.2 billion of 1MDB's money is unaccounted for or went to overseas bank accounts whose owners could not be ascertained.

It said about $700 million was sent without board approval to an account with private banker RBS Coutts in Geneva under the name of Good Star Ltd. The report said could not determine who owned the Good Star account. RBS Coutts has declined to comment.

In February, the Swiss attorney-general's office said it believed $4 billion had been misappropriated from Malaysian state companies. Singapore announced it had seized a "large number of bank accounts" as part of investigations into a company closely linked to 1MDB.

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The Seychelles and other offshore financial centres have increasingly come under the spotlight as global leaders seek to clamp down on money laundering and the use of so-called tax havens.

The Seychelles has repeatedly said it works to ensure the archipelago is not a jurisdiction where money laundering or other illegal activities are allowed to go undetected.

(Additional reporting and writing by Edmund Blair in Nairobi.; Editing by Bill Tarrant)
- By David Goodloe





London-based Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCAU), the seventh-largest automaker in the world, announced Friday that it would recall more than  million vehicles because they can roll abruptly and, as a result, cause damage and/or injuries if the transmission is being used incorrectly.





The recall was issued after a reported 4 injuries were connected to problems with the automatic gearshifts. The gearshift indicator has been redesigned for all models.

The recalls will affect nearly 9, cars and SUVs in North America. Another 5, vehicles in international markets will be recalled as well. The recalls involve vehicles made between  and 5.

Fiat Chrysler operates through two subsidiaries, FCA Italy and FCA U.S., and deals in many well-known automotive names including Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Jeep, Lancia, Ram trucks, Abarth, Mopar and SRT; specific models affected by the recall are -4 Dodge Charger and Chrysler  sedans and 4-5 Jeep Grand Cherokee SUVs.

Fiat merged with Chrysler in 9 after Chrysler filed for Chapter  bankruptcy reorganization. Chrysler came out of bankruptcy proceedings less than two months later with the United Auto Workers pension fund, Fiat and the U.S. and Canadian governments as its principal owners. Fiat gradually acquired shares from the other owners, eventually taking majority ownership and completing the acquisition in January 4 for a total cost of $4.9 billion with an additional $5.5 billion pension liability.

Bill Nygren (Trades, Portfolio) is Fiat Chryslers leading shareholder among the gurus with a stake of 6 million shares. The stake is .94% of Fiat Chryslers outstanding shares and % of Nygrens total assets. Mohnish Pabrai (Trades, Portfolio) is Fiat Chryslers second-leading shareholder among the gurus with a stake of ,787,9 shares. The stake is .8% of Fiat Chryslers outstanding shares and 8.5% of Pabrais total assets.

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Fiat Chrysler has a P/E of .4, a forward P/E of 5., a P/B of .8 and a P/S of .. GuruFocus gives Fiat Chrysler a Financial Strength rating of 6/ and a Profitability and Growth rating of 5/.

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Fiat Chrysler sold for $8. per share Friday, nearly 4% higher than its selling price of $5.99 per share on Feb. 9.

To view the gurus' latest stock picks, visit the Real Time Stock Picks page. Not a premium member of GuruFocus? Try it free for seven days.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.






I didnt feel like I had a choice when it came to religion. Just as a child who has touched a hot stove knows what hot is, I knew three things about what just happened to me after I called out to God in one of the darkest moments of my life.

I knew he heard me.

I knew he knew me.

I knew he loved for me.

Out of the billions of people on the planet and the vastness of space, I knew the God of the cosmos had just taken a moment to step into my life in a tangible way. In that moment he revealed himself as a real, personal and loving God. Thats why I didnt feel like I had a choice.

There was no going back. I fell to my knees and asked God to take over my life because I had made a hot mess of it.

Now, let me back up and give you the details.
Mexico City (AFP) - Independent investigators have issued a scathing report on the disappearance of 43 Mexican students, accusing the government of obstructing their probe and alleging that some suspects were tortured.

After a yearlong investigation ending this month, the foreign experts from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights were unable to resolve a case that has shocked the international community and sparked protests against President Enrique Pena Nieto.

While the mystery remains, the report calls for investigations into the conduct of federal police and the military on the night of September 26-27, 2014, when the 43 young men vanished in the city of Iguala, southern Guerrero state.

The experts also cited medical reports showing "significant indications of mistreatment and torture" against 17 of the more than 100 suspects detained in the case, with some claiming they received electric shocks in their testicles and bags were placed over their heads.

The attorney general's office later said it was investigating torture claims by 31 suspects.

A good part of the 605-page report -- the mission's second -- is dedicated to the "obstructions" that the experts faced from the authorities, which worsened starting in January.

Officials showed "little interest" in moving forward with new lines of investigation and it was "impossible" for the experts to reinterview 17 of the suspects, the report said.

"The group has also suffered a (media) campaign that seeks to discredit people as a way to question their work," said the report by the five-member panel -- two lawyers from Colombia, another from Chile, a former attorney general of Guatemala and a Spanish psychologist.

"These actions show that some sectors are not interested in the truth," Colombian lawyer Alejandro Valencia told a news conference.

- Torture claims -

Pena Nieto thanked the experts via Twitter and said the attorney general's office would analyze the report to "enrich its investigation."

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Eber Omar Betanzos, a deputy attorney general for human rights, defended the investigation, saying prosecutors gave the experts "full access" and replied to 85 percent of over 900 requests for information.

The experts arrived in Mexico in March 2015 with the government's blessing. Their mandate was renewed once, but the government decided against giving them another extension, saying they were given ample time.

Prosecutors say the teachers-in-training were attacked by municipal police after the young men stole five buses that they planned to use for a future protest. Three students and three bystanders were killed on the spot.

The officers then handed over 43 students to the Guerreros Unidos drug gang, which killed them and incinerated their bodies at a garbage dump in the nearby town of Cocula, according to prosecutors.

The experts say there is no proof the 43 students were incinerated at the dump, but Betanzos cited a new study claiming at least 17 people were burned there.

The remains of only one student were fully identified after they were found in a nearby river.

Claims of torture are among the most damning elements presented by the experts, with medical reports and statements from suspects claiming they were beaten after their arrests.

The suspects were usually detained "peacefully," but bruises appeared in medical reports after their arrests and some claimed to have received electric shocks on their tongues and genitals.

One said police put a rag up his nose and poured water on his face.

Betanzos said three officials from the attorney general's office are facing investigations.

- 'Satanic One' -

The report also raises new questions about the presence of soldiers and federal police in Iguala the night of the attacks, but it does not directly link them to the mass disappearance.

The experts were never allowed to interview 27 members of the 500-strong 27th army battalion based in Iguala, which monitored the students' movements and dispatched an intelligence officer who witnessed a clash.

They urged the authorities to investigate allegations that a soldier, nicknamed "The Satanic One," trafficked weapons for the Guerreros Unidos.

Another "key element" that needs further investigation is the "participation or knowledge" of federal police in the mass disappearance, according to the report.

Students in one of the five buses said federal police pointed their guns at them, prompting them to run away.

Federal police were also present when students were detained near a judicial building, while others manned a checkpoint at another location in the city and failed to help wounded victims.

But Betanzos said there was no evidence that federal forces committed crimes.

The motive for the attack remains unclear but the experts said authorities should investigate whether the students were assaulted because they inadvertently took a bus used to smuggle heroin.
An 18-year-old Wisconsin boy was shot and killed by police Saturday after, they allege, he opened fire at the prom of his former high school that same night, wounding two people.



Jakob E. Wagner was armed with a rifle when he allegedly began shooting outside the Antigo High School prom, on school grounds in Antigo, about 11 p.m. local time, police said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE.



One male and one female were wounded by gunshots as they left the building, police said in the statement. Patrolling officers, already on school grounds, responded to the shots and one officer fired back at Wagner, who died from his injuries early the next day.



The female victim was treated for one gunshot wound and released, according to the statement; and the male victim was undergoing surgery Sunday morning for non-life-threatening injuries.



Donald Childs, an administrator with the Unified School District of Antigo, tells PEOPLE that the male victim was a student at the school who is undergoing surgery on his leg. The female victim was his date, from out of state, and was grazed in the shooting, Child says.



 Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.



Police said in the statement they believe Wagner was a lone shooter, according to their initial investigation, and are executing a search warrant of his residence.



Wagner was a former student at Antigo High, a police source tells PEOPLE. Childs described Wagner as "a sometime student." He was armed with one rifle and ammunition and there is no known motive, at this time, for the shooting, the police source says.



In a statement on Facebook Sunday, the school district said that counseling services will be available in all schools on Monday.



"We are thankful police and staff acted quickly together to prevent this incident from becoming a major tragedy," the district said.



The investigation is ongoing, police said.
Paris (AFP) - France's energy giant EDF will give the final green light to the controversial construction of two nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point in Britain in September, Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron said Sunday.

French President Francois Hollande "has confirmed France's engagement" in the project, and "the final decision on investment could be confirmed in September", Macron said in an interview with weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche.

The final investment decision had been expected in May, but EDF, which is 85 percent owned by the French state, announced a delay on Friday saying it first had to consult with an internal committee as demanded by France's unions. This could set the project back for several months.

"The investment in the two reactors at Hinkley Point will be equivalent to a year of investments by EDF. This won't shake its financial trajectory," Macron added, denying rumours France could pull out of the project.

Macron added that the project would promote French technology in the face of American, Chinese and Russian competition.

Hinkley Point, which EDF is to build in partnership with China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN), will be Britain's first nuclear power plant in decades and is to provide seven percent of its energy needs by 2025.

With a projected cost of A18 billion ($26 billion, 23 billion euros), it will also be one of the world's most expensive nuclear power plants.

Questions have been raised about the financial viability of the project as EDF is struggling with a debt pile of more than 37 billion euros ($42 billion).

On Friday, the French government announced that it would plough three billion euros ($3.4 bn) into the energy provider, as part of a four-billion-euro capital increase.
hiker drinking bottled water in desert

As consumers ditch sugary soda, Pepsi and Coke are looking for a new type of beverage to save their business.

Coca-Cola recently said its "sparkling" sales, including its name-brand soda, remained flat, while PepsiCo said that less than 25% of the company's global sales are now from soda.

This seems to be the perfect time to capitalize on Americans' increasing interest in bottled water  especially since Coke already sells Dasani and Pepsi already sells Aquafina.

Water is one of the hottest beverages in the nonalcoholic-drink market, with consumption of water brands Dasani, Aquafina, and Poland Springs increasing in volume from 6.5% to 11.4% in 2015.

For comparison, the amount of Coca-Cola consumed by Americans dropped by 1% by volume, while consumption of Pepsi dropped 3.2%.

coca cola

When it comes to nutrition, nothing has a better reputation than bottled water. That flawless image fits perfectly into PepsiCo's and Coca-Colas hopes for a reputation makeover in 2016, after sugar-related concerns drove soda sales down and negative headlines up in 2015.

Indeed, Pepsi and Coke are already benefitting from selling beverages with a healthier reputation than soda.

Coke announced recently that sales of "still" beverages including water and Minute Maid had increased 7%. Its packaged-water volume increased in the double digits in the first quarter of 2016, outpacing increases in other healthier ready-to-drink options, sports drinks (7%), and tea (2%).

"Over the last 15 years, we've gone from stills being a single-digit part of our portfolio to now over 25% of our portfolio," Coca-Cola COO James Quincey said in an earnings call Monday. "We expect to continue to grow faster in stills ... and we'll continue to look for acquisitions to accelerate our growth."

Meanwhile, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi said on Monday nutritious items such as fruits, water, and unsweetened tea also now make up 25% of the companys sales.

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Pepsi has "been future-proofing our product portfolio, reshaping it to capitalize on consumers' increasing interest in health and wellness, Nooyi said in an investors call.

However, not everybody thinks drinking bottled water is necessary for good health.

"Bottled water is the marketing trick of the century," writes John Jewell in The Week.

Sparkling Bottled Water

Companies selling bottled water, he argues, have managed to convince Western consumers that buying water is a healthier choice than sugary soda.

According to Jewell, the comparison is a case of false equivalence. Bottled water isnt simply an alternative to soda  its an alternative to the much more inexpensive and eco-friendly tap water.

"The purchase of bottled water allows us to communicate our uniqueness and the care we have for bodies and the environment," Jewell writes.

jennifer aniston smartwater

This nutrition-minded and independent sense of self is exactly what soda giants like Pepsi and Coke are trying to tap into.

In 2016, the perception of healthiness is often more important for consumers and companies than actual nutritional value. That's why Coca-Cola is investing in products created to fit health trends of the moment, such as Stevia-sweetened Coke Life and Fairlife "premium milk."

Bottled water is a $13 billion business that, logically, doesnt need to exist. It is also an industry that wont stop growing. As Americans turn away from soda, thats exactly the kind of beverage companies like Pepsi and Coke want in their portfolios.

NOW WATCH: This device turns bottles into plastic string, and will change the way we recycle





More From Business Insider


YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) - About 15,000 demonstrators in the Armenian capital held a torchlight march Saturday to a hilltop memorial complex dedicated to the 1.5 million Armenians massacred a century ago by Ottoman Turks.

The march came on the eve of official commemorations that are being augmented this year by actor George Clooney's presentation of a new award.

The killing of more than 200 Armenian intellectuals on April 24, 1915, is regarded as the start of the massacre that is widely viewed by historians as genocide. But modern Turkey, the successor to the Ottoman Empire, vehemently rejects the charge.

Clooney has been a prominent voice in favor of countries recognizing the killings as genocide, which the U.S. has not done.

"It took a long and hard battle to finally call things by their names," he said Saturday at a forum against genocide, according to news reports. "You cannot deny what happened."

On Sunday, Clooney will present the first Aurora Prize, a $100,000 award recognizing an individual's work to advance humanitarian causes.

Before the march began Saturday, participants burned a Turkish flag and another of Azerbaijan. About 75 soldiers from Armenia and Azerbaijan were killed this month in fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region of Azerbaijan that is under the control of ethnic Armenian forces.

Read More: George Clooney Says Political Fundraisers Raise "an Obscene Amount of Money"
George Clooney urged for the massacres that left more than 1.5 million Armenians dead a century ago to be recognized as "genocide." The actor spoke late Sunday in the Armenian capital Yerevan - on the day commemorating the beginning of ethnic slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turk forces in 1915 - saying it was time for the event to be recognized for what it was.

"Years before anyone uttered the word 'genocide,' there was Armenia. And although the actual word was yet to be introduced, we were well aware of its characteristics," said Clooney.

"Cruelty has always been at the core," he continued. "Not self-defense. Not simply war. But the deliberate destruction of an entire people. It happened to Armenians starting 101 years ago and we've seen it repeated all over the world since. Germany. Cambodia. Bosnia. Rwanda. I've seen it first-hand in the broken limbs and broken families and broken hearts of the people of Darfur. So I've seen what mankind is capable of at its worst. But I've also seen something else, something much stronger than hate. I've seen bravery and kindness and incredible acts of love."

Clooney added, "Tonight, we celebrate the best examples of that" as he made his remarks onstage for the awarding of a new $1 million humanitarian prize funded by prominent Armenians. (The award was inspired by the help survivors of the events of 1915 were given by nations around the world.)

Read More: George Clooney to Present Million Dollar Humanitarian Prize in Yerevan

Clooney presented the $1 million Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity, which recognizes people who courageously uphold humanitarian values in the face of violence, to an African woman who saved the lives of 30,000 children from ethnic violence in Burundi. "Tonight's award celebrates heroism and bravery far beyond what most of us could do in a lifetime," said the actor. "And, our nominees didn't graduate from some hero school. They were just everyday people who saw a need and did something about it."

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He concluded: "In doing so, we honor the million and a half lives that were lost 101 years ago. And we honor those lives by calling their tragedy by its true name. Genocide. The Armenian Genocide. Hitler once famously said, 'But who remembers Armenia?' The answer is the whole world. That's who."

Earlier on Sunday, Clooney joined thousands of other people in placing flowers at the Genocide Memorial in Yerevan.

The Aurora Prize - named in memory of a young Armenian woman who survived the genocide of 1915 and went on to spend her life raising money for humanitarian causes - went to Marguerite Barankitse, from Maison Shalom and the REMA Hospital in Burundi, who last year herself had to flee ethnic violence at home and take refuge in Rwanda, where she continues her humanitarian work.

Read More: George Clooney Says Political Fundraisers Raise "an Obscene Amount of Money"

The new award for people who intervene to preserve lives and advance humanitarian causes in the midst of crises was established by a group of Armenian businessmen and philanthropists and is named after Aurora Mardiganian, who as a child lost her father and brothers in the Armenian Genocide of 1915, survived against the odds and went on to devote her life to humanitarian relief and raising awareness of the atrocities she had witnessed.

The $1 million prize - which supporters liken to a Nobel prize for humanitarian awareness - will be shared among charities that support Barankitse's work.

After accepting the prize from Clooney, she said she would use an additional personal award of $100,000 to care for children displaced in violence in eastern Congo and to set up micro-credits for mothers of refugee children to establish their own businesses to help support their families.

"Love knows no frontiers," said Barankitse, a Tutsu who during violence in Burundi hid 72 of her Hutu neighbors only to be forced to watch them executed when they were discovered.

Three other finalists were awarded $25,000 each to continue their work. They included a priest in the Central African Republic who has sheltered both Christians and Muslims; a Pakistani woman working to free bonded laborers who are effectively enslaved; and an American surgeon, Dr Tom Catena, who is the only doctor for 750,000 in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, where a bitter civil war is raging.

Clooney - known for his Not on Our Watch project to eliminate genocide and a highly publicized visit to Sudan in 2014 - has teamed up with 100 Lives, an initiative set up by Armenian businessmen and philanthropists Vartan Gregorian, Ruben Vardanyan and Noubar Afeyan to commemorate those who helped people during the Armenian Genocide and to "continue in their spirit by supporting people and organizations that keep the legacy of gratitude alive."

Although many nations around the world have agreed to officially name the Armenian killings of 1915 "genocide," the U.S has yet to do so. Turkey also continues to strenuously oppose moves to have the events recognized as genocide.

Read More: George Clooney Says Political Fundraisers Raise "an Obscene Amount of Money"
elon musk

Last week while in Norway, Tesla CEO Elon Musk stoked some rumors about a new business the electric-car maker might dive into: urban ride-hailing.

For what it's worth, Tesla is already in three businesses: automobiles, batteries (it's building a massive battery factory in Nevada), and energy storage, through its Tesla Energy unit. So hey, why not bring on one more?

The problem is that Musk probably isn't all that thrilled to be pushing Tesla in a ride-hailing direction, for a variety of reasons.

In the past, he's actually said car-sharing isn't all it's cracked up to be. While car-sharing and ride-hailing are slightly different services, they both rely on people not wanting to own vehicles.

"I think there will be some amount of car-sharing for sure, but I think there's like a limit to the whole sharing thing," he said on a quarterly earnings call in November 2014.

"There is an important role for sharing but it's not  most things don't get shared," he continued. "People could easily share their house or their clothes or their bicycle or something like that, and they do a little bit with, like, Airbnb or something like that, but mostly not."

Perhaps Musk has modified his view. But I think it's more likely he's had it modified for him  by the likes of Uber and its multibillion valuation and General Motors' aggressive move into the urban ride-hailing space with its $500 million investment in Lyft and the creation of its Maven mobility service.

These companies are outlining a business that Musk might believe Tesla needs to be in  even if it doesn't want to.

Move faster?

Musk has good reason to scoff at ride-hailing and de-ownership: Tesla needs to sell a lot of very expensive cars to individual owners. And now that the Model 3 has launched  and raked in a stunning 400,000 preorders at $1,000 a pop  Musk knows a massive number of people would rather own a Tesla than anything else.

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These are people, it should be noted again and again and again, who gave Tesla a no-interest loan of $1,000 with an indefinite term on the assumption that they might get their car in a year or two.

Tesla Model 3 Reveal

Musk isn't an idiot. He wants to sell these folks a $35,000 car and bank some profits (even if those profits are lower than what he can get on the $100,000-plus Model S sedans and Model X SUVs he's currently selling).

But Musk is also a legitimate visionary and someone who likes to think he knows which way the high-tech winds are blowing. Right now, it's abundantly clear that Uber has tapped into a significant, previously unmet human desire: a superior taxi. It's also clear that GM wants a piece of that action.

Last week, on a call with analysts after GM released first-quarter earnings, CEO Mary Barra reiterated the company's belief that fully autonomous driving will appear first in urban ride-hailing programs.

This is the kind of stuff Musk pays attention to. Plus, he knows that Tesla, which has been around for a decade and wants to manufacture 500,000 vehicles annually by 2020, isn't a plucky startup any longer; it's a real car company that needs to guard against being blindsided by a changing mobility environment.

Ready  or not?

The conundrum for Tesla is whether it can keep all these balls in the air. Uber is a software-and-service startup  it doesn't have to build anything. Likewise for Lyft. GM does have to build stuff, but GM is huge and has been in the car business for over 100 years. It also has $40 billion in the bank and can afford to invest in the future right now, while it's bringing in over $30 billion in revenue every quarter and posting 10% profit margins.

Lyft founders Logan green gm president daniel ammann John Zimmer

Uber's business is relatively straightforward (although complicated by some in-the-trenches battles with governments and legacy taxi unions). GM's isn't, but GM has a century of figuring out how to provide transportation on four continents.

And what about Tesla? Well, until the end of last year, it was building one car in one factory. It's now building two cars in one factory. And all things being equal, it would probably like to get better at doing that, so it can satisfy customer demand, rather than get cracking on a whole new line of business.

But Tesla might not have a choice. This puts the company in an awkward place because it wants to be a pioneer, not a follower. The level of commitment among new players like Uber and established competitors like GM is compelling Tesla to take action.

If it proves to be too much, Tesla does have a fallback. Rides could still be hailed in Tesla vehicles, even if Tesla doesn't wind up managing much of the hailing.

NOW WATCH: We went inside Elon Musk's futuristic Tesla factory filled with over 150 robots





More From Business Insider


Photo: J. A. Hampton/Getty Images

Women who wait until 35 or later to have kids face a higher risk of problems, everything from miscarriage to diabetes to chromosomal problems with the newborn. But as Medical Today notes, that hasnt kept the average age of first pregnancies from creeping steadily up. Now, however, Swedish researchers are weighing in with good news for older mothers: Their kids tend to grow up healthier, taller, and better educated, they say in a press release.

Related: Womans Fitbit Reveals Shes Pregnant

In fact, their study in Population and Development Review suggests that the benefits outweigh the risks for women who delay childbirth into their later years. The reason is deceptively simple, and its on the macro level: The longer she waits, the more improvements come along in society as a whole.

Related: Couples Caffeine Intake Linked to Miscarriage

To illustrate the point, Quartz cites the example of a woman born in 1960 who has a child at age 20 and another at age 40. A lot of things happened in those intervening 20 years, including dramatic improvements in medicine, mortality, and education: the kid born in 2000 is much more likely to go to college than the sibling born in 1980.

Related: Even Babies Will Make a Deal With the Devil

The study followed 1.5 million Swedes, and researcher Mikko Myrskyla of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research says the findings should factor into family decisions: "Expectant parents are typically well aware of the risks associated with late pregnancy, but they are less aware of the positive effects. (Another study suggests that your birth order affects your weight as an adult.)

By John Johnson

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This article originally appeared on Newser: Good News for Moms Who Wait to Have Kids
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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's military called for civilians displaced from Ramadi to stop returning home after dozens of them were killed by Islamic State mines planted in the western city's streets and buildings, officials said on Sunday. Tens of thousands of residents have moved back to the Anbar provincial capital in the past two months, mostly from camps east of the city where they took refuge prior to the army's advance late last year. A shortage of experts trained in dismantling explosives has slowed efforts to restore security in Ramadi, but that has not stopped people from responding to calls from local religious and government leaders to go back home. A spokesman for the Anbar governor's office, which is overseeing much of the effort to restore Ramadi, confirmed the military had issued the directive because "they felt the need to stop the return to ensure that the areas are safe". He said it was not clear when people would again be allowed to return to Ramadi and declined to comment on what would happen to the residents who had already moved back. Ramadi's mayor said he expected the freeze to last for only one or two days while the authorities investigated whether the city was being properly cleared of explosives. The military's joint operations command, which issued the order, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Official statistics indicate that 49 people have been killed and 79 others wounded in Ramadi since the beginning of February, but the United Nations has said those figures are "almost certainly an underestimation". De-mining is seen as a critical first step in returning civilians to Ramadi, which a U.N. team said last month suffers from destruction worse than anywhere else in Iraq after months of fighting that saw Islamic State bomb attacks and devastating U.S.-led coalition air strikes. More than 3.4 million Iraqis across the country have been displaced by violence according to U.N. statistics, most of them from the minority Sunni Arab community. (Reporting by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Alison Williams)
By Diane Bartz WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi criticized U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Sunday for his "policy of fear," and said he was firmly in Democrat Hillary Clinton's camp. "I support very strongly Hillary Clinton because I think she is a woman able to give security to every partner, to give a message of cooperation with other parties, to continue the good policy of President (Barack) Obama" Renzi said on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" show. "I consider Donald Trump a man who invests a lot in a policy of fear," the prime minister said. Trump, a billionaire real estate mogul, and former U.S. Secretary of State Clinton are the front-runners to be their parties' candidates in the November presidential election. Another European leader, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose immigration policies Trump has called "insane," declined to be drawn when asked about Trump. "I concentrate fully on the tasks of the year 2016, which keep me pretty busy," she said in a joint news conference with Obama in Germany. Trump has said that the refugee crisis could trigger revolutions and even the end of Europe. A million migrants, many fleeing Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries in conflict in the Middle East, Asia and Africa have poured into Europe through Greece since last year. Turkey hosts 2.7 million Syrian refugees. (Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
Yikes, it doesnt sound like Cheryls ex-husband Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini is taking their split too well, with the French businessman choosing to set up base in central London, which pals reckon is a dig at Chezza.



JB is reportedly staying in a one-bedroom flat in West London, above a coffee shop, where he is also planning to run his consultancy firm from.

A source explained to The Sun: He could live and work anywhere in the world but hes chosen to have a base in London.

"She just wants to get divorced and move on but JB seems determined to cause her hassle.

It was previously reported that Cheryl couldnt be more eager to get divorced, with the star being left outraged when it was suggested that she had cheated on her hubby with her now-boyfriend Liam Payne.

An insider said at the time: There was absolutely no overlap with Cheryl and Liam. Cheryl and JB broke up in August and thats when he moved out.

"They both agreed to go to Ant and Decs party as friends so that they could bat away the attention. Cheryl is the one that wanted a divorce and she is desperate for it to go ahead.

Jean-Bernard broke his silence last weekend where he lashed out at Cheryl and appeared to accuse her of lying about the two relationships not overlapping.

Whatevers going on, this is one split that looks set to get even more bitter before it gets better
- By Kyle Ferguson





Guru Ken Fisher (Trades, Portfolio) sold out his stake in Heartland Payment Systems (HPY) in the first quarter.





Heartland Payment Systems was incorporated in  in the state of Delaware. The company provides Card Payment Processing services to merchants in the U.S. and provides end-to-end electronic payment processing services to merchants. The company primarily focuses their business on secure payments for the restaurant, lodging and hospitality, education, and Petroleum/C store industries. As of December 5, Heartland Payment Systems employs 4,7 full time employees across the U.S.

Heartland Payment Systems has a market cap of $.8 billion, a P/E ratio of 45.4, an enterprise value of $4.4 billion, a P/B ratio of .4 and a dividend yield of .9.

Heartland Payment Systems has a few medium warning signs according to GuruFocus. The company dividend yield is close to a three-year low at .9. During the previous  years, the company dividend yield was the highest at 7.% and the lowest was .9%. Heartland Payment Systems price is close to a -year high, which may have influenced Ken Fisher (Trades, Portfolio)'s decision to sell out of the company. The company has also been issuing new debt. In the past three years, the company has issued $.69 million of debt.

Below is a Peter Lynch Chart for Heartland Payment Systems.

464644.png

It is possible that Fisher sold out his holdings in Heartland Payment Systems because he entered his position in the first quarter of 4, purchasing ,748,9 shares of the company at an average price of $4.96. In the first quarter of 6, Fisher sold out his remaining ,6,974 shares of Heartland Payment Systems at an average price of $9.9, which is a significant return for his investment in the company over the previous two years.

Story continues

Cheers to your investment success.

Disclosure: Author does not own any shares of this stock.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.






On Thursday, pop icon Prince passed away from causes not yet identified by the Carver County coroner; since then, the entire world has been mourning the purple one. Cities, the media and even lighting on domestic flights took on a violet hue in remembrance of the legendary recording artist.

There's been an outpouring of condolence from celebrities as well, with Frank Ocean and Spike Lee paying public tribute to Prince Rogers Nelson  even President Barack Obama issued a statement in honor of the "virtuoso instrumentalist." Now Lady Gaga has taken to Instagram to share an in memoriam message for Prince and his bereaved fans.

Source: Giphy

"I tend to believe that when we die our souls hover for at least a moment if not longer before they either rest or are recycled into the consciousness of an already living being or maybe a new born baby," she captioned a photo of Prince playing guitar in all his purple glory. "Isn't it amazing Prince shared his soul with us so deeply before his death, and now after we will be replenished endlessly by both his legacy and all that he still has to five from the beyond.

"Thank you for sharing your life with us Prince," Gaga continued. "Giving up your anonymity because you felt compelled to share your gift. We learned so much. You just found God early, he needed you upstairs to innovate in heaven."

A photo posted by Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) on Apr 24, 2016 at 4:58am PDT

Prince was an influencer in music, style and sex-positivity; his smashing of gender norms paved the way for artists like Lady Gaga, who previously paid tribute to the late David Bowie at the 2016 Grammys, to challenge the boundaries of sexuality. Her Instagram post hasn't been her only social media tribute to the multi-platinum artist. On Saturday, she shared a lyric from Prince's "Sign O the Times" on Twitter.
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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - At least 12 people were killed on Saturday in two separate car bomb attacks in Baghdad targeting security forces, police sources said. Islamic State was behind the larger blast, according to the Amaq news agency which supports the group. The attack on a security checkpoint in the northern al-Husseiniya district killed nine people and wounded 28 others. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the second bombing, which targeted an army convoy in Arab al-Jabour, an area of date palm groves on Baghdad's southern outskirts. Three people were killed there, and 11 others were wounded. The Iraqi government has retaken several major cities from Islamic State in the past year, including the western cities of Ramadi and Hit, and slowly pushed the militants back towards the Syrian border. Security has gradually improved in Baghdad, which witnessed daily attacks a decade ago, though bombings against the security forces and Shi'ite residential or commercial areas are still a regular occurrence. A blast claimed by Islamic State hit a Shi'ite Muslim mosque on Friday. The rise of the ultra-hardline Sunni group, which is battling government forces over control of vast territory in northern and western Iraq, has exacerbated a long-running sectarian conflict, mostly between Shi'ites and Sunnis, that emerged after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. (Reporting by Kareem Raheem; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Alison Williams)
Part of a series on the future of the political left around the world.

All along the squat buildings lining the railway tracks, there are symbols. A benign-looking flower, orange and green. A sweet lotus. A protective lion. Hammers and sickles. Some of the pictures are followed by a plea: Vote for this image on Election Day! Theres something beautifully, if unintentionally, frank about these campaigns, meant in part to provide illiterate voters with visual cues on poll day: Vote not for the party, the person or the platform  but for the symbol.

Bengal

Its election season in a smattering of Indian states, including this one, West Bengal, the northeastern state of some 90 million people (thats larger than France or Germany). Here, over the course of April, voting is unrolling in six phases, with seven different voting dates. Like any Indian election, it is either a chance for a massive feat of democracy or an imbroglio waiting to happen. Already this cycle, several election workers have been killed, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has cited the recent collapse of a bridge (which killed 20 people) as Gods nudge to Bengali citizens to vote out the ruling party.

Still fresh in the minds of Bengalis are the 34 years of Communist rule, which ended five years ago. From 1977 to 2011, the left  composed of a coalition led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M)  reigned. But now, walking around the territory that is the subject of deep political turf wars, leftism is starting to look more like a liberal cocktail-party ornament than a movement. Intellectuals will tell you that the Communists bled the right dreams but royally screwed up their time in office; others will say they might not love the ruling All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) partys Mamata Banerjee  the chief minister  but they certainly arent willing to let the Communists take the reins again.

Ozy elections 13

CPI(M) graffiti questioning the promises of the ruling TMC party about employment opportunities in the state.

Story continues

Source: Smita Sharma for OZY

Its a familiar story by now: The left is a sickly version of its former self. Liberals are stepping toward the center, sometimes toward leaders about whom they feel little passion. (When upper-class Bengalis speak of Mamata, one is reminded forcibly of Hillary and Dilma, two other female leaders criticized for being moderate and diluted, yet more pragmatic than the Bernies or Marina Silvas.) From Latin America to Europe to Asia, radical, ideologically driven leftism is dying off, being replaced by parliamentary politics. But that change is easier said than lived.

Its already begun. Here in West Bengal, where anyone who lived through the 70s can recall the blood and danger associated with a hammer and sickle, the Communists are joining hands with a once unthinkable, moderate ally  the Congress Party, as bougie as they come, the party of the Nehru-Gandhi dynastic family. (The Congress isnt the same as Banerjees TMC.) Embarrassingly, it probably wont even work. The TMC will likely keep on keeping on, says Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya, political scientist at Jawaharlal Nehru University and author of Government as Practice: Democratic Left in a Transforming India. Its a battle for the middle: On the right  fringe in Bengal  is Modis conservative Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and on the other end, standing athwart history shouting stop, are those who call themselves the lefts last stand.

***

Night is falling on this village of some 5,000 people in the Hooghly district, north of Kolkata. Its six kilometers by dusty road to the nearest railway station. Even here, in the several-thousand-square-foot area you could call the town square, the pictorial politics continue. Sajal Adhikari, a schoolteacher, is gathering his small masses under the banners reading Communist Party of India (ML)  or Marxist-Leninist. On the next building over, theres a weak little lotus representing the BJP  Adhikaris friend is running for the state assembly on behalf of the far right, and he on behalf of the deep left.

Adhikari is a Brahmin  upper-caste  whose English is minimal, though he holds a graduate degree from Calcutta. He is the kind of Communist who was seduced by the romance of the movement. To understand that, its important to note that, decades ago, West Bengal was a more cosmopolitan, industrialized state. Once the erstwhile capital of the British Empire, it was a magnet for both international and Indian business alike. Bhattacharyya recounts a brief history of the left over nearly seven decades: Following partition, which divided Bengal into West Bengal and East Pakistan (later Bangladesh), agrarian troubles begat food crises in Bengal and peasant discontent.

Ozy elections 2

TMC graffiti in a North Kolkata neighborhood.

Source: Smita Sharma for OZY

Little is better for nascent Communists than trouble among the farm laborers  not to mention economically precarious refugees from the East. Hence the rise of the Naxalites, insurgent groups that sought to mobilize a peoples war against the government, including through an industrial decline that knocked West Bengal hard from the 1960s through the 80s. Adhikari was a preteen during the heat of Naxalite violence in the 70s  the decade of Prime Minister Indira Gandhis Emergency, when civil liberties were suspended nationwide and the Naxals went underground. Their rebellion appealed to Adhikari. First it was the intrigue, he says. Then, afterward, came the ideology.

All the while, Communism was manifesting many times over around the globe, from Cuba to Vietnam. Indian Communism evolved along with the rest of the world; an alphabet soup of parties bubbled up, some taking their inspiration from the USSR, others from China. There were debates over Mao versus Marx. Guerrillas arose and were suppressed. The strange legacies of those years are visible all over India, just as they are in the rest of the world  like the former mayor of Chennai, named M.K. Stalin. Just as the global disintegration began, Indias Communists began unwinding too, says Harihar Bhattacharyya, professor of comparative politics at the University of Burdwan in West Bengal. During the Cold War, he says, nations from Malaysia to Sri Lanka enjoyed international directives from Moscow.

But amid the rubble of the USSR collapse and the Berlin Walls crumpling, the direct line behind the Iron Curtain went staticky. And countries were left to maneuver the calcified ideology of revolution, written by men not native to their nations, into the future. Which is when ideology was painted over by ethnic identity, religious parochialism, pure realpolitik and pragmatism, Burdwans Bhattacharyya says. If you ask him, Communism was replaced by market socialism all over the world, from China to South Africa. Karl Marx would be rolling in his grave, he says.

The most famous of the West Bengal Communist letdowns happened here in Hooghly about a decade ago. One of Indias largest corporations, car manufacturer Tata Motors, scoped out a location for its next factory, to make Tata Nano cars. Industry encroaching on land. It was a perfect opportunity for the CPI(M) to live its truth  except it didnt, instead making concessions to Tata, hoping to attract the factory. Politics happened. For the CPI(ML) supporters in Hooghly district today, the Singur controversy, as its called, sets blood boiling. They speak of it in the same tone as a massacre of their brothers.

In the end, Tata didnt set up shop in West Bengal; it went across the country to Gujarat, the home state of Indias conservative, pro-liberalization, business-friendly political leader, Modi.

***

Still today, it seems as though the left dominates Bengali politics even in its public absence. Pundits and voters alike take for granted the anchoring effect of those 34 years of the left. The BJP has little chance here. Its state spokesperson Krishanu Mitra is also contesting an election north of Kolkata; 40 years old and baby-faced, he makes a case for his party as being in touch. He talks of creative BJP problem-solvers, like the railway minister who replies quickly to citizens tweets, and portrays the Communists as a bunch of old gray-haired bullshitters. Its a nice speech, but the BJPs predicted to get only four or five seats in this go.

So how might the tussle for Goldilocks territory change policy? Say the Congress and the left really do link arms. Itll be a new, bipolar power-balancing game, JNUs Bhattacharyya explains. Communists like to fiddle with institutions, universities and the like; thatll be tempered, he says. And economic policy probably wont involve peasants rights conversations. The Communists will cease to look like Communists; by allying with the Congress, theyll be less able to depend on the party as a kind of proto-government (a la China), there to crack the whip beyond legislation.



Ozy elections 4

Political graffiti serves as a backdrop to half-finished clay idols at Kumartuli in Kolkata.

Source: Smita Sharma for OZY

Back in Hooghly, the scene is one that an intellectual Communist could be proud of. Surrounding Adhikari are the people on whose behalf he will toil, the toilers themselves. Sadhan Mal, a peasant laborer and local political leader, strolls up, shirtless, wearing only a long white dhoti around his waist. He begins hanging the CPI(ML) banners advertising the rally tonight. He takes to the middle of the dirt road with a megaphone: Comrades, the meeting will start soon! Comrades, come to the meeting!

The comrades fail to assemble. Instead, the main happenings are the cars passing through the village on the way to somewhere else. One stops: an open-backed truck packed with women in bright, dusty saris  adivasis, or indigenous peoples, fresh from work; fellow travelers in the struggle. The men chant inquilab zindabad (long live the revolution). The audience includes just a few people lingering in a tea shop, accidental listeners and a group of cops and government election officials, dispatched to monitor and videotape proceedings in case of corruption or intimidation.

A few days earlier, in the Kolkata office of the CPI(ML), Id shaken hands with Partho Ghosh, the partys state secretary, an avuncular former physician who found his ideology through books. He was jailed in the 70s underground years, he says, and describes Naxalites as essentially peace-loving people. Yes, we do have people contesting elections, he said, as though that were not the main event. But we also have other organizations we cannot declare because were doing parliamentary politics. His eyes flashed to the line of portraits hanging around the office  revolutionaries, one after the other, who spilled blood and lost their heads.

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A new trailer for season 23 of Top Gear has been released, and boy does co-host Matt LeBlanc look like he's having a good time!

In the 40-second teaser, the Friends alum can be seen taking an Ariel Nomad on a wild trek in Morocco -- once he finally figured out how to get into the orange off-roading vehicle!

WATCH: Matt LeBlanc Shoots Down Report Claiming He 'Almost Had a Nervous Breakdown' After Friends

"This is too fun!" LeBlanc can be heard yelling as he races through the desert and literally eats dust. Check out the full video:

ET previously reported that LeBlanc joined the series this year. "As a car nut and a massive fan of Top Gear, I'm honored and excited to be a part of this iconic show's new chapter," LeBlanc said in a statement in February.

The 48-year-old actor was a fan of the show even before he scored the co-hosting gig and currently holds the title for the fastest-ever celebrity lap on the famous Top Gear track.

NEWS: Matt LeBlanc Joins Top Gear as New Car-Obsessed Co-Host

LeBlanc and Chris Evans replaced former hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. Clarkson's contract was not renewed following a verbal and physical altercation with one of the show's producers in 2015, and Hammond and May left the series soon after.

Off to Dingle for some gaelic footy. What a day. pic.twitter.com/PZWirF9Jrf  Chris Evans (@achrisevans) April 16, 2016

Rumors surfaced earlier this month that LeBlanc and Evans weren't getting along, but both took to Twitter to deny that they are "at war" with each other. "I'm at war with @achrisevans? That's funny, I thought we were pals," LeBlanc mused, with Evans issuing his own similar quip.

I'm at war with @achrisevans ?

That's funny , I thought we were pals.  Matt LeBlanc (@Matt_LeBlanc) April 13, 2016

Just been on the phone to @Matt_LeBlanc to confirm we are "at war" as reported in The Sun today. He says, "sure, whatever.." Why I oughta !  Chris Evans (@achrisevans) April 13, 2016

WATCH: Jennifer Aniston Remembers Experiencing 'Friendship, Family and Heartbreak' With Her Friends Co-Stars

And frankly, the two have posted some pretty sweet photos from their incredible shooting locales, including the Episodes star's shout-out to Ireland.

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Filming TopGear in Ireland. Great place. Great people. Thanks for everything. pic.twitter.com/JC26E4HJKU  Matt LeBlanc (@Matt_LeBlanc) April 20, 2016

Best road I've ever driven on. Had no idea it existed. A great great day. pic.twitter.com/HfCVwMWtLK  Chris Evans (@achrisevans) April 16, 2016

Beat this !!!

Torbay half an hour ago. pic.twitter.com/qhfnDxqHYn  Chris Evans (@achrisevans) April 20, 2016

The new season of Top Gear airs in May on BBC America.

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Jacob deGrom is back, and his mind is at ease. The same can't be said for the Atlanta Braves when facing the shaggy-haired right-hander.

With his newborn son's health issues resolved, deGrom takes the ball for the first time in over two weeks looking to continue his dominance of the Braves and help the New York Mets sweep this three-game set Sunday.

DeGrom was solid in his season debut April 8, allowing one run with six strikeouts in six innings of a 7-2 win over Philadelphia. However, he was limited to 76 pitches due to tightness in his right lat.

The injury was also timely with deGrom's wife giving birth to the couple's first child, Jaxon, April 12. A form of apnea that caused Jaxon to stop breathing emerged, and he had to be monitored until it resolved. All three deGroms went home Monday.

"It was definitely scary," deGrom said. "He had to be checked into the NICU and they had to monitor him in there but when all the tests came back and nothing was seriously wrong we were pretty relieved. But at first it was a scary time."

DeGrom tossed a bullpen session Friday at the Mets' spring training facility, but he's not expected to exceed 100 pitches.

"He's great. Once they got the baby home he was very, very relieved," manager Terry Collins told MLB's official website. "He's excited about getting back and to start pitching again."

The Mets (9-7) surely share that sentiment with their vaunted rotation back together, despite winning both times Logan Verrett made spot starts in deGrom's place. The starters have a 2.48 ERA during New York's 7-2 stretch after compiling a 3.76 mark through the first seven games.

There's a good chance that ERA shrinks further since deGrom is 2-1 with a 1.32 ERA and 33 strikeouts in 27 1/3 innings over his last four starts against Atlanta (4-13).

The Braves have also totaled nine runs during a four-game losing streak - all at home - and have gone 12 straight contests without a homer - the franchise's longest drought since going 13 in a row without a home run in May 1983.

Story continues

New York's bats are coming around, compiling a .294 average with 23 homers and 5.9 runs per game over the past nine games after posting .187, two and 2.6 through the first seven.

The Mets had a season-high 15 hits in Saturday's 8-2 win at Turner Field.

"I think it's contagious more than anything else," second baseman Neil Walker said. "... Nobody on this team on the offensive side of things feels like they need to carry the load. One through eight we feel like we've got a good chance every time we go out there."

Walker is doing his part with a team-leading seven homers, connecting for six while batting .343 in the past eight games.

"I'm trying to see the ball big, see the ball up in the zone and put the barrel on it," said Walker, who hit a solo shot Saturday.

David Wright has doubled on all three of his hits in this series, connecting for two Saturday with one scoring Travis d'Arnaud and Curtis Granderson. The third baseman is hitting .354 with 14 RBIs in his last 19 meetings with the Braves.

A major league-worst 1-9 at home, Atlanta has a bloated 5.13 ERA at Turner Field and it's now giving the ball to Aaron Blair for his major league debut.

The right-hander was 3-0 with a 1.42 ERA and 22 strikeouts in 19 innings over three starts for Triple-A Gwinnett, striking out 10 over seven scoreless innings Tuesday.

Blair was acquired in a five-player deal that sent Shelby Miller to Arizona in December.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Mitsubishi Motors Corp <7211.T> is unlikely to issue an earnings forecast for the current financial year when it announces annual results this week, due to uncertainty about the financial impact of its misleading fuel economy data, a person close to the company told Reuters on Sunday. The Japanese automaker is under investigation by the transport ministry after saying last week that it overstated the fuel economy of four of its minivehicle models made for the local market, including ones produced for Nissan Motor Co Ltd <7201.T>. Mitsubishi is scheduled to announce its financial results for the year ended March on Wednesday. The automaker customarily issues forecasts along with the previous year's earnings. A spokesman declined to comment on whether Mitsubishi will issue a forecast for the year ending March 2017. The person close to the company declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter. On Wednesday, Mitsubishi said the misleading data affected 625,000 vehicles. It has since stopped sales and production of affected models and seen its share price plummet, wiping out around 40 percent of its market value, or $3.2 billion, in three days. Separately on Sunday, the Yomiuri newspaper reported that Mitsubishi did not conduct vehicle test runs in some cases to measure factors such as air resistance that are necessary to calculate fuel efficiency, when it made minor changes to the minivehicles that were affected by misleading fuel efficiency data. Instead, the automaker estimated air resistance via calculations, rather than submitting new data from tests as required by the transport ministry even when making minor changes, the newspaper reported, quoting unidentified sources. Mitsubishi submitted results of calculations rather than test runs to avoid revealing earlier instances of misleading data, the Mainichi newspaper also reported on Sunday. The Mitsubishi spokesman also declined to comment on the media reports due to a pending investigation by the transport ministry, along with an in-house probe. The transport ministry ended a three-day raid of Mitsubishi's research and development center in central Japan on Friday. It has requested the company supply the ministry with any details related to fuel efficiency data by April 27. Local media late last week reported that the automaker had submitted misleading data on at least one more model than those disclosed, and that there were likely several others. U.S. auto safety authorities have also said they are seeking information from Mitsubishi. (Reporting by Maki Shiraki and Yuka Obayashi; Additional reporting by Naomi Tajitsu; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
I declare for the entire world to hear: there will be no purging or deportation of the Armenians of Artsakh - says Serzh Sargsyan

Serzh Sargsyan has addressed a message on the occasion of the 101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. "Dear Compatriots, Today, we commemorate the sacred memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide. Over one hundred years passed since the Mets Eghern. What has changed? Firstly, we have changed. We were reborn as a nation and as a state. We proved to ourselves and to the world that the genocidal plans of the Turks had failed. Our struggle for justice still goes on. What has not changed? The policy of denial of the official Turkey has not changed, as has not changed its hostile stance toward everything that is Armenian. This is nothing short of a direct continuation of the crime in our times. The Turkish society has partly changed. Today it knows about its own history a little more than it knew yesterday. Tomorrow, it will learn more than it knows today unless the free word and media is not strangled, unless members of the parliament, public figures and editors are not shot. The truth, though slowly, but opens the eyes of the people. Dear Fellow Citizens, Nowadays, emotions and worries, discussions and analyses related to the war actions of April 2-5 have not subsided yet. Azerbaijan unleashed another war against Artsakh. And once again after suffering great losses, was thrown back. The true objective, or rather the true dream of Azerbaijan is the occupation of Artsakh and its cleansing of Armenians which means its population will be partly purged, partly deported. Today, on April 24, 2016, I declare for the entire world to hear: there will be no purging or deportation of the Armenians of Artsakh. We will not allow another Armenian Genocide. We - means the Armenian nation, all its segments, we - means our Armenian consolidation. Dear Compatriots, Today, as we bow to the memory of our innocent victims, we witness the unprecedented consolidation and resolve of our nation to build a free, peaceful, and modern state, a powerful Fatherland of all Armenians where the generations of the victims of the Armenian Genocide and of those who survived miraculously are returning," Mr Sargsyan said in the message.
- By Kyle Ferguson





Guru Murray Stahl (Trades, Portfolio) is a Brooklyn College graduate with over  years of investment experience. In 978, shortly after he graduated from Brooklyn College, he began his investment career at Bankers Trust, where he spent the next 6 years as the firm's portfolio manager. In 994, Stahl founded Horizon Kinetics, an investment firm that focuses on long term investing, by using the power of compounding.





In the first quarter of 6, Stahl added ,44 shares of Texas Pacific Land Trust (TPL).

Texas Pacific Land Trust was created in 888 to receive and hold title to extensive tracts of land in Texas, previously the property of the Texas and Pacific Railway Company, and to issue transferable Certificates of Proprietary Interest pro rata to the holders of certain debt securities of the Texas and Pacific Railway Company.

Texas Pacific Land Trust has a market cap of $. billion, a P/E ratio of 4.45, an enterprise value of $.6 billion, and a P/B ratio of 6.8.

Texas Pacific Land Trust has two good signs according to GuruFocus. The Altman Z-Score is strong with a 6.68 rating. The company operating margin is also in expansion, which is another good sign. The company has a Financial Strength rating of 7/ according to GuruFocus with no debt.

Below is a Peter Lynch Chart for Texas Pacific Land Trust.

The company also has a 8/ profitability and growth rating with an operating margin of 94.76%, which ranks the company above 9% of the companies in the global real estate general business.

It is possible that Stahl increased his stake in Texas Pacific Land Trust because the company has been in existence for 8 years, and the company has excellent financial strength with a very strong Altman Z- Score, which increases the probability of the company continuing their successful business in the future.

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Cheers to your investment success.

Disclosure: Author does not own any shares of this stock.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.






Estoril (Portugal) (AFP) - The patchy star power of unpredictable Nick Kyrgios may be required to add some spark to the hard-luck Estoril Open which begins on Monday after a late injury pullout from Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

The French headliner at the ATP 250 event which underwent a dramatic organisational clean sweep prior to the 2015 edition, withdrew with a knee injury - not an uncommon complaint for the world number seven.

"During the match against Roger, I felt something in my knee," Tsonga said in Monte Carlo last week. "Thanks to the medical service, I was feeling good and was able to play."

With defending champion Richard Gasquet of France also missing with fitness problems, 20th-ranked Australian Kyrgios will be under pressure to at least duplicate his performance of a year ago when he lost the clay final to Gasquet at Portugal's only ATP event.

Local officials were also hugely disappointed when tournament director Joao Zilhao failed to lure Roger Federer into the field after the Swiss lost to Tsonga in the quarter-finals of Monte Carlo, his first tournament back after February knee surgery.

The 34-year-old Federer made it clear at the time that he would not be participating in any small events this spring - he won Istanbul a year ago after pocketing a huge financial guarantee and claimed the Estoril title in 2008 under similar circumstances.

Federer has yet to even decide if he will play the Madrid and Rome Masters events next month prior to Roland Garros. Officials also tried to sign Canadian Milos Raonic, who declined due to his ongoing adductor injury.

Kyrgios, meanwhile has been laying low at home in Canberra before travelling to Europe, after last playing almost a month ago when he lost a semi-final in Miami to Kei Nishikori.

The Aussie has said only that he is "looking forward" to playing in Estoril.

Kyrgios will begin in the second round after a bye against the winner from Spaniards Inigo Cervantes and Daniel Munoz de la Nava.

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A good week on court as he begins his delayed pre-French Open campaign late would also help Kyrgios put some distance between himself and rival Bernard Tomic, one place behind on 21st in the rankings.

Kyrgios will come to Portugal with his first ATP title in hand after winning Marseille in February.

But his at-times controversial on-court demeanour and his ability to focus on a match will remain the huge question marks of the week.

With Tsonga out, France's Gilles Simon takes the top seeding, ahead of Kyrgios, Barcelona semi-finalist Benoit Paire, Portugal's Joao Sousa, Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez and Croatian teenager Borna Coric, a 2015 quarter-finalist seeded sixth.
By Jack Kim and Ju-min Park SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said on Sunday a submarine-launched ballistic missile test it conducted under the supervision of leader Kim Jong Un had been a "great success" that provided "one more means for powerful nuclear attack". The launch is the latest in a recent string of North Korean demonstrations of military might that began in January with its fourth nuclear test and included the launch of a long-range rocket the next month. The tests have increased tension on the Korean peninsula, angered ally China and triggered new U.N. sanctions. Analysts say the tests could be part of a bid by Kim to bolster his position in the run-up to a rare ruling party congress in May. Concern has been growing that North Korea could soon conduct another nuclear test. North Korea fired the missile from a submarine off its east coast on Saturday and it flew for about 30 km (18 miles), a South Korean Defence Ministry official said late on Saturday. South Korea was trying to determine whether the launch may have been a failure, for unspecified reasons, the official said. The North's official news agency KCNA said the test-firing was "another great success," without disclosing the date and place of the launch, which it said was guided by leader Kim. "The successful test-fire would help remarkably bolster the underwater operational capability of the KPA navy, he said, adding that it is now capable of hitting the heads of the South Korean puppet forces and the U.S. imperialists any time as it pleases," it said, citing Kim. KPA refers to the North's military. North Korean state media published a photograph of Kim watching the missile breaching the sea. A second showed the missile flying into the air. The missile was powered by a solid fuel engine, KCNA said, which if true would mark a significant advance in North Korea's submarine-launched missile technology, and be a "huge leap in ambition", according to Jeffrey Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. The U.S. Strategic Command said it had detected and tracked the launch and it did not pose a threat to North America. U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said launches using ballistic missile technology were "a clear violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions." North Korea is banned from nuclear tests and activities that use such technology under U.N. sanctions dating to 2006 and most recently adopted in March. But it has pushed ahead with work to miniaturize a nuclear warhead and develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). FIRST CONGRESS IN 36 YEARS France on Saturday called on the European Union to unilaterally adopt additional sanctions against North Korea if the missile launch was confirmed. North Korea first attempted to launch a submarine-based missile last year. However, a series of test launches were believed to have failed, and its state media earlier carried footage that appeared to have been edited to fake success, according to experts who have seen the visuals. North Korea will hold a congress of its ruling Workers' Party in early May for the first time in 36 years, at which Kim is expected to formally declare his country a strong military power and a nuclear state. North Korea's foreign minister, Ri Su Yong, told the Associated Press in New York on Saturday that his country was ready to halt nuclear tests if the United States suspended military exercises with South Korea. North Korea made that demand in January after its nuclear test. Satellite images show North Korea may have resumed tunnel excavation at its main nuclear test site, similar to activity seen before the January test, a U.S. North Korea monitoring website reported last week. South Korea and the United States, as well as experts, believe the North is working to develop a submarine-launched ballistic missile system and an ICBM putting the mainland United States within range. (Additional reporting by James Pearson; Editing by Bill Trott, Robert Birsel)
Seoul (AFP) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un hailed a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test as an "eye-opening success", state media said Sunday, declaring Pyongyang has the ability to strike Seoul and the US whenever it pleases.

Saturday's launch came amid growing concern that Pyongyang is preparing a fifth nuclear test.

But it was followed just hours later by a North Korean offer to impose a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing if the United States suspends annual military drills with South Korea.

The US and Britain denounced the SLBM test as a violation of UN Security Council resolutions and called on the North to refrain from further moves that could destabilise the region.

The North's state-run KCNA news agency said the test, personally monitored by Kim, confirmed the reliability of the country's underwater launching system.

It also cited the young leader as saying Pyongyang was now capable of "hitting the heads of the South Korean puppet forces and the US imperialists anytime as it pleases."

Still images broadcast on state television showed Kim on the deck of the submarine before watching the test through binoculars from shore and meeting the crew and scientists afterwards.

"This eye-opening success constitutes one more precious gift the defence scientists and technicians are presenting to the great leaders and the party," KCNA quoted Kim as saying.

South Korea's defence ministry said the missile, fired from a submarine in the Sea of Japan (East Sea), flew around 30 kilometres (18 miles) and that the test showed "certain technological progress" in the North's SLBM capability.

"It is believed... that the North would be able to deploy the SLBM weapon within three to four years, or even sooner if it dedicates all its resources on the project," ministry spokesman Moon Sang-Gyun told reporters.

- Nuclear test offer -

Pictures showed the missile, with "The North Star" emblazoned on it, soar out of the water and fly into the sky, leaving a massive plume of smoke above the sea surface.

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State TV also showed what it claimed were underwater images of the missile being ejected from the submarine, using key "cold launch" technology.

North Korea has been pushing to acquire an SLBM capability that would take its nuclear strike threat to a new level, allowing deployment far beyond the Korean peninsula and the potential to retaliate in the event of a nuclear attack.

The isolated country has conducted a number of what it says were successful SLBM tests, but experts had previously question the claims, suggesting Pyongyang had gone little further than a "pop-up" test from a submerged platform.

The latest launch comes as the North gears up for a rare and much-hyped ruling party congress early next month -- the first in 36 years -- at which Kim is expected to take credit for pushing the country's nuclear and missile weapons programme to new heights.

Many analysts and senior Seoul officials have suggested the regime may carry out a fifth nuclear test as a display of defiance and strength ahead of the May party congress.

In an interview with the Associated Press in New York, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su-Yong said Pyongyang would be willing to halt further tests if Washington announced an end to annual joint military exercises with Seoul.

South Korea dismissed the proposal and warned it would seek further sanctions for the SLBM test it called an "open provocation".

"We strongly urge the North to... stop making a ridiculous attempt to link our regular joint military drills, which are defensive in nature, with a nuclear test that is banned under UN Security Council resolution," the foreign ministry said in a statement Sunday.

The annual drills always raise tensions on the Korean peninsula, with the North condemning them as provocative rehearsals for invasion.

The North made exactly the same offer in January last year, when it was flatly rejected by the United States.

North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January, followed by a rocket launch a month later that was widely seen as a disguised ballistic missile test.

The UN Security Council responded by slapping its strongest sanctions to date on Pyongyang.
Hanover (Germany) (AFP) - US President Barack Obama arrived on a valedictory visit to Germany on Sunday to see his "friend" Chancellor Angela Merkel, but their show of unity looked unlikely to silence opposition to their push for a transatlantic trade pact.

Obama jetted into the northern city of Hanover from London, where he warned Sunday that it would be a "mistake" to send Western troops into Syria and cautioned Britain on reduced global influence should it quit the EU.

While his fifth and final official trip to Europe's biggest economy is expected to cover global crises, one of the headline goals is to advance negotiations on what could become the world's biggest free trade agreement.

Both sides say they aim to see the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) finalised, at least in its broad outlines, before Obama leaves office in January.

However Merkel's Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel cast doubt on those ambitions Sunday, warning the deal "will fail" if the United States refuses to make concessions in the protracted talks.

"The Americans want to hold fast to their 'Buy American' idea. We can't accept that. They don't want to open their public tenders to European companies. For me, that goes against free trade," Gabriel, a Social Democrat who is also Germany's deputy chancellor, told business newspaper Handelsblatt.

His comments came a day after tens of thousands of people marched against the US-EU free trade deal through the streets of Hanover, where Obama and Merkel are to open what is billed as the world's largest industrial technology fair on Sunday night.

- Syria troops 'a mistake' -

Before he left for Germany, Obama told the BBC the United States would continue efforts to broker a transition deal between the Syrian regime and its moderate opponents to end the bloody civil war, but warned against "simple solutions".

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"It would be a mistake for the United States, or Great Britain, or a combination of Western states to send in ground troops and overthrow the Assad regime," he said.

Rather, he called for "international pressure" on "all the parties, including Russia and Iran, who, essentially, are propping up Assad".

In the same interview, Obama reiterated his warnings about a so-called Brexit, saying "Britain would have "less influence globally" if it voted to leave the European Union in June.

During Obama's seven years in office, the Democrat US president and the conservative German chancellor have grown closer and Obama sees her, among European leaders at least, as first among equals.

"I consider Angela one of my closest partners and also a friend," Obama told the Bild newspaper. "I've worked with her longer and closer than any other world leader, and over the years I've learned from her," he said.

Obama's two-day visit kicks off with talks with Merkel and a joint news conference.

It will wrap up Monday with a keynote speech in which Obama is expected to frame his vision of transatlantic relations, and a meeting with Merkel and the leaders of Britain, France and Italy.

For Obama, the trip will be an opportunity to burnish his legacy and bolster Merkel, whose fortunes at home have been hit by her handling of the migration crisis.

Critics say her openness to refugees only accelerated the vast flow of people coming from Syria and beyond.

"I believe that chancellor Merkel's approach to the refugee crisis -- and that of many Germans -- has been courageous," Obama said, voicing an opinion heard less often in Germany than Merkel would like.

- Rocky relationship -

Despite the diplomatic niceties, the relationship between Obama and Merkel has also had its rocky moments.

Merkel has backed austerity as the remedy to European sovereign debt crises, while Obama came down firmly in favour of short-term spending to buy time and a way out of the morass.

Officials admit US-German relations hit a low when it emerged that the US government had been tapping Merkel's phone.

But they also point to the Ukraine crisis as a turning point that helped both leaders begin to work in tandem.

Merkel, according to Obama, "has been essential to maintaining European unity against Russia's aggression against Ukraine".

Yet Germany's strength as a partner in Europe has its limits.

"Germany is not of any military use to the United States: it pays too little into NATO and does too little militarily," said Josef Braml, an analyst at the German Council on Foreign Relations.

"Where they take us seriously is as a European leadership power, and an economic power. And in that sense, we are not just a partner but a competitor. That's why they spied on us."
Hanover (Germany) (AFP) - US President Barack Obama on Sunday urged China to increase pressure on North Korea after another "provocative" weapons test.

Speaking after a North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un hailed a submarine-launched ballistic missile test as an "eye-opening success," Obama said: "North Korea continues to engage in continuous provocative behaviour."

He added: "We have cultivated cooperation with the Chinese to put pressure on North Korea. Although it is not where we would completely like it to be."

The test is the latest in a series of nuclear and missile tests by the isolated country.

It was followed just hours later by a North Korean offer to impose a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing if the United States suspends annual military drills with South Korea.

But Obama said: "We don't take seriously a promise to simply halt until the next time they decide to do a test."

He said progress was only possible if North Korea showed a willingness to mothball its nuclear weapons programme.

The escalating tensions come as North gears up for a rare and much-hyped ruling party congress early next month -- the first in 36 years -- at which Kim is expected to take credit for pushing the country's nuclear and missile weapons programme to new heights.

Analysts and senior South Korean officials have suggested the regime may carry out a fifth nuclear test as a display of defiance and strength ahead of the congress.
Hanover (Germany) (AFP) - Barack Obama makes a valedictory visit to Germany Sunday to see his "friend" Angela Merkel, but their show of unity looked unlikely to curb opposition to their plans for a transatlantic trade pact.

Obama will jet into the northern city of Hanover for a final bilateral visit to Europe's biggest economy.

One of the headline goals of the trip is to advance negotiations on what could become the world's biggest free trade agreement, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

Both sides say they aim to see it finalised, at least in its broad outline, before Obama leaves office in January.

However Merkel's economy minister Sigmar Gabriel cast doubt on those ambitions Sunday, warning the deal "will fail" if the US refuses to make concessions in the protracted talks.

"The Americans want to hold fast to their 'Buy American' idea. We can't accept that. They don't want to open their public tenders to European companies. For me, that goes against free trade," Gabriel, a Social Democrat who is also Germany's deputy chancellor, told business newspaper Handelsblatt.

His comments came a day after tens of thousands of people marched against the US-EU free trade deal through the streets of Hanover, where Obama and Merkel are to open what is billed as the world's largest industrial technology fair Sunday night.

During Obama's seven years in office, the Democrat US president and the conservative German chancellor have grown closer and Obama sees her, among European leaders at least, as first among equals.

Both have an approach to politics that is heavily analytical, leading aides to talk about a relationship that is cerebral and without comparison.

"I consider Angela one of my closest partners and also a friend," Obama told the Bild newspaper, laying on the compliments on the eve of his trip.

"I've worked with her longer and closer than any other world leader, and over the years I've learned from her," he said.

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"She embodies many of the leadership qualities I admire most. She's guided by both interests and values."

Today, while the United States has a "special relationship" with Britain and France is America's "oldest ally", Germany has become Washington's "indispensable partner".

He will touch down at 12:40 pm (1040 GMT), arriving in from London for a two-day visit that kicks off with talks with Merkel and a joint press conference.

It will wrap up Monday with a keynote speech, in which Obama is expected to frame his vision of transatlantic relations, and a meeting with Merkel and the leaders of France, Germany and Britain.

For Obama, the trip will be an opportunity to burnish his legacy and bolster Merkel, whose fortunes at home have been hit by her handling of the migration crisis.

Critics say her openness to refugees only accelerated the vast flow of people coming from Syria and beyond.

"I believe that Chancellor Merkel's approach to the refugee crisis -- and that of many Germans -- has been courageous," Obama said, voicing an opinion heard less often in Germany than Merkel would like.

- Rocky road -

Despite the diplomatic niceties, the relationship between Obama and Merkel has also been rocky.

They have frequently clashed, most notably over fiscal policy.

Merkel has backed austerity as the remedy to European sovereign debt crises, while Obama came down firmly in favour of short-term spending to buy time and a way out of the morass.

Officials admit US-German relations hit a low when it became known that the US government had been tapping Merkel's phone.

That has helped make the German public among the most sceptical of Obama's leadership in Europe.

According to the Pew Research Center, 45 percent of Germans have an unfavourable view of the United States.

But officials point to the Ukraine crisis and the downing of flight MH17 as a turning point that helped both leaders begin to work in tandem.

Merkel, according to Obama, "has been essential to maintaining European unity against Russia's aggression against Ukraine."

Yet Germany's strength as partner in Europe still has its limits.

"Germany is not of any military use to the United States: it pays too little into NATO and does too little militarily," said Josef Braml, an analyst at the German Council on Foreign Relations.

"Where they take us seriously is as a European leadership power, and an economic power. And in that sense, we are not just a partner but a competitor. That's why they spied on us."
Hanover (Germany) (AFP) - US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a joint pitch Sunday for more transatlantic trade in the face of mounting opposition, vowing to complete a vast US-EU pact that could spur much-needed economic growth.

After talks in the northern city of Hanover where tens of thousands marched Saturday against the planned deal, Obama said the world's largest trade pact could be finalised by the end of the year.

"Angela and I agree that the United States and the European Union need to keep moving forward with the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations," Obama said.

"I don't anticipate that we will be able to have completed ratification of a deal by the end of the year, but I do anticipate that we can have completed the agreement."

Both sides hope the pact will provide a shot in the arm to Western economies.

"As you see other markets like China beginning to develop and Asia beginning to develop and Africa growing fast, we have to make sure our businesses can compete," Obama said.

Merkel echoed that sentiment, saying the deal would be "extremely helpful" for growth in Europe.

"It is good for the German economy, it is good for the European economy," she said.

But Obama acknowledged there was popular opposition.

"People are unsettled by globalisation," he said. "People visibly see a plant moving and jobs lost and the narrative develops that this is weakening rather than strengthening the position of ordinary people and ordinary workers.

"The benefits often times are diffused."

Ahead of the meeting there was a sign of the significant hurdles that remain.

Merkel's Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel warned the deal "will fail" if the United States refused to make concessions in "buy American" clauses.

- 'Right side of history' -

Merkel and Obama also discussed world crises including Syria and Libya.

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On Syria, Obama defended his decision not to impose a safe zone that could help stem flows of migrants and refugees into Europe that have hurt Merkel politically.

"Sadly, it is very difficult to see how it would operate short of us essentially being willing to militarily take over a big chunk of that country."

But he rushed to Merkel's defence in the refugee crisis, saying she was on "the right side of history".

Obama's trip -- perhaps his last official visit to Germany before leaving office in January -- coincides with the Hanover Messe, billed as the world's largest industrial technology fair and demonstrating German engineering prowess.

Merkel said later in a speech to open the fair that she would throw her weight behind the TTIP talks "so that Europe can speed up the negotiations", as Obama pledged that the pact would lift common environmental and labour standards.

Obama's visit to Germany follows stops in Saudi Arabia and Britain, where he plunged headlong into the debate over membership of the European Union.

The president pitched in on the side of Prime Minister David Cameron, arguing that Britain would lose influence and trade opportunities if citizens vote to leave the EU in a June referendum.

- Trusted partner -

During his seven years in the Oval Office, the Democrat US president and the conservative German chancellor have grown closer and Obama sees her, among European leaders at least, as first among equals.

Aides describe a meeting of minds, two leaders who take a cerebral and analytical approach to politics.

"I have valued Chancellor Merkel's thinking and perspective on a whole range of global issues throughout my presidency," Obama said.

"You have been a trusted partner throughout my entire presidency, longer than any world leader, and I value your judgement."

Merkel was also, by her reticent standard, effusive in her praise.

"What you see is friendly, close, trusting cooperation that I am very pleased with, also because it helps solve international problems."

Obama will wrap up his visit Monday with a keynote speech designed to frame his vision of transatlantic relations and a meeting with Merkel and the leaders of Britain, France and Italy.

Despite the diplomatic niceties, the relationship between Obama and Merkel has had its rocky moments, with relations hitting a low in 2013 when it emerged that the US government had been tapping Merkel's phone.

But officials point to the Ukraine conflict as a turning point that helped both leaders begin to work in tandem.
US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel held a joint press conference after talks in Hannover, Germany, on Sunday, April 24. Obama is on a farewell tour of Germany, his last as president, and Merkel welcomed Obama at Herrenhausen Palace, a rebuilt version of the 19th-century summer home of the royal house of Hannover. The original was destroyed during World War II and was re-opened in 2013.

The two spoke about continuing to increase economic growth and trade in Europe, as well as the need for trade between Europe and the United States.

During a recent trip to London, Obama inserted his opinion into the UKs debate over staying in the European Union. Obama said the UK staying in the EU was important for the United States trade interests. Credit: YouTube/White House
By William James LONDON (Reuters) - Britain could have to wait a decade for a free trade deal with the United States if it votes to leave the European Union, U.S. President Barack Obama said on Sunday in his final salvo of a disputed foray into British domestic politics. Obama has spent the last three days in London urging Britons to stay in the EU as the British public prepares to vote on whether to remain a member of the bloc on June 23. He played on the two countries' close historic ties to warn that from a U.S. perspective, leaving the EU would be a mistake. "It could be five years from now, 10 years from now before we're actually able to get something done," Obama told the BBC when asked about the prospect of a post-Brexit trade deal. That added to his warning on Friday that Britain would find itself at "the back of the queue" for a new trade deal with the United States if it departed the EU. Obama's decision to intervene in the EU debate has angered the eurosceptic "Out" campaign, which has argued that Britain could easily negotiate international deals and get better terms outside the 28-nation EU. His high-profile warning built on other recent major interventions highlighting the negative economic impact of an exit, with polls showing largely deadlocked public opinion may be starting to shift in favour of the "In" campaign. Obama's image, one of the most recognisable in global politics, was quickly added to pro-EU campaign posts online under the slogan "Obama thinks the UK is Stronger In Europe". Hillary Clinton, a fellow U.S. Democrat and the frontrunner to become the party's candidate to succeed Obama as president, also wants Britain to stay inside the EU, her campaign team said on Saturday. London Mayor Boris Johnson, de facto head of the "Out" campaign, heavily criticised Obama's comments on trade. "It is ridiculous to warn that the UK will be at the back of the queue for a free trade deal," he told the Mail on Sunday newspaper. "The UK has never been able to do a free trade deal with the US in the last 43 years  because we are in the EU!" Answering such criticism, Obama said that his involvement had been justified because of the two countries' longstanding special relationship, and that he hoped he had been able to persuade some British voters. "The UK would not be able to negotiate something with the United States faster than the EU," he said. "We wouldn't abandon our efforts to negotiate a trade deal with our largest trading partner, the European market." He said he hoped to conclude talks on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the EU and the United States by the end of his term, although he said it might not be ratified by the U.S. Congress before he leaves office. Obama left Britain on Sunday bound for Germany, where he will hold talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, one of his closest allies in dealing with a shaky global economy and security crises in the Middle East and Ukraine. LAST NINE MONTHS Obama also said he hoped his final months in the White House would see the influence of Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria reduced. "I do think that we can slowly shrink the environment in which they operate and take on strongholds like Mosul and Raqqa that is the beating heart of their movement." However, he dismissed the prospect of sending ground troops into the region to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "It would be a mistake for the United States, or Great Britain, or a combination of Western states, to send in ground troops and overthrow the Assad regime," he said. But the United States and others should use their international influence to persuade Assad allies, such as Russia and Iran, to broker a political transition, he said. Obama further said the successful creation of a global health security infrastructure that can be used to tackle the threat of diseases such as Ebola and Zika, and putting into effect climate change goals agreed in Paris, were important goals for the last leg of his presidency. "I'm a busy guy," he said. "This whole myth of a lame duck so far hasn't proved to be the case ...I won't get everything done that I want to get done, but I'll get a whole bunch done that makes these next nine months worthwhile." (Editing by Mark Heinrich)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Sunday it would be very difficult to see how a so-called safe zone would work in Syria without a large military commitment. "The issue surrounding a safe zone in Syrian territory is not a matter of an ideological objection on my part," Obama said at a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "It's not a matter of me not wishing I could help and protect a whole bunch of people. It's a very practical issue about how do you do it?" Obama presented a number of questions about such a zone, including what country will "put a bunch of ground troops inside of Syria", a country that has suffered five years of civil war. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Alison Williams)
Hanover (Germany) (AFP) - US President Barack Obama made a plea Sunday for warring parties in Syria to return to peace talks and "reinstate" a ceasefire, as he defended a refusal to establish a safe zone in the country.

"I spoke to (Russian) President Vladimir Putin early last week to try to make sure that we could reinstate the cessation of hostilities," he told a news conference in Germany.

That was the clearest indication yet that the White House believes an increasingly troubled ceasefire has disintegrated as regime and rebel bombardments claimed 26 lives Sunday.

The White House has argued that the ceasefire, while imperfect, is worth pursuing and is the only way out of the brutal five-year conflict.

But its stance is bringing Washington and its allies into ever more conflict with rebel groups on the ground, which continue to be on the receiving end of regime attacks.

Pressure on Obama is increasing in the United States, which in is the throes of a fiercely fought presidential election race, and from European allies who want to stop vast flows of refuges.

Many of Obama's critics have called for a safe zone to be established, something that could bring Western militaries into direct conflict with Russian and Syria forces already in the area.

Obama insisted that establishing a safe zone "is not a matter of an ideological objection on my part".

"As a practical matter, sadly, it is very difficult to see how it would operate short of us essentially being willing to militarily take over a big chunk of that country."

Obama has come under criticism for his handling of Syria's war, with opponents saying he could have done more to stem the bloodshed.

But the US president -- who came to power vowing to withdraw US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan -- has stood fast in his opposition to plunging the United States into another ground war in the Muslim world.
Washington (AFP) - The Ohio massacre of eight family members in execution-style killings was a "sophisticated operation" that will require a lengthy investigation, officials said on Sunday.

The murders this week in the village of Peebles -- a rural community 80 miles (130 kilometers) east of Cincinnati -- were "well-planned out and thought-out," Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine told reporters during a news conference.

"This is not your case where someone got mad at somebody else, they shot them, there's a witness, two witnesses," he said. "It is a very, very, very different type case."

Police found seven bodies, each with a bullet to the head, in three separate homes on Friday. An eighth body was found later at a separate site. Several victims were apparently asleep in bed when they were killed.

The shooters appeared to have spared a baby just four days old, who was found lying next to her dead mother, the authorities said. Another baby aged six months and a three-year-old child also survived.

"Those who carried it out were trying to do everything that they could do to hinder the investigation and their prosecution," DeWine said.

Investigators are working "around the clock, 24 hours a day," Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader said. "This is going to be a very lengthy process."

No arrests had been made, the officials said, declining to indicate whether they had identified any suspects or to name any possible motives.

However, investigators found marijuana "grow operations" at three of the four locations the victims had been killed, DeWine's office said, declining to indicate whether they were connected to the murders.

Responding to a reporter's question, Reader said the area had a "drug problem," adding of the victims that "I have never been involved with that family criminally and I've been in law enforcement for 20 years."

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The authorities gave no further information about the sites.

"The crime scene is still being secured by law enforcement," Ohio Attorney General's Office spokesman Dan Tierney told AFP.

- Family only target -

Investigators had conducted between 50 and 60 interviews and received more than 100 tips, DeWine said, adding that they had also executed five search warrants, declining to say where.

The officials also declined to say whether the investigation extended beyond Ohio or to provide any more details.

Seven autopsies have been carried out and an eighth is set for Monday, DeWine said.

Police named the victims as Hannah Gilley, 20; Christopher Rhoden Sr., 40; Christopher Rhoden Jr., 16; Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden, 20; Dana Rhoden, 37; Gary Rhoden, 38; Hanna Rhoden, 19; and Kenneth Rhoden, 44.

Reader said he had advised surviving family members to protect themselves.

"I cautioned them they are a target and I cautioned them to be armed," he said.

"For the other citizens of this county, I don't believe that there is an issue."

It was not clear exactly when the shootings took place.

The authorities were first alerted by an emergency call shortly before 8:00 am Friday reporting blood in a home with two possibly dead men, Reader said on Saturday.

911 calls released by the authorities appeared to indicate at least some of the victims had been badly beaten.

Cincinnati-area businessman Jeff Ruby has offered $25,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in case.

The shootings have shaken residents of Pike County, an economically distressed region of around 28,000 people in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains that is home to an abandoned uranium plant.
The shooting of eight people in rural Piketon, Ohio, was "a pre-planned execution," Attorney General Mike DeWine said during a press conference Sunday, according to the Associated Press.



The victims  seven adults and one teenage boy from the same family  were shot at four separate homes, the attorney general said, calling the slayings "a sophisticated operation."



No suspect has been arrested in the execution-style shootings, but Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader said more than 30 people have been interviewed in pursuit of leads, according to the AP.



"We will be with this investigation, and with the sheriff until we find out who did this," DeWine promised.



Two of the homes were in walking distance of each other off of a rural highway, while the third house was over a mile away, and the fourth located on a different road, according to the AP. DeWine also noted that marijuana "grow operations" were found at three of the locations.



Ahead of Sunday's press conference, the Attorney General's Office released the names of the victims: Christopher Rhoden Sr., 40, Christopher Rhoden Jr., 16, Kenneth Rhoden, 44, Gary Rhoden, 38, Dana Rhoden, 37, Clarence Rhoden, 20, Hannah Gilley, 20, and Hanna Rhoden, 19. Some small children present at the sites were not injured, according to the AP.



Authorities are offering a $25,000 reward  provided by a Cincinnati businessman  for any information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the killer or killers, the attorney general announced on Saturday. Anyone with information is urged to call 855-BCI-OHIO or the Pike County Sheriff at 740-947-2111.
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - One person was killed and 10 more wounded when another rocket hit the Turkish town of Kilis near the Syrian border on Sunday, Hurriyet Daily News said on is website. Earlier on Sunday two rockets hit houses not far from the town center, wounding 16 people. Kilis, across the border from an Islamic State-controlled area of Syria, has been repeatedly hit by rocket fire in recent weeks. (Reporting by David Dolan; Editing by Alison Williams)
(Reuters) - Police shot dead a trespassing suspect who had opened fire and wounded them at a Phoenix-area Walmart store on Saturday, police said.

Both officers were taken to a hospital where they were initially listed in stable condition and where doctors performed surgery on one, said Detective Seth Tyler of the Chandler Police Department.

Walmart had previously reported the suspect as a trespasser and called police again early Saturday morning, Tyler said.

The officers likely would have arrested the man but he opened fire from just inside the store as soon as the officers arrived, he said.

The officers shot and killed the suspect, who was pronounced dead at the scene, Chandler Police Chief Sean Duggan said at a news conference.

Later on Saturday, Duggan said on Twitter one officer was released from the hospital and the other remained in the intensive care unit.

Tyler identified the shooter as Mitchell Oakley, 24, and said he was a transient with ties to the Chandler area.

Police declined to immediately release the identities of the officers.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Diane Craft and Bill Trott)
The Federal Reserve, like most changes to the financial regulatory landscape, came about as a result of a crisis.

In this video, The Motley Fools Gaby Lapera and John Maxfield discuss explain how this unfolded to produce the Federal Reserve as well as Bank of America, which is today the nations biggest bank in the United States.

This podcast was recorded on Mar. 28, 2016.
[Warning: This story contains spoilers from Saturday's episode of Outlander, "Useful Occupations and Deceptions."]

Just like that, the Duke of Sandringham (Simon Callow) has power over Jamie (Sam Hueghan) and Claire's (Caitriona Balfe) relationship once more on Starz's Outlander.

The couple may have believed they were out from under the Duke of Sandringham's influence once they arrived in France, but by the end of Saturday's episode, Claire realized that if Jamie comes face-to-face with Sandringham, he'll expose the big secret she's been keeping from her husband: Black Jack Randall (Tobias Menzies) is still alive.

When Claire learned this shocking realization, she decided not to share it with Jamie, following the advice of Murtagh (Duncan Lacroix). But now that Jamie has learned that Sandringham has been funding both sides of the Jacobite rebellion so he'll benefit from whoever wins, it's inevitable that Jamie will meet with Sandringham in person. There is an official deadline on when Jamie will learn the truth about Black Jack, and now Claire knows it.

The Hollywood Reporter spoke with Hueghan and Balfe about this shocking revelation, what it means for Claire and Jamie's mission to sabotage the Jacobite rebellion and more.

Read More: 'Outlander' Stars Discuss Black Jack Revelation, Jamie and Claire's Growing "Rift"

Jamie now knows that Bonnie Prince Charles (Andrew Gower) has more funds than he originally thought, thanks to the Duke of Sandringham funding both sides of the rebellion, and that's the first lead he's gotten since he arrived in France. How will that change his mission to sabotage the rebellion going forward?

Sam Heughan: He does have a sizable amount of money, but it's not enough to fund a whole war. It's certainly showing him that he's gathering support. But the biggest point is Sandringham coming back into the run of things. We start to see that he's more of a power player and a bigger character in their whole fate, in Jamie and Claire's whole life, and he certainly will, later on in the series, become very pivotal to the whole thing. He's certainly a figure that should not be trusted.

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Regardless of the fact that Sandringham can tell Jamie about Black Jack's fate, Claire still decides not to tell Jamie that Black Jack is still alive. Why did Claire decide not to come clean, even though there's a ticking clock on that secret coming out?

Caitriona Balfe: I think she's scared that he will do something rash. She's just not ready to see him fall backwards. You see him, there's this moment of hope, they're finally getting somewhere, and she feels that if she told him, it would just send him into a spin, into a spiral. She just doesn't know how he'll react.

Claire also realizes that Mary Hawkins (Rosie Day) is destined to marry Black Jack and is Frank's ancestor. What will she do with that information?

Balfe: Claire, for as smart as she is, I think that she doesn't know how this whole time travel works. She doesn't know if you can change the future or what fate is or how it will all work. All she knows is that this is supposed to happen and this is supposed to happen. When she finds out that Mary Hawkins is supposed to marry Black Jack, she realizes or she believes that then, Jamie can't kill him because unless they reach that date and have a child, then Frank won't exist. Maybe she won't exist. Maybe what would have happened won't happen. There's a lot that hinges on the fact that Mary Hawkins and Black Jack will marry.

Read More: 'Outlander' Boss Breaks Down Major Premiere Twist: "It's a Big Reset"

Jamie met Fergus (Romann Berrux), a young pickpocket, and ended up taking the boy under his wing. How is that relationship going to help Jamie moving forward?

Hueghan: It's almost like it's practice parenting for Jamie. He helps train the young boy and takes him in and starts to care for him. It helps that Fergus helps him with his spying too. He's a pretty useful tool, but Jamie also starts to really care for the boy.

At the beginning of next week's episode, Claire gets poisoned, and for the first time realizes Paris might not be as safe as she thought. What is going through her mind during this realization?

Balfe: There's a huge fear for the safety of her child. That's a big thing as a pregnant woman. She's been dealing with this pregnancy quite privately because she's had to put it aside to inspire Jamie to heal. So when this happens, first of all she goes to Master Raymond, who she considered her friend, and interrogates him over whether he had any part in it. But she has her suspicions that it's the Comte St. Germain. She starts to realize that there's a lot of danger in Paris and that she needs to maybe be more careful.

How is Claire's conflict with the Comte St. Germain (Stanley Weber) going to escalate more this season?

Balfe: That will all come to fruition in episode seven. He is her foe this season. He blames her for the destruction of his ship and all the cargo, the financial loss that comes with that. And he's a very dark character. We will find out later just how dark he is. Claire isn't fully aware yet how dangerous he is, but she's starting to. She's starting to notice.

Outlander airs Saturdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Starz.
Murali Pillai, the PAPs candidate for the Bukit Batok by-election, speaking with members of the public on Sunday (24 April). (Photo: Safhras Khan/Yahoo Newsroom)



The Peoples Action Party (PAP) candidate for the upcoming Bukit Batok by-election, Murali Pillai, revealed a $1.9 million proposal to upgrade a precinct in the area on Sunday (24 April).

Speaking to reporters at the PAP Bukit Batok Branch, the 47-year-old lawyer said the proposed upgrading will include a new 3-Generation Park and covered linkways in the precinct of Blocks 140 to 149 at Bukit Batok West Avenue 4.

He said the park will be built with grandparents in mind and will feature a playground as well as an exercise area. It will allow grandparents to exercise while the children can play at the playground. Aside from the park, we want to improve a number of sheltered linkways that will connect 17 blocks to a shopping centre and market, he added.

Murali is expected to go to the polls against the Singapore Democratic Partys candidate, Dr Chee Soon Juan, on 7 May.



The Bukit Batok by-election was called after the wards Member of Parliament, David Ong, stepped down in March following a personal indiscretion.



Informational panels detailing the plans for a 3-Generation Park and sheltered linkways in the Bukit Batok area. (Photo: Safhras Khan/Yahoo Newsroom)



Murali, a PAP candidate for Aljunied GRC in the last General Election, said that he and his grassroots leaders have been getting feedback from residents about the precinct, which was selected to undergo the Neighbourhood Renewal Programme in 2015.



Residents were surveyed by a working group formed under the Jurong-Clementi Town Council (JRTC) late last year to obtain their views on how the neighbourhood could be enhanced. A three-day exhibition, starting Friday (22 April), was also held to obtain further input from residents.



Murali, who attended the exhibition on Sunday along with Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam and other grassroots leaders, added that he is seeking the mandate of the residents from the area in the upcoming by-election so that the plans can be carried out.



He said that other plans for the area will be revealed in due course before Nomination Day on 27 April.



When asked about his preparations for nomination day, Murali said he had been getting advice from friends and residents to have enough rest. Ive also been asked to take some ginseng to help me last through this period, he said.


Juba (AFP) - Heads bowed, hundreds of South Sudanese prayed for peace Sunday ahead of the expected arrival in the capital of rebel chief Riek Machar, a move hoped to help end over two years of war.

After a week of delays caused in part by disagreements over the number of troops and weapons he can bring with him, the government on Saturday issued clearance for the man due to become South Sudan's first vice president to fly to Juba on Monday.

Machar, who will arrive from neighbouring Ethiopia, can bring with him 195 men carrying AK-47 assault rifles, as well as 20 machine guns and 20 rocket-propelled grenades.

But worshippers at Emmanuel Parish, a Protestant church for Juba's Dinka community, said they hoped his arrival would herald an end to the fighting.

"We hope God will bring peace," said Joseph Deng, a 34-year old civil servant said after Sunday's service.

War was "not what people thought we would have to face when we won our independence," Deng said, as the packed congregation sang hymns, with thumping pop music pouring from giant speakers.

South Sudan's civil war began in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Machar of plotting a coup.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than two million been driven from their homes in the conflict, which has reignited ethnic divisions and been characterised by gross human rights violations.

Machar, who fled Juba when the war broke out, is due to forge a transitional unity government with arch-rival, Kiir, returning to the post of vice-president he was sacked from months before the violence began.

- 'We are all South Sudanese' -

The two leaders come from the South's two main ethnic groups -- Kiir from the Dinka people and Machar from the Nuer -- tribes that are themselves split into multiple and sometimes rival clans.

"We are all South Sudanese," said Mary Padar, after prayers in the church, a British colonial-era cinema reduced to ruins during the two-decade long war that paved the way for South Sudan's independence from Sudan in 2011, and since converted into a church.

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"We have to live together because this is the only country we have," she added.

Machar was expected to return on April 18, a date already months behind the schedule agreed under an August 2015 peace deal. UN chief Ban Ki-moon has urged Machar to return to Juba "without delay".

But his wrangling with Juba over weapons saw him miss a Saturday deadline to return, issued by the United States, Britain and Norway, key international backers of peace efforts. The trio warned of the risk of "further conflict and suffering" if he did not come back to be sworn in as vice president.

On paper at least, there is now nothing blocking his return on Monday.

South Sudan's National Security issued a letter granting him flight clearance on Saturday - saying planes could not land over the weekend "due to maintenance" at the airport.

Rebel spokesman Mabior Garang, who is in Juba already, said Machar's return was an "inevitability" and that he would land on Monday as planned, "barring any additional unforeseen hurdles... by the antagonists of peace."

A 1,370-strong armed rebel force has already arrived in Juba as part of the peace deal, and government forces say they have implemented their promise to pull all but 3,420 of their troops from the city.

All other soldiers have to remain at least 25 kilometres (15 miles) outside the capital.
By Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - For some Democratic voters in Pennsylvania, Tuesday's primary election will be more than just a chance to pick preferred candidates for public office - it will be a mini-referendum on the future of the state's downtrodden fracking industry.

Three candidates on the ballot, including Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders and two Democratic U.S. Senate hopefuls, want to ban or pause the controversial oil and gas drilling technique, splitting an electorate in parts of the state concerned about both jobs and the environment.

A debate over fracking emerged between Sanders and Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton over the last month, with Sanders calling for a nationwide ban and Clinton pushing a middle-of-the road approach that would allow it with caveats - a stance that has been criticized by more progressive democrats.

The outcome of the presidential and senate primaries in a state that now the second biggest natural gas producer in America after Texas may reveal how residents of heavily drilled areas feel about an industry suffering from a decline in oil and gas prices.

"Everyone is anxious," said Lois Martin, a sales manager at a store in Washington that sells gear, like steel-toe boots and drill-site clothes, to workers in the fracking industry. "Everybody is waiting for the elections to be over," she said.

The question of a ban on fracking has also emerged as a key issue in the hotly contested race to select a Democrat to run for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania against the incumbent Republican Pat Toomey.

Two candidates, former U.S. Congressman Joe Sestak and John Fetterman, a small town mayor, have called for a moratorium on fracking. The third candidate, Katie McGinty, the former head of the states environmental regulator, has been endorsed by President Barack Obama and Governor Tom Wolf, and is looking for stricter standards on the industry.

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"Now is the moment to really do it," Sestak said about a ban, pointing to a slump in oil and gas prices that has left many drill pads idle. "We cant even pump any more gas out because our pipelines are filled."

McGinty has called that stance a "sound bite", and not a serious proposal.

States like New York and Maryland have already passed moratoriums on fracking while they conduct studies into its environmental impacts.

Fracking - which involves pumping water, sand and chemicals into the ground to free oil and gas reserves from rock formations - is responsible for a boom in U.S. oil and gas production over the past decade that has slammed energy company profits and lowered costs for consumers.

It has also been implicated in ground water pollution, and a rash of small earthquakes in places like Oklahoma and Ohio, raising concerns about its safety.

Opposition to fracking, meanwhile, has risen to an all-time high nationwide of 51 percent, according to a Gallup poll released March 31, from 40 percent a year earlier.

WEALTHY OVERNIGHT

In many of the most heavily fracked regions of Pennsylvania some residents are not ready for a ban. They are looking for a way to both support the industry while also improving safeguards to protect the environment.

Mark Zabilitzky, a farmer with white hair in his early-sixties, said he leased out mineral rights on his property to a natural gas company four years ago in exchange for around $1,000 an acre and a cut of production royalties.

But the company has not drilled yet, and Zabilitsky is hoping for a rebound in natural gas prices to make it happen before he retires. "I am not too far off of retirement," he said. "We thought we would be wealthy overnight."

He said he appreciates Sanders' devotion to protecting the environment, but thinks fracking can be done safely.

David Spigelmyer, president of the Pittsburgh-based Marcellus Shale Coalition, said calls for fracking bans by Sanders and the Senate hopefuls posed a risk to "mom and pop shops that have provided jobs to our neighbors."

"We have people that want to take us in a dangerous direction," he said at a meeting of landowners in South Franklin township in Washington county last week.

(Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Andrew Hay)
Alec Butler was 12 when puberty hit  and instead of bringing either a period or the beginnings of a beard, it brought both. Butler, now a playwright, filmmaker and writer, was intersex  meaning their reproductive anatomy didn't fit textbook definitions for male or female  although it wasn't until the mid 1990s that they realized it. In an essay for BBC magazine, the Canadian artist shared what it was like to grow up with a taboo identity.

"The message I want to put out to my community  intersex, non-binary and native  is, be proud to be mixed gender and mixed race," Butler wrote. "That's what I've learned to be  proud."

When Alec was 12, he started growing a beard and having periods. He's intersex #BBCIdentity http://bbc.in/22SP1WG pic.twitter.com/ufb9TFskpH https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cg0kyw4WkAA6ULf.jpg:large

When Butler got their first period, doctors recommended everything from hormone therapy to institutionalization. "Luckily my parents were outraged and they said, 'We're not going to do that. We're just going to love you, and you can choose how you want to be,'" Butler wrote. Their classmates were not so kind, bullying Butler constantly and passing them notes suggesting suicide.

"When you're in a body like mine, it is trouble," they wrote. "People get upset." Butler identified as female, despite feeling more male.

Three biological sexes: male, female, and intersex. Three.https://twitter.com/johnnyiantorno/status/723243002596970496 ...

Life after school was no easier: jobs were hard to come by, and Butler wasn't fully accepted by the gay and lesbian communities. It wasn't until the 90s that Butler, at the prompting of friends, let their beard grow, learned about intersexuality and, toward the end of the decade, changed their name to Alec.

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While it's "really problematic for people to understand the concept of being intersex," they wrote, it's a more difficult identity for parents to accept than it is for children. Butler hopes the current move away from gender binaries will ease the self-acceptance process for today's intersex kids.

"I like my body the way it is  I had no desire to change it," he wrote. "I like having a beard. I like having breasts. I just like it."

h/t PinkNews
A man was seen being beaten by men wearing Shell uniforms in the car park of a Shell garage in Middelburg, South Africa, on April 24. In this video, a number of men, who are believed to be employees of the Shell Ultra City garage, are seen dragging the unidentified man across the ground, before kicking and stamping on him.

Karin Labuschagne, a South African journalist and the source of this video, said the man had been accused of committing card fraud. Credit: Twitter/Karin Labuschagne
Kiev (AFP) - Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Sunday he hoped to see a Kiev-born pilot who received a 14-year jail sentence in Russia return home as part of a prisoner swap "in a few weeks".

The case of 34-year-old Nadiya Savchenko has further strained ties between the two neighbours as Ukraine fights a pro-Russian eastern insurgency that Moscow denies backing, despite evidence of its troops entering the war zone.

Poroshenko said last Tuesday that he had telephoned Russian President Vladimir Putin and appeared to have a struck a deal in which Savchenko would be swapped for two alleged Russian soldiers captured and convicted in Ukraine.

But Poroshenko sounded more certain about such an exchange on Sunday.

"We agreed a formula for resolving this problem. We agreed on its preliminary terms," the pro-Western leader said during a televised interview.

"And right now, I firmly hope that the presidential plane with my representatives will return Nadiya to Ukraine in a few weeks."

There was no immediate response to Poroshenko's comments from the Kremlin.

Savchenko -- who has become a national heroine in a case that has drawn Western governments' concern -- was jailed in March after being convicted of the murder of two Russian journalists who died covering the two-year rebellion.

She denies the charges and has staged a number of hunger strikes in protest.

A long-mooted exchange of Savchenko for the Russian prisoners appeared closer at hand after a court in Kiev last Monday convicted the two Russians of fighting alongside the rebels.

Sergeant Aleksander Aleksandrov and captain Yevgeny Yerofeyev received 14-year jail terms that they have decided not to appeal -- a move that may speed up the possible swap.

Ukraine insists the two fighters were serving members of an elite Russian military intelligence unit when they were captured in May last year.

Moscow says they had quit the army before crossing the border.

Kiev and Moscow have been locked in a bitter feud over the Kremlin's 2014 annexation of Crimea and alleged responsibility for a war that has left nearly 9,200 people dead.
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian police have arrested and charged a teenager with a terrorism offense related to planning an attack at Monday's commemorations of the ANZAC landings at Gallipoli during World War One. The 16-year-old boy was arrested near his Sydney home on Sunday and will appear before a children's court on Monday, police said. The offense carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. ANZAC Day, April 25, is a major annual holiday in Australia and New Zealand marking the date of the first Gallipoli landings in 1915, in which large numbers of Australian and New Zealand troops fought and died. Dawn services and military parades are held around the country, with the largest drawing crowds of tens of thousands in Sydney and Melbourne. "We have taken swift action to ensure community safety on the eve of a sacred day on the Australian calendar," New South Wales state Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said in a statement. "The age of the individual is obviously a concern for us, and it remains a measure of the ongoing task facing law enforcement and the community." Scipione later told a press conference police believed the boy was acting alone. "The risk from this particular threat has been thwarted," he said. Several teenagers have been arrested in Australia in recent years and charged with terrorism offences, including five young men who police alleged were planning an attack at last year's centenary ANZAC day celebrations. Police said those planning the attack last year clearly took inspiration from the Islamic State movement, also known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. (Reporting By Jane Wardell; Editing by Alan Crosby)
Police used tear gas to break up a protest on Place de la Republique in Paris on Saturday, April 23, after demonstrators reportedly set fire to a police car. Protesters rallying under the banner #NuitDebout (up all night) have been staging nightly protests on the square in opposition to austerity and globalization. France 24 reported that 12 people were arrested during the clashes.

This video shows a heavy police presence on the square, a burning vehicle, and police firing teargas as protesters throw bottles and other objects. Credit: YouTube/Alexis Kraland
Warsaw (AFP) - Polish President Andrzej Duda defied European Union criticism of his country's government on Sunday, accusing the bloc of showing "too little solidarity" with its eastern members.

Poland has come under fire for refusing to take in its share of asylum-seekers under an EU plan to tackle Europe's migration crisis, citing security fears following last month's jihadist attacks in Brussels.

The conservative government has also faced criticism over controversial reforms that prompted the EU to launch a probe in January to determine if proposed changes to Poland's constitutional court violate the bloc's democracy rules.

"The Union must be more decisive. The EU is strong, but weak on the level of decision-making and that's its problem today," Duda, a member of the ruling right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, told PAP news agency.

"It is possible that it comes from the fact that the EU shows too little solidarity," he added.

"There is not enough solidarity in understanding the situation of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe

"Put differently, the countries that recently joined the EU are seeking to catch up with the rich countries of the West.

"We are seeking to raise the standard of living for young people so that they don't have to seek work abroad to have a proper salary and to live normally."

In an apparent reference to the Nordstream 2 pipeline which will bring Russian gas to Western Europe, Duda also called on the EU to understand "the issues important to the sovereignty of states, such as energy policy and that of raw materials".

Poland has been critical of the project, which it claims undermines the EU in the face of Russian aggression and is also seen as a challenge to the country's coal industry.

But Duda said that he, like "the great majority of Poles", valued the EU greatly.

"I support the EU as a union of nation-states that cooperates especially in the economic field, without interfering in matters that should remain in the area of national sovereignty," he said.

Since the PiS swept to power in October's elections, relations have chilled between Poland and EU institutions, which have expressed alarm over Polish reforms to the constitutional court and public media.
Chanhassen (United States) (AFP) - Loved ones cremated pop icon Prince with his final resting place to remain a secret, two days after his sudden death stunned the music world.

The 57-year-old "Purple Rain" creator, one of the most acclaimed and unique artists of his generation, will eventually be honored with a concert, his spokeswoman said.

The spokeswoman, Anna Meacham, said that Prince was cremated on Saturday and that his ashes' "final storage will remain private."

"Prince was celebrated by a small group of his most beloved: family, friends and his musicians, in a private, beautiful ceremony to say a loving goodbye," she said in a statement, with a faint echo of the opening lines to "Let's Go Crazy."

"An announcement will be made at a future date for a musical celebration."

The pop legend, renowned for his stamina and prolific musical output, died suddenly Thursday at his Paisley Park estate near his birthplace of Minneapolis.

While the place of the cremation was unclear, the private service appeared to take place at Paisley Park which was full of commotion on Saturday, with an AFP photographer counting around a dozen cars parked inside its gates in the suburb of Chanhassen.

Two staff members came out with a large vase of flowers in Prince's signature purple, some of which they pulled out to give to fans who applauded in gratitude.

Maurice Phillips, Prince's brother-in-law who is married to his sister Tyka, also took the time to come out to chat and take pictures with the fans.

- Cause of death mysterious -

The cause of Prince's death remains a mystery.

The spokeswoman, in line with statements from authorities, said that at least four weeks would be needed for results of the autopsy conducted before the cremation.

Prince had been hospitalized a week earlier complaining of flu-like symptoms after his plane made an emergency landing on his way back from Atlanta where he performed what would be his final full-fledged concerts.

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Authorities plan in the coming days to search Paisley Park -- Prince's sprawling headquarters that was home to a state-of-the-art studio and vaults of vast unreleased work.

But Carver County Sheriff Jim Olson told reporters Friday that the move was routine, with no indication of suicide or foul play.

The celebrity news site TMZ has reported that Prince's earlier hospitalization may have been triggered by an overdose of an opioid-based painkiller.

Prince was legendary for his marathon performances, which would often last until dawn, but had hip surgery several years ago and suffered epilepsy as a child.

- Tributes pour in -

Prince, despite his personal eccentricities, was widely hailed as one of the greatest musicians of his generation, creating a unique brand of danceable funk and mastering the guitar so extensively that he could play it behind his back or blindfolded.

Tributes have come from throughout the music world and beyond.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Friday came out to "Let's Go Crazy" on a campaign stop in Pennsylvania, calling Prince "extraordinary" and an "American original."

US President Barack Obama, who invited Prince to play at the White House last year, earlier hailed him as "one of the most gifted and prolific musicians of our time."

Prince became the sudden star of the second weekend of Coachella, the premier music festival which takes place in the California desert.

LCD Soundsystem, the influential New York electronic band that reunited for Coachella, performed a cover of Prince's early funk hit "Controversy" during the group's headlining set late Friday.

The English pop singer Ellie Goulding sang "When Doves Cry" at Coachella while Mavis Staples, the 76-year-old R&B great once signed to Prince's label, broke down with emotion before offering a rendition of "Purple Rain."

Saturday Night Live, the weekly comedy show, planned a special "Goodnight Sweet Prince" episode featuring some of its frequent skits about the entertainer as well as his performances.

Prince himself was no stranger to tribute songs. Videos posted by fans revealed that at his final show in Atlanta he performed "Heroes" by David Bowie, another music legend who died several months earlier.
London (AFP) - A rare handwritten letter from a young Queen Elizabeth II telling the story of her romance with Prince Philip before their 1947 wedding has been sold at auction.

The note, penned when she was a 21-year-old princess, recounts the early stages of their relationship from their rare meetings in wartime to the London dances they attended together.

Queen Elizabeth, who celebrated her 90th birthday on Thursday, went on to have four children with Philip, 94. The couple are now great-grandparents.

The two-page letter, written to the author Betty Shew, was bought for A14,400 ($20,750, 18,475 euros) by a private collector from Britain when it was sold at Chippenham Auction Rooms in southwest England on Saturday.

Shew was writing a book called "Royal Wedding" as a souvenir of the marriage, and the young princess agreed to share details of her relationship with her naval officer fiance, who was born a prince of Greece and Denmark.

"The first time I remember meeting Philip was at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, in July 1939, just before the war. (We may have met before at the coronation or the Duchess of Kent's wedding, but I don't remember)," the future monarch wrote.

"I was 13 years of age and he was 18 and a cadet just due to leave. He joined the Navy at the outbreak of war, and I only saw him very occasionally when he was on leave -- I suppose about twice in three years.

"Then when his uncle and aunt, Lord and Lady Mountbatten, were away he spent various weekends away with us at Windsor. Then he went to the Pacific and Far East for two years as everyone there will know."

She said the wedding ring was to be made of Welsh gold and her fiance designed it himself.

"I don't know the history of the stone, except that it is a very fine old cutting. It was given to me not long before the engagement was announced."

She told of how Prince Philip danced with her at two London nightclubs and spent six weeks with the royals at Balmoral, their Scottish private retreat.

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"We both love dancing -- we have danced at Ciro's and Quaglino's as well at parties," she wrote.

"We first started seeing more of each other when Philip went for a two-year job to the R.N Petty Officers School at Corsham -- before that we hardly knew each other.

"He'd spend weekends with us, and when the school was closed he spent six weeks at Balmoral -- it was great luck his getting a short job first them! Elizabeth."
We often hear that Americans know and care little about history. Recent events suggest this may not always be the case. In a Presidential campaign season, with candidates calling for a great wall to segregate the rest of the Americas from the U.S. and to patrol the neighborhoods of a particular religious group, it is uplifting to see the U.S. Treasury moved by public pressure to reverse an earlier decision and keep its own founder, Alexander Hamilton, on the $10 bill.

It has done more. Harriet Tubman, a black woman who fought against slavery and served on the Union side, will replace slave-owner and "indian slayer" Andrew Jackson on the $20. In a sense, this is stunning because it took so long for either a woman or a non-white to find a place here, but also because it happened now, during a campaign season when bigotry and intolerance and rage are so vividly on display.

At a time when some of the uglier sides of U.S. historical sensibilities are in view, the decision to admit Tubman among the iconic founders and preservers of the nation seems not just excellent and well-timed, but something more -- call it heroic, in lower case. Harriet Tubman is not the first woman to so appear: in 1886, Martha Washington emerged on a $1 note. Tubman, however, is no symbol of maternalism, and first First Lady Martha Washington, truth be told, owned slaves from an earlier marriage who she did not set free at her death, as her husband had done. Tubman will now pass before the eyes and touch the hands of millions of Americans each day.

But let's return to Hamilton. The back of his bill will be amended to show more women, five leaders for women's suffrage plus a view of the key 1913 parade in Washington, D.C. Those who have studied the life and mind of Hamilton with an equitable eye would agree that, had he lived another 110 years, he would likely have marched with them. He would also be proud to see them "have his back" today, and that he had theirs.

The decision to keep him on the $10 bill, however, did not result from an attack of historical awareness. Rather, it was urged by a surge of angry Americans at the original announcement that he would be removed. These were not "fans" or "afficionados" of Hamilto, however, as unfortunately reported elsewhere in the media. They were educated people, including professional historians, who understood the travesty it represented. Another potent vector was the combined voice of those who have seen the musical, Hamilton, which has been a spectacular success. This may delight some and horrify others, but it defines a fact of the historical moment.

Should we lament that a Broadway show played such a role? Not at all. Forms of popular culture have been essential to expanding awareness over the past two centuries. Consider the enduring image of "the melting pot," for over a century the paean of American singularity in a troubled modern world. Like Hamilton, it was a play. Set in New York City, The Melting Pot (1908) was written by Israel Zangwill, a British Jew, who depicted a kind of Romeo and Juliet story of ethnic divisions overcome in a new land. Only a few decades earlier, Emma Lazarus, an American Jewish author also largely unknown today, wrote a sonnet titled "The New Colossus" (1883) that was sold at auction with other literary works to help raise funds for a pedestal on the Statue of Liberty. The poem proved successful enough to be inscribed in the pedestal itself, but also in the American imagination, via the words: "Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore." So Hamilton has its own forebearers, we might say.

In the opinion of many, Alexander Hamilton deserves an eternal place on U.S. currency. His ideas, after all, not those of Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, or Madison, saved the infant United States from bankruptcy and economic misery, while setting it on a path towards a great ascent. More Americans than ever before, it seems, are now aware of Hamilton's greatness and his impoverished, immigrant origins. For most of our history, however, his image was quite different.

During the first half of the 19th century, in fact, he was routinely vilified. Jefferson outlived him by more than two decades (avoiding any duels), and both he and his Republican Party, which held the presidency for nearly 40 years after Hamilton's death, did not remain entirely silent about their ideological nemesis. Hamilton was largely deformed into a spokesperson for elitism, even monarchy. Jackson himself welcomed Aaron Burr to Tennessee as Hamilton's executioner and later used much of his power and time as chief executive to crush the National Bank, Hamilton's main institutional idea.

The image of elitism never wholly evaporated. The Gilded Age saw Hamilton held aloft as a hero of wealth and privilege. Then, through much of the 20th century, as Jefferson's star found its zenith, Hamilton's largely sank out of sight. His rise today represents a kind of ressurection, long overdo.

Thanks to Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of the Broadway show (inspired by Ron Chernow's wonderful biography), Jacob Lew, Treasury Secretary, and many motivated Americans who voted with email and cellphone to keep Hamilton's face before us on the $10, he will be with us well into the future. As with Harriet Tubman, that reflects a better, truer history for all.

Scott L. Montgomery is a lecturer in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. Most recently, he is co-author with Daniel Chirot of the book, Shape of the New: Four Ideas that Built the Modern World.

See original article on Fortune.com

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Raffi Hovannisian: We need to unite around our state and our soldiers (video)

We need to unite around our state, our soldiers who are defending our homeland, Chairman of the Heritage Party, Raffi Hovannisian, said at the Tsitsernakaberd memorial where he went on Sunday to pay respects to the 1.5 million Armenians massacred by the Ottoman Turks. We need to find urgent solutions to the current situation which caused unprecedented human and territorial losses. The man responsible for this situation lives in Yerevan. Perhaps, it is not the best time to remember him today, but it is a necessity. We cannot expect justice and reparations for the Armenian Genocide, unless we settle our domestic issues. This is our public demand. Anyone who agrees to the Madrid proposals or provisions of other anti-Armenian documents will have to resign and participate in the formation of an interim government, Mr Hovannisian said in his speech. In reply to A1+ whether he was addressing his words to Serzh Sargsyan, the Heritage leader said, There is no need to give names. He knows what he is supposed to do.
LONDON (Reuters) - Struggling British department stores group BHS is expected to go into administration, possibly as early as Monday, two sources with knowledge of the company's plans told Reuters on Sunday. Administration, a form of creditor protection, would endanger nearly 8,000 jobs and another 3,000 contractors working with the 88-year-old firm, which has 164 stores. If BHS does go into administration it would be Britain's most high profile high street collapse since mobile phone retailer Phones4U in September 2014. BHS, hit hard by intense competition in the UK retail sector, had in March won the support of its creditors for a rescue plan that gave the group big cuts in its rent bill. However, BHS has since failed to raise the additional funds it required, particularly from planned asset sales. The stores group was acquired for one pound in March 2015 by Retail Acquisitions, a collection of little known investors, from billionaire Topshop owner Philip Green. Green had bought it for 200 million pounds ($290 million) in 2000. One of the sources with knowledge of BHS's plans said last gasp talks with Sports Direct, Britain's biggest sportswear retailer, to engineer a rescue were unlikely to succeed, making administration inevitable. Administration would mean BHS's pension deficit, reportedly some 571 million pounds ($824 million), being bailed out by the government-backed Pension Protection Fund (PPF). British shopworkers' union Usdaw said it was very concerned about the situation at BHS. "We are seeking urgent clarification from the company and urging them to change their attitude to trade unions and begin a dialogue with us at this difficult and worrying time for staff," said Usdaw national officer David Gill. BHS declined to comment. Sports Direct could not be immediately reached for comment. (Reporting by William James and James Davey; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)
The Revenant just keeps on winning.

The Leonardo DiCaprio-starrer, which counts three Oscars among its many trophies, also took the top prize for outstanding locations in a period film at the 3rd annual Location Managers Guild International Awards, which honor the contributions of location pros and film commissions.

The pic, helmed by Alejandro G. Inarritu, became famous  some would say notorious  for its long, difficult shoot in frigid locations in Canada and Patagonia.

Sicario, directed by Denis Villeneuve and shot along the embattled border between the U.S. and Mexico, won for outstanding locations in a contemporary film.

In television, season 5 of HBOs Game of Thrones was honored for outstanding locations in a period TV series and Netflixs Sense8 took the trophy for outstanding locations in a contemporary series.

The LGMI Awards ceremony took place at the Alex Theatre in Glendale before an audience of 500, including LMGI members, industry execs and press. Location manager David Doumeng served as host.

Also at the ceremony, actor Tony Revolori (The Grand Budapest Hotel) presented director Wes Anderson with the Eva Monley Award. Jeff Goldblum accepted the award on Andersons behalf.

Actress Amy Brenneman (The Leftovers) and director/executive producer Brad Silberling (Jane the Virgin) were honored with LMGIs Humanitarian Award for their work with numerous charities and their commitment to social responsibility.

Director Michael Mann presented the Lifetime Achievement Award to supervising location manager Janice Polley (Insurgent)

Teamsters Local 399 head Steve Dayan (City of Angels) was presented with the Trailblazer Award by California Film Commission executive director Amy Lemisch and location manager Ilt Jones (Transformers).

Additional presenters included actor Christopher Guest (The Princess Bride), actress/director Melanie Mayron (Jane the Virgin), actress/comedienne Milana Vayntrub (Life Happens), actress Jillian Armenante (Fresh Off the Boat) and Association of Film Commissioners International executive director Kevin Clark.

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A complete list of honorees:

Eva Monley Award

WES ANDERSON

Humanitarian Award

AMY BRENNEMAN and BRAD SILBERLING

Lifetime Achievement Award

JANICE POLLEY, Location Manager

Trailblazer Award

STEVE DAYAN, Head of Local 399 Teamsters

LMGI AWARDS WINNERS:

Outstanding Locations in a Period Film

THE REVENANT

Location Managers: ROBIN MOUNSEY and BRUCE BROWNSTEIN

Outstanding Locations in a Contemporary Film

SICARIO

Location Managers: S. TODD CHRISTENSEN and SHANI ORONA

Outstanding Locations in a Period Television Series

GAME OF THRONES, Season 5

Location Managers: ROBERT BOAKE and TATE ARAEZ

Outstanding Locations in a Contemporary Television Series

SENSE8

Location Managers: MARCO GIACALONE and BILL BOWLING

Outstanding Film Commission

FilmL.A. (BOSCH)

Outstanding Locations in a Commercial

CHEVY: Anthem

Location Managers: SEAN ALQUIST (Los Angeles), ART CHALERMPHAN (Bangkok),

DANIEL FONTOURA (Rio), JIKESH SHAH (Kolkata)

Producers of this years LMGI Awards were co-chairs Robin Citrin and LMGI 1st VP Lori Balton.

Pictured above: Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant

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(Reuters) - A Cincinnati-area businessman on Saturday offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to a suspect or suspects in the execution-style killings of eight members of the same family who were shot dead in four homes on Friday.

The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and local law enforcement have interviewed witnesses and executed search warrants, according to a joint statement by the Ohio attorney general and the Pike County sheriff.

"The investigation is still in its early stages, and no arrests have been made," the statement said.

Jeff Ruby, the owner of high-end steakhouses, has offered $25,000 for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible, officials said.

Investigators have yet to disclose a suspected motive in the massacre of the Rhoden family in Pike County, in the Appalachian region of south-central Ohio.

State and local officials said in a joint statement it would take until the end of this weekend to conclude autopsies on the eight people slain.

All the victims were shot in the head, including the mother of a days-old infant.

The baby, a 6-month-old and a 3-year-old all survived the shootings. The mother of the newborn was in bed with her baby when she was killed, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.

"I can't believe how anyone could kill a mother with her four-day-old baby in her arms," Phil Fulton, pastor of the Union Hill Church in Peebles, the town where the shootings took place, told CNN.

Authorities on Saturday identified those killed as: Hannah Gilley, 20; Christopher Rhoden Sr, 40; Christopher Rhoden Jr, 16; Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden, 20; Dana Rhoden, 37; Gary Rhoden, 38; Hanna Rhoden, 19; and Kenneth Rhoden, 44.

Officials also have released recordings of two phone calls from people reporting killings at separate locations to the Pike County Sheriff's Office.

"There's blood all over the house. My brother-in-law's in the bedroom. It looks like someone has beat the hell out of him," says one distressed woman, who then reported seeing another body on the floor.

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"I think they're both dead," she says.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said on Friday he was unsure if there was one perpetrator or more.

"Reports we are receiving from Peebles are tragic beyond comprehension," Ohio governor and Republican presidential hopeful John Kasich said on Twitter. "We'll continue to monitor this closely and the state will work with local law enforcement however we can."

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta in New York and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles,; Editing by Diane Craft and Andrew Hay)
Rome (AFP) - Oil slicks off the Italian Riviera have largely dissolved and no longer pose a threat to the region's beaches, the official overseeing the clean-up operation said Sunday.

"The situation in the waters between Genoa and the French border has significantly improved," said Giovanni Pettorino, Genoa's Commander of Port.

"Thanks to the weather conditions (heavy rain) the slicks that we were able to see from satellite photographs in recent days have largely dissolved or have been dispersed into smaller ones through treatment," Pettorino told Italy's Sky TG24 news channel.

"They will not reach France. The situation seems to be under control."

The improvement enabled local authorities to partially lift a state of emergency declared on Saturday after the coastguard spotted one slick that was two kilometres (1.25 miles) long and 500 metres (1600 feet) wide.

The alert, which remained in place for Genoa's port area, triggered fears among tourist businesses in a region which attracts 75 million visitors a year.

The oil slicks formed after an April 17 pipeline leak at an ageing refinery near Genoa which resulted in 680,000 litres of crude spilling into the Polcevera river, which flows into the Mediterranean at Genoa.

"It was not a disaster but this was a serious incident that should not have happened," environmental chemist Federico Valerio told Italy's La Repubblica newspaper.

"The prevention systems in place failed. The biggest damage will be to the river where the leak happened. The toxic impact of the oil will have repercussions on its ecosystem for months if not several years.

"And we will have to keep an eye on maritime micro-organisms because it is inevitable that a certain number of hydrocarbons will get into the food chain through mussels and fish."
Washington (AFP) - White House presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said many of his primary losses to fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton took place because "poor people don't vote," in interview excerpts released Saturday.

Sanders has centered much of his presidential campaign on fighting income inequality, but he lost to Clinton in 16 of 17 US states with the biggest pay gaps.

When asked during an interview with NBC television's "Meet the Press" program about why he lost in such places, he quipped: "Well, because poor people don't vote."

"I mean, that's just a fact. That's a sad reality of American society."

But Sanders insisted that "we have to transform" that trend.

Excerpts of the interview were provided on Saturday, a day before they were due to air.

Sanders noted that he had succeeded in getting many young voters on board, but has had a harder time getting his message across to lower income earners.

He claimed that "80 percent of poor people did not vote" in 2014 elections.

US Census data on those elections found that just 24.5 percent of US citizens aged 18 and over who earned less than $10,000 a year cast ballots, meaning that presumably 75.5 percent did not.

"We have... one of the lowest voter turnouts of any major country on Earth," Sanders remarked.

A Pew study last year found that US voter turnout lags behind most developed countries, though ahead of Japan, Chile and Switzerland.

"If we can significantly increase voter turnout so that low-income people and working people and young people participated in the political process, if we got a voter turnout of 75 percent, this country would be radically transformed," Sanders said.
Riyadh (AFP) - The king of Saudi Arabia has sacked the country's water and electricity minister, Abdullah al-Hussayen, amid public anger over price hikes, state media reported.

King Salman issued a decree on Saturday ordering his dismissal and replacement in the interim by Agriculture Minister Abdel Rahman al-Fadli, said the official SPA news agency.

His removal comes after the government reduced subsidies on electricity, water and other services.

In March, the Arab News daily reported that Hussayen had called on citizens to get permits to dig their own wells in the face of increasing complaints about high water bills.

And earlier this month the newspaper said that the advisory Shura Council "appeared unconvinced" when its members grilled Hussayen and his officials about the bills.

In December, a series of unprecedented reforms were adopted in the desert kingdom, which has been hit hard by the steep fall in global oil prices over the past two years.

Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is seen as the architect of the reforms, is to set announce on Monday a programme aimed at diversifying an economy that depends on oil for 70 percent of state revenues.

But Prince Mohammed told Bloomberg News in an interview this month that the ministry's implementation of the new water tariff was "unsatisfactory".

"Now, we are working diligently on reforms within the water ministry so that things will be in accordance with the agreed plan," the prince has said, without elaborating.
Scuffles broke out in the southern Ukrainian town of Lymanske, Odessa, on April 22, after members of the countrys volunteer Azov battalion destroyed a monument of Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin. The destruction of the statue coincided with the 146th anniversary of Lenins birth.

In footage uploaded to YouTube on April 23, Azov battalion members are seen tying a cord, which is already attached to a minivan, around the head of the Lenin statue. The minivan then proceeds to pull the head and shoulders off the monument, allowing it to crash to the ground.

Locals begin to argue with the soldiers until a scuffle breaks out and a police officer is forced to intervene. Credit: YouTube/Azov Battalion
London (AFP) - US President Barack Obama warned Sunday that it would be a "mistake" to send Western troops into Syria to overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

In an interview with the BBC, he said the United States would continue strikes against the Islamic State group while continuing efforts to broker a transition deal between the Assad regime and his moderate Syrian opponents.

"Syria has been a heart-breaking situation of enormous complexity, and I don't think there are any simple solutions," Obama said during his visit to London which ended Sunday.

"It would be a mistake for the United States, or Great Britain, or a combination of Western states to send in ground troops and overthrow the Assad regime.

"But I do believe that we can apply international pressure to all the parties, including Russia and Iran, who, essentially, are propping up Assad, as well as those moderate oppositions that exist and may be fighting inside of Syria, to sit down at the table and try to broker a transition.

"Now, that's difficult, and in the interim, we continue to strike ISIL targets in places like Raqqa, and to try to isolate those portions of the country, and lock down those portions of the country that are sending foreign fighters into Europe."

At least 30 civilians were killed Saturday in fighting in areas across Syria, threatening an eight-week-old truce as peace talks in Geneva remain stalled.

The truce, brokered by Russia and the United States, had raised hopes that United Nations-backed talks in Geneva this month will help resolve the five-year conflict.

"There's going to be a military component to this, to ensure that... we're also engaging in the counter-terrorism activities that are necessary," Obama said.

"But in order for us to solve the long-term problems in Syria, a military solution alone -- and certainly us deploying ground troops -- is not going to bring that about."

More than 270,000 people have been killed since Syria's conflict broke out in 2011.
Belgrade (AFP) - Serbians voted Sunday in a general election that was likely to return pro-European Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic to power but also give a voice in parliament to the pro-Russian far-right.

While Vucic's Progressive Party is projected to win about half of the votes, ultra-nationalists who want the Balkan country to deepen its alliance with Russia, instead of Europe, are also expected to make a comeback.

After failing to win seats in the past two elections, the hardline Radical party is polling in third place, meaning its virulently anti-Western leader Vojislav Seselj could become the leading opposition figure in parliament.

Seselj, 61, was recently acquitted of war crimes arising from the 1990s Balkan wars, in a shock ruling from UN judges at The Hague.

Premier Vucic, a former Seselj ally turned pro-European centrist, said he was "not going to make any compromise" with right-wing parties as he cast his vote in a rainy Belgrade suburb.

"I'm almost certain that we'll carry on our EU integration process," he said, hoping that voters would choose a "European path".

Vucic, 46, called the early election saying he needed a clear mandate to press ahead with the potentially unpopular reforms required to join the European Union.

But critics see the vote as an attempt to consolidate power, expressing concerns about Vucic's authoritarian tendencies including curbs on media freedom.

Serbia, home to seven million people, opened the first stages in EU membership negotiations in December, although Brussels has said there will be no further enlargement of the bloc until 2020.

The election is Serbia's third in four years and enthusiasm appeared in short supply as voters queued at polling stations, which are due to close at 8:00 pm (1800 GMT). First results are expected before midnight.

"We have elections too often," said retired Jelica Nikolic, 68, in Belgrade, saying she and her husband Radomir were voting more out of duty than conviction.

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In the southwestern city of Novi Pazar, Edib Mahmutovic, 40, hoped the victors would "create new jobs that enable us to stay here and not have to look for a better life elsewhere in Europe".

- 'Renounce the EU' -

Vucic's current Socialist coalition partners are trailing him in second place in opinion polls, while fragmented liberal opposition groups are expected to just make the threshold for entering the 250-seat parliament.

Pro-Russian far-right groups, including Seselj's Radicals, are expected between them to take 10 to 15 percent of votes.

Although a victory is out of reach, Serbia's low living standards and high unemployment, plus Western demands to streamline the inefficient state sector, may boost the nationalists' support.

As he voted in the capital, Seselj said the Radicals could only form a coalition "with parties that renounce the European Union and favour integration with Russia".

At his last campaign rally, he said Serbia "will be safe only if it aligns with Moscow, which has always helped us and never bombed us" -- a reference to the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia during the Kosovo war.

Russia, a fellow Slavic and largely Orthodox Christian country, is seen as a supportive big brother figure by many Serbians -- especially for denying the sovereignty of Kosovo, which unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008.

Although Vucic has warned voters of the far-right threat, analysts say having hardliners in parliament could be a useful tool for the premier to present himself as a moderate leader.

"The Radicals' presence could be a good way for the Progressive Party to claim there is pluralism in Serbia," said Bojan Klacar at the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy.
BELGRADE (Reuters) - Serbia's pro-western Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic claimed victory in the country's general election on Sunday after a pollster's projections showed his conservative Progressive Party winning around half of the votes cast. "The citizens of Serbia again gave us the honor to lead the government," Vucic told supporters. Vucic went to the polls two years early, saying he wanted a new mandate from voters for negotiations to join the European Union, which will entail potentially painful economic restructuring. The results look set to secure the Progressives another parliamentary majority. (Reporting by Ivana Sekularac; editing by Adrian Croft)
By Ivana Sekularac and Aleksandar Vasovic BELGRADE (Reuters) - Serbian voters looked set to grant pro-western Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic four more years in power on Sunday, but he will probably have to contend with a resurgent ultra-nationalist opposition demanding closer ties with Russia. Aiming to pursue a bid for European Union membership, Vucic called the parliamentary ballot just two years after he became prime minister following a landslide election win for his conservative Progressive Party. Vucic, a 46-year-old former hardline nationalist, has promised a new drive to privatise loss-making state-run companies if he is re-elected, and pollsters expected him to win another absolute majority. But Serbia's political picture is likely to be complicated by the re-emergence of Vojislav Seselj's anti-EU Radicals, which austerity-weary voters were tipped to return to parliament for the first time since 2012 as the third largest party. Seselj, a nationalist firebrand, could become de facto leader of the opposition, less than a month after the U.N. tribunal in The Hague acquitted him of war crimes during the 1990s breakup of Yugoslavia. Vucic, casting his vote in a drab Belgrade suburb of post-war, socialist housing blocks, said he believed Serbs would "choose the future. "We will continue our European path, fully respecting our ties with traditional allies in the East such as China and Russia," he said. Seselj said that if the Radicals won, "we will go into coalition with those parties who want to give up European Union accession to start integration with Russia." Voter turnout was steady despite rainy weather. Srdjan Zivkovic, a software engineer who arrived early at a Belgrade polling station, declined to say how he would vote but said he expected Vucic's party to lose some of its power. "It is not good to have one party with absolute power as is the case here now. They (the ruling party) are pressuring media, and their fight against corruption is just a charade," he said. Critics say the behaviour of Vucic's government has grown increasingly authoritarian. ULTRA-NATIONALIST RESURGENCE Analysts think Vucic - information minister in the last years of late President Slobodan Milosevic's rule - will continue to govern in coalition with the second-biggest party, the Socialists, though he does not need to, to broaden his base. Vucic says he wants a clear mandate from Serbia's seven million people for reforms to keep EU membership talks launched in December on track for completion by 2019. But the hitherto broad consensus in parliament in favour of EU membership will be broken if Seselj's ultra-nationalists, and a second right-wing grouping, win seats as expected. Their rise reflects discontent with the tight-money policies Vucic has been forced to follow as the price of a 1.2 billion euro ($1.35 billion) International Monetary Fund loan agreement. Cuts in public spending and subsidies, and tax rises, helped Serbia trim its budget deficit by nearly half last year. But the economy is recovering only slowly from recession and unemployment is around 18 percent. Polls close at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) with first unofficial exit polls expected about an hour later. ($1 = 0.8909 euros) (Editing by Mark Heinrich)
PARIS  Making its world premiere in Competition, Foxtels eight-part series The Kettering Incident arrived as one of the more rarefied entries at this years Series Mania in Paris. Presented by creators Vicki Madden and Vincent Sheehan, the show  described down under as Tasmanian Gothic  quickly drew good word of mouth, compared favorably by one U.S. exec to the Australian breakout hit Top Of The Lake. Set to screen later this year, the series is the first show to be fully financed by the Australian subscription service Foxtel and tells the story of Anna Macy (Elizabeth Debicki), a doctor who returns to her Tasmanian roots after a long time abroad. Back home, in a close-knit logging town, she finds herself caught up in the cases of two girls who mysteriously disappeared in identical circumstances 15 years apart. Here, Madden and Sheehan reveal some of the shows myriad secrets

How did you come to create The Kettering Incident?

Vincent Sheehan: Im not from Tasmania but Vicki is, and Ive had a fascination with the island, the people and the stories there for a long time  and I did make a feature film down there called The Hunter [2011]. Then we were introduced by a mutual friend.

Vicki Madden: Id just come back from overseas. I left Tasmania when I was 18 and went to live in the U.K., and after that I went to Ireland. And while I was in Ireland I got a real yearning to go home  its very similar to Tasmania. I arrived back while Vincent was shooting The Hunter. Everyone was very excited. Later on, Vincent spoke to Screen Tasmania and said, Look, I want to do something else here, but I need help. Its a small island  I cant break in. And they said, Well, it just so happens that a writer has come back from overseas At the time I was trying to model a show around [RTEs] The Clinic in Ireland, then Vincent just appeared and said, Would you like to do something together? And I said, Look, I dont want to do a New Zealand show where its all beautiful snow-capped mountains. For me, Tasmania is all about gothic. It has a very, very dark history, and you feel the history. I wanted to tell that story, because that was my Tasmania, and it just happened to be what Vincent was looking for.

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And what was that?

Vincent Sheehan: I was discovering these extraordinary stories and discovering quite extraordinary characters who were telling me these stories. And when I sat down with Vicki the first time, we started to talk  and she was telling me these stories as well. But Vicki was also a television writer of substantial note, so suddenly there was an authenticity to it that was really exciting. And we also had a common interest in a certain type of genre, or cross-genre.

What kind of stories were you hearing?

Vincent Sheehan: Tasmania has a disproportionate number of missing people per population, so there were a lot of very intriguing cases. And there are a number of other strange phenomena down there too.

Vicki Madden: Because Tasmanias so close to the southern lights, the southern aurora, theres a lot of activity in the sky. Theres a lot of random weirdness. And I grew up with a Welsh mother whos deeply superstitious, as a lot of Tasmanians are. And so its just accepted, if you like, that if there are lights in the sky its a UFO, and everyones seen one. Theres that mentality that you maybe find in Wales and Ireland, regarding folklore and mythology, that I grew up with, partly because of my mother but partly because of the environment. My mother and I saw lots of strange things. And then in my teenage years there was a very significant missing persons case that had mysterious, otherworldly connotations. Its still one of the most talked-about disappearances  its still a mystery. So thats where it began. We gathered all this material. I was telling Vincent about my childhood, and I guess he was thinking, Wow, this is all really weird

Vincent Sheehan: Vicki told me, very early on, a true story about some people in the town she grew up with that was quite compelling  and quite frightening as well. It was a very isolated part of the world where a group of men basically ran the town, and the local cop was ineffective in what they said and did. That kind of small-town world was really intriguing. You dont get that on the mainland.

Vicki Madden: Its kind of clannish. The kind of town where heads of families run the place and local cop just gets cows off the road.

How did you arrive at the mini-series format?

Vincent Sheehan: Well, I come from a feature film background, and Vicki has a real grounding in television, both in Australia and the U.K., and we wanted to bring those things together to make cinematic TV. We wanted to do it primarily in the language of the stories we were telling, and they were very much about landscape.

What is the roadmap when you write a series like this, with eight parts of one hour? Is it a one-off, or were you thinking of a series two and three?

Vicki Madden: You always have to, especially in Australia. You always want a long-running series, even if its a short run, and you always have to think like that. Thats where my background come in handy  knowing how to set up a show where theres going to be ongoing stories. What youll find in The Kettering Incident is that theres a journey for each character  each character has quite an intense journey. Normally you just have one, and the rest are secondary, but I really wanted to tell the whole towns story, because the town represents the logging industry, and Tasmania has been on the brink of collapse at several times. Like Ireland, theres been a mass exodus of young people, and theyre trying desperately to hang onto their industry. But the problem is, logging is becoming more and more difficult because of the laws around the environment, so this little town is sitting on the brink of destruction  and the characters are as well. So they were important to understand, in order to understand the psychology of the town.

How did you approach that?

Vicki Madden: I just really went through each of their stories roughly  what their transgression is and where they might end up  and because I didnt know where it would end, I had to stagger them a bit. For Annas story it was a question of getting her through-line  what she wanted and where it would take her.

Did you always envision a female lead?

Vicki Madden: I always wanted a female lead, and I think Vincent was happy with that.

Vincent Sheehan: It always was. I never questioned it. I also knew that there was a lot of Vicki in Anna from Day One.

In what way?

Vicki Madden: I always used to come back to Tasmania as a touchstone  birthdays, Christmas. My familys still there  and every time something went wrong Id go back there. It was kind of like a security blanket, my home. But after living in Ireland for two years, something must have fundamentally changed. Nothing I could put my finger on. But when I went home  I decided to go home because I was homesick  it just suddenly occurred to me that I didnt feel like I belonged there any more. And I had a really big crisis! A three-month meltdown, thinking, Where am I going to live? It was awful. So I started writing it down, because thats what writers do  they write all their issues down. And I thought it would an interesting place to start. Because everybody, no matter where they live, has a sense of belonging, or a need to belong. And I thought that would be a great story for Anna, so that character was always going to be female in that sense. I could relate to that character and explore that idea of small towns suddenly becoming quite toxic. Everyones desperately looking for something thats not in that town any more, so theyve all got secrets and masks.

What were your ambitions for the show?

Vicki Madden: We decided to just go for it. Like, lets just do something really different. And the effort on our part was to create a script that no one could say theyd seen before. Which was a big risk, and we did have to pull it back a bit. I was very influenced by the Scandi noirs, like The Killing, and the way they had separate stories that came together later. So the script did generate a lot of interest  it was different and unique. We didnt tell anyone where it was going. But that was the beauty of the show. Only Vincent and I knew, and we kept it to ourselves. Partly because of the risk of leaks but also because actors sometimes play out the surprises without realizing, because they know whats coming next. It was a great process in that way. It was unusual but it made the actors work in the moment.

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PARIS  Yellow Birds impressive showreel did quite a lot of the talking when the Swedish company pitched its new project Hidden at the Series Mania Co-Production Forum this week. Clips from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo  TV and film versions  and international breakout hit Headhunters reminded audiences that Yellow Bird has form when it comes to developing intense, unusual and commercial projects. Based on the novel Firstborn by Filip Alexanderson, Hidden promises yet more of the same, with its author on hand to promise an intense, suspense-driven crazy story.

Although dealing with shadowy underworld figures, and set in the writers native Stockholm, Hidden departs from the Nordic noir blueprint in a number of ways. Chiefly, it draws on local myths and legends to tell the story of a young man who not only discovers the existence of a secret society of human beings with enhanced powers, he also realizes that he may be one of them. But as Alexanderson and his series co-writer Anoo Bhagavan explain here, this new world turns out just as dark and dangerous as our own

Filip, is this your first book?

Filip Alexanderson: Yes, its my debut. I started to write it two years ago and it came out last fall.

Did you ever foresee it becoming a film or TV series?

Alexanderson: No, never. I just started writing it. Anoo [Bhagavan] here, my friend  we were sharing the same studio at the time. I shared some bits and pieces with him and asked him, Would you mind reading this? Its my first book  am I on the right track? I gave him 40 pages, and he really liked it.

Anoo Bhagavan: And I also think I said, after reading those 40 pages: You know that this is film material? It might have been hubris, but I knew we had to do something with it.

Filip, what was the starting point for the book?

Alexanderson: I wanted to tell a story that took place in my everyday environment that would be cool and a bit epic, actually. I adore these big productions from all over the world, but Ive never seen something like that set in Stockholm. I thought, Why not? Why cant it happen in my back yard? So I thought a lot about our mythology, my background, my countrys culture and I used that as a backdrop. I wanted to make the story plausible.

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And what happens in the story?

Alexanderson: Its about a young man trying to find himself. He survives an accident that he shouldnt have survived, and suddenly these strange things happen to him.

Bhagavan: Hes a very, very troubled young man, whos had a hard life and suffers from severe migraines that hes had all his life. He lives alone with his sick mother and takes care of her. Hes moonlighting as a construction worker when this accident happens, and the accident, in a way, also saves him. When he wakes up, the migraines have gone, his wounds have healed and his abilities start evolving.

Alexanderson: So hes trying to understand whats happening to him  who he really is. At the same time, somebodys hunting him  and trying to kill him.

Bhagavan: Hes someone who has never really fit in with the human world, not because hes something different but because he hasnt been able to make basic human connections. And he ends up in this other world where he doesnt fit in either. He doesnt like it and he has moral problems with it too  hes meeting all these new people and some of them have very, in his eyes, questionable ideas and ethics. So its not about him suddenly realizing who he is and being happy about it. Quite the opposite.

Why did you choose the mini-series format?

Bhagavan: We originally thought of it as a mini-series of 90 minutes each  thats what we initially talked about. But we started developing that idea as the same time Filip was writing the book, basically, so they grew side by side.

Alexanderson: I wasnt ready, actually, with the book when we got in contact with our producer [Yellow Birds Berna Levin], and she said: This really is serious material  you should do a series on this. It wasnt published yet. In fact, I hadnt even finished writing the book when she read my first scripts.

Bhagavan: Berna took him on before he was published  hats off for that.

Had either of you written scripts before this?

Bhagavan: No. Apart from coming from a family where the mother is a scriptwriter, Im actually a songwriter.

Alexanderson: And Im a stage actor. Ive been in the theatre, for 15 years.

How did you approach adapting it?

Bhagavan: We also spend a lot of time mapping things out, because theres a lot of stuff that isnt covered in the book. We dont want to cover it in the series either, but we had to map out the two worlds  how this other world intertwines with our society, how it all works.

Alexanderson: Its a subculture of beings with different kinds of abilities  but each ability comes with a downside. Its not interesting if everyones Superman.

Bhagavan: It was very important for us from the beginning  and in Filips book, naturally  that theres no magic to this. There are no flashes coming from peoples fingertips. Its all biology. And weve gone to great and extreme lengths to try to explain everything  theres just one little piece that weve made up, the rest is biology. We like to see these characters as human animals. Theyre just a bit enhanced  theyre not very good at organizing.

Filips book has been described as Harry Potter for adults in the Scandinavian press. Would you agree with that?

Alexanderson: [Laughs] No. Im flattered in some ways, but thats not a direction we want to go in.

Bhagavan: Its not for young teenagers, its for young adults and up. Our generation grew up reading loads of comic books, doing role-playing games and watching genre movies, but we also read classics as well. Weve never seen a problem with combining those things.

Alexanderson: [Laughs] Its like Camus meeting Spider-man. For me, its not a big thing to have both.

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Tehran (AFP) - South Africa's embattled President Jacob Zuma praised Iran's 1979 revolution Sunday at the start of a three-day state visit which he said could "dramatically expand trade" with the Islamic republic.

The overthrow of a US-backed Shah was a source of encouragement as black South Africans fought against apartheid, Zuma said at a press conference with President Hassan Rouhani, before later meeting Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader.

With international sanctions against Iran now lifted under its nuclear deal with world powers, business activity is likely to increase.

"Iran occupies a special place in our struggle against apartheid," Zuma said, noting how Tehran cut ties with South Africa when it was under white rule, only resuming relations in 1994 after Nelson Mandela was elected as its first black president.

Mandela, who served one term before voluntarily standing down in 1999, visited Tehran before his election and soon after leaving office.

"South Africans were inspired by the 1979 revolution, which showed that emancipation is possible, whatever the odds," said Zuma, the first serving South African president to visit since.

Having signed eight cooperation agreements ranging from energy development to business insurance, Zuma said the nuclear deal was an opportunity to deepen commercial links.

"The challenge is to dramatically expand trade volumes," he added.

Rouhani, whose government in January implemented last summer's nuclear deal with Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany, paid tribute to Mandela, who died aged 95 in 2013.

"Let us cherish the memory of the late Nelson Mandela," after whom a street is named in Tehran, Rouhani said. "He is so very much revered by both the South African and the Iranian people."

Rouhani, who Zuma confirmed has been invited to visit South Africa, said he would like to see direct flights opening up from Tehran.

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Zuma's trip comes as he is under fire and accused of corruption at home.

Julius Malema, the firebrand head of South Africa's radical opposition Economic Freedom Fighters, warned that he could seek to remove Zuma's African National Congress (ANC) government "through the barrel of a gun".

Late last month, a constitutional court ruled Zuma had violated the constitution in using public funds to upgrade his private residence and said he must repay the money.

Malema, 35, was expelled from the ANC in 2012 when he was head of the party's youth wing, having said the government was not doing enough to help South Africa's poor.
Beirut (AFP) - Syrian regime officials and Kurdish representatives agreed Sunday to swap prisoners as they seek to maintain a truce that ended days of fighting in the northeastern city of Qamishli, security sources said.

The deadly clashes last week marked a rare outbreak of violence between Kurdish forces and pro-regime fighters in Qamishli, where control is split between Kurdish militia and the Syrian army and its allies.

The two sides agreed an indefinite ceasefire on Friday but tensions have remained.

"An agreement was reached after midnight to bring calm back to Qamishli involving an exchange of prisoners between both sides," a Kurdish security source told AFP on Sunday.

A regime security source confirmed a deal was struck during a meeting at the mainly Kurdish city's airport between government officials and representatives of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

"It was agreed to keep Friday's truce in place" with "the exchange of those captured and injured starting Sunday," the government source said.

The fighting began on Wednesday with a scuffle at a checkpoint and, according to Kurdish security forces, killed 17 civilians, 10 Kurdish fighters and 31 regime troops and allied militiamen.

The Kurdish security forces said they had arrested 102 soldiers and pro-regime fighters since the beginning of the fighting.

The deal reached on Sunday, according to the Kurdish source, would also see the regime free Kurds held in government prisons since before 2011.

Kurds will keep the positions they seized during the clashes, including a prison, the source said.

The sources could not say how many prisoners would be involved in the swap.

Both sides said they would keep channels of communication open to come to an agreement on additional points, including a potential reduced presence for pro-regime militias in Qamishli.

The army and its militia ally, the National Defence Forces, control Qamishli airport and parts of the city, as well as parts of the provincial capital Hasakeh to the south.

Nearly all of the rest of the province is controlled by the YPG, who have declared an autonomous region across the mainly Kurdish northern areas they control.
Armenian FM: Had the proposals been favourable to Azerbaijan, negotiation would not have reached an impasse

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian has denied media speculations alleging that during his visit to Armenia Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov offered a plan implying painful concessions over the Karabakh settlement. Edward Nalbandian says Russian Foreign Minister did not bring any new document with him to Armenia. The large-scale military actions unleashed by Azerbaijani forces early in April have caused a great harm to the negotiation process, Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian told reporters at the Genocide Memorial Complex in Yerevan. He said The Co-Chairs along with the international community should make efforts to overcome that damage cause to the peace talks. However, he added, it is difficult to overcome the harm, because there are losses, and its irrecoverable. Today the international community is trying bringing Azerbaijan to a constructive arena to be able to continue the negotiations, as there is no alternative to peaceful talks, he added. He again dismissed reports about a framework document proposed by Russia. Sergey Lavrov declared at a press conference that today the efforts should focus on implementation of mechanisms for investigation of border incidents and confidence-building measures in order to be able ensure stability and security in the region, create more favourable conditions for the continuation of talks, Nalbandian stressed. The Armenian Foreign Minister added that no issue on territorial concessions was discussed during Lavrovs visit, noting that only the proposals of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs, voiced at the level of presidents and known to all have been mentioned There are proposals by the Co-Chairs incorporated in the five famous statements made on the level of the Presidents of Russia, France and the United States. Armenia has declared on different occasions its readiness to continue talks, while Azerbaijan continues to ignore them. This is the reality and the reason why the international community should try to force Azerbaijan to return to a constructive track, the Armenian FM said. Does the resolution of the conflict imply territorial concessions? In reply to A1+, Edward Nalbandian said, by saying resolution we mean what has been repeatedly announced by the Armenian President and Foreign Minister. There is no need to invent new things. "If Baku thought it could benefit from these proposals, the negotiation would not have reached an impasse and Azerbaijan would not have unleashed the latest hostilities in Karabakh. Azerbaijan failed in the talks and tries to solve the issue in a military way, but failed here, as well. Baku will have to return to the negotiating table, because there is no alternative to talks.
By Nate Raymond and Joseph Menn

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department on Friday dropped its effort to force Apple Inc to help unlock an iPhone in a drug case in New York after someone provided authorities the passcode to access the device.

In a letter filed in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, prosecutors said that investigators late on Thursday used that passcode to access the iPhone at issue, and as a result "no longer needs Apple's assistance."

The letter marked a sudden end to a closely watched case, in which the Justice Department had been appealing a ruling by a federal magistrate judge holding that he could not force Apple to assist authorities.

The case gained further significance after prosecutors in March dropped a similar effort to force Apple to help access an iPhone used by one of the shooters in December's San Bernardino killings, after a third party provided a way to crack it.

Justice Department spokeswoman Emily Pierce said the cases have "never been about setting a court precedent; they are about law enforcement's ability and need to access evidence on devices pursuant to lawful court orders and search warrants."

An Apple spokesman declined comment. Previously, the company had argued in court that prosecutors had not provided any evidence to bolster their claim that they had exhausted other methods to get data from the phone. Apple said it was not even clear that they had asked the suspect and his associates.

Though officials said the passcode had just come to light, the development marks the second time the federal government has dropped a contentious fight over the extent of its power over private companies after Apple pressed it to say what methods it had tried.

Prosecutors had been challenging a Feb. 29 ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge James Orenstein holding he did not have the authority to order Apple to disable the security of an iPhone seized in a drug probe.

Story continues

The case predated the government effort to force Apple to help access the phone of Rizwan Farook, one of the two killers in the San Bernardino massacre, which left 14 people dead and 22 wounded.

While the Justice Department dropped that bid after a third party provided a way to access the San Bernardino phone - apparently for more than $1 million - it continued appealing Orenstein's ruling.

FBI Director James Comey has said that the method used on the San Bernardino iPhone 5c would not work on other models, including the iPhone 5s, the type in the Brooklyn case.

The phone belonged to Jun Feng, who has pleaded guilty to participation in a methamphetamine distribution conspiracy, which prosecutors are continuing to investigate.

Unlike the phone used in San Bernardino, Feng's phone had an older operating system, iOS 7, which is not protected under the same encryption technology, which is why Apple could access it.

Apple has some 70 times before the Brooklyn case emerged helped authorities access data on iPhones, according to court filings.

The company changed its stance last year after the New York magistrate invited them to argue whether the Justice Department was stretching the more than 200-year-old and very general All Writs Act, which compels help executing warrants, to include more active assistance.

Apple said prosecutors were going too far, especially since Congress had more recently limited what communications providers could be compelled to do.

Magistrate Orenstein agreed. Though prosecutors have continued to push for mandated cooperation, in many cases under seal, Apple has been objecting and appealing.

The New York case has drawn less attention than the one in California, but the fact that a ruling favorable to Apple has been allowed to stand gives it more significance going forward.

While the FBI is continuing to fight in other courts, more attention has turned to a draft bill by leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee that would force all manner of companies to turn over unencrypted data when served with a court order.

The majority of the technology industry bitterly opposes the measure, arguing that requiring back doors would make all communication more vulnerable to hackers and that U.S. citizens and companies would simply get their encryption from providers in other countries.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York and Joseph Menn in San Francisco; additional reporting by Dustin Volz in Washington; Editing by Sandra Maler)
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - A German emissions probe conducted following the Volkswagen <VOWG_p.DE> scandal suggested that some Fiat vehicles showed irregular levels of diesel exhaust pollution if the cars ran for longer than 22 minutes, Bild am Sonntag said.

A spokesman for Fiat in Italy declined to comment.

The newspaper said the investigation by the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) revealed that an emissions treatment system on an unspecified Fiat model was throttled back after 22 minutes, a sign that the producer may be employing technical devices or software to avoid emissions cleaning filters.

The normal duration of regulatory tests for vehicle emissions is about 20 minutes, the paper added.

The Volkswagen emissions-test cheating scandal cast a spotlight on industry-wide emissions of health-threatening nitrogen oxide (NOx) levels in diesel fumes.

Following the KBA investigation, the firm and some other top German manufacturers -- Porsche, Opel, Audi and Mercedes -- agreed to recall 630,000 vehicles to tweak diesel engine software technology.

While no German manufacturer other than VW was found to have used illegal cheating software, carmakers were making liberal use of something they call a "thermal window" which refers to the time when carmakers are allowed to throttle back emissions management systems in order to protect the engine from condensation or other damage.

Auto supplier Bosch [ROBG.UL] is said to have informed German investigators that Fiat was using a mechanism that virtually disabled exhaust filters, Bild am Sonntag reported. Bosch declined to comment.

Bild am Sonntag did not clarify whether the mechanism revealed in the Fiat test also functioned as a "thermal window".

Regulators and environmental groups have criticized the widespread use of systems that switch off emissions treatment not just to improve engine performance but also to increase the interval between services.

The government official said there needed to be clarification at European level over the use and declaration of engine protection mechanisms.

(Story refiles to clarify garble in fourth paragraph).

(Reporting by Agnieszka Flak, Edward Taylor, Markus Wacket, writing by Vera Eckert, editing by John Stonestreet)
* Two-year export growth spurt has led Thai tech sector

* But boom in mobile devices seen hitting hard drive demand

* 'Hard drives will be a short-term thing' - shippers' chmn

* Rival countries' flash memory chip suppliers seen thriving

* Global hard drive sector to shrink 3 pct in 2016 - Gartner

By Orathai Sriring

BANGKOK, April 25 (Reuters) - After more than two years of riding high on growing demand for cloud data storage, Thailand's hard disk drive exporters are bracing for a fall from grace.

Data due later on Monday will likely show Thai exports of hard disk drives (HDDs) in March extended a run of double-digit growth after jumping 45 percent in the first two months of 2016 to $1.1 billion. The rise has been a rare bright spot in Thai tech manufacturing, beset by cheaper competition from China.

But as the global boom in mobile devices cranks up, electronics makers are diverting demand away from old-school disk drives for servers and personal computers, seeking flash memory chip supplies instead. As well as fearing lower prices for their ageing tech, Thai shippers now worry more advanced suppliers in countries like Malaysia will snap up business.

"It's worrying that others are shifting to more advanced technology and letting us make HDDs," said Nopporn Thepsithar, chairman of the Thai National Shippers' Council. "PCs will be gone in the future, so hard drives will be a short-term thing. With disruptive technologies, I see no place for HDDs."

The world's second-largest maker of HDDs after China, Thailand's exports of the hardware have so far recovered well from paralysis that accompanied political turmoil in 2014. But the $26 billion global HDD industry is set to shrink 3 percent this year, according to research firm Gartner, as demand for solid state drives (SSDs) using high-tech flash memory chips grows.

There's no suggestion of any sudden slowdown among Thai HDD makers, but gloomy longer-term forecasts are a concern for a country where exports are worth about two-thirds of the country's economic output, and electronics were the biggest contributor last year. While HDD exports motored on in January and February, electronics exports overall dropped 5 percent, with computer parts down 12.5 percent.

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Rival electronics producer Malaysia has an edge over Thailand because SSD suppliers have based their manufacturing operations there, said Visnu Limwibul, chairman of the Thai Electrical, Electronics, Telecommunication and Allied Industries Club.

"Smartphones and anything related to the Internet will grow rapidly," Visnu said. "But we rarely have them here. Makers of SSDs are in Malaysia."

CURRENCY TAILWIND

The surge in Thai HDD exports has also been attributable in part to the baht's weakness, making exports more cost- competitive and prolonging the attractiveness of making HDDs in the country.

The baht has fallen around 6.3 percent to the U.S. dollar since end-2014, while the Chinese yuan dropped 4.4 percent and the Japanese yen gained 8.2 percent during the same period.

Emboldened by the Thai HDD sector's robust performance, U.S. data storage firm Seagate Technology Plc said in February last year it would invest 15.3 billion Thai baht ($437 million) in the country over the next five years to expand capacity. Seagate declined to comment on future prospects for this article.

Hard drive makers in Thailand have also begun a shift to producing higher margin devices, moving away from low-margin PC components, according to Somkiat Triratpan, head of the Commerce Ministry's trade policy and strategy office.

"It's good to see them quickly adapting," he said.

But while the ministry is confident production and exports by Thai HDD manufacturers will remain strong for now, it's calling on firms to produce solid-state hybrid drives - combining old and new technology - that can meet users' demand for both speed and high storage capacity.

As time passes, the need for change will become more evident, if industry research proves accurate.

While for enterprise server HDDs is seen growing at 11 percent this year, shipments for desktops will shrink 13 percent, according to Cross Research.

Meanwhile, HDD prices overall are expected to be $0.04-$0.045 per gigabyte of memory this year, consultancy IDC said, while SSDs will fetch closer to $0.40 per gigabyte.

($1 = 35.03 baht)

(Reporting by Orathai Sriring; Additional reporting by Sarah McBride in SAN FRANCISCO, Pairat Temphairojana and Kitiphong Thaichareon in BANGKOK; Editing by Simon Webb and Kenneth Maxwell)
Ouagadougou (AFP) - Burkina Faso, Africa's top cotton producer and the sole West African nation to venture into biotech farming, is dropping genetically-modified (GM) cotton on quality grounds.

The world's 10th largest cotton producer, with four of its 19 million people dependent on the "white gold", Burkina Faso earlier this month said it was giving up Monsanto's GM Bt cotton because it had proved uneconomical.

Burkina took up GM cotton in the 2000s in the hopes of bumping up returns on what was then its top export product, surpassed in 2009 by gold.

But the country's association of cotton producers now say GM cotton, though producing higher yields, has caused a drop in crop quality.

"The cotton fibre we are producing today is short," Burkina Faso's new President Roch Marc Christian Kabore told AFP this month.

Fibre length is key in textiles with longer ones tending to produce stronger yarns because they allow fibres to twist around each other more times, also enabling higher spinning speeds.

But the shorter fibres now being produced from Burkina's GM cotton "means that in market terms it's an activity which is no longer very attractive for us," the president said.

The government, he added, has taken steps "to underpin the sector ... and help producers."

- 'A battle won' -

Those measures include tens of thousands of dollars worth of seed and fertiliser subsidies as well as price controls for producers to offset market falls.

Burkina's Inter-professional Cotton Association (AICB), grouping the country's main producers and the national cotton farmers' union, is now targeting "100 percent conventional" production, Wilfried Yameogo, director of Sofitex, Burkina Faso's main cotton company, said earlier this month.

"It's a battle won," added Christian Legay of the national council of organic food processors, an umbrella organisation of consumer groups and farm workers which wants a five-to-10 year moratorium on transgenic cotton in Burkina Faso.

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But qualms over GM products and "frankenfoods" played no role in the about-face.

With Burkinabe cotton once prized for its purity and length of fibre, it was the fall in quality that weighed in favour of a return to conventional cotton.

Producers say this resulted in the sector incurring losses between 2011 and 2016 of some 48.3 billion CFA francs ($82.4 million). They insist these must come back to them in the form of compensation.

- High hopes -

In the 2000s, the emergence of GM had fueled hopes of greater production and also reduced the need for fertiliser.

This was a key issue in a region prone to drought and where cotton pests had grown resistant to eradication by pesticides.

Insecticide-resistant caterpillars -- the 'Helicoverpa armigera known as the cotton bollworm or Old World (African) bollworm -- wreaked havoc on crops and producers' livelihoods in 1991, 1996 and 2000.

GM crops were supposed to be a win-win solution -- reducing the number of pesticide treatments as well as boosting yields by as much as 90 percent, boosting per hectare profits.

Celestin Dala, a producer in Nayala in the west of the country, said that "with GM cotton two treatments are required -- six with conventional."

In 2003, Burkina authorised experimental planting by US seed giant Monsanto and Swiss multinational Syngenta. Then in 2007, Burkina launched large scale production of transgenic cotton.

Two years later, the authorities ordered farmers to seed up to 80 percent of their crop with the GM variant, leading to a reduction in labour time and facilitating the backbreaking work involved.

- 'Tactical withdrawal' -

Researchers, political and community leaders were critical of the move to launch GM crops from the outset.

"The principal of precaution was not respected," says Jean-Didier Zongo, a genetician from the University of Ouagadougou, who accuses Monsanto of "criminal" acts. He alleges the firm provided insufficiently tested seed varieties.

"These allegations are false," fired back Monsanto spokesman Billy Brennan.

He said Monsanto seeds have brought about "better yields, lower pesticide dosage and greater export volumes" to produce a "positive impact on 350,000 producer farms."

President Kabore told AFP that Burkina Faso's authorities are "pursuing talks with Monsanto".

Though the country's producers are demanding redress for the loss of income they say they can think again in the future.

"If in three, four or five years they (Monsanto) find a solution, there is no reason why we would not go back to towards GM", said Yameogo of Sofitex. "What we have here is a tactical withdrawal -- not a total rejection of GM."

But organic activist Legay says Burkina Faso's decision to step back from transgenic cotton is "a timely warning for other African countries".
BEIJING (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp plans to sell heavily electrified, so-called plug-in hybrid cars in China starting in 2018, its head of China operations, Hiroji Onishi, said on Sunday.

The plan is aimed at taking advantage of generous purchase incentives made available to Chinese consumers buying such fuel efficient near-all-electric cars, along with all-electric battery cars in China.

Onishi told a media event ahead of the Beijing auto show that the Japanese carmaker plans to launch plug-in hybrid versions of the Toyota Corolla and Levin in China in 2018.

"Our decision to launch plug-in hybrid versions of the Corolla and the Levin reflects the depth of our resolve and commitment to the Chinese market," Onishi said.

He did not say whether Toyota plans to produce those cars in China, but the company officials at the announcement said that was a possibility.

To qualify for China's incentives for plug-in hybrids, Toyota officials at the event said it would have to meet certain conditions.

One executive who declined to be identified said those plug-in hybrids for China should be able to run all on electricity for as far as more than 50 km (30 miles) when they are fully charged.

(Reporting by Norihiko Shirouzu; Editing by Robert Birsel)
vintage car

The most unforgettable trips are the ones that take you beyond the tourist sites.

In the Know Experiences is a travel company that focuses on providing young and savvy travelers with once-in-a-lifetime experiences based on their personal interests. Each trip is based on the traveler's personal passions, whether they be food, art, sports, shopping, or design.

Those who love watches can be taken on personalized tours of high-end watch factories, while art lovers can be paired with curators for private tours and events.

Founders Lia Batkin and Seth Kaplan were inspired to start the company in 2007, when they took a trip to Argentina and found that the recommendations they found through research or from friends were completely disappointing.

in the know founders

The two felt there should be a travel company that goes beyond hotels, flights, and attractions to offer travelers off-the-beaten-path experiences that relate to their tastes and preferences.

"Affluent travelers are looking for experiences that can make them connoisseurs in areas they're interested in," Batkin told Business Insider.

So they started In the Know Experiences, initially tapping into their personal contacts to expand into a network of more than 100,000 contacts in the hospitality, retail, restaurant, and nightlife industries.

The experiences they've put together include a mini Grand Prix for a client's birthday, where vintage Porsches, Ferraris, Ford Mustangs, and Aston Martins were brought in from Europe for a rally that included stops at the client's favorite places along the way.

grand prix

They've also planned a honeymoon that they say ended up costing more than $1 million, during which the lucky couple were surprised with luxurious experiences in Paris, New York, Orlando, the Bahamas, and London.

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The couple was treated to a greeting of one million roses, a personalized dress from a famous bridal designer, a private shopping experience, gifts from Disney cast members in Orlando, and a fireworks presentation in the Bahamas.

yacht

During trips, travelers have 24/7 access to staff in case of emergencies. They'll also be treated to perks like hotel discounts ranging from 10 to 40% and amenities like complimentary breakfast, upgrades at booking, spa credits, and airport transfers.

Costs for each trip vary depending on what they include, but they can range anywhere from the low thousands to millions of dollars in some cases.

The company has a service fee of $300 per person (for trips within the US) and $350 per person (for outside of the US) for vacations that are up to two weeks, though longer trips can be arranged with custom prices.

NOW WATCH: This travel company will make your 'Survivor' fantasies come true





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Washington (AFP) - US presidential frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump seek to deliver knockout blows against their rivals in Tuesday's five high-stakes primaries, with pressure mounting to wrap up the nomination races and pivot toward the general election battle.

Don't expect the challengers to buckle just yet.

The extraordinary 2016 race has tested American political tradition, with the Democratic and Republican parties taking their nomination battles deep into primary season.

Clinton, aiming to become the nation's first female commander in chief, faces a resilient liberal Senator Bernie Sanders, whose grassroots campaign to highlight income inequality has mobilized millions of young voters.

But the ex-secretary of state is poised to extend her delegate lead Tuesday when Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island host their primaries.

Pressed Saturday on reports that she has begun her search for a runningmate, Clinton shook her head and replied: "I'm just working hard to win on Tuesday."

Clinton leads in polling in the northeastern states, and if she sweeps all five Sanders will be pressed to exit the race.

In Pennsylvania, Clinton turned to the general election, knocking Trump and Republican candidate Ted Cruz and tailoring her message to working-class voters eager to see a return of manufacturing jobs.

"These are not jobs that can be exported, they have to be done right here in Pennsylvania," Clinton told supporters this week in Philadelphia.

Politics professor Terry Madonna of Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania said Sanders is "obstinate" about staying in the race, perhaps to earn a speaking spot at the Democratic convention in July.

Clinton "is the inevitable nominee now and the only question is at what point does she wrap up the magic number" of necessary delegates, Madonna told AFP.

A canopy of drama hangs over the Republican race, where the math points to a contested convention.

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That means Trump will have to defy the odds with particularly strong showings through the remainder of the statewide contests if he is to win the nomination outright before the party's delegates gather in Cleveland in July to pick their nominee.

Snatching most of the Republican delegates at stake April 26 would propel him that much closer to reaching the 1,237 delegates needed to nail down the nomination.

His campaign is increasingly on notice, however, that the provocative celebrity billionaire would need to surpass that number and not merely outperform rivals Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich.

"We aren't going to hand the nomination to anyone with a plurality, no matter how close they are to 1,237," Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus told an influential gathering in Florida of more than 100 Republican delegates on Friday.

"You need a majority. Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades," he added in an apparent shot at Trump, who has derided the delegate system as "rigged" against him.

- 'Wheeling and dealing' -

With the delegates huddling over whether to fight against a Trump nomination or ultimately embrace him, Priebus took aim at conservatives who have said they will not back Trump should he become the flagbearer.

"Politics is a team sport, and we can't win unless we rally around whoever becomes our nominee," said Priebus.

Trump's new campaign chief Paul Manafort told the delegates at their Florida retreat Thursday that Trump was entering a new, more professional phase.

"The part he's been playing, it is evolving into a part that now you've been expecting but he wasn't ready for."

Manafort wooing the very party establishment Trump has been railing against publicly could be seen as an effort to assure them that the demagoguery that made many Republicans wary of Trump was only a persona used to rally frustrated voters to his cause during the primaries.

Cruz had a blunt reaction to Trump's evolution.

"Donald is telling us he's lying to us," he told CNN.

The arch-conservative senator is struggling to block Trump's ascension.

"I do not believe Donald has any path to winning a majority," Cruz told Dana Loesch's radio show, repeating his assertion that "nobody" will secure 1,237 delegates before the convention's first ballot.

Cruz says his aim now is to win the nomination on a subsequent ballot, when most delegates will be free to vote for someone other than the candidate they were originally bound to.

He also said he was now looking at Indiana, which votes May 3, as the next anti-Trump firewall.

Professor Madonna said Trump will likely end up between 25 and 100 delegates short of the threshold by the time the Republican primaries conclude on June 7, and that a fierce battle will ensue for the clutch of delegates who head to the convention unbound by any requirement to vote for a specific candidate.

"It's going to come down to wheeling and dealing with 200 delegates," he said.
Erdogan thanks Armenians

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan commemorated the lives of Armenians lost in 1915. In a statement that was read out by the head of the Armenian Church in Turkey at an Istanbul ceremony to remember those who died in eastern Anatolia in the early years of World War I, Erdogan paid tribute to those gathering to mark the tragic conditions of the war, Anadolu Agency reports. I welcome this commemoration which is taking place once again in Turkey, the most meaningful place to share the grief endured by the Ottoman Armenians, as well as to honor their memories, he said. In the lands of Anatolia, where humanitarian duties are never neglected and happiness and grief are sincerely shared, the sense of conscience and justice are held above all. The annual commemoration marks the deaths of Armenians in 1915, when some sided with the invading Russians and revolted. A subsequent relocation of Armenians resulted in numerous casualties. Turkey rejects labeling the deaths as genocide and has called for the establishment of a joint commission of historians to study the episode. Erdogan said the near 1,000-year-old culture of cohabitation between Turks and Armenians would always be remembered. We will never give up working for amity and peace against those who try to politicize history through a bitter rhetoric of hate and enmity and strive to alienate the two neighboring nations, who are bound with their common history and their similar traditions, he added in the statement, read by Patriarch Aram Atesyan. With this in mind, I once again commemorate the Ottoman Armenians who passed away and extend my condolences to their children and grandchildren. The president went on the pay tribute to all Ottoman citizens regardless of their ethnic or religious origins who lost their lives. I would like to reiterate that we share this common pain, he said. I also want to thank all Armenian citizens who have made their contributions to our country, the Turkish president said in his address.
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Saturday all necessary measures will be taken to prevent missile fire in Kilis, a Turkish town bordering a region controlled by Islamic State militants in Syria. Kilis has repeatedly come under rocket fire in recent weeks. On Friday, two people died and four were injured in such an incident. (Reporting by Ercan Gurses, writing by Dasha Afanasieva; Editing by Alison Williams)
By Umit Bektas and Akin Aytekin KILIS, Turkey, (Reuters) - Rockets pounded the Turkish town of Kilis near the Syrian border on Sunday, a Reuters witness reported, killing one person and injuring 26, a day after the government promised to protect the area from repeated attacks by Islamic State militants. Two rockets struck houses in a poor neighbourhood near the town centre in the morning. Sixteen people were injured and Turkish soldiers near the border returned fire into Syria, security sources said. Later in the day, one person was killed and 10 more injured when two more rockets crashed into a mosque, Hurriyet Daily News reported. The mosque was 100 metres from the governor's office, where Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan was holding talks at the time. "I am calling for our citizens to be calm," Akdogan told a news conference in Kilis. "All measures will be taken in this regard. Unfortunately there is no authority across our border." Akdogan said measures would be announced after a cabinet meeting on Monday. Police later used water cannon to disperse residents who were protesting what they said was the government's lack of action over the attacks, Dogan new agency reported. Some of the residents called on the local governor to resign, while others shouted slogan against the government. "My son wakes up with nightmares ... We aren't safe here. We are afraid to stay in our houses," Ayse, a 46-year-old woman, told Reuters. Lying just across the border from an area of Syria controlled by Islamic State, Kilis has been peppered by rocket fire in recent weeks. On Friday two people were killed in an attack on the town, home to around 110,000 Syrian refugees. "SAFE ZONES" Visiting the nearby city of Gaziantep on Saturday, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu promised that all necessary measures would be taken to prevent more rocket fire. He was accompanied by EU Council President Donald Tusk as well as German Chancellor Angela Merkel who had been expected to visit Kilis last weekend but the location and timing of the visit were changed. Merkel said on Saturday she favoured establishing "safe zones" to shelter refugees in Syria. At a news conference with U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday she said these could be agreed areas where civilians could feel free from bombardment, rather than zones protected by foreign forces. The militants come to the border on motorcycles and then fire rockets at Kilis, Turkish officials have said. Turkish howitzers at the border have a difficult time firing on the mobile targets. Officials have said Turkey may call on allies in the U.S.-led coalition to take stronger action in its campaign against Islamic State along the border. But in Kilis, patience is wearing thin. Residents said they were frustrated by what they called the government's inability to protect them. "I want the governor to resign," 26-year-old Murat told Reuters. "We aren't even able to sleep." (Additional reporting by Seyhmus Cakan in Diyarbakir and Orhan Coskun in Ankara and Yesim Dikmen in Istanbul; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Ros Russell/Ruth Pitchford)
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations Security Council on Sunday condemned North Korea's submarine-launched ballistic missile test and expressed serious concern that such activities contributed to Pyongyang's development of nuclear weapons delivery systems. North Korea (DPRK) said the missile test it conducted on Saturday under the supervision of leader Kim Jong Un had been a "great success" that provided "one more means for powerful nuclear attack." "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 council said in a statement. The submarine-launched ballistic missile test is the latest in a string of recent demonstrations of military might that began in January with Pyongyang's fourth nuclear test and included the launch of a long-range rocket in February. The tests have increased tension on the Korean peninsula and angered ally China. In March, the 15-member Security Council imposed harsh new sanctions on North Korea to starve it of money for its nuclear weapons program. The council called on states to implement sanctions on North Korea, particularly the measures adopted in March. "The members of the Security Council emphasized that the DPRK's development and testing of new ballistic missile capabilities, even if launches are failures, is clearly prohibited by these resolutions," the council said. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Peter Cooney)
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The UN Security Council echoed international condemnation Sunday of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test by North Korea, while US President Barack Obama dismissed Pyongyang's offer of a nuclear moratorium.

Saturday's test, personally monitored by supreme leader Kim Jong-Un, was the latest in a series of provocative moves by Pyongyang that have further fuelled tensions on the divided Korean peninsula following the North's fourth nuclear test back in January.

There are growing concerns that Pyongyang is building up to a fifth nuclear test ahead of a key political gathering early next month.

The Security Council said the SLBM launch marked a "serious" violation of UN resolutions aimed at curbing the North's nuclear drive, and urged Pyongyang to refrain from any further provocations.

A proven SLBM capability would take North Korea's nuclear strike threat to a new level, allowing deployment far beyond the Korean peninsula and the potential to retaliate in the event of a nuclear attack.

Kim Jong-Un hailed the test as an "eye-opening success" that underlined the country's ability to strike South Korean or US targets "anytime".

South Korea's defense ministry said the missile, fired from a submarine in the Sea of Japan (East Sea), flew around 19 miles (30 kilometers) and demonstrated clear technological progress from previous tests.

- Quick deployment -

Deployment could begin in three to four years if Pyongyang dedicates enough resources to the project, ministry spokesman Moon Sang-Gyun told reporters.

Hours after the launch, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su-Yong, speaking in New York, said Pyongyang would be willing to halt further nuclear tests if Washington announced an end to its joint military exercises with Seoul.

The annual drills always raise tensions on the Korean peninsula, with the North condemning them as provocative rehearsals for invasion

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The United States had flatly rejected the same moratorium offer made by the North in January last year, and Obama, currently on a visit to Germany, was equally dismissive this time around.

"We don't take seriously a promise to simply halt until the next time they decide to do a test," the president said during a joint press briefing with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"They're going to have to do better than that," he added.

South Korea also waved off what it described as a "ridiculous attempt" to link sanctions-violating nuclear tests with regular military exercises.

- Clear and present threat -

At the same time, Obama warned of the very real dangers posed by North Korea's continued weapons testing, including the recent SLBM launch.

"Although, more often than not, they fail in many of these tests, they gain knowledge each time," he said.

"We take it very seriously, so do our allies and so does the entire world," he added.

North Korea's state television showed pictures of the missile, emblazoned with the name "North Star," trailing a large plume of smoke as it soared out of the water.

It also showed what it claimed were underwater images of the missile being ejected from the submarine, using key "cold launch" technology.

Experts have suggested that the North's previous SLBM tests were conducted from a submerged platform.

North Korea is currently gearing up for a rare and much-hyped ruling party congress -- the first in 36 years -- at which Kim is expected to take credit for pushing the country's nuclear and missile weapons program to new heights.

In recent months, the North has claimed a series of significant technical breakthroughs, including success in miniaturising a nuclear warhead to fit on a missile and testing an engine designed for an inter-continental ballistic missile that could reach the US mainland.
Hanover (Germany) (AFP) - President Barack Obama said Monday the US would send up to 250 more special forces and other military personnel to Syria to help rebels fight the Islamic State group.

Obama was in Germany for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel, and both later met the British, French and Italian leaders to discuss the battle against IS in its self-declared caliphate across northern Syria and Iraq.

In a speech in the German city of Hanover, Obama hailed NATO partners' progress in pushing back IS, which he called "the most urgent threat to our nations".

"A small number of American special operations forces are already on the ground in Syria and their expertise has been critical as local forces have driven ISIL out of key areas," he said, using an alternative acronym for the jihadist group.

"So, given the success, I have approved the deployment of up to 250 additional US personnel in Syria, including special forces, to keep up this momentum."

The US forces will not lead the fight on the ground but provide training and advice to local forces against IS, he said.

"These terrorists will learn the same lessons that others before them have, which is: your hatred is no match for our nations, united in defence of our way of life," said Obama.

Syrian opposition group the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) said boosting the US military presence to about 300 would be "a good step" and help "rid our country of this scourge".

"But Syria will not be free of terrorism until we see the end of the Assad regime's reign of terror," added HNC spokesman Salem Al Meslet.

- Escalating violence -

While most world powers agree that IS -- which has boasted of beheadings and other battlefield atrocities as well as terror attacks in Paris and Brussels -- must be defeated, they have backed different sides in Syria's complex civil war.

Western powers have offered some support to moderate rebels, while Russia has sent troops and fighter jets to back the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

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Syria's conflict, which began in March 2011 with widespread anti-Assad protests, has since spiralled into a multi-front war that has killed 270,000 people.

A partial ceasefire -- which does not cover IS or Al-Qaeda's Syrian offshoot Al-Nusra Front -- was agreed two months ago in a bid to end the bloodshed.

But the truce has been undermined by escalating violence around the northern city of Aleppo, with dozens killed by government air strikes and rebel rockets.

At least 23 people were killed in regime and rebel shelling in Aleppo on Monday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said, following violence that killed at least 26 civilians there a day earlier.

- Ground troops 'a mistake' -

Obama on Sunday pressed for all parties to return to the negotiating table and "reinstate" the internationally-brokered ceasefire -- the clearest indication yet that the White House believes the truce has all but disintegrated.

A White House statement said after Monday's talks in Hanover that leaders were concerned about "increasing violations" of the ceasefire by the regime and obstruction of aid.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said after the five-way meeting that all the leaders shared the "concern that the ceasefire is fragile and is at times being dramatically violated".

Obama, Britain's David Cameron, Francois Hollande of France and Italy's Matteo Renzi had all agreed that the only solution would come through the ongoing peace talks in Geneva, she said.

A Western diplomat in Geneva told AFP that the truce deal "is in poor shape, the result very largely of Assad regime attacks on Syria civilians, towns and marketplaces, as well as on the moderate armed opposition".

But the diplomat said all parties which agreed the truce are committed to maintaining it, "and no member believes the cessation (of violence) to be over".

Obama has come under criticism for his handling of Syria's war, with opponents saying he could have done more to stem the bloodshed.

But the president -- who came to power vowing to withdraw US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan -- has stood firm in his opposition to plunging the United States into another ground war in the Islamic world.

In an interview with the BBC, Obama said that "it would be a mistake for the United States, or Great Britain, or a combination of Western states to send in ground troops and overthrow the Assad regime."
By Diane Bartz WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House will likely make a decision by June on whether it will release some classified material withheld from the public 9/11 Commission Report, a former U.S. senator who co-chaired the congressional inquiry into the attacks said on Sunday. The withheld section of the official report on the 2001 attacks is central to a dispute over whether Americans should be able to sue the Saudi Arabian government for damages. The Office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence is reviewing the material to see whether it can be declassified. Former Sen. Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat, has been pressing for the release of the information and said that it may shed light on the financial backers for 19 hijackers who killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept 11, 2001. Graham told NBC's Meet the Press that he believed that some of the withheld classified material could soon be released. "The presidents staff at least has said that they will make a decision by June, and I hope that decision is to honor the American people and make it available," Graham said. Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, said last week that he also supported releasing the material. "The release of these pages will not end debate over the issue, but it will quiet rumors over their contents," Representative Adam Schiff said in a statement. "As is often the case, the reality is less damaging than the uncertainty." (Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Alan Crosby)
The Obama administration is likely on the brink of releasing a secret report from a congressional inquiry into 9/11, and the information contained in its pages could link the Saudi government to the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The classified 28-page chapter has been sequestered to a basement vault in the Capitol building ever since George W. Bush deemed it a potential intelligence threat in 2002, but sources who have read the report say that protecting United States-Saudi Arabia relations was what was really at stake.

Of the 19 Al Qaeda hijackers implicated in the Sept. 11 attacks, 15 were Saudi citizens.

The Saudi government has long denied allegations that it was complicit in funding extremists, and has even encouraged the U.S. government to release the documents so that it can address any specific allegations levied against it.

Former U.S. Rep. Tim Roemer, a member of the congressional inquiry who said he had read the chapter in question three times, described its contents as a "preliminary police report".

"There were clues. There were allegations. There were witness reports. There was evidence about the hijackers, about people they met with  all kinds of different things that the 9/11 Commission was then tasked with reviewing and investigating," Roehmer said, according to the Associated Press.

Ben Rhodes, a White House official, told CNN that Obama had ordered the papers to be reviewed for potential declassification. Though unable to speak openly about the contents of the documents, he alluded to the fact that Saudi involvement might have been on the individual, and not governmental, level.

"There were a number of very wealthy individuals in Saudi Arabia who would contribute, sometimes directly, to extremist groups, sometimes to charities that ... ended up being ways to launder money to these groups," he said.
- By Bram de Haas





Bill Ackman (Trades, Portfolio) has been cutting back on Canadian Pacific (CP) by selling a massive amount of shares as shown by GuruFocus' Real Time Picks . The move is somewhat surprising because on the recent quarterly call, the firms outlook was very bullish:









The railroad business suffered from some of the macro weakness. It's a diversified business, and it holds up well as a whole. Volumes were down only % for the year. It makes great progress on improving operating margins, and it repurchased 8% of shares over the last year. EPS growth of 9% for the year despite muted top line growth.

Improvements are overshadowed by weakness in rail weakness. It remains an attractive investment. It guided for % EPS growth over the next year and, given the disclosures from the company, the guidance is achievable. It has a superb management team. The merger with Norfolk Southern (NSC) would create enormous additional value for shareholders, but it is uncertain whether it will happen. More news will come out in the next month or so.







There are a few reasons why I think the Ackman cut back. First, in mid-April the U.S. army started to look into the merger along with the Justice Department. This greatly discouraged management to explore a deal further and they basically threw the towel in on the merger.

Second, Ackman had a terrible and widely publicized start to 6. It's likely he has been facing some redemption requests, even though clients can only withdraw limited amounts of their money in the firm over a quarter. I believe he may have a need to raise a bit of cash to satisfy withdrawal requests.

Third, other hedge funds are circling for blood and likely anticipate some liquidations by Ackman. By shorting companies Ackman has in the portfolio, they can try to effectively front-run him. Because Pershing Square is a massive fund with a concentrated portfolio, it is potentially hard for the firm to trade out without an impact on the market. A defensive strategy could be to liquidate the most liquid of holdings. I believe that may play a role in Ackman selling some Mondelez (MDLZ) and now Canadian Pacific, instead of holdings in the smaller companies in portfolio.

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Finally, without a catalyst like an M&A transaction and the company facing near term headwinds, it is hard to see how to get a great annualized return (like 5%) from a company that just went through several years of major cost cutting and right-sizing. It now trades at a P/E of 9x, P/B of 5.5x and P/FCF of 4x. Its balance sheet is already fairly efficient with $6.5 billion of debt versus $.5 billion of EBITDA. Ackman appears to be refocusing on his core activist expertise and there isnt that much left to achieve here.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.






Jerusalem (AFP) - A bid by a Jewish women's group to challenge tradition at Jerusalem's Western Wall with a blessing usually conducted by men was curtailed Sunday after a decision by Israel's attorney general.

The plan was the latest by the Women of the Wall group to push for equal prayer rights at the site, the holiest location where Jews are currently allowed to pray.

Around 50 women gathered on the plaza leading to the wall amid Passover celebrations to pray, though without carrying out the full blessing.

They prayed under heavy police guard as ultra-Orthodox Jewish men and boys in dark suits looked on and harangued them.

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit's decision on Thursday prohibited the first-ever "women's priestly blessing" at the wall because it did not conform to local custom.

The ultra-Orthodox establishment that oversees the Western Wall strongly opposed the bid, viewing it as a desecration under their strict interpretation of Jewish law.

It had been unclear whether the women would defy the attorney general's ruling, but on Sunday they said police asked them to sign a document committing to not conduct the blessing, which they did.

They were also kept in a cordoned-off area around 50 metres (yards) from the wall itself.

Previous prayers by Women of the Wall have led to harassment and abuse by ultra-Orthodox worshippers.

- 'Absurd system' -

"In order to get our buses in, we signed that we will not raise our hands in the air, we will not bless the people of Israel and we will not put our (prayer shawls) over our heads," Anat Hoffman of Women of the Wall told AFP.

"It's pretty demeaning, and it shows I think how grotesque and absurd the system is."

Police did not respond to a request for comment.

The traditional benediction sees male descendants of the Cohanim priestly caste bless congregations during daily morning prayers. A mass blessing will be held on Monday at the Western Wall to mark Passover.

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It involves the raising of hands in a form similar to the "Vulcan salute" Leonard Nimoy borrowed from Judaism for his "Star Trek" role as Mr Spock.

A grant from Nimoy's estate financed bus transportation for Sunday's event, Women of the Wall said.

Those conducting the blessing also cover their heads with prayer shawls.

Women on Sunday wore pins in the shape of the hand gesture, and at least one made the sign discreetly during prayers.

The rabbi who oversees the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinovitz, called the gathering a "provocation" and argued that the blessing they wanted to carry out had never been done "by any (Jewish) community in the world".

He also said their actions "desecrate the sanctity" of the site.

- 'Very dangerous' -

One 40-year-old ultra-Orthodox woman at the plaza called what the group was doing "very, very dangerous".

"Because we have one God, and he says what to do," the mother of 11 said.

Shaina Lidd, a 21-year-old American teaching English in Israel, took part and said she hoped a full women's priestly blessing could happen soon.

"In the future, I hope to see that happen one day, hopefully next year," she said. "But I'm still happy that we got to be together and pray."

Women of the Wall has also been pushing for an egalitarian prayer space at the wall, where men and women currently pray in separate areas.

The government in January approved an agreement to create such a space, but ultra-Orthodox parties have come out strongly against it and more discussions are being held.

The Western Wall, in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, is believed to be among the last remnants of the second Jewish Temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.

The hill above the wall is revered as the site of the temple itself. It is known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary.

It is now the location of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound and the Dome of the Rock.

Jews are allowed to visit but not pray there to avoid provoking tensions, with Israel having occupied east Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognised internationally.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews oppose visits to the site, saying that under current conditions Jews cannot sufficiently "purify" themselves to be there.
Marib (Yemen) (AFP) - Yemeni troops backed by Arab coalition air strikes on Sunday recaptured a southeastern provincial capital held by Al-Qaeda for the past year and an oil terminal, military sources told AFP.

The gains come after pro-government forces began an offensive aimed at securing parts of the country captured by jihadist militants who have exploited a 13-month war between Gulf-backed loyalists and rebels supported by Iran.

The offensive coincides with UN-brokered peace talks in Kuwait after a ceasefire entered into effect on April 11, but from which jihadists groups are excluded.

"We entered the city centre (of Mukalla) and were met by no resistance from Al-Qaeda militants who withdrew west" towards the vast desert in Hadramawt and Shabwa provinces, a military officer told AFP by phone from the city the jihadists seized last April.

The officer, who requested anonymity, said residents of Mukalla, home to an estimated 200,000 people, had appealed to the jihadists to spare the city the destruction of fighting and to withdraw.

Yemeni military sources said Emirati military vehicles were used in the operation and that troops from the Gulf country, a key member of the Saudi-led coalition, were among the forces that entered Mukalla.

AFP could not immediately confirm these reports from officials in the United Arab Emirates.

The Arab coalition battling rebels in Yemen since March 2015 carried out air strikes against Al-Qaeda positions in Mukalla to pave the way for the ground troops, military sources said.

Troops also recaptured Mina al-Dhaba oil terminal in Shehr further east, the sources said.

Earlier Sunday, military sources said pro-government forces seized Riyan airport and an army brigade headquarters Al-Qaeda had held for a year on Mukalla's outskirts.

Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is regarded by Washington as the network's most dangerous branch, and has carried out deadly attacks on the West in the past.

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Last month, a US air strike on an Al-Qaeda training camp in Hadramawt province killed dozens of fighters in a major blow to the jihadists.

A provincial official in Shabwa said jihadists also fled from the town of Azzan on Sunday which they seized in February.

- Bomb kills 7 troops -

As the anti-jihadist offensive gained momentum, a bomb-laden vehicle exploded Sunday, killing seven soldiers and wounding 14. They were in a convoy entering another southern jihadist stronghold -- Zinjibar, capital of Abyan province, said military sources, blaming Al-Qaeda for the attack.

The coalition, led by Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia, has deployed Apache helicopters to support loyalists fighting on the ground.

Forces loyal to internationally recognised President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's government have retreated from Zinjibar after entering it late Saturday, an officer in Abyan told AFP.

"The withdrawal was decided following information that Al-Qaeda was preparing other car-bomb attacks against our troops," added the officer who requested anonymity.

Government forces also launched an offensive Saturday to drive the jihadists from the neighbouring town of Jaar.

Fighting on Saturday killed 25 Al-Qaeda fighters and four soldiers as loyalists seized Al-Kud, five kilometres (three miles) south of Zinjibar, military and medical sources said.

"After our withdrawal, Apache helicopters will target Al-Qaeda positions to secure the town," said another officer, adding that helicopters had foiled two attempts to attack troops using vehicle bombs in Al-Kud.

Similar assaults have pushed the jihadists from other areas in the south in recent months.

Coalition-backed forces have driven militants from Aden, the southern city declared by Hadi as Yemen's temporary capital after the Shiite Huthi rebels overran Sanaa in September 2014.

And last week, government forces expelled AQAP militants from Huta, the provincial capital of Lahj.

When US President Barack Obama met Gulf leaders on Thursday in Saudi Arabia, they discussed the wars in Yemen and Syria.

During the visit, Ben Rhodes, one of Obama's closest advisers, urged all warring sides in Yemen to participate "constructively" in the Kuwait talks that began on Thursday, saying that a political solution would "allow for a focus on AQAP in Yemen".
By Mohammed Ghobari and Mohammed al-Mukhashaf KUWAIT/ADEN (Reuters) - Yemen's government forces battled al Qaeda in the country's south on Saturday, aiming to push back advances the militant group has made during a year-long civil war while peace talks take place in Kuwait. Twenty fighters loyal to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) were killed in the clashes, residents and a military source said, while a drone strike killed two others further north. AQAP has taken advantage of chaos in Yemen since its civil war began last year to win control over swathes of southern and eastern Yemen, creating a local government there and introducing services. The war pits a collection of local forces and army remnants backed by the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and a Saudi-led Arab coalition against the Houthi movement and troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Representatives gathered in Kuwait on Thursday to begin peace talks after agreeing a ceasefire across the country. The United Nations, which has convened the talks, says around 6,000 people have died in the conflict, half of them civilians. However, as talks moved into a third day disputes continued over both the agenda and accusations from the government that the Houthis and Saleh's forces had breached the truce in the city of Taiz, a source from Hadi's government said. The government wants the Houthis and Saleh's forces to release prisoners, withdraw from cities and hand over weapons before discussing a solution to the political disagreements. The Houthis and its allies want coalition air missions to stop and a unity government to be formed before disarmament talks. The government delegation on Saturday said it would only meet U.N. special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmad and not sit directly with the Houthis, the source said. However, later on Saturday Ould Cheikh Ahmad said the sides had agreed to appoint delegates to oversee the ceasefire process, a small step forward. Ceasefire documents shown to Reuters by the Saudi-led coalition showed agreements for each of Yemen's provinces where fighting was taking place signed by representatives of each side, who had formed committees to monitor the truce. CLASHES Saturday's clashes at al-Koud near Zinjibar in the southern Abyan Province were between AQAP and army forces of Yemen's internationally recognised government backed by local militias, referred to locally as the Popular Resistance. In recent weeks Hadi's forces, backed by coalition air strikes, have pushed towards Zinjibar along the beach road from Aden. Al-Koud lies on that road only 5 km (3 miles) from Zinjibar, long considered an AQAP stronghold along with the town of Jaar about 15 km to the north. A group of dozens of AQAP fighters escaped and around 30 were injured and taken to a government hospital, the military source said, adding that two army soldiers were also killed. Later, a suicide attack on a military post in al-Koud was thwarted when a bomb-laden car was fired on and destroyed, killing the driver, before it reached the sentries, the military source said. Also on Saturday, an air strike from a drone killed two men south of the Yemeni city of Marib suspected of belonging to al Qaeda, local residents said by phone. The United States has used drone strikes in Yemen to target AQAP leaders, the global jihadist group's local wing, which has plotted to place bombs on international airliners and has encouraged attacks in Western countries. Officials travelling to Saudi Arabia with U.S. President Barack Obama this week said they hoped moves towards a peace deal in Yemen would allow a renewed focus on challenging AQAP. (Reporting by Mohammed al-Mukhashaf and Mohammed Ghobari; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Alison Williams)
KUWAIT (Reuters) - Yemeni and Emirati troops on Sunday plunged into the southern port city of Mukalla, residents said, entering a stronghold of the Yemeni wing of al Qaeda for the first time in over a year of war. "Coalition armored vehicles and the army entered Mukalla and al Qaeda fighters are departing," said one resident, who declined to be named for security reasons. (Story corrects to remove garble in first paragraph). (Reporting By Mohammed Ghobari; Writing by Noah Browning; Editing by Alison Williams)
For many budget-minded shoppers, the traditional route to an affordable smartphone has often been still-good hand-me-downs, refurbished like new models, or discounts on phones eclipsed by newer, shinier successors. But why settle for the patina-encrusted mobiles of the past when there are plenty of intriguing new models from which to choose?

We already have several fairly new models in our Ratings that fit that bill. These include the $180 LG Escape 2 and the $190 Samsung Grand Prime. But two of the most recent additions, the iPhone SE and Blu Vivo 5, are particularly interesting entries into the cheap smartphone arena.

The iPhone SE, which starts at $400, provides the essentials users need for enjoying the benefits of the Apple ecosystem, including mobile payments via NFC and Touch ID authorization. And the phone's small size promises respite from the palm-stretching dimensions of iPhone 6-class mobiles. That price tag may sound a little high for something I'm calling a cheap smartphone, but it's the least expensive new iPhone model you can own.

For Android fans, the $200 Blu Vivo 5 has a small price tag that belies some very big features, including a phablet-size display, impressive options for cellular service, and a clever trick for getting you out of uncomfortable social situations.



iPhone SE Offers iPhone 6 Features

The iPhone SE has an iPhone 5s-size, 4-inch display and trim shape. The new phone has the same flat, rounded edges of the iPhone 5s, though the rear side is made of aluminum, like the iPhone 6 models.

But that small package manages to cram in many qualities of the iPhone 6-series phones. That includes the fast A9 processor and M9 coprocessor, plus NFC support and other hardware needed for Apple Pay transactions. And, as on an iPhone 6s, the Siri assistant can respond to voice commands without you having to touch the home button.

Overall battery life was very good, providing an adequate 9 hours of talk time in our testing.

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The iPhone SE has the same 12.2-megapixel main camera thats on the 6s iPhones; it can take Live photos and shoot videos in 4K resolution. In our tests the camera proved to be better than many competitors at taking still images, producing very-good-quality pictures when under well-lit conditions. The camera also performed very well under low-light conditions. High-definition, 1080P video performance was just decent, though, and the camera had difficulty focusing in low light conditions in video mode.

The SEs excellent display is the same as the one on an iPhone 5s: 1136-by-640-pixel resolution at 326 ppi, which is very good for a 4-inch screen. The display earned high marks for color accuracy and contrast, and for visibility in bright light.

Blu Vivo 5: A Popular Unlocked Choice

You may have never heard of Blu, but this smartphone maker has been selling quite a few phones in the burgeoning unlocked-smartphone market. The company accounts for 5.2 million of the 14 million unlocked phones sold in the U.S. Unlike most phones people buy, you can take an unlocked smartphone to a new carrier with little fuss, provided the phone has radios that are compatible with the provider's network. Blus phones are ultra-cheap by smartphone standards, yet they have many compelling features.

The Blu Vivo 5, for instance, which costs just $200, has a very goodand very large5.5-inch HD display (720P), yet is one of the thinnest and lightest phablet-sized models weve seen. Its just 0.27 inches thick and weighs 4.9 ounces.

And the Vivo 5 is actually two phones in one, thanks to its dual SIM-card slot that allows you to have two phone accountseven from two separate providers. (This is a GSM-based phone, which means you can use it with providers such as AT&T and T-Mobile, but not Sprint or Verizon.)

That makes the Vivo 5 an appealing option for anyone who needs a second smartphone, such as for travel or business use, but only has the budgetor pocketsfor one. There is one downside to this capability: The slot for the second SIM card is also the slot for the microSD memory card, which means you cant have expanded phone storage when youre using two accounts. But since the phone already comes with an adequate 32GB of internal storage, that shouldnt be an issue for most people.

The Vivo 5 has a USB Type-C connection, so there's no more fumbling around on which way is up when plugging in the charger. Finally, here's a neat trick: Subtly pressing a button on the screen activates Fake Call, which makes the phone ring after a short delay, allowing you to escape a meeting by saying you have to leave to take care of a work crisis. (A recording even plays, urging you to get a colleague an important file.)

Visitors to our Ratings will notice that the Vivo 5 is not among our Recommended models. Thats because of relatively weak performances in several areas, such as the camera, and because it lacks NFC, high-band (5GHz) Wi-Fi, and other features many smartphone users may miss. Plus it doesn't support some LTE frequency bands, which may hurt cell coverage in some areas. All of these shortcomings help drag the overall score of this otherwise compelling model just below the recommended threshold. But if those sacrifices seem worthwhile to you, the Vivo 5 could be a model to look at.





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Armenians in Tehran honour Armenian Genocide victims

Thousands of Armenians gathered in Saint Sarkis Cathedral in central Tehran this morning to commemorate victims of the killings of ethnic Armenians by Ottoman Turks over a century ago. They had come to raise their voice and join the calls of Armenians of Armenia and Artsakh, Javakh, Western Armenia and Armenians around the world. They had come to remind the world that Armenian people are again fighting a life-and-death battle against the same enemies, against those who slaughtered our ancestors in Van, Ani and Mush, Zeitun and in the desert of Deir ez-Zor, and today the same wild hand wants to continue its atrocities in Artsakh. But our enemies cannot and will not be able to do it, our nation will not allow them to do it. Artsakh is not merely a territory for us, Artsakh is associated with its people who have lived there for centuries, created civilization and left an inscription on each stone, Tehran-based Aras" weekly reports. On the evening of April 23, Tehrans church of St. Sargis hosted a liturgy followed by a wreath laying ceremony, with ambassadors, high-ranking officials and a number of local Armenians attending to commemorate the 1,5 million innocent victims of the atrocity.
The leader made the request at an investment promotion conference in Lai Chau on April 23rd, where he said the province should gear towards high-quality agriculture and forestry, and science-intensive and high value-added industries while paying attention to human resource development.



He suggested the province expand its market to adjacent localities to boost export, attract more investments and facilitate enterprises operation.







PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc speaks at the investment promotion conference in Lai Chau province (Source: VNA)

Another important job is to continue improving knowledge for locals, ensuring their livelihoods and social welfare, protecting forests and preserving the localitys traditional culture, PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc said.

The Government will maintain political stability and improve the investment climate to help investors do business in Vietnam and Lai Chau province in particular, the leader promised.



The Party, State and Government consider assisting poor provinces and extremely disadvantaged localities to escape from poverty and spur socio-economic development a top priority, he affirmed.



Investors, for their part, should fulfill commitments they have made before starting their operation in the locality, the PM said.



The Government leader noted with joy investors commitment of over VND8 billion (USD360 million) in investment in Lai Chau made during the conference.



Speaking at the event, Chairman of the provincial Peoples Committee Do Ngoc An pledged to do his utmost to improve the local investment environment and create the best possible conditions for investors to run their businesses in the locality effectively and sustainably.



Businesses will receive investment licences within 20 days from the date their legal dossiers are submitted to the Peoples Committee, he said, promising to support investors in land clearance as well as labour and electricity supply.



Covering an area of over 900,000 hectares and with a population of 430,000, Lai Chau is blessed with fertile land, favourable weather conditions and rich natural resources.



Such blessings, together with the Ma Lu Thang national border gate, are advantages for the province in economic development and trading with other localities and foreign countries. However, the localitys development achievements over the past years have yet to match its potential and strengths.



Since 2004, Lai Chau has attracted a total of 124 projects with a combined registered capital of nearly VND205 trillion (USD9.2 billion), mainly focusing on hydro power plants, industrial and agricultural production, commercial centres, tourism and health care./.
The visit is being made at the invitation of Russian Defence Minister General Sergei Shoigu.On this occasion, Lieut. Gen. Nguyen Duc Hai, Director of the National Defence Strategy Institute, wrote an article highlighting the defence ties between Vietnam and Russia.In his article, the officer said defence cooperation is an integral part of the two countries relationship and seen as a symbol of their friendship.

Defence Minister General Ngo Xuan Lich. (Souce: VNA)

Vietnams struggle for national liberation received the great support of the international community, including the former Soviet Union, which granted comprehensive aid to the country, especially during crucial periods of the war.Following political uncertainties in the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Vietnam and Russia have continued to attach importance to their multi-faceted and mutually beneficial cooperation, which includes their defence ties, as evidenced through the signing of various cooperation agreements in strategic fields, including technical-military.Since the bilateral relationship was lifted to a strategic partnership in 2001, and a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2006, the defence ties have developed strongly, Hai said.Apart from increasing the exchange of visits, the two sides have built and maintained their consultation and exchange mechanisms, through which they have shared their views on world, and regional security, and other issues of mutual concern, and discussed specific measures to advance their defence links.He noted that between 2008 and 2013, Vietnamese and Russian Defence Ministers exchanged four high-level official visits, affirming the two countries strategic partnership in the sphere of national defence.The strategic defence dialogue mechanism at the deputy minister level between Vietnam and Russia is the vivid evidence for the strategic relationship, Hai said, adding that through the mechanism, the two countries armies have built mutual trust and understanding, creating a new momentum for their cooperation and friendship.Besides this, they have also joined hands in officer training, peace keeping and scientific research.Of note, bilateral cooperation in the defence industry is going along smoothly, Hai said, adding that Vietnam has singed an agreement to purchase a number of modern weapons and equipment from Russia.Multilaterally, Vietnam and Russia have stepped up their coordination at regional and international forums such as the UN, the ASEAN Regional Forum, ASEAN+ and the East Asia Summit.Particularly, they have actively partnered with each other within the framework of the A SEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting Plus (ADMM+) , contributing to maintaining peace, stability and development in the region and the world at large.To make the defence ties match the two countries potential and suit the framework of the comprehensive strategic partnership, Hai suggested the two sides expand cooperation content, spanning the realms of defence strategy, technical-military and exchanges between units.In the same vein, they should increase the exchange of high-ranking delegations, expand cooperation mechanisms and foster their affiliation in maritime security, especially in areas of Russias strengths like ship building and equipment production, as well as in technology and cyber-security training.The officer also called on the two sides to enhance their collaboration in overcoming consequences caused by bombs and mines left from the war, enhancing medical-military exchanges, UN peace-keeping missions, and at regional and international forums./.
However, millions of patients around the world are still waiting to receive the standard of care that they need in an affordable way. GE Healthcare on April 23rd introduced in Vietnam a new affordable CT scanner, a pioneer in the future of CT imaging.



Photo: Thanh Hai



Designed to be more affordable than previous generation systems, the new system aims to reduce the typical trade-offs between quality and affordability; and at macro level, opens the door to a host of modern technologies, including decreased electricity consumption.

Purposely designed to help deliver higher quality results with more consistency and speed (up to twenty-eight percent faster), the new scanner enables caregivers to make the most informed diagnoses possible.

This new system is about innovating for affordability and defining solutions that deliver high quality diagnostic CT solutions in the most challenging healthcare markets. We hope the value of this new CT scanner will help improve access for Vietnamese patients across the country to quality diagnosis and treatment of disease, said Mr. Vu Duc Nhat - Sales Manager Diagnostic Imaging, GE Healthcare.

In a seminar in April last year, the Vietnams Ministry of Healths evaluation stated that the nation was suffering from shortage of necessary devices.

While the hospitals at district levels are equipped with only twenty percent to fifty percent of required technologies, leading to inadequate devices at commune level clinics and volume overload in patients at central hospitals./.
Photo: VGP

The event forms part of the activities to mark the 30th founding anniversary of the center.

Director of the Centre Dang Quang Thieu said the centre, founded in 1986 with the support of the International Automic Energy Agency (IAEA) was the first of its kind in Vietnam, serving to irradiate fruits for export.

It helped lay the foundation for development of the radiation industry in the south, with the establishment of the Research and Development Centre for Radiation Technology (VINAGAMMA) in 1999 in Ho Chi Minh city, Thieu said.

The upgrade to the centre, which was approved in 2015 is expected to help domestic organisations, enterprises and farmers to expand their export market and increase their agricultural production.

It plans to produce and use medical radiation for early dectection of cancers and other diseases.

At the event, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Tran Viet Thanh presented a certificate of merit to the centre for its outstanding contributions to the development of the sector in the 2011-2015 period.

Thanh also hailed the achievements the centre has made over the past 30 years, saying that they contributed to helping ensure the quality of agricultural products for export./.
Addressing a conference on religions that concluded on Saturday, Xi said religious affairs carry "special importance" in the work of the CPC and the central government, and that the CPC's religious policies and theories had been proven right through past practices.

He promised to fully implement the Party's policy of religious freedom, manage religious affairs in line with laws, retain the principle of religious independence and self-administration, and help religions adapt to the socialist society.

Authorities should work to unite religious and non-religious people, and guide those religious to love their country, protect the unification of their motherland and serve the overall interests of the Chinese nation.

Religious groups, meanwhile, must adhere to the leadership of the CPC, and support the socialist system and socialism with Chinese characteristics, Xi said.

They should "merge religious doctrines with Chinese culture, abide by Chinese laws and regulations, and devote themselves to China's reform and opening up drive and socialist modernization in order to contribute to the realization of the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation."

The Chinese president said one key mission in helping religions adapt to the socialist society is localization.

"We should guide and educate the religious circle and their followers with the socialist core values, and guide the religious people with ideas of unity, progress, peace and tolerance," Xi said.

Religious groups, he continued, should "dig deep into doctrines and canons that are in line with social harmony and progress, and favorable for the building of a healthy and civilized society, and interpret religious doctrines in a way that is conducive to modern China's progress and in line with our excellent traditional culture."

Politics and religions must be separated, Xi stressed. "In no way should religions interfere with government administration, judiciary and education," he said.

Meanwhile, the government's regulation of religious affairs must be in line with laws and the legitimate rights of religious people must be protected.

Authorities must offer necessary support to the work of religious groups, and build a leadership that is politically trustworthy, democratic in conduct and efficient in their daily work.

"We must resolutely guard against overseas infiltrations via religious means and prevent ideological infringement by extremists," Xi said, adding that authorities should also focus on religious issues on the Internet and disseminate the Party's religious policies and theories online.

The Chinese president urged authorities to put religious work high on their work agenda, enhance the Party's research into religious issues and step up the guidance, planning, direction and supervision on religious work.

In particular, CPC members must act as "unyielding Marxist atheists, consolidate their faith, and bear in mind the Party's tenets."

They must not seek their own values and beliefs from religions, Xi said, adding that efforts should also be made to help teenagers form a scientific outlook of the world, and guide them to believe in science, study science and promote science.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang presided over the two-day meeting, which was also attended by other top leaders including Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, and Wang Qishan.

Li, for his part, urged government organs to study Xi's speech and carry out religions-related work in a more law-based manner.

Efforts should be made to direct the religious circle and their followers to enhance social harmony and work harder towards the realization of the Chinese dream.

Top political advisor Yu Zhengsheng urged authorities to keep in mind the social effects of religions in China. "The positive role of religions should be maximized, and their negative impacts minimized," Yu said.

Highlighting the promotion of rule of law in religious work, Yu also said all sorts of disputes and problems in the religious domain should be addressed correctly and in accordance with laws.
DPRK leader Kim Jong Un watches the ballistic rocket launch drill of the Strategic Force of the Korean People's Army (KPA) at an unknown location, in this undated file photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang on March 11, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) announced successful underwater test-fire of strategic submarine ballistic missile and the top leader Kim Jong Un guided the test, the official KCNA news agency reported Sunday.

The test-fire aimed to "confirm the stability of the underwater ballistic launching system in the maximum depth of waters, flying kinetic feature under the vertical flight system of the ballistic missile powered by the newly developed high-power solid fuel engine, the reliability of the phased heat separation and the working accuracy of nuclear detonating device of the warhead."

The state media said the test-fire proved "an eye-opening success" and that Kim was satisfied with the result. The DPRK-style submarine-launched ballistic missile technology met all technical requirements for carrying out an underwater attack operation, it said.
Firefighters try to extinguish blaze at a chemical storage of Deqiao Storage Company in Jingjiang City, east China's Jiangsu Province, on April 22, 2016. Blaze has been fully put down by 1:50 a.m. on April 23 and no casualties are reported. The fire occurred around 9 a.m. on April 22. Among the 42 tanks at the storage, 12 are gasoline tanks, the rest 30 contain dangerous chemicals including alcohol and lipid. [Photo: Xinhua]

A 26-year-old firefighter died at hospital after he was injured putting out the fire in a chemical storage facility in east China's Jiangsu Province on Saturday morning.

He failed to withdraw as he was helping other firefighters escape the scene.

Firefighters put out the blaze, 16 hours after it started.

The fire, which began around 9:40 a.m. on Friday in Jingjiang City, was put out at 1:50 a.m. on Saturday after firefighters from nearby cities Shanghai, Nanjing, Nantong, Suzhou and Wuxi were mobilized to help.

With chemical storage tanks destroyed and their contents spreading over a wide area, firefighters had difficulty approaching for a while.

They curbed the blaze after the valve of an oil pipeline was shut off.
BEIJING, April 24, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Photo provided by National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences shows a high-resolution image of lunar surface on the moon. The image is shot by Chinese Chang'e 3, an unmanned lunar exploration probe, and Yuturover. (Xinhua)
NANCHANG, April 23 (Xinhua) -- Hongxing Village in east China's Jiangxi Province is far from the coldest place in China, but it has become an e-commerce mammoth thanks to warm winter gear.

Every morning, Zha Daixiong sits in front of his computer to take orders for down jackets produced in the village.

"The annual net income of my company has topped one million yuan (154,400 U.S. dollars) since I began selling online in 2012," said Zha.

In Zha's village, home to only 821 families, more than 420 down jacket manufacturing companies have appeared in recent years, with more than 1,000 people employed in online jacket sales.

The story of Hongxing Village's booming jacket industry was first reported by web portal Sohu.com last week.

According to statistics released this week, the village took in 2.5 billion yuan in revenue from jackets in 2015, with more than 1 billion yuan from online sales.

On e-commerce platform Taobao, Hongxing's jacket revenue stood at 500 million yuan last year, qualifying it as a "Taobao Village" as defined by Alibaba, the e-commerce giant that runs the site.

Alibaba defines a village where more than 10 percent of households run online stores and with annual online revenue of 10 million yuan as a "Taobao Village." By the end of 2015, China had 780 "Taobao Villages," according to Alibaba Vice President Gao Hongbing.

FROM SCRATCH TO BOOM

Hongxing's enormous online success started from scratch.

The village's down jacket industry started to take shape in the 1980s. For years, the local jacket industry was dominated by big companies due to the heavy costs of running brick-and-mortar stores. Smaller workshops in the village found it hard to market their products without the logistics and sales support of larger companies.

"When my grandfather was running the jacket business, he took the clothes across the country in a big van, which was time-consuming and tiring," said Xu Ziyang, who now runs an online store. "When my father took over the business, he struggled to find sales agents to help sell the clothes."

"Now it's all online," said 27-year-old Xu.

After graduating from Guangzhou University in 2010, Xu returned to Hongxing to market children's down jackets manufactured by his family's company, Chengzhi Clothing Factory. He designed the product page on Taobao and promoted the products.

Hard work paid off. Online sales topped 6 million yuan in 2014, accounting for more than 60 percent of total revenue that year.

"One of the best things about e-commerce is the slashed costs," a manager of a jacket company with the surname Liu told Xinhua.

Liu opened three brick-and-mortar stores in 2011, which generated about one million yuan in revenue that year, but profits were a tepid 150,000 yuan.

In 2012, he started selling the clothes online, and by 2013, the annual revenue soared to 2 million yuan. His profits also went up by 20 percent year on year, prompting Liu to give up the three stores and concentrate on online sales.

The jacket sales boom also spawned several related industries, including logistics and button production, according to Guo Weishan, Hongxing's village head.

In villager Zha Xiaomao's house, samples of buttons, down collars and other accessories hang on the wall.

"I make more than 100 types of buttons," he said. "Anything you need for down jackets, you can find it here."

The lucrative industry has also attracted some out-of-towners seeking fortune.

Yu Xianyun, a resident of neighboring Gongqingcheng City, came to Hongxing in February last year. He rented a house to design down jackets in the village, where competition is heating up.

"There are four clothing design companies in Hongxing," he said.

Yu said he designs more than 1,000 clothing styles each year for the local garment industry.

A fabric company headquartered in southeast China's Fujian Province also set up a branch in the village to cash in on the industry.

"We provide more than 100 types of fabrics," said branch head Zeng Huaxian. "Profits from a single piece of fabric are not very high, but we have very high sales volume here."

Currently, a total of 85 companies specializing in e-commerce, clothing design and button-making are operating in Hongxing. More than 20 companies were set up by people from neighboring Zhejiang and Fujian provinces, and even some from the northern province of Hebei. The companies have hired some 30,000 locals.

Logistics companies have also been popping up. Before 2010, only one company delivered goods to customers. Now there are 12.

Outside a Xiongdi Logistics warehouse, Xinhua reporters found a group of employees packing more than 40 parcels.

"All of these are down jackets," said the company head. "We deliver about 600 of these parcels each day."

Another logistics company, Tiantian Express, delivers more than 1,000 parcels to customers nationwide every day.
BEIJING, April 23 -- China's recovery of the Nansha Islands from Japanese occupation at the conclusion of World War II is part of the post-war international order.

During World War II, Japan invaded and illegally occupied a group of Chinese islands in the South China Sea, including the Dongsha Islands, the Xisha Islands and the Nansha Islands.

The Chinese people courageously rose in resistance against the Japanese aggression and hence safeguarded China and its territory, an indelible contribution to the triumph of the world anti-Fascist war.

In December 1943, the Cairo Declaration stated in explicit terms that "all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese" shall be restored to China.

In July 1945, the Potsdam Declaration reaffirmed "the terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out."

In September 1945, Japan signed the Instrument of Surrender and proclaimed unconditional surrender to the allied powers which included the United States, China, Britain and the Soviet Union.

The surrender document said that the emperor, the Japanese government and their successors should "carry out the provisions of the Potsdam Declaration in good faith."

After the war ended, China took back those islands in the South China Sea.

The United Nations (UN) Charter, which came into effect in October 1947, established the principle of sovereign equality. It also stipulated that all members shall in their international relations refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or act in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.

After the 1970s, the Philippines and Vietnam illegally occupied islands and reefs that are part of China's Nansha Islands. The two countries have built fixed facilities like airports, reclaimed land and even deployed offensive weapons like missiles.

The illegal occupation violated the basic principles of the UN Charter and undermined the territorial arrangement stated in a series of crucial documents which formed the bedrock of the post-war international order.

Ever since the illegal occupation of China's Nansha Islands by the Philippines and Vietnam, the status quo in the South China Sea has changed and disputes have broken out.

China, as a party in and builder and steadfast guardian of the post-war international order, stands ready to safeguard its islands in the South China Sea and will not tolerate any more infringements on its sovereign territory.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 24

Trend:

The Azerbaijani armed forces destroyed Armenia's tank, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said on April 24.

According to the ministry, the tank was destroyed while preventing the Armenian armed forces' attacks on the positions of the Azerbaijani army.

"The Armenian armed forces' tanks were observed on the positions on the line of contact in the evening of April 23," the ministry said. "The tanks fired on the positions of the Azerbaijani armed forces, as well as attempted to attack by using additional forces."

"Armenia's attack was prevented and one tank with the crew was destroyed," the ministry said. "Afterwards, the Armenians began to retreat."

The Armenian armed forces again violated the ceasefire agreement.

"The Armenian armed forces have accumulated additional forces and military equipment in the direction of Agdere," the ministry said. "While using heavy weapons, mortars, rocket launchers and artillery systems in the evening of April 23, the Armenian armed forces shelled the Azerbaijani armed forces' positions and settlements near the line of contact in Azerbaijani Terter district."

According to the ministry, the Azerbaijani armed forces responded with a counter-attack around the Armenian military base in Sugovushan (Madagiz).

"Nobody was killed or injured as a result of shelling," the ministry said. "The Azerbaijani armed forces fully control the situation and Armenia's actions."

While making provocations on the line of contact, Armenia is trying to force Azerbaijan to start hostilities. Armenia's military-political regime is fully responsible for the situation.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr.24

By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend:

Azerbaijan is the active initiator and driving force of the North-South transportation corridor project, Sergey Stolyarov, head of the International Cooperation Department at Russian Railways JSC, told Trend.

Stolyarov emphasized the importance of laying the foundation of the railroad bridge over the Astara River on the Azerbaijani-Iranian border. The groundbreaking ceremony was held on Apr.20.

The railroad bridge over the Astara River is a strategically important facility that will connect the railways of Azerbaijan and Iran. The bridge's construction is planned to be completed by late 2016.

Stolyarov expressed hope that it will be a cornerstone for the active phase of implementation of the project for constructing the Rasht-Astara section which is the main element of the North-South corridor.

Certainly, the implementation of the project for construction of the Rasht-Astara railway line will enable Azerbaijan to receive additional transit cargo base and to become a major participant of the North-South corridor, according to the Russian Railways representative.

Touching upon the possibility of creating a consortium for the North-South project, Stolyarov noted that the project participants have supported a tripartite dialogue on its implementation for a long time.

"Currently, we discuss the possible forms of its joint implementation with our partners both in Azerbaijan and Iran. So everything is possible," he added.

The North-South corridor is meant to connect Northern Europe with South-Eastern Asia. It will serve as a link to connect the railways of Iran, Azerbaijani and Russia.

At the initial stage, it is planned to transport 6 million tons of cargo per year via the North-South corridor and further to increase this volume to 15-20 million tons.

Edited by SI

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov
Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 24

By Dalga Khatinoglu - Trend:

Azerbaijan agreed to open a $500 million credit line to finance the Rasht-Astara railway project, Iran's Minister of Communications and Information Technology Mahmoud Vaezi said in an exclusive interview with Trend

The Rasht-Astara railway is a section of the Qazvin-Rasht-Astara railway, which is currently under construction.

Earlier on Apr. 20, a groundbreaking ceremony was held for construction of a railway bridge over the Astara River on the Azerbaijani-Iranian border.

Vaezi said the Qazvin-Rasht-Astara railway will connect Iran's railway network to that of Azerbaijan.

"Iran has completed the Qazvin-Rasht section by 92 percent and the remaining needed rails are expected to be laid in the near future," he said. "The Qazvin-Rasht project is expected to be completed by late 2016."

As for the Rasht-Astara section, Vaezi said the studies on the project have been finished and Iran is preparing to finance the project.

He said the Rasht-Astara railway project is expected to need $0.9-$1 billion of investment, of which $500 million will be financed through an Azerbaijani loan.

"Allocation of a loan by Azerbaijan to this project accelerates the implementation of the North-South transportation corridor," he added.

Vaezi said the remainder of the funds needed for the project will be provided by Iran.

The plan for transiting 10 million tons of goods per year from the Persian Gulf to Russia and the Black Sea, as well as to Europe, will be realized after launching the Rasht-Astara railway and connecting Qazvin to Astara through that railway.

As for the construction of the railway bridge over the Astara River, Vaezi said the bridge was designed by Iran and Azerbaijan, which started the construction project based on 50/50 share in investment.

He also said Iran is constructing a huge terminal in Astara (Iranian sector).

Iran's Ambassador to Baku Mohsen Pak Ayeen told Trend on Apr. 20 that goods are currently transited from India to Europe in 60 days, but after completing the North-South corridor the transit period will be less than 14 days.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 24

By Fatih Karimov - Trend:

Iran prefers to use European funds rather that Chinese funds for its new petrochemical projects.

After five petrochemical projects were provided with Chinese funds, it is most likely that no new project will be introduced for Chinese investors, Marzieh Shahdaee, Iranian deputy oil minister, said, Mehr news agency reported Apr. 24.

Even some companies have returned the loans to Chinese financers, she said.

"The loans were obtained for Lavan and Hengam petrochemical projects," Shahdaee added. "These loans have been returned."

She further said that certain negotiations were held with several investors from the European countries to finance new petrochemical projects in Iran.

Based on Iran's Sixth Five Year Development Plan (2016-2021) the petrochemical industry should receive $5-7 billion of assets, which can be foreign funds, the Iranian official said.

She added that Bushehr, Siraf, Lordegan, Middle East Kimia Pars and Masjed Soleiman are the five petrochemical projects which have received Chinese loans.

It was earlier announced that 16 petrochemical projects with a total budget of $16 billion have been introduced for Chinese finance.

The country's petrochemical output capacity currently stands at 61 million tons. The Islamic Republic hopes to bring this capacity to 120 million tons by 2020 and 180 million tons by 2025.

Petrochemical plants in Iran had to work below the actual production capacity due to the shortage of natural gas as feedstock, old production units and the sanctions, which caused a decline in exports.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, April 24

By Huseyn Hasanov- Trend:

The talks were held with the Dutch delegation, headed by Jan-Paul Dirkse, ambassador-at-large of the foreign ministry of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in Ashgabat, the Turkmen foreign ministry said April 23.

The delegation stressed the Dutch leading companies' interest in the Turkmen market.

The prospects of bilateral cooperation were discussed at a meeting in the foreign ministry.

The views on issues of mutual interest were expressed.

The sides discussed the expansion of mutually beneficial cooperation in political, trade-economic and humanitarian spheres. The role of intensifying the contacts between the foreign ministries of the two countries was stressed.

Moreover, special attention was paid to the further development of cooperation as part of international organizations, in particular the UN, OSCE. The prospects for cooperation between Turkmenistan and the EU were also discussed.

The sides expressed their commitment to further progressive development of mutually beneficial cooperation between Turkmenistan and the Netherlands, based on the principles of mutual respect.

Turkmenistan ranks fourth in the world in terms of the gas reserve volume.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 24

By Umid Niayesh - Trend:

Major Danish firm Vestas is exploring cooperation opportunities in Iran's energy sector, Anders Riis, an official with the company, told Trend.

"There is a great potential on the Iranian market, and Vestas is exploring opportunities there," Riis said.

"We collaborated with SUNA (Iran Renewable Energy Organization) for a workshop on the 18th and 19th of April that presented the benefits of wind energy," he added.

However, Riis underlined that it's too early to speak about specific projects or plans in the country.

Vestas has expressed readiness to invest in Iran's renewable energy sector.

Earlier in a meeting with Iran's energy minister, Hamid Chitchian, Inigo Sabater, the vice president of Vestas proposed an investment plan worth $100 million to be implemented over five to seven years.

Renewable energy currently comprises less than one percent of Iran's energy basket. The country relies heavily on oil and gas as energy resources.

Energy intensity in Iran is also very high.
Tehran, Iran, April 24

By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:

Iran's Airports and Air Transport Co. has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Italian Milan Airport on building a new terminal at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport.

If the MoU turns into a contract, then a passenger terminal will be built in an area of 80,000 square meters, Rahmatollah Mahabadi, the CEO of the Iranian company said, ISNA news agency reported April 23.

The official said building the terminal is estimated to cost 250 million, adding that the terminal will also provide parking space for 6,000 cars.

He added that another MoU has been signed with another Italian company to build a passenger airport in northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz.

The Tabriz airport will cost about 50 million funded by the foreign company, Mahabadi said, adding that the Italian side has also agreed to transfer technology and work experience to the Iranian side.

Iran's aviation industry suffered great damage under sanctions, as the country was deprived of foreign help not only with airplanes, but construction, maintenance, and technology as well.

Now, as the sanctions are lifted, Iran is looking forward to a more modern and well-equipped aviation industry. The country is said to be in need of 500 new aircraft to be imported over five years.
Foreign banks have no problems for dealing with Iran, Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Abbas Araqchi said on Sunday, IRNA reported.



Speaking to the state TV, he added that Iranian diplomats should not be worry about their remarks abroad when they are addressing Iran's foreign partners.



Iranian top nuclear negotiator referred to the recent remarks by president of Central Bank of Iran while addressing US policy makers and said Mr. Seif's remarks and blaming Washington for continuation of pressures against Iranian banks was a right action.



Iran's diplomacy for removal of sanctions have been successful and US high-ranking officials have underlined that there is no obstacle on the ways of revival of ties between non-American banks and their Iranian partners, the diplomat added.



He said that many of European banks have not transited from the period of sanctions to the post-deal era and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation has a duty to convince the European banks to revive their ties with Iran.



Saying that Iran has still some problem for transfer of its released assets as well as the oil revenues to the country, Araqchi urged US officials to facilitate the issue.
Baku, Azerbaijan, April 24

By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:

Iran and China are expected to sign a document on cooperation for redesigning Arak heavy water reactor within the next couple of months, Iranian atomic spokesperson said.

Atomic Energy Organization of Iran's Spokesman Behrooz Kamalvandi has said that Tehran selected China for cooperation in Arak due to political reasons, Fars news agency reported.

Elaborating on the reasons for selecting China, Kamalvandi said that Beijing is more independent and it is unlikely to be impacted by the Westerners.

Explaining about technical procedure for the reconfiguration of Arak heavy water reactor, he said that Iran will redesign the facility and China will confirm the plan.

Director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Aliakbar Salehi in February said that Iranian experts, with the contribution of foreign companies, will redesign controversial Arak nuclear facility.

Earlier in January, Iran removed the core of the Arak heavy-water nuclear reactor and filled it with cement as agreed under a nuclear deal between Tehran and the world's major powers.

Under the terms of the deal, Iran agreed that the heavy-water reactor would be reconfigured so it will be incapable of yielding material for a nuclear weapon.

According to the landmark nuclear deal clinched in July 2015, removing the core of the heavy water reactor to produce less plutonium was a crucial step before Iran's relief from economic sanctions agreed under the deal.

After a number of nuclear talks between Tehran and the P5+1 group of countries, the EU High Representative Federica Mogherini and Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif announced Jan. 16 about the implementation of the JCPOA, aka nuclear deal, and the removal of economic sanctions on Iran.
Baku, Azerbaijan, April 24

By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:

Atomic Energy Organization of Iran is considering plans for cooperation with Czech Republic as well as Slovakia to build nuclear power plants in the Islamic Republic, Iranian atomic spokesperson said.

Behrooz Kamalvandi has said that Director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Aliakbar Salehi will pay a visit to the Central Europe over the next week to discuss the issue with Czech and Slovak officials, Fras news agency reported.

Elaborating on Salehi's plan for visiting the central European countries, Kamlvandi said that the Islamic Republic is seeking cooperation with those counties that enjoy proper capacities in nuclear energy.

Speaking about the nuclear capabilities of Czech and Slovakia, he said Slovakia enjoys four medium sized nuclear power plants with a wide experience in nuclear field.

After a number of nuclear talks between Tehran and the P5+1 group of countries, the EU High Representative Federica Mogherini and Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif announced Jan. 16 about the implementation of the JCPOA, aka nuclear deal, and the removal of economic sanctions on Iran.
Indian official announced Prime Minister Narendra Modi's imminent visit to Tehran in May or June, IRNA reported.

The officials have not yet specified the accurate date of the trip aimed at boosting ties and signing energy memoranda of understanding on energy.

After Iran, Modi is scheduled to travel to Qatar to talk with that country's officials.

Iran and India are expected to ink memorandum of understanding on fighting terrorism and defense cooperation which will contribute a lot to peace and stability in the region.

North-South Corridor and investment in railway network are among the other topics to be discussed by the Iranian and Indian officials during the upcoming trip.

Reportedly, memorandum of understanding (MoU) on developing Farzad B Gas Field will be finalized during the trip.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 24

By Fatih Karimov - Trend:

Iranian and South African officials signed eight memorandums of understanding (MOUs) on the sidelines of a meeting between Iran's President Hassan Rouhani and South African President Jacob Zuma on a visit to Tehran Apr. 24, Iran's state-run IRINN TV reported.

The signed documents include an MOU for establishing a joint investment committee, a document for cooperation in the field of agriculture, an industrial and trade cooperation document, a program of cooperation in the fields art and culture between 2016-2019.

The signed documents also include a cooperation document on insurance, and a document for cooperation on management of water resources, as well as cooperation document between South African PetroSA and Iran's Research Institute of Petroleum Industry and a MoU for exchange of financial information in money laundering.
Baku, Azerbaijan, April 24

By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:

The outcome of the recent talks between Tehran and Riyadh on issuing visa to Iranian pilgrims to visit Saudi Arabia for Hajj ritual remains unclear, an Iranian minister said.

Iran's Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Ali Jannati has said that the Saudi Arabian officials have demonstrated "cold" and "imperious" behavior during the talks, IRIB news agency reported.

He further expressed hope that the existing issues would be resolved during the talks with Saudi Arabia in future.

In the light of recent escalation of ties between Tehran and Riyadh, Swiss embassy in Tehran may issue visa for Iranian pilgrims to attend annual Hajj ritual in Saudi Arabia, Jannati earlier said.

According to the minister, talks are underway to resolve visa issue as Tehran has sent a delegation to Saudi Arabia to discuss Hajj for the current year.

The crisis between Riyadh and Tehran erupted after execution of a prominent Shia cleric, Nimr al-Nimr by the Saudis on Jan. 2.

Following the execution, angry mob stormed Saudi Arabian embassy in Tehran and consulate in Mashhad. Right after the attacks on its diplomatic missions, the Saudi Arabia said it severed ties with the Islamic Republic.

Following the closure of the Saudi mission to Tehran, Riyadh announced that Switzerland will act for its interest section in Tehran.

In a separate development on 24 September 2015, a crowd collapse caused the deaths of more than 2,000 pilgrims who were suffocated or crushed during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mina, Mecca, making it the deadliest Hajj disaster in history.
US President Barack Obama plans to send 250 more military personnel to Syria, increasing the US presence on the ground there to about 300 troops to help fight Islamic State militants, a US official said on Sunday, according to Reuters.



The deployment will come on top of 50 special operations forces whom Obama deployed to Syria last year, two US officials said. One official said the announcement would come in a speech Obama plans to give in Hanover, Germany, on Monday.



The decision, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, confirms an April 1 Reuters report that the Obama administration was considering boosting the number of special operations forces in Syria in hopes of accelerating gains against Islamic State.



Islamic State (IS) controls the cities of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria and is proving a potent threat abroad, claiming credit for major attacks in Paris in November and Brussels in March.



"He intends to put in more ... forces to the tune of 250 in Syria," said one US official, adding he was unable to break down how many of those would be special operations forces and how many might be involved in support activities such as medical and intelligence personnel.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Saturday to establish security zones in Syria where displaced people could be guaranteed safety, Sputnik reported.

Speaking at a press conference in Turkey, Merkel said that in such zones "the ceasefire should be especially enforced to guarantee a high level of security."

The German chancellor and several senior EU officials paid a visit to the Nizip camp in the Turkish city of Gaziantep near Syria's border on Saturday to assess the living conditions of some 5,000 Syrian refugees.

Turkey is currently home to some 2.7 million Syrian refugees who have fled a five-year conflict in their native country. Ankara signed a deal with Brussels in March, pledging to keep Syrian refugees in Turkey in exchange for political concessions.

Turkey has long been calling for a buffer zone on the border with Syria where camps for refugees could be set up to take the load off overcrowded camps on the Turkish side of the border.

A patchy ceasefire has been in force across Syria for almost two months after the United States and Russia mediated cessation of hostilities between the government and opposition forces.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu made it clear on Saturday that visa liberalization was a fundamental element of the EU-Turkey agreement, Anadolu reported.

Ahmet Davutoglu added that there can be no implementation of the readmission agreement without Turkish citizens traveling to EU without visas.

"We see the visa exemption as an inseparable, fundamental part of the EU-Turkey agreement," Davutoglu said Saturday in a joint press conference with European Council President Donald Tusk, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans in southeastern province of Gaziantep.

Davutoglu said that there was a direct link between the readmission agreement and visa liberalization for Turkish citizens.

"Readmission agreement applies only with visa exemption," he said.

The European leaders arrived Saturday in Gaziantep, in southeastern Turkey on the border with Syria, for the inauguration of the Turkey-EU Syrian Refugees Assistance Program.

In his speech, the Turkish prime minister said that it was proven once more on Saturday that when "Turkey and the EU cooperate, they have an extraordinary capacity in terms of solving problems".

Davutoglu said that Turkey, EU and Germany are "staying side-by-side and shoulder-to-shoulder to dry the tears of Syrian children".

Under an EU-Turkey deal to ease the refugee crisis facing Europe, EU leaders agreed to cut visa requirements for Turkish citizens and accelerate Turkey's EU membership bid.

The deal also provides a 6-billion-euro ($6.73 billion) aid package to help Ankara deal with the 2.7 millions of Syrian refugees it is hosting.

It also aims to "share the burden'' of the refugee crisis based on a formula of "for every Syrian readmitted by Turkey from the Greek islands, another Syrian will be resettled from Turkey to the EU member states".

Davutoglu said that Turkey, EU and Germany "have only one single purpose" which is "seeking a solution" for the "biggest tragedy experienced since the end of the World War II from a humanitarian perspective".

He said that the refugee crisis was not an issue that needed to be undertaken alone nor by Turkey nor by European Union.

"Children are the world's most innocent beings and unfortunately they are the most affected by the great humanitarian tragedy experienced in Syria," Davutoglu said.

He added that there are tens of thousands of Syrian orphans today in Turkey.

"A total of 152,000 Syrian children opened their eyes in Turkey," Davutoglu said, adding that about 700,000 refugee children are waiting for education opportunities.
Baku, Azerbaijan, April 24

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

Turkey will revere the memory of all citizens who died during the events of 1915, regardless of their ethnic origin and religion, Anadolu agency reported April 24 citing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as saying.

President Erdogan said that the representatives of all nations living on the territory of the Ottoman Empire suffered during the events of 1915.

On Apr. 14, the European Parliament called on Turkey to recognize the events of 1915 as the "Armenian genocide".

While commenting on the European Parliament's actions, Volkan Bozkir, Turkey's minister for European Union affairs, said that this demand is groundless.

Armenia and the Armenian lobby claim that Turkey's predecessor, the Ottoman Empire, committed the so-called genocide against Armenians living in Anatolia in 1915.

While strengthening the propaganda of "genocide" in the world, Armenians achieved its recognition by parliaments of some countries.
Eight PKK terrorists were killed in counter-terrorism operations in Turkey's southeast, the military said Sunday.

Reporting incidents from the previous day, the Turkish General Staff said four terrorists were killed in Nusaybin, Mardin province, and four across neighboring Sirnak province.

Two terrorists surrendered in Sirnak and Elazig provinces, the statement added.

Assault rifles and grenades were captured during the operations.

The PKK is listed as terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and EU. Security forces have been conducting anti-terror operations since late 2015 in an effort to clear PKK terrorists from urban areas in the country's southeast.

More than 400 security personnel have been martyred since the PKK renewed its armed campaign in July. Around 3,700 terrorist have been killed in the same period.
The self-driving car project is Alphabet's most anticipated moonshot investment (Photo : YouTube/Google Self-Driving Car Project)

Alphabet is the proud owner Google, but its parentship over its other assets is not working so well as the moonshot projects are on a constant decline in terms of profit and success. A recent roundup by business analyst points out that Alphabet is losing the money, but it will not give up.



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Google is not doubt on the top of internet advertising niche, but all the profit from this hard earned money is compensating for the loss of moonshot investments like self-driving car, high-speed internet network, gadget-making, and anti-ageing efforts are clearly not exploding with success, USA Today reported.



The news site reported that Class A shares of the Google parent plummeted 6 percent after hours to $732, where during the last 12, Alphabet's Class A shares had rallied 44 percent. Other projects, combined generated $166 million and the loss just turned from $802 million to $633 million, which is giving the investors hard time to keep sailing with Google.



According to Financial analyst Colin Gillis, Alphabet is not going to quit pouring money over moonshot projects but this strategy is leading the tech titan towards a declining slope net profit when comparing revenue with investments and losses. However, Alphabet has chosen its course to never curb its spending over its futuristic inspirations.



Critics may think that Alphabet is blindly following this path, but the company's Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat insists that they are "thoughtfully pursuing big bets." However, her claims were unfounded as the financial results reported by the Big A speak differently; these statistics were the second review since Google spawned out its own parent.



Previous Thursday's outcome showed Alphabet's first-quarter performance in the market: $4.21 billion or $6.02 per share. In 2015, these figures were $3.52 and $5.10 respectively. "The stock is just being a little 'Googly. There is nothing wrong with the company," Investor Place qouted Gillis as saying.



Alphabet's core business is internet advertising run by Google, but it's taking the search giant more monetary investment to attract more ad clickers. The reason behind this change people's growing use of mobile phones compared to the desktop platform, but the company is also yielding to the change but shifting its interest in the smartphone arena.



The following videos show one of Alphabet's moonshot investment, self-driving cars, which are nearly ready to hit the road.






An Acer Revo Build personal computer (PC) stack is displayed during the 2015 IFA International Consumer Electronics Show in Berlin. (Photo : Getty Images /Chris Ratcliffe)

Acer showed some of its new products at an event in New York on April 22, Friday, which included several laptops. Three of its new products are the Switch Alpha 12 hybrid, Aspire S 13 notebook and Chromebook 14 laptop.



The Switch Alpha 12 notebook-tablet is the new version of Aspire Switch 12 S announced at CES. Instead of having the Core M chip, it supports the sixth-generation Core i7, i5 and i3u chips. Above anything else, it has a fanless design with a liquid cooling system that makes quiet operations. While Microsoft's Surface laptops use traditional fans so that the chips stay cool, Acer packs in a liquid cooling system, according to Gizmodo.



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The Switch Alpha 12 also has a kickstand on its back for a better support, a 12-inch 2160 x 1440 resolution display, 8GB RAM, up to 512GB storage, a DisplayPort connectivitiy, USB 3.0 port, HDMI, USB A and Type-C port. It works well with Acer's Active Pen stylus. This two-in-one device starts at $599, cheaper than the Switch 12 S which starts at $999.



Another new product from the Taiwanese original equipment manufacturer is the new Aspire S 13, an ultra-thin notebook that is .57 inch thick and 3.13 pounds heavy. It will support Core i7 CPUs and its 13-inch IPS display will have a touchscreen option. It has 8GB RAM, 512GB internal storage and USB Type-C. It features a pearly white diamond-edged aluminum chassis and metallic coating on its hinge. The non-touch model is expected to run for 11 hours.



The Acer S 13 competes with HP's copper-clad Spectre laptop which thickness is .4 inch and weighs 2.45 pounds. The HP Spectre impresses many with its design, but Acer impresses customers with its price, Ars Technica reported. The S 13 starts at $699, compared to the $1,169-priced Spectre.



Acer also released its first all-metal Chromebook 14 announced last month. The laptop comes with a spill-resistant keyboard and a Corning Gorilla Glass casing that looks almost too shiny. Since it adheres to military standards, it may drop from one's desk without worrying the owner.



The following video features Acer Switch Alpha 12.






Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016) is an Android smartphone announced in November 2015, and features 3G, 5.0 Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 8 MP camera, and more. (Photo : YouTube/PhoneArena)

Along with the latest Galaxy S and Galaxy Note devices, Samsung recently released the Galaxy J3 (2016), but unfortunately, it was not available to United States customers. However, the unlocked version of the Galaxy J3 can now be accessed on Amazon at a price of $189.99.



More good news for the device's enthusiasts is that the unlocked GSM variant of the Galaxy J3 will work with AT&T and T-Mobile, Phone Arena reported. In fact, AT&T is going to sell the device starting on May 6. Nevertheless, the phone will not work with CDMA carriers like Verizon and Sprint.



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Irrespective of this, reports show that the device had been released earlier for the CDMA carriers, and is now been released for GSM carriers at a cheaper price. There is also an added offer of free shipping.



Available in both in single SIM and dual-SIM configurations, Galaxy J3 comes in three colors: white (dual SIM), black (dual SIM), and gold (single SIM). At the moment, the remaining units are few, with the stocks of all the three versions almost selling out. It is not yet known whether more units will be available should the existing stock deplete.



According to Android Headlines, the mid-range J3 is equipped with a 720P 5-inch Super AMOLED display that is both crisp and bright. It is powered by a Quad-core Snapdragon 410 processor backed by 1.5GB of RAM and an external storage of 16GB, which is expandable through microSD.



In the camera department, it houses an 8 Megapixel rear camera and a 5 Megapixel one at the front. The primary shooter is equipped with an f/2.2 aperture, autofocus feature, and a LED flash.



As seen from the price of the device, it is not of flagship quality. Running several apps on the Galaxy J3 will slow the performance of the device. Users will, therefore, have to use the multi-task feature sparingly to maintain the speed of the device.



Also, it is expected that J3's 2600mAh battery will not last for a long time on single charge. As for the operating system, Samsung Galaxy J3 will run on Android 5.1 Lollipop with no any imminent Marshmallow update for the unit.



Here is a video review of the Samsung Galaxy J3 2016:






Samsung Galaxy Note 6 vs Sony Xperia M Ultra: Which should you choose  bigger RAM or better camera with bigger battery capacity?

Samsung is rumored to release its Galaxy Note 6 device this year. (Photo : YouTube/Mrwhosetheboss)

Samsung and Sony fanatics are in for a treat as both smartphone players are expected to release yet again killer flagships. While Samsung just recently unveiled its Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge, Sony, on the other hand, introduced its new offerings - Sony Xperia X and Xperia XA. Now, rumor has it that they will again battle with their upcoming flagship smartphones, with Samsung releasing Samsung Galaxy Note 6 and Sony unveiling its Xperia M Ultra.



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While Samsung Galaxy Note 6 rumors already dominating the Internet in the past couple of months, Sony Xperia M Ultra has just started making some noise in the smartphone market. Now, let us compare what Sony and Samsung may have to offer to its enthusiasts with these rumored devices.



According to Sam Mobile, the Korean tech giant is currently testing two variants of Galaxy Note 6 - with one having a curved display and the other having a flat display - both packed with Quad HD resolution (2,560 x 1,440). However, although Samsung is testing two variants of Galaxy Note 6, only one model will reportedly be released to the consumers this year.



Samsung Galaxy Note 6 is expected to boast 5.8-inch screen, which is a bit larger compared to its predecessors. In addition, it is said that fans can expect that Galaxy Note 6 will offer a bigger battery capacity of 4,000mAh, which is 780mAh higher than Samsung Galaxy Note 5's battery capacity of 3,220mAh.



Other rumored specs expected on Samsung Galaxy Note 6 is the inclusion of Qualcomm Snapdragon 823 processor and Exynos 8890 chip backed by 6GB of RAM, 32GB built-in storage, 12MP rear camera and 5MP selfie shooter. The upcoming Note 6 will also be the first smartphone to run on Android N.



On the other hand, a leaked listing about Sony Xperia M Ultra detailing its specs was recently revealed, Phone Radar reported. According to the leaked info, Sony Xperia M Ultra is expected to pack a powerhouse chip, new generation Random Access Memory, powerful camera and an enhanced battery.



Due to the demand of powerful smartphones in the market, the Japanese tech giant will release Xperia M Ultra to attract more consumers and make them switch to Sony smartphones.



To expand what Sony Xperia M Ultra will offer to consumer market, the device will sport 6-inch ull HD IPS-Neo Tri-Luminous display, Snapdragon 652 chip, 4280mAh battery capacity, 4GB GB LPDDR4 RAM, 32GB ROM, 23MP dual rear camera and 16MP selfie snapper. In addition, Sony Xperia M Ultra is expected to feature a very narrow bezel, just like what consumers saw on Sony's other flagship device - Xperia C5 Ultra.



Meanwhile, not much information was released about Galaxy Note 6 and Sony Xperia M Ultra's exact release date and price; however, fans should expect more leaks in the coming weeks.



Watch the video below to know more about Samsung Galaxy Note 6:




A Volkswagen logo is displayed during the Geneva Motor Show 2016 on March 1, 2016. (Photo : Getty Images/Harold Cunningham)

On Thursday, German automaker Volkswagen has finally reached a settlement to repair or buy back nearly half a million diesel cars involved in the dieselgate scandal. The deal also covers setting up consumer and environmental and compensation funds that conform with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.



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According to U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, the deal covers substantial compensation for car owners whose vehicles were fitted with fraud emission software. The owners were also given the alternative to sell their vehicles back to VW, or have it fix. The deal gives the VW's engineers a break from the pressure, who were unable to come up with a resolution acceptable to the EPA, USA Today reported. The agreement comes after the second largest automaker in the world was hit by dozens of lawsuits from car owners and various agencies around the world after the dieselgate scandal erupted.



"It looks like they're moving forward in good faith and will be compensating consumers," said Carl Tobias, a product liability law professor at the University of Richmond. "If it's substantial compensation, that probably helps on the PR front."



The details about the actual penalties and the compensation that owners will receive are still under negotiation. Judge Breyer has set the deadline on June 21 for VW to answer all the financial aspect of the deal. New York Times claims that Kelley Blue Book, a research company has assessed that VW will be spending more than $7 billion for the buy back offer. However, the firm also warned that VW will be spending more billions because the company is also facing litigations in Europe and other parts of the world.



"If they agree to buy back the cars, the costs will be higher than the current provisions," said Matthias Hellstern, managing director for corporate finance at Moody's Investors Service in Frankfurt.



As part of the negotiation, the German automaker is also asked to set an environmental remediation fund and allocate funds to "promote green automotive." The move, according to the judge was meant to cover up years of destructing the environment with nitrogen oxide emissions at dangerous levels. If VW was unable to propose an agreement before the court-appointed deadline, the company is set to face a hearing with the U.S. Federal Court over the emission violations.



See the video below:






labor rights lawyer Mohamedein, who was arrested on Thursday night from his house, is among tens of activists arrested ahead of planned protests on 25 April

Egyptian prosecution ordered on Saturday the detention of leftist lawyer Haitham Mohamedein for 15 days pending investigation on charges of joining an unlawful group.

However, charges did not specify the name or the nature of the illegal organisation.

Mohamedein, who was arrested on Thursday night from his house, is among tens of activists who were arrested in different parts of Egypt ahead of calls for protests on 25 April.

The prosecution also accused Mohamedein of possession of flyers that call for the overthrow of the regime.

On Thursday night, the police raided several Cairo cafes and arrested dozens of people. Others were picked up from homes in the early hours of Friday morning.

The Ministry of Interior has not issued a public statement on the causes behind the arrests or a tally of those apprehended.

East of Cairo prosecution is currently questioning at least 11 arrested activists and others are expected to appear in Abbasiya court soon, according to rights lawyer Mokhtar Mounib.

Lawyer Amr Imam previously told Ahram Online that at least 100 people were estimated to have been arrested around the country on Thursday night.

Last week, several thousand protestors took to streets to oppose the governments decision to acknowledge Saudi Arabian sovereignty over the Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir.

Some have vowed to stage another protest on 25 April, which marks Sinai Liberation Day.

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Yemen's government forces battled al Qaeda in the country's south on Saturday, aiming to push back advances the militant group has made during a year-long civil war for which peace talks are under way in Kuwait.

Fifteen fighters loyal to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) were killed in the clashes, residents and a military source said, while a drone strike killed two others further north.

AQAP has taken advantage of chaos in Yemen since its civil war began last year to win control over swathes of southern and eastern Yemen, creating a local government there and introducing services.

The war pits a collection of local forces and army remnants backed by the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and a Saudi-led Arab coalition against the Houthi movement and troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Representatives gathered in Kuwait on Thursday to begin peace talks after agreeing a ceasefire across the country. The United Nations, which has convened the talks, says around 6,000 people have died in the conflict, half of them civilians.

However, as talks moved into a third day disputes continued over both the agenda and accusations from the government that the Houthis and Saleh's forces had breached the truce in the city of Taiz, a source from Hadi's government said.

The government wants the Houthis and Saleh's forces to withdraw from cities and hand over weapons before discussing a solution to the political disagreements. The Houthis and its allies want a unity government to be formed before disarmament talks.

The government delegation on Saturday said it would only meet U.N. special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmad and not sit directly with the Houthis, the source said.

Ceasefire documents shown to Reuters by the Saudi-led coalition showed agreements for each of Yemen's provinces where fighting was taking place signed by representatives of each side, who had formed committees to monitor the truce.

The agreements were decided in the southern Saudi town of Dhahran al-Janoub, a few miles from the Yemeni border, where representatives of the Houthis travelled last month to negotiate the ceasefire and prisoner swaps with Hadi's government.

Clashes

Saturday's clashes at al-Koud near Zinjibar in the southern Abyan Province were between AQAP and army forces of Yemen's internationally recognised government backed by local militias, referred to locally as the Popular Resistance.

In recent weeks Hadi's forces, backed by coalition air strikes, have pushed towards Zinjibar along the beach road from Aden. Al-Koud lies on that road only 5 km (3 miles) from Zinjibar, long considered an AQAP stronghold along with the town of Jaar about 15 km to the north.

A group of dozens of AQAP fighters escaped, the military source said, adding that two army soldiers were also killed.

Also on Saturday, an air strike from a drone killed two men south of the Yemeni city of Marib suspected of belonging to al Qaeda, local residents said by phone.

The United States has used drone strikes in Yemen to target AQAP leaders, the global jihadist group's local wing, which has plotted to place bombs on international airliners and has encouraged attacks in Western countries.

Since March, air strikes targeting Islamist militants have increased in Yemen, including a March 27 attack that killed 14 suspected AQAP members in Abyan province in the country's south.

Officials travelling to Saudi Arabia with US President Barack Obama this week said they hoped moves towards a peace deal in Yemen would allow a renewed focus on challenging AQAP.

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Several opposition parties and movements have announced their intention to protest the Egyptian-Saudi island deal, though analysts say protesters may be motivated by something more

Several opposition political parties and movements in Egypt are calling for another day of protests on 25 April over the recent Egypt-Saudi agreement of redrawing maritime borders which places the Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir within Saudi territorial waters.

Ten days have passed since several thousands gathered in Cairo on a protest dubbed the Friday of Land to protest the deal, with the country seeing no pause in the debate over the rightful owner of the islands.

Egyptian officials, at the head of which is President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, maintain that the two islands in the Tiran Strait are indeed Saudi.

The Egyptian government has released documents which it says prove the islands are Saudi, though many in the opposing camp are presenting documents of their own asserting Egyptian sovereignty over the islands.

The Egyptian-Saudi agreement is still pending ratification by Egypt's House of Representatives.

The upcoming protests have been set to take place on Sinai Liberation Day, which marks the final withdrawal of Israeli forces from Sinai Peninsula as well as the two disputed islands.

Beyond the island issue

Those protesters who took to the street on [Land Friday] and those who plan to protest on 25 April cannot be angry about Tiran and Sanafir only, Dr Ammar Ali Hassan, a political researcher, told Ahram Online, explaining that the history of protests shows that accumulated anger can often manifest over a single issue.

The governments announcement about the island deal... was the last straw, he said.

Hassan believes that for many who held hopes that President El-Sisi would implement a corrective revolution in government  to fight corruption, address human rights abuses by security forces and uphold freedom of expression and social justice  have lost faith in seeing any real change after the maritime border deal.

Hassan says that with the level of anger among many in the country, things can easily escalate if security forces use excessive force against protesters on 25 April.

If one protester is killed or injured in confrontations with [police], things will get complicated for Egypts political leadership and it will cause more people to hit the street and protest, he said, citing previous instances from the past five years where police violence during protests drove thousands more to demonstrations.

Hassan believes, however, that the conduct of security forces during the Land Friday protests was a sign that the interior ministry has learned from past experiences, given that relatively few protesters were arrested.

However, security forces launched a wide crackdown last Thursday, arresting over 100 people from Cairo and other governorates in one day, including political activists from the 6 April Youth Movement and the Revolutionary Socialists.

The following days saw even more arrests and detention orders issued against lawyers and journalists who were vocal in their opposition of the island deal and called for further protests.

Many have said that this is a clear targeting of activists in anticipation of the protests, especially after media reports emerged claiming that the presidency was giving specific instructions to police to suppress any protests on 25 April, which the presidency has denied.

Expanding the crackdown against youth will reinforce our determination in the right of peaceful expression against the sale of [Egypts] land," said Khaled Dawoud, the official spokesperson of the Constitution Party.

Egypt's interior minister Magdy Abdel-Ghaffar asserted on Sunday that there will be no leniency shown for anyone who breaks the law, saying that the safety of citizens and the stability of the state take top priority.

"In light of the law and the constitution, the ministry will stand firm against any attempts to destabilise national security and any vital public or police facilities," the minister said in a statement following a meeting with heads of security ahead of the planned protests on Monday.

Meanwhile, Egypt's military said on Sunday that it was deploying forces to secure major public buildings.

Who is protesting on 25 April and why?

Political parties and movements with the opposition Democratic Current Alliance have declared their intention to protest the Egyptian-Saudi deal.

The Democratic Current Alliance is an umbrella group of liberal and leftist parties including the Constitution Party, the Socialist Popular Alliance and the Popular Current Party.

Former presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabbahi, founder of the Nasserist Popular Current Party, declared that he would participate in the upcoming protests.

Other groups have also announced their intention to protest, including the 6 April Youth Movement, the Revolutionary Socialists movement, and the Strong Egypt Party.

The pro-Sisi Future of Homeland Party has announced that it was organising a large celebration for Sinai Liberation Day in downtown Cairos Abdeen Square, a few blocks from the planned sites of the protests.

Party officials have said in media statements that they have obtained permits to assemble in accordance with the law for the celebration, which they say will be attended by thousands of youths and will feature documentaries and speeches honouring the Egyptian Armed Forces.

Some observers fear that the Future of the Homeland supporters could clash with protesters.

The recently-founded Future of Homeland Party came second in the Egyptian parliamentary elections, winning 51 seats. The party has consistently taken pro-government positions in parliament.

Several independent members of parliament and political parties have said that they are waiting to hear the arguments favouring and opposing the Red Sea island deal before they take a stance on the matter, though close to 30 MPs have already declared their opposition to the deal.

The Egyptian Social Democratic Party, which holds four seats in the House, is the only political party with seats in parliament to announce its rejection of the deal.

Several MPs have called on people not to take to the streets but instead present their case before parliament.

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Protests have been planned for Monday to oppose the governments decision to hand sovereignty of two islands in the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia

Egypt's Interior Minister Magdy Abdel-Ghaffar asserted on Sunday that there will be no leniency for anyone who breaks the law as peoples safety and the states stability take top priority.

"In the light of the law and the constitution, the ministry will stand hard against any maneuvers to destabilise national security and any vital public or police facilities," the minister said in a statement following a meeting with security heads ahead of planned protests on Monday.

Abdel-Ghaffer noted that he is sure that the people are wise enough not to take part in protests or be attracted to any "calls for chaos or any attempts to fracture the confidence between the people and the state."

Last weekend dozens of activists in Cairo, Alexandria, and other parts of the country were arrested ahead of planned protests on Monday 25 April. Arrests are continuing to date. The protests have been planned to oppose the governments decision to acknowledge Saudi Arabian sovereignty over the Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir.

Two weeks ago protests occurred in Downtown Cairo and other parts of the country following the governments decision to relinquish the islands to the oil rich kingdom.

On Thursday night police raided several Cairo cafes and arrested dozens of people inside and outside the capital. Others were picked up from homes in the early hours of Friday morning.

Egyptian prosecution ordered on Saturday the detention of activists including leftist lawyer Haitham Mohamedein for 15 days pending investigation on charges of joining an outlawed group.

East Cairo prosecution is currently questioning at least 11 arrested activists while others are expected to appear in Abbasiya court soon.

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The Court of Cassation has ordered a retrial

Egypts Court of Cassation overturned on Sunday a five-year prison sentences against 35 Al-Azhar students in a case that dates back to 2014 on rioting charges inside campus.

The court ordered a retrial of the case.

The students were also charged with illegal protesting, blocking roads, and resisting authorities.

It is unclear if the students will be released pending the retrial.

This is the second cancellation of prison sentences against Al-Azhar students within a week.

Last Sunday, the Court of Cassation overturned three-year prison sentences against 17 students, also on rioting charges, and ordered a retrial.

Many students were expelled from the university by Al-Azhar's high board over their participation in protests that turned violent in 2013 and 2014.

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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In February, the court sentenced eight of the 28 defendants to a preliminary death sentence but did not issue sentences for the remaining 20 defendants

An Egyptian military court postponed on Sunday the issuing of a verdict in the trial of 28 alleged supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi who were accused of planning attacks on military and police personnel to 29 May.

In February, the court sentenced eight of the 28 defendants to death. The court did not issue sentences for the remaining 20 defendants.

Fifteen of the defendants are detained, while the rest are on the run and being tried in absentia.

The court referred its initial death penalty verdicts to the Grand Mufti of Egypt -- the country's leading authority on religious edicts  for a non-binding consultation as per Egyptian law.

In March, the court postponed issuing a verdict in the case until 3 April without stating reasons. The verdict was further postponed on 3 April to 24 April.

The court is set to confirm or reverse the death sentences and rule on first-degree sentences for the 20 remaining defendants.

The awaited verdicts will be subject to appeal in the military cassation court.

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Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi warned of what he labelled as attempts to shake the country's security and stability on Sunday, one day ahead of Sinai Liberation Day, which has been set by activists as a date for protests over the recent Saudi island deal.

"I sincerely assure everyone that the Armed Forces and all patriotic Egyptian institutions are aware of and appreciate the importance of protecting [Egypt's] land," the former army chief said in a televised speech.

Sinai Liberation Day, 25 April, marks the 1982 withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from the Sinai Peninsula.

"Egypt appreciates the sacrifices of its brave sons from the Armed Forces and the police, who stand together to purge Sinai of terrorism and extremism," he said, referring to the army's ongoing fight against an Islamist insurgency in North Sinai over the past decade.

A government decision this month to cede control to Saudi Arabia of the Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir, near South Sinai, sparked protests on 15 April, with thousands of demonstrators protesting near Cairo's press syndicate.

The island deal has not yet been approved by parliament.

El-Sisi, who was elected president in 2014 following the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi one year earlier, insisted that not a single inch of Egyptian land was given up.

The 15 April demonstrations ended with calls of renewal on Monday to call for the reversal of the decision.

"We have exerted a lot of effort to achieve security and stability," El-Sisi said. "There are people who look to shake this stability."

"We have built up the state institutions and we have an elected parliament we have to ensure the permanence of these institutions."

Though the focal point of the latest protests, the largest the country has seen in months, was sovereignty over Tiran and Sanafir, there were chants calling for the downfall of El-Sisi's regime.

Several thousand protesters expressed dissatisfaction with his rule on more than one level, including the imprisonment of what they describe as political detainees.

In the days leading up to Sinai Liberation Day, a vast security campaign has seen activists arrested and ordered detained as well as a heavy security presence in the street.

"All attempts to destabilise state institutions will not succeed," El-Sisi stressed, after warning against calls that instigate "doubt and depression" in state decisions.

El-Sisi also referred to a previously revealed plan to develop Sinai, which he says will lead an economic turnaround in the peninsula and provide job opportunities for locals as well as better infrastructure.

North Sinai is widely seen as one of the most underdeveloped areas of the country.

Additionally, El-Sisi commissioned the government to increase supplies of subsidised basic commodities into the local markets to compensate for food price hikes caused by the fluctuating price of the US dollar over recent months.

He also assigned the Armed Forces to distribute two million staples in poor areas nationwide.

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Activists have set Monday, which marks Sinai Liberation Day, for protests against the recent government announcement that it was acknowledging Saudi ownership of two Red Sea islands under Egyptian control

Egypt's military said on Sunday that it is deploying forces to secure major public buildings on Monday, which has been set by activists as a date for protests over the recent Saudi island deal.

The army said in a statement that its forces will be deployed around vital targets and major institutions, adding that security patrols and military police forces will be stationed in major areas nationwide.

A government decision this month to cede control to Saudi Arabia of the Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir, near South Sinai, sparked protests on 15 April, with thousands of demonstrators protesting near Cairo's press syndicate.

The protests, believed to be the largest demonstrations since President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi took office in 2014, saw the arrest of dozens of people, many of whom were released later in the day.

The island deal has not yet been approved by parliament.

Monday marks Sinai Liberation Day, when Egypt regained control over the Sinai Peninsula in 1982 after years of Israeli occupation.

The army has posted several photos of queues of military vehicles in the streets as well as forces at what appeared to be a military base.

The army added that its air and naval forces will take part in celebrations marking Sinai Liberation Day, with performances planned across the country's governorates. Military ensembles will put on musical performances of patriotic pieces.

Egypts acknowledgement of Saudi sovereignty over the Red Sea islands has sparked widespread public outcry, with some critics accusing President 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.

Egypt's interior ministry has warned ahead of Monday's planned proteststhat it would show no tolerance for attempts to undermine the country's security, urging people not to respond to "calls inciting chaos."

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Prosecutors say the 11 men, who have denied the charges, used social media to organise sexual liaisons

A Giza misdemeanour court sentenced on Sunday 11 men to terms of up to 12 years in prison over charges of inciting debauchery after they were arrested for allegedly committing homosexual acts, Ahram Arabic news website reported.



Three people were sentenced to 12 years in prison while the rest were given between three to nine years.

The defendants, who were arrested at a rented apartment in Giza, denied the charges.

One of the defendants was convicted several years ago in another homosexuality-related case, according to investigators.

Homosexuality is not explicitly criminalised by Egyptian law, though prosecutors have often tried gay men under laws against debauchery, immorality or contempt of religion.

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Giza prosecutors ordered on Sunday the detention of three leading members of the 6 April Youth Movement for four days on charges of calling for protests and joining a terrorist organisation.



The prosecution accused Sherif El-Rouby, the April 6 spokesperson, Ahmed Ramdan and Amr Ezz of calling for protests against the recent announcement by the government that it was acknowledging Saudi sovereignty over two Red Sea islands under Egyptian control.



It is unclear which terrorist organisation prosecutors are referring to; although 6 April was banned in 2014, it has not been officially labelled a terrorist group.

The groups founders, Ahmed Maher and Mohamed Maher, and its current coordinator Amr Ali are currently serving three-year sentences for breaking the countrys controversial protest law.

Political parties and movements, including 6 April, are calling for protests on 25 April, which marks Sinai Liberation Day.

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Kurdish peshmerga forces and Turkmen Shia paramilitaries were Sunday engaged in clashes that have killed at least nine people in a flashpoint town during the past 24 hours, officials said.

Tuz Khurmatu, part of a swathe of territory claimed by both Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region and Baghdad, has been divided between Turkmen and Kurds since fighting between the two sides last year.

A peshmerga brigadier general and another fighter and two members of Turkmen forces were among the nine people killed on Saturday, said Shallal Abdul Baban, the Kurdish official responsible for the area.

A colonel in the Tuz Khurmatu police gave the same toll.

The fighting -- the precipitating cause of which was not immediately clear -- began around midnight and continued into Sunday, officials said.

Both the peshmerga and the Turkmen fighters, who are part of a militia umbrella organisation called the Hashed al-Shaabi, are battling the Islamic State militant group.

But Kurdish forces and the Hashed al-Shaabi are vying for influence in some areas, a contest that has led to violence in Tuz Khurmatu.

The fighting last November began as a dispute at a checkpoint that escalated into clashes inside Tuz Khurmatu.

Dozens of homes were burned, and the town has been split between Kurdish and Turkmen areas, with neighbourhood minority residents moving back across the ethnic divide.

IS group overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in June 2014, and Baghdad turned to the Hashed al-Shaabi, which is dominated by Iran-backed Shia militias, to help stem the Islamist militants' advance and later push them back.

Kurdish forces also battled the Islamist militants in the north, but have largely fought independently of federal troops.

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UN-brokered Yemeni peace talks in Kuwait entered a fourth day Sunday with government and Shia Houthi rebel delegations still far from reaching an agreement to end 13 months of war.

The delegations resumed "talks and started the plenary session," Charbel Raji, spokesman for the UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, told AFP without providing further details.

Sources close to the talks said on Saturday that the two sides had failed to reach an understanding on the need to firm up a fragile ceasefire in place since April 11.

Ould Cheikh Ahmed acknowledged the negotiations were difficult but expressed hopes for progress.

"The atmosphere of the talks is promising and there is common ground to build on in order to reconcile differences," the UN envoy said in a statement issued late Saturday.

The delegates had agreed to appoint two officials, one from each side, to make recommendations on how to sustain the ceasefire, he added.

But the two sides differ on priorities for the ceasefire.

The government delegation said overnight that the ceasefire should include opening safe passages to all besieged areas and releasing political prisoners as well as those abducted as part of confidence-building measures.

The Iran-backed Huthis are demanding an immediate halt to air strikes that a Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out since March 2015 in support of President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

"The continuity of air strikes by targeting roads, bridges and homes like what happened yesterday... affirms that the announcement of cessation of military actions is baseless," said Mohamed Abdulsalam, the Houthi spokesman and head of delegation.

This meant that "the path of negotiations under aggression will not be different from previous rounds," Abdulsalam wrote on Facebook, in reference to the two failed rounds held in Switzerland late last year.

The two sides also differ on the way to tackle other central issues.

The government wants the discussions to start with the issue of a Houthi pullout from areas including the capital Sanaa and relinquishing heavy arms and missiles.

The Houthis want the political process and the establishment of a national unity government to be first, sources close to the talks told AFP.

The negotiations in Kuwait opened late Thursday after the delayed arrival of representatives of the Houthi rebels and allied forces loyal to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

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South Africa's embattled President Jacob Zuma praised Iran's 1979 revolution Sunday at the start of a three-day state visit which he said could "dramatically expand trade" with the Islamic republic.

The overthrow of a US-backed Shah was a source of encouragement as black South Africans fought against apartheid, Zuma said at a press conference with President Hassan Rouhani.

With international sanctions against Iran now lifted under its nuclear deal with world powers business activity is likely to increase.

"Iran occupies a special place in our struggle against apartheid," Zuma said, noting how Tehran cut ties with South Africa when it was under white rule, only resuming relations in 1994 after Nelson Mandela was elected as its first black president.

Mandela, who served one term before voluntarily standing down in 1999, visited Tehran before his election and soon after leaving office.

"South Africans were inspired by the 1979 revolution, which showed that emancipation is possible, whatever the odds," said Zuma, the first serving South African president to visit since.

Having signed eight cooperation agreements ranging from energy development to business insurance, Zuma said the nuclear deal was an opportunity to deepen commercial links.

"The challenge is to dramatically expand trade volumes," he added.

Rouhani, whose government in January implemented last summer's nuclear deal with Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany, paid tribute to Mandela, who died aged 95 in 2013.

"Let us cherish the memory of the late Nelson Mandela," after whom a street is named in Tehran, Rouhani said. "He is so very much revered by both the South African and the Iranian people."

Rouhani, who Zuma confirmed has been invited to visit South Africa, said he would like to see direct flights opening up from Tehran.

Zuma's trip comes as he is under fire and accused of corruption at home.

Julius Malema, the firebrand head of South Africa's radical opposition Economic Freedom Fighters, warned that he could seek to remove Zuma's African National Congress (ANC) government "through the barrel of a gun".

Late last month, a constitutional court ruled Zuma had violated the constitution in using public funds to upgrade his private residence and said he must repay the money.

Malema, 35, was expelled from the ANC in 2012 when he was head of the party's youth wing, having said the government was not doing enough to help South Africa's poor.

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British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said on Sunday that he could not rule out sending troops to Libya if requested to do so by the Libyan government, but that any deployment would need to be approved by parliament.

Western powers are backing a new Libyan unity government, hoping it will seek foreign support to confront Islamic State group militants, deal with migrant flows from Libya to Europe and restore oil production to shore up Libya's economy.

"It wouldn't make sense to rule anything out because you never know how things are going to evolve," Hammond told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

"But if there were ever any question of a British combat role in any form - ground, sea or air - that would go to the House of Commons," he said referring to Britain's elected parliament.

Last week Hammond told parliament there were no plans to send combat troops to Libya, responding to media reports that British special forces were already operating in the country.

Libya has been in chaos since Western-backed rebels overthrew President Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Hammond said he did not think it was likely that Libya would invite foreign military intervention, but highlighted the risk that an Islamic State stronghold in the country could pose to mainland Europe.

"If Daesh (Islamic State) became established in Libya and sought to use that established base to infiltrate terrorists into Europe, that would be a threat to all of us," he said.

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A Dutch journalist said Sunday she was detained for several hours overnight by Turkish police after for sending tweets deemed critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Ebru Umar, a well-known atheist and feminist journalist of Turkish origin, said she was hauled out of her bed late Saturday at her home in Kusadasi, a resort town in western Turkey.

"Two men were banging on the door, and said I had to go with them because of two Tweets," she told Dutch broadcaster NOS.

She said they spent the night at the police station "talking about politics and the situation in Turkey" before she was brought before a judge on Sunday.

Umar, 45, was later released, but said she is not allowed to leave the country and must report to police in a few days.

The columnist had recently written a piece critical of Erdogan for the Dutch daily Metro, extracts of which she then tweeted.

She had been due to fly back to the Netherlands on Sunday, and says she wants to return but is forbidden for the time being.

The hashtag #freeebru was trending in the Netherlands Sunday, with Dutch politicians and commentators calling for her release.

Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said in a statement later Sunday he was "relieved" Umar had been released.

But he slammed her arrest, saying he had contacted his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu to voice his "regret" and concerns about the case.

"I made it clear that press freedom and freedom of expression is a good thing," Koenders said in a statement.

"A country that is a candidate to join the EU should continue to push for press freedom and freedom of expression," he stressed.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte also telephoned his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu to voice his concerns.

Umar, who reportedly became a journalist under the influence of Theo van Gogh -- a Dutch filmmaker later murdered for making a controversial film about Islamic culture -- had written about a diplomatic spat between Turkey and the Netherlands.

A political storm erupted this week over reports an email sent by the Turkish consulate to Turkish organisations in the Netherlands had asked people to forward any emails and social media posts which insulted Erdogan or Turkey.

Rutte said he would ask Ankara to clarify the call. The Turkish consulate said the note was sent by a consular official who used an "unfortunate choice of words" that was misinterpreted.

The case followed outrage in Germany after the government there gave a green light for authorities to begin criminal proceedings against popular comic Jan Boehmermann for performing a satirical poem about Erdogan.

Trials in Turkey for insulting Erdogan have multiplied since his election to the presidency in August 2014, with nearly 2,000 such cases currently open.

In September 2015 freelance Dutch journalist Frederike Geerdink was deported from Turkey after being detained during clashes between Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels and Turkish security forces.

It was the second time she had been taken into custody: in April Geerdink was put on trial on charges of spreading "terrorist propaganda" for the PKK but was then acquitted.

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A bomb-laden vehicle exploded Sunday killing seven soldiers in south Yemen, where government forces backed by air power from an Arab coalition have launched an offensive against Al-Qaeda, military sources said.

In the southeast, pro-government forces regained an airport and other areas on the outskirts of the city of Mukalla, which had been under Al-Qaeda control since April last year, similar sources said.

The bombing, which also wounded 14 soldiers, targeted an army convoy as it entered militant stronghold Zinjibar, capital of Abyan province, said the sources, blaming Al-Qaeda for the attack.

Forces loyal to President Abd-rabbo Mansour Hadi began the Zinjibar offensive on Saturday, after similar assaults pushed the militants from other areas in the south.

The Saudi-led coalition that has been battling Iran-backed rebels across Yemen since March 2015 has deployed Apache helicopters to support loyalists fighting on ground.

Pro-Hadi forces "retreated from Zinjibar after they entered on Saturday night" from the city's southern gate, an officer in Abyan told AFP.

"The withdrawal was decided following information that Al-Qaeda was preparing other car-bomb attacks against our troops," added the officer who requested anonymity.

Government forces also launched an offensive Saturday to drive the militants from the neighbouring town of Jaar.

Fighting there killed 25 Al-Qaeda fighters and four soldiers as loyalists seized Al-Kud, five kilometres (three miles) south of Zinjibar, military and medical sources said.

"After our withdrawal, Apache helicopters will target Al-Qaeda positions to secure the town," said another officer, adding that helicopters had foiled two attempts to attack troops using vehicle bombs in Al-Kud.

Meanwhile, the Arab coalition carried out a series of air raids against Al-Qaeda in Mukalla, military sources said.

Residents reported heavy explosions as coalition jets struck Al-Qaeda-held arms depots in the city.

"The air raids are in preparation for a ground operation as part of a major military offensive to chase Al-Qaeda out of Mukalla and the entire Hadramawt province," an officer said.

Later Sunday, Yemeni ground troops backed by coalition air power advanced on the eastern outskirts of Mukalla, where they seized Riyan airport and an army brigade headquarters Al-Qaeda had held for the past year, military sources said.

Coalition-backed forces have driven militants from Aden, the southern city declared by Hadi as Yemen's temporary capital after the Shiite Huthi rebels overran Sanaa in September 2014.

And last week, government forces expelled militants of the militant network's local branch -- Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- from Huta, the provincial capital of Lahj.

The latest fighting comes as representatives of the government and the Iran-backed rebels continue UN-sponsored peace talks in Kuwait.

The negotiations, which began on Thursday, are under pressure to firm up a fragile ceasefire that went into effect on April 11, and from which the militants are excluded.

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Yemeni and Emirati troops advanced into the southern port city of Mukalla on Sunday, officials and residents said, entering a stronghold of al Qaeda's Yemeni wing for the first time in over a year of war.

Fighter jets from the mostly Gulf Arab alliance pounded the city on Sunday and killed 30 militants, residents said, as the military coalition ramped up an offensive to wrest swathes of southern Yemen from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Mukalla has been the centre of a rich mini-state that al Qaeda built up over the past year as it took control of an almost 600-km (370-mile) band of Arabian Sea coastline and pocketed customs revenues from the port.

Losing Mukalla would take away the AQAP's main source of revenue, which has enabled it to thrive for over a year, but the alliance offensive appeared too strong for it to withstand.

"The liberation of Mukalla from the hands of the al Qaeda terrorist organisation has begun," local governor Ahmed Saeed Bin Breik said in a statement.

"Al Qaeda fighters are departing," said one resident who reported that coalition armoured vehicles and armed forces had entered the city.

Local officials said clerics and tribesmen had negotiated with the militants to get them to leave Mukalla peacefully and residents said their fighters were withdrawing westward to neighbouring Shabwa province.

Dozens of armoured vehicles and hundreds of troops gathered in Ramah, around 70 km (44 miles) north of Mukalla, to prepare to move in, they added.

Sunday's air strikes on al Qaeda in Mukalla were carried out in coordination with a ground offensive in militant-controlled territory further west, a Yemeni military official said.

The push is being led by the United Arab Emirates, which has been training and arming local recruits for months, according to southern Yemeni tribal and political sources.

The UAE is part of a mostly Gulf Arab coalition that intervened in Yemen's civil war in March last year to support the internationally recognised government after it was forced into exile by the armed Houthi group, an ally of Iran.

Winning back territory

Sunday's air strikes come as Yemen's government meets with the Houthis in Kuwait to try to find a solution to the conflict.

Around 6,200 people have died in the war, which has focused mostly around the country's Houthi-controlled centre and north, while a security vacuum spread in the south.

The United States has for years used drone strikes in Yemen to target AQAP, which has plotted to place bombs on international airliners and claimed credit for the Charlie Hebdo magazine attack in Paris last year.

Fearing more air strikes, residents reported that local families were bundling into cars and driving out of town.

On Saturday, Yemeni troops battled al Qaeda at al-Koud near Zinjibar, another southern city considered an al Qaeda stronghold, while an air strike from a drone killed two suspected al Qaeda fighters south of the city of Marib.

In a statement on its official Twitter account, AQAP said it carried out a suicide bombing attack against the government troops pushing into al-Koud.

The Houthis control the capital Sanaa in the north while the Saudi-backed Yemeni government has tried to re-establish itself in the southern port city of Aden. Only in the last month has its fledgling army begun to make gains against the militants and organise to take back lost territory.

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The State of Myth has lowered its curtains. The state-sponsored Iraqi television series, which introduced itself to the world with a musical trailer featuring the marriage of the devil to an Israeli bride whose offspring hatched in the form of a miniature Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, took audiences by storm when it launched its first episode in the fall of 2014. Its theme song went viral. Actors received death threats.

In the communicative battle to counter the message of the Islamic State, few efforts went so far as Dawlat al-Khurafa.

Measuring the efficacy of cultural production, though, is an imperfect task. More difficult still is determining which types of communication are most effective in countering existent narrative strategies, like the one employed by the Islamic State.

At a recent meeting in Washington, Facebooks Head of Global Policy Management, Monika Bickertt, said the company was tracking the number of shares anti-ISIS Facebook pages received as a way of identifying best-practice strategies in countering extremist messages.

By this measure, Dawlat al-Khurafa would seem to pale in comparison to the popularity of other parody shows mocking extremism. The Iraqi comedy Wilayat al-Battikh, which has featured skits parodying ISIS, for example, had almost a million people talking about it on Facebook less than a year into its broadcast, in the spring of 2016.

But Dawlat al-Khurafa, which aired on al-Iraqiyya, the largest network in the country reaching some ninety percent of the population, was unique in that it attempted to reimagine ISIS-land from the ground up. For an entire year, some of the best known actors in the country donned fake beards, wielded medieval weapons, and performed elaborate sketches on virtually everythingfrom Bollywood cinema to gay marriage.

Ali al-Qassim, the director of Dawlat al-Khurafa, claimed the shows theme music could be heard echoing through the coffee shops in Baghdad and that kids could be seen playing Daoushy in the street. When the show first aired in September, al-Qassim claimed ISIS thugs had smashed televisions in Mosul in response.

Counter-communications in the West have become a major part of the effort to defeat ISIS. Dawlat al-Khurafa, it could be said, like much ISIS satire in the Arab world, was created less as an attempt to undermine ideology than to preserve a degree of sanity. As al-Qassim said, you cannot fear something that makes you laugh."

As social satire, it should be noted, Dawlat al-Khurafa is part of a genre in Arabic as old as the shadow play. The comedic depiction of terrorists, writ broadly, has been a cinema staple for decades. (One thinks of Adel Emams 1994 classic Terrorism and Kebab).

ISIS satire, however, was born of the same chemistry that helped establish the digital caliphate to begin withcreative entrepreneurs with access to a computer, a global stage, and the unrivalled prospect of complete autonomy.

Witness the viral remix to the terror organizations signature soundtrack Salil al-sawarim (The Clanking of the Swords). Linked from online chatrooms and blog collectives, the original version could be heard accompanying bizarre orgies of violence, convoys of white pick-up trucks, and galloping lions.

Then, in 2014, a new phenomenon emerged on YouTube with small groups of friends or individuals wielding plastic swords and performing the inevitable beheading before breaking into a dance routine set to a blood-racing pastiche, a sort of ISIS Gangnam Style, in their living room or bedroom.

I first heard about this particular trend in March 2014 while lecturing at the University of Minya, in Egypt. Just a month prior to my visit a group of twenty-one Coptic men from Minya had been killed by the Islamic State in Libya. A disturbing video appearing to depict their decapitations had circulated through the international press. In Minya, though, far more people were talking about the execution remixes. Soon after the Libya event, prominent celebrities could be seen getting in on the act as well.

Dancing over the devil, laughing in the face of fear: satirical treatments of ISIS spread like wildfire.

In 2015, the Saudi Arabian creator of the MBC show Selfie, Nasser al-Qasbi, faced death threats following his mockery of the terror organizations sex jihad in Iraq and Syria. Shows like the Lebanese production Ktir Salbe and Daiy'a al-Taseh grabbed the attention of foreign journalists and ISIS alike.

Watan 3 Watar, a Palestinian comedy troop based in the West Bank, was one of the earliest groups to produce ISIS-specific parody. In the summer of 2014, they released a series of sketches depicting belligerent Salafists operating a checkpoint in the wilderness. Drivers are stopped and interrogated about their religion before being shot and robbed. Meanwhile the heavily bearded interrogators smoke and make lude passes at women. Israelis pass freely.

The trend became global. Saturday Night Live even produced a mock car commercial featuring a teary-eyed father dropping off his college-bound daughter at a bus terminal where she is met by armed thugs in a pick-up truck. Dad, she says, it's just ISIS." The punchline is ultimately about US naivete, a focus similar to that of most anti-ISIS messaging campaigns in the West.

From the Quilliam Foundations glossy short video Not Another Brother featuring a regretful British fighter sitting on a dirty mattress and lamenting his fate in a letter to his bro (I wish I could take back every time I sent you a tweet or got all gassed up saying how the West has turned its back on us), to the State Departments video Think Again, Turn Away, the French Governments Stop-Djihadisme.gouv.fr, or "Madison Valleywood," anti-ISIS campaigns outside the Arab world overwhelmingly take ISIS propaganda at face value. The subsequent objective being, thereby, to discourage potential recruits from falling prey to ideological brainwashing."

Underpinning the comedy in Dawlat al-Khurafa is a more visceral distain for takfir and takfirriyyunthose who level the charge of kufr, or disbelief. A sharply pejorative label, the term has been virtually synonymous with terrorism in the Arab world for centuries. (Take the recent execution in Saudi Arabia of the Shii cleric Nimr al-Nimr. He and forty-six others were found guilty, first and foremost, for embracing the takfiri method and the doctrine of Kharijites").

Responding, not simply, to the rise of ISIS, such satire reflects a deeper sense of revulsion toward hypocrisy in the constitution of power. In Dawlat al-Khurafa, a faux Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his miscreant henchmenincluding military generals in Bathist uniform and a belligerent dwarfregularly covet and promote the same behavior they suppress.

In one episode the Khalifa watches on television as his Daishiyyin compete in an Olympic games, though not before they have eliminated the other contestants. The Daishiyyin shudder coffee shops but open their own. They ban television and then create a broadcasting agency, Dam Bi Shi (homonymous with MBC), where they make shows like Who Wants to Slay a Million and commercials selling implements of death and daishi shampoo.

More than just a critique of takfir, though, Dawlat al-Khurafa represented a culminating aesthetic of distrust, a richly imaginative world in which decades of deceit, conspiracy, and fatalism culminate into a singular state of absurdity. At the very least, it should be said, The State of Myth did not take ISIS at face value.

The shows controversial trailer captured this impulse succinctly. There the marriage between the devil and his Israeli bride is arranged by a Shaykha Mozah bint Nasser (of Qatar) look-alike and a whiskey-drinking cowboy who carries a revolver and rides a horse.

This myth of origin had spread widely in the region by the time the shows creators aestheticized it. Already by August 2014, fairly major Arab news outlets like Youm7 were quoting right-wing US conspiracy blogs like Veterans Today and circulating reports that Edward Snowden had disclosed the true identity of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as Elliot Shimon, an Israeli Mossad agent, and that the United States and Israel had conspired to create ISIS.

The rumorwhich appeared in early July with online sites like Arabesque (8 July 2014) falsely citing Glenn Greenwalds The Intercept, or, RT (17 July 2014) citing Gulf Daily Newswould become entrenched in Iranian state-news services, a phenomenon Ayn Baker reported on from Tehran for Time Magazine.

According to Baker, on 18 June, Fars News Agency quoted Irans Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, Major General Hassan Firoozabadi, as saying ISIS is an Israel[i] and America[n] movement for the creation of a secure border for the Zionists against the forces of resistance in the region. Effectively locating the interview at the origin of the rumor, Bakers report largely quelled any serious inquiry among major news outlets in the West.

In Iraq and much of the Middle East, the theory never lost its luster. Iranian state-news outlets continued to promulgate the narrative broadly. The Middle East Research Institute reported that the office of Khamenei had released a statement blaming the United States and Israel for the Paris attacks.

The best examples of ISIS satire attempt to illustrate the logical extremes of conspiracy theory mongering. In Dawlat al-Khurafa and elsewhere, ISIS is not simply a Western creation they are bona fide capitalists.

Nothing is what it seems in The State of Myth. From the fantasy of Sharia stems lawlessness. Sex jihad becomes oedipal.

Where The State of Myth veers sharply from anti-ISIS narratives in the West is that at no point do its creators accept the basic premise that ISIS is a messianic jihadist organization gathering to summon the apocalypse. In Dawlat al-khurafa there are no mujahidin fighting in the name of Allah. There are only daishiyeen, fighting in the name of DA'ISH.

Such cynicism towards ISIS in Iraq is understandable, particularly when the groups most famous songSalam ala al-dawla reads like an ode to nationalism and includes lines that could have come straight from Iraqs ex-Minister of Information. The infidels' ('uluj) blood will flow" said Mohammed Sahhaf in the wake of the US invasion of Iraqa prophecy he ascribed to the Caliph Umar bin Khattab.

Common across the veritable industry of anti-ISIS communication in the West is a singular belief in the propensity of individuals to be swayed by the beck and call of ideology, which, in turn, can presumably be molded and manipulated by a few pictures and a story.

But to draw a connection between ideology and identity is to glide across the burdensome hurdle of human complexitythe material dimensions of emotion and circumstanceto arrive, full-circle, at the same conclusion Samuel Huntington discovered in The Clash of Civilizations: we are what we believe, or, at least, what we say we believe.

As The State of Myth sought to illuminate, however, in Iraq, identity discourse and the rhetoric of civilizations has long been duplicitous; the flowery, often poetic smokescreen of otherwise nakedly political objectives.

*This article was first published in Jadaliyya.

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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Odissi dance troupe led by Dona Ganguly will perform in Cairo, Port Said, Ismailia, Alexandria and Beni Suef in events free of charge

Acclaimed Indian classical dancer Dona Ganguly and her troupe will peform India's Odissi dance in five Egyptian cities, starting with Cairo on 30 April 2016.

Ganguly's performance in Egypt comes as part of the ongoing fourth edition of India by the Nile, a multidisciplinary arts festival that aims to bring a variety of Indian cultre's facets to the Egyptian audiences.

Ganguly is one of the india's acclaimed Odissi dancers. According to information released by the India by the Nile organisers, "during Ganguly's illustrious career, she has presented many dance programmes in India, and all over the world. Apart from performing, Dona Ganguly also runs her own dance school called Diksha Manjari."

There are nine types of classical dance in India, recognised by India's Sangeet Natak Akademi, and Odissi is one of them

Born in East India in the 2nd century BC, Odissi's history is strongly linked to the state of Odisha where the temple city is decorated with bas-reliefs that serve as archaeological evidence of the dance as form of worship. In those temples, Odissi was performed by a group of women, the Maharis. Their dance and music were part of a sacred ritual dance representing offering and worship. In the 6th century BC, young boys  Godipuas  dressed up as girls and taught by Maharis would perform to the public in front of the temple to Oriya songs. Accordingly, todays Odissi is a revival of the dance of the Godipua and the Mahari.

A number of great gurus contributed to the 20th centurys resurrection of Odissi, among them the notable Kelucharan Mohapatra (1926-2004), Indian classical dancer and choreographer, who gave Odissi new dimensions, enriching Indian culture with its own heritage and allowing it to cross the countrys borders.

In fact, Odissi dance closed the first edition of India by the Nile, back in 2013, when Nrityagram Dance Village performed this captivating art in Cairo and Alexandria. The following years hosted other classical dance forms such as Kathak. Last year the festival hosted dances from the Manipur, brought to Egypt with the Narmada Cultural Organisation.

Programme:

Saturday 30 April, 8pm

Gomhoria Theatre, Abdeen, Cairo

Monday 2 May, 8pm

Cultural Palace, Port Said

Wednesday 4 May, 8pm

Cultural Palace, Ismailia

Friday 6 May, 8pm

Alexandria Opera House (Sayed Darwish Theatre), Alexandria

Saturday 7 May, 8pm

Cultural Palace, Beni Suef

Free entry to all performances

Programme subject to change

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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An Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Christian priest throws holy water during a Palm Sunday mass in the Samaan el-Kharaz Monastery in the Mokattam Mountain area of Cairo, Egypt, April 24, 2016 (Reuters) An Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Christian priest throws holy water during a Palm Sunday mass in the Samaan el-Kharaz Monastery in the Mokattam Mountain area of Cairo, Egypt, April 24, 2016 (Reuters)

Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Christian priests and deacons attend a Palm Sunday mass in the Samaan el-Kharaz Monastery in the Mokattam Mountain area of Cairo, Egypt, April 24, 2016 (Reuters) Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Christian priests and deacons attend a Palm Sunday mass in the Samaan el-Kharaz Monastery in the Mokattam Mountain area of Cairo, Egypt, April 24, 2016 (Reuters)

An Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Christian deacon boy plays after a Palm Sunday mass in the Samaan el-Kharaz Monastery in the Mokattam Mountain area of Cairo, Egypt, April 24, 2016 (Reuters) An Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Christian deacon boy plays after a Palm Sunday mass in the Samaan el-Kharaz Monastery in the Mokattam Mountain area of Cairo, Egypt, April 24, 2016 (Reuters)

A boy receives communion from an Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Christian priest during a Palm Sunday mass in the Samaan el-Kharaz Monastery in the Mokattam Mountain area of Cairo, Egypt, April 24, 2016 (Reuters) A boy receives communion from an Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Christian priest during a Palm Sunday mass in the Samaan el-Kharaz Monastery in the Mokattam Mountain area of Cairo, Egypt, April 24, 2016 (Reuters)

Coptic Orthodox Christians attend a Palm Sunday mass in the Samaan el-Kharaz Monastery in the Mokattam Mountain area of Cairo, Egypt, April 24, 2016 (Reuters) Coptic Orthodox Christians attend a Palm Sunday mass in the Samaan el-Kharaz Monastery in the Mokattam Mountain area of Cairo, Egypt, April 24, 2016 (Reuters)

Coptic Orthodox Christians attend a Palm Sunday mass in the Samaan el-Kharaz Monastery in the Mokattam Mountain area of Cairo, Egypt, April 24, 2016 (Reuters) Coptic Orthodox Christians attend a Palm Sunday mass in the Samaan el-Kharaz Monastery in the Mokattam Mountain area of Cairo, Egypt, April 24, 2016 (Reuters)

Coptic Orthodox Christians attend a Palm Sunday mass in the Samaan el-Kharaz Monastery in the Mokattam Mountain area of Cairo, Egypt, April 24, 2016 (Reuters) Coptic Orthodox Christians attend a Palm Sunday mass in the Samaan el-Kharaz Monastery in the Mokattam Mountain area of Cairo, Egypt, April 24, 2016 (Reuters)

An Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Christian priest throws holy water during a Palm Sunday mass in the Samaan el-Kharaz Monastery in the Mokattam Mountain area of Cairo, Egypt, April 24, 2016 (Reuters) An Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Christian priest throws holy water during a Palm Sunday mass in the Samaan el-Kharaz Monastery in the Mokattam Mountain area of Cairo, Egypt, April 24, 2016 (Reuters)

Coptic Orthodox Christians attend a Palm Sunday mass in the Samaan el-Kharaz Monastery in the Mokattam Mountain area of Cairo, Egypt, April 24, 2016 (Reuters) Coptic Orthodox Christians attend a Palm Sunday mass in the Samaan el-Kharaz Monastery in the Mokattam Mountain area of Cairo, Egypt, April 24, 2016 (Reuters)

An Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Christian deacon boy looks on during a Palm Sunday mass in the Samaan el-Kharaz Monastery in the Mokattam Mountain area of Cairo, Egypt, April 24, 2016 (Reuters) An Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Christian deacon boy looks on during a Palm Sunday mass in the Samaan el-Kharaz Monastery in the Mokattam Mountain area of Cairo, Egypt, April 24, 2016 (Reuters)
Chicago grains, soybeans tumble as fundamentals discourage bulls

2016-04-23 10:00

CHICAGO, April 22 (Xinhua) -- Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT)corn, soybean futures closed all sharply lower on Friday asimproving weather and soybean production estimates from Argentinacan not support investors bet on higher crop prices.

Chicago wheat led the losses as the most active wheat contractfor May delivery lost 29.5 cents, or 5.86 percent, to close at 4.74U.S. dollars per bushel. Soybean for May delivery dropped 31.25cents, or 3.04 percent, to close at 9.9625 dollars per bushel. Maycorn delivery shed 14.25 cents, or 3.66 percent, to close at 3.755U.S. dollars per bushel.

Wheat prices extended losses to a second straight session onFriday as investors took their profits after Chicago wheat surgedto more than five-month highs in the midweek. Analysts said GoldmanSachs was out suggesting that the commodity rally in recent weekshas no fundamental footing.

The broad commodity rally since mid March is due to new moneyflowing into the CBOT from large hedge funds on expectations forbig soybean losses in Argentina and corn damage of Brazil,according to AgResource company, a Chicago-based agriculturalresearch institute.

Chicago soybeans also pulled back with falling below the keylevel of 10 dollars per bushel on Friday as soybean productionestimates from Argentina were larger than expected. The ArgentinianMinistry of Agriculture late Thursday lowered its estimate of the2016 Argentine soybean crop at 57.6 million tonnes from 60.9million. However, analysts noted that this estimate cooled thebulls on potential crop losses with favorable warm/dry weatheroffered across all agricultural areas for the next 2 weeks.

Additionally, a stronger U.S. dollar weighed on Chicago grainsand soybeans for the day. The U.S. Dollar Index, a measure of thedollar against six major currencies, rose by more than 0.5 percentduring the session. Generally, a stronger U.S. dollar can be anegative for agricultural commodities, priced in dollars because itmakes them more expensive for non-dollar users, while a weakerdollar can support dollar-denominated commodities.

For the week, the most active corn contract for July deliverylost 1.7 percent, July wheat rose by 1.4 percent, while Julysoybeans gained 3.3 percent. Enditem
Cambodia, China vow to further promote friendly ties

2016-04-23 15:31

PHNOM PENH, April 22, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen (R) meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Phnom Penh,Cambodia, April 22, 2016. (Xinhua/Xue Lei)

PHNOM PENH, April 22 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia and China pledged here on Friday to further promote friendly relations between the two countries.

While meeting visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni said he cherishes Cambodia's friendship with China forged by late Cambodian King Father Norodom Sihanouk.

Sihamoni noted that it is his important mission to further carry on and promote bilateral friendly relations, and he will make contribution to boosting Cambodia-China cooperation and friendship.

The assistance offered by China over the years has significantly boosted Cambodia's development in various fields, Sihamoni said, adding that the deep friendly feelings from the Chinese government and the people have made Cambodia-China friendship deeply-rooted among the Cambodian people.

For his part, Wang said the traditional friendship between China and Cambodia, forged and cultivated by the Chinese leaders of the older generation and late Cambodian king father, is the common and valuable possession of both peoples.

Inheriting late king father's friendship toward China, King Shihamoni has unswervingly pressed forward the good neighborliness between the two countries and made significant contribution to the development of bilateral ties since he ascended to the throne, the Chinese foreign minister said.

Wang said the Chinese government attaches great importance to relations with Cambodia and firmly pursues a friendly policy toward the country.

He noted China-Cambodia ties have currently maintained good momentum, believing that with joint efforts from both sides, their traditional friendship will continue to display new vitality and bring benefits to the two peoples.

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China's top legislature announces tasks for 2016

2016-04-23 15:31

BEIJING, April 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese lawmakers will review draft laws on international criminal judicial assistance and national defense transportation this year, according to the plan released Friday by the top legislature.

The national defense transportation draft law aims to improve coordination between different departments.

Laws on environmental protection tax, public culture services, community correction will also be tabled this year to the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee for first reading.

The top legislature will also review amendments to laws on the Red Cross Society, maritime environmental protection, water pollution and small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Meanwhile, the NPC Standing Committee will continue deliberating laws on deep sea resource exploration, charities, administration of overseas non-governmental organizations and cyber security.

"Other laws to be drafted or amended in accordance with the country's drives to deepen reform and promote the rule of law, the 2016-2020 development plan, national defense and military reform will also be arranged for deliberation at a proper time," it said.

In addition, lawmakers will check enforcement of laws on environmental protection, food safety, road traffic safety, transformation of scientific and technological achievements, water and work safety.

Reports on environmental protection, food safety, higher education reforms and judicial transparency are also set to be heard by legislators.

The NPC Standing Committee will also step up supervision on the enforcement of the Constitution.

Elections of NPC delegates will begin this year. Adhering to the Party's leadership, the NPC Standing Committee will promote democracy and follow procedures in strict accordance with the law, to ensure that the elections are held honestly and in an orderly manner.

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China's top legislature to strengthen supervision over gov't budgets: report

BEIJING, March 9 (Xinhua) -- The top legislature of China said it will strengthen oversight over government budgets and final accounts, according to its annual work report released Wednesday.

"We will carefully hear and deliberate reports from the State Council on the central government's final accounts for 2015," the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee said in the report, which will soon be delivered by its Chairman Zhang Dejiang. Full Story
Chinese president to attend CICA FMs' meeting

2016-04-23 15:31

BEIJING, April 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the opening ceremony of the fifth regular foreign ministers' meeting of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) scheduled for next Thursday in Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang announced Friday.

Xi will deliver a speech at the opening ceremony, Lu said.

CICA was established in 1992 as a forum for dialogue and consultations and promotion of confidence-building measures among its members. It now has 26 member countries and 12 observers (including countries and international organizations).

According to the Foreign Ministry, nearly 40 delegations from CICA member countries and observer countries as well as international organizations have confirmed attendance.

China hosted the fourth CICA summit in Shanghai in 2014. It holds the CICA presidency from 2014 to 2016.

Related:

CICA foreign ministers to meet in Beijing this month

BEIJING, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Foreign ministers of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) member states will meet in Beijing from April 27 to 28, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang announced on Wednesday.

It will be the foreign ministers' fifth meeting since CICA was established in 1992 as a forum for dialogue and consultations on security issues in Asia.

CICA has 26 member countries, including China, India, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia, and Thailand. It includes some other countries and international organizations as observers.Full Story
Hometowns of ancient British, Chinese playwrights to become sister cities

From:chinadaily.com.cn | 2016-04-23 18:27

The Symposium Jointly on Commemorating the 400th Anniversary of William Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu was held at the town of Stratford-on-Avon in Britain, April 22. [Photo/Xinhua]

The town of Stratford-on-Avon in Britain and Fuzhou city in China have signed an agreement to become sister cities on April 22, as the hometowns of two great playwrights William Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu mark the 400th anniversary of their deaths.

Fuzhou, hometown of the renowned Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu in Jiangxi province, donated a sculpture of Shakespeare and Tang to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, while another replica of the sculpture will be placed in a museum in Fuzhou.

"Today's event is particularly pertinent as the written work of these two literary giants has survived for over 400 years and is both loved and popular," said Chris Saint, head of the Council of Stratford-on-Avon District.

"We know that Chinese people regard Tang as their Shakespeare. We are proud of our international label as the home of the world's greatest playwright," he added.

"This is the first time I'm aware that we have a formal cultural link with China, what a wonderful opportunity we got," he told Xinhua, adding that he would like to read more of Tang Xianzu's works and expects further events to promote cultural exchange to be held in the future between the two countries.

Fuzhou is home to memorial halls, museums and theaters dedicated to Tang, and events are held every year celebrating the playwright.

Fuzhou, hometown of the renowned Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu in Jiangxi province, donated a sculpture of Shakespeare and Tang to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. [Photo/Xinhua]

"We feel that the two great playwrights have a lot of similarities in their works, though we know they never met each other. The characters they created showed their pursuit of freedom, love, well-being and justice. And their magnificent achievements give us unlimited spiritual and imaginary space," said Zhang Hongxing, mayor of Fuzhou.

Performers from Fuzhou performed selections of Tang's more renowned plays, such as Peony Pavilion and The Story of the Purple Hairpin, as well as Fuzhou's traditional folk dances.

"Today's event is historically significant. The Fuzhou delegation not only brings Tang Xianzu to Stratford-upon-Avon and to Britain, but also to all Chinese people's hearts. How we treat Tang reveals how we Chinese people evaluate our own culture, tradition and China's 5,000 years of civilization," said Li Ruru, professor of Chinese Theater Studies at the University of Leeds.

Commemorations for the two literary giants have being held so far this year in both countries, and more troupes from China are expected to perform both Tang's and Shakespeare's works in Britain in the near future.
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An Irish/Czech Republic co-production, Mira Fornayova's film attempts to get under the fingernails of what it's like being a foreign national in a new country. Mixed results it may be, but there are elements of Foxes that are likeable.

As Foxes opens, Betka (Derzsi) has been dumped by her Irish boyfriend and she isn't taking it too well. Volatile and unhinged, Bekta has been in Ireland for an unknown period of time, relying on her settled sister, Tina (Banczi), to set her up with au pair work. To say there's a little tension between the Czech sisters is an understatement and director Fornayova keeps her cards close to her chest as to the reason why, but there are hints that is has something to do with Tina's fiancee Steve (Monaghan) who seems uneasy in Betka's presence. As Betka walks out on her latest job, she flits about Dublin crashing in a squat, new beau Mike's (Nicholas Pinnock) and at her sister's... But the unspoken history between the siblings has to be confronted at some stage.

In her first role, Reka Derzsi delivers a commanding performance that is tough to pull off, as Betka is never feeling just one emotion at a time; she's never just sad, or happy, or depressed, or suicidal - she's all of them at the same time. There is a reason why she's like this and the audience is expecting to find out in the reveal, which is still a little confusing, but by that stage Betka has slumped into the arena of frustration. Fornayova hopes that the viewer will stay on board until the denouement but her perpetual unpredictability and explosive outbursts kill any sympathy for the character. Derzsi however must be applauded for keeping her watchable despite this. Shees not on her own: Monaghan and Banczi flesh out their characters although they're not granted the ample screen time given to the star.

Fornayova's patient, observational direction suggests a confident filmmaker, but the comparison between foreign nationals and foxes is a little harsh: foxes are deemed an irritation, but can slip about the city unnoticed. Fornayova's contention is that they are one and the same.